From the full report: "Despite the regular comprehension HQIM use and focus...in 67% of the lessons, teachers and students engaged in work (i.e., instruction, engagement, and activity) that only facilitated students’ surface-level understanding of texts." www.sri.com/wp-content/u...

seems important to say that it's not just a matter of assigning whole books in schools--that's one element of multiple and conflicting broader visions for what else is possible in high school english

what is this www.edweek.org/teaching-lea...

"a body of educational content capable of reaching a very broad community" is a philosophy of education www.poetryinamerica.org/sponsor/vers...

The long and short of it is a displaced desire to enslave.

The dj on the MIT station just went on a gorgeous tangent about how this semester he’s taking all liberal arts classes, and instead of asking him to reproduce established knowledge (as in most MIT courses) they push him to think about how he thinks. My Super Bowl MVP.

“House Study Bill 547 (‘The Admissions Reform Act’) would require Iowa’s public universities to admit students…only on ‘merit’ and the likelihood they will stay in the state after graduation. It would also require the universities to accept the Classic Learning Test”

what if standardized curriculum is more damaging than it is protective

AI in education has never been just a commercial intrusion, but a scientific field-building business centred on well-funded technical innovations and "learning science". Its apparent "success" today builds on that, by adding value-generating platform subscriptions and contractual lock-ins.

“To read well is a kind of supplication, and the ability to see the crafted thing is so beautiful that you experience it with reverence.” David Coleman, CEO of the College Board odd! nceatalk.org/2015/10/reve...

Hah currently writing about how a chapter leader here in NYC organized her chapter to wear “I read banned books” shirts since the principal refused to let middle school teachers teach books—conflicted with the curriculum they bought. Everything is bonkers.

I think a lot of the Norton Critical Editions have this effect. For instance, this random example from their big list has not only relevant critical essays but also contextual materials that lend themselves well to left analysis. wwnorton.com/books/978039...

To me the important part is less canon and more interpretation-aiding resources. So it's not 'I want a left-wing list of The Great Books' but 'I want some books lit people agree are good, and which are cheap to publish because public domain, to be easily available w/ a good critical apparatus.'

interesting

This, and also: You really can’t read Aquinas without also reading Ibn Rushd.

oh so they won’t have been cutting funding from medieval studies then, surely? wait, folks, I’m hearing they in fact defunded all of the teaching of The Classics too

I love how defenders of the Western Tradition™️ completely omit the fact every Great Man in the Canon sneered at -- or even truly *despised* -- at least one other person on the Big Awesome List of Perfect People they were told were essential reading. As if Aristotle said, "Plato, you're 100% right!"

yep

I don’t want classical education, I want liberal education.

A clip of Ian McKellen performing a monologue from a play Shakespeare contributed to went viral this week on Bluesky, the official app of annoying leftist discourse [laudatory]. These people really need to calm down.

YA novels and snippets of books are the straw men they use for their culture war jive.

I’m sorry am I supposed to hate Shakespeare? no one told me

"Folks on the left will eventually come to terms with the fact they have nowhere else to go," says the founder of the Classic Learning Test. "You can only sneer at Plato, Augustine, Aquinas, Dante, and Shakespeare for so long before the sneering itself starts to look unserious." WHO IS SNEERING

ESSA and Common Core are more or less neutral in terms of what, specifically, students read, ostensibly out of respect for liberal norms like teacher autonomy and local custom here, Pondiscio/ChatGPT describe that neutrality as a classist failure, which it is not

cynical and controlling

this, a thousand times this

just talked with a class about how not reading Invisible Man isn't really getting away with anything, it's just ignoring Ellison's project and denying an opportunity to challenge yourself as a thinker

super thoughtful, well laid out essay about reading literature in schools and progressive ed loved this part about a character in Brave New World reading Shakespeare on his own, and how, lacking a broader context where others have also read and discussed Shakespeare, the books don’t save him

In my eighteenth year of teaching I have never yet met an occasion when it was necessary, relevant, or advantageous to describe a student's physical appearance.

Ah that feeling when you read something that says everything you're currently trying to write, but better. Love this piece on progressive education by @annieabrams.bsky.social: thepointmag.com/examined-lif...

it's profoundly strange to have just finished reading this book with high schoolers and to have no real sense for what's permissible to discuss in a classroom

gross, and I promise you that the answer is not more standardized testing nymag.com/intelligence...

standardized testing is terrible, this version of "meritocracy" is also terrible

Ask them to talk about their own educations--to talk about the teachers they remember with the most gratitude, the assignments and discussions that contributed most to their development as persons.

when did having a thought, appreciating something beautiful become any less a part of “real life experience” than job training

See also: college and university presidents and the purpose of higher education.

Smoke coming out of neoliberal ears

how do we get democrats to say in public that the purpose of public education isn't just "career readiness"

it's a really good piece an analogy should be a reminder of agency in the present

‘Many thousands of people in Minneapolis and St Paul have shown up to protect the vulnerable. Agents trying to grab people on the street have found knots of civilians documenting their actions.’ Stephanie Burt (@notquitehydepark.bsky.social) on Minnesota’s resistance. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/fe...

Annie always writes so well about why and how we teach literature: "In English class, teachers can show students what has moved others to use language with care and pleasure, and invite them to join a long tradition of people who have found a way to say something new."

“never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence,” sure, but incompetence has a lot to answer for

‘In balancing emotional and cognitive responses to art, attuning themselves to language and learning… students …cultivate their own distinct sensibilities, and … cultivate minds whose activity is an end in itself. This process … is always a kind of liberation.’ By @annieabrams.bsky.social

democratic vs authoritarian > left vs right

High school teachers and college teachers unite!

a lesson I've learned over and over and over again

This was not the main point in this article about using AI in college admissions, but it stood out to me for so many reasons including the impulse to have the chatbot mediate all experiences including telling you what you do for fun. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/28/s...

This made me weepy

I actually took a break while reading because what do you mean the smartest person? Who are you talking to? What is your definition of smart?