everything is test prep

Me literally every day at 2pm:

I really appreciate Jamey's openness to have cool and interesting discussions about board games and game design with cool and interesting. His YouTube channel @stonemaiergames.com is a great source for this kind of thing: www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY5o...

From a recent piece in the LA Review of Books...

A useful resource for educators and students. And I also appreciate this from @emilymbender.bsky.social: "Be a stick in the mud! If you think about our current situation as mired in mud that's hard to walk in, if you plant a stick, you can start to create firm ground for others to join you on."

Forgot the link to the article in the first post:

Should be horrifying that the dilemma here is presented as lost learning vs test scores -- but this has been normalized over the past few decades. The health and well-being of students can no longer be defended in other terms. nobody-wants-this.ghost.io/what-does-a-...

The concept of "lost learning" has been built into such an urgent issue that it has eclipsed fears of lost children.

I also reached out to Maddy Thorson (Celeste) and @jumpovertheage.com (Citizen Sleeper) today about participating! I'll add that one of the coolest things we ever did when we were more active on YouTube was about *exactly* this connection to teaching: www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMCp...

I'm also talking to Jamey Stegmaier of Stonemaier Games...tomorrow. 😅 Quickest turn around of any podcast request ever, btw. I emailed him this morning, and he booked a time saying "See you tomorrow!" What a dude.

Stoked to talk w/ @criticalplay.bsky.social next week for an upcoming @humanrestorationproject.org podcast!

Was listening to Nevermore this morning and remembered the surreal time I was partying at the hotel after Chicago Powerfest, ended up in a room with Robert Lowe (Solitude Aeternus/Candlemass) & the mod of the Nevermore forum who got Warrel Dane on speakerphone with Rob. youtu.be/oSSVdYjkgNM?...

Alex Pretti was killed by federal agents five months ago today. To date, nobody has been charged or held accountable for killing Pretti or Renee Good in Minneapolis.

Faculty: Help us build a wish list for accommodation requests! We invite instructors to share perceptions of disability support services for students in #HigherEd. Take a short survey (IRB approved) here: uofmississippi.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_.... Questions? Get in touch! #Accessibility

15 months ago I started seeding clover into my lawn. Today I'd estimate ~5,000sqft is a robust blanket of clover, with other spots coming in gradually. I've swapped to a reel mower which lets me keep it higher. Love my little flowers, and the bees and butterflies do too!

It's devastating that two of the songs my 11yo is learning for a "classic metal" School of Rock camp this week are from Deftones and System of a Down.

oh sorry nevermind; this is one of the cases where the Court actually did intervene. on behalf of the administration. with no explanation. As usual I am too generous to them.

Given the growing evidence on cognitive offloading and skills erosion, this may be very prudent policy. And it will make for an informative social experiment, with much of the US serving as an counterexample

Counter-programming our generational disdain with genuine empathy & insight:"[My students] are unsure of the *world's* place in the world. They don't know what's gonna happen next, everything is a source of anxiety...the vibes are low-key horrible." youtu.be/mq8a3JCGSeU?...

"Students with disabilities deserve educational systems that are designed around their needs, rights, and opportunities, not administrative restructuring that risks disrupting critical services and protections." (h/t @stimpunks.org)

The last 30 years have seen a remarkably successful coup in taking public education from a values-driven public project to one entirely driven by quantitative data, only to rub both the data and remaining values in our faces while appropriating civic virtue as a private commodity. Brilliant.

This, for me, was the central contradiction driving my need to write the piece. "Education freedom" was never about giving parents a choice between "woke" public education & "non-woke" private schools, it was always about comporting the entire public & private system to sectarian religious beliefs:

Whether limited to the general education curriculum or not, how do we square the intentional removal of diversity, equity, and inclusion from gen eds, on the one hand, and the central importance of these values in professional and academic life?

Special education teacher vacancies in Iowa are 5x higher than the next highest shortage area. Can you imagine taking a coursework to become a special education teacher that isn't fundamentally aligned with *inclusion*, the often neglected 'I' in 'DEI'?

Last month we shared the opening essay, today we're stoked to share the @cnastase.bsky.social original cover for our upcoming primer, We Are Worldbuilders: A New Vision for Progressive Education! 🚀🍄

The same dynamic is playing out with the ResearchEd lads over on Twitter, as they're angry with me for saying that that partnering with a book banning, anti-LGBTQ, Christian nationalist organization to put on a conference means they are subscribing to the entire ideology.

Correct. There's a way to have conversations about the proliferation of corporate and surveillance ed tech in schools without creating an entire moral panic about it.

Iowa state board to review university gen eds for ‘substantial DEI’ and CRT: "The new policy follows an attempt by lawmakers to ban all diversity- and race-related content from general education at the state’s public universities." www.highereddive.com/news/iowa-st...

One of the lessons of the last few years is that we need to be careful about who we amplify, even if they might share some of our goals. Folks rushed to platform Horvath because they liked his ends, but they didn't do due diligence on the values, ideas, and assumptions underlying those ends.

If "kids are nowhere," how do I square anti-tech backlash with the powerful and real learning that happens when my 8yo plays games like Minecraft? Or my 11yo wanting to take an online Blender class this summer to learn digital animation?

'many districts are spending heavily on adopting online curriculum packages, which compel teachers to adhere to a script. Most of the literary texts are excerpts or short works. "Our district adopted a disjointed, excerpt-heavy curriculum two years ago, and it is doing real damage"'

ed reform logic: create a panic about “whole books,” sell a “whole books” guarantee

It's a very demoralizing time to be a human.

This is proving true everywhere. And private schools are raising prices so it's not like anyone who couldnt afford to go before but wanted to is getting help.

"Nearly 79% of students who used Iowa’s funding program for K-12 private schools were 'already projected' to attend private schools, according to a report released Wednesday by Iowa Auditor Rob Sand." www.kcci.com/article/stat...

The Education Dept now has 14 interagency agreements. The department says the partnerships with six other federal agencies reduce federal bureaucracy. Critics claim they add confusion. - by Kara Arundel www.k12dive.com/news/the-edu...

Unable to read the ebook I purchased for an upcoming podcast because I'm currently locked out of Routledge's proprietary ebook reader.

"For the first time, Iowa's education ranking has tumbled into the bottom half of states, falling to 27th nationally, according to the 2026 Kids Count Data Book." www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/e...

Iowa newspapers are not pulling punches on the legislature's harm to education in our state: www.thegazette.com/opinion/shor...

"If the Global Financial Crisis heralded the manifold failings of neoliberalism as a way to run the economy, then a public sphere coarsened by narrow self-interest and inequality demonstrates that neoliberalism impoverishes social and cultural life too." — Alan Reid

"If the Global Financial Crisis heralded the manifold failings of neoliberalism as a way to run the economy, then a public sphere coarsened by narrow self-interest and inequality demonstrates that neoliberalism impoverishes social and cultural life too." — Alan Reid

From Alan Reid's Changing Australian Education: "In these and other ways, neoliberalism does not simply function as an economic philosophy, it pervades our social and cultural lives."

Bounced off this at first for being a bit too straightforward, but after a few listens it comes together like a Reuben sandwich of death metal: solid ingredients coming together in each bite to deliver exactly the flavors and textures you expect. ...is it dinner time? youtu.be/51dVZ1iADNA?...

Biometric login to your two-factor authentication, we don't recognize you on this device, enter your PIN to autofill your saved password...Just take everything, man, I don't even care anymore. This is no way to live.

#edusky Teacher friends! I know it’s a little early to be thinking about it, but as some of us are coming down for the summer, if you had any books that you would recommend to new teachers before they start the school year, I would love to hear!

Remember, it's only a waste of taxpayer money when it is something that is being done to help other people

"People spend entire lives trying to convince themselves they are good." Students can write incredible things and students DO write incredible things (seriously: just zoom in and take it a look!) and too often I think we forget about that when we talk about writing in our classrooms and schools.

At the end of the term I asked my college creative wriing students to submit anonymous thoughts on AI. No real surprises: Mood ranges from resignation to despair, capitulation from embittered erosion of standards to total, feelings of betrayal from deep to furious. 1/

According to a secret leaked Ankeny City Council document, by 2049 the strategic plan calls for traffic to run in an unbroken single file line from north to south and puts in a quota to make banks and car washes 85% of new businesses.