NEW: Yong Zhao helps us understand how our obsession with meritocracy contributes to the great problems of our time, and how shifting the purpose of education toward human interdependence offers a way out. 👇 www.humanrestorationproject.org/podcasts/fro... #K12 #edchat

2/? And here are the individual pages! The cover marks the rare appearance of me in my syllabi or any of my comics - but once the idea came to me, I had to run with it. I'm still not settled on what we are discussing in class - maybe I'll switch it out every time I teach it...

Woohoo! Comic syllabus for my superhero class is live and students were geeked! It was a mammoth effort to make it but so worth it to be able to give to them! Pleased & excited for the term! And you can have your own too - all on my site for printing, sharing! 1/? spinweaveandcut.com/superhero-sy...

Came across this incredible interview today with Michael Sandel about a book I will certainly have to read: “To rethink meritocracy requires, among other things, rethinking the mission and purpose of higher education." www.noemamag.com/the-dark-sid...

Was driving my kids to school and the first thing on the radio was reporting about Trump's video depicting the Obamas as apes and I think many people still don't fully appreciate what it means to have to raise Black children in a country where the president is so brazenly and consistently racist

Sitting and absorbing content is easy and the students at the top of the class tend to enjoy that strategy the most. Coming up with their own conclusions through reading, experimenting and discussing is much more labor intensive both intellectually and emotionally.

I, too, have noticed students are more likely to ask "what should I take away?" from complex debates, or "can you write on the slide what I should take away the graph?", even as they have access to my slides. Pointing this out isn't intended to drag students, but am interested in causes of change.

Had an interesting discussion recently with some faculty about an uptick in students wanting more "direct instruction" or, as the students sometimes put it, more "teaching." What they seem to mean is more lecture, presentation with slides, or sage on the stage stuff.

“The first of several students detained by immigration officers...” shouldn’t even be a sentence

I deeply resent just how much all of this makes me feel dumb, angry, and helpless all the time while the worst people appear to be living their best lives ruining the world for the rest of us, free of conscience and consequence. I'm ready to facilitate the return of both.

One big, cruel grift bankrolled by some the worst men - and a reminder that all education is political.

NY Times with searing look at the trauma ICE is inflicting on local children and families: www.nytimes.com/2026/02/04/u... (gift link)

Was able to attend the subcommittee virtually, and ended up being the last member of the public to speak on the bill.

One last time: 15 minutes before the hearing. 117 public comments on the bill. 100% against it.

90 minutes before the hearing. 99 public comments on the bill. 100% against it. www.legis.iowa.gov/perma

Did you see Jeff Morrison's Substack about this? Maybe you posted it. He gets into both the gap between inflation and SSA as well as the impact from the voucher program. betweentworivers.substack.com/p/iowa-enrol...

I just love how every spring you have to keep your head on a swivel, doing everything you can to prevent the Republican trifecta in Iowa from actively making the state worse and more miserable each year.

This quote really sums up both arguments:

There's a subcommittee in the Iowa legislature this morning mulling over increasing school funding at just 1.75%, even lower than the governor's proposed 2%. When did Iowa schools become "failing schools"? When the state abandoned its obligation in order to pursue a narrow political agenda.

40 Iowans showed up on Zoom on a Monday night to dig into school finance docs, bonds, & audits w/ @schooldaves.bsky.social. That's 40 people asking questions about the political economy that underfunds public schools & demands they borrow from private markets. That's 40 people demanding better.

Helping 6th grade Ts plan a VERY cool podcast project making historical/thematic connections from the events of the book Making Bombs for Hitler to present day issues of human rights and migration. The parallels are, uh, not looking good!

FIGHT WONKY

If you're an Iowan who wants a better understanding of school finance and how to "fight wonky" to get the public schools we deserve. Join Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement & @schooldaves.bsky.social for a virtual meetup to do just that! Register @ iowacci.ourpowerbase.net/civicrm/even...

death by preventable disease is an inevitable and even desired outcome of concentration camps. in every era of concentration camps people have died of typhus, which is a disease of privation and enforced crowding. this illness is intentionally inflicted

This is a @michaelpetrilli.bsky.social appreciation post. Everyone should read his newsletter today, which dissects what's going on with private vs. charter choice w great clarity.

Student from Minneapolis just spoke at Princeton’s ICE Out rally and said, “my neighbors Renee Good & Alex Pretti were murdered for less than what we’re doing now.” Next a *high schooler* from Trenton described the days she spends doing ICE Watch. If kids can show up and organize you can too.

“You are scaring schools, people and the world.” 🎁 link www.nytimes.com/2026/01/31/o...

Teaching a new book this week - Jason Stanley's Erasing History. For those who've taught it: What was confusing or challenging for students?

It was published Saturday, INCYM. A constructive agenda for Iowa's public schools www.thegazette.com/guest-column... (Via The Gazette)

Quadruple the education budget and open schools year round to provide services

A constructive agenda for Iowa's public schools: "Iowa leaders need to double-down on what common sense and school finance experts like @schooldaves.bsky.social tell us to be true, 'Schools need money to do well … given less, they do less.'" www.thegazette.com/guest-column...

My guest column in today's @thegazette.com 👇

"We let the dominance of lawspeak gradually silence our moral voice. We no longer have the ability to articulate in clear terms...that a free people will not tolerate this... It's not complicated, it's murder."

Media has been reactive to what we're living through, but nothing I've heard approaches the moral clarity here. Our obsession with law enables atrocities and distracts us from first principles: "[What's happening now] ought not be framed as, is that lawful [but] is that right?" None of it is.

My guest column in today's @thegazette.com 👇

A constructive agenda for Iowa's public schools: "Iowa leaders need to double-down on what common sense and school finance experts like @schooldaves.bsky.social tell us to be true, 'Schools need money to do well … given less, they do less.'" www.thegazette.com/guest-column...

part of the shame in this is that there’s a long American tradition of education for self-determination

Stonemaier Games: We Stand with Our Community "You are not alone. We see you, we support you, and we are sending care and solidarity from Missouri, Nevada, Florida, Oregon, and from within Minneapolis." stonemaiergames.com/we-stand-wit...

Libs of TikTok has spent the days following Alex Pretti's murder doxxing teachers, nurses, and school board members — trying to get ordinary people fired for supporting Pretti or opposing ICE www.mediamatters.org/libs-tiktok/...

These agencies are a direct, ongoing threat to the freedom, safety, and welfare of every person who lives in this country. That's it. They have to go. "But what about--" sorry we'll figure that out later. Everything is secondary to ending fascist goon squads

One reason you can't just tinker with ICE/CBP is the whole thing is facially illegitimate. The intent is rotten. It's run by a white supremacist maniac and will continue producing white supremacist maniac results

It's nuts how high the price floor is for an actually comfortable office chair. Like, I've slept for years on less expensive mattresses. If you're trying to spend anything less than $150 you're better off just sitting on the floor.

As a distraction from The Horrors & in lieu of doomscrolling, I've had this beautiful narrative solo game, Storyfold: Wildwoods, set up on my table this week to play through. It merges tight, addictive mechanics with a surprisingly compelling story similar to the Ori videogame series. 9/10 for me!

I gotta write. But how write when doomscroll never stop

A legal asylum-seeker who works at Chipotle and plays music at a church in Maine went missing. His pastor searched and searched, eventually finding his abandoned car with the keys on the floor. ICE grabbed him. No criminal record. No explanation.

One of the hardest things to explain to people who aren’t here is the very real feeling that we are in a war against the federal government. Not only are we occupied by unaccountable armed, masked paramilitaries, but we are constantly aware our neighbors might be abducted in the blink of an eye.

"No new data was added. Nothing was learned. The collapse emerged purely from repeated use."

So I sent an op-ed response to @tdorman.bsky.social over at The Gazette. We'll see if it gets published! Almost unbelievable how a paid columnist (not Todd) could use so many words to say nothing at all: "How Iowa Democrats are proposing to take education in the wrong direction" by Althea Cole

If you grant that AP and IB should count for college credit, there is no leg to stand on when it comes to the Classic Learning Test’s forthcoming version of the same.