AND eager for your help. Have a story of power, manipulation, self-interest or injustice which needs attention? Let me know and we'll let the world discover "what's that smell."
"If you're a profession of sheep, then you'll be run by wolves." -- David C. Berliner
"Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: Everything else is public relations." -- George Orwell
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral." -- Paulo Freire
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT! ;)
Monday, June 24, 2019
Monday, May 13, 2019
Tuesday, August 8, 2017
Welcome to the EduStank Archive
Hello, fellow whiffers of the malodorous. Welcome to the EduStank archive, where I posited news and opinions about education reform initiatives for a couple of years. Having returned to the K12 classroom, my mind is focusing on my students and my next moves, but do not think for a second that I no longer notice or consider issues discussed herein. In fact, I am a constant victim/beneficiary/stakeholder/crusader/slave to them, as are all of us in education or education studies.
Two areas of which I am especially proud in this blog are the links to other voices considering the current education landscape and my work explicating Robert Putnam's book Our Kids. Please mine those items if nothing else during your time here.
I remain your Humble Lil' Stinker,
Dr. James B. Carter
Two areas of which I am especially proud in this blog are the links to other voices considering the current education landscape and my work explicating Robert Putnam's book Our Kids. Please mine those items if nothing else during your time here.
I remain your Humble Lil' Stinker,
Dr. James B. Carter
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Merry New Year in the Era of ESSA
May we fight the good fight for the benefit of our children, work to address poverty in and outside of school, avoid hypocritical rustications, stay focused but humble, and change what needs to be changed for the better to preserve life, liberty, and an equitable pursuit of happiness for all citiens, without fear of reprisal for opting out, criticizing Teach For America, Common Core, ESSA, and all that is worthy of pause, redirection, or cessation.
Sunday, December 20, 2015
Merry Christmas, 1979-Style!
Two-year old me wishes you a happy holiday season via this groundbreaking rap from Kurtis Blow, whom I wouldn't know about for at least another 20 years but would have wanted you to know about had I known about it then. Did you follow that? ;)
The rap reminds me of the time I accompanied my father on a trucking trip through New York State. I was in fifth grade, if memory serves. I remember Ithaca, Syracuse, and a town called White Plains (?) or White Falls. I remember a complete white out while we were on the road and a deer jumping in front of the cab so high into the sky it was on level with the 18-wheeler's windshield. Luckily it made it past us! I recall stopping at a shop and getting a brownie almost as big as my head. I remember flipping of someone in a Camaro who almost ran over me. I remember stopping in a drug store and seeing the Todd McFarlane Marvel Poster Book!
Dad purchased a truck-stop cassette tape of Christmas rap songs somewhere along the way, which we listened to for as long as we could before tossing it out the window! We were harsh critics. I don't think Blow's rap was on the tape.
Anyway, happy holidays and Merry Christmas!
Monday, November 23, 2015
NCTE 2015 Takes Stand Against Pearson; It's "Bloody"-well Time.
There are days when Paul Thomas is my hero. We have many similarities. We're both from working class, Southern backgrounds. We're both educators. We share an acute awareness of when our Southern accents are "showing." We share some thoughts on policy and education reform. We're both poor white boys what done good in edu-macating ourselves and others. We both doubt the existence of real academic and social meritocracies. We both study poverty. We have deep ties to the Carolinas. We both appreciate a good comic book.
He's a tenured professor at Furman University, though. Currently, I'm a substitute teacher. He's an established member of the National Council of Teachers of English. I protested the organization's involvement in education reform efforts several years ago by no longer giving them my membership dollars.
In terms of how academia protects its own, Thomas has provisions in place that I do not have and never had when I was a professor, mainly tenure.
For better or worse, this means he can more confidently say controversial things without serious retribution than can early career scholars or those who want to climb the career ladder in English Education.
I know I've paid a price in dropping my membership, encouraging others to protest NCTE via doing the same, and even suggesting it is time for a new literacy organization that would be unencumbered by the dirty money and persuasion of well-funded reformer representatives. Less infiltrated, if you will.
Indeed, when I tried to express my passion, concern, and frustration with Common Core and associated constructs to students, peers, and the senior English Education professor at Washington State University, my most-recent college-level gig, I was labeled "an angry young man." I was angry and still have angry moments regarding what is happening in public education, and surely I wanted my pre-service teachers to be aware of the histories, problematics, and realities of teaching in Obama-era education environs. But the label was slapped onto me as if it was the only word to describe me.
Interestingly enough, when NCTE members tweeted an advertisement for members to join them on the convention floor this weekend to protest Pearson, one tweet suggested by doing so they could "share their anger." I faced the accusation of being angry as an isolation tactic. NCTE-goers were having theirs appealed to and embraced in an inclusionary, persuasive tactic approach.
Thomas has some strong words about the protest that took place this weekend, and they are absolutely must-read. See them *here*.
Thomas seems to embrace the protest, but he still feels that NCTE has "blood on its hands."
Me too.
While I appreciate the work of NCTE's Conference of English Education Social Justice Committee to organize the protest, I recognize that Pearson's presence has been even more overwhelming on NCTE's convention floors in years past, that NCTE members have had knowledge of the Common Core State Standards since at least 2010, that NCTE accepted almost $300,000 from the Gates Foundation and that the National Writing Project affiliated with NCTE has accepted even more Gates money, and that no protests were organized from 2010-2014.
My questions regarding the protest are: Why now? Why not in previous years? Who stands most to gain from press about the event? Why was Pearson the only target? Why not protest the whole of Race to the Top/No Child Left Behind reforms, including the Common Core and Gates' control of education policy? Is there a connection between staging the protest this year and it being held during an election cycle (did you know that Chelsea Clinton spoke at this year's NCTE conference?) when President Obama is winding up his last term as president?
Thomas is still an NCTE insider. Despite sincere efforts to find alternative venues for my on voice and activism, I remain on the fringe. With as many shared members between NCTE and the BATS, with whom I've also had some issues, and BATS connections to United Opt Out, perhaps this is not surprising. That's fine, though. It's easy to be brave when everyone is telling you to be brave. When you need to be your bravest, however, is when no one is telling you to be brave.
There are those of us who are or were once involved in NCTE who heeded the call to share our feelings without the warm embrace of the organization, who called "BS" years before this weekend, and who may have paid a precious price for it.
Thomas ends his column with a reference to Frankenstein:
 |
| N.o C.omment T.il E.ve of Change is already upon us? |
In terms of how academia protects its own, Thomas has provisions in place that I do not have and never had when I was a professor, mainly tenure.
For better or worse, this means he can more confidently say controversial things without serious retribution than can early career scholars or those who want to climb the career ladder in English Education.
I know I've paid a price in dropping my membership, encouraging others to protest NCTE via doing the same, and even suggesting it is time for a new literacy organization that would be unencumbered by the dirty money and persuasion of well-funded reformer representatives. Less infiltrated, if you will.
Indeed, when I tried to express my passion, concern, and frustration with Common Core and associated constructs to students, peers, and the senior English Education professor at Washington State University, my most-recent college-level gig, I was labeled "an angry young man." I was angry and still have angry moments regarding what is happening in public education, and surely I wanted my pre-service teachers to be aware of the histories, problematics, and realities of teaching in Obama-era education environs. But the label was slapped onto me as if it was the only word to describe me.
Interestingly enough, when NCTE members tweeted an advertisement for members to join them on the convention floor this weekend to protest Pearson, one tweet suggested by doing so they could "share their anger." I faced the accusation of being angry as an isolation tactic. NCTE-goers were having theirs appealed to and embraced in an inclusionary, persuasive tactic approach.
Thomas has some strong words about the protest that took place this weekend, and they are absolutely must-read. See them *here*.
Thomas seems to embrace the protest, but he still feels that NCTE has "blood on its hands."
Me too.
While I appreciate the work of NCTE's Conference of English Education Social Justice Committee to organize the protest, I recognize that Pearson's presence has been even more overwhelming on NCTE's convention floors in years past, that NCTE members have had knowledge of the Common Core State Standards since at least 2010, that NCTE accepted almost $300,000 from the Gates Foundation and that the National Writing Project affiliated with NCTE has accepted even more Gates money, and that no protests were organized from 2010-2014.
My questions regarding the protest are: Why now? Why not in previous years? Who stands most to gain from press about the event? Why was Pearson the only target? Why not protest the whole of Race to the Top/No Child Left Behind reforms, including the Common Core and Gates' control of education policy? Is there a connection between staging the protest this year and it being held during an election cycle (did you know that Chelsea Clinton spoke at this year's NCTE conference?) when President Obama is winding up his last term as president?
Thomas is still an NCTE insider. Despite sincere efforts to find alternative venues for my on voice and activism, I remain on the fringe. With as many shared members between NCTE and the BATS, with whom I've also had some issues, and BATS connections to United Opt Out, perhaps this is not surprising. That's fine, though. It's easy to be brave when everyone is telling you to be brave. When you need to be your bravest, however, is when no one is telling you to be brave.
 |
| At least Doom respects transparency. |
There are those of us who are or were once involved in NCTE who heeded the call to share our feelings without the warm embrace of the organization, who called "BS" years before this weekend, and who may have paid a precious price for it.
Thomas ends his column with a reference to Frankenstein:
I fully accept Pearson et al. are the monsters, but literature shows us we must look at the Drs. Frankenstein for how the monsters came about.Indubitably. To refer to trends in superhero comics, a genre within a medium that Thomas and I both study, not even the bad guys think of themselves as villains anymore.
 |
| Dr. Doom, Magneto, and..... NCTE? |
Sunday, November 15, 2015
What's Wrong With This Image?: NPE's Bill Gates Infographic
The Network for Public Education is circulating an infographic detailing the history of Bill Gates' efforts to influence American schooling. It spans fifteen years in timeline fashion and illustrates a growing presence and ambition. The timeline ends in 2015 with the claim that NAEP scores are flat under Gates-era reforms: "US NAEP scores decline -- Time To End The Experiment."
As infographics go, this one is a telling read. Links to articles act as evidence of the claims made in
most entries. However, there is one flaw. One can read the visual as suggesting that because NAEP scores are not improving, Gates' reform efforts need to end so that someone or something else can come along and get those scores up.
Those who are resisting current education reform efforts know not to put stock in the NAEP scores as any meaningful indicator. See Diane Ravitch's comments on the test in Reign of Error, for example. I believe what the graphic's creators meant to convey is that middling NAEP scores were part of the "problems" in American education that Gates wanted to "fix." His programs and influence have not accomplished a major goal that Gates focused on as a rhetorical means to gain as much control as he has. Since they failed to do what they said they would do, they shouldn't continue.
See the otherwise excellent graphic *here* to see what I mean.
 |
| A truly important indicator of our students' intelligence, growth and potential? N.O.P.E. |
As infographics go, this one is a telling read. Links to articles act as evidence of the claims made in
most entries. However, there is one flaw. One can read the visual as suggesting that because NAEP scores are not improving, Gates' reform efforts need to end so that someone or something else can come along and get those scores up.
Those who are resisting current education reform efforts know not to put stock in the NAEP scores as any meaningful indicator. See Diane Ravitch's comments on the test in Reign of Error, for example. I believe what the graphic's creators meant to convey is that middling NAEP scores were part of the "problems" in American education that Gates wanted to "fix." His programs and influence have not accomplished a major goal that Gates focused on as a rhetorical means to gain as much control as he has. Since they failed to do what they said they would do, they shouldn't continue.
See the otherwise excellent graphic *here* to see what I mean.
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