Latest News and Comment from Education

Monday, November 26, 2012

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Ed News Roundup

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Ed News Roundup:


Ed News Roundup

First up, this is not directly ed related (although peripherally), a letter from a whiter-than-white (his term) Republican who was mightily unhappy with his party this election.  (Caution: he minces no words so if you are a delicate reader, do not read this section.) 

He does speak to some of what ed reformers on the Dem side like to do; namely, name-call and harangue which to my mind, never works.  

One of the reasons my family is affluent is that my wife and I have a collective fifteen years of university education between us. I have a Masters degree in Science and Technology Policy, and my wife is a physician who holds degrees in medicine as well as cell and molecular biology. We are really quite unimpressed with Congressional representatives such as Todd Akin and Paul Broun who actually serve on the House science committee and who believe, respectively, that rape does not cause pregnancy and that evolution and astrophysics are lies straight from Satan’s butt cheeks. These are, sadly, only two of innumerable assaults that the Republican Party has made against hard science – with nothing to say of logic in general. Please understand the unbearable tension this might create between us and your candidates.

Another fascinating op-ed in the NY Times by Sara Mosle was about what students should be assigned to read in in order to learn to write. 



I had occasion to watch The Godfather while I was making Thanksgiving dinner and realized that it was