Edu-porn on the Nashville Scene

On the way from Lexington to Montgomery this weekend we stopped for sandwiches and picked up a copy of the Nashville Scene. We think Nashville’s a cool town, and it’s always nice to read about the goings-on in places we like, even if they do make us feel vaguely sad about Montgomery’s lack of, say, [...]

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D.C. schools and the nuclear option

In the post I wrote earlier this week about the D.C. teacher contract negotiations, I didn’t mention an important “bargaining” tool Rhee and Fenty may have at their disposal. I put “bargaining” in quotes because, well, it’s only bargaining in the sense that the Soviet Dead Hand system was bargaining. That tool (and thanks to [...]

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D.C.’s contract struggle

The District of Columbia has problems. Big ones. Many in the educational arena (for a primer, see this outstanding Washington Post series from 2007). Two-thirds of the District’s students are not proficient in reading, and three-fourths are not proficient in math. This despite per-pupil spending that’s among the highest in the nation’s largest school districts [...]

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Wishing for School?

There are a wide variety of things that I care about, yet only have glimmers of threads of information about. One such thing is computer security. I find myself reading Bruce Schneier’s crypto-gram as often as possible, even if I don’t understand all of the parts. Sometimes it seems that having a passion about something, [...]

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Alabama Legislature, Budget Hearings Part 2

We now continue with our anonymous reporter’s chronicles of the recent budget hearings of the Alabama legislature.

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What I learned writing my dissertation, part 2

I’m about ten days away from the defense of my doctoral dissertation. I won’t actually get my Ph.D. on that date. I will have to do revisions based on the input of my committee, clear one final draft by my advisor, and get the thing approved for formatting, pagination, etc, by the office of graduate [...]

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What I’ve Learned Writing My Dissertation

So I’ve been observing a two-week exile from blogland while I finished writing the first draft of my doctoral dissertation. I turned it in on Friday, and while I await the feedback of my committee I thought I’d put down a few thoughts I had about the process. I’m not ready yet to write about [...]

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Getting Schooled

There are many ways to lie. Perhaps there are even more ways to lie with statistics. There’s an almost magical quality about being numerate when others aren’t. You can generate some numbers, tell others what they mean, and they may (if you’re lucky) believe you. Just so with concepts like “proficiency.” Tests that measure proficiency [...]

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Happy 4th of July

Worth reading every single time this holiday rolls around. Also keep in mind the costs of the absurd candy spectacles that you’ll likely be consuming. Their slavery for our freedom-swilling facade and immediately-forgotten spectacle. Happy holiday. Posting will resume on Monday.

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Welcome New Readers!

Writing up reviews of City Stages was a good idea. We here at Toxic Culture have gotten quite a bit of traffic from said entries. If you haven’t seen our reports yet, check ‘em out. And if you’re new here, whether lured by the City Stages reviews or by your relentless Google searching for “big [...]

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