Tokyo Drift Edition
An interview with an ed reform leader, Japan, The Fall Guy, and jade plants!
I shall be wearing this to faculty meetings for the foreseeable future.
I received more feedback about last issue’s Buc-ee photo than for anything else in this newsletter! I get it, he has charisma. Some of you shared stories of your families’ love for Buc-ee’s, others took issue with me calling him a gopher. Apparently he’s a beaver? Hmmm, gophers and beavers are pretty similar. Although the web site does not specify Buc-ee’s species, the entire chain is named after the founder’s nickname, which is … Beaver. So that settles it. My fact-checking team has been fired for this error.
But turning to more serious business, there is a TON going on right now. I’m in Japan for a few days, so my morning is the early evening in the U.S. That means that when I pull up the news in the morning, I’m drinking from a firehose of late-day news summaries back home. The only English-language channel in my hotel is the BBC, so they’re being calm about it, but wow, so much is happening, in both international policy (the Iranian negotiations and Ukraine-Russia peace talks) and domestic policy (implications of the State of the Union speech, the upcoming Texas primaries, the Clinton depositions).
Because the long piece below is pretty long, I’m going to condense the rest of the newsletter this week. That long paper is an interview with Dr. Tony Bennett, the former Indiana and Florida state school chief and president of K12.com. Tony retired last year, which seemed like a good point at which to ask about his experiences leading large-scale education reform efforts. His career has been controversial, to be sure, but he can also claim some big victories. Regardless of where one stands on Tony’s beliefs, he definitely has hard-learned advice for today’s education leaders.
Something Long
The key motivation for the interview is my belief that many of today’s leaders are learning things through trial-and-error, when the leaders from what I think of as the “golden age of state education reform” are all still around and happy to talk about their experiences. I think of that era of reform running from roughly 2000 (the start of Jeb Bush’s efforts in Florida and Michael Bloomberg’s in NYC, NCLB in 2002) until 2015 (the reauthorization of ESEA in the form of the Every Student Succeeds Act). That span includes big changes to New Orleans in the wake of the devastating hurricane, the New Jersey reforms under Chris Christie’s governorship, and the broader Louisiana reforms led by John White, among many other serious efforts to rethink and improve American K-12 education. The vast majority of the leaders during that era remain active, and we need to be learning from them more than we currently are. At least that’s my two cents! Here’s the interview.
Special thanks to David Steiner and Ashley Berner at the Hopkins Institute for Education Policy for publishing it for us.
Some Things That Intrigued Me
Standard second-term-itis. Matt Glassman had this great observation about legislative policy in his newsletter last week:
“In addition, the administration seems to be totally done with its legislative agenda. They’ve more or less ruled out a second reconciliation bill, and the White House doesn’t even seem to have any policy proposals. Some of this is normal sixth-year-of-a-presidency stuff, where the juice is just gone; most presidents turn to foreign policy at this point in their second term. But one would excuse Republicans for thinking a unified government might do more durable policy change.”
I’ve said this before, and I’ll keep saying it until the evidence proves me wrong: The end of the first Trump term felt a lot like Years 7 and 8 in the previous two administrations. The most talented folks moved on to other adventures, with the caveat that many of “the most talented folks” refused to join the administration in Years 1 and 2. That gave the end of Trump I the feeling of “Every man for himself!” that you normally see at the very end of a two-term administration. I predicted after the 2024 elections that lack of political and policy talent was going to cause real pain, both for the administration and country. Even if you love some of the domestic policy ideas in Trump II, you have to grant the fact that implementation and strategery have been awful (when discussing the admin’s policies over the past year, the most common adjective over the past year, from analysts across the political spectrum, has been “ham-handed,” which if we’re being honest undersells it a lot). Anyway, Matt’s comment made me think that we’re in the end game, policy-wise, for this administration.
The math wars heat up. I’m increasingly seeing public comments about the need to get American math education back on the right track after years of (maybe?) well-intentioned but misguided initiatives to push it in weird directions (e.g., why the knee-jerk opposition to acceleration among so many math educators?). I’ll be talking about this a lot in future issues and won’t say a ton here. But I do want to call your attention to the math work being done by my colleagues at BEST NC, led by Brenda Berg. In particular, their recent policy brief on math education in North Carolina is a very impressive piece of education and policy writing.
IB programs. Brandon Wright had a great piece in the ADVANCE newsletter last week about the International Baccalaureate program (link below). I didn’t know much IB until my son went to an IB high school, and the structure of the program was impressive. Here’s the thing, though, which I just can’t let go: We have so very little research on the IB program, at least compared to other advanced options in high school. Brandon makes a great case for doing this research, and I’m hoping the National Research Center can focus some resources on it. Hit me up if you agree and want to help!
Some Things That Interested Me
The Fall Guy. Watched this on one of my flights recently. Worth watching again for the stunts alone, which are great. The first time I saw it, it totally escaped me that each scene is a set-up for a classic stunt (duh!). And, of course, regular readers know of my love for the comedic genius of Ryan Gosling (see The Nice Guys) and belief that Emily Blunt (Edge of Tomorrow) is one of the best actresses of the modern age. Winter weather got you down? Stream The Fall Guy and you’ll feel better.
Disney day-drinking. This article may be behind a firewall, but I mention it because the embedded TikTok video of two dudes day-drinking their way through EPCOT is awesome. If you can’t access it, just look for @rustyfeatherstone on TikTok. You will not be disappointed.
Jade Plant of the Month
Loyal reader Kelly G-J in Montana recently spotted this green beauty in the Minot ND Train Station.
I love this photo for several reasons, not least of which is the fact that a jade plant in the window of a North Dakota train stations has stories to tell! I’m going to guess that it’s anywhere from 10-20 years old, give or take a half decade. What a great find, thanks, Kelly!
Where to Find Me
email: jplucker@jhu.edu
http://Amazon.com/author/jonathanplucker