My students and I had such interesting talks yesterday about Nathan Heller’s meditation on the career of Natalie Portman, especially as it’s illuminated by Ray McDermott and Herve Varenne’s monster 1995 essay “Culture as Disabiity.” Why are we (or at least Heller) uncomfortable with Portman’s maintenance of so many identities, so many role positions? IsContinue reading “Gunning Down the Dream”
Author Archives: Chris Osmond
Privatization, Teach For America, and “Common Sense”
Thanks to Rob Helfenbein at IUPUI for sharing this via Facebook. http://seattleducation2010.wordpress.com/2011/02/04/why-i-am-not-a-defender-of-the-status-quo-in-education-because-the-status-quo-is-failed-ed-reforms/ I am grateful for the bright line it draws between competition and privatization, which so many students don’t see initially. And why would they? We are easily dazzled by the idea that “competition encourages innovation” when it is divorced from its free-market roots.Continue reading “Privatization, Teach For America, and “Common Sense””
audit culture in Charlotte-Meck
Check out this broadcast of WFAE’s “Charlotte Talks,” which discusses upcoming funding challenges in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools but along the way gives some insight into the “audit culture” as it looks in school right now. I only heard the first 15 min live but imagine the rest of the hour is also time well-spent. http://wfae.org/wfae/19_100_0.cfm?id=6878&action=display What mostContinue reading “audit culture in Charlotte-Meck”
