A music teacher in Meriden, Connecticut, wrote this comment about Miguel Cardona on Facebook. The teacher is a BAT. Jake Jacobs, executive director of the BATS, circulated this post.

I can tell you this much–he was my principal and evaluator for one year, during a low point in my career. Of the nine principals (and couple dozen assistants) I have worked under, he is the only one who has ever had a conversation with me about my teaching. His is the only formal observation I have ever had that was conducted in a way where the goal was to help me be a better teacher. When I needed something, he did his best to provide it. When he had to say no, he explained why honestly and respectfully. When he moved to central office, he focused on teacher evaluation and had frank and honest discussions with teachers about the state…

As of this writing, at least 340,000 people have died of COVID.

Washington Post reporters wrote a comprehensive account of how Donald Trump bungled the federal government’s response to the pandemic and made the number of infections and deaths far worse than they should have been if we had had competent leadership. The story was published on December 19. We know that Trump encouraged people not to pay attention to science. We know that he called on his base to “liberate” states that were trying to get control of the coronavirus. We know he refused to wear a mask, the simplest measure to slow the spread of the virus. When you read this story, you will realize that Trump’s decision to politicize mask-wearing was intentional. When Trump realized that he could not “beat” the virus, he lost interest in stopping or slowing it. He thought it was a “loser” issue…

After considerable discussion, we have decided to keep Flowers for Socrates going. The pandemic helped fuel this decision.

I personally have a number of posts in the can, so to speak, and will now start publishing on a regular basis.

Site administrators will be reorganizing the site in the near future to provide more variety, and get back to our roots of producing human interest stories, introducing more quality writers, and perhaps some artists for added content of visual interest.

Keep watching this site for developments.

Thanks for reading.

Some novels are full of puns, quips, humorous asides, made-up words, generally weird language, etc. All of that can be overdone, but it can also be fun. And those books can have serious moments, too.

One novel with a wordplay bonanza is Ali Smith’s There But For The, which I read last week. It’s a quirky book that opens with a dinner guest locking himself in a room for what will be weeks and weeks — angering the homeowner who hosted the meal — before the novel spins into depicting various people who knew the interloper. The turns of phrase come fast and furious, but there are also poignant sections — most notably one focusing on a very sick women in her 80s. Not sure I can strongly recommend the novel — it was a trial to read at times — but the author certainly deserves props for originality.

From Garrison Keillor’s “The Writers’ Almanac”:

Today is the birthday of the poet and novelist Sandra Cisneros (books by this author), born in Chicago (1954) and best known for the highly acclaimed coming-of-age novel The House on Mango Street (1984). Although the book was largely ignored when it was first published, its popularity grew, and soon Cisneros became the first Mexican-American woman to sign a contract with a big American publishing house. The House on Mango Street has since been translated into a dozen languages and has become required reading for middle schools and high schools throughout the United States.

Cisneros was the third child — and the only girl — in a family of seven children, and she spent most of her childhood rootless, moving back and forth between Chicago and Mexico City. Because her father felt that daughters were meant for husbands and not necessarily careers, she was free to…

The accountability hawks have decided that NAEP testing must be canceled this spring because of the pandemic, but the burdensome, useless, meaningless annual testing of every single student from grades 3-8 should not be disrupted. Betsy DeVos proposed canceling NAEP, and the director of the National Center for Education Statistics complied. There will be no NAEP 2021.

This is backwards.

If we want to understand the impact of the coronavirus on American students, NAEP testing should go forward. NAEP—the National Assessment of Educational Progress—has been administered to scientific samples of American students since the late 1960s. Since 1992, it has provided state-by-state comparisons. It disaggregates scores by race, gender, income, English language status, disability status, and other criteria. It measures achievement gaps among whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians. It supplies the same valuable information for a score of urban district that volunteer to be tested. No stakes are attached to…

Our blog poet frequently favors with rhyme:

Privatize the planet

Privatize the planet
Plunder it for gain
Light the fire and fan it
Mine the golden vein

Privatize the water
Sell it to the poor
Privatize your daughter
Sell her as a whore

Privatize the wildlife
Charge a viewing fee
Like a Wall Street low life
That is what you’ll be