Linky Friday: Trapped In History And Vice Versa Edition

Andrew Donaldson

Born and raised in West Virginia, Andrew has been the Managing Editor of Ordinary Times since 2018, is a widely published opinion writer, and appears in media, radio, and occasionally as a talking head on TV. He can usually be found misspelling/misusing words on Twitter@four4thefire. Andrew is the host of Heard Tell podcast. Subscribe to Andrew'sHeard Tell Substack for free here:

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3 Responses

  1. Marchmaine says:

    [LF1] Theory: we elevated the Afghan support from ‘collaborators’ to ‘uniformed employees/contractors’ makes a difference.

    [LF2] Great!?… (chants) RCV, RCV, RCV. Yang’s stuff isn’t my kind of fusionism, but better to have more than less.

    [LF3] Both Grossman and Douthat are right. Trump is terrible at politics, but he’s great at politics… it just depends on what we mean by politics. While I don’t think Grossman gets it right (entirely), I’ve had to revise my assumptions about Trump and the Republican party; he owns the party right now in ways I didn’t think quite possible. (chants) RCV, RCV, RCV.

    [LF4] skipped

    [LF5] I’m always amazed at how stupid and uncultured we think we were in the past. At least we aren’t that bad.

    [LF6] Our Weekly Freddie…we have more engagement with him now than when he wrote here. I’ve already defected from Public Education, can’t defect twice.

    [LF7] Back when OSHA was on the side of the Miners…

    [LF8] Skipped; Hong Kong is unsustainable. Plan accordingly.Report

  2. Chris says:

    [LF7] This is why everyone needs to have at least one leftist friend, who will know about any major and most smaller labor uprisings in the country’s history.Report

  3. Swami says:

    LF6

    I am not trying to defend the details of NCLB, in theory or practice, but as usual I really disagree with Freddie on his comment that evaluating teachers based upon performance depends upon the myth of the blank slate.

    The core idea is that better teachers, curriculum and better schools can make a difference compared to terrible teachers and schools and curriculum. Granted any given student could be a genius or idiot. But a teacher is given a class of students, and a schools has multiple classes. The idea is that on average, the school and teachers do more with their students this year than they did in the past, and absent such improvement, that they be incentivized to make changes until they figure out how to elevate the performance on average in their school or class.

    Again, NCLB may have various problems in theory or practice, but in general the idea that teachers and schools could be evaluated based upon their ability to improve average outcomes does not assume a blank slate.

    We’ve all had good teachers and bad teachers, and it is obvious in some cases what made some of the bad teachers so bad relative to the better ones. The concept of incentivizing good behaviors in schools and teachers and discouraging and penalizing bad behaviors, policies, curriculum and so forth is worthwhile if done right.Report