The dust has settled from the New Year, resolutions, lists, and so forth. So back again (here’s last year), the Edu Commentary In and Out list. Here’s an unscientific, impressionistic, and often informed by “don’t tell anyone I sent this email” missives from colleagues, take on what’s coming and going in 2023.
Look for a more serious stocktaking analysis from BW later this month.
| What’s Out | What’s In |
| Arguing about what to call learning loss | Ignoring learning loss |
| School board fights about CRT | School board fights about budget cuts |
| Teacher shortage | Teacher union member shortage |
| Race-based affirmative action | Class-based affirmative action |
| Savings rate | Education savings accounts |
| Wishful thinking on academic recovery after COVID | Wishful thinking on school enrollment after COVID |
| Ken Paxton | Jason Miyares |
| Scale | Microschools |
| Focusing on | Centering |
| Students don’t write enough in school | AI writes too much in school |
| Demanding billions in emergency pandemic relief | Questioning billions in emergency pandemic relief |
| Quiet Quitting | Quiet use of the SAT |
| Reading Wars | Science of Reading wars |
| Parents’ rights on curriculum | Parents’ rights on academic progress |
| Political red waves | Political Red Weddings |
| Stereotyping | Cultural competence |
| Covid | John Bailey’s Covid newsletter |
| Book banning | Trolling |
| Accountability | Choice |
| Portfolios | Mergers |
| Celebrating excellence | Assuaging pissed-off parents |
| Retreats | Resorts |
| The right using LGBT kids as political props | Right and left using LGBT kids as political props |
| Diligence | Blank checks |
| Data | Stories |
| North v. South | Texas v. California |
| Happenstance | Navigators |
| Drag shows as transgressive fun | Drag shows as virtue signaling |
| Student loan forgiveness | Student loan lawsuits |
| Loudoun County controversy | Fairfax County controversy |
| Cultural Marxism | Cultural nihilism |
| Let teachers teach! | Teachers as social workers and therapists |
| Rand | Bernie |
| Asynchronous | Face time |