the first question in McMahon's list, "How will your institution ensure that admissions criteria are transparent and wholly described to prospective applicants?" has everything to do with the testing industry
Teaching Literature after Nolan’s Odyssey: A Conversation-- The University of Virginia Department of Classics and The Center for the Liberal Arts (cla.virginia.edu) For Middle and High School Teachers Via Zoom, August 14, 3-4:30 PM (EST) How can ELA and other teachers engage students who have 1/4
Teaching Literature after Nolan’s Odyssey: A Conversation
Free virtual program with UVA faculty on how teachers can engage students who have seen Christopher Nolan’s film of The Odyssey.
theodysseyconversation.eventbrite.com
Any conservatism worthy of Burke would understand that authority is won over time and by winning arguments. Competitive ideas survive; others fail and lose favor. Authority is to be won (earned) not simply asserted.
really seems to me that top-down reforms and programs are being advertised in legacy outlets as Rigorous
profpolisci.bsky.social@profpolisci.bsky.social · 11h ago“Show the world that academic rigor is not just for conservatives” is one of the funniest things I’ve read in a long, long time. Not funny ha ha but funny strange.
“Let’s do what fascists do but over here” is never good and the author should feel bad
Annie Abrams@annieabrams.bsky.social · 2d agoHe spent one year visiting schools. I’ve been teaching high school and writing about this issue for years and I don’t think this is a good idea.
Here’s Traub in 1999, in a Fordham Institute book. The same people have been having the same conversation for decades.
Annie Abrams@annieabrams.bsky.social · 2d agoHe spent one year visiting schools. I’ve been teaching high school and writing about this issue for years and I don’t think this is a good idea.
James has gone & named two that I'd have put on my list so let's audible to substitutes because bad ppl authors is a deeeep bench to draw from The BFG- Roald Dahl The Color Purple- Alice Walker The Pickwick Papers- Charles Dickens The Executioner's Song- Norman Mailer Hyperion- Dan Simmons
BeijingPalmer@beijingpalmer.bsky.social · yesterdayalright let's do real discourse: five books *by bad people* that are still good or great books V.S. Naipaul, A BEND IN THE RIVER Allison Pearson, I DON'T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT Kevin Myers, WATCHING THE DOOR Yukio Mishima, CONFESSIONS OF A MASK Neil Gaiman, BRIEF LIVES.
“we can be as intellectually rigorous as Texas” the bar has fallen through the floor and is hurtling toward the earth’s molten core but this is a card trick anyway—what the writer means is “we can be as obstinately doctrinaire as Texas” which is nonsense
a reading list that demonstrates the trust of the state in its expertly trained teachers would not be a centralized list
Éireann@eireannmor.bsky.social · 2d agoa reading list suitable for students in blue states
A) The state should not be in charge of dictating which texts are/are not worthy of study B) Discussing reading lists absent pedagogy is a form of textual fetishism that misunderstands teaching C) Cultural literacy cannot be disentangled from Hirsch’s belief in the primacy of authorial intent
Annie Abrams@annieabrams.bsky.social · 2d agoI have a lot of thoughts www.nytimes.com/2026/08/03/o...
and give teachers time to read and think
@ansonimaachi.bsky.social · 2d agoThere is also just some vague contempt for teachers in this piece. We need a reading list because otherwise teachers are going to he lazy and assign the easiest things possible. Maybe let teachers who know their classes have some say.
A "reading list suitable for students in blue states" is just a library. Give them a library card and let them run free
Annie Abrams@annieabrams.bsky.social · 2d agoHe spent one year visiting schools. I’ve been teaching high school and writing about this issue for years and I don’t think this is a good idea.
The whole end of that article doesn’t make any sense, he undermines his entire argument for reading lists
He spent one year visiting schools. I’ve been teaching high school and writing about this issue for years and I don’t think this is a good idea.
Annie Abrams@annieabrams.bsky.social · 2d agoI have a lot of thoughts www.nytimes.com/2026/08/03/o...
“classics” as a new way of teaching to tests or checklists is still no good
AP Philosophy comes up sometimes too.
Brandon Bishop@brandontbishop.bsky.social · 5d agoFor people suggesting AP Geology as a solution to promoting geology in high schools, you do know that means there's a very high chance we kill our university intro courses and run face more cuts from admins like a number of the humanities are dealing with, yes?
so over the past few months, outlets have reported on how the college board and the clt are both ineffective at maintaining academic standards in schools
USA TODAY@usatoday.com · 6d agoHeld up as a new route to college admissions, the Classic Learning Test has instead become a remedial high-school graduation test in Florida.
Florida loves the Classic Learning Test, an ACT/SAT competitor. It’s not about college applications though. High school leaders use it to pass students who failed the state’s exit exams. Grad rates are up, but some educators ask if that's good, my latest: www.usatoday.com/story/news/e...
Hegseth’s ‘gold standard’ college exam tests middle-school math
Held up as a new route to college admissions, the Classic Learning Test has instead become a remedial high-school graduation test in Florida.
usatoday.com
interesting to see rick hess call the people behind the vanderbilt report “reform minded”
This is one of the most absurd decisions by higher ed administrators that I can recall in recent (or even longer) memory. This is an absolute, irrefutable signal that the leaders of Harvard puts no value in the student experience of LEARNING. It's a joke and should be seen as hugely discrediting.
Mary Lewis@profmarylewis.bsky.social · last wk.It‘s quite possible that with this move, @harvard.edu could become the only Ivy League university without a writing center. www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...
What parts of a Harvard degree (I may be wrong that they grant the BA; AB, maybe) can be stripped away, then, without it compromising the public's sense of the degree's value? Which parts of the substance can you lose, and which students will complain about it?
It‘s quite possible that with this move, @harvard.edu could become the only Ivy League university without a writing center. www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...
Harvard College Lays Off Writing Center Director, Consolidates Center | News | The Harvard Crimson
The Harvard College Writing Center will no longer operate as a standalone unit after its director was laid off and its functions were consolidated as part of a restructuring in the Faculty of Arts and...
thecrimson.com
This is mind blowing. It feels as though Harvard College is being DOGEd! I have been totally blindsided by this. WTF does an undergraduate education even mean to those who are carrying out this restructuring?
it’s true, there is no debate to be had, it’s a strange piece of writing
Peace, Truth, Science@mrchompchomp.bsky.social · last wk.If you changed the tests and the scoring then there's really no debate to be had. The answer is either the change in the tests and the scoring have caused the inflation or, if it is something else, the change in tests and scoring has made it impossible to tell.
I have yet to teach a student where I’m convinced that they learned as much in AP US History as they would have in our lower division surveys. (Particularly the early material.) And I’ve had students who took AP US Government and Politics and…ugh. That course anti-prepared them.