An evening with CEC13
This week I want to write about a fascinating experience I had last month involving a local push against the Trump administration’s incursions into public...
Die, it's better
I just finished Sally Rooney’s excellent new novel Intermezzo, and I’ve also been sitting with the feeling of the moment: the lifeworld, our politics, the...
Critical school finance (the course!)
A course I’m teaching this summer on critical school finance At the beginning of this year, geographer Ee-Seul Yoon and I co-edited a special issue of the...
The hope of critical finance studies (again)
Hi again everyone, due to the newsletter bug in Buttondown, this post got sent earlier than it should have. So I’m sending it along again. *** Before the...
Bombshell in the history of neoliberalism
I’m teaching a class this semester where we analyze the present educational crisis. Each week we look at a new theme. I assign a reading and do a quick video...
Join the FUN
Dostoevsky famously wrote that “everything is permitted.” This is actually a question from Brothers Karamozov, where one brother Dmitri asks another “What...
State of play in green schools organizing (again)
Readers, for some reason Buttowndown has been sending out two posts a week from me. It’s a glitch on their end, apologies! So I’m resending a couple posts...
The hope of critical finance studies
Before the election and the current crisis, I was revisiting the theoretical frameworks I use when thinking about education finance. For years and years,...
Be like Dorothy
What the f*** is going on? I mean this in a wonky sense: there’s a gap between appearance and reality in the education policy dialectic that’s giving me and...
EO EO uhhhh
By the time you’re reading this, the storm of information, headlines, events, announcements, etc., may have moved on, but the other night I read Trump’s...
State of play in green schools organizing
There’s a TL;DR for this post, which is that if you’re interested in doing some unique green school organizing, you might look into trying to get your school...
Bonding for the common good
In this moment of chaotic authoritarianism, I think it’s important to focus on a couple things. First, trying to beat the neofascists in as many public...
The biggest threat to pubic education you didn't know about
There’s been a kind of firestorm in public finance over the last week. From the federal funding freeze to its confusing (non)recission to Elon Musk’s...
Inappropriated: what's happening with the IRA?
The hypernormalization of neofascism continues apace as the first month of the second Trump administration comes to a close. There’s a lot of fear and...
Upside-down middle finger
Dearest readers, Over the last four years, I’ve only missed one or two weeks when I don’t send out something substantial for you. I’m writing this week to...
r/schoolbudgetbs
I’ve been doing tiktok videos where I take requests to look at specific school district budget crises. I research the district using audited financial...
The philosophy of education finance
This week I’m sending along a podcast interview I did with Thinking in the Midst, hosted by Derek Gottlieb and Cara Furman. The episode is all about how and...
Three recommendations I've been giving
I recently found out about the Advancement Project’s campaign against school closures. It was so exciting to come across their well-designed and helpful...
Pasadena's path through the crisis
Written with Alan Gao There are school closures being threatened all over the country, and even more budget crises. At this writing, besides some general...
Deep discount
A few weeks ago I mentioned a book called Discounting the Future by Liliana Doganova. I was chatting with a friend who’s a historian of engineering (he’s...