Great Stuff!

Here are some things I heard about and liked over the past few weeks. You might like them too.

Diane Ravitch was on Fresh Air with Terry Gross Thursday 4/28, and you can listen to it here.

Dusty Diary, an Ypsilanti-area historian, would like information from you if you know anything at all about the Thorn(e) School on Textile Road--which was active at the turn of the last century. Read more here, including how to contact Dusty Diary.  And if you are interested, here are some old pictures of Woodruff School, Ypsilanti.

Also on Thursday 4/28, there was a terrific interview by Dick Gordon of The Story with some teenage students who are into robotics competitions. Really fun! Listen to it here. Yes, we've got lots of robotics teams locally. Below is a picture from the robotics team at Forsythe Middle School in Ann Arbor.

Forsythe Middle School teacher and robotics club coach Ami Snapke works with two club members who are researching their topic for next fall. From AAPS News.

Did you know that Michigan Parents for Schools has a Legislative Action Center where you can write the governor and your legislators without having to look up any email addresses or anything--it figures out who they are for you and you can customize your letter. So it takes all the work out of letter writing and now you have no excuses! Try it out here. There's lots of other information on their web site too.

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I've added a few blogs to my blog roll:

School Finance 101, Bruce Baker's blog on "Data and thoughts on public and private school funding in the U.S." If you want to know where to start, try these two pieces: one about private schooling (no, it's not anti-private schooling) and one about including poverty/SES in data analysis about schools.

A Fuller Look at Education Issues, Dr. Ed Fuller's blog. If you like data, you should like this (although there are a lot of Texas acronyms). Try this post on for size, about characteristics of students who enroll at high performing charter schools.

And then there is Schools Matter, a blog that "explores issues in public education policy," and "advocates for a commitment to and a re-examination of the democratic purposes of schools." Today's timely post? Rick Snyder Targets 23 Michigan School Districts for Privatization.