It was a dry summer. We were watering aur driveway garden every other day, and it would still droop on hot days, which were plentiful. So when I woke up yesterday to a cool, drippy world and again today, I was pleased.

Never more than a visitor to a farm, but once a Midwesterner, always a Midwesterner.

I checked out the brief discussion about third-grade reading in the comments of the last post. I understand that Mark was pointing out the grammatical mess of the original statement, and also Julie’s point that third-grade reading skills are important. They were talking past one another, but no biggie.

It so happens Michigan’s schoolchildren are doing abysmally, and have slipped precipitously in recent years. The GOP, in seeking to make this a campaign issue, are bringing up the so-called Mississippi miracle, in which that beleaguered state made tremendous gains in elementary reading accomplishment through the time-honored strategy of Getting Tough and Demanding Excellence, etc. I’ve been reading about this for a while, and it kept ringing a bell, because it sounded so similar to a plan that was briefly in place in Michigan, in which any kid who wasn’t at grade level in reading by the end of third, would be held back a year.

It didn’t last long. Schools hated it, teachers hated it, parents hated it, and when the Dems took a trifecta in the state legislature, it was promptly repealed.

I’m oversimplifying it to some extent. It wasn’t simply read or flunk; there were strategies for remedial support, etc. But the bottom line was the flunking part. Flunking isn’t just a disaster for children. It throws a monkey wrench into school administration, teaching plans and even student households. One or two failures in a year is one thing, but when a large cohort of children are facing retention, it has all sorts of ripple effects that were likely not considered when the law was passed, as “pass or flunk” reads better in a campaign speech than “reading comprehension is complicated and can be negatively affected by various factors, including…”

Here’s a blog by a Michigan teacher from 2019 that gets into the weeds, if you’re interested.

A friend who covers education pointed out that the Mississippi miracle shows its flaws within a few years. Sure, hold a kid back, cram them with remedial instruction, finesse the test scores and squeak them into the next grade level, a year older than their classmates. Then wait for the collapse, because within a few more years, certainly by middle school, those hard-fought gains are gone.

In fact, with the details changed, it’s exactly the argument conservatives make for doing away with Head Start — the gains achieved at preschool disappear by third grade, etc.

It’s almost as though teaching reading — teaching anything — is harder than it seems to a state legislature. It involves pretty much every factor in how education is structured in this country, including but not limited to home environments, household income, summer slide and everything else. I’m not a teacher, and I can’t even begin to know how to teach a kid to read. Kate basically taught herself, because she had an older, exhausted mother who was always happier to read to her rather than chase a soccer ball around the yard. Her teachers handled the rest of it, and today she has a library card. Happy ending.

I once visited a grade school in Grand Rapids. With “challenges,” as we say, including a large number of children of migrant agricultural workers, who might only be enrolled a few weeks before their parents decamp for another crop to harvest. The principal was heroic in his work to get these kids reading and supported for it. He stood at the door at dismissal on Fridays to make sure every kid was carrying a book to read over the weekend. There were regular staff meetings where students at risk of failing were discussed, with teachers huddling on what might work to get them making progress. It was a day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month push, and they had the improving scores to document it. But it was never easy, or simple.

OK, then. What was the infuriating news of the weekend? It all blurs together after a while. But here’s a good piece on the destruction of the Kennedy Center, a gift link. (Note: Unless otherwise noted, everything I post is a gift link, or already free to read.) Lede:

A storm brought down a five-foot piece of ceiling plaster at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts this month and its leadership sprang into action. One thing they did not do was repair the damage.

Instead staff members left the mess on the carpet for nearly two weeks, posting photos on social media with commentary like “the place is falling apart and @realDonaldTrump wants to fix it.” They measured plaster shards and mapped the “debris field” like investigators after a plane crash, for a 55-page briefing for the center’s board about the building’s decay. No one was injured but Mr. Trump claimed online that a security guard had narrowly avoided “certain death.” Less than two hours later, his allies on the board voted to close the center, citing safety concerns.

I hate this era so, so much. Not a good way to go into the weekend, but here we are. Gird your loins; the midterms are still coming.