Fortunately, spoliation of evidence warrants an adverse inference.

I remember my first Santacon encounter, outside of Lincoln Center when my now-adult daughter was two. It started out as "Wow, look at all of the Santas, Honey!" and then we got close and realized they were all drunk. At least they were happily handing out candy canes, so her takeaway was positive.

"Hang him later" meaning extortion? Great advice. 🙄

I remember being troubled by my graduate education, feeling like we were being indoctrinated against overt phonics instruction and packaged curriculum materials. One can certainly teach phonics while allowing kids some autonomy and finding more meaningful things for them to read.

Research has shown for years that most kids need help to crack the code. Plus there’s, you know, logic. It’s a coded system where symbols are associated with sounds. There is no way around that, and keeping the code a secret for kids figure out on their own (if at all) is obviously a terrible idea.

Even kids who are able to learn to read through Calkins' method will gain from having another tool in their kit, so to speak. Phonics is a BIG tool (arguably the biggest), and to take that away from literacy education is absurd. Lucy Calkins pretty much admits that now, decades too late.

Are we talking about Lucy Calkins and Teachers College? I got a Master's in Education at Penn in the very early 90s, and they were pushing that stuff HARD. What they were advocating had useful takeaways, but most kids benefit from learning phonics and sounding out words as a strategy.

So starving people was the intention of this shutdown, not just a result the administration chose not to remedy?

Rube Goldberg was onto something.

In pace requiescat!

He actually seems interested in doing what the mayor of NYC is supposed to do, unlike his two predecessors. Can we just let him do that for now?

Yep . . . and don't forget Gen Z. My adult children and I believe they should be able to afford to live independently in their hometown. Apparently a lot of other young New Yorkers agree.