Jennifer is beautiful and brilliant and it’s a relief
not to have to keep her identity secret any more….She also did the seminal
study of the “bubble kids” in Texas
There will undoubtedly be many more pathbreaking studies to
come – that is, if Bloomberg/Klein do not put out a hit against
her.
Let’s hope her unmasking does not negatively affect
her academic future!
August
24, 2008
eduwonkette
Unmasked
For those of you who pegged me as Amy Ellen Schwartz, Diane Ravitch, Amy Stuart
Wells, or Randi Weingarten – what can I say?
You were a tad off.
eduwonkette is written by Jennifer
Jennings, a final year doctoral student in Sociology at
When I started this blog last September, it was a modest attempt to keep track
of my evolving thoughts about educational research and policy and to share
social science research often ignored in education policy debates. But I was
concerned about how blogging would be perceived in the academic community.
Academics don’t yet know what to make of blogs. At best, blogging is seen
as an unnecessary distraction, and at worst, a total waste of time.
Blogging seemed like a respectable enough hobby to me – one I could
partake in for an hour a day, all from the comfort of my couch. I was bad at
crocheting anyway and tired of watching the Yankees lose – so why not? To
be honest, I didn’t think that anyone would read it. I certainly didn’t
consider the potential complications raised by anonymity; would anyone really
mind another graduate student writing an anonymous blog? So I decided to write
under the cover of the fetching masked superheroine in a purple dress who you
have come to know well.
Why am I dropping the mask
now? Over the past few months, two things happened. First, people started to
wrongly finger other educational researchers as eduwonkette. Given the New York
City Department of Education’s affection for my data analysis, some
researchers rightfully worried that a case of mistaken identity could have
negative implications for their relationships with the DOE. Second, others have
started to figure out my true identity. It was a matter of time until someone
else made my identity known, and I ultimately decided to introduce myself on my
own terms.
Will eduwonkette change now that I’m not anonymous? Absolutely not. I
stand behind everything I’ve written here, and will continue to write
about research and policy issues with the playfulness that makes this blog a
pleasure to write, and - I hope - fun to read as well.
eduwonkette will continue to make educational research accessible to a larger
audience, to analyze data to assess the veracity of the claims made by
policymakers, and to provide a forum for teachers, parents, administrators,
policymakers, and researchers to reflect on how research can and should shape
day-to-day life in American schools. As we move toward the one-year anniversary
of eduwonkette and beyond, I look forward to more of the thoughtful debate and
exchange that make this community so dynamic.
Credits: Please put
your hands together for the talented Ian Toledo, animator extraordinaire
and recent Teachers College graduate, who created this amazing comic strip.
Head over to his site and check him out - word on the street is that
Leonie Haimson
Executive Director
Class Size Matters
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http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/
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