Benjamin Smith

[Benjamin Smith @BenjaminSmith13]

@gyroidd At no point was phonics ever done away with entirely. Different places are different. Teachers could always do something different in the classroom. But the general 80s and 90s trend was less phonics, less materials that support phonics, and more literature-based and cueing.

[Benjamin Smith @BenjaminSmith13]

@gyroidd Basal readers make a substantial move away from phonic decodability and toward inferring complicated words from the pictures in the 1990s (so much that there is actually a reversal in the early 00s back toward decodability).

[Benjamin Smith @BenjaminSmith13]

@virgounrequited @bakedbananners1 @Charcoyours The peak of three-cueing was in 2019. It was absolutely not in the early 00s and had very little to do with the Bush administration because reading curricula are set at the state and local level, not in DC.

[Benjamin Smith @BenjaminSmith13]

@gyroidd @bakedbananners1 @Charcoyours No, the first Fountas and Pinnell Guided Reading text was published in 1996

[Benjamin Smith @BenjaminSmith13]

@DorkiestNerd @bakedbananners1 Teacher surveys by Education Week found that at the peak in 2019, about 75% of K-2nd teachers were using one of the three-cueing systems for reading instruction.

[Benjamin Smith @BenjaminSmith13]

@MisterMischa @ASFleischman I don't know the structure in this specific case/courtroom, but in many systems the "full" judges are so busy with trials that other types of business (like warrant requests) get farmed out to magistrate judges and a trial judge might not be part of the normal process.

[Benjamin Smith @BenjaminSmith13]

@jdabre11 @leftwick20 He has a foothills accent that shades more toward Appalachia. It is not coastal, not "deep South", and also not "trailer park redneck." Which I think confuses people because it's just not one of the more well-known southern accents.

[Benjamin Smith @BenjaminSmith13]

@meansardine99 Its not that people say it isn't enjoyable. It's that there's a lot of talk about "girlstink" and smelling pits and stuff that's basically the opposite of bathing a lot and wearing scents.

[Benjamin Smith @BenjaminSmith13]

@thusspokepurcel @dhaaruni I think 20 years ago this was certainly true. But I see a gap opening up. Teachers are getting lumped in more with the "liberal elite" than before.

[Benjamin Smith @BenjaminSmith13]

@Suzanne08053 It is generally true that if you increase the number of modalities, you get better results basically across the board.

Some people also just have poor numeracy and so will struggle with tables and graphs, irrespective of how well they do with other visual media.

[Benjamin Smith @BenjaminSmith13]

@AndyMasley Also seems true of gambling, social media, certain types of news media, maybe video games (fewer externalities), probably more.

It seems like the same tweaks that increase engagement for most also increase harms for the sensitive share. And the tools keeps getting better.

[Benjamin Smith @BenjaminSmith13]

@Wilson__Valdez As the double-standard gets wider, I grow warmer to the idea that the median voter actually wants a norm-breaker party and a norm-bound party so that depending on their assessment of the status quo, they can toggle between them.

[Benjamin Smith @BenjaminSmith13]

@boshin_goshin @CharlotteAlter I make no claims about relative magnitudes and I recognize that it is at-odds with the populist/progressive idea of Big Structural Change. But the voters DO exist who think that the status quo is mostly okay and prefer an incremental Democrat to an aggressive Republican

[Benjamin Smith @BenjaminSmith13]

@boshin_goshin @CharlotteAlter Yes. John Stein got ~171k more votes than Donald Trump and ~354k more than Kamala Harris in 2024 NC.

There is a level of MAGA crazy and non-threatening Democrat that will cause some conservative voters who are mostly satisfied with life to vote for Dems as the safer choice.

[Benjamin Smith @BenjaminSmith13]

@WatsonLadd @InlandCaGuy states would because they have a precarious security situation, regardless of the difference in outcomes.

And I think that people have equal moral worth and that if you increase the collateral and humanitarian cost, responses become immoral that would otherwise be acceptable.

[Benjamin Smith @BenjaminSmith13]

@WatsonLadd @InlandCaGuy Depends how powerful the neighbor is, but ceterus paribus probably they'd do lots of the same stuff. But so what?

This may just be the fundamental disagreement. Some people seem to think that it is morally acceptable for Israel to carry out the same kinds of actions that other

[Benjamin Smith @BenjaminSmith13]

@PyleoThoughts @mattyglesias I dunno what the heat pump math is, but in terms of raw electricity prices, New England rates are ~25% higher than NY, outside of ConEd in the city.

[Benjamin Smith @BenjaminSmith13]

@KeyserSozeThree @SeanTrende @shaunhundle @nick_field90 These are the more unionist areas where plantation slavery was never viable and with pre-existing animosity toward the coastal planter class. And they were persistently under-represented at the state legislative level.