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29 April, 2022

The False Narrative That Ethnic Studies Courses Improve Student Learning

When Gavin Newsom signed California’s Ethnic Studies (ES) requirement into law, he indicated one reason why was that “a number of studies have shown these courses boost student achievement.” But the reality is that there is no significant evidence these courses boost student achievement.

The most prominent studies regarding the positive effect of ES are from Stanford researchers who studied an ES program that was implemented in five high schools in the San Francisco Unified School District, before being required in all district schools in 2016. But the positive conclusions drawn from these studies are erroneous, reflecting a flawed experimental design and inappropriate inferences. I was never a fan of the old saw, “There are lies, damn lies, and statistics,” because the peer-review process within academic publishing roots out deficiencies and mistakes in research. But in this case, it didn’t. Not even close.

Long story short, ES was supposed to have been taken by students with a GPA of less than 2.0 in the five San Francisco schools. The researchers believed that they could draw sharp statistical inference about the impact of ES by comparing future outcomes of students just under the 2.0 GPA threshold with those students who had a GPA just over the threshold but who didn’t take the course. Their main finding was nothing less than shocking. They concluded that taking an ES course raised the overall GPA of students by 1.4 points, in effect saying that the ES course turned a sub-C student into a B+ student. The magnitude of this treatment effect from a single intervention is literally unheard of in education circles.

But as is often the case when something is too good to be true, it turns out the Stanford analysis does not support such a conclusion. Research conducted by Richard Sander of UCLA and Abraham Wyner of the University of Pennsylvania highlights serious deficiencies of the Stanford study, so large that virtually no conclusions can be drawn from the research regarding the impact of ES studies on student learning. They note that so little can be learned from the study that it is possible that ES courses can lead to lower achievement.

One key problem with the Stanford study is that the both the treatment group—those students with GPAs under 2.0, and who were supposed to have taken the course—and the control group—those students with GPAs over 2.0, and who were supposed to have been omitted from the course—were polluted. The treatment group included those who should have been in the control group, and about 40 percent of students who should have taken the course did not.

Losing 40 percent of those students with a GPA under 2.0 created a very small sample, with only 67 students with a GPA under 2.0 in the treatment group. Nearly twice as many students with a GPA greater than 2.0 took the course as an elective. This means that the treatment group was primarily made up of those who should have been in the control group.

By omitting so many of the low-GPA students from the treatment group, particularly those near the threshold, and by including so many students in the treatment group who should have been in the control group, particularly those near the threshold, the analysis loses its ability to draw these comparisons. Moreover, only four teachers taught the ES course. This makes it difficult to separate out the impact of a teacher from the impact of the course curriculum. And if you are wondering if the high schools implemented any other educational interventions to help students with low GPAs? Well, they did, which means that the researchers would need to control for those effects in trying to measure the individual contribution of ES. But they did not try to do this, even though they were aware of other types of programs and student support being provided. Just like that, this natural experiment that was supposed to shed light on the effect of ES on student outcomes became anything but that.

For a moment, put aside the various weedy details here, and ask yourself the following: If an intervention is so remarkably successful, as the Stanford study concludes, something that could turn a C or below student into a B+ student, then shouldn’t it be readily apparent within the data? Shouldn’t the impact jump out at us?

It should, but it doesn’t. The researchers sorted students into groups by GPA, ranging from 1.2–1.3 up to 3.9–4.0, and reported GPA for these students the following academic year, after the ES course. As you might guess, students with very high GPA continued to have very high GPA the following year, and students with very low GPA continued to have very low GPA the following year. The students who had a GPA just above 2.0 had a subsequent GPA that was nearly identical to students who had a GPA just below 2.0. Nothing amazing about the impact of an ES course jumping out at us.

So where is the big effect that the study reports? Part of this comes from that the fact that students who began with a GPA between 2.2 and 2.3 had a GPA between 1.6 and 1.7 the following year. And the students with a GPA between 1.7 and 1.8 on average also had a GPA between 1.6 to 1.7 the following year.

All these students (a small number in any case) had a lower GPA the following year. It is just that the ones who began with a GPA between 1.7 and 1.8 declined less than those who began with a GPA between 2.2 to 2.3. Voilą. There you have it. In other words, “Hey mom, I know my grades declined this year, but hey, it could have been worse!”

Professors Sander and Wyner describe the Stanford research as “shoddy” and state that “California parents are not being told the truth about the education of their children.”

More broadly, ES courses have been required for the last five years in all San Francisco high schools. But if taking an ES course was a game changer, then it should be obvious in student learning outcomes. It is not. Test scores among SF high school students since 2015, the last year before all SF students were required to take ES, haven’t budged.

Requiring ES will fatten the wallets of those whose business is to teach ES and to train new faculty to teach ES. But there is no reason to believe that it will improve student learning outcomes in a state where more than 80 percent of Hispanic and Black students lack proficiency in mathematics and science.

https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=14135

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California’s Math Framework Lacks Research to Justify Its Progressive Agenda

The California State Department of Education has released a new draft of its curriculum framework for K-12 mathematics. While it is notably improved regarding opportunities for advanced work, the document is still woefully laden with dogma about politics and about how to teach math.

The framework promotes only the progressive-education approach to teaching math, calling it “student-led” instruction, “active learning,” “active inquiry,” and “collaborative” instruction. But evidence from the 1950s through recent times shows that this way of teaching math is ineffective. That evidence comes from scrutinizing carefully designed studies featuring randomized control and what are called quasi-experiments, which approximate the effect of a randomized assignment of students to different groups. Quasi-experiments look at cases, for example, where two adjoining districts with similar populations or two adjoining similar schools adopt different policies. Both sorts of studies are much stronger evidence than the case studies that progressive educators rely on.

In the spring 2012 issue of American Educator, the magazine of the American Federation of Teachers, top educational psychologists Richard E. Clark, Paul A. Kirschner, and John Sweller summarized “decades of research” that “clearly demonstrates” that for almost all students, “direct, explicit instruction” is “more effective” than inquiry-based progressive education in math.

Clark, Kirschner, and Sweller conclude that after “a half century” of progressive educators advocating inquiry-based teaching of math, “no body of sound research” can be found that supports using that approach with “anyone other than the most expert students.” Evidence from the best studies, they emphasize, “almost uniformly” supports “full and explicit” instruction rather than an inquiry-based approach. Yet when explicit, direct instruction is discussed in the proposed math curriculum (chaps. 3 and 6), it is deprecated.

To be more specific, the framework uses the term “struggle” (or “struggling”) over 75 times, typically in phrases such as, “Students learn best when they are actively engaged in questioning, struggling, problem solving, reasoning, communicating, making connections, and explaining,” or “Teachers should also underscore the importance and value of times of struggle.” While the former is a mouthful and includes essentially everything and the kitchen sink—with a notable exception of “practice”—the latter is a direct pitch for “struggle.” It is as if the authors were guided by Mao Zedong’s old exhortation, “Dare to Struggle, Dare to Win.”

Is it true that student struggle is such a critical component of learning that it should be singled out and treated as primary? The framework offers a variety of cherry-picked citations supporting this idea. Yet, it carefully avoids mentioning that research warns against excessive struggle as time-wasting and discouraging, often leaving students with incorrect understanding. In the absence of such cautions, teachers are likely to walk away convinced that the more they let their students struggle—and struggle is common with the inquiry-based pedagogy promoted by the framework—the more they will learn. This is like saying a child should be tossed in the water rather than taught to swim.

This illustrates two related major flaws that underlie this draft framework: what does “research-based” mean, and the quality of its citations.

State-adopted education programs and recommendations are supposed to be “research-based.” This does not just mean an article or two in a peer-reviewed journal. It means there is a consensus or strong evidence of effectiveness in the published research. If no strong evidence exists, a practice should not be broadly recommended. If there is no consensus, both pro and con evidence should be cited. An example of that can be seen in the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) Practice Guides, which identify practices as having strong, medium, or weak evidence.

None of this is indicated for “struggle,” or the framework’s push for “inquiry learning” over explicit instruction that is effectively unmentioned in the framework, or its ignoring of highly effective engagement with worked-out problems, or the framework’s lack of any recommendations regarding the proven effective spaced (or distributed) practice—the use of homework and quizzes intentionally spread over a period of weeks after learning a topic, to maximize retention. The focus on inquiry learning, which relies heavily on students’ struggles, has been discouraged by strong research. Distributed practice and use of worked-out examples are supported here and here, yet are ignored in the framework. Instead, the framework offers us “trauma induced pedagogy,” teachers who are considered exemplary for promoting “sociopolitical consciousness,” taking a “justice-oriented perspective,” and embedding “environmental or social justice” in the math work given to children. This is not even a weakly research-based pedagogical framework—this is an ideological manifesto.

In fact, poor and selective research citations undermine much of this framework’s recommendations. Dozens of citations refer to unpublished works on the website of Jo Boaler, one of the framework’s authors. More than five dozen citations of her published works exist in the framework, far more than anyone else’s, yet only a single one of her references was published in one of the top 100 influential education journals. Her 2008 study, cited seven times in the framework, had its accuracy and methodology called into serious question in an analysis by two California math professors and a statistician.

If the framework writers had wanted solid evidence, they would have relied on the final report and subgroup reports of the 2008 federal National Mathematics Advisory Panel. They would have made even more use of the federal Institute of Education Sciences practice guides, which are designed for teachers and curriculum writers. Instead, the framework’s writers pretend this high-quality evidence doesn’t even exist.

https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=14140&omhide=true&trk=title

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Dad tells teacher to 'f*** off' after she pleaded with him to invite all 24 of his son's classmates to his birthday party

A dad has unleashed on his son's teacher after she insisted he invite the entire class to his birthday party.

The man turned to Reddit to ask if he was in the wrong for losing his temper and swearing at the teacher after she demanded he host the whole class so no one feels left out. 

The 38-year-old said while the teacher had 'no business' telling the family who they can and can't invite to their party, he worries he took it too far by swearing at her. 

The man said his son Al's teacher called him up after she found out he was having a birthday party and had invited nine of the 24 kids in the class. 

'She tells me that she understands he is having a birthday party and that he invited a few of his friends from class, but not everyone. I said yeah, there are a few kids in there that he has problems with and also I don't think we can really handle hosting 24 kids and their parents,' he wrote. 

The teacher proceeds to tell the disgruntled dad she has a rule that if any children in the class are invited to a birthday party, then everyone has to be invited.

'I told her it is an event off school hours on private property in my home. She can no more tell me what I do there and who I can and can't invite anymore than I can decide who is invited to her Thanksgiving dinner,' he said. 

However the teacher was insistent saying she enforces the rule so no kids 'get their feelings hurt if they get left out'. 

'I pointed out to her that there are 24 kids in the class. If their parents attend the party with them then that can be upwards of 72 people and I told her that's just not a reasonable thing to ask,' the man said. 

He also said he asked if he then would need to invite the entire classes of his son's other friends who had been invited but the teacher stood her ground.

'She then said "Al is in my class. He is under my supervision. This is my rule." I then told her that Al is only under her supervision while he was in class,' he said. 

'I am the one throwing the party, and she doesn't get to make rules for my house or me. She then said if it involves her class, she does.'

After a 'bit of back and forth' the dad said he 'lost his cool' telling the teacher her authority doesn't go further than the end of the school day and the 'schoolhouse gates'. 

'If you think you're the one to make the rules for me, in my home on which I pay the mortgage on, you can go f*** yourself and there isn't a goddamn thing you can do about it,' he said he told her. 

While he said his wife agrees the school can't tell them who they can and can't invite to their home outside school hours, she thinks he may have taken it too far by swearing. 

'I am very comfortable with telling her that she has no right to tell us who we can and can't invite into our home and that it is crazy I might have to invite up to 72 people for my son to have any friends from his class attend but in truth, I do kind of wish I left that last "go f*** yourself" part off,' he admitted. 

The post drew in thousands of comments from Redditors many of whom agreed with the dad and defended his heavy handed approach. 

'Several different ways were used to politely tell her 'no'. She seems to have gotten the message with profanity,' one person wrote.  

'You declined her request, which was your right to do. Instead of accepting that, she argued with you. Some people won't take no for an answer until you get more forceful with it' said a second.

A third commented: 'She is ridiculous. My kid's school policy is that if you don't invite kids to your kid's party, don't expect to get invited to theirs. Common sense.' 

While the dad confirmed his son had not been handing out invitations in class for those not invited to see, some said the 'everyone or no one' rule was a common one at many schools.

'The reason behind it is that if kids are left out, you're basically throwing a grenade into the middle of a teachers classroom and then leaving them to clean up the mess,' one user explained.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/real-life/article-10749981/Dad-loses-temper-teacher-demanded-son-invite-class-birthday-party.html

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My other blogs: Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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28 April, 2022

Tenured female economics professor is fired for saying Black Lives Matter 'destroyed' Mount Royal University in Calgary so much she 'doesn't recognize it'

A tenured economics professor in Canada was fired for saying Black Lives Matter destroyed her university to such an extent she 'doesn't recognize it anymore'.

Frances Widdowson, who also taught justice and policy studies, was sacked from Mount Royal University in Calgary, Canada last year.

The academic is now calling for an open arbitration hearing with the school to have it out with the institution next January - but bosses are yet to agree.

Widdowson was fired in December for saying BLM had destroyed the college to such an extent she 'doesn't recognize it anymore'.

Activists rounded on her and called her a racist for claiming Canada's residential school program offered Indigenous children chances 'they wouldn't have received'.

But the lecturer launched her fightback this week as she pledged to take university bosses to an arbitration.

Meanwhile the institution refused to be drawn on any hearing, adding it 'will not be providing specific details on this personnel matter'.

Widdowson called for it to be held from January 16 to January 27 next year in which she can air her issues with her treatment, Fox News reports.

She told The College Fix in an interview recently: 'All of my grievances are going forward together at this time.'

The associate professor, who studied indigenization for 20 years, said she wanted it to be open so journalists could attend and report on the case.

She added: 'Without upholding academic freedom, we have no ability to explore ideas and pursue the truth.'

Widdowson is being supported by the free speech group the Society for Academic Freedom, which claimed some of her old colleagues also backed her.

The academic was unceremoniously dumped from her job at the end of last year over her comments about race. She had claimed BLM had 'destroyed MRU' to such an extent that she 'doesn't recognize the institution anymore'.

She told the Western Standard Online at the time: 'You're supposed to be teaching. That's your job.

'You can go on strike to protest police brutality but what does it have to do with you? A 'woke' faculty is now in charge. This isn't going to be good.'

She also found herself in hot water over comments about Canada's controversial residential school program.

She claimed it offered Indigenous children the chance 'to get an education that normally they wouldn't have received'.

But she said it at a time of heightened tension after unmarked graves were found at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia.

Her comments saw students and activists round on the professor as they called for her to be sacked. One petition, which was hoping for 7,500 signatories but only got just over 6,000, branded her a racist.

It said: 'Frances Widdowson is a racist professor who works at Mount Royal University. 'This is a call to demand that the university condemns Widdowson's hateful actions against the BIPOC community and that she is terminated for her racist remarks.'

It added: 'In ignoring the racist actions of people in power, we directly contribute to the systemic racism within our society.'

In January Widdowson signaled her intension to fight her dismissal, telling CBC: 'I was generally criticizing 'woke' ideas.

'Basically, identity politics that has become totalitarian, and is imposing itself on the university, and preventing people from openly discussing ideas.'

But the university shot back that it 'unequivocally supports academic debate' but 'academic freedom does not justify harassment or discrimination'.

A spokesman told DailyMail.com: 'Mount Royal University can confirm that Frances Widdowson is no longer a faculty member and we will not be providing specific details on this personnel matter.

'MRU is committed to fostering expression and free speech, and strives to be a model for allowing opposing viewpoints to co-exist.

'The university unequivocally supports academic debate and will always defend the rights of faculty related to academic freedom.

'However, academic freedom does not justify harassment or discrimination. Mount Royal employees have the right to work in an environment that is respectful and free from harassment.

'The collective agreement and MRU policies outline a process for resolving issues of workplace conduct, and decisions are always made following rigorous due process.

'The MRU community is committed to a learning environment free from harassment and discrimination for our students, faculty, staff, alumni, donors and the broader community.' 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10739637/Professor-fired-saying-BLM-destroyed-university-calls-open-arbitration-hearing.html

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Putting trigger warnings on books like Harry Potter does students a 'disservice', warns minister after University of Chester issued caution

Putting trigger warnings on books like Harry Potter 'to protect university students' is doing them a 'disservice', a minister has said.

Universities minister Michelle Donelan has called for 'common sense' after the University of Chester placed warnings on the first book of the JK Rowling series over 'difficult conversations about, race, sexuality, class, and identity'.

Its English Department sounded the klaxon to freshers on its Approaches to Literature module, led by Dr Richard Leahy, and even told them they could raise concerns with him if they had 'any issues' with the topics discussed.

But Ms Donelan today said students 'have to be able to live in the real world' as she questioned whether universities 'are getting their priorities right'.

She added: 'Harry Potter is actually a children's book. Fundamentally it is probably a multimillion-pound industry that has been franchised into films. 

'To say that we need to protect some of our brightest and our best from the likes of Harry Potter is to not only do our universities a disservice but to do our students a disservice.'

'And it's not the way to ensure that they can enter the world having those skills at their fingertips - the ability to challenge, to be critically astute - and that's certainly not the interpretation that I'd had talking to students, that they want or they need this from their universities.'

Harry Potter: a magical masterpiece or a triggering tome?

For most JK Rowling's wizarding fantasy is pure escapism - and a classic battle between good and evil.

But the University of Chester's concerns mere discussion of it could spark triggering themes is not the first time it has been flagged in this way.

Most recently an anti-semitism row was sparked over the goblins that run Gringotts bank over the suggestion they were caricatures of Jewish people.

It was claimed they were based on figures from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an infamous text that purports to show a Jewish plan for world domination.

Ms Rowling has always been a staunch opponent of anti-semitism. 

Meanwhile the portrayal of Dudley Dursley, who is one of the larger characters and is initially a bully, has prompted some calls of 'fattism'.

Ms Rowling has spoken about it herself and said Harry Potter characters who were 'on the plumper side' include 'several of my most important, admirable and loveable characters'. 

There are also some themes of racism within the books.

The series' villain Voldemort believes pureblood wizards are supreme and any other people are inferior.

There are also themes of loss and abuse in the books of some of the young characters.

A literal reading might prompt some to question why there are no mental health interventions available to them at Hogwarts School.

There has also been concerns raised at the lack of diversity in some of the books.

One of the characters Cho Chang has attracted attention, with some describing her name as 'stereotypical and inaccurate'.

And despite Hermione being one of the series' main characters, there have been accusations of sexism in the books.

Some readers feel many of the female figures are portrayed as being annoying or tag-alongs to the males on their adventures.

She continued: 'There are no trigger warnings every day as you operate. I've not met students who have called for these trigger warnings either. 

'They are not the issues that students are bringing up to me - they're bringing up sexual harassment, they're bringing up antisemitism.'

Ms Donelan also questioned the priorities of universities that have not yet signed up to the international Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, adding that the institutions should focus on tackling harassment and antisemitism rather than looking at trigger warnings on content.

She said: 'I think their priorities, fundamentally, should be the welfare, the wellbeing and the education of students.'

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is one of the University of Chester course's three set literary texts alongside Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games and Philip Pullman's Northern Lights.

The trigger warning, seen by MailOnline, tells students: 'Although we are studying a selection of Young Adult texts on this Module, the nature of the theories we apply to them can lead to some difficult conversations about gender, race, sexuality, class, and identity.

'These topics will be treated objectively, critically, and most crucially, with respect. If anyone has any issues with the content, please get in touch with the Module Leader to make them aware.'

It comes after JK Rowling's views on transgender rights has seen her criticised from some quarters.

But Ms Donelan said there is 'an undeniable link between quality and free speech', pointing to 86 per cent of Nobel Prize winners coming from countries with the highest rating for academic freedom - with just one per cent from nations with the lowest.

The minister added: 'Vice-chancellors need to ensure that they're not on the wrong side of history on this. We want them to proactively be supporting their members of staff - they may face criticism but certainly shouldn't face harassment when they put forward their views and their academic research.'

Today, Ms Doneland told a meeting at the Policy Exchange think tank in London that supporting free speech is 'no longer enough' and, instead, it is something that has to be 'actively defended'.

She continued: 'Where would we be now if the views of 100 or even 200 years ago had never been challenged? 

'As a woman, I doubt I would be a Member of Parliament, let alone the Minister for Higher and Further Education," she said.

'But, sadly, where once we found critical debate and arguments which were run on their merit, today we have seen an upsurge in physical threats and complete intolerance of opposing ideas.'

She said professors have been 'harangued and hounded just for doing their jobs', as well as 'prominent, well-respected guests no-platformed'.

 'Who would you rather employ - an inquisitive, critical, open-minded graduate, or a self-contained cookie-cutter graduate who is afraid to be challenged or confront new ideas?', she asked.

Ms Donelan also referred to the case of Kathleen Stock, who was forced to quit the University of Sussex due to her views on gender identity.

The minister said she found it 'completely deplorable' how 'balaclava-clad protesters forced a female academic to stay off campus under threats of physical violence'.

She added that Ms Stock's case was not an 'isolated event' as an 'intolerant mob' threatened the Israeli ambassador outside an event held at the London School of Economics just a few weeks later.

'We're not talking about peaceful protest here, the right of which of course is sacrosanct. We are talking about threats, intimidation and harassment', she said. 

Ms Doneland said Policy Exchange polling had shown that 32 per cent of academics identifying as right-wing had refrained from airing their views in teaching or research, while around 15 per cent identifying as politically centrist or left-wing also reported self-censoring. 

University vice-chancellors, academics and students should not 'allow the history books to record your name as part of the small cabal of the intolerant', she added.

Instead, the minister called on vice-chancellors to 'go into bat' for their staff and "put their money where their mouth is" on the issue rather than bowing to the 'intolerant few'.

The Government's Free Speech Bill has been carried over to the next session of Parliament.

Ms Donelan said she expects the House of Lords will have 'a lot to say on this subject', but that the Bill is less about what happens in Parliament than 'a culture change that will reverberate through the sector'.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10755255/Putting-trigger-warning-Harry-Potter-books-doing-students-disservice-minister-says.html

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Why I'm suing my kids' school district

I love the public schools in my hometown of Rochester. I went to them myself, from kindergarten through twelfth grade, and my experience inspired me to become a teacher. My husband and I both graduated from the district, and we chose to live in Rochester largely for the schools. We want our kids, who are currently in elementary school, to have access to at least the same level of excellent education.

But now I’m suing the school district. It’s surreal. But it’s necessary.

What happened? Last August, I was casually browsing social media and stumbled upon a teacher's post, which featured reference materials for a new "Ethnic and Gender Studies" class at the local high schools. The books immediately raised questions, but I didn’t want to jump to conclusions. So, I reached out to get more information. While my kids are years away from being able to take this class, I wanted to learn more about what’s coming their way.

The teacher instructed me to contact the district’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Director, who was in charge of training the teachers in charge of the class. I did so, but she evaded my questions. The Secondary Director of Education offered to share material with me, but all I received was a one-page course outline, a teacher training PowerPoint, and a lesson plan filled with "ice breakers" for the first two weeks of school. I also wrote to our school board and superintendent, but heard nothing back. And I repeatedly asked administrators for information that should have been readily available, such as course materials and student assignments. But after several weeks of trying to get answers, I received nothing of substance.

Eventually, the DEI director told me to send a Freedom of Information Act request. Since school districts are legally bound to provide public documents, I felt hopeful that I might finally get access to the information I sought. As it turns out, I was overly optimistic.

The district has devised new ways to stonewall my search for the truth. In response to my FOIA request, the district claimed that, other than the few documents I had already received, no other curriculum documents existed. That seems impossible, since based on my communications with the district, I had reason to believe there were already case studies, daily questions, readings, and Google classroom assignments. But the district refused to shed light on any of this.

What’s more, the FOIA requests alerted me to more transparency concerns. For example, I discovered that the district had removed the 6th and 7th grade Advanced Language Arts classes without following an approval process or allowing for public input. And when I tried to obtain teacher training materials, the district again attempted to block my efforts. While I paid more than $400 for the FOIA request, officials refused to provide copies of any copyrighted materials, despite the "fair use" exemption in the copyright law. 

As the months went on, and after talking with others who were charged exorbitant fees for FOIA requests, I began to wonder: Why all the secrecy? Why all the efforts to keep parents in the dark?

Betsy DeVos: Parents are ‘tired of being thought of as a nuisance, taken for granted’Video

Frustrated by the constant stonewalling, I reached out to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, which is helping me sue the district for answers. I am asking Rochester Community Schools to provide me with copies of teacher lesson plans, curricula, reading materials, video materials, and assignments. To be clear, questioning a class does not mean I am opposed to it. I just want to confirm that these sensitive topics are being addressed in a fair and balanced way.

Some of my friends and family have asked me, "Why do you keep pursuing this?" It’s a good question. If administrators had responded with straightforward answers, I wouldn’t have needed to go this far. But they didn’t. Nothing taught in our schools should be under the cover of secrecy. If there is any reason why secrecy is desired or needed, that alone is a red flag. 

For the sake of my kids, and for the sake of all other parents who send their kids to Rochester public schools, I need answers. We have a legal right to know what our children are taught in school. And the public schools that we pay for with our taxes have a legal duty to tell us.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/school-district-parents-rights-carol-beth-litkouhi

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My other blogs: Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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27 April, 2022

Science shows transgender education doesn’t belong in schools

School districts are embroiled in a battle over whether to teach children in grades K-3 about being transgender. Advocates recommend teachers read their young students “Introducing Teddy,” about a boy teddy bear who transitions to be a girl, calling it a “heart-warming story about being true to yourself.”

The books offered to young children make changing genders sound like a cakewalk. Truth is, it’s easier for teddy bears than for people.

For honest answers on what should be taught in public schools, follow the science and the US Constitution.

First, the science: A staggering 99%-plus of the population does not have the physical traits that cause someone to become transgender. People with gender dysphoria — a condition that causes extreme distress — deserve empathy and respect. But only a miniscule 0.6% of the adult population has it, says the UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute, an LGBTQ think tank.

A classroom lesson proposed for New Jersey 6-year-olds called “Pink, Blue and Purple” says children should be taught, “You might feel like you’re a girl even if you have body parts that some people might tell you are ‘boy’ parts. . . . No matter how you feel, you’re perfectly normal.”

Normal, no. It is a rare condition. Most gender dysphoria manifests in early childhood, according to a 2020 study at Cedars Sinai in Los Angeles, so guidance counselors and teachers should be trained to offer families help. But there’s no reason to incorporate it into the curriculum, inviting children to choose their pronouns and confusing the 99% who don’t have the condition.

The Human Rights Campaign and other LGBTQ+ advocacy groups ignore this science and insist that someone with “boy parts” can become a girl and vice versa.

These groups are teaming up with the National Education Association to steamroll schools into disseminating this false claim, even designating national reading days when school kids are indoctrinated with lessons about transgender characters like “I am Jazz” and “Born Ready: The True Story of a Boy Named Penelope.”                            

Scientists are still debating actual causes, but a consensus is emerging that boys’ and girls’ brains are different, and people with gender dysphoria have a brain structure that does not correspond to their genitalia at birth.

Transgender individuals process the sex hormones estrogen and androgen differently from other people. Exeter University researchers say gender dysphoria is caused by Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, in which “the testosterone receptor is mutated and faulty, and thus cannot function.”

The LGBTQ community is adamant this condition not be stigmatized as mental illness. When the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual used by American psychiatrists was updated in 2013, it changed Gender Identity Disorder to Gender Dysphoria.

Trans advocates want greater acceptance. But instructing young kids that it’s normal for boys to become girls and vice versa is going too far. Parents rightly fear their kids are being “groomed.”

In the last two decades, the proportion of minors saying they’re transgender has soared to 1.8%. Gender dysphoria used to be a condition experienced primarily by young boys. It’s suddenly shifted to teens born female. Brown University’s Lisa Littman calls this “social contagion,” meaning teenage girls mimicking their friends and claiming to be trans, without displaying the classic signs of gender dysphoria that emerge in early childhood.

Children need to be protected from gender hysteria and moving headlong into transitioning.

What does the US Constitution say? We have the freedom to practice our own religion. Many Christians and Jews believe God created man and woman. They don’t want their kids indoctrinated in a belief system that claims a person born with “boy parts” can become a girl. Parents in Ludlow, Mass., are suing to stop the public school from teaching transgenderism.

They’re likely to win. The US Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit ruled last year that an Ohio public university could not force a professor to address transgender students using their chosen pronouns contrary to the professor’s Christian beliefs. This month, Shawnee State University agreed to pay the professor $400,000 to settle his suit.

Transgender advocates have a right to their views, but they don’t have a right to brainwash our kids with them

https://nypost.com/2022/04/20/science-shows-transgender-education-doesnt-belong-in-schools/

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DeSantis Signs Bill to Reform Higher Education

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a higher education reform bill on April 19 to hold faculty accountable, and ensure transparency with the curriculum.

Under the new law, which takes effect July 1, tenured faculty will be reviewed every five years by a Board of Governors of the State University System of Florida, which will consider such things as accomplishments, productivity, performance metrics. and compensation.

“Transparency and accountability is absolutely key,” DeSantis said as he signed the bill in The Villages. “We’re going to make sure that our institutions of higher education are committed to excellence, not ideology – we’re going to be even better than we have been, and we’ve been pretty doggone good over the last many years.”

The Republican governor told a boisterous crowd that Florida’s higher education institutions were ranked No. 1 in U.S. News and World Report for the last five years, but, with these reforms, he wanted to make it even better.

Senate Bill 7044 addresses three main issues that DeSantis’s administration sees as “eroding higher education,” he said. Accreditation, transparency in course descriptions, tenure reforms and allowing grandchildren of Florida residents in-state tuition.

“It’s all about trying to make these institutions more in line with what the state’s priorities are and, frankly, the priorities of the parents throughout the state of Florida,” the governor said.

The bill sponsored by Republican Senator Manny Diaz will also remove the “stranglehold that faculty unions and accrediting agencies have had on universities and colleges,” a written statement from the governor’s office said. It also “adds common-sense transparency requirements for tuition, fees and cost of materials.”

Florida’s higher education institutions are required to seek accreditation, but the bill requires them to “seek accreditation from different accreditors in consecutive accreditation cycles.”

The bill reads: “State Board of Education and Board of Governors (BOG) will identify regional accreditors that are recognized by the U.S. Department of Education (USDOE) that are best suited for each institution. Institutions must seek accreditation from identified regional accreditors and if they are denied by the regional accreditor, they may seek accreditation from any USDOE-approved accreditor that is different from their current accreditor. Prior to this legislation, accrediting agencies had a monopoly on Florida colleges and universities and were able to hold a hand over the operations of educational institutions and remove objectivity from the process.”

The bill also takes on tenured professors.

“Tenure was there to protect people so that they could do ideas that maybe would cause them to lose their job, or whatever, and academic freedom. I think what tenure does is [that] … it has created more of an intellectual orthodoxy—and once you’re tenured, your productivity really declines,” DeSantis said.

“The BOG will be authorized to adopt regulations for performance reviews of tenured professors to hold tenured faculty to the highest standards of accountability. These reviews will help ensure that tenured staff remain active and effective in educating Florida’s university students,” the bill said. “Previously, tenured faculty had to be retained despite repeated instances of political motivations, ineffective teaching practices and overall bad behavior in the classroom.”

Dr. Michael Poliakoff, President of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni said that the bill is the “guardianship” of the future.

“There is no doubt tenure without accountability is an invitation to abuse,” he said.

Florida State University senior Taylor Walker was in attendance, and said she agreed with holding universities accountable.

“As I go into my classes, my professors hold me to high standards, as they should—but this bill gives me the opportunity to hold them to the same high standards,” she said.

Walker, a first-generation college student, said her conservative views were sometimes “stifled” and that “woke narratives” are thought by some to be the only narratives that should be taught.

“When so many in this world, especially in academia, will put their own biased agendas over excellence, it is refreshing to see a government that applies standards to mitigate injustice,” the fourth-year history major said, calling the bill “excellent.”

Current Florida Secretary of Education Richard Corcoran, with two more weeks before he returns to the private sector, quipped that he was on his “farewell tour.”

The governor has kept his inaugural promise of making life better for the children of Florida, he said.

Corcoran also took the opportunity to address the decision on rejecting the math textbooks for reasons of inserting critical race theory (CRT) into the content of the books, which violates Florida law.

“It’s a math textbook you’re trying to teach two plus two equals four, and it’s like this whole hidden agenda of indoctrination,” he said of the books. “I don’t care how you feel when you’re doing the problem, just be able to solve it.”

He continued to predict that because of making sure CRT is not “infiltrating” the content of textbooks that Florida will “shoot to the top in all education metrics.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/desantis-signs-bill-to-reform-higher-education_4414185.html

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A University Will Not Consider Male Applicants for Tenure-Track Position

A prominent public university recently listed a job opening for a tenure track assistant professor position in science and geography. Reportedly, white men are not eligible to apply. Applicants are vetted in the first steps of the application where they must select one of four categories; women, transgender, nonbinary, or "two-spirit."

The University of Waterloo, a public university in Waterloo, Canada listed the job in March, according to the Daily Mail. 

“Two-spirit,” according to Canadian-based website Researching for LBGTQ Health, means someone “who identifies as having both a masculine and a feminine spirit, and is used by some Indigenous people to describe their sexual, gender and/or spiritual identity.”

Daily Mail noted that the role in the school’s Natural Science and Engineering Research division will pay between $90,000 to $120,000 a year. Though not considering men for the position would be discriminating against someone based on gender, the university apparently found a way to work around the policy.

“In the listing, the school asks applicants to fill out a self-identification form to ensure that they fall into one of the four categories, in an effort to 'address the underrepresentation of individuals from equity deserving groups among our Canada Research Chairs.'

'Because this is a special opportunity for a specific member of the four designated groups, applicant self-identification information will be used for the purposes of screening and consideration,' the university said.  

'As such, this opportunity is open only to individuals who self-identify as women, transgender, non-binary, or two-spirit.'

The stipulations from school brass may come as a surprise to some, as the university, which has a main campus in Waterloo, Ontario, and three more satellite campuses in the province, is a public institution, meaning policies that discriminate based on gender are prohibited.

'However,' the ad asserts that school officials can circumvent that policy by implementing 'special programs' under the Ontario Human Rights Code, 'designed to help people who experience hardship, economic disadvantage, inequality or discrimination.'

The school said those who self-identify as women, transgender, non-binary or two-spirit fit that criteria.”

Last fall, Matt reported how a Canadian professor, Carrie Bourassa, was placed on leave after serious questions were raised about her Indigenous identity. An investigation by CBC News found genealogy as eastern European, though she claimed to be Anishinaabe and Metis.

CTV News reported that some of Bourassa’s colleagues at University of Saskatchewan also worked to trace her genealogy. 

"What we found is that Dr. Carrie Bourassa doesn't have a drop of Indigenous blood in her and that she has been faking her identity for at least 20 years," Winona Wheeler, associate professor of Indigenous Studies at the University of Saskatchewan, told reporters.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/madelineleesman/2022/04/25/a-university-will-not-consider-male-applicants-for-tenure-track-position-n2606331

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My other blogs: Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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26 April, 2022

West Virginia is ground zero for the battle for broad Educational Savings Accounts in America

One of the broadest Educational Savings Accounts (ESA) in the nation is set to go into effect on Aug. 15 in West Virginia. The program stipulates $4,600 to West Virginia students that leave the public school system for either private schools or homeschooling. Any unused funds in the account can be rolled over to the next school year or used for postsecondary expenses.

But to qualify for the scholarship, a student must first have been enrolled in a West Virginia public school. Regarding a student currently in a private school and being homeschooled the “student could become eligible by enrolling full time and attending a public elementary or secondary school program in this state for at least 45 calendar days at the time of application.”

Meaning, unless they immediately enroll in public school, the roughly 14,000 West Virginia students who are enrolled in private school or the more than 30,000 who are homeschooling will be ineligible for the scholarships. The exact number is not quite clear as the reporting requirements for homeschooling in West Virginia has recently changed.

That said, all students would become eligible for the Hope Scholarship in 2026 if less than 5 percent of students statewide are enrolled in the program in 2024.

While the West Virginia Hope Scholarship is a major step in the right direction, and an excellent initiative for parents skeptical of their current student’s public school, excluding the families who have already chosen alternative education is not an ideal launch for a program. It also is unfortunate for parents of older children who will have little time ahead to use the money as opposed to a new kindergartner. The state should open the program to all students immediately, but with its expected cost, there may be a lack of funding and an unwillingness to reallocate other funding. This is unfortunate.

Out of the roughly 266,000 K-12 students in West Virginia, 90 percent will be eligible to receive funding to help pay for tuition, curriculum, tutoring, therapy, and other educational expenses in lieu of public school.

West Virginia’s Hope Scholarship Program, established by House Bill 2013, became law on June 15, 2021. Students started enrolling earlier this year on March 1 for an initial fund distribution on Aug. 15, 2022. “The Hope Scholarship Program is an education savings account (ESA) program that will allow parents and families to utilize the state portion of their education funding to tailor an individualized learning experience that works best for them” according to the Hope Scholarship website.

The program has its own fund created and managed by the State Treasury. A parental agreement must be signed prior to a student receiving assistance. Additionally, the funds will only made available through a dashboard in which educational expenses can be paid. No direct checks shall be issued.

The Hope Scholarship is an unexpected legislative victory in a state with a very powerful teacher’s union.  West Virginia Education Association President Dale Lee opposed the measure and gave the state legislature an F in public schools. This is at odds with the 64 percent of adults and 73 percent school parents in West Virginia who support Educations Savings Accounts.

The Hope Scholarships are just one of the multi-year, bitter battles that have been fought between West Virginia State legislators and the union. On Feb. 22, 2018, around 20,000 West Virginia teachers went on strike for 9 consecutive days. Public schools in all 55 West Virginia Counties were closed. The legislature then conceded gave teachers a 5 percent pay raise.

Many on the left considered this a major victory for organized labor and the birth of the Red for Ed movement where teachers went on strike in Republican held states across the country.

Less than one year later, West Virginia teacher went on strike again, citing being left out of discussions of a complicated piece of education legislation in the Virginia Senate. The bill would have allowed for the creation of 7 charter schools throughout the state and 1,000 educational savings accounts for parents to pay for private school. The House killed the Senate’s version of the bill and educators returned to work on Thursday. This was after the teachers demanded a second 5 percent pay raise in two years.

Fast forward back to 2021 and the West Virginia Senate passed a bill that illegalized work stoppages by public employees and called for withheld pay for any days missed. The House also passed its version of the bill, and it was signed into law.

Now, three West Virginia parents are suing state officials and seeking a judgement and injunction against the Hope Scholarship program. The plaintiffs argue that the program creation was the result of the Legislature exceeding or frustrating the West Virginia Constitutional obligation to public education being upheld as public right. This argument may not hold up in court as the West Virginia Constitution grants the legislature the power to determine what is thorough and efficient for public schools, not the courts.

While it’s unknown how this will end in West Virginia, the fight over education between red legislatures and blue teacher unions is only intensifying. West Virginia’s Hope Scholarship school choice move may encourage other states to take notice and let parents decide what education is best for their children.

https://dailytorch.com/2022/04/west-virginia-is-ground-zero-for-the-battle-for-broad-educational-savings-accounts-in-america/

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More Pandemic Fallout: The Chronically Absent Student

At one middle school, more than 40 percent of the students have been chronically absent this year. Districts are going to great lengths — offering gift cards, night classes — to reach them.

Schools across the country have seen a rise in chronic absenteeism, often defined as missing 10 percent of the days in a school year.

After the coronavirus pandemic pushed his classes online in the spring of 2020, Isaac Mosley, now 18, got used to spending his time outside of school.

Isaac, a public school student in Waco, Texas, finished his sophomore year remotely. During his junior year, he worked at a lumber company, where he discovered that he could still be counted as present at school if he carved out some time to check in online.

When he became a senior last fall, his high school fully resumed in-person learning. But Isaac kept working, earning money to support himself and his family while racking up dozens of missed school days and hundreds of missed classes.

Isaac is one of millions of public school students across the United States who are considered chronically absent — often defined as missing 10 percent of the days in a school year, whether the absences are excused or not.

“Chronic absence has skyrocketed” during the pandemic, said Hedy Chang, the director of Attendance Works, a national group that promotes solutions to chronic absenteeism, which has been linked to weaker academic performance and can predict whether a student is more likely to drop out before finishing high school.

Rates of absenteeism can be hard to compare nationally because schools do not report the data in the same way, nor on the same timetable. But according to a December report from the consulting firm McKinsey & Company, which defined chronic absenteeism as missing 15 school days per year, the percentage of students who were on track to be chronically absent was about 22 percent — more than double the rate of chronically absent students before the pandemic.

“While absenteeism rates for high-income students are leveling off, rates for low-income students have continued to worsen since the spring,” the report added.

“What we know,” Dr. Chang said, “is that chronic absence is exacerbating existing inequities.”

For school districts, attendance is a knotty problem. Showing up to class is fundamental to learning, but schools have little control over absences and solving the problem is not easy. Chronic absenteeism can stem from a variety of issues including instability at home, work obligations or illness.

Now, unsettled by the continuing shock waves of a pandemic, even more students appear to be falling through the cracks. And district employees — stretched increasingly thin by understaffing and absences of their own — are grasping for creative ways to lure students back.

Some are offering night classes. Others are giving gift cards for groceries. At least one has eaten insects.

When McDonough Middle School in Hartford, Conn., held a pep rally to encourage student attendance last month, about 16 percent of the school’s students were marked absent. That meant 51 children missed their chance to see the basketball free-throw contest in the gymnasium and the spirited dance-off between two sixth-grade teachers.

Still, it was not a bad turnout for a district where more than 40 percent of the students have been chronically absent this year.

In Connecticut, state data shows that chronic absenteeism soared during the pandemic, especially for Black, Latino and Native American students. This year in Hartford, where children of color make up a vast majority of the student body, the pandemic has disrupted years of effort to push that figure down, said Leslie Torres-Rodriguez, the superintendent of Hartford Public Schools.

“You feel that in the hallways,” she said. “You hear teachers saying to students: ‘I’ve missed you. Where have you been?’”

The district collected data on students’ reasons for absences and found that the most common included illnesses and quarantines, whether Covid-related or not; transportation difficulties, sometimes exacerbated by safety concerns or bad weather; suspensions over students’ behavior; and appointments outside of school, for example with doctors or social workers.

“We look at the barriers,” said Marjorie Rice, the principal of McDonough. “What we can remove, we remove.”

That work falls not only to teachers and administrators, but also to teams of district employees with tongue-twister titles like Student Engagement Specialist, or S.E.S., Family and Community Support Service Provider, or F.C.S.S.P., and Pupil Personnel Worker, or P.P.W.

Michelle Martinez, an F.C.S.S.P. at McDonough, said parents regularly called and texted her for help with everything from food to shelter to transportation.

She works with students, too, and has performed eye-popping antics at pep rallies in order to encourage attendance. Last year, Ms. Martinez ate a chocolate-covered cricket. This year, she ate a salted one.

The stunts were worth it, she said, if they brought more children to school.

“With attendance not being where we want it to be, we have to go that extra step,” said Ashley Jackson, an S.E.S. who often leads the pep rallies. She added, “They know, at the end of the month, if I have perfect attendance, I get to see Ms. Martinez eat a bug.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/20/us/school-absence-attendance-rate-covid.html

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A Critical Look at Critical Race Theory in America’s Classrooms

A growing number of states are acknowledging that parents—not schools or teachers—are their children's primary guidance counselors, especially with respect to sexual orientation or gender identity issues. (Photo illustration: ajr_images/ IStock/Getty Images)

Florida has been the center of national attention for weeks over its new Parental Rights in Education law, but it’s not alone: Across the country, state lawmakers are introducing similar legislation. 

Florida’s law—inaccurately dubbed “the Don’t Say Gay law” by opponents—prohibits “classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity” to children in kindergarten through third grade or in a manner that isn’t age appropriate according to state standards.

A report by The Heritage Foundation says that other states are responding to parent dissatisfaction by increasing classroom transparency and asserting parents’ rights as decision-makers for their children. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)

“Lawmakers around the country are considering parents’ bills of rights that affirm that parents are their children’s primary caregivers, prevent schools from compelling students to affirm ideas that violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964, require schools to receive parental permission before administering health services to children, and authorize parents to view the list of books and instructional materials for K–12 classrooms,” the Heritage report reads. 

In recent months, these five states—among others—have taken action to limit discussion of gender ideology in the classroom and to protect parents’ rights in K-12 education.

1. Alabama 

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, on April 8 signed into law a bill that goes further than Florida’s. It prohibits classroom instruction to children in kindergarten through fifth grade on gender identity or sexual orientation. 

The new Alabama law also limits who may use which multiple-occupancy restrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms, and shower facilities in K-12 public schools, “based on their biological sex.”

2. Ohio

As with Florida’s law, legislators in Ohio proposed a bill April 4 to prohibit teachers from instructing children from kindergarten through grade three on sexual orientation and gender identity.

The bill also would require any instructional materials used in grades four through 12 to be “age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.” 

The Legislature has not yet voted on the bill. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, has not yet indicated his position. 

3. Kansas

In March, the Kansas state Senate approved SB 496, which aims to create a parents’ bill of rights. 

The bill states, in part, that “a parent shall have the right to play a central role in a child’s education, to obtain critical information about what is being taught or provided in the classroom and to take action when a parent feels that the quality or content of a child’s education does not align with the values and expectations the parent expects and deserves.” 

If the bill becomes law, Kansas parents will be able to inspect any classroom materials, such as lessons, curriculums, surveys, and tests. Parents also would be able to object to any learning activities that infringe on their values. 

The bill also would protect the right of parents to “challenge the material or educational benefit of any book, magazine, or any other material available to students in the school library such that a successful challenge results in the removal of the book, magazine, or material from the school.”

4. Iowa

A proposed bill in Iowa would require schools to obtain parental consent to teach children in grades one through six about gender identity.  

The legislation also states: “If a parent or guardian does not provide written consent, a student may opt out of instruction relating to gender identity.” 

5. Indiana 

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita issued an updated parents’ bill of rights that, although only a legal opinion and not state law, provides what Rokita calls a “road map” for parents to direct their children’s educational and medical decisions. 

Among the parental rights listed are the right to “question and address your child’s school officials via letters, electronic communications, and in-person meetings” and the right to “make medical care decisions on behalf of your child.” 

Rokita, a Republican, said the purpose of the bill of rights is to ensure parents understand their legal rights to oversee their children’s education. He wrote:

The family unit is the vital building block of a free society. ‘We the Parents’ have the duty to raise our families and are primarily responsible for what and how our children learn. It is not the government’s job to raise our children, even if it wants to do so.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/04/19/more-states-move-to-affirm-parental-rights-in-education

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My other blogs: Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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22 April, 2022

Flirty emails got Mark Schlissel fired. A deeper history weighs on Michigan’s flagship

<i>This is a rather sad case.  To be a bit corny about it, Cupid's arrow strikes unpredictably.  Sometimes you just know that a person you meet is one whom you can communicate with in a totally easy and enjoyable way.  It happens to me on rare occasions.  Though I am perhaps lucky to have autistic tendencies and so have always had no difficulty staying on the strait and narrow with my partner at the time.  I think Prof. Schlissel was punished for being simply human.  There appears after all to have been no affair, just lovelorn emails.  I feel sorry for him</i>

He is a lonely, bearded scientist who has an important job in the Midwest. A Brooklyn native, raised in a traditional Jewish household, he is amused by a satirization of the sexual fantasies of New Yorkers.

He is married with children. But he dreams at work about a sojourn in Paris with a woman other than his wife — someone who enjoys a good bistro; someone who makes his heart hurt.

He asks saucily if he might “lure” her with a knish.

This is the portrait of Mark S. Schlissel that emerges from 118 pages of documents that the University of Michigan’s Board of Regents made public on a Saturday evening in January, shortly after they had removed him as president. 

In this collection of cringey communications between Schlissel and a subordinate, the university’s former top executive is stripped of his veneer of esteem, reduced instead to a lovestruck buffoon. All of it was so unbecoming of a man in Schlissel’s position, the regents agreed, that he should be summarily fired with cause.

Schlissel’s termination ranks among one of the more profoundly embarrassing firings of a major university leader in modern memory. Instantly memeable, excerpts from the emails quickly wound up on T-shirts and stickers. Before the Sunday sun had risen, some prankster had chalked the word “Lonely” on a campus sidewalk above a Michigan “M,” referencing one of the messages Schlissel had signed with the first letter of his name.

Turbulence around Schlissel was nothing new. He had, since 2020, worn the scarlet letter of a Faculty Senate vote of no-confidence, drawing the ire of professors for his handling of the pandemic, among other things. His tensions with the board, whose members are elected by statewide vote, had begun to bleed into public view. Even so, most expected this to end just as it often does for people in Schlissel’s rarified air: The president walks away with warm regards from the board and giant fistfuls of money. Schlissel’s transgressions upset this timeworn choreography.

But his story is about more than a president getting crosswise with his board, or what appears to have been a workplace romance. The university’s recent history imbues his downfall with a complicated resonance that people in Ann Arbor are still sorting through. His firing came less than two years after Schlissel dismissed the university’s [black] provost, Martin A. Philbert, who was accused of sexually harassing multiple women over the course of 15 years at Michigan.

Taken together, the two cases sent a message that the the university’s problems with sexual misconduct go all the way to the top. It isn’t that simple. There is nothing in the public evidence that would definitively establish that Schlissel engaged in sexual harassment. Even so, he gave fodder to a more systematic criticism that Michigan’s leaders still don’t get it. After all of the apologies, the legal settlements, the training sessions, the promises, and the shame, something has yet to sink in at the highest levels. Something is left to understand.

Since Philbert’s firing, in 2020, the university has signaled its willingness to turn over every rock, hiring an outside law firm to investigate how the system failed. As president, Schlissel was a visible champion of this work. But new reporting from The Chronicle suggests that the job remains unfinished. 

A retired professor, who has not previously discussed with the news media her role in the Philbert case, told The Chronicle that she was met with intimidation and indifference more than 15 years ago, when she first reported allegations against the future provost. Another faculty member, who has not spoken with news reporters about the case before, said she was twice told that decision makers at the university believed in Philbert’s capacity for “rehabilitation.”

The University of Michigan’s administration considers the matter of Martin A. Philbert settled. But Schlissel’s firing cracks open history, inviting still unanswered questions. When powerful people cross the lines of propriety, who renders the final verdict on what really happened? Whose memory counts? Who is burdened by history, and who is allowed to forget it?

Why exactly was Schlissel fired? On a recent afternoon at Zingerman’s Delicatessen, a storied sandwich shop in Ann Arbor’s Kerrytown District, Jordan B. Acker confronts that question over a chicken-pesto sandwich. Acker, a 37-year-old lawyer from the Detroit suburbs, is chairman of the Board of Regents. On the subject of Schlissel’s termination, Acker stays mostly on script. He circles back continually to a letter that the board sent to Schlissel in January, stating the regents’ rationale for firing the president with cause.

“I think the letter kind of speaks for itself,” Acker says. ”It’s a judgment question at the end of the day. And I think it’s clear from the letter, what was lacking here was judgment.”

Strictly speaking, Schlissel was fired for violating a morals clause in his contract, which stipulated that he must at all times comport himself in a manner that promotes the “dignity, reputation, and academic excellence of the university.” Nevertheless, the board saw fit to invoke the past, calling Schlissel’s conduct “particularly egregious” in light of his commitment to stamp out sexual misconduct at the university. The letter lets the reader decide exactly what’s being charged here. Is the board calling Schlissel a hypocrite or accusing him of harassment?

“Mark Schlissel is not a monster,” Acker says. “He’s not an evil, evil guy. Mark Schlissel was guilty of extraordinarily poor judgment. But I put him and Martin Philbert in very different categories. Martin Philbert was engaged in sexual harassment. I can’t say the same about Mark Schlissel.”

https://archive.ph/4od8N

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Ex-school official sues Virginia board over anti-racism training

A former assistant principal is suing a Virginia school board, claiming that she was forced out of her job for a “slip of the tongue” during a mandatory “anti-racism” training based on Critical Race Theory.

Emily Mais, who was the assistant principal at Agnor-Hurt Elementary School, accused the school district in a lawsuit filed Thursday of pushing her out in fall 2021 after she mistakenly used the words “colored people” as she railed against the training session.

Though Mais apologized for the “slip of the tongue, ”a teacher’s aide, who is black, verbally attacked her in front of all training attendees, the lawsuit filed in Albemarle County claims.

The aide accused her of “speaking like old racists who told people of color to go to the back of the bus,” the complaint claims.

Following that training, Mais said that multiple colleagues told her that the teacher’s aide and her friends were openly calling her vulgar names at work, including ‘that white racist b—-h” and “that two-faced racist b—-h”

Mais complained to the principal that the harassment was causing her “substantial emotional distress, preventing her from focusing on her job, and making it impossible for her to effectively manage the employees involved in the harassment.”

But the principal refused to take any action to address her concerns, the complaint says.

Mais submitted her resignation on Aug. 29 and left her job on Sept. 10, after being forced to apologize to her colleagues in what her lawyers described as “ritual shaming.”

“On information and belief, from beginning to end, the apology meeting was carefully orchestrated by district officials to humiliate, shame, and traumatize Ms. Mais for an accidental slip of the tongue in order to make an example of her and to communicate to other district employees the type of punishment that would occur if anyone dared question the new reigning anti-racist orthodoxy, which is racist at its core,” the filing says.

The 45-page lawsuit filed by conservative Christian legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom on her behalf is seeking back pay, compensatory and punitive damages, as well as attorneys’ fees.

“Instead of training faculty members to embrace students of all races, Albemarle County school officials are using a curriculum that promotes racial discrimination,” Kate Anderson, director of the ADF Center for Parental Rights, said in a prepared statement.

“The training sets up a classic Catch-22: It encourages all staff members to ‘speak their truth,’ but when a white person like Emily raises concerns about the divisive content, she is deemed a racist in need of further ‘anti-racism’ instruction.

“Emily believes every person is made in the image of God and entitled to equal treatment and respect and refuses to participate in using harmful ideology to indoctrinate students, teachers, or staff.”

Phil Giaramita, a district spokesman, told The Post in an email that officials have not yet been served with the lawsuit and have not had the chance to review its allegations.

“We are looking forward to the opportunity at some point in the future to responding to the suit’s claims in the appropriate legal forum,” he added.

https://nypost.com/2022/04/19/emily-mais-sue-over-critical-race-theory-training/

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Are Law Schools Now Woke Factories?

Students at three recent college events threatened violence against conservative speakers, along with the student groups that invited them to speak on campus. 

This may be commonplace today, but what makes this hostility so much more shocking is that it occurred at colleges once considered eminent law schools: Georgetown University Law Center, Hastings College of Law at the University of California, and Yale Law School.

These future lawyers and their professors have shown us precisely what they think of free speech and open inquiry when the wrong people with the wrong views come to campus.

These identity politics-fueled attacks threaten to undermine legal education. As we have learned, nothing stays on campus anymore. Rank illiberalism in law schools will ripple through the profession and its institutions in due course.

At Georgetown University Law Center, Ilya Shapiro was put on administrative leave in January of this year, days before beginning his tenure as executive director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution. The reason: Shapiro had tweeted that President Joe Biden’s nominee “will always have an asterisk attached” because the president promised to “only consider black women.” 

Shapiro noted that Sri Srinivasan, who currently sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, was the “best pick for Biden.” The “latest intersectionality hierarchy,” excluded this judge, he argued, and “so we’ll get [a] lesser black woman.” 

Shapiro apologized for how the tweets were worded, and in isolation they read poorly. His argument buried behind this phrasing was obvious: We should not elevate candidates to the Supreme Court based on race and gender. Rather than contend with this claim, Georgetown Law suspended Shapiro for an insensitive tweet. 

The call to terminate Shapiro has been publicly made by the Georgetown Black Law Students Association. Georgetown Law Dean William Treanor in a note to the law school community fabricated the wording of the tweets, stating that Shapiro had suggested “that the best Supreme Court nominee could not be a Black woman.” 

Translation: This is a closed society, and Shapiro unartfully opened questions and debates that we will not have here.

That was a false characterization by Treanor, and it fanned the flames, leading to calls to action across campus. Treanor further stated that “Ilya Shapiro’s tweets are antithetical to the work that we do here every day to build inclusion, belonging, and respect for diversity.” 

Students at Georgetown Law are learning how they should handle their disagreements with others. They should cancel them, suspend them, even fire them. Why not make arguments against his position, and teach your students how lawyers should behave?

Instead, the administration chose intolerance. Is it any wonder that some students have petitioned the school for a cry room so that they can grieve and process such manifest racism and bigotry? 

Shapiro remains on administrative leave to this day.

Students from other campuses have taken their cues from Georgetown Law, including the Hastings School of Law, where Shapiro was recently shouted down at a debate with another professor about the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Video of the event depicts near endless verbal assaults, yelling, and cursing. Members of the Black Law Student Association demanded that Shapiro be removed from campus. Shapiro at one point was directly impeded from approaching the lectern. 

One student said, “We can’t have a bigot on campus.” Another exclaimed, “Remove him off the f—ing campus, because that’s what we want.”

Two professors explicitly affirmed the protests, their aims, and their methods. One of those professors, Rory Hastings, was set to debate Shapiro. And in the video of the event, he stated that he was for the protest.

Another professor, Veena Dubal, said on Twitter: “For me, the central intellectual query here is not whether Shapiro can speak, but why he was invited. Why is the voice of someone who has made overtly racist & misogynist statements being elevated?”

At least the Hastings administration affirmed free speech in an email sent to the law school community, but it did nothing against the students who broke the school’s policies with their thug tactics during Shapiro’s appearance. And that omission speaks loudly to students about what is favored and disfavored speech.

At Yale, an event with Kristen Waggoner, Alliance Defending Freedom general counsel, and Monica Miller with the American Humanist Association was interrupted in a physically intimidating and violent fashion by students. Video of the event evinces high-pitched sounds of shrieking voices. The police were called and were, apparently, needed. 

Waggoner left campus in a police vehicle. Students who organized the event and the speakers both reported feeling unsafe and would not leave without security. 

The student mob also pounded walls, blocked exits, yelled at speakers, and physically threatened Federalist Society students who organized the event.

This is more absurd, totalitarian behavior at a law school. We are talking about representatives from two organizations of remarkably different philosophies appearing together in general agreement about free speech.

What was so explosive about the event?

The event showcased the work both the Alliance Defending Freedom and the American Humanist Association performed together in the case Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski, in which the Supreme Court ruled that government officials can be held accountable for violating constitutionally protected freedoms.

A student was prevented from talking about the Gospel on his campus, and Alliance Defending Freedom represented the student and the American Humanist Association filed a “friend of the court” brief. So far, so good.

The ire of the students seems to have been triggered not by the actual work that Alliance Defending Freedom did in the case. Rather, their actions signal that Alliance Defending Freedom should not even be allowed to exist and participate in the legal system as a matter of right. The students screamed “protect the children” at one point.

Alliance Defending Freedom, among its many sins against the new morality, opposes the au courant indefinite extension of pronouns, an ideology that now demands even children should be introduced to it. For many students, that is the obverse of protecting students. 

Protecting them now means to transgender them into the exciting malleable world of sexuality. Those who refuse this elastic notion of gender should not be allowed to speak because of the damage, hurt, and violence they psychically impose on students.

One way to become a better advocate is to listen to the other side, not shut it down. Waggoner, after all, has won at the Supreme Court, including the recent case she was at Yale to speak about to students. Her opponents might wonder what her secret sauce is. Those who are trying to launch their careers should have the humility to learn, to wonder. 

But that is what these law students refused to do. The point is to crush opposing viewpoints.

And what did they learn from their supposed academic leadership on campus? No punishments of any kind were dealt to the students who verbally assaulted the speakers and the students. Yale Law School’s official statement was that the administration was “in serious conversation with students about our free speech policies, expectations, and norms.” 

In other words, believe our lies. Mere words in a student handbook protect nothing if they are not enforced with official deeds. They are, at present, a dead letter. 

Yale Law School denied that police were needed at the event, and the school’s official statement did not state that its free speech policy was violated. That prompted Waggoner to correct publicly this “blatant misrepresentation,” admonishing the leadership of the school that “ … Yale administrators shouldn’t be cowering to mobs. They should be insisting on embracing a culture of free speech.”

Much of the animus seems to be caused by the conservative and more classically liberal approaches certain speakers and groups take regarding identity politics and its vision for our politics and law to be defined by race and gender.

Moreover, the students seem to be taking cues from members of the administrations of their institutions. Those leaders have either led the attempt to quell speech they disfavor or they gently excuse censorious and physically aggressive behavior by their students.

This obviously should raise concerns about who our future jurists are and what type of legal culture they want to instantiate.

With Yale law students, we deal with future leaders in the profession. If blanket resistance to students or speakers who in any way question progressive pieties about identity politics becomes de rigueur and goes largely unpunished, then it would be an early sign that an official illiberalism will extend beyond campus and to our courts and politics. 

Recognizing this nascent reality, U.S. Circuit Judge Laurence Silberman penned an email to the entire bench of federal judges noting the event and that those who participate in this kind of activity should be barred from federal clerkships. That was a positive first step.

The American law school follows an academic model of pedagogy, instruction, and rigor. According to this model, all relevant legal questions should be open and engaged, not closed by a vocal elect, self-proclaimed tribunes of race and gender. Yale’s students instead opted to bring the methods of a closed society to campus, preventing debate where it should flow freely if the academy is to remain true to its calling.

Legal academic training will always contain an adversarial approach, along with the inevitable human emotions and passions that must be restrained while making opposing arguments.

As befits the process of legal instruction, students must be inculcated with restraint, civility, and curiosity to form the mentality of a profession vital to a republican form of government built on the rule of law, in both civil and private law realms. 

Such a legal system demands that its practitioners exercise an ethic of decency within a demanding, competitive profession.

Rule of law is about form, procedure, and process, if it’s about anything. But that demands discipline on the part of lawyers, judges, and other key actors.

The pedagogical process, one that initiates students into the world of lawyering and its demands for civility, must be defended by academics and deans of law schools. Here there can be no neutrality.

That we are having this conversation is another sign that identity politics—its thorough envelopment of many law school students and school administration members—always manifests itself in an authoritarian, illiberal style. Our constitutional order needs to develop antibodies quickly to ward it off. 

Some could be forgiven for concluding that to protect it we need to defund law schools.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/04/08/are-law-schools-now-woke-factories/

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My other blogs: Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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21 April, 2022

The blessing of 'rote' memory

<i>I agree with Jeff Jacoby below.  The poetry I memorized in my student days is a lasting pleasure to me.  Sometimes I just recite it in my head and sometimes I recite it out loud for an audience.  I know, for instance,  about the first hundred lines of Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" by heart  -- in the original Middle English.  I once won a heart by reciting it to a lady.  

I also once got a very good response from a brilliant lady by reciting in an appropriate setting Goethe's </I>Meeres Stille</i>, even though the lady knew no German

I also enjoy Tennyson's poems but since "Break, Break, Break" is in fact praise of a homosexual love I have never recited it to anyone</i>

HERE'S A hypothesis: Perhaps one factor in Volodymyr Zelensky's skill as a wartime political leader is his training as an actor, which developed his ability to rally followers, evoke empathy, and convincingly express the justice of the cause for which Ukraine is fighting. Arguably, the many years Zelensky spent memorizing scripts and honing the ability to deliver lines effectively are now contributing to his effectiveness as Ukraine's president. 

In a similar vein, historians have argued that Ronald Reagan's experience in Hollywood prepared him to become the "Great Communicator" who later proved so successful as president of the United States.

Winston Churchill wasn't a professional actor. But he too committed prodigious amounts of material to memory — not only entire speeches to be delivered in Parliament, but also vast swaths of Shakespeare's plays. Richard Burton ruefully recalled playing Hamlet in a performance attended by Churchill, who, from his seat in the audience, could be heard reciting the prince of Denmark's lines. "I could not shake him off," Burton said. "I tried going fast. I tried going slow. . . . He knew the play absolutely backward; he knows perhaps a dozen of Shakespeare's plays intimately." 

More than one observer has suggested that the rhetoric in Churchill's wartime speeches echoes the inspiriting patriotism — "We few, we band of brothers" — of the message delivered by Shakespeare's Henry V before the Battle of Agincourt.

I don't want to overstate the point. It does seem plausible to me that practice at memorizing texts and reciting them by heart would be an asset for anyone with political aspirations. But memorization is a wonderful and valuable activity regardless of any political benefits.

There was a time when memorization was a standard feature of American schooling. In 1927, New York City's board of education directed grade school teachers to teach poetry to pupils, with particular emphasis on the use of rhythm, diction, and imagery. Children were to memorize at least some of the poems they studied. Among the material recommended by the board "for reading and memorization" in the first, second, and third grades were works by Robert Louis Stevenson, Christina Rossetti, Alfred Tennyson, Lewis Carroll, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. By the time they were in seventh and eighth grades, students were memorizing chunks of Edgar Allan Poe and Shakespeare, along with Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

Needless to say, it isn't only literature that can be memorized. The elements of the periodic table, the names and locations of the 50 states, the 46 US presidents, the first 100 digits of pi, the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, all the Best Picture Oscar winners — the list is literally endless. 

When I was 11 or 12, I took it into my head to memorize the names of every sitting US senator and governor. Some of my sports-minded friends knew the starting lineup of each American League baseball team. When my twin niece and nephew were toddlers, my brother taught them the names of the 15 former Soviet republics and their capitals. He would say "Kyrgyzstan" and, from their high chairs, they would call out "Bishkek."

Everyone memorizes some things — the multiplication tables, their Social Security number, song lyrics, the wifi password, family members' birthdays — but memorization for its own sake has long since gone out of favor. Writing in The American Scholar more than 40 years ago, the late Clara Claiborne Park, a professor of English at Williams College, commented on the disdain with which professional educators dismissed learning material by heart as mere "rote memory." 

She quoted one college professor who sneeringly called memorization "the lowest form of human intellectual activity." If anything, the rise of the Internet has exacerbated that attitude. "I've almost given up making an effort to remember anything," Clive Thompson, a columnist at Wired, has written, "because I can instantly retrieve the information online."

Winston Churchill was known to commit prodigious amounts of material to memory, including speeches to be delivered in Parliament and vast swaths of Shakespeare's plays.

But there is nothing "low" about mastering a block of information so effectively that you can surface it at will. Who has ever regretted being able to recite Rudyard Kipling's "Recessional" from memory? Or readily identify a bird from its songs? Or name the planets of the Solar System? You don't have to be a "Jeopardy!" contestant to relish having instant recall of thick slices of knowledge. Memorization takes work, but there is joy in the accumulation of knowledge that requires no googling.

The more information for which you develop "muscle memory," the more tools you have for thinking and reasoning — the more connections you can perceive in the world, the more insights you can draw, the more moments of intellectual serendipity you may experience. In that sense, memorized information is mental circuitry that provides a path for imagination and understanding to flow. 

Granted, memorizing "mere" facts and figures is not the same as learning to think. But it does stock one's mind, as Park put it, with something "to think about, to think with, a range of language to think and speak in."

Our brain's capacity for memory is immense. We really should be putting it to better use.

https://jeffjacoby.com/26166/the-blessing-of-rote-memory

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US professor wins $400,000 payout after refusing to call trans student a woman

A public university in Ohio has agreed to pay $400,000 to one of its professors after it rebuked him for refusing to use a student’s preferred pronouns.

In 2018, Nicholas Meriwether, a philosophy professor at Shawnee State University in southern Ohio, addressed a transgender student as “sir” when she raised her hand in class.

This prompted the university to launch an investigation into the incident. It found that Meriwether had created a “hostile environment” in the classroom.

The university delivered Meriwether a written warning that stated that he could be fired or suspended without pay for violating the university’s nondiscrimination policy.

Meriwether asked if referring to all students by self-asserted gender identity, and including a disclaimer in his syllabus that noted he was only doing so under “compulsion”, would comply with the university’s policies, which he was told would not.

He also offered to refer to the student by either first or last preferred legal name without using gendered titles, but continued to refuse to refer to the student as a woman.

Meriwether then sued the university, but had his case dismissed by a federal district court due to lack of standing.

However, in 2020, a three-judge panel from the sixth US circuit court of appeals ruled that Meriwether is allowed to sue the school, writing in a 32-page opinion: “Traditionally, American universities have been beacons of intellectual diversity and academic freedom. They have prided themselves on being forums where controversial ideas are discussed and debated. And they have tried not to stifle debate by picking sides.”

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/us/us-professor-wins-400-000-payout-after-refusing-to-call-trans-student-a-woman/ar-AAWoHaL?ocid=EMMX&cvid=fee1d9a68daf497286f960f586152572

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Education Dept. changes to affect nearly 4M student loan borrowers

President Joe Biden's Education Department again moved to ease the burden of U.S. student loans on Tuesday, with the federal government claiming its latest reforms will wipe out debts for 40,000 such borrowers and bring 3.6 million Americans closer to ending their payments.

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona called the current system a 'life sentence' for millions of low-income borrowers and pledged to correct 'historical failures' that have plagued repayment schemes like the income-driven repayment program (IDR) and Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program (PSLF). 

Borrowers working as public servants are eligible for forgiveness under PSLF once they’ve made 10 years of qualifying payments. 

'Student loans were never meant to be a life sentence, but it’s certainly felt that way for borrowers locked out of debt relief they’re eligible for,' Cardona said in a press release. 

'Today, the Department of Education will begin to remedy years of administrative failures that effectively denied the promise of loan forgiveness to certain borrowers enrolled in IDR plans.

'These actions once again demonstrate the Biden-Harris administration’s commitment to delivering meaningful debt relief and ensuring federal student loan programs are administered fairly and effectively.'

Roughly 41 million Americans collectively own about $1.6 trillion in student loan debt, larger than the total sum of the country's credit card and auto loan debt.

https://www.msn.com/en-au/money/news/education-dept-changes-to-affect-nearly-4m-student-loan-borrowers/ar-AAWnCVh?ocid=EMMX&cvid=d593475c8e3d4803a0956d25f7aaf5b7

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My other blogs: Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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20 April, 2022

Maryland Schools Spend $1 Million on Anti-Racism Consultants

An increased focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion in schools has led to exorbitant spending on outside consulting groups to implement diversity training.

In Maryland, Montgomery County Public Schools paid the Mid-Atlantic Equity Consortium, an equity consulting group, over $1 million since 2020 to implement an anti-racism curriculum in their schools, according to an investigation from Parents Defending Education.

The Washington Free Beacon reported that, while spending on diversity, equity and inclusion training for kids has skyrocketed, test scores have gone down.

Literacy readiness in Montgomery County has dropped 30 to 40 percent since 2020, and only 54 percent of high school students test at or above a proficient level for reading.

Former Montgomery County school administrator Dee Reuben told the Free Beacon, “Parents are livid. I hear this every day — parents are afraid to speak out because they're afraid of the repercussions that will happen to their kids. Academics is going down the tube, and I think that is a shame considering we were one of the top school systems around — it breaks my heart.”

One of the projects that the Mid-Atlantic Equity Consortium has sponsored is a survey emailed to parents, asking, “To what extent does [Montgomery County Public Schools] support racial equity and disrupt systemic racism through its policies, procedures, structures, and practices?”

It also asks if parents think their children should be taught to “recognize, understand and interrupt racism,” according to the Free Beacon.

One thing everyone should agree on is that consulting firms shouldn’t be able to charge millions in taxpayer dollars meant for education while students’ grades suffer.

https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2022/04/15/maryland_schools_spend_1_million_on_anti-racism_consultants_826026.html

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Commentary: Exhuming the Academy

On the East Coast, many have been following the suspension of Ilya Shapiro from Georgetown University, now lasting longer than an entire SCOTUS confirmation process. His accusers, law students, have called him “racist” and demanded that the university reserve for them a space to cry. Meanwhile, on the West Coast, a similar assault on free speech has resulted in a lawsuit, but that story, despite a relative lack of coverage, displays a much deeper problem facing the academy today: the politicization of scientific research.

Elizabeth Weiss, a tenured professor of anthropology at San Jose State University, is the plaintiff in this case. Her story is lamentable. In 2020, Weiss and James Springer published a critique of repatriation laws, which govern the return of Native American skeletal remains, a topic Weiss discussed at length with the National Association of Scholars. Activists denounced the book as “scientific racism” and shortly after its publication Roberto Gonzalez (Weiss’s department chair) and Dean Walter Jacobs of the SJSU College of Social Sciences held a symposium in response to the book: “What to Do When a Tenured Colleague is Branded a Racist.” Gonzalez called Weiss his “racist colleague,” adding that her work “borders on professional incompetence.”

Weiss wrote an op-ed in August arguing against a proposed mandate to re-bury skeletal remains. Once again, she was denounced as a “racist” and there were many demands that Weiss be punished for her position. A month later, excited to return to the university’s skeletal collection after the COVID-19 pandemic, Weiss tweeted a photograph of herself holding a skull, with the caption: “So happy to be back with some old friends.”

The university’s provost, Vincent Del Casino, was outraged by the photo. He wrote that it shocked the university’s indigenous community and claimed that there were “many things in the image itself that do not align with the values of SJSU.” The claim is dubious, as a similar photo of another professor was shared for a recent faculty award—although the original page appears now deleted—and Weiss’s photo on the department’s webpage shows her working with the skulls. Regardless, Weiss was barred from accessing the collection of which she was curator.

As bad as the assault on Wiess’s free speech is, there lies a deeper problem in the politicization of scientific research. Weiss understands this problem all too well and wrote about it in a recent article for Aero. She explained that social justice activists have intruded in her field of biological anthropology (probably for funding more than anything else) and are insisting that scientific researchers work towards political goals such as decolonization by “writing back” against “colonial mentalities.” As an example, Weiss criticized one paper recently published in a peer-reviewed journal, which argued for changing taxonomic names honoring discoverers. Why? Generally, those discoverers were white men. Continued use of the names supposedly perpetuates “colonialism” and “white supremacy.”

In another example, two anthropologists called for a moratorium on the use of cranial traits in estimating ancestry. Again, why? “Their use serves to bolster the debunked biological race concept,” the authors wrote, despite evidence that race (or ancestry, if you will) can often be determined by such features. Transgender activists have even argued against identifying the sex of human remains, as this could offend the victims of anti-trans violence. The fact that biological sex is an immutable characteristic useful in identifying homicide victims—transgender or not—is discarded.

All of this raises a question: what is the “professional incompetence” Gonzalez attributed to Weiss? Is it Weiss’s rational defense of contrary opinion? Or is it the scientific research which Gonzalez and many others intend on politicizing? Embracing the politicization of science is reprehensible, and entirely detrimental to the field. As Weiss points out in her Aero article, archaeologists Kent V. Flannery, Joyce Marcus, and others warned in 1994 that no matter how noble the political agenda, the science serving as its host always suffers.

“Today, more than 25 years later,” Weiss laments, “we’ve reached a point at which political ideology seems to be nearly decimating scientific research: within a few years, whole fields of study may be off limits. I hope that this is not the case for biological anthropology.”

Let us hope this is not the case for all scientific fields, not just for biological anthropology. Otherwise, when the academy is eventually exhumed, the remains of those who made it their crypt will leave future anthropologists utterly baffled. How the pusillanimous professoriate ever survived this long is mysterious enough, but intentionally starving themselves by making their own fields of study off-limits is truly inexplicable.

https://heartlanddailynews.com/2022/04/commentary-exhuming-the-academy/

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How teachers in an Australian territory could soon be forced to call students 'crew' instead of 'boys and girls' and encouraged to organise 'non-gendered' sports teams

Teachers calling students 'boys' and 'girls' may soon be a thing of the past under plans to create a more welcoming environment for gender diverse children.

In draft guidelines on gender identity from the Northern Territory's Education Department, a variety of steps would be taken to ensure those questioning their gender weren't being offended in the classroom.

School sport days would not be split between boys and girls while students on overnight excursions and school camps would be allowed to sleep in rooms and use bathrooms of their 'affirmed gender', Sky News reported. 

'Using gendered language such as 'girls and boys' or 'ladies and gentlemen' confirms gender stereotyping and roles and can be alienating for gender questioning and gender diverse children,' the document says.

'Avoid this by using vocabulary such as 'students', 'class', 'crew', 'everyone', people' or 'year X' that are more inclusive.'

Schools have also been encouraged in the guidelines to organise 'non-gendered' sport days, teams and events.

Rules around tight-fitted clothing should also be changed to cater to gender diverse children such as during swimming events, the document says.

'Many transgender and gender diverse children often withdraw from taking part in sport and physical activities because they feel highly uncomfortable or are forced into teams that do not match with their gender identity,' the guidelines say.

LGBTIQ students on school camps who require 'increased privacy' may be allowed to be given private rooms.

The guidelines also include a warning that concerns from other kids may be seen as bullying.

'If a child, or their peers, do not agree that they would feel safe and comfortable sharing, seek alternative solutions and acknowledge that this is an indication of possible exclusionary behaviour and potential bullying toward the LGBTQI child,' the guidelines say. 

Labor NT Education Minister Lauren Moss stressed the document which has surfaced has not been finalised and said the terms 'boys' and 'girls' would not be banned in the classroom.

She did not comment on the specifics of the guidelines but said the department was looking at creating more inclusive environments for LGBTQI children.

'We know that often these students are young people and children who experience greater levels of harm or greater levels of isolation or greater levels of bullying and we need to make sure that we are working together as a school community to support all of our students and make sure that they all feel welcome,' she told the publication.

But the draft wasn't well received by everyone in the state with Country Liberal Party Senate candidate Jacinta Price labelling it 'utterly ridiculous'.

'I'm stunned the (Chief Minister Michael Gunner) Gunner government would even consider attempting to apply any Marxist ideology into our schooling system,' she said. 

'It infuriates me. This government think that they can go ahead and make these decisions on behalf of teachers, on behalf of the Indigenous community. To suggest that terms like girl and boy are gender stereotypes and can be offensive is utterly ridiculous.'

She said the focus should instead be on lifting attendance rates in schools in remote communities. 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10731773/Teachers-encouraged-use-gender-neutral-terms-plans-Northern-Territory.html

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My other blogs: Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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19 April, 2022

‘Community circle’ classroom fad is likely to do far more harm than good

America’s classrooms seem focused lately on just about everything except educating kids: progressive politics, social fads, psychological tinkering, fringe ideologies. Alas, we must add group therapy to that collection of non-academic pursuits: “Circle conversations” are appearing in more and more public schools, and even colleges like UC Berkeley — asking teachers to play the role of therapist, not educator.

The Twitter account Libs of TikTok caught attention when it shared an example of “community circles” at an elementary school in the Austin (Texas) Independent School District, requiring kids to keep anything said there confidential. This is in line with a “restorative justice” initiative in the district that seeks to make the “circle process” a regular part of the school day.

What exactly is this “circle process?” As a University of California Berkeley’s Restorative Justice Center manual describes it, it resembles a religious ritual more than a classroom practice, with opening and closing ceremonies, a centerpiece bearing trinkets or candles and a talking piece — anything from a popsicle stick to personal jewelry. The ritual begins; the “leader” asks prying and probing questions, encouraging the discussions of “difficult or painful events,” as participants pass around the talking piece and share.

The manual recommends discussion of topics such as when participants felt harmed or had themselves perpetrated trauma, how they deal with negative emotions and personal history. A manual for the San Francisco school district encourages teachers to ask questions that are “edgy” and “controversial” and to use prompts that solicit “more intimate exposure.” The idea is to incentivize, reward and encourage self-disclosure, confession and personal vulnerability.

Supposedly, these circles prevent misbehavior by providing emotional support. In reality, they are a clear example of pop psychology leaking into school rooms — an ongoing shift from schools administering academic services to providing emotional support, with the teacher as therapist.

To which the American Enterprise Institute’s Robert Pondiscio asks: “At what point does a school’s concern for its students’ emotional health and well-being, however well-intended, become too personal, too intrusive and too sensitive to be a legitimate function of public school?” Indeed, the circles run afoul of ethical, practical and political concerns.

First, the ethical. The American Psychological Association’s code of ethics discourages counselors and therapists from practicing outside their area of competence. In managing the volatility of human emotions, experience and expertise matter. Teachers have a basic grounding in child psychology, yes, but nowhere near the competence to manage the tenuous scenarios the circles can create. They’re experts in academic instruction; deputizing them into a counseling role far beyond that expertise risks adverse outcomes.

The practical issue: Do they work?

Circle conversations are a key part of an increasingly popular philosophy of discipline that involves “restorative justice,” curbing a school’s dependence on punitive discipline — suspensions, detentions, expulsions. Yet when restorative justice nudges out punitive discipline, misbehavior flourishes; classroom disruptions, bullying and violent behavior all increase.

Meanwhile, as schools phase out suspensions for small infractions, many end up assigning more total days of suspensions; they assign fewer suspensions but for increasingly severe behavior with more days of punishment, so kids wind up spending more days outside the classroom.

Finally, the political. To no one’s surprise, many of the circle topics reach far into left-wing politics. A resource site for Oakland Unified School District has a workshop called “Transforming Whiteness.” The Berkeley manual has questions based on the writings of Ibram X. Kendi and Robin D’Angelo, and it lists “colorblindness” and “invocations of meritocracy” as microaggressions to avoid.

Progressive buzzwords abound across the sites and manuals — intersectionality, equity, social justice and so on, alongside countless activities and questions that center reflection on immutable characteristics.

At best, these circle conversations create a discussion format that gets inappropriately personal for a classroom and bears little-to-no good results, as untrained teachers tinker with the psyches of their students. At worst, they’re a shoo-in for fringe, radical politics. In either case, they don’t belong in the classroom.

https://nypost.com/2022/04/15/community-circle-classroom-fad-likely-to-do-more-harm-than-good/

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Florida School Chief Rejects Math Textbooks Over ‘Attempts to Indoctrinate Students’

Florida’s Department of Education has rejected dozens of K–12 mathematics textbooks after officials said they include “indoctrinating concepts,” such as critical race theory (CRT).

According to Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran, his department reviewed 132 submitted textbooks and found that 54 of them, or 41 percent, didn’t meet Florida’s K–12 curriculum standards or contained prohibited topics.

“Reasons for rejecting textbooks included references to Critical Race Theory (CRT), inclusions of Common Core, and the unsolicited addition of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) in mathematics,” the department said in an April 15 statement. “The highest number of books rejected were for grade levels K–5, where an alarming 71 percent were not appropriately aligned with Florida standards or included prohibited topics and unsolicited strategies.”

Specifically, 28 rejected textbooks “incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies” including CRT, 12 don’t properly align with Florida standards, and 14 were rejected for both reasons.

“It seems that some publishers attempted to slap a coat of paint on an old house built on the foundation of Common Core and indoctrinating concepts like race essentialism, especially, bizarrely, for elementary school students,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said. “I’m grateful that Commissioner Corcoran and his team at the department have conducted such a thorough vetting of these textbooks to ensure they comply with the law.”

Under current Florida law, public schools are prohibited from teaching key concepts of CRT, such as that one should feel guilt or shame because of his or her race or that the United States is inherently racist. Florida parents can sue school districts they suspect of incorporating CRT concepts and recover attorney fees if they prevail.

In 2020, Florida officially removed Common Core and adopted the Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking (BEST) standards. The state plans to fully implement the new standard after 2023, giving school districts approximately three years to familiarize their teachers with the new benchmarks and purchase new textbooks and other instructional materials.

DeSantis called the new standards a “return to the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic.”

When it comes to math, the BEST standards promote a simplified approach and focus on the usefulness of content. The Florida framework also has an emphasis on getting the correct answer, rather than using the required method, meaning that students won’t lose points for the method they use as long as the answer is correct.

By contrast, Common Core math has long been criticized for expecting students to master several different new experimental methods to solve the same math problem. Following these methods, some teachers have created questions that are confusing or otherwise have no practical meaning, causing frustration among students and parents.

“It really goes beyond Common Core to embrace common sense, something that’s long been necessary,” DeSantis said in 2020, when he unveiled the new education standards.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/florida-school-chief-rejects-math-textbooks-for-attempts-to-indoctrinate-students_4409338.html

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Why we’re giving $50M to charter schools to help kids catch up after the pandemic

By donor Michael Bloomberg

School closures and inadequate remote instruction over the last two years have created a crisis in public education.

The data are clear. Across the United States, students have fallen behind by an average of four months in math and five months in English. The results have been even worse for those children most in need, especially in schools serving mainly low-income populations, where students have fallen behind by an average of seven months.

Make no mistake: This is a real crisis requiring immediate intervention. Unless urgent steps are taken, many children will never catch back up.

That’s why it’s so encouraging to see that Mayor Eric Adams and Schools Chancellor David Banks have wisely expanded Summer Rising, which offers academics in the morning and enrichment activities in the afternoon. The program will serve 110,000 students in grades K-8, up more than 10% from last year.

Given the extent of the crisis, the private sector and philanthropic groups must step up, too. So to build on the city’s efforts and increase access to summer classes, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Kenneth C. Griffin, Stan Druckenmiller, the Carson Family Charitable Trust, Robin Hood, Gray Foundation and Walentas Foundation are committing $50 million to help charter schools create or expand summer-school programs this year. Through the initiative, called Summer Boost NYC, all the city’s elementary and middle charter schools can apply for funding to create and run high-quality programs. 

We’ll focus on helping K-8 students most in need of additional assistance. Schools will have flexibility in how they use the funding, which will help them target resources to where they’re needed most, but each will offer a high-quality curriculum attentive to improving reading levels and math fluency.

The vast majority of charter-school students come from low-income households in black and Latino communities, and they deserve high-quality summer-school programs. Charter-school leaders are eager to offer them, but they need support to make it happen — for curriculum, salaries for teachers and staff, transportation and enrichment activities that involve social and emotional development. The funding we’re providing will help them pay for all those things. 

Charter schools receive less in per-pupil state education funding than district schools, but the flexibility they have to empower teachers and principals — and hold them accountable for success — has produced extraordinary results. In New York City, charters outperform district schools by 10 points in English and more than 15 points in math. And many have reduced or eliminated the achievement gap with the state’s wealthiest suburbs.

More young New Yorkers deserve access to those opportunities, and our leaders in Albany should help provide them by lifting the state cap on charter schools. 

Nevertheless, charter-school students — like all students — have suffered learning loss over the past two years. And like all students, they should have the opportunity to attend a summer-school program that will help them catch up and get back on track. For many students, it could make a lifetime of difference

https://nypost.com/2022/04/18/why-were-giving-50m-to-charter-schools-to-help-kids-after-covid/

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My other blogs: Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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18 April, 2022

Massachusetts School Teachers Sued After Allegedly Encouraging Students to Alter Gender Identity

Parents with children attending middle school at Ludlow Public Schools in Massachusetts have filed a lawsuit against a group of teachers and administrators over the district's gender policy and failure to disclose students' gender identity to their parents.

A lawsuit was filed Tuesday in federal court by the Massachusetts Family Institute and the Child and Parental Rights Campaign on behalf of two separate sets of parents, who claim their children were encouraged by their Baird Middle School teachers to change their names and pronouns without parental consent.

The students were also told they could use restrooms corresponding with their new gender identity, the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit alleges that the district's policy affirming the gender identities of transgender students violates both state and federal law. 

And while the lawsuit did not identify the school policy, The Boston Globe Magazine reported in the fall that the district allows students to adopt new names and pronouns, and school staff are barred from discussing a student's gender identity with their parent unless the child offers their consent.

But in Tuesday's lawsuit, the parents claim the district has not implemented a formal written gender policy, violating a state requirement.

The parents said that guidance from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education was issued to school districts in 2012 after state law was changed to include gender identity as a protected class.

The guidance states that transgender students may sometimes not wish to disclose their gender identity to their families due to concerns about safety or acceptance. Because of this, teachers are expected to talk with the student before discussing their gender identity with their parents.

However, the guidance also explains that, when "young students" are involved, parents should be notified regarding issues on their child's gender identity. The guidance fails to define what is meant by "young students."

The suit asserts that one defendant, former middle school librarian Jordan Funke, publicly expressed to the school community that they were "nonbinary," told students to use gender-neutral pronouns on each other and encouraged children to "experiment with alternate gender identities without notifying parents or obtaining parental consent."

Funke is also accused of telling incoming sixth-graders in 2019 to make videos that featured their gender identity and preferred pronouns. The child of two of the parents involved in the suit, then 11, was among those students. Funke had not sought parental consent, according to the complaint.

Ludlow School Committee Chair James P. Harrington said in a statement to MassLive, "We want to support our students the best we can. But we should bring parents to the table, and hope they respond in a loving and supportive way as well."

But the parents' attorney, Massachusetts Family Institute President Andrew Beckwith, told The Boston Globe that the lawsuit is about parental rights.

"This lawsuit is about protecting the right of parents to raise their children without the interference of government officials," Beckwith said. "By deliberately circumventing the authority of parents over the mental health and religious beliefs of their children, activists at the Ludlow schools are violating time-honored rights guaranteed under the US Constitution and the Massachusetts Constitution."

This comes after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) recently signed the Parental Rights in Education bill into law, banning instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in grades kindergarten through third grade and limiting age-inappropriate discussions of sexuality in other grades.

Dubbed by critics as the "Don't say gay" bill despite there being no mention of a ban on the word, Florida's legislation also allows parents to access their children's education and health records and requires schools to notify parents of changes to their child's mental, physical or emotional well-being. The bill exempts schools from disclosing information to their parents if a "reasonably prudent person" would be concerned that doing so could result in abuse, abandonment or neglect.

Legislation mirroring Florida's parental rights law have since been introduced in other states, including Alabama, Ohio, Louisiana, Tennessee and Ohio.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/landonmion/2022/04/15/massachusetts-school-teachers-sued-after-allegedly-encouraging-students-to-alter-gender-identity-n2605951

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WA School District Launched an 'Ethnic Studies' Program Teaching Students to Resist 'Systems of Oppression'

The Northshore School District in Washington state launched an ethnic studies program early last year in which an Ethnic Studies Pilot Work Team was offered materials to learn about "transformative ethnic studies in schools that will aid in the development of an Ethnic Studies Framework."

According to a slide presentation from October, the purpose of ethnic studies is "to transform student lives by promoting healing from historical trauma, humanizing and empowering all students, and promoting civic and community engagement through action in solidarity with others."

"Ethnic Studies pedagogy promotes collaboration in learning, higher level thinking and critical analysis of racism and other forms of oppression," the slide continues. "Ethnic Studies further provides students with the opportunity to understand themselves and their intersectionality in relation to society."

And in a November slide presentation, the work team listed several bullet points detailing what "we are talking about" when ethnic studies are being discussed.

These bullet points include that ethnic studies intend to "eliminate racism by critiquing, resisting, and transforming systems of oppression," and that ethnic studies are "responsive to students' cultural, historical, and contemporary experiences."

A December presentation included a draft of the work team's "Framework Components" the team was working on. The themes from this unit were "Identity," "Power and Oppression," "History of Resistance and Liberation" and "Healing."

In a presentation in January of 2022, the work team was told that "Safe, brave spaces are growing" and that the ethnic studies framework should consider "Decolonization through self-determination and cultural resurgence."

Last month, a presentation on "Disability Justice" was delivered and team members were tasked with watching the video, "Paulo Freire and the Development of Critical Pedagogy" prior to the next meeting.

Students at the November, January and March sessions were asked to read a guide entitled, "This Book is Anti-Racist."

Each presentation began with a "Land Acknowledgement" that the Northshore School District is located in areas that have been "colonized, occupied, and renamed."

"We acknowledge the experiences of genocide, forced relocation, ethnic cleansing, and land theft of Indigenous peoples and sacred lands so we can build our awareness of how settler colonization still exists today," the acknowledgment reads. "We honor the ways of knowing and ways of being of Indigenous peoples and tribal nations, who are still here and thriving, in our district-community."

Nonprofit parent group Parents Defending Education, which obtained the work team's presentations, ripped the school district for prioritizing ethnic studies over subjects like reading and mathematics.

"Ethnic studies is being used as another avenue for schools to teach students, as young as pre-K, that the United States is systemically racist," PDE researcher Rhyen Staley said in a statement to Townhall. "The focus of curriculums such as the one Northshore is creating centers around the idea that society is filled with oppression and that students need to be trained activists to end that oppression. Schools should not be in the business of fixing alleged societal ills. Rather, in order to bring about real lasting change, they should be focused on how to best educate students in reading, writing, and math."

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/landonmion/2022/04/15/washington-state-school-district-launched-an-ethnic-studies-program-that-teaches-n2605950

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Teachers Unions' Other Foes: Liberal Parents

Khulia Pringle would seem an unlikely critic of the local Minneapolis Federation of Teachers. The St. Paul native embarked on a teaching career in the hope of improving a school system that she saw as failing her daughter. By the time she finished her training in 2014, she had grown so disillusioned with the public school system that she took a job with an education reform group, helping to recruit and place hundreds of tutors in schools across the state.

While she shares the union’s emphasis on pushing for higher pay and smaller classrooms, the self-described liberal education activist says the federation’s three-week strike last month provided final confirmation of her worst fear: The union and public education system place a higher priority on serving their own needs than they do on serving students and parents, 60% of whom are minorities.

"Students are just coming back to some sort of normalcy – they're already behind," she says. "These strikes aren't asking for any of the things that will solve the disparities between black and brown and indigenous children."

Pringle is part of a growing chorus of parents and educators across the country who are challenging the public education establishment. While much attention has focused on opposition by conservative parents and red state lawmakers to the teaching of critical race theory and gender issues, resistance is percolating among blue state parents like Pringle who have long championed teacher unions and progressive school boards.

The second front in the battle over public education is clear: From San Francisco, where voters ousted several left-wing, union-endorsed school board members in February, to Chicago, Massachusetts, and other blue enclaves, parents are demanding reform.

Teachers enjoyed immense support in the early days of the pandemic, but their unions’ reluctance to return to the classroom, even as scientific findings established children’s resilience against the disease, appears to have alienated a substantial number of parents.

In December 2020, Gallup found that three-quarters of those polled rated teachers as ethical and trustworthy, setting an all-time record since it began asking the question. When Gallup asked the same question in December 2021, the results were startling. In the space of 12 months, support for teachers fell about 15 percent, to “a point or two below their previous all-time lows,” according to the pollster. A 2021 survey from nonprofit think tank Education Next found the public held less favorable views of the education system than other public services. Americans nationwide were twice as likely to give police forces A or B grades than they were public schools – this despite the backlash against cops in the wake of George Floyd’s death.

The sagging poll numbers reflect a mounting challenge for public school teachers and their unions, which have long counted on public support when they have gone out on strike to secure better pay and working conditions.

“That trust has been so eroded because of what parents have gone through for the past 18 to 20 months, so now parents have to question what they are being told by teachers,” said Keri Rodriguez, a Massachusetts mother of five. “There's been so much overreach and they have asked for so much grace from parents across the country; well, unfortunately we have watched teachers respond with not much effort in remote learning.”

Rodriguez is an even more unlikely opponent of teachers’ unions than Pringle. She made a career in the organized labor movement, rising to an executive position at labor giant Service Employees International Union Local 1199 and served as chair of the Somerville Democratic Party. But even as she rose in progressive circles in the most progressive of enclaves – a city where Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by 89% to 10% – she began to question the party’s alliance with teachers’ unions. 

“Only in the education system are parents treated as if we should be passively going along and allow others to not only run the system but run it in a way that's beneficial to adults,” Rodriguez says. “We started to see how kids are getting the short end of the stick.”

Critics see this dynamic as particularly pronounced in the labor movement’s embrace of lockdowns and remote learning. The results could be seen in Minnesota, where high school graduation rates dropped for the first time in 12 years in 2021. In a normal school year about 90% of Minneapolis students participate in statewide proficiency tests. But in 2021, only 48% of district students took the tests – significantly less than the 80% of students who took the tests statewide. Those Minneapolis students motivated enough to take the tests from home performed poorly, with only 35.5% considered proficient, down from the district's 42.2% proficiency rate in 2019. Test scores during the pandemic also revealed growing racial disparities in achievement. Proficiency rates in math among black and Hispanic children plummeted by 34% in 2021, compared with a 19% decline among white students.

The results in Minneapolis mirror those in other major school districts that resisted the return to the classroom. Washington, D.C. public schools enforced some of the strictest lockdowns in the country. Performance among its students, some 84% of whom are minorities, plummeted during the pandemic. Racial disparities in proficiency were particularly acute. White children fell 4% in literacy proficiency as only 70% met district benchmarks. By contrast, only 28% of the district's black students met benchmarks – a nearly 40% decline. Black students are now less likely to meet literacy standards than Hispanic students, many of whom come from households where English is not the primary language, even after those students experienced a 29% decline in proficiency during the pandemic.

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2022/04/12/teachers_unions_other_foes_liberal_parents_826301.html

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My other blogs: Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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17 April, 2022

Court Rules Professor Can’t Be Forced to Endorse an Ideology Against His Beliefs

Dr. Nicholas Meriwether enjoys a spirited debate. As a philosophy professor at Shawnee State University in Portsmouth, Ohio, there is plenty of that to go around in his classroom. And he is not afraid to voice his disagreement or bring up an entirely different viewpoint.

That’s part of what makes him a great professor. In his class, students are exposed to new ideas and opposing viewpoints. They have the opportunity to grapple with what they believe and why they believe it.

Most people think that’s what universities—the “marketplace of ideas”—are supposed to be.

But not according to Shawnee State officials. Now, the professor finds himself involved in a very different kind of debate—on the opposite side of the courtroom from his university, after it tried to shut down the free exchange of ideas by forcing him to endorse an ideology that he does not believe.

Let’s take a deeper look at his case and the freedoms at stake.

Dr. Meriwether has served as a philosophy professor at Shawnee State University for over 20 years with an unblemished record. He is serious about creating an atmosphere of mutual respect in his classroom.

He is also serious about his beliefs. As a Christian, he strives to live and work consistently with his faith. In fact, his core beliefs are why he’s devoted his career to education.

Many of Dr. Meriwether’s students appreciate how he challenged them in the classroom and brought ideas to the table that were different than their own. As one student wrote:

You and I saw eye-to-eye on very little and that made those arguments all the more valuable to me. If you had only made a half-hearted attempt at a counterpoint or (far worse) neglected to even mention an opposing position in order to spare my feelings, you would have been fundamentally undermining my education. I thank you for showing me enough respect to bring your "A-Game" to every in-class debate.

Unfortunately, not every student felt the same way about encountering differing viewpoints in Dr. Meriwether’s class.

One day, a male student approached Dr. Nicholas Meriwether after class, informed him that he identified as transgender, and demanded that the professor refer to him as a woman, with feminine titles and pronouns. When Dr. Meriwether did not immediately agree, the student became aggressive, physically circling him, getting in his face, using expletives, and even threatening to get him fired.

The student then filed a complaint with the university, which launched a formal investigation.

As a philosopher and as a Christian, Dr. Meriwether believes that God has created human beings as either male or female, and that a person’s sex cannot change. To call a man a woman or vice versa endorses an ideology that conflicts with his beliefs. So, Dr. Meriwether offered a compromise: he would refer to this student by a first or last name only. That way, he would not call the student something the student did not like, but he would also not say anything that contradicts what he believes is real and true.

This compromise was not enough for university officials; they formally charged Dr. Meriwether, claiming he “created a hostile environment” and discriminated against the student. Later, they placed a written warning in his personnel file that threatened “further corrective actions” if he did not refer to students using pronouns that reflect their self-asserted gender identity.

That’s why Alliance Defending Freedom filed a lawsuit on Dr. Meriwether’s behalf.

And in April 2022, the professor settled with the university, finalizing his huge victory for free speech. The university agreed (1) that Dr. Meriwether cannot be forced to refer to students using pronouns and titles that are different than the students’ biological sex, (2) to remove the discipline from Dr. Meriwether’s file, and (3) to pay $400,000 in damages and attorneys’ fees.

When the university punished Dr. Meriwether, its message was loud and clear: You must endorse the university’s favored ideology or be punished. There is no room for dissent.

But universities are meant to be a marketplace of ideas, not an assembly line for one type of thought. With its actions, Shawnee State ignored this fundamental truth as well as the Constitution. And the 6th Circuit’s decision sent a strong message to universities: you must respect the First Amendment rights of all professors, and that means you cannot force them to say things they do not believe.

Dr. Meriwether took a stand for his First Amendment rights and secured a victory for every American’s right to speak in accordance with their beliefs.

https://adflegal.org/blog/court-rules-professor-cant-be-forced-endorse-ideology-against-his-beliefs

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Judge Dismisses Charges Against Parent Opposed to Race-Based Admissions

A federal lawsuit is seeking to get race-based admissions thrown out at the prestigious Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia. Pictured: Then-President Barack Obama visits the school on Sept. 16, 2011, and watches as then-students Meghan Clark and Nathan Hughes demonstrate a robot created in the school’s prototyping and robotics senior research labs. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

A Virginia parent won a legal victory when a Fairfax County judge dismissed four charges of libel and slander with prejudice Friday.

Harry Jackson, a former PTA president of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology who opposed changes to the school’s admissions policy, was facing libel and slander charges in the wake of claiming that a proponent of the new admissions policies exhibited “grooming behavior” on social media.

The new policies, which critics have characterized as “race-based,” eliminated standardized testing requirements and were found by a federal judge to discriminate against Asian Americans.

“It was a great day for parents maintaining their right to free speech, and if they see something of concern when it comes to child safety, to say something without fear of reprisal,” Jackson told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

A lawsuit against Fairfax County Public Schools that includes Jackson as a plaintiff seeks to strike down the new admissions policies as being race-based. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently granted a stay in the case that allows the current admissions policy to remain in place.

Jorge Torrico, a member of the TJ Alumni Action Group, an advocacy group that favored the changes to the admissions process, alleged to the Fairfax County magistrate that Jackson violated Virginia’s criminal libel and slander law by making the “grooming behavior” claims, according to legal documents.

Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney Steve Descano’s office sought to drop prosecution Thursday, but Jackson’s attorney, Marina Medvin, objected and instead filed a motion to have the charges dismissed with prejudice.

“The judge did not reach the constitutional issues of the statute that was used to charge the ‘grooming’ words,” Medvin tweeted.

“This is an important victory for not just Harry Jackson, but also parents and journalists everywhere,” Asra Nomani, a co-founder of Coalition for TJ, told the Daily Caller National Foundation. “A woke activist used a little-used statute to criminalize speech, and prosecutor Steve Descano allowed this harassment to hang over Harry’s head for months.”

“I believe this dismissal, coupled with the publicity from this case, will hopefully restore the public’s trust in the First Amendment,” Medvin told the news foundation. “Nonetheless, my work is not done. My next project is to get this law off the books. Next stop is Richmond.”

https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/04/11/judge-dismisses-charges-against-parent-opposed-to-race-based-admissions

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For the Sake of Our Children, Abolish the Department of Education

I don’t know if there’s a more reactionary, superfluous arm of the U.S. government than the Department of Education.

(Well, maybe National Public Radio, whose newsroom called the Hunter Biden story a “waste of time,” but NPR only gets a small government stipend.)

During the Trump administration among his most criticized appointees was Education Secretary Betsy DeVos—probably with justification. But in fairness to DeVos, no one could have done that job well short of turning out the lights and shutting the doors forever.

Education should always be done locally, as far from Washington bureaucrats as humanly possible. This local control should avail itself of charter schools, and school choice (obviously). homeschooling and every other form of education that people—largely parents—can devise for the better education of their children to prepare them and the country for the future.

This doesn’t have to do with money.

One of the great illusions, great lies actually, is that the more you spend on education the better it is. Of course, you need a certain amount, but at a certain point, the reverse is true.

Money becomes an instrument of control with the government withholding it if you don’t go along with their diktats. Further, fancy buildings don’t make a child smart. Never have. Some of the most brilliant people of all time came out of one-room schoolhouses, right, Mrs. Lincoln?

You don’t learn to read and do basic math from gleaming buildings. You learn in small groups, working hard.  

These days, few young people can write coherently or even parse a sentence. They don’t even know what parsing a sentence is. It’s rarely taught because considered too difficult by the geniuses with education degrees. 

The results of federal control, any federal control, including the egregious Common Core, of our children’s education, have been nothing short of horrendous. The U.S. public educational system, once the envy of the world, is a disgrace, run from above by people who would never think of sending their children to public schools but are certain exactly how we should run them.

This begins in our kindergartens where 5-year-olds are taught the likes of critical race theory (overtly or covertly) or explained the intricacies of transgenderism before they have the faintest idea of how to read or add and subtract.

In classrooms today, teachers no longer teach. They read from pre-planned syllabi as if they were robots. These syllabi, often filled with carefully crafted left-wing gibberish, are intended to make sure our children get a “proper” education but actually do just the opposite: cut off communication between student and teacher.  

This also produces teachers who are know-nothings, educated only in “education.” The process is circular and destructive. Teachers spend more time learning how to teach (i.e.. recite by rote what they are told to recite) than they spend actually learning information worth teaching.

Instead of imparting information or actually teaching, that function is left to highly manipulated technology in the form of iPads and the like that are given to students from kindergarten onwards. The outgrowth of that is what I wrote about the other day—5-year-olds putatively taught to read via “The GayBCs,” including N is for nonbinary, T is for trans, and so forth.

And don’t get me started on the teachers’ unions that are a conspiracy to preserve this system and exercise unfair leverage against taxpayers and parents who can only respond to their demands through politicians years after the fact.  They also who’ll be abolished.

I say that even though I believe that the greatest people alive are the best teachers, worthy of more respect than anybody, national treasures in essence.

Years ago, when he was running for president, I was a sometime speechwriter for then-Texas Gov. Rick Perry. I liked him a lot and he seemed a possible front-runner until he had that calamity during a debate when he couldn’t remember the federal government departments he would eliminate as president.

The truth was Perry had just had back surgery and was on painkillers. If he only had explained that to the audience, all might well have been forgiven and who knows what would have happened.

Obviously, one of the departments he would have abolished was Education. Maybe Trump or DeSantis will take up this worthy cause.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/for-the-sake-of-our-children-abolish-the-department-of-education_4396923.html

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Woke mob swarms Lt. Col. Allen West's speech at University of Buffalo

A University at Buffalo student said Monday she feared for life when she was chased by an angry mob last week after inviting black former Texas GOP Chair Lt. Col. Allen West to speak on campus about overcoming racism.

Therese Purcell, who is president of the Young Americans for Freedom at the university, told “Fox & Friends” she was forced to flee into a men’s bathroom after the on-campus event with West spiraled out of control.

Purcell said protestors derailed the Thursday night event — titled America Is Not Racist: Why American Values are Exceptional — during a Q&A segment with West.

She said the protesters — made up of black and white students — started screaming “no peace” and banging on the walls.

“I was really afraid for my life,” Purcell said.

Purcell said West was escorted out by police and protesters started “hunting” her down as she tried to leave. She said that’s when she ran to the bathroom and called 911.

“I don’t think they were going to do anything remotely peaceful. They were a very angry mob, and they were clearly saying that they were trying to chase me, that they wanted to capture me,” Purcell said.

“I’m afraid of what would have happened if I wasn’t able to hide from them.”

https://nypost.com/2022/04/11/student-feared-for-life-after-being-chased-by-mob-targeting-allen-west/

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My other blogs: Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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15 April, 2022

Did Universities Forgo Nourishment of the Soul for Money?

On the evening of April 14, 1912, Marion Wright of Somerset, England, who was on her way to get married, sang the final hymn in a religious service conducted aboard a steamship headed for New York. It was drawn from John Henry Newman’s poem, “The Pillar of the Cloud.”

Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,

Lead Thou me on!

The night is dark, and I am far from home–

Lead Thou me on!

These words were eerily prescient. Just as Marion finished singing, the Titanic hit an iceberg.

At present, universities are currently sailing through their own “encircling gloom”, and it sometimes seems as if universities are headed for an iceberg of their own.

Can the thoughts of Saint John Henry Newman, dead for more than a century, offer them any navigational advice? On the surface, this may seem a strange question.

Newman’s views on the purity of learning for its own sake are hard to reconcile with the current predicament facing universities. Yet, practically every book written about higher education quotes him. So what is responsible for his longevity?

His famous book, “The Idea of a University,” began with a series of lectures he delivered in Dublin in 1852.

Newman’s belief that universities should eschew practical employment skills troubled parents who worried about how their children would support themselves.

He attacked the utilitarian view of education, which values a university for its practical products—work-ready graduates, scientific discoveries, and ideas for new businesses. He did not deny that these things were valuable, but he saw them as secondary.

For Newman, the real purpose of a university was to develop “gentlemen” who “raise the intellectual tone of society” (women were not part of his vision).

His new university would abjure practical learning, banish research to special institutes and allow the Catholic religion to infuse the teaching of all subjects.

Today’s academics share few, if any, of Newman’s values. For example, they do not see religion as central to teaching, they would never banish professional courses, and they are firm in their belief that research is vital to a university. Yet, academics continue to turn to Newman for advice about the mission and practice of higher education in the 21st century.

Liberal Education in the Age of Money

We live in an age in which we measure everything in dollars and cents, including higher education. Want to make a good living? Have you considered our course on golf course management? How about surfing science? Interested in a trendy profession? No problem! Universities chase every fad.

Newman was one of the first to see the way things were going:

“[Some great men] argue as if everything, as well as every person, had its price; and that where there has been a great outlay, they have a right to expect a return in kind … With a fundamental principle of this nature, they very naturally go on to ask, what there is to show for the expense of a university; what is the actual worth in the market of the article called ‘a Liberal Education,’ on the supposition that it does not teach us definitely how to advance our manufactures, or to improve our lands, or to better our civil economy.”

But not even Newman could have guessed just how far such thinking would go. Once justified by a desire to understand our world and our place in it, we now judge scientific research by its commercial “impact.”

The arts and humanities used to be about the growth of the human spirit. In the age of money, they have become business plans for “creative industries,” judged by the size of the profits they produce

https://www.theepochtimes.com/did-universities-forego-nourishment-of-the-soul-for-money_4391257.html

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Maths curriculum at Durham University to be 'decolonised'

A new guide has urged professors at Durham University to make their maths curriculum 'more inclusive' and to consider the 'cultural origins' of concepts they teach, it has emerged. 

The prestigious institution, ranked seventh in the UK for their maths curriculum, asked academics to question themselves if they are citing 'mostly white or male' mathematicians in a bid to 'decolonise' the syllabus and make the topic 'more open'.

All staff have been asked to 'consider giving short biographies' of the research they will be citing within the module to ensure the subject 'can be used to assist in trying to achieve equality'.

The guide says that if mathematicians are 'almost completely (or even completely) white and/or male, ask yourself why they are. See if you can find contributions to the field from mathematicians of other genders/ethnicities'.  

According to The Telegraph, Durham University scientists were asked to investigate how the 'power of 10, represented by the word "billion", 'differs from country to country', and how ancient Indian astronomer Brahmagupta 'assigned a different meaning to the value of zero.'  

On their website, the university said decolonising the mathematical curriculum 'means considering the cultural origins of the mathematical concepts, focuses, and notation we most commonly use.' 

Professors were also asked to 'consider whether you can present the context outside of a Western frame of reference' when using examples to explain puzzles.

The guide uses an example of Simpson’s paradox, which is illustrated by two examples from the western world - survivors of the Titanic and enrolment in an American University. It says the statistical module could also be explained using the under-representation of Maori in New Zealand jury pools 'to discuss how maths can be used to aid attempts to secure equality'. 

The institution added: 'It involves ensuring the global project to expand our understanding of mathematics genuinely global, and frankly assessing the discipline’s failures – past and present – to work toward that aim.

'The question of whether we have allowed western mathematicians to dominate in our discipline is no less relevant than whether we have allowed western authors to dominate the field of literature. 

'It may even be important, if only because mathematics is rather more central to the advancement of science than is literature'.

It comes as the university has said it will undertake a review into its policies for inviting external speakers, following a dramatic row in the aftermath of students walking out of an after-dinner speech by columnist Rod Liddle's in December.

But protesters said the university is seeking a 'systemic cover-up' of the controversy, following comments Mr Liddle reportedly made, arguing it has failed to support marginalised students throughout.

At the time, South College principal Professor Tim Luckhurst was criticised for yelling 'pathetic' as students left the talk, even though most were unaware that Mr Liddle would be speaking when they chose to attend. 

He stepped back from his duties, but has since resumed them at the start of the academic term

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10703951/Maths-Durham-University-decolonised-Guide-urges-staff-make-subject-inclusive.html

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“Critical Math” Doesn’t Add Up

Abstract

All too often in K-12 classrooms, we find Che Guevara as an icon in progressive teaching of math, claims of the supposed evil of Mercator-projection maps on the wall, and students being taught time-consuming Mayan math.

Most people think that mathematics is a nonideological discipline. They think of it as an objective discipline that is socially and politically neutral and independent of the society in which it is studied. But the promoters of “critical math” in the United States do not think so—they see math as an ideological battlefield—and they are increasingly influential in schools of education and public K–12 classrooms.

Critiques of mathematics by racial justice activists and ethnomathematicians have little to do with actual mathematics or mathematical learning and everything to do with undermining the discipline of mathematics in the name of social justice and racial equity and combating an ideologically conceived “white privilege.” One can find nary a real mathematician or scientist who supports this doctrine of “critical” or “equity-based” math. It is instead supported by professors in teacher-training programs and by identity-politics activists from various social disciplines.

https://www.independent.org/publications/policy_reports/detail.asp?id=14114&omhide=true&trk=rm

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My other blogs: Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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14 April, 2022

British university won't back down on race tsar snub as head insists giving Tony Sewell degree honour would upset students

A university has refused to reverse its decision to deny the Government’s race tsar an honorary degree.

The head of Nottingham University claims controversy over the award would overshadow its degree ceremony, upsetting students and their families.

The Daily Mail revealed last month that Nottingham had withdrawn its offer to Tony Sewell after his controversial report concluding there was no evidence that the UK is institutionally racist. The report led to angry outbursts from Labour and the race relations lobby.

A group of 50 Tory MPs wrote to the university to demand a rethink, pointing out that Nottingham had given honorary degrees to Chinese diplomats who deny their country’s Uighur genocide.

Now vice-chancellor Professor Shearer West says that going ahead with the award to Dr Sewell – who won his PhD at Nottingham in 1995 – would overshadow its students’ own graduation ceremonies.

She said that because honorary degrees were conferred at the same events the rules had been changed some years ago ‘to preclude awards to figures who – either consciously or through no fault of their own – become the subject of political controversy, so that a day of celebration for our graduates does not also attract such controversy’.

This was ‘to ensure our graduates do not have a potential distraction overshadow their celebration’.

Professor West said that if the award had gone ahead ‘it would have left our graduates and their families with a diminished experience for this essential rite of passage, particularly when so many have been denied this very special day by the Covid-19 pandemic and have had to wait’.

Tory MP Sir John Hayes, who organised the letter, said: ‘The university are wriggling on the hook.

The excuse that Tony Sewell’s honorary degree might have disturbed graduating students is about as thin as it could possibly be.

‘The implication is that the students are such snowflakes and are so unused to robust argument and counter-argument after three years studying at Nottingham that they can’t cope with what the university calls controversy.’

The MPs’ letter criticised the decision to rescind Dr Sewell’s degree ‘simply because he earned the ire of a few frustrated ideologues for his widely welcomed work’ on the Government’s race report.

They added: ‘Dr Sewell is a uniquely distinguished alumnus of your university, having spent years helping thousands of black children from poor backgrounds into higher education.’

They pointed out the ‘absurdity’ of the decision when other recipients of honorary degrees from Nottingham included former Chinese ambassador Liu Xiaoming, who dismissed Uighur re-education camps as ‘fake news’, and Najib Razak, the ex-Malaysian PM jailed for 12 years for embezzlement.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10712923/University-head-insists-giving-Tony-Sewell-honorary-degree-upset-students.html

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Mask mandates back at some NYC colleges, universities as COVID cases rise

Some colleges and universities in New York City have reinstituted mask mandates amid a rise in COVID-19 cases.

Columbia University, the affiliated Barnard College and Pace University have all started requiring masks again in at least some indoor settings.

Columbia reinstated mask rules on Monday “based on the current situation and in an abundance of caution,” according to school communications obtained by The Post.

The policy, which requires students to wear non-cloth masks, is expected to remain in place through the final weeks of the spring semester.

Instructors, however, still have the option to remove their masks while teaching.

The Ivy League school had nixed the requirement on March 14, only to bring it back less than a month later.

Partner school Barnard College has also temporarily reinstated the requirement in classrooms, dining halls, libraries and other indoor spaces, according to the student newspaper.

Pace University, meanwhile, moved to reimplement its mask mandate in all public spaces on its Big Apple campus effective Monday. Its facilities in Westchester, which according to officials remained at “low risk status,” won’t be affected by the new rules.

In an internal letter obtained by The Post, Pace officials said events can continue as scheduled and dining halls will remain open, but masks are required when not actively eating.

High-quality masks have been required at New York University wherever in-person attendance is mandatory and prolonged, such as in classrooms and meetings, according to its website.

“The good news is that people who are vaccinated are at very low risk of serious infection even if they test positive,” wrote Brian Anderson, executive director of Emergency Management and Environmental Health and Safety. “But our hope is to keep case rates as low as possible to protect everyone in our community.”

A CUNY spokesperson told The Post that masks are optional at its campuses and offices, though many people continue to wear them.

“The University monitors CDC guidelines and regularly consults with our State and City health officials,” he said. “Should the circumstances require a reconsideration of this or any other policy, the necessary changes to keep the CUNY community safe will be made.”

Fordham and St. John’s universities are still mask-optional for vaccinated students.

https://nypost.com/2022/04/12/nyc-colleges-universities-reinstate-mask-mandates/

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Princeton’s Mixed-Up President Discards Free Speech and Demonizes Its Defenders

Say what you want about Christopher Eisgruber, the president of Princeton University—he is a principled man. The problem is that he holds principles that are in serious conflict with one another. In this, he is not alone: Most people hold contradictory views on complicated matters. But because Eisgruber is the leader of one of the top universities in the world, where I have taught mathematics for 35 years, his confusion has real consequences.

To his credit, Eisgruber sincerely believes in academic freedom, a fact that explains why Princeton was the first educational institution, after the University of Chicago, to adopt the so-called Chicago Principles of free expression. 

However, he also quite sincerely holds the belief, consistent with the progressive view, that a main goal of the university is to advance “social justice”—a principle whose advocates proclaim it to be of urgent and totalizing importance. In holding these two beliefs together at the same time, Eisgruber may be demonstrating the power of a first-rate intelligence, which, as Princeton dropout F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, shows the “ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” He is perhaps also in danger of becoming a comic opera character in the middle of an unfolding tragedy that threatens the foundations of higher education in the United States.

Social justice sounds appealing and may well be worth pursuing in a variety of institutional settings, universities included—provided we all agree on what social justice means and that bringing it about is not incompatible with the more obvious, traditional goals of academia, namely the creation, preservation, and transmission of truth and beauty. This is the true telos of a university, and it is inconceivable in the absence of free speech.

But social justice is another matter altogether. By definition, social justice implies something quite different from impartial justice. All modern ideologies that invoke social justice, including the kind embraced by Eisgruber, appear to envision societies in which group inequalities are not to be tolerated. Of course, achieving anything close to uniformity requires strong, top-down measures of redistribution and reeducation—that is to say, indoctrination—as well as the punishment of dissent and marginalization of dissenters. All of these “socially just” practices are naturally incompatible with free speech.

Ignoring the disappointing, and often tragic, lessons of past historical experiments with social justice imposed by heavy-handed bureaucratic means in places like the former Soviet Union, my native communist Romania, or contemporary China, Princeton’s president believes that the university can have it all: social justice, free speech, and an academic commitment to excellence in the search of knowledge. Possibly this scheme might work if Princeton’s president had a more nuanced view of social justice; as things stand, however, this principle is in obvious contradiction to the other two.

Unfortunately, Eisgruber’s view of social justice seems to be the off-the-shelf version promoted by “progressive” ideologues who see the redistribution of jobs and honors on the basis of skin color and self-assigned identity groupings—and the overt censorship of anyone who disagrees with them or opposes their drive for institutional power—as central to their conception of “justice.” Foundational to this approach are the tenets of critical race theory, which mandate a framework in which the United States as a whole and Princeton University in particular must be understood to be systemically racist. According to CRT, denying this framework is prima facie evidence of systemic racism.

What to do? Well, to cure Princeton of racism, we need, of course, a large and energetic group of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) bureaucrats whose main functions are to monitor every possible manifestation of racism and other -isms, however small or unlikely, and, more importantly, to reeducate students, faculty, and fellow administrators through a battery of invasive anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-colonialist, and anti-Western programs, turning the long-standing ideal of the university as a sheltering home for free inquiry on its head in order to produce something more like a very expensive reeducation camp for the children of American elites, and for the people whose job it is to cure them. (A few years ago, it should be said, Eisgruber promised not to impose mandatory DEI training programs. A DEI-infused orientation is now mandatory for all freshmen, but we still hope he will otherwise keep his promise.)

The idea that Princeton is systemically racist is nonsense: As I have argued elsewhere, it is one of the least racist institutions in the world. Nevertheless, Eisgruber’s repeated assertions over these past two years that he heads a racist institution, including a letter addressed to the university community in the fall of 2020, informs Princeton’s whole DEI agenda—and, indeed, seems on most days to be driving the mission of the entire university.

One example of how Princeton is mishandling things: At the mandatory freshman orientation last August, all members of the incoming undergraduate class of 2025 were subjected to an unbalanced presentation of the racist past and supposedly systemically racist present of their new home, which they were called upon to bravely dismantle.

In the long list of famous Princeton figures of the past who were and are denounced as racists in the virtual gallery titled “To Be Known and Heard” is my colleague Joshua Katz. A distinguished “white” professor in the Classics department, his mentorship of a prominent Black classicist is a matter of public record. Indeed, the only visible blemish on Katz’s otherwise perfectly non-racist history is a brief comment he made in July 2020 in an article he penned in response to an actually racist petition—a now-infamous July 4th faculty letter signed by hundreds of our colleagues. Here is what Katz wrote:

"The Black Justice League, which was active on campus from 2014 until 2016, was a small local terrorist organization that made life miserable for the many (including the many black students) who did not agree with its members’ demands."

In order to damage Katz’s reputation as much as possible, the creators of Princeton’s rogues’ gallery of racists, an official document that bears the copyright of the university’s Board of Trustees, omitted the parenthetical words “(including the many black students).” Keep in mind that any student who had doctored a quotation, especially intentionally and with malice, would likely have been suspended.

The gallery also quotes Katz from the same article, as follows:

"Recently I watched an “Instagram Live” of one of its alumni leaders, who—emboldened by recent events and egged on by over 200 supporters who were baying for blood—presided over what was effectively a Struggle Session against one of his former classmates. It was one of the most evil things I have ever witnessed, and I do not say this lightly."

The gallery omits any mention of Katz’s response when he was asked by The Daily Princetonian to clarify what he meant by “terrorist” and “Struggle Session,” or what he has said about these matters elsewhere. This is what Katz wrote:

"... the BJL went after one fellow black student with particular vigor, verbally vilifying her in public at every possible opportunity, calling her all sorts of unsavory epithets and accusing her of “performing white supremacy.” Other students, as well as faculty and administrators, were accused, without evidence, of being “racists” and “white supremacists.”

A distinguished colleague who knows the facts and watched the video confirms that the university was aware of the abusive activities of the BJL and that Katz’s description of the “Struggle Session” was accurate.

The gallery also omits any mention of the outpouring of support that Katz has received in a host of student, media, and academic venues. Instead, it quotes from the official denunciation promulgated by Katz’s department and, using bold font, provides outrageous quotations from two other members of the Princeton faculty. One of them, who has now moved to Harvard, accuses Katz of “race-baiting, disguised as free speech”; the other, who holds a University Professorship (the highest faculty rank), states that “Professor Katz … seems to not regard people like me as essential features, or persons, of Princeton.”

In short, the gallery vilifies Joshua Katz as a racist when there is no evidence for this assertion. In order to make the accusation seem plausible to incoming students, it fails to present any of the abundant positive evidence to the contrary.

 It is hard to describe this kind of nakedly slanderous and provocative treatment of one of Princeton’s own faculty as anything other than the deliberate public abuse of an individual by an institution in the hopes of compelling silence from any other would-be dissenters from an increasingly rigid and compulsory orthodoxy of the type that we do not generally associate with universities, but rather with the medieval church.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/princetons-president-discards-free-speech-demonizes-defenders

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My other blogs: Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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13 April, 2022

UK: Snooping tsar voices fear over rise of facial recognition school cameras - as education bosses face parent backlash on privacy

Education chiefs drafting fresh guidance on classroom snooping have been criticised as the rollout of facial recognition cameras in schools risks sparking parent fury.

The country’s surveillance tsar has voiced his anger at Department for Education (DfE) officials for failing to consult his office over new advice on using the controversial technology to scan pupils’ faces while they are on school premises. 

Almost 70 schools have signed up for a system that scans children’s faces to take contactless payments for canteen lunches and others are said to be planning to use the controversial technology to monitor children in exam rooms.

But Professor Fraser Sampson, the independent Biometrics and Surveillance Camera Commissioner, said his office was unaware the DfE was drafting new surveillance advice in response to the growing trend for cameras in schools.

‘I find out completely by accident a couple of weeks ago by going to a meeting that the Department for Education has drafted a code of practice for surveillance in schools which they are about to put out to the world to consult,’ he told The Mail on Sunday.

‘And they [DfE] said. “What do you think of it?” And I say, “What code?” We had no idea about it. And having seen it, it would have benefited from some earlier sharing.’

Prof Sampson is also critical of police plans to monitor the public with live facial recognition cameras, branding it a ‘sinister’ development which risks ‘herding’ people’s images on to a database.

‘There is not really a recognition that this is intrusive surveillance, and it’s increasingly intrusive surveillance,’ he said. ‘If people think the use of facial recognition by the police is sensitive and controversial wait until schools start putting it in.

‘Your starting point should be, “Where is the lawful purpose of introducing this clearly intrusive type of technology into a school?”’

He added: ‘How does any of this fit with much wider government obligations on the UN convention on the rights of the child not to be subject to close scrutiny and have the freedom to sit in a classroom without being watched, let alone recorded?

‘The Chinese are training their algorithms on everyone’s faces. Do we want them doing this on our children’s faces?’

In October, North Ayrshire Council in Scotland suspended its facial recognition scheme, supplied by catering firm CRB Cunninghams to nine schools, after concerns were raised.

Amid the growing debate, the College of Policing has published fresh guidance that allows forces to potentially capture images of victims and also of ‘a person who the police have reasonable grounds to suspect would have information of importance and relevance to progress an investigation’. Critics say it represents a ‘hammer blow for privacy and liberty’.

Prof Sampson, who has worked in criminal justice for more than 40 years, first as a police officer and then as a solicitor, said: ‘There is a fundamental difference between rounding up the usual suspects and herding everybody who may possibly have been around.’

At least five police forces across England and Wales, including the Met and South Wales, have used live facial recognition technology which captures people’s faces and matches them with a database.

South Wales suffered a Court of Appeal defeat on its use of the technology in 2020 after claims it infringed people’s human rights. It is currently engaged in another trial of facial recognition cameras.

The DfE declined to comment.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10703709/Snooping-tsar-voices-fear-rise-facial-recognition-school-cameras-parent-backlash.html

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Before Biden Cancels Student Loan Debt, I Have A Few Questions

Scott Morefield

Last week, Bernie Sanders, the most famous socialist in America, tweeted, “Cancel student debt. All of it.” It was just the latest screed in what has become a common theme for radical leftist Democrats, appeals to essentially pay off a key political constituency at the expense of working, responsible Americans. It’s disgusting pandering in the worst possible way, yet media and policy makers continue to treat it as a serious proposal rooted in altruism and the desire for equity, whatever that means.

While President Joe Biden has thus far resisted such calls (other than Covid-related pauses on interest and payments), there are increasing rumblings afoot that he could attempt to erase anywhere from $10,000 to $50,000 of student loan debt per person with nothing more than a stroke of the pen. Whether the Constitution grants him this kind of authority remains to be seen, but such questions have never stood in the way of these kinds of leftist power grabs before, and I suspect they won’t this time around either.

Currently there’s around $1.75 trillion of student loan debt out there, a number that would seem far loftier were it not for the many trillions printed and distributed out of nothing for recent “Covid relief.” It’s owed by around 45 million people, upwards of one in four Americans. On average, they owe $37,000 and make payments of around $400 a month, the equivalent of what a decent vehicle would cost these days. Nevertheless, manipulative media portrayals of poor, hapless millennials unable to build a life or buy their daily Starbucks latte because they can’t see their way out from under a mountain of self-imposed college debt abound.

Of course, Americans also owe around $1.46 trillion in vehicle debt, $10 trillion in mortgage debt, and $830 billion in credit card debt. I mean, if we’re going to just continue printing money from nothing, why not cancel all or part of those too? The answer is obvious: There’s only so much outright fakery you can do before the whole house of cards comes down, and since Democrats want to reward people who support them, the fakery that will be done will be on their terms and to the benefit of their constituents.

Most college graduates, particularly those who would willingly dig a crater-sized hole of debt for a useless gender studies degree at Cal Berkeley, tend to support Democrats. And before you think about digging on Republicans as somehow less intelligent, consider that most colleges - and college degrees - these days are absolutely worthless. Just ask your plumber, your local contractor, or the guy who does your HVAC, all of whom probably make as much or more money than you. All of which, ironically, raises plenty of questions about the intelligence of people willing to spend like drunken sailors to obtain a product that barely benefits them.

Now, Biden deciding to erase the debt of his supporters would hardly qualify as the most unfair thing to happen in America under a Democratic president, but it would certainly set an awful historic precedent and be a blunder of epic proportions. It would also raise plenty of questions from fair-minded Americans. Here are just a few:

What about those who have paid their student debts already? Do they get a refund?

What about those who scrimped, saved, and worked their way through college without running up any debt in the first place? Isn’t responsibility supposed to be a good thing?

What about those who could have gone anywhere, yet chose state colleges because they didn’t want to run up debt? Do they award Harvard degrees retroactively?

What about those who eschewed college altogether because they didn’t want to go into debt at all? Would they have been as risk averse if they knew there was no risk?

What about those who partied their way through school, choosing to not work and rack up mountains of debt instead? Are we really going to reward irresponsibility?

What about every college student going forward? Will their debts also be erased?

What about doctors and lawyers (and such) whose mountains of debt also come with mountains of income to pay it off easily?

What about those unjustifiably skyrocketing college prices that certainly won’t be helped by yet another level of de facto government subsidies?

Isn't this just a massive wealth transfer from the poor and lower-middle-class to the college-educated class?

Can we afford it? Isn’t the United States already $30 trillion in debt? Which raises a related question: Isn’t inflation enough of a problem now for policy makers to not want to exacerbate it by basically printing yet more cash (which is what canceling existing debt is essentially doing)?

Why should taxpayers be forced to fund someone else’s debt?

Finally, to circle back to above, what about all the other types of debt that hamstrings ordinary Americans? Why just college debt? Sure, we know the answer, but it’s still good to keep asking. These questions and many more illustrate the absurdity of this latest in a long line of leftist nonsense aimed at destroying the fabric of fairness, responsibility, and social cohesion in America.

https://townhall.com/columnists/scottmorefield/2022/04/11/before-biden-cancels-student-loan-debt-i-have-a-few-questions-n2605712

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Australia: Student behaviour a rising problem in schools

Disruptive behaviour and poor wellbeing among students have emerged as bigger problems in Victorian schools this year than learning loss after two years of disrupted schooling.

Primary school principals say they are grappling with new behavioural issues among students, including new cases of school refusal, alarming social media activity and vaping on school grounds.

An ongoing survey of 12,000 students in 60 schools has also uncovered higher levels of distress about bullying among girls than boys during the first term of school this year.

The survey also found that more than 40 per cent of students have been experiencing problems with sleeping every week.

The worries about bullying, sleep and other wellbeing issues including homework are being tracked in a new check-in tool that more than 50 schools piloted last year, and which has since been expanded to 60 schools.

Boys have reported being less able to ask for help in the weekly surveys so far, both at primary and secondary levels, but girls have registered greater concerns about being bullied at school or online.

Amanda Bickerstaff, chief executive of Pivot Professional Learning, which operates the online tool, said students’ responses also indicated that many children do not know how to ask for help or feel like they have a trusted adult to turn to.

“There is a general understanding from educators that wellbeing has been deeply impacted,” Bickerstaff said.

“We saw that about half of students were either neutral or struggling with their wellbeing every week at the end of last year ... when we start our check-ins in term two we fully expect that we will see some students that need support because it’s been a very difficult start to the year after a very difficult two years.”

Students’ social skills are also rusty, principals say.

Philip Cachia, who heads St Francis Xavier Primary, said students at the Montmorency school had to relearn how to play together. “They were home for so long and suddenly they needed to co-operate with each other and share,” he said.

“We almost had to re-teach them those skills, that you can’t always be first and you can’t always win and you can’t always get what you want, which is maybe what they were used to when they were at home.”

Henry Grossek, principal at Berwick Lodge Primary, said that student behaviour was now a bigger issue than learning loss as schools resumed normal practice after the two years of disrupted learning.

Thousands of tutors have been deployed to schools to help students catch up on lost learning last year and this year, but Grossek said schools were less well resourced when it came to managing students’ emotional wellbeing.

“Social and emotional loss is the big issue and we are all chasing our tails to catch up on that,” he said.

Simply coming to school each day had been “therapeutic” for most students, whose behaviour improved over the course of term one, but a handful have developed serious mental and behavioural issues, Grossek said.

“A few are finding it difficult coming back to school,” he said. “They are almost school refusers; they are anxious and worried about coming back to school even though they haven’t had big troubles in the school.”

Steven Kolber, a teacher at Brunswick Secondary College, said his class of year 7 students were not as socially adept as previous cohorts, but also had an enhanced appreciation for school.

“The students are approaching school with more maturity, as though school is in some respects a luxury, rather than something they are forced to do,” he said.

https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/victoria/we-are-all-chasing-our-tails-to-catch-up-student-behaviour-a-rising-problem-in-victorian-schools-20220412-p5act8.html

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My other blogs: Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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12 April, 2022

Finally, Someone Who Dares to Sue Public Universities

Suing your beloved alma mater is never easy, but that's exactly what Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich did when he saw Arizona State University abusing its tax-exempt status to let big business avoid paying taxes. With this sleazy tactic, many universities across the country are actually becoming the largest real estate developers in their states. Brnovich also sued the Arizona Board of Regents for increasing tuition by an astronomical 300% within a few years and offering illegal immigrants in-state tuition that was lower than what American citizens attending the school from out-of-state paid. He won the latter part of that lawsuit.

So what did ASU and the Arizona Board of Regents do in response? They filed a 200+ page bar complaint against him. Since the left dominates many state bars, it is now weaponizing them to take down conservative lawyers. This way, they don’t even have to bother presenting their case to a jury and proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt; just immediately threaten the person's livelihood under whatever amorphous system they have handy, tarnishing their honorable reputation and obstructing their accomplishment of anything else.

Represented by two of the biggest, most powerful law firms in the state, Perkins Coie and Snell & Wilmer, whose attorneys are very connected with the state bar and judges, ASU got some lower court judges to throw his lawsuit out. It was easy; the trial court judge was appointed to the bench by then-Gov. Janet Napolitano. His son was on a full scholarship to the University of Arizona, so obviously the last thing he wanted to do was rule against Arizona’s public university system.

However, the bogus bar complaint didn’t work because it was so bad that even the corrupt, left-wing Arizona Bar dismissed it. And the Arizona Supreme Court overturned the lower court decisions and remanded the lawsuit back to the trial court. 

Taxpayers unknowingly funded the sleazy bar complaint. One of the regents who filed the bar complaint, Karrin Taylor-Robson, is running for governor as a Republican, but most conservatives don’t appreciate that and her ties to ASU, so Trump-endorsed Kari Lake is trouncing her and the rest of the competition. Gov. Doug Ducey, who’s been problematic for conservatives, opposed Brnovich on his tuition lawsuit against ASU.

Brnovich ultimately lost half of the tuition lawsuit, when the judge ruled that he didn’t have standing — a typical, often bogus way to discard a lawsuit without having to consider the merits.  That judge is married to a man who works at ASU, and their child received a college scholarship to ASU. Of course, the MSM never bothered to report that. But the reality is, the Arizona Constitution says tuition at public higher ed is to be “as nearly free as possible” and if the Attorney General cannot uphold the Constitution, who can?

Brnovich’s hotel lawsuit challenged ASU allowing Omni Hotels & Resorts to rent property from it instead of buying it outright, so no one was paying property taxes. The Arizona State Constitution has a gift clause that prohibits the government from handing over money to businesses.

The deal also includes other generous benefits for the hotel. ASU is spending $19.5 million constructing a conference center to accompany the hotel, which the university will only be allowed to use seven days a year. Another $30 million will be spent to build a parking structure for the hotel and conference center, of which 275 of the 1,200 spots will go to Omni. Brnovich said this constitutes “a gift of approximately $8 million for spots that the hotel gets exclusive use of and gets to keep revenue from the spaces.” 

Most people don’t go after public universities because they have deep pockets from taxpayers, which means facing the most powerful attorneys and public relations firms in the state. And lots of developers love the work they refer to them. Making matters worse, universities often aren’t subject to open records laws or legislative oversight because they conduct their activities through “foundations.” That’s how ASU tried to hide its leases with Omni. 

Steve Bannon, a former adviser to President Donald Trump, referred to Brnovich during an interview as a “brawler” due to his proactive style combating the left as AG. Talk show host Mark Levin, who endorsed Brnovich in Arizona’s U.S. Senate election, said he is one of the few Republicans on offense. 

Some leading conservatives are also willing to help take on ASU. Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk, who lives in Phoenix, is getting the word out about Brnovich’s lawsuits against ASU. Kirk told Brnovich that ASU filing a bar complaint against him is the “politics of personal destruction,” reminding his listeners that Perkins Coie is a law firm used by Hillary Clinton, Facebook and Goldman Sachs.

Of course, the lefty MSM has shown little interest in covering Brnovich’s victories, and the scant coverage doesn’t even make it sound like a win. He’s prohibited by state bar rules from saying much about it. In contrast, whenever he’s gotten a negative decision from some random court, the MSM has run articles everywhere acting like it’s some huge definitive defeat. And his Republican opponents in the Senate primary race repeat the Democratic talking points about the bar complaint against him. If Brnovich was a Democrat, the MSM would be fawning all over him taking on ASU, since the left loves to rail against big business. 

The left controls many aspects of society: the media, big tech, education, Hollywood, and the judiciary and state bars. Brnovich is taking on a hornet’s nest aiming for the collusion between the Higher Ed establishment, the media and big left-wing firms. But Brnovich has always been a forward-thinking conservative; he says the focus should be on holding universities accountable and making tuition lower, not “canceling” debt, which he opposes.

https://townhall.com/columnists/rachelalexander/2022/04/11/finally-someone-who-dares-to-sue-public-universities-n2605728

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Virginia parent fighting 'race-based' admissions policy wins legal battle as case heads to Supreme Court

A Virginia parent and former PTA president who openly criticized what he categorized as race-based admissions at an elite public high school was delivered a win Friday after four criminal charges were dropped. 

Dr. Harry Jackson, a father and former naval intelligence officer, opposed the policy at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria that based admissions more on race and less on merit. Steve Descano, a Democratic prosecutor backed by billionaire George Soros, pursued criminal charges of libel and slander against Jackson over tweets published in 2020. 

Jackson, also a professor at numerous other universities and the African American Community Liaison for Fairfax GOP, had accused liberal activist Jorge Torrico of "grooming" behavior. 

Torrico, a member of the TJ Alumni Action Group, which supported the elimination of standardized testing and written teacher recommendation requirements for admission to the magnet school, was spotted speaking with a high school senior and student government president after a PTA meeting. Jackson took issue with Torrico allegedly seeking meetings and other bicyling outings with minors without parents present. 

"Descano acquiesced to the demands of an activist through the criminal prosecution of a father for the duration of 7 months, a father concerned about the safety of underage children. This amounted to the chilling of free speech by a public official," RightDefense.org attorney Marina Medvin, recently retained to represent Jackson, said in a statement to Fox News Digital. 

"What makes this case unique is that criminal charges were brought to suppress free speech -- criminal charges, as opposed to a civil lawsuit. In this day and age, I believe it is the only case of its kind," the attorney said via email Sunday. "Freedom of speech is paramount to our Republic. Both my client and I realize this. We were not willing to show any concessions on this issue. We fought for my client's constitutional rights and the representative constitutional rights of every other individual who might find themselves being criminally prosecuted for voicing an opinion or a concern." 

 Descano aimed at dropping prosecution, but Medvin sought to have the charges dismissed by a Fairfax County judge in order to "restore the public's trust in the First Amendment." 

"This should never have happened. But a magistrate allowed it to happen—four times," Medvin told Newsweek in a separate interview Friday, describing Descano as a "Soros-funded prosecutor." 

The separate but related case involving the school admissions policy, which a federal judge previously ruled as discriminatory against Asian Americans, is also piquing the interest of the Supreme Court. 

U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton ruled in February that even the school’s amended admissions policy still equated to "racial balancing," but a three-judge 4th Circuit appeals panel decided on March 31 that the school can temporarily continue to use the policy. A coalition of community members, parents and alumni filed an emergency request to vacate the stay pending an appeal filed by the school system. 

U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Friday called for a response from Fairfax County Public Schools, which has until Wednesday to present its arguments. Roberts will then decide on the application, which could include referring the case to the full court, according to Fox 5 DC. 

https://www.foxnews.com/us/virginia-parent-fighting-race-based-admissions-policy-wins-supreme-court

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Tennessee governor invites private conservative college to open 50 charter schools whose anti-woke curriculum will teach students that America is 'an exceptionally good country'

The governor of Tennessee has invited a private conservative college to open 50 charter schools whose anti-woke curriculum will teach students that America is 'an exceptionally good country.' 

Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, said that Hillsdale College, whose base is in Michigan, could open the schools using public funds, including $32 million set aside for charter facilities, the New York Times reported. 

Hillsdale College, which has close ties with former President Donald Trump,  developed the '1776 Curriculum' and is eager to add to its network of charter schools with the curriculum that focus on 'the centrality of the Western tradition.'

That curriculum - which spans 2,400 pages - was set up in response to the New York Times 1619 Project, which frames the founding of the United States through the eyes of slaves, and has been blasted for multiple inaccuracies.  

'For decades, Hillsdale College has been the standard-bearer in quality curriculum and in the responsibility of preserving American liberty,' Lee told lawmakers recently. 'I believe their efforts are a good fit for Tennessee.' 

The college's '1776 Curriculum' is currently being used in the two dozen member schools in about 13 states, as well as several dozen more across the country, per its website. 

It comes as battles continue to rage across the US about what is being taught in public schools. Many parents have been outraged by the push towards divisive 'equity' lessons based on the teachings of critical race theory, which opponents say is divisive, and teaches white children that they are 'oppressors.'

Florida has also enacted the Parental Rights in Education Bill - the so-called 'Don't say gay' bill, in response to reports of teachers encouraging children confused about their gender identity to hide it from their parents, and even move them towards medical treatment given to transgender people.  

Hillsdale has been criticized for its curriculum, which puts a spin on American history and provides a negative take on the New Deal and global warming.

But to many Republican leaders, Hillsdale is a 'shining city on a hill' for its devotion to 'liberty as an antecedent of government, not a benefit from government,' Justice Clarence Thomas said in his 2016 commencement address. 

Donald Trump and Mike Pence have both spoken at the Michigan college, which has an outsize influence on US conservatives.  

Gov. Lee said he sees his new charter school expansion as part of an effort to develop what he called 'informed patriotism' in Tennessee students, according to the New York Times.    

 The Times reported that Lee envisions an expansion into suburban and rural areas where, like many Hillsdale charter schools, they would most likely enroll children who are whiter and more affluent than the average charter student. 

Atlanta Classical Academy, one of Hillsdale's schools, has some of the highest scores among schools in Georgia, the Times reported. 

It focuses on traditional 'Western' subjects, including Latin and phonics.  

But school racial demographics are complete opposite than public schools, where 73 percent of public school students are black and 17 percent white. Yet, Atlanta Classical Academy is 17 percent black and 71 percent white, according to a 2020 state report. 

'They're catering to white families and affluent families,' said Charisse Gulosino, an associate professor of leadership and policy studies at the University of Memphis, whose research has found that students in suburban charter schools do not outperform their public school counterparts.  

Hillsdale, which was founded in 1844 by abolitionists, does not accept state or federal funding, including no student grants or loans. 

The Times reported this move allows the school to 'avoid some government oversight, such as compliance with federal Title IX rules governing sexual discrimination.'  

Instead, the school relies partly on donations from conservative benefactors that are fueled by aggressive fund-raising campaigns, the Times reported, including on Rush Limbaugh's radio program before he died, and in Hillsdale's widely circulated digest, Imprimis, including a 2017 piece in which President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was called 'a hero to populist conservatives around the world.' 

Hillsdale's president, Larry P. Arnn, and his daughter Kathleen O'Toole, who runs the charter school initiative, declined interviews with the Times. 

But in a speech last year, Dr. Arnn outlined his vision for expansion — including plans for a new master's program to train teachers in classical education, a home-school division, online students and education centers.

'It's a grand adventure,' he said.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10705123/Hillsdale-College-plans-open-charter-schools-fight-against-lessons-gender-race.html

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My other blogs: Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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11 April, 2022

Department of Education ‘waging war’ on charter schools with new regulations, school choice advocate says

The Department of Education is "waging war on charter schools" with recently proposed rules that would make it tougher for them to receive start-up grants, a school choice advocate told Fox News.

The rule would tighten requirements on charter schools seeking seed money, like proving that there's a demand for a new school and showing how they would ensure diversity. There would also be restrictions on how much outside for-profit companies could manage operations.

"The Biden administration is essentially waging war on charter schools," Corey DeAngelis, the American Federation for Children's national director of research, told Fox News. "But more importantly, the administration, through these regulations, is waging war on families who want these schools for their kids and that's absolutely atrocious."

Congress approved $440 million for the charter school program in its spending bill. One of the Department of Education's proposed changes, which were published March 12, would require applicants applying for grant money through that program to provide evidence of over-enrollment in existing traditional public schools. 

"It doesn't make any sense if you care about the needs of families, but it does make sense when you're thinking about protecting the status quo," DeAngelis told Fox News.

"Just imagine if a Safeway wanted to open a location … and in order to get a grant from the city or just to open, they had to prove and provide evidence that the nearby Walmart had customers flowing out of the door wrapping around the building," DeAngelis continued. "That wouldn't make any sense if your sole purpose was to try to find the policy that works best for individual customers."

The proposal indicates that the tightened restrictions would ensure fiscal oversight and encourage collaboration between traditional public schools and charter schools. But critics have said the rule will kill the charter school program.

DeAngelis said the Department of Education is proposing the rules as an attempt to protect teachers unions and government schools at the expense of families.

Charter schools are publicly funded, but privately run institutions.

DeAngelis argued that they offer a competitive alternative to government schools and provide higher-quality education that caters directly to the wants of parents. He said charter schools' growing popularity threaten teachers unions. 

"The unionized government schools try to avoid accountability every step of the way, either through their regulation or defunding of charter schools and their competition," DeAngelis said.

"School choice is a rising tide that lifts all boats," the school choice advocate told Fox News. He said charter schools create competitive pressures, which often improve government-run schools. 

"Parents have been scrambling over the past couple of years trying to find the best fit for their kids, and now you have the Biden administration trying to enact these regulations to make exercising these choices as difficult as possible," DeAngelis said. "Parents are already voting with their feet in large numbers."

He pointed to a study that showed that charter school enrollment increased 7.1% for the 2020-2021 school year, while public schools saw a 3.3% decrease – a drop of nearly 1.5 million students.

"Of course the teachers union monopoly is freaking out right now," DeAngelis said. "And one way to stop families from accessing these options that they feel are better for their kids is to use the heavy hand of government to trap these low-income families in the system that is not working for them."

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/department-of-education-waging-war-charter-schools-regulations

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UK: Government may stop working with National Union of Students and report it to Charity Commission over anti-Semitism claims

The Government may stop working with the National Union of Students and report it to the Charity Commission over anti-Semitism claims, the universities minister has said.

Michelle Donelan said she is 'deeply concerned by antisemitism within the NUS' and she said she is considering reporting the union to the Charity Commission. 

Her comments came as the Government's antisemitism adviser, Lord Mann, called for action over 'escalating revelations about the continuing poor treatment of Jewish students and the lack of leadership on anti-Jewish racism from the union', The Times reported.  

In March, Jewish students said that they felt 'failed' by the NUS as the controversial rapper Lowkey was invited to appear at a centenary event for the union. 

Lowkey had previously expressed support for former Labour MP Chris Williamson.

Mr Williamson was suspended in 2019 over allegations of antisemitism and had said that the media had 'weaponised the Jewish heritage of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.'  

Concerns have also been raised regarding comments made by newly-elected NUS president Shaima Dallali on social media.

In 2012, she wrote 'Khaybar Khaybar O Jews... Muhammad's army will return £Gaza', referring to a massacre of Jews in 628. 

She has since apologised for the post in an online statement posted on her Twitter.

Ms Dallali also told the Jewish Chronicle: 'This is a tweet I posted 10 years ago during Israel's assault on Gaza in 2012. This reference made as a teenager was unacceptable and I unreservedly apologise.'

But the paper last week also claimed that Ms Dallali had 'sung the praises of a Jew-hating cleric' and labelled Waseem Yousef as a 'dirty Zionist'  after he wrote that Hamas was launching rockets from between residents' homes and was making a 'graveyard' for children in Gaza.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10700557/Government-stop-working-National-Union-Students.html

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NJ first-graders to learn about gender identity in new sex-ed lessons

Planned sex education lessons for first-graders in New Jersey will include discussions of gender identity — outraging some parents and Republican politicians including potential presidential candidate and former Gov. Chris Christie.

A 30-minute lesson called “Pink, Blue and Purple” aims to teach the 6-year-olds to define “gender, gender identity and gender role stereotypes,” Fox News reported Friday.

It also includes instructions for teachers to tell students that their gender identity is up to them, according to materials reportedly distributed to parents at a Feb. 22 meeting of the Westfield Board of Education and posted online.

“You might feel like you’re a boy even if you have body parts that some people might tell you are ‘girl’ parts,” the lesson plan says.

“You might feel like you’re a girl even if you have body parts that some people might tell you are ‘boy’ parts. And you might not feel like you’re a boy or a girl, but you’re a little bit of both. No matter how you feel, you’re perfectly normal!”

A lesson plan for second-graders, titled “Understanding Our Bodies,” includes an illustrated discussion of human genitals so kids as young as 7 can use “medically accurate names” for their private parts.

“Tell students: ‘There are some body parts that mostly just girls have and some parts that mostly just boys have,'” it says.

A note to teachers also says: “Being a boy or a girl doesn’t have to mean you have those parts, but for most people this is how their bodies are.”

The materials emerged amid controversy over a law signed last month by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that bans the discussion of gender identity in kindergarten through third grade, which critics deride as “Don’t Say Gay.”

They’re part of a broader, K-12 health and sex education curriculum adopted by the New Jersey Board of Education in 2020 that goes into effect in September.

“I am honestly appalled at this curriculum,” Maria DeMaio-Esposito, a mother of two from Howell, told the Asbury Park Press.

“I am debating whether to place my child in a private school if I can afford it. Is this curriculum really necessary? Children need to stay children. Their innocence is beautiful and I do not want their little minds filled with this very adult topic.”

Parents are able to opt out of having their kids take part in the lessons, but Paula McCarthy-Mammana of Jackson — who said the curriculum “makes me sick” — said that move would be stigmatizing.

“My granddaughter is going to be entering eighth grade, if she opts out of a class she’s going to be looked at by her peers in a different manner,” McCarthy-Mammana told the AP.

“She may be bullied or harassed and I don’t agree with a child being targeted because of family moral issues.”

In an appearance on Fox News, Christie — who ran for president in 2016 and is reportedly considering another White House bid — told Fox News: “I think this is just a further indication of the crazy liberal policies of my successor, Phil Murphy, who is in the progressive movement.”

“He’s on the left of the progressive movement, and this kind of stuff just should not be going on,” he added.

State Sen. Holly Schepisi (R-Westwood) told Fox News that as “a mom and a legislator, I can appreciate the need for students to receive age-appropriate instruction, but this is beyond the pale.

“We knew that when Gov. Murphy used the cover of the pandemic to push these new standards through that something was terribly wrong, and now we can clearly see why they needed to do this in secret,” she said.

“The agenda has swung so far left in an attempt to sexualize our precious children that parents are fighting back.”

State Sen. Michael Testa (R-Cape May) said the lessons were the latest in a series of affronts to Garden State parents.

“We fought for kids to return to school in person. Then we had to fight to take off our kids’ masks. Now, we have to watch our elementary school children, who have already fallen behind thanks to the Murphy lockdowns, learn about genitalia and gender identity?” Testa said.

“It’s abuse, plain and simple.”

Westfield schools Superintendent Raymond Gonzalez told Fox News that the lesson plans were “a sample list of resources aligned to the New Jersey Student Learning Standards to be considered as school districts work on revisions to the health and [physical education] curriculum.”

“We made it clear at the meeting and subsequent meetings that these are resources only — they are not state-mandated — and that the district is in the process of developing its revised curriculum to meet state standards,” Gonzalez added.

Murphy’s office didn’t immediately return requests for comment.

https://nypost.com/2022/04/08/nj-kids-to-learn-about-gender-identity-under-sex-ed-curriculum/

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My other blogs: Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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10 April, 2022

Theresa remembers the rage in her daughter’s eyes

<i>The Leftist perverts in schools grab a troubled child and convince her that her born sex is wrong for her</i>

Theresa’s daughter had a history of anxiety and depression, but this was new. It was just weeks earlier, in mid-December 2020, that she first told her mom she no longer felt like a girl. Counselors at the local mental-health facility affirmed her feelings, and they urged Theresa and her husband to identify their daughter by her new name and pronouns.

Theresa insists she was amenable to the idea. But not yet. Not until a professional took time to probe her daughter’s mind. Not until her daughter had done the hard work – therapy to get to a better place in her head, educating herself about what gender transitioning really entails.

“She hated me. Like, she hated me. She looked at me with just pure rage,” said Theresa, who spoke to National Review on the condition that her real name not be used. “If she’s meant to be a boy, that will come out, and we will do it. But we don’t need to do it overnight.”

Theresa worried about the permanent damage a rash decision could cause. There is an intense debate among mental-health professionals about how to best treat children struggling with gender dysphoria, with some arguing it’s best to immediately affirm the child’s new identity, and others warning that doing so can be self-reinforcing and cause long-term harm.

Despite their daughter’s protests, Theresa and her husband decided it would be best that she be identified as a girl and by her real name when she returned to school in mid-January. They assumed their local suburban school district about 30 miles west of Milwaukee would support their rights as parents to make this delicate medical decision for their daughter.

They were wrong.

Leaders of her daughter’s middle school told Theresa that while they couldn’t change her daughter’s name and gender in official records, they would refer to her as a boy and by her new chosen name, Leo, if that’s what her daughter wanted. “We’re an advocate for the child and not the parent,” they told her, Theresa recalled. To Theresa, the school-district leaders were usurping her and her husband’s rights as parents.

“And they said, ‘Too bad, so sad,’ kind of,” Theresa said of the district’s response.

Theresa and her husband sued the school district last year, alleging that district leaders had violated their constitutional rights as parents. A spokesman for the Kettle Moraine School District did not respond to an email from National Review seeking comment on the case.

The lawsuit, filed by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty and the national Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), is one of a growing number of legal challenges popping up across the country pushing back on school districts with policies that shut parents out from decisions regarding kids’ gender identification at school. Similar lawsuits are being brought in states including California, Florida, Maryland, and Virginia.

The wave of lawsuits calls for a simple fix: state laws that explicitly prohibit public schools from taking major decisions – including a child’s name and gender identity – out of parents’ hands, said Luke Berg, a lawyer with the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty. Berg is mounting a campaign to pressure state lawmakers to pass such laws, setting up what could become a contentious battle in state houses across the country.

The districts argue that allowing young kids to live a double life at school is simply an example of “tolerance.” To progressive trans advocates, not immediately affirming a child’s new gender identity is a form of abuse. Earlier this year, teachers in Eau Claire, Wisc., were instructed by “diversity” staffers from a local college to hide their students’ changing gender identities from their parents on the grounds that “parents are not entitled to know,” and that it is “knowledge that must be earned,” according to leaked training documents.

This month, the Wisconsin Supreme Court is slated to hear arguments in a case regarding a Madison Metropolitan School District policy, adopted in 2018, that commits to affirming “each student’s self-designated gender identity” and prohibits staff from letting parents know that their child is using a new name and pronouns at school. To prevent the parents from finding out, staff are instructed to use “the student’s affirmed name and pronouns in the school setting, and their legal name and pronouns with family,” according to the policy.

That lawsuit also was brought by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty and ADF. In response, the Madison district’s lawyers disagree with the contention that the desire to present as another gender is a strong indicator of gender dysphoria, and they argue that allowing kids to change their gender identification isn’t really a medical intervention. And if the parents don’t like it, they can just take their kids elsewhere, they argue. As Theresa put it, “too bad, so sad.”

But the district’s lawyers failed to acknowledge that not all parents are privileged enough to afford those option. Parents, they wrote, “may not dictate how MMSD teaches their children.”

School districts like Madison’s that won’t let a student take an aspirin or go on a field trip or participate in extracurricular sports without parent consent, now are allowing students to make a major life decision – changing their name and gender – with zero input from mom or dad, said Berg, the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty lawyer.

“They’ve carved out this one topic,” he said, “where not only do you not need parental consent, we will actively hide from your parents that you are doing it.”

‘I Kind of Don’t Feel Like a Girl’

Growing up in an upper-middle-class suburb in Waukesha County, west of Milwaukee, Theresa said there were few indications that her daughter might one day question her gender. She was a social kid, but not a tomboy who wanted to play football and scrap with the neighborhood boys. “She was a very feminine young girl,” Theresa said of her daughter, who went trick-or-treating as a unicorn when she was in fifth grade, her face in full makeup.

But as her daugher got older and started putting on some weight, she started wearing more boyish clothes to cover her body, Theresa said. Anxiety and depression had been an issue throughout her daughter’s childhood, and that got worse during the Covid-19 lockdowns when she was isolated at home, stuck in her mind, and with access to too much social media.

“She struggles with self-worth, and feeling like she’s pretty enough, is she thin enough,” Theresa said. “She has struggled with that for some time.”

Theresa said that while she believes in God, her family doesn’t attend church, so there were no religious objections to transgenderism. She didn’t shield her children from transgender issues. She couldn’t. The father of one of her daughter’s friends identifies as a transgender woman.

“My kids and I had open discussions about it because I couldn’t avoid it,” she said.

It was at school in mid-December 2020 when Theresa said her daughter confided in a friend that “she didn’t feel like a girl.” That friend confided in a teacher’s aide, who then approached Theresa’s daughter with the offer that she could change her name and pronouns if she wanted. When her daughter said she didn’t feel comfortable making that decision without her mom, the aide suggested she discuss it with her parents.

That night, Theresa’s daughter came into her room to talk. “I kind of don’t feel like a girl. And I’ve been wanting to hurt myself lately,” she said, Theresa recalled. She didn’t know what was making her feel that way, Theresa said, but her daughter thought that maybe she needed to go to Rogers Behavioral Health, a mental-health provider in town. Theresa called first thing in the morning.

Theresa said she tread lightly that first night, so her daughter wouldn’t shut down.

She said her message that night was: “I think we need to work on you starting to like who you are instead of constantly focusing on changing yourself into something you’re not.”

The next morning, Theresa secured a bed for her daughter at Rogers, and told them about her daughter’s gender issue, as well as her anxiety and depression. They packed her things and headed in for an eight-day in-patient stay at the facility. “The experience was horrific,” she said.

The moment they walked in, staff referred to her daughter as Leo, a boy. Theresa was surprised by the approach, but she thought it might just be an effort to build trust with her daughter. Within a day, a therapist recommended putting Theresa’s daughter on medication, a step she wasn’t comfortable with without a more thorough assessment.

During a virtual family-therapy session, a counselor said it would be best for Theresa’s daughter “if you guys would respect her decision and call her Leo and refer to her as a boy,” she said. Theresa questioned whether the therapy staff had deeply explored why her daughter felt like she was a boy, and what had triggered the change. Had they looked into her daughter’s depression and anxiety to see whether that might explain why she was trying to “create a brand new person,” Theresa asked.

“Has any of this been discussed?” she said she asked. “And he was kind of like, essentially, ‘No.’ But he was like, ‘If you don’t do what your daughter wants, if she decides to hurt or kill herself, that’s really going to fall on you guys, because you’re not respecting your child’s choices.’”

Theresa said her husband was willing to call his daughter whatever she wanted if that meant keeping her alive. Theresa put her foot down. Her daughter is a girl, “and until somebody is going to take some time to find out what the hell is going on in her mind, it’s going to stay that way,” she said. “I’m not going to appease her for short-term gain when I feel like there are long-term problems that need to be worked out.”

Her Daughter’s Best Friend or Biggest Adversary?

Theresa said her daughter left the facility just before Christmas. While she was there, Theresa reached out to her daughter’s middle school to sign medical-release paperwork and to make sure school leaders were aware of what was happening.

“I just felt it was my job as a parent to make people that are going to be tending to my child aware of potential issues that could arise,” she said.

Theresa loved her kids’ schools and planned to keep her kids in the district even after the family learned they would have to move out of the home they were renting, she said.

At home, she said, her daughter was continuing with outpatient virtual therapy and growing angrier. Some nights her daughter just vented, said she was a boy, and called Theresa a “transphobe.” But Theresa said she refused to negotiate.

“I told her, ‘I’m not telling you that you can’t be transgender. I’m not telling you that you can’t be a boy. I’m telling you that you can’t change your name and your gender right now,’” she said.  “You have a lot of underlying issues that need to be addressed before you make the decision that you were born in the wrong body. I understand that all these people around you are appeasing you and giving you want you want, and I’m not doing that, and that makes you angry. But I am your best friend. I am looking out for your best interest.”

Her daughter just seemed to grow angrier.

Theresa continued to communicate with the school, but unbeknownst to her, so did her daughter. She wanted to be identified as a boy when she returned to classes. Theresa said she learned that the therapists were telling her daughter that she was “her biggest adversary.”

“I was going to be the biggest problem in her life because I do not accept her for who she is now, nor will I ever,” she said. “They discussed her getting on medication to transition to a man because it’s easier when you’re younger. Her anger was fueled by the therapy I was paying for.”

Theresa’s daughter was scheduled to return to school in mid-January 2021, a couple of days after Martin Luther King Jr. Day. At first, Theresa and her husband weren’t sure how to handle a possible gender transition at school. Early in the ordeal, they initially consented to granting their daughter’s wishes, but they told school officials they would be in touch. Theresa said she started reading peer-reviewed research on gender dysphoria and treatment, and she grew concerned about the affirmation approach.

A couple of days before her daughter was to go back, Theresa called the school counselor; her expectation was that her daughter would be referred to by her birth name, and as a girl. She assured them they were addressing her daughter’s gender issue, she said, and she offered to put them in touch with the new therapist they were going to work with. She said she was clear: “We are not choosing to follow the affirmative-care model.”

The school principal told her that he couldn’t control how the students referred to her daughter. “And he said, ‘Well, there are some teachers who would like to respect your daughter’s wishes.’ And I said, ‘While I appreciate that they want to do that, that’s not my expectation at this point. This is a medical condition. I have control over what sort of medical care my child gets. And she will not be referred to with a different name or gender at school,’” Theresa said.

The principal suggested that Theresa hold her daughter out of school another day. A day later, she said, he called back. School leaders would not abide by Theresa’s expectations. Instead, they would honor her daughter’s wishes to be called Leo and a boy.

Theresa said she was told that if the school district didn’t identify her daughter by the name and pronouns of her choice, they could be accused of discrimination because of new Biden-administration executive orders about gender and sex.

‘Affirmative Care Really Messed Me Up’

Theresa never sent her daughter back to that school. She considered parochial school, but her daughter balked, fearing she would be “damned to hell” because she now identified as a lesbian.

Theresa didn’t send her daughter back to her Rogers therapist after her month of outpatient care ended. She took away her daughter’s access to social media. And after a couple of weeks, she said, her daughter’s demeanor began to revert back to where it was before.

One day, Theresa said, she came home and found her daughter in the kitchen talking with her dad. “She was like, ‘You know, Mom, I’m really sorry. Affirmative care really messed me up. They really made me hate you and Grandma. I know that you love me, and you just want what’s best for me,’” Theresa said. “She’s just a completely different kid.”

Theresa said her daughter now sees a therapist they vetted well. They work well together, and her daughter is doing better. The family bought a new home in another school district, and her daughter is going to school there. She said her daughter no longer identifies as a lesbian or a boy, though she would be free to do so in her new school.

Parents Waking Up to New Gender Orthodoxy

Berg with the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty said trans-affirming policies, such as the written policy in Madison and the unwritten policy in the Kettle Moraine district, are becoming increasingly common in school districts nationwide.

Over the past two years, Berg said he’s received calls from about a half dozen parents in school districts around Wisconsin who learned that school staff were secretly calling their kids by new names and pronouns. “Parents should assume that every district has this policy, whether written down or not,” he said.

Leftist organizations including The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, the National Education Association, the Human Rights Campaign, and the American Civil Liberties Union are driving the narrative, and they’ve been successful in convincing school-district leaders and their lawyers that trans-affirming policies – even without parental consent – are the best practice, and even required by law, which isn’t true, Berg said. “Then it just spread like a cancer,” he said.

“Now parents are waking up to it,” Berg said. “They’ve just been making this up all along.”

Kate Anderson, senior counsel with ADF and director of its Center for Parental Rights, said she’s receiving calls from parents across the country – and across the political spectrum – who are concerned because they are seeing these policies enacted in their school districts. She said it is “dangerous” for schools to encourage children who are “dealing with very serious mental-health issues” to lie to their parents and to live two lives.

“Their parents want to try to help them get the care they need, but they can’t do that if the school is hiding the information from them,” Anderson said.

Anderson said they are working to establish legal precedents so that school district leaders skeptical of the new gender orthodoxy have case law to fall back on, and so parents in districts where these policies are in practice can more effectively fight back. The school district in Kenosha, Wisc., recently rejected part of a policy that would have allowed students to change their names and pronouns without parental consent, in part because of the lawsuit in Madison.

While Republican legislatures around the country have been passing bills prohibiting males from participating in female sports and banning irreversible gender-reassignment surgeries for children, Berg said there have been few efforts to pass news laws specifically aimed at affirming parental rights regarding gender identity at school. Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill, which bars “classroom instruction . . . on sexual orientation or gender identity” from kindergarten through third grade, has some language that could be relevant, he said, though it doesn’t explicitly address children’s changing their names and pronouns.

That bill was spurred by a Tallahassee-area school that helped a 13-year-old child transition to a different gender without notifying the child’s parents. Theresa said she supports the Florida law, which opponents deride as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

Theresa’s lawsuit against the Kettle Moraine School District is ongoing. The district has filed a motion to have the lawsuit dismissed because Theresa’s daughter no longer attends school there, and because the other plaintiffs’ children, who do go to school there, don’t currently have gender-identity issues.

Looking back, Theresa said, she wonders how her life – and the life of her daughter – would have been different if they’d gone along with the therapists, activists, and school leaders who urged her to just accept her daughter’s new name and pronouns.

“If I would have done exactly what they wanted me to do and potentially hurt my child by following the practices that they wanted, who was going to be there to hold her hand when all of that fell apart?” she asked. “None of those people forcing me to practice this on my child.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/a-moms-fight-to-save-her-daughter-from-trans-orthodoxy-at-school/

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Emory U. Restricts Internet Access for Students Who Refuse COVID Booster

Unboosted students at Emory University in Georgia had their internet access limited, resulting in slower Wi-Fi and blocked access to non-school-related websites like social media.

About 1,300 students were affected by the university's booster vaccine requirements last month. But after facing enduring reduced internet access, more than half of the impacted students either got their booster or requested an exemption, university Executive Director for COVID-19 Response and Recovery Amir St. Clair told the Emory Wheel.

“The WiFi restrictions were a valuable compliance measure to help promote participation,” St. Clair said. “Our hope is that it will continue to have an impact.”

Students received notice of changes to their internet access in February.

St. Clair explained that students would have their internet restored to normal after a few days if they get their booster shot. Students who requested a booster exemption, however, would have to wait longer due to the 7 to 10-day process of reviewing and approving such requests. He noted that unboosted students could suffer additional consequences later on but did not specify what those penalties would entail.

Nearly 95 percent of students and 91 percent of faculty have received both initial COVID vaccines and their booster shot if they are eligible to receive it, according to Emory's COVID-19 dashboard.

Last month, the university suffered a slight increase in COVID cases, with 53 infections among students, faculty and staff in the last 10 days compared to only 35 cases reported in the weeks of March 3 and March 18, the university's dashboard shows.

St. Clair said the university has experienced "very low rates of transmission" of the coronavirus on campus.

"We are not seeing a surge, a spike there," he said. "The Emory community and the metro Atlanta area counties continue to be classified as a low-risk community, per CDC guidelines."

He also urged the importance of adhering to COVID protocols as the school's semester draws to a close.

"We just need to continue to be very mindful of the environment that we’re in relative to safety and health," St. Clair said. "We want to continue to make really good decisions so that we can end the year in a very safe and healthy way, and be able to really enjoy the end of the year celebrations and events and parties and commencements."

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/landonmion/2022/04/08/emory-u-restricts-internet-access-for-students-who-refuse-covid-booster-n2605686

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Australia: Human Rights Commission challenges mandatory Covid-19 vaccination of teachers

The Queensland Human Rights Commission has sensationally claimed the chief health officer’s direction requiring teachers and early childcare workers to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 is not justified.

The commission also claims the latest vaccine mandate direction is outside John Gerrard’s power, under the Public Health Act.

The QHRC has made the claims in a submission, as an intervener in Supreme Court legal challenges against vaccine mandates by three groups of suspended teachers and early childcare workers.

The QHRC claims Dr Gerrard’s latest direction, made in February, requiring full vaccination of teachers and others, does not comply with the Act.

“The right not to be subjected to non-consensual medical treatment has clearly been limited by the directions and, on the evidence, other rights also,” the submission says.

The vaccination direction prohibited unvaccinated workers in early childhood, primary and secondary schools and kindergartens from entering or working in “high-risk settings’’.

Counsel for QHRC said the right of the CHO to give such directions was conditioned upon him placing “reasonable and demonstrably justifiable limits upon human rights’’.

“On the present evidence … the limits on human rights imposed by the current CHO direction are not demonstrably justified and so, the direction was outside of power,’’ the QHRC submission says.

The decision to give the latest direction was not compliant with section 58(1) of the Human Rights Act, counsel said.

There was an apparent failure to consider the voluntary vaccination rates of teachers by February 4, when the direction was made.

The CHO also appeared to have failed to consider the effectiveness of the prescribed course of available vaccines against the Omicron variant.

There also was a lack of consideration of less restrictive alternatives in this latter phase of the pandemic and an absence of any time frame for considering revoking the direction, the submission says.

Dr Gerrard’s evidence indicated the latest direction was necessary to prevent the risk of Covid-19 spreading through school communities.

But the QHRC submission says the CHO’s material did not address the need for the direction, in light of voluntary vaccination rates. It did not identify the number of unvaccinated teachers, in order to consider alternatives such as more individualised exemptions or unvaccinated staff wearing masks or having daily or thrice-weekly RAT testing. There needed to be a balance between the rights of the challenging teachers against the rights and safety of students, families and the community.

Justice Jean Dalton recently ruled that the CHO’s vaccine directions were legislative and not administrative decisions, not requiring explanation, but her judgment is being appealed

https://www.couriermail.com.au/coronavirus/human-rights-commission-challenges-mandatory-covid19-vaccination-of-teachers/news-story/c3af572701f3a9f575bf7b9570f3e270

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My other blogs: Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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8 April, 2022

What About Ditching College?

It seems that more high school students and their parents are coming to terms with the fact that not everyone has to go to college. A few years ago, many parents assumed the only question for their child after high school was which college to attend. Now, the after-graduation question is whether to attend college at all.

The number of students going directly from high school to college in 2020 dropped 21% from the prior year. Many high school graduates chose to work or pursue other endeavors over taking and paying for a year of college on their laptop.

This drop was due in large part to COVID and our poor management of the pandemic. Other trends indicate that this turn away from college is not an aberration but perhaps an opportunity for us to free ourselves of the damaging idea that a costly college education is a must in our society.

“Are you going to college?” “Where did you go to college?” “What did you study in college?” Ever been peppered with these questions? It is endemic in our country to assume that everyone is going, has been, or aspires to go to college. Having a college degree is portrayed as a Wonka ticket that magically opens career doors and feeds you gobs of money and success. It’s far from it.

It’s hard to know when our nation’s cultural obsession with college began. Maybe in the 1990s, when co-President Hillary Clinton openly mused that every child should have the chance to go to college. But it’s evident now that colleges and universities and lenders see public high schools as little more than feed stations for the higher education industry. The people who enroll in college are called students, but they’re really customers. The academics want to indoctrinate them in the leftist agenda. The administrators want to expand the campus to attract new clients. The lenders want to put financial hooks into them that stick for decades.

In a recent poll of people who have graduated from college in the last five years, 19% said they were under-qualified for their first job. Over half had not applied to an entry-level job in their field because they felt unqualified.

Additionally, three out of every eight students who started college will drop out before completing their degree. And a Gallup poll from last year revealed that 45% of parents want to see more non-college options for their children.

Armed with these and other dismal facts, parents and potential students must ask themselves: What’s it all for? College doesn’t guarantee success and happiness, nor does a lack of college guarantee failure and misery. Far from it. Furthermore, high school students stand as good a chance at success in learning a trade and going straight to work — and without the massive debt that cripples the economic lives of so many college graduates.

The college bubble’s been ready to burst for a while. The economic value of a college education was already dropping before COVID. Enrollment is dropping and the costs are growing to unsustainable levels, but the higher education industry still believes it can keep things going.

Colleges are lowering the hurdles of entry for less academically qualified students. This is framed as reaching out to “underrepresented populations,” and it gives institutions something to brag about when they solicit donations from alumni networks and Pell grants from the federal government. By the way, doubling the Pell grant is one of Joe Biden’s line items in next year’s budget. Of course, exclusivity in obtaining a quality education is one of college’s selling points. If anyone can get in, exclusivity goes away. Or, as Syndrome put it in “The Incredibles,” “If everyone is special, no one is.”

Colleges are cutting costs in other areas as well: trimming staff, getting faculty to take pay cuts and take on a larger student load, and, of course, raising tuition. In the end, though, it’s all about enrolling students. Enrolled students are paying students. And that’s all colleges and universities really care about.

Remember: Higher education is neither a public service nor a prerequisite to a better life. It’s a business. And not everyone is required to be a consumer. The pathway to success is wide and varied, and it may indeed run through a college campus. But it certainly doesn’t have to.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/87479-what-about-ditching-college-2022-04-07

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NY State is holding NYC’s schoolchildren hostage

The Legislature got its way, keeping renewal of mayoral control of New York City public schools out of this year’s budget, leaving the issue to the rest of the session in a juvenile slap at Mayor Eric Adams. When will they stop playing games with children’s futures?

Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul had pushed for a four-year extension of mayoral control along with the budget. It’s really a no-brainer, since no one seriously argues that defaulting back to the old, unaccountable city Board of Education would be an improvement — and any transition would leave the system in limbo for weeks if not months.

Control should be permanent: The main hostility to mayoral control stems from the United Federation of Teachers, whose power prospered under the BOE.

But the Legislature enjoys making mayors come crawling every few years to beg lawmakers to do the right thing and/or to bribe the UFT with wage hikes or other concessions to give its Albany puppets the go-ahead.

This year, Adams also peeved the leadership with his truth-telling on the urgent need for fixes to their recent criminal-justice reforms: They insist their work was near-perfect and get hissy at suggestions that it paved the way for soaring crime. (Spoiler: It did.)

It surely didn’t help that Adams has also said he wants to slash the city’s bureaucracy, putting unionized jobs at risk (public-employee unions all hold great sway in the Legislature). And he and Chancellor David Banks mean to do the same with the school system, where they also intend to institute serious measures of accountability, further enraging the UFT.

Perhaps worst for the teachers union, Adams is friendly to charter schools, and Banks even ran one. That’s a major threat to all adult interests that feed off the public schools.

It’s also a reminder of why mayoral control is so vital. Adams, who won without the UFT’s blessing, is free to choose what’s best for the kids, not for Mike Mulgrew’s union. (Indeed, he’s already faced down the UFT by refusing to even think about school closures over the phantom Omicron threat.)

Again, it’s unlikely the Legislature will risk disaster by letting mayoral control lapse. But its leaders are all too likely to demand concessions to serve the special interests, leaving the system’s future in doubt for weeks or months.

Yes, New York’s top lawmakers are so small-minded as to leave the fate of nearly a million schoolchildren in limbo simply to cut down to size a mayor they deem uppity. We’d call it shameful, but they plainly have no shame.

https://nypost.com/2022/04/07/albany-is-holding-nycs-schoolchildren-hostage/

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Biden's Student Loan Decision Contradicts His Bragging About the Economy

As Madeline reported earlier on Wednesday, the Biden administration is set to extend the government's pause on student loan repayments to the end of August after previously extending the "relief" targeted at those who have federal student loans. 

As The AP noted, "Democrats on education panels in the House and Senate recently urged President Joe Biden to extend the moratorium through the end of the year, citing continued economic upheaval." But...the White House has been bragging about how effective Biden's Build Back Better agenda is and how the country is doing better than ever?

Not so, according to members of Biden's party in Congress:

Sen. Patty Murray said more time is needed to help Americans prepare for repayment and to rethink the government’s existing system for repaying student debt.

“It is ruining lives and holding people back,” she said in a statement last month. “Borrowers are struggling with rising costs, struggling to get their feet back under them after public health and economic crises, and struggling with a broken student loan system — and all this is felt especially hard by borrowers of color.”

Once again, the White House's spin on economic data doesn't match reality for Americans, nor does it match the rest of the Biden administration's actions. Democrats on Capitol Hill and even the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis are warning that "[s]erious delinquency rates for student debt could snap back from historic lows to their previous highs in which 10% or more of the debt was past due" if student loan payments are restarted. 

Compare what congressional Democrats and others have said with what Biden said just five days ago following the release of March's jobs report from the Department of Labor:

Americans are back to work.  And that’s good news for millions of families who have a little more breathing room and the dignity that comes from earning a paycheck — just the dignity of having a job.

 

And more and more Americans get jobs — as they do, it’s going to help to ease the supply pressures we’ve seen.  And that’s good news for fighting inflation, it’s good news for our economy, and it means that our economy has gone from being on the mend to being on the move.

On the move, huh? If the American economy is now done being mended, in Biden's mind, why are pandemic response measures being extended another three months? "Our policies are working," Biden also claimed on Friday. "And we’re getting results for the American people...Record job creation.  Record unemployment declines.  Record wage gains...People are making more money.  They’re finding better jobs," Biden said.

Of course, his claims don't match reality and are undercut if not discredited by his administration's decision to extend student loan forbearance. The American people already know that wage gains are entirely erased by inflation that has left them, on average, with a two percent drop in real wages in the last year. The jobs supposedly created are really just jobs that are being recovered — and the economy is still not back where it was before the pandemic started.

Biden's decision to extend the pause on student loan repayment is an admission of sorts that Biden's economic agenda hasn't achieved the goals his campaign promised. But that doesn't stop the White House from continuing its furious spin to try and claim victory ahead of the midterms. President Biden and his aides either think the American people are too naive to know better or too simple-minded to see the glaring contradiction between what the White House says and what the White House does.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/spencerbrown/2022/04/06/if-bidens-economic-recovery-is-so-great-why-is-he-extending-student-loan-relief-n2605559

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My other blogs: Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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7 April, 2022

Joe Rogan slams California school that pushed woke 'anti-racism' on his 9-year-old daughter and says he doesn't even know what the ideology means

Joe Rogan is slamming the California elementary school that he claims pushed woke anti-racism ideology on his nine-year-old daughter after George Floyd's killing.

The podcaster claims the unnamed school issued a blanket statement email in May 2020 telling families that students 'must be anti-racist,' something he said the kids were too young to even understand. 

'When the whole George Floyd thing happened, one of the schools that my kids were going to back in California released this email, saying that it's not enough to not be racist, you now must be anti-racist,' Rogan, 54, said on Tuesday's episode of his podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience.  

Rogan, who has been embroiled in his own racial controversy after old clips of him using the n-word surfaced, said he could support schools teaching students that 'racism is stupid,' but argues teaching them to be anti-racist is inappropriate. 

'These kids are not even remotely racist. Like, they have all sorts of different kinds of friends,' he said. 'I've never heard them discuss it once. It's just "I like this person and she's nice to me and we like to play together and we both like the same things,"' he said. 'So to tell a 9-year-old that you have to be anti-racist, well, then they go looking for racism, they're gonna go looking to confront it.' 

Floyd, 46, was killed at the hands of Minneapolis police in May 2020 during an arrest. His death triggered protests around the globe against racism and police brutality.

Rogan also criticized the educators who truly believe pushing the woke curriculum was a good idea, calling them 'naive'.  

'They weren't that good at teaching in the first place,' the podcaster argued. 'And now here there are saying they're going to tackle something, not not just tackle something as complex as race in America, but you're going to establish rules that you can't just be not racist, you have to be anti-racist.

'And you're going to teach this to a nine-year-old?' he questioned. 'So what are you saying? Like, what exactly are you saying, what is your f*****g end goal?'

He stated he supported academics instilling values of equality, but his daughter's school's agenda was confusing

'If you want to tell my nine-year-old, they have to be anti-racist. What does it mean?' he questioned. 'They have to go find racism and confront it?'  

The podcaster claims the California school's anti-racist push came amid the nationwide push to combat racial injustice that followed Floyd's death. 

Floyd was killed on May 25, 2020, having been arrested for allegedly attempting to use a counterfeit $20 bill to buy cigarettes at a grocery store. 

Shortly after the incident, video emerged of Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on Floyd's neck as he lay on the ground for nine minutes.

Floyd cried out, 'I can't breathe!' over and over. His words became a rallying cry for demonstrators the world over.

Chauvin was found guilty of second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter in Floyd's death. Three other officers, Tou Thao, Thomas Lane, and J Alexander Kueng, were fired from the police department who did nothing to intervene while witnessing Floyd's death. 

Rogan's remarks about anti-racist education came during a Tuesday interview with playwright and filmmaker David Mamet in which the pair discussed the current state of Hollywood. 

The podcaster has been under fire in recent months from progressives who called on Spotify, the streaming service that houses his show, to cancel his $200million deal over his COVID-19 comments and use of racial slurs.

In January, a group of 270 doctors and scientists signed an open letter to Spotify accusing Rogan of pushing 'anti-vax misinformation' and branding him a 'menace to public health'. 

After Spotify didn't respond to the letter, musicians Neil Young and Joni Mitchell led a boycott and pulled their music from the streaming platform. 

Spotify eventually launched content advisory warnings on episodes that include discussion about COVID-19 on a rolling basis.

Then in February, clips resurfaced from Rogan's podcast in which he used the N-word over 20 times. He later apologized, calling it 'the most regretful and shameful thing I've ever had to talk about publicly.' 

'It looks f***ing horrible. Even to me,' Rogan said. 'I know that to most people, there is no context where a white person is ever allowed to say that word, never mind publicly on a podcast, and I agree with that now. I haven't said it in years.' 

Last month, Rogan threatened to cancel his Spotify deal if 'he has to walk on eggshells.'

'There's more people pouring over it but it's the same thing. I do it the same way,' Rogan said during his March 29 episode. 

'If I become something different because it grew bigger, I will quit. If it gets to a point that I can't do it anymore, where I have to do it in some sort of weird way where I walk on eggshells and mind my p's and q's, f*** that!'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10693019/Joe-Rogan-slams-school-pushed-woke-anti-racism-9-year-old-daughter.html

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A Big, Fat ‘F’ for Gubmint Skools

American students perform poorly on the nation’s report card. Overall, the majority of our students in public school don’t even meet “below basic” standards. We’re far from alone in thinking this is a huge problem.

C. Bradley Thompson, philosophy professor at Clemson University, digs into the actual numbers of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). He illustrates this fact:

In history, for instance, only 20 percent of U.S. fourth graders, 17 percent of eighth graders, and 12 percent of twelfth graders who took the 2010 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests (America’s so-called Report Card), were deemed “proficient” or “advanced” in their knowledge of the subject. More than 50 percent of high school seniors posted scores at the lowest level (“below basic”), and “only 35% of fourth-graders knew the purpose of the Declaration of Independence.” In 2018, American eighth graders scored four points lower on the NAEP U.S. history test than they did in 2014. According to a recent survey, 42 percent of Americans think Karl Marx’s communist slogan “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” is to be found in one of America’s founding documents.

Thompson goes on to make the point that this author often does regarding how devastating the COVID lockdowns were for our students. He writes, “In 2021, after a years of masked or online teaching, reading test scores for American first graders fell a stunning 24 points on a national reading test, but even before the pandemic, nearly two-thirds of American students could not read at grade level.”

American public education has been in sharp decline for decades, but as this data clearly shows, our current batch of students are in a free fall. This is not for lack of attempted intervention. Big Government has long tried to right the sinking ship of education with Head Start, No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and so many others.

These government “interventions” did little more that accelerate the issues. The real meat of the problem is varied and nuanced, and though a great chunk of responsibility can be placed at the feet of public schools and government policies, there are so many more issues at hand.

At the bottom of this Analysis, don’t miss your opportunity to support your Patriot Post team!

Why don’t these stats talk about the vast difference in the students that we teachers see? As recently as 15 years ago, teachers at the kindergarten and first grade levels were not seeing as many children with learning difficulties as we’re seeing in today’s classrooms. Learning difficulties such as dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, autism, and other challenges.

Why is that?

Most recent education reforms focus on having no standards at all, which is an overcorrection to the Race to the Top and No Child Left Behind policies of punishing schools and teachers if their children don’t succeed.

There has also been a shift in cultural priorities. Having an educated populace makes it more difficult to manipulate people politically. Teaching children to despise real learning and to love emotional grandstanding is another way to stupefy the masses (empathy over intellect). We also have a culture of adults who do not like to read. Reading is a skill that is developed over time. Books for pleasure are just as essential as books that challenge. Taking the time to better oneself by reading books that challenge requires discipline, self-awareness, and a desire to learn — qualities that are no longer viewed favorably in our instant-gratification, social media-driven culture. Some even refer to this striving for improvement as “whiteness.”

Parenting has also changed. Many parents do not fully understand that in spite of the propaganda, they are their children’s primary educators. By leaving “education” up to the schools, they are forfeiting that essential part of parenting that drives children to succeed.

These children also have the distinct disadvantage of growing up in a digital age where instant gratification is taken to the next level. Learning is a process that takes time and digital learning does not effectively teach as a result.

Children are also being diagnosed with learning disabilities at a much higher rate. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. It is good because they can receive interventions by their parents and teachers to help them succeed. It is bad because these diagnosis are often used as an excuse not to try their absolute best and/or for their teachers not to work their hardest to help them succeed.

There are other issues at play that feed into our children’s learning disabilities. Our diets, environmental issues, genetic issues, lack of social interaction, lack of play in early education … the list is endless.

The most nefarious reason of all is the emphasis on nonessential education — the eduactivism element that is hurting and further convoluting our children’s learning. Our children can’t read, write, or do math, but by all means let’s teach them about gender pronouns, critical race theory, and how to have safe sex. This is not at all the intended role of public schools, and yet in this current era, it is sometimes the primary emphasis.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/87445-a-big-fat-f-for-gubmint-skools-2022-04-06

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Australia: Better discipline in schools begins outside the classroom

<i>That is probably true but it is no substitute for better discipline IN the classroom</i>

One of the hot button topics in education at the moment is the issue of classroom discipline and student behaviour.

Because everyone has been to school, everyone also has an opinion on the issue, often ill-informed and, at times, extremely unhelpful.

As is commonly the case when we seek global responses to problems we face, the reality of the solutions required are more complex than they first seem. For example, there is a tendency to assume the solution always lies with the individual teacher and their capacity to maintain order in class. While there is certainly some truth in that view, consider a scenario that commonly occurs in schools.

Teacher A, in one classroom is valiantly seeking to implement the school’s expectation that students do not use their mobile phones in class. On telling the students she requires them to put their phones away, she is told by one of her more voluble charges that Teacher B, a little further down the corridor, doesn’t care if they do. Teacher A is immediately undermined and, despite her willingness and capacity to follow the rule, is somewhat less able to make it work.

This, rather than headline-grabbing stories about violence in schools, is really the main game as far as improving discipline is concerned, since it is low-level disruption that really impedes quality teaching in class, rather than periodic outbursts that are fleeting, and by comparison rare.

The point is, that regardless of any individual teacher’s efforts to maintain discipline in class, it can only really happen on the back of a whole-school approach.

In research conducted in 2009 on why some schools perform much better than their peers, my colleagues and I found it depended, to a significant degree, on the leadership, their expectations for the school, and the extent to which an orderly learning environment exists where students are well-known by the staff.

The key in this regard is consistency. Put simply, the greater the consistency of practice, the better the school. It reflects the fact that Teacher A can request the phone be put away, secure in the knowledge that Teacher B will do the same and the school’s leaders will back them on this.

Leadership, we found, is the difference between the pockets of improvement that exist in any school, and whole-school improvement. Schools do not get better unless their leaders are leading improvement. The principal is at the centre of this. That said, the principal cannot do it on their own, and hence needs to weld a team of leaders together who can then work to drive improvement through their school.

This applies as much to classroom discipline as to any other strategy for improvement the school adopts. It in turn suggests that if all we do is try to improve teachers’ individual disciplinary skills, then all we will get is the variability that already exists. It is only when the whole of the school unites around a common approach that things can begin to change.

Some years ago, for example, a large school that I worked with in outer-eastern Melbourne, tackled a breakdown in implementing its uniform policy through a mix of improved documentation, procedures and a simple red bag. Although the school attempted to ban the wearing of hoodies and facial piercings, inconsistent implementation by teachers meant they remained rife in the school.

By giving each teacher a red shopping bag to collect the offending items, the school’s leaders answered the question of how to store them through the day and provided a highly visible means to monitor the implementation of the rule. Through persistent hard work led by the principal and his team, uniform-wearing skyrocketed in the school which then considered where it should seek to be more consistent next.

There is always a need to improve teacher preparation and a broad range of their skills. But unless it is matched by a focus on leaders and supporting them to develop and implement a culture of high expectations where positive behaviour is demanded and required, then the outcome will be less than we intend.

There are many examples of schools which punch above their weight, not least because they have a dynamic leadership team with a clear sense of what’s needed if their school is to improve. We could do much worse than learn from these exemplars so that more schools can work like the best.

After all, don’t we all want to see students and staff alike on time, in class and ready to learn each and every day.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/better-discipline-in-schools-begins-outside-the-classroom-20220331-p5a9p4.html

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My other blogs: Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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6 April, 2022

Some of America’s Ivy League universities are suddenly shy

Far from trumpeting each year how low their acceptance rate is – thus underlining how hard it is to get in and how exclusive they are – three of the eight universities in the exclusive group are withholding the information this year.

Some Ivy League admissions officers say that drawing so much attention to how few candidates made the cut is doing more harm than good, ratcheting up panic among high-school students and their parents and perpetuating a myth that it is nearly impossible to get into a good college.

“We’re focusing not on how hard we are to get into but on who these young people are that we chose,” said E. Whitney Soule, admissions dean at the University of Pennsylvania.

Princeton and Cornell universities also no longer share detailed admission figures after informing applicants of their results.

“We know this information raises the anxiety level of prospective students and their families and, unfortunately, may discourage some prospective students from applying,” Princeton wrote in a statement on its admissions website explaining the change.

It is a marked shift from a standard annual game plan in which all eight Ivy League institutions – and scores of other well-known schools – publicly share figures for how large the applicant pool was and how few of those hopeful students actually made the cut. Most typically issue news releases, highlighting their single-digit acceptance rates.

This year Harvard said it had admitted 3.2 per cent of the 61,220 people who applied to join the fall 2022 class, edging down from 3.4 per cent last year.

Yale and Brown also reported record-low acceptance rates for this year, at 4.5 per cent and 5 per cent, respectively. Columbia and Dartmouth roughly tied last year’s rates of 3.7 per cent and 6.2 per cent.

The reticence of three of the eight Ivys came as the number of Americans applying to universities jumped sharply.

Through to mid-March the widely used Common App – an undergraduate college admission application – received 6.64 million applications, a 21 per cent jump from the 2019-20 school year.

There were 1.18 million applicants, an increase of 14 per cent. Highly selective universities – those admitting less than half their applicants – reported the biggest increases in applications. One factor explaining the increases is that many schools made test-score submissions optional during the pandemic.

There is also a longer-term trend at play: high-school students with high aspirations see the statistics from prior years and, concerned about getting in, try to hedge their bets by applying to more schools. The pools continue to grow; acceptance rates continue to tumble; the cycle repeats.

Harvard, Yale and other Ivies received an unprecedented number of applications last year and near-record figures for the early-admission deadline of the current cycle.

Stanford University in 2018 stopped reporting its admission data, saying it wanted to de-emphasise the perceived value of low acceptance rates, though other schools have been slow to follow suit.

About a year ago, Akil Bello, senior director of advocacy and advancement at FairTest, a non-profit that advocates for more limited use of standardised tests, began using the term “highly rejective” to describe some of these schools, rather than highly selective.

Mr Bello said his aim was to cast the low acceptance rate in a different light, one that wasn’t worthy of crowing about in a news release.

“I was challenging the notion that the statistic of admission rate was a positive indicator,” he said. “That’s really all it is. It’s a rejection rate.”

Ms Soule, from Penn, said the goal wasn’t to make the admissions process less transparent.

Schools still do post admission figures publicly, in the Common Data Set online and in reports to the Education Department, though there is a time lag before those are available.

At the time of admission, she said, the focus should be on the students who are getting in and what about them that caught the attention of admissions ­officers.

That is more useful to prospective students than a slight increase or decline in annual acceptance rates, she said.

“If others follow along, that would be great,” Ms Soule said.

“This is the right way for us to celebrate those we’ve admitted.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/several-ivy-league-unis-no-longer-release-their-acceptance-rates/news-story/bac8189663d34865971b29eb742e607f

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MIT Leads the Way in Reinstating the SAT

Expect others to follow. Selective institutions that don’t use standardized tests will fall behind.

“I find it hard to take seriously the state of Michigan’s contention that racial diversity is a compelling state interest—compelling enough to warrant ignoring the Constitution’s prohibition of distribution on the basis of race,” Scalia began. “The problem is a problem of Michigan’s own creation. That is to say, it has decided to create an elite law school . . . [and] it’s done this by taking only the best students with the best grades and the best SATs or LSATs, knowing that the result of this will be to exclude to a large degree minorities.”

Scalia said that if Michigan wants to be an elite law school, that’s fine. But there are trade-offs involved if the school also wants to prioritize enrolling some predetermined percentage of underrepresented minorities for aesthetic reasons. “If [racial diversity] is indeed a significant compelling state interest, why don’t you lower your standards?” he asked. “You don’t have to be the great college you are. You can be a lesser college if that value is important enough to you.”

Last week, the highly selective Massachusetts Institute of Technology, faced with a similar dilemma, apparently chose to maintain its high standards. It became the first prominent school to reinstate the requirement that applicants submit SAT or ACT scores, a practice that MIT and many other colleges had abandoned during the pandemic.

MIT explained the reversal in a blog post. “Our research shows standardized tests help us better assess the academic preparedness of all applicants, and also help us identify socioeconomically disadvantaged students who lack access to advanced coursework or other enrichment opportunities that would otherwise demonstrate their readiness for MIT,” wrote Stu Schmill, the dean of admissions. “Our ability to accurately predict student academic success at MIT⁠is significantly improved by considering standardized testing—especially in mathematics,” he added. Thus, “not having SATs/ACT scores to consider tends to raise socioeconomic barriers to demonstrating readiness for our education.”

None of this is unique to MIT. Mr. Schmill cited a major study released in 2020 by a University of California task force that highlighted the SAT’s ability to assess accurately high-school students for college readiness. Opponents of standardized testing claim the SAT is biased toward more-affluent whites. According to race scholar Ibram Kendi, “The use of standardized tests to measure aptitude and intelligence is one of the most effective racist policies ever designed to degrade Black minds and legally exclude Black bodies.”

If that’s true, how is it that a racial minority—Asian students—tend to score highest on the SAT? And how is that even low-income Asians outperform middle-class students from other racial and ethnic groups? Moreover, social science has long demonstrated that the SAT is a better predictor of college performance than high-school grades are for black students, while the reverse is true for white and Asian students.

Thus, black students have the most to lose as schools move away from objective test scores and toward more-subjective holistic assessments of applicants. The University of California system simply ignored the social science and ditched its SAT requirement. MIT should be applauded for putting the interests of students ahead of racial balancing.

Racial differences in test scores are less a reflection of innate intelligence and more a reflection of a young person’s developed academic capabilities. Given that millions of blacks are relegated to some of the worst-performing K-12 schools in the country, why would anyone be surprised by racial gaps in SAT scores? In large cities such as New York and Chicago, most black students cannot read or do math at grade level. Standardized tests aren’t causing these disparities, just revealing them. And the responsible way to address the problem is not by scrapping the test but through more school choice and better test preparation.

Of course, to Justice Scalia’s point, MIT also realizes that double standards for admissions will eventually lead to double standards for grades and degrees. The school must keep its eye on such competitors as the California Institute of Technology, which has a race-blind admissions process. “I have a hunch that MIT’s decision was driven by competitive pressure,” wrote Steven Hayward, a political scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, since “its arch-rival for science supremacy in academia—Caltech—might start to leave MIT conspicuously behind if MIT continued down the road to politically correct admissions practices.”

No doubt. But the broader concern is that other nations—China, Japan, South Korea—will gain a competitive edge on the U.S. as our elites wage war on meritocracy in the name of equity.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/mit-leads-the-way-in-reinstating-the-sat-admissions-policies-standardized-testing-college-students-11649185773?mod=hp_opin_pos_3

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Soaring school absenteeism im NYC

Chronic absenteeism has hit a staggering 40% in the city public-school system, The Post’s Susan Edelman reported Sunday. That translates to about 375,000 children out of 938,000 registered students missing at least 10% of schooldays.

And that figure, up from 26% in the pre-COVID 2018-19 year, is an undercount: Kids who log in online or have nominal contact with a teacher while out with COVID or quarantined get marked present.

The question is: Will Chancellor David Banks stop the Department of Education bureaucrats from fixing the data, not the problem?

Post-pandemic school absenteeism is plaguing big-city school districts across America, as many parents retain (unfounded) fears about COVID transmission in school — and all too many kids got out of the habit of showing up every day. Yet chronic absenteeism (defined as missing 18 days or more of an academic year) often results in low achievement, truancy, dropping out, delinquency and substance abuse.

Far worse (in the educrats’ eyes), poor attendance figures imperil DOE’s bottom line: Much state and federal aid is pegged to the number of students in school on a daily basis.

So the DOE regulars have rushed to paper over the crisis, pushing principals to “correct” the absentee data. In a memo leaked on Twitter, DOE sets a goal of reducing chronic absenteeism citywide to 30%, with each district and school given a target to hit — and principals urged to review past attendance records to ensure that absences got coded correctly.

Hint, hint: Fudge the records, guys.

Yes, the DOE is also using some of its avalanche of federal funds to hire social workers and others to make home visits and otherwise get the kids coming to school more regularly. It probably needs to make every school expand its front office to ensure endless calls home (which means more effort to get working numbers) whenever a kid doesn’t show.

It should also revisit the de Blasio-era policy that says poor attendance can’t prevent promotion to the next grade.

It’s up to Banks to ensure the bureaucracy actually mends its ways on this front, as on all too many others.

https://nypost.com/2022/04/05/banks-needs-to-get-nyc-schools-absenteeism-fixed-not-the-records/

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My other blogs: Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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5 April, 2022

What Educating Our Kids Looks Like After COVID-19

Parents have spent the last two years dealing with lawmakers’ and school officials’ indecisions about school reopenings, a nightmare for many. Public officials have constantly alternated between remote and in-person learning, masking and unmasking, social distancing and not.

Now, many families are rejoicing as they see states lift their remaining COVID-19 restrictions. Getting their children caught up on two years’ worth of learning will be the only concern when they attempt  to have a normal educational experience once again.

Or so one would assume.

A return to pre-COVID-19 conditions will not be enough to get American students on track when another major obstacle still plagues them: the youth mental health crisis. 

There is no doubt the pandemic and many of the arbitrary policies made in response to it contributed to suffering. Children were not immune from mental grievances.

Locking youth populations down, increasing their screen time, and isolating them from their friends and teachers made them feel more stressed, clingy, fearful, helpless, and lonelier than ever before. As a result of these disruptions to their routine, every age group has seen a significant uptick in various mental health, speech, and developmental concerns.

In the first six months of the pandemic alone, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that hospital visits for mental health-related emergencies increased 24% for children ages 5 to 11 and 31% for adolescents ages 12 to 17. The agency found in a follow-up study that emergency room visits for attempted suicides also increased by 50.6% for teen girls and 39% for adolescents overall compared to the same period in 2019.

The situation is dire enough that the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and the Children’s Hospital Association declared it as a national emergency last October. Psychologists collectively fear for American children’s futures because these mental health problems are set to peak and persist well after the pandemic.

According to a congressional testimony made last September by Dr. Arthur C. Evans Jr. from the American Psychological Association, untreated mental health issues like depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic disorder will affect their ability to meaningfully engage in learning and function in adulthood.

Untreated mental health issues make it more difficult for students to learn and are highly correlated with chronic absenteeism, school failure, and school dropout, which can lead to possible unemployment, financial instability, or involvement with the juvenile and/or criminal justice system.

For parents and students who know this disarray all too well, they are desperate for answers now.

And if traditional public schools have already proven themselves to be unreliable in preventing students from falling so dangerously behind, how can parents also have faith in them to put students back in a good head space when they are partially responsible for triggering their trauma?

This severed relationship between families and schools is all the reason why lawmakers should empower parents to choose how and where their children learn now more than ever.

Luckily, state lawmakers across the U.S. have already answered the call to introduce legislation on their behalf. Ever since the pandemic exposed how public education has failed students on multiple fronts, lawmakers in 19 states created or expanded public and private school choice options in 2021. Many more are considering these opportunities this year.

The youth mental health crisis gives more urgency to the school choice movement. It must be emphasized as much as the need for improved educational outcomes.

Education savings accounts are a solution state lawmakers should consider to address all these factors because they allow parents to customize their child’s learning experience.

With an account, state officials deposit a portion of a child’s funds from the state education formula into a private account that parents use to buy education products and services for their students. Parents can buy textbooks, pay private school tuition, and, critically, pay for education therapy services.

Parents of children with special needs have generally used these therapy services to help a child with special needs access therapies such as speech and occupational therapy treatments, but now, parents should be empowered to use the accounts for counseling services as well.

As lawmakers around the country consider these accounts, they should make sure that parents have the flexibility to meet a child’s unique needs, including their mental health needs. They can do this by ensuring there are also provisions that allow education savings account funds to be used for counseling.

K-12 students today are facing challenges related to learning losses, politicized curriculums, and an exacerbated mental health crisis on top of the standard challenges that come along with growing up. Although unique to their generation, they are not impossible to navigate through and heal from. Lawmakers can help by giving parents the ability to access whatever resources best allow their child to succeed in school and in life.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/03/30/youth-mental-health-crisis-gives-more-urgency-to-school-choice-movement/

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Police probing women’s rugby team hazing allegations at Vermont university

A women’s rugby team at a Vermont university is being investigated for hazing after a player on the squad was allegedly branded and waterboarded last month, authorities said.

Police learned of the alleged behavior after responding to Norwich University, a private military school in Northfield, on March 20 for a report of someone being held at knifepoint, according to affidavit obtained by The Barre Montpelier Times Argus.

Officers discovered an intoxicated member of the women’s Rugby team, who was wielding a knife. Two days later, the woman spoke to police and shared disturbing allegations of hazing.

She told police that she had been “branded” using pliers and a lighter by other members of the rugby team while she was intoxicated.

The woman said she believed team members had broken into her room, so she grabbed the knife and threatened them with it. However she said she was shaky on the details of what had actually occurred because of her intoxicated state.

The victim said she was too intoxicated to say no, and would not have agreed to be branded had she been sober. 

With the victim’s permission, police looked through her cell phone and found a video of another woman with a washcloth, or something similar held over her face while a third woman poured liquid onto the cloth. Police described what they saw as “waterboarding,” according to court records.

Last Friday, Northfield police executed search warrants at a residence hall at the university after the school reportedly refused to fully cooperate with the investigation, The Barre Montpelier Times Argus reported.

Northfield Police Chief John Helfant confirmed in an email Friday that police activity on campus was related to the investigation into the hazing allegations involving “branding and waterboarding of and by NU students,” the paper reported.

The chief also said university officials denied police access to students in their dorm rooms and would only allow police to talk to students in a conference room. 

Helfant said police obtained search warrants for access to two dorm rooms and for electronic communications. The investigation is ongoing, he said.

A University spokesperson said the school has fully cooperated with the investigation.

“Norwich University is subject to federal student privacy laws and other restrictions on what it may disclose,” Daphne Larkin said in a statement to the newspaper.

“Sometimes, law enforcement officials become confused about the extent to which we may respond to their requests. Norwich University has fully cooperated with the Northfield Police Department in their investigation of the allegations surrounding this incident while ensuring the constitutional rights of our students and employees.”

https://nypost.com/2022/04/05/police-probing-norwich-university-womens-rugby-team-hazing-allegations-in-vermont/

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‘Limbo land’: Daycares, preschools in NYC navigate shifting mask policies

Some Big Apple day-care centers and pre-schools say they are taking matters into their own hands amid the city’s and courts’ back-and-forth on the tot mask mandate — and will risk fines by making masks optional.

A director at one Manhattan facility said she sent a memo to her parents last week about allowing their children to go mask-optional, thinking the mayor would hold up his end and do away with the mandate for 2- to 4-year-olds Monday as promised.

But Friday, even after a Staten Island judge ruled in favor of lifting the mandate, Adams said the city would appeal that decision because COVID-19 cases were rising again and the mask order had to remain.

The director said that she didn’t know how to rescind her memo to parents.

“I’m not going to send another memo over to the parents to confuse them,” she said. “We can’t continue to have all these changes. It’s very disruptive.”

A pre-K director in The Bronx also said she would not enforce the mandate for families choosing not to mask their children.

“We’re in this limbo land of ‘it’s required, it’s not required,’ ” she said.

“We can’t keep doing this with parents. It’s very confusing and upsetting. I think it doesn’t create a lot of confidence.”

“Young children need consistency, and the messaging is not consistent,” she said, adding that the confusion predates last week’s developments.

“They’re taking the mask off for lunch, for rest, when they’re playing outside — then they’re putting the mask back on.”

https://nypost.com/2022/04/04/limbo-land-daycares-preschools-in-nyc-navigate-shifting-mask-policies/

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My other blogs: Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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4 April, 2022

A Pennsylvania judge on Tuesday ordered five elected school directors be immediately kicked off the nine-member West Chester Area School board

On Wednesday the same judge, William P. Mahon in the Chester County Court of Common Pleas, ordered the parties to meet Friday for an argument.

It is all in response to a February petition filed by West Chester Area School District parent Beth Ann Rosica. In the petition, Rosica calls for the removal of five school board members, Sue Tiernan, Joyce Chester, Karen Herman, Kate Shaw, and Daryl Durnell.

Students returning to in-person classes after two years of remote learning in response to the COVID-19 pandemic were required to wear masks over their mouth and nose. When Pennsylvania ended mandatory school masking, the West Chester Area School District was among a handful of schools that kept masking in place.

“When that was lifted, all of us parents started emailing, calling, showing up at school board meetings, asking our school board to amend their health and safety plan and allow for optional masking,” Rosica told The Epoch Times.

“They didn’t lift it for the West Chester School District, so we began to work on a petition to remove school board members because we believed that their actions were illegal and unconstitutional.”

Eventually, the district did lift the mask mandate, but the petition request remained relevant because, in August, the board passed a new health and safety plan which allows the board to impose future mandatory masking at various levels of COVID-19 transmission.

“For high levels of transmission, our current approved health and safety plan still requires masking, and we believe that that is illegal. We want this answered because we don’t want them to impose it come next fall, or any point in time when cases start growing up again,” Rosica said.

The petition was based on a seldom-used Pennsylvania education statute that allows for the removal of school directors for “failure to organize or neglect of duty.”

The statute says any ten resident taxpayers in the district may present a petition to the court to have them removed. But that argument was not addressed in Tuesday’s decision.

The court favored for Rosica, citing West Chester Area School District’s failure to respond. It also ordered Rosica and the four remaining board members to each submit a list of five proposed replacements for the board, to be appointed by the court to fill out the exiting board members’ terms.

Attorney Kenneth Roos of the Wisler Pearlstine law firm in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, represents the school board. He told The Epoch Times in a phone call that he filed a motion for reconsideration of Tuesday’s decision, late Tuesday night. He had no other comment on behalf of the school board.

The motion disputes the time frame that the school had to respond, arguing it should have had until April 4 to answer. The judge agreed and it will be argued Friday.

Rosica is more than a mother of two students in the district. She is executive director of Back to School PA, a political action committee that advocated for reopening schools closed by COVID-19 mitigation measures. It aims to get pro-parent and pro-student candidates elected to school boards.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/judge-ousts-five-school-board-members-after-pennsylvania-parent-petition_4371759.html

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Teachers Were Secretly Giving Pre-Teen Students Puberty Blockers Behind Parents' Backs

Out of control. This is simply getting out of control. Again, I’m not a culture warrior. These were never issues that got me animated, but now it looks like we all must fix bayonets and skewer the freaks who are turning our places of learning into dens of sexual deviancy. This isn’t about LGBT folks. I don’t care about them. This is 2022—if you’re part of that community—good for you. It’s no longer a shocking detail or taboo. Younger conservatives don’t care either—the shock value is gone. This is about ending this grooming bit in our schools and the brainwashing that goes along with it. 

No one knows that they’re pansexual, transgender, or gender fluid in their pre-teens. This is nonsense. It’s science fiction. Those who do are being subjected to child abuse. They’re being buttered up for something, which I will not go into here. You can use Google for your own research purposes here. Teachers are targeting children 10 years of age and younger to start trans clubs. They’re also being given puberty blockers in secret behind their parents’ backs. A school nurse in Connecticut revealed this covert puberty blocker/ transgender operation at her school—and got suspended for it (via Daily Mail):

Kathleen Cataford, who worked at the Richard J Kinsella Magnet School in Hartford, was axed from her role Monday over the post, which was branded transphobic.

Writing on a local mom's group in response to a request for local school recommendations, the 77 year-old said: 'Investigate the school system curriculum...CT is a very socially liberal, gender confused state,' the post read. 

…'As a public school nurse, I have an 11yo female student on puberty blockers and a dozen identifying as non-binary, all but two keeping this as a secret from their parents with the help of teachers, SSW [social workers] and school administration. 

'Teachers and SSW are spending 37.5 hours a week influencing our children, not necessarily teaching our children what YOU think is being taught.' 

Cataford went on to claim that 'children are introduced to this confusion in kindergarten.' DailyMail.com's attempts to contact her Tuesday were unsuccessful.

Puberty blockers are used to delay puberty in transgender children, and are a current hot-button issue in the United States.

[…]

Hartford Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Leslie Torres-Rodriguez issued a statement condemning Cataford's remarks, but did not name the nurse, citing privacy concerns.  

'Hartford Public Schools strives to provide an inclusive environment where all students feel seen, valued, respected, and heard,' the statement read. 

Torres-Rodriguez added: 'We uphold all of our staff to a high standard, entrusting them to be caretakers and leaders in the community. 

'We as a school district are responsible for the health, well-being, social and emotional development, and safety of ALL of the children entrusted to our care.' 

Yeah, not so sure secret puberty blocker therapy is part of the school’s health care plan. That is a family-oriented decision. Period. Schools used to be places where—you know—education was the focus. It’s not become a hive mind of woke nonsense and activities that could be described as child abuse. This is an area where the teacher has no say. None. It’s not their job. It’s not their purpose. Stick to the textbooks. I wish I could say ‘leave it to the doctors and medical professionals’ but that field is becoming fraught with decay from progressives. 

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2022/04/01/school-nurse-was-suspended-for-revealing-pre-teens-secretly-being-given-puberty-b-n2605363

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Australia: There is still no rape crisis on campus

Bettina Arndt

Five years ago, the Australian Human Rights Commission conducted a million-dollar survey to try to find evidence of a rape crisis on campus. It proved a huge letdown for the activists because all they found was a lot of unwanted staring and tiny rates of sexual assault. I was the only journalist in Australia to suggest we should be celebrating our safe universities whilst mainstream media beat up a new narrative about widespread campus ‘sexual violence’ which activists used to bully universities into setting up the kangaroo courts, implementing sexual consent courses and the like. 

Now they’ve tried again, and contrary to what has appeared in the media this week, the results are even more disappointing for the feminists. The latest survey published last Wednesday was a dud, with sexual harassment rates less than a third of those reported in 2015-16 (8 per cent compared to 26 per cent), and minimal rates of assault (1.1 per cent for the year surveyed compared to the earlier figure of 0.8 per cent). 

What a joke, given that they’d done everything they could to expand the definitions of sexual misconduct, as I explained in this blog last year. The latest survey included as harassment such items as staring, making comments about your private life or physical appearance, and repeated requests to go on a date.

Enthusiastic consent featured in defining sexual assault, with all sexual acts including kissing deemed assault if your partner ‘made no effort to check whether you agreed or not’ and including all sexual acts as assault if you were ‘affected by drugs or alcohol’.

The response rate for the survey was just 11.6 per cent – 43,819 self-selected responses from those invited to participate, who were in turn just part of the 1.6 million university students in this country. So, the new report is based on a piddling 2.7 per cent of the student population.

Not that the statistics matter two hoots when our blinkered media remains determined to sing from the feminist songbook. They carefully shifted the goal posts, highlighting such critical matters as the newly discovered peak sexual assault rates for pansexual students and claiming one in three students experienced sexual assault over their lifetimes, a figure which no doubt includes all the drunken schoolkid gropes that feature in Contos’s testimonials – nothing to do with the supposed campus rape crisis.

Not a single one of the so-called reporters bothered to look at official sexual assault rates for this age group. The Australian Bureau of Statistics’ Personal Safety Survey shows sexual harassment rates for 18-24-year-olds of 27.3 per cent and sexual assault at 3.4 per cent – making it very clear that our universities are extremely safe compared to the general community.

For the last two days graduates across Australia have been receiving emails from Vice Chancellors apologising for the ongoing crisis and promising to do better. How about all you Australian graduates spend a few minutes writing to these snivelling leaders of your former institute of higher learning to tell them that we’ve had enough? Call out their lack of integrity in participating in this farcical misrepresentation of the important issue of the safety of our universities. And urge them to put a stop to this ongoing, contrived campaign to demonise the next generation of vulnerable young men.

https://spectator.com.au/2022/03/there-is-still-no-rape-crisis-on-campus/

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My other blogs: Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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3 April, 2022

Victory: Appeals Court Upholds Massive Legal Judgment Against Woke College for Defaming Local Business

The story began in 2016 with an incident at a small, family-owned bakery that had been a pillar of the local community for decades. Some Oberlin College students tried to shoplift some wine, prompting a confrontation. Due to the skin color of the individuals involved, the situation devolved into an unhinged morality play, detached from any facts. The school sided with the mob. A lawsuit was filed in 2017. Details, via a CBS News report from 2019: 

David Gibson, one of the owners of Gibson's Bakery in Oberlin, described what happened when his son, Allyn, was at the cash register when the student tried to buy a bottle of wine: "My son confronted him and would not accept the false ID...But realized that he was also trying to steal two bottles of wine. And at that point he denied him the sale....He attempted to take a picture of him with his phone. At that point, the young man took his phone and shoved it in his face and was able to run out of the store. "My son and I both pursued [him].  My son's quite a bit faster than I am at this age.  And outside of the store [he] tried to detain him by hugging him.  And he fell to the ground.  And I witnessed all of this.  And then we had multiple people come in and start hitting my son." ...

David Gibson knew that trouble was brewing. When the officer at the scene told him, "We're not going off what they're saying; we're charging him with robbery," Gibson remarked, "They're going to be trashing us." It wasn't long coming. The next morning, in fact, a crowd appeared chanting, "No justice, no peace!  No justice, no peace!" Oberlin is one of the most liberal college campuses in the country, and remember, Donald Trump has just been elected president the previous day.  Totally unrelated to what had happened at Gibson's bakery, but it does help explain the mood. One demonstrator said, "We are here today because yesterday three students from the Africana community were assaulted and arrested as a result of a history of racial profiling and racial discrimination by Gibson's Bakery, located 23 West College Street." Which is where generations of Gibsons had been running the bakery for more than a hundred years.

"At court, roughly nine months later, the young man, a student at Oberlin College in Ohio, received a reduced sentence after pleading guilty to attempted theft, essentially confirming the police report of what had happened," the story explains. That detail isn't so minor, but the whipped-up, frenzied mob wasn't really interested in facts or culpability. They were interested in self-righteous preening and Larger Truths. The famously left-wing college got involved, joining the smear campaign: 

The college officials and students accused the bakery of racial profiling, called a boycott, suspended Gibson’s business with the college, and organized protests outside the bakery. At the protests, a flyer was handed out, according to witnesses who testified at trial, by Dean of Students Meredith Raimondo, who also handed out stacks of flyers for others to distribute. The flyers accused the Gibsons of a long history of racial profiling, including in the incident with these shoplifters. The Gibsons disputed that allegation and that they did anything wrong in this incident, and requested a public apology from the college in order to repair the reputational damage, but the college refused. 

Facing reputational wounds and loss of business, Gibson's filed a lawsuit: 

"Our feeling is that, that's what you have in life is your reputation. It had taken generations to build this reputation for us. And in just one day, we lost it." That damage to their reputation has led to what the Gibsons claim is a 50% loss of business. When the college refused to issue a statement exonerating the family of racism, the Gibsons filed a lawsuit...Last June, a local jury found Oberlin College on the hook for $44 million in damages. The court has since reduced the award to $31.5 million, and Oberlin College has appealed that judgment.

Oberlin appealed the jury's judgment, and over the course of the continued litigation, Mr. Gibson passed away from cancer. But the case marched on, and the appeals court has now upheld the entire verdict. A huge blow to Oberlin, as National Review reports: 

An Ohio appeals court has upheld a ruling that awarded more than $30 million to a bakery that accused Oberlin College of damaging its business and libeling them with false accusations of racism. A three-judge panel on the Ninth District Court of Appeals issued a unanimous decision to uphold a 2019 ruling by Lorain County Judge John Miraldi, who initially awarded the bakery more than $40 million in punitive and compensatory damages, Cleveland.com reported. However, the sum was later reduced to $25 million, though the bakery was awarded more than $6 million for lawyers’ fees...

Gibson’s Bakery sued the college in 2017, accusing the school and one of its administrators of hurting its business and libeling them over an incident in which the son of the bakery owner stopped three black Oberlin College students, one of whom was stealing wine bottles from the store, in November 2016. Students from the school protested the bakery after the arrest, handing out fliers outside the bakery telling shoppers to buy their baked goods elsewhere. Oberlin College regularly purchased baked goods from the bakery for its student dining service but suspended its purchasing for a month after the incident. The students pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in 2017 and said the younger Gibson’s actions were not racially motivated.

This is justice. A leftist university coddled lunacy from its students, who were all spun up over the election of Donald Trump. They joined in the unjust libeling and punishment of innocent people, based on bogus racism charges, to appease their raging mob. They became part of the raging mob. The true victims in the case faced no choice but to present the facts to a jury of ordinary people, who recognized the injustice and slapped huge damages on a deep-pocketed institution responsible for fanning the flames. That decision has now been unanimously upheld. As I've said before, I'm not a litigious person by nature, but in some of these cases, the only way to force institutions to think twice before casting in their lot with the woke screamers is to present a plausible fear of huge economic consequences for doing so. Juries can be an equalizer. 

Students had every right to protest, but when Oberlin abetted defamation with words and deeds, the calculus shifted. The initial verdict and fresh decision from the appeals panel represent an isolated but satisfying victory in the struggle against the destructive excesses of these people

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2022/04/01/good-news-appeals-court-upholds-massive-legal-judgment-against-woke-college-for-defaming-local-business-n2605372

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What's Creepy About the Unearthed Docs Instructing Teachers on How to Target Students for Trans Clubs

Let’s clear the air here first. No, I’m going all Iranian here and saying we need to wipe out the transgenders and the gays. There’s no Tehran protocol here. Again, no issues with these folks until biological males try to erase women’s sports and nuke the social order that’s been in place since...forever. 

We’re not going to overhaul everything for the less than one percent of transgender folks in America. Sorry, not going to happen. Also, we’re not going to talk about these complex issues in schools, especially with the freak show teachers we have coming out of the bunker. No, fourth-graders don’t need to know your trans, teacher person. No, we don’t need to go into graphic detail about your sex life either, teacher. No, we’re not going beyond the educational boundaries of comprehensive sexual education. We’re not going to show kids how to give great oral sex to their partners. Demonstrations on how to put a condom on—that’s okay. I can see some folks still having issues with that, but there’s give and take here.

What we’re also not going to accept is creepy teachers targeting students 10 years of age or younger to join transgender clubs. No. 

The Washington Examiner’s Chris Tremoglie wrote about what he unearthed reading the instruction packets handed to teachers by the California Teachers Association. This is their how-to guide to turning our schools into bastions of child abuse and brainwashing. The Left will make you care. That sure fits the bill here [emphasis mine]:

The packet acts as an instructional guide on propagandizing students with gay and transgender information. One of the most disturbing parts is the recommendation for these clubs in elementary schools, where children are 10 years old or younger. Another concerning section focuses on teachers proactively recruiting students to be leaders of these clubs. It provides a section for teachers to list the names of the students they think would be interested. This particular packet was from a previous California Teachers Association LGBTQ+ Issues Conference.

The packet also asks teachers to list supporters and enemies of these clubs. One section is dedicated to listing the names of allies who “would support this project.” Another section is provided to identify any existential threats to the club and to list those who could be a “barrier to your success.”

[…]

Other perverted indoctrination activities include a recommended videos list. The packet suggests the First Person YouTube channel. It provides 52 videos on various topics such as “Drag as a Tool for Self-Advocacy,” “Queer Black Cosplay,” “Growing Up Intersex,” “Asexuality,” and “The Importance of Being Cliterate,” among many others. Additionally, other suggested videos are “Coming out GAY to my 5 year old brother” and the animated music video “Everyone is Gay.”

The clubs are supposed to be “student-led.” Yet the packet reveals that teachers are partially funding these clubs. A section asks how much of their money teachers are “willing to put into this project.” As such, it is obvious that teachers are the true leaders of these clubs, not students. Instead, teachers recruit students to be figureheads and then use them as pawns to spread this propaganda. They are using students to brainwash other students into thinking a certain way.

“I think it’s wrong what is going on. A child’s innocence is being taken away,” said a California Teachers Association member who spoke to me on the condition of anonymity. “Children are being indoctrinated. Teachers are trying to encourage different sexualities among students. It’s disturbing, and it’s violating young and innocent minds.”

This circus must stop. Tear down the big top. If this was geared to high schoolers, juniors, and seniors—that’s an entirely different matter. It’s clear the ‘get them while they’re young’ ethos is at play here. Not everyone is gender fluid, gay, trans, or whatever alphabet or symbol comes next. They’re kids. They’re making clay snakes and playing with building blocks. Leave them alone. They don’t know what this is yet. This is child abuse. Period. 

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2022/03/31/whats-creepy-about-the-unearthed-docs-instructing-teachers-how-to-target-students-for-trans-clubs-n2605303

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Australia: New ‘stripped back’ school curriculum slammed as ‘just political’

Children will have to do more maths without a calculator and learn about consent and respect in a new “stripped back” school curriculum available from next term.

They will also learn more about the impact the British settlers had on First Nations Australians and about Australian democracy.

History has also been “significantly decluttered”, allowing more time for in-depth teaching, and there will be more emphasis on phonic in English, according to the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA).

“Importantly, this is a more stripped-back and teachable curriculum that identifies the essential content our children should learn,” ACARA CEO, David de Carvalho, said.

“There is a stronger focus on phonics in English and on mastering essential mathematical facts, concepts, skills and processes.”

ACARA said the curriculum would include a stronger focus on students mastering the essential maths and being introduced to these at the right time.

In particular, children in Year 1 will be expected to achieve a higher level of maths than they do currently and be able to memorise times tables from the beginning in Year 2.

Students will also be taught about privacy and security online, as well encouraging children to get outside of the classroom and be more active.

Mr de Carvalho said the new curriculum would lead to better results.

The overhaul follows Australia’s steady decline in the international education rankings over the past decade.

It will be available online from the start of next term.

Education Standards Institute Director Kevin Donnelly said on the surface the new curriculum looked to be an improvement but the “devil will be in the detail”.

“It sounds good to cut it back and to talk about explicit teaching, memorising times tables and not relying on computers,” he said.

“The problem is teacher training is based on progressive fads and beginner teachers are not being properly trained.”

He said the existing curriculum was already currently weighted towards Indigenous studies so it was wrong to further emphasise it.

He said teaching about consent and respectful relationships was pushing a “woke agenda”.

“It’s just political,” he said. “Boys are taught that masculinity is negative.”

Dr Donnelly said the curriculum was just the first stage, whether the states and territories fully adopt or adapt is up to them.

He said his own research found that principals were unable to confirm what children were being taught in the classrooms.

Ministers considered the final draft of the curriculum earlier this year.

The existing Australian Curriculum that is currently taught in schools, and all support resources, will continue to be available on the current Australian Curriculum website until all states, territories and schools are implementing the updated curriculum

https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/national/new-stripped-back-curriculum-slammed-as-just-political/news-story/a6b85215c12466792dfc92c095524746

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My other blogs: Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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1 April, 2022

Fed Up, These Parents Sue Baltimore Public Schools

As in so many other places around the country, the public education system in Baltimore is failing the city’s children. Public schools have been failing American students for decades, but the issue is pronounced in Maryland’s biggest city. 

Stories abound of Baltimore’s momentous failures to teach its kids. One report details how a student graduated from high school without the ability to read; another reveals that 41% of the city’s high school students have a GPA under 1.0.  

To Jovani Patterson and his wife Shawnda, both city residents, that’s unacceptable.  

The couple announced Jan. 27 that they are suing the city and Baltimore City Public Schools over what they view as an abject failure to educate children—as well as a massive waste of taxpayer funds.  

The lawsuit is still in its early stages. The Pattersons, as the plaintiffs, are waiting to hear back on whether the city and its schools will file a motion to dismiss their suit.  

In an interview with The Daily Signal, the Pattersons said they thought the lawsuit was the only way to have their voices heard. 

“There’s really no other recourse a citizen in Baltimore could take,” Jovani said. “We don’t elect our school board, so there’s no way we could both be appointed members of the school board. There’s nothing that people can really do outside of a lawsuit to effect change or request access into the inner workings of what’s going on in Baltimore.” 

Unfortunately, the issues with Baltimore’s school system are nothing new. And they aren’t uniquely tied to this one city.  

Across the nation, kids are trapped in failing public schools. Like the Pattersons, many American parents are pitching money that could be used to give their child a better education into a vortex of government incompetence.   

The Pattersons say that vortex of incompetence has affected Baltimore’s children for generations.  

“We’ve heard for decades about some of the failures to educate and things like social promotion, lack of resources,” Jovani said, adding: “And year after year, time after time, all we hear is, ‘Well, this is the way it’s always been. This is the way it’s always going to be.’” 

Jovani and Shawnda have first-hand experience with those failures in public schools. Their fourth-grade daughter has been in the system since she began her formal education. Jovani, 35, ran unsuccessfully for City Council president as a Republican in 2020. Shawnda, 39, worked as a public school teacher in the city for nearly 10 years.

Shawnda places the blame squarely at the feet of bureaucrats and administrators, not teachers who are trying their best to make a difference in children’s lives.   

“I don’t think it’s mostly the teachers; it’s just the way that the system is run,” she said.

As an example of the problems she faced as a teacher, Shawnda detailed the number of students she was expected to teach without an assistant.  

“Most of the time, my class size was pushing 40 kids with no assistant. To effectively teach 40 children, that is a challenging task,” she said.  

But the Pattersons refused to accept that Baltimore’s schools should be consigned to failure. They hope their lawsuit will serve as a wake-up call to the city and school system. They want officials to know this kind of catastrophic incompetence no longer will be tolerated.  

“The idea is to raise expectations and have the school board assess if the city actually follows their own practices and rules. Being a good steward of finances, for example,” Jovani told The Daily Signal. “We want to make sure the schools have some type of oversight within the schools [of] where the money goes, how well we’re performing.” 

The Pattersons’ story highlights the need for strong reform in public education. Baltimore’s children would be better off if they were allowed to flourish in schools that aren’t part of a broken system.  

The solution is school choice.  

Jude Schwalbach, a former research associate at The Heritage Foundation, argued in a commentary for The Daily Signal, the think tank’s news outlet: 

Students participating in school choice programs are significantly more likely to graduate from high school. For instance, students participating in the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which helps low-income students attend private schools of their choice, experienced a 21-percentage-point increase in graduation rates. … 

School choice creates direct accountability to parents. It gives schools a strong incentive to meet the needs of their students since unsatisfied parents can take their children and education dollars elsewhere.

Jovani and Shawnda Patterson say they are fighting to make their local schools better. 

But the fight for better outcomes for America’s students starts with school choice.  

If Baltimore can’t provide a decent public education, its children deserve a chance to learn somewhere else. 

https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/03/30/why-this-baltimore-couple-is-suing-the-city-and-its-schools/

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Parents suing Albemarle County Public Schools

What would your reaction be if you found out your child had learned in her middle school art class that she would never succeed in life—because of her ethnicity?

You’d be shocked—and rightfully so. But that situation is not just a hypothetical. It’s a reality in Albemarle County, Virginia, and it’s a direct consequence of the so-called “Anti-Racism Policy” that Albemarle County Public Schools passed in 2019.

The county’s policy, rooted in critical race theory ideology, teaches children to view themselves and their classmates through the lens of race, putting people into boxes like privileged vs. unprivileged, oppressors vs. oppressed, victimizers vs. victims, haves vs. have nots—all based entirely on their race. Not only is this damaging to children; it’s also a violation of their civil rights.

Thankfully, parents are standing up.

Alliance Defending Freedom is representing a religiously and ethnically diverse group of five families to challenge the racially discriminatory policies and practices of Albemarle County Public Schools. While these families come from a wide range of racial and religious backgrounds, they are united in opposing racial discrimination and ensuring the rights of parents to protect their children from harmful ideologies infiltrating the educational system.

These families believe the schools should discuss race and racism, and they should teach the history of racism in the United States. But they should also treat every child as an individual endowed with innate human dignity and value, entitled to equal treatment. They should never treat any child differently based solely on their race, or view children only through the lens of race.

https://adflegal.org/blog/one-school-board-fighting-racism-more-racism

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The CDC and Teachers Unions Colluded

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT), headed by the infamous Randi Weingarten, has long been suspected of wielding undue influence over the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and COVID policy. It is well documented that the AFT gives handsomely to Democrat political campaigns. Weingarten herself even said in the lead-up to the 2020 elections that it “will be a vitally important cycle, and that’s why the AFT moved earlier than usual, mindful of the challenges posed by the pandemic, to ensure our long-term allies could establish a footprint.” They certainly have left their footprints — right on the necks of our school children. And under the presidency of Democrat Joe Biden, the AFT has been pulling the puppet strings.

A watchdog group called Americans for Public Trust obtained requested emails through the Freedom of Information Act that are undeniable proof of the CDC and the AFT working together to create back-to-school policy. The emails were between CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, AFT top advisers and union officials, and the Biden administration. These emails prove that Randi Weingarten got to tweak the wording on some of the CDC documents regarding going back to school. The two points in particular where the AFT’s wording was adopted verbatim were on the issues of in-person learning and the rights of teachers who were high risk or had a family member who was considered high risk. In other words, the tweaks by the AFT were union protected and teacher focused and not at all about the welfare of the children.

The document in question was released in February 2021 and, to the rest of the world, it looked like the CDC was ignoring the science behind COVID — at the time there was ample evidence that schools were not superspreaders — and slow-walking a return to school.

It had long been suspected that there was some collusion between the AFT and the CDC on various COVID policy decisions. The CDC even admitted using the teachers union’s expertise but brushed off the undue influence accusation by convincing the public that this was normal practice. In fact, Walensky intentionally downplayed the role that the AFT played in the February guidance.

Dr. Walensky was not the only one intentionally hiding information from the public. In a congressional investigation into this matter, Biden administration lawyers saw to it that key CDC scientists were prevented from giving testimonies about this CDC-AFT collusion. The lawyers wanted “to ensure the Biden Administration was shielded from legitimate oversight.”

We now know the disastrous results of the AFT’s meddling in COVID policymaking. Between its position on masking and keeping schools closed, the AFT had made it abundantly clear that its priorities were never the children. Our public school students have lost years in academic gains that they may never be able to get back. And the CDC in cahoots with the AFT exacerbated the problem. Both organizations should not wonder why the public, especially the parents of these children, hold them in utter disgust.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/87316-the-cdc-and-teachers-unions-colluded-2022-03-31

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Primarily covering events in Australia, the U.K. and the USA -- where the follies are sadly similar.


TERMINOLOGY: The English "A Level" exam is roughly equivalent to a U.S. High School diploma. Rather confusingly, you can get As, Bs or Cs in your "A Level" results. Entrance to the better universities normally requires several As in your "A Levels".


MORE TERMINOLOGY: Many of my posts mention the situation in Australia. Unlike the USA and Britain, there is virtually no local input into education in Australia. Education is mostly a State government responsibility, though the Feds have a lot of influence (via funding) at the university level. So it may be useful to know the usual abbreviations for the Australian States: QLD (Queensland), NSW (New South Wales), WA (Western Australia), VIC (Victoria), TAS (Tasmania), SA (South Australia).


There were two brothers from a famous family. One did very well at school while the other was a duffer. Which one went on the be acclaimed as the "Greatest Briton"? It was the duffer: Winston Churchill.


The current Left-inspired practice of going to great lengths to shield students from experience of failure and to tell students only good things about themselves is an appalling preparation for life. In adulthood, the vast majority of people are going to have to reconcile themselves to mundane jobs and no more than mediocrity in achievement. Illusions of themselves as "special" are going to be sorely disappointed


Perhaps it's some comfort that the idea of shielding kids from failure and having only "winners" is futile anyhow. When my son was about 3 years old he came bursting into the living room, threw himself down on the couch and burst into tears. When I asked what was wrong he said: "I can't always win!". The problem was that we had started him out on educational computer games where persistence only is needed to "win". But he had then started to play "real" computer games -- shootem-ups and the like. And you CAN lose in such games -- which he had just realized and become frustrated by. The upset lasted all of about 10 minutes, however and he has been happily playing computer games ever since. He also now has a degree in mathematics and is socially very pleasant. "Losing" certainly did not hurt him.


Even the famous Marxist theoretician Antonio Gramsci (and the world's most famous Sardine) was a deep opponent of "progressive" educational methods. He wrote: "The most paradoxical aspect is that this new type of school is advocated as being democratic, while in fact it is destined not merely to perpetuate social differences, but to crystallise them." He rightly saw that "progressive" methods were no help to the poor


I am an atheist of Protestant background who sent his son to Catholic schools. Why did I do that? Because I do not personally feel threatened by religion and I think Christianity is a generally good influence. I also felt that religion is a major part of life and that my son should therefore have a good introduction to it. He enjoyed his religion lessons but seems to have acquired minimal convictions from them.


Why have Leftist educators so relentlessly and so long opposed the teaching of phonics as the path to literacy when that opposition has been so enormously destructive of the education of so many? It is because of their addiction to simplistic explanations of everything (as in saying that Islamic hostility is caused by "poverty" -- even though Osama bin Laden is a billionaire!). And the relationship between letters and sounds in English is anything but simple compared to the beautifully simple but very unhelpful formula "look and learn".


For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.


The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"


A a small quote from the past that helps explain the Leftist dominance of education: "When an opponent says: 'I will not come over to your side,' I calmly say, 'Your child belongs to us already. You will pass on. Your descendents, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time, they will know nothing else but this new community.'." Quote from Adolf Hitler. In a speech on 6th November 1933


I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age.

I imagine that the the RD is still sending mailouts to my 1950s address!


Discipline: With their love of simple generalizations, this will be Greek to Leftists but I see an important role for discipline in education DESPITE the fact that my father never laid a hand on me once in my entire life nor have I ever laid a hand on my son in his entire life. The plain fact is that people are DIFFERENT, not equal and some kids will not behave themselves in response to persuasion alone. In such cases, realism requires that they be MADE to behave by whatever means that works -- not necessarily for their own benefit but certainly for the benefit of others whose opportunities they disrupt and destroy.


Many newspaper articles are reproduced in full on this blog despite copyright claims attached to them. I believe that such reproductions here are protected by the "fair use" provisions of copyright law. Fair use is a legal doctrine that recognises that the monopoly rights protected by copyright laws are not absolute. The doctrine holds that, when someone uses a creative work in way that does not hurt the market for the original work and advances a public purpose - such as education or scholarship - it might be considered "fair" and not infringing.


Comments above by John Ray



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