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31 December, 2023
Democratic elites hate charter schools BECAUSE they perform better and give disadvantaged kids a chance
By Adam B. Coleman
We like to tell ourselves failure isn’t an option, but for decades, failure has been the status quo for the education of children of the working class and poor.
Failure was always on the table when it was those “other kids” who would suffer the consequences of mismanaged and corrupt local-government-run schools, and many fought to ensure that bureaucracy would keep their destiny one of destitution.
But when we give those castaway children a chance to excel in alternative institutions like private and charter schools, they quickly prove to us the only ones who failed were the adults who forced them to remain in educational squalor for so many years.
The New York Charter School Center just examined the latest assessments of third- to eighth-grade students and found charter schools outperformed their traditional public-school counterparts — especially in educating minority kids.
Students who attended city charter schools scored 7 percentage points higher on the English language arts exam, with 59% passing versus 52% in city Department of Education-run schools, and 13 percentage points higher on the math exam, with 63% passing versus 50%.
Black charter-school students outperformed their district counterparts by 19 percentage points in English and 27 percentage points in math.
Similarly, Hispanic charter-school kids beat their public-school peers by 16 percentage points in English and 25 percentage points in math.
With 90% of enrolled charter-school students being black and Hispanic and 80% of them coming from low-income families, New York charter schools have provided the children who were once forgotten in underachieving public schools an opportunity to experience economic mobility despite the efforts of pro-teachers-union Democrats.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen such results.
Last year, a State University of New York Charter Schools Institute analysis found the largest disparity of educational excellence in The Bronx, which has dozens of alternative schools.
The number of students at SUNY-approved charters there who reached proficiency in English was 28 percentage points higher and in math 35 points higher than in neighboring public schools.
At the Academic Leadership Charter School, 84% of students were proficient in English, compared with just 31% in surrounding schools in District 7. The school is in Mott Haven, a neighborhood with a median income of $25,325 a year that’s 72% Hispanic and 24% black.
The elitists who plague the Democratic Party can only see as far as the landscaped shrubs at the entrance of their cul-de-sacs and refuse to acknowledge that the excellence in their local public school is not a reflection of what’s happening on the other side of the tracks.
They cannot comprehend the far-too-frequent situation of a child graduating from a public high school illiterate — because minimum standards of being capable of reading and writing are nearly guaranteed where they’re from.
We live in the land of the free but tell certain children that they shouldn’t be free to choose anything other than what isn’t working in education.
The Democrats in power claim to care about the lives of all children, but most do everything possible to uphold a system that puts union interests before a child’s hope.
They have no idea what it’s like to be a child who attends a school that ultimately doesn’t care if you pass legitimately or not and is too inept to rescue a child who is struggling to stay afloat.
I do, because I was this child.
I was never diagnosed in school, because no one cared enough to pay attention to what was obvious, but I displayed signs of dyslexia, which made my high-school learning experience horrendous and demoralizing.
In the last three years of high school, I failed and had to take summer classes to pass through the next grade and graduate.
I remember returning to school after my summer classes and finding nothing had changed. And no one cared about why I kept ending up in this circumstance.
As an adult, I now know why: These educators’ objective is to project an illusion of success, even if it means pushing stragglers like me across the finish line, to uphold the institutional status quo.
I wonder how many other children are like me, left behind because their struggles are an inconvenience for the people who place platitudes over results.
How many of us see these children who are raised in undesirable environments and view their existence as such as well?
If it’s American to strive for freedom of choice, then it’s anti-American to prevent our children from having a choice.
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Missouri School District Offers Coloring Pages on Preferred Pronouns, Gender Expression to Kindergartners
A Missouri school district is providing elementary-school teachers with coloring pages, asking children as young as kindergartners to choose their pronouns and draw the corresponding hair and clothing.
Webster Groves School District Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Shane Williamson emailed administrators a resource list of “Gender Identity and Expression Activities” in October 2022 in honor of LGBT History Awareness Month, according to public documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and shared with The Daily Signal.
“I believe it would be good to start our own resource sheet that provides ideas and activities that can help affirm and support our elementary students around the topic of gender identity and expression,” Williamson said in the email.
Williamson started the list and allowed others to add more activity resources. She did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment.
The list includes two “Playing with Pronouns” coloring pages from the Gender Wheel website for kindergarten through fifth grade and links to Welcoming Schools resources on gender-expansive classrooms and Advocates for Youth’s K-12 sexuality curriculum.
The “My Personal Style” coloring page asks children to draw themselves in the “style that feels the most like you.” The page features a gender-neutral child in the middle surrounded by both boy and girl options for clothing, hairstyles, and jewelry.
The other “Playing the Pronouns” coloring page includes a maze with a child of uncertain sex at one end and a text bubble saying, “Help Dylan find their baseball hat” at the other end, with “their” in lieu of either “his” or “her.”
“The Gender Wheel reminds us that we must see gender and bodies in a nonlinear continuum, and not in isolation,” according to the Gender Wheel website, which makes the claim that gender stereotypes have no basis in nature.
Jay Greene, a senior education fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy, told The Daily Signal the coloring pages used by the St. Louis-area school district are inappropriate for young children.
“Asking kindergartners in a Missouri public school to reimagine their gender identity and list their pronouns is simply not age-appropriate and almost certainly inconsistent with the priorities of families in that community,” Greene said. “Even if we think certain topics can lead to productive discussions, not all topics are appropriate for all ages of children.”
The Welcoming Schools lesson plans, which the Webster Groves resource list designates as age appropriate for kindergarten through eighth grade, aim at “creating classrooms and schools that are free of gender stereotypes and gender norms that limit all children,” according to its website.
The “Lesson Plans to Create Gender Expansive Classrooms and Support Transgender and Nonbinary Students,” produced by the far-left Human Rights Campaign, include LGBTQ children’s book downloads, such as “I Am Jazz,” the story of transgender-identifying biological male Jazz Jennings; “Julian Is a Mermaid,” the story of a boy who wants to dress like a female mermaid; “Jacob’s New Dress,” about a boy who wears a dress to school; and “They, She, He, Easy as ABC,” a child’s guide to “inclusive pronouns.”
“A key focus of our program is to provide comprehensive resources for educators to teach about transgender and nonbinary people and to affirm all students’ identities across the gender spectrum,” the Welcoming Schools website says.
Other book recommendations for children kindergarten age and older include “Born Ready: The True Story of a Boy Named Penelope”; “They, She, He, Me, Free to Be!”; and “Introducing Teddy: A Gentle Story About Friendship and Gender.”
A winter-related lesson available for download about a “Gender Snowperson” for third through fifth grades asks children to draw their gender identity, sexual orientation, gender expression, and so-called sex assigned at birth.
Children learn about nonbinary butterflies in another lesson designated as appropriate for kindergarten to second grade classrooms.
“Introducing students to animals that are nonbinary, as opposed to the ‘female and male’ gender binary, helps them to understand that there are many genders and that nature displays great diversity,” the lesson plan says.
Martin Bennet, secretary and treasurer of the St. Louis County Family Association, which submitted the FOIA request, said the Webster Groves lessons are indicative of what’s happening in public schools in Missouri and elsewhere.
“The inappropriate lessons that are occurring in public education, along with the continual slide in academic performance, is why the Missouri Legislature and Gov. [Mike] Parson must make school choice a reality for parents in Missouri,” Bennet told The Daily Signal.
K-12 lesson plans from Advocates for Youth feature elementary lessons on “Thinking Outside the (Gender) Box,” different kinds of families, gender roles, and understanding that “there are some body parts that mostly just girls have and some parts that mostly just boys have.”
A lesson on pregnancy lists abortion as a pregnancy option. Teachers are to show the students a video on options, then say, “Let’s take a closer look at these three options and identify what a person should consider with each option. For example, with the option of abortion, a person should consider if abortion is available in their local area or would require them to travel.”
Optional homework outlined in the lesson plan undermines crisis pregnancy centers, more commonly referred to as pregnancy resource centers or pregnancy help centers.
“Research the phrase Crisis Pregnancy Center, which are centers that aim to block a pregnant person’s access to a safe abortion,” the lesson plan says. “Identify three key facts about crisis pregnancy centers that set them apart from health care centers.”
Advocates for Youth’s use of “pregnant person” implies that pregnancy is not exclusive to women.
Abortion is defined as “when a pregnant person decides to end the pregnancy by accessing a safe medical procedure or medication to remove the pregnancy from the person’s uterus.”
Webster Groves School District did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment.
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Texas Public University Closes DEI Office to Comply With New Law...But Here's What It Did Next
The University of Texas-San Antonio has closed its Office of Inclusive Excellence ahead of a law taking effect Jan. 1 that bars Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion offices at public universities.
But in an email to the campus community, UTSA President Taylor Eighmy announced a new office has been created using the same staff.
“I’m writing today to share a new path ahead that upholds the law while still advancing our core values to ensure a welcoming, collaborative and supportive environment where all faculty, staff and students can thrive,” Eighmy wrote.
As you know, Senate Bill 17 goes into effect on January 1, 2024 and charges college and university governing boards with ensuring that diversity, equity and inclusion offices are not maintained or upheld. As a result, effective January 1, UTSA's Office of Inclusive Excellence will be closed.
A new office—the Office of Campus and Community Belonging—will be established to enhance our university’s mission and create unique opportunities for faculty, staff and students. The new office will focus on three pillars: ADA & Accessibility, Campus Climate, and Community Partnership Bridges.
The office’s first pillar, ADA and Accessibility, will serve as the university’s focal point to coordinate and connect established campus-wide systems, programs and processes designed to support accessibility for our community members. The second pillar, Campus Climate, will take a proactive approach to maintaining a welcoming environment to enhance the student, staff and faculty experience. Lastly, the third pillar, Community Partnership Bridges, will work to increase access to higher education for community members across San Antonio. A plan to support this pillar will be implemented in the coming year.
The president said the new office will be staffed with those from the Office of Inclusive Excellence, though in “new roles with updated responsibilities.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed SB 17 in June. The measure says an “institution of higher education may not establish or maintain a diversity, equity, and inclusion office or hire or assign an employee of the institution, or contract with a third party, to perform the duties of a diversity, equity, and inclusion office.”
Whether the university respects the law with the new office remains to be seen.
“I would be shocked and dismayed were they to seek to circumvent the DEI bans,” Texas Public Policy Foundation's Thomas Lindsay told The College Fix.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2023/12/29/dei-office-at-ut-san-antonio-n2632972
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28 December, 2023
A Failing Grade for Harvard’s Claudine Gay
It says a lot about the unending Leftist obsession with race that they could put such a mediocrity into such a senior position
Anyone who listened to the college presidents defending calls for the genocide of Jews with condescending smirks in their Dec. 5 congressional testimony could see they were insufferably smug. But then we got evidence that Ivy League universities may not have selected the best and brightest to lead them.
Consider Harvard President Claudine Gay, who evinced no ability to think on her feet or even adjust wording undoubtedly scripted for her by lawyers. Yet despite her brilliant display of dullness, Gay grinned as though she were the cleverest in the room.
This was, perhaps, understandable. Gay is, after all, president of Harvard University. Typically, you get to be president of Harvard only if everyone knows that you are very, very smart. After her shameful performance, however, it should come as no surprise that Gay rose to this post despite a shockingly unimpressive scholarly record.
Manhattan Institute senior fellow Christopher Rufo has since produced convincing evidence that Gay plagiarized parts of her dissertation. Failing to properly quote source material either can be a sign of carelessness or a symptom of struggling to generate original ideas. Her academic output since then suggests it was the latter.
Over about two decades, Gay has written 10 journal articles and no books. This is about half the average rate for a political science professor, even at a middling university. By comparison, Amy Gutmann—who, like Gay, is a political scientist and until early last year served as president of the University of Pennsylvania—has published more than a dozen books and well over 100 articles.
Some academics make their name by developing one profound insight into an important question. Others make their reputation by offering consistently interesting insights on a range of questions. Gay has done neither. She has authored only a handful of articles offering uninteresting insights on the narrow question of African-American political opinion and representation.
In her last article, published six years ago, titled “A Room for One’s Own?,” Gay found that Democratic governors direct federal housing subsidies to supportive constituencies when they have the discretion to do so. Amazing!
In “Knowledge Matters,” Gay found that political ignorance is a key reason why African Americans support Democrats despite policy disagreements. Who knew?
In “Seeing Difference,” Gay found that African Americans resent economically successful Hispanic neighbors. Wow!
How did Gay rise so far despite such a mediocre academic record? You already know how, or at least part of how. Gay is a woman of color, and within the liberal ivory tower of Harvard, it’s impermissible for a white professor to accuse a woman of color of being intellectually mediocre. Only a black professor could possibly do that.
It’s interesting, then, that Gay’s institutional rise was marked by a pattern of destroying the careers of genuinely brilliant black scholar who had the stature to point out her mediocrity.
Harvard economist Roland Fryer, for example, has published more in a single year than Gay has in her entire career. But while serving as the dean of faculty, Gay led the charge to strip Fryer of almost all of his academic privileges on trumped-up charges of having run an office with a hostile work environment.
As documentary filmmaker Rob Muntz put it, “Fryer was the victim of a coordinated professional assassination. And … the chief architect of that assassination was none other than Claudine Gay.”
Another target of Gay’s character assassination was Ronald Sullivan, a black professor at Harvard Law School. In addition to being an accomplished law professor, Sullivan was dean of Winthrop House, one of Harvard’s residence halls. After Sullivan agreed to serve as an attorney to help defend Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein against rape charges, several Winthrop House students complained that they no longer “felt safe.”
When she realized that it would be impossible to remove Sullivan for providing legal representation, Gay launched a witch hunt to find a pretext for his removal. Despite a decade of leading Winthrop House without incident, Gay insisted that he had presided over a hostile environment.
Gay’s appointment as Harvard president felt like an “emperor has no clothes” moment. If academics can’t admit or even think that someone is an affirmative action pick, then Harvard just pretended that she was robed in the finest scholarly garb. What harm could come to Harvard from picking Gay as its president? As it turns out, quite a lot.
Although one doubts that Harvard’s newfound institutional commitment to free speech would extend so far as to permit speaking obvious truths, the truth is now abundantly clear not only on campus but also across the country. Everyone paying attention knows that Harvard picked its president because of her immutable characteristics, despite her lack of scholarly accomplishment.
The country also can reasonably suspect that Harvard is refusing to fire its president despite her manifest failure to respond properly to the current wave of antisemitism on campus and despite credible allegations of plagiarism because of her immutable characteristics. Perhaps the Harvard board of trustees will act with integrity, but we rather doubt it.
It seems more likely that Harvard will be stuck being led by an academic whose alleged early plagiarism could not plausibly be redeemed by the merit of her later scholarship. Play DEI games, win DEI prizes.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/12/22/a-failing-grade-for-harvards-claudine-gay/
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Saying ‘Gender Is Binary and Cannot Be Changed’ Got an Award-Winning California Teacher Fired
A gay fifth grade teacher in Glendale, California, is suing the Glendale Unified School District after he was suspended and then fired for condemning transgender ideology at a school board meeting in April.
Ray Shelton, a 25-year veteran teacher, spoke at a Glendale Unified school board meeting amid concerns over the district’s promotion of LGBTQ+ curriculums to elementary students, including by an administrator stating that all children were naturally “socialist” and “queer,” The Daily Signal reported.
Parents also have alleged that the school district allows boys who claim to be transgender to share locker rooms with girls.
Glendale, a city in the San Fernando Valley, is part of Los Angeles County. Its school system has 32 schools and 25,000 students, according to the district’s website.
Shelton, who taught at Mark Keppel Elementary School, was named the Glendale school district’s “Teacher of the Year” twice, and earlier this year won the PTA’s Golden Oak Award. He attended the April school board meeting wearing a T-shirt that said “Make Biology Great Again.”
He told The Daily Signal that he was supposed to have been given three-to-five minutes to speak at the board meeting, though he was only given 60 seconds before he was cut off.
Two plus two equals four. The world is not flat. Boys have penises; girls have vaginas. Gender is binary and cannot be changed. Biology is not bigotry. Heterosexuality is not hate. Gender confusion and gender delusion are deep psychological disorders.
No caring professional or loving parent would ever support the chemical poisoning or surgical mutilation of a child’s genitalia.
Transgender ideology is anti-gay, it is anti-woman, and it is anti-human. It wants to take away women’s sports, women’s rights, women’s achievements. It is misogyny writ large.
And I can also say this as a gay man, the gay people …
At that point, Shelton’s microphone was muted and a board member informed him that his time was up. Shelton sat down amid applause from the audience.
Glendale Unified prevented Shelton from returning to his classroom afterward. The next day, April 19, Shelton was visited in his classroom at 8 a.m. by Keppel Elementary Principal Kristine Tonoli and a Glendale district administrator.
Shelton told The Daily Signal that he was given a letter informing him that he was being placed on paid leave pending investigation after “several complaints” were lodged against him. He was subsequently fired.
But, the teacher said, all of the emailed complaints shown to him by the Glendale school district were made after he had been put on leave, not before, suggesting either that Glendale didn’t provide Shelton with earlier complaints or that Tonoli lied to him about why he was being suspended.
All of the emailed complaints provided to The Daily Signal originally were sent after the meeting, at 8 a.m. April 19, according to time stamps.
After that classroom confrontation on April 19, Shelton was escorted to the edge of school property and told not to return unless accompanied by someone from the Glendale Unified human resources office.
Since those events, Shelton has been attacked by liberal activist groups. Media Matters on June 13 called Shelton a “swastika-wielding teacher” in a misleading headline for an article slamming Fox News and Shelton for what it called a “hate-filled tirade.” Media Matters writer Jane Lee didn’t cite Shelton’s comments to the school board or what role the swastika played in the situation.
Shelton’s “swastika,” seen in a photo in the tweet, is an internet meme combining four Pride/Progress flags into a swastika, mocking the transgenderism and “diversity, equity, and inclusion” movement as authoritarian, discriminatory, and dangerous, he explained to The Daily Signal in a Tuesday interview.
Applying Nazi imagery to political opponents, such as by drawing a Hitler mustache on photos, has been a popular method of demonizing and discrediting the Left’s opponents for decades.
But now, a law firm is suing on Shelton’s behalf for what it claims was retaliation against his First Amendment rights. The lawsuit states:
As a result of Defendants’ retaliatory, unconstitutional actions against Mr. Shelton, he was never allowed to return to his classroom or watch his students graduate, something he looked forward to every year.
Mr. Shelton suffered personally and professionally because of the damage inflicted on him by Defendants’ punitive actions.
He filed this action to restore his name and to vindicate not only his rights, but the right of all Americans, to speak freely without being burdened by the oppressive yoke of government censorship.
Asked what he hoped to gain through the lawsuit, Shelton said he hoped a legal victory would help strengthen free speech precedents.
“Once the principle [of free speech] is broken,” he said, “people can be silenced through fear—then that’s the end of our civilization.”
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DEFUNDING DEI: Wisconsin Lawmaker’s Tactics Show Way to Kill Radical University Programs
Napoleon said that to master the art of war, you must “read over and over again” the campaigns of history’s most successful generals.
The same advice applies if you want to master the art of legislating: You must study the strategies of the most successful legislators.
To that end, any lawmaker that wants to thwart diversity, equity, and inclusion programs needs to study the skillful maneuvers of Robin Vos, the speaker of the Wisconsin State Assembly. As National Review reports, Vos has succeeded—in a divided government, where Republicans control the Legislature, while a Democrat holds the governor’s mansion—in destroying DEI programs throughout the University of Wisconsin system, which includes 13 campuses.
Here’s how he did it.
First, he surveyed the battlefield. Behind him and the Republican-controlled Legislature was a supportive electorate that wanted him to abolish DEI on college campuses. In front of him were university administrators and a governor who were deeply entrenched in their support for DEI programs.
A frontal assault—a bill simply abolishing or defunding DEI programs—would go nowhere unless Vos could shift them out of their entrenchments.
Like a smart general, Vos knew that to do that he’d have to threaten something even more valuable to them than their DEI programs. But campus zealots seem to love nothing more than to put students into identity boxes and then segregate and discriminate on that basis. They want to do these things with an almost religious zeal.
Yet Vos figured out that they love something even more; namely, money.
He knew that campus zealots would never willingly destroy their own DEI apparatus. But he also knew that they would never say no to giving themselves a pay raise. So, he pitted those two interests against each other.
He passed a budget that included pay raises for university employees and funding for new buildings. The budget also eliminated all DEI positions and cut $32 million from the university system’s budget—the amount that the system spent on DEI programs.
The governor, Tony Evers, howled about the bill, but Vos had outflanked him. Evers couldn’t sacrifice raises for everyone in the system to save DEI programs, even as much as he cherished them. So, Evers surrendered and signed the bill.
He did, however, line-item veto the part of the bill that eliminated the DEI positions. That meant that the university system could redeploy $32 million from other programs to keep its beloved DEI staffers paid.
But Vos had anticipated that move.
Before the pay raises could take effect, a committee in the Legislature had to approve them. Vos told the University of Wisconsin that the pay raises would be approved once the system voluntarily abandoned its DEI programs.
As he had done to Evers, Vos had outflanked University of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman. Despite Rothman’s support for DEI, he knew that his position was untenable, so he, too, surrendered and agreed to cut the DEI programs.
Specifically, he agreed that the university system would freeze all DEI hiring, move all DEI staffers to other positions, stop using diversity statements in student applications, and stop discriminating based on race, sexuality, and other identity characteristics in faculty hiring.
Vos got even more.
Rothman agreed that the Madison campus would create a professorship for the study of conservative thought and that all campuses would offer a course on free speech for undergraduates. Finally, the university system would elevate academic merit by automatically giving admission to all Wisconsin students who graduated in the top 5% of their high school classes, regardless of his or her race.
Despite Rothman’s agreement, the deal still had to make it through the liberal-controlled university board of regents, which rejected it. The regents thought that Vos’ attack was just a feint, and that he wasn’t serious about blocking the pay raises and building funds.
But Vos’ attack was serious.
“We are not changing one thing in this deal,” Vos said, before inviting the regents to walk away from it. They surrendered four days later and approved the whole deal.
Their love of money trumped their commitment to DEI. Vos saw this, and like an expert general, exploited it to secure an astonishing victory. It was a victory all the more astonishing, given that Vos’ Republican Party does not have complete control of the state government.
That was the art of legislating at its finest. Opponents of DEI in other statehouses should take note and—like Napoleon did of history’s greatest commanders—study and emulate it.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/12/19/how-a-deft-wisconsin-lawmaker-beat-dei/
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27 December, 2023
School Choice Is Under Siege in Chicago
School choice is very popular among Chicagoans. In fact, more than 60 percent of Windy City residents support school choice programs. On the other hand, only 33 percent of Chicagoans are satisfied with the city’s public schools.
With this being the case, one would assume that Chicago’s leaders would support measures to increase access to school choice, especially among the city’s minority population, who tend to be stuck in the city’s worst-performing schools.
However, the exact opposite is occurring.
Earlier this year, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson teamed with public school teacher unions to kill Illinois’ lone school choice program: The Invest in Kids Act.
In 2017, the Illinois Legislature passed the Invest in Kids Act, which granted more than 50,000 private school scholarships to households that have incomes below 300 percent of the federal poverty level. Most of the students who have received scholarships resided in Chicago. More than half were black or Hispanic. In other words, the Invest in Kids Act was specifically designed to lend a helping hand to families living in poverty-stricken neighborhoods, where local public schools are failing to keep students safe and academic achievement is lagging.
According to a recent poll, 63 percent of Illinois voters supported the Invest in Kids Act, including 67 percent of Independents and 60 percent of Democrats. Nearly seven in 10 black and Hispanic voters also supported the program, which will end at the close of 2023.
After the Invest in Kids Act was officially axed, the Chicago Teachers Union applauded the decision, calling it “a significant milestone in the fight for anti-racist, gender affirming, pro-immigrant, equitable and fully funded public schools.”
Then, Johnson and his teacher union allies set their sights on the last remaining school choice option for Chicagoans: The Selective Enrollment Program (SEP). In a nutshell, SEP “aims to provide high-achieving students with a challenging academic experience and admit students based on prior academic performance,” according to the University of Chicago.
Presently, approximately 10,000 minority students and more than 7,500 low-income students are enrolled in Chicago’s SEP. They can attend 11 high-performing high schools.
Katie Milewski, who has children enrolled in SEP, told NBC News Chicago, “The selective enrollment schools are one of the shining stars of CPS. They are actually something that CPS has done right. And it needs to be supported.”
Unfortunately, the SEP is also on the chopping block. On December 14, the Chicago Board of Education passed a resolution “that it will be embarking on the development of a new five-year vision.” Oh, great. Five-year plans always work out well.
Essentially, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) seeks to eliminate selective enrollment based on the ridiculous notion that “selective admission criteria… ultimately reinforces, rather than disrupts, cycles of inequity.” That is absolutely ludicrous. In truth, selective enrollment does the total opposite by allowing high-achieving minority students from low-income households to attend some of the city’s best public schools.
CPS’ new five-year plan is designed to demolish school choice by basically forcing all low-income Chicago families to attend the school CPS wants them to attend. This is all about power.
As CPS admits in the resolution, it aims to move away “from a model which emphasizes school choice to one that supports neighborhood schools by investing in and acknowledging them as institutional anchors in our communities, and by prioritizing communities most impacted by past and ongoing racial and economic inequity and structural disinvestment.”
After reading the entire resolution, I cannot help but notice the hyper-focus on non-academic, social justice-oriented crusades like the Equity Framework initiative, which aims to “create anti-racist solutions that address systemic disinvestment.”
Gee, how about focusing on teaching students to read, write, and perform basic math, which CPS has failed to do for decades? For far too long, CPS has been derelict in its duty to properly educate the next generation. Even worse, Chicago public schools are notoriously unsafe.
There is a reason why Chicagoans overwhelmingly favor school choice, and that is because the public education system is failing across the board. It seems to me that CPS is desperate. They see the writing on the wall, which emphatically says more and more Chicagoans desire school choice over the status quo. Of course, CPS, the teacher unions, and others will fight tooth-and-nail to maintain the status quo. However, it would certainly behoove politicians like Mayor Brandon Johnson to lend an ear to the people who voted him into office. Mr. Mayor, the people of Chicago want more, not less, school choice.
https://redstate.com/heartlandinstitute/2023/12/21/school-choice-is-under-siege-in-chicago-n2167802 ?
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'Satan Club' approved at Kansas high school
A high school in Kansas is embroiled in controversy after a "Satan Club" was approved despite a petition being brought against it.
Olathe Northwest High School, a school in a suburb of Kansas City, has been given the green light to establish a Satan worship/Satan Templist Club, according to Fox 4 Kansas City.
An Olathe Public Schools spokesperson stated, "the club application met the criteria to establish a student-initiated club and is now recognized as a student-initiated club at Olathe Northwest High School."
According to the school district, there was criteria the club had to meet before the application was approved.
One of the terms of the application was that the application itself had to be signed by at least ten students interested in forming the group, while additional signatures needed to come from a student representative and faculty supervisor.
The students that would be the leaders of the club were also expected to make a presentation to administrators about what the group would bring to the high school.
A federal law, known as the Equal Access Act, prohibits public schools from discriminating against a student-initiated group based on a message that is philosophical or religious.
A spokesperson for the district told Fox 4 KC that this means if the school allows one club, it allows all clubs if the application process is complete and the group meets the guidelines for recognition.
In response to the school's announcement, a concerned student created a petition online called, "Stop The Satan Worship Club at Olathe Northwest," in early December.
"This deeply troubles me and many others in our community as we believe that schools should be places of education and growth, not platforms for satanic indoctrination or controversial practices," Drew McDonald, the creator of the petition wrote in a post.
As of Tuesday, the petition had gained 81 new signatures, bringing the total to nearly 7,800. However, it was not enough to keep the group from being approved by the school.
"As an Olathe resident, taxpayer, and Christian, I am appalled that something of this nature was even considered for a Olathe public school. The administrators, executives, teachers that allowed this to happen do not have the children's best interest in mind. This needs to be expunged immediately," one person commented on the petition.
"We urge the relevant authorities in Olathe, KS - school administrators, district officials and local representatives - to reconsider this decision. We believe it is not in the best interest of our children or community," McDonald wrote.
The Kansas high school is now the latest school to create a club like this.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/satan-club-approved-kansas-high-school
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Australia: Northern Territory Chief Minister Eva Lawler lashed over schools
Two of the Northern Territory’s most experienced educators are calling on new Chief Minister Eva Lawler to fix the schools crisis she failed to resolve when she led the Education Department, warning she was seen as a “same horse, different jockey” leader and had “no credibility” with Indigenous teachers and parents.
The former schoolteacher surprised Territorians last week when she was elected unanimously as Chief Minister by the Labor caucus, after Natasha Fyles quit over undisclosed shares in a mining company.
But The Australian previously revealed, during her time as education minister, one in five children was effectively unfunded, the majority of students failed to meet minimum standards of literacy and numeracy, and attendance rates were as low as 18.7 per cent.
Yipirinya School principal Gavin Morris said there was a “real danger” in the new NT leadership promoting the “same message” on education, particularly nine months before an election when the government’s focus tended to become shortsighted.
“It feels like we’ve got the same horse but a different jockey with Eva Lawler as Chief Minister,” said Dr Morris, also a councillor at Alice Springs Town Council. “Don’t just throw a different jockey on there and expect a change in results, it’s not going to happen.
“Given the state of education in the Territory, what’s the problem with the horse and why aren’t we addressing the underlying problems with the education system?”
The Australian’s NT Schools in Crisis series revealed an annual funding shortfall of $214.8m for Territory schools, with less than half of the NT Education Department’s $1.2bn budget going directly into school spending.
Dr Morris pointed to the “total ballsing up” of the $40.4m federal funding in the 2023-24 budget to improve Central Australian school attendance and education outcomes, of which, he said, they had “not seen a single cent”.
“The minister for education was totally left out of that conversation, and there’s been a disconnect between the NT government and the commonwealth, and we’ve had a huge fallout in terms of education … There’s no respect and recognition for the voice on the ground,” he said.
“Now that we’ve got an ex-school teacher and ex-minister for education in the top job, that whole sector needs to be held to higher standard … Ms Lawler needs to ensure that doesn’t happen again.”
Dr Morris said there needed to be more innovation in Central Australian schools to deal with disengagement, anti-social behaviour and youth crime. “Go and talk to people on frontlines who are innovating – Yipirinya is humbly one of those – and address the barriers to education and why kids are refusing to go to school in Central Australia,” he said.
“Also, resource schools appropriately to deal with that. One school councillor for every 500 students 20 years ago was acceptable, today that’s negligence.”
Gary Fry, who spent 23 years as a principal in the Northern Territory before he moved into academia in Queensland, said he didn’t hold much hope that Ms Lawler could turn around the “depressingly sad state of affairs” in education as Chief Minister.
“Labor has no depth if it’s seeking to elevate someone to Chief Minister of the most underperforming jurisdiction and the most educationally backward system in Australia, who denies that there’s even a problem in the education system,” he said. “Someone who has not acknowledged the true state of First Nations children in both urban and remote areas around the Territory.”
He referred to an interview on ABC Radio Darwin in September in which Ms Lawler, then education minister, said the Territory had a “very strong, very robust education system”. “Lawler doesn’t have any credibility for Aboriginal people in town, and people like me … She presided over the failed state of education and the economy,” Mr Fry said.
He said while one part of the story related to funding, the other was ideological. “How do you take children that are struggling and how can the education system liberate them so that they see the pathways in their life.”
Mr Fry, however, said appointing Mark Monaghan as Education Minister was positive and hoped he could “embark on an agenda of inclusive education, which means including Aboriginal people in decision-making, policy and program design”.
NT Opposition Leader Lia Finocchiaro said: “Eva Lawler’s mismanagement of the education system has resulted in an alarming decline in school attendance rates since 2016 under the Labor administration … The dire state of affairs continues with a concerning number of teacher injuries, unrecorded police callouts to schools, a high rate of student suspensions, and an alarming number of school break-ins.”
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24 December, 2023
NYC HS principal reassigned weeks after ‘radicalized’ students rioted over Jewish teacher attending pro-Israel rally
The principal of a Queens high school has been reassigned in the wake of a student riot against a Jewish teacher who had attended a pro-Israel rally, The Post has learned.
In a letter to staff and families, Hillcrest High School principal Scott Milczewski said he is leaving the Jamaica school for a new job in the city Department of Education bureaucracy.
“It is with mixed emotions that I inform you that I have been offered, and accepted, the position of Director of Teacher Development and Evaluation within the Division of Teaching and Learning,” he wrote.
The New York City Department of Education did not immediately comment on Milczewski’s reassignment.
Milczewski’s exit from the school comes in the wake of a riot where hundreds of kids rampaged through the halls of the high school last month, forcing the pro-Israeli teacher to hide in a locked office as the mob searched for her.
A Queens councilman called the students “intolerant and radicalized,” but teens said most classmates joined in the protest just for the fun of it. Four students who organized the riot were suspended.
The chaos ensued after the teacher’s Facebook profile photo showed her at a rally in Queens on Oct. 9 holding a poster saying, “I stand with Israel,” following the slaughter of 1,200 in the Jewish State by Hamas.
It took about 25 NYPD cops to put an end to the incident and place the school on lockdown, with Milczewski garnering criticism for failing to tackle the tensions being built up in the school over the Israel-Hamas war.
One teacher told The Post that Milczewski’s ouster was a positive outcome for the school.
“Hillcrest needed change. Hopefully, the new principal will address the needs of the faculty and students and bring us together as a community,” the teacher said.
Along with November’s riot, Milczewski’s tenure has been marred by controversy, with the former principal accused of dragging his feet to address an incident where swastikas were scrawled on student lockers back in February.
Earlier this month, Hillcrest had seen more swastikas pop up, along with graffiti saying “F–k Palestine,” which were quickly removed.
While Milczewski joined the school in 2019 after his predecessor, David Morrison, was ousted over allegations of misconduct. Milczewski will be leaving the high school after criticism from staff.
A no-confidence survey from the Hillcrest faculty reported that 87% of employees believed Milczewski has “created a toxic environment,” and put his ambitions over the needs of students and staff.
Despite the disapproval, Milczewski touted his work during his brief four years at the school and wished all the best to his students and coworkers.
“I am very grateful for the opportunity to have worked alongside you in support of our students and will remember and cherish my time as part of the Hillcrest family,” Milczewski wrote.
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University Demoted Staffer From Diversity Position Over Her Race, Lawsuit Claims
A staff member at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire sued her employer claiming that she was demoted from her position in the school’s diversity office for “being white.”
According to the New York Post, staff member Rochelle Hoffman was previously promoted to interim director of the university’s Multicultural Student Services office. After this change occurred, allegedly, the school’s former Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity and Student Affairs Olga Diaz was told by students that a white woman should not be in the position (via NYP):
“You hired a white woman as the Interim Director?” one student was cited in a federal complaint against the university.
Per the complaint, another student asked, “Do you personally feel white staff can do as effective a job as a person of color, within a space for people of color?”
Hoffman said she felt compelled to resign last year after eight months of intense hostility and staff questioning her “legitimacy” after being promoted to interim director of the campus’s Multicultural Student Services office, the complaint states.
[...]
“Despite Hoffman’s exceptional qualifications, however, students, faculty and staff opposed her appointment to Interim Director of MSS solely because she was white,” the complaint claims. “It was exclusively Hoffman’s identity as white that was the issue; criticism was about her race and color, not her qualifications.”
In a statement to Fox News, the university said: “As is the case with all pending litigation, UW-Eau Claire will not offer a statement or comment on the lawsuit. UW-Eau Claire does not discriminate based on race in any employment decisions.”
According to Wisconsin Public Radio, Hoffman worked at the university's Bluegold Beginnings for six years before the promotion. The office served “underrepresented, low-income and first-generation college students.”
"The affinity model that had been in use at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire was premised on the idea that for a student to be well served, they needed to be assigned a coordinator of the same ethnic background and that a white person could not adequately support a student of color," the lawsuit reportedly claims. And, she allegedly faced retaliation after filing an earlier complaint with the university.
Hoffman reportedly “pleaded her case” with Republican state Sen. Patrick Testin.
"I think it is important for good educators to bring light to some of the blatant actions of racial discrimination against white folks that are happening at UW Universities — and contributing to the current hostile environment around the UW System,” she wrote. Hoffman now works as an academic advising coordinator for the university.
"This experience dragged out over 10 months and irrevocably damaged my career," Hoffman added. "On a regular basis there are great educators that are told they shouldn't occupy multicultural space, to check their white privilege, passed over for jobs for an outside candidate of color, and reminded they are 'inherently racist' because they are white."
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Nation mourns Prague university shooting victims as more details emerge about killer David Kozak
Flags on public buildings flew at half mast and masses were scheduled across the Czech Republic for a day of national mourning after a deadly shooting at Prague’s Charles University – the worst in the country in decades.
Shooter David Kozak, a 24-year-old student, opened fire at the Faculty of Arts on Thursday, killing 13 people and then himself. Another person died later in hospital.
The gunfire sparked frantic scenes of students running from the attack.
The government asked Czechs to observe a minute’s silence at noon on Saturday and bells were due to ring on churches across the EU and NATO member country.
“It is hard to find the words to express condemnation on the one hand and, on the other, the pain and sorrow that our entire society is feeling in these days before Christmas,” said Prime Minister Petr Fiala.
Tearful students lit thousands of candles at makeshift memorials at the Faculty of Arts and the university headquarters near by.
The school, families and friends have also started to publish the names of the victims, students and teachers alike.
“This is extremely cruel news for us all,” the Institute of Musicology said on Facebook after learning its 49-year-old director Lenka Hlavkova, a mother of two, was among the victims.
Other victims included Finnish literature expert Jan Dlask and student Lucie Spindlerova.
The gunman also wounded 25 people including three who were hit by bullets in the street as he fired from a balcony.
A Dutch national and two citizens of the United Arab Emirates were among the wounded.
Interior Minister Vit Rakusan said there was no link between the shooting and “international terrorism” and that the perpetrator acted on his own.
But police have since detained four people either for threatening to copy the attack or for approving it.
Police guards at selected sites, including schools, will be in place at least until January 1, said Interior Minister Rakusan.
Police chief Martin Vondrasek said the gunman, previously unknown to the police, had a “huge arsenal of weapons and ammunition”.
He added that inspecting the crime scene was “the most shattering experience” in his 31 years of police service.
Kozak is suspected of randomly killing of a man and his baby in a dry-run of the Christmas massacre that left at least 13 dead and 25 injured. Fears are mounting the death toll could rise as the seriously wounded fight for survival.
As chilling footage emerged of a Prague hero drawing Kozak’s fire by yelling “Shoot here you f**ker”, police revealed Kozak was the prime suspect in the seemingly random murder of a 32-year-old and his two-month-old daughter a week earlier.
“We are working very seriously with the version, which is very real at the moment, that today’s attacker is also responsible for the two victims killed last Friday at Klanovice forest,” said Police Chief Martin Vondrasek
Authorities are also investigating comments on a Telegram account of a man with the same name saying he was inspired by a 14-year-old girl who carried out a school shooting in Russia on December 7.
Kozak began his massacre by killing his father before shooting dead another 12 in the centre of Prague and turning the weapon on himself.
Pictures and footage showed terrifying scenes of students hanging from ledges to hide and people on the street fleeing for their lives as the shooter is seen stalking victims from the roof of the campus.
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21 December, 2023
Missouri School District Assigns Roommates Based on Gender Identity Rather Than Biology
A Missouri school district’s procedure on overnight trips stipulates that students will be assigned to room with others of the sex they identify with, meaning that biological males who identify as female will be assigned to sleep in the same room as girls.
Room assignments for field trips should be same-sex, with sex being “determined by how the student identifies,” Webster Groves High School Assistant Principal Dwight Kirksey said in an email, according to public documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and obtained by The Daily Signal.
Shane Williamson, director of the school’s diversity, equity, and inclusion office, asked Kirksey how to handle the room assignment for a student whose “gender identity and sex assigned at birth do not match” for an overnight trip to retreat center Camp Wyman in September 2022.
Webster Groves School District, located in the suburbs of St. Louis, has taken students on trips to Camp Wyman in Eureka, Missouri, for 75 years. The retreat center provides a “DEI Word Bank” on its website with terms including “antiracist,” “intersectionality,” “unconscious bias,” “homophobia,” and “transgender.”
Camp Wyman did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment.
Other school districts with similar rooming policies have led to male and female students being told to sleep in the same bed. Jefferson County Public Schools in Colorado assigned an 11-year-old girl to share a bed with a male student who identifies as a transgender girl while on a cross-country school trip. Her parents filed a lawsuit on Dec. 4.
When asked about the practice revealed in the emails, Webster Groves Communications Director Derek Duncan told The Daily Signal the district seeks to maximize inclusivity.
“We do not have a policy regarding situations such as that, but we have processes in place that prioritize inclusivity while respecting personal privacy,” Duncan said. “Our goal is to create a safe and supportive environment for all students.”
Webster Groves School District, which enrolls almost 4,500 students, applied its room assignment policy in February 2023 regarding a high school trip abroad.
Social studies teacher Betty Roberts said in an email that she spoke with Kirksey about the sexual identity-based policy, but she wondered how to know how students identify.
“I am looking for guidance on how to know how students identify, how to collect that information, and how to protect student privacy in the process,” she said in the email to Kirksey and Williamson.
Williamson replied with suggested wording for a Google form to determine students’ preferred sex to room with.
“I reworded the gender identity question because I do not want transgender students to feel like they will be forced to stay based on their gender identity,” Williamson said.
Questions on the revised roommate questionnaire include “Student last and first name,” “Preferred name,” and roommate requests. Williamson’s recommended form asks students to “Please share your gender identity because this information is also taken into consideration for room assignments.”
Kirksey and Williamson did not respond to The Daily Signal’s requests for comment.
Webster Groves has no board-approved policy on transgender roommate assignments, so most parents are not aware that biological males and females could be forced to share a room on an overnight field trip.
Martin Bennet, secretary and treasurer of the St. Louis County Family Association, the education advocacy nonprofit that conducted the Freedom of Information Act request, told The Daily Signal that parents should be alarmed about the district’s policies.
“Most any parent does not want their child sleeping with a child from the opposite biological sex and would recoil at the thought,” he said. “I advise parents to no longer assume that commonsense practices prevail in suburban schools since many suburban school districts have fully embraced critical theory and social justice ideologies.”
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Chicago Schools Choose Mediocrity
“It is far easier for governments to handicap the proficient than it is to better the circumstances of people who, for whatever reason, struggle through life.”
So said National Review’s Noah Rothman as he observed “the perversity of the ‘equity’ agenda and its hostility toward” American exceptionalism, in this case in the Chicago public schools.
Unlike cities such as Baltimore, which is known for its failing schools, Chicago allows gifted students to submit applications to a group of 11 selective-admission high schools intended to support academic achievement via the city’s robust school choice menu. Selective admission is part of an overall school choice program that began three decades ago and was intended to serve as a method for seventh graders who did well enough on standardized testing and their grades to enroll in a school that focused on academic achievement. Indeed, three of these selective high schools rank among the top 60 achieving schools in the country. Yet any student in the Chicago Public School system, no matter how poor and wretched their upbringing, has an opportunity to be part of these schools via a competitive process, much like the best colleges. Imagine the joy felt by a single mom — a mom who’s fighting against the temptations that gang life has for her son — when she finds out that her young man made the grade for a school that could get him out of the ‘hood.
Unfortunately for students coming up the middle school ranks, that’s been deemed unfair by Chicago’s aptly named Mayor Brandon Johnson. Despite his campaign promise to keep those schools in operation, his appointed school board — along with the teachers union whispering in its ear every step of the way — voted for a proposal to eliminate the successful gifted and talented program. Instead, students who make it to high school will be automatically enrolled in the school serving their home district in order to reverse the “stratification and inequity in CPS” that “drive(s) student enrollment away from neighborhood schools.”
“This moment,” said CPS Board President Jianan Shi, “requires a transformational plan that shifts away from a model that emphasizes school choice to one that elevates our neighborhood schools to ensure each and every student has access to a high-quality educational experience.” This despite the fact that caring parents had a tried-and-true system to advance their child and perhaps break the cycle of poverty plaguing them. Neighborhood schools have had decades to be “elevated,” but since they could not or would not do so, parents voted with their child’s enrollment: More than three-fourths of high school students in Chicago attend a high school outside their district.
Shi’s “progressive” solution — to end the pursuit of individual excellence in favor of the pursuit of mass mediocrity for the district’s 330,000 students — seems almost insidious, especially given that the district’s makeup is 90% minority. Born in Communist China, Shi seems to have brought the proletariat teachings of Karl Marx and Mao Zedong to one of our nation’s largest school districts.
While the Johnson administration desires “equity,” it’s likely this change will have the opposite effect. “It’s poor students who are academically gifted and rely on their grades, coursework, and standardized test scores to rise to the top who will be limited,” states Zachary Faria at the Washington Examiner. “Those students also happen to be racial minorities, meaning Chicago is only going to make its racial inequity worse as it drags those students down.”
This is yet another example of how elections matter. Back in May, Chicago ousted former Mayor Lori Lightfoot in a jungle primary, leaving a choice between Johnson and fellow Democrat Paul Vallas. The latter was an interesting choice as a “law and order” Democrat who was also a former CEO of Chicago Public Schools, but he lost as Johnson scored 51.4% of the vote in the runoff. There’s no guarantee that a Mayor Vallas would not have done the same thing with the selective admission schools, but having run CPS, he probably knew how well the program worked at improving the lives of those whose parent(s) cared enough to make them mind their academics.
Instead, the city will further mediocrity in the name of “equity,” and the youth — who already run a significant risk of being innocent victims in Chicago’s continuing (yet all but ignored by the national media) crossfire of gang-related youth violence — will have one more strike against them.
https://patriotpost.us/articles/102987-chicago-schools-choose-mediocrity-2023-12-19
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Australia: Schools and the politics of envy
One of the defining moments of the 2004 federal election was Mark Latham’s hit list of wealthy non-government schools and John Howard’s success in describing the ALP policy as the politics of envy. Jason Clare, the Minister for Education, is making the same mistake.
In response to a recently released report titled Improving Outcomes For All commissioned by Clare, he argues, ‘The growing gap between the rich and poor, largely as a result of segregation, based on wealth into government and non-government schools was unacceptable.’
Based on the argument that poor students are always disadvantaged, Clare also argues ‘we have one of the most segregated school systems in the OECD. Not by the colour of your skin, but by the size of your parents’ pay packet’.
Based on the assumption that school choice, where parents have the right to decide where their children are educated, is inequitable and unjust, Clare’s report offers 10 interventions calculated to level the playing field and ensure all schools, especially non-government, embrace socio-economic diversity and difference.
Reforms include legislated quotas ‘with penalties for noncompliance’, stopping non-government schools from charging fees and forcing them into the state system, stopping schools from selecting students on academic ability, and offering incentives to ‘quality educators’ to teach in disadvantaged schools.
After admitting there is no one solution to solve the issue of segregation the report argues all schools, government and non-government, must be involved to ensure all students, regardless of postcode or wealth, ‘have pathways to enrol in high-quality schooling’.
While justified in terms of equity and fairness by forcing schools to enrol students from a diverse range of home backgrounds, the report denies school choice, reduces all schools to the one level of mediocrity and state control, and stops schools charging fees and controlling who they enrol.
Since the heady days of the late 1960s, schools have been a key target in the cultural-left’s long march through the institutions. Drawing on the sociology of education movement, the argument is schools are complicit in reproducing capitalist hierarchies and concepts like meritocracy are social constructs reinforcing privilege.
Drawing on cultural-Marxism, prominent academics argue schools must be captured if the socialist dream of ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs’ is to be achieved.
Victoria’s Premier, Joan Kirner, argued at a Fabian meeting, schools must be ‘part of the socialist struggle for equality, participation and social change rather than in instrument of the capitalist system’.
The Australian Education Union for decades has characterised Australian society as riven with social injustice and inequality, argued Catholic and independent schools don’t deserve funding, and government schools serving low socioeconomic communities must be given priority.
The flaws in Minister Clare’s attack on so-called wealthy and privileged parents who choose non-government schools are manifest. International covenants and agreements endorse parental choice and argue parents must not be discriminated against because of where they enrol their children.
Given the Woke, extreme secularist nature of government schools and education departments pushing neo-Marxist inspired gender and sexuality theories, climate alarmism, critical race and postcolonial theories, plus identity politics, it is especially vital religious parents are free to choose.
Underlying the billions of dollars wasted as a result of the Gonski funding review, proven by international and NAPLAN tests results either flatlining or going backwards, is the myth a student’s socioeconomic background is the key determinant explaining success or failure.
While promulgating the SES myth fits the socialist belief society is structurally classist and investing more in schools serving disadvantaged communities will remedy the problem, the reality is the opposite.
Research undertaken by one of Australia’s leading education experts and psychometricians Gary Marks concludes SES accounts for 10-16 per cent when explaining outcomes. Analysis undertaken as part of the PISA test makes the same point when concluding SES contributes 15 per cent to test results.
More important factors include disciplined classrooms and setting high expectations, having a rigorous and teacher friendly curriculum, ensuring what happens in the classroom is effective and that teachers are subject experts supported by parents.
Contrary to the myth parents’ wealth is the major factor, research proves student ability and motivation are also keys to educational success. Research puts the impact of genetic inheritance at between 50 to 67 per cent and explains why working-class students are not always destined to under achieving.
Attacking Catholic and independent schools also fails the financial literacy test. On average while government school students receive $20,940 in government funding the figure for students attending non-government schools is $12,442.
Parents paying non-government school fees save state, territory, and commonwealth governments billions each and every year plus their taxes also support government schools. Proven by year 12 results, it’s also true non-government schools, with the exception of selective schools, consistently outperform government schools.
The Albanese government’s record of electorally disastrous polices include the Indigenous Voice, rocketing energy prices caused by climate alarmism, unacceptable rates of immigration and holding small businesses to account with its union-friendly industrial relations regime. Add school choice and school funding to the list.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/12/the-politics-of-envy/
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20 December, 2023
Previous Allegations of Plagiarism Against Harvard's President Just the Tip of the Iceberg
Just another lamebrain affirmative action beneficiary. Prominent Blacks seem to have a problem with plagiarism. Martin Luther King and Barack Obama did too
Harvard President Claudine Gay may have thought she was through the worst of the storm brought about by her disastrous testimony before House lawmakers in a hearing on antisemitic incidents on campuses and amid allegations of plagiarism in her scholarly work, but a new complaint is again casting doubt on her ability to continue leading the formerly great institution of higher education after Harvard Corporation released a statement standing by its embattled lead.
As it turns out, the previous claims of plagiarism by Gay may have been just the tip of the iceberg, and a new complaint received on Tuesday alleges a total of more than 40 cases of plagiarism in publications comprising "almost half of her scholarly output."
Our friends over at the Washington Free Beacon reviewed and independently verified the new complaint against President Gay, as well as the identity of the person who lodged the new allegations: "a professor at another university...who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation."
More from WFB's Aaron Sibarium:
The new allegations, which were submitted to Harvard's research integrity officer, Stacey Springs, include the examples reported by the Washington Free Beacon and other outlets, as well as dozens of additional cases in which Gay quoted or paraphrased authors without proper attribution, according to a copy of the complaint reviewed by the Free Beacon. They range from missing quotation marks around a few phrases or sentences to entire paragraphs lifted verbatim.
The full list of examples spans seven of Gay's publications—two more than previously reported—which comprise almost half of her scholarly output. Though the Harvard Corporation said earlier this month that it initiated an independent review Gay's work in October and found "no violation of Harvard's standards for research misconduct," that probe focused on just three papers.
"[I]t is impossible that your office has already reviewed the entirety of these materials," the complaint reads, "as many … have not been previously reported or submitted."
All allegations of faculty plagiarism must be reviewed by Harvard's research integrity officer, according to the school's official policies, and if deemed credible are referred for further investigation. A guilty finding can result in a range of consequences—including "suspension," "rank reduction," and "termination of employment."
The 37-page complaint can be viewed here and includes some eyebrow-raising allegations that were previously unreported, including one example that appears to show Gay plagiarizing language from someone else's dedication to use in her own dissertation's dedication.
Carol Swain, one of the scholars whose work was allegedly plagiarized by Gay and whose work is again referenced in the new complaint, wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed after the initial round of allegations came to light that "[t]enure at a top-tier institution normally demands ground-breaking originality; her work displays none."
"Harvard can’t condemn Ms. Gay because she is the product of an elite system that holds minorities of high pedigree to a lower standard," Swain continued. "This harms academia as a whole, and it demeans Americans, of all races, who had to work for everything they earned."
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The Indoctrinated Generation
The latest Harvard/Harris poll should be setting off alarm bells EVERYWHERE. In Congress, in faith communities, in corporate boardrooms, in newsrooms, in academia and in living rooms across the country.
The poll found that young Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 are rabidly anti-Israel and anti-Semitic, and have largely accepted some of the worst narratives of the left. Bizarre stuff that most of us would just laugh off, they have to believe as “true.”
For example:
79% supported the ideology of critical race theory (CRT) and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) that defines all white people as “oppressors” and gives preference to non-white people for university admission and employment as a result of white “oppression.”
67% of young Americans said that Jews were “oppressors” and should be treated as such.
When asked about the future of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, 51% said that Israel should be ended and given to Hamas.
These young Americans are embracing nation-ending ideologies — and I’m not just referring to the nation of Israel. America will not survive this either.
There should be serious top-level meetings of business executives, political leaders and religious leaders who care about there being a place called “America” in the future.
America is being “deconstructed” right in front of our eyes. We need a plan to defeat this neo-Marxist indoctrination now!
Being for CRT and DEI means you disagree with the fundamental idea that America is built on merit and that you achieve success based on what you are able to add and produce.
Yes, there were times when we didn’t always do that fairly because of racism. Well, overt racism has been illegal for a long time now. But the left is teaching that whites must be discriminated against now because of past racism.
That’s exactly what Ibram X. Kendi teaches. Sadly, many young Americans are soaking up this poison.
As a result of this ideological extremism, many parents are likely ashamed of what their children think about Israel and Jews. Our high schools and colleges would make Adolf Hitler proud.
We won World War II, but the National Socialists (Nazis) have won America’s classrooms.
https://patriotpost.us/articles/103010-the-indoctrinated-generation-2023-12-19
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British Schools no longer have to use transgender pupils' preferred pronouns
Teachers and pupils will not be pressure into using preferred pronouns and parents will be told if their child is socially transitioning, new government guidance has said.
The Department for Education said parents should not be excluded from a school’s decision relating to children asking to change names, pronouns and clothing.
Schools and colleges in England have also been told there is no general duty to allow children to change their gender identity.
The long-awaited draft guidance, which will be subject to a 12-week consultation, says teachers should still be able to refer to children collectively as girls or boys.
It adds schools should provide separate toilets for boys and girls aged eight and above, and changing rooms and showers for boys and girls who are aged 11 years or over.
The guidance says: ‘All children should use the toilets, showers and changing facilities designated for their biological sex unless it will cause distress for them to do so.
‘In these instances, schools and colleges should seek to find alternative arrangements, while continuing to ensure spaces are single-sex.’
Education Secretary Gillian Keegan said: ‘This guidance puts the best interests of all children first, removing any confusion about the protections that must be in place for biological sex and single-sex spaces, and making clear that safety and safeguarding for all children must always be schools’ primary concern.
‘Parents’ views must also be at the heart of all decisions made about their children, and nowhere is that more important than with decisions that can have significant effects on a child’s life for years to come.’
Kemi Badenoch, minister for women and equalities, said: ‘This guidance is intended to give teachers and school leaders greater confidence when dealing with an issue that has been hijacked by activists misrepresenting the law.
‘It makes clear that schools do not have to accept a child’s request to socially transition, and that teachers or pupils should not be pressured into using different pronouns.’
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19 December, 2023
Students rejecting early Harvard acceptance as antisemitism stigma plagues Ivy League institution
A place at Harvard used to be something to boast about — now students fear it’s a stigma.
Early applicants who received acceptance letters from the university last week are considering applying elsewhere, The Post has learned.
Some are citing concerns about experiencing campus antisemitism, while others worry a Harvard degree could hurt job prospects as employers pledge not to hire its graduates because of the university’s handling of anti-Israel protests.
This year, the school reported a 17% drop in early applications, representing a four-year low. And their acceptance rate creeped up to 8.7% from 7.6% last year.
One driver, according to college admissions consultant Christopher Rim, is students concerned that they may get tainted by the storm around the college’s antisemitism problem.
“I think it’s current events at play,” Rim told The Post. “They’re getting the worst PR ever right now.”
Thirty Harvard student groups sparked outrage in October by signing a letter saying Israel was “entirely responsible” for the October 7 attacks, while the university’s president Claudine Gay has faced pressure to resign after she testified to Congress about campus antisemitism and was forced to apologize afterwards for her disastrous performance.
Rim, who is the founder and CEO of Command Education, says every single one of his clients who applied early to Harvard this year were accepted — but that not all of them are satisfied.
“Normally, once you get into Harvard, my team and I are done. We’re like great, it’s a success, congratulations, goodbye,” Rim said.
But one particular client’s family wasn’t celebrating. Instead of taking their offer from Harvard, the student is now scrambling to send applications to the remaining Ivy League schools, Stanford, MIT, and Emory.
The student, who is not Jewish, is applying elsewhere over concerns that going to Harvard might hurt employment prospects.
Rim was shocked: “I was like, ‘Why would you do Emory if you’ve already gotten into Harvard?’”
The student cited billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman’s tirade against Harvard over antisemitism — as well as dozens of CEOs’ commitment not to hire Harvard Students who blamed Israel for Hamas’s attack.
Similarly, a boutique law firm halted on-campus recruiting at Harvard, and even Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy pledged not to hire a Harvard graduate ever again.
“This was the first time this concern has ever come up with a client,” Rim said. “They told me, ‘I just don’t like that attention on Harvard if it’s going to hurt my child’s chances of getting the right job in the future.’”
But, even though the school is losing applicants, Rim says Harvard seems to be spinning the news as a positive.
“Harvard really touted the increased acceptance rate…,” he said. “I think they want to distance themselves from their image as stuffy, elitist and selective because of all the bad press they’ve been getting.”
While Harvard hemorrhages applicants, other schools are absorbing the overflow.
This year early college applications soared by 41%, as compared with the 2019 admissions cycle.
Yale saw its lowest early acceptance rate in over 20 years. Meanwhile, Rim reports Duke, in Durham, North Carolina, and Emory, in Atlanta, Georgia, are popular with students seeking alternatives to the Ivy League.
Duke reported 1,000 more applicants than any previous early decision round, a remarkable 28% increase from last year.
“The second tier schools are becoming even more viable options, so their acceptance rates are going to continue to drop,” Rim projected.
Several of Rim’s own clients changed up their early applications in the wake of campus antisemitism.
One who decided not to apply early to Cornell after a student made violent threats against Jewish classmates just received an admissions offer from Stanford, where they applied early instead.
Another client submitted his binding early decision application to Cornell before the October 7th attacks took place. He just got a binding acceptance but has already contacted Rim to discuss transfer options for next year.
“It’s a binding contract, so the student is stuck,” Rim explained. “How was he supposed to know all of this would happen?”
But some other students are wishing they had applied to Harvard early now that the school appears to be getting less selective.
Rim says multiple clients have expressed regrets that they didn’t capitalize on the 17% drop.
That’s why he anticipates Harvard’s early application numbers will probably recover — especially since Harvard offers a non-binding early action application.
“I do think there are going to be more applications [next year],” Rim suggested. “If you feel like you have a better chance, why not go for it?”
https://nypost.com/2023/12/18/news/students-reject-harvard-places-over-campus-antisemitism/
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This year, give the gift that keeps on giving — a real education for our kids
Admit it. Unless you received a big-ticket item for Christmas last year — such as a car — you likely have forgotten what was under your tree. Most gifts wear out, break or are given or thrown away at some point.
What if you could give a gift that would literally keep on giving and continue to influence the lives of others for generations to come?
Would that be worth more than material stuff?
Such an opportunity exists through the Children’s Scholarship Fund, which has been helping especially low-income parents have a choice and children a chance to have a better education and a better life.
I am a regular contributor to CSF and have seen the difference it has made in the lives of children, many of whom were locked in failing public schools thanks to certain politicians and teachers unions that oppose school choice for strictly political reasons while some hypocritically send their kids to private schools.
Illinois recently and cynically refused to continue funding a popular school-choice program in the state that was benefiting 9,600 low-income kids. It expires Dec. 31.
CSF is showing positive results.
President and CEO Darla Romfo says during just the current academic year scholarships are being provided to 33,945 students nationwide.
In New York City alone, CSF is providing scholarships to more than 7,000 children this year.
They are attending more than 200 low-tuition private independent and faith-based schools in all five city boroughs.
The graduation rate for scholarship recipients beats those from public schools.
Romfo notes 96.2% of CSF alumni in New York report graduating high school on time.
I would argue they likely receive a better education than the 83.7% of public-school graduates.
With the exception of Illinois, school choice is sweeping the nation.
Just this year 10 states expanded or passed new education-savings-accounts programs, allowing money to follow a child to a private school, home school or micro-school or to be used for education expenses such as tutoring.
Letters from grateful parents are heartwarming.
Here are just two of hundreds.
Amanda, the mother of CSF Scholar Matthew, wrote this: “When Matthew and I talk about how much we appreciate this award, I use the opportunity to remind him that as a recipient, we are grateful that he will be offered the opportunities to reach his full potential. But most importantly, I remind him that one day . . . he will be able to help someone else and make a difference and an investment in their — and our — collective futures.”
And this from Laticia, who wrote to tell about her daughter, Laya: “I would like to say thank you for believing in my daughter and giving her an opportunity for a better chance at life. We will not let you down. . . . It means the world to our family.”
What gift could mean more to the receiver and the giver than this?
Having the opportunity to change a life for the better now and for many years into the future beats anything you can buy in a store or online that will soon be gone and forgotten.
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Pennsylvania School District Does Damage Control After Memo to Bus Drivers Goes Viral
A Pennsylvania school is attempting to do damage control after issuing a memo instructing bus drivers to remove Christmas decorations from their vehicles, stop wearing anything related to the holiday, and avoid playing Christmas music.
“If you have decorated your bus with anything specific to the Christmas Holiday or any other decorations relating to a specific religion, please remove them immediately,” read the Dec. 15 memo from the Transportation Supervisor at the Wallingford-Swarthmore School District. “In addition, employees are instructed not to wear clothing related to Christmas or any other religious holiday.”
District offices and bus drivers are also “to refrain from playing Christmas music” or any music connected to a particular religion.
Libs of TikTok pointed out the district took a different attitude toward “Pride Month.”
After the memo went viral, the district tried to claim the memo was a misunderstanding, telling Fox29 the message was "not clear." Holiday displays are not banned, their statement to the outlet said, emphasizing that employees should strive to create an "inclusive environment."
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18 December, 2023
It's not just the Ivies: Public universities must answer for their moral rot too
So far, almost all the critical focus on how university leaders have manifestly failed to address rampant antisemitism on their campuses has been aimed at selective, private universities. It was the presidents of Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for example, who testified to Congress last week on the issue and now face the brunt of the backlash.
But many state universities are just as culpable. The ideology undergirding the obsession with diversity, equity, and inclusion is also fueling Jew hatred at their institutions. It is also out of control at public universities, where there are more obvious policy levers to rein in antisemitism.
Unlike schools in the Ivy League or colleges such as MIT, which are private, state schools are public institutions predominantly supported by tax dollars, which makes them entirely accountable to voters and, thus, to governors, state legislatures, and boards of trustees. Harvard, Yale, and other private institutions still get plenty of taxpayer support (in the billions), but the subsidy is more indirect, and they are not answerable to voters for their policies.
One public university that warrants critical attention is George Mason University. Its main campus in Fairfax, Virginia, may be a few hundred miles south of the Ivy cluster, but it nonetheless has severe problems with antisemitism on campus and a president as attached to DEI ideology as Harvard’s Claudine Gay or Penn's Liz Magill. And while Gay has come under heavy criticism after a horrendous hearing performance and evidence of plagiarism, and Magill was outright fired, George Mason President Gregory Washington retains his job and has escaped scrutiny.
He became president in 2020 amid the nationwide Black Lives Matter riots and has a record no better than Gay or Magill. Among the very first actions Washington took as president were to create an “anti-racism taskforce,” to add to curriculum statements on how racism would be opposed in each subject, and to order the building of a memorial to the slaves that the university’s namesake owned two centuries earlier.
Research published by the two of us this year showed that George Mason under Washington has accumulated the most bloated DEI bureaucracy in the Old Dominion . Washington groused very publicly about our numbers after our paper was published.
He promised to demonstrate how we were wrong. But all that a review he called has done is change definitions around. For example, the chief of staff of a DEI officer now is not identified as working on DEI. Presto — linguistic gymnastics made the DEI bloat disappear.
In other words, Washington has doubled down on the woke DEI efforts that people now understand induced students across the country to be so ethically challenged that they supported Hamas over their Jewish victims following the terrorist group’s mass killing and rapes in Israel on Oct. 7.
Small wonder that Mason’s campus was one of the earliest and largest scenes of pro-terrorist demonstrations by such radical groups as Students for Justice in Palestine. Masked pro-Hamas student protesters were allowed into a full meeting of the Board of Visitors on Nov. 30, at which they accused the board members of complicity in the “genocidal murder” of Palestinians and that ended with the genocidal “from the river to the sea” slogan. Washington sat there impassively.
When a group of law school professors signed a letter of protest demanding an explanation, Washington just ignored them .
The anti-Israel protesters have also been marching around Mason’s campus chanting genocidal slogans while wearing keffiyehs to cover their faces despite a Virginia statute prohibiting the use of face coverings in public to conceal one’s identity.
Washington has refused to strictly enforce that prohibition despite the fact that the law was originally adopted to crack down on the KKK and despite Virginia’s attorney general sending him a letter specifically instructing him to enforce the law.
Washington’s failure to have George Mason police arrest those violating this law demonstrates that he has more concern for those harassing Jews on campus than he does for the Jews being abused.
Like Gay, Washington’s failure as a university president is not confined to his DEI obsession and callous indifference to the well-being of Jews on campus. Washington has been derelict on other things that matter.
Last week, the American Bar Association put Mason’s prestigious Scalia Law School on probation for lacking “sufficient current and anticipated financial resources” to carry out its education mission.
That probation occurred because Washington proposed across-the-board budget cuts. While he rescinded the cuts for the Scalia Law School, publicly declaring that their funds could be in jeopardy led the ABA to believe that the school’s financial situation was precarious.
Given that the law school is one of the few pockets at Mason, or in academia in general, that is welcoming to conservatives, it is possible that Washington didn’t mind getting them into hot water with the ABA.
Decisive university leaders concentrate budget cuts on areas of the university that are both educationally unsound and significant money losers, such as DEI bureaucracies and gender and ethnic studies departments. But Washington is not that kind of leader and would never place his beloved DEI in jeopardy.
The next round of congressional hearings on higher ed’s Jew-hatred problem should bring the bad-acting leaders of public universities to answer questions. We expect if they bring George Mason’s Washington, he is unlikely to fare better than Magill or Gay.
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New Education Model Charts Course for ‘Success Sequence’ in New Year
Just in time for Christmas, new data finds good news on education: Average graduation rates nationwide are up two percentage points.
Before celebrating, though, research reminds us that students still are posting low scores in national and international comparisons, and a troubling share of college students need remedial work.
Graduation rates may not represent what they once did, so what happens after students finish high school matters at least as much as what happens in school.
When state legislatures go back into session in the new year, lawmakers should listen to social science researchers’ idea for quality course content that points to success after graduation and is backed by strong evidence. Educators and policymakers should be ready to listen.
These researchers study an oft-overlooked topic: family formation. Some have charted a course with their findings that could lead K-12 educators to lesson plans designed to promote student success in school and in life.
Researchers from the Brookings Institution, the American Enterprise Institute, the University of Virginia, and elsewhere consistently have found that married couples who have children have “higher family incomes and lower poverty rates” than unmarried couples who have children together. Students raised in two-parent, married families also do better in school and are twice as likely to graduate from college than peers who don’t live with married parents.
In fact, the outcomes for individuals who grow up in intact, married homes are consistently positive across key indicators, including incarceration (lower), poverty rates (lower), and education (higher).
All of this evidence supports what is known as the “success sequence,” a set of decisions and behaviors that lead young people to better life outcomes into early adulthood. If a student obtains a high school diploma, works after graduation or pursues a college degree, and gets married before having children, he or she is less likely to live in poverty as an adult.
And the numbers aren’t even close. A report on millennials (those born in the early 1980s to the mid-1990s) finds that 97% of those who followed this sequence “did not live in poverty when they reached adulthood.” The strong findings are nearly identical across racial lines, and some 80% of black and Hispanic adults who followed the success sequence “reached the middle class or higher by their mid-30s.”
The Heritage Foundation has designed a blueprint that school boards and educators may use to integrate the success sequence into classrooms. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)
Heritage’s new model resolution includes evidence of positive outcomes from the success sequence and provisions that call on educators to teach students the benefits of each behavior.
The lessons are badly needed. The share of children living with married parents has declined by 12 percentage points over the past half-century, and nearly 1 in 4 children don’t live with married parents today. Marriage rates, in general, have fallen in recent years.
These data have serious implications for children. For example, 42% of federal prison inmates reported living with only one parent while growing up, while 47% of state inmates reported growing up with only one parent.
Boys from low-income homes who grow up without fathers “are particularly likely to be floundering at school and to be suspended at school,” Institute for Family Studies senior fellow Brad Wilcox said at a Heritage Foundation event in 2018.
The model policy doesn’t mandate that educators tell students to go to college after high school. It does, however, describe the evidence supporting the benefits of work or educational activity after high school and says educators should teach students the benefits of doing these things.
The policy also doesn’t require that teachers tell students to get married, just that students should know the positive outcomes that are more likely for themselves and their children if they marry before children are born.
Heading into 2024, school district boards and local educators may use Heritage’s resolution on the success sequence to give students and families hope in the present and for the future.
Evidence of the importance of finishing school, heading to the workforce or college, and getting married before having children is too strong to ignore. This is the kind of evidence that should be behind more classroom content.
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Who’s teaching the teachers?
At the height of the student protests in Melbourne, sixteen-year-old schoolgirl Ivy Bertram appeared on The Project to discuss her decision to help organise the pro-Palestinian rally. As Miss Bertram, an expert on Gaza and geo-politics, delivered pearl after pearl of wisdom, Mr Ali and his fellow hosts nodded in deference at the insight being proffered by this modern-day oracle of Delphi. Unfortunately, this new breed of political commentator currently gracing our screens typifies everything that is wrong with the education system in this country.
There is no doubt that Miss Bertram is simply repeating what she has been told by her teachers at school. But who is teaching the teachers, and what are they being taught at university? The Institute of Public Affair’s latest report, Who Teaches the Teachers? An Audit of Teaching Degrees at Australian Universities, answers these questions and confirms what we have long suspected: our education faculties have been completely beguiled by the forces of wokery, woke activism is deeply and irrevocably embedded into teacher training and universities are churning out legions of woke activist teachers.
Instead of being taught how to master core academic curricula such as reading, writing, mathematics, history and science, the report reveals that teachers are being trained by their university lecturers to be experts in critical social justice, identity politics, critical race theory, radical gender theory, social and emotional learning, and sustainability. Of the 3,713 subjects taught across 37 universities that offer teaching degrees, 1,169 are classified as woke, or as critical social justice. In contrast, a meagre 371 are devoted to teaching phonics, mathematics and grammar. It’s a wonder that children are able to spell ‘Climate Justice’ on their protest banners.’
Critical social justice and the accompanying theories now entrenched in Australian universities were pioneered by Brazilian Marxist educator Paulo Freire (1921-1977) as a theory of teaching known as ‘critical pedagogy’. Built on Marxist foundations, this sought to turn children into politically conscious participants in a perpetual revolution. Tellingly, Freire’s other heroes were Friedrich Hegel, Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara.
By the early 1990s, Freire’s ideas were added to by the social theorists in North American universities who introduced critical race theory and post-colonial theory into the mix. The influence of Freire and his disciples on the teaching landscape in Australia has been far-reaching and profound. He even came to this country in 1974, giving lectures on ‘authority and authoritarianism, conscientisation (critical awareness), violence, class struggle and illusions of neutrality’. Freire’s audience clearly tuned out while he was talking about illusions of neutrality.
As recently as 2021, the Brazilian Marxist was being lauded as ‘one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century’ by Australian academics at a conference held at the University of South Australia.
Critical social justice requires teachers to be agents of change, a message which is drummed into them throughout their four-year degrees. At Monash University, a student taking ‘Theorising Social Justice’ is told that the unit ‘aims to develop in you a strong grasp of the concept of “cognitive justice”, and the associated notions of “epistemic” and “epistemological” justice which will support you to engage with and give value to, the diversity of thought and different “ways of knowing” that can be applied to the pursuit of social justice in local, national, and international contexts, in educational settings and beyond’.
It also teaches them to approach Aboriginal education through the lens of critical race theory and post-colonial theory. At the University of Melbourne, Masters students ‘will engage in critical discussions and activities that enable them to reflect on the impacts of settler colonialism, racism and unexamined bias on First Nations educational sovereignties as well as build their understanding and awareness of Indigenous knowledges and strategies for working towards decolonisation’.
In extreme cases, such as ‘Rethinking Indigenous Education’ offered by Macquarie University, students are not only taught that all Western knowledge must be decolonised, but that they must also be proficient in ‘abolitionist, futurist and Indigenist thinking’. Those taking ‘Leadership in Indigenous Education’ at the University of Canberra are being taught to monitor the ‘attitudes, beliefs and behaviours of other educators around them’. There must be no wrong think in the classroom!
Sustainability is of course, inextricably linked to critical social justice, and maintains that a sustainable world cannot be achieved without a socially just world. Sustainability education is not confined to secondary education but commences at an early age. For example, students studying a Bachelor of Education Early Childhood and Primary at the University of New England are taught how to introduce children aged between two and five to sustainability in the sciences. At the University of Notre Dame, lecturers ensure that ‘a key aim is to empower pre-service teachers to integrate effective advocacy for sustainability in their professional teaching role’ while ‘strategies will be explored to enable young children to participate as active citizens and agentic leaders in protecting the environment for a sustainable future’. Meanwhile, Federation University is concerned with equipping students with ‘tools to embed environment and sustainability practices into primary and/or junior secondary education using interdisciplinary teaching and learning strategies’.
With teaching like this, it is no wonder that anxious young Australians are out in the streets protesting about the government’s supposed inaction on climate change. Almost since birth, they have been indoctrinated by their woke teachers with the narrative that the world is on the verge of a climate apocalypse. And it is of course hardly a coincidence that one in three Australian students can barely read or write, with an average of 33 per cent performing below expectations, while almost one in ten students is not achieving the expected learning outcomes for literacy and numeracy at their year level.
Under the federal government’s ‘back to basics’ plan, there will be a new accreditation regime for teaching degrees, and it will be mandatory for universities to instruct trainee teachers in evidence-based reading, writing, arithmetic, and classroom management practices. While this might be a step in the right direction, it will not address the fact that teachers are being schooled in ideologies which are not only incompatible with the notion of traditional education but also seek to tear it down. As long as woke courses dominate teaching degrees, I fear we will have to endure being lectured to by activist schoolchildren.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/12/whos-teaching-the-teachers/
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17 December, 2023
Butler University is investigating its College Republicans club for condemning antisemitism
While other universities, including Rutgers, have suspended a group called Students for Justice in Palestine over violations of discrimination and harassment policies, Butler University apparently is investigating anyone who dares to condemn the pro-Palestine organization.
Indianapolis-based Butler University launched an investigation of the school’s College Republicans chapter Oct. 30, according to an email obtained by The Daily Signal. Butler did this after the GOP club condemned the school’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter for holding an anti-Israel protest only five days after the brutal rape, torture, and slaughter of over 1,200 Israelis at the hands of Hamas terrorists.
The protesters on Oct. 12 repeated several antisemitic chants, including “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!” (which calls for the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea).
They also chanted, “Not a victim, not a crime!” This chant suggests that because pro-Palestine students believe Israel isn’t a victim, it wasn’t a crime for Hamas terrorists to rape, torture, and slaughter women and children Oct. 7 near the border between southern Israel and the Gaza Strip. (Hamas has been the elected government of Gaza since 2007.)
The Butler University College Republicans chapter condemned the protest in an Instagram post Oct. 13, describing the chant of “Not a victim, not a crime!” as an “attempt to justify the cold-blooded attacks by an internationally designated terrorist organization on innocent civilians.”
Butler University is a private, nonprofit university that enrolls over 5,000 students and receives federal funding. By taking federal funding and grants, Butler is required to maintain civil rights and Title IX staff who can investigate alleged discrimination in violation of federal law.
The school’s policy against discrimination also forbids student groups from calling for violence against or harassment of racial and ethnic groups.
According to copies of official emails and letters obtained by The Daily Signal, members of Students for Justice in Palestine filed a complaint Oct. 15 with Azure Swinford, Butler’s associate director for institutional equity and Title IX coordinator, asserting that the College Republicans’ condemnation incited violence against “Muslim and Palestinian” students.
Butler University did not immediately respond to The Daily Signal’s request that the school confirm or deny the authenticity of the emails and letters.
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Solving America’s History and Civics Crisis
History and civics education in America is languishing. A troubling number of Americans can’t even pass a U.S. citizenship test.
Pioneer Institute‘s recent poll findings on the topic are “pretty sobering,” explains Chris Sinacola, the organization’s director of communications and media relations.
The Pioneer Institute, a think tank based in Massachusetts, offers solutions for how schools and educators can ignite a passion for American history and solve the civics crisis facing the country in a new book, “Restoring the City on a Hill: U.S. History & Civics in America’s Schools.”
In Pioneer’s poll, Massachusetts residents were asked questions drawn from the citizenship test.
The questions were about “things that new citizens, or aspiring U.S. citizens, need to know and they need to get 60% to pass,” Sinacola says, adding that “the average score among our citizens was 63%.”
“So you can say, ‘Yay, we passed, we can all remain citizens,’” he says, but it is a bit of an “indictment” when some Americans don’t know how long a U.S. senator’s term is or even how many members the Senate has.
“It’s a bit of a warning sign,” Sinacola says.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/12/15/solving-americas-history-and-civics-crisis
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A Renowned Science and Engineering Institute Loses Its Way Due to Woke Leadership, Imperiling Jewish Students
As a 1981 graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, I have been appalled by the behavior of the president of the university, Sally Kornbluth, in the face of the antisemitism now infesting MIT, something that wasn’t there when I was a student.
I echo all of the serious concerns raised by over 700 other MIT alumni who, on Dec. 11, sent a letter to Kornbluth and the MIT Corporation, the board that runs the university, over the “continued failure of the MIT administration to address” this dangerous plague. Kornbluth has lost the moral authority to continue as the president of MIT.
In fact, in a tone-deaf move, the members of that board issued a statement on Dec. 7 expressing their full support for Kornbluth, which, as the alumni letter correctly says, sends the wrong message to the “MIT community, and especially its Jewish members.” The statement says the board members “utterly reject” all “forms of hate” yet they refuse to take any action against those who have been spewing such hate on campus.
Of course, this tolerance for racist behavior is also no surprise to me, given MIT’s abandonment of basic principles of equal treatment of its students based on merit, regardless of their race or ethnicity, that started in the 1990s. That is when MIT started discriminating on the basis of skin color in its admissions policy. It even filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court, aiming to justify such invidious discrimination, in the ultimately successful lawsuits filed by Asian American students against Harvard and the University of North Carolina.
The scandal involves Kornbluth’s dismaying and highly criticized testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce on Dec. 5, where she was accompanied by her woke apologists for students supporting a designated terrorist organization, Hamas, the plagiarist president of Harvard and the now resigned-before-being-fired president of the University of Pennsylvania.
At that hearing, Kornbluth implied, as the alumni letter says, “that calls for genocide of Jews may not constitute bullying and harassment under MIT’s code of conduct, depending on context.”
What context could possibly justify support for terrorist attacks and a call for genocide?! Protecting those who engage in such violent rhetoric, as my 700 fellow alumni have said, “rather than the Jewish victims of such rhetoric, sends a strong signal to the rest of the world that violent words of hate are acceptable, at least as they relate to the Jewish people.”
Somehow, I doubt that if rhetoric calling for the extermination of blacks had been spewed at these supposedly elite universities any of these college presidents would have waited a second to immediately condemn it or take disciplinary actions against the students spewing such venom.
That raises the more substantive problem. The problem isn’t just Kornbluth’s regrettable and inexplicable testimony. It is also her refusal to take any action to suspend or expel the pro-Hamas, antisemitic students who have harassed, threatened, and intimidated Jewish students and faculty members, disrupted classes, protested in areas that the school has said explicitly are off-limits for protests, and blocked access to the main lobby of MIT in November.
As a letter from current Israeli and Jewish MIT students recounts, the administration took no steps against these students for any of these actions that not only threatened other students and faculty, but physically kept Jewish students out of buildings and prevented them from attending classes.
The worst actions of these thugs who masquerade as college students occurred on Nov. 9, the 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the day Jews all over Germany were attacked.
That is not just a coincidence since these ill-behaved—(and that’s putting it mildly—students who support Hamas, in their calls for a violent uprising or Intifada and their justification for the terror attacks by Hamas, are echoing the same antisemitism and violence perpetrated by the Nazis.
What did Kornbluth and the MIT administration do about that? Instead of dispersing, arresting, and detaining these thugs, the administration warned Jewish students not “to enter MIT’s main lobby” to breach the blockade because of a “risk to their physical safety.” They were told, says the student complaint letter, “to enter campus from back entrances and not stay in Hillel [a Jewish student facility] for fear of their physical safety.”
MIT allowed these terrorism supporters to overrun the campus and refused to protect their victims.
And what was Kornbluth’s excuse? In a Nov. 9 letter to “members of the MIT community,” Kornbluth refused to take action because she had “serious concerns about collateral consequences for the students, such as visa issues.” In other words, she wanted to make sure that Hamas supporters who were foreign students wouldn’t have their visas canceled or get deported.
In fact, that is exactly what should be happening. Antisemites who support terrorism and genocide, and who themselves terrorize fellow students and MIT faculty, not only shouldn’t be at the institute, if they are not U.S. citizens, they shouldn’t be in the country.
Kornbluth’s badly misguided priorities are just another example of why she is unfit to be the president of what was once known as, but appears to be no longer, the premier science and engineering school in the country.
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14 December, 2023
The True Antidote to the Rot in America’s Universities
American higher education is reeling from a litany of well-deserved scandals, most recently from the congressional hearing on antisemitism last week, which pulled back the curtain to reveal the world’s oldest hatred cloaked in the language of “diversity” and “inclusion.”
Harvard President Claudine Gay’s hedging when asked to condemn antisemitism during the hearing and her new plagiarism scandal follow years of universities mandating COVID-19 masking and vaccines; the pay-to-play “Varsity Blues” scandal; and a decade of embarrassing scuffles over “microaggressions,” “trigger warnings,” and the cancellation of conservative speakers. The university has abandoned its fundamental purpose: the search for truth in an atmosphere of free inquiry.
America’s colleges and universities deserve opprobrium, and perhaps even a complete uprooting to start over again.
The Marxist ideology pitting the “oppressed” against “oppressors” has ravaged higher education, discarding the wisdom of the ancients in a destructive pursuit of intersectional one-upmanship that is poison not just to the pursuit of truth but to the foundations of the social order and prosperity we take for granted.
The antidote, however, is not a wholesale rejection of higher education but a return to the animating force that gives higher education its value—the artes liberales, or “liberal arts” education. Not liberal in the sense of the Left or the Right, but in the sense of equipping a person with the skills to enjoy and maintain freedom.
What Is Liberal Education?
Oxford professor and theologian John Henry Newman wrote that a liberal education entails a “process of training, by which the intellect, instead of being formed or sacrificed to some particular or accidental purpose, some specific trade or profession, or study or science, is disciplined for its own sake.”
The liberal arts trains students to contemplate the good, the true, and the beautiful, which Aristotle said was the highest end of mankind, and to articulate the truth once it has been discovered. The great thinkers of the West raised timeless philosophical questions that students should ponder, and the Western intellectual tradition laid the foundation for the freedom and prosperity we enjoy today.
Liberal arts involves embracing the roots of our civilization, studying them, questioning them, and learning from them. This kind of education can produce great reformers who are wise enough to know what to change without rejecting our heritage wholesale. It fosters intellectual curiosity, humility, and a resolve to change things for the better.
Even amid the rot of higher education today, diamonds in the rough like my alma mater, Hillsdale College, keep the liberal arts spirit alive, teaching students that pursuing truth is an end in itself and equipping them to learn from the rich tradition of education in the West.
Hillsdale knows better than to discard Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke in pursuit of a “racial justice” that sees these luminaries as building blocks in the structure of oppressive white supremacy. Hillsdale students learn from these thinkers, and if students ultimately reject their ideas, they have at least expanded their minds by seriously considering them.
Hillsdale seriously wrestles with the Western tradition and America’s heritage, teaching students to read the original documents and contemplate how they shaped the world around us.
While this kind of education may not be for everyone, it represents a good in itself, and America would be wise to preserve it amid the reckoning in higher education to come.
A Reckoning for Higher Education
Such a reckoning is long overdue. C.S. Lewis highlighted the central problem in his book “The Abolition of Man.” He noted that human beings have to learn to navigate between our animal appetites and our reason, and this requires a well-trained moral compass. Yet modern education teaches the young to debunk morality and follow their own course. Lewis calls these people “Men without chests”—men and women without grounding in a proper response to the way things really are, a foundation that makes it possible to live a good life.
“In the older systems, both the kind of man the teachers wished to produce and their motives for producing him were prescribed by [conscience]—a norm to which the teachers themselves were subject and from which they claimed no liberty to depart,” Lewis explained. “They did not cut men to some pattern they have chosen,” but rather “they initiated the young neophyte into the mystery of humanity which over-arched him and them alike.” It was merely “old birds teaching young birds to fly.”
The new morality is more a form of “conditioning,” forcing students to follow a particular ideology.
In recent decades, the university has become dominated by a Marxist ideology teaching that society is fundamentally oppressive and the oppressed (women, minorities, LGBTQ people) must throw off the yoke of the oppressors (men, white people, straight people). This great revolution justifies tossing out the entire Western heritage and producing people who adhere to a new “woke” morality. It increasingly brooks no dissent, encouraging students to view with suspicion anyone who questions its pseudo-religious tenets.
These ideas themselves represent a threat to liberal education. They aim to transform the sanctuary of learning into a factory of ideological warriors bent on pulling down the very foundations on which it stands.
Americans should vehemently oppose this ideology and demand reform in higher education. Such reform should not aim to abolish the universities but to restore them to their original purpose—the artes liberales.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/12/12/dont-throw-liberal-education-university-bathwater
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After Affirmative Action Win Over Harvard, Group Takes on West Point
The group that triumphed in a landmark Supreme Court case that struck down affirmative action policies at Harvard University earlier this year hopes to build on the victory with a lawsuit targeting similar policies at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) filed the lawsuit on Sept. 19 with high hopes, but the organization has strayed into a legal and political minefield as the academy and the Biden administration try to block the lawsuit on the grounds that an institution training military officers isn't subject to the same rules as private universities and that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies help, rather than hinder, effectiveness in combat.
Largely as a result of the perceived disparity between those standards that apply to private colleges and universities and those applicable to entities under federal oversight, the SFFA faces one of the most formidable legal challenges, the outcome of which will have implications for every school and academy in the nation.
Since President Joe Biden took office, a marked cultural shift has been underway in virtually all branches of the military.
The Biden administration has forced through policies that promote DEI at the expense of the traditional criteria of combat readiness and the minimization of U.S. casualties, experts have told The Epoch Times.
President Biden has revised rules put in place by the Obama administration to remake the military even more boldly in accordance with DEI principles and has relied on executive orders, often without public discussion, to force through this agenda.
In December 2022, revisions to the Obama-era Department of Defense (DOD) Instruction 1300.28 altered official DOD vocabulary regarding transgender recruits, made officers more directly liable for perceived offenses against such persons, and gave official approval to cross-dressing on military bases, among other changes.
President Biden’s general DEI stance makes the SFFA litigation one of the most impactful lawsuits so far undertaken against a military institution in modern history.
DOD officials and representatives for West Point didn't respond to a request for comment.
From Triumph to Trial
The Supreme Court handed down its ruling on June 29 in the closely watched legal case of Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, finding that affirmative action policies at Harvard violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The court issued a similar ruling in the matter of Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina (UNC) on the same day.
In a footnote to its opinion in the Harvard case, the majority explained that its ruling didn't apply to military institutions such as West Point, stating that no military academies were a party in the case.
The court acknowledged a U.S. government brief that contended that "race-based admissions programs further compelling interests at our Nation's military academies."
SFFA's founder, Edward Mr. Blum, now sees an opportunity to redress what he sees as a glaring omission in the Supreme Court's June rulings.
“The SFFA cases have energized the legal community to challenge longstanding policies that have always been illegal. That is happening especially in the employment arena,” he told The Epoch Times.
In the case of West Point, the legal issues are fundamentally the same, Mr. Blum believes—as is the opposing argument from those who want to preserve affirmative action.
“It is the same failed argument that the government made about ‘leadership’ and ‘diversity’ in the Harvard and UNC cases,” he told The Epoch Times.
But West Point and the Biden administration don't see matters that way.
In a Nov. 22 memorandum filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams and colleagues set forth a number of defenses of West Point's admissions policies.
They charge that the plaintiff, in extending the reasoning from the Harvard and UNC cases to this one, “ignores critical differences between civilian and military universities” and has failed to establish legal standing to weigh in on a matter that falls under federal jurisdiction.
The government lawyers also argue that the Army's “operational interests” require the training of officers who can build a “cohesive rapport with subordinates,” and that, in “an increasingly diverse nation,” that goal isn't achievable without affirmative action.
But it isn't clear if arguments in court will even get far enough to consider that last issue
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Australia: Final High School results 2023: Wake-up call for school leavers as the income gap between low and high achievers is revealed
This is an expected result but caution about causation is needed. School exam performance is highly correlated with IQ so the high ATAR scorers would be brighter -- and that alone tends to lead to economic success. ATAR scorres will mainly be an indicator, not a cause of future success
Students who achieve a high ATAR score will earn up to $33,000 more than their peers by the time they reach their 30s, new research has revealed.
The findings, unveiled during the week when year 12 students receive their ATAR scores, indicate a strong correlation between the attained ATAR level and income levels by the age of 30.
'Individuals with a higher ATAR are more likely to earn a higher income,' said Dr Silvia Griselda from e61 Institute, one of the authors of a new study said.
The e61 paper 'What's in an ATAR? How can university admission scores predict future income?' used data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics that draws a link between income levels taken from tax returns and ATAR scores.
At the age of 30, Australians with an ATAR below 70 will have a median annual income of approximately $70,000 in 2022 dollars.
Those with an ATAR between 70 and 80 earn slightly above $75,000.
A score in the 80-90 range correlates with a median salary just surpassing $80,000.
For ATARs falling between 90 and 95, the median salary increases to nearly $90,000, while scores in the 95-98 range leads to a median salary of almost $95,000. ATARs exceeding 98 are linked to a median salary close to $105,000.
In comparison, 30-year-old Aussie workers without a degree earn a median salary of just under $60,000 a year.
The research found people who choose not to pursue a university education and enter the workforce directly from high school typically see an initial rise in income.
However, these advantages tend to diminish by the age of 25.
Dr Griselda said school-leavers who achieve a high ATAR often receive priority admission to esteemed academic programs, particularly in fields such as medicine, finance, and law, boosting their earning potential compared to their peers.
Analysis by the e61 Institute found those who got an ATAR score over 98 will earn a median salary of $33,000 more by age 30 than those with a score below 70
She also noted that the careers of high achievers also benefited from networks they gained through their parents and expensive schooling.
While the link between a high ATAR and a high income is unmistakable, it's important to note a considerable income variation within each ATAR band.
For example, among 30-year-olds with ATARs above 95, the top 10 per cent of earn annual income surpassing $156,000, whereas the bottom 10 per cent in that band earn less than $30,000 per year.
This income disparity is also notable among 30-year-old workers without university degrees. Despite having a median income just under $60,000, the top 10 per cent in this group earn over $115,000 each year.
It comes as 67,234 high school graduates received their HSC marks via text at 6am on Thursday morning, with ATAR results following at 9am.
Year 12 applications through the University Admissions Centre are currently at the lowest level in a decade as fewer school leavers pursue a degree.
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13 December, 2023
Florida School Punished for Allowing Boy in Girls’ Sports
A Florida high school has been fined and placed on administrative probation for violating the state’s bylaws by allowing a biologically male student to participate on a female sports team, The Daily Signal has learned.
The move appears to be the first time that a public school has been punished for violating state laws protecting fairness in women’s sports.
“Thanks to the leadership of Governor Ron DeSantis, Florida passed legislation to protect girls’ sports and we will not tolerate any school that violates this law,” Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. said in a statement to The Daily Signal. “We applaud the swift action taken by the Florida High School Athletic Association to ensure there are serious consequences for this illegal behavior.”
In a letter sent Tuesday morning, the Florida High School Athletic Association informed Monarch High School and its principal, Moira Sweeting-Miller, that the high school “permitted a biological male to participate on the girls volleyball team during the 2022-2023 and 2023-24 Girls Volleyball seasons,” thereby violating FHSA Bylaw 8.6.2 and Florida Statute 1006.205(3)(c).
Florida’s bylaw 8.62 states that “biological males may not participate on a female team in any sport,” the letter reminds Monarch High School. Policy 16.11.6 states that the “use of an ineligible student when self-reported, may subject the school to a monetary penalty of a minimum of $100 per contest and/or other sanctions.”
F.S. 1006.205(3)(c) states that “athletic teams or sports designated for females, women, or girls may not be open to students of the male sex.”
That male student played in over 30 games, according to the letter, and the athletic association has not “received any corrective actions from Monarch High School.”
As punishment, the association officially reprimands Monarch High School with a letter that becomes “a permanent part of the school’s membership record.”
The association also places the school on “Administrative Probation” through Nov. 20, 2024. In this one letter, the school has been reprimanded, fined, and served notice that it is in a “period of warning for a minimum calendar year.”
The letter additionally states that Monarch High School owes a monetary penalty of $16,500 ($500 per contest, in accordance with Policy 16.11.6), and Monarch High School representatives will be required to attend one of the association’s Compliance Seminars in both 2024 and 2025. The high school will also be required to host association staff for an “eligibility and Compliance Workshop” no later than June 30, 2024.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/12/12/exclusive-florida-school-punished-allowing-boy-girls-sports/
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New Zealand To Axe Gender Ideology From National Curriculum In Schools
New Zealand’s tri-party coalition government has agreed to overhaul the existing gender, sexuality, and relationship guidelines in schools, aiming to shift the focus towards academic achievement rather than ideology.
This decision will include the removal and replacement of the relationships and sexuality-based guidelines.
This agreement has gained a mix of support and criticism from various sectors, including parents, educators, members of the LGBTQ community, and advocacy groups.
Support for the decision comes from Resist Gender Education (RGE), a group advocating for factual and age-appropriate education.
RGE argues that the current Relationships and Sexuality Education Guide (RSE Guide) is scientifically inaccurate, promotes an ideology not held by a majority of parents and caregivers, and is not age-appropriate in places.
There is also concern that certain concepts being taught, such as the spectrum of sex and the fluidity of gender identity, are more ideological than factual and potentially confusing for young students, and can promote body dissociation in young children.
With topics like 'gender identity' being introduced to children as young as five, RGE also believes it is too early for such complex discussions.
RGE stated that schools are currently teaching children that sexist stereotypes are what determine their sex.
"As a consequence, would-be lesbian and gay children are learning that if they don’t conform to feminine or masculine stereotypes, their bodies ought to be medically altered,” RGE said in a media release, on Nov. 25.
Instead, RGE sees the need for education about consent and healthy relationships, but as a non-biased approach to the content of Relationship and Sexuality Education lessons.
“We are a non-partisan and non-religious group who advocate for the right of children to be their authentic selves without discrimination, labelling, or medical intervention to 'fix' them,” RGE said.
The Pushback
Critical of this removal and rewrite proposal, Education Professor Katie Fitzpatrick from the University of Auckland has been public in her warning that removing these guidelines could result in regressive schooling.
Ms. Fitzpatrick, a lead writer in the 2015 documents for sexuality education, argues that omitting these topics could be seen as withholding essential knowledge and education from young people.
New Zealand's largest Education Union, the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI), echoed the sentiment, urging the government to consider teachers’ and parents' views before implementing any radical educational policies.
"My initial reaction was dismay," said NZEI's president Mark Potter, a Wellington-based primary school teacher.
"The one thing our children don't need is less education in the area of relationships and health."
The recent results of the Programme For International Student Assessment (PISA) which assesses the knowledge and skills of 15-year-old students and insights into educational systems, showed contributing background factors such as rising rates of food insecurity and anxiety among students.
NZEI wants to see the government write policies that support student well-being and a sense of belonging, rather than cherry-picking parts of the curriculum for political agendas.
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Australian universities set to lose millions of dollars in international student crackdown
Universities and private colleges considered at high risk of recruiting international students to Australia to work rather than study stand to lose tens of millions of dollars in revenue under the government’s new migration strategy.
Victoria University and Federation University in Victoria and Wollongong and Newcastle universities in NSW are among those whose ability to easily recruit international students is in jeopardy, according to confidential independent ratings seen by The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.
Meanwhile, the Independent Tertiary Education Council Australia, which represents hundreds of private colleges, described the new migration strategy as “reckless” and said Australia’s broken visa processing system was to blame – not students.
“There is a real risk that it will diminish Australia’s reputation as a high-quality [educator of] international students,” ITECA chief executive Troy Williams said on Tuesday.
Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil and Immigration Minister Andrew Giles on Monday released the federal government’s migration strategy, which plans to halve immigration numbers within two years. Australia’s net migration reached a high of 510,000 in the year to June 2023.
The strategy is designed to weed out people using the student visa system as a back door to the job market, aiming to cut new arrivals by targeting universities and colleges considered the highest risk of accepting students coming to Australia to work rather than study.
A new process to be introduced before the end of the year by the Department of Home Affairs will result in swift processing of student visa applications only for low-risk providers.
A spokesman for O’Neil said it had been put in place to protect the integrity and quality of Australia’s international education sector. “If providers are doing the wrong thing, they will face slower processing times,” he said.
The strategy will leave Australia’s most established and richest universities such as the University of Melbourne and the University of Sydney largely untouched, while other universities and private colleges with a track record of recruiting non-genuine students will be targeted.
“Higher risk providers will experience slower processing times as visa decision makers consider the integrity of a provider, as well as individual student applicants,” the strategy said.
A table of university risk ratings produced by a firm working in international education based on confidential Home Affairs data – seen by this masthead – placed Victoria’s Federation University as the riskiest university for students entering Australia to work rather than study.
Universities with the best record are ranked tier one. Federation University was the only institution rated at the worst level, tier three.
A Federation University spokeswoman said it had been “disproportionately impacted by a sharp increase in visa refusals from India by the Department of Home Affairs earlier this year, which has now been addressed”.
“We are confident that following ongoing consultation with the Department of Home Affairs that we will return to a tier two rating for 2024,” she said.
Private colleges with higher risk ratings will also have their student numbers cut by the strategy.
ITECA said in a statement that the new migration strategy was “highly problematic, based on broad and often inaccurate generalisations about quality [in private colleges], and data from a broken visa processing system”.
“The language in the migration strategy is reckless,” Williams said. He warned of a potential “massive overcorrection” that would hurt the entire international skills training sector.
Visa grant rates had already begun to fall in recent months amid controversy over visa rorting, students moving to lower-cost courses, ghost colleges that act as shopfronts for so-called students to access the jobs market, corrupt agents and the exploitation of students.
Among the measures to be put in place to reduce student numbers are a tougher English language test and a new “genuine student test” – although it is unclear how this will differ from the existing “genuine temporary entrant” statement that prospective students must complete now.
The strategy also stops international students who enrol at an Australian university from dropping out of that course after six months and switching to a cheaper vocational college.
And it winds back the post-study work rights available to tens of thousands of students, with temporary student visas available at present for stays of up to eight years.
Students who are working in Australia on a “temporary graduate visa” will also be blocked from staying in the country for years more by enrolling in a new course once their graduate visa ends.
Not everyone in the sector believes the new strategy will slash international student numbers.
Associate Professor Peter Hurley, a director of the Mitchell Institute policy research group within Victoria University, said it was unlikely the new migration strategy would drastically change things.
“There are 860,000 international students and their families now in the country,” he said. “The students I think the government is targeting in this migration strategy are those in private colleges, along with those who have finished their course [and who have post-study work rights].”
Hurley said the migration strategy would simply cut back the growth of student numbers, rather than actively reducing them.
“This is the story of international migration policy over the past two decades: we have a big boom, we change the settings so numbers fall a little, and then the increase starts again,” he said.
Hurley said that England and Canada were also reining in their growth in post-study work rights because “post-pandemic, student numbers just exploded in those countries as well”.
He said Australia’s growth in international students, though, had been remarkable since the emergency phase of the pandemic had ended. “In two years, we have added about 450,000 people to the population – about the same population as Canberra – as international students returned to Australia.”
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12 December, 2023
UPenn president Liz Magill RESIGNS after disastrous anti-Semitism hearing where she refused to condemn campus protests calling for Jewish genocide
She just had no moral anchors: No instinct of horror at the truly horrible. She is an ethical vacuum
The president of the University of Pennsylvania has resigned from her post following fierce backlash to her controversial congressional testimony over antisemitism on campus.
Liz Magill, alongside the president's of Harvard and MIT, was summoned before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce on Tuesday by lawmakers concerned by reports of a rise in antisemitism at leading universities.
They faced heated questioning from committee chair Congresswoman Elise Stefanik but failed to assert that calls for genocide against Jews on campus would definitively constitute harassment.
Following international outcry, including more than 70 lawmakers calling for her resignation, Magill stood down on Saturday.
Pressure is now growing for the president's of Harvard and MIT whose testimony largely mirrored Magill's, with congresswoman Stefanik writing 'One down. Two to go' on X.
'This is only the very beginning of addressing the pervasive rot of antisemitism that has destroyed the most 'prestigious' higher education institutions in America' Stefanik wrote on Saturday evening.
Adding: 'Harvard and MIT, do the right thing. The world is watching.'
Just minutes after Magill's statement the chair of the Upenn's board of trustees, Scott Bok, also resigned.
Bok's Vice Chair, Julie Beren Platt, has been named interim chair of the board.
In a statement issued Saturday evening Magill wrote: 'It has been my privilege to serve as President of this remarkable institution.
'It has been an honor to work with our faculty, students, staff, alumni, and community members to advance Penn's vital missions.'
In his own resignation statement Bok defended Magill as a 'good person' who is 'not the slightest bit anti-Semitic' but had made a 'misstep' after 'months of relentless external attacks.'
'Today, following the resignation of the University of Pennsylvania's President and related Board of Trustee meetings, I submitted my resignation as Chair of the University's Board of Trustees, effective immediately,' he said in a statement.
'While I was asked to remain in that role for the remainder of my term in order to help with the presidential transition, I concluded that, for me, now was the right time to depart.'
The hearing also saw widely criticized testimony from MIT president Sally Kornbluth
He acknowledged that Magill had made an error during her disastrous Congressional testimony and described it as a 'dreadful 30-second sound bite'.
Bok added: 'Former President Liz Magill last week made a very unfortunate misstep—consistent with that of two peer university leaders sitting alongside her—after five hours of aggressive questioning before a Congressional committee.
'Following that, it became clear that her position was no longer tenable, and she and I concurrently decided that it was time for her to exit.'
He wished Magill 'well in her future endeavors' and praised her as a 'good person and a talented leader who was beloved by her team'.
He continued: 'She is not the slightest bit anti-Semitic. Working with her was one of the great pleasures of my life.
'Worn down by months of relentless external attacks, she was not herself last Tuesday. 'Over prepared and over lawyered given the hostile forum and high stakes, she provided a legalistic answer to a moral question, and that was wrong.'
Magill was slammed for her testimony, in which she said that reprimanding students who call for a Jewish genocide was not paramount - but 'context' specific.
She was asked a 'yes or no' question on whether calls for the genocide of Jews counted as hate speech, and repeatedly said it depended on the context.
On Wednesday she attempted to clarify her comments, but the damage was done: a wealthy alumnus withdrew a $100 million donation, and her remarks were roundly condemned by the ADL, the White House and politicians across the board.
Magill issued a groveling video statement attempting to explain her failure to condemn calls for the genocide of Jewish people on campuses.
She said she was not 'focused' on the issue, and said she wanted to 'be clear' that calls for genocide were 'evil, plain and simple' - although she said the blame lay with her university's policies and the constitution, rather than with her.
Magill said: 'There was a moment during yesterday's Congressional hearing on antisemitism when I was asked if a call for the genocide of Jewish people on our campus would violate our policies.
'In that moment, I was focused on our university's long-standing policies - aligned with the U.S. Constitution - which say that speech alone is not punishable.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12845821/UPenn-president-Liz-Magill-RESIGNS.html
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Charter Schools Must Avoid the DEI Blunder
A key reason many parents are fleeing the traditional public system is the concern that schools are indoctrinating students in radical “woke” ideology.
Public school enrollment has dropped by more than 1 million students nationwide since the COVID-19 pandemic. District school leaders expected students to return after the pandemic abated, but enrollment has continued to decline as trust in public schools has hit an all-time low . Policymakers and leaders in the charter school sector must avoid making the same mistakes that led to the district school disaster.
A key reason many parents are fleeing the traditional public system is the concern that schools are indoctrinating students in radical “woke” ideology. Parents are watching as the left-wing ideologies clothed in the mantra of diversity, equity, and inclusion spread like wildfire across America's schools. Unfortunately, one prominent organization is working overtime to ensure that public charter schools embrace the very same ideologies from which parents seek to escape.
The National Association of Charter School Authorizers is a publicly subsidized kingmaker in the charter school world. NACSA consults with and produces best practices for charter school authorizers, the entities charged with determining when charter schools should be opened, expanded, or closed.
NACSA believes that it is the true “expert” in determining what’s best for children, so it favors a regulatory approach that prioritizes its own judgment over parents' in deciding when charters should be opened, expanded, or closed.
Enforcement of DEI principles in charter authorizing is an integral part of NACSA’s technocratic agenda. This commitment is touted through its social media channels , which repeatedly refer to “closing the DEI gap” in authorizing. A lengthy toolkit published by NACSA on the same topic makes vague, ideologically charged suggestions such as “building cultural competence” through “confronting bias and developing awareness of our own privilege and prejudices.”
More specific guidance endorses authorizer partnership with DEI “experts” and exclusively highlights one authorizer’s contract with Pacific Educational Group, a consulting firm that, as the parental rights group Parents Defending Education discovered , encourages schools to adopt the use of critical race theory and racial affinity groups.
Unsurprisingly, the political principles that charter authorizers are pressured to avow manifest in charter school practices and culture. A Heritage Foundation report found that charter schools in states with the more technocratic charter ecosystems that NACSA favors signal stronger adherence to liberal politics. The phenomenon remains true even after statistically controlling for political partisanship (as measured by voting outcomes) across states.
Compelling schools of choice to adopt DEI principles is a bad policy on its merits. Parents, rather than “experts,” should be entrusted to determine what is best for their children. But it’s even worse when considering that DEI orthodoxy (e.g., racial fixation and racial separatism) consistently operates at odds with the things that DEI purports to foster. In K-12 schools, pandemic-era racial achievement gaps were larger in districts that employed chief diversity officers . Most recently, DEI officials at universities across the country have been silent or complicit while students and faculty celebrate violence against Jews.
NACSA’s pursuit of DEI does not even achieve its supposed aims. Peer-reviewed studies have found that NACSA’s policy recommendations disproportionately prevent black aspiring school leaders from receiving authorization to operate charter schools. The recommendations also disproportionately result in the closure of charter schools that serve a higher proportion of black students.
While NACSA’s influence and insistence on DEI ought to be a source of alarm, champions of educational freedom need not despair. Arizona has mostly eschewed NACSA’s recommendations and has been rewarded with an innovative charter sector that paces the nation in student academic growth, including among low-income and racial minority students. Leaders in states such as Florida and Texas , which embrace educational freedom and eschew woke indoctrination, should follow in Arizona’s footsteps.
NACSA’s attempt to compel charter schools to adopt liberal politics is also a stark reminder that not all models of school choice are created equal. Education savings accounts allow public funds to be used for a host of expenses, including private school tuition, books, online instruction, tutoring, and more. ESAs are comparatively permission-less and do not mediate the relationship between parents and education providers beyond processing payments or reimbursement claims.
ESAs allow all parents, no matter their worldview, to choose the learning environments that align with their values. That means liberal parents can select schools that emphasize DEI while other parents can avoid it. In a system of education freedom, the choices of some parents do not limit or infringe upon the legitimate desires of others.
A NACSA director once tweeted , “School choice for school choice’s sake is completely misguided … social justice and equity are the GOAL not some political tactic.” NACSA’s insistence on technocracy and DEI demonstrate why choice for choice’s sake must, in fact, be the goal.
https://www.heritage.org/education/commentary/charter-schools-must-avoid-the-dei-blunder
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Education destroyed by self-serving educrats
Such is the parlous and substandard state of Australia’s education system, if those in charge managed a major corporation like Qantas, Optus, or Woolworths they would either be investigated by the ACCC, be removed from the board, or have their salaries and bonuses docked.
Not so for those career educational bureaucrats, academics, subject experts, and carpetbaggers who have played a central role in the nation’s dismal collapse in educational standards over the last 30 to 40 years.
Whether we look at international tests like PISA – where today’s 15-year-old students are a year behind their year 2000 counterparts – university courses being dumbed down due to first year students being unable to cope, or employers complaining about illiteracy and innumeracy, Australian education is going down the gurgler.
Despite the additional billions of dollars invested as a result of the Gonski funding review, multiple national reform agreements over the last 30 years, and countless government-sponsored curriculum and assessment inquiries and reviews, generations of students have been, and still are, destined to failure.
There’s nothing new in the latest 2022 PISA results highlighting Australia’s descent into mediocrity. In 2004 I wrote about why our schools are failing and cited evidence from tests and surveys carried out in 1975, 1995, and 1996 concluding that nearly 30 per cent of primary students failed basic literacy tests.
When detailing why Australia under-performs and why standards have declined so dramatically, the usual suspects include ineffective classroom practice, a superficial, substandard curriculum, lack of discipline, failure to set high expectations, and parents abrogating their responsibilities.
Rarely identified is the major systemic problem infecting Australia’s education system. A problem centred on the fact those responsible over the last 30 to 40 years have failed dismally in their responsibility to provide students with a challenging, enriching, and worthwhile education.
Beginning in the early 1970s, those tasked with training teachers jettisoned the more traditional approach based on teacher authority and teacher-directed lessons, rote learning, and memorisation in favour of a range of progressive, new-age innovations and fads.
Open classrooms, community schools, student-centred learning, the whole word ‘look and guess’ approach to reading, as well as diagnostic, descriptive reporting, and assessment based on the belief ranking and failing students was bad for their self-esteem dominated.
Professional bodies, including the Australian Council for Educational Research, the Australian Curriculum Studies Association, and the Deans of Education all imbibed the educational Kool-aid committing generations of students to failure.
The Australian Education Union, not surprising given its cultural-left leaning, argues the competitive, academic curriculum must be overthrown as it reinforced capitalist hierarchies. Ignored is that forsaking meritocracy especially punishes disadvantaged but bright working class students.
In 2005 the Head of the AEU boasted such had been the success of the union’s long march through the education system ‘the conservatives have a lot of work to do to undo the progressive curriculum’.
The Australian Association for the Teaching of English is also responsible for falling standards as measured by international tests. Drawing on the neo-Marxist-inspired concept of critical literacy, the AATE has long argued teachers should forsake teaching standard English and grammatically correct language in favour of empowering and liberating students by emphasising student agency and creativity.
Proven by the publication in 1998 of Going Public: Education policy and Public Education in Australia, the Australian Curriculum Studies Association is also responsible for Australia’s dumbed down, ineffective curriculum.
The book argues in favour of ‘social democratic values that lie at the heart of progressive aspirations about public education’ and argues fears about falling standards are ‘alarmist and negative’, spread by conservative politicians and a subservient media to undermine public education.
Against what is condemned as ‘reactionary policy development’ ACSA calls for schools and teachers to redouble their efforts to teach an emancipatory and liberating view of education calculated to indoctrinate students with its Woke ideology.
Commonwealth, state, and territory education departments and bodies like the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority cannot escape blame for turning Australia’s education system into an intellectual wasteland.
In addition to multiple national education reform agreements proving ineffective and costly, government and bureaucratic intervention has drowned school leaders and teachers in needless red-tape and mindless busy work contributing to burnout and high attrition rates.
Even more disturbing, based on the principle of promoting people to their least level of ability, those educrats responsible for destroying what was once a successful and rewarding education system are either promoted or recycled as members of yet another inquiry or review.
Like the old industrial relations club, those responsible for Australia’s educational decline are a self-serving, inward-looking coterie more concerned with power and prestige than raising educational standards.
The alternative is a market-driven system of education based on subsidiarity and parental choice represented by autonomous community schools and school vouchers.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/12/education-destroyed-by-self-serving-educrats/
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11 December, 2023
UK: Schools admit white working-class pupils ARE rapidly being left behind
White working-class pupils are rapidly falling behind other children and are the group that top school leaders are the 'most concerned' about, according to a new Government report.
The bosses of the top academy trusts, which run nearly 300 schools across England, were surveyed by Department for Education (DfE) chiefs for a new study about how to improve results for groups of ethnic-minority children.
But the discussions revealed that the bosses' main worry was the dire progress of poorer white pupils, rather than their non-white classmates, according to the report.
It said: 'For the majority of trust and school leaders to whom we spoke, the group of pupils about which they were most concerned was white British working-class pupils. This message was consistent across trusts and schools working in ethnically diverse areas, where white British pupils did not represent the majority of pupils, and for schools and trusts where the majority of the pupils were from white British working-class.'
The report said these pupils were hit by a 'combination of issues linked to deprivation, inter-generational poverty, attitudes to and experiences of education, and aspirations'.
The study echoes the findings of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, which was blasted by anti-racism activists when it was published in 2021.
The 'Left Behind' inquiry by MPs also questioned the concept of 'white privilege' when data shows that white boys eligible for free school meals are getting the worst grades. GCSE results show that white students were outperformed by all major ethnic groups on the proportion achieving at least grade 4 in maths and English last year. For the first time ever last year, official data revealed that white students were the cohort least likely to attend a top university, following a national drive to make intakes more diverse.
Last night, Professor Matthew Goodwin, from Kent University, said: 'White working-class pupils have consistently been overlooked or ignored outright by much of our education establishment. It is good to see, finally, some in the sector taking this challenge seriously.'
Steve Chalke, chief executive of Oasis Community Learning academy trust, which runs more than 50 schools, warned some white working-class families had histories of educational failure going back generations.
He contrasted the troubled Oasis Academy Isle of Sheppey in Kent, where the vast majority of pupils are white and where bad behaviour has prompted some teachers to go on strike, with Oasis schools in more ethnically diverse areas of inner-city London, where pupils get better grades across the board.
'It's wrong to say that all white, working-class pupils are struggling but the problems on the Isle of Sheppey go back 50 to 70 years,' he told The Mail on Sunday.
'There is inter-generational unemployment, poverty, family breakdown and neglect.' A spokesperson for the Harris Federation, which runs 54 schools in London and Essex, said that it had hundreds of examples of students from white British working-class backgrounds progressing to elite universities.
A DfE spokesman said: 'We are focused on closing the disadvantage attainment gap and supporting all children to succeed through high-quality teaching, a knowledge-rich curriculum and targeted support.'
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UK: A school trust has backed down and apologised over plans to introduce a transgender education programme for children as young as four – after a huge backlash from parents
The Golden Thread Alliance Trust, which runs nine academies across Dartford and Gravesend, was spearheading the pilot scheme at Meopham Community Academy before rolling it out to other schools in the trust.
Youngsters from the ages of four to eleven were set to learn about terms such as transgender, non-binary, and assigned sex when they returned to school after the Christmas break.
Children in Years 1 and 2 were to be taught how to combat negative gender stereotypes, while those in Years 5 and 6 were to learn about issues relating to transgenderism and gender identity – and look at understanding, identifying, and defining different sexual orientations.
But the trailblazing scheme met considerable resistance, with some parents threatening to take their children out of lessons.
One parent hailed a decision to back down as a ‘triumph for common sense and parent power’.
The mother, who spoke to MailOnline on the condition of anonymity, said: ‘This is on the Golden Thread Alliance Trust, not the poor school or the classroom teachers.
'The school is part of our community and we want to love it and nurture it, but felt this was being pushed on us from above against our will, staff, parents and students’ will by the Trust. At least a hundred parents were against it, if not more.’
Parents first heard about the plans in a ‘heated’ online forum between parents and school leaders held over Zoom last Thursday.
They were introduced to Pop ‘n’ Olly, an external provider and one of the UK’s leading LGBTQ+ educational resources which was due to come and provide the teaching in the school.
The Pop ‘n’ Olly characters feature in a book which teaches children that a person’s sex is ‘assigned’ to them at birth by a doctor.
Copies of What Does LGBT+ Mean? also claims that gender is a ‘sliding scale between male and female’ and that a doctor or nurse ‘looked at our body and gave us a label based on what they could see’.
After the forum there was a Q&A session. ‘Apart from one parent who agreed with the scheme, and who was from the LGBT community, all the other parents were strongly against the scheme,’ said the mother.
‘I don’t think Pop ‘n’ Olly were prepared for the response, they kept reverting to "well it’s the Government guidelines" and then abruptly ended the meeting even though parents asked for it to continue.’
She claimed a video link of the meeting intended for parents unable to attend was then edited to remove some of their views.
‘We are not anti anything. We just feel as parents our primary-age children do not need exposure to this. I don’t want my child confused and thinking about things that they don’t need to worry about. Ultimately I, as a parent, should have the final say on what my children learn.
‘It is not age appropriate to be teaching children about LGBTQ+ matters, my children still play with soft toys and colouring-in, they are not ready for adult matters.
‘This is a form of indoctrination of false gender ideologies and changing the social norms for young children. The material is not based on scientific evidence but presented as fact.
‘Our children are behind due to Covid so they should be putting their energy and resources into helping their academic lessons. I really think the leadership team should resign, their positions are untenable.’
The Golden Thread Alliance Trust, headed by Garry Ratcliffe, today retreated and issued a grovelling apology to parents.
‘Through the Parent Forum and the discussions yesterday we have heard many different views both from those strongly in support and from those who have significant concerns. We want to assure you that we are absolutely listening and determined to get this right.
‘To be clear, there will be no further teaching of Sex Education or LGBT+ content within the RSE curriculum at MCA until after the consultation period.
‘I would like to apologise for the upset the pilot has caused. It was absolutely our intention to open the conversation to ensure you, as parents and carers, are part of the decision making process and ensure you are well informed not to cause any anxiety or upset.’
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12842317/school-apologises-trans-education-backlash.html
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How Were the Universities Lost?
Americans knew previously they were intolerant, leftwing, and increasingly non-meritocratic.
But immediately after October 7 — and even before the response of the Israeli Defense Forces — the sheer student delight on news of the mass murdering of Israeli victims seemed akin more to 1930s Germany than contemporary America.
Indeed, not a day goes by when a university professor or student group has not spouted antisemitic hatred. Often, they threaten and attack Jewish students, or engage in mass demonstrations calling for the extinction of Israel.
Why and how did purportedly enlightened universities become incubators of such primordial hatred?
After the George Floyd riots in 2020, reparatory admissions — the effort to admit diverse students beyond their numbers in the general population — increased.
Elite universities like Stanford and Yale boasted that their so-called “white” incoming student numbers had plunged to between 20 and 40 percent, despite whites making up 68-70% of the general population.
The abolition of the SAT requirement, and often the comparative ranking of high school grade point averages, have ended the ancient and time-proven idea of meritocracy. Brilliant high school transcripts and test scores no longer warrant admissions to so-called elite schools.
One result was that the number of Jews has nosedived from 20-30% of Ivy League student bodies during the 1970s and 1980s to 10-15%.
Jewish students are also currently stereotyped as “white” and “privileged” — and thus considered as fair game on campus.
At the same time, the number of foreign students, especially from the oil-rich Middle East, has soared on campuses. Most are subsidized by their homeland governments. They pay the full, non-discounted tuition rates to cash-hungry universities.
Huge numbers of students have entered universities, who would not have been admitted by the very standards universities until recently claimed were vital to ensure their own competitiveness and prestige.
Consequently, they are no longer the guarantors of topflight undergraduates and professionals from their graduate programs.
Faculty are faced with new lose/lose/lose choices of either diminishing their course requirements, or inflating their grades, or facing charges by Diversity/Equity/Inclusion commissars of systematic bias in their grading — or all three combined.
The net result is that there are now thousands of students from abroad, especially from the Middle East, far fewer Jewish students, and student bodies who demand radical changes in faculty standards and course work to accommodate their unease with past standards of expected student achievement.
And, presto, an epidemic of antisemitism naturally followed.
In such a vacuum, advocacy “-studies” classes proliferated, along with faculty to teach them.
“Gender, Black, Latino, feminist, Asian, Queer, trans, peace, environmental, and green”-studies courses demand far less from students, and arbitrarily select some as “oppressed” and others as “oppressors.” The former “victims” are then given a blank check to engage in racist and antisemitic behavior without consequences.
Proving to be politically correct in these deductive gut-courses rather than pressed to express oneself coherently, inductively, and analytically from a repertoire of fact-based knowledge explains why the public witnesses faculty and students who are simultaneously both arrogant and ignorant.
At some universities “blacklists” circulate warning “marginalized” students which professors they should avoid who still cling to supposedly outdated standards regarding exam-taking, deadlines, and absences.
All these radical changes explain the current spectacle of angry students citing grievances, and poorly educated graduates who have had little course work in traditional history, literature, philosophy, logic, or the traditional sciences.
Universities and students have plenty of money to continue the weaponization of the university, given their enormous tax-free endowment income. Nearly $2-trillion in government-subsidized student loans are issued without accountability or reasonable demands that they be repaid in timely fashion.
Exceptions and exemptions are the bible of terrified and careerist administrators.
Faced with an epidemic of antisemitism, university administrators now claim they can do little to curb the hatred. But privately they know should the targets of similar hatred be instead Blacks, gays, Latinos, or women, then they would expel the haters in a nanosecond.
What is the ultimate result of once elite campuses giving 70-80% of their students As, becoming hotbeds of dangerous antisemitism, and watered-down curricula that cannot turn out educated students?
The Ivy league and their kindred so-called elite campuses may soon go the way of Disney and Bud Light.
They think such a crash in their reputations is impossible given centuries of accustomed stature.
But the erosion is already occurring — and accelerating.
At the present rate, a Stanford law degree, a Harvard political science major, or a Yale social science BA will soon scare off employers and the general public at large.
These certificates will signify not proof of humility, knowledge, and decency, but rather undeserved self-importance, vacuousness, and fanaticism — and all to be avoided rather than courted.
https://patriotpost.us/opinion/102740-how-were-the-universities-lost-2023-12-08
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10 December, 2023
Let's Vow to Defeat Our New Oppressors: Higher Education
We know from history that Jew-hatred, the world's oldest and once again most fashionable form of bigotry, is the chameleon of all hates -- forever taking on new hues to suit the scapegoating needs of the day. It has always been thus, and it will always be thus. This is a cancer for which there is sadly no cure.
But as we also know, Am Yisrael Chai -- the people of Israel live. There is no more appropriate time on the calendar to double down and to more fearlessly embrace our peoplehood than this festival of Chanukah -- which, contra the predictable blather about abstract "freedom" or "justice," commemorates the military victory of the defiant, particularist Maccabees over the submissive, universalist Hellenizers. The message of Chanukah, which began Thursday evening, is a simple one: Choose authentic Judaism, not assimilation and appeasement.
But in the aftermath of Tuesday's astounding congressional hearing with the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, during which the demonic triumvirate smirked their way through rigorous bipartisan questioning and repeatedly failed to condemn calls for genocide of the Jewish people as contrary to their universities' codes of conduct, we must make another related commitment. This Chanukah, modern-day Maccabees and like-minded fellow defenders of our Western heritage must commit to razing to the ground today's Hellenizers: American higher education.
Hellenistic paganism was a civilizational threat to the Jews back then; woke-ism, and specifically the regnant "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion" (DEI) regime, is a civilizational threat to the Jews (and Christians) today. That our foes now wear pantsuits instead of Greco-Roman armor, and that our terrain is now one of cultural clout and fiscal support instead of a literal cavalry-speckled battlefield, is hardly relevant.
For hours, Claudine Gay, Liz Magill and Sally Kornbluth, the leaders of three of America's most "prestigious" educational institutions, steadfastly refused to stipulate that calls to annihilate the Jewish people violate either First Amendment norms or their own universities' codes of conduct, which generally prohibit "intimidation" and "harassment." Instead, through awkward pauses and supercilious half-grins, they regurgitated lawyerly talking points: "it might," "it depends," "I'd need to see the context," and so forth.
These moral midgets have made plain their disdain for the Jews. They have poured tremendous fuel on a raging conflagration, and they should all resign in disgrace.
We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the ladies erred because the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. felt compelled to post a not-so-subtle message Wednesday on Twitter/X: "Opposing calls for genocide against Jews shouldn't be difficult or controversial." As one Twitter/X wag dryly noted: "Do you know how badly you have to mess up to be subtweeted by a Holocaust museum?"
Harvard and Penn have since tried to walk back what Gay and Magill said -- or, more, refused to say -- under oath. But the damage is done. Memes have been circulating online of a T-shirt adorned with Harvard's iconic red shield and the slogan, "Hamas University: The ISIS of the East."
Higher education in America has become worse than a blight; it is a debilitating cancer corrupting countless impressionable minds, destabilizing countless once-venerable institutions and impairing the common good. The universities are the leading incubators, promulgators and disseminators of the DEI catechism, which (in classic Marxist phraseology) divides society into "oppressor" and "oppressed" classes to which varying bundles of rights and privileges affix. "Oppressed?" Good for you: You get the most rights, privileges and sympathies! "Oppressor?" What a pity: You get bupkis -- and the "oppressed" people's eternal ire, to boot!
If you guessed that the Jews, the most oppressed people in human history, count as "oppressed" according to our DEI overlords, guess again.
Our universities truly are the enemies of the people, and in their current state they are wholly unworthy of receiving even a single penny of taxpayer support. Indeed, one of our formidable tasks now is to reorient incentive structures in the precise opposite direction slowly: Employers should not hire from these schools and professional schools should not admit applicants who completed their undergraduate studies at these schools.
Perhaps most importantly, parents must reject paying tuition to send their children to these schools, no matter how gifted their children are and no matter how enticing the "lay prestige" of a school like Harvard may be. Weimar-era Germany had plenty of "prestigious" institutions, too. How did that work out?
Recapturing the institutions from the talons of our treacherous, woke-besotted ruling class is arduous work. It begins by refusing to bend the knee to our would-be conquerors, and by instead telling the world: "We are here, and we are staying true to our people and our way of life."
In other words, it means being a Maccabee.
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New York City asset management giant says he's withdrawing $100 MILLION donation to UPenn over president's comments at anti-Semitism hearing
A wealthy University of Pennsylvania alumnus has withdrawn a $100million donation following the school president's lack of response to antisemitism on campus.
Ross Stevens, the founder and CEO of New York-based Stone Ridge Asset Management, said he was appalled by Penn's response to the anti-Jewish hate.
Stevens, who graduated from Penn in 1991, gave his alma mater millions in funding in December 2017 to help towards a new center for innovation in finance - which is named after him.
Former Penn president Amy Gutmann - a Jewish woman, who is now the US Ambassador to Germany - said when the Stevens Center was opened in 2019: 'We are so grateful to Ross for his visionary leadership that will enable Penn and Wharton to continue to innovate at the vital intersection of finance and technology.'
But in light of the new president Elizabeth Magill's lackluster attempt to discipline students who call for the genocide of Jewish people, Stevens has withdrawn his gift.
In Stevens' letter, first published by Axios, he claims Penn violated the terms of their agreement - including its anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies.
He said he was 'appalled' by the university's stance on antisemitism.
Stevens added: 'Its permissive approach to hate speech calling for violence against Jews and laissez-faire attitude toward harassment and discrimination against Jewish students would violate any policies of rules that prohibit harassment and discrimination based on religion, including those of Stone Ridge.'
The wealthy financier is known for his philanthropic flair. Earlier this year, he donated another $100million to University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, where he completed his PhD in 1996.
Stevens was heralded by the school's dean as 'exceptionally generous' and an alumnus who 'brings focus and clarity of thought regarding how the multiplier effect of educational excellence, economic liberty and free markets can transform lives.'
This comes just hours after Congress launched a full-scale investigation into Penn, Harvard, and MIT for their responses during the hearing on Tuesday.
The House Education and the Workforce Committee will probe the elite schools with the 'full force of subpoena power,' after presidents Claudine Gay, Sally Kornbluth, and Liz Magill's astonishing words and actions this week.
Earlier on Thursday, the University of Pennsylvania's Board of Trustees held an emergency meeting as president Magill faces calls to resign - but according to sources, 'nothing' happened.
The hastily-arranged meeting started at 9am and was held virtually - following a percussive flood of calls, from students and donors alike, for the president of the Ivy League college to be sacked.
This is the latest sign of the mounting pressure on Penn to remove its president after she told Congress that reprimanding students who call for a Jewish genocide was not paramount - but 'context' specific.
Magill, a lawyer by trade, smirked and smiled as she refused to categorize calls for the genocide of Jews as harassment or a breach of the school's code of conduct.
The House Education and the Workforce Committee will probe the elite schools with the 'full force of subpoena power,' after presidents Claudine Gay, Sally Kornbluth, and Liz Magill's astonishing words and actions this week
Scott L. Bok is the Chair of Penn's Board of Trustees. He is also the CEO of Greenhill & Co., a boutique investment bank in New York.
The Vice Chair, who also attended the meeting, is Jewish banker Julie Beren Platt.
She is a philanthropist who has also served as the chair of the Board of Trustees of the Jewish Federations of North America since 2022 - which helps distribute $3 billion to non-profits each year.
Beren Platt, who is now based in Los Angeles, graduated from Penn with a bachelor's degree in 1979. She is the mother to prominent Hollywood actor Ben Platt.
In her charitable career, Beren Platt was one of the first people to sign the Jewish Future Pledge - a campaign encouraging Jewish people to give to good causes.
William P. Lauder, the billionaire chairman of The Estée Lauder Companies, Andy Rachleff, co-founder of Wealthfront, and Bonnie Miao Bandeen, a former Managing Director at Morgan Stanley, are also among Penn's Trustees.
Insurance magnate Alan D. Schnitzer, venture capitalist Theodore E. Schlein, and Stacey G. Snider, the former CEO of 20th Century Studios, are also on the board.
Amy Gutmann - who was the longest-serving president of the University of Pennsylvania from 2004 to 2022 - is Jewish, and her father escaped Nazi Germany in the 1930s.
On October 19, she wrote on social media: 'My father, Kurt Gutmann, who escaped Nazi Germany, taught me to stand up and speak out against all forms of hatred. Everywhere. Always. #NeverAgainIsNow.'
Scott L. Bok is the Chair of Penn's Board of Trustees. The Vice Chair is Julie Beren Platt
Meanwhile, a petition calling for Magill's resignation has grown to more than 12,300 signatures by Thursday morning.
Magill attempted to rectify the situation on Wednesday, by releasing a video message on Penn's social media. She stopped short of apologizing.
In the video, she said she was not 'focused' on the issue, and said she wanted to 'be clear' that calls for genocide were 'evil, plain and simple' - although she said the blame lay with her university's policies and the constitution, rather than with her.
She said that as she sat with the presidents from MIT and Harvard, she was 'focused on our university's longstanding policies aligned with the U.S. Constitution, which say that speech alone is not punishable.'
Magill said Penn would evaluate and clarify the university's policies on antisemitism.
During the shocking hearing, MIT's Sally Kornbluth and Harvard's Claudine Gay gave equally deplorable answers when quizzed about their colleges' code of conduct.
All three colleges - considered the best academic institutions in the world - have witnessed a slew of unregulated anti-Israel protests since Hamas' October 7 attack.
When Magill was nominated to take over as Penn's president in 2022, she ran on the ticket flexing her 'passionate commitment to academic excellence, diversity, equity, and inclusion.'
She pledged to promote free speech at the Philadelphia institution.
Part of that 'free speech,' it has transpired since Magill's astonishing words in front of Congress, includes the lack of discipline for Penn students who call for the genocide of the Jewish people.
Magill has been an academic and visiting professor at the University of Virginia, Cambridge University in England, Harvard Law School, and Princeton University.
She started her education at Yale, completing a History degree in 1988.
Before joining Penn, Magill was the Dean at Stanford Law School for seven years. Her legacy at the West Coast college was 'expanding and redesigning student life initiatives' with her 'strong emphasis on diversity and inclusion.'
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro slammed Magill's comments. He said: 'That was an unacceptable statement from the president of Penn. 'Frankly, I thought her comments were absolutely shameful. 'It should not be hard to condemn genocide.'
Senator Doug Mastriano called for Magill's immediate resignation on Thursday.
He wrote: 'Your answer, combined with your demeanor (the smirk you wore on your face while delivering it) raised serious concerns about your personal commitment and the university's willingness and ability to enact and advance policies to prevent antisemitic activity at the University of Pennsylvania.'
Senator Bob Casey said in response to Magill's congressional appearance: 'President Magill's comments yesterday were offensive, but equally offensive was what she didn't say.
'The right to free speech is fundamental, but calling for the genocide of Jews is antisemitic and harassment, full stop.'
Senator John Fetterman also described the testimony as 'a significant fail.'
He wrote: 'There is no 'both sides-ism' and it isn't 'free speech,' it's simply hate speech. It was embarrassing for a venerable Pennsylvania university, and it should be reflexive for leaders to condemn antisemitism and stand up for the Jewish community or any community facing this kind of invective.'
Alex Immerman, who attended Penn's Wharton Business School and is now a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, said that he demanded his 2023 donation back from the college.
He wrote: 'Yesterday I called Penn and asked for a refund on my 2023 donation. I have loved Penn for as long as I can remember.
'It prepared me for my career and gave me lifelong friends, my wife, and incredible memories. But I can no longer support the moral bankruptcy of its leadership.'
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MEF Campaign Success: Oberlin Ousts Iranian Professor Accused of Prisoner Massacre
Oberlin is fantically Leftist so this would have been painful for them
PHILADELPHIA – December 7, 2023 – The Middle East Forum (MEF) played a pivotal role in the months-long campaign to oust Professor Mohammad Jafar Mahallati from his tenured position at Oberlin College. Partnering with Iranian American activists, MEF combined exclusive reporting and relentless advocacy to pressure Oberlin's administrators into placing Mahallati on "indefinite administrative leave."
Oberlin informed MEF that Mahallati had been removed from the campus on Nov. 28, his office vacated, and references to him scrubbed from the college's website.
"Mahallati's suspension punctuates the combined efforts of MEF and its dedicated Iranian-American partners who held protests, circulated petitions, and galvanized lawmakers," said Benjamin Baird, director of MEF Action.
Mahallati's ouster provides some small justice to family members of the Islamic Republic's 1988 prison massacres in which Mahallati had a key role, a fact that Oberlin College administrators repeatedly dismissed. The professor's suspension also follows a case, first revealed by MEF's coalition, concerning Mahallati's sex-for-grades relationship with a Columbia University graduate student.
MEF joined the Alliance Against Islamic Republic of Iran Apologists (AAIRIA), an anti-regime committee of former political prisoners and surviving family members, in efforts to build public opposition to Mahallati. MEF organized an Iranian American lobby at the Ohio Statehouse and convinced members of the U.S. Congress to send a letter to Oberlin College requesting answers about the school's hiring practices.
MEF's reporting exposed Mahallati's ongoing links to Iran's regime, his part in an Office of Civil Rights investigation into charges that the professor taught students "support for Hamas," and his calls for the destruction of Israel. Most recently, MEF unearthed court documents from a 1997 lawsuit accusing Mahallati of forcing a graduate student into an "emotionally abusive" sexual relationship in exchange for "academic benefits" while serving as an adjunct professor at Columbia University.
"Mahallati's suspension brings a profound sense of justice and accountability, not only to the victims' families, but to all those who have supported the tireless campaign for his removal as an educator," said Gregg Roman, director of MEF. "This long-awaited decision attests to the commitment of all those involved to safeguarding national security within the academic sphere and ensuring that educators act in the best interests of their students."
MEF now calls on Oberlin College to clarify the circumstances behind Mahallati's suspension and to initiate an independent inquiry into the school's hiring practices. Furthermore, Oberlin administrators must deny Mahallati future opportunities, pensions, or favorable references stemming from his work at Oberlin College.
MEF will continue to closely monitor developments in this case and advocate for responsible academic conduct
https://www.meforum.org/65311/mef-campaign-success-oberlin-ousts-iranian
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7 December, 2023
Can We Save our Universities?
Stop giving money to elite institutions
It took the widely reported, repellent, and exempt wave of anti-Semitism and violent pro-Hamas protestors harassing Jews, finally to convince Americans that their own hallmark universities are illiberal centers of mediocrity and intolerance—and increasingly unsafe.
Of course, Americans had long known that something had gone wrong at their colleges. They had increasingly encountered college graduates who were poorly educated in basic skills and lacked general knowledge—and yet highly politicized, and intolerant of different views and opinions. Ignorant but arrogant is a sad way to start an adult life.
College, the public knew, has certainly eroded from our cherished idea of a four-year idealized respite from adult employment. It once was intended to be a place where youth learned to be open-minded, tolerant, skilled, and eager to learn the nature and traditions of Western civilization, art, literature, languages, philosophy, and history.
Instead, all too often “college” has now descended into a six-to-seven-year misadventure that nationwide often results in only half those enrolled ever receiving degrees. Nearly all sink deeply in student debt. And yet for all the borrowed tuition money, few prove capable of writing analytically, speaking articulately, or knowing the general referents, past and present, of their very civilization.
Students, especially at the elite campuses, learn to mouth monotonously accusations of “genocide.” “apartheid,” “colonialism,” or “imperialism.” But they lack the ability to define these nouns. As a result, they so often name drop empty slogans in the context of supposed Western sins.
Again, October 7 brought these sorry facts to national attention. Adolescent screamers on video showed no awareness that dropping leaflets and sending texts to avoid collateral deaths is not “genocide.” Most chant the “river to the sea” with no clue that it resonates the very ethos of mass murdering, mutilation, and dehumanization of Jewish elderly, women, children, and infants in the most savage fashion on October 7.
Accusatory students who scream “apartheid” seemed to have no clue that a fifth of Israel’s population is Arab, with citizenship rights that vastly exceed those in all other Middle East nations.
They have no notion of the ancient and long connections of the Jewish people to the land of Israel, or how in the world the revered Al-Aqsa Mosque found itself atop the far more ancient Herod’s Jewish Second Temple sanctuary.
As far as “colonialism” and “occupation” goes, they are clueless that the longest, non-Arab colonial rule of Palestine was the more than 300-years of often brutal Ottoman/Turkish imperialistic control. Nor do they have much knowledge of the repeated and combined efforts of far larger and richer Arab nations to wipe tiny Israel out, especially during the full-scale wars of 1947-48, 1967, and 1973.
Instead, politically correct orthodoxies, not the knowledge or logic, of a student, became the hallmark of an “educated” American graduate. Students and faculty were considered “moral” for proclaiming their devotion to diversity, equity, and inclusion, without a clue that historically unity, equality, and fairness were the better aspirations. Without formal study in civics and ethics, students learned that any means were justified to advance political aims merely asserted as morally superior to others.
After October 7, it proved a small campus step from years of institutionalized racially separated graduations, dorms, and campus centers to singling out and often segregating Jewish students from campus spaces.
At Arizona State, Jewish students had to be escorted by police from a campus debate event. Even 20 years ago administrators would likely have expelled those threatening violence—or been forced to resign themselves. Today, they are terrified of mostly foreign students who abuse their visas and seem to despise the host they dare not leave to return home.
Administrators at prestigious MIT admit that some of their foreign students are openly harassing Jews. But the university will not expel such anti-Semites in fear they might lose their student visas and thus have to return to their Middle-East homes and stew about their own miscreant behavior and ingratitude to their hosts. Instead, for college administrators, entitled, and full-tuition paying children of Middle East’s elites are seen as cash cows whose money masks their bigotry.
As a result, cynical MIT grandees now simply warn Jewish students where and where not it is safe to walk on their own campuses. And thus, they confirm the embarrassing reality that the university is either unable or does not wish to stop the systematic anti-Jewish hatred on their own turf.
Yet since when did such student guests in the United States feel empowered to shut down bridges during commute hours, tear down American flags on Veterans Day, and scout out and hunt-down Jewish-Americans on campus?
If universities canonize critical race theorist Ibram Kendi, who insists that “anti-racism” requires good racism to combat bad racism, then is it any wonder that professors of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and various studies courses at UC Davis or Stanford prominently harassed and threatened Jewish students, or at Cornell cheered on news of Hamas’s murder spree?
If campuses drop the SAT requirement, and no longer rank comparative high-school grade point averages, but instead rely on racial and ethnic quotas and “diversity statements” for university admissions, is it any surprise that insecure and passive-aggressive students feel entitled and exempt from any ramifications for their venom?
And if campuses are fixated on race and superficial appearances, and reward those who are supposedly not guilty of “white privilege,” it is easy to understand why anti-Semites believe they can justify their hatred by assuming Jews are guilty for being white, and they themselves exempt for being nonwhite bigots.
If the endowments of our top universities have reached record-setting multibillion-dollar levels, and if the billion-dollar annual income on those massive sums are non-taxable on the pretense campuses are apolitical and teach inductively rather than indoctrinate, then is it such a shock that exempted huge budgets lead to more staffers than students?
At Stanford, the Wall Street Journal recently reported that there were 16,938 graduate and undergraduate students, but they were out-numbered by the combined total of 15,750 administrators and their staffers, and 2,288 faculty. Would it not be easier and perhaps even cheaper just to hire one tutor for each student and forgo the administrators?
If anti-Semitic and racist professors enjoy life-long tenure, and if such guaranteed lifetime employment has de facto eliminated conservative voices among the faculty, why would any bigot mouthing genocidal chants ever worry about his job security?
So again, ignorant and arrogant describes what the public has concluded of campuses in the last few weeks.
In contrast, there is little such anti-Semitic violence at community colleges or trade schools, where the majority of students attends, and must work to pay for their education, and learn skills in a world apart from therapeutic gut courses. In truth, a multiple-choice American history test at a junior college now demands more knowledge from a student than the weaponized essay requirement of an Ivy-League -studies class.
Taxpayers soon will no longer wish to subsidize elite education, especially when campuses no longer can guarantee their graduates are broadly educated and their professional and graduate programs can no longer turn out top-flight experts and specialists.
So, what happened to America’s once monopoly on global excellence in higher education?
In a word, there was too much money—and too little accountability. Tuition soared faster than the rate of annual inflation. The federal government subsidizes almost $2 trillion in student loans, regardless of the quality of education the student receives, and often with the expectation there will be few if any consequences when indebted but poorly educated students’ default on their repayment obligations.
The professors who harass students, and rant endlessly off topic about current politics, are often not audited or reviewed on the quality of their scholarship and teaching as much as their political views, and their racial, gender, and ethnic status. Most have little knowledge of the reality outside the academic world—having spent their entire lives as students and then faculty confined to campus. Tenure is seen as a birthright rather than an ossified privilege only accorded to a tiny fraction of the workforce on the pretense that faculty should be heterodox, independent thinkers, without ideological blinders.
So, to save us from the monsters we created, Americans must get the government out of the student loan business. We must demand that universities’ endowments back their own student loans.
The government should tax endowment income and end lifelong tenure. Universities must expel and deport foreign students who violate campus laws as they violently act out their various hatreds.
Reinstate the SAT for admissions, and end racial quotas. And require a national SAT-like exit exam to reassure the public that graduates at least know more when they leave college than when they enrolled—an increasingly dubious assumption.
But most important of all: the public should stop giving money to elite institutions. To continue such philanthropy is akin to supplying heroin to an addict, gas to a fire, or fireworks to children.
Do not consider our prestigious schools any longer necessarily prestigious. Many are not. Do not hire a graduate simply because she graduated from Yale, or he attended Stanford—unless one prefers to risk dealing with an employee poorly schooled but likely to act out a pampered victim status and to disrupt a workplace.
https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=14756&omhide=true&trk=title
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If Your Kids Aren’t Happy at School, Find Them Another One
“I hated going to school when I was a kid,” said Elon Musk in a 2015 interview. “It was torture.”
When deciding how his own children would be educated, Musk rejected traditional schooling and created his own project-based microschool, Ad Astra, in 2014, on his SpaceX campus. “The kids really love going to school,” said Musk about Ad Astra in that same interview, adding that “they actually think vacations are too long as they want to go back to school.” In 2020, Ad Astra evolved into the fully online school, Astra Nova, and its popular math enrichment spin-off, Synthesis.
You don’t need to be a billionaire to find—or create—an ideal school for your kids. If they’re not happy at school, there’s never been a better time to exit for something else.
Today, there are many low-cost schools and learning spaces across the US that foster joyful learning—and they are becoming increasingly accessible due to widespread education choice policies that enable taxpayer funding to follow students instead of going to district schools.
“When schools are focused on the needs of adults rather than needs of children, the children will lose out and that’s what’s happening in many school systems around the country,” said Jack Johnson Pannell, a former public charter school founder in Baltimore who this fall launched a private microschool, Trinity Arch Preparatory Academy for Boys, in Phoenix. He specifically chose to open his small school in Arizona due to the state’s universal school choice policies and the relative ease of being an education entrepreneur there.
Pannell grew frustrated by the institutional constraints of traditional schooling that made it difficult to best serve students, such as the inability to add extra recess time, eliminate homework, or facilitate side-by-side, individualized learning—all of which are features of the Trinity Arch Prep experience. He believes learners and parents are growing similarly frustrated.
“Any kid who is walking into a traditional school and sitting in a chair for seven hours a day, five days a week, I hope they are screaming out to the educators: We can’t do this anymore! We don’t want to do this anymore! I’m not learning anything by preparing for this quiz and that quiz and that test, and fighting with the teacher whether the homework is done or read or not,” Pannell told me in our recent podcast interview. “I think children and families will demand real change in education,” he added.
Your children should be happy at school. If instead they dread Monday mornings or count down the hours until the weekend arrives, it’s a good sign they might be better off in a different school or learning environment. If you are spending what should be quality family time with your children on homework battles and arguments over test prep and grades, then maybe it’s worth considering other educational options where your kids will find greater happiness and fulfillment.
“The ultimate goal of the conduct of each of us, as an individual, is to maximize his own happiness and well-being,” wrote economic journalist and FEE founding board member, Henry Hazlitt, in Foundations of Morality. He went on to explain that “no two people find their happiness or satisfactions in precisely the same things,” which is why it is decentralized “social cooperation that best enables each of us to pursue his own ends.”
We are seeing how a decentralized education ecosystem is leading to greater happiness and well-being, as families find just the right learning fit for their children and educators rekindle their love of teaching as school founders.
For some students, the best fit might be a faith-based, character-focused microschool like Trinity Arch Prep, while for others it might be an Acton Academy, or a Sudbury school, or a classical school, or a Prenda pod, or a Montessori school, or a KaiPod, or a self-directed learning center, or a hybrid homeschool program or homeschool co-op, or a high-quality online school, or one of the thousands of independent microschools, learning pods, homeschooling collaboratives, and low-cost private schools sprouting all across the country.
As education shifts from one-size-fits-all, coercive schooling to a vibrant marketplace of options, individuals and families are better able to make learning choices that enhance their own happiness and well-being—however they define it.
https://catalyst.independent.org/2023/12/05/kids-unhappy-school/?omhide=true
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Noise, chaos and disengagement: I was wrong about open-plan classrooms
As a principal, I got it wrong about open-plan classrooms. It’s an inconvenient truth for me to face, but the findings of the recently released Senate inquiry into teaching in Australia are too hard for me to ignore.
The inquiry was set up last year to examine why Australia was in 2018 ranked 69 out of 76 countries for “disciplinary climate” in classrooms based on Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) surveys. Korea had the best disciplinary climate, while the United States was ranked 24th and the UK 28th.
It’s rare that I find myself agreeing with a Senate inquiry into education. And there’s plenty in its report released last week for me to disagree with, too.
For instance, the suggestion that we establish a “behaviour curriculum” where students are taught respect one more excruciating time by teachers already at their wits’ end squeezing in the complementary lessons on honesty, responsibility and empathy is just bonkers.
Only a staggeringly low level of consultation with actual teachers and a gaping gulf between what sounds like a good idea and what’s helpful could lead senators to suggest something so simplistic and preposterous.
So, let’s be clear on that one. Kids don’t become respectful via a mini-lesson on respect any more prevalently than they become serial killers when they read about Jack the Ripper.
All that said, the report’s assertion that we do away with the fad of open-plan learning environments, inspired by our unquenchable thirst to follow the lead of successful Scandinavian school systems, stands the test of logical scrutiny.
Many schools in perceived educational powerhouses, such as Finland, have removed the walls of the classrooms in an attempt to have teachers co-operate and collaborate more effectively.
It’s sound, in theory. Schools, for centuries, have been built like egg cartons and have denied teachers the very best professional learning they can access – seeing another teacher deploy the craft expertly.
And so, we removed the barriers in countless schools – like mine. I was the inaugural principal of a school built for co-teaching, a model where two teachers worked together with about 50 students.
We trained these teachers thoroughly using the work and guidance of international experts, even some from Finland. We paired the teachers for professional growth, rather than simply with their friends, and invested in healthy professional co-operation.
We certainly did more to prepare and train our teachers for a huge architectural transformation than many schools who knock the walls down with an “OK, let’s see how this goes” attitude.
The classrooms were fitted with acoustic paneling to mitigate the obvious risk of doubling the noise level of the students in a single space and the results weren’t entirely negative.
I paired one graduate teacher, who’d never taught a lesson before, with a brilliantly gifted and emerging leader. After 12 months, the grad had seen countless hours of exemplary classroom practice and his compatriot had won a promotion for her leadership and mentorship.
But were these gains worth it? I’d say no, firmly.
Despite our best efforts and the funky paneling, I witnessed noise levels above what I’d consider conducive to learning, thinking and problem-solving.
I watched problematic student behaviours become more difficult for teachers to identify and support. This was exacerbated by the square meterage of the classroom because the architects of the school had used the open-plan excuse to reduce the per-student space allocated to each classroom.
I saw panicked teachers revert to the senior of the pair delivering around 80 per cent of the student instruction while the more junior teacher waited nervously to come off the bench.
That’s not ideal. It’s really hard – like incredibly hard – to engage more than 50 students in how you multiply fractions when they’d rather be playing Xbox.
And I watched as our neurodiverse students and those affected by trauma struggled. In open-plan learning environments, these students too easily slip through the cracks while teacher attention takes a more group-than-individual focus.
Further, I’ve watched these students become genuinely disturbed by the noise levels. Nobody can learn, least of all these kids for whom education means everything to their future independence, when they’re freaked out by their environment.
So, I’ve concluded that my leadership of a school with a thoroughly open-plan intention was, on balance, a failure. And I don’t even feel bad about it.
Sure, I can be accused of succumbing to a little Finn-envy and agreeing to lead a school whose architecture would contribute to us learning a national lesson the hard way – by trial and error.
But that’s how so much great learning happens. Most adults reading this article didn’t learn that the stove is hot via parental insistence. Seared fingertips did that job for you, and it’s a lesson that taught you well.
Our schools should always seek opportunities to work differently and to help our rapidly evolving young people to engage effectively. But they should also be brave enough to admit it when their experiments and initiatives fail. Open plan is just such a failure.
We’ll discuss the absurd folly of respect mini-lessons another time.
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6 December, 2023
Anti-Israel Protests Help Diagnose the University’s Ailment, But It May Be Too Late for a Solution
Machiavelli observes in “The Prince” that politics presents challenges akin to those physicians sometimes face: “ … in the beginning of the illness it is easy to cure and difficult to recognize, but in the progress of time, when it has not been recognized and treated in the beginning, it becomes easy to recognize and difficult to cure.”
So too for higher education in America: At this late date, our universities’ dysfunction—and the damage to the nation it has wrought—has become easy to recognize, but curing the dysfunction has become difficult.
The Hamas jihadists’ Oct. 7 atrocities in southern Israel may have provoked a watershed moment for higher education in America. Student and faculty expressions of solidarity with the mass murderers, university administrators’ initial confusion and missteps, and the eruption of antisemitism on campus compelled many who have long averted their eyes to confront our universities’ role in fanning the flames of division and discord.
However, since most university administrators, professors, wealthy donors, left-of-center commentators, and politicians of both parties have allowed the dysfunction to progress for decades without calling higher education to account or warning the public, only dramatic and costly interventions provide hope at this point of remedying the cluster of pathologies ravaging America’s universities.
Evidence that it is now permissible to speak in polite society about the dire state of our universities comes from The New York Times opinion page. Since Oct. 7, the Times has published several pieces declaring that our universities have gone badly astray and proposing measures to repair them.
These opinions are welcome, but tardy by several decades. They fail to identify the chief problem. They ignore the principal obstacles to reform. They propose reforms that provide the equivalent of Band-Aids for gaping wounds and shattered limbs. And they overlook the mainstream media’s complicity in largely ignoring, downplaying, or dismissing repeated warnings extending back a quarter century and more—largely, but not exclusively, from conservatives—that our universities undermine the public interest by attacking free speech, eviscerating due process, and hollowing out and politicizing the curriculum.
On Oct. 16, in “The Moral Deficiencies of a Liberal Education,” Ezekiel Emanuel proclaimed, “We have failed.” As vice provost for global initiatives and professor of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania, Emanuel sees the failure as personal and professional: The transformation of our universities into boot camps for inculcating progressive opinions about social justice and disdain for other views proceeded under his watch.
Students blaming Israel for Hamas’ massacres and praising the terrorists “have revealed their moral obliviousness and the deficiency of their educations,” stated Emanuel. “But the deeper problem is not them. It is what they are being taught—or, more specifically, what they are not being taught.” Universities “have failed to give them the ethical foundation and moral compass to recognize the basics of humanity.”
A bioethicist, Emanuel calls for a two-course ethics requirement, and, more generally, the restoration of a curriculum built around required courses (he doesn’t say which ones).
Professors must cease their widespread dereliction of duty, he adds, which consists in refraining from challenging students’ opinions for fear of discomfiting or offending them. The aim is to rebuild undergraduate education “around honing critical thinking skills and moral and logical reasoning so students can emerge as engaged citizens.”
Emanuel’s measures move in the right direction but are inadequate to the challenge because they overlook how a proper liberal education itself furnishes and refines minds and provides an ethical foundation and moral compass.
The center of liberal education in America must consist in the study of the principles of freedom—moral, economic, and political—on which the nation is based and the constitutional structure and virtues of mind and character through which they are institutionalized and preserved.
Since those principles and virtues have a history, the broader Western civilization of which they are a part must also be studied. And since Western civilization revolves around the tension between individuality and our shared humanity, liberal education includes study of other civilizations.
On Nov. 8, in “How Are Students Expected to Live Like this on Campuses?” New York Times editorial board member Jesse Wegman observed that the numerous instances “of abhorrent speech by students and faculty members, mostly aimed at Israel, Jews and even Jewish students” raised pressing questions of free speech.
“How should a university respond,” asked Wegman, “when members of its community express sentiments that are at odds with the values the school is trying to inculcate, not to mention with human decency?” His answer was good insofar as it goes. “Speech should be presumptively allowed, as a basic principle of free inquiry and academic debate,” he asserted, while drawing the line at expression that concretely threatens, harasses, or incites to violence.
But are university administrators and faculty members disposed to vindicate free speech? Are they competent to draw the necessary lines? Are they prepared to face the mob? Wegman skirts these questions.
He acknowledges that universities have eroded free speech on campus, not least by instituting speech codes and by affirming campus orthodoxies on controversial political questions. His principal recommendation is mandatory free-speech training for first-year students to build “a culture of basic respect and listening.” But who will educate the educators?
Having undermined respect for others and the art of listening by presiding over—or silently acquiescing in—the curtailment of dissenting speech for more than a generation, the current crop of administrators and professors seems ill-suited to fashion and implement free-speech training.
Moreover, free speech is best learned not by didactic lectures and seminars but by practicing it in the reasoned consideration of competing ideas with those capable of challenging one’s assumptions and arguments. But where are the professors who can lead such conversations? Which faculty members remain capable of understanding their side of the argument because they understand the other side?
On Nov. 16, in “Universities are Failing at Inclusion,” Times columnist David Brooks also took grim, post-Oct. 7 realities as his point of departure: “Jewish students on America’s campuses have found themselves confronted with those who celebrate a terrorist operation that featured the mass murder and reportedly the rape of fellow Jews.”
Brooks blamed higher education for betraying its mission. “Universities are supposed to be centers of inquiry and curiosity—places where people are tolerant of difference and learn about other points of view,” he wrote. “Instead, too many have become brutalizing ideological war zones.”
“How on earth did this happen?” asked Brooks, who mentioned that he has “been teaching on college campuses off and on for 25 years.” He faulted “a hard-edged ideological framework that has been spreading in high school and college, on social media, in diversity training seminars and in popular culture.”
Although he said the framework lacks a name, it reflects a postmodern progressivism. It holds that group identity is more important than shared humanity; the fundamental social and political distinction is between oppressors and oppressed; a person in one group cannot understand a person in another; racism and bigotry are endemic to America; principles of freedom—free speech, due process, meritocracy—are tools of oppression; and affirming these dogmas of postmodern progressivism takes precedence over acquiring knowledge and developing intellectual independence and integrity.
It is not feasible, Brooks argued, to jettison the deeply entrenched campus diversity, equity, and inclusion bureaucracies that divide people into racial and ethnic groups, give preferential treatment based on group membership, and exclude dissenting views. Instead, he advocated the teaching of true diversity grounded in the remarkable achievements of American pluralism.
To help students understand that they “live in one of the most diverse societies in history” and prepare them to cooperate with others from different backgrounds and with alternative perspectives, courses should “explore diversity, identity and history from a pluralistic framework” and assign “a range of books on the social and moral skills you need to see people across difference.”
Brooks rightly espouses study of diversity in America and the means of preserving and enriching it, but he makes the same mistake as Emanuel and Wegman. All three suppose that special classes—on moral reasoning, free speech, and diversity—will provide an antidote to our universities’ ills.
Liberal education is itself the best means available for cultivating toleration and civility, virtues conspicuously lacking on campus but essential to freedom and democracy. The sciences and the social sciences mustn’t be neglected. But serious study of literature, history, and philosophy—at once questioning and rigorous, patient and probing, and determined to understand before criticizing or extolling—provides an incomparable tutorial in the complexities and continuities of morality and politics, the competing conceptions of the good life, and the basic rights and fundamental freedoms that are inseparable from human dignity.
That campus dysfunction is now easy to recognize but difficult to cure does not revoke the obligation to do what is in our power to repair America’s colleges and universities by providing students with the liberal education they need and deserve.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/11/27/campus-dysfunction-easy-to-recognize-difficult-to-cure
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Eliminate Federal Intrusion in Education to Reduce Budget Deficit
Earlier this month, Moody’s Investors Service slashed its outlook for the United States’ credit rating from “stable” to “negative” pointing to economic risks including high interest rates, the government’s steadily growing debt and political polarization in Washington.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, updated projections show a federal budget deficit of $1.5 trillion for 2023. By eliminating the federal government’s intrusion in education, annual government spending could be reduced by $725.8 billion. Not only could Congress dramatically cut the deficit, reducing debt in the long run, they could demonstrate political will and cooperation by collaborating to remove the unconstitutional federal encroachment on local education decisions.
The time is right. Parents are fed up with indoctrination in government schools and citizens are suffering from inflation, high interest rates and inexcusable debt accumulation.
Serious conversations are happening throughout the country about the legitimate and effective role of the federal government in education. Many on both sides of the political aisle agree the federal government has become unreasonably intrusive and ineffective in education policy and practice. Some states are even beginning to look at weaning themselves off the federal dole.
Spending for education in the United States has risen dramatically in recent decades. Federal elementary and secondary discretionary spending under the US Department of Education (USED) rose to $692 billion in 2022. This is in addition to the $9 billion in spending by the Department of Health and Human Services for Head Start and the Department of Agriculture’s $22 billion for Free and Reduced Lunch. The Department of Education has an administration budget of $2.8 billion and employs over 4,000 people.
Despite dramatic increases in federal intervention and funding in the public education system since the 1960s, educational achievement has not improved. The most widely used measure of school achievement are scores from National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which shows no significant change. Efforts to improve educational outcomes for low-income children have also been expensive and unproductive. Even the federal college grant and loan programs have been ineffective for students. The evidence is inarguable, the federal government’s intervention in education has been a dismal failure.
Moreover, the majority of nefarious pedagogies originate from the federal government and are incentivized with federal funding. For example, in 2010, the Common Core Standards were forced on states through “Race to the Top” federal grants. In 2021, to receive the third round of “COVID Relief” funding, state education agencies had to certify they would advance “equity and inclusion” (a.k.a. Critical Race Theory). Last year, the Biden Administration threatened to withhold “Free and Reduced Lunch” funds from states who didn’t have unisex bathrooms.
Although this experiment with federal control of local public schools has gone on for half a century now, it has failed. We need to stop treating children like guinea pigs in some social engineering laboratory and start embracing children as human beings to be supported and inspired to achieve their own dreams and aspirations. We must return America's education to its proper local roots and restore parental authority over their children's education.
United States Parents Involved in Education (USPIE) is a nonprofit, nationwide coalition of state leaders focused on restoring local control of education by eradicating federal intrusion. USPIE’s Blueprint to Close USED and End All Federal Education Mandates explains the elimination of federal intervention can be achieved in five steps: 1) Send all program management and funding to the states including Pell Grants for college. 2) Repeal all laws permitting federal intervention in K-12 education starting with ESSA. 3) Privatize college loan programs through savings & loan institutions. 4) Eliminate all offices and divisions in the US Department of Education and related spending. 5) Reduce federal tax collection, shifting education revenue responsibilities entirely back to the states.
America needs to return to a culture where parents, empowered with the authority to choose what and how their children learn, are the undisputed primary educators of their children; where local schools operate in support of families, and where education is unencumbered by federal mandates.
Any member of Congress serious about returning federal spending to sane levels and saving our country from destruction through the indoctrination of children should refer to the USPIE Blueprint for a detailed plan to dismantle federal intrusion in education.
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‘Australia’s long-term slide’ in reading, maths and science, PISA results show
Being taught ideological rubbish instread of a real education shows
Australian teenagers have fallen almost two full academic years behind students who went to school in the early 2000s, with nearly half of pupils failing to reach national standards in maths and reading in the latest round of international tests.
The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results reveals the huge achievement gap between the richest and poorest students is continuing to expand after a $320 billion school funding deal was signed more than four years ago.
Despite the lacklustre results, Australia regained its place in the international top 10 for the first time since 2003, but testing authorities say that is largely due to the decline of other countries, rather than significant local improvement.
Singapore was the highest-performing country in all subject areas in 2022, with a mean score of 575 points in maths, 561 in science and 543 in reading, compared with Australia’s 487, 507 and 498.
In NSW, more than 20 per cent of students are now classified as low performers, meaning they do not have the skills and knowledge to allow them to adequately participate in the workforce.
Overall, the proportion of low performers in maths, reading and science has doubled since 2000, while at the same time the number of high-performing students has fallen.
The findings underscore glaring inequities in the nation’s education system: 15-year-olds from disadvantaged families lag their advantaged counterparts by five years of schooling. Indigenous students are around four years behind non-Indigenous students.
Lisa De Bortoli, a co-author of the Australian PISA report, said for NSW students there was no significant change in maths and reading results since 2015. However, science results improved across the state between 2018 and 2022.
Overall, the latest PISA results – the first since the COVID-19 pandemic – show the nation’s education system has stagnated since the last report was released in 2019.
Australia was now below only nine other countries in mathematics – compared with 22 in 2018 – and eight for science and reading, De Bortoli said. Those countries include Singapore, Macao, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Estonia and Canada.
It was above the OECD average for all subjects including maths after failing to exceed the figure in 2018. But De Bortoli said the OECD average for both maths and reading had fallen significantly.
“While it’s encouraging that Australia’s results have stabilised, it’s important to recognise that our position in the top 10 is largely due to the performance of other countries dropping below ours,” she said.
“We’ve got almost half of our 15-year-olds, they’re treading water … in terms of having those elementary skills that they’re expected to have at an age when they should be swimming.”
Andreas Schleicher, OECD director for education and skills, pointed to Ireland as one country that had outperformed Australia over time because teaching was a prestigious profession, and they had less focus on class size.
When it came to high performing Asian countries, Schleicher said there was less freedom for the teacher to interpret the curriculum, and parent involvement in education varied.
“One of the factors that may have contributed to Australia’s long-term slide is the loss in [the academic] demand on students … It’s become easier for students to be successful, and that’s not what you see in East Asia.”
“High performing systems … take [parents] as co-constructors of learning opportunity. They’re very active in making sure that parents do play their part.”
Schleicher said students who report feeling anxious without devices near them have lower maths results, and that school-wide bans on smartphones at school was the only effective way to reduce technology distraction in the classroom.
The latest results show more than 40 per cent of Australian students in the lowest socioeconomic quartile were low performers in maths. About 12 per cent of Australian students performed at a high level in mathematics, compared with Singapore’s 41 per cent.
“Students from the lowest socioeconomic background are six times more likely to be low performers than their more advantaged peers,” De Bortoli said. “We also have 10 per cent more low-performing students compared to when testing began in 2000.”
“Every child should have the right to develop strong literacy and numeracy skills, and the data shows we aren’t doing that,” she said.
Australia’s students are now the equivalent of about four school years behind in maths compared with students in the world’s top-performing country, Singapore, and almost three behind in science and more than two in reading.
PISA is normally held every three years to test the higher-order thinking skills of 15-year-olds. In 2022, tests were taken by about 690,000 students from 81 countries, including 13,437 from Australia.
Australian students’ performance has fallen over past two decades, with maths dropping 37 points since 2003, science falling 20 points since 2006 and reading down 30 points since 2000. De Bertoli said 20 points is roughly equal to one year of learning.
Australian girls suffered their biggest drop in reading, falling half an academic year behind compared to their peers who sat the test in 2018.
Just over half achieved the national proficient standard: 51 per cent in maths, 58 per cent in science and 57 per cent in reading.
Students of migrants and those born in other countries outperformed Australian-born students in maths and reading. In both those domains, there were fewer Australian-born than foreign-born children who achieved national proficient standard.
When school and student-level socioeconomic background is factored in, both independent and government schools perform better than Catholic schools in maths and science. For reading, results showed there was no advantage for independent students, but government students performed better than Catholic students.
Federal Education Minister Jason Clare said the results highlighted the need to fix the funding and education gap in Australian schools.
“Students from poor families, Indigenous students and students from the regional areas are more likely to need additional support,” he said.
“The PISA assessment highlights that Australia has a good education system, but it can be a lot better and fairer.”
Australian Education Union president Correna Haythorpe said government funding for public schools had increased by 17 per cent between 2012 and 2021 but funding for private schools had risen by double that amount in the same time.
“Unacceptable achievement gaps between students from different backgrounds and locations are a clear reminder we don’t have an equitable education system that can meet the needs of every child,” Haythorpe said.
Glenn Fahey, research fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies, said the halt to a long-term slide in international rankings may “bring some relief, but there’s also no cause for a victory lap”.
“For all the talk of funding and equity as goals of the system, our approaches to these challenges don’t appear to be working.
“The best that can be said for one of the world’s biggest influxes of school funding is that results have flatlined. And, despite concern for lifting the system’s equity, the richer are getting smarter and the poor are falling further behind. For all the Gonski ‘good-feels’ about equity, we’re not making any headway in raising educational opportunity,” Fahey said.
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5 December, 2023
California Schools Add Leftmedia Indoctrination
California Democrats hate free speech because it’s proving to be a hurdle in their crusade to indoctrinate the whole of the state and indeed the entire country into accepting the Left’s political and cultural agendas.
Under the guise of seeking to protect schoolchildren from the threat of “misinformation,” the Democrat-controlled state government recently passed Assembly Bill 873, which Governor Gavin Newsom promptly signed into law.
What this legislation does is “act to add Section 33548 to the Education Code, relating to pupil instruction” on media literacy. The state government is effectively choosing “ethical media” standards to be taught to public school students grades K-12. The curriculum guide includes covering how “the proliferation of online misinformation has posed risks to international peace, interfered with democratic decision-making and threatened public health.”
Gee, we wonder how the Democrats who wrote the law or the Democrat teachers union members who’ll follow it in the classroom will interpret that.
The legislation also presents itself as an effort to protect children from the ills of social media. Its supposed aim is “to ensure that all pupils in California are prepared with media literacy skills necessary to safely, responsibly, and critically consume and use social media and other forms of media.”
But what are these “media literacy skills”? Well, Democrat assembly member Marc Berman, who sponsored the bill, essentially admitted its design is to get students to accept the Democrat Party’s policy agenda items as incontrovertible truth. As Berman put it, “From climate denial to vaccine conspiracy theories to the January 6 attack on our nation’s Capitol, the spread of online misinformation has had global and deadly consequences.”
What this legislation is seeking to do is train up students to accept only Leftmedia sources and narratives as reliable and trustworthy. It’s a blatant effort to bias schoolchildren’s views in favor of the mainstream media, which indoctrinates in the climate cult, suppresses vaccine information, and lies about elections and the January 6 riot, just to name a few.
Opposing so-called misinformation, disinformation, and fake news has become a Democrat hobby horse, and of course the question of who determines what is accurate and trustworthy news is left entirely up to them. It’s an argument to justify infringing on Americans’ First Amendment rights, without blatantly saying as such.
California isn’t the only Democrat-controlled state to engage in such “media literacy” education standards, as New Jersey, Illinois, and Delaware have similar education lessons for public school students. However, no state has been as aggressive as the Golden State.
Teaching the facts, and teaching children how to engage with and think through the facts rather than telling them what to believe, has always been the crux of the issue with educational standards. The basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic were once recognized as foundational building blocks needed to equip students with the skills and tools for them to further develop their ability to access, accumulate, and apply knowledge and information for themselves. That used to be the primary goal of schools.
Increasingly, however, these basic educational building blocks have seemingly become secondary as special interest agendas and policy issues have taken center stage. Teaching students what to think rather than how to think has taken precedence in places like California.
https://patriotpost.us/articles/102580-california-schools-add-leftmedia-indoctrination-2023-12-04
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Hell Freezes Over: Maher Is Onboard With This Part of Trump's Education Policy
Bill Maher’s Friday episode was a doozy, as the comedian continues to direct firepower toward his side for their adoption of illiberal tendencies. It’s become more frequent, though he did go after House Speaker Mike Johnson hard toward the end of the broadcast. Democratic Party strategist James Carville and Dave Rubin, a conservative commentator and YouTube personality, were the guests.
Maher’s segment on Trump’s second term was more of a lighting round, trying to highlight what he feels are the more insane policies, like shooting shoplifters on sight and a quicker death penalty. I don’t really care about those, but the comedian did agree with the former president's education priority: teaching students to love their country, not hate it.
This tenet didn’t bother Maher as much, as he’s been ripping progressive students and activists for siding with the terrorists since Hamas’ brutal October 7 attacks against Israel. They’re the only side who is cheering for Hamas, hoping for a similar comeuppance here in America.
Maher admits they’ve been indoctrinated. It’s also an area where Maher feels is a massive vulnerability in the Democratic Party, as young people are siding with the Palestinians, whereas the older guard is with Israel. Carville was his usual Ragin’ Cajun self, noting that young people have always been stupid, and that this subsect is no different. They’re not educated on the subject, adding that Gaza is a lot of things, but Israel isn’t a colonizing power and never has been.
Carville did try to slip in Trump’s Chancellorsville remarks, which Rubin corrected. Maher phrased it as inelegant, though this is probably one of the few times where the former president’s full remarks have been fleshed out, debunking the long-held liberal myth that he was supportive of the white nationalist crowd during that terrible rally in 2017.
But, as he always does, if Maher must torch liberals, he had to redirect fire at the GOP, which he did over religion and Speaker Johnson, but you can watch that on your own time. And frankly, it’s nothing new; Maher has lobbed similar attacks on religion and the Republican Party for years. Let’s focus on the areas of agreement, which are expanding as the HBO host sees how his side has gone insane on crucial issues, and then laugh when left-wingers try to gaslight everyone into thinking Maher is a conservative. He’s decidedly not, but he's also not a pro-intersectionality, anti-free speech dolt like the rest of progressive America.
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School Assigned Girl to Sleep With Boy Who Identifies as Trans Without Parental Notification
An 11-year-old girl was assigned to share a bed with a male student who identifies as a transgender girl while on a cross-country school trip, according to a demand letter sent Monday. That girl’s parents are now calling upon the public school system to provide answers and clarification of its policies related to children who identify as transgender.
Represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, Joe and Serena Wailes are calling on the Colorado-based Jefferson County School Board and Jefferson County Public Schools Superintendent Tracy Dorland to clarify “whether JCPS will continue this practice of intentionally withholding information about rooming accommodations from parents like the Waileses, who object to their children rooming with a student of the opposite sex, regardless of the other student’s gender identity.”
“This practice renders it impossible for these parents to make informed decisions about their children’s privacy, upbringing, and participation in school-sponsored programs,” reads the demand letter, which was exclusively provided to The Daily Signal. “Additionally, our clients request information related to JB R-1 and the ability to opt out of this rooming policy for all future school trips.”
The Waileses describe how their daughter, who is in fifth grade, went on a JCPS-sponsored trip to Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., in June 2023. JCPS had repeatedly told parents that the boys and girls on the trip would be roomed on different floors—and chaperones told the students that boys would not even be allowed to visit the girls’ floor, as well as vice versa, according to the letter.
Serena Wailes also went on the trip, though she was not a chaperone.
The Wailes’ 11-year-old daughter, who is identified in the letter as “D.W.,” was assigned to a room with three other students, according to the demand letter. Two of these students were girls from her school, and the third student was a boy who identified as a girl (named in the letter as “K.E.M.”) who went to a different school.
D.W. and K.E.M were told that they would share a bed, and that evening, when the students were in their room together, K.E.M. reportedly revealed to the girls that he is a boy who identified as a girl.
“We were definitely not aware of that before we went on the trip,” Serena Wailes told The Daily Signal in a phone interview. The mother shared that this young boy was presenting as a girl, wearing girls’ clothing, and had longer hair.
Uncomfortable at the thought of sharing both a room and her bed with a boy, D.W. snuck into the bathroom and called her mother. Then she went downstairs and met her mom in the lobby to discuss the matter.
Serena Wailes told The Daily Signal that her daughter was “terrified and really upset about the idea of sharing a bed with a biological boy—even though she had a good relationship with this other student.”
“I was really upset,” Serena Wailes told The Daily Signal. “One, I was really upset that she was put in that situation at 11 years old—I don’t feel that is fair to put kids in that kind of situation—and two, that we were not even given the information that this was a possibility before the trip. The whole time they’re saying, ‘Girls on one floor, boys on another, they’re not going to be in each other’s rooms unless it is pre-approved.’ So we’re going through this whole process, not even recognizing that this is a possibility.”
Joe Wailes said that his wife called him from the hotel and filled him in about the situation.
“I felt a bit helpless,” he said. “I was 2,000 miles away. My daughter is scared in a bathroom trying to get herself out of a situation. It was a frustrating experience, and I just really felt like it was not a situation my daughter should be put in.”
School chaperones called one of the trip leaders, Principal Ryan Lucas, who called the boy’s parents, according to the letter: “K.E.M.’s parents confirmed their child’s transgender gender identity and that K.E.M. was to be in ‘stealth mode,’ meaning students on the trip would not know about their child’s transgender status.”
After a good deal of trouble, chaperones finally agreed to move the male student, with a different female student, to another room.
“Throughout the entire evening, K.E.M.’s privacy and feelings were always the primary concern of JCPS employees,” the letter said. “After JCPS disregarded D.W.’s privacy and the Waileses’ parental rights, JCPS then silenced D.W., thus infringing on her freedom of speech, when a JCPS teacher told the three girls that they were not allowed to tell anyone that K.E.M. was transgender, even though K.E.M. voluntarily chose to share this information.”
According to the demand letter, the school district’s policy is, “in most cases,” to room students based on the gender they identify as, rather than their sex.
The Wailes parents have two fourth-grade children registered to attend a trip to New York, Washington, and Philadelphia in 2024, and they emphasize in their letter that the district must clarify its policies for room assignments for students, as well as parental ability to opt their children out of sharing rooms with children of the opposite sex.
“They want to make sure that every parent knows that this is a possibility and can have the opportunity to opt out or make the best decision for their kid,” Kate Anderson, director of the Center for Parental Rights at Alliance Defending Freedom, told The Daily Signal. “But they also have two younger children that they want to make sure are not in the same situation that their older daughter was in.”
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4 December, 2023
DIPLOMAS FOR SALE: No attendance required for students willing to pay a few hundred bucks to graduate
Obtaining a diploma in one of Louisiana’s unapproved schools won’t take four years of education, just a few hundred dollars, according to a recent report.
Springfield Prepatory School provides "Christian homeschooling and adult education assistance," according to its website. It also provides adults "that have been through homeschooling" assistance in obtaining their high school diploma.
A list of prices is listed on the front window of the school building: $250 for diploma services, a $50 application fee, $35 for a diploma cover and $130 to walk in a cap and gown at a ceremony, according to an Associated Press report.
Over 21,000 students are enrolled in the unapproved schools across Louisiana, like Springfield Prep, according to the AP. Unlike public schools with hundreds or thousands of students, these private schools are created to serve individual homeschooling families.
Kitty Sibley Morrison, Springfield Prep's principal, told the AP she is not selling diplomas.
"We’re not here to make money," she said. "We serve the poor in ministry here," Sibley Morrison added in a brief statement to Fox News. "Helping them to understand how to use their parental rights to choose homeschooling. We facilitate parental homeschooling with support services."
Arliya Martin accepted her diploma from Springfield Prep this year.
After getting kicked out of high school in 10th grade, Martin attempted to get her GED without success. This summer, she met Morrison and within days had a diploma in her hand. The document was backdated to 2015, according to the AP.
A Louisiana Department of Education spokesperson told the AP diplomas cannot generally be awarded retroactively.
"Adults 21 and younger will get a state-approved diploma based on Louisiana Home Study Guidelines of 2010," the school’s website states. "Older adults can receive a private home school diploma based on the Louisiana Home Study Law of 1972."
Martin’s diploma stated she had completed a program for graduation "approved by the Louisiana Board of Education." Sibley Morrison later admitted there had been a mistake and that the document would be corrected, according to the AP.
Sibley Morrison said her school can advertise "state-approved" diplomas since she encourages families in her program to simultaneously enroll in state-approved home study program.
"I inform the poor of the rights they have had for fifty years, but have been deprived of the knowledge by the media and the public school system," said Sibley Morrison. "I keep on top of all laws regarding Christian homeschooling."
"When parents say, ‘My child is ready to go into the real world’ — I take their word for it," she said.
The number of students enrolled in the state’s unapproved schools has nearly doubled since before the pandemic from around 11,600 in the 2017-18 school year to more than 21,000 in 2022-23, according to data obtained through a public records request by the AP and The Advocate.
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Progressive Public High School Offers Race-Segregated Classes
Diversity, equity, and inclusion policies have grown so diverse that they now include policies reminiscent of the Jim Crow era.
A Chicago-area school district is attempting to boost academic achievement among black and Latino students by offering blacks-only and Latino-only classes. The segregated classes are called “affinity” classes, and they aim to reduce the so-called academic achievement gap by making black and Latino students feel more comfortable in class.
As Evanston, Illinois, School Board Vice President Monique Parsons described the problem this month, “Our black students are, for lack of a better word … at the bottom, consistently still. And they are being outperformed consistently.”
Evanston could have offered extra tutoring, parent engagement programs, or similar interventions. Instead, it offered special black-only classes taught by black teachers, on the theory that black students would learn better without white peers around.
Evanston is not the only community to offer race-segregated classrooms. Woke strongholds such as Minneapolis, Seattle, San Francisco, and Oakland have been offering race-specific high school electives focusing on subjects like African-American history since at least 2015. Evanston’s innovation was to expand the concept of race-segregated classrooms to math and English classes, such as Algebra 2 and AP Calculus.
Of course, federal nondiscrimination laws forbid school districts from separating students on the basis of race, but the Evanston school district attempts to sidestep these laws by making the classes voluntary. Is that acceptable? To answer that question, consider what would have happened if Arkansas high schools in the 1950s had offered voluntary, whites-only classes to make white students feel more comfortable.
“In this example, the school system is failing to educate a portion of students. Rather than blame themselves for failing to prepare students to advance academically, this school system asks students to segregate themselves based on race,” Meg Kilgannon, Family Research Council’s senior fellow for education studies, told The Washington Stand. “The students must do it themselves so the school doesn’t violate civil rights laws that protect them from racial segregation.”
Fortunately, Evanston’s racial segregation scheme has not encountered universal participation. Approximately 200 of the high school’s 3,600 students (a little more than 5%) are attending race-segregated classes. About 25% of the student population is black, and about 20% is Latino, which comes out to about 1 in 9 black students and 1 in 7 Latino students attending the segregated classes. While not universal, these numbers still represent a sizable percentage of the school’s minority populations.
Regardless, the problem lies in the principle, not the implementation.
“We would all agree that it would be wrong if white people were looking to create spaces where everyone was white, but somehow the calculation is supposed to be different if black or brown people want to create spaces where no one is white,” Joseph Backholm, Family Research Council’s senior fellow for biblical worldview and strategic engagement, told The Washington Stand.
In August 2023, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (informed educators in a “Dear Colleague” letter, “OCR generally will open an investigation under Title VI [a civil rights nondiscrimination law] where there are allegations that the use of a curriculum or program separates students or otherwise treats them differently based on their race” (emphasis added). That is precisely what Evanston’s program does, even if it is voluntary.
“This is a great example of how wokeness changes our moral evaluations,” Backholm explained. “In wokelandia, a person labeled an oppressor can do exactly the same thing as one of the oppressed, but it is wrong for one and right for the other. It’s very bad moral reasoning.”
Evanston has distinguished itself in recent years for its zeal to address past discrimination through present discrimination. The city became the first in America to approve reparations payments for black Americans in 2021. In 2019, the City Council passed a resolution declaring Evanston “an anti-racist city” and “acknowledg[ing] that the trauma inflicted on people of color by persistent white supremacist ideology results in psychological harm affecting educational, economic, and social outcomes; and conjures painful memories of our City’s past … ”
Such self-abasement might be understandable if the city had been the site of some notorious lynching or a KKK hotbed. Instead, Evanston was founded by Methodists—the backbone of the abolition movement—and incorporated in 1863, the year of the Emancipation Proclamation. The city’s zeal to apologize for racism seems to outpace its actual record of racial discrimination.
Countering racism infuses Evanston’s current policy of racially-segregated classes, too. “Equity guides many of the district’s decisions,” reported The Wall Street Journal, “embodied in a stated board goal: ‘Recognizing that racism is the most devastating factor contributing to the diminished achievement of students, ETHS will strive to eliminate the predictability of academic achievement based upon race.’”
Kilgannon said this “deeply troubling” goal “summarizes quite precisely the problem with ‘equity’ as a worldview-guiding policy.” She explained, “Student achievement has many factors. ‘Centering’ racism as the most devastating factor will not produce better academic outcomes and is likely to produce an even more toxic environment for children of every race.”
Indeed, students who choose to participate in the racially-segregated classes may have already bought into that woke indoctrination. By segregating themselves, they will miss out on the opportunity to learn and grow from interacting with people who are different from them. They will encounter expectations that don’t prepare them for the real world. They will accept the false premise that their skin color arbitrarily limits their potential academic success. Meanwhile, the students—white, black, and Latino—who stay behind in the mixed classes also miss out on interactions with their peers.
“In athletics, all play together. They don’t have a white team, a black team, and a Latino team,” argued Jay Sabatino, a former high school teacher, principal, and superintendent in Illinois public schools, who retired after 30 years in education. “They have one Evanston team. All contribute, and all make mistakes. If a student in class or on the basketball court feels unsafe because he made a mistake, the teacher should address that. A safe environment (physically and emotionally) is the result of an excellent school.”
“What I fear is happening is that these students are being given the impression that their skin color is the most important thing about them,” Backholm agreed, “and that they need protection from people who don’t look like them. If that’s the case, these segregated classrooms will end up giving them a much greater handicap in life than whatever math deficiencies they may have.”
“As long as the program is voluntary, I can accept it more than if it is ‘the way we do things,’” Sabatino told The Washington Stand. But he expressed concerns about the process, based upon The Wall Street Journal’s reporting that the school district was dodging media inquiries and had not published data on the program’s success over the past four years.
“Transparency in these decisions (at a district or school level) should be paramount. That Evanston would not respond to questions should throw up a red flag to the community.” Additionally, “Any district that does not look at the data critically and report out on them is not operating optimally. This isn’t an administrator’s school; it’s the community’s.”
“This example is one of the many reasons we encourage Christians to run for school board, and why we support in prayer Christians serving in schools as teachers and staff,” said Kilgannon. “Only a system devoid of God can produce this kind of situation. Christians are needed now more than ever in education of every kind.”
America’s educational establishment—such as national teachers unions and education training programs—is pushing schools to embed godless, toxic ideologies based on Marxism into curriculums, instruction, and every aspect of school life. It instructs students to classify everyone as either oppressor or oppressed, based not upon their individual behavior but upon their belonging to groups. Many of these groups, which determine someone’s moral standing according to woke ideology, are based upon unchangeable physical characteristics, such as a person’s skin color or ethnicity.
Creating special classes for certain “oppressed” groups (blacks and Latinos) to escape from the supposed “oppressors” (whites), as Evanston school district has done, is just another method for subtly advancing this radical indoctrination agenda. But will it actually help students learn better in AP calculus class? The case to make for it is not very persuasive.
Instead of imbibing untested racial ideology, there are time-tested methods for academic improvement which Evanston could try. Based on his 30 years of experience, Sabatino said, “I’ll always endorse this: Hard work and perseverance lead to success.”
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Mindfulness therapy does little for high-schoolers' mental health, research finds
When a group of teenagers was given eight weeks of therapy and mindfulness training, there was no improvement in their overall mental health, a study has shown.
The University of Sydney paper tracked more than 1,000 year 8 and year 9 high-schoolers, half of whom were given dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT), while the other half were not.
DBT is a type of psychological intervention based on various emotional regulation skills centred primarily around mindfulness.
The DBT therapy group engaged in mindfulness and other emotional regulation exercises.
Lead author Lauren Harvey said the only improvements were seen among those students who continued their therapy exercises at home.
The clinical psychologist said these results suggested that participants needed a certain willingness for the therapy to be effective.
"What some of these findings are telling is we need that level of engagement and buy-in," Dr Harvey said.
"The research is starting to show that it's not about a particular strategy, it's actually about how we use certain strategies and in which context we apply them."
She said similar studies in the UK had also cast doubt over the efficacy of mindfulness meditation in classrooms.
Dr Harvey said, therefore, she did not advise these practices be imposed in classrooms or workplaces, since the evidence suggested it was not generally effective.
While companies such as Amazon have introduced mindfulness booths for staff, Dr Harvey said such enthusiasm for mindfulness activities may be misleading.
She said sometimes problems were "systemic", rather than internal. "With the rise of mindfulness in our society it's been branded as a panacea to fix all of our issues, but realistically it's probably not," Dr Harvey said.
Sarah Swannell, a director of Willow Oak Psychology, says DBT is generally not appropriate for children who show no real interest in it. As a DBT clinician, she says the therapy is traditionally used by people actively seeking help for depression, emotional dysregulation, and suicidality.
Dr Swannell also said time frames for the therapy also tended to be much longer than eight weeks, with training often continuing for 12 months.
She said DBT could be effective in a classroom setting, provided it was offered as an opt-in activity.
"The buy-in needs to be not just by the kids who are receiving the intervention, but the entire school," Dr Swannell said. "All of the teachers, the staff, and the administration need to be on board with it so that there's a really positive culture around learning skills."
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3 December, 2023
UK:Is this a Taliban-run school in Kabul? No, one of our top comprehensives: Death threats to staff for stopping Muslim pupils praying, a girl forced to quit the choir because 'her religion bars singing' and another pressured to wear a hijab
It was a suburban schoolyard like any other, a place where pupils could gossip excitedly with friends or have a kickabout with a football in the precious breaks between lessons.
But earlier this year, that normality was shattered and the playground became a place that the school's own headmistress described as 'dangerous' and 'intimidating' – 'where there is discrimination and harassment.
'Where I have to have police in… [where] I have had to hire security for staff whose lives are now endangered.'
It all started with a prayer. A prayer by a teenage girl that, by the school's account, became weaponised by an influential Muslim clique, fuelling a culture war that has split pupils along religious lines and provoked death threats and bomb scares.
Now the row is heading for the High Court, pitching the demands of a vocal subsection of one religious group against teachers' authority to run their non-religious school in the way they believe is best for all their pupils.
Papers lodged with the court – exclusively obtained by The Mail on Sunday – reveal in concerning detail how quickly and how aggressively events escalated following a confrontation between a teacher and the girl who wanted to pray in the playground.
The documents describe how a culture of coercion emerged among the Muslim pupils, led by a group of about 30 youngsters with strict ideas about what their faith entails. They intimidated those who chose not to fast during the holy month of Ramadan, pressured one girl into wearing the hijab and forced another to quit the choir by telling her it was forbidden – 'haram' – under Islamic doctrine.
A court order means neither the school nor anyone involved can be named, not least for fear of further inflaming tensions. But it is one of the best regarded state comprehensives in England, and if such religious hostility can erupt here, there are fears it could erupt anywhere. Or quite possibly already has.
The flashpoint came during Ramadan in late March this year. Before then, the school says no pupil had ever sought to conduct what it describes as 'prayer rituals' in the schoolyard.
But at that point a small number said they wanted to perform one of the five daily prayers required of devout followers of Islam. Known as the Duhr, it should be completed between 12.30pm and 2pm.
The school said it did not try to stop the prayers, as long as 'they did not involve a breach of policy' – believed to be a ban on prayer mats. Pupils got around this by using their school blazers instead. In the court papers, the school says it quickly became apparent that allowing the prayers 'had an increasingly negative impact', and fostered an 'intimidatory and aggressive atmosphere' within the grounds.
The numbers taking part in the prayers swelled from a few to about 30 within just a week.
'This resulted in a division in the playground between the Muslim and the non-Muslim children which had never happened before,' the school says.
The group also became a powerful coterie, accused of 'intimidation of Muslim pupils who chose not to pray' and aggressively staring at those who chose to eat lunch rather than fast. 'Muslim children not wishing to engage in prayer rituals had been intimidated when eating, intimidated into changing their dress, and intimidated into dropping out of the choir,' the school says.
The school banned all prayer as a result of the tensions building up. Things came to a head when a Year 9 girl – aged 13 or 14 – clashed with a teacher on March 23, the first day of Ramadan, when she produced a prayer mat in the playground.
The ground was wet and dirty as it had been raining, so she did not want to use her jacket. The teacher told her that the mat was banned, and harsh words were exchanged, which led to the girl being suspended for two days for 'extreme rudeness'. It is this pupil, along with her mother, who is bringing a case under human rights laws, claiming her right to practise her religion has been suppressed.
Her expulsion triggered complaints that the school was Islamophobic and led to 'the most appalling abuse and threats' to teachers.
The school was bombarded by threatening emails and phone calls, including one which read: 'If you carry on disrespecting our Muslim children you will be dealt with like the filthy dog that you are.'
One member of staff had a brick thrown through their window at home, others received death threats and, in the case of a black teacher, racist abuse.
Bottles were thrown into the playground from the street. Another member of staff suffered an attempted break-in.
The school also received a bomb threat via an email warning: 'We have planted several bombs in the building, many of which are hidden in toilets, hall rooms and classes on all floors. These are the consequences of your actions.'
Police were called and had to sweep the building for explosives, but found none.
The headmistress said she imposed the ban on prayer after weighing up all the options and she could see no other way, given they had become such a 'catalyst for abuse and threats'.
The pupil – known as TTT in the court papers – and her lawyers say those vile reactions were not the fault of any of the 'children who have sought to pray in school', but rather of the school's attitude to prayer and its ultimate ban.
This is not the first educational establishment to find itself in the firing line of the culture wars.
Activists have picketed schools whose sex education classes mention same-sex relationships; a teacher at Batley Grammar in West Yorkshire was forced into hiding after showing his pupils an image of the Prophet Mohammed; and in 2021 protesters gathered at Allerton Grange School in Leeds after its headteacher asked pupils not to bring Palestinian flags to school because it could be perceived as anti-Semitic.
The forthcoming case is further evidence of how some religious groups seek to influence secular schools. Pupil TTT – who has applied for legal aid to fund her case – is challenging the prayer ban as an infringement of her right to 'freedom of thought, conscience and religion' under the European Convention of Human Rights, the same legislation used to stop the Government from implementing its plan of sending small-boat migrants to Rwanda.
However, the school argues that Muslims do not have to conduct the prayers at the specific times. Under a provision called Qadaa, followers can catch up with any prayer they miss for a good reason as soon as possible after the usual time.
Given the Duhr lunchtime prayer is the only ritual that falls in the school day, it could be completed at home later, the school says, as the 'disruption and inconvenience' it causes to other pupils is good enough reason to delay it.
They say their prayer ban does not break human rights laws as the pupil 'can simply do Qadaa', adding: 'The school's policy does not prevent her from manifesting what she perceives a requirement of her religion to be.'
However, the girl insists that being on a break in the playground is not good enough reason to justify Qadaa, although she accepts that being in a lesson would be.
She is also calling for the school to provide a prayer room and allow mats to fulfil the Islamic requirement for cleanliness while at prayer. However the headmistress says there is no suitable room on the premises, and it would be impractical to make one by moving desks to clear a space in classrooms and back again at the end.
Nor is there enough staff to supervise the prayer rooms.
The school said TTT's parents knew there was no prayer room when she applied to the school – an assertion the family reject – and that she could move to a different school that allows prayers if she wanted.
They argue that while freedom of religion is an absolute right, its practice is not, so followers can be restricted from praying in places such as schools.
The school also expressed frustration that the pupil brought her case to the High Court before its governing body had considered whether to approve the headteacher's temporary ban, though in the end they upheld it. It also stressed the point that it is banning rituals associated with prayers, not prayers themselves.
Its submission to the High Court concludes: '[TTT] may disagree with the policies and priorities of the school, but it is not for a pupil or – it is submitted – the court, to second-guess the carefully considered decisions of the school in this context.'
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UMass Boston ditches ‘litmus test’ demand for new professors to back DEI
Want a job at the University of Massachusetts Boston? Well, until recently, you’d have to pledge your commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion first.
The worrying requirement came to light in a job ad, requiring would-be assistant professors in computer science to write a “diversity statement that reflects [their] commitment to diversity equity and inclusion” as part of their job application.
And applicants for a lecturer position in the department of health science were required to demonstrate a commitment “to support[ing] our goal of ensuring an inclusive, equitable, and diverse workplace and educational environment.”
That’s a political litmus test if I’ve ever seen one.
Thankfully, the school has quietly dropped the requirement, after being called out by First Amendment watchdog group the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).
Required DEI statements, according to FIRE, “encroach on faculty’s First Amendment right not to adopt prescribed views.”
“Their subjective criteria could easily also be abused to penalize applicants with minority, dissenting, or even simply nuanced views on DEI-related issues that may not dovetail perfectly with the university’s goals,” FIRE program officer Haley Gluhanich wrote in a letter to the university.
FIRE’s right. Requiring professors to profess allegiance to vague and highly-politicized concepts of “equity” and “inclusion” is undoubtedly an infringement upon their academic freedom.
Besides, what exactly does DEI have to do with computer science?
In my book “The Canceling of the American Mind,” my co-author Greg Lukianoff and I argue that it’s about time all colleges drop required DEI statements.
“To any sensible person, a statement requiring you to explain your commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion is a political litmus test,” Lukianoff, who serves as president and CEO of FIRE, told The Post. “There is literally no way that’s not being abused as a way to evaluate someone’s politics.”
Although promoting “diversity” sounds like a laudable goal on face value, the DEI bureaucracy that’s taken over college campuses and corporations alike is divisive.
Champions of DEI can be hugely alienating, like “White Fragility” author Robin DiAngelo who advised people of color to “get away from white people” and diversity consultants who instructed Coca Cola employees on how to “be less white.”
I’ve seen this firsthand. When I was 14, my classmates and I were divided into “affinity groups” based on race and segregated into separate buildings to discuss our experiences — all in the name of “equity.”
Even as a young teen, I already felt alienated by DEI. No doubt professors seeking employment may feel the same — but they may also feel pressured to betray their conscience for the sake of securing a paycheck.
No college or university that purports to protect the free speech and free conscience of their faculty should require a commitment to any concept or philosophy — let alone one that’s so controversial.
https://nypost.com/2023/12/01/opinion/umass-boston-ditches-demand-for-new-professors-to-back-dei/
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Australia: Elite universities loathe us
The Australian Centre at the University of Melbourne identifies its purpose as considering how Australia’s founding as a settler colony informs our capacity to engage with the central challenges of our time.
The opening salvo of the Centre’s November conference declared, ‘Global failure to understand and engage with the colonial roots of the impending climate catastrophe both constrains our collective capacities to untangle this wicked problem and simultaneously works to secure settler futurity and white supremacy.’
The academics heading up the Centre have affirmed their desire to tear down the political, legal and social framework of our nation to make way for a new, vaguely defined utopia. It is important to remember that what is discussed by the elites on university campuses today has a strange way of becoming government policy, generated by the political ruling class, tomorrow.
The Voice to parliament was one such Trojan horse, celebrated by universities and pushed by government. It sought to dismantle the constitution – the ultimate expression of ‘settler futurity and white supremacy’ – and rebuild it by means of a provision which would have divided Australians permanently on the basis of race. This was a clear attack on equality and our egalitarian way of life.
Next on the agenda is the Bill currently before parliament to amend the Climate Change Act 2022. The Bill significantly undermines Australia’s energy security and economic competitiveness and is a clear attack on the free market.
The title of the conference, ‘A Profound Reorganising of Things’, encapsulates what those on the centre right are up against: a narrative positing that the liberal-democratic system of government is fundamentally broken due to its colonial roots and is the primary cause of most of the world’s problems. Replete with a ‘welcome to country’, ‘smoking ceremony’ and ‘dance performance’, the conference flaunted its woke credentials through classic virtue-signalling.
The program brochure links a myriad of inequities and injustices to colonialism. The incarceration of indigenous people, the divide between rich and poor, the alleged mistreatment of refugees, and poor health outcomes are all traced back to ‘corrupt’ colonial land relations. For the academics at the Australian Centre, this is a moral problem. This is made abundantly clear by the use of words like ‘wicked’, ‘violent’ and ‘unjust’. Elite institutions and their globalist allies are waging a holy war against an evil system. The Marxist trappings of this agenda are plainly evident.
This leads to perhaps the most radical claim in the program brochure, ‘The incarceration of Indigenous peoples in so-called Australia is deeply implicated in the warming of the planet, is deeply implicated in the offshore detention of asylum seekers, and so on.’ What the links are between these apparently disconnected issues remains a mystery. Perhaps the conference proceedings enlightened attendees as to the connection. However, the statement lacks the academic rigour you would expect from an institution of Melbourne University’s standing.
Tertiary discourse should raise the intellectual culture of the nation. Yet this latest chapter appears to be nothing more than sloganeering, paid for with the taxpayers’ credit card.
Universities exist to impart knowledge, hone young minds and produce research that benefits society. They should not make wild speculations, unsupported by coherent argument, about highly political and ideological issues.
The Australian Centre’s latest initiative demonstrates just how out of touch universities are with the very real problems faced by mainstream Australians today. Those facing cost-of-living pressures, interest rate rises, soaring utility bills and record rental and housing prices should not be subsidising the mindless activism of cosseted academics.
According to a forthcoming survey commissioned by the Institute of Public Affairs, lowering the cost of living is twice as important to Australians aged 16 to 25 than any other issue. In contrast, fewer than one in ten young Australians think reducing emissions should be a government priority.
As Australians’ financial circumstances deteriorate, it appears that such elite issues as climate catastrophism and colonialism are resonating less and less with the broader population. This is despite the narrative being shaped and promoted by our universities for decades. And the problem is not limited to universities, although it may start there. This is a sector-wide issue, with schools enthusiastically promoting a radical green agenda.
Just like the national curriculum, university teaching degrees focus on activism around highly political issues, such as sustainability, at the expense of core literacy and numeracy skills.
Recently released IPA research found that nearly one third of all teaching subjects relate to ideological issues, while fewer than one in ten teaching subjects focus on the core skills of literacy and numeracy.
If you need further proof of the politicisation of schools, look no further than the recent climate rallies staged by students across Australia. Schoolchildren skipped class to protest alleged government inaction on climate change. Tens of thousands of students attended these events after being encouraged to use a ‘climate doctor’s certificate’ and take a sick day from school.
Highlighting the strong link between education and public policy, the Bill to amend the Climate Change Act 2022 would impose a statutory duty on decision-makers to consider the wellbeing of children when making ‘significant decisions’ in relation to the exploration and extraction of coal, oil and gas.
IPA research concludes such an amendment would provide clear grounds for activists to engage in green lawfare aimed at delaying and cancelling vital resources projects, further compromising energy security and undermining Australia’s economic competitiveness.
One might have been able to laugh off the wild and wacky ideas coming out of universities in the past, but there is nothing funny about such ideas being adopted and imposed as government policy. Such ideas then become costly and destructive. Taxpayers are entitled to expect governments to hold universities to account and to direct funding towards research that does not deliberately undermine Australian prosperity and our way of life.
The Australian Centre was right about one thing. A ‘profound reorganising of things’ is required. However, it is the universities – not our political system – that need a makeover.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/12/elite-universities-loathe-us/
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1 December, 2023
My daughter’s planning an arts (humanities) degree. I’m proud (and quietly terrified)
As an Arts graduate myself, I have a degree of sympathy with the lady below but I think she is out of touch with the modern world. Instead of introducing kids to great literature and ideas of the past, a modern Arts degree is more likely to be dominated by "theory" aka Marxism. Arts faculties these days are little more than Madrassas of Leftism. They close minds rather than open them.
I greatly enjoyed the introduction to the humanities that I got from my education but I am not sure where you could get anything comparable these days. Find below what a humanities education can be
https://memoirsjr.blogspot.com/2015/07/some-reflections-about-education.html
With year 12 exams now a sleep-in-filled month ago, my answer to the question of what my daughter’s plans are for next year is always given with a grimace and often followed by discussion about our society’s priorities. You see, my daughter is planning to do an arts degree.
I’m proud of her choice, despite all the jokes about highly qualified telemarketers or the core ability of an arts graduate to add the word “why” into the standard question: “Would you like fries with that?”
That’s because I deeply admire people whose motivation to study is to know more about history, language, culture and society, as well as to expand their critical thinking skills and understand our place in the world.
I’m also terrified she’s going to end up balancing on a see-saw with low career prospects at one end and a high HECS debt on the other. And yet, I read that current arts students are persevering with their course despite the soaring cost of their degree. I confess, I’m sticking my fingers in my ears and singing “la, la, la” when I think about how the 2020 Morrison government’s “job-ready graduates” scheme raised fees for arts courses by 117 per cent. (Yes, it more than doubled the cost.)
To be honest, I’d be quietly thrilled if my daughter was keen on one of the courses that had their fees lowered because they have a more direct link to a career. But the key word in that sentence is “if”.
The parents who are driving teachers out of the classroom
I’ve lived long enough to know that pursuing a course because of parental wishes or societal pressures will likely lead to drop-out or, like several people I know, to a completed degree but not a single day spent working in that field. And, let’s face it, many professions arising from courses for which HECS fees were cut by the Morrison government – to encourage participation – are not exactly inspiring at the moment. Teachers are leaving in droves, vets are experiencing high suicide rates and health workers are often overworked and underappreciated.
I’m heartened to discover that changes to HECS aren’t affecting students’ course choices nearly as much as the policy creators hoped. Research conducted in NSW (which, full disclosure, was led by my nephew Max Yong) showed that only 1.5 per cent of course choosers were influenced by price.
That’s good news because, while announcing free nursing courses makes for a great political soundbite, young people seem clever enough to know it’s a terrible idea to encourage uninterested and unsuitable people into a caring profession.
Frankly, it’s damn rude of a government to devalue those interested in bigger-picture thinking. I’d go as far as suggesting that increasing HECS fees for arts-based subjects is punishment for those not buying into neoliberal views. Especially when a HECS debt of about $45,000 (the rough figure my daughter’s facing, not including the costs of moving from a regional home to a city to study) might stretch out to a life-long burden.
Not only is it backwards logic to charge the highest prices for those courses that are less likely to set you up with a high-paying career (a point made by everyone from my nephew to the Productivity Commission), but surely we want to encourage deep and contextual thinking?
This is especially so in our era of quick-fire social media opinions and increasing mis- and disinformation. At a time when teachers are being told not to bring politics into the classroom, I reckon we need more people who understand the difference between political leanings and the complexities of history. For instance, introducing students to both the reasoning behind the creation of Israel and the impact on Palestine is not politics; it’s education.
If we cease to value thought and scholarship for scholarship’s sake, we might as well all give up and leave our world to AI businesses that are happily ripping off original thought in the name of profit.
We don’t always know what will come from study for study’s sake. When my father pursued a degree, then PhD, in the 1960s, pure maths was seen to have little real-world relevance, yet it is now appreciated for the transferable skills to fields such as computing and economics.
Who knows what jobs will be available by the time my daughter finishes her degree, which may or may not include history, English and Indonesian, subjects her amazing (public school) teachers inspired her to explore. Either way, as someone looking set to achieve a high ATAR, I think she should be celebrated for choosing arts over options that academic kids often feel pushed towards.
The truth is she has no idea what she wants to do when she grows up and, at 18, I reckon that’s OK. In fact, it aligns with the idea of studying humanities which, instead of being about concrete certainty and measurable outcomes, is about asking questions and probing possibilities.
I hope the current government reverses “job-ready graduates” as part of its review of the Australian Universities Accord, which is investigating the quality, accessibility, affordability and sustainability of higher education. Yes, that’s partly on a very selfish level as I don’t want my daughter to be burdened by study-related debt, but also because young people shouldn’t be punished for asking big questions about our world.
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Mindfulness therapy does little for high-schoolers' mental health, research finds
When a group of teenagers was given eight weeks of therapy and mindfulness training, there was no improvement in their overall mental health, a study has shown.
The University of Sydney paper tracked more than 1,000 year 8 and year 9 high-schoolers, half of whom were given dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT), while the other half were not.
DBT is a type of psychological intervention based on various emotional regulation skills centred primarily around mindfulness.
The DBT therapy group engaged in mindfulness and other emotional regulation exercises.
Lead author Lauren Harvey said the only improvements were seen among those students who continued their therapy exercises at home.
The clinical psychologist said these results suggested that participants needed a certain willingness for the therapy to be effective.
"What some of these findings are telling is we need that level of engagement and buy-in," Dr Harvey said.
"The research is starting to show that it's not about a particular strategy, it's actually about how we use certain strategies and in which context we apply them."
She said similar studies in the UK had also cast doubt over the efficacy of mindfulness meditation in classrooms.
Dr Harvey said, therefore, she did not advise these practices be imposed in classrooms or workplaces, since the evidence suggested it was not generally effective.
While companies such as Amazon have introduced mindfulness booths for staff, Dr Harvey said such enthusiasm for mindfulness activities may be misleading.
She said sometimes problems were "systemic", rather than internal. "With the rise of mindfulness in our society it's been branded as a panacea to fix all of our issues, but realistically it's probably not," Dr Harvey said.
Sarah Swannell, a director of Willow Oak Psychology, says DBT is generally not appropriate for children who show no real interest in it. As a DBT clinician, she says the therapy is traditionally used by people actively seeking help for depression, emotional dysregulation, and suicidality.
Dr Swannell also said time frames for the therapy also tended to be much longer than eight weeks, with training often continuing for 12 months.
She said DBT could be effective in a classroom setting, provided it was offered as an opt-in activity.
"The buy-in needs to be not just by the kids who are receiving the intervention, but the entire school," Dr Swannell said. "All of the teachers, the staff, and the administration need to be on board with it so that there's a really positive culture around learning skills."
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AmeriCorps’ Legacy: Waste, Fraud, and Abuse
Ask any emergency dispatch team to describe five-alarm fires, and they will likely say they’re rare and catastrophic no matter where they occur. AmeriCorps is a five-alarm fire of its own making. If you don’t believe us, feel free to peruse the latest Management Challenges report issued on November 15th by the AmeriCorps Office of Inspector General. What you’ll find is 26 pages chock full of rot and dysfunction.
According to the report, the agency failed to “demonstrate adequate knowledge and understanding of Federal accounting standards and financial reporting requirements, and effective financial management practices.” Financial mismanagement and incompetency are nothing new for AmeriCorps – this has been a problem for decades.
Unmitigated fraud bedevils the agency. The report cites the most prevalent fraud at AmeriCorps to be “falsified or otherwise non-compliant timesheets.” That’s right, volunteers and even the agency’s own members are siphoning off money and making off like robber barons by falsifying their own hours. In two separate cases, AmeriCorps programs at universities in North Carolina submitted falsified timesheets that alleged members worked excessive hours on weekends and holidays.
The report also outlines the lack of oversight in the agency’s grant programs, which has lost hundreds of thousands of dollars due to schemes orchestrated by recipients. AmeriCorps has brought in contractors supposedly to help with their management problems but has no guarantees any positive changes will last when these temporary workers leave.
Here’s the bottom line: AmeriCorps has always been a lost cause. This report adds another chapter to its history of underperformance, waste, fraud, and abuse. Its troubled relationships with accountability and oversight have been laid bare for everyone to see time and time again. President Biden deciding to prop up yet another AmeriCorps program through his “American Climate Corps” plan is the exact opposite of reform. The agency, like many others in the federal government, has proven time and time again that it is incapable of reforming itself, is stealing from hardworking taxpayers, and needs to be shuttered.
https://edworkforce.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=409787
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