Assault on education

[The Evil Genius]

 

[The Evil Genius]

Floriduh again.

 

 

[skinsmarydu]

"Yeah, the whole state is underwater (financially, for now) and everyone's freaking out.  But let's not train anyone to help with the freaking out."  🙄

[China]

Temecula school district facing lawsuit over ban on critical race theory

 

A lawsuit has been filed against the Temecula Valley Unified School District over its ban on critical race theory.

 

The lawsuit claims the ban, which was approved by the school board's conservative majority, censors teachers and infringes on students' fundamental right to an education.

 

Public Counsel, the nonprofit group that filed the lawsuit on behalf of Temecula students, parents and teachers, claims the policy has been used by school board members to stop teaching "any concepts that conflict with their ideological viewpoints, including the history of the LGBTQ rights movement and the existence of racism in today's society."

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Cooked Crack]

 

[Cooked Crack]

 

[Larry]

Which is precisely what the law was designed to do. 

[China]

Hillsborough schools cut back on Shakespeare, citing new Florida rules

 

English teachers in Hillsborough County are preparing lessons for the new school year with only excerpts from William Shakespeare’s works.

 

Students will be assigned pages from the classics, which might include “Macbeth,” “Hamlet” and the time-honored teen favorite, “Romeo and Juliet.” But if they want to read them in their entirety, they will likely have to do it on their own time.

 

School district officials said they redesigned their instructional guides for teachers because of revised state teaching standards and a new set of state exams that cover a vast array of books and writing styles.

 

“It was also in consideration of the law,” said school district spokeswoman Tanya Arja, referring to the newly expanded Parental Rights in Education Act. The measure, promoted and signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, tells schools to steer clear of content and class discussion that is sexual in nature unless it is related to a standard, such as health class.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Cooked Crack]

 

[China]

Oklahoma Schools Boss Reaches Screwball Territory With China Conspiracy Theory

 

A Chinese-made Graco car seat is visible behind Oklahoma Superintendent for Public Instruction Ryan Walters as he sits in his vehicle, going full-out nuts in a video he would then post on X (formerly Twitter.)

 

“Good afternoon, Oklahomans, I’ve been looking more and more into what’s going on at Tulsa Public Schools, and it’s just been unbelievable to find out that they’re one of the only schools in the country taking money from the Chinese government,” he says in the Aug. 3 post first reported by Tulsa World and the Oklahoman.

 

Walters looks and sounds like a right-wing zealot as he alleges that the Tulsa Public Schools is accepting money intended to sabotage America.

 

“You have communist China that is giving money to Tulsa public schools in order to try to undermine our United States government, our country,” Walters continues. “It’s unbelievable.”

 

One reason it may be unbelievable is the fact that it does not appear to be true. The Tulsa Public Schools did have one high school teacher, Lin Tao, of Booker T. Washington High School, attend a professional development program at the International Leadership of Texas. The Texas entity partners with Confucius Classroom, which is linked to the Chinese Ministry of Education. But Tulsa Public Schools pays Tao’s salary. Not so much as a yuan comes from China.

 

“Tulsa Public Schools does not receive money from the Chinese government, as Oklahoma State Superintendent Walters has alleged without evidence,” the Tulsa Public Schools said in a statement to The Daily Beast on Monday.

 

When reached by the Daily Beast, Lin Tao sounded a lot less like somebody who is party to undermining America than a teacher who is what every kid in America should have.

“All I want to do is give the best to my students,” she said.

 

Tao sounded wary and ended the interview after that. She had good reason to be careful. Back in August of 2022, Walters called for a Norman high school English teacher named Summer Boismier to lose her teaching license for providing students with a QR code that linked to banned books via the Brooklyn Public Library. The teacher had already resigned, saying she did not think she could accommodate Oklahoma's new anti-woke edicts.

 

And in recent days, Walters has been talking about stripping the entire Tulsa School system of its accreditation, at least ostensibly due to poor academic performance, but also because it perpetuates “radical left ideology.”

 

Click on the link for the rest

[EmirOfShmo]

Idaho loses its 'Teacher of the Year' after right-wing parents chase her out of state

 

Karen Lauritzen, who was named as Idaho's "Teacher of the Year" last year by a Republican administration, has now been chased out of the state by angry right-wing parents.

The Boston Globe reports that, shortly after receiving her award for excellence in teaching, Lauritzen became the target of a right-wing media campaign that flagged her social media posts expressing support for LGBTQ rights and the Black Lives Matter movement.

This led to parents angrily demanding to see her lesson plans, despite the fact that there was no suggestion she ever brought her personal politics into the classroom.

However, parents nonetheless objected to teaching students about other cultures around the world and even teaching them about the United Nations on the grounds that the parents said they "don't believe" in the institution.

 

https://www.rawstory.com/idaho-teacher-of-the-year/

[Cooked Crack]

 

[Cooked Crack]

Conroe ISD trustee argues displays of racial inclusivity and pride in classrooms should be removed

 

 

[China]

School official says 1st-grader was traumatized by poster of people of different races holding hands

 

Children are being traumatized by rainbow flags and posters of multi-racial children holding hands, say trustees of the Conroe Independent School District (CISD) of Texas. The trustees now want more strict rules around classroom displays.

 

Even though the district already has a policy prohibiting political displays unrelated to curriculum, CISD trustee Melissa Dungan said she wants a more restrictive “crackdown” by trustees on such displays, KTRK reported.

 

Duggan said “a number of parents” had contacted her about “supposed displays of personal ideologies in classrooms.”

 

“I wish I was shocked by each of the examples that were shared with me, however, I am aware these trends have been happening for many years,” she told her fellow trustees at a recent meeting.

 

When asked about these “trends,” Dugan mentioned a first-grade student who was reportedly traumatized after seeing a poster of people of different races holding hands. The traumatized child, according to Dugan, had to change classrooms.

 

After hearing this, Stacey Chase, a fellow CISD trustee, replied, “Just so I understand, you are seriously suggesting that you find objectionable, a poster indicating that all are included?”

 

Click on the link for the full article

[The Evil Genius]

 

[The Evil Genius]

Saying the quiet part out loud, maga edition. 

 

 

[China]

Florida Students Given Lifelike Dolls To Simulate Responsibility Of Owning Slave

 

Hoping to instill an important life lesson in the impressionable teens, a Florida school reportedly began handing out lifelike dolls to students Wedneday that would simulate the experience of owning a slave. “A lot of these young people think it sounds easy to own another human being, but it’s a lot more day-to-day work than they realize, and we want to make sure they don’t get in over their heads out there in the real world,” said local teacher Mary Anne Combs, noting that the realistic human dolls used in the assignment have come a long way since she was a kid, when she was handed an egg to take home and force into servitude. “This is the kind of real-life experience southern students need. They must learn that owning a slave is a thankless, 24/7 job—it’s not just free labor and someone to do all your chores with no strings attached. They don’t think about how much energy it takes to be the sole person responsible for cruelly breaking another human being’s spirit or how tiring it is to stay up all night making sure no one escapes from your property. 

 

Click on the link for the rest

[The Evil Genius]

The Onion never fails. 

[Cooked Crack]

Georgia school board fires teacher for reading a book to students about gender identity

Quote

A Georgia school board voted along party lines Thursday to fire a teacher after officials said she improperly read a book on gender fluidity to her fifth grade class. 

 

The Cobb County School Board in suburban Atlanta voted 4-3 to fire Katie Rinderle, overriding the recommendation of a panel of three retired educators. The panel found after a two-day hearing that Rinderle had violated district policies, but said she should not be fired. 

 

She had been a teacher for 10 years when she got into trouble in March for reading the picture book “My Shadow Is Purple” by Scott Stuart at Due West Elementary School, after which some parents complained. 

 

The case has drawn wide attention as a test of what public school teachers can teach in class, how much a school system can control teachers and whether parents can veto instruction they dislike. It comes amid a nationwide conservative backlash to books and teaching about LGBTQ+ subjects in school.

 

 

If you don't think your fifth grader can handle this then you pretty sheltered

[Jabbyrwock]

56 minutes ago, Cooked Crack said:

Georgia school board fires teacher for reading a book to students about gender identity

 

 

If you don't think your fifth grader can handle this then you pretty sheltered

 

If this is considered age appropriate for fifth grade we have bigger problems in this country.  No...not a statement about the gender fluidity component.  This is (maybe) level appropriate for 1st grade or 2nd grade, more likely kindergarten.  In fifth grade my kid and his friends were reading at the level of Harry Potter/LoTR/Star Wars/warhammer novels...and they weren't the advanced ones by any stretch.  Most of them would be humiliated to even admit cracking a book of this level open, much less having it read to them.

 

This is barely a step beyond Dr. Seuss. 

[Cooked Crack]

7 minutes ago, Jabbyrwock said:

If this is considered age appropriate for fifth grade we have bigger problems in this country. 

It's literally a children's book. The only way I can see fifth graders reading this is because on banned book controversy

 

Looking it up

Reading age  ‎4 - 8 years

Grade level  ‎Preschool - Kindergarten

[The Evil Genius]

11 minutes ago, Jabbyrwock said:

 

If this is considered age appropriate for fifth grade we have bigger problems in this country.  No...not a statement about the gender fluidity component.  This is (maybe) level appropriate for 1st grade or 2nd grade, more likely kindergarten.  In fifth grade my kid and his friends were reading at the level of Harry Potter/LoTR/Star Wars/warhammer novels...and they weren't the advanced ones by any stretch.  Most of them would be humiliated to even admit cracking a book of this level open, much less having it read to them.

 

This is barely a step beyond Dr. Seuss. 

 

It's Georgia.

[China]

‘Inconceivable’: WVU’s plan to shut down language department could have detrimental impact on faculty and students, professors say

 

When language professors at West Virginia University heard that the school planned to make cuts in their department, they braced for big changes. Maybe the university would reduce majors to minors or decrease the number of classes taught, they worried.

 

The proposed cuts were far more drastic than they ever anticipated. Last week, these faculty members learned the university plans to eliminate the entire department, putting at least 30 professors’ jobs at risk and ending language studies for WVU students.

 

It was an inconceivable decision, said Russian studies professor Lisa Di Bartolomeo.

 

“We were absolutely shocked,” Ms. Di Bartolomeo said. “No one had anticipated this as a possible outcome. It's just unthinkable that our research 1, flagship, land-grant university would cut all [traditional] language... and linguistics education.”

 

On Friday, WVU announced plans to eliminate 32 academic programs, merge or embed 15 others, and cut faculty positions in 22 departments as the university faces a $45 million deficit.

 

If the recommended cuts come to fruition, undergraduate students would no longer be able to study Spanish, French, German, Russian or Chinese, and graduate students could no longer pursue linguistics and English as a second language degrees. The university’s board of governors will vote on the cuts in September.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

Edited August 18, 2023 by China

[The Evil Genius]

2 hours ago, China said:

‘Inconceivable’: WVU’s plan to shut down language department could have detrimental impact on faculty and students, professors say

 

When language professors at West Virginia University heard that the school planned to make cuts in their department, they braced for big changes. Maybe the university would reduce majors to minors or decrease the number of classes taught, they worried.

 

The proposed cuts were far more drastic than they ever anticipated. Last week, these faculty members learned the university plans to eliminate the entire department, putting at least 30 professors’ jobs at risk and ending language studies for WVU students.

 

It was an inconceivable decision, said Russian studies professor Lisa Di Bartolomeo.

 

“We were absolutely shocked,” Ms. Di Bartolomeo said. “No one had anticipated this as a possible outcome. It's just unthinkable that our research 1, flagship, land-grant university would cut all [traditional] language... and linguistics education.”

 

On Friday, WVU announced plans to eliminate 32 academic programs, merge or embed 15 others, and cut faculty positions in 22 departments as the university faces a $45 million deficit.

 

If the recommended cuts come to fruition, undergraduate students would no longer be able to study Spanish, French, German, Russian or Chinese, and graduate students could no longer pursue linguistics and English as a second language degrees. The university’s board of governors will vote on the cuts in September.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

 

My Masters program (Public Administration) there was recommended for termination as well. WVU is going through a huge financial reorganization but I don't like how bad it's going to be on the existing students. I also don't think some of the recommendations are forward thinking and was surprised to learn that Gordon Gee was extended.

Edited August 18, 2023 by The Evil Genius

[skinsmarydu]

4 hours ago, The Evil Genius said:

 

It's Georgia.

And why I have a very small circle of friends here. 

Example:  I was watching Cash Cab the other day.  (Vancouver, Canada).  First team got every question correct, *so did I* and won $1500, a record.  (Glad I know how to identify helicopters or I would have lost the "double or nothing" video challenge at the end!)  They won it. 

Second team was a married couple who didn't know ****. Third team had one strike *that I got right simply on pronunciation*, but won $1000. 

 

When someone says they graduated from UGA, I ask if they use their diploma as a "handicapped" sticker.  People here are ridiculously stupid. 

 

Edit, add:  unless it's veterinary or atmospheric science, top notch in those. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 18, 2023 by skinsmarydu