Assault on education

[Long n Left]

2 minutes ago, China said:

Can a teacher lose their license for quitting a job?

 

As another school year gradually comes to an end, the nationwide teacher shortage has forced some states to ramp up efforts to find ways to retain teachers for the next school year.

More teachers are breaking their contracts and quitting, and officials with state education boards don’t want to be left in a bind to hire teachers next school year, so some districts are fining, suspending and revoking teaching certificates of those who quit on what they’ve said is short notice.

 

In Texas, the number of requests to consider suspending or revoking teaching certificates for job abandonment is the highest the state has seen in the past few years. Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, the Texas State Board for Educator Certification suspended more than 300 teaching certificates statewide for job abandonment.

 

Meanwhile, in Missouri, the number of teachers breaking contracts has increased, and teachers who quit are facing severe consequences. School districts are imposing financial penalties as high as $10,000 or seeking to suspend the teaching licenses of teachers who break their contracts, the Springfield News-Leader reported.

 

The number of teachers who have faced contract-related suspensions increased during the pandemic, reaching a record high of 11 in the past year, the Springfield News-Leader reported.

 

On Tuesday, three teachers will go before the State Board of Education to consider discipline affecting their license. In each case, the teachers were reported to the state board of education after breaking their contract early.

 

In one case, the teacher reported she was threatened by students, and that contributed to why she quit.

 

In two cases, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education will recommend a one-year suspension, but no action for a teacher who quit her job located in a St. Louis school district, the Springfield News-Leader reported.

 

The Ohio Department of Education also warns that teachers can have their license suspended for up to a year for breaking a contract. Other states have similar laws, including Minnesota.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

Seems to me if you take away their licenses then you are reducing the size of the pool of available teachers and thereby exacerbating the teacher shortage.  

You may be giving republican law makers FAR too much credit, in that they may actually think things through.

[dfitzo53]

6 minutes ago, Long n Left said:

You may be giving republican law makers FAR too much credit, in that they may actually think things through.

It's not really Republican lawmakers, it's a pretty standard policy in many districts across the country.

 

It's a stupid, short-sighted policy, but I don't think it's a particularly Republican one.

 

The whole teaching certification system is very bizarre to me anyway.

[Long n Left]

29 minutes ago, dfitzo53 said:

It's not really Republican lawmakers, it's a pretty standard policy in many districts across the country.

 

It's a stupid, short-sighted policy, but I don't think it's a particularly Republican one.

 

The whole teaching certification system is very bizarre to me anyway.

Would be curious to see the political makeup of said districts. Would not surprise me if a large percentage were red.

 

And yes, agreed that it is a stupid, short-sighted policy.

[China]

 

[Cooked Crack]

 

 

[tshile]

On 6/6/2023 at 12:15 PM, Long n Left said:

Would be curious to see the political makeup of said districts. Would not surprise me if a large percentage were red.

 

And yes, agreed that it is a stupid, short-sighted policy.

Here’s the problem. A lot goes into the logistics of running a school system and knowing how many teachers you have through the year is sort of a critical issue. 
 

when Covid started we had teachers walk off the job after a deal was reached on how to handle the situation, but a certain, meaningful, subgroup of teachers didn’t like the agreement both sides came to so they quit. The agreement came about post the at the end of the 2019-2020 school year, Covid affected the back half of the second semester. The agreement was reached in June. They waited until a week before school started in august to mass quit. I complained about it in the Covid school reopening thread as it was happening. They screwed **** up for literally everyone in the county. % wise it was a small number of teachers, bus drivers, and custodial staff but it ****ed everything up. 
 

I understand that when you see a rule abused you want to question the rule. I would suggest this rule has good intentions and a good purpose, and the focus should be that it was abused not that it’s a bad rule. 

[tshile]

And just to be clear - our district had increased desk spacing, reduced bus capacity, mask requirements, and quarantine requirements that were in line (and kept in line as things loosened over the years) with CDC and VA health department standard recommendations. We had a school board chair that spoke often (often weekly) public to the community about the important of protecting the people we’re around and the risks of being in a school all day. 
 

We had a public tracker of Covid cases with a distinction between cases, and cases of acquiring it on school grounds. I do not believe we had 1 official case that was acquired on school grounds but maybe there were a couple. Over like 18-24 months. The school district cared and best I can tell did everything right and reasonable. 
 

I just don’t want you thinking there was legit fear of life because there were no accommodations or adjustments, like we saw a lot of on the news other places. 
 

sorry for typing so much 

[Cooked Crack]

 

[The Evil Genius]

Sounds like conservatives white people want safe spaces after all.

Edited June 13, 2023 by The Evil Genius

[CobraCommander]

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cs3okC9tLv6/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

[The Evil Genius]

 

[Destino]

20 hours ago, The Evil Genius said:

Sounds like conservatives white people want safe spaces after all.

Everyone does and we should take them all away in an academic setting when discussing ideas. All ideas should be challenged and defended. Coates ideas of systemic racism should be taught and then they should be challenged. Why aren’t we doing that?

 

We don’t need anymore scared cows.

 

 

6 hours ago, The Evil Genius said:

 

Does this also demand that libraries accept every book given to them, or does this just mean books chosen can’t be removed? Because censoring libraries can happen via bans or bias curation. Just depends on the politics of the librarian or whoever decides what books to add. Results are the same.

[Destino]

20 hours ago, Cooked Crack said:

 

Coates is too heavy to discuss? 
 

 

[Larry]

20 hours ago, Cooked Crack said:

 

 

"I don't feel as though it is right because these videos showed antiquated history."  

[China]

On 3/21/2023 at 11:17 AM, China said:

 

In Utah:

 

Somebody wants the Bible removed from Davis County school libraries

 

Someone wants the Bible removed from libraries in the Davis School District.

 

On Dec. 11, 2022, a challenge was filed with district officials asking that the Bible be pulled from the shelves of the district’s schools.

 

The school district doesn’t reveal who challenges books, nor does it ask why.

 

Asked if it was a serious attempt to have the Bible removed from school libraries or if it was a political statement, Christopher Williams, Davis School District’s director of communication, said they treat all challenges the same.

 

“The district doesn’t judge one challenge versus another,” he said in an email response. “We view it as part of the work we do.”

 

A random check of school districts revealed that they, too, have an array of religious texts in their school libraries such as the Bible, Quran, Torah, the Book of Mormon and the Hindu text Bhagavad Gita, but none reported they had been challenged.

 

Granite School District spokesman Ben Horsley said the district received an inquiry about religious texts in its schools but the person did not file a formal request that the district review them.

 

Since the passage of Utah’s “sensitive materials” law in 2022, Utah school districts such as Alpine, Granite and Davis have received dozens of other requests for book reviews, some spurred by parents rights organizations such as Utah Parents United and others from concerned individuals.

 

HB374, sponsored by Rep. Ken Ivory, R-West Jordan, defines “sensitive material” as instructional materials that are pornographic or indecent, colloquially referred to as the “bright line” rule in state code.

 

Ivory said the challenge of the Bible is “a backhanded slap to parents that are simply trying to keep a healthy learning environment for all students in the schools. I have every confidence that no school district is going to consider the Bible as violating 76-10-1227,” which addresses descriptions and depictions of illicit sex or sexual immorality.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

Utah Republicans are furious schools banned the Bible to comply with their book-banning law

 

Earlier this month, in one of the funniest repercussions from the right-wing book-banning crazy, the KJV Bible was removed from the shelves in one Utah school district after an unnamed parent said it violated a law prohibiting school books with “pornographic or indecent” content.

 

Republican lawmakers in the state are now furious that their attempts to censor certain books have ensnared their personal favorite book in the process.

 

A quick recap in case you need it: Last year, Utah lawmakers passed a bill paving the way for the banning of school books that contain “pornographic or indecent” content. Those words, however, were not defined, allowing right-wing groups to declare just about anything they don’t like as unfit for kids.

 

That’s why it was amusing when at least one parent moved to get the Bible on that list.

 

As the Salt Lake Tribune reported, a parent submitted a formal request last December to get the Bible banned from Davis High School in Kaysville. While the submitter’s name was redacted, the content of the request was glorious.

 

Quote

“Incest, onanism, bestiality, prostitution, genital mutilation, fellatio, dildos, rape, and even infanticide,” the parent wrote in their request, listing topics they found concerning in the religious text. “You’ll no doubt find that the Bible, under Utah Code Ann. § 76-10-1227, has ‘no serious values for minors’ because it’s pornographic by our new definition.”

…

“Get this PORN out of our schools,” the parent wrote. “If the books that have been banned so far are any indication for way lesser offenses, this should be a slam dunk.”

 

The gambit worked. The King James Version of the Bible was soon removed from the shelves of 7-8 schools in the district because it contained “vulgarity or violence.” (Because the KJV Bible was the only one directly mentioned in the complaint, other translations were allowed to stay up on the shelves in a few schools.) High school students would have access to it but younger students would not. At least until all appeals were exhausted and the decision was overturned.

 

The Republican lawmaker who wrote the book-banning law, Ken Ivory, initially dismissed the complaint against the Bible, calling it a “mockery” of the law. But a couple of weeks ago, he reversed course and agreed that the Bible should be removed from school shelves because “Traditionally, in America, the Bible is best taught, and best understood, in the home, and around the hearth, as a family.”

 

Ivory highlighted the awkward position conservatives found themselves in: Whatever reasons they wanted to cite to ban other books, the Bible would always contain so much worse.

Now, other Republican lawmakers in Utah are demanding answers.

 

On Monday, officials from the Davis School District were called in to the GOP-led Administrative Rules Committee to explain how they allowed this to happen.

 

The administrators remained professional, explaining that they were just following the law those Republicans had voted for, and there was a process in place to reverse the decision. But they insisted they were just playing by the rules.

 

“Our intent is to follow the law,” said Superintendent Dan Linford. “That has been our earnest intent.”

 

Click on the link for the full article

Edited June 15, 2023 by China

[The Evil Genius]

Around the hearth.

 

Sounds about white. 

[CobraCommander]

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CtO7_cWrAKt/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

[Cooked Crack]

 

[Cooked Crack]

This tactic seems like some Air Bud **** but this is apparently all fine per Wisconsin law.

[Cooked Crack]

Oklahoma superintendent of schools says Tulsa Race Massacre wasn’t due to color of anyone’s skin

 

Quote

Ryan Walters, who was elected to the state’s top education post in November, was mocked and lambasted by those at the meeting in Norman, Okla., and in reports given online immediately afterward. 

 

The conservative Republican was asked how teaching about the 1921 murder of hundreds of Black citizens of Tulsa doesn’t violate his ban on teaching what he calls Critical Race Theory. 

 

His reply: “I would never tell a kid that because of your race, because of the color of your skin, or your gender or anything like that, you are less of a person or are inherently racist. That doesn’t mean you don’t judge the actions of individuals. Oh, you can. Absolutely, historically, you should. ‘This was right. This was wrong. They did this for this reason.’ But to say it was inherent in that because of their skin is where I say that is Critical Race Theory. You’re saying that race defines a person.”

 

[Cooked Crack]

Surprised you can even teach African American history in Florida

[EmirOfShmo]

 

 

[Destino]

you guys agree with this strategy for narrowing achievement gaps? 

[PeterMP]

2 hours ago, Destino said:

you guys agree with this strategy for narrowing achievement gaps? 

 

The article is behind a pay wall, so I didn't read it and am going to talk broadly about what I suspect is going on.

 

In early ed, there are homogeneous class and heterogenous class systems.  Homogeneous class rooms are where each class for a grade is supposed to be more or less the same same and good students are mixed with weaker students.  In heterogenous class rooms, you pull out the good students and have a separate class for them.  In a homogenous class, you can still have different students working at different paces/places but there are limits to what you can do and things like doing algebra very early normally require heterogenous class rooms.  Simply dealing with behavior problems in a homogenous class room system limits the time/attention needed to teach algebra early.

 

I struggled academically as an elementary school student and through middle school.  I was never really a behavior problem, but I just didn't work in school (Realistically, there were probably physical and mental developmental/social/home issues that were a factor, but let's just say I rarely finished classwork in class, did no homework (so didn't finish classwork that I didn't finish in class as homework), didn't do projects that I was supposed to do at home, and didn't study so I did poorly in school.)

 

The school system I was in had a talented and gifted program (TAG) that started in 3rd grade where they pulled out the better students for a special class (a heterogenous system).  I didn't make it in.  

 

They did it away with it when I was in 4th grade and went to a homogenous class system so they dumped the kids that had TAG for 1 year in with everybody else.  Somewhere between 3rd and 9th grade I sort of got myself straightened out, my friend groups shifted (a couple of times), and I found myself in a friend group with people that were high academic achievers (though at the time that I became part of the group I wasn't a particularly high academic achiever).  I saw the work they did out of school and how they studied and there was probably some positive peer pressure and support, and I did better.

 

I have very little doubt that I wouldn't be where I am today if the school system I was in would have maintained its TAG program.  I would have fallen further behind the higher academic achievers, would not have been able to be in the same classes as them in 7th, 8th, and 9th grade, and would not have made those connections.  And by 9th grade friends groups are often largely set.  At that point in time, I didn't have the maturity to do what I would have had to do to put myself in that position go into classes with TAG students and be competitive and nobody in my house/family had the time and/or ability to help me.  And breaking into a knew friend group in 9th grade is just hard even if I could have.

 

I've got two girls.  My oldest one didn't make it into the advanced math classes in elementary school.  But because of what I know and what I do, I was able to work with her on things, especially math, through elementary and middle school during the summer.  And when it came to testing into an advanced program when she went into high school she was able to do so.  That put her in a situation in high school where she's with high academically achieving students.

 

My younger daughter did test into the advanced math program when she was young.  She had a very different middle school and elementary school experience than my older daughter (essentially no behavior issues in her class, a less diverse class room, and an experience that was not the norm for a suburban but not elite school district).

 

I have a brother with two young twin boys.  The school system they are in has a magnet school.  One got in and one didn't.  My brother says the smarter one didn't get in.  He's slower to take standardized tests and often over reads questions and "puts" things into them that aren't there.  But those two boys have been sup up for very different school experiences and even psychologically because they know that the one school is for the "smart" people.   They will go to two different schools.  They will have two different friend groups because of that.  They will have two very different class room experiences.

 

I don't know what the answer is.  But if you just let the "brightest" at a young age rush a head (which essentially means putting them in separate classes), you are going to leave people behind that if given time/opportunity will be useful contributors to our society.  The very top might be better off but I think it is likely that it will be smaller, less diverse, and further from the middle than otherwise.

 

I have friends from high school that went on have science/engineering degrees from Harvard and Columbia and would have gone on to PhD in science/engineering (one died so didn't finish his PhD) from top of the line schools.  Not having algebra in 6th grade because they were in class with me (and others that weren't high academic achievers) and so having to go a little slower might have hurt them some, but I don't think the net effect was too much.  But I think "slowing" them down in the end allowed me to get much further ahead than I would have otherwise.

Edited July 16, 2023 by PeterMP

[PeterMP]

I'll add, I think that we should teach the concept of slope much earlier to everybody.  In the context of physics, calculus (derivatives), and other sciency fields (e.g. economics), the idea of slope and changes in slope are key.  That's one of the things that I did with my older daughter.  I taught her the basic ideas without teaching her the overall idea of an equation of a line (it isn't like slope and changes in slope only apply to lines) and how to determine a slope.

 

The idea of one line is more steep than the other, one is inclined up and one is down, and what that means in certain context (e.g. connection a position vs. time graph and the slope to velocity) can be done without teaching division or an equation of a line.  I let the school teach my older daughter an equation of a line and the equation of a slope.  But she already knew what slope was conceptually if not mathematically, what it what it meant in terms of a graph, and how things were changing with changes in slope on a graph given some reasonable system that she could understand (somebody walking).

 

 

Edited July 16, 2023 by PeterMP