Assault on education

[Busch1724]

You don't say...never would have guessed that. Projection at it's finest. 

 

Found God and is probably born again, now we as school employees have to deal with their crap. 

[EmirOfShmo]

Democrats who swept Moms For Liberty off school board fight superintendent's $700,000 exit deal

 

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A Pennsylvania school board that banned books, Pride flags and transgender athletes slipped a last-minute item into their final meeting before leaving office, hastily awarding a $700,000 exit package to the superintendent who supported their agenda.

But the Democratic majority that swept the conservative Moms For Liberty slate out of office hopes to block the unusual — they say illegal — payout and bring calm to the Central Bucks School District, whose affluent suburbs and bucolic farms near Philadelphia have been roiled by infighting since the 2020 pandemic.

“People are really sick of the embarrassing meetings, the vitriol, they’re tired of our district being in the news for all the wrong reasons. And … the students are aware of what’s been going on, particularly our LGBTQ students and their friends and allies,” said Karen Smith, a Democrat who won a third term on the board.

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/democrats-swept-moms-liberty-off-172605000.html

[China]

Diplomas for sale, $465: Inside one of Louisiana's unapproved schools

 

Arliya Martin accepted her high school diploma with relief and gratitude. It was her ticket to better-paying work, she felt, after getting kicked out of high school and toiling for eight years at factory jobs to support her children.

 

“This is a new path for me to get on with my life,” she said.

 

But Martin didn’t take any classes or pass any tests to receive her degree. She got it in July from a school where students can get a high school diploma for $465.

 

Unlike public schools, formal homeschooling programs or traditional private schools, nearly 9,000 private schools in Louisiana don’t need state approval to grant degrees. Nearly every one of those unapproved schools was created to serve a single homeschooling family, but some have buildings, classrooms, teachers and dozens of students.

 

While unapproved schools account for a small percentage of the state's students, those in Louisiana’s off-the-grid school system are a rapidly growing example of the nation's continuing fallout from COVID-19: families disengaging from traditional education.

 

U.S. public school enrollment fell by more than 1.2 million students in the first two years of the pandemic. Many switched to private school or told their state they were homeschooling. Thousands of others could not be accounted for at all, according to an analysis from The Associated Press and its partners.

 

The students in Louisiana's off-the-grid school system aren't missing. But there's no way to tell what kind of education they're getting, or whether they're getting one at all. Over 21,000 students are enrolled in the state's unapproved schools, nearly double the number from before the pandemic, according to data obtained through a public records request by the AP and The Advocate, a partner news outlet in Louisiana.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Destino]

$465 is a steal. Public schools are kicking the can down the road and graduating kids that shouldn’t have passed the 9th grade for a cool 13k per year. 
 

I find it hard to worked up about fake diplomas now that I’ve found out so so many of them are bull****. 

[Captain Wiggles]

4 minutes ago, Destino said:

Public schools are kicking the can down the road and graduating kids that shouldn’t have passed the 9th grade for a cool 13k per year. 

 

[China]

Cursive makes a comeback — by law — in public schools

 

In 2016, California Democratic state Assemblymember Sharon Quirk-Silva sat with then-California Gov. Jerry Brown at an event where he signed baseball-type cards featuring the image of his dog, Colusa.

 

But many of the recipients of the cards couldn’t read his cursive signature, Quirk-Silva recalled, much to the Democratic governor’s dismay.

 

“The governor asked me what I did” before becoming a legislator, she remembered. “I said I was a teacher, and he said, ‘You have to bring back cursive writing.’”

 

After seven years of trying, she finally succeeded.

 

Last month, the California legislature unanimously passed and Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law requiring the teaching of cursive or “joined italics” handwriting in grades one through six.

 

While grandparents’ sprawling handwriting on birthday cards or treasured family recipes may spring to mind when many younger people think of cursive, some educators today think it’s a skill worth reviving even — or maybe especially — in an age when most kids spend hours every day on their smartphones. But others think students already have too many subjects to master and that their fingers belong on keyboards.

 

Some California teachers already were teaching cursive, but not usually in underresourced schools, Quirk-Silva said in an interview.

 

She argued cursive is valuable to read historical documents, increases writing speed and has become a popular way for teachers to make sure students are not using artificial intelligence to craft their written work.

 

Teaching cursive in public schools waned after the Common Core standards, which most states adopted, didn’t include cursive in the recommended curriculum. Critics of cursive requirements say time in the classroom could be better spent on new skills such as coding and keyboarding. And Quirk-Silva recalled that some younger lawmakers called the looping writing style “old-fashioned.”

 

Supporters recently have had some success in bringing it back, pointing to studies that show a link between cursive and cognitive abilities, including helping with reading and writing disabilities such as dyslexia and dysgraphia.

 

In May, New Hampshire Republican Gov. Chris Sununu signed a bill requiring schools to teach cursive and multiplication tables.

 

More than 20 states have implemented state directives to teach cursive in the past decade or so, according to Connie Slone, founder of MyCursive.com, a company that provides cursive learning materials to teachers and schools.

 

A few others don’t require cursive, but instead encourage it without specific mandates, according to the Zaner-Bloser company, another cursive instructional vendor.

 

But critics of teaching cursive remain skeptical. There’s “not much evidence that cursive matters,” said Morgan Polikoff, an associate professor of education at the University of Southern California.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Busch1724]

On 11/27/2023 at 7:17 PM, Destino said:

$465 is a steal. Public schools are kicking the can down the road and graduating kids that shouldn’t have passed the 9th grade for a cool 13k per year. 
 

I find it hard to worked up about fake diplomas now that I’ve found out so so many of them are bull****. 

 

It's all a byproduct of school choice. Parents don't have the stones to tell their kids to go to school. The kid finds an "easier" way to get a diploma and the parents give in. Public schools give in to hopefully not lose the kid and in the interim, devalue what it is they do. There's so, so many more factors at play, but school choice has factored into the devaluing of an education. We need an education enlightenment in this country. 

[Larry]

9 minutes ago, Busch1724 said:

We need an education enlightenment in this country. 

 

Starting with actually believing that education is actually desirable. 

[Renegade7]

https://www.reddit.com/r/blackpeoplegifs/s/5tbJeAJVmK

[Ball Security]

https://apple.news/AMcMApQbvQDOuSGPQT8nVZw
 

Story from the WaPo about how child abuse can be hidden behind homeschooling as proponents push back hard on any regulations or oversight.

[Destino]

You guys ever give the podcast “Sold a Story”? It’s about how the US schools essentially bought into a bull**** reading method, and then failed to teach millions of kids how to read for decades. That might be too kind, they taught kids a deeply flawed way of sort of reading that causes a huge amount of frustration and self doubt that is difficult to unlearn.
 

This is a current, and Virginia just recently banned it. I recommend giving it a listen.

[Destino]

very long tweet sent by billionaire Bill Ackman that makes some strong accusations about Harvard’s discriminatory hiring practices and accuses them of covering them up by instructing staff to never discuss them in writing. This was timed, as Harvard’s president Claudine Gay is set to testify before congress tomorrow. 
 

 

[China]

Philadelphia reduces school-based arrests by 91% since 2013

 

Across the United States, arrest rates for young people under age 18 have been declining for decades. However, the proportion of youth arrests associated with school incidents has increased.

 

According to the U.S. Department of Education, K-12 schools referred nearly 230,000 students to law enforcement during the school year that began in 2017. These referrals and the 54,321 reported school-based arrests that same year were mostly for minor misbehavior like marijuana possession, as opposed to more serious offenses like bringing a gun to school.

 

School-based arrests are one part of the school-to-prison pipeline, through which students – especially Black and Latine students and those with disabilities – are pushed out of their schools and into the legal system.

 

Getting caught up in the legal system has been linked to negative health, social and academic outcomes, as well as increased risk for future arrest.

 

Given these negative consequences, public agencies in states like Connecticut, New York and Pennsylvania have looked for ways to arrest fewer young people in schools. Philadelphia, in particular, has pioneered a successful effort to divert youth from the legal system.

 

In Philadelphia, police department leaders recognized that the city’s school district was its largest source of referrals for youth arrests. To address this issue, then-Deputy Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel developed and implemented a school-based, pre-arrest diversion initiative in partnership with the school district and the city’s department of human services. The program is called the Philadelphia Police School Diversion Program, and it officially launched in May 2014.

 

Since the diversion program began, when police are called to schools in the city for offenses like marijuana possession or disorderly conduct, they cannot arrest the student involved if that student has no pending court case or a history of adjudication. In juvenile court, an adjudication is similar to a conviction in criminal court.

 

Instead of being arrested, the diverted student remains in school and school personnel decide how to respond to their behavior. For example, they might speak with the student, schedule a meeting with a parent or suspend the student.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[tshile]

If a student is doing something that warrants arrest in school - the student needs help. 
 

i don’t think not arresting him and the school suspending him is really going to make the situation better. 
 

probably lets someone tout a stat line though. 

[China]

‘Authoritarianism’: Florida Says Its Public Schools Exist to ‘Convey Government’s Message’

 

GOP Governor Ron DeSantis often talks about what he calls “the free state of Florida” but Florida Republican Attorney General Ashley Moody has declared the Sunshine State’s public schools, including its libraries, do not exist to promote the free exchange of ideas, but rather, to “convey the government’s message.”

 

In a legal brief, the State of Florida argues it has a First Amendment right to remove LGBTQ books, or any book, from public schools and libraries, USA Today’s Tallahassee Democrat reports.

 

“It’s a contention that First Amendment experts and advocates call extreme and chilling. But the state maintains the books on school shelves represent protected government speech. Public school libraries are ‘a forum for government speech,’ it says, not a ‘forum for free expression.'”

 

“Public-school systems, including their libraries, convey the government’s message,” Attorney General Moody (photo) also wrote in the legal brief.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Destino]

What is the governments message? I’ve been watching US politics my entire adult life and couldn’t tell you just what the hell that might be at any given time. Our government is always fighting with itself. 
 

I’m not sure I disagree that the state has the authority to decide what books are made available in state run schools though. Those books don’t just magically appear on shelves and they’re not putting just any book donated on the shelves either. Those shelves are a curated selection, almost certainly chosen by state employees. You can go back in this thread and you’ll find where I predicted this argument was coming several times. The focus on book bans ignored that someone was selecting the books in the first place. It was only a matter of time before republicans noticed this. 
 

ideally the focus of education would be things like getting kids interested in reading and encouraging them to think for themselves. I doubt that’s what Governor Funny Boots has in mind though. He’d probably have them all read Ayn Rand.

[Cooked Crack]

 

[Destino]

They’re concerned how books on slavery presents Texas history on a plantation. What do they imagine the plantation is doing? If their goal was to shove slavery into the shadows they should have razed the plantation, and all monuments from that time period. Taking away the books does nothing.

 

we deserve a better class of villains, this is just insulting. 
 

Anyone have a survey showing how many Republican even read books? Not in school, but by choice. 

[Larry]

5 minutes ago, Destino said:

They’re concerned how books on slavery presents Texas history on a plantation. What do they imagine the plantation is doing? 

 

1)  "When you was slaves, you sang like birds."

 

2)  "Teaching valuable job skills."

[Destino]

15 minutes ago, Larry said:

 

1)  "When you was slaves, you sang like birds."

 

2)  "Teaching valuable job skills."

lol every time they try to do this nonsense the result is just embarrassing for all involved. The options are talk about it or never talk about it. Theres no “make it look like it wasn’t so bad” option. 

[PeterMP]

On 12/4/2023 at 4:30 PM, Destino said:

very long tweet sent by billionaire Bill Ackman that makes some strong accusations about Harvard’s discriminatory hiring practices and accuses them of covering them up by instructing staff to never discuss them in writing. This was timed, as Harvard’s president Claudine Gay is set to testify before congress tomorrow. 

 

The whole tweet is just bad.  But to just take one thing:

 

"“Why are the protests only about Israel versus other conflicts in the Middle East and around the globe where Palestinians and other civilians were killed?” “Israel is the rare case where we have a hot conflict between people that are deemed ‘white’ versus people of color.”"

 

Let's see if we can come up with some reasons why protest in the US might focus on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict compared to other cases where people are being killed without it being only motivated by race.

 

1.  Israel is our ally and therefore it impacts people in the US more than other cases and protest in the US are more likely to have an impact on the out come.  Something like Chinese actions against the Uyghurs doesn't have the same impact on people in the US and US equipment is not directly involved so the US changing policies is much less likely to have in impact.

 

2.  It seems like the global importance of the conflict/region might matter (e.g. how many nations care?).  Turkey and Iraq treat the Kurds pretty badly (another group looking for their own country).  Turkey is an ally, and I guess Iraq still sort of is.  But we don't have an issue where countries are refusing to recognize Turkey or Iraq over their treatment of the Kurds, like countries like Saudi Arabia are doing with Israel nor are we paying countries to recognize Turkey or Iraq associated with similar issues (like we do Egypt with respect to Israel). There are just more people invested globally in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.  

 

We've fought two wars in the last 35 years in the ME for a reason.

 

(I'll point out that I suspect #1 and #2 also are important drivers of why the Israeli/Palestinian conflict gets more news attention in the US than other conflicts and not because the press is being motivated by racial reasons.)

 

3.  Potentially the makeup of the US population matters.  In the other thread the Saudi/Yemini/Houthi conflict came up.  It is in the ME.  It involves one of our allies.  Why not more protest on that conflict?

 

The Palestinians are mostly Sunni and historically heavily supported by the Sunni states.  55% of US Muslims are Sunni.  The Houthi are mostly Shia.  Only 15% of the US Muslim population is Shia.  Protest related to Sunni Muslim causes are just likely to be more frequent and larger than those related to Shia Muslim causes and the causes of other Islamic groups due to the population of the US. 

 

4.  Money.  It takes money to organize and get people out protesting.  Sunni Muslims have money and the ability to get money into the country.  Other groups being killed either tend to be and associated with people that are poor or have pretty extensive US sanctions and other things in place (e.g. Shia and Iran) which would minimize their ability to get money into the US to organize protest.

 

The Israeli/Palestinian conflict results in protest in the US because Sunni Muslims globally care, they have a reasonable population base here to build organizations to organize protest, the money to do it, and they think the US changing its policies will matter.   It is the only conflict where Sunni Muslims are fighting another group that they aren't winning, partially because it is the only conflict that they are involved in that we aren't supporting them in.  And to them then getting the US to change its support is important in terms of changing the current trajectory of the conflict.

 

Edited December 8, 2023 by PeterMP

[PeterMP]

"I was told that behind closed doors, it is common to hear: “I clearly don’t think this is the strongest candidate, but we can see where the train is headed. I therefore have no choice but to vote for the [lesser-qualified candidate.]”"

 

How do you have no choice?  What is going to happen to you if you don't? They can't fire you.  The whole purpose of giving people tenure is so that they can do things that are unpopular (and even if they aren't tenured they still can't fire you without cause and voting against somebody for a job isn't cause).

 

(According to this tweet in total, Harvard faculty: I can't do what I think is right because I'm afraid that other people won't like me if I do.  And I think that essentially every action by everybody else is really being motivated by race or some other bias for a group of people.)

Edited December 8, 2023 by PeterMP

[Destino]

3 hours ago, PeterMP said:

"I was told that behind closed doors, it is common to hear: “I clearly don’t think this is the strongest candidate, but we can see where the train is headed. I therefore have no choice but to vote for the [lesser-qualified candidate.]”"

 

How do you have no choice?  What is going to happen to you if you don't? They can't fire you.  The whole purpose of giving people tenure is so that they can do things that are unpopular (and even if they aren't tenured they still can't fire you without cause and voting against somebody for a job isn't cause).

 

(According to this tweet in total, Harvard faculty: I can't do what I think is right because I'm afraid that other people won't like me if I do.  And I think that essentially every action by everybody else is really being motivated by race or some other bias for a group of people.)

pretty sure the point of that tweet was to throw a bunch of red meat for republicans right before a congressional hearing. I have no idea why Harvard faculty behave the way they do, or if any of those accusations are even remotely true. That tweet is little more than a rumor mill and could very well be entirely made up by a billionaire with an axe to grind.
 

that said, Washington university recently had an investigation on a similar issue and this is what they found.

 

Quote

The report notes that the holdout committee members “do not appear to have changed their minds about which candidate is most qualified” and that “at no point does the documentation show that they concurred” with the other committee members. Rather, according to the report, they indicated five reasons for eventually agreeing to the change the order:

 

“So as not to create a ‘Bloodbath’ at a faculty meeting”

“So the Developmental Area is not accused of ‘not prioritizing DEI’”

“Because they were worried junior faculty will hear a lot of ‘nasty stuff’ said at the faculty meeting and wonder if they were hired simply because of their races”

“Because they thought it would result in a failed search”

“Because it was creating personal stress on them, to the point that [name redacted] stated ‘I wish I could quit this job’ and [name redacted] wrote, ‘I cannot condone this search process and do not want to be asked to speak about it in person.’”

 

This re-ranking of candidates is the most serious violation of university policy described in the report. As the report puts it, “Based on the information evaluated, we conclude race was used as a substantial factor in the selection of the final candidate,” in violation of Executive Order 31. 

https://www.nas.org/blogs/article/university-of-washington-violated-non-discrimination-policy-internal-report-finds

[The Evil Genius]

 

[Destino]