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31 August, 2022

Texas Conservatives Mobilize Against New Social Curriculum Adding Gender, LGBT, and CRT Ideology

Texas conservatives are revolting over proposed State Board of Education changes that will eliminate teaching the U.S. Constitution and founding principles in some grade levels while including ideologies on white supremacy, LBGT pride, and gender.

Parent groups and conservative groups have mobilized to attend a public hearing at the Texas State Board of Education in Austin Tuesday in opposition to changes that they feel do not accurately reflect the accomplishments of Texas and America. The board could vote on the changes this week.

Left-leaning groups praised the first draft of the social studies curriculums proposed last month as more inclusive and progressive than past education standards.

Melissa Martin, a board member of Innovative Teachers of Texas, a conservative teacher’s group, told The Epoch Times the changes were “disappointing.”

“Texas is an exceptional state, and our students need to learn about our rich Texas history,” she said via text. “Rather than focusing on a globalist agenda, the curriculum should motivate our young Texans to develop into citizens who value family and citizenship of our great state and nation.”

Republican groups sent out a call to action identifying the removal of numerous Texas Education and Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) educational standards about America’s founding principles and the family to be replaced by more liberal ideas aligned with globalism.

Some of the high school level changes include removing “E Pluribus Unum” and “God We Trust” from the U.S. History curriculum.

Significant American government figures of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan were removed from U.S. Government studies.

A working committee drafting the rules said in notations about the deletion that the standards would be a better fit for middle school or moved into other lessons on executive power concerning government figures.

Other social studies curriculum standards that were part of a draft were just as problematic for critics.

In the 7th Grade, a standard claims that the Haudenosaunee Confederacy’s practice of federalism influenced the writing of the U.S. Constitution as a nod to diversity inclusion.

However, some scholars have debunked that connection.

The confederacy is also known as the League of the Iroquois, consisting of up to six upstate New York-based Native American tribes.

An 8th Grade standard on the intersectionality of (gay) pride, civil rights, and other movements was included.

The comment section mentioned Angela Davis, who advocates Critical Resistance Theory for abolishing the prison system. Also, Texas Rangers, an elite law enforcement group, were listed as “an instrument of oppression” during the clash between Texas Rangers and Mexican Americans and immigrants during the Mexican Revolution.

On the high school level of World Geography, the new standard included the “Gender Inequality Index” and the “World Happiness Report.”

Various citations of the “history of white supremacy” were included in the middle and high school level, where one standard analyzed the effects of “the New South” on diverse populations including, “sharecropping, convict leasing, Black Codes, white supremacy, and the creation of the Ku Klux Klan.”

Julie Pickren, a Republican running for State Board of Education in District 7, told The Epoch Times the state board sped up the process of deciding the TEKS for the next 12 years.

With more conservatives likely to take seats on the board in January, the process was fast-tracked. Work groups were put in place that produced “woke content,” including the use of the 1619 Project as the foundation of the African American Studies course, she said.

Pickren said other educational standards remove the family and focus on community instead. She noted that other states with conservative governors, such as Florida, Virginia, and South Dakota, have experienced similar moves but stopped them.

State Rep. Steve Toth (R-Woodlands), who championed banning Critical Race Theory in schools, told The Epoch Times the 1619 Project is not historically accurate and prohibited by state law.

“This is a concerted effort, a uniform effort all across the United States,” Toth said.

Potentially six statutes will be violated if the revisions go through, including those required by the Celebrate Freedom law highlighting America’s founding principles and one banning CRT, Pickren added.

Pickren is concerned that if the current board, which includes nine Republicans and six Democrats, passes the new educational standards, there will be no way to correct it.

“The board’s attitude, she said, is to “pass it to see what’s in it.”

Pickren believes the National School Board Association is pushing rewrites of social studies curriculum across the country. The NSBA wrote a letter to President Joe Biden’s administration led to the Justice Department targeting parents speaking out against CRT.

Toth said he intends to fight educational curriculum changes that break Texas law. He called for Texas attorney general Ken Paxton and Gov. Greg Abbott to get involved.

State Rep. Mayes Middleton (R-Galveston), chairman of the Texas Freedom Caucus, wrote in a news release Aug. 29 that the proposed changes were unacceptable and, in many cases, illegal.

The release noted that a letter objecting to the changes had been sent to the SBOE.

“The proposed standards also eliminate Texas history as a standalone course, in favor of intertwining Texas history with other historical subjects, in effect watering down our heritage and putting it on the same level as all other cultures,” he wrote.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/texas-conservatives-mobilize-against-new-social-curriculum-adding-gender-lgbt-and-crt-ideology_4697202.html

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Former bullied teen wins $1M lawsuit against California school district

A California school district was ordered to pay $1 million for failing to protect a middle school student who was “bullied, tormented and verbally assaulted” by fellow teens who started a petition to end her life.

A jury ruled that the El Segundo Unified School District was negligent in training and supervising its workers, who then failed to safeguard 13-year-old Eleri Irons from three bullies between November 2017 to June 2018, the Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday.

A lawsuit filed in 2019 reportedly alleged Irons “suffered PTSD, cut herself and sought refuge in the school nurse’s office nearly every lunch break.”

The torture began when teachers failed to act after finding out about a petition that was circulating in school entitled “Let’s kill Eleri Irons.”

When Irons’ parents did ask school officials for help, they “dismissed the concerns as drama over a teen love triangle,” the teen’s attorney Christa Ramey told the paper.

Former El Segundo Middle School principal Principal Melissa Gooden, who is now an executive director of human resources with the district, allegedly lied about calling police as soon as she learned of the death threat in June 2018, Ramey reportedly said.

“She didn’t call the police that day. She attempted to make it seem like they did everything they could, but in reality, during the entire year, they didn’t do anything,” Ramey said, according to the article. “They never investigated a single claim of bullying made by my client.”

A police report was filed a day after the petition came to light and moments before administrators met with Irons’ parents, according to the article. No one was arrested and the students involved were reportedly suspended.

“Every teacher, counselor and administrator who touched this case failed not only my client, but also the aggressors and every other student at the school,” Ramey said in a statement published by the LA Times. “Bullying is to be taken seriously and the administrators are culpable when they don’t stop it.”

El Segundo Superintendent Melissa Moore said the district, which enrolls about 3,500 students, added two new student safety positions at two elementary schools and implemented a district-wide safety plan.

“As a school district, we respect the ruling of the court and acknowledge the findings of the lawsuit,” Moore said in a statement to The Post.

“The next steps are up to our legal counsel. As we move forward, we are committed to self-improvement and doing everything we can to prevent bullying in our schools.”

Irons, now 18, reportedly said in a statement that she remained traumatized but has forgiven her main bully.

“I am so thankful that I have been able to share my experience and to actually be taken seriously so that the next time a child asks for help, the school will address it the way they should have for me.”

https://nypost.com/2022/08/30/former-bullied-teen-wins-1m-lawsuit-against-california-school-district/

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Mother demands Texas education board ban teaching about Gandhi as part of CRT crackdown

A Texas mother identifying herself as Jenna told the State Board of Education that its first graders should not be learning about Mahatma Gandhi because she considers such instruction part of critical race theory.

“This revision wants to teach a first grader whose still putting notes to the Tooth Fairy under her pillow about following Gandhi’s lead to a peaceful protest,” Jenna said. A first grader! CRT is already rampant and baked into our curriculum and we don’t want to be good little global citizens where our borders are considered a military zone.”

State Board of Education member Marisa Perez-Diaz quickly noted that Jenna had not identified a specific Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) standard that she was upset about — after which Jenna accused the board member of “belittling” her.

“These parents are confused and we don’t know,” Jenna said. “So I’m sorry — I’m up here testifying because we don’t understand. But I know the result.”

The State Board of Education is currently considering a new social studies curriculum for K-12 students. Elsewhere in her testimony, Jenna said that the current revision of TEKS looked to her like “collectivism” at the expense of “individualism” and said falsely claimed that the US-Mexico border is “open.”

The fight against CRT, or critical race theory, has been a central feature of Texas Republican politics over the last several years. Critical race theory is a decades-old academic concept holding that race is socially constructed and that racism is a systemic power structure, but conservative activists and Republican politicians have broadened that definition to include all manner of teaching about the effects of race and racism in the US.

In 2020, former President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning federal employees from taking trainings including “critical race theory” or “white privilege”. The next year, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a bill banning the teaching of CRT in Texas schools — strictly limiting how teachers can teach about current events, banning teaching of The New York Times’ 1619 Project, and prohibiting students from recieving course credit for participating in civic activities.

That bill has not been the only threat to academic freedom in the state’s public schools. Last October, State Rep Matt Krause sent a letter to the Texas Education Agency asking if schools in the state had any of a list of 850 books on a range of subjects including human rights and gender that he felt could be objected to. Some school districts in Texas have removed books from their libraries or classrooms due to challenges from parents.

Now, as the state considers a new social studies curriculum, many of those parents are again making their voices heard.

Challenged again later on by Ms Perez-Diaz to provide a specific example or examples of TEKS standards she took issue with, Jenna was unable to do so. Instead, she said that an indeterminate had dedicated their lives to the fight against so-called critical race theory.

“We parents quit our jobs,” Jenna said. “We left our careers. And we have gone to school board meeting after school board meeting, and we have spent hours and thousands of them ourselves trying to ask questions, as you’ve suggested, digging for information... I’m here because the school boards won’t answer.

https://au.yahoo.com/news/mother-demands-texas-education-board-211559843.html

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My other blogs: Main ones below

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

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

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

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

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

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30 August, 2022

Bias hotlines at US colleges have led to a witch hunt culture on campus

When I stepped on campus at NYU four years ago, I was handed a school ID by a public safety officer. On the back, I found a list of phone numbers: who to call if I was in danger, who to call if I was sick, and . . . a bias response line? Not long after, I found posters with the same number on the back of bathroom stalls, urging students to call and report bias on campus.

Discrimination and harassment are one thing, but I found myself wondering what exactly constituted “bias.” Since I had watched students and professors canceled for all manner of perceived transgressions, it left me wondering what range of incidents could fall under this umbrella.

I had never heard of them before, but evidently schools across the country, from Drew University to Penn State, and the University of Missouri, have similar hotlines. Countless other colleges and universities have bias response teams, many with online reporting forms.

As a champion of free speech, I was concerned, so I dug a little deeper. That’s when I found a 2018 report on my school’s hotline, which divided the calls they received into groups. Category 1 constituted alleged violations of the university’s anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies. Category 2, however, included instances determined to be biased but not a violation. Those constituted 61% of the calls made. 

Some examples of Category 2 incidents included “concerns that marketing materials displayed on campus do not accurately represent the University’s diverse population” or “concerns about a culturally-insensitive comment.” I was perplexed by the subjectivity of incidents that could unleash an administrative team on perceived transgressors.

To be clear, I do not condone harassment or discrimination under any circumstances, and I absolutely believe targeted students should have a place to turn. But they already do. As Alex Morey, an attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) told me, “Bias response teams are unnecessary, because existing laws preventing discrimination and harassment are already in place to curb unlawful behavior on campus.”

That leaves bias response teams to figure out the vague contours of “acceptable” speech at their own discretion. Indeed, a survey of administrators on such teams revealed an ill-defined mission that goes far beyond enforcing anti-discrimination policy. One administrator interviewed described their duty as combatting “whatever threat that might [be posed] to an inclusive campus.” Another said they determine “when the exercise of individual rights becomes reckless and irresponsible.”

These thresholds are subjective to say the least — and could invite any number of complaints. After investigating 230 college bias response teams around the country, a 2017 report by FIRE uncovered a whole host of complaints that range from laughable to downright censorious.

On-campus humor publication The Koala at the University of California San Diego, for example, was defunded by the school for poking fun at campus “safe spaces” after bias reports (including one requesting the school “stop funding” the publication) were submitted. An anonymous report at Ohio’s John Carroll University alleged that “the African-American Alliance’s student protest was making white students feel uncomfortable.” At the University of Michigan, a so-called “snow penis” sculpture was reported to their bias response team.

While not all reports result in punishment or investigation, introducing the bias response tripwire into a college community surely can’t be healthy for free speech. 

“Encouraging people to report their peers for protected speech creates a climate of fear around everyday discussions,” Morey said. “The threat of investigations . . . too often results in students and faculty self-censoring rather than risking getting in trouble.”

In a world where accidentally mixing up the names of two students of the same race or saying epithets in a class about epithets could jeopardize your reputation — or your job —encouraging students to call a hotline on transgressors is downright dystopian.

If we can’t discuss touchy subjects and wrestle with controversial ideas on campuses, where can we? We come to college to ask the unaskable and answer the unanswerable questions of our time. Sometimes that means we might express something inartfully — or, yes, sometimes offensively. But discussion, debate and resolution are the remedies to that tension. Not a hotline.

https://nypost.com/2022/08/27/us-colleges-bias-hotlines-lead-to-campus-witch-hunt-culture/

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Top Google Fellowships: If White or Asian, Good Luck

Google is setting strict caps on the number of white and Asian students that universities can nominate for a prestigious fellowship program, a policy legal experts say likely violates civil rights law and could threaten the federal funding of nearly every elite university in the United States.

The Google Ph.D. Fellowship, which gives promising computer scientists nearly $100,000, allows each participating university—a group that includes most elite schools—to nominate four Ph.D. students annually. "If a university chooses to nominate more than two students," Google says, "the third and fourth nominees must self-identify as a woman, Black / African descent, Hispanic / Latino / Latinx, Indigenous, and/or a person with a disability."

That criterion, which an archived webpage shows has been in place since at least April 2020, is almost certainly illegal, civil rights lawyers told the Washington Free Beacon—both for Google and the universities.

"It is illegal for Google to enter into contracts based on race under the Civil Rights Act of 1866," said Adam Mortara, the lead trial lawyer for the plaintiffs in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, who are pressing the Supreme Court to outlaw affirmative action. "And it is illegal for universities receiving federal funds to nominate students based on race under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act."

That means nearly every top school in the United States could be at risk of losing its federal funding. Since Google’s discriminatory rule went into effect, a long list of universities has nominated students for the fellowship: Harvard, Yale, Stanford,  Princeton, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Columbia, Cornell, Duke, Johns Hopkins, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Michigan, the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, the University of California Berkeley, and New York University.

Those schools also have their own policies banning discrimination by race, gender, or disability—the three categories on which Google requires them to base fellowship nominations.

"The Google Fellowship program is a blatantly unlawful and immoral quota plan that pits students against one another by skin color and ethnic heritage," said Edward Blum, the founder of Students for Fair Admissions. "Our nation’s enduring civil rights laws were passed to specifically forbid this type of racial discrimination."

The fellowship shows how racial quotas, when sanctioned by a sufficiently powerful corporate actor, can metastasize and multiply across institutions. It also shows how private companies can circumvent Congress and federal law through a kind of bribery, providing a financial reward for illegal discrimination.

"Google is using its pocket-book to incentivize America’s elite universities to violate Title VI," said Dan Morenoff, the executive director of the American Civil Rights Project. "It’s using its financial support to directly counter Congress’s policy."

The bet, Morenoff added, is that "the feds won’t notice, won’t care, or won’t actually force the schools to choose between federal funding and Google’s."

That assumption reflects the race-conscious consensus that has captured both private and public bureaucracies. Uber Eats in 2020 waived delivery fees for black-owned restaurants, only to scrap the policy after a lawsuit. In 2021, NASDAQ mandated racial quotas for all companies listed on its exchange, a rule now being challenged in the Fifth Circuit. And from New York to Utah to Minnesota, state public health departments have allocated scarce COVID-19 drugs based on race—even after lawyers informed them that their allocation schemes were illegal.

Those plans, like Google’s fellowship criteria, were all posted on public websites. No effort was made to hide them, suggesting that race-discriminaton—against certain groups, at least—is now the norm for many professionals.

It is also the norm at many universities, some of which explicitly advertise the Google fellowship’s diversity criteria to students. In an August 16 email encouraging all computer science Ph.D.'s to apply for the fellowship, New York University said it would not nominate more than two white or Asian males, "in order to increase opportunities for students who are underrepresented in the field of computing." Duke University includes the same language on its "Research Funding" website.

Contacted about these concerns, New York University appeared to backtrack. "The language used in the internal announcement was not NYU's but rather was drawn from the FAQ that Google posted about the Fellowship program," a spokesman, John Beckman, told the Free Beacon, adding that "we are reviewing the language in the announcement."

The participating universities may be violating as many as three different civil rights laws, not just Title VI. If schools are nominating people for a fellowship, Morenoff said, courts might treat them as employment agencies under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination in employment. State civil rights laws, which are often more exacting than federal statutes, pose a separate challenge. New York’s Human Rights Law, Morenoff said, is the most broadly written antidiscrimination law in the United States, and almost certainly bars universities from nominating students based on race.

That said, it would take a lot for universities to lose federal funding—a punishment of last resort under Title VI—over the fellowship. It could, however, open universities to civil rights investigations, Morenoff said, as well as to lawsuits from private parties. Universities usually blink in the face of such pressure. Harvard, for example, rescinded a ban on nominating members of single-gender clubs for the Rhodes scholarship after a 2019 lawsuit alleged that the policy violated Title IX.

Google’s legal problems are just as extensive as the universities’. Mortara, Morenoff, and another lawyer said that the fellowship’s racial caps likely violate the 1886 Civil Right Act, the law that bans contracting on the basis of race. Because it imposes requirements on students as well as Google—for example, that students remain enrolled in a Ph.D. program for the duration of the fellowship—courts would probably consider it a contract.

"Might Google have some defense? It’s possible," Morenoff said. "But on its face, this is a violation of our oldest civil rights enactment."

In addition, Google may be violating Title VII, whose ban on employment discrimination extends to employment training programs. The fellowship could be considered such a program, Morenoff said: Though fellows are not employed by Google, they are paired with a "Google mentor" and encouraged to apply for internships with the company. California state law, Morenoff added, also prohibits discrimination in employment training programs.

In response to a detailed inquiry about these legal concerns, Google defended the nominating criteria and denied that it was breaking the law.

"Like many companies, we actively encourage a broad range of individuals to apply to our PhD Fellowship program in order to attract the widest and most representative pool of applicants possible—this follows all relevant laws and is extremely common to do," a Google spokesperson said. "Selection for the fellowships"—that is, selection from the pool of nominees, not the nomination process itself—"is not based on demographics in any way. Fellows receive unrestricted funding for their studies, and if they are interested in working at Google, they are welcome to apply for jobs and go through the same hiring process as any other person."

This is not the first time Google has pushed the envelope with its diversity initiatives. The company’s former director of diversity strategy,  Kamau Bobb, was reassigned in June of 2021 in the wake of a Free Beacon report that revealed his history of anti-Semitic comments, including that "Jews have an insatiable appetite for war." Around the same time, Google told employees in a series of diversity trainings that "America is a system of white supremacy" in which everyone is "raised to be racist" and that "colorblindness" is "covert white supremacy."

In 2017, the company also fired a programmer, James Damore, after he questioned Google’s diversity policies in an internal memo. The memo—"Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber"—proposed ways "to increase women's representation in tech without resorting to discrimination," a practice Damore called "unfair, divisive, and bad for businesses."

Google's diversity quotas extend beyond the United States. The Ph.D. Fellowship recruits students from across the world, with different nominating criteria for each region. Universities in East Asia and Europe, which are only allowed three nominations each, do not have to worry about race or disability. But gender is another story.

"If a university chooses to nominate more than two students," the rules for Asia and Europe read, "the third nominee must self-identify as a woman."

https://freebeacon.com/campus/google-partners-with-top-universities-for-this-prestigious-fellowship-lawyers-say-the-racial-and-gender-quotas-its-imposing-are-illegal/

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Britain's strictest headteacher hits back at Ofsted after inspectors found his school 'oppressive'

A teacher dubbed Britain’s strictest head has defended his discipline methods after a school he was drafted into was criticised as ‘oppressive’ by Ofsted.

Barry Smith, an education consultant and former school leader, said too many secondary school pupils were ‘openly contemptuous and abusive’ towards staff.

He said it was so bad that some teachers suffered from something akin to ‘battered-wife syndrome’ – and they almost feel they deserve the daily abuse from some pupils.

Mr Smith is part of a movement to reinstate ‘adult authority’ in schools. His approach is based on the acronym SLANT, which demands that pupils Sit up, Listen, Ask and answer questions, Never interrupt and Track the teacher – or look at them when they talk.

But critics claim such behaviour is the result of ‘military-style’ rules that are too harsh for modern teenagers and make them miserable.

An Ofsted report published last week about Abbey School, a secondary in Faversham, Kent, where Mr Smith helped establish a discipline regime last year, stated: ‘In lessons, most pupils comply with leaders’ strict expectations of behaviour.

‘However, the way leaders implement these expectations does not contribute positively to the culture of the school. For the majority of pupils, these approaches are applied in a manner that is overly restrictive. Many pupils find this oppressive.’

Abbey School gained its best GCSE results this summer. At A-level, the proportion of A* to C grades is up from 41 per cent in 2019 to 67 per cent.

Mr Smith claims that without his methods, too many teenagers get away with treating teachers with ‘habitual contempt’, telling The Mail on Sunday: ‘The loss of adult authority has a terrible impact on schools.

'Casual contempt is very commonplace in some schools. Too often, head teachers accept it and Ofsted accepts it and rates schools “good”. Pupils and adults in schools deserve far better.’

He also expects pupils to call teachers ‘Sir’ or ‘Miss’, speak in sentences, be polite and ‘treat adults with the same level of courtesy that teachers deliberately demonstrate to pupils’.

He said: ‘These are basic social skills. If you go to private school, you often meet teenagers brimming with confidence. Pupils in state schools need to… compete. Having your head down, avoiding eye contact and monosyllabic responses are not going to cut it in the job or university interview.

‘I make it clear, every lesson is something to be treasured and every interaction is about deliberately modelling genuine mutual respect. The results pay off – positive relationships which lead to concrete achievement.’

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/britain-s-strictest-headteacher-hits-back-at-ofsted-after-inspectors-found-his-school-oppressive/ar-AA11b1Cc

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My other blogs: Main ones below

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

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

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

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

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

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29 August, 2022

Hungary warns education becoming ‘too feminine’

Officials in Hungary have published their concerns that the country’s education system is becoming “too feminine”, in a report released this summer.

Issued by the state audit office, the report outlines fears that the phenomenon of “pink education” could create demographic problems and be harmful to the development of boys.

The document, which was published last month, labels “emotional and social maturity” as “feminine traits” and states that if education “favours” these traits then it will result in “the overrepresentation of women in universities”.

Hungary’s teachers are 82 per cent women, and over the past decade, more women have enrolled in univerisity than men, the report found. Meanwhile, male students are dropping out of higher education at a higher rate than their female counterparts.

The report then warns that boys are thus at risk of “mental and behavioural problems” if they are not given the space to develop in more masculine spaces, aligning qualities such as creativity and innovation with boys rather than girls.

Officials also stated that the rise in pink education could lead to a “decline in fertility” as women will not be able to find educated men to match their qualifications. This concern bounces off the fear of a “considerably weakened” sexual equality that will transpire if women continue to dominate the educational sphere.

The focus on fertility leads back to the ambition of Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, to see a surge in the country’s birth rate. In 2019, he announced that women with four children would be exempt from paying income tax for life.

Hungary’s opposition leader criticised the report on Facebook, as he wrote: “It is time to remove your glasses from the last century.” He added that the labelling of feminine and masculine traits is “total scientific absurdity”.

The country’s prime minister has experienced friction with the EU on numerous occasions over his policies on press freedom and migration. Hungary is also currently being sued by the European Commission for its highly controversial “anti-gay law”, which bans the depiction of homosexuality to under-18s.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/hungary-warns-education-becoming-too-feminine/ar-AA11ahES

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Must Reads

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DC Delays School Vaccine Mandate After Daily Signal Report 

Douglas Blair / @DouglasKBlair / August 26, 2022

“We’re not offering remote learning for children, and families will need to comply with what is necessary to come to school," Mayor Muriel Bowser, pictured on March 14 in Washington, D.C., said Thursday in response to a Daily Signal question about the District's vaccine mandate for students. (Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Fewer than 24 hours after The Daily Signal reported that the District of Columbia would not offer remote learning and planned to bar unvaccinated students, many of whom are black, from attending school in person 20 days after school started on Monday, the city abruptly announced it was delaying the policy until next year. 

DCist reported that Washington, D.C., Deputy Mayor for Education Paul Kihn announced that enforcement of the COVID-19 vaccine mandate would not begin until Jan. 3, 2023. 

Students 12 and up who are not vaccinated against COVID-19 will receive a notice of noncompliance on Nov. 21. If they do not comply by Jan. 3, 2023, they will no longer be able to attend school in person.  

Citing “the challenges of tracking enforcement for COVID-19 vaccinations,” in a Friday letter to city education officials, Kihn wrote:

We have heard from many of you about the challenges of tracking enforcement for COVID-19 vaccinations … We hope that the Jan. 3, 2023 date for first exclusions of non-compliant students will give schools and [local education agencies] additional time to prepare and for students to get their COVID-19 vaccinations.

On Thursday, The Daily Signal questioned D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, on what unvaccinated students could expect when public school started on Monday. 

“They can go to school on Monday,” Bowser said, “But they need to get their vaccinations … and their families will be alerted as to the dates.” 

The Daily Signal then asked whether unvaccinated children would have the option to learn virtually if they didn’t get vaccinated. As of Thursday, students were told they had 20 days from the start of school to show proof of vaccination. 

Bowser replied, “We’re not offering remote learning for children, and families will need to comply with what is necessary to come to school.”   

The Daily Signal’s article was shared widely on Twitter, including by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.

The D.C. government’s vaccine numbers website shows 47% of the black children in the District ages 12-15 had not completed their primary vaccination series necessary to go back to school in person.    

Among black teens aged 16-17, 42% are unvaccinated.   

The announcement comes on the heels of D.C. Superior Court Judge Maurice A. Ross’ decision Thursday that the city’s vaccination mandate for city employees was unlawful.

Just Washington, D.C., and New Orleans currently require students to be vaccinated for COVID-19 in order to attend school in person, according to The Washington Post.  

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COMMENTARY EducationNow or Never: We Must Seize the School Choice MomentAug 22, 2022 4 min read

COMMENTARY BY

Kevin Roberts, Ph.D.

@KevinRobertsTX

President

Dr. Kevin Roberts serves as the seventh president in Heritage’s 49-year history.

The school choice moment is not a victory, just an opportunity.

Wavebreakmedia / Getty Images

KEY TAKEAWAYS

In the last two years, Americans’ trust in public schools fell more than a third, from 41% to 28% .

The traditional “Three Rs” have been replaced by the racist, pornographic, anti-American, anti-science, ahistorical religion known as “wokeism.”

At this moment, parents are ready to fight. Students deserve a champion. All that is needed are political leaders willing to lead.

  Copied 

Late summer 2022 is already proving to be unlike any back-to-school season in history. America’s schoolchildren may still be prowling the stationery aisles at Walmart and Target, hunting for the same old glue sticks, notebooks, and pencils. But their parents have an altogether new item on their school supply list this fall: the right to choose where their children go to school.

When COVID-era remote learning began in 2020, parents gained an unprecedented view inside their students’ classrooms and their counties’ school board meetings. What they saw—fraudulent, woke propaganda disguised as curricula; union-driven closures; punitive mask and vaccine mandates; and the Democratic Party’s crackdown on objections to any of the above—has changed the moral and political foundations on which our education system rests.

In the last two years, Americans’ trust in public schools fell more than a third, from 41% to 28% . More than 1.2 million children transferred out of U.S. public schools and into educational options not indentured to their zip code. A June poll by Real Clear Opinion found 71% of Americans favored school choice—the highest level of support ever recorded—and more than 80 % of parents said they would vote for candidates outside their party who share their education views.

And who can blame them?

>>> The Data Prove Education Choice Is a Winner for Students and Taxpayers

America’s schools were in crisis before the "Great Awokening" turned them into ideological indoctrination camps. The most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress, administered before the pandemic, found sharp declines in both reading and math test scores . (This, of course, is why wealthy parents have always exercised school choice; the policy debate is simply about whether everyone else should enjoy the same luxury.) Since then, two years of school closures led to learning loss and psychological damage much worse than public health officials assured us was possible.

Meanwhile, we now know why students cannot read, write, or add at grade-level proficiency. The traditional “Three Rs” have been replaced by the racist, pornographic, anti-American, anti-science, ahistorical religion known as “wokeism.” Manifested first as predatory propaganda like the 1619 Project and radical gender ideology, it has since justified brazen abuses of power by principals, school boards, and bureaucracies.

Today, the education system openly discriminates against Asian students. Female student-athletes are under attack by transgender extremists who pretend it’s fair for boys to compete against women. Schools secretly encourage gender-confused students to transition socially and hide it from their parents. In Loudoun County, Virginia, authorities covered up the rape of a female student in the girls’ bathroom by a male student who dressed like a girl, then arrested the victim’s father for protesting the fact at the school board’s next meeting. The Biden administration accelerated this crackdown by directing the FBI to open “domestic terrorism” investigations … against the parents !

This underperforming and treacherous status quo—for which the government charges taxpayers $770 billion per year—is what parents are waking up to. But just as wars are not won by evacuations, policy battles are not won by opponents’ self-immolation. The school choice moment is not a victory, just an opportunity. Capitalizing on it will require bold leaders who aren’t content to sit back and hope that wins will be handed to them.

To defeat a movement willing to cover up sexual assaults, mutilate vulnerable children, and celebrate racism, we must fight. And the record shows that when we do, good things happen.

Arizona, which is by no means a deep red state, recently passed the most sweeping school choice program in the country. It creates and funds an education savings account for every K-12 student in the state, making families who apply to the program eligible for up to $6,500 per student per year.

>>> Who Will Raise Children? Their Parents or the Bureaucratic Experts?

Blue Virginia elected a Republican governor on the strength of his anti-woke, pro-parent education agenda. This summer, Gov. Glenn Youngkin rescued the state’s school choice program from Democratic legislators bent on cutting it.

Tennessee is restarting major ESA pilot programs previously stalled by court challenges.

And this winning streak has happened within the eight weeks since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down anti-school choice policies that discriminated against religious schools .

At this moment, parents are ready to fight. Students deserve a champion. All that is needed are political leaders willing to lead. The hypocritical enemies of school choice—the Democratic politicians, teachers union elites, and media propagandists who send their own children to private schools—will continue standing in the schoolhouse doors until they are, at long last, removed.

https://www.heritage.org/education/commentary/now-or-never-we-must-seize-the-school-choice-moment?utm_source=THF_Email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=TheAgenda&mkt_tok=ODI0LU1IVC0zMDQAAAGGiHMNtrwpTDDdzFojWO_GjZYfTiCadkuuAOwZRZWtzfBkjX5aiFMjpEkpYQi0DHpzbp7GAimKUj1cgD9T-Huz-1u4weyI1oeEkoBtcG1nxetJ5w

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The new “national teacher shortage” is neither new nor national

The narrative goes as follows. America is suffering from a nationwide teacher shortage. Stresses from the pandemic and the culture war have brought the profession to a tipping point. Teachers are leaving in droves. Some districts are offering five-­figure bonuses in an effort to recruit. Florida is allowing military veterans without the usually required qualification of a bachelor’s degree to teach while taking college classes. Some rural schools are resorting to four­-day weeks.

These stories are true. Some schools and subjects are facing desperate shortages. But the problem is hardly national and certainly not new.

National data on teacher vacancies are hard to come by, but researchers from Kansas State University and the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign gathered information from state education departments and news media. Among the 18 states with vacancy information for the past school year, only three (Alabama, Mississippi and West Virginia) needed to fill 5% or more of teaching positions. A shortage of teachers exists, but not nationwide.

States that have historically invested in public education face fewer labour problems. New Jersey ranks high on many measures—test scores, per­pupil spending, graduation rates—and was fully staffed last year. Alabama ranks low on achievement (it comes 49th on national maths scores, for example). It needed to fill over 3,000 vacancies last year, about 7% of its teaching positions. Its troubles have continued into the current school year.

Typically hard-­to­-staff areas and subjects continue to experience short supply. A government survey in June found that 47% of schools needed to fill a vacancy in special education, compared with only 11% in physical education. Non­white schools and those in areas of high poverty face more pressure to hire than whiter and richer schools, and they have struggled with teacher shortages for decades.

This problem is not new. But for some states it is getting worse. In 2021­-22, Mississippi needed to fill 3,036 of its posts (nearly 10% of its staff). Three years before, it needed 1,063 teachers.

As usual, the shortage is largely confined to certain areas and subjects. Yet recently it has been perceived as a broader problem. America faces a “catastrophic” teacher shortage, according to the Washington Post; schools “across the us” are facing shortages, declared a Fox News banner; it’s “like dog­-eat­-dog” when scrambling to hire teachers, claimed a headline in the Wall Street Journal.

Some of the hysteria may stem from teacher surveys: 74% of educators were dissatisfied with their jobs in June, according to a survey by the American Federation of Teachers, the country’s second­-largest teachers’ union. In February, a survey by the National Education Association, America’s largest labour union, estimated that 55% of teachers were considering leaving. But there is a difference between intending to leave and actually doing so.

No national consensus exists on how to define a teacher shortage. A school may have enough teachers for each pupil, but is it experiencing a teacher shortage if it cannot find one for a new music course? If an administrator is teaching one class, does that indicate a shortage or is the administrator simply doing her job? Is a district in trouble if it is unable to staff 3% of its positions? How about 1%?

The narrative of shortage is politically expedient for education activists on both sides. Democrats, whose supporters favour spending more on public schools than Republicans, point to massive teaching shortages as proof that public schools are underfunded. “The problem is that we don’t invest in our workforce,” says Cecily Myart­-Cruz, the president of United Teachers Los Angeles, a labour union. “You have the most educated workforce in the nation. Educators have the most advanced degree, but they cannot have a liveable wage.” This week teachers in Columbus, Ohio, went on strike for better working conditions. School workers in Philadelphia may strike next week.

But conservatives use the nationwide narrative for their own purposes, too. They point to the supposed shortage as proof that the entire state-school system is failing. They push for lowering teaching­-cer­tification standards and removing teachers’ unions. And they say privatisation provides an answer. “We need to stop throwing good money after bad and rethink k­12 education,” say Keri Ingraham and Christos Makridis of the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think-­tank, in a commentary for the Washington Times. “With the teach­er­-shortage crisis at hand, there is a timely opportunity to adjust the system.”

In truth, the schools that are currently struggling to hire teachers are the usual suspects. Nationwide, public schools are doing quite well: most pupils will have a teacher, and overall family satisfaction with their child’s school will probably stay high this year as in past years. The problems remain where the problems tend to exist—in the underfunded schools serving the neediest pupils.

https://blendle.com/i/the-economist/a-touch-of-class/bnl-economist-20220826-0d14279bbe4?sharer=eyJ2ZXJzaW9uIjoiMSIsInVpZCI6ImpvbmpheXJheSIsIml0ZW1faWQiOiJibmwtZWNvbm9taXN0LTIwMjIwODI2LTBkMTQyNzliYmU0In0%3D

29 August, 2022

Conservatives Sweep School Board Races Across Florida

School boards in five Florida counties flipped to conservative majorities Tuesday with help from the endorsements of Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican.

Miami-Dade County, Sarasota County, Duval County, Martin County, and Clay County held school board elections. The conservative school board candidates in the five counties won their races, resulting in a flip in the majority on these school boards.

April Carney, endorsed by DeSantis, narrowly defeated incumbent Elizabeth Andersen, who was backed by Duval Teachers United and the Duval County Democratic Party, according to First Coast News. A video of Andersen calling a black conservative mom a “token person” surfaced on Aug. 14, sparking backlash from the mom and her attorney.

Roberto Alonso of Miami-Dade County was appointed to the school board in 2020 by DeSantis and defeated his two opponents, claiming an open seat on the board, according to the Miami Herald. Monica Colucci, endorsed by DeSantis, beat incumbent Marta Perez.

Tim Enos, Robyn Marinelli, and Bridget Ziegler all claimed a seat to the Sarasota County school board on election night, the Herald Tribune reported. All three candidates were endorsed by DeSantis.

Amy Pritchett, the co-chair of the local chapter of Moms For Liberty, a group that focuses on increasing parents’ involvement in their students’ education, won a seat on the Martin County school board by 337 votes, according to Treasure Coast Newspapers. Jennifer Russell was endorsed by DeSantis and won her race, claiming 56.26% of the vote.

Clay County’s Erin Skipper, endorsed by DeSantis, won 55% of the vote to win a seat on the school board, the First Coast News reported. Ashley Hutchings Gilhousen was up for reelection and claimed 69% of the vote.

The 1776 Project PAC, a group focused on school board elections and ending critical race theory, endorsed Carney, Alonso, Colucci, Ziegler, Enos, Marinelli, Pritchett, Russell, Skipper, and Gilhousen.

“The 1776 Project PAC worked to reach out to Republicans who typically vote in presidential elections but miss these important off cycle elections,” Aiden Buzzetti, head of coalitions and candidate recruitment for the 1776 Project PAC, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “By increasing voter turnout and focusing on the issues happening at their local school board, we were able to move voters to the ballot box to cast their vote for conservatives.”

Moms For Liberty did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment. DeSantis’ office pointed the Daily Caller News Foundation to a Tuesday press release that called the governor’s interventions “the most significant effort by a governor to endorse, train and invest in school board candidates across the nation.”

https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/08/24/conservatives-sweep-school-board-races-across-florida

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UK: Teenagers with Covid-inflated GCSE grades ‘struggle with A-Levels’

Some teenagers are struggling on A-Level courses that are too difficult for them after they got inflated GCSE results last year, the head of a London college group warned.

Sam Parrett, group principal of London South East Colleges, said more 16 year olds stayed on at school sixth form last year after getting better grades than they expected, but too many are now on courses that may not be “the best choice for them.”

Grades spiralled during the pandemic after they were decided on by teachers. But this year’s GCSE results, released on Thursday, are expected to show a drop in the number of top grades after students took exams for the first time in three years.

Dr Parrett said around 200 fewer 16 to 18 year old students enrolled at London South East Colleges, which has campuses in Bromley, Bexley and Greenwich, last year which is a drop of five per cent and the first decrease for ten years.

There was also a large reduction of more than 600 fewer students needing to retake GCSE maths and English when they started their college courses.

Dr Parrett said: “[The drop in numbers] is likely to be the result of school leavers achieving higher grades through the teacher assessed grades system than they were perhaps expecting to. They then chose to stay at their school sixth form to take up A Levels, rather than moving to college to pursue a more vocational route.”

She added: “This has inevitably led to some students struggling on academic A-Level courses that perhaps weren’t the best choice for them, their interests or their abilities – made even worse by the significant period of lost learning they experienced due to Covid.”

She called on students who get lower grades than expected on results day to consider vocational courses. She said: “Our message for young people and their families expecting results [on Thursday] is to please not worry. There are so many options at Further Education colleges like ours to gain qualifications that will lead you directly into higher education and into great employment.”

GCSEs are graded from 9 to 1 in England with 7 the equivalent of a low A and a 4 to a C. Experts have predicted that about a quarter of a million fewer GCSEs will reach at least a grade 4 which is considered a pass mark, compared with last year. This will still be about 260,000 more than in 2019 when exams were last taken.

Lee Elliot Major, Professor of Social Mobility at the University of Exeter, said: “The impact on their lives of not having this now-accepted standard pass will be significant because it often means they leave school without having enough basic functional skills and the qualifications needed by employers.

“My research shows teachers identify those likely to struggle to get to grade 4 level during their early years of education, yet too many of these children fail to progress.”    The NSPCC said there has been a 20 per cent rise in the number of 16, 17 and 18 year olds phoning Childline because of worries about exam results this year compared to last year.

Shaun Friel, Childline Director, said: “Most students receiving their GCSE results this year will have had little to no experience of sitting an exam in a formal setting, particularly as there’s been a lot of uncertainty on whether these exams would even take place.”

https://au.yahoo.com/news/teenagers-covid-inflated-gcse-grades-051233448.html

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School districts move to ease teacher stress, burnout

With Prince’s “Raspberry Beret” blaring in the background, about 20 New Hampshire educators grabbed wooden sticks and began pounding their tables to the beat.

Emily Daniels, who was leading a two-day workshop on burnout, encouraged the group including teachers, school counselors, occupational therapists and social workers to stand up inside a hotel conference room. Before long, the group was banging on walls and whatever else they could find. Laughter filled the air. A few started dancing.

“Rhythm making offers the body a different kind of predictability that you can do every single day,” said Daniels, a former school counselor who created The Regulated Classroom which trains teachers on how to manage their own nervous system and, in turn, reduce stress in the classroom.

The training session is part of a growing and, some would say long overdue, effort to address the strains on educators' mental health.

Addressing the mental health challenges of students coming out of the pandemic has emerged as a priority for schools nationwide. Many districts, facing hiring challenges, see tending to the educators as a way to help them help students and to retain them, amid stressors that range from behavioral problems to fears of shootings.

School districts have provided increased mental health training for staff, classroom support as well as resources and systems aimed at identifying burned out teachers and getting instructors connected to help.

Karen Bowden-Gurley, a fifth grade teacher, said she attended the New Hampshire training because of teacher burnout, but she also feels student burnout.

“The demands on all of us were really high and we were trying to make up for lost time for the couple of years that they fell back on their curriculum. But we forgot that they haven’t been in school for a couple of years so they missed that social-emotional piece. We are dealing with that in the classroom.”

In a survey by the Rand Corporation, twice as many principals and teachers reported frequent job-related stress as other working adults. A study from a coalition of mental health organizations of New Orleans found educators working during the pandemic reported rates of emotional distress similar to health care workers — 36% screened positive for anxiety, 35% for depression and 19% for post-traumatic stress syndrome.

“It’s all pretty bad,” said Leigh McLean, the primary investigator at the Teacher Emotions, Characteristics, and Health Lab at the University of Delaware School of Education, who has found levels of depression, anxiety and emotional exhaustion among elementary school teachers that are 100% to 400% higher than before the pandemic.

She saw those issues increasing the most among early career teachers and teachers of color.

“So it seems like the patterns among teachers are mirroring inequities that we’re seeing in the general population with underrepresented groups being hit the hardest, which is really unfortunate,” she said.

Some districts have or are planning to invest federal COVID-19 relief money in teacher mental health, seeing it as a way to also improve the classroom environment, boost retention and ultimately benefit the students themselves. Among the states singling out teacher mental health as priorities are Nebraska and Pennsylvania.

The Atlanta school district launched a service with Emory University using federal funds to provide mental health services. Dubbed Urgent Behavioral Health Response, it funds 11 clinicians from Emory who provide emotional and behavioral assistance during school hours for struggling school employees.

A Delaware district, meanwhile, hired two social and emotional learning coaches who work to address problems teachers are having in the classroom.

“If you can imagine a teacher has a classroom where students are engaged, they are helping each other and there is a positive supportive culture, their job satisfaction is likely to be higher,” Jon Cooper, the director of the Colonial School District’s health and wellness division. “They are less likely to leave the profession, and in turn, that supports their well being.”

Houston, which started building calming rooms where students can go to decompress, is hoping to do the same for teachers, according to Sean Ricks, the Houston Independent School District’s senior manager of crisis intervention, noting that he has seen a “significant rise in teachers that were in distress.”

The rooms would be different from the traditional teacher break rooms and a place where teachers could go during time off to “calm down and chill out,” Ricks said, adding they could have “could have some aromatherapy, maybe some soft music.”

“We want them to be able to understand that we have to take mindfulness breaks and self-care breaks during the academic day sometimes,” Ricks said.

An elementary school in Indiana starts the week with Mindful Mondays, where teachers guide their classes in deep breathing techniques. There are also Thoughtful Thursdays, where a student is called on to write a letter to a staff member to show appreciation, and Friday Focus, when students and teachers talk about self-care.

“My teachers know when they need to take breaks throughout the day I want them to take those breaks,” said Allison Allen-Lenzo, the principal at O’Bannon Elementary School.

A growing number of groups offer training that incorporates breathing exercises, yoga, gentle movements and meditation.

https://au.yahoo.com/news/school-districts-move-ease-teacher-111356945.html

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My other blogs: Main ones below

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

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

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

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

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

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28 August, 2022

UK: 'Snowflake' secondary school refuses to publish GCSE results because 'ALL pupils should be celebrated'

Parents have blasted a 'snowflake' secondary school after its 'woke' headteacher decided not to publish GCSE results this year because 'all pupils should be celebrated'.

It comes after schools up and down the country publicly revealed the exam results of their pupils, as has always traditionally been the case. 

But Uppingham Community College, in Rutland, say they are celebrating an 'exceptional' set of GCSE results despite two years of disruption due to the Covid pandemic.

The college has refused to release headline figures of what pupils have achieved due to the 'unlevel playing field' in education during this period.

The mixed secondary, which caters for 900 pupils between 11-16, has also decided not to promote pupils who have achieved the highest grades.

Headteacher Ben Solly defended the decision saying 'all pupils should be celebrated for their achievements' and comparing results with previous years would be 'irrelevant'.

He added: 'During the past two to three years there has not been a level playing field in education.

'Young people, their families and school communities have faced unique situations which make any comparisons between schools, or results from previous years, invalid and irrelevant.

'We have chosen not to make such publications today because we strongly believe that all pupils should be celebrated for their individual achievements.

'Each and every pupils will have faced their own challenges, barriers and set-backs, and we are immensely proud of all of them for persevering and doing their very best regardless of the obstacles they faced.

'It is easy to forget that the last 'normal' school year this cohort received was when they were in Year 8 in 2018 to 19.

'Thankfully we pulled together and ensured our pupils received an excellent education throughout this period, this is reflected in the very high standards pupils have achieved in their GCSE exams.'

However the decision not to publicise the GCSE results drew a mixed response from parents on social media who accused the school of 'pandering to the woke brigade'.

One mum said: 'Here we go again, yet another example of an institution pandering to the woke brigade.

How GCSEs were graded across the UK? 

Students received their GCSE results on Thursday, having sat exams for the first time in two years due to the pandemic.

Grading is different in England, compared with Northern Ireland and Wales.

In England, traditional A* to G grades were replaced in recent years with a 9 to 1 system, with 9 being the highest mark.

In general, a grade 7-9 is roughly equivalent to A-A*, while a grade 4 and above is roughly equivalent to a C and above.

Traditional A*-G grades are still used in Northern Ireland and Wales.

Similar to the pattern with A-level results, published last week, results dropped below last year's levels, but remain above those from 2019.

This year, exams were graded more generously in a bid to provide a safety net for students in the move back towards pre-pandemic arrangements.

'Wrapping everyone up in cotton wool and telling them they are all equally brilliant. What a joke.'

Another added: 'I feel for those who have worked hard to get the best grades and won't get public recognition now due to some PC nonsense.'

A third wrote: 'Just heard Uppingham School are not publicizing (sic) their GCSE results - welcome to snowflake Britain 2022.'

Another put: 'Why doesn't this surprise me anymore. Probably trying not to offend the low-achievers to avoid any upset. Stop this pampering, they are nearly adults now.'

However one person added: 'He has a point, these last two years have been like no other so to compare them to previous years is unfair. Well done everyone.'

And another said: 'There has been a lot of disruption during this period so I can see why. Each pupil knows how they have done and that's all that really matters.'

GCSE results were released at 8am on Thursday morning and as expected, this year's pass rate had fallen since 2021, but remain higher than pre-pandemic levels.

Results this year were expected to be significantly lower as grade inflation due to the pandemic comes to an end. 

Exams this year were graded more generously following on from two years of teacher-based marks in a bid to provide a safety net for students in the move back towards pre-pandemic arrangements.  

Overall GCSE results are higher than in 2019, with outcomes at grade 7 and above at 26.0% compared with 20.6% in 2019, and outcomes at grade 4 and above at 73.0% compared with 67.0% in 2019.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11146179/Snowflake-secondary-school-refuses-publish-GCSE-marks-pupils-celebrated.html

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Missouri school district reinstates corporal punishment after parents called for their kids to be spanked with a wooden paddle

A Missouri school district has reinstated corporal punishment after parents reportedly called for their kids to be spanked with a wooden paddle, the superintendent claimed. 

Cassville R-IV School District, located near the Arkansas border, has implemented corporal punishment as a 'last resort' going into the 2022-23 school year. 

'It shall be used only when all other alternative means of discipline have failed,' the policy reads. 'It should never be inflicted in the presence of other students.' 

The punishment technique - which is legal in 19 states - will only be administered in front of a witness and will not cause 'bodily injury or harm.' 

Superintendent Merlyn Johnson, 47, claimed parents were asking the school district 'why can't you paddle my student?' and they had received several requests to reinstate the decades-old policy. 

'There had been a conversation with parents and there had been requests from parents for us to look into it,' he told the Springfield News-Leader. 'We've had people actually thank us for it. 

Older students whose parents opt-in could receive up to three spanks per punishment, while younger scholars will receive one to two spanks. Staff members will be able to employ 'reasonable physical force,' but it does not explicitly explain how it will be measured and whether or not all staff members will be allowed to hit students. 

'Surprisingly, those on social media would probably be appalled to hear us say these things, but the majority of people that I've run into have been supportive,' he claimed. 

In an August 2022 letter to parents, Johnson explained that the policy change was simply to give 'principals one more disciplinary option before students receive more serious punishment. such as suspensions.' 

Parents must review and sign an opt-in form if they 'wish to authorize corporal punishment' for their child.   

DailyMail.com has reached out to board members, the superintendent, and other staff members for comment. 

Some parents are unhappy with the decision, stating they would prefer in-school or out-of-school suspension rather than physical punishment. 

'We live in a really small community where people were raised a certain way and they’re kind of blanketed in that fact that they grew up having discipline and swats,' parent Miranda Waltrip told Ozarks First. 

'And so, for them, it’s like going back to the good old days but it’s not because it’s going to do more harm than good at the end of the day.' 

Kimberly Richardson agreed, stating: 'In-school suspension that would be fine with me, or even out of school suspensions. Those are just way better than corporal punishment.' 

However, Dylan Burns said he doesn't see a problem with the new policy, saying: 'No matter what you choose, I think you need to sit down with your kids and choose what’s best for you and your family.' 

Washington County Public Schools, in Alabama, also implemented corporal punishment and the former superintendent John Dickey told NBC 15 in 2020: '[For] most kids, it's effective.

'It’s a last resort before expulsion. So, it is serious by the time we use corporal punishment.' 

It was used 90 times in the 2018-19 school year, according to the school district, and most of the incident occurred at the high school level. 

Students were spanked 32 times at Fruitdale High School and 30 times at the Millry High School, according to NBC 15. 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11145765/MO-school-district-reinstates-corporal-punishment-parents-called-kids-spanked.html

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After Being Targeted by NBC News, Christian School Refuses to Back Down on Traditional Morality

Grace Christian School “fielded hundreds, probably thousands, of phone calls Thursday, Friday, over the weekend, with just some of the most outrageous things: People threatening to burn my house down, threatening to kill my family,” said Barry McKeen, school administrator and pastor of Grace Community Church of Valrico, Florida, which runs the school.

The threats came in reaction to an article by NBC News, which published several paragraphs of a June 6 email in which McKeen reiterated to school parents the school’s commitment to biblical sexuality.

“We believe that God created mankind in His image: male (man) and female (woman), sexually different but with equal dignity,” read the email, and continued:

Therefore, one’s biological sex must be affirmed, and no attempts should be made to physically change, alter, or disagree with one’s biological gender—including, but not limited to, elective sex reassignment, transvestite, transgender, or non-binary gender fluid acts of conduct (Genesis 1:26-28). Students in school will be referred to by the gender on their birth certificate and be referenced in name in the same fashion.

“We believe that any form of homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality, transgender identity/lifestyle, self-identification, bestiality, incest, fornication, adultery and pornography are sinful in the sight of God and the church (Genesis 2:24; Leviticus 18:1-30; Romans 1:26-29; I Corinthians 5:1; I Corinthians 6:9; I Thessalonians 4:2-7),” the email added. “Students who are found participating in these lifestyles will be asked to leave the school immediately.”

It’s a bit surprising that NBC News would choose to cite a robust defense of biblical sexuality so extensively. It must believe that every word is damning.

Indeed, to this apologetic, NBC felt it needed to only add quotes from three anonymous former students who essentially confirmed the email accurately reflected the school’s policies. One left the school for another which allowed her to “just be myself.” Another, who graduated, said her identity as transgender “was not something I could be open about.” A third, who also graduated, objected to chapel messages preaching against homosexuality.

In response, McKeen published a video address on Thursday night insisting that the school would not back away from its commitment to follow the Bible. “Why we were chosen for this experience, I do not know,” he said. “Almost every Christian school has such a policy.”

But McKeen did know one thing. “I don’t answer to NBC,” he explained. “I answer to God. And so, if a lot of people are mad at me, I’m sorry. I don’t like that they’re mad at me. But at the end of the day, I answer to God.”

McKeen said “many things in the article” were true. Grace Christian School does have “a policy that does not allow students to [identify as] homosexuals or transgender.” But that’s because “they’re students. They’re young people. They shouldn’t be sexual at all. God condemns any sexual activity outside of marriage, and that’s also in the policy.” The policy didn’t single out LGBT identities; it also applied to heterosexual immorality.

“We have had these policies in our school since day No. 1, in the early 1970s,” said McKeen, who “has served in the church for 21 years.” He clearly explained that “God has spoken on those issues explicitly, aggressively.” There is no wiggle room. Therefore, “it is our policy now. It will be our policy going forward because … God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He does not change.”

But “some things” were “blatantly untrue” in the article, insisted McKeen—particularly an anonymous assertion in the NBC article that, during chapel hour, he “started yelling about how if you’re gay you’re going to hell.” McKeen responded, “I did not utter those words. The reason I know that is because that’s not my doctrinal position … nor the position of our church.”

“Any sin will condemn you to hell. And that’s why we need a savior,” McKeen explained. “One must come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. One must be born again. So, we teach our students, ‘We have to acknowledge our sin. We have to admit that sin to God. Then we have to understand and accept the free gift of salvation: that Jesus Christ died on the cross, was buried, and rose again.’ … To be saved, the sinner must call upon God and admit that sin.”

On the other hand, McKeen warned, “If you’re an unrepentant sinner … you’ll be separated from God for all time and eternity.”

McKeen also responded to NBC’s emphasizing in the headline that Grace Christian School “asks gay and transgender students to leave,” noting that “we had one student, on one occasion, whose parents and us came to an agreement for them to be withdrawn. And that’s about it. … Did the school and the atmosphere make them uncomfortable? I would think that a school that’s standing for biblical values is going to be discomforting to somebody who is not.”

The students mentioned in the article “were loved by this school,” he added. “We’re not hateful people.”

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’s sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you,” said Jesus (Mat. 5:10-12).

Even if NBC and others call them hateful, McKeen promised the school would not abandon its biblical convictions.

“If anybody ever came to me—any entity with the power to do so—and said, ‘Do this, change this policy, or your doors can’t open,’ then our doors would remain closed,” he said. “We believe the Bible from cover to cover. We’re not going to change.”

“This is a private, Christian school,” McKeen explained. That means they don’t have to conform to the values of public education or the secular, religious indoctrination infused in public schools. “Parents choose to send their kids to the school,” he said, because that’s the type of education they want for their children.

McKeen admitted “it’s not for everybody,” but if someone doesn’t agree with their values, they have plenty of other schools to choose from, and there are plenty of other families waiting to take their place. But “in Christian schools, you would find almost the exact same policy”; in many, it’s “the exact same wording.”

After the barrage of threats, parents with children enrolled in the school showed up to the church on Sunday morning, even if that wasn’t the church they regularly attended. Well-wishers from around the county donated to the school, including one who attached a note to his $5,000 check, reading, “Stay strong, keep the faith.”

As millions of students have abandoned public schools since the pandemic began, leftist elites are desperate to disparage Christian schools and other alternative forms of education beyond their control. Yet private Christian schools still offer a positive alternative to a public education system drowning in its own wokeness.

Grace Christian School currently has a waitlist of more than 100 students. Lengthy waitlists indicate that the demand for a Christian education far outstrips the supply. That’s why Family Research Council’s senior fellow for biblical worldview and strategic engagement, Joseph Backholm, argues that “every church should start a Christian school.”

Public schools used to teach shared values and basic education skills, and that was acceptable for many parents. But now that public schools are abandoning the fundamentals and increasingly embracing woke indoctrination, many Christian parents are rediscovering there is no such thing as value-neutral education. Instead, they are increasingly embracing education based on explicitly biblical values.

“These words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children,” (Deuteronomy 6:6-7).

Christian schools that stand firm on biblical values are an increasingly attractive option for doing so.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/08/25/god-has-spoken-church-run-school-stands-firm-amid-death-threats/

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My other blogs: Main ones below

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

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

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

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

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

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26 August, 2022

Key Obama Official Shreds Biden's 'Reckless' Student Debt Cancellation: 'Everyone Else Will Pay for This'

The Harvard professor who headed the Council of Economic Advisers during the Obama administration torched President Joe Biden’s student loan debt cancellation on Wednesday, calling it “reckless.”

“Everyone else will pay for this either in the form of higher inflation or in higher taxes or lower benefits in the future,” Jason Furman tweeted as part of a long thread on the subject.

Biden announced Wednesday that Pell Grant recipients with loans held by the Department of Education are eligible for $20,000 in student loan debt cancellation, while non-Pell recipients could get $10,000 of their debt canceled.

Anyone with an income of less than $125,000 a year is eligible. Biden further said that the pause on repayment has been extended through Dec. 31.

Furman exploded about the move in a series of tweets.

“Pouring roughly half trillion dollars of gasoline on the inflationary fire that is already burning is reckless. Doing it while going well beyond one campaign promise ($10K of student loan relief) and breaking another (all proposals paid for) is even worse,” he wrote.

“The White House fact sheet has sympathetic examples about a construction worker making $38K and a married nurse making $77,000 a year. But then why design a policy that would provide up to $40,000 to a married couple making $249,000? Why include law and business school students?”

“Those examples also contradict the baseline some have concocted to claim that this won’t raise inflation. The claim it won’t raise inflation is based on the construction worker going from permanently paying $0 interest to paying $31 a month at an annual cost of $372,” Furman continued.

Furman said the White House is defying rationality in touting the plan.

“You can’t use one baseline (interest payments suspended) to argue this will constrain demand & then a different baseline (interest payments restored) to describe the benefits. That is incoherent, inconsistent & indefensible cherry picking–I hope the White House doesn’t do it,” he wrote.

“There are a number of other highly problematic impacts including encouraging higher tuition in the future, encouraging more borrowing, creating expectations of future debt forgiveness, and more,” he added.

Furman also said it wasn’t clear to him that the president has the power to unilaterally forgive student loan debt.

“Even if technically legal I don’t like this amount of unilateral Presidential power,” he wrote.

Even before the plan was announced, former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers had opposed the idea on Twitter.

“Every dollar spent on student loan relief is a dollar that could have gone to support those who don’t get the opportunity to go to college,” he wrote on Monday.

“Student loan debt relief is spending that raises demand and increases inflation. It consumes resources that could be better used helping those who did not, for whatever reason, have the chance to attend college. It will also tend to be inflationary by raising tuitions.

https://thefederalistpapers.org/us/key-obama-official-shreds-bidens-reckless-student-debt-cancellation-everyone-else-will-pay

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Harvard Loses Big Thanks to Woke Investments, About to Be Beat by Oil-Drilling University of Texas

Harvard is a leader in woke investing by eschewing investments in fossil fuels, gun makers and other stocks, companies and funds it feels fail the liberal litmus test, but because of this policy, its investment portfolio is losing big time.

Meanwhile, in stark contrast, the University of Texas is raking in huge profits by selling oil drilling leases on land it owns and has made so much money that it rivals the much richer and older Harvard in revenue.

In a recent report on the oil revenue being earned by the University of Texas (UT), Bloomberg noted that the school owns 2.1 million acres in the Permian Basin situated in the Lone Star State.

UT’s land, “almost the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined,” is being leased to more than 250 drilling operations, including ConocoPhillips and Continental Resources, Inc., and the drilling leases are bringing a bounty to the school.

Bloomberg reported that the land is set to “post its best-ever annual revenue in fiscal 2022.” Much of this is due to the high prices of oil, of course.

Bloomberg added that “oil reached a high of $120 a barrel earlier this year as a result of a war-induced energy crunch. The revenue is expected to help narrow the gap between the Texas system’s $42.9 billion endowment and Harvard’s $53.2 billion as of June 2021.”

“The University of Texas has a cash windfall when everyone is looking at a potential cash crunch,” William Goetzmann, a professor of finance and management studies at Yale University’s School of Management, told Bloomberg. “Adjusting your portfolio for social concerns is not costless.”

Without a doubt, the millions that UT is earning from its oil drilling program will keep the school in cash for decades to come and will help the school weather any lean times, at least for a while.

In fact, UT has come close to toppling the Ivy League easterners in investments, Bloomberg wrote. Harvard’s “annualized 10-year returns as of June 2021 are among the lowest of its peers in the eight-school Ivy League, according to Bloomberg data.” But Texas is swimming in returns.

“The University of Texas System last overtook Yale’s endowment in 2018 as the second-richest US university because of rising oil prices,” Bloomberg reported, adding that UT has topped Harvard’s fellow Ivy League school, Yale.

UT is not banking solely on revenue from its vast oil fields, granted. It also has heavy investments in wind and solar power facilities. But right now, oil is bringing in dividends.

Naturally, being a left-wing outlet, Bloomberg did its best to undermine UT by blaming it for helping fuel the climate crisis with its investments.

Bloomberg gave space in its UT story to the climate change alarmist group named Environment Texas, whose representative told Bloomberg, “This is money that’s helping to fuel the climate crisis. I think that many students and faculty don’t know where the money is coming from. And when they find out, I think they will be shocked and very much opposed to this dirty money. It’s not something we should be celebrating.”

Whatever it is or isn’t, UT’s oil concerns are bringing millions in dividends.

Ultra-rich Harvard, on the other hand, has not been so fortunate. Its $53.2 billion endowment as of last year may seem massive, but it could have been so much more if not for its woke investing policy.

In June, the Harvard Crimson newspaper said that 41 of the 44 companies that Harvard’s investment arm, the Harvard Management Co., has thrown the school’s cash at have lost money in the first quarter of 2022. As a result, the IBL News reported, Harvard saw a decline of 43 percent in its stock portfolio during that quarter.

Worse, that first quarter decline is no outlier. In a report from last year, the Crimson told its readers that Harvard Management Co. has underperformed for the last 12 years in a row, and its investment policies left millions unearned. So, despite the outrageous base of over $50,000 a year for tuition, and its humongous $53 billion endowment, the school’s investment policies have actually hurt it.

Harvard is certainly not “broke” by any means. However, its policies prove the veracity to the idea that going woke eventually means going broke.

https://thefederalistpapers.org/us/harvard-loses-big-thanks-woke-investments-beat-oil-drilling-university-texas

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Welcome mat for Indian students in Australian universities

The higher education sector is pushing Labor to ­lure thousands more Indian students with cheaper visas and ­easier working arrangements to secure the nation’s stake in a ­market set to produce 500 million graduates and undergraduates by 2035.

Education Minister Jason Clare is holding rolling talks this week with his Indian counterpart Dharmendra Pradhan to tick off on key parts of the interim free-trade deal struck between the two countries in April, boost research collaboration and get more ­Indian students enrolled in Australian universities.

As universities try to diversify their foreign student intake and wean themselves off a decade-long overreliance on the Chinese market, the number of Indian students granted a visa almost doubled between June and July, from just over 3000 to close to 6000 as visa backlogs were worked through by the Home Affairs ­Department following a boost to staff under Labor.

Mr Clare said on Monday a “relatively small number of ­Indian students” studied in Australia, with 59,000 currently ­enrolled – 5500 of whom were offshore. “India has a challenge of another magnitude … the sheer scale of training half a billion young Indian students is enormous,” he said.

Education Minister Jason Clare. Picture: Gary Ramage

Education Minister Jason Clare. Picture: Gary Ramage

“I think I can confidently speak for Australian universities … that we’re keen to work with (India) to help implement that bold agenda.”

Mr Pradhan said his government wanted to “take the best practice of higher education of Australia to India”.

“A lot of Indian-origin students are coming to Australia for higher education … India is thankful to you for that,” he said.

While pushing for Australia to take up the “opportunity” of ­attracting more Indian students, Mr Clare said there were only so many places available.

“There’s a lot more we can do to help in the implementation of India’s education plan in India ­itself, either universities setting up campuses in India like the University of Wollongong is intending to do, or also the opportunity to provide courses online,” he said. But chief executive of the powerful Group of Eight, Vicki Thomson, warned fewer Indian students had taken up studying online during Covid compared to cohorts in China.

Ms Thomson said Australia was facing “stiff competition” in the international education market from Britain, the US and ­Canada, and raised the need for a high potential visa that would target graduates in areas of workforce need and encourage them into employment once they ­graduated.

“Our engagement with India, the world’s fastest-growing economy, is critical to the future ­success of our sector,” she said. “Building on our strong bilateral relationship with India in the higher education and research sector will be mutually beneficial to both nations.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/smooth-passage-from-india-higher-education-sector/news-story/f7b23c4ae515f359d88253d655878748

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My other blogs: Main ones below

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

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

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

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

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

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25 August, 2022

Biden’s inflation-boosting, unfair and legally dubious student loan scheme

President Joe Biden’s plan to “cancel” federal student loans might sound great to loan-holders and progressives, but it shows how little he cares about everyone else — such as those who’ll be picking up the bill or hit by increased inflation.

The plan would have taxpayers foot the bill for up to $20,000 per loan in outstanding Pell Grant balances and $10,000 for other debt. The price tag: a whopping $330 billion (about $2,000 per taxpayer) over 10 years, per the universally respected Penn Wharton Budget Model.

This spending wipes out (and more) all the deficit-reduction that Democrats claim they achieved in their “Inflation Reduction” law, and also throws another $330 billion worth of gasoline on the inflation fire — which Dems ignited with their $1.9 trillion “rescue” plan last year.

The prez plainly cares more about the votes of progressives (and college kids) than poor and middle-class Americans suffering under 9% price hikes.

It’s a giveaway to college grads (including law- and business-school grads!), while truck drivers, waitresses and janitors who couldn’t afford college, as well as students who struggled to pay off their loans without federal help, will pay. How is that fair?

On top of everything, forgiveness will only encourage colleges to raise tuitions more, knowing students will just borrow more and expect the loans to get canceled again later.

The scheme is also legally dubious. The Department of Education itself said last year that it doesn’t “have the statutory authority to cancel, compromise, discharge, or forgive, on a blanket or mass basis, principal balances of student loans.” Speaker Nancy Pelosi echoed that, saying loan forgiveness “has to be an act of Congress,” even as she questioned the fairness of you “paying taxes to forgive somebody else’s obligations.”

Of course, she’s hedging now: “We didn’t know what authority the president had to do this. And now clearly, it seems he has the authority.” (It’s a miracle!)

In fact, it’s supposedly somehow legalized by . . . emergency pandemic powers!

In rolling out his plan Wednesday, the prez stumbled through yet another of his rambling yarns, this time about his dad being turned down for a loan for then-college-bound Joe’s tuition. That confused storytelling was a perfect frame for a plan that makes even less sense.

https://nypost.com/2022/08/24/bidens-inflation-boosting-unfair-and-legally-dubious-student-loan-scheme/

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California mom's civil rights lawsuit alleges 'social justice teacher' forced students to pick cotton

A mom sued the Los Angeles Unified School District in California last week after her daughter told her that a "social justice teacher… required students to ‘pick cotton’" as an educational tool about slavery, according to court documents.

In Oct. 2017, a mom named Rashunda Pitts became "bewildered" and "completely incensed" when she observed a "cotton field" at the Laurel Span School, court documents said. 

Before Pitts discovered what the lawsuit called the "Cotton Picking Project" at the school, she noticed that her daughter's mood changed. Her daughter then experienced "extreme emotional distress," including anxiety and depression, when she thinks about the project, the lawsuit said.

The mom said her daughter told her that other students were told to "pick cotton," and the lawsuit alleged the district violated her daughter's civil rights. 

Upon discovering the "Cotton Picking Project," the mom spoke with the assistant principal Brian Wisniewski, who said that the "cotton field was planted so that the students could have a ‘real life experience’ of what is was like to be a slave by ‘picking cotton,'" court documents alleged.

Fox News Digital reached out to the California district for comment, and they said, "Los Angeles Unified does not typically comment on pending or ongoing litigation."

The district previously said in a statement after local media covered the story in that the "Cotton Picking Project" was "an instructional activity in the garden at Laurel School was construed as culturally insensitive," according to the lawsuit.

"Tending to the garden where a variety of fruits, vegetables and other plants grow is a school-wide tradition that has been in place for years and has never been used as a tool to re-enact historical events," the statement said. 

"When school administrators became aware of a parent’s concern about the cotton plant, they responded immediately by removing the plant."

https://www.foxnews.com/media/california-civil-rights-lawsuit-social-justice-teacher-forced-students-pick-cotton

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Christian schools fear closure if West Australian  discrimination laws strengthened

The peak body representing Christian schools has “grave concerns” schools will close if new laws dramatically reducing their ability to preference staff and students of faith go ahead.

Last week, Attorney-General John Quigley announced broad support for 163 recommendations to improve the state’s anti-discrimination laws following a Law Reform Commission of WA review of the outdated Equal Opportunity Act.

One of the key reforms is an “inherent requirement test” that will force religious schools to prove religious belief or activity is an essential requirement of the job.

Australian Association of Christian Schools executive officer Vanessa Cheng said that change would make it difficult for religious schools to employ staff and preference families in enrolment who shared the beliefs of the school.

“The Christian school model requires that all staff, from the principal to the music teacher, share and practice the faith of the school community,” she said. “We believe this provides the best, holistic learning environment for our students.

“Parents who choose to enrol their children in our schools want an education based on Christian values, which the state school system can no longer provide, and these changes are trying to squeeze faith out of our schools too.

“Surely it is not for the government to determine how a Christian school should be a Christian school?”

Under existing legislation it is lawful for private religious schools in WA, including those receiving taxpayer funding, to sack lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer staff, expel LGBTIQ students, and refuse to enrol children of same-sex parents.

The current law also means religious schools can discriminate against staff who are unmarried parents or living together out of wedlock.

Quigley said the new Act would bring WA into line with other jurisdictions, including Victoria, which introduced changes to its Equal Opportunity Act in June in a bid to ensure a fairer balance between the right to religious freedom and the right to be free from discrimination.

One of the key reforms in both states is strengthening equal opportunity protections for LGBTIQ staff and students in religious schools.

“Since WA’s nation-leading anti-discrimination laws were first introduced, community expectations regarding discrimination have progressed and WA now lags behind most other jurisdictions,” Quigley said.

“This is not about granting additional rights to any one group of people, but ensuring all Western Australians are free from discrimination, harassment, vilification and victimisation.

“Whilst still subject to drafting and further consideration, it is our ambition that the new Bill will achieve a balance between the rights and interests of a wide variety of Western Australians and ensure that employers are not unnecessarily burdened with complex legislation.”

But Cheng has called on the state government to push back against some recommendations. “Unless the government pushes back, it will be very difficult to operate a Christian school according to Christian principles and beliefs once they become law,” she said.

“The sign of a mature and tolerant society is allowing challenging and thought-provoking ideas in the areas of religion, science and the arts to thrive; suppressing religious expression only robs society of its diversity and richness.”

Equality Australia legal director Ghassan Kassisieh said every teacher or staff member should be confident that they are treated fairly by their employer, and judged only by their capacity to fulfil their role.

“The Law Reform Commission recommended reforms would ensure religious schools and organisations play by the same rules as others,” he said.

“By narrowing the carve-outs which currently allow discrimination against LGBTIQA+ staff, students and service users, the laws would bring the practice of religious schools and organisations in line with 21st century community expectations.”

https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/western-australia/christian-schools-fear-closure-if-wa-discrimination-laws-strengthened-20220822-p5bbu3.html

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My other blogs: Main ones below

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

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

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

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

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

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24 August, 2022

Public School Teachers Told to Indoctrinate Kids as Young as Three in Radical LGBT Theory

State universities indoctrinate future teachers in controversial transgender, racial, and political theories—and instruct them to teach these principles to children beginning in preschool, a new report has found.

“There’s a huge amount of liberal indoctrination going on,” the report’s author, Will Flanders, told “Washington Watch” guest host Joseph Backholm on Monday. “We found it across every public university in the state that has an education program.”

Flanders, the research director at the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, performed a wide-ranging records search across all public universities in Wisconsin that teach education. He and co-author Dylan Palmer asked for the syllabus, assignments, and reading list for education courses—the classes future teachers needed to pass in order to teach in the state’s public schools.

The 44-page report found that many of these courses begin by defining biblical morality as beyond the pale. The “Multicultural Education” course at the University of Wisconsin at Superior forces students to take the “Human Relations Attitude Inventory,” which asks how strongly students agree with such statements as: “Homosexuality is unnatural because it is contrary to human nature”; “We should not notice differences in people’s skin color”; and “Whites are just as likely to be victims of racism as racial minorities”—all of which the course intends for students to reject.

Once the university changes students’ personal morality, it instructs them to begin introducing radical gender theory to children as young as three. At UW-Whitewater, students read a chapter titled “Just Another Gay Day in the Campus Three-Year-Old Room,” which tells students to include LGBTQ “lessons with a three-year-old day care center.”

At UW-Green Bay, would-be pedagogues must read the book “Safe Is Not Enough: Better Schools for LGBTQ Students” by Michael Sadowski, which the report explains “argues that teachers must bring conversation about gender and sexual identity into the classroom, encourage advocacy, and foster the LGBTQ identification of young students.”

The universities also teach students to fight “homophobia” in their taxpayer-funded classrooms. UW-Stout students have to take a course titled “Multiculturalism: Dialogue & Field Experience,” which mandates that students “critique the nature and effects of political economies such as colonialism and slavery, and specific socially constructed and discriminatory discourses such as race/racism, whiteness, poverty, class/classism, gender/sexism, sexual orientation/homophobia, different abilities/ ableism in the field of education and beyond.” They must then identify whether educational systems “reflect equity and equal educational opportunity through a critical examination of hegemony in the form of culture, race, social class, gender and sexual orientation … and homophobia.”

Other titles students in the University of Wisconsin’s education classes must read include:

“Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy”;

“Playing with Gender”;

 

“When the Gender Boxes Don’t Fit”;

“Trans Woman Manifesto”; and

“Supporting Transgender and Gender-Expansive Children in Schools.”

Future teachers must also read an enormous amount of critical race theory. UW-Stevens Point education students must read portions of the CRT canon, including Robin DiAngelo’s “White Fragility” and Ibram X. Kendi’s “Antiracist Baby.” Flanders noted that, while he has no objection to students being exposed to such theories, these mandatory education courses present these theories without any opposing viewpoint, as though they were uncontested truths.

These criteria mean that teachers will be “discussing racial politics, gender politics, sexual identity, transgenderism, ahistorical anti-American history, and culturally revolutionary ideas with children as young as five or six years old,” according to the report, which was produced by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty.

“There’s even more in there than what’s listed in our report,” Flanders told Backholm. “It’s still a small sample from each university. But it’s likely that almost every class that a [prospective] teacher is in” has similarly biased content.

“When we’re looking for the origins of the stuff that we are seeing in our classroom today, what we’re learning here is it’s not just teachers organically coming up with this stuff themselves,” explained Flanders. “Instead, it’s the process that’s been going on for years and years throughout their entire education.”

The results can be seen in Wisconsin classrooms, where test scores continue their multi-year decline. In the 2020-21 school years, only one-third of students from third through eighth grade passed the state’s Forward test, down eight points from 41% in 2018-19. Scores on the ACT, which state law requires every high school junior to take, have eroded from 20 in 2014-15 to 19.6 in 2020.

Teaching educators radical political theory instead of subject matter or pedagogical techniques likely affects these outcomes, Flanders believes. “It’s a fixed pie. There’s a set amount of hours in the day and a set amount of classes that a teacher is taking. And inevitably, some of that content is being replaced by this sort of material that really is not related directly to what they’re supposed to be teaching, but takes up that time,” Flanders stated. “We see the results in schools that are seeing declining performance relative to where they were a decade ago.”

The report appeals to Wisconsin lawmakers to rewrite Section 118.19(8) of the Wisconsin statutes, “which mandates that the Department of Public Instruction grants teacher licenses only to those who have ‘received instruction in the study of minority group relations,’” where highly controversial theories are being propounded as undisputed fact.

Flanders previously conducted a study that found the prevalence and duration of school closures had to do with the strength of local teachers unions and the area’s political opposition to President Donald Trump, not the COVID-19 infection rate. “The number of COVID-19 cases in a particular community bore no relationship to the decision to go with virtual education,” Flanders wrote. “It is partisanship and union presence that are the main drivers of the decision to reopen or not.”

Flanders said, if anything, his latest report underestimates the extent of the problem. “It’s definitely the case that we are seeing this stuff pop up … at small rural universities that might have very little connection to those larger universities,” he concluded. “It’s pervasive across the board, because I think it sort of fits with the politically correct narrative that these schools want to push. And that’s what makes it even harder to fight.”

https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/08/16/public-school-teachers-told-to-indoctrinate-kids-as-young-as-three-in-radical-lgbt-theory

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Wisconsin school board votes to ban pride, BLM flags from classrooms

A Wisconsin school board voted in favor of a policy banning gay pride flags and Black Lives Matter (BLM) flags from classrooms due to what school leaders say is political messaging.

"Teachers and administration will not have political flags or religious messaging in their classroom or on their person," Superintendent Stephen Plum said ahead of the vote, according to Fox 6.

The Kettle Moraine School Board voted last Tuesday in favor of keeping a code of conduct in place that the school's superintendent had interpreted as banning teachers from displaying political and religious messages in classrooms. The political messages include ones such as gay pride flags, BLM flags and "We Back the Badge" signs. Only one school board member voted against the ban, saying he made the decision after speaking with concerned students and staff.

The policy also includes banning teachers from including their preferred pronouns in email signatures.

Plum told the school board that the district’s interpretation of the policy — which prohibits staffers from using their positions to promote partisan politics, religious views and propaganda for personal, monetary or nonmonetary gain — changed following a legal analysis.

The vote was held in a packed room last week as students and community members sounded off on the measure.

"I am not controversial. I am not political. I am a person," one student told the board, according to Fox 6.

"The fact is, the majority of students don't want or need this, so catering to the minority only encourages the envelope to be pushed further," another student said.

Ahead of the vote, two high schoolers in the district established a Change.org petition calling for a reversal of the ban. The petition has garnered more than 13,000 signatures since it launched last month.

The ACLU of Wisconsin has since issued statements slamming the vote and is currently investigating the policy.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/wisconsin-school-board-votes-ban-pride-blm-flags-classrooms

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From firing to hiring: Australian universities now on hunt for staff

The nation’s top universities are promising to fill hundreds of jobs cut during Covid-19, after spending the last year letting staff go while boosting expenditure on ­advertising and consultants by millions of dollars.

The University of NSW, the University of Sydney and Monash University in Melbourne told The Australian they planned to rehire staff after “better than expected” financial results last year.

The Australian examined the financial results and staff cuts at seven universities across the country amid warnings from Education Minister Jason Clare that universities could “do better” in the way they treated staff.

The increased spending on ­advertising and consultants last year, while staff budgets were cut, also comes amid questions about teaching quality at many universities, with The Weekend Australian revealing on Saturday that half of the nation’s student teachers are dropping out of university courses.

Higher education bosses have defended spending decisions and bumper surpluses experienced by many institutions in 2021, and University of Sydney vice-chancellor Mark Scott says a renewed push to bump up staffing numbers will improve teaching and ­research.

“Unlike a business, we don’t seek profits or pay out shareholders – all our surplus is reinvested back into the university to support teaching and research, ­including the recruitment of more academic and professional staff,” he said. “Our work has a positive effect across the whole country by addressing the biggest challenges, equipping students from diverse backgrounds with knowledge and skills, and creating new opportunities and jobs.”

Sydney University recorded a surplus of more than $1bn while the University of Melbourne ­recorded a surplus of more than $500m. Monash, UNSW and the University of Queensland reported surpluses of more than $300m.

The University of Western Australia posted an operating ­result of about $203m in total comprehensive income and Curtin University reported a $113m ­result.

The National Tertiary Education Union estimated 40,000 jobs were lost in public tertiary education in the 12 months to May last year. President Alison Barnes said investment in staff in NSW universities had fallen by 10 per cent since 2008 and the rate of ­casualisation was at about 70 per cent across the sector.

“We need university management to step up to the plate and deal with systemic problems that their business models have ­created,” Dr Barnes said.

Mr Clare identified casualisation and the treatment of staff as an issue, arguing that “the way that universities work with their staff is one of the things I want the Universities Accord to look at”.

He said the sector “can do better”, particularly when it came to high rates of casualisation and staff underpayments.

UNSW led the charge on staff cuts last year, with figures revealing 726 fewer full-time-equivalent jobs when compared to the previous year.

At the University of Sydney, the number of academic staff fell from 3743 to 3514 due to voluntary redundancies. Monash’s full-time-equivalent employee numbers fell from 8017 to 7719, while Melbourne University saw 210 staff leave through voluntary redundancies and 168 via involuntary ­redundancies.

However, most universities said they would now begin rehiring staff thanks to their better than expected 2021 financial results.

UNSW said it was aiming to ­increase investment in staff in 2022 by 16 per cent. Monash said its staffing numbers had grown by 4.5 per cent compared to last year and were “projected to slowly grow further by the end of this year”. The University of Sydney said it was “actively recruiting new staff in areas where there is demand and will continue to ­invest in our staff going forward”.

But Frank Larkins, a former deputy vice-chancellor of research at Melbourne University, said universities would likely struggle to refill jobs. “The challenge will be whether universities can rehire high-quality people to cover the breadth of their curriculums,” he said. “University employment is an international profession, and the US and UK have also reported shortfalls, so there’s competition.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/firing-to-hiring-universities-on-hunt-for-staff/news-story/ef223cc3d3c152d638c57901ba14df89

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My other blogs: Main ones below

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

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

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

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

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

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23 August, 2022

A California elementary school principal took flak this week for calling the police on a 4-year-old child for not wearing a mask to school

The incident occurred on Thursday at Theuerkauf Elementary School in Mountain View when the principal refused to allow the boy to enter the school because he wasn’t wearing a mask, KGO-TV reported.

A video recorded by the father of the child shows the principal telling him, “I welcome him here and I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again — I want him here, but it is our district’s policy that students have to wear a mask.”

Another video shows the little boy being escorted out of the school with a piece of paper that he hands to his father. He asks, “Daddy, what does it say?”

A police officer was also called to make sure the 4-year-old was barred from entering the school.

It probably isn’t much of a surprise that this sort of lunacy continues to occur in California.

The boy’s father, identified only as “Shawn,” told KGO that he thinks it’s time to get past the COVID panic.

“I just think it’s time to move forward. The kids need to see faces, they need to see people smiling, they need to have a brighter outlook on the future in general,” he said.

Shawn added that his son, who isn’t even old enough to read, may have developmental issues and is unable to keep a mask on his face at all times. He said the boy doesn’t understand why he isn’t allowed to go to school.

“I’m watching my son … go to school, get turned away with tears in his eyes,” Shawn said. “He doesn’t know what’s going on. He’s visibly upset … by getting turned away and rejected.”

Shawn’s attorney also said Theuerkauf Elementary broke the law because schools are only allowed to send children home for public health reasons if they are sick.

In the aftermath of the incident, the Mountain View Whisman School District seemingly tried to cover its tracks by making a sudden change to its masking policy.

At a school board meeting on Thursday night, officials suddenly decided that masks are optional.

The board sent out an email to schools to relay the “good news,” according to the group Reopen California Schools.

https://thefederalistpapers.org/us/watch-california-principal-calls-cops-boy-cant-even-read-not-wearing-mask

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Parents Choose Schools to Protect Their Rights. This Makes School Choice the Future of Education

Parents across the country are waking up to what’s taking place in our education system, and they’re not happy with what they’ve discovered.

“Icouldn’t trust these people with my kids.” When Nancy Anderson, M.D., said this about her child’s school in North Carolina, she was speaking for herself and her family. But she is far from alone.

In 2019, Anderson began reviewing her private Montessori school’s curriculum. What she found shocked her. Her elementary age children were being taught that America was founded on rape and murder. Her kids were instructed that the first Pilgrims were bigots filled with “hatred” and “greed.” The organizations that designed the curriculum contend that, in America, racism is “embedded in institutions and everyday life.”

“This was scary and caught me by surprise,” Nancy said.

Parents in North Carolina and around the country share Nancy’s sentiment. Other private schools, such as Sidwell Friends in Washington, D.C., (where former presidents have sent their children) also argue that America has “white-supremacist origins” and offer racial affinity groups where students can “explore their developing identities.”

These ideas are unpopular with American voters and parents. In 2020, a nationally representative survey commissioned by The Heritage Foundation found that 70 percent of parents say that slavery was a tragedy, but does not define America today.

What does define America? In 2021, an Associated Press/University of Chicago poll found that 85 percent of respondents say that “individual liberties and freedoms as defined by the Constitution” are important to our national identity.

Nancy left her private school for a different option. National associations of Montessori schools associate lessons soaked in identity politics under the umbrella of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI). Public school families are also signaling their dissatisfaction with curricula that fixate on DEI. DEI content, included in lessons in virtually every subject area, focuses on ethnic “identities” and radical instruction on sex. The former lessons harken back to the dark days of racial discrimination when students were treated differently based on skin color. The latter ideas force families to accept ideas about human biology that are unscientific and often leave minor children confused about their sex.

Whether due to DEI policies, draconian school rules during the pandemic, or for other reasons, assigned school enrollment dropped by 3 percent in fall 2020. That’s equivalent to the entire public school enrollment of Los Angeles and Chicago--combined.

What does this mean about the future of school choice?

Some claim that, when parents move their children to different schools, they are “destroying public education.” This is a common refrain from teacher unions and other education special interest groups.

In fact, though, the future of school choice will restore an authentic meaning to the words “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” When parents choose to homeschool (an increasingly popular option) or choose a private school, including religious schools, because assigned schools do not represent their values, they are preserving a diversity of ideas. 

A recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling concerning school choice said that state lawmakers cannot exclude religious schools from programs that are publicly available because that would be discriminatory.

Activists have perverted equity to mean equal outcomes, regardless of personal behavior. Yet parent choice in education allows families to challenge their children or find them extra help—customizing the learning experience according to each child’s needs. Learning pods and microschools do this quite well. West Virginia lawmakers just adopted a policy specifically allowing families to create pods and microschools.

Finally, the future of school choice can only be forecast as inclusive. West Virginia policymakers adopted an education savings account proposal in 2021 that allows nearly every child in the state to apply for an account. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey just signed a similar expansive proposal, giving every Arizona child the same opportunity. Lawmakers in Iowa and Texas are on the verge of adopting similar policies. This is what inclusion should look like, not mandatory racial affinity groups or policies that allow only children of a certain color to use the playground at certain times.

Activists have corrupted and institutionalized the ideas of diversity, equity, and inclusion. The future of school choice will not be defined by a radical acronym. It will offer a diversity of ideas, create equal opportunities, and include everyone—ideas all parents can trust for their children.

https://www.heritage.org/education/commentary/parents-choose-schools-protect-their-rights-makes-school-choice-the-future

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School Choice Ensures Equality of Opportunity, Empowers Families, Experts Say

Government-assigned schools have fostered a system of resegregation, one in which students are divided “racially, socially, and economically,” says Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts. 

Roberts contends that educational freedom is the foremost civil rights issue of the 21st century, because school choice ensures equality of opportunity, and that in turn improves public schools on every measure, he said. 

“Because school choice increases transparency, it provides data in the market … that doesn’t exist now,” he said. “It breaks up the monopoly of government-funded schools.” 

Roberts made his remarks at a panel discussion, “Empowering Families in Education” on Monday at Heritage, where he was joined by Tiffany Justice, co-founder of Moms for Liberty, and Corey DeAngelis, senior fellow at the American Federation for Children and executive director of the Educational Freedom Institute.

Trusting parents is central to school choice, Justice said. Schools must enable parents to make informed decisions for their children through transparent curriculums and the parent-teacher relationship, she explained.  

In recent years, she said, it’s become clear that teachers unions represent “fringe, far left” interests. “What other industry would you pour money into and have the kinds of outcomes we’re having?” she said, likening it to continuing to pay a surgeon who consistently killed his patients. 

The infiltration of leftist ideology in K-12 curriculums, without parents’ knowledge, is evil, Roberts said. “It’s evil because it’s dealing with our kids.”   

DeAngelis noted that we should “thank teachers unions,” which he said have “inadvertently advanced the concept of school choice and homeschooling.” 

Those unions lobbied the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to keep schools closed in the face of the COVID-19 outbreak, he noted. “Two weeks to flatten the curve” turned into two years of “flattening a generation of children,” DeAngelis said, contending that self-serving teachers harmed students academically, mentally, and even physically. 

Justice added that the radical gender ideology and critical race theory being taught in public schools were revealed during the pandemic. Parents were shocked to discover that their children were being taught such highly polarizing subjects, she said. 

Ultimately, DeAngelis argued, those teachers “showed their true colors, and we’re all better off for it.” 

Political winds are shifting, however, he continued. The governor of Arizona, for instance, signed into law an expansive school choice bill in July. Families who opt into the program receive over $6,500 per year, per child. They are free to choose their preferred schooling options—including private schools, homeschooling, and tutoring.  

Roberts noted that the demographic groups most harmed by government-assigned schools also benefit the most from school choice, citing an experience he had as headmaster of the private John Paul the Great Academy Catholic high school in Lafayette, Louisiana. 

A month after the school opted into then-Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s 2012 voucher program, a young black mother approached Roberts after school one day. She was able to send her son to the school because of the voucher program. That had changed the life of her seventh-grade son, her own life, and that of her family.

Freedom of education is the great equalizer, DeAngelis agreed. Nonwhite families are disproportionately more likely to use school voucher and tax credit programs, he said, adding that contrary to what critics say, that doesn’t entail a conflict between public and private schools. It’s about giving families a choice.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/08/17/school-choice-ensures-equality-of-opportunity-empowers-families-experts-say

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My other blogs: Main ones below

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

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

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

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

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

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22 August, 2022

Biden Administration Announces Cancellation of $3.9 Billion in Student Loan Debt

President Joe Biden is set to cancel $3.9 billion in student loans, announcing that the federal government will discharge all remaining federal student loans for students who attended the ITT Technical Institute.

The student loan borrowers who attended the now-defunct institute will receive a discharge through “borrower defense to repayment” according to Forbes and do not need to apply to have their loans canceled.

“It is time for student borrowers to stop shouldering the burden from ITT’s years of lies and false promises. The evidence shows that for years, ITT’s leaders intentionally misled students about the quality of their programs in order to profit off federal student loan programs, with no regard for the hardship this would cause,” Secretary of Education Dr. Miguel Cardona said.

“The Biden-Harris Administration will continue to stand up for borrowers who’ve been cheated by their colleges while working to strengthen oversight and enforcement to protect today’s students from similar deception and abuse.”

The ITT Technical Institute was a well-known private technical institute based in Indiana with approximately 140 satellite campuses all over the United States. The institute operated until announcing on Sept. 6, 2016, that it would “discontinue academic operations at all of its ITT Technical Institutes permanently”.

Since taking the White House in 2021 Biden has canceled almost $32 billion in student loans, essentially subsidizing the educational expenses of a combined 1.8 million borrowers spread across “borrower defense to student loan repayment and school closures,” “public service loan forgiveness” and “total or permanent disability”.

Democrats continue to call for Biden to “#CancelStudentDebt“, a move that conservatives believe would obfuscate the transfer of debt from the individual borrowers to the American taxpayer.

Democratic Rep. Pramila Jaypal of Washington urged Biden to cancel all student debt.

Representative Cori Bush of Missouri also joined the refrain.

Conversely, Republicans have heavily criticized student loan forgiveness.

“Expansive student loan forgiveness does nothing to solve the problems in higher education and exacerbates the economic disaster fueled by the President’s lack of fiscal responsibility,” Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina said according to Forbes.

“Time and again, President Biden operates as if he can issue any decree he wants on student loan forgiveness, even if it means exercising authority that he does not have.”

In an Op-Ed for Fox News, Foxx and Sen. Richard Burr, also of North Carolina, wrote, “By caving to progressives, President Biden is breaking his promise to over 100 million taxpayers without student debt who are subsidizing this boondoggle.”

They pointed the finger squarely at their Democrat colleagues in Congress, “Yet, when in the position to actually legislate, House and Senate Democrats are (un)surprisingly quiet on student loan debt. Rather than do their jobs, top Democrats are asking the president to do their dirty work for them, calling for an additional extension through the end of the year and debt forgiveness by executive fiat.”

The GOP legislators also voiced concerns that the proposed student loan cancelation would “easily push inflation above 9 percent” back in April when the piece was written.

https://thefederalistpapers.org/us/biden-administration-announces-cancellation-3-9-billion-student-loan-debt

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UK: North-South gap in A-level results fuels social mobility fears

A North-South regional divide has emerged in A-level results, as the first exam results since the outbreak of the Covid pandemic also showed a dip in top grades.

In a blow to Downing Street’s levelling up agenda, analysis has revealed a sharper decrease in A* and A grades handed out in the North East of England compared with the South East.

A social mobility charity said the government needed to do more to address disparities, while Labour’s shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson said: “Students in the North East are no less capable, but after 12 years of Conservative governments they’re seeing their results go backwards compared to their peers across the South of England.”

Hundreds of thousands of pupils tore open their results envelopes on Thursday, after schools made a return to exams following two years of teacher-assessed grades during the pandemic.

Overall results showed A-level entries receiving A* and A in England, Wales and Northern Ireland were down 8.4 percentage points compared with last year, following a move to curb grade inflation – but the numbers were still higher than in 2019, before the pandemic.

Girls continued to outperform boys overall, with the proportion of A* to E grades standing at 98.7 per cent for girls compared with 98.1 per cent for boys – but the lead enjoyed by girls in the top grades has narrowed.

The divide between the state and private sectors in England was also brought into sharp focus, with 58 per cent of candidates at independent schools and city training colleges awarded A and above in all subjects, compared with 30.7 per cent at secondary comprehensive and middle schools. Pre-pandemic, in 2019, the figures were 44.7 per cent and 20.5 per cent.

University admissions also fell by 2 per cent compared with last year, but still represent the second highest on record. Figures from Ucas (the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service) showed that 425,830 students had had places confirmed. The number of students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds to gain places on courses is 46,850 this year, up by 3,770 from 2019.

Analysis by Labour, based on Ofqual figures, showed that top grades dropped further in the North East of England compared with the South East over the past year. Figures showed that in the North East, the proportion of grades at A and A* fell from 39.2 per cent in 2021 to 30.8 per cent in 2022, compared with a fall from 47.1 per cent to 39.5 per cent in the South East.

“Students receiving their results have worked incredibly hard through unprecedented circumstances, but these inequalities reveal the Conservatives’ continued failure to enable all young people to thrive post-pandemic,” said Ms Phillipson.

The Sutton Trust also highlighted that the biggest gains since 2019 in grades at A or above were seen in London, where they were 12 percentage points higher, at 39 per cent. In comparison, the figure in the North East of England was 30.8 per cent, up less than 8 percentage points.

Sir Peter Lampl, founder and chair of the Sutton Trust and chair of the Education Endowment Foundation, said: “It’s great to see that many disadvantaged youngsters are gaining a place at university, and that there is a slight narrowing of the gap between the most and least advantaged.

“Universities have rightly prioritised widening participation in spite of an extremely competitive year. However, the gap is still wider than it was pre-pandemic, highlighting that there is more work to be done.

“This data also shows that there are regional disparities in attainment. The government must work to ensure that students from all backgrounds, in all areas of the country, have the opportunity to succeed.”

The Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) said the overall pass rate, representing the proportion of entries graded A* to E, fell by 1.1 percentage points, from 99.5 per cent in 2021 to 98.4 per cent this year. It was up by 0.8 points since 2019, when it stood at 97.6 per cent.

Entries receiving the top grades of A* and A were down 8.4 points, from 44.8 per cent last year to 36.4 per cent – but up 11 percentage points from 25.4 per cent in 2019. The figure for the highest grade, A*, was down year-on-year from 19.1 per cent to 14.6 per cent, still remaining higher than in 2019, when it stood at 7.7 per cent.

The proportion of entries graded A* to C dropped from 88.5 per cent in 2021 to 82.6 per cent this year – but it was up from 75.9 per cent in 2019.

Sam Tuckett, senior researcher for post-16 education and skills at the Education Policy Institute, said: “The 2022 cohort of students should be proud of overcoming the substantial disruption they have faced, with many not having sat a formal exam ahead of this summer.

“Given Ofqual’s strategy to return to pre-pandemic styles of exams and grading, it’s no surprise that this year’s results sit between the lofty results students gained in 2021 and the last exam-based assessments of 2019.”

He continued: “This year’s return to pre-pandemic styles of assessment accompanied a continuation of several trends. Female students continue to outperform males in most subjects. However, the gap between female and male attainment narrowed and is likely a result of the return to exam-based assessments.

“This year’s results also indicate the preservation of a strong geographical divide between students, with those in southern regions, by and large, outperforming their peers in the North and the Midlands. Large grade increases of independent schools under teacher assessments in 2021 were considerably reversed this year.”

He added: “Focus should be given to investigating the impact educational disruption has had on the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their more affluent peers.”

Education secretary James Cleverly congratulated students and thanked teachers, adding: “These students have experienced unprecedented disruption over the last couple of years, and such excellent results are a testament to their resilience and hard work.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/a-level-results-grades-inequality-pandemic-b2148004.html

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Fargo School Board Reinstates the Pledge of Allegiance After National Public Outcry

After criticism from conservative lawmakers and backlash from citizens nationwide, the Fargo Board of Education on Aug. 18 voted to reverse course on its previous week’s decision to stop reciting the Pledge of Allegiance before its meetings.

On Aug. 9, seven of the board’s nine members, including four newcomers who took office in June, voted to cancel a previous board measure that was instituted in March before the election.

Board vice president Seth Holden said at the Aug. 9 meeting that the Pledge of Allegiance was contrary to the district’s diversity, equity, and inclusion priorities.

“Given that the word ‘God’ in the text of the Pledge of Allegiance is capitalized, the text is clearly referring to the Judeo-Christian God, and therefore, it does not include any other faiths such as Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism,” Holden said, adding that this made the pledge of allegiance a “non-inclusionary act.”

Reciting the pledge is a “non-inclusionary act” and there is text within the pledge that is “simply not true,” Holden added.

“The statement that we are ‘one nation under God’ is simply an untrue statement,” Holden said. “We are one nation under many or no gods.”

Tracie Newman, who is board president, recommended that a member recite “a shared statement of purpose that would bring us all together” at the start of the meetings instead of the pledge, adding that it would be “unifying.”

“I’m just not sure that reciting the Pledge of Allegiance is a useful way to begin every one of our board meetings,” Newman said at the Aug. 9 meeting.

North Dakota’s Republican Party called the board’s Aug. 9 vote “laughable” and an “affront to our American values.”

Republican State Sen. Scott Meyer told North Dakota media outlets last week that he would start work on a school voucher bill draft to allow public money to pay for private school tuition.

“These positions like by the Fargo School Board just don’t align with North Dakota values,” he said. “The logical solution is to just give parents that option to help educate their kids.”

Robin Nelson was one of two board members who voted on Aug. 9 to keep the pledge.

“It was a very easy ‘no’ vote from me from the get-go. I knew right away it would be controversial,” Nelson told Fargo’s Valley News Live.

“Our focus should be on our great students and teachers and education, but this is going to detract from that and really shed more negative publicity on the Fargo school district, and quite frankly, we don’t need that.”

Nelson’s words were proved correct. The decision prompted an outcry across the country, which led the board to hold the Aug. 18 meeting to discuss reinstating the pledge.

“That is perpetuating Critical Race Theory, which is against the law in North Dakota,” Fargo parent Jake Schmitz told Fox & Friends last week following the initial vote to ban the Pledge of Allegiance.

“The next logical step in the progression is [they’ll] want to remove it from schools because it’s a non-inclusionary act which is a bunch of [expletive].”

At the special meeting on Aug. 18, the board discussed the volume of angry emails and voicemails directed at members.

Nyamal Dei, a refugee from war-torn Sudan, was among those who received messages from irate citizens.

Dei was one of the seven members who voted on Aug. 10 to eliminate the pledge. At the special meeting, she was the only board member to vote no on reinstatement.

“We won’t be rewarding our children or students in our district for acting in this way,” Dei said at the special meeting.

“But know that this moment will pass. Let’s get back to the work that we are elected to do and that is to find a solution to our teacher shortages, mental health issues, and academic achievement for our students.”

Greg Clark, who also serves on the board, said that less than 20 percent of the “angry messages” were from Fargo residents.

He admitted that his vote to reinstate the pledge was influenced by people who do not live in the district.

“But I hope you’ll forgive me because I truly believe it is in the best interest of our schools to do so,” Clark said.

“The disruptions and the threats must end so that we can have a successful start to our school year.”

Holden voted to bring back the pledge, but not before expressing reluctance.

“Do you concede the battle to win the war?” Holden said.

“I’m also concerned about what might happen to this board in the future because we’re going to have to probably be prepared to take more heat than we normally do for decisions that we make because that there may be a perception of success.”

David Paulson, a former board member who proposed that the pledge be recited before meetings in March when he was still in office, said that the current board members were “misinterpreting” what the words mean.

The March motion passed 6-2. Holden was one of the two who voted no.

“We are misinterpreting the Pledge of Allegiance,” Paulson said at the Aug. 9 meeting.

“The pledge isn’t a show of our patriotism; it’s an affirmation of our commitment and our loyalty to the greater cause, and that greater cause is freedom.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/fargo-school-board-reinstates-the-pledge-of-allegiance-after-national-public-outcry_4676329.html

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My other blogs: Main ones below

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

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

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

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

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

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21 August, 2022

Majority of college students have a mental illness: study

Researchers at Boston University recently revealed some staggering findings — that depression among college students increased by nearly 135% over eight years, while anxiety surged 110%.

Unfortunately, those rates have well outpaced the demand for available and affordable mental health services, they said.

“Living in a new setting and away from home can often create overwhelming and stressful circumstances, and recently we’ve added the stress of the pandemic to the mix,” Sarah Lipson, a health policy professor at Boston University’s School of Public Health and the study’s lead author, told the Washington Post earlier this month — amid back-to-school season.

Lipson’s team also looked at rates of eating disorders, non-suicidal self-injury and suicidal ideation, which increased at rates of nearly 96%, almost 46% and 64% respectively. As for “flourishing,” rates decreased overall.

The study, published in the Journal of Affective Disorders in June, analyzed data from more than 350,000 students across 373 campuses, collected by the Health Minds Network between 2013 to 2021.

To no surprise, depression increased most on average during the COVID-19 pandemic. Between 2020 and 2021, over 60% of students met the criteria for at least one mental illness — double the rate of 2013.

In March, the World Health Organization announced that depression increased 25% globally due to the pandemic, adding support to BU researchers’ findings.

Furthermore, they noted a decrease in the rate of college students seeking help and mental health services, especially among racial and ethnic minorities.

The data concerned the study authors, who noted a 45% increase of one or more mental health problems among multiracial students, while past-year treatment seeking only grew 9% among the same group.

Similar mental health data has been reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, calling it a “cry for help” from young Americans.

The shocking numbers come at a time when good therapists are increasingly few and far between, according to the federal Health and Resource Service Administration. The agency has estimated that the US will be short 8,000 clinical, counseling and school psychologists by the year 2025.

https://nypost.com/2022/08/18/majority-of-college-students-have-a-mental-illness-study/

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Racism at Berkeley

Berkeley co-op bans WHITE PEOPLE from common areas to 'avoid white violence and presence' and all students trying to sign in are asked to declare their race

An off-campus co-op for students at the University of California, Berkeley named the 'Person of Color Theme House' has banned white guests from entering common areas of the house.

A list of house rules revealed that occupants were told 'many POC moved here to be able to avoid white violence and presence, so respect their decision of avoidance if you bring white guests.' 

While the student house aims to have an 'inclusive' environment, the rules specifically state 'white guests are not allowed in common spaces,' according to the list, which was posted on Reddit.  

The accommodation, which is located close to Berkeley's campus, is a five-story, 30-room home that can house up to 56 students. The house is owned by a private landlord. 

But the 'rules' which were leaked on social media have caused outrage - with many people slamming the restrictions as 'racist' as others came forward and revealed their experience living in the co-op.  

One mixed-race Reddit user, who claimed to have lived at the house, said that their 'presence as a light skinned person was not received well.'

They said house members called them slurs and they were even 'not allowed to let my dad enter the house because he's white.' 

The house was set up as part of the Berkeley Student Cooperative, a program designed to bring affordable housing to students in California's Bay-area, and 'aims to provide housing to low-income, first generation, immigrant and marginalized students of color.'

According to the 'rules,' people that live there should 'avoid bringing parents/family members that express bigotry,' because 'Queer, Black, and Indigenous members should not have to avoid common spaces because of homophobic or racist parents/family members.'

Janet Gilmore, Senior Director of Strategic Communications at the University told DailyMail.com the house is 'not campus operated,' meaning 'it is not the role of the campus to comment.'

Gilmore also said the University does have it's own Theme Programs, but they have 'no such policies like the one alleged in the Reddit image,' and stated 'Cal Housing Theme Programs do not discriminate on the basis of race, consistent with UC and campus policy.' 

 'As this involves an off-campus non-affiliated landlord, the campus has no ability under the Code of Student Conduct to discipline the landlord.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11127383/UC-Berkelys-campus-op-called-Person-Color-Theme-House-bans-white-guests-common-areas.html

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Australia: Hard lesson for dropout university teacher degrees

<i>Teacher training courses have always had easy entry and dumbed down teaching but it is chronic now that the classroom experience has greatly deteriorated.  So university education departments have to enrol just about anyone who has a head

The only real solution is to make the teaching experience more attractive  -- and that means a revival of discipline.  But Leftist dogma forbids that  -- so it won't happen in schools that they control.  

Smart young people will always opt for a more congenial environment than teaching in chaotic government schools.  Private schools are much more orderly so dedicated teachers will always gravitate there. 

I have taught in both a high discipline (Catholic) High School and a low-discipline ("progressive") High School and there is no doubt about where the pupils learnt more

I sent my son to a private school, which even featured male mathematics teachers! Partly as a result of that he majored in mathematics at university

Is it any wonder that private schools are so numerous in Australia?  About 40% of Australian teenagers go to them</i>

Universities that lower entry ­standards for teaching degrees to cash in on students doomed to fail will be targeted in a government review of courses with high drop-out rates to make them “fit for purpose”.

Education courses have the highest drop-out rate of any ­degree except hospitality, an analysis of federal Education ­Department data reveals.

As schools grapple with a worsening teacher shortage, The Weekend Australian’s analysis shows a clear correlation between low Australian Tertiary Admission Rank scores and high drop-out rates among student teachers.

But universities are refusing to raise the bar for admission to teaching, with the Australian Catholic University declaring that higher standards will only worsen the teacher shortage.

At one university, just 20 per cent of students completed a four-year teaching degree within six years, including those studying full-time or part-time.

Students enrolled in Initial Teacher Education (ITE) courses are twice as likely as engineering or science students to drop out of their degree.

One in three ITE students who started university in 2015 had dropped out by 2020 – including one in seven who failed to return after the first year of study.

The high drop-out rate results in a waste of taxpayer funding for university degrees, as well as ­tuition debts for students who still have to repay their loans despite abandoning study.

Federal Education Minister Jason Clare on Friday pledged to review the quality of university teaching degrees to boost the number of graduates. Universities with high drop-out rates or poor course quality risk losing commonwealth cash.

“At the moment, only about 50 per cent of students graduate from a teaching degree,’’ Mr Clare said. “That needs to be higher if we want to tackle the teacher shortage. I will work with universities on this to make sure they are fit-for-purpose and delivering quality education for students.’’

Mr Clare said ITE degrees would be examined in a review by University of Sydney vice-chancellor Mark Scott, who is a former teacher and NSW Education Department secretary.

The Australian Catholic University, one of the biggest providers of teacher training, is resisting calls to raise the bar for ITE students. ACU enrolled students with a raw ATAR of 50 to its teaching degrees last year – school leavers in the bottom 20 per cent of academic results in NSW.

Universities often inflate the raw ATAR scores with bonus points to compensate for illness or social disadvantage.

ACU has told the NSW parliamentary inquiry into teacher shortages that the “blanket imposition of a minimum ATAR for entry into ITE will exacerbate the growing teacher shortage’’.

“(It) does nothing to attract more high-achieving school ­leavers into teaching, conveys a negative message to all students considering enrolling in ITE (and) disregards the capacity for ­student growth over the course of university study,’’ ACU states in its submission.

“ITE candidates, irrespective of their background, are alienated by the suggestion that the teaching profession is increasingly ­populated by unintelligent or ­underperforming students that necessitates the need for a minimum ATAR.

“Many academics in ITE know from their own experience that numerous students who performed poorly at school end up becoming great teachers.’’

ACU says most ITE students enrol through non-ATAR pathways – such as mature-age entry or on the basis of a diploma – and there was no evidence to support higher ATAR entry barriers.

However, university data provided to the federal Education Department shows that universities that admit students with low ATARs suffer some of the highest drop-out rates.

Across all university ITE degrees, one in three students dropped out of a degree started in 2015, with barely half graduating within six years.

University of Sydney associate professor Rachel Wilson, who analysed the link between ATAR scores and teacher performance in a 2018 report, The Profession at Risk, declared it wrong for universities to be allowed to enrol students unlikely to finish a degree. She said more students were studying ITE online, and were less likely to finish their degree than students attending lectures on campus.

Associate Professor Wilson said Australia had been “complacent and let the system slide’’.

“I think it is unethical for governments not to monitor these things,” she said.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/hard-lesson-for-dropout-university-teacher-degrees/news-story/2f47e3b9077310ca9a60bdfc3e1f27b5

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My other blogs: Main ones below

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

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

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

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

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

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19 August, 2022

Judge tosses NYC teachers’ union suit that tried to block charter high school

A state judge on Tuesday tossed out a lawsuit from the New York City teachers’ union that had sought to block the opening of a new charter high school in The Bronx.

The United Federation of Teachers filed suit earlier this year claiming that two K-8 charter networks were violating the state’s charter cap of 460 by striking an agreement to open a joint high school.

But Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Lyle Frank — who also is overseeing the contentious city school budget funding case — found that charter schools have the right to expand from kindergarten through 12th grade, and that therefore, the project doesn’t violate the cap.

The charter schools involved are Brilla College Prep and Public Prep, which each serve grades K-8 in Manhattan and The Bronx.

The two operators applied for a revision to their charter licenses in 2019, to propose the joint high school, the Vertex Partnership Academies, at a single site, to be run by an independent entity on their behalf.

The joint high school was approved by the State University of New York’s Board of Trustees, which licenses charter schools along with the Board of Regents.

While the union argued that the new school was violating state law, the judge ruled the project was all above-board.

He noted in his ruling that SUNY charter school officials had also approved similar applications for a combined high school to serve students from different K-8 schools.

Brilla College College Prep and Public Prep each agreed that they cannot both create the joint high school and also independently run separate K-12 programs, acknowledging that such “double dipping” is prohibited.

“The capacity of students available to these schools under their existing charters remains unchanged… Both sides agree that there is nothing in existing law that would bar charter schools from having an outside entity operate their school,” Frank said.

“Contrary to the petitioners’ [UFT’s] contentions,” he wrote, “it is clear that at issue here is the revision of existing charter schools and not the creation of a new charter school.”

Frank also said the UFT lacked standing to challenge revisions to the charter licenses. Only the city Department of Education, which was not part of the suit, has standing to claim any perceived harm to the city public school system.

SUNY officials who approved the new high charter school applauded the judge’s ruling.

“We are very pleased with the decision in this case – we believed all along that our actions were consistent with the law,” said Joseph Belluck, a trustee who chairs SUNY’s charter school committee.

A UFT spokesperson responded, “The judge’s decision does not permit the charters involved to `double-dip,’ to get around the charter law by using this ruling to create more high school seats in addition to those involved in the joint high school.”

Charter schools are publicly funded, privately managed schools that typically have a longer school day and year than traditional public schools. They are popular among parents but critics including the unions claim the mostly non-union alternative schools drain resources from regular public schools.

There are now 140,000 students who attend 275 charter schools. One of every seven students in the city now attends a publicly funded charter school.

https://nypost.com/2022/08/16/judge-tosses-nyc-teachers-union-suit-that-tried-to-block-charter-high-school/

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As DC Plans to Ban 40% of Black Teens From School, Mayor Rejects DC COVID-19 Vaccine Numbers

During a Monday press conference, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser seemingly claimed her department’s own numbers surrounding the amount of black school aged children vaccinated against COVID-19 were inaccurate. Unvaccinated school children will be banned from attending Washington, D.C. public schools later this month.

In response to a question from The Daily Signal about how 40% of black school aged children were unvaccinated, Bowser responded, “I don’t think that that number is correct. We have a substantially few fewer number of kids that we have to engage with vaccination.”

While Bowser claimed the number provided by The Daily Signal is incorrect, the statistic came from the District of Columbia’s own vaccination data website.

The data shows that around 60% of black kids aged 12-17 have received a complete COVID-19 vaccine regimen, meaning 40% are unvaccinated or have not received a second shot if necessary. The numbers flip for blacks aged 18-24, as the D.C. data shows 60% of adults in that age bracket are unvaccinated or have not received their second shot if necessary.

Per D.C.’s Office of the State Superintendent of Education website, “Beginning in the 2022-23 school year, the COVID-19 vaccine is required for school enrollment and attendance in the District of Columbia for all students who are of an age for which there is a COVID-19 vaccination fully approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).”

As of right now, that means D.C. students aged 12 and up will have to be vaccinated or they will be unable to attend school in person.

The vaccine requirement makes D.C. an outlier in the nation, as many of the larger school districts recommend but do not require a COVID-19 vaccine in order to attend school in person.

The Daily Signal then asked the mayor about whether or not it was appropriate to respond to kids who aren’t vaccinated by forcing them to attend school virtually. “You’ve never heard me say that,” Bowser said.

Bowser and the D.C. city government have clashed over whether or not to return kids to classrooms amid lingering COVID-19 concerns. While Bowser has gone on record stating she would prefer kids to be in school, the 13-member D.C. Council has pushed for more exceptions to allow for remote learning.

The Daily Signal reached out to Bowser’s office for comment on the numbers and to clarify her position on remote learning, but did not receive an immediate response.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/08/15/as-dc-plans-to-ban-40-of-black-teens-from-school-mayor-rejects-dc-covid-19-vaccine-numbers

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How Gender Radicalism Conquered Sacramento Schools

Sacramento City Unified School District has adopted a queer theory–based pedagogy that encourages teachers to “normalize gender exploration,” confront their “cisgender privilege,” and maintain strict secrecy when facilitating a child’s gender or sexual transition.

I have obtained a collection of publicly accessible documents from Sacramento City Unified that traces the evolution of the district’s sexual politics. The process began a decade ago, when the district invited Elizabeth Meyer, a professor of Women’s, Gender & Queer Studies at California Polytechnic State University, to conduct presentations on how the district could adopt the principles of academic queer theory and translate them into K-12 pedagogy. 

The “foundational concepts” of this approach, according to Meyer’s presentation, follow the standard left-wing narrative. Western society has created a “Heterosexual Matrix,” composed of “Hegemonic Masculinity,” “Emphasized Femininity,” “Heteronormativity,” and “Heterosexism,” that underpins an oppressive system of “patriarchy,” “homophobia,” and “transphobia.” 

To liberate schools from this system, administrators and districts must adopt “queer pedagogy” and “anti-oppressive pedagogy,” which will disrupt the “commonsense view of the world” and replace it with queer alternatives, emphasizing “gender non-conformity” and “gender and sexual diversity.”

During this workshop, Meyer laid out a set of recommendations for administrators and teachers. Her recommendations for administrators included promoting gender-identity lessons in the curriculum, creating collections of sexuality books in school libraries, and hosting speakers and performers who address “sex, gender, and sexual orientation.” Teachers, according to Meyer, should follow different rules of classroom speech based on their own sexual identity. “If you are heterosexual, don’t state it. Allow yourself to be an ally while allowing others to be uncertain about your sexual orientation,” the presentation stated. “If you are GLBT [sic], consider coming out to your employer, and if you get their support, your students/school.” Finally, Meyer recommended that administrators work to build teacher-driven sexuality clubs and “equity task force[s]” within individual schools to promote “queer pedagogy” and “anti-oppressive pedagogy.”

In another training document titled “How to Be a Transgender Ally,” the district provided teachers and administrators with the entire range of queer theory terminology, promoting concepts and sexual identities such as “bi-gender,” “genderqueer,” “two-spirit,” “polysexual,” “pansexual,” “drag queens,” and “transsexuals.” The document instructed school staff to “normalize gender exploration and gender variance” and to “encourage exploration of options” for transgender students, who “may turn to hormones and/or surgery as validation of their emerging identity.”

Other rules in the handbook presented a form of queer theory etiquette: “don’t ask a trans person what their ‘real name’ is”; “don’t ask about a trans person’s genitals”; “don’t police public restrooms”; and “don’t just add the ‘T’ without doing work,” meaning that “to be an ally to trans people, gays, lesbians and bisexuals need to examine their own gender stereotypes, their own prejudices and fears about trans people, and be willing to defend and celebrate trans lives.” Heterosexual teachers, on the other hand, are told that they must confront their “cisgender privilege” and complete a questionnaire designed to elicit guilt and facilitate the adoption of a “transgender ally” identity. The questions include: “Does the state of your genitals cause you to fear violence should they be discovered?”; “Does the government require proof of the state of your genitals in order to change information on your personal identification?”; and “Can you wait at a bus stop at noon without passers-by assuming that you are loitering for sex?”

Ten years later, Sacramento City Unified has adopted all these recommendations and turned academic queer theory into pedagogy. The district’s schools, including many elementary schools, have put gender-identity theory into the curriculum and created teacher-driven “Gender & Sexuality Alliance” clubs. This ideology has also influenced districtwide policy on gender transitions, bathrooms, and athletics. According to the district’s official guidelines, school employees must provide “gender transition support” to students, recognize their “lived name and/or gender marker and/or gender pronouns,” allow them to use bathrooms and participate in athletics according to their “gender identity,” and follow a strict nondisclosure policy, which includes withholding information from students’ families. “Transgender and gender non-conforming students have a right to privacy, including keeping their sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status or gender non-conforming presentation at school private,” the policy reads. “School personnel should not discuss information that may disclose a student’s transgender or gender non-conforming status to others, including parents/legal guardians and other school personnel, unless legally required to do so or unless the student has authorized such disclosure.” In other words, teachers and administrators can facilitate a child’s gender or sexual transition without notifying that child’s parents; in fact, the default is to conduct this process in secrecy.

The sexual ideology that has captured school districts such as Sacramento City Unified is a form of radicalism cloaked in therapeutic language. Most parents initially interpret words such as “affirming,” “privacy,” “trans-friendly,” “anti-bullying,” and “safe space” as extensions of basic empathy between institution and child. But as parents discover the true nature of the ideology, they will recoil and mobilize against it. For most families, the idea that a school can promote synthetic sexual identities to young children while keeping parents in the dark is a terrifying overreach. These districts are driving a wedge between parent and child. Parents must reject this usurpation of authority.

https://www.city-journal.org/how-gender-radicalism-conquered-sacramento-schools

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My other blogs: Main ones below

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

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

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

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

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

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18 August, 2022

UK: Now universities are more likely to reject you if you're better off in bid to 'widen participation' across social scale

<i>The usual Leftist bigotry</i>

Universities have been accused of social engineering after it emerged that poor students enjoyed a better rate of offers for places than their richer peers.

Ahead of A-level results day, Ucas, the admissions body, said deprived youngsters had been put first this year to try to 'widen participation'.

For the first time ever, universities have been provided with data on free school meals to help them select the poorest applicants, it was revealed yesterday.

And new figures show the offer rate for the most disadvantaged students was 75 per cent, against 73 per cent for the most advantaged.

Rates for both groups were 78 per cent last year, meaning the well-off suffered a bigger drop than the poor.

Universities are prioritising low-income students following heavy pressure to appear less elitist.

Some are giving students offers up to two grades below their standard requirement, meaning they can snap a place with a lower level of achievement.

But critics said it was unfair to penalise students because of family background. Chris McGovern, of the Campaign for Real Education, said: 'Free-school meals is an unfair and discriminatory system for identifying children from under-privileged backgrounds.

'Lowering entrance qualifications for children on free-school meals is a form of social engineering and amounts to an admission that our schools cannot get them up to the required standard. 

'We need to ensure that all children achieve their full potential, regardless of background.'

Professor Alan Smithers, director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at Buckingham University, said: 'I do wish regulators would respect the autonomy of universities and leave them free to make their best judgements as to the potential of students.

'Prioritising people on social background to the detriment of those who have greater achievement will be bad for those admitted who can't keep up.

'To prioritise equality over merit, in my view, is not right.

'Socially engineering in this way is wholly bad. Universities should be left to select on merit to the benefit of the students, to the benefit of the universities and to the benefit of the country.'

The trend was revealed yesterday by Clare Marchant, Ucas chief executive, who said many universities are keen on making 'contextual offers'.

This means taking into account the barriers a student has overcome to get grades, and whether they deserve a place over someone who did not face barriers.

This year, the overall offer rate decreased because of a squeeze on places – but advantaged students missed out the most.

It comes after the Daily Mail reported yesterday that school-leavers face double heartbreak this week as tens of thousands are expected to lose their university places and then struggle to find a replacement due to unusually fierce demand for clearing courses.

Mrs Marchant said: 'We know proportionately the most disadvantaged students have effectively been put first in this whole offer-making piece. 

'So that offer-making rate has dropped less proportionately for those disadvantaged students, as opposed to advantaged students.

'That's in the context of this year being the first real summer that we've seen the use of that individual free school meals data that we made available.'

Free school meal figures from the Department for Education were provided to universities with students' permission.

Next year, Ucas will help students provide information such as being estranged from parents.

An Institute for Fiscal Studies report yesterday found the gap between disadvantaged children and their peers has seen virtually no change in two decades and the pandemic has 'significantly worsened overall outcomes'.

Failure is baked in from an early age, research economist and report author Imran Tahir said.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11114591/Universities-likely-reject-youre-better-widen-participation-social-scale.html

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Yes they enrich campus life, but it's time for a cap on foreign students in our universities, writes law professor Andrew Tettenborn

My day job is teaching international maritime law at the University of Swansea, so largely a non-political world. 

But I also have a second career as a commentator, posting on social media and writing columns like this.

And to that end, I've sometimes had cause to mention China's repression — its genocide, even — of its Muslim Uighur minority, its actions in Taiwan, and the rest of Beijing's ugly catalogue of human-rights abuses.

Normally, my work as a law professor and as a polemicist are worlds apart. But not always. 

A couple of years ago, an acquaintance told me that she had learnt that a local representative of the Chinese Communist Party in Dalian, a city of 7.5 million people in eastern China, regarded me as not entirely trustworthy.

Chilling

At the time, I was due to deliver a series of lectures on Zoom — my audience including many students in China.

I then received a chilling email. It told me with tact and menace that some people in China would like a discreet preview of my slides — people I clearly understood to be Communist Party officials.

I had nothing to hide, and so complied. Perhaps, I reasoned, one of my students came from that city — and was being watched by the authorities.

So I read yesterday's story in the Daily Mail with interest. The number of foreign-born students at British universities has exploded.

As recently as 2006, the proportion of foreign students enrolling at elite 'Russell Group' universities was 12 per cent. 

By last year, this had risen to 23 per cent — meaning that, effectively, one in four students at British universities is now a foreign national.

What accounts for this huge surge? The answer is obvious. A British student pays perhaps £9,000 in annual fees to their university, but international students shell out £24,000 on average. 

That's a massive sum over three or four years, especially once you add accommodation costs.

At some universities, the figures are truly eye-opening. Some 54 per cent of undergraduates at the prestigious London School of Economics and University College London are now from overseas. 

St Andrews takes in more almost 40 per cent, while more than a third of undergraduates at Manchester and Edinburgh hail from abroad.

My own institution, Swansea, welcomes 4,000 of its 20,000-strong student body as foreign visitors — and they make an incomparable difference to campus life. 

As at every British university, many of those international students are there on merit alone.

But it is high time that Britain addressed these extraordinary numbers. 

After all, every place given to an undergraduate from far-flung climes is a space denied a British teenager who has worked hard to get top exam results but whose efforts count for nothing against a chequebook-waving international student.

The fact is that our university places, especially in our finest institutions, are increasingly being auctioned off to the highest bidders. 

And that is far more likely to be a young person from Shanghai than from Sherborne, and from Beijing than Bradford.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-11114767/Its-time-cap-foreign-students-universities-writes-law-professor-Andrew-Tettenborn.html

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Cancelling Student Debt Would Undermine Inflation Reduction Act

The recently-passed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) will reduce budget deficits by roughly $275 billion while pushing fiscal policy in the right direction to assist the Federal Reserve in its fight against inflation. However, a possible announcement from the White House to offer across-the-board student debt cancellation could undermine the bill’s disinflationary gains and deficit reduction.

Simply extending the current repayment pause through the end of the year would cost $20 billion – equivalent to the total deficit reduction from the first six years of the IRA, by our rough estimates. Cancelling $10,000 per person of student debt for households making below $300,000 a year would cost roughly $230 billion. Combined, these policies would consume nearly ten years of deficit reduction from the Inflation Reduction Act.

Debt cancellation would also wipe out the disinflationary benefits of the IRA. The Congressional Budget Office, Penn Wharton Budget Model, and Moody’s Analytics all found the IRA would have virtually no effect on inflation in the near term at the macroeconomic level. Our analysis is somewhat more optimistic since the bill’s micro-economic effects and side deals related to permitting and energy explorations can put downward pressure on prices.

However, debt cancellation would boost near-term inflation far more than the IRA will lower it. We previously estimated that a one-year pause could add up to 20 basis points to the Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) inflation rate. Using a similar analytical method, $10,000 of debt cancellation could add 15 basis points up front and create additional inflationary pressure over time.

The IRA gave Washington an opportunity to show it was finally serious about helping the Federal Reserve tackle inflation and begin to address our $24 trillion national debt.

Broad student debt cancellation – whether by extending the pause, forgiving balances, or both – would undermine the benefits of the IRA and demonstrate a lack of seriousness in addressing our nation’s economic challenges.

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/WhctKKXgkHgrWvTblxxZXnwCkmkgRNxHqNqKzQzMNglGvPjCKpmzFvLbhpJKbvbglSDvdbv

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My other blogs: Main ones below

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

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

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

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

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

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17 August, 2022

Lawmakers to Investigate Sexual Abuse in Junior R.O.T.C. Programs

Congressional investigators have opened a review of sexual misconduct in the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program of the U.S. military in the wake of reports that dozens of teenage girls had been abused at the hands of their instructors.

In a letter sent on Monday to military leaders, including Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III, the lawmakers said they were seeking information on how many misconduct reports had been received, how they had been investigated and how often the military inspected school J.R.O.T.C. programs.

They said that instructors in the J.R.O.T.C. program, which provides training in leadership, marksmanship and civic responsibility in about 3,500 high schools around the country, served as trusted representatives of the military in their local communities.

“Every incident of sexual abuse or harassment committed by a J.R.O.T.C. instructor is a betrayal of that trust,” wrote Representative Carolyn Maloney, the chairwoman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, and Representative Stephen Lynch, who chairs the panel’s subcommittee on national security.

The New York Times reported last month that J.R.O.T.C. programs had repeatedly become a place where decorated veterans — retired as officers or noncommissioned officers — preyed on teenage students. The Times identified, over a five-year period, at least 33 J.R.O.T.C. instructors who had been criminally charged with sexual misconduct involving students, along with many others who were accused of misconduct but never charged.

Many victims said they had turned to J.R.O.T.C. in high school for stability in their lives or as a pathway to military service, only to find that instructors exploited their position to take advantage of the students.

Founded more than a century ago, J.R.O.T.C. has expanded to enroll hundreds of thousands of students each year. Cadets are provided instruction in military ranks and procedures, as well as in more general topics such as public speaking and financial planning.

J.R.O.T.C. leaders point to research indicating that the program has had a positive effect on school attendance and graduation rates, and many cadets praise the program for providing vital lessons and experiences during formative years.

But The Times found that the instructors operated with weak oversight. While they were certified by individual branches of the military to take the jobs in schools, the military overseers did little to investigate problems or monitor the conduct of instructors, leaving that to the schools. The program often operates on the fringes of school campuses, with extracurricular activities after school hours or away from campus that are difficult for school administrators to monitor.

In several cases identified by The Times, instructors who were criminally charged with misconduct had already been the subject of prior complaints.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/15/us/sexual-abuse-jrotc-congress.html

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Biden school lunch policy has wider implications for religious schools

The Biden administration’s redefinition of “sex” in Title IX leaves kids’ school lunches in jeopardy.

That was an urgent problem for Grant Park Christian Academy in Tampa, Florida.

On the school’s behalf, Alliance Defending Freedom filed a federal lawsuit against the Biden administration and the state’s commissioner of agriculture and consumer services, Nikki Fried, who administers the National School Lunch Program in Florida.

Under Title IX, participating schools agree not to discriminate based on sex. Grant Park Christian Academy, which serves low-income, minority families, fully complies with that requirement.

But the Biden administration redefined “sex” under Title IX to include sexual orientation and gender identity. This new mandate applies to all school activities, including restrooms, dress codes, hiring, and pronoun usage.

Because of the school’s religious beliefs, it simply could not comply with the mandate.

Now, thanks to Alliance Defending Freedom’s lawsuit, the Biden administration and Commissioner Fried have approved Grant Park Christian Academy’s application for funding to continue serving free meals to the school’s students. And that couldn’t have happened without the support of people like you.

The Biden administration also granted the school’s request for a religious exemption to the mandate. And on Friday, the administration said it would automatically respect exemptions for all religious schools if the schools’ beliefs conflicted with the new Title IX mandate.

“While it shouldn’t have taken a federal lawsuit,” says ADF Legal Counsel Erica Steinmiller-Perdomo, who represents the school, “at least now, all religious schools like Grant Park Christian Academy who rely on the USDA’s funding to serve nutritious meals to kids in need can continue this vital service in their communities.”

This is a victory for Grant Park Christian Academy and all religious schools. But the Biden administration’s attacks on freedom are far from over.

The Biden administration says this mandate applies to all schools that participate in the national school lunch program. In other words, schools cannot receive money to feed needy children unless they embrace the Biden administration’s extreme ideology about gender.

All secular schools, including charter, public, and private schools, are subject to the mandate and are being hurt by the Biden administration’s unlawful rewriting of Title IX.

info@adflegal.org

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CA School Will Cost $250M to Rebuild After Partial Collapse

<i>California govt. corruption behind this?</i>

Part of a 20-year-old California high school building collapsed and now the state must pay $250 million to rebuild it.

Thankfully, students were at home from pandemic school closures on June 16, 2020, when “8 tons of concrete and metal roofing came crashing down without warning onto the concourse leading into the main classroom building at Lynwood High School,” The Los Angeles Times reported.

The collapse came without warning and the school district found that the main three-story building, with 110 classrooms, wasn’t salvageable and must be demolished.

A new classroom building and other necessary repairs will cost $250 million, the newspaper reported. On top of the state funds, the school district spent about $16.2 million on relocating students and on a structural investigation.

How could a building that’s only 20 years old collapse out of nowhere? “The review showed that the shoddy workmanship that led to the collapse of the ceiling above the concourse was pervasive,” The LA times reported.

Covered outdoor hallways had the same flaws, with any section having the potential to collapse at any time. Instead of having firm bracing every 10 feet, the entire 30-foot span concourse roofing had only one brace.

And the unsupported sections didn’t have a continuous beam going across the entire span but two beams that met in the middle and were connected together without bracing at the connection point. “The contractor that built the school — this is the first school they built and the last one they built from the information that we’ve gotten,” said Gregory Fromm, assistant superintendent of business services, who added that the contractor has long been out of business, the newspaper reported.

The obvious question: Why did school officials award the school-building contract to a company that had never built a school?

In addition, in a legal settlement about 20 years ago, the district agreed to accept the school as-is and not pursue any future claims against the contractor.

https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2022/08/16/ca_school_will_cost_250m_to_rebuild_after_partial_collapse_847797.html

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My other blogs: Main ones below

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

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

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

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

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

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16 August, 2022

NYC parents want to oust principal they say ‘sullied’ school’s reputation

More than 100 parents signed onto a letter this summer to replace embattled Manhattan School for Children principal Claire Lowenstein, who The Post reported in November was hit with her second no-confidence vote in just two years.

“We are a large coalition of concerned P.S. 333/MSC parents who are working to make sure our school is once again a warm, supportive environment,” reads the letter, obtained by The Post.

“We do not think this is possible with the current principal.”

The families allege that Lowenstein has “sullied” the school’s reputation in the neighborhood and among prospective staff. They accuse her administration of “actively hostile” relationships with parents of special education students, and of “documented racism.”

Dozens of teachers have left the school, serving grades K-8, since the principal’s arrival in fall 2014, according to the parents’ letter. The Department of Education ignored multiple requests for the precise figure.

Student enrollment has also dropped by the hundreds — from 760 students in 2014-15, the under-fire principal’s first year, to 501, according to city data. The DOE projects it will lose another 94 students next school year.

Mom Kate Dominus, who signed the letter, told The Post she transferred one of her children out of PS 333 for middle school, and wishes she moved the other kid, too. Dominus said her son was bullied and received little support from Lowenstein.

“This is a woman who told me this was a public education — and what was I expecting?” said Dominus, who noted, “I’m a product of a New York City public education!”

Fellow parent Jonathan Goldman said a suspected conflict with the principal led his child’s first-grade teacher to quit with just 24-hours notice.

Students in his kid’s class were moved to other homerooms, which ballooned to rosters of around 30 students each, angering parents, he recalled.

“The first grade parents were on fire this year,” Goldman said. “As a group, they are furious.”

Adams Pinckney, another of the letter’s signatories, said his son’s special education teacher was suddenly pulled from the classroom in September with no more than a weekend’s notice.

“That was the start of one bombshell after another, when there was no opportunity for response or dialogue,” Pinckney said. “The ‘conversation’ was either so unresponsive, or so cursory to be almost insulting. Like come on, we don’t need a platitude.”

Pinckney’s son has an individualized education plan (IEP) for classes that were co-taught by general and special education teachers. The rising second grader — nicknamed the “mayor of the school,” because he often shakes hands — loves going to class but started to fall nearly a year behind in math, the dad said.

“We tried to be patient and understanding — we’re coming out of the pandemic,” Pinckney said. But after waiting almost a full school year to replace the special education teacher, “We decided we’ve been too patient for too long.”

Another father, who asked for anonymity as he navigates a contentious custody battle, accused the school of switching his son’s address in its records at the mother’s request.

But the change, which placed the son as living in New Jersey, temporarily shut him out of the city’s Summer Rising program that the parents were relying on for child care.

“I was begging her just to make things fair,” he said of the principal. “I wasn’t asking for more — just follow the rules until this is done.”

“I’m not some deadbeat dad who’s not part of his life,” said the parent, who is black and Hispanic, and believes the incident was racially tinged. “She was treating me like I had no rights as a father.”

Lowenstein’s union denied the allegations made in the letter.

“As we have stated in the past, Principal Lowenstein is a highly effective and dedicated school leader, and PS 333 has performed well under her tenure,” said Craig DiFalco, a spokesperson for the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators.

Chyann Tull, a spokesperson for the DOE, said in a statement that the department is working with families and school staff.

“Our new district superintendent actively engages with families and the rest of the school community to implement interventions that best serve everyone,” she said. “We will continue to collaborate with staff and families to ensure that all students are receiving the high quality care and education that they deserve, while keeping them at the center of planning.

“Every student deserves a supportive and trustworthy learning environment,” the statement added.

Lowenstein could not be reached for comment.

https://nypost.com/2022/08/14/nyc-parents-want-principal-claire-lowenstein-ousted-from-manhattan-school-for-children/

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America’s kids unmasked two years later: Examining COVID mandate consequences as students return to class

As a new school year starts ramping up, many children nationwide will experience their first day back to school without mask requirements or other COVID-related mandates for the first time in more than two years. 

At the start of the new school year in 2021, around 75% of U.S. schools required masking for students or teachers, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Now, only a handful of schools are requiring masks. 

But for many, the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic remains. That is especially true in California, where schools implemented some of the strictest COVID policies in the country. The state was also among the last to reopen its schools. 

The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), which begins the new school year Monday, nearly reimposed mask mandates and testing over the summer but dropped them amid major pushback. 

Multiple parents who spoke with Fox News Digital said they were relieved that mask mandates have been dropped but say the impact of the past 2 ½ years of COVID policies lingers. 

"Isolating children, especially in Los Angeles, socially, academically and emotionally from their peers has had detrimental effects, the likes of which we are only beginning to feel," Daniella Bloom, whose children attend school in the Los Angeles area, told Fox News Digital.

"When you isolate children away from a seven-hour school day, where there are no sports and no social curricular activities, they have no choice but to turn to their electronics," Bloom said. "And there is only darkness there, as they are already vulnerable and going through puberty and susceptible to a lot of groupthink and conformity."

Bloom said kids who are introverted and perhaps prone to anxiety have used the masks as a way to hide from the world. 

The masks, she said, "have gotten them very comfortable to not being exposed to the world." 

Another parent, Kristina Irvin, said her oldest son, who was in middle school when COVID hit, went from being a straight-A honors student to "getting all Fs." 

"It was two years of lost time," Irvin said. "He literally wouldn’t care. And the thing that got me was the teachers didn’t care. He would show me on the Zoom videos, the teachers would be slurping up spaghetti … and then another teacher would be changing a newborn diaper – just a kid screaming in the background. So, it wasn’t conducive to learning." 

Irvin said she was more hopeful for the year ahead but added, "The fight is not over."

Another parent in the Los Angeles area told Fox News Digital she watched her kids go down a "rabbit hole" of social isolation and depression during the pandemic. 

"I kept getting so afraid that I’d walk into his room and he wouldn’t be with me anymore. He was so depressed. I remember him going into tears because he was so lonely," she said. 

Another one of her children finished his senior year as COVID hit and began college at Chapman University in Orange County the following school year. But he spiraled into a bout of depression and heavy drug use, not making it through his first semester. 

Lance Christensen, who is running for superintendent of public instruction and has five children of his own in public school, said the "hopelessness and despair" set in when children realized what they were losing. 

"It wasn't until kids started having this — these long bouts of depression and despair — where they thought, 'If I'm not going to go back to school, if I can't play baseball, if I can't go to the homecoming dance, or if I can't be in the school play, finish playing my music to get that scholarship' — the hopelessness and despair were pretty dramatic," he said. 

Christensen told Fox News Digital he’s seen, within his own network, "dozens and dozens of kids" whose depression and anxiety skyrocketed. 

"I personally know kids who have killed themselves. I know other kids who have attempted suicide in very dramatic ways," he said. 

https://www.foxnews.com/us/americas-kids-unmasked-two-years-later-examining-covid-mandate-consequences-students-return-class

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A new contract between public schools and the teachers' union in the city of Minneapolis is causing outrage because it may see white teachers laid off at the expense of teachers of color

The stipulation is part of a new agreement starting in spring 2023 between the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers and Minneapolis Public Schools ending a two-week long teachers' strike. 

Part of the agreement was an attempt to re-format how the school district hires and keeps teachers of color. 

The new contract says that, while teachers subject to layoffs or relocations will typically be done based off seniority, they may go outside the order to avoid doing that to a teacher who is 'a member of a population underrepresented'.  

This prioritizing may also apply to bring back teachers who were laid off should re-hires occur.

Teachers' unions typically support the Democratic Party, with Minnesota Federation of Teachers President Greta Callahan having posed for a photo with progressive Rep. Ilhan Omar, along with fellow squad members Rashida Tliab, Ayanna Pressley and Cori Bush while supporting Omar's nearly ill-fated primary bid last week.  

The move was met with a swift backlash, with an economics professor branding it 'racism in action'. 

The contract states: 'The District shall deprioritize the more senior teacher, who is not a member of an underrepresented population, in order to recall a teacher who is a member of a population underrepresented among licensed teachers'.

Both school district and teachers' union leaders say this makes the city one of the only in the country that does what's called 'seniority-disrupting'.  

The agreement could prove important very soon, given that the district is likely to cut jobs because of budget reductions due to lower enrollments, according to ABC News 4.  

The new contract also calls for the development of 'anti-bias anti-racist' staff advisory councils. 

They are supposed to focus, according to the contract, on: 'reducing inequitable practices and behaviors in our learning places and spaces as well as supporting educators, specifically educators of color, in navigating and disrupting our district as a predominantly white institution'. 

The stipulation was first hinted at back in March when an agreement was first struck, citing the fact that the most senior teachers in Minneapolis are majority white and people of color were typically the first on the chopping block when layoffs happened. 

The deal that ended the Minneapolis' teachers strike in March 

The contract that ended a two-week strike was initially agreed to in March, according to MPR News.

At the time, union leaders called the contract 'historic' and cited gains for education support professionals, caps on class sizes, more nurses in schools and mental health professionals. 

The deal brought hourly pay to $19 per hour for the lowest paid education support professionals, a raise of about $4 per hour and $11,000 a year. 

The new deal also included double the number of nurses and counselors in elementary schools as well as a social worker in every building.

Union reps told MPR News at the time that this protected about 'half' of the teachers of color in the district.  

Some conservative activists were outrage, including public school reform activist Christopher Rufo.

He tweeted: 'This is the inevitable endpoint of 'equity''. 

On Fox News' Hannity Monday night, contributors Leo Terrell and Clay Travis both hammered the agreement. 

Terrell, a civil rights attorney who is black, said: 'It's racist. It's discriminatory, it's illegal. It should be invalidated immediately. I read what the union says. They said they want students to have teachers that look like them. Wrong. The students need teachers who will educate them. Educate. Not what they look like!'

Sportswriter Travis, who runs the website Outkick the Coverage, agreed: 'Yeah, of course it would. And I agree with everything Leo said. Look, the foundation of the Democrat party now is two things, Sean. It is everything is racist, and America is an awful place. That is basically everything that the Democrats believe, and if you drill down essentially every policy that they advocate for, that's what it is at its essence'.

Former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker also criticized the deal, tweeting: 'This is racist. This is illegal. This is another example of why government unions should be eliminated'.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11114637/Fury-Minneapolis-teachers-union-says-WHITE-teachers-laid-regardless-seniority.html

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My other blogs: Main ones below

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

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

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

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

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

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15 August, 2022

NYC schools to ramp up safety protocols for new academic year

The New York City Department of Education is ramping up safety protocols for the new school year, The Post has learned.

The new measures range from new technology to more school safety staffers — and come after violence in the Big Apple put schools on lockdown in the spring.

“We’ve met with triple digit numbers of vendors around different safety enhancements and applications that they recommend that we use to fortify our safety in our schools,” Mark Rampersant, security director at the DOE, told parents this week.

Rampersant, at the Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Council, introduced an internal application for real-time emergency notifications between principals and parents.

“We heard from parents around notification, and timeframe by which you get notified by your schools when something like a lockdown, shelter-in-place or an evacuation transpires,” he said. “We heard you when you said principals need to do a better job of making notification.”

The application also allows Schools Chancellor David Banks to contact families, and can be used for weather emergencies like snow days.

The DOE is also introducing a prototype so the public schools can lock their front doors, while giving first responders access to the building in case of emergency. 

City officials began to seriously consider bolting the main entryways after a mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, killed 19 students and two teachers this spring.

“We believe that we have a prototype that we are introducing to our schools as we write new policy regarding what it looks like to actually lock the front doors,” Rampersant said.

The DOE is also investing in personnel, including $9 million in federal stimulus funds to put volunteer violence interrupters from local nonprofits on the city’s payroll.

“We thought fitting, why would we not employ these folks and bring them into our schools to help us ensure the safety and security for our students, staff and our visitors?” said Rampersant.

Meanwhile, a second class of school safety agents under the Adams administration will graduate later this month, adding 200 staffers in time for reopening. After that, another 250 will go into the academy for 17 weeks of training, he said.

Greg Floyd, the president of Teamsters Local 237, which represents the city’s school safety agents, estimated the current class is closer to 175 agents — and does little to add more hands on deck systemwide.

“I’m sure about 175 may have retired since the school year ended,” said Floyd, who gets retiree reports on a 2-3 month delay. “You go through the math with people who don’t know the math — and it’s good that you have another class — but you don’t say how many people retired.”

Floyd gauged that there is still a 2,000-agent shortage, compared to the workforce’s numbers pre-pandemic and the height of the movement to defund police.

He added that all agents were required to take active shooter trainings in the wake of the Texas mass school shooting.

“That’s new,” Floyd said. “But what they really need is help now — not for an active shooter. They need help for everyday weapon prevention.”

Thousands of weapons were recovered in the public schools last school year, which Banks attributed to students’ concerns about their safety on their way to and from the school buildings.

Floyd also questioned the timing of the announcements and not yet looping in the school safety agents, with the first day of school just around the corner.

“All I hear is ‘we’re looking at,’ ‘we’re looking at.’ But I don’t see the results of ‘looking at,’ and school’s going to start,” he said.

The Department of Education will have more to share soon, officials said, adding that schools and families will be the first to know about new protocols.

https://nypost.com/2022/08/12/nyc-schools-to-ramp-up-safety-protocols-for-new-school-year/

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Welcome to college — let the indoctrination begin!

It’s August, meaning millions of bright-eyed, fresh-faced kids are heading off to college to be indoctrinated.

At Northwestern University, the process begins with the student newspaper’s guide to activist groups. The Daily Northwestern’s Orientation Issue, handed out to incoming freshmen for free, helpfully lists seven groups new Wildcats might want to join. Just seven.

There’s NU Community Not Cops, which calls for the abolition of the campus police department. Students Organizing for Labor Rights, which has students pushing campus employees to unionize. NU Dissenters, which calls for the university to divest from any “war profiteers” including Boeing and Lockheed Martin. And Fossil Free NU, which “fights for climate and environmental justice, based in anti-racist and abolitionist praxis.”

Or you could tap a keg with a group dedicated to destroying Israel.

The Students for Justice in Palestine “raise awareness for violence committed against Palestinian people by Israeli forces” — skipping, we imagine, the constant rocket and terrorist attacks against Israel. SJP brags that it got 60 students to walk out of a speech by Andrew Yang, because why listen to anyone with whom you disagree? They boycotted Sabra, because why let any Israeli company do business?

In November of last year, Community Not Cops, Students for Justice in Palestine, NU Dissenters and Fossil Free NU “stormed” the field during a football game in protest (considering Northwestern went 1-8 in the Big Ten, they were probably happy for the break). What does Fossil Free NU have to do with Israel? The group “sees environmental justice work as tied to other forms of resistance.”

Sadly, Northwestern is indicative of what’s going on at many universities, which are awash in “intersectional” progressive dogma. You must believe in the Green New Deal, and defunding the police, and Palestinians’ “right to return” — code for the end of Israel as a Jewish state — and you must believe them all, no exceptions. Each gets an uncritical hearing in the student press. Anyone else gets shouted down or protested.

No surprise, then, that universities are producing the sort of young, white, illiberal, censorious urban voters whose voting bloc elects the Squad and drags the Democratic Party even further left.

So: Welcome, class of ’26. We have just one piece of advice. The most important thing to learn in college is how to think for yourself.

https://nypost.com/2022/08/12/college-indoctrination-at-northwestern-university/

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Colleges, Parents Fight in Court Over Tuition Charged During Pandemic Closures

Colleges and universities faced a barrage of lawsuits in the peak pandemic days of 2020 after schools shut down their campuses and moved classes online while charging students their usual tuition rates.

Two years later, the Covid-19 tuition wars are building toward a decisive phase.

A number of courts have issued rulings that provided a boost to students and parents seeking refunds, including last week in a case against a small private university in California. That decision followed a recent federal appeals court ruling that allowed claims to proceed against Loyola University Chicago. But those rulings stand in tension with other decisions for schools that said students don’t have valid claims. Pending cases from higher-level courts could bring more clarity.

The cases could turn on what specific promises schools made to students about in-person education—and whether students suffered any harm in the switch to remote classes, said Benjamin J. Hinks, a Boston-area employment and higher-education lawyer who has followed the litigation.

“We’re definitely seeing a trend towards plaintiff-friendly rulings at the pretrial stages,” Mr. Hinks said. “However, these are hard-fought cases, and the fight is not over for universities.”

Most of the cases revolve around the academic spring semester of 2020, when emergency quarantine measures in the period before vaccines forced the country’s higher-education industry to suspend in-person classes and close their physical campuses, barring access to laboratories, dormitories, libraries, student centers and athletic facilities.

At many schools, academia’s temporary move to virtual learning didn’t come with any discounts to tuition or student service fees. But it left a trail of hundreds of lawsuits in federal and state courts demanding restitution.

Legally, the battle isn’t so much about whether an online learning experience is inferior. Judges aren’t supposed to make judgments about academic quality under long-held doctrine insulating schools from lawsuits alleging “educational malpractice.”

Plaintiffs have argued that schools were contractually obligated to deliver an in-person education and unfairly kept all their money.

“Universities are wonderful places, but students are paying a lot of money. They paid for in-person access to campus, in-person education and all the amenities promised to them when they signed up, and they didn’t get that,” said Ellen Noteware, an attorney representing the plaintiffs suing Loyola.

“People just didn’t get the experience they thought they were paying for,” she said.

The litigation has turned on complex interpretations of state contract law and questions about what exactly colleges and universities promised students when they enrolled.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/colleges-parents-fight-in-court-over-tuition-charged-during-pandemic-closures-11659865504

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My other blogs: Main ones below

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

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

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

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

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

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14 August, 2022

Fascism in an American university

In a stirring recent address to the students of the startup University of Austin, Bari Weiss described the ideology that has taken over America’s institutions of higher education: “Forgiveness is replaced with punishment. Debate is replaced with dis-invitation and de-platforming. Diversity is replaced with homogeneity of thought. Inclusion with exclusion. Excellence with equity.” To change this calamitous development requires nothing less than a revolution.

All successful revolutions start with local rebellions, and one has been taking place over the last year at Princeton University—the prestigious institution where I have taught mathematics and made my home for the last 35 years, but which is being destroyed from within by an administration committed to the ideology that Weiss accurately identified.

The saga has been well documented in these pages: In July 2020, tenured classics professor Joshua Katz published an article criticizing several illiberal demands made by a large number of Princeton faculty members to correct the university’s alleged “systemic racism,” including the creation of a “committee composed entirely of faculty that would oversee the investigation and discipline of racist behaviors, incidents, research, and publication on the part of faculty ...” 

For his criticism of these demands, and for referring to a by-then-defunct student organization, the Black Justice League (BJL), as “a small local terrorist organization that made life miserable for the students (including the many Black students) who did not agree with its members’ demands,” Katz was smeared as a racist by the university in its own freshman orientation program, then fired earlier this year on what is recognized by every sane observer as a pretext: a disputed accusation from a former student with whom Katz had a consensual sexual affair in 2006-07—for which he was already punished in 2018—that Katz had discouraged her from seeking mental health care.

The university maintains that the decision to fire Katz had nothing to do with his criticism of illiberal faculty and students in 2020, nor anything to do with the student affair for which he’d already been suspended without pay for a year. Despite the obvious appearance of cracking down on the protected speech of a tenured faculty member and subjecting him to double jeopardy, Princeton claims that Katz’s firing had only to do with an unproven allegation from a recently aggrieved former lover.

Even the most generous and sympathetic interpretation of the university’s actions can no longer avoid the conclusion that it is, quite simply, lying through its teeth. And so, in the interest of shedding more light on the character of this administration, and of bolstering the principles of free speech, transparency, and academic integrity which have been compromised at Princeton under the watch of President Christopher Eisgruber, I have decided to publish the email correspondence I conducted with him between October 2021 and July 2022. The full exchange, which is too long to reprint here, can be viewed on the website of Princetonians for Free Speech. But I will draw the attention of interested readers to a few key points:

When seven colleagues and I filed a formal complaint with the university’s grievance system about the defamation of Katz in last fall’s freshman orientation program, “To Be Known and Heard: Systemic Racism and Princeton University,” it was dismissed in a report by Vice Provost for Institutional Equity and Diversity Michele Minter and Vice President of Human Resources Lianne Sullivan-Crowley on grounds that, to take one grotesque example, Katz’s speech was not a “protected characteristic” such as “race, creed, color, sex, gender identity.” When we requested reconsideration from Eisgruber, he referred the matter to the new dean of the faculty, Gene Jarrett, who declined to question the judgments of Minter and Sullivan-Crowley, but noted our right to appeal the matter to the Committee on Conference and Faculty Appeal (CCFA).

We did just that, and on April 19, 2022, the CCFA issued a judgment: first, agreeing that our complaint should not have been dismissed; second, ruling unanimously against Minter and Sullivan-Crowley on the points we raised; and third, recommending a full, independent investigation into the smearing of Katz—which we believed to be a case of deliberate, targeted harassment by the administration to retaliate against his use of protected speech. In the words of the ruling:

The CCFA unanimously recommends that Prof. Klainerman’s complaint receive a full investigation. We are sending the complaint back to the Vice Provost Minter for further consideration. In light of Prof. Klainerman’s concerns about potential conflict of interest, we believe it would strengthen any final determinations of the investigation if an office or offices outside of Vice Provost Minter’s participates in further deliberations of this complaint ...

Immediately after I received the CCFA judgment, I wrote to Eisgruber reiterating our demand for the appointment of an independent investigator. He replied on April 22: “As always, the University will carefully evaluate and consider the CCFA’s advisory opinion and will engage with the committee on the matter if and as appropriate.” After more than two months, on July 8, and after many fruitless personal attempts to find out what action, if any, would be taken on the CCFA report (I had, for example, written to members of Princeton’s Board of Trustees), I received the following in an email from Eisgruber:

I am writing with regard to the University’s response to the CCFA’s report of April 19, 2022, concerning your appeal related to some of the reference and teaching materials included in the To Be Known and Heard virtual gallery. As I recently advised the CCFA, the University, after receiving the committee’s advisory opinion, conducted another review of this matter that included additional fact-finding. This additional review confirmed that none of the exceptions enumerated in the Statement on Freedom of Expression apply to the materials at issue. Because the website and its authors enjoy the full protection of that statement, no disciplinary action against the staff involved in the website’s creation is warranted or permissible under University policy.

I replied on July 10 asking for a copy of the review on which Eisgruber had based his decision. I also requested that we, the group of eight complainants, be given an opportunity to present our case in person to the Board of Trustees or the appropriate committee of the board at its next meeting. In his response four days later, Eisgruber dismissed my requests with the claim that “we generally do not disclose details about internal matters involving University employees absent a compelling need to do so.” He also wrote: “The Board’s role, however, does not include hearing appeals from individual faculty members who are disappointed in the University’s decision not to pursue discipline against other employees.” In conclusion, he said, “this matter has been adjudicated by the University and is now closed.”

There are two points to note in this exchange. First, Eisgruber came to the extraordinary conclusion that the free speech protections denied to a faculty member nevertheless extended to administrators who used university resources to smear and harass a member of the academic community to a captive audience of incoming students with no possibility of rebuttal. These smears, it’s worth noting, included the deliberate doctoring of a quotation from Katz’s 2020 article and statements such as, “[Katz] seems not to regard people like me [a Black professor] as essential features, or persons, of Princeton” and “[Katz’s views are] fundamentally incompatible with our mission and values as educators.” I believe that Eisgruber is the first university president in America to impose what might be called the Joseph McCarthy interpretation of the First Amendment.

Second, Eisgruber’s claim that he has the ability and indeed the obligation to deny the official complainants the right to know how the university reached its decision to ignore the CCFA judgment has no justification in Princeton’s rules and regulations, and raises suspicions of a possible cover-up—an unavoidable impression Eisgruber evidently felt comfortable conveying. The unsupported claim of “additional fact-finding” is likewise impossible to understand. If additional facts were found, why is no one—neither the complainants nor the CCFA—permitted to see them or even know what they are?

These are not issues of “individual faculty members who are disappointed in the University’s decision not to pursue discipline against other employees,” as Eisgruber dismissively stated, but of free speech, academic freedom, fairness, and accountability. By empowering university bureaucrats to decide which members of the campus community are racist, which acts qualify as racism, what punishments are necessary, and which decisions cannot be appealed, Eisgruber appears to have one-upped the repugnant faculty letter of July 2020 demanding a committee to “oversee the investigation and discipline of racist behaviors, incidents, research, and publication on the part of faculty.” He has indeed constituted such a committee: not under the aegis of faculty itself, but under the menacing administrative Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity.

Eisgruber is the first university president in America to impose what might be called the Joseph McCarthy interpretation of the First Amendment.

It is painfully obvious by now that Katz’s only real crime was his criticism of the 2020 faculty letter, which made him the first member of the Princeton community who publicly objected to Eisgruber’s attempts to replace freedom of thought, speech, inquiry, and association with fashionable woke fanaticism. Katz had to be punished as an example to the rest of us not to interfere with the university’s plans to remake itself as a factory of partisan ideology.

In any case, the main issue is no longer the firing of Katz but rather the abuse of power and likely cover-up for which we, the small group of faculty members, complainants, and CCFA members, are powerless to redress. I therefore call on the Princeton alumni to take up their responsibility as the real trustees of their beloved university, and to help expand our little faculty mutiny into a true revolution. If alumni do not raise their voices and place conditions on their wallets, there is indeed no hope, and Princeton’s erstwhile status as the envy of the academic world will be lost forever. If, however, alumni demand reform by making clear that their continued public and financial support will be tied to the revival of real education and scholarship at the expense of the “social justice” bureaucracy, our cherished institution will have a future.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/eisgruber-emails-princeton-katz

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UK: Hard-left academics are accused of stifling free speech on campus with 'witch hunt' against staff over gender beliefs

Hard-left academics launched a 'witch-hunt' against colleagues over differing opinions on gender identity, it was claimed last night.

Members of the University and College Union (UCU) vowed to draw up a list of university backroom staff they suspected of having 'gender-critical beliefs', according to leaked meeting minutes.

The revelation sparked outrage, with some employees accusing the group of stifling free speech on campuses.  

Minutes seen by the Times reportedly show that the union was looking to email a survey on the issue to LGBT members.

This would 'get information about gender critical equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) consultants...employed in HR departments of various institutions', the paper reports.

Suggested questions included asking members if they were aware of their institution employing EDI consultants and demanding they be named.

Furthermore, it vowed to 'inform branches' if HR staff and consultants were found to be gender critical.

However, the union insists that while it surveyed LGBT members as part of its commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion, it didn't ask about the views of EDI colleagues, not did it 'make or keep lists of staff with gender-critical views'.

Nevertheless, academic sources have reacted furiously to the revelations.

One told the Times: 'These minutes are compelling evidence that UCU is seeking to discriminate against and harass members who believe in sex.'

Last year, feminist philosopher Kathleen Stock has quit her job at the University of Sussex after students carried out a 'bullying and harassment' campaign to oust her from her position over a row about transgender rights.

Professor Stock, 48, an expert in gender and sexual orientation, had been branded a 'transphobe' by some outraged students who called for her to be fired.

Posters put up in the tunnel from Falmer station to the university's campus earlier this month said she 'makes trans students unsafe' and 'we're not paying £9,250 a year for transphobia'.

Banners saying 'Stock Out' had also been held alongside burning flares and scores of people were criticising her online under the Twitter hashtag #ShameOnSussexUni.

The University's Vice Chancellor Adam Tickell had strongly defended her 'untrammelled' right to 'say what she thinks', whilst more than 200 academics from other universities signed a letter calling out alleged abuse from 'trans activist bullies'.

But Professor Stock announced on Twitter that she was 'sad to announce' she was leaving her position, and added that she hoped 'other institutions can learn from this'.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11100855/Hard-left-academics-accused-witch-hunt-against-staff-gender-beliefs.html

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Are students really too fragile for Shakespeare?

What’s the point of a university? Regrettably, that’s a genuine question. The censorship and trigger warnings that are rife on British campuses make it hard to work out what our formerly esteemed institutions of higher education are for anymore, now that free speech, intellectual challenge and the pursuit of truth have become deeply unfashionable.

Hundreds of freedom-of-information requests were sent out by the Times to officials across 140 UK universities. The responses found that trigger warnings, telling students that certain works might be upsetting or even traumatising, have been applied to more than 1,000 texts. At least ten universities have even removed books from reading lists or made them optional out of concerns they might ‘harm’ students.

Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Underground Railroad, was among the books affected. It was removed from an English course at the University of Essex over its ‘graphic description of violence and abuse of slavery’. Miss Julie, the classic play by August Strindberg, has been ‘permanently withdrawn’ from a literature module at the University of Sussex because it contains discussion of suicide.

Other texts have been made optional on account of their ‘challenging’ content. At Nottingham Trent, students of French no longer have to study Charlie Hebdo, the satirical French magazine whose staff were gunned down by Islamists seven years ago. Why? Because academics decided the magazine was ‘racist, sexist, bigoted, (and) Islamophobic’.

Some of the trigger warnings slapped on books are downright comical. Aberdeen has put one on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream for ‘classism’ and labelled Chaucer ‘emotionally challenging’. Not to be outdone, Greenwich warns students that Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four ‘contains self-injurious behaviour, suicide, animal cruelty’. But what about the whole totalitarianism thing?

Those who insist such measures are essential to looking after ‘vulnerable’ students haven’t been paying attention. Trigger warnings, as a therapeutic intervention to help those suffering genuine mental distress, are woefully misguided. There is no proper evidence that they work. And as a general tool in education, they’re a disaster: in effect they urge students not to read certain books and institutionalise the idea that students cannot deal with challenging material.

The books that are being dropped or covered in warnings are fascinating. Take the case of the University of Essex and The Underground Railroad, which was published in 2016. A contemporary book by an African-American author has been binned because his depiction of the horrors of slavery might upset some privileged English students. There is no better indication of how confused and unprogressive campus censorship is than that.

Naturally, academics are dismissing the investigation. They say that a few universities messing about with reading lists does not a free-speech crisis make, blithely ignoring the more than 1,000 trigger warnings that have been uncovered. They also turn a blind eye to official data showing a sharp rise in no-platforming on campus. Instead the backlash to these trigger warnings has been dismissed as a right-wing culture war.

This response by universities only underlines their critics’ point: that these once great seats of learning have become glorified crèches. Universities have completely lost sight of their founding principles. They now function, all but explicitly, as communities of the like-minded and as therapeutic spaces in which fragile souls can shelter from the supposed awfulness of the world. Opposing views are discouraged and students are spared the indignity of reading a ‘challenging’ book.

Without freedom of speech, without intellectual courage, you do not have a university. Those who run higher education desperately need to be reminded of that.

https://spectator.com.au/2022/08/are-students-really-too-fragile-for-shakespeare/

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My other blogs: Main ones below

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

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

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

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

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

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12 August, 2022

The Activist Network Infusing Gender Ideology Into K-12

Radical gender theory has made sudden inroads in America’s schools. Many parents have watched in confusion as their children repeat the movement’s slogans and adopt synthetic sexual identities such as “non-binary,” “pansexual,” and “genderqueer.” The next question for many families is: Where does this surge in left-wing sexual ideology come from? One answer: from a network of professional activists, who have smuggled university-style gender theory into more than 4,000 schools under the cover of “gender and sexuality” clubs, or GSAs.

The main national organization behind this campaign, the GSA Network, is a professionally staffed nonprofit with a multimillion-dollar annual budget. GSA Network serves as an umbrella organization for more than 4,000 “gender and sexuality alliances” across 40 states. Once called the Gay-Straight Alliance Network, the group rebranded in 2016, reflecting a new focus on “the limits of a binary gender system.” The individual chapters, which operate in elementary, middle, and high schools, often use the language of “LGBTQ inclusion” and “anti-bullying” in their public relations, but behind the scenes, the central organization is driven by pure left-wing radicalism that extends far beyond sexuality.

According to the organization’s publicly accessible materials and administrative documents, the GSA Network’s ideology follows the basic framework of radical gender theory: white European men created an oppressive system based on capitalism, white supremacy, and “heteronormativity”—that is, the promotion of heterosexuality, the male-female binary, and bourgeois family norms. In order to fight back, racial and sexual minorities must unite under the banner of “intersectionality” and dismantle the interlocking “systems of oppression.”

The GSA Network isn’t subtle about its political objectives. In a manifesto, the organization calls for the “abolition of the police,” the “abolition of borders and ICE,” the payment of “reparations” to minorities, the “decolonization” of native lands, the end of “global white supremacy,” and the overthrow of the “cisgender heterosexual patriarchy.” The organization is also explicitly anti-capitalist: its literature is littered with references to “anti-capitalism” and, during one board meeting, its leaders fantasized about what life would be like “after capitalism falls.”

The specific practices of the GSA Network and its affiliates rely on cult-like programming techniques. A toolkit instructs children recruited into the clubs to do the “self work” of analyzing “how [their] actions, lack of actions or privileges contribute to the ongoing marginalization” of the oppressed. After establishing a baseline of identity-based guilt, the children identify their position on the intersectional hierarchy and categorize themselves as part of “groups w/ systemic power (privilege)” or “groups w/ less or no systemic power (oppressed)” along the axes of race, sex, gender, and national origin. Straight, white, cisgender male citizens are deemed the ultimate oppressor; gay, black, trans women immigrants are the ultimate oppressed.

Next, children are encouraged to atone for their privileges and perform acts of penance. “Doing the self and collective work to analyze how we contribute to the oppression of Trans, Queer, Non-binary / Gender Non-Conforming, Black, Indigenous, youth of color is tough, but we must commit to dismantling these systems for collective liberation,” the organization says. Specifically, the adults leading the clubs are instructed to tell the “privileged” children that they must “implement the use of pronouns,” “offer a land acknowledgment,” “listen to the Trans community,” “center conversations around Black liberation,” and “use your privilege (and your physical and monetary resources) to support Trans, Queer, Non-binary / Gender Non-Conforming, Black, Indigenous people of color, issues, businesses, and projects.”

All this activity, the group believes, is best kept secret from parents. The GSA Network tells the adult club “advisors” that they should keep a child’s involvement in the club confidential. “Know the laws in your state around students’ privacy rights and what you do and don’t have to tell parents/guardians/families,” the organization says in its official handbook. “When calling youth, it may not be safe to mention ‘GSA club’ or another trans or queer reference. Alternatively, club leaders can say they are from a student leadership program.” In many school districts, teachers not only can encourage a child’s participation in a “gender and sexuality” club without notifying parents but can also facilitate a child’s gender or sexual transition, including the adoption of a new name and set of pronouns, with the default policy requiring teachers to keep it a secret from that child’s family.

This strategy of the “gender and sexuality” clubs is deeply cynical. As independent journalists Colin Wright and Christina Buttons have documented, many teachers who serve as adult “advisors” to these clubs are intentionally concealing the sexual and political nature of their activities from parents, deliberately misleading families with vague language about “acceptance, tolerance, diversity, and identity.” This might work in the short term, but in the long term, they are playing with fire. School districts that allow adult employees to discuss sexuality with children secretly are creating a dangerous system that could easily be exploited by child predators. Clinical psychologists are already raising the alarm, warning that some of these practices resemble the tactics of such predators.

One solution for this problem is total transparency and the restoration of parental authority. Schools should adopt policies that parents must be notified about their children’s participation in curricular and extracurricular activities involving sex, gender, and sexuality, with the default being that parents are required to opt in explicitly to any such programs. Furthermore, as Governor Ron DeSantis has done in Florida, state legislatures should ban all instruction on sex, gender, and sexuality in at least kindergarten through third grade. Beyond that, schools should be required to post all training and teaching materials on their websites so that parents can easily review all curriculum and documentation associated with gender and sexuality programs.

https://www.city-journal.org/gsa-clubs-smuggle-gender-ideology-into-k-12-education

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New York hands out worthless diplomas to high school ‘grads’

A new report by the New York Equity Coalition confirmed what this page has been saying for years: Lowered standards have inflated statewide high school graduation rates.

The statewide rate jumped to 86.1% last year, as the city’s rose to 82%. But the report notes that 70% of grads used at least one state test exemption to “earn” a 2021 diploma, after the Board of Regents and the State Department of Education seized on COVID to relax graduation standards. That’s up from just 10% in 2020.

Sebrone Johnson of the Urban League’s Rochester chapter, one of the groups in the Equity Coalition, told The Post that relying on these exemptions “devalues the very premise of the diploma.”

And they’re still at it: In May, the Board of Regents approved a “temporary” measure that lets high schoolers with failing scores of 50-64 on a Regents test appeal their score if they pass the classroom subject. This will lift graduation rates once again. After all, schools in New York City (at least) regularly get caught committing grade fraud to boost those rates.

Now parents are wising up to these games. No wonder families are abandoning the regular public schools in droves

https://nypost.com/2022/08/10/new-york-doe-hands-out-worthless-diplomas-to-high-school-grads/

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Majority of Texas teachers are considering quitting: survey

A majority of Texas teachers are apparently on the verge of quitting, according to a new survey.

The study, which was conducted by the Texas State Teachers Association, says that 70% of the 688 teachers surveyed are seriously considering leaving their profession.

The number is the highest recorded by the TSTA, which has been tracking teachers' concerns in the Lone Star State for over four decades. The survey recorded that 53% of the teachers they asked considered leaving their jobs in 2018. 

About 94% of surveyed teachers attested to the pandemic increasing stress in their professional lives, while 84% said their workload and planning requirements increased. Around 41% of respondents said they took on extra jobs throughout the year.  

According to TSTA, the main reason is discord between Texas teachers and legislators – with teachers feeling they are not listened to or paid adequately.  

"If situations don’t improve, if the political climate doesn’t improve and the members of the legislature don’t start spending more money on public education and teacher’s salaries, it may get worse," Texas State Teachers Association Clay Robison told KTBC. "The people that suffer are the school children. Their learning loss could get worse and that puts the future of Texas at risk." 

"I think a lot of that [discord] built up and a lot of teachers said, ‘well, I’m out of here," Robison added.

The news comes as the U.S. experiences a teacher shortage, with districts from New York to Minnesota experiencing vacancies. DeKalb Independent School District in Texas shifted to a four-day weekly schedule on Monday. The district hopes that the extra day off will give teachers adequate time to prepare for the week.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/majority-texas-teachers-considering-quitting-survey

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My other blogs: Main ones below

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

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

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

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

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

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11 August, 2022

College Essay Prompts Get Absurd. ‘So Where Is Waldo, Really?’

<i>This throws the door open to a lot of arbitrariness in admissions. Guess who is likely to be given the benefit of the doubt.  SCOTUS  looks likely to crack down on racial preferences in admissions.  Enough said</i>

Rachel Quaye-Asamoah is heading into her senior year at Brooklyn Technical High School in New York. She is eyeing several top-ranked colleges, and intends to major in economics. She is already preparing her personal statement for college applications, describing how her upbringing shaped her worldview around money and capitalism.

But some colleges, she is learning, are more apt to throw curveballs than gauge what applicants think of, say, budgets and bear markets.

Take the University of Chicago, which asks among its 2022-23 application essay questions: “What advice would a wisdom tooth have?”

“What am I supposed to do with that?” says Rachel, who is 16 years old and still weighing where she will apply.

Back-to-school season is approaching, and for many rising high-school seniors, so is the grinding process of applying to college. Most college applications—including the Common Application and the Coalition for College—opened on Monday. A key part of the frothing madness of college-admissions season: crafting the perfect essay.

Essays might now carry more weight in the increasingly competitive admissions process since about 72% of schools have already made college entrance exams optional next year, a shift away from standardized tests that accelerated during the pandemic.

These teenage treatises are a chance to shine creatively, and often, to stare bleary-eyed at a blank computer screen.

Advice offered by colleges makes clear the pitfalls.

“Proofread, proofread, proofread,” cautions Carleton College in Northfield, Minn., under essay tips on its website. “There’s a difference between ‘tutoring children’ and ‘torturing children’ and your spell-checker won’t catch that.”

Then there is the tortuous business of tackling the essay questions themselves. Some schools stick with fairly standard snoozers, such as “Why this college?” or “How did you learn from and overcome an obstacle?”

Others get more eccentric, though—schools say—with a purpose.

Peter Wilson, the University of Chicago’s director of admissions, explained what whimsical prompts, such as the school’s wisdom-tooth query, can drill down and extract from the applicants: “How do they think? How do they play with ideas?” Off-the-wall prompts, which have long been a tradition at the school, also tell the applicant something about the university. “Constantly pushing boundaries and creativity, that’s the type of culture we create here.”

The University of Maryland, College Park, has asked students to detail their favorite thing about…last Tuesday. That’s a tough one if your Google Calendar shows a lot of white space. One college-admissions consulting blog advises, “If you laid in bed all day Tuesday, but went for a beautiful hike on Wednesday, write about the hike.” The school says it continues to ask that question, but changes the day each year.

Chapman University asks applicants to name one dish they would cook for the school’s admission team. Princeton University, meanwhile, has asked “What song represents the soundtrack of your life at this moment?”

To get into Pomona College, last year’s seniors had to answer, in 50 words or less, “Marvel or DC? Pepsi or Coke? Instagram or TikTok? What’s your favorite ‘this or that’ and which side do you choose?”

The University of Vermont asks applicants: ‘Which Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavor (real or imagined) best describes you?’

Wake Forest University has asked students to give a top 10 list with the theme of their choice. The University of Vermont asks applicants a brain freezer, related to a Vermont brand: “Which Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavor (real or imagined) best describes you?” The school says about a quarter of its applicant pool chooses this prompt.

Ava Eros, who faced the essay question, picked the limited-edition “Chip Happens,” a chocolate-ice-cream base with fudge chips and swirls of potato chips. The combination served as a metaphor for her twists and turns in adolescence, from losing a track and field race to gaining self-confidence.

“Honestly, I’ve never tried Chip Happens before,” she says. “I usually get Half Baked.”

The University of Vermont accepted her but she chose to attend the University of Pittsburgh, where she will be a sophomore in the fall.

Rice University has a longstanding tradition—a prompt known as “The Box”—to ask applicants to submit a captionless image that appeals to them, in lieu of an essay.

Yvonne Romero DaSilva, vice president for enrollment at Rice, says more than a few applicants have sent a photo of rice—the actual grain.

“One might consider that clever,” she says. “But it’s been done so many times that it proves to be unoriginal.”

The University of Chicago might get Latin honors in unconventional essay prompts. Each year, applicants must answer one of a few essay questions. The queries are drawn from ideas submitted by admitted, current and former students.

Applicants can also dig through the school’s essay-prompt archives and pick questions from previous years, including: “Who does Sally sell her seashells to?” and “So where is Waldo, really?” One came from a student more than a decade ago: “Find x.”

More here:

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/college-admissions-essay-prompts-11659451147

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Elite all-girls school in Nashville now admits anyone who identifies as female

Harpeth Hall, an elite girls school in Nashville, Tennessee, has implemented a new policy to allow applications from anyone who identifies as female, not just those who are biologically female. 

In an email sent to parents, the school announced it would be following a new policy that allows biological males who identify as female to be admitted to the school, reported OutKick. The email included a “Gender Diversity Philosophy” document explaining the admissions policy. 

“Harpeth Hall is a girls school. The school culture is unique and distinctly about girls, complete with the use of references to students as girls and young women and the collective use of female pronouns,” the Gender Diversity Philosophy read. 

“Any student who identifies as a girl may apply to our school. Students who join and remain at Harpeth Hall do so because our mission as a school for girls resonates with them,” the document continues. 

The document also stated that any student who “communicates a desire to be identified as male or adopt he/him pronouns” may not be served well at Harpeth Hall. 

Harpeth Hall is not the only historically all-girls school to begin accepting biological males who identify as female. In 2016, Barnard College, an all-women’s college in New York City, implemented a policy to “consider for admission those applicants who consistently live and identify as women, regardless of the gender assigned to them at birth.” The decision made Barnard the last of the traditional Seven Sisters colleges to update their admissions policies.

Harpeth Hall dates its history to 1865, and is an elite college-prep school for girls grades 5-12. Notable alumni of the school include actress Reese Witherspoon and singer Amy Grant. 

Harpeth Hall did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. 

https://nypost.com/2022/08/11/tennessee-all-girls-school-harpeth-hall-admitting-anyone-identifying-as-female/

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Forget the fads: Australian Math teachers urged to focus on traditional teaching methods

Math teachers should ditch “faddish” practices and focus on proven methods such as using clear and detailed instruction and teaching algorithms.

A new report from the Centre for Independent Studies says that teachers are often misinformed about how students learn and what works in the classroom.

The report, Myths are Undermining Maths Teaching, calls for a focus on traditional education methods such as explicit teaching, involving the explanation and demonstration of new skills, instead of “inquiry-based learning”.

Opposing education academics say teachers should be able to use their professional judgment to decide the best teaching methods on a case-by-case basis.

Australian student achievement in the OECD-run Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) has declined more steeply and consistently than any other country except Finland. This downward trend has been greatest in mathematics. Compared with the top-performer, Singapore, the Australian students who sat the most recent PISA test in 2018 were three years behind in maths.

The report was co-authored by Sarah Powell, an associate professor in the department of special education at the University of Texas. She said myths dominated the teaching of maths, harming students’ learning and leading to educational failure.

“They have become so commonplace because teachers are regularly misinformed about how students learn and what works in the classroom,” she said.

Among the “teaching myths” outlined in the report are that teaching algorithms is harmful, that timed assessments cause maths anxiety, that “productive struggle” is helpful for students, and that inquiry learning is the best approach.

Inquiry learning involves teachers starting with a range of scenarios, questions and problems for students to navigate, instead of presenting information or instruction directly.

“Helping teachers to substitute faddish and evidence-free practices with proven, effective teaching will lift outcomes of students,” Powell said.

The report argues in favour of explicitly teaching students mathematics skills first and later encouraging independent practice and application of skills.

“While some students may thrive with true inquiry-based learning, their success is an exception rather than the standard outcome,” the report said.

Australian Catholic University STEM research director Professor Vince Geiger said teachers should be able to incorporate both explicit teaching and inquiry learning into their teaching. He said the research paper appeared to be reflective of a very specific point of view.

“It does amaze me when people put these ideas up as a juxtaposition,” he said. “The best teachers I know take the position that you need to do some of both.”

Geiger said the PISA results indicated Australian students were not falling short in their procedural maths abilities but rather in reasoning and problem-solving.

“We’ve got to get our kids to be better at adaptive type thinking – taking what they learn in the classroom and being able to apply it in different situations and contexts and real-world situations,” he said. “Explicit teaching by itself won’t get them there.”

Debate over the merits of inquiry-based mathematics learning and explicit teaching split the profession during a recent debate about Australia’s proposed new national curriculum.

Northholm Grammar School head of mathematics Phil Waldron said his school had a strong focus on direct instruction, where every step of a maths problem was directly modelled by a teacher for students, which was producing excellent results.

“The report reinforces the idea that students’ understanding is developed by the teacher and that it’s easy for the teachers to take students’ knowledge for granted and therefore miss steps in instruction,” he said.

“The problem with inquiry learning is that students are often left to figure it out for themselves and it’s all based on prior understanding and contextual understanding for them.

“You always need a foundation, you can’t start with inquiry, students need a level of understanding before they start to think for themselves.”

Waldron said inquiry learning was promoted as best practice through his teacher training at university.

“I’ve been blessed with professional experience that was somewhat counter to what I walked away from university with,” he said. “And now the evidence is suggesting that what these older staff members were doing is, in fact, the best way.”

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/forget-the-fads-maths-teachers-urged-to-focus-on-traditional-teaching-methods-20220810-p5b8np.html

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My other blogs: Main ones below

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

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

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

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

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

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10 August, 2022

2 California Parents Fight Transgender Bills

As California lawmakers consider two sweeping bills on gender ideology, one California mom says she’s over this “extreme liberalism.” 

“We’ve had enough of this extreme liberalism,” Erin Friday, a registered Democrat, told The Daily Signal in an interview.  

Friday, 55, is the leader of a local Parents of Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoric Kids chapter. For her, the transgender issue is personal.  

Friday’s teenage daughter is what’s known as a desister, someone who is briefly socialized as the opposite sex but doesn’t go through with any surgeries or hormone treatments.  

“After she said, ‘I want to be called by a male name,’ … every teacher and every student called her by a male name. This was kept from me,” said Friday. 

In the ongoing debate surrounding gender ideology and medical intervention for children, California lawmakers are considering a pair of sweeping bills that critics claim will entice confused kids to the state and receive life-altering treatment. 

If passed, SB 923 will require physicians and health insurance providers to receive training on how to deal with transgender and gender nonbinary people, as well as require insurance companies to include a list of providers that provide cross-sex hormones or perform gender surgeries in their network directories.  

Friday sees the bill as “indoctrination.” 

“It’s a forced curriculum that will be prepared by non-medical professionals and advocacy groups,” she said. “They are taking California state dollars and using them to advocate for gender interventions.” 

SB 107 is being hailed as a transgender refuge bill that would prohibit state agents from complying with other states’ subpoenas for medical information and would prevent non-California courts from demanding the state remove children from homes where gender treatments are occurring.  

The bills’ author, state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, tweeted in April, “SB 107 will be our legislation to provide refuge in CA for trans kids & their families from states that are criminalizing them & MDs & threatening to remove trans children from their homes.” 

To Friday, the bill is nothing short of terrifying.  

“It doesn’t just create a sanctuary state to go against those states that ban gender intervention, it creates a sanctuary against the other 49 states. Once [the minors] put their foot in California, the California courts are required to take jurisdiction over that child,” Friday said. 

She continued, “That means the California courts will decide what is in the best interest of that child. We’ve seen it in California; taking that child away from those parents, because the parents refuse to involve their children in experimental sterilizing-causing treatments.” 

As research by The Heritage Foundation indicates, studies cited to support the argument that gender therapy, like surgeries or hormones, improves the health for children who say they’re transgender are problematic. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)  

Friday isn’t the only parent who has been impacted by the rise in transgender ideology across the country.  

Ted Hudocko is a 56-year-old dad who lost custody of his son after the then-15-year-old claimed he was transgender. After researching the science behind gender transition processes, Hudocko expressed he was uncomfortable with his son transitioning.  

Hudocko lost custody of his son to his ex-wife.  If SB 107 is passed, Hudocko fears his story might become more common. 

“It is absolutely going to encourage runaways to come to California. It’ll encourage parents in other states to abscond with their children,” he said in an interview with The Daily Signal. “As long as they get to California and claim a discordant gender identity, the California courts will assert jurisdiction.” 

Hudocko continued, “It’s an Orwellian system. The family court system here is not to be trusted.”

https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/07/29/these-two-californian-parents-are-fighting-back-against-states-new-transgender-laws

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It’s back to school soon — but not to failing, woke public schools for many families

As parents prepare to send their children back to school, many will have made decisions about their kids’ education that will not only put them on a different trajectory but also impact the public-education system, which is being used in too many districts to indoctrinate more than educate.

Stories about drag queens in kindergarten, forcing students to use preferred pronouns, biological boys who say they are transgender using locker rooms and showers once reserved for girls, along with the pandemic, which convinced growing numbers of parents that homeschooling worked better — all of these are prompting an exodus of parents and now teachers from public schools.

The New York Times recently chronicled the trend: “In New York City, the nation’s largest school district has lost some 50,000 students over the past two years. In Michigan, enrollment remains more than 50,000 below pre-pandemic levels from big cities to the rural Upper Peninsula.

“In the suburbs of Orange County, California, where families have moved for generations to be part of the public school system, enrollment slid for the second consecutive year; statewide, more than a quarter-million public school students have dropped from California’s rolls since 2019.”

Not only kids are abandoning public schools. Many teachers have also checked out. The Washington Post reports: “The teacher shortage in America has hit crisis levels — and school officials everywhere are scrambling to ensure that, as students return to classrooms, someone will be there to educate them.”

Speaking about the shortage of teachers, Dan Domenech, executive director of the School Superintendent Association, told The Washington Post: “I have never seen it this bad.”

The question is: What kind of classroom will public-school kids return to? Will it be like classrooms in Portland, Ore., where children as young as 5 will be taught transgender ideology, sexual orientation and, reports The Washington Times, “the role of ‘white colonizers’ in marginalizing LGBTQ people”?

Darla Romfo, president of the Children’s Scholarship Fund, which offers scholarships to students in poorly performing inner-city schools, responds to this sweeping wokeism in an email: “When more than half of students can’t even read proficiently and the pandemic only exacerbated this learning loss, especially for our most vulnerable students, why do schools insist on diverting time and resources into non-academic, controversial subjects that are confusing at best and don’t align with many families values? Parents are tired of it and rightly so. And my advice is if your school doesn’t respond to your concerns, find another school that will. There are no do-overs when it comes to your child’s education.”

US students continue to lag behind other countries’ in reading, math and science. We appear to be No. 1 in costs, though, averaging $16,268 per student annually, well above the global average of $10,759.

Parents have a right to ask if the cost equals the benefit, since it’s their tax dollars.

With the proliferation of private schools, more readily available resources for homeschooling and school choice in growing numbers of states, more parents are withdrawing their children from public schools.

The public-school system, increasingly dominated by left-wing political and social ideology, has long been in need of reform — or burial. The trend seems to be headed in the burial direction, like with previous aging monopolies.

President Joe Biden has declared a “public health emergency” because of monkeypox. There is a vaccine to protect against monkeypox. The only protection from the public-school intellectual and moral “infection” of children is to remove them.

https://nypost.com/2022/08/08/its-back-to-school-soon-but-not-failing-woke-public-schools-for-many-families/

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Parents fighting schools to protect their kids are heroes, not book-banners

Across the country, librarians in schools and public libraries are stocking the shelves with material that is so pornographic that when parents have tried to read aloud and show the material at school board meetings, their microphones were cut off.  

For progressives, the victim of the situation isn’t the children exposed to inappropriate content; the hero of the story isn’t the parents fighting for their kids’ innocence. No, the hero and victim of the coverage of these incidents are the librarians buying the sexually explicit content and recommending it to children.  

Librarians are putting themselves on the front lines of a culture war, often shooting the first shots, and then bemoaning that they’ve found themselves under fire. But here’s the thing: Libraries have turned themselves into battlegrounds for these arguments, and librarians, one of the most radically progressive professions, have made them that way. 

If you’re hosting drag queen story hour and stocking literal pornography on the shelves, you’ve surrendered the right to just ask for a quiet and respectful conversation about how you’re doing your job.  

How libraries are functioning is an assault on our children, paid for by our tax dollars. It’s long past time for parents to fight back, even if they’re called book banners for doing so. Librarians turned themselves into political warriors and are trying to make our kids into their foot soldiers. They don’t get to do so without a fight. 

Progressives have received their talking points on the matter. Efforts on the part of parents to make sure that inappropriate and pornographic materials aren’t available to their children is called "book banning." In April, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., chairman of the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, held a hearing to examine what he called "the ongoing efforts across the country to ban books from schools and public libraries."  

A single mother of a middle schooler in Raskin’s district, Marilyn (who asked to be anonymous for professional reasons), shared with me her own story. She told me, 

"My daughter started asking to go to the school early so she could spend some time in the library and came home with 'George' by Alex Gino. I had not heard of this book, and have yet to meet the school librarian. I asked my daughter if she picked out the book and she told me that the librarian gave it to her and said she thought she would like it. I still have no idea why.  

Murray slams school board for cutting off mom exposing graphic book: 'Any excuse other than accountability'Video

"The school librarian also apparently said the same things about 'Rick' by Alex Gino. 'The Art of Being Normal' by Lisa Williamson also came home from the school library. These three books are the only books that came home from the school library in Montgomery County in 2021-2022."

Gino’s book "George," which has since been renamed "Melissa," has been at the top of the American Library Association’s list of Top 10 Most Challenged Books for several years. The ALA, with its list, posit the book challenges are akin to censorship. Here’s a sample from "George," just to get an idea of what many parents objected to: 

"George stopped. It was such a short little question, but she couldn’t make her mouth form the sounds.  

"Mom, what if I’m a girl? 

"George had seen an interview on television a few months ago with a beautiful woman named Tina. She had golden-brown skin, thick hair with blond highlights, and long, sparkling fingernails. The interviewer said that Tina had been born a boy, then asked her whether she’d had the surgery. The woman replied that she was a transgender woman and that what she had between her legs was nobody’s business but hers and her boyfriends. 

"So George knew it could be done. A boy could become a girl. She had since read on the Internet you could take girl hormones that would change your body, and you could get a bunch of different surgeries if you wanted them and had the money. This was called transitioning. You could even start before you were 18 with pills called adrogen blockers that stopped the boy hormones already inside you from turning your body into a man’s. But for that, you needed your parents’ permission." 

All you have to do is permanently mutiliate yourself with major surgery and hormone therapy; it’s as easy as taking antibiotics!  

This is the message in a book marketed for ages 8-12; one that was the winner of the Stonewall Book award, Lambda Literary Award, E.B. White Honor, a best book of the year for Booklist, School Library Journal, and Kirkus Reviews. It also won a New York Public Library Notable Book Award. It’s a book that librarians around the country are trying to push into the hands of its young patrons. 

In 2021, Gino’s "George / Melissa" was finally getting knocked out of the top spot by a new book, "Gender Queer," by Maia Kobabe. In its coverage of the "book banning" wars in the its Sunday newsletter, the New York Times interviewed Alexandra Alter, a Times reporter covering the publishing industry on the subject, and in its graphics illustrating the newsletter item, "Gender Queer" was one of the books highlighted.  

Alter was asked, "How are librarians responding?" And Alexandra laid it on, thick with her reply, "It’s heartbreaking for them. Librarians say they got into this field because of a love of reading and talking to people about books. Some have left their jobs; some have been fired for refusing to remove books. Others quit after being subject to a barrage of insults on social media."  

Alter recently sounded a similar tone in a piece she wrote for the Times about the plight of the librarians facing backlash for their choices in purchasing and display choices, 

"As highly visible and politicized book bans have exploded across the country, librarians – accustomed to being seen as dedicated public servants in their communities – have found themselves on the front lines of an acrimonious culture war, with their careers and their personal reputations at risk." 

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/parents-fighting-protect-kids-heroes-not-book-banners

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My other blogs: Main ones below

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

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

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

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

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

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9 August, 2022

I’m a Conservative College Student. Here’s How Universities Are Failing to Prepare Our Future Leaders

Lindsey Aden 

Polite discourse among citizens about political issues has become increasingly hard to find in recent years. This is especially true at colleges and universities around the country, where students are supposed to use debate and discussion with classmates to help develop their opinions.

This begs the question: If college-aged students are afraid to engage in civil discourse about political affairs with their peers, how can we expect them to do so in the future when many of them will be leading our country?

Growing up in the early 2000s, this lack of debate was anything but apparent to me. My very civically engaged parents saw no reason to withhold their political opinions and beliefs from my brother and me. They always boasted about being the first ones at the ballot box on Election Day in our small town of 200 people, and I even volunteered a few months before my 18th birthday to work as an election judge for the 2020 presidential primary.

With a mom serving under the umbrella of the Department of Defense and a father who was a hardworking, conservative farmer, political opinions in our household were hardly divisive. It was not evident to me early on that politics could be such a taboo topic in a public setting.

My neighboring friends and family often had signs for the same conservative candidates in their yards, and discussions on political viewpoints were not uncommon.

By the time I was in high school, I looked forward to analyzing American history and current events on a daily basis with my left-leaning high school teachers.

Anxious to be around young individuals who loved politics and government as much as I did, I jumped at the chance to attend a large university far from home to engage in passionate discussions on politics and government. I wanted to be a lawyer, after all, and constitutional and political debating was all I wanted to do.

It was this dream that took me to the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia, a lengthy 10 hours from my hometown in Illinois.

UGA brought together several niche qualities that I was looking for in an institution. It is a large, diverse university in the epitome of a Southern state. In its small school for political science, there had to be students and teachers who came from both sides of the political aisle who were open to opinions from around the political spectrum, right?

It was not until the first semester of my sophomore year that I realized I may have been very wrong about this assumption. 

I remember sitting in the last row in class, apprehensive at first because I was the only 19-year-old kid sitting in a graduate class with 30-year-old Ph.D. students talking about their marriages and children. UGA allows a small number of students to take 8000-level graduate classes during their undergraduate years to count toward honors credit. I would quickly learn that age would not be the only thing where my classmates and I would differ.

Growing up, I had always been the quiet kid in class unless I knew for a matter of fact that I had the correct answer. My mother had taught me to be cognizant of the opinions of others and carefully consider my own thoughts before spewing them around to others. I knew this quality would come in handy in graduate classes where I was significantly outnumbered by those who were older than me and who didn’t share my political opinions.

I sat through a number of evening classes that semester in which I hardly talked. Instead, I sat back and soaked in the intelligent connections that my professor and fellow students made. I thrived on hearing from students who had devoted their academic careers to debating and analyzing government and political institutions.

Very quickly, I noticed how my peers often referenced left-leaning politicians when highlighting positive policy enacted by the U.S. Congress. Moreover, I noticed how conservatives, or Republicans for that matter, were usually portrayed in a negative light, if they were mentioned at all.

The overwhelming agreement on political opinions among this devoted group of political science students did not surprise me. By that time, I had been in plenty of classes with outspoken left-leaning students. However, the fact that none of my peers seemed to have conservative or right-leaning opinions on the topics we discussed was more than just a little odd.

After one of my classes in my sophomore year, I remember another quiet student walking up to me. She had noticed the sticker on my laptop promoting a conservative candidate I had worked for, and she asked me if I was a Republican. I told her that I was, and she said she was shocked to find someone who was on the same side of the political aisle as her. We walked together for a while, and she told me about how reluctant she was to speak up in class amongst her left-leaning peers.

This depiction threw me for a loop. She was a 24-year-old master’s student attending a popular Southern school. Surely, there were other right-leaning individuals in her program, right? And surely, the political differences between her and her classmates did not mean that she was left out of most conversations altogether?

I would come to find out that she was the only conservative in her cohort of graduate students.

She told me about how she chose to focus on her research and avoided discussing politics with her classmates. I was shocked by how an individual in her position avoided discussing major components of her field of study with her peers because she feared the judgment and broken friendships that might ensue.

It turns out that polite discourse about politics was not what either of us had found in our programs. Instead, students at our school avoided controversial topics and opinions that differed from those around them. Prominent issues were either not brought up or only portrayed by one side of the aisle.

Whether you consider yourself to be a Democrat or a Republican, this is an issue that should be of importance to us all. Our country was built by Founders who made it their mission to debate controversial topics amongst themselves to better form our democracy. The framework of our government requires our leaders to debate and discuss issues with one another and their constituents to attempt to make the best decisions for the good of all individuals.

As students attend major colleges and universities across the country, they should feel that they are free—encouraged even—to discuss relevant political issues with those who may disagree with them.

The students who are attending these schools are members of the next generation that will lead our country. If they cannot engage in political discussions at an academic level, how are we ever supposed to expect them to do so as future leaders of our nation?

https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/07/29/im-a-conservative-college-student-heres-how-universities-are-failing-to-prepare-our-future-leaders/

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Conn.: At Private School Party, Whites Not Welcome 

A Connecticut private school advertised an annual family event to which only families who identify as certain races appeared to be invited, according to a copy of the letter posted to Twitter by the Greenwich Republican Town Committee.

Greenwich Country Day School (GCDS) sent a letter to school families Monday in which they highlighted an annual Cider and Donuts event, according to a copy of the letter posted to Twitter by the Greenwich Republican Town Committee. The event reportedly aims “at supporting families interested in celebrating and nurturing a diverse and inclusive school community.”

The letter said the Cider and Donuts event planned for October is “open to GCDS families who identify as Black, Asian, Latinx, multi-racial, Indigenous, Middle Eastern, and/or people of color,” according to Greenwich Time.

The Greenwich Republicans, who obtained the GCDS letter and shared it on Twitter, criticized the Connecticut private school over the event.

“You listed nearly every group but white people… was that on purpose?” Greenwich Republicans tweeted Monday. “Is that how you bring people together? Inclusion… ?”

The Greenwich Democratic Party defended the school’s Cider and Donuts event, tweeting that they “recognize the importance of celebrating racial diversity” in schools.

“Greenwich Democrats support schools’ efforts to make minority students feel welcome on campus,” the Greenwich Democrats tweeted. The party also said they “condemn the Greenwich RTC’s out of touch remarks.”

Head of school for Greenwich Country Day School, Adam Rohdie, told Greenwich Time on Tuesday that he was “disappointed” in how the Greenwich Republican Party characterized the event. (RELATED: University Of California-San Diego Appears To Offer Segregated Back-To-School Orientation)

“Unfortunately, I think the national commentary is a space where everybody wants to yell on Twitter, where nobody wants to talk and certainly no one wants to listen,” he told the outlet.

“I think there are ways we could change the language a little bit in the letter,” Rohdie continued. “If any family wanted to attend they would be welcome to attend. We celebrate community throughout the year, and we provide opportunity for affinity groups and families of students with common interests and backgrounds and experiences.”

Greenwich Republican Town Committee Chair Beth MacGillivray responded to the Daily Caller’s request for comment, stating, “Our tweet stands.”

https://dailycaller.com/2022/08/04/greenwich-connecticut-private-school-event-white-families-exclude-letter/

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Australia: Read the books the teacher's union wants YOUR kids reading in English lessons - including one about a child who has NO gender

A union push to teach primary school students about intersex identity and gender diversity through picture books has been slammed.

The NSW Teacher's Federation union is urging educators to deliver the lessons to students during English and Personal Development, Health and Physical Education (PDHPE) classes across NSW schools even though the state has a ban on any lessons in gender fluidity. 

The JPL says on its website it 'seeks to enhance the quality of teaching and of public education' and calls itself the 'professional development arm' of the teacher's union.

The website contains a range of academic articles including ones pushing for more lessons about gender identity. 

'English in primary school provides rich opportunities for students to learn about gender diversity in relation to themselves, each other, and the world at large,' academics claim.

'We encourage teachers to stay attuned for primary school texts that feature intersex identities.'

The academics suggest teachers include books about a child who is born as a boy but identifies as a girl, a child who does not identify as either gender, and a boy who likes to dress in girl's clothes. 

The books have been recommended by the Journal of Professional Learning - the professional learning unit of the NSW Teacher's Federation Union.

One Nation MP Mark Latham has slammed the push saying parents should be responsible for teaching their children about personal topics. He has raised the issue with education minister Sarah Mitchell,' Daily Telegraph reported.

'The Minister has been ineffective in stopping organisations like the NSW Teachers Federation infiltrating our schools with gender propaganda, such as in these books,' he said.

2GB host Ben Fordham, who has previously slammed an after school centre for teaching children about gender theory, posted about the push on Facebook.

Social media users were quick to vent their outrage over the material.

Ms Mitchell shot down the push to bring in the picture books saying public schools had to stick to the NSW curriculum.

The NSW curriculum does not currently include gender identity education programs such as Safe Schools. 'Safe Schools is not part of the NSW curriculum and is not taught in public schools,' Ms Mitchell said. 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11090115/NSW-Teachers-Federation-Union-push-teach-gender-identity-picture-books-slammed.html

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My other blogs: Main ones below

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

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

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

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

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

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8 August, 2022

Old English classic Beowulf gets slapped with trigger warning as university dons fear students may be distressed to read about monsters

<i>How pathetic.  Beowulf is a rare window into the values of our pre-Christian past</i>

It's a staple of English literature courses, an Old English epic poem so dramatic it has even spawned a computer-animated action fantasy film.

Yet academics have slapped a ‘trigger warning’ on Beowulf, cautioning students that they may read about ‘monsters’. 

The University of Aberdeen believes that students reading Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Studies may be distressed by the saga. 

The university has put more than 30 warnings on one module, entitled ‘Lost Gods and Hidden Monsters of the Celtic and Germanic Middle Ages’. 

A note to students reads: ‘Texts studied on this course contain representations of violence, coercion, animal cruelty or animal death, incest, suicide, explicit sexual content... ableism.’ 

In addition, students were warned that ‘there will also be monsters’. 

It is not the first time Aberdeen has attracted controversy for its use of trigger warnings. 

Last year, The Mail on Sunday revealed the university cautioned students that Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped contained ‘depictions of murder, death, family betrayal and kidnapping’,

Beowulf, the tale of terrifying beasts and a fire-breathing dragon being killed by a hero, has been taught for generations as one of the greatest stories of all time. 

The hero of Beowulf dispatches the monstrous figure of Grendel – who is described in Old English as ‘unhælu’, or ‘infirm’. 

However, some scholars have argued this is offensive because it pitches the able-bodied against the disabled. 

The hero of the 3,000-line poem also kills a ‘wyrm’ (a dragon/ serpent) at the end, alongside his dutiful servant Wiglaf. 

The advice specifically mentions the violent content in Beowulf, stating: ‘Particularly graphic representations of violence... will be encountered in... Beowulf.’ 

A further note warns of ‘blasphemy, defecation, psychological violence, pain, alcohol abuse, symbols of evil, black magic’. 

The university policy on content warnings, reported by the Daily Telegraph, explains the need for warnings: ‘The mental health and wellbeing of students is a primary concern of the school.’ 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11078663/Monstrous-Old-English-classic-Beowulf-gets-slapped-trigger-warning-monsters.html

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Calif.: Queer Theory Reigns in San Diego Public Schools 

Christopher Rufo

I have obtained a range of publicly accessible documents from San Diego Unified that reveal the district’s new ideology. The materials follow the basic premise of queer theory: white Europeans created a false “gender binary” and used the categories of “male” and “female” to dominate racial and sexual minorities. A San Diego Unified training for facilitators of LGBTQ student groups argues that this system of “heteronormativity” forces students to conform to these norms: they are “assigned” a sex at birth, pressed into the identities of “man” and “woman,” and expected to have heterosexual relationships culminating in “marriage (and kids).” This “gender binary,” however, is arbitrary, socially constructed, and harmful. It is, in the words of the presentation, a “limited system [that] excludes and oppresses trans, nonbinary, intersex, and gender-nonconforming people.”

According to the district, the gender binary has created an unjust society that distributes “heterosexual and cisgender privilege,” the sexual analog to the concept of “white privilege.” In the presentation, administrators explain that “a heterosexual/cisgender person automatically receives” this privilege, which “benefits members of dominant groups at the expense of members of target groups” and “results in institutional power” for straight men and women. Furthermore, the district claims, this sexual privilege is connected to a broader range of privileges and oppressions via the theory of intersectionality. “Racism, classism, heterosexism, etc. do not exist independently,” the presentation reads. “Multiple forms of discrimination interrelate creating a system of oppression.”

What is the solution? To dismantle “heteronormativity” and break the “gender binary.” Following the principles of queer theory, San Diego Unified has created a program of gender-identity instruction with the explicit goal of undermining the traditional conception of sex and promoting a new set of boutique sexual identities, such as “transgender,” “genderqueer,” “non-binary,” “pansexual,” “asexual,” and “two-spirit,” that promise to disrupt the oppressive system of heteronormativity. A series of curriculum documents encourage students to study the basic tenets of queer theory and then examine photographs of gender-nonconforming role models, including a woman with a beard, a boy in a dress, a teenage girl with a “genderqueer” identity, a boy wearing a tiara, and an infant with a “gender neutral baby name.” In another document published by San Diego Unified, administrators celebrate “nonbinary identities,” arguing that there must be a “linguistic revolution to move beyond gender binaries,” including the adoption of the term “Latinx,” which “makes room for people who are trans, queer, agender, nonbinary, gender non-conforming or gender fluid.”

This ideology has already shifted the district’s sexual-education program. In a training produced jointly by San Diego Unified and Planned Parenthood, administrators walk teachers through the constellation of new identities and advise them to eliminate traditional language from their vocabulary. Men are to be called “people with a penis” and women are to be called “people with a vulva,” because, according to the district, some women can have penises and some men can have vulvas. 

Additionally, the district points out that teachers can assist in a child’s gender transition without notifying parents and that, under California law, minors of any age can consent to pregnancy testing, birth control, and abortion. Finally, the training program includes sample questions on sexuality that teachers might address in the classroom, including: “Is it okay to masturbate?”; “How do gay people have sex?”; “What is porn?”; and “What does semen taste like?” In a related presentation, the district also advises teachers on leading discussions on “how to use a condom” and how to engage in “safer oral sex” and “safer anal sex.”

For now, the continued spread of queer theory and gender ideology in districts such as San Diego Unified appears to be a foregone conclusion. It is remarkable to see the tenets of a once-obscure and controversial academic discipline translated into classroom orthodoxy for children. Parents, however, should begin pushing back. If the case against queer theory as an academic disciple is strong, the case against queer theory as a K-12 pedagogy is even stronger. The goal of dismantling “heteronormativity” is nonsensical and destructive to the basic building blocks of society. To divide the world into man and woman and to encourage the development of families and children is not “oppression,” but a basic process of human nature—one that should not be discarded under the false pretenses of academic postmodernism.

https://www.city-journal.org/san-diego-schools-gender-extremism

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Apprentice teachers would earn as they learn under new model being pushed by Universities Australia

<i>Back to the future.  In the 19th century teachers learned their craft via apprenticships</i>

Apprentice teachers would earn as they learn while working as classroom assistants under radical training reforms to be driven by the nation’s universities.

As education ministers prepare to meet school leaders and unions on Friday to discuss the dire shortage of teachers, Universities Australia has proposed a shake-up of professional qualifications to give teaching graduates more practical experience.

“We can help create a degree apprenticeship system where, like any other apprenticeship, student teachers have the opportunity to do more training in schools with a job secured at the end of it,’’ Universities Australia chief executive Catriona Jackson said on Sunday.

Longer practical placements for teachers in training, to work as aides and help teachers in classrooms are spelled out in a Universities Australia document prepared for the ministerial summit.

“Students will get more exposure to the classroom and develop practical skills in the workplace together with quality mentoring and coaching,’’ it states.

“Pre-service teachers will be more productive sooner and will contribute to addressing workforce shortages, including by taking on ancillary tasks and freeing up teachers to teach.”

Australia is facing a shortage of 4100 teachers over the next four years, as school student enrolments soar 10 per cent. But school-leavers are shunning a career in teaching, with a 17 per cent slump in the number of university graduates with teaching degrees between 2017 and 2020.

One in eight teachers intends to quit in the next five years and 40 per cent of maths teachers and nearly a third of science teachers are not qualified to teach subjects essential for a hi-tech economy.

The federal government has fast-tracked visas for more than 1000 foreign teachers this year, to plug shortages in Australian schools.

Cutting red tape for teachers to ease their workload, and higher pay rates for top teachers are canvassed in a discussion paper to be put to the state and territory education ministers by federal Education Minister Jason Clare on Friday.

The document says high-school teachers work an average of 45 hours a week, including four hours on administrative tasks.

“How can we reduce administrative burden to give teachers the time to deliver high-quality learning and support for students and their school communities?’’ it states. “What promising approaches to reducing teacher workload could be piloted, such as deploying administrative or support staff more effectively to take on tasks that do not require teaching expertise or qualifications?’’

The document says pay scales that range from about $75,000 for a beginner teacher to $126,000 for a lead teacher fail to reward the most proficient teachers who choose to stay in classrooms.

“Australian teachers begin their career on a competitive salary but pay scales are flatter than in comparable countries and teachers can reach the top pay points within 10 years,’’ it states.

“Australia’s top teacher salary is only 40 per cent higher than the starting salary, significantly below the OECD average of 80 per cent.

“Outside of the national Highly Accomplished and Lead Teacher (HALT) program there are limited career opportunities for teachers to be recognised and remunerated for their expertise, without moving to school leadership or education bureaucracy positions.’’

The federal government will spend $51m for 5000 bursaries to attract high-achieving school students to choose teaching as a career. It will also spend $71.5m over four years to support 1500 qualified professionals with degrees in engineering, science, maths, law or the humanities, to swap their careers for teaching.

Universities Australia hopes to rekindle interest in teaching by replacing its traditional four-year teaching degree with a radical new “degree apprenticeship’’.

“(It is) an approach to teacher education that combines theory and practice in a new way and links education directly to the workforce,’’ its proposal states.

“Degree apprenticeship systems offer schools qualified new teachers and offer students and graduates a pathway to a job.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/apprentice-teachers-would-earn-as-they-learn-under-new-model-being-pushed-by-universities-australia/news-story/182570a71e76e964c69467a6f8a1ad18

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My other blogs: Main ones below

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

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

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

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

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

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7 August, 2022

The teachers union’s cynical bid to steal NYC school control from Mayor Adams

If Judge Lyle Frank goes ahead and voids the city’s already enacted schools budget, it’ll be just another power play in the United Federation of Teachers’ bid to bring Mayor Eric Adams and Chancellor David Banks to heel, at kids’ expense.

The idea that minor trims to some schools’ budgets portends the apocalypse is, as we’ve noted, baloney. Anyway, Adams has already given the noisemakers what they say they want: The Department of Education announced Wednesday that schools can now use available funds to retain the teachers they were going to have to let go.

So the UFT and its pawns and allies, by refusing to drop the case before Judge Frank, are demanding that he void the entire system’s budget — risking major chaos when schools open in the fall — on a ludicrous technicality: that Team Adams declared an emergency to push through its spending plan before the city Panel for Education Policy got public comments and voted on it.

Never mind that school spending plans are often passed this way, or that such “emergencies” are routine in New York government. Or that the cuts are to schools whose enrollments have fallen dramatically.

Adams and Banks are trying to save the city’s public schools after the utterly disastrous de Blasio years triggered an exodus of furious and/or fearful families. But the UFT cares only about its own short-term interests and its continued power to veto anything it dislikes.

Hence, its willingness to belabor this fight, at kids’ (and most teachers’) expense, even though the mayor’s already conceded the immediate point.

This isn’t about school funding, the law or good government, but who runs the schools: The mayor, on behalf of kids and taxpayers? Or the union, on behalf of itself?

https://nypost.com/2022/08/04/teachers-unions-bid-to-steal-school-control-from-mayor-adams/

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Parents push back on American colleges promoting DEI initiatives: 'DEI is dangerous'

Some universities across America are requiring compliance from faculty in the form of signed diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) statements, as conditions for tenure or promotion — arguing that DEI across college campuses is a top priority.

However, there may be growing pushback in some areas from faculty as well as from parents — who claim that the DEI agenda actually challenges the diversity of viewpoints and opinions of students within the college environment. 

Some say it also promotes a culture of fear and intimidation.

In the city of Seattle, for example, roughly 40% of the University of Washington's faculty recently rejected — or abstained from voting on — a measure that would have required faculty members seeking advancement to provide a statement demonstrating their support of DEI. 

"The fact that [the vote] was stopped is unprecedented," Cliff Mass, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the university and an advocate for viewpoint diversity, told Fox News Digital in a phone interview.

Fox News Digital reached out to the University of Washington for comment.

Victor Balta, senior director of media relations at the school, said, "My understanding is that the legislation failed despite earning over 63 'yes' votes among those cast, which was a margin of 26 points over the ‘no’ votes."

Balta noted that faculty code requires that "Class A legislation earn a two-thirds supermajority of votes in instances where fewer than 50% of the faculty actually cast ballots."

Students who hold even moderate viewpoints are often afraid to express themselves on campus today, one professor says.

"Viewpoint diversity is part of diversity, equity and inclusion, and we don’t believe they are in conflict," he also told Fox News Digital. 

"Our campuses should be, and are, places for thoughtful and rigorous exchanges of ideas."

"Placing value on diversity, equity and inclusion introduces more perspectives to these discussions, not fewer," Balta added. 

Yet for Mass and others who say they desire a true diversity of thought restored in the college campus environment, the failed measure appears to be a win.

"One political viewpoint is being pushed very hard by the administration and by a number of others," said Mass, who is also a meteorologist. 

To him, "diversity statements" appear very much like "the anti-communist loyalty oaths of the late 1940s and early 1950s." 

Students who hold even moderate viewpoints are often afraid to express themselves, he said. 

"Requiring all faculty members to support a social/political agenda favored by one segment of society not only politicizes the university, but represents ‘compelled speech,’" he noted recently in a blog post.

It's "a violation of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution at a public university," he added. 

That blog post has received more than 70,000 page views since early July 2022. 

DEI advocates are said to focus not on equal opportunity, but on the ideology of equal outcomes or equity. 

Fox News Digital reached out to two other colleges that seem to endorse DEI initiatives, according to their websites.

"I suspect most parents don’t understand what’s happening here."

Mass addressed the DEI agenda of many of them.

"They believe that the university should be biased in its admissions and resources to ensure equal outcomes for all groups, with particular attention to a small number of favored ‘unrepresented’ groups," Mass told Fox News Digital.

"I suspect most parents don’t understand what’s happening here," he said. "Parents that we serve are from the whole state. There’s a wide variety of political views from people who send their kids here."

"Then there’s people from outside. We have a lot of foreign students," he added. "They're coming here to get a good education."

Mass said he believes that parents have a huge role to play in limiting the DEI agenda on campus.

"There’s a lot that parents can do," Mass said, noting that parents can decide not to make contributions to their child's college.

"There are a lot of tools to pressure the university — and if they did, it would have an impact," Mass predicted.

DEI advocates 'misuse our trusted words,' says one mom

Rebecca Friedrichs, a California-based mother of two grown sons, told Fox News Digital that parents may be "unaware of the destructive nature of DEI."

She said that "DEI proponents (and their allies) use linguistic gymnastics to change the very meaning of words, in order to manipulate the masses into believing propaganda."

"DEI is dangerous … and many parents don’t discover this destructive agenda until it’s too late."

"We collectively understand the word 'diversity' to include respectful debate of diverse opinions, open and honest discussion, respect for others, even when we disagree."

"So, when the university announces it is 'diverse,' we think, ‘That’s positive,'" noted Friedrichs, a co-founder of For Kids and Country, a national movement of parents, teachers and citizens. 

DEI advocates "misuse our trusted words," according to Friedrichs.

"Their definition of ‘diversity' is twisted and is the exact opposite of our understanding," she said. "Their ‘diversity’ accepts only their group-think opinions, their stifling of true debate, their silencing of diverse ideas and their tyrannical control of all content."

"DEI is dangerous," she said, expressing her opinion — "and many parents don’t discover this destructive agenda until it’s too late."

Friedrichs encouraged parents to boycott universities that promote the DEI agenda to "stop the madness." 

"Trades are a great alternative for many students," she said, as opposed to the four-year university degree — "and can lead to much satisfaction and high wages without the burden of school debt and indoctrination."

https://www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/parents-push-back-american-colleges-dei-initiatives-dangerous

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Australian universities set low bar to take subpar students

<i>This is grossly irresponsible.  Universities are clearly doing anything to get their numbers up.  And it is the poorer and less able students who will be penalized.  Many will fail but will still have to pay for their courses.  Money for nothing.

There was a much more defensible system in my day.  Under the Commonwealth Scholarship Scheme, only the top third of high school passes earned government help</i>

Struggling students who left school at the bottom of the class are being accepted into prestigious university degrees including engineering, architecture and psychology.

Universities made offers to students with Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) scores below 50 – the bottom 10 per cent of high school leavers – for 221 different bachelor degrees this year, placing them at higher risk of failure and financial risk.

The revelation of the low bars being set for academic entry comes as the federal government cracked down on cheating by blocking 40 of the most visited academic cheating websites on Friday.

Federation University Australia, the University of Tasmania, and La Trobe University both accepted students with an ATAR in the 30s – the bottom two per cent of school leavers.

Aspiring teachers can access seven different education degrees with ATAR scores 50 and below, sparking protests from the teachers’ union on Friday.

Australian Education Union president Correna Haythorpe warned that students with an ATAR lower than the average of 70 were likely to fail a teaching degree.

“Low university-entry scores for teaching degrees is a growing concern,’’ she said.

“Evidence suggests that students admitted with low ATARs are likely to be less successful at university and are less likely to complete their course.

“The bar must be raised by ­setting minimum entry requirements and making teaching a two-year postgraduate degree.’’

A Federation University spokeswoman blamed an “administrative error’’ for admitting a student with an ATAR of 37 to a teaching degree this year.

“We have investigated this matter with the Victorian Teaching Institute, and we are both satisfied that the student is doing well and should be allowed to complete the course,’’ she said.

Alarmingly low academic requirements are revealed in ATAR cut-off scores for university ­admissions this year, published on the federal government’s Course Seeker website using ­official data from universities and tertiary admission centres. Starting this year, students who fail to pass at least half their subjects will lose taxpayer subsidies and be forced to pay the full cost of their degree, switch to an easier course or drop out of university.

The federal Education ­Department said it did not yet know how many students were failing, and losing taxpayer funding, as a result of the former ­Coalition government’s Job-Ready Graduates legislation that will be reviewed by the new Labor government later this year.

If students fail a course and are kicked out, they will still have to repay the student loans they borrowed through the Higher Education Loan Program (HELP), possibly leaving them with a lifelong debt.

“For a bachelor degree the rule applies if a student does not complete or fails more than 50 per cent of at least eight units until the end of the degree,’’ a spokes­person said.

“If this occurs students lose access to Commonwealth Supported Places (government subsidy) and to HELP. They can regain access by changing to another course that, for example, might better suit them.

“If a student has failed or not completed units because of illness, or other unusual stresses or things out of their control in their life, their university can exempt those units from the rule.’’

Federal Education Department data shows that more than 13,000 students with below-50 ATAR scores applied for university last year, with 55 per cent ­accepted.

Another 30,000 students ­applied with ATARs between 50 and 70, with three-quarters ­accepted, while nearly all the 29,000 applicants with an ATAR above 90 enrolled in a degree.

Of the students with low ATAR scores, 11 per cent were from poorer backgrounds while only 2 per cent were from wealthy families.

Among the highest achievers, 38 per cent were wealthy and 17 per cent were from poorer families.

Higher education policy ­expert Andrew Norton, professor in the practice of higher education policy at the Centre for ­Social Research and Methods at the Australian National University, warned that students admitted with low academic results were the most likely to drop out of university.

He said half the students with an ATAR below 50 would fail to complete their course.

“Often they are equity students admitted under special ­arrangements,’’ he said. “Nevertheless, they are coming in with what looks like poor academic preparation. “I am concerned that some students will be expose to financial risk because they have a high chance of not completing their degree.’’

The Course Seeker data shows that the University of Tasmania admitted business graduates with an ATAR of 30 this year, while RMIT University set a low threshold of 48.4 for its Bachelor of Psychology.

While the University of NSW accepted only students with an ATAR over 85 for its civil engineering degree, La Trobe University lowered its cut-off to 50.

For an accounting and finance degree, the Australian Catholic University set a cut-off barely below 50, while the University of Tasmania admitted architecture students with an ATAR of just 44.

Federation University Australia this week scrapped its Bachelor of Arts degree, blaming a drop in student enrolments.

“The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has caused a significant ­decline in international enrolments, and we are now in our third year of declining student enrolments,’’ acting vice-chancellor Wendy Cross said on Friday.

“We have also seen a drop in domestic student enrolments generally due to online learning fatigue that continues to significantly impact the university’s ­financial position.”

National Tertiary Education Union Victorian assistant secretary Sarah Roberts said an arts degree was a “bedrock offering for all universities’’. “This is a demoralising day for humanities in Victoria (and) a hammer blow for students who live regionally and want to study arts,” she said.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/universities-set-low-bar-to-take-subpar-students/news-story/9691c2f2b30d15c2d783802156705ab4

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My other blogs: Main ones below

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

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

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

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

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

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5 August, 2022

Portland Schools Teaching Young Children About ‘Infinite Gender Spectrum’

A Portland school is teaching children as young as kindergarteners about the “infinite gender spectrum” and gender “colonization,” according to public documents.

The curriculum implemented in 2021 at Portland Public Schools in Portland, Oregon, teaches K-12 students that there is an “infinite gender spectrum” and that they can make up their own pronouns, according to public documents. The students learn that gender is “colonized” by “white colonizers” who are trying to “erase many cultures, including what some might now call ‘queer’ or ‘trans’ people.”

Middle school students learn in science that different “persons” have different genitals that are not specific to any gender because “gender identity is about how you feel about yourself inside,” the documents show. Students practice identifying and labeling the parts of their body by looking at a diagram of each genital area.

One lesson states that “you cannot ‘see’ gender because any gender can look any way” and that any gender can use whichever pronoun they want, the documents show. Students can express gender through makeup, how one talks, how one moves, and through clothes, the lesson says.

Third graders answer the question, “What happens if you don’t want to be a boy or a girl or nonbinary?” as a part of the lesson, the documents show. Students are taught that language is gendered and if students are unsure of someone’s gender they should use gender-neutral words like “Mx” instead of “Mr.” or Mrs.” and “folx” instead of “girls and boys,” according to the documents.

The students learn that colonization is “taking over” and eliminating “places, cultures and identities of Indigenous people,” the documents state.

“When white European people colonized different places, they brought their own ideas about gender and sexuality. When the United States was colonized by white settlers, their views around gender were forced upon the people already living here. Hundreds of years later, how we think and talk about gender are still impacted by this shift,” a presentation in the documents reads.

Students are taught about “dominant identities” with an example being a white, rich, Christian boy, the documents show. Those with “less power” should describe themselves as having a “non-dominant identity.”

Those who identify as “straight” or “cisgender” are dominant in gender identity and those who are “queer” are non-dominant in identity, according to the documents.

Portland Public Schools told The Daily Caller News Foundation its gender and sexuality education is “consistent with anti-bias education and Oregon law.”

“We make certain that our curriculum is LGBTQ+ inclusive for students who identify as transgender, gender non-conforming, gender-queer, and queer to create a safe and inclusive environment for all of our students,” the district said in a statement. It also said parents can opt out of “any components” of a sexuality education class.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/07/29/portland-schools-teaching-young-children-about-infinite-gender-spectrum/

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‘It’s My Legal Duty to Safeguard Children Against Harm’: British Headmaster

By introducing children to knives, skinning rabbits, and shooting guns, Mike Fairclough isn’t a typical British headmaster. His approach to teaching has brought him criticism in the past, but it is his insistence on speaking out against lockdowns and COVID-19 vaccines for children that has become his biggest challenge.

Fairclough has 20 years’ experience in running the state-funded West Rise Junior School for 7- to 11-year-olds in Eastbourne. He was also one of the very few voices in education to express concern over the response to the Covid  virus pandemic and its impact on children.

He told The Epoch Times he has been a “reluctant campaigner,” but felt it was his “legal duty to safeguard children against harm.”

“I can see that there’s the potential harm that could result from a child taking the vaccine,” he said. “We certainly have no idea about the long-term safety data, and therefore that’s why it’s worth raising the alarm.”

Fairclough recently wrote the book “Rewilding Childhood,” in which he used the experience of lockdowns to urge parents to join a “call for rebellion: a liberating, transformative, joyful rebellion, proven to encourage confidence and resilience in children.⁠”

In the UK, two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine are being offered to almost 5 million children aged 5 to 15.

Fairclough was recently suspended from Twitter for writing that the next “Prime Minister must be vocally committed to safeguarding our nation’s children against harm” and asking, “In light of new and emerging data about vaccine injuries and vaccine deaths where do you stand on this?”

Unlike many in education, he has openly shared his views, saying that the “government blindly followed China into destructive lockdowns” and that “lockdowns harmed our children.”

Fairclough’s approach to education is certainly different too. There are 362 pupils at West Rise who come mainly from the local council estate, places which are often part of England’s poorest neighbourhoods.

“It serves a community which has quite high social and economic deprivation,” he said.

He added that the school has a very close connection to nature, with a farm, a forest school, beekeeping sites, and children are taught to use knives and guns and to forage for food.

Fairclough teaches that it is important that children are “not just responding to instruction.”

“That isn’t really about education at all, that’s essentially just creating conformist individuals,” he said.

“It’s my whole point with kids. It’s like kids are not only easy to inspire with clearly inspiring stuff, but they themselves take it to the next level so they are naturally inquisitive,” he said.

“There’s a reason why all of those traits get dumbed down and sort of belittled by the adult world, and it’s because if you’ve got children who ask questions and who are imaginative and take risks and are comfortable with the unknown … they then turn into adults with the same traits,” said Fairclough.

“And that’s dangerous for governments because then people start … asking questions of those in power,” he added.

Dr. Tony Hinton, an NHS consultant in ear, nose, and throat surgery, who is supportive of Fairclough and who wrote the foreword to his book, has also been vocal about the harms of lockdowns on children and has repeatedly stated that children must not be given the COVID-19 jab.

“I think of all the people that are being treated the worst it’s children,” Hinton told The Epoch Times, expressing concern for what has happened to children over the last two years. He added that in his own practice, he has seen an increase in children with hearing or speech problems.

Like Fairclough, Hinton is a rare voice questioning COVID-19 narratives in the British medical community. In May, Hinton was permanently banned from his Twitter account for questioning the safety of COVID-19 vaccines in pregnant women.

In terms of children growing up in a “controlling, fear-mongering world,” Hinton said Fairclough’s approach “was valuable” in that it “encouraged children to inquire.”

Fairclough said there are “a lot of teachers and heads with the same view as me,” but many can’t speak out for fear of losing their job.

“I’m in exactly the same position,” he said. “I have already been investigated twice for being outspoken about this; on both occasions the authorities have dropped the complaint, which has come from criticising the vaccines for the kids,” he said.

“I do feel frequently very worried about my position. I mean, I can’t afford to lose my job and lose my house,” said Fairclough, who is a father of four children.

“However, I haven’t got a choice. Particularly as I am the only voice in education I am aware of,” he said.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/its-my-legal-duty-to-safeguard-children-against-harm-british-headmaster_4622234.html

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International students are applying for Australian visas in record numbers

<i>Good for university finances</i>

The number of international students applying for visas hit an all-time record in June, giving heart to universities and other education providers who are looking for a strong bounce back in student numbers.

In an update sent to education providers on Monday, the Home Affairs Department said that about 42,700 student visa applications had been lodged in June, in a post-Covid rush to return to Australia.

“This is the largest number of offshore applications received in a single month in the last 10 years,” the department told education providers. Because the number of international students coming to Australia in the past decade is far higher than in earlier decades, the June figure is an all-time record.

The department said that the high numbers seen in June are continuing, with an average of 10,000 student visa applications a week being received during July from offshore applicants. In comparison, only 34,015 student visa applications were received in June 2019, before the pandemic.

International Education Association of Australia CEO Phil Honeywood said the figures showed that demand was recovering “notwithstanding the reputational damage” which Australia had suffered as an education destination during the pandemic.

“This latest data proves there is still a strong appetite to study in Australia,” Mr Honeywood said.

The record number of applications will put even more pressure on the Department of Home Affairs which has struggled to process the volume of student visa applications since borders opened at the end of last year.

In an effort to speed up processing the department has assigned 140 more people to visa processing in its overseas offices since May.

Last week Immigration Minister Andrew Giles said 62,000 student visas had been finalised since the beginning of June but warned that the situation would not change quickly.

“The processing of visas will continue to be a major priority for this government, but reducing the backlog of applications can’t happen overnight,” Mr Giles said.

“People reallocated to dealing with the visa applications on hand need to be trained and skilled before they can go about this important work.”

Currently the international education industry is lagging well behind the boom conditions it experienced pre-Covid, when the value of Australia’s education exports reached a record $40.3 billion in 2019.

The latest student data from the federal Education Department, issued on Monday, said that 171,000 international students had commenced courses in the five months to May this year, 31 per cent less than in the same period of 2019.

Mr Honeywood said it was important to learn from experience as international education recovered from Covid.

“Lessons learnt from the pandemic show that we need to build back better,” he said. “Going forward, the key concerns include visa processing times, motivation of student applicants and diversity of source countries.”

Currently international students have no limit on the hours they work since the Morrison government removed the previous 40 hours per fortnight restriction in an effort to ease labour shortages.

However this has raised concern that international students are being attracted to Australia by the prospect of working to earn money in a high wage economy rather than coming to study.

If the Albanese government does not move to reinstate the work hours restriction there are fears it could damage Australia’s reputation for quality education.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/international-students-are-applying-for-australian-visas-in-record-numbers/news-story/141b8c5dcdc5da1f6396ee6ffa725b9c

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My other blogs: Main ones below

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

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

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

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

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

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4 August, 2022

Veterans can now teach in Florida with no degree. School leaders say it 'lowers the bar'

<i>I taught High School successfully <a href="https://memoirsjr.blogspot.com/2022/08/my-time-as-high-school-teacher_9.html">with no teaching qualifications</a> but I did have a degree</i>

A potential solution to a statewide teacher shortage issue has education leaders feeling as though Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration is undermining the qualifications of classroom instructors.

Last week, the Florida Department of Education announced that military veterans, as well as their spouses, would receive a five-year voucher that allows them to teach in the classroom despite not receiving a degree to do so. It's a move tied to the $8.6 million the state announced would be used to expand career and workforce training opportunities for military veterans and their spouses. 

"There are many people who have gone through many hoops and hurdles to obtain a proper teaching certificate," said Carmen Ward, president of the Alachua County  teachers union. "(Educators) are very dismayed that now someone with just a high school education can pass the test and can easily get a five-year temporary certificate." 

On June 9, the Florida Legislature passed a bill that gave the approval for military members, both former and present, and their spouses to teach. Reserve military members count, as well.

Teacher candidates must have a minimum of 60 college credits with a 2.5 GPA, and also must receive a passing score on the FLDOE subject area examination for bachelor’s level subjects. 

Veterans must have a minimum of 48 months of military service completed with honorable/medical discharge. If hired by a school district, they have to have a teaching mentor.

Alachua County school board members expressed their distaste for the new law at a recent workshop where the details were presented. 

Tina Certain said she feels like the bill lowers the bar for educators. 

"It's not that I'm against the service that veterans provide to our country," she said. "I just think that to the education profession, we're lowering the bar on that and minimizing the criteria of what it takes to enter the profession."

Certain also made clear that she doesn't want the district to push those teachers all to lower-performing schools on the east side of Gainesville. 

Another school board member, Rob Hyatt, while expressing his frustration, appeared to be more optimistic.

"Unfortunately, we, like all other school districts, are experiencing a very real shortage," he said. "I think that this legislation is a reaction to the fact … I have confidence in our HR department to make the best out of this."

The Alachua County public school district currently has more than 60 teaching vacancies. Since the law passed, no veterans or spouses have applied to the school district for a job, spokeswoman Jackie Johnson said.

"But if someone were to contact us expressing interest in the program, we would help them with the process for earning the state certification," Johnson said. "If they were successful, they would then be eligible to apply for a job with the district, as would anyone with a valid certification."

Ward, however, feels it's the wrong approach to the issue, saying that more support and better pay would close the vacancies.

"There's an assumption that if you were a student, that you are also qualified to be a teacher," Ward said. "That's not necessarily the case and so it's just highly concerning because we've always had a high standard for educators in the public school system."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2022/07/21/florida-education-program-military-veterans-teach/10117107002/

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Chinese immigrant, a witness to Mao's political purge, warning about indoctrination in public schools

A Chinese immigrant who witnessed Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution warned against the indoctrination of children in K-12 schools with neo-Marxist ideologies such as critical race theory and The New York Times' 1619 Project. 

In an interview with Fox News Digital, Lily Tang Williams, who is currently running as a Republican candidate for Congress in New Hampshire's second district, discussed the lessons she learned as a witness to communist brutality and shared a warning to Americans on the importance of fighting for liberty. 

"[Mao believed that] young people's mind is a blank piece of paper. You can draw the most beautiful pictures or whatever he wants to draw or whatever he wants them to believe. Those are the… warning signs. That's why, you know, we have to absolutely support that parental rights and support school choice," she said. "Parents start[ed] to wake up to say 'what's going on in our schools?' which is good thing. I'm still positive, and I'm still optimistic about our country."

Tang Williams was born in China's western Sichuan province on the cusp of Mao’s deadly terror campaign – the Cultural Revolution. She currently lives in fear that the communist country she meticulously planned to escape from is unfurling before her eyes in the U.S. 

The Chinese Cultural Revolution was a political purge and persecution of millions of suspected anti-revolutionaries orchestrated by Mao, who was the chairman of the People's Republic of China from 1949 to 1976. The violent movement vehemently opposed the "Four Olds:" Old Ideas, Old Culture, Old Customs, and Old Habits and featured the destruction of cultural artifacts.

Tang Williams drew a parallel between the Chinese revolution that was based on class and what she believes is a neo-Marxist Cultural Revolution that is based on identity groups molded together into a coalition on an oppression matrix.  

"Identity politics is the hallmark of Maoism," Tang Williams said. Critical race theory and The New York Times' 1619 Project, which hold that America is systemically racist, are all part of this revolution, the New Hampshire congressional candidate said. 

"Mao used standard Marxist terms like oppressor versus oppressed," she said. "He actually divided all Chinese citizens – because we're [of the] same race and have [the] same skin color –  into Five Black Classes versus the Five Red Classes." 

The Five Black Categories of oppressors included right-wingers, rich farmers, landlords, counter-revolutionaries and bad influencers. On the other side were the Red Categories who were the poor, working-class, Revolutionary guards and active members of the Chinese Communist Party. 

Children were one of the most effective tools Mao exploited to fuel his revolution. They became indoctrinated to a point where they betrayed their parents to the communist state in order to move upwards in class, she said. 

"Tragedy is where young people were brainwashed to say, I want to be Red Class, I'm going to denounce my family and to turn them over to Red Guards, to the authorities, change last name and draw the line between me and my parents."

Her family witnessed people being tortured by the Red Guards, a student-led paramilitary social movement orchestrated by Mao. 

The fact that parents are being kept in the dark and blocked from influencing their children's learning is a power struggle she recalls from China. 

"[The left] want to destroy nuclear families," Tang Williams, said. "That's why they want to keep their kids close to [the government] and get them to feel like 'my parents don't understand me.' [Then they] take the children away from their parents, so they can… rely on the state... Typical Communist tactic."

The first crack in the indoctrination Tang Williams vehemently believed in was forged when Mao died at age 82 after several heart attacks. All her life she had been told Chairman Mao was a god. "How could a god die?" she asked. 

It took 20 years over the course of her journey in America to rid herself of all the communist propaganda.

Her family members who live in China are still lost to the indoctrination, she said, and continue to ask her to observe a moment of silence for Mao's December 26 birthday. 

Lily Tang Williams was raised in China's western Sichuan province during Chairman Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution. 

https://www.foxnews.com/media/chinese-immigrant-witness-mao-political-purge-warning-indoctrination-public-schools

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Justice warriors in the dock

Bettina Arndt

What a nasty shock. Campus administrators in charge of America’s kangaroo courts thought they could get away with running roughshod over the legal rights of young men accused of sexual assault. For years they’ve been doing just that, but now they’ve been put on notice that they might be in the firing line when it comes to legal action against the universities.

A series of judicial decisions have issued a warning to justice warriors who use their positions as campus officials to throw young men under the bus. One example involved officials from Lincoln-Sudbury high school, in Massachusetts, who weren’t happy when an investigation into sexual assault allegations reached inconclusive results. Rather than put this on the record, they revised the report and inserted a finding of guilt.

Campus administrators can no longer assume they can’t be sued for such biased behaviour. Courts are now saying that officials who undermine due process place themselves at risk of the loss of qualified immunity.

The recent legal judgments are part of a welcome trend for judges to disallow immunity defenses in these Title IX lawsuits, leaving campus officials thoroughly exposed.

Australia’s kangaroo courts are run by Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment (SASH) committees that have license to derail the education of accused young men. But some of these officials are now wondering if they too might face legal risks from playing God in these quasi-judicial decision-making bodies.

There’s an interesting little publication called Campus Review that is circulating to over 200,000 people in higher education. Earlier this year, an article appeared entitled Lessons from the sexual assault and harassment committee: what could go wrong?

It was written by Alan Manly, who is CEO of Group Colleges Australia representing the private higher education colleges, and Emeritus professor Greg Whateley, Deputy Vice Chancellor of the group. They wrote of a case involving a doctor from overseas who was helped by my Campus Justice lawyers, where we achieved a settlement from a major university.

The authors point out that in that case, the student moved on – the doctor is now studying for graduate medical entry to work in Australia. But Manly and Whateley ask what would have happened if that student had been well-funded and bent on revenge? The suggestion then is that he might have chosen to target the SASH committee for the appalling way he had been treated. They have great fun spelling out what that might mean for individual committee members:

‘Good practice would suggest that all committee members should seek their own legal advice… Committee members would have to pay for this legal advice. The affidavits would be done and then they would come back for more details, more evidence to support your assertion.

‘More time, more worry, more personal legal expense and you haven’t got to court yet.

‘A few sleepless nights will be had by committee members.’

Imagine the worry of knowing such affidavits could expose potential unfair treatment of an accused student.

No wonder campus officials have been caught out shredding relevant documents, as was revealed in a recent scathing US court decision against Dordt University in Iowa which talked about officials violating ‘community standards of decently, fairness or reasonableness’.

Manly and Whateley first plant the seed of doubt, and then in June follow up with another article that appears to be aimed at the SASH committees: Quasi-judicial committees vs state courts: opinion.

This time they focused on the most famous case in this territory, involving a medical student at the University of Queensland who went to the Supreme Court and successfully argued that universities had no jurisdiction to determine sexual assault cases. Judge Ann Lyons said that the university could not adjudicate criminal matters and was very critical of SASH procedures:

‘It would indeed be a startling result if a committee comprised of academics and students who are not required to have any legal training could decide allegations of a most serious kind without any of the protections of the criminal law.’

Manly and Whateley point out that the SASH committee was named as the second respondent in this case, so when the university lost and had to pay the accused’s costs as well as their own, they were also potentially liable. ‘Members of the Quasi-Judicial Committee may be well advised to review the meaning of the word “quasi” – “having some, but not all of the features of,”’ suggest the authors.

They add:

‘The feature that may be keeping some members of the Quasi-Judiciary Committee awake at night could well be the costs for a hearing in a Supreme Court with lawyers and barristers on full fee.’

The Campus Review authors are clearly stirring the possum, particularly given that such committees are likely to have ‘vicarious liability’, which means the university carries the legal can. But senior lawyers advise me that failure to provide natural justice for the accused person could create a personal liability that won’t always be indemnified by the university. And it is hardly good for career advancement to be the cause of an expensive lawsuit attracting adverse media attention for your employer. 

The University of Queensland appealed the Supreme Court decision and won with the judgment stating universities are allowed to deal with sexual misconduct after an offence is proven in criminal court. But it came with a warning for the universities, that they can expect to have their disciplinary decisions subject to judicial scrutiny if they fail to ensure their internal processes are suitable – meaning they must ensure procedural fairness. Here the university’s lawyers, Minter Ellison, outline the implications for the sector. 

Critically, the medical student escaped their clutches because he had graduated in the preceding year. The appeal judgment determined students who were no longer enrolled could not be subject to kangaroo courts.

The university was clearly not happy, despite this apparent win. The whole saga probably set them back with some hefty legal costs (Minter Ellison doesn’t come cheap), plus they’d attracted negative publicity over the case in the same year as UQ was receiving negative media coverage over legal battles with student activist Drew Pavlou, who had been suspended for calling out the university’s alleged ties to Beijing.

Big wigs at UQ sprang into action and conducted a review of the management of sexual misconduct cases, which decided to rein in the SASH committee, which was now relegated to the role of an advisory committee reporting to the Vice Chancellor. University regulations were reviewed to ensure ‘principles of procedural fairness’ were applied – and many other universities followed suit.

It would not surprise me if there was a more cautious mood in the higher education sector, with only one remaining member left from the original 7-person SASH group at TEQSA, the higher education regulator which pushed universities into setting up kangaroo courts.

The speculation in Campus Review about legal liability for SASH members certainly doesn’t hurt and following a number of recent expensive legal cases and significant compensation payouts, the fervour for witch-hunts against accused male students may be starting to wane.

But there are still examples of dubious university behaviour, like the case involving Andrew, the pharmacy student, which I wrote about in June. According to the Minter Ellison advice, universities are allowed to conduct disciplinary proceedings provided the case has been proved in criminal court. Andrew was found not guilty, so why did the university proceed with their inquiry? And where’s the procedural fairness in withholding his degree to ensure he remained in their clutches rather than allow him to graduate and leave the university?

We are considering our options but would love to find serious legal firepower to take this one on. Our concern is less about compensation than about exposing the inherent inconsistencies in the way the kangaroo courts are operating.

More importantly, there are critical legal issues that deserve a public airing. Like:

In law, sanctions for sexual assault have never included the disqualification of students from the academic success they have achieved.

A criminal conviction is not a bar to studying at university or being granted a degree. How then can universities lawfully withhold degrees from students accused or even convicted of sexual assault?

If an applicant for a job in the public service is found to have a criminal record, this has to be relevant to the actual job before denying the job offer. Similarly, the only misconduct that should disbar a person from their degree is plagiarism or other misbehaviour impinging on their studies.

The entire regulatory apparatus is justified by creating a safe environment for students – but by providing ‘safety’ for one group of students, universities have jeopardised the safety of accused students by using what appear to be unfair procedures which deny their legal rights.

Our universities’ SASH regulations usually deny accused students access to lawyers, let alone the right to cross-examination of witnesses and other basic legal protections which Trump imposed on campus tribunals and Biden now seeks to remove. None of our universities come close to offering the required procedural fairness demanded by the Queensland appeal judgment.

Please spread the word amongst your legal contacts and other heavy hitters who might help us tackle this ongoing injustice. The tide is turning and sooner or later, Australia is going to see a university being held accountable for these witch-hunts. When that time comes – and it’s a question of when, not if – universities will pay a heavy price.

https://spectator.com.au/2022/08/justice-warriors-in-the-dock/

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My other blogs: Main ones below

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

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

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

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

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

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3 August, 2022

Google, Apple Back Affirmative Action in Harvard Case

Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Meta Platforms Inc. and Apple Inc. are among nearly 80 companies filing a brief with the US Supreme Court in support of affirmative action programs being challenged at Harvard and the University of North Carolina.

The brief filed Monday argues corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts “depend on university admissions programs that lead to graduates educated in racially and ethnically diverse environments.”

“Only in this way can America produce a pipeline of highly qualified future workers and business leaders prepared to meet the needs of the modern economy and workforce,” the brief said. The cases are the first on affirmative action to come before the justices since conservatives gained a 6-3 majority.

More companies signed the amicus, or friend of the court, filing arguing affirmative action is a business imperative than in a 2003 case involving the University of Michigan Law School or two more recent cases involving the University of Texas at Austin.

This time, businesses risk inflaming a conservative backlash against companies taking progressive stances. Diversity, equity, and inclusion advocates say it’s still important for the business community to make its voice heard.

“This is the perfect time for the corporate world to not just sit on the wayside,” said Lael Chappell, the director of insurance distribution at Coalition, Inc. who works on diversity, equity and inclusion issues.

While both Apple and Microsoft had signed at least one brief in the Michigan or Texas cases, companies that joined in 2022 for the first time include Google, Meta, Lyft, Uber, Pinterest, and Verizon.

One notable absence is Arkansas-based Walmart Inc., which signed briefs in both Texas cases.

Other signatories include The Kraft Heinz Company, Mastercard Inc., and United Airlines Inc.

Corporate Argument

In the latest cases, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina, the plaintiffs say affirmative action not only hurts white applicants, but amounts to an “anti-Asian penalty,” too.

UNC responds that race is only one of “dozens of factors” that the school “may consider as it brings together a class that is diverse along numerous dimensions—including geography, military status, and socioeconomic background.”

“Empirical studies confirm that diverse groups make better decisions thanks to increased creativity, sharing of ideas, and accuracy,” the companies said in support of the universities.

“These benefits are not simply intangible; they translate into businesses’ bottom lines,” they said.

And the increasingly global nature of business makes diversity even more important today that it has been in the past, the companies argued.

International Business Machines Corp. joined a separate STEM-focused brief, noting the increased significance of diversity in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

“While the benefits of a diverse student body are widely observable, they are all the more salient and compelling in STEM, which has historically been marked by greater limitations in diversity than most fields of study,” the brief said.

Changed Environment

Yet, the environment has changed considerably in the six years since the Supreme Court last ruled in an affirmative action case.

Shareholders are pushing companies to disclose racial and gender workforce data, said Heidi Welsh, executive director of Sustainable Investments Institute, an institutional investor research group. A new, separate push focuses on publishing racial justice commitments, she said.

Weighing in on politically controversial issues also carries new risks as stakeholders like employees and legislators press companies in different directions, The Conference Board research group warned in a May 2022 report.

Risks were evident this year when Walt Disney Co. criticized a Florida law that limits what teachers and administrators can discuss with young students regarding sexual orientation after intense employee pressure.

Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said he viewed Disney’s public comments against the law as “provocation,” and vowed to “fight back.” Weeks later, Florida lawmakers stripped the entertainment giant of is its decades-old special tax status.

More recently, Sidley Austin received a letter from a group of Texas state legislators threatening to sue and hold criminally liable the global law firm’s partnership after announcing it would pay travel expenses for employees seeking abortions in states where they are outlawed. The Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion in June.

But companies have gained a greater understanding of the business case for diversity, equity, and inclusion, Welsh said. “In that context, it’s not at all surprising that there would be a lot of companies in support of affirmative action,” despite the potential political backlash, Welsh said.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-01/google-big-business-back-affirmative-action-in-harvard-case

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Many graduates would like a college do-over — and would change careers

For the majority of Americans attending college, it’s not just about the quality of education — it’s also about the social and life experience.

Out of 2,000 adults surveyed, 73% agree that college is important to educate people about adult life beyond the classroom, with a little under half saying they want to try college again to gain more life lessons according to OnePoll. 

Approximately 44% of respondents of the OnePoll survey — taken on behalf of Texas Tech University — say they want to try college again not because they disliked their first experience but because they didn’t learn enough vital life skills, such as banking or time management.

Forty-six percent say doing well in school and getting good grades was found to be the hardest part of college, with 45% listing time management, more responsibilities (44%) and living on your own (43%) as some of the main challenges.

44% said they are keen to try college again to learn more life skills.

“We all hear the national conversations about the costs of attending college, asking whether the experience is worth it,” Jamie Hansard, the Texas Tech vice president for enrollment management, said. “While what students learn in the classroom can be foundational for the goals and careers they want to pursue, it’s important to understand that the value of college goes far beyond a person’s academic achievements.”

Of the respondents who have attended college, most (85%) believe college prepared them for adult life, but 80% agree if they could go back, they would change some things about their college experience.

Of those surveyed, 42% are interested in learning new skill sets and 39% want to change their career path. However, many respondents appeared happy with their college choices.

Of the life skills those respondents picked up during their time in college, organizational skills (53%) and discovering their passions (47%) ranked as the top two.

When asked what skills college taught them that they still apply to adult life, they listed: “How to be independent,” “How to arrive when instructed” and “How to approach people in the correct way” as life skills they learned.

Respondents also suggested improvements for the college experience and to help them gain employment.

Ranking high on this list: Forty-two percent said helping with job interviews and applications and 39% said being affordable for all students. 

Nearly a third of respondents who attended college said the highlight of their experience was making friends, and 70% of those who attended college work in the field associated with their degree.

Seventy percent of all respondents agree that their career goals are more attainable if they attend college, with some surveyed listing a few specific factors when choosing a school. 

Forty-one percent said they’d prefer classes or seminars that teach about life beyond the classroom, and positive testimonials from current or previous students would sway them to choose a certain school.

https://nypost.com/2022/08/02/many-graduates-would-like-a-college-do-over-and-would-change-careers/

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Teachers to get helping hand preparing for lessons

Teachers will be given curriculum lesson plans, texts and learning materials in a bid to ease the pressure of rising workloads as the profession struggles to find enough time to prepare classes.

The rollout of new resources for NSW public teachers from term 4 comes after a national survey of 5400 primary and high school teachers found 92 per cent said there was inadequate time for their core classroom teaching duties, including critical lesson planning and reviewing students’ work.

Research by the Grattan Institute found 92 per cent of teachers said they don’t have enough time to prepare for effective classroom teaching

Research by the Grattan Institute found 92 per cent of teachers said they don’t have enough time to prepare for effective classroom teachingCREDIT:DEAN SEWELL

NSW Education Minister Sarah Mitchell said access to a bank of “high-quality, sequenced curriculum resources” would transform education and eliminate the need for teachers to continually reinvent lesson plans. “Teachers have told us that finding or making high-quality resources that align with the curriculum is the number one tax on their time”, she said.

“We’ve listened closely to our teaching staff, developing an online, high-quality, centralised, universally available learning materials they can draw on. This is a game-changer for teachers in NSW.”

She said the resources, which will include step-by-step guides for delivering lessons with videos and other materials, would improve student outcomes.

Recent research by the Grattan Institute revealed 88 per cent of teachers said having access to common units and assessment materials could save three hours each week and avoid having to “re-invent the wheel” by trawling the internet and come up with lesson plans.

It also found teachers could reclaim about two hours a week if extracurricular jobs such as bus duty and assemblies were handled by support staff.

Education program director at the Grattan Institute, Jordana Hunter, said giving teachers access to a suite of curriculum resources could be a “major step forward as teachers wrestle with workloads that have blown out in recent years”.

“It is important to try and reduce administrative load and lesson planning time. There is also evidence that student needs have become more complex,” Hunter said.

Teachers often draw on their own resources, sharing with colleagues, using Google, Pinterest and online marketplaces to buy educational materials, which can cause huge variation between what is taught in schools.

“Provided the resources are easy for teachers to use and can be adapted in the classroom this is a big step forward,” Hunter said.

“The government shouldn’t underestimate the amount of support needed to roll this out. Even high-quality resources can be challenging for teachers to pick up and run with unless they have professional training and learn how to use it effectively.”

Pressure on teachers has grown in the past decade, she said, as more data was collected to track student progress and there was increased emphasis on student assessment.

While some teachers have argued standard curriculum resources encroach on professional freedom, experts say this view is generally held by a minority.

Mitchell said the resources were “not about taking the creativity out of teaching, that’s what our teachers do best”.

“It’s about providing teachers with a basic recipe for student success, while allowing them to contextualise how they use the ingredients to get the best outcomes for their students.”

A NSW Department of Education review of teacher workload of more than 4000 submissions found overwhelming support curriculum resources.

Hunter said there was “major room for improvement in terms of support for teachers to implement the curriculum in the classroom. In the US, UK and Singapore more support is provided.”

In 2014, a UK government working group found teachers were frequently preparing lessons from scratch and searching the internet to find lesson plans. A pilot program was subsequently set up where schools share high-quality curriculum resources with others in their networks.

“Teachers need to focus on the learning needs of the students. The rise of the internet has allowed for a lot more sharing of resources many of which are of highly variable quality. Years ago there were more textbooks in classrooms and many commercial resources are of mixed quality,” Hunter said.

Draft new NSW syllabuses for years 3-10 English and mathematics were released earlier this year, with the English syllabus to put more focus on literacy skills amid concerns, while NSW primary schools will intensify their focus on literacy and numeracy, with the introduction of a new syllabus mandating the use of phonics.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/teachers-to-get-helping-hand-preparing-for-lessons-20220729-p5b5sg.html

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My other blogs: Main ones below

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

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

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

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

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

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2 August, 2022

Teachers are arming up

Mandi, a kindergarten teacher in Ohio, had already done what she could to secure her classroom against a gunman.

She positioned a bookcase by the doorway, in case she needed a barricade. In an orange bucket, she kept district-issued emergency supplies: wasp spray, to aim at an attacker, and a tube sock, to hold a heavy object and hurl at an assailant.

But after 19 children and two teachers were killed in Uvalde, Texas, she felt a growing desperation. Her school is in an older building, with no automatic locks on classroom doors and no police officer on campus.

“We just feel helpless,” she said. “It’s not enough.”

She decided she needed something far more powerful: a 9 millimeter pistol.

So she signed up for training that would allow her to carry a gun in school. Like others in this article, she asked to be identified by her first name, because of school district rules that restrict information about employees carrying firearms.

A decade ago, it was extremely rare for everyday school employees to carry guns. Today, after a seemingly endless series of mass shootings, the strategy has become a leading solution promoted by Republicans and gun rights advocates, who say that allowing teachers, principals and superintendents to be armed gives schools a fighting chance in case of attack.

At least 29 states allow individuals other than police or security officials to carry guns on school grounds, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. As of 2018, the last year for which statistics were available, federal survey data estimated that 2.6 percent of public schools had armed faculty.

The count has likely grown.

In Florida, more than 1,300 school staff members serve as armed guardians in 45 school districts, out of 74 in the state, according to state officials. The program was created after a gunman killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., in 2018.

In Texas, at least 402 school districts — about a third in the state — participate in a program that allows designated people, including school staff members, to be armed, according to the Texas Association of School Boards. Another program, which requires more training, is used by a smaller number of districts. Participation in both is up since 2018.

And in the weeks after the Uvalde shooting, lawmakers in Ohio made it easier for teachers and other school employees to carry guns.

The strategy is fiercely opposed by Democrats, police groups, teachers’ unions and gun control advocates, who say that concealed carry programs in schools — far from solving the problem — will only create more risk. Past polling has shown that the vast majority of teachers do not want to be armed.

The law in Ohio has been especially contentious because it requires no more than 24 hours of training, along with eight hours of recertification annually.

“That, to us, is just outrageous,” said Michael Weinman, director of government affairs for the Fraternal Order of Police of Ohio, the state’s largest law enforcement organization. By comparison, police officers in the state undergo more than 700 hours of training. And school resource officers — police assigned to campuses — must complete an additional 40 hours.

Supporters say 24 hours is enough because while police training includes everything from traffic tickets to legal matters, school employees tightly focus on firearm proficiency and active shooter response.

Studies on school employees carrying guns have been limited, and research so far has found little evidence that it is effective. There is also little evidence that school resource officers are broadly effective at preventing school shootings, which are statistically rare.

Yet arming school employees is finding appeal — slight majorities among parents and adults in recent polls.

Of the five deadliest school shootings on record, four — in Newtown, Conn., Uvalde, Texas, Parkland, Fla., and Santa Fe, Texas — have happened in the last 10 years.

It was this possibility that brought Mandi and seven other educators to a gun range tucked amid the hayfields and farm roads of Rittman, in northeast Ohio.

Over the course of three days, Mandi practiced shooting, tying a tourniquet and responding to fast-paced active shooter drills. Her presence on the range, firing her pistol under the blazing sun, cut a contrast to the classroom, where she dances to counting songs with 5-year-olds, dollops out shaving cream for sensory activities and wallpapers her classroom with student artwork.

That she was being trained at all spoke to the country’s painful failure to stop mass shootings, and to the heavy responsibilities piled onto teachers — catching students up from the pandemic, handling mental health crises in children, navigating conflicts over the teaching of race and gender and now, for some, defending their schools.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/31/us/teachers-guns-schools.html

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$2M for Oregon Teachers to Reject the "Eurocentric Worldview" of Individualism

Oregon’s Department of Education is spending $2 million to train K-12 teachers from diverse backgrounds to reject the "eurocentric worldview" of "individualism," Fox News reported.

The funds will pay for a 23-month fellowship for 600 educators to learn how to create "racially affirming environments" in their classrooms so that the teachers' identities are "seen" and "honored" in classrooms, Oregon’s Department of Education told Fox News Digital.

The goal is to “decenter,” including pushing back against the "euro-centric worldview" on "individualism."

"We are more than our titles and more than the roles we’ve been assigned; this arc will create space for each fellow to identify and unpack their multiple identities of self," the funding summary stated.

Another focus will be on "unlearning" where fellows will learn to "practice understanding themselves as a grounded bridge between curriculum and their students."

The fellowship will "deepen educators' understanding… of the individual, the institutional and the systemic impacts of racism on schools and communities," the summary states. 

Fellows will create their own project "that disrupts a racist pattern/practice/policy, or works towards liberation/equity/decolonization."

This is as Oregon schools are facing a “historic staffing crisis,” according to a report put out by Oregon Education Association, the union that represents about 41,000 educators working in pre-kindergarten through grade 12 public schools and community colleges.

Schools throughout the state lack adequate staffing, forcing existing staff to function “through long working hours and sheer will … to stay open at all costs,” something that “is not sustainable” the report stated.

Based on teacher surveys, “Most educators say it is impossible to get their work done during the day no matter how hard they work, that they have more stress on the job than ever before and a significant number of educators say they are seriously considering leaving the profession altogether.”

Spending $2 million on removing the "eurocentric worldview" of "individualism" likely won't alleviate these stresses.

https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2022/07/29/2m_for_oregon_teachers_to_reject_the_eurocentric_worldview_of_individualism_844037.html

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Radical fix for Australian teacher shortages: Employ anyone with a degree

<i>I did this over 30 years ago. I wanted to do High School teaching but had at the time "only" an M.A. -- no Diploma of Education. The New South Wales Department of Education gave me the heave-ho but a small regional Catholic school (at Merrylands) gave me a job teaching economics and geography. 

Although the school served a very working-class area, my students got outstanding results in their final High School examinations (the Higher School Certificate, which serves as the university entrance examination)</i>

Lawyers, engineers and IT experts would be parachuted into classrooms to address crippling staff shortages under radical reforms that include pay rises of up to 40 per cent for the very best teachers.

The federal government’s Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership has laid out a blueprint for fixing the teacher shortage by recruiting university-educated workers to earn while they learn on the job to teach school students.

The plan includes a six to 12-month “paid internship’’ for career-changers to earn cash while upgrading their credentials with a two-year masters degree in education.

The reform recommendations from AITSL – the nation’s official agency for education quality – will be the focus of an emergency workforce summit with federal Education Minister Jason Clare and his state and territory counterparts next week.

AITSL also wants to improve the quality of university training for teachers.

Mr Clare said ministers would “pick the brains’’ of individual teachers and principals invited to the meeting. “We’ve got a teacher shortage right across the country at the moment,’’ he told federal parliament on Monday.

“There are more kids going to school now than ever before … but there are fewer people going on to university to study teaching.’’

Mr Clare said the number of teachers in training had dropped 16 per cent over the past decade.

“More and more teachers are leaving the profession early, either because they feel burnt out, worn out, or for other reasons’’ he said.

Mr Clare said the federal government was offering bursaries worth up to $40,000 for the “best and brightest’’ school leavers to enrol in a teaching degree.

He said the government’s High Achievers Teachers program would encourage more mid-career professionals to switch to the classroom.

AITSL chief executive Mark Grant said the nation’s top teachers – recognised as “highly accomplished’’ or “lead” teachers – are now being paid up to 10 per cent more than other teachers.

But he said lead teachers overseas were paid up to 40 per cent more than their colleagues, to prevent them quitting the profession for higher-paying jobs in other fields.

Translated to Australia, a 40 per cent pay rise would involve a $50,000 bonus to boost teacher salaries above $175,000. “The biggest influence on student learning is the quality of teaching,’’ Mr Grant told The Australian.

AITSL will propose the higher pay for lead teachers at the ministerial roundtable, which will also include teacher unions as well as Catholic and private school organisations.

The AITSL proposal – including a plan to fast-track other professionals into classroom teaching – is based on its submission to the Productivity Commission’s review of the National School Reform Agreement.

“There is evidence that increasing the level of pay for high-level positions would make the profession more attractive than more expensive generalised pay rises,’’ the submission states.

“Australia is facing a critical shortage of teachers due to a number of factors including growing school enrolments, a drop in the number of individuals enrolled in teaching degrees, an ageing workforce and a percentage of teachers leaving the profession to embark on different careers each year.

“Clear action is needed to ensure that a career in teaching is an attractive one.’’

AITSL notes that only 1025 teachers – or 0.3 per cent of the workforce – have been certified as lead teachers.

Education Minister Jason Clare says he doesn’t want Australia to be a country where life opportunities “depend on…

It recommends that states and territories create more “master teacher’’ roles, modelled on Singapore’s high-performing education system.

“These teachers would retain a significant classroom teaching load, but also be responsible for coaching other teachers to improve practice, supervising pre-service and beginning teachers, and leading initiatives to improve pedagogy within and across schools,’’ it states.

“Their pay should recognise their expertise and reward them for taking leadership roles in the system.’’

AITSL recommends that professionals such as engineers, scientists, lawyers, accountants and IT workers be allowed to work in schools for six to 12 months in paid internships, as part of their two-year master’s degree in education.

“The implementation of paid internships or residencies encourages high-quality candidates to complete an ITE (teaching) qualification, reducing the financial disincentives of undertaking study, including a lack of income,’’ it states.

“At the same time, internships increase the time spent in the classroom prior to full-time employment.

“Structured time spent in the classroom supports the pre-service teachers’ skill development in curriculum delivery and critical skills including classroom management and student engagement.’’

AITSL also wants to set up a national board to review university degrees for student teachers, to ensure “quality and consistency’’ of teacher training.

The AITSL blueprint for reform coincides with action from the NSW government to cut red tape for teachers in the nation’s biggest schooling system.

An extra 200 administrative staff will be sent into schools in term four to relieve teachers of some of the paperwork that principals warn is causing burnout.

NSW will also release high-quality, sequenced curriculum resources to help teachers plan for lessons.

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet said the biggest tax on teachers’ time was sourcing or producing high-quality teaching resources.

“We want to ease that workload by providing online access to universally available learning curriculum materials they can draw from to free up lesson planning time each week,’’ Mr Perrottet said.

The Australian Primary Principals Association criticised the new national curriculum last week, declaring it was “impossible to teach’’.

The Australian Education Union has also blasted the curriculum, describing teachers’ workload as “excessive, unsustainable and unrealistic’’.

It says the two-year review of the curriculum, which had 20 per cent of its content cut in April, had failed to “declutter’’ the teaching document.

“Feedback from Queensland, which is the only jurisdiction to implement the Australian curriculum in full, suggests that the changes have not succeeded in this aim,’’ the AEU states in its submission to the Productivity Commission.

“The AEU has had numerous reports from teachers in Queensland that they are concerned about the workload implications of implementing the identified curriculum changes, and that there has been very little reduction of the cluttered curriculum, which is unlikely to improve student outcomes’’.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/pay-rise-of-40-per-cent-for-top-teachers-to-be-raised-at-ministers-meeting-to-fix-staff-shortages/news-story/3ebc2072872d9ba251f0e4932bfb2b5f

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My other blogs: Main ones below

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

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

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

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

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

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1 August, 2022

Many school districts across the nation are actively resisting curriculum transparency measures and bending over backward to hide the truth about what students are being taught

As parents sound the alarm on critical race theory and gender politics in the classroom, school administrators are doing everything in their power to gaslight them—telling them that these topics aren’t being taught and calling parents who question them racist or transphobic.

The teaching of radical ideologies, including critical race theory, is becoming pervasive throughout the country, but nowhere is it pushed on students more forcefully than in California. For example, the state-mandated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum is chock-full of leftist propaganda.

It is no surprise that a California school board member recently called for a boycott of the Fourth of July. And while it is still concerning, it is no longer surprising that dozens of schools named after Founding Fathers like George Washington are facing renaming battles. While I support removing statues of figures who actively fought for racism or other evils (like leaders of the Confederacy), trying to erase our Founding Fathers is a different story.

California is not an outlier on these issues. Look north to Seattle and you will find school districts that proposed spending more on “racial equity” programs than on math and science, despite a steep decline since the pandemic in math and reading scores. Additionally, 56% of Seattle students were found not to be competent in science.

In classrooms all around the country, the controversial and historically inaccurate 1619 Project is being utilized to teach that our country’s core value is not equality but racism. According to a RealClearInvestigations report, critical race theory is pervasive in many schools and is found in professional development courses for teachers and staff as well as in lesson plans and assignments.

Instead of lying directly to parents, many of these schools are hiding controversial curricula by giving programs seemingly innocuous names like “culturally responsive teaching” or using so-called social and emotional learning to smuggle in controversial material.

According to a Fox News report, one of the more egregious ways school districts are hiding curricula from parents is by charging exorbitant fees for public records requests. Nicole Solas, a mother from South Kingstown, Rhode Island, requested the curriculum of her daughter’s kindergarten class. After being denied this request and exhausting every other option, Solas filed a Freedom of Information request for which the district reportedly charged her $74,000. 

This was not an isolated incident. The Oregon Department of Education charges $10 per email, and in one instance, it charged a parent $1,525 for a single document.

Parents are not the only ones facing such high fees: journalists are subject to them, too. A journalist in Iowa who sought information related to “Transgender Week” at Linn-Mar High School in Marion was told that his request would cost $604,000. Using such exorbitant fees to dissuade parents and journalists from accessing public records is an abuse of power and a tactic clearly intended to keep parents in the dark.

These school districts are disregarding parents’ rights to have a say in their children’s education. The belief that the education bureaucracy, not parents, should decide what children learn is a growing and concerning trend. For example, in his race for Virginia governor, Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe said parents should not influence what schools teach. Nikole Hannah Jones, 1619 Project founder, seemingly agreed, saying, “K-12 educators, not parents, are the experts in what to teach.”

And what happens when parents fight back, affirming their right to know what their children are being taught? The entire force of the education bureaucracy, including teachers unions and federal institutions, turns against them.

For example, the Rochester Community School District in Rochester, Michigan, was accused of monitoring the social media accounts of 200 parents. In one case, the district was forced to pay $190,000 to a parent who had advocated on social media for a return to in-person learning. The district had contacted her employer, leading to her termination.

Lest we wonder if these are isolated incidents, we recall that the National School Boards Association asked the Biden administration to use counterterrorism tools to investigate parents at school board meetings.

Parents are also being targeted for opposing the left’s gender ideology. Throughout the country, parents who refuse to provide “gender-affirming care” to their children risk losing custody or being accused of child abuse.

We already know that forcing such an agenda can have tragic consequences. In Florida, a 12-year-old girl attempted suicide twice after being given secret gender-transition counseling at school. Why weren’t her parents told about their daughter’s transition or her counseling? According to her father, it was because of his and his wife’s Catholic beliefs.

Parents aren’t the only ones in danger. Just last month, the Fairfax County School Board in Virginia voted to increase punishments for students who “misgender” or “deadname” their peers—that is, calling them by their given name or the pronouns that correspond with their biological sex rather than their newly chosen name and pronouns.

Things could get worse. Under President Joe Biden’s proposed changes to Title IX regulations that were originally meant to protect women and girls from sex discrimination in K-12 and higher education, it won’t be long before such actions could be considered sexual harassment.

This is where the country is headed, but we can take action to stop this train. The Parents Bill of Rights will protect parents’ rights to make medical decisions for their children rather than letting schools usurp that authority. It will also create more transparency so parents can see how schools are spending money and what their children are being taught.

Safeguarding parental rights is the line drawn in the sand. If we lose this battle, the consequences for individual liberty will be wide ranging and devastating.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/07/27/time-to-stand-for-parental-rights/

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What Title IX really says

by Jeff Jacoby

THIS SUMMER marks the 50th anniversary of the passage of Title IX, the federal civil-rights law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any school or educational program funded by the federal government. It is widely regarded as a law to guarantee gender equity in sports, but Title IX makes no reference to athletics. It was not intended to spur the buildup of women's sports programs. Its purpose was to ensure equality in education, as the original text signed into law by President Richard Nixon made clear:

"No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance."

Senator Birch Bayh, an Indiana Democrat, was Title IX's chief sponsor. In his floor remarks upon introducing the legislation, he made clear that it was designed to promote equality:

"We are all familiar with the stereotype [that] women [are] pretty things who go to college to find a husband [and] go on to graduate school because they want a more interesting husband, and finally marry, have children, and never work again," he said. "The desire of many schools not to waste a 'man's place' on a woman stems from such stereotyped notions. But the facts contradict these myths about the 'weaker sex' and it is time to change our operating assumptions." He called the amendment "an important first step in the effort to provide for the women of America something that is rightfully theirs — an equal chance to attend the schools of their choice [and] to develop the skills they want.

There have been plenty of stories in recent weeks analyzing Title IX and its impact. Often as not, the analysts claim that the law hasn't gone far enough. But I am struck by how little acknowledgment there is that the relative position of the sexes in higher education has been almost entirely reversed. If young women a half century ago lagged far behind their male peers on college campuses and in the post-college labor force, today the opposite is true.

In a recent post on his Carpe Diem blog for the American Enterprise Institute, economist Mark J. Perry turned to Bureau of Labor Statistics data from October 2021 to highlight the astonishing disparities between young men and women in the United States today.

He noted, for example, that for every 100 young women in 2021 who graduated from high school and entered college, there were just 89 similarly situated young men.

For every 100 young women under 25 who were enrolled in college and working, there were just 69 young men.

For every 100 young women with a bachelor's degree, there were just 80 young men.

And for every 100 young women in their 20s with an advanced degree and a job, there were just 30 young men.

By contrast, for every 100 young women who were unemployed high school dropouts, there were 238 young men in the same position.

By numerous educational yardsticks, it is men, not women, who today lag far behind. In most academic fields — biology, communications, the arts, public administration, education, health care, psychology, English — women now earn a majority of bachelor's degrees.

"It is young men, more than young women, who are at risk and facing serious educational and work-related challenges," notes Perry. Those gender disparities carry over far beyond academics. Men are much more likely than women to end up with "a variety of measures of (a) behavioral and mental health outcomes, (b) alcoholism, drug addiction, and drug overdoses, (c) suicide, murder, violent crimes, and incarceration, and (d) homelessness."

For all that, Perry writes, it is girls and women who are favored with "a disproportionate amount of attention, resources, and financial support" at all levels of education — such as after-school and summer programs for girls, female-only scholarships and fellowships, and hundreds of women's centers and women's commissions.

Title IX, it is worth remembering, did not mandate unequal preferences for women. It mandated no unequal preferences for any person on the basis of sex. In the 50 years since Title IX was signed into law, the imbalance that so disfavored girls and women has been replaced by an imbalance that grievously disfavors boys and men. That isn't an improvement. Indeed, it's illegal.

https://jeffjacoby.com/26351/who-needs-title-ix-now

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Oklahoma school districts disciplined after allegedly violating Critical Race Theory ban

The Oklahoma State Board of Education disciplined two school districts for violating a new law that prevents Critical Race Theory, from being taught in the public school system last week. 

The board held a meeting on Thursday, where they determined both Tulsa Public Schools and Mustang Public Schools violated House Bill (HB) 1775 in separate incidents last year. They subsequently voted to give both school districts an "accreditation with warning," FOX 25 in Oklahoma City reported.

The warning is the third of the education board’s five-step accreditation tiers. It requires the districts to show they have made the required changes to re-meet the board's standards.

HB 1775 recommends disciplinary action for potential violators of "accreditation with deficiencies," the second step. However, the board voted to increase the penalty, FOX 25 reported.

The board first considered an incident with Tulsa Public Schools in which a third-party vendor allegedly held a training session for teachers that included elements meant "to shame white people for past offenses in history," Board member and State Representative Ajay Pitman said, per the report. The alleged training did not involve students.

The incident happened in August 2021, before HB 1775 was enacted into law.

The board voted four to two to discipline the school district.

A second complaint against Mustang Public Schools was also considered.

The complaint involved an anti-bullying lesson that a teacher within the district performed with their students. It was filed in January 2022.

The board similarly voted four to two to give Mustang Public Schools an "accreditation with warning," as it was "wanting to be fair" regarding the Tulsa complaint.

Governor Kevin Stitt signed HB 1775 into law on May 7, 2021.

The new law "protects our children across the state from being taught revisionist history and that ‘one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex,’ or that ‘an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously,’" said State Sen. David Bullard, R-Durant, in a statement after the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against it.

The pair of school district penalties come as Oklahoma Education Secretary Ryan Walters recently highlighted explicit content from two books made available to middle school students by Tulsa Public Schools.

Appearing on "Fox & Friends" Friday, Walters criticized the school district’s superintendent for standing by the graphic material.

Walters made a Facebook post about the two books, "Gender Queer" and "Flamer," drawing attention to the graphic nature of their content, but his post was taken down by Facebook

The social media site said the material in the post was too graphic.

Walters doubled down, noting it’s "wild" that even Facebook’s guidance for its community (which requires users to be at least 13 years or older) is higher than that of the Tulsa middle school.

"We’ve got woke Facebook that's got higher standards than the superintendent of Tulsa Public Schools," he told host Steve Doocy. "It's just outrageous."

"This is indicative of why this is one of the lowest performing schools in our state. We've got folks in positions of power and administrators that are more focused on a woke ideology and an agenda rather than making sure kids can read and write," he added.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/oklahoma-school-districts-disciplined-allegedly-violating-critical-race-theory-ban

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My other blogs: Main ones below

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

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

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

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

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

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Primarily covering events in Australia, the U.K. and the USA -- where the follies are sadly similar.


TERMINOLOGY: The English "A Level" exam is roughly equivalent to a U.S. High School diploma. Rather confusingly, you can get As, Bs or Cs in your "A Level" results. Entrance to the better universities normally requires several As in your "A Levels".


MORE TERMINOLOGY: Many of my posts mention the situation in Australia. Unlike the USA and Britain, there is virtually no local input into education in Australia. Education is mostly a State government responsibility, though the Feds have a lot of influence (via funding) at the university level. So it may be useful to know the usual abbreviations for the Australian States: QLD (Queensland), NSW (New South Wales), WA (Western Australia), VIC (Victoria), TAS (Tasmania), SA (South Australia).


There were two brothers from a famous family. One did very well at school while the other was a duffer. Which one went on the be acclaimed as the "Greatest Briton"? It was the duffer: Winston Churchill.


The current Left-inspired practice of going to great lengths to shield students from experience of failure and to tell students only good things about themselves is an appalling preparation for life. In adulthood, the vast majority of people are going to have to reconcile themselves to mundane jobs and no more than mediocrity in achievement. Illusions of themselves as "special" are going to be sorely disappointed


Perhaps it's some comfort that the idea of shielding kids from failure and having only "winners" is futile anyhow. When my son was about 3 years old he came bursting into the living room, threw himself down on the couch and burst into tears. When I asked what was wrong he said: "I can't always win!". The problem was that we had started him out on educational computer games where persistence only is needed to "win". But he had then started to play "real" computer games -- shootem-ups and the like. And you CAN lose in such games -- which he had just realized and become frustrated by. The upset lasted all of about 10 minutes, however and he has been happily playing computer games ever since. He also now has a degree in mathematics and is socially very pleasant. "Losing" certainly did not hurt him.


Even the famous Marxist theoretician Antonio Gramsci (and the world's most famous Sardine) was a deep opponent of "progressive" educational methods. He wrote: "The most paradoxical aspect is that this new type of school is advocated as being democratic, while in fact it is destined not merely to perpetuate social differences, but to crystallise them." He rightly saw that "progressive" methods were no help to the poor


I am an atheist of Protestant background who sent his son to Catholic schools. Why did I do that? Because I do not personally feel threatened by religion and I think Christianity is a generally good influence. I also felt that religion is a major part of life and that my son should therefore have a good introduction to it. He enjoyed his religion lessons but seems to have acquired minimal convictions from them.


Why have Leftist educators so relentlessly and so long opposed the teaching of phonics as the path to literacy when that opposition has been so enormously destructive of the education of so many? It is because of their addiction to simplistic explanations of everything (as in saying that Islamic hostility is caused by "poverty" -- even though Osama bin Laden is a billionaire!). And the relationship between letters and sounds in English is anything but simple compared to the beautifully simple but very unhelpful formula "look and learn".


For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.


The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"


A a small quote from the past that helps explain the Leftist dominance of education: "When an opponent says: 'I will not come over to your side,' I calmly say, 'Your child belongs to us already. You will pass on. Your descendents, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time, they will know nothing else but this new community.'." Quote from Adolf Hitler. In a speech on 6th November 1933


I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age.

I imagine that the the RD is still sending mailouts to my 1950s address!


Discipline: With their love of simple generalizations, this will be Greek to Leftists but I see an important role for discipline in education DESPITE the fact that my father never laid a hand on me once in my entire life nor have I ever laid a hand on my son in his entire life. The plain fact is that people are DIFFERENT, not equal and some kids will not behave themselves in response to persuasion alone. In such cases, realism requires that they be MADE to behave by whatever means that works -- not necessarily for their own benefit but certainly for the benefit of others whose opportunities they disrupt and destroy.


Many newspaper articles are reproduced in full on this blog despite copyright claims attached to them. I believe that such reproductions here are protected by the "fair use" provisions of copyright law. Fair use is a legal doctrine that recognises that the monopoly rights protected by copyright laws are not absolute. The doctrine holds that, when someone uses a creative work in way that does not hurt the market for the original work and advances a public purpose - such as education or scholarship - it might be considered "fair" and not infringing.


Comments above by John Ray



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