School Choice is Good For America; round 4

[Muda69]

https://christopherrufo.com/radical-gender-lessons-for-young-children/

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The Evanston–Skokie School District has adopted a radical gender curriculum that teaches pre-kindergarten through third-grade students to celebrate the transgender flag, break the “gender binary” established by white “colonizers,” and experiment with neo-pronouns such as “ze,” “zir,” and “tree.”

...

The kindergartners read two books that affirm transgender conversions, study photographs of boys in dresses, learn details about the transgender flag, and perform a rainbow dance. At the end of the lesson, the students are encouraged to adopt and share their own gender identities with the class.

...

The curriculum in the Evanston–Skokie School District is the perfect illustration of college-level Queer Theory translated into early-elementary pedagogy. For weeks, as the nation has debated Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act, which prohibits public schools from teaching gender identity and sexual orientation in grades K–3, commentators on the political left have claimed that public schools do not teach this material and have accused conservatives of instigating a “moral panic.” This claim is demonstrably false, and the Evanston–Skokie lesson plans offer additional proof for parents and legislators concerned about gender ideology in American public schools. Queer Theory has made its way into public school curriculums for children as young as four. This development should be subject to robust political debate, not denial and dismissal from the political Left.   

This is morally insane.  Now if a parent wants to teach this kind of stuff to their children in their own home, or send them to a private school that does the same, that is their right.   But don't expect the government school to teach such claptrap.  And frankly any government school teacher who champions such "education" needs to be fired, surely they find new employment in a private school somewhere that supports this.

 

[Muda69]

Biden Claims School Children Don’t Belong to Parents ‘When They’re in the Classroom’

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/biden-claims-school-children-dont-belong-to-parents-when-theyre-in-the-classroom/

Quote

At the 2022 Teacher of the Year ceremony hosted by the White House on Wednesday, President Biden claimed that school children don’t belong to parents “when they’re in the classroom.”

 

“They’re all our children. And the reason you’re the teachers of the year is because you recognize that. They’re not somebody else’s children. They’re like yours when they’re in the classroom,” he said.

Later in the speech, Biden targeted Republicans and the parent movements in local school districts that have fought to remove from libraries and curricula books that promote radical gender and racial ideologies.

“There are too many politicians trying to score political points trying to ban books, even math books. Did you ever think when you’d be teaching you’re going to be worried about book burnings and banning books all because it doesn’t fit somebody’s political agenda?” Biden said.

The comments struck a similar tone to that of former Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe, when he made his now infamous remark last year that parents should not be involved in K–12 public education. On the campaign trail, he declared at a debate: “I’m not going to let parents come into schools and actually take books out and make their own decisions. I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”

McAuliffe’s then-opponent Glenn Youngkin, now governor of the Virginia, countered with: “You believe school systems should tell children what to do. I believe parents should be in charge of their kids’ education.” Since Youngkin’s sweeping victory in the state, multiple Republicans have followed his model, making parental rights a major policy priority and crafting legislation along those lines.

Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis, for instance, recently signed the Parental Rights in Education law, which prohibits instruction of sexual education and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade, deferring to parents to decide how and when to teach their children about such sensitive topics.

The parental-choice rhetoric has angered many progressives for its efficacy at the ballot box, given that is has persuaded many moderates too. Last week, MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace compared parental-rights legislation to the “war tactics” of Russians who “get their soldiers to rape children by dehumanizing them.” Similarly, American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten suggested last week that these Republican-backed measures amount to “propaganda” and “misinformation,” claiming “this is the way in which wars start.”

Most Americans and Florida residents, regardless of political affiliation, support the Parental Rights in Education law, a recent survey found.

Ahh, the "In loco parentis" baloney again.   Just because it sound kind of cool in Latin doesn't make in any less onerous.

 

[Robert]

2 hours ago, Muda69 said:

Biden Claims School Children Don’t Belong to Parents ‘When They’re in the Classroom’

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/biden-claims-school-children-dont-belong-to-parents-when-theyre-in-the-classroom/

Ahh, the "In loco parentis" baloney again.   Just because it sound kind of cool in Latin doesn't make in any less onerous.

 

I just make the best decisions I can, sometimes in heated moments, sometimes in odd situations, most of the time it's mundane.  If I ever have to teach ze, zir, and tree then I'm out. 

[Muda69]

Facing Education Crisis, Biden Admin Seeks to Restrict Charter Schools

This is what public policy looks like when a major political party plays kissy-face with public sector unions.

https://reason.com/2022/05/12/facing-education-crisis-biden-admin-seeks-to-restrict-charter-schools/

Quote

American kids have suffered what is routinely characterized as a generational learning loss due to the COVID-19 pandemic and related school closures. Students from disadvantaged communities, where school buildings have been more likely to be shuttered, have suffered much worse. The effects on the mental health of teenagers, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy warned in December, "has been devastating." And on an institutional level, despite record amounts of emergency funding from Washington, government-run schools, particularly in big cities, face sharp enrollment declines and a looming financial "Armageddon."

Amid this education-provision crisis, the Biden administration has made it an urgent priority to make providing education even harder.

In March, the Department of Education issued a proposed rule-making that would change the eligibility requirements for new charter schools seeking seed money from the federal government's $440 million Charter Schools Program (CSP). Reflecting the wish list of charter-hating teachers unions, and following the lead of union-influenced states like California, the new rules would disqualify for-profit charter companies, require a "community impact analysis" to demonstrate "unmet demand," and ask applicants to show how they plan to create a diverse student body and staff.

"They're beating on charter schools and they just need to back off," Texas charter school parent Gregory Harrington, one of reportedly hundreds who protested outside of the White House Wednesday, told The Washington Post.

The CSP was launched in 1995 during the first Bill Clinton administration as a way to goose the then-nascent sector, which uses a blend of public money, private management (i.e., generally no unions), and stricter accountability standards to pursue innovation in an industry beset by organizational sclerosis and bloat. Unlike most government-operated schools, charters that fail to produce results tend to get their plugs pulled quickly.

CSP start-up grants, which run around a half-million dollars each, have seeded roughly half of the country's estimated 7,500 charters (which educate around 8 percent of public schoolchildren). But over the duration of the program's existence, the Democratic Party, whose politicians now receive 99 percent of teachers union political giving, has soured on charters, to the point where anti-charter animus has become a litmus test for national ambition.

"I am not a charter school fan," Joe Biden declared on the campaign trail in February 2020, adding, inaccurately: "Because it takes away the options available and money for public schools."

A sprinkling of Democratic politicians who came of political age in the 1995–2015 era, when charters were routinely championed by Democrats (and when test scores at long last were on the rise), has reacted to Biden's proposed rule changes with chagrin.

The new rules would "create chaos and limit public school choice" and "gut" the CSP—"a program that I helped update and greatly expand, with bipartisan support, during my time in Congress," Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) warned in The Washington Post last month. "[They] would halt innovation in its tracks and make it harder for communities to meet the educational needs of their students."

Similar points were made by Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), Cory Booker (N.J.), and Michael Bennet (Colo.) in a joint May 5 letter with GOP Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.), Tim Scott (S.C.), Richard Burr (N.C.), and Bill Cassidy (La.).

"Since 2020, student enrollment has increased at charter schools despite the COVID-19 public health crisis," the senators wrote. "During the 2020-2021 academic year, nearly 240,000 new students enrolled in charter schools, representing a seven percent growth as compared to the previous academic year. This clearly demonstrates how critical the CSP is, as it is the only federal program dedicated to supporting the creation of new public charter schools….We are concerned that these requirements would make it difficult, if not impossible, for new public charter schools start-ups, and for high-performing public charter schools seeking to replicate or expand, to access CSP funding. In addition, the proposed rule would add significant burdens and time to an already complex application process, with little time for technical assistance, particularly for the upcoming 2022 grant cycle."

In my ideal policy world, the federal government wouldn't have anything significant to do with charter schools, or any other type of K-12 institution, since education in the United States is administered on the state and local levels. With federal funding eventually comes federal strings attached, subject to the whims of national politics and motivated rent-seekers.

In the fallen world we live in, the industry has been structured in part around funding from Washington, which will now be harder to come by and directed toward applicants who better fulfill Democratic Party priorities (if the rules are adopted, that is).

The guidelines have provoked a larger-than-usual amount of negative public comment, in addition to withering criticism by newspaper editorial boards ("a flagrantly wrongheaded policy," concluded The Washington Post) and plausible charges that an administration noisily obsessed with racial "equity" is backing a policy that will hit poor minorities hardest.

In response to the criticism, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona posted a defensive tweetstorm Wednesday, insisting unconvincingly that, "Our proposed priorities are aimed at making sure students are delivered the highest quality education in excellent public charter schools. Because students, their families and communities are our top priority."

The $440 million figure from the federal government is the same as four years ago, when both the number of charter schools and the amount of cumulative inflation were both more than 10 percent lower than today. The likely 2022 impact of making a less valuable chunk of federal charter seed money more difficult to access is that there will be fewer new charter schools, at a time when everybody from Biden to Cardona to any parent or teacher you know can tell you that K-12 education is seeing its most significant crisis in at least a generation.

The move adds more evidence to a growing suspicion about Democratic and teachers union priorities over the past seven years, particularly during the policy debacle of COVID: They are putting students last.

Indeed they are putting students last.  

[DanteEstonia]

On 5/13/2022 at 5:17 AM, Muda69 said:

Facing Education Crisis, Biden Admin Seeks to Restrict Charter Schools

This is what public policy looks like when a major political party plays kissy-face with public sector unions.

https://reason.com/2022/05/12/facing-education-crisis-biden-admin-seeks-to-restrict-charter-schools/

Indeed they are putting students last.  

This assumes that charter schools are automatically an improvement. 

[Muda69]

This Is the School Choice Moment. Will the GOP Screw It Up?

https://reason.com/2022/05/17/this-is-the-school-choice-moment-will-the-gop-screw-it-up/

Quote

In March, Sen. Rick Scott (R–Fla.) surprised many in Washington, D.C., by releasing an 11-point plan for what the GOP would do if the party retakes power in 2022, bucking Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's preferred strategy of bashing the Democratic agenda without offering much in the way of specific alternative policies. Scott's very first priority was education. "Our kids will say the pledge of allegiance, salute the Flag, learn that America is a great country, and choose the school that best fits them," states action item one.

Much of the plan is standard red meat. But it's telling that school choice has risen to the very top of the GOP agenda, even as the surrounding action items—highly specific demands for control over curriculum and classroom culture—betray a Republican approach that is at best selectively committed to the principle of maximizing parental choices. 

Regardless, Republicans clearly recall the exact moment—halfway through the gubernatorial debate on September 28, 2021—when Terry McAuliffe uttered the sentence that effectively ended his political career and ushered education to the top of the GOP agenda. "I don't think parents should be telling schools what they should teach," the Virginia Democrat said.

A little over a month later, Republican Glenn Youngkin triumphed, preventing McAuliffe from being elected to a nonconsecutive second term and setting off a frenzied effort among Democrats to understand how they could have possibly lost in Virginia—a state that President Joe Biden had won by 10 points just one year earlier.

First came a kind of denial that Virginia voters' frustrations reflected real problems in the school system. Many progressive pundits accused Republicans of creating an issue—the teaching of critical race theory (CRT) in schools—out of whole cloth. CRT, an academic theory about the pervasiveness of racism in society, may hold sway in many graduate programs, but it is hardly taking over middle schools, these pundits insisted. The issue of "education," declared MSNBC host Joy Reid on the night of the election, placing air quotes around the word, "is code for 'White parents don't like the idea of teaching about race.'"

In fact, concerned parents can point to many school curriculum battles where the fight is not whether to "teach about race," but whether to indoctrinate students into a race-totalizing framework. It's not only white parents who dislike this; in one California high school where an "ethnic studies" course was required, half the Hispanic students were failing it. According to their English teacher, the kids hated the class.

Perhaps Virginia voters would have cared less about school curriculums if COVID-19 hadn't forced so many parents into the role of supervising their kids during the virtual school day. The pandemic kept the education system closed far longer than many other institutions, and the publicly exercised political power of the teachers unions meant that most families understood the reason their favorite restaurant was open but their child's kindergarten was not.

By now it is widely acknowledged, even in liberal circles, that the public education system's pandemic-era failures drove many independent voters and moderate Democrats into the arms of the GOP in 2021. And what worked in Virginia could work elsewhere in 2022: Frustration with woke school boards and with Randi Weingarten, the single-minded head of the American Federation of Teachers, might be palpable enough for many non-Republicans to overlook their distaste for former President Donald Trump. Executing much-needed education reform could deliver the Republican Party back into the good graces of moderate suburbanites.

The right policy approach is well known to Republican politicians: For decades, free market think tanks have produced volumes on how to expand school choice so that more families can exercise greater control over their educational options. By allowing charter schools to grow and experiment, and by letting students claim the public funds invested into the system in their name and take those dollars elsewhere, such reforms contain a liberatory promise—one that solves the curriculum and closure issues without turning school board meetings into war zones.

Will Republicans approach this moment with the clarity of purpose it deserves? Or will they be distracted by a different approach—one that asks state legislatures to micromanage what is taught in classroom?

There is significant evidence that dissatisfaction with the school system tipped the governor's race to Youngkin.

In the weeks before the election, a series of controversies in Virginia's Loudoun County Public Schools, close to D.C., became national news. After a sexual assault in a bathroom at Stone Bridge High School, the victim's father assailed officials at a June 22 school board meeting for not doing more to protect students. He became unruly, and police dragged him out of the meeting, bloodied and handcuffed. That incident persuaded many parents that the district was ignoring reasonable criticisms—especially after the alleged perpetrator reportedly assaulted another student at another school.

Parents also had good reason to think the school board had grown not merely indifferent to their needs, but actively hostile. A Facebook group, "Anti-Racist Parents of Loudoun County," attracted notoriety for compiling lists of families resisting the district's racial diversity and equity efforts; six of the nine members of the school board turned out to be involved in the group. That agenda included changes to the district's admissions policies for elite high schools. In practice, this meant deprioritizing standardized testing and GPAs, which had the effect of punishing Asian and Indian immigrant students who excelled at these metrics.

"A lot of immigrant families came here specifically for the school system," an Indian-American Loudoun County parent told the independent reporter Matt Taibbi. "When you start messing with that and say we don't have a say, that's when people who've always voted Democratic will flip on them."

Any frustrations parents had with specific school policies were magnified a thousandfold by the pandemic. For months, school closures forced parents to take responsibility for watching and managing their kids during the school day, a tall order for many working families.

When Anvil Strategies, a Democratic polling firm, asked suburban women who had switched from Biden to Youngkin to explain their vote, they decisively pointed to school closures. "They asked us to do all this work for months, and then [McAuliffe] says it's none of our business now," one respondent said.

Danny Barefoot, a Democratic political operative who observed one of Anvil's focus groups, says that school closures emerged again and again as a poisonous issue for McAuliffe. "There's no real way to look at Youngkin's performance in the Northern Virginia suburbs and not conclude there was a seismic shift," Barefoot says. "Our research showed that shift was primarily driven by voters deeply unhappy with Democrats' education policy."

Republicans clearly capitalized on the shift. In 2020, Biden won Loudoun County with 62 percent of the vote versus Trump's 37 percent. In 2022, McAuliffe only won the county 55 to 44 percent for Youngkin. Statewide, the defectors added up to a Youngkin victory.

Even before all this dissatisfaction broke out, the school choice movement had been gaining steam for several years. Corey A. DeAngelis, director of research at the American Federation for Children (AFC), keeps track of school choice bills introduced in the state legislatures. (DeAngelis was previously a policy analyst at Reason Foundation, the nonprofit that publishes this magazine.) As of February, 30 states had at least one bill on the table that would "fund students instead of systems," he reports.

"The majority of these states have education savings account bills instead of vouchers or tax credits," DeAngelis says. "They are introducing the best type of school choice."

Education savings accounts (ESAs) have become the gold standard for the school choice movement. Whereas vouchers and tax credits divert some funds from the school system to the child—or give families tax breaks for taking advantage of different options—ESAs establish that the child rather than the school should be the primary beneficiary of public funds.

Public education is funded on a per-pupil basis: Schools receive a certain amount of money for each student. While the details vary from state to state, ESAs typically allow families to enroll their child in a school of their choice and use some or all of their per-pupil funding to help cover the tuition. They can also spend the money on other much-needed educational resources, like tutoring services.

In Arizona, for instance, the ESA program pays out about 90 percent of the per-pupil amount: about $6,400 per child per year. To qualify for the program, families must meet certain characteristics, such as having a parent in the military, being low-income, or residing in a district with a failing school.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, is currently attempting to expand the program; he has vowed to sign any school choice bill that comes across his desk. In February, the state's Republican-controlled Senate approved a bill that would make roughly 85 percent of Arizona public school students eligible for ESAs. It's expected to face greater challenges in the state House, where a few Republicans have previously sided with Democrats who are skeptical of expanding ESAs, though it's possible the pandemic has changed their thinking.

"COVID has changed everything," state Sen. Paul Boyer (R–Glendale), the bill's sponsor, said when he introduced it. "I've heard from parents across the state desperate to get their kids into a healthy educational environment."

Other states considering similarly far-reaching ESA expansions include Georgia and Wisconsin. South Dakota raised the cap on the state's tax credit program from $2 million to $3.5 million and opened up the program to children in foster care. Iowa's Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, has championed a bill that would create an ESA program in that state, though she faces opposition in the House.

A few school choice bills are specifically tied to COVID-19, with ESAs that kick in only if public schools shut down or require masks. That's true of Tennessee's bill, and it's also true of the Kids in Classes Act, a piece of national legislation sponsored by Sen. Tim Scott (R–S.C.). While the thinking behind these bills is understandable, they aren't a great approach: Rather than making ESAs contingent upon some criterion or threshold being reached, it's vastly preferable for legislators to simply extend the program to as many families as possible and let them decide whether to participate. The Support Children Having Open Opportunities for Learning (SCHOOL) Act, supported by Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.) and Rep. Chip Roy (R–Texas), takes that path: It establishes that public education funds should go to students rather than schools.

There are encouraging signs that some previously skeptical legislators on the Democratic side are embracing school choice. Georgia's H.B. 999, which would establish a fairly universal ESA program, is co-sponsored by three Republicans and three Democrats. One of those Democrats, state Rep. Patty Bentley, previously opposed school choice measures. And in North Carolina, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper joined National School Choice Week for the first time this year.

When the omicron wave of COVID-19 receded in February, nearly all schools in the U.S. were fully open. While mask mandates have stuck around in some stubborn municipalities—D.C. was still requiring students to wear masks indoors as of March, and New York City kept masks for schoolchildren 5 years and younger—the overwhelming majority of schools are finally getting back to normal. As pandemic-related restrictions diminish, curriculum controversies will constitute a larger share of school issues.

These issues, unfortunately, sometimes draw Republican attention away from school choice and toward less helpful policies. Numerous state legislators, for example, have responded to concerns about CRT by proposing bans on "divisive concepts." Under Ohio's H.B. 327, for example, "No school district shall teach, instruct, or train any divisive concepts, nor shall any school district require a student to advocate for or against a specific topic or point of view to receive credit for any coursework."

Those "divisive concepts" are defined in a variety of ways, but these bills are basically aimed at the ideas now being described as CRT. (In these debates, the term CRT usually covers much more than the academic ideas advanced under the "critical race theory" banner.) The language of these bills is often so broad that it could chill any discussion of tough subjects. And one of these bills, Florida's H.B. 7, applies not just to K-12 education but to colleges and universities, where students and professors have a clear-cut First Amendment right to explore divisive concepts.

"This sort of viewpoint-based discrimination is flatly unconstitutional," notes the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education's Tyler Coward.

Another Florida bill—H.B. 1557, whose opponents have nicknamed it the "Don't Say Gay" bill—would forbid teaching about gender and sexuality in the classroom. One earlier version of the bill required school officials to out students to their parents if they learned the kids were gay or transgender. Florida's Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, signed the bill into law on March 28.

It is generally a bad idea for state legislatures to micromanage what gets taught in middle school classrooms. And it's a waste of energy too. Such laws almost invariably draw Republicans into bitter court fights—and even if they survive legal scrutiny, there's no guarantee they will work as planned.

"It can take up political capital to use your time to advance these bills that don't even achieve the stated goal of banning concepts you don't like because of implementation issues," DeAngelis says. "School choice is a better option, because you can sort to schools that better align to your interests and provide competition to public schools."

Some parents don't want their kids learning "divisive concepts" related to race or sexuality. Other parents might think bills like "Don't Say Gay" go too far but do not want their kids exposed to fraught political concepts at too young an age. And many parents like things just the way they are. School choice accommodates all of those parents at once: Families would be able to take the money, choose the school whose approach they like best, and enroll their kid there. That leaves little reason to legislate what all schools must teach or what all kids must learn.

Both Youngkin and his lieutenant governor, Winsome Sears—a Jamaican immigrant and former appointee to the Virginia State Board of Education—want to increase the number of charter schools in the state and also make ESAs available to more families.

"We need to have good schools for all children in all communities, and all ZIP codes," Sears wrote in a recent column. "We need to return power to all parents. We need to give all children more opportunities."

There's every reason to believe that independents and moderate Democrats would reward governors and state legislatures all over the country for making school choice a top priority. According to recent polling from the AFC, a majority of Democratic voters support school choice. While the state level is where most of the work must be done, figures seeking national office would be well-advised to take a page from the Youngkin playbook as well.

 

[Muda69]

School Choice and Religious Liberty Advocates Just Won Big at the Supreme Court

https://reason.com/2022/06/21/school-choice-and-religious-liberty-advocates-just-won-big-at-the-supreme-court/

Quote

The U.S. Supreme Court delivered a big win for both school choice and religious liberty advocates in 2020 when it held, in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, that if a state provides educational subsidies that help parents send their children to private schools, the state "cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious."

In a 6-3 decision issued today, the Court repeatedly invoked Espinoza while delivering another big win for the school choice and religious liberty side. At issue in Carson v. Makin was whether Maine's tuition assistance program violates the Constitution by excluding private schools that offer "sectarian" education. In an opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts, the Court found the state to be in constitutional error.

"There is nothing neutral about Maine's program," Roberts wrote, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. "The State pays tuition for certain students at private schools—so long as the schools are not religious. That is discrimination against religion. A State's antiestablishment interest does not justify enactments that exclude some members of the community from an otherwise generally available public benefit because of their religious exercise."

Writing in dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, charged the majority with sidestepping the First Amendment's prohibition against the government "mak[ing] [any] law respecting an establishment of religion." In Breyer's view, "Maine wishes to provide children within the State with a secular, public education" and nothing in the First Amendment prevents the state from doing just that. "The Religion Clauses give Maine the right to honor that neutrality," Breyer maintained, "by choosing not to fund religious schools as part of its public school tuition program."

Today's result comes as no big surprise. During the December 2021 oral arguments, Chief Justice Roberts pressed Maine's chief deputy attorney general to explain why the state's approach did not amount to unconstitutional religious discrimination. It seemed fairly clear from their verbal sparring that the answers given by the state's lawyer were never going to persuade a majority of the Court.

A win for school choice.

[Muda69]

Americans Increasingly See Political Polarization Overtaking Public Education

https://reason.com/2022/08/22/americans-increasingly-see-political-polarization-overtaking-public-education/

Quote

It's no secret that public schools are battlegrounds over classroom bias and policy preferences. The conflicts escalate as time goes on, hurting students and teachers alike. Many families have a solution: they want out, so they can guide their own kids' education without having to fight over ideology and procedures. But hardliners who favor government control are trying to prevent their exit. Those blocking school doors need to be pushed out of the way so children can learn.

"Partisan rifts widen, perceptions of school quality decline," reads the headline on the results of the latest survey of public opinion by Harvard University's Education Next. "Using Education Next survey data from 2007 to 2022, we reveal that the average difference in opinion between the two major parties has grown larger on many of the items we have tracked over the years. Second, we are witnessing the emergence of new issues that reflect exceptionally large partisan splits. Over the past two years, we have introduced questions about schools' responses to the pandemic and recent debates about how to teach about the role of race in America's past and present. In contrast to many of the education-policy topics that we have explored in prior iterations of the survey, respondents' positions on these issues appear to map more directly to their partisan identities."

"To say that the politics of education is increasingly partisan is not to say that it is exclusively partisan," authors David. M. Huston, Paul E. Peterson, and Martin R. West emphasize. But among the biggest splits are highly partisan divides over COVID-19 response and controversial interpretations of history.

"About 65 percent of Democrats support face mask mandates in schools, with 15 percent opposed. Among Republicans, the breakdown is essentially the reverse: 19 percent in support and 63 percent opposed," the report notes. "Fully 54 percent of Democrats think their local schools are placing too little emphasis on racial matters, compared to 10 percent of Republicans. Meanwhile, 51 percent of Republicans think there is currently too much emphasis on racial matters, compared to 9 percent of Democrats."

"Despite the education-policy community's long history of trying to keep political pressures at arm's length, public opinion on education issues seems to be increasingly drawn into the powerful current of partisanship in contemporary American politics," the authors add.

Unsurprisingly, a RAND study earlier this year found that COVID-19 response and "the intrusion of political issues and opinions" including the treatment of racial matters are major job-related stressors. "Educators who reported being harassed about politicized issues experienced lower levels of well-being and worse perceptions of their school or district climate; they were more likely to cite the politicization of their profession as a reason for considering leaving their jobs."

It's not a shock that intractable disagreements over what is to be taught and the conditions under which teaching occurs have many educators at the end of their ropes. So, wouldn't it make sense to stop shoehorning people with incompatible preferences into the same institutions and let them pick education approaches that work for their kids?

Hey! That's something on which people agree across the political spectrum.

Education Next's survey found that while Americans' perceptions of public schools have been slipping since 2019, "support for charter schools ticked back up to 45 percent after lows of 39 percent in 2017 and 41 percent in 2021. Similarly, support for both universal vouchers (50 percent) and vouchers for low-income families (48 percent) has recovered from its 2021 levels (45 percent and 43 percent, respectively). Meanwhile, scholarships for low-income families funded by tax credits, which had 55 percent support in 2017 and 56 percent support a year ago, now enjoy the backing of 61 percent of Americans. … Fifty-four percent of Americans favor allowing parents to homeschool their children, compared to 45 percent in 2017."

Every possible educational reform is gaining support while traditional public schools lose esteem. Many of these reforms make it clear that education funding is for students, not for government-run institutions. They ensure that money follows kids to their classes, wherever they are. For example, Arizona recently expanded education savings accounts (ESA) so families can choose how to use some of the taxes they pay.

"Families would receive over $6,500 per year per child for private school, homeschooling, 'learning pods,' tutoring, or any other kinds of educational service that would best fit their students' needs," comments Arizona's Goldwater Institute, which advocated for passage. More money is available for children with special needs.

Nobody has to participate; Arizonans can keep their kids in traditional public schools without making any effort. Nevertheless, the program is popular.

"IMPORTANT! Due to high volume, you may receive an error message when trying to create an ADE Connect account. Please try again later," reads the Arizona Department of Education's Empowerment Scholarship Account application page as of August 21.

That escape hatch from a public school system for which people have diminishing respect and eroding patience may excite the public but is unacceptable to defenders of the old institutions.

"ESA vouchers take more money away from our already underfunded schools," complains Save Our Schools Arizona, which believes that education funds belong to government buildings and employees, not to the children seeking education and whose families pay taxes. The organization is funding a petition drive to overturn ESA expansion.

Maybe anti-choice activists just like conflict. If successful, they'll trap families that can't afford tuition on top of taxes in institutions they don't respect, that show every sign of continuing as political and cultural battlegrounds, and in which some teachers feel compelled by endless disagreements to quit. That guarantees a future of escalating disputes that interfere with learning and create unpleasant environments for everybody. To judge by their conduct, anti-choice activists are cruelly wedded to encouraging combat in the classroom.

That's why anti-choice activists need to lose, so children and families can win. In a country in which people increasingly disagree on a host of issues, government-controlled schools are destined to be battlefields so long as we try to force people with clashing views to share them. Rather than settle for partisan conflict and perceptions of declining quality, we can escape classroom battles by letting people leave the battleground.

 

[DanteEstonia]

On 6/22/2022 at 12:13 PM, Muda69 said:

School Choice and Religious Liberty Advocates Just Won Big at the Supreme Court

https://reason.com/2022/06/21/school-choice-and-religious-liberty-advocates-just-won-big-at-the-supreme-court/

A win for school choice.

And this is why we need a Federal Blaine Amendment.

[Muda69]

8 hours ago, DanteEstonia said:

And this is why we need a Federal Blaine Amendment.

Your hatred of Catholicism is duly noted.

 

[DanteEstonia]

7 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

Your hatred of Catholicism is duly noted.

...and it's grounded in solid evidence. 

[Muda69]

1 hour ago, DanteEstonia said:

...and it's grounded in solid evidence. 

Links please.  And does one assume your hatred primarily revolves abound the sexual abuse of children by priests?

 

[DanteEstonia]

13 hours ago, Muda69 said:

And does one assume your hatred primarily revolves abound the sexual abuse of children by priests?

The British said it best-

 

Don't believe me? Look at the SCOTUS. 

[Muda69]

8 hours ago, DanteEstonia said:

The British said it best-

 

Don't believe me? Look at the SCOTUS. 

So you believe being a Catholic should disqualify you from being a Supreme Court justice?

 

[DanteEstonia]

3 hours ago, Muda69 said:

So you believe being a Catholic should disqualify you from being a Supreme Court justice?

No, but the ones on SCOTUS have an awful track record. The Dred Scott case was written by a Catholic, after all. 

[Muda69]

56 minutes ago, DanteEstonia said:

No, but the ones on SCOTUS have an awful track record. The Dred Scott case was written by a Catholic, after all. 

All current Catholic justices were nominated by Republican Presidents,  except for Sonia Sotamayor who was nominated by Mr. Obama.  I guess she gets a pass by you, right?

 

[DanteEstonia]

22 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

All current Catholic justices were nominated by Republican Presidents,  except for Sonia Sotamayor who was nominated by Mr. Obama.  I guess she gets a pass by you, right?

 

Her being Puerto Rican certainly helps earn a pass. 

[Muda69]

46 minutes ago, DanteEstonia said:

Her being Puerto Rican certainly helps earn a pass. 

Nice to know you put nationality above competency.

 

[DanteEstonia]

4 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

Nice to know you put nationality above competency.

I put it above religion. 

[Muda69]

32 minutes ago, DanteEstonia said:

I put it above religion. 

So a Catholic Puerto Rican is better than a Catholic American.  Got it.

 

[swordfish]

2 hours ago, DanteEstonia said:

Her being Puerto Rican certainly helps earn a pass. 

2 hours ago, DanteEstonia said:

I put it above religion. 

So it isn't discriminating it's just stereo-typing then.

Prejudge much?  Racism a little bit?

[Muda69]

EXPOSED: Greenwich CT Assistant Principal’s Hiring Discrimination Ensures ‘Subtle’ Child Indoctrination: https://www.projectveritas.com/news/exposed-greenwich-ct-assistant-principals-hiring-discrimination-ensures/

Quote

[Greenwich, Conn. – Aug. 30, 2022] Project Veritas released the first video in its newly launched Education Series today exposing a senior official at a prominent public school.

 

Jeremy Boland, who serves as Cos Cob Elementary School’s Assistant Principal, was recorded bragging about how he oversees the hiring of teachers who will disseminate “progressive” political ideas in the classrooms:

Boland: You’re teaching them [children] how to think. That’s it. It doesn’t matter what they think about. If they think about it in a logical progressive way, that becomes their habit.

Veritas Journalist: So, you kind of like, gear them to think in a more liberal way?

Boland: Mm-hmm. Believe it or not, the open minded, more progressive teachers are actually more savvy about delivering a Democratic message without really ever having to mention politics.

The school administrator noted it is difficult to terminate an employed teacher, so his focus is on who to onboard next:

Boland: Remember that teacher I was talking about before? The forty-year-old? I’ll never change that teacher.

Veritas Journalist: You’re what?

Boland: I’ll never be able to change that teacher.

Veritas Journalist: Which one?

Boland: The conservative one, who is stuck in her ways. I’ll never be able to fire her, and I’ll never be able to change her. So, I make an impact with the next teacher I hire. So, my instinct for hiring -- I’ve hired maybe four or five people. They’re pretty good.

Veritas Journalist: Okay.

Boland: So, that’s where I make my impact.

He explains to the Veritas journalist how the teachers he hires will advance his political and ideological objectives:

Boland: So, it's subtle. They [teachers I hire] will never say, “Oh, this is [a] liberal or a Democratic way of doing this.” They'll just make that the norm. And this is how we handle things, it's subtle.

Veritas Journalist: And that's how you get away with it?

Boland: That's how you get away with it.

Veritas Journalist: And how do you make sure the parents don't find out?

Boland: They can find out, so long as you never mention [the] politics of it.

The Assistant Principal is clear about how he judges a prospective teacher who sympathizes, in a hypothetical scenario, with parents during the interview process:

Veritas Journalist: Okay, so someone sides with the parent, then what?

Boland: You let them explain, and then you move on to the next question.

Veritas Journalist: But then eventually [what is] the outcome of that?

Boland: They don’t get the job.

Transgender ideology in school was also an issue discussed in the video. It has been a controversial topic, especially amongst parents, in recent years.

On this matter, Boland affirms that any teacher who refuses to acknowledge a child’s gender preferences has no place in his Elementary School.

“So, if you have someone [teacher] who is hardcore religious or hardcore conservative, they will probably say something detrimental to the effect, ‘Well, I don’t think kids have enough knowledge to make that decision [gender identity] at this age,’” Boland said.

“You’re out. You’re done,” he concluded.

Boland admitted to the Veritas journalist that he discriminates against potential hires based on their religion:

Boland: I’m not a huge expert on religion, but Protestants in this area [of Connecticut] are probably the most liberal. But if they’re Catholic -- conservative.

Veritas Journalist: Oh, so then what do you do with the Catholics? If you find out someone is Catholic, then what?

Boland: You don’t hire them.

Veritas Journalist: So, would you ever hire a Catholic then?

Boland: No, I don’t want to…Because if someone is raised hardcore Catholic, it’s like they’re brainwashed. You can never change their mindset. So, when you ask them to consider something new, like a new opportunity, or “you have to think about this differently,” they’re stuck -- just rigid.

The Elementary School administrator goes on to say that he discriminates against older individuals as well.

“I need younger [teachers]. So, because Greenwich pays very well, you get teachers from other districts who have been there for a long time, that want to come to Greenwich. But if they’re older, I’m not allowed to do that -- I can’t tell them, ‘I’m not interviewing you because you’re older.’ I just don’t interview them. So, for one position, I think we had 30 applicants. So out of all those applicants, I don’t think I interviewed anybody over the [age] of 30…Because sometimes the older you get, the more set in your ways, the more conservative you get.”

Scary, scary stuff.  

[swordfish]

19 hours ago, Muda69 said:

EXPOSED: Greenwich CT Assistant Principal’s Hiring Discrimination Ensures ‘Subtle’ Child Indoctrination: https://www.projectveritas.com/news/exposed-greenwich-ct-assistant-principals-hiring-discrimination-ensures/

Scary, scary stuff.  

SF applauds PV's efforts to expose questionable practices they catch and are able to document.  

https://www.projectveritas.com/

This AP has been placed on administrative leave.  And the Democrat Party is actively (overtly) separating itself from this guy, even though he fits the prototype democrat teaching administrator....... 

https://greenwichfreepress.com/news/government/governor-lamont-responds-to-viral-project-veritas-video-186131/

“The Democratic Party celebrates diversity and openness, and it would run contrary to its core principles to discriminate on the basis of political ideology, religion, or age.”

 

[Muda69]

Despite Polarization, Americans Agree: School Learning Losses Are a System Failure

https://reason.com/2022/09/07/despite-polarization-americans-agree-school-learning-losses-are-a-system-failure/

Quote

Satisfaction in government schools has been declining for years, even before the stress test of pandemic response resulted in spectacular failure by the public system. Now we have evidence that students lost ground during school closures and fumbled efforts to teach kids who weren't physically present in the classroom. Democrats and Republicans who otherwise disagree on so much regarding education share dismay over the state of public schools and a mutual interest in alternatives that offer something better.

"In 2022, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) conducted a special administration of the NAEP long-term trend (LTT) reading and mathematics assessments for age 9 students to examine student achievement during the COVID-19 pandemic," the NCES announced Sept. 1 as part of its ongoing National Assessment of Educational Progress. "Average scores for age 9 students in 2022 declined 5 points in reading and 7 points in mathematics compared to 2020. This is the largest average score decline in reading since 1990, and the first ever score decline in mathematics."

In a separate statement, NCES Commissioner Peggy G. Carr acknowledged that "there's been much speculation about how shuttered schools and interrupted learning may have affected students' opportunities to learn" during the course of institutional responses to COVID-19. She pointed to previously documented surges in reports of mental health issues among students, increases in crimes and disruptions in the classrooms, and other consequences of introducing chaos to kids' lives with lockdowns and poorly handled transitions to distance learning that, in many cases, constituted abandonment of students. Now we see the impact on public schools' core task of educating children.

The worst losses were among 9-year-olds who were already struggling. Students in the 90th percentile for reading lost two points, with scores declining from there until those in the 10th percentile lost 10 points. Those in the 90th percentile for mathematics lost three points, and in the 10th percentile lost 12 points. Almost everybody lost ground, but those struggling to begin with saw the greatest drop.

Already suffering from years of declining public confidence, government schools can only blame themselves for their inability to respond flexibly and effectively to the pandemic—a rare but certainly not unforeseen occurrence. The educational damage done to children can only further erode the standing of public educational institutions among people who hoped for better in difficult times.

"Americans' confidence in U.S. public schools remains low, with 28 percent saying they have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the institution, similar to 32 percent last year," Gallup noted in July. "Both figures are down from 41 percent in 2020, reflecting a brief surge in the early months of the pandemic after registering 29 percent in 2019."

That is, after a fleeting moment of hope that public schools would rise to the occasion, many parents were disappointed by packets of take-home worksheets, unimpressive Zoom lessons, and masked kids separated by plexiglass shields when they returned to class. Rock-bottom assessments won't improve their mood.

Americans' views of government education institutions have varied a bit over the years, but mostly trended downwards from 1975 when 62 percent of the public expressed confidence in the public schools. By 1987 that was 50 percent, by 2004 it stood at 41 percent, and now little more than a quarter of the public thinks tax-funded educrats can get it done.

What else changed since the 1970s is the partisan divide on confidence in public schools. Then, Democrats, Republicans, and independents expressed nearly identical levels of confidence. Over the years, faith in the schools declined across the board, but now there's a vast political gap.

"The percentage of Republicans having a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in public schools fell from 34 percent in 2020 to 20 percent in 2021 and 14 percent today," Gallup adds. "Since 2020, independents' confidence has declined nine percentage points to 29 percent and Democrats' has remained fairly high—currently 43 percent, versus 48 percent in 2020."

That gap can be largely explained by the very different perceptions Americans of opposing viewpoints have of what's broken in public schools.

"As the 2022-23 school year begins, YouGov asked Americans their opinions on a variety of issues facing their local K-12 schools," YouGovAmerica recently reported. "The poll finds large gaps in the level of concern expressed by Republicans and Democrats over many school-related issues. While Republicans are most concerned about liberal indoctrination, a lack of parent involvement, and inappropriate books, Democrats are most concerned about book banning, bullying, and teacher shortages."

Importantly, while Republicans (39 percent) and Democrats (40 percent) voice nearly identical levels of concern over "learning loss due to COVID-19," continuing concern over "the spread of COVID-19" is largely confined to Democrats (44 percent) while only 12 percent of Republicans share such concerns.

Similarly, the 2022 Education Next Poll finds 65 percent of Democrats continue to support face masks in classrooms while only 19 percent of Republicans agree. Logically enough, teachers unions, which championed school closures, masks, and other restrictions, dominate public-school policies in much of the country, and have long been closely associated with the Democratic Party, inspire partisan responses. Sixty percent of Democrats view unions positively, compared to 22 percent of Republicans.

True, the pandemic is fading, we hope, as a concern and source of discord. But Americans continue to be disappointed by government schools while disagreeing on what the problems are and how they should be addressed. They'll certainly share dismay over plummeting NAEP assessment scores, but after COVID-19 is forgotten, Americans will likely continue to argue over the ideological content of lessons, the classroom treatment of race relations, and what learning materials are appropriate for young minds.

"Did the last few years mark a great pivot point, signaling the emergence of two distinct, and distinctly partisan, views of how best to serve students?" asks Education Next. It's a question its own data, along with that of YouGovAmerica and Gallup, answer largely in the affirmative (though there are certainly more than two views of what education should offer to be found in the population).

The one encouraging sign is that Education Next found some support for school choice: vouchers (50 percent of Democrats and 49 percent of Republicans), tuition tax credits (64 percent of Democrats and 59 percent of Republicans), charter schools (38 percent of Democrats and 55 percent of Republicans), and homeschooling (43 percent of Democrats and 68 percent of Republicans). That's not an overwhelming endorsement, but it is an opportunity, especially in areas where support is concentrated, for families to exit the system and try something different. Hopefully that opening will grow along with shared dismay at student learning losses.

 

[Muda69]

Student Math and Reading Scores Have Dropped Significantly Since 2019

https://reason.com/2022/10/24/student-math-and-reading-scores-have-dropped-significantly-since-2019/

Quote

New results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress offer more evidence that students fell significantly behind during school shutdowns. Across most states and demographic groups, 2022 math and reading scores are down relative to 2019—falling to their lowest levels since the 1990s in reading. But there's a small silver lining: the data suggest students began this year to recover from pandemic disruptions.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is a test given to fourth and eighth graders. It bills itself as the "nation's report card." And the report this year isn't great.

"In 2022, the average fourth-grade mathematics score decreased by 5 points and was lower than all previous assessment years going back to 2005," the NAEP's report card says. "The average eighth-grade mathematics score decreased by 8 points compared to 2019 and was lower than all previous assessment years going back to 2003."

Average reading scores for fourth and eighth graders were down 3 points relative to 2019. "At fourth grade, the average reading score was lower than all previous assessment years going back to 2005 and was not significantly different in comparison to 1992," the report card says. "At eighth grade, the average reading score was lower compared to all previous assessment years going back to 1998 and was not significantly different compared to 1992."

The NAEP exams are "administered by federal officials and is considered more rigorous than many state tests," reports The New York Times. This year's test included almost 450,000 schools from more than 10,000 schools.

These results are only the latest to suggest that students fell behind during the early parts of the pandemic, when schools shut down and many students went through long periods of remote instruction. In September, the National Center for Education Statistics "released new data showing a dramatic decline in test scores among American 9-year-olds since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic," as Reason's Emma Camp wrote at the time. And it's not just young children who seem to have suffered—ACT scores are also at their lowest point in three decades.

The latest evidence has kicked off a debate over how much of the decline can be attributed to school shutdowns and whether we're starting to see some student recovery in 2022. Chalkbeat reports:

Peggy Carr, head of the U.S. Department of Education center that administers the exams, said, "There is nothing in this data that tells us there is a measurable difference between states and districts based solely on how long schools were closed." The center did not provide any specific analysis on this issue, though.

A Chalkbeat analysis of the data found mixed evidence. In fourth grade math, states where schools were fully open for longer tended to see smaller declines in scores. In eighth grade math and fourth grade reading there was also a relationship, but it was very modest. In eighth grade reading, there was no correlation at all.

Overall, "correlation with state-level Covid policies is much weaker than I'd have thought," tweeted Matthew Yglesias. But if you look at just 2021 data, he added, the correlation is stronger. Such results suggest "that Zoom School was bad but also that some states have been much more effective than others in bouncing back," he said.

State-level test results also suggest "variation in recovery," according to the Brown University economist Emily Oster.

As for the NAEP data, more in-person schooling was generally consistent with less decline in NAEP math scores, wrote Oster. ("Interesting outliers: California, Hawaii.") In reading scores, there was "no relationship; overall smaller losses, as in the state-level data," she tweeted. 

More failures from our government schools.