The push to create “equity” and more “social justice” in public schools in America’s largest state rests on this basic premise: “We reject ideas of natural gifts and talents,” declares the current draft of the California Math Framework, which also states that it rejects “the cult of genius.”
Informed by that fundamental idea, the 800-page Framework calls for the elimination of accelerated classes and gifted programs for high-achieving students until at least the 11th grade.
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Utah is one of many states in America considering banning critical race theory in public schools.
Republican State Representative Steve Christiansen sponsored a bill that takes direct aim at critical race theory concepts being taught in public education. The bill passed the Utah House and is awaiting the signature of the Speaker to move onto the state Senate.
That bill, HR901, calls on the Utah Board of Education for a re-evaluation of guidelines to weed out critical race theory in publicly funded classrooms.
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Public school officials in Chicago will let each campus decide if it will keep school resource officers for the fall.
But at least some majority black schools have indicated they want the cops in the building, with one council being accused of “upholding white supremacy.”
Ahead of the discussions and votes that will likely take place throughout the coming months, Chicago Public School students rallied to demand that the police be removed from the schools. CPS board members are appointed by the mayor, but schools have councils that can make some decisions.
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Students often face punishment from parents when they get a bad report card. But what happens when our school system gets one?
The latest national “report card” is out, and it shows that our schools are failing Americans when it comes to science education. These most recent data come from the 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) science assessment.
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When President Biden signed an executive order on Inauguration Day calling for “an ambitious whole-of-government equity agenda,” he signaled that his administration would embrace the education agenda of the race-obsessed world of radical “social justice” politics. We now see further evidence of the president’s intentions in the Department of Education’s proposal to funnel grants to schools that teach critical race theory. This pernicious theory analyzes every aspect of American society and history through the belief that racism has been, and remains, central to American life, all while peddling revolutionary Marxist philosophy.
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With classrooms finally reopening and hundreds of billions of federal dollars earmarked for public schools, the issue of teacher pay will soon re-emerge. Before the pandemic, public school teachers were fighting against a widely perceived “teacher salary penalty.” President Biden vowed to “correct this wrong,” promising a dramatic increase in federal education funding to “give teachers a raise.” But what causes these pay differences? New Census Bureau data suggest that most teachers are paid roughly what they’d receive in other jobs. But if public schools wish to attract the best-qualified graduates to teaching, they need to stop paying the physics teacher the same as the gym teacher.
The Economic Policy Institute, a teacher-union-affiliated think tank, reports that public school teachers receive salaries about 20 percent lower than non-teachers with equal levels of experience and education.
But what does it mean for education to be “equal”? College graduates attended different institutions, majored in different fields, and received different GPAs, leading to different salaries later in life. That’s why parents encourage their children to attend more competitive colleges and, increasingly, to favor STEM fields over liberal arts majors.
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Faced with ongoing state lockdowns and changing school restrictions last year, frustrated parents increasingly pulled their children out of public schools nationwide and found other educational options for their children, one of which was home-schooling.
According to a new U.S. Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey, a substantial increase in the number of parents who chose to home-school occurred in 2020 compared to 2019. The survey is the first data source to offer both a national and state-level look at the impact of COVID-19 on homeschooling rates, the report states.
Using a large, nationally representative sample of U.S. households, the survey found that home-schooling was notably higher than national benchmarks. It was conducted in phases to assess parental choices over different periods of the school year.
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In response to state and local government shutdowns reportedly designed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, schools districts and local governments implemented different reopening guidelines and timelines – but did so more because of politics or competition with private schools than because of science, a new report published by Brown University found.
The EdWorking Paper published by The Annenberg Institute at Brown University authored by Michael T. Hartney from Boston College and Leslie K. Finger from the University of North Texas found that “the most critical decision facing the nation’s school boards – whether or not to re-open in person and to what degree – appears to be closely related to the partisanship of a local school district.”
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I read an advice article at Slate recently where a mom of a nearly five-year-old daughter wrote in to express concern that her child hasn’t seen any friends in five months, since COVID-19 lockdowns began.
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A lengthy email from a counselor in Plano Independent School District (PISD) sent to colleagues contained three attachments including, among other things, a list of overtly Marxist media for use in classrooms, and a study guide for those “trying to become better allies.”
The attachments highlight materials like The 1619 Project (which claims America’s history is based on racism and slavery), talking points concerning the deaths of George Floyd; Breonna Taylor; and Ahmaud Arbery; and suggested reading lists including Marxist and Communist literature.
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School districts around the country have been announcing reopening possibilities for the upcoming school year. The options often include full-time virtual learning, two or three in-person days at school, or a combination of the two.
In a few districts, I’ve seen four or five suggestions.
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The 1619 Project. By now many of us have either viewed ads about, seen references to, or read directly from this initiative of The New York Times, which marks four centuries since slaves first came to America.
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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said it’s “constitutionally prohibited” for the state to provide financial assistance to nonpublic schools in a recent legal brief.
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Multiple historians have slammed The New York Times’ “1619 Project” as others are pushing for it to continue being added into public school curriculum, calling the reframing of history false and disturbing.
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Leading presidential candidates and major media outlets are claiming that school districts with high concentrations of minorities and poor children generally receive less funding per student than other districts. That hasn’t been true for at least half a century, but people are spreading this myth through deceptive studies that exclude federal funds.
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The nation’s average C grade on education hasn’t changed since 1997, when the annual assessment of the nation’s K-12 education system was first created by Education Week’s annual Quality Counts report.
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Diversity. It’s one of the buzzwords of this generation. Forget sameness, everyone must be different, while at the same time inclusive. It’s that simple.
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A Freedom of Information Act request has uncovered evidence of “a well-orchestrated Islamic propaganda campaign aimed at teachers in school systems throughout Michigan and several other states.”
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Lawrence M. Ludlow, who holds a master’s degree in Medieval Studies and has taught in the Detroit and Gross Pointe areas, recently wrote an article on his experience of returning to the classroom.
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by James D. Agresti A new frequent allegation of progressive politicians and media outlets is that America’s schools are becoming more racially segregated. They then argue that government must do something about it, like for example, go back to the forced busing policies of the 1970s. According to Bernie…
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