In Case You Missed It – September 9, 2024

Here are links to articles from the last two weeks^† receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. Keep up with what's going on, what's being discussed, and what's happening with public education.

Be sure to enter your email address in the Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column of our blog page to be informed when our blog posts are published.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"School reformers have a bad habit. Over the past century, they have skipped from one big policy fix to another without analyzing what happened the first time around. Or even whether the reforms succeeded or failed. Since World War II, U.S. public schools have been in one crisis or another...Reform-minded policymakers have offered rhetoric-wrapped cures time and again without a glance backward. If there were pills to cure amnesia about school reforms, policymakers would have been popping capsules for years. Since World War II, reformers have targeted U.S. public schools for changes decade after decade. Memory loss (or ignorance) about past school reforms permits policymakers to forge ahead again and again with cascades of reforms without looking in the rear-view mirror." -- Larry Cuban in Fixing Public Schools Again and Again

HOPSCOTCHING FROM ONE "SOLUTION" TO ANOTHER...

Fixing Public Schools Again and Again

"School reformers have a bad habit. Over the past century, they have skipped from one big policy fix to another without analyzing what happened the first time..."

From Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

...Consider the following fixes to problems reformers have framed time and again:

*Fix students (e.g., early childhood education, teach middle class behaviors and attitudes to students from low-income families)

*Fix schools (e.g., more parental choice in schools, longer school day and year, reduced class size, higher curriculum standards, more and better tests, accountability for results, different age-grade configurations; give autonomy to schools)

*Fix teachers (e.g., broaden the pool of teaching recruits, improve university teacher education, switch from teacher-centered to student-centered ways of teaching, more and better classroom technologies)

Public and policymaker affections have hopscotched from one solution to another then and now and in some instances, combined different fixes (e.g., extending school day, raising standards and increasing accountability for schools and teachers, promoting universal pre-school, pushing problem-based learning).

Evidence to support such skipping about has been skimpy, at best.

VOUCHERS

School vouchers are conservative billionaires’ Trojan horse

The goal is to get public tax dollars to support religious education.

From Maureen Downey in the Las Vegas Sun

Education researcher Josh Cowen understands that the movement to pass voucher bills in states across the country and the national rollback of reproductive freedom are not the same thing. “But they are driven by the same people,” he said. “What puts these two things together is their attempt to make America a Christian nationalist state.”

Who are these people? In a new book, Cowen says they’re conservative billionaires with tightly networked and well-financed political advocacy groups. Among them are former U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who works through her American Federation for Children, and industrialists Charles Koch and the late David Koch, who created Americans for Prosperity.

In an interview about “The Privateers: How Billionaires Created A Culture War and Sold School Vouchers,” Cowen said school privatization has become the mission of a conservative cabal that has effectively masterminded “a political capture of the judiciary, the federal regulatory apparatus, and state lawmaking processes.”

Cowen is a Michigan State University professor whose early studies of small, select voucher pilots found they showed some promise. But as voucher programs expanded and became large-scale, Cowen documented increasingly dismal academic outcomes. Large-scale studies found students in Indiana, Louisiana, Ohio and Washington, D.C., who used vouchers to leave public schools for private schools experienced sizable learning declines.

Data from recently enacted state programs show the typical students using vouchers never attended public schools as they were already in a private school, home-schooled or enrolling in a private kindergarten. And the data also show many of these private schools raise tuition once states adopt vouchers.

Yet even as evidence mounts against their effectiveness, vouchers are spreading. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, this year, 19 states have already or will consider legislation on the issue of school vouchers or “education savings accounts.”

ED TECH -- ALL OR NOTHING

The Madness of EdTech: All or Nothing Options

Technology should be used as a tool...not an end in itself.

From Nancy Bailey's Education Website, By Emily Cherkin, MEd.

Recently, my daughter, grade 6, had to turn in an illustrated graph for Science. She was proud of the beautiful colored pencil work she did and I loved the fact that she actually had a paper-based assignment. As is typical of my creatively-brained child, however, she realized the morning it was due that she was also supposed to type an “artist’s statement.”

With just ten minutes left before she needed to leave, she ran to get her school-issued laptop. Shoveling bites of cereal in her mouth while she booted up the low-quality computer, her stress level increased with every minute the machine whirred and hummed.

I am not exaggerating when I say it took five minutes to start.

By this point, her anxiety was palpable: “I’m not going to be able to get this done! This is so frustrating!”

I offered paper and pencil– “You can write it down and hand it in this way!”

No.

I offered to have her dictate the statement to me to type on my computer– “I can email it to the teacher!”

No.

“I’m supposed to do it on my computer!” she moaned.

Finally, the machine started, and she logged in to her Schoology account, went to the Science class “page,” and started typing.

At least she was typing with more than her two index fingers, I observed wryly.

But the futility of this experience was clear: Proud of her illustrated graph and ready to turn it in, she was flummoxed by the completely unnecessary and additional challenge of a sluggish school computer on which she should type a few sentences to consider her homework officially “done.”

What madness is this, you might ask, that a child, actually excited about a school assignment, loses all enthusiasm because she is stymied by the low-quality, tech-at-all-costs requirement to actually complete it?

It is the madness that is modern-day education and the absurdity of an all-or-nothing choice.

LOCAL AND INDIANA NEWS

McCormick emphasizes curriculum, accountability, and teachers in Indiana education plan

The Democratic gubernatorial nominee — who previously served as the state’s instructional superintendent — released her five-part platform on Thursday.

From Indiana Capital Chronicle

School accountability, teacher salary boosts and “academic freedom” are priorities on Jennifer McCormick’s education plan, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate announced on Thursday.

The former state public instruction superintendent, along with running mate Terry Goodin, said their platform largely intends to create more flexibility for K-12 administrators and educators to craft curriculum, while still ensuring academic rigor and accountability across both public and private schools.

The plan also guarantees that teachers would be paid at least $60,000 per year — an increase from the current $40,000 minimum.

“Obviously, education is my passion. It is also Terry’s passion. We believe in the power of education — not just for our kids — but for our families and our communities and the entire state. It’s also what empowers us as a nation,” McCormick said during a Thursday press call. “Too often in Indiana, we talk about the expense, because we are incredibly expensive, but we don’t talk about it as an investment, and it needs to be. … It’s not a K-12 isolation, it is a system of education.”

The costs of the proposal are unknown at this time.

McCormick/Goodin campaign introduces ‘common sense’ education plan

From WANE.com

the Democratic ticket in Indiana’s governor race, both of whom are previous educators, released their “common sense education plan,” centering around the fight for a minimum base pay of $60,000 for teachers, expanding childcare in the state and creating an accountability platform for all schools.

Jennifer McCormick, the state’s former superintendent for public instruction and Democratic gubernatorial candidate, and Terry Goodin, a former state representative who previously served as a superintendent and the Democratic lieutenant governor candidate, aim to increase school accountability and academic rigor through their plan.

...McCormick stressed the importance of all schools being held accountable to the same academic and fiscal standards as public schools, with more than $1.6 billion being sent to private schools through vouchers.

Northwest Allen County Schools leader receives $10,000 bonus, board 'blessed' to have him

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

The Northwest Allen County Schools board rewarded Superintendent Wayne Barker on Tuesday with a $10,000 performance stipend for exceeding expectations during his second year on the job.

Kent Somers, board president, said Barker earned the one-time bonus by satisfying goals related to transparency, redistricting decisions, the strategic plan and the current school construction projects addressing enrollment growth.

Barker thanked the board for its confidence in his leadership, but he noted that many more contribute to the district’s success.

“Really,” the superintendent said, “I’m just one of nearly 1,200 employees that we have here every day who do great things for students.”

JOIN US

An Evening with Jennifer McCormick

NEIFPE is proud to co-sponsor this event featuring Jennifer McCormick, candidate for Governor of Indiana. We hope you can attend.

Click HERE to register for the September 25th event:






**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is essential; one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/ [NOTE: NEIFPE has no financial ties to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette]

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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In Case You Missed It – January 22, 2024

Here are links to last week's^† articles receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. Keep up with what's going on, what's being discussed, and what's happening with public education.

Be sure to enter your email address in the Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column of our blog page to be informed when our blog posts are published.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"Public schools (and free college) made it possible for America to produce an explosion of invention and innovation throughout the mid-20th century; now other countries are surpassing us, as the dumbing-down of our kids has become institutionalized in Red state after Red state.

And public schools gave many students their first experience of interacting with people who look different from them and grew up under different circumstances, awakening many young people to the discrimination and unfairness inherent in how America has historically treated minorities.

All of which explains why Republicans so badly want to put an end to public education in America." -- Thom Hartman, quoted by Diane Ravitch in Why Rightwingers Oppose Public Schools

VOUCHERS AND THE ALL-WHITE "ACADEMY" MOVEMENT

Thom Hartmann: Why Rightwingers Oppose Public Schools

From Diane Ravitch

...in 1954, the US Supreme Court upset the education apple cart by declaring in their Brown v Board case that “separate but equal” schools, segregated by race, were anything but “equal.” That decision fueled two movements that live on to this day.

The first was the rightwing anti-communist movement spearheaded by the John Birch Society, which was heavily funded back then by Fred Koch, the father of Charles and David Koch. They put up billboards across the country demanding that Americans rise up and “Impeach Earl Warren,” who was then the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, for requiring “communist” racial integration of our schools.

The second was the private, all-white “academy” movement that has morphed over the years into charter schools and the “school choice” movement of today. It received a major boost when the white supremacist co-founder of neoliberalism, Milton Friedman, published a widely-read and influential article in 1955 explicitly calling for what he called “education vouchers” to fund all-white private schools to “solve the national crisis” the Court had created.

WHAT REALLY MATTERS TO PUBLIC EDUCATION

Jan Resseger: The Culture Wars Are Obscuring What Really Matters

From Diane Ravitch

Jan Resseger, dedicated champion of social justice, explains that the culture wars are a ruse that diverts [us] from far more important issues. Book-banning and attacks on diversity-equity-inclusion are outrageous, but even more so is our indifference to structural issues, such as adequate funding, persistent racial segregation, and the privatization movement.

THE INDIANA GENERAL ASSEMBLY CONTINUES ITS ATTACK ON PUBLIC EDUCATION

It’s Not a Good Start for the Short Session

Vic Smith provides in-depth coverage of the Indiana General Assembly's continuing quest to privatize public education in Indiana. Follow him and support the Indiana Coalition for Public Education

From the Indiana Coalition for Public Education

Two Senate bills, SB 255 and SB 143, directly implement Milton Friedman’s plan to give school funding to parents and not to schools, abruptly ending the way public education in Indiana has been funded for over a century.

Both bills must be strongly opposed, and promptly. Senate Bill 255 has been scheduled for a hearing on Thursday, January 18 at 9 a.m. in bill author Senator Mishler’s committee, the Senate Appropriations Committee, which meets in Room 431.

One immediate effect of both bills would have taxpayers for the first time pay $7,000 for ANY student in an unaccredited home school.

Indiana lawmakers seem unlikely to tackle school consolidation in 2024 session

From the Indiana Capital Chronicle

A new statewide report is fueling discussions about consolidating Indiana’s smallest school districts, but state lawmakers continue to lack an appetite for action — at least for now.

For years, the Indiana Chamber of Commerce has asked the General Assembly to move legislation that encourages school districts with fewer than 2,000 students to consolidate.

Small and rural school officials — longtime critics of the chamber’s lobby for more school consolidation — are pushing back against the new study and the potential for Indiana policies that would require small schools to increase their student population.

“We don’t have a problem with consolidation, but it needs to be driven by locals — it has to be something they want for it to be successful,” said Chris Lagoni, executive director of the Indiana Small and Rural Schools Association. “Our members do feel like there’s a lot of attacking going on here.”

“The state has said we want more private schools, we want more public schools, we want more choice, more choice, more choice,” he continued. “The chamber advocated for those policies. That’s why we’re just having a hard time understanding this issue — because we’re not attacking it equally across all choices.”

Some public schools could face tax losses under proposed legislation

This is another attempt to divert public money from public schools to privately run schools.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Last week, the Indiana House Ways & Means Committee heard testimony on a proposal extending a cap on referendum levies that could inhibit the ability of public school corporations to convince voters to pay extra property taxes for needed improvements.

Authored by Ways & Means’ Republican Chair Jeff Thompson of Lizton, House Bill 1120 would still allow public school districts to seek additional funding through referendums, but not more than 3% above the maximum tax a district would have levied in the previous year.

When it comes to paying for K-12 education, state lawmakers have a history of moving taxpayer money from public school districts to charter schools.

ANYONE WHO VALUES LIFE...

Iowa: Principal Dan Marburger Dies Defending His Students

From Diane Ravitch

Dan Marburger, who served for almost three decades as principal of the Perry High School, died of the wounds he sustained after being shot by a high school student on January 4.

The high school student killed an 11-year-old sixth grader and wounded several others, then killed himself.

Mr. Marburger gave his life to save the lives of students.

In this country, “gun rights” have more protection than the lives of students, teachers, and principals. Don’t believe those politicians who say they protect “life” but oppose gun control. This is a contradiction or outright hypocrisy. Anyone who values life must demand gun control.

FORT WAYNE AREA NEWS

Schools 101: Southwest Allen, Warsaw programs creates district advocates

Teaching the public about public schools.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Southwest Allen County Schools parents ask Erin Nash questions about topics such as elearning and snow days as if she’s a district expert.

“And I’m not,” said Nash, president of Aboite Elementary School’s Parent Teacher Club.

But she’s more informed about SACS now than she was when the academic year began. She is among 25 people getting an in-depth look at district operations through Southwest Education Advocates, a monthly program that launched in October.

Sessions address topics including school finance, transportation, technology, maintenance, safety, food service, curriculum, special education, testing, English language learners and guidance programming. Daytime tours of three schools – including lunch at one – are planned for March.

“We’re trying to help them understand the big picture of what happens not just during a school day, but what it takes to support a school,” Superintendent Park Ginder said after this month’s session. “We want them to have a well-rounded experience about what it takes to support the learning in the classroom.”

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is essential; one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/ [NOTE: NEIFPE has no financial ties to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette]

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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In Case You Missed It – August 21, 2023

Here are links to last week's^† articles receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. Keep up with what's going on, what's being discussed, and what's happening with public education.

Be sure to enter your email address in the Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column of our blog page to be informed when our blog posts are published.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"Shifting blame away from the for-profit healthcare system and the government’s response to the coronavirus is part of what makes the learning loss narrative so valuable to politicians who have no interest in challenging existing patterns of wealth and power. It is a narrative meant to distract the public and discipline teachers. Here’s the recipe: 1. Establish that closing schools hurt students using a narrow measure like test scores; 2. Blame closure of schools on teacher unions rather than a deadly pandemic; 3. Demand schools and teachers help students “regain academic ground lost during the pandemic” — and fast; 4. Use post-return-to-normal test scores to argue that teachers and schools are “failing”; 5. Implement “teacher-proof” (top-down, standardized, even scripted) curriculum or, more insidiously, argue for policies that will mean an end to public schools altogether." -- From Rethinking Schools: The “Learning Loss” Trap"

TEST SCORE PANIC

New IREAD-3 scores show no significant progress among Indiana’s third graders on 2023 exams

This article explains how Indiana's reading test scores were declining even before the pandemic and the disparity in scores achieved by different groups of children. As you read the original article, note that the author equates "test scores" with "literacy."

Also note that this article could have been titled, "2023 IREAD-3 scores show slight improvement over 2022." Even "friendly" media has a tendency to cover education negatively. 

From the Indiana Capital Chronicle

One in five Hoosier third graders continue to struggle with foundational reading skills, according to new standardized test results released Wednesday.

Data from the Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) shows 81.9% out of the roughly 82,000 third graders at public and private schools in Indiana passed the 2023 Indiana Reading Evaluation and Determination, also called the IREAD-3 test. Tests were administered statewide this spring and summer.

The results are nearly stagnant from the last academic year, when 81.6% of students’ scores indicated reading mastery. The state education department’s goal is that 95% of students in third grade can read proficiently by 2027. As of this spring, 242 schools have reached that goal — an increase from 210 schools a year ago.

Latest results indicate Indiana’s younger students also still lag behind pre-pandemic reading fluency.

In response to the outcry about stagnant test scores, Indiana teacher, Justin Oakley, posted the following at Indiana Educators United, a private Facebook Group [note: edited for clarity and length].

Just some thoughts [about the] Indiana politicians going on news and or social media about "abysmal" 3rd grade reading scores...and "loss of learning/reading scores" in [the] past decade

Let's recap...

Who's been in COMPLETE CONTROL OF ALL LAWS AND POLICY in Indiana since 2011? Billions of dollars passed out [and] AWAY from public schools? (recently, a 740% increase...making $220,000+ to qualify for vouchers to private/religious/etc schools) (the federal poverty or qualifications for free/reduced lunch is family making $28,000) That seems pretty obnoxiously ONE SIDED...?

Also, with a straight face follow along with here: the same foaming at the mouth, wild eyed , snarling toxic culture warriors [are] pushing book bans and removing books. Quick question: can you simultaneously be mad at reading levels...[and] ban books? Can we say teachers ain't teaching your kid to read while you're pushing to remove books in same, sane, universe of consciousness? Or, am I missing something here coherent?

...the majority of our political leaders couldn't pass ILEARN or 8th grade Math and Language Arts testing. (Or, [get a] passing grade on Civics testing) OR better yet, make it one full day teaching in a local school they represent.

...Thanks to the hardworking teachers and education staff that have to listen to this insanity daily and still do a job!!!!!! *And, care about kids.

INDOCTRINATION IN FLORIDA

Who’s Indoctrinating?

"It's only indoctrination if I don't agree with it. Otherwise, it's fact."

From Sheila Kennedy

There’s a psychological mechanism called “projection,” — it’s when people accuse others of faults they themselves harbor. Several commenters to this blog have noted that the GOP routinely engages in projection.

Ron DeSantis’ Florida just shot down any lingering doubts about the accuracy of that observation.

Over the past few years, Republican culture warriors have become positively hysterical over the “indoctrination” of students by public schools and universities. To some extent, they’re right–after all, education imparts facts and–at best– enables critical thinking. A very expansive definition of “indoctrination” might stretch to include the broadening of a student’s frame of reference.

On the other hand, I have previously argued–and firmly believe– that what really upsets Republicans is the lack of indoctrination–the failure of educators to convey their preferred, albeit distorted, versions of history and science.

THE PRONOUN WARS

Pronouns law a ‘stunning waste of time’

In his School Matters blog, Steve Hinnefeld wonders whether the Republicans in the Indiana General Assembly don't know what they're doing or don't care. Perhaps it's both.

From School Matters

...why would Indiana legislators come up with a regulation that will cause extra work and confusion at the start of the academic year. Either they don’t know what they’re doing, or they don’t care.

The regulation comes from House Enrolled Act 1608, approved by lawmakers and signed by Gov. Eric Holcomb in the spring. Dubbed the “pronouns law,” it requires schools to notify a parent within five days if their child asks to be called by a different name or pronoun at school.

The intent is clear. Legislators wanted to be sure parents were informed if their child adopted a different gender identity at school. It’s part of their philosophy of supporting “parents’ rights.”

But they backed away from explicitly targeting gender identity, maybe because it would have invited a lawsuit, and made the law much broader. It says at least one parent must be notified if a student asks to change their name or the “pronoun, title, or word to identify the student” at school.

It would appear to require notification if, for example, a student named William asks to be called Will. That’s how many schools seem to be interpreting it: Any deviation from the name on enrollment records calls for telling a parent. In a large school, that’s likely to be dozens, maybe hundreds, of notifications.

SOME GOOD NEWS

The Dallas Miracle! Superintendent Wants Joy in the Classroom, Not Test Prep!

It's nice to read about a superintendent who understands that children are more than test scores.

From Diane Ravitch

During her state of the district address last May, superintendent Stephanie Elizalde said the district would soon eschew the numerous tests designed to find out whether students were ready for the STAAR in favor of, as she put it, more “joy” in the classroom.

In last year’s address, she declared teaching to the test was “officially dead,” and added that some schools were testing as frequently as every few weeks in preparation for the STAAR test, and doing classwork in between those assessments that also practiced STAAR strategy.

“How about we put them all together and we have a huge bonfire?” she said.

FORMER FWCS SUPERINTENDENT DIES

Former, longtime FWCS superintendent Wendy Robinson dies

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Wendy Robinson, whose career with Fort Wayne Community Schools spanned nearly 50 years, died Friday.

Robinson retired in June 2020, at age 69, as superintendent of FWCS, which this month welcomed nearly 30,000 students back to classrooms.

Julie Hollingsworth, an FWCS board member and former educator in the district, said Robinson was incredibly smart and politically savvy. She was always conscious of the district’s reputation.

“We had a very respectful relationship,” Hollingsworth said Friday. “She had a good sense of humor, and I enjoyed working with her as a colleague.”

Robinson’s impact at FWCS, Hollingsworth added, said a lot about her work ethic and dedication.

...FWCS released a statement saying the district was saddened to hear of Robinson’s death.

“Dr. Robinson was a lifelong advocate for children, and supporting public education was her passion. She truly believed educating all children to high standards was the moral purpose of all educators. She had high expectations for the employees of Fort Wayne Community Schools – no matter the position – because every staff member had a role to play in students’ lives,” the statement said.

Robinson was with FWCS for 47 years, starting as an elementary teacher.

Dr. Wendy Robinson visits an FWCS classroom.

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is essential; one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/ [NOTE: NEIFPE has no financial ties to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette]

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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In Case You Missed It – July 31, 2023

Here are links to last week's^† articles receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. Keep up with what's going on, what's being discussed, and what's happening with public education.

Be sure to enter your email address in the Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column of our blog page to be informed when our blog posts are published.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"The people of America deprive us of every privilege—they turn round and taunt us with our inferiority!—they stand upon our necks, they impudently taunt us, and ask the question, why we don’t stand up erect? they tie our feet, and ask us why we don’t run? that is the position of America in the present time, the laws forbid education, the mother must not teach her child the letters of the Lord’s prayer; and then while this unfortunate state of things exist they turn round and ask, why we are not moral and intelligent; and tell us, because we are not, that they have the right to enslave [us]." -- Frederick Douglass

FLORIDA: WHERE HISTORY GOES TO DIE

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis claimed that he "wasn't involved" in writing the state's 2023 Social Studies standards, but he defended them nonetheless. In response, former U.S. Rep. Will Hurd of Texas tweeted that slavery "wasn't a jobs program that taught beneficial skills."

Florida Attempting to Revive the “Happy Slave” Myth as Real History

Beneficial skills don't matter when you don't "own your own body."

From Gadfly on the Wall Blog

Frederick Douglass was widely considered the most photographed American in the 19th century, though he never smiled in a single portrait.

He stares out of the frame with a look of quiet dignity, but never joviality or contentment.

The reason for this is simple – he didn’t want to perpetuate the myth of the “Happy Slave.”

Douglass was born into bondage until he fled to the North at age 20. He was considered a fugitive for nine more years until 1845 when English friends raised $711.66 to buy his freedom. He was already a famous orator, author and abolitionist.

But he knew the power of a picture and how a still image of him grinning ear-to-ear might be used by slaveholders to indicate that people of color enjoyed their own servitude.

Now 158 years after the Civil War, the Florida Department of Education is trying to perpetuate that same myth with its new guidelines for Black history curriculum in public schools.

Among other things, the guidelines suggest that American slavery was not all bad because enslaved people developed skills that “could be applied for their personal benefit.”

Letters from an American: July 22, 2023

Heather Cox Richardson analyzes the new Florida Social Studies standards.

From Letters from an American by Heather Cox Richardson

The Florida Board of Education approved new state social studies standards on Wednesday, including standards for African American history, civics and government, American history, and economics. Critics immediately called out the middle school instruction in African American history that includes “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” (p. 6). They noted that describing enslavement as offering personal benefits to enslaved people is outrageous.

But that specific piece of instruction in the 216-page document is only a part of a much larger political project.

Taken as a whole, the Florida social studies curriculum describes a world in which the white male Founders of the United States embraced ideals of liberty and equality—ideals it falsely attributes primarily to Christianity rather than the Enlightenment—and indicates the country’s leaders never faltered from those ideals. Students will, the guidelines say, learn “how the principles contained in foundational documents contributed to the expansion of civil rights and liberties over time” (p. 148) and “analyze how liberty and economic freedom generate broad-based opportunity and prosperity in the United States” (p. 154).

TIME TO END TESTING

Bob Shepherd: Past Time to End Our Obsession with Standardized Testing

The entire post is below...

From Bob Shepherd, quoted by Diane Ravitch

"I have come to believe that there is one way and one way only that we will eliminate the federal testing mandate, which has had such blood-sucking costs over the years, direct costs and opportunity costs in loss learning, and which has brought about a dramatic devolution in our curricula and pedagogy.

"The tests will remain in place until the national teachers’ unions take up the cause of ending them, until they call a national strike to do that. This would take real guts, real leadership. But until the teachers’ unions do that, until they institute a national action to end the testing, they are COMPLICIT IN CHILD ABUSE. I mean that. It’s not hyperbole. The testing is child abuse. It robs kids of large percentages of the time that they could be spending learning. And it robs them of coherent curricula and pedagogy. Instead, they get random exercises on random “skills” from the puerile Gates/Coleman “standards” bullet list and its progeny around the country.

"ENOUGH. It’s been an utter failure. It’s been devastating. Time to end it."

NACS BOARD FEARS CONTENT OF LIBRARY CONFERENCE

Northwest Allen County Schools board pauses vote on library conference attendance request

The last sentence in the quote below says it all. School Board members are afraid of what a keynote speaker might say. As they see it, it's their job as "thought police" to protect staff members from wrong thinking which they might bring back to students. The professionalism of the employee doesn't matter.

We agree that there are professional conferences that the School Board might question paying for. Still, with the recent history of this board, and the current "culture war" atmosphere in Indiana and around the nation, there's reason to believe that the refusal to pay for this conference might be based on political rather than educational reasons.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

The Northwest Allen County Schools board wants more information about a November library conference before voting on an employee’s request to attend.

The board tabled Terri Uchtman’s professional development proposal in a 3-1 vote Monday. Members said they wanted more information about the activities planned for the Indiana Library Federation’s annual conference in Indianapolis.

The agenda posted online includes information about some speakers and indicates details about the 12 breakout sessions will be available soon.

“We don’t even know what the content is going to be,” member Darren Vogt said. “For me to approve something where I don’t know what the content is, I’m going to vote no.”

...This isn’t the first time a professional development request has divided the board. A split vote in January 2022 denied staff from attending a conference about students’ emotional well-being. Members feared what a keynote speaker might say, particularly about critical race theory.

FWCS BOARD OKs $10 MILLION IN IMPROVEMENTS

Fort Wayne Community Schools board OKs financing for $10 million in improvements

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Fort Wayne Community Schools’ plan to finance about $10 million in safety and accessibility improvements with general obligation bonds got the board’s final blessing Monday.

The elected leaders also agreed to hire two businesses to provide services for the accessibility projects, which will affect 11 buildings.

The pre-construction services contract with FCI Construction totals $28,125. The design services agreement with Martin Riley Architects and Engineers is estimated at $449,400.

The work will be funded with general obligation bonds – a common tool districts use to pay for projects outside the operations fund.

The accessibility upgrades have an overall construction budget of $6 million. They will affect Young Early Childhood Center; Adams, Harrison Hill, St. Joseph Central and Weisser Park Elementary Schools; Jefferson, Kekionga, Lane, Northwood and Portage Middle Schools; and the Center for Academic Success at Nebraska.

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is essential; one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/ [NOTE: NEIFPE has no financial ties to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette]

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day on Mondays except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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In Case You Missed It – February 13, 2023

Here are links to last week's^† articles receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. Keep up with what's going on, what's being discussed, and what's happening with public education.

Be sure to enter your email address in the Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column to be informed when our blog posts are published.

THIS WEEK

Join us on March 1, 2023, at the Allen County Public Library for an update on public education and potential legislation being proposed regarding funding, vouchers, and the 2023 legislation may affect public education. Presentations will be by Dr. Jennifer McCormick, former Indiana State Superintendent of Public Instruction, and Cathy Fuentes-Rohwer, President of the Indiana Coalition for Public Education (ICPE).

CULTURE WAR POLITICS SPURS EXPANSION OF VOUCHERS

The Far Right Has Used Culture War Politics to Open the Gate to a Vast Expansion of School Vouchers

The attack on public education is not new. The far right has been doing its best to privatize public education for a long time. The so-called "culture wars" are just the latest attempt to damage public education in America.

The current calls for education "reform" through curriculum cleansing and book banning are not uprisings of grassroots parent groups. There is big money behind the quest to do away with public schools.

[Note: emphasis added]

From Jan Resseger

In Merchants of Deception: Parent Props and their Funders, a new report just out from the Network for Public Education, Massachusetts political scientist, Maurice Cunningham explores what appeared a couple of years ago to be the spontaneous emergence of angry parents’ groups protesting teaching about racism, sex and gender.

“In truth,” he begins, “political interests use crises to turn politics and policy their way. This has happened during the COVID pandemic as right-wing ‘parent’ groups came out of nowhere to protest health measures such as masking and vaccine requirements in schools, then moved on to Critical Race Theory, then LGBT issues, book banning, and an endless stream of other ginned up culture war issues. In truth the Right has been massing its forces for years to undermine public education, but the sudden proliferation of ‘parents’ and ‘moms’ groups has signaled a new and more virulent turn… Conservative groups have exploded since 2021 and include operations like Parents Defending Education (PDE) and Moms for Liberty (M4L). They draw on white backlash politics and resentment.”

PUBLIC EDUCATION UPDATE

March 1, 2023, event announced

Please join us and the Indiana Coalition for Public Education at the event with the state's finest public education advocates -- Cathy Fuentes-Rohwer and Jennifer McCormick -- supporters of public education in Indiana!

PARTY-SUPPORTED SCHOOL BOARD MEMBERS?

Partisan school board bill advances

Should school board members announce their party affiliation? Do we really need to add more political influence to public education? We think not.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Indiana Republicans forged ahead Wednesday with a proposal that would upend the current nonpartisan school board elections across the state despite opponents arguing the change would further inject politics into local schools.

The Indiana House elections committee voted 6-4 along party lines to endorse a bill that would establish a system allowing each of the state's nearly 300 school districts to determine whether to require candidates to declare a political party.

THE COLLEGE BOARD LIED

The College Board Lied about Black Studies AP Course. It Had Frequent Exchanges with Florida Officials

The College Board folded under pressure from the far right led by Florida Governor DeSantis.

From Diane Ravitch

Governor Ron DeSantis and his Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. denounced the new AP African American Studies course in January. They listed specific objections to the syllabus. When the College Board released its final draft on February 1, everything that Florida opposed had been deleted.

The College Board insisted that it did not bow to political pressure because the revisions were made before Florida officials denounced the original.

The New York Times reported that the College Board and Florida officials were in frequent contact between September and February 1. The first attack on the AP course was written by Stanley Kurtz and published in the National Review on September 12. Kurtz warned that the AP course was “NeoMarxist” and takes “leftist indoctrination to a whole new level.”

About the same time, the College Board and Florida officials began negotiations.

SOUTHWEST ALLEN COUNTY SCHOOLS

SACS board moving, plans to show meetings online

The Southwest Allen County Schools school board finally goes online.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

The Southwest Allen County Schools board is preparing for a move - and their remote-viewing debut.

Beginning March 7, the five elected officials will no longer conduct business in the district administration building along Homestead Road. They will instead meet in a conference room at a nearby facility that houses transportation staff, Superintendent Park Ginder said Tuesday.

SACS plans to offer an option to watch meetings online - either through livestreaming or a recording - once the necessary equipment is in place, Ginder said.

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is important, and one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/ [NOTE: NEIFPE has no financial ties to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette]

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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In Case You Missed It – December 12, 2022

Here are links to last week's^† articles receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. Keep up with what's going on, what's being discussed, and what's happening with public education.

Be sure to enter your email address in the Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column to be informed when our blog posts are published.

THIS WEEK

Our children and our public education systems are being hurt by bad policies.

DOING DAMAGE TO OUR CHILDREN

The Impact of Active Shooter Drills in Schools

Active shooter drills are hurting our children. We're hurting them by trying to teach them how to avoid being killed by weapons that have no business being on the street. Instead of taking bold action against the easy availability of weapons of war, we're traumatizing our children.

From Everytown

...Active shooter drills in schools are associated with increases in depression (39%), stress and anxiety (42%), and physiological health problems (23%) overall, including children from as young as five years old up to high schoolers, their parents, and teachers. Concerns over death increased by 22 percent, with words like blood, pain, clinics, and pills becoming a consistent feature of social media posts in school communities in the 90 days after a school drill. These findings unveil even more reason to pause before rushing toward active shooter drills as a potential solution to school violence, as evidence suggests that they are causing lasting emotional and physical harm to students, teachers, and the larger community.

PUBLIC ED ON GOP HIT LIST

Why Public Schools Are On the GOP’s Hit List

This is certainly true in Indiana. For the last decade, the Republican supermajority in the General Assembly has targeted public schools. Vouchers and charter schools have drained money from public education. Punitive testing and union-busting actions have driven teachers from the classroom. Privatization is the goal. The complete destruction of public education seems to be the plan.

By Thom Hartman in The Hartman Report [bold in original]

So why would Pompeo, pursuing the 2024 Republican nomination for president, risk triggering an American domestic terrorist to train his sites on [Randi Weingarten, President of AFT]? Why would an educated man have such antipathy toward public school teachers?

Public schools are on the GOP’s hit list, just as they were in Chile during the Pinochet regime, and for the same reasons:

— Fascism flourishes when people are ignorant.

— Private for-profit schools are an efficient way to transfer billions from tax revenues into the coffers of “education entrepreneurs” who then recycle that money into Republican political campaigns (just like they’ve done with private for-profit prisons).

— Private schools are most likely to be segregated by race and class, which appeals to the bigoted base of the Republican party.

— Most public school teachers are unionized, and the GOP hates unions.

— While public school boards are our most basic and vigorous form of democracy, private schools are generally unaccountable to the public.

— Whitewashing America’s racial and genocidal history while ignoring the struggles of women and queer folk further empowers straight white male supremacy.

— Nothing inspires fear and terror in the minds of parents than a threat to their children, and the GOP — being totally committed to enriching the rich and impoverishing everybody else — has nothing else to sell than fear and hate to win elections. (See item #1: fascism.)

PUBLIC ED AND CULTURE WARS

The Culture War on Public Education

Blogger Peter Greene explains the danger and harm to our schools and our children by ”culture wars.”

From Peter Greene in The Progressive

It seems like ages since so many of us suddenly had to take a crash course in critical race theory (CRT). Then, seemingly five minutes later, just as Christopher Rufo, a fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, had promised, the CRT panic broadened into the “culture wars,” fought on a dozen different fronts by educators: “Don’t say gay” laws, “anti-woke” legislation, calls to ban books, gag laws for teachers, and private rights of action, so that parents could sue schools any time they felt a line had been crossed.

Culture wars continue to flare, but we should be discussing their true victims.

OHIO LEGISLATURE WANTS TO CIRCUMVENT THE "WILL OF THE PEOPLE"

Opinion: Ohio lawmakers will 'circumvent the will of the people' with school board bill

Jeanne Melvin is a retired public school teacher who spent 39 years as a central Ohio educator. She is a founding member and president of Public Education Partners, an all-volunteer statewide coalition of parents, grassroots citizen groups, school board members, educators, and school administrators that advocate for high-quality public education in Ohio.

From the Opinion Page in the Columbus Dispatch
Written by guest columnist, Jeanne Melvin

Because of the state [Board of Education]’s influence, it’s very important to have members who are true advocates for public education.

Our elected state school board members serve the will of their constituents. They are not selected to serve at the pleasure of the governor's political party, which is no friend to public education.

INDIANA DOE TO LAUNCH NEW ED DASHBOARD

State prepares to launch new education dashboard

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

A new state education dashboard is set to launch “very soon,” Indiana Secretary of Education Katie Jenner said Tuesday.

The Indiana Graduates Prepared to Succeed (GPS) website – or at least the first version – is nearing completion and will be discussed during today’s State Board of Education meeting.

While Jenner did not provide an exact launch date during a virtual demonstration of the dashboard, she said it will happen in December “short of anything major happening.”

One of the major goals of the GPS dashboard’s design is to break down data in a way that makes the information accessible to people around the state. It includes year-by-year statistics on various metrics, including the percentage of eighth graders enrolled in the 21st Century Scholars program, the FAFSA completion rate and the median income of graduates, along with data from state assessments like ILEARN and IREAD-3.

The data can be broken down by school and by school district. It can also be viewed by demographic statewide or on a school-by-school basis.

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is behind a paywall. Digital access, home delivery, or both are available with a subscription. Staying informed is important, and one way to do that is to support your local newspaper. For subscription information, go to fortwayne.com/subscriptions/ [NOTE: NEIFPE has no financial ties to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette]

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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In Case You Missed It – October 31, 2022

Here are links to last week's^† articles receiving the most attention on NEIFPE's social media accounts. Keep up with what's going on, what's being discussed, and what's happening with public education.

Be sure to enter your email address in the Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column to be informed when our blog posts are published.

THIS WEEK

BE SURE TO VOTE. VOTE EARLY. VOTE FOR CANDIDATES WHO SUPPORT PUBLIC EDUCATION. VOTE!

This week we cover the latest NAEP scores and the pandemic's impact on student achievement. We also look at the teacher exodus, charter schools, and a particular student mural in Michigan that has parents losing their minds.

THE NATION'S REPORT CARD -- PANIC!

New NAEP scores have been released and, as expected, the pandemic had an impact on the results. Before you read the three articles below, it might help to take a refresher course on what the levels Basic, Proficient, and Advanced actually mean. Tom Loveless wrote an article back in 2016 that's still one of the best explanations of why low Proficiency on the NAEP should not cause widespread panic.

The NAEP proficiency myth

NAEP does not report the percentage of students performing at grade level. NAEP reports the percentage of students reaching a “proficient” level of performance. Here’s the problem. That’s not grade level.

In this post, I hope to convince readers of two things:

1. Proficient on NAEP does not mean grade level performance. It’s significantly above that.
2. Using NAEP’s proficient level as a basis for education policy is a bad idea.

Proficient on NAEP is not grade level. It's "significantly above that." NAEP agrees [emphasis added]...

NAEP achievement levels are performance standards that describe what students should know and be able to do...Students performing at or above the NAEP Proficient level on NAEP assessments demonstrate solid academic performance and competency over challenging subject matter. It should be noted that the NAEP Proficient achievement level does not represent grade level proficiency as determined by other assessment standards (e.g., state or district assessments).

It's true that students scored lower this year than in past years, but when you read in Chalkbeat, below, that only a third of fourth graders scored at or above the Proficient achievement level in reading, that does not mean that two-thirds of Indiana's fourth-graders are reading below grade level.

Can we do better? We hope so, but we don't need to panic.

NAEP Scores Confirm that COVID Disrupted Schooling; They Do Not Reflect a Downward Trajectory in School Achievement

Jan Resseger suggests that the test scores are a benchmark of where we were during the pandemic.

From Jan Resseger

There is no cause for panic. Schooling was utterly disrupted for the nation’s children and adolescents, just as all of our lives were interrupted in so many immeasurable ways. During COVID, while some of us have experienced the catastrophic death of loved ones, all of us have experienced less definable losses—things we cannot name.

I think this year’s NAEP scores—considerably lower than pre-pandemic scores—should be understood as a marker that helps us define the magnitude of the disruption for our children during this time of COVID. The losses are academic, emotional, and social, and they all make learning harder.

Schools shut down and began remote instruction in the spring of 2020, and many stayed online through the first half of last school year. While most public schools were up and running by last spring, there have been a lot of problems—with more absences, fighting and disruption, and overwhelming stress for educators. It is clear from the disparities in the scores released last week among high and low achievers that the disruption meant very different things to different children. It is also evident that the pandemic was a jolting shock to our society’s largest civic institution. It should be no surprise, then, that the attempt to get school back on track was so rocky all through last spring…

While the NAEP is traditionally used to gauge the trajectory of overall educational achievement over time, and while the trajectory has been moderately positive over the decades, the results released last week cannot by any means be interpreted to mean a change of the overall direction of educational achievement.

Indiana’s NAEP scores show biggest decline in math as leaders weigh COVID’s fallout

To their credit, Chalkbeat does mention somewhere buried in the article, that "the bar for achieving proficiency on NAEP tests is generally higher than it is for state exams." Perhaps we would have been better served by Chalkbeat if they had given us data on the percentage of students who scored Basic or above.

From Chalkbeat*

Indiana students’ math and reading scores on “the nation’s report card” declined from pre-pandemic results, with the state’s average math scores declining the most.

Scores released Monday from the most recent National Assessment Educational Progress — or NAEP — showed that 33% of fourth graders and 31% of eighth graders were proficient or better in reading, while 40% of fourth graders and 30% of eighth graders were proficient or better in math.

Those proficiency rates were lower than in 2019 except in fourth grade reading, where the rates are statistically about the same as in 2019.

Indiana’s average reading scores were around the national average this year, and math scores were higher than the national average scores.

Your All-Purpose NAEP News Release

From Curmudgucation

As always, the main lesson of NAEP is that contrary to the expectations of so many policy wonks, cold hard data does not actually solve a thing.

The NAEP remains a data-rich Rorschach test that tells us far more about the people interpreting the data than it does about the people from whom the data was collected. Button up your overcoat, prepare for greater-than-usual pearl-clutching and solution-pitching from all the folks who still think the pandemic shutdown is a great opportunity to do [whatever it is they have already been trying to do].

KEEP EXPERIENCED TEACHERS IN THE CLASSROOM

The Teacher Exodus Continues Whether You Care or Not

Reformers are working hard to privatize all education. One of their goals is to remove those pesky professionals (who actually know something about teaching, learning, and child development) from the schools.

From Gadfly on the Wall Blog

Remember when federal, state and local governments actually seemed poised to do something about the great teacher exodus plaguing our schools?

With an influx of money earmarked to help schools recover from the pandemic, many expected pay raises and bonuses to keep experienced teachers in the classroom.

Ha! That didn’t happen!

Not in most places.

In fact, the very idea seems ludicrous now – and this was being discussed like it was a foregone conclusion just a few months ago at the beginning of the summer.

So what happened?

We found a cheaper way.

Just cut requirements to become a teacher.

Get more college students to enter the field even if they’re bound to run away screaming after a few years in.

It doesn’t matter – as long as we can keep them coming.

The young and dumb.

Or the old and out of options.

Entice retired teachers to come back and sub. Remove hurdles for anyone from a non-teaching field to step in and become a teacher – even military veterans because there’s so much overlap between battlefield experience and second grade reading.

And in the meantime, more and more classroom teachers with decades of experience under their belts are throwing up their hands and leaving.

Stop and think for a moment.

This is fundamentally absurd.

END SUPPORT FOR CHARTER SCHOOLS

Arthur Camins: Democrats, It’s Time to Give Up on Charter Schools

"Are you listening, Senator Corey Booker of New Jersey, Senator Michael Bennett of Colorado, Governor Jared Polis of Colorado, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, and other charter allies?"

From Diane Ravitch

It is time for Democrats–voters and the politicians who represent them–to abandon charter schools as a strategy for education improvement or to advance equity. Charter schools, whether for- or non-profit, drain funds from public schools that serve all students, increase segregation, and by design only serve the few. Continuation of tax generated funds for charter schools, all of which are privately governed, support the current broader assault on democracy. That should not be the way forward for democracy loving Democrats. In addition, public support for private alternatives to public education suborns the lie that government cannot be the agency for solving problems.

The United States is tilting sharply toward, if not rushing headlong into, a less equitable, less democratic, more authoritarian, more racially divided, and meaner way of governing and living together. Out-for-youselfism is alarmingly rampant. Sadly, continued bipartisan state and federal support for charter schools that pit parents against one another for limited student slots reflects those tendencies.

CULTURE WARS

Michigan: Parents Go Bonkers Over Mural in School

The education right wing can't seem to tolerate tolerance.

From Diane Ravitch

Thanks to Christine Langhoff for sharing this horrifying video.

It shows parents at Grant Middle School in Grant, Michigan, demanding the removal of a mural painted by a high school student. The mural was meant to make all students feel welcome.

But parents saw frightening symbols in it, such as a T-shirt that was a trans symbol, another that was a gay symbol, others graphics that were allegedly demonic or Satanic.

A high school student's mural angers parents over what they say are hidden messages

*Note: Financial sponsors of Chalkbeat include pro-privatization foundations and individuals such as Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, EdChoice, the Gates Family Foundation, The Walton Family Foundation, and others.

^†Note: NEIFPE's In Case You Missed It is posted by the end of the day every Monday except after holiday weekends or as otherwise noted.

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