In Case You Missed It – December 23, 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

"It is well known that a school district’s aggregate standardized test scores correlate more closely with the economic level of the district’s population than with the quality of the schools’ programming and teachers. What Senator Brenner, whose district includes the wealthy, exurban Olentangy public schools, never acknowledges is that his new bill is an attack on school districts serving concentrations of poor children. And while Senator Brenner specializes in devising punitive systems for low scoring schools and school districts, Ohio’s legislature, in which Brenner chairs the Senate Education Committee, has not yet fully phased in and funded the Fair School Funding Plan, which is designed to provide equity and to invest in school districts serving children in poverty. Ohio’s legislature also recently established a universal voucher program currently diverting a billion dollars a year from the state budget to private schools." -- Jan Resseger in Ohio State Senator Pushes New Version of Punitive Plan to Restructure or Take Over Low-Scoring Schools

OHIO STATE SENATOR PUSHES TEST-AND-PUNISH

Ohio State Senator Pushes New Version of Punitive Plan to Restructure or Take Over Low-Scoring Schools

We know that punishing teachers, schools and/or students for scoring low on standardized tests does nothing to improve learning, yet this Ohio legislator is willing to try it again. The fact that it will hurt the most vulnerable of the state's students doesn't seem to bother him.

From Jan Resseger

Andy Brenner, the Chair of the Ohio Senate Education Committee, is once again pushing the Ohio Legislature to pass an old fashioned, test-and-punish school accountability bill, Senate Bill 295, in this last week of the legislature’s lame-duck session without sufficient public accountability or hearings. The bill would significantly restructure or close the schools in some of Ohio’s poorest communities. A hearing on the bill is scheduled for this afternoon.

Brenner, “an entrepreneur in the real estate and mortgage fields,” who earned a Masters of Arts in Teaching from Liberty University Online, is known for the now disproven theory that if teachers work harder and smarter, they can immediately ensure their students score higher on standardized tests. His new bill is modeled after No Child Left Behind (NCLB), which promised to make every American child proficient by 2014. Of course, we now know that NCLB’s threatening educators and school districts with scary sanctions failed to produce uniformly proficient students despite all the threats to close or charterize so-called “failing” schools, or fire and replace all the staff.

MORE LEGISLATIVE INTERFERENCE

Federal Anti-Commie Education Bill

Peter Greene is one of public education's most important voices. His work appears on his blog (see link below), in Forbes, on Substack, and elsewhere.

From Peter Greene at Curmudgucation

It could be worse. It's not a mandate to use Prager U materials, after all. And to be clear, I'm not personally a big fan of communism, though in my reading of history, nations that "turn communist" usually keep being awful in ways that they were awful before anyone pretended to be a communist.

In fact, now that I think of it, some study of what creeping totalitarianism wouldn't hurt Americans (in or out of high school) right about now.

But teachers recognize this same old dodge. "We want students to know and agree with This Particular Thing," say some bunch of leaders somewhere. "How can we do that? I know! We'll get teachers to teach it to them. Because there's lots of room in the day to slip in one more slab of curricular materials. Also, students always believe what teachers say. Also, legislating curriculum always works out well."

Congress may very well pass this. Teachers will either ignore it or not as they are so inclined, and politicians will be proud of themselves for battling the scourge of communism and for once against standing up for only the correct sort of indoctrination in our schools.

NO TEACHERS NEED APPLY

New Arizona charter school will use AI in place of human teachers

This is computer-led instruction. There will be human adults present...as baby-sitters.

From KJZZ Phoenix

At least one Arizona school will be handing off teaching duties to artificial intelligence in 2025.

The Arizona State Board for Charter Schools’ approved an application for an AI-based virtual academy on Monday.

Unbound Academy, which also operates in Texas and Florida under the name Alpha Schools, claims that kids can learn twice as much using a two-hour learning plan that gets customized by an AI program instead of a traditional human teacher in front of a classroom.

STUDENT LOANS

Biden Announces $4.28 Billion in Student Loan Forgiveness

Help for those with student loan debt.

From Diane Ravitch

The U.S. Department of Education released a statement:

The Biden-Harris Administration announced today the approval of $4.28 billion in additional student loan relief for 54,900 borrowers across the country who work in public service. This relief—which is the result of significant fixes that the Administration has made to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program—brings the total loan forgiveness by the Administration to approximately $180 billion for nearly five million Americans, including $78 billion for 1,062,870 borrowers through PSLF.

PAYING FOR EDUCATION IN INDIANA

Public schools remain on hook for book, curricula fees

Indiana struggles to pay for the constitutionally mandated promise of a free public education system.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

The Indiana Constitution of 1851 says the General Assembly will provide a system of schools “wherein tuition shall be without charge, and equally open to all.” During the 2023 legislative session, state lawmakers delivered on that 172-year-old promise.

Legislators dedicated $160 million in the state budget to eliminate textbook and curricula fees, starting this academic year, but Hoosier schools still must pay for those materials. Last month, Indiana’s largest teachers’ union called for a more than $500 million increase to basic tuition support for public schools in the 2025 fiscal year.

That’s 7.98% more compared to what schools are expected to receive. Under current law, K-12 public schools are projected to see average student funding increases of 1.7% in the 2025-26 school year.

CREEPING CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM

The Religious Right Is Plotting How To Get Christianity Into Schools

Not all our students are Christians. Not all our Christian students are Evangelical Christians. Not all parents of our Evangelical Christian students want public school teachers teaching religion.

Both parts of the First Amendment are important -- the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;..."

From Nathalie Baptiste in Huffpost

From displaying the Ten Commandments to demanding that teachers use the Bible in their classrooms, conservatives seem determined to blur the lines between church and state by infusing Christianity into public schools. And with Donald Trump headed back to the White House and a conservative majority in the U.S. Supreme Court, reshaping the country’s education system is looking increasingly feasible.

GET A SECOND OPINION

Trump Questions Need for School Vaccines

Experts, not politicians, should determine medical policy.

From Diane Ravitch

We know that Trump chose RFK Jr. to run the federal public health system as head of the Department of Health and Human Services. we know that Kennedy opposes vaccines. He has said that he would not ban vaccines outright but suggested that he might leave the decision about vaxxing to parents. We also know that senior Republican Mitch McConnell had polio as a child and does not like the idea of making the polio vaccine a matter of personal choice.

But we didn’t know much about what Trump believes or wants when it comes to vaccines.

Politico reports that he wants to keep vaccines, at least for adults. But he is doubtful about vaccine mandates for attending school. Public schools in every state require students to be vaccinated. If these mandates are reversed, we can expect to see a spread of the highly infectious diseases that were nearly eradicated.

Your child or grandchild might get measles or mumps or rubella or tetanus. These are deadly diseases.

**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 – May 20, 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

"Vouchers were supposed to improve educational outcomes for poor children. The programs have not only failed to improve learning outcomes, they have increased racial segregation, facilitated religious discrimination, and been a windfall for the wealthy (many of whom already had children in private schools), all while robbing the nation’s public schools of desperately needed resources.

They’ve been a civic and educational disaster." -- Sheila Kennedy in Race, Religion, Money And Vouchers

VOUCHERS CONTRIBUTE TO AN INCREASE IN SEGREGATION

Race, Religion, Money And Vouchers

Not only do voucher programs drain money from public schools, fail to increase student achievement, and fill the bank accounts of religious organizations with public tax dollars, but they have also led to a rise in school segregation.

From Sheila Kennedy

The nefarious effects of educational vouchers continue to be documented.

The Washington Post recently reported on a study confirming what a number of prior studies have suggested: that an unexpected rise in racial segregation is largely attributable to the expansion of school voucher programs.

Ahead of the 70th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, a study being released Monday shows a pronounced increase in school segregation since 1988, particularly in large school districts with significant numbers of Black students.

Overall, school segregation between Black and White students has increased by 25 percent since 1991 in the 533 large districts serving at least 2,500 Black students — a significant increase but nowhere near the decline that occurred in the aftermath of Brown, according to the study. (Of note: the paper makes clear that most of the school segregation in the United States is driven by demographic differences between districts, not within them.)

The study found that the problem was not housing segregation, although that certainly helps explain school segregation, because housing has become less segregated since 1991. It also found that rising school segregation isn’t driven by economic inequality, which has also declined over this period.

The researchers point to two specific policies: federal courts releasing school districts, including Charlotte-Mecklenburg, from obligations to desegregate schools beginning in significant numbers in the late 1990s; and school-choice policies that let parents pick what school their children attend.

Surprise!–NOT.

YET ANOTHER BILLIONAIRE WANTS TO "FIX" EDUCATION

Peter Greene: Elon Musk Proclaims His Views about Fixing Education

Your child's teachers know more about education than your local, state, and federal legislators, media pundits, and the billionaires who regularly dump their riches into schemes detrimental to public schools.

From Diane Ravitch

I think most educators would agree that they are tired of getting lectures from billionaires about how to teach or how to fix the problems of American education.

But Peter Greene reports that the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, has decided it’s time for him to add his uninformed views to those of Bill Gates, Betsy DeVos, the Walton family, and a long list of financiers, all of whom use their wealth to change the schools.

TEACHER COMPENSATION -- STILL INADEQUATE

The Grinch Who Stole Teacher Appreciation Week

The younger the children, the more important the teachers are, and the less they're paid. It's time to realign our priorities to favor our children...and our future.

From Teacher in a Strange Land Blog - Nancy Flanagan

I’ve always been of the opinion that teachers get so few routine perks in their professional lives they deserve every random treat or award that meanders their way–from sticky little misspelled mash notes to free use of a leased SUV.

After all, there aren’t many workplaces where professionals end up providing their own materials, cleaning services and professional development. There aren’t many college-educated specialists who gladly share their expertise for free–or attend a weekend conference on their own dime, then arrive at work on Monday morning, without a thought for “comp time.” Because if they didn’t show up, someone would have to pay. And it shouldn’t be the teacher next door, or their students.

For these reasons, and a hundred more, nobody begrudges teachers the tokens of appreciation that come their way this week, from the handmade construction-paper cards to the potluck lunch from the PTA. I love it when teachers invite their former students to check in on Facebook–or when they post their stats (years of experience, states/countries/schools, degrees, subjects and so on). It’s good to see colleagues reclaim their honor or share a few points of pride.

But it’s time we asked ourselves just who gets ‘appreciated’ once a year–and whose work is considered vital, essential, and fully professional year-round, with no need for annual symbolic gestures. There’s something about Teacher Appreciation Week that smacks of a pat on the head for being willing to go the distance without adequate compensation or support. We’re supposed to persist and excel ‘for the kids’–a phrase that teachers rightfully perceive as specious and manipulative.

UPGRADE FOR SCHOOL MEALS

School meals get an upgrade: What to expect going forward

From the Center for Science in the Public Interest

In April 2024, the USDA issued its 2024 Final Rule Requirements for School Meal Programs. This rule, effective July 1, 2024, updates school meal nutrition standards to bring them in closer alignment with the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The rule will institute the first-ever added sugar limits for school meals and update sodium standards, among other changes.

The meal pattern changes will begin to take effect starting in school year 2025-26 and will be phased in through school year 2027-2028. The new rule represents a significant step toward science-backed nutrition standards in US schools.

In the last decade, the nutritional quality of school meals has improved significantly, thanks in large part to a 2012 rule that updated school nutrition standards following passage of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. Between school years 2009-2010 and 2014-2015, school meals increased in whole grains, fruits, and vegetables, and decreased in saturated fat and sodium.

Despite these marked improvements, school meals still have room for improvement...

LOCAL NEWS

Indiana sees record participation in voucher program

Indiana's voucher program was never meant to help "poor kids" in "failing schools." The plan has always been to divert money from public education to line the pockets of religious institutions and entrepreneurs. The fact that this harms public education is not a problem for most, and a feature for some.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Participation in Indiana’s school voucher program has nearly doubled in the last three years, with a record 70,095 students – including nearly 10,000 from Allen County – receiving money this academic year to attend private K-12 institutions, according to a new annual report.

The additional 16,833 participants – the largest-ever increase in the Choice Scholarship Program – represented a 31.6% hike from the previous year, the Indiana Department of Education report said.

Participation totaled 35,698 as recently as the 2020-21 year.

This year, students were awarded about $439 million – a 41% increase from last year’s $312 million, the report said.

How much have your county public schools lost to vouchers?

**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 – May 13, 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

"Democratic House Minority Leader Shelli Yoder called prohibiting other methods of teaching 'heavy-handed' and 'tyrannical,' even if well-intentioned.

"'If we’ve done one thing it is to communicate to teachers that we do not trust your profession, and we’re gonna micromanage it,' Yoder said. 'And we’re going to make sure that you use this one method of teaching reading. That does create a bit of a pause for me.'" -- Indiana Joins States Mandating the Science of Reading in Classrooms

THE SCIENCE OF READING MANDATES

Indiana has jumped on the Science of Reading (SoR) bandwagon which includes banning other methods of teaching reading. The state's NAEP scores in reading have dropped, though they are still around the national average. This has given the legislature the excuse to micromanage education, while -- no surprise -- blaming teachers, for the "reading crisis." Other states with legislatures not favorable to public education are joining in -- like Iowa.

The Science of Reading debate is a rehashing of the ongoing "Reading Wars" which pits so-called "phonics first" techniques against so-called "whole language" methods. The debate is not settled.

How many reading education experts are members of the Indiana legislature?

For more information on this topic, see...

The Science of Reading Movement: The never-ending debate and the need for a different approach to reading instruction

ILEC Response: Reading Science: Staying the course amidst the noise (Albert Shanker Institute)

Iowa Mandates “Science of Reading”

The following two articles from Diane Ravitch provide some information about the debate.

From Diane Ravitch

The “Science of Reading” is the panacea of the moment. Iowa’s Governor Kim Reynolds signed a bill requiring the use of SofR in the state’s classrooms.

ADEL, Iowa (Gray Television Iowa Capitol Bureau) – Governor Kim Reynolds signed a new law Tuesday meant to boost literacy rates for Iowa children. It requires schools teach a specific reading method, called the Science of Reading, and develop individual plans for students not at grade level.

Nick Covington: What the “Science of Reading” Overlooks

From Diane Ravitch

Nick Covington taught social studies for a decade. He recently decided to delve into the mystique of “the science of reading.” He concluded that we have been “sold a story.”

He begins:

Literacy doesn’t come in a box, we’ll never find our kids at the bottom of a curriculum package, and there can be no broad support for systemic change that excludes input from and support for teachers implementing these programs in classrooms with students.

Exactly one year after the final episode of the podcast series that launched a thousand hot takes and opened the latest front of the post-pandemic Reading Wars, I finally dug into Emily Hanford’s Sold A Story from American Public Media. Six episodes later, I’m left with the ironic feeling that the podcast, and the narrative it tells, missed the point. My goal with this piece is to capture the questions and criticisms that I have not just about the narrative of Sold A Story but of the broader movement toward “The Science of Reading,” and bring in other evidence and perspectives that inform my own. I hope to make the case that “The Science of Reading” is not a useful label to describe the multiple goals of literacy; that investment in teacher professionalization is inoculation against being Sold A Story; and that the unproductive and divisive Reading Wars actually make it more difficult for us to think about how to cultivate literate kids. The podcast, and the Reading Wars it launched, disseminate an incomplete and oversimplified picture of a complex process that plasters over the gaps with feverish insistence.

MORE NON-EXPERTS IN EDUCATION

Elon Musk Has Some Education Thoughts

Yet another billionaire who thinks that his money makes him an education expert.

From Peter Greene at Curmudgucation

Elon Musk has some thoughts about education, and because he's Very Rich, Fortune Magazine decided it should share some of those thoughts, despite Musk's utter lack of qualifications to talk about education.

Reporter Christiaan Hetzner mostly covers business in Europe, so it's not clear how he stumbled into this particular brief piece, which appears to be lifting a piece of a larger conversation into an article. I'd love a new rule that says every time an outlet gives space to a rich guy's musings about areas in which he has no expertise, the outlet also publishes a piece about the musings of some ordinary human on the topic--maybe even an ordinary human who is an expert in the area.

Hetzner launches right in with both feet.

More than a century ago, Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw wrote, “He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.” Well, Elon Musk is a doer with a lot of children, and he’s reached the conclusion he doesn’t want his kids to learn from some has-been or never-was simply because they landed a job in a local school thanks to a lack of competition.

It's not clear if Hetzner is editorializing or trying to channel Musk's point of view (I think perhaps the latter), but somebody here is really full of it. I'm not going to argue about Musk's doer qualifications, though his ability to profit off the work of others and his interminable botching of twitter leave me unpersuaded of his genius. But this characterization of teachers is some serious bullshit. And things aren't going to get better.

SEGREGATION IS CREEPING BACK UP AGAIN

5 takeaways about segregation 70 years after the Brown decision

America's classrooms are still struggling with segregation.

From The Hechinger Report

...1. The long view shows progress but a worrying uptick, especially in big cities

Not much changed for almost 15 years after the Brown decision. Although Black students had the right to attend another school, the onus was on their families to demand a seat and figure out how to get their child to the school. Many schools remained entirely Black or entirely white...

2. School choice plays a role in recent segregation

Why is segregation creeping back up again?

The expiration of court orders that mandated school integration and the expansion of school choice policies, including the rapid growth of charter schools, explains all of the increase in segregation from 2000 onward, said Reardon. Over 200 medium-sized and large districts were released from desegregation court orders from 1991 to 2009, and racial school segregation in these districts gradually increased in the years afterward.

School choice, however, appears to be the dominant force. More than half of the increase in segregation in the 2000s can be attributed to the rise of charter schools, whose numbers began to increase rapidly in the late 1990s. In many cases, either white or Black families flocked to different charter schools, leaving behind a less diverse student body in traditional public schools...

NO PUBLIC SCHOOL FOR UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS -- HERITAGE FOUNDATION

Heritage Foundation Wants to Deny the Right to Public Schooling for Undocumented Immigrant Children

The Heritage Foundation argues for denying undocumented immigrant children a chance at public education.

From Jan Resseger

I like to think I know enough about awful public policy that it would be hard to surprise me, but I confess that the beginning of Kalyn Belsha’s new report for Chalkbeat describes a politics so indecent that I was shocked:

“An influential conservative think tank has laid out a strategy to challenge a landmark Supreme Court decision that protects the right of undocumented children to attend public school. The Heritage Foundation, which is spending tens of millions of dollars to craft a policy playbook for a second Trump presidential term… released a brief calling on states to require public schools to charge unaccompanied migrant children and children with undocumented parents tuition to enroll.” (You can look at the Heritage Foundation’s very short policy brief which is part of Heritage’s Project 2025 that lays out an extremely conservative platform.)

Belsha explains Heritage’s reasoning for this cruelty: “Such a move ‘would draw a lawsuit from the Left,’ the brief states, ‘which would likely lead the Supreme Court to reconsider its ill-considered Plyler v. Doe decision’—referring to the 1982 ruling that held it was unconstitutional to deny children a public education based on their immigration status.”

We like to think we are kinder and more civilized in America than we used to be in the days of slavery, Jim Crow, and Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, but I guess the Heritage Foundation feels comfortable taking us back to 1975, when Texas passed a law to deny undocumented children the right, enjoyed by all children in the United States, to a free public education.

LOCAL NEWS

East Allen County Schools teacher earns national honor

Excellent teaching here in our own neighborhood.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

When math teacher Dawn Baxter stepped inside a Paul Harding Junior High School room on Thursday morning, her confusion was evident when colleagues and students cheered her arrival while Kool & The Gang’s “Celebration” played.

Principal Charles Washington quickly ended the suspense. With an arm around Baxter’s shoulders, the administrator said she was named a Math 180 Educator of the Year by learning technology company Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

“Seriously?” Baxter replied.

The recognition honors teachers who demonstrate exceptional commitment to their students’ growth inside and outside of the classroom using the company’s Math 180 intervention program.

**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 – March 11, 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

"...unanswered questions point us at the nuance missing in the Moms for Liberty outrage and panic factory, the nuance that recognizes that reasonable intelligent people can disagree about the value of certain books. In the real world, there's a huge difference between showing six year olds graphic depictions of the ways one can use a penis and a non-graphic depiction of LGBTQ persons. There's a vast gulf between grooming some small child for sexual abuse and simply acknowledging there are some LGBTQ persons in the world (and possibly in the classroom or the homes of class members). There's a planet-seized difference between saying 'LGBTQ persons are not extraordinary or unnatural' and saying 'You should become an LGBTQ person.' And yet, in the Moms for Liberty universe, there is no difference between any of those things." -- by Peter Greene, 60 Minutes Asked Moms for Liberty The Right Questions

FIGHTING BACK AGAINST M4L

60 Minutes Asked Moms for Liberty The Right Questions

Peter Greene uses his pro-public education voice. This post takes down the misnamed "Moms for Liberty" who want to censor books.

From Peter Greene, Curmudgucation on Substack

Reporter Scott Pelley gets right to the heart of several issues. The difference between giving parents the tools to control what their own children can read (something the district also provides in spades) and trying to control what other parents can let their children read. The outrage-enhancing technique of treating isolated mistakes as proof of some widespread conspiracy.

In the midst of it all, the Moms for Liberty, with Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich finally seen in the footage from an interview they sat for way back in October of 2023.

The piece is tough on them. The parents that are set up to represent the district are Republican, conservative, combat veterans. Pelley in repeated voice overs points out that the Moms are evasive and avoid answering question but instead retreating to their talking points (he does not point out that they are seasoned political coms professionals, but he doesn't portray them as cookie-baking domestics, either). Some of the talking points were so six months ago. "We don't co-parent with the government," said the women whose demands include forcing the government to help them with the part of parenting that involves keeping an eye on what your children read and watch.

Florida District Alters Illustrations in Classic Children’s Books to Appease Moms for Liberty

Diane Ravitch joins the chorus of voices against "Moms for Liberty."

From Diane Ravitch

The local leader of Moms for Liberty was outraged! There was a book in the elementary school library that depicted a naked child! Another showed the naked butt of a goblin! What depravity!

Judd Legum and Tesnim Zekeria at Popular Information have the story, which actually happened in Indian River County, Florida, when Jennifer Pippen of Moms for Liberty complained about Maurice Sendak’s classic In the Night Kitchen.

Pippen said the book was “pornographic” because it showed a naked little boy in a bathtub; if you peered closely, you could see that the little boy had a penis. Shocking!

INDIANA NEWS

Vic’s Statehouse Notes #384 – A new and negative precedent

The Indiana Coalition for Public Education provides timely information about what's happening in the State General Assembly.

From Indiana Coalition for Public Education

This morning the Senate Appropriations Committee approved HB 1001 which gives state money to parents of general education students who are siblings of special education students currently getting Education Scholarship Accounts (ESA’s) to run unaccountable homeschools.

The committee’s final vote was 11-3, with Senators Qaddoura, Randolph and Yoder dissenting. Before the final vote, Senator Qaddoura, who strongly supports public education, offered an amendment to delete the entire section giving ESA accounts to siblings. His amendment failed on a party line vote, 4-10.

Senator Mishler, chair of the Appropriations Committee, has killed ESA proposals more than once in previous sessions. He did not kill this one. He said he was voting yes because the program would fit within the $10 million appropriation already in place for next year.

This is a sad milestone. It is the first time that general education students, the siblings, have been approved for ESA’s in Indiana.

MSD of Steuben County may cut elementary school with highest test scores, cites lack of expected growth

From WANE.com

Residents in small Pleasant Lake, Indiana are up in arms to save one of the town’s oldest residents: Pleasant Lake Elementary.

In the middle of a Feb. 20 board meeting for the Metropolitan School District (MSD) of Steuben County, the district shared some disconcerting enrollment stats.

“Given what you do have out there (in Pleasant Lake), household size and people moving in, you’re going to be bouncing between 80 and 100 (students),” said Jerome McKibbon with the McKibbon Group, a demographic research firm. “Just not enough population housing is out there to warrant it.”

The inability to grow.

A death sentence for a school building that dates back to 1915, although McKibbon said that’s all the more reason for the district to move on.

FORT WAYNE AREA NEWS

SACS outgoing superintendent to lead Grow Allen

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Park Ginder’s involvement in local education will continue after he retires as the Southwest Allen County Schools superintendent in June.

The longtime public educator will be the inaugural executive director of Grow Allen, the organization announced Thursday.

The Fort Wayne-based group, which celebrated its launch last fall, is leading an initiative to improve student career development and boost northeast Indiana’s economic vitality.

**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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