In Case You Missed It – September 16, 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

"Fourteen states and counting have now passed legislation creating voucher (or education savings account) programs that share some key properties. They are universal (or nearly universal), meaning that all families are eligible. They involve no meaningful public accountability or way to judge their success. They allow private schools to charge tuition over and above the voucher amount. And, finally, they are flexible in that funds can be used even to cover homeschooling expenses and other educational goods and services, such as computers and tutoring." -- in The new and radical school voucher push is quietly unwinding two centuries of U.S. education tradition by Douglas N. Harris at the Brookings Institute.

VOUCHERS HURT PUBLIC SCHOOLS

The Evidence Continues To Mount

"[The] majority of the families in the Indiana voucher program today were previously paying for private school on their own...Yet the state stepped in to offer a financial subsidy to parents who didn’t need it ― a costly decision critics say is hurting public schools, which educate more than 90% of the approximately one million K-12 students in Indiana."

From Sheila Kennedy

Inequality.org recently took an in-depth look at the Right-wing’s increasingly successful effort to destroy public education. In an article titled “Private Fortunes Vs. Public Education,” the article began

The United States essentially invented public education. Back in the 1780s, notes the Center on Education Policy, federal legislation “granted federal lands to new states and set aside a portion of those lands to be used to fund public schools.” By the 18th century’s close, most Americans had embraced the notion of “using public funds to support public schooling for the common good.”

In the mid-20th century, amid growing levels of economic equality, that public financial support for public schools would expand mightily. The results would be impressive. By 1970, graduation rates from American high schools — institutions, notes historian Claudia Goldin, themselves “rooted in egalitarianism” — had quadrupled over 1920 levels.

But that era of growing equality and expanding public education would start fading in the 1970s. Over recent years, a new U.S. Senate report makes clear, that fade has only intensified.

The article went on to report that, during the last decade, funding for the nation’s public schools has “barely increased,” while “state spending on tax breaks and subsidies for private schools has skyrocketed by 408 percent.”

A report from the Brookings Institution found that universal voucher programs “are unwinding two centuries of tradition in U.S. public education” and that the programs “violate basic traditions of church-state separation, anti-discrimination, and public accountability.” As the researcher concluded, even if the courts -ignoring over fifty years of precedents–rule that these voucher programs are constitutionally permissible, “we should assess them against our principles as a nation.”

HOW MUCH DID VOUCHERS HURT YOUR PUBLIC SCHOOL?

Voucher Cost to Local Public School Districts

How much money has your local school district missed out on because of vouchers?

From the Indiana Coalition for Public Education

Indiana is a radical state when it comes to education funding. It now offers a handful of different types of K-12 education vouchers. The Indiana Choice Scholarship—a subsidy for families by which they use public funds to help pay for private school tuition—is the largest and oldest voucher in the state (existing since 2011).

IF the state K-12 funding had remained the same and IF this large voucher program didn’t exist, how much additional funding would your community school district have had?

FEDERAL ROLE IN PUBLIC EDUCATION

In 2020, President Trump Set Out to Impose His Own Preferred U.S. History Curriculum on All U.S. Public Schools

Can a President who tried to rewrite the public school history curriculum can be trusted today to avoid adopting Project 2025’s radical destruction of the federal role in education?

From Jan Resseger

In a blockbuster story last week, the Washington Post’s Laura Meckler recounts how Donald Trump’s anger about Nikole Hannah-Jones’ 1619 Project—emphasizing the history of slavery as part of the nation’s founding—grew into Trump’s infatuation with the political possibility of appointing his own commission to develop the kind of national public school history curriculum Trump believed his supporters would prefer. This is clear case of a politician creating public policy as an ideological reaction to our society’s growing acceptance of our nation’s diversity.

Meckler quotes Trump in a pre-July 4th speech in 2020, lashing out at the way public schools were teaching American history: “Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values and indoctrinate our children… Children are taught in school to hate their own country and to believe the men and women who built it were not heroes but… villains.”

Meckler reports: “During most of his presidency, Trump had showed little interest in education, but now, as he campaigned for a second term, he cast the movement (spawned by the 1619 Project and the reaction to George Floyd’s murder in Minnesota) as something sinister infecting American education. He began to describe schools as ground zero in the fight over how to see America and its history.” Meckler adds that in the fall of 2020, Trump appointed his own 1776 Commission, declaring: “Many of America’s schoolchildren are tragically being taught to hate our founding, hate our history and hate our country. This must stop… The 1776 Commission will help ensure that every American child learns that they live in the greatest and most exceptional nation in the history of the world.”

Trump’s Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, disdained by public school supporters for her devotion to and massive personal investment in promoting school privatization, stood behind the principle that public schools are established in the state constitutions and operated by locally elected school boards, and that the President and the federal government cannot impose a national curriculum. Meckler quotes Betsy DeVos recounting her conversation with Trump in the summer of 2020: “I had to remind him that the United States does not have a national curriculum, and for good reason… The federal government can’t ban the 1619 Project.”

THE THEORY IS SCIENCE

Teaching evolution is still constitutional in Indiana

What is a theory?

"...A theory is a well-substantiated explanation of an aspect of the natural world that can incorporate laws, hypotheses and facts. The theory of gravitation, for instance, explains why apples fall from trees and astronauts float in space. Similarly, the theory of evolution explains why so many plants and animals—some very similar and some very different—exist on Earth now and in the past, as revealed by the fossil record."

From the National Center for Science Education

The plaintiffs contended that the district schools teach "the state-sponsored, atheistic, religious Theory of Evolution ... under the guise that that it is 'science,'" that what they regard as various components of evolutionary theory have been scientifically disproven, and that "the atheistic Theory of Evolution specially attacks the Judeo-Christian origin story."

...The court found that the plaintiffs failed to allege an Establishment Clause violation because, in the words of McLean v. Arkansas (1982), "it is clearly established in the case law, and perhaps also in common sense, that evolution is not a religion and that teaching evolution does not violate the Establishment Clause."

ABSENTEE RATES ARE IMPROVING

Indiana officials say chronic absenteeism rates are improving, but there’s still more work ahead

From the Capital Chronicle

Indiana’s top education officials applauded the state’s improved chronic absenteeism rates on Wednesday but conceded that too many Hoosier students are still missing a “significant” number of school days.

The latest attendance numbers released by the Indiana Department of Education reported that 17.8% of K-12 students — roughly 219,00 kids — were “chronically absent” during the most recent 2023-24 school year, meaning they missed at least 18 days.

It’s the second year in a row that the number of chronically absent students went down, dropping from 19.2% in 2023, and 21.1% in 2022.

“It’s an improvement — and we always want to celebrate improvements and data moving in the right direction— but we still have some work to do,” said John Keller, IDOE’s chief information officer, during Wednesday’s State Board of Education meeting.

LEGISLATORS AND CONSTITUENTS MUST COMMUNICATE

Education policy is missing feedback and collaboration

Educator and former State Representative Melanie Write explains how basic communication skills are missing between our legislators and constituents.

From Melanie Wright in the Capital Chronicle

Meaningful dialogue with education experts: superintendents, administrators and educators is essential to identifying issues that should be addressed in schools. Fewer debates and forums occur during the election process. Once elected officials are established, they are hesitant to meet with educators due to contentious bill policy. Bills tend to be passed in Indiana before input is sought. When the Indiana State Board of Education attempts to implement policy, stakeholders testify with concerns. By no longer having an elected Superintendent of Public Instruction, the Department of Education struggles to find neutrality while navigating proposed legislation and what will truly benefit our students.

The Science of Reading was recently passed as a method to ensure that Indiana students could be kept on grade level. After a drastic and last-minute strategy, it was set to roll out this past summer. Without input from stakeholders, the various course offerings were put into place. Many educators had to readjust summer plans to acquire the training, some needed to complete the training for financial and/or licensure opportunities and some were so frustrated by this that they opted to wait and see if it would change, as education policy does so often.

Simple conversations within House and Senate districts could have prevented such turmoil. Instead, schools are once again greeted with the implementation of new laws, but very little guidance on how to achieve such.

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: 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 – April 15, 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

"...a voucher by any other name still smells the same. It’s a payoff to parents so that they’ll exit public education, a false promise of education choice, a redirection of public taxpayer dollars into private pockets, an outsourcing of discrimination, a public subsidy for private religious choices, a means of defunding and dismantling public education as we understand it in this country, a transformation of a public good into a market-based commodity. Call it what you like. There isn’t enough air freshener in the world to make it smell like a rose." -- Peter Greene, quoted by Diane Ravitch in Peter Greene: A Voucher By Any Other Name Is Still a Voucher and a Hoax

VOUCHERS

Peter Greene: A Voucher By Any Other Name Is Still a Voucher and a Hoax

Voucher supporters won't use the word "vouchers."

From Diane Ravitch quoting Peter Greene

Voucher supporters have one major problem: school vouchers are unpopular.

The term doesn’t test well. Measure of public support is iffy– if you ask people if they would like every student to have the chance to ride to a great school on their own pony, people say yes, but if you ask a more reality-based framing (“should we spend education dollars on public schools or subsidies for some private schools”) the results look a bit different.

But one clear measure of public support for vouchers is this; despite all the insistence that the public just loves the idea, no voucher measure has ever been passed by the voters in a state. All voucher laws have been passed by legislators, not voted in by the public.

Voucher supporters have developed one clear strategy– call them something else.

Bad Governance with Education Vouchers

Public dollars should be accountable to public scrutiny.

From Tultican

February 26, a Maricopa County Grand Jury indicted six people, including three employees of Arizona’s education department, for forgery, fraud and money laundering. The forty counts charged were related to stealing from the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program. Attorney General Kris Mayes claimed the fact that three department of education employees were involved indicates a lack of adequate fraud prevention but ESA advocates say new guardrails are not needed.

Before arriving into the 21st century, protecting against malfeasance with tax-generated dollars was considered fundamental to good governance. Arguably, voucher programs violate this basic tenet.

CHARTERS

Oklahoma Supreme Court Justices Appear to Question Constitutionality of Religious Charter School

Public funds should be for public schools, not religious schools.

From Jan Resseger

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court of the state of Oklahoma heard oral arguments in a case filed by Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond versus the Oklahoma Virtual Charter School Board, which approved a religious charter school last June. The case challenges whether the establishment of St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual Charter School can be legal under the provisions of the Oklahoma Constitution. If the school is permitted to open in August, it will be operated by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa.

The Oklahoman’s Murray Evans reports that during oral arguments on Tuesday, “Drummond told justices he sued the virtual-school board ‘to defend the separation of church and state’… Drummond said Article 2, Section 5 of the Oklahoma Constitution was at the heart of his case: ‘No public money or property shall ever be appropriated, applied, donated, or used, directly or indirectly, for the use, benefit, or support of any sect, church, denomination, or system of religion, or for the use, benefit, or support of any priest, preacher, minister, or other religious teacher or dignitary or sectarian institution as such.'”

There are two issues being tested in two cases challenging the establishment of St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual Charter School: (1) protecting children from a charter school’s imposition of religious practice in violation of the constitutional protection of religious liberty, and (2) ensuring that government is not sponsoring charter schools that can select students according to the school’s religious affiliation or discriminate against students whose LGBTQ status (or other characteristic) may violate church strictures.

Indianapolis charter school seeks to go private so it can accept vouchers

From Chalkbeat Indiana*

An Indianapolis charter school with a checkered track record wants to become a private school that accepts students who use state vouchers.

The Genius School, a K-6 school on the city’s east side, is petitioning the State Board of Education for accreditation as a non-public school. State law requires private schools that accept vouchers to be accredited by the State Board of Education or a recognized accreditation agency.

The board has the item on its agenda for a meeting on Wednesday.

Following a meeting of the school’s board of directors on Thursday, Genius School Head of School Shy-Quon Ely II confirmed that the school is exploring its options as a “non-public” school.

The move is the latest attempt by the school to stay open despite its rocky history. It would allow the school to operate without the oversight of a separate entity — its charter authorizer — tasked with holding the school accountable. The Genius School’s decision also comes as the number of students eligible for and using private school vouchers has grown dramatically in the state.

KEEP RELIGION OUT OF SCIENCE CLASSES

New Law Allowing Religion into Science Classrooms Is Dangerous for Everyone

Religion belongs in Sunday School...or private schools. Public schools must teach science, not religious dogma.

From Scientific American

I grew up a creationist in the rural southeastern U.S. I am now a scientist, educator, wife, mother and person of faith. Regardless of whether you practice religion, you should fight to prohibit the teaching of nonscientific alternative ideas in science classrooms and use your vote and your voice to prevent the inclusion of religious beliefs in public education. A recently signed law in West Virginia illustrates why.

I often hear lamentations about the removal of God from public schools. These sentiments are based on a misinterpretation of the principle of the separation of church and state. In the U.S., religious beliefs and practices are protected and situated in their rightful place within people’s homes and communities so that individuals can choose what to teach their children regarding religion. Kids can still pray whenever they wish, gather with their peers, create faith-based groups or even nondisruptively practice their faith in school. Separating state and church means young people cannot be compelled to engage in religious actions by someone in a position of power, such as a teacher, administrator or lawmaker. Separation of church and state is as critical to people of faith as it is to those who do not practice faith traditions. The protection of personal religious freedoms was a vital component of the foundation of our nation.

On March 22 West Virginia governor Jim Justice signed a bill that purports to protect the ability of the state’s public school educators to teach scientific theories. There is no actual problem that the new law would solve, however; none of its supporters produced a teacher who plausibly claimed to have been oppressed. But the legislative history of the bill, known as Senate Bill 280, makes it clear that its real aim is to encourage educators to teach religiously motivated “alternatives” to evolution. As introduced, SB 280 would have expressly allowed the teaching of “intelligent design” in West Virginia’s public schools.

FWCS--TEACHER JOB FAIR

Fort Wayne Community Schools seeks teachers at job fair

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Aspiring Fort Wayne Community Schools educators could get an interview with a principal this month just by showing up at North Side High School.

The district will host a teacher job fair from 3:30 to 6 p.m. April 16 at the school, 475 E. State Blvd., as it seeks to fill about 100 vacancies for next academic year.

The number of openings isn’t unusual, said Kody Tinnel, human resources manager of strategic projects. Compared to this time last year, he said Wednesday, “the need is about the same.”

FWCS employs more than 4,000 people, including nearly 2,000 teachers, according to its website.

Special education and English language-learner positions are the areas of highest need, Tinnel said, but openings include “a little bit of everything.”

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

**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 28, 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 future of the United States depends on an educated and empathetic citizenry. It requires us to share a sense of common purpose and recognize our common humanity. It requires an environment that allows every child to thrive and see themselves included in the American story. It requires quality public education. Full stop.

"A historic battle to save this institution and the very idea of good public schools has been underway for some time. It is now intensifying. Attention must be paid." -- Dan Rather and Elliot Kirschner in The Battle To Save Public Education

SAVING PUBLIC EDUCATION

Dan Rather and Elliott Kirschner: The War to Destroy Public Education

NEIFPE was formed in 2012 to help support and defend public education in northeastern Indiana. Our Mission Statement (see the rh column on our full blog page) states our opposition to privatization which has increased over the last couple of decades through the actions of the Indiana General Assembly.

It may sound paranoid, but it's hard to watch what's happening and not think that the goal is the destruction of public education.

From Diane Ravitch

Dan Rather and Elliot Kirschner wrote in their blog Steady about the importance of saving public education from the forces trying to destroy and privatize it. They remind us and the general public that public schools unite us; privatization is inherently divisive. It is ironic that the red states are implementing voucher plans as the evidence about the failure of vouchers and the null effects of charter schools grows stronger...

It is back to school. Students of all ages flock to campuses and classrooms. Fleeting memories of summer are quickly replaced by tests and textbooks.

Getting into the swing of a new semester has always included an adjustment period, but this is a particularly difficult time for many of our nation’s students and their parents, guardians, teachers, and others entrusted with the education of young minds.

...Few institutions in American life are as essential to the continuation of our democracy as the public schools. In a time of ascendent autocracy, attacks on our schools — how they are run, what they teach, what books they have in their libraries — are among the most pernicious, pathetic, and painful assaults on the health of our nation.

Another Day, Another Voucher Study…

One way the Indiana legislature is damaging public education is by diverting public funds meant for public schools into the pockets of private/parochial and charter school operators. We've mentioned before on this page that the state constitution mandates the General Assembly to support only one school system...the public one. Our legislature is funding three school systems with the money meant for one...and it's not helping our students.

In 2011, when then Governor Mitch Daniels pushed his voucher plan through the legislature, the call was to help poor kids "escape" from "failing schools" (defined as schools with low test scores). Now that we know charters and private schools don't do any better job of educating children -- the main problem is poverty -- the talking points have changed to focus on "choice."

Yet the "choice" is with the school, not the parents. Any private school in Indiana can refuse to allow your child to attend if their test scores are too low, if their parents don't conform to their ideal, if you can't afford to provide transportation, if the students themselves don't conform, or any other reason they can drum up to ensure that only the "right kind" of students attend their school. Public schools accept all students.

From Sheila Kennedy

Okay–I know it’s just one more time beating that horse (an animal quite probably dead by now…), but I can’t resist. Brookings has just issued yet another study confirming the educational downsides of voucher programs.

The study was prompted by the recent expansion of voucher programs and “education savings accounts,” (ESAs) which are functionally the same thing–the use of public money to allow parents to send their children to private schools. That expansion has occurred primarily in states that voted for Trump in 2020, which should be a clue that these programs are based on ideology; their proponents simply ignore that pesky inconvenient thing called evidence.

...This study confirms a number of the findings of previous research: for example, that after expansion of a voucher program or implementation of an ESA, pop-up schools immediately appear, many of which will close rather quickly, and that existing private schools raise their tuition.

The study notes that a decade of research has confirmed that vouchers reduce student academic achievement. Brookings cites studies from Louisiana and Indiana, among others, that found quite substantial declines in student test scores. (Indiana’s pathetic legislature simply ignored the fact that Indiana’s voucher program had demonstrably failed to perform as promised. In its recent session, the legislature made the program available to virtually all of Indiana’s schoolchildren, and is now promoting it heavily.)

SCHOOL LIBRARIES ARE DISAPPEARING

Where Have School Libraries Gone?

Steven Singer makes the case for saving school libraries.

From Gadfly on the Wall Blog

The School Library Journal and the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reported:

“Between the 1999–2000 and 2015–16 school years, the NCES reports that the profession lost the equivalent of more than 10,000 full-time school librarian positions nationwide. That translates to a 19 percent drop in the workforce, from 53,659 to 43,367. The most rapid declines happened from 2009–10 to 2013–14. The decline slowed from then to 2014–15; but resumed larger losses in 2015–16, the latest data available.”

We see school libraries being closed in Philadelphia, Boston, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, etc. A 2016 report in The Guardian indicates how serious the problem is worldwide:

“Libraries should be a right in schools. We must give pupils the opportunity to go to a quiet place to do extra study or to choose a book to read. It is particularly important to children from deprived areas. Opening a library door helps children open their mind. For many, books are too expensive and a library allows students to borrow them.”

The problems is often one of priorities. Districts would rather spend billions on technology than libraries. However, both are important. Schools should not have to choose. They should make more diligent decisions about which technologies are most essential instead of buying every new techno-fad with huge promises and no track record.

PRAISE FOR WENDY ROBINSON

Robinson's professionalism drew the praise of her peers – and her parent

Karen Francisco who now lives in Littleton, Colorado, retired as editorial page editor of The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette in 2021. In this op-ed she remembers former Fort Wayne Community Schools superintendent, Wendy Robinson who died last week. (The full article is available to subscribers of the Journal Gazette.)

By Karen Francisco in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

One of the first challenges Wendy Robinson faced when she was appointed superintendent of Fort Wayne Community Schools came from a school board member who didn’t like the way the district taught reading.

At-large member Kurt Walborn’s criticism of the reading curriculum was well intentioned, of course. His young son, diagnosed with dyslexia, had struggled to read until Walborn sought out a new approach. The frustrated father ran for school board and became a passionate advocate for the one-on-one tutoring technique he wanted implemented at FWCS.

Today, as school boards across the nation are disrupted by right-wing members intent on banning books, challenging public health mandates and unearthing anything that smacks of social-emotional learning, a board member targeting reading instruction seems almost quaint. But it was in writing the story about the standoff between the new superintendent and Walborn that I developed a true appreciation for Robinson’s commitment to students.

While sympathetic to Walborn’s concerns, she insisted that the district would not drop the investment and promise of its comprehensive literacy program for a single, focused reading instruction method.

“Just as he thinks Reading Recovery doesn’t work for all kids, I feel his program won’t work for all students,” she said at the time. “I’m not out to prove I’m right and he’s wrong. Every year, we are going to do our research. We can’t stay stuck in the same methods if they don’t work.”

THE SCIENCE OF READING OMITS SOME SCIENCE

The science that’s missing from science of reading laws

Background knowledge is crucial to comprehension. Without comprehension, children aren’t really reading no matter how well they can use phonics to sound out words.

From Chalkbeat*

In the long-running reading wars, proponents of phonics have won.

States across the country, both liberal and conservative, are passing laws designed to change the way students are taught to read in a way that is more aligned with the science of reading.

...But there has been much less attention paid to another critical component of reading: background knowledge. A significant body of research suggests students are better able to comprehend what they read when they start with some understanding of the topic they’re reading about. This has led some academics, educators, and journalists to call for intentional efforts to build young children’s knowledge in important areas like science and social studies. Some school districts and teachers have begun integrating this into reading instruction.

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

**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. The next posting of In Case You Missed It will be on September 11, 2023. Thank you for your support of public education.

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In Case You Missed It – June 5, 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 reality of what DeSantis and Moms for Liberty are doing is now clear to everyone: With a combination of lies, misinformation, and intimidation, they want to create an America where it’s easier for a white supremacist to ban a book than it is for a Black child to read a poem." -- The Unprecedented Newsletter Blog

FLORIDA'S ATTACK ON PUBLIC EDUCATION GOES NATIONAL

Today we look at Florida Governor Ron DeSantis's attack on public education. Along with his right-wing legislature, DeSantis has declared an all-out war on learning.

The three following stories focus on Florida's attack on public education and learning in general.

First, the Scientific American Editorial Board reviews Florida's anti-science agenda.

Then, Diane Ravitch and the Washington Post write about the move to restrict access to poetry by Amanda Gorman, whose poetry was featured in the 2021 Inauguration of President Biden.

Finally, before moving on to other topics, we present an article about how red states across the country (including Indiana) are following Florida's lead.

“Scientific American” Editorial Board Warns About DeSantis “Anti-Science Agenda”

From Diane Ravitch

Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, is running for president of the United States on a record of anti-diversity, pro-censorship, white nationalist measures. He has targeted education, LGBTQ rights and access to health care, and should he prevail, his anti-science candidacy stands to harm millions of Americans.

DeSantis has banned books in school libraries, restricted teachers’ classroom discussions about diversity, prohibited high school classes that focus on Black history and people, politicized college curricula, limited spending on diversity programs, ignored greenhouse gas reduction in climate change policy, diminished reproductive rights and outlawed transgender health care.

The governor has refused all evidence that masks are safe and help prevent COVID, appointed a surgeon general who advised against vaccines, and continues to paint science and evidence as restrictions to the freedom of Floridians. Instead of limiting the role of government, as he claimed in his fight against masks, he is expanding it to selectively promote a particular religious agenda.

Florida: The Banning of Amanda Gorman’s Poem Is Shameful

From Diane Ravitch

At this point, it should be obvious that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s culture-war directives are designed to encourage parents to indulge in book purges for sport. Precisely because removals have become so easy, lone right-wing actors are feverishly hunting for offending titles, getting them pulled from school libraries on absurdly flimsy grounds, sometimes by the dozens.

A new turn in the explosive saga involving the poem that Amanda Gorman read at President Biden’s inauguration underscores the point. DeSantis is now defending a Florida school’s decision to restrict access to “The Hill We Climb” — a move that has become a national controversy.

Book-Banning in Florida Is Contagious in Other Red States

From Diane Ravitch

...While efforts to ban books or censor education material have come up sporadically over the years, critics and supporters credit DeSantis with inspiring a new wave of legislation in other conservative states to regulate the books available in schools — and sometimes even in public libraries.

The number of attempts to ban or restrict books across the U.S. last year was the highest in the 20 years the American Library Association has been tracking such efforts.

EveryLibrary, a national political action committee, said it’s tracking at least 121 proposals introduced in state legislatures this year targeting libraries, librarians, educators and access to materials. The group said 39 of those proposals would allow for criminal prosecution.

STATE TAKEOVERS DON'T WORK

State Takeovers Don’t Work. How About Radically Increasing Support for Communities and Kids Instead?

Last week we learned that full funding is important for schools to be successful.

This week, another aspect of failed (so-called) "reform" falls by the wayside...state takeover of schools.

It turns out that those Republicans who, in the 80s and 90s, called for "local control" were right. Local schools work better when states fully fund the state's school systems and let the local school boards do their job.

From Public Voices for Public Schools

When the state of Rhode Island took over the Providence Public School District in 2019, there was little reason to believe that outcomes for the struggling school district would meaningfully improve. In Detroit, student proficiency in both math and English dropped after the state took charge of the schools. Schools under state control in Memphis showed significantly less improvement than schools over which the city retained control. And in New Orleans, often touted as an example of a state takeover that worked, more than half of schools in the all-charter district earned D or F ratings in 2022.

The evidence that state takeovers don’t work keeps mounting. The most comprehensive study to date, published in 2021, found that, on average, state takeovers had no observable positive impact on student achievement. In fact, state takeovers are correlated with a drop in student ELA scores.

FWCS TEACHER HONOR ROLL

Teacher Honor Roll: Fort Wayne elementary school educator attuned to students' needs

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

A Fort Wayne Community Schools teacher has been nominated for Teacher Honor Roll in recognition of her caring and attentiveness. Her profile follows.

Sarah Schoolman
School: Lincoln Elementary

Grade teaching: Fourth grade...

What advice would you give to your students as they plan for their future? One piece of our classroom mission statement is “Learn all we can!” I challenge my students to become lifelong learners and to never turn down an opportunity for learning. Whether that’s reading a book, taking a class, or spending time with someone whom you can learn from – take advantage of every bit of learning you can!

**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 – September 7, 2021

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 new Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column to be informed when our blog posts are published.

THIS WEEK

The fights about the pandemic and masks are still going on. Truthfully, it sounds suspiciously like the "Am not! Are too!" arguments on the third-grade playground.

Mask supporters say the science is in and it is clear that masks help to stop the spread of COVID-19. Those who deny the efficacy of masks do so because they don't believe the government or the science community. Fortunately, the vast majority of Americans support mask-wearing. Meanwhile, the anti-mask state of Texas leads the country in child COVID deaths with 59.

GETTING SCIENCE WRONG

Research Finds Masks Can Prevent COVID-19 Transmission in Schools

Here's the science. Believe it.

From Duke Today, a hub for news produced around Duke University

The widespread use of masks in schools can effectively prevent COVID-19 transmission and provide a safe learning environment, two Duke scholars said Wednesday.

Danny Benjamin, M.D., and Kanecia Zimmerman, M.D., were co-chairs of the Duke-led ABC Science Collaborative, which issued a new report Wednesday showing that North Carolina schools were highly successful in preventing the transmission of COVID-19 within school buildings.

The report found in part that masks effectively prevented COVID-19 transmission even without physical distancing in schools and on buses.

Benjamin and Zimmerman spoke to reporters Wednesday in a virtual media briefing. Watch the briefing on YouTube. Read a news story about the collaborative's findings on Duke Health's website.

Quarantine rules eased by governor

Governor Holcomb has provided an incentive to school boards to use mask mandates to keep schools open. That way, local school board members get the threats from crazy anti-maskers instead of the governor.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Gov. Eric Holcomb on Wednesday loosened quarantine rules for symptom-free students, teachers and staff in close contact with a positive COVID-19 case – but only if schools mandate masks.

The new approach provides a key incentive to districts struggling with the mask question while also not being a mandate. Fort Wayne Community Schools and Northwest Allen County Schools have mask requirements while East Allen County Schools and Southwest Allen County Schools have mask-optional policies.

Holcomb issued a new executive order running through September, and the Indiana Department of Health also issued a COVID-19 control measure. It says schools and day cares with mask requirements “consistently followed throughout the day” do not have to quarantine students, teachers and staff who are close contacts and aren't showing COVID-19 symptoms.

NACS reinstates mask mandate

Northwest Allen County Schools fights back against the minority who want to threaten students (and their families) with COVID-19. It was ugly.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

An unruly audience on Monday criticized the three school board members who voted to reinstate Northwest Allen County Schools' mask mandate. The requirement takes effect Wednesday.

“Revote! Revote! Revote!” mask mandate opponents chanted after two hours of public comment.

Member Steve Bartkus, who opposed the mandate along with President Kent Somers, was game.

“Let's just revote then,” Bartkus said to cheers.

His attempts to rescind the measure supported by Vice President Liz Hathaway and members Kristi Schlatter and Ron Felger weren't successful.

...Dr. Matthew Sutter, the Allen County health commissioner, issued an advisory last week encouraging school boards to revise optional masking policies. He recommended universal masking in K-12 schools.

Some Indiana schools aren’t reporting COVID cases as pediatric hospitalizations spike

So if we don't report any COVID cases does that mean we don't have any?

From Chalkbeat*

More than 1,200 of Indiana’s nearly 2,200 schools are not reporting their COVID-19 cases to the state this school year, health officials said Friday, as positivity rates and hospitalizations for children rise across the state.

In a news conference, State Health Commissioner Kris Box emphasized that these schools are out of compliance with Indiana code, which requires institutions like schools to report cases of COVID-19 in group settings.

This helps the state determine the number of students who need to be quarantined in order to reduce transmission of the disease.

GETTING HISTORY WRONG

We know just enough history to get it wrong

Diane Ravitch reprised this post by Steve Hinnefeld. She commented, "Frankly, it’s astonishing to hear enemies of public health compare themselves to courageous fighters for justice and equality."

From School Matters

At a central Indiana school board meeting last week, an anti-mask parent said, “This is our Martin Luther King moment to say no,” a reporter tweeted. It wasn’t clear what he meant, but it seems unlikely King would have downplayed the seriousness of a virus that’s hit Black Americans especially hard.

At the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, King famously talked about his dream that someday his children would “not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” Today, Republican legislators – in Texas and elsewhere – twist those words to try to prevent students from learning hard truths about America’s racial history, which they label “critical race theory.” They say that teaching about race is “divisive” and could make white children uncomfortable.

But Martin Luther King Jr. wasn’t the person they make him out to have been. He engaged in repeated acts of nonviolent civil disobedience and was jailed 29 times. He spoke out against racism, poverty and violence. Three-fourths of the American public disapproved of him, especially after he brought his anti-racism campaign to the North and began speaking against the Vietnam War.

Image by Tumisu from Pixabay

PA: The CRT Flap Continues To Metastasize

While the COVID-19 mask wars are going on, there's still the problem of the people who don't want to acknowledge the history of America. As Peter Greene shows in this Curmudgucation piece, school boards are hoping to soon be able to ban the teaching of anything they don't like.

From Curmudgucation

Clarion County, despite containing a state university, is a mighty conservative place. Back in March, the County Commissioners, for no particular reason, declared themselves a "Second Amendment County." Now, one of the county's school districts has let itself get played by the "critical race theory" flap.

Parents showed up to complain about the possibility of that race stuff sneaking into schools, supporting the board's newly-minted policy. The policy follows the usual template, borrowing language that is being used in these policies all across the country, such as

The teaching concepts which impute fault, blame, a tendency to oppress others, or the need to feel guilt or anguish for persons solely because of their skin color, race, sex, or religion are prohibited in the district as such concepts violate the principles of individual rights, equal opportunity, and individual merit underpinning our constitutional republic and therefore have no place in training for administrators, teachers, or other employees of the district

That same language was adopted by the Mars School District, located just a bit north of Pittsburgh (and in California, and Alabama, and so on...). While the basic policy seems to be getting copied and pasted all across the US, folks feel free to add some details as well. In Mars, there was an addition of patriotic patriotism ("We will teach our children to honor America..."

Because these policies also come with a built-in "This is totally not saying that teachers can't teach controversial stuff, but only, you know, factual stuff and only all sides presented," there's also a list of Stuff That Can't Be Taught.

Further, this policy shall ensure that Social Justice and unsubstantiated theories of any kind, including but not limited to Holocaust Denial Theory, 9/11 Theory, The 1610 Project, and Critical Race Theory, are not advocated or presented to students as part of any curriculum unless approved in advance by the board.

LEFTOVERS FROM LAST WEEK - GETTING TESTING WRONG

While colleges go test-optional, Indiana juniors prepare for a new SAT requirement

What constitutes a high enough score on the SAT for a student to graduate from high school? We don't know that information because passing scores -- cut scores which are arbitrary -- haven't been "determined" yet.

Tests do not represent what students have achieved in high school. Tests are a reflection of a student's family background more than their achievement. Colleges around the country are finally beginning to understand how tests are poor instruments in determining school success. Indiana should, too.

From Chalkbeat*

Under the new graduation framework, the state will meet its federal accountability requirements through the SAT, chosen for its utility to college-bound students, according to the architect of the changes, Rep. Bob Behning.

But students who don’t meet the still-undetermined benchmarks have other pathways to graduation, such as completing an approved apprenticeship or demonstrating proficiency on a military aptitude test.

The state Department of Education will determine passing score rates — or cut scores – next summer.

Preparations are already underway for students and teachers ahead of the March test date in schools and through a bootcamp run by Purdue University’s GEAR UP, a federally funded program designed to provide students a path to college.

The latter offered a bootcamp to about 500 Indiana teachers last month to train them to prepare students for the test.

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

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette has changed its online access and is now 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/

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In Case You Missed It – July 26, 2021

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 new Follow Us By Email box in the right-hand column to be informed when our blog posts are published.

CHARTERS

Charter schools haven't provided the innovations promised. When charters were new they were going to be the labratories for discovering new ways to teach. Charters were going to fill in the gaps that public schools missed. After more than two decades, however, the charter school experiemnt has provided no new innovations and no increased performance when compared to public schools (and neither have private schools collecting state funds through vouchers).

Charters have provided hundreds of scandals and millions of lost tax dollars that should have gone to real public schools.

Read below how charter operators are whining about minimal regulations to help stop the flood of embezzlement, cheating, and the theft of America's tax dollars.

In addition, there's more evidence that charters choose their students, increase segregation, and don't perform better than public schools.

House Democrats Want to Bar Federal Funding of For-Profit Charter Schools, and Charter Lobby Goes Wild

From Diane Ravitch

The federal government has handed out billions of dollars to start new charter schools. The federal Charter Schools Program program started small, in 1994, with less than $10 million. At that time, based on hope, not evidence, charter schools, it was believed, would be more innovative, more accountable, and better than district public schools. Twenty-six years later, we know more, and we know that many charters fail, few are accountable, and precious little innovation has come from them. But the funding for the program has grown and grown. The federal government is now the biggest funder of new charters. Under Betsy DeVos, most of the annual appropriation of $440 million was doled out to charter chains, like KIPP and IDEA, not to teacher-led schools or mom-and-pop schools.

In 2019, the Network for Public Education issued reports based on federal data, showing that one of every three federally-funded charters closed soon after opening or never opened at all. (See here and here.) NPE also issued a report recently about the for-profit management companies that enrich themselves and their shareholders with public money intended for instruction.

Chris Lubienski: The Deceptive Language of School Choice

From Diane Ravitch

Chris Lubienski is a professor of education policy at Indiana University. He wrote recently with Amanda Potterton and Joe Malin about the deceptive rhetoric of school choice rhetoric. Thirty years ago, the school choice movement boasted that charters and vouchers would “save poor children from failing public schools.” They claimed that private schools outperform public schools. Now we know that school choice does not produce academic improvement for students; that many pick their students and discriminate against the children they don’t want. “Success” for school choice means expansion of charters and vouchers, not better education for students.

Last week, Forbes magazine published an article on how “School Choice Keeps Winning.” Interestingly, “winning” isn’t defined as helping kids learn. Indeed, the article avoids that issue because evidence indicates that school choice is actually failing on that front. Instead, Forbes uses the term to celebrate the expansion of choice programs in many GOP-led states.

TESTING

Economists Worry Covid-19 May End Standardized Testing Altogether

Could the silver lining of the COVID-19 cloud be that we finally end the misuse and overuse of standardized testing?

From Gadfly on the Wall

The sky is falling for standardized test enthusiasts.

Economists Paul Bruno and Dan Goldhaber published a paper this month worrying that the Coronavirus pandemic may increase pressure to end high stakes testing once and for all.

The paper is called “Reflections on What Pandemic-Related State Test Waiver Requests Suggest About the Priorities for the Use of Tests.” It was written for The National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER) – a Walton funded, pro standardized testing policy concern.

It’s easy to see why Bruno (who also taught middle school) and Goldhaber (who did not) are distressed.

Last school year President Joe Biden forced districts nationwide to give standardized assessments despite the raging Covid-19 pandemic.

DECADES OF HOSTILITY TO PUBLIC SCHOOLS

White Evangelicals Want to Destroy the Public Schools

In 1979, Jerry Falwell (Sr.) said,

I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!

His philosophical and religious descendants are still trying to damage public education.

From Diane Ravitch

Katherine Stewart’s new book The Power Worshippers describes the hostility of evangelical Christians to public schools. I reviewed her book along with two others in the New York Review of Books. One of the most interesting insights in her book is that white evangelicals at first tried to mobilize public opinion to protect the tax-exempt status of segregated private schools and universities. When that didn’t work, they found another issue that did: abortion.

But they have never given up on their goal of public funding for religious schools that were free to discriminate and the elimination of public schools.

SELF-SERVE EDUCATION PLANS

Education and the Self-Service Thunderdome

Curmudgucation blogger Peter Greene comments about the increase in self-service stores...specifically at Walmart...and how privatizers (including the Walton family) are working hard to make America's education system "self-serve."

From Curmudgucation

I'm not opposed to self-service on principle. I do not, for instance, miss gas station attendants at all (you youngsters can go ask your parents or grandparents what they were). Rather than explain to someone what I want and then wait for them to do it, it's far simpler to just get out of the car and do it myself. But what value is added by having me do my own swiping across a bar code reader?

In fact, as we're having the chance to view across many businesses these days, "self-service" is a pretty euphemism for "reduced service."

It's the dawn of retail thunderdome, in which the retailer provides customers with virtually no service at all except for a building, a marketplace in which to hunt, as best your able, for what you are able to find. Need help? Holler fruitlessly at the surveillance cameras. Can't find what you want? Not their problem--you're welcome to choose from whatever they decide to put on the shelves. Customer, you are on your own.

If this model seems vaguely familiar, that's because it's the same model at the heart of modern school choice. It is self-service education, an "ecosystem" in which customers are on their own, without aid or assistance or even anyone to make sure that the available options are safe. Nobody around to watch out for their interests but themselves. Caveat your own emptor, buddy. Here's a tiny voucher to help you feel as if the community hasn't abandoned you entirely, but once we hand you that voucher, we wash our hands of you.

IGNORING HISTORY, IGNORING SCIENCE

The Venn diagram of those who are against teaching evolution, those who are against teaching facts about the racial history of the United States, those shouting the loudest against the "tyranny" of having students wear masks during a pandemic, and those refusing to get vaccinated, is nearly a perfect circle.

America - Exceptionalism or Ignorance?

From Live Long and Prosper

Many of the same science-denying activists and legislators who are trying their best to "protect" American school children from climate change, public health efforts, and evolution, are now trying to "protect" students from actual history which doesn't always present the "American Experience" in a good light.

Instead of teaching children that the freedoms so eloquently described in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution should be taken as goals, not reality...that such freedoms were not available to women, native people, and hundreds of thousands of Africans and their descendants enslaved throughout the entire country, they want us to focus on "American Exceptionalism" -- that the USA is somehow God-ordained to lead the world morally as well as militarily. Somehow, if we hide the ugly side of our history it will be ignored and forgotten.

...There is a concerted effort on behalf of many Americans to hide the truth from our children...the truth about science, and the truth about our history. How "exceptional" can America be when we're sending our children to school and encouraging them to remain ignorant?

Ohio Governor Signs Bill To Ban Schools and Universities from Requiring COVID Vaccinations

From Diane Ravitch

America, we have a problem. The COVID is spreading, largely through a highly contagious variant called Delta, but only 48.3% of the population is vaccinated. More than 600,000 Americans have died. In five states—Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Wyoming, and Louisisna—less than 36% are vaccinated.

Despite the resurgence of this deadly disease, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed legislation barring schools and universities from excluding unvaccinated students. The results are predictable: more hospitalizations, more deaths.

GOP legislators say they prefer to wait until the vaccines have received full approval from the Centers for Disease Control. The three in wide use-Moderna, Pzifer, and J&J-were approved on an emergency basis by the CDC and have been highly effective.

SUMMER HELP FROM FWCS

FWCS partnerships help students

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Placing FWCS teachers at various community sites – the Euell A. Wilson Center, Parks and Recreation centers, YMCA locations and other Boys and Girls Clubs facilities – for two four-week sessions is a first for the 30,000-student district, said Matt Schiebel, a secondary education director.

The effort helps broaden FWCS' summer reach to children not participating in Jump Start, the district's academically focused K-8 summer program at Blackhawk and Memorial Park middle schools, Schiebel said.

The school district's renewed focus on summer learning followed a nontraditional school year marked with remote learning, quarantines and other challenges presented by the coronavirus pandemic.

**Note: The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette has changed its online access and is now 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/

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