In Case You Missed It – March 18, 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

"Believing the pandemic brought harmful policy shifts, causing school quality to decline, [Hanushek] sees abandoning standardized test accountability as number one on his pantheon of bad moves. Teachers unions pushing for their preferred education policies seems wrong to Hanushek. After all, what do teachers know about good education? They are not trained MIT economists, like he is!

"...Learning-loss is not the big danger facing America’s students. The real danger is the likes of McKinsey, NWEA, CREDO and research leaders like Eric Hanushek." -- Tom Ultican in Subterfuge and Learning Loss Baloney.

THE STUPIDITY OF RANKING SCHOOLS BY TEST SCORES

School Ratings and Rankings Cause Educational Redlining and Resegregation

Children, teachers, and schools are more than just the sum of their test scores.

From Jan Resseger

Having attended school in a small Montana town, where we all went to the same middle school and high school, and having parented two children who attended our neighborhood elementary and middle school and came together at our community’s only high school here in a Cleveland, Ohio inner suburb, I prefer the old and more radical solution to the whole problem of school choice driven by metrics published in the newspaper or school report cards. In fact, for the majority of families in the United States, neighborhood schools are still the norm. A system of neighborhood schools embodies the idea that parents’ responsibility is to help their children embrace the opportunities at the school where they are assigned.

As parents when my children were in elementary school, we used the PTA meetings as places to strategize about how we could better support innovations and special programs to make school more fun and challenging for all the students. A district-wide school support agency in our community provides a tutoring program for students who need extra help, and there is a community supported, district-wide music camp for a week in June when the high school orchestra director and his staff, along with a raft of graduates from the high school music program, help students from across the middle schools to prepare for joining the high school band and orchestra. People from across the school district turn out for the concert that culminates the summer music camp.

This kind of community involvement connects parents with the community’s public schools in a qualitative way. When people engage personally with a school, the teachers and the students, parents can learn so much more about a school than any metric can expose.

LEARNING LOSS BALONEY

Subterfuge and Learning Loss Baloney

There is a widespread panic over "learning loss" from the COVID-19 pandemic. Tom Ultican talks us off the ledge...

From Tultican

Crazy pants Eric Hanushek claims COVID “learning-loss” could cost American students $31 trillion in future earnings. He burst onto the education world’s consciousness with his 1981 paper, claiming “there is no relationship between expenditures and the achievement of students and that such traditional remedies as reducing class sizes or hiring better trained teachers are unlikely to improve matters.” This played well with billionaires from the Walton family but had no relationship with reality. Likewise, his January 2024 “learning-loss” claims were straight up baloney.

Learning-Loss Reality

In the summer and fall of 2020, NWEA, McKinsey, CREDO and others produced unfounded analysis of looming learning-loss disaster caused by school closures. Since there was no data, summer learning-loss was used as a proxy, a bad one. In 2019, Paul von Hippel’s investigation threw great doubt on the 1982 Baltimore study that powerfully supported summer learning-loss belief. He showed using modern testing analysis, learning-loss was doubtful and in some cases, students gained during the summer. This data, used to trumpet a national education crisis, had no validity.

Unfortunately, billionaire-financed organizations, out to undermine public schools, do not care.

CLOSING SCHOOLS DOES NOT FIX THEM

John Thompson: The Failure of “Fixing” Schools by Closing Them

Did school closures help students learn?

From Diane Ravitch

John Thompson, historian and retired teacher in Oklahoma, explains what happened when “reformers,” led by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, advocated for school closures.

He writes:

When non-educators watch Abbott Elementary, the television comedy, they are likely to find it hilarious, but I suspect it takes a teacher to fully understand the accuracy of its portrayal of the weird corporate reforms imposed on Philadelphia schools. But, recent research helps explain why many of even the most fervent advocates for test-driven, competition-driven school turnarounds now acknowledge their failures (even though they don’t apologize for them.).

The third-year premiere of Abbott gave a shout out to the respected journal, Chalkbeat. And, Chalkbeat is again reporting on failed turnarounds in Philadelphia, Tennessee, and elsewhere, as well as why former supporters of school takeovers are repudiating the reward-and-punish method for rapid, transformative change.

Chalkbeat analyzed the Philadelphia mandate, the 2010 Renaissance Initiative. It “strove to turn around about 10% of Philadelphia’s low-performing district schools by ceding them to charter organizations that promised to do better.” By 2023, however, “the Renaissance charter schools as a group mostly performed worse in standardized tests for elementary and middle schoolers than the district averages.”

Donna Cooper, executive director of Children First explained, “The goal was to prove that charters would work with any kid, not just about parents who were highly motivated to enter a lottery, and to show that a neighborhood school turned over to a charter organization would do better than if run by the school district.” But, “As far as I can tell, the data didn’t result in that.”

KENTUCKY GOP PUSHES VOUCHERS

Kentucky: GOP Passes Bill to Nullify Parts of State Constitution to Allow Vouchers

From Diane Ravitch

State Senator Tina Bojanowski, teacher and legislator (@TinaforKentucky), tweeted:

KY House passes HB2, a bill to change our Constitution to allow vouchers and charters by creating an amendment that allows future legislation to disregard SEVEN sections of our Constitution. @kyhousedems

FORT WAYNE AREA NEWS

Fort Wayne Community Schools takes 'giant step forward' with planned early childhood center

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Fort Wayne Community Schools’ quest to build an early childhood center on the city’s southeast side marked a milestone this week that should fuel the district’s fundraising efforts for the $14.7 million project.

The school board on Monday approved options to purchase two adjacent parcels totaling 3.5 acres at the northeast intersection of Queen Street and Werling Drive near McMillen Park from the city of Fort Wayne Department of Redevelopment and Village Premier LP.

The 26,700-square-foot facility will be part of Village Premier, a multiphase mixed-use project that broke ground last year, said Joe Giant, the city’s redevelopment administrator. He told the Fort Wayne Redevelopment Commission on Monday afternoon that the early childhood center will help combat the lack of child care in the city’s southeast quadrant.

Fort Wayne Community Schools prepares weapons detection expansion

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

The Fort Wayne Community Schools board agreed Monday to spend $1.4 million on weapons detection systems, but the district likely won’t expand its security screenings to every middle and high school until next academic year.

That’s because the Ceia Opengate weapons detection systems likely won’t be ready until late this academic year, said Matt Schiebel, executive director of safety and community partnerships.

Implementation is also dependent on having student advocates in place, because the devices require additional personnel, he said, referring to a new staff position funded by the Safer FWCS referendum.

FWCS piloted the weapons screening device at South Side High School, where no guns have been found this year, Schiebel said.

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

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

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In Case You Missed It – January 23, 2023

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

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

THIS WEEK

The new year brings new legislative sessions. Most of this week's stories (and probably for the foreseeable future) are about attempts by Republican-led legislatures to destroy public education -- whether intentional or not -- by transferring public money to private schools.

We start with the Network for Public Education's Carol Burris who writes about the impact of the pandemic.

PANDEMIC, PRIVATIZATION

What Happened to the 1.3 Million Children Who Stopped Going to School?

School privatizers want you to believe parents are abandoning the public system, but that’s not the whole story.

From The Progressive Magazine

Between the fall of 2019 and 2021, 1.3 million children left the American public school system, according to Education Week. For those who care about the welfare of children, this sharp decline is worrisome. We know that enrollment declines were the steepest in large cities, where our neediest students reside and where COVID-19 was more devastating.

How many have dropped out, working in the underground economy or languishing at home without schooling? The honest answer is that there is no comprehensive accounting of where (or if) all of those 1.3 million children are now being schooled.

However, what should be a national concern centered on the welfare of children has instead become promotional material for those who wish to eliminate public schools. The libertarian right and its allies, including the Center for Education Reform, have chalked up the decline to a story of unhappy public school parents exercising school choice. But is it?

EDUCATIONAL SAVINGS ACCOUNTS -- EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE

Don’t Be Fooled. Education Savings Accounts are a Taxpayer-funded ATM for Private and Homeschool Parents

The latest story from Public Voices for Public Schools by Nick Covington - Don’t Be Fooled. Education Savings Accounts are a Taxpayer-Funded ATM for Private and Homeschool Parents.

Nick exposes how the Iowa GOP seems intent on following the Arizona voucher model, creating a program that will end up as a similarly universal slush fund of public money for well-off parents who already send their kids to private schools. Read Nick’s entire story on Public Voices for Public Schools

From Public Voices for Public Schools

With re-election in the rear-view mirror, the Republican trifecta in Iowa has made its intentions clear: ending public education as we know it is on the 2023 legislative agenda. Among the tools for this would-be unmaking is an enormous Education Savings Account (ESA) scheme re-branded by Governor Kim Reynolds as “Student First Scholarships.” While Reynolds and the GOP legislature will undoubtedly assure Iowans that eligibility and cost will be limited – by placement, by income, or a capped number of applications – the end-game is always the same: universal eligibility, at exorbitant cost, that turns public money into a taxpayer-funded ATM for private and homeschooling parents.

Just look at Arizona, where a decade ago “Empowerment Scholarship Accounts” were sold to taxpayers as a limited-eligibility program intended for students with special needs. The very next year, the program was expanded to include students without special needs and those attending public schools that had been poorly rated by the state. Further expansions followed nearly every year until this summer, when then Governor Doug Ducey signed “the nation’s most expansive school voucher law,” making every K-12 student in the state eligible for an ESA.

Drowning Public Education in the Bathtub

More on the Arizona ESAs...

From RestoreReason.com

...they’ve been chipping away at the amount available to district schools by the continuous expansion of privatization options.

Guess you’d have to be living under a rock to have missed the battle over vouchers (Empowerment Scholarship Accounts) during the past decade. ESAs were enacted in 2011 and GOP lawmakers have been steadily expanding these vouchers over the years. In 2022, (I’m really cutting to the chase here), they were finally successful in enacting a universal expansion. Not only are students no longer required to have previously attended a district school to qualify for a voucher, but there are no guardrails or caps and no transparency or accountability for private schools. And, only two months into the new law, AZ DOE had received nearly 30,000 filings for the vouchers, totaling an immediate hit to the state fund of $210M. The Joint Legislative Budget Committee only budgeted $33M for the program for the 2022-23 school year, but some now estimate the bill could approach as much as $500M.

Senate panel to consider ‘universal voucher’ bill

Not to be outdone by Arizona and possibly Iowa, the Indiana General Assembly is set to expand our state's voucher program to ESAs. This would put the money for public education into private hands with no fiscal or educational oversight. In essense, the state is stripping the public schools of needed funds. "But the public schools aren't doing their job?" And they won't be able to without full funding.

Parental choice or money laundering? After you read this article, check out the next item on our blog today.

From School Matters

An Indiana Senate committee will consider a proposal this week for a universal private school voucher program that would be open to any elementary or secondary-age student in the state.

The legislation, Senate Bill 305, would accomplish the goal by expanding Indiana’s education scholarship program. The program was created 2021 with little fanfare and was initially limited to students who qualify for special education. SB 305, which would extend it to all students, is on the agenda for a Senate Education and Career Development committee meeting at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Under ESA programs – more commonly called education savings accounts – the state sets up an account for each qualifying student and provides it with funding for private school tuition and other educational expenses. Under SB 305, each student’s account would receive the same per-pupil funding that the state provides to local public schools. On average, that’s about $7,500.

VOUCHERS: JUST ANOTHER MONEY LAUNDERING SCHEME

Diane Ravitch in Conversation with Josh Cowen

From Diane Ravitch's Intro: "...70-80% of the students who use vouchers were never enrolled in public schools. Many return to the public schools. The political pressure for vouchers comes from politicians and parents seeking a subsidy for students already attending private and religious schools. The claim that they will help “save kids from failing schools” is a hoax to cover up the real purpose of vouchers: to transfer funds to private and religious schools."

From Diane Ravitch and the Network for Public Education

The Network for Public Education invites you to join us for a video conference with NPE President Diane Ravitch. Diane’s guest is Josh Cowen, Professor of Education Policy at Michigan State University. Dr. Cowen has been studying school choice, teacher labor markets, and other policies for nearly two decades, and works directly with policymakers, stakeholders and media professionals to understand the consequences of various education reforms.

INDIANA GENERAL ASSEMBLY WOULD MAKE TEACHERS LGBTQ+ POLICE

Indiana bill would require teachers and schools to report student requests to change names, pronouns

Chalkbeat believes that the Indiana General Assembly will avoid "some of the controversial social issues that defined the last legislative session..." That remains to be seen, but one social issue Hoosier legislators -- actually, the Republic supermajority -- are not avoiding is gender equality. LGBTQ+ students, and especially transgender students, are seriously at risk. The party of "small government" is determined to intrude government into what ought to be personal family issues.

From Chalkbeat: Indiana*

Gender identity and transitioning are the focus of a number of bills filed by Indiana lawmakers in the 2023 session, including one that would require teachers and schools to disclose if students request to change their names or pronouns.

The focus on transgender youth this year builds on similar themes from the 2022 session, when lawmakers passed a controversial bill to ban transgender girls from girls’ sports. At the same time, lawmakers appear to be steering clear of bills on other controversial social issues in schools that have sparked previous disputes in Indiana and elsewhere.

The proposed legislation is causing alarm in some camps, including the ACLU of Indiana, which has called for action to stop the “record number of anti-LGBTQ bills” in the Indiana legislature, referring to them as a “slate of hate.”

*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: 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 12, 2022

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

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

THIS ISSUE OF ICYMI

"The Nation's Report Card" supports the need for teachers in the classroom. Charters continue to spread in Indianapolis and more Indiana high school students can earn college credits.

We start with two articles about the importance of public education...

DO WE NEED PUBLIC EDUCATION?

Are Schools A Waste Of Time And Money? Only If You Have A Time Machine.

From Peter Greene in Forbes

As part of a New York Times series of essays headed “What is school for,” economist Dr. Bryan Caplan suggested that “school is for wasting time and money,” a case that he has made before in a 2019 book entitled The Case Against Education.

His main argument in the NYT essay boils down to, “people don’t remember most of the academic material they learned in school.” There are three problems with his argument— problems that are shared by some other critics of schooling.

First, the argument that adults don’t remember much of what they learned in school (a version of the student complaint “When will we ever use this stuff”) is that it requires the use of a time machine to buttress a kind of retroactive utility.

In Game 6 of the 2021 World series, the Atlanta Braves won 7-0 over the Houston Astros. Those runs were scored in the 3rd, 5th and 7th innings. So, clearly, the time spent letting the Astros bat was wasted, nor was there any need to play any of the other innings in which nobody scored. It was, an economist might argue, a waste of time and money to play all those parts of the game that did not obviously affect the final outcome.

The problem, of course, is that we only know which parts of the game affect the outcome when the game has been played. It’s easy to say of students “that only a tiny fraction of what they learn durably stays in their heads.” Even if that is true (and I have some questions about how well we can measure what “durably stays”), it is impossible to know what that tiny fraction will include before the fact.

Anya Kamenetz: The Attack on Horace Mann’s Historic Vision of Public Schooling

NPR education reporter, Anya Kamenetz, wrote this for the New York Times. She explains why our democracy needs public schools.

From Diane Ravitch

For the majority of human history, most people didn’t go to school. Formal education was a privilege for the Alexander the Greats of the world, who could hire Aristotles as private tutors.

Starting in the mid-19th century, the United States began to establish truly universal, compulsory education. It was a social compact: The state provides public schools that are free and open to all. And children, for most of their childhood, are required to receive an education. Today, nine out of 10 do so in public schools.

To an astonishing degree, one person, Horace Mann, the nation’s first state secretary of education, forged this reciprocal commitment. The Constitution doesn’t mention education. In Southern colonies, rich white children had tutors or were sent overseas to learn. Teaching enslaved people to read was outlawed. Those who learned did so by luck, in defiance or in secret.

YOUR RELIGIOUS BELIEFS SHOULD NOT AFFECT MY CHILD’S EDUCATION

Mom in Texas Shuts Down Extremists and Joins the Honor Roll

A mom in Texas stands up to those who are bringing the culture wars to school board meetings.

From Diane Ravitch

“We know that books are continuing to be purged. We know student library aides have been banned. We know that a group of non-parents have pushed for these removals and continue to do so,” she began. “So, being a taxpayer does not grant special privileges over students, staff, and parents. I do not want random people with no education background or experience determining what books my child can read, what curriculum they learn, and what clubs they can join.”

“Just because you can get up at every meeting and rant and rave does not give you authority over my child’s education.”

“Your personal religious beliefs, people in this room and on this board, should not have an effect on my child’s education either. Our school are not to be used for personal political agendas and our children are here for education, not religious indoctrination,” she told the room as she looked various board members and attendees directly in the eye.

TEST SCORES AND THE PANDEMIC

Why NAEP Scores Plummeted During Pandemic

For a while during the pandemic, teachers were heroes. They adapted to online teaching. They worked hard to learn new techniques and to try to meet the needs of their students while avoiding illness. Now, when the already misused standardized tests show that students didn't learn as well virtually, teachers are being blamed. There doesn't seem to be any acceptance that teachers weren't to blame for the pandemic, or for the state-wide responses and requirements. Why can't teachers work miracles?

From Diane Ravitch

...students need to have human contact with a teacher and classmates to learn best. Virtual learning is a fourth-rate substitute for a real teacher and interaction with peers.

Tech companies have told us for years that we should reinvent education by replacing teachers with computers. We now know: Virtual learning is a disaster.

The crisis we should worry about most is the loss of experienced teachers, who quit because of poor working conditions, low pay, and attacks by “reformers” who blame teachers at every opportunity.

CHARTERS SPREAD IN INDY

Two charter schools seek to enter Pike Township, which has no charters

Whenever charter schools startup it's always good to ask several questions.

• Does the location need more schools?
• Are there enough students to support another school?
• Are the public schools fully funded?
• Does the local school board have any control over the new schools?

Indianapolis is falling into the charter school trap which has failed miserably elsewhere.

Privatization continues...

From Chalkbeat-Indiana*

Two charter high schools within Indianapolis Public Schools boundaries are hoping to expand to Pike Township, an area that currently has no charter schools.

Purdue Polytechnic High School, the growing charter school that opened its second Indianapolis campus inside Broad Ripple High school this year, hopes to open a third Indianapolis high school in August 2023, according to a letter of intent submitted to the mayor’s Office of Education Innovation (OEI). The office authorizes charter schools in Indianapolis that are approved by the Indianapolis Charter School Board.

Believe Schools, which operates Believe Circle City High School in the Crown Hill neighborhood, also hopes to open Believe: Pike Academy in August 2024.

Both schools hope their expansion into Pike Township will help serve students of color. They would become the only physical charter schools in Pike Township if approved by the Indianapolis Charter School Board. The Indiana Charter School Authority and OEI, which oversee nearly all of the charter schools in Marion County, have not previously authorized charters in Pike.

COLLEGE CORE EXPANDS

College Core expands to 141 schools

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Access to a program that lets students earn up to a year of college credits while in high school has expanded by 57 schools, including five in northeast Indiana, state education officials said Wednesday.

This brings the total number of schools offering the Indiana College Core to 141, a 68% increase, according to a news release from the Indiana Commission for Higher Education and the Indiana Department of Education.

"As we celebrate the 10th anniversary of the core, high schools and higher education providers have now come together like never before to expand access to this incredible opportunity for our students," said Katie Jenner, Indiana secretary of education.

*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 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 – November 8, 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

Racism is in the news, again...state laws against teaching about race, book banning, elections which focus on race in school...It's all here. We also highlight a new charter school in Minnesota, along with some articles left over from last week.

WHITE SUPREMACY, BOOK BANNING, AND RACE IN SCHOOL

I Triggered Bill Maher By Writing About Standardized Testing and White Supremacy

Commedian Bill Maher didn't like what Steven Singer wrote...chances are he didn't actually read the post...

From Gadfly on the Wall Blog

...Maher disagrees with what I wrote.

In fact, the very idea annoyed him as a prime example of namby-pamby liberals taking their agenda too far.

What did I write in the article?

Only that standardized testing is a tool of white supremacy.

In fact, that was the title of the article, which seems to be about as far as Bill read because he ignored any arguments, facts or historical citations in the piece.

On his show, “Real Time with Bill Maher” this week, he posted the title of the article and the graphic that appeared with it when it was republished on commondreams.org.

What he didn’t post was my name. I am the author, after all, but I guess that’s not important.

The crucial bit was how triggered Bill was by my assertion.

By connecting such allegedly alien concepts as standardized testing and racism, Maher thinks I devalued the meaning of “white supremacy.”

Replying to Moms for Liberty: What about These Books?

Peter Greene reviews his twitter conversation with Moms for Liberty and gives them some idea about how to ask their questions politely.

From Curmudgucation

This is my reply to Moms for Liberty...

...banning a book is huge, huge deal. Having it pulled from a school library in an attempt to keep it away from students is a huge, huge deal. Not only that, but it doesn't work. The good people of Boston banned Huckleberry Finn (too much friendliness between a white boy and a Black man), and they turned it into a best seller. I guarantee you that the books that have turned up on these current banning lists are now being sought out by the students [Moms for Liberty] wanted to protect.

I see a huge irony in your current movement. Many of your folks are also anti-vax and anti-mask, arguing that simply letting students be exposed to the virus will not be a problem because natural immunity and their own strength will protect them. And yet when it comes to "these books," the approach is to prevent exposure at all costs.

More Rough Days Ahead For Public Ed

Critical Race Theory in public K-12 schools was the main issue in the Virginia elections even though it's not being taught in any K-12 schools. The point is that those parents against talking about race are "hurt" because the history of the United States isn't perfect. We wonder if they think we ought to not teach the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution because both documents contain racist references...

From Curmudgucation

...it seems reasonable to assume that a whole bunch of GOP politicos have, in the wake of the Virginia governor's election, will conclude that a winning strategy is to treat public education as a punching bag. Filled with indoctrinators! Naughty books! Race stuff! A bunch of commie lesbians turning your kids trans! A scam to make the unions rich! And, of course, they suck at educating children!

We'll hear it all from various candidates for the next three years because, as of right now, it appears to work. There are, of course, alternative explanations (e.g. Virginia has, 11 out of 12 times, elected a governor from the party out of national power). But this seems like a simple one, and it's easy to do, and the ground troops are already in place in the form of a hundred anti-CRT/masks/vax/closed schools groups. Brandishing the dirty book can be the 21st century's wave the bloody shirt. I'm afraid we're in for three years (at least) of calls for banning books and regulating teacher speech.

Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman Seizes Control of the State Board of Education

From Jan Resseger

On Friday, two members of the Ohio State Board of Education, including the board’s elected president, were forced to resign because the all-powerful president of the Ohio Senate opposed their vote to retain an anti-racism resolution passed by the state board last year following George Floyd’s murder and not to retract that resolution.

The two who were forced to resign were in the minority when the state board voted in October to replace last year’s Resolution 20. Here is how, yesterday, the Plain Dealer‘s editorial board summarized the original Resolution 20: “The resolution… condemned ‘in the strongest possible terms, white supremacy culture, hate speech, hate crimes and violence in the service of hatred’ and said the board itself would work to ‘engage our members in open and courageous conversations on racism and inequity’ while offering training ‘to identify our own biases.’ The resolution directed the Ohio Department of Education to examine curriculum and standards to see if any changes were needed to ‘eliminate bias’ and ensure accuracy, and to encourage and support school districts, parents and communities in examining their own practices.'”

CHARTERS

Midwest Dispatch: Minnesota Launches a Pro-Police Charter School

A police run charter school...what could go wrong.

From The Progressive

Should cops be allowed to start their own charter school using public funds? This is the question facing residents in Ramsey County, Minnesota, the second largest county in the state.

Ramsey County is home to Sheriff Bob Fletcher, the purveyor of a self-styled, Cops-like YouTube channel called “Live on Patrol.” Fletcher started the livestream in late July 2020, in the middle of ongoing uprisings over the murder of George Floyd. His alleged intention was to build more trust between law enforcement officers and the public, though he has been accused of uttering racist comments during his broadcasts.

Now, Fletcher and other Ramsey County Sheriff Department staffers have co-founded a charter school. The School of Leadership for Public Service, which is set to open next fall, would enroll students in grades six through ten and has raised a host of red flags.

LAST WEEK'S LEFTOVERS

Diary Of A Socialist Indoctrinator

From Peter Greene in Forbes

One vision of what a teacher's journal might be like in a parallel universe as envisioned by Donald Trump Jr.'s critique.

Illinois: Parent Groups Sue to Remove COVID Safety Measures

From Diane Ravitch

Organized parent groups in Illinois are suing school boards, the state board of education and the Governor to remove mask mandates and other safety measures from the schools.

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In Case You Missed It – October 18, 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

This was a busy week. Take some time to read about testing, funding, privatization, teaching, and more.

TESTING

US News, Please Knock It Off

Standardized test scores, according to Alfie Kohn, are a "remarkably precise method for gauging the size of the houses near the school where the test was administered."

Measuring the "quality" of schools by ranking them by test scores does nothing but tell you the economic conditions in the school's neighborhood.

From Curmudgucation

I'm sure from their perspective it makes sense to extend the brand by ranking elementary and middle schools. This is just as bad an idea as you think it is, and raises some big questions.

How do they do it?

I first guessed a system that used darts, a blindfold, and the broad side of a barn. But no--it's worse than that.

Scoring was almost entirely rooted in students’ performance on mathematics and reading/language arts state assessments.

So, standardized test scores from 2018-2019. But also demographics worked in by soaking the test results in a sophisticated stew of argle-bargle fertilizer, because US News employs data strategists instead of journalists...

AFRAID TO TEACH ABOUT RACISM?

If You’re Afraid Kids Will Learn Racism is Bad, Perhaps Public School is Not For You

Do we teach history, or do we cover up the past in order to hide our shame?

From Gadfly on the Wall Blog

Some people are terrified that kids will learn about racism.

Especially white people.

Especially that white KIDS might learn about it.

How would that affect a white child’s self-esteem, they say.

Imagine learning that racism existed in the United States.

A country founded by white people.

(Taken from brown people.

Made largely profitable by the enslavement of black people.)

Wouldn’t that make white kids feel bad?

It’s a strange question.

NOBEL PRIZE FOR SCHOOL FUNDING

The latest Nobel Prize winner: Researcher who helped show money matters for schools

Yes. Money matters.

Ask any educator. We know that money helps when it comes to teaching and learning. Some of us, like author Jonathan Kozol, have been saying it for decades.

They ask, “Can you really solve this kind of problem with money? Is money really the answer?” I always think it's an amazing question. As though it's bizarre to suggest that money would be the solution to poverty. As though it's a bizarre idea that it would really take dollars to put a new roof on Morris High School in the Bronx and get the sewage out of the schools in East St. Louis; that it would take real money to hire and keep good teachers so they would stay for a lifetime in the schools that need them most; that it would take real money to buy computers. But that's what I always hear.

Perhaps this will get some of our friends to vote for legislators who care to fund our Hoosier schools.

From Chalkbeat*

The last decade has seen a wave of new studies suggesting that more money really does lead to better schools. The research has influenced court fights over school funding and reshaped the debate about what resources schools need.

Earlier this week, David Card, a Berkeley economist who paved the way for those conclusions with his own school funding research in the 1990s and by popularizing the methods used in later studies, won the Nobel Prize in economics.

By emphasizing the power of “natural experiments” to establish cause and effect, Card revolutionized not only economics, but education research, too.

PRIVATIZATION - CHARTERS

Two posts about the charter school industry from Diane Ravitch

Parent: How I Was Scammed by a Charter School’s False Promises

From Diane Ravitch

Katherine Kozioziemski tells the sad story of her bad experience with a charter school that promised the moon, but turned into a grand financial scam. Her post appears on a new site sponsored by the Network for Public Education called “Public Voices for Public Schools.”

She begins:

I knew something was seriously wrong as soon as I saw the budget of the charter school my kids attended. As a member of the school site council, I was on the budget committee. Now, as I looked at the numbers, I could see for myself how dire the situation was. The school was paying five times fair market value to lease a property from a shell company created by the former CEO of the charter management company. We were on a fast track to bankruptcy.

Burris and Rees Debate For-Profit Charter Schools

From Diane Ravitch

Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, debated Nina Rees, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, about whether for-profit charter schools should receive federal funds.

Here is Burris’s opposition to the proposition: https://fredericksburg.com/opinion/forum-2-no-put-students-before-profits/article_d559232f-aeb1-5b7e-84f3-14f4de78c2aa.html. Burris was the main author of the NPE report, Chartered for Profit: The Hidden World of Charter Schools Operated for Financial Gain.

PRIVATIZATION - VOUCHERS

Kentucky: Judge Strikes Down Voucher Program as Unconstitutional

A win for public education in Kentucky.

From Diane Ravitch

Circuit Court Judge Phillip Shepherd agreed with the plaintiffs that the Educational Opportunity Account Program violates provisions in the Kentucky Constitution that prevent tax dollars from going to private schools.

Shepherd cited a constitutional provision that states, “No sum shall be raised or collected for education other than in common schools until the question of taxation is submitted to the legal voters.”

THANK YOU TEACHERS

Best teachers have lessons for fellow educators

Teaching isn't easy...

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Today we are facing a teacher shortage unlike anything we have ever seen, of epic proportions. It is not that we do not have qualified teachers or are not producing teachers or even that too many have retired. In my heart of hearts, I believe it is because we have forgotten to say thank you to all who teach or have taught.

Most of the time, I write about the politics that influence public education. But this time, I just wanted to take a deep breath and say thank you.

Thank you to all who teach. Thank you to those great teachers who go to work every day not knowing what that day holds. Teachers who may never win an award for spending that extra hour preparing a special lesson that will reach every child in your room. Teachers who face criticism they do not deserve. Teachers who lose sleep trying to think of one more way to make a difference in the life of a student who has failed in every other school she has attended, but is trying in her new school. Teachers who have been told they are the best a principal has ever worked with but they are afraid to believe it because it's easy to get discouraged when there is still one more paper to grade and one more assessment to plan.

THERE'S A TEACHER SHORTAGE IN THE U.S. AND FORT WAYNE

Paychecks and balances

Who could have predicted that demonizing teachers, cutting salaries and benefits, and reducing job security might have made their job a slightly less attractive option?

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Staffing shortages at Fort Wayne Community Schools have district officials considering hybrid instruction schedules, with some students alternating between in-person and virtual learning. The district is struggling to find bus drivers, food service workers and teachers – both substitutes and full-time teachers. As of Thursday, FWCS had job postings for more than 50 certified teaching positions.

The state's largest district isn't alone. A new survey by Indiana State University's Bayh College of Education finds 96.5% of participating districts reported teacher shortages. It's the highest number of vacancies in seven years of surveying school corporations, according to the Terre Haute's Tribune-Star. Of 290 Indiana districts, 199 responded to the survey.

The percentage of school districts reporting shortages increased by 9% over the previous year.

LEFTOVERS

This was a busy week...here's more...

Public Education Advocates
Public school defenders fight - and switch
Public school advocates switch parties

Restricting the history curriculum
Texas, Education And The Holocaust
The ultimate result of preventing history from being taught

Ohio State Education Board Repeals Anti-Racism Resolution: Part of National Wave of Rage and Controversy in Legislatures and Boards of Education
More about ignoring history so little white children's feelings aren't hurt

Time to end the tests
Could the era of high-stakes tests be coming to an end?
More learning and less test-prep

For-Profit schools in Sweden
Sweden: Why Do For-Profit Schools Survive Despite Overwhelming Public Opposition?
Sweden is one of the few nations that allow for-profit schools to be funded by the government. That's a bad idea.

Mask up, schools
Masks on, schools advised
Allen County Health Commissioner tells local schools to mask up.

On teaching
Is Teaching An Art Or A Science? Well...
Teaching is an art...or is it a science?

*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 – October 4, 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

While pundits worry about "learning loss" due to the pandemic, Steven Singer writes about the mental and emotional stress of the pandemic on students. "...this is not what teaching middle school used to be like."

It's more important than ever to protect and promote public education. Below are articles discussing charter schools, dark money, school choice, the national teacher shortage, and the continued attack on public education by Critical Race Theory opponents.

In local news, a Northrop High School teacher (FWCS) is an Indiana Teacher of the Year finalist.

IMPACT OF THE PANDEMIC

My Students Haven’t Lost Learning. They’ve Lost Social and Emotional Development

It's not just "learning loss." Who is watching out for the mental health of America's public school students? Why teachers, of course.

From Gadfly on the Wall Blog

After 18 months of a pandemic, even when they aren’t infected with disease, children still are suffering tremendously from the effects of Covid-19.

Adolescents are dealing with higher rates of anxiety, depression, stress, and addictive internet behaviors.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports that children between the ages of 5 and 11 visiting an emergency department because of a mental health crisis increased 24 percent from April through October of 2020 compared to the previous year. Among 12- to 17-year-olds, the number increased by 31 percent.

Suicide attempts among 12- to 17-year-old girls increased by about 50 percent over winter 2019, according to the CDC.

And these numbers are probably under reported since these increases took place at the height of a pandemic when many people were hesitant to seek medical attention.

As usual, the place where these issues are most visible is our public schools.

SCHOOL CHOICE, PRIVATIZATION

Why charter schools are not as ‘public’ as they claim to be

Charter schools use public funds but aren't as "public" as people might think.

From The Conversation

Proponents of charter schools insist that they are public schools “open to all students.” But the truth is more nuanced. As an education policy researcher – and as author of a new book about charter schools I wrote with fellow researcher Wagma Mommandi – I have discovered that charter schools are not as accessible to the public as they are often made out to be.

This finding is particularly relevant in light of the fact that charter school enrollment reportedly grew at a rapid rate during the pandemic. Specifically, according to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, enrollment increased 7% from 2019-20 to 2020-21. The organization says that is the biggest enrollment jump in a half-decade.

In our book, we identify and describe 13 different approaches that charters use to bring certain types of students in and push other kinds of students out.

How I Got Scammed by My Charter School’s False Promises

One reason we have public education is so that parents can send their children to a local school and not have to worry about getting scammed. Public schools and school boards are answerable to the public.

From Public Voices for Public Schools

I knew something was seriously wrong as soon as I saw the budget of the charter school my kids attended. As a member of the school site council, I was on the budget committee. Now, as I looked at the numbers, I could see for myself how dire the situation was. The school was paying five times fair market value to lease a property from a shell company created by the former CEO of the charter management company. We were on a fast track to bankruptcy.

How did a charter school created by parents and teachers morph into a series of shell corporations and a money-making scheme so complex that the Securities and Exchange Commission would ultimately step in? The story begins nearly two decades ago with budget cuts. Like districts all over California, the Livermore schools had been forced to make deep cuts, including shuttering two beloved magnet schools. The Livermore Valley Charter School, which opened in 2005, emerged from a grassroots desire to provide art, music and science—all of the things our district schools were being forced to eliminate.

Bipartisan School Choice Is Over

Democrats for Education Reform and the GOP are splitting up on school choice.

From Curmudgucation

Many observers have followed this dissolving partnership (Jennifer Berkshire has covered it exceptionally well-- try here and here) looking at the causes. Part of the issue has been that Democrats were always the junior partners; school choice has been near and dear to conservative hearts for generations, while Democrats were brought into the fold more recently. Often they were simply Democrats of convenience, as typified by Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), a group whose creation hedge funder Whitney Tilson described thus:

“The real problem, politically, was not the Republican party, it was the Democratic party. So it dawned on us, over the course of six months or a year, that it had to be an inside job. The main obstacle to education reform was moving the Democratic party, and it had to be Democrats who did it, it had to be an inside job... In fact, our natural allies, in many cases, are Republicans on this crusade, but the problem is not Republicans. We don’t need to convert the Republican party to our point of view…”

Democrats came into school choice on the theory that choice would bring improved education results and lift people out of poverty. Technocrats thought disruption--moving fast and breaking things--would revolutionize education. But none of that happened. Years--decades--passed and test scores didn't rise and charter schools didn't provide genius new education ideas and the gaggle of education amateurs running about didn't actually have any great successes and poverty was not erased.

UnKochMy Campus: Send a Message

Here's something you can do, now.

From Diane Ravitch

Each year in October, UnKoch My Campus coordinates a National Day of Action that focuses on building public awareness of the impact of the Koch network within institutions of education and our broader democracy. This year, we will take collective action and reach out to Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, requesting that he address the issue of dark money in education, all the way from Kindergarten through college. Our K-12 and Critical Race Theory reports have shown us the role dark money’s influence has in destabilizing our democracy, advancing climate denial, and prioritizing private profits over people and our planet.

Join us October 28th and 29th! We want to make sure Secretary Cardona knows about the impact of the Koch network and how they are leveraging our institutions of education to spread climate disinformation and destabilize our democracy.

Click the link below and we’ll do the work for you. Simply enter your information and we’ll add your name and return address to the postcard. SIGN UP FOR A POSTCARD BEFORE OCTOBER 15th.

FWCS TEACHER IS INDIANA TEACHER OF THE YEAR FINALIST

Northrop High School teacher among top 3 finalists for Indiana Teacher of the Year

From WANE.com

Lisa Clegg is an English language learner (ELL) teacher at Northrop High School in Fort Wayne. As an educator, now in her ninth year of teaching, she is passionate about student connections, community and the importance of making sure every voice is heard. Clegg is innovative in her methodology and values student achievement both inside and outside of the classroom. During her time at Northrop High School, Clegg’s ELL students have nearly doubled district average gains in language acquisition. Additionally, she has implemented an ELL peer mentor program that ensures each student in her program has the tools to succeed.

NEWS FLASH: TEACHING IS HARD

School superintendent asks: ‘Who would want to be a teacher right now?’

Teaching has always been a harder job than the public thinks. Just because someone, as a child, sat in class and observed teachers doesn't mean they understand the depth of commitment needed to last in an education career. And now, during the pandemic, it's even harder.

From the Answer Sheet

Teachers have had to endure revolting public comments at school board meetings, floggings via social media and even being called “losers” by national leaders. This kind of treatment needs to end immediately.

Teachers are indispensable to our society, but sadly, they are not treated as such. We have to not only defend our teachers, but praise them and elevate them to a level commensurate with the value they add to our communities. I recognize that the vast majority of folks in our community agree, and they do respect, appreciate, and recognize the value they provide to our community.

Teaching is hard work. Unless you have done it yourself, you may not be able to relate entirely. I am not, by the way, pitting teaching against any other profession. I wouldn’t attempt to draw those comparisons unless I had actually walked in those shoes. And yet, some will do just that even if they’ve not spent a single day teaching in a classroom.

SEARCHING FOR CRT

Illinois: Mysterious Group Asks Schools if They Have Materials Included in “1619 Project”

The purge has started.

From Diane Ravitch

I received the following alarming notice from a friend in Illinois. Some organization wants to know whether schools in the state have any articles or books cited in “The 1619 Project.” This looks like the beginning of a McCarthyite witch hunt.

Subject: Interested in the 1619 Project? Work in IL schools and educational spaces? You’ll want to be aware of this. Public school districts are receiving this FOIA notice from a company called LocalLabs, a Chicago-based publisher (of sorts) that sells its FOIA research to news media outlets of all kinds. The librarians I work with are now scrambling with their districts’ attorneys and compliance officers to fulfill this request. I find it interesting that they’ve cherry-picked these particular titles and perhaps you do, too.

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In Case You Missed It – September 27, 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

We ought to have a separate section set aside each week for Peter Greene's Curmudgucation Blog. For the second week in a row, he has two articles among our top reads. This week he writes about the waste of time that is standardized testing, specifically, the SAT, and how schools and school boards are being attacked for "teaching Critical Race Theory."

We also link to articles on how the Indiana General Assembly is discussing lowering the bar on teacher licensing to solve the problem of teacher shortages (which is, to a large extent, a problem of their own making), a unique approach to representation on charter school boards, public schools as a "public good," local economic development in EACS, and some thoughts about the pandemic.

AN AVERAGE DOESN'T ALWAYS MEAN WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS

Almost unlocking a mystery of SAT scores

Standardized test scores are overused, misused, and misunderstood in the best of times. During the pandemic, they are worst than useless. It's time to let them go.

From Curmudgucation

We've spent years marketing the SAT's flagship product to all students (in some states, we've snookered the government into requiring it), so as we add students who might not have been inclined to take the test to go ahead and take it, the average score is affected. That's how the results for every sub group can go up even as the overall average goes down.

Now throw in a pandemic year in which students who are having a rough time just don't take the test, leaving it only to those who are well-buffered from the pandemic (and whose buffering is the same sort of socio-economic background that is an advantage on the test) and voila!! Instant increase in average score.

What we have here is just one more example of why test scores from the pandemic are not worth a thing. They can't be compared to any year, they can't really be normed accurately, and they just kind of mean nothing. But we're still going to be subjected to stories that can't manage to draw a line between two data points.

CENSORSHIP BASED ON "CRITICAL RACE THEORY" IS HERE

Critical Race Theory Panic Continues To Widen Its Aim

Coming (if not already there) to a school board near you -- racist and ignorant ranting and protesting.

From Curmudgucation

There's way more in the list of 31 objectionable books. Spanish and Creole words might be "confusing for children." A fictional Civil War book is naughty in part because it depicts "out of marriage families between white men and black women." Someone objects to a book about Galileo because there is no "HERO of the church" to contrast with their mistakes in persecuting the astronomer. Also, there's too much sexy picture of sea horse mating in a sea horse book.

This is right on par with the York, PA district that "froze" the use of some books (not a ban, nosirree) including books like I Am Rosa Parks by Brad Metzler, a really well-done children's book about her work (he's got a million kid biographies--you can see his work on the PBS Xavier Riddle series). I've read this book to the Board of Directors at least a zillion times, and there seems little to be upset about unless you find it objectionable that a couple of white people are depicted as being mean to her. After student protests (and lots of bad press), York's all-white board reversed the ban.

But this appears to be where we're headed. Anything that parents or random citizens don't like, anything at all, can now be protested or reported to the authorities. Just say the magic words ("critical race theory"). We're talking broad, wide, stormtrooper-caliber aim, and it would be funny if these wild shots weren't hitting real targets, actual live students and teachers.

INDIANA LEG MAKES TEACHING MORE DIFFICULT, THEN COMPLAINS THAT THERE AREN'T ENOUGH TEACHERS

The state or districts? Indiana lawmakers weigh who should have the authority to license teachers

After decades of neglecting, belittling, and doing everything in their power to damage the teaching profession in Indiana, legislators wonder why there's a teacher shortage. Their solution? “Let’s water down the teacher requirements.”

From Chalkbeat*

...John O’Neal, a policy researcher and lobbyist for the Indiana State Teachers Association, warned during public comment that having Indiana’s nearly 300 school districts act as their own licensing bodies could lead to confusion, a lack of uniform standards, and problems with reciprocity across districts.

A teacher looking to move to another district in the state may find their locally issued license invalid, O’Neal said, adding that medical professionals and attorneys are also licensed through a central body.

“We would agree on local control on most issues,” O’Neal said. “When it comes to licensing, there should be one entity.”

Asked by Goodrich if having just one department available to process licenses was slowing down hiring and contributing to shortages, O’Neal said it was likely a minor factor in comparison to others.

“There are other reasons causing a shortage, like pay and benefits, and other things like working conditions … and professional respect that are probably more of a factor influencing those teachers’ job decisions than how fast the process is,” O’Neal said.

INCLUDE ALL STAKEHOLDERS IN DECISIONS

The sacred and the profane: A former D.C. charter school board member calls for change

Here's an interesting call for equitable representation on charter school boards.

From the Answer Sheet

After untold millions of dollars of investment and the creation of scores of schools — there were 128 operating this year — it is time for us to admit that this experiment is not working as it should.

So what must be done?

The District must rethink its charter schools, and more specifically, charter schools must be integrated. “Chocolate City” has been replaced by a city where upper-income White residents and a more diverse spectrum of Black residents exist in equal numbers.

One of the few scalable policies that dramatically improved academic outcomes for Black students was the integration of American public schools in the 1970s and ’80s. The Performance Management Framework that ranks the quality of each charter school should ensure that schools reflect the demographics of the city as it is today, particularly given that charter schools are not constrained by neighborhood boundaries that enforce segregation in traditional public schools.

EACS LOOKS AT SPURRING DEVELOPMENT

EACS pondering backing TIF district

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

The East Allen County Schools board will soon decide whether to support a tax increment financing district proposed in southeast Fort Wayne.

The Fort Wayne Redevelopment Commission approached the school system about creating a residential TIF district at the northeast intersection of Tillman and Hessen Cassel roads.

TIF districts work by capturing property tax revenue generated in a certain area. The funds are then used for improvements in the district, including sidewalks and other public works projects.

Kirby Stahly, an EACS administrator, said the redevelopment commission believes the unimproved land won't be developed for residential housing without the proposed TIF district, and officials further believe more housing in that area of Fort Wayne would spur commercial development.

PUBLIC ED

Public schools 'a common good'

Vouchers for private schools and charter schools drain public money from the public schools. The concept of the "common good" which has been the basis of the nation's public schools has disappeared. In this short editorial, an Indianapolis parent writes about her decision to give up her private school voucher and send her children to public schools.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

I try to get parents to understand that if we defund, undermine or privatize public schools, we're doing a disservice to the majority of parents for whom private schools are not an option. I try to help them see what I finally did: that the decisions we make when it comes to our own children have an impact on everybody else.

All those years ago, that woman at the community meeting warned that we were drifting dangerously away from the idea of a common good. At the time, I couldn't understand what she meant. I do now.

PANDEMIC CHALLENGES STUDENTS

COVID measures straining students: Quiet lunchrooms showing rising need for mental health

Fort Wayne Community Schools works to overcome the disruption and damage caused by the pandemic.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Experts say social connectedness is important to mental health, which is a main priority in the U.S. Department of Education's 2021-22 guide for K-12 schools.

“To create a strong foundation for students' academic success we must prioritize their social, emotional and mental health,” the Return to School Roadmap said.

The challenges children, teens and young adults have faced during the pandemic include changes in routine, disruption of education, missed significant life events and lost security and safety, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Beyond getting sick, many young people's social, emotional, and mental well-being has been impacted by the pandemic,” the CDC said. “Trauma faced at this developmental stage can continue to affect them across their lifespan.”

LACK OF TRUST EXACERBATES PANDEMIC DAMAGE

What do vaccine and mask deniers do when they get sick?

Who should you trust for information?

From Live Long and Prosper

You need to choose who you're going to believe.

Lack of Trusted Authority is Why Covid-19 is Kicking Our Butts The US has only 4% of the world population but nearly a quarter of all Covid cases.

That’s not a coincidence.

In large part, it’s because we don’t know how to combat the virus because we don’t know who to trust.

And the resulting credibility vacuum has enabled unscrupulous politicians, agents of chaos and other charlatans to position themselves as experts.

*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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