In Case You Missed It – October 9, 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

"There is a well-resourced and coordinated effort among far-right institutions to undermine public education—whether that is through misappropriating funds like the legislature did in Mississippi to divert funds to private schools, or to pass burdensome censorship agenda laws that have led to shortages and burdens on teachers." -- Skye Perryman, founder and CEO of Democracy Forward

STANDING UP FOR EDUCATION AGAINST THE FAR-RIGHT

People Power Vs. the Far Right Education Movement

Last week was "Banned Book Week." Just because the week is over doesn't mean that books won't continue to be attacked by closed minds.

From The Progressive

Although book bans are wildly unpopular with American voters, right-wing pressure groups like Moms for Liberty have succeeded in convincing Republican lawmakers to remove titles due to their portrayals of gender diversity or racism. Now that almost all schools have reopened for the new school year, followers of education policy and politics, as well as free speech advocates, are watching closely to see if there will be efforts to pass more of these laws.

Last school year, at least seven states passed ambiguously-worded laws that criminalized school teachers and librarians for exposing students to books that have been deemed as too “obscene.” Governors in two of these states vetoed the new laws, but “[a]nother dozen states considered more than twenty similar bills this year, half of which are likely to come up again in 2024,” according to The Washington Post.

An especially extreme book banning was, the Post reported, “an Arkansas measure that says school and public librarians, as well as teachers, can be imprisoned for up to six years or fined $10,000 if they distribute obscene or harmful texts.” The law was meant to go into effect on August 1, but in July, a federal judge blocked it because it imposed a threat to First Amendment rights. The lawsuit that led to the judge’s ruling came from a broad coalition of authors, educators, and publishers that were represented in part by the progressive legal group Democracy Forward.

EDTECH SURVEILLANCE IN SCHOOLS

Digital Dystopia: The Danger in Buying What the EDTech Surveillance Industry is Selling

Who's watching your child?

From ACLU

Digital Dystopia: The Danger in Buying What the EdTech Surveillance Industry is Selling, an ACLU research report, examines the EdTech Surveillance (educational technologies used for surveillance) industry in U.S. K-12 schools. Using in-depth investigation into industry products, an incident audit, student focus groups, and national polling, this report scrutinizes industry claims, assesses the efficacy of the products, and explores the impacts EdTech Surveillance has on students and schools. The report concludes by offering concrete actions school districts, elected officials, and community members can take to ensure decisions about using surveillance products are consistent and well-informed. This includes model legislation and decision-making tools, which will often result in the rejection of student surveillance technologies.

FORT WAYNE LOCAL NEWS

Yet another Superintendent of the Year award reflects well on Allen County

EACS Superintendent, Marilyn Hissong is one of Indiana Superintendents of the Year.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Allen County’s public schools have been blessed with talented leaders over the years. East Allen County Schools’ Marilyn Hissong is the latest local schools chief to be recognized as among Indiana’s best.

At a joint conference of the Indiana Association of Public Schools Superintendents and the Indiana School Boards Association Sept. 25, Hissong was one of seven top school administrators announced as the 2024 Superintendents of the Year for their geographic districts.

A graduate of East Allen schools, Hissong started her career at the district as a teacher and volleyball coach before moving into administrative roles, according to an EACS news release. After Ken Folks retired in 2017, she was promoted to superintendent from assistant superintendent of elementary education.

“As of July 1, 2023, I had the extreme privilege and honor of completing my 30th year in education, all which has been with East Allen County Schools,” she said in a statement.

She will represent the state in the national Superintendent of the Year competition.

44 to give input on diversity issues at Southwest Allen County Schools

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Representatives from the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism, or FAIR, will facilitate the discussions along with others for secondary students, administrators and Parent Teacher Club presidents.

“The participants are representative of our district and will likely bring differing viewpoints, beliefs and experiences to the sessions,” Fleming said in a statement.

The school board recently approved a $10,000 listening session agreement with FAIR in response to demonstrations and discussions that disrupted classes at Homestead last academic year.

That February day, minority students told The Journal Gazette the viral images of a classmate in blackface were the last straw in repeated mistreatment they’ve endured.

SACS is a predominantly white district. Last academic year, students of color represented 25% of enrollment, with Black and Hispanic students each accounting for 7%, according to state enrollment data. Homestead’s demographics were similar.

Southwest Allen County Schools ready to give in-depth look to 25 advocates

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Twenty-five people, mostly parents, will begin their in-depth look at Southwest Allen County Schools operations in October.

The group is the first class of SACS Education Advocates, a new monthly program that attracted 61 applicants – a response that pleased Superintendent Park Ginder.

“We hope that applications grow and that new leaders emerge from this process, so I am hopeful that we will continue to host this program and help educate our community concerning all facets of what it entails to run a school district and individual schools,” he said by email this week.

Several central Indiana districts inspired the program, which should provide insight about what it takes to serve more than 7,500 students, Ginder has 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 – August 7, 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

"Parents who have children in public schools are satisfied with them, based on their experience. But the general public swallows the negative narrative spewed by the mainstream media and rightwing politicians and thus has a sour view of public schools. This gap in perception has persisted for many years but seems to be increasing as Republican politicians like Texas’s Greg Abbott and Florida’s Ron DeSantis amp up their attacks on public schools.

"Since it is not newsworthy to report that most parents are satisfied with their children’s public schools, the media loves to publish stories about crises and failure. Eventually, it becomes the conventional wisdom." -- Diane Ravitch

PARENTS OVERWHELMINGLY APPROVE OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS -- AGAIN

Matt Barnum: Pundits and Politicians Despair about Public Schools, But Parents Are Happy with Them

As has been true for decades, American public school parents are happy with their children's public schools. Media coverage, on the other hand, means that "those other schools somewhere else" are no good.

If parents are overwhelmingly satisfied with their local schools, where are the terrible schools?

From Diane Ravitch

The pandemic upended many things about American schooling, but not this long-standing trend. In Gallup’s most recent poll, conducted late last year, 80% of parents said they were somewhat or completely satisfied with their child’s school, which in most cases was a public school. This was actually a bit higher than in most years before the pandemic. A string of other polls, conducted throughout the pandemic, have shown similar results.

“Contrary to elite or policy wonk opinion, which often is critical of schools, there have been years and years worth of data saying that families in general like their local public schools,” said Andy Smarick, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank.

THE PLAN TO STARVE PUBLIC SCHOOLS

For at least two decades the Indiana General Assembly and other state legislatures around the country have done their best to divert tax money from public schools to privately run charter schools and private religious schools. If someone had devised a plan to specifically strip public schools of needed funds they could not have come up with a better way to do it. This year, for example, more than 95% of Indiana families are eligible for vouchers to help pay for religious school education.

The voucher plan was originally meant to help low-income students "escape" from "failing" public schools. Most of the students who now use Indiana's school vouchers are not low-income, and many are from families who have been paying for private education without state assistance. For this reason, the Republican supermajority in the Indiana General Assembly has stopped referring to school vouchers as a plan to help low-income students and is now focused on "parental choice." Ironically, when schools are privatized it's the school that has the choice of what students are allowed to attend, not the other way around.

Instead of trying to fund three systems of education (public, charter, private/religious), the General Assembly ought to follow Article 8 of the Indiana Constitution and

...provide, by law, for a general and uniform system of Common Schools, wherein tuition shall be without charge, and equally open to all

Textbook fee elimination will require adjustments

Fortunately, Indiana parents will no longer bear the burden of enormous textbook fees because of the inability (or refusal) of the legislature to fully fund public education.

Unfortunately, the General Assembly hasn't provided enough money to cover the costs of textbook fees for the state's public school systems.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Parents are getting a big win as their kids go back to school this year: no more textbook fees. But as the details unfold, school districts around the state are preparing for a shortfall between what the state is going to give them and what the actual costs are.

Lawmakers, pushed by GOP Gov. Eric Holcomb, did the right thing in the state budget and eliminated those pesky fees, which sometimes cost parents hundreds of dollars per child.

Indiana was one of only seven states to charge the fees even though the state constitution requires a free public education.

But there are questions about whether legislators set aside enough money to make up the costs.

Indiana's near-universal voucher program starts now

Billions of tax dollars are being funneled into the accounts of religious institutions.

From Axios Indianapolis

When Hoosier students start heading back to school this week, it's expected that thousands more will do so at a private school while the state picks up the tuition tab.

Driving the news: State lawmakers earlier this year expanded eligibility for the Indiana Choice Scholarship program, known as private school vouchers, allowing all but the wealthiest Hoosier families to get a voucher to cover at least part of the cost of private school tuition.

Why it matters: The change is expected to balloon participation in the program, diverting millions of public dollars away from public schools and sending the money instead to mostly religious schools that don't have to accept all students or follow the same non-discrimination laws.

How it works...

Evidence suggests voucher schools push out struggling students

Parents don't always get to choose their schools. Private and charter schools often choose their students.

From Steve Hinnefeld in the School Matters Blog

Do private schools push out students who receive state-funded tuition vouchers when they struggle academically? A newly published research study provides evidence that they do.

On the other hand, the researchers don’t find support for the idea that the schools are “cream skimming”: that is, admitting more voucher students who are high-achieving and easier to educate.

The study, “Cream Skimming and Pushout in Students Participating in a Statewide Private School Voucher Program,” was published in the journal Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. Authors are R. Joseph Waddington and Ron Zimmer of the University of Kentucky and Mark Berends of Notre Dame.

...[The researchers] find little evidence that students with low test scores or a history of discipline problems were less likely to enroll in private schools with vouchers. But they do find evidence of pushout: for example, the lowest-achieving voucher students were 3 to 9 percentage points more likely to leave private schools than higher-achieving peers, a “modestly” higher rate.

WHO IS DOING THE INDOCTRINATION?

Florida Adopts Curriculum to Indoctrinate Students in Rightwing Views

The right-wing governor of Florida has complained that public schools try to "indoctrinate" and "groom" students. The opposite is true.

From Diane Ravitch

Gov. Ron DeSantis repeatedly says he opposes indoctrination in schools. Yet his administration in early July approved materials from a conservative group that says it’s all about indoctrination and “changing minds.”

The Florida Department of Education determined that educational materials geared toward young children and high school students created by PragerU, a nonprofit co-founded by conservative radio host Dennis Prager, were in alignment with the state’s standards on how to teach civics and government to K-12 students.

The content, some of which is narrated by conservative personalities such as Tucker Carlson and Candance Owens, features cartoons, five-minute video history lessons and story-time shows for young children. It is part of a brand called PragerU Kids. And the lessons share a common message: Being pro-American means aligning oneself to mainstream conservative talking points.

APPARENTLY, QUALIFICATIONS DO NOT MATTER

Houston: Miles Seeks Approval to Hire Uncertified Principals and Teachers

These folks know nothing about education. They apparently believe that "anyone" can teach. It takes a trained professional to make the thousands of daily educational decisions that teachers make. It's more than just babysitting.

From Diane Ravitch

Mike Miles is asking the Texas Education Agency to allow him to recruit uncertified teachers, principals, and deans. This move follows the Broadie playbook that education experience doesn’t matter. Broadies are known for their love of TFA. Miles may be reaching even lower since uncertified teachers do not require a college degree.

Houston ISD is seeking board approval this month for a waiver from the Texas Education Agency to hire uncertified deans and assistant principals for the next three years.

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

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

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In Case You Missed It – July 17, 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

“While we will continue to use state-mandated ILEARN results to inform our practices, SACS remains steadfast in our commitment to the growth and development of our students in ways that a single test is ill-equipped to measure.” -- SACS Superintendent Park Ginder

TESTING REARS ITS UGLY HEAD AGAIN

Test scores show 31% of Indiana students proficient in math, English

Once again we have proof that test scores measure family income: something we have known for decades. It's time to end the grading of schools (either officially or through the media) using test scores. The legislature will take this as permission to divert even more public money to religious and charter schools.

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Standardized test results released Wednesday show just 31% of Hoosier students are at or above proficiency standards in both English and math.

Allen County ILEARN scores weren’t much better – and were even worse in Fort Wayne Community Schools, where only 18% of test takers were deemed proficient in both subjects, according to scores from the Indiana Department of Education.

Results were 30% in East Allen County Schools and 37% in each Northwest Allen County Schools and Southwest Allen County Schools.

...Local school officials stressed the assessment is one of many tools used to measure student achievement. They noted the scores help inform their practices.

THE RIGHT-WING CONTINUES ATTACKS ON PUBLIC EDUCATION

Moms for Liberty [sic] continues their bullying of public schools, public school boards of education, and public educators. And now they've jumped into the "reading wars" even though they, as a group, know nothing about reading instruction. They reflect a selfishness persistent in America -- "I want what I can get for me, and by extension, my family, and to hell with what's good for society."

MFL Attacks Schools

Heather Cox Richardson: Moms for Liberty Signals the GOP’s Dumb Extremism

From Diane Ravitch

Moms for Liberty, which bills itself as a group protecting children, organized in 2021 to protest mask mandates in schools, then graduated on to crusade against the teaching of “critical race theory.” That, right there, was a giveaway because that panic was created by then-journalist Christopher Rufo, who has emerged as a leader of the U.S. attack on democracy.

Rufo embraces the illiberal democracy, or Christian democracy, of Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, saying: “It’s time to clean house in America: remove the attorney general, lay siege to the universities, abolish the teachers’ unions, and overturn the school boards.” Radical right activists like Rufo believe they must capture the central institutions of the U.S. and get rid of the tenets of democracy—individual rights, academic freedom, free markets, separation of church and state, equality before the law—in order to save the country.

Because those central democratic values are taught in schools, the far right has focused on attacking schools from kindergartens to universities with the argument that they are places of “liberal indoctrination.” As a Moms for Liberty chapter in Indiana put on its first newspaper: “He alone, who OWNS the youth, GAINS the future.” While this quotation is often used by right-wing Christian groups to warn of what they claim liberal groups do, it is attributed to German dictator Adolf Hitler. Using it boomeranged on the Moms for Liberty group not least because it coincided with the popular “Shiny Happy People” documentary about the far-right religious Duggar family that showed the “grooming” and exploitation of children in that brand of evangelicalism.

Politicization of Reading Instruction

Learning to Read in Middle School

From Teacher in a Strange Land

I am fascinated by the increasing politicization—no other word for it—of reading instruction. How to best teach reading has always been contentious in the United States, from the 1950s look-say method featuring Dick and Jane, accused of letting Ivan slip ahead of us in the space race, right up until last week, when Moms for Liberty jumped into the Faux Science of Reading (FSoR) fray.

It’s unclear why Moms for Liberty has aligned itself with the phonics-forward FSoR movement. I get that white parents, accustomed to being first in line for educational goodies, feel threatened when they’re told that other children may be having their needs met first. I know racism is a thread that has run through the entire history of public education in America. I also know that many ordinary citizens feel bewildered and angered by rapidly changing social beliefs and customs around acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community.

A friend of my says you can measure social progress by observing who can be beat up on Saturday night without consequences—Wives and girlfriends? Ethnic minorities? Gentle souls like Matthew Shepherd and Elijah McLain? I hate living in a country where threats align with archaic ideas about who’s in charge of our customs and institutions, including public schools. I hate it, but I understand why it happens.

What I do NOT understand is why a far-right, power-grabbing, deep-pocket-funded group of purported “concerned moms” are choosing to endorse One Right Way to learn the skill of reading.

Indoctrination from the Right

Stephen Owens: What Home Schooling Christians Fear

One persistent right-wing trope is that public schools "indoctrinate" children. Here we read about how the indoctrination is coming from the right wing.

From Diane Ravitch, quoting Stephen Owens

The Washington Post had an article that feels tailor-made to produce schadenfreude in progressive circles. Titled The revolt of the Christian home-schoolers, the reporter detailed the experiences of a couple that chose to send their kids to public school after rethinking their own upbringing in closed, homeschool Christian communities. White evangelical readers will not be shocked by most of what’s written, as I believe most of us worshipped next to families that tsk-tsked mundane cultural experiences such as Halloween, dating, or public education.

Some folks almost gleefully shared the summary quote from the father, Aaron Beall: “People who think the public schools are indoctrinating don’t know what indoctrination is. We were indoctrinated.” After reading the piece I’m struck by my own ignorance of how many people’s experience with homeschooling is similar to the Beall’s. I’ve encountered dozens of (current and former) homeschool families in the churches I attended, the private school where I worked, and even in the real world! (That last part is a joke—homeschooled children become adults and usually don’t want to be labeled with the mean stereotypes of the schooling any more than those people who went to private or public school). The families I’ve encountered fall on a spectrum ranging from “act typical of any public/private school people” to “believed Song of Solomon was smut” but I’ve yet to meet anyone as extreme in their beliefs as who this article is describing.

CUTTING FUNDS FOR OUR FUTURE

House Republicans Propose Deep Cuts to Education, Health, Welfare Programs

Republicans in legislatures across the nation continue to complain about how poor America's public education is...and then do their best to make sure that public education is underfunded. We don't understand...it's their future, too. Perhaps the answer lies in the next article, under the title, "HOW TO BUY A LEGISLATOR."

From Diane Ravitch

House Appropriations Committee Republicans today released the draft fiscal year 2024 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies funding bill, which will be considered in subcommittee tomorrow. The legislation is an assault on education and job training, decimates research funding, and abandons ongoing public health crises.

For 2024, the bill provides $163.0 billion, a cut of $63.8 billion – 28 percent – below 2023. This year’s Republican allocation was the lowest for the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies bill since 2008. The legislation:

• Decimates support for children in K-12 elementary schools and early childhood education.
• Abandons college students and low-income workers trying to improve their lives through higher education or job training.
• Stifles lifesaving biomedical innovation by cutting funding for cancer research, mental health research, and neurological research, and by slashing funding for advanced research projects intended to develop new cures and therapies.
• Surrenders to ongoing public health crises in mental health, opioid use, HIV/AIDS, and health disparities.
• Harms women’s health by cutting programs that support maternal and child health, eliminating programs that provide access to health services and contraception, and adding numerous partisan and poison pill riders related to abortion and reproductive health.

“When 161 House Republicans voted earlier this year to eliminate all K-12 funding at the Department of Education, I was horrified, but that was just the beginning. Now, in the midst of a teacher shortage, they have introduced a bill that would kick 220,000 teachers from classrooms. We are witnessing a widespread attack on public education that should horrify all of us” Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03) said. “Regardless of age or stage in life, this bill means you cannot count on government for any help. It limits women’s access to abortion while stripping maternal health services and making diapers more expensive. It decimates access to preschool, education, and job training. People can only hope they do not get cancer or need mental health services—you will not find support from House Republicans. These awful cuts will make it very hard for people and should not even be considered by this committee.”

Key provisions included in the draft fiscal year 2024 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies bill are below. The text of the draft bill is here. The subcommittee markup will be webcast live and linked on the House Committee on Appropriations website.

HOW TO BUY A LEGISLATOR

Lobbyists spent $20.7 million during session. Here’s which groups spent the most.

One correction we would make to this article. The authors state that voucher funding allows Indiana students to "use state money to attend the school of their choice." The truth is that voucher schools can choose the students they allow through their doors. Public schools accept all children. Private schools are allowed to discriminate.

From State Affairs: Indiana

Lawmakers approved a massive expansion of the state-funded voucher system, enabling roughly 97% of Indiana students to use state money to attend the school of their choice. Likewise, charter schools will receive millions of dollars in future years, in some cases siphoning away money historically dedicated to traditional public schools.

One clue as to why school choice advocates were successful this year could be in the data compiled and recently released by the Indiana Lobby Registration Commission showing how much each lobbyist spent trying to persuade lawmakers between Nov. 1, 2022, through April 30, 2023 — the period covering the most recent legislative session.

Hoosiers for Quality Education, a school choice advocacy group, and its affiliate reported spending a combined $433,754 on lobbying over the course of six months, hundreds of thousands more than any organization spent lobbying for their own interests. Most of that stemmed from spending on a massive public-facing advertising campaign arguing that charter school students were being unfairly underfunded.

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

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

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In Case You Missed It – July 10, 2023

Here are links to the last two 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 best choice is your local public school. It welcomes everyone. It unifies community. It is the glue of democracy." -- Diane Ravitch

July 1 was Diane Ravitch's 85th birthday.

THE SUPREME COURT -- AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

U.S. Supreme Court Bans Affirmative Action in College Admissions. Will It Matter?

From Diane Ravitch

In a decision handed down today, the United States Supreme Court banned the use of race-based affirmative action in college admissions. The six conservative justices voted for the decision, the three moderate-liberal justices voted against it.

The media coverage stresses the likelihood that entrants to elite universities will become more Asian and more white, because of reliance on standardized tests, where those two groups typically have higher scores.

But we do not yet know how much it matters to eliminate official policies of affirmative action.

THE SUPREME COURT -- CHARTER SCHOOLS

Supreme Court Declines to Rule on Whether Charter Schools Are Public or Private

From Diane Ravitch

Matt Barnum, writing in Chalkbeat, reports that the U.S. Supreme Court declined today to rule on whether charter schools are public or private.

The case at hand was a charter school in North Carolina that required girls to wear certain types of clothing. If the school were deemed “public,” its rule would be considered discriminatory. If it were deemed “private,” the school could write its own rules about student dress.

So the question remains open, and the Court of Appeals ruling that the school could not discriminate remains in place.

THE ANTI-PUBLIC SCHOOL RIGHT WING

Politico: Republicans Flock to “Moms for Liberty” Event

From Diane Ravitch

Politico reported on the rising significance of “Moms for Liberty” among leading Republicans. “Moms” are known for their advocacy of censorship, book banning, and hatred for public schools.

BATTLE OF THE MOMS — Moms for Liberty is having a busy month...

How extremists ‘won by losing’

From School Matters

The John Birch Society was “the original Moms for Liberty,” as the headline on a recent episode of “Have You Heard” podcast puts it. Like the contemporary extremist group, it specialized in far-right rhetoric, conspiracy theories and bullying tactics. It appealed to a small but passionate group of true believers.

But there’s one big difference. The Birch Society, in its heyday of the late 1950s and ‘60s, was almost universally considered a fringe group. The news media marginalized it. Popular entertainers mocked it. Republicans, even many conservative Republicans, kept their distance.

Today, by contrast, Republican officeholders and candidates trip over themselves to appeal to Moms for Liberty and similar groups, like Indiana-based Purple for Parents. Indiana legislators fell in line with their agenda of attacking so-called critical race theory, diversity education, and LGBTQ+ youth. Lawmakers banned state funding for Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute based on disproven right-wing claims.

INDIANA -- NEW LAWS

Indiana: More Laws to Stifle Freedom of Thought and Democracy

From Diane Ravitch

These are some of the new Indiana laws that will take effect on Saturday. [Indiana is run by the GOP and they have NO respect for public schools or teachers.] Gary is a poverty area and they cannot vote for their school board members. 87% of Hoosier children attend public schools and they are continuously underfunded.

Book bans — Every public school board and charter school governing body is required to establish a procedure for the parent of any student, or any person residing in the school district, to request the removal of library materials deemed “obscene” or “harmful to minors.” School districts must also post a list of the complete holdings of its school libraries on each school’s website and provide a printed copy of the library catalogue to any individual upon request. (HEA 1447)

Charter schools...

Gary schools...

INDIANA -- EDUCATION DASHBOARD

New Indiana education dashboard data sheds light on student performance, teacher retention

From Indiana Capital Chronicle

An updated education data dashboard released this month by the Fairbanks Foundation shows declining teacher retention across Indiana, as well as increases to student suspensions and expulsions, among other trends. For the first time, the Community Data Snapshot additionally displays academic outcomes and workforce readiness information for Marion County on a school-by-school basis. Users can then sort that data by race, ethnicity and family economic status and other characteristics. The updated dashboard allows users to explore data by school corporation and compare metrics across school types, including by each district, public charter, Innovation Network, and private school — a feature not available through other online dashboards.

THE READING WARS

Rcharvet: How I Taught My Students to Love Reading

From Diane Ravitch

Rcharvet, a retired teacher and regular commenter here, explains how the pedagogy of the Common Core taught his students to dislike reading. They were supposed to read excerpts of books, not a complete book. They were expected to analyze the meaning of words and sentences instead of following the narrative of the story. Mr. Charvet became a subversive. He explains here.

...When I taught reading, I would read out loud so kids would HEAR the characters voices (yes I did the voices as well). For struggling readers they typically move through a sentence like they are walking on glass. But, we worked together.

One book that we started was “The Pig Man.” It started out slow (geez I was slow) but started liking the book to the point kids were saying, “Can we read The Pig Man and find out what happened?” They felt the words. They connected to the characters. We could ask questions like, “If you were Tommy what would you do in this case? What should the Pig Man do about the broken statue?” Then because I was making a connection to the book and trying to follow the curriculum I was deemed “moving too slow” and the department head said, “Just collect all the books and move on.”

What did I know?

Tom Ultican: “The Right to Read” is Horse Manure

Ultican shows the graphs of NAEP scores over the past thirty years: reading scores have been unchanged for 30 years. The rhetoric about “the crisis in reading” is a hoax.

From Diane Ravitch

In this illuminating post, Ultican analyzes a documentary called “The Right to Read,” which he compares to the propaganda film “Waiting for Superman.” Behind the film, he writes, is the whole apparatus of the corporate reform movement, armed with derogatory claims about public schools and a simplistic cure for literacy.

He begins:

The new 80-minute video “The Right to Read”was created in the spirit of “Waiting for Superman.” It uses false data interpretations to make phony claims about a non-existent reading crisis. Oakland’s NAACP 2nd Vice President Kareem Weaver narrates the film. Weaver is a full throated advocate for the Science of Reading (SoR) and has many connections with oligarch financed education agendas...

...One of the first media interviews about “The Right to Read” appeared on KTVX channel 4 in Salt Lake City. Ben Heuston from the Waterford Institute answered questions about the new film and the supposed “reading crisis” in American public schools. Heuston who has a PhD in psychology from Brigham Young University claimed that two-thirds of primary grade students in America read below grade level. That is a lie. He is conflating proficiency in reading on the National Assessment of Education Performance (NAEP) with grade level and should know better.

MICHIGAN SUPPORTS PUBLIC EDUCATION

Michigan Passes Historic Increases for Education

From Diane Ravitch

It’s amazing to see what a state education budget can look like when you have pro-education legislators in charge–and teachers chairing the House and Senate Education Committees and the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on PreK-12.

The budget includes:

•universal school meals

•foundation allowance increase of 5% — the largest in state history

•fully funded special education programs

•expanded Pre-K programs

•student teacher stipends for K-12

...Budgets are about more than dollars—they are moral documents; and in Michigan we are showing that we value our children, our families, and our future...

NAEP TESTING

John Thompson: The Misinterpretation of NAEP Data

From Diane Ravitch

John Thompson writes here about the negative consequences of shallow reporting on NAEP data. Reporters are sensitive to whether scores are up or down, but tend to ignore contextual factors that may play a role in student performance.

He writes:

Despite the problems with education metrics, the decline in the nation’s 2022 math and reading scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test is worrisome – if we look at the big picture.

As Diane Ravitch explained, the decline in scores during the pandemic was a “duh” moment. Rather than publishing panicky headlines, these predictable drops in scores should be seen in the broader context of the decade of declines which followed the implementation of rushed and simplistic corporate school reforms. And, as we should have done previously, we must acknowledge what reformers should have previously understood – meaningful increases in learning require inter-connected, holistic team efforts, as opposed to metric-driven instructional shortcuts.

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

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In Case You Missed It – October 25, 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

How can we keep teachers in the classroom? Who will be tomorrow's teachers? The U.S. is in the midst of a teacher shortage crisis exacerbated by the difficulties of the global coronavirus pandemic.

Today's posts also cover school choice, testing, right-wing groups invading school board meetings, and some important local news for the Allen County Indiana area.

THE TEACHER SHORTAGE

Appreciating Good Teachers In These Tough Times for Educators

Teachers are not ok. The exodus of teachers from public school classrooms began before the pandemic, but with the difficulties of transitioning to virtual, hybrid, masked, and pandemic-stressed classrooms, greater numbers of teachers are deciding to call it quits. Where will tomorrow's public school classroom teachers come from? Who will teach your children...or their children?

From Jan Resseger's Blog

A trio of columns circulated by the Washington Post‘s Valerie Strauss should raise alarm about the pressures today driving teachers to leave the profession. An 8th grade language arts teacher from the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area, Steven Singer describes widespread teacher burnout in this second school year disrupted by COVID-19: “The teachers are not okay.”

...The superintendent in Virginia’s Fauquier County Public Schools, David Jeck wonders: “Who would want to be a teacher right now? Have you seen how teachers are being treated? Teachers have had to endure revolting public comments at school board meetings, floggings via social media… Teachers are indispensable to our society but sadly, they are not treated as such.”

...Strauss also featured Larry Ferlazzo, a high school English and social studies teacher in Sacramento and a skilled writer, who explains: “I teach in an almost ideal situation and I’m exhausted after just the first month of this year.” Ferlazzo describes teachers “dealing with the stress of potentially getting COVID-19… coping with the challenge of a substitute shortage requiring teachers to give up all their planning time (or to teach double classes) to cover absences; having to cancel medical appointments and mental health days because of not wanting to burden colleagues by making them cover even more classes… and being overtaxed by providing even more than the usual emotional support we provide to our students.”

Dear Substitute-Desperate Districts. What Are You Doing About It?

How can schools incentivize hiring? What are your administrators doing about the lack of substitute teachers?

From Curmudgucation

There's a great deal of hollering about the lack of substitute teachers. Like the challenge of filling regular teaching positions, this is not a new problem, but the pandemic has exacerbated it considerably. Everywhere you turn, you can find administrators bemoaning their lack of subs.

But if you are one of these administrators, what are you actually doing about it?

Are you raising sub pay? Sub pay is notoriously lousy, particularly if you're hiring them via some substitute or temp service. I started out substitute teaching in 1980; sub pay in local districts has risen about $25 since then. When you factor in the lack of benefits, it's impossible to make a living substitute teaching and the pool from Way Back In The Day (Moms of school-age kids who wanted a little grocery money) is gone.

What is Taught in Public Schools? Volunteer as a Substitute Teacher and See for Yourself!

Here's a good idea. Politicians who regularly bash the public schools (mostly Republicans), can volunteer to be public school substitutes. It would be nice to see some non-educators put their money where their mouths are and stand up for the students. Legislators, substitute in your neighborhood public schools...if you dare!

From Gadfly on the Wall Blog

SOLUTION: VOLUNTEER AS A SUB

Just imagine!

Republicans uneasy about public school can get in there and see it all first hand.

And they’ll even get paid to do it!

Not as much as they make as lawmakers. Pennsylvania’s legislature is paid the third highest salary in the country! Way more than classroom teachers or certainly substitutes. But they’d get remunerated for their time.

All they’d have to do is watch over classes of 30 or more real, live students!

Not only would lawmakers have a chance to look over teacher’s lesson plans, but they’d get detailed instructions from the absent teacher about how to actually teach the lesson!

SCHOOL'S CHOICE, NOT PARENTS'

How School Choice Becomes School’s Choice

How do charters choose their students? It turns out that parental choice of schools is actually, the school's choice of students. High achieving, easier to educate students are incentivized so that charters can show a profit and high test scores. Where does that leave the rest?

From Peter Greene in Forbes

How did charter schools end up carefully curating their student bodies? The authors point to the modern charter movement’s connection to free market ideology.

A key assumption of market theory, which envisions charter schools as businesses and parents and their children as consumers, is that all potential customers are treated equally. In reality, however, charter schools perceive students as differently valued consumers...

Charter marketing requires charters to show strong test score performance, which means students who might bring the numbers down are not high-value customers. Likewise, some students come with needs that make them more expensive to educate.

This is the fundamental flaw in the “competition will make schools better” theory, because

the surest path to success for charter schools is to seize the niche of schools serving “lower cost” students with higher test scores and stronger out-of-school opportunities and privileges.

EXTREMIST GROUPS INVADE SCHOOL BOARD MEETINGS

The Proud Boys Are Coming for Public Schools

From The Progressive Public Schools Advocate

...now extremist groups—including the Proud Boys—are aiming their threats and violence at a new target: public schools.

In Orange County, North Carolina, the Proud Boys and other white nationalist groups have begun showing up at high school football games and school board meetings, “protesting the district’s COVID-19 and LGBTQ+ policies.” Their intimidating language, apparel, and physical gestures prompted officials to hire extra security and pass a resolution opposing “incidents of hostile and racist behavior,” according to a report in the News and Observer.

The resolution charged that the rightwing agitators had “shouted racist and homophobic slurs at students” and included “emails from teachers and students who describe how unsafe they feel being around the Proud Boys.”

RANKING SCHOOLS - A STUPID IDEA

Peter Greene to U.S. News: Ranking Schools by Test Scores is a Truly Stupid Idea

US News and World Reports continues the misuse of testing by ranking schools by test scores...which is the same as ranking schools by the income of the students' families.

From Diane Ravitch

Peter Greene points out that U.S. News used to be a news magazine, but has turned itself into a ranking agency, mainly of colleges, then high schools, and now…wait for it…elementary and middle schools! Does it get any more ridiculous than that?

Its rankings are based mainly on test scores, which are guaranteed to favor schools that are the whitest and most affluent.

LOCAL NEWS

EACS approves raises for teachers

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

East Allen County Schools will use more than $4.3 million to boost teachers' salaries under a new two-year contract approved Tuesday.

Together, the $2.6 million to be distributed this academic year and the almost $1.8 million to be distributed next year is $2.4 million more than was awarded under the last agreement.

“It was a wonderful bargaining session this time,” Andra Kosmoski, president of the East Allen Educators Association, told the board. “It went smoothly, and then just the fact that you and the administration are recognizing that the money needs to go to the teachers – we appreciate it.”

With one member absent, the board unanimously and enthusiastically endorsed the contract, which runs from July 1, 2021, to June 30, 2023.

Shortages force schools to be creative with lunch

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Supply chain disruptions aren't new for schools. Food service directors encountered shortages last academic year as food manufacturers and the trucking industry were affected by illnesses and quarantines.

The challenge, however, has evolved from schools trying to order the same items, said Leeanne Koeneman of Northwest Allen County Schools.

"This year," she said by email, "it seems to be extremely haphazard as to what might be out of stock."

Pandemic supply chain disruptions topped school meal program directors' concerns for the 2021-22 academic year, according to a summer survey of 1,368 directors nationwide.

NACS leader's safety letter contradicts sheriff official

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

Northwest Allen County Schools Superintendent Chris Himsel addressed recent safety concerns at school board meetings in a letter to parents.

Northwest Allen temporarily ended public comments at board meetings in September because of safety concerns reported by the Allen County Sheriff's Department.

Himsel's letter, sent Friday, followed a WOWO radio interview Thursday with Troy Hershberger, chief deputy with the sheriff's department, during which he said the department has never directed the school district on how to conduct its meetings.

Hershberger, who is seeking the Republican nomination for sheriff next year, added he is unaware of any safety concerns being reported to the district by school resource officers.

Himsel's letter disputes Hershberger's claims and releases excerpts of emails that show safety concerns were shared by a school resource officer, who said other school resource officers had raised similar concerns. The officer, who is not named in Himsel's letter, said he and the other officers are “concerned for the safety of everyone at those meetings.”

**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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