Monday, May 22, 2023

In Case You Missed It – May 22, 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

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State." -- Thomas Jefferson

THE WAR AGAINST ACADEMIC FREEDOM

Florida: DeSantis Continues His War Against Academic Freedom

Formerly "small government" Republicans are now using the government to prohibit certain "academic speech."

From Diane Ravitch
Ron DeSantis signed three bills into law today that tighten his control over higher education and restrict the curriculum to conform to his ideology. If a professor does not agree with DeSantis’ views on race, gender, culture, and history, he or she must change what they teach or find a job in another state.

There are two major contradictions in DeSantis’ approach:

1. He claims that state control over acceptable and intolerable views equates to “freedom.” If you share his views, you are free to teach them. If you don’t, your freedom is extinguished. Freedom for some is not freedom.

2. He claims that Florida intends to focus on “the classical mission of what a university is supposed to be.” But at the same time, he wants the state’s colleges and universities to become “number one for workforce education.” Is that the “classical mission” of universities? Those who know more about higher education than DeSantis would say that “the classical mission” of the university is to teach and deepen students’ knowledge of great literature, history, science, foreign languages, mathematics, philosophy, and the arts. These are not workforce studies; they do not provide “employable” skills. They are probably what DeSantis sneers at as “zombie studies.”

The Miami Herald reports...

VOUCHER HISTORY

Resistance to The Brown Decision Launched the Voucher Movement

The history of vouchers is part of the history of segregation and discrimination.

From Diane Ravitch
...The present movement for vouchers, which is strongest in Republican-dominated states, will not move us closer to the egalitarian goals of the Brown Decision. Vouchers are inherently a divisive concept. They encourage people to congregate with people just like themselves. Heightened segregation along lines of race, religion, social class, and ethnicity are a predictable result of vouchers.

The voucher movement began as a hostile response to the Brown decision, led by racist governors, members of Congress, legislatures, White Citizens Councils, parents who did not want their children to attend schools with Black children, and white supremacists who wanted to protect their “way of life.” They refused to comply with the Supreme Court decision. They called Earl Warren a Communist. They engaged in “massive resistance.” They quickly figured out that they could fund private academies for whites only, and some Southern states did. And they figured out that they could offer “vouchers” or “scholarships” to white students to attend white private and religious schools.

FIGHT TO SAVE PUBLIC EDUCATION

The Fight to Save Public Education: Lessons from the Field

Join the Alliance to Reclaim our Schools for a discussion on June 1, 2023.

From the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools (AROS)
Join us for an exciting discussion on the fight to save public education, and the importance of vibrant public schools for a multiracial democracy. We'll hear from the educators and community organizers in Chicago who won big in the recent elections, as well as Tennessee organizers on the front lines of the fight against both privatization and censorship. This event is co-hosted by the NEA Strategic Campaign Institute for Community Schools, the AFT Powerful Partnerships Institute, HEAL Together, Race Forward, and the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools (AROS).

When - June 1st, 4:00-5:30 PM PST, 7:00-8:30 PM EST

Where - Zoom - register to receieve the link!

LESSONS IN FREE SPEECH

After School Satan Clubs Are Teaching Public School Districts an Important Lesson in Free Speech

When you tear down the wall separating church and state you get threats of violence. The Founders understood the importance of keeping the government out of religion, which is why the First Amendment states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."

From Gadfly on the Wall Blog
Be careful what you wish for – you just might get it.

That seems to be the lesson public school districts across the country are being forced to learn from an unlikely source – Satan.

Thousands of districts in the US allow religious organizations and clubs to operate on public school property, especially after classes are over.

So The Satanic Temple (TST) – an organization that’s not really Satanic or a temple – goes around proposing After-School Satan Clubs at the same districts – and all Hell breaks loose.

Keep in mind none of these districts need open their grounds to religious organizations. They could simply cite the Separation of Church and State and be done with it.

The first clause in the Bill of Rights states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” This has been interpreted to mean that the government shall neither support nor prohibit religious expression.

Our right-leaning Supreme Court has chipped away at this notion allowing all kinds of government support – however logic and consistency still mean something.

Districts apparently CAN ignore the Church/State conundrumBUT – if a district is going to violate this tenant for one organization, it has to be willing to do so for all.

And that is why TST is making this point.

Unlike the Church of Satan, a religious institution founded in the 1960s that literally worships the Biblical devil, TST is a non-theistic organization which uses hyperbole and humor to protest the Religious Right and authoritarianism. The organization says it strives to “provide a safe and inclusive alternative” to Christian-based groups that may seek to “convert school children to their belief system.”

SACS SEEKS COACH

Southwest Allen County Schools seeks coach as it builds 'a better community'

From the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**
The Southwest Allen County Schools board should decide next month whether the district will work with a national nonprofit to address diversity and inclusion efforts, an issue students pushed to prominence with demonstrations in February.

If approved June 6, the district’s work with Rise would begin next academic year, Superintendent Park Ginder said after Tuesday’s board meeting, during which the potential partnership was discussed.

“In our case, they’re going to come in and walk alongside us and coach us as we build a better community,” Ginder said.

The 7,800-student district is seeking outside guidance as it navigates diversity, equity and inclusion concerns that escalated Feb. 9 in demonstrations and discussions that disrupted classes at Homestead High School.

**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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Monday, May 15, 2023

In Case You Missed It – May 15, 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

"Just because one parent does not like a certain book and does not want their child to read it does not mean that no child should read that book or that it is pornographic." -- Michael Shaffer in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**

THE FAILURE OF PRIVATIZATION

Our first three stories this week define the privatization of public education. First, there's corruption in the charter industry. Second, privatization is dividing us, and last, vouchers don't help children.

Philadelphia: Charter School Rigged Admissions by Zip Code

From Diane Ravitch
Privatizers have boasted for years that charter schools are superior to public schools because students should not be confined to schools by their zip code (I.e. their neighborhood). But a charter school in Philadelphia used student zip codes to exclude kids from their “lottery.” The lottery was rigged to keep out kids from certain neighborhoods.

Each of the 800-plus Philadelphia families who applied for seats at a nationally recognized charter school thought their children had a fair shot at a spot in this year’s upcoming freshman class. Pennsylvania law guarantees it.

But some had no chance at all.

Denis Smith: Public Schools Unite Us. Private Schools Divide Us.

From Diane Ravitch
...In the campaign to destroy our public education system by using public funds to finance private and religious schools through vouchers, these politicians disingenuously throw out such terms as “choice” and “freedom,” seemingly innocuous words that instead have the potential to fracture our national unity.

Yet when the subject is choice and freedom, however disingenuously those words might be used, we don’t need to look any further for guidance in identifying the glue that keeps us in a state of union rather than the disunion a profligate use of public funds will bring if educational voucher legislation is approved.

That glue is the public school, whose importance is enshrined in the language of Article VI, Section 2 of the Ohio Constitution:
The General Assembly shall … secure a thorough and efficient system of common schools throughout the state; but no religious or other sect, or sects, shall ever have any exclusive right to, or control of, any part of the school funds...
Lest we be confused by politicians spouting their favorite hyperbolic buzzwords like choice and freedom, our constitution contains clear language, including the use of the singular form: a system of common schools, not systems. It is one educational system that the state is mandated to support, not thousands of private and religious schools that clearly aren’t eligible for public support through vouchers or other means.

State and local experience proves school vouchers are a failed policy that must be opposed

From the Economic Policy Institute
Vouchers are a failed, unpopular policy driven by larger efforts to destroy public education

There is substantial and growing evidence that voucher programs do not serve students and may deepen educational and economic inequality. Voucher programs and the broader education privatization movement of which they are a part are also deeply unpopular. Instead, education privatization is a project by deep-pocketed right-wing funders and think tanks committed to dismantling our public institutions and collective power and implementing a policy regime of social control in service of the wealthy and corporations.

Ineffective, inefficient, and inequitable: Research on state and local experience shows vouchers are a failed public policy
  • Vouchers do not improve educational outcomes and likely worsen them. There is an extensive body of research finding that voucher programs do not improve student achievement. Recent studies in four states all showed that students who used vouchers experienced worse academic outcomes than their peers, and a study of voucher programs in Milwaukee found that voucher students performed better after transferring from private to public schools.

THE "RADICAL LEFT MANIACS" WHO RUN OUR SCHOOLS

Jim Hightower: Chicken Little Attacks America’s Teachers

Legislators around the country need someone to attack, and, as has been the case for several decades, the targets are your local public school teachers.

From Diane Ravitch
Public schools do have some real problems: Politicians constantly slashing education budgets, professional burnout created by understaffing and low pay, the devastating strain of a killer pandemic, and a new-normal of assault-rifle murders. But the profiteers, theocrats, and knuckleheads aren’t interested in those, instead focusing on what they say is the fatal flaw in public education: Teachers.

Yes, the claim is that diabolical educators are perverting innocent minds by teaching America’s actual history, showing students that the full diversity of humankind enriches our society, and presenting our Earth as something to be protected, not plundered. And worse – OMIGOSH – many classroom teachers are union members! So, teachers suddenly find themselves political pawns in the GOP’s culture war. “Our schools are a cesspool of Marxist indoctrination,” squawked Sen. Marco Rubio, and Donald Trump squealed that schools are run by “radical left maniacs” and “pink-haired communists.”
INDIANA LAWMAKERS SHOW CONTEMPT FOR TEACHERS

This year's Indiana General Assembly session is, thankfully, over. The damage to public schools, public school teachers, and public school students continues.

In week meant to honor educators, Indiana lawmakers show nothing but contempt

From Michael Shaffer in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**
It always sounds great at the start of the legislative session when the governor promises record spending for education and increases in teacher pay, almost as if we have a governor and legislature that respect and want to show appreciation for our teachers.

Since this is Teacher Appreciation Week, I thought I would recount the wonderful ways our legislature and governor have shown their appreciation for traditional public school teachers.

We can start with the biggest increase in education spending in recent years (or so the legislature says.) Tremendous amounts of money will be going to education. However, the biggest percentages will be going to the unregulated, unmonitored voucher industry, which caters to wealthy, middle-class white parents who, as long as their family of four makes less than $220,000 per year, can qualify for a full voucher for their children to attend a religious school of their choice.

Am I being unfair in stating that most of the money goes to white families who already attended voucher schools? No.

If you check the Department of Education website, only 10.45% of the students attending voucher schools are Black, down from 24.11% in 2011. In 2021-22, nearly 70% of the students in these schools had never attended a public school. Religious schools? They are 99.976% of the voucher schools (yes, that is a real number).

Thank Goodness They Went Home…

From Sheila Kennedy
The GOP’s persistent efforts to privatize education–while ignoring the state’s increasingly critical shortage of the public school teachers who teach 90% of Hoosier children–required legislators to ignore the years of highly credible academic research rebutting justifications for vouchers.

I have previously posted about the many problems with privatized and other forms of “alternative” schools that researchers have identified. Among those numerous problems is the distressingly high percentage of such schools that close within 4 years of their founding. A May 4th article from the Indianapolis Star confirms that Indiana is not exempt from such closures. It appears that a third of charter schools close each year.
INDIANA SCHOOL REFERENDUMS

Referendum success rate was typical

Blogger Steve Hinnefeld reports on school referendums in Indiana.

From School Matters
Ten Indiana school districts had property-tax referendums on the ballot in last week’s elections, and seven of them passed. That’s a typical success rate.

In the past 10 years, voters have approved 132 school district funding referendums and rejected 51. That’s an approval rate of 72%. There was speculation that inflation and talk of rising property taxes could dampen voter support this year, but that didn’t seem to be the case.

Indiana has two primary types of school funding referendums. Districts must get voter approval to raise property taxes to pay for expensive construction and renovation projects. They can also ask voters to raise property taxes to help pay for school operations if they conclude state funding isn’t adequate.

**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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Monday, May 8, 2023

In Case You Missed It – May 8, 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

"Vouchers are not about freeing or empowering parents. They are about empowering private interests to chomp away at the giant mountain of education money in this country. They are about dismantling any sort of oversight and accountability..." -- Peter Greene

PRIVATIZATION: CHARTERS

Another Day Another Charter Scandal

The Network for Public Education, a national network advocating for public schools, keeps a log of charter scandals. April of 2023 was a busy month for charter schools. Below are just a few examples of the scandals facing charter schools which are often opened where they are not needed, by those who are only interested in making a buck, and who seem to disappear once the money is in their hands.

From the Network for Public Education
39 charter scandals in the month of April.

04/27/2023 - Girls charter school in Las Vegas closing due to funding, enrollment issues
Girls charter school in Las Vegas closing due to funding, enrollment issues

04/24/2023 - N. Charleston charter school ordered to close after violations, noncompliance
The Charter Institute at Erskine’s Board of Directors, tasked with authorizing charter schools in South Carolina, voted Monday to revoke the charter of Gates School “due to systemic findings of noncompliance of state and federal special education law.”

04/16/2023 - Former Superintendent of Cincinnati Technology Academy Sentenced After Guilty Plea to Having an Unlawful Interest in a Public Contract
The former superintendent of a Cincinnati charter school was fined $1,000 and ordered to complete 100 hours of community service after a janitorial business he controlled was improperly contracted to provide services to the school, Auditor of State Keith Faber announced.

PRIVATIZATION: VOUCHERS

Florida: How the State Tries to Cover Up Problems in Voucher Schools

Private schools love vouchers -- public funds which come with little or no public oversight.

From Diane Ravitch
Leslie Postal and Annie Martin are star reporters for The Orlando Sentinel. In 2017, they wrote a three-part series on Florida’s voucher schools, showing the incidence of discrimination and unqualified staff, among other problems. The series, called “Schools Without Rules,” painted a devastating portrait of the low quality of the voucher sector.

This year, they sought access to the state’s records to open a new investigation. The state stonewalled them and put a high price on their access to public records. Here is their report...

Peter Greene: The True Purpose of Vouchers!

Peter Greene tells -- in excellent detail -- the truth about vouchers.

From Diane Ravitch
Vouchers are not about freeing or empowering parents. They are about empowering private interests to chomp away at the giant mountain of education money in this country. They are about dismantling any sort of oversight and accountability; it’s striking how many of these voucher bills/laws very specifically forbid the state to interfere with the vendors in any way, shape or form.

Think of voucher programs this way.

The state announces, “We are dismantling the public education system. You are on your own. You will have to shop for your child’s education, piece by piece, in a marketplace bound by very little oversight and very few guardrails. In this new education ecosystem, you will have to pay your own way. To take some of the sting out of this, we’ll give you a small pocketful of money to help defray expenses. Good luck.”

TESTING

Five Hard Truths About The Big Standardized Test

There seems to be no amount of reasoning and evidence to get our legislators to act on the fact that the BS Tests (Big Standardized Tests) are a huge waste of students' and teachers' time, and our tax dollars. Perhaps it's time to think about voting for legislators who will listen to reason...and evidence.

From Curmudgucation
The five hard truths about the BS Test:

1) State tests are not diagnostic

Since Day One of the rise of the BS Test, critics have pointed out repeatedly that a single standardized test cannot be used for a dozen different purposes. A test that is used to measure achievement is not useful for diagnosing student needs. Tienken can explain this in more professional terms, but for laypeople, there are many analogies. You can't measure water temperature or volume with a yardstick. A tool that ranks students according to height does not tell you how tall any given student actually is. If you want a test to diagnose what students need to plug holes in their understanding, test experts can tell you how to design it, and the BS Tests do not meet those design specs.

2) State tests are predictable.

See above. Tienken has repeated and repeated versions of the earlier research in state after state. The fact that test results can be predicted by using demographic factors strongly suggests that, at a minimum, we are spending way too much in time and resources to get information we could easily elsewhere. Also, maybe that information isn't really telling us what we were promised it would tell us.

3) State test results are influenced by family income and background knowledge...

4) Standardized tests disadvantage English Language Learners...

5) Standardized tests disadvantage students with individualized education programs...
POLITICS

Session wrap-up: How bad was it for schools and students?

We’ve gotten used to saying “How bad was it?” at the end of Indiana General Assembly sessions. This year the answer is what you might expect. The Republican supermajority targeted public schools (as usual) and did significant damage.

Blogger Steve Hinnefeld provides a good summary.

From School Matters
Expanding the voucher program and banning gender-affirming care for minors were the most egregious education-related actions that the Indiana General Assembly took in the session that just concluded. But they are far from the only damage lawmakers did.

Book banning. Legislators teased the idea of banning books and criminalizing librarians all session, then finally put the language in a House-Senate conference committee report and passed it on the last day. House Bill 1447 requires schools to publish lists of all the books and materials in their libraries and create a procedure to challenge books as obscene or harmful to minors. Making obscene or harmful materials available to minors is a felony, and the bill repeals a provision that lets school librarians defend themselves by arguing the books are educational or they’re acting in the capacity of their employment. It was approved 69-28 by the House and 39-10 by the Senate on the last day of the session.

Union busting...

Career training vouchers...

[...and more...]

POLITICS

Ex-Indiana schools chief Jennifer McCormick enters governor's race

No Democrat has won the Governor's office in Indiana for over a decade. Is it time for a change?

It's time to put Hoosiers first. Support Jennifer McCormick.

From 13 WTHR
INDIANAPOLIS — Former Indiana state schools superintendent Jennifer McCormick launched a 2024 campaign for governor Thursday, taking on the daunting goal of flipping the state’s top office from Republican to Democrat after making the same political switch herself.

McCormick broke with Statehouse Republicans over education policy in the years after her successful 2016 campaign as the GOP candidate for state schools chief. She changed her party affiliation after her term ended in early 2021 and has traveled the state for several months speaking at Democratic and public school advocacy events.
See Also:
McCormick officially enters governor’s race

Jennifer McCormick (D) announces 2024 run for Indiana governor

Ex-Indiana schools chief McCormick enters governor's race**
SACS

SACS ponders partnership with YMCA to address staffing concerns

Southwest Allen County Schools is looking to the YMCA to help with childcare for staffing.

From WANE.com
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) — On Wednesday, school board members with Southwest Allen County Schools (SACS) discussed the possibility of partnering with YMCA to address staffing concerns.

With SACS moving to a three-tier model of start and stop times for its schools starting with the 2023-2024 school year, more schools will be partaking in the district’s Friendship Company program that offers child care for parents both before and after school.

Therefore, SACS is considering partnering with YMCA in order to have their staff members fill the void that will be created when the new model is implemented.

AND FINALLY, SOME GOOD NEWS

Illinois Will Withhold State Funds from Institutions that Ban Books

Stand up to the culture war censors. Read banned books.

From Diane Ravitch
Good news! The legislature in Illinois has passed a law to withhold state funds from institutions that ban books. Governor J.B. Pritzker is expected to sign it.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) is expected to sign a bill that would withhold state funds from institutions that ban books amid nationwide efforts to pull some titles from shelves.

**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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