Six on History: Schools
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1) LONG ISLAND EDUCATION Students can take a new Regents-approved 'Civic Readiness Pathway' toward graduation, Newsday
"Students who devote 40 hours' volunteer work to civic-action projects and meet other requirements could earn credit toward graduation and skip a Regents exam, under a pilot project approved unanimously Tuesday by the state's Board of Regents.
Starting next June, students enrolled in the project who demonstrate both civic knowledge and ability to function as citizens would earn academic points, not only for themselves but also for their school districts. Such points would count as state measures of school quality.
Supporters of the state's new "Civic Readiness Pathway" describe it as a means of preparing teens to meet personal goals, such as financial independence, while also enabling them to become "positive agents of social change." The pathway program results from a study launched in 2018 by a state task force that included curriculum experts, school administrators, college professors and representatives of civic groups statewide.
The project is part of the state's broader "diversity, equity and inclusion" initiative aimed at promoting fair opportunities for children from all walks of life.
"Our nation's public schools were founded to develop citizens with knowledge about the rights and responsibilities of state government," stated a paper issued by Kimberly Young Wilkins, a deputy state education commissioner, to explain the project. "By promoting civic readiness in schools, our goal is to develop students' abilities across lines of difference and elevate historically marginalized voices."
Despite the project's ambitious goals, some curriculum experts said they are maintaining a wait-and-see attitude on the question of whether the project would maintain academic rigor. Social-studies specialists noted that students who meet the new requirements could simultaneously drop an older requirement and forgo a Regents exam, either in U.S. History and Government or Global History and Geography.
The state's next planned step is to enlist a small group of districts to offer civic-readiness training on a pilot basis this fall. The state already requires all students to complete a one-semester course on Participation in Government.
State graduation rules generally require students to pass five Regents exams but provide multiple exceptions. For example, students who want to skip one of the state's two history exams can take an optional sequence of courses instead.
In addition to civic-readiness, other options include career and technical studies, as well as course concentrations in math, science, world languages and the arts.
In 2020, the latest year recorded, more than 32,000 Long Island high school graduates, or 95% in all, opted to meet traditional diploma requirements. Another 891 opted for a sequence of science courses, 201 for math courses, and 170 for career and technical studies.
"In 2005, Ohio launched a new voucher program to “save poor kids from failing schools.” The voucher program served 3,000 students and cost $5 million.
Now the state’s voucher program serves 69,000 students and costs Ohio taxpayers $628 million annually. Voucher advocates want more.
The legislature continually rewrote the rules for eligibility to expand the number of students who can get a voucher.
At first, only students assigned to schools in “academic emergency” – the state’s lowest rating – for three consecutive years could apply for a voucher.
A year later it became schools in either academic emergency or academic watch for three years. Six months after that, the requirement dropped to two of the last three years.
In 2013, lawmakers created an income-based scholarship for all kids regardless of their home district. Then, they removed the requirement that kindergartners be enrolled in their local public school first and later expanded it all the way up to high school students.
Today, roughly half of Ohio’s families are eligible for an income-based voucher because the limit for a family of four $65,500 of annual household income.
Not many children are being “saved.” Most voucher schools perform worse than the public schools that the students left.
Most kids who use EdChoice scholarships perform worse on state standardized tests than their public school peers, a 2020 investigation by the Cincinnati Enquirer found. null
In 88% of Ohio cities where vouchers are used, the data showed better test results for the public schools. And when it came to Ohio’s eight largest cities, five of the districts (Akron, Canton, Cleveland, Toledo and Cincinnati) reported higher proficiency levels.
Akron City Schools had the biggest difference, scoring nearly 8 percentage points higher than the private schools in its area.
Public school advocates say that’s because many of the schools on the voucher list aren’t failing. The criteria for getting on the list is wrong, not the schools.
The goal of voucher advocates is not to “save poor children from failing schools,” but to transfer public funds for parents to use at private and religious schools, even though their public schools are better."
The NEA will call for mandatory safe and effective COVID-19 vaccinations and testing for all students and staff before returning to face-to-face instruction in the fall, subject to medical exceptions in accordance with existing law, and will widely publicize this position via social media. We will further call for and publicize that safety measures such as social distancing, masking, and proper ventilation be mandatory for all.
The NEA, like its counterpart, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), is laying the groundwork for schools to remain closed in the fall, or least for them to have draconian and unnecessary rules in place to make schools inhospitable to children or learning.
Teachers’ unions have done enough damage to our nation’s children. Every member of these unions was first in line to get a vaccine, even though many of them still refused to work in-person. They now have a statistically near-zero risk of serious illness from COVID, including new variants. They should not continue to have any say whatsoever in school decisions regarding COVID or our children’s health.
AFT president Randi Weingarten has spent the past couple months, and likely several million dollars taken from teachers’ paychecks, attempting to gaslight the American public into thinking she wanted schools open the entire time. But when you are not looking, teachers’ unions are still trying to shut them down to this day.
Requiring vaccines in children for in-person instruction is simply insane. Requiring them to continue masking and social-distancing is similarly nutty. Children are not threatened in a statistically significant way by COVID. Instead of thanking God for that blessing, union bosses are choosing to deny reality.
This past weekend, educators in more than 50 cities held in-person and virtual events pledging to “teach truth"—in other words, to continue teaching about oppression and injustice in the face of new laws that they believe attempt to stifle these kinds of discussions.
Instead, Williamson, a high school social studies teacher, went with her son to a local museum in her city of Richmond, Texas, to learn more about Fort Bend County’s African American history—joining other educators who posted their solo trips and actions on social media.
In other areas, organizers say, numbers were smaller because some educators were concerned about showing public opposition to this new legislation.
Some teachers who have signed the Zinn Education Project’s pledge have already seen censure from their communities after the Daily Wire, a right-wing news website, published the names of teachers who had signed the pledge in June.
“Teachers who are in white, affluent school districts where parents wield a lot of privilege and a lot of power … they are feeling an incredible amount of surveillance and fear,” said Amelia Wheeler, a doctoral student in social studies education at the University of Georgia and one of the organizers of this past Friday’s Teach Truth rally in Athens, Ga. Wheeler previously taught secondary social studies in Athens.
About 50 people, including some middle and high school teachers, attended the event, Wheeler said. They gathered at a student dorm on the University of Georgia’s campus with a troubled history. “To make space for those dorms, [the city displaced] a prosperous Black community called Linnentown. The community members had their property seized through an urban renewal program,” Wheeler said.
At the rally, community activists spoke about what it was like to live in Linnentown—residents were removed through eminent domain laws in the 1960s—and city civil rights leaders talked about other parts of the city’s Black history.
The day ended with new plans for more education about the city’s past: One social studies teacher plans to start crafting lessons about Linnentown, and the Athens Anti-Discrimination Movement, a social justice nonprofit, plans to start hosting “Teach Truth” Thursdays.
Still, Wheeler said, teachers in Athens have generally felt free to put a focus on Black history. Schools in the city serve mostly students of color, and Wheeler said her teacher friends haven’t heard much from their administration about Georgia’s new state board of education resolution against lessons that “indoctrinate” students or “promote one race or sex above another.”
“There’s a sense that this [state board] resolution will not be enforced by the local school bureaucracy,” said Wheeler.
It’s a different story in neighboring suburban, majority-white districts, where some of Wheeler’s other friends work. “They’ve been told explicitly, if it’s not in the standards, don’t talk about it,” she said.
"I am an education professor who lives in Dorchester District 2. My wife teaches in the district, and my daughter attends elementary school here. Last week the district made the national news in outlets such as Newsweek, but not for the reasons it would probably like.
Barbara Crosby, the only school board member who decided to be unmasked at the last board meeting, was adamant that the district’s schools should not shift temporarily to virtual learning. This was despite the fact that much of the school staff was absent and 20% of the students were in quarantine because of COVID-19. Her appalling argument was that it’s not her job to get the kids out of the classroom to protect them from infection because “God decides who lives and dies.”
A whole book could be written on the problems with this argument. If we took it to its extreme, we wouldn’t put children in seat belts. Or give them medicine. Placing all of this on God’s shoulders when there are real, proven solutions that should be put in place is falling for the second temptation that the devil tested Jesus with when he asked him to throw himself down from the roof so that angels would come and save him. Jesus responded that you should not test God. For her political allegiances, Crosby is twisting the Christian faith. She should resign from the board for the embarrassment she has caused the district.
But this column is really about the decisions District 2 should make to mitigate COVID’s spread. After avoiding the virus for the past year and a half, my daughter got COVID after five days in school this year. Most students and many of the teachers were not wearing masks. Fortunately, in her case, it did not lead to serious health issues, though it has for some children. A few days later, her whole class had to quarantine. My wife, a high school teacher, said only about two students per class wear a mask. With such behavior, it is unsurprising that last week South Carolina led the nation in per capita COVID infections and hospitalizations. As of last week, Dorchester County led the state in COVID cases.
In what world does the county with the most COVID cases in a state leading the nation in COVID not put in some basic mitigation strategies? I know there are a lot of ideologues who say masks and vaccines do not work, but this ideology falls flat in the face of our astounding rise in cases. In addition to denial, there is the strategy of distraction, which U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace displayed last week when she went to the border and warned about migrants bringing in COVID. Despite the fear-based rhetoric, our problem here in Dorchester County is not immigrants bringing in COVID. It is our state and county acting irresponsibly.
I will say that overall, outside of the current situation, I have been impressed with District 2 under Superintendent Joseph Pye’s leadership. It stands above and beyond many districts in the state. I know the Legislature has threatened to cut state funds from districts that require masks, but several of them have put in mask mandates and have not had their funds cut. It is time for courage.
What we are doing to our state is not pardonable.
Recently, I learned my 87-year-old grandmother had contracted COVID. She is pretty much homebound but somehow got it from one of the few people she had contact with. This is what happens when we let COVID run wild in our state. It is not just about the children (although most of them do have a very good response, there are still many who do not). It is also about the rest of our society.
When children go to schools with no mitigation strategies in place and contract COVID, they bring it home to their parents and grandparents. Fortunately, my grandmother has been vaccinated, and with any luck, her infection won’t become critical. However, many in our area aren’t vaccinated, and many are dying in our hospitals every day.
I plead with Mr. Pye and the board members to do the right thing. Ignore the voices of Ms. Crosby and the others who are pushing an irresponsible, anti-science political ideology and do what is right — not only to protect the kids, but to protect South Carolina families."
Will McCorkle is a South Carolina educator.
CONCORD, N.H.—""Former secretary of state Mike Pompeo was back in New Hampshire, his day filled with the sorts of activities befitting a wannabe president in the home of the first-in-the-nation primary. He’d hobnobbed with state GOP members and toured a local defense contractor in the state’s booming southern suburbs. Here at the state capital, Pompeo is tag-teaming with another former Trump secretary, Betsy DeVos, at an event to promote a signature issue for the GOP: school choice.
That Trump’s former foreign affairs chief would choose school choice as a signature issue for his run at the White House isn’t all that surprising. “Parents’ rights” has emerged as a centerpiece of the Trump-era GOP—an aggrieved rallying cry against mandating vaccines, masks in schools, or the teaching of content that parents find objectionable, including material on race, slavery and other so-called divisive concepts.
Florida Governor DeSantis, another likely 2024 candidate, has emerged as the most ardent crusader on behalf of this constituency. But this is the lane that Pompeo hopes to claim too. His new super PAC, Champion American Values, paints a picture of an American family under siege from the rising tide of “socialist ideology.” The CAVPAC website is replete with video images of Pompeo in military surroundings, but the army he now wants to mobilize is comprised of families. “Parents, not government, make choices for children and themselves,” the site proclaims.
MORE FROM JENNIFER C. BERKSHIREJune 22, 2021
October 29, 2020
First in the nation
New Hampshire’s primary primacy isn’t the only draw for conservative presidential aspirants these days. The GOP’s vision for public education may be closer to becoming a reality here than in any other state. This summer, bolstered by trifecta control of state government and a burgeoning libertarian movement, Granite State Republicans enacted a sweeping “education freedom” program. Parents who withdraw their children from the public schools (or who never sent them to public schools) are now eligible for $4,600 to spend on private religious schooling, homeschooling, or other education expenses. Another new program devotes millions in pandemic relief money to create for-profit micro schools with the aid of an Arizona company currently under investigation for fraud in that state. Just as anyone with a car can drive for Uber, anyone with a home can transform it into a “school” for five to 10 students—no training or degree required.
Should New Hampshire’s new voucher program prove as successful as these groups hope, draining money from local school districts, communities will have no choice but to hike property taxes—a deeply unpopular proposition in a state where the property tax burden is both steep and uneven. The cynical gambit here is that voters in at least some communities will forsake their own schools rather than pay higher taxes.
This year saw a bumper crop of new and expanded school choice programs enacted across the country. The favored explanation for why states like New Hampshire enacted new voucher programs and other school choice offerings is that Covid made them do it. In this telling, parent fury—over union-backed school closures, and over the leftist-indoctrinating teachers that populated their children’s Zoom rooms—drove legislators to act. But an extensive national poll, released on the very day of Pompeo’s visit, paints a much different picture. After 18 months of disruption, parents are increasingly opposed to change of any kind; support for vouchers and even charter schools has plummeted over the past two years.
“They basically hid school vouchers in the budget bill instead of going through the whole democratic process,” says Zandra Rice Hawkins, executive director of Granite State Progress, a progressive advocacy group. “That may be normal in other states but not in New Hampshire.”
By the numbers
The Pompeo town hall marked the kick off of the Club for Growth’s nationwide Campaign for Parental School Choice. The campaign “comes amid,” in PR speak, rising parent concern about left-wing indoctrination in the schools. The real spike, though, is in the GOP’s conviction that mining parent grievance is the way to electoral success, including with the suburban women who fled the party during the Trump years.
Pollster Chris Wilson, on hand for the event, quickly punctured this dream. The idea of school choice is popular, he told the crowd, but only if you call it something other than school choice, which holds an overwhelmingly negative association. (This news had evidently not made it to event organizers, who’d invested handsomely in piles of free “school choice” T-shirts, ball caps, placards, and buttons, heaped in the theater lobby and displayed prominently behind the marquee guests.) The recommended rebrand is “school freedom.” But even this marks something of a setback for a movement eager to wean Americans off their fierce attachment to brick-and-mortar schools.
Losing message
The first stop on Pompeo’s New Hampshire itinerary was an event for Linda Camarota, a Republican candidate for state representative, running in a special election in the GOP stronghold of Bedford. Pompeo praised Camarota, one of the first candidates his PAC endorsed, as a warrior for school choice and parental rights. Camarota, a self-proclaimed constitutional conservative, ran hard against taxes and CRT in schools.
That turned out to be a losing message. Democrat Catherine Rombeau, a former school board member who made public education and how to pay for it the central issue of her campaign, eked out a surprising victory, narrowing an already razor-thin GOP state House majority. Rombeau, like many Bedford residents, moved to this booming suburban community for its strong education system. The idea of defunding the local schools in the name of “education freedom” holds little appeal to voters here, something Rombeau appears to have understood.
Republicans are reportedly seething over the loss, even as they try to process what went so wrong. The answer just might be hiding in plain sight—in the Club for Growth’s polling."
