Education thread

[Vrede too]

FIND YOUR (NC) SCHOOL DISTRICT’S REPORT CARD

HendersonCounty Schools



Not a surprise:

Safer Schools for Whom?
The Trump Administration’s “safety” recommendations would make schools less safe for black students.

Police officers, retired police, and former members of the military working in schools—euphemistically termed “school resource officers”—don’t make black students feel safer. In fact, research shows that their presence in schools actually criminalizes students of color. But that’s just what the final report of President Donald Trump’s Federal Commission on School Safety, released in December, recommends. The panel also suggests that discipline guidelines put in place under the Obama Administration to counter the disproportionate disciplining of students of color, be rescinded.

There is little evidence that more law enforcement in schools prevents school shootings. And the research is clear that it directly feeds the school-to-prison pipeline....

But Trump’s school safety panel recommendations aren’t really about making schools safer. In fact, they follow the Donald Trump political playbook: Blame people of color for white people’s problems, while simultaneously justifying the passive racism of the status quo.

According to a database of shootings between 1982 and 2018 created by Mother Jones, roughly 65 percent of mass school shootings at schools were at that hands of white males. Not a single school shooting was carried out by a black person....

The recommendations from Trump’s school safety panel benefit school privatizers, and institutions like prisons, at the expense of people of color. It’s the American way.

[Vrede too]

West Virginia House tables bill that prompted teacher strike

This time the teachers' strike was only hours old when lawmakers acted.

Just as the strike began Tuesday, the West Virginia House of Delegates effectively killed a complex education bill that sent state teachers to the picket lines nearly a year after a nine-day strike closed schools....

[O Really]

So the main MSN page has a regularly running poll of some sort, usually fairly frivolous, but obviously some marketing-based thing. For a day of so, there have been questions that ask "Do you regard (something) as closer to capitalism or socialism?"

I thought most of the questions didn't really relate to either economic system, but given the demographic of poll takers (older, male, Republican), it wasn't surprising to find people thinking Social Security and Medicare was socialist. Today, however, showed the real lack of education on the part of those answering the question, as they found "business incentives" as being closer to capitalism by 68%. Nevermind that the fundamental definition of socialism is the pubic/government control of the means of production, and not anything so much related to what we call "social programs" like healthcare. So in the first question that actually involved government influence on the means of production, the idiots answer "capitalism."

[Vrede too]

... the idiots answer "capitalism."

Wise words that apply to much more than just this poll.

[O Really]

... the idiots answer "capitalism."

Wise words that apply to much more than just this poll.

True dat.

To people yammering about "socialism" in the US, I always say get back to me when they've nationalized the auto industry, the energy industry, and the banking system and we can talk. In the meantime, those considering "Obamacare" to be socialist when it was designed specifically to protect the private insurance corporations are indeed terminally ignorant.

[Vrede too]

True dat.

To people yammering about "socialism" in the US, I always say get back to me when they've nationalized the auto industry, the energy industry, and the banking system and we can talk. In the meantime, those considering "Obamacare" to be socialist when it was designed specifically to protect the private insurance corporations are indeed terminally ignorant.

Speaking of socialism that works:

Tell Congress: Fund Our Future

We must ensure that the public schools and colleges have the funding they need to provide the opportunities students deserve.

[Vrede too]

12 states spend less on schools now than before the recession

... Here are 12 states where per-student state funding, adjusted for inflation, declined from 2008 to 2019. Asterisks indicate where teachers went on strike.

Texas: 20 percent

Oklahoma*: 15 percent

Alabama: 15 percent

Kentucky*: 13 percent

Kansas: 12 percent

Michigan: 9 percent

West Virginia*: 8 percent

Utah: 8 percent

North Carolina*: 7 percent

Arizona*: 6 percent

Mississippi: 3 percent

Idaho: 3 percent

I'm so proud I could burst.

8 red, 4 purple, 0 blue.

[billy.pilgrim]

12 states spend less on schools now than before the recession

... Here are 12 states where per-student state funding, adjusted for inflation, declined from 2008 to 2019. Asterisks indicate where teachers went on strike.

Texas: 20 percent

Oklahoma*: 15 percent

Alabama: 15 percent

Kentucky*: 13 percent

Kansas: 12 percent

Michigan: 9 percent

West Virginia*: 8 percent

Utah: 8 percent

North Carolina*: 7 percent

Arizona*: 6 percent

Mississippi: 3 percent

Idaho: 3 percent

I'm so proud I could burst.

8 red, 4 purple, 0 blue.

The obama effective

[Vrede too]

The obama effective

In a sense, yes. I'm sure the list of states where per-student state funding declined from 2008 to ____ is much longer. These are the states that chose not to recover their schools as the economy recovered.

[Vrede too]

Kellyanne Conway's Hot Take On College Admission Scandal Backfires Spectacularly

Kellyanne Conway
‏Verified account @KellyannePolls

.@LoriLoughlin & @FelicityHuffman indicted for lying and buying spots in college.

They worried their daughters are as stupid as their mothers.

I know, I know, I get the irony of posting about Kellyanne Conway in the Education thread.

Lot's of excellent responses to her at the link.

Also, 2 actresses - FH is liberal, I don't know about LL. Otoh, most of those busted are CEOs, bankers and other money managers, their spouses and college coaches. Most of these are certainly Repugs, though admissions staff can be from either party. Hard to argue with Conway calling them "stupid". Plus, there's what Jared Kushner's "stupid" daddy did:

College admissions scam rekindles scrutiny of Kushner's Harvard acceptance, $2.5M pledge

Leaving aside Conway's stupidity, the privileged parents, sleazy facilitators and greedy bribe recipients should be required to pay for far more quality educations than the number of deserving kids that they screwed out of slots at their schools of choice. I also hope for at least token prison sentences, but I'm a realist about America. Then, the kids that benefited from the fixed admissions, even if they were unwitting, should be asked to volunteer as tutors, with the names of those that accepted and declined publicized.

[neoplacebo]

Heh, trump was ahead of the curve with his trump university....it was a fake university that gave real degrees. Plus, the students paid him for the honor of attending......what a bunch of suckers trump cultivates. I guess he learned it in school somehow.

[Vrede too]

Reject Trump's education cuts. Demand debt-free college.
(Petition to Congress)

[1 CAT FAN]

Lori Loughlin would very much appreciate that.

[Vrede too]

Lori Loughlin would very much appreciate that.

Really, just Lori? What about:

Kellyanne Conway's Hot Take On College Admission Scandal Backfires Spectacularly

Kellyanne Conway
‏Verified account @KellyannePolls

.@LoriLoughlin & @FelicityHuffman indicted for lying and buying spots in college.

They worried their daughters are as stupid as their mothers.

I know, I know, I get the irony of posting about Kellyanne Conway in the Education thread.

Lot's of excellent responses to her at the link.

Also, 2 actresses - FH is liberal, I don't know about LL. Otoh, most of those busted are CEOs, bankers and other money managers, their spouses and college coaches. Most of these are certainly Repugs, though admissions staff can be from either party. Hard to argue with Conway calling them "stupid". Plus, there's what Jared Kushner's "stupid" daddy did:

College admissions scam rekindles scrutiny of Kushner's Harvard acceptance, $2.5M pledge

Leaving aside Conway's stupidity, the privileged parents, sleazy facilitators and greedy bribe recipients should be required to pay for far more quality educations than the number of deserving kids that they screwed out of slots at their schools of choice. I also hope for at least token prison sentences, but I'm a realist about America. Then, the kids that benefited from the fixed admissions, even if they were unwitting, should be asked to volunteer as tutors, with the names of those that accepted and declined publicized.

[1 CAT FAN]

Yep, there's corruption everywhere. Who are these Universities that accepted bribes?

[Vrede too]

Tell Congress: Block Betsy DeVos' education cuts

[Vrede too]

Asleep at the Wheel: How the Federal Charter Schools Program Recklessly Takes Taxpayers and Students for a Ride

Read the Executive Summary

This report details the Network for Public Education’s two month examination of the U.S. Department of Education’s Charter Schools Program (CSP). Our investigation found a troubling pattern of insufficient applicant review, contradictions between information provided by applicants and available public data, the gifting of funds to schools with inadequate financial and governance plans, a push-out of large grants to the states with little supervision by the department, and the waste of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.

By comparing claims made by charter grant applicants to information on state databases and school websites, we found numerous examples of federal tax dollars being misspent due to an inattentive process that routinely accepts applicants’ claims without scrutiny.

We found that it is likely that as many as one third of all charter schools receiving CSP grants never opened, or opened and shut down. In fact, the failure rates for grant-awarded charter schools in California has reached nearly four in ten.

American taxpayers have a right to demand that their tax dollars not be wasted. Tax dollars that flow to charter schools that never opened or quickly close should not be considered the cost of doing business. And a program with a stated commitment to spread “high-quality” schools should not be a major funding source for schools that leave families in the lurch and promote discriminatory enrollment practices that increase segregation and unequal opportunity for students with disabilities, behavioral challenges or English language learner status. We cannot afford to continue to pump hundreds of millions of dollars into a program whose stewards are clearly asleep at the wheel.

Actual operating charter schools are already a scam, that this is also happening with our tax dollars is disgusting.

[GoCubsGo]

Nice.

Program allows students to stay in school on Friday nights, principal hasn't lost a student to gun violence all year

[billy.pilgrim]

Should schools be required to teach all of the major religions? In addition to the ghost of some dead hippie type, and what about the Muslims (they liked the hippie guy too), and the Hindus, and the FSMs, and the Buddhists, and the Cargo Cult Guys (this one explains All in simple easy to understand terms), and Raelist, and the Subuds, and the L.Rons (sorry Tom but you and yours are fucking bat shit crazy), and the Universe People, and the Aghori (don't go here but further explains what happens when Cargo Cult gets to big), and the Pana Wave people, and the Nuwaubian Nation would have to have a place, and the most serious Discordians too, and the Aetherius Society probably don't even need school, and the Church of Euthanasians wouldn't require any schools anywhere for anybody, and the jedismists, and all the Zoroasters, and the Frisbeetarianists, and even the crazy Baptists deserve a place in our schools, after all we do send our kids to schools.

[O Really]

I think a comparative religion course, or survey of world religions, current and historical, has a much relevance as other cultural/history courses. Of course, the evangelicals and muslims will scream blasphemy since their own religion will not be presented as the "only true". There have been so many that some are bound to be missed, probably including the Church of Body Modification, but those could be covered in a section of "there are many others, and number of the adherents isn't the determinant of "real."