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QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"It is well known that a school district’s aggregate standardized test scores correlate more closely with the economic level of the district’s population than with the quality of the schools’ programming and teachers. What Senator Brenner, whose district includes the wealthy, exurban Olentangy public schools, never acknowledges is that his new bill is an attack on school districts serving concentrations of poor children. And while Senator Brenner specializes in devising punitive systems for low scoring schools and school districts, Ohio’s legislature, in which Brenner chairs the Senate Education Committee, has not yet fully phased in and funded the Fair School Funding Plan, which is designed to provide equity and to invest in school districts serving children in poverty. Ohio’s legislature also recently established a universal voucher program currently diverting a billion dollars a year from the state budget to private schools." -- Jan Resseger in
Ohio State Senator Pushes New Version of Punitive Plan to Restructure or Take Over Low-Scoring Schools
OHIO STATE SENATOR PUSHES TEST-AND-PUNISH
Ohio State Senator Pushes New Version of Punitive Plan to Restructure or Take Over Low-Scoring Schools
We know that punishing teachers, schools and/or students for scoring low on standardized tests does nothing to improve learning, yet this Ohio legislator is willing to try it again. The fact that it will hurt the most vulnerable of the state's students doesn't seem to bother him.
From
Jan Resseger
Andy Brenner, the Chair of the Ohio Senate Education Committee, is once again pushing the Ohio Legislature to pass an old fashioned, test-and-punish school accountability bill, Senate Bill 295, in this last week of the legislature’s lame-duck session without sufficient public accountability or hearings. The bill would significantly restructure or close the schools in some of Ohio’s poorest communities. A hearing on the bill is scheduled for this afternoon.
Brenner, “an entrepreneur in the real estate and mortgage fields,” who earned a Masters of Arts in Teaching from Liberty University Online, is known for the now disproven theory that if teachers work harder and smarter, they can immediately ensure their students score higher on standardized tests. His new bill is modeled after No Child Left Behind (NCLB), which promised to make every American child proficient by 2014. Of course, we now know that NCLB’s threatening educators and school districts with scary sanctions failed to produce uniformly proficient students despite all the threats to close or charterize so-called “failing” schools, or fire and replace all the staff.
MORE LEGISLATIVE INTERFERENCE
Federal Anti-Commie Education Bill
Peter Greene is one of public education's most important voices. His work appears on his blog (see link below), in Forbes, on Substack, and elsewhere.
From Peter Greene at
Curmudgucation
It could be worse. It's not a mandate to use Prager U materials, after all. And to be clear, I'm not personally a big fan of communism, though in my reading of history, nations that "turn communist" usually keep being awful in ways that they were awful before anyone pretended to be a communist.
In fact, now that I think of it, some study of what creeping totalitarianism wouldn't hurt Americans (in or out of high school) right about now.
But teachers recognize this same old dodge. "We want students to know and agree with This Particular Thing," say some bunch of leaders somewhere. "How can we do that? I know! We'll get teachers to teach it to them. Because there's lots of room in the day to slip in one more slab of curricular materials. Also, students always believe what teachers say. Also, legislating curriculum always works out well."
Congress may very well pass this. Teachers will either ignore it or not as they are so inclined, and politicians will be proud of themselves for battling the scourge of communism and for once against standing up for only the correct sort of indoctrination in our schools.
NO TEACHERS NEED APPLY
New Arizona charter school will use AI in place of human teachers
This is computer-led instruction. There will be human adults present...as baby-sitters.
From
KJZZ Phoenix
At least one Arizona school will be handing off teaching duties to artificial intelligence in 2025.
The Arizona State Board for Charter Schools’ approved an application for an AI-based virtual academy on Monday.
Unbound Academy, which also operates in Texas and Florida under the name Alpha Schools, claims that kids can learn twice as much using a two-hour learning plan that gets customized by an AI program instead of a traditional human teacher in front of a classroom.
STUDENT LOANS
Biden Announces $4.28 Billion in Student Loan Forgiveness
Help for those with student loan debt.
From
Diane Ravitch
The U.S. Department of Education released a statement:
The Biden-Harris Administration announced today the approval of $4.28 billion in additional student loan relief for 54,900 borrowers across the country who work in public service. This relief—which is the result of significant fixes that the Administration has made to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program—brings the total loan forgiveness by the Administration to approximately $180 billion for nearly five million Americans, including $78 billion for 1,062,870 borrowers through PSLF.
PAYING FOR EDUCATION IN INDIANA
Public schools remain on hook for book, curricula fees
Indiana struggles to pay for the constitutionally mandated promise of a free public education system.
From the
Fort Wayne Journal Gazette**
The Indiana Constitution of 1851 says the General Assembly will provide a system of schools “wherein tuition shall be without charge, and equally open to all.” During the 2023 legislative session, state lawmakers delivered on that 172-year-old promise.
Legislators dedicated $160 million in the state budget to eliminate textbook and curricula fees, starting this academic year, but Hoosier schools still must pay for those materials. Last month, Indiana’s largest teachers’ union called for a more than $500 million increase to basic tuition support for public schools in the 2025 fiscal year.
That’s 7.98% more compared to what schools are expected to receive. Under current law, K-12 public schools are projected to see average student funding increases of 1.7% in the 2025-26 school year.
CREEPING CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM
The Religious Right Is Plotting How To Get Christianity Into Schools
Not all our students are Christians. Not all our Christian students are Evangelical Christians. Not all parents of our Evangelical Christian students want public school teachers teaching religion.
Both parts of the First Amendment are important -- the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;..."
From
Nathalie Baptiste in
Huffpost
From displaying the Ten Commandments to demanding that teachers use the Bible in their classrooms, conservatives seem determined to blur the lines between church and state by infusing Christianity into public schools. And with Donald Trump headed back to the White House and a conservative majority in the U.S. Supreme Court, reshaping the country’s education system is looking increasingly feasible.
GET A SECOND OPINION
Trump Questions Need for School Vaccines
Experts, not politicians, should determine medical policy.
From
Diane Ravitch
We know that Trump chose RFK Jr. to run the federal public health system as head of the Department of Health and Human Services. we know that Kennedy opposes vaccines. He has said that he would not ban vaccines outright but suggested that he might leave the decision about vaxxing to parents. We also know that senior Republican Mitch McConnell had polio as a child and does not like the idea of making the polio vaccine a matter of personal choice.
But we didn’t know much about what Trump believes or wants when it comes to vaccines.
Politico reports that he wants to keep vaccines, at least for adults. But he is doubtful about vaccine mandates for attending school. Public schools in every state require students to be vaccinated. If these mandates are reversed, we can expect to see a spread of the highly infectious diseases that were nearly eradicated.
Your child or grandchild might get measles or mumps or rubella or tetanus. These are deadly diseases.
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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
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†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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