Scott Girard: Those totals don’t include the Madison Metropolitan School District or Milwaukee Public Schools, both of which passed operational referendums in 2020 that continue to allow them to surpass the revenue limit. Both districts are among those that are increasing their total tax levies and contributing to the statewide rise, WPF notes. “Property tax levies increased … Continue reading Report: K-12 school property tax payments will rise statewide →

Landon Mion: Loudoun County Superintendent Scott Ziegler was fired by the school board Tuesday night in response to a grand jury report on the district’s handling of two sexual assaults committed by the same student. The Northern Virginia district drew national attention last year after a father accused it at a school board meeting of covering up … Continue reading Mission vs Organization: “The grand jury said the district was looking out for its own interests instead of the best interests of its students” →

Natalie Wexler: In the debate over Emily Hanford’s podcast “Sold a Story,” two groups have been vocal: those who agree that teachers have been conned into believing most children learn to read without systematic phonics instruction; and those who, like the 58 educators who signed a letter to the editor of the Hechinger Report, respond that Hanford … Continue reading Why problems with literacy instruction go beyond phonics →

Wall Street Journal: The parental revolt even spread to Minnesota despite opposition from teachers union. Denise Specht, the president of the teacher’s union Education Minnesota, claimed in September that its “political program has been successful between 80 and 90 percent of the time when our locals make endorsements in school board races and carry out an … Continue reading Challenges to union control of local school governance were often successful. →

Last night: 1/3 Her: Science of reading is a white people movement. Me: If so, it’s only because you’re standing still. Her: What? Me: I can’t let you get that off. You wanna lead, then lead. But don’t knife the thing that can give our kids a fighting chance. — Kareem J. Weaver (@KJWinEducation) November … Continue reading Notes on politics and “the science of reading” →

Matthew Ladner: Emily Hanford’s podcast Sold a Story tells the disturbing tale of how schools have come to embrace patently absurd and ineffective methods for literacy instruction. I could summarize one such method, known as “three-cueing,” in one sentence: Teach children how to guess the meaning of a sentence rather than how to read it. (You can … Continue reading Notes on the “illiteracy cult”; “Well-to-do people simply buy their way out of the problem, a trend scholars have tracked for decades” →

Michael Behrent: Meanwhile, the ratio of full-time faculty to students is falling, as are faculty wages. The new ivory tower’s costs are only part of the problem. Unseemly administrative bloat also has a corrosive effect on the university’s mission. The focus on timely graduation rates, “student success,” and enrollment may be worthy goals in themselves. … Continue reading “At NC State, in 2020-21, no less than $131 million more was spent on administrative (i.e., non-teaching) positions than on teaching ones” →

We also discussed state report cards with @DrJillUnderly. More kids performed at ‘below basic’ levels than pre-pandemic. In MKE and Beloit, about 2/3 students are ‘below basic.’ Dr. Underly says the solution is more funding. “Revenue, honestly, is what creates opportunities.” pic.twitter.com/JaRX6bXPGQ — A.J. Bayatpour (@AJBayatpour) November 27, 2022 Complete Interview. The data clearly indicate that … Continue reading K-12 Governance – Wisconsin DPI; all about the Money… →

Mine Antonucci: The California Teachers Association spent heavily on school board races in the state, distributing $1.8 million to 125 local affiliates, which were required by union policy to add almost $1 million more to the total. That investment seems to have mostly paid off. California election results take weeks to finalize, but union-backed candidates are leading … Continue reading Teacher union$ and $chool Board Governance: Californian edition →

Olivia Herken: Others agreed, saying Copeland was known for “speaking plainly.” “As an educator, when I’ve had the opportunity to speak and interact with Dr. Copeland, I can say that he’s always had respect for me and my interests, as well as my culture,” said Marlene Patiño. She’s a bilingual dual-language seventh-grade science teacher, whose … Continue reading “But Dr. Copeland decided to do something different. He put the needs of the students first. He made the decision to place someone that was qualified in front of the students,” →

Scott Girard: MMSD had its strongest ratings in the growth and on-track to graduation priority areas, though both were down slightly from last year’s scores. In growth, the district received a 73.6 out of 100, while it scored 77 out of 100 for on-track to graduation. In the other two priority areas, MMSD scored a … Continue reading Notes on Wisconsin DPI school ratings →

Rory Linane: Milwaukee Public Schools was among 84 school districts that received a lower star-rating than last year. Giving two stars, DPI said the district “meets few expectations.” Last year, the DPI gave the district three stars and said it met expectations. Most school districts, about 270, were given the same star rating they got … Continue reading Wisconsin DPI veracity: 84% exceed expectations →

Marquette Law School: Please join us on Thursday, November 17, for a program, “So Now What? The Path Ahead for Education in Wisconsin and the Nation.” In Wisconsin, the outcome of the November elections, particularly for governor, will be an important marker in setting the course of education policy going forward, as a new state … Continue reading “So Now What? The Path Ahead for Education in Wisconsin and the Nation.” November 17, 2022 Event →

Dave Cieslewicz: To which I think I can safely say that I share a widespread reaction among Madisonians: Huh? Again, we could use a whole lot more context here and it would be useful if Copeland would speak to reporters to clarity just exactly what was going on. But from what’s currently on the record … Continue reading “I’ll just note here in passing that traditionalists believe that the ability to communicate is an important skill for a teacher” →

Students of all backgrounds are having academic success in Mississippi. Our state is in the top of the nation in 4th grade reading gains for black students! Thank you to our teachers, parents, and students for working so hard to get us here. pic.twitter.com/7Jw3wkj47H — Governor Tate Reeves (@tatereeves) November 4, 2022 The data clearly indicate … Continue reading Wisconsin drops from 200 to 186, 2nd worst in Reading (NAEP, African American Students) →

Molly Beck: “The proposal appears to be largely more of the same with some targeted funds at special education,” Bender said of Evers’ proposal. “After surprisingly vetoing bills on reading improvement last year, a bit unexpected that there are not more resources aimed at improving not only the low proficiency rates, but the nation’s worst … Continue reading Commentary on status quo K-12 governance in Wisconsin →

“Perhaps the gravest injustice of our time is the imprisonment of minority kids in substandard public schools… The real culprits are union collective-bargaining agreements and state laws that put teachers unions’ interests ahead of students’.”https://t.co/P2Qj2XTUA6 — Betsy DeVos (@BetsyDeVos) November 1, 2022 The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for … Continue reading School climate: 2022 election edition →

Joanne Jacobs: Tell parents the unpleasant truth about learning loss, writes Andrew Rotherham in a story on the state NAEP scores in the The 74. “The disaster and inequity of pandemic policies is now in clear focus,” he writes. Despite a few outliers — Department of Defense and Catholic schools — “it’s an across-the-board disaster … Continue reading Tell parents truth: Enough with the happy talk →

Will Flanders: Recently, results from the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP) have caused shockwaves around the country. At least partially-related to teachers’ union-led shutdowns that kept schools closed well past when it was reasonable to do so,[i] decades of progress in scores were erased over the course of three years.[ii]   Despite declining scores across the … Continue reading Wisconsin falls from a tie for 18th to 32nd in fourth grade reading when demographics are accounted for. →

Wall Street Journal: The decline is all the more worrisome because fewer students are taking the test since fewer schools require it. About 1.35 million took the test this year, compared with 1.91 million in 2018. Playing down standardized tests lets schools rely on more subjective measures for admission, such as race or diversity. ACT … Continue reading The dumbing Down of America →

Scott Girard: “This means a lot to me because I don’t want students who are younger than me to lack various resources and opportunities that will be offered,” La Follette’s Yoanna Hoskins said. “I want my teachers to be well compensated and respected for all the hard work they put in every single day.” Adding … Continue reading “all of them stressed the importance of more funding for public schools” →

Scott Girard: Students get one warning each class period if they have their phone out, and if they take it out again in that class, it goes into a bucket or is given to the teacher for the rest of the period. If a student refuses, school administrators take the phone to the office for … Continue reading Commentary on school cell phone policies →

Scott Girard: In reading, Wisconsin eighth graders saw their average score drop by five points compared to a three-point drop for the nation. Wisconsin students hadn’t had an average score this low in NAEP data going back to 1998. The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, … Continue reading Wisconsin students’ math, reading scores drop from 2019 →

John Hindraker: Minnesota, as in other states, concerned parents have banded together to try to wrest control of the public schools away from teachers’ unions, in order to improve the quality of education and to stop left-wing indoctrination. Earlier this year, we started a 501(c)(4) organization called the Minnesota Parents Alliance to lead those efforts … Continue reading “American Experiment’s polling indicates that by a wide margin, Minnesotans want the public schools to prioritize academic excellence, not politics, “equity” or culture war issues” →

Will Flanders and Dylan Palmer: How does Wisconsin stack up against other states in K-12 education? An eye-popping list from U.S. News and World Report ranked the Badger State K-12 system as the 8th best in the country.i But this rosy picture contradicts other key indicators that Wisconsin students are falling behind. So what’s going … Continue reading The State of Education in Wisconsin →

David N. Figlio Cassandra M.D. Hart and Krzysztof Karbownik Using a rich dataset that merges student-level school records with birth records, and leveraging a student fixed effects design, we explore how a Florida private school choice program affected public school students’ outcomes as the program matured and scaled up. We observe growing benefits (higher standardized … Continue reading Effects of Maturing Private School Choice Programs on Public School Students →

Zach Goldberg Eric Kaufmann We began by asking our 18- to 20-year-old respondents (82.4 percent of whom reported attending public schools) whether they had ever been taught in class or heard about from an adult at school each of six concepts—four of which are central to critical race theory. The chart below, which displays the … Continue reading Yes, Critical Race Theory Is Being Taught in Schools
A new survey of young Americans vindicates the fears of CRT’s critics. →

Maureen Downey: Patti Ghezzi covered education for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution from 1996 until 2006. In a guest column today, Ghezzi writes about the big story she says she missed while covering Georgia schools — the phonics story. It wasn’t until years after she left the beat that Ghezzi said she realized widespread problems with how … Continue reading Former education journalist: How I missed the phonics story →

Shana Hurley: Lawmakers nationwide are trying to improve reading by embracing a scientific consensus regarding literacy acquisition and enacting robust regulatory regimes touching every part of the learning process. For most actors, “Right to Read” laws establish clear accountability rules and noncompliance remedies. However, students who are not provided with statutory reading entitlements have inconsistent … Continue reading The Remediless Reading Right →

Scott Girard: In the Madison Metropolitan School District, the formula meant $2,068 per student of unfunded special education costs in the 2019-20 school year, according to a district-by-district map that accompanies the report. MMSD spent $80.7 million on special education in the 2019-20 school year and received $19 million in state reimbursement, plus $6.1 million in … Continue reading Commentary and advocacy on Wisconsin K-12 Redistributed taxpayer funds →

David Kaufman: Indeed, 32 percent of Mississippi students hit literacy targets in 2019, up from 27 percent in 2017 and just 17 percent in 1998, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Despite the successes so far, Ms. Wright — who retired from education this year — believes there are plenty of challenges left to … Continue reading “Mississippi’s rise from having some of the nation’s lowest-performing reading scores to its most improved — required nearly a decade of new laws, strategic planning and fresh thinking” →

Just the news: The Stanford Internet Observatory, University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, think tank Atlantic Council, and social media analytics firm Graphika claimed their consortium had a 35% success rate getting flagged content removed, throttled or labeled.  The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the State Department, and liberal groups … Continue reading Notes on taxpayer supported censorship →

Alan Borsuk: But the results for MPS were terrible. They were bad before the pandemic, and they’re worse now. The percentages of students proficient in reading and math were in single digits in many schools. What can be done about that? Would the plans either candidate is advocating bring real change in how thousands of … Continue reading Commentary on Wisconsin K-12 Governance and the November 2022 elections →

Has Biden EdSec Cardona ever addressed literacy reform, much less pushed schools to make changes? Have national education teams and outlets been asking him about his position? https://t.co/45kID7plxW — Alexander (@alexanderrusso) October 2, 2022 The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black … Continue reading K-12 Literacy Governance Climate →

Daniela Jaime: Torres said she’s had to tell students repeatedly not to smoke or vape indoors and be courteous towards patrons, but the response has been so negative that on one occasion, she said, a student threw food at her after being kicked out. Torres no longer allows students to dine in, posting signs at … Continue reading “with little consideration for the staff or other customers, she said” →

Molly Beck and Daniel Bice: Evers entered the final two months of the race with about $5 million more in cash than Michels. The first-term governor received $20,000 donations from 10 individuals, including Andrea Soros, daughter of liberal billionaire George Soros. Others who maxed out were Abigail Dow, an instructional coach in New York City; … Continue reading $pending on the 2022 Wisconsin Governor election: Evers and Michels; education climate →

Leah Triedler: But in a statement after the speech, Republican Sen. Alberta Darling, chair of the Senate Education Committee, said Wisconsin students’ poor performance stems from Gov. Tony Evers “refusing to reform education in Wisconsin” despite Republican efforts, including a literacy bill Evers vetoed twice. Darling said Underly is following in his footsteps. “The DPI Secretary … Continue reading Commentary on legacy taxpayer supported K-12 Governance outcomes →

summarised via Tyler Cowen: But going forward, I think the old metrics that showed large advantages for single payer are going to continue to slide. Unions (formal or otherwise) are going to militate for higher pay. Governments are going to have to deal with one side of the political spectrum going into hoc to the … Continue reading Notes on the pros and cons of single payer (K-12 taxpayer models…) →

Rod Dreher: I apologize for being gross, but it’s necessary. You have to be shocked into recognizing the moral horror of what a part of the nation’s largest teacher’s union is doing. It is unspeakable, but we have to speak about it. The most effective work that the irreplaceable Christopher Rufo does is simply to … Continue reading Why Does The NEA Want Kids To Learn Butthole-Licking? →

This isn’t a thing. If students’ families can pick where they go, there is no segregation. In the current setup, unless you can afford to live in the neighborhoods with nice schools, you’re locked out. https://t.co/D9ETr84Bfj — Mister Vigilante (@MisterVigilante) September 16, 2022 The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement … Continue reading School Choice Politics and elected officials who attended private school →

Mitchell Schmidt: A new coalition of conservatives, policy groups and advocacy organizations has begun developing a package of education goals for the coming legislative session — with expanded school choice as a top priority — that could play a considerable role in the upcoming race for governor this November. Officials with the Wisconsin Coalition for … Continue reading Elections, K-12 Governance and Parent Choice →

Mitchell Schmidt: A new coalition of conservatives, policy groups and advocacy organizations has begun developing a package of education goals for the coming legislative session — with expanded school choice as a top priority — that could play a considerable role in the upcoming race for governor this November. Officials with the Wisconsin Coalition for … Continue reading Elections, K-12 Governance and Parent Choice →

🚨🚨GROOMING ALERT! The Wisconsin Dept. of Public Instruction has created a guide for “gender expansive” PRESCHOOLERS The guide dubs parents “trolls” and “jerks” if they refuse to use “they/them” pronouns or allow their kids to read books about trans toddlers pic.twitter.com/TrQ5BVc1Yw — Chrissy Clark (@chrissyclark_) September 13, 2022 DPI Commentary: “The Wisconsin Department of Public … Continue reading Taxpayer Funded Wisconsin DPI Preschool Gender Documents →

Charley Locke: Some have been pushed to take more inventive approaches to solve the staffing shortages. In Philadelphia, during a districtwide bus-driver shortage, the district paid families $300 a month to drive their kids to and from school. Atlanta Public Schools used nearly $2.2 million to provide on-site child care for 1,800 teachers to enable … Continue reading Where is the federal taxpayer k-12 “windfall” being spent? →

Wishkub Kinepoway I wanted diversity. I wanted my children to see, like, different nationalities. I wanted them to feel included. And I also wanted, like – I’m an educator, so I have an education background with early childhood, and I just wanted intentional learning experiences for my children. I was actually unfamiliar with what a … Continue reading “Because I can be smart, and I don’t have to pretend” →

Robert Pondiscio In 1925, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned an Oregon law requiring that parents or guardians send their children to public school in the districts where they lived. The Society of Sisters, which ran private academies, claimed that the law interfered with the right of parents to choose religious instruction for their children. The … Continue reading Schoolchildren Are Not ‘Mere Creatures of the State’ →

Charles Smith: The percentage of students who performed at or above the proficient level in reading was 36% in 2019, 35% in 2017 and 34% in 1998. While Wisconsin’s numbers remain higher than Mississippi’s, the trend line is flat. Further, Black fourth-graders in Mississippi are outperforming Black fourthgraders in Wisconsin in reading, portending what’s to … Continue reading “Wisconsin, on the other hand, has barely moved the needle on NAEP scores in 30 years” mulligans reign… →

Bryan Caplan: I have deep doubts about the intellectual and social value of schooling. My argument in a nutshell: First, everyone leaves school eventually. Second, most of what you learn in school doesn’t matter after graduation. Third, human beings soon forget knowledge they rarely use. Strangely, these very doubts imply that the educational costs of … Continue reading School Is for Wasting Time and Money →

Ben Chapman and Douglas Belkin: Scores re­leased Thurs­day show un­prece­dented drops on the long-term trends tests that are part of the Na­tional As­sess­ment of Ed­u­ca­tional Progress, known as the “Na­tion’s Re­port Card.” The tests are ad­min­is­tered to U.S. stu­dents age 9. The test scores re­flect more than a pan­demic prob­lem, with ex­perts say­ing it could … Continue reading The drops in test scores were roughly four times greater among the stu­dents who were the least pro­fi­cient in both math and read­ing →

John McWhorter The Association of Social Work Boards administers tests typically required for the licensure of social workers. Apparently, this amounts to a kind of racism that must be reckoned with. There is a Change.org petition circulating saying just that, based on the claim that the association’s clinical exam is biased because from 2018 to … Continue reading Lower Black and Latino Pass Rates Don’t Make a Test Racist →

David Blaska: But you’re a Loony Toons cartoon if you believe critical race theory is not taught in the public schools (as does WI State Journal education reporter Elizabeth Beyer). The unionized teachers in Madison WI are obsessed with corrosive identity politics and taxpayers are helping pay for it! Their militant-left labor union, Madison Teachers … Continue reading Reading, writing, arithmetic — and social justice! →

Adam Wren: “If you look down your nose at someone long enough, one day they will punch you in it.” And I think that’s what happened. I sat there that night — I don’t watch much television — but these national network commentators are talking to each other incredulously. What happened here? Well, these under-educated … Continue reading “That’s very different than what you’re peddling to a sixth or seventh or eighth grader, where a teacher’s word is law.” →

Moria Balingit: While students saw across-the-board gains in the 2021-2022 school year compared to the previous academic year, state education officials said the progress was not enough, and pinned some of the good news on lowered standards — not on better student performance. “Despite the scores being up from last year, they are down from … Continue reading Mandates, School Closures and Student Academic Outcomes: Virginia Edition →

Heather Smith: During his rough and tumble 1997 campaign Evers directly criticized fellow Democrat Benson saying he had failed to call attention to the problems in our state’s education system, and that continual promotion of the good without sounding the alarm on the bad “wrecks our credibility.”  Evers said students and districts were in trouble … Continue reading History: A look back at Wisconsin Governor Tony Ever’s 1997 DPI campaign →

Marginal Revolution: The teachers felt like curriculum robots—and pushed back. “This seems dehumanizing, this is colonizing, this is the man telling us what to do,” says Weaver, describing their response to the approach. “So we fought tooth and nail as a teacher group to throw that out.” This is one of the most crazy things … Continue reading “For seven years in a row, Oakland was the fastest-gaining urban district in California for reading,” recalls Weaver. “And we hated it.” →

Nat Malkus: What Weingarten conveniently leaves out is the reason for “two years of disruption.” Time and again, cautious state and school leaders — disproportionately Democrats in concert with teachers’ unions — extended school closures or strict Covid protocols, demonstrated little responsiveness as new evidence on Covid emerged, and minimized the trade-offs. Many red-state leaders … Continue reading Officials made public-health bets that students will have to pay for →

Dale Chu: In the 1840s, Horace Mann, known as the “father of American education,” argued that children should be taught to read whole words instead of individual letters, which he described as “skeleton-shaped, bloodless, ghostly apparitions” that make children feel “death-like, when compelled to face them.” This malformed opinion morphed into the broader whole-language theory, … Continue reading “What we know for certain is that schools have been lousy at teaching kids how to read” →

Belinda Luscombe: As a teacher in Oakland, Calif., Kareem Weaver helped struggling fourth- and fifth-grade kids learn to read by using a very structured, phonics-based reading curriculum called Open Court. It worked for the students, but not so much for the teachers. “For seven years in a row, Oakland was the fastest-gaining urban district in … Continue reading Inside the Massive Effort to Change the Way Kids Are Taught to Read →

Will Flanders & Dylan Palmer: How does Wisconsin stack up against other states in K-12 education? An eye-popping list from U.S. News and World Report ranked the Badger State K-12 system as the 8th best in the country.i But this rosy picture contradicts other key indicators that Wisconsin students are falling behind. So what’s going … Continue reading The State of Education in Wisconsin →

Will Flanders & Dylan Palmer : Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a much greater focus by parents and concerned citizens on what is being taught in schools around the country. For the first time, many parents were exposed to what was being taught to their children, and they didn’t like … Continue reading Impact of College-Level Indoctrination on K-12 Education →

Shannon Whitworth: Nowhere can you see self-proclaimed “progressives” more in opposition to progress than on the issue of school choice in the state of Wisconsin. Over 30 years ago, Wisconsin created the first school choice program in the nation, liberating thousands of families from failing public schools and giving many children, particularly those in our … Continue reading Universal school choice would help all Wisconsin families →

Joanne Jacobs: Teachers are complaining to Washington Post columnist Jay Mathews about grading reforms, he writes. A teacher in the high-performing Montgomery County, Maryland district fears that students are learning they can get good or good enough grades without doing the work. Teachers can’t give a zero for a missed assignment, unless they document their … Continue reading “Do nothing, Get Something” →

MacIver: Claim 1: Tony Evers has Taken Wisconsin Schools into the Top 10 in the U.S. The ad repeats a brag Evers has been making for months.  The top 10 ranking issued by US News, shows Wisconsin’s rank improved 10 places since the 2018 list.  Evers has been taking credit for the improvement although the … Continue reading Notes on Wisconsin Governor Evers’ 2022 K-12 Education Campaign Advertisement →

Freddie deBoer: We can express the static nature of relative educational outcomes quantitatively, in a variety of ways. The simplest is to observe that by far the most consistently effective predictor of future academic performance is prior performance. This paper summarizes the reality simply: The present study shows that individual differences in educational achievement are highly stable … Continue reading a comprehensive argument that education cannot close academic gaps →

Colin Carroll: That is exactly right. And you can see that more clearly when Rufo’s correct quote is put into full context. “To get universal school choice, you really need to operate from a premise of universal public school distrust. I think that the public schools have done a remarkable job at doing just that, specifically, … Continue reading Notes on reduced confidence in taxpayer supported K-12 schools →

Jonathan Allen: “But then you want to turn to areas that are more important” such as funding and fundamental instruction. That explains the two-step thrust-and-parry messaging American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten will outline Thursday morning during her union’s convention in Boston. The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement … Continue reading “and may reward the party that focuses more on fundamental instruction than ideological warfare” →

Alex Tabarrok: A very nice paper in Management Science by Kini, Shen, Shenoy and Subramanian finds that labor unions reduce product quality. Two strengths of the paper. First, the authors have relatively objective measures of product quality from thousands of product recalls mandated by the FDA, the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the National Highway … Continue reading “Labor Unions reduce product quality” →

Ann Althouse: But what’s really bothering Strauss isn’t the outrage of insulting education departments. It’s Hillsdale’s participation in charter schools around the country. There’s the “Hillsdale K-12 curriculum that is centered on Western civilization and designed to help ‘students acquire a mature love for America.’” Valerie Strauss: At the reception last week, held at a … Continue reading Commentary on school of education effectiveness and k-12 diversity choices vs monoculture →

Keeping schools and preschools open when other countries closed them was an extremely difficult decision. In March 2020 the criticism against me was harsh for not closing down schools and preschools, but I was – and still am – convinced that it was the right decision. https://t.co/AzM5RHu5gY — Anna Ekström (@Anna_Ekstrom) July 9, 2022 The data … Continue reading Notes on keeping schools open in Sweden →

“Places with low-performing schools kept them shut for longer than others in their regions. Closures were often long in places where teachers’ unions were especially powerful, such as Mexico and parts of the US.” https://t.co/krCiBZd82p — Alexander (@alexanderrusso) July 9, 2022 The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at … Continue reading Ongoing costs of k-12 lockdowns →

The Economist Then the pandemic struck and hundreds of millions of pupils were locked out of school. At first, when it was not yet known whether children were vulnerable to covid-19 or were likely to spread the virus to older people, school closures were a prudent precaution. But in many places they continued long after … Continue reading Governments are ignoring the lockdown effect on education →

Kay Hymowitz I am overstating, but not by much. A significant number of American students are reading fluently and with understanding and are well on their way to becoming literate adults. But they are a minority. As of 2019, according to the National Association of Education Progress (NAEP), sometimes called the Nation’s Report Card, 35 percent … Continue reading The right to read! →

Kaleem Caire: I have grave concern for our children in Dane County and Wisconsin. We face no greater long-term crisis in America than the widespread underperformance, diminishing motivation and poor preparation of children and young people in our nation’s K-12 schools, and the rapidly declining number of educators available to teach our children. Student performance … Continue reading We can’t solve problems if our children can’t read →

Mario Loyola and Eric Groten The EPA’s attempt to impose such a scheme on states was particularly bold because Congress had just declined to enact a similar scheme. After the 2008 election, Democrats introduced the Waxman-Markey bill, a sweeping cap-and-trade scheme to reduce carbon emissions dramatically. Even with Democratic supermajorities in both houses, Congress failed … Continue reading Civics: “rule making” vs legislation →

David Blaska: A political adversary once described the Head Groundskeeperhereabouts as the only survivor of a heart donor operation. Even so, the prothesis replacing the original equipment does bleed for the kids stealing cars in Madison. They are victims, alright. Victims of critical race theory. This past Monday 06-20-22, four kids under age 15 hot … Continue reading More notes on Wayne Strong →

Sean Phillip Cotter: Boston Public Schools, which has narrowed its ostensibly nationwide superintendent search down to one current and one recent former BPS administrator, is beset on all sides by poor student outcomes, yawning socioeconomic achievement gaps, reports of increased violence in and around school buildings, declining enrollment and snarled student transportation strategies. The commissioner … Continue reading Boston slams new state schools plan as moving sides ‘further apart’ as receivership looms →

Jeff Schogol: The Navy believes it is worth publicly disclosing whenever admirals in particular have been disciplined for misconduct in order to maintain the public’s trust and confidence in the Department of the Navy’s integrity, Mommsen said. Generally, that standard also applies in cases when allegations of misconduct against commanding officers, executive officers, and senior … Continue reading Governance: Cashiered Navy Officers (consequences! No Mulligans?) →

Robert Pondiscio: Calkins’s work mostly disregards this fundamental insight, focusing students’ attention in the mirror instead of out the window. For low-income kids who are less likely to grow up in language-rich homes and don’t have the same opportunities for enrichment as affluent kids, the opportunity costs of Calkins’s “philosophy” are incalculable. Endless hours of class time … Continue reading “Expert” idiocy on teaching kids to read →

Ruy Teixeira: Finally, there is perhaps the key issue for many Asian voters: education. It is difficult to overestimate how important education is to Asian voters, who see it as the key tool for upward mobility—a tool that even the poorest Asian parents can take advantage of. But Democrats have become increasingly associated with an … Continue reading “anti-meritocratic, oriented away from standardized tests, gifted and talented programs and test-in elite schools” →

MD Kittle: The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction has long been a haven of leftist thought and policy. Increasingly, the agency has become politically weaponized in the pursuit of its woke diversity, equity and inclusion agenda. Most recently, DPI launched an investigation into a Milwaukee Public Schools counselor whose alleged crime is that she spoke passionately in … Continue reading Taxpayer supported Wisconsin DPI and free speech →

Alex Gutentag: The collapse of educational pathways and structures has had a particularly brutal effect on the poorest students, who can least afford to have their schooling disrupted. High-poverty schools had the lowest levels of in-person instruction, causing low-income students to fall even further behind their more affluent peers. The entirely foreseeable ways in which bad COVID-19 … Continue reading New ‘discoveries’ of the harm caused by school closures are as disingenuous and politically motivated as the original policies themselves →

Ambarish Chandra and Tracy Beth Høeg Our study replicates a highly cited CDC study showing a negative association between school mask mandates and pediatric SARS-CoV-2 cases. We then extend the study using a larger sample of districts and a longer time interval, employing almost six times as much data as the original study. We examine … Continue reading “no significant relationship between mask mandates and case rates” →

Russel Blaylock: The federal Care Act encouraged this humandisaster by offering all US hospitals up to 39,000dollars for each ICU patient they put on respirators. despite the fact that early on it was obvious that the respirators were a major cause of death among these unsuspecting, trusting patients. In addition, the hospitals received 12,000 dollars … Continue reading Civics: “Covid Truth…“ →

Mary Kay Linge The sabotage is ongoing,” another parent said — recalling that Vasconcelos previously made waves for suggesting that AP tests “reflect systemic racism” and tried to scale back LaGuardia’s AP offerings. Draft schedules circulating among the faculty show the instructional day being shaved down by nearly two hours for the Fall 2022 semester.  While 10 periods would … Continue reading LaGuardia High School in NYC in uproar over ‘equitable’ academics →

Ricardo Cano, Nanette Asimov Teachers at San Francisco’s Lowell High School gave freshman students significantly more D and F grades this past fall, the first semester after the school board eliminated the merit-based admissions it had relied on for decades. The lower grades, while expected by many, are likely to become part of a fervid … Continue reading New data shows shift at Lowell High School: More students given failing grades after admissions change →

Chris Rickert: After failing to get a waiver from the state’s minimum instructional hours requirement, the Madison School District has devised a plan for the last week of this school year that will allow students getting Cs or better at its four main high schools to forgo getting that minimum amount of instruction. The district … Continue reading Mulligans all around →

Will Flanders: Here are the biggest findings: Students in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program continue to outperform their public-school peers. Proficiency rates in private choice schools were 4.6% higher in English/Language Arts (ELA) and 4.5% higher in math on average than proficiency rates in traditional public schools in Milwaukee. Charter school students in Milwaukee continue … Continue reading “Little evidence was found that more spending affects student performance” →

Rachel Cohen: There were early signs that this narrative didn’t explain the full story. If allegiance to former President Donald Trump (in schools that opened) or teacher unions (in those that stayed closed) were all that mattered, why did support for reopening schools also drop among Republican voters over the summer? And what about the conflicting recommendations coming from … Continue reading “Early analyses indicated that Covid-19 health factors had virtually nothing to do with reopening decisions, and partisan politics could explain nearly all the variation” →

Ronald Kessler: Essentially, that meant kids were not being taught to read at all. Whole language proponents even said that when children guessed wrong, they should not be corrected. “It is unpleasant to be corrected,” Paul Jennings, an Australian whole language enthusiast, said. “It has to be fun, fun, fun.” But reading, like devising algebraic … Continue reading “Essentially, that meant kids were not being taught to read at all” →

Eugene Volokh: The claims arise out of “UPMC’s purported disclosure of their confidential medical information to [child protection authorities] for the purpose of targeting them with highly intrusive, humiliating and coercive child abuse investigations starting before taking their newborn babies home from UPMC’s hospitals shortly after childbirth.” Scott Girard: At issue is an April 2018 … Continue reading Parental Rights vs Taxpayer Supported Organs →

Hannah Natanson and Laura Vozzella “We are not serving all of Virginia’s children and we must,” Youngkin said at a news conference in Richmond, where he and his education team presented the report. “We want to be the best in education. We should be the best in education. And the data that is compiled and … Continue reading The report further critiques what it calls school districts’ lack of transparency regarding declining student performance — and it laments parents’ “eroding” confidence in the state’s public schools. →

Neil Harrison and Jeffrey Sachs: This lack of an independent and transparent US-based scientific investigation has had four highly adverse consequences. First, public trust in the ability of US scientific institutions to govern the activities of US science in a responsible manner has been shaken. Second, the investigation of the origin of SARS-CoV-2 has become … Continue reading Advocating transparency in the origins of COVID 19 →

Michael J. Petrilli The connection between the excellence gap and affirmative action should be obvious. College administrators would not have to twist themselves into knots to find ways to admit more Black, Hispanic, and low-income students into highly selective institutions were it not for the pervasiveness of the excellence gap. Consider: In 2015–16, the most … Continue reading The excellence gap and underrepresentation at America’s most selective universities →

By Shawn Hubler All together, America’s public schools have lost at least 1.2 million students since 2020, according to a recently published national survey. State enrollment figures show no sign of a rebound to the previous national levels any time soon. A broad decline was already underway in the nation’s public school system as rates of birth … Continue reading $pending more for less: K-12 budgets grow amidst declining enrollment →

Helen Dale America’s dysfunctional airports are instances of widespread low state capacity. And this is bigger than airports. Low state capacity can only be used to describe a country when it is true of multiple big-ticket items, not just one. State capacity is a term drawn from economic history and development economics. It refers to a government’s … Continue reading “Low state capacity”: spending more for less →

Scott Girard: Officials outlined a total of $28 million in additional costs to the School Board Monday night. Of that, $11 million is related to high inflation, $9 million is for additional mechanical and electrical work and $8 million for additional environmental projects. MMSD chief financial officer Ross MacPherson said those costs are likely to be … Continue reading Spending more on facilities amidst enrollment decline and long term, disastrous reading results →

Paul Hill & Kate Destler: The solutions will require new modes of spending, performance measurement, and school oversight, as well as much greater flexibility in teacher hiring, training, and work. Superintendents and school-board leaders can’t make these changes all by themselves. They’ll need serious help and new thinking from governors, state legislators, the federal government, … Continue reading Restoring pandemic losses will require major changes in schools and classrooms, superintendents say →

Johannes Schmidt: A new study has found that although “high-poverty schools” suffered large losses in achievement by switching to remote learning during the coronavirus lockdowns, districts that remained largely in-person lost relatively little ground. The report, titled “The consequences of remote and hybrid instruction during the pandemic,” was published by a team of researchers from the Center … Continue reading “We found that districts that spent more weeks in remote instruction lost more ground than districts that returned to in-person instruction sooner,” →

Link: But what else can you achieve with a lockdown? The supposition of the non-Zero COVID crowd was that you could suppress infection. You can’t: there’s only a few things you can do with any kind of intervention. You can either get rid of the pathogen – unrealistic – or you can try and suppress it. But if you suppress it for a particular period of time, it’s going to come … Continue reading ‘The Vindication of The Great Barrington Three’ Panel Transcript: LLS London Meeting Feb 2022 →

Dr Howard Fuller: Let me cite some of the specific concerns I have: First, the proposed rule to demand that charter schools partner with a local district is obviously aimed at ending their independence and forcing them under the control of the traditional public school system. Charters should be free to determine whether partnering with … Continue reading Howard Fuller on the Biden Administration’s efforts to reduce k-12 diversity →