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’→
David Blaska: This Wednesday 09-07-22, Khari Sanford will be sentenced in Dane County Circuit Court for the execution-style slaying of Dr. Beth Potter and her husband Robin Carre. They were murdered by a person they had tried to help,” their memorial obituary reads. Khari Sanford was 18 years old on March 30, 2020 when he entered the … Continue reading Did Woke Madison help murder Beth Potter and Robin Carre?→
Rory Linnane: Evers said his plan for the 2023-25 budget would draw on the state’s projected $5 billion budget surplus while “holding the line” on property taxes. Evers’ opponent in the November election, Tim Michels, called Evers’ plan “more money and more bureaucracy.” “The tired, old Evers approach has not worked,” Michels said in a … Continue reading Incumbent Wisconsin Governor proposes $2B in additional K-12 tax & Spending….→
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→
Elizabeth Beyer: Legislative Republicans have defended their decision to keep revenue limits flat by noting Wisconsin schools will be getting $2.3 billion in federal COVID relief aid, known as Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief, or ESSER funds. Madison is anticipating its share will be roughly $66.7 million. School officials have not laid out how … Continue reading Madison School Board approves $2-per-hour wage increase for education assistants→
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→
Elizabeth Beyer: Here are highlights of the work being done currently at Madison’s four main high schools, according to the Madison School District. Notes and links on the recent Madison tax and spending increase referendum The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are … Continue reading Notes on taxpayer supported Madison High School Construction projects→
Everyone is talking about the monetary cost of student debt forgiveness. But what about the moral cost? Joe Biden has essentially co-signed the greatest endorsement of duty abdication in American history. Without a sense of duty and obligation, society is rendered impossible. — Christian Watson (@OfficialCWATSON) August 24, 2022 Related: US debt clock #studentloanforgiveness pic.twitter.com/0l3xwToPFo … Continue reading The moral cost of student loan policies→
Naaz Modan: Public school enrollment remains down for a second consecutive year, at 49.5 million in fall 2021 compared to 49.4 million in fall 2020, according to preliminary federal counts from the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics. Comparatively, pre-pandemic enrollment was at 50.8 million students in fall 2019. However, when broken … Continue reading Public school enrollment down for second consecutive year→
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→
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”→
Brianna Abbott: The ripple effects of the Covid-19 pandemic’s influence on nearly every aspect of health in America are becoming clear. Covid-19 has killed more than one million people in the U.S., a toll mounting by some 350 people a day. A range of other chronic diseases and acute threats to health also worsened during … Continue reading How the Covid-19 Pandemic Changed Americans’ Health for the Worse→
Administration Slides for the School Board (PDF): Forward LA Proficiency (3-5) Participation increased to 87% from 50% in 20-21, nearing pre-pandemic ranges.Overall, 40% of students grades 3-5 scored proficient on Forward ELA While a decrease from 20-21 (43%), scores that year likely inflated by non-random low participation– trends in ELA scores fairly steady or increasing … Continue reading An update on Madison’s Long Term, Disastrous Reading Results→
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→
Scott Girard: Jones’ questions included specific suggestions for using available funding for further increasing the salary schedule instead of what’s currently planned, including new positions like the Village Builders initiative, and cutting district and administrative staff positions that were “difficult to fill for the 2021-22 school year.” District leaders have continually blamed a challenging state budget that … Continue reading Salary increase discussions in the Madison School District→
Elizabeth Beyer: The Madison School Board voted 6-1 in June to adopt the district’s $561.3 million preliminary budget for next school year, which included the 3% base wage increase. Negotiations began in May with MTI requesting the 4.7% increase — the annual inflationary amount and the maximum allowed in bargaining under state law. The district … Continue reading Notes on teacher compensation amidst Madison K-12 tax & spending growth→
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”→
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”→
Scott Girard: Despite enrollment dropping over the past five years districtwide, especially during the pandemic, the full-time equivalent (or FTE) staff positions dedicated to those areas have not dropped at the same rate. In student services, for example, the 2017-18 school year featured 105.78 students per staff member in positions including psychologist, social worker, nurse … Continue reading A look at staff growth amidst enrollment decline in the taxpayer supported Madison K-12 schools→
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→
Scott Girard: More than one-third of the Madison Metropolitan School District buildings will have a different principal in the 2022-23 school year than the person in that role last fall. Among the 19 of 50 principals who left the school they were at last fall are six who left their building mid-year, while the rest … Continue reading 19 new Madison K-12 Principals→
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 Lat: The nation’s capital is also the latest front in the law-school culture wars. Two law schools in D.C., American University Washington College of Law and the George Washington University Law School, have experienced free speech and cancel culture controversies in the past week. Here’s what’s going at American University (“AU”), per Karen Sloan … Continue reading Free Speech And Cancel Culture at the DC area law schools→
Scott Girard Katina Maclin won’t be able to vote this fall, but her ideas will be present at every polling place in the city of Madison. The high school junior, who recently moved from Sun Prairie to Glendale, designed two new voting-themed stickers for voters to consider grabbing after filling out their ballot. “It speaks to how … Continue reading High schooler designs new ‘I Voted’ stickers for Madison elections→
Scott Girard: The effort to consider a new name for Madison’s Jefferson Middle School is on pause until October, following low attendance by members of the ad hoc committee appointed for the effort. The School Board appointed the committee in March after Jefferson principal Sue Abplanalp made a renaming request to the board Feb. 28. … Continue reading Notes on renaming Madison’s Jefferson Middle School→
Scott Girard: While there is a large influx of federal COVID-19 relief funding, officials have expressed hesitancy at using that one-time money for ongoing operational costs like salaries. “You’re going to hear no argument from us that our teachers and our staff deserve better,” LeMonds said at one of MTI’s rallies in May. “The fiscal … Continue reading Notes on Taxpayer supported Madison K-12 spending plans amidst declining enrollment→
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→
Jill Tucker: The San Francisco school board voted Wednesday to nullify a previous board decision to cover up a controversial mural at Washington High School. The move followed nearly three years of legal battles, debate and controversy. In a 4-3 vote, the board followed a judge’s order to vacate their previous decision to cover the … Continue reading Post-recall S.F. school board rescinds vote to cover controversial Washington High mural→
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?)→
Rachel K. Jones, Jesse Philbin, Marielle Kirstein, Elizabeth Nash, Kimberley Lufkin: According to new findings from Guttmacher’s latest Abortion Provider Census—the most comprehensive data collection effort on abortion provision in the United States—there were 8% more abortions in 2020 than in 2017. Pam Belluck: The uptick began in 2017, and as of 2020, one in … Continue reading Speaking of declining Madison K-12 enrollment & Eugenics→
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→
Andrew Sullivan: Elite imposition of the new social justice religion — indoctrinating children in the precepts and premises of critical race and gender theory — has also met ferocious backlash as parents began to absorb what their kids were being taught: that America is a uniquely evil country based forever on white supremacy; that your … Continue reading K-12 Governance Climate: recent Elections→
Scott Girard: Simkin suggested one example is in the student use of cell phones in classrooms, something teachers have expressed concerns about this school year. The BEP already prohibits the use of unauthorized, non-educationally required devices that disrupt learning, but Simkin said that teachers “don’t have what they need to implement this and it’s greatly … Continue reading Commentary on Madison’s behavior education plan→
Eugene Volokh: “[T]hese threats to due process and academic freedom are matters of life and death for our great universities. It is incumbent upon their leaders to reverse the disturbing trend of indifference to these threats, or simple immobilization due to fear of internal constituencies of the ‘virtuous’ determined to lunge for influence or settle … Continue reading “Deeply Troubling Aspects of Contemporary University Procedures”→
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→
Chris Rickert: LeMonds said the base rate for summer school staff is $28 per hour, or 12% higher than in previous years. But the relief money last year allowed the district to pay $40 an hour. The district’s teachers’ union, Madison Teachers Inc., had not responded to requests for comment. Wednesday’s district email said “chronic … Continue reading Summer School update in Madison→
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”→
Mississippi passed a literacy act in 2013 that requires 3rd-graders to pass a reading test before they can move up a grade. Students have multiple chances to pass the test and those who fail the first two tries can have access to summer reading camps and other resources. — Sharon Lurye (@sharonlurye) May 31, 2022 … Continue reading Notes on Mississippi’s reading progress amidst Wisconsin’s decline→
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…“→
Marsha Familaro Enright: Collectivists of many stripes—but one aim—have been eating away at our free society for over one hundred years. If we want to reverse America’s current slide into authoritarianism and actively move towards a fully free society, we need to be as clear about our goals as the collectivists have been about theirs. … Continue reading To Restore American Liberty, We Need Colleges that Actually Teach the Liberal Arts→
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”→
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→
Elizabeth Beyer: Jones told the board that 67 staff members are leaving this year, but the district is only hiring 10 new staff. Prior to the meeting, Jones noted that school districts of all sizes across Wisconsin are offering base wage increases to their teachers that are near or at 4.7% to keep in line … Continue reading K-12 tax & spending climate: Madison spending growth amidst declining enrollment→
Will Flanders Unfortunately, Gov. Tony Evers rejected recent attempts to create a friendlier environment for charters. In April, he vetoed bills to expand the number of authorizers, make it easier for high-quality charter schools to expand, and lift the cap on the number of charter schools authorized by the College of Menominee Nation or the … Continue reading Notes on Wisconsin’s lagging school governance diversity→
Dana Goldstein: How Professor Calkins ended up influencing tens of millions of children is, in one sense, the story of education in America. Unlike many developed countries, the United States lacks a national curriculum or teacher-training standards. Local policies change constantly, as governors, school boards, mayors and superintendents flow in and out of jobs. Amid … Continue reading “The fact that she was disconnected from that research is evidence of the problem.” Madison….→
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→
David Blaska: If you doubt that the Woke Wobblies have taken over Madison’s public schools, we submit the following: School board president Ali Muldrow and immediate past member Ananda Mirilli are accusing Ismael Ozanne, a black man, of racism most foul. They want him to resign (!!!) because police arrested Freedom Inc. spokesperson Jessica Williams … Continue reading Race and the Taxpayer Funded Madison School District→
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→
How the press modifies terms to disparage a target. “Supporter of free speech” becomes “free speech absolutist” It also works in reverse: “censorship” becomes “reasonable free speech” >>Yet the data is an indication of how Musk’s leadership as a “free speech absolutist”<< https://t.co/bvjbToxdDB — John Robb (@johnrobb) May 13, 2022
Jon Marcus: Women now comprise nearly 60 percent of enrollment in universities and colleges and men just over 40 percent, the research center reports. Fifty years ago, the gender proportions were reversed. “We were already not doing so hot,” Ponjuan said. “This pandemic exacerbates what’s happening.” “How do you go away to college and leave your family struggling … Continue reading The pandemic is speeding up the mass disappearance of men from college→
Dan Shafer: The crisis in Milwaukee K-12 education is huge. This cannot be overstated. Yet, the trend seems to be toward getting smaller and smaller. For example, Milwaukee Public Schools just released its annual budget proposal noting it expects to lose 1,000 students between now and the start of the 2022-2023 school year, reducing enrollment to about 67,500 … Continue reading Add 30 Days to the MPS School Year→
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→
William Jacobson: The federal bureaucracy is being weaponized against parent concerned about the racialization and sexualization of K-12 education, particularly in the younger grades. Merrick Garland, dancing to the tune of the National School Board Association, portrayed parents protesting as domestic threats, and organized law enforcement at every level to coordinate strategies against them. I wrote at … Continue reading Taxpayer supported Government disinformation versus parents→
Admiral Cloudberg: On the 23rd of February 2019, a Boeing 767 transporting cargo for Amazon suddenly dived into Trinity Bay while on approach to Houston, Texas, killing all three people on board. From the putrid estuary, investigators pulled the jet’s two black boxes, which together revealed the perplexing story of the last moments of Atlas … Continue reading A note on high expectations→