October 21, 2021 11:00a.m. CST. Watch via Wisconsin Eye. Wisconsin AB 446; SIS links. The list of lobbying organizations (many taxpayer supported!) opposed to Roadmap to Reading Success is remarkable: Association of Wisconsin School Administrators League of Women Voters Wisconsin (!) Pearson NA (!) Southeastern Wisconsin Schools Alliance WIRSA Wisconsin Association of School Boards Wisconsin … Continue reading Roadmap to Reading Success Wisconsin Assembly Vote (AB446)→
Joanne Jacobs: The Report Card focuses on low-income Latino third graders, who make up 43 percent of public school students. Only one school district in California — Bonita Unified in Los Angeles County — has more than 60 percent of these students reading at grade level; 12 teach the 50 percent mark. The best-performing districts … Continue reading Two out of three low-income black and Latino students in California read below grade level.→
Transcript (machine generated) mp3 audio Notes and links on AB446. Kelly Butler Barksdale Reading Institute bio. 2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results. My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans … Continue reading Kelly Butler Wisconsin AB446 Testimony→
“Waunakee, they’re getting 65% proficiency. That’s great for Wisconsin. That’s great. Want to keep to doing great. And so we like really, we’re going to move there (from Madison). How are we going to tutor all the kids we’ve missed in Wisconsin?” Machine generated transcript. 2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board … Continue reading Waunakee (former Madison PTO President) Mom on our Disastrous Reading Results→
“1993: Wisconsin Students #3 in the Nation in Reading 2019: #27 If Mississippi can do it, we can do it”. 2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results. My Question to Wisconsin Governor … Continue reading Donna Hejtmanek Wisconsin AB446 Testimony→
Paula Bolyard: ** I recall a former Madison Superintendent occasionally using these words “we have the children”. ** Moms and dads, you know what’s best for your own children. That’s long been my mantra, harkening back to my early blogger days when I fiercely defended a parent’s right to determine the course of his or … Continue reading “The State Does Not Own Your Children”→
Jim Polito: Nicole Solas is fighting CRT indoctrination in schools while being a mom taxi and changing diapers. The Rhode Island mother is being sued by the state’s largest teacher’s union for asking questions about what’s being taught to her kids. Now the Department of Justice and FBI have accepted the premise that she could … Continue reading Five foot tall Rhode Island mom is not intimidated by the DOJ or FBI.→
mp3 audio: PDF Transcript (Machine generated). Related: Some legislators attempt to address our long term, disastrous reading results. 2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results. My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on … Continue reading Peng Her Wisconsin Assembly Bill 446 Testimony→
Andrew McCarthy: On Monday, Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memorandum in which he wailed about the “disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff.” Clearing his throat with an empty nod to the inconvenient fact that the Constitution protects “spirited debate,” Garland incorrectly — indeed, outrageously for … Continue reading The Biden Justice Department’s Lawless Threat against American Parents→
“Most educated workforce in the world” Are we (Wisconsin/Madison) in the game? I have my doubts. Mulligans distract us. Two recent scenes at LHR, London Heathrow airport. 80 million people transited the airport in 2018. 2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school … Continue reading Rigor: Canadian Marketing vs Wisconsin (Madison)?→
Michael Benjamin: We ask that question of any parent whose child attends a city Department of Education school and more broadly of families (especially urban ones) all across the nation. And not just elementary-school children, but even middle- and high-schoolers. Because all too many public schools not only fail to teach basic skills; they promote … Continue reading Are you sure your kid can read? All too many US public schools won’t tell you the truth→
Wisconsin Senate: Senate Ed Committee will have a hearing on SB454 The Roadmap to Reading Success Wednesday, Oct 6 at 10:30AM. It will be the only bill on the agenda. Catch it on Wisconsin Eye (or in person). Related: A Capitol Conversation (2011!) and the Foundations of Reading. 2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks … Continue reading Wisconsin Roadmap to Reading Success hearing→
Riley Vetterkind: Teaching public school students and training employees about concepts such as systemic racism and implicit bias would be banned under legislation Republicans passed in the state Assembly Tuesday. GOP lawmakers also approved a bill, 61-37, that would create a statewide civics curriculum that all Wisconsin public and private schools would have to follow. … Continue reading Wisconsin Assembly passes ban on teaching critical race theory→
Representative Robin Vos: “Funding for K-12 education in Wisconsin is at historic levels, and this year our schools received a massive amount of one-time federal dollars. The Democrats’ singular focus to push more money into schools isn’t a winning strategy for our kids. We need to look at improving how they are being taught and … Continue reading “Funding for K-12 education in Wisconsin is at historic levels”→
Rory Linnane: Though the position is technically nonpartisan, Underly’s campaign was heavily funded by the Democratic Party in a race that saw unprecedented spending. Her campaign spent seven times that of her opponent, former Brown Deer Schools Superintendent Deborah Kerr. The only action Underly announced Thursday was the creation of a literacy task force to … Continue reading Wisconsin DPI Superintendent Rhetoric, amidst long term, disastrous reading results→
In her State of Education Address, State Superintendent Jill Underly commented on the divestment of schools in WI. But schools don’t have a funding crisis. With COVID aid coming into WI, schools received a record amount of funding in the 21-23 budget. https://t.co/h3IP4iCwYq pic.twitter.com/zHwFCpNTgu — MacIver Institute (@MacIverWisc) September 23, 2021 2017: West High Reading … Continue reading Wisconsin: spending more on K-12 Government schools, for less→
Phew. Now that I have a school-aged child of my own I’m seeing just how fraught it is to advocate for your kid when also trying to maintain a cooperative relationship. Makes me rethink how I’ve thought about that issue when reporting. — Nichole Dobo (@nicholedobo) September 22, 2021 2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks … Continue reading Parents and schools, continued→
Bonnie Snyder At the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education(FIRE), our longstanding concerns about the deteriorating free speech culture in higher education led to the suspicion that many of these pernicious problems originate before students ever set foot on campus. This spurred us to expand our organizational aims to include high school outreach, in order to teach … Continue reading How indoctrination shortchanges K-12 students.→
Erica Pandey: Charter schools picked off hundreds of thousands of public school students across the U.S. during the pandemic, according to a new analysis from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. Why it matters: The pandemic has weakened America’s public education system, as Zoom classes, teacher fatigue and student disengagement take their toll. And that hobbled system … Continue reading Charter School Enrollment Growth (Wisconsin up 13%)→
Future: One thing’s for sure — with this COVID crisis, we’re at an inflection point between old and new technology — whether it’s in how we make vaccines, or how we apply the fields of synthetic biology and genetic epidemiology in public health response. So now’s the time to look both backward, and forward, to … Continue reading Uncontrolled Spread: Science, Policy, Institutions, Infrastructure→
David Zweig: At least 12,000 Americans have already died from COVID-19 this month, as the country inches through its latest surge in cases. But another worrying statistic is often cited to depict the dangers of this moment: The number of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in the United States right now is as high as it has been since the beginning of February. It’s even … Continue reading A new study suggests that almost half of those hospitalized with COVID-19 have mild or asymptomatic cases.→
Parents United: In Rhode Island, they have united to form a group of plaintiffs who have filed a lawsuit against Governor McKee for executive overreach regarding his unconstitutional and non-science-based state-of-emergency declaration and school mask mandate. 2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 … Continue reading Rhode Island Parent Union→
Blythe Bernhard: Fewer than half of Missouri students performed at grade level or above in English (45%), math (35%) and science (37%) in the Missouri Assessment Program of standardized tests. In spring of 2019, the last time students were tested before the start of the pandemic, 49% of students scored proficient or advanced in English, … Continue reading Student test scores drop as predicted during pandemic year in Missouri→
Mitchell Schmidt: However, committee chair Rep. Jeremy Thiesfeldt, R-Fond du Lac, challenged critics of the bill, including DPI, to come forward with a proposal to address reading readiness. “I’ve got to tell you, I’m getting tired of this. The current way we teach reading in the state of Wisconsin, almost across the entire board, that … Continue reading Wisconsin Legislators (some) attempt to address Our disastrous reading results→
Elizabeth Beyer: Jenkins said he strongly encourages vaccination for adults, citing a plan to require the vaccine for teachers and staff that will be presented to the Madison School Board on Monday. For now, he said he prefers to leave the decision on vaccination for children up to parents. “I do think that we have … Continue reading Notes and Commentary on a 2021 NEA President’s Madison Visit→
Ann Althouse: And now there is a movie, not entirely about sentence diagramming, but with some vivid sentence diagramming in it. I don’t think there’s a film documentary about sentence diagramming. I wish there were. But that’s okay. I am hoping that because of the great love so many people have for Wes Anderson, this … Continue reading Sentence Diagramming→
Public hearing is Tuesday at 10am, with the bill likely to be up around 10:30. Catch it on Wisconsin Eye. Lobbying information on Assembly Bill 446. Curiously, the League of Women Voters is against this legislation. Documents: Co-Sponsorship of LRB-1294 & 3781, Relating to: Reading Readiness Assessments and Granting Rule-Making Authority. Current Law vs. Roadmap … Continue reading Hearing Tuesday/Wednesday on Wisconsin’s Literacy Disaster→
In 16 years of power, Angela Merkel did not appoint any of her relatives to a state position. Germany said goodbye to its leader, physicist and quantum chemist, who was not tempted by fashion or lights and did not buy real estate, cars, yachts and private jets. pic.twitter.com/2JEH6LjBgB — Alvin Foo (@alvinfoo) September 11, 2021 … Continue reading Notes on Leadership: Merkel Retires→
Should an elementary school give $4,600 to Ibram X. Kendi? Yes in Madison, Wis., where Thoreau Elementary @MMSDschools is purchasing “The Anti-Racist Baby” for 4K-2nd graders & “Stamped” for 3rd-5th graders. These books teach against neutrality, equality, and colorblindness. pic.twitter.com/ijIs6a4tXC — Dan Lennington (@DanLennington) September 1, 2021 2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the … Continue reading Notes and Commentary on Madison curricular choices→
John McWhorter: In a word, phonics. About one in four words is spelled in an illogical way, and the phonics teacher stirs these words into the curriculum gradually, like little Sno-Caps into ice cream. But the ice cream itself is learning what sounds the letters stand for. Scientific investigators of how children learn to read … Continue reading We Know How to Teach Kids to Read→
Kyle Smith: Excellence. It’s a thing. And to sort out who is excellent requires competition in various tests with measurable outcomes. Competition sadly exposes failure. But it also steers everyone to the most fitting role for them. I competed and failed at being a baseball player, soccer player and tennis player before I finally found … Continue reading Notes on the Tierney of low expectations; New York edition→
Chris Rickert: The Madison School District is considering whether to remove the word “Karen” from a section of its online student enrollment form where parents can identify their children’s ethnicity, apparently after some expressed concerns about its modern-day connotations. But if it does, the district wouldn’t be able to collect information on more than 30 … Continue reading Madison’s k-12 enrollment ethnic label commentary→
Goldwater Institute: Schools are keeping parents in the dark In too many of our nation’s classrooms, children are being taught that everything should be seen through the lens of race—a divisive and damaging worldview that negates the value of the individual. Instead of reading our country’s founding documents, students are being told that America was … Continue reading Notes and Commentary on K-12 Curriculum→
Scott Girard: Madison Teachers Inc. president Michael Jones said earlier Tuesday the union was working with the district on staffing the program. “The discussions for planning have been positive and we’re hopeful that we’ll have a model that’ll meet the needs of our kids, staff, and families,” Jones wrote to the Cap Times. The district … Continue reading Notes and Commentary on Madison’s 2021-2022 “virtual school” plans→
Chia C. Wang, Kimberly A. Prather,, Josué Sznitman, Jose L. Jimenez, Seema S. Lakdawala, Zeynep Tufekci, Linsey C. Marr: The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted controversies and unknowns about how respiratory pathogens spread between hosts. Traditionally, it was thought that respiratory pathogens spread between people through large droplets produced in coughs and through contact with contaminated … Continue reading Mechanisms of airborne transmission→
Mike Antonucci: The combined annual incomes of the National Education Association and its state affiliates as of Aug. 31, 2019, was $1,663,883,934. That was an increase of $45,727 from the previous year, or 0.003 percent. That’s not to say there was no effect whatsoever. Thirty-one state affiliates lost members that year, and 24 saw a … Continue reading $1,663,883,934: 2019 NEA & Affiliate Income→
Emily Files Hamilton Superintendent Paul Mielke believes his district is following CDC recommendations. “It still came across as a ‘recommend’ and we are strongly recommending [masks,]” Mielke says. “So we’re actually matching their language. If they would have said schools should mandate, we would have looked at that.” Still, Mielke says the masking decision was … Continue reading Mandates and Masks Commentary→
Contrast the experience of schoolchildren in the Netherlands—no mask mandates or distancing for kids <12, ever—to the widespread US belief that we absolutely must mask kindergartners all day in school for their safety. You owe it to yourself to read the entire thing, I promise. pic.twitter.com/QrLaJSRph5 — Genève Campbell (@bergerbell) August 23, 2021 Related: Catholic schools will sue … Continue reading K—12 Governance Priorities & Effectiveness→
Steven Potter: A new report from the Wisconsin Policy Forum found huge increases in student enrollment in virtual charter and homeschooling last year. We discuss what that means for students, parents and school districts. Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees). Molly … Continue reading Pandemic Learning: Large Increase In Virtual Charter And Homeschooling Enrollment Raises Questions→
NY Times: An analysis by N.W.E.A., a nonprofit that provides academic assessments, for example, found that Latino third graders scored 17 percentile points lower in math in the spring of 2021, compared to the typical achievements of Latino third graders in the spring of 2019. The decline was 15 percentile points for Black students and … Continue reading “schools that went strictly remote experienced a 42 percent increase in disenrollment….”→
Lucy McBride: A recent peer-reviewed study in Britain of nearly 260,000 children (1,700 of whom showed symptoms) reminds us that for most kids, a coronavirus infection will manifest as the common cold—if anything. Also reassuring is that only 4.4 percent of children diagnosed with COVID-19 in this study had symptoms after 28 days (and 1.8 percent after … Continue reading Fear of COVID-19 in Kids Is Getting Ahead of the Data→
David Zweig: Many of America’s peer nations around the world — including the U.K., Ireland, all of Scandinavia, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Italy — have exempted kids, with varying age cutoffs, from wearing masks in classrooms. Conspicuously, there’s no evidence of more outbreaks in schools in those countries relative to schools in the U.S., … Continue reading The Science of Masking Kids at School Remains Uncertain→
Kerrington Powell and Vinay Prasad: Later in 2020, Fauci participated in a second noble lie. In December, he explained in a phone interview with then–New York Times reporter Donald McNeil that he had been moving the target estimate for herd immunity based in part on emerging studies. But he also said: When polls said only about half of all … Continue reading The “noble government lies of COVID 19”→
Deanna Fisher: Smith’s comments above are bang on the mark. Too many American parents, having taken the time and effort to move into a “good” school district, or after making sure that their child got into the “good” school or “good” program, felt that their work was done. How very, very wrong they were, and … Continue reading Commentary on Parent Curricular Awareness→
Alyssa Lyons: According to Wisconsin’s Policy Forum, virtual charter enrollment rose 84% in 2020-21. Here in Eau Claire that trend holds true. Last year, while offering virtual school in addition to the district’s online COVID-19 cohort, the Eau Claire Virtual School had 40 students enrolled in grades four through 12. This year, now offering K-12, that number has … Continue reading 84% Growth in Wisconsin Virtual School Enrollment→
Rick Eisenberg: These things — not “talking about race” or teaching American history in full — are why Americans object to CRT. Proposals to limit curriculum or teaching derived from CRT differ and are of varying merit, but the best of them seek to prohibit schools from advocating for or requiring students to assent to a … Continue reading Commentary on the ACLU and K-12 Curricular Transparency→
Jon Miltimore: Weeks later, however, we have an abundance of empirical evidence that show the prognosticators were once again wrong. Cases did not double or quadruple as Ferguson had predicted. Nor did cases “surge,” as many had warned. On the contrary, cases fell—a lot. Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled Notes and … Continue reading COVID Cases Fell 40% in the UK After Restrictions Were Lifted→
Tyler Cowen: This “head in the sand” approach is highly imperfect. Still, it is preferable to panicking and closing the schools every year. It is difficult to calculate how many children have died of Covid, but perhaps the best estimate comes from England, where it caused 25 deaths of people younger than 18 in the … Continue reading K-12 School Governance and student health→
Scott Girard: “Simply put, these are not your children,” the letter states. “They are ours and they too, are Americans with rights. They are our responsibility and our most beloved. They are not yours.” A media contact for the group connected the Cap Times with a member of the Dane County chapter via email. After … Continue reading Commentary on Government K-12 mask requirements→
McKinsey: Our analysis shows that the impact of the pandemic on K–12 student learning was significant, leaving students on average five months behind in mathematics and four months behind in reading by the end of the school year.” Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. … Continue reading On lagging learning during 2020-2021→
Elizabeth Beyer: The DeForest, Middleton-Cross Plains, Monona Grove, Mount Horeb, Stoughton, Verona and Wisconsin Heights school districts have not yet made a decision regarding mask requirements in school buildings for the 2021-22 school year. Most of the Dane County districts that responded to requests for comment said they plan to finalize safety plans in August. … Continue reading Commentary on mask requirements in taxpayer supported K-12 schools→
Joanne Jacobs: Only 45 percent of would-be elementary teachers pass state licensing tests on the first try in states with strong testing systems concludes a new report by the National Council on Teacher Quality. Twenty-two percent of those who fail — 30 percent of test takers of color — never try again, reports Driven by … Continue reading Would-be teachers fail licensing tests→
Joe Hong: Some school officials are flouting the updated state rules, saying students will be allowed to return to the classroom with or without a mask. California’s smallest school districts say they will refuse to send kids home for not wearing a mask despite a new state mandate. Superintendents in these tight-knit and typically more … Continue reading Small California school districts will refuse to follow mask mandate→
David Wallace-Wells This is true for the much-worried-over Delta variant. It is also true for all the other variants, and for the original strain. Most remarkably, it has been known to be true since the very earliest days of the pandemic — indeed it was among the very first things we did know about the … Continue reading The kids are safe. They always have been.→
Bruce Murphy: The study also found a significant racial difference in the percent of students getting full-time, in-person instruction: nationally an average of 75% of non-Hispanic white students were getting in-person instruction as of April versus 63% of Black students and 59% of Hispanic students. In 43 states, access to in-person learning was higher for … Continue reading Comparing 2020-2021 online vs in person student climate→
WILL: The News: The Wisconsin Supreme Court unanimously declared that an order from the City of Racine’s public health officer closing all schools, public and private, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, is invalid and lacked proper legal authority. The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) filed an original action to the Wisconsin Supreme Court on November 19, on … Continue reading Wisconsin Supreme Court Declares Racine School Closure Order Invalid→
Catherine Evans: NHS prescriptions for gardening and dancing are “vitally needed” to help tackle rising levels of loneliness after lockdown, people suffering from isolation have said.Social prescribing has been included in the Welsh government’s list of priorities for the next five years. A Mind Cymru pilot project is looking into its impact on mental health. … Continue reading Covid: Loneliness a ‘bigger health risk than smoking or obesity’→
Sarah Pruitt: But for social and educational reformers, it wasn’t enough that children attend school—they also needed to stay safe and healthy when they got there. Schools were renovated and reorganized to allow better ventilation in classrooms and ensure access to fresh drinking water. Beginning in the 1890s, many cities launched medical inspection programs, with … Continue reading At Height of the 1918 Pandemic, NYC and Chicago Schools Stayed Open. Here’s Why→
Jeneen Interlandi: Scientists there had been far too slow to detect the virus, to develop an accurate diagnostic test for it or to grasp how fast it was mutating. Their advisories on mask-wearing, quarantine and ventilation had been confusing, inconsistent and occasionally dead wrong. And during the Trump administration, agency leaders stood by while politicians … Continue reading Covid Proved the C.D.C. Is Broken. Can It Be Fixed?→
Will Flanders: Research has found that fall 2020 school district reopening decisions appear to be driven more by politics and teachers unions than by the local presence of COVID-19. But what are the implications of those decisions for enrollment trends? Using recently released enrollment data from the state of Wisconsin, this study goes further to … Continue reading Opting Out: Enrollment Trends in Response to Continued Public School Shutdowns→
Mike Antonucci: What comes next? Federal and state governments are funneling unprecedented amounts of new money into public education, and the teachers unions have plenty of ideas on how to spend it.Watch a TV news segment or read an article about school reopenings and you’re bound to hear American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten … Continue reading Teacher Union & School “Reopenings”→
BREAKING: Madison Teachers Inc. leaders, including union president Michael Jones, have filed a lawsuit against @MMSDschools over the ongoing teacher contracts dispute. Here’s a story from yesterday updating where things were: https://t.co/eiyGBlS8Ps — Scott Girard (@sgirard9) June 9, 2021 Lester Pines (Pines Bach law firm) has long represented local and state Teacher unions. Related: Catholic schools will sue … Continue reading Teacher Union sues the taxpayer supported Madison School District→
This speech at the #loudouncounty school board meeting was absolute 🔥🔥🔥 #alldayeveryday #mustseetv pic.twitter.com/UQuwEjNAWZ — Ian Prior (@iandprior) June 9, 2021 2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results. My Question to Wisconsin … Continue reading K-12 Governance and Curriculum climate→
Rasmussen: The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 40% of Likely U.S. Voters believe Fauci has told the truth about U.S. government funding for so-called “gain-of-function” virus research. Forty-six percent (46%) of voters believe Fauci has not told the truth about U.S. funding of such research, and 15% are not sure. … Continue reading Civics: Only 40% of Voters Think Dr. Fauci Told the Truth About Virus Research→
Martin Kulldorff: I had no choice but to speak out against lockdowns. As a public-health scientist with decades of experience working on infectious-disease outbreaks, I couldn’t stay silent. Not when basic principles of public health are thrown out of the window. Not when the working class is thrown under the bus. Not when lockdown opponents … Continue reading Why I spoke out against lockdowns→
Maximilian Forte: The documentary itself establishes its lead questions at the outset. Nico Sloot, described as an international entrepreneur, acts as the main voice in the film and our lead detective. What struck me from the start was how he framed the central problem that provoked his investigative journey: when would herd immunity be achieved? … Continue reading “Facts” were facts, until the facts suddenly changed.→
Jill Tucker: Yet it’s clear many families vowed to leave after losing faith in the district because of the slow reopening of classrooms and ongoing drama among district leadership. That includes an $87 million lawsuit filed by board member Alison Collins against five colleagues after they removed her from the vice presidency and committee positions following the … Continue reading San Francisco schools see enrollment drop as families flee the district (Madison?)→
Emily Oster, Rebecca Jack, Clare Halloran, John Schoof, Diana McLeod: This paper reports on the correlation of mitigation practices with staff and student COVID-19 case rates in Florida, New York, and Massachusetts during the 2020-2021 school year. We analyze data collected by the COVID-19 School Response Dashboard and focus on student density, ventilation upgrades, and … Continue reading “We do not find any correlations with mask mandates”→
Libby Sobic: Wisconsin parents have spent the last year scrambling to help cover learning loss created by the pandemic. For students living in Racine, any learning loss is particularly harmful considering the district was a low-performing school district prior to the pandemic. Despite this unfortunate reality, local leaders in Racine continue to purposefully confuse parents … Continue reading Politics vs Students in Racine→
Bethany Blankley: As school choice bills continue to make their way through state legislatures, a report on student achievement published by the University of Arkansas’s Department of Education Reform argues that the more educational options are afforded parents, the better statewide test results are. “We find that higher levels of school choice are significantly associated … Continue reading Report: State-level test scores improve the more school choice options are given→
Chris Rickert: Madison police have arrested a child in connection with a social media threat made last week against West High School. The Snapchat message posted early last week said the school would be targeted on Monday. “My revenge has come,” the message said. “West High School, I despise your students and culture and on … Continue reading Madison West High School Security Threat→
Wall Street Journal: American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten on Thursday hopped onto the caboose that has already left the station. “There is no doubt: Schools must be open. In person. Five days a week,” the teachers’ union chief declared in a speech. That’s nice of her to say now that nearly all school … Continue reading The teachers union chief finally says schools can open—next fall.→
Charles J. Courtemanche, Anh H. Le, Aaron Yelowitz & Ron Zimmer: This paper examines the effect of fall 2020 school reopenings in Texas on county-level COVID-19 cases and fatalities. Previous evidence suggests that schools can be reopened safely if community spread is low and public health guidelines are followed. However, in Texas, reopenings often occurred … Continue reading School Reopenings, Mobility, and COVID-19 Spread: Evidence from Texas→
David Leonhardt: In truth, the share of transmission that has occurred outdoors seems to be below 1 percent and may be below 0.1 percent, multiple epidemiologists told me. The rare outdoor transmission that has happened almost all seems to have involved crowded places or close conversation. Saying that less than 10 percent of Covid transmission … Continue reading Gaming Statistics→
Hannah Natanson: In pursuit of in-person learning this year, Stephanie Koski of Oregon transferred legal guardianship of her 16-year-old son to his aunt — then sent the teen to live in Texas. Lyra Elder uprooted her husband, son and daughter from their home outside Portland, Ore., and took them to a cabin in Homer, Alaska, … Continue reading They moved for in-person school during the pandemic. Now they must decide: Stay or go?→
Mary Jacob: So far, their community remains online, in “the cloud.” But they expect to enlist around 2,000 willing participants (about the size of a small college town) to pack up and move to their yet-to-be-built city. No word yet on where the concept will touch down — but the two hope to land somewhere … Continue reading Commentary on privatizating taxpayer funded governance→
Steve Sharp: The Wisconsin Policy Forum is reporting that Wisconsin’s K-12 school enrollment is down by more than 25,000 students for the 2020-21 school year, one of many far-reaching impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic that may warrant a response from state and local policymakers. The information is contained in the findings of a new interactive … Continue reading Taxpayer supported Wisconsin K-12 Analytics, including enrollment changes→
Jason Reilly: California, which is the most populous state and currently has the lowest per capita Covid rate in the country, also has the highest percentage of school districts that remain entirely virtual. Teachers unions have used the pandemic to demand more money and more-generous benefits. They know that millions of Americans can’t return to … Continue reading “Democrat Party obeisance to the AFT and NEA”→
Jon Levine: The American Federation of Teachers lobbied the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on, and even suggested language for, the federal agency’s school-reopening guidance released in February. The powerful teachers union’s full-court press preceded the federal agency putting the brakes on a full re-opening of in-person classrooms, emails between top CDC, AFT and … Continue reading Teacher union CDC influence→
Someone asked me yesterday why schools aren’t mainly open in San Francisco (despite 30 cases in city of 896K yesterday (& they test), <10 hospitalizations) or California (hundreds of thousand of tests done, 1400 cases in state of 40 million, lowest case rate in nation). — Monica Gandhi MD, MPH (@MonicaGandhi9) April 27, 2021 Related: Catholic schools will … Continue reading K-12 Governance: 2021 Commentary→
Yascha Mounk: What has the pandemic told us about the state of our political institutions and the state of our economic institutions? Have you changed your mind about what’s working, or what’s not working, in light of the experience we’ve had over the last months? Tyler Cowen: Let’s focus on the United States. Our early response, … Continue reading the failure of state institutions during the pandemic→
Tracy Beth Hoeg,, Monica Gandhi and Lillian Brown First, classrooms have thankfully been found — in studies examining schools in multiplestates — to be places of limited disease transmission, compared with communities at large. The rate of transmission within schools from individuals who test positive has been estimated to be on the order of 0.5 percent to 0.7 percent (and this includes people … Continue reading Widespread coronavirus surveillance testing at schools is a bad idea→