Matt Taibbi:

CNN had the gall the other day to run a story called, “Twitter’s own lawyers refute Elon Musk’s claim that the ‘Twitter Files’ exposed US government censorship.” The plummeting cable network, which consistently refused to cover any of the Twitter Files revelations in real time, is citing a legal motion filed by Twitter that, shockingly, does not confess to liability in a years-old First Amendment claim filed by Donald Trump. 

This motion, in conjunction with stories like CNN’s, is being used by the usual suspects to argue that the Twitter Files reports, and the notion that they “exposed government censorship,” have been proven untrue. If nothing else, the stubborn dishonesty is impressive, especially given the confidence they’ve again showed in blowing off another clearly newsworthy Twitter Files expose, this time by Aaron Maté. 

Vijay Prasad:

FIRE— an organization devoted to championing free speech on university campuses— has broken the story of Mike Joyner, a Mayo Clinic Professor suspended for comments he made to the news media. They even published his disciplinary letter. 

It appears Mike Joyner is in part being punished for comments he made about fairness when trans-athletes compete in women’s sports. Allow me to outline the details of this action, and build my case that Mayo clinic is in complete and egregious violation of Academic Freedom. 

As a bit of background. Mike Joyner is an anesthesiologist and expert in sports physiology. Pre-pandemic we were allies. We agreed that the genome has been massively overhyped and Francis Collins specialized in that hype. We exchanged hundreds of emails on genomic oncology, and I have published extensively on it.

During the pandemic, we drifted apart because I was opposed to giving convalescent plasma outside of randomized studies, and Mike gave a ton of it, outside randomized studies. As readers know, my philosophy is RCT or STFU— especially for experimental agents that may have negative side effects. But here are the rules of academics. It Mike’s job to say what he thinks, and my job to say why he is wrong. 

Now let’s turn to what happened.

BBC:

Researchers at Stanford University, for example, found older father were linked to increased risks of low birth weight and seizures in newborns. Advanced paternal age is also associated with increased rates of various childhood cancers, as well as congenital cardiac defects.

It is worth remembering, however, that like many studies that examine associations between health and possible causes, the mechanisms are unclear. There could be other complicating factors that play a role, such as the lifestyle of parents and environmental pollution.

Privacy International:

Privacy International and UCL student exposes how productivity suite like Office 365 offers features that can enable employers to access all communications and activities on Microsoft services without the employees’ knowledge

KEY FINDINGS

• Working from home bolstered the use of remote surveillance software to monitor employees.
• It’s not only tools that are developed specifically for surveillance, traditional productivity suites might also enable an intrusive level of monitoring.
• PI and UCL students looked into Office 365 and found features that can enable employers to access all communications and activities on Microsoft services
• These features can be operated without the employees’ knowledge and there seems to be a lack of transparency for users in terms of what data is collected and for what purpose

Kevin Killough:

The answer is complicated. 

Paul Bonifas, director of operations for 9H Research Foundation, which is partnered with the University of Wyoming, told Cowboy State Daily that costs of different sources of energy are calculated using a measurement called the levelized costs of energy (LCOE), which doesn’t tell the full story. 

“Levelized cost of electricity tells you the cost of the electricity, but only when that power source is generating electricity,” Bonifas said. 

Electricity as a product is unique to any other product produced in that it’s consumed instantaneously to the moment it’s produced. 

“What do we want to happen when we flick a light switch? It’s not that we want electricity, it’s that we want electricity all the time,” Bonifas said. 

When the wind isn’t blowing or the sun not shining, coal-fired and natural gas-fired power plants increase their output to cover the lack of energy from wind and solar farms. Without this dispatchable power available, the lights don’t stay on.

As more wind and solar farms are built, dispatchable power plants sit idle more often, but they are indispensable because they must be available when they’re needed, he said. This means more infrastructure has to be built to back up intermittent solar and wind power.

Jessica Lyons Hardcastle

The world got a first glimpse into the US government’s far-reaching surveillance of American citizens’ communications – namely, their Verizon telephone calls – 10 years ago this week when Edward Snowden’s initial leaks hit the press.

Verizon, we all learned, had handed over information to the US National Security Agency (NSA) on all calls in its systems on a daily basis, under a top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) order.

Thousands more secret documents were subsequently published by journalists in the days and years to come, followed by lawsuits, privacy-enabling tech and – more slowly – some transparency into and reforms of Uncle Sam’s domestic spying efforts.

At least that’s what lawmakers, digital privacy and civil liberties advocates tell us. It’s always hard to know for sure when you’re dealing with classified, top-secret domestic spying programs.

🚨Woke Schools Alert: Wisconsin Dept of Instruction PROMOTES GENDER IDEOLOGY and benefits of early experimentation with a myriad of new “gender identities” to 3-4 YEAR OLDS!@WisconsinDPI encourages gender fluidity & early transition of pre-k children in Amaze videos, children’s… pic.twitter.com/JKvtRa7oSh

— Scarlett Johnson (@scarlett4kids) June 8, 2023

Nathaniel Taplin:

In other ways, how­ever, the of­fi­cial sta­tistics may ac­tu­ally un­der­es­ti­mate young peo­ple’s strug­gles—par­tic­u­larly for uni­ver­sity grad­u­ates. A spring 2023 sur­vey by job-search plat­form Zhaopin found that, for the sec­ond year in a row, only about 50% of grad­u­at­ing uni­ver­sity stu­dents had an of­fer in hand by late spring—down from 63% in 2021 and about three quar­ters in 2018. More­over, nearly a quar­ter of those sur­veyed hoped to en­ter the in­for­ma­tion-tech­nol­ogy and in­ter­net sec­tor, where salaries have tra­di­tion­ally been among the high­est on of­fer. That in­dus­try, al­though re­cov­er­ing now, was hit hard by the reg­u­la­tory crack­down of 2021 and 2022, with ma­jor job cuts among key em­ploy­ers such as Al­ibaba, Ten­cent and Didi.

What­ever the true level of youth un­em­ploy­ment is, what does seem clear is that it has marched much higher over the past four years. This is also what of­fi­cial sta­tistics show.

My response to the Washington Post.

This is a 40-minute lecture, Part 1 in what I’d like to be an ongoing series, Censorship Industry Decoded.

This first video cut through the tricks & traps in WaPo’s verbage. These tricks are stock for the industry & essential to understand. pic.twitter.com/XWHdRatY3G

— Mike Benz (@MikeBenzCyber) June 8, 2023

Why has public education gone crazy?

Understand that all educators have college degrees, but they’re by objective measures the dumbest people who went to college.

They’re the ones who went to brainwashing camps but without the intelligence to question anything they learned. pic.twitter.com/pivwZ3vslr

— Richard Hanania (@RichardHanania) June 7, 2023

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Jenna Hoffman:

In 2018, a barn on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) main campus was set to be demolished. On demo day, Andrew Margenot, associate professor of soil sciences, walked into the dusty, dilapidated barn to size up the job at hand. That’s when he stumbled upon a once-in-a-lifetime discovery.

Nestled within the confines of the decaying barn walls sat 8,000 mason jars filled with Illinois soil dating back to 1862. At 450 sampling locations spanning 21 million crop acres, it’s the world’s largest soil archive.

This unique find is likely the oldest collection, as few soil archives exceed 40 years.

“I went in there thinking I might find a few soil samples from a professor before me. But as I walked through the barn, I found collapsed wooden aisles that previously held the hundreds of jars on the ground — some broken, others in perfect condition,” Margenot says.

Upon closer inspection, he discovered the labels on the jars provided a road map. Each label included the sample date (down to the day), sample county and soil classification.

Simon Willison:

One of the most common concerns I see about large language models regards their training data. People are worried that anything they say to ChatGPT could be memorized by it and spat out to other users. People are concerned that anything they store in a private repository on GitHub might be used as training data for future versions of Copilot.

When someone asked Google Bard how it was trained back in March, it told them its training data included Gmail! This turned out to be a complete fabrication—a hallucination by the model itself—and Google issued firm denials, but it’s easy to see why that freaked people out.

I’ve been wanting to write something reassuring about this issue for a while now. The problem is… I can’t do it. I don’t have the information I need to credibly declare these concerns unfounded, and the more I look into this the murkier it seems to get.

The fundamental issue here is one of transparency. The builders of the big closed models—GPT-3, GPT-4, Google’s PaLM and PaLM 2, Anthropic’s Claude—refuse to tell us what’s in their training data.

Given this lack of transparency, there’s no way to confidently state that private data that is passed to them isn’t being used to further train future versions of these models.

I’ve spent a lot of time digging around in openly available training sets. I built an early tool for searching the training set for Stable Diffusion. I can tell you exactly what has gone in to the RedPajama training setthat’s being used for an increasing number of recent openly licensed language models.

But for those closed models? Barring loose, high-level details that are revealed piecemeal in blog posts and papers, I have no idea what’s in them.

InCorporatED

In the summer of 2020, the University of Washington, using $1,336,657 in funding from the National Science Foundation, ran a professional development for high school physics teachers. The report, titled “Redefining Energy Justice in Physics Classrooms,” focused on training teachers to integrate discussions around “energy justice” into existing physics curriculum. The authors stated the “original purpose of the energy concept was to improve factories and steamships in the British Industrial Revolution and advance capitalism and colonialism.” They also claimed the traditional method of teaching upholds capitalism and the use of fossil fuels and is responsible for “energy injustices” and “environmental racism.” Upon completion of the training, participants concluded that equity, social justice, and physics are inseparable because “there are inequities and injustices present in physics.”

Jonathan Turley:

The 1619 Project Education Network, in conjunction with the Pulitzer Center, have released a new curriculum for high school students that will convert some math classes into a discussion of reparations and racial justice.  Students will be asked to work out the math on the payment for past years of slavery and racial discrimination. A 2020 report found that prior 1619 Project curriculum proposals have been adopted in over 3,500 classrooms across all 50 states.The program, “Reparations Math and Reparations History,” is designed to have “students apply math skills, research into historical wealth gaps in the U.S., and an analysis of different reparations models to an investigation into whether or not reparations should be paid to the descendents of enslaved people in the U.S..”The 1619 Project has long been controversial due to questions over its historical accuracy, including opposition by some history teachers. The project is most associated with former New York Times writer and now Howard University Professor Nikole Hannah-Smith.  Hannah-Smith has declared that “all journalism is activism.”

As previously discussed, the objections to the 1619 Project concerned some of its sweeping historical claims over slavery being a motivation for the American Revolution and labeling figures like Abraham Lincoln as racists.

According to The Atlantic, Princeton historian Sean Wilentz criticized that work and some of Hannah-Jones’s other work in a letter signed by scholars James McPherson, Gordon Wood, Victoria Bynum, and James Oakes. They raised “matters of verifiable fact” that “cannot be described as interpretation or ‘framing.’” They objected that the work represented “a displacement of historical understanding by ideology.” The Atlantic noted that “given the stature of the historians involved, the letter is a serious challenge to the credibility of the 1619 Project, which has drawn its share not just of admirers but also critics.” Researchers claimed the New York Times ignored them in raising the errors. The New York Times was criticized later for a “clarification” that undermined a main premise of her writing. None of that appeared to concern the Pulitzer Committee.

Corrinne Hess:

A bipartisan bill is expected to be released this month that would change the way most public schools in Wisconsin teach reading. 

State Rep. Joel Kitchens, R-Sturgeon Bay, who chairs the Assembly Committee on Education, has been working with the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction on the plan that would move more schools away from teaching what is known as “balanced literacy,” to a “science of reading” approach.

Instead of being taught reading through pictures, word cues and memorization, children would be taught using a phonics-based method that focuses on learning to sound out letters and phrases.

According to DPI, only about 20 percent of school districts are using a phonics-based approach to literacy education. Other reading curriculums that don’t include phonics have been shown to be less effective for students.

The bill will be introduced separately from the 2023-25 biennial budget that is currently being crafted but $15 million to support the plan would be included in the budget, Kitchens said during an April 24 interview on Wisconsin Eye.  

“Education is the one chance we have to break the cycle of generational poverty that we see in Wisconsin and reading is by far the most important skill to allow children to be successful in school,” Kitchens said. 

Kitchens told Wisconsin Public Radio on Thursday he is updating the current draft of the bill and will share it with DPI “in coming days.”

Legislation and Reading: The Wisconsin Experience 2004-

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our 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.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Jim Piwowarczyk

Axley Attorneys, a Madison law firm, sent the letter on Feb. 20, 2023, to parent Kris Ganske, a well-known anti-bullying advocate in the district and mother of a first grader. The four-page letter is signed by attorney Lori M. Lubinsky, who wrote that she represents the Sun Prairie Area School District.

Through an open records request, WRN obtained Axley Attorneys’ invoice summary for fees related to the cease & desist letter. The invoice, dated March 20, shows the Sun Prairie School District was billed in the amount of $2,781.60.

The invoice detailed multiple reviews, phone calls, drafts, reviews, zoom calls and emails with the “client.” In total, Attorney Lori Lubinsky charged the school district for 10.3 hours of work at a rate of $270/hour.

You can see the full invoice here:

Tyler O’Neil:

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which brands mainstream conservative and Christian organizations as “hate groups,” placing them on a map with chapters of the Ku Klux Klan, added a slew of parental rights organizations to that “hate map” for 2022 and labeled them “antigovernment groups.”

“Schools, especially, have been on the receiving end of ramped-up and coordinated hard-right attacks, frequently through the guise of ‘parents’ rights’ groups,” the SPLC’s “Year in Hate and Extremism” report claims. 

“These groups were, in part, spurred by the right-wing backlash to COVID-19 public safety measures in schools,” the SPLC report says. “But they have grown into an anti-student inclusion movement that targets any inclusive curriculum that contains discussions of race, discrimination and LGBTQ identities.”

“At the forefront of this mobilization is Moms for Liberty, a Florida-based group with vast connections to the GOP that this year the SPLC designated as an extremist group,” the report notes. “They can be spotted at school board meetings across the country wearing shirts and carrying signs that declare, ‘We do NOT CO-PARENT with the GOVERNMENT.’”

The SPLC report does not once mention the Left’s aggressive promotion of sexualized material for children in schools and at other venues. It does not mention the “Drag Queen Story Hour” movement or the fact that many of the books which parents demand removed from school libraries include pornographic content. It does not mention how many on the Left champion the idea that children should be able to identify with a gender opposite their biological sex, hide that identity from their parents, and even obtain life-altering drugs without parental consent. Instead, it acts as though the parental rights movement emerged in a vacuum, or worse, is motivated by hatred.

The SPLC long has demonized conservative Christian groups such as Alliance Defending Freedom as “anti-LGBT hate groups,” national security groups such as the Center for Security Policy as “anti-Muslim hate groups,” and immigration groups such as the Center for Immigration Studies as “anti-immigrant hate groups.”

1) The data cited here for a 41% failure rate in #SchoolChoice is from 2016. Failure rate has declined substantially since.
2) While a school failing is bad, it is preferable to the public model where a school that is not meeting the needs of kids is rewarded w/ more $ (1/2) https://t.co/HZCAAs32Ud

— Will Flanders (@WillFlandersWI) June 6, 2023

Carine Haijar

Ka­heem Bai­ley-Tay­lor was leav­ing a party last Au­gust at a cousin’s house in North­ern Phil­adelphia when he heard gun­shots. “The sus­pect started shoot­ing out the door to­wards us,” he says. Po­lice soon ar­rived and cleared the house. Mr. Bai­ley-Tay­lor fol­lowed of­fi­cers in to as­sess the sit­u­a­tion. Min­utes later, he was sit­ting in the back of a po­lice car ap­ply­ing pres­sure to a par­ty­go­er’s gun­shot wounds.

Mr. Bai­ley-Tay­lor isn’t a para­medic or a cop; he’s a 17-year-old high-school ju­nior. He is cadet colonel at the Phil­adelphia Mil­i­tary Acad­emy, where all stu­dents are en­rolled in the U.S. Army’s Ju­nior Re­serve Of­fi­cers’ Train­ing Corps pro­gram. On my visit to the acad­emy, Mr. Bai­ley-Tay­lor helps show me around. As we sit in the back of a 10th-grade class on first aid, he leans over and tells me that he used these skills, along with his life­guard train­ing, the night he helped save the par­ty­goer, one of his class­mates.

The class starts like any other, with the buzz of chatty stu­dents. It then cuts to si­lence in uni­son as a stu­dent leader takes his po­si­tion at the front. Then stu­dents re­cite the cadet creed in one voice: “I will al­ways con­duct my­self to bring credit to my fam­ily, coun­try, school and the Corps of Cadets. I am loyal and pa­tri­otic. . . . I will seek the man­tle of lead­er­ship and stand pre­pared to up­hold the Con­sti­tu­tion and the Amer­i­can way of life. May God grant me the strength to al­ways live by this creed.”

The Economist:

The moment when his chemistry master pulled a pistol, declared it loaded and waved it in the air was “probably”, says Justin Webb, a broadcaster, the worst point of his boarding-school career. Winston Churchill would recall the floggings, done until pupils “bled freely” and screamed loudly. In “Such, Such Were The Joys”, George Orwell writes of being beaten so violently that his headmaster broke his riding crop and “reduced me to tears”.

That British boarding schools are odd places is not news. For several centuries and for fat fees they provided the English upper classes with a ripping blend of architectural beauty and physical discomfort; with neoclassical corridors and cold showers; with lashings of Latin and just plain lashings. The pupils they produced were an equally idiosyncratic mix of the sophisticated and the childlike, mingling precocious brilliance with speech that never quite left the classroom. It was a heady brew and Britain was intoxicated by it: of the 57 British prime ministers, 20 went to Eton. As Boris Johnson, one of their number, might say: “Crikey!”

Boarding schools are not yet in trouble. Their pupil numbers are relatively constant—around 70,000, owing partly to masses of boarders from abroad. But their charms may be becoming easier to resist. Elite private schools are a less secure route into the top universities than they were. In 2014, 99 pupils from Eton were accepted into Oxbridge; in the 2021-22 school year, it managed 47. (Brampton Manor Academy, a state school in London, had 54.)

Tyler O’Neil:

In order to win a defamation lawsuit, the person suing must convince the court and ultimately the jury that the slanderer didn’t just publish something false, but that he did so even while suspecting that the attack was false. 

Immigration enforcement activist D.A. King’s lawsuit against the Southern Poverty Law Center made it to the discovery process while so many other lawsuits have failed precisely because King showed that the SPLC had reason to doubt the truth of its claim that his organization, the Dustin Inman Society, was an “anti-immigrant hate group.” In fact, the SPLC had explicitly stated that the society was not a “hate group” in 2011, but it reversed course in 2018, right after registering a lobbyist to oppose a bill the society supported.

As I wrote in my book “Making Hate Pay,” the SPLC routinely brands mainstream conservative and Christian organizations “hate groups,” putting them on a map with chapters of the Ku Klux Klan. This smear inspired a terrorist attack in 2012, but when conservatives sue to defend their good names in court, they repeatedly fail, in part because they do not allege that the SPLC itself doubted the “hate group” smear.

King can claim that, and newly revealed evidence bolsters his claim even further. 

According to an article King unearthed on the SPLC website, not only did the SPLC state publicly that his group was not a “hate group” before it reversed course, but an SPLC whistleblower who went on to describe the SPLC’s “hate” accusations as a “highly profitable scam” had himself been involved in the SPLC’s monitoring of King’s organization. He even quoted a source who stated that an early version of King’s organization was not a “traditional ‘hate’ group.”

Jules White, Quchen Fu, Sam Hays, Michael Sandborn, Carlos Olea, Henry Gilbert, Ashraf Elnashar, Jesse Spencer-Smith, Douglas C. Schmidt

Prompt engineering is an increasingly important skill set needed to converse effectively with large language models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT. Prompts are instructions given to an LLM to enforce rules, automate processes, and ensure specific qualities (and quantities) of generated output. Prompts are also a form of programming that can customize the outputs and interactions with an LLM. This paper describes a catalog of prompt engineering techniques presented in pattern form that have been applied to solve common problems when conversing with LLMs. Prompt patterns are a knowledge transfer method analogous to software patterns since they provide reusable solutions to common problems faced in a particular context, i.e., output generation and interaction when working with LLMs. This paper provides the following contributions to research on prompt engineering that apply LLMs to automate software development tasks. First, it provides a framework for documenting patterns for structuring prompts to solve a range of problems so that they can be adapted to different domains. Second, it presents a catalog of patterns that have been applied successfully to improve the outputs of LLM conversations. Third, it explains how prompts can be built from multiple patterns and illustrates prompt patterns that benefit from combination with other prompt patterns.

behnamoh:

You want to explain a phenomenon by looking at differences. One difference you picked up is “Americans vs others”. The other difference I want to point out: written by academics/students at ETH Zurich vs. professional engineers/programmers from Microsoft.

Keith McNulty:

As a child, I remember reading the warning messages on plastic shopping bags: ‘This bag is not a toy, keep away from children’. I found this statement hilarious. Of course a plastic shopping bag is not a toy.

At the time, I was too young to appreciate the reason for the warning — that anything can be a toy and that toys can be dangerous in the wrong hands. Over the years since, I’ve heard many stories of young children swallowing lego pieces or small batteries, or teenagers causing injury from flying Wii controllers.

But when it comes to truly dangerous toys, you’d struggle to beat the Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab. Billed as ‘Exciting and Safe’, the kit contained four sealed jars containing actual Uranium ores. Made by the A.C. Gilbert Toy Company, this kit came on the market in 1950 at a price of $49.50 (over $500 in today’s money).

Nowadays, it seems completely unbelievable that a children’s toy like this would be allowed on the market. Let’s have quick look into the story of what could be the most dangerous toy ever.

The Oregon teachers union is contemplating a “progressive dues structure” that will charge white teachers higher fees than their “BIPoC” counterparts.

This is racism in the guise of anti-racism. pic.twitter.com/c0x0WuAuHx

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) June 6, 2023

Scott Girard:

School Board President Nichelle Nichols said in the release that “the state must increase its support for schools” in the upcoming biennial budget.

“Without additional revenue, the district will have to make difficult decisions to realign the impact of this budget over the next several years, including the possibility of pursuing additional sources of revenue,” Nichols said.

Gov. Tony Evers proposed a historic investment in K-12 education in his budget, but Republican legislators, who control both legislative chambers, have thrown out much of what he proposed and begun building their own base budget. The Joint Finance Committee has not yet discussed K-12 funding, though, leaving school districts in the dark about how much they can expect to be able to spend and receive in state aid.

If legislators increase revenue limits for schools, which they have indicated they will to some level, it will lower the future deficits somewhat.

In the release, MTI leaders suggested the investment “acknowledges our most vital asset for student achievement and a thriving community, which is our staff.”

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our 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.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Courtney Tanner:

In the beginning, a parent filed a challenge to have the Bible removed from Davis School District libraries, citing passages describing sex and violence.

The district said let there be a review of the book. And it was so.

Now, the committee appointed by the district to review the complaint and decide if the Bible is appropriate for students to access has made its determination: High schools in Davis will keep the religious text on the shelf.

Jason Bedrick and Corey DeAngelis

That $900 mil­lion is barely 2% of to­tal Ari­zona state spend­ing of $80.5 bil­lion in 2022. Ari­zona pub­lic schools spend about $14,000 per pupil, or $1.4 bil­lion for 100,000 stu­dents. If the de­part­ment’s en­roll­ment pro­jec­tion is reached, school choice would serve roughly 8% of Ari­zona’s stu­dents for 6% of the $15 bil­lion that Ari­zona will spend on pub­lic schools.

A new re­port by the Com­mon Sense In­sti­tute finds that “cur­rent en­roll­ment in Ari­zona pub­lic dis­trict and char­ter schools com­bined is over 80,000 stu­dents be­low pre-pan­demic pro­jec­tions,” pro­duc­ing a sav­ings of $639 mil­lion. Ari­zona’s pop­u­la­tion is grow­ing, so the vast ma­jor­ity of those stu­dents left for pri­vate or home schools, for which they could avail them­selves of Ari­zona’s two pri­vate choice poli­cies. In ad­di­tion to the 58,000 stu­dents us­ing ed­u­ca­tion sav­ings ac­counts, last year school tu­ition or­ga­ni­za­tions is­sued more than 32,000 tax-credit schol­ar­ships.

The at­tacks on school choice are more than a pub­lic re­la­tions cam­paign. When Ms. Hobbs’s bud­get re­tained last year’s school-choice ex­pan­sion, Ari­zona’s At­tor­ney Gen­eral Kris Mayes used the “bank­rupt the state” talk­ing point as a pre­text to threaten a law­suit. In a pub­lic let­ter to Ms. Hobbs and the Leg­is­la­ture, Ms. Mayes de­cried the “cat­astrophic drain on state re­sources caused by uni­ver­sal Em­pow­er­ment Schol­ar­ship Ac­counts.” She later went on tele­vi­sion and threat­ened to in­ves­ti­gate par­tic­i­pat­ing fam­i­lies for “waste, fraud, and abuse.”

Interesting “Wisconsin Watch” choice school coverage and a very recent public school article

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our 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.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

1/ In 2020, California changed insurance language on double mastectomies for gender dysphoric females from “cosmetic” to “reconstructive” to remove age limits for the surgery.

Normal breasts were reclassified as “abnormal structures of the body caused by congenital defects.” pic.twitter.com/XWQQxGkosv

— Colin Wright (@SwipeWright) June 4, 2023

Josh Anderson:

In 2024, eligibility will increase to include people whose only underlying condition is mental illness. By the way, in 2021, Mental Health Research Canada concluded that they’d found a correlation “between vaccine hesitancy and mental illness.” Not even COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy specifically, just vaccine hesitancy broadly speaking, because surely there are no legitimate reasons anyone might reasonably regard pubic health institutions with skepticism! That same year, New York City psychiatrist Dr. Aruna Khilanani was invited to none other than the Yale School of Medicine’s Child Study Center to give a talk entitled “The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind.” The Yale School of Medicine eventually distanced themselves from Khilanani, but only after she indicated that perhaps she was the psychopathic one. Among other things, she told her audience that she “had fantasies of unloading a revolver into the head of any white person that got in my way, burying their body and wiping my bloody hands as I walked away relatively guiltless with a bounce in my step.” Apparently the title of the talk wasn’t enough of a red flag. (Writing about the incident, the Washington Post included several defenses of Khilanani, including, “Her comments and the negative feedback she’s received are more revealing about white supremacist thoughts than about Khilanani’s view on racism, said Nikki Coleman, a psychologist and consultant on diversity, equity and inclusion.”) I bring up this incident because if this is the sort of mental health “expert” invited to speak to students of a… *checks notes* 📔🧐 … Child Study Center at one of the most highly regarded universities in the world – if hers is the sort of speech to readily find defenders in the media and academia… then let’s just say I… hesitate… when the government officially enshrines into law the stance that death is preferable to however the “experts” of the day define “mental illness.”

Indeed, that stance – the stance that death is preferable to disability – has been the thrust behind the pushback towards this bill. Three disability rights advocates associated with the United Nations wrote futilely in a letter to the federal government before they expanded MAID in 2021:

Looks like the CIA had a little chat with YouTube.

During a podcast with Mike Tyson, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. talked about how the CIA killed his father.

YouTube has now deleted the video.

The elites don’t want you to watch this.pic.twitter.com/lufOtcPBCh

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) June 5, 2023

Stephanie Lee

Last April, Jelani Nelson woke up to a jarring email from Jo Boaler, a Stanford University professor and the nation’s most prominent expert on math education. The two had never met. “As you know,” she began, “I am one of the authors of the proposed mathematics framework and I know you are working to oppose it.”

That “framework” is a policy document that will shape how math is taught in California and beyond, and Nelson, a computer-science professor at the University of California at Berkeley, had major problems with it — and with Boaler, too. He’d seen a series of tweets critical of her, and reposted one of them with his own scathing commentary. Now, Boaler was confronting him.

Texas Governor Abbott:

Governor Greg Abbott today touted the many achievements from the 88th regular legislative session and highlighted his plan to complete unfinished business in subsequent special sessions during a fireside chat at the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) in Austin.

“In Texas, we don’t do things half-heartedly,” said Governor Abbott. “We go big, and we make sure we accomplish our big vision—that includes delivering the largest property tax cut in the history of our state and expanding education freedom for all Texans. Texans want to own their property, not rent it from the government. Under my property tax plan, we will put Texans on the pathway to eliminate property taxes. Texas must also empower every parent in our state to choose the best education pathway for their child, and we will do that under my plan to expand access to Education Savings Accounts. I look forward to working with my partners in the legislature during these special sessions to pass legislation that builds on the momentum of freedom and prosperity embedded in the promise of Texas.”

During a discussion moderated by TPPF CEO Greg Sindelar, the Governor touted several major achievements accomplished during the regular 88th Legislative Session, including providing more than $5.1 billion to secure the border, but emphasized that many critical items—like cutting property taxes and expanding school choice—still need to be passed. Governor Abbott noted that his property tax plan would direct $17.6 billion of Texas’ historic budget surplus already appropriated by the legislature to cut property tax rates, putting money back into the pockets of hardworking Texans. Pointing to the quality of education in states with robust school choice programs, the Governor also emphasized the importance of passing his plan to expand state-funded Education Savings Accounts to every Texas student.

Harvey Mansfield:

Not long ago, an Iranian woman in my class told me that in her country, one had to be careful about what you said in public, but could say what you wanted in private.

“At Harvard, however, it’s the reverse,” she said.

This is the self-censorship some Harvard students complain of. Only some complain because the complaint is directed against the rest who dominate conversation and do not want to hear opposition. These dominant students may not begin as a majority, but the activist few create the majority who accept their view and then impose it on those who disagree, forcing them to censor themselves.

The punishment for not censoring yourself is to lose the company of fellow students and to be disregarded and shunned. You are not put in jail, as happens in Iran and other countries, but you are deprived of the fellowship you want from college life.

Joseph Pisani:

The exercises are part of a new effort in the nation’s largest school district to teach teenagers how to relate to older Americans. The youngsters are watching videos of their elders doing yoga, hanging out with them and learning how to talk to them without using the old-age labels baby boomers hate. (Goodbye, “senior.” Hello, “older adult.”)

The curriculum is being tested at 13 New York City public high schools for the first time this spring semester, including at The School for Human Rights in Brooklyn, where O’Mealley teaches.

Teen Imani Stanback said the lessons have made her more patient with her grandma, who recently activated closed captioning on her TV but couldn’t figure out how to turn it off.

J Scott Turner:

A dozen years ago, National Association of Scholars President Peter Wood posed the provocative question: Could science leave the university?

Wood framed his question in practical terms. There has always been a bargain of sorts between universities and their science faculties. Universities provide the means for scientists to do science—laboratories, students, bookkeepers, etc. Scientists hustle the grant monies not only to do their work, but also to pay for universities’ costs. Wood argued that the bargain works mostly in favor of the universities, because they ride along on the substantial streams of research revenues their scientists bring in. While scientists were not exactly disadvantaged thereby, Wood suggested that they could prosper as much outside the university as in, raising the question that logically follows: who needs whom? 

Since 2011, academic scientists have largely stayed put in the universities. “Who cares what universities charge for their services, as long as we are left alone to ‘do science,’” was the prevailing sentiment. Such a blasé attitude is no longer viable. While scientists busied themselves at their benches, the terms of the bargain have been steadily shifting to scientists’ disadvantage. The unique attractions of academic life are relentlessly, if slowly, falling away. Tenure is on its way out. Freedom of inquiry is increasingly constrained. Pushy administrators presume to dictate hiring, promotion, and curricular decisions that should sit squarely in scientists’ hands. Faculty governance has become mostly performative, with no power to make decisions stick—particularly budgetary and personnel decisions, which have become concentrated in the hands of administrators, governments, and favored political activists. Accreditation boards brazenly impose political agendas on faculties of science and engineering. Challenging the new racial / gender / sexual orthodoxies can snuff out careers in the blink of an eye.

Prestika Rana:

Mike Johnson has endured some awkward Uberrides. He once held his nose throughout a trip because the driver was carrying chopped-up Durian—the world’s smelliest fruit. Another time, he was stuck in the back seat while a driver bickered with her boyfriend. Yet another driver tried to sell him a Ponzi scheme.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Allysia Finley:

Shakespeare described sleep as “the main course in life’s feast, and the most nourishing.” New research suggests it may also be a key nutrient in warding off Alzheimer’s disease.

Poor sleep has long been linked to Alzheimer’s, but the relationship is akin to the chicken-and-egg conundrum. It isn’t clear which came first. During deep sleep, the brain produces slow electrical waves and flushes out neurotoxins including amyloid and tau, two hallmarks of the disease.

Studies have shown that even one night of lousy deep sleep can lead to an increase of amyloid. A week of disrupted sleep can raise the amount of tau, which is especially insidious because over time it can strangle neurons from the inside out.

Those with Alzheimer’s experience sleep disturbances years before they develop cognitive symptoms, but the pathology that underlies the disease can itself disrupt sleep. Poor sleep, then, may increase the risk of Alzheimer’s and be an early symptom of it. It’s also possible that those who are at higher genetic risk for the disease are more prone to sleep disturbances.

Troy Closson:

About 10 percent of offers to New York City’s most elite public high schools went to Black and Latino students this year, education officials announced on Thursday, in a school system where they make up more than two-thirds of the student population overall.

The numbers — which have remained stubbornly low for years — placed a fresh spotlight on racial and ethnic disparities in the nation’s largest school system.

At Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, the most selective of the city’s so-called specialized schools, seven of the 762 offers made went to Black students, down from 11 last year and eight in 2021. Twenty Latino students were offered spots at Stuyvesant, as were 489 Asian students and 158 white students. The rest went to multiracial students and students whose race was unknown.

Gaps at many of the other schools were also stark: Out of 287 offers made at Staten Island Technical High School, for example, two Black students were accepted — up from zero last year — along with seven Latino students.

Scott Calvert

When English teacher Lauren Forbus saw three students at her middle school sneak in through an exit-only door, she stood in the hall with outstretched arms and told them to turn around. Instead, she said, they cursed at her and told her to move.

One of the problems with many Democrats is that they have become substantially more illiberal supporting either state or cultural restrictions on speech, weakening support for freedom of religion, abandoning equality under the law for racialization and group entitlement … (2/7)

— Rick Esenberg (@RickEsenberg) June 4, 2023

Gareth Jones:

The snow lay deep around as I began my tramp through the villages of the North Ukraine, the part of Russia which once fed Europe and was known as the granary of the world.

I decided therefore to walk along the railway tracks, for if I penetrated into the country I should be lost in the snow and perhaps never return.

The first words I heard were ominous, for an old peasant woman moving with difficulty along the track answered my greeting with that phrase, “Hleba nietu” (“there is no bread”).

“For two months we have had no bread here,” she added in that deep crying voice which most of the peasant women had. 

“Many are dying in the village. Some huts have potatoes, but many of us have only cattle fodder left, and that will only last another month.”

She moved away and I stood watching her bent, ugly, tragic figure outlined against the snow.

The Next village to which I came had an unearthly quietness about it and it was long before I came upon any living being.

John Kerry has advocated reducing US agriculture production vis a vis climate concerns.

The eu has attempted to reduce Dutch farming as well. Although, Dutch farmers recently won a big election….

Wisconsin State Journal:

It’s not just LeMonds’ staff that has struggled to work with him. LeMonds physically blocked a WMTV-TV (Ch. 15) news reporter from posing a question to Superintendent Carlton Jenkins at a public event — even grabbing and pushing down her hand and microphone, as video of the incident shows. He allegedly called the same female reporter a “pig,” among other insults, according to LeMonds’ staff. He used an expletive to describe how much he hated a female reporter for the State Journal last summer, his staff alleges.

LeMonds even ignored requests from Kelly Lecker, our executive editor, to meet with her after she was hired more than a year ago. What kind of a public relations manager refuses to sit down with and get to know the incoming leader of the major news outlet in his city? A bad one. A really bad one.

LeMonds only made the staff complaint against him a bigger and lengthier story by suing the district — the same one that employs him — to try to keep the allegations secret. A Dane County judge rejected his awkward and brash move, siding with the district in favor of the public’s right to know.

LeMonds recently told the State Journal he hasn’t been following the news coverage of the staff complaints against him. Really? His job should require him to be on top of any and all news about Madison’s schools, especially the bad stuff. That’s only more evidence he’s not doing his job.

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our 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.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

The University of Wisconsin-Madison emptied its dorms in March 2020, instructing students to hunker down at home.

Freshman Isaac Wells-Cage didn’t have a home to go to. His mom was in the hospital, his dad was out of the picture, so he shared an apartment with a friend.

While in some ways, his pandemic experience was similar to classmates — he listened to lectures from bed and had swabs stuck up his nose for required COVID testing — he weathered things differently because of all he had already been through.

“Those experiences, they’re definitely monumental and they matter,” Wells-Cage said. “But in comparison to what I’ve experienced in life, it’s just, like, another day.”

His mother struggled with schizophrenia, so he lived in a foster home from ages 4 to 8. When he moved back with his mom, their living situation was always temporary: sometimes an apartment, sometimes a group home or homeless shelter. Wells-Cage grew up in a slice of northwestern Milwaukee where 95% of residents are Black. It’s a place that’s been subjected to decades of redlining and systemic racism, where two-thirds of the children live in poverty and the reputation as one of the country’s most incarcerated ZIP codes has stuck for years.

Troy Closson:

As New York embarks on an ambitious plan to overhaul how children in the nation’s largest school system are taught to read, schools leaders face a significant obstacle: educators’ skepticism.

Dozens of cities and states have sought to transform reading instruction in recent years, driven by decades of research known as the “science of reading.” But the success of their efforts has hinged in part on whether school leaders are willing to embrace a seismic shift in their philosophy about how children learn.

Already in New York City, the rollout has frustrated principals. The schools chancellor, David C. Banks, is forcing schools to abandon strategies he says are a top reason half of students in grades three to eight are not proficient in reading.

But principals will lose control over selecting reading programs at their schools, and their union has criticized the speed of change. And many educators still believe in “balanced literacy,” a popular approach that aims to foster a love of books through independent reading time but that experts and the chancellor say lacks enough focus on foundational skills.

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our 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.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Educate:

Producer DJ Cashmere spent seven years teaching Black and brown students at a Noble Street charter high school in Chicago. At the time, Noble followed a popular model called “no excuses.” Its schools required strict discipline but promised low-income students a better shot at college. After DJ left the classroom to become a journalist, Noble disavowed its own policies — calling them “assimilationist, patriarchal, white supremacist, and anti-black.” In this hour, DJ, who is white, revisits his old school as it tries to reinvent itself as an anti-racist institution. And he seeks out his former students to ask them how they felt about being on the receiving end of all that education reform, and what they think now about the time they spent in his classroom.

Its 2023 and legal action is necessary to uphold the ability for girls to give consent when it comes to disrobing in front of/being exposed to the opposite sex….Full article here: https://t.co/8te26l9u6J

— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) June 3, 2023

Washington Free Beacon

Eisgruber and Princeton, of course, made headlines last May when the school dismissed a star classics professor, Joshua Katz, who had been a vocal critic of the school’s racial politics. The reason given for the ouster—Katz’s consensual affair with a former student decades earlier—was widely seen as pretextual, and pundits accused Princeton of retaliating against a tenured faculty member for political speech.

Eisgruber had publicly condemned an essay Katz wrote in 2020 attacking the university’s campus activists. And Princeton had included the professor on a list of racists—presented to freshmen at a mandatory orientation session—who’d allegedly harmed the school’s good name.

That history was one of many ironies in a tone-deaf speech. Set aside Eisgruber’s facile distortion of laws like Florida’s, which bar public school instruction on gender identity. It takes a special kind of blindness, hypocrisy, and sheer partisan animus to conclude in this day and age that Republicans are the biggest threat to free expression on college campuses.

Julia R. Andreasen, Anna E. Hogg, and Heather L. Selley:

Antarctic ice shelves provide buttressing support to the ice sheet, stabilising the flow of grounded ice and its contribution to global sea levels. Over the past 50 years, satellite observations have shown ice shelves collapse, thin, and retreat; however, there are few measurements of the Antarctic-wide change in ice shelf area. Here, we use MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) satellite data to measure the change in ice shelf calving front position and area on 34 ice shelves in Antarctica from 2009 to 2019. Over the last decade, a reduction in the area on the Antarctic Peninsula (6693 km²) and West Antarctica (5563 km²) has been outweighed by area growth in East Antarctica (3532 km²) and the large Ross and Ronne–Filchner ice shelves (14 028 km²). The largest retreat was observed on the Larsen C Ice Shelf, where 5917 km² of ice was lost during an individual calving event in 2017, and the largest area increase was observed on Ronne Ice Shelf in East Antarctica, where a gradual advance over the past decade (535 km²yr⁻¹) led to a 5889 km² area gain from 2009 to 2019. Overall, the Antarctic ice shelf area has grown by 5305 km² since 2009, with 18 ice shelves retreating and 16 larger shelves growing in area. Our observations show that Antarctic ice shelves gained 661 Gt of ice mass over the past decade, whereas the steady-state approach would estimate substantial ice loss over the same period, demonstrating the importance of using time-variable calving flux observations to measure change.

Oklahoma County District Court

Okla. Stat. tit. 70, $1-125 (G) provides, “[a] parent … of a student enrolled in and

physically attending a public school district … shall have a cause of action against the public

school district … for noncompliance with the provisions of subsections B and C of this section.”

10. On or about October 26, 2022, at approximately 7:15 a.m., E.G., a fifteen (15)

year old female student at Edmond Memorial High School (“EMHS) was attacked and severely

beaten by a seventeen (17) year old male transgender student in the designated girls’ bathroom.

11. At the time of the attack, Defendant had actual knowledge that: (a) the male

transgender student identified as a female student; (b) the male transgender student was a male

and not female; (c) the male transgender student’s birth certificate and/or paternity affidavit on file with Defendant identified the male transgender student as a male and not female; (d) the male

transgender student regularly used the girls’ bathroom and not the boys bathroom; and (e) the male transgender student made previous threats of violence against E.G. at Defendant’s school.

Anthony DeBarros::

About 3.66 million babies were born in the U.S. in 2022, essentially unchanged from 2021 and 15% below the peak hit in 2007, according to new federal figures released Thursday.

The provisional total—3,661,220 births—is about 3,000 below 2021’s final count, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics. Final government data expected later this year could turn that small deficit positive.

Experts have pointed to a confluence of factors behind the nation’s recent relative dearth of births, including economic and social obstacles ranging from child care to housing affordability.

Absent increases in immigration, fewer births combined with ongoing baby boomer retirements will likely weigh on the labor force supply within the next 10 years, said Kathy Bostjancic, chief economist at Nationwide, an insurance and financial-services company.

“You’re going to have a real shortage of workers unless we have technology somehow to fill the gap,” Bostjancic said.

A look at the trends in charts:

Artificial intelligence > artificial stupidity

The American Cultural Revolution is well underway, and an entire generation of medical school graduates has now had their heads filled with abiological nonsense. As @wil_da_beast630 shows below, smart people have been made… https://t.co/lHA0z9Sqol

— Balaji (@balajis) June 1, 2023

Harold Robertson:

The core issue is that changing political mores have established the systematic promotion of the unqualified and sidelining of the competent. This has continually weakened our society’s ability to manage modern systems. At its inception, it represented a break from the trend of the 1920s to the 1960s, when the direct meritocratic evaluation of competence became the norm across vast swaths of American society. 

In the first decades of the twentieth century, the idea that individuals should be systematically evaluated and selected based on their ability rather than wealth, class, or political connections, led to significant changes in selection techniques at all levels of American society. The Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) revolutionized college admissions by allowing elite universities to find and recruit talented students from beyond the boarding schools of New England. Following the adoption of the SAT, aptitude tests such as Wonderlic (1936), Graduate Record Examination (1936), Army General Classification Test (1941), and Law School Admission Test (1948) swept the United States. Spurred on by the demands of two world wars, this system of institutional management electrified the Tennessee Valley, created the first atom bomb, invented the transistor, and put a man on the moon. 

By the 1960s, the systematic selection for competence came into direct conflict with the political imperatives of the civil rights movement. During the period from 1961 to 1972, a series of Supreme Court rulings, executive orders, and laws—most critically, the Civil Rights Act of 1964—put meritocracy and the new political imperative of protected-group diversity on a collision course. Administrative law judges have accepted statistically observable disparities in outcomes between groups as prima facie evidence of illegal discrimination. The result has been clear: any time meritocracy and diversity come into direct conflict, diversity must take priority.

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

Eugene Volokh:

There’s been a good deal of comment about the City University of New York law school student graduation speaker (Fatima Mousa Mohammed) who devoted a good deal of her speech to harshly condemning Israel and “Zionism,” as well as capitalism, the New York government, and America more generally. (I include the transcript of the speech and a link to the video at the end of this post.)

Beyond just the criticism, the CUNY Board of Trustees and Chancellor put out a statementsaying,

Free speech is precious, but often messy, and is vital to the foundation of higher education.

Hate speech, however, should not be confused with free speech and has no place on our campuses or in our city, our state or our nation.

The remarks by a student-selected speaker at the CUNY Law School graduation, unfortunately, fall into the category of hate speech as they were a public expression of hate toward people and communities based on their religion, race or political affiliation.

The Board of Trustees of the City University of New York condemns such hate speech.

This speech is particularly unacceptable at a ceremony celebrating the achievements of a wide diversity of graduates, and hurtful to the entire CUNY community, which was founded on the principle of equal access and opportunity. CUNY’s commitment to protecting and supporting our students has not wavered throughout our 175-year existence and we cannot and will not condone hateful rhetoric on our campuses.

A few thoughts:

Michael Weingrad:

The Seventies were less enlightened.
Back then we thought biology
Determined sex, and (don’t be frightened)
We called men “he” and women “she.”
In general, our social mores
Were still adapting to the forays
Of feminism’s second wave.
We worked out how we should behave,
Though, not from academic panels
Or gender theorists. No, our source
For moral wisdom was of course
That holy trinity of channels
(With PBS a fourth) by which
Our culture spilled into its ditch.

Indeed, the sentimental journey
That was my early childhood
Commenced with Big Bird, Bert, and Ernie
And wandered through the neighborhood
Where Mister Rogers hung his sweaters,
Electric companies taught letters,
And chubbildrubben subbang “zoom.”
Then, seeking some more elbow room
(Just like the song from Schoolhouse Rock goes)
It crossed the ocean to Japan
Where champions like Ultraman,
The Goldar team, and Johnny Sokko’s
Robotic pal would fight to cleanse
The earth of evil aliens.

Colleen Hroncich

My oldest child is graduating from college tomorrow, so it has me thinking about our educational journey—which could best be described as eclectic. At various times, we used private school, district school, and cyber charter school. But we ultimately landed on homeschooling. That doesn’t mean they were literally learning at home every day. My kids participated in co‐​ops, hybrid classes, dual enrollment, athletics, and more. This gave them access to experts and plenty of social time.

It can be scary taking charge of your children’s education—I remember feeling very relieved when my oldest received her first college acceptance. But today there are more resources than you can imagine to help you create the best education plan for your children’s individual needs and interests. And with the growth of education entrepreneurship, the situation is getting even better.

For starters, you don’t have to go it alone. The growth of microschools and hybrid schools means there are flexible learning options in many areas that previously had none. One goal of the Friday Feature is to help parents see the diversity of educational options that exist. To see what’s available in your area, you can search online, check with friends and neighbors, or connect with a local homeschool group.

TOO FAKE TO TELL?
In 2008, the banks were too big to fail.
In 2023, the stats are too fake to tell.

But here’s why @DavidSacks may be onto something.

– They “beat” expectations 14 months in a row[1]
– They admit using statistical models to augment[2]
– They have a 600k… https://t.co/TnrWTTEsk6 pic.twitter.com/c2ebm3Axbh

— Balaji (@balajis) June 3, 2023

“It’s crazy to say people can’t talk about it, but that is what YouTube has been doing.” Many taxpayer supported K-12 systems use Google/YouTube services, including Madison.

I’ve long found these posts rather curious in light of I Madison’s “more than most” k-12 tax & spending practices: now > $25k per student, amidst declining enrollment. In 2007, we Madisonians spent 333,101,865 for K-12. Inflation adjusted $486,328,722, today. Yet our current budget is $557,015,538 (it is higher every time I look). Readers interested in a deeper dive might find the topic of cost disease worth a look.

“Wisconsin Watch” channels two sources: the Wisconsin Policy Forum” and “Wisconsin Public Radio”

As ever, we are in budget season:

Ope!

✔️K-12 public school spending saw third-slowest growth in the nation

✔️Improve literacy by funding literacy programs/teachers

✔️Public schools provide the most protection/transparency under the law

✔️Public schools are overseen by elected members of the community https://t.co/KFqozg4xca

— Rep. Kristina Shelton (@RepKristina) May 20, 2023

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our 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.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

“No More Babies!” – Expert Calls For Ban on Childbirth (1947)
Mrs Margaret Slee was the President of America Planned Parenthood Federation. Mrs. Slee’s proposition was actually that there were no more babies in developing countries for the next ten years.
Source: British Pathé… pic.twitter.com/V2V0kzOoqh

— Wittgenstein (@backtolife_2023) June 4, 2023

The free market roots of #SchoolChoice are often overlooked in today’s political debates. It’s important to remember that the goal of school choice isn’t the elimination of public schools, but rather the lifting of all ships by providing competition to the public school monopoly. https://t.co/t49It5boHq

— Will Flanders (@WillFlandersWI) June 1, 2023

Isabela Dias:

His documentary America Lost opens with sentimental home movie footage—Rufo’s young parents holding hands and walking, his father cuddling infant Chris. Rufo narrates how he was “born into the American Dream,” where his penniless immigrant father gained a life of prosperity. Then his tone becomes ominous, and family archival images are replaced with what he calls “the lost American interior”—night scenes of police cars, ambulances, and homeless people. “We are coming apart economically to be sure,” he says, “but we are coming apart as a culture.” As the film progresses, he describes these places as suffering on a “deeply personal, human, even spiritual” level, one hastened by the erosion of religious community and the two-­parent family. He hoped the movie—which received funding from right-wing foundations that support the Manhattan Institute, where Rufo now leads an anti-CRT initiative—would “reshape the way we think about American poverty.”

“I started the film as a libertarian,” Rufo saidduring a 2020 online screening, “and I finished the film as a conservative.” Along with his political evolution, Rufo was contemplating a career change. In his telling, the left-leaning documentary space had become inhospitable for a newfound conservative. He had relocated to blue Seattle, where his Thai-born wife, Suphatra, had a job with Microsoft, and he found an intellectual home within a right-wing network always ready to bring a professed convert into the fold. He secured a 2017 Claremont Institute fellowship (same class as Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe) and a role with the Discovery Institute, a think tank based in his new hometown and known for promoting the anti-evolution concept of “intelligent design,” becoming director of its Center on Wealth & Poverty. Rufo also started writing for the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal and later landed a fellowship with the Heritage Foundation, whose president, Kevin Roberts, would go on to describe him as a “master storyteller” of the conservative movement.

“My whole world opened up,” he toldpsychologist and conservative guru Jordan Peterson. “I felt like I had the freedom to think for the first time as an adult.” While making a movie took years, channeling his storytelling skills toward commentary on social justice and political issues offered more instant results.

For Rufo, progressive Seattle became a convenient punching bag. His work for the Discovery Institute and City Journal focused on the city’s homelessness crisis, criticizing the “ruinous compassion” of “socialist intellectuals” who pushed for more housing as a salve. “We must look at homelessness not as a problem to be solved, but a problem to be contained,” Rufo wrote in October 2018. “The backlash is coming,” he predicted.

Stephen J. Ceci, Shulamit Kahn, and Wendy M. Williams

We synthesized the vast, contradictory scholarly literature on gender bias in academic science from 2000 to 2020. In the most prestigious journals and media outlets, which influence many people’s opinions about sexism, bias is frequently portrayed as an omnipresent factor limiting women’s progress in the tenure-track academy. Claims and counterclaims regarding the presence or absence of sexism span a range of evaluation contexts. Our approach relied on a combination of meta-analysis and analytic dissection. We evaluated the empirical evidence for gender bias in six key contexts in the tenure-track academy: (a) tenure-track hiring, (b) grant funding, (c) teaching ratings, (d) journal acceptances, (e) salaries, and (f) recommendation letters. We also explored the gender gap in a seventh area, journal productivity, because it can moderate bias in other contexts. We focused on these specific domains, in which sexism has most often been alleged to be pervasive, because they represent important types of evaluation, and the extensive research corpus within these domains provides sufficient quantitative data for comprehensive analysis. Contrary to the omnipresent claims of sexism in these domains appearing in top journals and the media, our findings show that tenure-track women are at parity with tenure-track men in three domains (grant funding, journal acceptances, and recommendation letters) and are advantaged over men in a fourth domain (hiring). For teaching ratings and salaries, we found evidence of bias against women; although gender gaps in salary were much smaller than often claimed, they were nevertheless concerning. Even in the four domains in which we failed to find evidence of sexism disadvantaging women, we nevertheless acknowledge that broad societal structural factors may still impede women’s advancement in academic science. Given the substantial resources directed toward reducing gender bias in academic science, it is imperative to develop a clear understanding of when and where such efforts are justified and of how resources can best be directed to mitigate sexism when and where it exists.

David Ress:

The change by the Richmond region’s largest employer will take effect July 1 for the roughly 20,000 openings the state advertises over the course of a year.

“This key reform will expand opportunities for qualified applicants who are ready to serve Virginians,” said Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

“This landmark change in hiring practices for our state workforce will improve hiring processes, expand possibilities and career paths for job seekers and enhance our ability to deliver quality services,” he said.

So far, the Post and Politico have corrected their stories. But it would have been really nice if they’d gotten the story right from the start.

🏆 Best Education Journalism of the Week 🏆 (6/2/23) https://t.co/rYFti73t4j pic.twitter.com/sXet9oVzoD

— Alexander Russo (@alexanderrusso) June 2, 2023

Rob Long:

To all Valley Vista Middle School parents:

As you are no doubt aware, the current cultural and political climate has made it very difficult for our faculty to come up with a summer reading list that can be enthusiastically embraced by all families in our Valley Vista community.

In compiling the following list, we have tried to be sensitive to the needs and concerns of the rainbow of cultures and values that make Valley Vista such a richly diverse place. Working with parents and guardians from all faiths and traditions and balancing the wishes and standards for everyone in the community has been a challenging task, but it’s one we’ve joyfully accepted.

Madhumita Murgia

Chiang’s main objection, a writerly one, is with the words we choose to describe all this. Anthropomorphic language such as “learn”, “understand”, “know” and personal pronouns such as “I” that AI engineers and journalists project on to chatbots such as ChatGPT create an illusion. This hasty shorthand pushes all of us, he says — even those intimately familiar with how these systems work — towards seeing sparks of sentience in AI tools, where there are none.

“There was an exchange on Twitter a while back where someone said, ‘What is artificial intelligence?’ And someone else said, ‘A poor choice of words in 1954’,” he says. “And, you know, they’re right. I think that if we had chosen a different phrase for it, back in the ’50s, we might have avoided a lot of the confusion that we’re having now.”

So if he had to invent a term, what would it be? His answer is instant: applied statistics.

“It’s genuinely amazing that . . . these sorts of things can be extracted from a statistical analysis of a large body of text,” he says. But, in his view, that doesn’t make the tools intelligent. Applied statistics is a far more precise descriptor, “but no one wants to use that term, because it’s not as sexy”.

Harrington Shaw:

Undergraduate student engagement is on the decline. That’s according to the publishing and research firm Wiley, which, in February, released a “State of the Student” survey indicating that student engagement remains a “significant challenge” as universities have returned to in-person instruction. Wiley’s researchers found that more schools are facing enrollment and retention issues, as students are unsure which programs to pursue amid economic and emotional insecurity. Alarmingly, more than half of surveyed undergraduates indicated that they struggle to “stay engaged and interested in their classes,” while nearly half are concerned about keeping up with coursework.

As Inside Higher Ed noted in its own coverage of the study, students’ responses indicated a strong desire for a greater career-preparatory focus in their college classes. Wiley reported that students are “looking for current, relevant content that’s applicable to the real world and promotes interaction.” One-quarter of students stated that their educational experience would be improved if professors focused more on the applications of course material rather than on theoretical study.

Many institutions fail to educate students about the value of a college education.

Students also expressed a desire for more “company-led projects,” demonstrating their increasing focus on job skills, work experience, and professional certificate exam preparation. Activities like case studies, interactions with professionals, and workplace simulations were all suggested by students as productive uses of their instructional time.

There are, of course, solutions to this student engagement crisis, some of which are already in motion. First, higher-education institutions should work to reduce costs so that students can focus on school without having to work outside of class to afford tuition. Enabling students to spend more time studying and socializing will empower them to better understand material and meaningfully participate in class, in addition to forming more tightly knit learning communities.

David Glasser:

The University of Southern California is prioritizing diversity, equity and inclusion over merit and talent when awarding funding to students in PhD programs, according to a group of scholars who recently sounded the alarm on the issue as well as a memo that spells out the practice.

While dozens of universities consider DEI when distributing funding to PhD students for research, USC is “particularly extreme” in this regard, USC Professor James Moore, Columbia University Professor Spiro Pantazatos, and former USC doctoral candidate Kursat Christoff Pekgoz wrote in an op-ed for Inside Higher Ed on May 18.

“Our review of more than 30 graduate school websites for leading U.S. research universities suggests that while most leading institutions dedicate some share of resources to funding mostly or exclusively students from underrepresented groups, USC’s reliance on group identity to define eligibility for centralized doctoral support is particularly extreme,” the professors wrote.

A February 2022 memo sent by University of Southern California leaders to graduate program faculty details how. The elite, private school used to have two separate PhD funding programs, one specifically to advance DEI and another largely merit-based.

BREAKING: Fairfax County Parents Association obtained text messages between the CDC Director and the presidents of the nation’s two largest teachers unions (Randi Weingarten and Becky Pringle) with a FOIA request.

— Corey A. DeAngelis, school choice evangelist (@DeAngelisCorey) June 2, 2023

Richard Vedder:

Intelligent observers of American higher education know that colleges generally are in great trouble: falling enrollments, declining public and political support, often dubious outcomes, and excessive tuition and other costs. Most depressing, the traditional tolerance of widespread viewpoints and commitment to free expression seem to have declined substantially.

While one finds a few encouraging stories dealing with these issues at existing colleges and universities, the overall picture is bleak. It seems that current institutions are doing too little, if anything, to fix the problem. At many, the outlook is palpably worsening.

In the competitive, free-market, private-business sector, lags in innovation or qualitative improvement are remedied by Schumpeterian “creative destruction” and by new competition. Hence Eastman Kodak has nearly died in photography and Tesla has prospered in automobiles as a consequence of changes in technology and taste.

It seems that current institutions are doing little, if anything, to fix higher education’s problems.

So, too, can new entrants into the collegiate market potentially help to reverse the declining higher-education industry in America. I recently attended a summit of higher-education thinkers and philanthropists sponsored by the new University of Austin (UATX). UATX will admit its first class in the fall of 2024, but it is already doing a number of academic activities—for example, running short summer seminars for crackerjack students at other schools—as a trial run for a future as a full-fledged university.

It is not an ordinary group of academics who are leading UATX’s inception. The founding president, Pano Kanelos, was the former president of the “great books” college St. John’s (Annapolis and Santa Fe). Prestigious academics like Charles Calomiris (Henry Kaufman Professor of Financial Institutions at Columbia University) are taking pay cuts to join, full-time, the management and instructional team at UATX.

Sophia Cope:

In analyzing the government’s interests in gaining warrantless access to cell phone data at the border, the Smith court considered the traditional justifications for the border search exception: in the words of the judge, “preventing unwanted persons or items from entering the country.” In particular, the government has a strong interest in conducting warrantless searches of luggage and other containers to identify goods subject to customs duty (import tax) and items considered contraband or that would otherwise be harmful if brought into the country such as drugs or weapons. 

Considering these traditional rationales for the border search exception in the context of modern cell phones, the Smith court concluded that the government’s “interest in searching the digital data ‘contained’ on a particular physical device located at the border is relatively weak.”

The court focused on the internet and cloud storage, stating: “Stopping the cell phone from entering the country would not … mean stopping the data contained on it from entering the country” because any data that can be found on a cell phone—even digital contraband—“very likely does exist not just on the phone device itself, but also on faraway computer servers potentially located within the country.” This is different from physical items that if searched without a warrant may be efficiently interdicted, and thereby actually prevented from entering the country.

Peter Wood:

Every college and university has a history. Students and faculty members typically have only a hazy idea of what came before their time, but that history still bears down on the present. TKC was founded in the 1930s by a popular radio minister. It moved several times before acquiring a campus up the Hudson at Briarcliff Manor. As a consequence of some bad financial planning, the college closed in the mid 1990s, but it kept its New York State charter. In the late 1990s, with financing from the Campus Crusade for Christ (now called “Cru”), the college re-opened on several floors of the Empire State Building. 

At that point the college had a campus of sorts, a handful of staff and faculty, a lot of unwarranted confidence, and very few realistic ideas about how to proceed. It tried a variety of contradictory approaches loosely centered on the idea that it was going to bring Christian higher education to the heart of Manhattan. But it had no coherent curriculum or any compelling reason for students to attend. The figure from Cru who had engineered the college’s re-opening, J. Stanley Oakes, slowly came to grips with the problem. He settled on the idea that TKC would strive to be an academically rigorous college that would serve students whose profiles would have fit them for elite liberal arts colleges but who wanted an explicitly Christian education. “Christian” in this context meant something like “evangelical Protestant” with something of a Baptist flavor. 

I was at the time serving as associate provost and the president’s chief of staff at Boston University. I had never heard of TKC, but Oakes had heard of me, and in his view I fit like a key into the lock: an evangelical Christian with considerable administrative experience in a large secular university. He offered me the provost’s position at TKC and I said no.

But after a few years of saying no and after various unwelcome changes at my secular university, I decided to give TKC a try. Oakes offered me a free hand in recruiting faculty and developing the curriculum, and he was as good as his word. I offered him the prospect of an intellectually demanding curriculum that would quickly weed out the students who were not up for the adventure.

William Jacobson:

I was pleased to appear on the Well Said Podcastwith Cherise Trump of Speech First.

We covered many topics in depth, including the structure and projects of Legal Insurrection Foundation (CriticalRace.org and EqualProtect.org), how DEI has penetrated deeply into education, how it is how CRT is put into action, and whether there is hope or not.

Eli Mackinnon;

Google replied to the tweet directly, saying, “Bard is an early experiment based on Large Language Models and will make mistakes. It is not trained on Gmail data. -JQ”.Much of the follow-on media coverage ran with this response and dutifully “debunked” Bard’s claim that its training data included Gmail data. Few articles professed skepticism around Google’s public denial of Bard’s claim, despite the fact that Google has been fined on numerous occasions by government agencies around the world specifically for making deceptive claims about its privacy practices that are later proven to be misleading.Given this context, the narrative that Bard’s claim was an open-and-shut case of AI hallucination is, at best, hasty and incomplete. A fuller investigation reveals (i) documented use of Gmail data in otherGoogle AI models that makes speculation around its use in Bard reasonable, and (ii) the habitual use of artfully ambiguous language in its public representations around Bard’s data sources, language that never actually rules out the use of Gmail data in its training set.

Wall Street Journal:

LinkedIn cited three posts and videos by Mr. Ramaswamy. In one, he argues that if adherents to “climate religion” really cared about the climate, “they’d be worried about, say, shifting oil production from the U.S. to places like Russia and China.” In another he says “fossil fuels are a requirement for human prosperity.” In a third, he says China played the U.S. like a “mandolin” and “weaponized the ‘woke pandemic.’”

You can disagree with such lines or think they are over the top, but they’re well within the realm of political debate. They’re hardly extreme next to President Biden’s argument that Georgia is imposing “Jim Crow 2.0” on its black citizens, or Democrats’ ubiquitous claim that climate change poses an “existential” threat that has to be solved in the next X years, or else kiss humanity goodbye.

Mr. Ramaswamy’s team asked LinkedIn what exactly is misleading about those snippets. The company replied: “We can’t interpret the LinkedIn User Agreement or Professional Community Policies for you or tell you how it would be applied in any hypothetical situation.” The platform promised, however, to unfreeze his account and “grant another chance” if he replied by “expressly stating that you agree to abide by our Terms going forward.”

Jeramie Bizzle:

She will teach a course titled “Health Policy, and Leadership,” according to the school. 

“I’m delighted to welcome Mayor Lightfoot to Harvard Chan School as a Menschel Senior Leadership Fellow. As mayor, she showed strong leadership in advocating for health, equity, and dignity for every resident of Chicago, from her declaration of structural racism as a public health crisis to her innovative initiative to bring mental health services to libraries and shelters. And of course, she led the city through the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Michelle A. Williams, Dean of Faculty at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Lightfoot expressed her excitement about her new role.

Defund Harvard. https://t.co/8bYWkxJ1dn

— Scott McNealy (@scottmcnealy) June 1, 2023

Chesa Boudin joins UC-Berkeley Law School

Interesting… when we use our TeamKennedy email address to set up @instagram accounts we get an automatic 180-day ban. Can anyone guess why that’s happening? pic.twitter.com/0G8oRnoXTv

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) June 2, 2023

Robert Pondisco:

A new study from the Texas Public Policy Foundation is a reminder that the most persuasive argument in favor of school choice is not the promise of higher test scores, the beneficial effects of competition, or even an escape hatch from failing public schools—it’s the power of choice to make a more satisfying range of school cultures and curriculum available than traditional public schools can accommodate.

For years, wonkish arguments for school choice mostly revolved around enhanced performance. Researchers and policymakers have long built the case for (or against) choice based on test scores or other measurable metrics to demonstrate that choice “works.” The rapid growth of charter schools, for example, has long been framed as a moral imperative: a lifeboat to rescue students from failing schools, and a means of pressuring traditional public schools to improve or lose students to competition. More recently, some have offered choice as a means of disarming combatants in our ongoing “culture wars.” This train of thought brings us a little closer to putting school culture and curriculum at the center of the case for choice, but it still treats those things as a means, not an end in itself.

These common arguments for choice are lost on those actually doing the choosing. An analysis of the growth of classical charter schools in Texas by Albert Cheng and Cassidy Syftestad, suggests that parents are choosing those schools because of the intrinsic appeal of an education for their children grounded in the pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty. The pair surveyed 431 parents with children enrolled in Texas classical charter schools and convened focus groups for 25 of them to discuss their educational priorities for their children and what they liked or disliked about their child’s school. They found that “parents’ educational priorities aligned with the priorities of classical education,” which has seen a big spike in demand in Texas and elsewhere. Parents expressed “strong desires for their children to grow in wisdom and virtue,” they explain.

Scott Girard:

The Madison Metropolitan School District is “committed to doing the hard work and restoring the integrity” of its communications team following the release of an employee complaint against spokesperson Tim LeMonds last Friday.

In an unsigned statement posted to its website Thursday and sent via email to reporters by Communications Manager Ian Folger, the district said it “will conduct a full review of the department operations, structure and human interaction in the coming months,” with no more specific timeline.

“At the same time, the District will have significant leadership changes this summer, and through those transitions we will work to reorganize and restore relationships that are essential to our success,” according to the statement. “We will work to build a positive workplace culture for employees.”

Those leadership changes include Superintendent Carlton Jenkins retiring and longtime administrator Lisa Kvistad taking over as interim superintendent during a search for the next permanent leader. Chief Financial Officer Ross MacPherson and General Legal Counsel Sherry Terrell-Webb are among other top leaders leaving this summer.

.@MMSDschools released a statement this afternoon after last week’s release of an employee complaint against its spokesperson, Tim LeMonds. Says it will “conduct a full review of the (communications) department operations, structure and human interactions in the coming months.” pic.twitter.com/KK3U0r59WY

— Scott Girard (@sgirard9) June 1, 2023

Dave Cieslewicz:

In fact, in a story last week in Isthmus by Deborah Kades, she reports that when WMTV reporter Elizabeth Wadas approached Jenkins at a public meeting last winter LeMonds prevented her from reaching him. He told her that the meeting was for the public. Wadas informed him that being a reporter did not make her an alien, but apparently to no avail.

LeMonds also leads a communications department for a district that, beyond just LeMonds, seems intent on not communicating. In 2019 a Madison East educator and trip chaperon was found to have placed hidden cameras in the hotel bathrooms of students. The district conducted an investigation to determine if staff followed policy regarding the reporting and follow up on these incidents. The investigation concluded they had, but the district refused to release the report. Parents and students were, understandably, upset. Even school board members were not allowed to read it. Then, inexplicably and in response to another open records request on yet another camera incident, the district released the full report to Isthmus in August of 2021. LeMonds refused to answer Isthmus reporter Dylan Brogan’s questions about it at the time. 

And over a long period, the MMSD holds the dubious distinction of being the least transparent public agency in the state. In March, the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council “awarded” the district with its No Friend of Openness (Nopee) award. The council wrote: “It’s rare for a public institution that depends on taxpayer support to be as awful as this one when it comes to public records and accountability. The district, through spokesperson Tim LeMonds, has become notorious for outrageous delays and excuses, prompting multiple lawsuits alleging violations of the records law. Tom Kamenick of the Wisconsin Transparency Project has said he has “received more complaints about MMSD than any other government agency.” It is time for the district’s casual contempt for the public’s right to know to come to a screeching halt.”

Tim LeMonds had good reason to fight the release of a complaint against him. Now he should tell his side of the story.

Chris Rickert:

In a statement released Thursday by district officer of internal communication Ian Folger, the district says “the information shared publicly last week was difficult for all individuals mentioned in the documents, as well as for those who interact with them. It is abundantly clear that there are relational problems within the District’s communications department that need to be addressed.”

Folger said LeMonds remains a full-time district employee and that his role with the district has not changed. He said he could not comment on whether LeMonds is under further investigation by the district, but LeMonds said in a Thursday interview that as far as he knew, he is not.

LeMonds — who in the interview said he was speaking only on behalf of himself — said he has not been subject to any disciplinary action in the wake of the documents’ release and “categorically” denied that he called Stephanie Fryer, the spokesperson for the Madison Police Department, an “idiot,” as was alleged in the court documents.

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our 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.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Nicholas Kristof visits flyover country:

Mississippi’s success has no single origin moment, but one turning point was arguably when Jim Barksdale decided to retire in the state. A former C.E.O. of Netscape, he had grown up in Mississippi but was humiliated by its history of racism and underperformance.

“My home state was always held in a low regard,” he told me. “I always felt embarrassed by that.”

Barksdale cast about for ways to improve education in the state, and in 2000 he and his wife contributed $100 million to create a reading institute in Jackson that has proved very influential. Beyond the money, he brought to the table a good relationship with officials such as the governor, as well as an executive’s focus on measurement and bang for the buck — and these have characterized Mississippi’s push ever since.

With the support of Barksdale and many others, a crucial milestone came in 2013 when state Republicans pushed through a package of legislation focused on education and when Mississippi recruited a new state superintendent of education, Carey Wright, from the Washington, D.C., school system. Wright ran the school system brilliantly until her retirement last year, meticulously ensuring that all schools actually carried out new policies and improved outcomes.

One pillar of Mississippi’s new strategy was increasing reliance on phonics and a broader approach to literacy called the science of reading, which has been gaining ground around the country; Mississippi was at the forefront of this movement. Wright buttressed the curriculum with a major push for professional development, with the state dispatching coaches to work with teachers, especially at schools that lagged.

Meanwhile, we in Wisconsin spend more for less.

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our 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.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Housed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Journalism School (along with Marquette University), the formation, affiliation(s) and funding sources of Wisconsin Watch have generated some controversy. Jim Piwowarczyk noted in November, 2022:

“Wisconsin Watch, a 501(c)(3) organization that disseminates news stories to many prominent media outlets statewide and is housed at the taxpayer-funded UW-Madison campus, has taken more than $1 million from an organization founded by George Soros over the years. Wisconsin Right Now discovered that the group is still prominently pushing out stories by a writer, Howard Hardee, who was dispatched to Wisconsin by a Soros-funded organization to work on “election integrity” stories and projects.” When major media outlets like WTM-TV and the Wisconsin State Journal run stories by Wisconsin Watch or Hardee, they fail to advise readers that he’s a fellow with a Soros-linked group. The group says that “hundreds” of news organizations have shared its stories over the years, giving them wide reach.

The Soros family also boasts significant influence over American media. An analysis from the Media Research Center found numerous media outlets employ journalists who also serve on boards of organizations that receive large amounts of funding from Soros.

More recently, and amidst Wisconsin’s biennial budget deliberations including many billions ($11.97B in 2019! [xlsx] excluding federal and other sources) for traditional government K-12 school districts, Wisconsin Watch writer Phoebe Petrovic posted a number of articles targeting choice (0.797%!! of $11.97B) schools:

May 5, 2023: Considering a Wisconsin voucher school? Here’s what parents of children who are LGBTQ+ or have a disability should know. (Focus on < 1% of redistributed state taxpayer spending).

May 5, 2023: False choice: Wisconsin taxpayers support schools that can discriminate. (Focus on < 1% of redistributed state taxpayer spending).

May 20, 2023: Federal, state law permit disability discrimination in Wisconsin voucher schools. (Focus on < 1% of redistributed state taxpayer spending).

## May 22, 2023 via a St Marcus Milwaukee sermon [transcript]- a church family whose incredible student efforts are worth a very deep dive. Compare this to Madison, where we’ve tolerated disastrous reading results for decades despite spending > $25k+/student!

## May 23, 2023: Curious (false claims) reporting on legacy k-12 schools, charter/voucher models and special education via Wisconsin coalition for education freedom. (Focus on 99% of redistributed state taxpayer spending).

May 31, 2023: ‘Unwanted and unwelcome’: Anti-LGBTQ+ policies common at Wisconsin voucher schools. (Focus on < 1% of redistributed state taxpayer spending).

May 31, 2023: Wisconsin students with disabilities often denied public school options via another Wisconsin Watch writer: Mario Koran. (Focus on 99% of redistributed state taxpayer spending).

WI’s open enrollment program is one of the best in the country, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t limitations. When anti-#SchoolChoice folks use @WisconsinWatch articles to attack, they should also remember the same things happen in public schools. https://t.co/EwPIiwm7CU

— Will Flanders (@WillFlandersWI) June 1, 2023

The free market roots of #SchoolChoice are often overlooked in today’s political debates. It’s important to remember that the goal of school choice isn’t the elimination of public schools, but rather the lifting of all ships by providing competition to the public school monopoly. https://t.co/t49It5boHq

— Will Flanders (@WillFlandersWI) June 1, 2023

Related: Governor Evers’ most recent budget proposals have attempted to kill One City Schools’ charter authorization…… and 2010: WEAC $1.57M !! for four state senators.

June 2, 2023 Wisconsin Watch’s Embarrassing Campaign against Vouchers and Christian Schools

Oops:

“Wisconsin Watch isn’t nonpartisan in a way that a layman would understand the term. Rather, it’s nonpartisan because there isn’t a party far enough to the left to earn its support.” @LutherAbel1 dismantles Petrovic’s reporting.https://t.co/2U1miyLSv7

— Patrick McIlheran (@PaddyMacMke) June 2, 2023

In examining who Wisconsin excludes from school choice, we’ve seen how private voucher schools discriminate against LGBTQ+ students and those w/ disabilities.

Here, @MarioKoran examines how public schools reject kids w/ disabilities from open enrollment https://t.co/gsNYBO6ocX

— Jim Malewitz (@Jmalewitz) June 1, 2023

Yeah, @WisconsinWatch has long leaned left and can easily be similarly accused of avoiding introspection. Lol https://t.co/GBseKikRh6

— Chris Rickert (@RickertWisSJ) June 3, 2023

Their literal next piece (by a different reporter, true) was on inadequate special needs funding, so it’s suspicious to overlook that when critical of voucher schools and special needs.

The sexuality piece was bad journalism with unfounded logical leaps.https://t.co/A8WQgg2bdP

— Quinton Klabon (@GhaleonQ) June 3, 2023

Why might civics minded have an interest in funding sources (such as Wisconsin Watch, WILL, ActBlue and so on)?

Two examples:

Billionaire George Soros is taking a stake in the Bernalillo County district attorney’s race, backing Raul Torrez with a $107,000 contribution to an independent expenditure committee.

George Soros, a multibillionaire who has only the most tenuous connection to Colorado, is paying for negative ads against incumbent District Attorney Pete Weir, a Republican, pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into the effort.

Mario Koran:

Less talked about, however, is how the state’s biggest choice program, open enrollment, excludes students with disabilities. Roughly 70,000 Wisconsin students attend public schools outside their home districts through the 25-year-old open enrollment program. It allows students to apply to better-resourced public schools outside of district boundaries. But those schools can limit or deny slots for out-of-district students with disabilities.

Wisconsin districts in 2021-22 received 41,554 open enrollment applications, about 14% of which represented students with disabilities, Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction data show. Schools rejected about 40% of applications in that category, with lack of special education space as the most common reason for the denials. By comparison, school districts rejected only 14% of applications from students without disabilities. 

Last year, for example, one suburban Madison district announced 115 slots for incoming open enrollment students — but none for children with disabilities.

The denials tie students to their home district school, underscoring how a child’s ZIP code shapes opportunities. The effect is compounded for students with disabilities.

More via the Wisconsin coalition for education freedom.

B Davis:

Reading Mr. Phelps recent article, “Are English Departments Really Dying”, I was surprised by the conclusions he drew from the data he referenced at the U.S. Education Department’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). He tells us, essentially, that the degrees/departments aren’t really dying, but that undergraduate emphasis is shifting from the ‘pure’ / traditional English degree to “more applied, vocational, and skill-based programs.”

I was surprised because this does not really align with my own understanding of the crash & burn we see in the humanities.

So I checked the numbers, using the table he referenced.

And I was surprised all over again to discover what seems to be significant arithmetic errors in Mr. Phelps’ calculations.

He tells us, as an example, that “English bachelor’s degree completion declined from about 7.6 percent of all degrees in 1971 to about 4.3 percent in 2021.” The 7.6% is correct, dividing 63K degrees in English by 839K degrees overall in 1971. But if we divide the English degrees awarded in ’21 (35,762) by the total degrees in ’21 (2,066,445) we find that only 1.7% of all degrees that year were in “English Language & Literature”. (That probably explains the New Yorker’s use of the phrase ‘freefall’ ).

Hartanto, Andree Lee Anne Teo, Nicole Lua, Verity Y. Q. Tay, Keith J. Y. Chen, Nicole R. Y. Majeed, Nadyanna M.:

Existing studies have shown that direct exposure to a real nature environment has a restorative effect on attentional resources after a mentally fatiguing task. However, it remains unclear whether virtual nature simulations can serve as a substitute for real nature experienced in the outdoors to restore executive attention. Given the mixed findings in the literature, the present study sought to examine if viewing videos with natural scenery (vs. a control with urban scenery) restores participants’ working memory capacity—measured by an operation span task—in a high-powered pre-registered within-subject experimental study. Overall, our within-subject experiment did not find any evidence to support the benefit of watching videos with natural scenery on restoration of executive attention. Moreover, the results from our Bayesian analyses further showed substantial support for the null hypothesis. Our study suggests that virtual nature simulations, even with the use of videos, may not be able to replicate the experiences of nature in the outdoors and restore attentional resources. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Milky Eggs:

Typically, the disadvantaged groups (exam scores underestimate ability) are thought to be poor, Black, Hispanic, or Native American students, and the advantaged groups (exam scores overestimate ability) are thought to be Asian-Americans.

These motivations are wrong.

However, it is important to be clear about why they are wrong. They are not wrong because I disagree with them on an ideological basis; rather, they are wrong because they conflict with the existing scientific literature on cognitive ability, the heritability of intelligence, and standardized testing. They are empirically wrongand run against decades’ worth of detailed studies spanning the fields of psychology, sociology, education, and modern genetics.

In this post, I outline a clear, step-by-step argument that lays out a strong case for the pro-standardized testing viewpoint. I establish the following points:

1. Intelligence is measured by a single factor, g
2. The majority of differences in intelligence are genetic
3. Common objections to heritability estimates are invalid
4. Standardized test scores are good measures of intelligence
5. Test scores are unaffected by parental income or education
6. Test preparation has a minimal effect on test scores
7. Asian culture does not explain Asian-American exam outperformance

Matt Taibbi:

Rule #1: When you think you’re finished, go back and kill 20% of your copy.

Soviet writer Isaac Babel, a fan of what the Dude called “the whole brevity thing,” said a key was using “strong fingers” and “whipcord nerves” to remove parts “you happen to like most, but are needed least.” Babel added writing was “like self-inficted torture” and wondered why he didn’t follow his father into the farm machinery business. You’ll see that sentiment a lot. Most people who actually like writing, overwrite. When you think you’re finished, check the word count. If it’s 1800, target 360 for termination. Your real length is probably 1200, but a 20% kill is a start. Nobody has a 100% smart rate, least of all you. Learn to enjoy it. If loved ones walk in the room during this process, they should see a schizoid gleam in your eye that makes them nervous.

Matthew A. Kraft, Alexander J. Bolves, and Noelle M. Hurd:

We document a largely unrecognized pathway through which schools promote human capital development – by fostering informal mentoring relationships between students and teachers, counselors, and coaches. Using longitudinal data from a nationally representative sample of adolescents, we explore the nature and consequences of natural mentoring relationships by leveraging within-student variation in the timing of mentorship formation as well as differences in exposure among pairs of twins, best friends, and romantic partners. Results across difference-in-differences and pair fixed-effect specifications show consistent and meaningful positive effects on student attainment, with a conservative estimate of a 9.4 percentage point increase in college attendance. Effects are largest for students of lower socioeconomic status and robust to controls for individual characteristics and bounding exercises for selection on unobservables. Smaller class sizes and a school culture where students have a strong sense of belonging are important school-level predictors of having a K-12 natural mentor.

Matthew A. Kraft, Alexander J. Bolves, and Noelle M. Hurd:

We document a largely unrecognized pathway through which schools promote human capital development – by fostering informal mentoring relationships between students and teachers, counselors, and coaches. Using longitudinal data from a nationally representative sample of adolescents, we explore the nature and consequences of natural mentoring relationships by leveraging within-student variation in the timing of mentorship formation as well as differences in exposure among pairs of twins, best friends, and romantic partners. Results across difference-in-differences and pair fixed-effect specifications show consistent and meaningful positive effects on student attainment, with a conservative estimate of a 9.4 percentage point increase in college attendance. Effects are largest for students of lower socioeconomic status and robust to controls for individual characteristics and bounding exercises for selection on unobservables. Smaller class sizes and a school culture where students have a strong sense of belonging are important school-level predictors of having a K-12 natural mentor.

✅Soros funds @OpenSociety
✅Open Society Foundations Fund @humanrightscam2
✅The HRC publish Corporate Equality Index (CEI) Scores which measure corporate devotion to Woke Ideologies
✅@Target needs a good CEI score to get investments from @BlackRock
✅Target partners with… pic.twitter.com/Q0PCAV418O

— Scarlett Johnson (@scarlett4kids) May 30, 2023

Katherine Cramer:

nal paper: “My conception of what being a good citizen is has greatly evolved over the course of [our course]…I now think that it’s even more necessary to not just understand your own opinions, but also those of other people. Too often, we see politicians, media elites, and even citizens weaponizing our differences as political ammunition for one side or the other instead of appreciating the various perspectives. It certainly takes a lot of conscious effort to approach political discourse with an open mind and resist the urge to argue during the charged political environment we live in, but I’ve come to understand that this is a crucial step in creating a well-functioning democracy.”

Perhaps rather than worry that students on UW campuses are being indoctrinated, we instead should listen to them and follow their lead: Don’t believe everything you hear or read. Take the time to listen to people and understand where they are coming from. And perhaps most importantly, enjoy the feeling of people treating each other with respect.

It’s hopeless listing all the things wrong with this CNN piece, but the biggest is that educator “quits” have been lower every month this school year when compared with the same months in 2022. https://t.co/tDYlkuefXM

— Mike Antonucci (@UnionReport74) May 31, 2023

Alex Gutentag:

What makes the NEA’s bargaining approach so remarkable is the fact that this union and its counterpart, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), have recently inflicted profound racial and social injustice on the country’s school children in the form of extended school closures.

As an Oakland public school teacher, I was a staunch supporter of the teachers union and was a union representative at my school for three years. In 2020, however, I began to disagree with the union when it prevented me from returning to my classroom long after studies proved that school reopening was safe, even without COVID-19 mitigation measures. In my experience, the union’s actions were not motivated by sincere fears, but rather by a desire to virtue-signal and maintain comfortable work-from-home conditions.

Although union bosses like Randi Weingarten continue to obfuscate their role in school closures, the historical record is clear: The union repeatedly pushed to keep schools closed, and areas with greater union influence kept schools closed longer. Politicians, public health officials, and the media certainly had a hand in this fiasco, but the union egged on dramatic news stories, framed school reopening as a partisan issue, and directly interfered in CDC recommendations. Teachers saw firsthand that virtual learning was a farce and that children were suffering. While there may be plenty of blame to go around, teachers’ abandonment of their own students was a special kind of betrayal.

I am well aware that there were many problems plaguing public education before school closures, and that teaching was a challenging and exhausting job. Today, however, the crisis teachers face is an order of magnitude worse than it was in 2019, and this crisis is almost entirely self-inflicted. Public school enrollment is plummeting, kids are refusing to go to school, and disciplinary problems are spiraling out of control.

Many districts are in freefall. In Baltimore, one high school student told the local news that, “The rising number of violence within city public schools has been unfathomable.” More than 80% of U.S. schools have reported an increase in behavior issues. Nearly half of all schools have teacher shortages, and teachers continue to leave in droves.

Nationally, the chronic absence rate doubled, and it is not showing signs of improvement. In one San Francisco elementary school, almost 90% of students were chronically absent in the 2021-22 school year. In New York City, 50% of all Black students and 47% of all Latino students were chronically absent. Parents have no idea how far behind their kids really are, and schools cannot repair learning loss on a mass scale because the available workforce is simply not up to the task.

Kimberly Wethal

Middleton speller Aiden Wijeyakulasuriya has accomplished his personal goal of placing higher at the Scripps National Spelling Bee than his last time there.

Aiden ended his run at the national bee tied with another competitor for 21st as he incorrectly defined “obivate” in the seventh round. Nailing the silent “c” at the start of “ctenidium” in the sixth round, Aiden survived a grueling semifinals round Wednesday that knocked out 34 of 56 competitors.

Getting to the point where the competition was using the Merriam-Webster dictionary as its source material, rather than the spelling bee’s own list, was exciting, Aiden said Wednesday.

“Being able to study and memorize the 4,000 words on one of the champion lists given is one thing, but being able to identify and break down words from anywhere in the 500,000-plus words in the dictionary is another thing,” he said. “I just find it really fun to decode the word.”

Phoebe Petrovic:

Wisconsin Watch reviewed public materials for about one-third of the state’s 373 voucher schools and found that four out of 10 had policies or statements that appeared to target LGBTQ+ students for disparate treatment. Some had explicitly discriminatory policies, such as expelling students for being gay or transgender. 

All 50 of the voucher schools with anti-LGBTQ+ stances identified by the news organization are Christian, with denominations including Lutherans and Catholics, among others. Almost every school cites religious principles as a basis for their positions.

Suzanne Eckes, an education law professor at University of Madison-Wisconsin, argued that language casting gay or transgender identities or behavior as sinful, even without policies codifying the perspective, “has a discriminatory intent behind it.”

She also pointed out how some policies, although not explicit, could result in LGBTQ+ students being treated inconsistently from others. For example, some schools specifically ban all sexual contact outside of a straight, cisgender marriage.

Green Bay Adventist Junior Academy, which has nearly 68% of students on vouchers, says that it “does not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation (in admissions), but does discriminate on the basis of sexual misconduct,” which includes “homosexual conduct.” Reached by phone, a representative of the school said: “We have no comment.”

Werth, now approaching graduation from college, said his experience, although difficult, was not as hostile as the policies now in place at his alma mater and elsewhere.

It would be useful to compare $pending on traditional public schools and the voucher budget…

PART 2 of our series on voucher discrimination is now out, focused on students with disabilities. Per advocate: “We have two parallel school systems: one of which is oriented toward serving students with disabilities and the other which never has been.” https://t.co/J7npNaheRb

— Phoebe "listen to Open and Shut" Petrovic (@PhoebePetrovic) May 22, 2023

More:

Curious (false claims) reporting on legacy k-12 schools, charter/voucher models and special education via Wisconsin coalition for education freedom.

A “Wisconsin Watch” look at voucher schools; DPI heavy, no mention of $pending or achievement…

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our 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.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Frederick Hess:

Democrats need to placate a host of entrenched claimants. This means that they’re all for pumping money into schools, but they do so in ways that tend to further bloat bureaucracies, pad payrolls, and supersize benefits rather than increase paychecks, reward hard work, or honor excellence.

The public thinks teachers deserve a raise. Last year, 72 percent of respondents to the annual Education Next survey said that teacher salaries should be higher, and just 4 percent said they should be lower. (Among Republicans, the split was 56 percent to 7 percent.) Even when told how much teachers in their state earn (which is invariably more than expected), respondents broke 60 percent to 4 percent for higher pay.

The public has a point. The National Education Association reported this spring that, in 2021–22, the average teacher’s salary was $66,745. (The Bureau of Labor Statistics has it a bit higher, at $67,680 as of May 2021, but I’ll use the NEA figure here.) Sixty-six grand isn’t peanuts, but it is below the $70,000 median for college graduates in all fields. To attract and retain the kinds of educators we want, we should aim to pay teachers more than the typical college grad makes. Another recent survey asked teachers how much they think teachers should earn. The median response was $80,000.

As I note in The Great School Rethink, communities benefit when teachers are capable and professionally compensated. And, contrary to union talking points, there’s no evidence that cheapskate taxpayers are the problem when it comes to directing money at public education. Since the publication of A Nation at Risk, the landmark 1983 report of the U.S. National Commission on Excellence in Education, per pupil spending, adjusted for inflation, has doubled. In 2019 (even before the massive infusion of federal pandemic aid), U.S. schools spent $16,774 per student.

But it can be unclear what taxpayers are getting for their money. Nationally, student achievement has been stagnant for a decade. Adding insult to injury, increases in school spending over time have done nothing to quiet concerns about teacher pay. Between 2012 and 2022, inflation-adjusted teacher pay fell by close to 4 percent even as real per pupil spending increased by 16 percent. In fact, falling pay and rising spending have been a pattern since the Clinton era. Why aren’t more dollars translating into more pay? Key culprits include the number of nonteaching staff, outsized benefits, and a truncated employee year.

Alan Borsuk:

Year after year, MPS reading scores are abysmal, strong signs of the problems with educational success that lie ahead for many students. There are bright spots; some MPS schools consistently have better results.

But overall, in spring 2022 — the most recent results available — more than half (54.1%) of MPS third- through eighth-graders were rated “below basic” in reading on Wisconsin’s Forward tests, while 26.2% were at the basic level and 14.1% were rated proficient or advanced. Another 5.6% didn’t take the tests. Among Black students, 7% were advanced or proficient and 64.7% were below basic. In some schools, fewer than 2% of students were proficient and none were advanced.

It is fair and important to note that the overall success of students in private, parochial and charter schools generally wasn’t much different, although some schools stand out for above-average success year after year.

Specifically, in spring 2022 results for Milwaukee students using publicly funded vouchers to attend private schools, 41% were rated as below basic, 32% as basic, and 19% as proficient or advanced. The voucher percentages include ninth-, 10th- and 11th-grade students.

There are positive reading reforms for my Milwaukee! But:

1. the skyrocketing scores are not correct. 43% of that school skipped the pandemic test, sadly.https://t.co/SQmNwAMxAM

2. board meetings have not mentioned training/coaches/method/rigor. Scores seem flat this year. https://t.co/QlCbQhw5To pic.twitter.com/42hP6NEcNL

— Quinton Klabon (@GhaleonQ) May 31, 2023

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our 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.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Scott Girard:

“I’d been looking forward to high school and it was so hyped up,” said West High School senior Alex Vakar. “It felt like this necessary period for growth because people always talk about them being the best days of their lives, and we missed out on half of that.”

Dances, sports, time with friends, theater performances — all of them were canceled or altered at some point over the past four years, and that’s just outside the classroom. The interruption to students’ learning was severe, and even while virtual learning was a positive for some, students noticed missing foundational pieces when they returned to in-person classes.

That environment faced a sudden change on the afternoon of March 13, 2020, as district officials announced an extended spring break, and later that afternoon Gov. Tony Evers closed schools statewide.

“Of course, we’re freshmen in high school, we’re like, ‘Let’s go! It’s an extra week!’” Mueller said. “Initially we were all just super excited for it because we didn’t know enough about it.”

No one knew how long it would last.

“When I heard that we were closing down and school was shutting down, I was in my geometry class and my teacher just said, ‘Hopefully I’ll see you next week,’” Vakar recalled.

Reality quickly set in, as the wait for a return kept being extended and the school district tried to formulate a plan to continue students’ learning. That spring, MMSD began virtual learning but switched to a “pass/no pass” grading system for high schoolers and froze grade point averages at their first semester level.

Vakar grew increasingly frustrated with MMSD as she saw peers in surrounding school districts return while Madison remained virtual. When Vakar returned in spring 2021 to a limited schedule at West, as the district phased in in-person instruction and a hybrid schedule, she noticed the differences from fall 2019: masking, one-way hallways and one class in which she “was completely alone with the teacher” while the rest of the class was on Zoom.

Dane County Madison Public Health Notes and links.

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our 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.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

James Vaznis:

Boston Public Schools spends more per student than any other large school district in the country, according to the latest figures from the US Census Bureau, a new distinction that reflects how BPS’s budget keeps growing even as student enrollment continues to decline.

The city’s highest-in-the-nation cost, of $31,397 per student during the 2020-21 school year, represented a nearly 13 percent increase from the previous year, or about $3,600 more per student, according to the census, which examined spending in the country’s 100 largest districts.

During that same period, BPS enrollment dropped by about 2,500 students, according to the state’s annual Oct. 1 head count.Yet for all the money BPS is spending, many education advocates, parents, and students are bewildered at how little the district generally has to show for it. State standardized test scores are low, huge gaps in achievement exist between students of different backgrounds, and the district had to aggressively fight off a state takeover last year.

Madison taxpayers spend about $26K per student, far more than most, though not as much as Boston.

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our 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.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Perrin Jones:

Last month, UNC-Chapel Hill faculty penned an open letter airing criticism of both the North Carolina General Assembly and the UNC Board of Trustees. Among their complaints was the allegation that the proposed new School of Civic Life and Leadership (SCiLL) is a “clear violation” of governance principles.

But the faculty don’t have the full story. More of the truth is finally coming out about the proposed school at UNC-Chapel Hill, my alma mater, where I am a member of the Board of Trustees.

The idea for the new school’s pro-democracy curriculum goes back years—and has involved faculty input from the beginning, contrary to the false narrative perpetuated by political partisans and other opponents of free and open learning and debate on campus.

The idea for the new school’s pro-democracy curriculum goes back years—and has involved faculty input from the beginning.

As confirmed publicly by Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz and Provost Christopher Clemens, the administration’s proposal for SCiLL grew out of Carolina’s Program for Public Discourse and its IDEAs in Action curriculum, which themselves arose from campus discussions dating back to 2017. Their aims were to promote open, civil debate on campus and to equip students for success in our diverse nation and world.

John Armstrong:

In March, the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) – an independent body which oversees standards and quality in UK universities – released new guidance on curriculum design in mathematics. This guidance states:

‘Values of EDI [Equality Diversity and Inclusion] should permeate the curriculum and every aspect of the learning experience.’

At least on the face of it, this guidance seems odd. University lecturers are not teaching racist courses on calculus or sexist proofs of the prime number theorem. There is, therefore, no need for the QAA to tell them that they shouldn’t do this.

Can saying 2+2=4 be racist? Astonishingly, there is a hardcore of postmodernists who would say that it can. One such argument is: human knowledge can never be perfect; rational argument is only one way of knowing; rational argument was promoted in the enlightenment as a means of denigrating indigenous ways of knowing and oppressing colonised peoples; therefore saying that 2+2=4 smacks of white supremacy. This is a fringe view, but it is a real one. An historian speaking at the London Mathematical Society this week sincerely proposed that we should question the claim that 2+2=4, though she did not expand on her reasons.

Nevertheless, the majority of those calling for an EDI overhaul of mathematics are not seeking to change mathematics only the mindset of mathematics students. This though is in many ways even more alarming.

University lecturers are not teaching racist courses on calculus or sexist proofs of the prime number theorem