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FL: More Education Bigly Bad News (There Is No Bottom)

Florida continues to demonstrate that there is no bottom, absolutely no depth at which the legislature and their governor will say, "No way--that's just going too far." Having created a gag rule for shutting teachers up about All That Race Stuff, Current Governor and Future Heir To the Trump Presidential Crown Ron DeSantis just signed three more bills to clamp down on education and any nefarious indoctrinators lurking therein. And including a few features that haven't made the headlines.

SB 1108 has been getting attention mostly for its increased requirements for civics education and civics education testing. Students now must take a civics literacy course in high school. But that's not all that's in there. 

The bill also gives the state education department the authority "to hold patents, copyrights, trademarks and service marks" and use or sell them for "monetary gain or other consideration."

And the bill creates an Innovative Blended Learning and Real Time Student Assessment Pilot Program. The purpose of the program is "to develop and measure innovative blended learning and real-time weekly student assessment educational models," or what is sometimes called hybrid, with teachers and some students in a classroom, while other students are remote in the same class at the same time. But it also, in this bill, means "students learn in part through online delivery of content and instruction with some element of student control over time, place, path, or pace and in part at a traditional supervised classroom location away from home. So both synchronous and asynchronous instruction of both live and cyber students. But the "distance learning" must always be at the parents choosing with no coercion. And it's supposed to close the achievement gap. And the student can choose to switch modalities on any given day without notice. 

So some sort of freakish Frankenstein's monster of cyber-schooling. Charters or public schools may choose to get a piece of this action.

HB 5 is the bill focusing on K-12 civics education, with the intent to make it more nationalistic. Civics ed must now include a "comparative discussion of political ideologies, such as communism and totalitarianism, that conflict with the principles of freedom and democracy essential to the founding principles of the United States." 

This mandated indoctrination into the love of freedom must also include "patriotic programs" that will inculcate in students "an understanding of their shared rights and responsibilities, and of the founding principles" of the country. Also, a "sense of civic pride and desire to participate regularly with" local, state and federal government. Can't wait to see how they assess that one on the test. 

But wait--there's more students are supposed to get. Also, an understanding of effective advocating before government. Also, an understanding of  civic-minded expectations of "an upright and desirable citizenry that recognizes and accepts responsibility for preserving and defending the blessings of liberty inherited from prior generations" and secured by the Constitution. And the program should also "curate" oral histories of "portraits in patriotism" including "first-person accounts of victims of other nations' governing philosophies who can compare those philosophies with" ours here in the US. So students are to learn that other countries are awful and we are awesome. 

HB 233 is the one grabbing all the headlines, because it is represents a striking new low in crazy-pants authoritarian dystopic state law. 

Extra crazy points for this part--the bill says that institutions of higher learning must not "limit students', faculty members', or staff members' access to, or observation of, ideas and opinions that they may find uncomfortable, unwelcome, disagreeable, or offensive." This is coming from the same state that just banned Critical Race Theory and anything else that might cause "discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other psychological distress" to white students. This bills limits on shutting down anything unwelcome or offensive means that basically anything is fair game on a Florida campus. 

But the headline crazy is the requirement for an annual  assessment of the "intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity" of every institution of higher ed. Annual. There's no indication that survey responses have to be anonymous, so there's a concern about being targeted by the state. And DeSantis has indicated that he'd just as soon cut funds for any schools that turn out to be overly liberal. Reporters pressed DeSantis for some examples of this terrible scourge of intellectual repression of conservatives; he had nothing, but said he knows "a lot of parents" who worry about their children being indoctrinated on campus (presumably he meant "indoctrinated the wrong way"). 

The bill has been sailing along for a while, and this piece from the Miami Herald back in April gives a full picture of the intent here--particularly in a section of conversation with lobbyist Barney Bishop, who pushed hard for this bill:

Bishop won’t name his clients other than to say he is lobbying the bill on behalf of Citizens for Responsible Spending, a “grassroots organization committed to ethics, the budget and good jobs.” He is the only lobbyist representing non-education groups that is pushing for the bill.

When asked why, he painted a dark, repressive picture.

“I think that those of us who have diverse thinking and look at both sides of the issue, see that the way the cards are stacked in the education system, is toward the left and toward the liberal ideology and also secularism — and those were not the values that our country was founded on,” Bishop said. “And those are the values that we need to get our country back to.”

Bishop said he “certainly hope[s]” the effort will go further — into the K-12 system.

So, we need to be looking at both sides, but really only the correct side, the Jesus side. Because indoctrination is totally okay when you're doing it for God.

There is no bottom.

SCOTUS Backs F-bomb Cheerleader

 Today the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the high school cheerleader who had been suspended for out-of-school speech.

Brandy Levy had made a Snapchat post after failing to make the varsity squad. So Saturday, from a convenience store, she posted a picture of herself flipping the bird captioned," Fuck school, fuck softball, fuck cheer, fuck everything." She was 14 and in a mood. And it was Snapchat, from which the post would disappear before school even opened on Monday. But somebody took a screenshot, and a cheerleading coach saw it, and Levy was suspended from the squad. 

The wheels of justice have ground slowly on this one; Levy is now a college freshman. And the lower court upheld her suspension. But SCOTUS says, 8-1, that she was unjustly suspended from the squad.

What does this mean for teachers dealing with actual students in the fall?

It's not entirely clear. The court did not endorse a lower court decisions saying that the First Amendment guarantees free speech for students without consequences off campus. So, a narrow ruling on this case.

So schools remain adrift. The courts have long said that students don't lose their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse door, but they have also recognized that schools' need to maintain a safe environment means that students can't have carte blanch. 

My feelings are mixed. On the one hand, school administrators can sometimes get awfully caught up in a desire to hyper-regulate student speech (does your principal require the right to pre-approve everything in the school paper? then shame on them). At the same time, social media is a huge source of in-school trouble these days. It's where fights get started that spill over into the building. And cyber bullying can be way worse than the old fashioned kind of bullying.

Justice Breyer wrote the opinion, saying her post might have been offensive, but it didn't disrupt the school. "It might be tempting to dismiss B. L.’s words as unworthy of the robust 1st Amendment protections discussed herein. But sometimes it is necessary to protect the superfluous in order to preserve the necessary." The lone dissent came from Justice Thomas, who argued that some students, by virtue of visible leadership positions, can be held to higher standards. 

So after watching this case carefully, we can conclude that schools don't know much more about the issue than they ever did before. Levy was represented by the ACLU. 

AI Wants To Take Your Order (Among Other Things)

Back in 2019, McDonald's acquired an AI company called Apprente, a company launched in Silicon Valley in 2017 with the singular goal of automating drive-through. That was the third tech company McD's got its floppy clown fingers on that year. The others were an app vendor and a personalization outfit.

All of this fits into McDonald's apparent trend toward becoming a company of giant food vending machines. They are apparently looking at automating the kitchen, but right now, in Chicago, they're putting Apprente's work to the test in ten restaurant, with AI-powered drive-throughs.

So how is it? How well does a computer-generated voice deal with the rather narrow path involved in taking an order.

Well, Chris Matyszczyk examined it and wrote an article for ZDNet entitled, "I just watched McDonald's new AI drive-thru and I've lost my appetite." He had looked at a tik-tok post recording a portion of this AI in action.

I wanted it to be clever.

I wanted it to be surprising, enticing, well, at least a little bit human.

After all, AI companies are always telling us how much better than the human equivalent their creations truly are.

So when McDonald's revealed it was testing the idea of replacing humans at the drive-thru with robots, I was filled with cautious optimism.

Would customers be greeted with a surprisingly chirpy voice, redolent of a young person who really enjoys high school?

None of that. You can watch the clip here. The AI sounds like nothing so much as HAL 3000's sister; it is not a voice you would ever, ever mistake for a human. 

But does it work? Well, McDonald's CEO noted that the AI system would require staff to be retrained not to do their jobs, because they were interrupting Discount Siri to try to help. But the humans can't all be fired yet, because the system, even working from a limited menu, is only about 85% accurate.

It also, apparently, gets the company sued. One customer has sued the company for a violation of Illinois's Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). Passed way back in 2008, BIPA says you can't record information like voiceprints, facial features, or fingerprints without getting permission first. The AI ordering system records the customer voice in order be sure it gets the order right. 

Well, not just to get the order right. The voice recording, according to the lawsuit, is collected "to be able to correctly interpret customer orders and identify repeat customers to provide a tailored experience." Which fits, because that personalization company that McD's bought is about making AI menu boards "that can change the offerings based on your personal ordering history, the weather, and trending menu offerings."

Just imagine this model applied to a classroom, complete with less-than-100% accuracy and a massive violation of privacy, not to mention collecting all that data that can be so valuable to a company. One more batch of reasons that classroom AI is a terrible idea.

Is There Common Ground on Race and Education in Plain Sight

Back in May, Mike Petrilli, head honcho at the right-tilted Fordham Institute, proposed that when it comes to the current culture wars surrounding "critical race theory, “anti-racist” education, and diversity, equity, and inclusion in the classroom," a common ground exists. As Petrilli's sub-head puts it, "five promising practices most of us can get behind, regardless of politics."

Is it possible? So many of the conservative participants in this war are not making good-faith arguments, but are exercising some political opportunism (looking at you, Governor's Abbot and DeSantis). Some are either uninformed or willfully ignorant. At the same time, while Benjamin Wallace-Wells at the New Yorker did a great job laying out how one conservative activist stoked this fire, the article is clear that Christopher Rufo did not manufacture examples of bad diversity training out of thin air. Plenty of the objections to what's being lumped inaccurately under the heading of Critical Race Theory involves some serious nutpicking, but if the nut being picked happens to come from your school, some alarm is predictable.

Even when you find a discussion of the issues being conducted by two people in performative good faith, the gulf seems somewhat unbridgeable. In this piece, Conor Friedersdorf and Anastasia Higginbotham seem hopeless separated both by ideas and by language (What is "whiteness"? How far should we bend to keep white children from feeling bad?)

Petrilli says he's hopeful for common ground, if not between the "hard-liners on either side, then at least among parents and educators out there in the real world of kids." Here are the five practices he thinks can be broadly supported.

Adoption and implementation of "culturally-affirming" instructional materials.

Back in 2010, Arizona's legislators and Governor Jan Brewer passed a law banning ethnic studies in schools; in 2017, it was thrown out for being unconstitutional (and, said the judge, racist). That highlights a sticking point here; the folks who believe that one can't affirm non-white culture without somehow diminishing white culture. In education the stakes are raised because there are only so many hours in the year; you really can't just keep adding to the reading list without taking something away. You need look no further than the ongoing battles over #DisruptTexts, which looks to expand the canon, but is often characterized as an attack on the canon. 

Culturally affirming materials ought to be in classrooms; at a bare minimum, culturally destructive materials should be removed. We can probably all agree on that idea; I have my doubts about whether we can agree on what that actually looks like.

The effort to diversify the education profession.

We agree. I'd call the need to recruit and retain teachers of color one of the major issues facing education right now. Are conservative lawmakers ready to hear that their attempts to ban the teaching of controversial issues of race are probably not going to help?

Helping teachers maintain high expectations for all students, regardless.

I'll admit that this point touches a nerve, going back to the days when Arne Duncan et al would insist that expectations solve all educational issues, and that we deal with all barriers to student achievement by just expecting them to do better, which is not only dumb, but cruel. At the same time, every teacher knows that expectations are key, and too often, for various reasons, teachers lower expectations for some students, and that's not helpful. 

Teaching students to empathize with and understand others, especially those whose lives are more difficult than their own.

Years ago, a friend of mine who was teaching a gifted class, decided o doing a unit about world religions--just what they are, where they are, basic beliefs. One student and her family said no. When asked why, the response was "I don't need to understand them, because they are all wrong." Petrilli rightly connects this type of learning to social and emotional learning and character education. 

But there’s a case to be made that, given America’s growing diversity and inequalities, it’s more important than ever for children to appreciate that some kids have it much harder than they do. And in particular, that many Black Americans face particular challenges because of racism that their fellow Americans need to better acknowledge and understand.

I'm pretty sure that's exactly the kind of learning that many folks in the anti-CRT crowd are agitating (and legislating) against. Petrilli is veering perilously close to the idea of systemic racism, and that's a loaded term for folks who are pretty sure that A) racism is just the product of a few bad apples here and there and B) since around 1960 we have lived in a country where any person of any color or background can achieve as much as they want to work for (and if they haven't achieved much, well, you do the math). 

Presenting the history of slavery, Jim Crow, and other painful chapters in an honest, unflinching way.

I think there is actual broad support for this, but "honest" is doing a lot of work here. In particular, teaching about the connections between past events and the present (you know--the most basic hook for getting students engaged with material) would potentially raise some hackles. It would be useful to look at those events critically, perhaps using a theory that involves the lens of race. If only such a tool weren't currently illegal in several states. Petrilli calls for education that is both critical and patriotic.

Petrilli wants to avoid mandates and bans, and on this I agree. And I'm on board with the basic ideas of each of the five, even as I understand that each one is loaded with a boatload of devilish details.

But I do have my doubts about how common groundy these are, especially for the local parents and community members. And for that, I have to blame the folks on Petrilli's side of the isle.

Take this story from Gardiner, Maine. The AP English class was given a summer reading list (a not-uncommon practice for advanced English classes) from which they had to select just one book. But the community is up in arms because the 33 choices are all non-fiction books about various personal and historical aspects of the Black experience in America. Protest is being ramped up by local radio guy Jon James, a school alum who says these books are all "based in and around Critical Race Theory" despite the fact that he has not actually read any of them. The course itself is focused on rhetoric. Curriculum coordinator Angela Hardy offered this:

“In developmentally appropriate ways, our students will engage in learning experiences where contentious topics may be raised,” Hardy said. “In these instances, the educator’s role is to ensure students will examine the varied perspectives, have skills to discuss the topic with others using evidence, learn to listen to opposing views and develop their own opinions.

“A common goal of our educators is to equip the students with the skills and tools to move through that process effectively while facilitating respectful dialogue,” she added.

In other words, exactly the sort of all sides examination that many "critical race theory" opponents have said they want. But a chunk of the public has risen up, and the board has now said students may choose any non-fiction book at all. No word yet if that will satisfy the protestors who don't actually have students in the school. The comments section includes plenty of supportive comments, but also one from a person who asserts that the First Amendment means the school can't tell students what to read, and another who reminds us that the point of a liberal education is to make students become liberals. These folks, including James, have no idea what critical race theory says or what these books say, but they've heard what Tucker Carlson has to say and what Fox is reporting from Florida and other outposts of Liberty and this list sure looks like a bunch of by-God Black people stuff, and they aren't having it.

I'm not nutpicking. I'm pointing out that some of the policy wonks of the right may be underestimating just how stirred up the folks on the ground are. My sense is that by and large these are the same people who wouldn't listen to Jeb Bush about Common Core, only now after a few years of Trumpism, we have more politicians willing to wind them up and let them go. And, in all fairness, that agitation has seriously reduced the willingness of people on the Left to listen to any conservative sentence that includes the word "race" in it.

So, honestly, I wish the five things listed by Petrilli did represent some real common ground. They should. But if they did, places like Gardiner, cities like Philadelphia, regions like Washoe County, and states like Florida would not be all worked up and throwing conservative weight around. 

Things My Father Taught Me

My father is in his mid-eighties and still plenty peppy. Still the smartest person I know.

He and my mother celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary last week. They got married the summer before she started a teaching job and before he started his senior year of college. One of his graduation pictures includes infant me. Who let those children get married?

By the time he graduated, he had a solid job lined up engineering for an underground mining equipment company. He'd earned that kind of gig by being a hard working, serious student, and that was probably only because my grandparents (a general contractor and a stay at home mom who would soon have a side career in politics) sent him to Phillips Exeter Academy. He was a townie and never soaked up any of the rarified ivy league prepitude of the place, attending the University of New Hampshire. 

He worked at the same company his whole life, eventually becoming one of the top managers. He had a reputation for memos marked by "dry, pithy witticisms," and he always played things straight. He was conventional and by-the-book, but still human; at lunchtime on the last day before a holiday break, he would go out and announce loudly to his secretary that he had work to do at one of the other plants and he would not be back the rest of the day (translation: if anyone leaves early, I won't ever know). When the company began to cycle through a series of hedge fundy type owners, he became a bit of a stealth rebel, which took a psychic toll on him, but an endless line of folks have told me that it helped keep the company alive.

He doesn't drink. For most of his life he wore white socks for everything. He has a huge library of big band music and is a Glenn Miller authority (he's not old enough for the OG Big Band Era, but he got swept up in the late-fifties revival). He has rebuilt a few antique autos over the years; when we were growing up, he used to drive the neighborhood kids around in a 1914 Federal Fire Truck ("Federal" is a brand, not a political designation). 

Now that he's retired, he and my mother run an antique music museum, filled with various types of mechanical pianos and band organs. We offspring joke that he left a job working 40 hours a week for pay so that he could work 60 hours a week for free. 

I learned a lot of things from my father. Some of it involves mechanical stuff; I had to go to college to discover that being the least car-handy person in my family still made me the most car-handy person lots of other places. I learned that when shopping, if it's a good deal, it's still a good deal even if you later discover a better deal, which seems like a lesson in commerce but turns out to be a lesson in not allowing circumstances to steal your satisfaction with life's moments. 

Once I had played an elementary band concert, and I was aching to get out of there, but my dad stayed and helped put away chairs. I asked why we couldn't just get out of there and he said that if something needs to be done and you're able to help do it, then you should. That stuck with me. And you do the best you can, even if it's a pain. And you finish what you start. And, though he never said so, he has always made it clear that you put your energy into doing the work, not in trying to promote how yourself for doing the work. And get it right. Also, show gratitude. Don't waste sweat and money on stuff that doesn't matter. And take care of the people around you. My father had a very successful career, and he and my mother have always lived modestly, and quietly spent a bunch of money on people and causes--nobody knows how much, including we kids.

But in some ways, the big lesson I learned from my father is that you never stop growing. Did something grab your interest? Go learn about it. Do new stuff. Embrace new people. Keep growing up as a person. After all these years, I have still never known my parents to hunker down and say, "Enough, already. We're just going to sit over here and let the world move on ahead." 

Also--and people who know my father may be surprised by this--but I also look to my father as an example of grace. I have provided ample opportunity for my parents to tell me that I've let them down. I say this may surprise people simply because my father has never made a big production out of forgiveness or working through feelings of whatever. He has just always been there. I suspect it's sort of a New England male kind of thing; you don't need to talk about it--just be there and keep doing the work. 

Fathers Day is nice as a celebration of fathers and all that. But it's also a good time to stop and think about how are fathers are reflected in who we are, a good way to remember that we didn't make ourselves, that we are carrying forward from previous generations and should be mindful about what we pass on to the next. And if that's not a good reflection for teachers, I don't know what is. 

ICYMI: Father's Day Edition (6/20)

My father is in his mid-80s, not quite as spry as he once was, but still the smartest human I know. I have a lot more to say, but I just erased a humongous paragraph because I realized it just needs to be a separate post. So let's get on to the reading for this week.

I will warn you up front that there's a lot of critical race theory stuff on the list this week, and you might want to skim and just pick out one or two to read, because lordy this controversy is depressing. There's other stuff here, too. I promise.

How a conservative activist invented the conflict over critical race theory

This New Yorker piece is a great explainer of how Christofer Rufo built an erupting right-wing mountain out of this long-simmering academic theory.

Researcher uncovers CRT astroturfing campaign

At Vice, a reporter digs up a connection between an anti-CRT group in NYC and notorious dirty tricks guy Rick Berman (if you need a refresher about this guy, here's one)

Alabama lawmaker wants to ban critical race theory, so I asked him what it is

This is turning out to be a whole sub-genre of CRT coverage, in which dipstick legislators are asked to explain what exactly they're opposed to. Low hanging fruit, but instructive. And in this piece, Kyle Whitmire goes the extra mile by moving on from asking a middle aged white man to asking a middle aged Black man.

We asked Republicans to explain Critical Race Theory--they couldn't.

Alex Thomas at the Daily Dot takes the same story idea and takes it to scale by asking a whole bunch of Senators.

What's Joe Biden's Plan for Education  

Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider in the Nation looks at the question of just what bad ideas Biden is carrying over from his previous time in DC.

The real college admissions scandal

James Murphy in Slate with a look at what really gives folks a leg up get into a fancy college. Not affirmative action, not even legacies--it's private schools. I found some of these numbers surprising.

Critical race theory battles invade school boards--with help from conservative groups

Three reporters for NBC discover that conservatives are parachuting in to disrupt school boards again--this time with CRT as the hook.

Teachers on edge over critical race theory debate

Perhaps because laws keep getting passed and penalties threatened. Aris Foley at The Hill.

A fading coal country bets on schools, but there's one big hitch

I'm always leery of big city journalists coming to rural stories, but this New York Times story feels true to me. In West Virginia, they're trying to boost local fortunes with better schooling--but what do young people do when they've got a good education, but no local prospects?

The end of the line, 2020-21

It's the end of the school year, and Nancy Flanagan is not feeling happy about the current state of education.

ASD Holes

Gary Rubinstein went to an online seminar about the great ideas about school takeovers in Tennessee. He came equipped with facts about the massive failures of that policy in the state, and though he had resolved to hold his tongue, well... 

Texas Republicans take aim at history this Juneteenth. It could backfire.

In an NBC op-ed, Brian Franklin looks at the problem of states that have forbidden teachers to teach the full truth of a new federal holiday, focusing on Texas.

New School Curriculum Just 6 Straight Hours of Staring Slackjawed at the American Flag

The Onion is on the job again.