The Coming Pre-K Religion Battle

State-funded pre-schools are a spotty lot, ranging from well-funded to non-existent. The gaps are filled in by a variety of providers. My own small town is a good example; here you have a choice of a state-subsidized program, a small program run by the YMCA, and a program run by a local church. 

That's not at all unusual. People look for someone they can trust with the care of their littles, and for many that means churches. For churches, a pre-school or daycare makes a perfect "outreach" ministry, and they usually have physical facilities readily available, as well as a pool of people willing to work for volunteer-level wages.

When it comes to pre-school, there wall between church and state is more like a shower curtain, and it's about to be tested.

There are many, many things that the government can screw up with an initiative to create universal pre-K, from measuring results badly to simply trying to turn pre-K into the new first grade. And there really isn't anything in the track record of either party to suggest that screwing up will not be done.

But aside from that, the expansion of pre-K is going to unleash another fight over religion in schools. The current giant pile of money for pre-K and child care comes with a nondiscrimination requirement, and if we've learned anything about religious schools, it's that some of them are certain that discriminating against some people is a critical part of their religious mission. 

So conservative religious groups are already pushing back against the nondiscrimination clauses, because they might have to pass on that federal money if  they prefer to continue "to teach religious content, convene all-boys or all-girls programs, or give preferences in hiring or admissions to people of their religion." Most analysts say that the Build Back Better Act, in which this is buried, would not squelch actual religious instruction.

There are other challenges to small providers in the bill, including a requirement that they have seven years to have lead teachers with at least a bachelor's degree, and a requirement for wage levels. Also, this bill works by having states opt into receiving federal funds, which means that states can also say no. So even if Build Back Better passes the Senate, the fights about pre-K will move to the state level. Expect arguments about religious liberty to be part of that fight.

Charter Scandal Collection Now Available

Years ago there was a charter scandal website that eventually started to gather dust. In more recent years, the Network for Public Education has been collecting those various scandals under the tag #AnotherDayAnotherCharterScandal.

Now those various items are collected on the NPE website in a (partially) searchable collection. You can search by state or by category, as well as searching with terms of your own. 

The searchable portion of the collection goes back through 2019; there are more items collected, but not yet indexed on the database. If you suspect there are problems with your local charter folks, or you just want to browse the size and scope of charter issues, this will be a useful tool for you. 

Check it out right here.

A Reminder About The Uselessness Of Test Scores

 As we move through the latest stage of the pandemic in schools, we still get a lot of noise about how we Really Need to get those Big Standardized Test scores collected and crunched, because only then can we address Learning Loss or Pandemic Stumble or general Falling Behind. 

In doing so, we once again make the same old mistake of trying to use Big Standardized Test scores as a measure of future success (at its most extreme in the "students will suffer with years of lost earnings" think pieces).There is no particular reason to believe this is true. 

Let me remind you of this old graph.

In other words, a rich kid who drops out of high school has as much a chance of success as a poor kid who graduates from college. 

There are plenty of theories about why this is so. A Georgetown study concluded that early tests scores are less predictive of future success than socio-economic status. Those researchers point to an idea that echoes the issue of social capital that Robert Putnam explores in Our Kids-- that wealthier families have connections that both help locate opportunities for children (My kid really likes ponies, and I know a guy who runs a stable) as well as providing a safety net. As the Georgetown report puts it

When students from affluent families stumble, they have a softer landing and assistance getting back on track, while those in adverse environments are more likely to land on rocky ground and never recover.

The lead author of the report told CNBC

People with talent often don’t succeed. What we found in this study is that people with talent that come from disadvantaged households don’t do as well as people with very little talent from advantaged households.

The Georgetown report, like most such studies, is using test scores as a proxy for talent or smartitude. So what we're seeing here repeatedly is that tests are a lousy predictor of future earnings, life outcomes, etc. Which means that if we are concerned about those future outcomes for students, we need to look for better predictors.

There is a lot of legitimate concern right now over the fallout from pandemic. But obsessing over BS Test scores and throwing all our energy into trying to lift those scores is not the answer. The scariest part of that Georgetown report is in the last part of the sentence-- "those in adverse environments are more likely to land on rocky ground and never recover." If it's not too late to keep students from landing on rocky ground, we should try to prevent, and for those who have already landed, we should be helping them get back up. Hammering them to prep for the Test so they can Raise Those Scores is not the way. 

Another Curmudgumile Marker

I pause to note this so that I can find the moment later, should I ever choose to. Sometime last week, this blog passed ten million views. That's partly because I have just stayed here, flailing away ta my keyboard for seven plus years. It's also because people really care about this public education stuff, and because they appreciate finding someone who says what they think but maybe can't quite express.

I'm not monetized, so that number of hits (which is certainly only an approximation, given the vagaries of Google) doesn't translate into any particular gains for me. But as a writer, it's nice to have an audience, and I think everyone for being that. 

Mile marker noted. Back to work.

ICYMI: Tryptophan Hangover Edition (11/28)

The week may have been hectic, but people were still writing things and putting them into the world, so it's time to take a look.

Working in the Pencil Graveyard

Notes from the Educational Trenches takes a quick look at the current toll on middle school students. Somehow, things have to get better.

Is It about Learning or The Adult Ned To Control Children

Teacher Tom looks at Johnny Cash and the need for control, and how humans, including young humans, respond to that.

Some US Christian schools feel free to fire gay teachers

Not news, exactly, but well explained in this piece in The Guardian

Was education the issue in Virginia. Board elections say maybe not

The Hill breaks down election results and what it tells us about education as an election issue. Maybe CRT isn't a big winner.

In the 1950s, rather than integrate its public schools, Virginia closed them

A little history lesson from the Guardian, and reminder that race and education have been a source of trouble not so long ago.

SEL is the next big target

The Hartford Courant sees the "activist parents" coming for social and emotional learning.

Texas book ban would cost districts millions

The Texas book ban has a lot of things wrong with it, but don't forget that it would also be expensive as hell for districts to follow. Danika Ellis is the writer who ploughed through Matt Krause's whole list of "questionable" books; now she looks further into the issue.

These people are not educators

Turns out lots of Texans are not on board with elected officials coming up with book banning lists. From Reform Austin.

Tennessee spells out its teacher gag rule

Tennessee has one of the more terrible gag laws; now they've explained in detail just how punitive it is. You don't want this in your state.

The Conservative War on Education That Failed

Friend of the Institute Adam Laats is a historian whose deep knowledge of conservative Christianity and education in the US makes him well-positioned for our current state. This piece in the Atlantic looks back at the century-old attempt to make evolution go away.

Audit finds accountability holes in Utah

Turns out that Utah's system for overseeing charter schools is a little buggy. KUTV lays it out. 

Yes, no or "huh?" in talk of critical race theory

How Yorba-Linda school district grapples with the ongoing vaguely defined and ill-understood controversy/

Parents should not be able to dictate what other parents can read

In the Miami Herald, the American Library Association director for the Office of Intellectual Freedom explains why book bans kind of suck.

What War?

In which TC Weber calls the Tennessee Moms for Liberty chief and reminds us that even people we disagree with are human. (Ironically, you may disagree with some portions of this post.)

UC Is Done with the SAT Experiment

Akil Bello at Forbes with some response for people who think it's a shame that California is dumping standardized testing for college admissions.

WV Private Schools Figuring Out How To Get Their Hands on Voucher Money

It took roughly fifteen seconds for religious schools in WV to figure out how toi really cash in on the state's new school voucher set-up.

Take all the books of the shelf

Alexandra Petri is a national treasure. Here she explains why we should just do away with books entirely (Washington Post)

Romanticizing Anxiety

I'm working my way through Judson Brewer's book Unwinding Anxiety, and at one point he addresses the ways in which we justify and even seek out anxiety.

The sciency basis is a paper from 1908 by Yerkes and Dodson that has become enshrined as the Yerkes-Dodson Curve or even the Yerkes-Dodson Law. Yerkes-Dodson posit a sort of bell curve for stress, where more stress and anxiety and pressure drive better performance, until they don't and instead start to make things worse. This seems like it makes sense. But does it? 

These are not human people

Bewer says no. In fact, he says that decades later when papers supporting the Yerkes-Dodson curve were actually subjected to review and replication (that replication thing continues to be an issue in social science papers--see also the marshmallow test) and found that only 4% of the papers held up. Instead, the data mostly shows a linear negative correlation between stress and performance. The more stressed you are, the worse you do. Period.

Talking to his book editor about this research, Brewer heard a striking observation from her:

People romanticize their anxiety and/or stress. They wear it like a badge of honor, without which they would be a lesser person, or worse, lose a sense of purpose. To many, stress equals success. As she put it, "If you are stressed, you are making a contribution. If you're not stressed, you're a loser."

We can count the many, many ways this plays out in our lives ("If I'm not stressed, I'm not doing as much as I could be doing"), and what is someone who's overly addicted to drama is not a person who's convinced that stress and anxiety are signs that life is going well? But part of what struck me about these observations is how it all plays out in a classroom. 

Because boy can I relate to the ways in which we think our job is to "push" students, to inflict stress and anxiety upon them the better to spur their growth. Pressure is needed to make diamonds, or some such sentiment. And so we'd set out to put students through a pressure cooker.

Well, some of them. The pressure cookers are usually just for the honors students, the high achievers, partly because "they can take it" and also because their high-achieving parents shared the romanticized notion of anxiety. We knew better than to try putting the lower-achieving students through the pressure cooker because we knew (or we found out the hard way) that they'd buckle or just quit. And that should have spurred insights. I wrote years ago that every teacher should be bad at something, because there is no stress like the stress of knowing that you're going to be required to do something that you can't do well. And your brain goes through all sorts of contortions to deal with that. 

I got smarter as I went. Some of it was simple procedural tricks, like teasing coming attractions well ahead of time ("There's a paper about this topic coming up in a week or so") so that things didn't come as a surprise or shock. Some of it involved changing tone and approach, from "This is going to really separate the wheat from the chaff" to "This may look scary, but you are capable people, I'm not going to give you more than you can handle, and I am going to get you through this successfully." 

Some of it I couldn't control. Some of my colleagues used me as the Boogie Man ("You just wait till you get in his class!") and my juniors loved to try to scare sophomores ("Oh, man, this will be the hardest class ever!"), but by halfway through the year, we would inevitably have the "This really isn't so bad" conversation. And high school students have learned from adults how to humblebrag about how much stress they're carrying. 

But teachers don't have to romanticize anxiety, don't have to buy into the notion that their job is to pressurize students, don't have to jump on the "We build grit by putting them through the pressure cooker" train. 

As we know from a hundred different pieces, when it comes to pressure and stress and anxiety, schools are cranked up to 11 right now. So this may be an excellent time to shed any remaining romantic notions about how anxiety is good for you and makes you better at whatever it is you do. 

I'm not arguing that schools would be better if we never asked students to do anything hard, ever, and we reduced their stress levels by requiring them to do nothing, ever (nor am I convinced that doing so would actually reduce stress, but that's another conversation). Pursuing the mission of education--to help students grow and learn and better understand themselves and figure out how to be fully human in the world--that comes with some stress and anxiety built in. But if your classroom approach is based on the notion that you need to crank up the stress and anxiety in order to make your students "better," maybe don't. If you're a policy person and your whole raft of policy ideas is built on the premise that schools are all about applying pressure and creating stress in order to promote learning, the research is not on your side.

I'm pretty sure an anxiety-free school is not possible (just as anxiety-free life is unlikely), but there is no need to deliberately pile on more. Instead, focus on building strength and providing support. I'm a firm believer that the solution to the problem of Hard Things In Life is not to try to avoid all hard things, but to develop strength and confidence in dealing with those things when they come. That's where classroom focus should be.

Slamming Teachers

Here's something that just popped up on my Twitter feed. Honestly, I could have picked any of a few dozen others, but I went with this one because it was fresh, and yet widely loved.

Another good cause that schools might take up is the teaching of reading and math.

— Caitlin Flanagan (@CaitlinPacific) November 23, 2021

I have a hard time envisioning the worldview that these kind of cracks rest upon. The assumptions here. Does she imagine that in this world, schools are entirely staffed with people who simply don't give a shit about teaching but went to school for it and took the job because it's so easy? In this world in which nobody working in education cares about education, how did anyone ever get educated? I know some of these folks like to throw around claims about huge percentages of people graduating from school while being illiterate and innumerate, but  really-- all the people you know who can read and write and figure were just some kind of fluke? They taught themselves, somehow, while their terrible lazy incompetent teachers were taking a nap?

The pandemic hammering of teachers and schools just goes on and on. Some of it is fed by people saying Truly Dumb Things, like Terry McAuliffe (himself no real friend of public education) saying that parents should have no say in their kids' education. Some of it is fed by people not saying the smart things, something along the lines of, "I hear your concern, and while 'critical race theory' isn't really the right name for what you're concerned about, let me talk with you about why we try to address issues of equity and race, how we try to do it, and how we are trying to get better at it." 

I get that parents are ragged after the pandemic-so-far, back when schools had nothing but bad choices so there would always be a vocally enraged minority. And I really get that the batch of last-minute cancellations happening is a PITA. 

But the incessant hammering on teachers teachers teachers. It's teacher's fault that schools were closed (not parents or policy makers or legitimate concerns about health during a frickin' pandemic that has, in fact, killed a really huge number of people). Teachers aren't properly embracing the One True Way to teach reading because they are all lazy and stupid and just suck. Also, if you cross our vaguely drawn line in the curricular sand, we will fire you!

Honestly, there are lots of reasons to believe that many people, even the majority of people, support educators and public schools. But for any teacher who spends any time on social media or taking in traditional media, it's impossible not to feel waves and waves of hatred directed at you.

Yes, everybody's angry these days. But it's worth remembering that the states that have forbidden teachers unions are, in fact, the bottom of the educational heap. That most of the states that have enacted some sort of teacher gag laws so that they'll "just teach reading and math" are not particularly awesome in the education department. That teachers chose to get the training, chose to enter this profession, choose to do the best they can for their students. And they can choose to do something else.

I don't know what the point of crap like the above tweet is supposed to be. Well, no--in some cases I do. Some of these folks are the same old crowd of folks who want to see public education shut down, so that the market can be opened and so that they don't have to pay taxes to educate Those Peoples' Children. Mind you, there are plenty of people out there with a sincere belief in the power of the free market and a sincere belief that education should be part of that marketeering approach. But it is possible to belief that without holding and expressing a raw hatred and contempt for people who are trying to work in and with the public system that serves the vast majority of students in this country. No, the people who keep hammering teachers are on a different level.

Maybe the hatred is the point? Maybe they're blowing off angry steam? Maybe, like many folks who have fallen too far down a Righteous Crusade tunnel, they believe that at some point the public ed teachers will crack and cry out, "Okay, you got us! It's all a giant scam!" Or maybe they just want public school teachers to break down and go away (in which case, they appear to be having some success). 

I truly don't know. But it's all tiring and tiresome. I've written before about facing the public's indifference to public education, but facing this level of hostility, from elected leaders, from education "experts," from people who have enough of a following to shape the conversation in useful ways--it's a tough lift, and a waste of energy that could be put to better use. 

The fact is, teachers and schools took up the cause of teaching reading and writing (and history and science and art and music and a whole other parts of human experience) years and years and years ago, and will continue to take up that cause years after the current mob moves on to its next target. But it would be great if a few other people decided to take up that cause with them, or at least stop throwing stones at those who are actually trying to do the work.