ICYMI: An Actual Nice Weekend Edition (4/24)

 Well, looking out my window this weekend does not stink, so that's a plus. Now let's see what there is on the reading list for the week.

If the Florida rejection of math textbooks did nothing else, it prompted plenty of mockery. Here are three of the top mocks of the week.

Andy Borowitz in the New Yorker with "DeSantis Warns That Math Makes Children Gay"

Carlos Greaves at McSweeney's with "Math Concepts the State of Florida Finds Objectionable"

Dana Milbank at the Washington Post with "DeSantis saves Florida kids from being indoctrinated with math."

Meet the 74's all-new student council. I know-- not everybody loves The 74, but they occasionally score with a solid piece of journalism, and I read everybody (because you should). They've put together this group of teens, and I encourage you to read it for no other reason than to be encouraged that these young humans exist in the world.

Don't trust a charter school network whose objective boils down to profits. Gloria Nolan used to work for the charter school industry. In this op-ed for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, she explains why she supports the proposed rules changes for federal charter grants.

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro speaks up. Speaking of support for the charter rules reforms, the chair of the House Appropriations Committee had a few spicy words on the subject.

Our Erie students can't learn if they don't feel safe and secure. A powerful op-ed from a teacher who was in the building during a school shooting in Erie, PA.

How the Fight Over Critical Race Theory Became a Religious War. David French in the Dispatch says "This is the wrong time to close Christian hearts and minds to challenging debaters about race and justice in the United States."

What's driving the push to restrict schools on LGBTQ issues? Steve Sawchuk at EdWeek looks at six particular aspects of the current push.

The strange land where we find ourselves now. Nancy Flanagan thoughtfully ties together many threads of our current situation.

It's testing time in our schools. Standardized exams are a terrible way to measure student learning. Gina Caneva publishes an op-ed at the Chicago Sun Times that says everything we already know, but need to just keep saying. 

Resisting efficiency in literacy instruction. Paul Thomas blogs about keeping our eyes on the right ball. Efficiency is not it.

FL: More Book Purging Includes-- Everywhere Babies??!! Seriously??!!

Oh, Florida, what a crazy place you are. 

Currently in the news is the Walton County School District, which just pulled over 50 books from its library.

The list, as noted in a district press release, was one that came from an unnamed "outside group" and included books that group "deemed inappropriate." It also notes it received the list "along with many other educational systems."

The list was quickly posted to twitter by Daniel Uhlfelder (who says the list came from a group associated with Moms for Liberty)-- here it is.

Most of these are the usual suspects, a bunch of familiar titles that get some folks heavily agitated. What got the school district and their superintendent plastered all over the interwebs is the inclusion of Everywhere Babies, by Susan Meyers and Marla Frazee. 

This is nuts. We have this book at my house; we read it many many many many times to the twins when they were younger and it was a favorite of theirs. Its inclusion on this list tells us a lot about the people who are hunting down these books and demanding that school district Do Something. 

When I saw the book title on the list, I though about a couple of images that might have triggered some activist's gaydar (it would have to be one of Frazee's images because nothing in the text could offend even the thinnest skinned humans). The book is loaded with images of many types of family combinations, from dads holding kids to more elderly relatives. Could some of these be what excited book opponents? Let's look at possible offenders,.

Are those two exhausted women (though the white-haired person could be a long-haired male) both parents of the child in the crib, or a parent and her friend?

The most likely culprit, this street scene shows what appears to be two men walking with arms around each other (a thing that, as we know, only gay men do). 

The two guys on the right look, to me, like two dads hanging out on the edge of the mall play area, but if your gaydar is on high alert, I suppose they could be read as a gay couple.

Pretty sure the sexual orientation and gender identity of this child is not clear. This picture just entertained the Board of Directors a great deal when they were toddlers.

So, what have we learned here?

Well, first, I'm not particularly excited by particular book removals. This Verbotten list will become a bunch of people's shopping list, and Everywhere Babies is going to explode in sales, which is great, because it's an awesome book. It has been true since Boston banned Huckleberry Finn-- a good, public banning is the best marketing that money can't buy. 

It's also worth noting that the book also shows lots of loving hetero couples and parents acting parenty--in other words, providing illustrations of sexual orientation and gender identity, which means that this book, like many others, does in fact technically violate Florida's Don't Talk About Sex Or Gender Law (I know that's not as snappy as "Don't Say Gay," but I think it's more accurate). \

This also illustrates how opponents of this stuff aren't just going after "graphic" depictions of sex and gender stuff, because there is nothing graphic in this book. Heck, you have to really want to see LGBTQ couples in this book (for good or for ill) to see them at all. This is not an objection to overt sexual content--it's an objection to even sort of acknowledging that LGBTQ people exist.

I learned from the Washington Post interview with the creators of the book that this is not the first time the book has been targeted, which perhaps explains its presence on this list.

As with all such events, the other major element is a nervous administrator. Superintendent Russell Hughes told local media--well, something...

What is necessary varies. I don’t know if I define the word ‘necessary’ as necessary to those who are opposing, necessary to those who didn’t want to, it was necessary in this moment for me to make that decision and I did it for just a welfare of all involved, including our constituents, our teachers, and our students. I’ll continue to do those things and perhaps add some.

The district press release makes his reasoning a little clearer.

With reports of movements underway across the state coupled with legal implications and the potential undue stress to my District and staff, I am not willing to place any WCSD personnel in the cross hairs of this kind of perilous circumstance. I want to emphasize that NO “book ban” has occurred in Walton County. Any headlines or news stories as such are misinformation, inaccurate, and false!

The Walton County School District is committed to a culture which we proudly call EPIC. I am steadfast in the vision of excellence, choosing to focus on students and academics in these divisive times. Leaders, teachers, administrators, staff, and families in Walton County are focused on end of the year assessments, achievement, and graduations, which have earned the District the #5 ranking in the State of Florida.

So, roughly, "I decided to get these books out of the way so that we could focus on doing out jobs without having to worry about dealing with controversy and citizens using their newly-created power to sue us over any book they object to." So maybe not very brave, but arguably practical.

In other words, the chilling effect of the Don't Say Things We Don't Like law is working just as designed. 

In the meantime, you can order your copy of Everywhere Babies right here (currently on backorder). 

Amazon Has Some EdTech Trend Ideas

This week, EdSurge featured some "sponsored content" (aka advertising made to look like an article). The article was written by Katie Herritage (or at least one of her interns), currently the AWS Global Leader, Worldwide Customer Innovation and Acceleration Program, and is entitled "7 Edtech Trends to Watch in 2022: A Startup Guide for Entrepreneurs." AWS is the sponsor.

AWS is Amazon Web Services, a division of the Amazon empire that provides hosting for corporations and governments and just a whole lot of people while owning like a third of the cloud market. They are the reason that even if you are trying not to give Amazon any of your money, you probably are anyway.

Prediction articles are a staple in the edtech world, and they all have to be read the same way. "This is what's coming next" really means "this is what we hope to make money on soon." These articles are not works of thoughtful research; they are marketing copy. 

But as such, they are a useful guide to what edtech folks are going to try to sell us next. So let's take a look at AWS's seven "trends."

First, before we even get to the trends, know that AWS has the AWS EdStart program, its "edtech virtual startup accelerator, designed to help entrepreneurs build the next generation of online learning, analytics and campus management solutions on the AWS cloud." Super. Because Amazon's attempt to enter the education market have been so super duper in the past (more on that in a bit).

Trend #1: Data is abundant and the key to today's edtech solutions.

Yes, please, more data mining. That has been super for education so far, as test-driven education has continually harvested plenty of data and accomplished absolutely nothing with it. Herritage writes "as the pandemic and shifts to virtual learning are only giving the flood of data more strength and momentum" and hold on a minute-- did AWS somehow miss the widespread dissatisfaction with virtual learning that has been an ongoing theme of the last two years? Also, as always, the edtech visionaries skip over the question of data quality. Harvesting junk data has become a huge industry in edtech, but junk data is junk and no amount of crunching piles of poo will yield diamonds.

Trend #2: Artificial intelligence and machine learning are powering the latest generation of edtechs.

Mostly there is no such things as artificial intelligence. Just algorithms. Machine learning isn't really learning so much as building an algorithm's ability to recognize patterns. We still have precious little evidence that these provide any useful applications for education. There are some limited applications for doing grunt work; the endorsement here is from a company that makes digital flashcards. 

Trend #3: Game-based learning is transforming how students learn.

This is one of those trends that has been right around the corner since the days (thirty years ago) when my kids were playing with the Zoombinis. There's no question that a game can be the spoonful of sugar that makes boring repetition go down smoothly, but there continue to be limits. For one thing, students aren't stupid--they know when you're trying to trick them into learning stuff. For another, today's hot new game is next month's boring old Over It.

Trend #4: Edtechs are at the forefront of digital transformation in the classroom.

Or, in plainer language, computer software for classrooms is the leading source of computer software for classrooms. Sad clown is sad. Tautologies are tautological. "As education institutions lean into technology," says Herritage, there's an opportunity to sell them more technology. I'd like to believe that school districts are getting smarter about how they buy this stuff, and I'd really like to believe that edtech companies are getting smarter about providing what teachers want and not what edtech companies want to sell. 

Trend #5: Workforce upskilling is being supplemented by edtech solutions.

I sure hope that the marketing whiz who coined "upskill" got a nice4 bonus, because what word, managing to suggest that when your last job gets "outsourced" and you have to get trained for some new meat widget position, it's a step up and not just a further grinding down of human beings by late stage capitalism. This trend says that when your new employer wants to train you in their brand of meat widgetry, they'll do it with a computer. This may be the most accurate prediction on the list.

Trend #6: Edtechs are being called upon to help with student wellbeing.

Translation: schools are going to be implementing social and emotional learning programs, and some of them will want to implement the programs via software on screens. Furthermore, parents are going to get antsy about the data being collected by these programs (as well they should), so you'd better be able to do a god imitation of security protocols. 

Trend #7: Augmented reality and virtual reality are top of mind.

"Top of mind"?! What the heck does that even mean? Herritage insists that "the metaverse...is here" which I guess means that AWS is prepared to back Zuckerberg's play for the metaverse as the Next Big Thing. I admit, the idea of virtual field trips ("Everyone put on your headsets and we'll tour the Globe Theater") is appealing. But since teachers can't even reliably say "Everyone open up your Chromebooks and we'll work on our Google Docs," I have my doubts about just how close the metaverse actually is. 

It's worth noting that these "trends" are aimed at developers and not educators. In other words, the message is not "here are some things you should plan to incorporate in your classroom" but is instead "you could make some money if you started a business doing one of these things." As such, it's unfortunate that none of the advice and trendiness here suggests that entrepreneurs might want to involve actual educators in their plans. But there are certain things that have remained consistent about the edtech industry--one is that they will consistently and repeatedly write checks that their products can't cash, and the other is that they will create products at teachers rather than with them.

Amazon's own record with educators is not great. Way back in 2016 they tried to launch Amazon Inspire, an attempt to create a marketplace of teacher resources that immediately got in trouble because it had zero safeguards against ideas that were not so much "shared" as "stolen." The GM of the project, Rohit Agarwal ("serial entrepreneur") walked away less than a year after launch (nowadays he's co-founder and CEO of DoctorPlan, a medical data platform). Amazon Inspire supposedly snuck back to life in 2018, but right now, the Amazon Education page instead features something called Amazon Ignite that "connects educational content creators with Amazon customers" and allows you to "sell your original teaching resources." You have to ask to join. It's free to join, but Amazon takes a cut of everything you sell.

Are these real trends? Well, someone at Amazon hopes they are, or at least hopes a sufficient number of entrepreneurs hopes they are. Should actual educators pay attention to articles like this? Only if you want to be forewarned about what education-flavored products tech vendors are going to try to sell you. Heck, maybe they'll really happen. After all, have edtech companies ever lied to us before? 

AZ: An Even Worse Parental Rights Bill

As more and more of these rear their heads across the country, the language gets sloppier and -- well, just bad. Recently approved by the Senate and previously okayed by the House, Arizona's HB 2161 throws a new verb into the mix-- usurp.

As in, no political subdivision of the state or any other government entity or any official etc (because in this phrase, the bill's writer was exactingly detailed and thorough) "shall not interfere with or usurp the fundamental right of parents to direct the upbringing, education, health care and mental health of their children." 

And if that seems hugely broad and vague--well, it gets worse. Because the very next sentence says that a parent may bring suit against the "government entity or official" based on any violation of the statutes or action that "interferes with or usurps the fundamental right of parents to direct the upbringing, education, health care and mental health of their children."

There are other special parts of the bill, but the "usurp" clause is the worst. Between "interfere," "usurp," and "upbringing," this would appear to forbid teachers (and plenty of other school and government workers) from ever contradicting a child's parents ever. There is a clause that allows the state to violate this if it has "compelling interest" in doing so (say, presumably, keeping a child from having the hell beat out of them at home for coming out as LGBTQ)--but the burden of proof is on the state actor. But mostly the bill gives parents spectacular micro-management powers.

It's not just that teachers can be taken to court for, say, suggesting that a same-gender couple is ordinary. Use a Mickey Mouse sticker on papers and get nailed by a parent who wants to bring their child up without Disney. Say something positive about a salad and be taken to court by a parent who is bring up their child to be anti-vegan. I would like my children's upbringing to be free of all Paw Patrol references; you had better not make an approving comment about the kids in my child's classroom who have Paw Patrol backpacks. 

This proposal is broad and nut and, like all broad, nuts proposals, is destined to be trolled. I am bringing up my child in a religion-free home, so their teacher better not say a single word about Christmas. I am bringing my child up to appreciate all diverse backgrounds, races, faiths, and gender orientations, so if you don't include all those elements in my child's classroom, you are clearly "interfering" with my right to control my child's upbringing.

In fact, I feel confident that this law would absolutely guarantee that every single teacher in every single district would be vulnerable to being dragged to court. Now, this being Arizona, that may well be a feature rather than a bug (just close down the public schools and give every kid a voucher for a school in which their parents are never, ever contradicted). 

There are other bad provisions, like making teachers submit assignments to parents for approval a week ahead of time, but they are just the rancid icing on a poop cake.

Congratulations Arizona legislators--this is absolutely the worst parental rights bill that anyone has concocted so far. I would give you a prize, but I'm afraid some of your parents might have raised you to not believe in those kinds of prizes, and I don't want to end up in court.

VA: The Attack On Frederick County Schools

Here's a story about another form that attacks on public education can take, and why local elections matter. It's not just state legislatures that can try to micromanage schools. 

When Glenn Youngkin won the race for Virginia governor, he swept along plenty of GOP conservatives into office with him. That included relatively small scale races like the race for Frederick County Board of Supervisors, which saw a raft of GOP candidates carried into office. 

Frederick County is the northernmost county in Virginia (named for Frederick Louis, Prince of Wales). The 2020 census shows a population of a little over 90,000; there has been steady growth for years (the 2000 census counted 59,209 residents, and back in 1960, it was 21,941). As the population has grown, the whiteness of that population has diminished; in 2000, the county was 94.99% white, and in 2020, that percentage was down to 78.47%. Much of that shift seems due to Hispanic/Latino residents.

The county is largely conservative, and the campaign was reportedly largely positive. But the new supervisors joined a group of conservatives already on the board to aim toward a new confrontation with the Frederick County School District board. The first shot fired came on February 9, when the Board of Supervisors voted 6-1 to have the county's attorney work up a plan for funding alternatives to public education. Supervisors noted they had heard from community members who want school choice, and by a remarkable coincidence, many of those parents were at the meeting (including some of the 44 families who, the week before, sued the district for continuing a mask mandate). Said one supervisor, "It is past time that our citizens had the opportunity to direct their students to get an education that best meets the thoughts, ideals and values of that family." Said one member of the public, "I ask that you consider cutting their funding in any way you see fit..."

At their meeting two weeks later, the Board of Supervisors indicated they wanted to teach the school board a lesson, demanding a line-item breakdown for the district's proposed FY2023 budget. "I think they need to deal with the consequences...unless they want to justify their operating fund by showing us the numbers. We need to see what they're spending the money on beforehand," said the board's vice-chair, Doug McCarthy. 

The district has asserted that a complete breakdown of every dollar spent is on the website; the supervisors say that's beside the point--they want to know what the district plans to spend each dollar on.

So first, the supervisors removed four items from the Capital Improvement Plan (including the building of a new high school). And then, earlier this month, they decided to slash the county's contribution to the school district budget by $22 million, from $97.5 million to $75.5 million. Supervisor Shawn Graber argued that the cut was not deep enough. And when the county treasurer pointed out that this would create problems for the district with things like trying to hire new teachers, Graber replied "To your point, Mr. Treasurer, I don't care." 

The superintendent issued a statement that such a cut would require either across the board salary cuts or the firing of 293 teachers. Didn't matter. Some supervisors were still just pissed that there was not enough transparency or detail in the district's budget. And if you're wondering what kind of detail they're worried about--well, prepare to be not surprised.

Graber said he has not received a line-item budget from the school division that shows “where every dollar is going.” He has numerous times expressed concerns about the school division potentially using taxpayer dollars on critical race theory or other similar programs. On Wednesday he reiterated his support for cutting $60 million from the schools.

Despite the "disdain" and "mistrust" that some supervisors have for the school board, at least one member from each group was able to meet and discuss. But there continued to be problems with misinformation, like the supervisor who insisted that the district's pre-K classes cost $6 million-- the correct figure was $613,152 (listed right there in the budget). Meanwhile, surrounding school districts are proposing salary increases for their teachers far greater than what Frederick County has budgeted. Good luck recruiting and retaining teachers.

Not a new issue for Frederick County, where some of these same supervisors just two years ago were complaining that the school system was just too darned expensive and should be cut. And back then Graber was already concerned about things like Deep Equity, a company brought in to help develop culturally responsive teaching practices. On that group, Graber said,

I don’t know if any of my fellow board members are aware of what’s in there, but it is a deeply racist, very Communistic, Marxist-type of program from what has been shared with me by teachers who have been told that they have to participate in the program.

That was in February of 2020, before Christopher Rufo had taught guys like Graber they could call this Communistic evil stuff "critical race theory." 

As news of the cuts spread, so did anger and conflict. A change.org petition to reinstate the budget cut drew support. Letters to the editor were written, and commented upon. " I would hazard a guess that the Grabers and the BOS are what they accuse schools of doing.....indoctrinated." "Sovine and the school board refuse to do their jobs...All that has happened is we have enough BOS members to end this charade." 

The supervisors met on April 13 to consider possible budget scenarios. Around 375 members of the public showed up, well past overflow capacity for the room. Citizen comments took two and a half hours, with calls for full funding and for budget transparency. 

"My daughter is a junior at Sherando, and four of her six teachers are not coming back next year." 

"You will proceed to talk about how much you appreciate teachers and all they do while at the same time presenting ideas that are clearly not supportive of the work teachers are doing. Please do not patronize public educators in this community. They see right through it. I want you to know that your actions hurt people." That from a district middle school principal.

The student who started the online petition said he has "never been so disappointed in an elected group" and blamed the cuts on an "unreasonable political agenda." And this zinger-- "You as a white board want so badly to feel marginalized."

Supervisor Graber did not show up for the meeting. McCarthy and two other supervisors said they had had productive conversations with school board members, but that productivity doesn't speak well for the supervisors:

“And they discussed a proposal that would contain clear language forbidding the teaching of CRT in our school system,” McCarthy said. “And I’ll be clear, they both stated that they don’t believe it’s being taught. So they had no fear of saying they would forbid CRT, and I commend them for at least having that conversation.”

The good news is that nobody at the meeting supported the $22 million cut. Board members split between a proposal giving the school district what it asked for and a proposal giving the district about $2 mill less than it requested. So the bad news is that the budget hit a stalemate. And people--specifically teachers who were thinking of coming to work at the district--have noticed there's a mess. You do not recruit and retain top quality teachers by demonstrating how little you value their work and how willing you are to upend the school system and promote instability to score political points.

Virginia is not the only state that allows this kind of micro-mis-management by county officials who are not even elected to run a school system; North Carolina saw a similar scenario unfold when county officials in Johnston County decided they wanted to weed out any of that indoctrinatin' stuff from the school system and were willing to grab the purse strings and hold the education of local students hostage unless they got their way. But it's a bad idea wherever it crops up, and a reminder that local officials suffering from CRT panic can be just a dangerous as state and federal culture crusaders. Pay attention, and vote. 

PA: What would charter reform save your local taxpayers?

School funding in Pennsylvania has a variety of problems, and the system of funding charter schools in the state exacerbates all of them. But there are some quick, simple reforms, long backed by Governor Tom Wolf (and opposed by a GOP controlled legislature) that would make a serious improvement for local taxpayers across the state. And now there's a handy resource for telling Pennsylvania taxpayers exactly what the difference would be (and who to lean on to get it done).

The two problems being addressed are pretty simple to grasp.

1) Pennsylvania cyber-schools are paid a per-pupil fee based on the cost-per-pupil of the sending school district. So the amount used to educate a student in a building with a full staff of teachers and heat and all the physical resources--that same amount is handed over to a cyber school that gives the students a computer, a printer, and 1/500th of a teacher. It is no wonder that cybers are swimming in so much money they can make their owners rich and still spend millions on marketing. Or, as one of my former superintendents told me on his way out the door, "Quit your job and go start a cyber school--it's like printing money."

2) Charter funding for students with special needs is nuts. PA special ed spending in public schools is organized in tiers, with costs and funding correlated to severity of student needs. Charters, however, are just given the funding for the average cost of special needs students, which means that even if the student has low-cost requirements (e.g. an hour of speech therapy a week), the charter still collects the funding for a student with higher level needs.

The solutions aren't terribly difficult. Set the cyber school tuition costs to a reasonable approximation of what cyber schooling a student actually costs. Set special ed tuition levels to reflect what the student's needs actually cost. 

Would it make a difference in your local fuinding? You can see the results of these two simple reforms right here. Education Voters of Pennsylvania has created a data base linked to a two-page form. Find your school district. Click on it. Download a two page form that show how much your district would recoup of the money it should have kept anyway, plus a quick explanation of what's behind these costs, and a list of which legislators need some attention. Download the two page form, print it off, hand it out to school board members, local officials, fellow taxpayers. It's quick and simple. Here's a sample of what it looks like:

ICYMI: Easter Edition (4/17)

Finally. We await Easter in my neck of the woods if for no other reason than spring isn't here until we have at least one snow after Easter. In the meantime, here's some reading from the week.

Florida rejects math textbooks over ‘prohibited’ topics

Yes, Florida threw out a bunch of math books because CRT and other Forbidden Things--things so forbidden that apparently the state isn't even going to reveal what they were. This is Valerie Strauss's coverage at the Washington Post, but if the paywall is in your way, I have no doubt this story can be found many other places. Because Florida.

Why retaining middle school teachers is critical to student achievement

Interesting little study covered by the Deseret News, giving yet another reason that maybe school districts should attempt to hold onto teachers.

A College Fights ‘Leftist Academics’ by Expanding Into Charter Schools

The New York Times takes a look at the increasingly-infamous Hillsdale College and their to push schools back to the 1950's with an extra helping of Jesus.

National Parents Union and what Billionaire Backed Ed Reformers Do

The indispensable Mercedes Schneider has some receipts for the definitely-not-grassroots National Parents Union

Biden takes aim at wasteful spending on charter schools

The Biden administration has decided to tighten up regulations for its charter school grant program. Jeff Bryant at The Progressive explains why this is long overdue.

Free Speech for Me but not for Thee

David French, not exactly a left-leaning guy, takes to The Atlantic to argue that the MAGAfied right has lost its damned mind when it comes to free speech. When I posted this on Twitter, people from all sides descended to lambaste it. So, a fun read.

The Far-Right Is Doxxing School Officials They Think Are ‘Groomers’

How bad is it getting? On the fringes, pretty bad. Vice news with the story.

An author was set to read his unicorn book to students. The school forbade it.

Sigh. All it takes is one cranky parent and one gutless administrator and you get this one dumb outcome. Story from Ohio in the Washington Post.

TFA podcast showcasing 'failing' schools

Gary Rubinstein is tops at keeping an eye on Teach For America, and he has some questions about their new podcast highlighting super awesome schools.

The Heir and the Hillbilly

Nancy Flanagan takes a look at the sad story of J D Vance.

The Costs of Canceling Darwin

In Education Next (yes, that thing) is this intriguing study of how science standards that include (or don't) evolution correlates with outcomes like number of scientists in the state.

Save democracy and support public education

Maurice Cunningham is an expert in tracing dark money in ed reform circles, and in this piece, he tracks some money in Idaho tied to defunding public education.

Inside the vast national experiment in test-optional college admissions

Erin Einhorn at NBC news looks at a study that shows--gasp--that making the SAT and ACT optional leads to a more diverse student body of students who do just as well as those who took the test. Go figure.