Archive | November, 2024

Divider in Chief Shares Education Plan

21 Nov

By Thomas Ultican 11/22/2024

President Trump’s new video on the Carter Family’s YouTube channel lays out his ten points for public education. It is no surprise that the lies come immediately while he channels his inner Joe McCarthy, calling Biden and his administration communists. He also claims America is a failing nation.

Before kissing Trump’s ring recently, Joe Scarborough said his failing nation claim was wrong and stated:

“We are also the strongest military power in the world. Even our enemies understand we’re not a nation in decline. Trump is always talking about Russian President Vladimir Putin and what a great leader he is. But the fact is, Texas has a higher GDP than the entirety of Russia.”

Politifact looked at the communist claims Trump has made about Biden and Harris:

“We sent the Trump campaign’s evidence to academics with expertise in Marxism or communism, including those with expertise in Latin America or the former Soviet Union. We noted examples we found of Harris showing support for people owning their own homes or businesses — basically the opposite of calling for government takeovers. No expert called her a communist or Marxist.” 

From Carter Family YouTube Channel

The lies cited above have been standard fare for Trump; so routine that most of us have accepted this as what he does. But in the opening paragraph of his education speech he tells a lie about public education that needs to be corrected. Trump claims:

“But instead of being at the top of the list, we are literally right. Smack. Guess what? At the bottom, rather than indoctrinating young people with inappropriate racial, sexual and political material, which is what we’re doing now, our schools must be totally refocused to prepare our children to succeed in the world of work and in life, and the world of keeping our country strong so they can grow up to be happy, prosperous and independent citizens.”

The indoctrination charge is baloney. The Hill noted:

“In the last two years, 15 states have adopted educational gag orders restricting ‘discussions of race, racism, gender, and American history’ in public schools, with seven states applying such orders to public higher education.

“Campaigns to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, undermine tenure, ban or sanitize books, and appoint MAGA extremists to public university boards are well underway.

“Yet almost all the conservative claims about left-wing indoctrination are wrong.”

“The ‘patriotic education’ mandates pushed by anti-woke partisans, by contrast, are — practically by definition — indoctrination.”

Trump’s claim that on international testing “we are literally right. Smack. Guess what? At the bottom” is an easily checked bald face lie. In 2022, the US participated in the international PISA testing. The following chart of data provided in the 2022 PISA report shows that the US was not nearly at the bottom.

Because America does not filter students from the academic system before high school, tested populations do not compare well internationally. However, since 2010, in the yearly International Math Olympiad, the USA team has come in first five times and never finished lower than fourth out of over 100 entrants.

One measuring stick demonstrating how successful the American system is would be Nobel Prize winners since 1949: America has 420 laureates; India 10; and China 8. The US has never won at standardized testing but leads the world in creative thinkers which is why a panicked China has been studying our system. They realize their test centric system is not developing innovation.

Diane Ravitch speculated that the new Common Corps standards might have been partly responsible for the drop in US scores on the 2016 international PIRLS testing. She sent her question to the distinguished social scientist David C. Berliner. He responded, “But before you or any others of us worry about our latest PIRLS scores, and the critics start the usual attacks on our public schools, remember this: Standardized Achievement Tests are quite responsive to demographics, and not very sensitive at all to what teachers and schools accomplish.”

Berliner shared the basic results:

  • USA 549
  • Singapore 576
  • Hong Kong 569
  • Finland 566

He then observed,

“First, we can note that Asian Americans scored 591. That is, our Asians beat the hell out of Asian Asians!”

Berliner also shared some other interesting US results broken into demographic groups:

  • White Kids (50% of our students) – 571
  • Upper Middle-Class Schools with 10% to 24 % Free and Reduced lunch – 592
  • Schools with 25% to 50% Free and Reduced Lunch – 566

It is obvious that the big drag on international testing data for US kids is childhood poverty and that the US education system is still the envy of the world.

Trump’s Ten Education Points

1) “First, we will respect the right of parents to control the education of their children.”

Writing in Forbes, Peter Greene reports, “advocates in the parents’ rights movement have not merely tried to opt their own children out of certain instruction and curricula, but have sought to ‘shape school curricula and policies for all students.”’ Scholar Vivian Hamilton, law professor at William and Mary notes, despite courts holding that parents have the right to decide whether or not to send their child to public school, “they do not have a fundamental right generally to direct how a public school teaches their child.”

2) “Second, we will empower parents and local school boards to hire and reward great principals and teachers, and also to fire the poor ones. The one whose performance is unsatisfactory. They will be fired. Like on The Apprentice, you’re fired.”

Even teachers have the protection of labor law and any firings must be justified. My experience was that within the first year, teachers who did not make the grade quit. They could not deal with the kids.

3) “Third, we will ensure our classrooms are focused not on political indoctrination, but on teaching the knowledge and skills needed to succeed. Reading, writing, math, science, arithmetic, and other truly useful subjects.”

I never met a classroom teacher focused on political indoctrination. It is not happening. However, the “patriotic education” mandates pushed by anti-woke partisans, by contrast, are — practically by definition — indoctrination.

4) “Forth, we will teach students to love their country, not to hate their country like they’re taught right now.”

Out of 1,000 teachers, there may be one that teaches this way but they will be gone soon. This is just not something even remotely occurring.

5) “Fifth, we will support bringing back prayer to our schools.”

This is a Christian Nationalist agenda that undermines the rule of law.

6) “Sixth, we will achieve schools that are safe, secure, and drug free with immediate expulsion for any student who harms a teacher or another student.”

This sounds good but it should be a local decision and not a mandate by the President of the United States.

7) “Seventh, we will give all parents the right to choose another school for their children if they want. It’s called school choice.”

In Overturning Brown, Steve Suitts provides overwhelming evidence for the segregationist legacy of “school choice.” He shows that “Brown v Board” has been effectively gutted and “choice” proved to be the white supremacists’ most potent strategy to defeat it. In the 21st century, that same strategy is being wielded to maintain segregation while destroying the separation of church and state.

8) “Eighth we will ensure students have access to project based learning experiences inside the classroom to help train them for meaningful work outside the classroom.”

I am a fan of project base learning but curriculum design is not the business of the federal government.

9) “Ninth, we will strive to give all students access to internships and work experiences that can set them on a path to their first job. They’re going to be very, very successful. I want them to be more successful than Trump. Let them go out and be more successful. I will be the happiest person in the world. But we want our children to have a great life and be successful.”

This looks like another step in the ongoing Republican Party effort to undermine child labor laws.

10) “And tenth, we will ensure that all schools provide excellent jobs and career counseling so that high school and college students can get a head start on jobs and careers best suited to their God-given talents. This is how we will ensure a great education for every American child.”

OK but this is meaningless fluff that has little to do with great education.

“And one other thing I’ll be doing very early in the administration is closing up the Department of Education in Washington, DC and sending all education and education work and needs back to the states.”

Can we trust that the Trump administration will maintain civil rights enforcement and special education monitoring? Will they replace title one funding with something that is its equal? If the answer is no, then this is a horrible idea.

Conclusion

President Trump just announced that he disrespects teachers and will undermine public schools. He is so determined to end taxpayer funded free public education; he is trying to convince people that the greatest education system in the history of the world is a failure.

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Scam Education Study from Denver

16 Nov

By Thomas Ultican 11/16/2024

Another education study financed by Arnold Ventures and the Walton Family Foundation blurs education reality. Their 2022 model did not pass the laugh test so “researchers” from the University of Colorado Denver tried again. Unfortunately their claims still confuse correlation with causation. This error seems purposeful.

The study of school reform in Denver was conducted by the Center for Education Policy Analysis (CEPA). They state, “For the past three years CEPA has partnered with the Center on Reinventing Public Education to consider a paradigm-shifting approach to family and community engagement efforts in school districts.” It is a study apparently to justify and promote the portfolio model of school management, a system first proposed in 2009 by the founder of the Center for Reinventing Public Education (CRPE), Paul Hill.

In their 2022 study, this same team also used state testing data from years 2004/5 through 2018/19. They explained that the first 4-years of the research employed pre-reform data and the final 10-years were from the portfolio model reform period. The authors reported, “During the study period, the district opened 65 new schools, and closed, replaced, and restarted over 35 others.” (Page 7)

The National Education Policy Center contracted with Robert Shand to review the 2022 Denver study. Dr. Shand is Assistant Professor of Education Policy and Leadership at American University and an affiliated researcher with the Center for Benefit-Cost Studies of Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Shand also did a review of the new 2024 study.

In his 2022 review, Shand agreed that the test scores for Denver Public Schools had gone up but he noted a few reasons why claiming these gains were because of the portfolio model was unreasonable:

  • Demographics shifting to a larger percentage of white students in Denver coincided with the reforms.
  • Per-student revenues increased in Denver by 22% but only 13% across Colorado.
  • Student-to-teacher ratio in Denver dropped from 17.9 to 14.9.
  • DPS was already showing academic improvement before implementation of the portfolio reforms.
  • Black and Hispanic/Latinx students were growing at approximately 0.06 standard deviations per year pre-reform and 0.03-0.04 standard deviations per year post-reform. (Page 7)

The 2024 Redo

Professor Shand’s summary response to the 2024 report states:

“While the new report does convincingly demonstrate that the gains are not significantly due to changing demographics, it fails to address other critiques of the prior study, including (1) that the portfolio model was undertheorized, with unclear mechanisms of action and insufficient attention to potential drawbacks; and (2) that circumstances, events, and resources besides the portfolio reform and student demographics were changing concurrently with the reform. Additionally, the report’s sweeping conclusion—that Denver’s reform is the most effective in U.S. history—is unsupported. The improved outcomes in Denver during this time period are impressive, but the authors seem overly determined to cite a package of favored reforms as the cause.” (Page 3)

While Shand agrees that demographic changes are not the whole reason for the improved test scores, they are a significant input. The chart above from USAFacts.org shows the typically higher scoring groups Asians and Whites going from 54.2% of the population to 58.9% in the 14 years from 2005 to 2019. During the same period, the Hispanic and Black population shrunk from 42.9% to 38.1% which resulted in a 9.5% shift in the population from a lower scoring to a higher scoring racial mix.

An even bigger impact on the scoring in Denver was the change in economic circumstances. Standardized testing is useless because the results are dependent on one variable, family wealth. Statisticians assign r values between -1 and +1 to results tested. Plus 1 signifies certainty, zero shows no influence and -1 indicates certainty in the opposite direction of expectations. The only input ever found with more than 0.3 r-value is family wealth at 0.9 r-value. The median family income in Denver is up significantly.

Two sources show how strongly Denver’s family income has grown. Neilsberg research shares that between 2010 and 2020 the median income grew from $61,394 to $82,335, a 25% growth. City-Data states:

“The median household income in Denver, CO in 2022 was $88,213, which was about the same as the median annual income of $89,302 across the entire state of Colorado. Compared to the median income of $39,500 in 2000 this represents an increase of 55.2%”

This kind of wealth growth over the 14 years the Denver researchers studied was bound to have a significant impact on testing results, but they ignored it. Add this to the 9% greater revenue for Denver schools and three less students per teacher compared to the rest of the state and of course Denver’s student made comparative testing gains.

Professor Shand mentions the damage caused by school turnaround efforts and closing schools noting the research indicates these are especially harmful events for students in low income or marginalized neighborhoods. (Page 6 and 7)  Shand concluded:

“In sum, this report provides some additional supporting evidence in favor of the tentative conclusion that Denver’s portfolio reform was positive. Importantly, the report also grossly exaggerates both the magnitude of the success and certainty behind the evidence for it. The findings should thus be interpreted with extreme caution. (Page 8)

He is being nice. He should have concluded that this report is school choice propaganda.

About the Report Authors

The lead author, Parker Baxter, is Director of the Center for Education Policy Analysis at the University Of Colorado Denver School Of Public Affairs. He previously was Director of Knowledge at the National Association of Charter School Authorizers. Parker is also a Senior Research Affiliate at the CRPE, where he worked on the District-Charter Collaboration Compact Project and the Portfolio School District Project. He is a former alumnus of Teach for America.

Anna Nicotera is a Senior Researcher at Basis Policy Research specializing in quantitative and qualitative applied research methods. She worked six years as Senior Director, Research and Evaluation for the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. Nicotera was a Graduate Research Assistant at the National Center on School Choice, Vanderbilt University for four years.

David Stuit holds a Ph.D. in Leadership and Policy Studies from Vanderbilt University. He is a former Emerging Education Policy Scholar at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, fellow at the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice (Rebranded EdChoice), and member of the American Enterprise Institute’s K–12 working group. He began his career as a classroom teacher in Denver, Colorado.

Expecting an unbiased piece of research from this group is like learning about the dangers of smoking from Phillip-Morris.

Conclusion

The report by Baxter et al. was dutifully promoted by The 74. It is dangerous propaganda in favor of school choice. This report is another example of using arithmetic and titles to sell a farce.

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Christian Nationalists Oppose Separation of Church and State

7 Nov

By Thomas Ultican 11/7/2024

Christian Nationalists are hard at work ridding the US of that pesky first Amendment or as Thomas Jefferson stated it, “A wall of separation between church and state.” We have gone from the admonitions of Jefferson and Madison to witnessing a year in which Lawmakers in 29 states proposed at least 91 bills promoting religion in public schools. Reuters reports, “The movement is fueled by opposition to what conservatives call liberal curriculums, including a focus on diversity and LGBT rights, and by the U.S. Supreme Court’s willingness to overturn precedent as it moves American law rightward.”

Central to this attack on the first amendment is a fairly new organization with powerful connections, National Association of Christian Lawmakers (NACL). The chemical symbol for salt, NACL, is why they chose the name. It symbolizes their Christian members being the salt of the earth.

An Arkansas politician and Christian preacher, Jason Rapter, founded NACL in 2019 and soon recruited influential figures of the Christian right, including Mike Huckabee, Bob McEwen, and Tony Perkins, to join the group’s advisory board. Their 2021 and 2022 tax form 990s (TIN 84-1804670) both indicated multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations. All proceeds going toward supporting their Christian nationalist agenda. At their coming December gathering, the featured honoree and speaker will be Charlie Kirk.

To Arizona’s News21, Rapert stated, “We believe that with all the troubles facing our country, with Democrats and leftists that are advocating cutting penises off of little boys and breasts off of little girls, we have reached a level of debauchery and immorality that is at biblical proportions.” Preacher Rapert is clearly sincere about his faith but someone like him from Crazy-Town should not be designing model legislation.

New Texas Christian Curriculum

A new Texas program called Bluebonnet Learning containing multiple stories from the Bible is generating negative waves in non-evangelical circles. At September’s Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) meeting taking public comments on the new curriculum, parent Sharyn Vane called Bluebonnet Learning, “wildly problematic in its depictions of Jews and Judaism.” She pointed to the second grade lesson on Queen Esther in which Haman, a Persian official, cast lots to decide when to kill Jews. Part of the lesson includes students playing a game with dice. Vane declared:

“This is shocking, offensive and just plain wrong. Do we ask elementary schoolers to pretend to be Hitler?”

Many parents and Texas residents see Bluebonnet Learning as an unhealthily effort to promote a particular Christian philosophy. However evangelical Christians have encouraged their networks to bombard school board members with emails calling for approval:

“The TX State Board of Education is trying to adopt a new curriculum that replaces secular humanism with the Christian values upon which our nation was founded. Email them at SBOEsupport@tea.texas.gov with this message: Please adopt HB 1605 Curriculum without any amendments.”

It seems that some school board members came into the meeting having already decided to support Bluebonnet Learning. Andrea Young a member from Houston wrote in her summer newsletter:

“Much of Western Literature is woven with references to people, characters, metaphors, and themes from the Bible. Texas students will experience a richer reading experience if they have a passing acquaintance with stories and vocabulary from the Bible.”

Bluebonnet Learning was adapted from Amplify’s Core Knowledge Language Arts reading program. Billionaire Laurene Powell Jobs controls Amplify which seems to have a corrupt connection with the Texas Education Agency (TEA). Amplify recently was awarded a $50 million dollar contract by TEA.

The new curriculum was released amid a broader push by Texas Republicans, who control state government, to put more Christianity in public schools. During the Texas GOP convention last month, delegates voted on a platform that calls on lawmakers and the SBOE to “require instruction on the Bible, servant leadership and Christian self-governance.”

Rice University scholar, David Brockman, notes that Texas is home to a litany of well-known purveyors of Christian nationalism or related ideologies, including Glenn Beck, Ted Cruz’s father, Rafael Cruz and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who claims the United States, is “a Christian nation” and that “there is no separation of church and state. It was not in the constitution.”

The Texas GOP or at least much of it is opposed to “godless secular education.” Secular education is a system of teaching not affiliated with any religious doctrines, focusing instead on academic subjects and critical thinking. This approach emphasizes neutrality in matters of religion, ensuring that students receive an education based on reason, science, and humanistic principles. The web site Fivable makes five points about secular education:

  1. “Secular education emerged in the United States during the 19th century as a response to the growing need for a system that could accommodate a diverse population with varying religious beliefs.
  2. “The establishment of public schools as secular institutions aimed to provide a common educational experience free from religious influence, which was seen as crucial for social cohesion.
  3. “Supreme Court rulings, such as Engel v. Vitale (1962), reinforced the idea of secular education by prohibiting school-sponsored prayer and other religious activities in public schools.
  4. “Secular education promotes critical thinking skills, encouraging students to question and analyze information rather than accepting beliefs based solely on tradition or authority.
  5. “Many educators argue that secular education helps prepare students for a democratic society by fostering tolerance, respect for different beliefs, and an understanding of civic responsibilities.”

This is the education model that Christian Nationalists are striving to overturn.

Not Just Texas

This summer, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry signed a bill that requires the Ten Commandments to be posted in every public school classroom. Governor Landry stated, “If you want to respect the rule of law, you’ve got to start from the original law-giver, which was Moses.”

In addition, Landry signed laws that authorize the hiring of chaplains in schools, restrict teachers from mentioning sexual orientation or gender identity and prevent schools from using a transgender student’s preferred names or pronouns unless granted permission by parents.

The American Civil Liberties Union, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Freedom of Religion Foundation announced plans to challenge the law that requires a specific text of the Ten Commandments to be prominently displayed. Their joint statement stated, “Politicians have no business imposing their preferred religious doctrine on students and families in public schools.”

In June, Oklahoma’s Statewide Virtual Charter School Board approved a plan to create the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School in a 3-2 vote. This plan was rejected by the Oklahoma Supreme Court but the Catholic Church and supporters of publicly supported Christian schools are pinning their hopes on the United States Supreme Court to override Oklahoma’s court.

A few weeks later, Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, announced that every teacher in the state will have a Bible in their classroom and teach from it. He said, “”Every teacher, every classroom in the state will have a Bible in the classroom, and will be teaching from the Bible in the classroom to ensure that this historical understanding is there for every student in the state of Oklahoma.” The Oklahoma Education Association claimed the order was illegal and stated, “Public schools cannot indoctrinate students with a particular religious belief or religious curriculum.”

Conclusion

In order to meet the demands of the anti-federalists and ratify the constitution, the Bill of Rights was added as constitutional amendments one thru ten. Amendment one states:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Replying to a question about the establishment clause from Danbury Baptists, Jefferson wrote:

“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”, thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.”

It is clear that the people who wrote and enacted the first amendment believed it divided government from religion. Current speaker of the house, Mike Johnson, who is a Christian Nationalist, believes Americas’ rights come from “God himself” and claims that the separation of church and state is a relic of the 1960s. It is unlikely that he will defend the constitution of the United States or secular education and I would not expect much help from President elect Donald Trump either.

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