*To all mothers everywhere. We love you! Happy Mother's Day. And a very special Happy Mother’s Day shout out to Joan Ruth Thompson, the mother of The Redneck Intellectual.
I will have a long form essay on Tuesday. Tentative Title: “The CRT-Industrial Complex.”
DUMB AND DUMBER (NO. 42)
K-12 EDITION
“SAY THREE TIMES AFTER ME KIDS: CRT IS NOT TAUGHT IN OUR SCHOOLS, CRT IS NOT TAUGHT IN OUR SCHOOLS, CRT IS NOT TAUGHT IN OUR SCHOOLS”: State Superintendent Says She Won’t Approve Curriculum That Instructs Disabled Preschoolers To ‘Deconstruct Whiteness’ P.S.: This is really wicked and shameful stuff.
PITY: Headcounts are down at public schools. Now budgets are too.
In Olathe, Kansas, where the school system is cutting 140 jobs, Deputy Superintendent John Hutchison said the extra federal money merely put off the inevitable.
Now it is trimming millions of dollars from its budgets because enrollment, having peaked at more than 30,000 students in fall 2019, fell by around 900 in the first full school year of the pandemic. Less than 100 of those students have returned.
“Where did those kids go?” Hutchison asked during a recent public meeting. “Where are they? They didn’t come back this year. That’s what’s laying on that additional reduction in our funding.”
Families opting for homeschooling, private schools and other options sent enrollment down sharply in the first full school year of the pandemic, and generally it has been slow to recover.
COOL. #JustWalkAway applies to teachers as much as it does to parents and their kids: “Teachers Who Quit to Create Schooling Alternatives.”
It’s not uncommon for public school teachers to experience burnout or feel demoralized by the weight of their work. Many leave the classroom and the education profession behind to pursue other careers. In fact, U.S. Labor Department data reveal that public school educators are quitting their jobs at record-breaking rates.
But some public school teachers wonder if conventional schooling may be the root of their discontent, not education itself. They are frustrated by standardized curriculum expectations, more testing, an emphasis on classroom compliance and the antagonistic relationships between teachers and students that a rigid schooling environment can cultivate. Rather than abandoning their passion for education, some of these teachers are building alternatives to school outside of the dominant system that nurture authentic teaching and learning relationships.
I DON’T THINK THERE IS AN EXAMPLE IN RECORDED HISTORY OF HOMESCHOOLED CHILDREN BEING FORCED TO TAKE THIS SURVEY: “Survey In Fairfax Public Schools Asks Students As Young As 10 About Their Sexual Encounters, Suicide Attempts.”
NOTHING TO SEE HERE. Move along: Parents Group Claims Saint Paul Public Schools Indoctrinating Preschoolers On Transgender Issues P.S.: Do you see why “universal daycare” would be such a disaster for America.
“SAY THREE TIMES AFTER ME KIDS: CRT IS NOT TAUGHT IN OUR SCHOOLS, CRT IS NOT TAUGHT IN OUR SCHOOLS, CRT IS NOT TAUGHT IN OUR SCHOOLS”: Denver Elementary School To Hold BLM Event Teaching Kindergarteners, First Graders To Disrupt The ‘Nuclear Family,’ Recognize ‘Trans-Antagonistic Violence’
OF COURSE THEY DID. If you don’t take your kids and #JustWalkAway, then it’s on you: Chicago Schools Tells Teachers Sex Is ‘Socially Constructed,’ Tells Them To Hide Students’ Gender Pronouns From Parents
SO MIRACLES REALLY ARE A THING: High School Biology Teacher Says Biological Sex Can Be Easily Changed, Tells Students To Remove ‘Gendered Terms’
READ THIS ESSAY!!! Don’t wait. Do it now. You won’t regret it. “My Late Father Was a Great Teacher. He Wouldn’t Last a Week in the Modern Classroom.”
Here was a man who ardently believed in the Socratic method of teaching, walking up and down rows of desks, never allowing anyone to hide in a classroom crevice or sulk with proud indifference. Students eventually came to understand that his affection for them was intimately tied to his belief in their capacity to learn and achieve. After all, a good teacher doesn’t tolerate student ignorance or indifference.
My father taught the way he did because he recognized the unpleasant truth that the world only honors those who are willing to grind, drudge, and eek their way towards a goal, even a modest one. Want a good grade? Don’t miss class, pay attention, and put in hours of studying. Want to be praised? Do something that is genuinely praiseworthy. Or, to phrase it in the words of fellow high school teacher, Shane Trotter, author of the soon-to-be-released book Setting The Bar, “What we have is a system driven to create the illusion of education without the inconvenience of learning.”
Young Americans want the freedom that excuses indulgence, but not the freedom that demands self-reliance. They are mired in a moment in history where nihilism has become conventional wisdom and the traditional pillars of excellence—diligence, duty, dedication—are smugly transmogrified into relics of a bygone era. This is how we arrive at a place where students can retake tests as many times as they want to, a place where schools now have more than a dozen valedictorians every spring, a place where a student caught cheating during a test is likely defended rather than punished by his parent.
In this educational cosmos, my father would be an unwelcome alien. Or to be blunt, he would probably be seen as an unsympathetic, pugilistic, classroom “Boomer.” He would be woefully out of touch with an educational system that has tragically conflated the victory of a high GPA with the long-term aspiration of imbuing young Americans with the habits, values, and knowledge that would empower them to live meaningful and purpose-driven lives.
Read the whole darn thing, and read it now!
HIGHER ED EDITION
IT’S NO LONGER “DECLINE AND FALL.” We’re pretty much in FREE FALL: “US college students pledge money to the Taliban in shocking video.” Watch the video here:
TIME TO TRANSFER: Mask mandates are back on campus. But they go against CDC guidance.
HOW CAN THIS BE ANYTHING OTHER THAN THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE WEST? University's 'decolonization' effort requires profs to ask if they're citing white mathematicians
As part of Durham University’s ongoing “decolonization” efforts, professors in the math department are being told to ask themselves if they’re citing work from “mostly white or male” mathematicians.
The Telegraph reports that a guide used by the U.K. school states “decolonising the mathematical curriculum means considering the cultural origins of the mathematical concepts, focusses, and notation we most commonly use.”
WHEATON COLLEGE IS A CLOWN SHOW. Be smart: don’t send your children there. College to natural sciences profs: Say 'people with uteruses/people who menstruate' instead of 'women'
TO AVOID A LAWSUIT OR NOT TO AVOID A LAWSUIT—THAT IS THE QUESTION: A tale of 2 colleges: Right way and wrong way to handle gender debate P.S.: There is going to be a lot more of this kind of thing. Count on it.
SUNLIGHT IS THE BEST DISINFECTANT. “Campus Cancel Culture Database” Parents should look at this before handing over tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition.
SOCIALISM BY ANY OTHER NAME OR MEANS: from the Truth and Transformation Conference, hosted by Harvard and the Institutional Antiracism and Accountability Project: “Harvard panelists want ‘bold societal change’ which includes ‘equality of outcomes’”
JUST PLAIN RIDICULOUS: “OU wants to hire a 'social justice' math professor”