Tuesday, February 05, 2019



DC School Won't Play Sports Against Christian School Where Karen Pence Teaches Due to Students Feeling 'Unsafe'

Yeah! All those Christian jihadis would make anyone feel unsafe.  They might thump you with a Bible

A Washington, D.C. school has said it will not play sports at the school where Second Lady Karen Pence teaches part-time, because of concerns over perceived safety.

Sheridan School serves K-8 students in northwest D.C., and has an annual tuition of over $36,000 per year. Headmaster Jessica Donovan sent a letter to parents stating that the policies at Immanuel Christian School, where Pence works, are “an obvious challenge” due to the school’s “fundamental belief in diversity and inclusion.”

Initially, the plan was for students playing in away games to wear rainbow socks or warm-up jerseys in order to demonstrate LGBTQ support. But now, Donovan has completely banned the students from playing sports at the Virginia elementary school on account of some of them saying “they feel unsafe” in that environment.

"As we talked more, we understood that some students did not feel safe entering a school that bans LGBTQ parents, students or even families that support LGBTQ rights," she wrote.

“Forcing our children to choose between an environment in which they feel unsafe or staying home was not an option,” wrote Donovan. “So we decided that we would invite ICS to play all of the games at Sheridan. Since ICS declined our offer to host, we will only play our home games and will not go to ICS to play.”

Sheridan administrators, faculty, and students reportedly had several conversations about playing in sports games against Immanuel. They had played them in the past, according to Donovan, but that was apparently before they learned of the school’s policies surrounding LGBTQ issues.

Immanuel Christian School requires that employees pledge that they believe marriage is both monogamous and heterosexual, and that they won’t pursue “homosexual or lesbian activity” or promote “transgender identity.” The school is apparently able to deny admission or remove a student who’s engaged in behavior that is “in opposition to the biblical lifestyle the school teaches.”

Since Pence took the part-time job as an art teacher at Immanuel, the school has been targeted by a number of progressive groups. Fox News reports that the NOH8 Campaign, the Human Rights Campaign, The Trevor Project, and CNN anchor Chris Cuomo have all come out in opposition to both Pence and the school, claiming that it ascribes to historic Christian values in the areas of marriage and sexuality.

The hashtag #exposechristianschools was also trending on Twitter, prompting Vice President Mike Pence to defend his wife and the school, saying “the attacks on Christian education must end.”

Kara Brooks, spokeswoman for Karen Pence, said in a statement that Pence had worked at Immanuel Christian School for 12 years prior to when she and Vice President Pence began working in the White House.

“It’s absurd that her decision to teach art to children at a Christian school, and the school’s religious beliefs, are under attack,” Brooks said.

But according to Donovan, the administrators at Sheridan School strive to “separate the ideals of Christianity with the policies of this particular school, as we play many Christian schools that support LGBTQ rights.”

Going forward, Sheridan will play against the Virginia Christian school in home games, but students will wear rainbow socks to demonstrate their support of LGBTQ rights.

SOURCE 






UK Children’s commissioner to publish home education figures for every school

The children’s commissioner will publish figures for every school in England showing how many of their pupils withdraw to be home educated amid huge rises in some parts of the country.

New data from 11 local areas shows a 48 per cent rise in the number of children disappearing from schools to be educated at home between 2015/16 and 2017/18.

Among those council areas, academies saw children move into home education at a higher rate – but local authority schools were catching up.

The research, published in a report out today from the children’s commissioner Anne Longfield, shows that many pupils who are home educated are off-rolled, with the analysis suggesting a “small number” of schools could be responsible.

It comes after a survey of local authorities, published in November, showed the number of home educated pupils rose by 27 per cent from 2017 to 2018, and council children services chiefs warning many more are likely to be “hidden from sight”.

Longfield is now calling for a compulsory register of “off the grid” children, stronger measures to tackle off-rolling, more support for families who home educate and decisive action against unregistered schools.

Later this year, the children’s commissioner’s office will also collect data from all councils in England and publish it, school by school, identifying which have high numbers of children being withdrawn into home education. [One guess:  "Black" schools]

“Our investigations have revealed thousands of children are ‘off the grid’ because they are being home schooled,” Longfield said. “The numbers are rocketing and no-one knows how they are doing academically or even if they’re safe. Many are being off-rolled.

“We need to know who these children are, where they are, whether they are safe and if they are getting the education they need to succeed in life.”

Today’s report shows there were almost 60,000 children in England being home educated at any one time in 2018, although the precise figure remains unknown because parents do not have to register home-educated children.

According to data from 11 councils, academies had 2.8 elective home education referrals per 1,000 children last year, compared to 2.4 for LA-run schools.

However, between 2015-2016 to 2017-18, the number of children moving from academies rose by 43 per cent, compared to 58 per cent in council schools (across nine councils that had the data for all years).

In Hackney the number of home educated pupils rose by 94 per cent between 2015/16 and 2017/18, and in Newham it was 176 per cent. [Hackney is poor and crime-ridden and has a substantial black minority]

Between 2016/17 and 2017/18, Hackney’s academies saw an increase in children moving into home education of 238 per cent.

The report accompanies a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary “Skipping School: Britain’s Invisible Kids”, presented by Longfield, which will air tonight.

The children’s commissioner’s office said research undertaken by Dispatches suggests 22 per cent of the children withdrawn from school to be home-educated in 2017/18 had special educational needs.

Meanwhile, 92 per cent of councils “do not feel they have enough powers to assure the safety of home-educated children”.

When local authorities offer to visit a home educating family, in 28 per cent of cases the family refuses, according to today’s report.

“There is a clear case for the government to introduce a compulsory register for all home-educated children, without delay,” Longfield said.

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “Where children are being home educated, we know that in the vast majority of cases parents are doing an excellent job.

“We also know, however, that in a very small minority of cases children are not receiving the standard of education they should be, which is why last year we ran a call for evidence on proposals to introduce a register, as well monitoring of provision and support for home educators. We will respond to that in due course.”

SOURCE 







Enquiry-based learning isn’t evidence-based

You have to wonder how many times something has to be tried before people stop calling it ‘innovative’ and ‘new’. Especially when it has fallen short of expectations as often as enquiry-based learning.

Decades of research has shown the student-centred approach — where there is a focus on students discovering new information for themselves with minimal structure and without teacher guidance — to be less effective than teacher-directed instruction.

In New South Wales, some alternative (but not new) models of schools are opening up. In some cases, schools like this may have been successful (especially in more socially-advantaged areas), and it’s possible that new schools opening up under this model will be great schools — we all wish them the best and want them to succeed. But it’s important to question if this educational approach would be beneficial or practical for all students or across the entire school system, particularly when the evidence suggests that it won’t be.

We may hear success stories about how revolutionary new schools have done away with the ‘industrial model of schooling’ in favour of a ‘whole-child’ approach, but often when you dig deeper the story is far less clear.

A 2018 OECD report found enquiry-based learning in Australia is associated with significantly lower science scores in schools with a poor disciplinary climate, and not associated with significantly higher science scores even in schools with good disciplinary climates. In contrast, the report concluded that teacher-directed instruction is positively associated with student science results, across almost all countries — and this is regardless of school funding, classroom disciplinary climate, and student proficiency and socio-economic background.

And a recent meta-analysis — which considered the findings of over 300 studies across 50 years — showed that direct instruction has significant positive effects on student achievement across all subjects and non-academic indicators, including for disadvantaged students. The implication is that direct instruction is practically always a beneficial teaching practice.

Generally favouring teacher-led direct instruction over student-centred enquiry-based learning isn’t a ‘back to basics’ approach or defending the ‘old’ against the ‘new’. It’s simply following the evidence where it leads.

SOURCE 




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