Left-wing principal of DC school fails to protect Trump-supporting student

The principal of a high-performing magnet high school located in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, D.C. has jeopardized the safety of one of his students because of her support for President Trump.

Jayne Zirkle, a senior at School Without Walls High School, known as "Walls," will spend the rest of the school year taking classes online.  The severity of threats and harassment coming from her classmates has made it impossible for her to attend the public school without fear of physical harm.

When Zirkle went to D.C. public school leaders, including the principal of Walls, Richard Trogisch, she presented them with 200 pages of evidence outlining harassment, threats, and cyber-bullying from fellow students.

Zirkle told One America News reporter Neil McCabe that officials were not sympathetic, stating that "it would all blow over in a couple of weeks."  Incredibly, she also was informed by those at the meeting that some of the "things these kids were saying were arrestable but not actually suspendable."

Various videos posted on YouTube reveal to my eyes that Walls is an indoctrination camp for future hardcore socialist voters with zero tolerance for anyone who dares to dissent.

Zirkle never had a chance at this school once the student body of almost 600, their activist teachers, and the principal became aware of her political beliefs.

In 2012, Mr. Trogisch marched with his Walls students in support of Trayvon Martin

In 2017 and 2018, unlike his flippant disregard for the hate directed at Miss Zirkle, Principal Trogisch went into action when swastikas and other "hateful paraphernalia" showed up in the school's bathrooms.  The Walls principal contacted the Metropolitan Police Department to investigate the matter.

As with so many of these incidents, the person or persons responsible were never caught, but the Anti-Defamation League, led by Obama's former special adviser, Jonathan Greenblatt, quickly came to the rescue, advising the school to use the event as "a teachable moment."  ADL became a member of the school's advisory board, meeting with students to discuss inclusion, diversity, and equality as essential in improving the overall climate of the school.

The swastika incident prompted Mr. Trogisch to send an urgent letter home to parents:

I wanted to inform you of this incident and assure you that acts of hate will not be tolerated. At School Without Walls, we remain committed to ensuring that our campus is a safe space for learning and achievement for all students regardless of race or religion.

Mr. Trogisch apparently does not tolerate "acts of hate" unless they are directed at Jayne Zirkle, a future Trump voter.  His own political leanings seem to keep him and the students he incites comfortably within the School Without Walls while an innocent student with different views is denied the same safe space afforded to the Trump-haters.  To date, no student has been arrested, expelled, or suspended for threatening and harassing Miss Zirkle.  Why would they be?  They are simply doing what the Democrat politicians and their minions like Trogisch want them to do.

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Memo to Teachers Unions: Charter Schools Clearly Benefit Students

When Morgan Waldrop started high school, academics weren’t much of a priority. “It wasn’t even a goal of mine to be at the top of my class,” Waldrop says. But when she became pregnant, her goals changed. “Focusing on my schoolwork was focusing on my son so that I could provide a future for him,” she says.

Starting in her junior year, Waldrop switched to Odyssey Online Learning, a virtual charter school in South Carolina. The flexible schedule allowed her to care for her baby and stay on top of her studies. “I locked in when I got to Odyssey,” she says. “It was exactly what I needed.”

Sure enough, Waldrop graduated as valedictorian last year.

Around the country, 7,000 charter schools–public schools that typically operate independently from traditional school districts–are serving students from all walks of life and make up the fastest-growing sector of our nation’s public school system.

Some charter schools resemble district schools and have traditional school days. Others, like Odyssey, provide instruction online. Still others offer combination online and in-person classrooms.

Charter schools have the flexibility to offer unconventional teaching methods without the bureaucratic oversight of traditional districts and burdensome teacher-union contracts. In exchange, these schools operate with more transparency to parents and taxpayers. State officials can close charter schools that don’t meet academic goals or show clean financial audits each year.

These learning options have attracted the ire of unions. A recent Wall Street Journal column by a teachers union member in Los Angeles claimed charter schools’ success is an illusion because they have “admission policies [that] exclude low-performing students.”

That was not the case with Waldrop’s charter school. Of her situation, Odyssey’s principal said simply, “With all of our students, life happens.”

Other charters have waiting lists and must admit students by lottery. New York City’s charter school lottery was made famous in the 2010 documentary “Waiting for Superman.”

These schools are helping students across the U.S. A 2009 study of charter schools in New York City found that students outperformed their district school peers in math and reading. Researchers found similar results in Boston among charter schools that admit students by lottery.

In 2011, Mathematica researchers found positive outcomes across 15 states for students from low-income families attending inner-city charter schools with these admissions practices.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, charter schools are more likely to have higher concentrations of minority students than traditional schools, and a higher percentage of charter schools are considered high-poverty than traditional schools.

The Journal columnist claimed district schools need more money to succeed, but the charter school student achievement described above came at a discount.

In large cities such as New York and Los Angeles, charter schools receive an average of $5,800 less per child than district schools, according to a recent University of Arkansas study. In fact, in The Journal contributor’s home city of Los Angeles, the funding gap between traditional schools, and charter schools widened from 2003 to 2016.

A survey that has tracked public opinion on parent choice in education for more than a decade finds increasing support for charter schools. Interestingly, this year’s survey found a sharp increase in the support from teachers.

According to LA School Report, charter school enrollment in California has increased by 100,000 students over the past five years as the state’s total public school enrollment has decreased.

This is great news for children and families because a 2014 study of Los Angeles charter schools found that, on average, charter students “gain an additional 50 days of learning in reading and an additional 79 days of learning in math” compared with students in the district’s traditional schools.

As for Waldrop, a charter school offered her a second chance, and she grabbed it. Union leaders should stop throwing stones at charter schools and join in the applause for any school that helps students succeed.

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Australia: Education review ‘like a slow-moving train wreck’: academic

Leftist teachers want an easier ride and HATE being held accountable

The latest review of NAPLAN has been labelled as a “Trojan horse” for a push to undermine independent objective testing of Australian students, which could further erode academic standards.

Australian Catholic University research fellow, Kevin Donnelly, who also co-authored the most recent major review of the national curriculum, expressed concerns that the three states behind the review were being used by forces seeking to move away from standardised testing altogether.

“The review of NAPLAN, obviously by NSW, Victoria and Queensland, is a Trojan horse that will further standards and outcomes and ensure the continued underperformance of Australian students,” Dr Donnelly said. “It’s like watching a slow-moving train wreck.”

The three states have budgeted $1 million for the review after the Council of Australian Governments Education Council knocked back NSW Education Minister Sarah Mitchell’s request in June for a national review.

Ms Mitchell and Victoria’s Education Minister James Merlino have both insisted that they support standardised testing, but that NAPLAN was no longer fit for purpose.

“NAPLAN has been in place since 2008, and given the ever-changing nature of the education landscape, both nationally and within states and territories, it is important we assess and consider how we can use a diagnostic test to better support our students,” Ms Mitchell said.

Dr Donnelly said that the review had coincided with a push to develop a new model for schooling, which has been enabled by the latest Gonski education review, whereby students would no longer grouped in classes according to age and where assessment would focus on improvement rather than achievement against independent benchmarks.

He likened the model to running a 100m running race, where instead of awarding medals to those who finished first, second and third, the prize went to the runner who clocked a personal best, regardless of where they finished.

Centre for Independent Studies research fellow Blaise Joseph said there was nothing wrong with the states reviewing NAPLAN so long as it didn’t duplicate the work of five previous reviews.

“For example, the public reporting of NAPLAN results and the transition to online testing have already been reviewed. It would be a waste of time and money if the review goes down this path,” Mr Joseph said.

“NAPLAN isn’t perfect. But the transparency and accountability that NAPLAN provides are absolutely vital, so the focus must be on improving the tests, rather than scrapping them altogether. If the review does this, then it could actually add value.”

Mr Joseph said the review should focus on how to improve the quality of the tests.

“In particular, the NAPLAN national minimum standards appear to be set far too low, especially when compared to international test standards. And NAPLAN can definitely be better aligned with the Australian curriculum.

“But it’s really important that in the meantime states and territories continue to work on getting better results. Reviewing how literacy and numeracy are measured is no substitute for actually improving how literacy and numeracy are taught.”

Federal Minister for Education Dan Tehan called on the three states to “stop obsessing about the NAPLAN test and start obsession about the NAPLAN results”.

“Which would mean focusing on improving literacy and numeracy “.

Preliminary results from the 2019 NAPLAN tests, which were released in August, show average national student scores across most age groups and domains have barely budged since testing began more than a decade ago.

Of particular concern is that pockets of improvement observed in primary school — including Year 3 reading, spelling and grammar and Year 5 reading, spelling and numeracy — are not sustained in secondary school.

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