I remember how it was -- JR
House GOP Accuses Biden of Rejecting Scientific Consensus on School Reopenings
A group of 66 House Republicans accused President Joe Biden of rejecting the scientific consensus that schools can safely reopen, a move they say harms American children.
Led by Rep. Jason Smith (R., Mo.), the lawmakers sent Biden a Thursday letter urging him to "follow the science" by pushing state and local leaders across the U.S. to reopen schools. The letter notes that there is "little evidence to show in-person instruction in classrooms contributes to the spread of COVID-19," citing a January study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. It also criticizes the Biden administration for contradicting top government scientists. After CDC director Rochelle Walensky said there are "increasing data to suggest that schools can reopen," White House press secretary Jen Psaki dismissed the comment, claiming Walensky "spoke in her personal capacity."
"Despite [Walensky's] expert opinion, your White House continues to ignore the science," the letter reads. "Our children are suffering, and it is time to allow them to resume their education with in-person instruction."
The plea comes just hours after the White House clarified its promise to reopen schools within Biden's first 100 days in office, with Psaki stating Tuesday that Biden's goal is for a majority of schools to offer "some" in-person teaching "at least one day a week." Both House and Senate Republicans quickly criticized the walk-back, the latest example of the GOP's push to place the school reopening fight at the center of the 2022 midterm elections.
"The Biden Administration once again demonstrated that they have no intention of fulfilling the President's promise to students and families," Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) said in a statement. "Having 50 percent of schools offering in-person instruction one day a week is not what millions of parents and students across the nation think of as schools reopening."
Biden pledged to reopen schools throughout his presidential campaign despite receiving more than $232,000 in direct contributions from teachers' unions, which have led the charge to delay in-person instruction. Top unions such as the American Federation of Teachers also gave millions to liberal super PACs backing Biden, and AFT president Randi Weingarten recently called on Washington, D.C., to wholly close schools that detect even a single COVID case.
Biden's pick for deputy secretary of education, Cindy Marten, has also vocally opposed school reopenings. Marten recently delayed in-person instruction for her San Diego school district indefinitely after planning to reopen on January 13.
Rep. Smith told the Washington Free Beacon that Biden's soft stance on in-person learning reflects his need to appease powerful special-interest groups.
"President Biden should listen to the scientists and put the needs of American families over the needs of special interests," he said. "But as we have seen, he is more focused on appeasing his liberal allies than supporting kids in school."
The White House did not return a request for comment.
Some House Republicans have attempted to spur in-person learning by tying it to federal funding for K-12 public schools. A Tuesday amendment from Rep. Greg Murphy (R., N.C.), for example, would have required schools receiving funds through Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill to offer in-person instruction "at each of the public elementary and secondary schools under the jurisdiction of the local education agency." House Democrats rejected the amendment.
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Department of Education Fights the White Supremacy of Math
In Oregon, they’re fighting prejudice in a way that really… counts. The state is promoting a program to subtract racism… from math.
As it turns out — The Daily Wire reports — “finding the right answer (is) a sign of white supremacy.” And that’s particularly unfortunate, since any answer other than the right one is the… wrong answer.
Yet, here we are.
Per Fox News, the Oregon Department of Education’s recent newsletter hailed a February 21st “Pathway to Math Equity Micro-Course.”
Such will allow middle school teachers to employ a toolkit for “Dismantling Racism in [Math].”
Molders of young skulls full o’ mush are encouraged to sign up.
ODE Communications Director Marc Siegel said the program “helps educators learn key tools for engagement, develop strategies to improve equitable outcomes for Black, Latinx, and multilingual students, and join communities of practice.”
A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction: Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction offers 14 manifestations of white supremacy.
Some of you may take the above as negative news. I myself have just realized everyone I’ve ever known — of every race — is a white supremacist.
But there’s hope: Fox notes the new program pummels the problems: Instead of focusing on one right answer, the toolkit encourages teachers to “come up with at least two answers that might solve this problem.”
It adds: “Challenge standardized test questions by getting the ‘right’ answer, but justify other answers by unpacking the assumptions that are made in the problem.”
It also encourages teachers to “center ethnomathematics,” which includes a variety of guidelines. One of them instructs educators to “identify and challenge the ways that math is used to uphold capitalist, imperialist, and racist views.”
Such is the new — and much more complex — way of addressing our color differences.
The old way: Not caring about them.
Going forward — it seems — caring will be compulsory.
The teachers care — and they’re making a change.
From the 81-page Pathway:
White supremacy culture infiltrates math classrooms in everyday teacher actions. Coupled with the beliefs that underlie these actions, they perpetuate educational harm on Black, Latinx, and multilingual students, denying them full access to the world of mathematics.The table below identi es the ways in which white supremacy shows up in math classrooms.
One way to do it right: Let the youngsters lead.
Students are tracked (into courses/pathways and within the classroom). Too often students are tracked based on the notion that adults know what the right thing is for them, which does not allow room for student agency, reinforcing paternalism and powerhoarding.
Is this our path to success?
As I’ve stated before, we’ll find out in 50 years. Or 40. Or whatever’s the least racist addition to 2021.
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That gap
The underlying cause of income inequality and brewing civil unrest likely has less to do with media-inflamed coverage and much more to do with the problem that apparently no one wants to discuss: educational disparity.
The disparity year after year, decade after decade, in math competency, reading proficiency, test scores, honor roll status, and graduation rates, in virtually every U.S. school system, between African American students and other students is disturbing.
No Cause for Optimism
Any responsible American would understandably be concerned. Here in the third decade of the third millennium, with a male African American high school dropout rate at 40% across the U.S., can anyone view the situation optimistically?
"It's remarkable," noted Eric Hanushek, who is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, as well as a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. Following his extensive analysis, he remarked, "I knew that the gap hadn't been closing too much, but when I actually looked at the data I was myself surprised."
When strenuous efforts to bridge the gap, in one community after another, do not bear fruit, invariably someone yells "foul," as if some grand conspiracy is occurring and a magic wand, yet to be waved, could suddenly redress all. And, as if long-term, hard-working, dedicated teachers are not attempting their utmost for each of their students.
Consider the school system in Chapel Hill-Carrboro, North Carolina. This locale, deemed, “The southern part of heaven,” by a variety of writers, is among the most progressive in the United States. The teachers and educators here have a vested interest in demonstrating that their school system, beyond all others, can succeed in the vital area of closing achievement gaps between whites and minorities.
Year in and year out, nevertheless, the gap remains. The Chapel Hill-Carrboro Board of Education is primed to try anything. Another in an endless line of supposed "fixes" was to eliminate the advanced math classes in the middle schools and to lump all non-pre-algebra students together, with similar plans to eliminate other advanced classes such as in language arts.
One cannot easily erect a sound building on quicksand, and you cannot expect to solve a decades-old problem by starting with a shaky foundation. Taking a lowest common denominator approach to developing school curriculum has never consistently worked, anywhere. It frustrates the students and dramatically increases a teacher's burden – all such students must then be taught at individual learning speeds. Do you know any superhuman teachers? If so, could you afford them?
Address the Real Issues
Conclusively closing the academic gap between underachieving students and the rest of the student population requires addressing reality – airing the truth about the disparity – not resorting to politically "correct" psychobabble and curricula finagling for another ten years, and then another ten, and then another.
This disparity encompasses such issues as the number of hours the television is on in given households, family or parental encouragement for completing homework assignments, a regular workspace, and established hours for studying in a quiet environment, among other factors.
Until solid analysis, exploration, and programs that address these issues are undertaken, no amount of wrangling with classes will prove to be the "winning formula." School boards, moreover, will have zero chance of effectively addressing the continuing problem of poor academic performance among student groups.
Detective Sherlock Holmes, in Arthur Conan Doyle's story The Sign of Four, says, “... When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” The schools in U.S. communities routinely exhaust talented teachers with a task that cannot be solved by them, nor is it theirs to solve.
Serious Students, Eager to Learn
Satisfactory academic achievement, however improbable to those who wish to pretend otherwise, occurs through individual effort: one boy and one girl after another rising above and cracking the books, then coming to class as a serious student, eager to learn, and primed to excel.
Such achievement is never likely to occur any other way. Otherwise, expect that income inequality and civil unrest will continue for decades into the 21st century.
https://townhall.com/columnists/jeffdavidson/2021/02/19/draft-n2584989
*********************************Catholic University of America Shows How to Host Controversial Speaker Despite Uproar
The Catholic University of America, the college established by the United States bishops in Washington, D.C. became the latest university to come under fire for the views of an invited speaker.
For two years, a campus organization known as Cardinals for Life worked to schedule a speech by Abby Johnson. Ms. Johnson is noted for being a former Planned Parenthood abortion clinic director who, after witnessing atrocities in the abortion industry, resigned and committed herself to pro-life advocacy. Ms. Johnson recounted her story in the memoir, Unplanned (Disclosure: this writer’s public relations firm was hired to publicize the feature film “Unplanned,” which was based on the book).
It is understandable why students at a Catholic college would want to hear of Ms. Johnson’s experience. In his first week in office, President Joseph Biden, the nation’s second Catholic president, revoked the Mexico City policy, which prohibits federally funded nongovernmental organizations from recommending abortion abroad. If there was ever a time for students at the Catholic University of America to discuss abortion policy, it is now.
Shortly before the event was to take place, Father Jude DeAngelo, the University chaplain and advisor to Cardinals for Life, according to news reports, tried to “pressure” the group to cancel the event. Regrettably, the president of Cardinals for Life resigned after Father DeAngelo’s request to indefinitely postpone Ms. Johnson’s appearance.
Father DeAngelo believed some of Ms. Johnson’s comments, unrelated to the pro-life issue, were problematic. Some of these tweets dealt with race and her biracial son. Specifically, Ms. Johnson said in an online video that police officers would be “smart” to profile her adopted biracial son because “statistically my brown son is more likely to commit a violent offense over my white sons.”
It is understandable that these remarks may make some people might feel uncomfortable. However, discomfort should not be the basis of disinviting a speaker.
“As chaplain charged with the care of souls, I personally believe there are better pro-life speakers than Ms. Johnson who can bring the pro-life message to students who are hungry for the truth that every human life from conception to natural death is sacred and needs our protection,” Fr. DeAngelo said in an online statement.
One must ask who is better to discuss these issues. Few pro-life advocates have seen the inner workings of an abortion clinic. Furthermore, if Ms. Johnson was such an objectionable speaker, why did Fr. DeAngelo not raise this point two years ago when she was first invited.
More than three hundred people watched Ms. Johnson’s virtual speech. During the presentation, Ms. Johnson explained how Planned Parenthood makes money from abortion and how the aborted fetus is referred to as “products of conception.” She even displayed tools doctors use in the abortion process.
In his introduction to the event, College Republicans president Blayne Clegg-Swann said that if his group had allowed Ms. Johnson’s speech to have been cancelled, it would have been “easy and comfortable.” However, the decision to host the event “sets a precedent for student leaders for years to come.”
Mr. Swann notes that the College Republicans’ office had been vandalized and they had received angry emails, as has happened at colleges across the country. Perhaps the best result of this situation is that student leaders will be allowed to advocate to have speakers with whom others disagree and they can find strength and courage.
This was an event long in the planning. Ms. Johnson has been a recognized pro-life advocate for years, as well as a convert to Catholicism. The comments of Ms. Johnson to which many objected were made last summer. It was unreasonable to attempt to cancel a knowledgeable, high-profile speaker to assuage feelings. To cancel the event would have been easy, but the entire university community would have suffered. Colleges need more of this steadfastness.
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My other blogs: Main ones below
http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)
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