Wednesday, February 01, 2023



California’s SB 876: A Missed Opportunity for Education Technology

California’s SB 876 is a bill that would create a state Digital Education Equity Program (DEEP). This program will be run by the California Department of Education, and the sponsors of the bill argue it would give help and training to schools and other educational organizations in using technology in their classrooms.

The bill would require the California Department of Education to authorize grants to each of the state’s 58 county offices of education. Each county office of education would have to tell the department of education what they did with the money, who they helped, and how much money they used every year. (One of the co-authors of this post sat for some years on a county board of education and can testify that county offices don’t have the capacity to properly evaluate grant proposals in this area.)

Much of the impetus for the bill appears to be addressing the “digital divide” in education. The digital divide refers to “the gap between those with sufficient knowledge of and access to technology and those without,” per an American University blog post.

According to the bill’s author:

Educators in many schools lack access to sufficient information and professional development to cost-effectively plan for and implement current and emerging technology to support instruction. ... Without a coordinated State and regional focus on policy, programs, and funding, many districts do not have equal access to the resources needed to select, access, and implement technology in classrooms effectively and to provide students access to these resources from homes.

In theory, DEEP would aim to help schools improve their use of technology in the classroom by providing funding for things like teacher training, resources and equipment, and online instruction. It would supposedly also help align technology use with the state’s education standards.

However, SB 876 still appears to be somewhat vague in its approach. While the bill lays out the general goal of providing technical assistance and teacher professional development to local educational agencies on the implementation of educational technology, it does not offer specific details on how this would be achieved. The Senate Floor Analyses states that DEEP will provide guidelines to “more effectively address locally determined educational needs with the use of technology,” so perhaps the guidelines will curb some of the ambiguity.

One major concern with this proposal is the lack of emphasis on cybersecurity and student digital privacy. Given the recent data breaches that have affected universities and schools, it is crucial that any program related to educational technology prioritizes the protection of sensitive student information. However, the bill does not address these concerns in any meaningful way.

Without relevant technology reforms, this bill falls flat. Research has shown that there is a poor correlation between extra school funds and student outcomes. Simply sending money to school districts won’t improve their performance.

During the pandemic, schools had to confront new remote-learning challenges [remote learning], and at times, schools waded waist-deep in potential student privacy violations and cybersecurity risks. This bill should have been an opportune time to reconsider such Orwellian monitoring of students.

It’s important for schools to take data security seriously, as they have a considerable amount of sensitive information on students and staff. The state should also make it easier for people to take legal action against organizations that don’t properly protect their data. In light of current digital security and student privacy concerns, it would be more beneficial for legislators to focus on developing legislation that addresses these specific issues.

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Parents Want a Complete Overhaul of the Education System

In the wake of COVID-19, people now overwhelmingly believe that the education system's broader purpose needs to be rethought. This begins with a shift away from standardized testing, college prep and a one-size-fits-all model and toward personalized curricula, practical skills and subject mastery.

A new Purpose of Education Index survey released by the Massachusetts-based national think tank Populace found a radical shift in the way most of us view education and what our children should be getting out of it.

"The findings show the K-12 educational system is wildly unresponsive to what parents and children actually want," said Todd Rose, co-founder and CEO of Populace.

Rose added that people are not looking for something "better" -- they are looking for something fundamentally different. "They want a way out of the one-size-fits-all approach driven by standardized testing models and elite institutions making us compete in a zero-sum game and instead an educational framework geared towards individualized learning, practical skills, and preparation for a meaningful life."

The study was conducted with over 1,000 participants conducted with cooperation from YouGov and data analytics firm Gradient. Respondents were given 57 priorities for K-12 education and ranked them using a conjoint analysis that forces them into trade-off scenarios and avoids the distorting effects of social influence.

The fissure between the public education system and parents began in 2020, when school districts across the country closed at the beginning of the pandemic. Parents, often working in the same room where their children were being educated over Zoom, began to gain a more complete understanding of what and how their children were being taught -- and they did not like what they saw.

Attitudes changed almost overnight as parents got a peek behind the curtain at what their children were being taught, what was emphasized and how out-of-step the system was in preparing their children for the workplace after graduation. An awakening took place as parents soon learned the power teachers unions had, not just over curriculum but also over whether schools would even open.

That disruption has been devastating. Test scores shared with the Associated Press showed that the average student lost over half a year of learning in math and a quarter of a school year in reading. But students in some public-school districts lost twice that in learning.

This has all prompted many parents to move their children out of public schools and into private or parochial schools, most of which are not controlled by teachers unions and stayed open during the pandemic. The overall rate of parents choosing to home-school grew from 5.4% to 11.1%, according to data from the Census Bureau.

For the study, respondents were given 57 priorities for K-12 education and ranked them using a conjoint analysis that forces them into trade-off scenarios and avoids the distorting effects of social influence. Pre-COVID-19, people ranked preparedness for college as one of the highest priorities for a K-12 education. In this recent survey, it was one of the lowest priorities.

The study also showed that 70% believe more things about the educational system should change than stay the same, including 21% who say nearly everything should change.

Respondents said they wanted to see students develop practical skills such as managing personal finances, preparing meals or making appointments as their top priority -- functions that students a generation ago learned in home economics classes.

"Demonstrating basic reading, writing, and arithmetic," "being prepared for a career," and "hav(ing) the skills to be competitive in the local job market" are goals of education that went out of style in the last generation, but now people are more interested in bringing them back than they are in less practical and more short-term goals.

Overall, the report evinces widespread belief that education needs to be fundamentally changed. It needs to prepare students for the workforce, adulthood and success, not necessarily put students into the pipeline for college.

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Helping 200 Teachers Abandon Indiana’s Largest Teachers Union

On Dec. 20, I helped my 200th teacher leave the Indiana State Teachers Association. This behemoth of a pyramid scheme charges Indiana teachers $1,000 per year to lobby for progressive political goals at the state and national level—while claiming to be integral in salary negotiation and legal defense.

Over the last five years, I’ve enjoyed the privilege of assisting teachers in navigating past the smoke and mirrors to leave the scam masquerading as an essential service for teachers. While the ISTA continues to lament teacher wages in the Indiana Statehouse, it siphons money from the salaries of teachers who gain nothing of value from the transaction.

I’ll never forget the first time I heard a sales pitch from the ISTA. I had just taken a science teaching position at Knightstown Intermediate School in Knightstown, Indiana, and after a lengthy safety briefing from the superintendent, a representative from the ISTA walked up to the front of the high school cafeteria and began to speak.

However, the droning speech wasn’t what cemented the memory forever in my mind—but the response from Knightstown staff. In her opening, the ISTA representative claimed, “The Indiana State Teachers Association provides essential services for all Indiana teachers that make our classrooms a better place!”

The collective chuckling and scorning that ensued from a large faction of teachers caught both the representative and me off guard. I had previously believed that the ISTA had a strong footing in Indiana, and though I wasn’t interested in joining the union, the vast majority of other public school teachers held it in high esteem.

This laughter shook a few who were returning to the district for their second or third year, having fallen for the pitch in previous years and simply renewed their dues. Two weeks later, I was standing with one of those teachers in the hallway after classes had ended for the day—taking part in the age-old tradition of after-school quibbling.

My colleague expressed her frustration about the ISTA taking money out of her paycheck biweekly, and about the local union representative telling her that there was “nothing she could do until it was time to renew dues next year.” The aggravated teacher also noted that since her conversation with the union representative, she had experienced a discernible increase in marketing emails from the ISTA.

I suggested an approach that many teachers would later use dozens of times over the next three years: inform the district payroll officer to cease allowing the ISTA to withdraw union dues. Fifteen minutes later we sat in her classroom, writing an email directing that the ISTA was to lose access to her paycheck. It was several months before the union had realized she had stopped paying and had left.

With the 5-4 Janus v. AFSCME decision a year later, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the free speech and association rights of public school teachers—ruling that teachers could not be compelled to join or remain in a union. Attorneys general in Alaska, Indiana, and Texas followed by issuing guidance that teachers must opt in to have union dues removed from their salaries (instead of needing to opt out).

By the time Janus came down, I had helped about 20 teachers leave the union at this point, but I was not prepared for the incoming flood. I later learned that one teacher I’d helped leave the ISTA had informed a group of friends at a professional development that I was aiding teachers, and word had spread.

Following Attorney General Curtis Hill’s guidance, I began to receive emails, texts, and direct messages on Twitter and Facebook from Hoosier teachers I’d never met who had heard I was willing to help them leave the ISTA. Between 2018 and 2021, I helped an additional 60 teachers leave the union through declining renewal, talking to district payroll, and in one particularly memorable case, announcing an elementary teacher’s departure in the middle of an ISTA meeting.

One article I wrote for the Washington Examiner on the rationale behind negotiating your own salary instead of relying on the unions resulted in quite a few messages from K-12 Hoosier teachers asking about the fastest way to abandon the ISTA.

In 2021, Gov. Eric Holcomb signed a law into effect that required school districts to get permission from teachers each year before deducting union dues from their paycheck. This, coupled with a growing reputation I was earning for exposing ISTA-backed politics in classrooms, put my name in front of dozens of Indiana teachers looking to leave what was becoming known as an expensive, annoying, and pointless club.

Now, Indiana teachers only need to let their banks know that no more money should be allowed to go to the “Easy Pay” system set up by the ISTA. It’s easier than ever to leave.

By the end of 2021, scarcely a week would go by that five to 10 messages and/or emails would arrive in my inboxes asking me to share a friendly phone call with a teacher planning to leave the union. I recently crossed the threshold of having assisted 200 in leaving the ISTA (along with a few dozen aided in leaving other teachers unions), and I took some time to reflect on the ramifications of these actions.

I don’t believe that a $200,000 annual loss means that much to the Indiana State Teachers Association. Two hundred teachers in five years isn’t a death-blow to the 40,000-teacher membership that the ISTA claims to have.

I will point out that in contrast to the ISTA’s boasting, districts across the state are seeing a sharp decline in ISTA membership. Several administrators in both rural and urban districts have told me that they experienced over a 20% drop in union membership since 2016.

The biggest takeaway from my experience in talking to dissatisfied Hoosier teachers is the perception that the ISTA’s offerings are worthless.

The ISTA claims to advocate and to provide better working conditions and increased salaries to its teachers, and many of its local representatives promise that the ISTA will represent teachers in lawsuits and contract negotiations—thus providing safety and security.

Unfortunately, the ISTA is categorically worse at these stated promises than free alternatives that frankly require less effort. Of the 200 teachers I helped leave the ISTA, the vast majority indicated their aggravation at the union’s lack of effort in competent contract negotiation. Regardless of union status, Indiana teachers are constantly asked to sacrifice prep periods and to take over other teachers’ classes without additional compensation—all this without so much as a whimper from the ISTA.

I have received several text messages from Hoosier teachers who, after leaving the union, negotiated better-paying contracts for themselves in Lawrence, New Albany, Crawfordsville, Muncie, Greenwood, and Elkhart, Indiana.

Caleb Wakefield, a teacher in Pike Township in Indianapolis, told The Daily Signal, “The ISTA and [the National Education Association] seem to care more about courting politicians than the members they profess to serve. Most of the critical bargaining is done by local associations, and hardworking educators.”

I’m flattered to say that many teachers I’ve helped leave are happier to be out of the union. Martin Strother, a former teacher at Hamilton Southeastern, told The Daily Signal, “Tony helped a couple of teachers at my school leave the ISTA, and they’ve both been far better for it. No teacher deserves to be taken advantage of by the ISTA.”

While many teachers expressed their worry about discipline-related legal threats when absent from the union, the Attorney General’s Office reminds all public educators annually that in any discipline-related lawsuit, the state of Indiana would represent the teacher for free. There are also better representation options for teachers without the union’s massive price tag and political nonsense. Indiana Professional Educators promises the same legal protections that the ISTA offers at only $107 a year, without lobbying for Democrat policies.

Finally, the tidal wave of political content the ISTA pushes out has become unpalatable for Indiana teachers. While the ISTA has been fearmongering about education reform from libertarian and conservative policymakers for years, the last six years have been particularly toxic. Endless emails, calls to action, and teetering towers of talking points saturate the inboxes of teachers who would prefer to be left alone.

Several scandals have driven teachers to resign, of course. For example, in April 2022, the ISTA elected a man with a disturbingly racist and horny social media presence to be its vice president (following the outrage, he “voluntarily” stepped down).

Local negligence from the ISTA hurts countless teachers. Bree Boyce, a former Indiana special education teacher, told The Daily Signal, “When I was in the classroom and needed them to step up for me, the ISTA did not take the time to understand what was going on. Rather, they manipulated a young and naïve teacher while making the situation worse.”

One Indianapolis teacher, Mark Majeski, told The Daily Signal:

I left ISTA for primarily three reasons. First, the organization places a higher value on Democratic fundraising than on grassroots issues. Secondly, the local leadership is not interested in fighting administrative malfeasance and their dereliction of fiduciary responsibilities (most recently in the form of large amounts of money spent on [social and emotional learning], restorative practice, and the continued wasteful spend on technology that does not promote academic achievement). Finally, ISTA does not fulfill the mission of a traditional union. Rather, it is just a dues paying/fundraising segment of the radical Left of the Democratic Party.

The biggest conclusion I draw from helping 200 teachers leave the Indiana State Teachers Association is something we all can relate to in the last few years. Most teachers leaving the ISTA are exhausted. They’re tired of the endless political preening, progressive pressure, and empty promises that pour out of the mouths of state and national leadership. Most teachers want to be left alone, partnering with students’ homes to create the best academic environment possible. Over 200 teachers in Indiana have told me that the ISTA has become an obstacle to that goal.

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My other blogs: Main ones below

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://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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