I remember how it was -- JR
Backed by CDC Data, Jim Banks Introduces Legislation Urging Schools to Reopen
Banks pointed to the dangers of long-term remote learning, which has proven to be substantially less effective than traditional, in-person instruction.
“For nearly a year now, our country’s leading experts have gathered data on the effects of COVID-19 as well as the consequences of remote learning on our children,” Banks said. “Every possible metric indicates that young people need in-person instruction and that failure to do so has disastrous consequences. School districts nationwide must remain open.”
The Keep Our Schools Open Resolution is backed by data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that indicates that reopening schools is safe, even while the pandemic continues. With restrictions and mandates still in place, the CDC deems reopening K-12 schools safe for children and educators.
“Back in August and September, we did not have a lot of data on whether or not we would see the same sort of rapid spread in schools that we had seen in other high-density work sites or residential sites,” Dr. Margaret Honein, a member of the CDC’s COVID response team told The New York Times. “But there is accumulating data now that with high face mask compliance, and distancing and cohorting of students to minimize the total number of contacts, we can minimize the amount of transmission in schools.”
In addition to learning issues with remote schooling, the CDC also observed a troubling spike in mental health visits for children.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/reaganmccarthy/2021/01/28/exclusive-jim-banks-schools-bill-n2583850
*************************************San Francisco School District Warns About This New Tool of White Supremacy
Acronyms are grounded in white supremacy. Where did this originate from? You guessed it: San Francisco (via ABC 7 Bay Area):
First the San Francisco School Board decided to rename 44 schools because they are named after people with ties to racism or slavery. Now the Arts Department has taken a bold move by changing its name, "VAPA" because they say, "acronyms are a symptom of white supremacy culture."
Schools have yet to reopen in San Francisco, but their Arts Department has continued to work toward ensuring that all students have access to quality arts education.
The director of that department said, "We are prioritizing antiracist arts instruction in our work." So they got rid of the acronym "VAPA," which is short for visual and performing arts.
From now on, they'll simply be called SFUSD Arts Department.
"It is a very simple step we can take to just be referred to as the SFUSD Arts Department for families to better understand who we are," explained Sam Bass, Director of the SFUSD Arts Department.
In a letter, he explains that acronyms are a symptom of white supremacy culture.
"The use of so many acronyms within the educational field often tends to alienate those who may not speak English to understand the acronym," he added.
That's based on a 1999 paper written by author Tema Okun titled "White Supremacy Culture." Okun told me that, "Our culture perpetuates racism when things continue to be written down in a certain way."
Ed at Hot Air cited Reason’s Robby Soave who commented on this narrative about acronyms, white supremacy, and using this paper as a casus belli:
The New York Post reported that the memo cites a 1999 paper by Tema Okun. That paper does not specifically say that acronyms are racist, though it does label “worship of the written word” as an aspect of white supremacy. Other purported characteristics of white supremacy are “perfectionism,” a “sense of urgency,” “individualism,” and “objectivity.” (If this list sounds familiar, it’s because the National Museum of African American Arts and Culture got in trouble last year for promoting similar nonsense.) While some acronyms may be confusing to non-native English speakers, it’s quite a stretch to describe them as a function of white supremacy.
Ironically, Okun’s paper lists memos as characteristic of white supremacy, so the department should probably fire Bass for racism. And at risk of stating the obvious, the new name—SFUSD Arts Department—contains an acronym just as surely as the old one did. White supremacy is just that insidious; even an arts department dedicated to antiracism can’t seem to rid itself of the stain. …
The arts department’s badly explained name change isn’t nearly as consequential, but it’s still emblematic of a school district caught in the throes of far-left orthodoxy
Are we at a point where the more education you receive the dumber you get? When you see this nonsense and its spread, you have to wonder.
************************************
The Teachers Unions Overplay Their Hand
Barack Obama’s first chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, famously, and cynically, said, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” As has become increasingly clear, teachers unions across the nation have used that advice as their playbook during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Exploiting a crisis, as the teachers unions have done for the past 11 months, carries significant risks, however, and the unions will likely soon understand that their strategy of stalling the reopening of schools has backfired. Exhausted parents and exasperated public officials – even some of the most far-left progressive advocates of teachers unions – are increasingly expressing their dismay at the unions’ unwillingness to allow children back into classrooms.
The unions have presented a two-pronged argument for keeping the classrooms closed. First, contrary to the evidence, they argue that virtual education is an adequate replacement for in-person instruction. The majority of students in America’s largest cities have been out of the classroom for almost an entire year, and we now have sufficient data and studies that refute the unions’ arguments. The nonprofit research organization the Rand Corporation, for example, recently produced a study detailing the many ways virtual education has failed to meet students’ academic and emotional needs.
The second part of the unions’ argument in favor of keeping classroom doors shut is the theory that teachers face an undue risk if they go back to in-person instruction. Again, the unions are resolutely determined to ignore the facts. A new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that schools pose no great risk of virus transmission, and schools in many parts of the world and in America have reopened safely. Even in cities with extreme lockdown measures such as Chicago, Washington, DC, and New York City, private schools have found ways to conduct in-person lessons, and to do so safely. Public schools have opened in many districts, as states across the country have opened.
Scientific facts are stubborn things, but the unions seem not to care.
There are, however, other types of facts at play, and the unions would be well-advised to take note of two facts, in particular. Fact number one: parents are increasingly wary of the unions’ antics, and, fact number two: progressive officials in Democrat-run cities (normally so accommodating to the unions’ demands) are increasingly willing to tell the public the real reason classrooms are closed – the unions are playing games.
It should come as no surprise that as parents have gotten wise to the teachers unions’ endless delaying strategies, their positive image of the unions has declined. Last August’s annual Rasmussen poll on public impressions of teacher unions shows a decline in the unions’ image, as more Americans believe the unions are looking out for themselves more than they are for students.
Parents are expressing their displeasure with the unions not only through their answers to public opinion polls but also through an even more powerful form of expression – by taking their children out of the public school system.
As private schools have prioritized in-person instruction, parents have flocked to those schools, even where tuition costs are steep.
Homeschooling is also on the rise, and more parents are taking their children out of virtual schooling that revolves around teachers unions, preferring instead to have the flexibility and control of their children’s education.
At the same time that parents are questioning why the teachers unions have so much control over when the schools are allowed to reopen, liberal mayors and city officials are showing similar levels of frustration.
Washington, DC’s liberal mayor Muriel Bowser showed her dismay this past week with the teachers unions’ threat to stage protest and stay home from their first week back in classrooms. “I have to tell you that, just like anyone who is sitting here, when your boss tells you that this [is] where you need to be at work, that’s where you got to be.”
Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot, no conservative, to be sure, has been in a heated match with the union there for months. Last week, she noted that her administration has been “a voice and advocate for those parents who just want options. And in this day, the CTU [Chicago Teachers Union] leadership has failed and left us with a big bag of nothing.”
“A big bag of nothing” is a fair assessment of what many parents feel online schooling has provided for their children.
There’s a fine line between Rahm Emanuel’s exhortation to make sure a crisis “never goes to waste,” and turning a health crisis into a national education emergency, and using children as pawns in a political struggle. If the unions don’t alter their stance and start prioritizing children’s education, they may quickly find they have no bargaining chips left to play.
***************************************
Should Universities Make Policy Pronouncements?
Amidst all of the past year’s turmoil, the riots, apparent police brutality, and, most recently, insurrectional destruction at the U.S. Capitol, university presidents have spoken up in fierce condemnation. They have said things like “University X deplores and condemns the violence and the break down of order and civility and the recent riots.” Most Americans, including me, would wholeheartedly agree with those sentiments. Yet I am somewhat uneasy about them nonetheless. Why?
Universities are forums for the expression of varying ideas, opinions, perceptions, artistic creations, etc. They are sometimes called “marketplaces of ideas,” where competing viewpoints can be exchanged and debated in a thoughtful and civil manner. Universities are communities, “owned” legally by some governing board or church, but in reality the “property” of a broader community of individuals—students, faculty, alumni, etc.—with varying viewpoints and perspectives who use them as a place for learning and exchanging ideas.
In such an environment, for university presidents to make assertions about what the institution believes is presumptuous and suggests that the university community unanimously endorses an opinion, which, human nature being what it is, likely is simply not true. It goes against the very idea that universities are institutions celebrating viewpoint diversity, and, indeed, that diversity is the crucible out of which evolves a broad consensus with its set of policies, traditions, and via our teaching ultimately our future leaders—things that help create, sustain and strengthen our national identity.
To me, it would have been appropriate for a college president after the Capitol Hill destruction to say, “Personally, I find the behavior in Washington deplorable, and hope that the authorities persecute all the perpetrators of the insurrection to the fullest extent of the law. My university, however, is made up of thousands of students, faculty and others who may offer additional or alternative perspectives: that is what we are all about—dialogue and debate over issues of human interest. I value vibrant discussion and civil debating of recent events by members of our university community.”
Groups like the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) and others have reported a sharp decline in those believing in unfettered freedom of verbal expression on campus, and an increase in students and faculty suppressing their true feelings about issues for fear of being ostracized or maybe punished by others in the university community with other perspectives. The campus Cancel Culture offers vivid examples of flagrantly inappropriate suppression of viewpoints. Often, one hears about students with generally conservative or traditional points of view who feel intimidated by a prominently leftish campus environment increasingly intolerant of free market or classical liberal perspectives.
Admittedly, a campus which observes the Chicago Principles on free expression should almost unanimously agree that violations of the rights of others is intolerable, and the president should be able to say “At University X, we believe in the peaceable freedom of expression and are chagrined by event X (perhaps the recent destruction at the Capitol) which infringes that freedom.” A university can and should legitimately embrace the freedom of people to express themselves peacefully without harming others (not the case recently in Washington). Where you draw the line between the narrow cases where presidential proclamations of university positions is acceptable and where it is not may not always be clear cut. As a general rule, however, university presidents should stay out of controversial current issues, since anything they say is likely to be inappropriately construed as representing the position of the entire campus community.
There are some issues difficult to resolve. Religious institutions may establish universities where the school is expected to adhere to church teachings. Faculty may be required to sign pledges that they adhere to church positions on important matters of doctrine. Catholic institutions often face difficult decisions about members of the campus community taking positions (say on abortion) opposing that of the church that founded and financially supports it. Schools where the religious ties have weakened over time face legitimate conflicts regarding this. Personally, I abhor schools that censor the views of members of the campus community, but if informed individuals prefer to live in an environment where some forms of expression are forbidden, in a free society that should be acceptable.
https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=13388
***********************************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)
*******************************
No comments:
Post a Comment