Thursday, April 01, 2021


Teachers Union Boss: Sorry, But the Science Isn't Good Enough for Us to Reopen Schools

In recent days, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) finally adjusted its guidance about social distancing in schools to embrace three feet of separation between students as broadly safe, compared to the previous (mostly baseless) recommendation of six feet. In doing so, the CDC belatedly adopted the analysis its new director had offered to school officials in her own community last summer. Some teachers' unions were exploiting the prior "six feet" guidance as an excuse to further delay the return of full-time, in-person instruction, citing insufficient physical space to do so. That rationalization is no longer viable, so now what? More science denial, that's what. Here's a major national union boss flat-out rejecting the science in order to keep the ongoing anti-child racket afloat. CBS News reports:

The nation's second-largest teachers union sent a two-page letter to the Biden administration on Tuesday questioning the decision to reduce the recommended social distancing in schools to three feet between students...On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reduced its recommendation for social distancing within schools to prevent the spread of COVID-19 from six feet to three feet, citing studies of limited virus transmission and similar recommendations from the World Health Organization and the American Academy of Pediatrics. "These updated recommendations provide the evidence-based roadmap to help schools reopen safely, and remain open, for in-person instruction," CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said in a statement last week. But on Tuesday, Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.7-million-member American Federation of Teachers, told Walensky and Education Department Secretary Miguel Cardona that while she and her members "trust the CDC ... to provide them with accurate information," they have concerns about the recent changes. The letter was obtained by CBS News. "We are not convinced that the evidence supports changing physical distancing requirements at this time," Weingarten wrote. "Our concern is that the cited studies do not identify the baseline mitigation strategies needed to support 3 feet of physical distancing."

If anything, the CDC is overly cautious in its guidance. This change is supported by lots and lots of data, including data from the many schools that have been safely open for months – which the denialists obstinately avoid, as their widespread and successful existence crushes increasingly feeble and embarrassing arguments from the holdouts. But the union says they "are not convinced" by any of it, rambling about "baseline mitigation strategies." To repeat, millions of kids have been attending in-person classes, five days a week, since the fall – and have done so with an array of mitigation strategies that have worked well, in a wide array of facilities, in a wide array of environments. There is no excuse whatsoever to hold other students out of classrooms, and no basis for questioning this science. Weingarten and company are behaving as if all of this is still hypothetical and risky; it's neither. If the "we are not convinced" line isn't offensive or arrogant enough, consider this follow-up:

Incredible. The Democrats passed more than $120 billion in "school funding," pretending that it was necessary to re-open schools, hoping no one would notice that (a) tons of schools have managed to stay safely open without stacks of federal cash, (b) there were still roughly $60 billion in unspent dollars earmarked for schools sitting around from previous bipartisan relief bills signed by President Trump, and (c) within the new gigantic tranche of unnecessary money, the vast majority of it won't even start to be spent until 2023, and therefore plainly has nothing to do with getting schools open during the pandemic. Despite this, this union boss has the temerity to suggest that all of that money still isn't sufficient for the holdouts. Think of all the planning, and how "quickly" all of this is happening, she disingenuously laments. They've had months and months to plan. Many other schools figured it out over the summer and made it work, and their students are vastly better off for it. Weingarten's complaints are almost unbelievably insulting. This is accurate, if a bit too kind:

Noah Rothman points out that Weingarten embraced CDC recommendations when they supported her goals of keeping teachers out of classrooms (may I remind you this is a union comprised of people whose entire job is to be in classrooms), but is suddenly not so sold on the CDC science, now that it forecloses one of the remaining, flimsy excuses to keep schools from opening. This is anti-science hackery and anti-student abuse. Some anti-learning apologists continue to insist that parents aren't comfortable with a full return to in-person classes either. Actions speak louder than cherry-picked polls

Every parent should be given resources to choose an educational path other than union-dominated, anti-science, anti-child government school districts that have failed far too many families over the last seven months.

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California’s Education Department Chooses Critical Race Theory Over 100,000 Objections

The California Department of Education (CDE) voted to adopt the fourth version of an ethnic studies curriculum after four years, three previous versions, and more than 100,000 objections. The reason for so many objections? The curriculum continues to be founded on critical race theory (CRT), which is the view that our legal, economic, and social institutions are inherently racist and are exploited by some Whites to retain their dominance by oppressing and marginalizing others. The CRT-focused curriculum will foster divisions among students and will almost certainly not improve learning outcomes, as advertised by its proponents.

The focus on critical race theory has been severely denounced, including by the editorial staff at the Los Angeles Times and implicitly by California governor Gavin Newsom, who vetoed the second version of the curriculum. This led to the watering down of CRT over each successive revision to the point that the critical race advisors to the curriculum resigned after the second revision, complaining that—you guessed it—racist and White supremacist organizations were trying to hijack their turf.

These members wrote: “We urge the CDE not to give in to the pressures and influences of white supremacist, right wing, conservatives (‘Alliance for Constructive Ethnic Studies’, ‘Educators for Excellence in Ethnic Studies’, Hoover Institute [sic], etc.) and multiculturalist, non-Ethnic Studies university academics and organizations now claiming ‘Ethnic Studies’ expertise.”

CDE made a mistake by investing the curriculum in critical race theory. The CDE is unwilling to let go of this despite so many Californians believing that none of the fourth version of the curriculum is in the best interest of California students. At a time when diversity and inclusiveness are the coin of the realm within education circles, it should be apparent that ethnic studies is not an exclusive club formed by those teaching critical race theory, nor do they hold veto power in terms of who is and isn’t qualified to have a relevant idea about the subject.

In choosing to vote unanimously for the fourth version, the CDE has accepted a model curriculum with inaccuracies and omissions, as well as themes that will push students away from their own individualities and into group think that focuses on oppression and marginalization as the primary ills of today’s society. This passage from the opening paragraph says it all: “This coursework, through its overarching study of the process and impact of the marginalization resulting from systems of power, is relevant and important for students of all backgrounds.”

We should teach students world and American history honestly, openly, and with the opportunity for students to engage and understand the past with the hope that we will continue to do better, treating each other as the individuals that we are. We have had many successes in this enterprise, as no matter how flawed today’s world is, it is more democratic, civil, and peaceful than in the past.

But California’s ethnic studies curriculum differs sharply from this vision, because the narrative of critical race theory does not dovetail with a world that, on average, gets better each day. Some of the major principles of the curriculum are “critiquing empire-building and its relationship to white supremacy, racism, and other forms of power and oppression,” and “challenging racist, bigoted, discriminatory, imperialist/colonial beliefs and practices on multiple levels.”

The book refers teachers of ethnic studies to draw on the New York Times 1619 Project, which at this point has been completely discredited in terms of its arguments about capitalism, and which reflects historical errors pointed out by the Times’ own fact checker, which were ignored.

The curriculum is also flawed, and dangerously so, regarding its depiction of the War on Drugs in the 1980s and 1990s: “The dominant narrative of the ‘War on Drugs’ was that drug dealers and users were causing violence, poverty, and addiction in cities across the country. In actuality, this narrative was used to justify disproportionate arrests of communities of color, even though Blacks and Whites use drugs at similar rates.”

According to the curriculum, the War on Drugs was a racist tool to put non-Whites behind bars. Taking their argument one step further, it implies that mayors of cities, including Black mayors, chose to incarcerate non-Whites because they were . . . not White. Nowhere does the narrative describe how crack cocaine devastated poor neighborhoods in many major cities in the 1980s through the late 1990s, turning certain sections of Los Angeles, Chicago, New Orleans, Boston, Atlanta, New York—the list goes on—into war zones as competing drug dealers fought to control the sale of a toxic molecule that delivered enormously high profits.

Nowhere is it mentioned that the homicide rate of Black children between the ages of 14 and 17 more than doubled at the peak of these drug wars, nor that 14-to-17-year-old Blacks were 10 times as likely to be murdered than Whites during this period. Nowhere is it mentioned that the number of Black babies in foster care more than doubled, rising to a level more than six times that of White babies. How often is crack cocaine mentioned in the model curriculum? Never.

The War on Drugs did fail miserably in certain ways, including some drug sentences that were too long and inadequate prosecution of police corruption. But there are people alive today who would not be here had members from drug gangs not been arrested. Telling this part of our history—being honest and open about our country’s issues—does not fit with the narrative of critical race theory. And herein lies the major problem, and why a fourth version of the model curriculum remains unsatisfactory: because it is driven by a political and social agenda that omits the facts that inconveniently are at variance with its 24/7 narrative of oppression, imperialism, White supremacy, and exploitation.

But there is some good news. The pushback of more than 100,000 objections removed some of the most inappropriate material in earlier versions. This includes deleting positive role-model narratives about convicted murderers of police and changing the benign narrative that was originally presented about Pol Pot and the Killing Fields, where as many as 30 percent of Cambodians were murdered by his regime. The discussion of Pol Pot in earlier versions focused on how US imperialism in Southeast Asia facilitated his rise to power, not on how he was one of the of most heinous dictators of the 20th century. Go figure. Discussions about capitalism being racist, and a section that included several disturbing discussions about racial purity, also have been removed.

I doubt all these changes would have come about without the efforts of Elina Kaplan, of the Alliance for Constructive Ethnic Studies, Lori Meyers of Educators for Excellence in Ethnic Studies, and Tammi Rossman-Benjamin of AMCHA, all of whom have been powerful forces for providing positive directions for the curriculum. Like me, they have been called White supremacists by critical race proponents on the curriculum’s advisory committee. White supremacists? When facts and logic don’t fit the narrative, then play the race card and go right to Defcon 1: “White supremacist.” Even when they know next to nothing about any of us. But the positive here is that the alternative perspectives that Elina, Lori, Tammi, and I have been advancing are getting attention and hopefully moving the needle.

I hope these women continue to fight for California kids. We need them. And I hope that California’s school superintendent, Tony Thurmond, listens to them in the future. California schools have been chronically failing Black and Hispanic schoolchildren, as their math and reading proficiencies have been far below state standards for years. If we fix this, we will be able to fix so much more in our state, problems that will never be addressed by critical race theory.

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Woke Colleges

Did you take the SATs to try to get into college? Your kids may not have to.

More than 1,300 schools have become “test optional,” meaning students need not submit SAT scores. Some, like the entire University of California system, now won’t even look at scores.

There are seemingly legitimate reasons to oppose the tests. Richer kids often get tutoring that gives them an advantage.

Critics claim the tests are culturally biased and say that’s why Blacks and Latinos don’t score as well. But that doesn’t explain why Asians do so well. In fact, Asians get the best SAT scores.

I assume it’s more about culture and parenting. Kids raised in front of the TV do poorly. Those encouraged to read do better. Kids who spend time talking to adults do better.

Bob Schaeffer, executive director at FairTest, an advocacy group that helped persuade colleges to dump tests, says testing companies just want to make money.

“These are businesses selling products,” Schaeffer says in my new video. “The College Board is a billion-dollar a year business.”

I ask him what’s wrong with the tests themselves. He replies, “The SAT and ACT are inferior predictors of college performance.”

It is true that high school grades predict 33% of college grades, while tests predict 32%. But that is just barely “inferior.” Combining grades and SATs predicts 42% of college grades, which makes the tests useful.

Also, tests can help the smart student who, for whatever reason, doesn’t do well in high school.

“It’s the diamond in the rough argument,” Schaeffer responds. “There are actually very few examples of that being true.”

I believed him until I looked at College Board data. It shows that students with C grades in high school, but great SAT scores, do better in college than A+ students with low SAT scores.

Without tests, schools often choose students based on parental connections or donations.

Tiwalayo Aina, a Black student at MIT, got good SAT scores. He tweeted, “The SAT is fairer than the alternative: needing my parents to connect me with a … professor.”

I say to FairTest’s Schaeffer, “By eliminating tests, you’re screwing the minority student who is really smart, but goes to a lousy high school, has family problems and got low grades.”

“That student would have shown brilliantly in her high school classes,” is Schaeffer’s reply.

Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Riley says colleges scrapped tests to make it easier for administrators to control how many people from each racial group attend their college.

Without an objective standard, who’s to say an administrator’s admission picks are wrong?

“It really is about making these campuses look right. … It’s not about learning,” says Riley.

“If you want more diversity,” he adds, “Open up more of these charter schools (like the ones that are) able to prepare kids for these tests.”

Some charters, the Success Academies, do that well. Sadly, those charters are criticized and limited by politicians because they are not under the control of teachers unions.

Ending limits on charters and allowing school choice, says Riley, would do much more to close the race gap than dropping SATs. “Eliminate the test, you’re just going to delay where it shows up elsewhere in this child’s life. You’re not doing that child any favor.”

What’s wrong with these schools saying we want a more diverse student body?

“There’s this assumption,” says Riley, “We just get these kids in the door and they’ll be fine. No, they won’t! They’re being set up to fail. I see no progress in getting a bunch of Black kids admitted to MIT, and then having them flunk out or struggle. They don’t need to be struggling. They could go be going to another school and doing quite well.”

But woke educators want to eliminate tests.

And these days, what the woke want, the woke get.

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‘Deeply triggering’ board game on ‘white privilege’ part of new racism lessons

Children in Australia are being taught about “white privilege” with a board game that education bureaucrats admit “can be deeply triggering” for pupils and “create feelings of shame”.

A NSW Department of Education-run website called ‘Racism No Way’ has a collection of lesson plans to teach children about battling racism from Years 3-12.

The lessons have been blasted by a conservative think tank which says “children as young as four are now being indoctrinated with radical race theory”.

One of the lesson activities – which bureaucrats say may be upsetting to some students – is the study of a hip hop song by Illawarra rapper DOBBY called I Can’t Breathe.

The song talks about similarities between the deaths of Indigenous man David Dungay and African-American man George Floyd. “That’s bullsh*t! Write to your member tell ‘em what’s happening,” the lyrics read. “You gotta challenge the white settler narrative. “This sh*t’s as bad as it gets, cause some of these coppers really don’t know how to protect.”

Children are then asked to discuss the song in activities “created to examine empathy”.

“The activities may make you feel upset. If this is the case it may be necessary to speak to your class teacher or seek the help of a counsellor,” the student worksheet reads.

Another lesson activity involves a board game called “privilege for sale” which aims to give children an “understanding of privilege and oppression”. In it, the classroom is divided into small groups, who are then told to imagine living in a world where none of them have any privileges.

The teacher then hands out “money”, with each group being given different amounts ranging from $300 to $1400 in fake printed-out notes.

They are given a sheet that has a list of privileges on it, and they have to purchase these privileges from their teacher with fake money.

The students then discuss and decide which privileges they would like to buy. They are then asked to present to the rest of the class explaining how much money they were given and which privileges they chose to purchase and why.

The lesson plan explains: “For some people this is a new experience because they’ve never thought of privilege in this way, or in a list form like this.

“It can sometimes be a deeply triggering or frustrating activity because perhaps you don’t have access to a lot of these privileges and seeing all of the privileges in a list can be challenging.

“For others it can be deeply moving/emotional because they’ve never thought of all the privilege that they do have before. This can bring up feelings of guilt or even feelings of shame for taking things for granted.”

The lessons have been blasted as “indoctrination” by Bella d’Abrera, director of the Foundations of Western Civilisation Program at conservative think tank, the Institute of Public Affairs.

“There is absolutely no place for Critical Race Theory or Unconscious Bias training in Australian schools,” she told news.com.au. “Impressionable children as young as four should not be indoctrinated with radical race theory.”

“The ‘privilege for sale activity’ is based on the idea of white privilege which is not only demonstrably false, but also extremely racist, because it is tells white children that they are bad people because of the colour of their skin.

“Children need to be taught the basics of literacy and numeracy by their teachers, not turned into mini social justice activists who will grow up hating Australia because they believe it’s racist.”

She has called on the NSW Education Minister to do “everything her power to protect children from this rubbish by making sure that it is not taught in schools”

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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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