I remember how it was -- JR
The Post-COVID Classical-Education Boom
As students return to school this fall, classical education is experiencing an historic boom. The classical-education model has a tradition — steeped in the great books, the liberal arts, and the natural sciences — that extends back millennia. The appeal is obvious, even if it had, until recently, lain somewhat dormant. So why the sudden resurgence? Simple: It is an unexpected outcome of COVID-19’s disruption of the American education system.
When COVID hit, many schools and teachers pivoted quickly to remote learning and worked to move their curricula online. While students and teachers may have been focused on frustrating technology and scheduling, many parents were getting an insider’s look at their children’s classroom experience. And, too often, they didn’t like what they saw: declining standards and hollowed-out curricula, devoid of meaningful content.
Remote learning exposed the reality of American education: that too many students are being left uneducated and unprepared for college or the workplace. Many parents knew that problems with education existed before the pandemic. But the time spent at home revealed the gravity of the situation. Moreover, in 2021, some school districts began eliminating graduation requirements altogether. Oregon governor Kate Brown signed legislation in July suspending math and reading requirements. The governor’s office did not mince words on the rationale, explaining that suspending these standards would aid “Black, Latino, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian, Pacific Islander, Tribal, and students of color.”
But mathematics, reading, and writing are human skills that anyone who is well-taught can learn. Lowering the bar — or simply removing the bar altogether — does a disservice to students and their communities. Unfortunate developments such as this make it clear why parents have become desperate for alternatives. Many have found one in classical education, which has always sought to cultivate wisdom, virtue, and eloquence.
Supply is growing — but, in many cases, demand is outstripping it. At the 30 Great Hearts Academies — the largest public provider of K–12 classical education — there were over 13,000 students on the wait list in 2020. That means every single Great Hearts Academy had to turn away an average of more than 430 students. Other institutions are stepping up as well. Hillsdale College, a classical liberal-arts college, promotes the founding of classical charter schools around the nation. This year, the K–12 Education Office welcomed three more classical schools in Wisconsin, Florida, and Georgia, to its existing 20.
Similarly, Classical Academic Press, which provides classical-education curricula, has experienced an 82 percent increase in requests for its materials since 2019. Our own online school, Scholè Academy, has experienced a 155 percent growth in enrollments since the 2019–20 school year. Both are strong indicators that families are turning to classical learning for at least part of their students’ education.
Demand for classical education is particularly notable among African Americans. In August, a study by the RAND Corporation found that 18 percent of African-American families were uncertain about sending their children back to public schools this fall — compared with just 6 percent of white families. This hesitancy stems in part from pre-pandemic concerns about safety, transportation, and lack of learning. But the pandemic put those problems into sharp relief. And the number of African Americans choosing to homeschool grew from 3 percent to 16 percent. Many of them are choosing classical learning.
Urban classical schools (such as Hope Academy in Minneapolis and The Oaks Academy in Indianapolis) that enroll higher numbers of African Americans and students of color are on the rise. And African-American educators are sharpening their knowledge in this area. ClassicalU’s course “The Black Intellectual Tradition and the Great Conversation,” which one of us, Anika Prather, is co-teaching with Angel Parham of the University of Virginia, has seen rapid enrollment.
We shouldn’t find this surprising. Black history is intertwined with the classics. It is impossible to understand great champions of human dignity and freedom such as Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Martin Luther King Jr. without reading Exodus, Aristotle, Luther, and Shakespeare. African Americans are not isolated. Their experience is part of a broader conversation that spans millennia — an expansive history of adversity and triumph, trial and redemption. It’s only when the black experience is viewed as part of the “great conversation” that we can see subjugation as a dark episode to address, but far from the definition of black existence.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/09/the-post-covid-classical-education-boom/
***************************************UK Schools use 'test-to-stay' protocols to keep students in classrooms
Some school districts are now utilizing frequent COVID-19 tests to allow children to continue attending class in-person, even when they have been in contact with someone who was infected with the coronavirus.
The protocol is often called 'test to stay,' in which students take a Covid test every day for a week.
So long as the test is negative, they're allowed to come into the school building and attend classes.
While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has not yet endorsed this strategy, the agency does recommend that schools use Covid tests to identify cases and control outbreaks.
'Test to stay,' along with other strategies like rapid tests and pool testing, signify that a safe school reopening may be possible even when case numbers are high in the surrounding community.
Since the fall 2021 school semester started in New York City on September 13, more than 500 K-12 classrooms have closed due to a Covid case.
The city - home of the nation's largest school district - has seen a total of 562 closures, as of September 20 while an additional 441 classrooms have been partially closed.
The closures have sent thousands of students into quarantine.
In many cases, these NYC students returned to classrooms for the first time since March 2020 - only to be sent home again, almost immediately.
To cut down on these closures, city leaders announced Monday that students will no longer need to quarantine following a Covid case in their classrooms, if they remain masked and follow three-feet distancing guidelines all day.
At the same time, the city is increasing school Covid testing from every other week to every week.
While the quarantine change follows CDC guidance for schools, parents and teachers have criticized it - saying that proper masking and distancing is difficult in often-overcrowded classrooms.
NYC may be able to learn from districts in other parts of the country that are implementing a strategy called 'test to stay.'
In this protocol, students are allowed to continue attending school in-person after they're identified as a close contact of a Covid-positive child - if they follow a strict testing regimen.
The regimen: a negative Covid test once a day, every day for a week. Students also must remain symptom-free to attend school.
One Georgia school district, profiled by the New York Times, pivoted to utilizing this strategy after more than 1,000 students had to quarantine in early August, 2021.
Districts in other parts of the county, such as Ohio and Utah, are making similar pivots, according to The Times.
'The philosophy of this is how can we keep healthy kids in school and sick kids at home?' said Isaac Seevers, the superintendent of Lebanon City Schools, one of the Ohio districts that is developing a test-to-stay program
'I think there's some real optimism that this is a game-changer for how we learn to live with Covid.'
The CDC does not currently recommend that schools follow a 'test to stay' strategy, because the agency says there's currently insufficient evidence to evaluate the approach's success.
'However, we are working with multiple jurisdictions who have chosen to use these approaches to gather more information,' the agency said in a statement to The Times.
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An Educational Charity That Changes Lives
Teachers unions and education bureaucrats say, "We need more money!"
But America already spends a fortune on public schools.
My town, New York City, spends $28,000 per student -- half-a-million dollars per classroom! Think about what you could do with that money: Hire five teachers? Pay for private tutors?
Where does the $28,000 go? No one really knows. When governments run things, money vanishes into bureaucracy. NYC spends $3 million per year on "executive superintendents" and $10 million on consultants.
Some charter schools offer better educations for less. But NYC politicians limit the number of charter schools. As a result, 48,000 kids wait on waitlists.
Fortunately, some charities have stepped in to help.
My video this week features Student Sponsor Partners, or SSP, a nonprofit that helps low-income students go to Catholic schools.
Jeniffer Gutierrez, a parent in the Bronx, was ecstatic to get SSP's acceptance letter. "I cried so hard when I received that letter because I knew it was an opportunity for my son. ... High schools in the Bronx are violent. There's no discipline. There's no education."
Her son Tyler didn't feel safe in public school. "One of my best friends was shot and killed right next to me," he recalls.
Many Catholic schools, even though they spend much less per student than government-run schools, do better. SSP sent Tyler to Cardinal Hayes High School, where, says Gutierrez, teachers helped her son "excel in life."
Tyler now attends St. John's University on scholarship. He and thousands of other SSP students are on a path to success.
That's why I support SSP. I'm not Catholic, but I've paid Catholic school tuition for dozens of kids and personally mentored five.
That mentoring makes SSP different. SSP assigns an adult to every student. Often these relationships continue after students graduate.
Jorge Aguilar says his mentor "planted seeds in my brain that I could do big things in life." Aguilar then became the first person in his family to go to college. Now he's a doctor.
"SSP helped me break the chain of poverty," he says.
Eighty-five percent of SSP kids graduate high school, twice as many as their public school peers. Most are accepted by colleges.
All this happened because decades ago, philanthropist Peter Flanigan wanted to give parents an alternative to government schools. He hoped that would help at-risk teenagers escape poverty.
He started SSP. One of the first kids he helped was Debra Vizzi.
"I had been homeless," she tells me. "I left an abusive foster home and was sort of hopping around from shelter to shelter."
She met Flanigan at a soup kitchen. He told her he'd pay for her to attend Cathedral High School.
"I was suspicious, especially as a kid on the street, but he was legit," Vizzi laughs. "He paid $350 for me to go to one of the best high schools in New York City."
Flannigan's mentorship gave Vizzi more than a better education. "He helped me trust men, believe in people, helped me have a future. Even helped me become a mother later ... something that I hadn't had."
Vizzi is now executive director of SSP.
"If you would have told me when I was 12 years old, I would run this organization, I would have said you were crazy."
This year, SSP has a thousand students attending different private high schools.
https://townhall.com/columnists/johnstossel/2021/09/22/charity-that-changes-lives-n2596254
***********************************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)
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