I remember how it was -- JR
Why schools won’t tell parents what their kids are being taught
School is starting, but don’t count on getting answers about what your child is being taught. School administrators commonly lie or give parents the runaround.
That explains the fireworks over a Greenwich, Conn., elementary-school assistant principal, Jeremy Boland, bragging that the school pushes kids to think in a “progressive” way that he hopes will make them Democratic voters.
The school’s hiring process, he explains on video, is geared to accomplish indoctrination. Prospective teachers who are Catholics or over 30 are disqualified. They’re too set in their ways, he says. Catholics are unlikely to “acknowledge a child’s gender preferences” or go against parents, so “you don’t hire them.”
When the video was released last week, Greenwich authorities immediately put their free-speaking assistant principal on leave. But Peter Sherr, who served on the town Board of Education for 12 years until December, attests that Boland’s comments are “very accurate.”
The video, made by the undercover investigative nonprofit Project Veritas, is part of a “Secret Curriculum” series. Another video shows Ginn Norris, director of student activities at Trinity School on the Upper East Side, swearing she’ll never allow a Republican speaker at the school: “Not on my watch.”
Secrecy is a problem across the country. Officials discourage parents’ inquiries and throw up roadblocks to those who persist.
Jackie Homan, who has three sons at Greenwich High School, says when she questioned the curriculum at a Board of Education meeting, “they laughed me out of the room.” She filed Freedom of Information Act requests and, after months of runaround, got some information but not about the class that worried her the most — SEL, short for social and emotional learning.
Jeremy Boland — an elementary-school assistant principal from Greenwich, Connecticut — was caught on video talking about how his teachers push "progressive" ideas on children.
Jeremy Boland — an elementary-school assistant principal from Greenwich, Connecticut — was caught on video talking about how his teachers push “progressive” ideas on children.
She was told she couldn’t have a copy of the SEL curriculum because it’s copyrighted. A preposterous excuse, since all the books students read are copyrighted.
Pennsylvania’s West Perry School District used the same lame pretext to turn away another inquiring mother, Ashley Weaver.
When Fort Worth, Texas, mother Jenny Crossland requested a list of books her children were being assigned, the school district told her she’d have to pay $1,267.50 for someone to compile it.
SEL classes are shrouded in secrecy. It’s no wonder. Originally, social and emotional learning meant teaching children to control their emotions and get along in class. No more. Now K-12 students are being taught “transformative SEL.” The American Federation of Teachers says the new SEL is aimed at “redistributing power to promote social justice.”
Panorama, a for-profit company that produces SEL materials for 1,500 school districts in 21 states, and the nonprofit CASEL, the largest producer of SEL materials, both encourage students to see systemic racism in their world.
SEL is political indoctrination. In many schools, students have SEL classes several times a week, even replacing math or science.
Last week, the West Bonner, Idaho, school district canceled its English-language-arts curriculum in response to parent protests that the SEL component would lead to liberal indoctrination and the teaching of critical race theory.
Parents are catching on, but too slowly. Public education is being hijacked. The AFT, America’s second-largest teachers union, announced its goal is to “reimagine the purpose of education” from learning to social activism. Never mind if your child acquires the skills to succeed.
Teacher-training programs and graduate schools of education have stopped focusing on classroom management, lesson planning and pedagogy. Fewer than one in four emphasizes training teachers in the “science of reading.” The new focus is how to turn children into activists.
No surprise Greenwich’s Jeremy Boland said the school will only hire teachers under age 30. They’re ready-made indoctrinators.
Boland got caught in a gotcha undercover video. It shouldn’t be that tricky to get the truth. The heroes are parents who keep demanding it, even when school authorities laugh them out of the room.
President Joe Biden told a group of teachers that their students “are not somebody else’s children. They’re like yours when they’re in the classroom.” Sorry, Mr. President. They’re yours to educate but not to indoctrinate.
https://nypost.com/2022/09/06/why-schools-wont-tell-parents-what-their-kids-are-being-taught/
**********************************************************Inflation Will Hit Universities Hard
It is indisputable that the U.S. faces the worst inflation in 40 years, an outcome that seemingly no one was predicting a few years ago. The impact on Americans of rapid, unanticipated price increases varies. Retired citizens living on interest income from bonds and fixed pensions are badly hurt, for example, while some others, including owners of inflation hedges like gold, land, or real estate could conceivably profit.
In the short run, colleges and universities will be losers from inflation, partially for reasons peculiar to the workings of higher education. To borrow a term once used to describe slavery, colleges are now America’s “peculiar institution.”
Whereas grocery stores, gas stations, and airlines change their prices weekly or even daily, universities set tuition fees that exist for a minimum of one academic year. If the Consumer Price Index is reasonably correct, each dollar of tuition schools collect this fall was worth around $1.08 (in today’s dollars) a year ago, when university decision-makers decided on fees for the year ahead. The more rapid inflation becomes, the more colleges lose purchasing power.
In two to three years, some students may be paying tuition fees that are 20 percent or more below current levels in inflation-adjusted terms. Aggravating the problem, a few years ago large numbers of colleges embraced a tuition price-guarantee program. Students were guaranteed that the tuition fees in place when they entered school would be maintained for four (or even five) years.
Therefore, it is conceivable that some students will be paying tuition fees, in two to three years, that are 20 percent or more below current levels in inflation-adjusted terms. What seemed to be a good marketing ploy for colleges will now damage their finances.
Inflation also hurts schools, especially richly endowed private ones, in other ways. When prices were rising predictably at two percent or so annually, markets adjusted to that reality, and stock prices rose over time, as did other investments. Endowments on average increased healthily, allowing private schools like Duke or Stanford to increase their spending on the basis of investment earnings.
In the last year, as inflation has soared in unanticipated fashion (unanticipated to the Fed, but not to some contrarian economists like myself with a classical understanding of monetary and fiscal policy), interest rates have risen, driving bond and ultimately stock prices down. In time, the housing-price boom will likely reverse, as well.
As a result, rich colleges may take multi-billion-dollar drubbings in the market. Those theologically disposed might say that God is punishing these schools for their contempt for American traditions like free speech, their downplaying of merit as the basis for reward, and even their declining academic standards.
Furthermore, in the short run, rising inflation particularly hurts academic employees, who usually work on annual contracts, sometimes with a lifetime-employment guarantee. During unanticipated and substantial inflation in the World War II era, and then again in the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s, college employees often got, say, three to five percent pay increases but faced eight to ten percent increases in prices, lowering their standard of living meaningfully.
Unlike decades ago, today’s inflation is occurring in a period of reduced demand for higher-educational services. For example, between the 1972-73 academic year and the 1980-81 year—a period of substantial and largely unanticipated inflation (with prices rising about three percent a year at the beginning of the period and over 12 percent annually at the end)—federal data tell us that the real (inflation-adjusted) earnings of full professors at universities in the U.S. fell an extraordinary 20.8 percent.
That was during a period of substantial enrollment expansion—robust and rising demand for higher-educational services.
However, unlike decades ago, today’s inflation is occurring in a period of reduceddemand for higher-educational services. For higher education as a whole, national enrollments have fallen continuously for a decade, and the discounting of published tuition fees has grown to astronomical proportions at a time when costs are starting to rise sharply.
Colleges buy electricity, natural gas, food, and other items even as they escalate in price. Tuition revenues are stagnant, but costs are rising robustly. Many schools are in precarious financial condition despite huge federal bailouts related to the Covid pandemic. Quite a few have already closed their doors.
Most academics will probably dislike my saying it, but, to a considerable extent, the colleges brought this on themselves.
I especially blame my fellow academic economists, a majority of whom seem to still, vaguely if not stridently, endorse the old Keynesian remedy for nearly all macroeconomic ailments: increase “aggregate demand” by “stimulus” packages of massive budget deficits and artificially low and unsustainable interest rates. The Federal Reserve System is run by individuals steeped in a Keynesian academic tradition and in such fashionable but unproven notions as “Modern Monetary Theory.”
In truth, the economic problems of recent years, emanating from the Covid pandemic, are supply side determined. Demand has been just fine—witness the shortage of many goods, from electric cars to baby formula.
The universities are usually favored wards of the state, but their struggles may be overwhelmed now by bigger distractions.One of the very few advantages of old age is gaining some historical memory. The rise of faculty unionization in K-12 schools (and, to a lesser extent, in higher education) occurred in the late 1960s and the 1970s—a period of enhanced inflation. Falling real wages in the present will lead to increased tensions between faculty and administrations, aggravated, I suspect this time, by growing rage over the growth of a non-academic, sometimes even an anti-academic, cadre of high-priced campus administrators.
Of course, the lobbyists at One DuPont Circle and other outposts of the higher-education elite will beg Congress for more aid to assist colleges in financial distress. Normally they would receive a sympathetic reception, as the universities are usually favored wards of the state.
But their struggles may be overwhelmed now by bigger distractions, most notably prodigious federal deficits coupled with a slowing economy. These are perilous times, and college leaders have their work cut out for them to keep their institutions afloat.
https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=14264
****************************************************UK: Not everyone's glad to be back at school! Parents share snaps of grumpy children returning to the classroom
Prince William and Kate Middleton may have walked hand-in-hand with their perfectly behaved children for their first day of school today - but that's not the reality for every parent across the country.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, both 40, strolled through the ground of £50,000-a-year Lambrook school yesterday as they dropped Prince George, nine, Princess Charlotte, seven, and Prince Louis, four, off for their first day.
And the children appeared to be on top form for the occasion, smiling at one another before shaking hands with the headmaster Jonathan Perry.
However, many parents have taken to social media to share snaps of what their children's first day at school is really like.
From tantrums on the floor to floods of tears, some mothers and fathers shared the moment they sent their youngsters off for the next life stage.
One British mother shared a post of her young son looking a little worried about the big day on Instagram.
Sharing the image, which showed her cuddling up with the little boy ahead of the big moment, she wrote: 'A few nerves this morning and Matteo telling me, "It's not too late, we can stay at home!"'
She added that he had settled into the school well, writing: 'He went into the class room with no problem - hopefully he realises school isn't so bad.'
The posts were shared as families around the world took their children to their first day at school ahead of the new year starting.
Yesterday, the Duke of Cambridge quipped about his 'gang' of children during a chat with staff members of Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis' new £50k-a-year school as he dropped his children off for their first day yesterday.
The children attended a 'settling in afternoon' - an annual event to welcome new starters and their families to the school on the day before the new school term begins. The trio will officially start school today.
Arriving yesterday, the family strolled in a line, with Kate holding George and Louis' hands and William holding Charlotte's, to meet headmaster Jonathan Perry. 'Welcome to Lambrook,' Mr Perry told the children. 'It's lovely to have you with us. We're very excited for the year ahead.'
Shaking them each by the hand in turn, he asked 'Are you excited?' with all three chorusing 'Yes'. William remarked 'We're looking forward to it,' adding the children had 'lots of questions'.
The Duke and Duchess are beginning a new life in the country away from the goldfish bowl of their official London residence Kensington Palace which is being seen as a bid to put their children first and give them more freedom.
William and Kate had been known to have set their heart on outdoorsy prep school Lambrook, with its 52 acres of grounds, where fees will cost the couple in excess of £50,000 a year in total for their three youngsters.
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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)
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