I remember how it was -- JR
Ceasefire! School board members call a truce after a year of equity battles
After a year of fighting over equity policies following the election of four conservatives, the school board of an affluent Denver suburb is calling for unity.
CASTLE ROCK, Colo. – After a tumultuous year fraught with fights over equity, recall efforts, lawsuits and the contentious firing of the superintendent, a Denver suburb’s school board has made a push for unity for the sake of the community.
"I'm pleased the board has been able to come together on many important issues that are key and central for our students," Susan Meek, a director on the Douglas County Board of Education, told Fox News. "It's our job as board members to do everything possible to bring our community together."
Four conservative directors were elected in 2021 after running on platforms opposing the district’s newly imposed equity policy and its COVID-19 policies. But the board has encountered controversy after controversy since then.
"If you had to summarize why I ran in one little soundbite, it would be restoring parent role and voice in education," said Mike Peterson, the school board president and one of the conservatives elected last year. "Whatever we can do to make parents feel respected, heard and put them back in partnership with our teachers who also need to be respected and heard, I think it will be good for the district."
One thousand teachers walked out after the conservative members successfully voted to fire the superintendent, which came after the four had discussions behind closed doors. A judge, as a result, put an injunction against the four conservatives and required them to follow Colorado’s open meeting laws.
A recall effort was also launched.
"Our students deserve to be in a district where the community comes together regardless of the political affiliations," Meek told Fox News. "And unfortunately, that's something that our district has struggled with in the past decade or so, and partisan politics kind of seeping into the board elections."
Still, both Meek and Peterson both emphasized their commitment to moving forward and working together, though the two noted that split votes were ongoing.
"We have the humility to learn from the past, whether that's how certain things were done or to constantly evolve and reconsider what we can do better," Peterson said. "I think that's going to be the key to our success."
Earlier this year, the board came together to send two items to the November ballot: a $450 million bond to build, maintain and expand schools and a $60 million mill levy override — effectively a property tax increase — to give staff a raise. Though both measures failed, all seven campaigned for the initiatives.
"We've been able to find common ground on the board, and that's what we've been trying to emphasize," Peterson told Fox News. He said having a more normal school year after facing strict COVID-19 protocols has been particularly helpful.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ceasefire-school-board-members-call-truce-year-equity-battles
******************************************************University of California strike is massive example of how Golden State problems are warning to rest of nation
Once again, California is showing us the future — and it’s wracked with labor strife, high prices, government bloat and abject failure. And nowhere is this more apparent than in California’s government education system.
Some 48,000 unionized graduate student workers at 10 University of California campuses went on strike three weeks ago, demanding "significantly higher wages, expanded childcare subsidies, enhanced health coverage and other benefits," according to a CalMatters report.
Meanwhile, government elementary schools in the lockdown-happy state dominated by teachers unions saw math and reading test scores plummet.
These problems connect to the larger left-wing project across the nation, portending failure elsewhere.
In the 1970s, America saw a huge uptick in union strikes as double-digit inflation under President Jimmy Carter eroded wages. The higher wages won by unions in turn fed into more inflation since productivity gains didn’t cover the increase in pay. It was a vicious cycle that pushed some manufacturing to foreign lands.
California is seeing the same phenomenon, leading the nation with the largest strike this year due, in part, to it being America’s third-most-expensive state in which to live. It trails only Hawaii and Massachusetts, with prices for basic necessities like rent, gasoline, electricity and food averaging some 39% higher than the national average.
With inflation at 40-year highs, people are finding it harder to makes ends meet. As a result, labor strikes, like the one in the University of California system, will become more widespread.
The vaunted UC system employs 48,000 unionized students to teach, grade papers, and conduct research. That might make some wonder what it is exactly that tenured professors do all day other than dream up new woke nightmares to visit upon the nation in coming years. As underemployed as professors might be, university administrators are far less productive.
By 2014, administrators at UC campuses outnumbered faculty, having grown by 60% over a decade during which student enrollment increased by 22% and the number of faculty went up by 8%. A study at UC Berkeley found 11 layers of management with 471 managers in charge of just one person. The number of direct reports per supervisor in the private sector ranges from six to 11. There’s a good chance a few of those 471 managers are Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) chiefs with a social media assistant.
Is it any wonder that inflation-adjusted tuition at state-run universities almost tripled from 2000 to 2020?
This administrative bloat has been fed by virtually limitless federal student loans with almost 43 million borrowers now owing more than $1.7 trillion. According to Andrew Gillen, Ph.D., a senior policy analyst at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, the average student graduating with a bachelor’s degree carries almost $24,000 in debt.
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Regulator downgrades hundreds of outstanding schools in England
Most of the outstanding schools in England inspected last year have been downgraded, according to a report from the schools watchdog.
Some of them had not been looked at for 15 years and many would have experienced "significant change" such as new head teachers, Ofsted said.
But the National Education Union (NEU) said Ofsted's findings were "frequently unreliable".
The Department for Education said most schools remained good or outstanding.
Between 2012 and 2020, schools judged outstanding were revisited only if specific concerns were raised.
Ofsted said 80% of outstanding schools it had revisited last year had been downgraded - 308 primary and secondary schools.
Most were bumped down to good - but 17% were told they needed improvement and 4% were inadequate.
Are you affected by issues covered in this story? Get in touch.
David, a father from Middlesex who asked the BBC to use his first name only, said his son's secondary school was among those that had been downgraded.
He said the school was marked down for "trivial" things, such as selling Design and Technology equipment because of a lack of uptake in the subject - whereas academic attainment remained strong.
It made him question whether Ofsted's grading methods were "fit for purpose".
But Ofsted chief inspector Amanda Spielman said regular inspection gave parents "confidence in the quality of their child's school".
Ofsted said it had prioritised schools that had gone the longest without inspection, when it had been deciding which schools to look at last year.
On average, the schools it visited had not been inspected for 13 years - but some had gone as long as 15 without an inspection.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Ms Spielman said: "These are the schools that have gone longest without being inspected, so are probably slightly more likely not to remain outstanding."
She said it was important for parents to understand that most of the schools have remained "good", but said it was "concerning that quite a significant number have been marked as needing improvement".
There was no target for the number of outstanding schools, she said.
Asked later by MPs whether there had been too many outstanding ratings previously, Ms Spielman said: "The numbers had got very high, uncomfortably high." And the old system of inspections "perhaps looked more to process than substance
https://www.bbc.com/news/education-63713880?at_medium=RSS&
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