Mother who pulled kids from public school over woke curriculum says home-schooling produces 'amazing' results

A Texas mother of four shared her experience home-schooling three of her kids for the first time and the huge academic advancements they made in reading.

A Texas mom saw significant advancements in her children's reading levels after she switched them to home education over what she considered a woke curriculum being taught in the public school.

"They have done really well," a mother of four, Tara Carter, told Fox News. "The advances in reading have been amazing."

Average math scores saw the largest declines ever across every state, dropping five points for fourth graders and eight points for eighth graders from 2019 to 2022, according to the Nation's Report Card. Reading scores dropped to levels not seen since 1992, decreasing three points for both grades in two years and revealing significant proficiency setbacks during the COVID-19 pandemic.

But Carter's children have instead shown improvement this school year.

The twins "are reading way above their grade level," she said after a few months of home-schooling. "They're actually moving through it so fast that they're going to complete it before the end of the grade year, and they'll actually move up to the next level."

Carter pulled three of her kids – a kindergartner and twin first-graders – from public to home-school this year but allowed her ninth-grade daughter to attend high school with her friends. Her decision to switch to home-schooling derived from disagreements with the curriculum focusing on topics such as gender identity and sexual orientation rather than core subjects like math and language arts, Carter previously told Fox News.

Carter told Fox News her ability to give her kid's one-on-one instruction and move at their own pace helped their academic progress.

In public school classrooms, "there's so many children that they don't really get a whole lot of individual praise," Carter said. "I'm able to give that because I'm focused one child at a time."

Texas students pulled from public schools for home-schooling increased by 40% in spring 2021 compared to the previous year, according to the Texas Education Agency. Many families shifted to home education during the COVID-19 pandemic, but Carter previously told Fox News she believes some parents kept their kids at home to avoid classroom politicization and bias.

"I do not miss the school setting at all," Carter told Fox News. She said at-home learning helped their social-well being.

"I think it's so much better for the children," Carter continued. "Schools, I think, can really mess with children's mental health, between bullying and feeling like they're falling behind."

Based on the success of their first semester, Carter said she would continue to home-school her kids and recommended other parents consider the alternative.

"I've loved it and the kids have loved it," Carter told Fox News. "You do not have to be a genius or have a teaching degree to teach your kids."

https://www.foxnews.com/us/mother-pulled-kids-public-school-woke-curriculum-says-home-schooling-produces-amazing-results

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Virginia After School Satan club on hold for now

Over 60 Chesapeake, Virginia, community members gave their opinions on a proposed "Satan Club" during a school board meeting on Monday, while board members held off on voting on its approval, according to reports.

WAVY-TV reported that an application submitted to B.M. Williams Primary School last month was canceled last week after the club’s sponsor stepped down.

Lucien Greaves, is spokesman for The Satanic Temple, a group of political activists who identify themselves as a religious sect, are seeking to establish After-School Satan clubs as a counterpart to fundamentalist Christian Good News Clubs, which they see as the Religious Right to infiltrate public education, and erode the separation of church and state.

Lucien Greaves, is spokesman for The Satanic Temple, a group of political activists who identify themselves as a religious sect, are seeking to establish After-School Satan clubs as a counterpart to fundamentalist Christian Good News Clubs, which they see as the Religious Right to infiltrate public education, and erode the separation of church and state. (Photo by Josh Reynolds for The Washington Post via Getty Images)

The paperwork has been resubmitted by a new sponsor, though it is not clear whether the club is expected to start on Dec. 15 as originally intended.

June Everett, an ordained minister in The Satanic Temple is the campaign director for After School Satan Club, or ASSC.

The club is intended to foster creativity and promote empathy, according to Everett, and attempts to establish a constructive and positive alternative to other religious after school clubs.

Everett told Fox News Digital that she was first led to The Satanic Temple five years ago after her first-grader "was traumatized by his classmates on the playground one day, and they were attendees of the Good News Club that was taking place at the public elementary school he was attending at the time."

After picking her crying son up from school one day, he said other students told him if he did not accept Jesus Christ into his heart and start going to church, he was going to burn in hell.

This led Everett to seek alternatives to what was being offered to students.

On Monday, school board members did not vote on whether to allow the club, WAVY reported, but wanted to hear about the safety and concerns surrounding it.

A flyer on The Satanic Temple’s Facebook Page read, "The Satanic Temple is a non-theistic religion that views Satan as a literary figure who represents a metaphorical construct of rejecting tyranny and championing the human mind and spirit.

After School Satan Club does not attempt to convert children to any religious ideology. Instead, the Satanic Temple supports children to think for themselves."

Despite concerns from parents in the district who argue the club does not need to be in the elementary school where children are so young, lawyers said the school must make room for the club because of its affiliation with religion, tying it back to the First Amendment and freedom of speech.

Still, all students are required to have a parent-signed permissions slip to attend any after school program hosted by an outside organization

https://www.foxnews.com/us/virginia-school-satan-club-on-hold-now

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Australia: Time to end the arms race of early university offers

Australian universities have been major contributors to Australia’s human and social capital. The success and reach of their civic mission over the past 40 years are largely due to a highly effective response to three challenges of universal education: access, equity and excellence.

Some 1980s policy genius in the form of income-contingent loans for tuition costs (HECS) largely solved the issue of access by lowering barriers to entry. The related challenges of equity and excellence have been met with a history of university admission based on public examinations, common across all schools (the HSC) and recently coupled with school-based assessments, which are moderated to support fairness across the cohort.

This approach formed the basis for a predictable and transparent pathway to university for school leavers seeking that option. Evolved versions of HECS and the HSC are still with us, however, there is a major disruption afoot with the growing prevalence of early entry offers. Already, the signs are concerning.

This week, both the Higher School Certificate and ATAR scores (a creature of the university sector informed by HSC outcomes) will be released. They will be accompanied by an explosion in the number of early-entry offers to university for school leavers; thousands of these offers were issued months ago.

The consequences and scale of this unregulated practice are not well understood. There is no obligation on the universities to release early offer figures, indeed, many refuse such requests from the media.

Nearly 25,000 students have applied for early offers through the state’s admissions centre (UAC), and others applied directly to individual universities, meaning more than half of the school-leaver cohort could have an early offer of some form.

Post-COVID financial pressures are driving the university sector to increase enrolments and, in the competition to attract students, early offers have transformed from a “first mover” advantage into an arms race. While universities claim these schemes are “holistic” and reduce “exam stress”, the significant financial interest behind them is undeniable.

There might be some benefits to the early offer regime, but they appear to be tilted in favour of universities, they get the planning and operational certainty and income projection. The upside for the students is less clear, particularly in the case of unconditional or low-stake offers, which can come as early as April of year 12.

There are increasing reports that many students with early offers “check out” of their studies, lose motivation, or do not fully invest in final exams. This is not a helpful dynamic for either them or their peers without early offers, who need to remain fully applied. More broadly, has the question been asked: why condition students to a consequence-free examination season or assessment or desensitise them from the rigours of the learning experience?

Defenders of the open slather approach to early offers are often the harshest critics of ATAR, who cite wellbeing concerns to push back against assessments. Some early-offer programs ignore the ATAR entirely.

The early-offer university students will inevitably collide with reality and learn assessments and exams do matter and maybe their HSC-lite experience hasn’t really prepared them for the next step-up. Wait, what? I’m not getting an unconditional, early offer of graduation for my BA?

The critics of ATAR ignore the fact that it remains the most reliable available predictor of university performance. We know that the vast majority of school leavers still use ATAR in their university admissions and that ATAR remains a significant predictor of grades and completion rates.

Obviously, ATAR is an imperfect measure on its own, but there are already adjustment factors (formerly known as bonus points) as well as a host of scholarships (rural, ATSI, dux, financial hardship, etc.) designed to address its limitations.

The explosion in early offers has occurred without a clear rationale in support of students. To its credit, the NSW government has commissioned a review of early offers, with new guidelines being developed. Here are some suggestions. One, early offers should be required to be conditional; a minimum academic requirement is perfectly reasonable. Two, there should be a limit to just how early these early offers can be made (say, September). Three, early offers should be managed centrally through UAC rather than directly with individual universities, thereby allowing regulators to monitor the effects of the various schemes.

The HSC is a world-class credential designed for students pursuing university and vocational and employment pathways alike. Vice-chancellors should respect its role and, more broadly, the symbiotic relationship between schools and universities. All early offers might have a place but, in the meantime, we need to insist on more transparency and standardisation.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/wait-what-i-m-not-getting-an-unconditional-early-offer-of-graduation-for-my-ba-20221212-p5c5q2.html

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http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

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