Friday, January 07, 2022



Statistics Show America’s Education System Is Failing: CRT and Lower Expectation Equals Fewer Literate Graduates, Expert Says

According to government statistics, America’s education system is failing. According to one expert, lower expectations and the shift in focus from academic excellence in mathematics, science, reading, and history toward the implementation of social constructs like critical race theory equals fewer literate graduates.

“Public records and other evidence show that state-level and some local education officials are no longer focused on maintaining high academic standards and providing the best public education possible to students,” Liv Finne wrote in her September 2021 report (pdf) regarding the lowering of academic standards by school officials in Washington state as they implement CRT. “Instead, a concern for learning has been replaced by an aggressive political agenda designed to instill doubt, mental pain and low expectations in students. This race-centered agenda also seeks to divide children from teachers, their own communities and from each other. This harmful trend can only be resolved through policies that return high-quality academic standards to public education and well-funded and supportive education-choice programs that allow families to access alternatives services to meet the learning needs of all children.”

Finne, a former adjunct scholar now serving as Director of the Center for Education at Washington Policy Center, has been analyzing education policy for the past 13 years. Her research suggests the unmistakable decline in the literacy of America’s students from fourth to twelfth grade is a direct result of the shift from academic excellence toward social constructs such as CRT.

“Internationally, we do pretty well at the fourth grade,” Finne told The Epoch Times, “but we decline from there.” Recent statistics support her claim.

Government data for 2019 shows the average fourth grader has a 41 percent proficiency level in mathematics. By the eighth grade, the proficiency level drops to 34 percent. By the twelfth grade, America’s students have an average math proficiency level of only 24 percent. In reading, fourth graders have an average proficiency rate of 35 percent. By eighth grade, the proficiency level drops to 34 percent, and by the twelfth grade, America’s average student shows only a slight proficiency improvement to 37 percent. In writing, the proficiency levels are 28 percent in fourth grade with eighth and twelfth graders sharing a score of 27 percent.

America’s students fare worse in science, with fourth-graders having only a 36 percent proficiency rate and eighth-graders dropping to 35 percent. Twelfth-graders have only a 22 rate of proficiency in science. The worst scores come in history, with fourth-graders starting out with only 20 percent proficiency and dropping to 15 percent by the eighth grade. By grade 12, America’s students have a paltry 12 percent proficiency level in history.

Recent numbers from USA Facts show similar results.

According to Finne, there are a number of reasons for the steady decline in literacy among America’s students the longer they remain in school. Number one is “the low expectations we have of our teachers.”

The Shortage of Qualified Teachers
“We don’t expect our teachers to be particularly well educated and they are not trained to teach the science of reading,” Finne said. “So basically, we have a public school system that is negligently instructing children how to read, and it’s been going on for decades.”

Conversely, teachers blame other factors for the academic decline among America’s students.

According to a March 2021 report (pdf) by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the decline in academic achievement begins with the shortage of teachers. This shortage has triggered a domino effect, forcing principals to hire less qualified teachers or unqualified substitute teachers, which leaves students receiving instructions from teachers who lack sufficient skills and knowledge, which inevitably leads to poor levels of proficiency in basic subject matter. A May 2019 EPI study (pdf) showed nearly 30 percent of the teachers blamed low academic achievement on students “coming to school unprepared to learn.” Nearly 22 percent of teachers blamed parents who “are struggling to be involved” in their children’s education.

“More than one in five teachers (21.8 percent) report that they have been threatened and one in eight (12.4 percent) say they have been physically attacked by a student at their current school,” the 2019 report stated further. “Compounding the stress, teachers report a level of conflict with—and lack of support from—administrators and fellow teachers, and little say in their work. More than two-thirds of teachers report that they have less than a great deal of influence over what they teach in the classroom (71.3 percent) and what instructional materials they use (74.5 percent), which suggests low respect for their knowledge and judgment.”

Linda Darling-Hammond of Stanford University School of Education blames inequity of funding and resource allocation for the low scholastic skills of America’s students, insisting that the analyses of recent data reveal that “on every tangible measure—from qualified teachers to curriculum offerings—schools serving greater numbers of students of color had significantly fewer resources than schools serving mostly white students.” Darling-Hammond further suggests that “policies associated with school funding, resource allocations, and tracking leave minority students with fewer and lower-quality books, curriculum materials, laboratories, and computers; significantly larger class sizes; less qualified and experienced teachers; and less access to high-quality curriculum.”

Finne suggested another reason why the system doesn’t correct itself is that the education system is a monopoly run by the government and there’s no way to hold the system accountable for results. “We have tried for 40 years, since the report during the Reagan years—A Nation at Risk—revealed we were in real trouble in our education system,” Finne said.

Since then, Finne said other top-down efforts like Common Core, pushed by the Obama administration, also failed. Rather than improving education, the testing standards set by Common Core actually furthered illiteracy because those standards were “based on good intentions” and policies “to make everyone feel good, but they failed because it’s based on a government monopoly system that ultimately degrades the quality of education.”

Lowering the Academic Achievement Bar

Rather than develop curriculum that provides students with the qualifications needed to graduate high school, Finne says the education system has opted to lower the bar of academic standards.

“They’re lowering the bar in a couple of ways,” Finne explained. “Like the Ethnic Studies framework passed by the State of Washington in 2019, critical race theory concepts are now woven into the learning standards of all of the different subjects.”

As Finne explains, traditional educational standards have been reorganized into systems of oppression and the whole CRT construct—a “false philosophy from radical professors in higher education” is now being “imposed as the truth” in the standards of learning in K-12 schools.

“When you take attention away from the basics, and focus on teaching this ideology, you’re going to get a lowered level of knowledge and skill acquisition of the basics in reading, math, history, and science; not to mention learning falsehoods in history like the 1619 Project,” Finne insisted. “It’s astonishing.”

Finne also cited the movement to get rid of testing.

“I see the state board of education is now working on eliminating the need for tests,” Finne noted, and while she is not a big proponent of testing and believes students are currently being “over-tested,” she believes the elimination of all testing would be a disaster because we would not know which kids are falling behind and we would lose the proof that the current standards are failing.

Finne explained that one of the things the top-down reforms did was to require state tests to measure student knowledge in math, reading, and science. Those tests revealed a huge academic achievement gap of 20 to 30 points between white and Asian students and those of black, Hispanic, and Native American children.

“So, the CRT concepts come along by virtue of the radicals,” Finne said. “Educators no longer learn how to teach reading writing and science. They learn how to teach social justice to the children. So, their priorities have been turned completely upside down. We’re not focused on teaching children who aren’t doing well in schools to a higher level. We’re lowering the bar.”

According to Finne’s September 2021 (pdf) report for Washing Policy Center, the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction in Washington State is now in the process of lowering learning standards in the areas of English language arts, history, social studies, math, and science, and replacing them with standards that “incorporate best practices in Ethnic Studies.” They are also developing Ethnic Studies materials for K-12 grades. The decision follows Washington State Governor Jay Inslee’s signing of SB 5044 J (pdf) in April, which requires CRT training for all school staff, board directors, teachers, and administrators in public schools across the state. Earlier, in 2019, the legislature voted to weaken the official definition of “Basic Education” by shifting learning resources away from core academic standards to “producing global citizens in a global society with an appreciation for diverse cultures.”

According to Finne, the new push by the school system to abandon efforts of academic achievement and shift toward social constructs like CRT is an effort to hide the fact that they have failed in their jobs to educate our children

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UK: Keep schools open by merging classes, Nadhim Zahawi tells head teachers

Head teachers should send groups of children home and merge classes if necessary to keep schools open, Nadhim Zahawi has said.

All secondary school pupils in England will be expected to wear facemasks in classrooms as well as communal areas once schools reopen from Tuesday.

Critics including Robert Halfon, chairman of the education select committee, said that masks could be damaging to children and questioned whether their reintroduction was necessary but scientists argued there was no evidence of their use harming pupils.

Teaching unions and some primary school heads said that more was needed to make schools safe amid the Omicron wave.

Schools start reopening from tomorrow and all secondary pupils are expected to take lateral flow tests on site before rejoining lessons

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Woke Arizona State University students accuse college of 'persecuting' THEM after they were reprimanded for making two white students leave campus multicultural space

A pair of Arizona State University students have unleashed a nine minute diatribe after they were disciplined for taunting two white male students who entered the college's multicultural space.

On Monday, Mastaani Qureshi, an undergraduate and Sarra Tekola a graduate student posted a video on social media alleging ASU had carried out an investigation into their actions and called for them to write a three-page paper over the September 2021 incident.

In the video posted in response to the University's punishment Qureshi and Tekola claim the investigation into their actions was 'racially biased' adding they were 'forced to confront these men', because, in their view, the ASU faculty allegedly refused to answer their cries for help.

'Dear White People, A.K.A. ASU — You openly discriminated against us on November 16 when you handed down your decision from your racially biased investigation,' Qureshi said.

'We're being persecuted for defending our multicultural center from racism and sexism … ASU is a violent place.'

In September 2021, the women filmed themselves rounding on the two white men who they claim were taunting them by wearing an anti-Biden shirt, toting a Chick-Fil-A cup, and using a laptop with a pro-police sticker.

Qureshi and Tekola have now lashed out after they were punished for taking it upon themselves to ask the white students to leave for what they claim was 'racist' and 'offensive' stickers and a t-shirt.

In their latest video, they condemned being ordered to write up how 'next time, when they talk with white people about race and society they will be civil' and to reflect on how they might deal with a similar situation in the future and 'facilitate a civil dialogue' about the purposes of a multicultural space.

In its ruling the university wrote that to the pair that it 'expects that such dialogues will be both respectful toward other parties and mindful of the setting in which they occur.

'In this instance, the confrontation captured on video was not respectful dialogue, and its heated nature in an enclosed space where numerous other students were studying caused disruption to their activities as well as to the previously quiet study activities of the students who you confronted.'

Despite their penalty it was clear from their response on Instagram the pair did not agree with the university's findings and are unlikely to write a paper on how they might respond in the future.

'ASU does not recognize the difference between equity and equality and refuses to center the most marginalized,' Tekola ranted. Equality means offering everyone the same opportunity, while equity - which has been co-opted by woke campaigners in recent years - means ensuring everyone achieves the same outcome.

Tekola then spoke up arguing asking 'students of color' to be more civil in the face of alleged 'white supremacy and neo-Nazism' is 'actually violent.'

The pair also claim to have been on the receiving end of 'rape, death and lynching threats' on social media and are now suffering from 'emotional and psychological violence' since their first video went viral.

Qureshi and Tekola concluded their video by asserting ASU to be number one at 'ignoring marginalized students.'

'ASU refuses to protect students of color, and the world needs to know how they treat us here on this campus when we push to make it a better place for all,' Tekola said in a statement.

Tekola and Qureshi are ASU students and organizers of the Multicultural Solidarity Coalition, a student-run organization not affiliated with the University that had been advocating for the development of a multicultural space since 2015.

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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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Thursday, January 06, 2022



Tennessee College Offers $3k Incentive to Professors Teaching DEI

The University of Memphis told its professors that they could receive $3,000 stipends for “infusing” diversity, equity, inclusion and social justice into their curricula as part of the university’s “Eradicating Systemic Racism and Promoting Social Justice Initiative.”

That comes from an email sent to the faculty and obtained by the Washington Fee Beacon, which reported that:

The University of Memphis told faculty they could collect a $3,000 stipend for redesigning their curricula to align with the university’s commitment to “diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice,” according to an email sent to all faculty obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. The offer is part of the university’s “Eradicating Systemic Racism and Promoting Social Justice Initiative.”

Interested faculty are asked to submit a copy of syllabi to be reworked as well as a 500-word “narrative” on their “diversity, equity, and inclusion philosophy” and how the new lessons will “address disparities” in their subject area.

The email itself states:

The Eradicating Systemic Racism and Promoting Social Justice Initiative at the University of Memphis is offering an opportunity for interested faculty to critically consider methods and approaches to redesign existing courses housed within their departments to better advance the tenets and charge of the University’s commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Social Justice. This announcement offers a competitive grant opportunity designed to support faculty who are interested in redesigning and aligning existing course syllabi with the goals established by the workgroup entitled, Infusing Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Social Justice into Existing Courses/Curriculum.

Further, the email describes the objectives of the DEI program as:

Integrate culture and climate as supports to curriculum content, methods, and teaching and learning
Accumulate and disseminate models for curriculum self-assessment, program planning and continuous learning

So, by infusing their classrooms with leftist talking points, teachers will get a total of $3,000, with $1,500 being paid when they redesign their lesson plan and another $1,500 when they teach the politics-infused, woke classes.

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Yale Bans Students From Eating OUTDOORS At Local Restaurants

When the wealthy and connected consider what universities they would be open to sending their children to, Yale is probably part of the conversations.

With an average annual cost of $79,370, the qualities the students bring to them include reasoning and critical thinking. Yet with all of this being said, Yale is treating their students as part of the collective instead of individuals this semester.

Students at Yale University will be banned from patronizing local businesses and restaurants over COVID-19 concerns, despite the school mandating booster shots to attend.

The Ivy League university – which has 58 percent of students living in on-campus housing – made the announcement in an email Tuesday afternoon.

Yale Daily News reported the university’s new policy in a tweet. It is part of the school’s campus-wide quarantine, in effect until Feb. 7, and requires students to stay in their residences “until they receive results of an arrival test.”

The university announced the quarantine last month and will hold remote classes for two weeks until the quarantine is lifted.

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What Bullying Teacher Wrote On A Student’s Homework Had Everyone Seeing Red!

It’s critical for teachers to educate students to avoid bullying or be involved in anything related to bullying is absolutely wrong.

But what happened in Valley View school is something bothering me as a parent.

Chris Piland, a father of a student from the said school has initiated a petition to fire his son’s teacher for harsh and un-motivational comment that will surely affect his son’s self-esteem.

The teacher has been reportedly giving her second-grade students the task of solving many subtraction problems that is equivalent to year 3 within a three-minute time frame.

Kamdyn, the student who was harshly criticized by the teacher received his test with a comment written, “Absolutely pathetic he answered 13 in 3 min! Sad” accompanied by a drawing of a sad face.

Because of Piland’s infuriation, he was able to gather 15,000 signatures seeking to terminate the teacher’s action.

He posted a picture of his son’s homework and captioned it with, “My son Kamdyn’s teacher has been so rude to him and myself all year. He comes home with this and I am beyond frustrated that someone would write this on a child’s work. Such great motivation.”

“Thanks to all the efforts and support of the dedicated people who signed and shared this petition, I’m happy to announce that the teacher in question is currently being investigated by the Valley View school board,” He added.

It was already bad to witness students bully another student but it is a new level when the teacher initiates the bullying in her class.

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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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Wednesday, January 05, 2022


Fauci Says Its 'Safe Enough' for Schools to Reopen While Teachers Unions Push for School Closures

White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci on Sunday expressed support for children returning to classrooms following the holiday break, putting him at odds with some teachers unions who wish to keep schools closed because of what they see as safety concerns over the rise in coronavirus cases.

Fauci said during an appearance on ABC's "This Week" with host George Stephanopoulos that, while there is a recent surge in cases due to the highly infectious omicron variant of the coronavirus, he supports reopening schools for in-person learning because students have suffered the negative impacts of attending school online instead of in-person, there are high vaccinations rates among teachers and children five and up are eligible for the vaccine.

"When we've done the balance so many times over the last year about the deleterious effects of keeping children out of in physical presence in the school, and it's very clear that there are some really serious effects about that," Fauci said. "If you look at the safety of children with regard to infection, we have most of the teachers, [an] overwhelming majority of them are vaccinated. We now can vaccinate children from 5 years of age and older."

"I plead with parents to please seriously consider vaccinating your children, wearing masks in the school setting, doing test-to-stay approaches when children get infected," he continued. "I think all those things put together, it's safe enough to get those kids back to school, balanced against the deleterious effects of keeping them out."

Fauci's comments come as some teachers unions are ramping up the pressure on schools to delay a return to in-person learning amid surging COVID infections caused by omicron.

American Federation of Teachers in Massachusetts president Beth Kontos said in a statement released Friday that "Massachusetts public school students and their families have struggled with the uncertainty and anxiety of the COVID pandemic for two years" and that they "have the right to know that after the holiday break they are returning to safe schools."

Kontos said, "Given the ever-increasing infection rate and the virulent behavior of the current COVID strain, we know they will not" be returning to safe schools.

The teachers union president also said the "tests provided by the state allow for testing of all teachers and staff, and that should proceed," and added that such tests "should then be followed by a period of remote learning until the current wave of infections abates."

"This is not the time for finger pointing," Kontos continued. "It is time for Governor Baker and Commission Reilly to accept the fact that we are in the midst of a runaway public health crisis that is beyond our control. They must acknowledge that returning students to school on Monday will inevitably make the crisis much worse."

And Chicago Teachers Union members indicated last week that the organization may strike if their demands for negative COVID tests for all students as a prerequisite to return to school after the holiday break or a two-week remote learning period are not met.

More than 90 percent of the union's members voted for a "remote-work action" for the first week after winter break if Chicago Public Schools "doesn't call for a period of remote instruction after winter break," a Wednesday news release from CTU President Jesse Sharkey revealed.

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Wokeism Ended His Father’s Teaching Career. Now, This Teacher Has a Warning for Other Educators

It was 9 o’clock on a Wednesday night. Albert Paulsson, who teaches high school civics in New Jersey, had finished another long day in class. He sounded tired when he answered my call.

“Is this still a good time to talk?” I asked. Paulsson assured me it was.

He wanted to share some concerns over what he sees happening in public education–concerns about students being fed one-sided, woke perspectives and narrow definitions of words such as “equity” and “diversity.”

But most of all, Paulsson, 49, wanted to tell me about his father, Martin Paulsson, who was his inspiration for becoming a teacher. The elder Paulsson, however, wound up a victim of the politically correct culture that now dominates education.

Martin Paulsson, born in 1942, put himself through school at Trenton State College in New Jersey, graduating in 1967. He decided to teach history and went on to earn his master’s degree and doctorate in history from Rutgers University.

He taught at a local public school in New Jersey and was a professor at a couple of colleges in the state over the course of a nearly 50-year teaching career.

Albert Paulsson says that for his father, teaching was far more than a job.

“What mattered most to my dad was helping other kids, especially those who were from disadvantaged backgrounds,” he told me.

His father taught high school students for about 40 years and gravitated toward the children “who really needed to be uplifted,” he said.

Growing up, Paulsson remembers, his father supported his students and often took time to talk with them or simply be a listening ear.

When he died in 2020, many former students sent letters to Paulsson, expressing how much his father had meant to them.

“You were like a second father to many,” one wrote.

Another student from the class of 1977 said Martin Paulsson was “one of the best teachers I ever had,” and detailed his influence:

I distinctly remember his Bill Buckley perspectives [that] he brought to challenge us to think, to opine, and to argue our points with as much clarity and forcefulness as we could. He tied current events in with history, got everybody involved and helped us all see that all opinions matter, just so long as you could back it up. He was always energetic and positive and there is at least this one guy who has had a better life because of his presence.

After Martin Paulsson retired from teaching high school in 1998, he continued teaching history at a local New Jersey college. That’s where the veteran teacher first experienced the effects of woke cancel culture.

Here is how his son recounted the story:

In 2017, the elder Paulsson had a student in his world history class who was a particularly excellent writer. Her work stood out among other students, and he read one of her papers aloud to his class to highlight the quality of her writing.

The pair developed a wonderful relationship as teacher and pupil, Paulsson said, and they would joke with one another often in good fun.

The student “would tease him once in a while and call him ‘a crazy old white guy’ and he would tease her back,” the son recalled.

“It was this endearing sort of teasing, of just having a good time, because it [was] a relationship of trust and they really thought the world of each other,” he said.

At the end of the semester, the student again wrote an excellent paper. The professor congratulated her and teased: “Not bad for a girl.”

The two laughed because “that was their relationship,” Paulsson said. But sitting a couple seats over was a student majoring in gender studies who did not find the comment funny. This student reported Paulsson’s father to school administrators.

The college didn’t take any disciplinary action, but the incident was noted in his father’s file, he said.

The following semester, the elder Paulsson again was teaching a history course; an African American student in his class aspired to become a history teacher himself. The student visited the professor on occasion during office hours to talk about teaching. The two developed a good relationship.

One day, Paulsson’s father was teaching the class about groups that form or emerge in society to push back on certain norms. He gave the example of the organization Black Lives Matter and asked the African American student if he would share a little bit about his own experience as a young black man in America.

The student shared some thoughts and seemed pleased to have the opportunity to do so, Paulsson said.

But another student in class didn’t find it appropriate for a white teacher to ask a black student to share his experiences. The professor again was reported.

The college gave Paulsson’s father a choice between resigning or taking a semester off and completing “cultural sensitivity” training, at the end of which he would appear before a panel to be questioned.

“My father, at that point, he was just exhausted,” Paulsson said, as well as “demoralized by it.”

The professor chose to end his 50-year teaching career in 2018.

Martin Paulsson died in April 2020, a little over a year after he stopped teaching.

His father’s final year of life was hard, Paulsson said, because he no longer had “that stimulation and that sense of connection, that love and passion he had for teaching, that was taken away from him.”

“Because students are now being conditioned to basically look at the world based on their feelings, if something is disagreeable to their emotional well-being, well, then it’s unacceptable and therefore it has to be eliminated or in some way silenced,” he said.

The younger Paulsson has taught for 23 years and currently teaches Advanced Placement government, economics, and a course on the Constitution at a public high school in New Jersey. He says he is concerned that woke culture, long present on college campuses, is now trickling down to high schools.

“Teachers and students across the country don’t feel comfortable sharing certain things, certain opinions, certain perspectives,” Paulsson said, adding that he thinks this is a sign that “our education system is deteriorating.”

Paulsson says he is careful not to share his political views with students because he feels it would be unfair to them. But students have told him that he is the exception because most teachers are overt about their political views.

Students have thanked him for allowing a variety of views to be expressed in his classroom, Paulsson told me.

Last summer, Paulsson attended a workshop for teachers in his school district. One of the slides presented contained a quote from the late Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, a known Marxist, in essence claiming that there is no such thing as an apolitical classroom.

Paulsson says his concern is that teachers now are encouraged to be activists instead of educators. Words such as “diversity, inclusion, and equity” are manipulated in schools to push an agenda, he said.

“What concerns me is how … so much of the material that’s given to teachers is really just focused on this sort of postmodern state of society,” Paulsson said, adding:

We must be honest about the past. But then we need to build from that to work together to establish bonds of affection and trust for each other, to recognize our common humanity and the dignity of each individual. And to continue to move toward a more perfect union. Yet, so much that is being pushed is going to erode all of that. Theories that are being presented as truth serve to divide, polarize, and condition contempt for concepts like merit and historical figures like Abraham Lincoln.

To prevent other teachers from suffering the same fate as Martin Paulsson, there must be a shift in the education system.

The focus of education, his son says, should be ensuring that “each and every student has access and opportunity to fully develop their potential.”

It’s time to return to that focus, he said.

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12-year-old girl who earned her high school diploma at age NINE graduates from COLLEGE with a 4.0 GPA - becoming the youngest-ever person to get a degree from her Florida school

A 12-year-old girl who earned her high school diploma at age nine has become the youngest student to graduate from Broward College in the school's 61-year history.

Sawsan Ahmed of Weston, Florida, graduated from the college in Fort Lauderdale with an associate's degree with a concentration in biological science on December 15 after earning a 4.0 GPA.

The pre-teen will continue her education this spring at the University of Florida, where she plans to study computer programming, chemistry, and biology.

'Their courses with Python programming through biology really caught my interest,' Sawsan told ABC News. 'It's an amazing place for really studying those topics so it's really cool that I was accepted I get to go there next semester.'

The pre-teen's family realized she was gifted academically when she advanced to a curriculum that was several years ahead of her grade level while she was being homeschooled.

Sawsan’s mother, Jeena Santos Ahmed, told the news outlet that her daughter has been in charge of her education from day one, saying they did their best to encourage her interests.

'We talked to her about new developments that we read about, we let her listen to NPR and learn about new scientific discoveries,' she said.

Sawsan was just nine when she earned her high school diploma and passed the Postsecondary Education Readiness Test (PERT), a placement test that Florida uses to determine whether a student is ready for college-level course work.

By the time she was 10, she was attending in-person classes at Broward College. She started with one class per semester to give herself time to adjust to the more advanced curriculum, but she quickly excelled.

'At the very beginning, everyone was helping me, calling me "honey," "sweetie," things like that," she recalled of the students in her science lab. 'But by the end of the semester, all of the other students were asking me for help on questions.'

After the COVID-19 pandemic led to her extracurricular activities being moved online or canceled, she had more free time to take multiple college classes at once.

Sawsan and her family found out she was accepted into the University of Florida last summer. Her father, Wesam Ahmed, a physician at the Cleveland Clinic’s cancer center in Abu Dhabi, would like to see her enter the field of medicine one day.

During the pandemic, she was able to take multiple classes at once as she worked towards her associate's degree +8
During the pandemic, she was able to take multiple classes at once as she worked towards her associate's degree

'Physicians like my dad save lives one at a time, but if I invented technology that can work in medicine it could save many lives at once,' she said.

The college student explained that she is inspired by strong women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), saying Andrea Gellatly — a biomedical engineer and team leader on the competition series Battlebots — is one of her role models.

When she's not studying science, she enjoys art, music, watching Disney movies, and playing video games, just like any other kid her age.

Sawsan hasn't even started classes at the University of Florida yet, but she already has big plans for her future. After receiving her bachelor's degree, she would like to earn a medical degree or doctorate.

'Shoot for the stars and don't underestimate yourself,' she advised. 'That mentality is what brought me here.'

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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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Tuesday, January 04, 2022



Oklahoma Proposes Bill That Would Allow Parents to Remove Sexually Graphic Books From School Libraries

The bill, Senate Bill 1142, would give parents a right to ask for the removal of “books that are of a sexual nature that a reasonable parent or legal guardian would want to know of or approve of prior to their child being exposed to it,” according to the bill’s language.

“No public school district, public charter school, or public school library shall maintain in its inventory or promote books that make as their primary subject the study of sex, sexual preferences, sexual activity, sexual perversion, sex-based classifications, sexual identity, or gender identity,” the bill says.

If a student’s parent or legal guardian believes a public school library is maintaining books in violation of the bill, they would be able to submit a written request to the school district superintendent or charter school administrator to remove the books from the library, if the bill passes, and such books would need to be removed within 30 days of the request.

If the books are not removed within 30 days of the request, the responsible school employee would be “dismissed or not reemployed” and “be prohibited from being employed by a public school district or public charter school for a period of two (2) years,” if the bill passes.

Additionally, if the bill passes and a book meeting the above conditions is not removed, a parent or legal guardian could seek monetary damages, including a minimum of $10,000 each day the book requested for removal is not taken off of school library shelves. “This act shall become effective July 1, 2022,” the bill says.

The debate about whether or not books featuring sexual themes belong in school libraries has been ongoing in school districts across the country.

In Virginia, Stacy Langton, a Fairfax County Public Schools mother, complained to the school board about two books featuring child pornography and pedophilia available to young teenagers at school libraries. After reviewing the books, Fairfax County Public Schools decided to put the two books back on library shelves as part of what it said is an “ongoing commitment to provide diverse reading materials.”

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Why are COVID restrictions tightening like a noose around what's left of millions of American childhoods

It felt – for a fleeting moment – that 2022 was dawning into a new reality. Maybe, just maybe, we could learn to live our normal lives amid the COVID pandemic. Adults would return to work, and children would return to school.

The CDC announced new guidelines recommending that people can return to public life following a positive COVID diagnosis, after just five days of isolation (instead of ten) if they were symptom free.

But it was not to be.

On Sunday, Dr. Anthony Fauci said the CDC is considering updated--updated guidance requiring Americans to test COVID negative before exiting the newly shortened virus isolation.

And as usual -- the kids get it the worst.

Perfectly healthy children - those least at risk of serious illness and death - are watching their lives slide back towards March of 2020.

Schools around the country are either announcing closures, or a one or two day 'break' to do COVID testing on their entire student and teacher population before returning to in-person learning.

In the nation's capital, negative tests are required for all students to return to class after winter break.

Schools in New Brunswick, New Jersey; Madison, Wisconsin; and Charles county, Maryland have all decided to start the new term virtually – just to name a few.

The requirement from both public and private schools to test before returning to class has clogged testing sites across the country and sent emergency rooms into overload as people request testing there.

The sudden new testing requirements and surprise closures even sparked a surprisingly amount of left-wing outrage.

'Parents in NYC public schools are being asked to try to get our children tested b4 returning to school tomorrow. This is an abject failure. If the city wanted testing, they should have provided home tests before the holiday or rapid testing for every student at the door tomorrow,' tweeted author of the 1619 Project, Hannah Nikole-Jones on Sunday.

'What the [f***]? School was already set to be closed Monday and Tuesday, but now due to snow on Monday they are also closing on Wednesday???' tweeted liberal journalist Matthew Yglesias, who was triggered by a DC storm extending his neighborhood school's temporarily closure for testing.

And if you think that these closures will last for just a few days or weeks, I've got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn and it's called 'Two Weeks to Stop the Spread.'

We're able to live our lives: go to sporting events, the gym, restaurants and parties, but our children continue to be yanked in and out of school and subjected to onerous rules.

Many in public health (most notably Dr. Leana Wen, a CNN medical analyst, emergency physician and visiting professor of health policy and management at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health) now say that cloth masks are useless.

So are schools are changing their masking regulations? Are they coming to the realization that they have been operating safely for a year with nothing more than 'facial decorations,' as Dr. Wen called cloth masks?

As restrictions on adults loosen, they tighten like a noose around what's left of millions of American childhoods.

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UK: Backlash against face masks in secondary schools as Covid cases ease

Plans to force children to wear face masks in secondary schools were hit by a backlash on Sunday night as figures showed a fall in the number of new Covid cases.

Tory MPs, a government scientific adviser, charities and parents' groups warned of the long-term impact of masks on children's mental health and said restrictions must be balanced against the risks of the virus.

It came as data showed that new cases in England dropped by almost a quarter on Sunday after five days of successive rises. Daily Covid hospital admissions also fell by a quarter in two days, declining from 2,370 on Wednesday to 1,781 on Friday.

Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader, said the data showed imposing face masks in classrooms was "premature", while David Jones, a former minister, urged a rethink. Prof Russell Viner, a Sage adviser, called for the order to be kept under constant review because masks impact young people's ability to learn and socialise.

Dame Rachel de Souza, the Children's Commissioner for England, said it was "concerning" that pupils were being asked to wear masks to school when the same was not expected of adults going to work.

Jo Campion, the deputy director of advocacy at the National Deaf Children's Society, said the return of masks would "fill thousands of deaf students with dread" as it made lip reading impossible, and Molly Kingsley, the founder of the parent campaign group UsForThem, said children need "an unrestricted, normal school life".

On Sunday night, government sources confirmed that there was likely to be a statement to the Commons on the latest rules when MPs return on Wednesday.

Both Sir Iain and Mr Jones rebelled against the Government on Covid restrictions last month, when Boris Johnson faced the biggest Commons revolt of his premiership. The latest masks move risks further backbench anger, although there will not be an opportunity for a formal rebellion because it is guidance, not law – meaning it will not be put to a vote.

However, concerns are likely to be fuelled after unions warned that the measures would not be enough to prevent "inevitable" disruption to education, with staff sickness levels likely to mean classes, and in some cases entire schools, are sent home.

In a letter to schools, Nadhim Zahawi, the Education Secretary, urged retired teachers to return to the classroom to cover any shortages, while officials told schools to consider measures such as combining classrooms.

A government source said on Sunday: "Nobody in the Government wants to see children wear masks for a day longer than necessary, which is why we have built review points into this guidance."

The measure is set to be re-examined on Jan 26, along with other Plan B rules that are expected to be rolled over at the first review point this Wednesday. The insider said the "time-limited decision" had been made to help keep schools open and children in classrooms.

It came as the latest figures for England showed 123,547 cases reported on Sunday, falling from 162,572 the day before – a 24 per cent drop and the first after five days of rises.

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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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Monday, January 03, 2022



NY School Replaced Popular Christmas Song 'Jingle Bells' Over Racist Origins

A New York state public school did not sing the Christmas song, "Jingle Bells," due to its origins being linked to 19th-century minstrel shows in which white people wore blackface.

Council Rock Primary School replaced the Christmas classic with other songs that did not have "the potential to be controversial or offensive," principal Matt Tappon told the Rochester Beacon, which first broke the story on Dec. 23.

Tappon and other school staff confirmed to the local paper that the decision to nix the song was based, in part, on a 2017 article by professor Kyna Hamill, director of Boston University’s Core Curriculum, who detailed her research into the origins of "Jingle Bells," its composer, James L. Pierpont, and other mid-19th century songs about sleighs.

She obtained documents revealing that the song’s first public performance may have been in 1857 at a Boston minstrel show, a type of entertainment at the time that included white performers sporting blackface.

Hamill, however, does not believe her findings should have led to the school replacing the song.

When informed by the Beacon that her research was partly the reason why the school removed the song, she said that she was "quite shocked the school would remove the song from the repertoire" and that she did not recommend that it stop being sung by children.

"My article tried to tell the story of the first performance of the song, I do not connect this to the popular Christmas tradition of singing the song now," Hamill said.

"The very fact of (“Jingle Bells’”) popularity has to do (with) the very catchy melody of the song, and not to be only understood in terms of its origins in the minstrel tradition. … I would say it should very much be sung and enjoyed, and perhaps discussed," she continued.

Brighton Central School District Superintendent Kevin McGowan addressed the decision on Dec. 28, writing in a letter posted to the district’s website that "we couldn’t be more proud of our staff and the work they continue to do to reflect on what they teach and how they teach in an ongoing effort to be more culturally responsive, thoughtful, and inclusive."

"Choosing songs other than 'Jingle Bells' wasn’t a major policy initiative, a 'banning' of the song or some significant change to a concert repertoire done in response to a complaint," McGowan wrote. "This wasn’t 'liberalism gone amok' or 'cancel culture at its finest' as some have suggested. Nobody has said you shouldn’t sing 'Jingle Bells' or ever in any way suggested that to your children. I can assure you that this situation is not an attempt to push an agenda."

"We were not and are not even discussing the song and its origins, whatever they may be," he continued. "This was very simply a thoughtful shift made by thoughtful staff members who thought they could accomplish their instructional objective using different material. The change in material is also not something being forced on children or propaganda being spread. The teachers have never taught about the song in any way when it was being used then or in the midst of deciding not to use it."

McGowan also wrote that the first performance of 'Jingle Bells' occurred in minstrel shows where white actors wore blackface "does actually matter when it comes to questions of what we use as material in school."

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UK: Group of girls’ schools says they will not accept transgender pupils and 'jeopardise' their status as single-sex institutions

The Girls’ Day School Trust (GDST), which represents 23 private schools as well as two academies, updated its gender identity policy guidance document last month to include a new section on admissions.

It is rare for a group of single-sex schools to take a public position on the issue of admissions, and it could pave the way to others to follow suit.

The guidance states that GDST schools do not accept applications from pupils who are legally male, even if they identify as female.

Having an admissions policy based on “gender identity rather than the legal sex recorded on a student’s birth certificate would jeopardise the status of GDST schools as single-sex schools” under the Equality Act, it says.

A female pupil who begins to transition while already at school should be supported to remain at the school for as long as they wish to do so, it adds.

Updated guidance

The guidance, first published in 2016, was updated and shared with member schools just before the Christmas break. The GDST said that they always keep their policies under review, adding that their latest guidance was drawn up “in collaboration with experts, teachers and students”.

It comes as headteachers urge the Government for national guidance on transgender issues to be published for schools, saying that education leaders are “struggling” to cope.

School leaders have said that in the absence of any official guidance from the Department for Education (DfE), they are left with advice from lobby groups as they decide how to react when a pupil identifies as the opposite gender.

Julie McCulloch of the Association of School of College Leaders (ASCL) said that as more and more children “come out” as transgender, heads are forced to wade into the fraught debate between biological sex and gender.

“It is a really big issue and the lack of formal guidance for schools is something that we are concerned about,” she told The Telegraph.

“This issue has grown quite rapidly over the past few years and it certainly feels like something that has become much more common. It is increasingly something that almost all schools are having to think about, but particularly single sex schools.”

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Dumbing Down Education Key to Dismantling America

Critical race theory together with gender ideology and the manmade global warming hypothesis that’s now being taught to young children, all have the goal of dismantling the United States as a free society, said Alex Newman, investigative journalist and Epoch Times contributor.

There is a global effort coming from the United Nations and from China to build a single world system, where individual liberty will be abolished, Newman told EpochTV’s “Crossroads” program.

This new system is described as a multipolar world order as opposed to the current unipolar world order where the United States is the undisputed sole superpower and the hegemonic force in world affairs today, Newman explained. To achieve this goal the United States must be undermined not just economically, but also intellectually and militarily.

“[This will] allow other nations to be built up, other governments, especially the Communist Chinese government, to grow in prestige and influence in economic prowess for the purpose of really drastically reshaping the world order into this, what they call the multipolar order, where Russia and China and the so-called BRICS [five countries] like Brazil and India will be kind of on an equal standing with the United States.”

“But America, at least the ideas and the essence of what America is, has stood as an obstacle to that agenda. So if you want to make this agenda possible, … you’re going to have to undermine the principles that the United States was founded on.”

According to the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) “8 predictions for the world in 2030,” which are summarized in a video posted on Twitter, the United States will no longer be the leading superpower, but the world will be dominated by a handful of countries.

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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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NY School Replaced Popular Christmas Song 'Jingle Bells' Over Racist Origins

A New York state public school did not sing the Christmas song, "Jingle Bells," due to its origins being linked to 19th-century minstrel shows in which white people wore blackface.

Council Rock Primary School replaced the Christmas classic with other songs that did not have "the potential to be controversial or offensive," principal Matt Tappon told the Rochester Beacon, which first broke the story on Dec. 23.

Tappon and other school staff confirmed to the local paper that the decision to nix the song was based, in part, on a 2017 article by professor Kyna Hamill, director of Boston University’s Core Curriculum, who detailed her research into the origins of "Jingle Bells," its composer, James L. Pierpont, and other mid-19th century songs about sleighs.

She obtained documents revealing that the song’s first public performance may have been in 1857 at a Boston minstrel show, a type of entertainment at the time that included white performers sporting blackface.

Hamill, however, does not believe her findings should have led to the school replacing the song.

When informed by the Beacon that her research was partly the reason why the school removed the song, she said that she was "quite shocked the school would remove the song from the repertoire" and that she did not recommend that it stop being sung by children.

"My article tried to tell the story of the first performance of the song, I do not connect this to the popular Christmas tradition of singing the song now," Hamill said.

"The very fact of (“Jingle Bells’”) popularity has to do (with) the very catchy melody of the song, and not to be only understood in terms of its origins in the minstrel tradition. … I would say it should very much be sung and enjoyed, and perhaps discussed," she continued.

Brighton Central School District Superintendent Kevin McGowan addressed the decision on Dec. 28, writing in a letter posted to the district’s website that "we couldn’t be more proud of our staff and the work they continue to do to reflect on what they teach and how they teach in an ongoing effort to be more culturally responsive, thoughtful, and inclusive."

"Choosing songs other than 'Jingle Bells' wasn’t a major policy initiative, a 'banning' of the song or some significant change to a concert repertoire done in response to a complaint," McGowan wrote. "This wasn’t 'liberalism gone amok' or 'cancel culture at its finest' as some have suggested. Nobody has said you shouldn’t sing 'Jingle Bells' or ever in any way suggested that to your children. I can assure you that this situation is not an attempt to push an agenda."

"We were not and are not even discussing the song and its origins, whatever they may be," he continued. "This was very simply a thoughtful shift made by thoughtful staff members who thought they could accomplish their instructional objective using different material. The change in material is also not something being forced on children or propaganda being spread. The teachers have never taught about the song in any way when it was being used then or in the midst of deciding not to use it."

McGowan also wrote that the first performance of 'Jingle Bells' occurred in minstrel shows where white actors wore blackface "does actually matter when it comes to questions of what we use as material in school."

***********************************************

UK: Group of girls’ schools says they will not accept transgender pupils and 'jeopardise' their status as single-sex institutions

The Girls’ Day School Trust (GDST), which represents 23 private schools as well as two academies, updated its gender identity policy guidance document last month to include a new section on admissions.

It is rare for a group of single-sex schools to take a public position on the issue of admissions, and it could pave the way to others to follow suit.

The guidance states that GDST schools do not accept applications from pupils who are legally male, even if they identify as female.

Having an admissions policy based on “gender identity rather than the legal sex recorded on a student’s birth certificate would jeopardise the status of GDST schools as single-sex schools” under the Equality Act, it says.

A female pupil who begins to transition while already at school should be supported to remain at the school for as long as they wish to do so, it adds.

Updated guidance

The guidance, first published in 2016, was updated and shared with member schools just before the Christmas break. The GDST said that they always keep their policies under review, adding that their latest guidance was drawn up “in collaboration with experts, teachers and students”.

It comes as headteachers urge the Government for national guidance on transgender issues to be published for schools, saying that education leaders are “struggling” to cope.

School leaders have said that in the absence of any official guidance from the Department for Education (DfE), they are left with advice from lobby groups as they decide how to react when a pupil identifies as the opposite gender.

Julie McCulloch of the Association of School of College Leaders (ASCL) said that as more and more children “come out” as transgender, heads are forced to wade into the fraught debate between biological sex and gender.

“It is a really big issue and the lack of formal guidance for schools is something that we are concerned about,” she told The Telegraph.

“This issue has grown quite rapidly over the past few years and it certainly feels like something that has become much more common. It is increasingly something that almost all schools are having to think about, but particularly single sex schools.”

**********************************************

Dumbing Down Education Key to Dismantling America

Critical race theory together with gender ideology and the manmade global warming hypothesis that’s now being taught to young children, all have the goal of dismantling the United States as a free society, said Alex Newman, investigative journalist and Epoch Times contributor.

There is a global effort coming from the United Nations and from China to build a single world system, where individual liberty will be abolished, Newman told EpochTV’s “Crossroads” program.

This new system is described as a multipolar world order as opposed to the current unipolar world order where the United States is the undisputed sole superpower and the hegemonic force in world affairs today, Newman explained. To achieve this goal the United States must be undermined not just economically, but also intellectually and militarily.

“[This will] allow other nations to be built up, other governments, especially the Communist Chinese government, to grow in prestige and influence in economic prowess for the purpose of really drastically reshaping the world order into this, what they call the multipolar order, where Russia and China and the so-called BRICS [five countries] like Brazil and India will be kind of on an equal standing with the United States.”

“But America, at least the ideas and the essence of what America is, has stood as an obstacle to that agenda. So if you want to make this agenda possible, … you’re going to have to undermine the principles that the United States was founded on.”

According to the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) “8 predictions for the world in 2030,” which are summarized in a video posted on Twitter, the United States will no longer be the leading superpower, but the world will be dominated by a handful of countries.

***********************************

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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Sunday, January 02, 2022



Two Moms, a CEO and a Physician, Step Up to Homeschool Kids: ‘You Will Never Ever Regret’

Over the last decade, there has been an exponential rise in homeschooling across the United States. What is driving parents to make this choice, and some to even leave their careers to do so?

I had a chance to speak to two faith-centered moms—one from the corporate sector and the other a physician—who embarked on the journey of homeschooling their children. The critical challenges they faced and the wise choices they made give us significant insights into what this promising path holds for our next generation.

For Bridget Crowley, a mother of two and CEO of a large commercial real estate management company, making the leap into homeschooling was a decision that was not easy to make.

Crowley’s two sons, Phelim and Shamus, had been raised in private schools, and she and her husband felt they were doing well. She says she was surprised when her oldest son at 12 years old said, “Mom, I think that you’re supposed to homeschool me.” Reflecting on her response, she says she simply believed that “it is not at all my wiring or my gifting.”

“So, for many years, I told my son all the reasons why I couldn’t and I truly believed I could not,” says Crowley, 46, from Greenville, South Carolina. That is, until years later, when she became concerned about her oldest child’s social and emotional well-being.

“He experienced some things in school that led us to realize, ‘Is there anything more important than your child’s heart, and your child’s mental well-being, physical well-being, and who they are in Christ?’”

Crowley says that children end up speaking into your child’s life. And her son was becoming “what the hallway smack talk was telling him he was.” “He was losing his faith and he was losing hope in life in general and not becoming who he was meant to be,” she reflected.

“As his mom, I felt hopeless. I felt that I couldn’t homeschool, like it wasn’t an option. I felt increasingly helpless in watching my son become the antithesis of who he was as a child, and who I knew he was in the Lord.”

Supportive friends came alongside Crowley and helped her to challenge her negative notions about homeschooling, boosting her confidence in her own ability to educate her son at home. They said, “Nobody feels like they can do it. The world tells you every day that you can’t do it, that it’s not normal, that you’re weird, that your kid can’t socialize, and that your kid can’t play sports.”

Crowley now refers to those statements about homeschooling that she’d believed for years as “lies.” She describes herself as feeling trepidation when finally listening to her friends and making the decision to bring her son home.

“I believed by faith and not by sight that if this was His [God’s] will, He would equip me, and He did,” she says.

Crowley decided to shift her schedule so that she could continue to work but also teach her children during the day. She found comradery in a growing community of parents who felt similarly, joining a co-op called Classical Conversations, which is one of many national co-op organizations. Her local branch of this co-op gave her children the balance of strong academics and healthy socialization.

Her children now enjoy Latin, history, and the arts, and have an opportunity to make friends and learn in a setting wherein they feel comfortable being themselves and knowing that their families are all engaged with one another.

For her oldest, homeschooling was so impactful on his overall emotional well-being that Crowley says she will never look back and regret her decision to homeschool. In fact, she says it was one of the best choices she ever made. Speaking of how they feel now compared to when they were in conventional school, she says, “Their anxieties went down. There is peace in our house. They are very secure in who they are. Their faith has grown. Our faith as a family has grown.”

Nothing Is Too Hard

Many parents who decide to homeschool often do so for social and emotional reasons, and others do so to help accommodate the learning needs that their children have. Dr. Lacey Kaiser, 55, of Memphis, Tennessee, an internist who spent years doing critical care in the ICU, left her career and began homeschooling her children in 2003. Herself a mom of four, Kaiser is now a parent tutor in the organization where Crowley’s children attend.

Referring to when she was working in the ICU, Kaiser said, “I knew I needed more time at home. I knew I needed a different schedule so I could also be a mom.”

Her children were in a private school and in the fifth and sixth grades at the time. “As I watched them at school, I just did not feel that their education was measuring up to what they were capable of. I could just see down the road that they were going to need more than what they were getting,” she added.

It didn’t take Kaiser long, once her girls were home, to learn that one of her daughters was having some difficulties that had gone unnoticed in her former large classroom. Kaiser made a decision to modify how she taught her; she found that adjusting the curriculum to meet her child’s needs led to her flourishing academically and feeling successful and confident in a way that she never had before.

Referencing helping her children with their individual needs, she says: “That process of us struggling together … I think it stays with them forever because they discover they can do anything if they break it down into the smallest steps, that there is nothing that is too hard.

“You can’t do that kind of a process with a whole classroom of kids because every child is in a little different place.”

Today, Kaiser supports other parents who are thinking of homeschooling as well as those who have already made the leap. She provides encouragement and guidance for them along the way.

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Teacher wears propaganda shirt

There is a reason that parents are pulling their kids out of school left and right in favor of the option to homeschool them. The public school system has turned into nothing more than an indoctrination camp to push their liberal/socialist agenda onto unsuspecting kids for 7-8 hours a day.

Their little minds are like sponges and soak these ideas up and people wonder why their kids are showing such a lack of respect for authority or our country. It is simple, their teachers are taking advantage of the time spent with them in the classroom to indoctrinate them into hating anything that is American.

This is exactly was what this one fifth-grade teacher, Emma Howland-Bolton of Detroit Public Schools Community District, did when she wore a sweatshirt that boldly declared “Columbus was a murderer” in her classroom.

Howland-Bolton said she wore the shirt to “spark discussion,” and the school district did nothing about it.

Here is more from The Blaze:

Howland-Bolton, who teaches fifth grade at Clippert Multicultural Magnet Honors Academy, says her shirt isn’t controversial, because “it is a fact.”

“I wanted to wear this shirt to spark discussion,” she insisted.

She added that a school administrator initially advised her to change her shirt. “I was informed that my shirt was my opinion, and I countered with ‘It is a fact,'” she added.

A spokesperson for the district said that the shirt was noticeable because sweatshirts are not permitted for the school’s business casual dress code. The district later determined that the shirt was only problematic because it was not “submitted as any lesson plan to be pre-approved,” according to WXYZ-TV.

There is no reason that a teacher should be wearing a shirt like this in the classroom and what makes it even more disturbing is that there were no consequences for it at all. This is what is going on in our classrooms which is why people are pulling their little ones from schools to protect them.
We have seen over the last several weeks, parents getting fed up with it all and are now protesting the liberal agenda that is found in their schools.

The only way this stops is more parents getting involved and saying enough is enough.

These people work for us and not the other way around. It is the parent’s decision to teach them what history they want their child to know, but when in the public school system, these teachers just need to keep it to the facts and that’s all.

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LA Schools’ Vax Mandate Crumbles Under Mass Resistance

A loudly-touted plan by Los Angeles government schools to require children to be vaccinated was been quietly withdrawn after bureaucrats realized as many as 30,000 students would not comply.

“In September, the nation’s second-largest school district imposed strict vaccine requirements on children 12 and older, with almost no exemptions,” POLITICO reports. “Los Angeles Unified was supposed to show other school districts how to roll out an expansive Covid-19 vaccine mandate for students.”

Under the rule, all students 12 and older would be required to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by Jan. 10 in order to attend in-person classes. Unvaccinated students would have to attend classes online.

“Los Angeles students who are old enough would have needed the first of a two-dose vaccine in late November and a second shot by late December to be fully vaccinated by the start of the second semester,” USA Today reports.

But they ran into a problem. Mass resistance to the vaccine mandate on children, especially in black and Latino families.

“Only 60 percent of Black Los Angeles County residents 12 and up have gotten at least one dose. The vaccination rate among the county’s Latino residents 12 and up is 68 percent. The mandate requirement would have disproportionately moved students of color off campus,” POLITICO reports.

Realizing they would have to move as many as 30,000 students to online-only learning, and they would be disproportionately black and Latino, Los Angeles Unified backed down, delaying the mandate until 2022.

As many as 40,000 LA students had already either dropped out of schools or disappeared during the pandemic, Elmer Roldan, executive director of Communities in Schools of Los Angeles, a nonprofit aimed at preventing students from dropping out of school, tells USA Today.

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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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