I remember how it was -- JR
Marxian Education
John Stossel
Some schools are ditching traditional grading. Instead, they use "labor-based grading," an idea promoted by Arizona State University professor Asao Inoue. Labor-based grading means basing grades more on effort than the quality of work.
In addition, Inoue lectured a conference of rhetoric professors "stop saying that we have to teach this dominant English. ... If you use a single standard to grade your students' languaging, you engage in racism!"
So I reported that Inoue opposes teaching standard English. He complained that I was being unfair.
"What I'm saying is that students should have choices," says Inoue in my latest video. "Is it possible that a student comes in who wants to learn the standardized English in my classes? Absolutely."
My German-speaking parents made me learn proper English. Where would I be if they hadn't? "There are absolutely benefits to a standardized English," says Inoue. "But that same world creates those same benefits through certain kinds of biases. Those can be bad."
Lecturing to professors, Inoue says, "White people like you ... built the steel cage of white language supremacy ... handmaiden to white bias in the world, the kind that kills Black men on the streets!"
What? Teaching standard English kills Black men?
"I think it can," says Inoue. "We have Eric Garner saying, 'I can't breathe.' But no one's listening and he dies. That's the logics that we get."
I still don't get it. Eric Garner died because white people teach standard English? He uses words like "logics"? "Languaging"?
Much of the time, I don't understand what Inoue is talking about. If this is how professors speak now, I see why students are bored and depressed.
Twenty-six years ago, a school board in Oakland, California, announced that its Black students were "bilingual." They spoke both Black English (Ebonics) and standard English, and the schools should give "instruction to African-American students in their primary language."
Ebonics advocates told teachers not to correct students who "she here" instead of "she is here."
When many people, including Black parents, objected, Oakland officials said that they never intended to teach Ebonics, just to recognize it as a legitimate language.
Inoue says that the Ebonics movement didn't do enough. "Everyone says, yes, we believe in that, but they didn't do anything in their classrooms."
No wonder his students label him "easy grader." I'm glad he doesn't teach engineering.
Inoue identifies as "Japanese American."
I tell him that Japanese Americans earn, on average, $21,000 a year more than average Americans, yet he keeps talking about America's "white supremacy." "What kind of white supremacist country lets that happen?" I joke.
Inoue replies, "Japanese American communities wanted to be seen as more American" and made great efforts to join American culture.
Exactly! Japanese Americans prospered because of it. So do other immigrant groups. Several now earn more than whites in America. They succeed by speaking standard English, and because America is relatively color blind.
"I get a little uncomfortable with colorblindness," replies Inoue, "That's not how humans work ... there's no such thing as a neutrality."
"But there is," I say. "Hire people based on the highest test score, you're being neutral about other factors."
"Depends on how you see the test," he answers. Tests may be biased. He also criticizes high school honors classes, calling them "pretty white spaces."
Inoue says he believes in "Marxian" ideas, and asks things like, "Who owns the means of opportunity production in the classroom?"
"Where has Marxian philosophy ever helped people?" I ask.
Marxian philosophies "don't give us a plan of action. They're not socialism," he says. As for capitalism, "I think we can do better."
I doubt it. For years, intellectuals promised Marx's ideas will work better than capitalism. Instead, socialism perpetuated poverty.
Nevertheless, on campuses today, Marx's views thrive. Students often hear them unchallenged.
At least Inoue was willing to come on Stossel TV to debate. Most "Marxian" professors refuse.
https://townhall.com/columnists/johnstossel/2023/04/26/marxian-education-n2622419
***********************************************Teachers Union Thuggery
If thugs were hurting your kid, you'd do almost anything to stop them. The harm inflicted by the teachers unions is legalized thuggery. Here's what you can do.
The tragic consequences of union strong-arming will be on display Wednesday, when a House subcommittee grills American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten on how the unions muscled the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in February 2021 into setting impossible-to-meet requirements for reopening schools during COVID.
Closing schools in the spring of 2020, when no one understood COVID, was understandable. But once science showed negligible risk to students in returning to the classroom, prolonging closures became child abuse. Yet on orders from the Biden White House, the CDC followed the unions' dictates instead of the science.
School closures led to severe learning loss, setting back many kids for years, possibly the rest of their lives. "This is potentially going to be a real problem for this generation," warns University of Oxford researcher Bastian Betthauser. Consulting firm McKinsey & Company calls the impact on students' basic skills "grim." A staggering 37% of high school students reported suffering mental health struggles during the lockdowns, according to a CDC survey.
Weingarten has already lawyered up for the hearing. Expect fireworks but no concrete changes. State laws, not Congress, determine what powers teachers unions have.
Action is urgently needed. Since 2008, learning progress in public schools has stagnated, and U.S. kids are falling behind their peers in other countries. The COVID lockdowns dealt a devastating blow, but schools were in crisis long before that.
Laws in 38 states guarantee collective bargaining, not just over pay but often over every aspect of the school day, even curriculum. Unions use these powers to block school reform, opposing standardized testing, merit pay and teacher accountability. And to stuff the curriculum with political indoctrination -- what the AFT calls "social justice."
The unions also buy political influence outright. The National Education Association and the AFT -- the nation's two biggest teachers unions -- are among the largest donors to politicians, and at least 94% of that money goes to Democrats, according to Open Secrets. No wonder Biden's White House ordered the CDC to grovel to Weingarten and the teachers unions.
It's a racket, explains Philip Howard, author of "Not Accountable," a riveting expose about public unions. They support Democrats handsomely, and in return, they get what they want at the bargaining table.
The good news is that in red and purple states, reformers are pushing to change that. Five states are banning unions from deducting dues from teachers' paychecks, making it harder to raise millions for political clout.
Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders are also moving to curb unions from dictating curriculum, such as teaching elementary school kids gender theory instead of arithmetic and reading.
Sadly, deep blue states like Illinois and New York are union captives. That explains the otherwise inexplicably destructive policy the New York State Education Department is adopting. New York is making the abysmal reading and math scores of kids tested just after the lockdowns ended into the baseline or "new normal" against which future students will be measured. That redefines "proficiency" down to rock bottom. A teacher's students only have to do as well as kids who were locked at home with no classroom time at all.
At the end of 2022, Weingarten admitted lockdowns were a mistake and asked for "pandemic amnesty." Expect her to ask for it again at Wednesday's hearing.
No way she deserves that. Everyone makes mistakes, but Weingarten lied to benefit her union members at the expense of the kids.
And she's still doing it. She's supporting a bill, introduced by New York Rep. and former teachers union member Jamaal Bowman, to eliminate federally mandated standardized testing. She claims it's best for kids not to be tested. Ridiculous. Getting rid of tests is a ploy to cover up failing teachers and schools.
Parents, join the fight to limit union power and put kids first.
https://townhall.com/columnists/betsymccaughey/2023/04/26/teachers-union-thuggery-n2622412
*******************************************Australia: Queensland’s top 150 high schools ranked by Better Education
Note that of all schools that got ratings of 99 or 100 only 2 out of 25 were State schools and both of those had selective admission
More than 30 public schools have been named alongside some of the state’s powerhouse colleges to be ranked in Queensland’s top 150.
Independent schools specialist website Better Education has revealed Queensland’s best schools a compilation of both government and private schools between years 7-10.
The selective Queensland Academy for Science, Mathematics and Technology retained the top spot in 2022 with a perfect score of 100. The Toowong-based school had full marks for English and Maths.
It was closely followed by Brisbane Grammar School, Brisbane Girls Grammar School, Brisbane State High School, Somerset College, Ormiston College, Whitsunday Anglican School and St Aidan’s Anglican Girls’ School all with perfect scores.
Whitsunday Anglican School, which charges about $12,000 at a fraction of those in the top 10, was the only school from outside of the South East pocket.
Some of the top public schools included Mansfield State High School, Indooroopilly State High School and Brisbane and Cairns schools of distance education.
Some of the most improved schools included Ipswich Grammar School which went from 28 to 13, Redeemer Lutheran College (39 to 22) and the Brisbane School of Distance Education (111 to 37).
Cairns School of Distance Education, Mount Gravatt State High School, Northpine Christian College and Coolum State High School were all new entries for 2022.
Better Education’s list is based on Year 9 results with English and Maths rated out of five and the overall academic performance with three rating scales.
Better Education is an independently-run site that aims to provide “informative and comparative school performance … to parents wanting to make choices about schooling for their children”.
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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)
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http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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