I remember how it was -- JR
New York Schools Are Normalizing Post-Covid Low Expectations
As New York schools struggle to recover from damaging Covid shutdowns, the Board of Regents is set to lower standards for what is a “good enough” education in New York.
After years of learning loss, Empire State educational “experts” appear to have decided the best remedy is to simply wipe the slate clean and accept their own self-inflicted fate.
As an elected parent leader, I am appalled that the Board of Regents is using gimmicks to hide the learning loss caused by school closures and mask mandates. We need a plan to address the learning loss and hold districts accountable — not an abdication of duty.
Students aren’t learning — so why bother testing them at all?
In the district that I represent, 25 percent of students are not proficient in English Language Arts and 30 percent are not proficient in Math. My district covers two-thirds of Manhattan and it is known for being one of the wealthiest and highest-performing school districts in NYC.
The situation is even worse across the state: a report from Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli shows that younger students in New York State lost more learning than the national average.
“We’re at this new normal. So for New York we are saying the new baseline is 2022,” the co-chairwoman of the Technical Advisory Committee, Marianne Perie, said at the latest Board of Regents meeting, as she tried to explain how the new proficiency scores will be decided for state tests in grades 3-8.
In short, instead of using the pre-Covid data from 2019 as the basis of comparison, students will now be measured against the lower 2022 numbers.
We cannot accept the “new normal” of lower expectations — indeed, this “new normal” establishes lower expectations for my youngest son than what I had a few years ago for my oldest child.
How can New York students hope to compete with students from other states that have not given up on them? How can our students compete in the highly competitive global marketplace against students from other countries with much higher academic proficiencies?
The research is clear. Students suffered the consequences of prolonged school closures and toddler mask mandates. Students in Florida and Texas — and in other countries — reaped the benefits of staying in school. We can see now the price our children are paying.
It is too late to go back in time and undo this harm. We must work to get our students back on track. Lowering the bar, however, is not the answer. Such a move will only cement the learning loss already suffered — and set these students up for a lifetime of subpar achievement.
It is imperative that the body responsible for education policy in New York focus its energy on developing a clear plan to collect data on the learning loss and hold school districts accountable in addressing it.
Instead, our state seems intent on digging the hole deeper. Legislators rejected Governor Hochul’s proposal to dedicate $250 million for high-impact tutoring. Why isn’t the Board of Regents supporting this important proposal that would provide tutoring for New York families who can’t afford it?
High-impact tutoring is a proven strategy to address learning loss; it was recommended by the federal government at the start of the pandemic and is widely used around the country. Just last month, both Washington, D.C., and New Jersey expanded their high-impact tutoring programs to keep the pace of closing achievement gaps for more students.
States like Colorado allowed the public a transparent view into the details of its learning loss strategies and associated outcomes at the statewide, district, and school levels.
New York seems content to let its own students wither while other states remediate the Covid-related learning loss.
The education commissioner, Betty Rosa, keeps celebrating that New York has distributed more than $14 billion in federal Covid aid funding to schools and districts, yet what are the outcomes for children from all these resources?
There is little solace to be found when New York spends more money per-pupil than any other state, but scores 46th nationally in fourth-grade math performance.
If we are going to move on from the pandemic, we have to right our education system. If we lower the educational expectations of our students now, we condemn them to a lifetime of lowered outcomes. Our families are tired of New York being no. 1 only on per-pupil funding.
https://www.nysun.com/article/new-york-schools-are-normalizing-post-covid-low-expectations
**************************************************Swimmer Riley Gaines, Advocate Against Transgender Competitors, Assaulted at California Campus Speech
A young woman who advocates for keeping biological males out of women’s sports has been assaulted during an appearance at a California university.
A former 12-time All American swimmer, Riley Gaines, traveled to San Francisco State University on Thursday to speak to a local Turning Point USA chapter about the necessity of keeping women safe in their own athletic spaces.
In a video posted online, Ms. Gaines can be seen fleeing a classroom with police by her side as a large group of transgender activists chase her down a hallway.
“The prisoners are running the asylum at SFSU,” Ms. Gaines wrote on Twitter. “I was ambushed and physically hit twice by a man. This is proof that women need sex-protected spaces.”
In another video, Ms. Gaines can be seen rushing down a hallway as she is protected by two law enforcement officers, who then unlock a door and barricade her inside. Dozens of protesters remained outside of the room where Ms. Gaines was held, demanding payment in exchange for her safe passage from campus. She was locked inside for three hours before she was able to leave.
Ms. Gaines’s husband, Louis Barker, told Fox News that he was frustrated police could not protect his wife. “She told me she was hit multiple times by a guy in a dress,” Mr. Barker said. “I was shaking. It made me that mad. It makes me sick to feel so helpless about it. She was under police protection and was still hit by a man wearing a dress.”
Since graduating from college last year, Ms. Gaines has become an outspoken advocate for keeping biological men out of women’s sports. She campaigned alongside a Georgia U.S. Senate candidate, Herschel Walker, ahead of last year’s midterm elections.
In an advertisement where she is seen sitting beside Mr. Walker, Ms. Gaines recalls how college sports associations showed little regard for the biologically female athletes who worked “so hard” to get the recognition they deserved.
“My senior year, I was forced to compete against a biological male,” Ms. Gaines says in the advertisement, referring to the University of Pennsylvania swimmer, Lia Thomas, who is transgender and won the 2022 women’s NCAA swimming championship.
“A man won the swimming title that belonged to a woman,” Ms. Gaines says.
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National Teachers Group Censors Climate Science That Doesn’t Conform To Disaster Agenda
A growing debate on how climate science is taught in classrooms was highlighted last week at the National Science Teaching Association’s annual convention in Atlanta, Georgia.
The CO2 Coalition paid for a booth at the event. Despite approving the booth, the NSTA told the group it would have to remove its literature from display at the convention or it would be kicked out.
The material was critical of the association’s position that climate science should be taught as an absolute consensus and never presented as having any uncertainty.
Greg Wrightstone, president of the CO2 Coalition, refused to remove the offending material and was escorted out of the building.
“We accused them of censoring science, and then they confirmed that,” Wrightstone told Cowboy State Daily.
In a YouTube video of the altercation, Wrightstone is told by an event official that, “You can take down your literature or you can go home. It’s your choice.”
“So, we’re being kicked out?” Wrightstone asked. “Yes,” was the reply. “Unless you take down your literature. Then you can stay.” When the CO2 Coalition refused again, they were told, “You should pack up and get out.”
The NSTA is an organization with 40,000 members dedicated to developing best practices for teaching science, technology, engineering and math
The organization has an official position statement that encourages teachers to present climate science as having a singular view that is only questioned by pseudoscientific skeptics.
“Efforts to properly teach the science of climate change are regularly challenged by those seeking to frame it as being different from other scientific fields, often with claims that it is either ‘uncertain’ or ‘controversial,’” the statement reads.
What the NSTA considers beyond question is not just that carbon dioxide has an impact on the climate. It asks teachers to “clarify that societal controversies surrounding climate change are not scientific in nature, but are social, political and economic.”
Included in what it considers beyond question is that fossil fuels provide a net harm to society.
“Carbon-dense fossil fuels led to the Industrial Revolution and ultimately made our modern way of life possible. The continued extensive use of these same fuels now jeopardizes that very way of life,” the NSTA states.
Cowboy State Daily contacted the NSTA for an interview and didn’t receive a response.
Positive Feedback
The CO2 Coalition published a critique of the NSTA position statement arguing that science is not determined by consensus, but by experimentation and observation.
The coalition’s 120 members are scientists and professionals, 90% of whom have a Ph.D. or commiserate degree, such as a medical degree.
Wrightstone said that until they were kicked out of the NSTA convention, they were receiving positive feedback from teachers who came to the booth.
“We had other teachers saying, ‘I agree entirely with you, but I dare not teach this in my class or I’ll be fired,’” Wrightstone said.
He said his group sold out of its lesson plans in the first two hours.
Wrightstone argues that the ideal classroom wouldn’t be purged of any teaching of the idea that climate change produces catastrophic results justifying a rapid elimination of fossil fuels, but it would present science-based challenges to that viewpoint.
The NSTA, Wrightstone said, “has answers to the climate change situation. And those answers can’t be questioned.”
Too Negative
In Wyoming, the state has standards that all school districts must follow, but individual districts have a lot of room to set their own curricula.
In February, a spokesperson for two districts in Wyoming told Cowboy State Daily their policies require balanced perspectives in the classroom.
That same month, the Texas Board of Education was accused of undermining the basic tenets of climate science when it altered the state’s teaching standards to include discussions of the positive benefits of fossil fuels.
The board member, Patricia Hardy, who proposed the changes, told Cowboy State Daily the NSTA had representatives at a meeting where the changes were discussed. Hardy said she asked one of the representatives how plastics were going to be produced without petroleum.
“They just looked at me, like, ‘What does that have to do with anything?’” Hardy said.
E&E News reported that since Hardy thinks the teaching on climate science is too negative, she rejects mainstream climate science.
Minor Changes
Among the changes to the state education guidelines was the addition of the line, “Materials should focus on scientific processes and recognize the ongoing process of scientific discovery and change over time in the natural world.”
E&E News reported this was a “common climate denial talking point” because, even though it doesn’t in any way deny that carbon dioxide emissions impact climate, the statement suggests that temperatures change naturally.
Wrightstone said it’s a scientific fact that, long before humans were burning fossil fuels, temperatures wildly fluctuated on Earth. At times when life flourished on Earth, temperatures were much higher than they are now, as were levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Nonetheless, many feel this shouldn’t be taught in classrooms.
Previously, the board’s guidance stated that teaching materials should include teaching positive aspects of the United States and its heritage. In February, the board changed it to include positive aspects of Texas and its “abundant natural resources.”
E&E News quoted Texas State Board of Education member Rebecca Bell-Metereau claiming these minor changes would “steer schools toward buying books that emphasize baseless climate theories.”
Hardy said the purpose was only to create a more balanced presentation of energy in the classroom.
“We wanted our standards to be balanced. We didn’t want them to be biased,” Hardy said.
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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)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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