I remember how it was -- JR
The DEI industry really isn’t about diversity, equity OR inclusion
Most Americans are all for diversity, equity and inclusion. But Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs have proved to be about nothing but rank racism.
So Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was pretty on-point last week, in the run-up to announcing his presidential bid, when he defunded DEI programs at public colleges and universities across the Sunshine State, joining Republican legislatures and govs from Ohio to Texas.
Just look at how corrosively toxic DEI efforts prove in practice:
Faculty at the University of California/San Francisco’s medical school recently produced a journal article endorsing racial segregation in education as “part of a broader antiracism and anti-oppression curriculum.”
In its official glossary, the University of Central Florida designates “male, white, heterosexual, financially stable, young-middle adult, able-bodied, Christian” as oppressors.
A student house near Berkeley forbid white people from common spaces to allegedly provide a “safe environment for people who identify as People of Color.”
In Arizona, DEI statements — in which applicants swear fealty to the movement’s principles — are required for between 28% and 81% of job openings at public universities.
The State University of New York has instituted a requirement that all students (no matter their majors) pass a racial-equity course on “power, privilege, oppression and opportunity.”
A survey by the nonprofit Speech First found a shocking 91% of schools push far left ideas on “microaggressions, anti-racism, trigger warnings, bias, racial equity” in their freshman orientation material.
No wonder more than 80% of college kids, per speech-rights outfit FIRE, “report self-censoring their viewpoints at their colleges at least some of the time.”
And the movement eats its own: De Anza Community College fired a high-ranking DEI official for insufficient zeal, with colleagues absurdly calling the black woman a white supremacist.
Our nation is premised on the idea that all people are created equal. And, given the dazzling array of races, creeds and religions it plays home to, a culture that emphasizes what we have in common over what divides us is a pragmatic necessity (as well as a moral good).
That’s precisely what DEI attacks, by creating a hyperconsciousness of race founded in exaggerated grievances. It identifies whites as the enemy of everyone non-white, disparages meritocracy, and blames gaps in achievement exclusively on racist “systemic” forces.
The name DEI, of course, is pure Orwell: These ideas foster only homogeneity of thought, inequity and exclusion — alienating Americans from each other and poisoning our politics.
That DEI is a $9 billion industry only makes the whole movement all the uglier.
Though it does explain the endless howls of outrage about the public-money cutoff: The gravy train is leaving the station.
In short, DEI is a cynical grift that’s minted a new batch of millionaires while hurting the nation and deepening racial divisions.
What DeSantis & Co are doing is the only sensible way forward — on ending the scam and healing the country.
https://nypost.com/2023/05/20/the-dei-industry-really-isnt-about-diversity-equity-or-inclusion/
********************************************Why Do Taxpayers Keep Funding Schools That Don’t Educate Our Children?
With no incentive to educate and retain students, "hold-harmless" systems are free to waste thousands on administrative bloat.
That helps explain why the Philadelphia school district spends over $26,000 per student, two-thirds more than Pennsylvania’s median spending.
Schools educating fewer students and providing a poor education should receive less money, not more.
The best example of “failing up” today might be “hold harmless” provisions for district public schools.
Under such terms, the funding of failing schools cannot decrease when students leave them for high-performing charter schools. With no incentive to educate and retain students, hold-harmless systems are free to waste thousands on administrative bloat.
Even in cases where some money follows the student to a different school, the public system retains thousands of taxpayer dollars each time a student flees a hold-harmless school. That insulates failing schools from the competitive pressure of school choice.
When schools compete for students and therefore for funding, they must improve the quality of education to attract and retain students. That creates a rising tide that lifts all boats, including those public schools that provide a poor education today.
No parent wants their child trapped in a school where few children can read and write at grade level. Thankfully, a growing number of parents are fortunate enough to live in 32 states that offer either education savings accounts, vouchers, or tax credit scholarships that provide families with a choice of where to educate their children.
But as parents choose to leave schools that aren’t meeting their children’s needs, the hold-harmless provisions enable many of these schools to retain their funding, even though their expenses decline.
With more money per pupil, they could hire better teachers, including specialists, buy technological learning aids, and make other investments to improve educational outcomes. But they do few of those things.
Instead, hold-harmless schools in states such as Maryland, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania hire administrators and create bloated bureaucracies. About half the Philadelphia school district employees in the 2022-2023 school year aren’t even teachers.
That helps explain why the Philadelphia school district spends over $26,000 per student, two-thirds more than Pennsylvania’s median spending. By contrast, First Philadelphia Preparatory Charter School—where 99.8% of the students are considered economically disadvantaged—spends just $14,000 per student. That’s less than the state’s median spending and little more than half what traditional urban public schools spend.
Catholic schools in the City of Brotherly Love also manage to do more with less. Father Judge High School charges $9,400 in tuition and fees, although the school receives subsidies from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, increasing the amount spent per student.
Despite spending significantly less than their district public school counterparts, alternatives like charter schools and Catholic schools achieve better educational outcomes, including higher test scores.
Meanwhile, in the Philadelphia school district, only 16.2% of students in third through eighth grade scored at least proficient in mathematics. More than 4 in 5 students are behind on the fundamentals.
The problem isn’t unique to Philadelphia. Consider Illinois. The Prairie State leads the nation on district-level administration, spending over $1 billion annually while achieving below-average scores in mathematics and reading.
Nationwide, from 2000 to 2019, the number of students in public schools increased 7.6% while the number of teachers grew 8.7%. Both of those pale in comparison with the growth of administrators, which came in at an astounding 87.6%.
This helps explain why students in many districts continue to have poor educational outcomes even as the amount spent on each student continues to rise. It turns out the money is going to administrators and other waste, not education.
The way to remove the ratchet effect of school funding in hold-harmless provisions is to roll back the policy itself. Schools that are failing parents and children don’t deserve to continue riding the gravy train of taxpayer money.
Further reforms are needed. Similar misallocations of taxpayer dollars occur in places where funding is based not on the most recent enrollment data, but on outdated figures. In Wisconsin, enrollment is measured by a three-year rolling average, which currently overestimates the number of students in traditional public schools by almost 21,000, causing a misallocation of $359 million this year alone.
Free markets work because sellers must compete for buyers’ dollars. Firms that don’t meet customers’ needs bring in less revenue or go out of business. Similarly, schools educating fewer students and providing a poor education should receive less money, not more. When this basic market functionality is short-circuited by misguided education policy, the quality of education lapses.
The recent creation or expansion of education savings account-style options in Arkansas, Iowa and Utah, which give families control over a share of their child’s public education funding, are tremendous victories for families. The wins are especially important in disadvantaged communities since education is the path out of poverty for millions of young Americans.
As other states follow suit, every dollar of funding should follow students to deliver educational opportunities to the next generation.
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Australia: ‘Boarding saves so much time’: Why city student Sabine chose to live at school
When Sabine Walton enrolled at a boarding school in Normanhurst three years ago almost all the girls in her shared dorm room were from the state’s north-west.
“Our family home is in the city, so I definitely stood out among the boarders who are mostly from farms and regional towns,” says Sabine, whose family home is in Dulwich Hill, about a 50-minute drive in peak hour from the all-girls private school.
“It was daunting at first. I definitely could have been a day girl, but boarding saves so much time commuting,” she says.
The year 10 student at Loreto Normanhurst in Sydney’s north-west is one of about 5900 boarding students across the state. They include about 1000 students whose families are from metropolitan areas but are enrolled in boarding schools.
Australian Boarding Schools Association chief executive Richard Stokes said city-dwelling parents who opt to send their children to boarding school – either as weekly or full-time boarders – are attracted by the lack of travel time and the extra academic support that schools can provide with supervised study time.
“Especially in year 11 and 12, boarding provides great structure for kids and that study time with tutors or homework helpers,” he said.
Across Australia there are about 20,490 boarding students and, while the number of boarding schools has grown from about 150 a decade ago to about 200 last year, enrolments have remained consistent since 2012. The impact of the pandemic meant international boarding student numbers halved and are yet to recover, said Stokes.
“International students are just not returning as energetically as we would have hoped,” he said, adding that three boarding schools in Victoria and Tasmania were forced to close in the past three years when overseas students disappeared.
There are 47 boarding schools in NSW, most being high-fee private schools that charge up to about $73,000 for boarding and tuition at schools such as Kambala and King’s. At the co-educational Red Bend Catholic College, in the state’s Central West, fees are about $25,000 to board in the senior school.
The NSW state president of the Isolated Children’s Parents’ Association, Tanya Mitchell, said the cost of boarding school was now “out of the realms” of what most families could afford.
Mitchell said of three public boarding schools in regional NSW, which generally charge about $13,000 for the year, two are co-educational and one is an academically selective all-boys school in the state’s north-west. “Especially for families from the north-west of the state, there are no public all-girls boarding options. And some fees are making it difficult if families want or need a boarding option.
“Families are telling us they really would like that public all-girls boarding school option,” she said.
But in Sydney, schools including Loreto Normanhurst and Knox Grammar, both of which charge upwards of $60,000 for tuition and boarding, principals claim that demand for living on campus is on the rise. At Loreto, where there are about 200 boarders, the school is planning a $130 million redevelopment as part of its 30-year master plan that will include a new four-storey boarding house.
Knox Grammar principal Scott James said most boarders at the all-boys school were from rural NSW or overseas. “Even though boarding is declining in some countries, there is still demand from parents, and from families with current day students wanting to change to boarding,” he said. “It generally reflects the busyness of parents.”
All-boys St Joseph’s College in Hunters Hill was a boarding-only school until about 25 years ago, with more than 900 students, principal Michael Blake said. “With numbers declining, the school began to enrol day boys to remain viable. The school now opens to day students with extracurricular activities until 8pm,” he said.
About half of the 1000 students at St Joseph’s are boarders, many from Dubbo, Hunters Hill, Tamworth, Gladesville and Mudgee. “But there are boarders from Hunters Hill too ... there are some whose bed at home is less than 100 metres from their bed in the dorms,” Blake said.
When Sabine started at Loreto in year 7, she was just one of two boarders who were from the city. “We now have girls from the Central Coast area, and even the inner city from Roseville and Paddington.”
“I enjoy having the independence; the only downside is homesickness, but I go home most weekends, which makes it easier,” she 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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