I remember how it was -- JR
Tuesday, September 05, 2023
Back to school chaos: Thousands of pupils to start term from home as 100 schools warned of building collapse
More than 100 schools in England have been told to immediately close classrooms and buildings over safety fears, plunging the annual back to school rush into chaos for many.
Thousands of pupils now risk having to start the year taking lessons online or in temporary accommodation.
Ministers were accused of “incompetence” after the order – which will see some schools forced to shut completely – was issued just days before schools reopen next week after the summer break.
The number of schools affected could still rise as newly issued government guidance set out plans to survey all schools suspected of suffering similar problems within “weeks”.
Teaching unions slammed the situation as “nothing short of a scandal”.
The closures follow fears over a type of concrete, described as “80 per cent air” and “like an Aero Bar”.
Known as reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC), the lightweight material was used in schools, colleges and other buildings between the 1950s and the mid 1990s, but has since been found to be at risk of collapse.
Earlier this year the National Audit Office (NAO) assessed the risk of injury or death from the collapse of a school building as “very likely and critical.”
Schools have been told they can temporarily house pupils in local community centres or empty office buildings.
But the government’s guidance to schools said funding will only be provided for works that are “capital funded” and schools will have to pay for rental costs themselves for emergency or temporary accommodation.
Education secretary Gillian Keegan said telling schools to vacate areas containing the concrete was “the right thing to do for both pupils and staff” as she insisted the plans would “minimise” the impact on pupils.
“Nothing is more important than making sure children and staff are safe in schools and colleges, which is why we are acting on new evidence about RAAC now, ahead of the start of term,” she said.
Over the summer engineers have been assessing school sites for RAAC and “a couple of cases have given us cause for concern.” she told the BBC.
But the Children’s Commissioner called for “clear direction” about where pupils should go.
Dame Rachel de Souza warned ministers had to learn “lessons from the pandemic”.
“After years of disruption for children and young people, what they need most is stability and getting back to normal”, she said.
“Everything must now be done to ensure the impact on children’s learning is minimised. And it is particularly important that everyone working with children prioritises those who are vulnerable and those with additional needs.”
The Department for Education said it was taking precautionary steps following “careful analysis of new cases”.
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A Peek Into the J-Schools Helps Explain Our Partisan Press Industry
Over the weekend, a rather stark dichotomy in the news coverage emerged from CNN. On Saturday a shooter entered a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, Florida and killed three people. Unsurprisingly, Jim Acosta convened a panel to discuss this matter, delivering his expected cant and melodrama. In the course of the segment, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was inevitably brought up, and accusatory words were thrown at the governor about whether he would deviate from his presidential campaign and fly into Jacksonville.
It was mere hours after the deaths of three innocents, but already he was absorbing critical commentary about perceived inaction. (DeSantis did make it into town quickly, giving a speech and a prayer vigil - for which he was also criticized.) What made this imbecilic commentary all the more ridiculous was a separate report from CNN at almost the exact same time.
Sunday morning saw a piece from Kevin Liptak that was a warm assessment of Joe Biden’s extended time off in the month of August. As Hawaii dealt with a catastrophe that employs the use of the term “death toll”, Biden could barely be budged off the beach, taking nearly two full weeks before arriving on the scene. The most critical word from Liptak was in quoting those darned Republicans who dared criticize Biden for dragging his sand-covered feet on that tragedy.
This type of biased, partisan double-standard seen from CNN is by now an expected reality in journalism. In my daily media column, I frequently post entries on the press applying differing standards based on who and from what party the details emanate. We are almost conditioned by now to the blatant favoritism seen from the news outlets, but every so often it helps to explore from where this partisanship derives. After all, were these journalists not schooled in the proper ways of applying reportorial skills and journalistic ethics in the execution of their job duties?
On Twitter, a reliable source of leftist dogma is Jay Rosen. Scroll his timeline on any given day and you get a tangible sense of his left-leaning approach. While this is itself not a notable point, once you understand Rosen is a journalism professor at New York University his consistent combative position from the far left you can begin to get a sense of just the type of conditioning his students may be receiving before being sent out into the journalism wilderness. And he is hardly an outlier.
This month I came across a report told with alarm about the media conditions within the state of Wyoming. The piece centered on a relatively fresh news outlet called Cowboy State Daily. This is a right-leaning outlet that launched in 2019, and its popularity, as well as its coverage, is delivering deep concern, both for the type of news offered as well as how it has emerged in a time when many local papers were shuttering across the state. You get the sense of the dire opinion immediately, as you are greeted by the headline, “Trouble In Wyoming."
This panic feature was delivered by The Columbia Journalism Review, the online outlet of the famed Columbia School of Journalism. The concern is that this news outlet was undertaken and funded by a Republican donor and prospective GOP candidate, Foster Fries. In its setup of the “problems” this right-leaning outlet poses, CJR described the conditions that have led to this nefarious uprising.
Like most US states, Wyoming has suffered a decline in local journalism in recent decades; this year the Casper Star-Tribune reduced its weekly print run to three days. The drop-off follows a national pattern that’s seen the US lose over 2,100 newsrooms since 2004, a trend that, Tow Center research has found, accelerated during the pandemic with at least a hundred more news organizations (local and national) closing.
America’s growing news deserts have become vulnerable to wealthy partisans setting up local news outlets to push their political agendas. This has raised concerns about one-sided, politically motivated narratives being strong-armed into local political discourse.
What becomes rather evident in reading this lengthy assessment is that those concerns are also one-sided. If you were expecting to see examples of these problematic news outlets from both sides of the political spectrum you will be left wanting. It is clear that CJR sees the problem in one direction, and there is little in the way of open-mindedness or allowing for divergent opinions to be represented. This is seen in the primary critical focus being applied to the coverage of what it describes as “energy reporting."
Cowboy State Daily has appeared to throw doubt on the reality of man-made climate change, which is the consensus among the global scientific community.
Listed are a number of headlines from pieces that “throw doubt”, such as noting the mental impact climate panic has on children, asking about the veracity of Greta Thumberg’s popularity, and reporting that Vanguard pulled out of a climate alliance. Most notable though is that this J-school outlet is not permitting anything in the form of an open forum on the topic. It states clearly that man-made climate change is a “reality." Any journalistic exploration is, as a result, antithetical and outright considered to be wrong.
This is the type of dogma being taught to these burgeoning reporters and journalists and serves as an example why there is such a rock-ribbed slant in the news coverage these days. I looked through the CJR’s recent archives and saw little in the way of a critical voice applied to journalism on the left. One particular story caught my eye and revealed much about this J-school publication.
The headline was ‘Pink slime’ network gets $1.6M election boost from PACs backed by oil-and-gas, shipping magnates. Named after the overly processed meat products exposed decades ago, this was in regard to a practice that has emerged over the years - especially around elections - of partisan groups setting up a network of ersatz newspapers and/or digital outlets that resemble established sources.
These publications are set up to resemble legitimate local news outlets, with entries both local and statewide, regional features, and even local weather, but are designed to insert stories that frame a desired voting result as well. Candidates or other ballot initiatives will be covered in a way favorable to the backers, and these are designed to coax or fool voters into believing the news coverage is legitimate.
While this is a concerning practice, what is seen from CJR is that it is presented mostly as a one-way occurrence. The site presents this as almost entirely a conservative-right-leaning tactic. Passing mention of this being a two-sided activity is made early (something seen “increasingly by both the left and the right”), but from there this lengthy rundown is focused solely on conservative or Republican efforts.
Last fall I covered a leftist network of these ‘Pink Slime’ outlets that operated ahead of the midterms. There is, curiously enough, little in the way of curiosity about these left-leaning sources being problematic in the field of journalism. A search made on CJR of the various names of these pre-fab newspapers and websites I spotted delivers no returns. I also searched on the CJR-affiliated web outlet The Tow Center for Digital Journalism, and tellingly that site also had little to nothing to say about these Democrat-favoring news outlets.
While none of this is particularly surprising, it still becomes quite revealing. The J-school approach to things is clearly on par with what has been displayed by so many universities that foster an environment of left-wing social messaging. It appears obvious that while they might give voice to the vocation being one of non-partisan unbiased reporting, in guidance and in practice all evidence points to the J-schools being just as prone to the leftist ideology seen from many college campuses.
Understanding that they become a laboratory of left-leaning agitprop and send their charges into the journalism industry “properly” indoctrinated, you then grasp why we see so many of the problems today in the press environments.
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Why State-run Schools Should Refuse Federal Money
Just recently, the Biden administration authorized guidance from the U.S. Department of Education (USED) to block key federal funding for schools with hunting and archery programs. This ridiculous restriction, while shocking to some, was just the latest in a long line of governmental overreaches from the past few decades.
Last year, the Biden administration bullied local school districts into either supporting an immoral agenda or losing federal dollars for school lunches.
In 2016, President Barack Obama wrote every local school district, overriding local and parental authority, and told them to “let transgender students use bathrooms matching their gender identity” or else risk lawsuits or federal funding.
The reality is that despite dramatic increases in federal intervention and funding in the government education system since the 1960s, education achievement has not improved. The most widely used measures of school achievement are scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which shows no significant change. Efforts to improve educational outcomes for low-income children have also been expensive and unproductive. Even the federal college grant and loan programs have been ineffective for students. The evidence is inarguable — the federal government’s intervention in education has been and continues to be a dismal failure.
Americans have had enough of these federal control freaks. Considering the recent offensive policies issued from USED, states are beginning to consider whether they should continue accepting federal education funding.
USED mandates Common Core, Marxist critical theories, the sexualization of children, anti-American propaganda, and threatens to withhold federal funding for noncompliance. None of these serve the best interests of children. USED exists because they seek to control state education systems through bribery and blackmail using federal dollars. Additionally, they exist so federal elites have the muscle to control children.
National test scores scream at us that children desperately need to learn reading, writing and math, not more federally mandated critical race theory and overt sexualization.
The key to eliminating federal intervention in government schools is to eliminate federal funding.
The time is right for states to wean themselves off the federal dole. Serious conversations are taking place throughout the country about the legitimate and effective role of the federal government in education. But who has a viable plan to dismantle the behemoth?
The “Blueprint to Establish State Control of Education by Eliminating all Federal Education Dollars,” written by United States Parents Involved in Education (USPIE) outlines the necessary steps to restore state sovereignty for education policy and practice — and it’s achievable.
The Blueprint explains detailed steps to help governors and state legislators develop and execute a concrete plan, and even provides clear evidence as to how educational outcomes can improve.
States can eliminate federal funding in four steps:
1. Analyze education funds by source: federal, state, and local.
Total education spending in the United States is the second highest funding category, behind health care but ahead of national defense. Some argue this level of spending has corrupted the system, which is why educational outcomes are so dismal, but the majority of funding comes from the states and local communities, not the federal government.
2. Conduct a Cost of Compliance Study for federal funds.
In order to maximize the effectiveness of every dollar spent on government education, it is important to assess overhead demands in terms of cost placed on the state, district, and local schools by accepting federal funds and implementing federal education programs. Once known, a determination can be made if the cost of compliance, including federally imposed control and regulation, exceeds the value of the funding. Relying on state-funded education rather than federal funds offers the opportunity to streamline compliance and return control of education policy to the state and local level.
3. Identify state programs to replace USED programs.
After completing the Cost of Compliance Study, an assessment can be made as to which programs could be eliminated because they are ineffective, inefficient, or unnecessary. Other programs could be replaced by comparable programs within the state. As each program is evaluated, a multi-step, multi-year transition plan could be established.
Eliminating federal funding opens opportunities for creative solutions based on the values, vision, and objectives of local communities, returning control to parents and community members where it belongs. Ideas for program level discussions should follow.
4. Shift education revenue responsibilities entirely back to the state.
One approach to generate required revenue could be to establish a state tax called “offset to federal funds” calculated to collect the amount needed. Since most of the federal tax is collected from income taxes, a replacement tax using the same model might be most easily understood by the public.
To keep from sending the federal government the money they previously took and gave back, taxpayers would need a mechanism to deduct this offset from their individual federal taxes. Since the state and local tax deductions were eliminated in the last major tax bill, a special arrangement would have to be made. However, there is benefit to the federal government in this arrangement as the savings from program improvements would be shared with them, since only the replacement funding is deducted.
USPIE looks forward to engaging governors, state legislators, influential think tanks, and citizen activists to further develop the proposal. The only way to eliminate the onerous, ineffective USED and return control of children’s education to parents and local communities is for Americans rise up and fight for the wellbeing of America’s future. If we don’t take a stand now, it may become too late
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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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