I remember how it was -- JR
California Students Sue the State Over Educational Inequities During Lockdown
As has been said many times, and studies have shown, the Covid pandemic exposed the racial and economic disparities in the health system in the United States. Race was reportedly a factor in the treatment of Covid, and longstanding systemic social and health inequities apparently contributed to an increased risk of death from COVID-19. Blacks and Hispanics suffered more heart ailments and worse in hospital prospects for mortality because of both medical and social inequities. But the inequities of the pandemic extended further and affected school children who were locked down out of school and were supposed to get an education via remote learning. The socio-economic divide apparently interfered with children’s education during Covid. Now, students are going to court to prove it.
California lawsuit
A judge gave the green light to a group of low income students of color to go to trial with the lawsuit against California. The students allege the state failed to provide the neediest students with adequate equipment and services to learn remotely during the eight months in 2020, when schools were closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The state doesn’t dispute the fact that studies have shown "educational inequality increased from 2019 to 2022, and achievement gaps widened" between public school students of different races and income levels in California. This is according to Alameda County Superior Court Judge Brad Seligman. The judge added that during the pandemic, the state "implemented a remote learning policy that failed to provide all students with computers and Internet access," and California officials knew that non-white and low-income students were being harmed more than others. Seligman added that a trial was necessary to see if the state had violated discrimination laws and a state constitutional guarantee of educational equality.
Suit doesn’t seek monetary damages
The lawsuit isn’t asking for money, but instead wants court ordered measures to close the statewide learning gap, such as tutoring, literacy coaches and accountability requirements for California. There are about 6 million students in California public schools. According to Judge Seligman, in the eight months after Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered schools closed, the state distributed more than 45,000 laptops and more than 73,000 computing devices to students. However, between 800,000 and 1 million students still lacked adequate access, or any access at all, to online classes.
State officials claim the impact of the pandemic was similar among all categories of students. Researchers for the plaintiffs say poor and non-white students were harmed disproportionately, and a trial is needed to resolve the factual dispute. A spokesperson for Public Counsel, a non-profit law firm representing the students, said the ruling by Judge Seligman to go forward with a trial is a “resounding victory” for the students and shows they have a good case. The state Department of Education had no comment.
Remote learning didn’t work
The suit describes the conditions for 14 non-white students during lockdowns in Oakland and Los Angeles. Twin sisters living in Oakland were attending school until March of 2020, when school stopped. Their teacher held remote classes only twice during the rest of the school year. The suit says the teacher told the student’s mother some other students couldn’t connect remotely so classes were cancelled. One girl received a computer which stopped working after a month and took another month to replace. The suit also contends during the lockdown "wealthier students more often had access to private spaces conducive to learning, while lower-income students of color typically shared their 'classroom' with other family members."
Lawyers for California maintain the state "has worked aggressively to bridge the existing digital divide and provide technology and connectivity to the students." Judge Seligman disagreed, noting in the plaintiff’s research there was a dramatic decline of low-income students during the lockdown. "While there is evidence that (state officials) took some steps to address pandemic-related impacts, the question is whether those steps were reasonable," and this must be decided in a trial, the judge wrote. It appears the inequities exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic go beyond health care in this country.
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Back to (What Kind of) School: Education or Indoctrination?
As millions of children return to public school, it’s a good idea to again examine what they are being taught and what is being left out. It also offers an annual opportunity for parents to ask if their kids are being educated or indoctrinated.
At the recent convention of the National Education Association in Orlando, Florida, reports told of delegates waving rainbow signs proclaiming: “freedom to teach” and “freedom to learn.” The demonstrators oppose parental concerns over what they regard as pornography in certain books, an opposition that has tarred them as “book banners.” Peculiar how it’s “academic freedom” to introduce books that promote behavior and ideas many parents oppose, but “censorship” to object to them.
The NEA adopted two amendments supporting “reproductive rights” for women. “Forced motherhood is female enslavement” read a second amendment. This is appropriate for prepubescent children, or students of any age? The delegates continue to favor the LGBTQ-plus agenda, which professes to advocate for sexual and gender equality under the law. They also approved a measure supporting “asylum for all.”
How is any of this preparing children to compete with China and other nations in math, reading, and science?
It isn’t.
The New York Times reported last October: “U.S. students in most states and across almost all demographic groups have experienced troubling setbacks in both math and reading. … In math, the results were especially devastating, representing the steepest declines ever recorded on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), known as the nation’s report card, which tests a broad sampling of fourth and eighth graders and dates to the early 1990s.”
The COVID-19 pandemic is blamed for some of the decline, but as the NAEP notes, the trend has been headed downward for many years.
It hasn’t always been this way. Joel Belz, a columnist for World magazine, recalled in 2006 a 1924 education pamphlet designed to prepare eighth graders for high school. It had the lengthy title “Stephenson’s Iowa State Eighth Grade Examination Question Book.” Belz thinks most high school seniors today would find the questions challenging.
They include arithmetic: “A wall 77 feet long, 6-1/2 feet high, and 14 inches thick is built of bricks costing $9 per M. What was the entire cost of the bricks if 22 bricks were sufficient to make a cubic foot of wall?”
Grammar: “Define five of the following terms: antecedent, tense, object, conjugation, auxiliary verb, expletive, reflexive pronoun.”
Civil government: “Name three township, three county, and three state officers and state what office each person holds … “
I’m betting not many students today could name their members of Congress, much less local officials.
Other categories were geography, physiology (“beginning with food in the mouth, trace the course of digestion, naming the juices with which the food is mixed and the results. What is the reason that spitting on the street is dangerous to the health of a community?”), history, music, and reading.
These were supported by a daily salute to the American flag and other expressions of patriotism.
Who decided these subjects and practices were unnecessary to a well-rounded education and equipping children to become good citizens and lead prosperous and healthy lives? Is it the teachers unions and other activists who see schools not as places for educating the next generation, but as indoctrination centers for their secular-progressive worldview?
Some parents have begun moving away from public schools. Increasing numbers are homeschooling their children or taking advantage of school choice programs.
For the rest, get them out now while you are still able to save their minds, spirits and the country.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/08/17/back-what-kind-school-education-indoctrination
*********************************************Australia: A pushback against the war on the West
Amongst the post-modern rot that infests most of our universities’ humanities faculties stands one small institution that proudly focuses on the origins and brilliance of our Western Civilisation. This institution is growing (officially opening new buildings last week), has heavy-weight support, and is getting outstanding student feedback. Could it serve as the beacon for others to follow, and in doing so, be an important pushback against the intellectual war on the West?
My hope is that the answer is yes. Such a pushback is desperately needed in Australia, particularly in academia, which I will explain.
But first, let me tell you about the institution in question: Campion College. Located near Paramatta in western Sydney, Campion established itself as Australia’s first liberal arts college in 2006 and today has graduated hundreds of students. It dedicates itself to immersing students in the great books and figures that underpin our modern culture, in the correct belief that such immersion is important for individual development, and vital for the continuation of a society that is amongst the most wealthy, tolerant, and free of any society in all of human history.
Students in their three-year degree follow a linear progression starting first in the ancient world, then the medieval, and finally the modern world in third year. Philosophy, history, literature, and theology are interwoven into a coherent picture of the West’s development and the greatest thinkers who influenced it.
Sound radical? Of course not, but unfortunately such an approach is radical in today’s higher education landscape. Much of what is taught in humanities faculties either ignores the development of Western ideas and societies or is markedly hostile to them. It is particularly anti-Christian, which is intricately tied to Western development.
It is difficult to get a complete read on this, but consider the Institute for Public Affairs’ analysis of university history courses. It examined the 791 subjects offered across 35 Australian universities in 2022 and determined that history ‘is no longer about a study of the past, as it has been replaced by post-modern theory…[where] traditional explanations of cause and effects are discarded as everything is reduced to a study of (purported) power relations.’
It found that more history subjects taught about race, than democracy. More taught about ‘identity’ than enlightenment. A full 255 of the 791 subjects were expressly focused on identity politics. That is class, race, or gender.
I am not aware of analyses of other disciplines in the humanities faculties, but I would be surprised if there were not similar findings.
Moreover, except for the three universities that accepted the funding offered by the Ramsey Centre for Western Civilisation, almost none has a dedicated program, like Campion’s, which is an integrated course of study to instil in the student the sweep of ideas that have led to where Australia is today.
The same trend has occurred in school curriculum. When, as Education Minister, I first examined the new draft national curriculum in 2021, I was astounded that there was almost nothing positive said about modern Australia and almost nothing negative about ancient Australia before Europeans arrived.
The forgetting (or loathing) of our history is undoubtedly already having an impact on the confidence that people have in our society today and in the future.
Already a third of 18 to 29-year-old Australians believe that there are preferable alternatives to democracy, according to the Lowy Institute Poll.
If our schools and universities are not teaching the origins and demonstrable benefits of our modern Western society (or are being explicitly hostile to it), then where will we be in 20 years when another generation has been ‘educated’ in these institutions? Will young people defend our democracy as previous generations did? Will we remain as tolerant, cohesive, or wealthy if we are always assessed on our race, gender, or sexuality, and not the content of our character?
Scottish historian Niall Ferguson believes that the greatest threat to freedom and prosperity in Western countries is not radical Islam, or a potential clash with a rising China, but the eating of our society from within.
We have to push back and this must involve getting our education institutions back to teaching at least a neutral view of our history, if not an overtly positive one, given the opportunities a person lucky enough to be Australian has been blessed with.
This can be done in schools through government decisions, as I was attempting to do with the national curriculum. In universities, it requires institutional leadership.
Campion College shows that it can be done. Its building opening last week was attended by former Prime Ministers, sitting MPs, religious leaders, and senior business people. They were present to support the small college, but mainly to support a bigger principle.
As former deputy Prime Minister, John Anderson, said in officially opening the buildings: ‘We are in a civilisation moment.’
Campion College is doing its bit to keep us on the right side of this moment. I hope others follow.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/08/the-pushback-against-the-war-on-the-west/
******************************************************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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