Homeschool, if you can

One of the biggest benefits of homeschooling is the healthy distance home education puts between politics, their peers, and our kids.

We live in an era where government is God and its priesthood is post-modernist partisan activism. A time when parents are told to rest the responsibility of raising their children in the hands of ‘socialisation’, sporting clubs, or sexualised peers groomed through pornography, propaganda, and sociopathic social media.

This is a time when knowledge is on tap, soured by incoherence and confusion. A time when feeling good trumps doing good because the God-fearing love of many has grown cold.

We live in a time when experts like big media, Big Pharma, and big government, tell us what to think, when to act, what to say, and what pill to take to keep the manufactured monsters at bay.

A time when we’re told – without regard for the irony – that the only absolute truth is that absolute ‘truths’ don’t exist.

A time when neighbour will denounce neighbour for not using the ‘correct’ pronoun.

A time when family members will bear false witness against family members – accusing them of racism, or bigotry – for honestly refusing to live under condemnation because they’re heterosexual, have a big family, or were born with ‘white’ skin.

Some would say the whole idea of living by lies being a loving act, is indicative of the fact we’ve entered a dystopian society without realising it.

A society ruled by the drugs of comfort, pleasure, ‘niceness’, victim cults, and nanny state safetyism.

On par with Chinese Communism, the political incursion into our children’s spaces is already taking place.

One local Church-owned centre near me doesn’t consider itself Christian.

Educators cannot teach Christian kids the gospel, nor are they allowed to do Christian art and craft for fear of being wrapped over the knuckles by the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) thought police.

They’re not allowed to read to kids moral stories grounded in Biblical truths that have been the glue of good government (and civil unity in Western Civilisation) for centuries.

To illustrate how skewed the ‘sector’s’ political priorities are, daycare kids can recite the 70s-era Welcome to Country, but not Advance Australia Fair or the Lord’s Prayer.

To add, I was recently told that daycare educators are being forced to refer to their industry as a ‘sector’.

Their educators, regardless of age, level of certification, and experience, are to be ambiguously referred to as ‘professionals’.

In a way this diabolical political newspeak somewhat makes sense.

The Childcare ‘sector’, with its large amount of government funding, has become – and is becoming – another branch of our country’s bloated bureaucracy.

Instead of empowering mums and dads, I would argue that these changes give government more power over parents.

For instance, if these new Orwellian government employees, dressed up as daycare workers, say water is no longer wet, or that 2 + 2 no longer equals 4, who are parents to argue?

After all, these workers – some of whom are childless and fresh out of school – are parenting ‘professionals!’

With the penchant for replacing playtime and education with indoctrination, it turns out Australian daycares, really aren’t about caring for kids at all.

Consider how Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion – all part of the mentally unstable Woke ideology – excludes Christian kids from celebrating and learning about Christian holidays with their friends.

What this turn towards 1984 looks like, is a seditious scheme to replace parents with parenting professionals.

Mum and dad replaced by the non-gender specific all-powerful state.

To paraphrase Roger Scruton, it’s only when we examine the roots behind these changes, that we begin to ‘find refuge from the demon’.

Pre-empting the Woke apocalypse, the late great the British philosopher, declared:

‘Vulgar relativism has no hope of surviving outside the minds of ignorant rascals.

‘The writer who says that there are no truths, or that all truth is ‘merely relative’ is asking you not to believe him. So don’t.’

Homeschool where you can, when you can, and if you can.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/05/homeschool-if-you-can

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Biden Admin to Investigate School for Hosting Event Only Allowing Girls and ‘Gender Diverse’ Students

This week, the Biden administration opened an investigation into a Pennsylvania school district after a parental rights organization filed a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of the U.S. Department of Education because the school district hosted a STEM event solely for “girls and gender diverse students.”

In March, Townhall exclusively reported how the organization Parents Defending Education filed a federal civil rights complaint against Lower Merion School District in Ardmore, Pennsylvania. According to documents obtained by PDE and shared with Townhall, the school district hosted an academic event called “the inaugural Girls+ STEM Night.” The event is meant to “expose younger girls and gender diverse students to various STEM-related careers and fields in hopes that it will spark an interest to pursue science, technology, engineering and math inside and outside of the classroom” and promised to hold future events of the same nature.

“By its plain terms…only some students may attend this school program. It excludes others — and this exclusion is based solely on an individual’s sex,” PDE told Townhall. “As for the future ‘girls and gender diverse’ programming and networking opportunities, that too would confer a benefit on the basis of sex not offered to all students.”

The letter outlining the complaint noted that discrimination on the basis of sex violates Title IX, which states that “no person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

This week, the OCR sent a letter to PDE stating that an investigation would take place for Title IX violations.

“You allege that the District discriminates against students on the basis of sex because it offers Girls + STEM Night, which was open only to girls and gender diverse students. OCR also enforces Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and its implementing regulation, 34 C.F.R. Part 106 (Title IX), which prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex by recipients of Federal financial assistance. As a recipient of Federal financial assistance from the Department, the District is subject to Title IX and its implementing regulations… CR will investigate this complaint because OCR has jurisdiction and the allegation was filed timely,” the letter said.

Earlier this year, PDE filed a complaint with the U.S. Office for Civil Rights after a public high school in Massachusetts restricted auditions for a school play for students who identify as people of color, which Townhall covered. In February, the organization unveiled documents that exposed a school district in Kansas for hiding students’ gender transitions from parents.

“Lower Merion has been flouting STEM programming on social media that is only open to some elementary students and flagrantly excludes others, based on their biological sex. Title IX protects students from discrimination on the basis of sex,” Caroline Moore, vice president of Parents Defending Education, told Townhall. “All students should be given the same opportunities to thrive, end of story. We hope this will be a reality check for Lower Merion.”

https://townhall.com//tipsheet/madelineleesman/2023/05/03/biden-admin-to-investigate-school-for-hosting-event-only-allowing-girls-and-gender-diverse-students-n2622798

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Student slams school board for allowing violent trans student in bathroom

We are in the midst of a heated debate when it comes to transgender rights and protections in our schools.

Recently, at Martin Luther King High School in Riverside, California, a transgender student was accused of assaulting female students in the girls’ bathrooms and locker rooms.

This has stirred up the conversation surrounding transgender rights in the school system and has many parents and students voicing their concerns.

Megan Simpkins, a senior at MLK High School, recently addressed the Riverside Unified School District Board with her concerns. “I am an 18-year-old high school student and wanted to take this time to bring to your attention the current issue with biological men claiming they are women and in turn, truly believing that they are entitled to use women’s spaces,” she said.

Simpkins continued, “It was infuriating when I had seen the video on social media, but what was detrimental to this is the fact that this man is, and has been using, the women’s restroom and locker room.”

She then asked the board a difficult question: “Why are we affirming the mental confusion of this boy and putting the safety of women in jeopardy by allowing mentally confused men to use the women’s spaces?”

The board received some further insight from another parent. “If anything happens to my daughter and the people in the uniforms come after me because I take care of a guy, now I’m in jail because of the bad things you guys allow to happen.

That’s not cool at all. So now what happens to my daughter? It’s unacceptable. Put yourself in the same situation. Would you guys want your daughter to be beaten down by a guy? Then what would you guys do?”

It’s time for our school board to take a hard stance on this issue and ensure that our students are protected. We can’t allow any student, regardless of gender, to be put in a position of vulnerability.

We need to ensure that our children are safe and protected in school, and that includes protecting them from any potential physical or mental harm. We need to make sure that our schools are not promoting a particular gender identity and instead should be focused on providing a safe learning environment for all students.

https://libertyonenews.com/student-slams-school-board-for-allowing-violent-trans-student-in-bathroom/

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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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‘They Should Be Worried:’ Teachers Union Attempts to Fight Moms Over Parental Rights Advocacy

A Pennsylvania teachers union conference featured a session on fighting parental rights advocacy.

The Pennsylvania State Education Association’s southern region conference last week featured a session on “Combatting Moms for Liberty Attacks on our Teachers and our Schools.”

Moms for Liberty is a grassroots nonprofit organization formed by moms who were former school board members whose members advocate for parental rights in schools across the country.

“Moms for Liberty jumped onto the political scene in 2021 at the height of the pandemic,” the session description says. “Seemingly overnight, an army of parents and community members started showing up at board meetings with a coordinated message, aggressively protesting the teaching of the misnomer ‘critical race theory’ and the wearing of Covid masks.”

Based on Marxist ideology, critical race theory says everything in public and private life must consider racial identities. Moms for Liberty encourages parents to advocate for their children’s education against schools that teach children that America is systemically racist.

With roughly 180,000 members, the Pennsylvania State Education Association is the largest public employee union in the state. It is an affiliate of the National Education Association, the largest labor union in the country.

The Pennsylvania State Education Association gives millions of dollars to Democratic candidates, including $775,000 to Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro’s 2022 gubernatorial campaign and more than $1 million to Democratic legislative candidates that year.

Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice said the union’s anti-parent session means her grassroots parental rights organization is on the right track.

“When your enemy names you as their enemy, it looks like we’re right on target,” she told The Daily Signal. “I think the teachers unions are the biggest enemy of public education.”

Moms for Liberty is fighting to reclaim education from teachers unions that prioritize the desires of adults over the needs of children, the mother of four said.

“My view is that the public education system is failing, and that there are many attempts to hide that educational failure from the American public,” Justice said. “But American parents are wise to all of this. What the teachers unions want is not representative of parents and families and teachers.”

Only 3 in 10 Pennsylvania eighth graders are proficient in math, an 11-percentage point decline from 2019, according to National Assessment of Educational Progress data.

Teachers unions falsely pedal the idea that Moms for Liberty is against public education, Justice said.

“Most people don’t fight for things they don’t care about. And we’re fighting for public education,” she said. “We’re going to reclaim it from the teachers unions. And then we’re going to reform it and make it work for kids.”

The presenter of the session, Lauri Lebo, accused Moms for Liberty of “targeting” public education and teachers unions.

“M4L chapters are now targeting school board races across the country and here in Southern Region,” the description says. “This session will explore the dark-money origins of this astroturf organization and its real long-term goal, as well as provide strategies on how to defeat them in the ballot box and at the board meeting.”

Lebo did not respond to questions about the union’s understanding of Moms for Liberty’s true goal. Justice said the long-term goal of her organization “is to defend our parental rights at all levels of government and to reclaim and reform public education.”

“We’re exposing the educational failure happening across the country,” Justice said. “Parents all across the country are making education and parental rights a priority.”

There is no proof that Moms for Liberty is funded by so-called dark money as the union claims, Justice said.

“Union leadership has to lie to teachers about us because if they told the truth, that we really want to help teachers, and we want to make sure kids get what they need at schools, and we want to make sure teachers are paid well to make sure that money isn’t being sucked from them into dues that are used for political action, then they would lose membership,” she explained.

“There are a lot more teachers joining Moms for Liberty than joining unions these days,” Justice said.

Justice and fellow mom Tina Descovich founded Moms for Liberty in 2021 after serving on their local school boards and seeing that schools were not focused enough on children, they said. Moms for Liberty is disrupting the power of teachers unions in public education, Justice stated.

“The teachers unions have had a lot of control and power for a very long time,” she said. “And they recognize the fact that we’re stepping in and we’re taking that control and power away from them.”

“They should be worried.”

https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/04/19/they-should-be-worried-teachers-union-attempts-to-fight-moms-over-parental-rights-advocacy/

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‘We’re Not Doing That Here,’ Oklahoma Schools Superintendent Says of DEI Instruction

Oklahoma is taking a lead on school choice programs and resisting far-left ideology in classrooms across the state.

“It is amazing how aggressive the Biden administration is with this radical agenda towards our schools,” Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s state superintendent of public instruction, says. When he came into office, Walters says he told staffers there, “We’re not doing diversity, equity, and inclusion. We’re not doing that here.”

The leftist agenda in schools has gone well beyond DEI instruction, and now the Biden administration is considering changing the definition of sex in Title IX to include gender identity and sexual orientation, opening the door wide for biological boys and men to compete in girls and women’s sports and to use their restrooms and locker rooms.

“We’ve already submitted comment to the Biden administration and told them, ‘We’re suing you if you move down this road,’” Walters said.

Walters joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to explain the ways Oklahoma is fighting against the Left’s efforts to influence the next generation in the classroom and to discuss the state’s aggressive action to implement school choice programs.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/05/02/were-not-doing-here-state-school-superintendent-says-dei-instruction

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Twitter CEO Elon Musk expressed his concern about the spread of the so-called “woke mind virus” during a recent interview on HBO’s “Real Time” with Bill Maher

He attributed the rapid spread of wokeness to parents being unaware of the indoctrination happening in public schools and universities.

Musk shared his belief that this issue has been brewing for some time, with the extent of indoctrination in educational institutions far exceeding what parents realize.

He admitted to only recently becoming aware of the problem and emphasized that today’s high school and college experiences differ significantly from those of the past 10 to 20 years.

When Maher inquired whether parents were a significant part of the problem, Musk responded that parents might be in some cases, but the primary issue was their general lack of awareness about what their children are being taught or not being taught in schools.

Musk provided an example from a friend whose daughters attend high school in the Bay Area.

His friend asked his daughters about the first few US presidents, and while they could name George Washington, their knowledge about him was limited to the fact that he was a slave owner. Musk argued that students should have a more comprehensive understanding of historical figures.

This interview highlights Musk’s concern about the infiltration of wokeness in the education system, which he believes has led to the “woke mind virus” spreading rapidly.

By raising awareness about the issue, Musk hopes to encourage parents to take a more active role in understanding what their children are learning in schools and ensuring that they receive a more well-rounded education versus indoctrination.

https://thefederalistpapers.org/us/elon-musk-issues-dire-warning-parents-public-education

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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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Boy, 12, says he was kicked out of Massachusetts school for wearing shirt that said 'there are only two genders' - because staff said it made pupils feel 'unsafe'

Perish the thought that they one day encounter a real threat to their safety. They are being totally misled about what is safe or unsafe. The school should certainly be warning students about unsafe things -- but only when they are really unsafe. The students could end up missing real threats

I quite admire the student below. I would be proud if he were my kid. He had some very good questions

A Massachusetts middle school student has claimed he was kicked out of school for wearing a t-shirt with words stating that there are only two genders.

Liam Morrison, 12, told the Middleborough School Council on April 13 how his father had to pick him up from John T. Nichols Jr. Middle School the month before when he refused to change out of his t-shirt that read 'There are only two genders.'

He said school officials told him other students were complaining that it made them feel 'unsafe' and was 'disrupting education.'

But by forcing him to change out of the shirt, Morrison claimed the school district was stifling his First Amendment right to free speech.

In his speech to the school board, Morrison said he was taken out of gym class on March 21 to meet with school officials, who told him that people were complaining about his t-shirt, saying it made them feel 'unsafe.'

'They told me that I wasn't in trouble, but I sure felt like I was,' Morrison said of the experience. 'I was told that I would need to remove my shirt before I could return to class. When I nicely told them I didn't want to do that, they called my father. 'Thankfully, my dad, supportive of my decisions, came to pick me up.

'What did my shirt say?' he continued. 'Five simple words: "There are only two genders." Nothing harmful. Nothing threatening. Just a statement I believe to be a fact.' He added that he did not go to school that day to 'hurt feelings or cause trouble.'

But school officials told him his shirt was 'targeting a protected class.'

'Who is this protected class?' Morrison asked. 'Are their feelings more important than my rights.'

'I don't complain when I see Pride flags and diversity posters hung throughout the school. Do you know why? Because others have a right to their beliefs just as I do,' he said.

Morrison also said he was told that 'the shirt was a disruption to learning,' but 'no one got up and stormed out of class. No one burst into tears. I'm sure I would have noticed if they had.

'I experience disruptions to my learning every day,' he noted. 'Kids acting out in class are a disruption, yet nothing is done. Why do the rules apply to one and to another?'

The pre-teen added that 'not one person' directly told him they were bothered by the words on his shirt, and in fact, other students told him they supported its message.

But by kicking him out of class, Morrison said, he felt like the middle school was telling him it was not OK for him to have dissenting opinions.

'I have learned a lot from this experience,' he said. 'I learned that a lot of other students share my view. I learned that adults don't always do the right thing or make the right decisions.

'I know that I have a right to wear a shirt with those five words,' Morrison continued. 'Even at 12 years old, I have my own political opinions and I have a right to express those opinions. Even at school. This right is called the First Amendment to the Constitution.'

'My hope in being here tonight is to bring the School Committee's attention to this issue,' he said. 'I hop that you will speak up for the rest of us, so we can express ourselves without being pulled out of class.

'Next time, it may not only be me,' he concluded. 'There might be more soon that decide to speak out.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12032495/Massachusetts-pupil-kicked-school-wearing-shirt-saying-two-genders.html

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Commie Chic Invades American Grade Schools

Every day, my son, who is in seventh grade, sees a quotation from Angela Davis painted on his school’s wall: “Radical simply means grasping things at the root.” (The line actually comes from Karl Marx.) Four years ago, during Black History Month, a poster of Davis beamed down from the wall of his public elementary school in Brooklyn.

I eagerly praise my son’s charter school to other parents. It’s full of dedicated teachers who urge their students to debate politics and history with an open mind. So I wrote to the administration, proposing that they should balance the school’s homage to Davis with a quotation from Andrei Sakharov or Natan Sharansky, who fought to free the millions of Soviet bloc citizens that Davis wanted to keep locked up. After all, I reasoned, some of the school’s families are themselves refugees from communist tyrannies. My suggestion was met with silence.

Davis, who is now euphemistically celebrated as an “activist,” was in fact a loyal apparatchik who served working-class betrayers, some of whom were murderous bureaucrats, and others outright maniacs who defy any normative political description. Among the objects of her adoration were dullards like the East German leader Erich Honecker and the stupefied (and stupefying) Soviet Communist Party Chairman Leonid Brezhnev, as well as the Reverend Jim Jones. Before the grotesque mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana, Davis broadcast a worshipful speech about Jones to the imprisoned Black women who were murdered by his cult.

There’s hardly a more famous American communist than Davis, who twice ran for vice president on the CP ticket and stayed true to the party until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. For decades, she tirelessly defended the brutalities of the elderly white men who ran the Eastern bloc. Now entering old age herself, Davis has escaped her rightful place doing penance at a memorial to victims of Stalinist tyranny to become a beacon for American millennials who make Soviet-style Black History Month posters. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar has named Davis her “idol.” Omar, like rest of her Squad, is cut from Davis’ pattern: Spurning the legions of African American women who stood up for freedom, she instead celebrates a dedicated lifelong bootlicker of communist-bloc tyrants. What redeems Davis, in the eyes of Omar and her fellow progressives, is apparently the fact that she was put on trial for supplying guns to the Black Panthers who murdered hostages during a 1970 shootout.

My son’s school is not the only one with an enthusiasm for Davis. In 2021, City Journal reported on an elementary school in Philadelphia that led fifth graders in a simulated Black Power rally in which they shouted “Free Angela!,” a reference to Davis’ incarceration on murder and conspiracy charges, and adorned the walls of the school with murals of Davis and Black Panther leader Huey P. Newton. Last year, a high school in Rockland County, New York, invited Davis to speak on campus (the speech was canceled due to parental outrage). And the website of the National Women’s History Museum offers a lesson plan—Common Core compliant!—on Davis’ thought, which promises to help students “better make sense of the struggles of women and historically marginalized communities.”

Praise for communists like Davis is a sign of the times. After all, the argument goes, they fought for the oppressed and against the evils of capitalism. A colleague who teaches Russian history tells me that in each class a handful of his students announce that they are communists. The students come equipped with handy rationalizations to explain away monstrous Soviet crimes. They argue, for instance, that Stalin was needed to defeat Hitler; if there had been no Stalin, many more Jews would have died in the Holocaust, so the numbers of Stalin’s dead are outweighed by the people Hitler would have killed.

It’s not just the left that makes excuses for the Soviet regime’s crimes. President Trump claimed that Russia invaded Afghanistan in 1979 “because terrorists were going into Russia. They were right to be there.” Vladimir Putin, an ex-KGB man, models himself after the Soviet rulers in his paranoid wish to silence dissent, his reliance on political assassination, and his use of military force to establish regional dominance, so it’s no surprise that he sees the communist era as a pinnacle of Russian glory. The official Chinese line on Mao is that he was a great leader who made some errors. No Chinese citizen will dare to discuss Mao’s more striking errors, like the 20 million-plus killed by famine during the Great Leap Forward.

The state of Virginia also officially discourages teaching about the criminal behavior of communist regimes. In February the Virginia Senate’s Democrats killed a Republican-sponsored bill that would have required public schools to teach students about the victims of communism. Public school teachers in Virginia are already required to cover slavery and the Holocaust. So why not communism? Because, a representative of the Virginia teachers union explained, “There is a strong association between communism and Asians,” and so studying communism could lead to anti-Asian hate.

Idiots will attack anyone for any reason—a fact to live with. But the Virginia teachers union explanation is plainly bunk. It seems exceedingly unlikely that high school students, after learning about the many millions of Chinese peasants sacrificed at Mao’s whim, would pin the blame for the dictator’s atrocities on the Chinese American kid sitting next to them in class—perhaps a descendent of one of Mao’s victims.

The reality of course is that the Virginia teachers union is loath to desecrate the memories of their own communist poster boy and poster girl heroes. The real reason for failing to include communism in a history curriculum, one suspects, is that it reflects so poorly on the American left, which has so often made common cause with tyrants so long as they were anti-American, while blaming the right for all forms of “oppression.” If “right-wingers” are all racists and fascists, then it follows that communists were the good guys—even when they were committing mass murder.

We need an antidote to such binary madness, to the blatant manufacturing of alibis for some of the 20th century’s biggest psychotics and political killers and presenting this gross propaganda to children as historical fact. A first step in properly educating our children would be to help students grasp what communism did to the psyches of both its victims and beneficiaries, and how it achieved its murderous ends. Understanding communism as a belief system lets us see why it appeals so much to the progressive left—and what today’s authoritarian left has in common with its murderous ancestors.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/communist-chic-american-grade-schools-angela-davis

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Australia: High school pass marks lowered to under 50 per cent

This does no favours to the students. It just degradates their qualifications

Struggling Year 12 students who fail exams and assignments are still passing maths and English subjects, as state curriculum bodies push down pass marks to below 50 per cent.

In results that raise questions about teaching and syllabus standards, fresh “grade boundary” data from the Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority (QCAA) shows that Year 12 students scored a “C” pass-mark in specialist maths with an overall mark of 47 out of 100 last year.

In maths methods, a prerequisite for engineering, the pass mark was 45 out of 100 – the same as for base-level general maths.

In physics, students needed just 49 marks per cent to pass, while English students passed the subject with just 41 marks out of 100.

And Victoria’s “score ranges’’ for coursework units and written exams for each subject in 2021 reveal students could pass some of the final Year 12 science, maths and English exams despite getting two out of three questions wrong.

Teacher shortages are being blamed for the poor results, as schools struggle to find enough teachers with university qualifications in the hard-to-staff maths and science subjects.

Up to 40 per cent of Australian maths students are being taught by teachers who did not specialise in the subject during their four-year education degree at ­university.

Senior maths and science academics and teachers warned yesterday that too many students are leaving Year 12 without the necessary maths skills, blaming both teaching standards and the curriculum.

Professor Jennifer Stow, an eminent researcher at the University of Queensland’s Institute of Molecular Bioscience, said she was “hugely concerned’’ about falling standards among high school maths graduates and criticised “what is being taught and how it’s being taught’’.

“I think students aren’t being taught enough basics in maths to give them a good underpinning to build upon at a higher education level,’’ she said. “Assignments don’t teach them formulae or maths rules or how to do calculations – they are being assessed on assignments that anyone can mark. They should be drilled on maths rules and formulae, and shown the way to do things.’’

Maths teacher Dr Stephen Norton, who spent 15 years teaching mathematics to trainee teachers at Griffith University before returning to the classroom this year, said many students were finishing primary school without knowing their times tables, long division and multiplication, or fractions. “When they get to high school they’re cactus,’’ he said.

“The biggest problem in secondary school is you get a whole bunch of kids coming to school in Grade 7 with the knowledge of Grade 4 or 5.

Education Minister Jason Clare says children and students aren’t as ready for school or university as they used to…
“For some of them, if you ask, ‘What’s seven multiplied by six?’ they can’t do it.

“They don’t know how to multiply, they haven’t been taught long division and they can’t add or multiply fractions.’’

Dr Norton said high school teachers were required to teach to a detailed curriculum so quickly that they did not have time to help students catch up on basic concepts.

“If you’ve got a struggling kid, or a kid who hasn’t quite got it, they will fall behind quite quickly,’’ he said.

Dr Norton said the best way to improve students’ maths results would be to ensure primary school teachers are given more training to teach the subject. “The primary school teachers are so poorly prepared by universities,’’ he said.

Queensland is the only state to publish subject-level grade boundaries, which show that in maths methods, a prerequisite for engineering, the pass mark for Year 12 last year was 45 out of 100 – the same as for base-level general maths. In physics, students needed just 49 marks per cent to pass, while English students passed the subject with just 41 marks out of 100. In biology, the lowest pass mark for a C grade was 48, while in chemistry it was 50, and 44 in modern history.

In Victoria in 2021, the pass mark for the final written exam in biology was 108 out of a possible 240 marks – an effective pass mark of 45 per cent.

In chemistry, the lowest score for a C mark was 78 out of 240 – a pass mark of 32 per cent.

Maths methods had a pass score of 50 out of 160 in the mathematical methods exam, revealing that students answered just one in three questions correctly.

In specialist maths, the pass rate for the written exam was 35 out of 80 marks, meaning students could pass despite failing 56 per cent of the questions.

In the English exam, the lowest score was 26 out of 60 marks – a 40 per cent pass rate.

The Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority did not respond to The Australian’s requests for comment.

A QCAA spokesman said that a grade of C “matches the objectives of the course and is considered ‘satisfactory’.’’

“Every year we look at the achievement of students to determine the grade boundaries,’’ he said. “This involves the QCAA and expert teachers looking at student performance across their range of assessments in every subject to determine cut-offs that align to each reporting standard on a 100-point scale.

“If the range for a C in a subject is 45-64 marks, it is because the student work that received marks in this range demonstrated the attributes of a C standard as described in the syllabus.

Dr Kevin Donnelly, a senior English teacher, curriculum writer and academic who reviewed the national curriculum in 2014, said Australia set a “low bar’’ for education. “We’ve lowered the bar to create a false picture of how well our students are doing and it breeds complacency,’’ he said.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/high-school-pass-marks-lowered-to-under-50-per-cent/news-story/defa8e40119399a1ede8f5165846f47c

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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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The Fight Over Religious Education: Debates between New York state and its Hasidic community about school choice may offer a harbinger of what’s to come nationwide

The debate in New York state surrounding a state law that requires private and religious schools to provide a curriculum that is “substantially equivalent” to that provided in the local public schools first began in 2015. A group called Young Advocates for Fair Education (YAFFED) petitioned education officials to look into what they claimed was the lack of substantial equivalence at 39 Brooklyn yeshivas for boys located in Hasidic or Haredi neighborhoods. Their complaint resonated with many in New York, including the editorial boards of the city’s three major dailies, who wrote in favor of investigating these schools to assure that their students were getting a full secular education alongside their religious studies. It quickly became an issue of national concern.

On March 23, 2023, a trial court in New York invalidated the enforcement mechanism embedded in these regulations, pointing out that the state’s compulsory education law is meant to be enforced by parents, not schools. It found that a family could be deemed in compliance with compulsory education by sending their children to a religious school while also filing a home-schooling plan with their local district indicating how their children would be meeting the requirements of the substantial equivalence law. It remains to be seen if this ruling will be appealed.

Whatever the outcome in New York, the “substantial equivalency” conflict between those advocating for the rights of parents and those opposing public investment in private education is sure to repeat itself in states like Arizona, West Virginia, Florida, and Arkansas, where recently enacted school choice programs will allow religiously inclined parents to place their children in schools that reflect their practices and beliefs—with public money to follow. The stakes of the debate are considerable, with billions of dollars and the deeply held beliefs of millions of Americans hanging in the balance.

The most recent estimate, from 2019, indicates that over 93,000 students in New York City attended schools considered Hasidic and another 47,000 did so in five counties outside of New York City. Parents freely choose and pay tuition to these schools. It is true that some graduates of these schools have been unhappy with the choices made by their parents, as are some current students and parents. While it is hard to know the exact percentages, it seems to be a relative fraction of the Hasidic community that oppose these education systems.

YAFFED, a group of Hasidic students, graduates, and parents in New York state, argues that parents in these communities face reproach if they opt out of these yeshivas. More importantly, YAFFED believes that the schools fail to provide boys with a sufficient education to prepare them for either college or the world of work. As a result, according to YAFFED, poverty and reliance on public assistance is rampant in Hasidic communities.

It is also true that some Hasidic schools do not offer education in secular subjects and that others attempt to provide the bare minimum with support provided through Federal Title I programs for eligible students. They all provide a classical Jewish education that features intensive instruction in Torah studies and a strong focus on Talmud, in which the boys and young men decipher and analyze competing commentaries on the scriptures in Hebrew and Aramaic. This is not the rote memorization of prayers; it is textual analysis of complex writings. Public schools often adopt “critical thinking” as a goal for their students, but many of them do not ground their students in either enough cultural literacy or advanced thinking skills to meet that goal. Among the three Brooklyn yeshivas I visited, only one does not teach any secular subjects, but its Talmudic studies classes evidenced intense discussion of complex questions related to how people should relate to each other and one’s responsibilities to others in various circumstances. That is a good anchor for raising educated, responsible adults.

These schools also maintain extraordinarily high standards of their own. Some of them expect their students to be fluent Hebrew readers by the end of grade one and test them regularly throughout grade two to gauge their proficiency. The state of New York does not test public school students on English reading proficiency until grade three, and the statewide results are middling at best.

The yeshivas that teach students from Yiddish-speaking homes offer more complicated cases, and the shortcomings in their secular programs yield graduates who are not English proficient. Presumably this limits their ability to interact with the larger secular world, to find certain forms of employment, or to pursue higher secular education without remediation, but one does meet adults who came through these schools and who have gone on to law school or other professional training.

It should also be noted that many Jewish day schools in the modern Orthodox and centrist Orthodox traditions feel that they fulfill their religious obligations with their Talmudic studies while also providing their students with a full range of high-level academic instruction in secular studies. Why are the Hasidic schools in question so insistent in limiting secular studies? As a father of children in such a school explained to me “the answer boils down to the idea that these fleeting early years of education, when children are impressionable and sensitive to everything they see, hear, and are taught, should be grounded in a classical, purely Jewish education.” This principle, they explained, is accentuated by the disintegrating state of society at large; Hasidic parents seek to create and foster a solid Jewish religious foundation during these crucial years of schooling before they enter the world. This traditional form of full immersion in Jewish studies has served their community well through many centuries of trials and tribulations in the diaspora. Contrary to the way these communities have been portrayed, multiple schools serve each Hasidic community, so parents are free to choose the level of secular education they desire for their children.

The question for New York’s education officials now is how to best serve these religious communities who are their constituents. A court has ruled that the state cannot shutter schools which don’t provide a substantially equivalent education, but that they can impose fines or threaten prison to parents who are not ensuring that their children are receiving a substantially equivalent education. Are the state and city education agencies really going to impose sanctions on the many parents who are happy with the educational choices that they have freely made? Some schools might be able to document substantial equivalence with changes at the margins, but those changes will not likely satisfy those most opposed to the educational practices of these schools.

Some schools that offer no secular studies, like the one I visited, may become the locus of a case before the Supreme Court, which in 1972 gave Amish communities an exemption to Wisconsin’s compulsory education law, allowing them to opt their children out of high school, citing the uniqueness and self-sufficiency of the Amish community. The Hasidim of today might just rise to that same standard of uniqueness and self-sufficiency.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/fight-over-religious-education

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A cautious revival of streaming

Nico’s prospects were already looking dicey in the second grade. Raised by his Latina grandmother in a Spanish-speaking home, he was a witty boy whose clowning got him branded as a troublemaker in an Arizona public school outside Phoenix.

But Nico was saved from this downward spiral by an unlikely intervention —a test given to all third graders. Scoring in the 97th percentile, Nico was placed with other gifted kids and challenged academically like never before, providing him desperately needed focus. By fifth grade in 2021, according to Karen Brown, director of gifted services at Paradise Valley Unified School District, the class clown had become a class leader and was elected to the Student Council.

The boy’s turnaround wasn’t a fluke at Paradise Valley. It’s one of a small number of districts nationwide using an innovative approach to organizing classrooms. Elementary students are placed in six different groups based on ability and then are carefully mixed together in classrooms in ways that shrink the huge achievement gaps among them that make teaching so hard.

This orchestration of students allows teachers to tailor instruction so all students are challenged and can advance more quickly. And they typically do.

The model, called schoolwide cluster grouping, is a counterpoint to today’s prevalent ideology on education pushed by social justice advocates. They oppose most forms of ability grouping, from gifted programs to selective schools, arguing that all students should learn together, no matter their wide range of abilities. The mashed-up classroom in their view is the best way to ensure an equal education and avoid locking black and Latino kids into low performing ability tracks, a widespread practice only a few decades ago.

But many teachers say the result of this approach – classrooms where five grade levels of ability or more separate students – makes effective instruction impossible. They liken it to emergency room triage. Higher performing students are typically shortchanged, as teachers trust them to fend for themselves. The upshot is if the students are getting an equal education, it’s often an equally poor one.

Last year, New York City officials bowed to pressure from advocates and ended selective admissions to most of the city’s middle schools. Earlier, Seattle dropped its gifted program of accelerated instruction.

“There’s a backlash. Districts are seeing a problem with underrepresentation in their gifted programs and say, ‘Let’s just get rid of them,’ and that’s a problem,” says Matt Fugate, an academic expert in gifted education who consults with districts. “They should be saying, ‘How do we make the programs more equitable?’”

Paradise Valley and some other districts have done just that. At Paradise Valley, Brown says, test scores have gone up for students in all ability groups since it adopted the model.

What’s more, in a district that’s about one-third Latino, a much larger percentage of kids like Nico are being identified as gifted, which can dramatically improve the trajectory of their education.

“It works because teachers can truly target instruction after we provide that narrowed range in classrooms,” Brown says. “The model plays a key role in allowing us to address the learning of all students.”

The model has taken root in states such as Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, South Carolina, and Texas, where progressive educators have less influence and where gifted programs get more support.

The Vail School District near Tucson began the program in 2018, and after fifth graders showed improved performance on a cognitive abilities test, officials are expanding it to three more elementary schools, says Christine In-Albon, the director of gifted and advanced learning.

The Trotwood-Madison district in Ohio is aiming for the same kind of academic growth when it debuts the ability grouping program in kindergarten through third grade this fall.

Customized Instruction

The model was first developed by the late Purdue University Professor Marcia Gentry, a prominent scholar on gifted education. She traced the idea back to her own experience of boredom in an easy Michigan high school where she was the valedictorian. Later, as a middle school teacher, she created a gifted program for students who wanted to be challenged.

Then, in pursuing her Ph.D., she developed the hypothesis that all students, not just the gifted, would benefit academically if they were put in ability groups so teachers could customize instruction for them.

Gentry called the model “total school cluster grouping” and tested it. Her 1999 study compared two low-income elementary schools over three years in Michigan. In the school that grouped all students by ability, “a significant increase in achievement test scores … was found” when compared to students in the control school, Gentry and her co-author wrote.

Paradise Valley in 2006 was one of the first districts in the country to adopt the model, albeit a slightly modified version. Dina Brulles, who developed and ran the program at Paradise Valley until last year, is the gifted program coordinator at Arizona State University.

Here’s how it works: Elementary students are evaluated each year for placement in one of six ability groups: Gifted, above average, average, low average, low, and special needs.

Next, classrooms are pieced together, often with students from three groups to reduce their vast achievement gaps. So gifted kids and low performers are not put together. A typical set up: above average, low average and low.

Motivating students is a guiding principle of classroom design: Gifted and above average students are never mixed in classrooms to allow the latter to shine instead of being overshadowed by the brightest minds. The diligent above-average students emerge as role models for lower achievers, a position for which some gifted kids are not well suited.

These mixed classrooms also seek to avoid the stigmatization that arose when schools placed students into easy-to-identify high, medium, and low tracked-classrooms in the 1980s and later. At Paradise Valley, students are not told which ability group they belong to, although some likely figure it out.

Scores Rise at Paradise Valley

The program appealed to Paradise Valley because it’s a cost saver: Districts can address the academic needs of gifted kids, which Arizona and some other states require, without creating a costly stand-alone program and hiring new teachers. Instead, gifted students remain within the regular pool of students as one of six ability groups.

Before beginning the program, Paradise Valley was in a bit of a funk. Many elementary students weren’t achieving the academic growth sought by the district. Gifted students in particular were unchallenged and disengaged in class and barely grew over the school year.

A small group of Paradise Valley principals, eager to try something new, raised their hands to be the first to test the program at their schools. After only a year, they were thrilled to see that test scores in reading and math rose across the board. That prompted the rest of the district’s 30 elementary schools to quickly sign up, Brown, the gifted director, says. Test scores rose in these schools too.

The district wants every student to master a year’s worth of material before moving to the next grade. Now, about 75% of students on average get there, an increase that coincides with schoolwide cluster grouping. “We don’t always see this growth with every student, and when we see a year where we dipped, we go back and fix that,” Brown says.

Paradise Valley also measures itself against other Phoenix area districts with similar student demographics: half white, a third Latino and a third low income. Its passing rates on a 2022 state test, for instance, topped neighboring Peoria Unified by a wide margin: 56% vs. 42% in English, and 48% vs. 36% in math.

Latino students are a significant part of Paradise Valley’s progress. Amid criticism that gifted programs nationwide enroll too few kids from low-income families, the district revamped the way it finds these students as part of its switch to the grouping model.

In the past, the district relied on parents to nominate their kids for testing, which meant the pool was mostly white and Asian. Now teachers are trained to spot behaviors associated with gifted students – they can be impatient with repetitive instruction, dismissive with a roll of their eyes, and intensely perfectionistic – and more Latinos are now being evaluated.

The district also decided to bear the costs of testing all students in one grade each year to find gifted kids who otherwise go unnoticed.

At 23 of Paradise Valley’s 30 elementary schools, there is now equal representation: The percentage of Latinos in gifted clusters mirrors the schools’ overall demographics – a feat that’s hard for most schools to match. Four other schools are closing in on that mark and the remaining three are making progress, Brown says.

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2023/04/26/new_improved_advanced_education_compare_with_brand_equity_895382.html

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Australia: Shock stats: Rate of high school dropouts reaches 10-year high

Students deserting useless education/indoctrination

The number of Queensland students finishing year 12 has drastically dropped in the past three years, with current rates now below those seen a decade ago.

Experts believe the disruption of the Covid pandemic played a big role in questioning the focus on academic results and a shift towards finding a career earlier.

The latest Australian Bureau of Statistics schools data shows just 82.2 per cent of year 12 students in 2022 – who would have begun high school in year 7 in 2017 - made it to their final year of schooling.

In 2012, 83.7 per cent of the year 12 cohort who commenced year 8 in 2008 – the beginning of high school at that time – made it to their senior year.

That equates to 11,180 fewer students finishing their secondary schooling now compared to a decade ago, with most of those dropping out male.

The height of high school retention peaked in 2019 just ­before Covid when 91.3 per cent of students remained until year 12.

University of Southern Queensland senior education lecturer Dr Tania Leach said the pandemic likely played a part in retention rates falling away after some improvement.

“It created the notion that they (students) don’t know what is coming, so they may have decided to look at what they loved in that moment as a potential career,” she said.

Dr Leach said the value of vocational education needed to be increased.

“What we have seen in this data is students choosing different pathways,” she said. “At the moment, it could be that our education system is one-size-fits-all due to such a focus on academic and ATAR results. We need a balance and range; one career pathway should not be privileged over another.”

Tertiary offers to school-leavers show a small shift away from the traditional university path. Queensland’s Class of 2012 received about 49,500 QTAC offers during the two major rounds, but Class of 2022 graduates got only about 45,117.

Construction Skills Queensland chief executive Brett Schimming said in the face of a 10-year high work demand in the state, his organisation changed tack in 2019.

“Today’s young people are the Instagram generation … we started to turn the conversation around and invest in new ways of talking about the industry,” he said.

“We now use virtual reality to demonstrate what it is like on a construction site … put the goggles on and you’re driving a high-tower crane, or on the ground as a carpenter.”

https://www.couriermail.com.au/queensland-education/shock-stats-rate-of-high-school-dropouts-reaches-10year-high/news-story/708b24b42070a1978f3f71c19c8455a9

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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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New Book: Mediocrity Has Long Plagued Government-Run Schools

The American public school system has been defined by mediocrity for over four decades, argues a new book by two of America’s leading education reformers.

In Mediocrity: 40 Ways Government Schools are Failing Today’s Students, co-authors Connor Boyack and Corey DeAngelis explore how government schools evolved to embrace mediocre standards–an ailment that long preceded the COVID-19 pandemic.

Boyack, founder of the Libertas Institute and prolific author, joins forces with another powerhouse, DeAngelis, school choice evangelist and American Federation for Children Senior Fellow, to highlight 40 concrete examples of government schools failing students in the present day.

The book’s release coincides with the 40th anniversary of a 1983 report entitled A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform from the National Commission on Excellence in Education. Then-Reagan Education Secretary Terrel H. Bell oversaw the project.

Four decades ago, the report warned about “the rising tide of mediocrity” befalling America’s education foundations:

"Our Nation is at risk. Our once unchallenged preeminence in commerce, industry, science, and technological innovation is being overtaken by competitors throughout the world. This report is concerned with only one of the many causes and dimensions of the problem, but it is the one that undergirds American prosperity, security, and civility. We report to the American people that while we can take justifiable pride in what our schools and colleges have historically accomplished and contributed to the United States and the well-being of its people, the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people. What was unimaginable a generation ago has begun to occur-- others are matching and surpassing our educational attainments."

The writers attribute the origins of this malaise to progressive figures Horace Mann and John Dewey—two individuals behind today’s corrupted model of public schooling.

The authors attribute “the schematics of today’s government schools” to Horace Mann’s reverence for the 19th century Prussian model of education. This model, they write, consisted of the following aspects: standardized curriculum, testing, compulsory education, professionalization of teachers, and career training.

“It was an authoritarian, top-down model that emphasized the collective over the individual,” Boyack and DeAngelis explain of Mann’s emulation of a “factory model school.”

The indoctrination, they continue, materialized under secular humanist John Dewey. Dewey wrote in his book, My Pedagogic Creed, how the “true kingdom of god” is the government. The authors also noted how he and other so-called reformers wanted to “build up forces…whose natural effect is to undermine the importance and uniqueness of family life.”

Notice the parallels to today’s leading government school advocates and their concerted effort to divorce parents from their children? It’s not a coincidence; these progressive reformers intended for this to happen.

From that time period to today, the quality of education has, sadly, diminished thanks, in part, to powerful teachers unions that put themselves before their students.

Randi Weingarten, American Federation of Teachers (AFT) president and darling of the Left, first comes to mind. She colluded with the federal government - namely the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) - to keep schools closed despite evidence later showing schools were safe to attend.

Earlier this week, Weingarten went before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Subcommittee on Education denying her culpability in the matter, but House Republicans didn’t let her off the hook. A FOIA request from Americans for Public Trust revealed the powerful union head helped craft the 2021 CDC school reopening guidance to keep the majority of schools closed.

The New York Post reported, “Powerful AFT boss Randi Weingarten spoke twice by phone with CDC Director Rochelle Walensky in the week leading up to the Feb. 12, 2021, announcement that halted full re-opening of in-person classes — including the day before the guidance was released…”

She and her union buddies deserve to be reprimanded for causing immeasurable learning loss on the whole of students, the authors argue.

It’s no wonder the “Fund Students, Not Systems” movement – a grassroots effort both have helped popularize on and off social media– is gaining steam across the U.S. today. But the authors go beyond school choice. That’s just a starting point.

While the book emphasizes 40 inherent problems with today’s schooling system, they advocate for the following “education entrepreneurship” alternatives for parents to public schooling: private schools, microschools, homeschool co-ops, online learning, tutoring, and cloud-based classrooms.

Instead of looking to self-appointed experts who tweet endlessly that reforms like school choice are useless against woke education, parents and reformers should seek out the likes of Boyack and DeAngelis who not only point out problems but are actively working to change the educational system for the better.

Education reformers like the two co-authors should give Americans hope that not all is lost.

https://townhall.com/columnists/gabriellahoffman/2023/04/28/new-book-mediocrity-has-long-plagued-government-run-schools-n2622521

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School Allows Reading of LGBT Book to Second Graders Despite State Law Requiring Parental Consent

A Missouri elementary school allowed a parent to read the transgender-promoting children’s book “I Am Jazz” to a second-grade class without first informing other parents, although state law requires school districts to notify parents beforehand about lessons on sexuality.

Webster Groves School District, located in the suburbs of St. Louis, allowed the parent to read “I Am Jazz” to the second graders in September as part of Clark Elementary School’s “Mystery Reader” program, where a family member surprises a child by reading to the class.

A student’s parent asked for permission to read the book, and the school approved the request. But the school chose not to inform the parents of other students, a parent activist told The Daily Signal, although Missouri law requires schools to inform parents of any classroom content on human sexuality.

School districts must notify parents of the “basic content of the district’s or school’s human sexuality instruction to be provided to the student” and a “parent’s right to remove the student from any part of the district’s or school’s human sexuality instruction,” the 2018 law states.

Because other parents didn’t know about the classroom reading of “I Am Jazz,” they couldn’t opt their 7-year-olds out of learning about transgenderism at school.

The district’s superintendent, John Simpson, did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment about the incident.

“I Am Jazz” is the story of transgender-identifying biological male Jazz Jennings. It is rated as age-appropriate for children aged 4 and up. The book says that from the age of 2, Jazz liked the color pink, dressing up as a mermaid, and wearing girls’ clothes.

“I have a girl brain but a boy body. This is called transgender,” the book, told from Jazz’s perspective, reads. “I was born this way!”

The parent activist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect his children from bullying at school, said he was not surprised by the “I Am Jazz” incident.

“The culture among admin and staff is to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion at any cost,” he told The Daily Signal. “They cannot see the possible downside of educating children on topics of sexual and gender ideology at such a young age.”

Derek Duncan, communications director for the Webster Groves School District, said the district doesn’t believe it broke the law with the classroom reading of “I Am Jazz.”

“While we don’t believe this violates the law, we are aware of this situation and have appropriately addressed it,” Duncan told The Daily Signal in an email.

Duncan did not elaborate when asked.

The Webster Groves district, with 10 schools and more than 4,400 students, has a history of pushing radical gender ideology on children. Also in September, a high school librarian encouraged students to check out sexually explicit books from her list of commonly banned books and enter a raffle for a “sweet prize.”

The school district also plans to include the personal pronouns “they/them” in math problems and hire certified teachers as “math interventionists” to fight racism and gender bias in math classes, following a curriculum evaluation.

One family was upset when their second grader came from school saying she had learned that boy bodies can have girl brains and vice versa. After the family expressed concerns, the teacher included two brief sentences about the classroom reading of “I Am Jazz” in a longer email to parents.

“Last week we read the book I Am Jazz by Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings and illustrated by Shelagh McNicholas,” reads a copy of the email obtained by The Daily Signal. “In the book, Jazz shares her transgender experience.”

Although Missouri law doesn’t mandate sex education in public schools, the Webster Groves School District begins teaching children about gender identity early in elementary school.

First graders learn about gender expression through the children’s book “My Princess Boy,” according to a copy of the curriculum obtained by The Daily Signal. The parent activist said the district makes its sex education curriculum available upon request.

Told from a mom’s perspective, “My Princess Boy” is the story of a little boy who loves “pink and sparkly things” and “sometimes wears dresses” and “his princess tiara.”

“And a Princess Boy can wear pink and I will tell him how pretty he looks,” the boy’s mother says.

“If you see a Princess Boy … Will you laugh at him? Will you call him a name? Will you play with him? Will you like him for who he is?” the children’s book asks young readers.

Webster Groves fifth graders learn about gender identity and expression. They play a “guess the gender” game based on the behavior of pretend children.

“Gender identity refers to the way people see themselves in relation to being male or female or a combination,” the curriculum for 10-year-olds says. “It comes from a person’s own inner thoughts and feelings. It may or may not match the way others see them.”

Sixth graders learn about gender with a graphic depicting the “gender bread” person, which defines transgender as “a person who does not identify with the sex they were assigned at birth.” The “gender bread” graphic also defines “assigned male,” “assigned female,” and “nonbinary.”

The “gender bread” graphic defines “gender fluid” as “someone with a non-fixed gender identity [who] can switch back and forth.”

Teachers tell seventh graders that “gender exists on a spectrum” and instruct them not to “make assumptions about gender,” to “use preferred names and pronouns,” and “be a friend or ally.”

“Gender identity has to do with the way you feel about yourself,” reads a different cartoon shown to seventh graders in Webster Groves schools. “Sexual orientation is based on the way you feel toward others.”

https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/04/27/school-allows-reading-lgbt-book-second-graders-despite-state-law-requiring-parental-consent

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Australia: High school pass marks lowered to under 50 per cent

Struggling Year 12 students who fail exams and assignments are still passing maths and English subjects, as state curriculum bodies push down pass marks to below 50 per cent.

In results that raise questions about teaching and syllabus standards, fresh “grade boundary” data from the Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority (QCAA) shows that Year 12 students scored a “C” pass-mark in specialist maths with an overall mark of 47 out of 100 last year.

In maths methods, a prerequisite for engineering, the pass mark was 45 out of 100 – the same as for base-level general maths.

In physics, students needed just 49 marks per cent to pass, while English students passed the subject with just 41 marks out of 100.

And Victoria’s “score ranges’’ for coursework units and written exams for each subject in 2021 reveal students could pass some of the final Year 12 science, maths and English exams despite getting two out of three questions wrong.

Teacher shortages are being blamed for the poor results, as schools struggle to find enough teachers with university qualifications in the hard-to-staff maths and science subjects.

Up to 40 per cent of Australian maths students are being taught by teachers who did not specialise in the subject during their four-year education degree at ­university.

Senior maths and science academics and teachers warned yesterday that too many students are leaving Year 12 without the necessary maths skills, blaming both teaching standards and the curriculum.

Professor Jennifer Stow, an eminent researcher at the University of Queensland’s Institute of Molecular Bioscience, said she was “hugely concerned’’ about falling standards among high school maths graduates and criticised “what is being taught and how it’s being taught’’.

“I think students aren’t being taught enough basics in maths to give them a good underpinning to build upon at a higher education level,’’ she said. “Assignments don’t teach them formulae or maths rules or how to do calculations – they are being assessed on assignments that anyone can mark. They should be drilled on maths rules and formulae, and shown the way to do things.’’

Maths teacher Dr Stephen Norton, who spent 15 years teaching mathematics to trainee teachers at Griffith University before returning to the classroom this year, said many students were finishing primary school without knowing their times tables, long division and multiplication, or fractions. “When they get to high school they’re cactus,’’ he said.

“The biggest problem in secondary school is you get a whole bunch of kids coming to school in Grade 7 with the knowledge of Grade 4 or 5.

Education Minister Jason Clare says children and students aren’t as ready for school or university as they used to…
“For some of them, if you ask, ‘What’s seven multiplied by six?’ they can’t do it.

“They don’t know how to multiply, they haven’t been taught long division and they can’t add or multiply fractions.’’

Dr Norton said high school teachers were required to teach to a detailed curriculum so quickly that they did not have time to help students catch up on basic concepts.

“If you’ve got a struggling kid, or a kid who hasn’t quite got it, they will fall behind quite quickly,’’ he said.

Dr Norton said the best way to improve students’ maths results would be to ensure primary school teachers are given more training to teach the subject. “The primary school teachers are so poorly prepared by universities,’’ he said.

Queensland is the only state to publish subject-level grade boundaries, which show that in maths methods, a prerequisite for engineering, the pass mark for Year 12 last year was 45 out of 100 – the same as for base-level general maths. In physics, students needed just 49 marks per cent to pass, while English students passed the subject with just 41 marks out of 100. In biology, the lowest pass mark for a C grade was 48, while in chemistry it was 50, and 44 in modern history.

In Victoria in 2021, the pass mark for the final written exam in biology was 108 out of a possible 240 marks – an effective pass mark of 45 per cent.

In chemistry, the lowest score for a C mark was 78 out of 240 – a pass mark of 32 per cent.

Maths methods had a pass score of 50 out of 160 in the mathematical methods exam, revealing that students answered just one in three questions correctly.

In specialist maths, the pass rate for the written exam was 35 out of 80 marks, meaning students could pass despite failing 56 per cent of the questions.

In the English exam, the lowest score was 26 out of 60 marks – a 40 per cent pass rate.

The Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority did not respond to The Australian’s requests for comment.

A QCAA spokesman said that a grade of C “matches the objectives of the course and is considered ‘satisfactory’.’’

“Every year we look at the achievement of students to determine the grade boundaries,’’ he said. “This involves the QCAA and expert teachers looking at student performance across their range of assessments in every subject to determine cut-offs that align to each reporting standard on a 100-point scale.

“If the range for a C in a subject is 45-64 marks, it is because the student work that received marks in this range demonstrated the attributes of a C standard as described in the syllabus.

Dr Kevin Donnelly, a senior English teacher, curriculum writer and academic who reviewed the national curriculum in 2014, said Australia set a “low bar’’ for education. “We’ve lowered the bar to create a false picture of how well our students are doing and it breeds complacency,’’ he said.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/high-school-pass-marks-lowered-to-under-50-per-cent/news-story/defa8e40119399a1ede8f5165846f47c

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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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Louisiana Bill Would Ban K-12 Classroom Discussion of Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity

New Louisiana legislation would ban public school teachers and personnel from discussing sexual orientation and gender identity with students from kindergarten through the end of high school.

That’s not all. Republican Louisiana state Rep. Dodie Horton’s HB 466 would also prevent teachers from discussing their own sexual orientation or gender identity with students or using pronouns for a student that differ from the pronouns that “reflect the sex indicated on the student’s birth certificate.”

If the parents provide written permission, school employees could use pronouns for a student that differ from the pronouns on their birth certificate.

HB 466 passed out of Louisiana’s House Education Committee on a 7-5 vote on Wednesday, Horton said in a phone interview Wednesday afternoon. It now heads to the House for debate.

“It is important to be able to protect our children while they’re in the classroom and from those who wish to push their ideology on them,” she said. “Our children are our greatest commodity, and the world is fighting over them. We must be able to assure our parents that when they drop their children off at our public schools, their children are going to be taught the approved state standard class curriculum and [teachers will] not deviate [from] that and infringe on parental rights in sharing their own philosophy of life with the student.”

Most teachers respect parental rights, Horton said. They are there for the child. But with this growing trend of teachers pushing ideology on children, “we must do all we can to protect them.”

Horton believes Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, would veto the legislation if it reaches his desk. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Daily Signal.

“If it does, we have a supermajority in the House and the Senate, and I pray that people will be bold enough and courageous enough to override a veto,” she said.

Critics have already labelled it “Don’t Say Gay,” Horton told The Daily Signal, comparing it to Florida’s controversial legislation. On Wednesday, Planned Parenthood of the Gulf Coast warned: “This is a Don’t Say Gay bill that would prohibit educators from discussing sexual orientation in the classroom.”

Polling conducted by outlets like The Daily Wire and Politico shows that most Americans don’t want gender identity being taught in schools.

Florida’s Parental Rights in Education (HB 1557) also bans classroom discussions of gender identity and sexual orientation for little children. Media and activists who labelled the bill “Don’t Say Gay” most notably took issue with the law’s statement that “classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.”

Kindergarten students are typically about 5 years old. Third graders are typically 8 or 9 years old.

The legislation, which Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed in March 2022, never even mentions the word gay. It does mention the word parent 32 times.

Asked if she conferred with Florida legislators on HB 466, Horton said that she had spoken with DeSantis himself about the bill a few months ago. At the time, she said, she questioned the Florida governor about why HB 1577 stopped at the third grade.

Florida’s Board of Education recently expanded HB 1557 to ban discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity through all grades.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/04/26/louisiana-bill-would-ban-k-12-classroom-discussion-of-sexual-orientation-gender-identity

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Villanova Students Required to Read Graphic Trans Sex Scene Between Minors

An English seminar class at Villanova University reportedly required students to read a play depicting a graphic sex scene between minors, one of whom identifies as transgender.

Jennifer Joyce teaches the Core Literature and Writing Seminar Class at Villanova, ENG 1975-020, titled Narratives of Belonging in Contemporary Irish Literature. The specific class is one of several options for students who are required to take the core seminar, though students may be forced to take the class if the other class options have been filled.

On Tuesday, Joyce led discussions of the play “Scorch” by Stacey Gregg. “Scorch” is inspired by stories of biological women in the United Kingdom who tricked other women into having sex with them by pretending to be men. Examples include Fiona Manson, who now goes by Kyran Lee, charged with assault by penetration for having sex with another woman while pretending to be a man, as well as Gayle Newland, sentenced to eight years in prison for pretending to be a man in order to dupe her friend into having sex with her.

“Scorch” takes the side of the woman doing the duping.

“The reading was mandatory because there was a quiz on it, so if you did not do the reading, you would have failed the quiz in class,” a female student who is taking the class told The Daily Signal. “Further, the discussion in class labeled everyone who did not understand what the main character ‘Kes’ was going through as homophobic or transphobic.”

The student, who asked to remain anonymous since the class is currently still in session, said the play contains a sex scene between two minors who are 17 and 15. Both of the minors (Kes and Jules) are biologically female and met on a dating app, she said, but Jules thinks that Kes is a boy. Kes’ character is reportedly “confused” about her gender identity and deciding whether or not to transition to attempt to become a boy.

When the sex scene takes place, Jules is apparently unaware that she is having a sexual encounter with a biological female.

“I was visibly uncomfortable throughout the whole discussion as the teacher offered no opportunity for dissent and was oblivious to the members of the class who were clearly [made] uncomfortable by this transgender sex scene,” the student told The Daily Signal.

“Even the most liberal members of the class did not know which pronouns to use to describe the main character of the play because the main character is a girl who is clearly lesbian and hasn’t undergone a transition yet, but goes to a transgender support group where they talk the character into using terms like ‘agender,’ ‘gender fluid,’ etc., etc. and convince her it is a good thing to transition,” the female student explained.

The Daily Signal spoke with this student following a report from The Daily Caller’s Sarah Weaver that Villanova had removed a number of gender identity terms from its housing application. The move came after The Daily Caller reached out to the university asking why it included the gender options, such as “two-spirit,” “gender fluid,” and “gender queer.”

Villanova told The Daily Caller that the initial options were provided by an “outside vendor,” and its housing application form now offers only three gender options for students: male, female, and “nonbinary,” terms reportedly consistent with those on the Common Application.

“The latest version of the housing application included a more comprehensive list of gender identity options than Villanova typically uses; this default list was provided by an outside vendor and has since been updated,” the school said.

“The Office of Residence Life is committed to ensuring every student feels comfortable and welcome in their on-campus housing situation. As part of our Augustinian values of Veritas, Unitas, Caritas—Truth, Unity and Love—Villanova seeks to be a welcoming and inclusive community that respects members of all backgrounds, identities and faiths.”

The female student who spoke with The Daily Signal said that she feels like she has been “slowly going insane” as she strives to get a good grade in Joyce’s class, believing that she must emphasize themes of sexism in order to please her instructor.

“The whole class is about identity, I feel like my identity is being shredded here, because I kind of have no choice. I feel like I’m slowly losing my soul,” she said, describing her experience in the class as being “gaslit, 24/7.”

“And also, I’m at a Catholic school where my parents paid so much money to send me, and the fact that this is being taught in a Catholic school is probably the most frustrating part,” she added.

Villanova is, in fact, known as a private, Catholic university, but it is unclear how faithful to Catholicism the institution actually is. As The Daily Caller reported, it boasts of so-called anti-racist and diversity, equity, and inclusion trainings as well as uses “gender inclusive” practices in language and curriculum.

It is not among the Catholic colleges promoted by The Cardinal Newman Society, an organization which advocates for solidly faithful Catholic education. Many thousands of Catholic families reference the Newman Guide when deciding where to send their children for college.

“An authentic Catholic university is devoted to the truth of Catholic teaching, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church does not recognize a ‘nonbinary’ gender,” Patrick Reilly, president and founder of The Cardinal Newman Society, told The Daily Signal. “The complementary of men and women is essential to Christian anthropology and marriage.”

“Yes, a Catholic university should welcome students who struggle with error and seek the truth,” he added, “but a university that willingly compromises truth is worthless and even dangerous.”

https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/04/27/exclusive-villanova-students-required-read-graphic-trans-sex-scene-between-minors

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University of Queensland forced to apologise over ‘white privilege’ medical assignment

The University of Queensland has been forced to apologise and scrap the results of a controversial “white privilege” medical assignment after students feared they could be expelled for failing.

First year UQ medical students had been asked to write about their own “white privilege” and institutional racism in a two-part assignment.

The Sunday Mail understands when students received their grades last week the majority of the cohort received a fail mark.

One medical student told The Sunday Mail, on the condition of anonymity, they believed the ones who had passed had effectively lied about admitting to being racist.

“The people who did well have frankly lied, they played into the notion that they’re racist, even if they’re not,” they said.

Following backlash from the medical cohort, the prestigious university has been forced to apologise and remove the results of the assignment from end-of-year grades.

Prior to the decision, students had been concerned that the university was at liberty to expel them from the program if they failed.

The medical student said that the passing grade on the assignment was required for an overall passing grade of the year.

The student said the cohort had feared that a fail on this subject could be the difference between getting an overall high distinction or a distinction which could impact postgraduate employment.

“UQ has a very good reputation internationally but students with all As in assignments are looked at better than B,” they said prior to UQ’s announcement. “You could be the best doctor in the world but fail on this.”

A UQ spokeswoman said there was no suggestion that students could be expelled for failing the assignment as the university took a “whole of approach” to progression.

The spokeswoman did not respond to questions about how many students failed the exam.

A leaked email from UQ’s dean of medical school Professor Stuart Carney to students, seen by the Sunday Mail, confirmed the results of the assignment had been removed from the final component.

https://www.couriermail.com.au/queensland-education/tertiary/university-of-queensland-forced-to-apologise-over-white-privilege-medical-assignment/news-story/2de6446af795430dfad22f718b7a9c8e

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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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