I remember how it was -- JR
GOP Senator Demands Answers About Taxpayer Funding For ‘Woke Kindergarten’ at California...
Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana announced on Friday that he was seeking information about a California elementary school that spent hundreds of thousands on a “Woke Kindergarten” program.
Glassbrook Elementary School reportedly spent $250,000 on “Woke Kindergarten,” a nonprofit that encourages a “global, abolitionist early childhood ecosystem.” Cassidy raised concerns in several letters to the nonprofit and the California Department of Education requesting information on the purpose of the program’s inclusion in light of “failing test scores in crucial subjects like math and reading.”
“The reports regarding Woke Kindergarten are serious. Teachers at Glassbrook Elementary in Hayward, California, reportedly stated that the Woke Kindergarten program is ‘rooted in progressive politics and activism with anti-police, anti-capitalism and anti-Israel messages mixed in with the goal of making schools safe, joyful and supportive for all children,’” Cassidy wrote in a letter to the department.
The nonprofit’s website includes “woke read alouds” in which the founder, Akiea Gross, reads books about the importance “for all of us to affirm people’s identities.” The website also includes resources titled “lil’ comrade convos,” “woke words of the day” and “teach Palestine.”
Cassidy demanded that Woke Kindergarten explain the “purpose” of its activities, as well as “produce copies of all materials used in connection with your program,” according to the letter. The Louisiana senator asked the department to explain if it was aware of the program’s use at Glassbrook and if the department knew where the federal funds were coming from to pay for the program.
During the program’s implementation in the 2022–2023 school year, grades also dropped significantly in crucial subjects, with reading and math at 16% and 14% respectively, according to the California School Dashboard. The school was also ranked as one of the worst-performing elementary schools in the state.
The Hayward Unified School District canceled the contract with Woke Kindergarten in February after immense backlash from conservative commentators such as Ben Shapiro, Jesse Waters and the activist account Libs of Tik Tok. The program was halted because it was “distracting the district,” according to Michael Bazeley, HUSD spokesperson, who formerly spoke with the Daily Caller News Foundation about the situation.
Woke Kindergarten, Glassbrook and the department did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
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The School Funding Fraud
Politico reports that billions of dollars in federal pandemic relief aid to schools is running dry.The money must be spent by September, and there is “urgent concern over how schools might get burned when the money’s gone, as the process to request extensions to looming spending deadlines heats up in the coming months.”
Schools might be burned?!
We are led to believe that the cheapskate American taxpayers are not forking over enough cash to the government school monopoly. But the data tell a very different story.
According to the invaluable Just Facts, which is dedicated to researching and publishing verifiable data about the critical public policy issues of our time, the U.S. spent $1.2 trillion on education in 2022. The bulk of the spending, $834 billion, goes to elementary and secondary education, while $226 billion is spent on higher education, and $121 billion goes to libraries and other forms of education.
This total breaks down to $8,993 for every household in the U.S., 4.6% of the U.S. gross domestic product, and 14% of the government’s current expenditures. It’s important to note that these figures don’t include land purchases for schools and other facilities, as well as some of the costs of durable items like buildings and computers. The unfunded liabilities of post-employment non-pension benefits (like health insurance) are also not included.
Unimpressed by any such data, California Teacher Association president David Goldberg bellyached in early February that California has suffered through “decades of deliberate disinvestment in public schools.” The union boss added, “This erratic system of starved school budgets during economic boom years mustn’t continue. We need to find lasting solutions to California’s broken budget system.”
We are led to believe that Golden State legislators are siphoning money from cash-poor schools. However, the Public Policy Institute of California discloses that school spending per pupil is roughly 65% higher than a decade ago in the Golden State. In 2021, the state allotted $22,684 per student, compared to $14,245 in 2012–13. This amount doesn’t include federal monies, which brings the total to almost $24,000. So, a class of 25 students costs taxpayers about $600,000.
The money grabbers’ basic assumption (or at least their selling point) is that spending more equates to better education results. Sadly, so many people buy into this myth and have done so for many years. In 2008, Dan Lips, then senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, wrote, “American spending on public K-12 education is at an all-time high and is still rising. Polls show that many believe a lack of resources is a primary problem facing public schools. Yet spending on American K-12 public Education is at an all-time high. Approximately $9,300 is spent per pupil. Real spending per student has increased by 23.5 percent over the past decade and by 49 percent over the past 20 years.”
It cannot be said enough that there is no correlation between the amount of funding and the level of student proficiency. The most recent Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) noted that the U.S. had additional funding of more than $75,000 per student over a ten-year period. Still, it did not have additional positive effects on academic achievement.
https://heartland.org/opinion/the-school-funding-fraud/
****************************************************Going to university is not always the right choice
Students with poor grades in high school will be encouraged to go to university and set on a career path that is wrong for them, experts warn, under sweeping recommendations in the federal government’s higher education review that are coming under fire from vice-chancellors.
One higher education expert warned that students with ATARs as low as 45 could make it into university under the blueprint for the sector outlined in the Universities Accord review’s final report, released by Education Minister Jason Clare on Sunday.
The biggest review of tertiary education in 15 years has called on the Albanese government to double the number of university places in the next 25 years, reduce the high fees students pay in some subjects and reform the HECS loan scheme to ease the financial impact on graduates.
The recommendations in the review will cost tens of billions of dollars over the next 25 years if fully implemented. They aim to create a highly educated workforce, with more than 55 per cent of 25 to 34-year-olds having a bachelor degree or above by 2050.
The review recommends more government funding to dramatically increase the number of disadvantaged students from poor backgrounds and regional areas at university.
“At the moment almost half of young people in their 20s and 30s have a uni degree. But not … in the outer suburbs … not in our regions. And the accord is about changing that,” Mr Clare said. Although the report was welcomed by most universities, Australian National University higher education expert Andrew Norton warned the attendance target meant that students with an ATAR of only 45 would be going to university,
“Historically most students with ATARs below 50 don’t go,” Professor Norton writes in The Australian. “Those who do, face a high risk of dropping out, and if they finish a reduced chance of getting a well-paid job. Nobody should be encouraged to take courses that probably won’t leave them better off.”
While most of the recommendations are uncosted, Australia’s three wealthiest universities – Sydney, Melbourne and Monash – have slammed a key proposal to tax university income and redistribute resources from richer institutions to poorer ones.
The report calls for all universities to pay an impost on “untied” revenue they earn through their own efforts, including international student fees, unsubsidised domestic student fees, interest and investment income, and business earnings.
The tax, which will fall mainly on universities with high international student income, will contribute half of a $10bn investment in the Higher Education Future Fund, to pay for university infrastructure including campus buildings and student accommodation. The $5bn raised in tax would be matched by the government.
Monash University vice-chancellor Sharon Pickering said the future fund plan would interfere with universities’ ability to deliver on the accord review’s goals of increasing numbers of disadvantaged students and building the workforce skills needed in a modern economy.
University of Melbourne vice-chancellor Duncan Maskell said he was concerned by the proposal. “A new tax on universities will weaken Australia’s current and future productivity, innovative potential and prosperity,” he said.
University of Sydney vice-chancellor Mark Scott, who is also chair of the Group of Eight universities which benefit most from international student fees, said the future fund tax plan “would hurt our reputation and our capacity to attract international students”.
The report made no recommendations on the level of the tax but said it should only commence once a new university funding system was in place and should cease when $5bn had been raised.
It would mainly affect five of the Group of Eight universities which have large numbers of high fee paying Chinese students – Sydney, Melbourne, Monash, UNSW and Queensland.
Western Sydney University vice-chancellor Barney Glover, a member of the accord review panel, said the fund was “important future proofing for the sector” but there was “work to do on design and timing”.
On Sunday Mr Clare said he had an open mind on the tax and the future fund, and would decide over the next weeks and months. “There are some universities who hate it, there are other universities who love it,” he told the ABC.
The review called on the government to reduce the high fees student pay in some subjects, and reform the HECS loan scheme to ease the financial impact on graduates. The review says high university fees of over $16,000 a year in some fields – including humanities, communications, and other society and culture subjects such as human movement – should be reduced.
It also urged reforms to HECS to ease the effect high inflation has on increasing the amount students owe and to reduce the financial impact on HECS debtors when their income first hits the loan repayment threshold.
The report says banks lending practices should be reviewed so people don’t have their home loan borrowing capacity unduly affected by HECS debt.
The review panel, headed by former NSW chief scientist Mary O’Kane, makes 47 recommendations for reforming tertiary education, aimed at dramatically increasing the number of Australians who continue education after finishing school.
The review recommends a goal of having 80 per cent of working age Australians with at least one tertiary qualification (vocational or higher education) by 2050 compared to 60 per cent at the moment.
It urges the government to set an achievement target of having 55 per cent of 25 to 34-year-olds holding a bachelor degree or above by 2050, compared to 45 per cent now. This will require a doubling of commonwealth supported university places for domestic students from 860,000 in 2022 to 1.8 million in 2050.
The review says universities should get more government funding for educating students with higher needs, such as those from low socio-economic status backgrounds, from regional and remote areas, and Indigenous students.
The review also calls for more innovative types of courses such as micro-credentials and degree apprenticeships, payments to students for compulsory internships, free university preparatory courses, higher living allowances for needy students, better recognition of prior learning for people starting qualifications, and a “jobs broker” to help students find part-time jobs while they are studying in the area of their course.
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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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