Oklahoma public schools will teach about the Bible and the Ten Commandments

State Superintendent Ryan Walters (R) announced Thursday that teaching the Bible and the Ten Commandments will be mandatory in all public school classrooms effective immediately, The Wall Street Journal reports. The plan is to incorporate both into history lessons.

Every teacher and every classroom in the state will have a Bible. Teachers will be required to teach from the Bible in the classroom. The Bible will be displayed prominently in grades 5-12.

“This is a historical argument,” Walters told the WSJ. “The left can be offended, but that’s our history.”

“The Bible is a necessary historical document to teach our kids about the history of this country, to have a complete understanding of western civilization, to have an understanding of the basis of our legal system, and frankly, when we are talking about the Bible, one of the most foundational documents used for the constitution and the birth of our country,” Walters wrote on X.

Walters has been an outspoken critic of “woke” ideology, often expressing concerns for its negative effects on public education. State Superintendent is an elected position in Oklahoma, and Walters campaigned on the promise to fight back against the radical Left and the indoctrination of Oklahoma school children. He easily won his election, with 57 percent of the vote, in 2022.

Other states are also taking action. A new law in Louisiana mandates the posting of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms, as Heartland Daily News reported. Texas officials also plan to put a copy of the Ten Commandments in every public-school classroom.

While there is strong support among conservatives to bring the Ten Commandments and the Bible back into the classroom, opponents, such as the ACLU and the teacher’s unions, are pushing back and taking action.

A group led by the ACLU has already filed a lawsuit against the new Louisiana law. The American Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom from Religion Foundation issued a joint statement.

“We are preparing a lawsuit to challenge H.B. 71,” the statement reads in part. “The law violates the separation of church and state and is blatantly unconstitutional.”

“The First Amendment promises that we all get to decide for ourselves what religious beliefs, if any, to hold and practice, without pressure from the government. Politicians have no business imposing their preferred religious doctrine on students and families in public schools.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) expressed his support for the new law in his home state of Louisiana, The Hill reports. Although the law is being challenged in court, Johnson says he thinks the law will stand the constitutional scrutiny.

“And I think it should pass court muster,” Johnson told reporters. “I think there’s a number of states trying to look to do the same thing, and I don’t think it’s offensive in any way. I think it’s a positive thing.”

“It’s not an establishment of religion,” Johnson said. “It’s not. They’re not trying to enforce any particular religious code. They’re just saying this is part of the history and tradition.”

“The modern interpretation of the establishment clause in the First Amendment has been an unmitigated disaster,” writes Auron MacIntyre in an opinion article for The Blaze.

“By expelling biblical education from public schools in the name of secular neutrality, we effectively banned Western culture,” MacIntyre writes. “Now, our children speak the shared language of gay race communism instead.”

“When Christianity was purged from American public life through a radical interpretation of the First Amendment and civil rights law, an ideological void was left at the center of our institutions, and nature abhors a vacuum. LGBTQ ideology stood ready to fill that void.”

https://heartlanddailynews.com/2024/07/oklahoma-public-schools-will-teach-about-the-bible/

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Schools Arbitrarily Giving Days Off

The world seemed to almost stop in March 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic prompted nationwide lockdowns and school closures that thrust students into remote learning situations en masse.

While the lockdowns happened quickly, the reopenings did not. Due to the decentralized structure of America’s public education system, the federal government could not order schools to return to in-person learning. With the decision left up to the discretion of each school district, the date when students returned to in-person classes varied greatly.

Since the lockdowns, some schools have adopted a more lenient attendance policy, starkly contrasting the pre-2020 education environment.

In October 2021, a North Carolina school district voted to close campuses for a “day of kindness, community, and connection,” essentially a mental health day that would not have to be made up at the end of the year.

The following month, two Virginia school districts sent students home early on select Wednesdays to combat teacher burnout, per NBC News.

In November 2021, sudden school closures for various reasons affected 858 districts and 8,692 campuses around the country, according to Burbio, an organization that tracks school district websites, per KERA News.

Legislators in parts of the country have passed laws allowing students to take mental health days, including states such as California, Maine, Washington, and Oregon.

More recently, schools announced they would let students stay home to watch the total solar eclipse on April 8 instead of using the opportunity for an in-class learning experience. Some school districts in North Texas closed their doors, including Waxahachie ISD and Greenville ISD.

Frisco ISD announced that while it would not cancel classes, student absences with a parent note would be excused.

It almost seems as if schools can now shut down at any time for any reason.

Alongside the chronic cancellation of classes, student absenteeism remains high across the United States in the aftermath of the pandemic lockdowns.

“Our relationship with school became optional,” said Katie Rosanbalm, a psychologist and associate research professor with the Center for Child and Family Policy at Duke University, according to The New York Times.

Quintin Shepherd, the superintendent of Victoria ISD in Texas, told NYT, “If kids are not here, they are not forming relationships.”

He went on to note that the lack of relationships on campus has led to discipline issues, academic struggles, and even violent behavior.

Students’ lack of attendance and schools’ habits of canceling classes present a dangerous combination. Some experts suggest that a cultural shift occurred in the wake of the pandemic lockdowns and school districts’ transitioning to online learning, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.

At Dallas ISD, only 41% of students scored at grade level on the 2021-2022 STAAR exams, according to the Texas Education Agency’s accountability report. Meanwhile, nearly 20% of its graduating Class of 2022 did not earn a diploma within four years.

https://dallasexpress.com/education/schools-arbitrarily-giving-days-off/

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Chicago Public Schools Announces Pay for Laid-Off Employees as Teachers Union Decries Staff Cuts

Facing a murkier financial outlook and a budget deficit, Chicago Public Schools has launched “layoff prevention pools” that will guarantee displaced employees positions at other schools — and pay through the next school year.

The district said approximately 600 staffers lost their positions earlier this month. This year, it extended the layoff safeguards — previously in place for teachers — to teaching assistants and other support staff as well. The Chicago Teachers Union held a press conference Thursday to decry at least 330 layoffs of its members, which leaders said disrupt key relationships they build with students and leaves staff in limbo over the summer.

The summer shuffling of staff is a common practice, as student enrollment fluctuates on some campuses. But this year it comes amid a change to the district’s funding formula and as CPS officials have delayed releasing a full budget proposal until July, even though the fiscal year ends this week. Typically, the Chicago Board of Education votes on its annual budget in June.

Instead at their regular meeting Thursday, school board members got an earful from CTU members, as well as some assurance from district officials that school-level funding will stay stable despite an almost $400 million deficit as federal COVID recovery money runs out.

District CEO Pedro Martinez told board members his team needed more time to do due diligence and communicate about the new funding approach, which provides key staff positions to all campuses and uses their level of need to allocate additional dollars.

“There’s no denying that CPS is facing a challenging financial outlook,” Martinez said. “But I remain confident that when our 2024-25 budget is complete, the overall level of funding provided to schools will be maintained or likely increase from what we experienced compared to the last school year.”

The district, which has added thousands of new positions to its payroll in recent years, said it will maintain roughly $500 million in funding increases for schools made since the 2021-22 school year. It stressed that overall, schools will employ more people in the fall compared with this past school year, including 500 more teachers, 600 additional special education paraprofessional positions, and almost 90 more restorative justice coordinators. The district has more than 39,000 employees.

The union said it received a list of laid-off members earlier this week.

Union leaders said most would likely be rehired at other schools, but they argued that the district can do more to avert uncertainty for its employees and disruption to school communities when educators who have bonded with students are reassigned over the summer.

Grisel Sanchez has been working as a bilingual teacher assistant for the past two years at Mark Twain Elementary, supporting and translating for students in kindergarten through eighth grade.

“I translated almost every assignment that was given to (eighth graders) to make it easier for them to understand the material so they could pass their class and graduate,” Sanchez said during the CTU press conference.

On June 7, however, Sanchez said she was called into the office and told her position was being cut and that she could apply for jobs at other schools.

Edward Ward was laid off as a restorative justice coordinator at Sherman School of Excellence this month. He was also let go last year from Beidler Elementary from a similar role. The repeated layoffs, he said, are damaging to the relationship building that a restorative justice coordinator does.

“We are not disposable, and you’ve made a huge mistake to cut those positions, because at the end of the day, it’s our students who suffer,” Ward said.

The district, which has added thousands of new positions to its payroll in recent years, said it will maintain roughly $500 million in funding increases for schools made since the 2021-22 school year. It stressed that overall, schools will employ more people in the fall compared with this past school year, including 500 more teachers, 600 additional special education paraprofessional positions, and almost 90 restorative justice coordinators.

Officials said the district adjusted support staffing to reflect enrollment changes. About 300 of the 595 employees affected are teaching assistants, representing a 0.5% reduction of all employees.

“The district is committed to guaranteeing a job for any of the impacted teaching assistants, and historical data confirms that those who choose to remain in the district will have employment within the district,” Chicago Public Schools said in a statement.

The statement said the district worked closely with the CTU and the SEIU, the union that represents some district support staff, on this effort to ensure laid-off staffers are assigned vacant roles before the start of next school year.

“This assertive initiative is crucial for sustaining our educational gains and providing much-needed school stability,” the district said.

The board approved a resolution Thursday that would allow principals to dip into 2024-25 funds in July ahead of the full budget’s approval so they can line up staff and other resources for the fall.

The layoffs of around 20 restorative justice coordinators comes as the district is overhauling its approach to school safety in a way that centers restorative justice and reduces punitive discipline.

“You can’t say that we are going to move in a direction that honors and respects the humanity of our young people and cut 20 restorative justice coordinators,” said Stacy Davis Gates. “Those two things do not match.”

Addressing the school board, teachers union vice president Jackson Potter said the district has made some headway in addressing disruption from the summer reshuffling of employees — but needs to do more.

“This has now become an annual bloodletting ritual that we hope will end or at least become more humane and thoughtful,” he said.

Potter and educators who addressed the board to protest the layoffs took aim at the district’s Skyline curriculum — an in-house $135 million curriculum the district developed during the pandemic. He argued that the district should use some of the money it spends on rolling out the curriculum to ward off support staff layoffs.

“You should ask people, ‘Do you prefer a TA, or do you prefer this curriculum?’” Potter asked, adding that teachers have called Skyline “a dumpster fire.”

But district officials insisted later in the meeting that school teams led by principals voluntarily adopt Skyline, and they said it has been key to a push to roll out high-quality curriculums in all schools. They said 462 schools have chosen to use Skyline in at least one subject.

“While Skyline might not be a perfect system,” said chief education officer Bogdana Chkoumbova, “it’s definitely a system worth iterating and investing in.

https://heartlanddailynews.com/2024/07/chicago-public-schools-teachers-union-decries-staff-cuts/

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