Again, and just from my own POV, realizing that there are different styles of teaching, different subjects, etc., but I really do think a lot of this is pure laziness on the part of professors. Granted, I’m at a school that is focused 100% on teaching; it’s not a research institution, and faculty are expected to engage with students and be energized about actually being in the classroom. You will find very few faculty where I teach relying on these canned quizzes and publisher-produced lesson plan things.
Note that I’m talking primarily about full-time faculty, not adjuncts, who often have to work so many damn classes that I can definitely see why using some pre-made stuff is essential. But full time tenured or equivalent faculty, IMO, need to be doing actual teaching.
They remove Helen Keller, Hillary Clinton and her/the most critical election of our time from social studies while requiring Billy Graham be added and MOSES?! WTF
Texas has an inordinate effect on the schoolbooks that get used all over the country. It’s a sad state of affairs, and I vote every time I get the chance to put reasonable people on the board, but I’m still in the minority in Texas. For the moment.
In addition to all that, there’s lots of local stuff. We’ve got a local ballot measure here to “override a millage rollback” which is one of those crazy things you get when anti-tax zealots can’t quite convince people to vote against schools, but still want to “starve the government beast” with as much tax reduction as possible. When property values rise quickly enough relative to the prior year, the school millage levy has to fall so the total tax doesn’t rise more than inflation. Which would sound reasonable if we hadn’t had huge drops in property values in the last decade, which of course aren’t taken into account by the formula, so overall taxes (and thus school funding) has dropped substantially over that period. So now we have to vote to override the rollback so schools don’t lose out even more than they already have. Which fortunately is likely to pass, but with local stuff you never know…small swings in turnout can do crazy things with a small overall vote count.
Unofficial results are saying that this failed, sadly. Glancing through the list of ballot measures here in West Michigan, it looks like every other school-funding measure passed, including one for early childhood education in all of Kent County. But not in Caledonia, too many anti-tax zealots around here. The good news is that Caledonia schools are good enough that they can probably absorb the revenue loss without significant drop in most student services, but it likely means teachers get the shaft on pay (again) and less help for the minority of vulnerable kids that need special care.
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is set to release a sweeping overhaul of how colleges and universities must handle allegations of sexual assault and harassment, giving new rights to the accused, including the ability to cross-examine their accusers, people familiar with the matter said.
The proposal is set for release before Thanksgiving, possibly this week, and replaces less formal guidance issued by the Obama administration in 2011. The new rules would reduce liability for universities, tighten the definition of sexual harassment, and allow schools to use a higher standard in evaluating claims of sexual harassment and assault.
[…]
The most significant change would guarantee the accused the right to cross-examine their accusers, though it would have to be conducted by advisers or attorneys for the people involved, rather than by the person accused of misconduct. If requested, the parties could be in separate rooms during the cross-examination, an administration official said. They said this was done to bolster the due process rights of the accused while assuring that victims are not directly confronted by their assailants.
[…]
Jess Davidson, executive director of the advocacy group End Rape on Campus, said she made the case to the White House against the cross-examination provisions, decrying it as “an extraordinarily cruel process” that would discourage victims from reporting assaults.
In isolation, the idea doesn’t seem terrible…due diligence to ensure reported assaults actually occurred and prevent use of the reporting process for personal grudges unrelated to assaults. But it completely ignores reality: the massive disadvantage of the victim in the legal system, the social stigma against reporting, the “see no evil” approach of universities (or any organization, really) if they’re not forced to confront the issue, and I’m sure a dozen other things I can’t think of right now where the accused already have massive advantages. This is the kind of policy you get when the people in charge have never had to deal with the realities on the ground and have no experience outside of a privileged bubble.
How about some good news for this thread (sorry about the paywall)?
While we don’t have metrics on how these students are performing in their studies yet (and the article mentions that the third graders on average were reading at a first grade level before transferring in) the school is providing a solid foundation, meals, and other basic services for those who otherwise might go without, acting as more of a community center than just a school. One of the Browns’ receivers said he was looking into how to make something like this happen in his hometown.
It’s hard work and absolutely requires the right staff to care about the kids. I hope in 10 years we can look back and see the I Promise school as a success and the first of many schools with similar concepts around the country.
It sounds like a decent idea: make it easier to operate for new education concepts like coding boot camps and various types of online classes. Unless you actually look at the history of those kinds of operations, the failure rates and poor student outcomes. We’re not talking ancient history, either, just a few years ago big schools like ITT Tech went under.
This is standard Trump administration process: Give free reign to entrepreneurs and to hell with the consequences. And if you have a nice safety net of relatives and community to catch you after one of these schools bilks you, that makes sense. But not everyone is a DeVos or a Trump and has that support, which is why the Obama administration made the rules in the first place.
DeVos wrote an opinion piece in the Post today on this. It says exactly what you’d expect. I’m convinced that she truly believes that the policy is fair and helps everyone. And that’s because she has no clue what life is like when you’re not one of the privileged class.
This is one of those situations where the “small government” crowd isn’t technically wrong, but the ripple effects are bad. Yes, Special Olympics probably can support itself without government funding. It has a high profile and can woo big-money donors. But time and money spent doing that isn’t going to the core mission. Plus, all the donors who fill the funding gap left by losing government funding for Special Olympics won’t be spending those donations on other charities…likely smaller ones that don’t have the same reach as Special Olympics, and will end up doing without.
Betsy Devos owns multiple yachts, one of which is worth more than 40 million. Somehow we can’t get half a yacht together to help kids with disabilities out? I wonder where that money could come from…
For people who supposedly have the best educations from the best schools and the most experience in all the highest boardrooms of Corporate America and/or hallowed halls of American government…it’s like they’re completely unable to fathom the meaning of “Bad Optics” and how it might bite them in the ass.
I mean, right on the heels of one of the best publicity weekends in recent GOP history, where they were able to go out and turn Barr’s love letter summary of the Mueller Report into a victory lap in the media, they immediately turn to “let’s take away 28 millions people’s health insurance AND screw over the special needs kids” as their new narratives literally within the same 48 hour period.
