Racial equity is important, but it doesn't trump the right to excel

 James S. Robbins is another voice of sanity in the education debate.

The intellectual nadir of the attack on achievement is the emergence of “ethnomathematics,” which seeks to “dismantle racism” by promoting notions such as math not being objective and deemphasizing the focus on getting the “right answer.” The Oregon Department of Education promoted a professional development course on Equitable Math Instruction, and the California draft Mathematics Framework document promotes these concepts.

 

This strain of thought would have the practical effect of giving those students who struggle with math a moral justification for not getting any better and notifying those who are gifted that there is probably something wrong with them. If this framework spreads, it could condemn a generation of children to irrelevance in science, technology, engineering and math fields, where the right answer is not a matter of opinion.

Contrast the ethnomathematics message with the inspirational subject of the movie “Hidden Figures.” That film lauded the contributions of three African American women working for NASA in the early 1960s, using their superior math skills to support America in the Cold War space race while overcoming segregation-era institutional racism. This is the type of uplifting math story that kids of color need to hear, not divisive nonsense about how having to “show your work” is inherently racist. 

We need more sanity.

Howard University's classics department is an incubator for Black equality. Don't close it.

 I'm not sure how this got past the USA Today editors. It's by Anika T. Prather. It's sane, it's intelligent, and it goes against the current anti-intellectual "tear down Western civilization" orthodoxy. It does so using facts and logic. I wonder who was fired over this and if there will be a public apology.

The beauty about Howard University is that, since its founding, each student has at least some exposure to the works of the canon. I believe this classical foundation is what produced people like Justice Thurgood Marshall, a graduate of Howard's law school who did more than just practice the trade of his career but served all of humanity through his work. 

The list of Black scholars who have come out of Howard and been touched by the classics is extensive: Toni Morrison minored in classics; Zora Neale Hurston took classes in the field; Chadwick Boseman had classical theatre training while a student at Howard, and was taught by the actress Phylicia Rashad. I minored in theatre at Howard, and we are all well versed in Greek tragedy and Roman comedy.

Alain Locke believed so much in reading from the canon that the hall where the classics department is housed is named after him. Locke, who taught at Howard, became the first African American Rhodes Scholar and is considered the father of the Harlem Renaissance.

Read the classics. They will enrich your life in many ways. Anyone telling you otherwise is lying and merely wants your intellectual world reduced so that you are forced to depend on them to learn what to think.

Helping Teen Moms

The Detroit Free Press recently ran this story: "Detroiter Tyra Moore's nonprofit assists teen moms, just like her." It seems like a hopeful article. Tyra Moore, who was a teenage mom herself, is helping current teen moms. 

Teen mothers need all the help they can get. Ideally, some of that help would come from the young men who impregnated these young women, you know, the fathers. No mention is made of fathers in the article though. They are let off the hook and are free to create and abandon more children.

As she hopes for the day when teen pregnancy will become less taboo, Moore has a message to those who encounter teen moms: “As parents, family, friends and community, we all should come together and help young girls and teen moms -- and girls in general -- who may be going through a tough time. …We should all try to reach out, wrap our arms around them, talk to them and learn from them. Being a teen mom isn’t the perfect choice, but we shouldn’t put them down. We should help them, and encourage them.”

Not a "perfect choice?" Rather that worry about the taboo against teen pregnancy, worry should be directed toward the problems mothers and (especially) children will face in the next eighteen years. The children will have a much greater chance of living in poverty. The children will most likely do much worse in school both academically and behaviorally resulting in a poorer education and a serious lack of choices upon entering adulthood. Some of these mothers will go on to allow other men to impregnate them and run off, thereby making their lives and their children's lives even more difficult. They will suffer for lack of a father's attention and input. Their children will repeat the pattern.

It's hard enough raising a child with two parents, who are outnumbered immediately upon their first child's birth. It's even more difficult for one parent, who has to do the work of two parents. Tyra Moore is engaged in an admirable enterprise, but will she be there when these new children are toddlers and they need different kinds of help, or when the children are in middle school and new sets of issues arise? 

All of the pathologies resulting from fathers' abandonment will, of course, all be blamed on society, not on the mothers' (or the fathers' choices.) Anyone suggesting otherwise is labeled as an uncaring bigot.

Since society has become much more accepting of single motherhood, damn the consequences, maybe society is now partially to blame.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation - Contributing to the Dumbing Down of Math Education.

 I found this article a few days ago, and I was going to post a short diatribe, but you know how it is. You get busy. Time gets away from you, and moves on. Time cares for none of us. The article is from Fox News about a teacher program in Oregon that "seeks to undo 'racism in mathematics.'"

An ODE newsletter sent last week advertises a Feb. 21 "Pathway to Math Equity Micro-Course," which is designed for middle school teachers to make use of a toolkit for "dismantling racism in mathematics." The event website identifies the event as a partnership between California's San Mateo County Office of Education, The Education Trust-West and others. 

Part of the toolkit includes a list of ways "white supremacy culture" allegedly "infiltrates math classrooms." Those include "the focus is on getting the 'right' answer," students being "required to 'show their work,'" and other alleged manifestations.

"The concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally false, and teaching it is even much less so," the document for the "Equitable Math" toolkit reads. "Upholding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers perpetuate objectivity as well as fear of open conflict."

The ODE, led by Colt Gill, confirmed the letter to Fox News. ODE Communications Director Marc Siegel also defended the "Equitable Math" educational program, saying it "helps educators learn key tools for engagement, develop strategies to improve equitable outcomes for Black, Latinx, and multilingual students, and join communities of practice."

Here is a link to the Dismantling Racism workbook. Going through it, I learned that "worship of the written word promotes 'white supremacist thinking' and is one characteristic of white supremacy," which apparently is rampant in American society.

• if it’s not in a memo, it doesn’t exist 
• the organization does not take into account or value other ways in which information gets shared 

• those with strong documentation and writing skills are more highly valued, even in organizations where ability to relate to others is key to the mission

Another characteristic of white supremacy is objectivity.

• the belief that there is such a thing as being objective or ‘neutral’ 

• the belief that emotions are inherently destructive, irrational, and should not play a role in decision-making or group process 

• invalidating people who show emotion 

• requiring people to think in a linear (logical) fashion and ignoring or invalidating those who think in other ways 

• impatience with any thinking that does not appear ‘logical’

In the toolkit, entitled "A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction" we learn that teachers should

DESIGN A CULTURALLY SUSTAINING MATH SPACE 

• Use culturally relevant, antiracist pedagogy, practices, and curriculum. 

• Cultivate mathematical identity so that everyone can see themselves as mathematicians. 

• Adapt homework policies to fit the needs of students of color. 

•Recognize and name the mathematical successes of students of color, and teach them to recognize successes in themselves and others. 

• Intentionally integrate physical movement in math classes. 

CENTER ETHNOMATHEMATICS 

• Recognize the ways that communities of color engage in mathematics and problem solving in their everyday lives. 

• Teach that mathematics can help solve problems affecting students’ communities. Model the use of math as a solution to their immediate problems, needs, or desires. 

• Identify and challenge the ways that math is used to uphold capitalist, imperialist, and racist views. 

• Teach the value of math as both an abstract concept and as a useful everyday tool. 

• Expose students to examples of people who have used math as resistance. Provide learning opportunities that use math as resistance

There are 82 pages of crazy.

Teachers already have enough to do in the classroom without adding another layer non-educational indoctrination replacing teaching and engaging in the further dumbing down of American education, especially when so few high school graduates currently are proficient in math.

Making this even worse is that this program was paid for by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

A radical new push to purge math curricula of allegedly racist practices like showing your work and finding the correct answer is bankrolled by one of the nation's most prominent nonprofits: the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The Gates Foundation is the only donor mentioned on the homepage of A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction, a group of 25 education organizations whose curriculum states that asking students to show their work and find the right answer is an inherently racist practice.

Over the past decade, the Gates Foundation has given upward of $140 million to some of the groups behind Pathway, whose antiracist resources are the basis for a new teacher training course offered by the Oregon Department of Education.

The Education Trust, a California-based group that promoted the September release of Pathway's antiracist "toolkit," has received $86 million from the Gates Foundation, including a $3.6 million grant awarded in June.

Teach Plus, another group dedicated to creating an antiracist culture in K-12 schools, has received more than $27 million from the Gates Foundation. The group's board members include former Democratic congressman George Miller and Obama-era secretary of education John King Jr.—who is also the president of The Education Trust. 

I wonder, with these new obstructions to math education being added in Oregon, and which will surely be added to other states' math curricula, how many potential Microsoft employees will have their math skills hobbled to the point where they have no chance of performing the tasks necessary to work creating the next generations of computers, programs, phones, and other high tech gadgets. 

Bad Education

 The Philadelphia public school system has decided that it's just not that important to teach children to read or do math. Other lessons are more important.

In practical terms, it is unclear how these “antiracist” programs will translate into academic outcomes. The gap between rhetoric and reality at schools such as William Kelley is almost beyond comprehension: the vast majority of the ten- and eleven-year-olds marching for the utopia of “black communism” can barely read and write. Rather than come to terms with the pedagogical failure of Philadelphia public schools, however, educators have shifted the blame to “systemic racism” and promises of “revolution.”

Based on current data, and the percentage of black students who graduate college ready, nobody can say the people responsible in Philadelphia don't know what they're doing. They're doing it on purpose, and they should all be removed from their positions.

We know however, that there will be no repercussions, and Philadelphia students will continue to be victimized by a school system that prioritizes politics over education.

An Anti-Racist Education for Middle Schoolers

 From Reason Magazine: 

District officials evidently believe that the practice of grading students based on average scores is racist and that "anti-racism" demands a learning environment free of the pressure to turn in assignments on time. As evidence for the urgency of these changes, the district released data showing that minority students received more Ds and Fs than white students: Just 7 percent of whites received failing grades, compared to 23 percent of Native Americans, 23 percent of Hispanics, and 20 percent of black students.

"This is part of our honest reckoning as a school district," Vice President Richard Barrera told a local NBC affiliate. "If we're actually going to be an anti-racist school district, we have to confront practices like this that have gone on for years and years."

These changes to San Diego schools' grading system are an excellent example of a bureaucracy citing a noble-sounding goal (who could be against anti-racism?) to justify a policy that doesn't address the issue whatsoever. After all, eliminating these kinds of grades won't eliminate the underlying inequities that produced the disparate failure rates. It may actually cover those inequities up: Given that grades are a tool for evaluating students' progress, the district is essentially announcing that it will no longer gather as much evidence as it could about negative social phenomena it would presumably like to fix. Better grades do not mean students will suddenly have a better grasp of the material. They certainly won't be better prepared for college, where traditional grades are very much still a thing.

When discussing grades though, we mustn't forget that grade inflation has been a problem for years. That, along with degraded standards and requirements, means that for a lot of students their public school education sorely lacks a lot of actual education. Even though students are receiving grades, the grades mean nothing.

When I retired, students were to be given half credit, 50%, even on assignments that were never turned in. And students had until the last week of the term to turn in every assignment, even if it was work from the beginning of the term that they had forgotten how to do - because they hadn't done the work.

"Antiracism" seems like just another way to lower standards, which hurts all students and society at large.

Turn & Talk / "Antiracist" Grading Starts with You

 The reason behind this blog is so I can rant and rave about why American public education is in such a sorry state. It saves me from annoying my wife and from stopping strangers on the street to listen to my great, terrific, stupendous ideas for improving American education.

These days, rather than merely letting things get worse, there are people actively working to make things worse. It's as if they're working toward reducing the number of children who, upon graduating from high school, have actually gotten an education that will enable them to function in society, get a job, and be able to learn and pass on the hard lessons learned from thousands of years of human civilization. Maybe "No Child Left Behind" was an empty slogan, but now were seeing the tacit promotion of - all children left behind.

Part of that promotion is "antiracist grading." I'd never heard of it before, but after reading this article, I think some alleged experts are stretching their alleged expertise into a Bizarro world.

First, I want to challenge the assumption of your question—the term "fall behind" is a social construct. This idea of where a person should be is not a naturally occurring thing. We know from child development psychologist Jean Piaget that all people develop differently and grow at different paces.

And yet, we do know that there is a certain body of knowledge that a person needs in order to navigate life. Yes, children grow and learn at different paces, but the current Covid-related dependence on online school is slowing down the learning process for a large number of children.

Instead of the absurd focus on and twisting of grading practices, how about moving that focus to teaching children to read? While you're at it, throw in lessons on writing and spelling. If you have time after those lessons, some math couldn't hurt. When I say "math" of course, I'm referring to teaching children how to DO math; computation and all that jazz.

One thing we understand from Universal Design for Learning is that there are multiple ways a kid can express their knowing. And so if you know 2+2=4, one way you can express your knowing is by writing it. Another way you can express your knowing is by discussing it. A third way is by creating a model that shows it. A fourth way is by illustrating it and a fifth way is by performing a play. But in too many schools, only one way is considered legitimate. So if you write it, you get an A and that's it. There might be 100 kids in the school who know 2+2=4, but if only two of those kids can write it, then only two of those kids will receive As. That is profoundly discriminatory.

Maybe I'm taking this argument too literally, but being able to express an idea succinctly so that others can understand it would signal that a student understands the concept. In the case of math, to me, that means being able to do the math. If you can write a play showing that 2+2=4, you can certainly figure out the equation.

The second thing I would eliminate is the ideology of transactional gratitude. In most academic spaces, there is a silent pact that teachers make with students: I will agree to teach you well if you demonstrate to me that you are thankful for it. And if you do not demonstrate to me that you are thankful for it, I will withhold quality teaching from you.

This is just insulting to every hard-working teacher who tries to reach every student in spite of all of the roadblocks set up against proper teaching. "Antiracist grading" seems to me to be one more roadblock. 

Hey, Black Lives Matter: Do You Really Want China to Run the World?

 This is by David P. Goldman at PJ Media. It's from June 22 of this year, but it's still relevant. 

China is a ruthless meritocracy. Ten million high-school students take the gaokao (college entrance exam) each year, with math questions a lot tougher than our Graduate Record Examination. The average Chinese family spends the equivalent of a year’s income on tutoring. A third of Chinese undergraduates major in engineering, and China graduates six times as many STEM BAs as the U.S. each year–more than the U.S., Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Europe combined. A lot of their teachers hold doctorates from top U.S. universities, where we trained up a world-class faculty for Chinese universities (which now rank among the world’s best in STEM according to all the Western ratings).

Meanwhile, the University of California is “phasing out” standardized exam (SAT and ACT) scores as a criterion for admission, in order to build a Potemkin village of equality. China is building up its universities and we are destroying ours. Who do you think will run the world a couple of decades from now?

China is the most racist country in the world. It put between one and two million members of the Turkic Muslim Uyghur minority through “re-education camps” in its Western Xinjiang province to crush resistance to cultural absorption. Every Chinese I have spoken with about this, from government officials to office workers, says matter-of-factly, “We’re going to kill them all.” That is how China has been handling “unruly barbarians” for thousands of years. 

Somehow personal achievement has become something that is frowned upon in this country. Our children are the ones who will suffer because of that mindset.

The soft bigotry of anti-racist expectations, by Ian Rowe

 Yes, black kids can achieve and meet expectation in public schools. They can do as well as white kids (not that white kids are doing that great either) and Asian kids. But not if we hold them to lower expectations in the name of "antiracism." 

Despite these facts, school districts across the country are adopting the narrative that racial disparities in academic outcomes pose today’s greatest educational challenge. Such tunnel vision towards problems is usually accompanied by an equally narrow vision towards causality. These educators are reinforcing the flawed belief that every racial disparity must be due to white supremacy and systemic racism, regardless of other factors like declines in stable families or lack of school choice, which may play a far more powerful role in impeding the development of children of all races. The resulting “anti-racist” policies are becoming the unintended, modern day version of the soft bigotry of low expectations.

I taught in a district where requirements were slowly lowered over the years until they were meaningless. When I left, students were allowed to turn in any assignment for full credit up until the last week of the term. Parents repeatedly asked for lists and new copies of those missing assignments, which were usually still not turned in. We were not allowed to give zeros on assignments that weren't turned in. Students had to be given 50%. And of course, nobody was allowed to be retained even at a parent's request, because the research says . . . 

Racism is not the cause of current disparities. For more information on that subject, I strongly recommend Thomas Sowell's book "Discrimination and Disparities."

And as Ben Shapiro once said on a related subject:

San Diego Unified Holds ‘White Privilege’ Training Sessions For Teachers

 Don't expect American public education to improve. Here is another reason why the majority of American public school students will continue to graduate with little or no reading, writing, math, or critical thinking skills.

On Thursday, an exclusive report on leaked documents revealed that the San Diego Unified School District was holding training sessions where teachers were told of their “white privilege,” that they were racist, and they were part of an oppressive white power structure. Not only are the teachers told that they must acknowledge their “privilege” and embrace “antiracist” ideas, they are instructed to “teach others to see their privilege.”

Christopher Rufo of City Journal reported what he had discovered in the leaked documents. “SCOOP: San Diego Unified School District is forcing teachers to attend ‘white privilege’ training, in which teachers are told ‘you are racist’ and ‘you are upholding racist ideas, structures, and policies.’ The leaked documents from the training session will shock you,” Rufo wrote in a series of posts.

Teachers can't teach if they aren't being trained to teach. Unless things change radically, look for the next generation to be even less skilled than current graduates. Next, students will learn how to humiliate their teachers - instead of learning useful skills.

Read the whole article and weep for what will be coming next.

Baltimore County Teacher Quits, Says School is 'Chaos', by Chris Papst

This is one school in Baltimore. The same thing is going on in hundreds of schools throughout the nation, and it shouldn't be. This is our future, boys and girls. As ugly as it is now, it's only going to get worse.

Even the students who want to learn are having a tough time due to the kids who work hard every day to make sure that nobody learns.

Robusto started working at Pleasant Plains Elementary in September. It was closer to home and to where her daughter goes to school. But her excitement quickly faded.

“The behavior problems at the school were intense. The kids kind of ran the school,” she said. “Fire alarms just being pulled at least twice a week. I was physically assaulted. I was called names. This is stuff that happened on a daily basis.”

Robusto said dealing with behavior problems left her with little time to actually teach. In 2018, Pleasant Plains fifth grade English test scores were less than half the state average. Fifth grade math scores were a little higher than half the state average. With 26 reported acts of violence last year, Pleasant Plains had the seventh most out of the County’s 112 elementary schools.

“It was babysitting. It was playing whack-a-mole all day. I don’t know how else to put it,” Robusto said.

Robusto told Project Baltimore that when Pleasant Plains was having problems with students leaving the school, teachers were given a list of strategies to keep them in class. The strategies included dimming the lights and making sure the student had comfortable clothing.

“One of the suggestions was to help them calm down and not leave the classroom, was have lavender scents in your classroom,” Robusto said.

When asked if she tried using lavender, Robusto replied, “No. That’s not my job. My job isn’t to run a spa. My job is to teach.”

District leaders and government officials have no idea as to how to handle this problem so they offer worthless ideas; ideas that don't work. But when teachers complain about the chaos that they're trying desperately to handle, the answer is, "We gave you a book full of strategies. Are you using the book?"

The South Bronx School that Outscores the Suburbs

I can't say for certain, but it seems to me that none of the current education theories and programs coming out of Columbia University and all of the other big time teacher colleges consider the fact that education is hard work. No, you can't make a game out of it because education is not a game. It is as serious as your life. (Yes, I may have said this once or twice before.) It takes dedication and time. And if everyone involved is dedicated and is willing to put in the time and work past the pain when things get tough, students can learn. It's not easy, and families do have to decide if the rewards are worth the effort. Oh, and the students' skin color doesn't make a difference. All children can learn if they're taught correctly.
From City Journal:

The intense focus on student achievement comes with a real human cost, however. Staff turnover is high, and the school’s interactions with parents and students, while sometimes loving, can be blunt. Pondiscio describes a January meeting of kindergarten parents, called because the five-year-old students are not performing at expected levels on the school’s interim assessment of reading levels. The teachers sense that “something is off.” About a third of the parents show up and are informed that unless the children improve by the next assessment, they will not likely reach the required reading level by the end of the year. If that happens, they will not be promoted to first grade. “All of us in this room are not doing enough for our kids,” they are told.

Later in the meeting, a parent points out that her son has no trouble completing his assignments at home but that he gets scared in school and misses answers. One might expect the teacher to offer encouragement and emotional support, but that’s not the Success Academy way. The teacher replies, “At home, your child is in such a relaxed environment. Do you time him?” No, the parent says. “Start timing him.” Such an unstinting approach can appear harsh, but this is what Success promises parents it will deliver.

In this light, Pondiscio relates a story he heard from the mother of a Success student. Growing up in the Bay Area, the student’s mother attended “supposedly good” public schools, which promoted her from grade to grade despite teaching her little. “They were like, ‘Just let this Latina pass.” That never happens at Success Academy. Accountability is inescapable, and students and parents always know where the children stand relative to one another in terms of achievement.

Yes, it sounds like they are a bunch of child-hating meanies, but:

When a five-year-old kindergartener fails to complete his book review, he is told that he will not be allowed to participate in “block time” the following day. Pondiscio admits to the teacher that he would have caved in after seeing the tears well up in the child’s eyes, but Success teachers are on a mission: to get their students proficient in reading and mathematics in time for New York State testing in third grade. National research shows that fewer than one-third of students who fall behind by fourth grade attain college readiness by high school graduation.  

It's a lot of work for everyone, students, parents, and teachers. There is high turnover among the school's teachers. It's not easy for anyone. But teaching is a difficult profession, and it's even more difficult when working with children who may come to school two or three steps behind those suburban kids whose parents are dedicated to their education. So again, are the rewards worth the tears?

No girls, parties, cellphones: California's prison inmates are getting bachelor's degrees

Why didn't somebody think of this sooner? It should be implemented nationwide.

Arrowood is one of the beneficiaries of California’s policy to provide face-to-face higher education classes in almost all of its prisons. Prisoners were restricted to correspondence courses until a law passed in 2014 allowing in-person classes. That year, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation reports, the number of successfully completed college classes jumped to 13,301 from the previous year’s 5,725. 

By 2017, about 4,500 prisoners were enrolled in community college with tuition paid for by taxpayers through a state financial aid program, up from zero prisoners in 2014. While other states have some prisons that offer in-person education, California is the only state offering classes in nearly every prison, taught by educators from nearby colleges, for credits that can transfer and count toward degrees. 

And the program's benefits go beyond the prisoners who are released. Some of them will never be released, but they and their families still reap rewards.

Allen Burnett, 45, was arrested at 18 and convicted of aiding and abetting in a murder, and was eventually sentenced to life without parole. He bounced around seven prisons before landing at Lancaster, where he became part of the book group with Arrowood. 

He earned an associate degree through correspondence courses and eventually joined Cal State LA’s first cohort. He said the lessons he’s learned in class have helped defuse situations with fellow prisoners. “There’s so much segregation here, the slightest thing can turn into an issue,” he said. 

His efforts were an inspiration to his 40-year-old sister, who went back to college herself. But he’s most proud of the impact his education is having on his stepdaughter Zion Holmes. 

Holmes was born after Burnett was arrested, but he built a relationship with Holmes through visits and phone calls. They played Monopoly during visits, although “it was hard to have those little moments” together because every phone call is recorded, said Holmes, now 19. But when it came time to decide where she wanted to study, she asked for her stepfather’s advice. 

His eyes water when he recounts their conversation. He told her how caring the staff at Cal State LA was and promised her if she went there, there would always be someone on campus who was looking out for her. 

Today she’s a sophomore at Cal State LA, while Burnett is eight classes short of graduating. “There’s an emotional connection,” he said. “We talk about end-of-semester stress.” 

“He’s a lot more studious than I am,” Holmes said. Her stepfather, an early riser who’s up at 4 a.m. most days, got A’s in both of his classes last semester. “I haven’t done that … yet,” she said.

Education is never wasted. The only thing needed to be added (as the article suggests) is remedial  education for prisoners who need to start closer to the beginning.

Benton Harbor School Crisis - Two Views

Is it all about race? Or are there other factors involved? According to this article in the Detroit News, state officials are looking to close Benton Harbor High School in Benton Harbor Michigan.

The urban school district, whose 1,800 students are 92 percent black and 81 percent economically disadvantaged, has staggeringly low academic achievement and has been ravaged by years of declining enrollment.

There are important issues to consider here, but:

The prospect of disbanding the high school and sending hundreds of black students to finish their education in overwhelmingly white suburbs has put a decidedly racial tinge on what is unfolding as the first crisis of Whitmer’s governorship.

It certainly sounds like there is more trouble ahead, but is it all racial?

Herrera said the school district has made poor financial decisions for years, such as purchasing property that has lost value and investing in a school building and then closing it.

"It's gotten to the point now where the district can't pay back its deficit. It's called bankruptcy in the real world," Herrera said.

Just 3% of Benton Harbor's third-graders — four of the 127 students tested — read at grade level on the 2018 state evaluation test. The state rate was 44% proficient. Zero of the district's 11th-graders were deemed college ready, according to tests in the last five years.

It has also has lost millions of dollars in revenue every year with 2,782 students attending schools outside district boundaries. School officials say the district lost out on $22 million in the 2016-17 school year as students fled to other districts or charters. The district gets around $8,000 per student from the state in its annual budget.

Having taught in an "urban" school district for 29 years, this is what happens. Parents who want their children to get a good education move them to other districts, which they hope won't have the same problem that they're leaving behind. I bet Benton Harbor also has attendance issues at all of their schools, and most of the students probably live in single parent families. These are not racial issues.

Herrera blames the Michigan Department of Education, saying it would send in inexperienced educational consultants to drive reforms that either were never implemented or never brought change because the people on the ground in Benton Harbor did not have the expertise to carry them out.

This is probably true. Educational initiatives come and go, most with very little effect. And sometimes the initiatives themselves are poorly thought out. Sadly, the people at the top, inflicting this educational malpractice upon teachers and students have no idea how to improve things. Currently the big fixes involve money and technology. Between local problems and the ineffective teaching practices insisted upon by the state, Benton Harbor really doesn't stand a chance.

But, according to this article, from Capcon, there is more to the story. (There is always more to the story.)

The notes auditors included in their reports from 2011 to 2018 depicted a school district that appeared incapable of managing its own finances, with leaders having little idea of where taxpayer dollars were going.

“The district did not prepare its own financial statements,” the auditing firm said in both 2015 and 2016, and its employees then completed them. By not preparing the statements, the notes said, the district had put the auditing firm’s independence at risk.

The local school administration was incapable of completing basic financial reports, according to the auditors. “There was no person available in the Business Office with the skills and knowledge to apply governmental auditing standards in recording the entity’s financial transactions or preparing its financial statements,” the firm said in 2015.

In 2011 and 2012, the accounting was so sloppy that district officials could not say how much cash they had on hand, according to the auditor.

As always, it is the children who suffer. They will grow into poorly educated adults who don't know how to teach their own children or what to do when their children struggle in school. There are other hand-wringing editorials in the Detroit Free Press, but the central issues that lead to this abysmal failure are never addressed.

Nothing new with that. It's been a generations long-pattern in education.

Not Even Pretending to Teach Anymore

Y’all. We have 160 presenters with more than 65 students as young as 4th grade! This is a space that will nourish all those in attendance! #DecolonizeEd #AdvanceEquityNow #Education4Liberation pic.twitter.com/pjUvrJY0eL

— Natalie McCabe Zwerger (@Natalie_Zwerger) June 2, 2019

Y'all, we have another generation of students who will not learn to read or write effectively. But now we know who to blame. Take names.

The Benefits of Cursive Go Beyond Writing

I agree with this article by Suzanne Baruch Asherson so I'm reprinting it. It's from long ages ago - 2013 - but it's still valid.

Putting pen to paper stimulates the brain like nothing else, even in this age of e-mails, texts and tweets. In fact, learning to write in cursive is shown to improve brain development in the areas of thinking, language and working memory. Cursive handwriting stimulates brain synapses and synchronicity between the left and right hemispheres, something absent from printing and typing.

The College Board found that students who wrote in cursive for the essay portion of the SAT scored slightly higher than those who printed.

As a result, the physical act of writing in cursive leads to increased comprehension and participation. Interestingly, a few years ago, the College Board found that students who wrote in cursive for the essay portion of the SAT scored slightly higher than those who printed, which experts believe is because the speed and efficiency of writing in cursive allowed the students to focus on the content of their essays.

Some argue that cursive is no longer relevant because it isn't included in the Common Core State Standards. But these standards only include those skills that are testable and measurable in the classroom; they don’t address basic foundation skills, like handwriting or even spelling. That said, the Common Core emphasizes the importance of expository writing to demonstrate understanding of key concepts, and fast, legible handwriting is the technology universally available to students to facilitate content development. Cursive, therefore, is vital to helping students master the standards of written expression and critical thinking, life skills that go well beyond the classroom.

With all this said, does cursive need to be fancy with slants, loops and curls? Absolutely not! The emphasis should be on simplicity and function when teaching children cursive.

Regardless of the age we are in or the technological resources at one’s disposal, success is measured by thought formation, and the speed and efficiency in which it is communicated. Because of this, students need a variety of technologies, including cursive handwriting, to succeed.

Statistics on Fatherless Children

From "The Fatherless Generation" come these statistics. They're from 2010, but they are still valid.

Statistics

• 63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes (US Dept. Of Health/Census) – 5 times the average.

• 90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes – 32 times the average.

• 85% of all children who show behavior disorders come from fatherless homes – 20 times the average.  (Center for Disease Control)

• 80% of rapists with anger problems come from fatherless homes –14 times the average.  (Justice & Behavior, Vol 14, p. 403-26)

• 71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes – 9 times the average.  (National Principals Association Report)

Father Factor in Education – Fatherless children are twice as likely to drop out of school.

• Children with Fathers who are involved are 40% less likely to repeat a grade in school.

• Children with Fathers who are involved are 70% less likely to drop out of school.

• Children with Fathers who are involved are more likely to get A’s in school.

• Children with Fathers who are involved are more likely to enjoy school and engage in extracurricular activities.

• 75% of all adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers come from fatherless homes – 10 times the average.

Father Factor in Drug and Alcohol Abuse – Researchers at Columbia University found that children living in two-parent household with a poor relationship with their father are 68% more likely to smoke, drink, or use drugs compared to all teens in two-parent households. Teens in single mother households are at a 30% higher risk than those in two-parent households.

• 70% of youths in state-operated institutions come from fatherless homes – 9 times the average.  (U.S. Dept. of Justice, Sept. 1988)

• 85% of all youths in prison come from fatherless homes – 20 times the average.  (Fulton Co. Georgia, Texas Dept. of Correction)

Father Factor in Incarceration – Even after controlling for income, youths in father-absent households still had significantly higher odds of incarceration than those in mother-father families. Youths who never had a father in the household experienced the highest odds. A 2002 Department of Justice survey of 7,000 inmates revealed that 39% of jail inmates lived in mother-only households. Approximately forty-six percent of jail inmates in 2002 had a previously incarcerated family member. One-fifth experienced a father in prison or jail.

Father Factor in Crime – A study of 109 juvenile offenders indicated that family structure significantly predicts delinquency. Adolescents, particularly boys, in single-parent families were at higher risk of status, property and person delinquencies. Moreover, students attending schools with a high proportion of children of single parents are also at risk. A study of 13,986 women in prison showed that more than half grew up without their father. Forty-two percent grew up in a single-mother household and sixteen percent lived with neither parent

Father Factor in Child Abuse – Compared to living with both parents, living in a single-parent home doubles the risk that a child will suffer physical, emotional, or educational neglect. The overall rate of child abuse and neglect in single-parent households is 27.3 children per 1,000, whereas the rate of overall maltreatment in two-parent households is 15.5 per 1,000.

Daughters of single parents without a Father involved are 53% more likely to marry as teenagers, 711% more likely to have children as teenagers, 164% more likely to have a pre-marital birth and 92% more likely to get divorced themselves.

Adolescent girls raised in a 2 parent home with involved Fathers are significantly less likely to be sexually active than girls raised without involved Fathers.

• 43% of US children live without their father [US Department of Census]

• 90% of homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes. [US D.H.H.S., Bureau of the Census]

• 80% of rapists motivated with displaced anger come from fatherless homes. [Criminal Justice & Behaviour, Vol 14, pp. 403-26, 1978]

• 71% of pregnant teenagers lack a father. [U.S. Department of Health and Human Services press release, Friday, March 26, 1999]

• 63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes. [US D.H.H.S., Bureau of the Census]

• 85% of children who exhibit behavioral disorders come from fatherless homes. [Center for Disease Control]

• 90% of adolescent repeat arsonists live with only their mother. [Wray Herbert, “Dousing the Kindlers,” Psychology Today, January, 1985, p. 28]

• 71% of high school dropouts come from fatherless homes. [National Principals Association Report on the State of High Schools]

• 75% of adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers come from fatherless homes. [Rainbows f for all God’s Children]

• 70% of juveniles in state operated institutions have no father. [US Department of Justice, Special Report, Sept. 1988]

• 85% of youths in prisons grew up in a fatherless home. [Fulton County Georgia jail populations, Texas Department of Corrections, 1992]

• Fatherless boys and girls are: twice as likely to drop out of high school; twice as likely to end up in jail; four times more likely to need help for emotional or behavioral problems. [US D.H.H.S. news release, March 26, 1999]

Census Fatherhood Statistics

• 64.3 million: Estimated number of fathers across the nation
• 26.5 million: Number of fathers who are part of married-couple families with their own children under the age of 18.
  Among these fathers –
  
  • 22 percent are raising three or more of their own children under 18 years old (among married-couple family households only).
  • 2 percent live in the home of a relative or a non-relative.
• 2.5 million: Number of single fathers, up from 400,000 in 1970. Currently, among single parents living with their children, 18 percent are men.
  Among these fathers –
  
  • 8 percent are raising three or more of their own children under 18 years old.
  • 42 percent are divorced, 38 percent have never married, 16 percent are separated and 4 percent are widowed. (The percentages of those divorced and never married are not significantly different from one another.)
  • 16 percent live in the home of a relative or a non-relative.
  • 27 percent have an annual family income of $50,000 or more.
• 85 percent: Among the 30.2 million fathers living with children younger than 18, the percentage who lived with their biological children only.
  • 11 percent lived with step-children
  • 4 percent with adopted children
  • < 1 percent with foster children
  Recent policies encourage the development of programs designed to improve the economic status of low-income nonresident fathers and the financial and emotional support provided to their children. This brief provides ten key lessons from several important early responsible fatherhood initiatives that were developed and implemented during the 1990s and early 2000s. Formal evaluations of these earlier fatherhood efforts have been completed making this an opportune time to step back and assess what has been learned and how to build on the early programs’ successes and challenges.Whilethe following statistics are formidable, the Responsible Fatherhood research literature generally supports the claim that a loving and nurturing father improves outcomes for children, families and communities.
• Children with involved, loving fathers are significantly more likely to do well in school, have healthy self-esteem, exhibit empathy and pro-social behavior, and avoid high-risk behaviors such as drug use, truancy, and criminal activity compared to children who have uninvolved fathers.
• Studies on parent-child relationships and child wellbeing show that father love is an important factor in predicting the social, emotional, and cognitive development and functioning of children and young adults.
• 24 million children (34 percent) live absent their biological father.
• Nearly 20 million children (27 percent) live in single-parent homes.
• 43 percent of first marriages dissolve within fifteen years; about 60 percent of divorcing couples have children; and approximately one million children each year experience the divorce of their parents.
• Fathers who live with their children are more likely to have a close, enduring relationship with their children than those who do not.
• Compared to children born within marriage, children born to cohabiting parents are three times as likely to experience father absence, and children born to unmarried, non-cohabiting parents are four times as likely to live in a father-absent home.
• About 40 percent of children in father-absent homes have not seen their father at all during the past year; 26 percent of absent fathers live in a different state than their children; and 50 percent of children living absent their father have never set foot in their father’s home.
• Children who live absent their biological fathers are, on average, at least two to three times more likely to be poor, to use drugs, to experience educational, health, emotional and behavioral problems, to be victims of child abuse, and to engage in criminal behavior than their peers who live with their married, biological (or adoptive) parents.
• From 1995 to 2000, the proportion of children living in single-parent homes slightly declined, while the proportion of children living with two married parents remained stable.

So yes, part of the solution to today's educational failure does lie with absent fathers.

I Can’t Answer These Texas Standardized Test Questions About My Own Poems

This article from 2017 is funny in a sad, sick sort of way. But it gives an interesting view of the absurdity of current standardized tests. The thing is that they want to make the tests more rigorous, but they aren't teaching students the skills they need in order to pass the more rigorous tests.

Dose of reality: test makers are for-profit organizations. My poems are a whole lot cheaper than Mary Oliver’s or Jane Kenyon’s, so there’s that. But how would your vulnerable, nervous, number two pencil-gripping seventh grade self have felt opening your test packet to analyze poetic lines such as this: I’m just down with a sniffly case/of sudden-self-loathing-syndrome…an unexpected extra serving/ of just-for-now-self-hate.Seriously? Hundreds of my poems in print and they choose THAT one? Self-loathing and self-hate? Kids need an extra serving of those emotions on testing day?
I apologize to those kids. I apologize to their teachers. Boy howdy, I apologize to the entire state of Texas. I know the ‘90s were supposed to be some kind of golden age, but I had my bad days and, clearly, these words are the pan drippings of one of them. Did I have a purpose for writing it?
Does survival count?
Teachers are also trying to survive as they are tasked with teaching kids how to take these tests, which they do by digging through past tests, posted online. Forget joy of language and the fun of discovery in poetry, this is line-by-line dissection, painful and delivered without anesthetic. One teacher wrote to me last month, working after 10 p.m., trying to figure out the test maker’s interpretation of my poem MIDNIGHT, This poem isn’t quite as jarring as A REAL CASE, simply symptomatic of aforementioned neuroses: It’s about insomnia.
“Hello Mrs. Holbrook. My name is Sean, and I’m an 8th grade English teacher in Texas. I’m attempting to decipher the number of stanzas in your poem, ‘Midnight’. This isn’t clear from the formatting in our most recent benchmark. The assessment asks the following question:“Dividing the poem into two stanzas allows the poet to―A) compare the speaker’s schedule with the train’s schedule.B ) ask questions to keep the reader guessing about what will happenC) contrast the speaker’s feelings about weekends and MondaysD) incorporate reminders for the reader about where the action takes place.The answer is C) to contrast the speaker’s feelings about weekends and Mondays.How many stanzas are in this poem? Where are they located? I would appreciate your help. Thank you so much!”Oh, goody. I’m a benchmark. Only guess what? The test prep materials neglected to insert the stanza break. I texted him an image of how the poem appeared in the original publication. Problem one solved. But guess what else? I just put that stanza break in there because when I read it aloud (I’m a performance poet), I pause there. Note: that is not an option among the answers because no one ever asked me why I did it.
These test questions were just made up, and tragically, incomprehensibly, kids’ futures and the evaluations of their teachers will be based on their ability to guess the so-called correct answer to made up questions.
Then I went online and searched Holbrook/MIDNIGHT/Texas and the results were terrifying. Dozens of districts, all dissecting this poem based on poorly formatted test prep materials.

There is a lot of insanity coming from a lot of directions toward public schools to be inflicted on teachers and students. This is only part of it.

'Boy crisis' threatens America's future with economic, health and suicide risks

None of the money being demanded in order to improve public education is going to make a damn bit of difference until fathers stick around to raise their children. As much as I rant about the need for reading to be taught phonetically, there is another reason for the steep decline of public schools and for the general lack of academic skills in today's children and young adults - missing fathers. And this tragedy of absent dads is not confined to inner city United States schools.

Boys are falling behind girls in the 63 largest developed nations. As developed nations developed solutions to surviving, they allowed more permission for divorce and for children to be raised with minimal or no father involvement. A great solution — less fear of starvation — created a new problem: dad-deprivation.

I discovered that the boy crisis resides where dads do not reside. For example, The American Psychological Association found that father absence predicts the profile of both the bully and the bullied’s poor social skills, and the bully’s poor grades and self-esteem. According to a study in the Journal of Marriage and Family, every 1% increase in fatherlessness in a neighborhood predicts a  3% increase in adolescent violence. 

It starts early. Before six months of age, the less interaction a boy has with his dad, the lower his mental competence. 

And dad-deprivation is a significant predictor of the increasing rate of male suicide, drug overdose, obesity and withdrawal into video game addiction. It even predicts by age 9 a shorter life expectancy as determined by shorter telomeres, protective end caps of chromosomes. Aggregately, this leads to my predicting that the biggest gap between boys who are successful and unsuccessful in the future will be the gap between those who are dad-enriched versus dad-deprived.

As Powell points out, America exacerbates this problem by falling behind every developed nation in preparing our sons for the changes in technology. In contrast, Japan has extensive vocational education programs, with 99.6% of their graduates receiving jobs after graduation. A boy who is not academically inclined may be bored by physics and chemistry until he learns that to be a highly paid welder, he needs them. Then he sees purpose, and his motivation changes.

The important role of fathers in their children's lives is being ignored or downplayed by a huge number of public policy and citizen organizations from the public schools to Black Lives Matter. They will pull every reason imaginable out of their collective asses for children's failure to thrive except for the most important reason - no dad.

I lived that reality for the 29 years of my teaching career. I spoke to mothers constantly and fathers occasionally. Too many children had that hole in their lives. Nothing will change until policy makers become brave enough to stop subsidizing and encouraging fatherlessness. Currently, and to no one's surprise, the communities in which fatherlessness is normal and accepted are also the ones having the worst schools.

Guess what - there is a connection.