September - 2022

'Why would you teach a disadvantaged child that the world hates them'

Joanne Jacobs

Sep 16, 2022
2 min

'Why would you teach a disadvantaged child that the world hates them'

After flirting with Marxism at Oxford, Katharine Birbalsingh began teaching in a state school with a "holistic, child-centered approach," writes Leah McLaren on SubStack. It "sounded great," but didn't work very well. She now "runs one of Britain's top-ranked schools, free to attend and catering almost entirely to underserved low-income, minority kids. So why do progressives dislike her so much? Birbalsingh's Michaela Community School, a "free" (independently run but state su

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California: 28% switched schools in pandemic

Joanne Jacobs

Sep 15, 2022
1 min

California: 28% switched schools in pandemic

Twenty-eight percent of California parents moved their child to a new school during the pandemic and another 28 percent are considering a switch, reports a new poll. Charter schools gained the most new students, writes Emma Gallegos on EdSource. Twenty-three percent of parents surveyed had a child in a charter, compared to 15 percent before the switch. Homeschooling rose from 3 percent pre-pandemic to 7 percent. Traditional public schools lost enrollment. Of those who switch

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Restless in Seattle: Asians, achievers are 'quiet quitting' public schools

Joanne Jacobs

Sep 15, 2022
2 min

Restless in Seattle: Asians, achievers are 'quiet quitting' public schools

Asian-American and affluent parents are"quiet quitting" Seattle Public Schools, writes Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat. Overall, enrollment fell from pre-pandemic levels by 13 percent among Asian students, 9 percent for whites, 5 percent for Blacks and 4 percent for Hispanics, state education data show. Middle- and high-income families left at twice the rate (10%) as low-income families. Elementary school enrollment is way down. Westneat asked parents why they're pull

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Teach the children well -- without wasting time on hokum

Joanne Jacobs

Sep 14, 2022
2 min

Teach the children well -- without wasting time on hokum

Mixing wishful thinking with actual teaching is failing children, writes Greg Ashman, a school principal in Australia, on Filling the Pail. It's not "nuanced" or "balanced." It's foolish. I claim I can teach the child to read by surrounding them with books and reading to them. . . . I say it will form part of a ‘balanced’ approach that will also include other things. I’m a bit vague about what those other things are but you learn than I intend to also give limited instructio

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Joanne Jacobs

Sep 13, 2022
1 min

Saving Xavier

Xavier Byrd, who likes to tinker with old machines and build contraptions, dreamed of being an aerospace engineer, writes Perry Stein in the Washington Post. But the 15-year-old sophomore at Washington D.C.'s Dunbar High had "spent his freshman year online, camera off, sleeping through most of his classes, failing to turn in most of his assignments." He'd forgotten his algebra. With a half-million dollars in federal pandemic relief aid, Dunbar tried to reach students like Xa

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After a year of not really learning, more kids repeat a grade

Joanne Jacobs

Sep 13, 2022
2 min

After a year of not really learning, more kids repeat a grade

More students are repeating a grade, report Brooke Schultz and Heather Hollingsworth for Associated Press. Parents are asking "for do-overs to help their children recover from the tumult of remote learning, quarantines and school staff shortages." Holding students back went out of fashion decades ago: Educators say retained students do worse in the long run compared to students of similar achievement levels who go on to the next grade. "But backers of retention say none of th

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Joanne Jacobs

Sep 12, 2022
1 min

'All shook up'

American schools are all shook up, writes Matthew Ladner on ReimaginED. In his Elvis-themed column, the role of the manipulative Col. Tom Parker is played by American Federation of Teachers head Randi Weingarten. She claims others are “destroying public education,” he writes, while ignoring her own responsibility for eroding confidence in the system. Weingarten lobbied the CDC to set strict guidelines that kept schools closed, writes Ladner. That backfired on teachers' union

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Why Americans don't trust schools to teach history

Joanne Jacobs

Sep 12, 2022
3 min

Why Americans don't trust schools to teach history

"Americans are losing faith in the ability of public schools to teach controversial issues, writes Natalie Wexler. One person's "hard history" is another person's "indoctrination." "How the history of racism affects America today" is a touchy subject, she writes. "One poll found that only 55% of parents and 44% of adults in general had faith in their community’s teachers to 'appropriately handle' the topic." As a result, "at least 18 states have restricted teaching on race an

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Joanne Jacobs

Sep 12, 2022
1 min

Do good citizens listen to leaders?

Do "good citizens" always listen to leaders? Ilya Somin was taken aback by the worksheet his seven-year-old daughter brought home from school, he writes on Facebook. "Some of these are highly dubious!" Somin, a law professor at George Mason University, was born in the Soviet Union and came to the U.S. at the age of five. He writes: 1. Good citizens do NOT necessarily listen to leaders. Depends on what the leader is saying, and on his track record. 2. Good citizens disobey gra

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Joanne Jacobs

Sep 11, 2022
2 min

Fear not

Every night when I put my daughter to bed, I would say, "There are no wolves or bears in Palo Alto. They live a long way away." How old was she when I stopped doing that? I don't remember. Teaching your child that the world is a dangerous place will not make them safer, writes Arthur Brooks in The Atlantic. It will make them fearful, sad, lonely and intolerant. American parents have become worriers, he writes. According to a 2015 Pew report, the average parent said "children

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Joanne Jacobs

Sep 10, 2022
1 min

'My future is bright,' teens believe

Young people are optimistic about their futures, reports ACT. More than 80 percent of those surveyed believe their lives will turn out well. After all the stories about the mental health crisis among teenagers with more kids than ever reporting anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts, who are these young optimists? They're high school students taking the ACT, so they're the kids who didn't drop out of school. Some are planning to apply to selective colleges, but others are

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Colleges drop remedial classes -- but many students are unprepared

Joanne Jacobs

Sep 9, 2022
3 min

Colleges drop remedial classes -- but many students are unprepared

California's community colleges will be ordered to stop offering no-credit remedial classes in nearly all cases, if Gov. Gavin Newsom signs a bill that passed the Legislature easily, reports Michael Burke on EdSource. Remediation may be offered to some students with disabilities, very low grades, no high school diploma or career-tech students, but John Hetts, executive vice chancellor for the community college system, expects almost all remedial classes will be eliminated by

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Federalizing community colleges is a bad idea

Joanne Jacobs

Sep 8, 2022
1 min

Federalizing community colleges is a bad idea

Federal funding for K-14 schooling is a bad idea, argues Jim Blew, co-author of the Defense of Freedom Institute’s Free College or False Promise. (Guess which one he picks.) President Biden's proposal to pay community college tuition -- directly to the colleges not to the students -- rewards institutions for meeting federal priorities rather than local needs, Blew writes. It also funds the expansion of colleges that aren't helping most students earn a degree or improve their

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Low-status, low-cost colleges can be a good deal for low-income students

Joanne Jacobs

Sep 8, 2022
2 min

Low-status, low-cost colleges can be a good deal for low-income students

University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley accepts more than 80 percent of applicants, most of whom come from low-income families. Thanks to low tuition, "it only takes UTRGV graduates a few months longer than Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford, and Berkeley graduates to earn back the net price they paid for college," writes Edward Conroy in a Forbes article on colleges that do the most for students with the least. Also providing good financial returns to lower-inc

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Rebuild trust or say 'good-bye' to students

Joanne Jacobs

Sep 7, 2022
1 min

Rebuild trust or say 'good-bye' to students

Public schools must rebuild trust with parents -- or continue to lose students to homeschooling, private schools, microschools and other alternatives, writes Robert Pondiscio of the American Enterprise Institute. Social conservatives aren't the only parents who suspect teachers and schools are "spending more time preaching than teaching," he writes. Ed schools encourage teachers to see themselves as activists "committed to diminishing the inequities of American society," writ

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Joanne Jacobs

Sep 7, 2022
1 min

Feckless

The sharp drop in math and reading scores is the result of "feckless" pandemic policies that kept schools closed, writes Andrew Rotherham on Eduwonk. It's not just the teachers' unions, he writes. For all the criticism of (AFT President) Weingarten, her argument was more or less teachers-first until the politics changed and she became a reopener (although all her members still haven’t gotten that message). I don’t recall Weingarten ever saying that kids were learning so much

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Joanne Jacobs

Sep 6, 2022
1 min

Tutoring is free, but few NH families sign up

New Hampshire is giving parents $1,000 per student to pay for tutoring, but not many have signed up for the Yes, Every Student scholarship, reports Asher Lehrer-Small on The 74. "So far this academic year, 724 young people have received scholarships — accounting for just $724,000 out of a $2.5 million total funded by federal COVID relief cash," he writes. At first, only students from low-income families were eligible, but all students are now eligible. A majority of the state

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Black kids are a year farther behind in math: That matters, right?

Joanne Jacobs

Sep 6, 2022
2 min

Black kids are a year farther behind in math: That matters, right?

Math scores for Black nine-year-olds dropped by 13 points compared to 2020, representing a year's worth of learning, reports the National Assessment of Educational Progress. It wasn't the pandemic, tweets Michael Petrilli. It was the decision to keep schools closed. Math scores for Black 9 year olds dropped by 13 points (compared to 5 points for White students). 13 points! A whole grade of learning, lost. And yet some teachers union leaders claimed that re-opening schools w

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Joanne Jacobs

Sep 5, 2022
1 min

Parents' choice: To vax or not to vax

Washington, D.C. won't enforce a vaccine mandate for students 12 and older (including remote students): The "no shots, no school" policy would have "barred 40 percent of the city's black teens from getting an education," writes Reason's Nick Gillespie. The policy was "pushed back until January 2023, but it's still on the books, lurking like a bully at the far end of the hallway." A proposed California law that would have allowed teenagers 15 and older to be vaccinated witho

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Joanne Jacobs

Sep 4, 2022
2 min

It's college, not kindergarten

Of the three million students who will start college this fall, one million won't make it through the first year on campus or won't return as sophomores, writes Lee Burdette Williams, a former dean of students who now runs the College Autism Network. Many leave because they're not ready to function without their parents, she writes. Parents and students now expect college administrators to spare them from the challenges of adulting, such as waking up, eating breakfast, going

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