December - 2022

Joanne Jacobs

Dec 31, 2022
2 min

Looking back at 2022

It's time for Dave Barry's annual year in review, looking back at the highlights, low lights and no lights of 2022. Good news: "The looming apocalyptic threat of catastrophic global climate change was finally eliminated thanks to the breakthrough discovery that the solution — it has been staring us in the face all this time — was to throw food at art." In January, the national debt topped $30 trillion. "Fortunately this is nothing to worry about," writes Barry. “Cryptocurrenc

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Joanne Jacobs

Dec 30, 2022
1 min

Local hero

Unable to drive in Buffalo's deadly blizzard, Jay Withey broke in to a school, went back with a snow blower to get other trapped motorists into the warm school, then broke into the cafeteria for food and the nurse's office for blankets. Police say the 27-year-old mechanic saved 24 lives. The blizzard survivors cleaned up after themselves, police said. They found a note, addressed "to whomever it may concern." (Note the correct use of "whomever.") "I’m terribly sorry about bre

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If schools pay students, will they come?

Joanne Jacobs

Dec 30, 2022
1 min

If schools pay students, will they come?

Learning loss and absenteeism are a crisis, writes Brandon Cardet-Hernandez, a member of Boston's school board, on the Hechinger Report. He proposes paying students 16 and older to attend after-school enrichment programs, extended summer learning and work-study programs. Many young people took on family responsibilities and jobs during the pandemic, he writes. School became a lower priority. Schools could use federal funds to reconnect with students, create learning opportuni

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Joanne Jacobs

Dec 29, 2022
1 min

Fighting fears

Zidaan Kapoor, a math-loving 15-year-old, coped with his anxiety about severe food allergies by creating a "fight fears" app for other young people.

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Joanne Jacobs

Dec 29, 2022
2 min

Protected kids become anxious adults

In an “Adulting 101” workshop, Kansas State students talk about "conflict" as though "it's this terrible thing," said Brett Mallon, an assistant professor, in an interview with Holly Korbey “Is it that they’re afraid of [conflict], or are they lacking in experience? Probably a little bit of both.” A growing number of "universities are offering help to students struggling with the stresses of everyday life and mental health challenges like anxiety and depression," writes Korb

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Joanne Jacobs

Dec 28, 2022
1 min

Do you trust the CDC?

There were lower rates of Covid infections in more than 500 counties where school districts observed mask mandates, according to a Centers for Disease Control study. But beware of the CDC's mask-uber-alles mentality, write Steven Hayward on Powerline. "In a peer-reviewed study published recently in the Journal of Infection, two researchers replicated the CDC findings, but then reviewed a wider data set of more than 1,800 counties, over a longer time horizon, and found a lower

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Joanne Jacobs

Dec 28, 2022
2 min

Remasking kids in cold season

Forcing children to wear masks in school is pointless and cruel, argues Zachary Faria in the Washington Examiner. "Public school students in Philadelphia will be forcibly masked for 10 days when they return from their winter break in January," he writes. Passaic, New Jersey teachers posted shots of their holiday party -- no masks in sight -- but children will be required to wear masks once again. Boston schools are considering a temporary masking mandate in hopes of preventi

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It's just kiddie sex, not pedophilia, so no worries

Joanne Jacobs

Dec 27, 2022
2 min

It's just kiddie sex, not pedophilia, so no worries

Jonathan Evison's Lawn Boy, doesn't belong in school libraries, say angry parents, because the graphic novel depicts an adult man having oral sex with a 10-year-old boy. Not so, writes Hannah Natanson in the Washington Post. The cartoon panel shows an adult man's memory of his first experience of oral sex with a fellow 10-year-old. I have to wonder: If it's not pedophilia -- just kids having oral sex -- does it belong in school libraries? Author Jonathan Evison wrote the boo

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Joanne Jacobs

Dec 26, 2022
2 min

'You could shoot your eye out'

I saw National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation for the first time on Christmas Eve -- I'm always just a bit behind the culture -- and watched A Christmas Story (my husband's first viewing) on Christmas Day. At the end of the movie, Ralphie falls asleep clutching his beloved "Red Ryder range model air rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time.” Like his mother, I thought: That's dangerous! You'll shoot your eye out! Set in 1940 (or so), A Christmas Story wa

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Joanne Jacobs

Dec 25, 2022
1 min

Merry Christmas to all

"Carol of the Bells" is based on a Ukrainian folk song.

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Joanne Jacobs

Dec 24, 2022
2 min

Emily the art student, debtor and criminal

Emily owes $60,000 for an art degree she never finished. Her payments, from her job delivering food, reduce the interest but aren't enough to pay down the principal. Recruited to shop with fake credit cards, she becomes Emily the Criminal. Though she takes to crime, Emily remains determined to pay back her student loans. I was impressed. Most people in her situation -- and with her not-so-underlying anger -- would default. Paying back student loans is for chumps. Biden's Educ

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AI is learning to censor social media, and your taxes are paying for it

Joanne Jacobs

Dec 23, 2022
1 min

AI is learning to censor social media, and your taxes are paying for it

President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan includes half a million dollars for research in technology to detect and remove unconscious bias and microaggressions in social media, writes Philip Caldwell for Washington Free Beacon. In theory, an AI "civility" monitor would be less biased than human content moderators. The grant: This project develops language technologies to detect and intervene in the language of social discrimination — sexist, racist, homophobic

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Joanne Jacobs

Dec 23, 2022
3 min

Mastering newspeak at Stanford

Will Stanford continue to award master's degrees? Will my daughter's major -- American Studies -- need a new name? Stanford's IT department has released a guide to "harmful language" -- replacing "American" with "U.S. citizen" was the most controversial -- that was publicized and mocked on the Wall Street Journal editorial page. The guide suggests alternatives for potentially racist, sexist, ableist, culturally appropriative, gender-binary-promoting or violent terms. The Jou

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A longer school year? Some parents aren't interested

Joanne Jacobs

Dec 22, 2022
2 min

A longer school year? Some parents aren't interested

Richmond Superintendent Jason Kamras wanted to lengthen the school year to give students more time to catch up, reports AP's Bianca Vazquez Toness. "Richmond school board members said it would be too expensive and disruptive." Teachers and parents, especially affluent parents, were opposed. Twenty miles away, the much smaller Hopewell district made the shift, she writes. However, "Hopewell has struggled to enroll students to attend optional extra school days — especially thos

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LA adds extra days, few students show up

Joanne Jacobs

Dec 22, 2022
2 min

LA adds extra days, few students show up

Los Angeles students lost more than a year of in-person schooling. This week, about one in seven students in the huge district showed up for an extra two days of "catch-up learning" during winter break, reports Kate Sequeira on EdSource. "Attendance appeared uneven across the sprawling district," she writes. The logistics were complicated. Some "had to attend the sessions at campuses other than their home schools, take new bus routes and work with teachers they had never befo

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Joanne Jacobs

Dec 21, 2022
1 min

Schools take on new role: Saving kids from fentanyl overdoses

Training school staff to identify fentanyl overdoses and administer Narcan is saving lives in Bay Area schools, report Scooty Nickerson and Julia Prodis Sulek for Bay Area News Group. But not all schools are prepared to deal with the fentanyl epidemic. In late October, Overfelt High Principal Vito Chiala saved an East San Jose girl who was overdosing. Two days later, a school social worker at Oak Grove, a South San Jose high school, saved a boy. She'd been trained on Narcan,

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Joanne Jacobs

Dec 20, 2022
2 min

Minnesota's bonus for non-white teachers nets 6 teachers

Teachers of color who relocate to Minnesota can earn bonuses under a new state program: $2,500 when hired, another $2,500 for staying in the district for four years, and up to $3,000 more if they teach in a shortage area. How it's working out? So far, districts have recruited six out-of-state teachers, reports Eder Campuzano in the Star-Tribune. None has qualified for a bonus, but some will when they complete a state license. OK, a few bugs in the system, writes Matt Shaver o

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Who will make the best teacher? An ex-Marine or a Middlebury grad?

Joanne Jacobs

Dec 20, 2022
2 min

Who will make the best teacher? An ex-Marine or a Middlebury grad?

Military veterans with 60 college credits can qualify for a five-year temporary teaching certificate in Florida, under a new law championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis. Some 538 vets have applied, but only seven are working as teachers, the state education department told Military.com. The state certification process is holding up would-be teachers: They must pass exams or submit coursework to show they've mastered subject-matter knowledge. Once on the job, they'll have five years t

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Teacher tries 'just-in-time' math for students who didn't learn the basics

Joanne Jacobs

Dec 19, 2022
2 min

Teacher tries 'just-in-time' math for students who didn't learn the basics

A veteran teacher at Denver's George Washington High, Joe Bolz knows his students didn't learn much math when their middle schools closed. Now they're in high school, trying to learn Integrated Math 2, a mix of algebra, geometry and other concepts. CPR's Jenny Brundin explains how Bolz is using "accelerated" or "just in time" strategies to teach grade-level skills -- and the middle-school skills they need to solve problems. “What skills kids learn in sixth, seventh, and eight

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Joanne Jacobs

Dec 19, 2022
2 min

Middle-school math is a disaster

Disrupted learning's effect on middle-school math skills is worse than you think, writes David Wakelyn on The 74. "As many as 1 million students who met college and career-ready math standards in third grade are now off track." The average student in third through eighth grade lost half a year of learning in math and a quarter of a year in reading, according to NAEP data on learning losses. But tracking the same students from grade to grade shows that grim estimate is too opt

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