Friday News Roundup

Lots of news this week, so let’s get to it!

Commentary: School Choice Works in Rural America – Just Take a Look at Florida (The 74)

The 74 reported recently,

“When Oklahoma House Speaker Charles McCall announced last year that he was putting a school choice bill on ice, he suggest choice wouldn’t help rural students and referenced his hometown. ‘The obvious question for a person that lives in Atoka, Oklahoma – population 3,000, 12,000 in the county – [is] what does a kid with a voucher do?’ McCall said. ‘What do they do with that?’”

“Families in Eastpoint, Florida, know the answer.”

“Eastpoint is a commercial fishing village an hour and 40 minutes from Tallahassee on Florida’s ‘Forgotten Coast.’ It has 2,614 people. It’s in a county with 12,451 people. And it now has a distinctive little private school called EDCorps High School. Most of the students there are from working-class families, and nearly all use state-funded choice scholarships.”

It’s wrong to think choice can’t matter in rural areas. It’s also wrong to define schools as the choice agent. Choice should involve the individual learner, not the school.

What’s Behind the Push for a $60K Base Teacher Salary (EducationWeek)

According to EducationWeek online,

“Low teacher pay is a matter of national security for supporters of legislation that would give states an incentive to raise base teacher salaries to $60,000.”

“A panel of education experts, including former Education Secretary Arne Duncan and 2019 Teacher of the Year Rodney Robinson, spoke in support of the bill, the American Teacher Act, during an event at the U.S. Capitol…as its sponsors prepare to reintroduce it in a new Congress.”

This happens periodically. Some of us realize how underpaid current teachers are and decide to do something about it. But the efforts always seem to fail in the end.

If a system doesn’t take care of their primary human resource, then what does that say about that system?

Ronald Grew Up in a New York City Library. It Was as Strange and Wondrous as It Sounds (Aeon)

The online newsletter Aeon reported recently that,

“Growing up in the 1940’s, Ronald Clark had an experience that sounds as if it was plucked from a children’s book – he lived in a New York City public library. And indeed, he believed that living in the ‘temple of knowledge’, where his father worked as a custodian, was a grand privilege, even as it led to feelings of difference among his peers.”

“[In an episode of StoryCorps], Clark recalls how growing up in a library, where he could wander the stacks and read late into the night, would later lead to his becoming a college professor – a job that made his father very proud.”

How many other places could young learners spend time other than school?

With Full State Coffers and Bipartison Support, Texas Teachers are Hopeful They’ll Get a Raise This Year (The Texas Tribune)

According to an article printed online by The Texas Tribune,

“Laura Herrera’s salary has barely gone up in her 20 years of teaching – about $700 in all.”

“The San Antonio-area teacher takes home about $3,700 a month. About $1,400 goes to rent, and the rest is sometimes barely enough to pay the bills and stretch through the month. There have been times when she hasn’t been able to afford buying insulin to treat her diabetes.”

“The raises she’s received – most of them in the last seven years – barely accounted for inflation.”

“That’s why Herrera is hopeful that the state Legislature this session will give raises to the hundred of thousands of teachers across Texas in the same situation as her. Not only for her sake, but also to keep teachers from leaving and to attract more talent.”

If a system doesn’t take care of their primary human resource, then what does that say about that system?

Federal Data: Schools Have Been Adding Teachers Even as They Serve Fewer Students (The 74)

According to Chad Aldeman, policy director for the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University and guest columnist for The 74,

“Just before the winter holidays, the National Center for Education Statistics released new data on school staffing in the 2021-22 academic year. The data are provisional, but they represent the best look yet at how school staffing levels have changed over the course of the pandemic.”

“As I forecast in September, the new data show that schools have been adding teachers even as they serve fewer students.”

Hmmm. Maybe this is due to schools attempting to decrease the student-to-teacher ratio in hopes of improving reading, writing, and problem-solving skills.

But maybe it’s because this is what bureaucracies do – they feed themselves to get bigger, no matter if it makes sense or not.

Schools’ New Normal: Teacher Shortages, Repeat Meals, Late Buses, Canceled Classes (The 74)

According to The 74,

“In a school just east of Atlanta, students routinely miss 30 minutes of their 47 minute first period classes because of bus driver shortages.”

“Math workbooks at a Eugene, Oregon school arrived months into the semester, delayed by paper shortages.”

“Some 15 classes at one suburban New York high School were cancelled last semester for lack of substitutes.”

“Nacho cheese, reliably cheap and available, has become a mainstay on one Indianapolis school’s lunch menu as spiraling costs and ingredient shortages have led to meals on repeat.”

“This is the new normal in schools across our country…”

If a system can’t take care of their primary service functions, then what does that say about that system?

The New Face of Homeschooling: Less Religious and Conservative, More Focused on Quality (The 74)

According to The 74,

“A November survey from the online education platform Outschool found that [parents interested in homeschooling] is increasingly concerned about the quality of education their kids are getting in school. They’re also more likely to be politically centrist or liberal and less likely to homeschool for religious reasons.”

“Other recent research suggests that they’re also more likely to be non-white: The U.S. Census Bureau in 2021 reported that homeschooling among Black families exploded in the school year following the start of the pandemic, from 3.3% in the spring of 2020 to 16.1% that fall.”

Public schools continue to lose market share on our most prized possession – young learners.

Have a great weekend. Til Monday. SVB