Friday News Roundup

It’s Friday. Here is your News Update.

Retention Is the Missing Ingredient in Special Education Staffing (EducationWeek)

Lack of staffing continues to plague America’s traditional K-12 system, especially when it comes to serving special populations. EducationWeek online reported recently that,

“Special education staffing strategies often focus on recruiting and training new teachers in the specialty, but those efforts alone aren’t enough to address shortages in the high-demand field.”

“Education labor economists say it’s equally important to address leaks in the educator pipeline – stressful working conditions and a lack of resources that cause many special education teachers to retreat to general education positions in the middle of their careers.”

Special education offers the best example of what a personalized learning cohort might look like for all kids moving forward, except for salary.

I wonder how many special education teachers would be leaving their jobs if they were compensated with $100,000 a year?

Families of Uvalde Shooting Victims Suing Gun Manufacturer, Instagram, Video Game Company (The Texas Tribune)

According to a Texas Tribune online article this week,

“Several Uvalde [TX] families are suing Daniel Defense, the gun company whose AR-15 style rifle an 18-year-old gunman used to kill 19 children and two teachers and injure several others at Robb Elementary two years ago, lawyers said.”

“The family members of victims Friday also filed a separate lawsuit against California-based companies Meta – the parent company of Instagram and Facebook – and Activision, whose best-selling video game Call of Duty features Daniel Defense guns.”

“The lawsuits together will argue that the three companies marketed semi-automatic weapons to the Uvalde gunman before he was 18, accusing them of negligence and wrongful death.”

The families should win, but they won’t – especially if litigation occurs in Texas.

Reynolds Signs Law to Require ‘Western Civilization’ Be Emphasized in Social Studies Class (The Des Moine Register)

So much for “globalism” in the Hawkeye State.

According to The Des Moines Register online,

“Iowa will be required to include specific topics and themes in its social studies curriculum under a new law signed by Governor Kim Reynolds May 15^th.”

“The state’s social studies standards would be required to include instruction on government, civics and ‘exemplary figures and important events in Western civilization, the United States and the state of Iowa.”

Iowa isn’t the only state choosing to focus more on Western culture, at a time when a greater world view is needed more than ever.

Even Vermont’s Low-Spending School Districts are Struggling to Pass Budgets (Vermont Digger)

…

“Across Vermont, the average education property tax bill is expected to go up just shy of 14% next fiscal year, with actual bills varying widely town to town. Faced with that daunting number, about a third of school budget votes failed on Town Meeting Day [most Vermont towns still approve budgets through a one-person, one-vote system completed by the town’s citizenry] – the largest number in recent memory. Since then, some districts have experienced two or even three budget rejections, even when the expected tax impacts fall well below the average.”

Clearly, Vermont voters, like other voters across the country, are rejecting costs connected with the traditional K-12 system. Have most of them now realized that there is a better, and less expensive, way to get our young learners to be smarter and stronger?

How a DEI Rebrand Is Playing Out in K-12 Schools (EducationWeek)

…

“In public schools, at least 18 states have imposed bans or restrictions on instruction about race, gender, and other related topics. These efforts stem from a September 2020 executive order signed by then-President Donald Trump, which banned certain types of diversity training in federal agencies. President Joe Biden revoked the order, yet momentum for such prohibitions has continued in Republican-led states.”

“In a 2023 analysis of more than 1,300 mission statements from districts nationwide, the Pew Research Center found that only 34 percent of these documents directly reference DEI.”

…

“This complicated political landscape has led some district and state leaders to focus less on explicit references to DEI and more on promoting and supporting work focusing on inclusion and belonging for all students.”

Whenever entitled whites feel that they aren’t getting what they deserve, it generally means bad outcomes for black, brown, and poor folks in this country.

Not so long ago lots of Americans embraced concepts like diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Now, I’m not so sure.

Test Scores Down, GPAs Up: The New Angst Over Grade Inflation (The Wall Street Journal)

According to a recent report in The Wall Street Journal online,

“Teachers’ grading practices have changed and students’ grades have drifted up in a recent years, a pandemic-era legacy that is being met with mixed reaction from educators across the country.”

“Dating back to 2020, when the pandemic upended American education overnight, many schools have adopted a more lenient approach to grading.”

Here’s the deal. There has never been a strong correlation between student grade point averages and their standardized test scores – never.

So, all of this nonsense trying to figure out a connection between the two suggests that we need a new type of evaluation system for learning, one that doesn’t depend on one tests nor unreliable grading systems.

That’s it for this edition of the News Roundup. I’ll be away Monday. Til Tuesday. SVB