It’s a July Friday. Time for the Roundup.
Texas’ Christian-Influenced Curriculum Spurs Worries about Bullying, Church-State Separation (The Texas Tribune)
The line between church and state is becoming narrower across the nation, but probably nowhere more than Texas.
The Texas Tribune reported last week that,
“Andy Wine thinks most children can understand the Golden Rule. Talking over your peers is rude. Insulting others is mean. Don’t hurt people. In short, it’s common sense, Wine said.”
“That’s why the 43-year-old parent of two, who is an atheist, finds it appalling that the Texas Education Agency wants to incentivize public schools to teach the Golden Rule as a core value in the Bible.”
“’We teach kids to be nice to each other and to share,’ said Wine, a member of the Freethinkers Association of Central Texas, a social organization of religiously unaffiliated people. ‘You don’t need to bring up any religion in order to do it.’”
In a world where the religious right is critical of social-emotional learning in our public schools (and after all, social-emotional learning is nothing more than kids working to improve their behaviors toward themselves and others), it’s now okay to bring religion into the schools in order to arrive at the same outcomes.
Unlikely Ed Allies Join Forces to Cut Chronic Absenteeism in Half by 2029 (The 74)
Traditional schools are still missing their kids, even though the pandemic has been over, for the most part, for up to at least two school years.
Now, according to The 74, right-leaning and left-leaning organizations have joined forces to bring these missing kids back to their traditional K-12 campuses:
“Three high-profile education advocacy and research groups crossed political lines in Washington, D.C. [last week] to announce an ambitious goal cutting chronic absenteeism in half over the next five years.”
“For the first time, the conservative American Enterprise Institute, the left-leaning Education Trust and the national nonprofit Attendance Works joined forces to confront an issue that continues to plague K-12 classrooms four years after the pandemic first hit.”
At this convening, Attendance Works shared their step-by-step approach to get kids back in school:
- Find out how many students and schools are affected by chronic absence.
- Convene a task force on student attendance.
- Launch a public awareness campaign to convey that every day counts.
- Recognize and appreciate good and improved attendance.
- Use chronic absence data to shape budget priorities.
- Use chronic absence as an accountability metric.
- Partner with schools and public agencies to address health concerns.
- Work with the transportation department.
- Recruit an extra shift of adults to mentor chronically absent students.
- Don’t forget the parents.
Funny there is no mention of engaging young learners with their own personalized learning plans so that they become invested in their own learning.
Students Headed to High School Are Academically a Year Behind, COVID Study Finds (The 74)
According to The 74,
“Eighth graders remain a full school year behind pre-pandemic levels in math and reading, according to new test results that offer a bleak view on the reach of federal recovery efforts more than four years after COVID hit.”
“Released Tuesday, the data from over 7.7 million students who took the widely used MAP Growth tests from NWEA doesn’t bode well for teens entering high school this fall. Finishing 4th grade when the pandemic hit, many students not only lost at least a year of in-person learning, but also transitioned to middle school during a chaotic period of teacher vacancies and rising absenteeism.”
“The 2023-24 results reflect the last tests administered before federal COVID relief funds run out…”
There’s a way to make these eighth graders smarter and stronger when it comes to their reading, writing, and problem-solving skills, but the traditional school system is not equipped to afford the right amount of time nor support to achieve the goal. It would take drastic changes these eight graders’ learning plans, and the traditional school system just doesn’t’ know how to do that.
Youngkin Signs Order on ‘Cell Phone-Free Education’ in Virginia Public Schools (The 74)
According to The 74,
“Virginia will soon establish guidance to restrict or eliminate student cell phone use during instructional time at school.”
My prediction? Let’s watch Virginia reading, writing, and problem-solving scores skyrocket in the coming years, all because Governor Glen Youngkin banned cell phones.
Not really.
What is really going to happen is that classrooms will become places where adults try to catch kids using their cell phones. Once caught, those kids will be sent to the assistant principal’s office for a disciplinary conference. And this cycle will continue over and over and over again. In the meantime, reading, writing, and problem-solving abilities, on the part of young learners, won’t improve – but kids won’t be using their cell phones!
Project 2025 Would Dramatically Cut Federal Funds for Schools. They What? (EducationWeek)
According to EducationWeek,
“If enacted, Project 2025, the conservative policy agenda that has become a centerpiece of discourse around the upcoming presidential election, could jeopardize access to an adequate education for millions of low-income students and students with disabilities through the significant funding cuts and overhauls it proposes, experts say.”
The next time Donald Trump tells you that he wants to be President for “all of America,” take a look at what is written in Project 2025. Trump, and his cronies, aren’t interested in “all of America,” especially if that “all” includes black, brown, and poor learners.
How Oklahoma’s Superintendent Wants Schools to Teach the Bible (EducationWeek)
According to EducationWeek this week,
“Oklahoma Superintendent Ryan Walters issued guidance on teaching about the Bible in public schools July 24, a month after he first ordered educators in the state to teach about the religious text.”
“The guidance calls on schools to provide every classroom with a physical copy of the Bible, the U.S. Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence, calling the documents ‘mandatory for the holistic education of students in Oklahoma…”
With more and more students just walking out of traditional K-12 schools these days, and not coming back, it will be interesting to see what happens to Oklahoma’s absentee rates when parents start telling their kids to “Get Out” of their neighborhood schools.
The scary part is that, in Oklahoma, this might be a way to improve attendance.
We live in interesting times to say the least. That’s the Friday News Roundup for this week. Til Monday. SVB
A Better Path to Learning 
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