Friday News Roundup

It’s Friday – the Dia de Los Muertos. Here’s your News Roundup.

“Mom is Texting”: Teachers Say Parents Are a Daily Distraction During Class (EducationWeek)

According to EducationWeek this past week,

“Nearly half of teachers, principals, and district leaders say that parents are texting and emailing their children during class at least daily, according to a survey by the EdWeek Research Center.”

“The fact that parents are frequently the cause of the dings and buzzes that distract students could complicate schools’ efforts to restrict or curb student cellphone use. Parents are important allies in making school cellphone policies work, but many of them like having access to their children during the school day, other polling has found. That can put them at loggerheads with educators over policies to restrict students’ cellphones use.”

Isn’t there a way to learn how to use cellphones while learning? Or, better yet, us cellphones to help learning?

As Ryan Walters’ Right-Wing Star Rose, Critics Say Oklahoma’s Education Department Fell Apart (The 74)

According to The 74 this week,

“The start of the school year in Oklahoma would have tested the mettle of even the most battle-hardened leaders.”

“The state’s Republican attorney general twice accused Superintendent Ryan Walters of ignoring laws on spending and transparency, actions he called ‘deeply troubling.’ Members of Walters’s own party said he’d fallen down on his responsibility to get funds to school districts on time. And a series of media reports pointed to his role in a botched release of state test data: While is appeared student performance had skyrocketed, in reality the state had dramatically lowered the bar for success.”

“But if Walters was feeling the heat, it didn’t show.”

“On the morning of August 22, a phalanx of supporters waited for a chance to congratulate him for his headline-grabbing push to put a Bible in every state classroom. One even brought him a gift – a paperback copy of 100 Bible Verses That Made America.”

I guess as long as you have the Lord on your side, you can ignore your professional responsibilities as Oklahoma’s chief public school educator.

Reading, Writing and Religion? A Texas Curriculum Advisory Board’s Link to Faith-Based Advocacy (The Texas Tribune)

This week, The Texas Tribune reported that,

“Shortly after leaving his position as Housing and Urban Development Secretary with the Trump administration, Ben Carson began working on a supplemental curriculum for elementary school students he called Little Patriots. When the program launched publicly in 2021, he said it was meant to compensate for a lack of emphasis on ‘the good things of our nation.’”

“The initial curriculum, comprising short videos and quizzes, contained significant inaccuracies and an undue emphasis on Christianity in U.S. history, including the erroneous assertion that all founding fathers were Christians, according to an American Historical Association historian who reviewed the materials at the request of a reporter at the time.”

“When asked about a series of errors, such as the incorrect date for the Battle of Bull Run, Little Patriot’s developers made some corrections. However, they staunchly defended the curriculum’s Christian emphasis, saying in a statement ‘we aim to deliver a program that enables our country’s children to learn about Faith, Liberty, Community and Life and the role these pillars played throughout our nation’s history.’”

“Three years later, Carson is now part of a panel tasked with reviewing a new, state-authored kindergarten through high school curriculum in Texas. Since an early version of the curriculum was released a few months ago, it has been heavily criticized for what many call an oversized emphasis on Christianity. The curriculum and feedback on it can be reviewed on the Texas State Board of Education’s website.”

“Carson is one of 10 people picked by Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath for the Open Education Resources Advisory Board to ensure the materials are accurate, age-appropriate and free from bias. While some panelists are experienced educators, others are not and at least half of them, such as Carson, have a history of faith based advocacy.”

Separation of church and state continues to be under attack throughout America. In Texas, it seems that separation is slipping away quickly.

New Study: Many Older Students Struggle to Push Beyond Reading “Threshold” (The 74)

The 74 reported this week that,

“Mara Mitchell long suspected her oldest son C.J. just skimmed over books without really comprehending what he was reading. But she didn’t grasp how poor his skills were until he sat down a couple years ago to read a simple book to his little brother.”

“After he um’d and uh’d his way through a picture book about starting kindergarten, ‘My youngest said, ‘Mama, C.J. can’t read,’’ Mitchell said, ‘Somewhere a ball had been dropped, and as much as I’ve been trying to be an advocate for him, something was missed.’”

…

“New research shows older students like C.J. hit a ‘decoding threshold.’ Over 20% of students in fifth through seventh grade stumble over words they don’t recognize or can’t sound out, often preventing them from grasping the main idea of reading materials for school, according to the study released Wednesday from the Education Testing Service and the Advanced Education Research and Development Fund.”

I’m guessing C.J. was allowed to follow a traditional schedule where he attended six or seven classes every day while educators working in his school knew damned good and well that C.J. couldn’t read.

It’s time to make reading a priority in all schools. Until kids can read, everything stops.

Have a great weekend. Til Monday. SVB