Friday News Roundup

It’s Friday. Time for the News Roundup.

Several Bills Filed to Weaken Vaccine Mandates as More Texas Families Opt Out of Immunizations (The Texas Tribune)

It used to be that you were vaccinated, or you couldn’t attend public school. I don’t remember my parents or other parents making a stink about choosing not to be vaccinated.

But today is different. The Texas Tribune reported earlier this week that,

“When speech pathologist Rebecca Hardy recalls her up-close seat to lawmaking during the 2015 state legislative session, she remembers how tough it was to find anyone interested in what she wanted: more choice for Texans when it came to getting vaccinated.”

“After forming Texans For Vaccine Choice the year before, she came to Austin to see if she could find lawmakers interested in policies to help parents who believe it’s their responsibility, not the government’s, to decide if and when a vaccination is administered to their child.”

Seems like we have forgotten what it means to have a “public health interest” in this country. I’m all about parent rights, especially when it comes to how their kids learn and to a lesser extent about what their kids learn. But when young learners come together to work to become smarter and stronger, public health considerations must be at the forefront. Safety above all else.

Across All Ages and Demographics, Test Results Show Americans Are Getting Dumber (The 74)

The 74 reported this week that,

“There’s no way to sugarcoat it: Americans have been getting dumber.”

“Across a wide range of national and international tests, grade levels and subject areas, American achievement scores peaked about a decade ago and have been falling ever since.”

And NAEP data, released this week, suggest that the trend toward low reading and math scores has continued.

Is it lack of accountability? Or immigration, school spending, or the Common Core curriculum? Or maybe it’s those damned cell phones?

Or maybe it’s time to change our model from school-based instruction and activity to learner-based?

After a Tornado of False Starts, Educators Remain in the Dark on School Funding (The 74)

I’m afraid this isn’t the last story we will read over the next four years where our current president tries to do something that, in the end, will hurt kids in schools.

This week, Donald Trump attempted to freeze federal grant funding, including funding aimed at supporting kids in schools. A federal judge temporarily halted the freeze and Trump himself appeared to rescind the order. But no one is sure Trump won’t try it again.

In an article this past week, The 74 ran this quote addressing the confusion:

“’For an administration that wants to make the argument that public education is dysfunctional and not serving our students well, they are amplifying and contributing to that narrative,’ said Amy Loyd, CEO of All4Ed, a policy and advocacy organization….”

“For now, it’s unclear which programs will be affected as the new administration takes stock of spending it deems wasteful or contrary to the president’s agenda. Those goals include freeing up funds for school choice, ending ‘wokeness’ and passing a tax cut package. Start-up funds for charter schools, school lunches, funding for homeless students and hundreds of other federal grants ‘will be reviewed by department leadership for alignment with Trump administration priorities,’ said education department spokeswoman Madison Biederman.”

Tutoring Giant’s Sudden Demise Linked to End of Federal Relief Funds (The 74)

Last week, The 74 reported that,

“One of the nation’s leading tutoring providers shut down abruptly over the weekend, temporarily leaving thousands of students without the extra support they’ve depended on since the pandemic.”

“FEV Tutor, a chat-based, virtual tutoring firm with contracts in districts from California to Florida alerted staff on Saturday that efforts to raise more money or find a buyer had failed….”

…

“With district contracts in at least 30 states and an estimated value of over $40 million, FEV Tutor was an ‘early innovator in providing virtual tutoring services’ through an on-demand, chat-based platform….With customers including the New York, Baltimore and Dallas school districts, the company gave tutors access to an AI Coach and engaged in innovative contracts in which tutors earned higher rates when students showed greater improvement.”

And now all that support has disappeared.

When it comes to learning, kids suffer when adults don’t follow through. But this happens all the time in the traditional public education system. Soft money is present one day and gone tomorrow. And often times, no alternate plans are made to make sure young learners continue to be supported on their learning journeys.

That’s all for this edition of the Friday News Roundup. Til Monday. SVB