Friday News Roundup

It’s Friday. Time for the News Roundup.

1 in 4 Texas School Districts Sign Up for New Bible-Infused Curriculum (The Texas Tribune)

Last week, The Texas Tribune reported that:

“More than 300 Texas school districts and charter schools have signaled plans to use a state-developed reading and language arts curriculum that attracted national attention last year for its heavy references to the Bible and Christianity…”

“That number represents about a quarter of Texas’ 1,207 districts and charters and could still grow before the state publishes official data in the early fall. But the preliminary numbers offer an early glimpse into demand for the elementary school materials narrowly approved by the Republican-dominated State Board of Education.”

Teaching Bible-infused curriculum in public schools is just wrong, and, more importantly, against the U.S. Constitution.

We lived in Texas for 35 years and really enjoyed our time there. We raised 4 kids – all who consider themselves Texans. But the Texas of today isn’t the Texas of 1984, the year my wife and I settled in Houston to build careers and begin a family. No, Texas has changed, and to my family and me, not for the better.

Stepped-Up Security and Outreach: How Schools Are Responding to the Minneapolis Shootings (EducationWeek)

“Schools across the country are increasing security, reassuring their communities of their safety plans, and providing mental health resources in response to a deadly shooting at a Minneapolis school…”

…

”Including the one at Annunciation Catholic School [in Minneapolis], there have been 229 school shootings since 2018 that results in injuries or deaths, an Education Week analysis found.”

“There have been eight this year. There were 39 in 2024, 38 in 2023, 51 in 2022, 35 in 2021, 10 in 2020, and 24 each in 2019 and 2018.”

My experience in public schools suggests that stepped-up security always happens at the wrong time – after the shooting has led to injury and death. Nevertheless, authorities will parade out police patrols and additional in-school security hoping to make neighborhoods feel safer.

But those patrols and in-person security will eventually all but disappear, leaving schools unprotected for the next shooting. This is the way we live in America. It’s a vicious cycle.

Kids Shouldn’t Access Social Media Until They’re Old Enough to Drive, Book Says (The 74)

Read it if you want to, but the title suggests just how ridiculous the article’s message is.

Who really thinks we are going to figure out a way to prevent our kids from accessing social media until they are 15 years of age?

Instead of prohibiting kids from using social media, let’s spend time exploring ways that social media can become the powerful learning device some of us know is possible.

What Research Says Schools Should Do About Chronic Absenteeism (EducationWeek)

Why do most kids decide not to go to school? My experience tells me the reason that isn’t even mentioned in the article referenced above.

The main reason kids decide not to go to schools is boredom – pure, unadulterated boredom.

Kids aren’t stupid. If they aren’t challenged, engaged, coached, evaluated the right way, most will vote with their feet and stop showing up.

It’s the responsibility of the learning institution to make sure all young learners feel good about what they are learning, how they are learning, and why they are learning.

This responsibility is why teaching is considered a professional endeavor.

A Brain Boost for Seniors Who Use Everyday Tech (Reasons to be Cheerful)

Tech is bad for kids, but helpful to our senior citizens.

According to Reasons to be Cheerful, “Studies show technology can have a protective cognitive effect for older people and could be a contributing to a drop in dementia rates.”

…

“’It flips the script that technology is always bad,’ said Murali Doraiswamy, director of the Neurocognitive Disorders Program at Duke University…. It’s refreshing and provocative and poses a hypothesis that deserver further research.’”

So is all tech really bad for kids, but good for our elderly? Or is it more about the traditional K-12 system not understanding how to teach with technology aids, so they just decide to ban it?

Texas is Poised to Replace STAAR. Here is What Schools’ New Standardized Tests Would Look Like (The Texas Tribune)

As one of the first states to adopt high-stakes standardized testing, Texas made news this week when lawmakers sent legislation replacing STAAR, the state’s widely unpopular standardized test, to Governor Greg Abbott’s desk for his signature.

“Once Abbott signs Houston Bill 8, Texas will swap the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness for three shorter tests at the beginning, middle and end of each school year. Students will begin to take the new tests in the 2027-28 school year.”

It’s still unclear whether these three tests will be more formative in nature – with each test building on the knowledge and skills young learner’s demonstrate through the year – or if they will merely take the old summative exam and split it into three smaller sections.

Let’s hope it’s the former and not the latter.

Finally, here’s another zinger from “F in Exams: The Very Best Totally Wrong Test Answers”:

What is a vacuum?

Something my Mom says I should use more often.

Have a great weekend. I’ll be watching the Iowa-Iowa State football game tomorrow. Go Hawks! Til Monday. SVB