Tag: public schools

‘Equity’ Grading Is the Latest Educational Fad Destined To Fail

Modern public-education history is littered with novel education theories that have failed so spectacularly that the terms are now used as pejoratives. For instance, when I was in elementary school in the 1960s, the “New Math” focused on teaching abstractions rather than fundamentals. You can find reams of research documenting its failure decades later, but the evidence was recognized almost immediately.

That then-new approach “ignored completely the fact that mathematics is a cumulative development and that it is practically impossible to learn the newer creations if one does not know the older ones,” according to Morris Kline’s 1973 “Common Core,” a set of educational standards embraced by California and 39 other states in 2010. On hindsight, it also deserves a failing grade.

“Despite the theory’s intuitive appeal, standards-based reform does not work very well in reality,” read a 2021 Brookings Institution report. “The illusion of a coherent, well-coordinated system is gained at the expense of teachers’ flexibility in tailoring instruction to serve their students.” Don’t get me started on some of the loopier ones: pass-fail grading, the replacement of phonics with whole-language learning, and Social Emotional Learning (SEL).

“Education in the United States has lurched from fad to fad for the better part of a century, finding ever-ingenious ways to underperform preceding generations,” explained investigative reporter Joe Herring in a 2022 piece reviewing some of them. Apparently, there isn’t enough productive employment for education PhDs, so they spend their time dreaming up big experiments to improve education rather than focusing on the obvious ones.

The process gains life as evidence pours in about the latest underperformance. And the latest data certainly is impressive, albeit in a depressing way. Following COVID-19 stay-at-home orders, traditional public schools (and California’s in particular) couldn’t rise to the occasion. Teachers’ unions slowed re-openings. Test scores plummeted, especially for poor and minority students. Many students checked out permanently, as soaring chronic absentee rates prove.

Always eager to embrace easy-button solutions rather than, say, ideas that promote competitiveness and excellence, our school bureaucracies are on to some “innovative” ideas that have a ballpark-zero chance of improving educational outcomes. The new ones are based around the concept of equity. As with every education reform fad, they sound OK in the elevator pitch. Who doesn’t support equity? But they will create a mess that further impedes student progress.

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Wisconsin Bird Group Teaches Fourth Graders All About The ‘Gender Fluid’ Wild Kingdom

Well, everybody’s heard about the bird. The bird is, after all, the word. In this post-apocalyptic “diversity, equity, and inclusion” age, the gay bird, the trans bird, the bi-bird, is the word. Or bi-bi birdie, if you prefer. 

The Southern Wisconsin Bird Alliance, formerly known as Madison Audubon, offers “LGBTQIAP+ in Nature,” a class exploring the diverse range of sexuality and so-called gender fluidity in the animal kingdom. To fourth-graders. 

“We know that there is a beautifully wide range of ways that humans identify, and scientists have learned that there are many examples of plants and animals that are LGBTQIAP+ in nature, too!,” the alliance declares on its website. You can come out now, lavender. Your secret’s out. And ferns, the lesbians of plants, you’re not fooling anyone. 

“We created a lesson on this topic last year and recently shared with one of our fifth grade groups. It provided a great opportunity to build inclusive community within the classroom and led to thoughtful questions and discussion from the kids,” the environmental group gushes. 

Just in case you’re scoring along at home, the ever-expanding alphabet of depravity in human beings is now being foisted on unsuspecting flora and fauna.

Kids can learn all about fish “that change sex (sometimes repeatedly)” — without the help of child-mutilating doctors. They can catch up with “bisexual bonobos” (real swingers, those monkeys), or “gender fluid” hummingbirds.  

The lesson is open to grades four through eight, “with options for adjusting for elementary students through high school.” Do they save the pansexual pandas for the upperclassmen? 

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Raunchy Drag Show During New Mexico Prom Leads to Principal Being Removed and Several Employees Placed on Leave

A New Mexico high school principal has been removed, and several employees were placed on leave after a raunchy drag performance at the prom left parents outraged.

Students say that the drag performer flashed their crotch, “did twerk on a couple of students,” and “let students twerk on them.”

The lewd performance took place at the prom for Atrisco Heritage Academy High School in Albuquerque on April 20.

NBC News reports, “In a video on TikTok, students can be seen gathering around the performer in thigh-high black boots and a matching body suit, as the performer is bending over, squatting and dancing provocatively.”

The performer has been identified by local station KOB 4 as “Mythica Sahreen.”

“Honestly, it was really interesting, and I didn’t mind it. But the thing is it’s the place and where it happened, full of minors, you know, it wasn’t very appropriate for prom,” a student told the station.

Another student added, “Could have kept it more on the side of like it being more PG with the fact that they kind of did twerk on a couple students it wasn’t exactly the best, but it was something that did happen. And they did let students twerk on them.”

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Black athletic director of Baltimore high school arrested for creating AI deepfake of white principal to stage race hoax

A Maryland school athletic director was arrested at BWI-Marshall Airport after it was discovered that he had allegedly spread an AI-generated impersonation of the Pikesville High School principal that framed the principal as being racist. Dhazon Darien, 31, is looking at many charges due to the deepfake, including stalking, theft, disruption of school operations, and retaliation against a witness.

The police investigation began in January when a voice recording alleged to be school principal Eric Eiswert began making the rounds. Eiswert was temporarily removed from his position as head of the school and the school received many phone calls and social media comments and messages over the recording after it was spread on social media, according to The Baltimore Sun.

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Rutherford Institute Threatens First Amendment Lawsuit Over Censorship of Religious Content From High School Valedictorian’s Graduation Speech

The Rutherford Institute has come to the defense of a Florida high school valedictorian whose graduation speech was censored by school officials to alter and remove religious content.

Lucas Hudson, a valedictorian of the Collegiate Academy at Armwood High School in Hillsborough County, Fla., was ordered by school officials to remove religious references from his graduation speech in which he thanked the people who helped shape his character, reflected on how quickly time goes by, and urged people to use whatever time they have to love others and serve the God who loves us. School officials gave Lucas an ultimatum: either remove most of his speech’s religious content or he would not be speaking at all. In coming to Lucas’ defense, attorneys for The Rutherford Institute warn that the school’s actions violate the rights to freedom of speech and the free exercise of religion under the First Amendment, Florida law, and the School District’s policy, and could expose the school to a lawsuit.

“If America’s schools are to impart principles of freedom and democracy to future generations, they must start by respecting the constitutional rights of their students,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “While the government may not establish or compel a particular religion, it also may not silence and suppress religious speech merely because others might take offense. People are free to ignore, disagree with, or counter the religious speech of others, but the government cannot censor private religious speech.”

As valedictorian of the Class of 2024 for the Collegiate Academy at Armwood High School, Lucas Hudson was provided the opportunity to give a graduation speech in May 2024. Lucas’s planned speech thanked the people who helped shape his character, reflected on how quickly times goes by, and briefly urged people to use the short amount of time we have to love others and to serve the God who loves us and who sent his son, Jesus, to save us. However, after submitting his speech to the principal, Lucas was told that his speech would not be accepted unless he reduced and changed the religious content. Although Lucas modified his speech, the religious message was still not acceptable to school officials who told Lucas that he needed to “make appropriate adjustments” to his speech by the next day or he would not be speaking at all. Lucas then changed his speech to only include a short sentence about the privilege of knowing the God who saved him.

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‘Grading for Equity’: Promoting Students by Banning Grades of Zero and Leaving No Class Cut-Ups Behind

Joe Feldman has faced many tough crowds in the course of successfully selling his “Grading for Equity” program to school districts across the nation. During the consultant’s presentations, teachers concerned that his approach lowers standards have rolled their eyes, questioned his understanding of students, and worse.

“A guy in the front row got his stuff together and walked out of the room,” Feldman told RealClearInvestigations.

Despite the frequent resistance from teachers, dozens of districts from California to Massachusetts are giving the consultant’s ambitious project a shot. As schools face a series of crises, including a spike in chronic absenteeism and sharp academic decline, grading for equity offers a path to better grades and higher graduation rates. Its practices include the removal of behavior in calculating grades, the end of penalties for late assignments, allowing students to retake exams, and a ban on zeros as the lowest mark.

Since the pandemic, districts have been lowering standards by making grading more lenient to help struggling students, according to several studies. But Feldman insists that his sweeping overhaul isn’t part of that controversial trend. He says the practices he promotes are a matter of fairness and accuracy in an educational system that’s stacked against blacks, Latinos and other disadvantaged students.

Grading for equity, however, stirs enough dissent among teachers and parents that some districts have dropped the difficult revamp in mid-stream. They say Feldman’s reforms are a form of leniency that brings out the worst in some students, hurting the very kids he wants to help.

“What’s most troubling are the practices that lower expectations, like giving a 50 percent grade instead of a zero even when a student doesn’t attempt the assignment,” said Meredith Coffey, a former teacher and now a researcher at Thomas B. Fordham Institute who co-wrote a report on grading for equity. “If students know that they could do nothing and get 50 percent, why would they work hard? Many would do nothing.”

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“Smurfs Scandal” goes to court: German Family Takes on Police and School Principal for Abusing Young Girl Accused of “Right-Wing” Views

You have already heard about the “Smurfs Girl” whose story The Gateway Pundit reported on recently: The 16-year old Loretta had posted a TikTok video wherein she made a reference to Germany’s right-wing party AfD. The party’s signature color is blue, so she compared its rising popularity to the Smurfs by showing a blue map of Germany with the poll results in each state.

Sounds innocent enough, right?

Well, one day she was dragged out of the classroom by her principal and three policemen. They gave her a “formal police warning”, because they had been given an anonymous “clue” about her right-wing content. Basically, this was a not-so-subtle police order to stop voicing her opinion or they will have to actually investigate!

It was later revealed that Loretta’s Smurf video was not the main piece of “evidence” that the principal had received. The “clue” consisted of screenshots of her social media accounts with patriotic content like the German flag and the statement, “In Germany, one speaks German”. Moreover, the clue-giver had noticed that she was wearing a pullover with the initials HH on it. Could it be… Heil Hitler? No, it stands for the brand name “Hally Hanson.” Not a niche brand either, but apparently a quite popular one.

Now The Gateway Pundit has reached out to the mother of Loretta to hear her version of the story. Many critics have accused the family of performing a social media stunt with the Smurfs story. As it turns out, the family never wanted the attention. Loretta just assumed that it must have been her latest Smurf video they had come across. Because she is fully aware of the systemic media’s negative portrayal of the AfD.

To this day, Loretta has not shown her face and wishes to stay anonymous. The mother is very protective of her daughter and doesn’t typically use social media at all.

This is what really happened behind the scenes:

After the story went viral, Loretta was devastated. Nosy journalists gathered around her school and even interviewed random pupils. What if they did not like Loretta and portrayed her as the “Nazi” that resentful people want to see in her? The mainstream journalists were invading the social fabric of TEENAGERS! That is predatory behavior!

Loretta started hiding on her way home from school so she could get away from prying journalists. Her mother had to take a vacation from work to be there for Loretta. Sometimes, teenagers would come and bang at the door and windows. The family disabled the doorbell. For a while, they had lost all confidence in their freedom of speech. But they got it back!

Now the family is ready to confront the real criminals in this case and go to court against the police and the school’s principal. According to Loretta’s mother, the lawyer was advised by someone of higher authority to reject the case (she does not know by whom) but he said: “There’s no way!”

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Publicly Funded LGBT Group Asks Teachers Not To Inform Parents About ‘Transitioning’ Children

A government funded LGBT lobbyist ‘charity’ is encouraging teachers in Scottish schools not to communicate with parents if their children express a desire to ‘transition’ to a different gender.

The Telegraph reports that one school issued such guidance to teachers based on the ‘inclusion scheme’ advice of LGBT Youth Scotland, a radical activist group that receives almost £1 million per year in taxpayer funding.

In a second school, concerns were raised that there could be “problems” with parents discovering their child had changed their name when reports were sent home.

The report notes that more than half the secondary schools in the country are signed up to the LGBT Youth Scotland scheme, costing £850 and offering “charter status” if schools abide by their ‘inclusivity’ guidelines.

A further 40 primary schools in the country are signed up. Primary schools are for children aged 4-11.

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Photos Debunk School & Media Claims that ‘Furry’ Controversy in Utah Was a Hoax

After school officials and the media denied it was happening, photos have now emerged showing ‘furries’ at a middle school in Utah that prompted other students to walk out and stage a protest.

Dozens of students took part in the demonstration at Mt. Nebo Middle School on Wednesday morning after they claimed furries – other children dressing up and acting like animals, were barking at, pouncing on and even biting them.

“They have their little tails, they get down on their hands and knees and they bark at us,” one student at the protest told Conservative radio host Adam Bartholomew.

Others claim they were being sprayed with Febreeze and that school authorities took the side of the furries and told them to just “be nice” and take it.

However, school district spokesperson Seth Sorenson denied the attacks were even happening or that students were dressing up in animal costumes, asserting the claims were wild rumors.

Media outlets then amplified the narrative that the whole thing was just a hoax or a moral panic fueled by inaccurate speculation.

Unfortunately for them, photos have now emerged showing students dressed up as furries exactly as the other children described.

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Utah School Kids Stage Walk Out Protest Against ‘Furries’

Students at a middle school in Utah walked out in protest Wednesday, charging that teachers and officials are allowing other children to identify as animals.

The kids at Mt. Nebo Middle School in Payson said they have had enough of so called ‘furries’ who they charge have growled and barked at them, and even bitten them.

The students made signs saying “Don’t brainwash us,”as well as “Compelled speech is not free speech,” “I will not comply,” and “We just wanted to learn.”

They stood on the side of the road outside the school, saying that their complaints against the ‘furries’ are being ignored.

Livestreamer Adam Bartholomew documented the protest and asked the kids why they were doing it.

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