Education

A water drop and ripples

Here’s a great response to demands for student debt cancelation.

By Justin Katz | January 12, 2022 |

Robert Wiblin gets to the economics of student debt cancelation in a dead-on way with this comment: Cancelling student debt is good but we could do more. The government should also tax non-college grads in order to fund a $5,000 annual gift for all college grads as a way to show appreciation for how smart…

A water drop and ripples

Remote learning leads to negative behavior, and teacher unions don’t care.

By Justin Katz | January 12, 2022 |

Well, this is no surprise: “Remote learning poses a challenge for children’s behavioral health and functioning,” study co-author Emily Hanno told UPI in an email. “This aligns with what we know about how stress and disruption affect children’s behavior,” said Hanno, a post-doctoral researcher at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in Cambridge, Mass. Stress…

Racial conflict fist as a green light

The First Circuit rejected students’ claim of a Constitutional right to civics education.

By Justin Katz | January 12, 2022 |

Judge Denise Casper of the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals made an important point while dismissing an appeal by Providence students seeking to assert a right to more-extensive civics education in public schools: Citing earlier cases, the First Circuit said no other court suggested teaching a specific subject was required by the constitution, save,…

School girl in medical mask

McKee’s new school policy for COVID feels like backfilling.

By Justin Katz | January 11, 2022 |

Governor Dan McKee, along with the Rhode Island departments of health and education, implemented new guidelines for how schools handle COVID infections, yesterday.  Employees and students who have been vaccinated and boosted (depending on age) do not have to quarantine, even if they had close contact with somebody who tested positive.  Notably, the same applies…

A water drop and ripples

We do have an alternative to shutting schools.

By Justin Katz | January 11, 2022 |

With the head of one of Rhode Island’s teachers unions saying “the responsible decision” is to shut schools and force students back into distance learning, his reasons are worth a look: … the overwhelming number of cases, the inability to do meaningful contact tracing, the arctic temperatures we are expecting so windows cannot be opened,…

A water drop and ripples

We can hope for (but not count on) the COVID shutdowns’ being the end of teachers unions.

By Justin Katz | January 10, 2022 |

Many of us sure do hope that Lindsey Burke is onto something, here: The only way out of this mess is to free families from the clutches of the teachers’ unions. Funding students directly would empower families to access educational alternatives. The good news is that the unions’ political games could further the movement to…

Infectious bronchitis virus

Let’s be specific about what is creating students’ nightmarish days.

By Justin Katz | January 10, 2022 |

A reddit post by somebody claiming to be a student at a “specialized high school” in New York City has been getting a fair bit of attention.  (Note that the post has been edited, with some commentary found in earlier screen captures deleted.)  The student describes a school day during the Omicron surge as something…

An empty classroom

Look to recent history to see how over-the-top our school response to COVID is.

By Justin Katz | January 6, 2022 |

Rhode Island teachers have been posting their attendance records on social media, today.  Providence high school social studies and journalism teacher Dale Fraza listed his period 3 attendance as: Present: 4 Absent: 4 Quarantined: 9 This madness made me think that some academic with enhanced access to public school information should do a study of…

A dark classroom

The Woke Academy charter school is hiring in Providence.

By Justin Katz | January 6, 2022 |

John DePetro has spotted a curious requirement for a job at Hope Academy charter school in Providence, which he redubs “Woke Academy”: They currently have a job posting (listed below) for a teachers assistant that is woke and steeped in Critical Race Theory. It starts with the ability to be aware of ” microaggressions and…

A water drop and ripples

Arizona illustrates what putting students above adults looks like.

By Justin Katz | January 5, 2022 |

Imagine living in a place where the sort of policy Paula Bolyard describes on PJ Media is actually a possibility, or even a part of the public conversation: Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey just fired a shot across the bow of teachers’ unions and COVID-panic advocates who insist on keeping kids out of classrooms, despite the minimal…