Education

A ring of doctors and nurses

Taking on Health and the World

By John Loughlin | November 13, 2021 |

Dr. Tim Shafman on lung cancer, Dr. Stephen Skoly on vaccine mandate harm, Laurie Gaddis Barrett on the school mask mandate lawsuit, and Major Wayne Morse.

Heroes of Liberty figurines

In education, fight fire with… constructive, positive action.

By Justin Katz | November 12, 2021 |

While this view is not shared by all of my compatriots on the right, particularly those inclined to engage in political, social, and cultural battles, I’m a firm believer that in this arena, you cannot fight fire with fire.  Consider the aphorism that one should never wrestle with pigs, because one only gets dirty and…

A water drop and ripples

Bureaucratic relentlessness is no in the service of radical ends.

By Justin Katz | November 10, 2021 |

Stacy Langton, who went viral when she read from school library books at a school committee meeting (without censoring the material), has reportedly been banned from entering the library at her son’s school. At the same time, I’m hearing from parents in Rhode Island who seem surprised about the relentlessness of schools’ push to complete…

A vice on a tool table

Politics This Week with John DePetro: Pointing Out the Blinders

By Justin Katz | November 8, 2021 |

John and Justin discuss the position that the establishment and the Left have gotten themselves in.

A water drop and ripples

The RI School Committee Association is emblematic of the RI establishment.

By Justin Katz | November 8, 2021 |

I’ve said it again and again over the years:  Rhode Island government is structured such that the state is the center of everything, and various committees, associations, chambers, and other organizations that people think represent the interests of various segments of civil society do not.  They are there to represent the state government’s interests to…

A water drop and ripples

A weird angle on reporting about a 2018 alert to North Kingstown’s superintendent about Coach Thomas.

By Justin Katz | November 5, 2021 |

Something about the account that Eli Sherman describes for WPRI of North Kingstown Superintendent Philip Auger being informed in 2018 about the naked fat tests allegedly conducted by basketball coach Aaron Thomas is odd and made odder by an edit to the story.  Here’s a paragraph from the story, about a student who contacted Auger…

RI Senate Oversight hearing on Providence Schools

Mark the General Assembly down with the teachers union as unserious about Providence students.

By Justin Katz | November 4, 2021 |

These two paragraphs from Steph Machado’s WPRI report on a Senate Rules, Government Ethics and Oversight Committee’s hearing concerning the state takeover of Providence schools convey the most-important information, with the rest describing superficial political performance: Zack Scott, the deputy superintendent of operations, told the Senate committee Wednesday only nine departing teachers had responded to…

An image from Maia Kobabe's Gender Queer

Graphic Novels and Naked Fat Tests in North Kingstown High School

By Justin Katz | November 4, 2021 |

In institutions that serve our children, we have to recognize that we are psychologically and socially disadvantaged when it comes to noticing when acceptance becomes grooming.

A water drop and ripples

The choice many felt they were making in Virginia.

By Justin Katz | November 3, 2021 |

Jordan Chamberlain very succinctly framed the feeling that many parents are bringing into the voting booth with them: watching the VA gov race feels like i’m waiting to hear if my daughter will be taught math or transgender hormone therapy The responses citing relatively good math scores in Virginia kind of miss the point.  Indeed,…

A water drop and ripples

School closures hurt kids for nothing.

By Justin Katz | November 3, 2021 |

As noted in this space recently, most of the drop in the standardized test scores in Rhode Island was among students whose schools were mostly virtual during the pandemic.  Now a study out of Japan suggests all that harm was done with no benefit in controlling the disease: There is no evidence that school closures…