Education

"Injustice Won't Be Postponed" sign

Investigating critical race theory in schools is like tugging on a thread into a murky cave.

By Justin Katz | August 31, 2021 |

Nicole Solas has been going through the results of her famous APRA requests and posting choice bits on social media.  Yesterday, for example, she posted a description of “readiness courses” offered by the state to help students make up for COVID-shutdown learning losses.  Here’s the key part of the description: The Readiness courses use student-centered…

A hoodie on a beaten school bus

Highlander’s progress from special needs instruction to promoting critical race theory is instructive.

By Justin Katz | August 26, 2021 |

That’s the subject of my latest article for Accuracy in Media. The Highlander Institute’s radicalism can be seen in a review of its Twitter stream. For example, the organization provided the only retweet for a tweet by Dinah Becton-Consuegra of the Kapor Center in Oakland, California, which says: “We are a country founded on racist ideas,…

A water drop and ripples

Nicole Solas’s APRAs are bearing fruit.

By Justin Katz | August 25, 2021 |

Why would your “equity auditor” have to be “fluent in critical race theory” if CRT isn’t in the schools? On Twitter.

Masked Matryoshka dolls

Glocester gives hope that not every elected body in RI is happy to unload responsibility.

By Justin Katz | August 23, 2021 |

Dan McGowan reports for the Boston Globe that the Glocester School Committee is going to consider suing the Rhode Island Council on Elementary and Secondary Education over its implicit statewide mask mandate: Governor Dan McKee subsequently declared a new state of emergency related to Delta variant of the coronavirus, and issued an executive order requiring masks in…

A dark classroom

The problem with labor unions in education really is this obvious… and huge.

By Justin Katz | August 20, 2021 |

This exchange from a brief interview with the Boston Globe’s Dan McGowan is enough to prove retired teacher Michael Marra’s new book worth reading: Q: You’re a former schoolteacher who has become disenchanted with public employee unions. Did you start out that way or did something happen to change your mind? Marra: I didn’t start out that…

A masked teddy bear.

The pro-mask sense of entitlement is telling.

By Justin Katz | August 17, 2021 |

Cards on the table:  I do not want my children forced to wear masks in school.  Apart from discomfort and health (including mental health), masks unarguably impede the ability to understand what people are saying and almost obliterate the ability to read facial expressions, which is absolutely critical to education, especially for younger children.  Furthermore,…

The late repenters in Purgatory

Attacks on merit in education will most harm vulnerable students (like in Providence).

By Justin Katz | August 13, 2021 |

Glenn Reynolds is correct to say that the situation Joel Kotkin described in a recent American Mind essay “might as well be a foreign plot to weaken America.” Of course, it needn’t be that.  Reducing the rigor of American education benefits not only our global adversaries, but also the people and institutions charged with conducting education…

A social justice take on Western railroad construction

Millions of dollars (mostly federal) are going to CRT in Providence.

By Justin Katz | August 13, 2021 |

My latest article for Accuracy in Media does some digging into what’s going on with critical race theory (CRT)–style curricula and teacher training in Providence schools: Congressional Republicans scored a victory for racial harmony in the American classroom with the passage of Senator Tom Cotton’s “Stop CRT Act“.  Whether the legislation will actually halt the promotion of critical race theory…

Hopscotch

Rhode Island should be competing with New Hampshire on educational freedom.

By Justin Katz | August 12, 2021 |

Good news for New Hampshire families, as Jonathan McGee reports for The College Fix: New Hampshire’s state legislature passed a bill that brings education savings accounts to New Hampshire students. That provision, folded into the state budget, was signed into law by Governor Chris Sununu on June 25. Education savings accounts give money directly to families…

RI COVID cases by age group

False COVID Fear for Children

By Justin Katz | August 10, 2021 |

The responsibility of proof falls on those who wish to restrict our rights and impose harmful solutions like forcing children to wear masks all day in school, and the evidence just isn’t there.