California is frequently the first state to pass some
kind of legislation which may or may not be beneficial. The newest such effort
is a law that mandates later school start times.
The law will take effect over a phased-in period, ultimately requiring public middle schools to begin classes at 8 a.m. or later while high schools will start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. The law does not apply to optional early classes, known as “zero periods,” or to schools in some of the state’s rural districts.
The new start times will be implemented by the beginning of the 2022-23 school year or when a school’s three-year collective bargaining agreement with its employees comes to an end, whichever is later. Schools that have recently negotiated agreements or are in the midst of negotiating new agreements with teachers have the option of adjusting to the later times when their contracts end.
Interestingly, CTA called Newsom’s decision to sign
the bill “unfortunate,” saying it creates significant challenges that will
ultimately affect students.
To learn more, go here.
A report released earlier this month by
the U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center on “targeted school
violence” doesn’t add much to what we already knew. Nearly every attacker
“experienced negative home life factors.” Most were victims of bullying and had
a history of school disciplinary actions. The perpetrators typically had a
grievance and a plan, that usually involved the use of a gun. But ultimately
the report finds, “There is no profile of a student attacker, nor is there a
profile for the type of school that has been targeted.”
As Stephen Sawchuk writes in Education
Week, the analysis generally confirms the conclusion of the agency’s 2002
publication on school safety that “checklists of characteristics supposedly
common to school shooters were not helpful in preventing violence.”
About a month before the report was released, Florida
became the latest state to allow teachers who pass psychological and drug
screening, and complete at least 144 hours of training to carry guns at school.
The volunteers receive a stipend of $500 for participating.
While American
Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten insists that teacher carry
makes our children’s classrooms less safe, John Lott, founder of the Crime
Prevention Research Center, disagrees. In a report released in April, he
concludes, “Since at least as far back as January 2000, not a single shooting-related death or injury has occurred
during or anywhere near class hours on the property of a school that allows
teachers to carry.” He adds, “There
are currently 20 states that allow teachers and staff to carry guns to varying
degrees on school property.”
To read the report, go here.
To learn more about Lott’s findings, go here.
To read Weingarten’s thoughts, go here.
The NAEP scores were released a few weeks ago and the
results were not pretty, especially here in California. As EdSource reports,
In 2017, California education leaders
heralded the significant increase in the state’s 8th-grade reading scores on
the National Assessment of Educational Progress as a sign that the state’s
investment in education and its adoption of the Common Core standards had taken
hold.
Curb that enthusiasm. In 2019,
California’s 8th-graders gave back the gain, as did much of the nation,
underscoring that progress on state and national standardized tests is best
measured over a decade, not in single years.
In math, both California’s and the
nation’s 8th-grade scores fell less than 1 point. The nation’s 4th-grade math
score rose 1 point and California’s rose 3 points — though it was not
considered statistically significant because of the sample size.
The biggest change was in reading and
the news was not good. Joining 30 states whose 8th-grade reading scores also
fell, California’s decline of 3 points, the same as the nation, about matched
its point gain in 2017.
In 4th-grade reading, the national
score fell 2 points, which was considered significant, while California’s 1-point
rise was not. Only one state, low-scoring Mississippi, saw a gain in 4th-grade
reading.
To learn more, go here.
While California’s students struggle, at least one
teacher union leader’s thoughts and efforts would seem to be elsewhere. In a
recent post on the California Federation of Teachers website, new president Jeff
Freitas talked about his union’s priorities.
To be a social justice union, we must not only consider the complex lives of our members and the challenges they face, but look beyond the doors of the schoolhouse to consider the ways our campus communities intersect with our larger communities. When we fight for labor, we must fight for our communities, too.
To read more on Freitas’ thoughts, go here.
The leftist agenda in education stretches far beyond the
teachers unions, however. In a revealing piece in Real Clear Investigations,
John Murawski writes, “Woke History Is Making Big Inroads in America's High
Schools.”
Like growing numbers of public high school students
across the country, many California kids are receiving classroom instruction in
how race, class, gender, sexuality and citizenship status are tools of
oppression, power and privilege. They are taught about colonialism, state
violence, racism, intergenerational trauma, heteropatriarchy and the common
thread that links them: “whiteness.” Students are then graded on how well they
apply these concepts in writing assignments, performances and community
organizing projects.
Students at Environmental Charter High School in
Lawndale are assigned to write a “breakup letter with a form of oppression,”
such as toxic masculinity, heteronormativity, the Eurocentric curriculum or the
Dakota Access Pipeline. Students are asked to “persuade their audience of the
dehumanizing and damaging effects of their chosen topic.”
Students at schools in Anaheim, San Jose, Oakland, and
San Francisco are taught how to write a manifesto to school administrators
listing “demands” for reforms.
To learn more about “woke history,” go here.
As NAEP scores decline and politics in the classroom
ascend, Carl Cannon at Real Clear Politics writes, “K-12 Education Falls
Short, and Hope for Gains Lags.”
A majority of registered voters are
dissatisfied with the performance of the elementary and secondary education
system in this country, according to a detailed new survey. Moreover, Americans
have little confidence that public schools will improve any time soon.
“Looking ahead on education, few people
are optimistic about the future,” said John Della Volpe, who designed and
directed the poll. “Only about one in 10 voters believe America’s K-12
education will be a model of excellence by 2040.”
To read on, go here.
Not surprisingly, as confidence in traditional public
schools declines, school choice is ascendant. Chapel Hill-based education
writer Kristen Blair reports:
Voters’ attitudes defy partisan pigeonholing. A new poll from Education Reform Now of likely 2020 voters show 57% want “new ideas” and “real changes” in how public schools operate, in addition to more funding. Eight in 10 Democratic primary voters and nearly nine in 10 black Democratic primary voters want expanded access to choices and options in public education, including charter schools.
To learn more, go here.
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Sincerely,
Larry Sand
CTEN President
