Dear Colleague,

CalMatters asks an important question, “Can California withstand a teacher retirement boom?”

Earlier this year, the California State Teachers Retirement System issued an ominous statement: teacher retirements in California are projected to hit nearly record-breaking heights in 2021.

The statement, which came in the form of a February blog post, said that the numbers will be almost as bad as the year after the Great Recession when more than 16,000 teachers retired.   

While short term effects are being felt in some areas, in many school districts the tsunami of retirements is barely registering as a ripple. While interviews with administrators, teachers, and union leaders do not paint a rosy picture of the situation, neither is it expected to be crippling.   

To continue reading, go here.

Critical Race Theory has made its way into many areas of American life, notably its schools. But just what is it? Christopher Rufo, knowledgeable on all things CRT, has come out with a “briefing book.”

Critical race theory is an academic discipline that holds that the United States is a nation founded on white supremacy and oppression, and that these forces are still at the root of our society. Critical race theorists believe that American institutions, such as the Constitution and legal system, preach freedom and equality, but are mere “camouflages” for naked racial domination. They believe that racism is a constant, universal condition: it simply becomes more subtle, sophisticated, and insidious over the course of history. In simple terms, critical race theory reformulates the old Marxist dichotomy of oppressor and oppressed, replacing the class categories of bourgeoisie and proletariat with the identity categories of White and Black. But the basic conclusion is the same: in order to liberate man, society must be fundamentally transformed through moral, economic, and political revolution.

He gives several examples of what happens when CRT makes its way into schools.

·         San Diego Public Schools accused white teachers of being colonizers on stolen Native American land and told them “you are racist” and “you are upholding racist ideas, structures, and policies.” They recommended that the teachers undergo “antiracist therapy.” Link.

·         A Cupertino, California, elementary school forced third-graders to deconstruct their racial and sexual identities, then rank themselves according to their “power and privilege.” They separated the eight-year-old children into oppressors and oppressed. Link.

·         Santa Clara County Office of Education denounced the United States as a “parasitic system” based on the “invasion” of “white male settlers” and encouraged teachers to “cash in on kids’ inherent empathy” in order to recruit them into political activism. Link.

To learn more, go here.

The public is fighting back, however. The proposed California math framework recommended eight times that teachers use “A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction: Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction ” as a resource. This radical toolkit insists that addressing student errors, focusing on getting the right answer, and requiring students to show their work is a form of white supremacy.

However, due to citizen outrage during the “public comments” period, the state walked back some of its new math mandates, notably dropping A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction. The commission agreed to remove references to the toolkit from the draft framework last week, stating it was “inconsistent with teaching to the standards.” But the war is not over. The framework has not been finalized, and the California Department of Education will hold another public review soon.

For more info, go here.

The Covid pandemic has paved the way for many changes in the field of education. With virtual learning, cameras became de rigeur, and many parents got a “Zoom-eye” view of just what teachers are – and are not – teaching. While most educators have performed admirably, there are, regrettably, some exceptions.

Kimberly Newman, a middle school science teacher in California’s Palmdale school district, thought she had disconnected a Zoom call during which she had helped a student, who’d had trouble with his internet connection, catch up on what he had missed in class. The child’s mother heard Newman tell another person in her house that she thought the family was making up its connection problems to get the student out of turning in assignments on time, because they are Black.

In the recording, Newman is heard saying: “Your son has learned to lie to people and make excuses. Because you taught him to make excuses. That nothing is his fault. This is what Black people do. White people do it too, but Black people do it way more.” Later, she called the family “pieces of s--t.”

While acknowledging a downside, Mike Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, makes the case for cameras:

Fundamentally, many teachers see livestreams and video recordings as infringements on their professional autonomy. Indeed, the California Teachers Association asserted as much this past summer, when it pointed to a 1976 state law that is said to forbid classroom recordings not authorized by the individual teacher on camera, as state officials moved to require daily live video instruction during pandemic-related closures. In some ways, this is an understandable concern. How would office workers, for example, like it if anyone could watch them do their work (or not) all day long?

But that misses the point. Teachers are professionals, yes, but teaching is a fundamentally public act, especially in public schools. It’s a bit like the role that judges play in criminal trials. Some states allow such trials to be broadcast live, so that judges’ performances are transparent, for the whole world to see. But of course when the judges go into their chambers, the cameras don’t follow. So too with teachers. When they are providing live instruction in the classroom, there should be no expectation of privacy. Other parts of the job, like lesson planning and grading, should remain sacrosanct.

To learn more, go here and here.

Another change precipitated by the pandemic, has been the rapid expansion of school choice. It’s important to note that, historically, once a choice measure takes hold, it becomes permanent.

School choice advocates across the country have been able to capitalize on the dismay many parents felt when their district schools stayed shuttered for all or most of the year. Legislation passed even in states such as Kentucky and West Virginia where teachers unions have been able to flex their muscles in recent years with “red for ed” demonstrations that led to salary increases.

“There are some parents that hadn’t considered school choice before that have considered it as a result of the pandemic,” says Jake Logan, president of the Arizona Charter Schools Association. “Parents like the opportunity to choose, and the pandemic gave them a reason to think about their children’s school in a way that they hadn’t before.”

…It’s clear at this point that school choice has increased support, certainly in red states. States that were long resistant have now opened up. However small their initial programs may be, history shows that once tax-credit scholarships and ESAs and the like are introduced, they tend to expand, not contract.

In more fertile states, legislators recognized that this was the moment to put forward more ambitious proposals, and some of them hit it big.

To read on, go here.

On the union front, the United Educators of San Francisco declared its solidarity with the Palestinian people by supporting the Boycotts, Divestment, and Sanctions movement against Israel. The union also called for President Biden to stop aid to Israel, but after receiving some angry pushback from the Jewish community, the union issued a second resolution in which it added a condemnation of some Hamas’ actions. But the new document left its BDS stance intact, and still refers to “the forced expulsion of Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood” and “Israeli airstrikes in Gaza.” The union makes no mention of the fact that the expulsions were for non-payment of rent, and the airstrikes were in response to an onslaught of rockets being fired from Gaza.

At the same time, members of United Teachers of Los Angeles voted to support a resolution to “stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people because of the 3.8 billion dollars annually that the US government gives to Israel, thus directly using our tax dollars to fund apartheid and war crimes.” It should be noted that the UTLA resolution came from a group of chapter chairs (campus representatives), not the UTLA as a whole. In fact, the union leadership issued a statement after the resolution went public, explaining that it is not an official union document, but that it would be taken up by the UTLA House of Representatives, its highest decision-making body at their next meeting in September. 

However, the parent-led California Students United isn’t buying the union’s disclaimer, and in in a blistering five-page denunciation addressed to UTLA president Cecily Myart-Cruz, the organization demands “an unequivocal apology for the anti-Semitism and intolerance coming from you and the union you lead. Especially in the wake of the recent spike in attacks on Jews, your anti-Semitism is not only offensive, it endangers thousands of teachers, parents, and especially children in the LAUSD and beyond.” 

To learn more, go here and here.

Want to read a good book on education? Try Barry Garelick’s very enjoyable Out on Good Behavior: Teaching math while looking over your shoulder. From my review on Amazon:

Barry Garelick has written a highly entertaining book about a very serious subject. As a former math teacher, I am well aware of the ongoing parade of edu-fads filled with arcane new-speak that are supposed to improve the teaching of math. Garelick wisely points out the shortcomings of these anti-traditionalist methods, and does so with humor. You also get to know the educrats he must deal with on a regular basis. My only gripe is that the book is too short. I can only hope he does a follow up!

To learn more about the book and order a copy, go here.

Also, anyone wishing to donate to CTEN can do so very simply through check, money order or PayPal - http://www.ctenhome.org/donate.html  As a non-profit, we exist only through the generosity of others. Thanks, as always.

Sincerely,

Larry Sand

CTEN President

 

Dear Colleague,

EdSource reports that although 87 percent of California’s public schools have reopened for some form of in-person instruction, “fewer than half of students have returned either full time or part time in a hybrid model.”

A total of 55% of all public school students, including those in charter schools, were at home, in distance learning, as of April 30, according to an EdSource analysis of new data released by the state.

EdSource found that two-thirds of students in district schools with the largest proportions of low-income families were in distance learning, compared with only 43% of students in schools with the fewest low-income families — a disparity that may partly explain a widening learning gap between wealthy and poor students that researchers and teachers suspect the pandemic has enlarged.

Higher Covid rates in poor communities contributed to the disparity. Parents in highly infected areas have been reluctant to send their children back to school, and teachers in those areas resisted returning. Parents in low transmission areas, meanwhile, pressured school boards to reopen.

Only 13% of public school students and 12% of charter school students have resumed a normal five-day-a-week school schedule.

The Public Policy Institute of California is also reporting that “83 percent of public school parents think their children’s education has been compromised in the past year – 60 percent said their children have fallen behind by ‘a lot’ while the other 23 percent reported in at ‘a little.’” 

Additionally, the amount of time teachers spent with their students varies greatly, depending on the school district. While students in Long Beach received 255 minutes of “synchronous” instruction each day, and those in San Diego got 240 minutes, kids in L.A. received just 114 minutes with their teacher.

To learn more, go here, here and here.

Also, regarding the reopenings, a Freedom of Information Act document reveals that the American Federation of Teachers lobbied the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on, and even suggested language for, the agency’s school-reopening guidance released in February.

The documents show a flurry of activity between CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, her top advisors and union officials — with Biden brass being looped in at the White House — in the days before the highly-anticipated Feb. 12 announcement on school-reopening guidelines.

“Thank you again for Friday’s rich discussion about forthcoming CDC guidance and for your openness to the suggestions made by our president, Randi Weingarten, and the AFT,” wrote AFT senior director for health issues Kelly Trautner in a Feb 1 email — which described the union as the CDC’s “thought partner.”

“We were able to review a copy of the draft guidance document over the weekend and were able to provide some initial feedback to several staff this morning about possible ways to strengthen the document,” Trautner continued. “… We believe our experiences on the ground can inform and enrich thinking around what is practicable and prudent in future guidance documents.”

To read on, go here.

As the teachers unions continue to restrict traditional education, school choice has been on the move. In The Wall Street Journal, Paul Peterson writes,

As Democrats took control of the federal government in January, teachers unions upped their antichoice rhetoric while calculating the best way to spend billions of new federal education dollars.

Three months later, school-choice advocates have scored big victories around the country. Indiana enlarged its voucher program. Montana lifted caps on charter schools. Arkansas now offers tax-credit scholarships to low-income students. West Virginia and Kentucky have funded savings accounts that help parents pay tuition at private schools. Florida, a movement leader, has enlarged its tax-credit scholarship programs. Even Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee promises to veto a moratorium on new charter schools. As one voucher activist told me: “This feels like the most school choice legislative action in . . . years.”

The pandemic is the driving force. The failure of the public schools to educate children in the past year has angered parents and policy makers.

To continue reading, go here.

Also, on school choice, the Fordham Institute reports that a “New Study Shows That Charter Schools Do Not ‘Drain’ Funds From Traditional Public Classrooms. In Fact, in Many States, the Opposite Seems to Be True.”

The study uses enrollment and fiscal data reported by traditional school districts between 2000 and 2017 to analyze the relationship between the proportion of students attending charter schools not approved by the local school district and the finances of host school districts in twenty-one states, including the Golden State.

Perhaps surprisingly, the study finds that host districts’ total revenues per pupil actually increased in most states as the percentage of local students who enrolled in charter schools rose. Certainly, that was the case in California, where a 10 percentage point increase in the percentage of students attending charter schools that were authorized by counties or the State Board of Education (after being rejected by the host district) was associated with a 5 percent increase in host districts’ total revenue per pupil and a 4 percent increase in their instructional spending per pupil. 

Importantly, these increases weren’t caused by changes in the types of students host districts enrolled. For example, they weren’t due to increases in the share of district students who were low income, eligible for Special Education, or classified as English language learners (Which are all designations associated with additional per pupil funding under state and federal law). 

To learn more about the study, go here.

The “equity” train rolls merrily along in California. In Conejo Valley, just north of Los Angeles,

An emphasis on defining America’s history in terms of “social justice,” and Critical Race Theory (CRT) in particular, is popping up in our local public schools. For instance, the capstone assignment in a current ninth-grade English course at Newbury Park High School is aimed squarely at “an in-depth exploration of a topic that has something to do with prejudice, intolerance, and injustice (just like the majority of the literature in this course).” The assignment, which requires a parent’s signature of approval, guides students to explore a variety of “wrongdoing, attitudes of prejudice and intolerance” in America’s history, through the study of groups including Black Lives Matter, criminals who received minimum sentences, women in science, LGBTQ and more. The assignment’s goal is to give students a “perspective of dealing with wrongdoing and recognizing the need for lasting and comprehensive reconciliation” to “help students to develop a more mindful approach in a variety of real-world environments, including school, home, and community.” 

These days, even William Shakespeare is not safe from cancelation.

In Michigan, some English literature teachers told the School Library Journal that the Bard of Avon has promoted “misogyny, racism, homophobia, classism, anti-Semitism, and misogynoir (discrimination against black women)” in his writing. Jeffrey Austin, head of a Michigan high school’s English literature department, insists that teachers should “challenge the whiteness” of the assumption that Shakespeare’s works are “universal.” Washington state public school teacher Claire Bruncke has banished the Bard from her classroom in order to “stray from centering the narrative of white, cisgender, heterosexual men.”

Math does not fare too well with those who support equity. In Oregon, those in charge with running public education have decided that focusing on finding the right answer in math “and showing your work” is a symbol of white supremacy. Teachers are also urged to adapt homework policies to fit the needs of students of color and “challenge the ways that math is used to uphold capitalist, imperialist, and racist views.”

In an eye-opening piece, Children’s Educational Opportunity Foundation president Lewis Andrews writes that “woke curricula involve much more than warped views of history, the scientific method, and social relations – they also employ instructional methods that have been shown to inflict serious psychological harm completely independent of what is being taught. These include the frequent use of shaming, forced public confessions of so-called ‘privilege,’ the acceptance of one’s socioeconomic background as an excuse for not achieving, and the promotion of ideological conformity as the best way to deal with social conflict.”

Quoting psychologist Anna Smith, Andrews adds that shame is the ultimate divider. “It’s a me versus them feeling. A deliberate act to cause one to feel like an outsider. As ‘a finger-pointing gesture,’ she says, it can easily induce the very reverse of what was intended.”

To learn more, go here, here, and here.

If you have any valuable resources that you would like to share, or talk about what your school district is doing to deal with the “new normal,” please do so by emailing cteninfo@ctenhome.org or posting on Facebook if you prefer. The CTEN page can be accessed here, and the CTEN group can be found here.

Also, anyone wishing to donate to CTEN can do so very simply through check, money order or PayPal - http://www.ctenhome.org/donate.html  As a non-profit, we exist only through the generosity of others. Thanks, as always.

Sincerely,

Larry Sand

CTEN President

 Dear Colleague,

California is getting close to passing AB 101, which would mandate teaching a one-semester course in ethnic studies in high school. As written, the bill does not include specific content, however. That decision would be left to each school district. But some agenda-driven extremists are waiting to pounce. In Los Angeles, the school district is considering a curriculum that disdains “merit” and “individualism,” and claims that “history classes and textbooks focus on the perspective of white colonial culture.”

In San Diego, students must “confront and examine your white privilege” and to “acknowledge when you feel white fragility.” Additionally, children are told to “understand the impact of white supremacy in your work.” But a civil rights violation complaint has been filed against San Diego schools. The Californians for Equal Rights Foundation, along with five partner organizations, have filed the complaint against the school district for unlawful, discriminatory critical race training of teachers and employees. CFER claims, “Culturally Responsive Sustaining Practices & Ethnic Studies and other relevant training violates the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Article I Section 31 (a) of the California Constitution, as well as state anti-discrimination laws and Board policies.”

To learn more about the lawsuit, go here.

Also, regarding the racial agenda in schools, Children’s Educational Opportunity Foundation president Lewis Andrews writes that “woke curricula involve much more than warped views of history, the scientific method, and social relations – they also employ instructional methods that have been shown to inflict serious psychological harm completely independent of what is being taught. These include the frequent use of shaming, forced public confessions of so-called ‘privilege,’ the acceptance of one’s socioeconomic background as an excuse for not achieving, and the promotion of ideological conformity as the best way to deal with social conflict.”

Quoting psychologist Anna Smith, Andrews adds that shame is the ultimate divider. “It’s a me versus them feeling. A deliberate act to cause one to feel like an outsider. As ‘a finger-pointing gesture,’ she says, it can easily induce the very reverse of what was intended.”

To read Andrews’ piece, go here.

On the Covid front, the lockdown tragedy is best summed up in an extraordinarily moving blog post written by Darren Miller, a veteran high school math teacher in the Sacramento area, and force behind the “Right on the Left Coast” blog. He returned to teach full time in person on March 22^nd, and wrote the following one day later.

After 2 days back at work this week, I’ve now taught each of my 5 classes in person for the first time in over a year. Without going into details about my district’s exceedingly-flawed hybrid model, suffice it to say that I taught each class twice–once in the morning for in-person students and once in the afternoon for online students. My in-person classes ranged anywhere from 5-10 students each.

I’d like to focus on one of my classes in particular, which I didn’t teach until today. This is a higher math class of almost exclusively college-bound students.

I’d previously notified my students that, with the hybrid model, our class time was significantly less than it had been under all-online classes, 50 minutes vs 90 minutes. Therefore, it was incumbent upon them to watch my instructional videos before class and take whatever notes they thought were necessary, because with only 50 minutes of class we’d need to get right into practice problems.

Not one of them had watched the video for today’s class.

I wasn’t going to reteach the material in the video, so I would incorporate as much “instruction” as I could while we worked out problems. Not long after I started in, I stopped. 

They were just staring at me.

“Are any of you going to write any of this down?” A few reached for pencils and notebooks. I continued my instruction. As I’m wont to do when teaching, I frequently stop and ask questions to check for student understanding. And so I did. I asked a student a question. 

The student just stared at me.

I looked at the student for a moment and then said, “You realize I can see you, right? You’re not hiding behind a screen with your camera turned off.” I said it with a hint of humor, but the dark truth is there – these kids have no idea how to be students. They have completely forgotten.

Yes, I know that 374 days had passed since the last time they were in school. But these college-bound students had been in school for several years before those 374 days. None of these students is a freshman.

They have forgotten how to be students. 

This partly explains their low grades. They don’t engage – they turn off their cameras (I cannot require them to turn them on), they don’t ask questions, they don’t really take notes. They listen to my videos–at least, they did when I played them during class–and they listen to me talk and explain. They don’t do anything, they sit and listen and let the words flow over and around them.  They learn only what they hear and remember, which cognitive science will tell you won’t be much. They are completely passive, there is nothing active at all about their learning.

Miller is not alone. He spoke with one of his school’s vice principals, and learned that several other teachers had reported the same phenomenon. When talked to, the students “just stared.”

He concludes his post: “I have no idea if they’ll get back to “normal” any time soon or not.  If they don’t, though, we have a much bigger problem on our hands than so-called learning loss. This could be nightmarish.”

To read the rest of Miller’s post, go here.

Last November, a lawsuit was filed by the Public Counsel on behalf of California students, parents and several community organizations which claimed that children have been left behind during months of distance learning, and were lacking access to digital tools as well as badly needed academic and social-emotional supports. In addition, a group of parents are suing the Los Angeles Unified School District and the United Teachers of Los Angeles. They allege “that LAUSD breached its responsibility to act in the best interest of students by allowing the teachers union to dictate when schools should reopen.”

LAUSD, United Teachers Los Angeles and UTLA President Cecily Myart-Cruz are named as defendants in the complaint.

Timothy Snowball, an attorney for the four plaintiffs, said in an interview Wednesday, March 31, that UTLA used students as a “bargaining chip” by refusing to have its members return to campuses sooner in order to try and advance the union’s own agenda. For example, the complaint alleges that during negotiations with the district on reopening schools, the union wanted other issues addressed, such as the defunding of police.

 

“UTLA used the tragedy of COVID-19 as an excuse to extract concessions based on its preferred personal and ideological policies by holding the education and future of LAUSD’s children hostage,” the complaint states. “UTLA was willing for teachers to remain out of the classroom, and children, including Plaintiffs, [sic] to suffer the mental, social, and academic consequences.”

To learn more about the lawsuits, go here and here.

As many unionized school districts remain locked down, school choice is ascending. On March 29^th, West Virginia passed the most expansive school choice program in the country. Under the new law, all parents have unrestrained options. If parents choose a private school for their kids, they will receive 100 percent of their state education dollars – $4,600 annually – to help defray expenses. In addition to private school tuition, parents can use the funding to homeschool or for other education expenses. The new law stands in stark contrast to 2018 when Mountain State educators made news by launching a statewide strike, which morphed into the nationwide “Red for Ed” movement. Interestingly, the unions have been very quiet about the new law. Patricia Rucker, chair of the Senate Education Committee and chief architect of the ESA effort, explained that when legislators pushed for reforms in 2019, they caught a lot of flak from the teachers union. But this time around, she says it has been quiet. “The unions don’t like the bill, but our phones aren’t ringing. We aren’t getting emails. It’s nothing like last time.”

Even in California, hardly a school choice mecca, there is rumbling. A revolutionary universal education savings account initiative is in the works for the November 2022 ballot. The ESA would give parents control of the money the state spends on educating their child. The funds would be spent on the school of their choice, and any money not spent would accumulate and could be used for college or vocational training. Additionally, California State Assemblyman Kevin Kiley has proposed “Cal Grant K-12,” a privately funded grant program which would “help parents who have been forced to pay out-of-pocket expenses to keep up with their children’s remote learning.” According to Fox News, the bill “incentivizes individuals and businesses to make donations that will provide eligible students scholarship funds they can use for approved expenses to help reduce pandemic-induced learning loss.”

To learn more, go here, here and here.

The results of a new poll reveal that nearly half of U.S. parents want more noncollege paths.

According to the Family Voices study -- a recent survey of U.S. parents conducted by Carnegie Corporation and Gallup -- 54% of parents of children aged 11 to 25 in the United States would prefer that their child enroll in a four-year university immediately after high school. However, 46% of parents say even if there were no barriers to their child earning a bachelor's degree, they would prefer another postsecondary option.

To read on, go here.

Also, anyone wishing to donate to CTEN can do so very simply through check, money order or PayPal - http://www.ctenhome.org/donate.html  As a non-profit, we exist only through the generosity of others. 

Sincerely,

Larry Sand

CTEN President