Education Reform Thread

[synistar]

In my AP US history class, we read chapters from Zinn's A People's History of the United States. That was the only alternative viewpoint history exposure I got in all of high school.

[Lokus]

I mean, "State's Rights" is still touted as the main reason for the Civil War in several states up to college. CRT ain't gonna happen anytime soon even if teacher's were competent enough to teach it.

[Ksandra]

I mean, "State's Rights" is still touted as the main reason for the Civil War in several states up to college. CRT ain't gonna happen anytime soon even if teacher's were competent enough to teach it.

Yeah, the problem is when people label anything "accurate history including different perspectives" as being CRT when it's not. I am mostly posting this so that those on the left don't start claiming we need to teach it just because the right is saying we shouldn't/

More like we need to explain to people that CRT wasn't being taught in schools to begin with, and teaching black history isn't CRT.

[synistar]

Also another casual observation when I took AP US History. Seems like everything WWII to the present is only glanced over in part to "fuck it's April and we have AP courses to cram for." I think we had at most a week and a half talking about the Civil Rights movement. I wonder how many non-AP US History students know what Brown v. Board of Education did/what case it overturned.

[Melena]

I know in high school that shit was really glossed over. We only spent maybe a week or so if that going over the slave trade routes that were used to bring slaves to North America, but at least our teacher really emphasized how horrific the conditions were for the slaves on those ships, with how they were packed in and treated, let alone how they got treated once brought here. And outside a little bit about the civil rights movement around MLK day, not much at all.

The fact so many people never even heard of the Tulsa riots until watching Watchmen on HBO tells you all you need to know about how American History glosses over that sort of shit.

[Ksandra]

I know in high school that shit was really glossed over. We only spent maybe a week or so if that going over the slave trade routes that were used to bring slaves to North America, but at least our teacher really emphasized how horrific the conditions were for the slaves on those ships, with how they were packed in and treated, let alone how they got treated once brought here. And outside a little bit about the civil rights movement around MLK day, not much at all.

The fact so many people never even heard of the Tulsa riots until watching Watchmen on HBO tells you all you need to know about how American History glosses over that sort of shit.

I am definitely of the opinion we need to spend more time talking about historical events of minorities in the US and how that shapes a lot of the problems minorities face today. However, from my minimal understanding of the subject, that still really isn't critical race theory.

[Melena]

It's not, but it's the current GOP boogyman. Remember, in their world, it's all sunshine, lollipops and rainbows because blacks can own property and vote, racism has been eradicated, USA USA USA, and if you don't agree, you're a filthy commie trying to rewrite history.

All that needs to be said is how Texas is trying to change school books to basically make slavery look like a sandals vacation.

[zoobernut]

It seems like there is a lot of confusion about the definition of Critical Race Theory. They definitely need to teach a more complete picture of historical events and they definitely need to teach major historical events that affected predominantly minorities but the depth which that is taught at needs to be age appropriate.

[archibaldcrane]

Just what is critical race theory anyway?

Critical race theory is an academic concept that is more than 40 years old. The core idea is that racism is a social construct, and that it is not merely the product of individual bias or prejudice, but also something embedded in legal systems and policies.

...

A good example is when, in the 1930s, government officials literally drew lines around areas deemed poor financial risks, often explicitly due to the racial composition of inhabitants. Banks subsequently refused to offer mortgages to Black people in those areas.

Today, those same patterns of discrimination live on through facially race-blind policies, like single-family zoning that prevents the building of affordable housing in advantaged, majority-white neighborhoods and, thus, stymies racial desegregation efforts.

https://www.edweek.org/leadership/wh...attack/2021/05

[Gredival]

https://www.edweek.org/leadership/wh...attack/2021/05

That's not critical race theory. That's just learning about systemic racism vs. individualized disparate treatment, i.e. "The system is rigged" vs "There's only racist people not racism, because blacks aren't slaves and can vote."

American critical race theory as it would be applied to high school history/social science would involve discussions of the meta-structure of society creates a version of history which not only creates but it actively masks systemic racism, making antiblackness an ontological condition.

For example, Wilderson's theory of black nihilism argues that the way history is taught and understood is antiblack because it encourages white people to think they made things better by overcoming discrete instances of racism in the name of progress (the Civil War, the Civil Rights Movement) without ever truly advancing the black condition. Therefore the solution is to abandon hope rather than to fight for progress because blacks are already ontologically dead.

[6souls]

[6souls]

Los Angeles Times: Attempted California college scam IDs 65,000 fake students.
https://www.latimes.com/california/s...-fake-students

Likely a bot net to take advantage of $1.6B in federal aid.

[6souls]

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg School district in North Carolina is having a rough time after siding with students accused/charged with sexual assault and inaction against another in three incidents over the past two months.

https://people.com/crime/north-carol...who-protested/
https://myfox8.com/news/north-caroli...m-for-walkout/

A student charged with attempted second-degree rape, second-degree kidnapping, and sexual battery at Olympic High was allowed to play football while wearing a monitor anklet. Students were suspended when they protested the decision.

On Oct. 1, Olympic High students protested for the safety of females in the school after a male student charged with a sexual felony was allowed to continue playing on the school's football team.

"If you get your phone taken in class, you're benched, but yet he can be under investigation for a sexual crime and still get to play on Friday, that is ridiculous," Sereniti Simpson, one of the students who helped organize the walk-out told WCNC.

Multiple volleyball players who participated in the walk-out, including Simpson, were punished with a one-game suspension, she told WJZY.

"Honestly, I'm just disgusted that they let a football player who has sexual assault allegations against him play with an ankle monitor," one of the suspended volleyball players who asked to not be identified told the Charlotte Observer. "But because I speak out for feeling unsafe I get punished and not allowed to play in a game."

According to WCNC, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police confirmed that on Sept. 14, the 15-year-old suspect was charged with attempted second-degree rape, second-degree kidnapping, and sexual battery.

On Friday, the district said it, “did not make the right call,” without explicitly referring to the incident or the student in question.

However, the decision came after protests and a walkout took place earlier that day by students, who highlighted sexual assault cases, including one incident that happened in September at the school.

A spokesperson for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools said Monday that the issue, primarily, was not with the protest. They noted there was an opportunity to take part in an indoor demonstration. The spokesperson said once the walkout happened, it was a “safety hazard for students, staff and others in the area,” and noted that “students who chose to walk out were informed they could face consequences due to such violations as unauthorized absence or endangering themselves and others.”

https://www.wnct.com/news/north-caro...ted-at-school/

West Charlotte High School took a wait-and-see approach to a reported sexual assault where the victim had to be treated at a local hospital.

The report from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department is vague but provides enough detail on what a 15-year-old girl said happened to her Wednesday.

She reported being sexually assaulted at West Charlotte High School. She made the report hours later while she was at a local hospital.

“It’s really disappointing that even after coming forward, nothing is being done about this and it’s still happening,” said Nikki Wombwell.

CMS said in a statement that they are aware of this latest case at West Charlotte High School, and deferred to CMPD for questions. CMPD said they are investigating the circumstances of the reported sexual assault to see if any charges are going to be made.

https://www.wbtv.com/2021/11/01/cms-...was-suspended/

A student at Hawthorne Academy High School was suspended and required to take a class on how to learn to prevent sexual harassment after she accused another student. The accused student admitted to the assault and was charged with sexual battery, but the school district determined the victim's report to be false.

A sophomore student at Hawthorne Academy High School was suspended late last month after reporting being sexually assaulted by a male classmate.

The female sophomore student said she reported the sexual assault to school officials after sitting through a Title IX education class at the beginning of the school year.

School officials alerted police to the report. CMPD investigated and ultimately pressed charges against a minor for sexual battery as a result of the female student’s report, a CMPD spokesman confirmed.

Despite the charges by police, school administrators at Hawthorne Academy High School accused the female student of filing a false report and suspended her.

The 15-year-old sophomore student recounted the near-daily harassment she experienced from a male student.

Until one day when she said it turned into more.

“He would, like, come into the bathroom and he would push me into the stall,” the girl said. “He put his hands in my pants and then he was like touching my breasts.”

In addition to suspending the female student, CMS is also making her attend a class called “Sexual Harassment is Preventable.”

[Cail]

fucking yikes

[arus2001]

Just generally trawling through post-election social media, the notion that "education is indoctrination" I'm seeing from the right is particularly mortifying. Like, I'd love to see examples beyond the fallacious CRT boogeyman, but it never seems to happen and continues to just scream feelings over facts.

[Qalbert]

college level here, but as someone whose christian parents pressured him to unfortunately going there I find it absolutely unsurprising.
https://www.propublica.org/article/t...exual-assaults

Axley wasn’t sure what to do next, but she did know that she wanted the man to “stay away from her,” as she recalled. So when Axley got back to her dorm that Sunday morning, she again told someone at Liberty, her resident adviser.

The RA, Axley said, told her not to report it, saying Axley could be found to have violated the school’s prohibition against drinking and fraternizing with the opposite sex.
Instead, the RA offered to pray with Axley.

After five months, Axley heard from Bucci that Liberty had completed its investigation and a committee was now going to consider the case. Bucci invited Axley to first come to the office and review the file.

Axley went in and looked through the materials. The photos with her injuries, she recalled, were no longer there. Axley said that when she asked what had happened, Bucci told her the photos had been removed because they were too “explicit.”

Three students, including Axley, recalled being made to sign forms acknowledging possible violations of the Liberty Way after they sought to file complaints about sexual assaults. Others say they were also warned against reporting what had happened to them. Students say that even Liberty University police officers discouraged victims from pursuing charges after reporting assaults.

Liberty officials did not respond to detailed questions sent weeks ago. But one person who received them did ultimately reply: Scott Lamb, who was Liberty University’s senior vice president of communications until earlier this month. Lamb worked at Liberty until Oct. 6, when, he said, he was fired for internally blowing the whistle on the university’s repeated failures to respond to concerns about sexual assault.

“The emails from ProPublica were definitely ignored,” said Lamb. He recalled himself and one colleague trying to make a case for the school to respond. “We said, ‘Listen, the optics of this are killing us. Is there anything we can message — something? A message about empathy? Or that we’re at least working to get to the bottom of this?’ And then it dawned on us: They’re not working to get to the bottom of this.”

Lamb was the point person who had fielded questions from journalists since he took up his post at Liberty in January 2018. He was one of the people to whom I sent a detailed request for comment this month.

Liberty’s lack of response was typical, Lamb explained. “Concerns about sexual assault would go up the chain and then die,” he said. It was “a conspiracy of silence.”

Lamb is filing a federal lawsuit alleging he was fired for raising concerns about Liberty’s conduct. Liberty did not respond to detailed questions about Lamb’s claims.

[Byrthnoth]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/04/u...uidelines.html

hey lets make math dumber and more diverse in the same guidelines change

I'll say up front that this is a non-binding guideline messaging document and the fact that there is even a NYT article about it is a problem. The actual proposal (de-tracking and making calculus optional, as well as changing what word problems are about) is a lot less radical than they make it seem in the first few paragraphs.

However, education policy around the gifted/normie divide is rough because it quickly slides towards neurodevelopmental fatalism. IMO some students get enough food and have a stable enough home life that they can learn unimpeded while other students have challenges. The damage from childhood malnutrition and stress starts (obviously) very early and will be with those kids for life. The lack of a social safety net for children and their families does more damage than we can measure, but denying the reality it creates exacerbates the problem in the education system.

I don't have a great solution here for the education system but the problem of childhood malnutrition (and some suspect home-life stability) could largely be solved with airdrops of federal cash and I hope Biden gets his childhood tax credit extended/expanded.

[Cantih]

and the fact that there is even a NYT article about it is a problem.

Ehhhh. It's been a thing, ESPECIALLY in the past few years, that the NYT runs pieces ragging on California/L.A. Like, NY is looking at Chicago losing it's Second City position and getting nervous AF.

It's becoming a

kind of thing.

[6souls]

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/st...er/6287745001/
https://www.facebook.com/cityoffairf...27993316097502

Two teens from Fairfield, Iowa have been charged with homicide for killing their Spanish teacher and dumping her body in a nearby park.

Police confirmed Thursday that human remains discovered Wednesday in Fairfield's Chautauqua Park were those of Nohema Graber, who had been reported missing earlier in the day, according to a news release from the city of Fairfield posted on Facebook.

Graber, 66, had taught Spanish at Fairfield High School since 2012. Police allege two students at the high school — Willard Noble Chaiden Miller, 16, and Jeremy Everett Goodale, 16 — are responsible for her death.

Both have been charged with first-degree homicide and first-degree conspiracy to commit homicide and will be charged as adults "based on the circumstances and their ages," according to the news release.

In the complaint, investigators say an associate of Goodale and Miller provided information from social media exchanges that indicated Goodale allegedly knew specifics of Graber's disappearance and death — including Miller's alleged involvement, the motive to kill Graber, the planning and execution of the killing, and "deliberate attempts to conceal the crime."

[Andalusian girls]

they must've gotten to the subjunctive mood