Education Reform Thread

[Mertron]

what in tarnation

[Byrthnoth]

Man bad graphs, kids these days, and cool tech. That post is a confluence of almost all of BG's interests. If only they were graphs about sports.

On the merits, I don't think that turning in AI-generated graphs because you didn't do the assignment is worse than not turning in anything, so I don't actually care about that application of AI.

[Tomiko]

Friend shared this story/article:

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) - A local school district said doctor’s notes will no longer excuse your child’s absence.

https://www.wsmv.com/2025/07/22/doct...hool-district/

The attendance policy pdf is linked in the article for reference.

[kuronosan]

Lol what even

[Emphasis]

Sounds like an even quicker way to spread illnesses in communities that don't believe in vaccines.

[Byrthnoth]

It's easy to read the headline and conclude they are siding with disease against children in some weird conservatives-burning-thier-Bud-Light moment, but actually it is more grim and less silly because they are hacking an attendance metric that probably indirectly determines their funding.

The article says that if a kid goes to school sick and gets sent home, they will be marked Tardy (not absent), which will presumably increase the school's overall attendance rate.

They have chosen an ethically strange way to solve their problem here. Making kids come in when sick to lie about attendance statistics hurts the kids and annoys the parents, while simply lying about attendance statistics puts more risk on the administrators but is better for the people served by the school.

[Salodin]

I'm confused, why does anyone care about grade school excused vs unexcused absences? It's only relevant when determining say, a parent being neglectful and not sending their kid to school or a child skipping school without their parents notice.

The distinction has no real tangible effect unless you're trying to catch your kid playing hooky or CPS is trying to take your kids away. It's a dumb policy, but I don't see how it affects outcomes other than "we changed our attendance policy to encourage pencil whipping district attendance numbers" which is certainly not ideal, but I have a hunch that education outcomes were already not great in that district to begin with.

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[Qalbert]

because with no excused absences there are harsh fkn penalties?

after three absences, schools will start intervention. If the student keeps missing school, eight or more days, there will be a juvenile court referral.
“You can fail the grade,” Director of Schools Michael Adkins said during the June school board meeting.

“You can fail the course. You are going to be petitioned to court. You are not going to participate in graduation, get your driver’s license or permit.”

[Salodin]

because with no excused absences there are harsh fkn penalties?

Right, but an excused absence is just your parent calling the school and saying Qalpal isn't coming in today. You don't even need a note for that single day you missed to go get your vaccine at the doctors. You're assuming you can't get an excused absence without other administrative hurdles, like a physical note, but I am unconvinced that's the case.

The excused absence is just for a person to look at the number of times you missed school and go "oh at least they followed up and didn't just no-show to class", which really does matter a lot and shouldn't be trivialized. It seems that district is struggling with that. In higher grades it's also useful to see if your kid is skipping classes now that they have more individual freedom (like walking to school unsupervised).

It's another stat to give context on the student. Ive had students with 20 excused and others with 20 unexcused absences. I'll refer to CPS the unexcused one cause there's no communication and the kid is suffering academically and socially cause of it. I won't refer the excused absence one even if they, too, are suffering academically and socially cause they (generally) have more support at home to catch up (at the very least their parent is involved and trying to visibly and tangibly help their child). And all the parent had to do was call the school on the way to work to let us know the kid wasn't coming in today.

Of course none of this matters if that district has a ban on excusing an absence without a doctor's note, which I have never heard of before. That would be no different than saying the student can't get an excused absence without a death certificate cause they had a death in the family. That's just silly, and I would take this news article with a grain of salt without further context and clarity on the attendance policy of the district.

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[Salodin]

Tldr; an excused absence is a litmus test on whether you can do the bare minimum to participate in society while raising your child and if you can't do that then maybe we should give you a serious talking to

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[Meresgi]

Friend works for DoEd and has been stressed for some time about this. They're working on their PhD based around school funding and they primarily deal with fund allocation and what not and holy shit some of the horror stories I've heard from them. It's not just regular public schools but sounds like weird hybrid private/public schools or even some private ones but that get funding from the government anyways and are just borderline scams

[Dimmauk]

We have been consistently failing our kids in school. It feels like it's been sliding down for the last 30 years. We're getting closer and closer to an Idiocracy society.

[Meresgi]

We have been consistently failing our kids in school. It feels like it's been sliding down for the last 30 years. We're getting closer and closer to an Idiocracy society.

All according to plan. Fucking hilarious how we keep sliding down the hill and instead of actually tackling what's wrong (aka funding) we just tell kids to start going to school even earlier and staying later and memorizing more bullshit. Gotta keep building good factory line monkeys. Don't you dare critically think you fucker, just learn to memorize 10+ steps and then go to college to get in debt and nothing out of it besides a low paying job to shackle you :D :D

[Emphasis]

Crucial to the Democrat platform moving forward is going to have to be effectively fighting indoctrination, deception, and corruption on every level.

From compromised politicians, state media, podcast bros, to the following addition of nefariousness in the education system:

[6souls]

https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-...vics-coalition

The department of education is teaming up with Turning Point, the Heritage Foundation, and Moms for Liberty for a new education initiative. Next July will mark the first Constitution Day to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the US. It's meant to teach patriotism in schools.

[Anoat]

I’d rather see the dept of education gone completely than be a part of that pile of horse shit

[Madeline]

That should be the straw that breaks the camels back. It really should. Indoctrination is coming in a way I cannot describe.

[Outlaw]

I can't even imagine what they are going to teach.

[kuronosan]

https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-...vics-coalition

The department of education is teaming up with Turning Point, the Heritage Foundation, and Moms for Liberty for a new education initiative. Next July will mark the first Constitution Day to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the US. It's meant to teach patriotism in schools.

I thought only college indoctrinated our kids

[Mertron]

ryan walters, the piece of shit oklahoma superintendent of schools, is resigning to take a job in the private sector

probably bad news for us, that private sector job is going to end up being him taking a job with pragerU and writing the curriculum for the 250th celebration