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The destruction of America's public education system


Captainant

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17 minutes ago, tchookem said:

Since we know where this is heading, does anybody want to enroll their kids in the School of the Flying Spaghetti Monster in creating? I promise a strict Pastafarian curriculum.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/24/us/supreme-court-oklahoma-religious-charter-school.html

 

they already have the university of the church of satan 

 

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50 minutes ago, tchookem said:

Since we know where this is heading, does anybody want to enroll their kids in the School of the Flying Spaghetti Monster in creating? I promise a strict Pastafarian curriculum.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/24/us/supreme-court-oklahoma-religious-charter-school.html

I'll be your design-builder. I don't have kids but that could be my contribution to bettering education

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Twitter user name is HookEm232.  Is Frank a substitute teacher????

https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/education/fort-worth-isd-investigating-north-side-high-school-substitute-teacher-ice/

Spoiler

FORT WORTH, Texas — Fort Worth ISD launched an investigation after a substitute teacher allegedly replied to an ICE tweet, calling on the agency to come to North Side High School.

On X, formerly Twitter, user @HookEm232 replied to an ICE enforcement update post. The reply read "Yall should come to Fort Worth, TX to Northside High School. I have many students who don't even speak English and they are in 10th-11th grade. They have to communicate through their iPhone translator to me. The [U.S. Department of Education] should totally overhaul our school system in Texas too."

The post comes after the Trump administration threw out policies limiting immigration enforcement in sensitive locations like churches and schools, drawing concern among the community and sparking multiple social media posts urging the district to act.

Fort Worth ISD has not named the individual under investigation but said in a statement that they are a substitute teacher.

"We are aware of a recent social media post referencing North Side High School which was allegedly made by a substitute teacher and has caused concern among our Fort Worth ISD community," the district stated. "We take this matter very seriously and are conducting a thorough investigation to understand the circumstances and ensure appropriate actions are taken," the statement continued. "As per district protocol, the employee will not be on campus during the investigation."

This is not the district's first brush with anti-immigrant sentiment from employees. In 2019, the Fort Worth ISD board unanimously voted to fire Carter-Riverside High School teacher Georgia Clark for calling on President Trump to "remove the illegals from Forth Worth" on Twitter.

Fort Worth ISD full statement:

"We are aware of a recent social media post referencing North Side High School which was allegedly made by a substitute teacher and has caused concern among our Fort Worth ISD community.

We take this matter very seriously and are conducting a thorough investigation to understand the circumstances and ensure appropriate actions are taken. As per district protocol, the employee will not be on campus during the investigation.

We are committed to maintaining a positive and supportive environment for all students. We appreciate your patience and understanding as we address this matter.

Nos hemos enterado de una publicación reciente en las redes sociales que hace referencia a la Preparatoria North Side, la cual fue supuestamente hecha por un maestro sustituto y ha causado preocupación entre nuestra comunidad de Fort Worth ISD.

Tomamos este asunto muy en serio y estamos llevando a cabo una investigación a fondo para entender las circunstancias y asegurar que se tomen las medidas apropiadas. Según el protocolo del distrito, el empleado no estará en el campus durante la investigación.

Estamos comprometidos a mantener un ambiente positivo y de apoyo para todos los estudiantes. Agradecemos su paciencia y comprensión mientras tratamos este asunto."

 

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2 hours ago, SydneyCarton said:

So why are the crazies so upset with currrent leadership? She do something indecently to do her job? 

She seems to be opposed to splitting the district into a white, wealthy district and a brown, poor one.

Sort of broadly speaking, this involves a dilemma.  I think people of good will tend to seek out "good schools" in districts with "high property values" if they can.  That in itself is not racist or elitist.

But, and a big but here, doing that virtually insures de facto segregation.  At some point, I think you have to balance that self-interest with an interest in at least some economic diversity in the district you choose or we create a self-sustaining educational poverty cycle.

Either that or quit bitching about recapture.  But buying into perhaps a non-ideal district is going to be more effective than recapture every time.  And don't, for fuck's sake, support things like vouchers, which are the exact opposite to recapture.

There are so many benign or at least non-malevolant factors that maintain de facto segregation.  We really don't need to add any more.

Edited by TwiceHorn
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Some new re education EO’s are coming out, part of them is the beginning of federal grant program similar to school vouchers along with the usual attacking fringe groups
By "fringe groups" do you mean teachers that mention slavery?
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A few points to be made here:

  1. Kim Don Orange and his Party of Small Government™ is threatening to yank funding from schools if they don't follow these Central Government mandates.
  2. A comment from some "nonpartisan" outfit pushing public funding for private schools states: "we’re not going to have values-neutral schools." Motherfucker, the whole notion of inclusivity is inextricably entwined with the Big Idea of America: it's called D-E-M-O-C-R-A-C-Y, goddammit! You know, everyone is equal and we let everybody decide shit together. That sort of thing (This is why Republicans always go with the lie that we aren't a democracy but a republic. They don't like equality and inclusivity.).
  3. These edicts shouldn't have much of an effect in our system with its checks and balances, but we all know that Congress and SCOTUS will roll along with it.
  4. I like how the article ends, basically with the hint of a reminder that we don't have to go along with this shit and that, even now, there are ways to resist. 

 

With Sweeping Executive Orders, Trump Tests Local Control of Schools
The orders seek to encourage “patriotic education” and restrict discussions about racism and gender by threatening to withdraw federal funding. But schools are often resistant to change.

With a series of executive orders, President Trump has demonstrated that he has the appetite for an audacious fight to remake public education in the image of his “anti-woke,” populist political movement.

But in a country unique among nations for its hyperlocal control of schools, the effort is likely to run into legal, logistical and funding trouble as it tests the limits of federal power over K-12 education.

On Wednesday evening, Mr. Trump signed two executive orders. One was a 2,400-word behemoth focused mainly on race, gender and American history. It seeks to prevent schools from recognizing transgender identities or teaching about concepts such as structural racism, “white privilege” and “unconscious bias,” by threatening their federal funding.

The order also promotes “patriotic” education that depicts the American founding as “unifying, inspiring and ennobling” while explaining how the United States “has admirably grown closer to its noble principles throughout its history.”

The second order directs a swath of federal agencies to look for ways to expand access to private school vouchers.

Both orders echo energetic conservative lawmaking in the states. Over the past five years, the number of children using taxpayer dollars for private education or home-schooling costs has doubled, to one million. More than 20 states have restricted how race, gender and American history can be discussed in schools. States and school boards have banned thousands of books.

It is not clear what real-world effect the new federal orders might have in places where shifts are not already underway. States and localities provide 90 percent of the funding for public education — and have the sole power to set curriculums, tests, teaching methods and school-choice policies.

The orders are likely to strain against the limits of the federal government’s role in K-12 education, a role that Mr. Trump has said should be reduced.

That paradox is a “confounding” one, said Derrell Bradford, president of 50CAN, a nonpartisan group that supports private school choice. He applauded the executive order on vouchers and said that taken together, the two orders mark a major moment in the centuries-old debate over what values the nation’s schools should impart.

“You can like it or not, but we’re not going to have values-neutral schools,” he said.

Still, there are many legal questions about the administration’s ability to restrict federal funding in order to pressure schools.

The major funding stream that supports public schools, known as Title I, goes out to states in a formula set by Congress, and the president has little power to restrict its flow.

“It seems like a significant part of the strategy is to set priorities through executive order and make the Congress or the Supreme Court respond — as they are supposed to in a system of checks and balances,” Mr. Bradford said.

The executive branch does control smaller tranches of discretionary funding, but they may not be enough to persuade school districts to change their practices.

cont'd

Spoiler

In Los Angeles, Alberto Carvalho, superintendent of the nation’s second-largest school district, said last fall that regardless of who won the presidential election, his system would not change the way it handles gender identity.

Transgender students are allowed to play on sports teams and use bathrooms that align with their gender identities, policies the Trump order is trying to end.

On Wednesday, after it became clear that Mr. Trump would attempt to cut funding, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles public school district released a more guarded statement, saying, “Our academic standards are aligned with all state and federal mandates and we remain committed to creating and maintaining a safe and inclusive learning environment for all students.”

One big limit to Mr. Trump’s agenda is that despite official federal, state and district policies, individual teachers have significant say over what gets taught and how.

Even in conservative regions of Republican-run states, efforts to control the curriculum have sometimes sputtered.

In Oklahoma, for example, where the state superintendent, Ryan Walters, is a Trump ally, some conservative educators have pushed back against efforts to insert the Bible into the curriculum.

Nationally, surveys of teachers show that the majority did not change their classroom materials or methods in response to conservative laws. Some educators have reported that they are able to subtly resist attempts to control how subjects like racism are talked about, for example, by teaching students about the debate for and against restrictive curriculum policies.

Florida has been, in many ways, an outlying case — and one that has served as a model for the Trump administration.

There, Gov. Ron DeSantis created powerful incentives for teachers to embrace priorities such as emphasizing the Christian beliefs of the founding fathers and restricting discussions of gender and racism.

Teachers could earn a $3,000 bonus for taking a training course on new civics learning standards. If their students performed poorly on a standardized test of the subject, their own evaluation ratings suffered.

On race and gender, the DeSantis restrictions were broad and vaguely written. Schools accused of breaking the laws could be sued for financial damages, and teachers were threatened with losing their professional licenses.

This led many schools and educators to interpret the laws broadly. Sometimes they interpreted them more broadly than intended, the DeSantis administration claimed. A ban on books with sexual content led one district to announce that “Romeo and Juliet” would be pulled from the curriculum.

A ban on recognizing transgender identities led to schools sending home nickname permission slips to parents, which were required even if a student named William wanted to be called Will.

Public school educators are often fearful of running into trouble with higher-level authorities. It is possible, and even likely, that Mr. Trump’s executive orders will lead to some measure of self-censorship.

Adam Laats, an education historian at Binghamton University, said one potential historical antecedent for Mr. Trump’s executive order was the Red Scare in the mid-20th century, during which many teachers accused of Communist sympathies lost their jobs or were taken to court.

“To my mind, this executive order is a blast of steam,” he said, “dangerous especially because it can encourage local aggressive activism.”

But, he noted, political attempts to ban ideas from the classroom have rarely been successful.

 

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