Shut the door, lock and latch it

 Shut the door, lock and latch it!

 

Quickly- lock the doors to the schools, here comes COVID with a brand new hachet.  Keep all the kids out!  Keep the teachers home!  Damn the lack of learning, damn the mental health issues, damn the social/emotional damage.  The virus is coming, the virus is coming AGAIN

The news is full of worry about the positivity rate of the newest variant of the Covid 19 virus.  Yes it is bad, and could be better if everyone would get vaccinated but they won’t and some kids can’t.  So the solution of some schools and school systems seems to be to go back to virtual learning- which could be the world’s greatest oxymoron since “common sense”. The Maryland State Board of Education is STRONGLY opposing whole school systems moving to virtual learning. In spite of that,  Prince George’s County schools made the decision to make the move to total virtual learning  before the winter break until mid-January.  The Maryland State Superintendent of Schools reminded school systems of the huge loss to kids when they are not in school. Maryland state-wide tests scores absolutely crashed this past fall in spite of local superintendents telling us how wonderful kids were doing on virtual learning.  The Baltimore County superintendent told staff and students to take home portable devices “just in case” the county schools go to virtual learning after the winter break.  Baltimore City schools have delayed coming back from the break for two days to give them a chance to test all students and staff.

So why shouldn’t we be safe and send the kids home again.  Well I guess that depends on how you define safe.

Let’s start with the most obvious.  Safe from illness.  With teachers being vaccinated or required to be tested negative before being in school, their chances of serious illness are low.  Every winter schools are hit with a bad batch of flu cases and life goes on.  What about the students who aren’t vaccinated?  First of all, if they are over five, they should be.  Let’s do clinics in schools and get the kids vaccinated.  Oh wait I forgot, that is government overreach?  Are the kids vaccinated against smallpox, measles, mumps, polio and other childhood diseases?  Yep they are but that was when we protected kids with science not politics.  If kids and staff stay in school, some will get sick.  And if kids and staff stay out of school, some will get sick because they will not be locked in their homes.

What about the other definitions of safe?   Is it safe for kids to lose another partial or whole year of learning?  How long will it take them to catch up with that?  Is it safe for more high school kids to drop out lured by the hot $15 an hour jobs currently available for people with or without a high school diploma?  What will happen to those kids next year or the year after that?

And then there is mental health.  We already know from last year’s “virtual learning”, that students suffered serious mental health depression ranging from anger to suicidal thoughts.   Schools are struggling to manage this new found aggression that is showing up not only in schools but on airplanes when people are asked to mask up.   People, including children, are feeling impotent and angry.  Another virtual school situation will not make that better.

The winter flu has been with us for multiple years.   Might just happen that some variation on the theme of flu/COVID virus might be around for a long time as well.  We can run but we can’t hide, and it will be a lot better for kids if we stop doing both

Where Have all the Children gone?

 Where Have all the Children Gone?

 

All across Maryland school districts are reporting a big drop in school enrollment.  The deficits are most notable in the lower grades where the thought it that kids are in private schools or being home schooled.   It is the upper high school grades that are most concerning.

When the pandemic hit most public school systems went virtual. Private schools were not so quick to follow.   Some children and their families immediately saw that virtual schooling would not work for their children.  Public schools are learning that now as fall state testing scores have plummeted beyond that seen in 2019 when the scores were already pretty bad.  

Families who place their children in private schools are finding that their budgets can sustain that enrollment and that they are happy with the safety of the environment and more attention to their children.  At the same time, public schools are experiencing a huge uptick in physical aggression and even violence that would not exactly draw families back to them.   These children and their families care about education and the loss of their advocacy is another loss for public schools.

The decrease in high school students is more troublesome.  Many of those kids may never return to school.  The data seem to be that they are not in private schools nor are they being home-schooled.  Too many of these kids are out of the system for good.  The lack of entry level staff in retail and food service has proved to be fertile ground for these young people to snare those $15 an hour jobs that seem like a big deal to them.   They do not have the perception to understand that a job that seems great at 17 may not be so hot at 27 or even 37, and without a high school diploma, let alone college, their future is not very bright.

Then there is the rise of home-schooling to consider.   It appears that there are two large demographics that are very much into home schooling.  One is families on the religious right and/or very conservative politically.  They do not want their children influenced by what they see as a radical liberal agenda that is taking over the curriculum in public schools.   Well educated families of Black children are also flocking to the home-schooling movement.   They are working to protect their children from the implied or explicit racism they see in the public schools where it is not uncommon for administrators to tell parents that bullying is a part of life- adjust!

The movement away from public schools is unfortunate on multiple levels.   One of the great benefits of a universal public school system is the opportunity to get to know other kids who live outside of our own bubble.  So conservative thinking students get to hear their views challenged rather than live in an echo chamber.  The same if true for students growing up in very left wing thinking families.  People (and students ARE people) need to have their views challenged and changed or not.

African-American kids should not be bullied in school.  Nor should they be exposed to racism.  But like all kids, it is good for them to know and maybe even be friends with kids who are different from them.  And the white kids in those public schools need to know Black kids who are much more like them than different.  

In the end, the loss of enrollment in public schools is bad in lots of ways.  Last year, Maryland did not punish public schools by reducing funding for decreased enrollment.  That won’t happen this year, so schools will lose money.

The children are losing enriching experiences.

Where have all the children gone?  Gone to safer spaces almost everyone, there’s lots of work to be done if public schools want them back.

Tell me again why we do these tests?

 Tell Me Again Why We do These Tests?

 

Every year the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) requires that all students are tested annually for proficiency in English Language Arts (ELA) and math. These latest tests are called MCAP.  It is not altogether clear what the point of these tests is since the results that are shared are summative and don’t provide any diagnostic data for teachers.  Even in previous better years, the scores were nothing to brag about.

This past fall, more than 92% of Maryland’s public school students took the tests.  The preliminary results are in and only 35% of test takers met or exceeded expectations in ELA.  The situation was worse in math where only 15% met or exceeded expectations.  There is no question but that the extended “online not much instruction going on” contributed to these very disappointing outcomes.  But let’s be honest here, before the pandemic, we were looking at 43.7% for ELA and 33% for math.  Hardly stellar when more than half of the students taking the test fell significantly below grade level.

As usual the dismal results yielded wonderful political talk about we were going to use these data to “seize the moment” to improve education in Maryland.  Everyone reiterated our commitment to bright futures and better results.  We will continue to throw billions- yes, billions- of dollars toward public education without a plan or process for better results other than increasing teachers’ salaries.  Oh yes, I forgot, we are going to implement “evidence based strategies” as well.   What exactly have we been doing the last 150 years if not implementing “evidence based strategies”.  The problem is that the evidence keeps shifting and changing and so do our instructional methods.  This time we are going to add the “fierce dedication of our State’s talented and skilled teachers and school leaders”.   So up until now we haven’t done that?

We really haven’t learned much from these tests that we didn’t already know.  Kids lost a tremendous amount of learning during the online non-learning experiences. 

Why haven’t we implemented differentiated instruction that teaches children differently based on how they learn rather than the way we want to teach advocated by the latest and greatest research?   Why haven’t we thrown out the pacing guides and moved at the pace of learning for each child?   Why haven’t we stopped wasting teaching and learning time by giving these tests?

These are preliminary results.  Final results will be released at the end of January.  Final results won’t be much different.  There will be more fine words thrown at the issue.  We will call on all teachers to become even MORE fiercely dedicated as if the issue were dedication rather than instructional skill.  And we will throw more money at the problem and be here again next year.  

Tell me again why we give these tests?

Are schools becoming more violent ?

 Are Schools Becoming More Violent?

 

On the one hand, there have been 24 incidents of violence involving a weapon in public schools as of the beginning of December resulting in 40 deaths or injuries.   These data roughly parallel the number of incidents in 2018 and 2019.   They also seem to be reflective of national homicide rates in the general community for 2020, at a time when other types of crimes are going down.  Americans also are buying more guns and guns enable people to kill people.  More people are carrying weapons and using them when they get angry.

The global pandemic has exacerbated the risk factors for violence in general.  Loneliness, isolation, and economic instability all contribute to violence.

There are two arguments on how to manage school violence.   One is to institute more counseling.  Making sure that kids connect with at least one faculty member in a meaningful way so the child feels “seen” by staff.  Take police out of school buildings.

The other argument is to add fences, metal detectors, arm teachers and bring in more school security officers.

In the most recent tragedy, there was a school resource officer (SRO) in the building.  He just didn’t happen to be in the part of the building where the shooter was.   Everyone seems to be in agreement that first responders responded quickly and took control.  Still four people are dead and multiple others are wounded.  The student shooter was aided and abetted by his parents and school personnel who didn’t take needed action.

The two polar points of how to address this situation are not mutually exclusive.  Children need to feel seen in a school.  There needs to be at least one person in every child’s school life who really knows and cares about the child.

However, that does not mean school rules are not enforced.  Little misbehaviors and other warning signs need to address promptly and not ignored because they won’t go away.  Instead, they will go to big problems.

The police refer to “hygiene” crimes like public urination, breaking a window, or being drunk on the street.  Some jurisdictions do not want to “give someone a criminal record” for these minor offenses.  In a school, a student might bully other students or “accidently” bump into someone.  A student might use profanity in class.   Or perhaps makes comments or drawings depicting violence.   When these instances happen, they should NOT be ignored.  If they are ignored, they will rapidly grow from little nuisances to seriously large problems.  Teachers and administrators are tired.  So are parents.  Kids probably are too.  But if the people in charge do not find the energy to put out the brush fires, don’t be surprised when there is a forest fire and people are dead.

What are you hiding?

 What are you hiding?

 

Why don’t schools allow parents to visit in their children’s classrooms whenever they want to?   So just what are they hiding?

I mean when a loved one of mine has surgery, I can be in the operating room to watch and to make sure the surgeon is doing what she is supposed to be doing?  Isn’t that true?  Oh, it isn’t?

Well if my pharmacist is counting meds from the big bottle to the little bottle and typing the label, I can be there to make sure the count is correct and that he is accessing the correct big bottle.  Isn’t that true?  Oh, it isn’t?

Parents say they just want to see what their children are learning in school.  And that during all that virtual learning during the pandemic they got to see just what their kids were learning and who the good teachers were and who the bad teachers were.  Interestingly, no one suggested that untrained people had neither the skill set nor the background to be able to evaluate a professionally trained teacher.

And yes, it is true that parents are very invested in their child's education.  But it is very easily argued that parents are no less invested in any medical procedures for their children.  Yet there are no expectations that parents should invade these spaces nor evaluate medical professionals.

It has been suggested by advocates that the biggest barrier to having parents visit classrooms is that their child might be embarrassed.

In a few years, starting public school teachers in Maryland will be earning $60,000 right out of college.  The idea is that this kind of salary will attract the best and brightest people to be teachers.

Until teachers are given the level of respect of other professionals, we are not going to attract the best and brightest regardless of what they are paid because the best people don’t have to put up with these indignities.

The classroom is the teacher’s operating room.  The teacher may invite people in as needed and at her discretion.  Parents need to respect teachers AND their professional skill sets the way they do other professionals.  

If parents want to know what a child is learning in school, look at the homework or the classwork that is coming home.  OR even go online and check out the various curriculum guides that are posted.  

When lay people get to observe, evaluate and critique other professions, that would be a good time for lay people to start doing the same for teachers.

Until then, as an educator who is highly trained in my profession, you should know that I am not hiding anything, I just don’t need amateur invasion.

 

Mask requirement for students violates religious rights

 Mask requirement for students violates religious rights

 

 The State Secretary of Health in Pennsylvania ordered that all students needed to wear masks in school in an effort to limit the spread of COVID-19.   A group of parents felt that there should have been an option for a religious exemption.  The State disagreed.   This is America so the parents made a federal case out of it - literally, and took their views to U.S District Court for Eastern Pennsylvania.

The parents asked for a preliminary injunction which would only be granted if the judge determined that the parents would prevail in a full case hearing.

The parents made several points in arguing for the religious exemption.  One parent said she believed that wearing a mask was immoral because it caused bodily harm in the form of mask acne.   She stated that the body is a temple and should not be harmed.  Although she acknowledged that communicable diseases are harmful and, in her view, God would want us to protect ourselves from communicable disease.

Another parent stated that one of the Epistles of Paul to Corinthians instructed that the covering on ones face was a dishonor to God.  She could not, at the time of the hearing, specify the specific biblical book or verse.

Another parent said he felt that masks made a mockery of the gift of life because they cover what makes us human and, therefore, show a lack of gratitude to the creator.  He did acknowledge that he approved of his son wearing protective head coverings for sports.

Parents also wanted to present testimony from a physiologist to show that the concentration of carbon dioxide under a mask exceeds levels normally accepted for indoor air quality.  The District has a pending motion to exclude this testimony.  Until that motion is heard the testimony was not allowed.

The school district representative testified that there are medical exemptions allowed for the mask wearing requirement but that none of the plaintiffs has requested a medical exemption.   There are no religious exemptions allowed under the Secretary’s order.

The judge ruled that it is not sufficient for Plaintiffs to hold a “sincere opposition” to mask-wearing but need to show that it is a religious belief.  The judge ruled that although each of the four Plaintiffs has a passionate objection to wearing a mask, none of them has a belief that warrants First Amendment protection.  Therefore, he denied the request for an injunction because he said Plaintiffs failed to meet the standard that they would prevail at court.   Requiring a mask for health protections does not, in this case, violate First Amendment religious protections.

 

Whom do we serve

 Whom do we serve?

 

We were told that August was the great resignation month as people were leaving jobs they just discovered they didn’t like.  Then came September and the resignations continued.  October was the month of strikes.  Workers realized that they had more control than they thought and that, even though union membership had declined, there was some muscle left.

Those muscles were flexed in early August and September by school bus drivers who – must be the pandemic- all got sick at the same time.   In some counties, the drivers called it a strike, in others a “sick-out”.  Really matters not, kids still couldn’t get to school.  Parents schedules were upended.  People scrambled for child care and/or didn’t go to work themselves.  Oh, and by the way, children suffered a further disruption of their education.  It also didn’t matter that the failure to provide transportation to school for children with disabilities is a violation of federal and state law.  The school districts are required to provide these students with a free and appropriate public education (FAPE).  The Supreme Court has ruled that unless transportation to that education is provided the provision of FAPE is mute. No one seemed to notice amid the cries for drivers to get back to work.  Parents were not offered reimbursement unless they asked and did the leg work.

School teachers have also left their jobs in droves and they, too, are flexing muscles.  It seems that large numbers of teachers have already realized that they will be sick on the day before Thanksgiving and so will not be able to come to work.  How presient is that?!   And since there aren’t enough substitute teachers, major districts in Maryland have announced calendar changes that include closing on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.  Parents are annoyed to say the least because once again there is not child care and besides teachers have enough time off.  And yet again, no one seemed to notice that kids would be missing another day of school after 18 months of pure disruption.

We have already learned we can no longer count on the U. S. Postal Service.  Bus drivers are not paid enough for the jobs they do.  Many are considered part-time even though it would be almost impossible to find work in the middle of a day.  Teachers, on the other hand, are paid a comparable full-time salary with good benefits and work about 4.5 weeks less than in a year than the rest of us.  Schools are closed for all major holidays, sometimes multiple days.  They close for snow and it seems heavy rain.  It appears now that they also close for the convenience of the teachers preparing a big dinner.

Whom do we serve? Well I think that is clear, we serve ourselves and the students get the left-overs and that isn’t turkey.

The HITS Theory of History

 The HITS Theory of history

 

Throughout recorded history the HITS theory of teaching history to children has predominated.  This theory teaches we did no wrong regardless of what that wrong might be.  It also teaches that if by some chance we did do some wrong- well it was the other guy’s fault and well deserved.  And besides that, we were only protecting ourselves from some self-described catastrophe.

Prior to the Civil War (so named by the victors, who do not just get the spoils of victory but also get to name the conflict), those of us who had to rationalize the immoral practice of one human being owning another named slavery the white man’s burden protecting black folk from a life of poverty and ignorance.  Too bad we didn’t give those black people a shot at proving them wrong and freeing them from the life of poverty and ignorance as an enslaved people.

We brought many Chinese to our shores to build railroads.  Once we didn’t need their skills anymore we stopped allowing Chinese to come to our country.

During WWII we placed Japanese-American citizens in concentration camps to protect ourselves from the perfidy we knew they were plotting.  We didn’t do that to Germans who we were also fighting.  Could the fact that the Germans looked more like us be a reason they were allowed to roam free. 

We allowed millions of Jews to be baked in Nazi ovens because they didn’t worship like most of us so we couldn’t allow them to emigrate to America and save their lives.  And besides, we all knew how Jews really were and maybe Hitler wasn’t all that wrong by the way he characterized them.

Women by means of law and tradition are still treated as the personal possession of the males in their lives.  Even in the U.S. there are laws that place women in a secondary condition as opposed to males.  And tradition is a whole other story.

Teaching children about these wrongs is considered wrong because we all know the United States is the land of the free and home of the brave and is a county whose history is peppered with good deeds and exceptionalism.  This scenario is also totally true.  The United States is home to more immigrants than any other country on earth.  The proud lady in the New York harbor has much of which to be proud.

Knowing all sides of our history is important.  As a single human being, my hope for being a better person lies in my knowing what I have done wrong and how I can be better tomorrow.  So, it is true of our nation.  When we limit what people can achieve because they worship a different god or the same god in a different way or worship no god at all is just stupid.  Limiting people because their skin tone is different or their faces skew differently is also very stupid.  When we limit the talents people bring to our country because of these differences, it is not only immoral, it is stupid.  Why deprive our attempts to problem solve by not utilizing every single talent we have?  Because we embrace stupidity by these behaviors. Oh, the HITS theory of history?   Head in the Sand- we do it all the time and no one complains

 

 

How Dumb is this?

 How Dumb is this?

Corey is a student in Baltimore City schools.  (true story).   He is 19 and has been out of school with virtual learning (now there’s an oxymoron for you) for eighteen months.  Now he is back in the building.  The school he goes to is for kids that are at risk.  Class sizes are a bit smaller; teachers chose to teach these students and the principal is equally dedicated.

Like all City public school students, kids use public transportation to get to school.  Kids with special needs do receive school transportation.  Corey takes two busses to get to school.  It is a pain.  Based on his earned credit count, Corey is in the 9^th grade.  He is being raised by his grandmother, along with his brother and cousin.  Corey’s father is incarcerated for dealing drugs.   His mother is in parts unknown and she is a known addict.

Corey may stay in school until he is 21.  He does want his high school diploma.  He also would like to get a CDL license and drive an interstate truck.  Corey says this will enable him to see the world outside of Baltimore.  Corey understands that his chances of doing that will improve dramatically if he has a high school diploma.

Maryland is committed to College and Career Readiness for its high school students.  The new Blueprint for the Future is pouring a ton of money into education.  But the curriculum is not changing.

The point of view for College and Career Readiness is readiness for careers that require college.  There is nothing in the curriculum that prepares a kid for a non-college career.  Our naive belief is that if we upfront recognize that college is not for everyone, it is being undemocratic and denying open opportunity.  Funny how it is easy for us to say only a few kids are good enough in athletics to be varsity or get a college athletic scholarship but we can't admit that some kids just don't want to go to college or lack the ability to do so.

Let’s go back to Corey.  He wants to be a long-distance trucker.  We NEED long-distance truckers as the recent supply chain woes obviously show.  In English class, Corey is reading The Crucible, a play by Arthur Miller on the Salem witch trials.  He can be forgiven if he doesn’t care about the topic.  In math he is learning about evaluating expressions and creating equations.  The curriculum makes no connection whatever to how this work could or would link to what he wants to do with his life.  Exactly what is the point of this curriculum? Oh right, the point is to show that we believe all kids can achieve college preparatory work whether it is relevant or not to the child's life.   Curriculum is supposed to meet the needs of a community.  Corey’s community does not have needs that these skills will meet.  There are people who will tell you that my opinion creates too low a bar for kids like Corey.  I disagree.  Socio-economic events have created a world for Corey that does not include college aspiration.  He does HAVE aspirations and he needs a school program that validates those goals and helps him to reach those goal rather than to respond to the attractions of the street.  How hard is this to figure out?  How dumb is this to keep doing what we are doing?

We really can't throw away kids

 Getting Rid of Problems Really Doesn’t Work

 

For a long time the mantra in schools has been, we just need to get rid of the trouble makers so the rest of the kids can learn and teachers can teach.   Turns out that really is not good advice.

First of all, research has shown that suspending kids really does not improve behavior.  In fact, they are more likely to misbehave in the future.  Often being at home, means they are without supervision and are out in the streets and with unsavory characters.

Secondly, there is the notion that suspending a student will help him/her “get back on track”.  In reality, just the opposite happens.  Being out of school means the child gets farther behind academically.  The longer the suspension the greater the damage to the child’s academic achievement.  Plus, as achievement falls, the student’s self-concept as a learner falls as well.  The child begins to think of herself as not being able to learn as opposed to just not learning right now.  In school discipline, combined with continued instruction is much more effective.

But what about the rest of the kids?  The notion has been that excluding the troublemakers helps the other kids learn because the attention can be more on them and less on bad behavior.  Turns out that myth is just a myth as well.  Students identify with each other more than they do with the adults dishing out the punishment.  Kids have a strong sense of justice.  It may be their own justice system but it is strong nonetheless.  Consequently, if kids think the suspension was unfair or unjust they will be resentful of the teacher who punished their friend.  These feelings of resentment interfere with the learning of the not-suspended kids as with the ones who were suspended.

Prior to the pandemic, well over 2.5 million students received at least one suspension in the school year.  These suspensions disproportionately affect students of color, students with disabilities, students experiencing trauma in their personal lives or lower socio-economic status.  Black students have significantly longer suspensions than children of other races.  If what we are trying to do is improve educational outcomes for all kids then we are going about that effort in a backwards manner.

Kids need to receive the consequences of their behavior, no question about that.  But those consequences need to be directly linked to the actual behavior not to just pushing the issue out of the school and into the community.  There needs to be a system of restorative justice that all students buy into and that really changes behavior without the negative fallout. Getting rid of our problems by tossing them into the street doesn’t work.

The high cost of energy

 The high cost of energy

 

Schools are having to deal with lots more student disruptive behavior and the teachers have a lot less energy to manage the behaviors. Schools are seeing lockdowns and outsider aggression.   Many educators are on edge because of staff shortages and staff quarantine.  Each of the five largest school districts in Maryland opened school this fall still looking hundreds of teachers.  All opened with long-term substitutes in positions where certified teachers should be.  And that is after huge salary increases.  To add to the stress, there aren’t enough bus drivers to get the kids to school.  Some teachers are reporting that they feel as tired now as they typically do at Thanksgiving.

Teachers are demonstrating their stress in differing  ways.  They are raising their voices more often and are quicker to add consequences for behaviors.  They are calling out sick more often. Kids are being suspended at a higher rate.

The pandemic has not just hit children and their families; it has disrupted the family lives of teachers as well.  School counselors say they are overwhelmed both by student needs and staff needs.

More attention is finally being paid to the social emotional needs of students.  Families are not complaining so much about meeting those needs.  In the past, it was not unusual for parents resist social-emotional attention and insist that the time be spent on academics.  Now with kids returning to school and showing the mental health damage brought on by quarantining at home and absence of social contact, attitudes are changing.

There is a heavy emphasis on making schools more welcoming to differing populations of students and often it is the kids who are leading the way in those efforts. Kids are organizing clubs for marginal populations and majority students are going as well because the, too, want to understand. Students are much more in need of someone to listen.  But listening to someone else’s problems takes energy and right now that is energy teachers don’t seem to have themselves.  Counselors are in short supply and are spending big chunks of their time doing scheduling and testing. 

Students need a time out and someone to walk and talk with.  But so do teachers.  Energy is being drained from both sides.   It seems that now kids need our energy the most and yet teachers have the least to give.  The high cost of energy isn’t just at the gas pumps.

Killing Right at Home

 Killing right at home

 

There is another epidemic in our country besides COVID.  It is the incidence of domestic violence.  Every day in our country, according to the National Network to End Domestic violence, approximately three women are murdered by an intimate partner.  Three women have died in Maryland of spousal abuse in the last few months.  The epidemic of spousal abuse and violence has increased dramatically in the last two years, partly due to the confines of quarantine and the pandemic.

The warning signs are clear: over possessiveness, isolation, verbal abuse and gaslighting.  So, what does all this have to do with kids in school.  Children live in these homes.  These behaviors are not limited to the other adult in the home.  Children too are impacted by these behaviors.  All educators are mandated by law to report any abuse to child protective services.  But these are physical abuses.  How do we catalog and report emotional abuse.

As with all things we are counting, we need to begin by identifying the problem and the situation.  As educators we need to teach children what kinds of behaviors are not healthy in a home.  These behaviors are just as unacceptable and damaging as physical abuse, in some sense maybe more so because we do not see them as obviously.

We need to teach children how they should be treated.   When they are not treated in a positive and supportive manner, they need to know that the problem is not with them but with the abuser. We need to make sure girls do not learn that it is ok to be dominated by a male partner.  We need to teach boys that being a man does not mean bullying a woman.  We must create a common language for talking about a situation that is hard to define and even harder to stamp out.  We need to teach our kids how to recognize abusive relationships so they can report them to us and to their friends.  We need to teach our kids so they can teach their friends to recognize what is happening as well.  

In every instance of murder and abuse, the red flags were there.  Intervention could have saved a life in the short term and changed a child’s future long term.  It is too late after a death to see the warning signs and it is too late to change a child’s future after he/she has seen the killing right at home.

 

PPSD in schools

 PPSD in Schools

 

Last week students at Annapolis High School got into a knife fight in the morning of a school day.  Things were serious enough that two students were hospitalized and seven were arrested for fighting and disrupting the school day.  The school was put on lock down, no one in and no one out of the building.   Parents were advised not to try and pick up their children because they would not be admitted.

What is going on in our schools?  For the last 18 months kids have lived their social lives mainly online.  They have been texting and emailing words and images they might not have done in person.  Now they are in person and back in the school building and many of these inappropriate online behaviors have transferred into the schools.

There are other upticks in inappropriate behaviors.  Kids have shorter tempers than usual.  They are trashing bathrooms, fighting over social media posts and/or running out of classrooms when they are frustrated.   Other children are moving inwards, heads on desks, not talking to others.  Returning to in-person learning means there is much less downtime to recharge and much less flexibility.

Some children in some communities have experienced greater loss from the pandemic.  For economically disadvantaged communities more jobs have been lost and more people in their close circle have died or been very sick.

The chronic stress and anxiety of the pandemic have triggered the “fight or flight” survival aspects of our brains.  Some people will want to retreat and hide away.  Others are on high alert and an infraction like a nudge in the hallway that would usually be ignored becomes a reason for a very big reaction.

Staff are more exhausted as well.   They, too, getting back in buildings where there is more structure and less flexibility than online teaching.  They do not have the energy to keep the tight reins on behavior that they might usually have.

It seems all that talk about socialization skills particularly in the earlier grades is true.  Teachers of young children are reporting socialization skills that are at least two years behind expectation.  Older kids seem to have forgotten how to socialize while younger ones have yet to learn. 

Some students are fearful of catching the virus in schools.

Kids want to be back in school.  School is their place to be with friends, to learn and to have a structure to their lives.  We just need to realize that just opening the schoolhouse isn't going to be easy or enough to manage the post-pandemic stress disorder that kids and staff are suffering.

And the best way to teach reading is...

 And the best way to teach reading is ….

 

Every decade or so another “right way to teach reading” happens.  Once the latest "right way" is anointed, all children must be taught that way.  Whole cabals rise up with special training, certificates and renewals.  One cannot use the method unless one has been to the mecca for training and been blessed as being able to use the method.  And, of course, whatever the method is, it is research based.

Throughout all of this time, the “right” methods have had dramatically varying approaches.  From strict, scripted phonics based methods to loosely organized approaches around a child’s everyday experiences.  With every method there has been a 3^rd reading group, the kids who just don’t get it.  We all know who they are regardless of which euphemism is used for the name of the group.  

There are some commonalities upon which we all agree.   Children need a good basis in reading.  It is the foundation not just for the rest of their learning but also for how they feel about themselves as learners.  Reading is a skill that the vast majority of children will not learn on their own.  They need some sort of structured program.  A strong literacy program requires that the child learn to decode the printed symbol into a sound AND having done that acquire meaning from those sounds.  Any approach that emphasizes one area over the other will fail both the children and the purpose of learning to read.  

The vast majority of educators believe that children need some basic phonics instruction.  But experience and research that is independent of special interests have not identified any particular kind of phonics instruction other than there should be some.

Children come into our schools with a wide variety of backgrounds.  Some of those backgrounds deliver children who are ripe for instruction with a background of having done some “reading”.  Other kids are at the other end of the spectrum but they, too, need to be taught to read in a method that works for them.

The fact is there is NO method that works best nor is appropriate for all children.  If we really want research based reading instruction for our schools, this is what research and researchers over and over agree on. The best reading method for every child is one taught by a knowledgeable  and skilled teacher regardless of the method. The best way to teach reading is with a very good teacher.

When is free speech not free?

 When is free speech not free speech?

 

Tanner Cross is an elementary school teacher in Virginia.  It is the policy in Virginia for teachers to use the chosen names and pronouns of transgender students.  Mr. Cross testified at a Board meeting that although he was a teacher, he served God first and “will not affirm that a biological boy can be a girl and vice versa because it is against my religion.”  The next day the district put Cross on administrative leave with pay and limited his access to school events, asserting that his comments have a “disruptive impact” on the operation of the school.  Tanner went to court to protest.  A lower court issued an injunction in favor of the teacher.  The district appealed to the Virginia Supreme Court.   That court too supported the injunction.

The Virginia high court used a 1968 Supreme Court decision that supported a teacher’s free speech rights under the First Amendment in matters of school policy.   But while the teacher had a right to speak out against the policy, he did not have a right to disobey the policy.  The school district has a right to maintain workplace efficiency and to reduce disruption.

Now the issue becomes, what happens in the everyday running of the school.  How will the school district balance the teacher’s right to free speech and its interest in maintaining a smooth-running school.  

The answer lies at the boundary where free speech bumps up against action.  Individuals may speak freely but they cannot advocate the overthrow of the organization or its policies nor may they behave (as opposed to speaking) in a way that is disruptive.  If a teacher used his/her free speech rights to create and cause disruption in the operation of the school, that free speech would cross the boundary.

This guide is somewhat akin to yelling fire in a crowded room where there was no fire.  Teachers, as with all citizens, need to decide when a public or employer policy violates their basic core values as individuals.  When that happens, staff should argue for their point of view.  If arguments do not change policy, then the staff person needs to make the personal decision of whether or not he/she wishes to remain a part of the organization.  Disrupting the peaceful operation of the organization is not an option.

There needs to be acceptable channels for staff to disagree with public and/or school policy for whatever reasons the staff person may have.  But those rights and liberties, as with all rights and liberties, also come with responsibility to sustain the orderly operation of the school and allow the school to continue in its basic function.  At the junction of disruption and speech, free speech is no longer free.

Teach Hate No More

 Teach Hate no More

 

Folksingers of the ‘60’s urged teachers and all citizens to “teach war no more”.  The bible asks that we give up violence for peace.   Why is that a lesson humanity cannot learn?  

We spend huge amounts of money on war but very little to teach about peace. Then we are surprised when all the money spent on war does not bring peace.  Peace begins with the acceptance of difference among us.  We do not need to agree on the best way to worship God, nor even that there is a God that needs to be worshipped.  What we need to agree on is that we each have the right to our individual cultures and belief systems as long as the exercise of those beliefs do not put others at risk.

The first recorded hatred of others is 146 BC when a Roman Senator campaigned that Carthage must be destroyed.   In the last 100 years alone, over 12 genocides have been recognized recognized by historians. A genocide is an organized plan to extinguish an entire group of people.  And that does not begin to indicate the number of people who have been hurt on an individual and/or societal basis out of pure bigotry.   In our own country we have worked to destroy the Native American culture, segregated African Americans in all manner of ways, redlined people from living where they wish because of race or faith, confiscated property and required that Japanese-American citizens move to internment camps. Even today there are multiple artifacts that still reduce women's rights.  The war against women in Asia and the middle east continues unabated.  People seem willing to take up arms against those with differing political views and/or shades of difference in religious faith.

Is hatred of difference built into our DNA?  Why over this long history of recorded time can’t we move past this uncomfortableness with difference?

Our only hope is if we change the educational experience for our children and that begins with the teachers.   School systems across the country are being polarized to only teach history that fits the comfort zone.  We need to know how we have gone wrong so we can turn the ship around and do right.   Educators need to get a backbone and take responsibility for what we are teaching.   Education is really the only hope.  But educators have always been sheep.  Perhaps if we could get a decent herder the rest would follow and we would teach hate no more.

 

 

Why Can't Americans Teach their Children how to speak?

Why Can’t Americans Teach their Children how to speak?

 

In the old 1960’s musical, My Fair Lady, Rex Harrison asks the musical question “Why can’t the English teach their children how to speak?”.   One could ask that same question of Americans today.

Ask a student to diagram a sentence and he/she would probably think that was something for Instagram.   

It used to be that one could count on newscasters and reporters to model good grammar.  Not anymore.  Then  the print media became the last bastion of decent grammar, after all they do have editors to look over the work before it goes into print.  Guess again!  A recent headline in Food & Wine delivered this incorrect sentence, “The next generation of spice companies are delivering better tasting spices while disrupting an outmoded industry.”  Evidently, the spice industry is not the only thing that is outmoded.  The subject of that sentence is “generation” which you may notice is singular and; therefore, takes a singular verb- IS delivering would be correct.

Baltimore magazine did its annual best in Baltimore listing.  It was excited to announce that the winner in the “stationary” category was a calligraphy company.  Clearly the copy editor was never taught that the “e” in stationery was just like the “e” in letters and hence was used when referring to paper products.  Either that or this calligrapher is stationary and never moving.

Appropriate use of pronouns is a totally lost skill.  Technically well-educated people will mix pronoun tense.   “Me and Robert are going to the movies, do you want to go?”.    REALLY! How about Robert and I are going to the movies?   Or “When you are finished, please give that report to David and I”   Most of us would never say “please give that report to I”, but add another person’s name and reason seems to flee from “me”.  

Don’t even get me started on the use of plural pronouns for a singular person.   I get that an individual who is transgender may not feel comfortable in either gender but she/he should be even less comfortable as a multiple personality.  A transgender person often takes a different name to match his/her gender identity.   Just match a pronoun to that identity.

I have been told that email and texting have led to the loss of grammatical skills.  I also know that years ago school districts stopped teaching grammar.   I am not a fan of testing but I will bet if end-of-English-course testing included grammar, we could get back to it fairly quickly email and texting notwithstanding.

Lack of STEM skills isn’t the only test of an educational system. We keep throwing money at education but we still can’t teach our  children how to speak?  

Costs Big time to Lose

 Costs Big Time to Lose

 

Gavin Grimm was a transgender student in Virginia.  The school system refused to allow Gavin to use the boys’ restroom.  This is America so Gavin’s family sued the school district.   Justice is often very slow and it was particularly  slow in this case.  It took over six years of litigation led by the American Civil Liberties Union.   About two months ago, the Supreme Court refused to review a lower court ruling.  

  As a high school student Gavin requested to use the boy’s restroom.  The school board denied his request.  There was a huge backlash and finally the school board said he could use a bathroom in the nurse’s office just for him.  Grimm found the accommodation humiliating and having to travel to an out-of-the way portion of the school to use a restroom damaging to his education.

Grim won in the U.S. District Court.   The school board appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals where the Board lost again.  The Board then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.  The Supreme Court agreed to take the case.

But then Donald Trump won the presidency.  His administration tilted toward curtailing not advancing transgender rights.  So, the Justices changed their collective mind and sent the case back to the lower court.

By this time, Joe Biden was elected president and the views of his administration shifted towards transgender rights.  In August 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4^th Circuit ruled in favor of Grimm, saying that the actions of the Board discriminated on the basis of sex and had violated the 14^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Game not quite over!  The Board appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court again.  This time the high court refused to hear the case, which meant that the lower court ruling in favor of Gavin Grimm was now officially permanent.

To the victor belongs some spoils.  Grimm and his attorneys went back to the Gloucester School Board and asked for a settlement since they had prevailed.   In the end the school board agreed to pay 1.3 million dollars to cover Grimm’s attorney’s fees and other costs associated with Grimm’s discrimination case.   The settlement came about two months after the Supreme Court allowed the lower court ruling to prevail.

Gavin Grim is now in his 20’s.   The ACLU has stated that it feels Gavin has been fully vindicated.   Mr. Grimm has declined to comment.  Most western cultures have gender neutral bathrooms.   America seems to have a real issue with that policy.   Makes one wonder how many homes have bathrooms that are separated by gender.

It's Not about Sex

 It’s Not About Sex

 

Lawyers for the Montgomery County Public Schools argued in a court case this summer that a violent locker room attack by some members of the JV football team that involved using a broomstick to commit sodomy on some other teammates was not a sexual assault.  The boys have been criminally charged with rape.  And some have pled guilty in a criminal case.

But the lawyers for the school system made an interesting argument during a July hearing.   They were arguing against legal claims made by the families of the victims.  “This is a male-on-male incident.  There is no indication that this was motivated by sexual desire.  They weren’t yelling sexual slurs about maybe homosexuality or things like that.” Said an attorney for the school system.   The families are arguing that the school system failed in its duty to provide supervision and to protect students from violence, particularly when the environment was known to be violent.

According to the school district, if these acts were non-sexual they would not be covered by Title IX which includes areas to protect students from severe sexual harassment.  If the judge would declare the attack as non-sexual then Title IX would not provide protection.  The argument was rejected by the judge.  This civil case follows a criminal case in the fall of 2018.  Two of the four students have pleaded guilty in juvenile court to second degree rape and attempted second degree rape.  The victims in this case were 14 and 15 years old.  The perpetrators were all 15 and on the JV varsity football team.   A spokesperson for the County said that these arguments were just legal arguments and that county policy did not consider sexual desire as a condition of harassment .  Prosecutors in the criminal case described the attacks as vicious sexual assaults.  The perpetrators blocked the door of the locker room while other boys pulled down the victim's pants and pushed the broom handle into the boy's rectum several times through the boys’ underwear.  Since the assault, one of the victims has transferred schools while another says that he is routinely pointed out as “the boy who got the broom”.  Similar, but not identical instances, have been tried in Tennessee and Arizona and found to be covered by Title IX.  Psychologists have said sodomy is favored as harassment because it is a quick and easy way to humiliate a victim.  Schools have a duty to protect students.  The attorney for the families has cited at least seven previous instances of locker room violence yet the school system did nothing to increase supervision nor train its coaches.  One of the students involved in the attacks had a history of aggressive sexual behavior and was transferred to the new school because of it.   The sending principal warned the receiving principal of the boy’s history. He recommended the boy be under close supervision at all times.  The receiving school’s defense was that the boy had only attended this high school for 40 days and the school had not had an opportunity to ramp up its supervision. 

The judge’s response was, “well you might not want to tell that to the jury.  The fact of the matter is if he’s such a menace he should be supervised at all times and that starts with day 1 not day 40.”

The case is ongoing but most folks would agree, rape has little to do with sexual desire and everything to do with domination and aggression and both were clear in this case.

The duty to supervise does not go away

 Teachers need to take charge

 

A child in a Baltimore City public school was hit by a flying chair.  The chair was set on its flight by another student.  Both the injured child and the pilot of the flying chair agreed there was no intent to harm the victim.

The child’s parents agreed there was no intent but their child was still injured and needed the attention of the school nurse as well as a local Urgent Care.  

The victim’s parents sued the school district because the teacher failed to protect their child from harm.  The lower court agreed with the school district that the teacher had followed protocol by getting the other children out of the classroom and that there was no intent to do harm.  

However, the parents appealed to the Maryland Court of Special Appeals.  The parents argued that the Board of Education through its agent the teacher, had a duty to exercise care for the students.  They further argued that the teacher had retreated from the classroom rather than staying behind to make sure all of the children were out of the room before she left the room.  The Court agreed with the parents saying the Board has a duty to protect students and that is conferred on a teacher by the Board.

Many courts have held that a teacher is not an insurer of student safety and have held teachers to a standard of reasonable care exercised by a person of ordinary prudence.  However, schools do have a duty to provide supervision of students and are liable for foreseeable injury when the teacher fails to provide that supervision.  In this case, the parents argued that when the student started throwing things there was a foreseeable danger of harm to the other students and that the teacher had a responsibility to protect all of the students by making sure all were removed from the classroom.  

The Court of Special Appeals returned the case to the lower court to determine if better supervision, the crux of the case, could have prevented the injury.   If better supervision could not have prevented the injury then lack of supervision, which is a school responsibility, could not be found to be the cause of the injury.

One of the key issues coming out of this case is the need and importance of supervision by school staff regardless of the circumstances- teachers need to be in charge.

And now there is more to the IEP

 And now there is more to the IEP…

 

 

Under the Education of All Handicapped Children Act-1975 (EHA), a document came into being called an Individual Education Plan (IEP) that was going to provide an individual plan of instruction for every child with a disability.  At first, the word went out that it was impossible. But the law was the law and soon every child had an IEP. Parents were required participants in the development of the IEP.  The IEP is a contract for service.  It is not a guarantee of achievement.  Since 1975, EHA has morphed into IDEA-the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.  Over the years, IDEA has also been modified, adding requirements and tweaking others.   But through all the changes the IEP has remained.  It, too, has changed.  Some states have managed to develop them online.  The pandemic has made IEP meetings more virtual than in-person.  

Now, some negative experiences with IEP requirements have wrought some changes to the IEP in Maryland.  

Many families felt that the virtual learning their children received was not of the same quality as their non-disabled peers.   Some school districts entered into a one-size-fits-all mode for all of their special ed students.   Other districts sent kids with disabilities the same work as plain students if they were all in the same class.  The work was neither individualized nor individual.

Since this is a democracy, families in Maryland went to their state legislators and they got some results.  Effective October 1, 2021, IEP’s in Maryland must include a learning continuity plan that would be implemented when emergency conditions exist that require the closing of schools, for a period of ten days or longer.  The continuity of learning plan ensures that IEP services are provided to the child despite the emergency conditions.  The continuity of leaning plan would kick in if schools were closed and school districts were providing some form of instruction to other students.  Yes, this addition to the IEP requirements is extra work.  But it will also make sure that when districts are planning for plain students, the children with special needs are not an after-thought that will be patched into the system later.  

It is very sad that it has taken an act of a state legislature to ensure that school districts remember they have children with special needs who have had a right to an individually designed program for almost 50 years!   That hasn’t changed no matter what else has.

Is my kid a little Pinocchio?

 My kid’s a little Pinocchio?

 

When did my child become a little Pinocchio?   And why does it seem worse during the pandemic?  There are multiple reasons that children do not tell the truth even when it is abundantly obvious that they will get caught.

From obvious events, as "I just saw you eat that last cookie why are you denying it" to not so obvious events as your teacher has reported you didn’t do your homework.

Although the pandemic has changed the kind of lies kids are telling, take heart, it is not increasing the frequency.  It is developmentally normal among tweens and teens.  Two development happenings lead to more lack of truth telling.  Tween and teen time is a time for a lot of brain growth so areas of the brain that might control impulsivity and inhibition are just beginning to take form.  At the same time, this is a period when kids are developing a sense of self and of independence.  This is why the peer group begins to have a great deal more influence than the family.  Early adolescence is a time why lying reaches its peak.  Then typically children begin to develop a moral sense and get that it is wrong.

Kids lie to avoid punishment, “I didn’t watch that video on YouTube”.  They learn to spare people’s feelings by saying they loved a gift that they really didn’t.  They will also lie if they feel rules are unfair, they will tell you what you want to hear about when they went to bed because they wanted to play that video game again, and again.

Begin to be concerned if a child’s lying becomes frequent about areas that involve more significant events such as, whether a child completed school assignments or telling parents where they are going.  If a child says he/she is going one place but actually is going to another one, that can raise safety issues for the child.  Lying can also damage the parent child relationship when parents cross examine the child- “Are you really telling the truth?.  

It is important to avoid cornering kids so they understand that parents need to know for the child’s safety not because they are trying to limit the child’s freedom.  Parents (and teachers) need to have rational conversations with kids explaining why the child is uncomfortable and why the adult needs the information.  Is the child lying to get out from under the pressure they feel to do well in school, fit in with peers, or because they are feeling anxious in the situation.  Don’t use the “L” word because that is emotionally charged for the child and feels hurtful.  Explain why being able to trust a child’s honesty is in the best interests of the child, not a way to enforce parental control.  Trust and honesty are  two-way streets.  Parents need to spend individual time with a child to show that they care about the child’s interests and that conversations do not only occur when the child is in trouble for doing something wrong.  Parents also need to understand that if their kids are honest most of the time with them, they have done a good job.  As they grow into adults there are going to be times in their lives when being a little Pinocchio is a good thing, just keep an eye on the length of the nose.

 

 

 

Paybacks...

 Paybacks...

 

Last year was a totally online year for a significant number of students with disabilities.  Under federal and state law, students with disabilities are no longer entitled to services through the school year in which they turn twenty-one.  After that they are left to their eligibility for adult services.

A group of special education advocates and lawyers are now advocating to extend services to that group of students with disabilities who aged out of entitlement during this past year.  Public school officials are saying these situations need to be decided on a case-by-case basis if a parent feels the child needs more services.

The fact is that school systems really don’t know the losses that any kids have suffered during the last 16 months.  That information will become known once the students are back in school in buildings.  We won’t know that about plain kids let alone those with disabilities.

In New York City, a year’s extension has been granted to some students but not to all.  The DC public schools believe that perhaps a dozen or so students will need the extra eligibility out of hundreds who think they deserve it.  

Advocates are arguing that asking each student or the student’s family to file a request and then for the system to process that request is much more expensive than it would be to just grant the extra eligibility to all students who were impacted.   School systems do not see it that way.  They are requiring each student to file an individual appeal.  

The other approach being taken by advocates is to go to governmental legislative councils and ask them to set aside funds for the extra services.  Mostly advocates have been met with resistance to this idea.  One of the issues is that for a student with disabilities, that final year of school is often spent in on-the-job training which was next to impossible to do virtually.  So the student who worked at CVS stocking shelves and learning to have a snack in the break room with other staff, is not going to be able to learn those skills virtually.  

Of course, the real issue for all kids with disabilities (as well as plain kids) is that they were given all given less than they were promised for a school year.  Sort of like the 50-minute therapy hour.  Except for the kids who got a 20-week school year and no one wants to acknowledge that paybacks for the kids might not go as planned.

Is it really too much to ask?

 Is it Really Too Much to ask?

 

Why can’t editors and journalists use grammatically correct language?  For that matter why can’t children write a correct five sentence paragraph that is grammatically correct and follows the rules of clear language.  “The days of rain in western Europe has caused major flooding”.   NO, the subject of that sentence is “days” and it is plural, thereby, requiring the plural verb such “have”.  This sentence was spoken by a journalist for NPR.  This is truly fake news.  Food and Wine magazine had a similarly egregious headline in its last issue.  "The next generation of spice companies are delivering better tasting spices while disrupting an outmoded industry"  Evidently the author does not know that the subject of that headline sentence is generation  NOT spice makers.  

Years ago a Maryland State Superintendent of schools announced the creation of a BASIC curriculum for Maryland school children.  That still hasn’t happened.  

Before we keep adding more math classes and more advanced math and science courses how about we institute a truly BASIC curriculum.

All students would be required to use grammatically correct language in their speaking and writing.  In doing so they would need to learn not just the rules of grammatically correct English, but how to write and speak in a manner that is clear and precise.  As the lyrics in “Why Can’t the English Teach Their Children how to Speak” from the musical, “My Fair Lady” cries out “in America they haven’t spoken it for years”.  

Before we go on to teaching higher order math, how about teaching kids how to read credit card conditions.  People are paying 25% revolving interest on credit cards that dramatically increases what they are paying for what they buy.  It would be good to teach children how to read the fine print in advertising and understanding that things that are too good to be true usually are.  Not all two-fer deals are a deal.  It is not always cost-effective to buy the bigger size.  These are practical everyday skills that students need before they need to plot a graph.

Emails are regularly sent to encourage donations for causes that are not within the realm of change.  Children need to be taught how to evaluate a request for donations.  AND they need to learn how the government works before they decide what is wrong with it.  Most native-born Americans could not pass the citizenship test that immigrants need to pass to become citizens.   That situation is a failure of our schools.  

All of the improvements to education are just fine.  But like a house, education should be built on a firm foundation and we haven’t begun to do that.  Is that really too much to ask?