Are the Ten Commandments a Religious Document?

 Are the 10 Commandments a Religious Document?

Turns out, that depends on whom you ask.  Most folks would probably answer yes, but legislatures in Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas are thinking otherwise.

In the opinion of these legislators, the Ten Commandments is an historical document that provides behavioral guidance but not a religious one.  The Supreme Court has ruled in the past that while some of the Commandments provide behavioral guidance (thou shalt not kill, commit adultery, or steal) others are clearly religious in nature, particularly the ones pertaining to worshipping one God, keeping the sabbath and taking the Lord’s name in vain.  

These legislatures want to try another bite out of the apple because they feel emboldened by a much more conservative Supreme Court.  So far the approach is not working in the lower courts.

In Texas, beginning on the first of this month, all schools were supposed to display a copy of the Ten Commandments.  A judge is a US District Court has ruled that doing so would violate the Constitutional requirements that the US cannot establish any one religion and the Free Exercise clause both the first amendment to the Constitution.  He blocked the law from going into effect.  Some have argued that even though the US was founded on Judea Christian values, our nation has citizens of many different faiths and even no organized faith.

Louisiana also tried to require EVERY public school to permanently  display the Protestant version of the Ten Commandments in every classroom.   The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that law to be unconstitutional.  The ruling is all the more remarkable because the Fifth Circuit is considered to be the most conservative in the nation and its ruling was unanimous.  This Court too, cited the First Amendment Establishment clause.  The plaintiffs were a multifaith group of nine Louisiana families with children in the public school.

If the Ten Commandments are a religious document, then any required display in a public school would be restricted.  The question is still in the judicial system.  How it will turn our- God only knows.

Bad school or bad economy

 Bad school or bad economy

The Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) released the scores for the Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program (MCAP) last week.  The worst scores were in Baltimore City and Somerset County, even though both jurisdictions raised their scores just not as much as the rest of the state.

The scores also indicated which jurisdictions did the best and which schools within those jurisdictions had the highest scores.  In both instances, it was the county and the schools with the highest socio-economic status that did the best.

The highest level of kids living in poverty is Baltimore City (29.5%).  First runner-up is, you guessed it, Somerset County (29.4%. ) A dubious honor at best.  These kids don’t have parents with the time or energy to insist on homework, come to school meetings, make sure health care is provided.  Not to mention a good breakfast and lunch.  Then there is the issue of unions which allow seasoned teachers to pick the best schools leaving the least experienced teachers to struggle along with the kids.

If we want to see better achievement in our kids we need to start with improving their lives.  Many kids who live in poverty live with parents whose school achievement isn’t much better than the child which is one explanation for lack of a better paying job for the adult.  

In a school with high poverty, teachers have to cope with vandalism to their vehicles.  Kids who come to school hungry, kids fighting public transportation if they live in the City, violence in the neighborhood, and sometimes having to stay home to watch younger siblings because there is no one else to do it.  Teachers who teach in wealthier jurisdictions have first world problems: pushy parents who demand more of their kids and the school, expect higher achievement and offer after school tutoring to get it.

In the meantime, the Blueprint for Maryland’s educational future thinks giving teachers 40% of their day for planning while costing a fortune is somehow going to improve the educational achievement of those poor kids. 

Some countries require that all young adults serve their communities for two years, either in the military or in community service.   What would happen if in order to achieve an advanced pay status in a school district, experienced teachers would have to show they could do well in a lower socio-economic school?  Sort of like military service.   What would happen if instead of spending millions of dollars for teachers to have 40% of their time to plan instead of the 20% they have now, those millions were spent on after school care and tutoring in the poorest schools?  That would keep kids off the streets AND make sure they had some structured remediation time.  

That won’t happen because the teachers unions are the fattest pigs at the trough of public funding and we seem to be more comfortable blaming the bad schools rather than their bad economies.   

What is due in due process?

 What is due in due process?

Fifty years ago, when the Education for All Handicapped Children was signed into law, one of the provisions assured families due process in securing a free and appropriate education for their child (FAPE).   The Individual Education Plan (IEP) is a contract between the family and the school system to ensure that FAPE is provided.  If the school district doesn’t provide the education as detailed in the plan, families have the right of due process to make their case known.

Due process means that the family gets to present its argument before an independent arbiter and, if they can make their case, get the education they want for their children.

That right has been significantly watered down over the last few years.   The vast majority of due process cases are brought by families wanting a non-public placement for their child.  In days of old, the school district had the burden to prove that their program provided FAPE.  In those days families won 97% of the cases.  But that was a bar too low for school districts, so they pushed to get the law changed.  Now the burden of proof  has been shifted to the party proposing the change in placement which is almost exclusively the parents.  The arbiters of these cases are trained by the Maryland State Department of Education so they generally see the case from the school’s point of view, as in foxes watching the hen house.    In the 23-24 school year, 20 cases made it to the state level for due process.   Only 2 of those cases were won by the parents.

Children with disabilities are often placed in general education classes with plain kids.  To help these children access the curriculum, one-to-one aides are provided.  These people are poorly paid and don’t receive benefits.  Nor are they trained on how to teach kids with disabilities. Not surprisingly the positions are hard to fill.  Right now, in one of the counties in Maryland, there are 434 children who are supposed to be receiving the benefits of a 1:1 aide.  But only 354 of those kids have an aide.   The remaining 80 do not.  That means two things: First of all, without the aide these 80 kids are going to have a very tough time accessing the curriculum which is already beyond their reach.  Secondly, the 1:1 aide is in the child’s IEP which means it’s a contractual agreement between the school and the family.  These families have a right to due process because their child’s contract for service is being violated.   The district says it’s trying to hire.   The Maryland State Department of Education says, after an audit “it may require corrective action”, but no audit is currently scheduled.   The U.S. Office of Education says, not our problem to investigate complaints.   Even if those complaints stem from the violation of a federal statue???  That's odd?  So unless the families of these children do something, the students will go on just sitting in classes with content they cannot access.

Looks like due process may be one more right that is becoming aspirational.

Bigotry is always with us

 Bigotry is always with us

In the few years following WWII, antisemitism was rampant.   Hitler had just engineered the murder of six million Jews, and other groups including gypsies, people with disabilities and some Catholics to name a few.  Yet in spite of that horrendous event and the huge loss of life in freeing the world from Hitler, there were signs in the neighborhoods that advised “no Jews, coloreds or dogs allowed”.  If you were not Jewish, “colored” or a dog, why should you care?

In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled that separate was inherently not equal and schools could not be segregated.  To this day, residential restrictions leave some schools segregated.  Why should you care?

In 1965, President Johnson, a southerner, signed the Civil Rights Act declaring that places of public accommodation must indeed admit the public regardless of skin tone or ethnic origin. I remember in the early ‘60’s being in a Hot Shop restaurant with a friend.   We were seated but never got service.  When I complained my friend said, “it’s because you are with me and I am Negro”.  We were just barely outside of the University of Maryland campus in College Park.  If you were never denied the chance to eat in a restaurant or book a motel room, why should you care? 

In 1975, President Ford signed the Education of All Handicapped Children Act (EHA) requiring public schools to educate kids with disabilities.  Prior to that any principal at any school could “just say no” when a parent presented his/her child for enrollment.   Parents routinely hid their children with disabilities in private rooms never letting them out.  Every so often there would be an expose article about a found child.  Every winter just before the opening of the Maryland General Assembly, there would be an expose of the Rosewood Hospital Center where children and adults with disabilities lived in squalor.  The hope was that the legislature would grant more money to the "hospital". These people weren't sick, they were disabled.  It didn't happen. The common wisdom was the “sins of the fathers were visited on their sons” so clearly having a child with a disability was an indicator of some evil deed by someone.  Families argued over which side of the family created the disability.  Certainly we never had anything like that in our family.  Baltimore City served its children with disabilities in classes called “Opportunity Classes”.  These classes were in elementary schools and kids stayed in them until they were 16.  The children in these classes were not allowed to be on the playground nor in the cafeteria at any times when the plain kids were there.  If you weren’t the parent of a child with a disability or weren’t the child yourself, why should you care? 

In 1985, The Harbour School suspended a child for spreading Nazi literature.  His mother appealed the suspension to the Anne Arundel County public schools which was funding his placement.  The AACPS rep supported the school in its decision.   The mom asked the rep if she were Jewish; the rep said no.  The mother replied “then why do you care”?

Which brings us to where we are today.  Children with disabilities are afraid to come to school if they happen also to have brown toned skin.  They are afraid they will be taken from their parents or their parents will be taken from them.  They ask their teachers if the teacher will be their mother if their mother suddenly disappears.   Their teacher has lighter skin so “why should she care”?

If we do not stand up for a targeted group, when the bigots come for us, who will be there to stand for us and why should they care?

 

Maybe he was right after all

 Maybe he was right after all

 

Fifty years ago, President Gerald Ford signed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EHA) which has since morphed into the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA).  At the signing, which he did only after extreme pressure, Ford said he was signing the legislation but doubted it could ever be accomplished.

For the most part he was wrong.   One of the benefits of IDEA is that families have the right to due process in securing a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) for their children.  In 2023, a federal judge ordered New York City public schools to provide the services that various due process hearings had determined they needed to provide.  Almost as soon as the judge’s order was issued, NYC began to miss deadlines.

As of this July, of the 51 steps outlined in the Court order, New York has only implemented 21 of them.  The court order was designed to resolve long standing issues where families waited months or even years for both services or payments as the result of administrative due process hearings.  New York City is so far behind in providing legally required services that last year alone nearly 20,000 cases were filed.  By comparison, in the whole state of  Maryland last school year, 20 cases went to a full due process hearing.  Even after adjusting for population differences, that is still a HUGE difference. The delays mean kids might go without physical therapy, transportation or even tuition for special private schools.   A major issue is that the children grow older each day and failure to provide the needed services in a timely manner may well have a lifelong impact.  Each day of delay is a day lost and an irreplaceable educational opportunity that cannot ever be recaptured. Orders for services such as speech therapy or counseling were implemented on time in just 9.5% of nearly 3,400 cases.  Just 1% of the nearly 5,300 payment orders were fulfilled on time.

The US Office of Education (USOE) is being dismantled bit by bit by the President.  One of the functions of the USOE is to enforce federal laws such as IDEA.  Their job is to monitor state and local jurisdictions to ensure that these laws are being implemented as written.  With the USOE gone, the monitoring and enforcement will be transferred to the Department of Justice (DOJ) which lacks both the skill sets and the people power to enforce these laws.  Enforcement of education laws is not high on the priority list for a DOJ that needs to concentrate on righting the wrongs against the current President.

So maybe President Ford was right after all.  Fifty years later we are still working on the issue.

 

History doesn't write itself

 History- the story of yesterday

It is often said history is written by the winners.  Probably true.   There are lots of history courses in the U.S. south where the Civil War is still called the War Between the States, ignoring the fact that the states that left the union did so in defiance of the Constitution.

The Smithsonian Institution recently announced that it was removing the mention of the two impeachments of Donald Trump from its exhibit on the Presidents of the United States.  Trump has said he does not want any divisive DEI exhibits that are against the American mainstream.   Under pressure a few days later, the Smithsonian changed tactics and said the removal was only temporary and would soon be restored.  History is written by the winners

The story of history is not just what is included but what is excluded as well.  What do we teach our children about history.   Even the topics we select for inclusion in the story reflect what we want our children to know.  A photos of the Potsdam Conference to end WWII show only white men.   A local Baltimore coed private school that prides itself on teaching values has a conference room with photos of leaders in our democracy.  There are NO women or persons of color in those photos, leading one to believe that these individuals contributed nothing to our democracy.  That is happening right now, not 70 years ago.

The Maryland State Department of Education recently released its curriculum and guidelines for teaching social studies.  Discussion of the Middle East conflicts ends at 1994.  Reason for this truncated view of history is that the Commission did not want teachers to be drawn into the conflict and not know what to teach.  What is the point of teaching history if not to be drawn into conflicts so that each student decides his or her own point of view of the events of history.  The same event can be viewed through two different lenses- one seeing a catastrophe and the other a great victory.  Every war ends that way.  Every Supreme Court decision has two points of view.  Every Big Beautiful Bill can be viewed that way.

If we do not present our students with all the information how do they become informed voters and citizens. The same nation that placed 120,000 Japanese American citizens in internment camps, forcing them to lose both property and freedom is the same nation that sent 133 billion dollars in today’s money with the Marshall Plan to Europe to rebuild a continent devastated by WWII.  

For generations our history books have been literally “white washed” when discussing the contributions of minority groups and women.  What message does this send to the children who belong to these groups? History is amazing.   Even more so when it is told from all its points of view and by all the folks who lived it and made it.

$1,700 doesn't buy a helluva lot

                                        $1,700 Doesn’t Buy a Helluva Lot

The recent tax bill (AKA the Big Beautiful Bill) has a provision for parents to donate up to $1,700 to a scholarship granting private school and then take that exact amount as a credit (not a deduction) against income taxes owed.  In essence, the family would have no expense at all for the donation.

The Republican party has been trying since Ronald Regan to come up with a plan to fund private schools with taxpayer money without running afoul of the U.S. Constitution.  This plan seems to do the job.

Seventeen hundred dollars is not a poke in the eye with a stick.  Nor is it a path for lower to middle income families to be able to afford private school.  It essentially allows higher income families to get a $1,700 reduction in tuition.  Non-public schools for children with disabilities have tuition rates that often range into six figures but definitely above sixty thousand.  The seventeen hundred dollar reduction will not make that tuition affordable for lower or middle income families.

Private school tuition for plain students for day programs in above thirty thousand.  A seventeen hundred dollar reduction in tuition will help those families that could afford the thirty thousand all along but will certainly not make that tuition affordable for lower to middle income families.

Individual state governors need to agree to accept participation in the plan.  Governors in blue states will be in a bind.  To accept the arrangement means they are going against their principles of not spending taxpayer dollars on private tuition.  If they don’t accept the plan, their private tuition paying families (and voters) will feel cheated out of a good deal.   Teacher unions are against states joining the program.

Cui bono?  Who benefits?  Wealthier families paying private tuition definitely benefit by having their tuition reduced.  Lower to middle income families are still out of the pool because the reduction is still insufficient to give these families a true choice.  And of course, politicians benefit because they can brag they have helped parents have choice in schools for their children even if the choice is only available to a select few.  Not much will change for kids, but then this was really never about kids because in private education $1,700 doesn’t buy a helluva lot.

 Trying again with Social Studies

Only an estimated 4 out of 10 American teens know that approximately six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, one-third of the world’s Jewish population at that time.  Only three out of 10 American teens know that Hitler came to power through a democratic process according to a survey by the Pew Research Center.   The representative body of the National Education Association (NEA) just voted to stop teaching about the Holocaust using any information from a Jewish organization.  That resolution was overturned by the NEA executive staff after a hard pushback from Jewish organizations.

The Maryland State Department of Education Social Studies Standards and Frameworks Validation Committee approved a new framework for instruction this past June that includes a reworked focus on antisemitism and Holocaust education, which are set to go into effect beginning in the 2026-27 school year.  It has been over a year in progress.

The Committee consulted the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the nonprofit Facing History & Ourselves.  Changes in the curriculum include a middle school addition of how the bubonic plague had both long and short-term impact on population and antisemitism.  A high school world history unit on WWI discusses how the European mandate system contributed to the rise of Zionism.  The language of the curriculum tries to avoid the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to “regional conflicts and diplomacy have influenced efforts towards stability and cooperation in the Middle East”.  The portion of the curriculum that discusses the Middle East stops at 1994.  Many critics felt this is a significant omission since it does not provide students with an understanding of current events and prevents the curriculum from being relevant.   Some members of the Committee felt bring the curriculum to the present day put too much of a burden on teachers.  Others explained that the framework is a floor not a ceiling and it is not a cap on what can be taught.  Individual school systems will use the revised frameworks to write their own curriculum based on that content.   The CAIR- Council on Arab-Islamic Relations has strongly protested the absence of content and word usage in not mentioning the word "Palestine". 

Overall, 67% of public comments were in support of the revisions, another 16% supported it but wanted revisions.  Only 17% of the comments were in opposition.

Maybe we have something.

 

No place to lay your head at night

 NO Place to lay your head at night

As rents increase the number of children who are homeless is also increasing.  In the last six years, the number of homeless children has risen 24%.  In that same time, federal funding for these children has decreased 11%.  At last count there were 5,732 homeless kids in Baltimore City schools.  Baltimore County was right behind at 2,791.  Montgomery County came in third with 1,234 and Prince George’s County at 1,245.  

Median incomes in all of these jurisdictions are high. The median income means that 50% or the population is above the number and 50% is below the number.  In Baltimore City the median income is $59,000.   In Baltimore County it is 90k and rises to 100k in both Prince George’s and Montgomery counties.  These children do not just live in outdoor encampments.  The numbers include kids living in cars, emergency shelters and motels.  As these children move, district transportation will follow them. In Baltimore City 8% of the children are homeless.  While the numbers aren’t large in school districts like Talbot County, they have the second highest percentage in the state at 7% followed by St.Mary’s County at 5%.  Baltimore County has 2.5% of its student body homeless.

Most of these families are living paycheck to paycheck.  Changes in eviction laws have made it easier for a missed paycheck to lead to missed rent payments and eviction.  Families with no place to live do not have discretionary funds for school supplies, school trips, participation in extra-curricular activities.   For many of these kids, breakfast and lunch at school are their main meals of the day.  The noise of a growling stomach can be very disruptive to learning.  As kids get older the peer pressures to do the things other kids are doing can lead to minor (or even major) criminal activity. 

If you have no good place to lay your head at night, it’s hard to engage your brain in the morning.

How good is good enough

 Is Well Enough Good Enough?

 

Under federal and state law, if a child has a disability,  parents have the right to contest their child’s education placement.    The laws require that public schools provide a free and appropriate education (FAPE) for all children with disabilities up until age 21.   Of course, there is that pesky word “appropriate” and there is lots of disagreement about that.   Parents often disagree about what that word means for their children.

Long ago “appropriate” meant helping the child to achieve his or her full potential.  That standard has long since been abandoned.  The new standard seems to be “well-enough”.  Often public schools lack sufficient staffing to provide the level of speech therapy and other related services as determined on the child’s IEP.  And no, they often don’t inform parents of that issue.  There is also the issue of staffing of teachers.  Every Maryland school district is lacking fully licensed teachers.  Parents are not told if their child’s teacher is fully licensed.   Are the students of these teachers receiving FAPE?  The answer is maybe.  There is no guarantee that every fully licensed teacher is good nor that every conditionally licensed teacher is bad.  Parents should just be informed.  

When parents are sufficiently unhappy about the education their children are receiving, they can enter into a system called “due process”.   The process begins with a mediation and can progress all the way to a formal hearing with an administrative law judge.  Not all school complaints involve dissatisfaction with special education services.   However, for the 23-24 school year, EVERY complaint that wound up before an administrative law judge was about a family requesting non-public school placement for their children.  There were only 20 cases and the families won 18 of them.

Evidently well enough isn’t quite good enough for some families and their children.

Protection is a spectrum disorder

 Protection is a spectrum disorder

The Supreme Court recently ruled that parents have the right to remove their elementary aged children from being exposed to literature and/or instruction with regard to LGBYQIA+ based on the religious beliefs of the parents.   The case happened to be a Montgomery County Public Schools case beginning in Maryland.   The decision was not a final ruling in the case but the Justices hinted strongly that the parents will likely win in the end.

The ability of parents to protect their children from certain experiences is not a new privilege.  Parents can deprive children of vaccination  based on religious beliefs.  Parents can already require that their children be excluded from sex ed.   As a society we exclude children from sexually explicit content in movies (but interestingly not specific violence in video games or the internet).  

So what is different from this new parental prerogative that uses religion as the foil.  In the other instances the prohibition was about a non-human experience.  Now parents may exclude the recognition of humans from their children’s knowledge.

How much protection should parents provide for their children and how much it too much.  When does that protection smack up against the dignity and protection of other kids.  One of the first things parents who would deny access to their children should know is that the more something is forbidden the more it becomes fascinating.   Kids who are removed from the group during instruction on these topics will be VERY curious about what they are missing.  Probably more curious than they would have been with the lesson.  Secondly, there is a chance that one or more of the kids in the class is wondering about his/her own sexuality.  The question becomes “why am I so tainted that I can’t be seen in a story?”   Thirdly, what happens when two same gender parents show up at a PTA event or other parent invitation events?   How will the same gender parents be explained to the children who have been deprived?

Organizations such as Moms for Liberty will tell you the public schools were set up to meet the parents’ needs so therefore, parents should have the right to opt out of unacceptable instruction.   Actually that is not true.  Public schools were set up at the taxpayer’s expense to ensure an informed electorate for a democracy at a time when the majority of the population could barely read or write.

In the ‘50’s there was a Broadway musical, South Pacific.  One song in the show, had the lyrics, “you’ve got to be taught to hate and fear, it’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear, you’ve got to be taught from year to year, to hate all the people your relatives fear, you’ve got to be carefully taught”.

The Supreme Court is always supreme.  It just isn’t always on the right side of history.  This is one of those times.

 

 

 

 

Does your child go to a religious school?

 Does your child go to a religious school?

 

Since 1962 the Supreme Court has bared prayer in the public schools.   In the not so good old days, kids read from the bible and said the Lord’s Prayer as part of the opening of school each day.   Whether it was the protestant or Catholic version depended on the politics of the region.   Then came Madeline Murray, a Marylander who also happened to be an atheist.  She resisted and out of that resistance came the Supreme Court decision.  Although not a party to the case, her reasoning that prayer in public schools violates the first amendment to the religious establishment clause of the Constitution became part of the decision.

Now come the new found religious conservatives.   Legislators in Tennessee, Texas and Louisiana have passed legislation that would require the 10 Commandments to be displayed in every public school classroom in the state.   In 1980, there was a similar law in Kentucky and it was struck down by the Supreme Court as a violation of the Establishment Clause.

Recently, Louisiana thought it might give the idea a chance.   But the federal appeals court struck down that law.

But hey, nothing succeeds like “let’s give this another try”. The effort is very appealing to the conservative religious right.   Sorry, last week the Appeals Court also struck down a new Tennessee law for the same reason.  Do these folks even pay attention?   Because days after the Tennessee law was struck down, the Texas Governor signed an almost identical bill requiring that the 10  Commandments be displayed in every classroom in Texas.   More than likely opponents of the legislation in Texas will also raise the issue of the Establishment Clause and separation of church and state.

So why do these bills keep passing if they are consistently struck down?  The answer is pandering to the conservative base.   The governors of these states and their legislative majorities knowing full well that what they are doing violates the US Constitution can tell their constituents that they tried.  The can blame the left wing courts that struck them down.  Thing is the courts in these states could hardly be called left wing.

Religious schools are a good thing for those who want to send their children to a school with those belief systems.   Folks sending their kids to public schools, for whatever reasons, need to know that they did NOT chose a religious school and their taxes shouldn’t be supporting one.   Says so in the First Amendment.

Time for a Break- What do Teachers want?

 Time for a Break- What do Teachers want?

 

By this time in June, most teachers are on summer break.  It’s a time to renew and refresh. We know that 3 out of 5 teachers leave the field in the first five years of teaching.  The dropout rate for special education teachers is even higher.  Education Week interviewed teachers from all across the country to try to discern just what it is that teachers want.

Teachers still feel that becoming a teacher is one of the greatest privileges and responsibilities to have.  But it’s very important to think about ones’ individual values and the values of the school or school district where you serve.  A misalignment serves to erode both your personal confidence and your enjoyment of the profession.  Teachers would tell new teachers that they need to be brave because there will be many days when you will need to put on your big-girl and big-boy boots.

Teachers see the field of teaching changing and not for the better. They note that since the pandemic, more teachers have left the field and with them goes a great deal of experience and wisdom that younger teachers can’t lean on.  Teachers are also upset about the amount of technology- what they have to learn and how their students are using it for instruction.   They are particularly concerned about the student use of AI.

Politics are coming into schools at an alarming rate.  Teachers in areas strongly impacted by the immigrant raids worry about keeping their students safe as well as explaining to the other children why safety is not accorded to all children.  Some teachers are concerned about expanding their students’ social experiences.  

Most of all, it seems the principal makes a huge difference.   Teachers acknowledge that the principal’s job is truly difficult.  It is middle management.  Their control and power are limited.  Teachers and families blame them for what is going wrong; yet their power to make changes is controlled by the central office.  Teachers feel that principals need to lock in at least one thing that is special about each teacher and to let that teacher know.  In this time of outside control of curriculum and what can be said in a classroom, now more than ever principals need to recognize the individual expertise of teachers and to honor that.

What do teachers want?  A great deal, but then again we are asking a great deal of them and entrusting our children’s future to them.

 

 

Now it's a federal case

 Now it’s a federal case!

Learning to read is a funny thing.  Everyone thinks they have the one and only road to heaven.  Over the years that road has frequently changed. Resulting in different kids being in the third reading group.  Yep, like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.   Now the highway runs ONLY to the Science of Reading which is a primarily phonics-based approach.  

In years past, Lucy Calkins developed an approach that is called “balance literacy”.  It emphasizes student choice in selection of reading materials, reading comprehension and meaning.  Students are encouraged to use a variety of strategies, such as picture clues and sentence meaning to figure out unfamiliar word. Techniques that closely align with mature reading skills.  New York City at one time used this approach for all of their schools.  Critics argue that there is not nearly enough explicit instruction in phonics which causes students to have difficulty decoding words.  The program was developed at Teachers College in Columbia University.  Recently, they have added more phonics to the program.

The Fountas & Pinnell programs use phonics and phonemic awareness but not to the exclusion of fluency, vocabulary development and comprehension.

Well none of that was any good for the “true believers” in the Science of Reading.  So those folks did what any  red, white and blue blooded American would do, they went to court in Massachusetts claiming that these other methods were not backed by sufficient research and were making false claims to the extent that the consumer protection laws should be applied to stop school districts from using and promulgating these alternative methods.

The judge in the US District Court declined to be a warrior in the reading wars.  He said, “The court cannot find defendants’ research inadequate…without delving into the merits of the defendants’ approaches to literacy education”

So there we are, left in a world where differing approaches to teaching reading can still co-exist.   You can’t even make it a federal case.

 

 

Pay now or pay later

 Pay now or pay later

Medicaid pays for a lot more than your neighbor’s visit to the ER or your visit for a well-baby check.  In the next several years, the bills passed by the House of Representatives will cut 687 billion dollars from the plan.  What does that mean, on the ground?

That’s a great deal of waste, fraud and abuse.  This is one of the biggest cuts to Medicaid in history.  Community based services for people with disabilities are not federally mandated.  But these are the services that allow people with disabilities to remain in their communities and to thrive.  Over 700,000 people are currently on waiting lists for these services.  With cuts this list can only grow.  Sixty-nine percent of the agencies providing these services are already declining new clients.  A third of the agencies are considering closing.  Without these community based services, people with disabilities will need to be served in more costly residential placements.

The new regulations are more complicated and require frequent eligibility checks.  Those will create administrative costs that will be subtracted from funds that can be used to care for people.  And more complications mean slower processing and more opportunity for error.

What will people do if they can’t get medical services from their local provider?  First of all, many will probably wait until they are a lot sicker.  Then they will seek medical care in their local ER.  The ER can not turn them away if they can’t pay.  But the service must be paid for somehow, some way.   And it’s the rate payer who will ultimately bear the burden as their health insurance goes up to cover the hospital costs for all of those unfunded ER visits.  And managing short term virus in a physician’s office is a great deal cheaper than the same service in the ER.  ER facilities are already overwhelmed meaning long waits.

The question isn’t so much will these services be paid for, it’s more who will do the paying and how much more will they cost depending on the provider.  So when you think the cuts in Medicaid don't impact you because you have private insurance, think again.  The piper must be paid and you could be the payer.

 

 Robbin’ the Hood and Standing Tall

Most people remember the tale of Robin Hood who took from the rich to give to the poor.  We have our own version of Robbin’ the Hood today.  A recently enacted budget bill in the House of Representative will cut Medicaid benefits for about eight million people.  This is a number estimated by the Congressional Budget Office which is a non-partisan group that advises Congress on the cost of legislation or on the savings of legislation.

Approximately 22.7% of those with disabilities are employed.  It is probably safe to assume that a large portion of the remaining 77.3% are using Medicaid for their health care.  The coverage for Medicaid and eligibility varies from state to state.  In all states you can qualify for Medicaid based on income, household size, disability and family status.

In states that have expanded Medicaid coverage, you can qualify based on income alone.  If your household income is below 138% of the poverty level you qualify.  Maryland is one of the states that elected to have expanded Medicaid coverage.   That expanded coverage came with more federal assistance.

The recent budget bill claims to be one of the largest tax cut bills in history.  And that is correct, especially if you are a billionaire or a multi-millionaire but not quite to the billions yet.  The US has one of the largest budget deficits in history.  It is moving towards 4 Trillion dollars.  The tax cuts will increase that deficit.  The cuts to Medicaid and SNAP (food stamps) are meant to reduce that increased deficit a bit.

Because people with disabilities tend to have lower incomes, they will disproportionately be impacted by these safety net funding programs.  The coverage for medical services for people using Medicaid is capped.  Consequently not all medical providers will take Medicaid patients.  It is hard enough being an individual with a disability.  Getting the medical care you need should not be thought of as “gaming the system”.  

Robin Hood would have been quite upset with today’s version. Robin Hood believed that no one stands so tall as when he stoops to help the vulnerable.   Today we are “robbin’ the neighborhood” to provide benefits to the rich.  Maybe we need a few more of us to stand tall.

Are teachers paid enough

 Are Teachers Paid Enough

Well now that depends on who you ask.   Of course, the teachers’ unions don’t think so.   And they aren’t likely to feel any sense of responsibility to the whole.  Baltimore County is going to renegotiate its 3-year contract with the Union because it isn’t getting enough money from the County to meet its commitment.  Administrative positions have been reduced, instructional materials, and maintenance, but it still isn’t enough.  The Union doesn’t want to hear that.  In fact, teachers in school districts with unions earn roughly 24% more than districts without unions.

The Union has said, “low pay limits the ability to attract and retain quality educators in the profession amid a looming educator shortage and sagging educator morale due chiefly to low pay and poor working conditions.  In Maryland, the Blueprint requires that starting teachers earn at least $60,000.  Some districts are funding that increase by limiting the salary increases for 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th year teachers.  Maryland is the 6^th highest paying state for teacher salaries.  The average teacher salary in Maryland is $82,877.  Maryland is behind California, New York, Massachusetts, Washington, Washington DC and Connecticut.  All of these states have a much higher cost of living than does Maryland.

Public school teachers in Maryland work, at most, 190 days a year.  Ten of those days are for professional development or days to do end-of-quarter grade calculation.  The average non-teacher employee works 236 days a year (that number excludes 14 federal paid holidays and 10 vacation days).  Lots of folks don’t get all those holidays.  Teachers work 6.5 hour days.  They have 20% of their day non-teaching for lesson planning and collaborating with peers.  Good teachers spend extra time at home.  Remember the average non-teacher bear already works an 8 hour day.  You will notice that the Union seldom mentions actual dollar salary when they ask for a percentage increase.  The new State license regulations do not even require a Masters Degree.

So you decide, is low pay really the reason folks don’t want to be teachers?

Why do you care?

 Why do you care?

 

There is a movement afoot to ban books.  Not just any books but any books that discuss diverse populations such as LBGQT, English as not the first language, people with darker skin tones- all of these books are considered divisive and discriminatory against folks whose skin is light colored and who speak pretty good English and seem to not have any disabilities.

Maryland is listed as one of the states with the most banned books.   That is odd since Maryland is true blue and has a law AGAINST school systems banning books.   The consequence of a school district banning books is that the Maryland State Department of Education is supposed to withdraw monies for libraries for that jurisdiction.  In fact, Carroll County public schools has banned so many books that that county alone has caused Maryland to be one of the states with the most banned books.  None of the other 23 school districts has banned books.   As yet, the MSDE has failed to provide the consequence to Carroll County schools.  The State Legislature might need to pass another law requiring the MSDE to obey the laws it has already passed.  

The Naval Academy has also removed over 350 books from its library because they discussed diversity, equity and inclusion.   Odd since one would think the Academy would want its midshipmen to understand the diverse population they will swear to give their lives to protect.

One of the purposes of education is to get students to think for themselves.   In a democracy it is very important to have informed citizens.  In fact, that is the prime reason we have education funded by the public.  Probably everyone would say they support the notion that students should think for themselves; we just don’t like it when their thinking for themselves differs from what we want them to think.  So the solution to that challenge seems to be to limit the ideas kids get to read about so they don’t have the opportunity to think thoughts that are unlike the ones we want them to come to “independently”.  

As a child my parents were all in favor of my education through reading.  Our financial situation did not allow for the buying of books.  So I got to go to the public library every week and take out a stack of books.   I could pick anything I wanted and frequently picked biographies of famous people.  Some of those famous people were diverse in background.  Although at that time, there were no LBGQT books around.  I learned a great deal about other worlds of other people.  Today our nation is much more diverse.  Why would we want to deny our kids the chance to peak into the windows of other cultures?  They will be richer.

Martin Niemoller a famous Lutheran pastor wrote:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

 

And this is why you should care.

The kids are not doing well

 The kids are not doing well..

The pandemic is over but there is a new “virus” spreading through our student population.   It is an epidemic of anxiety.  School counselors are reporting that children as young as 6 are talking about killing themselves and describing ways they might do it.   Counselors, parents, and school staff are asking why?  Why now?

There are lots of possible answers.   For younger children who spent their early years of schooling online, the answer is that these kids are too challenged by the in-school experience with so many students and no developmentally appropriate tools to respond to both the demands and the differences.  Anxiety is the body’s response to a perceived threat.  So, we move to “fight or flight” preparing for danger.  Younger kids will experience somatic symptoms like stomach aches, headaches or disrupted sleep.  Other kids express their anxiety with lots of what if questions: “what if you forget to pick me up”,  “what if no one likes me at school” and for some of our Hispanic children, “what if my parents are gone when I get home”.

Causes of the anxiety may be environmental- parents fighting, food insecurity, ICE taking away a loved one.   Older kids are aware of the news.  The Pew Research Center reports that more than half of all middle and high school students are worried about a shooting event at their school.  The Lancet polled kids nationwide and found that 45% felt climate change impacted their daily lives.

Many experts point to social media and excessive phone use.  Children are having “phone-based childhood” where instead of playing in person with others, their interactions are screen based and kids are missing out on the experiences which teach resilience and develop a growth mindset.  

One of the positive outcomes of social media is that children are more aware of mental illness. As a result, mental Illness has lost some of its stigma and given people access to more resources. Even the language is changing.   Professionals recommend saying the words, "mental illness" rather than "mental health".   Maybe being clinically anxious has been given a certain amount of social panache.

At least kids are open to telling us they are not doing well.  Now what are we going to do with that information?

Can't Imagine why there is a teacher shortage?

  

Can't imagine why there is a teacher shortage

Florida is facing a severe teacher shortage.   Almost every state is, particularly in Maryland.   

A teacher in Satellite Beach, FL is not going to have her contract renewed.  You might wonder why.   Is she a bad teacher?   Nope, families have rallied around her because she is a great and compassionate teacher.   Did she do something immoral in the community?   Nope, not that either.  Well then what dastardly dead did she do to warrant such a serious consequence, even possibly losing not just her job but her license to teach.   SHE CALLED A STUDENT BY HIS PREFERRED NAME!!!  Oh no, not that.   Yep, and in Florida that is grounds for dismissal if parents don’t agree IN WRITING that it’s ok.  The principal has said that “teachers like all state employees are expected to follow the law”.   

Over 26,000 people have signed a petition calling the teacher an “advocate for respect and student rights” and demanding that her contract be renewed.  A group of Satellite high school students held a walkout in support of the teacher.   A parent testified before the school board saying, “The teacher made a difference in her classroom and in the lives of our students, including my own child; she deserved more than a quiet exit.  She deserved fairness, context and compassion.”  

Brevard County where the school is located is where the right-wing conservative group Moms for Liberty was founded.   The are working to prohibit teachers from discussing gender and sexuality during school hours.   Florida has the Parental Rights in Education law which has been dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” by its critics.   It bans the discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation in lower grades.   Teachers have been investigated for showing elementary age children Disney movies that have a gay character. 

This teacher did NOT teach about sexuality.  What she did was use a student’s preferred nickname.  As one person testified, “There was no harm, no threat, no malicious intent, just a teacher trying to connect with a student, and for that, her contract is not going to be renewed, despite her strong dedication and years of service?”  Yep, that seems to be the case, at least in Florida and 13 other states that have restrictive speech requirements for their teachers.

Let’s keep trying to recruit teachers and then wonder why there is such a shortage when there are all these reasons for losing your job that have no relationship to the quality of your teaching.  

Rash thoughts

 Rash Thoughts

Maryland spending on public education has climbed 48% since 2017, eight years ago.  In 2017, Maryland spent $7.7 billion on public education.   By 2024 that number had spiked to $11.4 billion- a 48% increase.

What have kids and the taxpayer received for that investment.   Not so much.  By 2024, Maryland’s average SAT score had dropped to 1000, below the national average of 1024.   Maryland’s other test scores have also fallen.  The Maryland legislature approved money to increase planning time for teachers but cut the money the MSDE requested for professional development in math and reading even though folks are excited about training plans for teachers to improve learning.

Where has that money gone and why hasn’t it helped improve education.   First of all, a huge chunk if it has gone to increase teachers’ salaries, now starting at 60K.   But because the system does not differentiate between weak teachers and great ones or even average ones, the increase has lifted all boats and the weak teachers are still weak.   We have been told that an important element of the Blueprint is to give teacher 40% of their time for planning instead of the current 20%.  There is NO research to indicate that this would improve instruction, but it would require 5000 new teachers at a time when we can’t fill current positions.  Of course, the unions love this because more teachers mean more money in their coffers.

But wait, instead of just raising salaries, why not spend the money on mentor teachers who would work hand over hand with weak teachers to help them improve.   Teachers have said that of all the professional development this is the most helpful.  And if those weak teachers don’t improve, let them move on to some less important job.

Here's another rash thought!  Kids only learn if they come to school.  So how about providing funds to transport Baltimore City high school kids to school???   Some students are spending well over an hour on public transportation to get to and from school often in unsafe conditions.   The other school districts in Maryland send school busses for high school kids, not the City.

 

Another rash and shocking idea!  How about teaching kids to read the way they learn best rather than buying into the latest and greatest “no fail” way to teach reading.   Over a lifetime in education (63 years), there have been multiple “new and better ways” to teach reading.  Everyone jumps on the band wagon only to discover there is still a caboose to that train, just different kids are riding it.  When will we ever learn?

Somewhere along the line we really need to stop doing the same thing- throwing more and more money into the same things- and think this time it will be different.

Rash thoughts I know

 

 All are welcome here

 

A teacher in Boise, Idaho had a poster with that message in her classroom.  At the bottom of the poster was a series of raised hands going from deep brown to white as the hands were display left to right.  The poster had been up for several years. A second poster said, “Everyone in this room is welcome, important, accepted, respected, valued, and equal”.  Recently, the teacher was asked to remove the two posters.  At first, she complied.   Then channeling her inner Nancy Reagan, she just said no! 

Administrators told her the sign reflected her personal opinion and that personal opinions could not be displayed in the classroom.  She put the poster back up saying that it was not her personal opinion but a fundamental principle of public education. The district has given her until the end of the school year to remove it.  And then what?   No one says.

An all-staff memo was sent specifying which kinds of things could be displayed in a classroom and which could be displayed “temporarily” without the definition of how long “temporary” is.  The memo also says “At West Ada, we proudly welcome all students into our buildings and classrooms- not through posters, but through genuine connections that we foster every day.”  There is also an Idaho state policy supporting diversity.  And there is a lawsuit from an African American family whose child was called derogatory names within the school and there was no response from the system.

A local entrepreneur has printed t-shirts with the All Are Welcome message and the multiple shades of skin raised hands.   He is selling them at cost and in the first few days has sold 800.  Interestingly, the district has posters as part of its “Explore your way” campaign that encourages students to “welcome others and explore diversity”.  State law also prohibits inflaming divisions on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, religion color, or national origin”.  That sounds like an “opinion” similar to the poster.

  The administration continues to argue that the teacher’s posters are her personal opinion.  These posters are in a public school.  Protesters have asked, if you think this is an opinion, “what type of child don’t you want at your school”.  One protestor has suggested that the teacher add a disclaimer to her poster that says, “it’s not the official policy of our school system that all children are welcome” and see how that sits with the administration.  Other protestors have said if not everyone believes all children are welcome, what are they doing in a public school.  

By some surveys, Idaho is ranked #48 in quality education.  Maybe they are fighting their way to be  #50.  I wonder if all are welcome to vote.

Promises Made, Debt not Paid

 Promises Made, Debt not paid

In 1975, about 50 years ago, President Gerald Ford signed into law the Education for all Handicapped Children Act (EHA).  This law later morphed into the Individuals for Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).   

In 1979, the U.S. Congress established the US Department of Education.   Yes, you got that right.   The US Department of Education that Trump and Congress are talking about eliminating wasn’t established until Four Years after EHA.  In the beginning, EHA was administered by the Department of Health and Human Services currently led by Robert Kennedy Jr.   After the creation of the US Department of Education, EHA was moved to that department.

So why all the fuss now about moving the provisions of IDEA to Health and Human Services?   

There are a couple of issues.   When EHA was signed into law, President Ford famously said he doubted we could ever educate all children with handicaps (Kids had handicaps then, not disabilities).   While there are notable exceptions, we are doing that.   BUT the law also recognized that it would cost more to educate a child with a disability than it would to educate a plain child.  So, the Congress agreed to “authorize” up to 40% of the cost of implementing EHA.  Laws authorize; budget bills appropriate and that amount of money, although promised has never been appropriated.  Today the federal government provides roughly 5% of the cost of education a child with a disability.  A far cry from the initial promise.

Mostly states are doing a decent job of meeting the requirements of the law.  But what if they don’t?  Approximately 5,800 families had filed complaints against their local public school district prior to Trump taking office.  With huge cuts in personnel in the Office of Civil Rights and the US Office of Education, what are the chances these complaints will be heard at all, let alone in a manner fair to families. Presently, 30 states are out of full compliance with IDEA.   The Secretary of Education has indicated that she would offload the enforcement of IDEA back to the states.  Is this not a perfect storm for the fox watching the henhouse?  State departments of education will now determine if they are violating the law they are accused by families of violating.  

Promises have been made to our children with disabilities.  When do we think the debt might be paid?

 

Find the new, and keep the old

 Find the new and keep the old

 

There are over 2000 vacant teacher positions in Maryland schools as of the middle of this past January.   Of the positions that are filled, 6000 of the individuals are not professionally licensed to do their jobs.  Maybe that explains why Baltimore City hired a man with a felony conviction for carrying an unlicensed loaded gun.  Times are tough.

There are lots of ways to work this problem besides hiring folks with a felony conviction.   Credit to the City, they said if he had a record of sexual abuse they would not have hired him.  Probably because that is against Maryland law.

If an individual has a bachelor’s degree and he/she wants to become a teacher, there are lots and lots of hoops to jump through and tests to take.  And the process is time limited.  People with a degree that is not an education degree, have three years to get a beginning professional license.   They must also pass 4-6 tests depending on what they want to teach.  There are also lots of courses they need to take.  And there are NO exceptions.   If you let the three years run out without completing everything, you are out of a job and cannot reapply until you have met all of the requirements.

It's an old business adage that it costs more to recruit a new employee than it does to train/fix a current employee.   The same rule applies to customers.   So, one might ask why doesn’t it apply to teachers?  During those three years of training, schools get a chance to see if the individual has the makings of a good teacher or not. And besides just taking coursework, why isn't there a mentoring program to really teach folks to teach in the real world.  Oh and what better way to assess their future abilities.  Why not bend the rules for the folks who will become stars and fast track them?  Why not council out the duds rather than just keep pushing them through?  We should specifiy competencies for what we think our teachers should be able to do and once they can do those things, let’s move them along.

The problem is that the teaching profession is regulated by politicians and bureaucrats who have never spent a day in a classroom so they have no idea what it takes to be a good teacher let alone a great one.   Other professions have professional associations (AMA, ABA, APA) that regulate who can come into the profession.    But long ago, teachers gave up both control of their profession and their professional association to replace it with the NEA, a union that only promotes higher salaries and more benefits.   They have left a void that the non-professionals have been only too happy to fill.  

Teachers have only themselves to blame for the current situation.   And politicians and bureaucrats are left with trying to recruit more bodies to fill that 2000 person hole without any understanding of what it takes to make and keep a good teacher.  It’s fine to recruit the new, but let’s hang onto the old.