Where have all the children gone?

 Where have all the children gone?

The number of children who are not in public or private schools has exploded since the end of the pandemic.  The missing kids are not being home schooled, not in public schools, not in private schools and not to be found in the few online schools that have popped up since the pandemic.

In 2023-24, well after the pandemic, school census reports were still missing 2.1 million children or 4% of school age population.  This is roughly five times the number since the before the pandemic.  

Where are these kids and what is the loss to them and the country?   What we do know is that if they are not in school, they are not learning basic academic skills.  The loss to them and to our economy is huge.   Where are they?  What has happened to them?

At first blush the explanation was the students had gone to private schools.  But that isn’t proving to be true.  Private school enrollment has stayed steady at about 9% of school age population.  The steadiness is even true in states like Arizona and Florida who award state taxpayer tuition assistance for private schools.  

The scary thing is that a much larger share of the kids not in school is from high-poverty, Black majority districts.  In fact, 1 in 4 of these children ages 5-17 are NOT in school.  This compares to 1 in 6 students in higher income school districts.  The steepest enrollment losses are concentrated in predominantly Black school districts.  A third of students in predominantly Black districts are not in traditional public schools.  This is double the share of white and Hispanic children.  Funding for traditional public schools is often determined by enrollment.  So when these students do not come to school, the funding for these schools goes down.   It’s vicious circle.   

We were already expecting a huge contraction rate of school age kids.  American women are averaging 1.7 children over their lifetimes.  Not enough to replace the population, that requires a fertility rate of 2.1%.  More immigrants coming into the country would help, but instead or encouraging immigrants we are sending them away.

Buckle up folks, we are missing children and opportunity.  What is most frightening is that we DON’T KNOW where the missing kids are!

 

Just what we needed, more misinformation

 Just what we need, more misinformation

The Secretary of Health and Human Services has spoken yet again, this time with the President joining in.   RFK Jr. in his short tenure, has certainly kept the medical profession and medical professional associations on their toes by denying and challenging most of his pronouncements.   Next up, they will probably be joined by Johnson & Johnson, makers of Tylenol. The chief of clinical practice at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has specifically said “there is no clear evidence that proves a direct relationship between the prudent use of acetaminophen during pregnancy and fetal developmental issues.  Pregnant patients should not be frightened away from the many benefits of acetaminophen (Tylenol), which is safe and one of the few options pregnant women have for pain relief.  ACOG’sj clinical guidance remains the same and, as always, any medication taken during pregnancy should be used only as needed in moderation and after the pregnant patient has consulted her doctor” Tylenol reduces fever.   The damage to the fetus when the mother has a fever and/or infection is proven science.  Once again proven science is defeated by cult wisdom.  The report prepared by the National Institutes of Health is expected to be a review of existing research on the possible causes of autism.   Jr has spent many years promoting the link between autism and vaccines.   He has never been daunted by facts despite numerous studies that discredit all that he advocates.  Jr. and his staff insist they are using gold-standard science to get to the bottom of the causes of autism.  Most scientists do not even describe these theories as gold-plated let alone a gold standard.  Researchers in the field are more inclined to go with the notion that what you seek you shall fine.  Greater awareness, improved screening tools and changes to the diagnostic criteria are more likely the cause for the rise in a diagnosis of autism.

The Autism Science Foundation said that autism results from a mix of genetic and environmental factors with genetics playing the larger role.  “Any association between acetaminophen and autism is based on limited, conflicting and inconsistent science and is premature given the current science” according to the association.

The sale of ice cream goes up in the summer.  So does crime.  Just because there is a correlation and association of the rise of each does not in any reasonable sense mean that eating ice cream causes crime.

But, hey, this is Jr operating here.  The Secretary of Misinformation. Just what we need.

You gotta a job!

 You gotta a job!

New regulations went into effect this past April 2024.   Now teachers will receive a license instead of a certificate.  More importantly, people can no longer receive a license by a credit count method to make sure they have the required courses.   Instead, they must complete a Maryland State Department of Education approved program.  These programs can take 2-3 years.   Ok, there are some good reasons behind that approach.  People wanting to be teachers should complete a program that reflects the full vision of a complete program.

Turns out that’s the plan for most people but not for all. The Governor is out to get those federal employees who are no longer employees of the federal government into state jobs, including jobs as teachers.   So, he has given one million dollars to several universities to create wonder women and men teachers.

After a one-week intensive program at Towson University, participants magically become teachers.   The program participants came from a variety of affected federal offices including USAID, the Department of Education, the National Institute of Health and the Department of Housing and Urban Development according to Towson officials. All agencies not known for their teaching skills.  “The program required participants to directly and physically engage in the material.”  According to one of the program leaders.  Whatever that means.  The one-week training covered things like building relationships, how to communicate and lesson planning.  “All the important highlights of what it means to be a teacher”, said one of the team leaders.

Hmmm, so how to differentiate learning for kids who don’t get the lesson the first time, how to teach the content in multiple ways, how to deal with discipline- none of these skills are evidently not part of the necessary “highlights”.   But not to worry.  These folks are already teaching in a school near you.  The One-week Wonders are now employed.  Those other people who are in programs that take 2-3 years to complete?  Wonder what their problems are.

You gotta a job!

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?