Category Archives: Uncategorized

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TN Lawmakers Seek to Deny Education to Some Kids

Move seeks to set up Supreme Court challenge over educating migrant children

A bill in the Tennessee legislature would allow school districts and charter schools to refuse to educate children who can’t prove their legal status. The move seeks to challenge a Supreme Court decision that requires that public schools provide education to all children, regardless of legal status.

The bills – HB793 and SB836 – would impact as many as 10,000 students, according to an analysis by the Migration Policy Institute.

Currently, as a result of a Supreme Court decision (Plyler v. Doe), public school districts must educate all students, regardless of immigration status. The legislation aims to challenge that ruling and would allow schools to limit the provision of a free public education to only those children who could demonstrate citizenship or permanent legal status.

Cumberland Presbyterian pastor Rev. Joy Warren said of the bill:

“As a Christian pastor I believe that every child is made in the image of God and deserves the opportunity to attend a high quality public school in order to help them reach their full potential. So seeing this legislation that attacks our fundamental American rights and liberties that would take away the opportunity of immigrant children to attend public school is an attack on my values, both as an American and as a Christian. These politicians are scapegoating immigrants, including immigrant children, to divide and distract the American public.”

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Another Look at the 504 Lawsuit

Peter Greene examines a suit with far-reaching implications

I wrote a bit last week about a lawsuit by 17 states (not TN) that could change or end Section 504 protections.

Peter Greene adds more:

The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 was signed into law by President Richard Nixon in September of 1973. Section 504 of that act codified the civil rights of persons with disabilities. “No otherwise qualified individual” can be, simply because of their disability, “denied the benefits of, or subjected to discrimination” in any program or activity that receives federal funds.

That law has turned out to be hugely important in education, offering an even broader definition of students with special needs than the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

Green then highlights the threat:

Then, on page 37, as it reached its third of four counts, the lawsuit switches gears, arguing not for an excision of the new language, but the elimination of Section 504 entirely. The suit argues that Section 504 is “coercive, untethered to the federal interest in disability, and unfairly retroactive” and therefor unconstitutional.

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The One About the 504 Lawsuit

If the plaintiffs prevail, it could be bad

So, first – Tennessee is not (yet) a part of this lawsuit that would, if successful, end Section 504 protections for students.

I take a look at what could happen over at The Education Report:

Here’s a summary of what could happen IF the suit is ultimately successful:

Yes. No matter what they say, they are trying to eradicate a fundamental protection for the disabled population that has sustained for over half a century. Yes. They are trying to remove disabled students from public education. They are trying to remove disabled workers from the workforce. Yes. They are trying to bring back schools that “best suit a student’s needs”, which is just a fancy way of saying that they are bringing back the segregated schools and institutions so many have fought for so long to eradicate.

Not great, really.

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Legislators Pass Lee’s Voucher Scam

General Assembly hands Tennessee schools over to oligarchs

The Plaid Privatizer has won.

Gov. Bill Lee finally achieved his longtime dream of handing public education funding in Tennessee over to some of his favorite oligarchs.

SHOCKING!

The Tennessean reports:

Republican lawmakers on Thursday gave final approval to a $447 million statewide publicly funded school voucher program — a long-sought victory for Gov. Bill Lee and a host of school choice advocates who have spent millions pushing the plan.

Tennessee will now have two taxpayer-funded school systems. The private school voucher system will siphon money from public schools, drive up local property taxes, and bust the state’s budget – just as it has done in other states.

The plan is also unlikely to get results – in state after state, voucher scams have failed to improve academic achievement.

Sen. Charlane Oliver clearly illuminated the big picture of Lee’s scam:

Tennessee’s public education system is under siege by wealthy conservative oligarchs, including former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who are bankrolling Republican leaders to push school vouchers. Ultra-wealthy conservatives have made dismantling public education their mission, even descending upon Washington ready to disband the U.S. Department of Education.

As public education in the state unravels and unaccountable private school operators bleed taxpayers dry, just remember: This is all on the Plaid Privatizer, Bill Lee.

Gov. Bill Lee promoting school privatization
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Do Smartphone Bans Work?

It depends on the goal

As states and school districts explore and implement bans on smartphones at school, the question remains: Will these bans improve the student learning environment?

The answer: Maybe.

Overall, 68% of US adults responding to a 2024 Pew Research Center survey say they support a ban on middle and high school students using their phones during class. The biggest reasons these Americans gave for backing the move? Fewer distractions (98%), better social skills (91%), less cheating (85%), and reduced bullying (70%).

And, bans are in place in a number of areas of the country:

As of November 4, 2024, eight states — California, Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Ohio, South Carolina, and Virginia — have passed policies that ban or restrict phone use in schools. These broadly take effect during the current school year. Twelve more states have introduced such legislation.

Anecdotal evidence suggests some improvement – students actually talking to each other during lunch, for example. Less instances of social media bullying.

Still, the research is uneven in terms of whether these bans will have a long-term, positive effect.

One analysis of studies that analyzed cell phone bans in schools across the globe found:

“Overall, the results indicated that the ban and no ban schools either did not differ significantly, or there were minimal differences, in terms of problematic use of mobile phones, academic engagement, school belonging, and bullying,” the authors reported.

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Algebra in 8th Grade?

Should more schools make Algebra an option for 8th graders?

A writer tells the story of her own daughter’s math journey – and discusses the implications of middle and high school math choices.

With many colleges dropping standardized testing for applicants, transcripts featuring calculus — preferably Advanced Placement — have come to signify rigor to admissions officers. However, nearly 20% of American high school students have no access to calculus whatsoever. As a result, a scant 2% of science, technology, engineering and math majors who arrive at college needing to take precalculus manage to earn a STEM bachelor’s degree, while those who didn’t progress past algebra 2 in high school have a less than 40% chance of earning any four-year degree whatsoever.’

The point: Unless a student completes Algebra 1 in 8th grade, they won’t be on track to take calculus in high school. And, as the author notes, most kids in 8th grade have little or no idea what they’ll want to do in the future – not offering Algebra 1 to 8th graders limits options.

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The End of Public Education

Raising tough questions about the end goal of school vouchers

The very first bill filed for the 2025 session of the Tennessee General Assembly is Gov. Bill Lee’s plan for universal school vouchers.

It’s been Lee’s goal since before he was elected to privatize Tennessee’s public schools.

SHOCKING!

So, what’s the goal of this wholesale transfer of public funds to private entities?

Carol Burris takes to The Progressive to offer a possible explanation:

The “school choice movement,” which Coulson’s documentary promoted, has always been a classic bait-and-switch swindle: Charter schools were the bait for vouchers, and vouchers the lure for public acceptance of market-based schooling. While narrow debates about accountability, taxpayer costs, and the public funding of religious schools raise important concerns, the gravest threat posed by the school choice movement is its ultimate objective: putting an end to public responsibility for education. 

Burris notes that incoming President Trump appears to be on-board with this agenda:

The America First Policy Institute, where Trump’s Secretary of Education nominee Linda McMahon serves as board chair, states in its recent policy agenda that “the authority for educating children rests with parents.” As public responsibility for schooling shifts to parents, educational subsidies will be gradually reduced until Friedman and Coulson’s dream of a fully for-profit marketplace that competes for students is achieved.

Gov. Bill Lee promoting school privatization

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This One’s About AI

Schools without teachers are here

The schools of the future are here – in Arizona, at least.

That is, schools without teachers. Schools where students zone-in on a device for two hyper-focused hours and then play Dungeons and Dragons or use a rock climbing wall the rest of the day.

Adults are in the building – but for emotional support and supervision, not for teaching.

Unbound Academy, which also operates in Texas and Florida under the name Alpha Schools, claims that kids can learn twice as much using a two-hour learning plan that gets customized by an AI program instead of a traditional human teacher in front of a classroom.

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On the Folly of Student Surveillance

The profits are the point

Peter Greene takes a moment to examine the persistence of the student surveillance industry.

The point of using all those devices – school-issued or otherwise – to monitor student behavior/activity is allegedly to protect the students.

However, as Greene notes, there’s often more involved – like amassing mountains of data that can be used for marketing and profit.

But the fact that we were all kind of distracted did not stop the march of ed tech’s surveillance industry. How could they? It was like printing money, and it dovetailed perfectly with the longstanding interest in data mining children to get that womb-to-tomb pipeline up and running. No matter how creepy it seemed, it was a profitable way to fix it so that busy CEOs could log on and select meat widgets like picking out toasters on Amazon.

 Data is the new gold, and what we get are a whole bunch of companies saying, “I would like to collect a bunch of your gold, but don’t worry, I’ll keep it safely stored in this unlocked desk drawer.” Then before you know it, you’re reading about how huge investment firm Blackstone has bought Ancestry.com and its vast stores of genetic information. Probably just because they have a keen interest in genealogy.

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Is Summer Break Too Long?

The case for changing the school calendar

Summer is long.

And hot.

Especially in Tennessee.

And then there’s the issue of “lost” learning – kids needing to catch up and rebuild skills when they return from a summer break that is 10 weeks or longer.

Thus, a renewed argument for a year-round school calendar – one with a shorter summer break and more breaks throughout the year.

Another argument against summer break is that while it may not have emerged to meet the needs of the bygone agricultural era, our economic and social structures have indeed changed dramatically and made summer less practical than it once was.

And:

Brookings Institution’s Megan Kuhfeld and Karyn Lewis analyzed summer slide research in 2023, finding that “a long line of research on learning and cognition has shown that procedural skills and those that involve a number of steps tend to rapidly deteriorate in the absence of practice or other reinforcement.” They note that learning loss is especially detectable in the span from 3rd grade through 8th grade.

What do you think? Should long summer breaks be eliminated from the school calendar?

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