Saturday, September 2, 2023

To read this weekend

 From the "I know not everyone is on Twitter" files:

  • Know who is satisfied with K-12 education? Parents. (again)

  • This week, nineteen state attorneys general filed an amicus brief in Hunter v. Department of Education, which seeks to invalidate a rule from the Trump administration providing for a widening of the religious exemption to anti-discrimination laws under Title IX.
    The Attorneys General said they want students to know if their school is claiming a religious exemption into such matters before such an incident occurs.
    They wrote in the brief that students “…should not have to wait until after they become a victim of discrimination to learn that their school considers itself exempt from Title IX’s anti-discrimination, anti-harassment, and anti-retaliation rules. Nor should schools be allowed to wait to assert their exemption from Title IX until after a complainant comes forward with an allegation.”
    Among the AGs was Andrea Campbell of Massachusetts, though I have not yet been able to find MA coverage. 

  • This piece from The Conversation by Sarah Eddy on the benefits of trans-inclusive classrooms, not only to trans students: 
    Our work and that of our colleagues show that teaching sex and gender more accurately in classrooms benefits not only gender-diverse students but all students and the field of science.

    Give it a read and mark it as a resource.

  • This story in the Washington Post of how Kamari Felton's aid for college fell through has a happy ending (at least for now):

    But this is over and over how we lose people in higher ed; as the author of the piece notes, he had the right to appeal and didn't know it. It's often not the big things; it's the smaller ones that fall through and bump people straight out of higher ed

  •  I felt an increase in stress just reading this really strong piece in the Houston Landing which followed state-appointed superintendent Mike Miles on visits to some Houston classrooms.

    On Tuesday at Fleming, a sixth grade math teacher instructed his students to find pairs of numbers that multiply to 30. He clicked a button on his laptop and a one-minute timer began ticking down at the corner of his projected PowerPoint slide. Students quietly scribbled with their pencils.

    When the timer sounded, the teacher told his students it was time for a “whiparound” share. It was only the second day of school, but the students knew to stand up, volunteer their answer when called on and sit back down when a peer provided the same answer they prepared. Together, the class offered answers to the question: six and five multiply to 30, so do three and 10, two and 15.

    The whiparound is one of eight “multiple response strategies” teachers at overhauled schools are instructed to use repeatedly throughout their lessons. Others include asking students to write responses to questions on a dry-erase board or talk with their partner and then share their answers with the class. 

    No time for getting to know you exercises, and no plants (?). And don't miss the assistant principal tapping the board when he'd judged it had been too long since a teacher did a particular behavior.
    The planned teacher evaluation system that Miles had planned to implement has been blocked by a judge, at least for now.
    And do follow Asher Lehrer-Small if you are on Twitter and are interested in what's going on in Houston. 

  • This piece about why back to school is so important by Billy Ball who lost his son unexpectedly last spring is well worth it.

  • Just arrived for me this week and awaiting my long weekend reading is Nice Is Not Enough: Inequality and the Limits of Kindness at American High by C.S. Pascoe

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