Category Archives: education

Canceling Charter Schools

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The Biden-Harris administration is trying to. His Department of Education Secretary, Miguel Cardona, is proposing a cancelation rule, cynically called, in part, Expanding Opportunity Through Quality Charter Schools Program. The rule provides, among other things:

prov[e] there’s a demand for a new school—e.g., evidence satisfactory to Miguel Cardona that there is “over-enrollment” in existing public schools

Prove to the government’s satisfaction, that is. A government that the teachers unions, recall, heavily influence—lately regarding Wuhan Virus requirements for opening and operating in existing public schools.

show[] how they would ensure diversity

Not how they would ensure a quality education. That’s no longer a factor under this administration or the teachers unions.

limit the degree of control over their own schools that would be allowed outside for-profit companies

Because Big Government Knows Better than actual businessmen and educators how to run a school.

[A]n applicant [for Federal startup seed money] must propose to collaborate with at least one traditional public school or traditional school district

And

In its application, an applicant must provide a letter from each partnering traditional public school or school district demonstrating a commitment to participate in the proposed charter-traditional collaboration.

Under these two requirements, a new charter school functionally must get permission from its competitors—those public schools—even to operate. That permission is granted in part, or withheld entirely, by whether an existing partner school will agree, or not, to “partner” with the supplicant applicant.

The proposed rule goes on like that for over a dozen Federal Register pages, every single one of which is unnecessary, since this…rule…is less than unnecessary, it’s Government overreach.

It’s long past time to put these people out of office.

Transparency in Schools

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Florida now has a significant measure of some.

As a part of the “Year of the Parent,” a commitment [Florida Governor Ron (R)] DeSantis has made to prioritize parental rights, DeSantis signed HB 1467, which includes several protections for parents, such as requiring school districts to allow parents to review all books in the school library, all required classroom book lists, and any instructional materials teachers use.

And

The new law requires school districts convening for the purpose of selecting instructional materials to post meeting notices and make them open to the public. They must also provide access to all materials at least 20 days prior to the school board taking official action on instructional materials, according to the new law. The Department of Education will also be required to publish a list of materials that have been removed or discontinued by school boards as a result of an objection and disseminate the list to school districts for their consideration.

Transparency—what a concept. We all still need, though, a resumption of the practice of parents occasionally sitting on a class their children are taking.

Tear It Down and Start Over

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It turns out the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control acted enthusiastically and frequently in the absence of data on the outcomes of its diktats guidelines. In particular, the CDC chose to act even though it lacked—and knew it lacked—

data on students’ learning loss when the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC) issued its COVID-19 school reopening guidance[.]

Even that early icon of medical sensibility, Anthony Fauci (of d National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases directorship and Wuhan Lab gain of function infamy) was warning the CDC of the uselessness of such things as six feet of separation requirements.

The CDC also was freely influenced by teachers union demands.

…NEA and the American Federations of Teachers, the nation’s second-largest teachers union, influenced last-minute changes to the school guidance and received a copy before its public release.
The emails [at the link above] followed a New York Post report showing close coordination between the teachers unions and the CDC. APT [Americans for Public Trust] also obtained those emails through the Freedom of Information Act.
Before releasing the reopening guidance, the Biden administration considered teachers unions’ labor disputes

We need a function like that which the CDC used to serve, was designed to serve. The CDC no longer is that agency; it has become a science deficient, political, and union-influenced agency rather than a medical science advising agency, and it needs to be disbanded and dissolved, its personnel returned to the private sector.

A new facility needs to be set up in its place, with all new personnel, all drawn from the private sector—including the management team—all with practical, life-death, decision-making experience. No politicians, no dilettantes, no corporate executives need apply.

This, Too, Is a Start

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To paraphrase an old trope, transgenders are people, too. Whether gender dysphoria is truly the case in particular individuals, or it’s a sham claim by some boys and young men in order to gain access to girls’ and women’s sports competition (or just their locker rooms), or it’s the manufacture of woke “schooling,” transgenders, those victimized by that pseudo-schooling, even the cheaters, need a place to compete.

Just not a place where males transgendered into women compete against women. Nor should women transgendered into men be competing against men, but given the nature of transgendering, that’s not a problem.

Men and women, boys and girls, start out with the facts of biology: an XX set of chromosomes or an XY set. That beginning, at the egg-sperm uniting stage and throughout subsequent development, confers on the male stronger, heavier bones, and stronger and heavier muscles. The different origin and development paths also impart permanently different hormone sets and bodily outcomes from those differing hormones. And that’s just the start. No amount of hormone therapy, no amount of testosterone withholding—or adding, in the case of girls transgendering into boys—changes those inherent physical advantages that born-boys have over born-girls. Not even the differing hip and shoulder structures change post-transgendering. The physical advantage is permanent.

Lia Thomas, via the recently concluded season of NCAA swimming, provides a canonical example. Her performance advantage was heavily illustrated both by her margins of victory in the women’s competitions and by the level of his performance when competing as a man the prior years.

And so we have the Utah legislature enacting, over Governor Spencer Cox’ (R) veto, a bill banning transgender competition in Utah’s schools. Cox had said he’d tried to do what I feel is the right thing regardless of the consequences. His veto letter centered on his concern that ensuing lawsuits

will likely bankrupt the Utah High School Athletic Association and result in millions of dollars in legal fees for local school districts with no state protection….

His four-page veto letter listed other concerns centered mostly on the process by which the bill was amended (several times) and then enacted.

Cox’ fiscal concern is valid, if somewhat overblown—a firmly zealous early defense would forestall further lawsuits and mitigate their total costs.

Still, the legislature’s move is—can be—only a start. Transgenders do need a place, a means, by which they can participate in sports. Now it’s time to set up a Title IX athletics program for transgender athletes so they can compete against their peers, and women can go back to competing against their peers.

A Tiny Step

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Senators Joni Ernst (R, IA), Chuck Grassley (R, IA), and Ron Johnson (R, WI) are proposing a law to modify how student loans are made. Their bill, the Student Transparency for Understanding Decisions in Education Net Terms, or STUDENT (aren’t we cute), Act

would provide student loan applicants with an estimate of the total amount of interest they would pay, based on a standard 10-year repayment plan, during or prior to taking out a loan….

It’s easy enough to calculate the amortization table, and the periodic and total interest paid, for any loan; there should be no problem in requiring the lender to include the tables in their student loan offers. But why wait until after the students have taken out the loan?

Aside from fixing that little fillip, though, more useful moves regarding the student loan industry include these:

  • get the government out of the student loan business altogether, including both extending the loan or guaranteeing one
  • privatize the student loan industry. Require the college/university that has the student who is taking out the loan in order to attend that college/university
    • co-sign the student loan, or
    • extend at least half of the total loan in partnership with the private lender

Of course, at the Federal level, enforcement of the second bullet would be limited to withholding Federal funds from those colleges or universities declining to satisfy either of the requirements. Further Federal enforcement would be limited to withholding a fraction of Federal transfers to those States who choose not to enact similar requirements and to otherwise publicizing and jawboning those States who choose not to go along. Those are strong incentives, though.