Education

The New York Times published an article last week noting that chronic absenteeism in American schools has “exploded,” reportedly transcending narrow silos of region, race, class, and age. But why wouldn’t students skip school? These days they aren’t missing out on much.

The most powerful quote of the Times piece summarized the essence of the new reality facing American educators: “Our relationship with school became optional.” It turns out parents have decided school isn’t the pressing priority it once was and that bargain family vacations, running errands, or just taking random days off are paramount to the demands of the traditional school schedule.

Over the past couple decades, Ontario school boards have chosen experimental teaching methods over the safe and proven, embraced mandated diversity over merit and have sometimes failed to secure the safety of students and staff. It’s no wonder that students are learning less. But, because it’s easier to scapegoat than to fix oneself, these school boards are taking to the courts to pin their failings on social media, specifically Facebook/Instagram, SnapChat and TikTok.

Frank McCormick describes himself as a “conservative history teacher in exile” and a “public school whistleblower,” and he runs a blog and hosts a podcast, both under the name Chalkboard Heresy. This morning, I came across this post, which has since been viewed more than 2.2 million times in less than 24 hours…

Cook County, or Chicagoland, has a higher illiteracy rate than Illinois, as well as the rest of the nation, which is either proof that the Democrats suck at successful policy-making, or dumbing down the people is the agenda.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published the results of the 2022 PISA test this week and the news for Canada is not good.

PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) is a standardized test used by many OECD countries to gauge how kids in their public school systems are doing in subjects like math, science, and reading. These assessments are not content-based but rather skills-based tests.

Ontario’s top court has upheld the validity of a mandatory math test for new teachers, saying that a lower court decision declaring it unconstitutional was based on preliminary and incomplete data.

Premier Doug Ford’s government introduced the test in 2021 as part of an effort — including a new curriculum — to improve students’ scores on standardized math tests.

Remember when teachers knew stuff and actually taught it? Now they just wanna cut your kid’s dick or tits off.

Since the law against Muslim separatism was passed in 2021, homeschooling has been banned in France. Faced with the government’s almost systematic obstruction of parents who opt for homeschooling, the Liberté Éducation association has decided to plead the cause of educational freedom before the UN in Geneva.

Even as Canada’s teacher shortage continues to impact schools across the country, educators and those that represent them say one of the factors causing departures from the profession is the abuse or violence some face in classrooms.

The numbers vary from province to territory, as does the severity of the incidents reported. The broader trend, according to education professionals, is growing fear and exhaustion.

The answer is fairly simple for the TDSB, restore the Zero Tolerance policy abandoned because it actually worked.

A slate of Baltimore schools have sparked outrage after zero students passed their state math exams – with almost 75 percent testing at the lowest possible score.

The poor performances came in the latest round of Maryland’s state testing, where 13 high schools in the city – a staggering 40 percent – failed to produce a single student with a ‘proficient’ score in math.

I bet they all know there are 78 genders though.

When I came across this X thread written by John Hayward of Breitbart (hat tip: Ace of Spades Headquarters), I was deeply impressed by its use of language and the scope of its overview.  Like many conservatives, I have come around to the view that the takeover of government schools by the revolutionary left is dooming out constitutional republic, unless parents rise up, their consciousness raised by the outrageous overreach underway and their view of the indoctrination underway during online classes for the lockdown, primarily but not exclusively related to indoctrination of pliable and confused children into life-altering steps toward transsexual status.

Teachers insisted their jobs were not ‘essential.’ Now plenty of students feel that way too.

The 2022-2023 school year, close to 10 percent of nation’s K-12 students did not attend classes on the average day, The New York Times‘ David Leonhardt reported in his newsletter. A quarter of students are chronically absent. “That’s a vastly higher share than before COVID.”

The biggest reason truancy is on the rise, Leonhardt posits, “seems to be simply that students have fallen out of the habit of going to school every day.”

In Canada Teachers insist they are essential but teaching isn’t, unless it’s about changing your gender or learning to dress in drag.