All too true.
Last year, the state considered implementing a new math framework that would have changed the kinds of courses students can take to meet graduation requirements. That attempt met with fierce opposition from opponents who claimed it would result in a watering down of math standards. The dispute between the two sides has resulted in a stalemate, prompting state officials to hold off on adopting new standards.
While true, the answer to the math problem, is to quit testing. Problem solved. It’s working so well to get people of color into medical school.
Trans coverage in the NYT
→ NYT reporters sign group letter against reporting: A large number of New York Times contributors signed a letter yelling at the small number of NYT writers who have dared to report vaguely objectively about trans issues. The basic argument is that no one should look into topics such as when gender-affirming care goes wrong, since it’s so very rare. Specifically: No one should talk about what choices a 14-year-old can really make and whether it’s okay for schools to transition children without informing their parents. No one should talk about detransitioners, regret, or the impact of puberty blockers and hormones on broader health. None of it.
“A tiny percentage of the population is trans, and an even smaller percentage of those people face the type of conflict the Times is so intent on magnifying,” the letter stated. “There is no rapt reporting on the thousands of parents who simply love and support their children.”
It’s actually a classic neg on reporters. Critics will say: Why are you all so focused on bad news? Why don’t you write about all the planes that don’t crash?
In a shock move, the Times responded by defending the targeted writers. It’s not 2020 anymore, kids! It takes a little extra effort to get someone fired these days.
Yes, but those “facing conflict” are a not so tiny percentage of those who are trans.
Schools doing this behind parent’s backs is no different than the school giving 14 year olds alcohol behind their parent’s back. Or the school secretly giving a couple 12 year olds time in a private room to “bond” during school hours because their parents wont let them hook up after school. I’ll bet anything that in most cases those feelings are just as “genuine” [in the child’s mind] as the desire to be a different gender…
It’s insane. And so many are so hellbent on glorifying the insanity.
And the first step to fixing the “social differences” in outcomes …
https://www.wsj.com/articles/to-increase-equity-school-districts-eliminate-honors-classes-d5985dee
Supporters say uniform classes create rigor for all students
…which is the whole problem. Not all students can handle the rigor, thus the reason they’re “behind” to begin with. Advanced/Honors classes actually protect the slower learners from falling even further behind, and from failure. It basically allows the stigma of a “remedial” label to be reserved for the absolute bottom performers, rather than a majority of the class.
I doubt “rigor” will be instilled in the lazy underperformers just because the top students are forced to seat in the same classes. Rigor requires self-discipline and a desired for excellence.
I took rigorous to be in reference to the cirriculum being taught. That the Honors classes are unfair, because those students get taught more and are thus better prepared for success, so eliminating the special classes means all students can benefit from that more advanced, or ‘rigorous’, instruction.
Google defines rigor as “a sudden feeling of cold with shivering accompanied by a rise in temperature, often with copious sweating, especially at the onset or height of a fever.” So yes, I’d guess that an advanced cirriculum would quickly instill feeling of rigor in the underperformers 
.
You mean the school expects the increase the difficulty of the basic courses? I doubt it. Even if they tried to imply their intend to make basic (not AP/honors classes) more challenging, it won’t happen. People that can’t handle the basic algebra class, won’t perform better with more challenging algebra… and school authorities know it. It’s just a PC gimmick to clip the wings of those that have more drive, aptitude or interest in their academic future.
We agree. But even taking their claims at face value, the so-called benefits still only hurt the underperforming.
More mindless sob stories:
Cortez then pointed out that she worked 70 hours and that she gets paid $2.13 an hour. As if that’s not bad enough, after federal taxes, social security, and Medicare, she ended up with a paycheck of exactly $9.28. “For 70 hours of work,” she stressed.
Laws in some states allow tipped employees to be paid as little as $2.13 an hour, as long as their tips get their average income up to the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. As a result, a service industry employee’s take home pay can be incredibly low.
Tips are part of the take-home pay. The only reason her check was for “only” $9 is because she walked out at the end of her shift with roughly $600+ cash over that same time period.
Their weekly paycheck isnt their compensation, it’s mostly just a reconciliation of tax withholdings for the cash she already took home. The real question to ask this lady is if she actually reported all her tip income, or only just enough to reach that $7.25/hr threshold for the week?
There are ways tipped emplyees can get screwed. This is not one of those ways.
This is the insidiousness of the dumbing down that’s been happening for decades. Not only can some students not handle the rigor, nor will it be instilled in the underachievers, it also dulls the achievers. They end up being bored, and dulling their senses/desires/inquisitiveness because there is nothing to challenge them. It’s also posssible that they will then become diagnosed with ADHD for being bored and disruptive.
More on the government schools
Authored by Jill Tucker in The Chronicle
Everything Yana, a 13-year-old Ukrainian refugee, knew about public schools in the United States was what she had seen on television or in the movies, often idyllic settings where teenage conflict and angst ironed itself out by the end.
She never imagined herself in those American classrooms […]
“I thought it was going to be better because it’s San Francisco,” she said in Ukrainian, with her aunt translating. “But after two days, I saw everything going on at the school.”
Students interrupted classes, jumped on desks, cursed at teachers. At first, Yana wondered what was going on, but then, “nothing happened.” Students were not disciplined or prevented from repeat behavior.
“After one week, I understood that was normal,” said Yana, whose last name The Chronicle agreed not to publish in accordance with its source policy.
For Yana, the situation only got worse as the weeks went on, her fears escalating. She had escaped war, but not bullying and bad behavior by classmates.
Yana’s mother and aunt, Mariia Moroz, said the teen would come home from school and describe the chaotic scenes in her classrooms.
“She would tell us and we were terrified,” Moroz said of the verbal abuse, hallway conflicts and classroom outbursts, adding they told Yana to avoid eye contact and try to avoid the students acting out.
Not long after, Yana said, she became the target […]
Within a month at Marina, Yana said, someone stole her cell phone in the cafeteria and then a group of students who she believed was responsible, threatened her. Yana knew enough English to understand the gist.
“They started yelling and cursing and moving toward her,” her aunt said of the early February encounter. “A counselor came and intervened.”
The next day, Yana stopped going to school. School officials offered her a security action plan to make sure she felt safe.
Yana’s aunt and mother have requested a transfer to another school, where the teen could start over without fear for her safety or an escort through the hallways, but so far, the district has denied that request and urged Yana to return with the support services offered.
So far, she hasn’t been back.
Yana just wants to go back to her hometown in central Ukraine, back to the only school she knew before the war, even as her mom and aunt have started to research camps and other programs in San Francisco to occupy the summer months.
Refugees finding their war-torn homeland to be a better option than our public schools? If not for the innocent 13 year old girl stuck in the middle of it, this would be a rather hilarious situation.
Yeah, unsurprisingly not disciplining kids leads to Lord of the Flies. San Fran stopped disciplining middle school kids (because it’s racist that black and Hispanic kids behave worse the others), so better to discipline no one and hope it doesn’t matter. Well, turns out a lack of discipline just emboldens the worst kids and it’s all down hill from there. One school had 1/3 of the staff up and leave, and what’s left can’t function. This keeps happening - two examples.
Restorative Justice just wasn’t quite done right in these schools - we need more councilors (ones that won’t quit after being beaten by the kids), and probably some racial justice advocates too. Like Communism, surely will succeed next time since the latest catastrophic failure was because it “wasn’t done right”.
The bigger problem is that she’s new to the school, doesn’t know anyone and has a language barrier. She’s an easy target. Back home she probably knew all her classmates since kindergarten. Nothing new or surprising in this story.
From the article
Students interrupted classes, jumped on desks, cursed at teachers. At first, Yana wondered what was going on, but then, “nothing happened.” Students were not disciplined or prevented from repeat behavior.
Yeah I guess she’s new in town and doesn’t understand that’s the way it goes here in the United States.
Lack of discipline is certainly a problem, but it has nothing to do with the article’s title and its main subject, the poor Ukrainian refugee.
They clickbait the readers by trying to tie up “popular” content (Ukraine) with the real story about lack of discipline in some SF school, which probably would go unnoticed if it wasn’t tied up this way.
The Ukranian refugee part is only a tangent detail, to establish an outsider perspective and the context informing that perspective. The article’s main subject is not the poor refugee girl, it’s her shock from experiencing the reality of current American public schools.
The casual reader doesn’t know anything about the reality of Ukrainian schools, and there’s no context provided for that. I’m sure the same kind of bullying goes on there too, the only difference is classroom discipline.
I just learned that corporal punishment was banned in Ukraine in 2004, but still legal (at home, but not at school) in Russia. Imagine the shock of a Russian refugee 