California Is Withholding Test Results

They wouldn't withhold them if they made Dems look good. On the other hand, this is a one party state, and the Dems would will be reelected even if, in LBJ's terms, every one of them was found in bed with a live boy or a dead girl.  So why the shenanigans?

The state of California is delaying the release of test scores to the public, potentially pushing the release until after Election Day. Coincidentally, those test scores may not reflect well on Democratic leaders across the state.

According to EdSource, the California Department of Education is withholding the scores from its Smarter Balanced tests so that they can be released at the same time as other data on the California School Dashboard. There is no good reason for this, and in fact, it is a break in precedent. EdSource notes that since the department began releasing those results in 2015, it has been consistently released before other dashboard data, ranging from releases in the last week of August to the first week of October...

It isn’t hard to see why Democrats would want to stall the release of test scores until after Election Day. The school closures and restrictions handed down by Democrats at the state and local levels dramatically set students back, and all the data show this. The 2020-21 test results found that scores “declined significantly” after “five straight years of gradual improvement,” according to EdSource. The achievement gap between white and Asian students on the one hand and black and Hispanic students on the other also widened thanks to closures, which affected students in poorer communities the most.

Is This Helping Mother Earth?

A couple months ago I wrote about mandatory composting here in California.  Yes, that's right, mandatory composting.  To limit methane from landfills, or something.

So I've been composting.  Here's a picture from this morning:

A couple weeks of composting--a couple apple cores and a lot of loose-leaf tea.  In a 3-gallon bag.

The bags haven't ever lasted more than about 15 days, they deteriorate quickly so I'll have to dispose of this very soon.  The bag is a bigger waste than whatever methane we're supposedly saving.

You're welcome, Gaia.

Are They Really Doing What's Best For Kids?

If I were designing a school, I wouldn't focus on teaching kids to think the world's out to get them while simultaneously not teaching them skills and knowledge they'll need to succeed in that world:

A “woke” California high school that boasts of having a “Social Justice Academy” has scored a dismal 19 percent math proficiency rate.

San Leandro High School’s “Social Justice Academy” is a three-year “rigorous” and “career-themed” program.

The program is aimed at 10th, 11th, and 12th graders, according to the academy’s website.

As part of the course, students are required to become activists and advocate for left-wing causes.

However, the school is suffering in more traditional subjects like math, where students are getting appallingly low scores.

Such schools are for the adults, not for the children.

Student Bathroom Use

Yes, if you're a parent and you hear that your child isn't allowed to go to the restroom whenever they need or want to at school, you might blow up and think such policies are insane:

• My children told me some of their teachers are limiting bathroom breaks to 3 to 4 times a semester.

• I thought this was an isolated thing, but I asked parents on Facebook, and it's fairly common.

• Experts say limiting bathroom breaks like this can be both physically and psychologically harmful.

  
  

While I don't limit the number of times my students leave for the bathroom--I have no desire to monitor the pee-pee habits of my students--let me share with you a little justification from the secondary school perspective.

Secondary school students will have anywhere from 4 to 8 classes a day.  If each teacher were to limit bathroom passes (again, I don't, but hear me out) to 3 or 4 a semester, your kid could be leaving class anywhere from 12 to 32 times per semester.  What about breaks between classes?  What about lunchtime?  What about immediately before school and after school?  12 to 32 times per semester.  Leaving class.  Missing out on instruction.  And that's if the teachers are limiting bathroom passes.

At my high school there's no guarantee they're headed to the restroom.  No, we have students whom some of us call roamers--they just walk around campus.  They're not your Advanced Placement students, either, if you get my drift.  Once they leave the classroom I have no control over them, and it's not like our administrators have all sorts of free time to walk the campus to ensure that kids who are supposed to be headed to the bathroom are, in fact, headed to the bathroom.  So these kids roam.  They could be gone 20-30 minutes, I have no control over that because I have to stay in the classroom and teach.  

The idea behind bathroom passes is to keep students in class during class time, and to encourage them to use the restrooms when it's not class time.  Given all the mischief secondary students can get into, that's a reasonable goal.

Parents who have nothing better to do than to squeal when they learn their baby's pee-pee rights are being restricted, I ask this--how can we better achieve both our goals?  How can we minimize the missing of class, ensure students are supervised, not have to extend the school day by having longer breaks (there are state laws about "instructional minutes" per school day and year), and satisfy you that your child isn't going to burst his or her bladder?  I'm seriously asking to work together on this.

And I'm not interested in discussing time-of-the-month or medical issues.  Those are issues that should be dealt with separately, as they're nothing students can control.  I want to discuss the 99% of the time when those aren't the issue, how can we better achieve both our goals?

Because that article linked above just runs fingernails down a blackboard for me.  It made it seem like teachers limit leaving classroom just because they can, there was no recognition of the very legitimate reasons for doing so, and such writing does no service to anyone--except those who want to stir up trouble and acrimony.

Pictures

A couple hours ago my sister texted me for some pictures of nana when she was my sister's age.  I went through a lot of boxes before I finally found something close--nana wanted pictures of us in the 1970s, I wouldn't have that many pictures of her!  It took awhile but I found a couple.

During my search I found some other pictures, and I sent them to interested parties.  It was quite fun.

And then, I found a small wallet-sized picture.  This post is now complete.

A Difference In Treatment

Remember how the press reacted when candidate Todd Akin said that women who had been raped couldn't get pregnant?  Yes, of course it was a stupid comment, and they were right to lambast him for it.

Why don't they do the same when Stacey Abrams says something equally stupid?  Is it because she's black, because she's a woman, or because she's a Democrat?

MSNBC opinion columnist Dr. Esther Choo defended Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams’ recent claims that there is "no such thing" as a fetal heartbeat six weeks into pregnancy, arguing the heartbeat at six weeks is "a social construct that has more to do with the anticipation of future outcomes and little to do with what is actually present."

On Thursday, a clip of Abrams denying that an unborn baby’s heartbeat is present at six weeks went viral on Twitter, shocking pro-lifers. In it, Abrams said, "There is no such thing as a heartbeat at six weeks. It is a manufactured sound designed to convince people that men have the right to take control of a woman's body."

The ultrasound machine manufactures the sound?  

The bias in the press is stunningly obvious.

Update, 9/25/22:  You want more?  Here's more:

We’ve seen 41-year-old Shannon Brandt, who purposely struck and killed 18-year-old Cayler Ellingson. Brandt claimed he thought Ellingson was a “Republican extremist” and admitted to murdering the teenager over a political dispute. Still, a brief search of the websites of CNN, ABC, NBC, and CBS yielded no returns for the name “Shannon Brandt,” and save for conservative media, the story has evaded coverage by national outlets.

The next incident involved the murder of Las Vegas Review-Journal investigative journalist Jeff German. German had been investigating abuse allegations against Public Administrator Robert Telles. Telles had lashed out at German’s reporting several times on Twitter. Shortly after German’s murder, he was arrested and charged with the killing. Yelles, a Democrat, was also an enthusiast for Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), attending her CNN town hall during the 2020 election.

Again, however, Telles’s party identification has all but been erased from national news stories. The media have settled on simply describing Telles as an elected official. In a detailed write-up of the crime and the charges Telles faces, the Associated Press completely omitted his party identification. Top line: Members of the national media are going out of their way to protect a person charged with the murder of one of their own colleagues. It’s a level of professional shamelessness rarely seen for an industry already well known for protecting Democrats.

Still, these are two specific and exceptionally serious incidents that occurred after the sitting president called for a full-frontal press against his political opponents — opponents, it should be noted, whom he openly described as unpatriotic extremists. But neither Biden nor his administration has been made to answer for this dark rhetoric. Either targeted political rhetoric leads to violence and even death, as our media dutifully warned for years, or it doesn’t. But it cannot be both.

If it weren't for double standards they'd have no standards at all.

Intentionally Insulting Your Guests

Recently we had the fake racial slurs that were supposedly from a BYU fan to a black volleyball player from Duke.  Didn't happen.

Then there were the real slurs at Oregon against BYU.  At least UO had the decency to apologize for the conduct of its fans.

But how can you justify a university's decision that can only be seen as an attack on an opponent school:

The University of Massachusetts is planning to hold a Pride Day on the same day that the Minutemen host evangelical Liberty in a football game.

The school made the “special announcement” Sunday on Twitter in a 37-second video featuring techno music and a uniformed player standing in a room lit by rainbow colors associated with the LGBTQ community. It ends showing how to get tickets for the Oct. 8 game.

Liberty, which started as a Baptist college under founder Jerry Falwell in 1971, has evolved into a conservative, evangelical university in Lynchburg, Virginia, that places restrictions on its students’ behavior, including monitoring behaviors in its male- and female-only residence halls.

Such poor taste.  I guess sportsmanship isn't a thing anymore.

Inadvertently Revealing "An Inconvenient Truth"

Aren't they admitting that black and brown people are often the thieves?

San Francisco crime has skyrocketed since 2020 and bike theft has grown into an epidemic in the Golden City. In response the San Francisco Bike Coalition wrote on their "considerations" section of their website that victims of bike theft should reconsider calling the police as "Black and brown" people could be harmed from the interaction.

Why do you want to protect thieves merely because of their skin color?  They’re freakin’ thieves, they should be busted.

The San Francisco Bike Coalition minds are so open their brains are falling out.

More of the Strange and Gross From Canada

In this recent post I said that there's something very dark and very sick going on in Canada, and here's another data point:

A Canadian high school has said it would be illegal to criticize and stop a trans teacher from wearing huge prosthetic breasts in class. 

Kayla Lemieux, a Manufacturing Technology teacher at Oakville Trafalgar High School in Ontario, was recently pictured instructing a shop class with the large prosthetics on, which stretch her clothing and stick out prominently.

Despite the heavy backlash and reports that some students are skipping class, The Halton District School Board defended the teacher and said it would no longer answer questions about the issue because it was a 'personnel matter.' 

The district also claimed that interfering or criticizing the teacher would go against the Ontario Human Rights Code. 

Lest you think people are making too much of this, here's a picture of the shop teacher from the same link above:

 

I read today that this "style" comes from a specific type of Japanese anime porn, the translation of which is something like "exploding milk" porn.  Others have challenged that translation.  If you're ok with seeing anime porn images, here is what I get from a Google search of "exploding milk porn anime".  Google as yet hasn't started blocking these images so as to discredit the translation, but I will tell you there are many anime pictures of women with unnatural sized breasts in such pics.  But let's be honest, whatever you call it, should a person dressed like the one above be teaching school?

Who's more sick, the teacher or the school board that defends such sickness?

Update, 9/26/22:  I've read that it's possible that the shop teacher is actually the good guy here: 

Is Lemieux actually an undercover conservative activist engaging in the Alinskyite tactic, “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules”? Is he exposing the utter folly of the transgender craze with his “gender identity expression”?

I have no idea if that's true or not, but if it is:  TROLL LEVEL: NUCLEAR.  If not: cuckoobird.

On This Date In History, 9/21/22

Ever wonder why Benedict Arnold is a traitor?

Distinguished American combat officer Benedict Arnold met a British commander in secret with a plot to trade the colonial stronghold at West Point for cash on this day in history, Sept. 21, 1780.

Perhaps, In Their Green-Induced Darkness, They Couldn't See A Map

CNN reports:

Descending up to 40 meters beneath the Baltic Sea, the world's longest immersed tunnel will link Denmark and Germany, slashing journey times between the two countries when it opens in 2029.

As you can see, Denmark and Germany already share a land border.

 

I can't imagine it takes very long at all to cross a land border :-)

What A Messed Up System

After school today I was talking to a couple of teachers and a counselor, and the counselor said that she'd really like to be a fly on the wall during one of our math department meetings.  I asked why she didn't just come, that we'd love to have a counselor there.  From there the conversation veered to why she would want to attend--so she could explain, for example, why the counselors sometimes put students who haven't yet passed Integrated Math 1 (the 9th grade level math class) into an Integrated Math 2 class.

Here's the logic:  California requires students to pass 2 years of math, including either Algebra 1 (traditional track) or Integrated 1 (integrated track), in order to graduate.  A few years ago our school board decided that for students to graduate from our district, they should pass 3 years of math including at least Integrated 2.  A student who has failed Integrated 1 multiple times, for example, could take Integrated 1 in a "credit recovery" course and, if they pass that and Integrated 2 (and another class), they could graduate on time.

Another math teacher and I scoffed at that logic, and the counselor replied, "What else are we supposed to do?"

A lengthy give and take ensued.  We math teachers explained how, in Integrated 2, we don't teach Integrated 1 topics, that we assume they've already been taught and move on and cover the Integrated 2 topics.  Sure, there might be a brief review sometimes, but the days of "spiraling back" are gone; now, we endeavor to teach to mastery and then move on.  A student who doesn't know Integrated 1 material will not be able to do Integrated 2 material simply because they don't have the background knowledge.

Math is not like history.  If a student learned nothing about the American Revolution, he or she can still learn about the American Civil War.  The former is not a prerequisite for learning the latter.  Math, however, is different, and prior skills and knowledge are necessary for learning and understanding later material.  

Thus, a student who has not passed Integrated 1 doesn't have the skills or knowledge to succeed in Integrated 2.  In fact, it's a horrible thing to do to a child, to put him or her in a class he or she is destined to fail.

We came back to the question, What else are we (counselors) supposed to do?  What interventions do we have?

Our answer was multi-faceted.  First, our counselors need to accept that they are not responsible for students' graduating.  A student who failed Integrated 1 multiple times, for example, most likely has several more failures on the transcript.  And even if they don't, it's the student's responsibility to pass a class, not the teacher's and certainly not a counselor's.  What is a counselor supposed to do in such a situation?  Ensure the student knows the requirements for graduation, and if they don't meet them, to let the student know about our district's Adult Education program.

It's a common refrain in education against strict lecturing--if you're doing most of the talking, the kids aren't learning.  The students need to be involved in their own learning.  I say the same thing for our counselors--if we adults care more about a student's graduating than the student does, if we adults are doing more to get a kid to graduate than the kid does, then that situation is out of whack.  But that's exactly what education is like today.  Kids aren't doing well--what are you going to do about that, teacher?  Around a decade ago, math scores in this country stopped going up--about the same time Common Core standards were adopted by most states.  We've changed how we teach--guide on the side, not sage on the stage; stop giving so much homework; change from traditional courses to integrated courses; focus on race; do group learning--and scores were flat.  They started dropping again after the 'rona shutdowns.  We kept focusing on the teacher input, to no avail.  Not focusing on the student side of the equation seems like a serious omission, doesn't it?

This brought us to the topic of what supports and/or interventions do we have?  In addition to before-school tutoring, lunchtime tutoring, and after-school tutoring, we also have a "credit recovery" program.  When it was asked why we didn't have other courses, we said flatly, "They haven't worked."  We used to have a Math Foundations (way below grade level) class, it wasn't shown to help students pass Integrated 1.  We used to have a Support class that students took concurrently with Integrated 1, it wasn't shown to help students pass Integrated 1.  Long before we switched to the integrated track we had a pre-algebra course, it wasn't shown to help students pass Algebra 1.  We split Algebra 1 into a 2-year course, Algebra 1a and 1b, and it wasn't shown to help students pass Algebra 1.  We adults made all these changes, as if we're the party responsible for getting students to pass.  In other words, we expected less and less of students, and we got less and less from them. 

What do we conclude from that?  That our math teachers are incompetent?  Or that some students won't help themselves?  Yes, it's kind of self-serving, but I lean towards Option B.  And our counselors should not shoulder the responsibility of getting a kid to graduate.  They need to keep students informed about the requirements, and help students navigate those requirements--but putting a kid in a class with no preparation, just so we can say "we gave them a change to graduate", is the lousiest of so-called solutions.  It does no service to the failing student.

It would be easy to read this post and conclude I want students to fail.  Anyone who's read more than a few of my posts knows I'm a conscientious teacher who takes my job seriously.  I'm reflective about the work I do and constantly seek out ways I can do my job better.  None of that, however, detracts from a student's responsibility to learn something and demonstrate that learning.  I'll be blunt--we don't expect much in the way of learning in order to get a diploma.  In fact, I'd say you have to try, hard, not to graduate.  Many students go that route, however, and at some point we have to accept that students have a "right" to fail.  And unless we're just going to pass out diplomas like candy, and take away what little meaning they have left, we have to accept that some will fail.  And we cannot wear that as a cross, it's not our burden.  In fact, constantly looking for new ways for adults to lower standards in order to get kids to pass and graduate merely makes it easier for kids to put in less effort and to learn less--and that should not be our goal in education.

Goodhart's Law is in play here.  The focus on graduation rates has made the statistic meaningless.

I don't know for sure how the counselor felt about our discussion at the end of it, but I am quite confident that the suggestions and advice we gave were correct.

Update, 9/20/22:  I failed to include my favorite "get kids to pass" requirement in some schools--the lowest grade you can give on an assignment, even if the student doesn't turn it in, is 50%.  Yes, seriously, that's a thing.

Why Would You Teach A Disadvantaged Child That The World Hates Them?

Sometimes a post comes along that's so perfect, the essence distilled to such a pristine form, that there's no sense in quoting from it, you just link to it and encourage others to read it.  And with that:

Why would you teach a disadvantaged child that the world hates them

Read it, and whilst doing so, think about the soft bigotry of low expectations.

The Very Definition of Corruption

The state is going to pay your union dues for you?  What possible legitimate reason could there be for this?

California union members could receive tax credits to reimburse a portion of their dues payments under a bill awaiting Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signature. Assembly Bill 158, approved by the Legislature in June, doesn’t specify the size of the credits for most dues-payers. The bill instead sets out lawmakers’ intent to provide $400 million worth of the credits starting in 2024. It asks the state Franchise Tax Board to develop proposals for how much money union members might be able to get back — calculated as a percentage of their dues — with a $400 million allocation.

Franklin Roosevelt wasn't right about much, but even he was right about public sector unions--he was strongly against them.

Honestly, I Would Advise Against It.

Want to Become a Teacher in California? Here's What You Need to Know

A Small Victory Over Stupidity

Last year, shortly before school started, one of our math teachers left.  As we were not able to fill the position for over a month, the students in those classes went through a series of substitutes.  When we finally got a full-time teacher in there, the classes were essentially feral.

The teacher we got was very young.  He had been an instructional assistant at another school and thus had to get an emergency credential.  He had no real teaching experience.  It was a gamble, but we needed a permanent body in that classroom.

I won't say things went smoothly, but he worked hard.  I don't recall that he ever once complained.  He asked for lots of help and we gave it to him.  He finished the school year under threat of not being hired back, but come this past August our math department was elated to find that he was coming back to us.

Now he's in a credentialing program and he needs an on-site mentor.  Our principal sent out a request to our department--and we all declined to be the mentor teacher.  Why, you ask?  Because one of the requirements of being a mentor teacher is the completion if 8 hours of training.  There is almost nothing you could offer me to induce me to sit through 8 hours of blah blah blah, and every other math teacher felt the same way.  We'll do anything else for this teacher on site, but we're not going suffer idiocy just so there's a name on his paper.

Apparently, the need was getting critical.  He needed an on-site mentor.  I don't know if the call was put out to all the rest of the teachers at school, but as of this morning he still needed a mentor teacher.  Time seemed to be of the essence.

My principal emailed me today and asked if I'd agreed to do it.  I replied that I had not, that I wasn't going to suffer 8 hours of so-called training.  The reply was, "ok".  I didn't say so, but the fact that I am already working with a student teacher from a nearby university--and doing so without 8 hours of training!--must indicate that I have some competence.  But I digress.

I emailed one of our vice principals a little later, and as an aside mentioned that I got the impression that the principal felt let down.  Later in the day I got a reply from the vice principal:  I'm the mentor teacher, and the training requirement has been waived for me.

I'm going to call this a small victory for common sense.

This Is What California's Governor Wants California To Be Known For

Remember when even abortion supporters said that abortion should be safe, legal, and rare?  Wow, those were the days, weren't they?

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) announced Thursday that his reelection campaign had paid for billboards in seven other states promoting abortion tourism to the Golden State in protest at those states’ conservative policies restricting abortion.

Some of the billboards are adorned with a passage from the New Testament: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31).

Newsom, who has made abortion a main focus of his campaign as he expands his message to a nationwide audience, has begun to market California as a destination for those denied abortions elsewhere.

He thinks the Biblical reference helps.  He pretends that the "clump of cells" he wants to kill is not a separate human, with its own DNA.

Liberalism is a mental disorder.

Let's Hope This Is A One-year Blip

I plan to retire in 5 years and I need there to be plenty of money in the State Teachers Retirement System:

For the first time since the Great Recession in 2008, the California State Teachers’ Retirement System had a negative return on investments for the year ending June 30.

CalSTRS, which provides retirement benefits for nearly a million current teachers and retirees, saw a minus 1.3% return on its portfolio. The year-end value of the portfolio dropped $8.6 billion to $301.6 billion as a result. The loss followed a record yearly investment gain in 2020-21 of 27.2%, CalSTRS reported.

Brilliant Minds Think Alike

My school is undergoing its accreditation visit this year, and we're doing all sorts of meeting and talking and organizing in order to be ready.  At our last such meeting we met in various groups and came up with what we think the school does well, today we were to come up with a list of things where we need some improvement.  Our group came up with an interesting list, and I was sure that some of the things on that list were merely my pet peeves and maybe a few others'.

At the end of the meeting our group leader typed our comments into the shared document, and then called me over.  As it's a shared document, he could see what the other groups had come up with, and one group had already added its comments.

Their comments mirrored ours almost to a T.  I feel kind of vindicated.

This Is Not Justice

I have a hard time finding fault in this girl, and her punishment just adds salt to the wound:

An Iowa teenage sex trafficking victim who stabbed her rapist to death was sentenced by a judge on Tuesday to five years of closely supervised probation and must pay $150,000 restitution to her abuser's family.

Pieper Lewis, 17, stabbed her abuser, 37-year-old Zachary Brooks, more than 30 times in June 2020. She was initially charged with first-degree murder. 

Last year, Lewis pleaded to involuntary manslaughter and willful injury, both of which were punishable by up to 10 years in prison. However, Polk County District Judge David Porter deferred those prison sentences on Tuesday, meaning Lewis could serve 20 years if she violates her probation.

Porter said he ordered Lewis to pay restitution to Brooks' family because the court was "presented with no other option." He explained that the restitution is mandatory under Iowa law...

Iowa is not among the dozens of states with a safe harbor law that gives trafficking victims some level of criminal immunity.

Update, 9/15/22:  This somewhat restores my faith in humanity:

A fundraiser to help an Iowa teen pay $150,000 in restitution to the family of an alleged rapist she killed has collected more than double its goal.

The GoFundMe account for 17-year-old Pieper Lewis has raised more than $378,833 from over 10,000 donors as of Thursday afternoon – after the court-ordered payment sparked national outrage.