Enormous Amounts of Money Flow into the Bottomless Education Pit
Enormous Amounts of Money Flow into the Bottomless Education Pit
This article originally appeared on frontpagemag.com Spurred by the Covid panic, schools have been the recipient of ungodly sums of money. And it’s not as if the beast was starving before. To put things into perspective, the U.S. spends about $800 billion on national defense, more than China, Russia, India, the U.K., France, Saudi...
By Larry Sand
Education Exodus
Education Exodus
Parents are abandoning schools in large numbers, but teachers are not. School reopening time is almost upon us, and large numbers of parents have opted out of government-run schools. Over the past two school years, k-12 enrollment has declined by nearly 3%, or about 1.3 million students nationwide, according to a recent study by the American...
By Larry Sand
Do Teachers Really Need a Union?
Do Teachers Really Need a Union?
Educators don’t get much for their $1,200 yearly dues. In the aughts, after blindly being a dues-paying National Education Association member for years, I opened my eyes, and discovered that I’d been wasting my money. The teachers unions were primarily about politics, all of which went in a leftward direction. One in-your-face example at the...
By Larry Sand
Our Ed School Slums
Our Ed School Slums
Many American schools of education are not worthy of existing. On June 29, the California Department of Education, in cooperation with the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing and the State Board of Education, announced the first-ever release of statewide teacher assignment data. The report revealed that as of the 2020-21 school year, “83.1 percent of teacher...
By Larry Sand
Supreme Court Decision Advances Educational Freedom
Supreme Court Decision Advances Educational Freedom
SCOTUS declares that if a state subsidizes private education, it cannot disqualify religious schools. The latter case revolves around Maine’s town tuitioning law, which allows parents living in districts that do not own and operate elementary or secondary schools to send their children to public or private schools in other areas of the state, or even...
By Larry Sand
The Enduring Teacher Shortage Myth
The Enduring Teacher Shortage Myth
“Many teachers have left the profession and gone into other work of various kinds because they could make more money. Frequently the best teachers are the ones who have left the profession because they have been able to command exceptional salaries elsewhere.” (H/T Tom Gantert.) The above quote is taken from the front page of the...
By Larry Sand
School Choice and Segregation: Fact and Fiction
School Choice and Segregation: Fact and Fiction
According to a study released in mid-May by The Century Foundation, a progressive think tank, “one in six students attend a school where over 90% of their peers were of the same race in the 2018-19 school year.” The publication of the report was timed to mark the 68th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme...
By Larry Sand
The Unraveling of Education in America
The Unraveling of Education in America
It’s no secret that education in America has been in bad shape for some time, and now, low student proficiency has been exacerbated by the hysterical response to the Covid outbreak. Most recently, the results of a Harvard University study, which investigated the role of remote and hybrid instruction in widening gaps in achievement by...
By Larry Sand
Vergara: Ten Years In The Rearview
Vergara: Ten Years In The Rearview
This article originally appeared in For Kids and Country. It has been a decade since the landmark Vergara lawsuit was filed, and its denial in the courts has led to ongoing failure in California schools. Back in 1975, I lost my 6th-grade teaching position in New York City. As a newbie, it was explained to...
By Larry Sand
Don’t Buy into SEL
Don’t Buy into SEL
This article originally appeared in For Kids and Country. Social Emotional Learning (SEL) was always a bad idea, and now that it is politicized, it’s a nightmare. As a longtime teacher, I have seen firsthand that education is a fad-filled field. Culturally responsive education, inventive spelling, new math, experiential learning, balanced literacy, etc. are educational...
By Larry Sand
Are Private Sector Unions Passé?
Are Private Sector Unions Passé?
This article originally appeared in For Kids and Country. Union membership is way down, and their collective future is not rosy. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released its annual report on union membership in January, and the results were not pretty for organized labor. There are 50,000 fewer union members in the private sector than in...
By Larry Sand
TK is Not Okay
TK is Not Okay
This article was originally on For Kids and Country. In California, parents are abandoning the k-12 system, college enrollment is down, and now the state is trying to lure 4-year-olds to transitional kindergarten. According to just released data from the California Department of Education, the state has lost 110,000 students this school year, and has fewer...
By Larry Sand
California School Exit
California School Exit
California’s traditional public schools are not doing their job, and parents are opting out. With sky-high taxes, a sieve-like southern border, and an ongoing flow of nutty regulations – one law targets cow flatulence, for example – California really doesn’t need any more bad news. But according to a recent report, the state now leads the...
By Larry Sand
Mask Theater Is Alive and Well in Los Angeles
Mask Theater Is Alive and Well in Los Angeles
Guess who’s leading the drive to keep children masked? This article was originally featured in FrontPageMag. State officials announced last week that as of March 12, California will no longer require school children to wear masks, and thankfully most California school districts are going along with the decision. Also, the Los Angeles County Department of Public...
By Larry Sand