Psyched! He's closing the Department of Education in Washignton DC

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

He is going to do to the jewel of the country what he did at Trump U.

so sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hopefully if the DOE is disbanded schools can go back to enforcing discipline. So many teachers are quitting because they are tired of being attacked, tired of witnessing out of control students facing no discipline, tired of watching two or three students completely ruin the classroom environment so no one can learn.

One student shouldn't hold a class hostage so that 20 to 30 kids don't learn that day because one student has a tantrum and is allowed to destroy a classroom and assault their teacher and classmates.

Right now ALL public schools are REQUIRED to report information to the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC). The CRDC measures student access to courses, programs, Internet and devices, instructional and other staff, and resources – as well as school climate factors such as student discipline, use of restraint and seclusion, harassment or bullying, and offenses occurring at schools.

In theory this seems like it is a good idea but it is out of control. They report things like more boys are suspended from school and that shouldn't be happening. Well, that is who causes the majority of the issues that result in suspension.

If any one race has lower or higher stats, that gets flagged so there are ridiculous statements like, "American Indian or Alaska Native students, Black students, White students, and students of two or more races were overrepresented in referrals to law enforcement and school-related arrests in public schools. (Figure 5)". So schools then worry about reporting anyone even though the statistics are not so out of whack.

There are pages and pages of information on every category. For example, the report goes on to say in this area "Black students represented 15% of total K-12 student enrollment, but 18% of students who were referred to law enforcement, and 22% of students subjected to school-related arrests.
• White students represented 46% of total K-12 student enrollment, but 55% of students who were referred to law enforcement, and 47% of students subjected to school-related arrests."

Here is another stat: "Black boys and girls, White boys, and boys of two or more races attending public schools were overrepresented in suspensions and expulsions".

So schools in response don't want to get flagged so there is no discipline. If there are zero suspensions then a school can't be found to have any category of student overrepresented.

I wouldn't miss this, or all the testing and reporting there. But he simultaneously claims he will prevent schools from teaching anything regarding DEI or CRT or racism, or even really slavery, so I'm not convinced we aren't entering into a whole new, but just as bad, type of reporting and interference.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:My main takeaway from this election is our citizens have no idea how our government functions it’s any level.

This thread is solid evidence of that.

Even though it's an innocent typo, the fact that the OP misspelled "Washington" in the thread title feels soooooo on the nose here.

The Department of Education spends about $200 million a year on research intended to improve educational practice. No evidence exists that these expenditures have done any significant good.

I’d say the evidence suggests that they make things worse. Honestly, if you put me in charge I could do better with one sentence: “Copy what Massachusetts is doing to the best of your ability”.

Instead we get educational consultants with EDs with no actual idea how to teach coming up with new ideas every couple of years.

Teachers union and a wealthy population

A lot more than that. They have very high standards, much smaller school districts. Poor kids in Massachusetts do better than poor kids everywhere else. Even corrected for student demographics, Massachusetts is #1 in the country based on the NAEP. If Massachusetts was a country, they would be one of the highest scoring in the world on the PISA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

He is going to do to the jewel of the country what he did at Trump U.

so sad.

Wait till schools get threatened with lost accreditation for Free Palestine protests.

We have to take academia back and make it great again right?

[Anonymous]

I've been a teacher for 23 years, and I am a Democrat and Harris supporter.

I honestly don't think Department of Education is very useful. But getting rid of it doesn't get rid of the mandates that were passed by Congress and funded by Congress.

It just would get rid of the people who would oversee those mandates and who would accept applications and process checks to fund the projects.

It'll just be another Trump administration chaotic cluster F--K . You don't just roll on in and SHUT IT ALL DOWN.

Someone on Reddit made an analogy to the utter chaos that happened in their state when they decided to privatize the foster care system but didn't manage the payments to keep the agencies running.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Teachers/comments/1e79gmi/what_would_happen_if_the_department_of_education/?rdt=60682

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've been a teacher for 23 years, and I am a Democrat and Harris supporter.

I honestly don't think Department of Education is very useful. But getting rid of it doesn't get rid of the mandates that were passed by Congress and funded by Congress.

It just would get rid of the people who would oversee those mandates and who would accept applications and process checks to fund the projects.

It'll just be another Trump administration chaotic cluster F--K . You don't just roll on in and SHUT IT ALL DOWN.

Someone on Reddit made an analogy to the utter chaos that happened in their state when they decided to privatize the foster care system but didn't manage the payments to keep the agencies running.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Teachers/comments/1e79gmi/what_would_happen_if_the_department_of_education/?rdt=60682

+I would be fine with some shrinking of staff or a clearly defined process of returning to the states. It takes time at the state level to figure out how they will make up for the loss of money or how they would replace programs.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:You all act like we didn’t have schools prior to the department of Ed’s creation in 1970s. Since its implementation, billions spent and objectively worse educational outcomes across the board.

+1

It’s so bad.

That’s why all the dcum moms fight like heck to send their kids to private schools.

There’s entire forums here dedicated to getting their kids into private schools because public schools are so poorly run, dangerous, etc, and the quality of education so abysmal.

Total hypocrites.

Send your children to public school, run by the DOE. You won’t! You’d rather die.

For the millionth effing time: the Federal DOE does not set curriculums for local schools. If your schools suck it's because of the state or local board, combined with - I'll say it - bad parenting that doesn't value education.

But they do, sort of. For one, DOE created No Child Left Behind, which forced every single public school in every state to make standardized tests the focus of the curriculum, and then report those results to the DOE and face punishment for not scoring high enough. Then they put out Common Core (a curriculum) and forced us all to align with that to one degree or another. The current state of education - abysmal - was nearly entirely shaped by the testing policies of NCLB, which teachers said then and are still saying did tremendous damage to the system, and to students.

This! People don’t understand how devastating this has been to education in the US. It used to be most school kids took standardized tests like the Iowa Test of Basic skills or state created test that had results on percentile ranks so teachers and parents could figure out where their child ranked in reading, spelling, math calculation and math word problems.

Starting in around 2001 the DOR mandated tests where students had ti meet a set standard. But the cut points are ridiculous. Parents don’t get a percentile rank. So many kids don’t pass because it is an arbitrary cut point where passing is fir each grade.

In order to have the maximum number of students pass schools no longer have teachers teach novels. That isn’t tested. Just short passages so all the focus is now on reading short passages. Basic calculation skills are no longer emphasized.

There hasn't been a single standardized test that my kids have taken that they considered hard. If kids can't pass these low bar exams, that's not the fault of teachers and schools. It's the fault of parents who aren't teaching their kids from infancy good habits and later on making sure their kids are doing the work. I'm sure there are many parents like myself who wish that the standardized tests were harder so that it could differentiate better instead of trying to make the lower 25%ile feel better.

I was a teacher. I just want to thank you for making sure that your kids came to school so prepared. We don't need to teach kids like yours anything. In fact, we don't teach them anything, because we are too busy trying to get the unprepared ones up to grade level. Yours get to sit at their desk and read a book quietly, and it's honestly such a relief to have at least a few kids we can ignore. Congrats!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Great. Defund Department of Education. Now I can look forward to even more dummies posting about the Flat Earth and Noah's Ark on my social media feeds. Barf.

How do flat earthers explain airplanes circling the earth? Don't some of them ever take an airplace?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Woohoo! Defund Defund Defund

Send the functions of the Department of Edumacation back to the states!

SO MUCH WINNING

This looks like AI

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Woohoo! Defund Defund Defund

Send the functions of the Department of Edumacation back to the states!

SO MUCH WINNING

Expect state taxes to go up, some income, some property, some gas or all of the above. Someone gotta pay for it.

[Anonymous]

I did not read all the comments but does this mean the whole “inclusion” idea of kids with learning disabilities will be done? When we were growing up there was the special Ed class and then regular class. Do we go back to that?

We have been so fed up with disruptive kids in our public schools we left for private. Will the voucher system come back?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Woohoo! Defund Defund Defund

Send the functions of the Department of Edumacation back to the states!

SO MUCH WINNING

This looks like AI

I guess Trump needs to watch out. Elon can fake anything he wants to, since he has the capability to do and make it go viral.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I did not read all the comments but does this mean the whole “inclusion” idea of kids with learning disabilities will be done? When we were growing up there was the special Ed class and then regular class. Do we go back to that?

We have been so fed up with disruptive kids in our public schools we left for private. Will the voucher system come back?

I’m pretty sure inclusion died on 11/7/24 for everyone except white boys/men with the exception of a few lucky tokens.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I think we will very soon learn that the only thing needed for education is a good teacher, chalk and a black board. Our education system isn't failing because it's not well funded enough. It's failing because these kids have way too many corporate backed distractions.

And we all know that Trump is planning on supporting teachers by increasing their pay and benefits, because that's how you get good teachers.

I can't even type that with a serious face.

Many of the good teachers have already quit or retired because of burnout due to chaos and enforcing woke policies. Many of the newer ones can't even write competently so they have no business grading essays. Arguing for blanket pay raises makes no sense. If you say that only good teachers should get paid more because this will incentivize more competent people to also become teachers, most people will be on board.

How do you measure teacher quality? Standardized tests? Student questionnaire? Admin observation? Student growth? Parent feedback? Who will take on this task? I can see a ton of lawsuits ahead.
It is more than the “woke” stuff that is pushing teachers away from this career. Obnoxious parents, violent students, loads and loads of paperwork, lack of planning time, lack of respect and exhaustion come to mind.

Who cares about teacher quality? The teacher is only there with the kid for several hours. There’s too much grading the graders.

Part of the problem is the micro management and obsession with assessment after assessment. Students shouldn’t take standardized tests outside of the SAT and an entrance exam for magnet programs in high school and kindergarten/nursery school entrance exams.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think we will very soon learn that the only thing needed for education is a good teacher, chalk and a black board. Our education system isn't failing because it's not well funded enough. It's failing because these kids have way too many corporate backed distractions.

No, it's failing because 50% of a class has an ADHD or autism diagnosis with accommodations that require many resources and the other 50% are ESOL kids with parents at home who don't care if their kids learn English as long as they are in school and not needing daycare for 8 hours a day.

If I still had kids at home, there's no way I'd allow them in public school. The minority of kids, those kids without accommodations, are severely disadvantaged and cannot fairly compete with the kids with accommodations, like extra test time.

Exactly. They should be graded separately because they have accommodations. The existence of a 540 or IEP is an acknowledgement that they are not the same as other students, and there's been no study to decide how much extra time or which tool is considered "fair."

That’s just not true. Most kids getting IEPs and 504s have had extensive testing done by Doctors, both at the District’s expense and often the parent’s. The Doctors/PhDs are well aware of recent studies and give pages of explanation, reasoning, and testing in thick documents to the IEP/504 school committees. Many times these professionals will come to the IEP/504 meetings.

My child has a disability and graduated from TJHSST. They were admitted under the old system using the EXACT same requirements as others admitted, and they did very well.
It’s incredibly entitled that you think disabled students are somehow not as intelligent and must be “getting” extra as to why your kid isn’t doing as well. Be glad your kid doesn’t have a disability. If anything, disabled students face a whole host discrimination from teachers and administrators that some how feel entitled to put up road blocks and/or be more difficult to the disabled student to “teach them a lesson” as they don’t feel the student looks “disabled” enough to them. If a parent or student won’t go into a deep personal medical explanation with Ms. Nosy, Ms. Nosy feels it’s ok to be an utter A$$ to the student.

A student with a disability might need extra time on a test because they can’t write as fast due to a serious hand shaking problem, hearing difficulty, vision problem, or a whole host of legitimate reasons. Besides, in many upper level stem classes, either you can answer the question or you can’t….extra time won’t help other than with the physical act of reading & writing the answer down.

However, I do recognize there are parents that magically discover ADHD in their child’s junior year of High school just to get extra time on the SAT so kiddo can go to Harvard. But then again, there are parents that pay $1Million for 4 years of “guidance” for college acceptances. There was whole host of parents paying $15K+ for their kid to get SATs taken for them in the admission scandal.
It seems the same parents screaming “unfair” for disabled students getting accommodations are the same parents that have no problem cheating to get their own kid into T-10 universities…..

The IEP programs are getting abused by UMC parents namely doctors who get letters written for their kid who needs 90 minute accommodations to take a 20 question test. Many people with accommodations don’t really need it