Youngkin Says Report on ‘Honesty Gap’ Points to Decline in Virginia Schools

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Achieve pushes “competency-based pathways.”

I say we need more critical thinking in schools, more holistic approaches.

Conservatives hate that idea because they won’t win future elections if voters think critically. So they push things like “competency based pathways.”

What you characterize as "critical thinking" is understood by many to mean the indoctrination of younger students with a particular set of political views by teachers who do not seek to explore multiple perspectives. "Comptency-based pathways" at least connotes learning things that will help graduates earn a living wage.

Yes, I am aware of the twisted narrative.

The difference is like the difference between teaching liberal arts in college or attending trade school. The most successful people in society today have a liberal arts/critical thinking background. It’s actually the opposite of indoctrination because it teaches students to challenge authority, which includes what is being taught.

The “just learn skills” crowd only wants students to know how to change a light fixture or repair a car or program a computer. It doesn’t want anyone seeing the forest for the trees. Because then people might second-guess voting for conservative politicians who promote policies that are bad for them. It makes them more prone to acquiescence.

This has been in the works for 30+ years in public education. What we’re seeing now is next level, however.

That's a lot to unpack.

It's not like students who just have liberal arts degrees graduate and set the world on fire. Many can barely find decent employment, and the higher-paid liberal arts graduates often are those who've gone on to attend graduate or professional schools, which may not be a financial option for many students.

As for whether "critical thinking" is being encouraged, it's notable that the School Board has been exploring, if it has not already adopted, revisions to an existing "controversial issues" policy that required teachers to consider presenting competing perspectives, which would be consistent with encouraging students to develop their own views, to instead allow teachers to advocate in classrooms for a particular point of view. That would be fine if students already had the so-called "critical thinking" skills to challenge their teachers, but in practice it may lead to race and class-centered indoctrination.

Finally, as for the suggestion that "competency-based pathways" boil down to "just learn skills," that would be unfortunate if it were all that it entailed. At least some conservatives want to ensure all students are receiving an education in what used to be called "civics" that entails gaining an understanding of the basics about, for example, the three branches of the federal government (executive, legislative, and judicial) and a federal system (under which certain powers are exercised by the federal government, while others are reserved to the states). That type of education can make for an informed citizenry and electorate, not one that only learns vocational training.

Certainly it would be preferable to some of what currently happens in FCPS, where multiple schools (including some where students might benefit the most from additional vocational pathways) instead have International Baccalaureate programs that purport to develop "global citizens," but are poorly subscribed, treat the United States as just one of many countries around the world, fail to cover basic "civics," and graduate few students on track to receive an IB diploma.

To “unpack” your response, one has to dispute the premises you lay out.

1) The notion that “it’s not like those who just have a liberal arts degree have set the world on fire” or cannot find decent employment is simply unsupported by the facts. In fact, it’s a lazy trope. Yes, many go on to get professional degrees or certifications but the liberal arts background equipped them to do so and succeed in those environments. Others become entrepreneurs or find gainful employment in major corporations, which value the ability to think and make connections. Continuous education is necessary for anyone who wishes to succeed and progress in a career — same for trades. But it’s not true that liberal arts graduates are barely employable. Are there some? Sure — there are always outliers. Just like there are crappy plumbers who can’t hold a job.

2) The notion that teachers “advocate” a point of view on controversial subjects is similarly unsupported. That’s some straight up bullshit you have lapped up from propaganda outlets like the Federalist or Washington Examiner or any number of right wing publications masquerading as news. I have known literally hundreds of teachers in my life and none of them do this. It’s a complete and bizarre fantasy of conservatives that this happens — my guess many are confusing the lack of parroting about their own world view in the classroom with “indoctrination.” In other words, they’re complaining about the omission of right-wing dogma in schools. And again, there may be anecdotes here and there of outliers or nutty teachers who have, but in general, teachers are following a state-approved curriculum with accountability in the form of things like SOLs — there’s no time for “indoctrination.” The kids are learning reading, writing, arithmetic. They are also learning how to be citizens and basic society skills like empathy, equity, tolerance, etc. This is important because they might not be learning these concepts at home and society needs for them to know them in order to function. This is essential to that basic “civics” you mention.

We need *More* emphasis on global citizens, not less. We live in a globalized economy. The more holistically we can help our children think and disabuse them of the notion of things like American exceptionalism (teach the concept, but don’t indoctrinate them to the jingoism), the better.

New poster here.

Can anyone explain what exactly "critical thinking" is? How do the schools teach it? How do you transfer the critical thinking skills taught in a controlled environment (classroom) to use it in other subjects and in the world?

Critical thinking & problem solving are thrown around a lot nowadays, but many schools don't even know what critical thinking is, left along teaching it. My kid's principal avoided telling me what he thinks critical/logical/analytical thinking is, or giving me an example of a problem to problem solve or to think critically of.

Regarding teachers discussing/debating controversial topics in classes, it is simply impossible as human beings to be completely neutral on topics they are biased or passionate about. Can anybody guarantee to provide a list of equal good & bad things done for this country by Obama (if you are the extreme right,) or by Trump (if you are the extreme left)? When you are biased on either sides, it becomes what other people called 'indoctrination'.

I’ll bite.

Statement: The sky is blue.

Critical thinking: Where is/which part of the sky blue? Is it always blue? What makes the sky blue? can anything make it bluer? Do contrails from airplanes take away the color? Is the sky bluer at different elevations?

Basically- Don’t take anything for granted, ask questions about why something is. Take a new perspective and ask questions from that point of view. Did anything change? Explain the factors that make you think something.

Conservatives who want their kids to take the Bible at it’s word, don’t always take kindly to it because then their kids might question their faith.

+1000

[Anonymous]

https://wallethub.com/edu/e/states-with-the-best-schools/5335

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:This report came out over a month ago and was challenged at the time as misleading.

https://bluevirginia.us/2022/05/va-senate-dems-rip-youngkin-education-report-as-a-joke-dog-whistle-talking-points-outright-lie-supported-by-cherry-picked-data-and-warped-perspective

Didn’t it bother you at all that the content in your link is lacking in, uh, content? The data is cherry picked, how? Misleading how? Inaccurate how?

On the national assessment, the term "proficient" is used to indicate a score that is above grade level. The term "basic" is used to refer to a score that indicates grade level. Youngkin and his ed dept deliberately conflated the two terms to make it look like virginia students are not at grade level. The national exam scores do in fact match the SOL scores once you realize that "basic" means grade level and "proficient" means above grade level.

This is one example. Also citing "the number of homeschooled students jumped 56 percent in the 2020-2021 school year. That same year, the report says, 3,748 public-school students transferred to private schools in Virginia." as if that's indicative of some sort of trend because of educational performance of the public school education system, rather than acknowledging it's entirely driven by the realities of an evolving unprecedented-in-our-time global pandemic, and our underfunded schools not being able to realistically support in-person learning during that period of time, and so many parents with the means to temporarily pursue other options choosing to do so. Would be interesting to see how the number of 2022-23 homeschooled students compares to the number from 2020-21... if it has dropped (as I'm sure it has), does that mean our schools are now suddenly beacons of competence and that the concept of homeschooling is on the decline? Or is it just a correction of the equally anomalous 2020-21 blip that had nothing at all to do with long-term trends?

As the PP in the post above yours, and also a parent that switched to private last year, it had nothing to do with sol scores. I think our public is horrible, but it's mainly BECAUSE of the focus on testing, so Youngkin's implication that more focus on tests is needed is just more of the same thing that makes our public schools so bad to begin with. I'm also a teacher who knows exactly why our schools are so bad, and no tests are going to improve the problem. We need smaller class sizes, better administrators, and less bureaucracy. We need to test less and teach more (testing actually takes up so much time that we lose instructional time). We also need better curriculum - the current VA curriculum is a random bunch of nonsense that no one needs to know and none of the kids will remember anyway. The math instruction is atrocious, and the reading instruction is non-existent.

We'll come back to public when we can't afford private any more, and not a minute sooner.

I’m curious. I also teach in VA. What parts of the curriculum are a “random bunch of nonsense”?

Mostly social studies, but the math curriculum also contains a lot of unimportant - nonexistent, in fact - items that aren't even math much less useful knowledge. When I was a teacher I knew the match curriculum was pretty bad, but I never gave much thought to the rest until I sent my own child to private school and saw the difference. While kids in public learn things like what some Indian tribe ate for breakfast, or a bunch of names and dates of minor events and people (which they will forget as soon as the SOL is over), in private my kid actually gained an understanding of world history, the different types of governments and economies, and he can't remember the dates of everything that happened but he understands the narrative of history and the cause and effect of major conflicts and revolutions around the world. He also went from AP math in public to barely passing in private, because while he knew all the algorithms and formulas, he had no real understanding of how mathematics works and how to go about problem-solving if he didn't have a ready formula to apply.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Poster at 13:02.

All people did was generalizing the opposite political parties. Nobody told me how the schools can teach critical thinking and how to apply that skill across the board. I'm aware of Socratic questioning method. But how do you teach the students what questions to ask, especially when they don't have the background knowledge? How do you teach them which statements to question (theory) and which one not to (law/background knowledge)? What are the goals are they seeking from those questions? To find the truth? What if there is no truth? How do you teach them to search & to evaluate the evidences, peer-review researches or their data on topics you are not familiar with? How do you teach them the tools of logic reasoning and how to use those tools?

Is there a program that teaches those? Do you mind sharing the programs you or your schools use?

As a former public school teacher and a college professor I can tell you from experience that it is very difficult to teach critical thinking skills to people who have never been asked - or even allowed - to think critically before or to question what a teacher tells them. Or to question anything any adult says or which they read in a book. In first year college courses I used to get a lot of top high school performers and many of them were shocked when they immediately bombed the first few assignments because they were trying to regurgitate what I had told them in class and say what they thought I wanted to hear instead of thinking for themselves. It was a real battle to get a lot of them to come up with a single original thought.

But I know why they are like that, because at one time I also taught in K-12, in elementary and middle. Not only is any kind of critical thinking discouraged (except the exact critical thinking the teacher wants them to do), but obedience is prized above all else. And it's no wonder, since teachers themselves are treated the same way. How can we expect teachers to teach kids to question and think for themselves, when teachers are not allowed to do the same? As a teacher I was treated like a child - told what to teach, how to teach it, and even given lines I was supposed to memorize and say in certain situations. We were supposed to be like robots to the greatest extent possible, accepting everything that came down from administrators and others and never contributing anything original or questioning anything, even the most nonsensical policies.

So the idea that teachers can teach critical thinking in the current k-12 system is a joke, because any critical thinking ability a teacher has is going to be drummed right out of him/her pretty quickly. If not, the teacher won't last long.

[Anonymous]

It seems to be the opposite in the earlier grades (K-4) for math. They spend a lot of time on multiple ways of doing things and conceptual understanding without ensuring the kids are proficient in basic facts and procedures. That catches up with kids later. It's hard to think critically later without early foundational skills.

[Anonymous]

Young in is right. His honest open approach is a refreshing change.

He actually cares about our children and their education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Young in is right. His honest open approach is a refreshing change.

He actually cares about our children and their education.

Nah anyone who starts talking about an “honesty gap” is using inflammatory language and trying to throw stones rather than deal with a problem. That kind of language is designed to manipulate people into believing him. Clearly it can be effective.