Boots & Sabers

The blogging will continue until morale improves...

Category: Education

Teachers Facing Mass Layoffs Due to Terrible Budget Practices

by | 0927, 12 May 24 | , | 0 Comments

There. I fixed their headline. The “free” covid bonanza allowed school districts across America to delay adjusting staffing for declining enrollment. With the money coming to an end, there is a glut of unfunded and unjustified positions that need to be reduced all at once instead of gradually. If the school districts had managed their staffing to need instead of to available funding, they would all be flush with surpluses and not have this problem.

Schools across the country are announcing teacher and staff layoffs as districts brace for the end of a pandemic aid package that delivered the largest one-time federal investment in K-12 education.

 

The funds must be used by the end of September, creating a sharp funding cliff as schools also struggle with widespread enrollment declines and inflation.

 

Many districts have warned of layoffs as the current school year comes to a close and next year’s budgets are planned. The local headlines about teachers likely won’t help Americans who remain stubbornly pessimistic about the economy feel any better, adding to the challenge President Joe Biden faces to show voters how things are better than they were four years ago.

Government solutions make things worse

by | 0727, 7 May 24 | , | 0 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here you go.

President Joe Biden is continuing his illegal and obvious effort to buy votes by “forgiving” student loans. It is a healthy reminder that government involvement makes everything worse. Let us remind ourselves of how we got here.

 

The cost of college has been increasing for decades far in excess of almost any other major expense. Throughout this period, our culture shifted and parents and K-12 educators pushed more and more kids to college by portraying college as a requirement for future financial stability and personal fulfillment. This characterization is not wrong, but it is also not universal. There are many paths to financial stability and personal fulfillment.

 

As demand for college continued to swell, the prices continued to rise (basic demand curve consequences), and students took on more and more debt to pay for their sheepskin Golden Ticket to the Middle Class. According to The Education Data Initiative, the cost of college has risen by 747.8% since 1963 after adjusting for inflation.

 

Prior to 2010, college students primarily had to get student loans from private financial institutions. In this construct, the private financial institutions were taking a risk loaning tens of thousands of dollars to 18year-olds with no credit history and no current means of paying the loan back. Those institutions generally required a co-signer from a responsible adult before issuing the loan. Private institutions were taking a risk on the future earning potential of college aspirants. The risk and apposite interest rates served as market pressures to limit the amount that students could borrow.

 

In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson pushed for and signed the Higher Education Act. Part of that law was the Guaranteed Student Loan Program or Federal Family Education Loan Program. In this scheme, the federal government became the co-signing guarantor for student borrowers based on a few qualifications. With the federal government guaranteeing the loans, the private financial institutions providing the loans relaxed their requirements and were much more willing to provide more money to students.

 

Demand was rising and the supply of money to meet that demand became easier to get. America’s colleges rose to the challenge by continuing to increase prices to accept the available money supply.

 

Over the decades, the qualifications for the loans guaranteed by the federal government were gradually loosened to allow more students to borrow more money. Between 1965 and 1992, all federally guaranteed loans were subsidized with the taxpayers paying the loan interest while students were still in school. In 1992, the federal government began guaranteeing unsubsidized loans where the student loans would continue to accrue interest for the student to pay back after graduation.

 

In 2005, President George W. Bush signed a law that had the federal government allow higher interest PLUS student loans for graduate students that would also allow them to borrow up to the total cost of attendance.

 

2010 was a pivot point. President Barack Obama signed the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act. This law eliminated the Federal Family Education Loan Program by requiring all federal student loans to be Direct Loans. Effectively, it was a government takeover of student loans as it was no longer economically viable for private financial institutions to compete with the federal government for high-risk borrowers.

 

With the federal government now in charge of student loans, any remaining market pressures to regulate the issuance of debt were eliminated. With an unlimited supply of money, the decision to issue a loan to a student became perfunctory. The people issuing the loans did not care about the risk because it was not their money. The students taking the loans were willing to take as much money as possible. The politicians overseeing the programs were, and are, motivated by political considerations and not economic considerations.

 

We have created a third-party payer system in higher education where the people paying for the service (taxpayers) are paying for an unrelated person (students) to receive a service from provider (colleges). By trifurcating the financial transaction, market forces that might otherwise provide downward pressure on prices or demand are obscured.

 

The result was inevitable. With students able to borrow as much as they want from an unlimited vat of cash, colleges raised prices to capture as much money as possible. According to the Education Data Initiative, College tuition inflation averaged 12% annually from 2010 to 2022. That is twice as fast as tuition was increasing in the previous decade and well above the rate of currency inflation.

 

With the federal government now fully in charge of student loans, political motivations trump economic realities, fairness, and common sense. In a tough election year on the tail end of a disastrous presidency, Biden is willing to violate the law to force the taxpayers to eat the debt of borrowers in order to buy their votes. In doing so, Biden will further exacerbate the problem of rising college costs and debts for short-term political gain.

 

LBJ created the problem by having the federal government guarantee student loans. Obama accelerated the problem by having the federal government take over student loans. Biden is inflaming the problem by effectively having the federal government eliminate loans and just pay for college through debt “forgiveness.”

 

Government intrusion always makes things worse. President Reagan was right. “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”

Abbott Rejects Demands of Hamas Supporters

by | 2135, 5 May 24 | , | 0 Comments

Good.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued a defiant statement Sunday, vowing that the demands made by student protesters at the University of Texas at Austin will “NEVER happen.” The students called for the school to divest itself from companies manufacturing weapons for Israel and demanded the resignation of university President Jay Hartzell.

 

“This will NEVER happen,” Abbott wrote on X about the demands. “The only thing that will happen is that the University and the State will use all law-enforcement tools to quickly terminate illegal protests taking place on campus that clearly violate the laws of the state of Texas and policies of the university.”

Key word in that statement is “illegal.” Protests are fine. People have a right to speak. They do not have a right to infringe on the rights of others.

Also, if these student protestors are so appalled by the fact that the University invests in companies that manufacture weapons for Israel, then why are they helping fund the university through their tuition? They should all immediately withdraw if they are sincere.

Don’t let your regrets be found on a path untraveled

by | 0700, 30 Apr 24 | , | 0 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a look:

Graduation season is upon us. Our youngest two children will accept their college diplomas this year along with thousands of others across the country. As these graduates embark upon the sea of adulthood, I offer five pieces of advice that will serve them well.

 

First, do not have debt. If you have debt, pay it off as soon as possible and do not take any more debt. This might mean living meagerly for some time and making hard choices, but living without debt liberates you from servitude and creates a foundation upon which to build wealth at any income.

 

Without debt, every dollar earned can be spent on savings (for gaining financial freedom), necessities (for a life without want), or giving (to make your community better). You will have to resist the temptations of consumerism and get comfortable with having less than your friends. Work hard, be frugal, save for big purchases, and live beneath your means. Your mental health will be better, and your 40-year-old self will thank you for the financial freedom you gave them.

 

Second, do your own laundry. This is a metaphor to do everything for yourself. You are an adult now. Act like it. Do your laundry. Iron your clothes. Clean the bathroom. Do the dishes. Keep your car maintained. Make the grocery list. Shop for the economical phone plan. Buy birthday and anniversary cards for your family. Make the appointment with the doctor. Go to the dentist twice a year. If you don’t know how to do something, ask or find a YouTube video to show you how.

 

Doing things for yourself is not just about getting the task done. It is about severing dependency from your parents and giving yourself the confidence and self-assurance that only comes from living independently. Even if your parents offer to do something for you, kindly decline their generosity. You will never be respected as an adult until you act like one. Nobody respects the 24-year-old whose mommy does their laundry.

 

Third, travel. Don’t add debt to travel, but travel nonetheless. Drive somewhere. Hike something. If you can, fly somewhere. Take a bus. Take a train. Go alone. Split a room somewhere with friends. Camp. Travel to other places. Meet different people. Eat strange foods. Experience different cultures. Whether it’s a weekend in Memphis or a month in Europe, make travel a priority within your means.

 

Travel is the great teacher. There are things to learn by being somewhere, talking to people, touching things, and experiencing life that cannot be taught from a page or screen. Go educate yourself about the world by being out in it. Break out of your comfort zone or find another one. You will never have another time in your life with as few encumbrances as you have now. Don’t let your regrets be found on a path untraveled.

 

Fourth, work hard. Irrespective of your chosen profession, working hard will always serve you well. Yes, I know it sounds trite and you might think that you work hard already. Work harder. There are only a handful of things that differentiate mediocre employees from exceptional employees. Work ethic is one of those things.

 

Doubtless, your first few jobs out of college will be a grind. As the youngest person on the job, you get the most menial, tedious, grunt kind of work. Do it. Do it well. Do it with pride. Learn to grind. Learn to embrace the suck. Every great career starts with the grind and you don’t get to tell war stories as a seasoned professional at the top of your craft if you don’t put in the grind.

 

Finally, go to church, or synagogue, or temple, or whatever your faith commands. When you are out in the world, you are unmoored from the stable docks of your youth. It can be lonely. At church you will find that stability and a fellowship of people who will help share your burdens. It is also increasingly difficult to make friends as an adult. That is why so many of people’s truly good friends are the ones they met in their youth.

 

From the Christian perspective, which is my own, church also provides that sense of perspective and contentment that will get you through the tough bits. To know that you are adrift in an infinite sea of humanity across time and space, and yet still seen and held precious by your loving Lord is humbling and uplifting. You do not struggle or succeed alone. You are never alone.

 

For the graduates, your age of adolescence is over. Now your age of adulthood begins. Go live it.

 

 

Antisemitic Students Reach Impasse with University

by | 1829, 26 Apr 24 | , , | 16 Comments

This should be easy. Expel them all. Kick them off campus. They can protest on someone else’s time and property.

Student negotiators representing the Columbia encampment said that after meetings Thursday and Friday, the university hadn’t met their primary demand for divestment, although they had made progress on a push for more transparent financial disclosures.

 

“We will not rest until Columbia divests,” said Jonathan Ben-Menachem, a fourth-year doctoral student.

 

Columbia officials had earlier said that negotiations were showing progress, although a heavy police and security presence remained around the campus.

 

“We have our demands; they have theirs,” said Ben Chang, a spokesperson for Columbia University, adding that if the talks fail the university will have to consider other options.

WIAA considers implementing NIL

by | 0724, 25 Apr 24 | , , | 1 Comment

My full column for the Washington County Daily News is below. I was delighted to see that the WIAA rejects NIL in its meeting yesterday. Well done.

On Wednesday, the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association, the voluntary governing body for high school sports in the state, will take up the question of whether high school athletes should be allowed to profit from their name, image, and likeness (NIL) as in college sports. I strongly urge the WIAA to reject this proposal.

 

To date, 31 other states have already allowed NIL in high school sports. Wisconsin’s high school athletic directors, who comprise the membership of the WIAA, have been reluctant to follow suit, but it appears that such reluctance may have been overcome.

 

At issue is the definition of “amateur.”

 

The simple definition is that if one is not directly paid to compete in a sport, then one is an amateur. For decades, high school and college sports insisted that their athletes be true amateurs to preserve the competitive balance of sports. We did not want rich schools to pay professional athletes to dominate a sport. The loophole in the system was that wealthy school supporters would give gifts or highly paid noshow/ low-show jobs to talented athletes to attract them to a particular school. To combat this, the WIAA, NCAA, and other athletic governing bodies banned athletes from profiting from the fact that they are athletes. These governing bodies tended to over-enforce the rules to the point that athletes were wary of even having a regular job for fear of losing their amateur status.

 

A push began several years ago to allow athletes at the college level to profit from their NIL. I was a supporter of this. The rationale is simple. College athletes are adults competing within a highly profitable athletic monopoly and it is unfair for everyone to make money off of their talent except them. The vast majority of college athletes do not receive scholarships and will never compete as professionals. If they can make a few bucks supporting the local car dealership because they are a popular track star at the local college, then we should not stand in their way.

 

The implementation of NIL is currently ruining college sports. Between the transfer portal and lucrative NIL contracts, the competitive and rooting nature of college athletics is being gutted. While I still support NIL for college athletics for the reasons above, it needs significant reform to preserve college sports. The National Collegiate Athletics Association should, for example, reinstitute the rule whereby college athletes must sit on the bench for a year if they transfer to a different school.

 

While I support NIL for college sports, high school sports are different for one significant reason. The athletes are minors.

 

They are dependents of their parents who are responsible for their care. Money made from the athletes’ NIL does not go to the athlete, but to the athlete’s parent or guardian.

 

This fact makes NIL at the high school level take on the attributes of exploitation of a minor rather than freeing the athlete from exploitation.

 

The other movement in sports that corrupts this issue is the spread of legal sports gambling. Americans have always gambled on sports, but it was relegated to shadowy corners of society. We shunned it from the light because of the corrosive nature of gambling on competition. The availability of online sports betting and a growing cultural acceptance has made sports betting a big business and many people participate.

 

The corrosive effect of gambling is already seeping into high school sports. Infusing NIL money and influences into high school athletics will only increase the incentives and abilities of bad actors to corrupt the games.

 

It is not difficult to imagine someone with a betting interest in a high school sport using NIL influence to change the outcomes. We have a long history of cheating on sports to win a bet.

 

It is important for high school athletes to be able to work a job or receive reasonable gifts without jeopardizing their amateur status and ability to compete. The WIAA should work to clarify those rules so that athletes can work and compete without fear. But the WIAA should reject implementing NIL in Wisconsin. The risks to the athletes and their sports are not worth the rewards.

Chancellor Porn Still Being Paid by Taxpayers

by | 1946, 24 Apr 24 | , | 1 Comment

Remember this guy? Wisconsin taxpayers will be paying him for the rest of his life.

The former chancellor, Joe Gow, said Wednesday that interim Chancellor Betsy Morgan filed three charges against him March 29, accusing him of unethical conduct, failing to cooperate with an investigation, and using UW-La Crosse computers to produce pornographic materials.

 

Gow declined to share a letter from Morgan detailing the charges, saying he didn’t want to look as though he is trying to play out his case in the media.

But he said the ethics charge may be connected to his writings in two pornographic e-books. He declined to go into detail. The allegation of failure to cooperate stems from his refusal to speak to an outside law firm investigating the matter without an attorney, he said. He denied using any UW state-owned equipment or state dollars to produce porn.

 

[…]

 

Gow said he has requested a hearing before a faculty committee, as is his right under state law. The committee would recommend to the Board of Regents, the UW system’s governing body, whether he can keep his backup job as a tenured communications professor. The board would make the final decision on whether he can stay on.

 

The regents fired Gow from the chancellor post in December after learning he and his wife, former UW-La Crosse professor Carmen Wilson, were producing and starring in pornographic videos. They also wrote two e-books titled “Monogamy with Benefits: How Porn Enriches Our Relationship” and “Married with Benefits — Our Real-Life Adult Industry Adventures” under pseudonyms.

 

Difference Police Response to Protests in TX and CA

by | 1938, 24 Apr 24 | , , , | 2 Comments

Heh

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Police tangled with student demonstrators in Texas and California while new encampments sprouted Wednesday at Harvard and other colleges as school leaders sought ways to defuse a growing wave of pro-Palestinian protests.

 

At the University of Texas at Austin, hundreds of local and state police — including some on horseback and holding batons — clashed with protesters, pushing them off the campus lawn and at one point sending some tumbling into the street. At least 20 demonstrators were taken into custody at the request of university officials and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, according to the state Department of Public Safety.

 

A photographer covering the demonstration for Fox 7 Austin was arrested after being caught in a push-and-pull between law enforcement and students, the station confirmed. A longtime Texas journalist was knocked down in the mayhem and could be seen bleeding before police helped him to emergency medical staff who bandaged his head.

And at the University of Southern California, police got into a back-and-forth tugging match with protesters over tents, removing several before falling back. At the northern end of California, students were barricaded inside a building for a third day at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt. The school shut down campus through the weekend and made classes virtual.

Leftist Activist Quits Job Over DEI

by | 2050, 23 Apr 24 | , | 1 Comment

I encourage you to go read this entire post by a former professor in Texas who just quit. It is a marvelous bit of insight into the mind of someone who was shaping young minds a few short weeks ago. She is not an educator. She is an activist. It helps explain what’s happening on campuses this week.

No, I quit my dream job because my life is more expansive than just a job and because I have irreconcilable differences with my employer, the Government of the State of Texas.

“You may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas.”

My partner, Kate, and I have never felt at home in this state. I will not go into detail so as not to offend the many wonderful Texans I know and love, but this has never been our place.

 

We loved Seattle, my grad school home, but I know many wonderful people who lived there and then left due to the weather or the people’s reserved demeanor. But Kate and I cherished every moment we spent in the Pacific Northwest. It felt like home to us. Part of this is undoubtedly due to Seattle’s welcoming culture toward LGBTQ people, which we have experienced to a lesser extent here in Austin.

 

[…]

 

Since the pandemic, our sense of not belonging in Texas has intensified. The state took a disappointing approach to COVID-19, refusing to let the university require masking and returning us to the physical classroom too quickly.

 

Our lives didn’t matter to my employer, and this angered me.

 

The state has since attacked DEI programs, and I’ve watched marginalized students shed tears as centers that were formerly beacons of light for them are now shuttered. I recall a trans student telling me early in my career at UT that they felt so at home because of the awareness and resources available to trans people. I wonder if they would still feel the same way if they were a student here today. I strongly doubt it.

 

It is one thing to live in a country where the government is regressive and makes decisions I don’t agree with; it is quite another to work for a fundamentalist state with so much control over my job and that regularly threatens to do more damage. The latter has proven much harder for me to reconcile.

 

[…]

 

If I had fallen in love with Austin or felt at home in the state, I might want to stay and fight the power. After all, these atrocities are not unique to Texas.

 

I have spent the last seven years educating young people here, and I frequently tell them that they will one day change Texas. I still believe that. I am leaving them and my remaining warrior colleagues to carry on that work with all my love and support from afar.

WIAA considers implementing NIL

by | 0745, 23 Apr 24 | , , | 10 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a part:

On Wednesday, the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association, the voluntary governing body for high school sports in the state, will take up the question of whether high school athletes should be allowed to profit from their name, image, and likeness (NIL) as in college sports. I strongly urge the WIAA to reject this proposal.

 

To date, 31 other states have already allowed NIL in high school sports. Wisconsin’s high school athletic directors, who comprise the membership of the WIAA, have been reluctant to follow suit, but it appears that such reluctance may have been overcome.

 

At issue is the definition of “amateur.”

 

The simple definition is that if one is not directly paid to compete in a sport, then one is an amateur. For decades, high school and college sports insisted that their athletes be true amateurs to preserve the competitive balance of sports. We did not want rich schools to pay professional athletes to dominate a sport. The loophole in the system was that wealthy school supporters would give gifts or highly paid noshow/ low-show jobs to talented athletes to attract them to a particular school. To combat this, the WIAA, NCAA, and other athletic governing bodies banned athletes from profiting from the fact that they are athletes. These governing bodies tended to over-enforce the rules to the point that athletes were wary of even having a regular job for fear of losing their amateur status.

 

[…]

 

While I support NIL for college sports, high school sports are different for one significant reason. The athletes are minors.

 

They are dependents of their parents who are responsible for their care. Money made from the athletes’ NIL does not go to the athlete, but to the athlete’s parent or guardian.

 

This fact makes NIL at the high school level take on the attributes of exploitation of a minor rather than freeing the athlete from exploitation.

 

The other movement in sports that corrupts this issue is the spread of legal sports gambling. Americans have always gambled on sports, but it was relegated to shadowy corners of society. We shunned it from the light because of the corrosive nature of gambling on competition. The availability of online sports betting and a growing cultural acceptance has made sports betting a big business and many people participate.

 

The corrosive effect of gambling is already seeping into high school sports. Infusing NIL money and influences into high school athletics will only increase the incentives and abilities of bad actors to corrupt the games.

 

It is not difficult to imagine someone with a betting interest in a high school sport using NIL influence to change the outcomes. We have a long history of cheating on sports to win a bet.

 

It is important for high school athletes to be able to work a job or receive reasonable gifts without jeopardizing their amateur status and ability to compete. The WIAA should work to clarify those rules so that athletes can work and compete without fear. But the WIAA should reject implementing NIL in Wisconsin. The risks to the athletes and their sports are not worth the rewards.

USC Cancels All Graduation Speakers

by | 0740, 20 Apr 24 | , | 0 Comments

Liberals ruin everything.

Amid the decision to cancel this year’s valedictorian speech, the University of Southern California announced it would be eliminating all outside speakers and honorees from its main-stage commencement taking place next month.

In a memo released on Friday, the university said, “To keep the focus on our graduates, we are redesigning the commencement program. Given the highly publicized circumstances surrounding our main-stage commencement program, university leadership has decided it is best to release our outside speakers and honorees from attending this year’s ceremony.”

UTD Eliminates DEI Positions

by | 0755, 19 Apr 24 | , , | 0 Comments

Of course, we all need to be vigilant about DEI being infused in other ways, but this is manifestly positively. When I see these stories about universities and companies eliminating DEI positions, it does make me marvel at how much cost has been ladled onto students and taxpayers by these universities for things that had zero – or, perhaps, negative – value for the students’ education.

More than three months after a law banning diversity, equity, and inclusion in higher education went into effect, the University of Texas at Dallas has announced it will officially be eliminating around 20 positions. 

 

According to a recent announcement from the university, they will be closing the Office of Campus Resources and Support to comply with state law. 

 

“As a result, effective April 30, 2024, the Office of Campus Resources and Support (OCRS) and approximately 20 associated jobs will be eliminated,” UTD President Dr. Richard C. Benson announced in a letter.

 

Benson added that all employees being affected will be able to apply for other open positions on campus and directed hiring managers to give “these experienced and talented individuals careful review when making their hiring decisions.”

 

The elimination of these positions at UTD follows the University of Texas laying off dozens of employees working in DEI positions. 

USC Won’t Allow Muslim Valedictorian to Give Speech

by | 0727, 17 Apr 24 | , | 0 Comments

Interesting

What was supposed to be a time of celebration for Asna Tabassum – the University of Southern California’s 2024 valedictorian – has turned to disappointment after the university denied her the chance to give a speech at commencement over security concerns.

 

“Over the past several days, discussion relating to the selection of our valedictorian has taken on an alarming tenor,” USC Provost Andrew Guzman said in an online campus-wide letter. “The intensity of feelings, fueled by both social media and the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, has grown to include many voices outside of USC and has escalated to the point of creating substantial risks relating to security and disruption at commencement.”

 

Tabassum, a first-generation South Asian-American Muslim, would have delivered her speech at the graduation ceremony on May 10.

 

[…]

 

USC student advocacy group Trojans for Israel accused Tabassum of sharing a link in the bio of her Instagram page that calls Zionism “a racist settler-colonial ideology” and advocates for the “complete abolishment” of Israel, it wrote in a social media post.

Although nobody is really talking, it seems clear that Tabassum is an antisemitic bigot and USC is worried about protests at graduation. I can understand that USC wants to preserve the graduation as an event to be enjoyed by all of the graduates. It’s not about this one person. Graduation is about hundreds of graduates and their families celebrating their achievement. They don’t deserve to have their day ruined by a circus.

On the other hand, Tabaddum earned the privilege to speak. One would hope that she has the class to keep her speech to traditional topics and not delve into world politics. One would hope.

Were it me, I would let her speak and beef up security with a wide security perimeter to keep any protests at a distance. I would also insist that her speech be approved in advance. Sure, she could go off script, but hopefully they can instill in her the responsibility to make the day about her classmates and not about her.

West Bend School District eyes November referendum

by | 0759, 16 Apr 24 | , | 2 Comments

My column in the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a part:

According to the Wisconsin Policy Forum, 60.2% of the 103 proposed school referendums in Wisconsin passed this April. That is down from the 80.1% that passed in 2022 and 85.6% that passed in 2020. That last time that support for school referendums had this little support was in the wake of the Great Recession.

 

[…]

 

The core issue facing the West Bend School District is a decline in enrollment. After peaking about 10 years ago, enrollment has been steadily declining and is projected to continue to decline for the foreseeable future. It is a pervasive demographic trend throughout Wisconsin. According to the district’s figures, enrollment declined 18.6% over the past 10 years and will be down almost 40% off peak in another 10 years. The result is that the district has far too much physical space for far too few students. The district needs to right-size its physical footprint to match reality.

 

First, we must dispel the notion that any school district needs more money to shrink. When a business sees a downturn, they close stores and reduce staff. Nobody gives a business more money to get smaller. School districts do not need more money to get smaller either.

 

They can close and sell facilities, move and reduce staff, and change bus routes at no additional cost to taxpayers.

 

Voters must not allow “declining enrollment” to be conflated with “need more money.”

 

[…]

 

According to Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction data, in 2011-2012, the West Bend School District spent $82.5 million to educate 7,010 children (DPI uses a three-year rolling average for student count, so actual student count is a bit lower), or $11,763 per child. In 20212022, they spent $121.9 million to educate 6,491 students, or $18,779 per child. That is a 59.6% increase in per-student spending in just ten years. Yes, inflation has been part of that story in the past four years, but not even that accounts for such an increase in spending.

 

Where did all of that money go? Clearly it did not go to updating facilities or they would not be about to ask for more money in a referendum. According to ACT and other test scores tracked by the DPI, educational performance has been flat or declining. The district spent a fair amount paying off old debt from previous referendums. The district also abandoned a proposed merit pay system for staff in 2020. It is difficult to justify that much additional spending in a district with declining enrollment while failing to properly manage the district’s facilities.

West Bend School District Looks to Adjust to Declining Enrollment

by | 0919, 11 Apr 24 | , | 0 Comments

There are some interesting plans. The root cause, of course, is that the West Bend Schools District’s enrollment has collapsed and looks to continue to decline for the foreseeable future. The story is happening across the nation and is a demographic trend with which everyone is grappling.

For the moment, I will put aside my frustration that this district has seen these enrollment numbers for 10 years and did nothing. Small changes made along the way are preferable to massive changes after there is crisis.

The plans on the table are to close a couple of buildings, build a big new school in Jackson, upgrade some buildings, yadda yadda yadda. Same old stuff. It’s all designed to create a package that is attractive enough to enough voters to get them so pass an expensive referendum so that a lot of people will get paid and the school leaders get to pretend that they accomplished something.

Spoiler alert… it is very, very inexpensive to just close buildings, sell them (you can even sell them cheap to prioritize getting them off the taxpayers’ books instead of getting a windfall), and move kids to ample available space in the rest of the district. You don’t need to spend tens of millions of dollars shrink your physical footprint to adjust to fewer customers. No business on earth does that.

t.u. Fires DEI Staff

by | 1850, 5 Apr 24 | , , | 0 Comments

Progress.

The University of Texas at Austin has sent layoff notices to an estimated 60 staff members who previously worked in diversity, equity and inclusion roles, according to the Texas NAACP and the Texas Conference of American Association of University Professors.

 

The staffing cuts come as the university works to comply with the state’s anti-DEI law, or SB17, that bans public colleges and universities from maintaining DEI offices, holding mandatory DEI training, and having departments focused on “promoting differential treatment” based on race, sex or ethnicity.

 

In a statement released Wednesday, the Texas NAACP and AAUP said impacted staff members were given a 90-day layoff notice. Forty of those employees were from the Division of Campus and Community Engagement, which will be closing, the statement said. The office was formerly called the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement before SB17 went into effect in January.

Brian Davis, a university spokesman, said he was unable to confirm the number of jobs that are being eliminated. Davis told CNN in an email that the university would not comment beyond a letter President Jay Hartzell’s released to the campus community earlier this week.

 

Hartzell said in the letter that the university is redirecting funds from DEI initiatives to “teaching and research.”

Imaging spending money on teaching and research. How progressive.

Choice and freedom spreading

by | 0849, 12 Mar 24 | , , | 0 Comments

My column for the Washington County News is online and in print. Here’s a taste:

 

One of our nation’s structural supports that has provided the stability to make us the world’s oldest republic is our federalist structure. In a very geographically large and demographically diverse nation, the ability for each of the 50 states to shape public policy in accordance with the peculiarities of its citizenry is a strength — not a weakness.

 

Our federalist structure also permits each state to experiment with various policies and let other states see the effects. In recent years, we have seen states decriminalize drug use and soften police enforcement to disastrous effect. We should be thankful that such policies are tried on a state level and not implemented on all of us.

 

While we are increasingly losing our grip on federalism as power and authority concentrates in far away Washington, D.C., each of our United States continues to experiment with different policies. It is worth taking note of policies that are taking hold and becoming widespread. Two such policies are sweeping the nation and Wisconsin is not participating. Last week, Alabama became the twelfth state to pass universal school choice and six other states are considering it this year. Some 28 states and the District of Columbia already have some form of school choice according to Education Week. School choice was an innovation born in Milwaukee by a coalition of liberals and conservatives who wanted to give poor families a chance to get their kids into better schools — even if that better school was a private school. For several years, various income-based school choice programs spread throughout the nation before stalling under the withering assault of entrenched government school interests. The pandemic changed everything. Being affronted with the reality of just how bad our government schools had become, parents insisted on a better option and breathed new life into the school choice movement. While school choice comes in many forms, the common feature is that parents are provided some or all of the funding that would have been spent for their child in a government school to be spent on alternative educational options. The goal is to couple the funding to the child and not to the bureaucracy.

 

School choice has become a potent political force in states like Texas. Despite being dominated by Republicans, school choice failed to pass the Legislature last year when a cohort of House Republicans joined the Democrats to vote against it. In the primary election last week, six Republican incumbents were ousted outright and four more are headed for runoff elections — all on the power of the school choice issue. It is an issue that transcends party and motivates parents.

 

Despite being the birthplace of school choice, Wisconsin has lost its place in the vanguard of education reform.

 

Another movement that started in the mid-1990s was to reinstate Americans’ civil rights by allowing citizens to carry a concealed weapon. For 20 years, states steadily implemented concealed carry laws to allow qualified citizens to carry concealed. Wisconsin was a laggard in this regard as the 49th state to allow concealed carry. Illinois reluctantly followed suit many years later to make concealed carry in some form a universal American policy.

 

In the past ten years, many states have gone further to allow constitutional or permitless carry whereby virtually anyone who is legally allowed to possess a handgun may carry it concealed without a permit. According to the United States Concealed Carry Association, 29 states currently have permitless carry.

 

Here again, the pandemic, coupled with the riots of 2020-2022, sparked new urgency with this issue. Recognizing that law enforcement is largely unable, and sometimes unwilling, to prevent people from committing crimes or protecting innocents, Americans began taking personal responsibility for their physical safety. Women and people of color are two of the fastest-growing groups of gun owners.

 

There is no definitive source to know how many guns there are in private hands and who owns them. That is as it should be. A Pew Research study from last year estimates that there are about 222 million private guns owned by about 105 million Americans. Guns are, and always have been, part of our culture and our right to keep and bear arms was protected at the founding. While our nation has always done a decent job protecting our civil right to “keep” arms, states are now doing a better job of protecting our civil right to “bear” arms. What good is a right if you have to ask the government to exercise it?

School District Changes Policy to Notify Parents of Gender Changes

by | 0954, 9 Mar 24 | , | 1 Comment

Good for the district for continuing to fight for kids, parent, and families against the groomers. If a child breaks a finger or cusses out another child, the parents should be notified. If the child is having an identity crisis replete with severe mental distress, the parents should be notified.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A Southern California school district sued by the state has updated its policy requiring staff to notify parents that a student is using a different pronoun or bathroom designated for another gender and now will only mention that a child has requested a change to their student records.

 

The Chino Valley Unified School District board approved the updated policy on Thursday as the district fights a lawsuit filed by Democratic state Attorney General Rob Bonta, who called the original policy discriminatory. Bonta’s office did not respond to email requests for comment on the policy changes.

 

The policy maintains part of the original rule requiring staff to notify parents within three days of their child requesting any changes to their “official or unofficial records,” although it does not specify what that would include. All references to gender identification changes have been removed from the policy.

LGBTQ+ advocates said the new mandate is simply a legal loophole to repackage the same policy that continues to violate the rights of students.

 

“They’re just broadening the scope so that they don’t obviously single that population out,” said Kristi Hirst, who co-founded the public education advocacy group Our Schools USA. “But the intent behind it, in my opinion, is no different.”

Teaching Jobs Available in Houston

by | 1915, 5 Mar 24 | | 13 Comments

Change is hard.

Under Miles, the district is implementing a New Education System (NES) reform program, where teachers are directed to teach based on provided curriculum and scripted lessons with their pay tied to standardized test score performances, and proficiency screenings to retain their jobs at NES schools.

 

In February, an education professor at the University of Houston suspended teaching a course in protest of the rigid lesson requirements in HISD that he said made it impossible for his students to complete their assignments.

 

By next school year, 130 schools in Houston will be under the NES program.

 

[…]

 

From August through early January, 633 teachers resigned from HISD, according to information obtained by Houston Public Media through a public records request. During the same time period in the 2022-23 school year, 331 teachers quit. The year before, only 309 resigned.

 

An elementary school teacher at a non-NES school in Houston who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation criticized the teacher evaluations that are being implemented by the district.

 

“They use this made-up evaluation system to make it look like these teachers aren’t good,” they said. “It makes no sense that money is being spent on coming after certain teachers and using attorneys for the district to make sure teachers lose in whatever way possible.”

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