public schools

Stop Trying to Hide S-E-X From Students in School – They Already Know All About It From the Internet 

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“Mr. Singer, do you know what foot finder is?” 


 
“No,” I said to the 5th grade girl in the class where I was substitute teaching.  


 
Her friends and her giggled through an explanation of the Website where people post pictures of their feet for sexual gratification.  
 


*** 
 


Several days later, I tried to play a video on ancient Rome for my students, but before it even began the 8th grade class burst into laughter over the station identification. 


 
The video was produced by the British Broadcasting Company. The BBC.  
 


I looked at them in confusion until I heard some of them muttering about “Big Black Cock” – a class of porn video many of them had seen online identified with the same abbreviation. 


 
*** 
 


Yesterday I overheard some of the girls in my 7th grade homeroom talking. One girl was saying how she really liked a certain boy but wasn’t sure if she was ready.  
 


I smiled thinking about my first kiss. Then I heard her ask a friend, “Can you get pregnant from swallowing it?” 
 


 
 
This is middle school, people.  


 
Most of the kids here already know about sex. They know way more than I did at their age. But what they know is a jumble of images and details without the big picture.  
 


And here come Republicans with a bunch of copycat laws to make sure public schools do nothing to dispel children’s ignorance.  


In my home state of Pennsylvania, GOP lawmakers are taking action once again to hide any mention of S-E-X in schools throughout the Commonwealth. 


 
They’re sending Senate Bill 7 to Harrisburg, another piece of legislation pumped out by the American Legislation Exchange Council (ALEC) following in the fundamentalist footsteps of  fascist Florida.  
 


The latest bit of dark ages lawmaking would require parent authorization before schools from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia could provide students with materials that contain anything that might be considered sexually explicit.  
 
For kids in kindergarten through 8th grade, this even includes books with depictions of any kind of nudity.  


God forbid they saw a wee wee or a va-jay-jay! 


Fun fact: did you know that most public school students have genitals? 


 
It’s true.  


 
Many boys have access to a penis anytime they want – in their underwear. 


 
Many girls have access to even naughtier bits.  


 
And don’t even get me started on nipples! Under their shirts, the Devil’s raisins!  


Thankfully the GOP legislation only prohibits depictions of these things in books. Kids are still allowed to look at their own bodies.  


For now. 


The bill passed the Senate in a 29-21 vote nearly along party lines, with only one Democrat supporting the proposal. It faces an uncertain future in the House where Democrats hold a one seat majority and would also require the signature of Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro before becoming law. 


A similar measure was passed before Democrats took the House last year but was vetoed by the previous Democratic Governor Tom Wolf. 


If the new bill became law, districts would need to go through all books in their libraries and classrooms and list any that contain potentially sexual material. These would be books used in classroom instruction or available in the library that would then require parents to sign an opt-in form to grant permission for their children to access the books. 


The bill defines sexually explicit as showing “acts of masturbation, sexual intercourse, sexual bestiality or physical contact with a person’s clothed or unclothed genitals, pubic area, buttocks, or, if the person is a female, breast.” 


It is beyond ridiculous. 


Not only is it closing the stable door after the horse has bolted, but it’s a transparent attempt to quash any discussion of LGBTQ issues.  


 
What better way to discourage certain lifestyles than to legislate them out of existence?  


 
Schools can provide a safe place to discuss issues kids may be uncomfortable talking about with other adults. Books provide a safe way to mentally grapple with concepts and ideas of the adult world.  


 
For example, in my 7th grade classes, we read “Silent to the Bone” by E.L. Konigsburg. The book is about a middle school age boy who has gone mute after a questionable interaction with an adult.

 
 
There’s nothing very graphic in the text, but among other issues it does discuss physical attraction, sexual coercion and an erection.  
 


The book was approved by the school board and has helped foster many productive – if uncomfortable – conversations that help kids put their thoughts on these matters into words.  


 
In my daughter’s school, in 9th grade she read “Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson. The book is about a high school girl dealing with being raped and the stigma of trying to talk about it.  
 


The text does a marvelous job of getting into the point of view of the girl and the trauma she endures while still being humorous, touching and empowering.  


 
Narratives like these are absolutely vital. They allow kids to relate to issues many of them have not directly experienced (but some have) and find a common language to discuss it. When we censor sex and sexuality and paint all of it as something dirty that can’t be talked about seriously, we do our children a major disservice.  


 
Conservatives complain that talking about these things grooms kids for greater sexual activity, but that’s nonsense. Kids grow into adults many of whom become sexually active. That’s positive and healthy. Meeting that in the safe places of the classroom and books helps kids prepare for adulthood without becoming victimized. 


 
But nothing grooms a victim more than the prohibition against talking about trauma.  


 
Finally, let’s consider the amount of ridiculous extra work this bill demands of schools and teachers. You really expect every educator with a classroom library to go through every book in it looking for anything that someone might consider sexually explicit!? Some people might think a book about a kid with two daddies is sexually explicit. You want teachers to become your perverted morality police!? Please! 


 
I dearly hope this bill has little chance of passing.  


 
It’s just another example of the Republican culture war against reality.  


 
It’s a way of insinuating that public schools are doing things they aren’t.  


 
No school is indoctrinating kids to be sexually active. But kids are coming into contact with sexually explicit material – usually on the Internet – and they have few tools to deal with it.  


 
Taking away public schools’ power to combat this ignorance is the worst way we could respond. 

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Top 4 Things McKeesport Area School Directors Need to do to Extinguish the District Dumpster Fire

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It gives me no joy to write this, but McKeesport Area School District (MASD) is a raging dumpster fire.

School directors reneged on a teachers contract. Their business manager ran for the hills. And at the last board meeting two school directors had their dirty laundry aired during public comments prompting one to call a White Oak Councilperson a homophobic slur.

Our finances have been given over to an accounting firm paid for by Dick’s Sporting Goods. An $86 million district budget (2023-24) at the mercy of the place where you go to buy new sneakers and fishing tackle.

This is pretty low – even for schools as historically dysfunctional as McKeesport.

As a local reporter in Pennsylvania’s Mon-valley area in the late 1990s and early 2000s, I saw a lot of crazy things happen at local government meetings throughout the western corner of the state.

But McKeesport School Board meetings were legendary. The nepotism, incompetence, ignorance, glad-handing and focus on anything but education was something my colleagues and I would marvel at when we had time to compare notes.

Now the running of district schools threatens to grind to a halt by a prospective teachers strike! If we want to get things back into some semblance of order, I think we need to do a few things.

As a lifelong resident of the district, an alumni and father of a child who currently goes to school there – not to mention a public school teacher at a neighboring district with more than two decades in the classroom – I think school directors need to focus on these four things first.

They are:

4) Pass a Code of Conduct for Board Members and Administrators

I am sympathetic to School Board members Jim Brown and LaToya Wright. At the last board meeting several people trolled the pair with questions about their marriage. Since school board members have to live in the district, these folks wanted Wright removed if she were separated from her husband and had relocated outside of the district.

While it’s fair to require school directors to provide proof of residency, this kind of Jerry Springer style questioning is not appropriate for a public meeting. If I had to constantly answer questions like this while volunteering to help guide the community’s schools, I might also find it hard to keep my composure.

However, that does not excuse using slurs of any kind at a public meeting – not racial, religious, sexual or otherwise.

Brown has apologized on-line for his indiscretion and should do so again at the next school board meeting. But his actions highlight a glaring problem within our district.

We need a code of conduct for our school board members and administrators.

The previous Superintendent Dr. Mark Holtzman was frequently sarcastic, flippant and rude to members of the public who asked questions he did not like at board meetings – myself included. It has been pretty standard procedure for board members to ridicule each other, make threats and/or stifle public comments.

These are the people who run our schools. They make the decisions that impact all of us as taxpayers and citizens – decisions that impact those of us with family enrolled in the school even more.

They should have to abide by a certain minimum level of civility – especially that hate speech of any kind not be tolerated.

Given the circumstances, I do not think Brown should be removed from the board. However, he should be given the chance to publicly apologize at the next board meeting. If he does not, he should be censured by his fellow board members.

It should be entirely clear what kind of behavior would bring censure, removal and/or impeachment.

School directors often act like being on the board gives them the right to hand out jobs to unqualified relatives and acquaintances, to seek revenge for supposed wrongs done to family or friends, and an excuse to enrich themselves on the public dime.

This needs to stop.

We need to draw a line in the sand to show what behavior is appropriate not just as a model for our children who we are supposed to be serving here, but also so that despite our differences we can finally work together in the best interests of everyone in the community. That’s why these people are supposed to be there in the first place.

3) Start Streaming Council Meetings Again

During the Covid pandemic, MASD would routinely video and stream its school board meetings on-line. About a year ago, the school board voted to stop.

Why?

These are public meetings. We are a working class district. Most people don’t have the time to physically attend every meeting.

This isn’t 1973. It’s not even 2003. We have the technology to cheaply and easily tape and share the meetings. We should absolutely do so. There is no possible excuse not to comply.

My middle school students have the know how to do this – and could do it in better quality than the district used to provide.

In the past, the board was indifferently microphoned so it was incredibly difficult to make out what they were saying – especially if they didn’t want to be heard. The camera was so far away, you couldn’t see anything except a few blurs behind a table.

That showed indifference to the public. Not streaming the meetings at all shows downright hostility.

Board members are afraid of spectacles like that which happened at the last board meeting becoming a video part of the public record. With the relative lack of almost any reliable newspaper to cover the area, it is often the case that board meetings aren’t even reported in the local paper and if they are, it may be in the most rudimentary terms possible or behind a paywall.

The school board should absolutely reverse itself on this point and renew taping the meetings and release them on-line. They could even invite a high school video club to do the work and probably greatly increase the quality of the product. The board should be proud of what it’s doing – not cower in the shadows. If the results are embarrassing, the public has a right to see it. What better inducement for board members and administrators NOT to behave badly?

And if the board won’t do this, some enterprising members of the public should. The teachers union or others could easily do this. These are public meetings. We have every right to tape them and put them on-line.

And any district who wants any kind of control over that should provide it as a free service, itself.

2) Hire a New Reputable Business Manager

Business Manager Scott Domowicz left the district over controversy about the board’s rejection of the teachers contract (more on that below).

The board accepted Domowicz’s resignation at its September meeting, but it won’t go into effect until the beginning of November. The board passed a motion to advertise the open position.

Meanwhile, accounting firm Klynveld Peat Marwick Goerdeler (KPMG) is ensuring the district’s finances are in order.

The board voted 5-4 to allow Dicks Sporting Goods to pay for 50 hours of accounting services by the firm, one of the big four in the industry.

Personally, I don’t like our schools being beholden to the largest sporting goods retailer in the country even if they are based in nearby Coraopolis. Our district already is too focused on its athletics program to the detriment of academics. I may just be cynical, but I don’t believe in corporate philanthropy – only philanthrocapitalism. I wonder what Dicks is going to ask MASD to do to repay this debt or what backroom deals may have already been made along these lines.

The district needs to hire a new business manager ASAP – and this time it needs to be someone with experience and a good reputation.

Domowicz originally had been hired in late February 2022 at an annual salary of $100,000. He had been the business manager at Spectrum Charter School in Monroeville for about a year. Before that he was Senior Management Consultant for two decades at Great Lakes Management Consulting, a firm offering accounting and tax preparation services to customers and small business owners in Grosse Pointe, Michigan.

Spectrum Charter School is much smaller than MASD. The privatized school employs 11-20 people and has $1 million to $5 million in annual revenue. MASD has roughly 3,000 students and 300 teachers with a proposed budget of $86 million next year.

The previous Business Manager Joan Wehner had more experience in the education field. She was assistant to the business manager at Penn-Trafford School District for 10 years before coming to McKeesport. She left the district to become business manager at Greensburg Salem School District.

It would be beneficial to get a replacement with a demonstrated track record in education – but it may be difficult to entice someone like that to come to a place as toxic as McKeesport. However, we need to do whatever we can to make it so.

1 ) Pass a Teachers Contract with No Tax Increase

School directors and the teachers had agreed to a tentative new contract in June, but the board tabled it after concerns that the district didn’t have the money to pay for moderate raises.

Then the board skipped the entire month of July without a meeting. But had no answers when they came back in August or September.

They just heaped blame on Domowicz, so he resigned.

Meanwhile, the teachers current contract expired at the end of August and the 266 teachers and professional education staff become so fed up, they voted unanimously to authorize a strike. This does not mean an immediately work stoppage, but it is the first step toward one.

The union has agreed to one more 30-day extension to contract negotiations. However, union President Gerald McGrew said that this is the final extension the union will grant. So the board needs to make this right by the end of October.

I think the teachers are being fair. The proposed raises in the contract rejected by the school board are moderate and well below what some educators in neighboring districts make.

Over five years, the proposed pay increases are: 6.11% in 2023-24, 6.59% in 2024-25, 6.03% in 2025-26, 4.38% in 2026-27, and 3.26% in 2027-28.

If they can afford relatively similar pay scales at West Mifflin, Steel Valley and other neighboring districts, MASD should be able to do so, too. The school board needs to make this work.

The district should be open about its finances. How much exactly would this cost? What cost saving measures can be conducted to reach this goal? And no ridiculous speculation about how much this might cost from board members with no financial background. These numbers should come from the experts. Facts not politics.

Obviously this should be done without a tax increase. I think it is entirely realistic to expect such an outcome without further information to the contrary. However, let’s be real. Ensuring fair pay for our teachers needs to be done even if that means raising taxes.

The heart of a school is its teachers. You can’t have a great school without great educators and you won’t have them without fair pay.

We are already being eaten alive by charter schools. Every child living in the district who goes to a charter school takes away money that would have gone to fund MASD. The district paid $14 million toward charter school tuition in 2022-23, according to Domowicz. He budgeted $16 million next year. That’s 17 percent of the new budget going toward charter schools.

If MASD doesn’t have quality teachers and a quality academic program, we’ll lose even more to these privatized schools. The only way to reverse the trend is to provide the best education and get the word out.

If we leave schooling to the competing piranha charter schools, they will gobble up our taxes while we have no say whether they are raised or not since most charter schools have no elected school boards.

McKeesport School Directors may be dysfunctional, but at least they’re elected representatives. At least they are members of the community who are required to listen to the public and conduct business in an open forum.

They could do their jobs better, but at least they’re ours. And we can replace them.

The only way we get MASD back on course is to pass a fair teachers contract. And to do that we need a reputable, reliable business manager. We need to video and stream school board meetings so everyone can see them easily. And we need to cut the crap and start conducting those meetings civilly and respectfully in the spirit of cooperation and the good of the community at large.

The way I see it, these are the first steps to get there.

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If You Don’t Want Teachers to be Saviors, Don’t Put Them on a Cross 

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At the end of the school year, I like to show my 8th grade students the movie “Freedom Writers.” 


 
It’s a good culminating film for the class because many of the subjects and texts we read are mentioned by the characters – “The Diary of Anne Frank,” “To Kill a Mockingbird,” the civil rights movement, journal writing, etc.  


 
It reinforces the relationship between historical narratives and the fight for human rights as well as underlines the importance of raising your own voice. 


 
However, it is also a movie that has come under fire for perpetuating the white savior trope.  


 
The film is based on the true story of Erin Gruwell, a white middle class woman, who taught inner city children to find their own voices by writing about their lives in Freedom Writer journals. 


 
The biggest problem seems to be that in the film the teacher takes on more jobs to afford supplies, spends time putting together field trips, and even ends up losing her marriage so her students’ needs will be met in the classroom. 


 
Is she a white savior transforming, saving and redeeming the lives of her students through her own personal sacrifices?  
 


Is this essentially a feel good story about a white person saving otherwise irredeemable brown skinned children?  


 
Honestly, I don’t think so. I suppose the answer depends on how much the students’ success should be attributed to the sacrifices of their teacher, and how uncomfortable we should be by the fact that she’s white while her students are predominately children of color. 


 
Is there something wrong with these kids? Absolutely not. Stereotypes aside, their problems arise from the circumstances in which they live more than anything else. 


 
But if I’m being truthful, I have to admit these are tough questions, even more so when we’re asking them about real teachers and students. After all, I show the movie to my students because we’re in a somewhat similar relationship. They have many analogous experiences and I try to teach them using some corresponding texts and methods.  


 
And am I not also a white teacher with a class of mostly black and brown children? 


 
How often are people in my own position labelled white saviors? And what part of that label is denigration and what part valid criticism? 
 


On the one hand, there are legitimate challenges born out of this situation. 


 
About eight-in-ten U.S. public school teachers (79%) identified as White (non-Hispanic) during the 2017-18 school year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). Fewer than one-in-ten teachers were Black (7%), Hispanic (9%) or Asian American (2%). So this situation is pretty much the norm – most students of color have white teachers. 
 


 
This is challenging because study after study shows white teachers bring their biases with them to the classroom. They often have lower expectations for students of color, which greatly affects their students’ motivation and achievement. This may even impact expulsion and discipline rates as well as other facets of students’ academic experiences. 


 
 
With the constant emphasis on standardized test scores and the testing gap, it is easy to fall into the trap of seeing students of color as less than. After all, children of color in general do not score as well as richer whiter kids. So teachers are encouraged to look at the situation as one in which they can act on their students and MAKE them have higher scores simply by giving the right test prep and forcing their students to do these boring and extrinsic assignments by using increasingly punitive inducements.  
 


 
However, I do not think it is correct to characterize this as being a white savior. I think it is being a colonizer, and I have seen the same kinds of attitudes and actions from people of various races and ethnicities.  


 
In my own admittedly limited experience, the most test obsessed teachers and administrators I have ever know have been people of color – almost as if they were trying to make a point about their own racial identity by raising test scores of the children in their charge.  


 
The problem is that the testing gap has nothing to do with any deficiency in black and brown students. It comes from biased and unfair questions which are based more on privilege and culture than authentic academic ability.  


 
The problem with being a colonizer is that it enforces a prejudicial status quo. So raising test scores (even if you’re successful) does little to help people of color. It simply justifies making them jump through biased and unfair hoops in the first place with the excuse, “See? They did it. Why can’t you?” 
 


In this way, I agree with, Dr. Christopher Emdin, an associate professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College, who advised educators in his book “For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood…and the Rest of Y’all Too”: 


 
“You are there not as a savior, but as a revolutionary.” 
  


Teachers should be openly antiracist – especially white teachers. As difficult as it can be sometimes, we must not allow racism to become a taboo topic – something to be whispered about but never spoken of by name. We need to have the uncomfortable conversations. We need to read texts by people of color and honor every student’s race and culture. We need to prize difference and examine our own reactions to it. 


 
 
However, as I said I do not think the issue here is saviorism.  


 
That is something completely different though just as harmful. 


 
Regardless of race or ethnicity, teachers are forced to be martyrs .  


 
You can criticize Gruwell’s story because of all she gives up for her students, but that is kind of what teachers are obliged to do if they want to accomplish even a smidgen of their responsibilities.  


 
In fact, it is almost impossible to be a teacher – especially a teacher of predominantly black and brown students – and not be viciously coerced to sacrifice yourself.  


 
For example, more than 90 percent of educators use their own money to buy school supplies for their students, according to a survey from the National Education Association (NEA).
 
An analysis from My eLearning World showed teachers for the 2022-2023 school year spent an average of $820.14 on classroom supplies.  


However, educators cannot deduct even half of that cost from their taxes.  


Why do teachers do this? Because schools don’t purchase what kids need. So – especially in impoverished areas – educators are left with the choice of watching students do without or simply meeting that need, themselves.  
 


Almost every aspect of teaching involves some kind of sacrificial trade off like this.  

You can have a classroom with bare walls or you can buy and put up your own decorations to make it a welcoming environment for students. You can try to get kids up to your school’s meager library (assuming one even exists with a full-time librarian to keep books in stock) or you can just purchase your own classroom library.


 
Heck! There are only about 40 minutes or so in most teachers’ day to plan their lessons and grade student work. That’s not nearly enough time. Just to get the bare minimum done, educators have to spend hours and hours extra daily without pay.  


 
Moreover, teachers salaries are not commensurate with other professionals. They are paid 20% less than other college-educated workers with similar experience, and a 2020 survey found that 67% of teachers have or had a second job to make ends meet. 

You want more teachers of color to enter the profession? Then stop making privilege a prerequisite to apply!


 
This is why so many teachers are leaving the profession. They don’t want to be sacrificial offerings anymore.


 
The entire country is in the midst of a national educator walk out. Teachers are refusing to stay in the classroom due to poor salary, poor working conditions, heavy expectations and lack of tools or respect. 
After decades of neglect only made worse by the Covid-19 pandemic, we’re missing almost a million teachers. 


Nationwide, we only have about 3.2 million teachers left! 


Finding replacements has been difficult. Across the country, an average of one educator is hired for every two jobs available. 


 
And you want to complain that teachers are acting like saviors!?  
 


Fine! Stop giving us two pieces of wood and some nails!  


 
While there is a legitimate caution behind the white savior teacher trope, it is mischaracterized and misused in order to gaslight educators to simply take the abuse and be quiet.  


 
Yes, educators need to stop defending the status quo. We need to examine our biases and embrace racial and cultural differences. We need to actively work to tear down systems of oppression even in our educational system. 


 
But we also need to reform those systems so they don’t require us to self immolate. We need an education system that actually provides enough resources to students so that their teachers don’t need to jump on the pyre to keep them warm. 


 
These are two sides of the same coin. The same system that oppresses children of color by withholding enough compels teachers to become saviors. The one is built upon the other.  


 
Civil rights activists need to do a better job recognizing this and speaking out against it.


 
As activist Lilla Watson famously said: 
 


 
“If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” 

Like this post?  You might want to consider becoming a Patreon subscriber. This helps me continue to keep the blog going and get on with this difficult and challenging work.

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I’ve also written a book, “Gadfly on the Wall: A Public School Teacher Speaks Out on Racism and Reform,” now available from Garn Press. Ten percent of the proceeds go to the Badass Teachers Association. Check it out!

Where Have School Libraries Gone?

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Last week I discovered that an important part of my neighborhood school is gone – the library.

My daughter and I were taking a tour of my old alma mater, McKeesport Area High School, when I noticed the huge empty space where all the books used to be.

“What happened to the library?” I asked the guidance counselor who was showing us where my daughter’s classes would be this year.

Nowhere. Turns out it’s closed – for good.

The school board eliminated its last two librarian positions in 2018 to save money. Even then these had been itinerant librarians who jumped between buildings keeping the libraries open whenever possible but not all day, every day.

Since they’ve been gone, for the past five years teachers could still take their classes to each building library, however, without someone to sort and organize the books, it wasn’t worth the trip. So at the end of last school year, the remaining books in the high school were given away to students and teachers.

This year the high school’s ex-library space is set to become a large group instruction room.

And that may be the fate for the other libraries at the district’s two elementaries and middle school sometime in the future. My daughter tells me both Francis McClure and Founders Hall (the other two district schools she attended) have libraries but her classes rarely went there. It’s probably the same at Twin Rivers, the district’s other elementary school.

What a pity!

When I walked passed the space that used to house the high school library, I saw a few random books piled up on packing pallets ready to be taken away.

I can still remember what the room used to look like 30 years ago when I went to school there – the rows and rows of sturdy wooden shelves. I remember sitting in comfy chairs at wide tables with surfaces worn smooth by years and years of use.

Library time had been so special – curling up with a book and being transported away from the here and now. How many papers had I written with help from those books? How many books had I checked out over the years? Horror stories, joke books, historical narratives, books of world records, myths, reference texts…

My daughter will never know what that’s like unless I take her somewhere outside of the district. There is a local Carnegie library, but there’s nothing like having all of that just a few steps away.

Now I know what some of you probably are thinking: This is 2023. Why do we even need libraries anymore? Can’t kids just use the Internet?

There are many problems with this. Yes, all students in the district have access to Chrome Books and Internet connections in school. But every book is not available on-line. In fact, the number and variety of books available digitally is much smaller than most public or school libraries typically have in their collections – if you’re not going to pay an additional fee.

I can read most of the classics of world literature on the Internet, but anything that isn’t in the public domain is going to require me to pony up some dough. And the same goes for most respected resources.

Want an article from a local or national newspaper or even a magazine? Most require subscriptions to access articles – especially articles from their archives. You can find some free on-line encyclopedias but the articles are limited and it can be difficult for children (and some adults) to be able to tell which are most trustworthy. Wikipedia is still one of the most cited sources, and as useful as it is, you can’t trust it as well as the kind of reference books you’d find in most libraries.

McKeesport Area School District (MASD) isn’t the only public school greatly reducing or doing away with its school libraries.

The School Library Journal and the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reported:

“Between the 1999–2000 and 2015–16 school years, the NCES reports that the profession lost the equivalent of more than 10,000 full-time school librarian positions nationwide. That translates to a 19 percent drop in the workforce, from 53,659 to 43,367. The most rapid declines happened from 2009–10 to 2013–14. The decline slowed from then to 2014–15; but resumed larger losses in 2015–16, the latest data available.”

We see school libraries being closed in Philadelphia, Boston, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, etc. A 2016 report in The Guardian indicates how serious the problem is worldwide:

“Libraries should be a right in schools. We must give pupils the opportunity to go to a quiet place to do extra study or to choose a book to read. It is particularly important to children from deprived areas. Opening a library door helps children open their mind. For many, books are too expensive and a library allows students to borrow them.”

The problems is often one of priorities. Districts would rather spend billions on technology than libraries. However, both are important. Schools should not have to choose. They should make more diligent decisions about which technologies are most essential instead of buying every new techno-fad with huge promises and no track record.

In the most impoverished districts, the problem isn’t just what hardware or software to purchase, but how to keep the district afloat without cutting vital services like libraries.

In 2018 when the MASD board eliminated the librarian positions, district officials said the cuts were because of “budgetary constraints” combined with the rise of charter school costs.

Every child living in the district who goes to a charter school takes away funding that would have gone to pay for all the kids attending the distict. MASD paid $2 million toward charter school tuition in 2006-07, which has risen to $14 million in 2022-23, according to Business Manager Scott Domowicz.

If this continues, Domowicz said in May that he expects the district will need to pay $16 million next year. That’s 17 percent of the new budget going toward charter schools.

What a pity that parents who remove their children from authentic public schools are making it more difficult for children in those schools to have access to a campus library!

But they’re also depriving their own children of the same amenity since charter schools are much less likely to have library facilities at all.

According to NCES, in 2020–21 only 52 percent of charter schools had a library media center. And only one-third of these charter school media centers had full-time, paid, state-certified library media center specialists, compared to two-thirds of authentic public schools. It’s actually worse than it seems because these statistics include learning resource centers that are entirely on-line without any physical books. So charter schools actually have fewer traditional libraries than quoted here.

Neighboring districts to MASD have dealt with the issue in similar ways.

Nearby Steel Valley School District (SVSD) still has a library for the middle – high school campus staffed with a full time librarian.

However, the librarian’s schedule is often taken up with teaching and/or study halls making it very difficult for teachers to take their classes to the library.

If administrators and school board members don’t prioritize keeping the library open during the school day, it’s only a matter of time before SVSD goes the way of MASD.

And if that’s not scary enough, think of the academic impact.

There is evidence that school libraries help increase standardized test scores. According to Phi Delta Kappan: Data from more than 34 statewide studies suggest that students tend to earn better standardized test scores in schools that have strong library programs.

It is no coincidence that this is all happening as literacy and facts are being challenged nationwide.

According to the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF), which monitors textual challenges, more than 273 books were challenged or banned in 2020. However, the majority of attempts to remove books go unreported so the reality is probably much higher.

This is part of a concerted effort to make America dumb again. These are political attacks against science, history and facts. It just makes sense they would also target the repositories of these sciences, histories and facts – libraries.

One day our descendants may not even know enough to ask the title with which we began this article. Instead of “Where have school libraries gone?” they may ask, “What was a library?”

“And what was a school?”

One of the last pictures of McKeesport Area High School’s library – Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. Austin Davis (an MASD alum) talks with students during a visit to the district in February 2023.

 

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Absurd School Voucher Proposal Stalls PA Budget

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How do you stop the other team from making a goal when you aren’t even sure your own team’s goalie will try to block the shot?

Pennsylvania House Democrats find themselves in that uncomfortable position as they refuse to pass a Republican supported 2023-24 budget on time.

The problem? School vouchers.

Democrats generally oppose them and Republicans love them. But in the commonwealth, new Gov. Josh Shapiro, ostensibly a Democrat, has let it be known that he likes vouchers under certain conditions.

So Republicans designed a bill exactly along those lines hoping that if they can get it through both legislative bodies, the Governor will give it his signature. (Under the previous Democratic administration, Gov. Tom Wolf blocked the worst the GOP could throw at him, stopping all kinds of horrible policies from getting through.)

A budget encrusted with voucher giveaways passed the Republican-controlled Senate on Thursday, but the House – where Democrats now hold a slim majority – refused to go along with it.

So Republicans are holding the entire budget hostage. As usual.

In a time when the state is flush with cash from inflation-juiced tax collections and federal pandemic subsidies, legislators still couldn’t pass a budget on time.

And it all comes down to our schizophrenic education policies.

Fact: the Commonwealth shortchanges public school students.

The state Supreme Court said so after an 8 year legal battle.

Now lawmakers in Harrisburg are rushing to fix the problem by tearing public schools apart and giving the pieces to private and parochial schools.

It’s called the Lifeline Scholarship Program – throw a lifeline of $100 million to failing edu-businesses and religious indoctrination centers on the excuse that that will somehow help kids from impoverished neighborhoods.

You could just increase funding at the poorest public schools – but that would make too much sense.

Better to give taxpayer money to private interests with little to no accountability or track record and just hope it works!

During the election, Shapiro admitted he liked the concept of these kinds of vouchers, but back then the only other choice was Doug Mastriano, a raving MAGA insurrectionist Republican. The Democrat could have said he had developed a taste for human flesh and he would have been the better alternative.

This means only the slim Democratic majority is left to uphold public schools over this wrongheaded policy nightmare.

House Democrats swear the bill is destined to fail.

House Majority Leader Matt Bradford, D-Montgomery, put it this way:

“There are not the votes for it. It’s not coming up, and if it comes up, it will be defeated.”

This seems to be the case. Yesterday, the House Rules Committee voted against sending the tuition voucher bill to the full House for a vote. So it is not scheduled for a vote at all.

However, now that the June 30th deadline has been blown, lawmakers probably will try to use this newest school voucher bid as a bargaining chip to get a spending plan – any spending plan – passed. This could drag on for months – it certainly has in the past.

The current voucher iteration is a taxpayer funded tuition subsidy for students attending private schools.

Under this bill, students in the lowest 15% of schools in the commonwealth (as determined by standardized test scores) would be eligible.

So what’s wrong with school vouchers?

  1) Vouchers have nothing to do with helping kids escape struggling public schools.  

   School vouchers overwhelmingly go to kids who already attend private or parochial schools.

This is true even when the law explicitly stipulates the money should only go to poor and needy children.  

In the states that have released their data, more than three quarters of families who apply for vouchers for their children already send their kids to private schools. That’s 75% of voucher students in Wisconsin, 80% in Arizona, and 89% in New Hampshire. So these kids didn’t need our tax dollars in the first place.  We’re just paying for services they’re already receiving.

 Moreover, the very idea is absurd. If the school where the student is enrolled is struggling, why wouldn’t you simply invest in that school to make it better and fix the underlying problem? Why disrupt children’s educations by moving them to another school in another system that is entirely unproven, itself? 

2) Using taxpayer money to send your child to a private or parochial school has got nothing to do with getting a quality education.  

  If we look at the facts, using a school voucher to go from a public school to a private one actually hurts kids academically.  

  Large-scale independent studies in Indiana, Louisiana, Ohio and Washington, D.C., show that students who used vouchers were as negatively impacted as if they had experienced a natural disaster. Their standardized test scores went down as much or more than students during the Covid-19 pandemic or Hurricane Katrina in 2005.  

 This should come as no surprise. When we give children school vouchers, we’re removing their support systems already in place.

  They lose the friends, teachers, and communities where they grew up. It’s like yanking a sapling from out of the ground and transplanting it to another climate with another type of soil which may not be suited to it at all.  


 


   3) Vouchers have nothing to do with more efficient schools.  

  Let’s get one thing straight – voucher schools are businesses, often new businesses just opening up. And like any other start-up, the failure rate is extremely high. According to Forbes, 90% of start-ups fail – often within the first few years.  

 The same is true here. Like charter schools (another privatized education scheme), most voucher schools close in the first few years after they open. In Wisconsin, for example, 41% of voucher-receiving schools have opened and subsequently closed since public funding began in the early 1990s.  

  Yet when they close, they take our tax dollars with them leaving less funding available to educate all kids in the community.  

 Public schools, by contrast, are community institutions that usually last (and have been around) for generations. Their goal isn’t profit – it’s providing a quality education. 

  4) Vouchers have nothing to do with freedom or choice.  

   Unless it’s the choice to be a bigot and indoctrinate your child into your own bigotry. 

      Vouchers are about exclusion – who gets to attend these PRIVATE schools –  and indoctrination – what nonsense they can teach that public schools cannot.  

   Private schools can and do discriminate against children based on religion, race, gender, sexuality, special needs – you name it – even if those schools take public money.   

  For example, in Florida, Grace Christian School, a private institution that refuses to enroll LGBTQ kids has received $1.6 million so far in taxpayer funding. In Indiana, more than $16 million has gone to schools banning LGBTQ kids—or even kids with LGBTQ parents! That’s roughly 1 out of every 10 private schools in the state with just this one discriminatory enrollment.  

   Meanwhile thousands of parochial schools that receive public funding use textbooks provided by The American Christian Education (ACE) group. This includes the A Beka Book and Bob Jones University Press textbooks. A Beka publishers, in particular, reported that about 9,000 schools nationwide purchase their textbooks.  

    In their pages you’ll find glowing descriptions of the Ku Klux Klan, how the massacre of Native Americans saved many souls, African slaves had really good lives, homosexuals are no better than rapists and child molesters, and progressive attempts at equal rights such as Brown vs. Board of Education were illegal and misguided. You know – all the greatest Trump/MAGA hits!  

  Call me crazy, but I don’t think that’s a curriculum worthy of taxpayer dollars. I think if you’re going to take public money, you should have to accept all of the public, and you shouldn’t be allowed to teach counterfactual claims and prejudice as if they were fact.  

To be fair, this voucher program is not supposed to take money directly from the public system – one of Shapiro’s requirements for his support – but the money has to come from somewhere.

The state treasury would be responsible for managing the program, and it can’t just print money. This is taxpayer funding. We won’t allocate the money to support the schools we have, but we’re willing to send $100 million to schools we have no responsibility for now!? With no fiscal accountability!?

Lots of other states have enacted vouchers like this and surprise, surprise! The program expands enormously. For instance, in New Hampshire, voucher supporters predicted their program would cost taxpayers about $130,000, but within two years the cost had ballooned to more than $14 million.

Pennsylvania schools have monetary needs – but this voucher program is not one of them.

Lawmakers have been tasked by the state Supreme Court with increasing education funding.

That’s education funding for public schools – PUBLIC. Schools.

If they want to give away our tax dollars to their buddies in the private education industry or support religious indoctrination, that’s a different matter entirely.

And shame on Shapiro for giving the most reckless policymakers in the commonwealth on the other side of the aisle hope that these shenanigans will work.

 

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Teaching Blind Obedience is Child Abuse

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My daughter is not a little soldier.

She does not jump at my orders.

She can be rude, crude and badly behaved.

But I wouldn’t want her any other way – because the alternative is worse.

The same goes for my middle school students.

If you enter my classroom, you may find some children questioning my assignments.

“Mr. Singer, why can’t we chew gum in class?”

“Mr. Singer, why do you give so much homework?”

“Mr. Singer, why do we have to write a rough draft? Why can’t we just write a final copy?”

But you’ll notice my students almost always call me “Mr. Singer.” The reason is trust and respect.

Over time we’ve formed a relationship with each other where they’ve learned to respect me as their teacher and I have tried to earn that trust by treating them kindly and giving good reason for the things I tell them to do.

They are obedient (for the most part), but not BLINDLY obedient.

That may sound like splitting hairs but it’s one of the most important distinctions in education.

When someone knows WHY they’re doing something, they are an agent – they are responsible for their own actions. They are self-disciplined – not drones acting without thinking solely because they were told to do so.

That is incredibly important.

Think of what blind obedience does to adults.

American historian Howard Zinn famously put it this way:

“Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders… and millions have been killed because of this obedience… Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves… [and] the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem.”  

When I was a college undergraduate, I was unsure what to major in and I began my undergraduate work in psychology. Of all the things I learned in those early survey classes before changing course to writing, philosophy and (after a career in journalism) education, the lesson I’ll never forget is the groundbreaking 1961 study by Stanley Milgram, a Yale University psychologist.

Milford famously wondered how many people would willingly comply if a person in a position of authority told university students to deliver a 400-volt electrical shock to another person. His students predicted that no more than 3% of participants would deliver the maximum shocks. However, when he actually conducted the experiment, 65% delivered the maximum shocks.

During the experiment, each subject was asked to press a button that they believed gave increasingly high voltage electric shocks to the student on the other side of a wall if the student gave the wrong answer to a teacher’s questions. It should be noted that the students on the other side of the wall did not actually receive shocks, but the participants BELIEVED that they truly were shocking their fellow students by pressing the button.

Many of the subjects, while believing that the student was actually receiving shocks and hearing their protests and cries for mercy – including complaints of a heart condition – became increasingly agitated and even angry at the experimenter. Yet 36 out of 40 people, in turn, continued to do what they were instructed to do all the way to the end. Even when the student became silent when apparently receiving a shock from a switch labeled “danger: severe shock”, the subject continued based on the instruction that silence is to be read as a wrong answer.

This experiment (which would be highly unethical today) has become a classic in psychology, demonstrating the dangers of obedience.

Milgram wrote in 1974:

“Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.”

In fact, these experiments were inspired by history – specifically by the Nazi, Adolph Eichmann, who defended himself at the Nuremberg Trials by saying that he was simply following orders when he commanded the deaths of millions of Jews during the Holocaust.

This is what blind obedience gets us – a society of Nazis willing to do anything if told to do so by the proper authorities.

Parents and teachers are in a delicate situation then.

We’re responsible for guiding children into adulthood, and that often does require a measure of obedience. The question is how to get there without stripping away a child’s agency? How to get children to do generally what is necessary for their learning while still leaving their independence intact?

Let’s be honest – schools play an essential role in teaching obedience. It’s a critical life skill that helps children learn to follow rules and directions. Without obedience, adolescents would have difficulty following rules at home, at school, and in society.

One of the ways schools teach obedience is through rules and consequences. When children break rules, they face consequences such as being sent to the principal’s office, getting detention or being suspended. Such consequences help children learn that there are repercussions for their actions.

Schools also teach obedience through modeling. Teachers and administrators try to set good examples for children by obeying rules, themselves. When children see adults following the rules, they are more likely to do so themselves.

Finally, schools teach obedience through positive reinforcement. When children do the right thing, they are rewarded with praise, stickers, or other incentives. This positive reinforcement helps children learn that obedience is a good thing and that it is something that should be rewarded.

However, as children grow older, it is just as vital that teachers and parents not only foster obedience but also critical thinking about that obedience.

When a child questions a rule (and they will question it), we should not instantly meet that questioning with negativity or shock. We should calmly and rationally answer.

We should not get angry at questions, we should welcome them. Questioning should be a part of instruction because as educators and parents we should not want blind obedience. We should want trust and understanding.

As Albert Einstein said, “Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.”

I was reminded of this when watching the recent documentary “Shiny Happy People” about the Duggar family. The brood of religious fundamentalist Christians made their TV debut in 2004, going on to become a household name with their TLC show “19 Kids and Counting,” presenting Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar and their ever-expanding household as a seemingly “perfect” family. 

However, behind the scenes, the family’s theocratic hierarchy led to sexual, emotional, and physical abuse, which was allegedly brushed aside by their church.

In 2015, it was revealed that the Duggars’ eldest son, Josh James, had molested numerous underage girls, including four of his siblings, when he was aged 14 to 15. These revelations led to the cancellation of “19 Kids and Counting.” In 2021, Josh was arrested after police discovered he had been receiving and was in possession of child pornography.

The family belongs to the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP), a nondenominational Christian sect that serves as an umbrella organization for several ministries founded by minister Bill Gothard in 1961. 

According to the documentary, IBLP teachings require absolute obedience. Authority is distributed in various circles – God being the highest authority, followed by the family’s father, etc. Women are considered to be among the lowest forms of authority. In fact, two of Josh’s sisters who he had abused were even made to go on TV to speak in defense of their abuser. 

We hear a lot of propaganda from religious fundamentalists about how public schools groom students into being politically liberal. However, teaching blind obedience is the true grooming. It is setting people up to become victims of anyone who they perceive as having authority over them.

This is what made the Duggar children ready made victims for their own brother. It sets children up to be easily abused, gaslit, fooled and dominated.

And in doing research on this topic, I found many articles defending absolute obedience by reference to the Bible. The idea that authority is a hierarchy and we should simply follow the instructions of those above us in that hierarchy is as rampant as it is perverted.

Any discipline adults give to children should be in service of them eventually becoming independent and self-disciplined. That means being able to make independent choices about their own behavior without prompting from an adult.

There is a difference between being self-disciplined and being obedient.

A self-disciplined child will complete an action, regardless of who is watching. She will do the behavior because it is the right thing to do. In contrast, an obedient child may follow directions to please a parent, to avoid a consequence or to receive a reward. Being obedient is following directions or commands from an adult. It is exhibiting “good behavior” when an adult is present. Meanwhile, having self-discipline is making those choices without the presence or reminders from adults.

It may be tempting to see children marching in line or sitting calmly with their hands in their laps and consider that an ideal. But as children grow, we must learn to tolerate more frequent independence.

In fact, we must do more than tolerate it. We must cherish it.

The opposite is so much worse.

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Efforts to Legalize Child Labor are the Next Logical Step After Corporate Education Reform

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Standardized testing. 


 
Privatizing public schools. 


 
Defunding poor students.  


 
What’s next? 


 
Republicans across the United States have an answer – legalizing child labor. 


 
Since 1938 with the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration restricted children younger than 14 from being employed, and put strict rules in place on when those younger than 18 may be employed, for how many hours and in what fields. 


 
Today Republicans across the country seem poised to repeal those protections. 


 
In Wisconsin, Republicans want to allow 14-year-olds to work in bars and restaurants serving alcohol. These kids aren’t legally allowed to drink the beverages they’re pouring but I’m sure that won’t cause any problems. Nooooo! 


 
In Ohio, the GOP majority legislature is trying to allow kids ages 14 and 15 to work until 9 p.m. during the school year with their parents’ permission. Those teens better make sure their homework is done before their work-WORK because there won’t be anytime before bed. (No matter that this is illegal under federal law. I guess the rest of the country will have to change to accommodate the Buckeye State.) 


 
Donald Trump’s former press secretary, nepo baby, and current Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a law in March eliminating permits that employers used to have to check to verify a child’s age and their parent’s consent before hiring a minor. Without this, it’s much easier for companies caught violating child labor laws to claim ignorance. But, hey, freedom. Right? 


 
And that’s not even counting measures to loosen child labor laws that have been passed in New Jersey, New Hampshire and Iowa. (Iowa Republicans were even going to let 14- and 15-year-olds work in dangerous fields including mining, logging and meatpacking, before coming to their senses!) In the last two years, GOP Lawmakers have proposed loosening child labor laws in at least 10 states, according to a report published last month by the Economic Policy Institute. Some of these bills became law and others were withdrawn or vetoed. 


 
Make no mistake. These are not aberrations. This is the thrust of the mainstream Republican party today. 


 
National business lobbyists, chambers of commerce and well-funded conservative groups such as Americans for Prosperity – a conservative political network – and the National Federation of Independent Business – an organization that typically aligns with Republicans – are backing the state bills to increase teen participation in the workforce.  


 
Meanwhile, child labor violations have increased by almost 70% since 2018, according to The Department of Labor. The agency is increasing enforcement and asking Congress to allow larger fines against violators. 


 
How did we get here? 


 
Corporate education reform. 


 
It’s like the old adage: if a frog is suddenly dropped into a pot of boiling water, it will jump out and save itself from impending death. But, if the frog is gently placed in lukewarm water, with the temperature rising slowly, it will not perceive any danger to itself and will be cooked to death. 


 
That’s what our national education policy has been for the last two decades. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have been slowly raising the temperature and now the water is boiling over. 


 
We’ve been increasingly treating children less as individual humans who are ends in themselves and instead as cogs in the machine, widgets, things to be molded and manipulated for the good of the economy. 


 
Here we have an entire industry of standardized testing that makes its money as a parasite on the public school system. The same multi-billion dollar corporations design the tests, grade the tests and then offer remediation when kids don’t pass the tests. It’s a classic captive market where the provider has no incentive but to perpetuate the conditions that increase its bottom line. Students aren’t the consumers of this product – school districts are – and they have no choice but participate. It’s encoded in federal and state law. They have to play along and are, themselves, judged by the results of that compliance. 


 
Then we have privatization – charter and voucher schools. These are institutions ostensibly set up to educate students, but unlike authentic public schools, these organizations are allowed to turn a profit. Some of them get to hide behind the label “non-profit” but the result is the same. And once you allow financial gain of this sort into the system, that’s what it’s all about. Kids become a means to an end, not an end in themselves.  


 
And let’s not forget how all of this enters into the finances of public schools. Unlike most countries across the globe, education in the US is supported primarily by local taxes. So rich neighborhoods invariably have robust public schools that provide students with all the resources they need. And poor communities have impoverished schools where students get only whatever parents and teachers can scrounge together. In this country, children are not a worthy cause all by themselves – we only care about them if they’re OURS. 


 
The entire apparatus of corporate education reform is focused around jobs. In this ideology, the function of school is to prepare students for employment – that is all. It is not to make students good citizens, knowledgeable voters or even fully realized human beings. Rich kids are prepared for the jobs that will keep them rich. Poor kids are prepared for the service industry – so the rich have someone to wait on them in restaurants and stock grocery store shelves. 


 
The fact that the Covid pandemic has reduced adults willing to continue working in these fields for such low wages has only motivated the wealthy and powerful to fill those vacancies with younger-and-younger people who won’t understand how much they’re being taken advantage of and won’t complain. 


 
For example, take this quote from Rex Tillerson, former ExxonMobil CEO: 

“I’m not sure public schools understand that we’re their customer—that we, the business community, are your customer. What they don’t understand is they are producing a product at the end of that high school graduation. Now is that product in a form that we, the customer, can use it? Or is it defective, and we’re not interested? American schools have got to step up the performance level—or they’re basically turning out defective products that have no future. Unfortunately, the defective products are human beings. So it’s really serious. It’s tragic. But that’s where we find ourselves today.” 


We find the same rhetoric on the left as well as the right. 


 
The Center for American Progress (CAP) – a so-called liberal Washington think tank lead by Barack Obama  and Hillary Clinton minions like John Podesta – repeat the same conservative talking points. For example, CAP published and article called “Preparing American Students for the Workforce of the Future” which read like a companion piece to Tillerson’s diatribe. They did concede that being ready for “civic life” is important as well as being “career ready,” though. 

So far, few Democrats have taken the next logical step along with their Republican colleagues.

And they ARE colleagues. Don’t let the hyped up media culture war distract you. When you take out social issues, America’s two parties are as different as milk chocolate and dark chocolate. They’re the same basic thing separated only by intensity and bitterness.

Republicans are ready to undo child labor protections. Democrats will only take away kids’ rights at school.


 
This is what you get when you dehumanize students. This is what you get when you signal it is okay to be a predator on student needs to help fulfill the needs of the economy. 


 
Money comes first. Students – children – are a distant second.  


 
So finally the chickens of corporate education reform are coming home to roost. I don’t think we’re going to like the eggs. 

Like this post?  You might want to consider becoming a Patreon subscriber. This helps me continue to keep the blog going and get on with this difficult and challenging work.

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I’ve also written a book, “Gadfly on the Wall: A Public School Teacher Speaks Out on Racism and Reform,” now available from Garn Press. Ten percent of the proceeds go to the Badass Teachers Association. Check it out!

Student Projects are Better Than Tests 

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The class was silent. 


 
Students were hunched over their desks writing on paper, looking in books, consulting planners.  


I stood among them ready to help but surprised at the change that had overcome them.  
 


Maybe 10 minutes before I had heard groans, complaints and the kind of whining you only get from students at the end of the year.  
 


“Do we have to keep doing work!?” 
 


“Can’t we just watch a movie!?” 
 


“Ms. X- isn’t doing anything with her students!” 
 


And then I dropped the bomb on them.  
 


We had less than 3 weeks left in the school year. We had just finished our last text. In 8th grade that was “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee. In 7th grade it was “Silent to the Bone” by E.L. Konigsburg.  
 


Now was the time for the infamous final project.  
 


Some kids asked me about it at the beginning of the year having heard about it from a brother or sister who had already graduated from my class. 
 


“Mr. Singer,” they’d say, “Is it true you give a 1,000 point project at the end of the year?” 
 


I’d laugh and ask who told them that, or if that sounded credible.  
 


“Do you really think I’d give a 1,000 point project!?” I’d say in my most incredulous voice, and they’d usually laugh along with me.  
 


But some of them still believed it.  
 


That was nearly 9 months ago. Yet it all came flooding back when I passed out the assignment sheet.  
 
 
 


 
In the world of education there are few truths more self-evident than this. 
 


Projects are better than tests. 
 


Just think about it for a minute. 
 


On the one hand you have a project – an extended group of related assignments demonstrating learning and culminating in a product of some sort – a paper, a poster, a movie, a presentation or some mix of these. 
 


On the other hand you have a test – a quick snapshot of skills taken out of context.  
 


Which do you think is the better assessment? 
 


Imagine a musician.  
 


You could have her answers questions about notation, rhythm and theory…. Or you could just have her play music.  
 


Which would best demonstrate that she can play? 
 


It’s the same with other subjects.  
 


Take a test on reading – or actually read.  
 


Take a test on writing – or actually write.  
 


Take a test on math – or actually….  
 


You get the picture.  
 


And so did my students.  
 


I place a huge emphasis on writing in my English Language Arts classes. In 8th grade, my students have already written at least a dozen single paragraph and two multi-paragraph essays. So they’re pretty familiar with the format. I try to get them to internalize it so that it’s almost second nature.  
 


So when the final project comes along, it’s really a culmination of everything we’ve done.  
 


In Harper Lee’s book, there is the symbol of the mockingbird: 
 


“Your father’s right,” she said. “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” 
 


We already discussed how several characters in the book could count as mockingbirds – Tom Robinson, Atticus Finch, Boo Radley, etc.  


 
So I have students write about mockingbirds in all of the texts we’ve read this year. That includes “The Outsiders” by S. E. Hinton, “The Diary of Anne Frank” and several short stories.  


 
In 7th grade, we’re at a slightly different place. 


 
At the end of the year, students have written nearly as many single paragraph essays but no multi-paragraph ones yet. I use the final project to introduce them to the concept and explain how it’s the culmination of what we’ve done before.  


 
Students write about characters that they like from all the stories we’ve read throughout the year. These would be characters from texts as diverse as the one by Konigsburg, “The Giver” by Lois Lowery, “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens and several short stories.  


 
As projects go, it’s kind of narrow.  
 


In the past, I’ve had students make movies together interviewing various characters from their texts. I’ve had them design posters extolling various aspects of the Civil Rights movement. I’ve had them design graphics explaining the difference between internal and external conflict.  
 


But this is the end of the year – time to keep it simple.  
 


There’s actually a lot of research supporting this kind of assessment. 


Two separate studies were published by Lucas Education Research with Michigan State University (MSU), the University of Southern California (USC), and the University of Michigan. Researchers took either high school students or third graders and put them through a Project Based Learning (PBL) curriculum. 


The high school experiment conducted by MSU and USC involved 6,000 students in science and humanities from 114 schools about half of which were from low-income households. Students who were taught Advanced Placement (AP) U.S. Government and Politics and AP Environmental Science with a PBL approach outperformed their peers on AP exams by 8 percentage points in the first year and were more likely to earn a passing score of 3 or above, giving them a chance to receive college credit. In the second year, the gap widened to 10 percentage points. One key finding of the study, which included large urban school districts, was that the higher scores were seen among both students of color and those from lower-income households. 


The experiment with third-graders produced similar results. Students from a variety of backgrounds in PBL classrooms scored 8 percentage points higher than peers on a state science test. These results held regardless of a student’s reading level. 


 
In some ways, this should be obvious.  


When you put assessment in context it is more accurate. When you divorce it from its academic context (as you do with tests) it’s more abstract and less accurate. 
 


The problem is one of time and ease of execution. 
 


Put simply – tests are easy to give and grade. Projects are difficult.  
 


Even designing a good project can take lots of trial and error. Tests are often prepackaged and easy to design – you just have questions clustered around whatever skills you were hoping students would learn. 
 


It is very difficult for teachers to design entire courses with projects at every step of the way. Some might say it isn’t even desirable since such a course would probably not be able to cover as much material as traditional curriculum and it is generally preferable to use different modes of assessment in a single course. Let’s not forget that some students excel at tests and would suffer academically if the only kind of assessments were project based.  
 


My personal philosophy is one of moderation. Use projects when you can and when appropriate – but not always. And if you’re going to test, a teacher created assessment is orders of magnitude more valuable than a standardized one. 


 
And in terms of projects, the best is at the end. What better way to demonstrate the cumulative learning of a course than through a cumulative project?  


My students seem to agree. 


 
After the initial anxiety of such a hefty project, my kids in both grades settle down pretty quickly and get to work. I think they find the project comfortable because they’ve been exposed to almost every part of it before. This just brings it all together under one project.  
 


It’s the opposite of learned helplessness. Students already know they can do it. All they have to do is step up and get it done. 
 


That’s also why I make the project worth such a huge amount of points.  
 


I already double points for the last grading period. Doing that and having such a hefty final project sends the message to kids that they can’t slack off now. The work they do in the closing days of school will have an outsized impact on their grade. If kids care at all about that – and most still do in middle school – they’ll make the effort.  
 


It also helps fill the last few days and weeks with a focus on process. Nothing has to be memorized. Nothing is beyond anyone’s ability. We’re going to work together – each student and me – to make sure the final project gets done.  
 


Usually they accomplish it with flying colors.  
 


It’s something they often remember and pass on in legend to their younger siblings who bring it up in hushed tones when they enter my classroom for the first time. 

 

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After School Satan Clubs Are Teaching Public School Districts an Important Lesson in Free Speech  

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Be careful what you wish for – you just might get it. 


 
That seems to be the lesson public school districts across the country are being forced to learn from an unlikely source – Satan. 


 
Thousands of districts in the US allow religious organizations and clubs to operate on public school property, especially after classes are over.  


 
So The Satanic Temple (TST) – an organization that’s not really Satanic or a temple – goes around proposing After-School Satan Clubs at the same districts – and all Hell breaks loose.  
 


Keep in mind none of these districts need open their grounds to religious organizations. They could simply cite the Separation of Church and State and be done with it.  


 
The first clause in the Bill of Rights states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” This has been interpreted to mean that the government shall neither support nor prohibit religious expression. 


 
Our right-leaning Supreme Court has chipped away at this notion allowing all kinds of government support – however logic and consistency still mean something. 


 
Districts apparently CAN ignore the Church/State conundrum – BUT – if a district is going to violate this tenant for one organization, it has to be willing to do so for all. 


 
And that is why TST is making this point.  
 


Unlike the Church of Satan, a religious institution founded in the 1960s that literally worships the Biblical devil, TST is a non-theistic organization which uses hyperbole and humor to protest the Religious Right and authoritarianism. The organization says it strives to “provide a safe and inclusive alternative” to Christian-based groups that may seek to “convert school children to their belief system.” 


 
The TST’s latest victory is the first After-School Satan Club in Pennsylvania, which is set to hold its inaugural meeting today. 


 
All it took was a police investigation and the threat of a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to make it happen. 
 


The Saucon Valley School District in the Lehigh Valley already allows explicitly religious organizations to hold meetings on school grounds like the Good News Club run by the Child Evangelism Fellowship, a Christian fundamentalist organization that seeks to influence schoolchildren as young as five. 


 
So TST requested permission to start a new club on district property with the slogan “Educatin’ with Satan.” 


 
“Proselytization is not our goal, and we’re not interested in converting children to Satanism,” writes TST. “We prefer to give children an appreciation of the natural wonders surrounding them, not a fear of everlasting other-worldly horrors.” 


 
The response was immediate with messages from concerned citizens flooding into the district. 


 
The point went over many people’s heads. “What’s next, the after-school heroin club?” asked someone in an email. 


 
Others seemed to understand the district’s hypocrisy in blurring the lines between Church and State: “Please shut down all religious after-school clubs if that’s what needs to be done to keep Satan out of that building,” read another email. 


 
And then there was this: “I’m gonna’ come in there and shoot everybody,” said a recorded voice. 


 
The caller wasn’t some hooded devil worshipper. He allegedly was a 20-year-old North Carolina man who was worried, “the After-School Satan Club is trying to turn kids into devils,” according to law enforcement. 
 


Shortly after, the suspect, Ceu “Van” Uk, was arrested by Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police. He was arraigned on a charge of Terroristic Threats and sent to jail in lieu of $75,000 bail. He is expected to be extradited to Pennsylvania, according to a news release. 


 
Though violence was averted, the school board and administrators denied the club’s request. They even blamed the After-School Satan Club for the controversy despite it being the target of Uk’s violence. 


 
“Our community has experienced chaos. Our students, staff, and teachers have had to endure a threat to their safety and welfare,” Superintendent Jaime Vlasaty wrote.  


 
“The gravity of feelings of instability, anxiety, and fear have been profound.”  


 
This is exactly what you get when you tear down the wall between Church and State. But the board eventually relented and allowed the club to meet after threats by the ACLU. 
 


 
Both the national and Pennsylvania chapter of the ACLU sent a letter to the Saucon Valley School District demanding that it allow the After-School Satan Club access to school facilities just as it allows other clubs. The district eventually agreed. 


 
The club, which has six student members and is the first of its kind in the Commonwealth, New Jersey or Delaware, is expected to have its first meeting today in the district middle school. 
 


Sadly, the Pennsylvania incident is just the most recent one in which religious people have resorted to threats of violence to stop others from the same religious expression they take for granted. 


 
Another After-School Satan Club, which was allowed to meet in February at an elementary school in the Chesapeake School District in Virginia, followed a similar path. 
 


Parents protested outside B.M. Williams Primary School, but the first meeting was held on February 16 anyway and reportedly attended by nine students. 


 
Less than a week later, the elementary school was forced to evacuate following a bomb threat from an email saying the school promoted “devil worship,” according to local media.  


 
The email mentioned threats toward three people: a Chesapeake school board member, the superintendent and the organizer of the After-School Satan Club. “You are evil, there is no other way to put it,” the email reads. “You promote devil worship and unIslamic values.” 


 
It’s ironic how so-called religious values like tolerance and non-violence are more frequently found with Satan than adherents of faiths that are supposed to be espousing those beliefs. 
 


There’s also something glaringly disingenuous when schools complain about these issues –  they could avoid clubs of a religious nature entirely. 


 
Just respect the Separation of Church and State and your problem goes away.  


 
If people want religious clubs, hold them where they belong – churches, mosques, synagogues  and other houses of worship. Don’t pretend to legitimize your faith by placing these clubs at school – the same place kids learn science, history, math and reading. 


 
There are only seven active After-School Satan Clubs, according to June Everett, TST’s director for the project. Donovan Elementary School in Lebanon City Schools near Cincinnati, Ohio, hosts another such club. 


 
By contrast, there are more than 4,000 Good News Clubs in public schools (often elementary schools) in America. Their stated purpose is: 

“to evangelize boys and girls with the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and establish (disciple) them in the Word of God and in a local church for Christian living.” 


 
 
The lessons taught in these Evangelical and similar clubs are far more destructive than anything you’ll find in an irreverent “Satan” club. Good News Clubs and others like them stress Old Testament narratives of a retributive God who punishes sin, warns children that they will suffer an eternity in Hell if they refuse to believe, and stresses complete obedience as the supreme value. They tell children as young as preschoolers that they have “dark” and “sinful” hearts, were born that way, and “deserve to die” and “go to Hell.” Such messages rob children of the innocence and enjoyment of childhood, replacing them with a negative self-image, preoccupation with sin, fear of Hell, and an aversion to critical thinking. 


 
This is because most religious clubs are Biblically based and interpret that text literally. Meanwhile, The Satanic Temple’s more than 700,000 members don’t worship Satan. They take their central figure as a literary character, a symbol for the “Eternal Rebel,” according to their website. They are against “tyrannical authority” and support “individual sovereignty,” as well as empathy, compassion, and defiance. 


 
TST has waged public battles against the religious and GOP right on issues involving First Amendment freedoms, LGBTQ rights, and abortion access. 
 


Their approach has been often irreverent. In keeping with their belief in bodily autonomy, one of the temple members’ latest projects is an online clinic which aims to provide abortion medication by mail. They call it the Samuel Alito’s Mom’s Satanic Abortion Clinic. 


 
Last October, a Dallas-area Satanic Temple held an “Unbaptism” event. According to its website, an “Unbaptism” is an activity in which “participants renounce superstitions that were  imposed upon them without their consent as a child” — essentially, religious beliefs from which adults want to be disentangled. After all, most religions indoctrinate children into their beliefs before they are old enough to understand them or choose the beliefs for themselves. Why not offer them a chance to reject them once they’re mature enough to make a free choice? 


 
The fliers for the Saucon Valley program promised kids ages 5 to 12 science and community service projects, puzzles, games, nature activities, arts and crafts, snacks “& tons of fun.” 


 
This may scare some people, but I say thank goodness for Satan!  


 
It’s time we stop giving religious organizations the moral high ground as a matter of course.  


 
They need to prove their moral worth – and one way to do that would be to stop threatening people who have different beliefs. 


 
Moreover, administrators and school directors need to rediscover their reverence for the Separation of Church and State.  


 
This is one of the bedrock principles on which our nation was founded.  
 

Find your courage to stand up to religious organizations demanding you shred your morals and responsibilities to everyone in the community. 


 
If you value religious freedom, practice what you preach. 
 


Or get ready for an After-School Satan Club in your neighborhood. 

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Stop Giving Away Our Tax Dollars to Private & Parochial Schools, Matt Gergely & James Brewster!!! 

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I got an email from my state representative the other day, and what did I see?  


 
A picture of my smiling elected representatives to both the state House and Senate giving a check for almost half a million dollars to local private and parochial schools! 
 


What the beach sludge chewing GUM!!?  


 
Public schools in my home state of Pennsylvania just took the Commonwealth to the state Supreme Court and won because it wasn’t providing fair funding to students. And now my representatives are offering a novelty oversized check to religious schools and private sector academies!?  


 
This would be bad enough if they were Republicans who run their campaigns against public education and support only free market solutions to everything and White Christian Nationalism in all its forms.  


 
 
BUT THESE ARE DEMOCRATS!!!!!!! 


Democrats who somehow think that tromping onto the bleachers at Cornerstone Christian Preparatory Academy with a fistful of our tax dollars is a good photo opportunity!!!!?  


 
 
They think this is what they should share with constituents to show all the good work they’re doing!!!?  


 
Stealing our public tax dollars for schools that we have no business funding while our own schools that serve every child in the state go wanting!!!!!????? 


 
The email was from State Rep. Matt Gergely of McKeesport who just took office in February. Here’s the message from under the photo: 


 
 
“Yesterday, I was honored to help present $465,000 in scholarship funds to many students enrolled in the Educational Improvement Tax Credit Program. Congrats and best of luck to all who will surely benefit from the scholarships that will be provided! 
  
Big thanks to U.S. Steel and the Bridge Foundation for making these dollars a reality, to Sen. Jim Brewster for his continued collaboration, and to Cornerstone Christian Preparatory Academy for hosting the presentation.” 


 
 
The Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) was created in 2001 by Republican Gov. Tom Ridge. Here’s how it works. 


 If you expect a tax bill of $X at the end of the year, you can donate that same amount to the state for the purpose of helping parents pay off enrollment at a private or religious school for their children. Then you get between 75-90% of that donation back. 


  
So if your tax bill is $100 and you donate $100, you can get back $90 – reducing your total tax bill to a mere 10 bucks. 


  
Heck! Since this money is classified as a “donation” you can even claim it on your taxes and get an additional refund – even to the point where you end up making money on the deal! Pennsylvania even allows a “triple dip” – so you get the EITC tax credit, a reduction in your taxable income, and a reduction in your federal taxable income. We actually pay you to shortchange us on your taxes! 
  


Now I’m oversimplifying a bit since you can only use the EITC for up to $750,000 a year, but it’s still a sweet deal for businesses. It just really hurts nearly everyone else because it reduces the state’s general fund – by up to $340 million a year. 


  
When we give away hundreds of millions of dollars every year to religious and parochial schools, we have less money to spend on public schools, roads and all other services that benefit the majority of our citizens – especially the poor who rely more heavily on these services. 


 So why doesn’t the state just budget this amount of money directly to religious and private schools instead of ransacking the general fund after businesses donate it to the tax incentive program? 


 
Because it’s illegal to give taxpayer dollars to religious and private schools. The establishment clause of the First Amendment forbids it. 


  
The founders of our country didn’t want a state religion with schools teaching theological propaganda like we had in Great Britain. Moreover, they demanded tax dollars be spent with accountability to the whole public – something you cannot do in a private or religious school which isn’t set up for everyone but only those who choose and can afford to go there. 


  
However, some nefarious character in the Ridge administration (the Governor was pro-school-voucher but couldn’t get the policy passed in the legislature) thought up a loophole. He said that if tax money is turned into a tax credit, it’s no longer tax money and it doesn’t violate the rules to spend it on religious and private schools. 


  
So this is a fiscal sleight of hand meant to give businesses a tax break while boosting private schools. 


  
However, there’s an even more important reason they don’t call these things school vouchers. That term is extremely unpopular with voters. 
 


People don’t like school vouchers. But if you call it a “scholarship,” it’s more palatable. For instance, while school vouchers are mostly supported by Republicans, a substantial number of Democrats support education tax credit scholarships. 


  
 
 
I live in Allegheny County in the Pittsburgh region – the second highest area of the Commonwealth for these tax dodge…. I mean credits. The other is Philadelphia. 


 
Defenders of the project claim this money goes to fund “scholarships” for poor children to help defray the costs of enrollment at these schools. 
  


However, a family making as much as $100,608 per year can qualify for an EITC scholarship for their child. A family with two children could make up to $116,216 and still qualify. 


  
According to the law, the state is not allowed to collect income information about people using these vouch… I mean tax scholarships. However, we know that a significant number of them are being utilized at private schools with average tuitions of $32,000 – far more than the few thousand dollars provided by the scholarships. They are apparently being used by wealthy and middle class students who can already afford private schools but are using public tax dollars to reduce the cost. I wonder how many already go to these schools before even taking the scholarship. 


 
Consider this: one of the largest single recipients of this money in Allegheny County is the exclusive Shady Side Academy in Pittsburgh where tuition ranges from $56,495 for boarding students and $32,995 for day students. The private secular school takes in around $1 million annually from this program so that its wealthy students don’t have to spend as much on enrollment. 


  
So we are subsidizing the rich. 


 
And we are robbing the poor to do so. 
  


Even worse we’re using public money to fund the teaching of climate denial, creationism, indoctrination in religious and political ideologies! 
 


 
The state Budget and Policy Center estimates that about 76% of these “scholarships” go to religious schools. Many of these educational institutions are explicitly fundamentalist. This includes the 155 schools in the Association of Christian Schools International (ASCI) where they boast of “the highest belief in biblical accuracy in scientific and historical matters.” It also includes at least 35 schools in the Keystone Christian Education Association. 


 
And you don’t even have to be a business to divert your tax dollars into the program. 


 
The largest and shadiest group donating to the EITC Program are Limited Liability Corporations (LLCs). 


  
These “special purpose entities” are set up to represent individual donors so they can more easily divert tax dollars to private and parochial schools. 
  


LLCs represent hundreds of individuals who allow the LLC to donate on their behalf and then they get the tax credits passed back to them. It’s a way to encourage the wealthy to get the tax cut and support school privatization without all the hassle of doing the paperwork themselves. 
  


And most (if not all) of these LLCs are set up by religious organizations to boost their own parochial schools! 


 
For instance, Business Leadership Organized for Catholic Schools is perhaps the largest LLC receiving EITC funds. 
   


In Allegheny County, the largest are CASTA-SOS LLC and Pittsburgh Jewish Scholarship LLC. 


  
CASTA was set up by the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh Jewish Scholarship benefits Jewish schools in the city. 


 
Bridge Educational Foundation, a Harrisburg-based scholarship organization, operates the same way. On its Website, the organization claims to have provided $1,000 scholarships to more than 32,000 students in 61 state counties. 


 
 
I just cannot understand why Gergely and Brewster are not only supporting this program but think that it will generate good will among voters. 


 
 
They should be fighting to end this gaping hole in the state budget. They should be out there working their butts off to get adequate, equitable and sustainable funding for our public schools – not sitting on their butts congratulating themselves for helping religious and private schools get away with our hard-earned money! 
 

 

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