Could This Be Gadfly’s End? Top 12 Articles From 2023 Read By Fewer Than Ever

December 22, 2023 stevenmsinger academic freedom, Accountability, Budget, Censorship, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Corporate Education "Reform", Data, Education, history, Labor, Learning, McKeesport Area School District, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Philosophy, Pittsburgh, Politics, Poverty, Prejudice, privatization, School Choice, School Funding, Schools, Social Justice, Standardized Testing, Students, Teach for America, teacher autonomy, Teachers, Technology, Uncategorized 2023, After School Satan Club, Asian-Americans, blog, bloggers, charter schools, Commonwealth Charter Academy, Cyber Charter Schools, education, Education Bloggers Network, end of the year, library, MAP test, Politics, Propel Charter Schools, teacher salary, teachers, woke

Thank you, loyal readers, but this may be the end of Gadfly on the Wall.

Readership has fallen off to such a degree that I’m just not sure it’s worth continuing anymore.

That combined with increasing difficulties in my own life have made me truly question whether I should (or can) go on with it.

Don’t get me wrong. I will truly cherish every moment writing these articles, fighting for what I (still) think needs to happen in public education so that our children can be fairly treated and succeed.

There is so much I think most people don’t know about what happens in our schools and what could be done to make them better for children, families and the people who work there.

But after 9 years of pounding my head against the wall – well, it seems like the wall is winning.

This blog used to be read by at least half a million people each year. But social media – the prime distributor of this material – is not what it was a decade ago. In 2021, I had 222,414 hits. Last year it was 124,984. This year it was 73,121.

And much of those were for articles I’d written in years past. The highest three articles this year were not written in 2023. They were: The MAP Test – Selling Schools Unnecessary Junk at Student Expense ( 2,344) from Aug. 2022, When Good Students Get Bad Standardized Test Scores (1,775) from Oct. 2022, and Lesson Plans Are a Complete Waste of Time (1,544) from Sept. 2021.

Why keep putting out new content? It often feels like I’m saying the same thing over and over anyway – and not really being heard except by the same few people.

So I’m going to pause, take a moment and really think about things.

Heck! I might find out that I simply can’t quit because I’ve got too much to say. Then again, I may only write when something really important comes up that I absolutely have to let loose on.

Or this could be it.

I don’t know.

In any case, thank you so much for nearly 10 years of readership. I assume most people seeing this would have been here for the long haul.

It has been an amazing experience. I’m not sure what comes next, but for now I leave you with some outstanding moments from 2023.

All the best in the future!

-Steven Singer

The Gadfly on the Wall

12) Standardized Tests Hurt Asian-American Students, Too, Though Many Get High Scores

Published: March 27

Views: 243

Description: Asian-Americans – taken as a whole – score better on standardized tests than white Americans. But they are just as much victimized by testing as any other minority. The only difference is their success is held up as an excuse for upholding this deeply inequitable practice. It obscures that all Asians are not the same, certain types do not score as highly yet all are held to unfair expectations.

Fun Fact: This is a rarely explored or reported on aspect of the standardized testing phenomenon. I’m proud to have written on it despite its low readership.

11) Fact Checking Propel Charter Schools – Do They Live Up to Their Own Hype?

Published: Jan. 20

Views: 572

Description: The Propel Charter School network of 13 schools based in Pittsburgh, Pa, has advertisements everywhere proclaiming its virtues. However, this is just advertising. From test scores to safety to class size to teacher qualifications and many other factors, the charter chain comes up short again and again. Compared with authentic public schools in the same neighborhoods where these schools are located, Propel compares rather badly.

Fun Fact: I think this is incredibly important in the western Pennsylvania region. This information should be shared far and wide. It should at very least spark media investigations comparing Propel and authentic public schools so parents could make informed choices about where to send their children. But we never see that because Propel is a frequent advertiser. If the media provided this information – and didn’t just uncritically repeat propaganda – the media conglomerates would lose valuable advertising revenue. I am proud I could provide this public service.

10) Stay Woke, Public School Teachers

Published: March 12

Views: 588

Description: Being “woke” just means being alert to racial prejudice and discrimination – just knowing that these things exist and trying to recognize them when present. The way I see it, that’s well under a teacher’s job description. After all, who else will teach the true history that for more than 400 years in excess of 15 million men, women and children were the victims of the transatlantic slave trade? Who will teach the true history of the fight against human bondage and the struggle for equal rights? Who will teach about women’s fight for suffrage, equal pay, and reproductive freedom? Who will teach about the struggle of the individual to affirm their own gender identity and sexual expression? It’s up to us.

Fun Fact: Republicans are so anti-teacher, they’ve made the acquisition of knowledge part of the culture war and turned teachers into the enemy. This was just my way of pushing back a little.

9) Where Have School Libraries Gone?

Published: Aug. 25

Views: 681

Description: McKeesport Area School District – where I graduated and my daughter still attends classes – closed its high school public library for good. They gave away the books and turned it into a large group instruction room. And this kind of thing is happening all across the country. This is a problem because 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.

Fun Fact: This was a truly depressing discovery but even more so was the response. Many people couldn’t grasp why libraries are even necessary today. Libraries used to be something society provided to every citizen just as a matter of course. Now our expectations are so low that we’ve nearly given up on this essential resource.

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

Published: May 17

Views: 691

Description: 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 goes around proposing After-School Satan Clubs at the same districts – and all Hell breaks loose.

Fun Fact: You want to let religion in the school house door, you have to let all of them in. You can’t pick and choose.

7) Congress May Raise Educators’ Minimum Salaries to Combat the Teacher Exodus

Published: Jan. 1

Views: 699

Description: A group of Congressional Democrats have proposed a national minimum salary for teachers. Rep. Frederica Wilson and Rep. Jamaal Bowman, (both former teachers) and six other members of the House have introduced The American Teacher Act establishing a minimum salary of $60,000 for all public school teachers working in the U.S. – the first legislation of its kind. The average starting salary of teachers nationwide was $41,770 in the 2020-21 school year, according to the National Education Association (which supports the bill).

Fun Fact: What a lovely thought! Still waiting on this to be approved. Any day now. Come on, Congress!

6) I am a Charter School Abolitionist, and You Should Be, Too

Published: March 22

Views: 701

Description: Charter schools have been around since 1992. Though it seems like they’re everywhere these days, only 45 states and the District of Columbia allow these schools and even then they enroll just 6% of the students in the country – roughly three million children. The five states that do not have charter school laws are Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Vermont. So after 32 years of trial and error, we’re left with a charter school system that does not get better academic results than authentic public schools (despite being given dramatic advantages in their charter agreements) and in many cases drastically fails by comparison. Not to mention all the fraud, malfeasance and ineptitude you get from removing regulations for any Tom, Dick or Harry who thinks he can open a school. Time to abolish these schools and end this failed experiment.

Fun Fact: This article really angered some folks. There are lots of people who hate the idea of charter schools in general but want to preserve anything that they think might give their own kids an advantage over others. Even if that is rarely the case! However, the gleam of the new has definitely worn off this concept and an increasing number of folks are open to limiting or ending this fiasco.

5) A Private Equity Firm, The Makers of the MAP Test, and an Ed Tech Publisher Join Forces

Published: Jan. 26

Views: 930

Description: A year after being gobbled up by private equity firm Veritas Capital, ed tech company Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) is acquiring K-12 assessment giant Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA). Let me put that in perspective – a scandal-ridden investment firm that made billions in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan bought one of standardized testing’s big four and then added the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) test to its arsenal. This almost certainly means the cost of state testing is going to increase since the providers of the tests are shrinking.

Fun Fact: This is the kind of story that will creep into our lives before we even realize what is happening. We’ll wonder why our districts and even entire states which rely heavily on the MAP test are buying as much HMH curriculum as possible. That way they can teach directly what is on their standardized tests. Bye, bye, tax dollars that could have been spent to educate kids!

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

Published: Oct. 8

Views: 963

Description: My neighborhood district – McKeesport Area School District (MASD) – is going through tough times. School directors reneged on a teachers contract. Their business manager ran for the hills. And at a board meeting two school directors had their dirty laundry aired during public comments prompting one to call a White Oak Councilperson a homophobic slur. I had four suggestions to right the ship: (1) Pass a Code of Conduct for Board Members and Administrators, (2) Start Streaming Council Meetings Again, (3) Hire a New Reputable Business Manager, and (4) Pass a Teachers Contract with No Tax Increase.

Fun Fact: This article got a lot of notice in the neighborhood and some of my suggestions actually got done. The district hired a new business manager and will begin streaming new meetings. They’re also negotiating with teachers so fingers crossed.

3) Teach for America Promised to Fix the Teacher Exodus Before Anyone Even Noticed There Was One. Now It’s Choking on Its Own Failure

Published: Aug. 7

Views: 1,070

Description: Teach for America (TFA) was supposed to fix the teacher exodus by fast tracking non-education majors into the classroom where they would teach for a few years and then enter the private sector as “experts” to drive public policy. College graduates would take a five-week crash course in education and commit to at least two years in the classroom thereby filling any vacant teaching positions. Not only didn’t it work, it ended up making the situation worse. Now the organization created in 1990 is expecting its lowest enrollment in 15 years. TFA anticipates placing slightly less than 2,000 teachers in schools across the country this fall. I guess watering down what it means to be a teacher is even less popular than actually being an educator.

Fun Fact: People really hate TFA. The organization’s cred has gone down more than anything else in the education field – even more than charter schools. The fact that the emperor has no clothes here is painfully obvious.

2) Come Visit Your Wasted Tax Dollars at Commonwealth Charter Academy’s Waterfront Luxury Office Space

Published: Feb. 4

Views: 1,236

Description: If you go to the Waterfront in Homestead, PA, you’ll find the newest satellite office of Commonwealth Charter Academy (CCA) – the biggest cyber charter school network in the entire state. It’s one of 51 locations statewide. Only 27 states allow CYBER charters like this – schools that teach mostly (or entirely) distance learning through the Internet. Nationwide, Pennsylvania and Ohio have the largest cyber charter enrollment. In 2020-21, the Keystone State enrolled 61,000 students in 14 cyber charters – and roughly 21,000 attend CCA! There’s an authentic public school in this neighborhood, too – Steel Valley School District – right up the hill. It’s not located in nearly as trendy a spot though. Moreover, its four buildings were constructed around the 1970s and are crumbling down in places. But the new cyber charter school building looks like a palace!

Fun Fact: I don’t think most people who go to the Waterfront understand what the CCA location really is. To them it’s just another school, kind of sleek and modern looking. This article was my attempt to tell them. Thankfully it proved relatively popular, though the CCA people absolutely had a conniption. They couldn’t believe someone was criticizing their profitable business venture. This story brought the most trolls of any this year.

1) McKeesport Teachers Without a Contract Because of Bad Business Manager or Bad Faith School Board?

Published: Aug. 16

Views: 1,409

Description: McKeesport Area School District (MASD) botched a new teachers contract. So the question is – does it have a terrible business manager or a regressive school board? School directors and the teachers had agreed to a new contract, but the board tabled it in June after concerns that the western Pennsylvania district didn’t have the money to pay for moderate raises. Then the board skipped the entire month of July without a meeting as if the livelihoods of hundreds of employees don’t count. By the time classes were set to begin in August, the board was no closer to solving the problem. Board members mostly blamed the business manager who eventually quit. The situation still has not been resolved.

Fun Fact: This article hit the neighborhood like a nuclear blast. Everyone seemed to be talking about it. Someone in the neighborhood literally called me a “local legend” for having written it. I’m just glad it focused people’s attentions on the facts of the matter. If anything gets me to blog again, it will be writing more about the local stories that are so important but no one else is talking about.

Gadfly’s Other Year End Round Ups

This wasn’t the first year I’ve done a countdown of the year’s greatest hits. I usually write one counting down my most popular articles and one listing articles that I thought deserved a second look. Here are all my end of the year articles since I began my blog in 2014:

2022:

Gadfly’s Most Outrageous Articles in 2021 That You May Have Missed or Been Too Polite to Share

Gadfly’s Top 10 Articles of 2021 – Shouts in the Dark

2020:

The Most Important Education Articles (By Me) That You Probably Missed in 2020

Outrunning the Pandemic – Racing Through Gadfly’s Top 10 Stories of 2020

2019:

Sixteen Gadfly Articles That Made Betsy DeVos Itch in 2019 

2018:

A Gadfly’s Dozen: Top 13 Education Articles of 2018 (By Me)

2017:

What’s the Buzz? A Crown of Gadflies! Top 10 Articles (by Me) in 2017

Hidden Gadfly – Top 5 Stories (By Me) You May Have Missed in 2017

2016

Worse Than Fake News – Ignored News. Top 5 Education Stories You May Have Missed in 2016

Goodbye, 2016, and Good Riddance – Top 10 Blog Post by Me From a Crappy Year

2015

Gadfly’s Choice – Top 5 Blogs (By Me) You May Have Missed from 2015

Who’s Your Favorite Gadfly? Top 10 Blog Posts (By Me) That Enlightened, Entertained and Enraged in 2015

2014

Off the Beaten Gadfly – the Best Education Blog Pieces You Never Read in 2014

Stay Woke, Public School Teachers

March 12, 2023 stevenmsinger #BlackLivesMatter, academic freedom, Accountability, antisemitism, capitalism, Censorship, Child Safety, Civil Rights, Corporate Education "Reform", Credibility, Democrat, Donald Trump, Education, history, Labor, Learning, literature, Local Control, Media, Parents, Philosophy, Politics, Prejudice, privatization, Racism, Republican, school vouchers, Schools, Social Justice, Standardized Testing, student teacher relationship, Students, teacher autonomy, Teachers, Uncategorized #LetTeachersTeach, A+ Schools, academic freedom, backlash, Black feminism, Civil Rights, critical race theory, critical thinking, education, feminism, freedom, history, human rights, intersectionality, lgbtq, Politics, queer theory, woke, woke-ness

“I advise everybody, be a little careful when they go along through there – best stay woke, keep their eyes open.”
–Lead Belly “Scottsboro Boys”

How can you understand a problem if you are not allowed to name it?

How can you fight injustice if you are forbidden from learning its history and connection to the present moment?

These questions are at the heart of a well-financed war against a simple term – woke-ness.

Since the summer of 2020, oligarchs and their tools in the United States have been waging a disinformation campaign against that term – especially as it pertains to our schools.

Chiding, nagging, insinuating – you hear it constantly, usually with a sneer and wagging finger, but what does it really mean?

To hear certain governors, state legislators and TV pundits talk, you’d think it was the worst thing in the world. But it’s not that at all.

In its simplest form, being woke is just being alert to racial prejudice and discrimination.

That’s all – just knowing that these things exist and trying to recognize them when present.

I’m not sure what’s so controversial about that. If we all agree racism is bad, why is it undesirable to acknowledge it exists when it’s demonstrably there?

More specifically, being woke means focusing on intersectionality – how issues of race, class and gender overlap and interrelate with each other. It means practicing critical race theory – not the made up dog whistle conservatives use to describe anything they don’t like being taught in school, but the study of how racial bias is inherent in many Western social and legal systems. It means using the lens of Black feminism, queer theory and others to address structural inequality.

Again, why is that a bad thing? If we agree that prejudice is bad, we should want to avoid it in every way possible, and these are the primary tools that enable us to do so.

Our society is not new. We have history to show us how we got here and how these issues have most successfully been addressed in the past.

But these Regressives demand we ignore it all.

Shouldn’t we protect hard-fought advances in human rights? Shouldn’t we continue to strive for social justice and the ability of every citizen to freely participate in our democracy – especially in our public schools?

Of course we should!

But leaders of the backlash will disagree.

Like in so many other areas of our culture, they have stolen the term “woke-ness” and tried to co-opt it into another invented grievance. For people who deride their political opponents as being too fragile and unable to handle reality, they certainly find a million things to cry about on their 24-hour news networks to keep their base angry and engaged all the time.

They have attacked librarians, spied on and harassed teachers, banned books and weaponized the law to forbid certain ideas from our schools and public spheres.

They have targeted and demonized antiracist work. They have tried to discredit the concepts that Black women and LGBTQ people have created to explain and improve the inequitable conditions of their lives.

And the reason is crystal clear – they oppose that work.

They oppose anti-racism. They oppose the rights of Black women and LGBTQ people to better treatment.

They are against everyone but a perceived white, male, heteronormative majority that doesn’t even really exist.

They call their political opponents extremist. They call them groomers. They call them prejudiced and racist.

But it is Regressives’ anti-woke agenda that is really all of those things.

For them, up is down and circles are squares.

As public school teachers, being woke is not a choice. It is a responsibility.

For we are the keepers of history, science and culture.

Who will teach the true history that for more than 400 years in excess of 15 million men, women and children were the victims of the transatlantic slave trade? Who will teach the true history of the fight against human bondage and the struggle for equal rights? Who will teach about women’s fight for suffrage, equal pay, and reproductive freedom? Who will teach about the struggle of the individual to affirm their own gender identity and sexual expression?

We, teachers, must help students understand what happened, what’s happening and why. And to do so we must protect concepts that emerged from decades of struggle against all forms of domination.

It must be us.

It won’t be the College Board, a billion-dollar American business calling itself a non-profit, that after years of stalling finally released its Advanced Placement African American Studies curriculum – a college-level course available for high school students nationwide. In the wake of political backlash, the new course material is as watered-down as weak tea in comparison to previous drafts of the course.

This just goes to show that the free market will never stand up to political power if it is perceived as adversely affecting the bottom line. True education comes not from corporate academic standards or standardized test gatekeepers. It comes from teachers.

And we must teach like never before because our lessons have a pivotal impact on society at large.

Intersectional frames such as those under attack by billionaires posing as populists have been incredibly important in supporting overlooked social problems and addressing today’s human rights failures.

Those of us who know history understand that suppression of knowledge and intellectuals (especially those from marginalized peoples) are a tool used to increase racism and oppression – to overturn the progress of the last century.

Refusing students access to books, criminalizing “divisive concepts,” and discrediting those with whom they disagree have all been tools of domination. Just as denying the persistence of any inequality has been a tool to discredit its victims.

Progress has been made in the last hundred years, but the struggle is not over. And denying that there are any problems left to solve is a way of stifling that progress and turning back the clock against it.

If we give in to these partisan “anti-woke” imperatives, we enable the return of racist and cultural inequalities that had been at least partially rectified years ago. We clear the way for these extremists to bring back a mythical past in which women are meant to be merely subservient to men and where race, gender and sexuality are rigidly defined and limited according to the ruling class.

Teachers, we cannot allow this to happen.

We stand at the gates, the first (and perhaps last) line of defense, because we stand at the schoolhouse doors.

It is a responsibility none of us signed up to take. But here we are.

If we are truly educators, we must teach the truth.

We must put the facts in their proper context.

We must encourage our students to think about what came before and what’s happening now.

We must stay woke.

Or the whole world sleeps.

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.

Plus you get subscriber only extras!

Just CLICK HERE.

Gadfly’s Other Year End Round Ups

2021:

Gadfly’s Most Outrageous Articles in 2021 That You May Have Missed or Been Too Polite to Share

Gadfly’s Top 10 Articles of 2021 – Shouts in the Dark

2020:

The Most Important Education Articles (By Me) That You Probably Missed in 2020

Outrunning the Pandemic – Racing Through Gadfly’s Top 10 Stories of 2020

2019:

Sixteen Gadfly Articles That Made Betsy DeVos Itch in 2019 

2018:

A Gadfly’s Dozen: Top 13 Education Articles of 2018 (By Me)

2017:

What’s the Buzz? A Crown of Gadflies! Top 10 Articles (by Me) in 2017

Hidden Gadfly – Top 5 Stories (By Me) You May Have Missed in 2017

2016

Worse Than Fake News – Ignored News. Top 5 Education Stories You May Have Missed in 2016

Goodbye, 2016, and Good Riddance – Top 10 Blog Post by Me From a Crappy Year

2015

Gadfly’s Choice – Top 5 Blogs (By Me) You May Have Missed from 2015

Who’s Your Favorite Gadfly? Top 10 Blog Posts (By Me) That Enlightened, Entertained and Enraged in 2015

2014

Off the Beaten Gadfly – the Best Education Blog Pieces You Never Read in 2014

Who is Education For?

December 17, 2022 stevenmsinger academic freedom, Accountability, capitalism, Censorship, Charter Schools, Compassion, Corporate Education "Reform", Education, Learning, literature, Philosophy, Politics, Prejudice, privatization, Schools, Standardized Testing, Students, Teachers, Uncategorized classroom, economics, economy, education, Learning, Philosophy, Politics, Socrates, Students, teachers

Everyday we send our children to school.

Why?

In whose interest are we sending our kids to school?

Is it for businesses so that they’ll have the kinds of workers they need?

Is it so that our students’ educations will align with the demands of industry?

Or is it for the children? So they’ll become mature, intelligent adults capable of independent thought and making rational decisions?

Who, after all, is this education for?

I mean our society has jobs that need doing and people need to do those jobs or we won’t survive – but is that really the overriding, predominant impetus behind school? Survival?

Are we primarily helping the economy by subjecting our kids to the classroom? Or are we doing something to benefit THEM?

Is there a value in being educated? A value to the person who has become educated?

Does it provide any advantage to a person to know things? To be able to think about things? To be able to express oneself in writing? To be able to make calculations? To use logic and reason? To know history? To be able to read and comprehend what one’s read? To form an educated opinion on what one’s read? To know and practice the scientific method? To express one’s creativity? To do any of a hundred other things kids learn in school?

Or are we just filling the factories with button pushers to keep smoke spilling out of the chimneys?

It’s more than two decades past the millennium, and I can’t believe I still have to ask such questions.

But I do. Because nearly every day some policymaker, pundit, billionaire or other over-privileged talking head feels free to answer these questions wrong.

Five minutes alone in the dark and the answers are inescapable. But these guys (and it’s usually men) don’t have that kind of time or integrity.

It could be the CEO of the world’s largest petroleum company. Or the President of the United States. Or the Secretary of Education.

In what they say, what they do, what they promise, what they ponder in earshot of the press, they show a persistent ignorance of what education is and who it is for.

They think it’s something that can be adequately measured by standardized tests. Something that can be improved by competition. Something that is supposed to earn them money.

So they get the answer wrong. Every time.

I’m tired of telling them the truth. I’m tired of correcting them. Because they don’t care to be corrected. They have a fixed conception of the world, and understanding the truth about education might make that all come tumbling down.

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”

Socrates is purported to have said that 2,400 years ago.

It’s not exactly news.

What’s the purpose of life if you don’t think about things?

But no matter how much money they have, the plutocrats can’t afford to think about things. And they certainly can’t afford for YOU or your children to think about things.

What would happen if we all went around examining our lives? Would we still submit to being cogs in an economy designed to benefit them and not us?

Would we still show up everyday to jobs we hate for salaries incapable of paying the bills?

Would we still shop constantly to fill the aching void in our hearts, not thinking but just re-enacting the American mantra of consume, Consume, CONSUME!?

Would we still worship the rich like gods regardless of the reality – their immature actions, their crude posturing, their obvious amoral banality?

Would we still pretend that skin color determines character, that nationality determines morality, that sex determines temperament, that biology determines gender, that rationality determines politics?

Would we still vote for one of two prepackaged, preconceived, preprocessed options neither of which will actually do what we know needs done but one of which will hurt us and the other of which will hurt others more or not hurt us worse than we already are?

The answers are obvious. We all know. You don’t need me to tell you.

Just like the purpose of education.

It is the most dangerous thing in the world to the status quo.

Education, learning, thought is a cocoon. And no one knows what will come crawling out after the metamorphosis.

No one controls education. Not even the educator.

So how can we let anyone truly be educated? They might end up different – different from their parents, different from their congregations, their friends, neighbors, society.

Who is education for?

For whom would we risk all this?

Who is worth such danger, such terror, such uncertainty?

You know who.

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.

Plus you get subscriber only extras!

Just CLICK HERE.

Top Five Republican Nightmare Fantasies About Public Schools

October 15, 2022 stevenmsinger #BlackLivesMatter, academic freedom, Accountability, capitalism, Censorship, Charter Schools, Child Predators, Child Safety, Civil Rights, Corporate Education "Reform", Credibility, Data, Democrat, Education, Feminism, history, Learning, LGBT, Local Control, Media, Parents, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Philosophy, Politics, Prejudice, privatization, protest, Racism, Republican, School Choice, school vouchers, Schools, Social Justice, Students, teacher autonomy, Teachers, Uncategorized, Unions, video games, voting, Whiteness charter schools, Doug Mastriano, education, Election, fantasy, gay, lgbtq, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Politics, prejudice, propaganda, public schools, racism, sexism, teachers, trans

Republicans are fighting against a version of public education that does not exist.

Critical race theory, pornographic school books, and other bogeymen haunt their platforms without any evidence that this stuff is a reality.

Doug Mastriano, the GOP nominee for Governor of Pennsylvania, actually promises to ban pole dancing in public schools.

Pole dancing!

“On day one, the sexualization of our kids, pole dancing, and all this other crap that’s going on will be forbidden in our schools,” he says.

Mr. Mastriano, I hate to tell you this, but the only school in the commonwealth where there was anything like what you describe was one of those charter schools you love so much. The Harambee Institute of Science and Technology Charter School in Philadelphia used to run an illegal nightclub in the cafeteria after dark.

But at authentic public schools with things like regulations and school boards – no. That just doesn’t happen here.

Maybe if your plan to waste taxpayer dollars on universal school vouchers goes through you’ll get your wish.

But reality has never stopped the state Senator from complaining about a list of fictional public education woes.

On Twitter he routinely makes statements like this from August:

“Democrats are pushing woke ideology, racism, and sexuality on children in the classroom. As your governor, I will ban this on day one…”

Yikes. This is like promising to ban sorcery in school – another thing we don’t teach.

This isn’t the Republican Party I remember when I was growing up.

Instead of personal autonomy and free trade, today’s GOP solemnly swears to eliminate a series of racially and sexually motivated phantasms that are like shadows under a child’s bed. I suppose it’s easier to get rid of something that’s never existed than to fix the real problems we actually have.

But let’s be honest – for some folks this kind of unhinged messaging works.

Perhaps if we examine the most common claims against public schools, maybe we can see through the mist and electioneering to the very real fears the GOP is using in a desperate attempt to manipulate voters to their side.

So here are the top 5 Republican nightmare fantasies about public schools:

1) Teaching boys to hate themselves

“I believe that white men are the most persecuted identity in America.”

Georgia Congressperson Marjorie Taylor Greene actually said this – out loud – in an interview.

And the GOP attention-seeker is not alone.

Many Republicans claim anti-male discrimination is wide spread. Men are blamed for so many things in our society they’re forced to turn to porn and video games because they have no other options, Green claimed.

And women have become “… too weak and pathetic to take care of themselves. They want a great big giant government to take care of them. It’s such a hypocrisy. They claim they want the future to be female, but they aren’t capable of taking care of themself.”

How did we get here? Public schools that teach sexual politics.

But, Marjorie, the following ARE facts:

-The US is one of only eight countries in the world that does not provide any form of paid maternity leave by federal law.

-Women earn 83 cents for every dollar a man makes.

-Despite being almost 60% of the population, women hold only 26% of the seats in Congress.

Should we teach such facts in school?

Contrary to Republican opinion, teaching about the many ways women are unfairly treated in the US does not turn men into victims or make women helpless.

Male students are not responsible for a world created by past generations but they ARE responsible for picking a side and doing something about it as they become adult members of society.

In a country where a GOP-controlled Supreme Court has usurped women’s bodily autonomy by overturning Roe v. Wade and men still have untold economic advantages, redefining men as victims and education as infantalizing is, itself, a fantasy.

2) Teaching kids to be gay

Republicans literally think public school teachers are turning kids gay.

That’s the impetus behind Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s controversial “Don’t Say Gay” bill and several copycat bits of legislation the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is pumping out across the country.

They insist that even mentioning LGBTQ people exist is grooming children into a sexuality they wouldn’t otherwise have.

First, believing this shows massive ignorance.

No one can really be coerced into a sexuality they didn’t already possess. As you grow and mature, you have sexual preferences. It’s not really a matter of nurture – it’s nature. People are born this way.

Second, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge that there are other ways to express your sexuality is not going to make people ignore their innate inclinations. The idea seems to be that if kids never find out there are other options, they’ll simply be satisfied with heterosexuality – how they’re told to think and feel.

And finally, it is extremely unfair to LGBTQ people. We already live in a culture that celebrates cis hetero-normativity. Trying to erase everyone else causes real harm and trauma to both people who are different and to those who are not but never get to fully understand the entire spectrum of humanity.

Teachers are not making kids gay, but they are telling kids that gay people are real. We are trying to stop bullying and homophobia. And let’s be honest – that’s really what Republicans are objecting to here.

They want it to be okay to hate gay people.

Sorry. Not in public school.

3) Teaching kids to be trans

This is where the backlash against using appropriate pronouns and recognizing trans people is coming from.

As much as Republicans hate gay people, they absolutely despise and fear the trans community.

Once again they conflate acknowledging the existence of the other with coercing students to become the other. Just knowing that trans is an authentic way human beings can live is seen as a threat. But if this kind of knowledge makes you trans, you almost certainly were trans already.

It hurts no one to call another person by the pronouns they would prefer you use. That’s just respect – treating others like you would want to be treated.

It hurts no one to see the world as bigger than just one way of living. This is reality, after all. And that’s what Republicans are rebelling against.

Far from teachers coercing students to become trans, the GOP wants us to bully children not to be. They want to constrain difference, punish and hide it.

This cannot be the mission of public schools. At its best, it is for everyone and must respect each child on their own terms.

It’s not easy. Recognizing such differences can be messy and challenging, but that’s life. Deal with it.

4) Teaching kids to hate white people

This is one of the most common complaints of Republicans everywhere.

Thy say public schools are woke. Public school teachers talk about racism and prejudice. They teach what was, what is and encourage kids to act to dismantle systems of injustice against people of color that persist.

Yeah. We do that.

I make no apologies.

It’s not Critical Race Theory (which is a legal framework) nor do we teach anyone to hate white people. But we do teach what whiteness has done and continues to do.

It’s called history and current events.

White kids today are not responsible for slavery, Jim Crow or a host of evils perpetrated throughout our collective past. But that doesn’t remove their responsibility to do something about it today.

Republicans, though, try to flip the script and call this teaching, itself, racism. That’s absurd! It is not racist to show kids injustice.

For example:

-Median household income for Black people, at $43,862, is 37 precent less than that of white people, at $69,823.

-Census data shows Black couples are more than twice as likely as whites to be denied a mortgage or a home improvement loan, which leads to just 59 percent of the median home equity white households have, and just 13 percent of Black wealth.

-A Black child born today can expect to live four years less than a white one.

-Black people have been more than twice as likely as white people to experience threats or uses of force during police encounters, and three times more likely to be jailed if arrested.

These facts matter.

They shouldn’t make children hate white people, but they may encourage them to hate white supremacy.

And that’s what Republicans are really against.

5) Teaching kids to be sexually active

This may be the strangest fantasy the GOP is trying to spread about public school.

They say we’re making kids engage in sexual activity. Which is strange because according to the Centers for Disease Control, fewer US children are choosing to engage in sexual activity.

An estimated 55% of male and female teens have had sexual intercourse by age 18, according to the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).

However, these percentages have declined since 1988 when 51% of female and 60% of male teens had engaged in sexual activity.

If public schools are teaching kids to bump uglies, we’re doing a bad job.

Are kids more sexualized today than in the past? Probably. But that’s a result of the culture. When you sell teenagers shorts with the word “juicy” on the butt, don’t complain about public schools.

Some schools offer sex education classes, but they are focused on health and wellness. There is no encouragement to have sex. In fact, many such classes are still teaching abstinence only instead of safe contraception.

The idea that public schools are teaching sex is just dog whistle politics. It is Republicans trying to scare parents that public schools are instilling values they don’t share. It is blaming public schools for social ills that the schools didn’t cause and don’t control.

Looked at calmly and rationally, all of these fantasies are just scare tactics to get the gullible to react emotionally on election day.

They want to terrify responsive voters into giving GOP candidates the power to stop a host of things that never really existed. They want an excuse for doing nothing to solve the actual problems of the day.

There’s a reason they spend so much time railing against woke education – they want to ensure America remains asleep.

A fitful sleep – tossing and turning in various Republican nightmares.

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‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ is Still Relevant Because it Forces Us to Confront Ourselves

June 2, 2022 stevenmsinger academic freedom, Censorship, Civil Rights, Democrat, Education, history, Learning, literature, Local Control, Media, Parents, Philosophy, Politics, Prejudice, Racism, Republican, Schools, Social Justice, student teacher relationship, Students, teacher autonomy, Teachers, Whiteness anti-racism, banned books, books, education, Harper Lee, literature, Politics, prejudice, public schools, racism, Students, teachers, To Kill a Mockingbird

Parris is peering into a crumpled paperback with a huge smile on his face.

“Mr. Singer, I love this book…” he says.

He stops, pauses and adds, “I hate what’s happening, but I love the book.”

In my middle school classroom, that’s a pretty routine reaction to Harper Lee’s classic, “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

My 8th grade students approach the climax and resolution with equal parts dread and delight.

But it doesn’t always start that way.

No book I teach has gone through a greater change in cultural opinion than “Mockingbird.”

It used to be considered a bastion of anti-racism. Now some folks actually consider it to be racist.

The story is about Scout and her brother Jem as they grow up in Alabama during the Great Depression. Most of the drama centers on their father, Atticus, who defends a black man, Tom Robinson, in court against trumped up charges of raping a white woman.

Ever since its publication in 1960, people have tried to ban the book from school libraries and from school curriculum.

And that’s still true today. However, this used to be the work of the far right. Today there are almost as many objections from the far left – though for very different reasons.

For 50 years, the biggest complaints came from conservatives about the book’s strong language, discussion of sexuality, rape, and use of the n-word. Though today you’ll find almost as many on the left proclaiming that the book actually perpetuates the racial intolerance it purports to be against.

Republicans have become more extreme than ever. They see any discussion of race as “Critical Race Theory” – a conflation of a legal framework not actually taught in K-12 schools with any substantive discussion of racial inequality. It’s really just a simple dog whistle to try and shut down any discussion of the racial status quo.

Teachers have become accustomed to conservatives hyperventilating that discussing racism and prejudice might mean having to admit these things still exist and therefore requiring us to do something about them. They’re terrified their kids might come to different conclusions about the world than their parents, and instead of confronting their own views with the facts, they prefer to sweep reality under the rug to preserve the fictions underlying their ideologies.

These sort of complaints are typified by the Biloxi Public School Board in Mississippi which in 2017 removed Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel from its curriculum because, “It makes people uncomfortable.”

What they don’t seem to realize is that the discomfort is part of the point.

On the other side of the coin are people on the other pole of the political spectrum. Writers like Kristian Wilson Colyard don’t object to a discussion of racism and prejudice. They think “Mockingbird” doesn’t go far enough – or at least that the discussion it has is framed incorrectly.

Colyard doesn’t think the book should be banned or removed from libraries, but instead insists it isn’t a good teaching tool.

She writes:

“Lee’s is not the best book to teach white kids about racism, because it grounds its narrative in the experiences of a white narrator and presents her father as the white savior.”

While I think Colyard has a fair point of literary analysis, I don’t agree with her conclusion.

At first glance, there is something strange about approaching racism through the lens of white people, but that doesn’t make it invalid. In fact, racism is a product of whiteness. In this country, white people are the ones doing it. Therefore, it makes sense to speak directly to and from the experience of white people.

Oppression, after all, is relational. It takes both the experience of the oppressed and the oppressor to fully understand it. And if we want to help end the cycle, it makes sense to show the oppressor how to bring that about.

Moreover, the book sneaks up on its themes. There’s very little about outright intolerance on the first page or even the first few chapters. The idea creeps up on you as the narrator slowly becomes aware of the prejudices around her and the trial comes deeper into focus.

As to the question of white saviorism, I think this is more often a buzzword than a legitimate criticism. White people are not heroes for attempting to put right something they put wrong. It is their responsibility, and seeing someone do that in fiction is a really powerful thing.

Atticus doesn’t think he’s saving his client Tom Robinson. He doesn’t think he’s special for doing so. He’s doing what he thinks is right. Now Scout certainly views this through rose-colored glasses and lionizes him for it, but that’s a character’s point of view. It’s up to the reader to look at all this critically and come to your own judgement about it.

Frankly, I think that’s one of the real values of the book. It provides a deep narrative, well told, for readers to examine and discuss very complex issues.

If you think Atticus is given too much credit for what he does, that’s something you can discuss with other readers. I don’t see how doing so cheapens or hurts the cause of antiracism.

In addition, the problem of centering the story on the white people is rectified by reading more widely in the literature. “Mockingbird” shouldn’t be the only book on the topic you read. To be well-rounded, you should read more from the point of view of people of color subjected to white people’s intolerance. And there are so many wonderful books to choose from – Toni Morrison’s “Beloved,” Ralph Ellison’s “The Invisible Man,” Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple,” etc.

However, teachers shouldn’t be made to feel like they’ve wasted an opportunity by using “Mockingbird” in the classroom – even if it’s the only book that year they read on this topic. There must be more opportunities in years to come. Racism and prejudice should not be a one-and-done topic in US schools. It is too important for that.

In my classroom, this book is far from our first discussion of the issue.

We talk about Fred Hampton and the Black Panther Party. We talk about the 1968 Olympics Black power fist. We talk about Black cowboys like Bass Reeves. We talk about Bessie Coleman, Angela Davis, James Baldwin, and so many others.

When we read S.E. Hinton’s “The Outsiders,” – a book that almost entirely eschews the topic – I make sure to point out that the narrative takes place in and around Tulsa, Oklahoma, and we discuss Black Wall Street and the massacre of Black people perpetrated by their White neighbors.

And so when we get to “Mockingbird,” the discussions we have of the text is rich and deep. Students of color feel seen because of the book’s portrayal of the kind of racial injustice they experience in their own lives. Likewise, white students feel empowered to join in the struggle against it.

When the verdict of the trial comes down, there are real tears and stares of disbelief.

One of my students this year, Mya said, “I shouldn’t be surprised, but I thought it was going to turn out differently.”

Me, too. Every time I read it.

The book confronts students with the world as it is and challenges them to do something about it.

White or Black, it holds up the reality of injustice and demands we take a side.

And that’s why this book remains relevant and just as important today as it ever was.

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It’s Open Season on Teachers – Again

April 21, 2022 stevenmsinger Accountability, Censorship, Child Safety, Civil Rights, Corporate Education "Reform", Democrat, Donald Trump, Education, Hate Crimes, immigration, Journalism, Labor, Learning, literature, Local Control, Media, nonviolence, Parents, Pennsylvania, Politics, Prejudice, President, private schools, privatization, Propaganda, Racism, Republican, School Choice, School Funding, school segregation, school vouchers, Schools, security, segregation, Shooting, Social Justice, Standardized Testing, Students, teacher autonomy, Teachers, Uncategorized Barbara Gleim, education, educators, Election, Politics, public schools, Republicans, teacher bashing, teachers, violence

I am so sick of being a scapegoat.

But Republican lawmakers seem to think they can’t get elected without finding some boogeyman with which to terrify their base.

Whether it’s climate scientists or Hollywood elites or a mythical caravan of brown people determined to burst through our southern border, the GOP cannot function without someone to cast as the monster.

For a political party that scornfully calls others snowflakes, you will never find a more concentrated gathering of self-proclaimed victims than today’s GOP.

Now they’re turning their attention once again to teachers like me.

Across the country, Republican politicians are refusing to let educators give an accurate recounting of history.

In Florida, the GOP is banning math books.

And on Fox News, Tucker Carlson is even calling for mad dads to storm the school and “thrash” the teacher.

In my home state of Pennsylvania, it’s no different.

State Rep. Barbara Gleim (R – Cumberland County) stoked the flames in the Commonwealth this week with the following message to her social media crew:

“We also need conservative eyes and ears in the schools. If anyone can substitute even one day a week, the teachers who are activists and indoctrinating children can be revealed. Not all teachers are for [Critical Race Theory] CRT, etc. We need to identify the ones who are pushing the professional development they received over the summer. Are they putting black children’s tests in separate piles and grading them differently? Have they separated the classrooms? We won’t know these things until parents are allowed back into schools, so the best way is to sub.”

What a load of crap!

Pennsylvania’s public schools are experiencing a sub shortage. I WISH people would volunteer to sub in our public schools.

In fact, back in October I even suggested lawmakers like Gleim volunteer to sub a few times a week to see what’s going on in the classroom instead of pulling vacuous lies out of their butts.

They certainly have the time! Legislators from the Keystone State make the third highest salary in the country, and they’re only in session a few weeks every month! They could easily spend a few days a week struggling with overstuffed classes, in-school suspension, hall duty and the like.

To be a sub in most public school districts in Pennsylvania, essentially all you need is a bachelors degree (it doesn’t even have to be in education) and pass criminal background checks.

Districts that aren’t experiencing a shortage may require a teaching certificate as well, but beggars can’t be choosers. In districts where it is hard to get subs (i.e. those serving poor and minority kids) you can get emergency certified for a year.

But when I made such a suggestion, I naively thought lawmakers might see the problems schools actually have and start to support them.

Fat chance of that!

People with an agenda like Gleim would simply take the most innocent of interactions and pretend they were examples of indoctrination.

In Florida they banned 41% of the math books for being “woke” without a single concrete example and then patted themselves on the back for being transparent. It would be the same here. It would be like the Puritan girls in “The Crucible” finding witches in every classroom and hallway.

This state representative really thinks teachers are putting black children’s tests in separate piles and grading them differently!? As if we’re somehow changing their grades or assessing them more leniently?

NEWS FLASH: Children of color are not suddenly acing all their tests or rocketing to the head of the class. In fact, just the opposite. There has been a racial proficiency gap for decades based on segregation, lack of resources and punitive and biased standardized tests.

For decades teachers like me have been screaming for change but lawmakers like Gleim either shrug or double down on it.

But back to her social media tirade. She wonders if there are separated classrooms – by which I assume she means classrooms segregated by race.

BINGO! She got that one right! But it’s not what she seems to think.

A majority of children of color are not getting privileged treatment. They’re being underprivileged. They’re in the lower academic tracks and a majority of the white kids are in the honors courses.

Using standardized tests to sort students into academic tracks has hurt minority children and benefited richer white kids.

But back to her social media bubble. She wants parents to be allowed “back” into public schools!? Parents have never been excluded. As long as they can pass the background check, they can come in almost any time.

And if they want to know what’s going on, they can come to any school board meeting and be in the room where all things are decided and be heard during public comment periods. They can even run for school board and make those decisions, themselves.

But way better to pretend a grievance where no such problem exists.

Public schools do not indoctrinate kids.

We teach them to think and come to their own conclusions.

Yes, we teach history, science, English and math. But it’s up to kids to decide what to make of it all.

However, if she wants to see REAL indoctrination all she has to do is look at the private and parochial schools who accept school vouchers – a policy her party usually supports.

These schools use books like America: Land I Love, an A Beka Book; United States History for Christian Schools; and the Teacher’s Resource Guide to Current Events for Christian Schools, the last two published by Bob Jones University Press (BJU).

The books are riddled with counter factual claims and political bias in every subject imaginable such as abortion, gay rights and the Endangered Species Act, which one text labels a “radical social agenda.” They disparage religions other than Protestant Christianity and cultures other than those descended from white Europeans.

They teach that humans and dinosaurs lived at the same time, some dinosaurs survive into the present day (i.e. the Loch Ness monster), evolution is a myth disproved by REAL science as is the claim that homosexuality is anything but a choice.

Teaching these things in school is not just educational malpractice, it’s exactly the kind of indoctrination the right is claiming without evidence happens at public schools.

And this kind of brain washing is common at voucher schools.

If there’s one thing we need to understand about today’s GOP leaders, it’s this: their accusations are always admissions.

They accuse Democrats of the pedophilia Republican congresspeople like Matt Gaetz are already under investigation for.

They accuse Democrats of fixing elections while the last GOP President actually tried to steal an election.

They accuse public schools of indoctrination while private schools routinely do that already.

Or as the old proverb puts it:

“I looked, and looked,
And this I came to see:
That what I thought was you and you,
Was really me and me.”

We could stop these shenanigans if the rest of society actually took it seriously.

But that would require news sources to point out the hypocrisy above every time a MAGA supporter started making these sorts of claims.

And that won’t happen because modern media is committed to giving equal measure to both sides of a story – even if one is patently false. They’re too afraid to appear biased to report the truth.

It would stop if the Democrats actually prosecuted the former President and his cronies for the Jan. 6 insurrection.

But that won’t happen because they’re terrified it might lose them a vote. They’re too afraid of being called partisan. Yet there is no middle ground with justice. You either have it or you don’t.

It would require a stance on principle.

So far, it hasn’t happened, and I doubt it will.

So Republicans will continue to take aim at all the usual scapegoats like teachers.

Like when Chris Christie threatened to punch educators in the face.

Their base will get fired up – perhaps maybe even too fired up – and someone will walk into a school with gun-in-hand to take down all these indoctrinating teachers.

That’s the kind of thing that happened a few years ago at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. A MAGA gunman was convinced by Trump that Jews were helping immigrants come into the country illegally. So he decided to kill as many Saturday worshipers as he could.

If we don’t stand up to this, it’s only a matter of time before it happens again.

Look. I don’t want to be at the center of this ridiculous culture war.

I just want to teach. I just want to do right by my students and their families.

But as our country burns to the ground, the school house often seems to be the center of the blaze.

I am sick of it.

I am just so sick of it.

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We Say “Gay” in My Classroom

March 23, 2022 stevenmsinger Censorship, Child Safety, Civil Rights, Compassion, Education, Hate Crimes, Learning, literature, Local Control, Parents, Philosophy, Politics, Prejudice, protest, Republican, school violence, Schools, Social Justice, student teacher relationship, Students, teacher autonomy, Teachers, Uncategorized academic freedom, ALEC, Censorship, culture war, Don't Say Gay, education, Florida, gay, homophobia, LGBT, lgbtq, Politics, prejudice, pride, public schools, regressive, Ron DeSantis, schools, Students, teachers

There are some giggles you dread as a middle school teacher.

Like when one of your students loses all control over a line of poetry.

It happened most recently over these lines of Dylan Thomas:

“Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

There it was. The G-A-Y word. The one thing with which adolescent boys and Florida Governors cannot contend.

One of my 8^th graders thought it was the height of hilarity.

“You know that word here just means ‘Happy,” I said.

And he lost it some more.

I tried logic.

“I’m gay. You’re gay. Sometimes we’re all gay.”

A renewed outburst.

“You’re probably the gayest student in my class.”

And the laughter stopped.

“No, you come in here laughing and gay just about every day,” I said.

The frown on his face was serious.

“Me, too. I’m hoping to have a really gay weekend.”

Which seemed to break him. He got up, walked to the other side of the room and sat silently in the corner.

Not exactly the reaction I was hoping for.

Some people just can’t take the truth.

Like the fact that there are gay kids in middle school.

And, no, I don’t just mean “Happy.”

There are gay kids.

And straight kids.

And trans kids.

And all kinds of kids.

There are black kids and white kids, Muslim kids and Christian kids, Latinos and Lithuanians, Italians and Iranians, girls, boys and all genders in between.

There are tall kids and short kids. Fat kids and thin kids. And, yes, some kids who like other kids in ways which all adults might not approve.

However, some people are too juvenile to deal with it – they can’t even say the word or can’t even endure someone else saying it!

That’s not so bad when you’re 13 and terrified of your own sexuality, anxious that anyone might question your cis privilege.

You still have time to grow out of such sophomoric hijinks.

But it’s worse when you’re a counterfactual zealot like Ron DeSantis passing laws like the “Don’t Say Gay Bill.”

I’m glad I don’t live in the Sunshine state, but you know ALEC will bring their own copycat version of this fascism to the rest of us sooner or later.

Forbid teachers from talking about gender identity and sexual orientation?

Allow parents to sue schools for any comment they take offense to?

Things are tough enough in middle school simply because we’re not such cowards.

We say “gay” and embrace all its multiple meanings – often at once.

“We Don’t Talk About Bruno” but we talk about everything else.

And we have to!

It is incumbent on teachers to acknowledge the reality before them.

We have to recognize our students for who they are.

That doesn’t mean labeling them. It doesn’t mean trying to convince them of anything in particular about their identities.

But it does mean admitting that identity exists. And it means refusing to accept the intolerance of those who refuse to accept others for who they are.

When a student tells you their pronouns, you listen.

When a student draws a pride flag on their notebook, you tell them it’s beautiful.

When a student tells you in confidence that they feel ugly, hurt or broken because of what their pastor or parent or classmate said, you tell them they’re marvelous and not to change a thing!

Because we don’t have the luxury to be judgmental.

It’s not in our job description.

We teach our kids no matter who they are. We love them for who they are. And if DeSantis or any other adult has a problem with that, they can just fuck off!

Silencing the grown-ups in school won’t change who the kids are. It will just forbid us from mentioning reality. It will permit us to recognize only the tiniest fraction of who our students are and leave a de facto shroud over the rest.

I refuse to turn my classroom into a closet.

It might make the most bigoted adults feel better. It might relieve grown-up fears that just talking about other ways to live is enough to mold someone into something against their nature.

As if such a thing were possible.

But it won’t help the kids.

People don’t become their sexuality. They discover who they were all along – and ultimately no piece of legislation can stop that. It can make that search more difficult, painful and riddled with guilt. But you are who you are.

It’s regressive shame-based norms like these that encourage little boys to bash those who are different.

That make them feel the only safety lies in violence against the other so no one questions who they are, themselves.

That scares them enough to giggle at a three-letter word embedded in a poem.

And speaking of my giggle goose, eventually he got himself under control.

Before the end of the period he came back to the table.

Silently, swiftly, and soberly, he sat down with the rest of us ready to continue discussing “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Goodnight.”

Not a titter or laugh.

It wasn’t until a week later that he turned to me with a smile and asked:

“Mr. Singer, did you have a gay weekend?”

I did, Buddy. I did.

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Silencing School Whistleblowers Through Social Media

February 12, 2022February 12, 2022 stevenmsinger academic freedom, Accountability, bloggers, capitalism, Censorship, Civil Rights, Corporate Education "Reform", COVID-19, Credibility, Education, Facebook, Journalism, Learning, Local Control, Media, Politics, Poverty, Prejudice, privatization, Propaganda, Racism, Schools, Standardized Testing, Students, Teachers, Technology, Uncategorized #FreeGadfly, blog, bloggers, Censorship, economics, education, Facebook, Gadfly on the Wall, schools, Social Media, teacher shortage, teachers, Twitter, whistle blowers

I used to write a thriving blog.

A month and a half ago.

But as soon as the New Year dawned, my readership dropped to the tiniest fraction of what it had been in 2021.

I went from about 1,000 readers per article to a few hundred.

Overnight.

How does that happen?

I suppose it could be that people are sick of me.

Maybe my writing just isn’t what it was and readers are tired of hearing about the same old topics over and over again.

Education and civil rights. That stuff is just so 60 days ago!

Yet look at the reality. School boards are banning Holocaust narratives like Art Spiegleman’s “Maus.” State governments are passing laws to restrict what teachers can say in the classroom or make their jobs more untenable so even more leave the profession.

I just can’t believe that in light of such a flame dancing ever more quickly down an ever-shorter fuse that people aren’t interested in reading about how to stomp it out.

From conservative scholars supporting standardized testing to local athletic leagues saying racism is a matter of both sides. From the effect on education of constantly depriving teachers of planning time to the continuing trauma of Coronavirus raging through our schools as decision makers refuse to take necessary precautions to protect students and staff.

The readership is there.

It’s the method of distribution that’s the problem.

And that method is social media.

It’s been this way since I began the blog back in July of 2014.

I write an article then I post it to Facebook and Twitter.

The later platform has never been a huge draw for me. But until recently Facebook was my bread and butter.

My work was posted on message boards and in online forums and organizations’ pages focused on the issues I write about.

After the first year, the result was hundreds of thousands of readers annually.

But then as Facebook began trying to monetize the distribution of posts beyond a person’s local friend circle, those numbers started to drop.

I went from 446,000 hits in 2015 to 222,000 last year.

It’s demoralizing but not because of any need for fame.

I don’t need to have thousands of people hang on my every word. This isn’t about ego.

It’s about change.

I write this blog to get the word out about what’s really happening in our public schools. And to try to push back against the rising tide trying to destroy my profession.

Mass media is not particularly kind to educators like me.

Even when journalists are writing about schools and learning, they rarely ask classroom teachers their opinions. Instead, the media often turns to self-appointed experts, think tank flunkies, billionaire philanthropists or politicians.

It’s like they can’t even conceive of the fact that someone with a masters degree or higher in education who devotes her whole life to the practice of the discipline has anything worthwhile to say.

So many of us have taken to the blogosphere to circumvent the regular media channels.

We write out our frustrations. We tell our truths. We give a peek of what it’s like in our public schools, an educated opinion about the ills therein, and how to fix them.

But as time has worn on, more and more of us are leaving the field. We’re abandoning the classroom and the Web.

We’re giving up.

And even those like me who are still desperately sounding the alarm every week are being silenced.

Frankly, I don’t know what to do about it.

I know Facebook is trying to pressure me into paying the company to more widely distribute my articles.

If I give them $50-$100 a week, they promise to deliver my work as widely as they used to do when I didn’t have to pay for the privilege.

Actually, it wasn’t Facebook that delivered it. It was people on Facebook.

People who really cared about what I had to say would see it and share it with others.

But now there’s a strict algorithm that determines what you get to see on your page. And if it says you’re invisible, then POOF! You’re gone and the people who would most enjoy your writing and want to pass it on don’t get the chance.

It’s undemocratic in the extreme but totally legal because Facebook is a for-profit company, not a public service.

It’s not about the free expression of ideas. It’s about making money.

And so people like Joe Rogan make millions on their podcasts spreading science denial, vaccine disinformation and racist dog whistles.

A guy like me just trying to make the world a better place?

I get silenced.

I guess when money is speech, poverty is the real cancel culture.

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The Absurdity of PROTECTING Kids from the Holocaust Narrative ‘Maus’

February 1, 2022February 20, 2022 stevenmsinger Accountability, Censorship, Child Predators, Child Safety, Civil Rights, Compassion, Education, history, Learning, literature, Local Control, Parents, Philosophy, Politics, Prejudice, Propaganda, protest, Schools, Social Justice, Students, Teachers, Uncategorized academic freedom, anti-semitism, art spiegelman, autobiography, banned books, books, Censorship, comic books, freedom of speech, history, Holocaust, jewish, Judaism, maus, prejudice, school board, Tennessee

Nudity and bad language.

That’s a Tennessee school board’s excuse for banning Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel “Maus.”

Not Holocaust denial.

Not antisemitism.

Not a hundred other things they don’t want to admit to themselves about themselves.

It was simply a dirty drawing and some curse words.

The graphic novel focuses on the cartoonist and his estranged father. Spiegelman slowly unravels the true story of how his dad survived the Holocaust. All the while, the son draws the narrative portraying Jewish people as mice and Germans as cats.

It’s a work of literature that looks directly into the unfathomable and recontextualizes it into something we can attempt to understand.

The committee at Columbia University awarded the story a Pulitzer Prize – the only graphic novel yet to win such a prestigious award.

But the Tennessee school board awarded it their walking papers.

And why?

Naughty words and risqué images.

In particular, the board objected to eight bad words and the drawing of a nude woman.

On its Website, district administrators posted the following explanation of their action:

“One of the most important roles of an elected board of education is to reflect the values of the community it serves. The McMinn County Board of Education voted to remove the graphic novel Maus from McMinn County Schools because of its unnecessary use of profanity and nudity and its depiction of violence and suicide. Taken as a whole the board felt this work was simply too adult-oriented for use in our schools.”

Can you imagine living in a community that values refraining from swear words and covering up the human body more than telling the truth about genocide?

Can you imagine putting a premium on decorum and propriety over an honest portrayal of events?

And who are the McMinn County Board of Education to say these words and this image are “unnecessary” to tell the story!?

It’s the Holocaust! It’s not a Disney theme park!

If you’re talking about the systematic murder of 6 million Jewish people and 5 million non-Jewish people, wouldn’t it be appropriate to use some bad language!?

To their credit, the image the school board objects to isn’t one of mice being tortured and murdered in a concentration camp. It’s not the genitals of naked mice – after all, aren’t mice always naked?

It’s the drawing of the author’s mother who couldn’t live with the atrocities she endured and committed suicide. His father discovers her naked body in the bathtub.

There’s nothing salacious about it.

It’s shocking. It’s disturbing. It’s deeply sad.

But that’s exactly what it’s meant to be.

To react – as this board has – is the height of callousness.

Here we have the story of so many deaths, so many murders, and all they can do is decry the way it is told.

As a person of Jewish ancestry, it hits me hard.

Imagine being told that the story of your family’s murder is only acceptable if it isn’t upsetting.

It’s only acceptable if it doesn’t provoke a reaction in your heart – only if it keeps your eyes dry and your throat unstopped.

But that’s the point! It SHOULD be upsetting! It should hurt your heart! It should make your eyes leak and your throat close up.

However, school director Tony Allman said something that disproved the fiction that the board’s action was limited to pure decorum.

In the meeting minutes he was quoted as saying, “It shows people hanging, it shows them killing kids, why does the educational system promote this kind of stuff? It is not wise or healthy. Being in the schools, educators and stuff we don’t need to enable or somewhat promote this stuff.”

You’re wrong, Sir.

You DO need to promote this stuff.

Not encourage people to engage in future Holocausts but to promote that it DID happen so that it will not happen again.

Because on Oct 27, 2018, it happened again at the Tree of Life synagogue in my hometown of Pittsburgh when a gunman killed 11 and wounded six.

In August 2017, it happened at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, when hundreds of marchers threw Nazi salutes and waved Swastika flags while shouting “Siege Heil” and “Jews will not replace us!”

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) recorded more than 2,100 acts of assault, vandalism and harassment against Jewish people in 2021 – an increase of 12 percent over the previous year. This is the highest level of antisemitic incidents since ADL’s tracking began in 1979. This includes five fatalities directly linked to antisemitic violence and another 91 individuals targeted in physical assaults.

Assault, harassment and vandalism against Jews remain at near-historic levels in the U.S.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s 2020 hate crime statistics showed not only that hate crimes were up for all minority groups, but crimes targeting Jewish people made up 54.9% of all religious bias crimes.

According to the American Jewish Committee, nearly one out of every four Jews in the U.S. has been the subject of antisemitism over the past year.

Seventeen percent of respondents in the committee’s survey said they had been the subject of an antisemitic remark in person, while 12% said they were the victim of an antisemitic remark online. Three percent of Jews who responded to the poll said they were the target of an antisemitic physical attack.

And this school board thinks the problem is a book that merely reports such events in the past.

Your children don’t need protection from the STORY of the Holocaust.

They need protection from the Holocaust, itself.

They need protection from it happening again – from the kind of violence and bigotry on the rise today.

They need protection from becoming the mice.

They need protection from becoming the cats.

They need adults brave enough to take a stand against these horrors.

It’s just too bad that you aren’t brave enough to do it, yourselves.

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"To sting people and whip them into a fury, all in the service of truth."

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