for me to start missing the classroom? Driving hasn’t been – smooth. Six trips today and I averaged un $6 each. The extra $0.55 per trip from Lyft doesn’t make much of a difference. And Uber still hasn’t fixed the snafu that’s keeping me off their app. Pickups more than 10 minutes from my previous drop off does NOT make for a good day. And I’ve made the decision to return to HTHS instead of jumping to Bexley. Giving up $125 per week to be loyal and to go back to a known situation. Maybe after TWO years I’ll feel too “comfortable” and switch then. We’ll see. The plan has been to sub/drive full time until ’28 and then cut back to one day of either just for giggles. Should the current economic conditions persist that might not work out. At 66 2/3. Perhaps if I make it to ’25 two days a week will be enough.

That’s if I can gut out the crap. The soaring gas prices (doubled in the last 500 days.) The idiocy in the schools. Like this: A Missouri school district’s math assignment is mind-boggling.

The bar association is still trying to figure out how to eat itself: [S]tudies have consistently shown that LSAT performance is the single strongest predictor of academic success in law school….

Detroit is a particularly egregious case. While 72% of the city’s students are graduating from high school this year, only 8% of them are academically ready for college.

The bad news from the education industrial complex just keeps on coming.

I AM hoping I’m in a non-woke district. The local NAACP and local teachers association recently rallied for stronger school discipline policy from the Baltimore County Public Schools.  Local organizations like those are often pretty good on the issue.  It’s the inside-the-beltway, haven’t-seen-the inside-of-a-classroom-since-the-Clinton-Administration educrats who tend to do the most damage.  See The Department of Education’s Obama-Era Initiative on Racial Disparities in School Discipline:  Wrong for Students and Teachers, Wrong on the Law.  Alas, my understanding is that the Biden Administration is abandoning the Trump Administration’s approach and going back the Obama approach.

FL Principal Rants At Parents: ‘Quit Getting In Our Way’ I’m not sure you understand how this whole thing works.

In case you wondered: What Are College Students Paying For?

In his book Notes on the State of Virginia (1785), Jefferson had scribed his ideas for public education at the elementary level. In 1817 he proposed a plan for a system of limited state public education. Public grammar schools. There would be three stages. Primary schools, which all children, regardless of their parents’ financial ability, would be able to attend for at least three years; intermediate schools, for students who excelled in primary school, as well as for children whose parents are willing and able to pay for it; and the university, for students whose parents were willing to pay.

Let’s DO this. School from K to 8. Reading, writing, math, geography, history (US and world), civics. If you do well and WANT to go further you can do four years of high school. Advanced levels of all of the foregoing, plus foreign language and science. Voluntary but paid for via public funding. Then one of the three E’s. Enrolled, employed or enlisted, for the uninitiated.

Get the kids that don’t WANNA be in school out of school. I’ve seen the results of this and it encourages increased learning opportunities by those who DO attend. My teacher friends ask what we’ll do with those who DON’T go on after Junior High.

Children Must Be Made To Work

This is NOT satire. Since the HS education is being made useless ANYWAY (A WAR ON TESTS IS A WAR ON EXCELLENCE:  “Rescuing ‘Virtue and Talents’ Amidst the War on Tests.”) let’s completely gut it. Fund the backpack, not the locker. It’s NOT getting better. There are I schools where I will not teach due to the culture of the school. It’s NOT getting better. Colleges are going to hell as well but that’s a different issue. HOW THE JACOBINS GOT CONTROL OF NORTH CAROLINA’S BIG 4 UNIVERSITIES. With an E.B. White quote I had never heard, but is increasingly topical: One need only watch totalitarians at work to see that once men gain power over other men’s minds, that power is never used sparingly or wisely, but lavishly and brutally and with unspeakable results.

And I’m done for now.

Happy Mother’s Day. Today my mother’s last grandchild (probably) graduated. No. She graduated. She’s probably the last grandchild.

Mom and dad didn’t get degrees. Dad was the youngest of eight and the only one who didn’t go. Mom started but eloped. She took a crap ton of courses to keep her teaching job but eventually the chase became too much. Two kids. The youngest earned a BA in Piano Pedagogy and a Masters in Mathematics. The eldest earned BA’s in Political Science and Public Administration, as well as a Juris Doctorate. Currently five grandkids. Two biological, three by marriage, and all quite loved. Two with Masters degrees. Three commissioned Second Lieutenant’s in the USAF.

All in all not a bad contribution to mankind

some more aggregation.

WILL YOUR COLLEGE DEGREE BE A GOOD INVESTMENT? Probably not for at least half of those currently enrolled.

Indiana Lawsuit Against School Covid Rules Shows 99.7 Percent Of Quarantined Kids Were Healthy Only 99.7?

a short thought provoking (IMHO) read. School Choice as Occupational Choice

a VERY good series on education:

1. The Fundamental Issue of Our Time
2. Is There a Right to an Education?
3. The Role of Rights in a Free Society
4. Education and the Rights of Children and Parents
5. The Redneck Guide to Parents’ Rights
6. Parental Rights Defined and Defended
7. Who Shall Educate the Children?
8. The Redneck Guide to Children’s Rights
9. Children’s Rights Defined and Defended
10. There Is No “Right to an Education

OF ALL HUMANS, THE LEFT HATES KIDS THE MOST:  Data: COVID shots are killing little kids.

Why Can’t the CDC Admit There Is No Solid Evidence To Support ‘Universal Masking’ in Schools?

Increased demand and decreased supply has cause this kind of supply chain issue as well: Watch: Unhinged Substitute Teacher Berates Student For Wearing Thin Blue Line Mask

THERE’S NO RATIONAL BASIS: Illinois court strikes down state’s school mask mandate.

Randi Weingarten suggests not getting rid of masks until zero transmission in schools …. which, according to “Teh Science” is never!

Myself. Mr. E who is an intervention specialist. And Ms. H who is an English teacher but this is her conference period and they admin has tasked her with filling in for the inclusion (?) teacher who is supposed to be monitoring what we used to call EMR kids but are now called something else because the R word (no – not Redskin) is now as bad as the N word. We have 16 Students. This is insane.

If it takes a tragedy so be it, but this needs to happen: “Compulsory Schooling Laws Under Scrutiny in Michigan Following Deadly Tragedy.”

Some Ohio districts have been doing this for a couple years: “Las Vegas principal says he teaches classes, cleans school as staffing shortages worsen.”

I’ve argued THIS with my brother in law before. And my current district employer is leaning into it nicely. Too bad the Obama admin curtailed much of the development in this realm: “How Ford plans to build out workforce development curriculum for Blue Oval City.” 

Because Kipling should be revisited on occasion, regardless of his problematic side: “With the Hopes That Our World Is Built on They Were Utterly Out of Touch”

Reynolds Laws. These will reappear again soon, lest you forget.

Glad to be teaching where I am. The leftist faculty is limited, prone to self-identification and somewhat easily counteracted.

Having taught at a career college I’m quick to promote career education. And then there’s this: “In America, not a single Ivy League university has a Shakespeare requirement for its undergraduate literature students anymore.”

“The Failure of Public Schooling in One Chart.”

I’m TRYING to help: How Teacher Shortages Are Making Public Schools Even Worse

SERIOUSLY, WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT TO TEACH IN THE GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS? “NYC sub teacher suspended for COVID origin claims, lamenting Chinese communism: ‘Racist’.”

A substitute teacher in New York City has been suspended for lamenting to a classroom of mostly Chinese-American fifth graders about the Chinese Communist Party, allegedly telling the group of mostly 10-year-olds that the coronavirus might have been developed in a Chinese lab.

And THIS is why I never bacame a full time teacher. Well. …. it’s ANOTHER reason: The Demoralization of the American Teacher

A two-fer: BUT TEACHERS WANTED TO WORK FROM HOME, AND HAD THE POWER TO MAKE IT HAPPEN: Study finds that in much of the US, virtual school did not lower COVID-19 case rates in surrounding communities.

and finally: THE BIG LIE IS STARTING TO UNRAVEL