Education in Focus

A Republican-led congressional committee asked school leaders whose districts have seen antisemitic incidents about what they’re doing to prevent further incidents in their schools since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas. Leaders of schools in New York City and Berkeley, California and Montgomery County, Maryland told the House Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education their districts had taken action against antisemitism and other hate through policies, training for staff and curriculum for students. David Banks, chancellor of the New York City Public School District, said that the school district has fired teachers and suspended students over antisemitic incidents. He said it was crucial that students feel safe, citing his past experience as a school resource officer.

Full story: https://www.chalkboardnews.com/issues/safety/article_4238b03c-0d63-11ef-8c1d-b739091c05d0.html

A taxpayer-funded workshop for Oregon sex education teachers instructed teachers to embrace fat positivity, explained the “racist origins of fatphobia” and what it means to have “thin privilege.” It also told educators to normalize fat bodies when teaching physiology and anatomy to students. The Oregon Department of Human Services’s February workshop, presented to teachers under the umbrella of the agency’s My Future My Choice sex ed curriculum, said fat positivity “explicitly affirms fat bodies.” The event was facilitated by Tory Sparks, a Michigan-based sex educator and social justice consultant, who previously authored a curriculum called the “Queer Sex Ed You Never Got In School,” according to the presentation.

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Taxpayer-funded equity-focused events directed school employees to push public school boards to focus on race and gender, encouraged staff to focus on “disrupting whiteness” and promoted ideologies that critics say lay “the groundwork for a communist worldview.” Chalkboard reviewed recordings of federally sponsored virtual roundtables and events where presenters promoted controversial ideas like critical race theory, intersectionality and critical consciousness for school administrators, teachers and staff.ASeptember virtual roundtable discussionfocused on “disrupting racism at the intersections in schools” and used the definition of intersectionality created by the founder of critical race theory Kimberlé Crenshaw.

Full story: https://www.chalkboardnews.com/issues/accountability/article_5edc1172-07d0-11ef-a87d-f3905d2aa2f2.html

Chicago Public Schools adopted a policy last year to honor academic credits received during virtual classes, citing equity as one of the reasons underpinning the policy as well as the benefits of the online instruction model. But as Chalkboardreported last year, researchers have questioned the efficacy of virtual learning and raised concerns that virtual credit recovery classes actually hurt those who need help the most. A spokesperson from Chicago Public Schools said the district would not provide a comment to Chalkboard News about virtual credit recovery classes in response to questions about the district's policy adopted in May last year, which added a section about equity in the implementation of virtual learning.

Full story: https://www.chalkboardnews.com/issues/accountability/article_cf9b83f4-0bed-11ef-99da-63cc15a9265c.html

A federal judge is allowing a class action lawsuit against the Chicago Public Schools Board of Education over its use of the “Quiet Time” transcendental meditation program, which allegedly required student participation and incorporated Hindu rituals. Chicago Public Schools stated it ended the Quiet Time program in 2020 and that it denies any liability related to the program, which former students allege violated their constitutional rights because of the religious aspects of the program.

Full story: https://www.chalkboardnews.com/issues/cultural-issues/article_5b64bd92-027f-11ef-a81f-6f4d8211a742.html

A new report tied to the 70th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision Brown v. Board of Education says schools nationwide legally discriminate against some students based on their address.Available to All, the nonprofit watchdog group that advocates for equal access to public schools,released the reportMonday asserting that top public schools can legally prevent disadvantaged students, often those from minority communities, from enrolling based on their address. "Today Linda Brown would most likely be turned away from the best public school in her city because of her address,” said Derrell Bradford, an Available to All board member, in a press release this week. “Our system is built on exclusionary maps that determine who can or cannot enroll in a public school.”

Full story: https://www.chalkboardnews.com/issues/school-choice/article_d92ba468-025a-11ef-b0b6-5b442dccface.html

Former secretary of education Betsy DeVos said Friday that the Biden administration's finalized Title IX rule change has "gutted" five decades of protections for women and girls and replaced it with "radical gender theory." The Biden administration’s Department of Education has finalized its long-anticipated Title IX rule that expands the definition of sex discrimination to include gender identity and pregnancy.Critics of the federal rule finalized Friday say that it rewrites the scope of the statute intended to prohibit sex discrimination at federally funded schools and institutions of higher learning. Proponents say the changes are necessary to protect all students.A separate rule on transgender athletes has not yet been finalized.

Full story: https://www.chalkboardnews.com/issues/cultural-issues/article_11e7a8b0-fe5f-11ee-8398-ab8f9ebfb794.html

School districts with diversity, equity and inclusion departments and organizations or individuals that offer professional development may use the term “intersectionality” on their websites, but what does it mean and what relationship does it have to critical race theory?Understanding the principles behind intersectionality and what it means can help add context to important and often divisive conversations at the local, state and national levels around equity and critical race theory. Conversations around power, privilege and racism continue to divide legislatures and school board meetings.Kimberlé Crenshaw, who coined the terms intersectionality and critical race theory, recently gave the keynote lecture at the American Educational Research Association’s annual meeting last week.

Full story: https://www.chalkboardnews.com/issues/cultural-issues/article_e21fe7e4-fe92-11ee-b49b-6f3fa440ef94.html

The U.S. Department of Education has directed millions of federal funds toward equity assistance centers that provide teachers and administrators with resources positing views on controversial topics like comprehensive sex education and versions of critical race theory.The Midwest and Plains Equity Assistance (MAP) Center, one of the four regional technical assistance centers sponsored by the Education Department, provides resources based on critical race theory to schools and educators and directs them to override parental rights on sex education.The MAP Center is housed in the Great Lakes Equity Center at the Indiana University School of Education-IUPUI.

Full story: https://www.chalkboardnews.com/issues/accountability/article_dab8e6e6-f79d-11ee-8f02-6f348cdea4ae.html

The Biden administration’s Department of Education is asking for $82.4 billion budget for the 2025 fiscal year, $3.1 billion more than the previous fiscal year to help students recover from school closure-related learning loss and bolster operations at the agency’s enforcement arm. In a House appropriations committee hearing this week, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona defended the Education Department’s proposed $22 million increase for the Office of Civil Rights, saying its workload has tripled in the last decade and a half, in part because of rising rates of antisemitism and anti-Arab discrimination.

Full story: https://www.chalkboardnews.com/issues/funding-spending/article_7e12479a-f903-11ee-93c3-0f2a1ffef7fd.html