The Dark Side Of Putting Police In Texas Schools

 The following is part of an article by Clare Amari, Kristian Hernandez, and Asher Lehrer-Small in The New York Times:

SINCE THE MASSACRE at Robb Elementary in Uvalde in 2022, school districts across Texas have spent billions of dollars to station police officers on every campus in the state. The effort, the most ambitious in the nation, was intended to protect students from similar tragedies.

But the constant presence of officers has transformed the way many public schools manage discipline, subjecting students to heavy-handed police tactics for behavior that once would have landed them only in the principal’s office.

Officers in Texas displayed startling belligerence at times, grabbing or tackling students a fraction of their size over misconduct that often appeared to be minor. Children in elementary school, including one as young as 6, were handcuffed. Teenagers were arrested, charged with crimes and even jailed. In the most extreme cases, they wound up in hospitals, bruised or concussed, after being body-slammed or shocked by Tasers, which are prohibited in the state’s juvenile detention facilities but allowed in its public schools.

There is no comprehensive record of use-of-force incidents across the more than 1,000 public school districts in Texas. Many districts and police agencies declined to disclose their data to our journalists; others did not respond to public records requests. More than 200 provided some information, but in most cases, it was limited.

Still, by examining even that small share of records, our reporters identified more than 2,600 use-of-force incidents that occurred from January 2022 through December 2025. About 450 of those interactions were described in detailed reports, which we reviewed. We also watched video footage from over two dozen encounters.

The records provide a first-of-its-kind look at how Texas’ initiative around school policing has played out in districts large and small, urban and rural.

Many incidents began over misbehavior such as dress-code violations, vaping or schoolyard scraps. Officers, often summoned by principals or teachers, escalated some situations by shouting obscenities or insults. They used physical takedown tactics in about 60 situations when students ignored their commands, talked back or pulled away. . . .

In Texas, no state agency has the power to routinely review school officers’ actions and weigh in on possible overreach.

Lawmakers here have embraced school policing without establishing safeguards required for meaningful accountability, policing experts said. A 2019 law meant to keep officers out of “routine student discipline” does not define the term or detail repercussions for violations. Police departments in Texas are not required to report incidents of force in schools unless they shoot someone. . . .

A review of use-of-force policies from more than 200 school district police departments found that many were largely copied from those used by municipal police agencies. Some addressed how to handle livestock and animal control calls. Most provided no specific guidance on handling students. . . .

It was not until the 1980s and ’90s, amid concerns about drugs and violence, that the ranks of school officers began to swell. The 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado led to a larger rise.

Elsewhere in the country, school districts typically tapped the local sheriff’s office or police department for officers. Texas was unusual in that many districts formed their own departments instead.

As police presence in schools grew, some educators became wary of harsh punishment and practices that could push students into the criminal justice system. Even in law-and-order Texas, concerns seemed to break through. In 2019, the Legislature passed a law saying that school boards should not task officers with routine student discipline.

Then came Uvalde, the deadliest school shooting in Texas history, which claimed the lives of 19 students and two teachers.

A year later, in 2023, lawmakers passed legislation to require at least one licensed police officer at each of the state’s public schools. While other states had taken steps to increase school security, few relied as heavily on the police. . . .

In the two years that followed, statewide annual spending on school security rose to more than $1.3 billion from about $900 million.

Today, Texas is home to nearly 400 school district police departments, more than all other states combined. Most of the remaining districts have contracts with outside police agencies. The number of officers trained to work in schools — about 11,000 — exceeds the total number of police officers in at least two dozen states.

Most of what school officers do is mundane. They secure external doors, usher students through metal detectors and monitor hallways for fights. Some mentor students and offer advice.

But routine interactions have been punctuated at times by physical encounters. Officers grabbed or tackled students hundreds of times, data and records show. They used pepper spray in dozens of cases and shocked students with Tasers in at least nine incidents. On four occasions, reporters found, officers held teenagers at gunpoint. . . .

Students were left with bruises, scrapes or other injuries in nearly a quarter of the 450 cases reviewed by reporters. Two teenagers suffered concussions, according to medical records and an interview with one family’s lawyer.

About two dozen of the overall cases involved children in elementary school. In the Northside school district, an officer handcuffed a 6-year-old boy who kicked a school employee during a tantrum.

State law prohibits using restraints on children in fifth grade or below in all but the most dangerous situations. In a statement, the district said that the officer had perceived an “immediate risk of harm.”. . .

Across the state, officers directed obscenities, insults and threats at students just before or after using physical force, records and video footage show. . . .

In Texas, the state-mandated training for school police officers includes instruction in child psychology, conflict resolution and managing students with behavioral issues. But at only 20 hours, the program is half the minimum recommended by the National Association of School Resource Officers. Kentucky, which also mandates officers at all public schools, requires 120 hours.

41% Of Parents Worry About Their Child's Safety At School

 

The chart above is from the Gallup Poll -- done between August 1st and 20th of a nationwide sample of 1,094 adults, with a 4 point margin of error.

Uvalde Shooter In School Over An Hour Before Confronted

The following post is by Hayes Brown at MSNBC.com: 

Every journalist knows how hard it can be to sort fact from fiction in a breaking news event. But the shifting story public safety officials have spun since Tuesday’s shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, is a brutal reminder that the police can’t always be trusted as reliable narrators.

“They said they rushed in and all that. We didn’t see that,” Javier Cazares, whose 9-year-old daughter was killed Tuesday, told The New York Times. In a video that shows parents outside the school frustrated with the police’s inaction, a man can be heard saying: “They’re all in there. The cops aren’t doing s--- except standing outside. You know they’re little kids, right? Little kids, they don’t know how to defend themselves.”

Three days after a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers, it seems every new detail contradicts Tuesday’s initial statements from the Texas Department of Public Safety, or DPS. That’s especially the case for the department’s praise of the bravery and heroism of the officers who the public was told challenged the gunman even before he infiltrated the school.

To be clear, there's no reason any civilian should have an AR-15-style rifle, as the gunman did, nor should that level of firepower be what the average police officer should have to face on the job. The chaos of dealing with a shooting at an elementary school shouldn't be something any human being has to face, be they parents or police officers. It was the gunman’s actions, not the hesitant response from law enforcement, that killed those children and their teachers. But the more the initial story from the police is scrutinized, the more out of step it seems with both the expectations of the parents outside the school and the long-standing argument that these are the moments when police are most necessary.

DPS’s news conference Thursday only highlighted how many elements of the original story had changed in 48 hours. Early reports indicated that law enforcement confronted the gunman almost immediately after he crashed a car before he got to Robb Elementary School. Sgt. Erick Estrada told CNN on Tuesday that the shooter “was engaged by law enforcement” but that “unfortunately was able to enter the premises.” But Victor Escalon, DPS’s South Texas regional director, said Thursday there was no confrontation — the shooter walked into the school unobstructed, a whole 12 minutes after the crash.

Did the shooter and an armed school safety officer exchange gunfire outside the school? A spokesperson for DPS told The Washington Post on Tuesday that they did and that the school officer was wounded; the department also confirmed to NBC’s “TODAY” show on Thursday that the school safety officer was armed. But DPS Director Steve McCraw walked back the gunbattle detail Wednesday, and Escalon went further Thursday, telling reporters that there “was not an officer readily available, armed,” which sounds a lot like a hedge.

DPS initially tried to justify law enforcement’s inability to bring down the shooter quickly by saying he wore “body armor.” The next morning, the agency acknowledged that it wasn’t body armor but a tactical vest that could be fitted with ballistic protection. That’s a major difference.

Officials initially said that once the shooter was inside, he immediately barricaded himself inside a classroom and began shooting. McCraw said Wednesday that police pinned the shooterinside the classroom. The Associated Press also reported that Border Patrol agents who responded “had trouble breaching the classroom door and had to get a staff member to open the room with a key.”

All 21 victims were reportedly killed in the same classroom; that detail also shifted Thursday, as NBC News reported that Texas investigators say victims were found in four classrooms. This prompts a number of questions: Did the shooter lock himself inside a classroom, preventing the police from entering? Or did the police trap him inside with his victims after he'd fired in other classrooms?

It’s an important point to clarify given what one student told KENS-TV: “When the cops came, the cop said: 'Yell if you need help!' And one of the persons in my class said 'help.' The guy overheard and he came in and shot her. The cop barged into that classroom. The guy shot at the cop. And the cops started shooting.”

Outside the school, officers reportedly had their stun guns drawn and were busying themselves keeping parents from running inside the school after their children. Reportedly, almost an hour elapsed as police restrained parents before an off-duty Border Patrol officer killed the gunman. One of those parents, according to The New York Times, was Angel Garza, whose stepdaughter Amerie Jo was killed. CNN anchor Anderson Cooper’s interview with Garza, a medical aide, went viral as Garza wondered how someone could shoot his baby. Meanwhile, there are reports that some officers went into the school during the attack to retrieve their own children, even as other desperate parents were being detained outside in handcuffs.

There are a lot of unanswered questions, none of which make DPS or the city of Uvalde look particularly good. The city of about 16,000 spends nearly 40 percent of its annual municipal budget on its police force, which includes a SWAT teamthat is supposed to mobilize in this sort of situation. The school district, which has its own police force, doubled its security budget in recent years. And yet the shooter still managed to kill almost two dozen people in an hour.

The official narrative framed the law enforcement officials who first showed up as heroes who prevented even more casualties. That’s unsurprising given the free rein police across the country generally have to present their version of events as irrefutable.

Police have a responsibility to provide the most accurate information possible to the public, but all too often they decide to promote themselves as heroes and put a positive spin on their actions.

Even after the horror this week is eventually pieced together in full, it will be well worth remembering how far the final version of history will have come from where it started — and how law enforcement spent time trying to portray its inaction as heroism.

President Biden's Remarks On The Uvalde Shooting

The following is the speech President Biden gave on the tragedy in Uvalde, Texas:

I had hoped, when I became President, I would not have to do this again. 

Another massacre.  Uvalde, Texas.  An elementary school.  Beautiful, innocent second, third, fourth graders.  And how many scores of little children who witnessed what happened see their friends die as if they’re on a battlefield, for God’s sake.  They’ll live with it the rest of their lives.

There’s a lot we don’t know yet, but there’s a lot we do know.

There are parents who will never see their child again, never have them jump in bed and cuddle with them.  Parents who will never be the same.

To lose a child is like having a piece of your soul ripped away.  There’s a hollowness in your chest, and you feel like you’re being sucked into it and never going to be able to get out.  It’s suffocating.  And it’s never quite the same.

And it’s a feeling shared by the siblings, and the grandparents, and their family members, and the community that’s left behind.

Scripture says — Jill and I have talked about this in different contexts, in other contexts: “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.”  So many crushed spirits.

So, tonight, I ask the nation to pray for them, to give the parents and siblings the strength in the darkness they feel right now.

As a nation, we have to ask: When in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?  When in God’s name will we do what we all know in our gut needs to be done?

It’s been 340- — 3,448 days — 10 years since I stood up at a high school in Connecticut — a grade school in Connecticut, where another gunman massacred 26 people, including 20 first graders, at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Since then, there have been over 900 incidents of gunfires reported on school grounds.

Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.  Santa Fe High School in Texas.  Oxford High School in Michigan.  The list goes on and on.

And the list grows when it includes mass shootings at places like movie theaters, houses of worship, and, as we saw just 10 days ago, at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York.

I am sick and tired of it.  We have to act.  And don’t tell me we can’t have an impact on this carnage.

I spent my career as a senator and as Vice President working to pass commonsense gun laws.  We can’t and won’t prevent every tragedy.  But we know they work and have a positive impact.  When we passed the assault weapons ban, mass shootings went down.  When the law expired, mass shootings tripled.

The idea that an 18-year-old kid can walk into a gun store and buy two assault weapons is just wrong.

What in God’s name do you need an assault weapon for except to kill someone?

Deer aren’t running through the forest with Kevlar vests on, for God’s sake.  It’s just sick.

And the gun manufacturers have spent two decades aggressively marketing assault weapons which make them the most and largest profit.

For God’s sake, we have to have the courage to stand up to the industry.

Here’s what else I know: Most Americans support commonsense laws — commonsense gun laws. 

I just got off my trip from Asia, meeting with Asian leaders, and I learned of this while I was on the aircraft.  And what struck me on that 17-hour flight — what struck me was these kinds of mass shootings rarely happen anywhere else in the world. 

Why?  They have mental health problems.  They have domestic disputes in other countries.  They have people who are lost.  But these kinds of mass shootings never happen with the kind of frequency that they happen in America.  Why?

Why are we willing to live with this carnage?  Why do we keep letting this happen?  Where in God’s name is our backbone to have the courage to deal with it and stand up to the lobbies? 

It’s time to turn this pain into action.

For every parent, for every citizen in this country, we have to make it clear to every elected official in this country: It’s time to act.

It’s time — for those who obstruct or delay or block the commonsense gun laws, we need to let you know that we will not forget.

We can do so much more.  We have to do more.

Our prayer tonight is for those parents, lying in bed and trying to figure out, “Will I be able to sleep again?  What do I say to my other children?  What happens tomorrow?”

May God bless the loss of innocent life on this sad day.  And may the Lord be near the brokenhearted and save those crushed in spirit, because they’re going to need a lot of help and a lot of our prayers.

Who Should Decide What's Taught In History Class?

 

The chart above is from the YouGov Poll -- done between January 28th and 31st of a nationwide sample of 19,751 adults.

Joy Reid Lists 6 Books Students Should Absolutely Read

In an effort to control what students may learn in schools, right-wingers have tried to ban books they don't like.

To counter this ridiculous effort, Joy Reid of MSNBC.com has offered a short list of books that she thinks students (and adults) should read.

Here is her list:

‘The 1619 Project’

Since Nikole Hannah-Jones’ “The 1619 Project” made its debut in 2019, conservatives have used it as a scapegoat to attack nonwhite educators and lesson plans about inequality. The collaborative writing project sought “to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of the United States’ national narrative,” said Jake Silverstein, the editor-in-chief of The New York Times Magazine.

In other words, it defies the fiction spun primarily by white conservatives who offer rosy depictions about how the U.S. came to be. 

‘The Bluest Eye’

Many conservative groups have tried to ban “The Bluest Eye,” Toni Morrison’s bestselling debut novel, since its publication in 1970. The book tells the story of Pecola Breedlove, an 11-year-old Black girl in Ohio who prays for the blond hair and blue eyes she believes will make her beautiful. The novel depicts the struggle of a Black family living in a racist community, and conservatives have focused on its references to sexual abuse in an effort to ban it from high school reading lists. 

‘Ruby Bridges Goes to School’

Conservative groups throughout the country have sought to ban this autobiographical children’s book by civil rights legend Ruby Bridges, who wrote about her experience integrating Louisiana’s William Frantz Elementary School in 1960. Bridges faced a mob of angry, white racists en route to class and needed a police escort to accompany her. In Tennessee, the head of one conservative organization seeking to ban the book said its description of a “large crowd of angry white people who didn’t want Black children in a white school” too harshly delineated between Black and white people.

‘In the Dream House’

“In the Dream House,” a memoir by Carmen Maria Machado, delves into an emotionally and physically abusive same-sex relationship she had with a partner. Some conservatives, including the school board in Leander, Texas, have targeted the book for removal from high school reading lists. “In the Dream House” was listed among several books high school students could choose to read before it was banned in the district this year. 

‘Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic’

“Fun Home,” an award-winning graphic memoir by Alison Bechdel, primarily explores her relationship to her father, a funeral director and schoolteacher who came out as gay, as well as her own gender and sexual identity. The book chronicles Bechdel’s coming into her identity as a lesbian, and it examines what she learned about herself and the world through her father. A group of parents in Clark County, Nevada, had it removed from at least one high school’s reading list last year.

‘Martin Luther King, Jr. and the March on Washington’

This is a children’s book by Frances E. Ruffin about Martin Luther King Jr.’s famed “I Have a Dream’’ speech and his involvement with the March on Washington. King is just about the only civil rights figure conservatives care to refer to — although they typically use his words only cynically and out of context. But now, conservative parents in Tennessee are actively trying to ban this story from schools completely.

Public Supports Mask And Vaccine Mandates In Schools

 

The charts above are from the new AP / NORC Poll -- done between August 12th and 16th of a national sample of 1,729 adults, with a 3.2 point margin of error.

It shows that a majority of adults support the mandating of vaccinations and the wearing of masks in our schools. 

Republicans oppose both. They still believe the lies about COVID-19 and the vaccines that they have been told by their leaders.

Why Do We Honor Traitors In Our Schools?

The Confederacy was created for only one reason -- to protect the right of the Confederate states to enslave human beings. That is a fact. 

Another fact is that the leaders (and soldiers) of the Confederacy were traitors to the United States. They denied their citizenship in our country, and worse, they actually waged war on the United States -- killing soldiers who defended our country. 

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, there are still 198 schools in this country that have Confederate-themed names. Why do we allow this to be? Why do we honor traitors to this country by naming schools after them.

This gives the impression that we support their traitorous actions, and gives our students the impression that we still support the slavery and discrimination that they fought for.

This must change!

Parents Favor Mask But Not Vaccine Mandates For Schools

The charts above are from the Kaiser Family Foundation Poll -- done between July 15th and August 2nd of a national sample of 1,259 parents with a child under 18 living in the home. The poll had a 4 point margin of error.

Parents Less Likely To Favor In-Person Schooling

The charts above are from the Gallup Poll -- done between July 13th and 27th of a national sample of 1,028 parents, with a 6 point margin of error.

As the school year gets nearer, more parents don't want their children exposed to the virus for in-person schooling.

Beto O'Rourke Offers More Than "Thoughts And Prayers"

(Photo of Beto O'Rourke was found at website of KVIA News.)

The United States averages more than one school shooting every week and one mass shooting every day. It also has over 30,000 gun deaths every year. No other developed nation has anywhere near this level of gun violence. Why does the United States? It is because too many in our Congress have been bought by the gun lobby.

One of those who owes the gun lobby is Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. He has received millions from gun rights groups. In 2016 alone, he received $360,727 ($77,900 from the NRA and the rest from other gun groups). He has made it clear that he opposes all new gun laws, including those supported by a substantial majority of Americans.

Fortunately, Texans have an alternative this year. Democrat Beto O'Rourke has taken no money from the NRA or other gun groups -- OR ANY OTHER PAC's. And he supports common sense and constitutional legislation to stem the epidemic of gun violence in this country. The following is what O'Rourke had to say in response to the latest school shooting in Santa Fe, Texas:

My thoughts are with the community of Santa Fe. I'm thinking of the students, teachers, administrators, parents, and law enforcement. I'm deeply sorry that they are experiencing this.

I'm sorry that there are parents, brothers, and sisters who are grieving, who won't see their children and siblings at the next family dinner or baseball game. I'm sorry that there are teachers everywhere worrying about whether their classroom will be next instead of solely focusing on teaching those kids. I'm sorry that some of the students at Santa Fe weren't surprised that this happened because they expected it at some point. I'm sorry that more people have been killed at our schools this year than have been killed while serving in our military.

Either we accept this, and continue to be sorry, and prayerful and thoughtful. Or we act. That's it.

There are 535 members of Congress. Who represent 320 million people. All of us. Each member responsible for representing the interests of this country, of people, of human beings, of kids. Not responsible for PACs or lobbies, corporations or special interests. Not responsible for the next election.

Remembering that, we can meet silence with action. Tragedy with common purpose. The disagreements with compromise and consensus that allow us to do better -- not perfect, not your ideal, not my ideal, but better than what we have today. Shouldn't be too much to ask for the kids who died today, for the kids too scared to go to school on Monday, should it?

What if we required universal background checks to ensure that firearms only get into the hands of those won't harm themselves or someone else. Close all loopholes and exceptions. Every single gun purchase has a background check.

We can stop the new sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines to ensure that firearms designed to kill as effectively and efficiently as possible on the battlefield aren't used in our schools, our streets, our churches, and our concerts.

We can give federal help to local school districts to improve on-campus safety. Local stakeholder solutions with assistance to make the necessary investments.

We can fully support federal research on gun violence so that we can better understand and address its root causes.

We can improve record sharing from the background check system, the ability for law enforcement to more effectively act on information that could help in the prevention of gun sales to those who shouldn't own them or stop those who do and pose a threat.

We can find a way to implement Extreme Risk Protective Order (ERPO) or Red Flag Laws. Successfully implementing these can stop shootings and might have a big impact on the suicides that make up 2/3 of our daily 96 gun deaths.

These are some ideas I've heard from my constituents in El Paso, from students at the town hall I held at Montwood High earlier this year, from those I've met along the road throughout the counties of Texas.

These ideas won't prevent every shooting, won't be perfect, aren't easy conversations to have. And there's no way that I would suggest I have all the answers. No one person does.

But any hesitation I have in stepping forward is overwhelmed by the justice demanded by the daily tragedy of gun violence. Any question on how to lead has been answered by gun violence survivors, young people, high school students who are already leading us (forcing us) towards the difficult, important conversation that this country owes them, owes all of us.

I want to use our proud history of gun ownership, gun rights, gun safety, and gun responsibility in Texas as a place from which to lead. I want to sit down with any person of any party in any place and at any time to figure out how we can make sure that this does not continue to happen.

There Have Been 22 School Shootings (I Blame Congress)

On Friday, there was another school shooting -- this time in a Santa Fe, Texas, high school. Ten people were killed and several wounded. It marks the 22nd school shooting in the United States this year, and the year is only 20 weeks old. That's an average of more than one school shooting every week. And if you look at all mass shootings, the U.S. is averaging about one every single day.

Elected officials (local, state, and national) were quick to send their "thoughts and prayers". Frankly, I'm a little tired of hearing about their "thoughts and prayers". They haven't prevented any school (or mass shootings) in the past, didn't prevent this one, and won't prevent any of the ones in the future. It's time for our politicians to stop the pious posing and actually do something to prevent the more than 30,000 gun deaths in this country every year. We are in the midst of an epidemic, and our elected officials (especially in the U.S. Congress) refuse to do anything about it.

Some will say not is not the time since passions are inflamed over the shooting. That is bullshit! With a school shooting every week and a mass shooting every day, when is the time. The time is NOW!

Some will also claim this epidemic is a mental health problem, and not a gun problem. That's a ridiculous assertion. All developed nations have a problem with mental health, but only one allows the dangerously mentally ill (and criminals and terrorists) to legally buy any kind of gun they desire -- the United States. It is a gun problem.

Some will say we can't do anything because of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. That's also ludicrous! Many solutions have been offered that do not violate the Second Amendment, and out Congress won't even discuss them, let alone vote on them.

Some also say there is no "cure-all" that will prevent all mass shooting or gun deaths. That is true. But there are measures that will significantly reduce the number of mass shootings and gun deaths, and actions that would save hundreds or thousands of American lives are well worth doing.

There ar two actions that would significantly reduce gun deaths. We could close the holes in our background check law, and make ALL gun buyers go through a background check (even for purchases from an individual). And we could ban the sale of military-style assault weapons (which are the weapon of choice for most mass shooters). Both actions have been declared constitutional by our Supreme Court.

Some will claim that people will just buy a gun on the black market if they fail a background check. But that's no excuse for letting them legally buy a gun -- and buying from a criminal gun dealer is not as easy as gun nuts would have you believe.

Unfortunately, noting will probably be done (except more thoughts and prayers). That's because too many in Congress are owned by the NRA, and the NRA is owned by the gun manufacturers. Those congressmen have made the decision that the lives of Americans are not as important as getting themselves re-elected. For that reason, I blame Congress for this latest school shooting -- and for the future ones.

School Vouchers Do NOT Improve Student Achievement

(These charts, from the Economic Policy Institute, show that cities invested heavily in vouchers, like Milwaukee and Detroit, still lag far behind cities that aren't heavily invested in a voucher system.)

The following summary of a study of school vouchers is by Martin Canroy, professor of education and economics at Stanford University:

Betsy DeVos, the new U.S. secretary of education, is a strong proponent of allowing public education dollars to go to private schools through vouchers, which enable parents to use public school money to enroll their children in private schools, including religious ones. Vouchers are advanced under the rubric of “school choice”—the theory that giving parents more choices regarding where to educate their children creates competition and thus improves low-performing schools. (Charter schools, though technically funded and regulated similarly to public schools, are another key private school component of the choice argument and another top policy priority for DeVos.) DeVos’s nomination and confirmation have heightened the debate over using privatization, versus other school improvement strategies, to enhance educational outcomes for students and their schools.

This report seeks to inform that debate by summarizing the evidence base on vouchers. Studies of voucher programs in several U.S. cities, the states of Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, and in Chile and India, find limited improvements at best in student achievement and school district performance from even large-scale programs. In the few cases in which test scores increased, other factors, namely increased public accountability, not private school competition, seem to be more likely drivers. And high rates of attrition from private schools among voucher users in several studies raises concerns. The second largest and longest-standing U.S. voucher program, in Milwaukee, offers no solid evidence of student gains in either private or public schools.

In the only area in which there is evidence of small improvements in voucher schools—in high school graduation and college enrollment rates—there are no data to show whether the gains are the result of schools shedding lower-performing students or engaging in positive practices. Also, high school graduation rates have risen sharply in public schools across the board in the last 10 years, with those increases much larger than the small effect estimated on graduation rates from attending a voucher school.

The lack of evidence that vouchers significantly improve student achievement (test scores), coupled with the evidence of a modest, at best, impact on educational attainment (graduation rates), suggests that an ideological preference for education markets over equity and public accountability is what is driving the push to expand voucher programs. Ideology is not a compelling enough reason to switch to vouchers, given the risks. These risks include increased school segregation; the loss of a common, secular educational experience; and the possibility that the flow of inexperienced young teachers filling the lower-paying jobs in private schools will dry up once the security and benefits offered to more experienced teachers in public schools disappear.

The report suggests that giving every parent and student a great “choice” of educational offerings is better accomplished by supporting and strengthening neighborhood public schools with a menu of proven policies, from early childhood education to after-school and summer programs to improved teacher pre-service training to improved student health and nutrition programs. All of these yield much higher returns than the minor, if any, gains that have been estimated for voucher students.

Should There Be Required Standards For Home-Schooling ?

In this country, one of the things we can be most proud of is providing a free public education to all children. Not all take advantage of it (and not all schools are perfect). Some parents choose to send their students to a private school, and some others choose to home-school their children. And I don't have a problem with either. I do however think that if either of those choices are made, there should be a minimum standard for the education those children receive -- a standard that is at least as rigorous as that of a public school education.

This is not a problem in many homes, but it is in some -- especially among the home-schooled. Don't get me wrong. I am convinced that some parents do a very good job of home-schooling -- and give their children a very good education (sometimes even better than that received in a public school). I applaud those parents, but unfortunately that is not always the case.

There are parents who do not do a good (or even a minimally adequate) job of teaching their children -- either because they are poor teachers, are uneducated themselves, don't believe in education, or want to teach only what they think their religion calls for. The children in these homes grow up to be uneducated, or at least poorly educated -- and that's child abuse, because it severely limits the opportunities they will have as adults.

Let's be honest. We live in a society where education is important, and the better education a person has, the easier life they will have (because more opportunities will open up for them). Any person who finishes their education without accomplishing even the minimum standards of a high school education is being short-changed, and their life will be much more difficult because of it.

That's why I believe a home-school education must meet those minimum standards. And since there are some parents who will not want to (or be capable of) meeting those standards, it must fall to the government (through the school system) of setting and making sure all students meet those standards -- even home-schoolers.

This upsets some home-schooling parents, but it shouldn't. Those doing a good job will easily meet those standards, and those who don't need someone to hold their feet to the fire (for the sake of the children).

There is a fight going on in Texas courts right now about this -- and that fight has now reached the Texas Supreme Court. It is over whether a school district has the right to assure home-schooled students are being taught an appropriate curriculum, or whether that violates the rights of parents.

I have made my stance clear. What do you think? Should home-schooled students be required to complete a curriculum with minimum standards, or do parents have the right to keep their students from getting an adequate education?

Schools Should Provide A Free Lunch For All Students

You may already have heard about this. It seems that an elementary school cafeteria worker has been terminated from her job because she gave a free lunch to a first grader that had no money or lunch. The cafeteria worker, Della Curry, admitted her "crime" saying:

“I had a first grader in front of me, crying, because she doesn’t have enough money for lunch. Yes, I gave her lunch.”

I don't know about you, but I don't think she should have been fired. When did feeding hungry children become a bad thing in our society?

Now some of you may be thinking that giving that first-grader a free lunch was stealing from the school district. I say that's a load (of what comes out of the south end of a north-bound bull). She gave the child some food that would otherwise have been thrown away after the lunch period was over. If we are so worried about the "stealing" of food about to be thrown away that we would refuse to feed a hungry child, what does that say about our society? It's certainly not the christian thing, or even the human thing, to do.

Personally, I think the schools (at least in elementary school) should provide a free and nutritious lunch to all students -- regardless of their financial situation. The government requires students to attend school, and since we require them to be there, we should feed them. It's just a fact that a hungry child doesn't do as well in school as one who is not -- and it's to all our advantage that every child does well in school (and gets the best education we can give them). And providing all children with the same free lunch would accomplish something else -- it would remove the stigma that sometimes comes with a poor child getting a free lunch.

Some of you may want to claim at this point that the school district cannot afford to provide a free lunch to all students. Again, I call bull-crap. Any school that can provide athletic stadiums, athletic teams and other extracurricular activities, pay coaches an exorbitant salary, buy standardized testing, and other things that have little to do with really educating a student, then they can afford to feed the children they are trying to educate.

It's stories like this cafeteria worker being fired for feeding tiny children that show us just how sick our society has become. We should be better than that.

(The image above is from the website emporium.schoolnutrition.org.)

The Lies That Republicans Want To Teach Our Children

(This image of the GOP symbol is from DonkeyHotey.)

This article is a couple of years old, but it bears repeating because it is just as true today as it was back then. It was written By Amanda Marcotte for Alternet and reposted at Salon.com.

If recent elections have taught us anything, it’s that young Americans have taken a decided turn to the left. Young voters delivered Obama the election: the under-44 set voted Obama and the over-45 set broke for Romney. The youngest voters, age 18-29, gave Obama a whopping 60 percent of their vote.

Now Republicans have a plan to try to recapture the youngest voters out there: Take over the curriculum in public schools, replace education with a bunch of conservative propaganda, and reap the benefits of having a new generation that can’t tell reality from right-wing fantasy.

How well this plan will work is debatable, but in the meantime, these shenanigans present the very real possibility that public school students will graduate without a proper education. To make it worse, many of these attempts to rewrite school curriculum are happening in Texas, which can set the textbook standards for the entire country by simply wielding its power as one of the biggest school textbook markets there is. With that in mind, here’s a list of 11 lies your kid may be in danger of learning in school.

Lie No. 1: Racism has barely been an issue in U.S. history and slavery wasn’t that big a deal.

The Thomas B. Fordham Institute reviewed the new social studies standards laid down by the right-wing-dominated Texas State School Board and found them to be a deplorable example of conservative wishful thinking replacing fact. At the top of list? Downplaying the role that slavery had in starting the Civil War, and instead focusing on “sectionalism” and “states’ rights,” even though the sectionalism and states’ rights arguments directly stemmed from Southern states wanting to keep slavery. There’s also a chance your kid might be misled to think post-Civil War racism was no big deal, as the standards excise any mention of the KKK, the phrase “Jim Crow” or the Black Codes. Mention is made of the Southern Democratic opposition to civil rights, but mysteriously, the mass defection of Southern Democrats to the Republican Party to punish the rest of the Democrats for supporting civil rights goes unmentioned.

Lie No. 2: Joe McCarthy was right.

The red-baiting of the mid-20th century has gone down in history, correctly, as a witch hunt that stemmed from irrational paranoia that gripped the U.S. after WWII. But now, according to the Thomas B. Fordham report, your kid might learn that the red baiters had a point: “It is disingenuously suggested that the House Un-American Activities Committee—and, by extension, McCarthyism—have been vindicated by the Venona decrypts of Soviet espionage activities (which had, in reality, no link to McCarthy’s targets).” Critical lessons about being skeptical of those who attack fellow Americans while wrapping themselves in the flag will be lost for students whose textbooks adhere to these standards.

Lie No. 3: Climate change is a massive hoax scientists have perpetuated on the public.

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has been hard at work pushing for laws requiring that climate change denialism be taught in schools as a legitimate scientific theory. Unfortunately, as Neela Banerjee of the L.A. Times reports, they’ve already had some serious success: “Texas and Louisiana have introduced education standards that require educators to teach climate change denial as a valid scientific position. South Dakota and Utah passed resolutions denying climate change.” Other states are taking the “teach the controversy” strategy that helped get creationism into biology classrooms, asking teachers to treat climate change like it’s a matter of political debate instead of a scientifically established fact.

The reality is that climate change is a fact that has overwhelming scientific consensus. In 2004, Science reviewed the 928 relevant studies on climate change published between 1993 and 2003 and found that exactly zero of them denied that climate change was a reality, and most found it had man-made causes. To claim that climate change is a “controversy” requires one to believe that there’s a massive conspiracy involving nearly all the scientists in the world. So, your kids are not only not learning the realities of climate change, they are also learning, if indirectly, to give credence to conspiracy theory paranoia.

Lie No. 4: The Bible is a history textbook and a scientific document.

Texas passed a law in 2007 pushing schools to teach the Bible as history and literature in schools. Since that was already being done in most schools, the law was clearly just a backdoor way to sneak religious instruction into schools, and a report by the Texas Freedom Network (TFN) demonstrates that many of them have taken full advantage. One district treats the Bible stories like history by “listing biblical events side by side with historical developments from around the globe.” Many other schools are teaching that the Bible “proves” that the Earth is only 6,000 years old. The Earth is actually over 4 billion years old.

Lie No. 5: Black people are the descendants of Ham and therefore cursed by God.

Among the courses justified by the 2007 Bible law, TFN found two school districts teaching that the various races are descended from the sons of Noah. All the Bible really says about the sons of Noah is that Ham was cursed by his father so that his descendants would be slaves, but American slave owners used this passage to claim that Africans must be the descendants of Ham and therefore their slave-owning was OK by God. Make no mistake. The only reason this legend has persisted and is popping up in 21st-century classrooms is that conservative Christians are still trying to justify the enslavement of African Americans over a century ago.

Lie No. 6: Evolution is a massive hoax scientists have perpetuated on the public.

Creationists have an endless store of creative ways to get around the Constitution and the courts when it comes to replacing legitimate biology education with fundamentalist Christian dogma. Various states have employed an extensive school voucher system that has allowed creationist dogma to flourish. College-age activist Zack Kopplin has been chronicling the problem, and has found various schools nationwide using taxpayer dollars to teach that evolution is a “mistaken belief” and that the Bible “refutes the man-made idea of evolution.” Why do these school administrators believe that scientists are hoaxing the public by making up evolution? Kopplin found a Louisiana school principal who claimed it’s because scientists are “sinful men” seeking to justify their own immorality, and another Florida school teaching that evolutionary theory is “the way of the heathen.”

Lie No. 7: Sex is awful and filthy, and you should save it for someone you love.

While things are improving, even in notoriously fact-phobic states like Mississippi and Texas, “abstinence-only” education continues to persist in school districts across the nation. TFN found that nearly three-quarters of Texas high schools are still teaching abstinence-only, which is based on the fundamental and easily disproved lie that premarital sex is inherently dangerous to a person’s mental and physical health. On top of this, TFN found that many schools are still passing on inaccurate information on condoms and STI transmission, usually exaggerating the dangers in a futile bid to keep kids from having sex. Unfortunately, even Texas school districts that use curriculum that educates correctly on contraception use are still trying to spin abstinence-until-marriage as a desirable option for all students, even though premarital sex is near-universal in the real world.  Abstinence-only may be discredited with the voters, but sadly it’s still very normal in Texas, other red states, and even across the nation.

Lie No. 8: Dragons actually once existed. 

As much as “Game of Thrones” fans might wish otherwise, dragons are not real and have never existed. But as reported by Mother Jones, Louisiana’s notorious voucher school system has let some crazy nonsense fly in the classroom, including the claim that dragons used to roam the planet. A book being used in Louisiana classrooms titled ”Life Science” and published by Bob Jones University Press claims that “scientists” found “dinosaur skulls” that the book suggests are actually dragons. “The large skull chambers could have contained special chemical-producing glands. When the animal forced the chemicals out of its mouth or nose, these substances may have combined and produced fire and smoke,” the book claims.

Lie No. 9: Gay people do not actually exist.

After being beat back by gay rights and sexual health advocates, Republicans in the Tennessee Legislature are once again trying to bring back the “don’t say gay bill.” The law would ban a teacher from admitting the existence of homosexuality to students prior to the 8th grade, even if the students ask them about it. Instead, the bill would require turning a student who confesses to being gay over to his parents, with the legislators clearly hoping that punishment will somehow make the kid not-gay. The entire bill rests on and promotes the premise that homosexuality isn’t a real sexual orientation, but just the result of mental illness or confusion, and if it’s enforced, that message will come across to the students.

Lie No. 10: Hippies were dirty, immoral Satan-worshippers.

In the 1960s, it was common for conservatives to try to discredit the left by stoking paranoia about hippie culture and denouncing the supposed evils of rock ‘n’ roll. Forty years have passed, but in Louisiana, some school administrators are apparently still afraid that possessing a Beatles record means a young person is on the verge of quitting bathing and taking up a lifestyle of taking LSD and worshiping Satan at psychedelic orgies.

A history textbook snagged from a Louisiana school funded by the voucher program tells students: “Many young people turned to drugs and immoral lifestyles and these youths became known as hippies. They went without bathing, wore dirty, ragged, unconventional clothing, and deliberately broke all codes of politeness or manners. Rock music played an important part in the hippie movement and had great influence over the hippies. Many of the rock musicians they followed belonged to Eastern religious cults or practiced Satan worship.” It’s unclear if the book also teaches that if you play a Queen record backward, you can hear Satan telling you to smoke pot, but that kind of critical information could also be conveyed during the teacher’s lectures on the subject.

Lie No. 11: Ayn Rand’s books have literary value.

Idaho state Sen. John Goedde, chairman of the state’s Senate Education Committee, has introduced a bill that would require students not only to read Rand’s ponderous novel “Atlas Shrugged,” but also to pass a test on it in order to graduate. Goedde claims to mostly not be serious about this bill, but instead is using it as a childish attempt to piss off the liberals, but it’s still the sort of item parents need to watch out for.

After all, Texas textbook standards require that an obsession with the gold standard be taught as a legitimate economic theory instead of the mad ravings of cranks that it is. We live in an era where no amount of right-wing lunacy is considered too much to be pushed on innocent children like it’s fact. Anyone who doubts that should just remember one word: dragons.