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Bob Shepherd: Hear Ye! Voucher Schools Offer Great Opportunities!

By dianeravitch
July 14, 2023 //
62

Bob Shepherd is a polymath who has written curriculum, textbooks, and assessments. He recently retired as a teacher in Florida. We are fortunate to have him as a regular commenter on the blog.

He describes two promising opportunities for Florida, which is poised to transfer billions of dollars from public schools to unregulated, unaccountable private schools.

Vouchers create many business opportunities: Here are a couple that occur to me:

Business Plan 1 (We Put the Duh in Flor-uh-duh):

Come on down to our “Race to the Top of Mount Zion Enrollment Jubilee” in the old K-Mart parking lot this Saturday and sign yore kids up for Bob Shepherd’s Real Good Floruhduh School. You can use yore Florida State Scholarships to pay for it, and so its absolutely FREE!!!! No longer due you havta send yore children to them gobbermint schools run by Socialists whar they will be taut to be transgendered! We offer compleet curriculems, wrote by Bob’s girlfriend Darlene herself, including

World HIS-story (from Creation to the United States of Dimocrat Babylon to the Rapshure)
Political Science (We thank you, Lord, for Donald Trump; the Second Amendmint; and protecting our Borders from invading hoardes of rapists and murderers)
English (the offishul langwidge of the United States, and the langwidge the Bible was wrote in)
Science (the six days of creation; how to make yore own buckshot; and how Cain and Abel survived among the dinosaurs)
Economics (when rich people get tax brakes, that makes you richer)

And much, much more!!! Plus, you don’t havta worry yore hed about safety, cause all are teachers is locked and loaded!

Bob’s Real Good Florurduh Skool, located across from Bob’s Gun and Pawn right next to Wild Wuornos’s Adult Novelties.

It’s been real good runnin’ this here skool. Free innerprize! So much better then tryin to live on Darlene’s disability! Make America Grate Agin!

Business Plan 2 (Akashic Kakistonics, or Opening Heaven’s Gate to Every Child):

Tired of those failing public schools? Want to send your child to a true Akashic Academy where he/she/they can receive nourishment for the mind AND the soul?

Then enroll him/her/them in Enlightened Master Bob’s AYAHUASCA SCHOOL FOR LITTLE COSMIC VOYAGERS.

Here at Enlightened Master Bob’s, your child will learn how he or she can skip breakfast, lunch, and dinner and draw nourishment directly from Father Sun in our Solar Temple.

We offer complete holistic health training, using our proprietary textbooks on the Ethereal Body, including uncapping and aligning children’s Chakras so they can download DIRECTLY from the Mother Ship the Cosmic Light necessary for the coming Transformation from Earth-bound Homo sapiens to Interdimensional Beings.

In our history classes, students will learn all about Atlantis, Lemuria, Camelot and Glastonbury, the Black Rock Desert, and other Places of Power throughout the Ages.

Students will also learn how to protect themselves against the forces of the Evil Galactic Emperor Xenu and his band of sometimes invisible, shape-shifting reptilian aliens from Alpha Draconis.

But don’t delay! Soon, as our galaxy moves into proximity to the Pleiades, the vibrational tone of the entire planet will rise to such a pitch that we will either undergo Ascension or explode, and everything—the FATE OF THE PLANET– depends on how many young Lightworkers we can bring into Alignment and Cosmic Consciousness before then!

Of course, all this is absolutely FREE because you can use your State Scholarship Voucher to pay for it.

And best yet, all classes are taught by the Spiritual Wives of Enlightened Master Bob himself!!!!!

Categories Accountability, Curriculum, DeSantis, Education Industry, Extremism, Florida, For-Profit, Funding, Humor, Vouchers

Florida: Vouchers for All, Rich and Poor, Cut Public School Funding

By dianeravitch
July 11, 2023 //
32

Remember back in the day when vouchers were sold as a way to “save poor kids from failing schools”? Those days are over. The new Republican pitch is “universal vouchers,” vouchers for all, regardless of family income, regardless of whether the students ever attended public schools.

Florida is one of several Republican-led states that have passed universal vouchers. With the new money free-for-all, public schools are hiring marketing directors and communications staff to persuade students to enroll in public schools.

Katherine Kokal of the Palm Beach Post describes how public schools in Palm Beach have responded to the introduction of universal vouchers.

For first time, the Palm Beach County School District will actually need to start convincing parents to send their kids to public school.

That’s because Florida’s expanded school voucher program, which went into effect July 1, opens the door for parents of all incomes to use taxpayer money for tuition at private schools. That money is taken away from the student’s public school district at a cost of about $8,000 per student. In March, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation that removed the previous income and enrollment limits on the program.

The program has left loads of uncertainty in the school district’s budget, but one thing remains clear to school leaders: Public schools need to better “market” themselves if they’re going to compete.

Superintendent Mike Burke announced an idea in the spring to market public schools to families weighing their options. The district launched a kindergarten registration campaign to get Palm Beach County’s youngest students in public school classrooms. Their thinking was that if students start in public school, they’re more likely to stay.

Among the first orders of business for the district’s new chief communications strategist will be expanding its marketing campaign to try to prove to parents considering vouchers that public schools are their best choice.

“I think we’re going to have to dedicate real resources to this beyond our website,” Burke said. “We’ve been competing with charter schools for 20 years. We’ve never competed with private schools.”

New voucher options arrive on Florida’s education scene at a time when public school districts are fighting pressure from fringe candidates, library book bans and new limitations on what teachers can talk about in the classroom.

Coupled with new obligations to pay millions for private school vouchers, some education experts say Florida is eroding its public education system altogether.

“It’s hard not to look at all of this and grieve,” said Joshua Cowen, a professor of education policy at Michigan State University. “Every school has a pitch. What’s different now, particularly in Florida, you’re going to see schools thinking very carefully about how to market themselves vis-à-vis the culture war stuff.”

Not all private schools in Palm Beach County are religious schools, and they’re also separate from charter schools, which are public schools run by private companies.

Palm Beach County is home to 161 private schools registered with the Florida Department of Education as of July 6. Of those schools, 44% are religiously affiliated.

And most accept vouchers.

While 109 private schools accept Family Empowerment Scholarships right now, Burke anticipates that number growing over the next several months.

“I think we’re going to see proliferation of small, ‘mom-and-pop’ private schools,” he said. “Private schools in a strip mall where people think they can turn a profit.”

Please open the link to finish reading the article.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Competition, DeSantis, Disruption, Education Industry, Florida, Funding, Hoax, Privatization, Religion, School Choice, Vouchers

Reid Friedson: DeSantis Is a Homegrown Fascist

By dianeravitch
July 10, 2023 //
14

The Republican primary is shaping up as a carnival of horrible. Coasting in the lead is former President Donald Trump, whose ignorance, lying, and braggadocio are well-documented and on display whenever he speaks. His indictments tend to increase his poll numbers, and apparently are no bar to bring re-elected.

In the second spot, far ahead of the rest of the pack is Ron DeSantis, who wants to be known as the meanest one in the race. He will boast about how he crushed academic freedom, how he outlawed drag queens and demonized gays, how he made honest teaching of history illegal, how he encouraged book banning.

In this article, Reid Friedson contends that DeSantis’s full-blown fascism should disqualify him from office. But if the public wants fascism, there he stands, ready to suppress and criminalize dissent, debate, anyone who offends him.

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, Cruelty, DeSantis, Education Industry, Elections, Extremism, Fascism, Florida, Freedom, Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Read

Florida: Orange County Removes Classics from Schools

By dianeravitch
July 5, 2023 //
116

Leslie Postal of the Orlando Sentinel reports that the Orange County school district has removed classic literature in its efforts to comply with state laws.

She writes:

The classic novels “A Room With a View” and “Madame Bovary” and the epic poem “Paradise Lost” — published in England more than 350 years ago — have been at least temporarily rejected by Orange County Public Schools for sexual content that educators fear runs afoul of a new Florida law.

Novels that in past years were frequently taught in OCPS high school classes, such as “The Color Purple,” “Catch-22,” “Brave New World,” and “The Kite Runner” have been put on the rejected lists, too, as have novels by Toni Morrison and Ayn Rand and popular, turned-into-movies books like “Into the Wild,” and “The Fault in Our Stars.”

The lists of books rejected and approved for OCPS classrooms are not finalized yet as district media specialists continue their summer work of reviewing all books in classroom libraries, said several people familiar with the process.

Some books rejected earlier this summer, among them “The Scarlet Letter” and Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” have since been approved, according to the lists shared with the Orlando Sentinel by a district teacher and by an advocacy group that obtained a rejection list through a public records request. Other books have been approved but only for certain grades.

Four plays by William Shakespeare, including “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” are currently listed as approved for grades 10 through 12 only, as is Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood” and Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire,” the lists show.

For many of the books, the reason for at least a temporary rejection is sex. “Depicts or describes sexual conduct (not allowed per HB 1069-2023,” reads the explanation, referencing a new state law passed by the Republican-dominated Florida Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The new law makes book challenges easier and, if the concern is sexual content, requires the books to be removed from the shelves within five days and remain inaccessible to students while being reviewed. Republican lawmakers said they passed it to make sure pornography and books that depict sexual activity are kept from children.

But critics say the effort has wrongly labeled many books pornographic, when state law says, in part, that books with sexual content or nudity are considered pornography only if they are “without serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.”

This could be a clever plot to entice teens to read forbidden books. (“Come over to my house, I have ‘Paradise Lost!’”) But Florida’s legislators and state education officials are not clever. They are narrow minded bigots.

Categories Academic Freedom, Censorship, Corruption, Democracy, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Florida, Freedom to Read, Gender, Libraries, Literature

Florida: DeSantis’ War Against LGBT Rights Falters in Courts

By dianeravitch
July 2, 2023 //
39

The Miami Herald points out that Governor Desantis’ efforts to eliminate the rights of LGBT people have not fared well in the courts. However, he will appeal all the decisions he has lost to higher courts in hopes of finding bigoted judges who agree with him. He is s petty, vengeful man who has pledged to control the courts and the Justice Departnent if elected President and make them instruments of his war on WOKE

Multiple federal court decisions have frozen key portions of Ron DeSantis’ campaign against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights in recent weeks, complicating the Florida governor’s efforts to present himself as a conservative champion with a track record of winning cultural battles over LGBTQ causes.

In the last week alone, the DeSantis administration faced setbacks in three legal battles over LGBTQ rights. Judges rejected state efforts to block transgender adults’ access to gender-affirming care under Medicaid, bar transgender children from accessing puberty blockers, and ban minors from certain types of live entertainment at restaurants – legislation widely interpreted as a proposal to target drag shows.

DeSantis’ agenda has hit other roadblocks, with judges blocking portions of his plans to control teaching and training on gender identity in schools and workplaces. The governor also faces ongoing litigation over his efforts t0 ban transgender athletes from competing on sports teams of their declared gender and to restrict access to school books, including those with LGBTQ themes.

His pressure on private industry has faced challenges, as well, with Disney — one of the state’s largest employers — suing the governorclaiming he overstepped his power in taking punitive action against the company over its opposition to policies the company viewed as hostile to the LGBTQ community. DeSantis is pushing for the federal trial to start after the 2024 presidential election. In the meantime, Disney will host a major LGBTQ conferencein Florida this September that promotes diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

Categories Bigotry, Civil Rights, Democracy, DeSantis, Elections, Evil, Extremism, Failure, Fascism, Florida, Gender

Florida: Judge Tosses Out Law Targeting Drag Queens

By dianeravitch
June 23, 2023 //
47

“If the come for me in the morning, they’ll come for you at night.” I heard that phrase recently and eventually found it attributed to Angela Davis. I was never in her fan club, but the statement is profound, not unlike the famous quote “First they came for the trade unionists, but I was not a trade unionists so I didn’t care.” Translation: when anyone’s freedom is curtailed, we are all endangered.

It’s easy for hateful politicians like Ron DeSantis to target trans kids and deny them the treatment recommended by their doctors, because transgender people are a tiny number and have few defenders. Drag queens are also a target for those who want to restrict freedom because they too are a tiny minority without a political constituency to defend them.

Closet fascists experienced a setback in Florida, when a federal judge put a temporary block on the state’s law meant to make drag queens disappear. Drag queens are performers; their acts are meant to entertain. Drag has been on the stage for hundreds of years, maybe longer.

A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked a Florida law that he says is aimed at limiting the rights of drag performers.


U.S. District Judge Gregory Presnell of Orlando wrote in his order that “this statute is specifically designed to suppress the speech of drag queen performers.”


“In the words of the bill’s sponsor in the House, State Representative Randy Fine: “…HB 1423…will protect our children by ending the gateway propaganda to this evil — ‘Drag Queen Story Time,’” Presnell’s ruling said.


Fine, a Republican from Brevard County, declined to comment.

The court battle was initiated by the Hamburger Mary’s restaurant in Orlando over a law that contains penalties for any venue allowing children into a sexually explicit “adult live performance.” The law includes potential first-degree misdemeanor charges for violators.


“Of course, it’s constitutional to prevent the sexualization of children by limiting access to adult live performances,” said Jeremy Redfern, a spokesman for Gov. Ron DeSantis, who signed the law in May. “We believe the judge’s opinion is dead wrong and look forward to prevailing on appeal.”

Hamburger Mary’s filed a lawsuit in May against DeSantis, the state, and Melanie Griffin, secretary of Florida’s Department of Business and Professional Regulation. DeSantis and the state have since been dropped as defendants, with Griffin remaining.


The downtown restaurant’s lawsuit argued the law would have a “chilling effect on the First Amendment rights of the citizens of Florida.”

Hamburger Mary’s, which opened in 2008, has hosted drag performances that include bingo, trivia and comedy. After the law was signed, the restaurant restricted children from drag shows and then lost 20% of its bookings, according to the lawsuit.


Presnell’s order prevents the state agency from enforcing the law pending the outcome of a trial. He also denied the state’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit.

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, Civil Rights, Democracy, DeSantis, Education Reform, Florida, Freedom, Freedom of Speech, Gender, Humor

Florida: County Sued by Students and Authors for Banning Their Book

By dianeravitch
June 23, 2023 //
16

Since Ron DeSantis pushed through the “Don’t Say Gay” law (“Parental Rights in Education”), library books about anything related to gay subjects have been removed from school libraries. This week, the authors of the children’s book “Tango” sued the Lake County district in Florida for banning their book; they were joined by several students in the district.

“Tango” is a true story written for young students about two male penguins in a zoo who adopted an egg and raised the baby as their own. There is nothing remotely sexual about the story. It’s a sweet and touching story.

The New York Times reported:

A group of students and the authors of a children’s book about a penguin family with two fathers sued the Lake County school district and the board of education Tuesday, saying that restricting access to the book in school libraries was unconstitutional.


The suit argues that the picture book, “And Tango Makes Three,” was targeted on ideological grounds, as a result of new legislation that has led to a spike in book removals. The state law, known by its opponents as “Don’t Say Gay,” bans instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation.


In an attempt to follow the statute, the school district, Lake County, restricted access to 40 titles, the vast majority of them books that deal with LGBTQ issues and themes.


The lawsuit by the authors of the book seeks to make it available again and to have the law found unconstitutional.

“Our book has been banned because Tango has two dads,” said Justin Richardson, who wrote the book with his husband, Peter Parnell.


The book is based on the true story of a pair of male penguins at the Central Park Zoo, Roy and Silo, who incubated and hatched a baby chick. Zookeepers named the chick Tango.


The picture book, aimed at 4- to 8-year-olds, has won multiple awards. It has also been banned or restricted in many districts around the United States after parents and residents objected to the book’s depiction of a family with same-sex parents.

The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, said the Lake had “cited no legitimate pedagogical reason for its decision.”

No doubt, DeFascist will say that the book was not banned. It was removed from circulation.

Categories Censorship, DeSantis, Extremism, Fascism, Florida, Gender, Students, Stupid

Florida: Ban Child Beauty Pageants to Protect Children!

By dianeravitch
June 21, 2023 //
9

We have heard a lot from Ron DeSantis and his friends about their wish to protect children from “grooming.” They say that sexual predators are trying to “sexualize” children.

Instead of attacking hardworking teachers, the governor should ban child beauty pageants.

Florida is the epicenter of these child-exploitation events.

Look at the children in the photos: they are being groomed to be sex objects! They are being groomed to satisfy the lust of pedophiles!

How can DeSantis rant about grooming and WOKEness while ignoring an industry devoted to the sexualization of little girls?

Hypocrite!

Categories Accountability, Childhood, DeSantis, Florida, For-Profit, Gender, Hypocrisy

Gavin Newsom: Inconvenient Truths About the Red-Blue Divide

By dianeravitch
June 20, 2023 //
31

California Governor Gavin Newsom recently had a debate with FOX host Sean Hannity, where he schooled him on the issues.

Gavin just sent out this newsletter:

Dear Diane,

Want the truth? Here’s the truth:

Tweet from Gavin Newsom: Red States vs. Blue States by the numbers

But that is not all.

8 of the 10 states with the highest murder rates are red and gun deaths are almost 2x as high in red states.

The Supreme Court has stripped women of their liberty and let red states replace it with mandated birth.

They ban books, silence teachers and make it harder to vote in red states.

The reason Republicans like Ron DeSantis are fanning the flames of culture wars is to distract from the fact that Florida has higher murder rates, worse education and worse health care outcomes than states like California.

That’s the truth.

– Gavin

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, California, Democracy, DeSantis, Economy, Elections, Extremism, Failure, Florida

College Board Refuses Florida Demand to Remove Gender Identity and LGBT Content from AP Psychology Course

By dianeravitch
June 16, 2023 //
15

Florida education officials demanded that the College Board remove questions about gender identity and LGBT content from its AP Psychology course, because state law bans teaching these subjects. The College Board refused to comply because these topics are included in college-level psychology courses.

Governor Ron DeSantis, a candidate for the Republican nomination for President in 2024, opposes any teaching about these issues. At DeSantis’ behest, the Florida legislature passed a law widely known as “Don’t Say Gay.” Originally intended for K-3, its application has been extended by the State Board of Education to apply to all grades.

Ironically, Florida has one of the nation’s most vibrant gay populations, centered in South Florida, in Miami, Key West, Fort Lauderdale, and also Orlando, which just memorialized the June 12, 2016, massacre of 49 people at a gay nightclub called The Pulse. DeSantis wants everyone to pretend that gays don’t exist.

Thought control is a feature of both fascism and Communism.

The Washington Post and many other publications reported on the controversy.

The College Board, which oversees AP nationwide, told Florida officials Thursday it stands by a sequence in the psychology course that covers gender and sexual orientation in a unit on developmental psychology.

“Please know that we will not modify our courses to accommodate restrictions on teaching essential, college-level topics,” the organization said in a letter to the state education department. “Doing so would break the fundamental promise of AP: colleges wouldn’t broadly accept that course for credit and that course wouldn’t prepare students for success in the discipline.”

The letter responded to a recent inquiry the Florida department made after the state enacted new restrictions on teaching gender identity and sexual orientation in public schools. The department told the College Board on May 19 that it is developing an “assurance document” for the College Board to indicate that its courses comply with Florida’s new rules. It also said state officials “implore” the organization to review its courses and identify those that might need to be modified.

“Some courses might contain content or topics prohibited by State Board of Education rule and Florida law,” the department’s letter said.

“[The] College Board is responsible for ensuring that their submitted materials comply with Florida law,” said Cassie Palelis, press secretary for the Florida Department of Education.

The College Board was embarrassed by its earlier efforts to placate Florida’s demands to censor the AP Black Studies course and wanted to avoid a similar debacle.

Now the College Board is taking a harder line as it defends the psychology course.


“We don’t know if the state of Florida will ban this course,” the organization said in a statement Thursday to the AP community. “To AP teachers in Florida, we are heartbroken by the possibility of Florida students being denied the opportunity to participate in this or any other AP course. To AP teachers everywhere, please know we will not modify any of the 40 AP courses — from art to history to science — in response to regulations that would censor college-level standards for credit, placement, and career readiness.”

“We have learned from our mistakes in the recent rollout of AP African American Studies and know that we must be clear from the outset where we stand,” the College Board said.

Last year, 28,600 Florida students took the AP Psychology exam, about 10% of the number who took the test nationally.

Categories Academic Freedom, Bigotry, Censorship, DeSantis, Education Industry, Extremism, Fascism, Florida, Freedom to Read, Gender
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