RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.theepochtimes.com/school-enrolment-across-us-dropped-by-almost-3-million-from-2019-to-2020-report_4060563.html

School enrolment across the United States dropped by 2.9 million from 2019 to 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to new data released on Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

This marks the lowest level—52.4 percent of the learning-aged population—of school enrollment for those under 35 years of age in over 20 years, as per the bureau’s data.

College enrollment also fell to its lowest level since 2007, with the majority of the decline occurring in colleges with two-year courses, which had their lowest enrollment levels in 20 years.

While the reasons for the declining figures are unclear, multiple factors such as pandemic-related lockdowns, school closures, and a focus on remote learning will undoubtably have played a part.

Meanwhile, the percentage of children ages 3 and 4 who were enrolled in school fell from 54 percent in 2019 to 40 percent in 2020. This decline marks the first time since 1996 that less than half of the children in this age group were enrolled in school.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/10/jewish-students-under-attack-richard-l-cravatts/

“Anti-Semitism, disguised as anti-Zionism, is still Jew-hatred.”

As yet more evidence that Jewish students have continued to be targets of bias on university campuses, a Spring 2021 poll by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, together with the Cohen Research Group, revealed that 65% of students in the leading Jewish fraternity and sorority have “felt unsafe” on campus, while 50% of students surveyed have felt “the need to hide their identity.”

The study, which surveyed 1,027 members of the Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi) fraternity and Alpha Epsilon Phi (AEPhi) sorority, confirmed what many observers have already witnessed; namely, that half of students have masked their Jewish identity and that more than fifty percent have felt it necessary to hide their support of Israel. Additionally, of those polled, some two-thirds experienced or were familiar with anti-Semitic incidents that occurred over the previous four months.

While, sadly, bias against Jewish students still includes examples of what might be termed “classic anti-Semitism,” aspersions against Jews as a religion or people, what the poll referred to as “traditional anti-Semitic tropes,” the thornier issue of identifying the new anti-Semitism is that it has emerged as part and parcel of the university’s war against Israel. So, while jokes about Jews and stereotypes of them being “greedy” or “cheap” still persist, the unfortunate side-product of pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel advocacy is that it frequently morphs into something closer to anti-Semitic speech and behavior than mere “criticism of Israel.”

Thus, sentiment such as “The ‘Jewish Lobby’ has too much power in the United States” or “Zionism is a form of White Supremacy,” both of which were encountered by students being polled, suggests that the identity of Jews as the logical supporters of Zionism and the Jewish state is relevant to the biased person who expresses such thoughts. When sentiments are expressed like “Israel treats Palestinians how the Nazis treated the Jews” and derogatory statements such as “Zionists are murderers,” both of which were also revealed in the poll, it is clear that biases against Jews are regularly conflated with, and arise as a result of, the existence and behavior of the Jewish state.

https://glennloury.substack.com/p/asian-students-and-nyc-exam-schools?token=

New York City’s exam high schools are, in many ways, the crown jewels of the city’s public education system. They’re prestigious, rigorous, and STEM-focused. And, importantly, admission to them is determined by student performance on a single test. They’re meritocratic engines that allow smart, hard-working kids to get a kind of education that would be otherwise inaccessible to many of them.

They also tend to have high concentrations of Asian American students, sometimes over 50%. My guest Wai Wah Chin, Charter President of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance of Greater New York, thinks this accounts for recent efforts by the mayor, the schools chancellor, and others to change admissions standards. According to Wai Wah, this attempt to make these schools “look more like the city” by admitting more black and Latino students entails discriminating against Asian American students who have earned their spot by virtue of their test performance.

This is a controversial issue, and it’s not confined to New York. Below, Wai Wah outlines why exam schools are so important, and why she is fighting to preserve a model educational program.

GLENN LOURY: Now we have actually collaborated on something. I should mention this right at the outset. The Pacific Legal Foundation produced and Rob Montz the filmmaker oversaw the production of Dream Factories, I believe is what the documentary is called, which is an investigation of the controversy in New York City about the specialized exam admissions high schools—Bronx High School of Science, Stuyvesant, and Brooklyn Tech—in which you, that controversy, have been very actively involved. Maybe we could start by you telling us a little bit about the controversy and about your role in it and where things are standing now on that set of issues in New York City.

WAI WAH CHIN: Thank you, Glenn. It was great to be with you in Dream Factories. We, of course, didn’t meet at that time because the shooting of the film happens quite separately in different pieces. But I think it captured a lot of the emotions of a very important topic. And the important topic is about excellence in our schools, meritocracy, and also the anti-Asian discrimination that’s happening in the schools here in New York, as well as in many other areas in education across this country.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/democrats-kids-education-parents-rep-elise-stefanik-rep-virginia-foxx

When Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe stated, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach,” it wasn’t a mere slip of the tongue during a heated debate.

Just days later, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona refused to accept that parents should be the primary stakeholder in determining educational programing for their children.

And last week, in an unprecedented move, the Department of Justice directed the FBI to investigate and prosecute concerned parents at school board meetings, without citing even one bit of evidence that these alleged “threats” are beyond the capacity of local law enforcement. Nor did the DOJ disclose that Attorney General Garland’s family has a profit interest in marinating the presence of racist theories in schools.

It is a naked ploy to suppress parental dissent.

These actions have made clear that today’s Democrat Party is on the side of the school bureaucracy instead of students and families.

Democrats seem to believe that America’s schools and schoolchildren are better off with parents on the sidelines – a position that is dangerously detached from reality. It also reveals just how far the Left will go in pursuit of government control over every aspect of American life.

The deep frustration we are seeing at school board meetings is the expression of parents’ unsatisfied with the direction of their children’s education, while simultaneously aware that they are left with no other options.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2021/10/17/virginia-parents-announce-not-domestic-terrorists-march-in-washington-n1524549

By the time Biden Attorney General Merrick Garland realizes what an incredibly stupid memo he wrote to the president accusing parents of ‘”harassment and intimidation” of school board members, his boss will probably be a lame-duck president ready to be put out to pasture.

Republicans couldn’t have drawn it up any better. What’s the best way to show how radical the Biden administration is? How about threatening parents with a federal investigation because they want a say in what their children are being taught?

That parental pushback will take substantive form on October 17, when there will be a “Not a Domestic Terrorist” rally in front of the Department of Justice Building.

The parental pushback issue has roiled the Virginia gubernatorial race. Democrat Terry McAuliffe made the gaffe of the race — so far — when he said he didn’t “think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” His opponent, Republican Glenn Youngkin, is firing with both barrels, blanketing the state with $3 million in ads about education.

That, along with Garland’s stupidity, has given a sizable edge on the issue to Republicans.

https://amgreatness.com/2021/10/16/our-kids-cant-read-write-or-do-math-but-are-no-1-in-critical-race-theory/

America’s crumbling education system is in the news. On October 5, Joe Biden managed to disgorge some dismal indicators as to the future prospects of America’s youth compared to the rest of the developed world. 

Joe didn’t quite say it, but America’s kids, the product of an obscenely well-funded school system, rank last in the developed world in reading, writing, and math, making homegrown stupidity a far more pressing problem in modern-day America than homegrown terrorism. 

Yet conservatives have continued to insist, throughout the COVID lockdowns and quarantines, that kids are missing out on an education. 

To paraphrase Joan Rivers, how can you miss out on a rash? (When Madonna accused Lady Gaga of stealing her music, the great, late, lady Joan wanted to know how you could steal a rash.) 

A particularly startling fact caught my attention in the Economist. “At 15, children in Massachusetts, where education standards are higher than in most states, are so far behind their counterparts in Shanghai at math, that it would take them more than two years of regular education to catch up.” 

This last fact is enormously telling and alarming. It tells you that America’s best schools and students can’t compete with the world’s best.

As the author further quipped cynically, “American children came top at thinking they were good at math, but bottom at math.”  

There’s no doubt that American kids are drowning in self-esteem. As someone who had warned, in the early 2000s, about unrealistic, dangerous levels of self-esteem, I would contend that inflated self-esteem and narcissism not only mask failure, but create pumped up nihilists, ready to unleash on their surroundings, unless met with palliative praise. 

Yes, self-esteem is the royal jelly upon which America’s children are raised. Our child-centered, non-hierarchical, collaborative, progressive schooling has produced kids who do not believe they can or should be corrected; and when they are corrected, they lash out in anger or bewilderment. 

Indeed, to listen to our university students speak is to hear a foreboding amalgam of dumbness and supreme confidence combined. Yet they are often high achievers in the kind of schools “tailored” for just such sub-par output. The achievement bell curve has been skewed. 

With welcome exceptions, the young can hardly string together coherent, grammatical sentences. They open their mouths and out tumble nothing but inane, mind-numbing clichés and banalities spoken in gravelly, grating, staccato tones. Vocal fry, the linguists call this loathsome sound. 

Once upon a time, linguists would have sent our Eliza Doolittles for elocution lessons. Make her sound less rough, more refined. 

Eliza, of “My Fair Lady” fame, was treated paternalistically, no doubt. Pedagogic paternalism can be fixed; not so a student’s studied ignorance. And these days, the Kardashian-style guttural growl is considered precious. Linguists name it and study it, instead of crushing it. 

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/576462-schools-become-crucial-battleground-heading-into-midterms

Schools are emerging as the latest battleground for both parties ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

Debates over coronavirus restrictions and curriculum in the classrooms have dominated campaign messaging, forcing candidates to address the issues head-on in key areas like the suburbs.

It’s also left parents and experts concerned that kids are on the front lines of a political battle that has turned highly contentious over the past year.

The battle has also turned highly personal for families and educators debating how much of a role parents should play in their students’ education.

Republican candidates have seized on conservative complaints about issues like critical race theory and LGBTQ issues in school curriculum, while Democrats have zeroed in on the importance of coronavirus restrictions in classrooms.

Both parties are looking to use the education-related issues to appeal to parents on issues that impact their children’s day-to-day lives.

“When it comes to issues like education, you can view that as a quality-of-life issue,” said Democratic strategist Antjuan Seawright.

While schools and classrooms have been at the center of some of the country’s most hot-button issues in the past, including racial integration and prayer in the classroom, the coronavirus pandemic has reinvigorated the education debate in 2021.

Republicans say conservative enthusiasm around education reached a fever pitch during the pandemic, when parents became more aware of their children’s curriculum when they were home during lockdown. The party also pushed back against coronavirus lockdowns and restrictions, arguing it negatively affected the learning environment.

Democrats, on the other hand, have argued that coronavirus restrictions are needed in schools to keep children safe and to stop the spread and mutation of the virus.

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2021-10-15-how-to-be-a-conservative-student-on-a-university-campus-today

It gets harder and harder to be an independent thinker in the midst of one of those indoctrination and groupthink factories known as a university. Step out of line, and at any moment someone can claim to be offended or “triggered” by something completely bland that you may have said. Next thing you know, someone will have tattled on you to the administration. And you know exactly what the administration will do: They will simultaneously mouth platitudes about “free speech” while making every kind of threat, veiled or not, to bring you into line.

Is there any way for you to come out ahead? Within the last few days, a small number of students — one at Yale and two at Arizona State — have given tutorials on how to win at this game. To be fair, these students got a big assist from the fact that the crazy leftists who run these places have gotten so confident of never facing any pushback that they no longer hesitate to engage in conduct that is completely indefensible.

Example number one for today comes from perhaps the looniest of all the loony left schools, the Yale Law School. It all started with plans by the Native American Law Students Association to co-sponsor a Constitution Day (September 17) get-together with the Federalist Society. On the 15th, a second-year law student named Trent Colbert — who is a member of both organizations and, unlike Elizabeth Warren, is actually part Cherokee — sent out this email inviting NALSA members to the event:

Before reading further, see if you can spot what about the email may be offensive to the finely tuned antennae of an uber-woke Yale Law School “diversity” monger.

Aaron Silbarum, writing on October 13 at the Washington Free Beacon, recounts what happened next:

Within minutes, the lighthearted invite had been screenshotted and shared to an online forum for all second-year law students, several of whom alleged that the term “trap house” indicated a blackface party. “I guess celebrating whiteness wasn’t enough,” the president of the Black Law Students Association wrote in the forum. “Y’all had to upgrade to cosplay/black face.” She also objected to the mixer’s affiliation with the Federalist Society, which she said “has historically supported anti-Black rhetoric.”