Special: A team of Senate Republicans led by Sen. Monthly bill Cassidy is urgent Education and learning Secretary Miguel Cardona in excess of a panel in his section they say is stacked with liberal activists who support challenges like vital race concept and gun control.
“Through the COVID-19 pandemic, it turned obvious that facilitating the partnership in between universities and mom and dad is most effectively chartered at the area amount,” the Cassidy, R-La., letter to Cardona claimed. “For that reason I welcome the said goal of this council nonetheless, it is troubling that you look to have forgotten to incorporate any precise households or regional officials on it.”
“Rather, the Office has crammed the Council with businesses that have constrained, if any engagement on the area amount,” the letter ongoing. “Most, if not all, of these organizations are liberal advocacy teams that search for to nationalize our schooling techniques into a 1-dimension-suits-all technique though reducing parental option and leaving the person requirements of our college students at the rear of.”
Prepared PARENTHOOD DIRECTOR Statements Children ARE ‘SEXUAL BEINGS’ FROM Beginning When Advertising and marketing ‘USEFUL’ PORN LITERACY
The controversy about the committee, officially referred to as the Nationwide Mothers and fathers and People Engagement Council, comes amid conservative discontent over how the Biden administration has taken care of parental involvement in educational institutions. Last calendar year, Cardona solicited a letter from the Nationwide University Boards Affiliation that that compared protesting parents to domestic terrorists.
Cassidy is looking for to turn out to be the top rated Republican on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee future calendar year. He was joined on the letter to the Instruction Department head by Sens. Richard Burr, R-N.C., Mike Lee, R-Utah, Mitt Romney, R-Utah, and Tim Scott, R-S.C.
Maybe the most explicitly political group on the council is Countrywide Motion Network, which is led by Democratic activist Al Sharpton. Biden spoke at that group’s national conference.
Schooling Secretary Miguel Cardona stood up a panel on mother or father-spouse and children relations previously this 12 months. (REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein)
One more group, the Council of Parent Lawyers and Advocates, expressed aid for stricter gun management positions held by the liberal team Everytown for Gun Protection, as well as significant instructors unions American Federation of Teachers and the National Education and learning Association. It also sued to keep Virginia’s mask mandate in schools, according to the Cassidy-led letter.
The team League of United Latin American Citizens, in the meantime, is led by a previous Democratic state consultant in Texas.
The Nationwide Dad and mom Union, also a member of the council, meanwhile wrote a Could 2021 op-ed in the Instruction Put up defending crucial race idea.
“The Nationwide Mother and father Union thinks that education and learning methods have to be reworked to eradicate generational institutions of oppression,” the op-ed mentioned. “For this purpose, we strongly oppose the political and social movement that seeks to get rid of important race principle from community training.”
Sen. Invoice Cassidy, R-La., is searching for to turn out to be the top Republican on the Wellness, Instruction, Labor and Pensions Committee. (Reuters)
PENTAGON’S Educational institutions INFESTED WITH Shocking PORNOGRAPHIC Product FOR Armed service Kids: ‘TIME TO Deliver A D*CK PIC’
A lawsuit from the The united states Very first Lawful Foundation towards the council filed in July also alleges that 11 of the 14 teams on the council are manufactured up of donors to President Biden and Democrats. Meanwhile, that lawsuit mentioned, none of the leaders of people teams are donors to conservative teams or have publicly criticized the president’s policy on pupils.
“For the sake of parents, lecturers, and college students across the country, if this overtly partisan Council continues, it is not much too late for the Office to invite parents and people to the dialogue,” the Republican senators wrote. They mentioned they hopped the division would choose techniques “to have interaction mom and dad and families, or disband the council completely.”
The Republicans’ letter also states the group’s make-up may well violate federal regulation which says such a panel need to be “pretty balanced” relating to the views of its customers.
“When the Section once yet again ignores legislation passed by Congress, the family members it promises to want to interact are remaining at the rear of,” the letter states.
Liberal activist Al Sharpton is on a council the Biden Training Section employs stood up on dad or mum-college relations. (Gilbert Carrasquillo/GC Illustrations or photos)
Before this year, Cardona’s DOE strike back versus criticism of the council in a court docket submitting opposing the The usa Initially Authorized Foundation’s lawsuit. It reported, successfully, that the team is not official ample to slide beneath the law the Republicans say the team may possibly split – the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA).
Click In this article TO GET THE FOX News Application
“The Council does not fulfill the FACA criteria simply because it does not have an organized construction, make closing team recommendations, have a set membership, or have a certain intent,” the division stated in a court docket submitting.
“The Office designed the Council ‘to aid solid and successful associations amongst faculties and mothers and fathers, households, and caregivers to enable assure that college students are recovering from the pandemic and will thrive in the foreseeable future,'” the filing added. “These are vital community plans.”
In a separate doc in that lawsuit, the Education and learning Department claimed it denied the declare that the council’s membership is skewed to the left, but did not elaborate. It, having said that, mentioned it didn’t have understanding about unique allegations that the council members had been biased to the remaining.
The Education Department did not right away reply to Fox News Digital’s request for remark on the letter Friday.
Tyler Olson is a reporter masking the Senate for Fox News Electronic.
Virginia’s biggest university technique unsuccessful to offer a adequate schooling to countless numbers of students with disabilities through the coronavirus pandemic, in accordance to a federal investigation into its programming.
Virginia’s biggest school technique failed to give a enough training to countless numbers of learners with disabilities all through the coronavirus pandemic, a federal investigation into its programing uncovered.
The faculty procedure will carry out a evaluate of which pupils with disabilities did not obtain sufficient instruction, and appoint an administrator to oversee these endeavours, the U.S. Division of Education’s Office of Civil Rights said.
The investigation found Fairfax County Public Educational institutions unsuccessful to offer thousands of youngsters with providers specific in their Individualized Education and learning Plans and 504 strategies for the duration of remote learning, or to give them a absolutely free, proper general public instruction, which is necessary by federal civil legal rights legislation.
The results paint a dire picture of the providers presented throughout the height of the pandemic, and occur approximately two months immediately after a two-calendar year overview of the county’s exclusive instruction program discovered that pupils with disabilities are disproportionately suspended. That assessment, even though, evaluated details and trends from in advance of the pandemic.
“I am relieved that the extra than 25,000 students with disabilities in Fairfax County will now obtain companies federal law guarantees to them, even throughout a pandemic, to be certain their equivalent accessibility to education and learning,” said Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine Lhamon in a assertion.
In a statement, Fairfax County General public Faculties mentioned it “remains dedicated to operating diligently to give the aid necessary to assure just about every and every university student recovers from studying reduction. FCPS has and will proceed to leverage means to make sure learners with the finest will need get prioritized guidance for enhanced outcomes.”
‘Free proper public education’
As the county transitioned to digital mastering, according to the investigation’s results, the director of the Office of Particular Schooling and Procedural Assistance explained what the school technique provided was a “free proper public education and learning in gentle of the circumstances.” That was clarified to signify carrying out “the best they could to provide what a student necessary to receive a FAPE” in a distant finding out ecosystem.
Even so, the investigation located the county did not, or couldn’t, offer you a enough training to thousands of pupils with disabilities. Beginning in spring 2020 and continuing the adhering to university calendar year, Fairfax County “categorically lowered and/or restricted the expert services and specific instruction that students have been entitled to get as a result of their IEPs or Area 504 designs.”
Staffing difficulties might have also resulted in some students not receiving supplemental companies they’re entitled to, these types of as summer programming in 2021 and property-based companies in 2020.
In the course of the pandemic, in accordance to the investigation, the university procedure did not “sufficiently” observe services it did offer to pupils with disabilities. It also did not craft a program to enable students get back again on track, and its restoration companies fell short of what is required to remedy the deficiency of a absolutely free acceptable public schooling.
As of February 2022, 1,070 children with IEPs and 8 students with Part 504 options received restoration expert services the county has far more than 25,000 learners with disabilities.
The college procedure has agreed to talk to moms and dads, guardians and college students to publicize its prepare for compensatory schooling and present direction or instruction about the plan to division personnel, according to a information launch.
In the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties, educational-liberty disputes routinely took a certain shape. In a compact city, someplace in the heartland, there would be a faculty campus on which a young tutorial loudly voiced his opinions on controversial matters—mostly political, but occasionally also on sexual morality, or even on legalizing prescription drugs. This would offend the sensitivities of some neighborhood townspeople.
Someone like the neighborhood mayor would lean on the faculty president (likely a personal buddy), the president would then lean on the office chair, and the young professor was soon gone. The American Association of College Professors would then intervene, and the personal would be reinstated, mainly because the AAUP would in result threaten blacklisting. Stories of circumstances like this had been moderately common.
The AAUP would normally insist that college or university campuses ought to be the one particular place with unfettered freedom to talk about and review troubles of all types, no make any difference who could be offended. The analytical operate of academia need to hardly ever be shut down by a shallow regional moralism. This was then the consensus of academic lifetime.
If we rapid forward to the existing, just one element of what is happening on the campuses seems related: that crucial analytical perform is nonetheless receiving stifled each time it offends an equally shallow regional moralism. But there’s a startling variance: the actors have transformed areas. It is now the professors who do what the little-minded modest-town worthies utilised to do, shutting down analysis any time it offends them, which is frequently.
In reality, they do it on a vastly much larger scale. All those previous AAUP situations ended up aberrations influencing a tiny minority of campuses, and the infractions ended up shortly corrected. But currently, the suppression of discussion and examination happens almost everywhere you go, and the perpetrators—both professors and administrators—represent a controlling the greater part of the campuses.
The scope of what now receives quashed is also considerably extra substantial. In the sixties, all that was persecuted was some occasional countercultural flamboyance. But at current, virtually any major discussion of social and political issues threats getting silenced, simply because to be really serious it would have to include things like still left-of-center and suitable-of center-feeling, and the campuses do not want that. So, we’ve long gone from the campus as the only place where by discussion will have to have no limitations, to the campus as the only put where totally free dialogue isn’t feasible.
Even that is not the worst of it. The way that difficulties are pursued has also adjusted radically. On contentious topics these as the actual outcomes of welfare, or of racial preferences, the previous tutorial way of continuing was empirical investigation. It appeared at serious environment final results to decide whether welfare enhanced or diminished poverty, and irrespective of whether preferences helped or harm minority students. Now distinction that methodology with one that does not look into but as an alternative can take for granted that both equally choices and welfare are all-natural and attractive, and for that reason assumes that the only folks who could oppose them are the greedy and racist rich who never want to give up their cash or their privilege. Connect with this the “smears as a substitute of investigation” strategy.
Fifty to 60 a long time back, academia was in a natural way the home of the investigative tactic to social issues, and my tutorial colleagues at that time, on the remaining and suitable, all felt that the non-investigative method was beneath them. That was what politicians did. A left-wing close friend investigating raises in the minimum wage turned from the concept when the info instructed him that it damage the men and women it was supposed to enable. But right now, the “smears rather of investigation” method is typical all over academia, of all spots, while the investigative strategy can get you into real issues if you enterprise into spots (say, colonialism) where a radical-remaining orthodoxy prevails.
Now, if we juxtapose typical professors of these two eras in light-weight of all these variations, it is apparent that they have nothing at all in typical. This virtually reminds me of all those horror videos in which some sinister force manages to abduct some folks and swap them with clones who search equivalent but are actually an alien species. The variation is that just one form of substitute comes about overnight whilst the other took 50 several years to entire.
In 1969, a survey by Martin Trow for the Carnegie Commission identified that college or university schools were relatively evenly break up politically, with about 3 still left-of-middle school to each individual two right-of-center. By the conclusion of the twentieth century, 30 several years later, that experienced develop into a five-to-a single ratio. This gain permitted the Remaining to make certain that pretty much all new professorial appointments had been leftists. Appropriately, the left-to-appropriate ratio began to increase sharply. It went from 5-to-a single to about 8-to-a person in just 5 or six years, a startling alter in so brief a time. It’s now almost certainly a thing like 15 to 1, and however increasing.
When recruiting is centered so seriously on political ideology, you do not only wind up with academic scholars who occur to be all politically still left: what you definitely get is political activists, not tutorial students. Scholars are described by intellectual curiosity, but which is the very last factor you’ll discover in political activists.
On a university campus, they may just as perfectly be aliens, since these two varieties of people—scholars and activists—couldn’t be additional aside. The evidence of this is that the requirements for good results of the one particular are the pretty similar as the conditions for failure of the other. Political activists do well to the extent they take care of to stamp out opposing political sights, but that implies the finish of rational analysis and debate, the coronary heart of increased schooling. If things go the other way and the academic instructor succeeds, then the political activist has failed.
This is hence the main of the dilemma we experience: universities overrun by the improper sort of people—political zealots who really do not comprehend academia, have no aptitude for it, and use it to accomplish ends incompatible with it. Although that issue continues to be, no actual improvement is attainable. Reform suggests in one particular way or a further replacing the wrong type of people in bigger education and learning with the right sort, and nothing at all small of that will have significantly influence.
In the final handful of several years, vital race idea has overrun our general public educational facilities and the health care job has begun to go woke, as has the military services, the law, journalism, and even museums. Still left radicalism has been making great development by way of its dominance of the campuses.
This is specifically what the radicals promised us back again in the sixties with their Port Huron statement. They admitted then that in The usa they could never do well at the ballot box, and so they intended to seize manage of the universities and use them to encourage their ideology. They easily conquered the humanities and social sciences, and now that STEM fields have been brought to heel by usually means of Diversity, Fairness, and Inclusion, their command of the campuses is almost total, and they have begun to use them just as they said they would.
What can we do? Initially, it is properly to bear in mind that the still left/proper ratio of campus faculty is continue to mounting rapidly, which usually means that even so lousy points are now, they will be worse following 12 months, and nonetheless worse the yr immediately after that. If you find that tricky to visualize, just imagine about what has occurred in these last two years. A person whole generation of university college students has currently been indoctrinated about fifty percent of younger individuals now favor socialism. But in which will we be right after two generations of the similar treatment method? And this would also imply two generations being aware of very little about the Constitution—a terrifying assumed.
Some effectively-this means colleagues feel that we really should preserve seeking to persuade the campuses to be far more academically-minded. But you just cannot persuade people today whose values have nothing at all in frequent with yours, and in any circumstance this suggestion has a fatal flaw: it leaves the wrong people today in place.
This corrupted model of greater education and learning is executing immense problems to our society. Our small children are not receiving a college or university education and learning, the faculties are spreading a damaging ideology, and the professions are becoming corrupted 1 right after an additional. The public pays for this as a result of taxation, tuition payments, and donations. While the flow of that money proceeds, very little will change. It now supports individuals who are formally hired to do just one position but who truly do a wholly unique a single of their have deciding on. Reform will come only when general public attitudes capture up with the fact of what is likely on—and that is where by the attempts of reformers should to be directed. Most mothers and fathers however consider they are sending their small children to school, not to bootcamp for radical activists. They will quit carrying out this only when they appear to realize the variance.
If and when the move of community cash dwindles, these irretrievably corrupted institutions would start off to fail for want of enrollment. At that place some empty campus buildings would turn out to be out there for developing severe universities from scratch—places like the new College of Austin. Opposition from new institutions of increased learning could possibly start to place some radicalized campuses out of organization.
The superior information is that the general public is by now commencing to vote with its ft. For every single five undergraduates who enrolled in the drop of 2011, there have been only 4 enrolled 10 years later on in 2021. That’s a drop of 3.6 million, out of some 20 million. Adjusting individuals numbers either for an ageing populace or for Covid makes tiny variation. These numbers suggest that thousands and thousands of moms and dads and college students have now figured out that faculty is no extended truly worth the expense in shed several years and funds. Let’s hope that more do so soon.
John M. Ellis is a distinguished professor emeritus at University of California–Santa Cruz, chairman of the California Association of Scholars, and the creator of quite a few publications, most lately The Breakdown of Larger Training: How It Transpired, the Harm It Does, and What Can Be Done. This essay is tailored from an deal with given at the Academic Flexibility Conference held at Stanford College on November 4-5 of this year.
Picture: Rattankun Thongbun/iStock
Town Journal is a publication of the Manhattan Institute for Plan Analysis (MI), a leading absolutely free-sector consider tank. Are you fascinated in supporting the magazine? As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, donations in assistance of MI and Metropolis Journal are thoroughly tax-deductible as presented by law (EIN #13-2912529). DONATE
Re: “Efforts concentrate on metropolis of Austin — Frisco Republican information laws to change funds with a ‘district’, ” Nov. 21 Metro tale.
Your tale identified as the submitted legislation a ”long shot.” Have you not study some of the legislation handed in the course of last session?
It no lengthier surprises me that legislators file costs that are in no way advantageous to the citizens of this condition. Instead they waste the valuable time of a component-time legislative system to market legislation that does tiny but generate dissension amid the members and public.
Why not concentrate on difficulties that advantage the citizens, like a preset grid that doesn’t result in higher utility charges for fixed-income people, or growing the Medicaid system for all those females obtaining babies mainly because of the new abortion limitations enacted last session?
With the holidays speedy approaching, I make only just one Xmas wish: That elected officers prevent filing divisive expenses and target on the finest pursuits of the citizens of Texas.
Yes, I know it is under no circumstances likely to occur. Sigh.
Dee Wilson, Plano
Why won’t condition fix this?
In my impression, general public schooling in Texas is in dire straits ideal now. For the earlier ten years, the general performance of our state’s youngsters in math has observed a sharp decline, with most scoring beneath the quality common. It does not support that public education is severely underfunded, lecturers are underpaid and educational facilities are understaffed in Texas.
Our state government has stalled on these advancements for decades, but most Texans glance at this situation and can tell that, for the sake of our state’s kids and their potential, more funding would go a prolonged way in bettering instruction in Texas.
Rodrigo Wilson, East Dallas
These trees are significant
Texans need to have Oregon trees.
I disagree with lots of of the policies of the Biden administration, but there is just one we need to all aid: Govt Buy 14072, requiring an stock of mature and old-progress forests and advancement of guidelines to protect them.
It doesn’t make a difference which facet of the local weather discussion you are on. This is a bipartisan challenge in which we all have a stake. MOG forests are believed to sequester a lot more than 280 million metric tons of carbon each individual yr. They are a important asset of the American folks.
In the 9 most significant nationwide forests outdoors of Alaska, Oregon holds pretty much 50{515baef3fee8ea94d67a98a2b336e0215adf67d225b0e21a4f5c9b13e8fbd502} of the MOG in those people forests. Forest administration organizations in Oregon aggressively find logging of those people MOG forests.
Remember to compose or connect with your U.S. senators and representatives to urge them to aid this bipartisan laws that is vital to all of us.
Mike Honkomp, Arlington
‘Freedom’? Nope
Speaking as a extended-time youngster progress consultant, I explain to you: sane adults do not give sharp, pointed scissors and knives to toddlers to carry all-around and participate in with. Nor do sane older people make accessible lethal army weapons to adolescents (and arrested adolescents) to carry around and perform with.
It is not a “freedom.” It is a deviation from frequent perception. Civilized, sane adults do not vote to be led by these who are not sane.
Paula Craig, Dallas/ Oak Cliff
A silly fixation
I never realize the right’s hatred and fixation on drag displays. We grew up listening to Bugs Bunny’s choose on Richard Wagner whilst in drag. When we were teens we laughed at Corp. Maxwell Klinger’s fashionable outfits on M*A*S*H.
Two of the best grossing flicks in the 1980s and ‘90s showcased common actors in drag: Tootsie and Mrs. Doubtfire. The other night time, we viewed Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis in Some Like It Hot, and yep, they were being in drag.
Drag has been around for ages without a doubt, Shakespeare used this unit in his performs. If drag was great for Shakespeare and Bugs Bunny, it’s not going to worry me!
Kate French, Waxahachie
Inmate should really not be executed
Re: “Mentally unwell inmate shouldn’t be executed — Convicted killer who ate his have eye is incompetent by lawful conventional for loss of life penalty,” by Greg Hansch, Nov. 20 Opinion.
I was horrified to discover from Hansch’s impression column that Texas seeks to execute Andre Thomas, who is so plainly mentally ill and it’s possible worst of all, tried using to get support just two times before the murder. If he’d gotten that assistance, maybe this tragic crime would not have happened.
I was especially struck by the reality that Thomas is not on demise row but rather at the jail unit that holds mentally ill prisoners. Absolutely that tells us every thing we need to know about his incompetence for execution. I hope popular sense, and frequent decency, will prevail in this situation and the execution will be stopped.
Hannah Goff, Grand Prairie
Is this really important?
If the Republicans in the Residence are going to start an investigation into Hunter Biden’s small business dealings with overseas countries while his father was vice president, then why really do not they look into, when they are at it, Ivanka Trump’s specific discounts with China and Jared Kushner’s deal with Saudi Arabia worth billions of dollars even though their father/father-in-regulation was president of the United States? Does not Congress have extra important factors to do than start “revenge investigations”? What about gun control, poverty, immigration reform, wellness, inflation, etcetera.?
Susan Nehez, Plano
Missing at Uvalde
Has any one else discovered that the unarmed friends at Club Q in Colorado Springs did additional to cease the mass murderer than the armed law enforcement did at Uvalde? It appears to me that the Club Q patrons had been inspired and brave ample to quit the killing. That commitment and bravery ended up lacking at Uvalde.
Ralph Goins, Coppell
We welcome your feelings in a letter to the editor. See the tips and post your letter here.
When Zahra Wafa thinks about what it took to put her daughters through school, her face hardens.
She remembers the days she and her husband ate only bread to afford their children’s education, how it had all seemed worth it to give them a chance at a future beyond Nawa Foladi, a village in central Afghanistan with a single dirt track, hand-pumped wells and no electricity.
Then Wafa remembers the new reality under the Taliban, and her voice falters at the thought that it might all have been for nothing.
Zahra Wafa, center, leads her daughters with chores at their home in Nawa Foladi, a village near Bamian, Afghanistan.
(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
“We worked hard, spent so much money on this and they’re so intelligent. And now they’re supposed to just sit at home?” she said. “Every time I think about it I get a headache.”
A year after the precipitous fall of the U.S.-backed republic and the Islamic militants’ ascension to power, Wafa and her daughters, like so many women and girls across Afghanistan, are grappling with the Taliban’s hard-line vision for the country and its plan to turn back the clock not only on their education but their very presence in public life.
The group claims it has no interest in restoring its 1990s regime, when girls were banned from school and almost all jobs, and endured corporal punishment for violations such as not wearing a burqa in public. Yet every few months, new decrees are issued about which careers women may have, how far they may travel without a male guardian and what they may wear outside the home. One edict said the most devout women would not leave the house at all, unless there’s need.
Afghans go about their evening, where few women are seen after sundown, on the main thoroughfare in downtown Bamian.
(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
Earlier this month, the Afghan Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice — which occupies the building that once housed the Women’s Affairs Ministry — ordered women to be banned from entering amusement parks. A few days later, it banned them from gyms and hammams, public baths that were already segregated by sex.
Secondary schooling has been an especially sore point. In the fall of last year, authorities allowed Afghan girls to enroll in primary schools and universities and promised to resume secondary education at the start of the new school year March 23. But that day, as high school girls streamed into classrooms, officials reversed course and postponed classes indefinitely until “a comprehensive plan has been prepared according to sharia and Afghan culture.”
Last month, they allowed female students who were in 12th grade before the republic’s collapse to take the university placement exam known as the Kankor — but blocked off majors they deemed inappropriate for young women to pursue, including economics, engineering, journalism and veterinary medicine.
Students are preparing and studying for the Kankor exam at a private tutoring center in Bamian, Afghanistan, on Sept. 23, 2022.
(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
Afghan girls attend a religious school, the only permitted form of education for girls between sixth and 12th grade, at Hawza Elmya Mahdia Madrasa in Bamian, Afghanistan.
(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
The intransigence toward girls’ education has had material consequences in one of the world’s poorest countries. International aid groups, which now provide assistance to roughly half of Afghanistan’s population, see the reversal on secondary education as an inflection point that has affected donors’ willingness to give. Western governments had long claimed women’s rights as a primary justification for their occupation of Afghanistan and pointed to advances for women as a rare bright spot in their 20-year experiment in nation-building.
Even Afghan businessmen living abroad who were interested in returning to their homeland or had already come back to take advantage of the lowest level of fighting in 40 years changed course.
“Before that decision there was optimism. People started feeling late last year that things were going in a safe, good direction. But when they reversed the school opening, it was a game changer,” said Sulaiman Bin Shah, a former official at Afghanistan’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry who still lives in Kabul.
“All the energy that was built, it went down. Donors, they stopped their plans. People who had investment plans for the spring, they also have kids and want them educated, so they stopped everything, took their families and left.”
In the face of international opprobrium, Taliban officials insist that they’re applying Islamic law and that the West, rather than genuinely caring about women’s rights, is using them as a cudgel to punish the group for winning the war. They point out that the country is the most peaceful it has been in decades, meaning that more children — including girls — are able to go to school and that the emirate they’ve built over the remains of the vanquished republic better reflects what most Afghans want.
That last point is perhaps true in the southern, more conservative parts of the country, such as Kandahar, where the Taliban first arose.
But other areas imposed a less cloistered life on womenunder the U.S.-backed republic, offering freedoms that many embraced.
Narges Razuli, 16, works in a makeshift outdoor bazaar in Bamian, Afghanistan. Narges takes daily English classes and aspires to become an entrepreneur, but says she can’t plan for her future because she’s not allowed to finish school officially.
(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
A group of friends, all college students from Ghor province, visit Band-e Amir National Park, a popular tourist attraction near Yakawlang in central Afghanistan in September 2022.
(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
Bamian, a breathtakingly beautiful central Afghan province dominated by the Hazara, a mostly Shiite Muslim minority that has faced persecution from the Taliban, wholeheartedly enlisted in America’s project. Rather than monochromatic full-body coverings, women here wore colorful headscarves and even now still dare to show their faces on the street, despite the occasional admonishment from the Taliban’s morality police. During the republic’s time, they took full advantage of the opportunities afforded by the U.S.-led invasion to become doctors, lawyers, soldiers and journalists.
Wafa now contemplates the loss of all that. Her eldest, 20-year-old Meena Ibrahimi, had finished 12th grade before the Taliban takeover; she planned to study law and aspired to become a member of parliament or a diplomat representing Afghanistan at the United Nations.
“Of course none of that will happen now,” Ibrahimi said.
She had waited for more than a year to take the Kankor, but didn’t bother applying for law or anything else not related to medicine, one of the few fields open to women under the Taliban.
“The Taliban don’t care about the constitution or women’s rights. If the situation continues, those who study law won’t be employed,” she said.
Meena Ibrahimi, 20, center, helps her mother, Zahra Wafa, left, and her sister Zainab at their handicrafts shop in Bamian’s central bazaar.
(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
At least she wasn’t in limbo like her sister Zainab. A 16-year-old 10th-grader, Zainab hoped to be a doctor, an achievable dream if it were possible to finish her secondary schooling. But with those schools shuttered, Ibrahimi’s class will be the last cohort of Afghan girls and young women to enter university.
“The first time the Taliban took over, it was my mother who had to bear the consequences. Now, 20 years later, we’re suffering the same thing,” Ibrahimi said, glancing at Wafa, who looked at the floor, a tight frown on her face and tears slowly filling her eyes.
Wafa sighed, then said: “When the Taliban were defeated the first time, I thought they would never return. It was like a new world.”
The newfound freedom after the first Taliban regime fell, in 2001, drove her and her husband, Mohammad Ibrahim Mohammadi, a 46-year-old farmer and laborer, to do all they could to ensure their children — two daughters and three sons — had an education.
Taliban morality police patrol the streets to enforce dress codes in Bamian, Afghanistan.
(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
Meena Ibrahimi, 20, center, and other students study for the Kankor exam at a private tutoring center in Bamian, Afghanistan.
(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
That’s still true. After the Taliban takeover, Wafa rented a room in Bamian city for her daughters and enrolled them in private English courses, which cost 500 afghanis (almost $6) per month. Computer classes were too expensive, she said.
To afford it, Wafa wakes up most mornings shortly after daybreak, hikes 30 minutes from Nawa Foladi till she reaches something resembling a road, catches a taxi for the hourlong trip to her handicrafts shop in the city’s central bazaar and works all day before returning home by late evening to prepare food over a stove heated with cow-dung patties and wash clothes in a nearby brook.
In former times, the shop had brought her 25,000 afghanis a month, some $300. These days she makes less than a third of that, and covering her children’s education takes at least a quarter of her earnings.
“I have to work because of my family,” she said, adding that her husband was in charge of the family expenses but it was her income that covered the schooling of their children.
Rather than wait for the central government to have a change of heart about secondary education for girls, teacher and activist Taiba Rahim has chosen to seek compromise solutions with local Taliban officials, especially in parts of the country where they have less support for their austere interpretation of Islam. She leads Nai Qala, an education-focused organization that builds schools and trains teachers in rural areas, mostly in the central and northern provinces.
Taiba Rahim, left, runs a team-building exercise in Kabul with participants. She leads Nai Qala, an education-focused organization that builds schools and trains teachers in rural provinces of Afghanistan.
(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
In May, it opened its most recent project, a six-classroom school serving students ages 7 to 16 — including girls. It was a victory that Rahim said came after she convinced Taliban administrators of the benefits that girls’ education could bring to their villages, such as helping to alleviate poverty and bringing services for women and children.
“As a woman, as a Hazara, I’m supposed to tell the Taliban I don’t like them. But I can’t close my eyes to this: They’re the reality of the country,” Rahim said.
“We’ve fought and wasted so much time already. We have to build a common vision. There’s extreme poverty here. These people don’t have the luxury, time or choice as to who should go to school.”
Meena Ibrahimi’s Kankor results came in last month. Her score was the highest a girl has ever achieved at her still-shuttered school in Nawa Foladi. But unlike the two previous years, when female students got the highest grades in all of Afghanistan, no girl made it into the top 10 nationwidethis year, local media said.
Ibrahimi was accepted to Kabul Medical University, to major in public health. Wafa doesn’t know how she’ll pay for it, but it would make her too angry not to try.
“When the Taliban ruled the first time, we were illiterate and didn’t know our rights,” she said.
“This time we do.”
Meena Ibrahimi and her father, Mohammad Ibrahim Mohammadi, 46, tear up while talking about their experiences while at their home in Nawa Foladi, Afghanistan.
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — Debate around the proposed social studies standards continued Monday in Sioux Falls.
The South Dakota Board of Education Standards hosted its second of four statewide meetings on the proposed standards at 9 a.m. at the Sioux Falls Convention Center.
A total of up to 90 minutes will be allowed for proponent and opponent testimony. More than 200 people attended the hearing and those against the new standards far outnumbered supporters.
Members of the board are: Becky Guffin, Phyllis Heineman, Rich Meyer, Terry Nebelsick, Linda Olsen, Julie Westra and Steve Willard. All members were present in Sioux Falls.
Nebelsick was elected the new president of the board and Guffin is the new vice president.
The board did not vote on the approval of the standards on Monday. That vote will come after the fourth public meeting held in 2023. The next two board of education meetings will be in Pierre on Saturday, Feb. 11 and in Rapid City on Monday, April 17.
After both sides presented testimony, Shannon Malone with the South Dakota Department of Education gave a summary of the submitted public comment. Malone said as of Nov. 18, the DOE has heard 968 public comments on the proposed standards. In total, proponents have submitted 103 public comments, opponents submitted 828 and there’s been 37 neutral comments.
The DOE asked the board for an extra year to implement the proposed standards if passed. The standards wouldn’t go into effect until the 2025-26 school year. Public hearings will continue in 2023.
The board approved the motion for the changes to the implementation timeline. If the social studies are not approved, the timeline will need to be changed again.
Dr. Ben Jones, state historian and state historical society director, gave the untimed rebuttal in favor of the proposed standards. Jones said South Dakota teachers were used in the process of developing the standards along with a wider group of people.
Jones noted the American Historical Association letter and said he was surprised when it came out. Before proponent testimony, Jones said teachers adapted to remote teaching in March 2020 when Gov. Kristi Noem closed schools because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
He said teachers could adapt to the proposed social studies standards.
“These standards start with the content,” Jones said. “The benefit of content-rich standards are many.” He said it helps close the achievement gap.
Jones said low income students are dependent on schools to provide content. He said young students would be exposed to a wider variety of terms and events through the proposed social studies standards.
“They will be supported by the department for quality implementation,” Jones said.
Opponent testimony
Jeff Danielson spoke first against the proposed standards. The Watertown superintendent was speaking on his behalf and said time investment will shift away from other subjects towards social studies if the standards are passed.
Tanna Stadler, a mother, said the standards ignore factors that improve the learning process. She said early learners would have too much to memorize and students won’t understand what they’re being told to memorize.
“Volume does equal rigor,” Stadler said.
Stadler said the state doesn’t have a good history of funding for K-12 education and she questions if there would be enough funding to implement the new standards.
Eric Toft, a former teacher who lives in Brookings, said the proposed standards will gut the current geographic classes from the current standards. Toft said he worked on the 2015 commission and said the geography of capitals can be easily googled.
He said making connections between places and understanding how GPS works are important for geography classes today. He said world population totals are absent from the proposed standards as well as modern immigration topics.
Brian Wagner, education consultant for the Crow Creek and Lower Brule Sioux Tribes, said all nine Native American tribes oppose the proposed standards. Wagner said Native American religion is not mentioned in the proposed standards. He said how Native American Day was created in South Dakota is also missing.
Ryan Rolfs, the executive director of the South Dakota Education Association, said teachers are busy teaching and can’t speak to the standards. He said SDEA requested a weekend meeting so more teachers could participate without taking paid time off but no answer to that request has been received.
Rolfs asked if the board would listen to educators because they are making their opposition known.
Emily Fink said she is a parent and no one has paid her to speak. She said she has an 8th-grader who would not be considered successful based on the proposed standards.
Emily Fink said she is a parent and no one has paid her to speak. She said she has an 2nd-grader who would not be considered not successful based on the proposed standards. She said they are too complex.
Paul Harens, a retired Yankton teacher and member of the original 2021 social studies commission, said K-12 teachers are not teaching Critical Race Theory in classes.
Harens said the proposed standards don’t allow for debate. Harens said Gov. Noem and Hillsdale College want to use South Dakota as an example.
“The real propaganda is coming from the national GOP,” Harens said.
Michael Amolins said he is speaking on behalf of his family. He said verbs matters and that’s why these proposed social studies standards matter. He said there’s a lack of active learning, applied skills and accountability in the proposed standards.
Robert Hoffmann, a retired teacher, said he is not concerned with the content of the proposed standards but the process of the social studies standards. He said the process has been hijacked by out-of-state, partisan influences.
Shannon Steckelberg, a mother with students in the Harrisburg school district, said she really likes the Harrisburg school system. She said she doesn’t understand why more South Dakota teachers were used to make the proposed standards.
“You must work with those who have experience,” Steckelberg said. “Memorization and understanding concepts aren’t the same.”
Steckelberg said first graders would be required to memorize the preamble and said many first graders don’t understand many of the words in the preamble.
Dr. Stephen Jackson, a University of Sioux Falls history professor and member of the 2021 workgroup, asked why the process of inquiry is left out of the public education standards.
“Inquiry is a significant part of history,” Jackson said. “South Dakota would be the only inquiry-free state in the United States.”
Jackson said he understands there is political pressure on the board but he asked to do what is right by students and oppose the standards.
Clayton Lehmann said he is a history professor and is speaking on his own behalf. He said the proposed standards are backwards looking at facts and findings instead of looking for critical evidence. He quoted the letter from the national American Historical Association, which criticized the proposed standards, saying they would do significant harm to students in the state.
Crystal Groeneweg, a parent and special education teacher, said the proposed standards will take an emotional toll on younger learners as well. She said there will be a bigger need for special education teachers.
Benjamin Daggett, a high school senior in Tea, said there is a teacher shortage and students like him would be driven out of the state because of the standards. He said he wants to teach in South Dakota.
Brianne Bolstad, a teacher in South Dakota and member of the 2015 social studies group, said the proposed standards have too much memorization. She said there’s a lot of violent events expected to be taught at young grades.
Brenda Van Beek, a parent in Harrisburg, said the process hasn’t served South Dakota. She said major changes in complex systems cause many complications. She asked why there needs to be another burden on teachers and mentions how little teachers are paid in South Dakota.
Van Beek said she votes Republican but believes this has been a very bad idea.
Katherine Erdman Becker, a parent, said the proposed standards won’t achieve the intended outcome.
Dawn Marie Johnson said there should be a more inclusive process for social studies standards. She said there’s no Sioux Falls School District representative on the commission and she said she supports a weekend meeting to allow more teachers to attend.
Linda Heerde, a longtime teacher and school board member, said she is speaking on her own behalf. She said she’s heard concerns from parents, teachers and administrators all opposed to the proposed standards.
Kyrie Dunkley, an artist in Sioux Falls, a parent and member of the Indian education committee in Sioux Falls, said she doesn’t support religion or charter schools from out-of-state having influence on the curriculum of public schools in South Dakota.
She also advocated for the expansion of the Oceti Sakowin-based curriculum along with language immersion and a deeper understanding of treaty knowledge.
Kathie Tuntland, a retired teacher and administrator, brought up the American Historical Association letter. She said students won’t be allowed to compete in National History Day sanctioned competitions if the proposed standards are adopted.
Ruth Grinager said she doesn’t like to see South Dakotans lose out on decision making.
Kevin Cole, who teaches at USF, thanked teachers and said he wished more lawmakers had faith in them. He said the standards are objectives and curriculum mandate.
RoxAnn Neeman, a longtime teacher from the Lennox school district, said there’s not enough South Dakota history in the proposed standards.
Proponent speakers
More than 20 speakers spoke in favor of the proposed social studies standards for a total of 90 minutes.
Four people not from South Dakota spoke in favor of the social studies standards. Two were involved with education in Idaho, one was a principal in Colorado and one with the John Hopkins Institute for Education Policy in Maryland.
The first proponent speaker was Aaron Levisay, a member of the social studies standards commission. He referenced JFK’s famous speech about America going to the moon because it is hard. He said people in South Dakota are ready to sacrifice to teach the new social studies standards.
Cole Heisey, a Sioux Falls resident, said he’d like to go back to school to learn what he wasn’t taught and he was impressed by the new standards. He said it will be up to teachers to teach to a curriculum.
Penny BayBridge,a homeschool parent, spoke in favor of the standards and said a TV game show showed there was a shortage in civics. She said children are sponges and want to learn.
Steve Sibson, of Mitchell, said the current social studies standards were written by someone from Wisconsin from a national education organization that supports Critical Race Theory. Sibson said protests in 2020 were more about destroying American history rather than learning from it.
Jon Nash, a recent South Dakota State University graduate, said he wishes he could go back and learn these standards. Nash said he’s been taught there are many things wrong with America. He said K-12 education should teach what is right with America.
Nash said Native American education were just a “blip” in his education and the new standards would allow more Native American history to be taught.
Allen Weate, a former teacher who moved to South Dakota four years ago, said he supports the standards because it requires students to search for truths – bad and good. Weate said the standards do require critical thinking by learning past history.
Janet Finzen, a member of the social studies standards commission and former teacher in Nebraska who lives in Dakota Dunes, said the standards are written with students and parents in mind. Finzen wrote an op-ed in favor the standards.
“No one owns history, but we are all responsible for it,” Finzen said.
Christina David, representing herself, said she was excited to read the standards. She said she is concerned about the protests against the standards. She said her sons switched to homeschool and thrived.
Larry Fossum said he has 16 grandkids in schools and supports the proposed standards. He said there’s a massive disconnect between the Indian reservations and people in other areas of South Dakota. He said it is time to stop focusing on who wrote the standards.
Maggie Sutton, an outgoing lawmaker and substitute teacher, said students need to embrace thinking and to think out-of-the box. She said she’s worried about the public school system.
“We need to teach students not to settle for the norm,” Sutton said.
Stephanie Hiatt, a member of the commission, is testifying via Zoom. She said the committee went over every line of the proposed standards. She said students in Sioux Falls are learning Spanish at the same time as English and the new standards will challenge young learners.
Hiatt said there is more memorization but it helps students build knowledge that will be helpful later in education.
Steve Lambert, a teacher of a classical academy in Fruitland, Idaho, testified via Zoom. He said his school is a Hillsdale K-12 school full of a rich, civics curriculum. Lambert said the Hillsdale curriculum at his school has been successful and the school leads in statewide tests.
Robert Garrow, a principal in Colorado, said his school uses standards similar to the content at his school. He said teachers are more than capable of teaching these standards and students are capable of learning from them.
David Steiner, John Hopkins Institute for Education Policy, said the standards don’t “whitewash or indoctrinate” and noted how hard that is to accomplish. He said South Dakota would have the best social studies standards in the country. Steiner said memorization is also learning by heart.
He said education has given up on content and focuses on the process too much now. He said the social studies standards provide a good bedrock for students to learn and benefit from.
Linda Montgomery, from Fairview, South Dakota, said she has four grandkids and she supports the proposed standards. She said she’s proud her 4-year-old grandkid can do The Pledge of Allegiance.
Jessica Pollema, a Lincoln County resident, said she wants to trust teachers. She brought up a “white privilege test” taught in a Sioux Falls high school revealed during the legislative session last year.
She brought up litter boxes in schools and wondered what is actually happening in schools. She said she wants to set the bar higher in South Dakota.
David Goodwin, President for the Association of Classical Christian Schools in Idaho, spoke in favor of the standards. Goodwin said the standards lay out an excellent timeline.
Karla Lems, a newly elected lawmaker from District 16, said students deserve an honest education and the bar should be set high. Lems said look at how Gov. Noem has been challenged in life and has rose to the occasion. She said kids can also rise the challenge of harder standards.
Sue Peterson, a state lawmaker from District 13, said the submitted written public comments come from paid lobbyists. She said the new standards come from parents and the board should listen to parents over teachers.
9 a.m.
Malone discussed how the process with content standards works.
Malone said the proposed social studies, if implemented, would take time for all teachers to feel comfortable and confident in teaching. The DOE will provide professional development in Summer 2023 and ongoing to build knowledge and capacity to implement the new standards.
Malone said there will be a social studies summit to explore resources available. Malone said there’s more than $800,000 to go towards implementation of the standards.
Laura Scheibe, the division director for college, career and student success with the South Dakota Department of Education, is discussing the standards for Business Management & Administration, Hospitality & Tourism, Marketing, Transportation, Distribution, & Logistics and Capstone Courses.
Ahead of the meeting, more than 800 pages of public comments on the social studies standards have been released.
Many of the comments opposed to the proposed standards center around concern that they are not “developmentally appropriate” for the various grade levels.
The South Dakota Department of Education has released three op-eds in support of the proposed standards. Janet Finzen, a member of the Social Studies Standards Revision Commission who worked on the proposed standards, wrote “complex social studies standards empower students to succeed in school and later in their careers and life.”
Sandra Waltman, SDEA director of communications and government relations, told KELOLAND News in October the proposed standards haven’t changed and therefore the opposition remains from the SDEA and many other education associations and teachers across the state.
Waltman said the main concerns are about memorization, the amount of content and the cost of changing curriculums to match the proposed standards.
There is no current state or federal test that measures how students are learning about social studies in South Dakota. The proposed social studies standards doesn’t change that, but Waltman said part of how public schools are accredited is through aligning with statewide standards.
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/dmn/CFLXY3EFMFFJZGR5FQIICDHBOI.jpg "Letters to the Editor – Austin, education, trees, drag shows, mental illness, Club Q")
