DALS Lifelong Learning Network

From the New York Times newspaper website this morning:

American Children’s Reading Skills Reach New Lows [headline]

"In the latest release of federal test scores, educators had hoped to see widespread recovery from the learning loss incurred during the Covid-19 pandemic."

"Instead, the results, from last year’s National Assessment of Educational Progress, tell a grim tale, especially in reading: The slide in achievement has only continued."

"The percentage of eighth graders who have “below basic” reading skills according to NAEP was the largest it has been in the exam’s three-decade history — 33 percent. The percentage of fourth graders at “below basic” was the largest in 20 years, at 40 percent."

"In fourth-grade reading, students who score below the basic level on NAEP cannot sequence events from a story or describe the effects of a character’s actions. In eighth grade, students who score below basic cannot determine the main idea of a text or identify differing sides of an argument."

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The article went on to speculate on the possible causes of our continuous drop in K-8 reading scores: student absences from school, students' spending too much time on their mobile phone and computer apps, etc.

One very important fact, however, was not mentioned: We stop teaching reading at the end of grade 3, and those students who have low reading skills or are illiterate are then just pushed along until they graduate from high school. And what the data shows is that 19% of our high school graduates can't read, and 32 million adults in the United States can’t read above a fifth grade level.

We need to change our K-12 school system to teach reading every year in every grade level, and we must also include technical reading: how to read a rental agreement; how to read a loan contract; how to read a credit card contract; how to read instructions for taking certain medications, etc. And we must invest much more money in recruiting and training reading teachers. Period. Full stop.

From the New York Times newspaper website this morning:

John Kinsel Sr., Navajo Code Talker During World War II, Dies at 107

Mr. Kinsel, who served from October 1942 to January 1946, was part of the second group of Marines trained as code talkers at Camp Elliott, Calif., after the original 29 who developed the code for wartime use.

Please take a few moments today to stop, to reflect and to appreciate the vital work of these Native Americans, who, despite all of the perfidy and repeated betrayals put upon them by multiple Presidents and the members of Congress over decades, stepped up with courage and hard work to save our nation in WWII.

Many thanks to those sports stars who are featured in a new TV ad that is focused on "taking a time out" to stop the hatred in our nation.

Hatred will NOT solve the challenges and problems faced by ALL Americans right now.

Hatred will NOT create more jobs or higher wages or salaries.

Hatred will NOT bring down the prices of food, gas, diesel fuel, rents, mortgages, autos, clothing, etc.

Hatred just begets more hatred, more conflicts and more chaos.

Please, take some time to reach out and to have conversations with other folks about how we can help each other, take care of each other, and listen to each other.

We must reject the politics of hatred, racism, sexism, greed, and violence. It is time to stop the purveyors of hatred, and time to support the leaders who are promoting decency, civility, inclusiveness, humanity, and love. Please take a time out and stop the hatred right now.

The past few days there have been several local news reports about more and more public school districts that have "banned" the use of mobile phones by students during school hours. And the data shows pretty clearly that such policies greatly reduce the incidents where students are abusing other students via mobile phone text messages and apps, and students appear to do much better with their classroom learning when their mobile phones are switched off and not available during the school day.

Different public school districts are using slightly different policies and some require the students to place their mobile phones in locked, secure bags in the classrooms or in other secure locations.

In the history of the United States we have periodically engaged in "banning" a variety of things, and the use of "bans" seems to be a preferred way to solve perceived problems. It would be much better, especially in this present situation with students' mobile phones, to actually have the adults engage in conversations with the students about the whole issue of the use and abuse of mobile phones, and to help the students to learn how to use their mobile phones in ways that are responsible, humane, honest, helpful and supportive, and to help them understand that the use of texts or sexts or certain apps to attack and embarrass other students is wrong and very dangerous on many levels. We have reported incidents where students who have been abused with mobile phones have committed su***de.

"Banning" certain behaviors is relatively easy and at first it feels good and it seems to quickly address the problems at hand. Over time, however, we have learned hard lessons about "banning" things, and the whole Prohibition movement is a great example of quick actions that soon led to even more serious problems, because organized crime took over the manufacture, sale and distribution of alcoholic beverages so the problem became a thousand times worse. It is much better to go slowly at first, and to take the time to have in-depth conversations with everyone who is involved: students, parents, other family members, teachers, staff and community leaders, BEFORE putting "bans" in place. And once again, we adults must take the time to actually LISTEN carefully to our children and young adults and to treat their feedback with respect.

New York Times article this morning:

During the two years of the Covid Pandemic our K-12 school children "fell behind" in mathematics, and this reality should come as no surprise to anyone.

Also, when the K-12 public schools closed down or restricted their time schedules, due to the Covid pandemic, those students who were able to get some "in person" instruction from teachers "fell behind" 0.35 years, while those students who were engaged only in "online instruction" "fell behind" 0.57 years. And here again, this data should come as no surprise to anyone.

During the Covid Pandemic "online teaching" was not very successful, because:

1. Most K-12 teachers had little or no training or experience with online teaching, and most students had little or no experience with online learning, and many family homes didn't have computers or Internet access.

2. Most K-12 teachers did the best that they could and they tried to transfer their "in person" lessons and teaching/learning processes to "online," but this simply did not work very well because "online" teaching and learning requires entirely different processes, methods and relationships.

3. Student learning and achievement in mathematics struggled the most because mathematics is a sequential curricular subject area, and when students miss out or do not fully understand how to to a certain math operation, then they struggle with subsequent operations.

And what the Covid Pandemic revealed about the whole K-12 teaching/learning experience was that in our present K-12 school systems, the students were already struggling, and so were the teachers, because our school organizational systems are broken and obsolete, and the Covid Pandemic just made things ten times worse.

And we must hasten to add that when the students "fell behind" that reality WAS NOT THE FAULT of the teachers, the students or the parents. It was the fault of our present K-12 SCHOOL SYSTEMS, which are essentially old industrial assembly lines, where the students are all required to learn the same things, at the same pace, and in the same way.

What we need are school systems that empower teachers to deliver teaching and learning that is individualized, personalized and customized to the learning needs of each individual student. And we know that this works because we have been doing it for a long time with our special needs students.

So instead of a focus on the whole problem of students "falling behind," we need to refocus on rebuilding our school systems with and entirely new model of K-12 education.

And we also need to acknowledge that all of the problems we are now seeing in our K-12 schools have been exacerbated and made much worse by all of the political conflict and political attacks on our K-12 schools by certain Red state governors and legislatures, and by political attacks on local school boards by Trump loyalist parents and local politicians. And all of these attacks have resulted in K-12 teachers retiring early or leaving their teaching careers for other jobs and careers, so we now have a nation-wide shortage of over 300,000 K-12 teachers and that shortage is growing every day.

Our K-12 teachers used to be respected, and supported, and valued, but now they are under attack almost every day, and they are working in K-12 schools that are overcrowded, unsafe, and old. Many school buildings have totally inadequate HVAC systems, leaky roofs, broken windows, broken furniture, and a big shortage of books and teaching materials and supplies. And as we have witnessed far too often, our students and teachers have been the victims of violent mass shootings.

So yes, our precious children and young adults are "falling behind" and we need to take direct action to rapidly address all of these issues right now, but our Congress is broken and clogged up by the Trump Loyalists, who simply refuse to even consider these K-12 educational realities. And if we are to save our children and young adults we must come together to rebuild our K-12 school systems and step one is to VOTE BLUE!!

We adults need to listen to our children. The children and young adults in Gen Z and Gen Alpha are very intelligent, insightful, and amazingly resilient, and they all have excellent BS detectors.

Gen Z and Gen Alpha have a very clear and concise understanding of what is happening in the Gaza Strip, and they have declared that the actions of the Israeli military forces as directed by PM Netanyahu, are indeed committing horrific acts of genocide that have now killed over 26,000 Palestinian civilians. And they are correctly pressing President Biden and our leaders in Congress to stop supporting PM Netanyahu until there is permanent cease fire and a dedicated commitment to rebuilding the Gaza Strip and the West Bank as the first step on a pathway to peace.

Gen Z and Gen Alpha also have a very clear and concise understanding of the true reality of candidate Trump. They tell it like it is, and they have determined that he is a fake, fraudulent, uncaring, arrogant, bully, who needs to be put in prison.

And Gen Z and Gen Alpha are miles ahead of all of the adults when it comes to understanding Artificial Intelligence and how it is being used and abused to create false photos, news reporting lies and disinformation, and plagiarized student essays. Gen Z and Gen Alpha children and young adults can spot a deep fake in less than five seconds and they immediately call out fraudulent BS.

And we adults can all take many lessons from these very bright, ethical, moral, humane children and young adults. We just need to shut up and listen to them with full attention and strong empathy.

New York Times Op Ed by Jessica Grose:

Don't Ditch Standardized Tests. Fix Them.

This opinion piece digs into the causes of why more and more parents are opting their children out of the standardized tests given in our K-12 schools. And the author does a good job of describing why our present standardized tests, that measure student achievement and learning of the Common Core State Standards, are flawed and what needs to be done to "fix them."

What is missing, however, from this opinion piece is a recognition that the growing parental resistance to standardized tests is a symptom of a much larger reality: Our present k-12 school systems are failing and dying, because they are completely disconnected from the learning and performance requirements for success in adult life and success in 99% of present and future jobs and careers.

And let's be very clear: Our present K-12 school systems are also failing and dying because we have experienced over 3 decades of direct political attacks on our K-12 school systems going all the way back to Karl Rove. And those political attacks have intensified in the past decade because of the constant work of so-called Republican politicians like Trump, DeSantis, Abbott, and others, and our K-12 teachers are under constant attack and are forced to abide by top-down political directives, so our teachers are leaving the K-12 school systems in droves and we now have a nation-wide shortage of over 300,000 K-12 teachers.

Fixing or improving standardized tests will not do anything to address these larger systemic realities. We need a completely new model of K-12 education where our children and young adults are engaged, motivated and actively instructed in the knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviors required for their future success in adult life and future jobs and careers. And our children and young adults need to work on real, relevant, meaningful, value-added projects that are directly connected to learning and performing in their local communities. And our children and young adults need to learn, practice, practice, practice and then perform in their local communities with actual work with local citizens and employers. We shift our measurement of student mastery to actual, real performances in community settings instead of standardized tests.

There are no easy fixes or magic bullets. We must make major investments in our K-12 school systems and we must restore the respect for and professionalism of our teachers, we must end and remove the political attacks on our K-12 schools. But most of all, we must abandon our present one-size-fits-all factory assembly line model of K-12 teaching and learning, and we must replace in with a K-12 education system that delivers high-quality teaching and learning that is personalized, individualized and customized to each individual student learner.

A radical proposal: change the way we finance and fund our K-12 public schools.

Since the pandemic, K-12 public school attendance numbers have been declining across the nation for many reasons. But one of the most important realities is that our K-12 public schools continue to woefully underfunded and because of low teacher pay and benefits many teachers have left education to seek better paying jobs and careers.

Currently we fund our K-12 public schools based upon how many students are in attendance each day. But the daily costs to operate our K-12 public schools remain the same no matter how many students actually attend school on a given day. The teachers, staff, administrators, etc., all have to be paid, and the buses have to run, and the facilities have to be heated or cooled and cleaned.

Perhaps a better way to figure out the financing of our K-12 public schools would be to have a base count day at the end of each September and then again at the beginning of April and then these two enrollment numbers could be averaged to provide the multiplier for funding. And on these two days the count would be of students who are ENROLLED, not students who are in attendance.

Also, in most states a significant amount of K-12 school funding comes from property taxes so students who live in the more upscale neighborhoods have much better schools that those who live in the low-cost housing communities. Why not gather up all of the property taxes and then distribute them evenly, again based on student enrollment, and not on school location or on student attendance.

Our K-12 public schools are struggling and many are closing. We have a nation-wide shortage of over 300,000 K-12 teachers. It is time to consider big changes in how we fund and finance our K-12 public schools.

What is wrong with the major media companies, and why do they keep skirting the truth about citizen Trump? Example: headline in today's New York Times:

"Why a Second Trump Presidency May Be More Radical Than His First"

May be more radical? Please. Trump has made it abundantly clear that if elected he will immediately take actions to:

1. Destroy the US Constitution and to suspend our elections laws.
2. Destroy the federal government and end the civil service laws, and he will install his loyalists to operate all of the federal agencies, bureaus and departments.
3. Round up millions of immigrant refugees, put them in prison camps, and ultimately deport them. And the refugees' children will be kept in cages.
4. Execute retired General Mark Milley for treason.
5. Remove the directors of the FBI, the CIA, the NSC, the CDC, the NIH, etc. and he will dismantle the Interior Department, the BLM, the State Department, and the Justice Department.
6. Install himself as our extreme fascist dictator with unlimited powers.
7. Destroy certain media companies he does not like.

Trump is a clear and present danger to all Americans, and to our democracy, our constitutional republic and our national security, and it is time for the media companies to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about Trump and his clones in Congress, as well as his teams of corrupt lawyers, and his corrupt and criminal advisers.

Trump has duped and defrauded the American people and he has sold his extreme white supremacist, racist, sexist, violent fascism to his base of supporters with a continuous stream of lies, disinformation and false propaganda created by Stephen Miller and others. Trump has zero integrity, zero ethics, zero morality and zero humanity, and he will crush anyone who gets in his way.

It is time for all loyal, patriotic, hard-working Americans to demand the truth from our media companies, and time to come together in a huge movement to mobilize millions of voters to elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and Democrats, Progressives and Independents to Congress to replace and remove the extreme fascist Trump clones.

Congressman Tom McClintock of the 5th Congressional District in northern California sends out a monthly email to laud his meaningless speeches and legislative non-accomplishments. And in his latest email he had a reminder for Democrats that "illegal immigration isn't a human right, it is a federal crime."

But as we examine the record of Mr. McClintock's work in Congress we discover that he, along with the other Trump Clones in the HOR, has done NOTHING to pass new legislation to completely restructure and radically improve our immigration system and our border security system. And he and his fellow Trump Clones continue to refuse to recognize or understand the horrific realities of life of the refugees that are fleeing from brutal dictators and the drug cartels that control many of the nations of Central and South America.

No, Mr. McClintock and his fellow Trump Clones just continue to spout lies, disinformation and false propaganda while they DO NOTHING to pass the 12 clean bills needed to fund the federal government for this current fiscal year, and to provide vital funding for Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan and our NATO allies. And when we look at a long list of major problems here at home, like a huge shortage of air traffic controllers, for example, once again Mr. McClintock has done NOTHING. He is all talk and no action.

It is time for all loyal, patriotic, hard-working Americans to elect Democrats, Progressives and Independents to Congress in 2024, so that the useless, feckless, incompetent losers like Tom McClintock can be permanently removed.

Ignorance. A serious lack of relevant, truthful, complete knowledge and information. This is the real world of K-12 education today.

Our children and young adults in our K-12 school systems are simply not being engaged in learning the knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviors required for them to achieve success in their future adult lives, jobs and careers. Why? Because 85% of the knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviors that our children and young adults need to learn, practice repeatedly, and master before graduating from high school ARE SIMPLY NOT INCLUDED IN THE PRESENT K-12 CURRICULA AND COURSES OF STUDY.

And now we seem to be engaged in big "culture wars" over what our children and young adults should be learning in their K-12 schools. These wars are for the most part based on lies and disinformation that is being spread every day on TV shows, radio programs, podcasts and social media. Example: Critical Race Theory is NOT in any K-12 social studies or history curricula or courses of study and K-12 teachers DO NOT teach it and never have. Yet our hard-working teachers are being attacked every day and blamed for CRT, and as a result over 300,000 K-12 teachers have retired and/or have quit teaching.

We need to engage students, parents, grandparents, business leaders, community leaders and community members in open, honest, inclusive dialogue sessions that employ civil, courteous, positive, constructive exchanges of true information, and the focus of these conversations needs to be on the knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviors our K-12 students need to learn, repeatedly practice and master before the graduate from high school. There is no other way, and their are no silver bullets. We must invest the time and the hard work to make these community conversations happen and happen frequently and repeatedly.

Please check out our newly reconstructed Visionary Pioneers of Digital Age Learning website:

Digital Age Learning Systems (DALS) Visionary Pioneers of Digital Age Learning™