I asked teachers a very important question as a litmus test about the LEARNS Act...
Knowing that signing the referendum petition is the same as teachers signing away their raises, will they still sign the petition?
I was actually stunned by the results.
A thread... 🧵 1/
Before I go over the results, I will first share some data from Gallup about the honesty and trustworthiness of various professions in the United States.
Our elected officials say LEARNS is good. Teachers say it's bad.
I have two polls going for teachers. One is on Twitter and one is in an Arkansas Teacher Facebook Group.
As of about 7pm 6/8, in a landside, teachers will sign the petition:
Twitter results: 73.8% out of 210 total votes
Facebook results: 92% out of 287 total votes
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So the public trusts teachers SIGNIFICANTLY more than POLITICIANS!
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Teachers are OVERWHELMINGLY willing to sign away their LEARNS raises! Mind! Blown!
Read some quotes from the teachers explaining why they are willing to forgo these raises.
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Arkansas teachers from across the political spectrum are willing to #SayNoToLEARNS.
Teachers are saying LEARNS is NOT the answer to fix education in the state. The state ignored input from educators and other stakeholders.
This is A Tale of Two AP Classes... AP African American Studies and AP Precalculus.
Both will have their first AP test in Spring 2024. Both have their controversies, but only ONE is being blocked by states like Florida & Arkansas.
Let's look at the facts, shall we?
A 🧵... 1/
AP African American Studies (APAAS) course began development in 2017 in partnership with the Teachers College at Columbia University, University of Notre Dame and Tuskegee University. The pilot program has expanded including into Arkansas last year. 2/ tc.columbia.edu/articles/2020/…
The Arkansas Department of Education permitted schools in Arkansas to join on to help pilot the course AND offered it for graduation credit! The only requirement for approval to offer the course was to be official pilot participants. But that is no longer true. What changed? 3/
Did Mike Huckabee use IBLP/ATI material to teach his children at home (including SHS)? The blog post claims homeschool...but I thought SHS went to public schools? So maybe it just means Mike used ATI material at home.
When Mike ran for President, he was endorsed by Michael Farris of the Home School Legal Defense Association which had connections to IBLP before negative publicity came out much later around Bill Gothard. 2/ homeschoolersanonymous.net/2014/02/03/a-b…
Quote is from Huck's book, "Do The Right Thing"
And does anyone know who the homeschool parent was that Mike appointed to the State Board of Education when he was governor of Arkansas? It might be interesting to know who it was and their background and connections.
After news broke of the state takeover of Marvell-Elaine School District, I began to wonder how well Little Rock School District did while it was under state control.
As I looked at the data, it led me down a rabbit hold.
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I used data from ADE to look at the ACT Aspire: All Grades Meets or Exceeds Standards for Literacy. The ACT Aspire scores began in the 2015-16 school year.
The downward trend seemed odd to me and seemed to begin before Covid-19 learning loss popped up. Why the decline?
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I thought this might mean that LRSD students are leaving to attend charter schools in Little Rock to escape the "bad" traditional public schools.
After all, what parent doesn't want their child to attend the best school?
FYI: LRSD lost about 2500 students; most were black.
The AR Legislature commissions a biennial study to determine adequate funding level for schools in the state. This takes place over 10 months with several meetings and extensive data analysis.
Let's examine the feedback OFFERED by stakeholders & IGNORED by legislators.
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Stakeholder feedback was offered from eight organizations across Arkansas. Their feedback represents the concerns of students, parents, teachers, administrators, and the communities across the state.
Next, let's see what they said. Then let's look at some patterns.
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Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families
For more information about this organization, visit aradvocates.org.