Great series by PAA President on Personalized and Social-Emotional Learning | Parents Across America

Great series by PAA President on Personalized and Social-Emotional Learning | Parents Across America:

Great series by PAA President on Personalized and Social-Emotional Learning

We apologize for our web site being down for a couple of weeks recently. We’ll try to catch up with a few pieces we wanted to share during that time, notably a series of blog posts by PAA President Dora Taylor who exposes the seamy side of the “personalized learning” and social emotional learning (SEL) trends.

We’ll share the opening paragraphs and provide a link to Dora’s Seattle Education blog for the rest.

Part 1

The endgame of corporate reform in public school education: Part 1, What do Betsy DeVos and Seattle Public School’s IT Lead John Krull have in common?

The endgame of corporate reform of public school classrooms creates a clearly defined two-tier system:

• Students in public schools will be taught the basics by way of the Common Core Standards on a computer and assessed the same way with student performance and psychological attributes stored and tracked.
• Students in private schools will have well qualified and highly educated teachers offering various subjects in depth along with classroom discussion and learning experiences outside the classroom. Privacy is insured.

One tier is for future workers producing when and where the market demands. The second tier will be the professionals and leaders such as diagnosticians, diplomats, attorneys, scientists, writers, architects and doctors.

Wealthy individuals like Betsy DeVos and Bill Gates are creating a future for students in public schools that has little in common with how their own children were educated.

Their motives aren’t entirely clear but there are individuals and corporations surrounding them who are profiting mightily from their vision for the rest of us.

Read more here.

Part 2:

The endgame of corporate reform in public school education, Part 2 : Social Emotional Learning (SEL) and the Federal Government

Dora writes:

In Part 1, I described Betsy DeVos’ vision, which includes vouchers for students to attend (Christian) religious schools and for every student to use a computer for most, if not all, of their education. This is for public school students and would not apply to private school students who have the advantage of small Great series by PAA President on Personalized and Social-Emotional Learning | Parents Across America:

Maryland proposes protecting schoolchildren from excessive screen time

by Julie Woestehoff / 30min

Tomorrow, the Maryland House Ways and Means Committee will consider a cutting-edge proposal to protect schoolchildren from the effects of too much screen time. From the committee’s press release today: The House Ways and Means Committee of the Maryland General Assembly will hear legislation on Friday, February 24th at 1:00 that directs the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DHMH) to cr

Welcoming Secretary DeVos PAA-style

by Julie Woestehoff / 30min

PAA sent the following letter to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to welcome her to the position and to raise some concerns about her intentions, especially in light of the parent town hall meeting she and President Trump held past week. Of the 7 parents who were invited, three were home schoolers, three were 

Great series by PAA President on Personalized and Social-Emotional Learning | Parents Across America: