This and That
The identity of the Franklin High teacher who had sexual relations with a student has been revealed - Pawares “Mac” Pathompornvivat, It appears it might be this person who, at that time, seemed like a great guy. The student in question seems to be fully cooperating with the police. The teacher allegedly told her that they "needed to get our stories straight" but the student told the police everything.
Very interesting stats on teacher retention in Washington state from researchers at CALDER, Teacher Turnover Three Years into the Pandemic Era: Evidence from Washington State.
Three years into the COVID-19 pandemic era, concerns about teacher turnover and teacher shortages remain at the top of the education agenda. But contrary to media reports about a “wave of resignations and retirements” (e.g., Heller, 2021), early evidence from state databases showed a more nuanced picture: teacher attrition was actually down during the pandemic’s first year (teachers leaving after the 2019–2020 school year) before it increased somewhat in the next year (e.g., Bacher-Hicks et al., 2021, 2022; Bastian & Fuller, 2023; Camp et al., 2022; CERRA, 2022; Goldhaber & Theobald, 2022a,b).
In this policy brief, we follow-up and expand on our earlier analyses of teacher mobility and attrition in Washington state with an additional year of data from the 2022-23 school year. We draw on a longitudinal database of school staffing in Washington, the S-275, which now provides 39 years of annual data on teachers and other school employees in the state.
Their findings?
1. Teacher attrition and turnover are now at historic highs in Washington.2. The increase in attrition is driven by early- and mid-career teachers.
3. The increase in teacher turnover was concentrated in high-poverty schools.
Detailed and highly sensitive mental health records of hundreds — and likely thousands — of former Los Angeles students were published online after the city’s school district fell victim to a massive ransomware attack last year, an investigation by The 74 has revealed.
The student psychological evaluations, published to a “dark web” leak site by the Russian-speaking ransomware gang Vice Society, offer a startling degree of personally identifiable information about students who received special education services, including their detailed medical histories, academic performance and disciplinary records.
But people are likely unaware their sensitive information is readily available online because the Los Angeles Unified School District hasn’t alerted them, a district spokesperson confirmed, and leaders haven’t acknowledged the trove of records even exists. In contrast, the district publicly acknowledged last month that the sensitive information of district contractors had been leaked.
Cybersecurity experts said the revelation that student psychological records were exposed en masse and a lack of transparency by the district highlight a gap in existing federal privacy laws. Rules that pertain to sensitive health records maintained by hospitals and health insurers, which are protected by stringent data breach notification policies, differ from those that apply to education records kept by schools — even when the files themselves are virtually identical. Under existing federal privacy rules, school districts are not required to notify the public when students’ personal information, including medical records, is exposed.
And this is why I don't like the Check Yourself mental health screener that the district continues to use. The data from that goes in a couple of directions so it wouldn't even take the district to get hacked.
I do plan to have a separate post about so-called school choice plans (vouchers) as this is an idea sweeping the country. But here's yet another issue on "choice," this time out of Oklahoma about charter schools, state sponsorship of a Catholic online charter school.
The Catholic Church in Oklahoma is seeking government sanctioning and taxpayer funds for St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, which it wants to open to serve students in towns without Catholic schools and to expand online course offerings to students in existing Catholic schools.
Religious liberty is one of our most fundamental freedoms,” Drummond wrote in a letter to the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board. “It allows us to worship according to our faith, and to be free from any duty that may conflict with our faith. The Opinion as issued by my predecessor misuses the concept of religious liberty by employing it as a means to justify state-funded religion.
Meaning, you might like a Catholic charter school but what about a Muslim one? A Quaker one? A Satanist one? It's a slippery slope especially when you are speaking of tax dollars. You could not possibly favor one denomination (Baptist) or group of them (Christian).
To note, Catholic schools have been doing better since the pandemic but, overall, many are closing due to costs. Having public dollars to run your school certainly would help.
Speaking of charter schools and choice, boy, will vouchers cut into charter school enrollment? You bet. Overall, enrollment in California's charter schools is dropping. From Ed Source:
Covid has produced a “multiverse” of education options that affect schools and districts: Enrollment in private schools is up, as are parents’ applications for homeschooling. There are emerging forms like small, private homeschools in pods and through church co-ops that are hard to quantify. And there are hybrid charter schools combining independent study at home with classroom learning at schools like The Classical Academies in northern San Diego County.
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