This and That - March 31, 2023

It's Silly Season and some individual parents are certainly flexing their muscle in public schools.

Banning Dolly and Miley from an elementary school concert? Say it ain't so.  Via Salon:

It was reported this week that school administrators in Waukesha County, Wisconsin barred first graders from singing "Rainbowland," a song Parton performed with her goddaughter, Miley Cyrus, who also wrote the song. The school justified the decision by saying "the song could be deemed controversial." This is a song whose most incendiary lyrics read, "Wouldn't it be nice to live in paradise/Where we're free to be exactly who we are." But such is the current level of paranoia on the right over even a hint of inclusivity and tolerance.

The first grade teacher said she liked the song because its message seemed universal and sweet. The class concert’s theme was “The World” and included other songs such as “Here Comes the Sun,” by the Beatles and “What a Wonderful World,” by Louis Armstrong. As well, administrators also tried to ban the song, "Rainbow Connection" from the Muppets but then reversed themselves.

I can only tell uptight parents that a rainbow is a happy, big deal for young kids. The overwhelming majority of them have no idea it has anything to do with LGBTQ issues. Songs about acceptance are a bad thing? Sigh. 

Other happenings (via the same Salon story):

At the Tallahassee Classical School, a Florida charter school that claims to offer a "content-rich classical education in the liberal arts and sciences," sixth-grade students were shown a picture of Michelangelo's "David." The principal was subsequently fired after a single parent claimed it was "pornographic," because, famously, David has a penis, albeit one in a much different state than one usually expects to see in pornography. 

I have to say that in 6th grade a photo of David might have embarrassed me with boys around but honestly, I think someone explaining why it's great art would have had me hooked.

This month, it took just one complaining mother in Pinellas County, Florida to block all teachers across North Shore Elementary from showing "Ruby Bridges," a 1998 Disney movie about the 6-year-old who was the first Black student to attend an all-white school in New Orleans in 1960.

Remember hanging with your homies in high school? Does that still exist - parents, you tell me.

How is it that high school graduation rates are going up at a time post-COVID with lower attendance? From KQED:

As I cover pandemic fallout, I am constantly struck by the grim academic toll and how oblivious so many families are to their children’s predicament. National assessments tell us that 20 years of academic progress were erased in a year. Middle school students are terribly behind in math. Third graders are so behind grade level in reading that the curriculum and assessment company Amplify warns that a third are in need of intensive remediation. Yet, there are multiple reports that parents aren’t signing their children up for free tutoring, even when schools make it available. Who can blame them when their children’s grades are strong and their children are on track to graduate?

Morgan Polikoff, an associate professor of education at the University of Southern California, is collecting reports from around the country to summarize what is happening in schools beyond the well-documented nationwide slide in test scores. “My general perception is basically that the trends in D.C. are true everywhere—attendance is way down, grades are up, high school graduation is slightly up, college enrollment is down,” said Polikoff in an email.