Education
Texas’ ban on diversity, equity and inclusion led to the layoffs of more than 100 employees at state universities
Texas is one of five states that recently passed laws regarding DEI programs. At least 20 other persons are considering it.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) – A ban on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in higher education has led to the layoffs of more than 100 staff on Texas college campuses, a move that has been echoed or expected in lots of other states where lawmakers are implementing similar policies in years a very important election 12 months.
Universities across Texas rushed to implement the changes after Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed the bill into law last 12 months. On April 2, the chancellor of the 52,000-student University of Texas at Austin – one of the largest college campuses in the US – sent an email saying the school was closing the Department of Campuses and Community Engagement and eliminating jobs to comply with the ban, which entered into force on January 1.
More than 60 employees at the University of Texas at Austin have been laid off because of this of the law, according to the Texas Conference of the American Association of University Professors. The group said it had compiled a listing based on the staff affected and that the number may very well be higher. The university authorities refused to confirm the number of positions eliminated.
In response to questions from The Associated Press, officials at other schools indicated that between Texas A&M University in College Station, a complete of 36 positions were eliminated; Texas Tech University at Lubbock; Texas State University at San Marcos; University of Houston; Sam Houston State University in Huntsville; and Sul Ross State University in Alpine. Officials said nobody was released; people were assigned to latest job positions, some layoffs and vacancies were closed.
At the starting of the week, the authorities of the University of Texas at Dallas announced that roughly 20 jobs could be laid off in accordance with the law. University officials declined to comment on what number of of those positions are currently filled.
Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan, a Republican, praised the University of Texas’ actions in a post on social media platform X. “This is a victory for common sense and proof that the Legislature’s actions are working,” Phelan wrote.
Texas is one of five states that recently passed laws regarding DEI programs. At least 20 other persons are considering it.
Florida was the first to enact a ban last 12 months, with the vocal support of then-Republican presidential candidate Gov. Ron DeSantis, who often derides DEI and similar diversity efforts as “woke” policies of the left. In response to the law, the University of Florida announced more than a dozen layoffs last month.
University of Wisconsin regents reached an agreement with Republican lawmakers in December to cut DEI positions on the system’s two dozen campuses in exchange for getting funding for workers raises and construction projects. The agreement imposed a hiring freeze on diversity-related positions until 2026 and reallocated more than 40 diversity-related positions to focus on “student success.”
Republican lawmakers who oppose DEI programs say they’re discriminatory and promote left-wing ideology. Some hope this issue will resonate with voters this election 12 months. Democratic DEI advocates say the programs are needed to ensure colleges meet the needs of increasingly diverse student populations. The party’s lawmakers have introduced about two dozen bills in 11 states that will require or promote DEI initiatives.
Texas’ anti-DEI bill, which Abbott enthusiastically signed into law last 12 months, prohibits training and activities conducted “with respect to race, color, ethnicity, gender identity or sexual orientation.” Additionally, the law, also often called SB17, prohibits employees from making employment decisions based on race, sex, color or ethnic origin and prohibits the promotion of “differential” or “preferential” treatment or “special” worker advantages to people based on these categories.
SB17 states that the ban doesn’t apply to teaching academic courses and research. That’s why Professor Aquasia Shaw was so surprised when she heard last week that her supervisor was not going to renew her contract. Shaw stated that she was not given a reason for the termination, but given the timing, she suspects it’s due to the latest law.
Shaw taught classes at the intersection of sociology, sports and cultural studies at the Department of Kinesiology and Health Education at the University of Texas at Austin. Her faculty page on the university’s website states that her interests include “sociology of sport and cultural studies, sport management and diversity, social inclusion and social justice.” The course she taught this semester was titled Race and Sports in African American Life. However, she said she has not been involved in any DEI initiatives beyond teaching.
“I was under the impression that teaching and research were protected, so… I try to wrestle with that thought and deny that that couldn’t be the reason I was targeted,” she said.
In March, Republican state Sen. Brandon Creighton, the creator of SB17, sent a letter to the boards of regents of public universities across the state, inviting them to testify in May on changes made to achieve compliance. He included a warning that renaming programs reasonably than repurposing them wouldn’t be sufficient.
Creighton’s office didn’t respond to an emailed request for comment.
The bill’s impact was felt in Texas even before it went into effect. In anticipation of this, officials at the University of Texas at Austin modified the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement to the Division of Campus and Community Engagement last 12 months. The name change didn’t put it aside – it closed this month. School officials said some of the division’s projects could be moved and others could be closed. They didn’t provide specifics.
Shaw said she is the only person of color in her department. She said she saw on X that other university employees had been laid off and contacted them. At least 10 other terminated faculty and staff contacted are also from minority groups, she added.
Losing her job was an enormous blow to Shaw, who already had classes scheduled for the summer and fall. She said her supervisors had previously told her they hoped to extend the contract.
“I’m very disheartened to see that exactly what I was worried about has happened,” Shaw said.
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Texas’ post-Texas ban on diversity, equity and inclusion led to layoffs of more than 100 employees at state universities. This article appeared first on TheGrio.
Education
Florida orders a black history in schools, but many doubts
Although Florida has announced that she would require teaching black history in public schools – and indicated that for the last 30 years – some groups and organizations, similar to the Museum of Culture Heritage, of Palace, education won’t be historically accurate.
According to programs similar to the Museum of Culture Heritage, Packed is commonly supported by Black Churches and goals to fill the gaps in education at a public school in Florida typical for to the black history.
In addition, teachers in some districts expressed concern that the state principles regarding how breed and history may be discussed in classes are restrictions on what they will teach.
According to Brian Knowles, who supervises the African American, Holocaust and Latinos studies for the varsity district of Palm Beach: “There are so many other districts and so many children that we lack, because on the fingers around it is essentially the history of America. “
As Sulay Williams, a parent in Florida, who launched her own social organization specializing in the black history in 2016, said The Associated Press, distrust of the state’s principles regarding the black history He was a motivating factor.
“We wanted to make sure that our children know our stories to be able to convey their children,” said Williams.
Williams, who now has a contract for teaching a Saturday school in the Public Library at Fort Lauderdale, influenced his 12-year-old daughter Addah Gordon to ask his classmates to review in the library.
“I think I’m really learning my culture. As if I learned what my ancestors did – explained Gordon. “And most individuals do not know what they’ve done.”
The beginnings of Florida’s mandate, in which public schools participate in the teaching of black history, arose as a results of the publication of the official report on the Rosewood racial massacre in 1994; The experiences of black city residents will later be dramatized in the film by John Singleton from 1997 “Rosewood”.
According to Marvin Dunn, a public educator who runs trips around historical places in Florida related to history, the moment of enlightenment didn’t last, as did, in keeping with the death of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor in 2020.
“There was a moment of enlightenment in Florida in Florida. It really was – said Dunn AP. “But it was short -lived.”
How Black company Earlier reported, the governor of Florida Ron Desantis met with criticism for perceived actions as a limitation of teaching black history in schools, including blocking the advanced African American course, which, he claimed, violated state rights and was historically inaccurate.
Tameka Bradley Hobbs, Manager African American Research Library and Cultural Center at Broward County, said AP that these events have explained that Florida is a Florida can’t be trusted to show black history.
“People who are interested in developing the history of the African diaspora cannot rely on schools to do this,” said Bradley Hobbs. “I think that now it is even more clear that there must be a level of independence and self -determination when it comes to conveying the history and heritage of our ancestors.”
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Education
Georgia legislators offer more free time for teachers
The bill introduced by five Georgian legislators will provide teachers with more paid holidays.
Teachers in Georgia can enjoy somewhat more free due to the regulations introduced on January 30.
Teachers in Georgia work 10 months a yr. Bill 127, sponsored by five Georgia House members, goals to supply school staff for five days of paid personal or skilled time. Although it is a profit for school employees, that is related to the conditions.
Confirmation of free time might be rejected based on the needs of the college or district, depending on the day. Some days within the calendar yr are considered “necessary”.
Teachers in the entire condition is not going to be obliged to present the explanation on free time. The Act accommodates a clause that releases them from disclosure of non-public or skilled circumstances.
“Any supplement to the approval may be suspended or refused due to failure or refusal to disclose a specific purpose for which there is a lack of it,” says the Act.
Additional free time comes at a critical moment when school districts within the US are fighting to make a position.
informed that 86% of districts had problems filling open items for the 2023–24 school yr. Special education, learning and positions in a foreign language are more than likely that they are going to remain unwashed, and in areas with high poverty numbers are even worse.
Many teachers leave the career in Search for less demanding positions. Teachers cited stress and burn as key reasons for getting out of this field. The pedagogue’s duties are huge, and salaries are sometimes modest, depending on the state.
The average salary of teachers within the United States was about USD 64,300 in 2022. Georgia teachers earned a median of USD 63,950, in line with the National Education Association.
Governor Georgia Brian Kemp has taken steps in recent times to encourage and stop teachers. In July 2024, the governor of Kemp collected the teacher’s salary by USD 2,500 throughout the state. It was not the primary time Kemp increased the teachers’ salary.
Education
Literacy materials being withdrawn from many schools are facing new pressure from parents of children with reading difficulties
A lawsuit filed by two Massachusetts families deepens opposition to an approach to teaching reading that some schools proceed to make use of despite evidence that it will not be probably the most effective.
States across the country were modernization of reading programs for research-based strategies, generally known as “learning to read”, including an emphasis on sounding out words.
This week’s lawsuit takes aim at an approach that does not try this emphasize phonics. These include the time-tested “three clues” strategy, which inspires students to make use of images and context to predict words by asking questions comparable to: “What happens next?”, “What is the first letter of the word? ” or “What clues do the photos give?”
The families of the Massachusetts students who did this it was hard to read filed a lawsuit against authors and publishers who supported this approach, including Lucy Calkins, a lecturer at Teachers College at Columbia University. He is demanding compensation for the families allegedly harmed by the fabric.
Thousands of schools once used the three-signal approach as part of the “balanced literacy” approach advocated by Calkins and others, which focused, for instance, on having children read books they liked independently and spend less time on phonics or letter relationships and sounds. Over the past few years, greater than 40 states have passed laws emphasizing evidence-based and research-based materials, in keeping with the nonprofit Albert Shanker Institute.
It’s unknown how many school districts still use the programs at issue since the numbers aren’t monitored — but there are many, in keeping with Timothy Shanahan, professor emeritus of education on the University of Illinois at Chicago. Many teachers have been trained to show the three-pointer, so it could actually be used even in classrooms where it will not be part of the curriculum, he said.
He said research does show the advantages of teaching phonics, but there may be less information in regards to the three-cue method.
“There is no research that isolates the practice of teaching three-pointers – so we don’t know if it helps, hurts, or is just a waste of time (although logically it would seem to conflict with phonics, which may or may not be the case when teaching children),” he wrote in an email.
A key part of the sport is the tricue Reading the recovery programwhich was utilized in over 2,400 US elementary schools. In 2023, the Reading Recovery Council of North America filed a lawsuit alleging that Ohio lawmakers violated the authority of state and native boards of education through the use of a budget bill banning the three-pointer.
The new lawsuit accuses Calkins and other outstanding figures in the sphere of childhood literacy of using fraud to trick schools into purchasing and using flawed methods. The parents who sued alleged that their children had difficulty reading after studying in public schools in Massachusetts, where a 2023 Boston Globe study found that almost half of schools used materials that the state Department of Education deemed to be of low quality.
The lawsuit asks the court to order authors, their corporations and publishers to supply an early literacy program that features reading instruction for gratis.
One plaintiff, Michele Hudak of Ashland, said she thought her son was reading at an elementary level until fourth grade, when he had difficulty reading his assigned textbooks. By then, tests showed he was reading at an elementary level, the lawsuit said, “solely because he could successfully guess the words from the pictures.”
Calkins didn’t reply to an email looking for comment. It has maintained its approach, even adding more phonics to its literacy curricula, called units of study.
But last 12 months Teachers College announced it was closing the Reading and Writing Project, which Calkins founded, saying it desired to foster more conversation and collaboration between different approaches to literacy. Calkins has since founded the Reading and Writing Project in Mossflower to proceed her work.
“Teachers must use the best approach and differentiate their instruction depending on the specific child they are working with,” Calkins said in a video posted on the new project’s website.
Michael Kamil, professor emeritus of education at Stanford University, said that although Calkins dropped phonics, it is just one component of teaching children to read.
“There are lots of reasons why students don’t learn to read, and the reading program is very rarely the main reason,” Kamil said.
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