DeSantis Other Right Wingers Moving Climate Denying Curricula Into Public Schools. Keep 'em Dumb I Guess

A right wing group is having some success introducing
dangerous climate misinformation into school classrooms
with the cooperation of ignorant politicians. 

 In his ongoing war against whatever he considers "woke," whatever that means, the administration of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to flood school kids with misinformation about climate change.

Not that we should be surprised by that. 

At issue is videos produced by something called Prager University Foundation.  That sounds like a legit institute of higher education, no? 

No. Hell no. 

As Scientific American points out bluntly - and accurately  - describes Prager as "a conservative group that produces videos that distort science, history, gender and other topics."

If you watch the Prager videos on climate, Scientific American reports, you will "learn":

"Climate activists are like Nazis....Wind and solar power pollute the Earth and make life miserable....Recent global and local heat records reflect natural temperature cycles."

None of this is true, of course.  Hard core conservatives love to talk about how supposed "liberal" institutions are "indoctrinating" youth, but talk about calling the kettle black!

From Prager's standpoint, the videos are supposedly meant to rebalance schools that have been "hijacked from the left," according the organizations CEO, Marissa Streit.  

'Young kids are being taught climate hysteria.....They're hearing that the world is coming to an end, and we think that there needs to be a healthy balance."

She then went into the usual spiel from climate deniers that the climate is always changing, blah, blah, blah. 

(To spell it out, yes the climate is always changing, but not remotely near the pace it's now changing because of our burning of fossil fuels).

The PragerU videos are insidious in their depiction of climate denial as honorable, standing up for what's right in the face of scorching (pardon the pun) opposition. 

As Scientific American describes it, a PragerU video depicts a Polish teenager named Ania who is concerned about climate change because of what she learned in school. She tells her parents, who Stepford Wife-like, recite verbatim the fossil fuel industry talking points. (Basically, the climate has always warmed and cooled, and China and India should cut emissions before we do, etc.).

Of course, the mean old teacher and classmates pretty much bully Ania for repeating her parents' talking points (because of course people who are worried about climate change are just hideous).  This leaves Ania sad.  Poor girl. 

But then it's Ania's grandfather to the rescue! Grandpa tells Ania what it was like living under Nazism in World War II and tells Ania "fighting oppression always takes courage."

See? In PragerU's worldview, climate activists and scientists are not trying to warn the world of dangerous, deadly climate change, and are not trying to save lives from future climate disasters. They're supposedly just as bad and murderous as the Nazis, who killed 6 million Jews because they found them distasteful. 

Climate scientists are actively trying to ruin little Ania's life by, um, discouraging her from rolling coal. 

Scientific American's August article said that "education advocates fear that the nation's third-largest state has granted a stamp of approval that will spread videos to classrooms in other states."

Sure enough, 

Oklahoma added PragerU videos to the state's school curriculum, with state education officials describing the content as pro-American, whatever that means. 

The teachers' union, Oklahoma Education Association, quickly clapped back with this statement:

"OEA continues to believe that curriculum offered in Oklahoma classrooms should meet the high standards set by our local education professionals. PragerU isn't a legitimate accredited education organization; it is a media organization, whose creator has admitted PragerU material 'indoctrinates' kids."

The union pointed out that parents and guardians can opt out of their children receiving PragerU content. 

By the way, this  blog is a climate and weather publication, so I'm not really getting into other videos by PragerU that are just as insidious. There's videos from this outfit that basically say racism no longer exists, and that men and women should stick strictly to "traditional" gender roles that went out the window for most of us decades ago. 

Bottom line: Beware of what your children are being taught, especially in states where far right politicians have a serious and dangerous agenda. 

 

No More Snow Days? Remote Work Has Many Schools Rethinking Winter Days Off

A snowstorm in New York City. The city's school chancellor
has announced there will be no more snow days/school closures 
during winter storms. Instead, they'll switch to remote ]
learning on stormy, cold days. 

 Just a disclaimer here. You will see many mentions in this post that many of you will consider a dirty four letter word that you're not ready for.

Ready? That word is "snow."  So let's get on with it:

The awful pandemic proved that you can get away with working and learning from home via technology. 

Which is prompting some school officials to commit what some kids might consider sacrilege. No more snow days. 

New York City, for one, has announced there will be no more snow days for schools during winter storms. Instead, there will be remote learning. No matter how bad the weather.

New York is joining other towns and cities that are scrapping, or thinking about scrapping winter snow days. 

As early as late autumn, 2020, nearly 40 percent of school districts in a survey were converting snow days to remote learning days, according to, Education Week. Many other school districts were considering it, according to Education Week. 

As David C. Banks, New York's Department of Education chancellor said, "So, sorry kids - no more snow days, but it's going to be good for you!"

I'm not so sure.  

On one hand, it makes sense to change snow days to remote learning days to some extent, but it's still disappointing. It's true that kids need all the education they can get, and by law, they have to be in school for a certain number of days per year. If there's too many snow days, school extends into the summer. 

On the other hand, remote learning isn't as good as in person learning.  That's especially true for families that can't afford decent technology. Or can't obtain or can't afford decent internet access. As we learned in the pandemic, remote learning is also incredibly disruptive to parents who have to work. Do they call in sick to monitor the kids at home? What if their employer doesn't offer sick days? Then they don't get paid. 

I get it that parents also have to watch the kids and miss work if there's a snow day.  I'm not a parent, but I honestly wonder if it's easier to just let the kids play in the snow rather than monitoring them to make sure they're engaged in online earning.  Any parents want to weight in on this for me? I could use the enlightenment. 

One school district in New Jersey told Education Week that they are keeping snow days as it's tradition, a normal rite of passage for kids.  And I agree with that. Even if that means all the kids who had the day off for a snowstorm end up on the sledding hill behind the school. 

I'm in favor of snow days over remote learning. Kids, like all of us, deserve an unexpected break from the routine. Big snowstorms are a nice departure from the usual weekly blah, blah, blah anyway, so why not make winter storms a bit special?