Social Engineering

Mandatory Implicit Bias Training Is a Bad Idea

It's all the rage. But in the view of some, it's seriously counterproductive.

By Lee Jussim, Ph.d

Posted Dec 02, 2017 

 

“Implicit bias” seems to be everywhere. What is it? “Bias,” to your average layperson, seems to mean something like prejudice or discrimination. “Implicit” is usually taken to mean unconscious or outside of awareness. So “implicit bias” is, supposedly, something like prejudices of which people are not aware."

 

"Over the last few months, I have had several interesting exchanges with Dr. Mahzarin Banaji, one of the most prominent psychological scientists working in the area of implicit methods, beliefs, attitudes, prejudices, and biases. She, along with Dr. Tony Greenwald, created the concept of implicit bias, which has caught on like wildfire, and was even mentioned in a Hillary Clinton election speech."

 

"Mahzarin Banaji:

Yes, Lee, you can post it. 

In all the verbiage, I hope the two points don’t get lost.

1. Psychology and sociology data suggest that mandatory training is not as good as voluntary training. Mandatory training has the potential for backlash.

2. IAT scores are best considered as medical data or votes. A person may share them, but should not be expected or asked to share them with others at this point.

All the best, mrb"

psychologytoday.mandatory-implicit-bias-training-is-bad-idea

Federal

2019 SPP/APR and State Determination Letters PART B — Washington

(Grant Year 2017–2018 — Issued June 20, 2019)

Dear Superintendent Reykdal:

I am writing to advise you of the U. S. Department of Education’s (Department) 2019 determination under section 616 of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act(IDEA). The Department has determined that Washington needs assistance in implementing the requirements of Part B of the IDEA. This determination is based on the totality of the State’s data and information, including the Federal fiscal year (FFY) 2017State Performance Plan/Annual Performance Report (SPP/APR), other State-reported data, and other publicly available information.

Your State’s 2019 determination is based on the data reflected in the State’s “2019Part B Results-Driven Accountability Matrix” (RDA Matrix). The RDA Matrix is individualized for each State and consists of:

(1)a Compliance Matrix that includes scoring on Compliance Indicators and other compliance factors;
(2)a Results Matrix that includes scoring on Results Elements;
(3)a Compliance Score and a Results Score;
(4)an RDA Percentage based on both the Compliance Score and the Results Score; and
(5)the State’s Determination.
The RDA Matrix is further explained in a document, entitled “How the Department Made Determinations under Section 616(d) of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in 2019:Part B” (HTDMD).

Office of Civil Rights

The United State Dept of Education recently released a new statement:

 

“From day one, our approach has been clear and unwavering: vigorously enforce civil rights laws, treat students as individuals, and resolve cases both efficiently and effectively,” said Secretary DeVos. “The backlog of cases we inherited should have troubled everyone, as we know justice delayed is justice denied. While many have tried to distort the nature of our approach, the numbers don’t lie. Our approach has been more effective at supporting students and delivering meaningful results.”

 See full statement

How is this statement relevant to Seattle Public schools?

Social Engineering

A Teacher’s Critique of ‘We Day’

The social change pep rally was to be a coveted experience for my students. So why do I feel so manipulated?

 

By Alison Atkinson 30 Oct 2013 | TheTyee.ca

"But unfortunately, We Day’s corporate and media agenda meant the Vancouver event was a celebration of only the simplest, low-risk, low-reward forms of action -- like penny drives, bake sales, and taking a selfie of yourself sitting at a seat in Rogers Arena."

Alison Atkinson teaches secondary English and Leadership in Burnaby, and is working on an MA on literature and social justice at SFU.

 

https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2013/10/30/A-Teachers-Critique-of-We-Day/  

The chart below was calculated using the King county tax calculator.

Most Seattle home owners don't look at their property tax breakdown.

Funding education is important and it comprises 49% of your property tax bill. Seattle Public Schools yearly operating budget is approaching $1.5 billion.

 It is also significant to know that when you vote on Building Excellence levies (BEX) that the district consistently uses those funds for other purposes. Our school buildings average age is 48 years. We fully expect for the Seattle Public Schools to use those BEX funds to rebuild schools, especially the buildings that are over 65 years of age.

Seattle property values are at historical highs and there has never been more taxable housing units....So why is the Seattle School District struggling with funding? Where are all the funds going?

From saveseattleschool.blogspot.com

Post -Modern Education

The Abolition of Sanity: C.S. Lewis on the Consequences of Modernism

by Dr. Steve Turley

"In his third chapter, ‘The Abolition of Man,’ Lewis sets out his vision of what a world completely governed by scientifically verified facts and devoid of any conception of the Tao would look like. Here, he carefully traces out the premises to their logical conclusions. For Lewis, a society rooted in technology-inspired manipulation must, by definition, organize into two classes of people: manipulators and manipulatees, or in Lewis’ words, conditioners and the conditioned. Lewis recognized that technological societies succeed by convincing the masses that their highest happiness and freedom is found in their reliance on a class of experts and technicians who have the specialized competency to conform the world to their desires and ambitions. But Lewis also recognized that if all of reality has been reduced to mere nature, being understood solely through scientific facts, then even humanity itself will be seen as nothing more than mere nature. And if nature is there to be manipulated to the wants and desires of others, then inevitably the vast majority of humanity would be vulnerable to scientific and technological manipulation according to the needs of the technological elite. It is then, when man will have thought he’d finally conquered nature, that nature will have conquered man, for man as such would cease to exist; a new social order will arise that subsumes the vast majority of humanity under the category of impersonal nature which, in effect, redefines humanity as inherently meaningless; hence the title of his third chapter and the published book, the Abolition of Man."

Turley, Dr. Steve. The Abolition of Sanity: C.S. Lewis on the Consequences of Modernism (p. 10). Turley Talks Publishing. Kindle Edition.




amazon.com/Abolition-Sanity-Lewis-Consequences-Modernism-ebook

Curriculum: Quintilian

"Quintilian disapproves of the common practice of learning the names and sequences of the letters without regard to their form and function; he feels that such a method really hinders the child’s recognition of the letters when arranged in a different order. He prefers the syllabic method…”

 

Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (c. 35 – c. 100 AD) was a Roman educator and rhetorician from Hispania, widely referred to in medieval schools of rhetoric and in Renaissance writing.

https://open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/831/items/1.0105386

Curriculum: Oversight on Illiteracy

OVERSIGHT ON ILLITERACY IN THE UNITED STATES

HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON ELEMENTARY, SECONDARY, AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION OF THE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

NINTY-NINTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, MARCH 20, 1986

Geraldine E Rodgers

"It is, therefore almost UNBELIEVABLE that the method for teaching reading in most American first grades forces children to focus PERMANENT, CONSCIOUS attention on decoding itself. Such reading mimics the activity of a partly deaf person when straining to catch a conversation, he CONSCIOUSLY GUESSES at missing words. THAT is what basal reader phonics REALLY is: teaching children to use only a FEW letter sounds consciously to GUESS at a missing word from the context of the memorized sight-words they can already read. By contrast, true phonics programs teach most children by January of first grade to form reliable conditioned reflexes between all 44 phonemes in English as they occur in syllables. More practice is needed after January to develop those skills to automaticity, but eventually their brain’s computers operate just like the Kurzweil machine. If their conscious minds choose to listen (remember: their minds attention is free) they will have MAXIMUM comprehension, with NO guessing."

http://www.donpotter.net/pdf/rodgers1986testimony.pdf

Funding

Where do the donations go?

• Giving to Education charities was up 6.2% to $58.9 billion (14% of all donations).

• Donations to Human Services charities were up 5.1% to $50.06 billion (12% of all donations).

• Foundations saw an increase of 6% to $45.89 billion (11% of all donations).

•  Health charities experienced an increase of 15.5% to $38.27 billion (9% of all donations).

• Public-Society Benefit charities saw an increase of 7.8% to $29.59 billion (7% of all donations).