Disappearing Students Syndrome (DSS): A phrase created by me to describe a phenomenon taking place across the United States, affecting both privately and publicly funded schools, from Kindergarten all the way through University levels.
There’s been a lot of focus on graduation rates for schools across the U.S. This focus seems to be missing a major point, are high school students meeting graduation requirements? My experience, and my children’s experience, is that too many teenagers are ‘graduated’ even though they can barely read, write or do math (some students are kept from graduating, they is called Super Seniors)! Instead of focusing on graduation rates taxpayer funded public education needs to focus on getting children ready for adulthood (something it was supposed to do from the beginning of the creation of public education), regardless of how long it takes. The major concern for high schools is that some states’ current funding regulations actually halt funding for senior students who fail to graduate. Maybe it’s time we create a new level of schooling, the Super Senior High School.
“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”-George Orwell (aka Eric Arthur Blair)
Incomplete (i-e Tip-o-the-Iceberg) list of publicly announced education related layoffs, shutdowns and education crimes, December 2017:
California: Oak Grove School District appointed a committee to decide how many elementary schools will be shutdown in 2018. It’s blamed on government mandated benefit increases for employees, and crashing taxpayer funding caused by the loss of 1-thousand-8-hundred students since the end of the 1990s. A report out of San Francisco revealed that religiously motivated organizations are portraying themselves as representatives of taxpayer funded school districts and tricking taxpayers into attending hours long rallies in which the only way to get out of the rally is to sign a pledge to support the creation of religion based-taxpayer funded charter schools! Blame immigration? A lawsuit revealed that The Golden State’s education system’s “reading scores stagnated this year. Fewer than half of students meet its English standards.”
Idaho: The state Board of Education now claims that the statewide teacher exodus is costing taxpayers $6.8-million USD! IdahoEdNews revealed that a taxpayer funded program to trick high school students into going to college is a dismal failure: “That’s a lot of money for something where we’ve not seen outcomes improve….”-state level Representative Wendy Horman, Idaho Falls
Illinois: La Salle-Peru Township High School District 120 spending 42-thousand+ tax dollars buying a nursing home with the intent of tearing it down for use as a parking lot, one board member said it could be a learning experience for students. School District 65 began work to replace plumbing contaminated with led (lead) at 13 schools within the district. School District 308 began eliminating jobs one week before Xmas, due to being $11-million USD in the hole. Administrators expect to be in financial dire straits until at least 2023! A former special education teacher (and mother of five kids) was sentenced to ten years in prison for sexually assaulting a student at North Boone High School. Student loan debt collector Alltran Education shutting down operations in Woodridge, 129 jobs gone by the end of January 2018!
Kansas: Shawnee Mission School District violated at least four of the state’s special-education laws, according to a state investigation report released on 22DEC2017.
Kentucky: The Speed Art Museum (J.B. Speed Memorial) conducted a second round of layoffs (the first round happened just five months after the museum opened) due to shutting down its souvenir shop. The Courier Journal reports that as a result of The Great Recession the funding disparity between the state’s richest and poorest school districts is as bad as The Great Depression. Melissa Goins of the state funded Family Resource Center blamed it on one simple fact “We’re a poor state.”
Louisiana: State education officials want to shutdown three charter schools in New Orleans due to lack of academic performance.
Maine: According to the fifth annual Education Indicators for Maine report the number of poor students in the state increased 10% over the past ten years. The report also warned that more and more students are failing to become proficient in math and reading exacerbating the state’s “workforce shortage and a skills gap that has reached crisis levels and can no longer be ignored.”
Maryland: The U.S. Department of Education is again investigating the University of Maryland for sex crimes, for a third time this year! Washington County Board of Education member Mike Guessford promised to repay more than $1-thousand-7-hundred USD after being found guilty of ethics violations. University of Baltimore began furloughing (temporary layoffs without pay) 4-hundred employees one week before Xmas, due to a 15% crash in student enrollments (what I call DSS)! University administrators claim they’re suffering with a pay cut of as much as 15%, but local news media revealed the pay cut for administrators was voluntary. The university is $4.2-million USD in the hole. After 40 years L’Academie de Cuisine shutdown without warning one week before Xmas: “Graduation was today. Doors are closing. Locks have been changed.”-unnamed former employee to local news media
Massachusetts: Non-profit Western New England University is asking employees to voluntarily quit (buyouts), not because of problems with student enrollments but because administrators ‘invested’ $90-million USD to “further fortify our University”.
Michigan: God powerless to stop the shutdown of ‘his’ 68 years old Ladywood High School in Livonia, due to a 60% crash in enrollments since 2005 (it’s The Rapture eyes tells ya).
Minnesota: Without warning McNally Smith College of Music shutdown one week before Xmas, due to massive Disappearing Students Syndrome. State education administrators say they’ll help the 4-hundred affected students, meaning taxpayers are being stuck with dealing with the non-profit’s shutdown.
Missouri: Saint Louis Community College began laying off 95 employees one week before Xmas, after a buyout attempt failed to get enough people to voluntarily quit. According to local news reports, buyouts are still being offered on top of the layoffs. For-profit Vatterot College shutdown its Saint Joseph campus explaining “When there’s not interest within the community, or need in the community, then we will just teach out a program.”
Nevada: Clark County School District‘s 2018-19 budget will result in the killing of 539 currently filled and vacant jobs! Also, 240 employees were reassigned new jobs in alignment with low student enrollments.
New Mexico: After four years Taos International School had its charter revoked for the next 12 months, signaling a possible total school shutdown.
New York: NYC Department of Education shutting down 14 schools in 2018! StudentsFirstNY blamed the liberal-lefty-mayor saying “Mayor de Blasio’s expensive school turnaround model has failed miserably.” After 38 years the pro-Israeli Drisha Institute for Jewish Education is abandoning its location in NYC’s Upper West Side as part of “redeployment” operations, meaning they’re trying to save money by shifting pro-Israeli programs onto NYC synagogues.
Ohio: Who needs litature when you’ve got coffee? In Mentor, Half Price Books shutting down to, possibly, be replaced by a drive through café.
Oklahoma: The state Department of Education finally revealed that 24-thousand-625 sixth-through 12th-graders were suspended during the 2016-17 school year! 70% of the suspended students were boys.
Oregon: God powerless to stop the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office from arresting a Springfield Christian School teacher for having sex with one of her students “on a regular basis.” The sex crime Revelation was made after the teacher’s husband caught her and the 15 years old in bed together, an email was then posted with pics of the two in the act. Taxpayers in Oregon City voted to build a new $20-million USD police/court building right on the location where a now active school sits, Marylhurst School has to vacate by June 2019. An editorial in an Oregon newspaper claims that “The rate at which students in Oregon schools are being bullied, harassed or targeted by other troubling or aggressive behavior appears to be skyrocketing.” The writer not only blames the Trump regime, but the previous Obama regime as well.
Pennsylvania: McGuffey School District dealing with a federal lawsuit accusing three teachers of intimidating a special needs student, supposedly it was recorded on a cell phone. Scranton School District could lay off 89 people by the end of the school year, because even with grant money the district is still $19-million USD in the hole. Quakertown Community School District shutting down its Tohikon Valley Elementary School at the end of the 2017-18 school year. Local news media report it’s the third school in the district to be shutdown since 2011. Former employees blame the school shutdowns on poor planning by taxpayer funded administrators: “This happened because of a lack of preventative maintenance. We don’t have a true preventative maintenance program and without it they go quick.”-Vic Bartholomew, former school janitor
Texas: Dallas Independent School District wants to shutdown four schools in 2018, officially due to low academic performance. Texas Education Agency (TEA) suddenly canceled a contract with Georgia-based SPEDx, which was meant to find out why the TEA sucks when it comes to educating ‘special needs’ students. The contract was already being questioned by taxpayers because it was awarded without any bidding by other companies, and most educators had never heard of SPEDx.
Utah: Despite the fact that 30% of Utahans voluntarily attend marriage classes the state Marriage Commission is demanding a new law be created to force all people who want to get married to pay for a premarital education course. It’s suggested that to help offset the cost of the course that a $20 discount be applied to the Marriage License. Law students at Brigham Young University have joined the fight against debt collectors. It’s estimated that 70-thousand debt collections cases are filed every year in the Mormon dominated state! The BYU law students are working with a Salt Lake City based attorney to provide debtor’s legal defense free of charge.
Virginia: U.S. Department of Education investigating Lake Braddock Secondary School for reports of sex crimes committed by a coach, who suddenly retired.
Washington DC: The federal Department of Education (DoE) reneged on its promise to forgive student loan debt for students who were tricked into attending the now dead Corinthian Colleges, which operated schools with various names across the country. DoE officials claim they’ll come up with a more fair way to deal with the estimated $550-million USD in outstanding federal student loans.
Wisconsin: “I wish we could vote, because we’re the ones actually in the education system that they’re fighting to have control over!”–Marisa Rodriguez, senior at Saint Joan Antida High School
Dumbing Down November 2017: “CLOSING WAS THE ONLY OPTION.”