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Appeals court sides with parent over school district hiding information · Cultural Wars | America Out Loud News

• 0:24
  We, it would appear, are in the throes of an ongoing debate.
• 0:28
  And I'm worried.
• 0:30
  I think this might be an eternal debate.
• 0:32
  And I'm hoping that it comes to a conclusion, a conclusion soon.
• 0:36
  And the debate is this.
• 0:38
  What constitutes?
• 0:42
  What is what is true?
• 0:44
  Education.
• 0:44
  Should we be educating our students to receive transferable labor market ready skills?
• 0:54
  Is that what education is?
• 0:57
  Or is it something more?
• 0:59
  Is it what the classicalists among us would describe as a formation of the soul?
• 1:10
  Forming an individual's heart and mind, shaping their well-being, shaping who they are to be as a human.
• 1:20
  I mean, these it would appear that these are the two choices.
• 1:24
  Either we're going to get somebody ready to go out into the into the labor market, or we're going to get somebody ready to be an actual human being, an actual good person, a prosperous person.
• 1:38
  Well, Dean, can't we do both?
• 1:43
  I mean, yes, yes, we can do both.
• 1:48
  But just because we can, does that mean that we should?
• 1:53
  Should our, okay, here we go.
• 1:55
  Does it here we go?
• 1:58
  Does it mean that we should?
• 2:00
  Now, I I suppose we um, I mean, maybe maybe we should, but I don't know that we should get the cart before the horse.
• 2:09
  I think we might be better off forming and shaping the heart and mind and soul prior to anything else.
• 2:16
  Let's get that formed.
• 2:18
  Let's get that, let's get that shaped, let's get that done.
• 2:24
  And then we can focus on the the transferable, you know, labor-ready market skills.
• 2:32
  Uh I mean, how about that?
• 2:34
  How about how about we we we don't try to do them simultaneously?
• 2:37
  How about we prioritize them?
• 2:40
  And then once we've got them prioritized, once this once we feel like the soul is shaped, then let's go into the transferable skills.
• 2:49
  But there are particular skills that have to be developed first.
• 2:54
  And these are the skills of the soul.
• 2:57
  These are the um the skills that are uh uh, I guess just that's the way Aristotle put it, just they're of the soul, and they are involved in in shaping this the soul.
• 3:10
  When we get the cart before the horse, all right, when when we get this thing out of order, and and our focus is on just labor ready skills, I think we're seeing that we we just we become grade focused at that point.
• 3:30
  The student becomes focused on their grade, the teacher becomes focused on the grade, the parents become focused on the grade, it's all about the grade, grade, grade, grade.
• 3:40
  What grade are they getting?
• 3:42
  But are they are they taking anything in?
• 3:45
  Is there anything being being learned?
• 3:48
  Is there anything being discovered?
• 3:52
  I think the evidence of this is that our graduation rates are extremely high, which means you know the grades have to be there in order for kids to graduate.
• 4:05
  But yet, you know, how many, what what's the percentage of 12th graders that are not reading at grade level or not doing math at grade level?
• 4:13
  I mean, it's high.
• 4:14
  It's in the 60s and and 70 percent of students that are not at grade level, they're not proficient.
• 4:23
  It's that it's that same in an eighth grade at the eighth grade benchmark.
• 4:28
  It's the same at the fourth grade benchmark.
• 4:32
  So are we just slapping out grades then to make us feel like we're we're doing a good job?
• 4:39
  I'm looking at this piece here from Julia Cartwright out of the epoch times.
• 4:46
  Julie is writing a commentary here, and and her discussion is on inflated grades deflating the future.
• 4:54
  And it's interesting because she is she's drawing a comparison between deflated grades and deflated future earnings.
• 5:05
  So if we are focused on getting our kids into the workforce, and that focus just becomes you know, getting them a grade and getting them prepared.
• 5:14
  It's not working out financially for them.
• 5:19
  Uh she says that grade inflation may feel harmless, but it quietly erodes learning and the real cost of an easy A.
• 5:29
  She says about 10,000 per student, according to new research.
• 5:35
  And this is the research that I want to dive into.
• 5:39
  She says this new research throws a wrench into both sides of the supposed balance, where uh most honest uh observer, she said lands somewhere uh in the middle that yes, school teaches skills, and yes, the diploma itself signals something beyond those skills being taught.
• 6:00
  But but is there something actually beyond those skills being taught?
• 6:05
  She says grade inflation, and and she defines it as the practice of awarding grades systematically higher than the student performance should warrant.
• 6:18
  You know, so the students work as a B and the teacher's like, yeah, yeah, I mean, it's it's pretty, we're gonna give them an A-or the student's work as average, and the teacher will say, you know, I don't know, let's let's throw in a B minus here.
• 6:31
  Let's let's let's just let's throw them a bone.
• 6:34
  Let's make them feel good about themselves.
• 6:36
  Let's make them feel good about their work.
• 6:38
  And let's let's inflate that grade just a little bit.
• 6:44
  Uh this, of course, is is managing the impressive feat of being bad for learning and also bad for credentialing simultaneously.
• 6:57
  I mean, this is this is a two-pronged dilemma.
• 7:00
  A two-pronged dilemma.
• 7:04
  A teacher who bumps up a student's grades by roughly a quarter of a letter grade beyond what they earned.
• 7:04
  A teacher who bumps up a student's grades by roughly a quarter of a letter grade beyond what they earned.
• 7:11
  Cost their average classroom of students a cumulative 213,000 in lifetime earnings per year.
• 7:11
  Cost their average classroom of students a cumulative 213,000 in lifetime earnings per year.
• 7:19
  Holy smokes.
• 7:19
  Holy smokes.
• 7:21
  How are we?
• 7:21
  How are we um how are we calculating this with an average class size of roughly 21 students?
• 7:22
  How are we calculating this?
• 7:25
  With an average class size of roughly 21 students.
• 7:29
  On average, that's about 10,000 per student evaporating into the ether of unearned A minuses.
• 7:39
  Unearned.
• 7:40
  I mean, the student might have earned a B or a B plus.
• 7:44
  But the teacher's like, eh, I'm going to throw in an A minus here.
• 7:48
  But isn't it?
• 7:50
  Doesn't it mean and shouldn't it mean that higher grades mean better outcomes?
• 7:54
  I mean, shouldn't we be seeing better outcomes from higher grades?
• 7:58
  And here is where the research gets genuinely counterintuitive.
• 8:03
  Students taught by grade inflating teachers are actually less likely to graduate high school within five years.
• 8:13
  They are less likely to enroll in associates or bachelor programs in the years that follow high school and are more likely to run up absences and suspensions.
• 8:25
  When grades stop meaning anything, the incentive to earn them or even show up to earn them disappears.
• 8:32
  Students may coast through inflated coursework only to arrive unprepared at high stakes exams that no single teacher controls.
• 8:42
  And the floor gives way precisely when it matters most.
• 8:50
  They understand when they get an inflated grade that they didn't earn it.
• 8:54
  Because when it when it comes test time, they don't really know the material.
• 9:02
  They don't get it.
• 9:04
  They don't understand it.
• 9:07
  And it's, and their knowledge then is not reflective of the grade that they have been receiving.
• 9:15
  Critically, this is not just a story about struggling students, though.
• 9:19
  The reduction in learning appears across the achievement distribution, according to the research.
• 9:26
  High performers are not immune to dull incentives.
• 9:30
  And lower performing students are particularly likely to reduce post-secondary enrollment.
• 9:37
  And when the signal gets noisy like this, everyone pays.
• 10:32
  So how do we know that that grades are being inflated?
• 10:37
  Well, we know this because students are passing.
• 10:42
  Students are moving on to the next grade.
• 10:45
  Students are graduating, but yet they're not at grade level.
• 10:50
  How can you pass from one grade to the other, but not be at the level of the passing grade?
• 11:00
  The only answer is that grades are being inflated.
• 11:02
  Grades are being produced, and they mean absolutely nothing.
• 11:18
  Yes, it's it's morally wrong, but it can't, it's also proving to be economically horrible.
• 11:25
  Consider who actually bears the cost of grade inflation here.
• 11:28
  Universities trying to screen applicants and employers trying to hire them.
• 11:35
  Neither of these groups has any hand in how classroom grades are assigned.
• 11:40
  The two parties who suffer the consequences, in this case, universities and employers have zero influence over the output of what's happening in the high school classroom.
• 11:52
  Now, consider who benefits.
• 11:56
  At least who's going to benefit on the margin.
• 12:00
  Teachers who inflate grades face fewer complaints.
• 12:05
  Oh, my kids doing great in your class, Mrs.
• 12:08
  Smith.
• 12:10
  And in fact, you know, they're not.
• 12:12
  But Mrs.
• 12:13
  Smith has thrown out some A-minuses, some A's, some B pluses here.
• 12:21
  You know, so there's fewer complaints, and there's less pushback from students and parents.
• 12:28
  There's less complaining, less pushback.
• 12:31
  The pressure is reduced from administrators who are eager to boost school rankings, you know, they're on their teachers.
• 12:40
  You know, why is our school in the fourth percentile here?
• 12:44
  We want to be up in the 96 percentile.
• 12:47
  Well, I mean, I guess you can be if you inflate the grades a little bit.
• 12:52
  Uh, students individually prefer higher grades for less work.
• 12:57
  Yeah, I'm loving this.
• 12:58
  I can, what I can get an A minus and not really, you know, complete the assignment or not uh satisfy the rubric at an A-minus level, and I'm still gonna get an A-minus.
• 13:12
  Uh so yeah, individually, they prefer higher grades for less work, even if in the long term they're they're being robbed, because I don't know that they actually realize that they're that they're being robbed, but they are.
• 13:54
  Let's inflate these grades with a little bit of helium.
• 13:58
  Uh economists have a name for this predicament.
• 14:00
  Have a name for this predicament.
• 14:02
  They call it the principal agent problem.
• 14:02
  They call it the principal agent problem.
• 14:06
  In such scenarios, those tasked with making decisions, in this case, teachers and administrators, operate with different incentives and better information than those who ultimately rely on those decisions.
• 14:06
  In such scenarios, those tasked with making decisions, in this case, teachers and administrators operate with different incentives and better information than those who ultimately rely on those decisions.
• 14:21
  In this case, that would be universities and employers.
• 14:21
  In this case, that would be universities and employers.
• 14:25
  This incentive mismatch results in the agents on the margin.
• 14:25
  This incentive mismatch results in the agents on the margin prioritizing their own immediate goals, such as reducing conflict, easing pressure, boosting reported outcomes.
• 14:40
  And they are prior prioritizing these immediate goals over the participants' need for reliable signals of ability.
• 14:51
  All right.
• 14:51
  So it's their immediate goals of reducing conflict over the university's goals and the employer's goals of the grade that the students are receiving as being reliable.
• 15:09
  This dynamic produces the predictable distortions we see in higher grades, making grade inflation less a moral failure than a structural one baked into misaligned incentives.
• 15:23
  Now, I would say that it is a moral failure, but it's also becoming an economic failure.
• 15:30
  Because these kids are leaving high school and they're not prepared for what they're about to go into next.
• 15:39
  On the top of the incentive dynamics, the system is stuck in what um Cartwright calls a collective action trap.
• 15:52
  Imagine a single school decides to get serious about honest grading.
• 15:56
  Their students' transcripts suddenly look worse than every competing school in the area.
• 16:02
  Not because those students learn less, mind you, but because they were graded honestly.
• 16:08
  The reform-minded schools and their their graduates are being penalized in admissions and in hiring.
• 16:19
  The real reform requires many schools acting collectively, but no school wants to move first.
• 16:25
  So everybody keeps inflating.
• 16:27
  So there's this collective action trap.
• 16:30
  In order for this thing to be fixed, it hex to it has to be done collectively.
• 16:36
  Everybody in the district, they've got to get on the same page, and they've got to say these are our standards.
• 16:42
  Everybody in the area, all the schools in the county have to get on the same page and say these are our standards.
• 16:48
  And if they're not willing to do that, if they're not willing to get on the same page, if they're not willing to describe, hey, these are what our standards are, then one school who does it, that school's being punished.
• 17:04
  And so now no schools are doing it.
• 17:07
  In this scenario, and the inflation, the graded inflation, the inflating of the grade continues to the detriment of the student and according to Cartwright, to the detriment of the economy.
• 17:22
  So there's a moral failure happening.
• 17:24
  There's an economic failure happening.
• 17:27
  And the future of the country just dims a little every single day with every inflated grade, with every decision to not shape the soul, to not shape the heart and mind of the student.
• 17:41
  Instead, we've got to get them out on the workforce.
• 17:44
  We've got to get them prepared for a job.
• 17:47
  And in fact, they're not being prepared.
• 17:50
  They're not being prepared economically.
• 17:53
  They're not being prepared morally.
• 17:56
  They're not being prepared virtually.
• 18:00
  And everybody is suffering.
• 18:02
  So we we can ask this question what should education be?
• 18:07
  And based upon this scenario, based upon this result, uh, education shouldn't be what it currently is listed as.
• 18:18
  It just shouldn't.
• 18:19
  It's not an option.
• 18:19
  And there are deeper lessons here.
• 18:21
  I'm looking at the clock.
• 18:23
  I want to get into the deeper lessons on the other side of this break.
• 18:26
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• 18:30
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• 18:48
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• 18:51
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• 18:55
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• 19:00
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• 19:11
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• 19:13
  All right.
• 19:13
  We're going to dive into the deeper lessons on the other side of this break.
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• 22:32
  All right, so what's the deeper lesson here?
• 22:36
  And inflated grades, deflating future earnings.
• 22:41
  Well, it's not that teachers are the villains.
• 22:46
  I don't think that's the deeper lesson.
• 22:47
  And it's not that students are lazy.
• 22:51
  Um the system literally is built upon an incentive structure.
• 23:00
  And when this structure is left unexamined, when we're not paying attention to the outcome here, uh the outcome that's produced is one that no individual person would consciously choose.
• 23:18
  We would not choose students to graduate, but yet not be able to uh understand the material or uh get a decent paying job.
• 23:32
  I don't think anybody wants that.
• 23:33
  I mean, the people that are involved don't want that.
• 23:36
  There might be an element in the hierarchy that is not disappointed about that.
• 23:41
  But but the people involved here, that's not something that they want.
• 23:45
  So what's the solution then?
• 23:48
  Uh well, solutions must operate at the level where the incentive problems can actually be addressed, which likely means districts and states, not individual classrooms.
• 24:01
  The districts have to get on board.
• 24:04
  They have to take this collective action.
• 24:07
  States have to take a collective action.
• 24:11
  The most promising near-term fix is what uh cartwright, cartwright uh simply says, you know, transparency.
• 24:23
  That's it.
• 24:24
  That's the common, it's the common fix.
• 24:26
  Require transcripts to list the class average grade alongside each student's individual grade.
• 24:35
  Uh a B plus in a class averaging a B is more meaningful than an A- in a class averaging an A-because if everyone's getting an A-if-that's what the class is averaging, then you know, I don't know, something um something might be amiss.
• 24:54
  Someone just might be throwing in the A- to make it to make it fit.
• 25:00
  Putting the grade in context with the average can help restore its signal.
• 25:05
  Cartwright says.
• 25:07
  This is an inexpensive and feasible fix that could be implemented tomorrow at the district level in order to neutralize the first mover problem, as she calls it.
• 25:20
  An increased emphasis on standardized assessments, imperfect as they are, can also play a role.
• 25:28
  When we use judiciously these uh standardized assessments, they provide an external benchmark that's harder to manipulate, although not impossible, but it is more difficult.
• 25:43
  Expanding their use as a complement to GPA could help colleges and employers to better interpret academic performance.
• 25:53
  We're really the standardized assessments should be used to truly gauge performance so we can see you know what we need to fix.
• 26:05
  Uh it's not necessarily the way we use it and see it here.
• 26:10
  It's not designed to see where the students are at.
• 26:14
  I mean, and ultimately it does that, but we use it as a tool to see where we're at as a school.
• 26:20
  Where do we need to improve?
• 26:22
  And this isn't about putting pressure on the teachers.
• 26:25
  You know, you gotta do this better, you're blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 26:27
  No, it's about us as a school as a system.
• 26:30
  How we can improve in a particular area.
• 26:35
  Or in a particular subject matter.
• 26:39
  For schools willing to take bolder action, Cartwright uh says that forced grade distributions uh remove the the social pressure on individual teachers entirely.
• 26:51
  And a forced grade distribution is requiring that grades cluster around a target average.
• 26:58
  Many graduate programs already use this mechanism, and it particularly alleviates pressure for teachers who have high grades relative to their to their peers.
• 27:09
  Um, because some teachers might run lower grades in their class, and other teachers run run higher grades.
• 27:17
  But if we know there's a target average that we can cluster around, then that might help to alleviate some of this.
• 27:27
  Colleges and universities, uh, meanwhile, could move decisively and require their admissions offices to publish their own historical GPA to outcome conversion rates.
• 27:39
  Um effectively flagging institutions, you know, high schools that inflate grades within the admissions market.
• 27:51
  Employers that track hiring outcomes could apply similar adjustments.
• 27:55
  Once these implicit discounts are made public, the incentive to inflate grades would begin to disappear.
• 28:00
  Would begin to disappear.
• 28:01
  But this is asking, I think employers to do this is a big, it's a big ask.
• 28:01
  But this is asking, I think employers to do this is a big, it's a big ask.
• 28:08
  Um I would imagine that employers would be like, you know, why aren't the kids, you know, or why aren't the uh the schools, you know, handling this?
• 28:08
  Um I would imagine that employers would be like, you know, why aren't the kids, you know, or why aren't the uh the schools you know handling this?
• 28:15
  Why is this on us?
• 28:15
  Why is this on us?
• 28:17
  Why do we have to fix the problem that is presented in the high schools?
• 28:17
  Why do we have to fix the problem that is presented in the high schools?
• 28:24
  Cartwright admits that none of these reforms will be easy.
• 28:24
  Cartwright admits that none of these reforms will be easy.
• 28:28
  They require coordination across.
• 28:28
  They require coordination across schools, across districts and possibly states.
• 28:33
  But the alternative is to continue down the current path in which grades become ever less meaningful and education ever less effective.
• 28:44
  Um Cartwright doesn't get into this, or we could just we could shift our education philosophy.
• 28:55
  We could begin to educate based upon soul formation.
• 29:01
  We could look at the soul, we could shape the soul, we could shape the heart and the mind.
• 29:07
  And that could be our focus.
• 29:09
  And in the process of that being our focus, uh, we could educate the student deeper.
• 29:17
  We could educate them better.
• 29:19
  We could educate them richer.
• 29:22
  Uh, we could give them quality reading material.
• 29:27
  They could they could begin reading quality uh quality literature at young tender ages.
• 29:37
  And then a novel idea here, we could we could teach them how to write and how to write well and how to read and and and how to read well.
• 29:45
  And then and then, and then we could teach them to fall in love with beauty and to fall in love with truth and to fall in love with with goodness.
• 29:53
  And as they're falling in love with these things.
• 29:56
  So they're falling in in love with with beauty, specifically the beauty of mathematics, the the beauty of music, the beauty of art, then they might fall in love with with the truth that these that these subjects present, the truth that they speak to us, that the goodness that they fill our lives with.
• 30:20
  Then we're we're embracing learning in a different way.
• 30:24
  We're not embracing you know, learning to learn something in the moment so we can get a grade.
• 30:30
  We are embracing learning to better ourselves, learning to better our existence, learning to better our souls, learning with the objective of becoming somebody good, becoming somebody who is falling in love with beauty, becoming somebody who is who is truly and deeply searching for the truth of a thing, and and and going after that, and letting curiosity uh be born in our hearts, letting awe and wonder uh become born in our lives.
• 31:15
  I read this quote the other day that a child who reads for pleasure will outlearn a child who reads for grades every single time.
• 31:23
  Curiosity beats compliance, 10 out of 10.
• 31:29
  And this is something that can be created in a child.
• 31:35
  This love for reading, reading for pleasure, not for grades.
• 31:40
  I've got to read that because I've got to take a test on it.
• 31:43
  Or I've gotta read that because I love to read it and I enjoy it.
• 31:49
  Now I get it.
• 31:50
  Not everyone's gonna enjoy every single thing.
• 31:54
  But if we're we're presenting this, starting young, I mean, starting at the very beginning, if we are presenting education as something to be enjoyed, something to be loved, something that is full of awe and wonder, something that we are curious about.
• 32:13
  Curiosity beats compliance every single time.
• 32:18
  Children who, again, are doing things for pleasure, are reading for pleasure, are learning for pleasure.
• 32:25
  They're gonna outlearn a child who's reading or learning for grades every single time.
• 32:33
  It's really boils down to a shift in philosophy, ultimately.
• 32:39
  It's a philosophical shift in the way that we're looking at education and the way that we're perceiving education.
• 32:49
  And then we wouldn't have, I don't know, we we wouldn't have other things to to deal with.
• 32:57
  Um, you know, for example, I'm looking at another piece here.
• 33:02
  The headline of this piece is court sides with mother against school district's transgender policy.
• 33:10
  Uh the school district allegedly refused to request to notify the mother regarding her child's gender dysphoria or gender identity issues.
• 33:21
  If it was our educational philosophy to pursue goodness and to pursue truth and to pursue beauty, then it would make sense that we would be aligned with including parents in that endeavor, including parents, and that philosophy that if something's going on in the building with Janie, then the parents need to be notified immediately.
• 33:52
  Uh regardless, I mean, in this case, apparently the parent requested that she be notified, and she was still not notified.
• 34:00
  I mean, even if a parent doesn't request that they be notified, it's the school's responsibility to notify the parent if something's up.
• 34:13
  You know, in this case, the Court of Appeals sided in favor with the mother and her complaint against the school district, and they're imposing transgender policies.
• 34:24
  That this specific case concerned the Pine Richland School District in Pennsylvania, which in 2017 passed a policy providing equal opportunity to all students, regardless of personal characteristics, including gender identity, according to uh the April 23rd ruling by the Circuit Court of Appeals, the third, the third circuit.
• 34:51
  The policy here in this district prohibited staff from disclosing a student's gender status to other people, including the child's parents or guardians, unless it was legally necessary or the student had authorized such disclosure.
• 35:01
  Unless it was legally necessary or the student had authorized such disclosure.
• 35:07
  Um it's morally necessary that teachers keep parents informed.
• 35:08
  It's morally necessary that teachers keep parents informed.
• 35:16
  In this case, each school was required to have a student support team that would meet with students who wish to change their gender identity during the school year to discuss a timeline for the transition.
• 35:16
  In this case, each school was required to have a student support team that would meet with students who wished to change their gender identity during the school year to discuss a timeline for the transition.
• 35:28
  The mother whose name
• 35:28
  The mother whose name was withheld, the plaintiff in the case, uh, while the child was a student in the uh school district for the year 23-24.
• 35:40
  According to the complaint, after the mother became concerned about the school's policy, she contacted authorities asking them to notify her regarding any gender dysphoria or gender identity issues concerning her child.
• 35:55
  She also requested the authorities not to refer her child to social workers or mental health counselors for evaluation.
• 36:03
  The school district refused her request, just flat out refused it.
• 36:07
  They said it would provide uh such notification only if legally required.
• 36:14
  Didn't matter that the parent was asking for information on their child.
• 36:18
  Well, are we legally required to give that information?
• 36:24
  Subsequently, in January 24, the mother filed a lawsuit against the district for damages and prospective relief.
• 36:32
  She withdrew her child from the school that following July and filed an updated complaint in September.
• 36:40
  The district court dismissed the lawsuit in full for lack of standing.
• 36:45
  The case went to the appeals court.
• 36:48
  In a filing with the Court of Appeals, the school district's legal representative argued that the plaintiff's case was dismissed because she lacked the injury required and was not an object of the district's policy.
• 37:02
  The appeals court issued different judgment on the two claims made by the plaintiff regarding the mother's claim.
• 37:12
  For prospective relief, the appeals court observed that the plaintiff had withdrawn her child from the school before she filed the updated complaint.
• 37:21
  As such, the court ruled that the plaintiff did not demonstrate standing to seek prospective relief and dismissed the claim.
• 37:28
  But for the claim on damages, the court took the mother's side.
• 37:32
  At the time of the plaintiff's alleged injury, again during the 23-24 school year.
• 37:39
  Um she was the parent of a child in a district school, as such, was the object of the district's policy, and demanded that the district not apply the policy to her.
• 37:51
  And as such, the appeals court reversed the district, the district court's dismissal of the damages claim, allowing the mother to pursue it further.
• 38:02
  In an April 23 statement, America First Legal, which handles the case on behalf of the mother, said the district school's policy had required schools to address students by their preferred pronouns, name and gender, permit them to use whichever bathroom they wanted, and allow them to take part in sports teams that aligned with their identity.
• 38:28
  The AFL called this an historic victory in the fight to hold school districts accountable for providing gender transition teams funded by taxpayers to children without parental consent or notification.
• 38:45
  The ruling in the case comes as the Trump administration's Department of Education has taken strict action against transgender policies in these education institutions.
• 38:59
  And you know, there's there's examples here.
• 39:02
  In April, the Department of Ed said it found four Kansas school districts to be in violation of Title IX.
• 39:10
  Uh the districts had policies that were likely to prevent schools from notifying parents of their child's so-called gender transition, even if the parent requested their child's records, thereby violating parental rights, said the Justice Department and the Department of Education.
• 39:30
  The district's policies allow schools to conceal from parents whether their children are using different pronouns, going by different names, or even having different names printed on their diplomas.
• 39:42
  Can you believe we've gotten this far?
• 39:46
  The Department of Education sent resolution agreements to the school districts demanding they commit to providing parents with materials related to their child's gender transition.
• 39:58
  Crickets.
• 40:01
  Earlier in April, the department announced that it was rescinding resolution agreements made by previous administrations with several school districts regarding the enforcement of Title IX laws related to gender identity.
• 40:19
  I mean, we wouldn't be here.
• 40:21
  We wouldn't be here if our philosophy of education was different.
• 40:26
  We wouldn't be at this point if our philosophy of education was centered around educating the soul, forming and shaping the soul and directing the child beginning at the earliest ages down a road to discover truth, goodness, and beauty.
• 40:46
  But we've not done that.
• 40:48
  And here we are.
• 40:51
  And we've not done that on purpose.
• 40:54
  There were changes that were made, and they were made on purpose, not by the individual teachers in the classroom, and not even by the individual administrators in the building, but by the education system at a much higher level.
• 41:08
  It has been commandeered and thwarted by an enemy, and an enemy antithetical to American values.
• 41:21
  And that's that's where we are.
• 41:23
  And we can end this debate right now if we shifted our philosophy.
• 41:28
  But since I don't see that happening, this debate's going to continue.
• 41:32
  It's going to be ongoing.
• 41:33
  And we're going to continue to beat the drum here that education has got to be soul formation.
• 41:39
  It's got to, it's got to be of a of a of a particular type.
• 41:43
  All right, my friends were up against it.
• 41:45
  Let's pause here.
• 41:46
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• 43:57
  So as we are talking about how education should be defined, what education should look like.
• 44:06
  Aaron Gifford's got an interesting piece out.
• 44:10
  Aaron is uh he's with the epoch times.
• 44:12
  We we like his work.
• 44:15
  And this this piece is called How Old School Testing is helping stop modern day cheating.
• 44:23
  Okay, here's his first line, and this is what obviously what grabbed my attention.
• 44:28
  His opening statement is at some point over the past century, a classic academic tradition was abandoned.
• 44:38
  Just gone, kaput, out.
• 44:40
  No more, no longer with us.
• 44:42
  We are not interested any longer in a classic academic tradition.
• 44:50
  Instead, we've got what we've got.
• 44:54
  All right.
• 44:54
  Instead, we've got a tradition now of students and teachers walking out of class in order to protest law enforcement.
• 45:03
  In order to, you know, students uh not being taught to love the laws of the land.
• 45:11
  Lincoln, I don't I don't have his speech in front of me.
• 45:14
  His light, his speech to the young men's lyseum.
• 45:17
  I mean, I could paraphrase, but normally I've got it here in arms reach, but I don't have it.
• 45:24
  But in that speech, he says, look, we're not going to be overtaken from abroad.
• 45:31
  We're not going, there's not going to be an external attack that takes out the country.
• 45:36
  This was 1838, I think he's given this speech.
• 45:39
  He said, if we fall, we will fall from within.
• 45:42
  And he made reference to the fact that we no longer love the laws.
• 45:47
  We are uh we don't care about about the laws in this country anymore.
• 45:53
  Um he said that every every mom should be whispering the laws to their um to their children while they're um on their laps.
• 46:09
  To that extent.
• 46:12
  Uh but you know, I don't do we know the laws.
• 46:15
  Do our do our do our moms know the laws enough to be able to whisper them to their prattling kids while sitting on their laps.
• 46:24
  Uh probably not.
• 46:26
  Because somewhere along the way, as as Gifford says, we've abandoned a classic academic tradition.
• 46:32
  We've abandoned the laws in this country.
• 46:35
  We we don't care about them.
• 46:37
  We don't promote them, we don't talk about them.
• 46:41
  Uh we are okay with with whatever.
• 46:45
  Well, Christopher Schaefer uh is a biomedical engineering teacher at Cornell University.
• 46:54
  And Schaeffer says that academic integrity has always been a major concern.
• 46:59
  But the bar to violating it has just been extremely low.
• 47:04
  And the reason academic integrity, the bar is low, is because uh somewhere along the line, we stopped talking about the laws of the land.
• 47:15
  We we stopped um and then and and stopping to talk about the laws of the land, the constitution and the declaration.
• 47:26
  We've we've stopped talking about morality.
• 47:29
  We don't talk about integrity.
• 47:31
  Academic integrity is at an all-time low.
• 47:34
  This is what Schaefer's saying.
• 47:37
  He said, a return to a classical education is what he's saying it.
• 47:43
  Um he says a return to uh his exact quote is a return to a more personal engagement in the classroom benefits both students and teachers.
• 47:55
  He said it's about fairness and assessment, not just cracking down on cheating.
• 48:00
  I mean, that's fair.
• 48:01
  It is about fairness as it's about assessment.
• 48:04
  It's actually about, you know, instructing the kids in morality.
• 48:08
  But by the time they get to his bioengineering class at Cornell, it's it's too late for that.
• 48:14
  It's it's time for a different mode of assessment at that point.
• 48:20
  He uh he says that he's developed an idea over the past three years uh based upon comparing students' biomedical engineering assignment results with chat GPT's results.
• 48:35
  He said over the last three years, new versions of AI tools have improved to the point that it consistently, the AI consistently outperformed the students.
• 48:47
  And this, according to Schaefer, is causing some alarm.
• 48:51
  Uh so he's added an oral exam requirement to his five credit 300 level course, an oral exam.
• 49:00
  Now we used to give oral exams because the the oral exams.
• 49:00
  Now we used to we used to give oral exams because the the oral exams you know they can't they can't pull out notes and start reading that they've got to present to the instructor what is inside of them, what they know.
• 49:07
  Um, you know, they can't they can't pull out notes and start reading.
• 49:12
  They've got to present to the instructor what is inside of them.
• 49:19
  What they know.
• 49:21
  Uh Schaefer's class provides instruction in labs in which students learn how to design electronic medical devices that opt.
• 49:21
  Uh Schaefer's class provides instruction in labs in which students learn how to design electronic medical devices that operate with with signals.
• 49:32
  He's got six take home assignments, which are still course requirements.
• 49:38
  But instead of just submitting a paper explaining a solution to a problem, students now must defend their research, their concepts and their applications in a 20-minute discussion.
• 49:52
  20 minute discussion.
• 49:54
  And it's it sounds like it's a discussion.
• 49:56
  So it's not like they can memorize some notes and just spit it out and regurgitate it.
• 50:02
  The the professor here, Schaefer has an opportunity to ask them questions and to drill down into their knowledge base.
• 50:11
  I mean, this is fantastic.
• 50:13
  The assignments allow for some early collaboration with others and the use of AI as a starting point to identify sources or information.
• 50:23
  But all the students must explain what they know and how they know it to Schaefer or perhaps to a teaching assistant.
• 50:31
  And all the written materials used in their research are submitted as well.
• 50:37
  For example, Schaefer said that uh students might be assigned to design a circuit used in a sensor that detects eyelid spasms.
• 50:47
  Uh, this would include an explanation of a signal producing algorithm.
• 50:52
  And they can provide a diagram to illustrate their code writing, but the remainder of the assessment is explained live and out loud.
• 51:03
  I like this.
• 51:04
  None of the problems assigned has just one correct design or just one correct answer.
• 51:11
  The technology the students are learning about has trade-offs and alternatives, Schaefer said.
• 51:17
  The completed oral assignments are scored between one for unsatisfactory and four for excellent.
• 51:25
  There isn't a whole lot of wiggle room here.
• 51:28
  In addition to ensuring academic integrity, this process of researching, preparing and rehearsing, a circle of learning, by the way, goes a long way in helping students learn more and build confidence.
• 51:43
  Many students have limited experience in public speaking.
• 51:46
  Those who struggle because they are nervous are allowed a do over, which, okay, that's fair.
• 51:52
  Give them a do over.
• 51:54
  Broadly speaking, it went really well, he said, noting that he was pleased with the class's performance and positive feedback from students.
• 52:04
  Another professor and graduate students who helped with this initiative.
• 52:10
  He said the vast majority really appreciate in the moment feedback on their understanding.
• 52:18
  These days, oral assessments are mostly limited to learning exercises in some classes or dissertations for doctoral candidates in certain fields.
• 52:27
  But Schaefer said he believes that interest in this method will grow across higher education in both STEM and the humanities.
• 52:39
  This would be interesting in the humanities.
• 52:42
  To you know, to ask, you know, just to fire out hey, so what uh what's Thomas Aquinas' um definition of metaphysics?
• 52:50
  Or how does Aquinas define uh somebody who is an actual human being?
• 52:58
  What's the result?
• 53:01
  And then just let the person go.
• 53:02
  I mean, that's I don't know.
• 53:04
  I think I like this.
• 53:05
  I like this.
• 53:06
  This is old school.
• 53:07
  This is getting back to um, well, as as Gifford said, um, an old school testing method.
• 53:15
  I like it.
• 53:17
  Um, in a related initiative at Cornell aimed at curbing student AI use.
• 53:23
  Gifford notes that German language instructor Grit Matthias Phelps requires students to use manual typewriters in class to avoid any online help with language translation.
• 53:37
  Um I mean, that's fine, but just go back to the blue book at that point.
• 53:41
  Open give them a pencil and open up a blue book and cut them loose and say, go after it.
• 53:49
  At New York University business professor Panos Aparitos, I don't know if I'm saying his name right.
• 53:56
  Um he's fighting fire with fire, he says, by calling on students and requiring them to use a conversational AI tool that requires oral explanations for assignments.
• 54:08
  Why are you using a conversational AI tool?
• 54:11
  Just have a conversation.
• 54:12
  I don't, I don't know about that.
• 54:16
  He called the results of his initiative illuminating.
• 54:19
  Just ask them questions.
• 54:21
  I mean, just bring them in front of the panel in front of the firing squad and just you know, go for it.
• 54:26
  Um at Hillsdale College in Michigan, English professor Patricia Bart leads a writing boot camp.
• 54:34
  That's essentially AI proof.
• 54:39
  Um the two great books course, Bart requires students to first write and orally present a prospectus on the papers they're working on.
• 54:52
  This includes the defense of main ideas and an explanation of the sources used.
• 54:57
  Additionally, rough drafts are required and markups of those drafts must be submitted along with final papers.
• 55:03
  I love this.
• 55:04
  You can't outsource your intellect, Bart told the Epoch Times.
• 55:10
  Um Bart said she learned this approach as an undergrad student at the University of Pittsburgh in the 1980s.
• 55:18
  Her instructor was a road scholar who shared teaching methods from Oxford.
• 55:22
  Well, I mean, this is how we do it here.
• 55:24
  I mean, we when the kids write a paper, they open up their notebook and they get out a pencil and they write the paper based upon their own knowledge.
• 55:36
  I mean, they might have access to source material, but it's in print.
• 55:40
  The source material is in book form or in print form.
• 55:44
  It's not on a computer, it's not on a laptop, it's not on a device.
• 55:48
  You know, we are we are old school.
• 55:52
  We believe in bringing back the classical academic tradition that was abandoned over the past century, as Gifford said.
• 56:00
  The past century, as Gifford said.
• 56:02
  Now we want to bring it back.
• 56:02
  No, we want to bring it back.
• 56:04
  Again, this is this is soul formation.
• 56:04
  Again, this is this is soul formation, it's part of it.
• 56:07
  It's part of it.
• 56:08
  It's part of forming the soul.
• 56:08
  It's part of forming the soul, it's part of building the intellect.
• 56:09
  It's part of building the intellect.
• 56:12
  It's part of giving the student the tools to be able to think for themselves and to be able to reason for themselves and to be able to persuade others rhetorically, perhaps to their opinion, as it were.
• 56:12
  It's part of giving the student the tools to be able to think for themselves and to be able to reason for themselves and to be able to persuade others rhetorically, perhaps to their opinion, as it were.
• 56:27
  Old school, my friends, that is the
• 56:27
  Old school, my friends, that is the answer.
• 56:30
  That is the name of the game.
• 56:32
  Let's go old school.
• 56:34
  Ah, uh, an education is is that it should look like that.
• 56:40
  All right, that's the end of the debate for today.
• 56:43
  Thank you for joining me.
• 56:45
  As always, encourage your friends and family to get on the deeds list.
• 56:50
  Let's unite to renovate the age.