Liz Wheeler, Hide Your Children

Liz Wheeler, Hide Your Children: Exposing the Marxists Behind the Attack on America's Kids. 

So Much for Local Control of Education: Gavin Newsom Takes on the Temecula Valley Unified School District (VIDEO)

And why?

Because the locally elected conservative board members don't want a social studies textbook that references homosexual icon Harvey Milk. 

So much for local control of schools? This is really pushing ahead the front lines of the culture war. 

At at time when average working- and middle-class families can't afford the cost of living, you know 100 percent that Newsom --- and the state's Democrat Party junta in Sacramento --- couldn't care less about the problems facing the state's everyday citizens. 

At the Los Angeles Times, "Temecula school board outrage over LGBTQ+ lessons motivates Newsom to rush new textbook law":

Temecula and most of southwestern Riverside County lean Republican, favoring former President Trump in the 2020 election and creating a rift with California’s Democratic state leaders. In December, the school board voted to ban the teaching of critical race theory.

On Wednesday, Newsom announced that the state is entering into a contract to secure textbooks for the district in time for the first day of school next month.

“The three political activists on the school board have yet again proven they are more interested in breaking the law than doing their jobs of educating students — so the state will do their job for them,” Newsom said in a statement, reiterating his commitment to fining the district.

Newsom — a national voice against red state policies — was so inspired to take on Temecula conservatives that he has publicly vowed to hold the school district accountable on the basis of a law that does not yet exist...

Laws? What laws?!! We make it up as we go!

More at KCAL News Los Angeles, "California Governor Gavin Newsom on Wednesday announced that the state has imposed a $1.5 million fine on the Temecula Valley Unified School District for 'willful violation' of the law," after board members voted not to adopt a new curriculum mentioning activist Harvey Milk":

Scott Jennings Hammers Randi Weingarten on Pandemic School Closures -- on CNN! (VIDEO)

This exchange received pretty big news coverage last week. 

WATCH:

CHANGE: 32 States and Counting: Why Parents Bills of Rights Are Sweeping the U.S.

From Stephen Green, at Instapundit, “'The proposed laws have fueled questions about the role parents should play in their children's education. At the same time, they have fanned partisan flames, weaponizing a longstanding concept – parental rights – that academic experts and advocates alike say should not be politically charged'.”

'Actually, not knowing enough about law is supposed to be a barrier, but I guess I’ll have to let that slide...'

It's Gail Heriot, at Instapundit, "DELAWARE DUMBS IT DOWN: “Delaware Lowers Passing Score on Bar Exam in Push for Racial Diversity: ‘Not Supposed to be a Barrier'."

The Highest Principle

From Chris Rufo, at City Journal, "Left-wing DEI bureaucracy has captured Florida State University and installed radical politics as the governing value."

BONUS: At the New York Times, "Education Issues Vault to Top of the G.O.P.’s Presidential Race."

Education Issues Vault to Top of the G.O.P.’s Presidential Race

I like it. 

At the New York Times, "Donald Trump and possible rivals, like Gov. Ron DeSantis, are making appeals to conservative voters on race and gender issues, but such messages had a mixed record in November’s midterm elections":

With a presidential primary starting to stir, Republicans are returning with force to the education debates that mobilized their staunchest voters during the pandemic and set off a wave of conservative activism around how schools teach about racism in American history and tolerate gender fluidity.

The messaging casts Republicans as defenders of parents who feel that schools have run amok with “wokeness.” Its loudest champion has been Gov. Ron DeSantis, who last week scored an apparent victory attacking the College Board’s curriculum on African American studies. Former President Donald J. Trump has sought to catch up with even hotter language, recently threatening “severe consequences” for educators who “suggest to a child that they could be trapped in the wrong body.”

Nikki Haley, a former South Carolina governor, who has used Twitter to preview her planned presidential campaign announcement this month, recently tweeted “CRT is un-American,” referring to critical race theory.

Yet, in its appeal to voters, culture-war messaging concerning education has a decidedly mixed track record. While some Republicans believe that the issue can win over independents, especially suburban women, the 2022 midterms showed that attacks on school curriculums — specifically on critical race theory and so-called gender ideology — largely were a dud in the general election.

While Mr. DeSantis won re-election handily, many other Republican candidates for governor who raised attacks on schools — against drag queen story hours, for example, or books that examine white privilege — went down in defeat, including in Kansas, Michigan, Arizona and Wisconsin.

Democratic strategists, pointing to the midterm results and to polling, said voters viewed cultural issues in education as far less important than school funding, teacher shortages and school safety.

Even the Republican National Committee advised candidates last year to appeal to swing voters by speaking broadly about parental control and quality schools, not critical race theory, the idea that racism is baked into American institutions.

Still, Mr. Trump, the only declared Republican presidential candidate so far, and potential rivals, are putting cultural fights at the center of their education agendas. Strategists say the push is motivated by evidence that the issues have the power to elicit strong emotions in parents and at least some potential to cut across partisan lines.

In Virginia, Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s victory in 2021 on a “parents’ rights” platform awakened Republicans to the political potency of education with swing voters. Mr. Youngkin, who remains popular in his state, began an investigation last month of whether Virginia high schools delayed telling some students that they had earned merit awards, which he has called “a maniacal focus” on equal outcomes.

Mr. DeSantis, too, has framed his opposition to progressive values as an attempt to give parents control over what their children are taught.

Last year, he signed the Parental Rights in Education Act, banning instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in early elementary grades.

Democrats decried that and other education policies from the governor as censorship and as attacks on the civil rights of gay and transgender people. Critics called the Florida law “Don’t Say Gay.”

Polling has shown strong support for a ban on L.G.B.T.Q. topics in elementary school. In a New York Times/Siena College poll last year, 70 percent of registered voters nationally opposed instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in elementary grades.

“The culture war issues are most potent among Republican primary voters, but that doesn’t mean that an education message can’t be effective with independent voters or the electorate as a whole,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster, who worked for Mr. DeSantis during his first governor’s race in 2018.

Mr. DeSantis’s approach to education is a far stretch from traditional issues that Republicans used to line up behind, such as charter schools and merit pay for teachers who raise test scores. But it has had an impact...

Christopher Rufo at New College, Sarasota, Florida (VIDEO)

This man is amazing.

Behind-the-scenes: the provost and president of New College attempted to shut down our conversation with faculty and students, citing a threat against Trustee Eddie Speir. But Speir and I insisted that we continue with the program—and establish a new standard for open discourse.

Behind-the-scenes: the provost and president of New College attempted to shut down our conversation with faculty and students, citing a threat against Trustee Eddie Speir. But Speir and I insisted that we continue with the program—and establish a new standard for open discourse. pic.twitter.com/XW23nimZM9

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) January 28, 2023

And watch, "My Speech to the Faculty at New College of Florida."

More, "Gov. DeSantis taps Christopher Rufo, 5 others to transform New College of Florida into ‘classical college’."

When Students Change Gender Identity, and Parents Don't Know

This is outrageous. Nothing good will come of sidelining parents like this --- it's tantamount to having the state take your kid away from you.

At the New York Times, "Educators are facing wrenching new tensions over whether they should tell parents when students socially transition at school":

Jessica Bradshaw found out that her 15-year-old identified as transgender at school after she glimpsed a homework assignment with an unfamiliar name scrawled at the top.

When she asked about the name, the teenager acknowledged that, at his request, teachers and administrators at his high school in Southern California had for six months been letting him use the boy’s bathroom and calling him by male pronouns.

Mrs. Bradshaw was confused: Didn’t the school need her permission, or at least need to tell her?

It did not, a counselor later explained, because the student did not want his parents to know. District and state policies instructed the school to respect his wishes.

“There was never any word from anyone to let us know that on paper, and in the classroom, our daughter was our son,” Mrs. Bradshaw said.

The Bradshaws have been startled to find themselves at odds with the school over their right to know about, and weigh in on, such a major development in their child’s life — a dispute that illustrates how school districts, which have long been a battleground in cultural conflicts over gender and sexuality, are now facing wrenching new tensions over how to accommodate transgender children.

The Bradshaws accepted their teenager’s new gender identity, but not without trepidation, especially after he asked for hormones and surgery to remove his breasts. Doctors had previously diagnosed him as being on the autism spectrum, as well as with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, PTSD and anxiety. He had struggled with loneliness during the pandemic, and, to his parents, seemed not to know exactly who he was yet, because he had repeatedly changed his name and sexual orientation.

Given those complexities, Mrs. Bradshaw said she resented the fact that the school had made her feel like a bad parent for wondering whether educators had put her teenager, a minor, on a path the school wasn’t qualified to oversee.

“It felt like a parenting stab in the back from the school system,” she said. “It should have been a decision we made as a family.”

The student, now 16, told The New York Times that his school had provided him with a space to be himself that he otherwise lacked. He had tried to come out to his parents before, he said, but they didn’t take it seriously, which is why he asked his school for support.

“I wish schools didn’t have to hide it from parents or do it without parental permission, but it can be important,” he said. “Schools are just trying to do what’s best to keep students safe and comfortable. When you’re trans, you feel like you are in danger all the time. Even though my parents were accepting, I was still scared, and that’s why the school didn’t tell them.”

Although the number of young people who identify as transgender in the United States remains small, it has nearly doubled in recent years, and schools have come under pressure to address the needs of those young people amid a polarized political environment where both sides warn that one wrong step could result in irreparable harm.

The public school that Mrs. Bradshaw’s son attends is one of many throughout the country that allow students to socially transition — change their name, pronouns, or gender expression — without parental consent. Districts have said they want parents to be involved but must follow federal and, in some cases, state guidance meant to protect students from discrimination and violations of their privacy.

Schools have pointed to research that shows that inclusive policies benefit all students, which is why some education experts advise schools to use students’s preferred names and pronouns. Educators have also said they feel bound by their own morality to affirm students’ gender identities, especially in cases where students don’t feel safe coming out at home.

But dozens of parents whose children have socially transitioned at school told The Times they felt villainized by educators who seemed to think that they — not the parents — knew what was best for their children. They insisted that educators should not intervene without notifying parents unless there is evidence of physical abuse at home. Although some didn’t want their children to transition at all, others said they were open to it, but felt schools forced the process to move too quickly, and that they couldn’t raise concerns without being cut out completely or having their home labeled “unsafe.”

Many advocates for L.G.B.T.Q. youth counter that parents should stop scapegoating schools and instead ask themselves why they don’t believe their children. They said ensuring that schools provide enough support for transgender students is more crucial than ever, given the rise of legislation that blocks their access to bathrooms, sports and gender-affirming care.

These disputes are unfolding as Republicans rally around “parental rights,” a catchall term for the decisions parents get to make about their children’s‌ upbringing. Conservative legal groups have filed a growing number of lawsuits against school districts, accusing them of failing to involve parents in their children’s education and mental health care. Critics say groups like these have long worked to delegitimize public education and eradicate the rights of transgender people.

But how schools should address gender identity cuts through the liberal and conservative divide. Parents of all political persuasions have found themselves unsettled by what schools know and don’t reveal.

Mrs. Bradshaw said she wouldn’t align herself with Republican lawmakers who sought to ban L.G.B.T.Q. rights, but she also felt as though her school’s policy left no room for nuance.

“It is almost impossible to have these discussions,” Mrs. Bradshaw said. “There is no forum for someone like me.”

Other self-described liberal parents said they registered as independents or voted for Republican candidates for the first time as a result of this issue. Although they haven’t sued, some have retained lawyers affiliated with the largest legal organization on the religious right to battle their children’s schools.

In November, Erica Anderson, a well-known clinical psychologist who has counseled hundreds of children over gender identity-related issues and is transgender herself, filed an amicus brief in a Maryland lawsuit in support of parents represented by a conservative law group. The parents have argued that their district’s policy violates their own decision-making authority.

Transitioning socially, Dr. Anderson wrote, “is a major and potentially life-altering decision that requires parental involvement, for many reasons.”

She told the Times that she had to push aside her qualms about working with conservative lawyers. “I don’t want to be erased as a transgender person, and I don’t want anyone’s prerogatives or identity to be taken away from them,” she said, “but on this one, I’m aligned with people who are willing to advocate for parents.”

The debate reflects how the interests of parents and those of their children do not always align, said Justin Driver, a Yale Law School professor who has written a book about constitutional conflict in public schools...

 

Anya Kamenetz, The Stolen Year

At Amazon, Anya Kamenetz, The Stolen Year: How COVID Changed Children's Lives, and Where We Go Now.

How DEI Is Supplanting Truth as the Mission of American Universities

From John Sailer, at the Free Press, "An obsession with Diversity, Equity and Inclusion threatens students, professors, and the very credibility of higher education in the U.S."

David E. Bernstein, Classified

At Amazon, David E. Bernstein, Classified: The Untold Story of Racial Classification in America.

Nomi M. Stolzenberg and David N. Myers, American Shtetl

At Amazon, Nomi M. Stolzenberg and David N. Myers, American Shtetl: The Making of Kiryas Joel, a Hasidic Village in Upstate New York.

In Memphis Public Schools, Literacy Taught in Every Class

THIS should be the civil rights issue of the 21st century.

At least the New York Times is broaching the subject, because certainly just raising the issue is racist. 

See, "In Memphis, the Phonics Movement Comes to High School":

Literacy lessons are embedded in every academic class. Even in biology.

MEMPHIS — For much of his life, Roderick, a high school junior, did not enjoy reading. As a boy, he trudged through picture books that his mother encouraged him to read. As a teenager, he has sometimes wrestled with complex texts at school.

“I would read, and I’d go back and reread,” he said. “It’s just stressful.”

But recently, he said, he has made strides, in part because of an unusual and sweeping high school literacy curriculum in Memphis.

The program focuses on expanding vocabulary and giving teenagers reading strategies — such as decoding words — that build upon fundamentals taught in elementary school. The curriculum is embedded not just in English, but also in math, science and social studies.

With his new tools, Roderick studied “I Have a Dream,” the speech by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. — no longer skipping unfamiliar words, but instead circling them to discern their meaning. And when scanning sports news on ESPN in his free time, he knew to break down bigger words, like the “re/negotia/tion” of a player’s contract.

The instruction “helped me understand,” said Roderick, 17, who is on the honor roll at Oakhaven High School and is preparing to take the ACT. (He and other students, interviewed with parental permission, are being identified by their first names to protect their privacy.)

The program in Memphis is an extension of a growing national movement to change the way younger children are taught to read, based on what has become known as “the science of reading.” And it is a sign of how sharply the pendulum has swung in the decades-long, contentious debate over reading instruction, moving away from a flexible “balanced literacy” approach that has put less emphasis on sounding out words, and toward more explicit, systematic teaching of phonics.

Brain science has shown that reading is not automatic, and longstanding research supports the need for sequenced sound-it-out instruction, along with books that build vocabulary and knowledge.

Since 2021, Tennessee and more than a dozen other states have passed laws or policies reshaping reading instruction, according to Education Week.

But reform has largely centered on the early years, kindergarten through third grade, and millions of students have already progressed beyond those grades without getting the full support that they needed.

Nationwide, two in three eighth graders are not reading with proficiency, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a rigorous exam overseen by the U.S. Education Department. Nearly one in three falls “below basic,” meaning they have not demonstrated even partial mastery of the comprehension and analysis skills expected for their age.

Reading difficulties cut across all demographic groups. About one in five eighth graders from middle- and higher-income families and a similar share of students with at least one college-educated parent are reading below a basic level. Among Asian and white eighth graders, who scored highest overall, about 15 to 20 percent have not achieved partial mastery.

The situation is often most acute, though, in communities with fewer resources. Shelby County, which includes Memphis, has one of the highest concentrations of school-age children living in poverty, at more than 30 percent, and the Memphis-Shelby County school district trails many other large school districts on the national exam. About half of its eighth graders are reading below a basic level, and most are not proficient.

Tennessee has aggressively pushed for statewide change. Last year, the state’s Republican legislature and governor, Bill Lee, passed a law that required all elementary schoolteachers be trained in a phonics-based approach, with optional literacy training for middle and high school teachers. More than 40,000 teachers have participated in the training so far, according to the state’s education department.

“This is the most important thing we can do in public schools right now,” said Penny Schwinn, Tennessee’s education commissioner, of the literacy focus...

Keep reading.

 

The Great Teacher Resignation

Interesting article, though it downplays leftist indoctrination in the schools. Otherwise, do doubt America's teachers are fucked.

See, "Empty Classrooms, Abandoned Kids: Inside America’s Great Teacher Resignation."

Good video at the link.

Yorba Linda Public School District Bans Critical Race Theory. Cal State Fullerton Retaliates by Pulling Teacher-Trainees from the District's Educational Programs

Critical race theory, arghh! It's the cancer of society, gawd.

CSU Fullerton's School of Education is literally punishng the Yorba Linda School District for the crime of its Board of Trustees prohibiting critical theory indoctrination of its students. Just one more salvo in the culture wars, one might say, and a particularly viscous one. 

At the Los Angeles Times, "After O.C. school district bans critical race theory, it faces Cal State Fullerton backlash":

Months after an Orange County school district banned teaching critical race theory, Cal State Fullerton has told school officials it is pausing placement of its student teachers in the system’s K-12 classrooms, citing concerns that district policies conflict with university goals that promote equity and inclusion in education.

Leaders in the university’s College of Education — among the biggest providers of teachers into the county’s public schools — told officials in the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District that they did not believe the district would be able to support its student teachers whose training is rooted in diversity, equity, inclusion, social justice and tenets of critical race theory, according to a statement from the college.

“Clinical practicums, fieldwork and student teaching are major components of effective teacher preparation,” Lisa Kirtman, dean of the College of Education, said in the statement. “It is critical that we place teacher candidates in districts that support their growth and development.”

She added that she is open to working with the district to provide learning experiences that value “freedom of thought and expression” for the diverse student population.

Kirtman was not available for comment Tuesday afternoon. In an email, a university spokesperson said “the situation is still unfolding.”

Six student teachers from Cal State Fullerton are working in the Placentia-Yorba Linda district this academic year, down from the 70 or 80 teachers that have typically been placed in the system.

In a message to families, district Supt. Michael Matthews said leaders in CSUF’s College of Education asked the district over the summer about its commitment to “providing a just, equitable and inclusive education” after the district board narrowly approved a measure in April banning the teaching of critical race theory...

So much leftist race-ideology hogwash being rammed down the throats of our kids. The School of Education's condescension is despicable. 

RTWT.

Huge Online Demand Reshapes California Community Colleges

This story is completely accurate. I'm teaching on campus this semester, and whereas I normally have 40 students (the cap) in my Comparative and International Politics courses, neither class cracked 20 students at the start of the fall semester.

I also have a U.S. government class on campus, and it's full, but then, there aren't as many in-person, face-to-face classes scheduled compared to online remote (distance learning). 

The pandemic has indeed changed things. 

At the Los Angeles Times, "Overwhelming demand for online classes is reshaping California’s community colleges."

The Honest Guide to College

It's Lee Burdette Williams, at Bari Weiss's Substack, "College students' mental health is suffering. Downplaying challenges of living away from home for the first time won’t make it any better":

About three million first-time college students will soon be arriving on campus—most of them coming directly from high school. About one million of them won’t make it through their first year or return as sophomores. This attrition is financially and emotionally devastating for families, and destabilizing for colleges. What goes wrong for so many students? And how can we stop the bleeding?

Financial challenges account for the largest chunk of these departures. But many others leave because the support services they and their parents feel they have been promised are often impossible for colleges and universities to provide. The number of students with mental health challenges has been rising for years—around 44 percent of all college students report symptoms of depression and anxiety. The rate of students taking psychiatric medication doubled between 2007 and 2019, and is now at 25 percent.

But what concerns my colleagues and me is the growing expectation among parents and students that college administrators are there not to guide young people, whatever their challenges, in mastering the tasks of adulthood, but to spare young people from them.

There are only about nine weeks between high school graduation and a student’s arrival on campus. That is very little time to prepare a teenager for the necessary shift from life under a parent’s management to (semi-) independent living. In as little as four weeks after classes begin, a first-year student who is unable to make that transition can end up unable to recover academically.

I have spent my career working with college students from enrollment through commencement. As a dean of students—at the University of Connecticut, and later at Wheaton College—I talked with numerous parents who were startled to discover that their child had not been attending class, had not been turning in assignments, maybe hadn’t bathed in days. The parents had expected more supervision; we had expected more personal accountability. Caught in that gap was a student about to lose a semester of academic credit and thousands of dollars of wasted tuition and housing fees, often covered by loans that still had to be paid back.

Here is my advice for students and their parents—as well as my colleagues in higher education—on ways to help make sure students are ready for college...

Keep reading.

 

Bryan Caplan, The Case against Education

This is excellent.

At Amazon, Bryan Caplan, The Case against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money.

U.S. Teacher Shortage: How Bad Is It?

Well, there seems to be no shortage of purple magenta-haired woke elementary school teachers grooming children across the country, but heh, I'm sure it's a problem. I mean, with the low pay, lousy benefits, anger at bureaucratic idiot bosses, the leftist ideological takeover of the schools, and everything else FUBAR with the coronavirus pandemic and lockdown, who can blame them? 

At the New York Times, "How Bad Is the Teacher Shortage? Depends Where You Live":

Urgently needed: teachers in struggling districts, certified in math or special education. Perks: maybe a pay raise, or how about a four-day week?

The new fall semester has just begun in Mesa, Ariz., and Westwood High School is short on math teachers.

A public school that serves more than 3,000 students in the populous desert city east of Phoenix, Westwood still has three unfilled positions in that subject. The principal, Christopher Gilmore, has never started the year there with so many math positions open.

“It’s a little bit unnerving,” he said, “going into a school year knowing that we don’t have a full staff.”

Westwood, where most students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, is one of many public schools across the United States that are opening their doors with fewer teachers than they had hoped for. According to one national survey by Education Week, nearly three-fourths of principals and district officials said this summer that the number of teaching applicants was not enough to fill their open positions. Other surveys released this year have suggested that parents are deeply concerned about staffing and that many more teachers are eyeing the exits.

But while the pandemic has created an urgent search for teachers in some areas, not every district is suffering from shortages. The need for teachers is driven by a complicated interplay of demand and supply in a tight job market. Salary matters, and so does location: Well-paying suburban schools can usually attract more candidates.

If anything, experts say, the recent pandemic turmoil can be expected to worsen old inequities.

“It’s complex, and it does go back before the pandemic,” said Desiree Carver-Thomas, an analyst with the Learning Policy Institute. “Schools serving more students of color and students from low-income families bear the brunt of teacher shortages, oftentimes.”

For many years, it has also been particularly hard to find teachers for subjects like math and special education, or to fill spots at rural schools. And there has always been a dire need for more teachers of color in the United States. According to federal data collected during the school year ending in 2018, nearly 80 percent of public schoolteachers were white. Most of their students were not.

In Arizona, where starting salaries for teachers are lower than the national average, the shortages are “severe” across the board, said Justin Wing, an assistant superintendent of human resources for Mesa Public Schools, the district where Mr. Gilmore works.

“I feel like it’s been that way for probably at least 10 years,” said Mr. Wing, who is also an analyst for the Arizona School Personnel Administrators Association. But this year, he added, seems even worse.

He attributes the problem in part to low pay, and he has watched districts in neighboring states, like Texas and Nevada, rub salt in the wound by advertising their teaching salaries on social media and on billboards along Arizona highways.

According to Mr. Wing’s data from the last school year, nearly four-fifths of teaching positions (measured in terms of full-time equivalencies) in Arizona schools had to be covered in less-than-ideal ways — by support staff, for example, or teachers in training.

And nearly one-third of positions remained vacant altogether, which often meant that existing teachers had to take on more classes.

The challenge for struggling districts is to cover positions in a way that not only fills seats but also serves students, said Tequilla Brownie, the chief executive of TNTP, a nonprofit that provides consulting services for districts on staffing and student achievement.

“Everybody right now is just talking about, frankly, warm bodies,” she said. “The quality of teachers still matters. You never will get to quality if you don’t get to quantity first.”

Over the past two years, several states including New Mexico, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi have tried to address or pre-empt shortages by raising teacher salaries.

Others have loosened certification requirements. In Arizona, a new law makes it easier for aspiring teachers without bachelor’s degrees to gain work experience in the classroom. In Florida, where state officials last year reported more than 4,000 teacher vacancies, some military veterans can be granted temporary teaching certificates.

And in some rural districts, where raises may be out of reach, school officials are putting entire school days on the chopping block.

In Missouri, where teachers receive among the lowest salaries on average in the country, John Downs, the superintendent of the rural Hallsville School District, said that the pool of qualified applicants has all but dried up in recent years. A few days before the start of the school year, positions in speech language pathology and math were still unfilled.

This year, Hallsville schools are trying to entice educators with a four-day workweek. “We’re competing against more affluent districts who can offer more lucrative salary benefit packages,” Mr. Downs said. “So we decided we needed to think outside of the box.”

Hallsville is not alone. In Missouri, 25 percent of all districts will be on a four-day schedule this fall. The condensed week is common in New Mexico, Colorado, Oregon, Idaho and South Dakota, and is beginning to emerge in other states like Texas...

Still more.