Casey Smith, writing for the Indiana Capital Chronicle, reports on the last minute amendment to HB 1447 in the waning hours of session to combat the non-existent “problem” of obscenity in school libraries. There just isn’t a scourge of obscene material floating around our school libraries. The idea that we need to adopt a law creating a procedure to deal with obscenity in school libraries is one of those “the question is an accusation” kind of dynamics. “They wouldn’t need a process if there wasn’t a significant problem would they?”

The language slipped into the bill requires a school to have a process to handle complaints by a parent or community member requesting that a school library remove material that is obscene or is harmful to minors under the respective statutory definitions for each. “Harmful to minors” largely tracks the obscenity language but is slightly broader, so I’ll quote it here:

A matter or performance is harmful to minors for purposes of this article if:

(1) it describes or represents, in any form, nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, or sado-masochistic abuse;

(2) considered as a whole, it appeals to the prurient interest in sex of minors;

(3) it is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole with respect to what is suitable matter for or performance before minors; and

(4) considered as a whole, it lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.

It’s good that the new language limits the complaint process to community members or parents of students. It’s also good that the standard is basically an obscenity standard rather than merely something that a person finds offensive.

But the obnoxious element is that it requires the process include a public hearing at the governing body at its next public hearing. So, it encourages grandstanding and, by setting a limited time table for the hearing, discourages deliberation.  I think my inclination would be to set up a system with a rigorous screening process that requires the person making the complaint to make an initial showing in their complaint filing that the material of which they complain meets the “harmful to minor standards.” In other words, you have to make a credible presentation showing that the material you’re complaining of meets all four of those elements necessary for something to be “harmful to minors.” If you can’t make the initial showing and you’re just complaining about non-obscene material that you happen to find offensive, then this process is not for you; and you don’t get your complaint elevated to the level of a public hearing in front of the school board.

Just thinking outside the box, I wonder if you could create some kind of opt-in mailing list of community members who want to know when someone is trying to remove materials from the library and, as part of the process, the person making the complaint has to send notice of their intention to everyone on that list so that those concerned citizens would have an opportunity to attend the hearing.

Anyway, this is another entirely unnecessary law. In this case, it seems designed to reinforce the unfounded notion that our kids are under attack by shadowy, lurking forces that would corrupt them. Maybe in the school library! (Incidentally, I was just watching a documentary on Judy Blume. People lost their damn minds about her books 50 years ago. So, history may not repeat, but it rhymes.)

Casey Smith, writing for the Indiana Capital Chronicle, has a report on the nearly final state budget’s impact on education. Some of the key take aways:

With the inclusion of people in the $154,000 – $220,000 income bracket and elimination of some other barriers, the private school subsidy is expected to increase from 53,000 students to 95,000. (Compare this to 4,500 back in 2011.) Keep in mind, vouchers do nothing to improve educational outcomes.

Although small, pilot-phase programs showed some promise two decades ago, new evaluations of vouchers in Washington, D.C., Indiana, Louisiana, and Ohio show some of the largest test score drops ever seen in the research record—between -0.15 and -0.50 standard deviations of learning loss. That’s on par with what the COVID-19 pandemic did to test scores, and larger than Hurricane Katrina’s impacts on academics in New Orleans.

While failing in its stated goals, the Indiana General Assembly’s approach to privatizing public education is accomplishing its actual goals: 1) subsidize religious education; 2) weaken teacher’s unions; and 3) redirect public money to private interests.

This is from last year, but I kept thinking about it and only had it up on Facebook. I don’t want to rely on social media for things I might want for posterity, so I’m throwing up a quick blog post. This is relevant because Pike Township in Marion County is fighting a Hillsdale charter school that Carmel successfully excluded.

Last summer, in Tennessee, video surfaced of Hillsdale’s president showing the contempt he has for teachers.  From the article:

Among Arnn’s provocative remarks:

• “The teachers are trained in the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges in the country.”
• “They are taught that they are going to go and do something to those kids…. Do they ever talk about anything except what they are going to do to these kids?”
• “In colleges, what you hire now is administrators…. Now, because they are appointing all these diversity officers, what are their degrees in? Education. It’s easy. You don’t have to know anything.”
• “The philosophic understanding at the heart of modern education is enslavement…. They’re messing with people’s children, and they feel entitled to do anything to them.”
• “You will see how education destroys generations of people. It’s devastating. It’s like the plague.”
• “Here’s a key thing that we’re going to try to do. We are going to try to demonstrate that you don’t have to be an expert to educate a child because basically anybody can do it.”

The article also said Arnn said “teachers are trained in the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges in the country.”

The “Valor” charter school trying to take root in Pike Township is a Hillsdale affiliate.

The Herald Bulletin published an editorial urging the Indiana General Assembly to stop the school voucher expansion. It notes the measures passed by the House and being considered by the Senate which would double the spending on voucher privatization of our educational system. Their main arguments: 1) it expands the program to subsidize private education for wealthy Hoosiers; and 2) claims that vouchers improve educational outcomes are thin and, at best, studies on the subject provide mixed support for that claim.

There are troubling aspects to the expansion trend.

About 90% of Indiana’s students attend public schools. About half of the 87,000 private school students use the Choice Scholarship program through which families receive vouchers. The House proposal would widen the program to all private school pupils, at an average of around $7,500 each.

Families currently qualify for the program based on income. Families of four making less than 300% of the federal poverty level, up to $154,000, can qualify.

The expansion would expand that to families of four who earn $220,000.

Folks who have followed this debate as it has occupied the General Assembly for the past two decades know that this plea is likely to fall on deaf ears. The original pretext for vouchers was that they would give “choice” to poor students in failing schools. As the policy choices of the General Assembly have revealed, that was never the true motive. That educational outcomes are the same or worse for students who use vouchers has not slowed down their expansion. Limitations requiring students to have actually attended public schools have been lifted. The availability of vouchers is not tied to whether a student is actually in a “failing” school district. And now income limitations are being obliterated.

The goals are and always have been: 1) subsidize religious education; 2) weaken teacher’s unions; and 3) re-direct public school funds to friends and well-wishers of pro-privatization policymakers.

I’ve posted part of this quote many times, but just came across Caleb Mills’ second “One of the People” addresses from 1848, and it bears quoting at length. It remains relevant:

STATE TAX TO SUPPORT SCHOOLS.

There is but one way to secure good schools, and that is to pay for them. There is but one method to induce the youth to frequent them and that is to make them what they ought to be, by such applicances of funds, as will awaken an universal interest in them. Experience has shown that this can be effectually done only by drawing a large share of the funds for their support, directly from the pockets of the people, upon the ad valorem principle of taxation. When we are required to pay a tax for the support of schools, irrespective of the question whether we have children to educate or not, then we shall attend the school meetings, take an interest in having a good school in our several districts by employing competent teachers, furnishing the children with suitable school books, comfortable and convenient school rooms, and visiting them from time to time to ascertain whether teachers and taught are doing their duty. It is vain and idle to suppose they will flourish without the appliance of that motive power of universal action, interest. In no department of human enterprise has this truth been more fully demonstrated than in Education. The best schools, both in this country and Europe, are to be found only in connection with funds raised on the principle above mentioned. Public funds are desirable only to encourage effort, not to supersede the necessity of exertion. This is evident from the character of schools in States where they are sustained almost wholly by public funds, compared with schools sustained by taxes.

Let us shut our eyes no longer to the teachings of experience. Let us have a system based on the broad and republican principle, that it is the duty of the state to furnish the means of primary education to the entire youth within her bounds. Impressed with a just appreciation of the magnitude of the enterprise, the value of the interests at stake, and the obstacles to be overcome, let us not despair of success, assured that intelligent efforts, directed by kindness and perseverance can not fail of ultimate triumph. We must not be discouraged by ignorance and prejudice. To remove the one and correct the other, we need nothing but the combined influence of light and love. All, to a greater or less extent, are aiming at the same object, and they differ only as to the means. Convince the ignorant man that knowledge would increase his happiness, and give him power for good, and you make him a staunch friend of learning. Satisfy the prejudiced man, that he has only misapprehended the best means of securing his own welfare, and the happiness of his children, and you convert him into an unflinching and zealous advocate of common schools. Let us gather up the experience of the past, and bring it to bear upon the subject of popular education, and we shall find in Indiana as cordial friends to the intellectual and moral culture of the rising generation, as in any other State in the Union. Awaken the public mind, and concentrate it on the question, Am I not interested in the proper education of all that are socially and politically connected with me? The bearings of such a question have not been duly considered. It needs to be discussed and examined. We are a shrewd people where dollars and cents are concerned. Many have never taken that view of their duty, and when it has been presented to them have frankly acknowledged that they have never thought of it in that light. Does not the Farmer derive as large a percent upon what he expends in the education of his children, as from any investment he can make of his funds? Does the amount which he pays to sustain a good school for the instruction of all the children in the district or township in which he lives, never find its way back again to him in the improved character of the community for intelligence, enterprise, and morals? Is not real estate in such a community more valuable, capital more productive, and enterprise more intelligent and successful? Would not the general thrift and prosperity caused by this intellectual and moral elevation, lighten public burdens, increase social enjoyments, enhance the value of property, multiply the facilities for its acquisition, and increase the security of its possession? Such cultivation could not fail to diminish pauperism and crime, lessen poverty and suffering, throw around the gardens, orchards, and the products of the field, an inclosure that would never be passed, improve the highways, and materially increase the substantial comforts and conveniences of the house, the farm, and the implements of husbandry.

…

[Following a discussion of the principal of ad valorem taxes]

Such a plan would distribute the burdens equitably on all according to their ability to bear them, and according to the pecuniary interests affected by the intellectual and moral elevation of the great mass of the people. Is not the rich land holder interested to the full amount of his property in the moral and intellectual culture of the community in which it is located? Is not its value enhanced by the intelligence and virtue, and lessened by the ignorance and vice of the surrounding neighborhood? Is not the merchant also interested to the full amount of his stock in trade, in the enterprise, intelligence and integrity of the community in which he does business? Would he find so large a share of his profits engulfed in the whirlpool of bad debts, if the people were honest and industrious? Can the manufacturer invest his capital with equal security and hope of success among an ignorant and vicious people that he could in an intelligent and virtuous community? Would a railroad or a telegraph running through a region, whose inhabitants, induced by designing men to believe that such monopolies were hostile to their interests, should obstruct the cars, remove the rails, or cut the wires, be as productive, or the market value of its stock be as high, as it would be, if such an improvement was situated in a section of the country distinguished for its provision for the education of the whole rising generation without distinction?

Then the rich will have no occasion to complain of the burden of a two mill tax, when they consider that their property is not only affected in its value by the character of the immediate community in which it is located, but also by the legislation of the State, where it is vested. It is evident that the vote of a wise man and a sound statesman, will count no more than that given by an ignorant, selfish demagogue. Can it be reasonably expected that the representatives of an ignorant county will be as intelligent and competent to enact wise and judicious laws, or take as enlarged and liberal views of the real interests of the commonwealth, as those chosen by a more intelligent constituency? Their honesty and patriotism may be equal, but their legislative competency may justly be questioned. If this be a sound and correct conclusion, then the man of wealth will find no better investment for the small portion of his funds, which such a law would require, than the object contemplated by the passage of such a bill. His property, as far as affected by legislation, is just as much in the power of the representative of a constituency, one third of whom can neither read nor write, as it is in that of the man who has the honor to represent “Old Wayne,” and who may well be proud of the fact that of his 9349 adult constituency in 1840, only forty-four were unable to read.

Pass such a law, and it would immediately remove two of the most formidable obstacles to the prosperity of our schools—the want of adequate funds, and a proper degree of interest in the school by the great mass of the people.”

All six of Mills’ “One of the People” messages are available here.

So, yesterday, I had a post talking about the Indiana General Assembly’s requirement that schools expressly designate their teams as male, female, or co-ed; prohibiting people born biologically male from participating on teams designated as female regardless of that person’s gender; and requiring a grievance procedure. I later updated the post to reflect that IPS is under an injunction preventing it from complying with the statutory requirement because the Southern District of Indiana has ruled that doing so would likely violate a student’s Title IX rights. (My present — not thoroughly researched — view is that, until the Seventh Circuit finishes its review of the District Court opinion, schools are in a bit of a pick-your-poison situation.)

Not that anyone asked, but what’s my personal view on transgender athlete participation in sports consistent with the athlete’s gender? Don’t the physical effects of testosterone give an advantage to a person born biologically male who is gendered female? (And, my apologies if I’m getting the language wrong here. The discussions around this subject have been fluid, and I’m sure I haven’t kept up.) Isn’t that unfair to the girls born biologically female who didn’t have as much testosterone dumping into their body?

Maybe.

But: a) I think the concern is more theoretical than real; b) In this context, I care a lot more about the rank and file athletes than the tippy-top elite athletes; and c) This would be just one more accident of birth that contributes to athletic ability. Ultimately, I think the costs of excluding transgender athletes outweigh the benefits.

My perspective is that of an average athlete with step-brothers and, for that matter, a step-family who are insanely good athletes. Growing up, I wasn’t exactly bad at sports. I was too skinny, but I had good reflexes and, as I got older, decent coordination. However, my step-dad and his sons were really, really good at sports. I also went to a big high school where only the really good athletes made varsity. So, by comparison, I thought I wasn’t very good. But I liked playing. I still remember first grade, Charles Elementary School, always last picked at kickball. Then one day I caught a kicked ball and got the player out. Brant, one of the very athletic kids, gave me a high five, and I don’t recall being picked last after that. It was glorious. Also, being skinny and having good reflexes made me a pretty fair dodge ball player. I still remember a pretty inspired set of dodges during gym in Mrs. Busick’s fifth grade class … but I digress.

When I became a father, my kids were in a similar position athletically, and we played a lot of rec soccer over the years. We didn’t travel, and they didn’t play varsity. All of this is to say that, when I think sports, I’m thinking more of the mid-level athletes. The junior varsity. The support players. The teams who never win sectionals. The people who find value in sports even if they aren’t grand-champions of the world. Sports are about team, camaraderie, competition, working toward a goal, discipline, joyful movement, anticipation of an outcome, the thrill of success, coping with defeat, and a lot more.

So, in that context, how much good are we doing by excluding a person from competing with members of their own gender due an accident of them being born with a biology inconsistent with that gender? And I know this just sounds like so much mealy-mouthed bullshit to people who think that if you’re born with a penis you’re a male and if you’re born without one, you’re a female, and that’s that. I know because there was a time when I thought like that. Turns out life is more complicated.

I think we’re doing more harm than good. First of all, I think the number of people born biologically male and compete for championships in female sports is going to be a very, very small number. Certainly not a big enough number to justify the moral panic on the issue. The idea that cisgender boys are going to pretend to be girls in order to win championships in girls’ sports strikes me as far fetched. And if we’re not talking about championships; if we’re talking about routine day-to-day competition, I think any biological advantages from testosterone or whatnot is going to be just one of a lot of biological accidents that contribute to athletic success. Even among people born biologically female, there is going to be a difference in testosterone, height, speed, strength and so forth that aren’t governed by “merit” like hard work, training, and studying the sport. Short girls who want to play volleyball still have to deal with the fact that some girls have tall parents, become tall themselves, and end up with an athletic advantage.

My personal experience with transgender kids isn’t extensive or necessarily drawn from a representative sample, but — not to put too fine a point on it, most of the kids I know who fit in this category don’t strike me as gifted athletes.  They’re going to get waxed by most of the other kids who play against them regardless of gender. So, if they want to play sports, what are we gaining by excluding them from athletic teams consistent with their gender? Nothing. We’re doing very real harm. Maybe we’re doing it in service of excluding those transgender kids who are gifted athletes, but like I said, that’s going to be a small number (because overall, transgender or not, the number of gifted athletes is limited.) And I don’t know that, in most cases, the advantages conveyed by having more testosterone at birth are different in principle from other accidents of birth, not related to one’s sex, that contribute athletic advantages.

So, there you have my two cents.