Four Washington Colleges Under Scrutiny
More Dismal News on the Education Front
Washington Colleges Face Scrutiny Due to Pro-Hamas Activists
Four colleges in Washington state are being reviewed by the U.S. Department of Education for violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, the Kitsap Sun reports.
The four schools are the University of Washington, Eastern Washington University, Pacific Lutheran University, and Whitman College.
Letters from the Department of Education warn the schools that they face potential enforcement action if they continue to allow Jewish students to be threatened and harassed on campus.
On February 3, the Department of Education sent out a press release announcing the investigation into 5 universities where “widespread anti-Semitic harassment has been reported.” Those schools are: Columbia University, Northwestern University, Portland State University, The University of California, Berkeley, The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.
Investigations conducted by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce determined that college leadership not only failed to protect Jewish students, but they allowed the pro-Hamas disruptive protests, harassment, and encampments to continue without interference or discipline.
Columbia University has been penalized with a loss of $400 million in federal grants and contracts due to their incompetence as it relates to the protection of Jewish students and their inability to control the radical activists on campus.
A subsequent press release on March 10 announced the investigation expansion to 60 universities including the four located in Washington state.
The University of Washington has already announced a hiring freeze of non-essential staff and faculty. The University is also working on other cost cutting measures in anticipation of the loss of funding, The Post Millennial reports. Approximately $1.37 billion of federal funding is at risk.
The Anti-Defamation League’s Campus Antisemitism Report Card gives University of Washington a “D” for deficient in their approach to managing anti-Semitic activities on campus. Campus conduct and climate concerns are rated as “high” meaning that the level of hostile anti-Zionist student government activity, the level of hostile anti-Zionist student groups, as well as anti-Zionist staff and faculty are all high.
The campus has experienced vandalism, anti-Zionist graffiti, and protesters regularly interrupt Jewish speakers. The campus allowed an anti-Israel encampment. Campus leadership entered into negotiations with protesters and eventually agreed to their divestment requests.
The Trump administration is moving quickly to respond to the discrimination complaints lodged by Jewish students at campuses across the country. It was discovered that there was an existing backlog of complaints from the Biden administration. Complaints were allowed to “languish unresolved” under Democrat leadership.
The Cost of Defiance
The budget deficit in Washington may be getting bigger if federal dollars are lost due to the state’s non-compliance with the Trump administration KFLD reports.
The state of Washington has set itself up to defy directives from the federal government in several areas. Some of the most significant impacts may be felt in law enforcement and education.
Elected officials in Olympia have set themselves up in opposition to the federal directives in immigration, DEI programs, and Title IX rules governing girls’ sports and access to bathrooms and locker rooms.
Western Washington could lose $8 million intended for law enforcement and Eastern Washington stands to lose nearly $2.5 million.
The state education system collects nearly $2,500 per student from the federal government. That state takes $5,000 per student for post-secondary education.
Federal funds are in jeopardy while the state flaunts defiance.
Illegal Street Racing Presents Safety Problem in the Tri-Cities
The Kennewick Police Department has asked the community to report illegal street racing when they see it happening, Apple Valley News reports. Whenever possible, it is helpful to provide the police with license plate numbers to help them find the offenders.
KDP officers have been dealing with numerous incidents around the city causing hazardous conditions for the entire community. Clearwater Avenue and the Bob Olson Parkway have been identified as particularly dangerous.
At the end of February Pasco Police arrested two people after a night of street racing, NBC reported. Two vehicles were racing on 14th and Court Street. Both drivers were arrested on multiple charges including reckless driving charges.
Street racing has also become a problem in Richland neighborhoods. On March 1, several residents in the South Richland area were disturbed by the loud noise of street racing.
Richland City Councilmember Ryan Whitten explained the difficulty that law enforcement has dealing with multiple racing events in addition to other illegal activities.
“Not only do the police have to find the street racers inside their respective jurisdiction, but they also have to respond to all sorts of other calls that can strain their manpower resources.”
Whitten expects the street racing to continue due to the challenges the police departments face.
“We would all like the street racers caught but I think we can agree that someone calling 911 for a domestic disturbance or potential burglary would take a higher priority.”
Efforts at the state level to combat street racing include HB 1423, “authorizing the use of automated vehicle noise enforcement cameras in vehicle-racing camera enforcement zones.”
Representative Brandy Donaghy (D-Snohomish) introduced HB 1423 due to the hazardous conditions that racing causes. Donaghy says that racing endangers other innocent drivers who happen to be on the road and even pedestrians are at risk.
“Very often the cars that are used in street racing are modified,” Donaghy says in a YouTube video. “It’s a dangerous situation when racers hit the road. There are often accidents and people can die.”
Involvement from the State Legislature, the Washington State Patrol, and the County Sheriff can all help get this problem under control.
“Richland's police force is dedicated to keeping residents as safe as possible, but they can only do so much,” Whitten said.
(Note: Ryan Whitten’s opinion is his own and not official communication from the city of Richland.)
Disney Steps into the Light
Christians are celebrating Disney’s recent apparent move away from the woke agenda, Blaze Media reports. For the first time in almost 30 years Disney is creating an animated series that will include a Christian.
In the movie, the little girl, Laurie, prays and asks God for help. Originally, the story included a transgender child and followed a transgender storyline where the child discusses her gender identity. That segment was removed, although the character is still included in the show.
Disney, along with other entertainment companies have made a shift since the election of President Trump, the Wall Street Journal reports. More shows allow a conservative theme or dialogue that reflects conservative ideas.
“The embrace of right-leaning programming is a stark contrast to much of the past few decades in Hollywood,” Joe Flint writes for WSJ. “Producers have long used their shows to take aim at Conservative politics.”
Hollywood and other entertainment companies are moving away from diversity, equity, and inclusion in their business practices. Disney, Warner Brothers, Discovery and Paramount have all said that they are cutting back on DEI initiatives. They are shifting from a constant stream of “woke” programming to a less radical line-up.
It could be that the industry has seen the light, or it could be that they are concerned about their bottom line.
In March, Disney announced layoffs. They plan to cut 6 percent of staff from several divisions. Conservatives have other options with so many streaming services and they have been more assertive about taking their entertainment dollars elsewhere in recent years.
Thanks to the Trump agenda and the conservative economic impact, mainstream entertainment may become tolerable again.
American Education Continues to Decline
By Eileen Griffin-Ray
Students in American public schools are failing and falling even further behind.
Test scores continue to fall and student competency continues to disappoint, USA Today reports. Math skills are not meeting grade level competencies. Fourth and eighth graders’ literacy skills dropped again. Many students are not at grade level in either math or reading.
“New national test scores show a bleak picture of American education in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic,” writes Kayla Jimenez for USA Today.
The Nation’s Report Card documented a 2-point decline in average reading scores from 2022 to 2024 for both 4th and 8th grade students. This is in addition to the 3-point decline from 2019-2022.
“Across a wide range of national and international tests, grade levels and subject areas, American achievement scores peaked about a decade ago and have been falling ever since,” writes Chad Aldeman for The 74.
Students are also missing foundational understanding of US history and civics, the American Enterprise Institute reported in 2023.
“US history and civics are important subjects for students to know heading into high school and it is disheartening to see students’ grasp of them fall precipitously,” AEI Senior Fellow and Deputy Director of Education Policy Studies, Nat Malkus wrote.
“The latest rounds of NAEP scores are variations on a theme: students are academically worse off now than any time in the past 20 years,” Malkus wrote.
The dismal test scores and declining student achievement should not be surprising given the organizational structure of public schools, the Discovery Institute’s American Center for Transforming Education says.
Public schools are missing key elements that are critical for success in any organization, Senior Fellow and Chairman for the American Center for Transforming Education, Donald Nielsen, states.
Government-run schools are not merit-based systems. Employees are almost entirely unionized so they are protected in ways that private sectors non-union employees are not. They are not held to an ongoing level of expectation and results typical of private sector workers.
The path to becoming a teacher limits career-changers or people who might otherwise be drawn to a teaching position later in life. Once hired, however, unions protect even poor performing teachers, often retaining those who continue to fail students year after year.
Teachers then become principals and superintendents. It is almost impossible for someone outside the system to become a principal of a school without having first been a teacher. That limits the recruitment potential for other accomplished leaders.
Government-run schools are not held accountable for profit or efficiency.
“Though evaluations are regularly done, failing schools continue to operate, and poor teachers and principals continue to be employed. Consequently, performance fails to improve, and costs continue to rise,” Nielsen wrote.
Public schools do not seek to innovate or explore new ideas, Nielsen reports. The system is built for “all” students and teachers have no choice but to teach to the mediocre middle. The structure and daily operation of most public schools has changed little in decades.
Private schools cater to parents while public schools cater to unions, according to educational freedom advocate, Rebecca Friedrichs. The education system is largely at the mercy of the teachers’ unions who have proven to be less interested in children or teachers than they are in politics and political power.
Public schools are closed systems with set structures that perpetuate themselves. It would take a major overhaul and significant organizational and cultural change to dramatically improve student outcomes.
The Trump administration is attempting to begin this overhaul process by reducing the centralized bureaucracy and moving decision-making to local authorities, including school board members, teachers, and parents.
There is hope that with local control, school board members will have the autonomy to serve the students in their communities as they see fit. Some teachers and administrators will welcome the opportunity to work more closely with parents as well.
This may not happen quickly, particularly in places like Washington state where centralized control in Olympia is growing and local control is diminished.
In the meantime, the school choice movement and surge in the homeschooling shows that parents are seeking their own solutions rather than hoping for dramatic improvements in the public school system.
A Few Good Quotes on Education
Benjamin Franklin: “The only thing more expensive than education is ignorance.”
Ronald Regan: “Advocates of more and more government interference in education have had ample time to make their case, and they've failed. Look at the record. Federal spending on education soared eightfold in the last 20 years, rising much faster than inflation. But during the same period, scholastic aptitude test scores went down, down, and down.”
Mark Levin: “The American Dream is not about handouts and entitlements; it is about hard work, personal responsibility, and the opportunity to succeed.”
Very interesting reading. Thank you for your work.