Tag: Becky Pringle

Elite Colleges Reconsidering SAT Score Requirements

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Several elite universities are considering reversing recent decisions to reduce or even eliminate requirements for application that include standardized test scores such as the SAT exams.

According to Axios, multiple colleges used the Chinese Coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to weaken the importance of SAT and ACT test scores in most student applications. But in recent weeks, several schools have reversed course; Yale is considering repealing its prior policy of making SAT/ACT requirements optional, with Dartmouth already reinstating the requirements earlier this month. MIT reversed a similar policy back in 2022.

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Documents: Teachers’ Union Played Significant Role in CDC’s Halting of Full School Reopening

Susan Berry, PhD

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and its president Randi Weingarten had significant input into the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) pandemic school reopening guidelines than was known in 2021, according to documents obtained by Americans for Public Trust (APT).

The independent watchdog organization that, according to its website, “works to restore trust in government by exposing corruption and holding the powerful accountable,” reportedly discovered in emails and records shared with The New York Post that Weingarten “spoke twice by phone with CDC Director Rochelle Walensky in the week leading up to the Feb. 12, 2021, announcement that halted full re-opening of in-person classes — including the day before the guidance was released,” The Post said.

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Teachers’ Union Bosses Sidestep Unprecedented Student Achievement Losses Linked to COVID School Closures They Demanded

Susan Berry, PhD

The heads of the nation’s largest teachers’ unions had little to say following the release Monday of national test scores that showed massive declines in student math and reading achievement following pandemic school closures the unions insisted were necessary for teacher safety.

Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association (NEA) “remained silent,” Fox News reported Monday as results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) revealed the damage tied to school closures during the COVID crisis.

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Two Studies Raise Concerns About Public School ‘Serious Violence Incidents’

The Center Square

At a time when school shootings are a concern for many Americans, serious violence incidents are also up in schools across the nation, reports two recent studies.

One study, from the National Center for Education Statistics, shows a 35% increase in serious violence incidents in K-12 public schools from the 2015-16 school year to 2019-20. Serious violence incidents include rape, attempted rape, sexual assault other than rape, threatened rape, physical attacks, fights with a weapon, threat of physical attack with a weapon, and robbery with or without a weapon.

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