Board of Education Issues
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The Republican Board of Education Candidates, if elected, will:
We will achieve these objectives by taking the actions detailed below. |
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Promote Student Unity
Racism, sexism, and other biases that divide people have a long history of causing strife in our nation. While we have come a long way, and may always have work remaining, a major current threat to progress in this area is critical theory. While critical race theory (CRT) is currently the most well-known, all such critical theories first start by dividing Americans into oppressors and oppressed, and then arguing that only a power struggle will resolve it.
We reject this unconditionally.
Such a position is not only wrong, it actively increases the divide among people in the United States. Because much of this focus involves unfounded accusations of police behavior, it also spreads mistrust of police, which is increasing crime in cities across America—and the damage is extending into the classroom, where legitimate teacher authority and proper academic expectations are being displaced by a sense of entitlement and excuses for failure in school.
Instead of this policy of division, we will focus on the traits that we can all have in common and that help us succeed together—being able to take care of yourself and your family, being a person of integrity, showing up on time and taking pride in your work, and being the best version of yourself every day. These goals are intrinsically valuable—as well as quintessentially American—and prepare the students of Windsor schools to be ready for life.
We will seek to contain the divisive power struggle being created by critical race theory and other critical theories, and will instead promote intrinsic value theory in the school curriculum, so that we can come together as Americans and as a human race.
We reject this unconditionally.
Such a position is not only wrong, it actively increases the divide among people in the United States. Because much of this focus involves unfounded accusations of police behavior, it also spreads mistrust of police, which is increasing crime in cities across America—and the damage is extending into the classroom, where legitimate teacher authority and proper academic expectations are being displaced by a sense of entitlement and excuses for failure in school.
Instead of this policy of division, we will focus on the traits that we can all have in common and that help us succeed together—being able to take care of yourself and your family, being a person of integrity, showing up on time and taking pride in your work, and being the best version of yourself every day. These goals are intrinsically valuable—as well as quintessentially American—and prepare the students of Windsor schools to be ready for life.
We will seek to contain the divisive power struggle being created by critical race theory and other critical theories, and will instead promote intrinsic value theory in the school curriculum, so that we can come together as Americans and as a human race.
Train Students for Economic Self-Sufficiency
Every Windsor High School graduate should have the habit of performing hard work, a competitive spirit, a strong sense of personal responsibility to accomplish assignments. They should have a willingness to learn as they go along that enables them to get and keep a job, or to study successfully for a vocational skill or a profession. These mental work habits and skills can be instilled in school by having demanding coursework with significant work assignments that are objectively evaluated by teachers to determine promotion and grades throughout the school career.
At the high school level, courses should emphasize basic academic skills: literacy and clear writing skills, logical thought, STEM (science, technology, engineering and math), vocational technical skills including music and art, and business skills.
Future jobs will place much less emphasis on physical abilities than currently, and much more emphasis on knowledge and thinking skills, especially STEM jobs. Jobs will also be increasingly competitive internationally, due to the continued flattening of the global economy and pervasive remote-work capabilities. American students must therefore learn to compete with foreign students who have developed very strong study skills by being educated in systems that depend on competitive examinations, in systems that do not waste student time on irrational ideological fads and subjective "socializing experiences". Most future jobs will rely on the ability to understand and write software, to read, remember and deal with technical and financial material, to use mathematics to analyze data, and to write clearly and logically.
Academics in school should impart all such knowledge and thinking skills. But in the United States over the last several decades, under the influence of educational programs with minimal evidence of efficacy, less and less has been required of basic knowledge and thinking skills, and more and more on vaguely defined subjective and emotional socializing experiences. The Republican Board of Education candidates will emphasize the acquisition of objective knowledge and rational thinking skills, which will help students become valuable productive citizens, capable of contributing valuable services to society because of their skills.
We will emphasize the understanding of the basic concepts of the sciences, literacy and writing, logical thought, history and social sciences, leaving the involvement in current political and social fads for their adult years, when they have the maturity to judge them. Teaching political activism in collectivist ideologies, very common today, actually teaches fallacious thinking methods that will be harmful to student abilities to deal with their lives.
All students graduating should also understand the value of regular saving and investment toward their long-term financial independence. They should understand that to be economically successful, they should avoid debt for consumer products, and that they should first have a job that pays well enough to easily afford a consumer item while still able to save and invest a significant portion of their income. They should understand that deferring the gratification of consumption until they can easily afford a consumer product will secure their economic security and independence in the future. In choosing a college, students should avoid choosing courses of studies that do not prepare them for skills that pay well, or that result in a burdensome debt compared to their expected wages.
The values of hard work and productive competition can be developed through requiring rigorous minimum performance for promotion, respect for teacher authority, instructing students with other students who have comparable levels of understanding and performance, and then increasing the pace and difficulty until it challenges their abilities to the utmost.
The elementary, middle and high school levels are not a place for political, ideological, or sociological activism. Students at these levels have far too little knowledge or experience in analysis by which to judge the validity of such movements. The administration and teachers should refrain from imposing their own political and ideological biases in these areas onto the students. It is unprofessional, and an abuse of their positions. They should explain the nature of these movements objectively in the appropriate courses. Teachers who have never taken the time to investigate opposing views seriously are in no position to teach about ideological positions. Training students to think requires an objective presentation of the opposing views.
At the high school level, courses should emphasize basic academic skills: literacy and clear writing skills, logical thought, STEM (science, technology, engineering and math), vocational technical skills including music and art, and business skills.
Future jobs will place much less emphasis on physical abilities than currently, and much more emphasis on knowledge and thinking skills, especially STEM jobs. Jobs will also be increasingly competitive internationally, due to the continued flattening of the global economy and pervasive remote-work capabilities. American students must therefore learn to compete with foreign students who have developed very strong study skills by being educated in systems that depend on competitive examinations, in systems that do not waste student time on irrational ideological fads and subjective "socializing experiences". Most future jobs will rely on the ability to understand and write software, to read, remember and deal with technical and financial material, to use mathematics to analyze data, and to write clearly and logically.
Academics in school should impart all such knowledge and thinking skills. But in the United States over the last several decades, under the influence of educational programs with minimal evidence of efficacy, less and less has been required of basic knowledge and thinking skills, and more and more on vaguely defined subjective and emotional socializing experiences. The Republican Board of Education candidates will emphasize the acquisition of objective knowledge and rational thinking skills, which will help students become valuable productive citizens, capable of contributing valuable services to society because of their skills.
We will emphasize the understanding of the basic concepts of the sciences, literacy and writing, logical thought, history and social sciences, leaving the involvement in current political and social fads for their adult years, when they have the maturity to judge them. Teaching political activism in collectivist ideologies, very common today, actually teaches fallacious thinking methods that will be harmful to student abilities to deal with their lives.
All students graduating should also understand the value of regular saving and investment toward their long-term financial independence. They should understand that to be economically successful, they should avoid debt for consumer products, and that they should first have a job that pays well enough to easily afford a consumer item while still able to save and invest a significant portion of their income. They should understand that deferring the gratification of consumption until they can easily afford a consumer product will secure their economic security and independence in the future. In choosing a college, students should avoid choosing courses of studies that do not prepare them for skills that pay well, or that result in a burdensome debt compared to their expected wages.
The values of hard work and productive competition can be developed through requiring rigorous minimum performance for promotion, respect for teacher authority, instructing students with other students who have comparable levels of understanding and performance, and then increasing the pace and difficulty until it challenges their abilities to the utmost.
The elementary, middle and high school levels are not a place for political, ideological, or sociological activism. Students at these levels have far too little knowledge or experience in analysis by which to judge the validity of such movements. The administration and teachers should refrain from imposing their own political and ideological biases in these areas onto the students. It is unprofessional, and an abuse of their positions. They should explain the nature of these movements objectively in the appropriate courses. Teachers who have never taken the time to investigate opposing views seriously are in no position to teach about ideological positions. Training students to think requires an objective presentation of the opposing views.
Give Teachers Authority for Discipline and Grading
Students learn much better when they respect the authority of the teacher in matters of behavior and in the evaluation of their work, including their promotion. Overriding that judgement by others—administrators or parents—undermines student respect for the teacher. It in fact it empowers many students to misbehave, disrupting teaching.
Making the teacher go through complex and time-consuming procedures to be able to make a disciplinary referral to the administration discourages teachers from making disciplinary referrals. This allows a lot of bad behavior to go unchecked, leading to disruptions. Therefore, we propose that procedures for teachers’ disciplinary referrals by teachers should be very simple, as well as properly respected by the administrators.
To become successful adult workers, professionals, and managers, all students need to learn to attend to the work at hand and to be respectful and orderly in the workplace. No one who is disorderly and disrespectful will be able to hold a job and be productive. A person’s habit of being helpful and responsible at work is strongly influenced by how well-behaved and responsible he or she was as a student.
The teacher is the one who should have the authority on in-class infractions, as opposed to an administrator or principal, because the teacher is usually the adult who observed the behavioral infraction. Of course, if the teacher prefers to defer to an administrator, that should be their choice. And administrators who observe infractions should be the judge of disciplinary consequences, as should all adults in the school system.
Furthermore, complicated disciplinary programs which have no negative consequences, but only positive rewards for normal or “good” behavior, undermine teacher authority and promote disruptive behaviors. Windsor has had several of these disciplinary programs over the decades, with no success. They needlessly take up teacher time.
For students to become productive and responsible adults, they also need to have their performance objectively evaluated. This must be done by the teacher who knows and can judge the students’ performance. If students are automatically promoted throughout elementary school and middle school, and if the administrators at the high school pressure the teachers to pass students, then poor performing students do not acquire the responsibility to be productive adults. Therefore teachers should have the authority and responsibility to give real letter grades to students, including a failing grade, even at the elementary level.
Making the teacher go through complex and time-consuming procedures to be able to make a disciplinary referral to the administration discourages teachers from making disciplinary referrals. This allows a lot of bad behavior to go unchecked, leading to disruptions. Therefore, we propose that procedures for teachers’ disciplinary referrals by teachers should be very simple, as well as properly respected by the administrators.
To become successful adult workers, professionals, and managers, all students need to learn to attend to the work at hand and to be respectful and orderly in the workplace. No one who is disorderly and disrespectful will be able to hold a job and be productive. A person’s habit of being helpful and responsible at work is strongly influenced by how well-behaved and responsible he or she was as a student.
The teacher is the one who should have the authority on in-class infractions, as opposed to an administrator or principal, because the teacher is usually the adult who observed the behavioral infraction. Of course, if the teacher prefers to defer to an administrator, that should be their choice. And administrators who observe infractions should be the judge of disciplinary consequences, as should all adults in the school system.
Furthermore, complicated disciplinary programs which have no negative consequences, but only positive rewards for normal or “good” behavior, undermine teacher authority and promote disruptive behaviors. Windsor has had several of these disciplinary programs over the decades, with no success. They needlessly take up teacher time.
For students to become productive and responsible adults, they also need to have their performance objectively evaluated. This must be done by the teacher who knows and can judge the students’ performance. If students are automatically promoted throughout elementary school and middle school, and if the administrators at the high school pressure the teachers to pass students, then poor performing students do not acquire the responsibility to be productive adults. Therefore teachers should have the authority and responsibility to give real letter grades to students, including a failing grade, even at the elementary level.
Increase School District Performance
For several years now, Windsor has been classified as an "Alliance District", meaning we have one of the 33 worst performing districts in the state, out of a total of 196 districts. It has improved slightly in recent years, but remains a very low performing district, among those of the lowest quarter. Windsor spends over $18,000 per student—this is lower than many of the most challenged cities in Connecticut, but it is more expensive than many of the most efficient school districts in the state. And yet for our high cost, Windsor continues to perform poorly.
We will pass policies that will rapidly and significantly increase student performance, moving Windsor’s average performance to the upper quarter of Connecticut’s districts. Those policies will also work to move Windsor to the more cost-effective end of the list of 196 school districts in Connecticut.
To increase effectiveness of instruction we will require that all students receive instruction that challenges them all day long, without overwhelming them. The current organization of elementary and middle school students wastes most of students’ time by grouping them for social reasons of classes—by how different their instructional needs are. Their instruction is consequently either unleveled and poorly matches their instructional needs, or the students are broken up into smaller groups within the classes, with each group instructed separately by the teacher. Either way, the students lose either time on task or their instruction is not focused to their needs.
We will assure that students are fully challenged to their individual utmost at all times, but without being overwhelmed. To give parents (and students) a clear and succinct understanding of how the children are progressing overall in a subject, and to motivate the students to do better, we will advocate standard A through F letter grading in the elementary schools , based on actual material taught, rather than the current progress reports that have little meaning to either parents or students and provide no overall evaluation of their progress in a subject.
We will work to ensure students are only promoted to the next grade level when they achieve the proper mastery of the subjects. Promoting students who are not ready, or attempting to catch them up in summer programs, is not effective and sets them up for failure as they struggle to catch up in the years to come. We will give much more authority to teachers to maintain discipline during class times—students simply cannot learn in a class where there is not the proper opportunity to focus.
We will pass policies that will rapidly and significantly increase student performance, moving Windsor’s average performance to the upper quarter of Connecticut’s districts. Those policies will also work to move Windsor to the more cost-effective end of the list of 196 school districts in Connecticut.
To increase effectiveness of instruction we will require that all students receive instruction that challenges them all day long, without overwhelming them. The current organization of elementary and middle school students wastes most of students’ time by grouping them for social reasons of classes—by how different their instructional needs are. Their instruction is consequently either unleveled and poorly matches their instructional needs, or the students are broken up into smaller groups within the classes, with each group instructed separately by the teacher. Either way, the students lose either time on task or their instruction is not focused to their needs.
We will assure that students are fully challenged to their individual utmost at all times, but without being overwhelmed. To give parents (and students) a clear and succinct understanding of how the children are progressing overall in a subject, and to motivate the students to do better, we will advocate standard A through F letter grading in the elementary schools , based on actual material taught, rather than the current progress reports that have little meaning to either parents or students and provide no overall evaluation of their progress in a subject.
We will work to ensure students are only promoted to the next grade level when they achieve the proper mastery of the subjects. Promoting students who are not ready, or attempting to catch them up in summer programs, is not effective and sets them up for failure as they struggle to catch up in the years to come. We will give much more authority to teachers to maintain discipline during class times—students simply cannot learn in a class where there is not the proper opportunity to focus.
Protect Girls' Sports
America has always had diversity as one of its strongest traits—whether it's "The great American melting pot" as observed since the 1780's, or Connecticut's motto, "From many, one". Such diversity has always required all of us to think beyond our own demographic traits and personal cultural experiences and instead walk in another's shoes.
Yet such objectives must also be tempered by accepting realities we cannot control—in this case, the dramatic differences that biology imparts on boys and girls as they participate in school sports. Throughout the country, including a major case right next door in Glastonbury, biological boys are being allowed to compete in girls' sports, if those boys self-identify as girls.
As a result, their massive biological advantage is causing them to dominate girls sports—and take the top scholarships that should be going to the biological girls. To take scholarships away from girls, who have worked hard all their young lives, by putting them up against biological boys, who can beat girls while barely trying, is so shockingly unfair as to defy words. We will not let this happen in Windsor.
Yet such objectives must also be tempered by accepting realities we cannot control—in this case, the dramatic differences that biology imparts on boys and girls as they participate in school sports. Throughout the country, including a major case right next door in Glastonbury, biological boys are being allowed to compete in girls' sports, if those boys self-identify as girls.
As a result, their massive biological advantage is causing them to dominate girls sports—and take the top scholarships that should be going to the biological girls. To take scholarships away from girls, who have worked hard all their young lives, by putting them up against biological boys, who can beat girls while barely trying, is so shockingly unfair as to defy words. We will not let this happen in Windsor.
Respond Rationally to COVID-19
America is the home of the brave. But the political leaders in our nation, state, and town have failed to tap into this tradition of courage by instead promoting fear in the face of the world pandemic, including in our schools here in Windsor. Prudent measures were necessary—and have been very successful, such as moving to remote learning, and having aggressive cleaning protocols in our schools. But as the effects of the disease continue to propagate around the world for years to come, our focus needs to shift to taping into our uniquely American courage to move forward in a more reasonable manner.
Thankfully, children are far less impacted by the disease—yet we continue to constrain them more than any other group in society. We believe the school system should impose the least amount of restriction possible and give as much control as possible to the parents. Masks have been shown to be of limited use, yet we make children wear them in school all day—we will work to turn this decision over to the parents.
Many Americans continue to believe that the only way to know the long-term impact of any vaccine is to monitor it over a long term, so they want to make the personal choice to wait and see, both for themselves and their children—we will work to create policies that align to this decision.
As the CDC continues to err on the more restrictive side of the range of possible actions, we will ensure that Windsor schools err on the side of letting parents make the decisions they feel are best for their children.
Thankfully, children are far less impacted by the disease—yet we continue to constrain them more than any other group in society. We believe the school system should impose the least amount of restriction possible and give as much control as possible to the parents. Masks have been shown to be of limited use, yet we make children wear them in school all day—we will work to turn this decision over to the parents.
Many Americans continue to believe that the only way to know the long-term impact of any vaccine is to monitor it over a long term, so they want to make the personal choice to wait and see, both for themselves and their children—we will work to create policies that align to this decision.
As the CDC continues to err on the more restrictive side of the range of possible actions, we will ensure that Windsor schools err on the side of letting parents make the decisions they feel are best for their children.
All references to parents also include legal guardians of course.
See Also
Paid for by the Windsor Republican Town Committee, James Durant, Treasurer.
