Doss Elementary School and Bowie High School received a lot of scrutiny last week, both brought to national attention by Twitter’s LibsofTikTok. Through AISD employee Twitter (post after post after post after post), we saw that Doss Elementary employees are more enthusiastic about Pride Week than a bachelorette party at Ausin’s old Oilcan Harry’s. (“YOLO, […]
Month: March 2022
AISD Pride Week: The Intersection of Svengali, Jim Jones, and Mao
During Austin ISD’s week-long celebration of Pride Week, one of the high schools scheduled time for painting nails while watching the TV show Queer Eye. Some Twitter users responded that this activity was just painting nails. No big deal. Eye roll. But it is a big deal. And here’s why. The issue isn’t whether a […]
AISD Pride Week: Queer, queering, queered
For Austin ISD’s Pride Week celebrations, in 3rd-grade classrooms, the lesson plans include reading the book Julián Is a Mermaid. It’s a book with lovely illustrations about an imaginative boy and his supportive grandmother. What’s the big deal? Well, if that were the sum total of the story & the sum total of the message, […]
AISD Pride Week, Part 2: Violating Boundaries
Unbelievable: next week, teachers and administrators will be celebrating Pride Week with kids. Teachers and administrators in Austin ISD think that it’s their role to discuss sex and gender with children. Really, all of our spidey senses should be screaming. A Quick Framing of the Issue When I was a young teacher in an elementary […]
AISD Pride Week, Part 1: Profoundly Broken Priorities
Most kids in AISD can’t read. AISD is failing our Austin children. Look at this chart and weep. It shows third-grade reading proficiency in each AISD elementary school. (Each green circle represents an elementary school. For comparison sake, each blue triangle represents an elementary school in Eanes ISD, a wealthy neighboring district. The underlying data […]
AISD: Lies, Damn Lies, Pamphlets, and CRT
A Social and Emotional (SEL) teacher in Austin ISD proudly tweeted this picture yesterday. It’s a pamphlet made by some middle-school students to teach their peers about Equal Pay Day. Sadly, the kids have been taught a lie. And it only takes one question to expose the lie: Look at the groups of women listed. […]
AISD: A 2022 Retrospective on Masking
On March 2, 2022, the Austin ISD Board of Trustees finally voted to end their mask mandate. Their decision was made months after similar decisions in other local school districts. As we move away from masking in AISD, let’s take a look back at the absurdity that’s taken place in the district in the last […]