Dear Commons Community,

New York City Council members slammed CUNY Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez Monday after he was unable to answer questions about the steps he is taking to fight antisemitism at the university.  As reported by the New York Daily News.

“I do think it is outrageous that when we’re having this hearing on such an important topic, that the most rudimentary questions you’ve been unable to answer,” said Councilwoman Julie Menin (D-Manhattan), part of its Jewish caucus. “It’s not enough just to show up.”

The issue has become a source of friction since last spring’s pro-Palestinian protests against the war in Gaza roiled college campuses across the city. The Council hearing came two months after the release of a high-profile report critical of current policies to combat antisemitism.

Over three hours on Monday, CUNY Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez tried to assure the Committee on Higher Education that CUNY is making progress on a number of recommendations from September by former chief judge Jonathan Lippman, including an overhauled anti-discrimination portal where students can lodge complaints.

But Council members repeatedly chided top CUNY officials for coming unprepared to answer their questions. Neither the chancellor nor his deputies were able to say how many complaints had been made since the portal’s inception, or what was the most common form of discrimination on campus.

The independent review was ordered by Gov. Hochul in the aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, as tensions boiled over on New York campuses. In the report, Lippman found CUNY’s online reporting portal was “ineffective” and “operates as a black box,” where people seldom know if their complaints are being addressed or even considered. Students echoed those concerns during the hearing, saying they have been openly targeted with harmful stereotypes or excluded because of their backgrounds.

“I know the frustration of being ignored when incidents get reported. I saw no reprimand for these actions and was left feeling invisible and unsupported by my administration,” said Maya Gavriel, a Jewish student at Baruch College, where a building was vandalized last month with the message: ‘OCT 7 IS FOREVER’ before the anniversary of Hamas’ attacks.

Adding to their concerns that little action was being taken, administrators declined to share student and staff disciplinary data. Congress made similar requests of university presidents during campus antisemitism hearings last school year, sparking tensions between college administrations and their faculty who said it violated academic freedom.

During the hearing, Matos Rodriguez announced CUNY planned to release a request for proposals later that day to improve its in-house reporting portal. The updated tool, expected to be live this summer, will provide regular updates on the statuses of complaints, he said. But the chancellor cautioned the technology is only half of the problem.

“We need additional resources to be able to have more individuals out there, investigating the complaints so that we can get back on a timely manner to our students, to our faculty and staff,” he said. “So, technology is part of the equation, but we also are going to need additional personnel to do this, no matter how effective the technology might be.”

At least one elected councilwoman seemed more keen on taking funding away. Councilwoman Inna Vernikov (R-Brooklyn), who last year brought a gun to a pro-Palestine protest at Brooklyn College, threatened to work with President-elect Trump to keep the public university system in line.

“We should be more afraid of the incoming administration that promised to defund and take away accreditation from any universities that don’t deal with antisemitism on their campuses,” Vernikov said, “and I look forward to working with that administration to highlight the issues at City University of New York.”

Over the past two years, CUNY has invested $1.3 million in campus programs to combat hate, including $550,000 provided by the Council, Matos Rodriguez said during the hearing.

Among the legislative body’s investments was an effort to scale up constructive dialogue trainings for CUNY students and faculty and staff.

The chancellor also referenced a freedom of expression working group, previewed last week during his yearly State of the University address.

“I think in your heart, you know this is an important issue,” Councilman Eric Dinowitz (D-Bronx), chairman of the Higher Education Committee, told Matos Rodriguez. “But with that, this hearing is not about what’s in your heart. It’s about CUNY policies, and the policies that have so far failed to meaningfully keep our students safe and make them feel welcome on our CUNY campuses.”

It is not good for CUNY for its leaders to come across as unprepared to discuss critical questions about an issue  such as antisemitism nor is it beneficial for our university to appear to make any students feel unwelcome.

Tony

Courtesy of Breaking Points.

Dear Commons Community,

Rumors have it that MSNBC may be for sale.  If so, Elon Musk and other billionaires may be interested. As reported by Brian Stelter of CNN.

Elon Musk floats buying MSNBC, but he’s not the only billionaire who may be interested

Elon Musk once called MSNBC “the utter scum of the Earth.” He has said the channel “peddles puerile propaganda.” Just a few days ago he said, “MSNBC is going down.” And now he is posting memes about buying the channel.

Conventional wisdom holds that Musk — the world’s richest man and key Donald Trump ally — and his friends are just joking. But Musk’s posts are adding to the anxiety that MSNBC staffers are feeling about the reelection of Donald Trump and the recently announced spinoff of Comcast’s cable channels.

I (Stelter) spent Sunday on the phone with sources to gauge what might be going on. I learned that more than one benevolent billionaire with liberal bonafides has already reached out to acquaintances at MSNBC to express interest in buying the cable channel. The inbound interest was reassuring, one of the sources said, since it showed that oppositional figures like Musk (who famously bought Twitter to blow it up) would not be the only potential suitors.

But contrary to claims that Trump’s allies are posting on X, Comcast has not put a “for sale” sign on MSNBC’s door. If Comcast chief Brian Roberts really wanted to sell the liberal cable news channel, he could have done that already. Instead, he is moving MSNBC and a half dozen other cable channels into “SpinCo,” a pure-play cable programming company. The hope is that spinning off the pressured-but-profitable channels will boost shares of both Comcast and “SpinCo.”

Comcast says the transaction will take about a year. At that point, could someone swoop in with a bid for MSNBC? It’s complicated. “SpinCo” is structured as a tax-free spinoff, and immediately divesting an asset would have tax implications that could forestall any such sale.

“Typically, we would expect a two-year waiting period before any potential further strategic action by the SpinCo to preserve the tax-free nature of the spin although we believe there are scenarios where industry consolidation including SpinCo could happen earlier,” analyst Benjamin Swinburne of Morgan Stanley wrote in a note to investors last week. (Morgan Stanley is a financial advisor to Comcast.)

Plus, “SpinCo” executives may well conclude that offloading MSNBC is not in the best interest of shareholders, since the channel’s loyal audience is a form of leverage in negotiations with cable distributors. Executives involved with the spinoff say they intend to be predators, not prey – buying new channels, not selling off old ones bit by bit.

Selling MSNBC to win favor with the president-elect is simply not the plan. I have sensed quite a bit of enthusiasm at MSNBC about “SpinCo,” actually, because the new structure should allow for more investment into MSNBC, CNBC and the other brands.

Musk’s allies pile on

That said, Musk’s posts shouldn’t be ignored. He famously foreshadowed his pursuit of Twitter with a tweet that asked, “How much is it?” On Friday, he similarly asked of MSNBC, “How much does it cost?” He was responding to Donald Trump, Jr., who posted a meme that (falsely) said MSNBC is for sale and wrote, “Hey @elonmusk I have the funniest idea ever!!!”

Joe Rogan jumped in and said, “If you buy MSNBC I would like Rachel Maddow’s job.” (He misspelled her name.) “I will wear the same outfit and glasses, and I will tell the same lies.” The trio’s fans ate it up, and Musk kept posting about the idea all weekend long, at one point promoting a homophobic meme that equated Maddow with Mark Cuban.

By Sunday, Trump Jr. wrote, “I think I started something here. The amount of people that want this to happen is incredible!!!!” Former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz replied, “I 100 percent want this to happen.” The mockery is the point, and maybe it’s nothing more than that.

The ‘media capture’ model

While Musk and his friends trade memes and crack each other up, there’s a serious undercurrent here. It’s known as “media capture.” This happened in Hungary when far-right prime minister Viktor Orbán’s “close allies also purchased private television and radio outlets to convert them into pro-government outlets,” CNN reported earlier this month.

“Media capture” is a subset of what Protect Democracy executive director Ian Bassin calls “autocratic capture,” where “the government uses its power to enforce loyalty from the private sector.” On a recent episode of Vanity Fair’s “Inside the Hive,” Bassin said “I think we are in danger of seeing that happen across the American marketplace in all sorts of sectors.”

Gábor Scheiring, a former member of the Hungarian parliament, wrote in a new essay for Politico Magazine that Orbán “consolidated media control through centralized propaganda, market pressure and loyal billionaires.” In the US, he wrote, “liberal-minded billionaires should not sit idly by as they did in Hungary, watching the right take over the media.”

Would Cuban, a key billionaire surrogate for Vice President Kamala Harris, have any interest in MSNBC? I asked him Sunday night. “I don’t think there is anything anyone can do to change the impact of linear TV news. So the answer is no,” Cuban replied. “People feel like MSNBC is not doing enough to rival Fox. I don’t see that. What could they do differently? Manufacture conspiracy theories? Go all in on crypto?”

Cuban added: “I would rather promote Bluesky and hope it helps them aggregate audience, and create a network affect that gives agency to all viewpoints. I think with the addition of real time news and sports, it could give Twitter a run for its money.”

This would be a most interesting development in cable news land!

Tony

New York Universtiy graduate teaching assistants go on strike demanding that the university recognize their right to collectively bargain for higher pay as members of the UAW.  James Leynse via Getty Images

Dear Commons Community,

A wave of labor organizing has been washing through U.S. universities as graduate students and other workers form new unions on campus.

More than 50,000 students who work at U.S. universities have unionized over the past two years, the National Labor Relations Board announced last week. The new bargaining units include graduate student teachers and researchers as well as undergraduate housing and dining employees.

The campaigns have led to some of the biggest union elections in years, adding to the ranks of the Service Employees International Union, the United Auto Workers and other unions better known for representing blue-collar employees. Though not as high-profile as organizing pushes at the likes of Amazon and Starbucks, the campus victories have been a bright spot for organized labor after decades of declining membership.  As reported by The Huffington Post.

Last year, more than 3,000 student-workers at Cornell University joined the United Electrical Workers, while 1,600 at Emory University joined Workers United, the same union that now represents thousands of Starbucks baristas.

“The collegiate organizing efforts have gotten a boost from favorable policies at the NLRB, but those policies may not last following former President Donald Trump’s victory this month.”

This year, 1,400 student-workers at the California Institute of Technology and another 4,000 at the University of Pennsylvania joined the UAW. The Detroit-based union now includes around 100,000 workers in higher ed, amounting to about a quarter of its membership.

All told,  51 new unions formed on campuses since 2022, representing roughly 50,300 workers, according to the NLRB. For context, the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the entire labor movement added 139,000 members last year, much of it likely due to hiring by employers that were already unionized.

The collegiate organizing efforts have gotten a boost from favorable policies at the NLRB, which oversees private-sector union elections. But those policies may not last following former President Donald Trump’s victory this month.

In 2016, the then-Democratic majority on the labor board ruled in a case at Columbia University that students who teach and do research qualify as employees under the law and therefore have collective bargaining rights. The decision spurred new organizing efforts at schools where graduate students didn’t already have union representation.

A Republican-led board of Trump appointees later began an effort to reverse the Columbia case, but it failed to finish the job before another Democratic majority took over under President Joe Biden. However, Trump will have another chance to install new board members in his next administration, and they are not expected to be nearly as union-friendly as Biden’s.

If the agency ends up restricting union rights on college campuses, graduate students and other workers could still unionize — just not under the normal NLRB election process. They may end up trying to force universities to recognize their unions voluntarily, perhaps through strikes or other public pressure campaigns.

Tony

Credit…Brendan Smialowski/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Dear Commons Community,

Mikhail Zygar, a Russian journalist and author, had a provocative guest essay in yesterday’s New York Times entitled, “Putin Sees America Hurtling to Disaster, With Trump at the Wheel”.  He makes the case that the 2020 presidential election results gave Vladimir Putin pause to believe that the United States might be on the verge of collapse due to a President Trump.  Here is an excerpt.

“The American election results were received with enthusiasm in Moscow. President Vladimir Putin, offering his congratulations, seemed genuinely pleased. But it’s not because Donald Trump is seen as a pro-Russian politician or even one of their own — those illusions faded long ago. Nor is it the prospect of an advantageous peace deal in Ukraine, ruthlessly brokered by Mr. Trump. The first reported call between the two leaders, which the Kremlin denies took place, suggests that the incoming administration will be no pushover.

Instead, the excitement comes from something else. It’s that to many in the Kremlin, a Trump presidency might bring about the collapse of the American state.

The idea that the United States is entering the final stage of its history has been kicking around Russia for some time. For years, it was confined to fringe voices. But since around 2020, figures from the Kremlin have been making the argument, too. Leading the charge was Nikolai Patrushev, a former director of the Federal Security Service and one of Mr. Putin’s key advisers. Widely regarded as Russia’s leading hard-liner, he was among the first to claim that America was on an inexorable path to implosion.

In a 2023 interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta, the official publication of the Russian government, Mr. Patrushev detailed what that would look like. The United States would split into North and South, with the South moving “toward Mexico, whose lands were seized by Americans in 1848,” he said. “Make no mistake, sooner or later, the southern neighbors of the United States will reclaim the territories taken from them.”

By then, Mr. Putin himself had laid out a similar view of territorial disintegration. “As a former citizen of the former Soviet Union, I’ll tell you the problem with empires: They believe they are so powerful that they can afford minor mistakes,” he said in 2021. “But the problems accumulate, and a moment comes when they are no longer manageable. The United States is confidently, firmly marching down the same path as the Soviet Union.” This still seems to represent Mr. Putin’s fundamental assessment of the country. He is convinced that America is nearing its end.”

The entire article, as ominous as it is, is worth a read.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Developing a computerized version of New York City’s controversial Specialized High Schools Admissions Test (SHSAT),  officials are facing cost and racial issues.  The push to digitize the entrance exam to the city’s specialized high schools is reigniting a longstanding debate over a process that relies on a single test to admit students.

Ahead of the next round of testing, the city has proposed ditching bubble sheets to develop a computer-based version of the test. As questions linger about the details, education officials have twice delayed a vote by New York City’s Panel for Educational Policy on a multiyear, $17 million contract with testing giant Pearson.  As reported by The New York Daily News.

“It is true that the children and students do need to have an exam to take next year, and that is our responsibility,” said Adriana Alicea, who represents Queens parents on the panel. “But it’s also our responsibility to make sure that the exam is going to work.”

“This is on the computer — any number of things can go wrong,” she continued. “We have to have options, we have to have fail-safes. When we have asked questions about that for this test, we haven’t gotten answers.”

Under state law, the SHSAT is used to determine admissions at eight specialized high schools citywide, including The Bronx High School of Science, Brooklyn Technical High School and Stuyvesant High School. About 25,700 eighth graders took the SHSAT last year, according to education department data.

While Black and Hispanic students made up 46% of test-takers, they received just 12% of specialized high school offers — an increase from the year before, but still disproportionately low compared to the broader school system, the data showed. At Stuyvesant, just 10 Black students received offers through the testing process.

If approved, the shift to computer-based testing would align with a broader trend: the SAT, Advanced Placement and New York state tests have all moved online in recent years, or are in the process of doing so.

But some panel members have balked at the price tag for Pearson’s services, which shakes out to about $3.8 million each year, for an already controversial test. The contract covers five test cycles, with the option to add two more years for a total of $23.5 million.

“It seems like there’s a real unwillingness from the DOE to interrogate the value of the SHSAT, and to use their leverage as an agency to push for changes,” said Jessamyn Lee, a panelist who represents Brooklyn parents and has a child applying to high school this year.

“There’s a certain: ‘Let’s just keep marching forward,’ even though we realize that this test has a segregating effect on our schools,” she added.

Deborah Alexander, a parent of a freshman and senior at Bronx Science, does not think the test, nor the contract to digitize it, should be controversial. Her son was part of the first cohort to take the computer-based SAT, which she said he completed “without incident.” She did not blame the entrance exam itself for stubborn racial disparities in the schools.

“I am equally as upset about the end result of the SHSAT, regarding demographics, but what I am upset about is not that there exists a test,” she said. “It’s that only certain kids are passing that test.”

Alexander saw the differences in her own two children. Her daughter applied to schools that emphasized essays and other factors in admissions, before landing on Bronx Science, while her son had a different set of strengths.

“He’s a very linear thinker, and a standardized test was perfect for him, and it showed off his talent,” she said. “We can’t have eight out of our 400 high schools that are solely test-based?”

The school system has defended its proposal.

In panel documents, it reported receiving two bids during a request for proposals from Pearson, which has historically provided the exam, or a competitor, Educational Testing Services. After negotiating the contract down with Pearson, education officials said the cost of their product was 19% lower than switching vendors, and urged panel members to vote it through.

“This would be the sole means of providing an exam,” First Deputy Chancellor Dan Weisberg told the panel on Wednesday night at its monthly meeting, the second consecutive forum where the test was included but later removed from the agenda. “So if we don’t have this contract in place, the current contract will expire. There will be no contract of paper and pencil to continue.”

The tests will continue to be administered in school for eighth-graders, with weekend testing available for ninth-graders and students from private, religious and charter schools at central locations, according to education officials. Paper versions would remain available for students with disabilities who need accommodations. The changes would go into effect next fall.

But while the proposal remains on ice, the delay is sparking fear among families who support the test. About 3,650 families have signed an open letter, led by the organization Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum Education, urging the panel to approve the contract. PLACE has accused the movement against the SHSAT of hurting Asian-American families, who received more than half of specialized high school offers last year through the test.

Despite the concerns, the SHSAT is unlikely to go anywhere soon.

Panelists in interviews with the Daily News raised the prospect of extending the current contract by a year, though they can vote only on proposals put in front of them by the city and its vendor. In a statement, state Sen. John Liu (D-Queens), chairman of the upper chamber’s New York City Education Committee, reiterated that state law requires the exam for admission to specialized high schools, with no indication that he would push for changes in Albany.

“While the single test is not perfect, it is still the most objective assessment for admission to these specialized high schools,” Liu told The News.

A Q&A session was scheduled for Dec. 11 at 6:30 PM at the Department of Education headquarters at 52 Chambers St. in Manhattan, the panel announced during the meeting — though it was not immediately clear how many people would be able to attend.

The discussion was scheduled for the same night as the monthly meeting of the Citywide Council on High Schools, which Panel for Educational Policy Chairman Gregory Faulkner attributed to scheduling conflicts on other dates.

Alexander, who serves as vice president of the high school board, questioned the decision to hold the forums at the same time geared toward an overlapping group of parents.

The contract is expected to return to the panel at its next monthly meeting after the session. It’s not easy to be computerized.

It is not the computerization that is the problem.  It’s the test itself!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

CNN has a featured story this morning on photographer  Cecilia Blomdahl who lives deep within the Arctic Circle, on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, lying roughly midway between Norway’s northern coast and the North Pole,  pocketed between giant glaciers and beneath polar ice floes. Here is an excerpt.

The Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, lying roughly midway between Norway’s northern coast and the North Pole, is the site of the world’s northernmost permanent settlements. Blomdahl, who lives in Svalbard’s largest city of Longyearbyen, is one of about 2,500 residents in the region. Here, colorful cabins contrast colossal ice cap backdrops and vibrant celestial phenomena light the sky.

Blomdahl moved to Svalbard in 2015 and documents her unique life to millions of fascinated social media followers. She has now captured her home’s serenity, sparkling in shades of blue, in a new photobook titled “Life on Svalbard.”

“When you live here, you really get immersed in it; the quiet and peaceful nature,” Blomdahl, a former hospitality worker turned content creator, told CNN, “And every day being so close to the nature; it’s infatuating.”

The challenges of a beautiful life

For all its natural beauty, Svalbard is much more than a pretty place. Its rich resources, such as fish, gas, and mineral deposits, have made it a topic of economic and diplomatic dispute in the past, and it now serves as a flourishing global hub for economic activities and scientific research. For those just coming for a spell, it’s a bucket list tourist destination.

But as Blomdahl knows, life in Svalbard isn’t easy. From temperatures sometimes plummeting to below minus 30 (-34.4 Celsius), to polar bears and arctic foxes occasionally roaming local streets, it takes a unique individual to forgo life on the mainland and move to such a remote, and at times forbidding, place.

“Every day feels adventurous. It’s going to be crazy or wild or just a regular day,” said Blomdahl, “But a regular day here is so different; it’s drinking coffee with Northern Lights, or midnight sun, or reindeers.”

Those are common sentiments within Svalbard’s community — the extreme conditions, while enchanting, means people don’t stick around the area by accident. People from around 50 countries reside there, working in areas such as scientific research and seasonal tourism.

What moves someone to search for a home in such a remote corner of the world? According to behavioral science experts, many people who seek out extreme conditions may be motivated by desires to challenge the limits of their physical and psychological abilities, escape personal problems or everyday tedium, or simply for the thrill.

For Blomdahl, a glimpse of Svalbard’s unparalleled scenery was all she needed to forsake her corporate ambitions in England and Sweden and opt to live what she describes in her book as a “nature-connected life marked by a slower pace.”

“Everything up here is so pure and so beautiful,” Blomdahl said, “you think that it’s some sort of magic because it’s so unreal.”

Living on the edge of the world

On her social media channels, Blomdahl shows viewers firsthand how Svalbard’s environment shapes her everyday life. For example, not only is it necessary to carry polar bear protection gear when traveling outside designated settlements, it’s legally mandated. In one striking image in her book, she is shown sporting a firearm on her back as she and her dog stand far from the settlements. Blomdahl, who photographed all of the images herself, even caught one of a polar bear near her home — taken from a noticeable distance away, for safety reasons.

A year in Svalbard is marked by two unusual periods of light: polar night and midnight sun. Polar night runs from mid-November to the end of January, when the sun doesn’t rise above the horizon. Midnight sun, which lasts about 18 weeks between April and August, is when the sun doesn’t set below the horizon. These periods of constant light and day-long dark can take a toll on the body and mind. Blomdahl recalled how friends, disoriented by polar night, found themselves heading to work in the middle of the night, instead of the equally dark daytime hours.

Such abnormal living conditions can have pervasive effects on people’s health. Despite an overall positive outlook on health and quality of life in Svalbard, polar night and midnight sun can disrupt sleep-wake cycles, blood protein levels, and lead to increased risks of chronic disease. Despite taking supplements, Blomdahl says she noticed a drop in her vitamin D levels, which support immune health and brain cell activity.

Nonetheless, Blomdahl still says polar night is “one of the best times of year,” where she can “become one with the darkness.” She enjoys the tranquility during that period, but emphasizes the importance of maintaining a positive outlook and staying active during what otherwise could be a lethargic season.

“Your mindset is so powerful. I see these dark days as something cozy,” Blomdahl said, “I think it’s very much up to each and every person to try to create that routine and that mindset.”

Maintaining an adaptive mindset is also an important way Svalbardians process the unique threat climate change poses to the region. Longyearbyen is warming six times faster than the global average, studies suggest, and thawing permafrost and rising sea levels threaten the local economy and infrastructure. Studies within other Arctic communities show a correlation between climate change and higher levels of mental stress. In Svalbard, people report a high level of satisfaction with their lives despite environmental challenges, but the complications of climate issues like permafrost thaw can leave some feeling disempowered. Blomdahl notes that an annual environmental survey is conducted in Svalbard to manage risks.

As for day-to-day life, Svalbard is sufficiently equipped with the means to sustain its population. Longyearbyen features most of what most cities on the mainland offer, including an airport, a hospital, educational institutions, and more — all crowned the world’s northmost of their institutions. However, given the mission-based work characterizing much of Svalbard’s economy, not to mention the harsh environment, the average stay in Svalbard is only seven years, according to Statistics Norway.

Yet this conveniently aligns with a desire not to expand life on Svalbard, according to Blomdahl. Local officials have geared available resources to primarily maintain life on Svalbard as it is, given the environmental and developmental constraints.

As for Blomdahl, her positive mindset and love for Svalbard steers her away from dwelling on uncertainty or concern. Instead, she says she’s solely focused on creating educational and peaceful content about her distinctive life in a distinctive place.

“That’s just what I want to do,” said Blomdahl, “I want to continue to show the beauty of the Arctic. I just want to show Svalbard the way it is.”

Sounds like a paradise!

See more photos below.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The Texas Education Board voted Friday to allow Bible-infused teachings in elementary schools, joining other Republican-led states that pushed this year to give religion a larger presence in public classrooms.

The curriculum adopted by the Texas State Board of Education, which is controlled by elected Republicans, is optional for schools to adopt, but they will receive additional funding if they do so. The materials could appear in classrooms as early as the next school year.

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has voiced support for the lesson plans, which were provided by the state’s education agency that oversees the more than 5 million students in Texas public schools.

Parents and teachers who opposed the curriculum said the lessons will alienate students of other faith backgrounds.

Supporters argued that the Bible is a core feature of American history and teaching it will enrich students’ learning.

With the new curriculum, Texas would be the first state to introduce Bible lessons in schools in this manner, according to Matthew Patrick Shaw, an assistant professor of public policy and education at Vanderbilt University.

The Texas Education Agency created its own instruction materials after a law passed in 2023 by the GOP-controlled Legislature required the agency to do so. The lesson plans were publicly released this spring.

The material draws on lessons from Christianity more than any other religion in the proposed reading and language arts modules for kindergarten through fifth grade, which critics also say would potentially violate the First Amendment.

“This curriculum is not age appropriate or subject matter appropriate in the way that it presents these Bible stories,” said Amanda Tyler, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty.

Children who would read the material, she said, “are simply too young to tell the difference between what is a faith claim and what is a matter of fact.”

More than 100 people testified this week at a board meeting that rung with emotion from parents, teachers and advocates.

“It is said that there are close to 300 common-day phrases that actually come from the Bible,” said Mary Castle, director of government relations for Texas Values, a right-leaning advocacy group. “So students will benefit from being able to understand a lot of these references that are in literature and have a way to be able to comprehend them.”

The 15-member board — 11 Republicans and four Democrats — signaled support for the materials in a 8-7 preliminary vote Wednesday. One of the board members is a Republican who was appointed to the board just weeks ago by Abbott to temporarily fill a vacant seat. Days after that appointment, a Democrat who ran unopposed was elected to fill that same board seat starting next year.

Whatever happened to separation of church and state?

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The New York Giants granted quarterback Daniel Jones his release yesterday just days after the franchise benched him in favor of third-stringer Tommy DeVito.  As reported by various news outlets.

“Daniel came to see me this morning and asked if we would release him,” Giants president John Mara said in a statement. “We mutually agreed that would be best for him and for the team. Daniel has been a great representative of our organization, first class in every way.”

Mara added he was “disappointed” at the quick dissolution of the team’s relationship with Jones, who signed a four-year $160 million contract in March 2023 after leading the Giants to a playoff berth.

“We hold Daniel in high regard and have a great appreciation for him,” Mara continued. “We wish him nothing but the best in the future.”

The 27-year-old Jones told reporters Thursday that he gave the team everything he had after being taken sixth overall in the 2019 draft and he believes he still has a future in the NFL. He held himself accountable for the Giants (2-8) making the postseason once in his tenure as the starter.

Jones took over early in his rookie season when then-coach Pat Shurmur benched two-time Super Bowl MVP Eli Manning, who was near the end of his career.

Coach Brian Daboll benched Jones on Monday after the Giants returned to practice following a bye week and a 20-17 overtime loss to Carolina in Germany.

Tommy DeVito will start Sunday against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, with Daboll hoping he can spark the team.

“Definitely not happy about it,” said Jones, who read a 90-second statement before taking questions from reporters. “Yeah, not what you want to hear. So, yeah, all those emotions you have. But at the end of the day, this is football. We’re in a business where you’re expected to get results and we weren’t doing it.”

Jones, who is now free to sign with any team, went 24-44-1 as a starter in New York after being the sixth overall pick in the 2019 draft. A significant portion of those victories came in 2022, when the Giants went 9-7-1 and beat Minnesota in the first round of the playoffs.

Yet whatever forward momentum the club generated in 2022 quickly evaporated in 2023. New York was 1-5 in Jones’ six starts during an injury-marred season and he further regressed this fall.

Jones completed just 63% of his passes with eight touchdowns and seven interceptions even with dynamic rookie wide receiver Malik Nabers at his disposal. The Giants are last in the NFL in scoring and with public sentiment all but gone for the player once known as “Danny Dimes,” Daboll opted to go in another direction while Jones can get a head start on trying to reboot his career elsewhere.

During his time with the Giants, Jones had at best modest support from the team including mediocre managers and poor offensive lines,

We wish him the best of luck!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The Associated Press reported this morning on the discovery of 4,000 year-old canals in Belize.  As reported by the AP.

Using drones and Google Earth imagery, archaeologists have discovered a 4,000-year-old network of earthen canals in what’s now Belize. The findings were published Friday in Science Advances.

“The aerial imagery was crucial to identify this really distinctive pattern of zigzag linear canals” running for several miles through wetlands, said study co-author Eleanor Harrison-Buck of the University of New Hampshire.

The team then conducted digs in Belize’s Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary. The ancient fish canals, paired with holding ponds, were used to channel and catch freshwater species such as catfish.

“Barbed spearpoints” found nearby may have been tied to sticks and used to spear fish, said study co-author Marieka Brouwer Burg of the University of Vermont.

The canal networks were built as early as 4,000 years ago by semi-nomadic people in the Yucatan coastal plain. According to the study, the canals were used for around 1,000 years or longer, including during the “formative” period when the Maya began to settle in permanent farming villages and a distinctive culture started to emerge.

“It’s really interesting to see such large-scale modifications of the landscape so early — it shows people were already building things,” said University of Pittsburgh archaeologist Claire Ebert, who was not involved in the study.

At the height of Maya civilization, people in this region built temples, roads, pyramids and other monuments. They also developed complex systems of writing, mathematics and astronomy. Scientists know far more about this era because there are many more significant archaeological sites, said Ebert.

But this new study reveals a link between the earlier people on the landscape and the later emergence of Maya culture. These ancient channels for catching fish may have played a role in helping later Maya pyramids rise above the Yucatan rainforest.

“This shows continuity,” said University of Pennsylvania archaeologist Jeremy Sabloff, who wasn’t part of the research.

On a practical level, the fish-trapping canals helped the early people in the region to diversify their diets and feed a growing population, building a foundation for later cultural heights.

Most interesting!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Holden Thorp Editor-in-Chief, of Science, had an editorial yesterday reporting on the results of the latest Pew Research Center survey of public perceptions of science.   A key finding of the survey was that 76% of Americans express a great deal or fair amount of confidence in scientists to act in the public’s best interests. This is up slightly from 73% in October 2023 and represents a halt to the decline seen during the COVID-19 pandemic. Scientists continue to enjoy strong relative standing compared with the ratings Americans give to many other prominent groups, including elected officials, journalists and business leaders.

Below is the entire editorial.

Positive news and good opinion piece!

Tony

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The Pew Research Center survey on trust in science and researchers is conducted every year by science policy experts and communicators. This year’s results, released last week, give a small, but meaningful, reason to be optimistic: Trust in scientists, which took a substantial hit during the pandemic, is starting to recover. The survey, conducted in October 2024 with 9593 adults across the United States, estimates that 76% of Americans now have a great deal or fair amount of confidence in scientists to act in the public’s best interests. That’s a modest uptick from 73% last year and a hopeful sign that the page may be turning on some of the pandemic-era skepticism. Although the increase is barely outside the margin of error, it may mark the end of a troubling 3-year decline. However, the data reveal a persistent problem—a considerable portion of the public continues to harbor negative views of scientists’ personal qualities, particularly their communication skills. This reality should be worrisome to the scientific community and drive a collective conversation about rebuilding public confidence.

Despite the slight improvement in American confidence in science, partisan divisions persist. A sizable majority of Democrats (88%) express confidence in scientists to act in the public’s best interests, a figure largely unchanged since before the pandemic. Conversely, trust among Republicans, although improved from the previous year (61%), remains notably lower at 66%, and still below prepandemic levels. This partisan divide extends to the question of scientists’ involvement in policy debates. Two-thirds of Democrats endorse scientists taking an active role in policy discussions regarding scientific matters, with a majority (61%) believing that they currently lack sufficient influence in shaping policy. In stark contrast, the majority of Republicans (64%) advocate for scientists to remain detached from policy debates and focus solely on establishing scientific facts.

The survey results also reveal how scientists’ personal qualities are viewed. Although a large majority of Americans (89%) consider research scientists to be intelligent, fewer than half of Americans (45%) describe them as good communicators. Other negative traits include social awkwardness (49% agree) and a sense of superiority (47% agree). As a scientist with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), I understand how this can be perceived. Autistic traits include an inability to read nonverbal cues and a tendency to bluntness in speech. Certainly, only a fraction of scientists have received—or would receive—an ASD diagnosis, but as psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen discusses in The Pattern Seekers, these traits tend to go along with the ability to systematize information, even in neurotypical individuals. Between these realities and the fictional parody of scientists as blunt and awkward in TV situation comedies, these perceptions may be hard to shake.

This leads to the critical question of what to do in response to the Pew data as the country heads into another period of likely contention. On the basis of the feedback Science receives on commentaries published on this page, some scientists believe a full-throated opposition to every attack is necessary and appropriate, whereas others prefer to stay in their lane. And as Marcia McNutt, president of the US National Academy of Sciences, stated on this page last week, science should be an apolitical endeavor. But there is also another way—one of strategic restraint about when and how to engage combined with an unwavering commitment to scientific values. Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist who is widely praised for her ability to communicate with diverse audiences about climate change, thinks a choice between advocacy and objectivity is a false dichotomy. “As philosophers have long argued,” she told me by email, “engaging with society isn’t a betrayal of science; it’s a fundamental part of its purpose, especially in complex crises like those we face today. Claiming that science is value-free ignores the reality in which we live: Every step, from research to societal dialogue, carries ethical weight.”

It’s crucial for scientists to talk openly about these questions. In the coming months, Science will publish on this topic from a range of viewpoints, and I will continue to quote different perspectives in my columns. The scientific community has an opportunity to learn from the past and plan for the future. As Hayhoe said to me, “Scientists aren’t only brains in jars; we’re human beings embedded in society, bringing both reason and principles to our work.” Scientists must find new approaches to project this humanity in ways that work.