More insanity from the US

North Carolina is planning controversial new laws that aim to ease gun restrictions in schools and allow teachers to carry weapons while on school grounds and even provide a financial incentive for educators to arm themselves.

The proposed laws – one in the state house and one in the state senate – were filed shortly after 2018 ended as the deadliest year for school shootings in the US since a US naval postgraduate school database began recording data. After last year’s school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, Florida, which killed 17 people and spurred the March for Our Lives movement, public interest in creating more effective school security has grown.

HOORAY : 170000 views.

DeVos rebuked

WASHINGTON — A federal judge has ruled that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos illegally delayed an Obama-era rule that required states to address racial disparities in special education programs.

In a decision on Thursday, Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia called the Education Department’s delay of the special education rule “arbitrary and capricious.” The rule, drafted under the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, would require states to identify districts with “significant disproportionality” in the number of minority students channeled into special education services, segregated in restrictive classroom settings or disciplined.

The rule, passed in the final weeks of the Obama administration, required districts to examine policies and practices that contributed to the disparities and fund remedies.

The judge’s ruling vacates Ms. DeVos’s decision to put off the regulation by two years. Instead it will take effect immediately. Leaders in the Education Department said last summer that they needed time to study the rule’s potential consequences because they were concerned that it could promote unconstitutional “racial quotas.”

Indigenous perspectives

Soon all Australian teachers will be able to include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives in their classes — across all learning areas. 

They'll have resources developed under a Federal Government-funded program called the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Curricula Project. 

The resources will come under three main themes — astronomy, fire and water.