{"id":82168,"date":"2020-10-05T18:12:18","date_gmt":"2020-10-05T15:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/online-learning-program-has-racist-sexist-content\/"},"modified":"2020-10-05T18:12:18","modified_gmt":"2020-10-05T15:12:18","slug":"online-learning-program-has-racist-sexist-content","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/online-learning-program-has-racist-sexist-content\/","title":{"rendered":"#Online learning program has racist, sexist content"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Online learning program has racist, sexist content<\/strong>”
\n<\/p>\n

\n HONOLULU \u2014 Zan Timtim doesn\u2019t think it\u2019s safe for her eighth-grade daughter to return to school in person during the coronavirus pandemic but also doesn\u2019t want her exposed to a remote learning program that misspelled and mispronounced the name of Queen Lili\u02bbuokalani, the last monarch to rule the Hawaiian Kingdom.<\/p>\n

Timtim\u2019s daughter is Native Hawaiian and speaks Hawaiian fluently, \u201cso to see that inaccuracy with the Hawaiian history side was really upsetting,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Even before the school year started, Timtim said she heard from other parents about racist, sexist and other concerning content on Acellus, an online program some students use to learn from home.<\/p>\n

Parents have called out \u201ctowelban\u201d as a multiple-choice answer for a question about a terrorist group and Grumpy from \u201cSnow White and the Seven Dwarfs\u201d described as a \u201cwoman hater.\u201d Some also say the program isn\u2019t as rigorous as it should be.<\/p>\n

As parents help their children navigate remote classes, they\u2019re more aware of what\u2019s being taught and it\u2019s often not simply coming from an educator on Zoom. Some schools have turned to programs like Acellus to supplement online classes by teachers, while others use it for students who choose to learn from home as campuses reopen. And because of the scramble to keep classes running during a health crisis, vetting the curriculum may not have been as thorough as it should have been, experts say.<\/p>\n

Thousands of schools nationwide use Acellus, according to the company and parents\u2019 complaints are leading some districts to reconsider or stop using the program.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wouldn\u2019t have had this visibility if it weren\u2019t for all of us at home, often sitting side by side and making sure: \u2018Is this working for you?\u2019\u201d said Adrienne Robillard, who withdrew her seventh-grade daughter from Kailua Intermedia<\/a>te School after concluding Acellus lacked substance and featured racist content.<\/p>\n

When school officials said her daughter could do distance learning without Acellus, Robillard reenrolled her.<\/p>\n

Acellus officials didn\u2019t respond to multiple calls from The Associated Press seeking comment. In an online message to parents, founder Roger Billings called the controversy \u201can organized attack\u201d and said \u201cthey have not found anything in our content that is really racist or sexist.\u201d An automated closed-captioning system misinterpreted some words, he said.<\/p>\n

Kansas City, Missouri-based Acellus was created in 2001, according to its website, which says it \u201cdelivers online instruction, compliant with the latest standards, through high-definition video lessons made more engaging with multimedia and animation.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a video on his website,<\/a> Billings responds to criticism about his credentials by saying he earned a bachelor\u2019s degree in \u201ccomposite fields\u201d of chemistry, physics, engineering and other subjects from a university he doesn\u2019t name. He says he started a company focused on hydrogen energy technology<\/a> and that he later earned a \u201cdoctor of research and innovation\u201d degree at the International Academy of Science<\/a>, the nonprofit that develops Acellus courses.<\/p>\n

Hawaii selected Acellus based on an \u201cimplementation timeline\u201d as well as \u201ccost effectiveness\u201d and other factors, Superintendent Christina Kishimoto said in a memo.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s unreasonable to think that price was the main factor,\u201d said Charles Lang, visiting assistant professor of learning analytics at Columbia University\u2019s Teachers College in New York City. \u201cAnd to some extent, you do get what you pay for in terms of content.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vetting educational programs takes time, but with the pandemic, districts needed to quickly find remote learning platforms, said Eric Hirsch, executive director of EdReports, which helps schools review instructional materials.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo this spring, we saw a scramble, a dash,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

And evaluating curriculum is like the \u201cWild West\u201d \u2014 it varies across school systems, Lang said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were in some serious situations with the pandemic and we had to figure something out,\u201d Hawaii school board member Kili Namau\u02bbu said at a recent meeting. \u201cAnd I think schools made some pretty quick decisions. Maybe they weren\u2019t the most accurate decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n

She later said in an interview that it would be more problematic to pull Acellus in the middle of the quarter.<\/p>\n

But as a Native Hawaiian, she wants to ensure Acellus has corrected \u201capp<\/a>alling\u201d and inaccurate information about Hawaiian history: \u201cI\u2019m particularly dismayed with that particular module.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seeing the queen\u2019s name misspelled and information that the Hawaiian islands were \u201cdiscovered\u201d by Europeans was enough for Timtim and her husband to decide their daughter should join Waipahu Intermediate School\u2019s hybrid remote and in-person program despite their concerns about COVID-19.<\/p>\n

Then most of Hawaii\u2019s public schools, which began virtually on Aug. 17, extended remote learning until mid-October.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just pray we figure out what to do if she does have to go to school once or twice a week,\u201d Timtim said.<\/p>\n

The Hawaii Department of Education, the nation\u2019s only statewide school district, is considering what to do about Acellus, but some schools decided on their own to stop using it. Other US districts, like Alameda Unified in California, quickly dropped the program after complaints surfaced.<\/p>\n

In a recent memo, the California Department of Education said it \u201chas learned through examples shared that Acellus lessons may contain highly inappropriate content and may not meet state legal requirements surrounding instructional materials.\u201d The memo to superintendents and school administrators cited \u201cracist depictions of Black Americans\u201d and \u201cat least one question that perpetuates Islamophobic stereotypes.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Sept. 17 memo Hawaii\u2019s superintendent sent to the school board said education officials were working with Acellus to address inappropriate content.<\/p>\n

Mariko Honda-Oliver heard concerning things from other parents but didn\u2019t find anything she considered racist. She was troubled, however, that her son, a second-grader at Makalapa Elementary, blew through more than a week of material on his first day.<\/p>\n

Similarly, Cassie Favreau-Chung said her son, a freshman at Mililani High School, was looking forward to the independence of remote learning but found he wasn\u2019t getting a quality education because the program had no writing assignments.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe hasn\u2019t found anything on his own that he thought was racist or sexist,\u201d she said. \u201cHowever, I will also say that a lot of kids, it\u2019ll go over their heads.\u201d<\/p>\n

For example, \u201ctowelban,\u201d Favreau-Chung said.<\/p>\n

She switched her son to the hybrid program next quarter to avoid Acellus, hoping the school will let him keep learning from home.<\/p>\n

The experience has made Favreau-Chung lose faith: \u201cIt\u2019s the first time that I have not been proud to have my kid in public school.\u201d<\/p>\n

Honda-Oliver, whose military family has experienced schools worldwide, also is disappointed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis experience of having to see how other districts and other states are doing distance learning compared to Hawaii has kind of reinforced that Hawaii really is not the place to come if you want to give your children a good education,\u201d she said.\n <\/p><\/div>\n

\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#Online learning program has racist, sexist content” HONOLULU \u2014 Zan Timtim doesn\u2019t think it\u2019s safe for her eighth-grade daughter to return to school in person during the coronavirus pandemic but also doesn\u2019t want her exposed to a remote learning program that misspelled and mispronounced the name of Queen Lili\u02bbuokalani, the last monarch to rule the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":82169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/10\/AP_20276709216080-1.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[74353,1545,10574,4255,70842,4937,70603,74400,74401,47020],"class_list":["post-82168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-10-5-20","tag-coronavirus","tag-education","tag-hawaii","tag-parents","tag-racism","tag-remote-learning","tag-sexism","tag-stereotypes","tag-students"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}