Blog

Dr. Brian A. Burt, director and chief research scientist at the Wei LAB.Twelve years after its creation, Wisconsin’s Equity & Inclusion Laboratory (Wei LAB) at the University of Wisconsin—Madison has a new director: Dr. Brian A. Burt.

Burt, a 2019 Diverse Emerging Scholar and associate professor of higher education at the University of Wisconsin—Madison (UW—Madison), was previously assistant director and research scientist at the Wei LAB. He takes the reins from founder Dr. Jerlando F. L. Jackson, who is now the dean of Michigan State University’s College of Education.

Jackson and his work at the Wei LAB were early inspirations for Burt. They first met at an all-day symposium focusing on Black scholars, while Burt was still pursuing his doctorate.

“Dr. Jackson was laying out the blueprint of what the Wei LAB was, what intervention it does, why it’s important and necessary, how centers and labs have the capacity to elevate the work you do and disseminate the work,” said Burt. He took diligent notes that day, never knowing that later he would be leading the lab himself.

The Wei LAB was founded in 2010 as a research unit dedicated to advancing the mission of UW—Madison’s Office of Diversity and Climate. Over the next decade, the lab expanded to partner with other offices and organizations, both internal and external, that focus on Black students, LGBTQ+ campus climate assessments, urban education centers, and more. The lab won multiple grants and shared their work across state and country borders.

As the new director, Burt said he is keen to continue and increase these collaborations. Building new partnerships and funding opportunities will be a key feature in Burt’s first year as the Wei LAB director. The Wei LAB, Burt said, is a storyteller for those with marginalized voices, and Burt has plans to amplify those stories by turning research into tangible practices for education at all levels.

“We’re going to be much more streamlined in having a research arm and a practice intervention arm. We’ll be able to offer workshops and other kinds of resources for people,” said Burt. “I want the Wei LAB to be a go-to place where people can reach out if they need resources or want to gain experience with resource preparation. That’s the vision that I have.”

Dr. Brian A. Burt and researchers at the Wei LAB.Burt is also eager to make sure the Wei LAB remains an open and exciting place for undergraduate, post-doc and graduate students alike to find a home. He recalled how a research community helped him find success when he was contemplating dropping out of his master’s program at the University of Maryland in College Park.

“My mentor, Dr. Sharon Fries-Britt, invited me to join her primarily doctoral research team,” said Burt. “It was exactly what I needed.”

Fries-Britt’s research in STEM influenced not only Burt’s field of study but his understanding that research can be a tool for retention. With the support of mentors like Fries-Britt, Burt began to see research as a way to build confidence and a culture of community.

Another mentor Burt counts as an influence is Dr. Chance W.  Lewis, the Carol Grotnes Belk Distinguished Professor of Urban Education and director of the Urban Education Collaborative at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. The Collaborative is one of many Wei LAB partners.

“It’s a proud moment for me. Seeing Brian Burt as a doctoral student to what he does now, I get to see how he’s mentoring the next generation,” said Lewis. “In the Wei LAB, he has the ability to provide opportunities for many students that will prepare them for their careers here after.”

Lewis said that Burt is not only an excellent researcher and writer, but he also has a knack for earning funding. Burt has been able to garner millions for his research, and he credits his success to understanding how to break down a big research idea into smaller sections for study.

“You’ve got to find that sweet spot of this great idea,” said Burt. “What’s the idea you’re really passionate about, curious about, committed to, and then what are the small units of it that can break it down into multiple studies? I think about it like goal setting—what’s the goal and what are the small pieces of the goal? I’m very structured like that.”

Burt said he plans to continue his research on high achieving Black men in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), while folding in new elements like art and medicine, both of which have gained particular relevance during the pandemic and its increasing toll on physical and mental health.

Music in particular has an important place in Burt’s life. He was once a classical pianist, and still returns to the piano in times of great stress. He said he used to watch the Boston Pops every Sunday, dreaming of one day becoming a famous orchestral conductor.

“I realized, I don’t have an orchestral symphony, but I kind of do—my team is my symphony,” said Burt. “I’m still conducting, and the Wei LAB is the world-renowned orchestra.”

Liann Herder can be reached at lherder@diverseeducation.com.

Virginia’s courts routinely rule against parents of students with disabilities who sue to ensure their children are receiving an appropriate education, according to a class action lawsuit filed in federal court last week.

The suit names the Fairfax County Public Schools in northern Virginia as well as the state department of education, which trains and certifies hearing officers to review parent complaints. The suit alleges the state maintains a list of “school-friendly hearing officers” who are more likely to rule against families that challenge district decisions about services for their children.

Trevor and Vivian Chaplick, parents of a Fairfax student with autism, ADHD and other “profound” disabilities, along with a nonprofit they’ve created, filed the suit on behalf of all students in the state who participated in due process proceedings since 2010. Virginia state Superintendent Jillian Balow and Fairfax schools Superintendent Michelle Reid — last year’s national superintendent of the year — are also named as defendants.

Advertisement – Continue Reading Below

“Due process is a parent’s recourse if something goes wrong,” said Callie Oettinger, a Fairfax parent who runs a watchdog website documenting special education complaints in the district. “What happens is they lawyer up and they’ll spend millions fighting you.”

The lawsuit comes as parents across the state are seeking compensatory — or make-up — services due to school closures during the pandemic. Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, districts are required to evaluate and provide services to students if educators failed to follow a child’s individualized education program, or IEP. But the lawsuit claims Virginia’s system was rigged against parents long before the pandemic.

According to the complaint, hearing officers ruled in favor of northern Virginia families only three out of 395 times between 2010 and 2021. Statewide, there were just 13 out of 847 cases in which hearing officers found districts at fault over that same 11-year period, according to documents the Chaplicks obtained through public records requests.

Twenty-two of the hearing officers, who act as judges in such cases, have “been virtually unchanged over the last two decades, which represents two generations of disabled children seeking a better education under the IDEA,” the complaint said. “Despite (or because of) the incredibly one-sided outcomes from these hearing officers, the VDOE continued to recertify these same 22 hearing officers.”

Because of their son’s severe needs and aggressive behavior, the Chaplinks asked the district to place their son in a residential school. The district refused, and when the parents prepared to file for due process, a district social worker told them they would lose. They thought the staff member was exaggerating — that is, until they collected the data.

Charles Pyle, a spokesman for the Virginia Department of Education, said officials would not comment on pending litigation.

“The department is committed to ensuring that students with disabilities receive all services and supports that they are entitled to under federal and state law,” he said.

Julie Moult, a spokeswoman for the Fairfax district, said officials had not been served with the lawsuit and were not able to comment.

Reid, who is new to Fairfax this year, previously served as superintendent of the Northshore School District near Seattle, the first in the nation to close a school because of COVID. The district, with about 23,000 students, is a fraction of the size of Fairfax, which has an enrollment of roughly 180,000.

‘That’s how hard it is’

The case is the latest probe into whether Fairfax — one of the nation’s largest districts — is denying the civil rights of students with disabilities. In January 2021, in the final days of the Trump administration, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation into the district’s handling of services for students with disabilities during school closures.

Kimberly Richie, who led the civil rights division at the time, took action after seeing news reports of schools opening for child care, at the parents’ cost — but not for students with IEPs. Now Richie is a deputy superintendent at the Virginia education department, whose division includes special education. Oettinger sees that as a good sign.

“These were people who were trying to actually do something before they left office,” she said.

Prior to the pandemic, parents sued the district for its use of physical restraint and seclusion of students with disabilities. In December 2021, it reached an agreement with the plaintiffs and disability rights organizations to ban the practice.

The new lawsuit includes the names and decisions of hearing officers, in northern Virginia and statewide. One is Frank Aschmann, an Alexandria, Va., attorney who has ruled in favor of parents in one out of 62 cases over a 20-year period.

Debra Tisler was one of those 61 parents he ruled against. With a severely dyslexic son, she began asking the Fairfax district to evaluate him in fourth grade, but she said they kept putting her off for a year — even though she had been a special education teacher in the district from 1997 to 2014.

“That’s how hard it is,” she said, referring to efforts to get her son the literacy instruction that experts recommended. She taught him herself, but had to hire private speech and language tutors. “By 6th grade, he had hit a complete wall.”

She filed for due process in 2019, arguing that the district would not give her access to her son’s educational records so she could prepare a case and that they had failed to provide him with an adequate literacy program.

Aschmann ruled against the family on multiple points, including refusing to compel the district to turn over records and stating that the student’s struggles in his Spanish class did not constitute evidence of the district’s failure to implement his IEP.

Aschmann did not return a call seeking comment.

“They are ruining children’s lives,” said Tisler, who now volunteers as an advocate for other families and serves as an expert witness in due process hearings. “All they care about is how much money they get.”

In January 2020, an invoice shows Fairfax paid Aschmann $12,400 for the 99 hours he spent on Tisler’s son’s case. Parents who lose to their district, she said, can file in state or federal court. States tend to transfer the cases to federal courts, but most families, she said, don’t have the financial means to pursue cases that far.

“You just get bounced around,” she said.

This story was produced by The 74, a non-profit, independent news organization focused on education in America.

Read more stories like this one. Sign up for Disability Scoop’s free email newsletter to get the latest developmental disability news sent straight to your inbox.

Perhaps the most significant issue leading to a Democrat debacle in November is the party’s position on children’s education. Many Democrat leaders are convinced that voters will not punish them at the polls for proclaiming that children, in effect, belong to the state. Governor Terry McAuliffe discovered that mothers will not tolerate leaders who want to limit parental involvement in their child’s education. McAuliffe proclaimed, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” This statement probably decided the Virginia gubernatorial election. 

As the Justice Department intended, many mothers are not speaking out because they have been intimidated. However, they will not be silent in the voting booth.

Opposition to the progressive agenda is portrayed as “far-right extremism” by the education establishment, media and government. Former President Obama commented, “We don’t have time to be wasted on these phony trumped-up culture wars, this fake outrage, the right-wing media’s pedals to juice their ratings.” Congressman Tom Malinowski called parental concerns “made-up cultural bullshit” stemming from a “fringe movement.” 

Democrats are trying to associate protesting parents with white supremacists. Attorney General Merrick Garland claimed, “In the FBI’s view, the top domestic violent extremist threat comes from racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists, specifically those who advocated for the superiority of the white race.” President Biden announced, “According to the intelligence community, terrorism from white supremacy is the most lethal threat to the homeland today, Not ISIS. Not Al Qaeda. White supremacists.”

Image: Elementary school children (cropped) by rawpixel. 

Merrick Garland explained, “Threats against public servants are not only illegal; they run counter to our nation’s core values.” MSNBC’s Alicia Menendez commented, “Things have become so scary at these meetings that the organization representing school boards are (sic) asking federal to help, arguing these actions could be equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism.” 

Perhaps they are concerned about Crook County, Oregon, parent Jennifer Stevens. Stevens asserted during a school board meeting: “I’m a mom who’s fearless, and I will come after you.” This “threat” has earned her a file in the National Security Division of the Justice Department. Suburban housewives are now the major concern, not ISIS, not Al Qaeda. 

The mayor of Hudson, Ohio, is also on the NSD’s list of possible terrorists for his comments to a school board: “I’m going to give you a choice. Either choose to resign from the board of Education, or you will be charged.”

What is the “made-up cultural bullshit” causing “fake outrage” that agitates these furious mothers? It is not just the education establishment’s obsession with sex. (At Least 181 K-12 educators have been arrested for child-related sex crimes in the first half of 2022. ) It is their obsession with pathological sex. 

Mrs. Stacy Langton of Fairfax County, Virginia, confronted her school board about two books available to students: “Lawn Boy “and “Gender Queer.“ She commented, “Both of these books include pedophilia, sex between men and boys.” She also commented, “This is not an oversight.” The board responded by turning off her microphone and sending security to remove her from the podium. 

The effort to normalize pedophilia is just beginning. As always, it started in the Universities. An assistant professor at Old Dominion University claims the acronym MAP (Minor Attracted Persons) is the preferred term for pedophiles because it does not carry the stigma. 

A year later, students recorded a high school English teacher telling them to stop calling people pedophiles. “We’re not gonna call them that. We’re gonna call them MAPs, minor-attracted persons. So don’t judge people just because they wanna have sex with a 5-year-old.” Without the video, this incident would have gone nowhere. 

How many other teachers are instructing students in the same fashion? 

Indoctrination starts early. Chicago’s preschoolers (ages 3-5) are taught what “Queer” means and what “Non-binary” means. They are told: “When someone is not a boy or a girl, maybe they feel both, they are non-binary or queer.” Public schools in Portland, Oregon, are defending their decision to teach kindergartners that boys can have vulvas and girls can have penises via a PowerPoint presentation on transgender ideology. The guidelines for “PRIDE Community Circles” issued by Austin’s Doss Elementary School were leaked, showing the school instructing students as young as four years old to keep their LGBT class discussions confidential. 

This indoctrination has been extremely successful. Dr. Erica Anderson told the Los Angeles Times that she believes that some children identifying as trans are falling under the influence of their peers and social media. She neglected to mention the public school establishment. One Austin, Texas, teacher says 20 of her 32 fourth-grade students have ‘come out to her as ‘LGBTQIA+’. The New York Times reported on the sharp rise in transgender young people in the US.

The transgender movement has provided vast opportunities for sociopaths to exploit. The young boy in a skirt who sexually assaulted two female students in Loudoun County is an example. The transgender “woman” who impregnated two inmates at a NJ prison is another. Transvestite Lia Thomas’ University of Penn teammate complains that the trans swimmer doesn’t always cover up “her” male genitals when changing. 

Part of the thrill of being transgender is the attention one receives and craves so badly. Another benefit is the ability to outrage normal people. Critics of the transgender movement are accused of being intolerant. 

Chris Cuomo made this point when he was asked what to tell a 12-year-old girl who doesn’t want to see a penis in the locker room. Cuomo responded, “I wonder if she is the problem or her overprotective and intolerant dad? Teach tolerance.” 

Who will suffer the consequences of this abnormal behavior? An 80-Year-Old Woman was banned from a community pool for complaining about a cross-dressing man watching little girls undress in the locker room. If you want to be accepted, if you want to remain employed, if you want to receive your pension, it is advisable to remain silent when this subject comes up.

John Dietrich is a freelance writer and the author of The Morgenthau Plan: Soviet Influence on American Postwar Policy (Algora Publishing). He has a Master of Arts Degree in International Relations from St. Mary’s University. He is retired from the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Department of Homeland Security. He is featured on the BBC’s program “Things We Forgot to Remember.”