TOP POSTS THIS WEEK 8/8/20 #REDFORED #tbats #COVID-19 #REOPENSCHOOLS #BIDEN2020

BREAKING NEWS: THE NEW UK AND NAACP EDUCATION AND CIVIL RIGHTS INITIATIVE This is a blog I’ve been looking forward to writing for more than a year. I can finally share with you that the College of Education has entered into a groundbreaking, history-making collaboration with the NAACP, the nation’s largest and most preeminent civil rights organization. Housed in the Department of Educational Pol

Glenn Brown: An Addendum to “The Beautiful Poetry of Donald Trump” Retired teacher Glen Brown has written his own poetic addendum to a book by Robert Sears called “The Beautiful Poetry of Donald Trump.” I was not aware of Sears’ collection and organizing of Trumpian verbiage into blank verse. Searching for the poetry of Trump by Sears on Amazon, I discovered that he also wrote a book titled: “Vl

Wanting Approval from Those Who You Must Judge: A Dilemma of Leadership: | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice Wanting Approval from Those Who You Must Judge: A Dilemma of Leadership In the second week of my superintendency in the mid-1970s–I came from outside the district, had no entourage, and knew no one in Arlington (VA) save the school board members who had unanimously appoin

Can Geppetto and Pinocchio Open New York City Schools Safely? or, Are There More Sensible Options? After weeks and weeks of speculation Governor Cuomo made his anticipated announcement, Schools across New York can reopen for in-person instruction this fall, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said Friday. … Just a few months after New York became a global epicenter of the pandemic, the governor opened the door

There Are No Writing Prodigies: What That Means For Writing Instruction Mozart was composing and performing at the age of 4. Shirley Temple made her first film appearance at age 3, and within two years was a film star. Pascal wrote a treatise on vibrating bodies at age 9. Trombone Shorty was leading his own band at age 6. But there are no child prodigies in writing. No classic novels composed by

Screaming into a pillow, Florida, Covid-19 edition the revelation that Governor DeSantis said on one hand schools could close at the direction of their health departments and on the other told those health departments not to help, I spent more than a few minutes screaming into a pillow. His politicization of health is unacceptable and should be an impeachable offense, but it also should be a jai

Is She Focused on Grizzlies Again? DeVos Fails to See the Covid-19 Danger to ALL Schools! Is She Focused on Grizzlies Again? DeVos Fails to See the Covid-19 Danger to ALL Schools! Sidestepping Covid-19 to focus on school choice is like DeVos skipping over gun safety concerns about schools to focus on the threat of grizzly bears. I’m of course referring to comments made during her confirmation hea

RUNAWAY TRUCK AHEAD “The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.” ― Winston S. Churchill “A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner: Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean do

Report: Are Charter Schools A Big Risk For Families? In a new report, the Network for Public Education shows how big a gamble it can be to enroll your child in a charter school. And the odds are not in parents’ favor. “ Broken Promises: An Analysis of Charter School Closures From 1999-2017 ” is a deep dive into the data surrounding patterns of charter closure and the number of students affected

6 in 10 with Kids at Home are not Confident that Schools Can Safely Reopen | JD2718 6 in 10 with Kids at Home are not Confident that Schools Can Safely Reopen I get commercial pieces in my in-box. I usually don’t reprint them (maybe I never have?) but this one is from a fairly reliable source – Consumer Reports – and it is highly relevant. Pay close attention to the section on the “racial divide”

California Department of Education YESTERDAY ACSE Agenda August 19-20, 2020 14h Advisory Commission on Special Education (ACSE) meeting agenda. CACFP Training Worksheets and Crediting Handbook 14h The CDE NSD is pleased to announce that USDA TN has released several new CACFP resources, including interactive worksheets (in both English and Spanish) and the new Crediting Handbook for the CACFP. AU

Mr. G for District 3: Chris Guerrieri's Education Matters A MAN WITH A PLAN Mr. G for District 3: Chris Guerrieri's Education Matters After one week, there is more than enough proof that schools will close, so why are we risking lives? 100+ by Unknown / 56min I am sure we all saw the pictures of the school in Georgia. You know I don't blame the kids. Kids will do what kids will do, nope, I blame

NewBlackMan (in Exile) Terrace Martin | Racism on Trial | Third Movement | Pig Feet LIVE ft. Denzel Curry, Daylyt, G Perico by Mark Anthony Neal / 14h This is the Third Movement of Racism on Tria l by Terrace Martin , Denzel Curry and Kamasi Washington . The Day the N*ggaz Took Over. Performed live at Black Power Live. Terrace Martin ft. Alex Isley, Robert Glasper, Kamasi Washington | Racism on

Education Research Report THIS WEEK Education Research Report Arts Education Data Resources by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 2d Data are critical to ensuring access, participation, quality and equity in education. Reliable data from state education data systems can also help policymakers understand the effect of state policies, help education leaders bring opportunities to all children and help parents i

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007 THIS WEEK IN EDUCATION Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... The latest news and resources in education since 2007 “Collaborate With Colleagues to Make It Through This School Year” by Larry Ferlazzo / 8h Collaborate With Colleagues to Make It Through This School Year is the headline of my latest Educ

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all KEEP UP/ CATCH UP WITH DIANE RAVITCH'S BLOG A site to discuss better education for all Cuomo Says It Is OK to Reopen Schools in New York 50 by dianeravitch / 15h Governor Cuomo gave thumbs-up to reopening schools in New York so long as their plans are approved by the state. Some parents and teachers are happy. Some are worried. Son

Lessons from the pandemic’s education pod parents It was only a few weeks ago that we began hearing about “ pandemic pods ” or “microschools” — which essentially are groups of students whose parents have paid for professional instruction because of the chaos the covid-19 crisis has wrought on America’s schools. And now they are all over the education news. Some say these pods are a decent soluti

Pa ndemic Pods and Micro Schooling Pods, Privatization and Pandemic Wages of Whiteness T he bright-eyed bushy tailed, white Atlanta-area elementary school kids featured frolicking, reading, and doing math problems in suburban “Pods” on a recent CNN morning show were Exhibit A for everything that is wrong with Covid-era education. Pods are the latest trend in elite learning for privileged, mostly

Black and Brown Students Need Culturally Competent Teachers was told by the Greenfield Unified School District that I could not wear a t-shirt with the words “Phenomenally Black” because they said it was the same thing as wearing a “Make America Great Again” shirt. A Black colleague then later told me the administration asked if I was trying to push a Black agenda on campus. And yet when I wore

Timpsila, Medicine for Tech-No-Logic John Trudell , Native American activist and poet, spoke prophetically of a predator energy that mines the “ being part of humans .” He called it tech-no-logic. Every January since the early 1970s, the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) power brokers have assembled in Davos to plot out the next steps of their planned tech-no-logic coup. We’ve now reached a tipping p

2020 Medley #17 — All COVID-19, All the Time IT’S ALL COVID-19, ALL THE TIME Is there really anything to write about besides the problem of schools starting during the pandemic…the threat to students and teachers…the lack of preparation and science-based decisions? The big problem facing public education right now is the fact that states are coercing school staff and students back into in-person

Not As I Do It's remarkable to turn on the TV and see people broadcasting from their home computers. More remarkable still is when they speak from isolation demanding we open school buildings. Though it's too risky for them to get off their butts and go to a TV station, though it's too dangerous for the interviewers to be in the same room with these authorities on education, it's okay for over a

Myths and Facts About the COVID-19 Public Education Relief Being Debated in Congress Congress is debating a new COVID-19 relief bill, and there is much unhappiness, mythology and confusion about what is being proposed to support the nation’s 98,000 public schools, which are being forced to undertake big expenses to reconfigure classrooms and buses for social distancing and to improve ventilation

Some District 75 Concerns It is nearly impossible to practice social distancing when most, if not all, of our students require hand over hand prompting with everything from washing their hands, to wiping their bottoms to completing classwork. These children unfortunately won’t wear masks so the classroom is going to be extremely unsafe; yet D75 is telling parents they can come to school 5 days p

I Bought HEPA Air Filtration for My Classroom As part of my effort to control what I can in the face of so much COVID-19 unknown , today I purchased two HEPA (“high efficiency particulate air”) filtration machines for my classroom (I chose Okaysou AirMax8L for its reasonable price and for the square footage a single machine is able to filter multiple times per hour.) Given the squre footage of m

State Superintendent Tony Thurmond and Digital Divide Task Force Connect School Leaders to Available Devices as Learning Resumes SPI Announces Collaboration with Apple & T-Mobile - Year 2020 (CA Dept of Education) - https://www.cde.ca.gov/nr/ne/yr20/yr20rel65.asp SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and the Closing the Digital Divide Task Force held a special webin

GA: Bad Cover-Up Management In Times Of Crisis For years, I worked for an administration whose philosophy about any problematic or controversial issue was, "If we don't talk about it, the public won't notice and this will all blow over in a while." It was a terrible management philosophy, not just because it was dishonest and unfair, but because it failed. It failed hard. Every. Single. Time. Se

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007 “Now Is the Time to Address Education’s ‘Most Pressing Equity Issues'” by Larry Ferlazzo / 13h Now Is the Time to Address Education’s ‘Most Pressing Equity Issues’ is the headline of my latest Education Week Teacher column. Two educators call for schools to use this time of crisis to focus on equity i

NPE Releases New Report on Astonishing Charter School Closure Rates Today, the Network for Public Education released a new report on the astonishing rate at which charter schools close. The period covered in the report was 1999-2017, using data collected by the U.S. Department of Education. The findings were researched by Ryan Pfleger, Ph.D., and written by Carol Burris, executive director of NP

NAACP launches new civil rights and education initiative with University of Kentucky The NAACP, the oldest and largest civil rights organization in the United States, is launching a new education initiative with the University of Kentucky that will provide a home for Black faculty to conduct and disseminate research on the community in a new way. The enterprise marks the first time that the NAAC

Unsanitized: Randi Weingarten On What It Would Take to Make Schools Safe Plus, Congressional maneuvering. This is The COVID-19 Daily Report for August 5, 2020. First Response In many parts of the country, the school year has already begun, either for teachers setting up classrooms, or in a few cases, for students. They are returning to a patchwork of different procedures , ranging from in-person

A Teacher's Advice to Nurses in a Pandemic | Eclectablog A Teacher’s Advice to Nurses in a Pandemic Since you took the time to offer your advice , as a nurse, on how teachers should do their jobs, I thought I’d return the favor and share my thoughts on how nurses should do their jobs. Except the truth is that I don’t have the faintest idea how to advise you how to be a nurse. Because I have never

How Safe Is Your School's Reopening Plan? Here's What To Look For As schools across the country grapple with bringing kids back into the classroom, parents — and teachers — are worried about safety. We asked pediatricians, infectious disease specialists and education experts for help evaluating school district plans. What we learned: There's no such thing as zero risk, but certain practices can

We need to talk about what school closures mean for kids with disabilities As schools prepare for fall, students in special education are being left out of the conversation. When Simon’s school in Maryland closed this spring due to the pandemic, his family didn’t know what to expect. “Like every family who has a kid in school, there was a lot of uncertainty,” Simon’s mom, Laura LeBrun Hatcher, t

NEA Elects Pringle, Moss and Candelaria to Leadership Becky Pringle, a science teacher from Philadelphia, has been elected president of the National Education Association. Pringle, who served as NEA vice president for six years, will assume her new duties on September 1. On that date, she becomes not only the leader of the nation’s largest union representing 3 million educators, but also the hig

The Federal Government Gives Native Students an Inadequate Education, and Gets Away With It The Bureau of Indian Education has repeatedly neglected warnings that it is not providing a quality education for 46,000 Native students. Once called a “stain on our Nation’s history,” the school system has let down its students for generations. SERIES: LESSONS LOST How Federal Schools Are Failing Native

Pandemic Pods: Parents, Privilege, Power and Politics Private pandemic “pods” are the latest edu-craze to sweep the land. But turns out there’s nothing new about privileged parents fleeing the public school system—or using the threat of departure as leverage. Special guests Jessica Calarco, L’Heureux Lewis-McCoy and Jon Hale help us understand the implications of pods for public education. And J

High School Students Implore Cuomo – Move NYC to Remote for September This letter was signed by a bunch of student government leaders, representing about 15% of NYC high schools, and then by about 1300 more students and parents. They sent it off to Cuomo on Wednesday August 5, because of the August 7 deadline. That’s a shame. While the letter makes good points, the authors managed to make a diff

What I Told McKeesport Area School Directors About the Unsafe Reopening Plan Proposed by Administrators This evening I went back to my high school to tell school board members what I thought of administration’s reopening plan during the global pandemic. McKeesport Area School Directors have not voted on the proposal yet. So I gathered my thoughts, put on my mask and went to the work session meet

Anthony Cody: Who Is Allowed to Be Selfish? Anthony Cody taught for many years in the Oakland public schools. We co-founded the Network for Public Education in 2012. His blog is called “Living in Dialogue.” He writes: Who is Allowed to be Selfish? Isn’t it a bit strange – our capitalist economy is built on the glorious profit motive. The wealthy are expected to be selfish – they are rewarded for

Most Teachers Concerned About In-Person School; 2 In 3 Want To Start The Year Online As the school year starts in many districts across the country, a new national poll of teachers from NPR/Ipsos finds overwhelming trepidation about returning to the physical classroom. Eighty-two percent of K-12 teachers say they are concerned about returning to in-person teaching this fall, and two-thirds prefe

Secrecy and subterfuge is the future of DCPS I am both outraged and terrified at the districts plan to keep cases of COVID-19 secret in our schools, unless the schools are forced to close. Spoiler alert if people know there is a case, we may never get to the point where a school has to close. This planned secrecy is going to risk lives. I have heard stories of cases at two local high schools, ca

Gov, Mayor, Chanc., Pres. – keep us all alive: shut us down now Today’s letter to Cuomo (this is not by me, as you can tell from the opening line. The author is a teacher who raises important questions. She wrote similar letters to de Blasio, Carranza, and Mulgrew) (The biggest question? Why not remote? Why not start work on it today? – jd) Dear Governor Cuomo, I have admired and respected your

The Chancellor Sends Us Another Email Dear Colleagues, I hope you and yours are safe and healthy, and experiencing a bit of rest and relaxation this summer. You'd better get as much rest as you can now, because September's coming, and we have no idea what the hell is going to happen. Last mon th, I wrote to you with information about our plan for blended learning in the fall. Today, I am writing

CPS made the right decision but big challenges remain After floating a plan for a mix of in-person and remote learning, the mayor and CPS made the right decision by starting the Chicago school year with remote learning only. It was a decision driven by rising coronavirus numbers along with resistance to an opening from the CTU and many parents. It's also a decision that may save some lives and p

Cyber Outsourcing It's a sort of cyber school bait and switch that has implications for students and teachers in public schools. Let me offer a specific example of how it works, courtesy of my old school district. On the district web page , you'll find a flyer for the newly christened Franklin Area Virtual Academy, a "100% online option for families." The flyer is a nice single page, including s

Deadline on Friday to sign up for remote or in-person learning next year Dear friends– Late on Friday, the DOE released the outline of a plan for school reopening in the fall, to be submitted to the State Board of Health . They promise more details at the school level will follow. They released a rubric and protocol for individual school closures if Covid cases emerge among students or staff. Th

Sitting and Watching is the Not So Secret Sauce As a boy of six-years-old, I objected to the term "babysitter." For one thing, I wasn't a baby, and for another, the word conjured the image of babies being sat upon. By the time I was 10, old enough to be entrusted with the care of children back in the early 70's, it made more sense. After all, most little kids were "babies," with all their whinin

Toward a More Just (and Creative) Curriculum, Part I Virtually all of the discussion between educators is now centered on whether it’s feasible, with any kind of plan, to return to in-person schooling in the fall. I believe this national conversation will follow the Major League Baseball template: schools will begin closing as viral clusters pop up, perhaps re-opening, then closing again for the

Remote Delivery of Instruction–Covid-19 and Re-opening Schools Regardless of what President Trump wants, the vast majority of American students will begin their school year with remote delivery of instruction. As the surging of infections in many southern and western states has occurred, health risks for both children and adults have again risen. (see here and here ). And many parents unwilling

NYC Public School Parents: Today's "Talk out of School": the need for more nurses before reopening Today's "Talk out of School": the need for more nurses before reopening NYC schools, and how the COVID shutdown threatens the future of public education In today's " Talk out of School" podcast , I spoke to Kim Watkins, NYC parent leader, about the need to ensure all schools have nurses before they

Ashley McCall: What If We Radically Reimagined School? Ashley McCall is a bilingual third-grade teacher of English Language Arts in Chicago Public Schools. She asked in a recent post on her blog whether we might seize this opportunity to reimagine schooling for the future, to break free of a stale and oppressive status quo that stifles both children and teachers. She writes: “What if?” I thought

Be a Role Model. Risk Your Lives and Those of Your Students to Set an Example You may or may not have noticed that I don't write about nursing here. I once had a girlfriend who was a nurse, though. Sometimes she'd bring me a stack of magazines and books and have me write a term paper for her. I got As on my nursing papers. Still, you wouldn't want me as a nurse. I don't know nursing. This notwit

Is Re-Opening Schools a Political, Science-Driven or an Emotional Decision? * “If we don’t re-open schools another generation of students will be doomed to a life of poverty and the poorest, must vulnerable parents will burdened with childcare expenses; if our economy doesn’t revive a depression paralleling the Great Depression is inevitable.” * “We have to follow where science leads us, testing

“I think that reopening schools would be (alas, will be) an unprecedented catastrophe… Clearly, if we are to depend on remote learning, we must address some serious issues” by Bob Shepherd “A new article by Dale Chu, on the Fordham Institute website, describes remote learning as being like the ‘security theatre’ that we got in response to 9/11. I found that quite interesting. “Oddly, the questio

Academic Freedom, Pedagogy, White Privilege, and Racism in Higher Education “Reckoning” is an imposing word for those with power and privilege; for white people in the U.S. the threat or possibility of a reckoning is often terrifying, triggering what has now been identified as white fragility. For those abused, assaulted, or marginalized by racism, sexism/misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, xenop

Viral Overconfidence Well, this is an interesting piece of research. A new paper in the Journal of Experimental Psychology suggests that overconfidence can be transmitted socially, that being around overconfident people rubs off on other folks. As with most psycho-social research, the experimental designs leave room for considerable debate, and there are plenty of needles to thread. I find it in

SARAH LAHM: THE HIJACKING OF POLICE REFORM BY WEALTHY OPPORTUNISTS RESEMBLES THE HARM DONE TO PUBLIC SCHOOLS The Minneapolis City Council voted to disband the city’s police department on June 26, a little more than a month after George Floyd died after a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes. Chauvin, along with three other officers who were there when Fl

Biden Offers Hope for Turning Around Awful DeVos Education Policy This summer some people have said it seems like deja vu all over again. In 2009, right after Barack Obama was elected President, Education Secretary Arne Duncan used over $4 billion of the public education dollars Congress had appropriated as part of a huge federal stimulus package and attached rules that made states adopt Duncan’

Tennessee: Plaintiffs File Amicus Brief in Voucher Case This news just in from the Education Law Center about resistance to vouchers in Tennessee. Vouchers are a huge waste of public money. Studies in recent years have converged on the conclusion that students who use vouchers fall behind their peers who remain in public school. Meanwhile, the public schools lose money that is diverted to subpar

Contact tracing is hard – harder if you don’t know how high school works The NYC DoE wrote this about contact tracing: Tracing: In the event of a confirmed COVID-19 case in a school, NYC Test + Trace and NYC Health will investigate to determine close contacts within the school. All students and teachers in the classroom with the confirmed case are assumed close contacts and will be instructed to

The District's unacceptable plan to keep us all in the dark Last week the district announced it would not disclose cases until an outbreak causes a class or school to close. Well, friends, do you know how you get an outbreak that will cause a school or class to close? By keeping cases secret. The District willingly keeping people in the dark is dangerous, reckless, and unacceptable. So I heard a

Demand that Our Nation’s Leaders ‘Commit to Kids’ Our nation’s children deserve the very best we have to offer them. Their best interests should be at the forefront of every decision made by our nation’s leaders at the federal, state, and local levels of government. To achieve that goal, we have launched with other child advocates a campaign to urge our nation’s leaders to #Commit2Kids . Between

What's In a Name Chart? Sylvia Ashton-Warner's book, Teacher, first published in 1963, is a chronicle of her experience teaching Maori children in her native New Zealand in the 1940s and 50s. A major insight that Warner discusses in the book is the concept of "key vocabulary." She approached the literacy instruction of her children through the words that had special resonance for them, through t

An Open Letter to Teachers as the Fall of Covid Approaches | Eclectablog An Open Letter to Teachers as the Fall of Covid Approaches Dear Teachers, As your school districts’ “return to school” plans are being released, remember that you are going to hear mostly from the folks in your communities who are angry–angry that classes are being offered online, angry at the lack of child care availability

Is the Demand to Reopen Schools Really a Plot to Dismantle Them? Floridians, and everyone else, want to know the answer to this question. Some believe that keeping schools open during a pandemic will destroy them; some fear that opening them during a pandemic will destroy them. Take your pick. Thanks to Peter Greene, I discovered a Florida blog called Accountabaloney, written by two savvy Florid

NEW UK COLLEGE OF EDUCATION FACULTY BRIDGE DIVIDES FOR VULNERABLE AND UNDERSERVED POPULATIONS A diverse group of new faculty recruits to the University of Kentucky College of Education are making an impact in areas where needs are among the greatest and resources are often lacking. They will join distinguished researchers and educators who are addressing some of the most pressing issues facing t

Magical Co-Teachers I finally understand the DOE plan to conduct remote learning. I'm hearing details, and now it makes total sense to me. There will be no more Miserable Mondays and Torture Tuesdays, so all schools will be six hours and fifty minutes. This way, you'll be able to spend the first thirty minutes of each day meeting with your remote or in-person counterpart. You'll also get a thirt

Teachers need real prep time, not release time The New York City Department of Education has scheduling guidance. But nothing to get excited about. A new DoE document is floating around – I’ll get my hands on a copy tomorrow. It is called “Instructional Principals and Programming Guidance.” People are focusing on the model schedules. Since I only have screen shots, that’s what I will start with.

Don't Waste Time This is personal. You may want to move on. But I need to write this out because one of the people I would ordinarily talk it out with is not here. Merrill and I taught together for just under thirty years. We were the same age, but she had gotten a late start on her career, having first worked in the world of newspaper advertising, just one of the many parts of her biography tha

With coronavirus cases reported at some reopened schools, protesters take to the streets with fake coffins With some public schools reopened and coronavirus cases already being reported, protesters in at least three dozen school districts across the country took to the streets Monday to demand that science and health concerns rule decisions about when and how to resume in-person learning. Late M

Anniversary of this Blog Dear Readers, This post marks my 11th anniversary as a blogger. I want to thank those readers who regularly read my twice-weekly posts, those who have dipped into them occasionally, those who have subscribed to the post, and finally those who have taken the time to write thoughtful comments. Also to the growing number of international readers, I am grateful for your atte

How deadly is COVID-19? We have just begun to scratch the surface I like horror movies and this is how they all begin. Kids can be killers, Infected children younger than age 5 may carry up to 100 times as much of the coronavirus in their noses and throats as adults — while older children carry at least as much as grown-ups, according to new research. https://nypost.com/2020/07/30/kids-can-carry

Catholic Church Looks To Cash In On Espinoza Well, this is not exactly a surprise. Now that SCOTUS has poked another huge hole in the wall between church and state, and now that the Catholic Church and the Trump administration have been forging closer ties over support for school choice (aka getting tax dollars to Catholic schools), and now that Betsy DeVos is insisting that financial aid intend

IN THE WORDS OF DOLLY PARTON, HERE YOU COME AGAIN… “What exactly was the difference? He wondered to himself. And who decided which people wore the striped pajamas and which people wore the uniforms?” ― John Boyne, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas “Besides all those whaling details, Moby Dick is about someone who’s looking for something so huge, something they’ve wanted all their life, yet they kno

This Might Not Be Such a Bad Thing Despite the Covid-19 pandemic continuing to surge in the US and elsewhere, some school districts have already opened and others are hot on their heels. And as could easily be predicted, districts in Mississippi and Indiana have already reported positive Covid-19 tests, requiring quarantining, despite precautions. The largest district in Georgia has reported 260

COVID-19 “Microschools” Are Betsy DeVos’s Latest Privatization Scheme Working parents grappling with the difficult choices before them this school semester — keeping their children home to learn remotely, or risking COVID-19 transmission by sending them to class — are increasingly turning to a new trend being hailed as a “solution” to the pandemic: privatized “microschools.” Microschools consist

Will the Teachers Take Control? No group is better positioned than organized teachers to force Washington to develop a national plan to deal with the pandemic. On August 3, 1981, federal air traffic controllers in the United States launched an illegal strike, grounding flights from Guam to Puerto Rico. President Ronald Reagan walked into the Rose Garden that morning to deliver an ultimatum: unle

Teachers, Parents, Students to Rally Outside Tweed and UFT HQ to Protest Unsafe School Reopening Good morning, I thought you would be interested in this rally and march led by school staff, parents and students, happening today at 5 pm outside UFT headquarters and Tweed DOE offices. This is part of a national day of action against unsafe, unfunded school reopening. In addition to MORE, 20 additi

COVID-19 and Education: The Effect of the Pandemic on Today’s Education The COVID-19 epidemic will forever be known as the world health crisis that managed to shut down almost every school in the world. Since the virus doesn’t care about one’s race, age, or gender, the education community had to make a decision, and fast. The result is a major change in education systems all around the globe. It

Fewer U.S. Parents Want Full-Time In-Person Fall Schooling Fewer U.S. Parents Want Full-Time In-Person Fall Schooling STORY HIGHLIGHTS 36% want full-time in-person instruction; 28% want full-time remote learning More parents concerned about children catching the coronavirus A growing percentage of concerned parents want full-time remote learning WASHINGTON, D.C. -- As U.S. coronavirus infections

Who Is Paying for the Move to Virtual Schooling? Not Betsy DeVos… | Eclectablog Who Is Paying for the Move to Virtual Schooling? Not Betsy DeVos… Dear Teachers, As we prepare for the uncertainty and confusion regarding the return of school, one piece of advice: Please keep the receipts for *anything* you purchase in order to teach online this fall… new office chairs tables computer monitors lapto

Kindergarten Reading Push: Still Problematic During the Pandemic Kindergarten Reading Push: Still Problematic During the Pandemic Parents and educators, convinced that kindergartners must learn to read, might purchase unproven commercial online reading programs during the pandemic. The best solution for kindergartners currently is for school librarians and teachers to get interesting picture book

Texas schools are being compelled to reopen classrooms on the state's timetable, like it or not Districts are compelled to have students back in classrooms after eight weeks of the school year's start. After weeks of confusion and conflicting signals, Texas has settled into policies that effectively compel schools to reopen their classrooms this fall no later than eight weeks after the academic

New Georgia coronavirus outbreak among school staff doesn’t speak well for reopening It took just a day for 260 members of the faculty and staff of Georgia’s largest school district to be called out for the coronavirus after in-person meetings this week. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution , 260 employees tested positive or were out due to contact with an infected person, Gwinnett Coun

There Can Be No Safe and Just Re-opening Without Communities and Educators Working Together Today, August 3, is the National Day of Resistance by the Demand Safe Schools Coalition. This coalition, a nationwide partnership between community advocacy groups and educator unions, has "come together to unite students, educators, parents and community to advance a racial justice agenda in public educa

Congressional Failure to Provide Relief for State Budgets and Public Schools Will Launch Spiraling Educational Inequality As school districts move closer to the date when they had expected to open, more and more districts are falling back on distance learning for all or part of the first semester. Public education is the primary American social institution which supports children and their famil

The COVID Classroom: Anything But Normal Last week, I went to my classroom to begin preparing it for teaching COVID-style. I was fortunate enough to be able to pack up my classroom once our governor declared in April 2020 that students would not be returning in person to school for the remainder of the 2020-21 school year. So, in some respects, preparing my room for pandemic teaching was rather

RE: MY NOMINATION FOR US SECRETARY OF EDUCATION There’s a meme out there suggesting that I become the next Secretary of Education for this country. I use the word “meme” in the original sense where something gets repeated often. Some of it might have started from my pictures with then-presidential candidate Senator Elizabeth Warren and Julian Castro, but the more recent uptick ostensibly comes f

The DOE’s plan fails NYC students and teachers – a Teacher’s Letter to Anyone Listening I was trying to write something like this, when I stumbled across this letter. The author is a teacher in the Bronx – I got permission to repost but forgot to ask for permission to use their name (I’ll update if they give it) – jd I read the DOE’s 32 page “plan” this morning. It is abysmal and puts NYC studen

Reopening Schools Unsafely Will Not Solve Anything Opening schools unsafely will not solve any of our problems. In every case, it will make them worse. Students don’t learn a lot when their teachers are in quarantine. Children generally receive less socialization when their parents are hospitalized. Kids with special needs will receive few accommodations on a respirator. Childcare is the least o

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: August Already Edition (8/2) August Already Edition (8/2) So, here are some things to read. Is the push to reopen schools really a plot to dismantle them ? Accountabaloney listens to some bonus content from Have You Heard that lays out how DeVos has set up a pandemic win-win for herself. Worst Year Ever Nancy Flanagan reflects on the year and wonders if it couldn't actually

‘This Push to Open Schools Is Guaranteed to Fail’ It is time to stop pretending. Our children are staying home. In March, we were all living in 15-day increments. Working from home and distance learning, for those who had the terrible luxury of such things, would be a weeks-long affair, surreal but temporary. Fifteen days to flatten the curve. Fifteen days to slow the spread. Scientists warned u

BILLIONAIRES PUSH TO REOPEN SCHOOLS WITHOUT A PLAN Schools in the U.S. provide students with much more than an education. They provide child care, meals (for 14 million students), medical services (mostly for students with disabilities), psychological counseling, supervised physical activity and social connections. There are more than 135,000 educational institutions and 56.6 million students in

Pandemic Shows How Important Unions Are AFT Leader Randi Weingarten discusses reopening schools: (6.5 minutes) Thursday we got this email from the Abby Finkenauer campaign: I’m Ken Sagar, retired president of the Iowa Federation of Labor. But today I’m not here to give you an update on labor issues around the state, I’m here to support my friend, long-time labor ally Abby Finkenauer. While I was

Johaan Neem: Will Public Schools Survive the Pandemic? Johann Neem, historian of education at Western Washington University, wrote an article in USA Today about the threat that COVID-19 poses to the future of public education. Affluent parents, he notes, are making their own arrangements. Some have created “learning pods” and hired their own teachers. Others will send their children to private s

Opening Schools a Completely Crazy Idea Shocking New Study Upends Any Notion of Opening Schools: Even Children Younger Than Five May Carry High Levels of the Coronavirus, up to 100 Times as Much as Adults. A ccording to a July 31 article in The Chicago Tribune (originally published in The NYT), a just-released Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) study found that children may carry

EdAction in Congress August 2, 2020 Congress must act NOW to stem the damage from COVID-19 Two weeks after returning from vacation, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and his Senate enablers revealed their current take on COVID-19—a bill with zero chance of passing the Senate, let alone the House. Those shortcomings reflect the chaos and disarray within the GOP, and something even worse: a r

Is DCPS planning to keep infections secret? Superintendent Greene and the board are planning to send staff and students back to school when they know it is dangerous, have warned staff not to be too vocal in their dissent, said they will ignore guidelines meant to protect us when they prove inconvenient and now that they will keep infections secret unless they close schools. How the &%#$ is any

Dr. Fauci’s Experiment On the evening of July 28th, Dr. Anthony Fauci told the American Federation of Teachers the following: “You’re going to be part of the experiment of the learning curve of what we need to know.” I was a little surprised by that. First of all, I frequently see Dr. Fauci compared to President Trump, portrayed as the relative voice of reason. He seems to be truthful to a fault

Open Letter to LAUSD Board Regarding the Implementation of AB 1505 A copy of this letter was sent to each individual member via email August 1, 2020 Dear Members of the Board of Education: I am an educational rights attorney and law professor here in Los Angeles. I live within the boundaries of the Los Angeles Unified School District (“LAUSD”) and I am a registered voter. I am writing you regard

Superintendent Greene, the pandemic won't last but you losing the confidence of your staff probably will I want to try and be sympathetic to Superintendent, she has a tough job, and there has been a failure of leadership at the city, state, and federal level. That being said, she admitted during the NAACP/Friends zoom call that she thinks putting families and teachers in danger is the right choi

Draft Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum - Year 2020 (CA Dept of Education) State Superintendent Tony Thurmond Announces Recommendations to Draft Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Recommendations kick off public input period before March 2021 adoption deadline SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond announced today that the California Department of Education (CDE) has poste

POLITICAL ROPE-A-DOPE “Honest people don’t hide their deeds.” ― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights “Nobody lives forever, nobody stays young long enough. My past seemed like so much excess baggage, my future a series of long goodbyes, my present an empty flask, the last good drink already bitter on my tongue.” ― James Crumley, The Last Good Kiss I grew up watching Muhamad Ali fight. These days boxi

Worlds of Education: "The Edtech Pandemic Shock", by Ben Williamson & Anna Hogan The Covid-19 pandemic was the context for two major disruptions in education. The first was the disruption to schooling for millions of students worldwide, and a rapid shift to remote learning online. The second, closely related disruption was the entry of the commercial education technology sector into public educa

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007 Big Education Ape: THIS WEEK IN EDUCATION Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... The latest news and resources in education since 2007 - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2020/08/this-week-in-education-larry-ferlazzos.html James Baldwin Would Have Been Ninety-Six Years Old Today – Here Are Teaching

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all DID YOU MISS DIANE RAVITCH'S BLOG TODAY? A site to discuss better education for all Big Education Ape: KEEP UP/ CATCH UP WITH DIANE RAVITCH'S BLOG A site to discuss better education for all - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2020/08/keep-up-catch-up-with-diane-ravitchs.html My Interview with the New York Review of Books by diane

Big Education Ape TOP POSTS THIS WEEK 8/1/20 ‘Slaying Goliath’: Diane Ravitch argues in new book that public education advocates have beat back efforts to privatize schools - The Washington Post The real story of New Orleans and its charter schools - The Washington Post Outdoor Classes