TOP POSTS THIS WEEK 8/15/20 #REDFORED #tbats #COVID-19 #REOPENSCHOOLS #BIDEN2020 #BidenHarris2020

Rating the August 13 UFT Town Hall Technical – calls seemed to have gone out on time. Some people needed to dial in. The audio quality was fine on my end, though several callers complained about theirs. They had trouble connecting some questioners, and lost at least one partway through the question. I did try pushing the question button, and got silence, not even a “the queue is full” message. O

Empowering the voters with knowledge Empower Jax is an organization known for wanting to strip protections away from LGBTQ people. They fought against the HRO and push an agenda that wants to see gay people shoved back in the closet, and don't take my word for it, take the Times Unions. Oh, and why does this matter? It's because they found their candidate in district 3. From the Florida Times-Un

Live Conversation: Do America's Cities Love Black people? Schott Foundation President & CEO Dr. John H. Jackson and Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools Executive Director Keron Blair talk about racial injustice, inequities in public education, and how COVID-19 has revealed the lovelessness of institutions toward Black children and their families. Live Conversation: Do America's Cities Love Black peo

California: The Year of Teaching Dangerously, Part 1 Capital & Main published a five-part series on teaching during the pandemic. The series is called “The Year of Teaching Dangerously.” Sasha Abramsky launched the series with an article about how schools in California were adapting to the pandemic . Abramsky writes about the uncertainty, confusion, and conflict that accompanied the shutdown, as

A Florida school district wanted to wait to reopen school buildings. Gov. Ron DeSantis threatened to cut its funding WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Florida is making a high-stakes gamble on school openings, with superintendents pressured into decisions that some fear will result in outbreaks of covid-19. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis this week forced one of the country's largest school districts to reopen

The ZOOM Lawsuit to decide the fate of teachers and students I am confused why the judge didn't just say, well as long as we have to have court through zoom, we should have school through zoom too. Corcoran and DeSantis are attempting to usurp the authority of districts and force them to do what they want them to do, not what the local supers and boards think is best, and nowhere is this more ev

“Confessions of a School Reformer”(Part 1) I am drafting chapters for my next book with the above title. I described the idea of the book and my experiences in the Pittsburgh schools during the Progressive reform era (see the five-part series “We Are All Reformers” on this blog ). In alternating chapters, the book will describe and analyze each of three reform movements during my lifetime and th

De Blasio's Three Prongs of Wrongs It'ts not easy getting something so wrong that there's no way out. But Mayor Bill de Blasio is special. He's managed to do three things in such an utterly inept fashion that there's evidently no coming back. Error number one was the most egregious, because that's the one that enabled errors two and three. The first thing de Blasio did was, rather than decide wh

WHEN LIFE EMULATES AN ICEBREAKER “We should be rigorous in judging ourselves and gracious in judging others.” ― John Wesley “Authority is supposedly grounded in wisdom, but I could see from a very early age that authority was only a system of control and it didn’t have any inherent wisdom. I quickly realised that you either became a power or you were crushed.” ― Joe Strummer Several years ago I

California Department of Education 2020-21 Middle School Foundation Academies 20h This is an RFA for Middle School Foundation Academies Planning Grant. New Special Education Director Named 33 21h State Superintendent Tony Thurmond Appoints Former Illinois Special Education Leader Heather Calomese as New Director of Special Education Division AUG 13 Recommendations Proposed for Ethnic Studies 1d

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 The ZOOM Lawsuit to decide the fate of teachers and students 200+ by Unknown / 1h This is surreal. The state is holding the lawsuit to see if Local districts have control over education or the state does is being held over ZOOM. I am confused why the judge didn't j

NewBlackMan (in Exile) New Generation of Writers of Color Reckon with H.P. Lovecraft's Racism by Mark Anthony Neal / 12h 'Based on a book by Matt Ruff , the Lovecraft Country is set during the Jim Crow South, and combines the actual terrors of racism with the fantastical horror of author H.P. Lovecraft , who wrote most of his work in the early 20th century. In real life, Lovecraft was extremely

Education Research Report THIS WEEK Education Research Report Students’ retention, persistence, attainment, withdrawal, stopout, and transfer rates by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 19h New Web Tables from the National Center for Education Statistics provide the most recent national statistics on students’ who first began postsecondary education in the 2011–12 year. These tables provide information about

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 The Kindle Edition Of “The ELL Teacher’s Toolbox” Is On Sale Today For $4.99 by Larry Ferlazzo / 10min Our publisher just told us that Amazon, for some reason that is strange and mysteri

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all Fred Klonsky: Retired Teachers in Illinois Don’t Collect Social Security, Does It Matter if the GOP Kills It? by dianeravitch / 7min Fred Klonsky is a retired teacher in Illinois. Retired teachers in that state, like many others, don’t collect Social Security. Politicians of both parties have tried to cut teachers’ retirement bene

The Fight For Police-Free Schools: Lessons from the Past, New Directions for the Future Leading organizers in the educational justice movement discuss how the last ten years of parent and youth organizing helped lay the foundation for the emergence of mass protests and the campaign for police free schools and where the movement is going. Panelists: Jonathan Stith , Alliance for Educational Justi

Teaching in an Age of Corona During the Spring Semester of 2020, I was teaching two of my favorite classes- From Rock and Roll to Hip Hop, which had nearly 40 students, and my research seminar in African American and Urban Studies, where I was supervising 10 students writing their Senior theses. When the Pandemic hit, classes moved online, and everyone had to leave campus, my students and I were

The dystopian tech that companies are selling to help schools reopen sooner This fall, AI could be watching students social distance and checking their masks Thousands of schools nationwide will not be reopening this fall. But in Las Vegas, the private K-12 Meadows School plans to use an artificial intelligence-powered thermal screening system to keep students safe as they return to classes. The

DOE Death Panels I'm getting a lot of email about reasonable accommodations this week. The DOE is finally responding to requests they got a month ago, and what people are really surprised about is that they're getting answers out before school starts. There's so little reason in the world to begin with. Just for starters, I see young women everywhere wearing thinks that say PINK in big letters.

NewBlackMan (in Exile) On Evictions, Police Brutality and the Violence of Class War in South Africa. by Mark Anthony Neal / 15h 'Writer William Shoki examines the cyclical, class nature of evictions and police brutality against poor and working class South Africans - as the nation's political economy operates for domestic and global capital, the social relations of apartheid and colonialism pers

Fact Checking the “Science of Reading”: A Quick Guide for Teachers Fact Checking the “Science of Reading”: A Quick Guide for Teachers – radical eyes for equity

David Berliner and Gene Glass: Why Bother Testing in 2021? David Berliner and Gene Glass are leaders of the American education research community. Their books are required reading in the field. They shared with me their thoughts about the value of annual testing in 2021. I would add only one point: if Trump is voted out in November, Jim Blew and Betsy DeVos will have no role in deciding whether

Safety Concerns Over COVID-19 Driving Some Educators Out the Profession When school starts in Rutherford County, Tennessee, this month, and hundreds of teachers return to their physical classrooms, armed with surgical face coverings, Plexiglas shields, and stores of sanitizing supplies, AP English teacher Cassie Piggott will not be among them. Forced to choose between the career she loves and th

Congress Neglects Children: No Relief for Public Schools or State Budgets Public schools are the linchpin holding together our society’s supports for 50 million children. Public schools are where our children practice learning, computing, critical thinking, imagining; where they develop skills in writing, reading, musicianship, art, and all kinds of sports; and where they learn to respect one an

Why is it so hard for DCPS just to do the right thing. (draft) I tried to come up with something where I talked about the Premack principle and how if you are in a hole stop digging, but I couldn't because the bottom line is DCPS is making a conscious choice to treat it's employees poorly. Every time they are given an opportunity to do something right, they choose wrong. First, the district has

Recommendations Proposed for Ethnic Studies - Year 2020 (CA Dept of Education) State Superintendent Tony Thurmond and Civil Rights Leaders Propose Recommendations to Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Student, lawmakers, and ethnic studies leader call for model that promotes racial justice SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond presented Thursday—alongside a coalition of

At War with Myself There is a refrain I say to myself, something I likely have never admitted to anyone: “I hate my body.” I say this to myself quite often and without the gravity the word “hate” should imply because this simply is a fact of my existence. A good friend texted recently, sharing very dark morning thoughts and ending with #upliftingthoughts. I wasn’t being flippant but empathetic w

Principals and Teachers Demand a Delayed Reopening, a Phasing in of the Hybrid Model: Are We Heading Towards a Confrontation? Principals/Teachers versus the Mayor/Chancellor? “In order for schools to reopen and stay open, the percentage of positive tests in New York City must be less than 3% using a 7-day rolling average. Schools will need to close if the percentage of positive tests in New York

Shanker Blog: State Budget Cuts and School Districts with Pre-Existing Conditions The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has published projections of state budget shortfalls due to the pandemic. The total estimated shortfall for fiscal years 2020-2022 is $555 billion. This includes $290 billion in FY2021 alone, a deficit over 25 percent larger than that in the worst year of the Great Recessi

THE BREAKDOWN OF NEW NAACP EDUCATION INITIATIVE WITH DEAN JULIAN VASQUEZ HEILIG The University of Kentucky College of Education is teaming up with the NAACP to launch a groundbreaking collaboration. Together, the two are developing an education and research initiative focused on educational equity, civil rights and social justice. Tonight on The Breakdown-UK College of Education Dean, Julian Vas

Betsy DeVos’ Deadly Plan to Reopen Schools Trump education secretary Betsy DeVos is heading the administration’s effort to force schools to reopen in the fall for in-person instruction. What’s her plan to reopen safely? She doesn’t have one. Rather than seeking additional federal funds, she’s using this pandemic to further her ploy to privatize education — threatening to withhold federal funds f

Ed Department Accused Of Diverting Funds From Students With Disabilities A lawsuit filed this week accuses the U.S. Department of Education of jeopardizing students with disabilities by misdirecting funds meant to help schools deal with fallout from the pandemic. Earlier this year, Congress included billions of dollars in funding for schools in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security,

Teachers Unions Look Like the Last Line of Defense in Trump’s “Reckless” School Reopening Crusade As Amer­i­can fam­i­lies fret over a patch­work set of stan­dards for reopen­ing schools that vary wide­ly by city and state, teach­ers unions across the coun­try are denounc­ing the Trump administration’s approach to the issue as ill-advised, life-threat­en­ing and unjust. And they’re vow­ing to do

NYC: Principals, Teachers, Nurses Seek Delay in Opening Spokespersons for principals, teachers, and nurses have called on Mayor De Blasio to delay reopening and provide more time to prepare schools, reports Gotham Gazette, a publication of the Citizens Union Foundation. ​ The principals union, the teachers union, and the nurses union have come out against the ​city’s plan to reopen classrooms on

A generation left behind? Online learning cheats poor students, Times survey finds Maria Viego and Cooper Glynn were thriving at their elementary schools. Maria, 10, adored the special certificates she earned volunteering to read to second-graders. Cooper, 9, loved being with his friends and how his teacher incorporated the video game Minecraft into lessons. But when their campuses shut down ami

A "Boy Team" and a "Girl Team" Charlotte was one of those kids who had been coming to Woodland Park since before she was born, arriving first in our classroom in utero to drop off and pick up her older brother, then continuing on her own behalf until she was five. If I've ever known a student, it would be Charlotte, and among the many things I know is that she is not conflict averse: she will st

McKeesport School Board Recklessly Votes to Reopen to Half Day In-Person Classes During a Global Pandemic For a moment there, I thought things might go differently. With Covid-19 cases exponentially more numerous today than they were when schools closed in March, last night McKeesport Area School Directors voted whether to reopen buildings to half day in-person classes. And it really looked like

State Superintendent Tony Thurmond Commends Students, Families, and Educators on Return to Learning and Outlines Ongoing Priorities SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond on Wednesday commended the around-the-clock dedication of educators, families, and students as most schools across California begin a new school year under distance learning. In a virtual news media

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007 Classroom Instruction Resources Of The Week by Larry Ferlazzo / 10h Each week, I publish a post or two containing three or four particularly useful resources on classroom instruction, and you can see them all here. Of course, this is a crazy time for “classroom” instruction…. You might also be interes

MI: Mobile Billboard Stalks DeVos Protect Our Public Schools is a group of retired teachers and other stakeholders working out of Livonia, Michigan. While their reach may not be large nor their pockets deep, they have come up with a fun way to demand Betsy DeVos's attention. While demanding that public schools be open and full this fall, DeVos herself has been working remotely from one of the fa

Getting it Right: Reopening our Nation's Schools. A National Town hall on Sat. Aug. 15 from 12-4 pm. This Saturday August 15, I will be co-hosting the second half of a four-hour program called "Getting it Right" from 12 -4 PM EST on school reopening and how best to educate students during the pandemic. My panels will focus on issues with remote learning and health and safety. There is an amazing

MAGA: “My Awesome Gettysburg Address” My fellow American patriots, Welcome to this historical monument and this even more historical occasion, because today your favorite President is accepting his party’s unanimous nomination to continue to lead our beloved country to even greater heights, now that we have the China virus under control. You know, many people said that I should come to Gettysbur

Online Instruction for All Even the most fervent advocate for online instruction would be surprised. For those who predicted 20 years ago that remote instruction will take over public schooling, the future has arrived. And for the true believers in online instruction as the best, efficient (read: less expensive) way of teaching and learning, Nirvana has arrived. Covid-19 has upended naysayers wh

Stop Covid-19 Career Comparison Guilting! Teachers Aren’t Flight Attendants Or . . . Stop Covid-19 Career Comparison Guilting! Teachers Aren’t Flight Attendants Or . . . Every job faces its own Covid-19 difficulties, but there should be no comparison guilting. Every job is different. Teachers face comparison attacks, with no consideration of the uniqueness found in the school environment. Teacher

6 Reasons Why Educators Are Excited About Kamala Harris On August 11, Joe Biden announced Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) to be his Vice Presidential running mate. Biden promised to nominate a woman vice president during the final Democratic presidential debate in March 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic came into full view across the country. Biden’s historic selection of Harris reinforces the forw

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007 Online Or In The Classroom, It’s Important To Pronounce Student Names Correctly! by Larry Ferlazzo / 2h Clker-Free-Vector-Images / Pixabay As we enter a new school year, just a reminder: We teachers have to correctly pronounce our students’ names! If you don’t think it’s important, or you need help wi

Congressional Negotiations for Second COVID-19 Relief Bill Collapse. Nothing Is Forthcoming to Repair State Budgets or Help Local School Districts The prospect of a second coronavirus relief bill devolved into chaos over the weekend as the White House/Congressional negotiations disintegrated, and President Donald Trump offered to replace Congressional action with executive orders and executive m

OPC vs jd – who would you choose? So pretend for a moment that you are an NYCDoE principal and that you need to get September ready and you can have an outside helper, and you have it narrowed down to the Overpaid Private Consultant (OPC) that the DoE uses, or me (JD)… and all you have to go on are these little bits that each of us wrote about entry into buildings. Read on, and prepare to make y

Class with Instructional Lunch The chancellor had a flash of inspiration one day, and decided that he needed to maximize learning in schools. Now I'm just a lowly teacher, so I have no idea exactly what inspiration looks like on that lofty plain, that hallowed ground of the old Tweed building, named for the crookedest politician of all time (pre-Trump, of course). That's why it's hard for me to

Pandemic Ed: What If the Wireless Is Out? Interesting situation today. I have been creating assignments suited to online learning, which basically means that I have to rethink my teaching and create an entirely new, pandemic-adjusted, English IV course. I am trying to get a number of such assignments ready to go prior to my return to school on August 20, 2020. Since students are not slated to re

AEI: Previewing New Reformy Rhetoric Over at AEI, Robert C. Enlow and Jason Bedrick have some thoughts for new, improved rhetoric for pushing school choice. It's worth a look to see where the argument is headed in the year ahead. Enlow is the president/CEO of EdChoice (formerly the Milton Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice). Bedrow is the director of policy at EdChoice , as well as a sch

DCPS proves once again tells teachers they are not important This is going to be a little inside baseball. DCPS decided to scrap it's ESE curriculum based on 24 responses to a survey given during a pandemic. That's a problem; the bigger one though, is the district continues to treat its teachers like afterthoughts. So last spring, they introduced a program called Teach Town to supplement our mai

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ZOOM FOR EDUCATION Zoom for Education has been adopted by thousands of schools nationwide. Zoom began marketing to K-12 schools in November 2019 , prior to the Covid pandemic. Zoom also created a website specific for education: https://zoom.us/education . Zoom has referred to its education platform as a Zoom for K-12 service but apparently rather than face data privac

Scores of Education Experts Call on Schools to Reject Screen-Saturated Return to Learning "Now is the time for parents and teachers to come together and demand what children really need." As school districts across nation make plans for the fall semester—with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic forcing varying degrees of reliance on remote learning—scores of education experts on Tuesday sounded the

Latest update on NYC school reopening plans; and why many parents still appear undecided | Class Size Latest update on NYC school reopening plans; and why many parents still appear undecided Dear friends– On Friday, the NYC Department of Education posted the latest version of their reopening plan s. It contained two big revisions from the one previously released: Now schools will be able apply fo

We Got Racism. Right Here in River City. If you live in Michigan, you’ve probably read this story, which passed quickly from the local weekly to the nearest daily and public radio station , downstate to the Detroit News and Dateline Detroit —then off to the Washington Post and NBC. Short synopsis: Old white Road Commission member in Leelanau County (Tom Eckerle, 75) makes egregiously racist rema

How many NYC parents chose “blended learning”? This is easy. There are 1.1 million students in New York City. The mayor and Chancellor want blended learning (hybrid) to take place in September. The Mayor has been boasting about it. The Chancellor has been boasting about. The Mayor and Chancellor have been pushing hard. There is not a strong, centrally organized resistance * . .Which means the Ma

Betsy DeVos publicly absent as critical decisions are made on public school reopenings DETROIT — As public schools grapple with the challenge of reopening during a pandemic , public education advocates are criticizing Education Secretary Betsy DeVos for working remotely from Michigan, where she owns a sprawling waterfront estate with a round-the-clock security detail paid for by taxpayers. And w

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 What Trump’s Executive Orders Really Do by dianeravitch / 1h David Dayen writes the blog “Unsanitized” for the American Prospect. In this post, he explains what Trump’s executive orders really do. Please open the links to see the many embedded links

Listen to this – 2020 #3 COVID-19, PUBLIC HEALTH, STARTING SCHOOL The Covid-19 Experiment: Facing the Sins of a Nation that Quit Caring About Public Education Long Ago Education is the largest portion of the budget in Indiana, yet it’s underfunded. People want services — like good public schools — but aren’t willing to pay for them. Hoosiers, like many Americans, are shortsighted and selfish. We

No One Knows How to Do this Better than You: A Short List of Things to Think About A recent national survey found that over 70 percent of American families will be engaged in some form of homeschooling this fall. I don't know what the number is for families of preschool aged children, but I'm assuming it's similar. Most schools are going to be relying on some version of online instruction, which

Why Dorothy Counts? “I must admit this is a strange book,” Eddie S. Glaude Jr. explains in the “Introduction” to Begin Again , explaining: It isn’t biography, although there are moments when it feels biographical; it is not literary criticism, although I read Baldwin’s nonfiction writings closely; and it is not straightforward history, even though the book, like Baldwin, is obsessed with history