My Child Is Being Left Behind During This National Crisis. Are Yours? - Philly's 7th Ward My Child Is Being Left Behind During This National Crisis. Are Yours? As a disability advocate and a parent of a child with autism, I’m hearing stories from other parents of children with autism that break my heart! Here is one story from a fellow mom who shows us all the ways remote learning can never measu
Superintendent: ‘I lose sleep at night’ about the 'logged out’ kids whose top priority is ‘survival’ — not remote learning Marlon Styles Jr. is superintendent of the high-poverty Middletown City School District in southwestern Ohio. This week, he was one of several superintendents who gave a virtual presentation to the House Committee on Education and Labor during a briefing about remote learnin
Here's how grassroots groups are making a difference, and how you can help them. Learn how the Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization is bringing people together to respond to the crisis > The Schott Foundation’s partners are providing critically-needed aid in their communities during the COVID-19 pandemic, just as they’ve done during previous crises. At the same time they are fighting to ensure
A teacher predicts what his classroom (and others) will look like in the fall I last posted something from Larry Ferlazzo, a veteran high school teacher in Sacramento, in April, when he was tweeting about his experiences teaching online during the coronavirus pandemic and saying unequivocally: However hard you think it might be, it’s harder. Now he is back with a prediction of how his class — an
Expanding the Writing Process: Drafting Edition To be a scholar is to be a writer—often a writer seeking publication. Part of my career-long journey to teach writing well, or at least always trying to teach writing better, has been to bring the necessarily reduced experience of writing as a student closer to the authentic experiences of writers in situations, for lack of the better phrase, in th
Naomi Klein: Beware the Tech Billionaires and Their “Pandemic Shock Doctrine” Naomi Klein coined the iconic book Shock Doctrine, about the way that the powerful elites use emergencies to expand their power because of the crisis. New Orleans was one of her prime examples of “disaster capitalism,” where the devastation of a giant hurricane created an opportunity to break the teachers union and pri
TEACHERS – THANK YOU! 𝒥𝓊𝓁𝒾𝒶𝓃𝒱𝒶𝓈𝓆𝓊𝑒𝓏𝐻𝑒𝒾𝓁𝒾𝑔 @ProfessorJVH Teachers – thank you. Words cannot describe the level of appreciation we have for the important work you do. # TeacherAppreciationWeek # TeacherAppreciationWeek2020 @ UKCollegeofEd @ Lily_NEA @ rweingarten @ DianeRavitch @ Network4pubEd @ lucywaterbury @ carolburris 32 3:03 PM - May 8, 2020 Twitter Ads info and privacy 15
Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy Network Needs 1,000 Hires. Don’t Bother Unpacking. Eva Moskowitz’s New York-based charter school chain, Success Academies (SA), burns through teachers and other employees. For 2020-21, the charter chain needs another thousand, a devouring that spins well into the “who’s hiring” announcement in the May 08, 2020, CNN Business : Education Success Academy Charter Scho
STOP THE PANDEMIC’S SCHOOL PUSHOUT Parent Racial Justice Demands for Emergency Schooling During COVID19 Table of Contents Emergency Education, the New Pushout and the Lie of “Remote Learning” Our Demands Demand #1: Redress Civil Rights Harms In Emergency Education Now! Demand #2: Remove All SRO’s and Police from Schools; Reinvest Police Budgets Demand #3: Ensure School Families’ Basic Needs Are
NewBlackMan (in Exile) Big Freedia Remembers the Time Patti LaBelle Made Her Fried Chicken by Mark Anthony Neal / 2d 'A lot of the stories told on The FADER ’s Remember That Time series recount the weird, wild, abject, and plain stupid — from the time the Spice Girls peed in Elton John’s pot plant to the night Omar Apollo nearly got robbed. But today’s Remember That Time is something special ind
Education Research Report THIS WEEK Education Research Report Talent is key to school turnarounds by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 16h New research has demonstrated that the key to implementing successful reform in low-performing schools is hiring and retaining effective principals and teachers. These findings, reported in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis (EEPA), also note that teacher turnover
Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007 SPECIAL CORONAVIRUS UPDATE Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... The latest news and resources in education since 2007 “How to Assess Students’ Math Skills Remotely” by Larry Ferlazzo / 7h How to Assess Students’ Math Skills Remotely is the headline of my latest Education Week Teacher column. It’s Pa
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 Excellent Source of Information about Spread of COVID-19: Worldometer by dianeravitch / 37min This is a valuable source of information a bout the occurrence and consequences of the coronavirus and governments’ response to it. It is called Worldom
Code Acts in Education: Edtech, Coronavirus, and Commercialization in Public Education While the opening months of 2020 have been marked by huge disruptions to education at an international scale, some organizations have thrived during the coronavirus pandemic. According to the education markets consultancy HolonIQ , the first three months of the year ‘delivered $3B of Global EdTech Venture Capi
Not all kids have computers – and they’re being left behind with schools closed by the coronavirus The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work. The big idea Since 2014, the Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research, located at the University of Southern California, has been tracking trends in health economic well-being, attitudes and behaviors through a nationwide s
K-12 school leaders warn of ‘disaster’ from huge coronavirus-related budget cuts as layoffs and furloughs begin Just as they face unprecedented challenges and financial costs, leaders of K-12 public school districts around the country are warning of dire consequences from sharp budget cuts from state legislatures attempting to deal with the economic fallout of the novel coronavirus pandemic. The
Doyle and Hynes: W e Welcome Bill Gates to New York if He Agrees to Three Conditions Author William Doyle and Superintendent Michael Hynes—both known for supporting whole-child education—- say that they would welcome Bill Gates to New York if he agrees to meet three conditions. They suggest that Gates has a chance to redeem his reputation after 20 years of failure in education. They write: The G
A Rap About Betsy DeVos: RESIGN BETSY Watch this video by Jeff Grossi, a high school math teacher in Buffalo, who loves rap music. His rapping name is MC ZiLL. A Rap About Betsy DeVos: RESIGN BETSY | Diane Ravitch's blog
Take The Poll! In its quest to hire a new superintendent of education, the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education conducted a survey to gather input from the public in regards to the priorities that should be considered. More than 7000 responses were received on the BESE poll which asked participants to indicate their priorities under three basic categories: Actions, Skills, and C
CDC Guidance For Reopening Schools, Child Care And Summer Camps Is Leaked No field trips. No game rooms. No teddy bears. These are some of the CDC's guidelines for reopening schools, childcare centers and day camps safely in places where coronavirus cases are on the decline. The guidance, which also covers restaurants, churches and other public places, was obtained by The Associated Press , whic
What Does the Word "Education" Mean? Yesterday, I made an assertion that I suspected was true, but upon reflection I began to wonder. What I wrote: For most of the experience of Homo sapiens , work, family, and play were inseparable, an aspect of the human survival strategy that allowed our species to thrive. For ninety-five percent of our existence we've been evolving brains that function best
Ohio Governor Cuts $300 Million from FY 2020 Education Funding. Crisis Across State Budgets Demands Immediate and Long Term Federal Help At the end of April, Bruce Baker of Rutgers University and Matthew Di Carlo of the Albert Shanker Institute published a new report, The Coronavirus Pandemic and K-12 Education Funding . They begin: “The most terrible and lasting effects of the coronavirus pande
NYC Educator: Why Can't We All Teach Live During the Apocolypse? Why Can't We All Teach Live During the Apocalypse? Somehow this story in the Post got past me. The headline declares teachers across the city have abandoned live instruction. While it goes into the fact that some students lack the necessary technology to keep up with their peers, much of it is about people bemoaning the lack of avai
I WANT YOU TO ENROLL IN MY COURSE. HELP ME CHOOSE THE TOPIC! Have you ever had the opportunity to tell a professor what course you want to take? I am taking suggestions for a course in the new University of Kentucky College of Education’s Professional Learning Series that I will teach this summer online that will be open for anyone in the public to register. When I came to Kentucky, I realized t
"I Didn't Learn Anything" Two stories for Teacher Appreciation Week. Story One: At the very beginning of my career, I taught middle school students. Then one year I finally moved down to the high school and, to make the transition a bit easier, I taught many of the students as ninth graders that I had also taught as middle schoolers. At the beginning of units, I often did a quick-and-dirty check
Betsy DeVos unveils new Title IX rules: Are they aimed at "silencing survivors"? New federal guidelines may make it harder to report sexual assault or harassment, and reduce investigations After three years of combative deliberations, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos released controversial new rules on Wednesday governing how schools administer allegations of sexual assault and misconduct, rules
Cuomo questions why school buildings still exist — and says New York will work with Bill Gates to ‘reimagine education’ Teachers criticized the partnership (Update: Comment from Gates foundation) New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) rocked the education world — and drew strong criticism from teachers and others — by questioning why school buildings still exist and announcing that he would work with
The Disappearing Social Safety Net: Public Schools Sondra Cuban and I jointly wrote this post. “ Sondra Cuban is a Professor at Western Washington University and an educational sociologist studying the trajectories, aspirations, and struggles of women immigrants. She is the author of Deskilling Migrant Women in the Global Care Industry (2013). “ One of our greatest social safety nets has vanishe
New York: Cuomo’s Pathetic Attempt to Pretend He is Not Really Asking Bill Gates to Reinvent Education When Governor Cuomo got the blowback from parents and educators who were outraged at the idea that he invited Bill Gates (and now Eric Schmidt of Google) to “reinvent” education in the state, he pretended he didn’t say it. He (or someone on his staff) wrote a message yesterday on his Facebook p
Government Leaders Including Betsy DeVos Push Their Personal Agendas as Economic Tsunami Crashes into America’s Schools | Ed Politics GOVERNMENT LEADERS INCLUDING BETSY DEVOS PUSH THEIR PERSONAL AGENDAS AS ECONOMIC TSUNAMI CRASHES INTO AMERICA’S SCHOOLS Due to the coronavirus pandemic, nearly all states have ordered or recommended school buildings stay closed for the rest of the academic year, ac
Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007 SPECIAL CORONAVIRUS UPDATE Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... The latest news and resources in education since 2007 Ed Tech Digest by Larry Ferlazzo / 2h Eight years ago, in another somewhat futile attempt to reduce the backlog of resources I want to share, I began this occasional “” post where I
A Valuable Thing Children Can Learn From Their Parents Who are Working at Home My father is a civil engineer. For most of my childhood he would leave home in the morning and return in the evening. What he did, why he did it, and who he did it with were largely mysteries to us kids who were left at home with mom. Today, it's not just dad, but mom as well who heads off to work. As we got older, we
The Right to Read In the latest episode of Have You Heard we dig into the recent – and surprising – decision by a federal court declaring that there is in fact a constitutional right to education. One catch: the court defined that right very narrowly as a “basic minimum education.” Jennifer and Jack explore what the ruling does, and doesn’t mean, with the help of an all star cast, including Noli
No Need to “Imagine”: Bill Gates Interferes with Education. On May 05, 2020, New York governor, Andrew Cuomo, announced vague plans to work with billionaire education interference, Bill Gates, to “reimagine” education. From the Daily Gazette: “It’s not just about reopening schools,” Cuomo said Tuesday. “When we are reopening schools, let’s open a better school and let’s open a smarter education
TFA Will Train New Recruits Virtually For the past thirty summers, Teach For America has trained their new recruits in a five-week crash course known as ‘the institute.’ The first institute trained 500 corps members in Los Angeles. As TFA grew, more institutes were added and last summer they trained around 3,000 corps members spread out among four different sites. At the institute, corps members
Diane Ravitch in Conversation with Randi Weingarten Start: Wednesday, May 13, 2020 • 8:00 PM • Eastern Daylight Time (US & Canada) (GMT-04:00) End: Wednesday, May 13, 2020 • 9:30 AM • Eastern Daylight Time (US & Canada) (GMT-04:00) The Network for Public Education invites you to join us for a video conference with NPE President Diane Ravitch. Diane's guest this week will be American Federation o
Andrew Cuomo’s School Skepticism New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has gotten a large boost in public approval both locally and nationally during the pandemic. That should not be a real surprise to observers. Contrasting his calm and technocratic approach to epidemiology with incompetence and chaos coming from Washington, D.C. was always going to play to his strengths and, oddly, turn some of his d
High Stakes Testing Is A Huge Threat To Post-Covid Education High stakes testing and the relentless use of Big Standardized Test score as a proxy for everything we want from an education system--well, it has always caused problems. It has led to a terrible narrowing of education (if that class isn't On The Test, then why bother supporting it or even offering it). It has provided a large-scale de
“Reimagining” Teacher Appreciation in 2020: Pushback on the Takeover of America’s Schools “Reimagining” Teacher Appreciation in 2020: Pushback on the Takeover of America’s Schools Teacher Appreciation has taken on new meaning in 2020. This week is supposed to be a time to celebrate teachers with 20% off coupons, candy bars, notes, and thank you trinkets. A scrawled homemade card, laboriously desi
Punching Down on Veteran Teachers It is the ultimate irony, in this #TeacherAppreciationWeek2020, on the very day that America’s teachers, persisting through the worst educational and global crisis in their careers, are supposed to be honored—that a piece like this would be posted. Titled How to Make the Coming Teacher Layoffs Hurt Schools and Students Less, with the equally cheery subhead Schoo
The profound civics lesson kids are getting from the U.S. government’s response to the covid-19 pandemic Education Secretary Betsy DeVos last month decried student test scores from National Assessment of Educational Progress exams given in 2018 to eighth-graders in civics, U.S. geography and education. Students from around the country didn’t score well, and DeVos called the results “stark and in
#PublicSchoolGrad Scholarship - Enter Today! Enter to win a $1,000 scholarship! Deadline for all submissions: June 15, 2020 As a member of the Class of 2020 you are facing extraordinary challenges of school closings, trying to complete courses via distance learning, without in-person support from teachers and the connection to friends—and possibly without the graduation ceremony you and your fam
Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all DIANE IS ON A ROLL TODAY! Take a Tour of the Luscious Cherry Blossom Trees in the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens by dianeravitch / 14min Right now, the cherry blossoms are at their peak . Usually, the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens would have large crowds of people, who want to see this wonderful explosion of color. Now the gardens are empty.
| A clearinghouse for information on class size & the proven benefits of smaller classes Update on Panel meeting, Mulgrew on my radio show tomorrow, Cuomo and Bill Gates, and more Dear Friends — A quick note to update you on a few issues: 1- In my previous email, I had the wrong date for this week’s meeting of the Panel for Educational Policy when a bunch of highly questionable, potentially wast
Are Governor Cuomo and the Gates Foundation Making Education Policy for New York State? Has the Board of Regents Been Replaced? (I Hope Not!) The seventeen members of the NYS Board of Regents are unpaid and unstaffed, trek to Albany (well, until now) once a month for an intense day and a half meeting. For the last decade I have also trekked to Albany to attend the meetings. I’ve come to know a n
Andrew Cuomo Is a Cynical Liar It doesn't take a genius to know that remote learning is a pale echo of the real thing. I've been trying to reach my kids for six weeks online. I'm getting better at it, but I'd be delusional if I were to tell you that it's a substitute for face to face in the same room. Andrew Cuomo says otherwise , and his snake oil salesmanship is right up there with Donald Trum
When After-School Is Shut Down, Too When Jessyka Bagdon set out to move her tap dancing classes online, big questions started popping up right away: What about kids who don't own their own tap shoes? How to tap dance at home without ruining the floor? And then came the really big challenge: Online programs like Zoom are designed for meetings, not dance classes. "They're made to pick up voices,"
Appreciating Organized Teachers and Their Unions in Teacher Appreciation Week For over two decades our public schools have been trapped in a wave of massive education disruption—an effort to reform education by holding schools and teachers accountable for raising students’ aggregate test scores. But it didn’t work. Overall test scores haven’t risen. When almost all U.S. public schools were on tr
http://www.southbronxschool.com RIP and Thank You Chaz the Blogger Earlier today I found out my fellow blogger and friend Eric Chasinoff passed away at the age of 69 due to COVID . Today is a sad day not only for myself, but fellow bloggers and the scores of teachers over the years that Chaz selflessly helped, supported, and sometimes (when needed) just lent an ear. For me Chaz was always the go
State Superintendent Tony Thurmond and Digital Divide Task Force Continue to Advocate for Students Who Lack Access SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and state leaders called representatives from major technology and internet service provider companies to appear at yesterday’s Closing the Digital Divide Task Force meeting to discuss the persistent technology gaps
PA: The House Speaker Wants Schools Open Pennsylvania House Speaker Mike Turzai has never been a friend of public education in the Keystone State, and he has generally been pretty clear about it. But Monday he got extra Mike Turzai-ish when posting a six minute video attacking the state education head, teachers, schools, and teachers . Just for context, let me mention two things-- Turzai is not
Impact of Covid on Latino Students Town Hall for #EdJustice: The Impact of COVID-19 on Latino Students and Educators Video is here: https://www.facebook.com/lulac.national.dc/videos/269467734206191/ The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and the National Education Association (NEA) will be hosting the #EdJustice Town Hall tomorrow with the National Immigration Law Center and the Ho
Responding to the Washington Post’s Jay Mathews By Thomas Ultican 5/5/2020 It came as a surprise when Washington Post columnist Jay Mathews reached out to me. After indicating that he was writing a book, Mathew’s said that he had just come upon my piece “ A Texas Sized Destroy Public Education IDEA . ” He flatteringly wrote, “… your analysis is impressive and I want to include some of it in my b
Letter to Gov. Cuomo: do not allow the Gates Foundation to influence education policy in our state Our letter sent to Gov. Cuomo, warning him against allowing the Gates Foundation to outsource education to the ed tech industry, was quoted by the AP , in US News and World Report , NY Post and Gothamist . May 5, 2020 To Governor Cuomo: As educators, parents and school board members, we were ap
The Passing Of Chaz 1951-2020 Age 69 I am the son of Chaz and like to inform you that he passed away this afternoon from the COVID virus. My father passed in peace beside his loved ones. We are hoping to have a memorial service for him once we are able to, but for now we are going to have a small private family funeral. Thank you all for reading his blog, following him all these years, and the s
Shanker Blog: The Crucial Role of State Policy in the Impending School Budget Crisis Last week, we published a report on the probable implications of the coronavirus pandemic for K-12 education funding. My co-author Bruce Baker and I present a bunch of data on the impact of the 2007-09 "Great Recession" on education funding, as well as outcomes illustrating states' responses to the budget crisis
New York to work with Gates Foundation to 'reimagine' schools: governor (Reuters) - New York will work with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to "reimagine" the state's school system in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, part of a broader reform of society, Governor Andrew Cuomo told a daily briefing on Tuesday. Cuomo also pushed back against comments by U.S. President Donald Trump, who in
COVID-19 "CARES Act" Bankrolls AlI Post-Human Education | Dissident Voice COVID-19 “CARES Act” Bankrolls AlI Post-Human Education DeVos, Thiel, Phase 2 of Project BEST In 1982, former Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement for the US Department of Education, Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt, blew the whistle on the Reagan Administration’s Project BEST (Better Educati
Students Go Weeks Without Schoolwork as ‘Distance Learning’ Standards Vary The NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit analyzed distance learning guidelines for dozens of school districts across California and found education standards vary from district to district, creating a learning gap for some students. It’s been seven weeks since the coronavirus forced most California schools to shut down for the
Trump: Teachers over age 60 may ‘have to sit it out for a while’ when schools reopen, but students should be ‘in great shape’ President Trump was asked by a student during his Sunday virtual town hall with Fox News anchors at the Lincoln Memorial about how she could feel safe going back to school during a second wave of covid-19. He told her he thought she would be “in great shape” but that “a b
Schools Re-Opening in Other Countries As most of the 13,000 districts in the U.S. plan for re-opening schools, a few photos of re-opened ones in other countries may give readers a sense of what’s in store for American parents preparing to send their sons and daughters to school. Schools re-open in different parts of China. TOPSHOT – Students sit in a classroom as grade three students in middle s
Tennessee: Details About the Ruling Against Vouchers Judge Strikes Down Tennessee School Voucher Law NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Public school children in Tennessee won today when Davidson County Chancellor Anne C. Martin struck down the state’s private school voucher law, known as the Education Savings Account (ESA) Pilot Program. Because the law applies only to students in Davidson and Shelby counties,
Mike Turzai is Willing to Sacrifice Pennsylvania’s Students and Families to the Economy Mike Turzai says he’s furious with Pedro Rivera . Why is the highest ranking Republican in Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives so angry with the state Secretary of Education? Rivera said the Commonwealth’s public schools, which have been closed since mid March due to the Coronavirus pandemic , would not r
Why Johnny Can't Read. Part 3: Racism and Segregation The United States of America, legendary land of opportunity, has never come fully to grips with systematically denying opportunity to a significant portion of its population. I am talking, of course, of our African American population, brought here in literal chains and held in metaphorical chains ever since. One of the links of these chains
On Teacher Appreciation Day, Parents Are More Grateful Than Ever Surreal. Rollercoaster. Mayhem. Those are just a few of the words parents have used when describing their homeschooling experience. Respect. Grateful. Heroes. Those are the words they use to describe their kids’ teachers. But this year as we celebrate National Teacher Appreciation Week , parents are finding that words can’t accurat
Headlines: LAUSD Says Back to Class on August 18, More Battles Over Charter Co-Location, and Let’s Appreciate All School Employees Earlier today, LAUSD announced that the 2020-2021 school year will begin on August 18 , as originally planned. Despite some early reporting that this meant the campuses themselves would re-open, LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner made clear that campuses may still b
A Moment of Silence: Wallace v. Jaffree (1985) Is It Constitutional Now? How About Now? Or Now? Three Big Things: 1. After it became clear that state-sponsored prayer was no longer a realistic option in public education, states began experimenting with the idea of a “moment of silence” during which students could pray (although no one had ever suggested that they couldn’t). 2. Alabama, in partic
Joint Statement of Education and Civil Rights Organizations Concerning Equitable Education During the COVID-19 Pandemic School Closures April 27, 2020 The undersigned organizations representing school administrators, teachers, parents and education and civil rights advocates are committed to equitable educational opportunities for our nation’s students. Understandably, as the COVID-19 pandemic e
John Ewing: We Should Listen to the Real Education Experts: Teachers John Ewing, a mathematician and president of Math for America, wrote in Forbes about a conference he recently attended about education. He noticed that none of the experts at the conference were teachers. When he asked the conference leader, his question was dismissed. He remembered that Mike Rose had done a check of articles i
You Can’t Reopen The Economy Without Child Care As coronavirus lockdowns ease up, parents must choose between child care and work. Policymakers don’t get it. Catherine Carberry would love to go back to work . The staffing agency she works for in Easton, Pennsylvania, regularly offers her temporary gigs at nearby factories and warehouses. The jobs even pay a few dollars more an hour than she’s us
Unmasking Rational Humanity Many years ago, just after I moved to higher education, I was having a casual conversation with a colleague in the economics department. He joked that he was socially liberal and fiscally conservative, and that he leaned Democrat because it was easier to teach liberals economics than to make Republicans give a shit about humans. He also made an off-hand comment about
Paranoia about cheating is making online education terrible for everyone A sudden switch to online learning reveals a slew of challenges for educators. When student Marium Raza learned that her online biochemistry exam at the University of Washington would have a digital proctor, she wanted to do her research. The system, provided by a service called Proctorio, would rely on artificial intellige
DeVos and The Privatization Connection to Detroit’s “Right to Read” Lawsuit: “Separate and Unequal” DeVos and The Privatization Connection to Detroit’s “Right to Read” Lawsuit: “Separate and Unequal” The Detroit landmark decision that children deserve to learn to read in school is a case that reflects decades of troubled education in Detroit. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and school privatizati
Oh, Jeb! Give It A Rest. The vultures are out in force at this point, jostling for the chance to make big bucks by picking at what they hope is the corpse of traditional public education. Education? There's an app for that, and we've got it! So it makes perfect sense that one of the grandaddies of the drive to disrupt and dismantle education would be in the Washington Post yesterday , making his
Our Fork in the Road We all know that we have “red” and “blue” states. We also have states competing with each other for needed supplies. We have armed protesters trying to intimidate their state’s legislators. We have Nazi , Confederate, and KKK flags flying side by side with Trump 2020 banners. We have immigrant kids taken from the mothers and fathers and locked up. We have almost 70,000 dead
DeVos Targets $180 Million in State CARES Act Public School Relief Funds to School Choice and Virtual Schools Last Monday, in the same week The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities announced New CBO Projections Suggest Even Bigger State Shortfalls , Betsy DeVos launched a new grant competition made up of coronavirus (CARES Act) relief money to lure states into enacting her own school privatiza
Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academies Lays Off During COVID Despite $60M in Reserve, AND She’s Hiring! According to the April 21, 2020, New York Post , Eva Moskowitz’s New York-based Success Academy (SA) charter school network has laid off 90 staff and 25 central office workers amid the coronavirus pandemic. From the article: Moskowitz said the none-core layoffs were triggered by a “significant cut”
LET’S TEACH IN PAJAMAS FOREVER Contrary to my own public activism and advocacy, I propose that we move the nation’s largest public school system into a completely online endeavor forever and a day. I know this may come as a shock to everyone who’s been following me for years, but I might have developed outright envy for some of my most fervent detractors. I’m jealous of the way they speak, walk,
Can NYC Go Bankrupt? Would It Impact Teacher Pensions and Health Benefits? Every day Governor Cuomo has a press briefing, an update on the data: are the curves flattening? moving downward? and, muses about the political scene in Washington. Governors and mayors have been asking the feds for another infusion of dollars, this time to the states; after all, teachers, police, fireman, etc., are loca
CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: What? May?! Really??! Edition (5/3) What? May?! Really??! Edition Well, here we still are, those of us who are fortunate enough to still be here. Let's read some things! When teaching and parenting collide I missed this when it landed at Chalkbeat a month ago-- Matt Barnum looks at teachers who have to balance virtual teaching and at-home parenting. Teachers, parents and pr
School Reform Metaphors: The Pendulum and Hurricane Consider that a pendulum swing returns almost to the same spot it left. Although there is motion, there is little change. Yet anyone who remembers what the mid-1980s were like and what is currently going on with schools closed during the pandemic and re-opening in the Fall knows that both schools and society have indeed gone through serious cha
Economic Tsunami Crashes into America’s Schools - LA Progressive Economic Tsunami Crashes into America’s Schools D ue to the coronavirus pandemic, nearly all states have ordered or recommended school buildings stay closed for the rest of the academic year, according to Education Week’s most recent count , and “schools are likely to stay shut for months,” according to the New York Times. Teachers
EdAction in Congress May 3, 2020 States need federal help to weather COVID-19 As fallout from COVID-19 continues to spread, states are battered by rising costs, declining revenues, and massive unemployment. In the last week alone, 3.8 million Americans filed unemployment claims, bringing the total number of unemployed to more than 30 million. The non-partisan Center on Budget and Policy Prioriti
Poor Kids Not Getting Online Instruction - LA Progressive Poor Kids Not Getting Online Instruction A lmost overnight, the jobs of a lot of working-class parents and grandparents were shut down. Thanks to COVID-19, many were thrust into new roles—to replace their child’s teachers. This new role has added to the stress and strain already created by the virus. We know that students are not showing u
California: Charter Leaders Charged with Breaking Securities Law; No Criminal Charges As the old saying goes, better to steal a million dollars than to steal a loaf of bread. The former is smart thinking, the latter is a crime. In Livermore, California, the leaders of a charter chain were charged with securities fraud. But they got off without any criminal charges or jail time. When you read thi
Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007 SPECIAL CORONAVIRUS UPDATE Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... The latest news and resources in education since 2007 Worrying Statistic Of The Day: Teaching Next Fall Is Going To Be Risky For A Lot Of Us by Larry Ferlazzo / 51min A Third of Teachers Are at Higher Risk of Severe Illness From COVID-1
Another Voucher Angle: Child Safety Accounts It's one of the less common buttons pushed by reformsters intent on pushing school choice, and it might be one of the most backwards pitches out there. Child Safety Accounts seem to be particular baby of the Heartland Institute, a thinky tank that leans way right. Their mission: "to discover, develop and promote free-market solutions to social and eco
This Remote Teaching/Learning Thing! Just a hodgepodge of thoughts/opinions here! Thank goodness I have always been a fan of integrating tech in my classroom, that has made this remote teaching/learning situation a WHOLE lot less stressful for me! Whew! However, I feel for teachers who were not prepared for this, and find it very difficult to navigate this terrain. Especially when it just happen
Save Our Schools From Coronavirus Budget Cuts America is one dumbass country. We don’t do the metric system. We don’t do universal healthcare. And during a global pandemic, we don’t demand the government pay us to stay home and stop the spread of the disease. Instead, we demand the government let us go out and get sick . It should come as no surprise, then, that we deeply under-fund our public s
Teacher Appreciation Week 2020 May 4 begins Teacher Appreciation Week. The Network for Public Education is so very proud of our teachers across the country as they rise to the challenge of caring for and educating students from their own homes. As our survey results show , our teachers are working harder than ever while going above and beyond to let their students know how much they care. We wou
Six Feet in Schools just Will Not Work What will it take to reopen schools? A vaccine and a cure? that would mean a long time. We would have to do some real work on making remote learning more productive than it is now. There are definitely people who are thinking we will wait that long. Not me. “Flatten the curve” – that was designed to avoid the crush of cases all at once, when the ERs or ICU
Working More Collaboratively in the Wake of COVID-19 WORKING MORE COLLABORATIVELY IN THE WAKE OF COVID-19 I was encouraged yesterday by a few tweets I saw from some education leaders who wondered aloud how various stakeholders in public schools might come to work more collaboratively in the wake of COVID-19. What if we could find ways to get outside of our us vs. them mentality when it comes to t
98 Success Academy Students Accepted To College But is that a lot? The New York Post seems to think so. Three times in a recent article they suggest that this is 100% of the seniors. The title “Entire Success Academy senior class accepted to college” certainly implies it. The first sentence “Every senior in one of the city’s largest charter school networks has been accepted to a college this yea
Big Education Ape NPE Grassroots Education Network Invites You to Join! | Diane Ravitch's blog - https://wp.me/p2odLa-qbH via @dianeravitch TOP POSTS THIS WEEK 5/2/20 ‘Slaying Goliath’: Diane Ravitch argues in new
