Tuesday, March 24, 2020

Senators urge Trump administration to protect student data in rush to online schooling - The Washington Post

Senators urge Trump administration to protect student data in rush to online schooling - The Washington Post

Senators urge Trump administration to protect student data in rush to online schooling




With tens of millions of American students now learning online after their schools closed amid the global coronavirus pandemic, some U.S. senators are urging the Trump administration to take steps to protect personal student data.
“The recent dramatic increase in American children’s use of ed tech offerings creates opportunities, and also carries with it serious privacy challenges and risks to children’s wellbeing,” says the letter from three Democratic senators: Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut.

The letter was written to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Federal Trade Commission Chairman Joseph Simons and FTC Commissioners Noah Phillips, Rohit Chopra, Rebecca Slaughter and Christine Wilson. The FTC is the federal agency responsible for enforcement of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), and the Education Department is responsible for enforcing the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.
(I have written to both agencies asking about the issue and will publish any responses I get.)
The senators noted that online education can help students keep learning while they are staying home for an undetermined amount of time.
“However, many ed tech offerings collect large amounts of data about students and do not employ adequate privacy or security measures,” they wrote. “Experts have found ‘widespread lack of transparency and inconsistent privacy and security practices in the industry for educational software and other applications used in schools and by children outside the classroom for learning.’ And the Federal Bureau of Investigation has warned that ‘[m]alicious use of [student] data could result in social engineering, bullying, tracking, identity theft, or other means for targeting children.’”
In developing guidance, the senators urged the agencies to consider the following proposals: CONTINUE READING: Senators urge Trump administration to protect student data in rush to online schooling - The Washington Post
Big Education Ape: Advice to parents whose children’s schools are being closed to stem the spread of coronavirus | Parent Coalition for Student Privacy - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2020/03/advice-to-parents-whose-childrens.html



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CURMUDGUCATION: The Ed Tech Vultures Circle

CURMUDGUCATION: The Ed Tech Vultures Circle

The Ed Tech Vultures Circle


Some ed tech companies and their investors are busily imagining that the coronaviral hiatus may be their Katrina. Natural disaster plus government botch job equals the board being swept clean, allowing players a golden opportunity to move in and clean up.

I see folks on Twitter wondering where Betsy DeVos is, why the USED isn't offering more guidance to schools as they navigate this mess. Could be because this situation suits her just fine, and public schools being shut down is a dream come true.

But while some folks may view this shutdown as a philosophical opportunity, for some it's all about the investment opportunities. Like Katrina's aftermath, vulture capitalism at its finest.

My email is filing up with pitches from more companies than I've ever heard of, all variations on "Your readers (aka our prospective customers) would love to hear about our cool product that is just the thing for dealing with the current pandemic crisis." While I am sure that some companies sincerely believe they have help they can offer at this time, I am equally sure that those companies are not trying to wring a bunch of client-building PR out of it. I'm seeing these pitches because I'm an education blogger at Forbes.com--if these things are coming to me, then the big-time education journalists must be drowning in the stuff.

Then there's this sort of thing. Take a look at this interview over at Goldman Sachs (Motto: "Honest, we haven't done anything to tank the economy, lately"). We're talking to Adam Nordin, whose beat is listed as the "education technology sector" for the Investment Banking Division; his LinkedIn profile says he's a lawyer/CPA, a Partner and Managing Director in the Technology Group, where his main CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: The Ed Tech Vultures Circle


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CURMUDGUCATION: Why Teach Literature Stuff: #1 What Is It?

CURMUDGUCATION: Why Teach Literature Stuff: #1 What Is It?

Why Teach Literature Stuff: #1 What Is It?


When I was teaching, and I had extra time on my hands, I would reflect on the work--the whys and hows and whats. So in solidarity with my former colleagues, I'm going to write a series about every English teacher's favorite thing-- teaching literature, and why we do it. There will be some number of posts (I don't have a plan here).

Also, it would be nice to write and read about something positive, and I don't know anything much more positive than what teachers do and why they do it. 



So what are we even talking about? The word "literature" suggests some special quality that is elevated beyond just reading stuff like a cereal box or a blog post. Everybody has an opinion about what qualifies and what does not, and some people feel pretty damn strongly about those opinions.

The frame I used is a modified version of what I learned from my own high school English teacher, and I find it useful for sorting things out. Our four categories are:

Classics:

Classics have been tested by time. That requires a couple of generations. It's easier, perhaps, to see the process with music. Particular music has its big popularity when it's new, then a nostalgia bump when the people who grew up with it inflict it on their own children. Eventually, if people still listen to it, it's because they find something there that speaks to them. Initial popularity is not always a CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Why Teach Literature Stuff: #1 What Is It?
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AFT’s Weingarten Launches ‘Capstone’ Proposal to Complete School Year amid Coronavirus Crisis | American Federation of Teachers

AFT’s Weingarten Launches ‘Capstone’ Proposal to Complete School Year amid Coronavirus Crisis | American Federation of Teachers

AFT’s Weingarten Launches ‘Capstone’ Proposal to Complete School Year amid Coronavirus Crisis


WASHINGTON—American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten has launched an initiative(link is external) to engage millions of students marooned at home during the coronavirus crisis with a capstone project to bring closure and completion to an interrupted school year.
Nearly 53 million of America’s 57 million K-12 students are at home because of school closures. Twenty-three states have canceled standardized tests, and many more will apply for waivers under new Department of Education guidelines announced yesterday.
This “new normal” has left teachers, children and families adrift. Educators are desperately trying to bring structure to school days with remote learning, home schooling and grab-and-go lunches—but for the most part have been building the plane while flying it. A capstone project could land that plane.
The AFT’s Weingarten launched the proposal this morning on “CNN Newsroom” and later issued this statement:
“We know kids, families and teachers are tired, stressed and anxious right now amid the uncertainty unfolding around them. But there is a way teachers can help students sum up their academic progress, help kids focus, and bring closure to the year. Our capstone plan gives teachers the option and latitude to work with their students on a specific project alongside other activities and assessments to create engagement and demonstrate learning.
“Students love to show what they know to people who matter to them. So we need to trust teachers, in consultation with their principals and colleagues, to design meaningful, educationally appropriate ways to show what students have learned.
“This school year is not a wash—we’ve had seven months of instruction, and students have learned and experienced so much already. We’re holding out hope we can bring a sense of completion and finality to kids and families and end this unprecedented year on a positive note.”
The plan has numerous possible permutations depending on a student’s grade level and interests. For example:
  • Elementary students could complete a composition on the favorite book they read this year, and that could be sent back on the same bus that is delivering grab-and-go meals (following proper paper-handling guidance from public health experts).
  • Middle school students could hold a virtual debate on the internet or interview a relative for a family history.
  • High school students could research a topic they now won’t be covering in class and submit their research via video on their phones.
  • Because of the digital divide, many students do not have access to computers, smartphones or internet hot spots, so the tried-and-true writing with pen and paper, or drawing the next Picasso, or composing great sheet music should be envisioned as well.
An essay by Weingarten discussing the full initiative can be read here(link is external).
AFT’s Weingarten Launches ‘Capstone’ Proposal to Complete School Year amid Coronavirus Crisis | American Federation of Teachers
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Did Balance Literacy Fail to Teach Your Child to Read? – radical eyes for equity

Did Balance Literacy Fail to Teach Your Child to Read? – radical eyes for equity

Did Balance Literacy Fail to Teach Your Child to Read?


For 36 years now, I have been teaching people to write; that journey is a large subset of my own being and becoming a writer, an experience that is captured well in an old Nike poster I used to hang on the wall of my high school classroom, proclaiming “There is no finish line.”
Photograph of a man, in the dark with grey clouds, running in a park around a body of water. Lower margin, black ink on grey ground: THERE IS NO FINISH LINE. / NIKE [logo].
For the last decade-plus, I have taught first-year college students to write. While I am teaching writing, however, I also am teaching young people how to do college, how to make the important transition from being a student to being a scholar.
Part of that work is unlearning bad habits from high school embedded in traditional approaches to writing essays.
Here is one of the worst: Many students come to college having followed a narrow writing process in which teachers require students to submit a one-paragraph introduction with a direct thesis statement. Once approved, the student is then released to write an essay that fulfills that approved essay thesis.
This instills in students two incredibly misguided practices. One is writing with a level of certainty that an 18-year-old has yet to reach (particularly on topics about which they have only second-hand knowledge); and another is failing to see drafting and writing as an act of discovery, as a journey to understanding ideas better.
Neither of these lessons from high school serve young people well in their CONTINUE READING: Did Balance Literacy Fail to Teach Your Child to Read? – radical eyes for equity
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Educators Take a Stand Against Coronavirus Racism + Q&A: Educator Rights and Benefits- NEA Today

Educators Take a Stand Against Coronavirus Racism - NEA Today

Educators Take a Stand Against Coronavirus Racism 
A Vietnamese-American student in a Los Angeles classroom coughs after swallowing some water, and his teacher makes him go to the nurse. When the nurse clears him to return to his eighth-grade classroom, other students tease him that he has the coronavirus.
And in the halls of schools in Madison, Wisc., teachers overhear coronavirus-related comments targeted at Asian students.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump repeatedly and unabashedly calls COVID-19 the “Chinese virus.” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo publicly embraces the term “Wuhan virus.” And Asian-American CBS News correspondent Weijia Jiang tweets, “A White House official referred to #Coronavirus as the ‘Kungflu,’ to my face.”
For Nan Lu, a member of Education Minnesota who teaches K–12 English language learners, this is personal. “I felt very hurt and offended [by Trump’s comments],” says Lu, who is Chinese-American. “To be the president of a nation and speak on national TV and call it the wrong name. … It’s really disrespectful and very disturbing.” She adds that when we had the H1N1 virus, or swine flu, in the U.S., “We didn’t say American virus or USA virus.”

Educators Must Lead with Facts

In the United States and around the world, reports of discrimination against Asians have drastically increased as fears and panic about the coronavirus pandemic—which originated in China—have taken hold. And, as usual, educators find CONTINUE READING: Educators Take a Stand Against Coronavirus Racism - NEA Today
Q&A: Educator Rights and Benefits - NEA Today - https://wp.me/p5kbFE-cHz via @NEAToday
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NPE Action Endorses Joyce Elliott for Congress in Arkansas! | Diane Ravitch's blog

NPE Action Endorses Joyce Elliott for Congress in Arkansas! | Diane Ravitch's blog

NPE Action Endorses Joyce Elliott for Congress in Arkansas!


Joyce is an outstanding state senator and she will be an outstanding Member of Congress, representing the people of Little Rock and nearby areas.
She is running against a Trumpian Republican, who is outspending her by enormous margins. Joyce plans a grassroots campaign to overcome the big money against her.
This is from her Wikipedia page:
A member of the Democratic Party, she has served in the Arkansas Senate, representing the 31st District, which consists of a portion of Pulaski County, since 2009. She is the former majority leader and was previously a member of the Arkansas House of Representatives from 2000 through 2006. She has continued to be active in her party at the local, state, and national levels. Elliot acted as the chairman of the Whole Child Community Program and was the vice chairman of both the Arkansas Legislative Council of Policy Making and the Joint Public Retirement and Social Security programs. Elliott has also served on numerous committees in the Arkansas 90th General Assembly.
This is how Joyce describes her own background:
We will win this race, but we won’t do it by running a conventional campaign catering to the conventional political class. We will win this race because of grassroots support and people like you passionately fighting for CONTINUE READING: NPE Action Endorses Joyce Elliott for Congress in Arkansas! | Diane Ravitch's blog
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Giving to Those Who Need Our Help Due to Covid-19 - Network For Public Education

Giving to Those Who Need Our Help Due to Covid-19 - Network For Public Education
Giving to Those Who Need Our Help Due to Covid-19 



Below are some sites that we found that need donations to support those impacted by the virus. We had two criteria. The organization is an established nonprofit charity with 501(c3) status and it has a fund dedicated for those in need because of Covid-19.
Giving to Those Who Need Our Help Due to Covid-19 - Network For Public Education
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CURMUDGUCATION: Protecting Students In The Screen Age: An Action Tool For Parents And Teachers

CURMUDGUCATION: Protecting Students In The Screen Age: An Action Tool For Parents And Teachers

Protecting Students In The Screen Age: An Action Tool For Parents And Teachers

It has been just a month since this piece ran at Forbes.com, but what a month. In some ways, the protections for students regarding screens are even more important.
It has been a decade since I was introduced to the idea of a 1:1 classroom—a school in which every single student carried a computing device—and I never regretted it for a moment. Having those tools always at my students’ fingertips was extraordinarily useful for my classroom practice, and I would never have willingly given it up.
But.
The constant presence of computers in classrooms has created education, security and privacy issues far faster than many schools or parents can cope, and trying to teach students about “digital citizenship” felt at times like trying to empty Lake Erie with a paper cup.
If data is the new oil, then schools are an untapped ocean-sized reservoir. And students, parents, and schools have been slow to guard that ocean—far slower than the companies want to tap it.
Do you think this would work better if we turned the screen on?
Google has perhaps led the pack in offering both hardware and software that was appealing inexpensive and functional. Now the state of New Mexico is suing Google for using those tools to hoover up CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Protecting Students In The Screen Age: An Action Tool For Parents And Teachers

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The Classroom: The Basic Dilemma That Teachers Face and Manage | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

The Classroom: The Basic Dilemma That Teachers Face and Manage | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

The Classroom: The Basic Dilemma That Teachers Face and Manage


Pick the photos that you think best capture activities that you most like to see when you–as a teacher, parent, supervisor, administrator, community activist–enter a classroom.
1.


2.


3.


4.


5.


6.


7.


8.


9.


Which ones did you pick? How many did you choose?
Here is my hunch: viewers will choose those photos that best line up with their beliefs about how teachers should teach and students should learn.
Of course, many viewers will pick multiple activities revealed in the photos since in 2020 the mainstream “wisdom” of teaching and learning is that there should be varied activities going on in a classroom over the course of a school day: whole group, small group, independent work. And most teachers organize their lessons to include such activities.
Experienced teachers have learned that–depending upon the age of their students, the subject/skills they are teaching, and their own preferences for what is important for students to learn—multiple ways of organizing classroom space and student work is essential. The photos show the range that often appears in classrooms.
There is “but,” however. What about “personalized learning?” For the past five years, with the ubiquity of classroom CONTINUE READING: The Classroom: The Basic Dilemma That Teachers Face and Manage | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

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Jersey Jazzman: Education Policies We Should Stop Right Now: An Incomplete List

Jersey Jazzman: Education Policies We Should Stop Right Now: An Incomplete List

Education Policies We Should Stop Right Now: An Incomplete List


ADDING: Here's another one for the list: I am against school vouchers, especially the way they are (not) regulated these days. However, in a time of crisis, children need stability. If a family has received a voucher in the past and the school is legitimate, OK, continue the voucher (unless they didn't need it in the first place). We can revisit this after the crisis is over -- and we're going to need to, because given the upcoming recession (or worse), we're not going to be able to waste money on "choice" policies that are inefficienct and ineffective.

But as for the immediate future: no voucher program should be expanded this year, and no voucher should be used at a school that does not meet basic educational standards or discriminates against students based on race, gender, or sexual orientation.


I mentioned last time that there are no good reasons to have annual, standardized state tests this year, due to the Covid-19 pandemic. But that got me thinking... there are a whole bunch of things in the K-12 sphere we ought to stop immediately. In some cases, they are pointless in the wake of massive school closures; in others, keeping them going this year may cause actual harm to our schools.

In no particular order, and with the understanding that this list is far from complete:

- Statewide Standardized Tests. Again, they're just pointless right now: it's impossible to get even a minimal level of "standardization" in the tests' administration, and students' opportunity to learn, already inequitable, is now even worse. Plus, putting pressure on teachers, students, administrators, and families is the last thing we need to be doing. We're CONTINUE READING: Jersey Jazzman: Education Policies We Should Stop Right Now: An Incomplete List
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Epistemic Trespassing: From Ruby Payne to the “Science of Reading” – radical eyes for equity

Epistemic Trespassing: From Ruby Payne to the “Science of Reading” – radical eyes for equity

Epistemic Trespassing: From Ruby Payne to the “Science of Reading”


In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, President Donald Trump has continued his disturbing trademark of self-assurance and bravado in the absence of expertise:
The president – who repeatedly downplayed the threat early in the global outbreak – has this week been hyping an anti-malarial drug, chloroquine, as a possible therapeutic treatment.“It may work, it may not work,” he said on Friday. “I feel good about it. It’s just a feeling. I’m a smart guy … We have nothing to lose. You know the expression, ‘What the hell do you have to lose?’”
As has become a common pattern now, these rash and dangerous claims were tempered by an actual expert in medicine:
Yet Trump’s “feeling”, on which he so often relies, was confronted by science when Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, cautioned that evidence of chloroquine’s benefits against coronavirus is “anecdotal” and it should not be viewed as a miracle cure.
Trump is a cartoonish embodiment of epistemic trespassing, as defined by Nathan Ballantyne:
Epistemic trespassers are thinkers who have competence or expertise to make good judgments in one field, but move to another field where they lack competence—and pass judgment nevertheless. We should doubt that trespassers are reliable judges in fields where they are outsiders. 
As the example of Trump above demonstrates—and as Ballantyne notes about Richard Dawkins and Neil deGrasse Tyson—it is quite common for people to trespass into areas of knowledge and expertise outside their own discipline or experiences.
Here, I want to investigate epistemic trespassing first in the Ruby Payne phenomenon, and then to better understand the current “science of reading” version of the Reading War.
Let’s consider epistemic trespassing more fully next.
Epistemic Trespassing: “exemplary critical thinking in one field does not generalize to others”
I don’t want to overwhelm this discussion with too fine an analysis from philosophical and linguistic fields; notably, I am sharing here outside my narrow area of expertise, education, while staying inside a part of my disciplinary expertise (linguistics) and seeking to avoid the very mistakes I am naming here.
This section draws on work by Ballantyne (linked above) and Bristol and Rossano, both of which are detailed and discipline-specific scholarship.
The examples below—Ruby Payne’s popularity as a self-proclaimed expert in CONTINUE READING: Epistemic Trespassing: From Ruby Payne to the “Science of Reading” – radical eyes for equity
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