In some ways, the Lang School, a small, private school in the Financial District, was well-suited to the age of the coronavirus. Lang, which has students in grades two through twelve, is a “2e” school, which stands for “twice exceptional.” The term refers to gifted students who also have some form of learning disability such as dyslexia, ADHD, or mild autism. Such students present all kinds of teaching challenges, and so Micaela Bracamonte, the founder and head of school, said, “I seek out teachers who are flexible and improvisational and adaptable. A lot of them have an arts background.”
On Wednesday, March 11th, the day the World Health Organization announced that covid-19 was officially a pandemic, the school’s staff sprang into action. They spent two days setting up the transition to remote learning—configuring Zoom, developing lesson plans. Online classes commenced on Tuesday, March 17th. By Wednesday, Bracamonte was getting frantic e-mails from the parents of second and third graders. For those students, she said, “it was clear that it was a disaster.” The problem had to do with the teaching format. Older students were taking live classes via Zoom. But the New York State Association of Independent Schools and other pedagogical authorities had recommended “asynchronous learning” for younger children. The six- and seven-year-olds were given assignments to complete on their own time, with their parents acting as presumed enforcers. The result was a “mini revolt,” Bracamonte said. “The kids were just not doing the work. And the parents were exasperated.” CONTINUE READING: The Great Zoom-School Experiment | The New Yorker
Los Angeles: Large Number of Students Get No Instruction
Howard Blume and Sonali Kohl’s report on the large number of students in Los Angeles who are getting no instruction during the shutdown.
About one-third of some 120,000 Los Angeles high school students have not logged onto online classes every day, and 15,000 are absent from all online learning as efforts to continue distance learning fall short, according to the school district.
The disappointing figures were released Monday by L.A. schools Supt. Austin Beutner during a morning video update.
“It’s simply not acceptable that we lose touch with 15,000 young adults or that many students aren’t getting the education they should be,” Beutner said in prepared remarks. “This will take some time and a good bit of trial and error to get it right. And it will take the continued patience and commitment of all involved — students, families and teachers.”
Beutner says he hopes the online reach will improve as more families take advantage of free computers provided by L.A. Unified and free internet through community hot spots that Verizon is setting up through a contract with the nation’s second-largest school system.
Homeschooling Movement Sees Opportunity During Health Calamity
n the early days of the spread of the coronavirus in the U.S., when the number of known cases was barely cresting 1,000, advocates for homeschooling were greeting news of the outbreak as an opportunity to promote their cause.
“While the virus has caused illness and hardship for many, keeping children out of school is not a global calamity,” wrote libertarian think tank operative Kerry McDonald in Forbes on March 11, two days before President Trump declared coronavirus a national emergency.
McDonald wasn’t the only cheerleader for homeschooling in the face of a pandemic. “Learning can happen anywhere,” Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos enthused on Twitter.
School closings were turning parents into “the nation’s teachers,” according to the Washington Times, a consistent advocate for public school privatization. The article, by Christopher Vondracek, told readers not to think about home-schooling as being “associated with religious reactions to the secularization of public education and the banning of prayer in public schools during the 1960s.” Homeschooling, he contended, “looks nothing like that of yesteryear,” because now “innovative lessons abound” and new technologies—including video streaming, apps, and social media—have made homeschooling a better option for parents seeking “individualized instruction and safer environments” for their children.
But homeschool advocates, and other proponents of public school privatization, who cheerlead for their cause while tragedy unfolds resemble vulture capitalists that have taken advantage of other catastrophes.
Vondracek pointed readers to the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI), which “lists a variety of reasons for home-schooling.” What Vondracek failed to mention is that NHERI is not an educational organization but is instead part of a network organized by the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), an intensely powerful homeschool advocacy and lobbying group.
HSLDA founded Patrick Henry College, which, as the New York Times noted, is known as “the first college primarily for evangelical Christian home-schoolers.” In 2017, HSLDA received an audience with DeVos “to discuss the success of homeschooling and to determine what homeschoolers need from the federal government for continued autonomy and success,” according to NE News Now, the media outlet of the American Family Association, a Christian advocacy.
People’s Historians Online– Mini-Classes with Jeanne Theoharis and Jesse Hagopian in April: 1) Rebellious Rosa Parks; 2) Young People in the Civil Rights Movement; 3) Civil Rights Movement Outside the South
I’m excited to announce that I will be joining the great people’s historian, Jeanne Theoharis for a series of racial and social justice online courses for the first three Fridays in April. I first began working with Professor Theoharis last school year when she contacted me about partnering with the Black Student Union at my high school to have them provide ideas for her forthcoming young adult version of her seminal book, “The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks.” My students and I had the unbelievable opportunity to read the original version of the book together and provide feedback to Professor Theoharis for translating the book into a YA version.
That partnership led to us joining together to host an online class about Rosa Parks on March 27, 2020. That session filled up so quickly–and was so much fun–that we quickly organized a “People’s Historian Online Class” series where we will join together in dialog every Friday for the next three weeks.
This Friday, April 3rd the class will be at 10am PST/1pm EST, and for the following Fridays the class will be held at 11am PST/2pm EST. Students, parents, educators, and everyone else, are invited to join us to unlearn the many Master Narratives that have used by those in power to distort and hide the lessons of Rosa Parks and the Civil Rights Movements and learn the true history that we can use today to fight for justice in this time of deep health, ecological, economic and social crises. Already, some educators are registering their whole classes for these courses and I hope we will see you there too!
-Jesse Hagopian
People’s Historians Online: Mini-Classes with Jeanne Theoharis and Jesse Hagopian in April
In support of middle and high school teachers while school buildings are closed, the Zinn Education Project is hosting online people’s historians miniclasses.
The pilot session was with historian and author Jeanne Theoharis and high school teacher/Rethinking Schools editor Jesse Hagopian on March 27 on “The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks.” The response to the pilot session was so enthusiastic that we are hosting three more sessions with them in April. Read more and register below.
Presentation by Jeanne Theoharis in conversation with Jesse Hagopian.
Small group conversations by participants (using Zoom breakout rooms) with time to discuss insights from the talk and approaches to teaching.
Facilitators respond to questions with the full group and share teaching resources.
Evaluation by participants.
The upcoming sessions, all on Fridays, are:
April 3, 10am PST/ 1:00pm EST: Did you know that Rosa Parks was an activist for many years prior to the Montgomery Bus Boycott (MBB), went to the Highlander Folk School, and dedicated decades of her life challenging racism in the North after the MBB? Join us for a conversation about Parks’ rebellious life.
April 10, 11am PST/ 2:00pm EST: Did you know that teenagers led at crucial points in the Civil Rights Movement, at times against the objections of many adults in their lives? Join us for a conversation on the role of young people in the Civil Rights Movement, from the teenagers who led the case desegregating Montgomery’s buses to the student sit-ins to the high school walkouts of the 1960s.
April 17, 11am PST/ 2:00pm EST: Did you know that the biggest civil rights demonstration of the 1960s happened in New York City? Did you know that at the same time people were pressing for desegregation in Montgomery and Birmingham, they were doing so from Los Angeles to Milwaukee to Boston? Join us for a conversation on the Civil Rights Movement outside the South.
Participants will need access to Zoom (on computer or phone). Register below. A day or two before the session, you will receive a confirmation, the Zoom link (with a password), and an optional pre-reading.
Please consider making a donation so that we can continue to offer people’s history lessons, resources, workshops — and now online mini-classes — for free to K-12 teachers and students. We receive no corporate support and depend on individuals like you.
Challenges, questions as special education shifts to homes during statewide school closure
As many parents navigate the new reality of having students at home for at least another month under a statewide public school closure, students with disabilities may face even more challenges with online learning.
Gov. John Bel Edwards announced the closure on March 13, part of an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. It is currently scheduled to end on April 13. But Edwards this week announced that he will extend a statewide “stay-at-home order” until the end of the month, meaning the state’s schools will be closed at least that long as well.
Many schools are trying to adapt, quickly designing distance-learning programs to make sure their students don’t fall behind during the closure. In New Orleans, some charter schools have started online classes, and the NOLA Public Schools district purchased 5,000 wireless hotspots with emergency funding to distribute to families without internet service at home. Many are also sending paper packets of school work to students’ homes.
'Distance Learning' in Sacramento Means 20,000 Chromebooks School districts in the Sacramento area are ramping up the distribution of essential technology to households as formal "distance learning" programs are close to launching for tens of thousands of students.
School districts in the Sacramento area are ramping up the distribution of essential technology to households as formal “distance learning" programs are close to launching for tens of thousands of students.
Students and parents lined up Monday at Mira Loma High and El Camino Fundamental high schools for laptop computers. Natomas Unified announced it will be distributing nearly 7,000 Chromebook laptops and about 2,000 Wi-Fi hot spots to families.
And the union representing teachers in the Sacramento City Unified School District proposed that the district spend $1.7 million in savings from a new health plan to purchase Google Chromebooks — and potentially Wi-Fi hot spots — for students.
“Our proposal would immediately redirect that $1.7 million in savings to purchase Chromebooks and/or hot spots for students to enable them to participate, to the extent feasible, in Distance Learning instruction beginning on April 13,” said Sacramento City Teachers Association (SCTA) President David Fisher. “The use of these funds has been at dispute between the district and SCTA up to this point. We believe this use of funds should be sufficient to provide every student who lacks a computer or tablet with a device and should be immediately applied so that we can serve our students who suffer from an opportunity gap.”
Sacramento City Unified officials said that, while they appreciate the SCTA’s proposal, the $1.7 million in savings cited by the union is still a matter of dispute and currently in arbitration.
The district said it has worked with the Sacramento County Office of Education to identify resources to purchase laptops, and told The Sacramento Bee that it used $5.1 million in Measure Q funding to order 20,000 Chromebooks last week. (The district notified the union of the purchase Monday afternoon, after the union’s announcement.)
Many public schools never recovered from the Great Recession. The coronavirus could spark a new education crisis.
This may seem difficult to believe but public school funding has, in some places, never recovered from the Great Recession of 2007-2009. Now, districts and states around the country are facing the prospect of a new financial crisis for public education as a result of the novel coronavirus outbreak.
Insufficient education funding and low teacher pay sparked the 2018 Red for Ed movement, in which teachers, first in Republican-led states, went out on strike to demand more resources for their schools and higher salaries. Some states settled the strikes with promises to pay teachers more money, but now, some of those raises are in jeopardy.
With the economy reeling from the closure of most public life in America due to the coronavirus pandemic, Congress just passed a $2 trillion assistance package that includes about $13.5 billion for public schools.
But it was far from the minimum of $75 billion that the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, the country’s two major teachers unions, had asked for in a recent letter to Congress. And educators say schools will need far more help from Congress in the coming months.
This post looks at the lessons that emerged from the efforts to recover from the recession more than a decade ago and how they could be applied today. It was written by Derek Black, a law professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law and author of the 2016 book “Ending Zero Tolerance: The Crisis of Absolute School Discipline.” He also writes the Education Law Prof Blog. By Derek W. Black
It’s crazy out there. 9 Out Of 10 Children Are Out Of School Worldwide. What Now? is a new piece at NPR that puts it all in good context, along with discussing its future implications….
cbaquiran / Pixabay I have several students who have had birthdays this week or having ones coming up, and I know they re less-than-thrilled with being at home. I’ve encouraged them to try video conference parties, but they’re not yet comfortable with using this kind of tech. I did send them some of the tools on this list and that at least said they enjoyed them. Of course, they might also have b
In addition to the technical and pedagogical challenges of teaching online, we teachers MUST be VERY sensitive to the impact of financial stress on our students’ lives https://t.co/7laopkVa4D — Larry Ferlazzo (@Larryferlazzo) April 2, 2020 Our economy is in “free fall,” and we teachers have to bear this in mind when we’re leading distance learning over the next few months – as well as remembering
Author Interview: ‘Cultural Competence Now’ is the headline of my latest Education Week Teacher column. Vernita Mayfield agreed to answer a few questions about her book, “Cultural Competence Now: 56 Exercises to Help Educators Understand and Challenge Bias, Racism, and Privilege.” Here are some excerpts:
April is School Library Month. You might be interested in The Best Sites To Teach ELL’s About Libraries . You might also be interested in The Best Resources For Banned Books Week .
I’m adding these new resources to various “Best” lists. You can find links to all of those many lists that relate to race and racism at “Best” Lists Of The Week: Resources For Teaching & Learning About Race & Racism: ‘Brilliant and politically savvy:’ The roles of African American women in the fight to vote 100 years ago is from USA Today. I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Learning About Wo
Alexas_Fotos / Pixabay I’m adding tonight’s PBS NewsHour segment to I’m adding it to A BEGINNING LIST OF THE BEST RESOURCES FOR LEARNING ABOUT THE CORONAVIRUS:
geralt / Pixabay Today is Census Day. You might be interested in: The Best Resources To Learn About The U.S. Census The Best Tools For Analyzing Census Data The Best Articles Explaining Why It Would Be Terrible To Add An Immigration Status Question To The Census
geralt / Pixabay Some of these new resources will be added to The Best Advice On Teaching K-12 Online (If We Have To Because Of The Coronavirus) – Please Make More Suggestions ! and the best will go to The “Best Of The Best” Resources To Support Teachers Dealing With School Closures: I was a guest on KQED Public Radio: California Teachers, Students Struggle with Distance Learning In theory, you s
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. Today’s post is the 300th one in the series! Of course, this is a crazy time for “classroom” instruction…. You might also be interested in THE BEST RESOURCES ON CLASSROOM INSTRUCTION IN 2019 – PART TWO. Here are this week’s picks: LEARNING BY DOING: WH
Zillions (a scientific term ) of online education companies are offering free access during the school closure crisis (you can see a list of them at The “Best Of The Best” Resources To Support Teachers Dealing With School Closures ). Personally, I’m not using any tool that I haven’t used before, and you can see the ones I’m using with my students at HERE’S MY ONLINE TEACHING PLAN IF OUR SCHOOL CL
‘He Was a Very Good Listener’ – Students Write About Their Most Memorable Teachers is the headline of my latest Education Week Teacher column. Six students write about their most memorable teachers and why those educators
