CURMUDGUCATION: Charter Schools: We Are Businesses

CURMUDGUCATION: Charter Schools: We Are Businesses

Charter Schools: We Are Businesses

Charter schools have always been chameleons of convenience. "Public school" sounds good for marketing, but "private business" is what comes up in court when the issue of transparency appears. Like Schroedinger's cat's training school, they can be both or neither depending on what is most financially advantageous for them.

It may be the financial advantage that most defines them, and that was never as clear as it was when the National Alliance for Public [sic] Charter Schools advised its members to put in for the small business loans available under the coronavirus relief packages (CARES).

SBA7 (A) is a paycheck protection act, designed to help small businesses keep paying essential personnel during the current mess. The intent of the act is pretty broad and includes a surprise for fans of the church-wall-- under the bill, churches can have the government pay their pastor's salary. The language used to justify it in the bill closely follows the language from the decision in Trinity Lutheran v. Comer, the case that set the stage for Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue. I can't wait to see all the ways our tax dollars are going to be funneled straight into churches. Also, if churches now fall under the Small Business Administration, will we be talking about taxing them any time soon?

NACPS thinks charters might also be eligible for SBA Economic Injury Disaster Loans, which are meant to overcome "temporary loss of revenue." Which is a curious argument, since the whole case CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Charter Schools: We Are Businesses

4 In 10 U.S. Teens Say They Haven't Done Online Learning Since Schools Closed | 89.3 KPCC

4 In 10 U.S. Teens Say They Haven't Done Online Learning Since Schools Closed | 89.3 KPCC

4 In 10 U.S. Teens Say They Haven't Done Online Learning Since Schools Closed

With most schools closed nationwide because of the coronavirus pandemic, a national poll of young people ages 13 to 17 suggests distance learning has been far from a universal substitute.

The poll of 849 teenagers, by Common Sense Media, conducted with SurveyMonkey, found that as schools across the country transition to some form of online learning, 41% of teenagers overall, including 47% of public school students, say they haven't attended a single online or virtual class.

This broad lack of engagement with online learning could be due to many factors. The survey was conducted between March 24 and April 1; some districts may have been on spring break or not have begun regular online classes.

There are also resource gaps. In the past few weeks, school districts have purchased and started loaning out hundreds of thousands of laptops and tablets and worked with telecom providers to get families set up with Internet. But the need is large. Before the pandemic, it was estimated that about 12 million students had no broadband access at home.

There is a big gap between public and private school students in the survey, with 47% of public school students saying they have not attended a class, compared with CONTINUE READING: 4 In 10 U.S. Teens Say They Haven't Done Online Learning Since Schools Closed | 89.3 KPCC

Distance learning from home and in the park

Distance learning from home and in the park

Distance learning from home and in the park

I wake up each morning feeling great and reminding myself of the only thing on my “to-do” list — enjoy life. But anxiety keeps seeping in.

I find solace walking the dog at nearby Edgemere Park in Oklahoma City, where I see young families demonstrating so many of the values that will get us through the COVID-19 crisis. Children in that outdoor classroom have been cleaning trash from the creek and creating street art. Some are allowed to pet my dog, while other parents err on the side of caution. (By the way, the American Veterinary Medical Association has said, “there’s little reason to avoid petting” and it relieves stress, but we should also practice “park petiquette.” But now that a tiger has reportedly tested positive for COVID-19, Dali is getting less physical contact from the new people we meet.)

Back at home, I muse over my own experience and read education experts for insights into how parents should handle schooling at home this spring. I’m struck by the number of international educators who recommend learning practices and values that are very different from those that became the norm in the 21st century.

Experts look outside the box for distance learning lesson plans

This is especially true for educating young children. Jennie Weiner writes in the New York Times, “Maybe this is the perfect time to call a timeout on the academic rat-race that was never healthy or fair in the first place.”

The University of Ottawa’s Joel Westheimer advises, “Stop the worksheets. Stop trying to turn your kitchen into Jaime Escalante’s A.P. math class.” Westheimer then writes, “And when brick-and-mortar school (hopefully) returns next fall, let’s give teachers a great deal CONTINUE READING: Distance learning from home and in the park

The Lessons Some Parents Hope Their Children Learn During This Pandemic Have Nothing To Do With Academics - Philly's 7th Ward

The Lessons Some Parents Hope Their Children Learn During This Pandemic Have Nothing To Do With Academics - Philly's 7th Ward

THE LESSONS SOME PARENTS HOPE THEIR CHILDREN LEARN DURING THIS PANDEMIC HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH ACADEMICS

I’ve always wanted to be a mom. As a teenager, I imagined I would have three kids: one girl and two boys—who would of course be fiercely protective of their sister—and they would share an unbreakable bond.

I would be a working mom—even then I knew that I was not cut out to be a homeschooling momma—and we would live happily ever after.

Of course life did as life does, and took my plans and rearranged them. I did end up with three kids—two girls and one boy; they do have an unbreakable bond. And until recently I was not a homeschooling parent.

Related from The Philadelphia Citizen:The Coronavirus in Philadelphia

The latest local news on the coronavirus, including updates from city government, ways to help and the community’s efforts to fight the disease

Until Covid-19, I had a pretty specific idea of what it meant to be an academically responsible parent: ensuring my children knew I took their academics seriously. Communicating with their teachers regularly. Providing additional support at home for any area that needed strengthening. And CONTINUE READING: The Lessons Some Parents Hope Their Children Learn During This Pandemic Have Nothing To Do With Academics - Philly's 7th Ward

Two Views on After The Pandemic: What Happens in Schools? | Diane Ravitch's blog

Two Views on After The Pandemic: What Happens in Schools? | Diane Ravitch's blog

Two Views on After The Pandemic: What Happens in Schools?

Here are two contrasting views about what happens when (if?) children return to school in the fall.

In an article in the Washington Post, Mike Petrilli, president of the rightwing Thomas B. Fordham Institute, proposes that all students be held back a grade to make up for the ground they lost when schools closed in March. He also suggests that this is a good time to embrace distance learning.

Jan Resseger, retired social justice director for a religious group, says that this is the right time to recognize the failure of the standards-tests-accountability regime of the past two decades and to develop fresh ideas about children and learning.

Petrilli does not address the many studies (such as CREDO 2015) that show the abject failure of cyber schools. That study found that students lost 44 days in reading and 180 days in math when they were schooled online. Nor does he consider that being “held back” is universally seen as failure. The students haven’t failed. Why should they be punished? Expect a parent revolution if any state or district tries this.

Resseger writes:

Conceptualizing public education as students climbing ladders of curricular standards without missing a rung is only one way to think about education. And while such a CONTINUE READING: Two Views on After The Pandemic: What Happens in Schools? | Diane Ravitch's blog

A WEEK LATE…. | The Merrow Report

A WEEK LATE…. | The Merrow Report

A WEEK LATE….

HITCHING AND LEARNING

I began hitch-hiking out of necessity, but before long it became an obsession, and then a serious research project.  It all began last fall when I took a job as an unpaid Media Advisor (really a PR person) for “No Nails Left Behind,” a small non-profit in the upper reaches of the Bronx that provides jobs for formerly incarcerated residents of the Borough. 

(The organization’s name was a play on the wildly successful, much admired education program, “No Child Left Behind.”)

Basically NNLB’s workers scour construction sites for damaged nails, which they collect and then straighten out for resale. I thought it was a great story that more people should know about–and perhaps contribute to (because the income from the sales of one-used nails alone, we feared, might not be enough to keep the program operating).

The public transportation from our apartment in the upper east side of Manhattan to the northern edge of the Bronx was inadequate and time-consuming, and so I ended up taking a Lyft or Uber twice a day, five days a week. I couldn’t justify that expense, and so I decided to hitch-hike.

Standing on the corner of 79th and 3rd–for what seemed like hours–was beyond CONTINUE READING: A WEEK LATE…. | The Merrow Report

Teacher Tom: "Parenting is About Growing"

Teacher Tom: "Parenting is About Growing"

"Parenting is About Growing"

One evening, before we were parents, my wife and I were invited to a dear friend's house for dinner. We hadn't seen her in years, nor met her husband or child, who was at the time about 12 months old. Jennifer must have been pregnant at the time, but it was still new enough that we hadn't yet turned our attentions to our future as parents in any meaningful way.

There was a bowl full of decorative wooden balls on the coffee table. At one point the baby purposefully dumped the balls onto the floor. To our shock, her parents didn't attempt to correct her obvious misbehavior, but rather seemed to find it cute, especially as she began to put the balls back into the bowl again, one by one. When the bowl was full, she then dumped it again. She repeated the process of dumping then refilling that bowl over and over and over for what seemed like a half hour. On the way home that evening, my wife and I agreed that the poor child was cute, but clearly no Einstein.

Of course, today I would have been impressed by the capacity for a child that young to focus on a single self-selected task for such a long time, noting her fine motor skills and emerging mathematical mind. And while this girl has grown into a brilliant and accomplished young woman, it's quite clear that I have also grown quite a bit in my own right.

As Mister Rogers reminds us, "Parents don't come full bloom at the birth of their first baby. In fact, parenting is about CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: "Parenting is About Growing"

Coronavirus School Closures Will Force Us to Examine Failure of Standards-Based School Accountability | janresseger

Coronavirus School Closures Will Force Us to Examine Failure of Standards-Based School Accountability | janresseger

Coronavirus School Closures Will Force Us to Examine Failure of Standards-Based School Accountability

How will students make up the work they are missing now that schools are closed during the coronavirus pandemic?  I am dismayed by some of what I’m reading about people’s strategies for catching kids up once schools open. There are people who actually believe that standards-based, accountability-driven education ought to be happening even while schools are closed and that it ought to be intensified once the schools reopen.

This kind of thinking is silly right now because, as Education Week reports, “Every single state has won permission to skip the statewide standardized tests that are required by federal law…. As of March 31, the U.S. Department of Education had granted waivers to all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Bureau of Indian Education.”

Standards-based accountability has defined and organized public schools across America for two decades under the policies of the No Child Left Behind Act, although political support for standards and assessments had been growing for a decade before that.  In a devastating critique of standards-based education published in 2000, Will Standards Save Public Education?, progressive educator, Deborah Meier identifies six assumptions that form the foundation of standards-based school reform:

“Goals:  It is possible and desirable to agree on a single definition of what constitutes a well-educated eighteen-year-old and demand that every school be held to the same definition…

“Authority:  The task of defining ‘well-educated’ is best left to experts—educators, political officials, leaders from industry and the major academic disciplines—operating within a system of checks and balances…

“Assessment:  With a single definition in place, it will be possible to measure and compare individuals and schools across communities—local, state, national, international.  To this end, curricular norms for specific ages and grades should be CONTINUE READING: Coronavirus School Closures Will Force Us to Examine Failure of Standards-Based School Accountability | janresseger

How Innovative Educators Are Engaging Students Online - NEA Today

How Innovative Educators Are Engaging Students Online - NEA Today

How Innovative Educators Are Engaging Students Online

When governors and state superintendents closed schools because of the coronavirus, it took teachers and faculty a matter of days—and in many cases a few hours—to move their classes online. Despite the differences between online learning and face-to-face learning, the level of commitment and creativity from educators is stronger than ever.

Cecily Corcoran, a middle school art teacher from Arlington Public Schools in Virginia, was ahead of the online learning game because she made it her personal goal earlier in school year to update her materials and transition them onto Canvas, an online learning management platform.

“I wanted students to access what I had taught in case they had missed a lesson,” says Corcoran.

Once her school closed, she went into overdrive and created 60 video tutorials of under 10 minutes in length. Additionally, before her students went home, she supplied them with basic art supplies: pencils, sharpeners, erasers, and paper to make sure learning was “equitable from the beginning.” CONTINUE READING: How Innovative Educators Are Engaging Students Online - NEA Today

YONG ZHAO: Tofu is not Cheese: Reimagine Education without Schools During Covid19 (1) Education in the Age of Globalization

Education in the Age of Globalization » Blog Archive » Tofu is not Cheese: Reimagine Education without Schools During Covid19 (1)

Tofu is not Cheese: Reimagine Education without Schools During Covid19 (1)

Introduction

“Tofu is not cheese” is what I said to a group of educators of ESF Quarry Bay Primary School (QBS), a school in Hong Kong that is determined to turn the Covid-19 crisis into an opportunity for reimagining education. Tofu is not cheese so we should not expect it to smell or taste like cheese nor should we need to pretend it is or make it taste and smell like cheese. The message I was trying to convey is that we should accept the fact that schools are closed and we don’t need to pretend we can make online education the same as face-to-face schools. Instead, we should make the best out of the new situation. In my last blog post, I expanded the idea: Online education cannot replace all functions schools play in our society but it can do a lot more than being a lesser version of face-to-face schooling.

During the last few weeks, I have engaged in conversations with educators and education policy makers in many different countries around the world. I have been deeply touched by the universal commitment and dedication to giving our children the best education experience possible during the pandemic. I have been equally inspired and encouraged by the actions of many individuals and organizations to rethink what education can be and should be in the future.

Not to return to the same education after we return to the same school seems to be a widely shared desire among the innovative. But unfortunately the dominant desire outside the small group of innovative educators is to return to the same school and the same education. The majority of governments and education leaders are managing the crisis instead of taking advantage of the opportunities within the crisis. I plan to write a series of blog posts to discuss the opportunities and suggest some possibilities for taking advantage of the opportunities. I start with rethinking the curriculum, the what of education.

Stop and Rethink What’s Worth Teaching and Learning

We have a rare opportunity to examine what we have always been teaching (or trying to) for a number of reasons. First, Covid19 has forced the cancellation of many high stakes examinations students have been CONTINUE READING: Education in the Age of Globalization » Blog Archive » Tofu is not Cheese: Reimagine Education without Schools During Covid19 (1)

CURMUDGUCATION: Coronavirus Triggers Ed Tech Free Sample-Palooza. Be careful.

CURMUDGUCATION: Coronavirus Triggers Ed Tech Free Sample-Palooza. Be careful.

Coronavirus Triggers Ed Tech Free Sample-Palooza. Be careful.

Imagine that you have a great new food product to sell, and you suddenly catch wind of a neighborhood where all the restaurants and grocery stores have been shut down. How quickly could you get on a street corner there with a big tray of free samples?

As schools are shut down across the country, ed tech companies, from old faithfuls to fresh young startups, are rushing to help fill the gap and/or take advantage of the situation.

Broadband providers like Spectrum and Comcast are offering free internet hookups to households with students. Most are offering sixty days free, but those who take advantage should note that in many cases “regular pricing will take effect at the end of the 60-day period if a customer doesn’t cancel or change the service.”

Look! Free cheese sample!

Websites like kidsactivitiesblog.com are running lists of the many websites that are offering free samples to help out with this difficult time. The resource is popular enough that over the last twenty-four hours, it has not always been possible to load the page due to heavy traffic. Other versions of this kind of list are out there.

Meanwhile, just out of sight of the general public, professors and teachers report receiving a wave of e-mails following a basic pattern. You’re going to move to online teaching, and in these difficult times, we’d like to help. They may offer free trials, or special  discounts for their CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Coronavirus Triggers Ed Tech Free Sample-Palooza. Be careful.

TogetherApart: Co-location And Collaboration Constrained By Pandemic – Los Angeles Education Examiner

TogetherApart: Co-location And Collaboration Constrained By Pandemic – Los Angeles Education Examiner

TogetherApart: Co-location And Collaboration Constrained By Pandemic

In the wake of pandemic, priorities are rearranged.

Prior to schools’ closing in March, 2020, several LAUSD school sites were facing the prospect of sharing their campus with a charter school next year. These forced “colocations” are directed by the District when a “public charter school” requests public space for its operations under legal mandate from a voter initiative passed in 2000.

Proposition 39 addressed schools facilities issues by lowering the passage threshold for local school bond measures from 67% to 55%. With over $10m of vested interest from ubiquitous charter privateers Ann & John Doerr, John Walton and Reed Hastings, the initiative established a facilities payload for the charter industry.  Along for the ride was the ideological position that charter schools had the right to request of the public District “reasonably equivalent conditions” for operations. The specifics for calculating and granting these conditions were litigated through a series of lawsuits (2007, 2010 and 2012) inordinately taxing on the public purse in contrast with that of the billionaire-funded charter school lobby.

Charter schools are publicly funded, while simultaneously privately operated. Consequently their “public” status is arguably ambiguous and at least contentious, though even Forbes, the “defining voice of CONTINUE READING: TogetherApart: Co-location And Collaboration Constrained By Pandemic – Los Angeles Education Examiner

“Quarantined”: Announcing the release of the new single for the COVID-19 generation—Diary of a Teacher During the Coronavirus Crisis, Entry #5 – I AM AN EDUCATOR

“Quarantined”: Announcing the release of the new single for the COVID-19 generation—Diary of a Teacher During the Coronavirus Crisis, Entry #5 – I AM AN EDUCATOR

“Quarantined”: Announcing the release of the new single for the COVID-19 generation—Diary of a Teacher During the Coronavirus Crisis, Entry #5

The new single “Quarantined” by Triple S is now live. Check it out at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Am2KMLGxu1c

Yesterday, Washington State Governor Jay Inslee announced that all of the schools in the state would be closed for in-person learning for the rest of the year and all instruction will be online only.

This announcement was hard on my two elementary school aged kids. My 5th grade son won’t get to participate in the week-long overnight camp that is a rite of passage for all the kids at his school—they have spent their entire elementary years looking forward to participating in this major event.  They really wanted to perform in the spring Multicultural dance that won’t happen. And they are truly shaken by not getting to say goodbye to their teachers and friends.   

And yet the resiliency of my kids in these difficult times has been remarkable. This past week of their education at home has led to an explosion of creativity that has helped us mitigate the challenges of social isolation in the COVID-19 era.

There is so much pressure on parents right now to keep their students on pace with the regular classroom curriculum, but what I have discovered is that engaging my kids in conversations about this unprecedented global pandemic and then allowing my kids plenty of time to play has resulted in an outpouring of insight and originality.  In fact, my older son, whose MC name is now Freeze 32, with his dear friend—who’s moniker is Gucci Grape—that he’s had since his days at Central Branch Preschool, created a hit single for these times. 

Their new magnum opus is titled, “Quarantined.” And it bumps. 

The hook goes, “Quarantined, cause of covid-19,” and Gucci Grape probably CONTINUE READING: “Quarantined”: Announcing the release of the new single for the COVID-19 generation—Diary of a Teacher During the Coronavirus Crisis, Entry #5 – I AM AN EDUCATOR

Important update on Regents exams, state budget, the cancellation of Zoom, and more! | Class Size Matters

Important update on Regents exams, state budget, the cancellation of Zoom, and more! | Class Size Matters

Important update on Regents exams, state budget, the cancellation of Zoom, and more!

Dear Friends,

1.First, some good news to report! The Board of Regents announced yesterday that the Regents exams due to take place this spring are cancelled. Today they put out guidance that any student who would have needed to pass any Regents exams to graduate in June can be issued a diploma without taking them. More details in this FAQ. Thanks to those of you who sent one of the 400 plus letters to the Regents and Commissioner about this; a Regents member mentioned receiving your letters at their meeting yesterday.

2.There also bad news.  The state budget passed last week froze school spending at this year’s level, without raising taxes on the ultra-wealthy; given rising costs and salaries this will be experienced by many districts, including NYC, as cuts. The Governor was also given the authority to slash education spending further over the course of the year, depending on state revenue– though the Legislature will be able block his proposed cuts if they vote to do so within ten days.

If you’d like to see how your legislators voted on the budget, you can check out the Senate votes here and the Assembly here, where it was especially close. More on what this budget means for education compared to the outcomes that many advocates and parents had hoped for is outlined in this helpful chart from AQE .

We will all have to work hard to see that the city doesn’t follow the state’s lead by drastically cutting back on its own support for education. School services and especially class sizes have STILL not yet CONTINUE READING: Important update on Regents exams, state budget, the cancellation of Zoom, and more! | Class Size Matters