CURMUDGUCATION: Student-Run Start-Up Takes On Civics Education

CURMUDGUCATION: Student-Run Start-Up Takes On Civics Education

Student-Run Start-Up Takes On Civics Education

When you pull up the front page for LexGen, it looks like many other slick, professional websites. It’s clean and open and focuses attention on the organization name and their goal— “to make civics education simple, fun and accessible.” Scroll through the site, and you see that LexGen has big goals. They are concerned about the level of civics education in this country and their rallying cry is nothing less than “Let’s change America.” Their goal is to create student-friendly curriculum materials and to set up chapters of the organization throughout the fifty states. Like most education start-ups, this one has a bold vision.

When you look at the pictures of the team members, however, you might be struck by how young this group of leaders looks—even for an ed tech start-up. That’s because they are all high school students.

LexGen founder Abhi Desai shared that he had become interested in politics and government in 8th grade, but as a high school student became discouraged at how little his peers knew and understood about civics and government. He spent last summer as a research intern at the William Monroe Trotter Collaborative for Social Justice at the Harvard Kennedy School. Last April, he launched LexGen.

The timing is propitious; just in the last month, education critics have pointed at the low history and civics marks on the National Assessment of Educational Progress and tried to explain the cause. For the last few years, there have been increasing calls for more civics education for K-12 students. 

Desai is a student in Phoenix, Arizona; he started LexGen as a smaller community initiative. With only a few similarly-interested teens at his own school, Desai reached out over social media and five other civically-engaged teens contacted him. A leadership team and a broader vision were born. LexGen’s leadership team comes from across the country, from California to Illinois. 

Their focus is on the 21st century concerns CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Student-Run Start-Up Takes On Civics Education

Houston, We Have A Problem: Digital Liftoff Without Direction – Los Angeles Education Examiner

Houston, We Have A Problem: Digital Liftoff Without Direction – Los Angeles Education Examiner

Houston, We Have A Problem: Digital Liftoff Without Direction

In his March 11, 2020 weekly address, LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner misleadingly refers to the emergency effort transiently supporting disrupted schoolsite instruction with internet applications (e.g., Zoom for conferencing, online worksheets and textbooks for resources), as an explicitly sanctioned “transition to online learning.” In the logical sleight-of-hand at 2:52m, Beutner considers the technological “transition” a foregone conclusion and proclaims efforts to achieve it a “moonshot”. Varnishing the de facto pedagogical revolution with declarative assurance (known colloquially as “fake news”), he deadpans that “the rockets have been built and liftoff has occurred.”

But while technology certainly is being utilized, online learning is less assuredly a thing.

The emergency imperative of social distancing may compel the district’s efforts, but no shift in fundamental policy has been declared by its policy-setting school board (BOE). On March 10, 2020 the BOE authorized “the Superintendent to take any and all actions necessary to ensure the continuation of public education and the health and safety of District students and staff….” However there has been no accordance on equating emergency public education measures with a new normal in public education consisting of online instruction.

Shifting our beleaguered public schools to an online platform is not a new CONTINUE READING: Houston, We Have A Problem: Digital Liftoff Without Direction – Los Angeles Education Examiner

Six urban California districts say proposed budget cuts will set back restarting school | EdSource

Six urban California districts say proposed budget cuts will set back restarting school | EdSource

Six urban California districts say proposed budget cuts will set back restarting school
They urge tapping state's rainy day fund to give school more money

os Angeles Unified and five other urban California school districts collectively enrolling about 1 million students warned Monday that “unrealistic” funding cuts proposed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in his revised budget would force them to delay reopening of schools this fall.

“Reopening our school campuses will require more — not fewer — resources to ensure and sustain proper implementation of public health guidance and the safety of all of those involved. Cuts will mean that the reopening of schools will be delayed even after State guidance and clearance from public health officials is given,” superintendents of the districts wrote in a three-page letter, dated May 18, to legislative leaders.

The letter comes less than a week after Newsom released his May budget revision that would cut funding for school districts by about $7 billion. That proposal includes a cut of $6.5 billion in general funding through the Local Control Funding Formula, which directs additional funding to high-needs students — low-income, foster and homeless students and English learners. That 10% reduction would be the first cut in the formula since its passage seven years ago. Signing the letter were superintendents of the state’s three largest districts, Austin Beutner, L.A. Unified; Cindy Marten, San Diego Unified and Christopher Steinhauser, Long Beach Unified, as well as Vincent Matthews, San Francisco Unified; Kyla Johnson-Trammel, Oakland Unified; and Jorge Aguilar, Sacramento City Unified.

They sent the letter to Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon and the chairs of legislative committee reviewing the education budgets.

The superintendents argued that the funding cuts, combined with the additional expenses to restart schools with measures to prevent spreading the coronavirus CONTINUE READING: Six urban California districts say proposed budget cuts will set back restarting school | EdSource

Russ on Reading: Why Johnny Can't Read? Part 5: Environmental Resources

Russ on Reading: Why Johnny Can't Read? Part 5: Environmental Resources

Why Johnny Can't Read? Part 5: Environmental Resources

I grew up 70 years ago in a lower-middle class suburb, with a bunch of other lower middle class kids. When I was a school aged child, I would walk across the street to my newly opened school. My mother would give me breakfast and watch me leave the house and then watch me enter the school when the bell rang. There was a crossing guard to help me cross the street safely. In the school, I was welcomed by a well-qualified, usually veteran teacher to a classroom of about 30 children all seated at nearly new desks. The room was well stocked with text books. Once a week I went down to the school library to borrow books. The librarian was there to help me find a book or do some research for a report.

I went home for lunch, other students stayed to eat in the cafeteria. At recess I played kickball or basketball of dodgeball with the other kids in the large playground with equipment provided by the school. After school I could be a part of the school chorus or art club, or model airplane club or any other of a number of activities. When I got home my mother was there to greet me. I did my homework in a room with a desk, a lamp, and a set of World Book Encyclopedias. My mother got me a membership in a kids book club that sent me a nee novel to read each month. At night, my mother would read to me and tuck me into bed.

I was safe. I was well fed. I had access to reading and learning. In other words, I was set up for literacy success.

For too many children in our society, the story I just told above is a fairy tale. The neighborhood they walk through to school is fraught with danger. They may arrive at school hungry. When they get to the school they may find CONTINUE READING: Russ on Reading: Why Johnny Can't Read? Part 5: Environmental Resources

NYC Educator: Death to "Legal"

NYC Educator: Death to "Legal"

Death to "Legal"

Susan Edelman in the Post writes about how Carranza's claim that nothing can be cut in the DOE budget is a lie. We are talking, of course, about things outside the classroom. I, for one, consider myself lucky when I even have a classroom, as opposed to a trailer, a closet, or a half room.

The city's plan looks bleak indeed:

The city has proposed $827 million in DOE cuts, including slashing school budgets by $285 million. This would reduce arts programs, counselors and social workers in needy districts, and college-prep for high schoolers. The DOE would also put off new classes for 3-year-olds, installation of air conditioners, and rat extermination.

So it's okay that our kids lack guidance or support as they sit around in sweltering, rat-infested hellholes. The important thing, evidently, is to maintain the bureaucrats in Tweed. After all, who but they can perform important services like sending teachers back for three days of training in Covid infested buildings? Who else will insist we need intensive training in remote learning by administrators who have never done such a thing in their entire lives?

Before Mayor de Blasio made the cruel, discriminatory  and boneheaded decision to keep schools open after closing Broadway, his worst educational failure was failing to clean out the cesspool that Bloomberg left intact at Tweed. It was really heartbreaking that this supposedly progressive mayor would leave in place a bunch of bureaucrats whose sole purpose in life was to push the ideological fanaticism of anti-public education Michael Bloomberg.

The Bloomberg agency that bothers chapter leaders the most is "legal." When principals violate contracts, rules, chancellor's regulations, or common decency, it's the job of legal to tell them that's fine, don't worry about it. After all, the only recourse chapter leaders and member have is often the grievance process, which is cumbersome, time-consuming, and potentially ineffective. (We thankfully have some new processes that sidestep this one.) The first step, of course, is to go the principal, the person who made the bad decision. At this step, the principal calls legal, who invariably says the principal is right.

So the principal doesn't need to read the contract, and in many cases legal hasn't either. For example, a principal has 90 days to place a letter in file. Once, I brought a grievance CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: Death to "Legal"

North Carolina: Civil Rights Challenge Charter Schools’ Racial Segregation | Diane Ravitch's blog

North Carolina: Civil Rights Challenge Charter Schools’ Racial Segregation | Diane Ravitch's blog

North Carolina: Civil Rights Challenge Charter Schools’ Racial Segregation

The Education Law Center and the NAACP are suing to block the use of charter schools to desegregate public schools in North Carolina.

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May 18, 2020

LAWSUIT CHALLENGES NORTH CAROLINA LAW ALLOWING BREAKAWAY, SEGREGATED CHARTER SCHOOLS

By Wendy Lecker

Parents and civil rights groups in North Carolina have sued the State challenging a law passed in 2018 authorizing predominately white, wealthy towns in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district to break away and form town-run, separate charter school districts that could exclude non-town residents. In the lawsuit filed in Wake County Superior Court on April 30, plaintiffs charge that the law violates North Carolina’s state constitutional guarantees of a uniform public school system and equal protection and will exacerbate persistent racial and socio-economic segregation in the county district.

The plaintiffs in the case, North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP v. State, are the North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Branch of the NAACP and two parents with children in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. They are represented by Mark Dorosin, Elizabeth Haddix and Genevieve Bondaies Torres of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the law firm of Tin, Fulton, Walker and Owen, P.L.L.C.

History of School Segregation in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) has a long history of school segregation. The district was the subject of a major desegregation case in the 1960’s, Swann v. Charlotte–Mecklenburg Board of Education. In that case, in 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court placed CMS under CONTINUE READING: North Carolina: Civil Rights Challenge Charter Schools’ Racial Segregation | Diane Ravitch's blog

Headlines: The State’s Education Budget Promises Cuts, More on the Virtual LAUSD Plans for Summer School, and Re-Opening? – Los Angeles Education Examiner

Headlines: The State’s Education Budget Promises Cuts, More on the Virtual LAUSD Plans for Summer School, and Re-Opening? – Los Angeles Education Examiner

Headlines: The State’s Education Budget Promises Cuts, More on the Virtual LAUSD Plans for Summer School, and Re-Opening?

The last time we did headlines, we spotlighted a UTLA tweet that warned of a massive budget fight coming to school districts. Last week, Governor Newsom released his proposed school budget for next year. According to KPCC/LAist Education reporter Kyle Stokes, there are pretty sever cuts, but it could be worse.

“The news could’ve been worse for schools. Because California law closely ties education funding with state revenues, schools could’ve lost billions more. But Newsom proposed a series of temporary measures — including injecting another $4.4 billion of federal coronavirus relief money directly into district budgets — to backfill some of the revenue loss.

Another silver lining: Newsom also refused to roll back a proposal for a 15% increase in spending on special education, which is funded separately from the rest of the K-12 program.”

Stokes goes on to outline other things that could come into play that could spare districts from more cuts: federal aid, new funding approved by voters, and action by the legislature.

The California State Association of Teachers is urging members to call Congress and support two funding sources: (i) ask for school funding in the HEROES act and (ii) ask for funding to improve Internet access for people of lesser means.

There was also a lot of discussion of re-opening for schools and what that could look like. State Superintendent of Schools Tony Thurmond opined that openings will look different for different schools and different districts.

“Students and teachers will likely wear masks when schools do reopen, he added.

Thurmond also said “shift learning” may be the answer to create smaller class sizes for physical distancing and that some districts may opt for hybrid in-person CONTINUE READING: Headlines: The State’s Education Budget Promises Cuts, More on the Virtual LAUSD Plans for Summer School, and Re-Opening? – Los Angeles Education Examiner

Jeff Bryant: The Future of K-12 Schools Isn’t Online; It’s in New Mexico - Citizen Truth

The Future of K-12 Schools Isn’t Online; It’s in New Mexico - Citizen Truth

The Future of K-12 Schools Isn’t Online; It’s in New Mexico

A state where schools experienced deep adversities before COVID-19 can show the nation a pathway forward when schools reopen.

“I think we’re all going to be different after this,” Mary Parr-Sanchez told me in a phone call, “but I don’t know how.” Parr-Sanchez is the current president of NEA-New Mexico, the National Education Association’s affiliate in the Land of Enchantment, and “this” of course is the profound trauma of schooling amidst COVID-19.

All public schools in her state and nearly all nationwide are closed for the rest of the academic year due to the pandemic, and teachers and school support staff are approaching the final weeks of a remote learning stopgap effort.

Parr-Sanchez’s comment reflects a national conversation that is slowly pivoting away from crisis schooling to how to reopen schools in the new school year. “For most children, the school year ended in March,” economist Susan Dynarski wrote in the New York Times. “The sooner we face it, the faster we can fix it.”

But New Mexico’s education system was broken to begin with, Parr-Sanchez told me.

“Our current governor [Michelle Lujan Grisham] is showing impressive leadership, but our previous governor of eight years drove education into the ground,” she said, referring to former Governor Susana Martinez, whose administration’s response to the economic downturn during the Great Recession was to slash education spending, expand privately operated charter schools to compete for funding, and impose a punitive regime of evaluating teachers and schools based on high-stakes standardized testing.

Some of the heavy-handed evaluation systems Martinez championed have been repealed by Governor Lujan Grisham, but New Mexico still funds its schools less than it did in 2008.

Much of what Martinez imposed on New Mexico were pillars of education policy that started with No CONTINUE READING: The Future of K-12 Schools Isn’t Online; It’s in New Mexico - Citizen Truth

Maurice Cunningham: National Parents Union, a Unit of the Billionaire Boys Club

National Parents Union, a Unit of the Billionaire Boys Club

National Parents Union, a Unit of the Billionaire Boys Club

Posted on May 19, 2020 by Maurice Cunningham

Last week I explained how the National Parents Union is not a union, not national, and not about parents. Today we’ll go into more detail about what NPU is: a political unit of the Billionaire Boys Club.

Education scholar Diane Ravitch popularized the term Billionaire Boys Club in her 2010 book The Death and Life of the Great American School System, describing the school privatization funding of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation.

Oftentimes it is hard to know who is funding a political interest group hiding under the legal banner of a Internal Revenue Code 501(c)(3) organization, but a story in the pro-privatization The 74 was a big help in identifying NPU’s underwriters. Here’s an excerpt:

Alma Marquez and Keri Rodrigues Lorenzo are the public faces of NPU. Let’s take a look at the net worth of their donors, from Forbes Magazine’s Real Time Billionaire’s List that tracks the daily ups and downs of billionaires.

Billionaire                                               Net Worth in Billions

Gates, Bill	$106.50
Zuckerberg, Mark	$78.80
Ballmer, Steve	$65.80
Walton, Jim	$56.50
Walton, Alice	$56.30
Walton, Rob	$56.10
Walton, Lukas	$19.20
Walton, Christy	$9.20
Kroenke, Ann Walton	$7.90
Laurie, Nancy Walton	$7.30
Dell, Michael	$28.60
Broad, Eli	$6.80
Hoffman, Reed	$1.90
Arnold, John	$3.30
Koch, Charles*	$44.40
Total	$548.60

Charles Koch isn’t in The 74’s story but he and Koch Industries have a proxy on the board of National CONTINUE READING: National Parents Union, a Unit of the Billionaire Boys Club

SPECIAL CORONAVIRUS UPDATE Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... The latest news and resources in education since 2007

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

TODAY

Malcolm X Would Have Been 95 Years-Old Today – Here Are Teaching & Learning Resources

by Larry Ferlazzo / 1h

WikiImages / Pixabay Malcolm X would have been 95 years old today. You might be interested in The Best Resources For Learning & Teaching About Malcolm X . Brother Malcolm would have been 95 years-old today. We remember him, his legacy and his family. Read 'The Autobiography of Malcolm X.' History books don't tell his story. And media and government painted the picture that they wanted us to see.

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 share three or four links I think are particularly useful and related to…ed tech, including some Web 2.0 apps. You might also be interested in THE BEST ED TECH RESOURCES OF 2019 – PART TWO , as well as checking out all my edtech resources . Here are this

More than $1K in the Bank? Make These 4 Moves

by The Penny Hoarder

sponsored

It's important you move quickly here.

“A Superintendent’s Thoughts on Reopening Schools in the Fall”

by Larry Ferlazzo / 3h

A Superintendent’s Thoughts on Reopening Schools in the Fall is the headline of my latest Education Week Teacher column. With the coronavirus as a backdrop, a district superintendent weighs the pros and cons of different strategies for reopening schools in the fall. Here’s an excerpt:

YESTERDAY

May 31st Is “World No-Tobacco Day” – Here Are Teaching & Learning Resources

by Larry Ferlazzo / 11h

ArtTower / Pixabay The United Nations has declared May 31st to be World No-Tobacco Day . You might be interested in The Best Sites For ELL’s To Learn About The Dangers Of Smoking .

Classroom Instruction Resources Of The Week

by Larry Ferlazzo / 11h

Each week, I publish a post or two containing three or four particularly useful resources on classroom instruction, and you can see them all here. Of course, this is a crazy time for “classroom” instruction…. You might also be interested in THE BEST RESOURCES ON CLASSROOM INSTRUCTION IN 2019 – PART TWO. Here are this week’s picks: A Choice Board for Teaching and Learning With The New York Times i

SEL Weekly Update

by Larry Ferlazzo / 11h

I’ve recently begun this weekly post where I’ll be sharing resources I’m adding to The Best Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Resources or other related “Best” lists. You might also be interested in THE BEST SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING RESOURCES OF 2019 – PART TWO Finally, check out “Best” Lists Of The Week: Social Emotional Learning Resources . Here are this week’s picks: How to Be Supportive is fro

New PBS NewsHour Video Segment: “What does COVID-19 mean for the future of college admissions?”

by Larry Ferlazzo / 14h

JESHOOTS-com / Pixabay Tonight’s PBS NewsHour segment gives a good overview – and critique – of the SAT and ACT:

Depressing Statistic Of The Day: Schools Being Closed Equals 200,000 Unreported Instances Of Child Abuse

by Larry Ferlazzo / 15h

We teachers do a lot more than just impart academic content. Read about just one of those additional things at Chalkbeat’s School closures meant 200K child mistreatment allegations went unreported in March and April, researchers estimate: The numbers highlight “a hidden cost of school shutdowns,” write researchers Jason Baron, Ezra Goldstein, and Cullen Wallace. “When schools are not in session,

My New British Council Post Is On “Four questions – and answers – about teaching English online”

by Larry Ferlazzo / 23h

mohamed_hassan / Pixabay Four questions – and answers – about teaching English online is the headline of my latest post for The British Council. It’s the thirtieth piece on teaching English Language Learners that I’ve written for that organization, and you can see all of them here . I’m also adding it to THE “BEST OF THE BEST” RESOURCES TO SUPPORT TEACHERS DEALING WITH SCHOOL CLOSURES and to THE

“Nine Ways to End This Crazy School Year Strong”

by Larry Ferlazzo / 1d

Nine Ways to End This Crazy School Year Strong is the headline of my latest Education Week Teacher column. Eight educators share nine activities that can be used to close this COVID-19-interrupted year, including reflecting back 

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007