Latest News and Comment from Education

Monday, August 24, 2020

Virtual suspensions. Mask rules. More trauma. Why some worry a student discipline crisis is on the horizon - Chalkbeat

Virtual suspensions. Mask rules. More trauma. Why some worry a student discipline crisis is on the horizon - Chalkbeat

Virtual suspensions. Mask rules. More trauma. Why some worry a student discipline crisis is on the horizon



As America’s students head back into their virtual or real-life classrooms, new rules await.
In Jacksonville, Florida, students who don’t wear a mask repeatedly could be removed from school and made to learn online. In some Texas districts, intentionally coughing on someone can be classified as assault. In Memphis, minor misbehaviors could land students in an online “supervised study.”
It’s amounting to a flood of changes to school rules and discipline codes at a time of heightened stress for students, parents, and teachers.
Those rules reflect schools’ attempts to make learning during a pandemic safe and possible. But the increased attention to student misbehavior has advocates and many parents very worried that students who were disproportionately removed from classrooms before the pandemic — namely Black and Native students, and students with disabilities — will bear the brunt of these new consequences, undermining schools’ promises to provide students from hard-hit communities with extra social and emotional support.
“We have seen and felt the impact of having a Black child with learning differences and how that’s been treated disciplinarily. So I’ve got a lot of concerns,” said Cassandra Kaczocha, a parent of a son headed into eighth grade in Chicago, where schools are set to start virtually and monitor student engagement over a six-hour school day. “He can’t sit there and look at the screen the whole time and give the appropriate cues to CONTINUE READING: Virtual suspensions. Mask rules. More trauma. Why some worry a student discipline crisis is on the horizon - Chalkbeat

New Tool to Strengthen Distance Learning + August 11, 2020 Tuesday at 2 Webinar - Nutrition (CA Dept of Education)

August 11, 2020 Tuesday at 2 Webinar - Nutrition (CA Dept of Education)

August 11, 2020 Tuesday at 2 Webinar




The California Department of Education (CDE) Nutrition Services Division (NSD) hosted the seventh Tuesday @ 2 School Nutrition Town Hall webinar on August 11, 2020 for school food service operators, chief business officials, and community partners to listen to questions and answers on transitioning back to school and moving forward in meal service amidst COVID-19.
The webinar opened with a state update by Kim Frinzell, Director of NSD. Panelists included multiple managers from the CDE NSD and Child Nutrition Fiscal Services Unit. Panelists answered questions submitted by sponsors regarding the state meal mandate, meal counting and claiming, meal pattern flexibilities, at-risk after school component of the Child and Adult Food Care Program, community eligibility provision, as well as Prop 98 COVID-19 disaster claims.


The next Tuesday @ 2 School Nutrition Town Hall webinar will be held on Tuesday, August 25, 2020 at 2 p.m. Join the Tuesday @ 2 School Nutrition Town Hall WebinarExternal link opens in new window or tab..
Password: 182792
Contact Information
If you have any questions regarding this subject, please contact Julie BoarerPitchford, Nutrition Education Consultant, by phone at 916-322-1563 or by email at jboarerpitchford@cde.ca.gov.
August 11, 2020 Tuesday at 2 Webinar - Nutrition (CA Dept of Education)

State Superintendent Tony Thurmond Announces Additional Tools to Support Educators in Strengthening Distance Learning Instruction

SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent Tony Thurmond announced today that the California Department of Education (CDE) has released a new tool—Guidance on Best Practices for Distance Learning Instructional Planning—to support educators that are implementing distance learning instruction.
“Distance learning will be with us in some form moving forward, even as schools may be allowed to begin reopening in various capacities. We are committed to offering real-time, actionable support to our educators as we all lean into this new reality,” Thurmond said. "Through continued investments in educator training—and increased, proactive family engagement—I am confident that our schools will reach and engage more students as we move through this challenging period together.”
The new guidance document offers suggestions in four key areas: clear definitions of instructional models and language, an overview of required daily minutes for the 2020-21 school year and considerations for instruction both with live interaction and without live interaction, research-based principles for school districts to consider as they prepare to re-open, and ideas for how educators may structure learning.
Other topic areas include digital platforms and assessments, along with ways to support families and staff when implementing distance learning
The Implementation Tool: Guidance on Best Practices for Distance Learning Instructional Planning is the latest update to the CDE’s Guidebook for the Safe Reopening of California's Public Schools web page. More updates are expected during the upcoming school year. Distance learning program questions should be referred to distancelearning@cde.ca.gov.
# # # #
Tony Thurmond — State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Communications Division, Room 5602, 916-319-0818, Fax 916-319-0100

Joe Biden’s 3 big ideas to close the digital divide - Education Votes

Joe Biden’s 3 big ideas to close the digital divide - Education Votes

Joe Biden’s 3 big ideas to close the digital divide



COVID-19 has shone a spotlight on a specific aspect of the digital divide known as the homework gap—the inability to do schoolwork at home due to lack of high-speed internet access. Nationwide, 15-16 million students are affected—roughly 1 in 3. A disproportionate share of those students are African-American or Hispanic, come from low-income households, or live in rural areas.
President Trump has promised to improve American infrastructure, including access to broadband, since his earliest days in office, but has failed to deliver. Educators called on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the Trump administration to provide at least $175 billion in education stabilization funds. In addition, NEA calls on lawmakers to include at least $4 billion to schools to ensure all students have internet access from home for the 2020-2021 school year. Due to the severity of the issue, NEA is calling on lawmakers to support at least this level of funding. 
Where the Trump administration and Senate leadership have failed, Joe Biden is prepared to step in and deliver a solution to the most immediate issues around the homework gap, and the underlying infrastructure issues that have perpetuated the digital divide. Here are three key pieces of Biden’s approach:

1. He supports an infusion of resources to help schools address the “homework gap”

During the pandemic, educators in high-poverty schools report lower class attendance, and believe that closing the homework gap aspect of the digital divide should be a top priority. Pew research shows that among families with school-age children, 25 percent of all Black households and 23 percent of Hispanic households lack high-speed internet, compared to only 10 percent of white households with school children. 
Biden has called time and again for the Senate to pass the HEROES Act, which would CONTINUE READING: Joe Biden’s 3 big ideas to close the digital divide - Education Votes

CURMUDGUCATION: Trump's Education Agenda

CURMUDGUCATION: Trump's Education Agenda

Trump's Education Agenda



Trump has released his agenda for his second term, and it's special. Cut taxes. Add jobs. Eradicate Covid-19. End reliance on China. Cover pre-existing conditions. Congressional term limits. Bring violent extremist groups like ANTIFA to justice. Dismantle human trafficking. Build the world's greatest infrastructure system (so, more infrastructure week!) Stop endless wars.


It's all familiar hooey, in bullet point list form (so not a word about how or why, but education gets its own subheading, under which we find these two bullet points.

Provide School Choice To Every Child In America

Teach American Exceptionalism

That's it. That's the whole thing. Get some of that good old ahistorical jingoism back in the classroom, and dismantle the public education system and replace it with a privatized one. It's a fun pairing because if you're going to have a school choice system, how are you going to force every school to teach  exceptionalism? For that CONTINUE READING: 
CURMUDGUCATION: Trump's Education Agenda

Sorting Out the School Reopening Worries and the Political Issues Swirling Around Public Schools This Week | janresseger

Sorting Out the School Reopening Worries and the Political Issues Swirling Around Public Schools This Week | janresseger

Sorting Out the School Reopening Worries and the Political Issues Swirling Around Public Schools This Week



This morning we are poised between the Democratic and Republican conventions. Public education policy has become highly politicized in the midst of a coronavirus pandemic that has upended the autumn opening of what we all expected would be the 2020-2021 school year.
While public education was unlikely to arise as the top issue at either convention, a mass of newspaper coverage shows us that public schooling is of urgent importance to many people. The papers are filled with all kinds of spreads about whether or not schools ought to reopen and what has begun happening in places where schools have reopened. While we may take our public schools for granted, we can see that when the opening of schools is disrupted, it touches our lives in the most basic way. And we know that problems with reopening school are likely to hurt the children whose needs are greatest: The coronavirus is not only exposing inequality in America, but it is at the same time exacerbating the challenges for disabled children, and very poor children.
The purpose of today’s post is to sort through some of the confusion about reopening schools and to sort out the policy issues swirling this week around public education. What follows is an attempt to provide some clarification.
The Pros and Cons of Reopening Schools Full-Time, In-Person
Everybody seems to agree that children would be better off educationally and psychologically if the 2020-2021 school year could open normally with children back in class.  However, as a team of writers at Politico reports: “Thousands of kids and… (college students) are getting sick, along with their teachers, triggering mass quarantines, campus closures and last-minute switches to online learning. Virus-proof kids who are ‘virtually immune’ to the scourge—that CONTINUE READING: Sorting Out the School Reopening Worries and the Political Issues Swirling Around Public Schools This Week | janresseger

In This 2020-21 Pedagogical Twilight Zone, Value Relationship. | deutsch29

In This 2020-21 Pedagogical Twilight Zone, Value Relationship. | deutsch29

In This 2020-21 Pedagogical Twilight Zone, Value Relationship.





Thursday, August 20, 2020, was my first day of school for this COVID-19, 2020-21 school year. No students yet– the current plan is for students to return after Labor Day.
2020-21 promises to be a pedagogical Twilight Zone.
For teachers and administrators across the nation, the difficulty rests in trying to string days together to form some sort of continuity when the at-best predictability guarantee is only the day we are in and what we know in that day. Procedures and expectations are really confined to a single day. True, we might hope and wish and try to plan to make what happens today somehow logically connect to what will happen tomorrow, and as logical creatures, that is the way teachers and admin are attempting to plan for this school year, but even as we do so, we know that we are trying to construct a solid school year on a foundation that we already know simply cannot support the entire structure.
And still we plan. We must plan. And at this time of education during the pandemic, those plans are rife with contradiction.
Write all lessons in the online classroom platform, but also have paper copies on hand for students who do not have their computers on a given day.
Position student desks six feet apart, but fit all of the students in your classroom CONTINUE READING: In This 2020-21 Pedagogical Twilight Zone, Value Relationship. | deutsch29

“Instructional Lunch” Should be a Deal-Breaker | JD2718

“Instructional Lunch” Should be a Deal-Breaker | JD2718

“Instructional Lunch” Should be a Deal-Breaker



“Instructional Lunch” is a rally bad idea. It is a huge flaw in the NYC Department of Education’s blended learning plans for September. Students in most schools will not go to a cafeteria (where the whole school would mix, theoretically letting a spread event involved the entire student body). Instead, students will eat lunch in their classrooms while a teacher teaches.
The blended learning plans call for masks – except for lunch. A dozen or so children in a room with an adult will remove masks, and eat lunch. The DoE documents don’t mention that they will eat in silence, but I assume that’s because they want to make the principals the bad guys.
Here’s Mulgrew’s description (from an August 8 email to members):
Instructional lunch for students: Using the Breakfast in the Classroom model from elementary schools, many students will have instructional lunches to maximize their class time and minimize their contact with children outside their own class groups. Since not all types of instruction can happen during student lunch, school communities should discuss the types of instruction that can effectively happen during this time. You will still have a duty-free lunch, so in many cases a different teacher will teach your students during the instructional lunch period.
Imagine being the cluster teacher assigned to cover “Instructional Lunch” all day.
Later clarification has the teacher in the back of the room, looking at the students’ backs as they eat.

What is the motivation for “Instructional Lunch”?

The Mayor and Chancellor desperately want to open schools. Hell, most teachers would rather teach in CONTINUE READING: “Instructional Lunch” Should be a Deal-Breaker | JD2718

CURMUDGUCATION: More Pandemic Privatization

CURMUDGUCATION: More Pandemic Privatization

More Pandemic Privatization



"This New Nonprofit Is Training Better Online Teachers This Fall" gushes the EdSurge article that is barely disguised PR for yet another reformy initiative.

This summer a group of education leaders, many from the world of charter schools and education reform, sought to change that by launching the nonprofit National Summer School Initiative, or NSSI for short. Its solution was both a crash course in effective online teaching—and figuring out what good online teaching looked like—and a summer enrichment program for students across the country.

"Many" from charter/reform world is not really correct-- "entirely" would be more accurate. Crash course is right--the training "institute" lasted a whole week. And the company, which has already rebranded itself as Cadence Learning, is selling one more screen-delivered education program. This rebranding is a bit of an unforced rookie error, as Cadence Education is already a company in the early childhood ed biz, and the Cadence Learning Company is a Canadian pharmaceuticals firm. Boys and girls, first rule of 21st century business--before you choose a name, google it.


Poster boy for endlessly failing upwards
You can get a good sense of where this business is coming from just by looking at the priors of the folks running it. The spokesguy that EdSurge talked to was Chris Cerf, a lawyer who became part of the Joel Klein edu-team in NYC, then became Chris Christie's education chief for New Jersey. He left that job to work with Klein at the fiasco that was Amplify (it was totally going to change the face of education). Oh, and Edison Schools, too. After that, he became Cami Anderson's replacement as head of Newark schools. Now he's part of the leadership team at Cadence.

Also on the team are Kevin Anderle, from Achievement First and Teach for America; Savita Bharadwa, former chief of staff at Newark schools, as well as a consultant. Her degrees in electrical engineering, but she got a fake degree from the Broad Academy. so there's that. Then there's Rochelle Dalton, senior fellow at Bellwether, also formerly KIPP Foundation, and Teach for America. Aquan Grant, PrepNet--but she has a real education degree and spent two whole years in the CONTINUE READING: 
CURMUDGUCATION: More Pandemic Privatization

A VERY BUSY DAY 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


A VERY BUSY DAY
Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...
The latest news and resources in education since 2007
 
 

Big Education Ape: THIS WEEK IN EDUCATION Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... The latest news and resources in education since 2007 - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2020/08/this-week-in-education-larry-ferlazzos_22.html


A Look Back: “Idolizing Just One Person Undermines The Struggle”
I’m taking a few days off from publishing new posts this week. I thought that new – and veteran – readers might find it interesting if I began sharing my best posts from over the years. You can see the entire collection here . I originally shared this series of posts in 2010. You might also be interested in The Best Sites To Teach About African-American History . In addition, you might also find
A Look Back: What Is The “Zeigarnik Effect” & How Did I Apply It In The Classroom Today?
I’m taking a few days off from publishing new posts this week. I thought that new – and veteran – readers might find it interesting if I began sharing my best posts from over the years. You can see the entire collection here . I originally shared this post in 2011. You might also be interested in another post I wrote about the same topic: More On The “Zeigarnik Effect” Bluma Zeigarnik was a Russi
A Look Back: Students Remember More When They Tell Stories
I’m taking a few days off from publishing new posts this week. I thought that new – and veteran – readers might find it interesting if I began sharing my best posts from over the years. You can see the entire collection here . In 2012, I wrote a short piece for ASCD In Service titled Students Remember More When They Tell Stories . Educators might still find it useful. I also include additional in
This Week’s “Round-Up” Of Useful Posts & Articles On Ed Policy Issues
Here are some recent useful posts and articles on educational policy issues (You might also be interested in THE BEST ARTICLES, VIDEOS & POSTS ON EDUCATION POLICY IN 2019 – PART TWO ): The latest on Sac City Unified Schools money: The district may run out by February 2021 is from The Sacramento Bee. I’m adding it to A BEGINNING LIST OF THE BEST RESOURCES FOR LEARNING ABOUT OUR SACRAMENTO DISTRICT
SEL Weekly Update
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 2020 – PART ONE. Finally, check out “Best” Lists Of The Week: Social Emotional Learning Resources . Here are this week’s picks: 6 Ways a Crisis Can Help Y
“‘Hacks’ for Teachers”
‘Hacks’ for Teachers is the headline of my latest Education Week Teacher column. Five educators share tips on practices teachers can use to save time and be more effective in the classroom, including by encouraging students to take responsibility for certain tasks, such as peer-editing.
A Look Back: “Sometimes The Only Thing Worse Than Losing A Fight Is Winning One”
I’m taking a few days off from publishing new posts this week. I thought that new – and veteran – readers might find it interesting if I began sharing my best posts from over the years. You can see the entire collection here . I wrote this post in 2013: An old community organizing adage goes like this: “Sometimes the only thing worse than losing a fight is winning one.” In organizing, that can me
A Look Back: Knowledge Isn’t Power — “Power is Power”
I’m taking a few days off from publishing new posts this week. I thought that new – and veteran – readers might find it interesting if I began sharing my best posts from over the years. You can see the entire collection here . I wrote this post in 2013: I’ve been watching “Game of Thrones” on DVD, and just saw this great scene that teaches an important lesson about making change: Knowledge is not
Three Accessible Ways To Search For & Find My “Best” Lists
(Note: I am going to publish this same post once each month to remind regular readers and inform newer ones about how to access my “Best” lists) As regular readers know, I have about 2,100 categorized and regularly