Big Education Ape: Sep 9, 2020

Wednesday, September 9, 2020

USA: How Betsy DeVos makes millions of dollars as education secretary – Sarraute Educación

USA: How Betsy DeVos makes millions of dollars as education secretary

USA/September 07, 2020/By: By Melissa Nann Burke and Craig Mauger, The Detroit News/Source: https://www.hollandsentinel.com/

U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has reported at least $170 million in outside income during her first three years in Washington, benefiting from her family’s business empire that includes stakes in sports teams, movies and a son-in-law’s company that contracts with the federal government.

DeVos’ annual disclosure reports reviewed by The Detroit News provide a rare glimpse of the complicated web of real estate holdings, private equity and hedge fund investments of the DeVos family, which Forbes has estimated to be worth $5 billion.

The 62-year-old education secretary’s wide-ranging investments feature a distillery that makes craft spirits, Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies, a minor league hockey team called the Orlando Solar Bears and a company that owns and runs a resort and marina in Eleuthera, Bahamas, that’s currently closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Critics of DeVos say the Michigan native’s financial holdings, which include a company that offers biofeedback therapy for children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, could lead to conflicts of interest as she guides the nation’s education policies inside President Donald Trump’s administration.

Because of Trump’s personal history, it’s not surprising that he would choose “super-rich business” people for his cabinet, said Jordan Libowitz of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

“But it does raise extra concerns about potential conflicts of interest because more assets give more opportunity for people to benefit themselves,” Libowitz said.

The education secretary’s supporters counter that there’s no evidence of impropriety, arguing DeVos has complied with ethics requirements and distanced herself from investment decisions while she’s been in office.

The income is “passive,” meaning DeVos has had no control over the sources of it, said Greg McNeilly, chief operating officer for the Windquest Group,an investment management company that DeVos owns with her family.

Morning in America: Civil Rights Front and Center | Cloaking Inequity

Morning in America:

Civil Rights Front and Center

Julian Vasquez Heilig and Greg Vincent discuss the brand new civil rights and education collaboration between the University of Kentucky College of Education and the NAACP on The Tom Ficklin Show.

Please Facebook Like, Tweet, etc below and/or reblog to share this discussion with others.

Check out and follow my YouTube channel here.

Twitter: @ProfessorJVH

Click here for Vitae.

CURMUDGUCATION: Report: Are Charter Schools A Big Risk For Families?

Report: Are Charter Schools A Big Risk For Families?

In a new report, the Network for Public Education shows how big a gamble it can be to enroll your child in a charter school. And the odds are not in parents’ favor.

“Broken Promises: An Analysis of Charter School Closures From 1999-2017” is a deep dive into the data surrounding patterns of charter closure and the number of students affected by those closures, especially those in high poverty areas. NPE is a advocacy group co-founded by Diane Ravitch, the Bush-era Assistant Secretary of Education who has since become an outspoken critic of education reform. The organization's executive director is Carol Burris, a former award-winning New York principal; Burris co-wrote the report with Ryan Pfleger, an education policy researcher.

The researchers worked primarily from the U.S. Department of Education’s Common Core of Data (CCD) and broke charter schools into 17 cohorts based on the year that they opened. The findings serve as a warning for parents considering the charter option.

Within the first three years, 18% of charters had closed, with many of those closures occurring within the first year. By the end of five years, 25% of charters had closed. By the ten year mark, 40% of charters had closed. Of the 17 cohorts, five had been around for fifteen years; within those, CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Report: Are Charter Schools A Big Risk For Families?

On Teaching - The Atlantic

Trump’s Denial of 1619 Project: Unworthy of a Democracy | Schott Foundation for Public Education

Trump’s Denial of 1619 Project: Unworthy of a Democracy

In our democracy, the federal government has been the entity that the people looked to take steps to ensure educational equity. President Trump is dangerously intent on reversing the role of the federal government on equity and public education.

Last week, Trump threatened to withdraw federal funding from California public schools that use the 1619 Project curriculum. That educational program is based on Pulitzer Prize winner and Schott Foundation Fellow Nikole Hannah-Jones’ in-depth exploration of the legacy of Blacks in America since 1619, the year that the first African slaves were brought to our shores. Trump doesn’t dispute that historical fact—even he can’t dub it “fake news,” so he doubles down on the notion, embraced by too many, that slavery is now over, no legacy or current injustices exist, end of conversation. With his penchant for extremism, he even claims it’s un-American to teach our children this history.

Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, it is a grave threat to our democracy to continue to ignore—and fail to correct—the systemic racism that undergirds our nation’s public policies and practices. The violence against Blacks by the police may lead the headlines today, but the full story cannot be understood without taking a 400-year view of the legacy of slavery. The violence of law enforcement today cannot be separated from the violence that enforced slavery, laws prohibiting Blacks from learning to read and write, segregation, inequitable schools that deny educational opportunities to children, as well as redlining and real estate covenants that deny housing opportunities to families. Only by understanding the full breadth of our nation's history can we see the common threads linking the myriad crises of today.

The legacy and impact of slavery and the policies and practices that support systemic racism have limited the supports and local infrastructure available in cities to support its children and families. Schott’s recent report, the 2020 Loving Cities Index, measures the effect of these policies in the lack of supports that children of color and CONTINUE READING: Trump’s Denial of 1619 Project: Unworthy of a Democracy | Schott Foundation for Public Education

State of Our Schools: Randi Weingarten

State of Our Schools: Randi Weingarten

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten discusses safety measures being taken as part of the Department of Education’s reopening plan to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the upcoming school year.

State of Our Schools: Randi Weingarten

Chicano/a Studies: 50 Years in the Making - LA Progressive

Chicano/a Studies: 50 Years in the Making

Fear-mongering, racist, inflammatory messaging is something the Latino community has heard many times before. This political year there is something different. There is a direct attack by this president and his entire administration upon the Latino Community.

The upcoming 2020 elections are one of the most important elections in our lifetime. This is not by any means an overstatement. A vote to reject the current president and his allies is a vote to save our community and our important Latino institutions. One such institution is the departments of Chicano/a Studies.

Mexican American Studies

Out of the turbulent past of the late 1960s and early 70s, Chicano/a Studies Departments became informally institutionalized on California colleges and university campuses. The Department of Chicano/a Studies developed out of mass demonstrations and protests. It secured its place in history by the Chicano/student walkouts, and the organizing by community activists. Chicano/a Studies was a radical call for institutional educational change. It was not a call for simple reform.

In the streets, workplaces, and in their homes, students and the community demanded representation in college and universities, relevant curriculum, and minority hiring of faculty. One of the first Mexican American studies Departments was established in 1968 on the campus of CONTINUE READING: Chicano/a Studies: 50 Years in the Making - LA Progressive

Code Acts in Education: The Social Life of Artificial Intelligence in Education | National Education Policy Center

Code Acts in Education: The Social Life of Artificial Intelligence in Education

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become the subject of both hype and horror in education. During the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic, AI in education (AIed) attracted serious investor interest, market speculation, and enthusiastic technofuturist predictions. At the same time, algorithms and statistical models were implicated in several major controversies over predictive grading based on historical performance data, raising serious questions about privileging data-driven assessment over teacher judgment.

In the new special issue AI in education: Critical perspectives and alternative futures published in Learning, Media and Technology, Rebecca Eynon and I pulled together a collection of cutting edge social scientific analyses of AIed. The purpose was to add alternative analytical perspectives to studies of AIed benefits, and to challenge commercial assertions that AIed will solve complex educational problems while accruing profitable advantage for companies and investors.

Like AI in general, AIed is social and political. It has its own long history and a complex present ‘social life’, and it is being developed in the pursuit of future visions of education. AIed has emerged in its current form from decades of prior research and development, from technological innovation, from funding practices, and from policy preoccupations with using educational data for various forms of performance measurement and prediction. Far from being merely a future vision, AIed is already actively intervening in education systems — in schools, universities, policy spaces and home learning settings — with effects that are only now coming into view.

Yet the growth in critical studies of AI in other sectors (such as labour automation, healthcare CONTINUE READING: Code Acts in Education: The Social Life of Artificial Intelligence in Education | National Education Policy Center

Former IDEA Leader Wants to Turn San Antonio into Charter Mecca | Diane Ravitch's blog

Former IDEA Leader Wants to Turn San Antonio into Charter Mecca

Tom Torkelson, former leader of the free-spending IDEA Network, has landed in San Antonio, where he hopes to flood the city and its surrounding districts with charter schools and obliterate public schools that belong to the community. Torkelson hopes to place 150,000 students in charters, draining funding from public schools.

Not long ago, the IDEA corporate chain bought out Torkelson’s contract for $900,000. Torkrlson will be the new CEO of a local group called Choose to Succeed. “Choose to Succeed backs a portfolio of charter operators they deem high-performing including IDEA, KIPP Texas, Great Hearts Academies, and BASIS Schools.”

Torkelson will grow the charter sector and crush the local public schools, which will be nothing more than dumping grounds for the kids who can’t meet the demands of the “high-performing” charter schools that have such requirements as passing AP exams.

IDEA, you may recall, wanted to lease a private jet for its executives (but backed off because of bad publicity), treated them to firs-class air travel, spent $400,000 a year for premium seats at professional basketball games, was gifted with nearly $250 million by Betsy DeVos from CONTINUE READING: Former IDEA Leader Wants to Turn San Antonio into Charter Mecca | Diane Ravitch's blog

DeVos Privatization Schemes Are Blocked by Courts and Likely to Be Further Blocked by Congress | janresseger

DeVos Privatization Schemes Are Blocked by Courts and Likely to Be Further Blocked by Congress

Betsy DeVos, a lifelong supporter of private and religious schools and the expansion of tax-funded tuition vouchers for private schools, has pursued the privatization of public education throughout her tenure as U.S. Secretary of Education. In recent months DeVos devised a way to divert to private schools some of the funding Congress appropriated for public school CARES Act relief, and this month DeVos has persisted by working with Sen. Ted Cruz to insert her $5 billion Opportunity Scholarship tuition tax credit program into a new Senate coronavirus relief package.

Famous for disdaining public institutions, DeVos once declared: “Government really sucks.” Everyone has worried for over three years that Betsy DeVos might succeed in radically expanding school privatization from her perch in the Trump administration, but, despite all the rhetoric, she hasn’t succeeded. Now her CARES Act initiative has been struck down, and her tuition tax credit scheme is headed nowhere.

Court Permanently Blocks DeVos CARES Act Distribution Favoring Private Schools

In July, Betsy DeVos imposed a binding rule to favor distribution of a significant portion of last spring’s CARES Act relief money to private schools at the expense of the public schools serving the nation’s poorest children. Last Friday, in NAACP v. DeVos, the third court decision on DeVos’s CARES Act rule in recent weeks, a federal judge permanently blocked DeVos’s plan.

POLITICO’s Michael Stratford explains: “U.S District Judge Dabney Friedrich, an appointee of President Donald Trump, ruled that DeVos ran afoul of the CARES Act when she required public schools to send a greater share of pandemic assistance to private school students than CONTINUE READING: DeVos Privatization Schemes Are Blocked by Courts and Likely to Be Further Blocked by Congress | janresseger

NYC Educator: A Hybrid that Works + First Day Back--Fishbowl Teaching

NYC Educator: A Hybrid that Works

A Hybrid that Works

I was speaking with someone from a Long Island district who described to me what they're doing in his town. Things are easier there, evidently, since they're fairly well to do and they haven't overcrowded the schools to some obscene level. I'm pretty familiar with overcrowding. Our school is at 220% capacity, and the most we can have most students report is once a week.

In the Long Island district, students come in every other day. Teachers give lessons and they are broadcast in real time. Half the students are in the classroom and half are home. Only the students in the classroom on any given day are allowed to ask questions or interact with the teacher. Now I'm not about to jump up and down and declare this is a wonderful system. There are clearly flaws.

The only thing I'll say about it is it's actually practical. You can do it. In that respect, it's superior to the models the DOE has designed. In fact, though we're only two weeks away from students coming in, the DOE is still looking for teachers to cover these programs. It's kind of incredible that the DOE would pay some firm millions to come up with a program that required who knows how many new teachers to make it happen. There are 80,000 teachers around. Why don't they ask us before paying all that cash?

As if that's not enough, the fact is the mayor is looking at the possibility of firing 23,000 city employees, including 9,000 teachers. Why would anyone contemplating layoffs go on a hiring spree? And why would that someone, who's known of this possibility for months, accept a program that requires thousands of new teachers? Your guess is as good as mine.

I know someone who was recently excessed. This person tells me that the same school is now looking for new teachers. How do you excess experienced teachers and then go off CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: A Hybrid that Works

NYC Educator: First Day Back--Fishbowl Teaching - http://nyceducator.com/2020/09/first-day-back-fishbowl-teaching.html

How Covid-19 Froze School Reform (Part 3) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

How Covid-19 Froze School Reform (Part 3)

Covid-19 has not only frozen prior reforms–BC (Before Covid)–see Parts 1 and 2–but the spread of software and devices throughout schools prior to the coronavirus pandemic has led to a total embrace of online instruction or DC, During Covid-19. Districts are providing families with laptops and tablets like popcorn.

I take up particularly the work of entrepreneurs and school districts to spread “personalization” software and claims of tailoring teaching and learning to each student, a reform that will finally reach the Holy Grail of mass schooling–individualized learning at home and school. Using devices and software is now not a choice, it is a must. *

That is the story I want to tell. I begin with the word, palimpsest:

Palimpsest: “A manuscript, typically of papyrus or parchment, that has been written on more than once, with the earlier writing incompletely erased and often legible (The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, fourth edition, 2000, p. 1265).

Personalized instruction in 2020 is like a palimpsest.

Tailoring knowledge and skills to the individual student and given students CONTINUE READING: How Covid-19 Froze School Reform (Part 3) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

September 6, 2020 Statewide Emergency: Fires - Nutrition (CA Dept of Education)

September 6, 2020 Statewide Emergency: Fires

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Main Web Page

In response to an emergency proclamation issued on September 6, 2020, by Governor Gavin Newsom regarding the fires burning in several counties, the California Department of Education (CDE) Nutrition Services Division is sending this notice to all statewide participants in the Child Nutrition Programs.

On September 6, 2020, Sacramento – Governor Gavin Newsom issued an emergency proclamation for the counties of Fresno, Madera and Mariposa due to the Creek Fire; for San Bernardino County due to the El Dorado Fire; and for San Diego County due to the Valley Fire. The fires have burned tens of thousands of acres, destroyed homes and caused the evacuation of thousands of residents.

Guidelines on Disaster Relief

For information on Governor Newsom’s emergency proclamation, please refer to the Office of Governor Gavin Newsom web page

For information on the CDE Resources for California Wildfires, please refer to the CDE Resources for California Wildfires web page.

For information on the CDE Disaster Relief Guidelines, please refer to the CDE Disaster Relief Guidelines web page.

For information on disaster assistance and resources in California, please refer to the CDE Disaster Resources web page.

For information on emergency resources from federal, state, and local agencies, please refer to the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (OES) website

Reimbursement Claims Submission Flexibility

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) can authorize the CDE to allow school food authorities, institutions, and sponsors to submit claims beyond the 60-day submission requirement. Claims submitted after 60 days, as a result of a disaster, are not subject to the one-time exception for late submissions. For more information on late claim submission due to disasters, refer to the USDA Policy Memoranda SP 46-2014, CACFP 12-2014, SFSP 18-2014 web document

(PDF).

For assistance with submitting your claim, contact your Child Nutrition Fiscal Service Analyst on the CDE Nutrition Services web page.

Use of U.S. Department of Agriculture Foods during a State and Federally Declared Disaster

Disaster relief organizations may designate schools as community feeding sites or request that schools provide their USDA Foods to other feeding sites. USDA Foods can be released on request to recognized disaster relief organizations such as the American Red Cross or the OES. Information regarding USDA Foods usage, reporting, and claiming procedures during a disaster can be found in Management Bulletin 02-401 on the CDE Use of USDA Foods in Disaster Feeding web page.

The Disaster Feeding Guidance for School Food Service using USDA Foods can be downloaded from the CDE Food Distribution Guidance, Manuals, and Resources web page.

Contact Information

If you have any questions regarding this subject, please contact the following programs:

School Nutrition Programs (SNP)

Katie Tully, Northern SNP Unit Manager, by phone at 916-322-3609 or by email at ktully@cde.ca.gov.

Summer Meal Programs

Jeannine Cook, Summer Meals Unit Manager, by phone at 916-322-2146 or by email at jcook@cde.ca.gov.

Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP)

Joseph Cormack, CACFP Unit Manager, by phone at 916-324-7133 or by email at jcormack@cde.ca.gov.

Food Distribution Program

Augie Aguilar, Food Administration Unit Manager, by phone at 916-445-4850 or by email at aaguilar@cde.ca.gov.

Questions: Nutrition Services Division | 800-952-5609

Last Reviewed: Tuesday, September 8, 2020

September 6, 2020 Statewide Emergency: Fires - Nutrition (CA Dept of Education)

Education Matters: If the superintendent is going isn't going to be honest about subs what else will she not be honest about.

If the superintendent is going isn't going to be honest about subs what else will she not be honest about.

Superintendent Greene has not been honest with us and that may be as uncomfortable for you to read as it was for me to write, but it's the truth, and if the superintendent is going to deceive to us about job openings and sub positions, where is her limit?

On Facebook, I posed this question:

The super said we had 2000 subs ready to go, including some trained to do virtual learning. I don't think this is accurate. Every day there is a call for several sub-teams at my school. I was wondering if any teachers have had a hard time getting a sub or have had to cover classes because of teacher absences.

I put in on my personal page and four others whose primary focus was local education. The response was overwhelming and damning.

The posts received over a hundred comments, and I received 11 personal messages about subs, and overwhelmingly they reported issues.

Classes are being canceled, classes are being split, and teachers are being called to cover their colleagues' classes at a pace like never before. Why? Because we don't have the subs like Greene said we did.

Now somebody supposed when she said it, this was her doing a poker bluff, and sure I buy that but should the super be bluffing during a pandemic about coverage for classes? Should she be making stuff up? She also did so when talking about openings. She said we had 80 a few weeks back when we had twice that many.

https://jaxkidsmatter.blogspot.com/2020/07/about-those-2000-subs.html

Being deceptive isn't her only disturbing behavior. She has ignored science from the get-go and also ignored CONTINUE READING: Education Matters: If the superintendent is going isn't going to be honest about subs what else will she not be honest about.

CURMUDGUCATION: DeVos Says We're All In This Together. Ha!

DeVos Says We're All In This Together. Ha!

So this just popped up on my feed:

So much to unpack.

First, who's this "we"? Because Betsy DeVos has made it clear that in her universe, the failed public "government" schools are not "in it" with her. She has not invited public school teachers, the unions, public school students--all the things that are part of what she derides as "the system"--to be on Team DeVos. Plus, note to Betsy--other parts of the country have been back to school for weeks.

And there's no question that the rest of us aren't in it together. The parents who can pay to send their kids to pod school at a literal country club are not "in it" with the families who have to send students to get on the internet in a Taco Bell parking lot. The parents who can afford to have someone stay home with the kids are not "in it" with the parents who have to scramble for child care or do without critical income. And as local school leaders look for guidance from the state or CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: DeVos Says We're All In This Together. Ha!

Jersey Jazzman: Racial and Class Bias In New Jersey's School Reopening Plans

Racial and Class Bias In New Jersey's School Reopening Plans

Most New Jersey school districts are starting the 2020-21 school year this week -- although the way they are starting varies quite a bit. This year, some districts are fully remote, while others are offering a limited form of in-person instruction known as a "hybrid" model. Many of the districts offering the hybrid are rotating students in cohorts that switch between in-person and remote instruction; this way, students get at least some time in their school buildings.

The Murphy administration initially wanted all districts to offer some form of in-person instruction; however, many pushed back, saying they were not prepared. A large part of the problem is staffing: many districts are having trouble finding replacements for the wave of teachers who retired early or took leaves of absence rather than return during a pandemic. Governor Murphy has since allowed districts to apply to start the year remotely.

NJ Spotlight published a list late last week of which school districts -- including charter schools and private schools approved for special education -- would be implementing which model to start the year. I thought it was worth taking some time to crunch the numbers, even if many plans are, as of this writing, still under review. The list I'm using omits almost 200 districts, including every one in Hudson County. Still, it's instructive to see where we are as of now.

I should note before I start that a hybrid program does not require a student to attend CONTINUE READING: Jersey Jazzman: Racial and Class Bias In New Jersey's School Reopening Plans

Schools Matter: Awakening to Racist Child Abuse of Charter Chains

Awakening to Racist Child Abuse of Charter Chains

Fabiola St Hilaire is among a growing number of teachers from the "no excuses" cultural sterilization charter schools who are calling out the racist child abuse by charter chains like Success Academy.

Working for this organization has truly showed me that as long as I stand with the inaction and blatant disregard for child morality and healthy development it in turn will make me complicit, which I will never be. --From former Success Academy teacher Fabiola St Hilaire's resignation letter

From a story by Michael Elsen-Rooney for New York Daily News:

. . . . For [some] educators and parents, however, Success’s approach feels heavy-handed and inflexible at a time when many families need the opposite.

“It’s inhumane,” said Fabiola St Hilaire, who resigned as a first-grade teacher at the network’s Flatbush, Brooklyn elementary school — lasting just one week under the new remote rules.

“Just seeing how difficult it was for the kids to stay focused and still as they want them to be, it was like wow,” she said. “You see the fidgety bodies, you see the blank stares.”

Under the plan, kids as young as 5 have to log on by 8:50 a.m. wearing their checkered orange and blue uniforms, pictured here, and sit still with their hands clasped for nearly CONTINUE READING: Schools Matter: Awakening to Racist Child Abuse of Charter Chains