COVID-19 and Mass Protests: Lessons Learned and Future Directions | Schott Foundation for Public Education

COVID-19 and Mass Protests: Lessons Learned and Future Directions | Schott Foundation for Public Education

COVID-19 and Mass Protests: Lessons Learned and Future Directions

On August 20, 2020, The People’s Think Tank (PTT), an intersectional movement space for reimagining a radically democratic future for education justice, held a virtual convening: COVID-19 and Mass Protests: Lessons Learned and Future Directions.

The online gathering brought together more than thirty of PTT’s fifty-plus members, which included a diverse representation of the educational justice movement and social justice allies. Together, members engaged in a deep conversation about how the education justice movement is responding to the COVID-19 crisis and the rise of mass protests against police killings and systemic racism.

A panel discussion Can’t Stop! Won’t Stop! Education Justice in the Now moderated by Letha Muhammad, Director of Education Justice Alliance included: Marika Pfefferkorn, Midwest Center for School Transformation, Maria Fernandez, Campaign for Police-free Schools and Advancement Project, Jitu Brown, Journey for Justice Alliance, Zakiyah Ansari, Alliance for Quality Education and Chianne “Cloudy” Carrier, Sacramento Areas Youth Speaks. The panel explored how COVID-19 has affected panelists personally and in their community and work, lessons learned, and future directions for the movement.

Immediately following the panel, Jonathan Stith, National Director of the Alliance for Educational Justice, led members through small group circles to dive deeper into dialogue with one another.

Across the panel and small groups, participants shared how the pandemic has devastated communities of color and heightened inequities in public education. Organizers themselves have felt more challenged and overwhelmed than ever trying to support their own children and families, help their communities by quickly facilitating mutual aid support, engage with school districts around plans for the fall, and mobilize quickly to take advantage of new openings in challenging anti-Black racism and racial inequities. Some participants shared new and emerging strategies, like the Journey for Justice Alliance’s Equity or Else principles for safe and equitable return to schools and campaigns that have won police-free schools. The heightened need for solidarity across issue-based movements came out strongly as a result of the twin pandemics of CONTINUE READING: COVID-19 and Mass Protests: Lessons Learned and Future Directions | Schott Foundation for Public Education

In crackdown on race-related content, Education Department targets internal book clubs, meetings - POLITICO

In crackdown on race-related content, Education Department targets internal book clubs, meetings - POLITICO

In crackdown on race-related content, Education Department targets internal book clubs, meetings

The guidance largely echoes OMB’s memo in describing the type of content that is now disfavored in government training sessions.

The Education Department plans to scrutinize a wide range of employee activities — including internal book clubs — in search of “Anti-American propaganda” and discussions about “white privilege” as it carries out the White House’s demand that federal agencies halt certain types of race-related training.

In an internal email this week obtained by POLITICO, the department ordered a review of agency contracts for diversity training and "internal employee activities" to root out topics such as “critical race theory” or materials that suggest that the U.S. is an inherently racist country. The crackdown comes as the department implements a government-wide directive the White House issued Friday to stop what it called “un-American propaganda training sessions" about race.

To implement that policy, the Education Department will require each of its offices in D.C., as well as regional outposts throughout the country, to review a range of training materials, including outside contracts for diversity workshops, plus content produced internally at the agency.

An Education Department spokesperson did not comment on the internal agency guidance Wednesday night.

The department's guidance largely echoes OMB’s memo in describing the type of content that is now disfavored in government training sessions: any material “that teaches, trains or suggests the following: (1) virtually all White people contribute to racism or benefit from racism (2) critical race theory (3) white privilege (4) that the United States is an inherently racist or evil country (5) that any race or ethnicity is inherently racist or evil (6) Anti-American propaganda.”

Department officials, according to the email, have already concluded that at least some of its training activities — including a program called “Unconscious Bias and Conversations in the Midst of Change” — would be allowed to continue because they do not include any of the topics prohibited by the OMB memo.

The email said department officials have similarly determined that all diversity and inclusion training offered by the agency’s Office of Equal Employment Opportunity Services complies with the new OMB policy.

The OMB memo, first reported on Friday evening by The Washington Post, states that “it has come to the President’s attention” that the federal CONTINUE READING: In crackdown on race-related content, Education Department targets internal book clubs, meetings - POLITICO

Russ on Reading: Do Our Children Deserve the Truth?

Russ on Reading: Do Our Children Deserve the Truth?

Do Our Children Deserve the Truth?

Knowing our history, the good and the bad, is the first step, I want my children to love the country they live in, but I also want them to be clear-eyed about what that country is.- America Ferrara , Actor

In 1970, when I was a wet-behind-the-ears, 22 year-old social studies teacher at Bristol Junior-Senior High School, I was teaching a ninth grade Civics course. The topic was the the Bill of Rights and specifically, the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights, which states in part:

Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion...

I explained that the Founding Fathers were concerned about the co-mingling of religion and government that many had escaped in Europe and wanted to be sure that religious freedom was guaranteed in the new country.

A student raised his hand. "Mr. Walsh, if that law is in the Constitution, why do we have do we say "under God" every morning when we salute the flag. Isn't that mixing religion and government?"

Good question. My answer: 

The original Pledge of Allegiance did not contain the words "under God." These words were added in 1954 during the Cold War, a period when the fear of an atomic war between the United States and the communist USSR was high. Many viewed communism as a threat to the American way of life, and were particularly concerned that communism was a godless philosophy.  In this country the period was known as McCarthyism, named after a Senator from Wisconsin, who accused many people of being CONTINUE READING: Russ on Reading: Do Our Children Deserve the Truth?

SSPI Thurmond Convenes California School Leaders to Review Public Health Guidance for Safe Learning Webinar on Public Health Guidance - Year 2020 (CA Dept of Education)

Webinar on Public Health Guidance - Year 2020 (CA Dept of Education)

State Superintendent Tony Thurmond Convenes California School Leaders to Review Public Health Guidance for Safe Learning

LivingWorks Virtual Youth Summit - Year 2020 (CA Dept of Education) - https://www.cde.ca.gov/nr/ne/yr20/yr20rel74.asp

SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond hosted a special webinar today for thousands of school leaders, parents, and educational partners to answer questions and assist schools in their understanding of state public health guidance as they continue to ensure the health and safety of students and staff during the pandemic.

The State Superintendent was joined by Ben Chida, Chief Deputy Cabinet Secretary in the Governor’s Office, and Dr. Erica Pan, Acting State Health Officer at the California Department of Public Health (CDPH).

“I want to acknowledge how proud I am of California’s entire education community, and I just have to commend everyone for doing your part,” Thurmond said. “This is not easy, but I am inspired by our students, educators, administrators, families, and partners leaning in under unimaginable circumstances. Thank you to our partners in the Governor’s Office and CDPH for helping school leaders plan for the weeks and months ahead. We are grateful for all efforts to help schools navigate these complicated decisions in their communities.”

Today’s webinar was a wide-ranging deep dive into myriad issues on the minds of educational leaders, including how schools can plan for teaching, learning, and reopening under the new county monitoring system and how it relates to schools, the elementary waiver process for in-person learning, and a small cohort guidance document (PDF).

The small cohort guidance document outlines the parameters for schools to serve limited in-person groups that are targeted for specialized support and services. According to CDPH guidance, students with disabilities should be prioritized for cohorts, along with English learners, students not participating in distance learning, students at risk of abuse or neglect, and foster and homeless students.

Partner associations posed questions on behalf of educational stakeholders and their specific areas of concern, including personal protective equipment, testing, and more. Partners who participated in the Q&A session included the California County Superintendents Educational Services Association, the Association of California School Administrators, the California School Boards Association, the Small School Districts Association, the California School Business Officials Association, the California Teachers Association, the California School Employees Association, and the California Federation of Teachers.

A recording of the webinar can be found on the CDE Facebook page. Schools can learn more about the state’s COVID-19 monitoring system on the California for All Blueprint for a Safer Economy web page.

# # # #

Tony Thurmond — State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Communications Division, Room 5602, 916-319-0818, Fax 916-319-0100

Webinar on Public Health Guidance - Year 2020 (CA Dept of Education)

Choosing Democracy: Why Can't They Just Get Along ? Union Teachers v SCUSD Administration

Choosing Democracy: Why Can't They Just Get Along ? Union Teachers v SCUSD Administration

Why Can't They Just Get Along ? 

Union Teachers v SCUSD Administration

 Many in Sacramento are frustrated and angry about the continuing conflict between the Sacramento City Teachers Assoc, and the SCUSD Superintendent and Board of Education.  Families are being disrupted and children are having their school schedules scrambled.

So, what is going on ? 

To find the District view, read the Sacramento Bee and particularly Marcos Breton.  He opines regularly.

I wanted to hear the teachers' side. So,  at a meeting of the Communities Priority Coalition, I asked David Fisher, President of SCTA to explain the issues.  I got an explanation I could understand.  Here it is.


At its heart, our dispute can be boiled down to one major difference. It's not a dispute about the length of teachers' workday, or teacher pay, it's about providing the best instruction to address student needs and foster a love of learning. In a brick and mortar setting, teachers have the ability to use their professional expertise and judgement to provide an education based on the individual needs of their students. Rather than extend that respect for the professional judgement of teachers to the distance learning setting, SCUSD administrators, with no direct experience teaching in a distance learning environment, are trying to impose a rigid, overly scripted learning model that devalues teachers' professional judgement. It's a choice of quality, rather than simply quantity.

Other districts have been more respectful to the experience of teachers. Here is what one assistant superintendent from Folsom Cordova Unified who "placed his full faith in the teachers" had to say: "Teachers are the educational experts. They went through a lot of training, a lot of college, and a lot of credentialing classes on how to engage kids and help them with their learning."

There's no reason such a respect for teachers should not apply in Sac City as well.


We are moving forward teaching every day to the best of our abilities based on the needs of our students but we want the learning experience to be much better than it was in the Spring.

Last Spring the District unilaterally implemented their proposal without any input from educators at all. It was unclear what the expectations were and was inconsistent at best.

We want this fall to be much better with much clearer expectations based on input from those who are charged with implementing the instruction. That is why we pushed so hard for training that the District only finally agreed to a few hours before the day began.

That is also why our current proposal including our schedules were developed by hundreds of teachers from every school site and segment. We considered our experience in the Spring, expert recommendations by the American Association or Pediatricians and the W.H.O, we reviewed research on sleep patterns of teenagers, as well as looked at what other Districts were doing and what was working and what wasn't.

The teachers on our bargaining team believe their ethical obligation requires them to teach in the manner that is in the best interest of students.  In addition we have received feedback from hundreds of parents, teachers and community members who prefer our more flexible, comprehensive proposal.

As far as the schedules, we are in agreement with our District that the total instructional minutes are the same as recommended by the CDE and the same that most districts also have. While there is some variance in other districts around required live screen time, most other districts give teachers the same discretion they have in a brick and mortar setting to divide their instructional minutes between whole group, small group and independent practice.

For example Folsom Cordova has no minimum required synchronous minutes and leaves it up to the discretion of the individual teachers based on student needs.
https://www.fcusd.org/Page/39750

San Juan requires 45-65 synchronous minutes at elementary level.

https://www.sanjuan.edu/site/default.aspx?PageType=3&ModuleInstanceID=79679&ViewID=9fc4dc78-f943-4224-8465-6c780e58f4df&RenderLoc=0&FlexDataID=55014&PageID=50114

Our proposal requires a much higher minimum of (110 1-3) and 120 synchronous minutes at the elementary level (4-12) and gives the teachers flexibility to increase the minutes for those students who need extra support.

As far as standards and assessments, all teachers will continue to use standards to guide their instruction and will assess students appropriately just like they always have.

It's also important to emphasize that the decision to propose our schedules was not made by me or only a handful of leaders, it was a unanimous Decision of our 85 member bargaining team and by hundreds of school site representatives elected by their peers at each school.

I could not unilaterally make that decision nor change that decision even if I wanted to. And for some additional context, after discussion with other local association leaders, they all said they would never sign on to our District's overly rigid proposal as written. Natomas even went so far as to take a strike vote to make sure they got an acceptable plan and Folsom Cordova didn't have an agreement until about two weeks into their school year.

All that being said our teachers are committed to, and will continue to teach our hearts out to the best of our abilities with or without the trust or respect of our district leadership. And instead of ignoring the disparities in the schools we proposed multiple options for meeting the needs of students that are unable to connect during the live screen time instruction. Unfortunately the District has rejected those ideas.

David Fisher
President SCTA
Phone: 916-452-4591
Fax: 916-452-4675

Choosing Democracy: Why Can't They Just Get Along ? Union Teachers v SCUSD Administration

CURMUDGUCATION: A Robot Wrote An Article. I'm Not Concerned Yet.

CURMUDGUCATION: A Robot Wrote An Article. I'm Not Concerned Yet.

A Robot Wrote An Article. I'm Not Concerned Yet.

The tech world continues its attempts to build a computer that can do language. It's not easy, as witnessed by the fact that they still haven't succeeded. But then, we don't really know how the human brain does language, either.

The current leading construct for computer-generated English is GPT-3. It can do 175 billion parameters (its predecessor had 1.5 billion). It uses deep learning. It is the product of OpenAI, a for-profit outfit in San Francisco co-founded by Elon Musk. It "premiered" in May of this year and really hit the world in July. It is a third generation "language prediction model,: and you want to remember that phrase. And you can watch this video for a "layperson's explanation,"

People have been impressed. Here's a couple of paragraphs from a gushing Farhad Manjoo  review in the New York Times

I’ve never really worried that a computer might take my job because it’s never seemed remotely possible. Not infrequently, my phone thinks I meant to write the word “ducking.” A computer writing a newspaper column? That’ll be the day.

Well, writer friends, the day is nigh. This month, OpenAI, an artificial-intelligence research lab CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: A Robot Wrote An Article. I'm Not Concerned Yet.

A DISCOMFORT WITH THE TRUTH – Dad Gone Wild

A DISCOMFORT WITH THE TRUTH – Dad Gone Wild

A DISCOMFORT WITH THE TRUTH

“A man will seek to express his relation to the stars; but when a man’s consciousness has been riveted upon obtaining a loaf of bread, that loaf of bread is as important as the stars.”
― Richard Wright, Black Boy

“Your whole house smells of dog, says someone who comes to visit. I say I’ll take care of it. Which I do by never inviting that person to visit again.”
― Sigrid Nunez, The Friend

This morning I watched last night’s MNPS school board meeting and now I have to ask, am I the only seeing a trainwreck of monumental proportions approaching? I appreciate Dr. Battle’s steady hand at the wheel but in order to execute a safe return to face to face learning, we need an actual plan, with actual details. Based on what I saw this morning, we have neither. Not only do we not have an actual plan, but we are not even asking the right questions.

Yesterday a survey went out to Nashville families informing them that they must make a decision by September 15th on whether to return to f2f instruction after October’s Fall Break or remain virtual. A decision that they must stick with for the rest of the year, hypothetically parents could change their decision in December based on a vague description of a change in factors. Does a drop in COVID numbers of 20% represent enough of a change to allow for alteration? What if the virtual instruction drops of in perceived quality based on a number of factors – district focus, teacher attrition, unresolved technical issues. Does that warrant a change? Who knows? Like the rest of the plan, details are lacking.

Before we go any further in this discussion, it needs to be acknowledged that district leadership has failed to instill virtual school with any fidelity, not just on a school to school basis, but even inside CONTINUE READING: A DISCOMFORT WITH THE TRUTH – Dad Gone Wild

NYC Public School Parents: Reopening schools amid funding cuts & how to minimize the harm of remote learning

NYC Public School Parents: Reopening schools amid funding cuts & how to minimize the harm of remote learning

Reopening schools amid funding cuts & how to minimize the harm of remote learning

On this week's "Talk out of School" I interviewed Jasmine Gripper, Executive Director of the Alliance for Quality Education, about Governor Cuomo’s damaging and inequitable budget cuts to public schools. 

Then Josh Golin, Executive Director of Campaign for Commercial Free Childhood, explained why schools need to minimize screen time and the use of ed tech apps and should protect student privacy during remote learning. He also explained how parents can advocate for this.  Resources below.

You can also subscribe to our weekly podcast and listen to past shows here.

 More resources here:

Alliance for Quality Education report: Set Up to Fail: How Cuomo’s School Cuts Target New York’s Black & Brown Students 
For more information on AQE’s planned 9/12/20 actions on school funding, contact  Maria@aqeny.org  

News on Albany school cuts  and Schenectady layoffs 

Campaign for Commercial Free Childhood’s statement urging schools to minimize screen time and ed tech 

Also: CCFC petition on this issue and an article on the subject.

Parent Toolkit for Student Privacy from CCFC and the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy 

NYC Public School Parents: Reopening schools amid funding cuts & how to minimize the harm of remote learning

Teacher Tom: Perhaps, Parents, That Future is Closer Than We Think

Teacher Tom: Perhaps, Parents, That Future is Closer Than We Think

Perhaps, Parents, That Future is Closer Than We Think

Parents should know that what is happening right now via Zoom meetings is being called "school," but please don't judge your children's teachers by what is happening right now. Or rather, please remember that just as this is an all new world for you and your children, it is likewise an all new world for the teachers who are tasked with inventing this way of delivering curricula via a schedule that has been imposed upon them by administrators and school boards.

I'm guessing that most young children, despite the upheaval, are excited and enthusiastic about the start of the new school year, diving in, adopting the can-do spirit of their teachers. Parents are proudly posting those first day of school pictures on social media, one of the traditional highlights of fall for me as it's a chance to sort of "catch up" with children I know who are no longer preschoolers. There will be even more challenges ahead, we're going to have to maintain our collective sense of humor, and of course we're all hoping for an end to the pandemic, but getting off to a good start is no small thing.

That said, I know it's already been hard for a lot of kids, especially those who thrive on moving their bodies or socializing or who simply don't have an affinity for the CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: Perhaps, Parents, That Future is Closer Than We Think