44 Square Feet: A School-Reopening Detective Story | WIRED

44 Square Feet: A School-Reopening Detective Story | WIRED

44 Square Feet: A School-Reopening Detective Story

Schools—but not public health officials—across the US are making it a rule: Every student needs to have 44 sq. ft. of space. I tried to find out why.

WHEN MY CHILDREN’S school district finally released its reopening plan at the end of July, it left me both distraught and baffled. My son, aged 9, and my daughter, aged 11, would be going back to class, but only for two days per week.

I couldn’t understand the reasoning. I know the “hybrid education” model, where groups of students rotate on and off school grounds, is meant to help maintain proper social-distancing; with fewer kids in class, everyone has more room to stay apart. From a public health perspective, this logic is questionable at best, but the plan seemed especially inapt for where I live, in a suburb north of New York City. My children are privileged to be at schools that don’t suffer from the gross overcrowding of some of their inner city counterparts. So would my kids’ schools really need to cut back their populations by half each day to ensure that everyone could have their own 6 feet of space?

Just as a matter of geometry, it didn’t make much sense.

In pre-pandemic times, many of our district’s classrooms held up to about 22 students plus a teacher each, in roughly 770 square feet. That meant everyone already had about 33 square feet for themselves. Wasn’t that nearly enough to keep them separated by 6 feet? Desk-chair tilings and tessellations filled my mind. To meet the standard social-distancing requirements, it seemed like every student would either need a 6-foot square of space (with an area of 36 square feet); or else a circle with a 6-foot diameter (and an area of 28 square feet). Yet my school was thinning out the classes by 50 percent with its hybrid plan. Now each one would hold around 11 students every day, plus a teacher—each of whom would get a total of 64 square feet of space.

I quickly realized that my math was way off. First of all, it didn’t take account of needed space for the furniture that lines the classroom walls. But there’s another problem, too, that goes the other way. Let’s say you’re putting kids into a 6-foot grid: In that case, you don’t really need to leave 36 square feet of space for each desk, because some kids can be seated up against the walls, or even in the corners. A student who was sitting at a corner desk could be 6 feet away from any classmates, while only taking up a little more than 9 square feet! CONTINUE READING: 44 Square Feet: A School-Reopening Detective Story | WIRED

Arkansas: Public School Advocates Demand End to Failed Voucher Program | Diane Ravitch's blog

Arkansas: Public School Advocates Demand End to Failed Voucher Program | Diane Ravitch's blog

Arkansas: Public School Advocates Demand End to Failed Voucher Program

PUBLIC SCHOOL ADVOCATES URGE ARKANSAS LEGISLATURE TO END BROKEN VOUCHER PROGRAM

In a letter sent to Arkansas legislative leaders last week, Public Funds Public Schools, along with other state and national organizations, urged the Arkansas General Assembly to end the state’s harmful and inequitable private school voucher program. The letter highlights alarming information revealed in the recently released biennial report on the “Succeed Scholarship Program,” Arkansas’ voucher program for students with disabilities and students in the foster care system.

The letter was signed by leading advocates for Arkansas students and families, including Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, Arkansas Citizens First Congress, the Arkansas Public Policy Panel, and Arkansas-based philanthropic and education leader Dr. Sybil Jordan Hampton. In addition to PFPS, several regional and national education advocacy groups also signed on, including Education Law Center and SPLC Action Fund (which collaborate on PFPS), and the Southern Education Foundation.

“The 2020 Report illustrates in detail the glaring deficiencies in Succeed Vouchers’ ability to improve academic outcomes and promote equity and access for historically – and currently – marginalized students. It also illustrates the profound difficulties in ensuring appropriate oversight of this publicly-funded program,” the letter notes.

The State’s 2020 Report, which was mandated by bipartisan legislation passed in 2019, also underscores the lack of data necessary to evaluate the academic effects of the Succeed Vouchers, noting that “meaningful comparative data regarding student performance based on the assessment scores private schools provide is CONTINUE READING: Arkansas: Public School Advocates Demand End to Failed Voucher Program | Diane Ravitch's blog

An Open Letter to White Teachers of Black Children - Philly's 7th Ward

An Open Letter to White Teachers of Black Children - Philly's 7th Ward

AN OPEN LETTER TO WHITE TEACHERS OF BLACK CHILDREN

… If America is going to become a nation, she must find a way—and this [Black] child must help her to find a way—to use the tremendous potential and tremendous energy which this child represents. If this country does not find a way to use that energy, it will be destroyed by that energy.

• James Baldwin, A Talk to Teachers

In the spirit of James Baldwin, I begin this letter saying that we are living through a very dangerous time. The society in which we live is desperately menaced, not by terrorist from abroad or any foreign power, but from within.

Our society is menaced by its own social order: white supremacy. The impact of racial capitalism over time on Black lives and the lives of the poor are magnified by the Coronavirus pandemic and illuminated by police brutality. Multiple constituencies of the human family, nationally and worldwide, converge on the streets in protest to name and fight this menace.

However in our country, these heroes are met with identified and unidentified police who employ tear gas and batons as well as those who seek to sabotage their calls for justice.

Although the names of racist politicians and confederate soldiers are removed from schools and the phrase Black Lives Matter are painted on the streets of cities nationwide, Black people continue to be disproportionately affected by the Coronavirus; exacerbated by environmental, economic and CONTINUE READING: An Open Letter to White Teachers of Black Children - Philly's 7th Ward

Black Boys Don't Need Saviors, They Need Believers. - Philly's 7th Ward - https://wp.me/p7sbg2-sY

When Black Boys Aren't Allowed to Be Boys - Philly's 7th Ward - https://wp.me/p7sbg2-t0

New York City’s Teachers Union Doesn’t Remember How to Strike - Jacobin

New York City’s Teachers Union Doesn’t Remember How to Strike

New York City’s Teachers Union Doesn’t Remember How to Strike

The United Federation of Teachers, New York City’s teachers union, is a massive local that could wield enormous power through striking. But the union hasn’t struck in nearly half a century — even in the face of a deadly pandemic and unsafe schools reopening. Why does the UFT refuse to use its most powerful tactic?


The United Federation of Teachers [UFT], after the vote of the chapter, will move to close temporarily any schools where there’s a clear and present life-threatening danger to the students and the staff until such time as safety can be assured.”

So read a resolution passed by the UFT’s Delegate Assembly… in 1992. The issue then was guns and gang violence. Last week, in response to the reopening plan being imposed by Mayor Bill de Blasio, the UFT, New York City’s teachers union, came closer to a strike than I ever thought I’d see.

Strike talk had been rumbling among the teachers for at least a week, when Matthew Cunningham-Cook at the Intercept broke the news that a true-blue strike vote was on the immediate horizon. They could’ve just dusted off that old 1992 resolution and passed the thing again, word for word. They didn’t make it that far.

I won’t go over every spar and jab, which others have done well. Indeed, with teachers back in the building this week, and polls showing a majority of the public not feeling that it’s safe to return, it seems likely enough that the spars and jabs aren’t by any means over, the can only having been kicked a few days down the road.

One might think this is just the next frontier in the teachers strike wave that began with the West Virginia teachers in February 2018, and continued through the onset of the coronavirus (St Paul teachers were out as late as March 10). But the gargantuan UFT — with its membership at 120,000, the union has more members than twenty-two states; a UFT strike would include more than twice as many teachers as the Arizona statewide teacher strikes — isn’t just different in degree, but in kind.

My shock at the whole news cycle was borne out of my sense that the UFT simply doesn’t do this sort of CONTINUE READING: New York City’s Teachers Union Doesn’t Remember How to Strike

Institute for Policy Studies: Reimagining School Safety | Diane Ravitch's blog

Institute for Policy Studies: Reimagining School Safety | Diane Ravitch's blog

Institute for Policy Studies: Reimagining School Safety

This valuable report analyzes how money could be better spent to protect students at school. It’s findings are stunning. We as a nation are spending vast sums on police in schools but insignificant amounts on mental health services and counselors who interact directly with students.

KEY FINDINGS & OBSERVATIONS

*Since 2018, states have allocated an additional $965 million to law enforcement in schools.

*According to a 2019 ACLU study, 1.7 million students have cops in their schools, but no counselors; 3 million have cops, but no nurses; 6 million have cops, but no school psychologists; and 10 million have cops, but no social workers.

*As of 2020, nearly 60 percent of all schools and 90 percent of high schools now have a law enforcement officer at least part time.

*The $33.2 million “school security” budget allocated for 2021 in Washington, D.C., could instead fund up to 222 psychologists, 345 guidance counselors, or 332 social workers.

*The $15 million “school security” budget approved for 2021 in Chicago could instead fund up to 140 psychologists, 182 guidance counselors, or 192 social workers.

*The $32.5 million “school security” budget allocated for 2021 in Philadelphia could instead fund up to 278 psychologists, 355 guidance counselors, or 467 social workers.

The report describes “militarized schools”:

As of 2019, there were nearly 50,000 school resource officers patrolling the hallways of America’s schools.

In schools that serve predominantly Black student populations, it is often much more than hallways that are patrolled.

For example, D.C. police are deployed to nearly all high schools to monitor cafeterias, auditoriums, hallways, stairwells, restrooms, entrances, and exits, as well as provide security for school-sponsored events. Such schools promote a learning environment that is more akin to that of a correctional institution than an educational one

Institute for Policy Studies: Reimagining School Safety | Diane Ravitch's blog

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POLITICO Article on Charter Schools Entirely Misses the Point | janresseger

POLITICO Article on Charter Schools Entirely Misses the Point | janresseger

POLITICO Article on Charter Schools Entirely Misses the Point

Rev. J. Philip Wogaman, the ethicist, tells us that “justice is the community’s guarantee of the conditions necessary for everybody to be a participant in the common life of society… It is just to structure institutions and laws in such a way that communal life is enhanced and individuals are provided full opportunity for participation.”  (Christian Perspectives on Politics, pp. 216-217)  Because public education is systemic and schools are operated according to the law, it is possible to ensure that public schools protect the rights and serve the needs of all children, while charter schools are designed to serve the choices of individual families.

Charter schools were set up according to a theory of social entrepreneurship—the idea that if you give individuals enough freedom, they will experiment and innovate and do a better job of meeting the needs of particular students one school at a time.  Of course, our nation’s public schools have never fully embodied the principle of justice; like all core social institutions they have reflected the injustices and biases of the society they represent. But over the generations, as our society has begun to acknowledge racial and ethnic biases and realized that disabled people ought to be made full participants in our society, our representatives have passed laws and regulations to protect the rights of children formerly left out of the blessings promised in our nation’s principles. Our representatives in Congress passed Title I as part of the War on Poverty in 1965 to supplement investment in the public schools that serve concentrations of our nation’s poorest children. In 1975, Congress passed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to help public schools pay for expert teachers to support the needs of disabled children. And the courts have protected the rights of immigrant children—even undocumented students—in the public schools. Further, in accordance with the principles of equity embedded in many state constitutions, courts in a number of states have been able to CONTINUE READING: POLITICO Article on Charter Schools Entirely Misses the Point | janresseger

NYC Educator: De Blasio Suggests Our Lives Don't Matter.

NYC Educator: De Blasio Suggests Our Lives Don't Matter.

De Blasio Suggests Our Lives Don't Matter.

In a summer full of spectacular incompetence and total lack of planning, it's harder and harder for things to stand out, but this suggestion  is really rather startling:

Mayor Bill de Blasio said Thursday that there is no real plan to disclose positive tests because students are not back in school yet.

Wow.  We have 16 positive cases we know of, and there was no plan to let us know about them. It's not important. It's not relevant. Think about that.

In Bill de Blasio's plan, 16 positive cases at square one ought not even to be considered moving forward. I can only suppose the mayor would just as soon have us not know about them. Lack of knowledge is power, perhaps.

I'm always put off by the argument of, "Children first, always," that the DOE used to use as a motto. It always suggested, "We don't give a crap about teachers or working people," to me. That was a flawed motto because the very children we place first would, we very much hoped, grow up to be adults. But de Blasio seems to have taken this statement and added steroids or something.

The fact is we are a substantial sample of the school population, and if the students outnumber us by a factor of about ten to one, you could assume ten times as many cases with students in the buildings. You know, they are human and we are human, even though word may not have reached the mayor. This poses a problem in that humans meeting humans in school buildings did not work well last March. 

How sure is the mayor the virus will spread?

"Of course there will be days where you find a case in a classroom and classroom will have to be shut down, sometimes a school will have to be shut down," he said. "But it’s a temporary reality."

From what I can tell, he's absolutely sure. And he appears to have no problem whatsoever with it. I don't know who's advising the mayor, or whether he listens to his advisors, but CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: De Blasio Suggests Our Lives Don't Matter.

New Seal of Civic Engagement - Year 2020 (CA Dept of Education)

New Seal of Civic Engagement - Year 2020 (CA Dept of Education)

California State Board of Education Approves State Seal of Civic Engagement Award

Honor is hoped to encourage students to become active participants in democracy

SACRAMENTO—The California State Board of Education today approved criteria for California students to earn a new Seal of Civic Engagement, an incentive aimed at encouraging active and ongoing citizenship.

To earn the seal, students must demonstrate excellence in civic learning, participation in civics-related projects, contributions to their community, and an understanding of the United States Constitution, the California Constitution, and the American democratic system. Students may earn the seal on a transcript, diploma, or Certificate of Completion. California history and social science teachers worked in partnership with the California Department of Education (CDE) to develop the initial requirements.

“The future of our democracy depends on a knowledgeable and actively engaged citizenry,” said State Board President Linda Darling-Hammond. “With this new seal, we hope to prepare all students with an empathetic concern for others, a deep understanding of democracy, and the civic engagement skills needed to contribute to the welfare of their local communities, the state, and the country.”

“We know that when young people activate their voices, they can be among the strongest change agents in our communities,” said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond. “Education is the cornerstone of realizing our democratic ideals, and this new seal puts additional tools in students’ hands as they work to shape the future.”

Since then-Governor Brown signed AB 24 into law in October 2017, the CDE has worked with teachers, a variety of stakeholder groups, and the public to draft criteria and guidance for the seal.

Under direction of the State Board, the Department worked to ensure that the criteria approved today are accessible to all students, support rigorous and continuous civic engagement, promote diversity and inclusion, engage young students, reflect an interdisciplinary approach, and recognize civil disobedience as a form of civic engagement.

The criteria are:

1. Be engaged in academic work in a productive way;
2. Demonstrate a competent understanding of U.S. and California constitutions; functions and governance of local governments; tribal government structures and organizations; the role of the citizen in a constitutional democracy; and democratic principles, concepts, and processes;
3. Participate in one or more informed civic engagement project(s) that address real-world problems and require students to identify and inquire into civic needs or problems, consider varied responses, take action, and reflect on efforts;
4. Demonstrate civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions through self-reflection; and
5. Exhibit character traits that reflect civic-mindedness and a commitment to positively impact the classroom, school, community, and/or society.

The criteria include extensive guidance to support local educational agencies as they implement the seal in their communities. The CDE also created a Resources to Support Civic Engagement web page.

# # # #

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

New Seal of Civic Engagement - Year 2020 (CA Dept of Education)

CURMUDGUCATION: The Biden Education Red Flags

CURMUDGUCATION: The Biden Education Red Flags

The Biden Education Red Flags

Before I get started here, let me be clear about one thing--it is almost impossible to imagine a candidate worse for public education than Donald Trump. His "polan" for education has only two items-- school choice (via vouchers) for everyone, and make every school teach American exceptionalism, which, given his recent assaults on the 1619 project and diversity training, appears to mean getting back to the white-centric education that gramps enjoyed as a boy. Plus you've got Betsy DeVos, who is twelve kinds of awful when it comes to public education, which she seems to pretty much hate and wants to get rid of.

So just to be clear-- there's no universe in which Donald Trump is a better choice for public education.

Now, let's look at what we've been hearing from the Biden campaign.

First of all, you may remember that something called the Unity Committee drafted up some platformy ideas by smushing the Biden and Sanders campaigns together. That resulted in an education platform that repudiated the private profit motive in education and called for tighter charter controls. They also promised to "end the use of high stakes tests"--well, they promised to "work" to do that, and then blah blah blah multiple and holistic measures. It was weak sauce, but it was something.

That language has disappeared entirely from the Biden platform on K-12 education. The words "charter" and "profit" don't even appear on the page.

Then there's this piece from yesterday's the74, profiling "Biden's most important staffer you've never CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: The Biden Education Red Flags

VIDEO–“Expel The Police”: TBS’ “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee” hosts Monique Morris, Jesse Hagopian, Dream Cannon, & Nathaniel Genene to talk about #PoliceFreeSchools! – I AM AN EDUCATOR

VIDEO–“Expel The Police”: TBS’ “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee” hosts Monique Morris, Jesse Hagopian, Dream Cannon, & Nathaniel Genene to talk about #PoliceFreeSchools! – I AM AN EDUCATOR

VIDEO–“Expel The Police”: TBS’ “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee” hosts Monique Morris, Jesse Hagopian, Dream Cannon, & Nathaniel Genene to talk about #PoliceFreeSchools!

The popular late night comedy news show, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, just ran a powerful expose on the brutality of police against students in school. As they wrote of the program,

Correspondent Mike Brown gets an education from Dr. Monique Morris, Dream Cannon, Nathaniel Genene, and Jesse Hagopian in all the reasons School Resource Officers should be in schools. Just kidding, there aren’t any!

Check out this episode and then join the Black Lives Matter at School movements new campaign, the “Year of Purpose.” Part of BLM at School’s campaign is to demand, “Fund Counselors, Not Cops.” Also learn more about police in schools from The Advancement Project and Dignity in Schools.

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VIDEO–“Expel The Police”: TBS’ “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee” hosts Monique Morris, Jesse Hagopian, Dream Cannon, & Nathaniel Genene to talk about #PoliceFreeSchools! – I AM AN EDUCATOR

When Should Journalists Speak Up? | The Merrow Report

When Should Journalists Speak Up? | The Merrow Report

When Should Journalists Speak Up?

By now everyone must know that President Trump has been lying about the coronavirus for months, telling us it would magically disappear when he knew all along that it was a killer threat. Trump admitted this in phone conversations with Bob Woodward recorded in February and March, but only now–in September–have some of the tapes been released.

That Trump is unfit to serve as our President has been clear for an awfully long time. That most Republicans don’t care what he does is also painfully clear.

So let’s ask another question: Should Bob Woodward have released those tapes months ago. If he had done so, would that possibly have saved thousands and thousands of lives?

At some time or other, every journalist is presented with this classic hypothetical situation: Suppose you are filming or photographing a raging river and you see a young child being swept downstream. The child is clinging to a piece of wood and is clearly in danger of drowning. Should you keep on filming, or do you jump in and try to save the child?

In other words, where is the line between a reporter’s job and their responsibility as a citizen? Which comes first?

Of course, it’s really a no-brainer: You must try to save the child, because public CONTINUE READING: When Should Journalists Speak Up? | The Merrow Report