Big Education Ape: Sep 23, 2020

Wednesday, September 23, 2020

Florina Rodov: Online Charter Schools Are Not a Solution to Education in a Pandemic | Ed Politics

FLORINA RODOV: ONLINE CHARTER SCHOOLS ARE NOT A SOLUTION TO EDUCATION IN A PANDEMIC

“Instead of going to school every morning, what if school could come to you?” an ad asks enticingly, promising students “online personalized learning” tailored to their specific needs. It’s one of hundreds of active Facebook ads run by K12 Inc., the largest for-profit virtual charter school provider in the United States. As public schools rose to the challenge of educating students online during the pandemic, corporations like K12 Inc., whose stock price has been climbing since mid-March, were licking their chops at the prospect of moving kids online permanently. Though virtual charter schools perform dismally academically and are plagued by scandal, the goal is for them to replace traditional brick-and-mortar public schools in an effort to privatize education. While this would harm students, it would most egregiously damage Black and Latino children, who’ve already been disproportionately impacted by the coronavirus, due to structural inequities such as lack of access to computers and internet service, as well as inconsistent health care and crowded housing.

K12 Inc. was founded in 2000 by investment banker Ron Packard, “junk bond king” Michael Milken, and Bill Bennett, the U.S. secretary of education under President Ronald Reagan, who was also the company’s first board chairman. Betsy DeVos was an early investor in K12 who held shares in the company until she became education secretary in 2017. The idea behind virtual charter schools was promising: to serve a varied group of students who might benefit from the flexibility of learning online, from those who struggled academically, to others CONTINUE READING: Florina Rodov: Online Charter Schools Are Not a Solution to Education in a Pandemic | Ed Politics

Black Parents: Vanguards of Black Student Advocacy - Philly's 7th Ward

BLACK PARENTS: VANGUARDS OF BLACK STUDENT ADVOCACY

Contrary to the stereotypes, education continues to be a value of the highest priority in the Black community; dating back to the underground schools in the Antebellum South where Black people, at the risk of losing limbs and life, taught themselves reading and writing.

After the Civil War, education attainment was a primary goal for Black people: from 1870-1885, their attendance rates were equal to, if not greater than, Whites. Booker T. Washington observed that “in every part of the South, during the Reconstruction period, schools, both day and night, were filled to overflowing with people of all ages and conditions.” By 1900, the illiteracy rate among African-Americans under the age of 40 was virtually non-existent.

There are some who claim Black people themselves are the reason why Black students underachieve academically. However systemic racism is to blame. Black children are too often overdisciplined, undereducated with fewer resources and attend schools in dangerous conditions. In addition, Black CONTINUE READING: Black Parents: Vanguards of Black Student Advocacy - Philly's 7th Ward

OPINION: Even before the pandemic, students with disabilities and other challenges were being left behind - The Hechinger Report

OPINION: Even before the pandemic, students with disabilities and other challenges were being left behind

Here are some ideas about ways to help all learners

Through no merit of her own, my 5-year-old daughter is already on the other side of an educational opportunity divide, in a world of haves and have-nots.

Through no effort or talent on her part, she was born into a community with good schools. She has two parents with advanced degrees and stable jobs that enable them to work from home.

In so many ways, she won the lottery. We have the flexibility to send her to school or to home-school her for the coming year. We have Wi-Fi, financial resources, supervision and an environment to make it work. My daughter has no disability, so we have no worries about advocating for her educational rights. Her school sends us materials in her native language.

My wife and I are anxious, but it’s an anxiety based on inconveniences, rather than on a lack of options.

I contrast that with what my own mother might have felt when I was my daughter’s age. A solo working parent, she emigrated from Iran to a new country alone and raised two sons, including one, me, who couldn’t speak English. Had broadband even existed then, chance are we wouldn’t have been able to afford it.

As vulnerable as she must have felt, my mother would have relied on one principle: The richest society in the world would have a moral responsibility for the well-being of kids like me, along with families who faced even more extreme obstacles.

The nonprofit education equity group I have the privilege to co-chair has drafted explicit questions for decision-makers, including educators, school leaders and district, state and national policy leaders. We are urging them to consider the needs of students who confront barriers to reaching their fullest educational potential.

They may have disabilities or not speak English as a first language or come from low-income families or lack access to stable housing. They may live in CONTINUE READING: OPINION: Even before the pandemic, students with disabilities and other challenges were being left behind - The Hechinger Report

A Union President to Head the Department of Education? It Could Happen – Intercepts

A Union President to Head the Department of Education? It Could Happen

Last week Politico reported on a memo by the DC lobbying firm of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck regarding what a Biden presidency might look like and whom he could pick for various Cabinet posts.

The firm admits the memo is “highly speculative,” and it doesn’t provide any analysis of why certain candidates are favored, but merely recites their background and history.

When it comes to the three possible appointees to become U.S. Secretary of Education, the memo is both on target and way off.

The misfire is suggesting former Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg for the post. Buttigieg will likely serve in a Biden administration, but not here. Biden promised delegates to the National Education Association Representative Assembly last year he would name a teacher to the job. Buttigieg has never been a teacher, and Biden would not renege on this promise when it is such an easy one to fulfill.

A more likely choice is one of the other two names in the memo: American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten and former National Education Association President Lily Eskelsen García.

Either one would satisfy the union lobby, regardless of whatever education policies ultimately emerged from a Biden presidency. It would also answer CONTINUE READING: A Union President to Head the Department of Education? It Could Happen – Intercepts

New Dashboard Tracks Coronavirus Cases In Schools Across 47 States | 89.3 KPCC

New Dashboard Tracks Coronavirus Cases In Schools Across 47 States

A new national effort asks K-12 schools to voluntarily — and anonymously — report their confirmed and suspected coronavirus cases, along with the safety strategies they're using.

Opening schools safely in person is seen as key to restarting the economy and recovering the learning loss that has fallen most heavily on marginalized groups of students. There are also many fears associated with reopening — of severe illness among vulnerable staff and family members, and of stoking broader outbreaks, as seems to have happened where colleges have reopened in person.

The COVID-19 School Response Dashboard, which NPR is reporting on exclusively, was created with the help of several national education organizations. Right now it shows an average of 230 cases per 100,000 students, and 490 per 100,000 staff members, in the first two weeks of September. The responses come from public, private and charter schools in 47 states, serving roughly 200,000 students both in person and online, as of Tuesday, Sept. 22.

As of right now, this sample is a tiny fraction of the more than 56 million K-12 students in the United States. But the dashboard will be continuously updated, and the number of schools participating is expected to grow.

Emily Oster, an economist at Brown University, is spearheading the effort. She is known for her popular writing on data and science literacy for parents. She said she got involved in independent data collection on coronavirus cases in schools because "other people weren't doing it." Eventually, the School Superintendents Association, the National Association of Elementary School Principals, the National Association of Secondary School Principals and groups representing charter and independent CONTINUE READING: New Dashboard Tracks Coronavirus Cases In Schools Across 47 States | 89.3 KPCC

Now Here Is a Balanced Discussion of Teachers Unions! | Diane Ravitch's blog

Now Here Is a Balanced Discussion of Teachers Unions!

The Harvard Program on Education Policy and Governance is led by Professor Paul Peterson, an advocate for school choice. It would not be off the mark to say that PEPG exists to promote the DeVos agenda. Soon after she was confirmed, PEPG invited her to speak, and her speech was disrupted by Harvard students not affiliated with PEPG. Peterson has been the mentor for a generation of pro-school choice academics, including Jay Greene (University of Arkansas, Department of Education Reform), Patrick Wolf (same, also served as “independent evaluator” of Milwaukee and DC voucher prigrams), and Martin West (Harvard Graduate School of Education). Peterson recently appeared at the White House to support Trump’s call to reopen schools and co-wrote an oped with Dr. Scott Atlas (both are senior fellows at the rightwing Hoover Institution). Dr. Atlas supports Trump’s views that mask-wearing should not be mandatory, that children and adolescents don’t get the virus, th ast schools should reopen without delay, and that lockdowns are unnecessary. In many articles about Dr. Atlas, Peterson is his reliable defender.

The event today asks whether teachers unions can be part of the solution. Michelle Rhee and George Parker. Parker was head of the Washington Teachers Union when Rhee was chancellor. When he stepped down, he went to work for Rhee. He now works for a charter school lobbying group. More than 90% of charters are non-union.

Fall 2020 Colloquium Series: Can Teachers Unions Be Part of the Solution?

The PEPG Colloquium series continues Thursday, Sept. 24, with “Can Teachers Unions Be Part of the Solution?,” a talk by Michelle Rhee, Founder and CEO, StudentsFirst, former Chancellor for District of Columbia Public Schools, and George Parker, Senior Advisor, National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, former President, District of Columbia Teachers Union.

Thursday, Sept. 24
12-1:15 p.m.

CONTINUE READING: Now Here Is a Balanced Discussion of Teachers Unions! | Diane Ravitch's blog

Teacher Tom: To Know and to Love

To Know and to Love

"Curiosity killed the cat."

Whenever the notion of curiosity comes up in an English language conversation, someone is bound to say it. Yes, I suppose curiosity can kill, but come on. It's not curiosity that kills the cat, it's rashness or heedlessness or impulsiveness that leads to a careless act, yet curiosity gets the blame, as if we somehow must caution one another against it.

We all know that curiosity makes life at least a million times better than the alternative, which is to be uncurious.

Curiosity is the impulse behind science. We wonder why or what, when, who, where, why, and how, then undertake to figure it out. It is likewise the impulse behind play. CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: To Know and to Love

The Challenges of Reopening Public Schools in Fall 2020 | janresseger

The Challenges of Reopening Public Schools in Fall 2020

It’s hard to get a handle on how reopening public schools this autumn is going across the United States. A lot of blame and anger is floating around—for botched plans on the one hand and COVID-19 outbreaks on the other. Nobody endorses full-time remote learning, but it seems to be the reality in most places, especially in the nation’s biggest school districts where school operations on a huge scale complicate the best intentions of the people trying to work it all out.

On Monday to examine trends across the country, the NY Times published a major analysis including charts and maps of several states. The conclusion: “Schools are not islands, and so it was inevitable that when students and teachers returned this fall to classrooms, coronavirus cases would follow them. But more than a month after the first school districts welcomed students back for in-person instruction, it is nearly impossible to tally a precise figure of how many cases have been identified in schools.”

Just as the Trump administration has failed to institute national COVID-19 testing and contact tracing across the states, the Trump administration also failed, during many months before schools were scheduled to reopen this fall, to convene health and education experts with state school superintendents, local superintendents, principals and school teachers to listen to their concerns and plan for contingencies. While the states are, through the mandates of their own constitutions, themselves responsible for providing “a thorough and efficient system of common schools” (the language in several of the state constitutions), some effort at least to coordinate school opening plans with broader testing and contact tracing would have made things smoother. The NY Times reports that there has been no systematic collection of data and in many places no reporting of data: “In an effort to better account for virus cases in Kindergarten through 12th grade, The New York Times set out to collect data from state and local health and education agencies and through directly surveying school districts in eight states. Our goal was to understand, as well as possible, how prevalent the virus was in CONTINUE READING: The Challenges of Reopening Public Schools in Fall 2020 | janresseger

Trump Attacks Howard Zinn and the Zinn Education Project — Defend Teaching People’s History Today! – I AM AN EDUCATOR

Trump Attacks Howard Zinn and the Zinn Education Project — Defend Teaching People’s History Today!

I’m excited to announce that I have taken a part time position with the Zinn Education Project to help lead the Teach the Black Freedom Struggle campaign.

What makes this work even more important right now is that President Trump has launched an all out attack on the Zinn Education Project and the legacy of the great radical historian, Howard Zinn.

Trump organized an entire White House Conference on American History for Constitution Day, where a series of white historians attacked efforts to teach about racial and social justice. Then Trump announced his new “1776 Commission,” a “national commission to support patriotic education”–in other words, discouraging critical thinking that can lead students to join social movements against injustice and promote unquestioning support for America.

If you want to support the Zinn Education Project bring a people’s history to classrooms around the country, please donate. Your donation will be matched, up to $10,000, by a generous donation from by a former student of Howard Zinn’s and lawyer for whistleblowers, Dave Colapinto.

Please read more below about what it means to teach people’s history and about Trump’s attacking of the Zinn Education Project below.

–Jesse Hagopian

——————

Trump Attacks Howard Zinn and the Zinn Education Project — Defend Teaching People’s History Today!

On Thursday, Sept. 17, at the White House Conference on American History, right-wing historians took aim at the Zinn Education Project, Howard Zinn, and the New York Times 1619 Project. President Trump said, “Our children are instructed from propaganda tracts, like those of Howard Zinn, that try to make students ashamed of their own history.”

Award-winning Illinois high school U.S. history teacher Corey Winchester disagrees with Trump. Instead of leaving his students paralyzed with shame, he said of the Zinn Education Project’s curriculum, “It is empowering to learn from multiple perspectives and invigorates their desire to learn and disrupt the status quo.”

Winchester is right. Teaching people’s history is about empowering and invigorating students to better understand the perspectives of workers, women, Black, Indigenous, and people of color, whose voices are too often erased in the corporate-produced textbooks. CONTINUE READING: Trump Attacks Howard Zinn and the Zinn Education Project — Defend Teaching People’s History Today! – I AM AN EDUCATOR

CURMUDGUCATION: DC: Lessons About Charter Schools

DC: Lessons About Charter Schools

DC schools have a history of being messy. There's the entire checkered history of Michelle Rhee, followed by the entire checkered history of the people either trying to build on or clean up after Michelle Rhee. I'm reminding you of this as context for the revelations that are about to be unintentionally provided about the DC charter sector.

You can get a taste of the mess in the public schools from two pieces of testimonial from Richard Phelps, who came on as Director of Assessment just as Rhee was edging toward the door in 2010.Part One looks at how Phelps worked hard to poll over 500 staff members to come up with concrete improvements for the testing system, which boiled down to a ton of work that was summarily rejected by four central office staff, including Rhee. He was supposed to get the staff to buy in to the crappy existing system, not make it better. The Ed Reform Club. he concluded, was there to exploit DC for its own benefit. Part Two looks at the cheating scandals, most specifically the scandal that never became a story--DCPS's technique of using the test blueprint to teach to the test. In the end, he concludes, despite their rhetoric, school leaders Rhee, Henderson and McGoldrick had no interest in making their system more transparent or accountable.

So in a way, I guess it's not surprising that the charter sector that has blossomed in DC is also filled with the same Ed Reform Club problems. And this comes from looking at a piece, not by a DC charter critic, but by one of their big cheerleaders, who can't help saying some of the quiet parts CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: DC: Lessons About Charter Schools

WHAT’S LEFT WHEN THERE ARE NO GOOD OR BAD CHOICES? – Dad Gone Wild

WHAT’S LEFT WHEN THERE ARE NO GOOD OR BAD CHOICES?

“I don’t feel very much like Pooh today,” said Pooh. There, there, said Piglet. I’ll bring you tea and honey until you do.” – A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

“You are either the sort of person who shapes society, or the sort of person whose life is affected by the shape of society.”
― Rumaan Alam, Rich and Pretty

Like most parents in Nashville, last week was one fraught with a choice – to remain virtual or to send the kids back to school. Decisions were sorta kinda due on Friday, more on that in a minute, so the week felt uniquely stressful.

Earlier in the week, MNPS’s Superintendent of Schools sent out an email that was supposed to reassure parents that there were “no bad decisions.” I’m going to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she made that pronouncement in the effort to put on a positive face. The reality was that due to a lack of information. and ever-changing directives, it was hard to make a good decision.

Many parents lept at the option to send their kids back to schools with the expectations that they would return to a similar environment as they did last Fall. While I don’t believe that this option is as stark and dire as some tried to paint it, the reality is that the classrooms of November are not going to be the same as in the past. At the very least, interactions between students will be limited, and a simple process will take longer due to new protocols.

For example, the car line. Fewer kids will be riding the bus resulting in more being picked up, combined with new safety practices this will naturally mean an extended process. That alone was enough to discourage me, as I’ve spent probably about 90 minutes a day for the last 6 years in the car line. I’ve never been able to figure out whether the best practice is to be the last arrival or earliest arrival.

Some parents probably chose to return to in-person with the expectation of renewing old patterns. Unfortunately, it is entirely possible that a child could return to school on a Tuesday and a week CONTINUE READING: WHAT’S LEFT WHEN THERE ARE NO GOOD OR BAD CHOICES? – Dad Gone Wild

Let The Charter School Lies Begin | Northridge, CA Patch

Let The Charter School Lies Begin

The California Charter School Association mails its first flyer of the general election. They start with the same debunked lie as before.

"You're saying it's a falsehood and Sean Spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts to that."
- Kellyanne Conway

As part of their antisemitic campaign against LAUSD Board Member Scott Schmerelson, the charter school industry pushed a narrative that he had "tripled his own pay." As pointed out during the primary, this was a complete lie advanced by the California Charter School Association (CCSA). While school board members did receive a massive increase from $45,637 to $125,000 per year, they had nothing to do with the raise. These salaries are set by "the independent LAUSD Board of Education Compensation Review Committee, [which is] comprised of members appointed by local leaders." None of the members of this committee are appointed by the members of the LAUSD School Board.

This repeated fact-checking did not stop the CCSA from repeating the lie in the first flyer mailed to voters as part of the general election. In big red letters, this mailing states that Schmerelson "TRIPLED HIS OWN PAY…" It is the lie that will not die.

Charter schools are trusted to educate 20% of the students in the LAUSD. The lack of integrity demonstrated by charter leadership in these ads should concern any parent who sends their children to these schools and the public that helps pay their salary. It should also raise a CONTINUE READING: Let The Charter School Lies Begin | Northridge, CA Patch

Did School Board Candidate Go AWOL From Her Last Elected Position? | by Carl J. Petersen | Sep, 2020 | Medium

Did School Board Candidate Go AWOL From Her Last Elected Position?

Records show that Tanya Franklin was removed from her position on the Del Rey Neighborhood Council. Her campaign says she resigned. Why should this matter to voters?

“On May 14, Del Rey Neighborhood Council members voted 9–0 to remove council Secretary Tanya Franklin and Area H Director MeiWah Wong for repeated absences, a violation of council attendance requirements.Neither attended the meeting.”
- The Argonaut

Members of Los Angeles’ neighborhood council system volunteer our time to represent the members of our community as part of “the closest form of government to the people.” As with any team, each council’s ability to work effectively can be jeopardized when its members fail to fulfill their individual responsibilities. This is especially true when there are excessive absences as boards must have a minimum number of members present to do business. If this quorum is not established, then the meeting must be canceled, even if there are time-sensitive items on the agenda.

On June 12, 2014, Tanya Franklin was sworn in as a member of the Del Rey Neighborhood Council (DRNC). The very next month she was excused to be absent for the monthly meeting. After attending meetings for three months in a row, she missed the November meeting. According to the council’s minutes, she was present for the December meeting, but this was the last one she would ever attend as a board member. In total, she was present for 38.5% of the meetings that were held during her tenure on the board. CONTINUE READING: Did School Board Candidate Go AWOL From Her Last Elected Position? | by Carl J. Petersen | Sep, 2020 | Medium

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/2020/09/this-week-in-education-larry-ferlazzos_19.html

Wednesday’s Must Read Articles & Must-Watch Videos On School Reopening

by Larry Ferlazzo / 5h

ds_30 / Pixabay Here are new additions to THE BEST POSTS PREDICTING WHAT SCHOOLS WILL LOOK LIKE IN THE FALL : What We Know About Coronavirus Cases in K-12 Schools So Far is from The NY Times. New Dashboard Tracks Coronavirus Cases In Schools Across 47 State is from NPR. As more schools offer in-person options, what happens to the students who stay virtual? is from USA Today. ‘No safety, no learni

The Supreme Court Is In The News – Here Are Teaching & Learning Resources

by Larry Ferlazzo / 13h

skeeze / Pixabay The Supreme Court is obviously in the news these days. You might be interested in The Best Sites To Learn About The U.S. Supreme Court .

New TED-Ed Video & Lesson: “Is human evolution speeding up or slowing down?”

by Larry Ferlazzo / 13h

Alexas_Fotos / Pixabay I’m adding TED-Ed’s new lesson and video to The Best Sites For Learning About Human Evolution :

“Banned Books Week” is Coming Up – Here Are Teaching & Learning Resources

by Larry Ferlazzo / 13h

Banned Books Week begins on September 27th. You might be interested in The Best Resources For Banned Books Week .

It’s National Voter Registration Day – Here Are Teaching & Learning Resources About Voting

by Larry Ferlazzo / 16h

ArtJane / Pixabay It’s National Voter Registration Day today! Here are new related resources I’m adding to THE BEST RESOURCES FOR TEACHING ABOUT THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION : ProPublica’s Pandemic Guide to Making Sure Your Vote Counts VoterGuide: We’re here to help is from CNN.

This Edutopia Video Offers A Critical Point About Something We Should Be Doing In Our Online Classrooms – & I Should Have Known It!

23by Larry Ferlazzo / 16h

Alexas_Fotos / Pixabay As we all know, we teachers need to be very sensitive to the SEL needs of our students all the time, and even more so when many of us are working in a distance learning environment. In addition to having about ten ten-minute individual meetings with students in video conferences each week (see “INDIVIDUAL MEETINGS” ARE THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF A SUCCESSFUL COMMUNITY ORGANIZAT

Everything You Wanted To Know About Classroom Management But Were Afraid To Ask

by Larry Ferlazzo / 1d

ernestoeslava / Pixabay I have over 2,100 frequently revised and updated “Best” lists on just about every subject imaginable, and you can find them listed three different ways in three different places (see Three Accessible Ways To Search For & Find My “Best” Lists ). I’m starting to publish a series where each day I will highlight the “Best” lists in a separate category. Today, it’s on Classroom

Tuesday’s Must-Read Articles About School Reopening

by Larry Ferlazzo / 1d

geralt / Pixabay Here are new additions to THE BEST POSTS PREDICTING WHAT SCHOOLS WILL LOOK LIKE IN THE FALL : As Schools Go Remote, Finding ‘Lost’ Students Gets Harder is from The NY Times. Learning Curve: Teacher Resigns Rather Than Expose Her Family To COVID-19 is from NPR. They Work Full Time. They Attend School. They’re Only Teenagers. is from The HuffPost. Duval Schools’ laptop gap impacts

“Strategies for Promoting Student Collaboration in a Distance Learning Environment”

by Larry Ferlazzo / 1d

Strategies for Promoting Student Collaboration in a Distance Learning Environment is the headline of my latest Education Week Teacher column. Another teacher and I share strategies to encourage student collaboration in a remote or hybrid learning environment, including through group presentation

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