Big Education Ape: Sep 29, 2020

Tuesday, September 29, 2020

Russ on Reading: When Best Practice Meets Questionable Methods in Literacy Instruction

When Best Practice Meets Questionable Methods in Literacy Instruction

All of us try to provide best practice instruction to our students. Sometimes, though, in our enthusiasm to provide the children the instruction they need, we end up using some instructional methods that work against our goals. Here are a few things we know work in literacy instruction, some ways we can turn those good practices into unproductive ones, and then some things we can do instead.

Best Practice: Regular Reading - Kids who read a lot tend to get better at reading, so it is a good idea to get kids to read as much as possible.

Questionable Method: Reading Logs - Research has long shown us that external controls have a negative impact on intrinsic motivation. Reading logs, rigidly employed, can turn the pleasurable act of reading into a chore. Other extrinsic motivators like pizza parties and other non-reading related awards should also be avoided.

What to do instead: Trust in the power of books and focus on student engagement in those books. If we want children to read we need to have many books readily available (classroom library), to provide the opportunity to read them (independent reading), to give children some choice in what they read, and to make sure they are able to read them (just right book). We CONTINUE READING: Russ on Reading: When Best Practice Meets Questionable Methods in Literacy Instruction

SSPI Issues Statement on CSA Report - Year 2020 (CA Dept of Education)

State Superintendent Tony Thurmond Issues Statement on California State Auditor's Report on Youth Suicide Prevention

SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond issued the following statement in response to the California State Auditor’s (CSA) Report on Youth Suicide Prevention on Tuesday:

“More and more of our youth are in crisis, and we must do all we can to help them when they need us the most. Students across California continue to struggle with increased feelings of isolation, anxiety, and depression that are only exacerbated by the pandemic, natural disasters, and social unrest.

“We appreciate the California State Auditor’s review of this important issue and concur with its recommendations. As educators, we understand the responsibility we have to support students’ mental health and emotional needs to combat the pressures of bullying, the impact of trauma, and other barriers to success. We remain committed to helping ensure schools across California have the support and resources necessary to lift up every student.”

See the California Department of Education’s (CDE) full response to the audit report

on the CSA’s Reports web page.

In June, the State Superintendent began convening leaders from the California Association of School Counselors, the California Association of School Psychologists, the California Association of School Social Workers, and the California Alliance of Child and Family Services to begin identifying additional supports and resources for students in need.

The CDE continues to offer free Youth Mental Health First Aid (YMHFA) trainings to school, district, and county staff. YMHFA training is primarily designed for adults who regularly interact with young people. It provides child and youth-serving adults, including school and district staff, skills to recognize and support a school-aged child or adolescent who may be experiencing emotional distress, the onset of a mental illness, addiction challenge, or in crisis.

The State Superintendent and the CDE also announced in July, in collaboration with the San Diego County Office of Education, the launch of a free online suicide prevention training program available to middle and high school staff and students throughout the state.

Additionally, the CDE has numerous resources for educators, families, and students, including resources for students in crisis, students experiencing homelessness, and foster youth. CDE’s guidance for the safe reopening of schools also addresses ways to support the mental health and well-being of all.

# # # #

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

SSPI Issues Statement on CSA Report - Year 2020 (CA Dept of Education)

White House Pressured CDC to Change Guidelines for Students | Diane Ravitch's blog

White House Pressured CDC to Change Guidelines for Students

The first set of guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control warned that schools needed to take safety precautions to protect students and staff before reopening. Then in July, Trump and DeVos insisted that schools should reopen in full, even as Trump and his allies blocked passage of appropriations that provided the resources needed by schools to reopen safely. Trump’s highest priority was getting the economy open by getting parents back to work.

I wrote last July that the Trump administration pressured the CDC to revise its guidelines, emphasizing the importance of reopening and downplaying the safety guidelines. Getting re-elected meant more to Trump than the health of our nation’s students.

The New York Times tells the story:

Top White House officials pressured the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this summer to play down the risk of sending children back to school, a strikingly political intervention in one of the most sensitive public health debates of the pandemic, according to documents and interviews with current and former CONTINUE READING: White House Pressured CDC to Change Guidelines for Students | Diane Ravitch's blog

School Vouchers - An Enduring Racist Practice - Education Votes

School Vouchers – An Enduring Racist Practice

By Amanda Menas

When listening to the rhetoric from the Trump administration, a single vision for our schools is presented: privatization. For the past four years, Trump and his Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos have touted ineffective and harmful voucher schemes, and attacked educators and educator unions, only putting more strain on our students. DeVos, however, has used her wealth from long before then, when she lived in Michigan and left schools in tatters with her voucher and for-profit charter schemes. Bringing her privatization agenda with her, DeVos now attempts to siphon off much needed funding from public schools to private institutions that only benefit a small group to the detriment of the 90 percent of our students who attend public schools. During a global pandemic and months of protests against racial injustice, her voucher proposals support racist institutions that only benefit wealthy, white Americans.

The historical origins of vouchers come out of a Virginia county shutting down its public schools and opening white academies to avoid adhering to Brown v. Board of Education. It should escape no one’s attention that vouchers all too frequently have been used to further segregation and promote discrimination. Given their attempt to wrap their privatization initiative in the rhetoric of civil rights, it is particularly evident that the Trump administration is oblivious to that history.

DeVos and this administration have used the coronavirus pandemic to further their profit driven agenda by funneling relief funds from public schools to wealthy private schools, and advocate for a $5 billion voucher program in the next COVID-19 relief package, DeVos has shown all of her cards. She has proven that she only cares about some students and parents, not those who need public education, but those who can fund her pet projects. The proposal came on the anniversary date of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a reminder that this administration never understands the history of civil rights in America.

Following the Supreme Court ruling in 1954, states such as Virginia began to cut funding to CONTINUE READING: School Vouchers - An Enduring Racist Practice - Education Votes

Opinion | What Parents Need to Know About School Coronavirus Case Data - The New York Times

What Parents Need to Know About School Coronavirus Case Data

Some reported cases come from districts that are operating fully remotely, or districts in which the cases occurred before school was open.

It is the start of a school year unlike any other. Many schools, especially in large urban districts, are fully remote. In New York, school opening was announced and then delayed. Some schools have opened and then grappled with quarantine. Others started closed and are now opening.

As this has been happening, I’ve been talking and writing a lot about school opening and the best ways for parents and educators to gauge the risks involved. My central message has been that we need to focus on the denominators.

What does that mean?

Much of the reporting on schools has focused on cases of Covid-19. There are several dashboards, including in The Times, which do an excellent job of collecting the available information on coronavirus cases in schools. That information is limited, but it has grown over time.

What these reports lack, though, is a sense of the size of the pool. Knowing that there are five cases associated with a school may be useful information, but it is difficult to interpret that information without knowing whether those cases occurred in a school of 15 students or a school of 1,500.

One way to think about it: If there are five cases in a school of 15, then if your child interacts with other children randomly, there is a 35 percent chance that they interact with someone who has Covid-19. If there are 5 cases in a school of 1,500, there is a 0.33 percent chance. That’s the denominator.

Denominators are part of the larger context, but they are not the only piece.

We also need to understand what schools are doing. Are they undertaking mitigation? Masking? Distancing? Are they open at all? Some reported cases come from districts which are operating fully remotely, or districts in which the cases occurred before school was open. In both of those situations, the cases have nothing to do with schools, they just happen to be among school-affiliated people. Without linking the cases to their context, it is very difficult to understand what the numbers mean. CONTINUE READING: Opinion | What Parents Need to Know About School Coronavirus Case Data - The New York Times

Dear Students, Now That The 2020 School Year Kicked Off, Please Help Us Find Our Way - Philly's 7th Ward

DEAR STUDENTS, NOW THAT THE 2020 SCHOOL YEAR KICKED OFF, PLEASE HELP US FIND OUR WAY

To the Tremendous Energy at the Start of an Unprecedented School Year

Growing up, I attended a small Catholic grade school in East Camden. We were a small community, but a community nonetheless. At the start of every school year, I could depend on seeing the same familiar faces; whether I cared for some of those faces or not is another story. But I digress.

Two things made our school uniquely different in my adolescent view. First, we were taught Catholicism; it was core content. However, it made for interesting conversations with the elders of my Black Baptist Church-going family. Second was that white kids didn’t attend our school; our school was an amalgam of Latinx and Black kids with mostly, if not only, white teachers and administrators.

It wasn’t the same for high school.

I attended a Catholic high school and while I was sadly accustom to learning from all white teachers, it was the first time that I would share classroom space with white kids. Although I had all white teachers in grade school, our student body gave me a level of comfort; we and our families were the CONTINUE READING: Dear Students, Now That The 2020 School Year Kicked Off, Please Help Us Find Our Way - Philly's 7th Ward

Join Katherine Stewart and Me to Discuss the Assault on Public Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog

Join Katherine Stewart and Me to Discuss the Assault on Public Schools

[intro]

The rise of the Religious Right has coincided with the privatization movement in public schools. While some may feel that this is coincidental, there is reason to believe there is a directly causal relationship between these two factors. Two scholars, from different disciplines, will discuss how their work comes together to help explain the history and current state of efforts to diminish, if not dismantle, the American public education system. Katherine Stewart has written on the rise and increasing power of the Religious Right in her book The Power Worshipers. She will be joined by Diane Ravitch who has written extensively on education and, in her recent book Slaying Goliath, explores the history of the school privatization movement and the efforts to oppose it.

Please note, this is an online event held on the video conference platform, Zoom. Registrants will receive an email with links to join the program.

Join Katherine Stewart and Me to Discuss the Assault on Public Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog

Meet Sacramento’s ‘Squad’: Four Women Fighting For Progressive Issues And Police Reform This Election - capradio.org

Meet Sacramento’s ‘Squad’: Four Women Fighting For Progressive Issues And Police Reform This Election

You may have heard of “The Squad” on Capitol Hill — four progressive, elected women of color standing up against the status quo on both sides of the aisle — but Sacramento now has its own local “Squad,” too.

The city’s version is made up of Katie Valenzuela, Tamika L’Ecluse, Mai Vang and Zima Creason, who came together during the June demonstrations in solidarity with George Floyd. Now, the four electeds are demanding police reform and accountability. But they also hope to become a force that will bring greater progressive change.

The nickname started after they came forward with an initiative — called Sac Take the Pledge — urging officials to stop accepting campaign donations from law enforcement groups.

“We didn’t give ourselves that name, but we were given that name by the community because we represent in that way,” said Creason, a member of the San Juan Unified School District board. “We want to be brave and have the hard conversations.”

They’re already organizing against Measure A, the city’s “Strong Mayor” ballot measure, and are also working to get fellow “Squad” member Mai Vang elected to City Council. And the group says they’re just getting started.

Critics argue that the progressive movement is still small, and that their promises may be bigger than what they can deliver.

“It’s easy to say that in a campaign, but when they get in [to office] and they have the obligation of serving their community, they realize some of those positions they’ve advocated for in a campaign CONTINUE READING: Meet Sacramento’s ‘Squad’: Four Women Fighting For Progressive Issues And Police Reform This Election - capradio.org

Teacher Tom: Where They are the World's Leading Experts

Where They are the World's Leading Experts

A couple weeks ago I wrote a piece about what is popularly referred to as "loose parts," or what I prefer to call "junk and debris." One reader referring to a body of research that consistently finds that children engaged in loose parts play use more math language and more elaborate vocabulary than children playing with traditional toys or during structured play and wondered why that would be.

I don't know for sure, of course, but I expect that it has to do with the fact that open-ended, unscripted playthings cause children to engage in more cooperative play, which requires communication, not with adults, but with other kids who are likewise learning math and vocabulary. Whereas "toys" and adult-lead activities tend to be more predictable, with many of their answers built into them, children interacting with loose parts are more likely to run across new concepts and unexpected challenges, situations that require children to CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: Where They are the World's Leading Experts

Billionaire Reed Hastings Gives $925,000 to Charter Candidate for LAUSD | Diane Ravitch's blog

Billionaire Reed Hastings Gives $925,000 to Charter Candidate for LAUSD

Once again, control of the Los Angeles Unified School District school board is up for grabs, and once again the billionaires hope to buy control so they can expand the number of charter schools. The latest financial disclosures show that Reed Hastings of Netflix has contributed $925,000 to try to defeat veteran educator Scott Schmerelson. Billionaire Jim Walton of the Walmart family added another $300,000. The charter lobby is flush with money to buy TV ads and flyers that smear Schmerelson and use vicious anti-Semitic tropes in their attack ads. The charter lobby is angry at Schmerelson for two reasons: 1. He fights fearlessly for the 80% of students in public schools. 2. He released the explosive fact that 80% of Los Angeles’ charter schools have vacancies, not waiting lists. His opponent Marilyn Koziatek has no experience in the public schools; she holds an administrative job in a charter school.

Download the .pdf here.

cec57_78008 Download

Note: Sara Roos of Los Angeles (blogger Red Queen in LA) prepared the graph of political expenditures based on public records.

Billionaire Reed Hastings Gives $925,000 to Charter Candidate for LAUSD | Diane Ravitch's blog

Another Look at “Tinkering Toward Utopia” | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Another Look at “Tinkering Toward Utopia”

2020 marks a quarter-century since Tinkering was published. Still in print, the short book on the history of school reform that David Tyack* and I wrote has been praised and panned. Over the years, David and I have spoken and written about the ideas we expressed in the book about history of U.S. school reform and subsequent shifts that we have seen in reform-minded policies pushed by federal and state authorities. And, of course, the hyperbole that accompanied each reform’s rhetoric, action, and implementation.

We have been asked many questions over the years about the logic of the central argument we made and evidence we had to support it. We have been asked about why schooling (both private and public) seem so familiar to each generation of parents even with new buildings, furnishings, and technologies.

Not long ago, however, I was asked one question that I don’t remember ever being asked: Whose utopia are you tinkering toward?

That question returns to me during the current pandemic as U.S. public schools shut down for a half-year erratically open for in-person schooling but, more often than not, with remote instruction. The question got me thinking anew about the ever-shifting aims of reformers who champion how schools should be. “Should be” is the key phrase in reform because buried within each major reform that has swept across U.S. schools with either gale-force winds or stiff breezes is a vision of a utopian schooling and a “good” place for children to be.

As schools re-open still in the midst of Covid-19, online instruction for the CONTINUE READING: Another Look at “Tinkering Toward Utopia” | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Please be careful, NYC elementary school teachers | JD2718

Please be careful, NYC elementary school teachers

This is not your fault. This was not your decision.

Odds are, no one asked you, the person who knows the job best, what you thought. What you think.

The planning for today, Tuesday September 29, the first day of elementary school in NYC, that planning has been dumped on principals. Some principals are smart and clever. But no principal has been trained in organizing a school to operate.

I’m not there, and I’m excited and nervous for the first day. I am not the only high school teacher who is terrified of those little kids – I do not know how you do it.

I hope the little ones are used to seeing adults in masks by now. I know first day meltdowns occur, and hope you get lucky and have none. But thinking about that makes me tens.

I’m more concerned by procedures – in those schools where the principal was not necessarily so great at the planning details. How smooth is the entry? Is social distancing more or less maintained? Have they figured out what to do with kids who come on the wrong day? Or has your school been absolutely excellent at making sure that parents only come on the right day? Is there a good procedure for moving kids to your room? I guess double lines are out… I love double lines. I’m hoping that once they are in your room they are in better hands, and the teaching (socially distanced of course) takes over and provides structure. Even us high school folks make classroom rules – though probably not as creatively as you.

All of those entry procedures (and dismissal, too), all of that was up to the principal to plan. 1800+ CONTINUE READING: Please be careful, NYC elementary school teachers | JD2718

Many Arkansas Teachers Refuse In-Person Classes Amid COVID-19 Concerns | 89.3 KPCC

Many Arkansas Teachers Refuse In-Person Classes Amid COVID-19 Concerns

In Little Rock, Arkansas, more than a hundred teachers didn't show up for class on Monday.

Instead, at least 166 instructors represented by Little Rock Education Association say they are concerned about COVID-19 and only willing to teach remotely. Until the district allows for remote-only instruction or increases school safety, they say they will stay home, according to a union statement.

"Our schools are NOT safe. Someone is going to get sick and someone is going to die if we continue in the current manner," association President Teresa Knapp Gordon said in a statement.

The statement detailed a lack of adherence to COVID-19 safety guidelines and concerns about the rising number of coronavirus cases.

"This is not a strike," Gordon continued. "We are completely and totally willing to work and serve our students virtually in a manner that keeps everyone safe and alive."

The district, however, isn't budging.

Mike Poore, Little Rock School District superintendent, said in a letter that there are "no plans to close schools."

On Monday, a combination of substitutes, district staff and members of the state CONTINUE READING: Many Arkansas Teachers Refuse In-Person Classes Amid COVID-19 Concerns | 89.3 KPCC

CURMUDGUCATION: AI: Still Not Ready for Prime Time

AI: Still Not Ready for Prime Time

You may recall that Betsy DeVos sued to say, often, that education should be like hailing a Uber (by which she presumably didn't intend to say "available to only a small portion of the population at large). You may also recall that when the awesomeness of Artificial Intelligence is brought up, sometimes in conjunction with how great an AI computer would be at educating children.

Yes, this much salt

Well, here comes reminder #4,756,339 that this kind of talk should be taken with an acre of salt. This time it's an article in The Information by Amir Efrati, and it starts out like this:

After five years and an investment of around $2.5 billion, Uber’s effort to build a self-driving car has produced this: a car that can’t drive more than half a mile without encountering a problem.

We're talking $2.5 billion-with-a-B dollars spent with nothing usable to show for it. Unfortunate for something that has been deemed for Uber as "key to its path to profitability." Meanwhile, corporations gotta corporate-- a "self-driving" Uber killed a pedestrian in Temp, Arizona back in 2018, and the court has just ruled that while Uber itself is off the hook, the "safety driver" will be charged with negligent homicide. She mad the not-very-bright assumption that the car could do what its backers said it could do.

Meanwhile, Microsoft has ~~absorbed~~ partnered with OpenAI, the folks whose GPT-3 language emulator program is giving everyone except actual English speakers chills of excitement. Not CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: AI: Still Not Ready for Prime Time

A FIRING OFFENSE – Dad Gone Wild

A FIRING OFFENSE

“No matter what happens in the world, however brutal or dystopian a thing, not all is lost if there are people out there risking themselves to document it. Little sparks cause fires, too.”
― Tomasz Jedrowski, Swimming in the Dark

The field of student assessments is a complex one. Its a field heavily reliant on high level math, complex algorythm, and a deep understanding of subject matter. Used properly, assessments can give great insight into student progress, where the gaps in learning fall, and effective practices. It can give better guidence on the deployment of resources and help shape policy in order to benefit kids, and ultimately society.

Unfortunately the flip side can be particularly damaging. It can lead to the prescription of unneccessary and harmful learning plans. Resources being squandered due to mis-perceptions. Mis-interpretations and mis-use can result in teachers and schools being painted in an inaccurate light, giving the public the misperception that they are failing kids, and as a result, hampering educator efforts.

For these reasons and more, great care needs to be taken in intrepetating data and creating a narrative around those intrepations. Two things that Tennessee’s Commissioner of Education Penny Schwinn failed to do when she stood in front of reporters and declared that data showed that due to the pandemic, and specifically a lack of students attending brick and mortar schools, proficency scores in literacy were expected to fall by 50% and math by 60%. Needless to say, CONTINUE READING: A FIRING OFFENSE – Dad Gone Wild