Big Education Ape: Oct 2, 2020

Friday, October 2, 2020

How The School Choice Debate Is Failing Our Public Schools | Full Frontal on TBS

How The School Choice Debate Is Failing Our Public Schools

How The School Choice Debate Is Failing Our Public Schools | Full Frontal on TBS

Teachers union launches nationwide get-out-the-vote bus tour | TheHill

Teachers union launches nationwide get-out-the-vote bus tour

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the nation's second-largest teachers' union, announced Wednesday the launch of a nationwide get-out-the-vote (GOTV) tour targeting more than a dozen states in support of former Vice President Joe Biden (D).

In a video message announcing the campaign, AFT president Randi Weingarten said the Biden campaign would confront the COVID-19 outbreak rather than "deny it," as she argued the Trump administration has done.

"Joe Biden and [Sen.] Kamala Harris [D-Calif.] are the leaders we need to confront the crises we face and to reimagine a fairer and more just America," she said in the video.

“The AFT will stop at nothing to end this nightmare, fight for people’s dignity and fulfill this country’s founding promise,” she added in an accompanying press release. “And the solution to all of this is activism and voting: by mail or in person, early or on Election Day. Everything we do—this bus tour, the fight for a COVID-19 stimulus, confronting these crises, the Supreme Court fight, our GOTV work—is about preserving our democracy and making people’s lives better.”

Among the 15 states targeted for get-out-the-vote activities including phone and text banking are a number of states set to be battlegrounds in the 2020 presidential race, including Florida, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. AFT officials stressed that "[a]ll events will be conducted under strict COVID-19 protocols," with participants wearing masks and following social distancing guidelines.

The AFT's bus tour headed for Las Vegas on Thursday after joining protesters outside Chevron's California headquarters Wednesday in support of a state ballot measure, California Proposition 15, which would establish property tax rates based on the current market value of the property rather than its original purchase value. Chevron opposes the measure.

The Biden campaign did not immediately return a request for comment. Polls show the former vice president with a wide lead over his opponent, President Trump, following their first in-person debate on Tuesday.

Teachers union launches nationwide get-out-the-vote bus tour | TheHill

Billionaires Love Charter Schools | Dissident Voice

Billionaires Love Charter Schools

From the very beginning, more than 35 years ago, the idea and practice of charter schools was conceived and gradually executed by those with abundant cultural, social, political, and economic capital. Charter schools are not the product of grass-roots forces, as the public has often been led to believe. They never have been. Charter schools did not arise as a result of ordinary everyday people coming together and saying: “hey, we need charter schools, let’s make it happen.” Charter schools did not emerge from the ground-up. Nonprofit and for-profit charter schools, which have a well-documented track record of failure and closure, have been a top-down capital-centered phenomenon from the very start. Their history shows that they have nothing to do with advancing the public interest, improving schools, or closing the “achievement gap.” Nonprofit and for-profit charter schools have mainly made certain people richer.

Not surprisingly, we regularly hear and read about the big influence of the ultra-wealthy in the segregated charter school sector. Naturally, these major owners of capital seek to conceal their narrow private interests behind high ideals. To prevent people from seeing charter schools as pay-the-rich schemes, for example, they try to portray charter schools as bona fide down-to-earth “opportunities” that “empower” parents to “choose” the type of school they want their child to attend (even though it is actually charter schools that choose parents and students, not the other way around). In other words, charter schools are a benign and welcome form of “educational freedom” and consumerism. The public is supposed to overlook the fact that charter schools have increased problems instead of solving problems and just blindly support CONTINUE READING: Billionaires Love Charter Schools | Dissident Voice

Bill Addresses Cultural Genocide Caused by Indian Boarding Schools - Politics K-12 - Education Week

Bill Addresses Cultural Genocide Caused by Indian Boarding Schools

For about 100 years, the U.S. government supported a system of boarding schools where more than 100,000 American Indian and Alaska Native children were stripped of their culture, their languages, and their religions and forced to assimilate to white customs.

That policy, which continued until the 1960s, has continued affects on native communities today, says a bill filed this week by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Rep. Deb Haaland, D-N.M.

The United States has never fully accounted for the harms caused by the schools, the lawmakers said. Their bill, which has attracted a bipartisan list of cosponsors, would form a "Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policy" to compile records and oral accounts of what happened in at 367 Indian boarding schools across 30 states. Those schools educated children as young as five years old and sometimes forced them into labor in white communities far from their homes, advocacy groups say, but many records of their practices have been lost or destroyed.

The legislation uses some blunt language to make the case for a deep examination of the schools' history.

"The Indian Boarding School Policy was adopted by the United States Government to strip American Indian and Alaska Native children of their indigenous identities, beliefs, and traditional languages to assimilate them into White American culture through federally funded Christian-run schools, which had the effect of cultural genocide," the bill says.

An early model for those off-site boarding schools was the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Penn., where founder Gen. Richard Pratt operated under the motto "kill the Indian in him, and save the man." Education Week included the Carlisle school in a previous series on Indian education. A timeline shows an archival photo of long-haired students when they first arrived at CONTINUE READING: Bill Addresses Cultural Genocide Caused by Indian Boarding Schools - Politics K-12 - Education Week

The State of Online Safety for Kids | Dissident Voice

The State of Online Safety for Kids

There’s no doubt that the resources of our digital age are valuable. They provide us with new development opportunities and help us to build meaningful connections with a diverse range of global communities. The past couple of decades have seen our adoption of tech grow, and as such we are seeing the first generations of digital natives. Kids are surrounded by technology from an early age and are more comfortable with its use. They continue to use it in creative ways, not least of which is organizing themselves for ecological and political activism.

That’s not to say that there aren’t significant challenges. We have become cognizant of the various dangers the online environment presents. We must do what we can to protect children from the potential for harm. But we also need to go further; preparing them to be aware of the issues, and giving them tools to navigate the more treacherous waters.

Restricting Content

Particularly when it comes to younger children, there’s a need to reduce the risk of exposure to harmful or unsuitable content. There are certain regulations and legislation in place designed to protect them. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) has been in place since April 2000 and requires operators of websites aimed at children to obtain parental consent for those under the age of 13. But, let’s face it, it can be too easy for kids to wander off into areas not designed for them, and potentially interact with those who don’t have their best interests in mind. This is where technology can be CONTINUE READING: The State of Online Safety for Kids | Dissident Voice

NANCY BAILEY: Public Schools and School Libraries: The “Hub” of Democracy During a Crisis, Is Facing Its Own Crisis

Public Schools and School Libraries: The “Hub” of Democracy During a Crisis, Is Facing Its Own Crisis

Public Schools and School Libraries: The “Hub” of Democracy During a Crisis, Is Facing Its Own Crisis

A public school is the hub of the American community, and school libraries provide students the knowledge to better understand their world. But public schools and school libraries face a crisis at this time in history, and it’s important to question what has happened with CARES Act funding.

Americans in crisis recognize that public schools are the center of the community. Librarians have worked tirelessly alongside teachers during the Covid-19 pandemic to help students get books, and to help teachers with technology, but they haven’t had the best support.

Here are some of the crises where communities have relied on public schools for support.

Many towns in California and Oregon were devastated by recent and past fires. Public schools served as a hub for their communities for those traumatized by the fires.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, school officials, educators, librarians, and staff have worked to hold classes in-person or reach students remotely.
During this time of unrest, where Americans struggle to accept each other and become better enlightened, public schools still hold the greatest promise to CONTINUE READING: Public Schools and School Libraries: The “Hub” of Democracy During a Crisis, Is Facing Its Own Crisis

Uncontrolled Infections, Political Manipulation of Science, Lack of Funding, and Complexity of Operating Schools Make It Hard to Start Schoolyear | janresseger

Uncontrolled Infections, Political Manipulation of Science, Lack of Funding, and Complexity of Operating Schools Make It Hard to Start School Year

Reporting on the complexities of attempting to reopen the public schools in New York City this week, the Washington Post’s Moriah Balingit quotes Michael Casserly, the executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools: “Frankly, I don’t know of another institution, public or private, that has so many moving parts with so much public pressure on it from so many angles on it as much as public schools have… I have never seen a situation like this in the 43-plus years I’ve been doing this work, where public school leaders have devoted so much time, effort, creativity and just sheer endurance in trying to solve a set of problems where there’s just no obvious good resolution.”

A team of reporters from POLITICO covers efforts to prepare for school reopening in the nation’s four largest school districts—New York City Public Schools with 1.1 million students, Los Angeles Unified with 600,000 students, Chicago Public Schools with more than 350,000 students, and Miami-Dade County with 347,000 students. Scale alone is a huge challenge during the pandemic as school districts of this size try to manage staffing, social distancing in classrooms and school buses, ventilation and other safety issues, and a mass of challenges around just securing access for masses of students to online instruction. All this is in addition to scheduling children for complicated hybrid schedules combining in-person and online learning and adapting curriculum and instruction to both modes of education. All these challenges are complicated by a shortage of money and a shortage of clear and consistent guidance from public health officials. The POLITICO reporters remind readers that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran have ordered Miami-Dade Schools to reopen in person this week despite that the county has been hit harder by the coronavirus than the rest of the state. The Governor has threatened to withhold state funding CONTINUE READING: Uncontrolled Infections, Political Manipulation of Science, Lack of Funding, and Complexity of Operating Schools Make It Hard to Start Schoolyear | janresseger

Mike Klonsky's Blog: More campaign chaos as COVID rocks the WH

More campaign chaos as COVID rocks the WH

Trump at the debate: "I don’t wear masks like [Biden]. Every time you see him, he's got a mask. He could be speaking 200 feet away from me, and he shows up with the biggest mask I've ever seen."

Just when you thought there could be no real October surprises...

I mean what new sordid tale could possibly be left to tell about the Trump White House, that snakepit of grifters, fascists, and white supremacists, who are largely responsible for the deaths of more than 204,000 U.S. COVID victims? This, even after Tuesday's vile debate performance in Cleveland Tuesday night where the president mocked his opponent and bragged, "I don't wear masks like him".

Now we know. With only a month to go before election day comes word that DT and Melania have both contracted the deadly coronavirus. The carefully constructed media story now being dribbled out is that they got it from White House official Hope Hicks, the former fashion model who, at age 26 was conscripted to be his campaign press secretary, even though she had never worked in politics and had no campaign experience.

I'm sure that scenario will be rewritten and fine-tuned a hundred times once it's dug into. And in the days ahead we may learn the real story of how many others on the WH staff, the secret service, military leaders, or Republican pols have also been infected, directly or indirectly by super-spreader Trump? How many thousands more mask-disdaining MAGA rally-goers, Sturgis, S.D.-visiting bikers, or thousands of others who simply bought into Trump's fantastic CONTINUE READING: Mike Klonsky's Blog: More campaign chaos as COVID rocks the WH

Reimagining the Public High School in the 19th and 20th Centuries (Part 1) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Reimagining the Public High School in the 19th and 20th Centuries (Part 1)

Since 2016, the XQ Institute has awarded almost $140 million to 19 schools across the country to “reimagine” the American high school. They have had five years to do so. Backed by philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, these high schools are in the midst of putting into practice the major changes they proposed for their schools.

Then the coronavirus pandemic struck the U.S. Except for essential services, businesses, schools, and public services closed in March 2020. Of the 24,000 secondary schools in the U.S. (2018), nearly all shifted from in-person classroom interactions to remote instruction. Such an immediate and fundamental shift in the medium of instruction had never occurred before in the history of American public schools.

In effect, schooling, under the shadow of Covid-19, was forcibly reimagined by school boards and superintendents. Historically, reformers have talked about fundamental change for decades and have sought such planned changes in previous incarnations of high school reform. Now, massive, sudden, and I must add–unplanned basic changes in classroom teaching and learning happened over night.

While the pandemic caused the emergency closures, such fundamental change in CONTINUE READING: Reimagining the Public High School in the 19th and 20th Centuries (Part 1) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

NYC Educator: NYC Hybrid Model Designed to Fail

NYC Hybrid Model Designed to Fail

So says City Council member Mark Treyger in a great piece in New York Intelligencer. Why is it designed to fail? Treyger came to the same conclusions I did when I first saw this. Where are the magical co-teachers coming from? How can we send subs and Tweedies out to teach subjects they may or may not be familiar with? How will schools find the bodies to do this, and shouldn't we be looking for something better than bodies as teachers?

UFT endorsed this program, and I think it was specifically because of the need for extra teachers. Right now de Blasio is still talking about laying off tens of thousands of city workers, including 9,000 UFT members. It's certainly better to see the city hiring thousands of teachers than firing them. Maybe, if we allow ourselves to dream, we could imagine those extra teachers hanging around and reducing class sizes. That's the impossible dream, but there it is.

In reality, of course, de Blasio hasn't hired nearly enough teachers. If I recall correctly, one year we averted Bloomberg layoffs but he let our numbers dwindle via attrition, and we're thus down thousands of teachers. This is why classes of 34 are now more the rule than the exception. Of course in the years before the apocalypse crippled our budget, de Blasio never bothered to hire back those teachers. Had he done so, the hybrid model he now advocates might have a snowball's chance in hell. As things stand, such a statement would be overly optimistic.

And now, the very first school in Queens has closed due to COVID. If that's not a harbinger of things to come, I CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: NYC Hybrid Model Designed to Fail

NYC Public School Parents: Latest "Talk out of school" podcast with cybersecurity expert Doug Levin and NYS Senate Brad Hoylman

Latest "Talk out of school" podcast with cybersecurity expert Doug Levin and NYS Senate Brad Hoylman

Check out the latest "Talk out of School" podcast, starting with my update on NYC education news, including Sunday's vote of no confidence in the Mayor by the CSA, the school administrator’s union, the restart of in-person learning for elementary school students on Tuesday, and the fact that the city's COVID positivity rate had risen above 3% on Tuesday, which if it continues for seven days would cause another system wide school shutdown. (Luckily, on Thursday, the city's positivity rate fell to 1.59%, and the seven day average remains low at 1.52%.)

After this brief news recap, I spoke with Doug Levin, President of the K-12 Cybersecurity Resource Center, about the increased number of data breaches, ransomware, and other cyberattacks on school systems in NY and throughout the country as more instruction has moved online, posing a serious threat to the operation of districts and the privacy of students and staff.

Finally, I interviewed NY State Senator Brad Hoylman about his views on a range of education issues, including unaddressed dyslexia including in the case of his daughter, his various bills to raise taxes on the wealthy to allow for more school funding and prevent additional budget cuts, his legislative proposal to improve charter school accountability, and rising discontent with Mayoral control. You can subscribe to the weekly podcast here.

Links and Resources

K-12 Cybersecurity Resource Center and a district self-assessment tool
NY State Senator Brad Hoylman website
Revenue bills introduced in the Legislature sponsored by Sen. Hoylman: a pied-a-terre tax on non-primary residences valued at $5m or more, a repeal of tax breaks for yachts and private jets, authorizing New York City to be able to impose a tax on vacant commercial storefronts, and close the carried interest loophole. Sen. Hoylman is also a co-sponsor of a bill by Senator Robert Jackson to enact an ultra-millionaires tax and direct the proceeds to school funding through Foundation Aid.
His bill to strengthen charter school accountability is here.

NYC Public School Parents: Latest "Talk out of school" podcast with cybersecurity expert Doug Levin and NYS Senate Brad Hoylman

GUTCHECK – Dad Gone Wild

GUTCHECK

“[P]erhaps you notice how the denial is so often the preface to the justification.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

You would think that if a politician stood in front of a room full of microphones and made a pronouncement about pending dire outcomes, that the easiest question to answer after the announcement would be, where is the data to support your announcement? After all, if you are in a room full of microphones, you are likely in a room full of reporters. However, if the recent presser by Governor Lee and Tennessee Education Commissioner Penny Lee is any indication, the follow up is much more difficult than one would anticipate.

Last Thursday, at one of his weekly press conferences – remember these events are scheduled in advance – Ms. Schwinn announced that she and Mr. Lee believed that proficiency rates for Tennessee students were fixin to drop by 50% in ELA and 65% in math.

Myself, I would view that as a pretty big announcement. One that I would anticipate requiring further explanation. Before leaving for the press conference I would probably give a shout out to department data guru Mike Hardy, and say, “Yo, Mike, don’t forget the data that backs up these dire warnings.”

If I was the Governor, I might text the Commissioner and say something like, ‘Yo Pen, make sure CONTINUE READING: GUTCHECK – Dad Gone Wild

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_26.html

Oct. 11th Is International Day Of The Girl Child – Here Are Teaching & Learning Resources

by Larry Ferlazzo / 6h

The United Nations has declared October 11th to be the International Day of the Girl Child . You might be interested in The Best Resources For “The International Day Of The Girl Child.”

Friday’s Must-Read Articles & Must-Watch Videos About School Reopening

by Larry Ferlazzo / 14h

geralt / Pixabay Here are new additions to THE BEST POSTS PREDICTING WHAT SCHOOLS WILL LOOK LIKE IN THE FALL : Teaching in-person and virtual students at once? It’s an instructional nightmare, some educators say is from Chalkbeat. Kids In New York City Go Back To School For In-Person Classes is from NPR. School Districts Rethink Attendance Policies To Accommodate Pandemic Realities is also from N

Everything You Wanted To Know About Education Funding But Were Afraid To Ask

by Larry Ferlazzo / 14h

geralt / 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 Education Fundin

Not-To-Be-Missed NY Times Story On School Discipline Of Black Girls

by Larry Ferlazzo / 16h

You definitely don’t want to miss reading this big story in today’s New York Times, ‘A Battle for the Souls of Black Girls.’ I’m adding it to THE BEST RESOURCES FOR LEARNING HOW BLACK GIRLS ARE TREATED UNFAIRLY & WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT . You might also be interested in: The Best Resources Explaining The GAO Report That Finds Racial Disparities In School Discipline Shocking – NOT! New Study Finds Edu

“Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses Yearning To Breathe Free” – Never Mind

by Larry Ferlazzo / 1d

Trump plans to slash refugee admissions to US to record low is a new Associated Press article about a decision The Trump Administration made last night. Honestly, how can these folks look at themselves in the mirror? I’m adding this post – somewhat ironically – to The Best Sites For Learning About World Refugee Day .

A Video Worth Watching: “Active Learning: Bets, Discussions and Hard Work in Classrooms of Champions”

by Larry Ferlazzo / 1d

harishs / Pixabay Dr. Carl Wieman is a Stanford professor and a Nobel Prize winner, and he’s also done important work over the years trying to shake up the antiquated lecture style of so many college courses. Much of that work is

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