Big Education Ape: Oct 12, 2020

Monday, October 12, 2020

A Medical Scientist Speaks Out About Children and COVID | Diane Ravitch's blog

A Medical Scientist Speaks Out About Children and COVID

A reader who is a scientist wrote to ask why I posted the views of an economist about children and COVID instead of those of a medical researcher. She sent me this interview of Angela Rasmussen that appeared in Science Friday. Rasmussen is a professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.

In the interview, she says:

ANGELA RASMUSSEN: Well, teachers and parents should definitely not think that children are immune or more resistant to the virus. Just because they don’t develop a severe of disease [sic], that doesn’t mean that they can’t be infected and it doesn’t mean that they can’t bring the virus home with them to transmit to other people in their household. It also doesn’t mean that they would be incapable of transmitting it to faculty and staff in schools.

And in general, we– I think a lot of the discussion about schools has assumed that schools are an isolated bubble that is separate from the rest of the community, and they’re really not. If children are getting infected, whether outside of school or in school, those children are still part of the same community and they’re capable of spreading the virus within that community.

So we need to stop thinking of schools as a separate space or children as a special population of people who CONTINUE READING: A Medical Scientist Speaks Out About Children and COVID | Diane Ravitch's blog

Schools are 2 months into reopening under Covid-19 and no one's - WRCBtv.com | Chattanooga News

Schools are 2 months into reopening under Covid-19 and no one's - WRCBtv.com | Chattanooga News, Weather & Sports

Schools are 2 months into reopening under Covid-19 and no one's officially keeping track of how it's going

By Annie Grayer, CNN A 6-year-old afraid to go outside. A mom scared to send her children back to school, then thrilled at how they've thrived. A teacher worried she'll be ordered back to the classroom and become...

A 6-year-old afraid to go outside. A mom scared to send her children back to school, then thrilled at how they've thrived. A teacher worried she'll be ordered back to the classroom and become some kind of test subject.

These are some of the stressed stories of the pandemic-hit school year so far -- but it's impossible to know how widespread the experiences are because there is no national tracking of what happens when children and staff return to schools.

And without that tracking, health and education experts say, there's no way to come up with best practices to restart schools, educate children most effectively and open up their parents to commit to their work lives.

"Unfortunately, some of our knowledge is really just derived from anecdote," said Dr. Susan Coffin, professor of pediatric infectious diseases at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "We don't have any good strategies to systematically collect the experience across a swath of the US to actually be able to study the different approaches that have and, in some cases, not worked so well."

Kimberly Berens, a scientist-educator with a PhD in behavioral science, told CNN she sees that play out around her in Long Island, New York.

"In a five-mile radius around my office there are several public and private schools, and every single one of those schools are doing different things, which is crazy," she said.

"What I know as a scientist is, if I'm manipulating multiple variables at one time, I have no idea what variable actually produced whatever outcome I achieved, or didn't achieve. So, with schools in one district all doing different things, then we can't put our finger on what contributed to an increase in prevalence or a decrease in prevalence."

New research on children and Covid-19

Some scientific knowledge about children and coronavirus has increased since schools across the country shut down in March.

Coffin told CNN that while new research has shown that children can catch and transmit coronavirus, which previously had not been as certain, "on average, a child's ailment will be less severe than that of the adult, provided they don't have underlying conditions."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a study in late September saying that the incidence of Covid-19 among younger children appears to be much lower than in adolescents, which could give confidence that elementary schools, CONTINUE READING: Schools are 2 months into reopening under Covid-19 and no one's - WRCBtv.com | Chattanooga News, Weather & Sports

Bob Shepherd: The Hoax of Standardized Testing | Diane Ravitch's blog

Bob Shepherd: The Hoax of Standardized Testing

Bob Shepherd is an editor, author, and recently retired teacher in Florida. He worked for many years as a developer of curriculum and assessments. He posted this comment here.

Combating Standardized Testing Derangement Syndrome (STDs)

The dirty secret of the standardized testing industry is the breathtakingly low quality of the tests themselves. I worked in the educational publishing industry at very high levels for more than twenty years. I have produced materials for all the major standardized test publishers, and I know from experience that quality control processes in that industry have dropped to such low levels that the tests, these days, are typically extraordinarily sloppy and neither reliable nor valid. They typically have not been subjected to anything like the standardization procedures used, in the past, with intelligence tests, the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, and so on. The mathematics tests are marginally better than are the tests in ELA, US History, and Science, but they are not great. The tests in English Language Arts are truly appalling. A few comments:

The state and national standardized tests in ELA are invalid.

First, much of attainment in ELA consists of world CONTINUE READING: Bob Shepherd: The Hoax of Standardized Testing | Diane Ravitch's blog

Russ on Reading: Haiku: A Path to Poetry for Young Writers

Haiku: A Path to Poetry for Young Writers

Most young children love poetry, but when it comes to writing poetry they are often overwhelmed by the demands of rhythm and rhyme. Sense suffers as kids scramble for rhyming words.

My Mom

I love my mom oh so muchI love her more than chocolate - Dutch!She s me all the things I needAnd I help her to weed.

Now this poem, written by a second grader, is not without its charms, but it contains a mixture of the profound and the mundane that is typical of a child stuck in the rhyme versus sense conundrum. Freeing children from the demands of rhyme allows them to tap into the natural poetry that is within them. Haiku provides a structured, but non-rhyming. poetic form with which nearly all children can be successful.

Haiku is, of course, the short poetry form that originated in Japan. Literally CONTINUE READING: Russ on Reading: Haiku: A Path to Poetry for Young Writers

antiracismdsa: Voices : Immigrants Struggles in the Time of Covid

Voices : Immigrants Struggles in the Time of Covid

Webinar: Immigrants’ Struggles in the Time of Covid/La lucha en los tiempos de Covid!

Join us for a webinar: Immigrants’ Struggles in the Time of Covid/La lucha en los tiempos de Covid! by the Immigrants’ Rights Working Group of DSA. Hear from comrades on the front lines of the immigrants’ rights movement discussing the resistance in the concentration camps, struggles on the job, and find out ways for you to get involved!

Be sure to fill out this form to receive the webinar Zoom info.

Join us for an evening of discussion.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2020 • 8:00 PM • EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME (US & CANADA) (GMT-04:00)

Moderator: Alexander Hernandez – IMWG Steering Committee

Adelina Nicholls, Executive Director, Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights (GLAHR). GLAHR educates, organizes and trains the Latino community in Georgia to defend and promote their civil and human rights. Their work has been crucial in exposing the atrocities taking place in Georgia ICE detention centers.

Rossy Alfaro from Migrant Justice. Migrant Justice is a grassroots organization founded and led by immigrant farmworkers sustaining Vermont's dairy industry. Our mission is to build the voice, capacity, and power of the farmworker community and engage community partners to organize for economic justice and human rights.

Jorge Mujica, IMWG Steering Committee. Organizador de trabajadores inmigrantes y de bajos ingresos con Arise Chicago/ Immigrant and low-income workers Organizer with Arise Chicago. Arise Chicago builds partnerships between faith communities and workers to fight workplace injustice through education, organizing, and advocating for public policy changes. Committee,

Edgar Franks, Political Director, Familias Unidas por la Justicia (FUJ). FUJ is an independent farmworker union of indigenous families located in Burlington, WA representing over 500 Triqui, Mixteco, and Spanish speaking workers at Sakuma Bros. Berry Farm. FUJ formed on July 11th, 2013 with the hopes of securing a better future for hand CONTINUE READING: antiracismdsa: Voices : Immigrants Struggles in the Time of Covid

Behind the Ad Wars: Why You Should Ignore the Fear Mongering and Vote Yes on Proposition 15

Behind the Ad Wars: Why You Should Ignore the Fear Mongering and Vote Yes on Proposition 15

By Jim Miller

By now you’ve seen them all: the litany of ads and mailers against Proposition 15 featuring worried small business owners, angst-filled barbers, and other advocates for hire trying to scare you that Proposition 15 is aimed at small businesses. You’ve even seen a handful of craven local politicians parroting corporate talking points and throwing their communities under the bus in an effort to court the Chamber of Commerce set during campaign season by opposing a measure that would bring billions of dollars into education and vital social services.

What does Proposition 15 actually do? It will require that commercial property valued at more than $3 million be reassessed at fair market value every three years.

This closes a loophole that large corporations have used for decades to avoid paying their fair share of property taxes.
The richest 10% of corporate properties will provide 92% of the revenue.
Prop 15 specifically exempts all residential properties and agricultural land, maintaining full Prop 13 protections for homeowners, renters, and agriculture.

Thus, as I noted in an earlier column on this measure, it’s simply false to say that it will afflict the local Mom and Pop shop or pizza spot.

Why the lie then?

As Bobbi Murry recently observed in “Cash of the Titans: Prop 15’s Big Spending Opposition” in Capital and Main :

Optics are everything in politics, and if you’re a big business interest with a stake in a ballot CONTINUE READING: Behind the Ad Wars: Why You Should Ignore the Fear Mongering and Vote Yes on Proposition 15

Will Pandemic-Driven Remote Instruction* Alter Familiar Teaching Practices in American Schools? | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Will Pandemic-Driven Remote Instruction* Alter Familiar Teaching Practices in American Schools?

Yes and no. Sounds like a mealy-mouthed answer to the question, but stick with me for a moment.

Background. Only twice in the past century has technology been the primary medium of instruction for each and every teacher and student. One was planned and the other unplanned.

In the mid-1960s, the federal government planned and then established television as the primary means of instruction in American Samoa. Daily lessons would appear on a monitor in the front of the classroom airing what content and skills were to be learned by elementary and secondary school students. A classroom teacher would then follow up the televised lesson. By the mid-1970s, Samoan schools had reverted back to in-person classroom instruction with television as a supplementary device.

A generation earlier, the unplanned example was in Chicago during the polio epidemic of 1937 when nearly 325,000 students were home for three weeks. The radio in the classroom became the primary teaching device. Once school resumed, goodbye radio; it lost its central place in the teaching of Chicago CONTINUE READING: Will Pandemic-Driven Remote Instruction* Alter Familiar Teaching Practices in American Schools? | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

John Thompson Reviews “School’s Out” About Pandemic | Diane Ravitch's blog

John Thompson Reviews “School’s Out” About Pandemic

John Thompson, historian and retired teacher in Oklahoma, reviews Alec MacGillis’ “School’s Out,” a book about the response of schools and teachers to the pandemic. My takeaway: It’s tough to write a book about a pandemic when it’s not over.

When I first read Alec MacGillis’ School’s Out, I worried that he reached conclusions that were too optimistic, but it made me hopeful. After all, it was a co-production by ProPublica and New Yorker, and MacGillis had listened to numerous top public health experts. Upon rereading, and following his links, I’ve reached a more discouraging appraisal. The published research he cites actually makes the case for more caution, and against MacGillis’ implicit call to reopen schools more quickly for in-person instruction.

School’s Out touched all bases in reviewing recent research, but I’m afraid MacGillis didn’t focus enough on the experience of educators. In fact, after discussing recent research with a Baltimore teacher who he respected, he was surprised that she still opposed the reopening for in-person classes. To his credit, MacGillis presented her side of the story but he didn’t seem to understand why school environments would “snowball” the transmission eﬀects.

At first, MacGillis did an excellent job of personalizing the CONTINUE READING: John Thompson Reviews “School’s Out” About Pandemic | Diane Ravitch's blog

Teacher Tom: "Democracy Must Be Born Anew . . . And Education is Its Midwife"

"Democracy Must Be Born Anew . . . And Education is Its Midwife"

Prior to the pandemic, the parent of a former student brought my attention to a letter sent to her by the Seattle Public Schools. The opening paragraph read:

This spring, your child will take the online Smarter Balanced tests in math and English language arts. Students in grade 5 will also take the online Washington Comprehensive Assessment of Science (WCAS). This is the fifth year our state will administer the Smarter Balanced tests and the second year for the WCAS. The results from these tests will give a more accurate picture of whether students are on track to be ready for college or career.

These are elementary school children. The proper career aspiration for a young child is princess or cowboy.

I know I've always taught in a bubble, one where we based our practices on evidence. And the evidence is overwhelmingly clear: children learn best through self-directed learning, or what we in the business of actual education call play. We know that these kinds of high stakes standardized tests, being linked as they are to funding, pay, and promotions, have forced schools to dramatically narrow their educational offerings in pursuit of high test scores. We know that the primary thing to be learned from them is the socio-economic status to the children being tested. We know that this kind of testing is making schools into grim, stress- CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: "Democracy Must Be Born Anew . . . And Education is Its Midwife"

Will November Election Bring an End to Betsy DeVos’s War on Public Education? | janresseger

Will November Election Bring an End to Betsy DeVos’s War on Public Education?

In the midst of the most politically chaotic month I can remember, it seems important to imagine something worth hoping for. Consider this: If Donald Trump is defeated in the November election, after January, Betsy DeVos will no longer be the U.S. Secretary of Education.

DeVos does not believe in public education: She once declared: “Government really sucks.” And she has consistently attacked the idea of “a system” of public schools: “This isn’t about school ‘systems.'” she declared. “This is about individual students, parents, and families. Schools are at the service of students. Not the other way around.” Betsy likes school choice via school privatization at public expense.

DeVos’s U.S. Department of Education is, of course, responsible under law for something very different: Its purpose is to administer many programs supporting public schools and protecting the rights of the 50 million students enrolled in public schools across the United States. Her department administers Title I compensatory funding for the schools serving concentrations of poor children, funding for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and a host of other functions supporting, for example, programming for English language learners and American Indian children in public schools. While, through the Office for Civil Rights, her department is responsible for protecting students from racial, gender, and sexual orientation bias in their public schools, her record for investigating punitive discipline violations and protecting the rights of transgender students, for example, has been lacking.

Betsy DeVos, a lifelong supporter of private and religious schools and the expansion of tax- CONTINUE READING: Will November Election Bring an End to Betsy DeVos’s War on Public Education? | janresseger

glen brown: Illinois Has Had COVID-19 Outbreaks in 44 Schools but Won’t Say Where They’ve Occurred

Illinois Has Had COVID-19 Outbreaks in 44 Schools but Won’t Say Where They’ve Occurred

“More children are testing positive for COVID-19 than they were between March and mid-August, when schools shut down. As parents weigh the safety of in-person learning, Illinois has not published information about the virus’s spread in schools.

“Nearly two months into the school year, Illinois public health officials said they have verified COVID-19 outbreaks in at least 44 school buildings across the state, but they declined to say where those cases occurred and acknowledged they may not know the full scope of the virus’s spread in schools.

“Unlike many other states, Illinois doesn’t publish the number of cases linked to schools or which schools have been affected — even as parents and educators try to assess whether in-person learning is safe. State health officials released overall numbers at the request of ProPublica Illinois and the Chicago Tribune.

“With more than 1,800 public schools operating in person at least part time, along with an unknown number of private schools, the outbreaks represent a tiny fraction of Illinois schools in session, according to an analysis of state education data. Most outbreaks have been small — two or three cases at each school — but at least 105 students and 73 employees at public and private schools have been affected.

“State health officials said many COVID-19 cases seen among children are tied to gatherings outside school and other community events, while CONTINUE READING: glen brown: Illinois Has Had COVID-19 Outbreaks in 44 Schools but Won’t Say Where They’ve Occurred

The Modern-Day Monster of Racism | deutsch29: Mercedes Schneider's Blog

The Modern-Day Monster of Racism

My seniors are in the process of reading Beowulf. One assignment they recently completed was a brief written speech assignment on a “modern-day monster” that adults often face in contemporary society.

One of my students, Janiya, chose racism as her “monster.” Here is her response, reproduced with her permission:

In Beowulf, Beowulf fights three monsters, all of which are physical and instill fear in the Danes. In modern society, adults still experience fear; however, modern-day monsters are often abstract. For example, a modern-day monster that black people have been fighting for so long is racism and discrimination. Despite having so many African American leaders who opened doors for all, black people are still judged by the color of their skin. This monster is the biggest of them all because as long as there are people encouraging and teaching this, the bigger it becomes. The petrifying part is that this monster is more than often protected by our own government. Innocent black people are being murdered for absolutely nothing at all. Meanwhile, ther killers can walk freely.
The feeling this monster instills is very hard to explain, and a lot of people will never understand no matter how much you explain it. Being judged CONTINUE READING: The Modern-Day Monster of Racism | deutsch29: Mercedes Schneider's Blog

Education Matters: Curry shills for charter school pac to push referendum

Curry shills for charter school pac to push referendum

Lenny Curry is just plain gross. I have thought this for a while, be he really cemented it in his TV spot supporting the referendum (something I support). These commercials are funded by a charter school PAC and charter schools are about to make a huge windfall, as millions will be diverted out of our schools and the community and into the pockets of their owners. Millions will go to Curry's donors and not our schools.

So there are two groups ostensibly working for the referendum.

First, there is Duval Citizens for Better Schools, chaired by Warren Jones. Let's call this the good pac.

Then there is Together for all our Students, run by Eric Robertson, a Republican operative who has worked for Lenny Curry and Jason Fischer. Its primary funder is Gary Chartrand, and let's call this the bad pac.

Jason Fischer and Gary Chartrand fought tooth and nail against the referendum. They said they wanted charter schools to get a cut based on enrollment, not based on need, but what they really wanted to do was get paid. You see, Chartrand is owed millions by the KIPP school, and Fischer is paid, well paid, to do Chartrand's bidding.

Now with dollar signs in their eyes, they are ponying up to make sure the referendum passes, and it is CONTINUE READING: Education Matters: Curry shills for charter school pac to push referendum

College of Education Dean Uses New Mode of Research to Analyze Educational Equity Issues | UKNow

College of Education Dean Uses New Mode of Research to Analyze Educational Equity Issues

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Oct. 12, 2020) — A unique digital media study focused on educational equity issues surrounding Teach For America has been published by University of Kentucky College of Education Dean Julian Vasquez Heilig. The study is thought to be the first in educational policy to use a new form of research — digital ethnography — to analyze participant responses.

Published online first by Urban Education, it will appear in an upcoming print issue of the journal. The study analyzed podcast interviews with former Teach For America corps members who shared their personal experiences working with the organization. They provide a counter narrative to the ways Teach For America is commonly characterized in public discourse, helping to give a more complete representation and fuller understanding of the program and its impact.

The interviews aired on the podcast "Truth for America," hosted by Vasquez Heilig and T. Jameson Brewer, an assistant professor at the University of North Georgia and one of the study’s co-authors. Additional co-authors were Amber K. Kim, an equity literacy coach and consultant, and Miguel Sanchez, a doctoral candidate in educational leadership at California State University, Sacramento.

“We have, essentially, invented a new way of doing research. By using publicly available podcasts, anyone can go back and listen to participants’ conversations in full and make CONTINUE READING: College of Education Dean Uses New Mode of Research to Analyze Educational Equity Issues | UKNow

How Are American Teachers Doing, Really?

How Are American Teachers Doing, Really?

Imagine you’ve got a business, housed in the basement of a single building. A tremendous storm sweeps in, and the basement floods—standing water, four inches deep. Some workers are asked to stay at their station, working ankle deep in water. Others are moved to the first floor, forced to use unfamiliar equipment that they must learn to use on the fly while trying to do something that is kind of, but not really, like their usual work. Nobody knows when the storm is going to end, or when the basement will be pumped dry.

You would think that upper levels of management might send someone in to check up on the workers. To see how they’re doing, what problems they’re encountering, maybe even ask what can be done to help or hire extra people to deal with the extra work the chaos creates.

You would think.

But in the pandemic storm of U.S. education right now, that’s mostly not what’s happening. Across the nation, we have next to no data about how things are working, about how teachers and students are CONTINUE READING: How Are American Teachers Doing, Really?

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/2020/10/this-week-in-education-larry-ferlazzos_10.html

Three Useful Resources For Teaching About Monuments

by Larry Ferlazzo / 12h

I’m adding these new resources to The Best Resources For Teaching About Confederate Monuments : Confronting History, Transforming Monuments is from Facing History. As challenges to Confederate monuments and other controversial memorials gain momentum, the Mellon Foundation will spend $250 million to support the creation of new American monuments and consider relocating or reimagining existing one

Everything You Wanted To Know About Teaching Health Issues But Were Afraid To Ask

by Larry Ferlazzo / 12h

stevepb / 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 Health Issues:

Monday’s Must-Read Articles About School Reopening

by Larry Ferlazzo / 12h

geralt / Pixabay Here are new additions to THE BEST POSTS PREDICTING WHAT SCHOOLS WILL LOOK LIKE IN THE FALL : A shortage of teachers and Covid-19 create a perfect storm for the education system is from CNBC. CDC: Almost all of the US kids and teens who’ve died from COVID-19 were Hispanic or Black is from Business Insider. Parents Hustling To Adapt After New York City Closes Schools In Some Areas

The VERY BEST Resources To Support Teachers Dealing With School Closures In 2020 – Part Two

by Larry Ferlazzo / 12h

I’m continuing with my end-of-year “Best” list posts… You might also be interested in The VERY BEST Resources To Support Teachers Dealing With School Closures In 2020 – Part One , along with all my closure-related “Best” lists here . Here they are: Here’s Our Chapter On Distance Learning With ELLs & It’s Free To Download (No Registration Required!) HERE ARE DETAILED – & TENTATIVE – DISTANCE LEARN

It’s Indigenous Peoples’ Day – Here Are All My Related Teaching & Learning Resources

by Larry Ferlazzo / 1d

It’s Indigenous Peoples’ Day in the United States today, also known as Columbus Day. 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 ). Here are the ones I have related to Indigenous Peoples: The Best Onli

Classroom Instruction Resources Of The Week

by Larry Ferlazzo / 1d

Each week, I publish a post or two containing three or four particularly useful resources on classroom instruction, and you can see them all here. Of course, this is a crazy time for “classroom” instruction…. You might also be interested in THE BEST RESOURCES ON INSTRUCTION IN 2020 – PART ONE. Here are this week’s picks: IB has created something called a Webliography, which are basically lessons

Ed Tech Digest

by Larry Ferlazzo / 1d

Nine years ago, in another somewhat futile attempt to reduce the backlog of resources I want to share, I began this occasional “” post where I share three or four links I think are particularly useful and related to…ed tech, including

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