Wednesday, October 28, 2020

Who is running for Sacramento City Unified school board? | The Sacramento Bee

These are the candidates in the high stakes Sacramento City Unified School board election

As the Sacramento City Unified School District approaches potential insolvency, the board is heading into what could be the most high-stakes local election of 2020.

The cash-strapped district may be taken over by the state in the coming months (board members are elected officials and would not be removed under insolvency). Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent on the campaigns, as candidates backed by opposing interest groups square off in four of the board’s eight trustee areas in the Nov. 3 election.

The Sacramento City Teachers Association’s political action committee is financially backing four candidates. Board president Jessie Ryan is being challenged by Lavinia Grace Phillips, an SCTA-backed candidate. Another board member, Christina Pritchett, is facing Jose Navarro, who is supported by the union.

The union – which has been at odds with the board and district officials for months over the district’s finances and distance learning plan – is also supporting candidates Chinua Rhodes and Nailah Pope-Harden.

The election could change the racial makeup of the school board. Several candidates are people of color, representative of the district’s diverse student population. About 40% of Sacramento City Unified’s students are Latino, 14% are Black and nearly 20% are Asian, according to state data.

Pope-Harden, Phillips and Rhodes are Black, Navarro is Chicano and Vanessa Areiza King is Colombian. Four of the seven current board members are white.

WHO’S RUNNING FOR SCUSD BOARD? CONTINUE READING: Who is running for Sacramento City Unified school board? | The Sacramento Bee

Lavinia Grace Phillips for District 7

Lavinia Grace Phillips, a social worker for Sacramento’s Child Protective Services and the president of the Oak Park Neighborhood Association is running for SCUSD school board in Area 7. The incumbent is Jessie Ryan.

Jose Navarro for District 3

Jose Navarro, is an information technology specialist who works for California’s Franchise Tax Board. He is a member of SEIU Local 1000. He is running for the SCUSD school board in Area 3. The incumbent is Christina Pritchett.

Chinua Rhodes for District 5

Chinua Rhodes, is a community organizer with Mutual Housing California. He currently serves on the City of Sacramento’s Parks and Community Enrichment Commision and the SCUSD LCAP. He is running for the SCUSD school board in Area 5. The incumbent is not running.

Nailah Pope-Harden for Area 4

Nailah Pope-Harden, is a community organizer and statewide climate policy advocate. She is a Sac City schools graduate. She is running for the SCUSD school board in Area 4. The incumbent is not running.

CONTINUE READING: Who is running for Sacramento City Unified school board? | The Sacramento Bee

Big Education Ape: SACRAMENTO TEACHER LORI JOBLANSKI SAYS: CHANGE THE SCUSD BOARD 2020 - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2020/10/sacramento-teacher-lori-joblanski-says.html

Big Education Ape: Sacramento: Vote for the Pro-Public School Candidates! | Diane Ravitch's blog - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2020/10/sacramento-vote-for-pro-public-school.html

Danny Feingold: Why Californians Should Approve Three Ballot Propositions | Diane Ravitch's blog

Danny Feingold: Why Californians Should Approve Three Ballot Propositions

Danny Feingold, publisher of Capitol & Main, explains why voters in California should right civil wrongs by voting for Proposition 15, 16, and 21.

He writes:

Proposition 15 would make amends for one of the most far-reaching ballot measures in American history — 1978’s era-defining Prop. 13. With its landslide passage, Prop. 13 not only upended California’s revenue stream for public education, it ushered in a taxpayer revolt that spread to cities and states across the country. In the rush to lower property taxes, California crippled one of the best K–12 public education systems in the nation while also starving local government of the funds needed for a host of essential programs.

How many libraries in poor communities closed for lack of funds, eliminating a critical refuge for both children and adults? How many programs had to turn away those in need, day after day, year after year, while frozen-in-place commercial property taxes padded the coffers of mega-land owners.

Like Prop. 15, Prop. 16 — which seeks to overturn California’s ban on considering race, sex or ethnicity in public employment, contracting and education — is politics as redemption. It speaks to our current reckoning CONTINUE READING: Danny Feingold: Why Californians Should Approve Three Ballot Propositions | Diane Ravitch's blog

NANCY BAILEY: Kindergarten Pandemic Learning Fears Should Not Be Tied to Screen Time and Rigid Drilling

Kindergarten Pandemic Learning Fears Should Not Be Tied to Screen Time and Rigid Drilling

Kindergarten Pandemic Learning Fears Should Not Be Tied to Screen Time and Rigid Drilling

Kindergartners and their parents and teachers struggle with the pandemic. When the focus is on problems with children learning online, whether a child will succeed, it might help to revisit what’s developmentally appropriate for a kindergartner.

Many reports are raising concern about learning loss in kindergarten. “What Kindergarten Struggles Could Mean for a Child’s Later Years” is an example. It tells of the concern parents and teachers have with young children mastering online instruction and learning.

Reporters, parents, and teachers need to avoid ginning up anxiety about children learning in kindergarten. Kindergarten used to be about play and socializing. Pushing children to retain information too early, drilled online, could make a child feel they’re slow, or like there’s something wrong, and they might not like learning.

During this strange time, children miss out on socializing and playing together, but fretting about learning loss is overdone, and these articles often lean towards pushing young children back into the classroom when it might not be safe. It could help to reconsider kindergarten expectations.

Before 1983, the Princeton Center for Infancy and Early Childhood questioned the CONTINUE READING: Kindergarten Pandemic Learning Fears Should Not Be Tied to Screen Time and Rigid Drilling

AFT warns Trump: We’ll take to the streets to defend democracy – People's World

AFT warns Trump: We’ll take to the streets to defend democracy

WASHINGTON—The Teachers (AFT) will take to the streets, if necessary, to defend U.S. democracy during and after the Nov. 3 election, the 1.7-million-member union’s Executive Council announced. And their resolution makes clear the threat comes from GOP Oval Office occupant Donald Trump.

But it’s not just Trump, Protecting American Democracy, adds. It’s also his armed white nationalist supporters and GOP-run state legislatures and GOP governors who could override popular vote majorities against the White House denizen.

Further, AFT predicts the rest of the labor movement will be out in the streets, too, the council’s Oct. 26 resolution says.

“We will organize and participate in peaceful, nonviolent mass protests against any efforts to thwart free and fair elections and to undermine American democracy,” the union said in a statement elaborating on the resolution.

“When democracy is in danger, we will be in the streets and in our workplaces with our colleagues in the labor movement and allies in the community, defending it against its enemies—foreign and domestic.”

“We take very seriously any threat to the sanctity of our elections and the peaceful transfer of power,” union President Randi Weingarten, a New York City middle school civics teacher, explained. “It is our job as…most importantly, human beings, to defend democracy, which requires fighting for Americans’ right to vote and CONTINUE READING: AFT warns Trump: We’ll take to the streets to defend democracy – People's World

Teacher Tom: "Well, Actually . . ."

"Well, Actually . . ."

The man was wearing a T-shirt that read: I don't need Google . . . I already know everything.

It's a joke, of course, one that pokes fun at the know-it-alls and mansplainers out there, including, possibly, himself. I like to think the shirt was a gift from his wife, or maybe his daughter, and the fact that he wears it is an act of self-awareness.

I'm not going to wade into whether or not this is really a gender-linked phenomenon, but we all know what it's about. We've all been annoyed, bored, and even insulted by those who would insist, evidence aside, that they know everything. Either they are rudely correcting you or they are foisting unsolicited information onto you. Most of us have developed defenses that activate when someone starts by saying, "Well, actually . . ." My usual strategy is to just nod along until they finally take a breath, then feign an important phone call or an impending appointment, anything to break away. Although there have been times when I've been sufficiently provoked that I let them have it, especially when it feels they are attempting to wield their "information" to exert power over me. The worst is when I feel trapped, with no option but to tolerate it.

Whatever the case, I think we can all agree that know-it-alls and mansplainers are annoying and infuriating, which is why CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: "Well, Actually . . ."

On Teaching: How to Be an Anti-racist White Educator - The Atlantic

Working for Racial Justice as a White Teacher

Robert Roth on an anti-racist approach to high-school history

Editor’s Note: In 1988, a teacher most commonly had 15 years of experience. In recent years, that number is closer to just three years leading a classroom. The “On Teaching” series focuses on the wisdom of veteran teachers.

One of this year’s largest youth-led Black Lives Matter protests took place on June 3 in front of Mission High School in San Francisco, where Robert Roth taught U.S. History and Ethnic Studies from 2005 until he retired in 2018. Roth was in the crowd, listening to teenage speakers who were urging white people like himself—including white educators, who make up 79 percent of the U.S. teaching force—to step up as allies in the fight for racial justice.

It was a message that Roth has been attuned to for a long time. In 1964, when Roth was himself a teenager, he joined what became the nation’s largest anti-school-segregation boycott in New York City. As a student at Columbia University in 1968, he was a key part of one of the largest college anti-war and anti-racist protests of that era. And since he first started teaching in San Francisco in 1988, Roth has been grappling with what it means to be an anti-racist teacher working in majority Black and Latino schools.

For Roth, in his 30 years in education this meant changing his curricula to highlight the role people of color played in transforming our society; helping develop the ethnic-studies program at Mission High School; working with students and teachers to make ethnic studies a part of every high school in San Francisco Unified District today; and learning from his students and from teachers of color about how to make his classrooms work for everyone, so that all students feel intellectually challenged and engaged.

In conversations in 2018 and 2020, I asked Roth to reflect on how he approached teaching U.S. history as an anti-racist educator. This Q&A has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity. CONTINUE READING: On Teaching: How to Be an Anti-racist White Educator - The Atlantic

Betsy DeVos Still Doesn’t Get the Connection Between Democracy and Our System of Public Schools | janresseger

Betsy DeVos Still Doesn’t Get the Connection Between Democracy and Our System of Public Schools

A week ago, at one of the nation’s most conservative Christian colleges, Betsy DeVos delivered a vehement attack on the idea of public education. With the election coming up next week, we can hope it was the final attack on the institution of public schooling DeVos will deliver from per perch as U.S. Secretary of Education.

In a column last Wednesday, the Washington Post‘s Valerie Strauss describes DeVos’s Hillsdale College address: “In 2015, billionaire Betsy DeVos declared that ‘government really sucks’—and after serving nearly four years as U.S. education secretary, she has not tempered that view one iota. She gave a speech this week at a Christian college disparaging the U.S. public education system, saying it is set up to replace the home and family. While blasting the government is nothing new for DeVos—critics see her as the most ideological and anti-public-education secretary in the Education Department’s 40-plus-year history—she gave what may be her fiercest anti-government polemic at the Hillsdale College event in her home state…. She explained how her philosophy was formed by Abraham Kuyper, a neo-Calvinist Dutch theologian-turned-politician who was prime minister of the Netherlands between 1901 and 1905 and who believed that Protestant, Catholic and secular groups should run their own independent schools and colleges. The United States could fix its education system, she said, if it were to ‘go Dutch’ by embracing ‘the family as the sovereign sphere that is, a sphere that predates government altogether.'”

Strauss reprints DeVos’s Hillsdale College speech in its entirety. In it DeVos confides to her audience the secret she has learned while serving as our education secretary: “I assume most CONTINUE READING: Betsy DeVos Still Doesn’t Get the Connection Between Democracy and Our System of Public Schools | janresseger

As More Students Head Back, Here’s What We Now Know (And Still Don’t) about Schools and COVID Spread (Matt Barnum) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

As More Students Head Back, Here’s What We Now Know (And Still Don’t) about Schools and COVID Spread (Matt Barnum)

This article appeared in Chalkbeat, October 22, 2020. Matt Barnum is an education journalist.

Two months ago, Ashish Jha, the dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health, was something of a school reopening skeptic. In places with relatively high COVID rates, like Florida and Texas, K-12 school buildings should stay shuttered to protect the health of teachers, students, and their communities, he argued.

Now, his view is changing.

“The evidence so far suggests that we can likely open schools — especially K-5 — pretty safely in most parts of the country,” he said, as long as those schools take precautions like requiring masks. “I’m getting slowly but surely persuaded that I may have been too cautious.”

That’s because where schools have reopened, things have gone relatively well, as least as far as scientists and public health officials can tell right now. Many European countries have reopened schools with apparent success, too. That consensus is pushing more schools to reopen buildings, even as case counts rise across the country, and is driving increasingly confident claims that there is little or no relationship between schools and COVID spread.

It’s also true, though, that the existing evidence is still limited, and some CONTINUE READING: As More Students Head Back, Here’s What We Now Know (And Still Don’t) about Schools and COVID Spread (Matt Barnum) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

How Many Kids are Attending NYC Public Schools? | JD2718

How Many Kids are Attending NYC Public Schools?

Should be an easy question. How many kids are in school? Turns out, schools have been “open” for a month, and no one seemed to know how many kids were in them.

Open? Well, in this weird blended/staggered way, with most instruction taking place through Zoom. That includes kids who opted to stay home all the time. Kids who come in every other, every third, or every nth day, and receive half, two-thirds, or n-minus-one nths of their instruction remotely. And kids who come to school, go sit in a room, and log onto their classes.

But the mayor and the leaders of my union say schools are open… And certainly the buildings are open. And some staff are reporting.

So how many kids? On any given day? NYC public schools have 1.1 million students. But lots have opted for remote. Those who are coming into school are coming in every 2nd day, or every third day, or less frequently than that. And some who are scheduled to come in stay home on any given day.

Two weeks back I took a guess: CONTINUE READING: How Many Kids are Attending NYC Public Schools? | JD2718

Choosing Democracy: Teachers' Union Rejects Election Interference

Teachers' Union Rejects Election Interference

PROTECTING AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

The 2020 election is a test of who we are as Americans and what we will do to preserve our democracy when it is in mortal peril.

Throughout our history, Americans have risen to the moment to extend and defend democracy. From the abolitionists and suffragists who risked their freedom in the fights against slavery and to secure the vote, to the working people who faced violence and repression when they organized unions and defended free speech, and from the armed forces who defeated fascism in a world war, to the civil rights activists who fought the Jim Crow South, Americans have made immense sacrifices and put our lives on the line to make the democratic promise of “liberty and justice for all” a reality. The American Federation of Teachers—our members, our locals, our state federations and our national organization—has been part of that democratic quest: We fought against fascism here and abroad, including our participation in the great battles of all of our civil rights movements.

Today, we in the AFT face a historic challenge. Donald Trump’s presidency has been marked by a series of attacks on the democratic institutions and norms of our government and civil society: assaults on the rule of law; an independent judiciary; a free press; the separation of governmental powers; the right to protest; equality under the law; the rights of people of color, believers in minority religious faiths and immigrants; the freedom of association of working people; and more. This endless barrage has taken a deep and destructive toll on our political life, our national psyche and our national identity, threatening to lay waste to our country’s motto: E pluribus unum—out of many, one.

Now, in the final week leading up to the 2020 election, in the midst of a surging coronavirus pandemic and as Americans are voting, Trump and his supporters have mounted an offensive on the very foundation of democracy—the power of the people to choose their government through free and fair elections.

The AFT is unequivocal and unwavering in our response: We stand for American democracy. Democracy is a defining principle of our work as educators, CONTINUE READING: Choosing Democracy: Teachers' Union Rejects Election Interference

NYC Public School Parents: Parent leader Tory Frye on the Mayor's reversal that parents will be allowed to opt-into online learning for their children once -- and will have to decide by Nov. 15

Parent leader Tory Frye on the Mayor's reversal that parents will be allowed to opt-into online learning for their children once -- and will have to decide by Nov. 15

Yesterday, the Mayor announced that contrary to earlier statements, parents would only be allowed to opt into in-person learning for their kids a single time during the entire school year, and the choice will have to be made starting next week from Nov. 2-Nov. 15. You can register your choice here.

The outrage among parents was immediate. A petition protesting this sudden announcement to reverse the earlier promise made to parents that there would be several times over the course of the school that parents could choose in-person learning is here.

On the one hand, one can sympathize with principals who have been saddled with the exceedingly difficult job of reprogramming classes and staffing dependent on how many kids attend schools in-person, further complicated by the DOE plan to provide three kinds of classes for students at each grade level and subject: in-person classes kept small for social distancing, online classes for these students when they are home, and remote classes for full-time online students.

Yet given the fact that infection rates are rising citywide, the holidays are looming with potential visits with vulnerable grandparents, and the hope and expectation that transmission rates may fall again in the spring, this seems like a particular unfair time to force parents to make any sort of year-long decision.

Michael Mulgrew of the UFT wrote this: "City Hall's decision violates the plan New York City filed with the state, and it breaks faith with parents. Families were told CONTINUE READING: NYC Public School Parents: Parent leader Tory Frye on the Mayor's reversal that parents will be allowed to opt-into online learning for their children once -- and will have to decide by Nov. 15

NYC Educator: When Carranza Says PTA, He Means "Pass Them All"

When Carranza Says PTA, He Means "Pass Them All"

Our friends at the DOE have done it again. They've unilaterally issued a grading policy, and haven't bothered to consult with those of us who actually do the work. Of course they know better than we do what goes on in classrooms. After all, we spend all of our time teaching, and what do we know about sitting around in offices and generating reports that no one wants to read? That's why they're in charge and we aren't.

One recent innovation, aside from the grading policy, was telling parents if you don't opt your kids in now, you can't do it at all. To Bill de Blasio, parents have had enough time to make up their minds whether or not they want their children in school. Evidently, conditions are going to stay the same November through June and there is no possibility whatsoever of anything changing. And he knows that for sure because he's taller than any of us. Or perhaps there's some other reason, but it makes just as much sense as the last one.

Never mind that he made an agreement with the state. The thirty-dollar-an-hour lawyers over at "legal" have told him the state doesn't matter, and that should be good enough for anyone. After all, why should they be bothered reading agreements when they can just say Any Damn Thing, and please not only principals, but also the mayor?

And then there's the agreement itself, which brings back the NX rating. I have mixed feelings about that. I don't think anyone should suffer as a result of the pandemic, but I have students who actually deserve to fail. We ask students to show themselves, and most do. Some don't. Sometimes they have camera issues. Sometimes I don't CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: When Carranza Says PTA, He Means "Pass Them All"

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/saturday-october-17-2020-this-week-in.html

October’s (2020) Useful Parent Engagement Resources – Part Two | Engaging Parents In School… - https://engagingparentsinschool.edublogs.org/?p=6384

What are your up to three “go-to” online tools this year?

by Larry Ferlazzo / 12h

Here’s the new question-of-the-week at my Ed Week Teacher advice column. Please consider sharing a response!

“Teachers With ‘Deficit Perspectives’ Do Not Help ELLs”

by Larry Ferlazzo / 12h

Teachers With ‘Deficit Perspectives’ Do Not Help ELLs is the headline of my latest Education Week Teacher column. Four educators share what they think are mistakes often made by teachers of ELLs, including overusing technology and operating out of a deficit perspective. Here are some excerpts:

Ed Tech Digest

by Larry Ferlazzo / 12h

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 some Web 2.0 apps. You might also be interested in THE BEST ED TECH RESOURCES OF 2020 – PART TWO , as well as checking out all my edtech resources . Here are this w

All My “Best” Lists On Different Reference Sites

by Larry Ferlazzo / 12h

Clker-Free-Vector-Images / 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 o

My Most Popular Tweets Of The Month

by Larry Ferlazzo / 13h

PhotoMIX-Company / Pixabay I used to post weekly collections of my best tweets, and used Storify to bring them together. Unfortunately, Storify went under. Fortunately, however, Wakelet was a new tool that was able to import

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

Wednesday, October 28, 2020

WHO’S RUNNING FOR SCUSD BOARD? CONTINUE READING: Who is running for Sacramento City Unified school board? | The Sacramento Bee

A VERY BUSY DAYLarry 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