I Fought the Do-Nothing-Incumbent, and He Won | gadflyonthewallblog

I Fought the Do-Nothing-Incumbent, and He Won | gadflyonthewallblog

I Fought the Do-Nothing-Incumbent, and He Won

The best candidate doesn’t always win.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from running for office, it’s that.

This spring, I ran for Allegheny County Council in the Pittsburgh region of Pennsylvania – and got my butt handed to me.

My opponent was a 15-year incumbent, a nominal Democrat known for doing next to nothing, and he promised to do the same upon re-election.

I am a public school teacher, activist and blogger who ran on change and getting things done – education, infrastructure, transportation, jobs, justice.

Sounds like a slam dunk, right?

Wrong.

My opponent took majorities in nearly every community, nearly every ward or precinct. However, it was close in many of them. I even whipped him in a few places CONTINUE READING: I Fought the Do-Nothing-Incumbent, and He Won | gadflyonthewallblog

Top 6 Administrative Failures of the Pandemic Classroom | gadflyonthewallblog

Top 6 Administrative Failures of the Pandemic Classroom | gadflyonthewallblog

Top 6 Administrative Failures of the Pandemic Classroom

This school year has been a failure in so many ways.

But don’t get me wrong.

I’m not going to sit here and point fingers.

The Covid-19 pandemic has tested the public school system like never before.

Teachers, administrators and school directors have been under tremendous pressure and I believe most really tried their best in good faith to make things work as well as possible.

But as the year comes to a blessed close, we need to examine some of the practices common at many of our schools during this disaster and honestly evaluate their success or failure.

Some things worked well. Many made the best of a bad situation. But even more were blatant failures.

We need to know which was which.

As a classroom teacher with 17 years experience who worked through these times, CONTINUE READING: Top 6 Administrative Failures of the Pandemic Classroom | gadflyonthewallblog

PA Gov. Wolf Fires Charter School Appeals Board. Every. Single. Member. | gadflyonthewallblog

PA Gov. Wolf Fires Charter School Appeals Board. Every. Single. Member. | gadflyonthewallblog

PA Gov. Wolf Fires Charter School Appeals Board. Every. Single. Member.

Being Governor of Pennsylvania must be one of the most thankless but important jobs ever.

With a hopelessly gerrymandered legislature, a majority of Republican lawmakers representing a minority of voters stops nearly anything from getting done for the rest of us.

If it weren’t for a Democratic Governor to act as a check and balance on this lunatic fringe, the state would devolve into chaos.

Case in point: the Charter School Appeals Board (CAB).

It took Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, seven years to fire his predecessor’s appointments and nominate replacements to the CAB.

Yet the GOP legislature is crying crocodile tears that he’s exceeding his authority by doing so.

The board is supposed to be a place where charter schools can challenge decisions CONTINUE READING: PA Gov. Wolf Fires Charter School Appeals Board. Every. Single. Member. | gadflyonthewallblog

Diversity is the Most Important Reason to Save Public Schools | gadflyonthewallblog

Diversity is the Most Important Reason to Save Public Schools | gadflyonthewallblog

Diversity is the Most Important Reason to Save Public Schools

Public schools are under attack.

So what else is new?

It’s been so since the first moment the institution was suggested in this country  by revolutionaries like Thomas Jefferson:

“Education is here placed among the articles of public care… a public institution can alone supply those sciences…”

And John Adams:

“The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people and be willing to bear the expenses of it.

But as the founders saw public education as primarily a means of securing democracy by creating informed citizens able to intelligently vote, that is only one of CONTINUE READING: Diversity is the Most Important Reason to Save Public Schools | gadflyonthewallblog

Can Unions Defang Charter School Vampires? | gadflyonthewallblog

Can Unions Defang Charter School Vampires? | gadflyonthewallblog

Can Unions Defang Charter School Vampires?

What if a vampire suddenly lost its fangs?

Would it still be a vampire?

That’s the question at the heart of a major change in the largest charter school network in western Pennsylvania.

This week, staff at the Propel network of charter schools voted overwhelmingly to unionize.

So the money men behind the Allegheny County system of charter schools are probably wondering if they’re still investing in charter schools at all.

After all, when encumbered by the need to collectively bargain with employees, can a charter still do all its usual profitizing tricks?

Thursday, Propel teachers and other staff voted 236-82 to join the Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA).

The drive took 9 months to achieve. Propel enrolls about 4,000 students at 13 schools in Braddock Hills, Hazelwood, Homestead, McKeesport, Pitcairn, Turtle Creek, Munhall, McKees Rocks and the North Side.

Though PSEA represents staff at about a dozen charters throughout the state, CONTINUE READING: Can Unions Defang Charter School Vampires? | gadflyonthewallblog

How to Vote on Ballot Measures in Pennsylvania’s 2021 Primary Election | gadflyonthewallblog

How to Vote on Ballot Measures in Pennsylvania’s 2021 Primary Election | gadflyonthewallblog

How to Vote on Ballot Measures in Pennsylvania’s 2021 Primary Election

Can you feel it?

The primary election is just a few weeks away.

Voters will decide all kinds of things like who will represent their respective parties for school board, judges, magistrates, county council, etc.

However, that’s not all.

There also will be four statewide ballot initiatives. All Allegheny County residents will get a fifth. And Pittsburgh residents will get a sixth.

If you’re like me, you don’t want these questions to come as a surprise on May 18 or before (if you’re casting a mail in ballot).

These queries can change the state for better or worse in dramatic ways, yet for some reason, they don’t write these things in the way everyday people talk.

This is lawyer speak. You have to wear a long black robe and put on a white haired wig (called a peruke) just to understand these things.

But don’t get your gavel in a tizzy.

As a public service, I’m going to translate each question and make a suggestion on how you should vote.

QUESTION 1: CONTINUE READING: How to Vote on Ballot Measures in Pennsylvania’s 2021 Primary Election | gadflyonthewallblog

Do you live in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania? I’m running for County Council in District 9

 

 

More on the campaign: https://stevenforcouncil.com/

 

https://www.facebook.com/Steve4County

 

Donate: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/stevensinger

Let the Children Play – My Prescription for Covid “Learning Loss” | gadflyonthewallblog

Let the Children Play – My Prescription for Covid “Learning Loss” | gadflyonthewallblog

Let the Children Play – My Prescription for Covid “Learning Loss”

Things are different in school these days.

The classes are smaller.

The kids are more subdued.

The teachers are exhausted.

But that’s life as we try to overcome the Covid-19 pandemic and somehow get back to normal.

I come into the room every day and sit behind a glass barrier.

My kids either stumble in from the hall wearing masks (often below their noses) or they log in to Zoom and participate on-line.

It’s far from ideal, but we get things done.

Right now we’re reading the play version of “The Diary of Anne Frank.”

The kids were reticent at first.

With the unreliable schedules of in-person vs remote learning, it took us months to CONTINUE READING: Let the Children Play – My Prescription for Covid “Learning Loss” | gadflyonthewallblog

The Year Without Standardized Testing | gadflyonthewallblog

The Year Without Standardized Testing | gadflyonthewallblog

The Year Without Standardized Testing

Last year was the first in nearly two decades that the US did not give standardized tests to virtually every student in public school.

Think about that.

Since 2001 almost every child took the tests unless their parents explicitly demanded they be opted out.

For 19 years almost every child in grades 3-8 and once in high school took standardized assessments.

And then came 2019-20 and – nothing.

No multiple guess fill-in the bubble questions.

No sorting students into classes based on the results.

No evaluating teachers and schools based on the poverty, race and ethnicities of the children they serve.

And all it took to make us stop was a global pandemic.

What are the results of that discontinuity?

We may never really know.

There are so  CONTINUE READING: The Year Without Standardized Testing | gadflyonthewallblog

A New Children’s Fund – Reducing Student Inequality Through Allegheny County Council | gadflyonthewallblog

A New Children’s Fund – Reducing Student Inequality Through Allegheny County Council | gadflyonthewallblog

A New Children’s Fund – Reducing Student Inequality Through Allegheny County Council

Public schools are not funded fairly.

Every child does not receive equitable resources or even close to what they need.

The state and federal government provide some funding, but they leave it up to each neighborhood to take the brunt of the burden.

So the majority of funding comes from local tax revenues – rich communities give their kids more than enough and poor ones struggle to give them enough to even get by.

This means things like class size, access to tutoring and remediation, extracurricular activities, advanced placement courses, field trips, counseling, even access to a school nurse often depends on how rich of a community kids live in.

It’s a backward and barbaric way of supporting children – a kind of economic Darwinism that gives the richest kids the most advantages from the very start while holding back everyone else.

It doesn’t have to be this way, but don’t look to the state or federal government to fix it.

No matter who has been in power in the Oval Office or held majorities in Congress, national lawmakers don’t seem to care much about public schools unless it has to do CONTINUE READING: A New Children’s Fund – Reducing Student Inequality Through Allegheny County Council | gadflyonthewallblog

Lawmakers Backing Standardized Tests Should Practice What They Preach | gadflyonthewallblog

Lawmakers Backing Standardized Tests Should Practice What They Preach | gadflyonthewallblog

Lawmakers Backing Standardized Tests Should Practice What They Preach

When it comes to the whip, one side is definitely better than the other.

Everyone wants to hold it by the stock. No one wants to get hit by the lash. 

That’s why politicians as diverse as Donald Trump and Joe Biden have struggled so desperately to defend standardized testing.

They want to keep control of the torture device they’ve inherited from their predecessors without feeling its sting, themselves.

Take the current Covid crisis in our public schools.

 
Educators are scrambling to teach safely and most lawmakers stand aside unsure how to help.

We can’t figure out which students to assist, they say, without first giving them all a CONTINUE READING: Lawmakers Backing Standardized Tests Should Practice What They Preach | gadflyonthewallblog

Why a Public School Teacher is Running for Allegheny County Council | gadflyonthewallblog

Why a Public School Teacher is Running for Allegheny County Council | gadflyonthewallblog

Why a Public School Teacher is Running for Allegheny County Council

People seem surprised when I knock on their doors.

Perhaps it’s the fact that they weren’t expecting anyone to drop by.

Perhaps it’s because we’re still in a global pandemic.

But when they peek through their screens or poke their heads out with a quizzical look, the one thing that seems to put them at ease is when I tell them I’m a public school teacher.

It’s certainly not that I’m running for Allegheny County Council near Pittsburgh, Pa.

A teacher, they know and understand. Their kids had teachers. They had teachers when they were young.

But County Council?

Many of them seem to struggle with what that governmental body even is.

Municipal council, they know. School board, magistrate, even CONTINUE READING: Why a Public School Teacher is Running for Allegheny County Council | gadflyonthewallblog

Hope During a Pandemic is Both Hard and Inescapable | gadflyonthewallblog

Hope During a Pandemic is Both Hard and Inescapable | gadflyonthewallblog

Hope During a Pandemic is Both Hard and Inescapable

I cried when I got my second Covid-19 shot.

Not a lot.

Just a few drops.

But the flood of emotions I felt that accompanied that tiny pinch in my arm was totally unexpected.

It was like I gasped for breath and hadn’t realized until then that I was suffocating.

I looked up at the volunteer who had injected me to see if she’d noticed, but it’s hard to read someone’s expression under a mask.

So I found myself shrugging the feeling off, giving her a brisk “Thank you” and heading off to file my paperwork, get another stamp on my vaccination card and plopping in a chair for 15 minutes of observation before heading on my way.

As I sat there, I started to feel this growing sense of excitement in my chest.

Two weeks, I thought.

In two weeks I will be fully vaccinated.

Moderna is 94.1% effective at preventing infection. That means I should be able to return to school and teach my students in-person. Safely.

Some of them have been back in the classroom for weeks now, but I’ve had to stay CONTINUE READING: Hope During a Pandemic is Both Hard and Inescapable | gadflyonthewallblog

Standardized Testing During a Pandemic is Stupid. And Cruel. | gadflyonthewallblog

Standardized Testing During a Pandemic is Stupid. And Cruel. | gadflyonthewallblog

Standardized Testing During a Pandemic is Stupid. And Cruel

When the Biden administration announced that schools across the nation would have to give standardized tests during the global Coronavirus pandemic this year, America’s teachers let out a collective sigh of disgust.

If it had to be put into words, it might be this:

“I can’t even.”

Imagine a marine biologist being told she had to determine if the water in the dolphin tank is wet.

That’s kind of what the demand to test is like.

Determine if the water is wet and THEN you can feed the dolphin.

Imagine a person on fire being told to measure the temperature of the flames before you could put them out.

Imagine a person staving in the desert being required to take a blood test to CONTINUE READING: Standardized Testing During a Pandemic is Stupid. And Cruel. | gadflyonthewallblog

Standardized Testing During the Pandemic is Corporate Welfare Not Student Equity | gadflyonthewallblog

Standardized Testing During the Pandemic is Corporate Welfare Not Student Equity | gadflyonthewallblog

Standardized Testing During the Pandemic is Corporate Welfare Not Student Equity

We’ve got to be able to tell how badly the pandemic is affecting student learning.

So let’s give standardized tests.

That’s the rationale behind the Biden administration’s mandate that schools across the country still struggling just to keep buildings open somehow manage to proctor standardized assessments.

Nearly 29 million people have contracted Covid-19 in the United States. More than 514,000 people have died from the virus.

Only about half of the nation’s schools are open for in-person learning, and many of those are operating on a hybrid basis. The rest are completely virtual.

Children have lost parents, siblings, family members, friends, teachers. Families are struggling just to survive with some members still recovering from the longterm health consequences of contracting Covid.

It is absurd to claim that only standardized tests can show whether the pandemic has impacted student learning.

It has. Nearly everywhere.

Insisting on testing is like bringing a thermometer into a burning building to tell CONTINUE READING: Standardized Testing During the Pandemic is Corporate Welfare Not Student Equity | gadflyonthewallblog

You’re Going to Miss Us When We’re Gone – What School May Look Like Once All the Teachers Quit | gadflyonthewallblog

You’re Going to Miss Us When We’re Gone – What School May Look Like Once All the Teachers Quit | gadflyonthewallblog

You’re Going to Miss Us When We’re Gone – What School May Look Like Once All the Teachers Quit

The alarm buzzed at 4:30 am. Time to get up.

DeShaun and his little brother Marco got out of bed and threw on their clothes.

Mom was in the other room hastily getting her work bag together.

“Are you two ready yet? We’ve got to go in 20 minutes.”

Marco just yawned, but Deshaun dared to complain about the hour.

“We didn’t used to have to get up so early,” he said.

“That was when you still had school. Now I’ve got to get you all to the daycare by 5 or they’ll be full up.”

DeShaun frowned but got ready anyway. He didn’t want to have to sit outside all day again. There were older kids in the park who got kids like him to run drugs during the day. He could make some money that way, but the only kids he knew who did CONTINUE READING: You’re Going to Miss Us When We’re Gone – What School May Look Like Once All the Teachers Quit | gadflyonthewallblog

Reckless School Reopenings Cause Long-Term Academic Deficits | gadflyonthewallblog

Reckless School Reopenings Cause Long-Term Academic Deficits | gadflyonthewallblog

Reckless School Reopenings Cause Long-Term Academic Deficits

The American education system is under attack.

And just like at the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, it’s an inside job.

At nearly every level of government – from Presidents to Congress to state legislatures all the way down to local school boards – decision makers have ignored science and sound policy to prioritize anything that will give the economy a quick boost.

It didn’t have to be this way. We could have put humanity first. We could have taken every step possible to protect our children from a deadly virus whose full effects on the human body are unknown. We could have protected their teachers and teachers families who by all accounts are even more susceptible.

But that would mean socialism – giving everyday people survival checks so they can stay home and not go into unsafe work environments. That would mean providing money to parents so they could stay home with their own kids and ensure they were doing their best academically in remote learning.

Unfortunately, we don’t live in that kind of country. We have no problem spending CONTINUE READING: Reckless School Reopenings Cause Long-Term Academic Deficits | gadflyonthewallblog

CDC Director Employing Magical Thinking About School Reopenings | gadflyonthewallblog

CDC Director Employing Magical Thinking About School Reopenings | gadflyonthewallblog

CDC Director Employing Magical Thinking About School Reopenings

Dr. Rochelle Walensky wants you to know it is not safe to go to any Super Bowl parties this weekend.

“We must take prevention and intervention seriously,” the Center for Disease Control (CDC) Director said at a White House briefing on the Covid-19 pandemic Wednesday.

“Whichever team you’re rooting for and whichever commercial is your favorite, please watch the Super Bowl safely, gathering only virtually or with the people you live with.”

However, on the same day at another Washington briefing she said we can reopen schools safely as infections soar without even waiting to vaccinate teachers first.

“There is increasing data to suggest that schools can safely reopen,” she said, and CONTINUE READING: CDC Director Employing Magical Thinking About School Reopenings | gadflyonthewallblog

How I Got the Covid Vaccine: an Immunization Odyssey | gadflyonthewallblog

How I Got the Covid Vaccine: an Immunization Odyssey | gadflyonthewallblog

How I Got the Covid Vaccine: an Immunization Odyssey

So there I was standing out in the cold – miserable but happy.

My jacket was buttoned up to my nose on top of my mask.

My hood was up and my glasses were becoming a white screen of fog where my hot breath escaped into the chill.

In my pocket, my left hand wiggled into a glove, then sneaked out to hold my glasses away from my face.

It was the only way I could see whether the line was moving.

And deep inside me, as I stood shivering through the gusts of bitter wind, somewhere I was happy.

Because I was in line to be vaccinated against Covid-19.

Despite it all, I knew I was one of the lucky ones.

It had been a long journey to this place, CONTINUE READING: How I Got the Covid Vaccine: an Immunization Odyssey | gadflyonthewallblog