Hybrid Teaching: Classroom Dilemmas | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Hybrid Teaching: Classroom Dilemmas | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Hybrid Teaching: Classroom Dilemmas

With the pandemic, dilemmas have become legion. Is health and safety more or less important than the economy? Is wearing masks more or less important than personal liberty? When highly prized values conflict and the parent or teacher has to figure out compromises to manage the internal conflict, dilemmas pinch.

Individual rights, family pressures, and community imperatives clash. Most schools shifted immediately to distance learning. With 13,000 school districts and no national plan for closing or re-opening schools, superintendents, principals, and teachers faced one dilemma after another. Some districts stayed open since March, closed and reopened and then closed again. Ditto for schools. Concerned about their health and that of their families, many teachers chose remote instruction. Other teachers who could choose in-school instruction teach students they sorely missed. None of this, of course, is new to teachers who must figure out compromises that work when personal and professional values tug at one another.

Such difficult choices occurred around one of the ways that teaching and learning have been reconfigured due to the pandemic: hybrid schooling. Many districts blend in-person classroom lessons with remote instruction. Some students sit in the classrooms masked and physically distanced while the teacher also deals with those students on Teams or Zoom. Variation in how much of CONTINUE READING: Hybrid Teaching: Classroom Dilemmas | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Should we talk about blended learning? Some in the UFT do not think so | JD2718

Should we talk about blended learning? Some in the UFT do not think so | JD2718

Should we talk about blended learning? Some in the UFT do not think so

I submitted a resolution to this month’s Delegate Assembly – to move away from Blended Learning. I am attaching the text at the bottom. I submitted as late as possible – five minutes before the deadline – assuming that I would be #14 on the list and it would not come up. I was a bit surprised – there were only two submissions. The Stop Blended Learning reso would come up.

However, with today’s closure, no one is teaching blended tomorrow. And the agenda included a dozen resolutions, and #1 and #12 I really want to vote on (#1, Black Lives Matter, has already passed).

So I was prepared to withdraw the resolution for today. I drafted what I would say:

Jonathan Halabi, Chapter Leader, High School of American Studies at Lehman College. – bear with me for a moment. We really do need to talk about blended learning. All of our members need to be part of that conversation. But we have a dozen important resolutions coming up; I want to get to them all. And, with today’s announcement, no one is teaching “blended” tomorrow. Michael, I’m not making a motion today. Let’s move the agenda.

But I didn’t get a chance to graciously withdraw the reso. The leadership of the United Federation of Teachers filibustered. Mulgrew dragged out the first motion, and added three minutes of commentary CONTINUE READING: Should we talk about blended learning? Some in the UFT do not think so | JD2718

Teachers Are On A Tightrope With No Safety Net - PopularResistance.Org

Teachers Are On A Tightrope With No Safety Net - PopularResistance.Org

TEACHERS ARE ON A TIGHTROPE WITH NO SAFETY NET

The Hybrid Model Teachers Are Being Thrust Into During The Pandemic Isn’t Sustainable Without More Resources And Support.

After more than a month into New York City’s experiment with reopening schools in a hybrid format that has students alternating between classrooms and their homes, teacher Sapphira Hendrix still finds herself working until 1 or 2 o’clock in the morning, planning lessons and responding to students. One night, in particular, she recounts, when finishing up a lesson plan for one of her classes, she glanced at the clock and noticed it was 4:30 a.m. “I realized I had just finished my work for the night at about the same time I normally would be getting up to start my day.”

Hendrix says this was one of the moments she finally was struck with the absurdity of what educators in her community, and in many school districts across America, are doing to carry their work in a pandemic. “This isn’t healthy or sustainable,” she says.

When New York City schools opened their doors with a plan for students to cycle in and out of classrooms and learn remotely the rest of the time, many doubted this big city would pull it off. Educators, parents, and students had questions about the logistics of an undertaking so enormous by a Department of Education that has struggled for years, even without a pandemic.

Hudson High School of Learning Technologies in Manhattan, where Hendrix works, seems like a great example of a school that’s doing hybrid learning right. CONTINUE READING: Teachers Are On A Tightrope With No Safety Net - PopularResistance.Org

NYC Educator: NYC Hybrid Model Designed to Fail

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 Educator: De Blasio and Carranza Abandon the Hybrid Fantasy

NYC Educator: De Blasio and Carranza Abandon the Hybrid Fantasy

De Blasio and Carranza Abandon the Hybrid Fantasy

For weeks I've been marveling that the two grown men who ran education in the country's largest school district accepted a plan that relied on teachers who simply do not exist. If you break a class into two to five sections, who teaches the students who aren't in the building on any given day? Yet Chancellor Carranza would get up in front of news cameras and claim everyone would receive synchronous instruction each and every day. 

They explained how the fantasy worked. You and I would teach chemistry. We'd coordinate lessons and each of us would teach 12 kids a day. The other students from our classes, all 44 of them, would be with a hybrid remote teacher, who'd magically recreate our lesson online. Also, there'd be some kind of virtual something specialist who'd write and provide the lessons. The problem, obvious to everyone but de Blasio and Carranza, was that we then needed somewhere between 1.5 and 2 teachers where we used to need only one.

They put forth solutions. Everyone from Tweed with a license would teach. Supervisors would teach. They'd hire thousands of substitutes. Imagine a substitute, hired out of nowhere, with not experience. There's a long and hallowed DOE tradition that the least qualified person gets the most difficult tasks. They can't learn and you can't teach, so we put you together. It's poetry, a thing of beauty.

So who was gonna get those remote classes of 44? Of course it would be the new sub. That's one reason I argued we'd be teaching chemistry. I've got over thirty years experience and I can't teach day one of chemistry. How is a newbie we just dragged off the street gonna do it? How will that guy teach Chinese? In fact, how will a person with no experience teach anything to an obscenely huge class, on a computer, with no training whatsoever?

These were just a few of the issues with which our visionary chancellor had to contend. He was all smiles right up until recently. He had ideas. A Queens high school was told to eliminate all comp time jobs and make every supervisor teach two classes. They were grappling at straws and embracing ridiculous, unworkable solutions. And it just hung there, until days before opening, we learned they'd abandoned it on Twitter, of all places.

 Now I'm not what you'd call an organizational genius by any measure. But I  CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: De Blasio and Carranza Abandon the Hybrid Fantasy

NYC Educator: A Hybrid that Works + First Day Back--Fishbowl Teaching

NYC Educator: A Hybrid that Works

A Hybrid that Works

I was speaking with someone from a Long Island district who described to me what they're doing in his town. Things are easier there, evidently, since they're fairly well to do and they haven't overcrowded the schools to some obscene level. I'm pretty familiar with overcrowding. Our school is at 220% capacity, and the most we can have most students report is once a week.

In the Long Island district, students come in every other day. Teachers give lessons and they are broadcast in real time. Half the students are in the classroom and half are home. Only the students in the classroom on any given day are allowed to ask questions or interact with the teacher. Now I'm not about to jump up and down and declare this is a wonderful system. There are clearly flaws.

The only thing I'll say about it is it's actually practical. You can do it. In that respect, it's superior to the models the DOE has designed. In fact, though we're only two weeks away from students coming in, the DOE is still looking for teachers to cover these programs. It's kind of incredible that the DOE would pay some firm millions to come up with a program that required who knows how many new teachers to make it happen. There are 80,000 teachers around. Why don't they ask us before paying all that cash?

As if that's not enough, the fact is the mayor is looking at the possibility of firing 23,000 city employees, including 9,000 teachers. Why would anyone contemplating layoffs go on a hiring spree? And why would that someone, who's known of this possibility for months, accept a program that requires thousands of new teachers? Your guess is as good as mine.

I know someone who was recently excessed. This person tells me that the same school is now looking for new teachers. How do you excess experienced teachers and then go off CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: A Hybrid that Works

NYC Educator: First Day Back--Fishbowl Teaching - http://nyceducator.com/2020/09/first-day-back-fishbowl-teaching.html

NYC Educator: Magical Blended Teachers

NYC Educator: Magical Blended Teachers

Magical Blended Teachers

It's taken me days to understand what the last DOE memo meant. I've discussed it with several people, I've been to a meeting, and now I finally get it.

You have four kinds of teachers--you have the remote teacher, who teaches five full classes on line. You have the live teacher, who teaches five partial classes in person. Then you have the Blended Learning Remote teacher, the one everyone is complaining about around the net. 

There's one more, a Virtual Content Specialist. This position would be posted and people would have to apply. I'm going to ignore that one for now. I don't know what the hell that person does, and I'm not gonna bother finding out. Given the issues with the blended teachers, I''m not sure that one's worth talking about. In fact, I very much doubt any principal has the capacity to engage such a person. This system has created a pretty severe teacher shortage that won't be corrected any time soon.

So this is what a Blended Learning Remote teacher does--Let's say that you and I each teach English One five periods a day. Let's say we both teach onsite, in person. That means we see somewhere between seven and twelve students live, every period, each and every day. Under this model, the Blended Learning Remote teacher would teach all of our other students from both classes.

So this Blended Learning Remote teacher could have between 44 to 55 students each period daily. That's a hell of a student load. Now that teacher could teach them all at once. Or, that teacher could see them in smaller groups. Or, that teacher could figure out some other way to CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: Magical Blended Teachers

Does the Hybrid School Re-Opening Need a “Pre-Season”? | Ed In The Apple

Does the Hybrid School Re-Opening Need a “Pre-Season”? | Ed In The Apple

Does the Hybrid School Re-Opening Need a “Pre-Season”?

Mayor League baseball players gather a month before the first game for spring training, the NFL players have been practicing for a few weeks before the early September first game.

In spite of mounting pressure from the unions representing teachers, principals and other school workers the mayor and the school chancellor refuse to move to a phased, aka, delayed, school opening in order to assure safety protocols are in place.

Other large cities, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Miami and others are beginning with a fully remote opening.

In New York State the Big Five have delayed reopening; Yonkers will be fully remote until early October, Buffalo is battling with teachers over the re-opening plan, Rochester is beginning remote with a phased re-opening  and Syracuse will begin with a hybrid model for elementary/middle schools and fully remote for high schools.

The hundreds and hundreds of smaller districts have a vast array of models. Read the Westchester/Rockland plans here.

New York City is struggling to create blended aka hybrid models and have ignored the phased re-opening pathway: begin remote and move slowly, step by CONTINUE READING: Does the Hybrid School Re-Opening Need a “Pre-Season”? | Ed In The Apple

How many NYC parents chose “blended learning”? | JD2718

How many NYC parents chose “blended learning”? | JD2718

How many NYC parents chose “blended learning”?

This is easy.

There are 1.1 million students in New York City.

The mayor and Chancellor want blended learning (hybrid) to take place in September. The Mayor has been boasting about it. The Chancellor has been boasting about. The Mayor and Chancellor have been pushing hard. There is not a strong, centrally organized resistance*.

.Which means the Mayor and the Chancellor have been able to rig things.

June Survey Results

How comfortable are you going to in-person school every day this fall, if there are health and safety measures like social distancing?	Citywide Average
Very comfortable	25%
Mostly comfortable	31%
A little comfortable	27%
Not at all comfortable	17%

Does the chart look unfamiliar? Yes – I have easy access to 6 – 12 data. The k – 12 data I believe is even more wary.

You probably know, the Mayor and Chancellor dishonestly added the first three categories to claim a very high rate wanted to go back. They included “A little comfortable” – how is that honest?

We could also add the bottom three, and claim that the vast majority have questions.

Or we could do what most math-y people do, and make Very comfortable = 3, Mostly comfortable = 2, A little comfortable = 1, and Not at all comfortable = 0, and take the average. The citywide 6 – 12 average was 1.64. My school’s average was 1.79.

Why do I write “was”? Because these surveys were filled out in June. People are more nervous today. CONTINUE READING: How many NYC parents chose “blended learning”? | JD2718

Teacher Tom: No One Knows How to Do this Better than You: A Short List of Things to Think About

Teacher Tom: No One Knows How to Do this Better than You: A Short List of Things to Think About

No One Knows How to Do this Better than You: A Short List of Things to Think About

A recent national survey found that over 70 percent of American families will be engaged in some form of homeschooling this fall. I don't know what the number is for families of preschool aged children, but I'm assuming it's similar.

Most schools are going to be relying on some version of online instruction, which from where I sit, and from where the school-agers in my life sit, and from where the pubic school teachers I've spoken with sit, is pretty close to useless, although, perhaps in some ways, for some kids, is better than nothing at all. As for preschoolers, medical professionals recommend no more than one hour of screen time per day, which is probably moot given that this is way longer than most of them will be able or willing to sit there no matter how much they love their teachers and friends. 

Some places are going to experiment with "hybrid" methods, which combine some mixture of live and remote learning, with kids attending school in shifts, in smaller, consistent groups. I imagine some preschools might try a version of this, but that still leaves parents on point for much of the week.

And then there are many families who will simply keep their preschoolers at home whatever their school offers because they don't want to tempt fate and because they can.

In other words, no matter how you slice it, there are going to be a lot families at home with their young children.

If you or someone you know finds yourself in this position, CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: No One Knows How to Do this Better than You: A Short List of Things to Think About

NYC Educator: Not As I Do

NYC Educator: Not As I Do

Not As I Do

It's remarkable to turn on the TV and see people broadcasting from their home computers. More remarkable still is when they speak from isolation demanding we open school buildings. Though it's too risky for them to get off their butts and go to a TV station, though it's too dangerous for the interviewers to be in the same room with these authorities on education, it's okay for over a million kids to visit NYC school buildings. 



 In fact, in New York City, indoor dining is considered too dangerous, so New Yorkers may only eat outside of restaurants. The city, in fact, started a program to enable and expand this. They don't seem to have bothered preparing this much for school next year. We've got an outlandish program that proposes two teachers for every class, one online and one in person. Guess what? The city doesn't have enough teachers to accomplish that. 

We get hopeful letters from the chancellor, saying they care about our health and that of the students. This notwithstanding, it's simply inevitable that there will be new cases of Covid. And while we may have contained it for a while by being extremely careful, this particular experiment will move us precisely in the opposite direction. Eleven Kansas educators just went to a Branson educational retreat, and six came back infected. I'm pretty sure hotels in Branson are cleaner than NYC schools. 

Elsewhere, there are other disturbing developments. While it's comforting to entertain nonsense about how young people are at such low risk, a 7-year-old boy in Georgia with no complicating health issues just died of the virus. Does Mayor de Blasio or Governor Cuomo think that New Yorkers are somehow tougher, and therefore immune? What are they going to say after the first New York kid dies? It's the price of doing business?

I'm bone weary of hearing people say it's all about the kids, while ignoring not only the kids who get sick and die, CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: Not As I Do

What I Told McKeesport Area School Directors About the Unsafe Reopening Plan Proposed by Administrators | gadflyonthewallblog

What I Told McKeesport Area School Directors About the Unsafe Reopening Plan Proposed by Administrators | gadflyonthewallblog

What I Told McKeesport Area School Directors About the Unsafe Reopening Plan Proposed by Administrators

This evening I went back to my high school to tell school board members what I thought of administration’s reopening plan during the global pandemic.

McKeesport Area School Directors have not voted on the proposal yet.

So I gathered my thoughts, put on my mask and went to the work session meeting.

This is what I said:

“Thank you for allowing me to address you this evening. I appreciate all the time and effort you put forward to lead the McKeesport Area School District and do what’s best for students, staff, and families.

I am a life-long resident of this community. Most of my family graduated from this school as did my brother and I. Before I got a job as a teacher at a neighboring district, I subbed here in the high school for years. My daughter has attended the district for the past 6 years and has received a first rate education so far.

However, I am very concerned with Superintendent Dr. Mark Holtzman’s proposed plan to reopen schools. He would have students attend school buildings in-person for half days and do virtual instruction for the other half.

This is not a safe plan for students, staff and families. I ask you to reconsider and move to a reopening plan that begins with all students engaged in distance learning.

The reason is simple. New cases of COVID-19 are spiking throughout Allegheny County. Along with Philadelphia – where students will be getting 100% virtual instruction – we have some of the highest numbers of new cases CONTINUE READING: What I Told McKeesport Area School Directors About the Unsafe Reopening Plan Proposed by Administrators | gadflyonthewallblog

Deadline on Friday to sign up for remote or in-person learning next year | Class Size Matters

Deadline on Friday to sign up for remote or in-person learning next year | Class Size Matters 

Deadline on Friday to sign up for remote or in-person learning next year 

Dear friends–

Late on Friday, the DOE released the outline of a plan for school reopening in the fall, to be submitted to the State Board of Health.   They promise more details at the school level will follow. They released a rubric and protocol for individual school closures if Covid cases emerge among students or staff. The Mayor also announced that he will not reopen schools unless the positivity rate citywide remains under three percent by early September, while the Governor’s benchmark is a less restrictive five percent. As of today, the city’s rate is one percent – one of the lowest in the country. According to the Governor, there have been no Covid deaths in NYC for three days in a row.

The DOE is also letting parents decide whether they want to keep their children home for 100 percent remote learning next fall. Parents need to decide by this Friday, August 7 by registering their decision online.  Families can change their mind to choose full-time remote learning at any time, but if they alter their original choice to opt for in-person learning, this can happen only a few times a year.

This will be a difficult decision for many parents to make, especially as much information is missing in the DOE’s reopening plan, which does not say whether all schools will have nurses; doesn’t say how widely available busing will be; and doesn’t allow parents to know how many days per week their kids will be able to attend school if they opt for in-person learning. The disparities across the city regarding how little in-person learning will be available result from the awful inequities of class size and school overcrowding that plague our public schools.

Parents also do not know yet what full-time remote learning will look like and whether it will be improved from the version their children were subjected to this spring. The model used in summer school has apparently not gone well.

Rather than the DOE’s current plan, with all students offered “blended” learning and attending school only 1-3 days per week, other officials including City Council Education Chair Mark Treyger and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams issued proposals recommending that DOE should focus in-person instruction on elementary school children and those students with special needs, English Language Learners and living in temporary housing.

This makes sense as especially as children under ten are believed to transmit Covid less effectively and youngest students generally do worst with remote learning. If middle schools and high school buildings were closed with their students engaging in full-time remote learning, then younger students could theoretically be provided with smaller classes in those buildings and attend school nearly full time – if there were enough teachers.

Neither the UFT nor the CSA is satisfied with the current plans, and their opposition may prevent schools opening at all. Infection rates may also rise higher as the fall progresses, with schools closing at that point, but at least some kids will then have had the chance to meet their teachers and each other in person before that happens, as this epidemiologist points out.

In any case, no one can possibly fault you whatever choice you make for your child and family. Again, here is the link to fill it out by this Friday, August 7 .

Yours, Leonie

PS Please also check out the blog to see how in the midst of budget cuts to our public schools, 108 NYC charter schools received a windfall of federal funds averaging between $940,000- $2.2 million each, meant for small businesses.

Deadline on Friday to sign up for remote or in-person learning next year | Class Size Matters 

NYC Educator: Magical Co-Teachers

NYC Educator: Magical Co-Teachers

Magical Co-Teachers

I finally understand the DOE plan to conduct remote learning. I'm hearing details, and now it makes total sense to me. There will be no more Miserable Mondays and Torture Tuesdays, so all schools will be six hours and fifty minutes.

This way, you'll be able to spend the first thirty minutes of each day meeting with your remote or in-person counterpart. You'll also get a thirty minute prep and the end of the day and you won't even need to be in the building for that.

There are other details I've heard, but I'm going to focus on just a few here. One, of course, is that if you happen to be in a building like mine, with multiple sessions, your day starts at 8 and ends at 2:50 already. I guess if you have a first period class, you spend the first thirty minutes of it coordinating with your co-teacher. Your students will just have to sit and wait, I guess.

Who is your co-teacher? Well, if you are teaching remotely, your co-teacher is the person who teaches the other ten students in the building. And if you are in the building, your co-teacher is the person who teaches the ten students who aren't online that day. Let's examine this concept just a little bit.

First of all, the person in the classroom will have several disadvantages. One is the state regulation that says all desks must face in the same direction so as to preclude droplets being orbited in the direction of students or the teacher. I mean, it's good that the people in that room will have less chance of contracting and spreading a deadly disease, but nonetheless it's gonna be tough to communicate when everyone is social distanced, no one can approach anyone, no one can see the teacher's face, and the teacher can't come to any student to check work or answer questions that require knowledge of anything that is not apparent. Students won't be writing on boards, or even in a chat window.

So there's that. There's the fact that teachers have different voices and styles and may cover different material without actually planning to. There's the fact that students may like your style better than mine, end up hating me, and may CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: Magical Co-Teachers

NYC Educator: Dr. Fauci’s Experiment

NYC Educator: Dr. Fauci’s Experiment

Dr. Fauci’s Experiment

On the evening of July 28th, Dr. Anthony Fauci told the American Federation of Teachers the following:

“You’re going to be part of the experiment of the learning curve of what we need to know.”

I was a little surprised by that. First of all, I frequently see Dr. Fauci compared to President Trump, portrayed as the relative voice of reason. He seems to be truthful to a fault, and frequently speaks the bad news the White House would be happier to deny. I can only suppose that’s why he made this statement as well.

I’m not at all sure, though, that teachers, students, and our families ought to be participating in this experiment. The stakes here are literally life and death, and I’m neither inclined nor honored to be a canary in a coal mine. I’ve lost friends to this virus. I have young colleagues who’ve spent weeks in the hospital. Even more of my colleagues have lost parents and other family. In fact, we’ve learned a lot about COVID 19 in a relatively short period of time, and we’ve learned it the hard way.

Of course there is still a lot we don’t know about the virus. It’s shocking, however, that any medical doctor, let alone Dr. Fauci, would suggest that the way to learn about it is to send Americans into schools and find out exactly how many of them get sick and die. While it’s true that this information might prove of value, we’ve already got 150,000 dead and millions more sick.

I’m not a doctor, and I won’t pretend to know much about disease. I do know, though, that doctors take an oath to first, do no harm. I’m baffled as to how sending tens of millions of Americans to schools to find out just how the virus spreads entails doing no harm.

Furthermore, we have a pretty good idea of what school openings can be like. In Israel, we now know that opening the schools prematurely was a disaster that brought about a CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: Dr. Fauci’s Experiment