A 50-State Analysis of PPP Funding of Charter Schools, Religious Schools, and Private Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog

A 50-State Analysis of PPP Funding of Charter Schools, Religious Schools, and Private Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog

A 50-State Analysis of PPP Funding of Charter Schools, Religious Schools, and Private Schools

Good Jobs First has studied the distribution of COVID relief funds in depth. It created a site called COVID Stimulus Watch. It published an article about the depth of corruption in the Trump administration, which distributed COVID relief funds.

In this post, the researchers at Good Jobs First reveal the federal funding in the Paycheck Protection Program for all 50 states, distributed to charter schools, religious schools, and private schools.

As you review the funding for your own state, please bear in mind that public schools received an average of $134,500 each. Also, public schools were not allowed to apply for PPP funding. Charter schools were, however, allowed to get a portion of the public school funding and then to apply for PPP funding as if they were small businesses.

Check out your own state. You will find that elite private schools with high tuition and large endowments received grants that often were millions of dollars.

A 50-State Analysis of PPP Funding of Charter Schools, Religious Schools, and Private Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog

Books of 2020 | Teacher in a strange land

Books of 2020 | Teacher in a strange land

Books of 2020

One of my favorite things to do with my largely unstructured pandemic days and nights is read, then talk with people about books. Online. I’m always looking for new titles, recommendations of someone’s old favorite—and also thumbs-down reviews, especially when they’re about books everyone seems to be reading or praising (lookin’ at you, Bridgertons).

I’ve never been good about choosing my 10 favorite anything as the year turns over. But I did do a lot of intentional reading in 2020 (meaning I had to order library books online and wait three months for them to become available for curbside pickup—or purchase them). While some of these are new titles, some are recommendations from friends that I finally got around to.

It was a good year for fiction. I have been trying to read books around the issue of racism (an earlier review of several of those books here), and found the fiction just as instructive as the non-fiction. Salvage the Bones (Jesmyn Ward). The Night Watchman (Louise Erdrich). The Nickel Boys (Colson Whitehead). All powerful reading. More about fiction, later.

Non-fiction fell into three categories—that big bucket of reading about bias and prejudice, “school stuff” and (unfortunately) books about Donald Trump. The only CONTINUE READING: Books of 2020 | Teacher in a strange land

On Reading and Comic Books: A Journey from 1975 to 2021 (and Beyond) – radical eyes for equity

On Reading and Comic Books: A Journey from 1975 to 2021 (and Beyond) – radical eyes for equity

On Reading and Comic Books: A Journey from 1975 to 2021 (and Beyond)

She was born in November 1963/The day Aldous Huxley died/And her mama believed/That everyone could be free

“RUN, BABY, RUN,” SHERYL CROW

The summer of 1975, I was diagnosed with scoliosis and fitted with a form-fitting plastic body brace anchored with aluminum rods and spanning from my pelvic bone to my chin. This was a hell of a way to start my ninth grade at Woodruff Junior High.

I would wear that brace 23 hours a day, gradually weaning myself off the support as my vertebrae both (mostly) repaired their disfigurement and eventually stopped growing; this meant I wore the brace for much of my high school experience as well.

My childhood and teen years were a contradiction of Southern racism, ignorance, and bigotry warmly wrapped in the blanket of my loving and doting working-class parents. My scoliosis was a significant financial burden on my parents (who never flinched at the medical care it required), but it also in some ways broke their hearts.

I was a skinny and very anxious human, deeply self-conscious and introverted CONTINUE READING: On Reading and Comic Books: A Journey from 1975 to 2021 (and Beyond) – radical eyes for equity

Los Angeles school board could sue California over Newsom reopening plan

Los Angeles school board could sue California over Newsom reopening plan

Los Angeles school board could sue California over Newsom reopening plan

SACRAMENTO — The Los Angeles Unified school board voted Tuesday to authorize the district to sue California over Gov. Gavin Newsom's new school reopening plan, escalating tension between the country's second largest school district and the governor.

Following a closed session on Tuesday, the school board announced that it had unanimously "authorized the initiation of litigation against the State of California, state entities and public officials related to California's Safe Schools for All framework."

The Democratic governor has come under intense pressure to reopen schools in California as most of the state's 6 million public school students have been out of classrooms since the pandemic forced closures nearly a year ago. But school districts and labor unions have tremendous power over local decisions, and Newsom has said he will not force them to open. He is instead offering $2 billion to pay for additional staff, testing and other expenditures as an incentive for districts to reopen the youngest grades as soon as Feb. 16.

California lawmakers seemed skeptical Monday during their first budget hearing that school districts could — or should — move as quickly as Newsom has asked. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office also said in its review of Newsom's budget that the governor's timeline is "likely unfeasible." But Newsom's Department of Finance responded in the hearing that a fast timeline is necessary to salvage a meaningful part of the remaining school year.

The district has not sued yet; there is no law to challenge because Newsom's plan is CONTINUE READING: Los Angeles school board could sue California over Newsom reopening plan

Choosing Democracy: Response to the Proposed Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum for California

Choosing Democracy: Response to the Proposed Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum for California

Response to the Proposed Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum for California

 This is in response to the  Ethnic Studies model curriculum draft posted for public review by the California State Board of Education. 

 

Response by Sacramento League of United Latin American Citizens, Lorenzo Patiño Council, 2862. Sacramento, California.

 

We offer the following critiques. 

 

Chapter 4. Bibliography

 

The proposed bibliography primarily includes theoretical pedagogical publications while lacking content specific materials.   While advocacy pedagogical literature certainly has value, teachers also  need background content.  The bibliography should be expanded to include some content specific recommendations on the history, sociology, and culture of  each of the major groups.  For example, for Mexican American/Latino readings should include Occupied America:  A History of Chicanos, 8^th edition or later by Rodolfo  F. Acuña,  From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in the Twentieth-century America, by Dr. Vicki Ruiz,   and Carlos Muñoz, Youth, Identity, Power: The Chicano Movement .  Sources providing basic historical background are missing from the bibliography.   Similar suggestions would improve the usefulness of the bibliography  as teachers cover several of the other  major ethnic  groups. 

 

Appendix A.  Sample lessons and topics

 

The first model lesson recommends  a lesson on immigration in current Los Angeles.  While this lesson has merit, the sample model lessons should begin with the  forced incorporation of the Mexican people living in the Southwest into the United States  via the Mexican American War of 1846-1848  and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the Gadsden Purchase. 

 

Respectfully submitted by the Education Committee of Sacramento LULAC , Lorenzo Patiño Council.  2862.

Adopted by the Council on  Jan. 7,2021

 

Manuel Lares, President of LULAC 2862,

 

Dolores Delgado Campbell. Professor Emeritus. History, American River College, Sacramento, California.

 

Dr. Duane E. Campbell.  Professor Emeritus. Bilingual/Multicultural Education, California State University- Sacramento.  Education and Democracy Institute. 

 

Dr. Susan Nakaoka,  Professor, Division of Social Work,  California State University -Sacramento. 

Choosing Democracy: Response to the Proposed Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum for California

Choosing Democracy: Presentation: Sacramento Poor People's Campaign - http://choosingdemocracy.blogspot.com/2021/01/presentation-sacramento-poor-peoples.html

Choosing Democracy: Trump Radicalized the Republican Party and His Supporters - http://choosingdemocracy.blogspot.com/2021/01/trump-radicalized-republican-party-and.html

Teacher Tom: Does "Parenting" Stand in the Way of Growing?

Teacher Tom: Does "Parenting" Stand in the Way of Growing?

Does "Parenting" Stand in the Way of Growing?

At the center of every healthy relationship, and many unhealthy relationships for that matter, is unconditional love. We love our children, our parents, our spouses, and our friends, but, of course, we don't love all of them in the same way: there is a kind of love we have for a lover that is distinct from the love we have our parents. In turn, the love we feel for our parents is essentially different than what we feel for our friends. Love stands at the center of the human experience. And contrary to the quid pro quo calculations of economists and behaviorists, it is love (or lack of love), not self-interest, not conditioning, that inspires almost everything we do. 

I love my wife and she loves me. We've been together for nearly 35 years, most of them happy. There have been ups and downs, of course. We have succeeded and failed, both together and separately. When we sit across from one another at the dinner table, we almost always mirror one another in posture, gesture, and expression, so yes indeed, we have shaped one another, but not consciously. Sure, she sometimes tells me that she wishes I'd do this or that differently, but by far the greatest impact she has had on me being the person I am today has to do with love. She has simply loved me enough to care for me, to be with me, to comfort me, and it's that, not some system of conscious instruction, that has been her contribution: her love has created the safe space in which I've had the freedom to grow CONTINUE  READING: Teacher Tom: Does "Parenting" Stand in the Way of Growing?

New York Magazine’s Jonathan Chait Is Bragging Again About Charter Schools | janresseger

New York Magazine’s Jonathan Chait Is Bragging Again About Charter Schools | janresseger

New York Magazine’s Jonathan Chait Is Bragging Again About Charter Schools

Last week, New York Magazine‘s Jonathan Chait published another of his long rants about the failure of public schools, the glories of charter schools, and all the reasons he disdains teachers unions.  Chait begins:

“In the dozen years since Barack Obama undertook the most dramatic education reform in half a century—prodding local governments to measure how they serve their poorest students and to create alternatives, especially charter schools, for those who lack decent neighborhood options—two unexpected things have happened.  The first is that charter schools have produced dramatic learning gains for low-income minority students… What was ten years ago merely an experiment has become a proven means to develop the potential of children whose minds had been neglected for generations. And yet the second outcome of the charter-school breakthrough has been a bitter backlash within the Democratic Party.  The political standing of the idea has moved in the opposite direction of the data, as two powerful forces—unions and progressive activists—have come to regard charter schools as a plutocratic assault on public education… ‘I am not a charter school fan because it takes the options available and money for public schools,’ Biden told a crowd in South Carolina during the Democratic primary, as the field competed to prove its hostility toward education reform in general and charters in particular.”

Chait is honest about his personal connection with the charter school sector—through his wife, Robin Chait, a Senior Policy Advisor at WestEd, whose website describes her work: “Chait’s primary responsibility is to manage WestEd’s work on the National Charter School CONTINUE READING: New York Magazine’s Jonathan Chait Is Bragging Again About Charter Schools | janresseger

Audio: Amid Surges, Teachers Line Up For Their Vaccines | 89.3 KPCC

Audio: Amid Surges, Teachers Line Up For Their Vaccines | 89.3 KPCC

Amid Surges, Teachers Line Up For Their Vaccines

Don Brown has been driving a school bus for more than 20 years in the Chicago area. And for all that time, he's noticed one odd student habit.

As they climb aboard his bus, "when they get to the top step, they always cough," he says. "This was even before the pandemic! Or, when they get ready to get off, they say 'Bye, bus driver!' and they cough."

Because of this, Brown says, he hopes he'll be getting the vaccine, "as soon as I can."

As another semester gets under way, more than half of U.S. public school students are learning CONTINUE REAING: Audio: Amid Surges, Teachers Line Up For Their Vaccines | 89.3 KPCC

It's Remote Teacher Vs In Person Teacher Thanks to the New York Post SOUTH BRONX SCHOOL BLOG - southbronxschool com

http://www.southbronxschool.com

It's Remote Teacher Vs In Person Teacher Thanks to the New York Post

In this corner we have remote teachers. In the other corner we have in person teachers. And in the center of the ring we have the New York Post stirring the shit pot and and pitting teachers against one another. 

This story, which myself and The Crack team believe was planted by the DOE starts off, not with a teacher kvetching, but rather a DOE official. Chances are it's some ass kissing,
narcissistic,  incompetent (And if male has some serious physical Freudian shortcomings) administrator with serious people issues.

 Article starts off....

“Teachers who work in-person are all raging right now,” one DOE official said. 

“They’re all pissed because they feel they’re getting the short end of the stick in here everyday getting exposed while people are sitting home in their jammies,” the staffer seethed. 

“I just feel they should be forced to come back [after getting the vaccine]. Right now there’s many people before them that are in direct exposure that should’ve been entitled to receive the vaccine first.”

Who says they are raging? Where is this DOE official getting this from?  If this source is an administrator, are they quoting some pimply face, runny nose newbie teacher whining that they can't CONTINUE READING: http://www.southbronxschool.com

Dan Shelton Compares Protesting Teachers Meeting To Terrorist Attack At The Capitol. Time To Step Down Dan! | Exceptional Delaware

Dan Shelton Compares Protesting Teachers Meeting To Terrorist Attack At The Capitol. Time To Step Down Dan! | Exceptional Delaware

Dan Shelton Compares Protesting Teachers Meeting To Terrorist Attack At The Capitol. Time To Step Down Dan!

In a moment of unbelievable stupidity, Christina Superintendent Dan Shelton actually suggested that the teachers airing their beefs with the idiotic decisions he has made on behalf of their district is comparable to social media groups that led to the attacks on the United States Capitol last week.

While he did not directly say the word teachers, the implication was definitely there. He said that given the events of last week that we should see that large groups can choose facts that legitimize their own agenda and no matter how big they are they aren’t right.

I have no doubt Shelton is very upset that teachers would dare to speak against his own Trumpian power in the Christina School District. This kind of thing never happened when he ran the Capital School District for five years so this would have to be a tremendous blow to his already overinflated ego.

To even compare the teachers in his own district to actual CONTINUE READING: Dan Shelton Compares Protesting Teachers Meeting To Terrorist Attack At The Capitol. Time To Step Down Dan! | Exceptional Delaware

Christina Board President Keeley Powell Wusses Out On Having Board Meet In Public, Afraid Of “Disruption” By Teachers https://exceptionaldelaware.wordpress.com/2021/01/12/christina-board-president-keeley-powell-wusses-out-on-having-board-meet-in-public-afraid-of-disruption-by-teachers/

Education Matters: Teacher fear in DCPS is real and palpable.

Education Matters: Teacher fear in DCPS is real and palpable.

Teacher fear in DCPS is real and palpable.

 I have written many times about the lack of contact tracing, and social distancing, and how the dashboard shouldn't be believed. If the district cares, they sure haven't shown it, and the fear for many teachers and staff is real.  

I received this from a reader. I have edited it to take out anything identifying because, sadly, in DCPS, teachers have a lot to be afraid about.

So one of my students is positive. I only found out because I asked the secretary. The only thing my principal has said to me about anything is that their absence has been excused. Telling me in the hallway because he happened to see me.

I’m not going to lie. I’m having a slight panic attack because no one is telling me anything. The only reason I know is because I asked our secretary. If it was just me affected, that is one thing. But it isn’t. It is my class and all the kids. It is all the resource teachers. It is the other teachers on grade level because they make us move kids around for their stupid pet program.

It is my two personal children. It is their classes, their teachers, their middle schools. It is my CONTINUE READING: Education Matters: Teacher fear in DCPS is real and palpable.

Terrie Brady and DTU stick up for veteran teachers

by Unknown / 16h

A few weeks back, I was told something may be coming, and Terrie Brady yesterday confirmed it when she asked the district to renegotiate on behalf of veteran teachers, many of who are about to take a pay cut. To be honest, I don’t think it should have come to this. The district has money extra in reserves and is saving money from the referendum. They didn’t have to throw veteran teachers under th

Some good news from DCPS

100+by Unknown / 19h

People have accused me of writing only about bad news, and they are right. I don’t do a good news blog but, in my defense, I am a teacher in Florida, and I do work for DCPS, and they give me plenty of bad news to write about. That being said, there were a few signs of hope at yesterday’s board meeting. Last Monday’s COVID-19 shots for school board employees apparently went over well, I mean very

School Board votes to give themselves a nearly 6,291 dollars raise while giving veterans a pay cut.

by Unknown / 20h

You know I had hoped they might do the right thing, and there is a glimmer of hope as the union has requested to reopen contract negotiations for veterans, but at the end of the day, the SB voted to give themselves a 7k raise many while veterans took a pay cut. Teacher salary increases, as well as contrac

CURMUDGUCATION: Did DeVos Get A Raw Deal

CURMUDGUCATION: Did DeVos Get A Raw Deal

Did DeVos Get A Raw Deal

In today's National Review, Rick Hess is suggesting that Betsy DeVos got a raw deal, that attacks on her "have taken a torch to the basic standards of public discourse and democratic civility." 

Hess acknowledges some of the issues surrounding her as legit ones:

During her tempestuous tenure in office, DeVos evoked strong feelings among her critics. Many disagreed vehemently with her views on school choice, religious freedom, and government regulation. They profusely criticized her talk of “factory-model government schools” and often deemed her ill-prepared for the role. Many thought she should never have agreed to serve under Trump, or else should have resigned in response to his earlier provocations. These complaints are legitimate and fair grounds for tough-minded debate.

But Hess finds attacks on DeVos go above and beyond that, and often "curiously unmoored from what she has actually done in office." Here he has a bit of a point. DeVos somehow entered popular culture pictured as a fool and a dope; I've argued before that while it may be fun to imagine DeVos as the dimmest kid in class (you may have seen the "Dere Mr. Presidne I resine" meme floating about), I don't think it's a particular fair or accurate caricature of her.

Hess also hints at another argument in DeVos's favor when he alleges that most of her critics can't actually point to awful things she's done. She messed with Title IX rules. She cut the Office of Civil Liberties off at the knees. She consistently sided with predatory for-profit colleges over defrauded students (you've probably already forgotten her plan to sic the IRS on borrowers). But many of her noteworthy actions were notable for CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Did DeVos Get A Raw Deal

NYC Educator: The Post, with Little Evidence, Creates a Teacher Issue

NYC Educator: The Post, with Little Evidence, Creates a Teacher Issue

The Post, with Little Evidence, Creates a Teacher Issue

The Post has a piece suggesting teachers are at war with one another over who gets the vaccine. That's absurd, and there are several large hints in the story. The biggest hint is who they quote--one anonymous DOE employee, one anonymous administrator, and one anonymous teacher. (Let's disregard the fact that none of those quoted feel comfortable using their names.)

Everyone, perhaps excepting the person who wrote this piece knows the DOE does not represent teachers. The fact is, more often than not, they are our largest adversary. Those guys with suits who come in and try to fire us? That chancellor saying he wants 108,000 signatures before closing buildings in a pandemic, that Boy Wonder supervisor who sees fit to observe you the day before a break when only eight students are in your class? All those folks are the DOE. 

And the ones who work at Tweed? Forget about it. They haven't got a clue what goes on in buildings. They're too busy sitting in offices doing Whatever It Is that goes on there. 

Their last example is an administrator working remotely who took the vaccine but was upset his elderly mom couldn't get it. How that supported the notion that teachers are upset with one another I have no idea. They also cite emails, but they appear to be the generic emails we got from the chancellor, you know, the guy who told 108,000 signatures, who just tried to steal a billion dollars from us, who sends us CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: The Post, with Little Evidence, Creates a Teacher Issue

- What's New: 2021–22 FFVP Request for Applications - SSO and SFSP Integrity Plan - 2021 SFSP Reimbursement Rates - California Department of Education

California Department of Education

CA Dept of Education - What's New

2021 SFSP Reimbursement Rates

20h

On December 31, 2020, the U.S. Department of Agriculture issued the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) 2021 reimbursement rates for breakfast, lunch, supper, and snacks.

CNAC Member Recruitment 2021

20h

The State Superintendent of Public Instruction (SSPI) Child Nutrition Advisory Council (CNAC) is recruiting for positions for 2021.

2021–22 FFVP Request for Applications Announcement

20h

The California Department of Education (CDE) Nutrition Services Division (NSD) announces a grant opportunity for elementary schools to participate in the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program (FFVP).

SSO and SFSP Integrity Plan

20h

The Nutrition Services Division (NSD) has developed a Seamless Summer Option (SSO) and Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) Integrity Plan guide to support program operators.

California Department of Education