CATCH UP WITH CURMUDGUCATION + ICYMI: Mother's Day Edition (5/9)

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Mother's Day Edition (5/9)

Mother's Day Edition 

Honestly, it has been kind of a rough week here, and it's not getting better any time soon. So whatever else you do today, make sure you hug a loved one and let them know you care. Time is relentless and remorseless. Humans do not have to be. Here's some reading from the week.

Teacher Evaluations (Hammers and Nails)

Blue  Cereal Education with a story of what teacher evaluation looks like in the field, and why sorting everything into hammers and nails is a problem of its own.

The Great (Unemployed and Underpaid) Transformation

Nancy Flanagan takes a look at what has changed, and why we're not going back to "normal."

A state legislator is howling indoctrination because my 7th graders are learning the ocean is polluted

One of the new anti-indoctrination policy ideas now making the rounds is to force teachers to post their lesson plans and materials (the better for folks to catch educators in their indoctrinatin' ways). Justin Parmenter inadvertently became a poster boy for that initiative in North Carolina. He tells eth story at Notes from the Chalkboard.

As schools expand racial equity work, conservatives see a new threat in critical race theory

At the Washington Post, an overview of the current right wing freakout over CRT (or at least what they imagine CRT must be). Pair this with the next piece on the list.

Why the right loves public school culture wars

Michelle Goldberg at the New York Times suggests that the right needs something to get the based fired up, and since Joe Biden won't fill the bill, let's get excited about all that pub lic school indoctrinatin' going on.

Biden's American Families Plan would revolutionize life for poor children

Jan Resseger looks at the potential effects of Biden's big AFP proposal.

Authentic Education Reform Based on Diversity Research

Thomas Ultican takes a look a new book about diversity research and considers teacher voice in policy ideas.

Democracy Prep enabled its founder to rip it off

If you're puzzled by the story of how Seth Andrew managed to take a pile of money from the charter he founded, the indispensable Mercedes Schneider clarifies how it was all done. 

How a Miami School became a Beacon for Anti-vaxxers

The Centner Academy hit the news when it announced that it would fire teacher4s for getting vaccinated. That turns out to be just the tip of the crazy iceberg. The New York Times went digging.

AI May Have Hit a Dead End

At Salon, Thomas Nail considers why artificial intelligence research may have wandered down the wrong road.

Artificial Intelligence Is Misreading Human Emotion

Kate Crawford at the Atlantic explains why all those programs claiming they can read student emotion are actually bunk.

Science of Reading Advocates Have a Messaging Problem

At the very least. Chuck Goldenberg at EdWeek explains.

If people talked to other professionals the way they talk to teachers

McSweeney offers a perfect true/sad/funny chaser for Teacher Appreciation Week. 

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Mother's Day Edition (5/9)

CATCH UP WITH CURMUDGUCATION

AND DON'T FORGET PETER GREENE ON FORBES CLICK HERE 

Arizona GOP Hopes To Clamp Down On Teachers - https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergreene/2021/05/06/arizona-gop-hopes-to-clamp-down-on-teachers/?sh=62a45cb5aca3 by @palan57 on @forbes

Accountability Whiplash

36by Peter Greene / 2d

It's one of the little inconsistencies in the reformster movement. Some will point at charts showing that spending on public education has increased steadily (in constant dollars) and ask, "What have we gotten for it?" There are answers to that question, including but not limited to A) more education for special ed students previously warehoused in some back room, B) better funding for previously

Teaching Legacies

by Peter Greene / 3d

It's easy as a teacher-- particularly if you've taught in a single school for a lot of your career-- to think of your legacy being in the building or in some program that you created or nurtured. But that's not it. As you approach retirement, you may notice (if you haven't already) that no matter how ever-present and plugged in you may be, no matter how many invaluable extras you provide, once you

Khan Academy Expanding To Littles

28by Peter Greene / 4d

The pandemic has been very, very good to Sal Khan, and he's ready to grab the big sticky ball and run with it. He recently did an interview with Emily Tate for EdSurge, and it's all just as discouraging as you would expect. Khan opens with a few thought about pandemic life in the Bay Area: “Obviously, some aspects have been suboptimal for everybody,” he says, acknowledging that his family has bee

ICYMI: What? May Already? Edition (5/2)

by Peter Greene / 7d

That whole April thing seemed to slide by quickly. What could come next? I'll remind you (as I haven't in a while) that sharing is your power as a reader, and that if any of these really speak to you, the best gift you can give the writer of your favorite piece is more readers. Share. I'm a Chicago princi

CURMUDGUCATION - http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/

NANCY BAILEY: The Loss That Matters This Mother’s Day

The Loss That Matters This Mother’s Day

The Loss That Matters This Mother’s Day

The loss important to understand this year, the most critical loss, is not learning loss. It involves the loss many children are facing after losing a mom or dad to Covid-19. Or it could be a grandma or grandpa, a beloved aunt or uncle, or sister or brother, even a friend.

On this Mother’s Day, how many children are grieving the loss of their mother? On Father’s Day, how many will be missing their dad?

We’re told that between 37,000 and 43,000 children in the United States have lost at least one parent to COVID-19. According to the University of Southern California, this is a 20% increase in parental loss over a typical year.

A loss will affect how students look at school, how they take tests, and how they recapture a sense of normalcy as school buildings reopen and they gather once again in person if they are not already in the school building. School and life for them will never be the same.

Parental loss due to Covid-19 has been found more in the black community. Children are called Covid Orphans.

Children may be troubled simply due to the fear and anguish caused by the strangeness CONTINUE READING: The Loss That Matters This Mother’s Day

Barbed Wire (from "Have To" History) | Blue Cereal Education

Barbed Wire (from "Have To" History) | Blue Cereal Education

Barbed Wire (from "Have To" History)

Stuff You Don't Really Want To Know (But For Some Reason Have To) About... Barbed Wire

Three Big Things:

1. Barbed wire became the fencing of choice in the west after the Civil War. It was relatively cheap, withstood a wide range of conditions, and held back the biggest, most stubborn livestock.

2. Barbed wire favored homesteaders moving west, who tended to be small farmers. It threatened, and eventually helped destroy, the mythical “open range” and cowboy culture.

3. Barbed wire is rarely asked about specifically in history standards; it’s central to a wide variety of stuff that is, however.

Introduction

There are barbed wire museums in nearly a dozen different states. That’s right – museums devoted exclusively (or at least primarily) to the origins and impact of pokey wires in all its many varieties. The Oklahoma Cowboy Museum boasts over 8,000 varieties of prickly steel yarn, while the Devil’s Rope Museum in McLean, Texas, promises “everything you want to know about barbed wire and fencing tools.” There are several collections in and around DeKalb, Illinois, the birthplace of barbed wire, but it’s the Kansas Barbed Wire Museum which makes the grandest claims and boasts the most extensive curated exploration of this marvelous innovation.

It’s fencing. Made of wire. What’s the big deal?

Expansion, Technology, and Conflict

American history is largely a tale of expansion. Many of our best conflicts have resulted (at least in part) from our eternal need to expand and renovate. As CONTINUE READING: Barbed Wire (from "Have To" History) | Blue Cereal Education

Moms Have Borne the Brunt of Pandemic Turmoil at Work and at Home – Mother Jones

Moms Have Borne the Brunt of Pandemic Turmoil at Work and at Home – Mother Jones

Moms Have Borne the Brunt of Pandemic Turmoil at Work and at Home

A Mother’s Day labor force check-in: It’s getting a bit better. It’s still bad.

Let our journalists help you make sense of the noise: Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter and get a recap of news that matters.

On this Mother’s Day, let’s remember the pandemic’s dire impact on American moms, who have shouldered the burden at work and at home.

In April 2020, the coronavirus’s impact on working mothers was disproportionately acute. In the United States, the number of mothers both working and living with school-aged children fell 22 percent from the previous April, a sharper decline than among fathers, the New York Times reported. The 10 million mothers not working meant that one third of moms with school-age children in the US were unemployed, a Census survey noted in March. Single mothers have been hit especially hard, with the sharpest decline in labor force participation and the slowest recovery.

The flip side of this decline is the disproportionate share of childcare at home mothers are handling themselves. And working moms are more likely than working dads to say they face challenges in the office due to balancing work and family responsibilities, according to the Pew Research Center. CONTINUE READING: Moms Have Borne the Brunt of Pandemic Turmoil at Work and at Home – Mother Jones

Charter Lobby Backs Leading Candidates for NYC Mayor | Diane Ravitch's blog

Charter Lobby Backs Leading Candidates for NYC Mayor | Diane Ravitch's blog

Charter Lobby Backs Leading Candidates for NYC Mayor

The executive director of StudentsFirstNY, Jenny Sedlis, has taken a leave of absence from her job to manage a fundraising PAC for Eric Adams, one of the leading candidates for mayor. The election is this November.

Sedlis previously was the lead spokesperson for Success Academy, Eva Moskowitz’s charter chain.

The new entity plans to run digital and TV ads supporting Adams’ candidacy, without being beholden to the strict spending limits imposed by the city’s Campaign Finance Board. Ahead of Sedlis establishing the PAC with the Board of Elections, StudentsFirstNY released a poll showing Adams closing the gap with frontrunner Andrew Yang. A poll published yesterday showed Adams in the lead.

Sedlis has not begun raising money yet, but the group is hoping to secure $6 million — matching the stated aim of political consultant Lis Smith in her fundraising effort for Andrew Yang, Adams’ chief rival in the race…

“New York City’s comeback starts with Eric Adams as CONTINUE READING: Charter Lobby Backs Leading Candidates for NYC Mayor | Diane Ravitch's blog

Black Student Struggle: 2021 Study Exposes the Gap - LA Progressive

Black Student Struggle: 2021 Study Exposes the Gap - LA Progressive

Black Student Struggle: 2021 Study Exposes the Gap

For more than a year health experts, researchers and sociologists have loudly proclaimed the obvious: The COVID-19 pandemic has unequally affected people and communities of color in the United States, causing disproportionately higher rates of infection and death. It’s a conclusion so clear that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention dedicates part of its website to this reality.

“Racism is a serious public health threat that directly affects the well-being of millions of Americans,” CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in a statement distributed by the agency last month. “As a result, it affects the health of our entire nation.”

Equally obvious, though, is that the pandemic’s ravages are illuminating problems of inequity that already were long in existence. It’s the urgency of the fight against disease that has given those problems a new currency. And long after COVID-19 is no longer a subject of daily conversation, the issues will remain.

A new report from the University of California, Los Angeles, brings this notion into close focus. Produced by UCLA’s Center for the Transformation of Schools, the report makes it clear that the consistent underperformance of Black public school students in the L.A. area is directly tied to economics, environmental and living conditions, a lack of strategic planning by school districts and administrators, and the same structural inequities that beset other areas of life.

“Much of what we saw prior to the pandemic has only been exacerbated,” Dr. Stanley Johnson Jr., CONTINUE READING: Black Student Struggle: 2021 Study Exposes the Gap - LA Progressive

Ed Notes Online: What Should Next School Year Look Like? - An Educators of NYC Presentation - Zoom Tuesday May 11, 7PM

Ed Notes Online: What Should Next School Year Look Like? - An Educators of NYC Presentation - Zoom Tuesday May 11, 7PM

What Should Next School Year Look Like? - An Educators of NYC Presentation - Zoom Tuesday May 11, 7PM

This is the kind of conversation the UFT should be having.

.. James Eterno, ICEUFT

Special Education Far Rockaway teacher Daniel Alicea, the major organizer at EONYC, is doing the kind of work the UFT should be doing, following up on EONYC's enormously successful monthly Zooms on Tuesday with probably the most important issue we face:  

What Should Next School Year Look Like?

The  link to sign up. He has  assembled a fantastic panel:

Panelists Set for EONYC May Forum: What Should Next School Year Look Like?

Our stakeholder panelists include parents, education activists, educators, and leaders from our various teacher caucuses We are just days away from our May 11th online forum where we will gather with expert panelists that include parents, education activists, educators, and leaders from our various teacher caucuses. We hope to also be able to lean on the expertise of a local medical doctor, as well.

As this school year of hybrid learning in a pandemic winds down, we as educators and stakeholders have begun to reflect and formulate questions about what the next school year should look like. At Tuesday evening’s event, we hope to share our collective thoughts, ideas, and demands for what should be prioritized in the upcoming school year.

Please join our next Educators of NYC monthly meetup, on Tuesday, May 11th, at 7 PM, as we discuss: WHAT SHOULD NEXT YEAR'S SCHOOL REOPENING LOOK LIKE IN A COVID WORLD?

 https://educatorsofnyc.substack.com/p/panelists-set-for-eonyc-may-forum

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Last month EONYC held a panel that included reps from every caucus and interest group in the UFT, including Unity Caucus and attracted hundreds to a webinar discussion of the UFT Mayoral Endorsement process,  which is basically 3 people in a room.  

The video of this event which dove deep into UFT policy is worth seeing: https://youtu.be/Xc-JGK5Zrew

Eterno pointed to how important these type of open discussions have been in his ad for the April event.

Everyone guesses the UFT will endorse Scott Stringer with some believing Maya Wiley has a chance to be second. Is this the right decision? Is the UFT top-down endorsement process fair?If you are looking for a real discussion on the mayor's race and the Union's involvement, you will most likely be out of luck at the DA as it will more than likely be tightly controlled by Mulgrew.

This was a day before the UFT special DA where they did endorse Stringer but did not choose Wiley or anyone as a second choice. I wrote about the Stringer story a few days ago: UFT Sticks with Stringer.

Here's more from EONYC:

Please join our next Educators of NYC monthly meetup, on Tuesday, May 11th, at 7 PM, as we discuss: WHAT SHOULD NEXT YEAR'S SCHOOL REOPENING LOOK LIKE IN A COVID WORLD?

We are just a day away from our May 11th online forum where we will gather with expert panelists that include parents, education activists, educators, and leaders from our various teacher caucuses. We hope to also be able to lean on the expertise of a local medical doctor, as well.

 

As this school year of hybrid learning in a pandemic winds down, we as educators and stakeholders have begun to reflect and formulate questions about what the next school year should look like. At Tuesday evening’s event, we hope to share our collective thoughts, ideas, and demands for what should be prioritized in the upcoming school year.

RSVP now!!! ... as our slots to participate will go quickly.

RSVP at: http://forum.educators.nyc

We, also, encourage you to take the pre-forum survey here if you haven’t and you can also view the preliminary results. Almost 4k individuals have responded already: http://educators.nyc/maysurvey

Lastly, if you have registered we will send you a Zoom link as the forum event approaches.

The forum event will also be live-streamed via Facebook Live our public Facebook page and private page.

Please share this with those in your education networks and circles.

Ed Notes Online: What Should Next School Year Look Like? - An Educators of NYC Presentation - Zoom Tuesday May 11, 7PM