GALLUP POLL: Fewer U.S. Parents Want Full-Time In-Person Fall Schooling

Fewer U.S. Parents Want Full-Time In-Person Fall Schooling

Fewer U.S. Parents Want Full-Time In-Person Fall Schooling

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• 36% want full-time in-person instruction; 28% want full-time remote learning
• More parents concerned about children catching the coronavirus
• A growing percentage of concerned parents want full-time remote learning

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- As U.S. coronavirus infections and parents' concerns about their children catching COVID-19 have surged, parents' preferences for school attendance this year have shifted.

In late May and early June, a majority of 56% of K-12 parents wanted full-time in-person school this fall. Now, 36% prefer this option. Meanwhile, 28% of parents, up from 7% in the prior survey, prefer full-time remote instruction. The remainder, 36%, favor a hybrid system of part in-person teaching and part distance learning.

U.S. Parents Less Likely to Favor Full-Time In-Person Schooling This Fall

In the fall, would you want your children's school to have full-time distance/remote learning, have a modified program where they attend school part time and do some distance/remote learning, or have your children attend school full time?

The July 13-27 Gallup Panel survey results come as governors, school officials and parents decide how best to educate children amid the coronavirus pandemic.

After nearly all U.S. schools relied on remote learning to finish the 2019-2020 school year, the Trump administration has insisted that all children should attend school in person this fall. But some larger school districts in COVID-19 hot spots have already decided they will have full-time remote learning in the fall, something President Donald Trump recently acknowledged may be necessary despite his administration's preferences. Organizations representing pediatricians, superintendents and teachers recently urged leaders to base decisions about reopening schools on the recommendations of local public health officials, educators and parents.

When Gallup last asked this question in late May and early June, parents' preferences for full-time in-person schooling largely conformed with their experiences with remote learning at the end of the 2019-2020 school year. At that time, 56% said their children's distance learning was difficult for them, while 44% said it was easy.

Parents' preferences for 2020-2021 schooling at that time were also largely shaped by CONTINUE READING: Fewer U.S. Parents Want Full-Time In-Person Fall Schooling

Mitchell Robinson: Who Is Paying for the Move to Virtual Schooling? Not Betsy DeVos… | Eclectablog

Who Is Paying for the Move to Virtual Schooling? Not Betsy DeVos… | Eclectablog

Who Is Paying for the Move to Virtual Schooling? Not Betsy DeVos…

Dear Teachers,

As we prepare for the uncertainty and confusion regarding the return of school, one  piece of advice: Please keep the receipts for *anything* you purchase in order to teach online this fall…

• new office chairs
• tables
• computer monitors
• laptop stands
• headphones
• mics
• speakers
• cameras
• lights
• routers
• wifi extenders
• upgraded laptops, tablets, and smart phones
• enhanced internet service
• professional development classes or workshops
• home renovations or remodeling that need to be done to create a suitable online teaching “space” in your apartment or house

*Anything* you need to do your job from home–and submit copies of these receipts to your school’s business office for reimbursement.

Then use social media to share how much money you spent “out of pocket” to do your job. And how much your school district reimbursed you–or not–for these expenses.

Now, do I expect that schools will actually reimburse teachers for these expenses? Not really.

But it just might be a wakeup call to everyone who thinks that a switch can simply be flipped on CONTINUE READING: Who Is Paying for the Move to Virtual Schooling? Not Betsy DeVos… | Eclectablog

NANCY BAILEY: Kindergarten Reading Push: Still Problematic During the Pandemic

Kindergarten Reading Push: Still Problematic During the Pandemic

Kindergarten Reading Push: Still Problematic During the Pandemic

Parents and educators, convinced that kindergartners must learn to read, might purchase unproven commercial online reading programs during the pandemic. The best solution for kindergartners currently is for school librarians and teachers to get interesting picture books and reading material into the hands of young children.

Standardized testing made pushing children to read in kindergarten part of the curriculum. No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and Common Core State Standards contributed to remaking kindergarten. Now this harmful practice is interwoven into the kindergarten curriculum.

During a pandemic, it would seem like these harsh kindergarten requirements could be dropped. Instead, mandatory reading goals still highlight kindergarten.

A report by Christina A. Samuels in Education Week “Will Kindergartens Be Empty this Fall?” illustrates the problem. The report describes difficulties school CONTINUE READING: Kindergarten Reading Push: Still Problematic During the Pandemic

Texas schools are being compelled to reopen classrooms on the state's timetable, like it or not | Salon.com

Texas schools are being compelled to reopen classrooms on the state's timetable, like it or not | Salon.com

Texas schools are being compelled to reopen classrooms on the state's timetable, like it or not
Districts are compelled to have students back in classrooms after eight weeks of the school year's start.

After weeks of confusion and conflicting signals, Texas has settled into policies that effectively compel schools to reopen their classrooms this fall no later than eight weeks after the academic year begins, whether they want to or not.

Teachers, parents, school administrators and public health officials have been seeking clarity for weeks on how the state will approach reopening schools safely as coronavirus infections and deaths rise across Texas.

Gov. Greg Abbott has not responded directly to questions from reporters about who has the authority to order schools closed in areas hard hit by the virus, and the Texas Education Agency has sent mixed messages on reopening guidelines.

But despite the lack of any formal announcement from the governor, the die was cast in in a rapid two-step process Tuesday. First, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton released nonbinding legal guidance saying local public health officials do not have the power to preemptively require all schools in their jurisdictions to remain closed, even as COVID-19 cases continue to climb in many Texas hot spots.

Then, state education officials reversed an earlier decision by announcing they will not fund school districts that keep classrooms closed for longer than the state allows even if ordered to do so by a local health mandate. Taken together, the actions put school districts in the position of reopening classrooms on the state's timetable or losing funds and risking potential litigation.

Educators and families must once again rethink their back-to-school plans this fall. The education agency has given school districts up to eight weeks to limit the number of students permitted on their campuses, after which they must open classrooms to all students who want to attend.

That ninth week is looming large for superintendents who are not sure what the public health landscape will look like at that point. Now, they can't depend on their local health officials to give them more time, without losing money.

"Starting in the ninth week of our respective school years, regardless of the status of the virus in our CONTINUE READING: Texas schools are being compelled to reopen classrooms on the state's timetable, like it or not | Salon.com

New Georgia coronavirus outbreak among school staff doesn’t speak well for reopening – Raw Story

New Georgia coronavirus outbreak among school staff doesn’t speak well for reopening – Raw Story

New Georgia coronavirus outbreak among school staff doesn’t speak well for reopening

It took just a day for 260 members of the faculty and staff of Georgia’s largest school district to be called out for the coronavirus after in-person meetings this week.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 260 employees tested positive or were out due to contact with an infected person, Gwinnett County Public School announced.

“Through tracing, we know that the majority of these cases are the result of community spread, meaning we have people who have called in to report who have not been at school or work,” said Gwinnett spokeswoman Sloan Roach.

The school district is in a city with the largest rate of COVID-19 in Georgia, at 17,781 positive cases.

It was one of the reasons that teacher Ashley Newman said that she was forced to resign from her beloved job at a Gwinnett elementary school. Her young daughter’s daycare has so many children that it’s impossible to keep them distanced. So, she decided to stay home with her daughter. CONTINUE READING: New Georgia coronavirus outbreak among school staff doesn’t speak well for reopening – Raw Story

There Can Be No Safe and Just Re-opening Without Communities and Educators Working Together | Schott Foundation for Public Education

There Can Be No Safe and Just Re-opening Without Communities and Educators Working Together | Schott Foundation for Public Education

There Can Be No Safe and Just Re-opening Without Communities and Educators Working Together

Today, August 3, is the National Day of Resistance by the Demand Safe Schools Coalition. This coalition, a nationwide partnership between community advocacy groups and educator unions, has "come together to unite students, educators, parents and community to advance a racial justice agenda in public education, in particular by organizing for police-free schools. We’re working to galvanize a strong and growing student/educator/parent/community voice; a voice that says the government must go much further to provide the resources to ensure a safe and equitable school reopening and must provide for our communities and working families through transformational Common Good demands."

At Schott we've long held up the importance of cross-sector organizing and collaboration as the key to winning large-scale systemic change to improve public schools. In April 2018, in what would become the opening phases of more than a year of teacher strikes, Schott released Keeping Students First: Building Community Labor Partnerships for Strong Schools. In partnership with Building Movement Project we looked at three cities — Chicago, St. Paul, and Austin — to examine lessons learned from the successful community-labor coordination. The report also provides concrete ways advocates can start building these partnerships in their own cities.

Coalition members released 8 demands for today's Day of Resistance, the result of extensive discussion and deliberation among stakeholders:

• No reopening until the scientific data supports it
•  Police-free schools
• All schools must be supported to function as community schools with adequate numbers of counselors and nurses and community/parent outreach workers
• Safe conditions including lower class sizes, PPE, cleaning, testing, and other key protocols Equitable access to online learning
• Support for our communities and families, including canceling rents and mortgages, a moratorium on evictions/foreclosures, providing direct cash assistance to those not able to work or who are unemployed, and other critical social needs
• Moratorium on new charter or voucher programs and standardized testing
• Massive infusion of federal money to support the reopening funded by taxing billionaires and Wall Street
• Equitable access to online learning

This is a pivotal moment for communities and the public schools that serve them. Only by working together can we both tackle the present COVID-19 crisis and the long-standing problems of overpolicing, inequity and racism affecting our public education system.

Actions today are taking place at three dozen locations across the country: find one near you and join up!

There Can Be No Safe and Just Re-opening Without Communities and Educators Working Together | Schott Foundation for Public Education

Congressional Failure to Provide Relief for State Budgets and Public Schools Will Launch Spiraling Educational Inequality | janresseger

Congressional Failure to Provide Relief for State Budgets and Public Schools Will Launch Spiraling Educational Inequality | janresseger

Congressional Failure to Provide Relief for State Budgets and Public Schools Will Launch Spiraling Educational Inequality

As school districts move closer to the date when they had expected to open, more and more  districts are falling back on distance learning for all or part of the first semester. Public education is the primary American social institution which supports children and their families: Why are our political leaders so oblivious?  Why does the President refuse to take sufficient steps to control the transmission of COVID-19? And how, in early August, can the U.S. Senate fail to make safely reopening public schools a top priority?

On Saturday, the NY Times reported: “(H)undreds of districts across the country that were once planning to reopen their classrooms, many on a part-time basis, have reversed course in recent weeks as infections have spiked in many states… Of the nation’s 25 largest school districts, all but six have announced they will start remotely….”  Two essential conditions for starting in-person school are missing. The pandemic is raging out of control; no school district can reopen in locations with uncontrolled infection rates.  And even in places where the coronavirus has been contained, schools must be able to take steps to protect students, teachers, bus drivers, and other staff.

We are now seeing reports that expose the complexity of school reopening—something perhaps the President and Mitch McConnell have never really thought about.  In a NY Times column last week, three doctors set out to clarify the risks and challenges. The article features a table with colored boxes categorizing the risk of various ways to cope with the essentials that must be present in every school district. The first set of boxes considers the risks involved in just getting kids to and from school. In the box marked “low risk,” the doctors suggest walking or riding a bicycle or riding in a car with household members only.  The second category is “medium risk,” and in this box the doctors suggest carpooling including non-household members. The third category is “high risk.” Here the doctors warn about CONTINUE READING: Congressional Failure to Provide Relief for State Budgets and Public Schools Will Launch Spiraling Educational Inequality | janresseger

The COVID Classroom: Anything But Normal | deutsch29

The COVID Classroom: Anything But Normal | deutsch29

The COVID Classroom: Anything But Normal

Last week, I went to my classroom to begin preparing it for teaching COVID-style.

I was fortunate enough to be able to pack up my classroom once our governor declared in April 2020 that students would not be returning in person to school for the remainder of the 2020-21 school year. So, in some respects, preparing my room for pandemic teaching was rather easy since my personal possessions will remain packed away.

My desk is bare except for my roll book, my plexiglass clipboard (which may prove useful as a barrier) and my hand sanitizer.

No Kleenex on the desk since an open box of tissue could become contaminated by COVID-19.

No classroom set of books, either, so I dissembled the bookshelf to make room for socially-distanced student desks.

No need for my podium for student presentations, so I moved that further back and put my reading stool behind it. (To leave my stool in its usual place at the front of the room would have me too close to my students, who will also not be allowed to move to front of room to take turns leading the class. Too much movement; not enough space.)

The podium and stool are crowded at front of room near my projector cart and CONTINUE READING: The COVID Classroom: Anything But Normal | deutsch29

re: My Nomination for US Secretary of Education | The Jose Vilson

re: My Nomination for US Secretary of Education | The Jose Vilson

RE: MY NOMINATION FOR US SECRETARY OF EDUCATION

There’s a meme out there suggesting that I become the next Secretary of Education for this country. I use the word “meme” in the original sense where something gets repeated often. Some of it might have started from my pictures with then-presidential candidate Senator Elizabeth Warren and Julian Castro, but the more recent uptick ostensibly comes from Peter Greene’s Forbes article. In it, he takes on Liat Olenick’s original proposal – which then turned into a core tenet of Warren’s educational plan – and builds on it.

Greene has a few criteria that such a person should meet:

• A traditional public school teacher
• A venerated veteran teacher, at that
• A teacher who hasn’t been dubbed an edu-celebrity (an educational figure who amassed tens of thousands of social media influence in seemingly inauthentic ways)
• A person who has more years as a school-based educator than one who hasn’t been school-based
• A person who can delve into the big picture issues, the minutiae, and everything in between

And the first name he cites is mine.

On a personal level, I think my face fluctuated from mouth agape to eyes squinted. I laughed because Greene’s writing can tow the line between satire and factual without losing his audience, so I didn’t know whether to appreciate the sentiment or just laugh at the prospect.

But let me take him seriously for a few minutes.

First, I’d like to see presumptive Democratic nominee Joseph Biden displace current president CONTINUE READING: re: My Nomination for US Secretary of Education | The Jose Vilson

The DOE’s plan fails NYC students and teachers – a Teacher’s Letter to Anyone Listening | JD2718

The DOE’s plan fails NYC students and teachers – a Teacher’s Letter to Anyone Listening | JD2718

The DOE’s plan fails NYC students and teachers – a Teacher’s Letter to Anyone Listening

I was trying to write something like this, when I stumbled across this letter. The author is a teacher in the Bronx – I got permission to repost but forgot to ask for permission to use their name (I’ll update if they give it) – jd

I read the DOE’s 32 page “plan” this morning. It is abysmal and puts NYC students and staff at risk. A few points which really must be addressed:

1. Does Mr. Carranza know that middle school and high school students can’t remain in single cohort classrooms because they don’t all take the same classes? There is no way for cohorts not to mix.

2. Given #1, there is no way for a teacher and cohort to isolate if someone is suspected or confirmed to have COVID—that teacher would be needed to teach multiple other classes to other cohorts who are in the building. There aren’t enough adults to monitor students in class if the teacher is awaiting test results or becomes ill.

3. Given that teachers will be exposed to multiple cohorts, any exposure for that teacher means that multiple cohorts will need to isolate and be tested; it’s impossible to close one classroom.

4. How is the teacher or staff member in the room supposed to remain safe when students take masks off to eat?

5. Has Mr. Carranza ever met students? They WILL put fingers under their masks; they WILL take CONTINUE READING: The DOE’s plan fails NYC students and teachers – a Teacher’s Letter to Anyone Listening | JD2718

Reopening Schools Unsafely Will Not Solve Anything | gadflyonthewallblog

Reopening Schools Unsafely Will Not Solve Anything | gadflyonthewallblog

Reopening Schools Unsafely Will Not Solve Anything

Opening schools unsafely will not solve any of our problems.

In every case, it will make them worse.

Students don’t learn a lot when their teachers are in quarantine.

Children generally receive less socialization when their parents are hospitalized.

Kids with special needs will receive few accommodations on a respirator.

Childcare is the least of your worries when planning a funeral for a family member.

No matter what need schools usually meet, Coronavirus makes the situation worse.

Every. Time. CONTINUE READING: Reopening Schools Unsafely Will Not Solve Anything | gadflyonthewallblog