Tuesday, December 1, 2020
THE TOP BANANA: TODAY'S EDUCATION HEADLINES #REDFORED #tbats #COVID-19 #REOPENSCHOOLSSAFELY #COVIDOUTBREAK #BIDENWINS #46
RANDI WEINGARTEN: A blueprint to safely open schools | TheHill
The United States has the sad distinction of having the most confirmed coronavirus cases and death in the world, which has kept many schools shuttered for instruction in person. Parents and educators know that our children do best at schools, where they can get support, and they worry that the lack of learning in person has hurt students in need.
Systems from New York City to the Netherlands have shown that, with the necessary protocols to prevent transmission, students can safely return to learning in person. But schools are not islands. Americans must summon the collective will to follow science both in and out of schools. If we can do this, we can allow children across the country back to schools for the second semester and then for enriched summer programs.
Reopening schools is vital for the health and education of our children. It is also critical for the economy. We all have a role in doing this safely. Our holidays will look very different this year as infections surge with hospitals at capacity. Our leaders must use every tool at their disposal to reduce the spread of the coronavirus and pass a relief package that includes funding for states, schools, businesses, and the Americans who now struggle with rents, nutrition insecurity, and student loans. It is why we need a national blueprint that has these objectives to safely reopen schools.
We must get the coronavirus under control. This will take a national mask mandate, a federal system for both testing and contact tracing, targeted regional closures of schools and restaurants, making sure our exhausted health care workers have everything they need, and a robust coronavirus vaccination program once it is proven as sound and effective.
We must place public health protocols in schools. We know what works, such as masks, hand washing, physical distancing, sufficient ventilation, electrostatic cleaners, and broad testing. These protocols are enabling CONTINUE READING: A blueprint to safely open schools | TheHill
How to Assign Writing When You Don’t Teach Writing – radical eyes for equity
Over a decade ago, my university transitioned from an English Department-based composition sequence (often designated as ENG 101 and ENG 102 in many universities) to a first-year seminar format that would be staffed across all departments. This change, of course, meant that many professors with no background or training in how to teach writing were now teaching first-year writing.
The university fumbled this move quite a bit, but gradually the significance of that hurdle was recognized. We continue to find ways to support professors new and still learning to teaching writing.
Two of the foundational concepts repeated by those of us helping support these professors have been that teaching writing is not an inoculation (one course, or even a few courses, cannot produce students who need no more writing instruction) and that assigning writing is not teaching writing.
For many years, I have been posting my thoughts and strategies for anyone who is tasked with teaching writing or who must teach a writing-intensive CONTINUE READING: How to Assign Writing When You Don’t Teach Writing – radical eyes for equity
Joe Biden reportedly to be tough on charter schools
Charter school advocates may not have an ally in President-elect Joe Biden or his Education Department.
“He has been working closely with us over these last few months to listen and understand what the issues are that we are facing in this moment. We know we have a partner,” Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union, told the Wall Street Journal.
Unlike President Barack Obama, who showed deference to the rise of charter schools and support for school choice, Biden has called for a ban on federal funding for charter schools that are operated by for-profit companies, which account for 12 percent of charter schools, according to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.
He also pledged, as part of the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force, to “support measures to increase accountability for charter schools.”
“We will call for conditioning federal funding for new, expanded charter schools or for charter school renewals on a district’s review of whether the charter will systematically underserve the neediest students,” the task force’s final platform read.
The policy position has sparked worry among parents and school choice advocates representing such students.
“The data is consistently clear that nonprofit public charter schools, particularly in our urban communities that serve our African American and Latino students, have performed well. For that reason, there’s also very strong support among African American and Latino parents for charter schools,” Shavar Jeffries, president of Democrats for Education Reform, told the Journal.
“I absolutely am deeply concerned that a union-controlled Biden Education Department could have a chilling effect on the progress that the states and parents have made in securing educational options and excellence for the kids,” Jeanne Allen, chief executive of the Center for Education Reform, told the paper. CONTINUE READING: Joe Biden reportedly to be tough on charter schools
‘Black Lives Matter at School’ — a new book on anti-racist work in education - The Washington Post
The movement — connected to but not directly linked to the Black Lives Matter movement — sponsors an annual event called Black Lives Matter at School Week in early February, with the aim of teaching students about Black identity and history, restorative justice and related issues. Thousands of people took part in schools across the country in each of the past two years, according to the organizers, and it has been supported by school boards, unions and other organizations, as well as public officials.
The book is a follow-up to the 2018 “Teaching for Black Lives,” a collection of writings that help educators humanize Black people in curriculum, teaching and policy and connect lessons to young people’s lives.
On Wednesday, Hagopian and Jones will launch the book they co-edited during an online discussion of anti-racist education with Brian Jones. You can tune in to the conversation by getting tickets here.
Hagopian, who teaches ethnic studies at Seattle’s Garfield High School, is a member of the national Black Lives Matter at School steering committee and an editor for Rethinking Schools magazine. Denisha Jones is also on the steering committee and is director of the Art of Teaching, a graduate teacher education program at Sarah Lawrence College. Brian Jones is associate director of education at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and writes about Black education history and politics. CONTINUE READING: ‘Black Lives Matter at School’ — a new book on anti-racist work in education - The Washington Post
Andrea Gabor: We Need Civics Education! | Diane Ravitch's blog
Andrea Gabor, the Bloomberg Professor of Business Journalism at Baruch College of the City University of New York, writes here about the importance of civics education, especially in a time when democracy is under attack by a defeated president and the leadership of the Republican Party.
Put Civics Back in the Classroom, Right Now
Has there ever been a better time to resume lapsed efforts to teach young Americans the structure and purpose of U.S. democracy?
By Andrea Gabor
The presidential election seemed to mark a revival in American civic engagement. A record two-thirds of the electorate voted. Candidates raised at least $3 billion in small-dollar donations, and historic get-out-the-vote efforts had an impact in Nevada, Georgia and elsewhere.
Yet large numbers of Americans appear to believe President Donald Trump’s baseless charges of election fraud. Civic life and discourse have been eroded by the normalization of lying by elected leaders, the CONTINUE READING: Andrea Gabor: We Need Civics Education! | Diane Ravitch's blog
KATY MURPHY - California families sue state over distance learning inequities - POLITICO
A Former Principal, Jamaal Bowman Has A List Of Names For Joe Biden’s Education Secretary | HuffPost
Before he ousted longtime Democrat Rep. Eliot Engel in a stunning primary win earlier this year, Representative-elect Jamaal Bowman was a public middle school principal in New York City. Now, as he prepares to enter the House, Bowman hopes to push President-elect Joe Biden to choose a Secretary of Education that would understand the struggles faced by public school educators.
Bowman’s short list includes Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, the second largest teacher’s union in the country; Dr. Betty Rosa, New York’s state education commissioner; and Freeman Hrabowski, the long time president of University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
The three represent an important set of criteria for Bowman: Rosa and Weingarten were in-classroom educators. All three have experience focusing on underrepresented kids — whether as first-time English learners like Rosa, or an administrator who has emphasized opportunities for Black students in the science and medical fields, like Hrabowski. In Weingarten’s case, Bowman said she also fits the need for a “resurgence of labor.”
Bowman has been a vocal critic of policies put in place in recent years — including by the Obama administration. He’s a staunch critic of charter schools and has advocated against the Common Core standards and the emphasis on standardized testing, despite his own school’s high performance in them. He said his conversations with the Biden team have been positive — but he’s still operating with caution.
Democrats were united in their opposition to the Trump administration’s Education CONTINUE READING: A Former Principal, Jamaal Bowman Has A List Of Names For Joe Biden’s Education Secretary | HuffPost
Teacher Tom: "Now Eat Your Food"
NAEP 2021 Has Been Canceled. State Tests Should Also Be Canceled. | Diane Ravitch's blog
The accountability hawks have decided that NAEP testing must be canceled this spring because of the pandemic, but the burdensome, useless, meaningless annual testing of every single student from grades 3-8 should not be disrupted. Betsy DeVos proposed canceling NAEP, and the director of the National Center for Education Statistics complied. There will be no NAEP 2021.
This is backwards.
If we want to understand the impact of the coronavirus on American students, NAEP testing should go forward. NAEP—the National Assessment of Educational Progress—has been administered to scientific samples of American students since the late 1960s. Since 1992, it has provided state-by-state comparisons. It disaggregates scores by race, gender, income, English language status, disability status, and other criteria. It measures achievement gaps among whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians. It supplies the same valuable information for a score of urban district that volunteer to be tested. No stakes are attached to NAEP results.
In short, NAEP is the ideal gauge for measuring the CONTINUE READING: NAEP 2021 Has Been Canceled. State Tests Should Also Be Canceled. | Diane Ravitch's blog
Waiting for the Secretary of Education. – Fred Klonsky
It was disturbing to read the Arne Duncan tweet yesterday.
Although it was classic Arne, including words like “rigor” and “successful teachers,” without ever having to define what that all means.
When Arne was Obama’s Secretary of Education it was all about accountability as a race to the top, measured by test scores.
Federal funding was distributed on the basis of how students performed on standardized tests.
Test scores defined the successful teacher.
In Illinois, in order to even apply for a Race to the Top federal grant, laws were passed by the state legislature that tied teacher evaluation to individual student test scores.
Innovative teaching became the enemy of a good teacher performance review.
Then came Betsy DeVos. Her four year tenure as Secretary of Education was a full on CONTINUE READING: Waiting for the Secretary of Education. – Fred Klonsky
CURMUDGUCATION: Is This How Post-pandemic Ed Tech Will Be Different
Andreesen Horowitz is a silicon valley venture capitalist investment firm looking to strike it rich in the ed tech world. That is more than enough reason to distrust them (here's just one article laying out how vc firms--particularly tech ones--are wrecking our world). But they want to play in the ed tech sandbox, which is another reason. But they have some thoughts about how ed tech will look after the pandemic, and it is always important to keep an eye on where the vultures are circling.
"Edtech's Answer to Remote Learning Burnout" comes from Anne Lee Skates and Connie Chan. Chan is a specialist in Chinese consumer tech investment, while Skates graduated from Princeton, started a failed company, went to work for McKinsey, and ended up with Andreesen Horowitz (she also came to the Us from Taiwan to become a violinist and performed a solo at the 49th Grammy Awards, so that's cool). No education background in either case.
As always with investment articles, this is less about prediction and more about selling. Consider this paragraph from the introduction:
Public schools’ budget limitations have created a surge in alternative avenues of education, for CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Is This How Post-pandemic Ed Tech Will Be Different

























