THE TOP BANANA: TODAY'S EDUCATION HEADLINES #REDFORED #tbats #COVID-19 #REOPENSCHOOLSSAFELY #COVIDOUTBREAK #CHANGEGONNACOME #BIDEN

 Big Education Ape

THE TOP BANANA
TODAY'S EDUCATION HEADLINES 

Education Research Report: Study: Teacher performance measures may penalize black educators - http://educationresearchreport.blogspot.com/

Panel Discussion Focuses on Small Businesses and Education Amid COVID-19 - Higher Education - https://diverseeducation.com/?p=198994

When will teachers be vaccinated? It depends on where you live - ABC News - https://abcn.ws/2W3zMQz via @ABC

Students struggling with online learning a "wake up call" for universities. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/students-struggling-with-online-learning-a-wake-up-call-for-universities_n_5fd29ee9c5b66a7584135b9b?ncid=engmodushpmg00000004 via @HuffPostEdu

Student Loan Cancellation Sets Up Clash Between Biden and the Left - The New York Times - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/10/us/politics/biden-student-loans.html

COVID-19 closes 18 NYC school buildings on Thursday - New York Daily News - https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/ny-school-buildings-closed-covid-cases-20201211-juqefh6wgrhktpqodiywf32fbm-story.html via @nydailynews

NYC teaching force has grown less white: report - New York Daily News - https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/ny-teaching-force-demographic-data-20201211-5btmez5dkng6bbnzvpaktsyl2e-story.html via @nydailynews

In sudden switch, Loudoun County is returning all students to online learning https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/in-sudden-switch-loudoun-county-returns-all-students-to-online-learning/2020/12/10/9446a98e-3b10-11eb-98c4-25dc9f4987e8_story.html?tid=ss_tw

Chairman of Prince George’s school board to step down https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/chairman-of-prince-georges-school-board-to-step-down/2020/12/10/704f2952-3b47-11eb-98c4-25dc9f4987e8_story.html?tid=ss_tw

As Harlem Children’s Zone moves to export its model nationwide, other city programs offer cautionary tales https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/harlem-childrens-zone-expansion/2020/12/11/9fd0c762-3a7f-11eb-bc68-96af0daae728_story.html?tid=ss_tw

No, public schools are not modeled after factories. Here’s why Betsy DeVos keeps saying they are. - The Washington Post - https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/12/11/no-public-schools-are-not-modeled-after-factories-heres-why-betsy-devos-keeps-saying-they-are/

Ed in the Apple: Education in a Biden Presidency in a Deeply Divided Nation: What Can We Expect? | National Education Policy Center - https://nepc.colorado.edu/node/10666 on @NEPCtweet

NOLA Public Schools COVID-19 cases hold steady at 80, 712 quarantining | The Lens - https://thelensnola.org/?p=558919 by @https://twitter.com/martajewson on @TheLensNOLA

Texas students will still take STAAR tests, but schools won't be rated | The Texas Tribune - https://www.texastribune.org/2020/12/10/texas-staar-tests-school-ratings/ by @AliyyaSwaby on @TexasTribune

Year in review: “Cheers and jeers” for elected leaders https://educationvotes.nea.org/?p=48587#.X9PQZq9Fwmg.twitter via @EdVotes

Negotiations over COVID-19 package stall out https://educationvotes.nea.org/?p=48593#.X9PQiVc01kA.twitter via @EdVotes

Congress must renew key COVID-19 provisions before adjourning - Education Votes - https://educationvotes.nea.org/2020/12/11/congress-must-renew-key-covid-19-provisions-before-adjourning/

DOE Reveals Furlough Plan For Teachers, Other Employees - Honolulu Civil Beat - https://www.civilbeat.org/2020/12/doe-reveals-furlough-plan-for-teachers-other-employees/#new_tab via @civilbeat

Over 14,000 sign petition calling for governor to close schools unless safety recommendations are met - https://wp.me/paQK0g-3Rnx via @CTMirror

San Francisco school district revamps controversial assignment process to boost diversity - SFChronicle.com - https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/San-Francisco-school-district-votes-to-revamp-15786467.php#new_tab on @sfchronicle

Michigan responds to lawsuit filed by Catholic high schools over in-person learning ban - mlive.com - https://www.mlive.com/public-interest/2020/12/michigan-responds-to-lawsuit-filed-by-catholic-high-schools-over-in-person-learning-ban.html#new_tab on @mlive

Florida teacher certification scheme part of federal investigation - https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2020/12/11/florida-teacher-certification-scheme-part-of-federal-investigation/#new_tab on TB_Times

‘A new direction’: Philadelphia school board shifts focus toward academics and equity work - https://www.inquirer.com/education/philadelphia-school-district-board-goals-and-guardrails-hite-20201210.html#new_tab via @PhillyInquirer

CDC: Black, Latino Parents More Concerned About School Reopenings Than Whites | Education News | US News - https://www.usnews.com/news/education-news/articles/2020-12-10/cdc-black-latino-parents-more-concerned-about-school-reopenings-than-whites#new_tab on @USNews

Chicago Teachers Union releases list of demands for reopening Chicago Public Schools - Chicago Sun-Times - https://chicago.suntimes.com/education/2020/12/10/22168143/ctu-teachers-union-in-person-teaching-learning-public-schools#new_tab

The literacy skills of Utah first graders have dropped statewide - https://www.sltrib.com/news/education/2020/12/11/literacy-skills-utah/#new_tab via @sltrib

Texas cancels A-F accountability grades for schools, keeps STAAR for students - https://www.dallasnews.com/news/education/2020/12/10/texas-cancels-a-f-accountability-grades-keeps-staar/#new_tab via @dallasnews

Report: Pension plan for NJEA leadership 'vastly superior' to members' benefits https://politi.co/33Slpmw

Racial and Ethnic Differences in Parental Attitudes... https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6949a2.htm

NYC Educator: My New Job - http://nyceducator.com/2020/12/my-new-job.html

THE TOP BANANA: TODAY'S EDUCATION HEADLINES #REDFORED #tbats #COVID-19 #REOPENSCHOOLSSAFELY #COVIDOUTBREAK #CHANGEGONNACOME #BIDEN

Big Education Ape / 21min

Big Education Ape THE TOP BANANA TODAY'S EDUCATION HEADLINES Education Research Report: Study: Teacher performance measures may penalize black educators - http://educationresearchreport.blogspot.com/ Panel Discussion Focuses on Small Businesses and Education Amid COVID-19 - Higher Education - https://diverseeducation.com/?p=198994 When will teachers be vaccinated? It depends on where you live - A

Grades Tarnish Teaching as well as Learning – radical eyes for equity

Big Education Ape / 21min

Grades Tarnish Teaching as well as Learning Recently on social media, a professor asked if others used rubrics with graduate students. Since rejecting rubrics has been a central component of my career-long efforts to de-grade and de-test teaching and learning, I chimed in. My posts in the comments explaining why I don’t use rubrics were significant outliers because the thread of comments was ove

Fewer Kindergartners Could Signal Big Educational, Financial Troubles For Sacramento City Schools - capradio.org

Big Education Ape / 21min

Fewer Kindergartners Could Signal Big Educational, Financial Troubles For Sacramento City Schools Ann Crisp says her family tried doing “Zoom-school” for their 5-year-old son Lennon earlier this year, but it just didn’t work. She works at home because of the COVID-19 pandemic, so she set her son up in front of a computer next to her desk to make sure he paid attention during class. But her son h

To Joe Biden: Save America’s Children from “Poisonous Pedagogy” | Diane Ravitch's blog

Big Education Ape / 21min

To Joe Biden: Save America’s Children from “Poisonous Pedagogy” Peter Handel writes at Truthout that President-Elect Biden must change education policy if he wants to heal the nation. By his choice for Secretary of Education, Biden must acknowledge the damage done to America’s children by the high-stakes testing regime of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top. Bush’s law and Obama’s program w

Right Wing Disinformation Targets San Diego Schools

Big Education Ape / 21min

Right Wing Disinformation Targets San Diego Schools An error filled online posting, devoid of context, with misleading assumptions has led to death threats and vile messages aimed at staff in the San Diego Unified School District, according to Board of Education Vice President Barrera. Efforts to create awareness of racism as a systemic rather than an individual problem have stoked indignation i

Shawgi Tell: Charter Schools Bully Teachers | Dissident Voice

Big Education Ape / 21min

Charter Schools Bully Teachers | Dissident Voice Charter Schools Bully Teachers It is no accident that fewer than three percent of the nation’s roughly 7,300 charter schools are operated by teachers and that 90% of charter schools do not have a teachers union. So much for the narrative that charter schools started nearly 30 years ago to empower teachers. Some states even allow charter schools to

Will States Require Children Get a Coronavirus Vaccination to Return to School? | The Report | US News

Big Education Ape / 21min

No Vaccine, No School? School and public health officials weigh what it will take to reopen schools and some say requiring a coronavirus vaccine may be just a matter of time. WITH THE FOOD AND DRUG Administration poised to approve the first coronavirus vaccine for use in the U.S. – the start of a major national effort to blunt the spread of a pandemic that’s taken the lives of nearly 300,000 Ame

NewBlackMan (in Exile) TODAY #BLM #BLACKLIVESMATTER

Big Education Ape / 21min

NewBlackMan (in Exile) NewBlackMan (in Exile) TODAY Big Education Ape: THIS WEEK WITH NEWBLACKMAN (IN EXILE) http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2020/12/this-week-with-newblackman-in-exile.html Stopping the Exploitation of Prisoners and Their Families Requires More Comprehensive Solutions by Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. by Mark Anthony Neal / 1h Credit: Bryan Thomas | @DrBenChavis | special to NewB

A VERY BUSY DAY Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... The latest news and resources in education since 2007

Big Education Ape / 21min

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007 Big Education Ape: THIS WEEK IN EDUCATION Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... The latest news and resources in education 

CURMUDGUCATION: OH: Ed Disruptors Want Their Big Test

Big Education Ape / 3h

OH: Ed Disruptors Want Their Big Test F Aaron Churchill, the Fordham Institution's Ohio research director, popped up in the Columbus Dispatch today as a "guest columnist." It's worth noting that his job is "aimed at strengthening education policy in Ohio," which is of course not the same thing as improving education and certainly not the same thing as supporting public education. Churchill's pre

Teacher Tom: Worrying About Using the Words of Diagnosis

Big Education Ape / 3h

Worrying About Using the Words of Diagnosis Several years ago, the mother of one of my students became convinced that her son, a smart, quirky five-year-old, was autistic. Having known him for three years, she asked me what I thought. I told her that I had known many children on the autism spectrum over the years, but that I wasn't qualified to make a diagnosis. When she pressed me, I told her t

Will President Biden Support Public School Teachers and Abandon Awful Obama-Duncan and Trump-DeVos Education Agendas? | janresseger

Big Education Ape / 3h

Will President Biden Support Public School Teachers and Abandon Awful Obama-Duncan and Trump-DeVos Education Agendas? There is widespread anxiety about President Elect Joseph Biden’s choice of a Secretary of Education and his public school policy priorities. Yes, we are bidding farewell to Betsy DeVos, which certainly must be celebrated, but something much more consequential may be happening. Tw

Liability, Thy Name Is Google Meet | deutsch29: Mercedes Schneider's Blog

Big Education Ape / 3h

Liability, Thy Name Is Google Meet In order to educate students in quarantine, our school district is now using the video conferencing tool, Google Meet , which is part of the Google Classroom portfolio of online education products. Google Meet has been billed as “a game changer.” Indeed. The idea of viewing the interior of my students’ homes while teaching them using Google Meet immediately bri

CURMUDGUCATION: Mrs. Gates Still Doesn't Get It, Still.

Big Education Ape / 3h

Mrs. Gates Still Doesn't Get It, Still Last week the New York Times decided to offer one more glowing portrait of Melinda Gates , unintentionally underlining the work of rich folk critic Anand Giridharadas and explaining, again, that she doesn't get the problem of Gates riches in education. She opens with an Emerson quote from her valedictory high school graduation speech about success being the

THE TOP BANANA: TODAY'S EDUCATION HEADLINES #REDFORED #tbats #COVID-19 #REOPENSCHOOLSSAFELY #COVIDOUTBREAK #CHANGEGONNACOME #BIDEN

Big Education Ape / 22h

Big Education Ape THE TOP BANANA TODAY'S EDUCATION HEADLINES The End of Public Schools Would Mean the End of the Common Good - https://jacobinmag.com/2020/12/public-schools-privatization-wolf-

 Big Education Ape

Grades Tarnish Teaching as well as Learning – radical eyes for equity

Grades Tarnish Teaching as well as Learning – radical eyes for equity

Grades Tarnish Teaching as well as Learning

Recently on social media, a professor asked if others used rubrics with graduate students. Since rejecting rubrics has been a central component of my career-long efforts to de-grade and de-test teaching and learning, I chimed in.

My posts in the comments explaining why I don’t use rubrics were significant outliers because the thread of comments was overwhelmingly endorsing rubrics, almost entirely in terms of making grading easier or more transparent as well as providing teachers/professors protection against (hypothetical) students challenging their grades.

One immediate response to my comments is also worth highlighting since a person who doesn’t know me made fairly nasty assumptions about me being like the professors they had in grad school, the “gotcha” professors who use grades to ambush and punish students.

While most of my public (see here and here, for example) and scholarly work rejecting the use of rubrics—especially when teaching writing—has focused on their negative impact, along with grades, on students and learning (see this example), the recent social media thread highlights that grades also tarnish CONTINUE READING: Grades Tarnish Teaching as well as Learning – radical eyes for equity

Fewer Kindergartners Could Signal Big Educational, Financial Troubles For Sacramento City Schools - capradio.org

Fewer Kindergartners Could Signal Big Educational, Financial Troubles For Sacramento City Schools - capradio.org

Fewer Kindergartners Could Signal Big Educational, Financial Troubles For Sacramento City Schools

Ann Crisp says her family tried doing “Zoom-school” for their 5-year-old son Lennon earlier this year, but it just didn’t work.

She works at home because of the COVID-19 pandemic, so she set her son up in front of a computer next to her desk to make sure he paid attention during class. But her son has minor speech and motor skill delays, and it was frustrating for him to sit through three 45-minute online sessions, she says.  

“Because of his delays, even following along doing the alphabets, I needed to be there, right next to him, helping him hold his pencil the right way,” Crisp explained. “It seemed just too much for him.”

Now, Crisp pays about $1,100 a month to keep her would-be kindergartner in a private preschool this year.

Her family is part of a pandemic-era trend that Sacramento and many other school districts are experiencing this year: a massive drop in kindergarten enrollment. 

Early data show Sacramento City Unified School District has about 600 fewer kindergartners this year, and about 1,600 fewer kids overall.

Child advocates and school officials fear the enrollment drop and educational disruptions for the young children could widen existing racial achievement gaps, and endanger school financing in the future.

“We’re very concerned about the effects on our district if we continue to see this level of CONTINUE READING: Fewer Kindergartners Could Signal Big Educational, Financial Troubles For Sacramento City Schools - capradio.org

To Joe Biden: Save America’s Children from “Poisonous Pedagogy” | Diane Ravitch's blog

To Joe Biden: Save America’s Children from “Poisonous Pedagogy” | Diane Ravitch's blog

To Joe Biden: Save America’s Children from “Poisonous Pedagogy”

Peter Handel writes at Truthout that President-Elect Biden must change education policy if he wants to heal the nation. By his choice for Secretary of Education, Biden must acknowledge the damage done to America’s children by the high-stakes testing regime of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top. Bush’s law and Obama’s program were kissing cousins; both were disasters that hurt the most vulnerable children.

Handel quotes Lee-Ann Gray, a clinical psychologist, who says that the American school system is nothing short of traumatic for many Black students and other students of color. In her book, Educational Trauma: Examples From Testing to the School-to-Prison Pipeline, she exposes how schooling in the U.S. routinely undermines students’ mental health, limits their potential, and, in the worst cases, causes lifelong harm.

As a new administration is poised to take the reins of government, Gray says it is time to demand both widespread changes to the U.S. education system and CONTINUE READING: To Joe Biden: Save America’s Children from “Poisonous Pedagogy” | Diane Ravitch's blog

Right Wing Disinformation Targets San Diego Schools

Right Wing Disinformation Targets San Diego Schools

Right Wing Disinformation Targets San Diego Schools

An error filled online posting, devoid of context, with misleading assumptions has led to death threats and vile messages aimed at staff in the San Diego Unified School District, according to Board of Education Vice President Barrera.

Efforts to create awareness of racism as a systemic rather than an individual problem have stoked indignation in far right circles during the Age of Trump. Authors and publications seeking to educate the public and provide previously unheard historical context have been denounced as being racist themselves and part of a left wing conspiracy.

Now San Diego has its own mini-scandal, which should be laughable, except that threats and violence from right wing extremists have become normalized. Ninety percent of extremist-related killings in 2019 were attributable to right wing groups, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

What’s at issue here is a segment of an SDUSD staff development program concerning racial injustice, based on the Racial Healing Handbook by A.A. Singh, which was wildly misrepresented in a “drum up the outrage” article by the Discovery Institute’s Christopher F. Rufo.

The story has been picked up by Murdoch’s New York Post, The Daily Wire (the top right-wing publisher on Facebook), the San Diego County Republican Party’s “News Desk,” and spread via social media nationwide.

KUSI-TV interviewed Barrera, and -to their credit– gave him a decent amount of time to discuss the issues CONTINUE READING: Right Wing Disinformation Targets San Diego Schools

Shawgi Tell: Charter Schools Bully Teachers | Dissident Voice

Charter Schools Bully Teachers | Dissident Voice

Charter Schools Bully Teachers

It is no accident that fewer than three percent of the nation’s roughly 7,300 charter schools are operated by teachers and that 90% of charter schools do not have a teachers union. So much for the narrative that charter schools started nearly 30 years ago to empower teachers. Some states even allow charter schools to hire teachers with no teaching certification. In addition, most charter school teachers are paid less than their public school counterparts and usually have fewer years of teaching experience. Charter school teachers also tend to work longer days and years than public school teachers.

As deregulated “free-market” schools, charter schools, which are more segregated than public schools, see teachers unions as undermining the free, flexible, and autonomous nature of charter schools. Privately-operated charter schools prefer to treat teachers as non-unionized at-will employees, just like employees in most private businesses. Such employees can be hired and fired at any time for any reason; there is no due process. Charter schools do not want to be “bogged down” by any “restrictions.” They wish to do as they please. In exchange for this liberty, charter schools claim they will deliver CONTINUE READING: Charter Schools Bully Teachers | Dissident Voice

Will States Require Children Get a Coronavirus Vaccination to Return to School? | The Report | US News

Will States Require Children Get a Coronavirus Vaccination to Return to School? | The Report | US News

No Vaccine, No School?

School and public health officials weigh what it will take to reopen schools and some say requiring a coronavirus vaccine may be just a matter of time.

WITH THE FOOD AND DRUG Administration poised to approve the first coronavirus vaccine for use in the U.S. – the start of a major national effort to blunt the spread of a pandemic that’s taken the lives of nearly 300,000 Americans, paralyzed the economy and shuttered schools for millions of children – pediatricians and school and public health officials are bracing themselves for and bristling against the onslaught of questioners asking the one thing they don’t want to talk about. At least not yet, anyway.

Will children be required to get vaccinated against COVID-19 to return to school?

"You hear the questions about whether vaccines should be mandatory or not," says Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers. "That's not the question to be asking right now."

[ 

READ: 

The Racial Divide in School Reopening Concern ]

"The questions to be asking right now are, 'Is it effective? Is it going to be free? Is it widely accessible?'" she says. "What we're not doing right now – regardless of what I personally think – we're not weighing in on whether a vaccine should be mandatory or not right now because that's not an appropriate question right now."

The caveats of "right now," "yet" and "at this moment" do a lot of heavy lifting in conversations about immunization requirements, and that's because the answer is complicated and not as straightforward as parents would probably like. Not only does it depend on where families live, as different states have different vaccination requirements for schools, but it also depends on drug companies enrolling more children in their trials in order to amass enough data to show – as CONTINUE READING: Will States Require Children Get a Coronavirus Vaccination to Return to School? | The Report | US News

CURMUDGUCATION: OH: Ed Disruptors Want Their Big Test

CURMUDGUCATION: OH: Ed Disruptors Want Their Big Test

OH: Ed Disruptors Want Their Big Test

F

Aaron Churchill, the Fordham Institution's Ohio research director, popped up in the Columbus Dispatch today as a "guest columnist." It's worth noting that his job is "aimed at strengthening education policy in Ohio," which is of course not the same thing as improving education and certainly not the same thing as supporting public education. Churchill's previous job was program manager at Junior Achievement in Western PA; his college degrees are in History, Exegesis, and Public Policy and Management. 

It helps to understand that Fordham is all in for school choice, that they in fact operate some charter schools in Ohio. Which explains a lot about Churchill's arguments here for making sure that Ohio administers the Big Standardized Test this year. The headline is "Don't cancel K-12 testing when we need data more than ever" and "we" is doing a lot of work here. But as testocrats keep pushing schools to waste precious time and money on testing this year, it's useful to understand what those testophiles are after.

Churchill opens with a quick recap--pandemic, closed schools, big mess, the usual. And in the midst of this, some folks are pushing to waive state assessments again this year. 

"Huge blunder," says Churchill. Analysts predict big learning loss, "yet without state tests nobody can measure the size and scope of the damage. How many Ohio students have been knocked off course CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: OH: Ed Disruptors Want Their Big Test

Teacher Tom: Worrying About Using the Words of Diagnosis

Teacher Tom: Worrying About Using the Words of Diagnosis

Worrying About Using the Words of Diagnosis

Several years ago, the mother of one of my students became convinced that her son, a smart, quirky five-year-old, was autistic. Having known him for three years, she asked me what I thought. I told her that I had known many children on the autism spectrum over the years, but that I wasn't qualified to make a diagnosis. When she pressed me, I told her that her pediatrician, if he thought it warranted, would refer her to someone who could give her a more definitive answer. After consulting several psychologists and other specialists it turned out he was not on the spectrum, but during that period of several weeks his mother had turned her life over to autism, reading and researching, increasingly convincing herself of her own erroneous diagnosis, growing increasingly anxious and distraught, which, naturally, infected the entire family. This is why I had refused to even speculate: amateurs are often wrong.

It had been a brief, but incredibly stressful and unsettled time for this whole family, which is why I remain cautious about speaking to parents about things like autism or sensory processing issues or ADHD or any of the many other conditions with which children might be diagnosed. Rightly or wrongly, even the mere suggestion that a child is not "normal" (another nonsense term) throws an entire family into chaos. Rightly or wrongly, we live in a world in which CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: Worrying About Using the Words of Diagnosis

Will President Biden Support Public School Teachers and Abandon Awful Obama-Duncan and Trump-DeVos Education Agendas? | janresseger

Will President Biden Support Public School Teachers and Abandon Awful Obama-Duncan and Trump-DeVos Education Agendas? | janresseger

Will President Biden Support Public School Teachers and Abandon Awful Obama-Duncan and Trump-DeVos Education Agendas?

There is widespread anxiety about President Elect Joseph Biden’s choice of a Secretary of Education and his public school policy priorities. Yes, we are bidding farewell to Betsy DeVos, which certainly must be celebrated, but something much more consequential may be happening. Two excellent articles this week explore where education policy has been lodged for two decades and what kind of change seems possible with a new administration.

In a interview for The Progressive, Jeff Bryant poses an important question to Derek Black, the constitutional scholar and author of the new book, Schoolhouse Burning: “You write in the book’s introduction that the nation is in the middle of a battle for the long-term viability of public education. How might this battle continue under a Biden presidency?”

Black responds: “It’s going to be great to be rid of Betsy DeVos, at least psychologically, if nothing else. In some respects, she was more of a cheerleader than an executioner (of public schooling) but she cheered on the executioners, especially on the state level. It’s going to be nice that those folks don’t have a friend in Washington, so when they attack public education, they have to do it on their own political capital not hers or the president’s. The other layer to this is that it’s not as though the Obama administration was good. Obama’s education secretary, Arne Duncan, had problematic charter school policies and policies that were part of the war on teachers. Biden hasn’t sounded like he plans on resuming Obama policies, but we CONTINUE READING: Will President Biden Support Public School Teachers and Abandon Awful Obama-Duncan and Trump-DeVos Education Agendas? | janresseger

Liability, Thy Name Is Google Meet | deutsch29: Mercedes Schneider's Blog

Liability, Thy Name Is Google Meet | deutsch29: Mercedes Schneider's Blog

Liability, Thy Name Is Google Meet

In order to educate students in quarantine, our school district is now using the video conferencing tool, Google Meet, which is part of the Google Classroom portfolio of online education products.

Google Meet has been billed as “a game changer.”

Indeed.

The idea of viewing the interior of my students’ homes while teaching them using Google Meet immediately brings to mind one word:

Liability.

In requiring teachers to use video conferencing for quarantined students, my school district has extended the classroom of all of its teachers into students’ homes. We can see into those homes as we conference. It makes me uncomfortable because I do not want to witness something I might be held legally responsible to report even as I feel I am invading student privacy via my official, school presence viewing that private space.

What if I see drugs or drug paraphenalia laying on a table?

What if I witness what appears to be the planning or execution of some other illegal activity?

What if I view or hear evidence of abuse or neglect?

What is my professional liability for  CONTINUE READING: Liability, Thy Name Is Google Meet | deutsch29: Mercedes Schneider's Blog

CURMUDGUCATION: Mrs. Gates Still Doesn't Get It, Still.

CURMUDGUCATION: Mrs. Gates Still Doesn't Get It, Still.

Mrs. Gates Still Doesn't Get It, Still

Last week the New York Times decided to offer one more glowing portrait of Melinda Gates, unintentionally underlining the work of rich folk critic Anand Giridharadas and explaining, again, that she doesn't get the problem of Gates riches in education.

She opens with an Emerson quote from her valedictory high school graduation speech about success being the knowledge that one person has breathed easier because you have lived. That quote, writes David Gelles, "is still ringing in her ears." 

“That’s been my definition of success since high school,” she said. “So if I have an extra dollar, or a thousand dollars, or a million dollars, or in my case, which is absurd, a billion dollars to plow back into making the world better for other people, that’s what I’m going to do.”

This is such a Giridharadian quote-- note that she gets her vast wealth is absurd, but her thought is that she should "plow back" the money rather than contemplate, critique, and act to change the system that allowed her top extract that much money in the first place. These are our modern philanthropists--they can grasp that they have a shit ton of money, and even consider that they ought to do something useful for it, but they can't question that they deserve to have it in the first place, that it is, in fact, theirs theirs all theirs. Philanthropy is swell, but philanthropy set up so that they control their money and remain the arbiters of what should and should not be done with it.

The interview focuses primarily on the medical stuff, and there are plenty of reasons to question CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Mrs. Gates Still Doesn't Get It, Still.