CATCH UP WITH CURMUDGUCATION + ICYMI: Losing An Hour Edition (3/8)

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Losing An Hour Edition (3/8)

 Losing An Hour Edition (3/8)

Surely it's about time to end this whole Daylight Savings baloney. Because as I sit here this morning, it hardly seems worth it.

But here's some reading from the week:

Voucher Programs Undermine Religious Liberty 
The Baptist Joint Committee posts this piece in opposition to voucher programs being used to drain public schools and send money to places like Baptist private schools.

Colonists  
Uncharted is a blog allegedly operated by a former charter school teacher, and it offers some stark and stunning looks at the inside view of charters. This piece is about the realization of a racist system inside the school.

City Fund Spending
The City Fund is the latest organization, featuring many of the same old players, that is out to privatize public schools. Thomas Ultican breaks down some of the organizational and financial connections that are in play for this group. It's not pretty.

No More Middle Ground
Shane Phipps has pretty much had it. This Indiana teacher points out that the legislature just floated a Florida style law that would let charters steal part of the income from a funding levy passed to support public schools.

Trump's Education Policy Is A Chance for Democrats 
Jennifer Berkshire has been traveling in Trump country and noting that his supporters are also big fans of public schools. Will that have implications for the fall election? The Nation has her article.

How The DeVos Rules on Sexual Assault Will Shock Schools  
Betsy DeVos thinks schools and universities are too hard on men accused of sexual assault, and she's about to "fix" that. Politico looks at some of the implications of her coming rules shift.

Betsy DeVos's Problem with Numbers 
DeVos made a visit to the Senate to talk about then budget, and as usual, her talking points included some items that were counter-factual. Valerie Strauss at the Washington Post breaks down the baloney.

100 Years of Teacher Bashing
Have You Heard reminds us that "reform" via shaming and blaming teaches has a long, rich history.

How Will Schools Handle a Pandemic Without Nurses?
Jersey Jazzman crunches some number, builds some charts, and points out that one in five US schools has no nursing coverage. There are details, but the bottom line is that this may not be the best place to be heading into a pandemic.

Black Students Are Being Penalized for their Hair, and That's Bad for Everybody
CNN looks at this issue from the "Wait, Aren't We Living in the 21st Century Filers." An angrifying school trend.

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Losing An Hour Edition (3/8)

CATCH UP WITH CURMUDGUCATION

AND DON'T FORGET PETER GREENE ON FORBES CLICK HERE 

The Complexity of Performance Tasks

29by Peter Greene / 1d

It's spring musical season here in NW PA, and I am back in a small way playing in the pit orchestra for a production of Seussical being put as a co-op between my old school and a neighboring high school. This is an annual enterprise I was part of for years. I've been doing school and community theater in a variety of capacities for almost forty years now, and it's still pretty exciting. There real

MAR 05

Schneider's Indispensable Guide To Research

23by Peter Greene / 2d

I call her the indispensable Mercedes Schneider. When I entered the blogosphere, hers was one of the first names I learned, because I kept coming back to her blog to get the information that wasn't anywhere else. I have (I hear) a reputation for cranking out a lot of writing, but Schneider posts almost daily, writes books, and carries a full time teaching load. And her posts are usually the result

New Book Argues Christian Right Worships Power

by Peter Greene / 2d

Katherine Stewart is an author and journalist who specializes in issues surrounding te separation of church and state. She has a new book coming out-- The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism , and a recent interview at Salon captures some of the highlights. It's always interesting to see what happens when someone whose main beat is not education takes a look at e

MAR 04

IN: Child Labor Is Fun

by Peter Greene / 4d

Some legislators in Indiana are boldly taking on one of the great problems of their state-- too many restrictions on child labor. The bill intends, among other things, to do away with the requirement for student work permits for teens. Because the fact that a teenager is flunking high school should not stand in his way when it comes to serving as a useful meat widget for employers. Full day of sch

NWEA Offers More Testing Baloney

92by Peter Greene / 4d

When a system doesn't work, you have a couple of choices-- you can address the problems that are causing failure, or you can insist that the original system is super-duper and start imposing new rules to try to work around the flaws in your original system. Like the latch that doesn't work properly, but instead of fixing the latch, you just teach everybody to lift and push the door to the side to

MAR 03

Civics and History in the Classroom

by Peter Greene / 4d

The teaching of US history has always been... well, not a hot topic, exactly, but always one that is simmering on a back burner. From the occasional reaction to one brand of civic illiteracy or another (no, that's not an actual power of the President) to the eternal complaint that schools are teaching students to hate America , the civic conversation is always drawn back to the question of how the

How Do We Measure Your Turf?

by Peter Greene / 4d

In which I ponder the various ways in which private money plays in the public sphere, how much we should care about them, and why. Preface/Warning This post is probably going to be long and only sort of related to education. It has an audience of roughly two people-- a guy who periodically kicks at my ass on Twitter, and me. He's unlikely to be moved by anything I have to say, and I'm indulging my

MO: Arresting Librarians

200+by Peter Greene / 4d

If you haven't already, read this piece from Nancy Bailey that makes two points with crystal clarity and detailed support: * school librarians are an essential part of teaching reading in school (scientifically or otherwise) * school librarian jobs are being shed in many major cities at an alarming and distressing thoroughness. School librarians are essential, and they are a popular target for the

MAR 02

Free Market Winners and Losers

30by Peter Greene / 5d

One of the foundational arguments of modern ed reform is that free market forces would make education work better, that having to compete would make public and private schools work harder, smarter, better and create a rising tide of educational awesomeness that would lift all boats. This is unlikely for a variety of reasons, but the biggest problem with the free market when it comes to public educ

MAR 01

ICYMI: Making Up My Mind Edition (3/1)

by Peter Greene / 7d

I've held onto the privilege of not having to make up my mind about the Dem race, but more and more I find myself gravitating to Elizabeth Warren. Not perfect, but none of them are. I like her combination of policy, plan and temperament. And the whole smartness thing. Anyway. I figured you were just dying to know. Here's some reading from the week. The Myths of Learning Styles From the Atlantic, a

FEB 28

What Ever Happened To AltSchool?

27by Peter Greene / 8d

You remember AltSchool, the miraculous Silicon Valley technoschool that was going to Change the Game. We've checked in on them from time to time, and it's time to see what has happened since the Altschool ship ran aground on the 

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

Schools and the Coronavirus | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Schools and the Coronavirus | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Schools and the Coronavirus

Close the schools, an anxious neighbor says on Nextdoor (a local online bulletin board), when a parent of two school children in the community in which I live became infected with the coronavirus. Public schools so far have remained open but nearby private schools have closed. Stanford University suspended face-to-face classes for next week telling faculty to teach online remaining classes in the quarter. No local district has yet closed its public schools. But whether to keep public schools open or shut remains in the air. Parents scramble to hire people just in case the schools do close but their workplaces remain open It is a day-by-day anxiety-fest. But not only in this affluent community.

In New York City, there are 1.1 million students of whom three-quarters are designated as poor. A recent article makes clear that schools do more than teach content and skills.

… {S]chool may be the only place they can get three hot meals a day and medical care, and even wash their dirty laundry.

That is why the city’s public schools will probably stay open even if the new coronavirus becomes more widespread in New York. Richard A. Carranza, the schools chancellor, said earlier this week that he considered long-term closings an “extreme” measure and a “last resort.”

Responses from Palo Alto and New York City public schools strip away the cloak of hidden inequalities that are endemic to American life in 2020. Should CONTINUE READING: Schools and the Coronavirus | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Jersey Jazzman: NJ School Nurses: A Data-Driven View

Jersey Jazzman: NJ School Nurses: A Data-Driven View

NJ School Nurses: A Data-Driven View

In my last post, I note that one in five U.S. public schools has no nursing coverage.

Given the COVID-19 outbreak, this is disturbing. School nurses are on the front lines of pediatric care, and a critical part of any response this nation will have to a pandemic. Every American child deserves access to a qualified, well-trained school nurse.

Ed Fuller at Penn State (as big an edu-data geek as yours truly) has tweeted out some graphs showing the distribution of nurses in Pennsylvania schools.

Philly School Counselors United@PhillySCU

 · 1h

Is this what #phled students deserve??? @GovernorTomWolf @PADeptofEd @AFTPA @rweingarten @DianeRavitch @RepDanMiller @Senatorcosta @ASCAtweets @SenatorHughes @RepKenyatta @pedroarivera2 @PhillyMayor @HelenGymAtLarge @kendraforphilly @aclupa @RepFiedler @larryfarnese @newskag

Ed Fuller@EdFuller_PSU

Schools serving our children most in need of counselors & nurses are least likely to have access to them in PA. We must change that!

2

8:37 AM - Mar 8, 2020

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See Ed Fuller's other Tweets

What do we see? In PA, nursing coverage decreases when poverty rises, in elementary, middle, and high schools. In other words, at a time when the coronavirus threat is looming, Pennsylvania's neediest children are less likely to get the medical care they need at school.

Given all this, I thought it would be useful to take a look at how New Jersey's school CONTINUE READING: Jersey Jazzman: NJ School Nurses: A Data-Driven View

'Chilling': Erik Prince Recruited Ex-Spies to Help Project Veritas Infiltrate Groups 'Hostile' to Trump Agenda | Common Dreams News

'Chilling': Erik Prince Recruited Ex-Spies to Help Project Veritas Infiltrate Groups 'Hostile' to Trump Agenda | Common Dreams News

'Chilling': Erik Prince Recruited Ex-Spies to Help Project Veritas Infiltrate Groups 'Hostile' to Trump Agenda
"They didn't succeed in their attempt to hurt our union," said American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten, "but note what the right wing will do to try to eliminate workers' voice."

An explosive New York Times report revealed Saturday that notorious war profiteer Erik Prince recruited former American and British spies to work with the right-wing group Project Veritas to infiltrate at least one Democratic congressional campaign and organizations "considered hostile" to President Donald Trump's agenda.

"Secretary DeVos' brother was directly involved in a spying scheme in her home state against a teachers' union she's been hostile with for years. If this doesn't clear the bar for an immediate Congressional investigation, nothing does."
—Derek Martin, Allied Progress

Prince is the brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and founder of the mercenary firm Blackwater. Through a spokesperson, he declined the Times' request for comment on the piece, which is based on interviews and documents obtained by the newspaper, including internal Project Veritas emails.

"Both Project Veritas and Mr. Prince have ties to President Trump's aides and family," the Times noted. "Whether any Trump administration officials or advisers to the president were involved in the operations, even tacitly, is unclear. But the effort is a glimpse of a vigorous private campaign to try to undermine political groups or individuals perceived to be in opposition to Mr. Trump's agenda."

The results of the Times' investigation were described by readers on social media as "chilling," "stunning," and "insane." Jacobin magazine assistant editor Alex Press declared, "My paranoid fantasies are all true!" In response to a tweet about the reporting, author and activist Naomi Klein simply wrote, "Read."

The consumer watchdog group Allied Progress responded with a statement Saturday night, calling on the House Oversight Committee to conduct an immediate investigation into what DeVos knew about Prince's activities.

"There's not a lot of dots to connect here," said Allied Progress director Derek Martin. "Secretary DeVos' brother was directly involved in a spying scheme in her home state CONTINUE READING: 'Chilling': Erik Prince Recruited Ex-Spies to Help Project Veritas Infiltrate Groups 'Hostile' to Trump Agenda | Common Dreams News

Coronavirus: Northern California school district cancels classes - Los Angeles Times

Coronavirus: Northern California school district cancels classes - Los Angeles Times

Northern California’s largest school district cancels classes amid coronavirus fears

The largest school district in Northern California, the Elk Grove Unified School District, canceled classes and sports games through Friday after a family associated with the Elk Grove Unified School District was exposed to the new coronavirus and placed on quarantine to see if they were infected with coronavirus and would get sick.

All school activities were also canceled, though officials stressed there were no confirmed cases linked to the school.

The move comes as schools across California are responding to coronavirus.

Murrieta school officials said 71 students have been placed in self-quarantine after a school employee was tested for the coronavirus.

The employee had recently been to a country where the coronavirus was spreading, according to the Murrieta Valley Unified School District, which said Murrieta Valley High School would be closed Monday and cleaned.

Stanford University said Friday night that it will move classes online for the final two weeks of the winter quarter. Stanford also said large events would be “canceled or adjusted.”

USC said Friday that it would conduct lectures and seminars online rather than in classrooms for three days next week as a test should it be forced to suspend in-person contact.

San Francisco’s Lowell High School announced it would close and cancel events and gatherings for at least the rest of the week after it was learned that a relative of one of  CONTINUE READING: Coronavirus: Northern California school district cancels classes - Los Angeles Times

If Coronavirus Closes U.S. Schools, What to Expect - The Atlantic

If Coronavirus Closes U.S. Schools, What to Expect - The Atlantic

What Could Happen if the Coronavirus Closed Schools for Days, Weeks, or Even Months
We can get a sense of what to expect from Hong Kong, where students have already been out of school for more than a month.

On Wednesday afternoon, Pete Lewis—the superintendent of the public-school district of the small town of Colville, in the northeast corner of Washington State—was awaiting the test result that would determine whether Colville schools would stay closed for a fourth consecutive day.

Over the previous weekend, administrators had received word that a member of the Colville School District community was being tested for the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease known as COVID-19 (for privacy reasons, Lewis did not specify whether it was a student, staff member, or another affiliated person). After consulting with health officials, Lewis and his colleagues decided on Sunday night to close the schools starting Monday, until further notice. Colville schools’ staff and their 1,700 K–12 students stayed home while the schools—as well as administrative buildings, buses, and other vehicles and properties associated with the school district—underwent a two-day deep cleaning.

On Wednesday, the cleaning process had been completed, and Lewis was sitting in his recently disinfected office, waiting for the call. “We’re at the mercy of waiting for those results,” he said. In the meantime, he was thinking through the logistics of getting student-athletes back to practice. If negative test results came in soon enough, he reasoned, perhaps some could be back on the field later that afternoon.

As of Thursday morning, the novel coronavirus had spread to more than 80 countries, and roughly a dozen countries have reported widespread school closures that aim to help contain the spread of the disease. Globally, more than 290 million children between preschool and 12th grade have been dismissed from school due to COVID-19, some for weeks now.

Lewis eventually got the result he was hoping for, and schools in Colville reopened on Thursday. But while Colville’s closure was brief, if the virus becomes more widespread in the U.S. it’s likely that many areas will see longer-term closures. This is what is currently happening in Hong Kong, where an abundance of caution has kept schools CONTINUE READING: If Coronavirus Closes U.S. Schools, What to Expect - The Atlantic

EdAction in Congress March 8, 2020 - Education Votes - Schools and coronavirus: what you need to know

EdAction in Congress March 8, 2020 - Education Votes

EdAction in Congress March 8, 2020

Schools and coronavirus: what you need to know

Congress took quick, bipartisan action to address the public health emergency posed by COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. An $8.3 billion emergency supplemental appropriations package passed the House 415-2, and the Senate 96-1. In a letter to lawmakers, NEA underscored the need to protect educators, education support professionals, and other public-facing workers. Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) called on Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to outline a coronavirus preparedness plan for students of all ages.

What can you do? Preparation and handwashing are key, but there are the other things you should consider as well. Learn more

DeVos forced to backtrack on cuts to rural schools

In the face of a bipartisan outcry, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos retreated from a bookkeeping change that would have caused more than 800 rural, low-income schools to lose critical funding from the Rural Education Achievement Program (REAP). The change entailed how districts report the number of students living in poverty. For the last 17 years, REAP payments have been based on the number of students eligible for free and reduced-price lunch. DeVos prohibited that approach and decreed that schools must use census data instead, claiming the law requires it. She agreed to maintain the status quo for at least a year after receiving a strongly worded letter signed by 21 senators from both parties, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). Take the pledge to fire Betsy DeVos.

$100 billion for schools added to infrastructure package

NEA President Lily Eskelsen García joined Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), House Education and Labor Committee Chairman Bobby Scott (D-VA), NEA member and former National Teacher of the Year Jahana Hayes (D-CT), Rep. Donald Norcross (D-NJ), and national education leaders for a press event about adding the Rebuild America’s Schools Act (S. 266/H.R. 865) to House Democrats’ Moving Forward infrastructure framework. The bill makes a $100 billion investment in repairing and improving the physical and digital infrastructure of public schools across America. “The most important investment a country can make is in the education of our children,” Pelosi said.  Learn more

Cheers and Jeers

Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Jack Reed (D-RI) and Reps. Susan Davis (D-CA) and Rodney Davis (R-IL) introduced bipartisan resolutions in their respective chambers designating March 2, 2020, Read Across America Day.

Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Jon Tester (D-MT) led the letter that got Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to maintain the current approach to calculating REAP payments for a year.

“Don’t give me a block grant,” Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) said at a HELP Committee hearing on the Trump/DeVos 2021 budget proposal.

Asked why the Trump/DeVos 2021 budget proposal eliminates public service loan forgiveness, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos responded, “The administration feels that incentivizing one type of job or one type of work over another isn’t called for.”

EdAction in Congress March 8, 2020 - Education Votes