Mind the Gap: The Violence Of Pandemic Dashboards – Wrench in the Gears

Mind the Gap: The Violence Of Pandemic Dashboards – Wrench in the Gears

Mind the Gap: The Violence Of Pandemic Dashboards

It is vitally important that people of the world recognize how public health policy in many nations has been harnessed to global markets. Instead of serving those at risk of sickness and death, these policies of financialization are constructed to benefit social impact investors. Transnational global capital demands the creation of new investment products to circulate the holdings of billionaires and further concentrate their wealth. This program continues to advance even as poverty rates skyrocket under conditions of economic lockdown. Social impact finance is the centerpiece of this new era of “stakeholder capitalism,” which was launched with great fanfare in Davos this January.

Data-driven “pay for success” deals are structured around the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). “Health” is goal number three. The World Bank has played a role in creating new investment products aligned to the UN SDGs. You can read more about the UN SDG financial apparatus here.

“Pay for success” finance is a performance-based contracting system that been applied to a wide range of social issues ranging from pre-k, mental health and elder-care services to workforce training and supportive housing. It clear to me that “pandemic preparedness” is being fitted out for pay for success profit-taking, too.

The “pay for success” finance model  works as follows:

1. Identify a social problem. In this case the possibility of a pandemic.

2. Get an academic institution or think tank to cost out the problem as a negative externality. Remember, the more expensive the problem, the CONTINUE READING: Mind the Gap: The Violence Of Pandemic Dashboards – Wrench in the Gears

John Klyczek: Proposed Federal "Distance Learning" Rules Help Big Tech Shut Down Brick-and-Mortar Public Schools, Replace Human Teachers with AI | Dissident Voice

Proposed Federal "Distance Learning" Rules Help Big Tech Shut Down Brick-and-Mortar Public Schools, Replace Human Teachers with AI | Dissident Voice

Proposed Federal “Distance Learning” Rules Help Big Tech Shut Down Brick-and-Mortar Public Schools, Replace Human Teachers with AI

The DeVos Department of Education’s new “Proposed Rules” for federal regulations of “Distance Education and Innovation” (85 FR 18638) will effectively open the floodgates for online education corporations to put public brick-and-mortar schools out of business by streamlining “adaptive-learning and other artificial intelligence” technologies that replace “human instructors” with “competency-based education (CBE)” software which provide “direct assessment” through “subscription-based” courseware that data-mine students’ cognitive-behavioral algorithms to “personalize” digital lessons.

What Is Computerized CBE? No More Classrooms, No More “Credit Hours”

As I have documented in several articles, “CBE” is a euphemism for educational methods that deploy computer modules based on Harvard Psychologist B. F. Skinner’s “teaching machines,” which implement operant-conditioning methods to “shape” student learning into “competent” behaviors geared toward college or career readiness. The terms “competency-based education” and “CBE” are used 147 times in the new Proposed Rules for 85 FR 18638, which is a total of 64 pages long. Compare this to the 392-pages of federal legislation that cover the entire Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which only contains 6 references to “competency-based education.”

According to Skinnerian CBE advocates, competency-based computer learning at home is better than human instruction in a classroom because the one-to-one student/computer ratio enables each student to learn at his or her own pace. 85 FR 18638 states “CBE programs . . . measure student progress based on their demonstration of specific competencies rather than sitting in a seat or at a computer for a prescribed period of time. Many CBE programs are designed to permit students to learn at their own pace.” Stated differently, when a student enrolled in CBE courseware is ready to move on to the next CONTINUE READING: Proposed Federal "Distance Learning" Rules Help Big Tech Shut Down Brick-and-Mortar Public Schools, Replace Human Teachers with AI | Dissident Voice

David Berliner: How “Successful” Charter Schools Cull and Skim Students They Don’t Want | Diane Ravitch's blog

David Berliner: How “Successful” Charter Schools Cull and Skim Students They Don’t Want | Diane Ravitch's blog

David Berliner: How “Successful” Charter Schools Cull and Skim Students They Don’t Want

I recently wrote an article that referred to charter schools that succeed by excluding students with disabilities, English learners, and others unlikely to get high scores. The editor questioned if this claim was accurate. I turned to several expert researchers to ask their view, and they all agreed with my assertion. David Berliner of Arizona State University—one of the nation’s pre-eminent researchers and statisticians—had data to back it up, and I invited him to write an essay addressing this issue.

He wrote:

Culling, Creaming, Skimming, Thinning: Things We Do to Herds and School Children

To cull is to select things you intend to reject, often in reference to a group of animals. An outbreak of hoof-and-mouth disease can cause authorities to order a cull of farm pigs. An outbreak of low-test scores or a meeting with undesirable parents can promote the culling of charter students. To cream is to remove something choice from an aggregate, such as selecting the best and the brightest appearing students and families for acceptance to a charter or private school.

Diane Ravitch was recently criticized for writing that charter schools, supported by public tax money, engage in skimming and creaming students and families. Ravitch, however is right! Public charter schools, and private CONTINUE READING: David Berliner: How “Successful” Charter Schools Cull and Skim Students They Don’t Want | Diane Ravitch's blog

Russ on Reading: Celebrating Poetry Month: Poems From the School Hallways

Russ on Reading: Celebrating Poetry Month: Poems From the School Hallways

Celebrating Poetry Month: Poems From the School Hallways

Once more in honor of April being Poetry Month, here are three poems that all derived from incidents I observed during my more than 50 years in school hallways. Those hallways always seemed a beehive of activity to me. I try to capture some of that here.

These poems are from my book, There's a Giant in My Classroom, Infinity Press, 2013. Please feel to copy and use for classroom and instructional purposes.

Becky’s Hopping, Hopping, Hopping Down the Hall CONTINUE READING: Russ on Reading: Celebrating Poetry Month: Poems From the School Hallways

Cleveland Plain Dealer Cuts Experienced Education Reporter and Eliminates Full Time Education Beat | janresseger

Cleveland Plain Dealer Cuts Experienced Education Reporter and Eliminates Full Time Education Beat | janresseger

Cleveland Plain Dealer Cuts Experienced Education Reporter and Eliminates Full Time Education Beat

Late Friday afternoon, Advance Publications, the corporation that owns the Cleveland Plain Dealer, along with the separate newsroom at the cleveland.com website, finished purging the experienced beat reporters at the Plain Dealer. Patrick O’Donnell, the newspaper’s longtime education reporter, was one victim of the mass action. His loss will leave education policy, central to O’Donnell’s beat, to be covered by cleveland.com‘s statehouse reporters if education policy, primarily a children’s issue, rises to a level that will attract their attention.

Here is what has happened to the Plain Dealer in the past week.

The reporters at the Plain Dealer have long been unionized; the reporters at cleveland.com are non-unionized and less experienced. Everyone agrees that Advance Media used the pandemic-driven decline in advertising revenue as an excuse to break the union.

Covering this week’s staff reductions at the Plain Dealer as part of an article about the implications of the pandemic-driven collapse in advertising revenue across America’s newspapers, the NY Times‘ Mark Tracy makes a careful distinction for Cleveland.  He points out:  “The near-collapse of this venerable Cleveland daily, owned by Advance Publications, coincided with the economic downturn.”  (Emphasis mine.)

The Cleveland Scene‘s Vince Grzegorek describes the two week purge at the Plain Dealer: “Fourteen Plain Dealer journalists were left after last Friday’s massive layoffs that saw 22 staffers depart. Those who remained were subjected, on the very next business day, to the cruelest and perhaps final installment of local union-busting by Advance Publications and the Newhouse family. They were told… that they could keep their jobs but not their beats, or even their geographic coverage areas. They would be dispatched to cover the hinterlands of Cleveland, not Cleveland itself.  Should they remain they would serve as a bureau covering Cuyahoga’s surrounding counties, but not Cuyahoga itself, and not so much of those counties that the news could be considered statewide in importance.”

After 10 reporters resigned on Friday, an editor brought in two weeks ago to accomplish the staff reductions, Tim Warsinskey spun the story: “Today, 10 of our reporters and CONTINUE READING: Cleveland Plain Dealer Cuts Experienced Education Reporter and Eliminates Full Time Education Beat | janresseger

Big Education Ape: Faulty Billionaire Financed Education “Study” | tultican - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2020/04/faulty-billionaire-financed-education.html

Bernie Sanders Supporters Have Every Right to Be Furious | gadflyonthewallblog

Bernie Sanders Supporters Have Every Right to Be Furious | gadflyonthewallblog

Bernie Sanders Supporters Have Every Right to Be Furious

Dear non-Bernie Sanders supporters,

Shut up.

Seriously.

Sit down, and shut the fuck up.

You’ve been doing an awful lot of talking lately, and there’s a few things you need to hear.

We, the Bernie supports, are sick and tired of the never-ending flow of bullshit coming out of your mouths.

For the past five years you’ve called us Bernie Bros, Bernie’s Internet army, Russian bots, naive, sexist, racist, privileged, pigs.

Yet women, people of color, LGBTQ folks, social, racial and ethnic minorities make up a sizable portion of our numbers, but somehow we’re prejudiced.

You didn’t listen to us in 2016 when we said Hilary Clinton was unelectable. You didn’t listen to us when we said Donald Trump had a real chance at winning. But you CONTINUE READING: Bernie Sanders Supporters Have Every Right to Be Furious | gadflyonthewallblog

SPECIAL CORONAVIRUS UPDATE Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... The latest news and resources in education since 2007

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007

SPECIAL CORONAVIRUS UPDATE

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

Video: “How countries have informed the public about the coronavirus”

by Larry Ferlazzo / 37min

enriquelopezgarre / Pixabay I’m adding this new CBS News video to: A BEGINNING LIST OF THE BEST RESOURCES FOR LEARNING ABOUT THE CORONAVIRUS The Best Sites For Learning About The World’s Different Cultures

New Article Nails It By Listing “What Teachers Need to Make Remote Schooling Work”

by Larry Ferlazzo / 1h

Prettysleepy / Pixabay What Teachers Need to Make Remote Schooling Work is a new Atlantic article by KRISTINA RIZGA that really nails it. I think every policy-maker and administrator should read it (teachers should, too, but we already know what it says ). You’ll definitely want to read the entire piece, but here are the points she lists: Free, High-Speed Internet for Students Peer-to-Peer Profes

Stop Wasting Money - This App Finds Every Promo Code Online

by Honeysponsored

If you aren't using this tool when you shop online, you're probably wasting money.

Two Helpful Overviews Of Equity Issues Around Remote Teaching

by Larry Ferlazzo / 1h

I think two recent articles provide good overviews of the broad equity issues challenging our shift to online learning: Millions of public school students will suffer from school closures, education leaders have concluded is from The Washington Post. The shift to online learning could worsen educational inequality is from Vox. They’re both useful. However, even though I believe there will be nega

“Responding to Absenteeism – During the Coronavirus Pandemic & Beyond”

by Larry Ferlazzo / 2h

Responding to Absenteeism – During the Coronavirus Pandemic & Beyond is the headline of my latest Education Week Teacher. Four educators share strategies for responding to absenteeism – whether from remote learning or from the physical school. They include a reduced emphasis on negative consequences and a renewed focus on relationship-building. Here are some excerpts:

YESTERDAY

The Value Of Oral Reading In Partners For ELLs & Others

by Larry Ferlazzo / 10h

I am a big advocate of having English Language Learners – and all students – partner up to read text (see A Look Back: Twelve Ways ELLs – & Anyone Else – Can Read & Demonstrate Understanding Of A Textbook Chapter – Add To The List! ). Plenty of research has shown that this kind of activity improves fluency and comprehension, and reading researcher Timothy Shanahan has regularly highlighted it. He

Video: “4 Ways Humans Are Still Evolving”

by Larry Ferlazzo / 12h

Alexas_Fotos / Pixabay I’m adding this new video from The SciShow to The Best Sites For Learning About Human Evolution :

New PBS NewsHour Video Segment: “A glimpse of a second-grade class during the outbreak”

by Larry Ferlazzo / 19h

geralt / Pixabay Check out this short new video segment from the PBS NewsHour:

“Strategies to Support Some of Our Most Vulnerable Students Through Distance Learning”

by Larry Ferlazzo / 21h

Strategies to Support Some of Our Most Vulnerable Students Through Distance Learning is the headline of my latest Education Week Teacher column. Three educators share advice on how to connect to some of our most vulnerable 

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007