KEEP UP/ CATCH UP WITH DIANE RAVITCH'S BLOG A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

KEEP UP/ CATCH UP WITH DIANE RAVITCH'S BLOG 

A site to discuss better education for all

Chalkbeat: Big Education Philanthropists Are Missing in Action on Coronavirus Response

by dianeravitch / 22min

Matt Barnum of Chalkbeat checked to see what the billionaire philanthropists are doing in response to the coronavirus. The answer: Not much. When asked to underwrite charter schools, Teach for America, and wacky teacher-evaluation systems, they shell out hundreds of millions of dollars. When the nation’s schools are closed by a pandemic, and it’s clear that millions of children need food security

FOX New Guests Withdraw Their Statements About Coronavirus

by dianeravitch / 10h

FOX New commentator s have been apologizing . Dr. Drew said on FOX News that the flu was far worse than the coronavirus. Dr. Anthony Fauci pointed out that the coronavirus has a mortality rate that is ten times worse than the flu. Dr. Drew apologized. Dr. Phil said that automobile crashes, swimming deaths, and smoking cause more deaths than COVID-19, yet we don’t close down the country for them.

Dana Milbank: Trump’s Big Lie About the World Health Organization

30by dianeravitch / 11h

Dana Milbank is a regular columnist for the Washington Post. He writes : “It would have been so easy to be truthful.” Thus spake President Trump this week on the very day he surpassed the milestone of uttering 18,000 falsehoods during his presidency, as tallied by the Post’s Fact Checker. But on this day, Trump was not admitting to losing his own struggle with the truth. He was accusing the World

Trump Openly Foments Domestic Rebellion

100+by dianeravitch / 15h

Trump took to Twitter to encourage protestors in three states with Democratic governors, urging them to defy authority. Is he violating his oath of office? Trump tweets call to “LIBERATE” states where people are protesting virus restrictions. President Trump on Friday began openly fomenting right-wing protests of social distancing restrictions in states where groups of his conservative supporters

Npe Action Endorses Joe Biden!

by dianeravitch / 18h

Please read the NPE Action endorsement of Joe Biden for President. We support public schools. Donald Trump and his Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, are hostile to the very idea of public schools. They have spent three years proposing deep cuts to public education and attempting to establish federally-funded vouchers for private and religious schools. In contrast, Joe Biden has proposed dramat

Don’t Miss It! Cirque du Soleil is Live-Streaming Tonight for Free!

100+by dianeravitch / 20h

You won’t want to miss this great show! The celebrated acrobatic troupe Cirque du Soleil will be live-streaming a 60-minute performance TONIGHT o f a show called ZED. It was performed only in Tokyo. I have seen this group perform twice, and each time was thrilling. Their aesthetic is dazzling. Their physical grace is astonishing. If you tried to catch their show in Las Vegas, the ticket would cos

New York Review of Books: Trump’s Responsibility for the Spread of Coronavirus

by dianeravitch / 21h

Trump would like everyone to forget what he said in January, February, and March to minimize the danger of the coronavirus. Other nations acted, we did not. He continually gave false assurances that the disease was no problem, that it was under control, that people should proceed with their lives as usual. Fintan O’Toole wrote in the New York Review of Books about the contradictory impulses of Tr

Peter Greene: What Should We Measure When School Re-Opens?

100+by dianeravitch / 22h

I have been thinking about writing a post about the uselessness of standardized tests as a measure of learning, which I may yet do, but then discovered Peter Greene had done his own take on this timeless question : What should we measure? How? Why? If you want a description on my dislike for standardized testing, read my latest book SLAYING GOLIATH. The tests are administered in the spring. The r

Jack Schneider: Pandemic Lays Bare the Gaping Inequities in Our Society

74by dianeravitch / 23h

Jack Schneider, historian of education at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, says that the pandemic lays bare the fact that vast social inequality produces vast educational inequality. So-called reformers have argued that “fixing the schools” will “fix society.” Schneider shows that this is backwards. Readers, please send this article to the teacher-bashers and public-school-bashers at Ed

Laura Chapman: What “Money Follows the Child” Really Means

35by dianeravitch / 1d

Our reader Laura Chapman explains what the phrase “the money follows the child” really means. It’s another way of saying that every child should have “a backpack full of cash” strapped on them, to be spent anywhere. Another way to see it is as a jackhammer to destroy our democratically-controlled system of public schools and turn children over to the tender mercies of the free market. The billion

APR 16

SAT Will Offer Tests Online, Without Supervision

44by dianeravitch / 1d

The College Board relies on the revenues produced by its premier product, the SAT. What to do in a global pandemic? Normally the College Board is very obsessed with test security. But now it has decided students can take the SAT online at home. How will they know who is answering the questions?

Dana Milbank: Is Trump Comparing Himself to Captain Bligh or Captain Queeg?

20by dianeravitch / 1d

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post peers into Trump’s erratic and self-aggrandizing behavior , as tests for coronavirus continue to be few in number and very difficult to obtain for ordinary citizens. Well blow me down and shiver me timbers. As our ship of state founders in tempest-tossed seas, our captain has just likened himself to one of the most reviled villains in maritime history. Presiden

Phoenix: COVID patient Saved by Rare and Risky Blood Treatment

by dianeravitch / 1d

Doctors in Arizona saved a Phoenix man With COVID 19, who was at death’s door, using a rare and risky procedure. This story, written by Alison Steinbach, appeared in The Arizona Republic. A Phoenix man is the first in Arizona to survive COVID-19 through a rare form of treatment called extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) therapy. Enes Dedic, 53, was on the brink of death with a ventilator u

Stephen Dyer: Charter Schools Admit They Are Not Public Schools

100+by dianeravitch / 1d

Stephen Dyer of Innovation Ohio points to the central hypocrisy of charters seeking Coronavirus Relief funds. Public schools are not eligible to request these funds. Thus, charter schools acknowledge that they are NOT public schools. They seek money reserved for small businesses. The squalid aspect of this maneuver is that any money they get is taken away from a business that was forced to close,

Seth Sandronsky Interviews Mercedes Schneider about the Virus and Standardized Tests

33by dianeravitch / 1d

Veteran journalist Seth Sandronsky interviews Louisiana teacher and blogger a Mercedes Schneider about how the coronavirus affected state standardized testing. Schneider makes a bold prediction that states will cut their budgets for testing due to the economic stress caused by the virus. I hope she’s right. Up until now, state legislators have been willing to sacrifice the arts, recess, school nu

Lenore Skenazy: Let Your Children Play

100+by dianeravitch / 1d

Lenore Skenazy wrote this article in the Washington Post . Her advice to helicopter parents: Give up! Relax! Let the children play and figure things out. It is a welcome antidote to the policy wonks who are predicting that American children need constant academic pressure, more testing, more worksheets, held back a grade, or face a life of failure. Skenazy is an advocate of “Free-Range Parenting.

David Deming: Technology Is No Substitute for Real Teachers!

35by dianeravitch / 2d

David Deming, director of the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy at the Kennedy School at Harvard, warns about the possibility of substituting online learning for real teachers . He writes in the New York Times: As the coronavirus pandemic forces schools and college campuses to go online, the delivery model of education — largely unchanged for centuries — has suddenly been disrupted. This ma

APR 15

Trump Threatens to Adjourn Congress and Push Through Nominees

by dianeravitch / 2d

Can he do this? CNN reports that Trump threatens to invoke a “never-used” constitutional authority to adjourn Congress so he can appoint nominees without Congressional approval. President Donald Trump threatened Wednesday to apply a never-used provision of the US Constitution to allow himself to adjourn the US Congress and push through many of his nominees who typically require Senate confirmatio

Have You Seen Any Daffodils This Spring?

36by dianeravitch / 2d

I am sequestered in my son’s home on Long Island with Mary and our 100-pound mutt Mitzi. My son is sequestered in Los Angeles. Whenever the sun shines, we take long walks with Mitzi, and one of the happiest sights is the clumps of daffodils that have popped up. They are the symbol of spring, a token of the earth renewing itself as it does every year, a flower that celebrates the turning of the se

The Intercept: How Trump’s Propaganda Video Backfired

54by dianeravitch / 2d

A few days ago, Trump opened his daily press briefing with a White House-made video intended to prove that he acted decisively to counter the coronavirus threat. The video was a response to a major story in the New York Times about his failure to take the virus seriously but to compare it to the common flu. Trump smiled smugly as the taxpayer-funded tribute to Trump played. As this story in the I

Bob Greenberg: Prominent Educators Explain Why Their Teachers Made a Difference for Them

42by dianeravitch / 2d

Bob Greenberg is a retired teacher who created a mission for himself: He interviews educators and makes short videos about their work. He also asks, in a separate video, which teachers made a difference in your life. He calls his archive the Brainwave Video Anthology. Here is a collection of more than 400 educators describing the teachers that mattered most to them. Scan the list. You will find p

Parent: I Refuse to Run a Coronavirus Homeschool

200+by dianeravitch / 2d

This article was written by Jennifer Weiner , an education professor at the University of Connecticut. She explains why she refuses to follow the worksheets and detailed instructions for her twin sons. She recognizes that she is privileged as a person who has economic security, healthcare and is white. But there’s no reason to believe that children who lack her privileges need to be subjected to

SomeDAM Poet on the $2 Trillion Bailout

by dianeravitch / 2d

Our blog poet reflects to wistfully on the fate of the $2 trillion appropriated by Congress as coronavirus relief for the American people: Where have all the trillion$ gone Long time pa$$ing Where have all the trillion$ gone Long time ago Where have all the trillion$ gone Gone to Wall Street every one When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn?

Nancy Bailey: Beware the Vultures!

100+by dianeravitch / 3d

Nancy Bailey warns us to keep watch for the vultures who want to use the pandemic to attack and control public schools and teachers. They see an opportunity, and they are ready to pounce. She writes: There’s a movement underfoot to end the way children learn. Look carefully at who says “we need to reimagine” or “this is the time to reassess” schools. These can be signals from those who’ve led the

APR 14

Independent Study: Most Relief $$ Flow to Richest

400+by dianeravitch / 3d

An independent agency reported on a little known provision of the corona relief legislation, showing that Mitch McConnell took care of the Republican party’s big donors, again: More than 80 percent of the benefits of a tax change tucked into the coronavirus relief package Congress passed last month will go to those who earn more than $1 million annually, according to a report by a nonpartisan con

Happy Birthday! Noah Webster’s Dictionary!

by dianeravitch / 3d

From Garrison Keillor’s “The Writer’s Almanac”: It was on this day in 1828 that Noah Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language was published (books by this author). Webster put together the dictionary because he wanted Americans to have a national identity that wasn’t based on the language and ideas of England. And the problem wasn’t just that Americans were looking to England for the

Brazil Halts Trial of Trump’s Favorite Drug Because of Risks

47by dianeravitch / 3d

Brazil halted a trial of the drug cocktail that Trump and Giuliani have endorsed: A small study in Brazil was halted early for safety reasons after coronavirus patients taking a higher dose of chloroquine developed irregular heart rates that increased their risk of a potentially fatal heart arrhythmia. Chloroquine is closely related to the more widely used drug hydroxychloroquine. President Trump

South Dakota: Governor Refuses to Take Action to Protect Against Coronavirus

300+by dianeravitch / 3d

The governor of South Dakota is determined not to take any action to restrict individuals’ freedom of movement, like telling them to stay home, closing gatherings, or imposing any limits on freedom of action. Meanwhile the giant Smithfield pork processing plant has closed down because of the spread of the virus, and Sioux City has become a “hot spot.” But the Governor has a plan that she has work

The Washington Post Gives Trump 4 Pinocchios for Touting Unproven Drug

by dianeravitch / 3d

The Washington Post Fact Checker has reviewed Trump’s relentless promotion of an anti-malaria drug and determined that his advocacy is misleading ungrounded in science. Trump received a four Pinocchio rating, the highest possible lie. But I think it could be, based on what I see, it could be a game changer.” — President Trump, at a White House news briefing, March 19, 2020 “ Hydroxychloroquine —

A Wonderful Must-See Story: The Original Cast of “Hamilton” Re-unites!

by dianeravitch / 3d

I was not familiar with the SGN Channel on YouTube and “Some Good News” with John Krasinski. He tells “good news” stories about people helping each other during these hard times. But in the segment noted here, he pulls off a magical experience. Billboard wrote about this amazing show where the host talks online to a little girl who was very disappointed when her trip to New York City to see “Hami

Laura Chapman: School Choice, the Pandemic, and Federal Policy

55by dianeravitch / 3d

Our regular reader and diligent researcher Laura Chapman writes: It is not difficult to see who is busy publicizing and brokering ideas for federal action on pre-K-12 education and who is not. The active players are all in for school choice and they have a “perfect” opportunity to dismantle and starve brick and mortar public schools. Federal policies will jumpstart what happens in states, distric

Gary Rubinstein: Teacher Bashers Just Can’t Stop, Even Now

34by dianeravitch / 3d

Gary Rubinstein teaches high school mathematics in New York City. He is also a husband and a father of two young children. As he describes in his post , he and his wife must monitor their own children’s education at home while he is responsible for teaching his classes online. He is chagrined to see a new round of attacks on teachers in the midst of the pandemic. The teacher-bashers never take a

“The Coronavirus Just Might End School Privatization Nonsense”

1Kby dianeravitch / 4d

This is an essay I wrote for Education Week . I thank them for their close reading, fact-checking, and careful editing. The vast majority of the nation’s schoolchildren are out of school because of the deadly coronavirus. Parents are frantically trying to figure out how to keep their children engaged in learning, and many districts are providing online instruction or recommending resources for le

APR 13

Wisconsin: Liberals Win Crucial Seat on State Court

41by dianeravitch / 4d

The crucial election in Wisconsin was not Biden vs. Sanders, but the decisive seat on the state Supreme Court. Governor Tony Evers wanted to postpone the election. The Republicans fought him and got his cancelation of the election overturned by the courts. Republicans blocked mail-in voting because they thought that fears of the virus would suppress turnout and help their candidate. Milwaukee usu

Now, Sign This Petition to Save IDEA

300+by dianeravitch / 4d

The IDEA act is on jeopardy. This is the act that protects students with disabilities and guarantees their right to a free and appropriate education. The pandemic crisis is a time when the Trump administration is taking radical steps to eliminate and cut back on programs they don’t like. It’s time to save IDEA. http://saveidea.org/ Signs this petition and make your voice heard on behalf of the ch

Watch George Gilder Pander to Trump’s Gut

by dianeravitch / 4d

Happily, I’m on the mailing list of Frank Splitt, who sent me this Wall Street Journal article by George Gilder and his response to it. Gilder thinks that the nation should be grateful that we have a wise president like Trump to make decisions, and we should listen to Trump, not the scientists or medical professionals. Trump has said many times that he listens to his gut and that he knows more th

National Education Leaders Worry That Students Will Fall Behind During School Closures

100+by dianeravitch / 4d

The Washington Post reports that education leaders are worried that students are falling behind due to school closures and extraordinary measures must be taken so they can “catch up.” Of course, there is good reason to worry about children who have experienced months without formal schooling. Many, however, do have access to emergency remote teaching. The children likeliest you have no educationa

Los Angeles: No Student Will Get an F and Schools Will be Closed Until the Fall

100+by dianeravitch / 4d

Howard Blume of the Los Angeles Times reports that no student will get an F grade during the coronavirus closure, and schools will remain closed this summer. Blume writes: No student will receive a failing grade on their spring report card and Los Angeles campuses will be closed not only for the remainder of the academic year, but throughout the summer as well, the district announced Monday. The

Tom Ultican: Billionaire-Funded Group Claims Progressive Are Most Inequitable

20by dianeravitch / 4d

Tom Ultican reports on a billionaire-funded paper that makes the strange claim that the most progressive cities are the most inequitable. The “study,” he points out, was not peer-reviewed nor was it written by scholars with academic credentials. Its central thesis is that progressive cities are less able to educate students of color than conservative cities. Since conservative cities spend less t

Peter Greene: Betsy DeVos Shows Why We Need a Secretary of Education Who Is an Educator

86by dianeravitch / 4d

During her tenure as Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos has taught the public many lessons, most of which she did not intend. Her radical agenda educated the public about the privatization movement and its ambition to cripple public schools. She taught us that there really are people who put the profits of for-profit colleges above the students who were defrauded by them. PeterGreene says she ta

Vicki Cobb: Why Do So Many People Refuse to Believe Proven Facts?

36by dianeravitch / 4d

Vicki Cobb, a writer of science books for children, ponders the question that puzzles so many of us at this time: Why do so many people refuse to believe proven facts? Why do so many prefer to believe myths instead of facts? As Groucho Marx used to say, “Who are you gonna believe? Me or your own lying eyes?” She begins: Recent resistance by some people who refuse to believe the science that predi

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

200+by dianeravitch / 5d

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 rese

APR 12

South Dakota: Major Meat Processor Closing

31by dianeravitch / 5d

South Dakota is one of a very few states that has refused to take steps to protect their citizens from the pandemic. The governor said it’s a rural state and doesn’t need extraordinary measures. She was wrong. One of the nation’s largest meat processors is located in South Dakota and it is closing down because so many of its employees have the coronavirus. Smithfield employees account for half th

L.A. Times: Trump Scrambling to Restore Budget Cuts to Health Agencies

25by dianeravitch / 5d

Trump and his merry band of budget cutters thought the federal government spent too much on public health. Year after year, they have slashed agencies whose mission was to protect the public from pandemics. The Los Angeles Times has the story: It’s an obscure U.S. government bureau with many missions, including this vital one: hunting down viral diseases like COVID-19 that spill over from animals

Johann Neem: On Unbecoming American

20by dianeravitch / 5d

Johann Neem is the author of Democracy’s Schools: The Rise of Public Education in America , in which he describes the creation of public education between the American Revolution and the Civil War and recognizes public schools as an essential building block of a robust democracy. Neem’s family came to America from India when he was a. Dry young child. They settled in California and lived in a div

Garrison Keillor on Easter

by dianeravitch / 5d

This is from Garrison Keillor’s “The Writer’s Almanac”: Today is the Christian holiday of Easter Sunday, the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead three days after his crucifixion. Easter is a moveable feast; in other words, it’s one of the few floating holidays in the calendar year, because it’s based on the cycles of the moon. Jesus was said to have risen from the dead on the first S

New York City: At Least 40 Educators Dead of Virus But Department of Education Refuses to Release Their Names

100+by dianeravitch / 5d

Chalkbeat reports that at least 40 NewYork City educators have died because of the coronavirus but the Department of Education refuses to release their names or to explain their reticence. Christina Veiga writes: Rosario Gonzalez, a 91-year-old paraprofessional who cared tenderly for children in an East Harlem special education program, rarely missed a day of work in more than three decades. Clau

A Special Message to the Readers of This Blog

32by dianeravitch / 6d

This blog was started on April 12, 2012. Today is its 8th anniversary. During that time, you have been wonderful readers. Your support has kept me going. I’ve shared with you the news stories, posts by bloggers I respect, occasional humor, and even some personal advice. My goal for eight years has been to create a broad awareness of the failure of privatization and standardized testing to improve

APR 11

New York: Parents Call on Mayor and Governor to Stop Squabbling

400+by dianeravitch / 6d

Mayor Bill DeBlasio announced this morning that the city’s public schools would remain closed for the rest of the academic year, but lessons online would continue. Governor Andrew Cuomo promptly contradicted the mayor and asserted the decision was his, not the mayor’s. Parents were outraged by the childish food fight. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Natasha Capers, 347.610.2754, ncapers@nyccej.org

Weber Middle School Chorus: “Seasons of Love”

35by dianeravitch / 6d

The Port Virtual Choir from the Port Washington, New York, school district sings “Seasons of Love.” A great way to overcome social isolation!

The Getty Museum Invites Home Artists to Create Their Own

by dianeravitch / 6d

The Getty Museum in Los Angeles invited the public to select a favorite work of art and recreate it in their home, using familiar objects. The results are impressive.

What Public School Employees Need to Know about the CARES Law

1Kby dianeravitch / 6d

Terri Michal is a member of the elected board of education in Birmingham, Alabama. She writes: I love public education employees. They are the most resourceful group of people you could ever meet. They have to be. These employees work in an atmosphere of politics and nepotism. They suffer through Legislators and administrators that create policies for them even though many of these policy makers

William Doyle and Pasi Sahlberg: This Is What Should Change After the Pandemic

100+by dianeravitch / 6d

The standards and testing cabal wants to preserve the status quo ante and double down on accountability and NCLB-style measures after the pandemic. The choice crowd wants to push their agendas subsidizing anything and everything while slashing public schools. William Doyle and Pasi Sahlberg have a different vision. They want learning to be creative and joyful. They describe their ideas on Valerie

Is Distance Learning the Wave of the Future?

100+by dianeravitch / 7d

We have known for a long while that the worst scandals in the charter sector are intertwined with online learning and cyber charters. Consider the bankruptcy last year of ECOT (the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow) in Ohio, whose owner collected $1 billion from the state over nearly 20 years, but declared bankruptcy rather than pay the state $60 million for inflated enrollments. Then there is the

APR 10

Dana Milbank: When You Drown Government in a Bathtub, People Die

500+by dianeravitch / 7d

Dana Milbank, opinion writer for the Washington Post, says that the a Republican right wing finally have the helpless federal government they have longed for, and people are dying because of the government’s incompetence. Is this a polite way of saying that the Tea Party libertarians have blood on their hands? Note: there are only two areas where these people are eager and willing to lavish publi

World Bank Changes Policy on For-Profit Privatized Schools

100+by dianeravitch / 7d

Until recently, the World Bank has been a vocal supporter of for-profit privatized education such as that offered by Bridge International, which had been expanding rapidly in Africa. Thanks in large part to the work of Education International , a world confederation of teachers’ unions, the World Bank has changed its policy. In a sudden and far-reaching policy shift, World Bank President David Ma

Cleveland: Billionaire-Owned Corporation Kills Local Newspaper

90by dianeravitch / 7d

Patrick O’Donnell is one of the best education journalists in the nation. He has covered charter and cyber charter scandals in Cleveland and in Ohio without fear or favor. Ohio, as you may have noticed, is awash in charter corruption. O’Donnell worked for the Cleveland Plain-Dealer until last weekend, when the newspaper pushed out its leading journalists and told them they could cover far-flung a

Wisconsin: How the GOP Sabotaged the Primary

100+by dianeravitch / 7d

Wisconsin long ago scheduled its primaries for April 7. When the dimensions of the public health crisis became apparent, Governor Tony Evers tried to postpone the election and to encourage voting by mail. Evers’s order to postpone the election was overturned by the state court, and its ruling was sustained by the U.S. Supreme Court, voting along partisan lines. Hundreds of thousands of people wer

Watch This 5-Minute Video About the Nefarious Goal of EduBusiness

30by dianeravitch / 7d

Professor Les Perelman, who taught writing at MIT , recently was honored by the New South Wales Teachers Federation for his successful effort to stop the “robo-grading” of tests in Australia. He demonstrated how easy it was to deceive the machines grading thousands of tests in only seconds. Perelman speaks here about the importance of public education, critical thinking, and the dangers posed by

G.F. Brandenburg: Who Is Getting $2 Trillion?

41by dianeravitch / 8d

G.F. Brandenburg wonders where the $2 trillion is going. A retired math teacher, he did the numbers. If every American gets $1,200, that’s $400 billion. That’s 20%. Who gets the other 80%? Politico reported on April 8 that 

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

Why covid-19 will ‘explode’ academic achievement gaps - The Washington Post

Why covid-19 will ‘explode’ academic achievement gaps - The Washington Post

Why covid-19 will ‘explode’ existing academic achievement gaps

The Washington Post published a story saying that millions of students are at risk for severe learning loss during the coronavirus epidemic and discussing some of the unprecedented steps to help them catch up. This post is a follow-up of sorts, looking at exactly why achievement gaps will “explode,” according to the scholar and author Richard Rothstein, who wrote it.

Rothstein, whose research and writings on segregation in America have been important, is a distinguished fellow of the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute and a senior fellow emeritus at the Thurgood Marshall Institute of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and of the Haas Institute at the University of California at Berkeley.

He is the author of a number of books, including his most recent, the award-winning “The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How our Government Segregated America.”

A former national education writer for the New York Times, Rothstein also wrote books including “Grading Education: Getting Accountability Right” and “Class and Schools: Using Social, Economic and Educational Reform to Close the Black-White Achievement Gap.” In 2013, Rothstein wrote a report titled “For Public Schools, Segregation Then, Segregation Since: Education and the Unfinished March.”

This first appeared on the community development website Shelterforce, and Rothstein gave me permission to republish it.

By Richard Rothstein

The covid-19 pandemic will take existing academic achievement differences between middle-class and low-income students and explode them.

Sign up for our Coronavirus Updates newsletter to track the outbreak. All stories linked in the newsletter are free to access.

The academic achievement gap has bedeviled educators for years. In math and reading, children of CONTINUE READING: Why covid-19 will ‘explode’ academic achievement gaps - The Washington Post

BREAKING NEWS: Texas has first statewide African American studies course | Cloaking Inequity

BREAKING NEWS: Texas has first statewide African American studies course | Cloaking Inequity

BREAKING NEWS: TEXAS HAS FIRST STATEWIDE AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES COURSE

After an extensive review, development and political process, Texas State Board of Education members Georgina Perez and Aicha Davis et al. have shepherded the first African American studies course to completion. Exclusive to Cloaking Inequity, I have obtained a draft of the new course that will receive a final vote today at the Texas State Board of Education. It is an outgrowth of a course from the Dallas Independent School District. There have been many people working behind the scenes on this course. As with many things in public policy, some people will take credit while other people did the work behind the scenes. So a special THANK YOU to those folks (Jamila Thomas, Joyce King etc.) who have put their hearts and passion into making this groundbreaking course happen. You know who you are.

While not perfect, as some important standards (organizations, individuals etc) were exited during the negotiations. Notably, several years ago we wrote, an extensive article in the Harvard Educational Review about the process that occurred in Texas relative to the US History standards).

Julian Vasquez Heilig, Keffrelyn Brown, and Anthony Brown (2012) The Illusion of Inclusion: A Critical Race Theory Textual Analysis of Race and Standards. Harvard Educational Review: September 2012, Vol. 82, No. 3, pp. 403-424.

https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.82.3.84p8228670j24650

Nevertheless, I am incredibly impressed and over the moon that Texas is leading the way and is responsible for this incredible milestone. Here is the first-of-its-kind statewide Texas African American studies course:

113.51. Ethnic Studies: African American Studies (One Credit).

(a)        General requirements. Students shall be awarded one credit for successful completion of this course. This course is recommended for students in Grades 10-12.

(b)       Introduction.

(1)        In Ethnic Studies: African American Studies, an elective course, students learn about the history and cultural contributions of African Americans. This course is designed to assist students in understanding issues and events from multiple perspectives. This course develops an understanding of the historical roots of African American culture, especially as it pertains to social, economic, and political interactions within the broader context of United States history. It requires an analysis of important ideas, social and cultural values, beliefs, and traditions. Knowledge of past achievements provides citizens of the 21st century with a broader context within which to address the many issues facing the United States.

(2)        To support the teaching of the essential knowledge and skills, the use of a variety of rich primary and secondary source material such as biographies, autobiographies, landmark cases of the U.S. Supreme Court, novels, speeches, letters, diaries, poetry, songs, and artwork is encouraged. Resources are available from museums, historical sites, presidential libraries, and local and state preservation societies.

(3)        The eight strands of the essential knowledge and skills for social studies are intended to be integrated for instructional purposes. Skills listed in the social studies skills strand in subsection (c) of this section should be incorporated into the teaching of all essential knowledge and skills for social studies. A greater depth of understanding of complex content material can be attained when integrated social studies content from the various disciplines and critical-thinking skills are taught together.

(4)        Students identify the role of the U.S. free enterprise system within the parameters of this course and understand that this system may also be referenced as capitalism or the free market system.

(5)        Throughout social studies in Kindergarten-Grade 12, students build a foundation in history; geography; CONTINUE READING: BREAKING NEWS: Texas has first statewide African American studies course | Cloaking Inequity

Right-wing groups with ties to Betsy DeVos are behind protests against coronavirus restrictions: report – Raw Story

Right-wing groups with ties to Betsy DeVos are behind protests against coronavirus restrictions: report – Raw Story
Right-wing groups with ties to Betsy DeVos are behind protests against coronavirus restrictions: report

According to a Politico/Morning Consult poll released earlier this week, 81% of Americans believe that the United States “should continue to social distance for as long as is needed to curb the spread of coronavirus.” In other words, most Americans are smart enough to realize that while social distancing is inconvenient and difficult, it is certainly preferable to dying from COVID-19. But a minority of far-right extremists have been holding rallies and protests against social distancing. And journalist Jason Wilson, in an article The Guardian, takes a look at some of the groups behind those protests.

“While protesters in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and other states claim to speak for ordinary citizens, many are also supported by street-fighting right-wing groups like the Proud Boys, conservative armed militia groups, religious fundamentalists, anti-vaccination groups and other elements of the radical right,” Wilson explains.

Defend democracy. Click to invest in courageous progressive journalism today.

One of the protests occurred in Michigan on Wednesday, April 15. According to Wilson, that demonstration was organized by the Michigan Conservative Coalition, a.k.a. Michigan Trump Republicans, and was “also heavily promoted by the Michigan Freedom Fund, a group linked to Trump cabinet member Betsy DeVos.” Placards, Wilson adds, “identified the Michigan Proud Boys as participants in the vehicle convoy.” CONTINUE READING: Right-wing groups with ties to Betsy DeVos are behind protests against coronavirus restrictions: report – Raw Story

Teachers union calls for nationwide summer school

Teachers union calls for nationwide summer school

Teachers union calls for nationwide summer school

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Governor Bill Lee has recommended schools to stay closed for the rest of the year. However, some educators are concerned about students falling behind. That’s why one of the country's largest teacher's unions is calling for students to attend summer school.

The American Federation of Teachers is proposing a nationwide, four week summer school program. The plan is contingent on whether it is safe enough to be in school by then.

"It is really to get kids ready for next year," said Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers. "So instead of thinking about it as remedial, think of it as a bridge toward next year."

Researchers say ultimately, school closures will impact the classroom. Next year, students could return to school with only 70% of the reading level they should be on and almost 50% of the expected math knowledge.

"It's instruction to deal with summer loss or this year's loss or this change that has upended everything, it reinforces and provides instruction, it provides food and nurturing, it provides some well-being issues and it also really helps parents,” said Weingarten.

The teachers union has asked for a $25 billion federal relief to pay for this program. This would be separate funds from what should be used next year.

MORE TENNESSEE COVID-19 COVERAGE

• April 17 COVID-19 update: 1,597 cases, 20 deaths confirmed in Davidson County
• Tennessee schools asked to close for remainder of school year
• Gov. Lee extends 'Stay-at-Home' order until April 30
• New projections downgrade COVID-19 forecast for Tennessee
• COVID-19 assessment centers open in Nashville
• Tennessee opening free drive-thru COVID-19 test sites this weekend
• List of COVID-19 remote assessment sites in Tennessee
• Who gets a federal COVID-19 stimulus check and when do they get it?
• Donate to the COVID-19 Middle Tennessee Emergency Response Fund

See all our Coronavirus coverage here Teachers union calls for nationwide summer school

Two Cheers for an End to the SAT (**) - Alfie Kohn

Two Cheers for an End to the SAT (**) - Alfie Kohn

Two Cheers for an End to the SAT

One imagines the folks at the College Board blushing deeply when, a few years back, they announced that the “A” in SAT no longer stood for “Aptitude.” Scarlet, after all, would be an appropriate color to turn while, in effect, conceding that the test wasn’t — and, let’s face it, never had been — a measure of intellectual aptitude. For a brief period, the examination was rechristened the Scholastic Assessment Test, a name presumably generated by the Department of Redundancy Department. Today, literally — and perhaps figuratively — SAT doesn’t stand for anything at all.

It wasn’t the significance of the shift in the SAT’s name that recently produced an epiphany for Richard C. Atkinson, president of the University of California. Rather, the tipping point in deciding to urge the elimination of the SAT as a requirement for admission came last year during a visit to the upscale private school his grandchildren attend. There, he watched as 12-year-olds were drilled on verbal analogies, part of an extended training that, he said in announcing his proposal, “was not aimed at developing the students’ reading and writing abilities but rather their test-taking skills.” More broadly, he argued, “America’s overemphasis on the SAT is compromising our educational system.”

Of course, it must be pointed out that U.C., assuming its policy-making bodies accept their president’s advice, would not be the first institution to drop the SAT. Hundreds of colleges and universities, including Bates, Bowdoin, Connecticut, and Mount Holyoke Colleges, no longer require the SAT or ACT. A survey by FairTest, a Cambridge, Mass.-based advocacy group, reported that such colleges are generally well-satisfied that “applicant pools and enrolled classes have become more diverse without any loss in academic quality.”

On balance, this latest and most significant challenge to the reign of the SAT is very welcome news indeed. There is a possible downside as well, but we should begin by recognizing that even before colleges began hopping off the SAT bandwagon, the assumption that they needed something like the test to help them decide whom to admit was difficult to defend, if only because of a powerful counterexample to our north: No such test is used in Canada. But the more one learns about the SAT in particular, the more one wonders what took Atkinson so long, and what is taking many of his counterparts even longer. Consider:

* The SAT is a measure of resources more than of reasoning. Year after year, the College Board’s own statistics depict a virtually linear correlation between SAT scores and CONTINUE READING: Two Cheers for an End to the SAT (**) - Alfie Kohn

U.S. Department of Education Awards First Round of 2020 Grants in Federal Charter Schools Program | janresseger

U.S. Department of Education Awards First Round of 2020 Grants in Federal Charter Schools Program | janresseger

U.S. Department of Education Awards First Round of 2020 Grants in Federal Charter Schools Program

Last Friday, the U.S. Department of Education announced $65 million in new grants as this year’s federal Charter Schools Program (CSP) competition gets underway. CSP awards are for one of several grant programs; grants awarded this week are for “Charter Management Organizations for the Replication and Expansion of High Quality Charter Schools.”  Applications by states, for example, are being accepted until May 15 for the larger CSP State Entities Competition.

While the Department’s announcement declares that $65 million is being awarded to 13 Charter Management Organizations headquartered in Texas, California, Georgia, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Illinois, Florida, and Connecticut, Chalkbeat‘s Matt Barnum reports that these awards will eventually add up to more than $200 million over the five year life of the grants.

The $65 million figure, Barnum reports, includes only the part of each five-year grant that has already been appropriated by Congress, but the amount is expected by the Department to grow as Congress formally appropriates the money over the five year term of the grants.  For example, while the Department’s announcement declares that the largest grant recipient, IDEA charter schools has been granted $8.1 million, Barnum reports instead that IDEA charters will receive $72 million over five years assuming that Congress continues to appropriate the funds.

After questions arose about the disparity between the Department’s numbers and Barnum’s report, Barnum answered on twitter: “Full details on the grants (Numbers seem different CONTINUE READING: U.S. Department of Education Awards First Round of 2020 Grants in Federal Charter Schools Program | janresseger

CURMUDGUCATION: Why Teach Literature Stuff #7 Everything Is Reading

CURMUDGUCATION: Why Teach Literature Stuff #7 Everything Is Reading

Why Teach Literature Stuff #7 Everything Is Reading

When I was teaching, and I had extra time on my hands, I would reflect on the work--the whys and hows and whats. So in solidarity with my former colleagues, I'm going to write a series about every English teacher's favorite thing-- teaching literature, and why we do it. There will be some number of posts (I don't have a plan here).

Also, it would be nice to write and read about something positive, and I don't know anything much more positive than what teachers do and why they do it.

Well, actually, everything is history. But history is reading, so there you are.

Being able to read, then interpret and understand and make sense from what you've read is the most universally useful skill that exists. Today more than ever, as we have collapsed back to the text-based medium we call the internet. Even reading an image or a video is reading. And writing, which is the only means available (okay, maybe not the only) for reaching out beyond the physical bonds of your own body and somehow connecting with other humans-- writing is also reading.

You interact with other humans, socially or at work, and you have to read them, parse their words, draw conclusions about their character and intent. Reading.

You have to do the same thing with nothing but the written word to go on. You're on social media or email or even, God bless you, opening an envelope and lifting out a piece of paper with marks on it, CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Why Teach Literature Stuff #7 Everything Is Reading

CURMUDGUCATION: Why Teach Literature Stuff: #6 Not For These Reasons - http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2020/04/why-teach-literature-stuff-6-not-for.html

States Need to Plan Now to Forego Standardized Testing in 2020-21 | deutsch29

States Need to Plan Now to Forego Standardized Testing in 2020-21 | deutsch29

States Need to Plan Now to Forego Standardized Testing in 2020-21

As states grapple with the reality of insufficient COVID-19 testing, including critical testing of the asymptomatic who might be carriers as well as those who have already had the virus and unknowingly developed COVID-19 antibodies; and as states face the truth that a vaccine is likely at best a year away, and as states wrestle with the idea that the virus may well recycle in the fall, leaders in those same states need to decide now to scrap standardized testing in their schools for the 2020-21 school year.

Students nationwide are missing in-person classroom instruction this spring due to COVID-19, and it is realistic to expect that the virus may well impact the opening of schools for the 2020-21 school year. Even as governors, school boards and other officials contend with the complexities of shuttered school buildings in the spring of 2020, a cloud looms concerning how, exactly, to enact social distancing and other protections at school in the fall of 2020.

It is entirely possible in 2020-21 that students might have to attend school in shifts, or experience some hybrid of in-person and distant instruction, or that schools, districts, or entire states might have to shelter in place at some point during the 2020-21 school year due to coronavirus resurgence.

Standardized testing eats up a lot of time, energy, and money. For many schools, CONTINUE READING: States Need to Plan Now to Forego Standardized Testing in 2020-21 | deutsch29

Remote Teaching ≠ Real School | JD2718

Remote Teaching ≠ Real School | JD2718

Remote Teaching ≠ Real School

It’s not. Not close. But I’ll save the details for another day.

Big picture: we are working. We are working hard. Many of us are working as hard as we’ve ever worked. Many feel exhausted the way we haven’t since we were first-year teachers.

While we are trying, the City and the Department of Education are making our lives hard (and some administrations – not mine – are also standing in our way). They have stolen our planning time, while asking us to plan completely new lessons and even curricula. They have allowed misguided principals to over-schedule days for those unfortunate teachers, pushing them further behind on their work. They let us learn to do live lessons on Zoom, and then surprised us by banning that tool. They took Spring Break, then Passover and Good Friday. They send some of us to useless daily meetings. Instead of consistently supporting us, the Department has wasted our time; sucked our energy.

We are doing our best to engage our students. I’m fortunate. Most of my students want to be engaged. It makes my job easer than most. And it’s not easy. It’s hard. It’s real hard. And it’s just as hard, probably harder, for teachers across the city. Easily the worst problem? Kids without internet access. And don’t get me started on meeting students’ individual needs (from their IEPs).

Remote teaching? A pale imitation of teaching. We are not face to face, answering questions, explaining concepts, drawing students out. We are not making eye contact. We can’t encourage the same way. We CONTINUE READING: Remote Teaching ≠ Real School | JD2718

Half Of U.S. Public School Students Are Home For The School Year | 89.3 KPCC

Half Of U.S. Public School Students Are Home For The School Year | 89.3 KPCC

Half Of U.S. Public School Students Are Home For The School Year

As of Thursday afternoon, 26 states, representing about half of the nation's public school students, have recommended or ordered their schools to remain closed for the rest of the academic year, according to a tally by Education Week. The closures affect about 25 million of the nation's 50.8 million public school students. Louisiana joined the list Wednesday, when Gov. John Bel Edwards announced he would extend the closure of his state's schools.

When states began closing schools in mid-March, state leaders suggested the closures would be short-lived — perhaps just two to three weeks. But the surge in coronavirus infections has forced states to extend the closure of both schools and businesses. In fact, many of the states that have not yet closed schools for the rest of the academic year may yet do so. Maryland's schools, for example, are technically scheduled to reopen after April 24, but that seems unlikely.

While nearly all of the nation's K-12 schools are currently closed, a recent review in The Lancet of research on school closures questions the extent of their effectiveness. "Recent modelling studies of COVID-19 predict that school closures alone would prevent only 2-4% of deaths, much less than other social distancing interventions," the authors wrote. But note the authors' use of the word "alone": In the U.S., school closures have not been implemented on their own and have played a key role in keeping adults at home. Though, in keeping schools closed, state leaders are making it increasingly difficult for the Trump administration to make good on its commitment to reopen the U.S. economy as soon as possible. As long as tens of millions of children are stuck at home, their parents will be too.

School closures aren't just hard on the economy; they're also hard on kids. The Lancet review cites "loss of education, harms to child welfare particularly among the most vulnerable pupils, and nutritional problems especially to children for whom free school meals are an important source of nutrition." In the days after schools initially closed, districts raced to build new ways of distributing food to kids, including CONTINUE READING: Half Of U.S. Public School Students Are Home For The School Year | 89.3 KPCC

Thurmond Announces Digital Divide Task Force - Year 2020 (CA Dept of Education)

Thurmond Announces Digital Divide Task Force - Year 2020 (CA Dept of Education)

State Superintendent Tony Thurmond Announces Task Force to Close Digital Divide

SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond announced today the creation of a new task force to close the digital divide for California students who lack access to resources such as internet connectivity and devices. The Closing the Digital Divide Task Force will be co-chaired by California State Senator Connie Leyva.

“This task force signals a new era, that California is now working with focus and urgency to close the digital divide in the most concrete way we have ever seen,” said Thurmond. “COVID-19 is a public health crisis in California and all around the world, but it’s also revealed other crises like the technology gap that has persisted for too long, leading to opportunity and achievement gaps for California’s students.”

“As the Chair of the Senate Education Committee, I strongly believe that ensuring equity for California students is critically important,” said Senator Connie M. Leyva (D-Chino). “One vital step to ensuring equity is by closing the digital divide, which has become that much more evident and urgent as distance learning is now the new reality for millions of school children during the current COVID-19 crisis. I look forward to co-chairing this important task force as we all continue to work together to meet the needs of students in California.”

The Closing the Digital Divide Task Force will help facilitate donations, create more publicity, and cast a bigger spotlight on those who can help. It also plans to hold a public hearing where internet service providers may be called upon to testify on their efforts to improve internet access during the pandemic.

The California Department of Education (CDE) has in recent weeks assessed the technology needs for all California students and is working with partners to secure devices and Wi-Fi hotspots to close the technology gap. This effort comes following a strong recommendation last month from State Superintendent Thurmond for all schools to focus on distance learning models due to the COVID-19 health crisis.

The CDE also announced last week that it partnered with the Californians Dedicated to Education Foundation (CDE Foundation), the private non-profit partner of the CDE since 2011, to create the California Bridging the Digital Divide Fund. The fund is a joint effort of the Governor’s Office, State Board of Education, CDE, and CDE Foundation, and is a centralized resource for state leadership to provide essential device, connectivity, and related digital learning supports for pre-K-12 students, teachers, and their families.

The fund is focused particularly on building more equitable teaching and learning environments, which are currently in even greater jeopardy due to the uneven impacts of COVID-19 on students, families, and educators. This includes special attention to special education, English learner, low-income, and rural populations, for which additional virtual educator professional learning webinars are now in development.

The California Bridging the Digital Divide Fund accepts individual contributions at bit.ly/CADigitalDivide. Corporate and institutional donors may contact Mary Nicely at mnicely@cde.ca.gov.

# # # #

Tony Thurmond — State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Communications Division, Room 5602, 916-319-0818, Fax 916-319-0100

Thurmond Announces Digital Divide Task Force - Year 2020 (CA Dept of Education)

YONG ZHAO: Reimagine the “Grammar” of Schooling Part 2 of Tofu is not Cheese: Reimagine Education without Schools During Covid19

Education in the Age of Globalization » Blog Archive » Reimagine the “Grammar” of Schooling Part 2 of Tofu is not Cheese: Reimagine Education without Schools During Covid19

Reimagine the “Grammar” of Schooling Part 2 of Tofu is not Cheese: Reimagine Education without Schools During Covid19

Introduction from part 1: Tofu is not cheese so we should not expect it to smell or taste like cheese nor should we need to pretend it is or make it taste and smell like cheese. The message I was trying to convey is that we should accept the fact that schools are closed and we don’t need to pretend we can make online education the same as face-to-face schools. Instead, we should make the best out of the new situation. In my last blog post, I expanded the idea: Online education cannot replace all functions schools play in our society but it can do a lot more than being a lesser version of face-to-face schooling. 

Speak Education: Reimagine the “Grammar” of Schooling

The COVID-19 pandemic has indeed stimulated much talk about reimagining education. But from what I have seen and heard, the imagination has not escaped from the spell of the “grammar” of schooling: “the regular structures and rules that organize the work of instruction” (Tyack & Tobin, 1994, p. 454). Over a quarter of a century ago, education historians David Tyack and William Tobin made the very insightful observation that schools have a set of grammatical rules and structures just like natural languages and:

Neither the grammar of schooling nor the grammar of speech needs to be consciously understood to operate smoothly. Indeed, much of the grammar of schooling has become so well established that it is typically taken for granted as just the way schools are. It is the departure from customary practice in schooling or speaking that attracts attention (p. 454).

The grammar of schooling, such as “standardized organizational practices in dividing time and space, classifying students and allocating them to classrooms, and splintering knowledge into “subjects,” is so powerful that it has persisted despite many repeated challenges by very courageous, intelligent, and CONTINUE READING: Education in the Age of Globalization » Blog Archive » Reimagine the “Grammar” of Schooling Part 2 of Tofu is not Cheese: Reimagine Education without Schools During Covid19

Diane Ravitch in Conversation with Mercedes Schneider - Network For Public Education

Diane Ravitch in Conversation with Mercedes Schneider - Network For Public Education

A Conversation Between Diane Ravitch and Mercedes Schneider

Start: Wednesday, April 22, 2020 • 7:30 PM • Eastern Time (US & Canada) (GMT-05:00)

End: Wednesday, April 22, 2020 • 9:00 PM • Eastern Time (US & Canada) (GMT-05:00)

The Network for Public Education invites you to join us for a video conference with NPE President Diane Ravitch. Diane's guest this week will be teacher, blogger and author Mercedes Schneider. Listen to Diane and Mercedes talk about Mercedes' new book, A Practical Guide to Digital Research: Getting the Facts and Rejecting the Lies.

Diane Ravitch in Conversation with Mercedes Schneider - Network For Public Education

To Succeed in Teaching, Think Like a ….. | The Merrow Report

To Succeed in Teaching, Think Like a ….. | The Merrow Report

To Succeed in Teaching, Think Like a …..

Because the pandemic has exposed the fundamental inequities in our education system, there’s lots of ‘Big Picture’ thinking going on about American public education.  For example, Paul Reville, the former Massachusetts Secretary of Education who now teaches at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, hopes that this pandemic will be education’s “Sputnik moment.” 

I hope that he and others who are looking ahead are right and that we will fundamentally overhaul our approach. Because I have written about this in Addicted to Reform: A 12-Step Program to Rescue Public Education, I want to focus here on succeeding RIGHT NOW.  Not next year when schools have reopened, but tomorrow and next week, when teachers and parents are struggling to achieve ‘home learning.’

Four pathways to success: 

1. Think like a librarian
2. Think like a swimming instructor
3. Think like a highway engineer
4. Think like a gardener

Librarians do not have a captive audience. After all, no one is required to attend the library.  To survive and prosper, librarians have had to identify their audiences and find ways to appeal to them, to draw them into their buildings or electronic CONTINUE READING: To Succeed in Teaching, Think Like a ….. | The Merrow Report

Addicted to Reform: A 12-Step Program to Rescue Public Education: Merrow, John: 9781620972410: Amazon.com: Books - https://www.amazon.com/Addicted-Reform-12-Step-Program-Education/dp/1620972417