Thursday, October 8, 2020
California parents mostly disapprove of distance learning - Los Angeles Times
South Carolina: Supreme Court Strikes Down Voucher Plan! | Diane Ravitch's blog
CURMUDGUCATION: Has Miami-Dade Really Found The Secret Of Cheap Excellence?
The Miami-Dade County Public Schools spends less per student than the only three larger districts in the country and still manages to deliver top-tier student achievement results.
The implication, popular with the conservative wing of reformsters, is that educational excellence is available for bargain prices if we just worked the right levers. But there are three large holes in his Florida argument.
About that staffing surge...
McShane starts by pointing out that Miami educates around 350,000 students, and according to the census folks, they do it for less than $10K a year, far less than other huge districts, even when adjusted for cost of living. This has not a surprise; Florida schools have been trying to shake off the "latest" budget cuts for years (here they are in 2011, and here they are this year). Florida is run by politicians who are openly hostile to public education, and they've been trying to bleed the system dry for years.
But Miami-Dade, says McShane, is doing it "partly" by providing low-cost education by pushing back CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Has Miami-Dade Really Found The Secret Of Cheap Excellence?
WILL BETSY DEVOS AND THE USDOE ALLOW THE SCHWINIGANS TO CONTINUE UNABATED? – Dad Gone Wild
“Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.”― George Eliot, Adam Bede
As sad as the passing of Van Halen is, there is some solace in that his death brought us all together, if just for a moment. Right, and Left was forgotten, as lasting memories were shared. For just a brief respite, it was refreshing to be able to leave behind the constant political wrangling, and realize that in some things we are more similar than different.NYC Public School Parents: Why Covid has spread in Ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods and "Cutting School" -- how Black schools have been a focus of experimentation and profit
NYC Public School Parents: Why Covid has spread in Ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods and "Cutting School"
how Black schools have been a focus of experimentation and profit
Today on my WBAI podcast "Talk out of School" I updated listeners on the additional school closures planned this week in NYC, first by Mayor de Blasio in nine zip codes in Brooklyn and Queens, and now in larger numbers in red and orange zones of high Covid positivity, determined by Governor Cuomo and his Covid task force.
Naftuli Moster of Yaffed, who first appeared on the podcast in May, explained why many of the hot spots experiencing high rates of COVID positivity in NYC are located primarily in areas with high concentrations of Ultra-Orthodox Jews. He said this was for two reasons: one, there is no science instruction at the Yeshivas, the schools that Ultra-Orthodox boys attend, and thus they don’t understand how viral transmission occurs. Two, the members of these insular communities have long flouted the law in areas of education and public health without any consequences, and in fact have received special favors and additional funding because of their political influence. Many have gotten used to violating rules set down by the city or state, in this case regarding the need to avoid mass gatherings, wear masks, and maintain social distancing.
Naftuli suggested the best way the Governor and Mayor should address the refusal of many members of these communities to comply with the new restrictions would be by threatening their leaders with a loss of public funding, including discretionary child-care vouchers, funds which they have received at disproportionate levels in the past.
Then I interviewed Noliwe Rooks, W.E.B. Du Bois Professor of Literature at Cornell, about her new book, Cutting School: Privatization, Segregation, and the End of Public Education, which analyzes the history of education inequity in the U.S. and the way in which the schooling of Black students has been repeatedly used as an opportunity for experimentation and profit by education reformers and entrepreneurs.
Instead of providing these students with the same opportunities wealthy white students receive, such as small classes, experienced teachers, and plenty of extracurricular activities, including art and music, as well as intensive support when they are struggling, Prof. Rooks explained how their schools continue to be defunded and privatized, through the expansion of charters, vouchers and online learning. You can subscribe and download other episodes of "Talk out of School" here.
Episode Notes
Resources:
Jeff Bryant: How online learning companies are using the pandemic to take over the classroom - Alternet.org
Opening schools during a pandemic in an underfunded urban district like Providence, Rhode Island, where buildings are in miserable physical conditions, is already a huge undertaking, but the situation is made worse when district leaders bring in private contractors who know nothing about the community and make no effort to collaborate with public school teachers. That's what's happening in Providence, according to Maribeth Calabro, the president of the Providence Teachers Union, who spoke to me in a Zoom call.
As part of its plan to start the new school year with a gradual opening for in-person learning and an online option for all students, the district announced the creation of a new Virtual Learning Academy operated by Scottsdale, Arizona-based company Edgenuity.
When Calabro looked into Edgenuity, she found out the parent company, Weld North Education, was owned by a private equity firm, which had recently acquired Odysseyware. She recalled that when Providence had used Odysseyware for a high school credit recovery program there were problems with students cheating. "Students were quickly flying through courses that should have taken weeks or months," she remembered.
Calabro is also concerned the Edgenuity platform requires little to no human instruction from Providence teachers and will instead rely on learning coaches, who are expected to be the parent, guardian, or someone else in the household of each child. She feels most parents signing up for the program may not realize this because the district's description of the program largely relegates the complete explanation of the responsibilities of a learning CONTINUE READING: How online learning companies are using the pandemic to take over the classroom - Alternet.org
Wednesday, October 7, 2020
U.S. ranks near bottom of advanced nations in child wellness -- new report - The Washington Post
U.S. ranks near bottom of advanced nations in child wellness -- new report - The Washington Post
U.S. ranks near bottom of advanced nations in child wellness -- new report
The Netherlands, Denmark and Norway topped the list, which takes into account data on the mental and physical health of children as well as their skills as measured by international exams. Mental well-being includes both life satisfaction as well as suicide rates; physical health includes rates of overweight and obesity as well as child mortality, and skills focuses both on proficiency in reading and mathematics as well as social skills.
But the report noted that in many of the advanced nations on the list, children are not doing well; in fact, in nearly half, more than 1 in 5 children live in poverty. Of 41 nations ranked on child poverty, the United States was fourth from the bottom.
In 11 of 41 countries, at least 5 percent of households do not have safely managed water, and high levels of air pollution still threaten the physical and mental health of children, who suffer the greatest harms.
Even before the covid-19 crisis, which presents new threats to child well-being, the report said the daily lives of millions of children in the world’s richest nations fell far short of what anyone would call a good childhood.
“They suffered stress, anxiety and depression, lagged behind their peers at school, and were physically unwell,” it says. “Living in a wealthy country did not bring them happiness. Nor did it guarantee them better health or education

For the new rankings, data was analyzed from 41 advanced nations (though because of gaps in information, only 38 were ranked on the list below), and a broader view of child well-being was taken CONTINUE READING: U.S. ranks near bottom of advanced nations in child wellness -- new report - The Washington Post
Work Or Online Learning? Homeless Families Face An Impossible Choice : NPR
NYC Educator: If You Like the DOE, You'll Love Trump
Anyway, if you like agreements that work like that, you need to vote for President Trump. He's out there saying there will be no relief bill until after he's re-elected. I'm old enough to remember 2016, when he said he would release his tax returns if he were elected. I remember him saying Mexico would pay for the wall. I remember him saying he had a great health plan that would protect those with pre-existing conditions. It turned out his plan was for everyone to get sick and die ASAP.
In fact, he's still saying he has a plan. Meanwhile, 210,000 Americans are dead because he's failed to make a national plan to deal with COVID. Originally, he decided not to bother because it looked to his thugs like it would only affect blue states. That's us, of course. We didn't vote for him so we can all go to hell. I guess if you're sufficiently racist or xenophobic, Trump's willingness to give a wink and a nod and say that's fine is kind of comforting.
Of course if you're a teacher, there are other reasons not to vote for Trump. Trump is a big supporter of so-called right to work, and if you aren't persuaded of that you need only look at the Janus case, which overturned Abood nationally and made union membership optional. After all, why should you pay dues when suckers like me will do it for you? Why shouldn't you enjoy benefits that the rest of us pay for? That's the Trump way. Who do you think pays for all those golf trips he takes?
Here's the thing, though--when Abood was in force, individual states could opt out via "right to work." This weakened union and made it difficult for working people to organize. Less union means lower pay and fewer benefits for working Americans. That's precisely what CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: If You Like the DOE, You'll Love Trump
'I'm overwhelmed': Single parents navigate virtual learning - NonDoc
Teacher Tom: Teaching Children to Be Incompetent
I share this story as an example of how we regularly underestimate the capabilities of young children to understand and navigate the world. Indeed, that is one of the reasons we create what John Holt called the “walled off garden of childhood,” a place where we keep our children to protect them from the outside world: a place where we round CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: Teaching Children to Be Incompetent
Even New Jersey, the State with the Best Funded Schools, Needs a 2nd Federal COVID-19 Relief Bill | janresseger
Laura Chapman: “GreatSchools” Rating System Is Funded by School Choice Billionaires | Diane Ravitch's blog
CURMUDGUCATION: CAP: It's the School System's Fault
They're also fans of the narrow reformster view of education as a mill for churning out meat widgets, and here they are at it again in a post from mid-September (you know, about ten years ago) entitled "Preparing American Students for the Workforce of the Future." It's a pervasive reform idea--that the point of school is as vocational prep (and college is just vocational prep for higher-paying jobs).
But CAP leaps right in with "The United States has failed to prepare all students for college and their careers" and follows up by citing TNTP's Opportunity Myth, one of those non-research "reports" that reformy groups crank out so that other groups can cite them as if they contain actual research. I've discussed it at length elsewhere, so I'm not getting into it here--short form: it's not a good sign.
CAP throws in some chicken littling about the pandemic's effects on the US healthcare, economy and workforce, noting that Black and brown people are worst hit, and they're not wrong. But their CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: CAP: It's the School System's Fault
2021-22 State Board of Education Student Member Screening Committee Notice, SBE - (CA Dept of Education)
State Board of Education Screening Committee Members
- Ilene Straus, Chair
- Ting Sun
- Jim McQuillen, Liaison to the California Association of Student Councils (CASC)
Meeting Notice: Screening Committee of the
State Board of Education
2:30 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. ±
Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88699057540
Meeting ID: 886 9905 7540
Agenda
- Call to order, Chair
- Welcome and Introductions, Chair
- Selection of 12 semi-finalists for consideration for the 2021-2022 State Board of Education Student Member
- Adjournment
































