CATCH UP WITH CURMUDGUCATION + ICYMI: Long Weekend Edition (11/29)

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Long Weekend Edition (11/29)

Long Weekend Edition (11/29)

Thanksgiving was not so bad at our house; the board of directors had a lovely time and I was able to talk to both grown children. So we'll call it a win. In the meantime, people keep writing stuff and I have some of it here for you to read.

How a Bad Bill Becomes a Bad Law   

Sharon Murchie is an English teacher in Michigan, and she decided to go find out how, exactly, the sausage that is one of Michigan's cyber school laws was made. Her patience and thoroughness are inspirational; how the sausage was actually made is not. 

Ten Things I Used To Think   

Nancy Flanagan looks at some things that, after the past few years, well, not so much. A thought-provoking list.

Bad Education  

The indispensable Mercedes Schneider wrote a review of Doug Harris's New Orleans reform book for Commonweal Magazine, and here it is. Smart and on point and informed by actual first-hand knowledge of NOLA as well as her expertise as a data-cruncher. 

How Venture Capitalists Are Deforming Capitalism   

A New Yorker piece that wouldn't have anything to do with education if it weren't for all the venture capitalists who are mucking about in the ed biz. Here's why those folks should be sent packing.

The Biden Cabinet

Grumpy Old Teacher blogs about the job requirements for a new secretary of education. Also, balm in Gilead.

Selling Ed Tech as Philanthropy

Thomas Ultican peels back some layers of this philanthro-marketing onion

Minnesota school custodian gets gift of from a teacher

A legitimately heart-warming story about a third-grade teacher's sacrifice for one of her co-workers.

US public school enrollment drops as pandemic persists

Axios with some news (cribbed from the New York Times and others) that will surprise absolutely nobody.

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Long Weekend Edition (11/29)

CATCH UP WITH CURMUDGUCATION

AND DON'T FORGET PETER GREENE ON FORBES CLICK HERE 

(SORRY BEHIND THE FORBES PAYWALL)

Sounding The Alarm For The Wolf At The Schoolhouse Door - https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergreene/2020/11/28/sounding-the-alarm-for-the-wolf-at-the-schoolhouse-door/?sh=69a6e4ce5219 by @palan57 on @forbes

Is Public Education Part Of The Foundation Of Democracy? A New Book By Legal Scholar Derek Black Says Yes. - https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergreene/2020/11/20/public-education-american-democracy-and-school-house-burning/?sh=2fc6f97e891e by @palan57 on @forbes

Four Questions Education Secretary Betsy DeVos Never Answered - https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergreene/2020/11/17/four-questions-education-secretary-betsy-devos-never-answered/?sh=152710b724e5 by @palan57 on @forbes

No, There Really Doesn't Need To Be A Big Spring Test In 2021

500+by Peter Greene / 1d

Many folks fear that schools will not trot out the Big Standardized Tests this spring, that neither the pony nor the dog will be called on to perform. Among those people, you can count Chester E. Finn, Jr., Big Boss Emeritus of the Fordham Institution and former player in the U.S. ed department; nowadays he serves the Hoover Institution ( ever a source of reliable and not-at-all misleading info )

School Marketing Is A Thing-- But Not A Good One

60by Peter Greene / 1d

When school choice advocates tout their vision for the future, it has tended to be a picture of parents soberly examining hard data about possible schools in order to select the "best" or "most fitting." But if folks are going to great education like a commodity, then it's going to be sold like toasters or breakfast cereal or panty hose. And that means-- Marketing! There is no sector of the free

FL: Big Brother Is Watching Your Child

35by Peter Greene / 3d

Eyebrows shot up around the country this week a s the Tampa Bay Times reported on how the Pasco County Sheriff's Office keeps a secret list of "at-risk" kids who could “fall into a life of crime." Creating the list involves the office collecting and factoring a whole bunch of different you-probably-thought-they-were-confidential records, including records from the school district and from the sta

Donors Choose Belated Monday: Orff and Robots

by Peter Greene / 4d

Okay, so I got caught up in the business of holiday stuff and pandemic surge, and I forgot to post Monday. But I am continuing with making a modest weekly contribution to some classroom somewhere in this country. As I've said before, Donors Chose shouldn't be a thing because schools should be fully funded, but in the meantime, individual teachers in individual classrooms can use a hand. This is d

Internet Data Caps Are Coming

by Peter Greene / 4d

If you are a Comcast customer in the Northeast US, changes are coming. 2021 will bring caps for home internet customers in Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Vermont, West Virginia, and DC, as well as selected slices of North Carolina and Ohio. There are reasons not to freak out. First, the cap is at 1.2 TB, which is

The False God Data Fails Again

35by Peter Greene / 5d

The dream of the Cult of Data is that for any issue, we simply design an instrument for collecting the data, analyze the Data, and select a solution suggested by the Data. Phrases like "data driven" or "data informed" are used to express the assumption that decisions backed by Data are inherently smarter, better, stronger, and wiser than Those Other Kinds of decisions. But what if they aren't? Wh

What Is The Actual Purpose of Social and Emotional Learning

47by Peter Greene / 6d

I'm increasingly convinced that one of the reasons social and emotional learning (SEL) is such a matter of contention in education (and it has been, every time it has been it has been brought up under one guise or another) is that it requires us to look at the places where education bumps up against the really big questions-- what is the purpose of education? why are we here? what is our purpose?

ICYMI: Here Comes Thanksgiving Edition

by Peter Greene / 7d

Well, the holiday certainly feels heavily weighted this year, doesn't it. Will people get together? Will people die because they couldn't bear not to see Grampa cut the turkey? And how hard will it be for some folks to think of something to be thankful for? Yes, this is going to be a fun week. In the meantime, here are some things to read. Public Schools. Public . Nancy Flanagan makes a great ple

Another Rich Guy Wants To Fix Education

100+by Peter Greene / 7d

Joel Greenblatt is a hedge fund guy from NYC who, like many hedge fund guys, has it All Figured Out and occasionally writes books to share his insights with rest of us. Of course, that includes education. It was Greenblatt and fellow Rich Guy John Petry who recruited Eva Moskowitz to take their little charter school, Harlem Success Academy, and turn it into the Success Academy juggernaut. They ev

Teaching Bad Test Prep Writing For Fun And Profit

48by Peter Greene / 8d

This is the sort of thing that the Big Standardized Test has brought us-- Top Score Writing . TSW is the brain child and property of Lisa Collum , who bills herself as mompreneur. Collum graduated from Florida Atlantic University about 16 years ago and went to work in 2004 as a writing teacher in a Pal

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

CommonWealth Magazine

CommonWealth Magazine

In-person learning now considered ‘high risk’ by CDC

Change in guideline quietly made on agency website 

THE CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL and Prevention quietly removed controversial guidelines from its website promoting in-person learning in schools, and instead is now listing it as “high risk.

The disputed guidance was composed of documents written by political appointees outside of the agency. One of the documents stated that children appear to be at lower risk for contracting COVID-19 compared to adults and that children are unlikely to be major spreaders of the virus, according to The Hill. The CDC removed the guidance from its website without public announcement some time in late October.

“Some of the prior content was outdated and as new scientific information has emerged the site has been updated to reflect current knowledge about COVID-19 and schools,” a spokesperson told the news outlet.

Now the website says “the body of evidence is growing that children of all ages are susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection and contrary to early reports might play a role in transmission,” and lists in-person learning as high risk.

The news comes just as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association released a report this week that found that the coronavirus is infecting children now more than ever. As of November 12, over 1 million children have tested positive for COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic. Over the two-weeks period between October 29 and November 12 there was a 22 percent increase in child COVID-19 cases, or 185,829 new cases, nationwide. In Massachusetts, the total is 15,562 cases among children as of November 12, or 9.4 percent of total cases.

State leaders, who have been pushing for a return to in-person learning, are maintaining their position. At a Wednesday press conference, Education Commissioner Jeffrey Riley said the state is relying on medical expertise in encouraging school reopenings, but acknowledged the shifts in CDC guidance. “There’s been some back and forth on what they put out,” he said.

Gov. Charlie Baker in early November released new metrics that downgraded the risk of COVID-19 in most communities and issued new guidance suggesting in-person instruction is safe even in hot-spot areas. At the time, CONTINUE READING: 

A Week in the Life of a Baltimore School Returning to In-Person Classes (Erica Green) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

A Week in the Life of a Baltimore School Returning to In-Person Classes (Erica Green) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

A Week in the Life of a Baltimore School Returning to In-Person Classes (Erica Green)

New York Times Journalist Erica Green spent a week in a Baltimore school where in-person instruction resumed. It is rare to get such a peek inside a big city district school during the pandemic–nearly all large urban districts are shuttered and rely upon remote instruction. This article appeared November 28, 2020

Zia Hellman prepared to welcome her kindergarten students back to Walter P. Carter Elementary/Middle School this month the way any teacher would on the first day of school: She fussed over her classroom.

Ms. Hellman, 26, dodged around the triangular desks, spaced six feet apart and taped off in blue boxes. She fretted about the blandness of the walls, fumbled with the plastic dividers covering name tags and arranged the individual yoga mats that replaced colorful carpets. Every window was open for extra ventilation, chilling the air.

“I wonder how they’re going to react to all of this,” she said, hands on her hips, scanning the room for the last time. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel, but it feels right.”

Ms. Hellman was among about two dozen teachers and staff members required to return to work on Nov. 16 for the first in-person instruction in Baltimore City Public Schools since March. The city was the first large school district in Maryland and the latest among urban districts in the country to tiptoe into one of the highest-stakes experiments in the history of the nation’s public education system: teaching face-to-face in a pandemic.

Returning to the classroom has not been easy; neither has remote learning.

Educators looking to get back in front of students have had to navigate CONTINUE READING: A Week in the Life of a Baltimore School Returning to In-Person Classes (Erica Green) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Choosing Democracy: Its Over: Democracy Won !

Choosing Democracy: Its Over: Democracy Won !

Its Over: Democracy Won !

We want to thank the many people who helped us avoid a catastrophic coup. 

It looks like the worst may be over. Monday likely was decisive. Trump was handed another legal slapdown in his effort to disenfranchise millions of confirmed voters with evidence-free claims. Local organizing in Michigan pushed-back against wayward electorates — ending with Michigan officially certifying election results. And the General Services Administration officially announced its transition to President-elect Biden. 

On that last point, many news sources missed the critical timing. Emily Murphy, the administrator, made the announcement first. She explicitly said she made it without input from the White House. Only after the GSA made its announcement, Trump tweeted that "I am recommending that Emily and her team do what needs to be done." It's the closest to a concession we may ever get.

We started Choose Democracy to be prepared if it was necessary for a national resistance to a coup. As an effort, we're not anti-Trump or pro-Biden. We teamed up across political spectrums to be pro-Democracy and stop a coup. Democracy has been severely tested, and is the worse for wear, but it never reached a breaking point that required a large-scale national mobilization. 

We are thankful for the fast-paced local resistance to initial coup efforts. The most dramatic was the organizing work in Michigan after the biggest post-election scandal erupted: two Michigan electorates attempted to thieve millions of votes from majority Black Detroit. Hours of heated testimony organized by mostly black organizers in Wayne County made them switch back (well, before they unsuccessfully tried to switch back again, again).

Michigan's win by organizers was public, but it wasn't alone. From our perspective, one of the biggest stories only got glancing attention: PA's Election Integrity Commission. Before the election, a nebulous commission was proposed by the GOP. It claimed to be prepared to root out fraud. As a GOP-led commission it held the right to subpoena anyone, would start before the election, and, arguably, had the ability to seize uncounted ballots. Organizers on-the-ground — including CONTINUE READING: Choosing Democracy: Its Over: Democracy Won !