THE TOP BANANA: TODAY'S EDUCATION HEADLINES #REDFORED #tbats #COVIDVACCINE #BIDEN #edsecMiguelCardona

 Big Education Ape

THE TOP BANANA
TODAY'S EDUCATION HEADLINES 

Are schools safe? A growing body of evidence suggests that, with the right measures, they contribute little to virus spread. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/school-coronavirus-spread/2020/12/29/bbfac9d8-3697-11eb-a997-1f4c53d2a747_story.html?tid=ss_tw

Joe Louis Clark, Beloved High School Principal Portrayed by Morgan Freeman in Lean On Me, Dead at 82 https://thegrapevine.theroot.com/joe-louis-clark-beloved-high-school-principal-portraye-1845967028

It's Kwanzaa Time! And ABF Creative Has the Perfect Podcast to Enjoy the Holiday With a New Twist https://www.theroot.com/its-kwanzaa-time-and-abf-creative-has-the-perfect-podc-1845961895

Parents Of Bullied Child Who Killed Himself Can Sue Educators: Court https://www.huffpost.com/entry/gabriel-taye-lawsuit-allowed_n_5febc16ec5b6ff747984da4f

While many colleges are making big cuts, a few opt for permanent transformation https://hechingerreport.org/while-many-colleges-are-making-big-cuts-a-few-opt-for-permanent-transformation/

Closed schools, virtual learning: How COVID-19 changed education in 2020 https://www.njspotlight.com/video/closed-schools-virtual-learning-how-covid-19-changed-education-in-2020/

Ted DeLaney, Conscience of a Roiled University, Dies at 77 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/29/us/ted-delaney-dead.html

Schools Matter: Outgoing Administration Admits Charters are not Public Schools - http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2020/12/outgoing-administration-admits-charters.html

Randy Wieck: A Drive-By Looting of Pension Funds in Kentucky | Diane Ravitch's blog - https://wp.me/p2odLa-sWN via @dianeravitch

Peter Goodman: Who is Miguel Cardona? | Diane Ravitch's blog - https://wp.me/p2odLa-sXk via @dianeravitch

Masha Gessen on Trump’s Defining Trait: Indifference | Diane Ravitch's blog - https://wp.me/p2odLa-sNJ via @dianeravitch

Texas still blocked from taking over Houston’s school district, appeals court rules https://www.texastribune.org/2020/12/30/texas-houston-school-district-take-over/?utm_campaign=trib-social-buttons&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social via @TexasTribune

Newsom to pledge aid for California schools' COVID-19 reopening plans - Los Angeles Times - https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-12-30/newsom-promises-cash-for-california-schools-to-create-covid-19-reopening-plans?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+lanowblog+%28L.A.+Now%29 by @tarynluna on @latimes

Big Education Ape: NANCY BAILEY: Amplify and iReady Claim Kindergarten and First Grade “Reading Loss” to Profit From the Pandemic - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2020/12/nancy-bailey-amplify-and-iready-claim.html

Big Education Ape: Newsom pushes California school reopening plan that could begin in February - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2020/12/newsom-pushes-california-school.html

Big Education Ape: NYC Public School Parents: Letter to NY State Commissioner: please allow Hasidic youths to have a chance at a better education - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2020/12/nyc-public-school-parents-letter-to-ny.html

Big Education Ape: Teachers and students face COVID winter break challenges - Los Angeles Times - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2020/12/teachers-and-students-face-covid-winter.html

Big Education Ape: Trump Executive Order on Private School Vouchers Denounced as 'Last-Ditch Effort to Claim Victory' in War on Public Education | Common Dreams News - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2020/12/trump-executive-order-on-private-school.html

Bill Lee’s Not So Special Session – Tennessee Education Report

by Mike Simpson / 1h

BILL LEE’S NOT SO SPECIAL SESSION S o, Gov. Bill Lee has decided to call a special session of the Tennessee General Assembly to address education issues he’s largely ignored during his time as governor. While Lee has eagerly pursued a privatization agenda , he’s left teachers and public schools behind. Now, he wants to make it seem like he’s doing something. This is, after all, the same Governor

Steve Nelson: Farewell to the Worst Secretary of Education Ever! | Diane Ravitch's blog

by Mike Simpson / 1h

Farewell to the Worst Secretary of Education Ever! Steve Nelson was head of school at the Calhoun School. He is now in retirement. He writes frequently about the need for child-centered education. “RESIST!” Bernie Sanders? AOC? Malcom X? Saul Alinsky? No, this was Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s plea to Education Department staffers as she ends her term in office. As reported in The Hill, she

Teacher Tom: They Say There are No Stupid Questions. I Beg to Differ.

by Mike Simpson / 1h

They Say There are No Stupid Questions. I Beg to Differ. They say there's no such thing as a stupid question, but I beg to differ. We hear stupid questions almost every time adults and young children are together. For instance, a child is painting at an easel, exploring color, shape, and motion, experimenting with brushes, paper, and paint. There is an adult watching over her shoulder who points

Robert D. Skeels: Outgoing Administration Admits Charters are not Public Schools

by Mike Simpson / 1h

solidaridad: Outgoing Administration Admits Charters are not Public Schools Outgoing Administration Admits Charters are not Public Schools The latest executive order by troglodyte Trump tacitly admits that charter schools are *NOT* public schools. We all knew that, but it's nice when the vile privatizers tell on themselves. * While it is good to see DeVos and Trump on the way out, there's little

Trump’s School Choice Executive Order: A Big Nothing | deutsch29: Mercedes Schneider's Blog

by Mike Simpson / 1h

Trump’s School Choice Executive Order: A Big Nothing On December 28, 2020, President Donald Trump issued this executive order to purportedly allow federal Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) funds to be used to finance “emergency learning scholarships” (school vouchers) “to disadvantaged families for use by any child without access to in-person learning” This executive order will go nowhere. F

CURMUDGUCATION: Schools And Social Capital

by Mike Simpson / 1h

Schools And Social Capital I'm in the middle of reading Robert Putnam's new book ( The Upswin g ) which has gotten me to thinking about his previous work, Our Kids . What has struck me in particular about the latter is his writing about social capital and the children of this country. The definition of social capital is, in general, a little fuzzy. Putnam's, as put forth in Bowling Alone, anothe

Parents of Disabled Students: Do NOT Grant College Board Unlimited Access to Your Child’s Sensitive Information | Parent Coalition for Student Privacy

by Mike Simpson / 1h

PARENTS OF DISABLED STUDENTS: DO NOT GRANT COLLEGE BOARD UNLIMITED ACCESS TO YOUR CHILD’S SENSITIVE INFORMATION We recently received a query from a Chicago parent whose child has a disability, and was seeking an accommodation when taking a College Board test. Her child’s high school asked her to sign a SSD Accommodation Consent form allowing her school to disclose her child’s disability records,

glen brown: When Children Return to School by Teresa Thayer Snyder

by Mike Simpson / 1h

When Children Return to School by Teresa Thayer Snyder Dear Friends and Colleagues: I am writing today about the children of this pandemic. After a lifetime of working among the young, I feel compelled to address the concerns that are being expressed by so many of my peers about the deficits the children will demonstrate when they finally return to school. My goodness, what a disconcerting thing

YESTERDAY

THE TOP BANANA: TODAY'S EDUCATION HEADLINES #REDFORED #tbats #COVIDVACCINE #BIDEN #edsecMiguelCardona

by Mike Simpson / 22h

Big Education Ape THE TOP BANANA TODAY'S EDUCATION HEADLINES Schools Face A Massive Challenge To Make Up For Learning Lost During The Pandemic https://www.scpr.org/news/2020/12/28/95901/schools-face-a-

 Big Education Ape

NANCY BAILEY: Amplify and iReady Claim Kindergarten and First Grade “Reading Loss” to Profit From the Pandemic

Amplify and iReady Claim Kindergarten and First Grade “Reading Loss” to Profit From the Pandemic

Amplify and iReady Claim Kindergarten and First Grade “Reading Loss” to Profit From the Pandemic

Are kindergartners falling behind in reading due to the pandemic? Amplify and iReady want us to think so.

But kindergarten teachers should not be forcing children to learn to read during the pandemic. They shouldn’t have been pushing them to read before Covid-19. Nor should kindergartners be forced to read after the coronavirus becomes a bad memory.

Children always used to begin formal reading instruction during first grade. Expecting kindergartners to read by the time they get to first grade is bizarre. Still, by making children look like they’re falling behind, companies can make money on reading remediation and tutorial programs. During the pandemic it’s called the covid slide. 

Education Week promotes this wrong message in Students’ reading losses could strain schools’ capacity to help them catch up. They say Amplify and iReady claim children fall behind in reading because they are entering first grade not knowing how to read.

It’s going to cost billions, according to iReady, to remediate these so-called reading CONTINUE READING: Amplify and iReady Claim Kindergarten and First Grade “Reading Loss” to Profit From the Pandemic

Newsom pushes California school reopening plan that could begin in February

Newsom pushes California school reopening plan that could begin in February

Newsom pushes California school reopening plan that could begin in February

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a $2 billion push Wednesday to reopen California elementary schools for the youngest students in February, offering incentives and testing to school districts that resume classroom instruction.

Most of California's 6 million public school students have been learning remotely since the pandemic forced widespread closures in March. While a smattering of districts opened this fall when infection rates were lower, most kept campuses shut and stayed online, especially those in large metropolitan areas.

Newsom's plan relies on carrots rather than sticks in trying to reopen elementary schools across California. The centerpiece is a $2 billion mid-year budget request that would channel money toward getting kids back in classrooms, with an emphasis on younger children who are in transitional kindergarten through second grade. Priority will be given to districts with large numbers of low-income students, foster youth or English learners — groups whose disadvantages have been exacerbated during distance learning.

The framework also seeks to ramp up testing at schools and to furnish educators with more protective equipment, including by distributing millions of surgical masks for free. Newsom's plan would prioritize inoculating school staff through the spring; teachers and child care providers are expected to be next in line for CONTINUE READING: Newsom pushes California school reopening plan that could begin in February

NYC Public School Parents: Letter to NY State Commissioner: please allow Hasidic youths to have a chance at a better education

NYC Public School Parents: Letter to NY State Commissioner: please allow Hasidic youths to have a chance at a better education

Letter to NY State Commissioner: please allow Hasidic youths to have a chance at a better education

This moving letter, reprinted with the permission of its author who asked for his name to be removed, was sent to NY Commissioner of Education Betty Rosa and top NYSED officials.  It was sent shortly after he had participated in a online group discussion of volunteers, solicited to give feedback on the state regulations to enforce the NY state Substantial Equivalency law.  The message points out how the lack of a basic secular education threatens not only the life chances of Hasidic youths, but also the health and safety of their communities. 

For more on this issue, see recent opeds by Naftuli Moster of Yaffed in the Washington Post and Gotham Gazette, the latter entitled What Happens in Williamsburg Doesn't Stay in Williamsburg.

Dear Commissioner Rosa, Deputy Commissioner D’Agati, Assistant Commissioner Coughlin, and members of the Board of Regents,

I also want to thank you for addressing this important issue as well as echo and elaborate on many of the points made by others.

I was raised in the Hasidic, Jewish community in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and attended a Hasidic yeshiva until the age of 15. In my Hasidic elementary and middle school (cheider), after an intense day of religious studies, we had only an hour-and-a-half of very rudimentary English and arithmetic. In Hasidic high school, during my thirteen hours in yeshiva daily, we exclusively studied religious texts such as the Talmud and Torah and no secular studies whatsoever.

Throughout all my years in a Hasidic school, I was never taught any science, history, geography, government, art, literature, computers, health or any math beyond arithmetic.

The school I attended and its disregard for a secular education is not in any way an isolated case. It is the universal norm among Hasidic boys schools in New York. (The girls CONTINUE READING: NYC Public School Parents: Letter to NY State Commissioner: please allow Hasidic youths to have a chance at a better education

Teachers and students face COVID winter break challenges - Los Angeles Times

Teachers and students face COVID winter break challenges - Los Angeles Times

Facing a spike in Fs, winter break isn’t a vacation for many teachers and students

During her winter break, English teacher Keara Williams has hit the phone, making call after call determinedly trying to make contact with her students and their parents.

She needs to reach 28 students, including 11 seniors, who received an “incomplete” grade at the end of the fall semester. She tells them they will fail her class if they don’t complete make-up work to raise their grade to at least a D by the end of January. There is still time to get the work done, do not give up, Williams says. And she lets them know that she is here for them — all winter vacation if that’s what it takes to avoid an F.

She has reached 13 students and left messages and emails with the others. But when she last checked her computer, only one had signed in online to look at the make-up work.

Williams, like so many teachers in the Los Angeles school district, is grappling with wrenching grading decisions amid the hardships of the raging pandemic that has shuttered campuses for nine months. An F grade in a required class would delay or deny a high school diploma, require a make-up class and could ruin a GPA during the college admissions cycle. How do they balance compassion and empathy with the low grade points in their record books? How do they find and engage their lost students before it’s too late? The magnitude of work ahead for both teachers and students feels CONTINUE READING: Teachers and students face COVID winter break challenges - Los Angeles Times

Trump Executive Order on Private School Vouchers Denounced as 'Last-Ditch Effort to Claim Victory' in War on Public Education | Common Dreams News

Trump Executive Order on Private School Vouchers Denounced as 'Last-Ditch Effort to Claim Victory' in War on Public Education | Common Dreams News

Trump Executive Order on Private School Vouchers Denounced as 'Last-Ditch Effort to Claim Victory' in War on Public Education

"Trump fought against funding for public education for months, then does this as he begrudgingly signs [the] Covid relief bill."

Public education champions are denouncing President Donald Trump's new executive order that enables states to use funds from a federal block grant program to provide vouchers to qualifying households to offset some of the costs of private school tuition, homeschooling, or other educational expenses during the coronavirus pandemic, even as critics say the move is more of a symbolic endorsement of school privatization than a serious attempt to subsidize in-person learning.

Trump's executive order, which he signed on Monday, empowers the secretary of health and human services to "allow funds available through the Community Services Block Grant program to be used by grantees and eligible entities to provide emergency learning scholarships to disadvantaged families for use by any child without access to in-person learning."

As Politico reported Monday night, Trump's move comes after school choice provisions sought by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Republican lawmakers were excluded from the coronavirus relief bill the president signed on Sunday.

The White House spun the executive order as an attempt to provide more flexibility to parents amid what Trump called "the public education system's failure to provide in-person learning options." Trump neglected to mention, however, that his administration has failed to create the conditions for a safe reopening of public schools.

Rather than attacking public schools while pushing for privatized alternatives—as CONTINUE READING: Trump Executive Order on Private School Vouchers Denounced as 'Last-Ditch Effort to Claim Victory' in War on Public Education | Common Dreams News

Bill Lee’s Not So Special Session – Tennessee Education Report

Bill Lee’s Not So Special Session – Tennessee Education Report

BILL LEE’S NOT SO SPECIAL SESSION

So, Gov. Bill Lee has decided to call a special session of the Tennessee General Assembly to address education issues he’s largely ignored during his time as governor. While Lee has eagerly pursued a privatization agenda, he’s left teachers and public schools behind. Now, he wants to make it seem like he’s doing something. This is, after all, the same Governor who led Tennessee to the “best in the world” status in transmission rate of COVID-19.

Chalkbeat reports on the topics to be discussed during the session:

He’ll ask the legislature to address state testing challenges next spring during the pandemic, as well as funding for teacher pay and schools for the following academic year. Also on the agenda will be initiatives to address learning loss and a comprehensive literacy package to improve students’ reading proficiency.

Reading this is actually pretty amusing, considering the very problems or challenges Lee is seeking to address were created by a man named Bill Lee who happens to be the Governor. Maybe “Special Session Bill Lee” should go have a talk with “Regular Session Bill Lee” and see what they can work out? CONTINUE READING: Bill Lee’s Not So Special Session – Tennessee Education Report