CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: And Now I'm Older Edition (5/23)

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: And Now I'm Older Edition (5/23)

And Now I'm Older Edition

What a week here at the Institute. But now it's time to get back to reading, and we've got a fine selection of pieces this week. I'll remind you that you can also keep up on the current writing about public e3d by following the Network for Public Education's Blog of Blogs. Hop on over, put your email in the little box, and get a daily dose of quality education writing. Now on to this week's list.

How Biden's cash paid for Florida GOP's pet education projects.

Well, taxpayer money, actually. But no matter what you call it, the Florida GOP are enjoying using it to paper over one of their secrets--their anti-public education policies are running a huge deficit.

Texas GOP gags teachers

It's the most draconian of the anti-anti-racism laws. Way to go, Texas.

The K-12 Culture Wars

Jack Schneider and Jennifer Berkshire go on a little tour to hot spots around the country for some chilling reminders about how all this current conservative culture onslaught of schools is experienced in an up close and personal way by actual teachers.

Judge: Betsy DeVos cannot quash deposition

The indispensable Mercedes Schneider has the results of the DeVosian attempt to avoid having to do one of her least favorite things-- explain herself to the little people. The fallout from her refusal to provide relief to defrauded students continues.

Dartmouth blindsides med students with shaky cheating "evidence"

A Mercedes Schneider two-fer this week, as we get a look once again at how poorly those anti-cheating surveillance systems actually work.

A scholarly masterpiece: William Franz Public School

Thomas Ultican provides a review of an important book about how one school was hit by the New Orleans reformster movement.

Idaho teacher who stopped 6th-grad school shooter says she hugged girl after disarming her

Only a teacher can really grasp the many threads running through this People magazine tale of the Idaho teacher who stopped a school shooter (without using a gun). 

Southeast PA superintendents call for charter funding reform

Dale Mezzacappa is at Chalkbeat with a story of PA districts coming out in support of Gov. Wolf's proposal to pay charter schools an amount that actually makes sense.

Taking the math SAT when you've forgotten math

A few weeks ago, John Warner tried taking the verbal portion of the SAT. Now he's gone back to take a whack at the math. Interesting insights into everybody's favorite exam.

Education without controversy? What's the point?

As states try to clamp down on teacher freedom and universities look at axing the classics, Andrea Gabor is at Bloomberg explaining why art and literature (and arguing) are important in education.

65 years after "Brown v. Board," where are all the black educators?

At EdWeek, Madeline Wil looks at one of the important questions of education--where are the Black teachers, and how did we get to this place?

Play-based learning isn't free play and may be connected to online learning

Nancy Bailey, ever vigilant about language, points out that "play-based" isn't quite the same as actual play.

The Value of Preschool

Oh, Florida. Accountabaloney lays out how the dependably dim Florida legislature is screwing up preschool. (Spoiler alert: more testing).

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: And Now I'm Older Edition (5/23)

CATCH UP WITH CURMUDGUCATION

AND DON'T FORGET PETER GREENE ON FORBES CLICK HERE 

Wisconsin Cyber Charter Cited By ACLU For Blocking LGBTQ Group - https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergreene/2021/05/21/wisconsin-cyber-charter-sued-by-aclu-for-blocking-lgbtq-group/?sh=4efece7773f8 by @palan57 on @forbes

Pennsylvania Charter Schools Are Comfortably Flush. Will It Last? - https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergreene/2021/05/20/pennsylvania-charter-schools-are-comfortably-flush-will-it-last/?sh=677ee1296eb5 by @palan57 on @forbes

Pre-K And The Importance Of Measuring The Right Things - https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergreene/2021/05/14/pre-k-and-the-importance-of-measuring-the-right-things/?sh=7bceeced38c3 by @palan57 on @forbes

GOP Election Preview: Our Children Were Robbed

by Peter Greene / 2d

I live in Northwester Pennsylvania, and this is Trump country. We've got a GOP controlled legislature and a Democratic governor, and a great deal of contentiousness stemming from that situation. And in the recent primary election, voters passed a constitutional amendment that de-powered the governor in the case of, say, a massive pandemic and gave emergency powers to the legislature instead. Thou

19 Rules for Life (2021 Edition)

73by Peter Greene / 3d

I first posted this list when I turned 60, and have made it an annual tradition to get it out on my birthday and re-examine it, edit it, and remind myself why I thought such things in the first place. I will keep my original observation-- that this list does not represent any particular signs of wisdom on my part, because I discovered these rules much in the same way that a dim cow discovers an e

MO: Longtime Charter Sponsor Leaves the Biz (And Parents)

by Peter Greene / 3d

The University of Central Missouri has been sponsoring charter schools since 1999 , serving as the major sponsor of charters in Kansas City (in Missouri, the rule used to be that only St. Louis and Kansas City could house charter schools). St. Louis schools have been a mess , with both public and charter schools having their share of legislatively-inflicted woes. And some legislators have continu

PA: One District (Mostly) For Sale

by Peter Greene / 4d

Chester Upland is a district that has struggled with issues and money and racism for decades; they are the history of every problem facing public education in the last century, right up to and including the gutting of a public education system by privatizing charter operators . Poorer and Blacker than all surrounding districts, they have suffered through one damn thing after another. Chester Upla

PA: The Special Ed Funding Triple Whammy

by Peter Greene / 5d

Are you ready for the best explainer yet for the screwed-up state of Pennsylvania's charter funding when it comes to special ed students? Here at the Institute, we're fans of the work of Research for Action . The Philly based research group is meticulously independent and well-conceived and executed. We're previously looked at their work on test-based (poverty-punishing) assessment , the failure

Covid and the Good Guys

29by Peter Greene / 6d

If @rweingarten , the unions, & every leader/expert who kept schools closed this year want any hope of re-gaining the support of angry parents, it's best to acknowledge their mistakes and apologize for the damage done rather than pretend they've been the good guys all along. — Elisabeth Weinberg (@misselisabeths) May 15, 2021 You can set this Twitter comment next to a quote from Rep. Virginia Fox

ICYMI: Grandchild Edition (5/16)

21by Peter Greene / 7d

No, I don't have a new one. But my newest grandchild is in town, so I get to see him for the first time in a year. A photo of his extreme cuteness to follow, but you'll have to scroll past this list of reading material from the week. How College Became a Ruthless Competition Divorced From Learning In the Atlantic, Daniel Markowits has written a piece that will repeatedly having you yell "Yeah!" a

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

Shawgi Tell: Charter School Promoters’ War on Consciousness | Dissident Voice

Charter School Promoters’ War on Consciousness | Dissident Voice

Charter School Promoters’ War on Consciousness

Charter school promoters have always relied on disinformation and irrationalism to justify the existence of charter schools, but in recent weeks and months it appears that a new, more pernicious, form of self-serving disinformation and irrationalism has reared its head.

This new disinformation and irrationalism seeks to further debase social consciousness and takes the form of casually and repeatedly declaring the exact and complete opposite of what research and experience confirm. The hope is that just by asserting and declaring something repeatedly, people will spontaneously believe it and abandon any conscious act of investigation.

Charter school promoters are increasingly desperate to make their pay-the-rich schemes look and sound like they are harmless and exist for the good of humanity. They have to do this because consciousness of the retrogressive character of privately-operated charter schools keeps steadily growing.

Several forms of this newly concerted strategy of disinformation and irrationalism have emerged.

The main one, however, has to do with school funding. Common sense, CONTINUE READING: Charter School Promoters’ War on Consciousness | Dissident Voice

Bill Phillis: Why Do Ohio Republicans Hate Public Schools? | Diane Ravitch's blog

Bill Phillis: Why Do Ohio Republicans Hate Public Schools? | Diane Ravitch's blog

Bill Phillis: Why Do Ohio Republicans Hate Public Schools?

Bill Phillis is a retired state education official who writes frequently about the Republican war against public schools and against the education provisions of the state constitution. He created the Ohio Coalion for Equity and Advocacy of School Funding to publicize his campaign for equitable funding and his opposition to privatization.

He writes:

SENATE PRESIDENT HUFFMAN: THE EDUCATION IN OHIO NEEDS TO BE STUDENT-OR USER-BASED, NOT INSTITUTION-BASED

The Senate President, in response to the Universal Voucher bill (HB 290), is quoted in the May 9 Gongwer, as saying:

“The education in Ohio needs to be student-or user-based, not institution-based.” The Ohio constitution (Article VI, section 2) requires the legislature to secure and fund a thorough and efficient system of common CONTINUE READING: Bill Phillis: Why Do Ohio Republicans Hate Public Schools? | Diane Ravitch's blog

Ed Notes Online: Final Call for Monday Noon press conference: Do Not Privatize Our Medicare - and some reason why

Ed Notes Online: Final Call for Monday Noon press conference: Do Not Privatize Our Medicare - and some reason why

Final Call for Monday Noon press conference: Do Not Privatize Our Medicare - and some reason why

Ed Notes Online: Final Call for Monday Noon press conference: Do Not Privatize Our Medicare - and some reason why

Monday Noon near City Hall: Media Advisory: Press conference to save Medicare for NYC Municipal workers

Join us Monday and make sure to vote RA in chapter election. The more people who are there the more impact.

VOTE NOW FOR RETIREE ADVOCATE/UFT SLATE IN RETIREE CHAPTER ELECTION

Yes, a vote for us is a vote for stopping some of the crap that is going on.

Monday will be a rare day where I will venture forth from my fortress to join other municipal retirees, many from the UFT, in a press conference to focus attention on the move toward moving us from public Medicare to privatized Medicare Advantage, the very wrong direction our union should be going in.

I helped write more detailed info piece. click here.

This advisory, which I helped put together (this entire process had been a real learning experience for this old dog)  is going out to the press.

From:  RetireeAdvocate/UFT   RetireeAdvocate@gmail.com  Visit us on Facebook

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  

Media Advisory: Press conference to save Medicare for NYC Municipal workers

Press Contacts:

Bennett Fischer (tremblychap@gmail.com)

Prudence Hill (pruhill@yahoo.com)

Norm Scott (normsco@gmail.com)

WHAT: NYC municipal union retirees gather to save Medicare and protest Municipal Labor Committee/NYC attempt to force them out of Medicare into privatized Medicare Advantage plan.

WHEN:  Monday, May 24, 2021

TIME: 12 Noon

WHO: Retiree Advocate/UFT, a caucus of retirees in the United Federation of Teachers and allies in other municipal unions and supporters defend our ability to remain on Medicare and reject attempts to move us to a privatized plan.

WHERE: Park Row/Centre St. outside City Hall Park by the 4/5/6 City Hall/Brooklyn Bridge Subway Station

DEMANDS:

A moratorium on any change to existing Medicare plan

NO to privatization of government managed Medicare 

Transparency on all negotiations with decision-making from all members

The Metropolitan Labor Council (MLC), consisting of a number of unions, including the UFT, and the NYC Office of Labor Relations are in the final stages of negotiations to move 250,000 municipal workers currently enrolled in government-managed Medicare into privately-managed Medicare Advantage with inherent disadvantages:

·       High administrative costs

·       Profit motive

·       Excessive executive salaries

·       Restrictions on patient services

We condemn unions’ willingness to move away from public to privatization of government-manages Medicare. Supposed savings can only come on the backs of retirees. Stop the sell! Save traditional Medicare for NYC retirees!

For further information, click here.

=======

This is not going out to the press:

To clear up a bit of confusion for some. While we whistle while we work we are under a private plan which continues when we retire - until we reach 65 when we go onto Medicare for 80% of our health care - I haven't heard any complaints and 98% of doctors take it. The other 20% co-pay is still privately managed.

Before reaching 65 we generally had a choice of GHI where we have more freedom to choose our doctors and a more restricted HIP plan where your doctors have to be part of the network and you need permissions to go to specialists. Some are very happy with HIP.

And the UFT leadership has used the fact that we have had privately managed care as a way to attack us for making a mountain out of a molehill. We are not.

Neo-lib Dems like Clinton wanted to save money on our backs and in the 90s allowed private insurance to offer Medicare type plans on their own to compete with Medicare -- with the obvious aim of killing Medicare off altogether. This causes some confusion for people hitting 65 and I get calls all the time about what to do, upon with I ask my wife who managed medical billing in a large hospital for decades who then shouts - tell them NO - stick with Medicare.

Funny, but as recently as March when a Retiree Advocate member went for a meeting at the UFT they were being told the same thing -- stay away from Medicare Advantage plans. Some are scams in essence.

So low and behold as we are in the final stages of the UFT retiree chapter election, we begin to hear that the Municipal Labor Committee, where Mulgrew is VP, is about to announce a forced move out of Medicare into a MedADV plan and people are reprising our youth in the 60s:

HELL NO WE WON'T GO!!

Monday Noon near City Hall: Media Advisory: Press conference to save Medicare for NYC Municipal workers

EdAction in Congress May 23, 2021 - Education Votes

EdAction in Congress May 23, 2021 - Education Votes

EdAction in Congress May 23, 2021

Victory! And your advocacy helped make it happen

President Biden signed the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act into law on May 20. Introduced by Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI), it will strengthen federal efforts to address hate crimes targeting Asian-Americans in several ways: designate a Department of Justice employee to expedite the review of COVID-19 hate crimes, provide guidance for state and local officials for online reporting of such crimes, and require the department to issue guidance to mitigate racially discriminatory language in describing the pandemic.

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Urge senators to support the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (H.R. 1065) passed the House by a vote of 315-101, with 99 Republicans joining every Democrat present voting “aye.” Key provisions include creating a uniform national standard for reasonable accommodations for pregnancy, childbirth, and related conditions; prohibit employers from denying pregnant workers employment opportunities; require the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to make rules implementing the law; and address the issue through a framework modeled after the Americans with Disabilities Act.

More than three-quarters of women—half the American workforce and nearly 80 percent of educators—will be pregnant and employed at some point in their lives. Women are important breadwinners in their families, yet all too often, pregnant women are pushed out of their jobs or forced to risk their health to continue earning a paycheck when they are pregnant. TAKE ACTION

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Anniversary of George Floyd’s death fuels new push for congressional action

Tuesday, May 25 is the anniversary of George Floyd’s death. He struggled for his life for 9 minutes and 29 seconds as a police officer thrust a knee against his neck, maintaining the pressure even as he repeatedly said, “I can’t breathe” and bled on the ground. Americans saw what happened with their own eyes—bystanders recorded it on their cell phones—and responded with an outpouring of anger and grief that has fueled a renewed push for racial justice and an end to the police brutality that disproportionately kills African Americans. One in every 1,000 Black men can expect to be killed by police, according to a 2019 study published in a National Academy of Sciences journal.

The House passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act (H.R. 1280) by a vote of 220-212 in March, but the Senate has yet to act. The bill takes initial steps to end police brutality, protect civil rights and liberties, and change the culture of law enforcement agencies. They include ending racial and religious profiling and no-knock warrants, mandatory de-escalation training for police, prohibiting chokeholds and other potentially fatal maneuvers, and requiring police to use dashboard and body cameras—many of the same steps called for by the Justice for Black Lives document issued by NEA’s executive committee. TAKE ACTION

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We need to invest in fixing school buildings now, say educators to Congress

Every student and educator deserves a safe learning and work environment, and educators around the country are speaking out about the conditions they face and how it affects their students. Read more

 

 

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Cheers and Jeers

Cheers

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) reintroduced the HEAL Act (S. 1660/H.R. 3149), which expand immigrants’ access to Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and health insurance sold on Affordable Care Act online marketplaces.

Reps. Ed Perlmutter (D-CO), Stephanie Murphy (D-FL), and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) introduced the School Safety Drill Research Act (H.R. 3432) to determine the unintentional impact of such drills and help schools move forward with trauma-informed alternatives.

EdAction in Congress May 23, 2021 - Education Votes

“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.” – Grumpy Old Teacher

“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.” – Grumpy Old Teacher

“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”

And a #2 pencil.

The quote is attributed to Winston Churchill as he received the King’s appointment to be Prime MInister in May 1940 to form a new government and prosecute the war with Nazi Germany. However, for the last 20 years, it is the plaintive cry of every American school child in grades 3 through 10 taking numerous state tests because we must have data to measure … it used to be student learning, but now takes in school quality, teacher accomplishments, administrative worthiness, and district whatever … Grumpy Old Teacher (GOT) supposes that in the year of 2021, school testing is used to measure everything but the level of water in the kitchen sink.

It is 2021 and the ‘compassion and grace’ of the previous year has been replaced by the driving need, which rhymes with greed, of the Testing-Reform Complex to measure learning loss, a dubious concept at best that actually means how much worse will kids score on the tests this year.

Yes, we are testing this year and doing our best to intimidate parents and children who opted to continue their learning in their bedrooms to come onto our campuses because the test must be taken. CONTINUE READING“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.” – Grumpy Old Teacher

Indoctrinate this, part 2: Would DeSantis and Latvala fire me for teaching this lesson on the state-mandated 1920 Ocoee pogrom standard? - Public Enemy Number 1

Indoctrinate this, part 2: Would DeSantis and Latvala fire me for teaching this lesson on the state-mandated 1920 Ocoee pogrom standard? - Public Enemy Number 1

Indoctrinate this, part 2: Would DeSantis and Latvala fire me for teaching this lesson on the state-mandated 1920 Ocoee pogrom standard?

A case study in the performative stupidity of your state government and its fake, impotent, embarrassing outrage at real history.

Part 1: The voices of the Great Migration laugh at Richard Corcoran — A grifter who can't make finalist in a university president search rigged for him is no match for the honest, competitive study of America, which is an unpoliceable classroom without walls.

This is part 2 — in which I “teach” a lesson about the Ocoee racial pogrom of 1920. The Florida Legislature recently required the state education system to “teach” it. But I can’t find the actual standard, now long overdue, anywhere.

A new 2020 law requires the task force to recommend to state education leaders by March 1 how to teach the massacre.

But in a state where fewer than 20% of the teachers are Black, and lots of new teachers enter classrooms each year, many teachers are unaware of these events or unsure sure how to tackle tough subjects of violence and racial discrimination.

There may not be a standard yet because Ron DeSantis is unilaterally making it illegal to teach it. What follows is my case study for testing that.

Hopefully, DeSantis and Corcoran and Chris Latvala will tell me if this is fireable so CONTINUE READING: Indoctrinate this, part 2: Would DeSantis and Latvala fire me for teaching this lesson on the state-mandated 1920 Ocoee pogrom standard? - Public Enemy Number 1

Why Our Many Big Plans to Raise Educational Standards Will Never Work (Jay Mathews) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Why Our Many Big Plans to Raise Educational Standards Will Never Work (Jay Mathews) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Why Our Many Big Plans to Raise Educational Standards Will Never Work (Jay Mathews)

Jay Mathews is a veteran journalist for The Washington Post who has covered education for more than three decades. He has written books on Jaime Escalante, a Los Angeles high school math teacher and KIPP charter schools. This article appeared in the Post April 17, 2021.

As one of our most celebrated education reforms — the Common Core State Standards — sinks into oblivion, will we finally give up on big-time top-down plans to save our schools?

I bet we won’t. We can’t help ourselves, even with convincing proof from an intriguing new book that any further outsized attempts to raise achievement with better standards will fail, as all the others have.You can feel the exasperation in every word as Tom Loveless, a former senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, sums up his main conclusion in “Between the State and the Schoolhouse: Understanding the Failure of Common Core.”

“The idea of standards-based reform should be abandoned. It doesn’t work,” he wrote.

Those of us who put our faith in bottom-up reforms, with individual teachers raising standards for each child, can find some hope here. “It could be that CONTINUE READING: Why Our Many Big Plans to Raise Educational Standards Will Never Work (Jay Mathews) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Top 6 Administrative Failures of the Pandemic Classroom | gadflyonthewallblog

Top 6 Administrative Failures of the Pandemic Classroom | gadflyonthewallblog

Top 6 Administrative Failures of the Pandemic Classroom

This school year has been a failure in so many ways.

But don’t get me wrong.

I’m not going to sit here and point fingers.

The Covid-19 pandemic has tested the public school system like never before.

Teachers, administrators and school directors have been under tremendous pressure and I believe most really tried their best in good faith to make things work as well as possible.

But as the year comes to a blessed close, we need to examine some of the practices common at many of our schools during this disaster and honestly evaluate their success or failure.

Some things worked well. Many made the best of a bad situation. But even more were blatant failures.

We need to know which was which.

As a classroom teacher with 17 years experience who worked through these times, CONTINUE READING: Top 6 Administrative Failures of the Pandemic Classroom | gadflyonthewallblog