Personalized Learning May Appear to Solve Pandemic Education Challenges but New Research Raises Big Concerns | janresseger

Personalized Learning May Appear to Solve Pandemic Education Challenges but New Research Raises Big Concerns | janresseger

Personalized Learning May Appear to Solve Pandemic Education Challenges but New Research Raises Big Concerns

Here we are at the beginning of July, and the COVID-19 numbers are soaring across many states. The recessionary collapse of state budgets makes public school funding look shaky, and nobody can quite say how to make school safe. With the 2020-21 school year expected to start in six weeks, school leaders face overwhelming uncertainty. It is easy to imagine that a well-known, free, online learning platform and curriculum, funded entirely by tech philanthropists, might be extremely tempting.

But there are reasons for caution. Last week, the Washington Post‘s Valerie Strauss published a guest column from researchers at the National Education Policy Center (NEPC), a guest column describing the Summit Learning Platform, and warning about some of the reasons for school district leaders to be cautious. These researchers, Alex Molnar and Faith Boninger, have documented serious concerns about protecting the privacy of student data collected by Summit Learning and its sponsors. To underscore the seriousness of their concerns, they describe the powerful people behind Summit Learning:

“Summit Public Schools, founded in 2003, currently operates 11 schools enrolling approximately 4,675 students in California and Washington State. In 2013-2014, there was no Summit Learning Program or ‘partner’ schools. Things changed quickly after a 2014-2015 agreement between Summit and Facebook established the goals of enhancing Summit’s self-created software platform and collaborating on a marketing strategy for its nationwide adoption. Since then, Summit Public Schools has received extensive technical support from Facebook and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and almost $200 million in funding from the Chan Zuckerberg Iniative, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and others.”

Molnar and Boninger review Summit’s marketing claims: “Summit Public Schools claims that its educational program does an exceptional job of preparing students for college and that its graduates succeed in college. Its specific claims are that its students are ‘100 percent Eligible CONTINUE READING: Personalized Learning May Appear to Solve Pandemic Education Challenges but New Research Raises Big Concerns | janresseger

NYC Educator: Schools Don't Need No Stinking Air Flitration

NYC Educator: Schools Don't Need No Stinking Air Flitration

Schools Don't Need No Stinking Air Filtration

But malls do, according to Governor Cuomo. You see, shoppers need fine air. They can't go around breathing deadly toxins. After all, how is that going to positively influence the economy? No, the sick and the dead are simply not adequate consumers.

What do they buy? No, they are just a suck on the economy, lying around in hospital beds and using expensive ventilators. Next, they'll be asking Jared to use his private stock of American ventilators that aren't for state use. Perhaps Cuomo sees students and teachers the same way as sick and dead consumers--a drag on the economy.

HEPA filters aren't just things from expensive vacuum cleaners. They actually reduce the presence of Covid 19 in the air. So you just know that these consumers will be returning to JC Penney to buy yet another 39-dollar polyester Cricketeer suit when the next wedding comes around in 2022 or so.

New Jersey isn't requiring this because it's, well, New Jersey. But Cuomo is really concerned about NY malls, among other things. He's also worried about the way people fail to comply with social distancing and mask wearing. That's a valid concern. Every day I walk out and see people with no masks. I see them in outdoor bars and restaurants. I see employees who can't be bothered pulling the masks over their noses.

And hey, in a country where the President of the United States doesn't wear a mask, where people will fight Walmart greeters rather than comply, a country where some people think it's their basic constitutional right to spread their germs everywhere, it's a concern. There are an awful lot of people who won't comply.

Among them are almost certainly our students. Young people are remarkably social, and with terrible adult role models everywhere I go, I don't envision them respecting social distancing, let alone masks. Of course it won't likely be them getting sick. It will more likely be the adults with whom they come into contact. That would be their parents, CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: Schools Don't Need No Stinking Air Flitration

With Pass-Fail, What’s the Point of Grades? (Jack Schneider) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

With Pass-Fail, What’s the Point of Grades? (Jack Schneider) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

With Pass-Fail, What’s the Point of Grades? (Jack Schneider)

This opinion column appeared in New York Times, June 25, 2020

Jack Schneider (@Edu_Historian), an assistant professor of leadership in education at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, is the director of research for the Massachusetts Consortium for Innovative Education Assessment.

In the wake of the novel coronavirus pandemic, countless colleges and universities shifted from to A-F grades to a pass/fail system. As officials at Wellesley College explained, the general aim in doing so is to “support one another without being required to make judgments.”

Many K-12 school districts have done the same. From Palo Alto, Calif., to Wake County, N.C., local officials have concluded that now is not the time for grades. As teachers in Wisconsin’s Madison Metropolitan School District declared, “We cannot grade with equity when students’ experiences learning at home will be so varied.” And it’s not yet clear that most schools that have made this switch will fully return to letter grades in the fall.

But not everyone is happy with this outcome.

Some parents and activists are anxious that, without grades, students won’t receive adequate feedback on their work. Others worry that altering or eliminating the traditional grading scale will undermine student motivation and reward slacking off. As one Oregon parent pointedly asked in one of many online petitions pushing for the reinstatement of letter grades, “How do I explain to my child that has great grades that she should keep working hard when anything that is D- and above will still ‘pass’? This is ridiculous.” A similar but separate CONTINUE READING: With Pass-Fail, What’s the Point of Grades? (Jack Schneider) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Fraud at Sweetwater Maybe but Unlikely | tultican

Fraud at Sweetwater Maybe but Unlikely | tultican

Fraud at Sweetwater Maybe but Unlikely

By Thomas Ultican 7/1/2020

For the past week, local San Diego TV and Print media have been filled with damning headlines like the NBC affiliate’s, “Audit of Sweetwater Union High School District Finds Evidence of Fraud” or the online publication Voice of San Diego’s “Audit Finds Sweetwater Officials Deliberately Manipulated Finances.” Every local news outlet published this story with some version of these headlines.

On Monday June 23, the Fiscal Crisis Management Assist Team (FCMAT) presented the results of its long awaited audit of Sweetwater Union High School District’s (SUHSD) finances. The report authors state,

“Based on the findings in this report, there is sufficient evidence to demonstrate that fraud, misappropriation of funds and/or assets, or other illegal fiscal practices may have occurred in the specific areas reviewed.”

How Did SUHSD Arrive Here?

For Sweetwater, this is really a continuation of a course set by corrupt leadership a decade earlier. It is also emblematic of the financial stress all California school district are facing. Kristen Taketa reporting for the San Diego Union noted in November 2018:

“At least 10 districts in the county are projecting that they will not be able to meet their financial commitments next school year, including Chula Vista Elementary, Jamul-Dulzura Union, Mountain Empire Unified, Oceanside Unified, San Diego Unified, San Marcos Unified, San Ysidro, Sweetwater and Vista Unified. More districts won’t be able to meet their financial commitments after next year.”

Three factors are mainly responsible for these growing financial stresses. The CONTINUE READING: Fraud at Sweetwater Maybe but Unlikely | tultican

Mr G. for District 3 ----------------- Chris Guerrieri's Education Matters: Let's talk about the issues, libraries.

Mr G. for District 3 ----------------- Chris Guerrieri's Education Matters: Let's talk abut the issues, libraries.

Let's talk about the issues, libraries.

I am going to do a series on the issues and I wanted to talk briefly about libraries.

For a district with a reading problem it did not make any sense to get rid of the libraries but we did we sure did.

This may have started under Pratt-Dannals but it really escalated under Vitti, but here is the thing, Vitti has been gone for going on 4 years now and libraries still have not made a come back.

Vitti was slick too, with a wink he said well I gave schools an option a test coordinator or a librarian but the fix was in because Vitti didn't appreciate libraries or librarians and I don't know if it was because he was dyslexic or he did some cost benefit ratio and decided schools needed another defacto administrator or something else but he decimated the librarian corp. This despite lots of evidence pointing to how valuable they are.

From Phi Delta Kappan,

Since 1992, a growing body of research known as the school library impact studies has consistently shown positive correlations between high-quality library programs and student achievement (Gretes, 2013; Scholastic, 2016). Data from more than 34 statewide studies suggest that students tend to earn better standardized test scores in schools that have strong library programs. Further, when administrators, teachers, and librarians themselves rated the importance and frequency of various library practices associated with CONTINUE READING: Mr G. for District 3 ----------------- Chris Guerrieri's Education Matters: Let's talk about the issues, libraries.

Mike Klonsky's Blog: Gun crazy!

Mike Klonsky's Blog: Gun crazy!

Gun crazy!

Gun sales are skyrocketing around the country including in the Chicago area. A mainly white racist fear/rage response to Trump's looming election loss, government's pandemic "mask-wearing tyranny," BLM protests, and threatened defunding or disbanding of police is driving long lines at gun shops around the country.

In Illinois, for example, from June 1 to June 17, there were more than 42,000 applications for cards to legally possess a firearm, compared with about 7,000 during the same time last year, a 501% increase, according to the Illinois State Police.

Sturm, Ruger stock shares are at their highest level since before Trump was elected; Smith & Wesson’s stock is at a 19-month high. 

Smith & Wesson Brands Inc.’s stock SWBI, 5.33% ran up 10.1%, to the highest close since September 2018. The firearm maker’s shares have hiked up 42.2% over the past 4 sessions and have powered up 61.5% year to date. -- Market Watch

White panic-buying is overwhelming local gun shop owners. Check out this post from this firearms dealer in the Chicago burbs. 

The image of this white couple "protecting" their wealthy gated community could well become  Trump's re-election poster.

This on top of gun threats and actual shootings of peaceful protesters could presage a new level of Trump-inspired, right-wing violence. In Louisville, Ky., a man opened fire from the edge of a Breonna Taylor killing protest area in a park Saturday night, and a 27-year-old photographer was killed. Some bystanders in the park fired back, injuring the shooter, according to a police  CONTINUE READING: Mike Klonsky's Blog: Gun crazy!

Grassroots Education Network- June 2020 Newsletter - Network For Public Education

Grassroots Education Network- June 2020 Newsletter - Network For Public Education

Grassroots Education Network- June 2020 Newsletter

The NPE Grassroots Education Network is a network of 150 grassroots organizations nationwide who have joined together to preserve, promote, improve, and strengthen our public schools. If you know of a group that would like to join this powerful network, please go here to sign on. 

If you have any questions about the NPE Grassroots Education Network please contact Marla Kilfoyle, NPE Grassroots Education Network Liaison at marlakilfoyle@networkforpubliceducation.org

Notes from Marla

In states where groups were working on or posting guidelines for reopening, I provided the link. I hope that this serves as a resource for you should you need it regarding reopening schools in your state. Also in this newsletter you will see many powerful statements on the murder of George Floyd and calls for racial justice. Finally, NPE is hard at work tracking charter schools that are taking Payroll Protection Program money from the COVID stimulus relief funds. This money is meant for small business owners to pay their staff and to help them stay afloat. Charters, like public schools, already have a stream of money, and some charters also have wealthy donors who give them money as well.  We hope that you will continue to share the NPE Alert to address this issue with Congress and articles that we share. And let me know if you find a charter school taking PPP in your area. 

National Organizing

The Network for Public Education issued a statement on the murder of George Floyd. Defending the Early Years will be holding their conference on a virtual platform this summer (July 21-24). There will be amazing ECE panelists with a Q & A after each discussion. You can register here. DEY has published a series of videos to help our youngest children, and their families, navigate the COVID crisis. DEY issued a statement this month in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. In the Public Interest shared a series of articles that show charter schools are taking crisis aid meant for small businesses. The Journey for Justice Alliance podcast On The Ground, hosted by Jitu Brown, airs every Monday at 6 PM CST. J4J has also postponed their annual conference. Go here for more information. Journey for Justice held a press conference this month to stand with a family in Chicago that were victims of police brutality. Finally J4J will be  releasing a draft for a Quality of Life Agenda for Black communities on July 4th. Fairtest joined parents and students in suing the College Board for failures on computerized AP exams. Head to their website for updates. Fairtest publishes a newsletter each week about the misuses and flaws of standardized testing. They are a valuable resource and clearinghouse for everything testing and test reform. Fairtest has published a list of test-optional universities and colleges. Rethinking Schools published valuable resources for police-free schools. The Parent Coalition for Student Privacy blog publishes powerful essays about student privacy.  At the end of last month, Joel Schwarz published an article about the concern that parents in Montgomery County, Maryland have about their children’s privacy on Zoom and Google. Parents for Public Schools National Executive Director Joann Mickens issued a CONTINUE READING: Grassroots Education Network- June 2020 Newsletter - Network For Public Education

With A Brooklyn Accent: Small Town and Suburban Racism Doesn't Cut it On College Teams or in Many Portions of the Workforce

With A Brooklyn Accent: Small Town and Suburban Racism Doesn't Cut it On College Teams or in Many Portions of the Workforce

 Small Town and Suburban Racism Doesn't Cut it On College Teams or in Many Portions of the Workforce

One of the things that the Trump loving, Confederate flag waving racial epithet spouting white folks in small town America need to realize is that they are compromising the futures of their most talented young people

This fall at least five white athletes as schools ranging from Cornell to Marquette to Oregon State have been kicked off college teams when Instagram posts filled with white supremacist rhetoric that they made while still in high school were uncovered.

Openly racist language common at family dinners, house parties, and in locker rooms in all white towns and suburbs doesn't cut it when you go to college or enter the workplace, or even if you join the military. It can not only get your ass kicked if your Black teammates hear it, it can get you kicked off a team, deprived of a scholarship, or get you kicked out of school.

The proliferation of racist and white supremacist imagery and activity in the US is not only going to come back to haunt the people engaging it- getting them fired from their jobs if they unleash it in public places, it is going to compromise their children's futures.

This is a multiracial country becoming more so every day and the last gasp of militant whiteness is not going to end well for the people promoting it and spreading it READ With A Brooklyn Accent: http://withabrooklynaccent.blogspot.com/

Another way to urge the Mayor and NYC Council to increase the budget for schools next year | Class Size Matters

Another way to urge the Mayor and NYC Council to increase the budget for schools next year | Class Size Matters | A clearinghouse for information on class size & the proven benefits of smaller classes

Another way to urge the Mayor and NYC Council to increase the budget for schools next year

Dear friends–

Thank you so much sending a message via Action Network to the Mayor & Chancellor to let them know school budgets next year must be increased rather than cut to ensure the health & safety of students and staff, and to provide smaller classes & sufficient support to kids who will need it more than ever before.   If you haven’t yet sent a message, the link is here.

Meanwhile, we have prepared another type of message you can send to the Mayor and the City Council, making much the same point via your own email account, by clicking here:

Click to generate a pre-filled email to Mayor de Blasio and the City Councilmembers urging them to increase school budgets.

You may need to disable your pop-up blocker if you have one. If the message doesn’t seem complete, you can paste and copy the following text into it. But in any case, please change the subject line and revise the message any way you like to make it more personal.

This method was very effective in generating thousands of personal emails to the Mayor and NYC Council on the issue of cutting the NYPD budget in recent weeks.

Thanks and please forward this message with others who care! — Leonie

The full text you can paste and copy is here, if it doesn’t entirely show up when you click the link above:

Dear Mayor de Blasio and NYC Council Members,

My name is [YOUR NAME] and I am a resident of [YOUR BOROUGH]. While the Mayor proposed a budget that slashes the education budget by at least $475 million, there is no way our schools can reopen next year safely and with the educational and emotional support that our students need with less funding, after this year of huge disruption and loss.

Indeed, schools will need more funding next year, to provide the teachers required for small classes and social distancing, the additional counselors to help students deal with their emotional distress, and the additional health and safety measures that the School Superintendents Association and the Association of School Business Officials estimate will cost $490 per student.

We urge you instead to INCREASE the budget allotted to schools next year, which would allow them to implement these programs, using a large part of the savings from cutting the police budget, as well as the savings made from cancelling the school busing contracts in mid-March of this year, which will yield the city more than $600 million alone.

Yours sincerely,

[YOUR NAME]

Another way to urge the Mayor and NYC Council to increase the budget for schools next year | Class Size Matters | A clearinghouse for information on class size & the proven benefits of smaller classes

A VERY BUSY DAY Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... The latest news and resources in education since 2007

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007

A VERY BUSY DAY

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

The latest news and resources in education since 2007

Just Sent-Out Free Monthly Email Newsletter

by Larry Ferlazzo / 2h

geralt / Pixabay I’ve just mailed out the July issue of my very simple free monthly email newsletter . It has over 3,000 subscribers, and you can subscribe here . Of course, you can also join the eighteen thousand others who subscribe to this blog daily. Here Are 8 Ways You Can Subscribe For Free…

June’s Most Popular Posts

by Larry Ferlazzo / 2h

As regular readers know, at the end of each week I share the five most popular posts from the previous seven days. I thought people might find it interesting to see a list of the ten most popular posts from the previous thirty days. You might also be interested in It’s The Thirteenth Anniversary Of This Blog – Here Are The Forty All-Time Most Popular Posts. Not to mention THE MOST POPULAR POSTS F

June’s “Best” Lists – There Are Now 2,180 Of Them!

by Larry Ferlazzo / 2h

Here’s my regular round-up of new “The Best…” lists I posted this month (you can see all 2,180 of them categorized here ): THE BEST FUN VIDEOS FOR ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS IN 2020 – PART ONE THE BEST ONLINE LEARNING GAMES – 2020 (PART ONE) THE BEST SCIENCE SITES OF 2020 – PART ONE VISUAL COLLECTIONS OF PROTESTS ABOUT GEORGE FLOYD, POLICE VIOLENCE & RACISM TEACHING RESOURCES ABOUT IF POLICE SHOUL

July 1st Is Canada Day – Here Are Teaching & Learning Resources

30by Larry Ferlazzo / 3h

July 1st is Canada Day : On July 1, 1867, the nation was officially born when the Constitution Act joined three provinces into one country: Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the Canada province, which then split into Ontario and Quebec. You might be interested in The Best Sites To Learn About Canada .

International Study Finds That Teacher Leadership Enhances Student Academic Achievement

by Larry Ferlazzo / 12h

In not-shocking news to every teacher, a new study of results from the international PISA tests find that the more decision-making power teachers have, the greater increase in student academic achievement (see School Governance and Student Achievement: Cross-National Evidence From the 2015 PISA ). Of course, this common sense approach reflects the value of “subsidiarity,” which means that the peo

A Look Back: Study Finds Writing In Content Classes Enhances Learning, As Long As It Is A Specific Kind of “Writing-to-Learn”

by Larry Ferlazzo / 12h

I thought that new – and veteran – readers might find it interesting if I began sharing my best posts from the first half of this year. You can see the entire collection of best posts from the past thirteen years here . The Effects of Writing on Learning in Science, Social Studies, and Mathematics: A Meta-Analysis is a new study by Steve Graham, , Sharlene A. Kiuhara, and Meade MacKay. The quote

“Q&A Collections: Best Ways to End the School Year”

by Larry Ferlazzo / 12h

Q&A Collections: Best Ways to End the School Year is the headline of my latest Education Week Teacher column. I know the timing is a bit odd, but during each summer I update thematic compilations including nine-year’s of Ed Week Teacher columns. Here’s an excerpt from one of them:

My Favorite Posts That Appeared In June

by Larry Ferlazzo / 12h

I regularly highlight my picks for the most useful posts for each month — not including “The Best…” lists. I also use some of them in a more extensive monthly newsletter I send-out. You can see older Best Posts of the Month at Websites Of The Month (more recent lists can be found here ). You can also see my all-time favorites here . I’ve also been doing “A Look Back” series reviewing old favorite

Here’s What Researchers Say About Which Part-Time Student Schedule Is Best – Two Consecutive Days Or Alternate Days

by Larry Ferlazzo / 13h

uwekern / Pixabay Many – if not most – school districts are considering having students come to physical class just two days a week and, in that way, have a small enough number of students so that social distancing can be maintained. But which schedule is best for students – consecutive or alternate days? I asked that question of two highly regarded education researchers, Justin Reich and Matthew

The Hajj Will Be Limited This Year, But Here Are Teaching & Learning Resources

by Larry Ferlazzo / 1d

GLady / Pixabay Millions of Muslims make the annual pilgrimage, called the Hajj, to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Because the Islamic calendar is a lunar calendar based on the motion of the moon, the time of the Hajj is different time each year in terms of the Gregorian calendar. It begins in late July this year, but Saudi Arabia to hold ‘very limited’ Hajj due to coronavirus . You might be interested i

Supreme Court Rules That Public Funding For Religious Schools Is Okay

by Larry Ferlazzo / 1d

The Supreme Court dealt a blow to public education today, which you can read about in Chalkbeat’s article, Supreme Court hands victory to voucher advocates, including DeVos, in Montana case. You can read a lot more about this case at THE BEST RESOURCES FOR LEARNING ABOUT THE SUPREME COURT CASE THAT COULD ALLOW PUBLIC FUNDING FOR RELIGIOUS SCHOOLS . You might also be interested in The Best Resourc

Video Trailer For Must-Watch Documentary: “John Lewis: Good Trouble”

by Larry Ferlazzo / 1d

Over the years, I’ve shared many articles and video clips about Civil Rights organizer and Congressman John Lewis. A new documentary about him is premiering on July 3rd, and it looks fantastic (you can read one review here ). It will be streaming on all the major platforms. Here’s the trailer:

Most Popular Posts Of The Week

by Larry Ferlazzo / 1d

I’m making a change in the content of the regular feature. In addition to sharing the top five posts that have received the most “hits” in the preceding seven days (though they may have originally been published on an earlier date), I will also include the top five posts that have actually appeared in th

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007