Dilemmas Facing Policymakers in Re-opening Schools | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Dilemmas Facing Policymakers in Re-opening Schools | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Dilemmas Facing Policymakers in Re-opening Schools

Here is the best summary that I have found thus far on the policy dilemmas facing school boards and superintendents in deciding how and when to re-open schools. It comes from a blog called Electoral Vote. Curated and written by two academics, one (Andrew Tanenbaum) an expert on statistics and public opinion polls and the other (Christopher Bates) a historian.

Every educational policy has one or more prized values embedded in it and when it comes to Covid-19, these values clash. Choices have to be made among sought-after values (health and safety of students; health and safety of faculty; giving parents choices of school options, limited resources to do efficiently what is essential, quality of educational experience, etc.). Sacrifices occur as policymakers with limited funds and knowledge of the virus’s spread and effects strike compromises (e.g., when to open, under what conditions) in deciding which values take precedence. Thus, the policy issues that authors of Electoral Vote have listed.

As part of his program of COVID-19 denial, Donald Trump has demanded that schools reopen in the fall, at risk of having their federal funding cut. His notion, ostensibly, is that if students go back to school, then parents can go back to full-time work. And if parents can go back to full-time work, then the economy will come zooming back to life, and he will ride that momentum to a reelection victory. Talk about your magical thinking.

In any event, the plan—if you can even call it that—is falling apart. On Monday, school officials in (liberal) Los Angeles County and (conservative) San Diego CONTINUE READING: Dilemmas Facing Policymakers in Re-opening Schools | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

glen brown: A Teacher's Opinion on School Reopening: "But What Do I Know? I'm Just a Teacher"

glen brown: A Teacher's Opinion on School Reopening: "But What Do I Know? I'm Just a Teacher"

A Teacher's Opinion on School Reopening: "But What Do I Know? I'm Just a Teacher"

“Everyone has an opinion about how and if schools should reopen for this coming school year. We’ve heard from the governors, the pediatricians, the parents, the education secretary, and the president. Everyone has a ‘study’ and ‘research’ to back up their claims, but unfortunately (as always with decisions made in education) they do not have one very important thing- experience in a classroom: in classrooms filled to max capacity with five-year old children who don’t even know how to blow their own noses; where the teacher: student ratio is 1:28 or in some cases even higher; classrooms where the teachers are already begging parents for tissues, hand sanitizer and antibacterial wipes, even in a pre-Covid-19 world.

“Classrooms and hallways and bathrooms filled with teen-agers who think they are invincible. School buildings with no extra rooms, without central air, where there are 4 sinks for over 200 students to use.

“As a teacher, I do have this experience, so I have many questions about how it will be possible and safe for schools to reopen. Nobody asked me, but since many other professions are giving their opinions about reopening, I thought maybe, just maybe, (it’s a little crazy but hear me out) we should hear from a teacher.

“Let’s discuss hand washing. If an average class size of kindergartners is 25, then it would take 8.3 minutes for each of them to wash their hands for 20 seconds. Not too bad you might think? That’s doable. Let’s reopen! Unfortunately, that does not account for transition time between students at the sink, the student who plays in the bubbles, or splashes CONTINUE READING: glen brown: A Teacher's Opinion on School Reopening: "But What Do I Know? I'm Just a Teacher"

CURMUDGUCATION: Report: Zuckerberg’s Favorite Digital Ed Program Is All Sizzle, No Steak

CURMUDGUCATION: Report: Zuckerberg’s Favorite Digital Ed Program Is All Sizzle, No Steak

Report: Zuckerberg’s Favorite Digital Ed Program Is All Sizzle, No Steak

Last month, the National Education Policy Center released a new report: Big Claims, Little Evidence, Lots of Money: The Reality Behind the Summit Learning Program and the Push to Adopt Digital Personalized Learning Programs. It looks at one of the most prominent digital learning platforms, and how money and power are able to push such programs despite any real evidence that they work.

Summit Schools started out in 2003 with a low-tech focus on personalized education; in 2014, Mark Zuckerberg discovered the school and decided to gift it not just with money, but with technology. Zuckerberg was fresh off a high-profile edu-failure in Newark, and he had gleaned one particular lesson from that:

The most important lesson we've learned is to focus on problems we have some unique ability to help solve.
When the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative took form, its educational focus was on digital personalized learning. And Summit seemed like the perfect vehicle for that push. Summit Schools created the Summit Learning Platform, an algorithm-driven software system that delivers lessons to students via computer. Human “mentors” are on duty nearby to help out, but the program is the teacher.

Not everyone has loved it. Parents have occasionally revolted. The program has been accused of CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Report: Zuckerberg’s Favorite Digital Ed Program Is All Sizzle, No Steak

My School District’s 2020-21 Planning, Including Surveying Employees and Parents | deutsch29

My School District’s 2020-21 Planning, Including Surveying Employees and Parents | deutsch29

My School District’s 2020-21 Planning, Including Surveying Employees and Parents

In this post, I offer info on what my school district is doing in its efforts to plan for the 2020-21 school year, with the goals of informing individuals in my district as well as offering ideas to other schools and districts.

A critical point is that my school district did what I see parents and teachers from other districts and states asking for: input into the decision making process.

I teach in southern Louisiana for St. Tammany Parish Public Schools. The day my district emailed its survey to teachers and staff (July 06, 2020), it also informed us via robocall to help ensure participation.

My sister told me of the parent survey, which touches on issues of transportation, mask-wearing, and need for access to school meals, among other issues.

The district reminded employees of the survey opportunity in this July 08, 2020, email:

Dear STPPS Employees,

I know that many of you have questions about the 2020-2021 school year, and I appreciate your patience during this time as we continuously work together to develop plans for the upcoming school year.

We are receiving good feedback from employees and parents from the CONTINUE READING: My School District’s 2020-21 Planning, Including Surveying Employees and Parents | deutsch29

Teaching Rectangles How To Find An Area | The Jose Vilson

Teaching Rectangles How To Find An Area | The Jose Vilson

TEACHING RECTANGLES HOW TO FIND AN AREA

I didn’t write a close-out post. I feel like NYC public schools already closed back in March, back when I thought our country might have a chance to see kids again the last two weeks of June.

Everyone who’s read this blog for some time knows that hope is my passenger, realism my backseat driver. As Rebecca Solnit says:

“Hope locates itself in the premises that we don’t know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act. When you recognize uncertainty, you recognize that you may be able to influence the outcomes–you alone or you in concert with a few dozen or several million others. Hope is an embrace of the unknown and knowable, a alternative to the certainty of both optimists and pessimists. Optimists think it will all be fine without our involvement; pessimists take the opposite position; both excuse themselves from acting. It’s the belief that what we do matters even though how and when it may matter, who and what is may impact, are not things we can know beforehand. We may not, in fact, know them afterward either, but they matter all the same, and history is full of people whose influence was most powerful after they were gone.”

As I sat there on the Friday before we shut down, hope set in. Hope came in multiple forms. I hoped, between our governor and mayor’s petty jousts, they would both listen to educators’ concerns and parents’ necessities. I looked at the dwindling number of students per class, hoping they would find rest wherever they lived. Underneath that, I hoped that America would recognize how the personal is political, and all the ways we neglected thinking of our communities allowed for the eventual and CONTINUE READING: Teaching Rectangles How To Find An Area | The Jose Vilson

NYC Public School Parents: Talk out of School with Beth Ellor & Brad Lander: REC centers, safe reopening of schools, and need for child care & wraparound services next year

NYC Public School Parents: Talk out of School with Beth Ellor & Brad Lander: REC centers, safe reopening of schools, and need for child care & wraparound services next year

Talk out of School with Beth Ellor & Brad Lander: REC centers, safe reopening of schools, and need for child care & wraparound services next year

In today's podcast of Talk out of School, I spoke to Beth Ellor, a former Kindergarten teacher and preschool director, who described what it’s like working at the REC centers, which opened up to serve the NYC children of essential workers when schools were shut down in mid-March, including the various health and safety protocols they have followed. She discussed how the conditions in the REC centers relates to the safeguards that schools must use if and when they reopen in the fall.

I briefly summarized recent guidance from Gov. Cuomo, the NY State Department of Health and the Board of Regents for the reopening of schools, and explained how if NYC schools do reopen, to ensure social distancing most students will only be able to attend school in person 1-3 days a week, depending on how overcrowded their particular school is.

Council Member Brad Lander then joined us, to explain how the city needs to provide child care and wrap around services for young students on days when they are not attending school.  We discussed where the funding will come from and the need for more federal and state aid.

Resources and links:

Governor Cuomo’s announcement of the metrics that will determine whether schools can be reopened in NY state in the fall.

Guidelines from  the state Department of Health and the Board of Regents.

Class Size Matters and NYC Kids PAC proposals for the safe reopening of schools; letter to the Board of Regents and Summary of ideas from our June 20 conference.

How the need for social distancing brings in sharper focus the inequities of class size across the city.

Council Member Brad Lander’s oped and draft childcare plan.

Information on the increase in wealth among NY state billionaires during the pandemic.

NY Legislature bills that would raise revenue to support our schools during the pandemic and help pay for child care and wrap around services, by increasing taxes on the ultra-wealthy.

NYC Public School Parents: Talk out of School with Beth Ellor & Brad Lander: REC centers, safe reopening of schools, and need for child care & wraparound services next year

Mr. G for District 3: Chris Guerrieri's Education Matters: Is DCPS passing the buck with health decisions?

Mr. G for District 3: Chris Guerrieri's Education Matters: Is DCPS passing the buck with health decisions?

Is DCPS passing the buck with health decisions?

The answer is yes, and this lack of leadership is going to cost people their health or worse.

At the last school board meeting, the superintendent spoke about how the health department will conduct "investigations" when somebody presents signs of the virus or tests positive. There was absolutely no description of what this would look like, but we can imagine.

A student in class coughs and presents with a fever. The teacher checks on them and decides they may be sick. They walk them out to the office or nurses station, if the school has one, IF!! 

The principal and or the office staff, or both check on the child. One of them calls the parent, and the other calls the department of health. The parents says they will be right there, maybe, or maybe there is no answer, or perhaps it's going to take some time.

The underfunded and undermanned Department of Health may pick up quicker, but there is no guaranty; they will get there faster or that day for that matter. What if there are multiple contacts,  can they send out 167 investigators at a time? What about 80 or 40? How about 20 or even ten? Maybe 5 right.

I say they may not get there that day, and that's a real possibility. I have reported abuse and not seen the Children and Families investigator for days, so why would I expect the DOH to be any different. 

So they get there, but now the class where the child presented the symptoms has switched and switched and CONTINUE READING: Mr. G for District 3: Chris Guerrieri's Education Matters: Is DCPS passing the buck with health decisions?

Confederate Monuments and Southern Memory: The Case of One Confederate General - Living in Dialogue

Confederate Monuments and Southern Memory: The Case of One Confederate General - Living in Dialogue

Confederate Monuments and Southern Memory: The Case of One Confederate General 

By Paul Horton.

Part 1: Historians and the “Lost Cause” of the Confederacy

Part 2: The Confederate “Lost Cause” and Southern Women

As calls are made to remove monuments devoted to those who fought against the Union during the Civil War are being made, increasing attention is being focused on learning history from differing narratives. As Yale historian David Blight contends, in most of the South today, the Confederate narrative dominates discussions of monuments, memorials, and Southern memory; but two other major narratives and multiple variations of these narratives are excluded: Freedman’s and Southern Unionist histories.

Large areas of the South did not vote for secession or were not allowed to vote for secession and Union regiments were raised from these areas late in the war. Likewise, escaped slaves were given the opportunity to form after the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect on January 1, 1863.

Moreover, many Southerners refused to enlist in the Confederate army until the passage of a Conscription Act in early 1862, when thousands of Confederates joined “Home Guard” units because they could only be motivated to defend local property rather than fight in other theaters of combat. “Home Guard” units were led by local officers who typically resisted secession.

Loyalty for Confederate nationalism was thus much more complicated than most white Southerners who claim that their “heritage” is being destroyed claim. Most Southern white farmers did not own slaves, but large numbers either neither fully committed to the Confederate cause or joined Unionist regiments when the situation permitted in many areas.

All of the controversy surrounding Confederate monuments today raises some big questions: Do we get rid of current monuments, or do we build monuments and memorials to remember the narratives that have been whitewashed by the “Lost Cause”

The following lesson will focus on the case of Confederate General Joseph Wheeler who makes an CONTINUE READING: Confederate Monuments and Southern Memory: The Case of One Confederate General - Living in Dialogue

Jersey Jazzman: A Response To Critics Of My Research On NJ Teachers

Jersey Jazzman: A Response To Critics Of My Research On NJ Teachers

A Response To Critics Of My Research On NJ Teachers

Earlier this week, the Sunshine Policy Center put out a critique of my report, published by the New Jersey Policy Perspective, on the shrinking numbers of teacher candidates in preparation programs in New Jersey. That report references an earlier report I wrote for NJPP on the NJ teacher workforce; that report looked at, among many other things, teacher compensation. SPC has also criticized that report, focusing on the sections on teacher wages. 

There's a small echo chamber for this sort of stuff here in New Jersey: a couple of bloggers will pump it up and add their thoughts, "reform" groups will pass it around social media, etc. What's curious about this last round of criticism, however, is that several people contacted me to say they had received news of SPC's report through email, even though they never signed up to receive messages. People receiving unsolicited copies of criticisms of my work is a new one for me -- I can only assume I really touched a nerve.

I don't have a problem with anyone critiquing my work; in fact, I regularly write reviews of research from think tanks for the National Education Policy Center. But it's a rigorous process, with a clear format and several layers of editorial review. That keeps a reviewer from just flinging anything they think of on the wall and hoping something sticks.

I'm not going to go through and do a point-by-point rebuttal of SPC's criticisms. Many are, to be frank, silly: arguing, for example, that I made a point about a limitation of the data in an appendix as opposed to the main text is nit-picking of the highest order.

But let me quickly get to the main issues:

- Teacher wage modeling. SPC makes no objection to the functional form or the CONTINUE READING: Jersey Jazzman: A Response To Critics Of My Research On NJ Teachers

Health & Safety Priority for Reopening Schools - Year 2020 (CA Dept of Education)

Health & Safety Priority for Reopening Schools - Year 2020 (CA Dept of Education)

State Superintendent Tony Thurmond Applauds Schools for Making Student and Educator Safety Center of Reopening Decisions

SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond on Wednesday commended school districts across California for making student, teacher, and staff health and safety the foremost priority as they formalize plans for resuming learning this fall.

During his latest virtual news media briefing Wednesday, the State Superintendent encouraged schools to continue designing plans for in-person instruction this fall but urged educators to prepare for the possibility of resuming distance learning based on current health and safety conditions. COVID-19 infections continue to rise, and some of the state’s largest school districts have announced plans to resume learning virtually this fall.

“Everyone shares the desire to reopen schools and agrees that the best place for children to learn and thrive is in the classroom connected with caring teachers and staff. We also understand that schools are more than a place of learning: They provide critical necessities like meals, relationships with caring adults, and support for working parents,” said Thurmond. “But we can only open schools if it is safe to do so. As the largest educational agency in the country, our stance has been consistent during this pandemic: Science, data, and safety must guide any decision about reopening a school. The health and safety of our students and staff is too important to risk.”

Thurmond noted that now is the time for school districts to be charting ways they will address learning gaps exacerbated by the pandemic, whether they begin the school year in distance learning or implement some form of in-person learning. Some districts have moved their focus to strengthening distance learning, and some are creating small groups of specialized in-person instruction for high-need students. To support schools in this work, the California Department of Education (CDE) will soon be releasing resources that will provide districts with tools, strategies, and best practices for ensuring continuity of learning.

“I respect and commend any school district that is making the tough call now to plan for a school year they believe is in the best interests of their students’ and educators’ safety,” Thurmond added. “There is no playbook for the times we’re in. At the CDE, we remain committed to helping schools get the clarity and guidance they need to make these difficult decisions.”

The State Superintendent said that the quickest way to reopen schools is for every Californian to do their part: Wear a face covering, wash hands, and practice physical distancing. While some evidence shows children are less at-risk for COVID-19, adult-to-adult transmission remains a concern. In other countries that have opened schools successfully, infection rates in the communities had already decreased.

State Superintendent Thurmond and CDE are monitoring and working closely with our school districts, county health officers, the Governor’s Office, and state health officials. Thurmond and CDE have also convened health officers from all 58 counties in California to help make sure superintendents and local decision-makers are keeping the lines of communication open and getting their questions answered.

With hundreds of thousands of students across California still lacking computing devices or reliable internet connections, Thurmond renewed his call for cross-sector partners to help bridge the $500 million needed to acquire sufficient technology for students. Partners interested in contributing can email donatetech@cde.ca.gov.

An archived broadcast of the full media check-in can be viewed on the CDE’s Facebook page.

# # # #

Tony Thurmond — State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Communications Division, Room 5602, 916-319-0818, Fax 916-319-0100

Health & Safety Priority for Reopening Schools - Year 2020 (CA Dept of Education)

An Unequal Starting Place

An Unequal Starting Place

An Unequal Starting Place

Staying home due to the coronavirus has been tough. Days have morphed into weeks that blurred into months. Even as some schools and businesses reopen, stress and anxiety is mounting. And, unfortunately, the coronavirus revealed a glaring reality—that many people in our country lack the advantages that others enjoy and may even take for granted.

“If there’s a silver lining in all of this, it’s that people nationwide are really starting to understand the vast inequities in our country and in education,” says Jordann Lankford, who works with many American Indian students in the Great Falls Public Schools in Montana.

“Low-income communities and people of color were hit much harder by the pandemic, which wasn’t surprising to those of us already aware of the precariousness of their regular lives.”

Telework and distance learning? Not possible without internet, computers, or mobile devices. Walks after dinner? Too dangerous in many areas around the country. Grocery delivery or shopping? More like waiting in line at food banks, sometimes for hours, trying to maintain social distance, and hoping there’s enough left for your family. And millions of people are without health care, adding to pandemic struggles in low-income areas.

“The COVID-19 crisis has only intensified inequities,” says Nick Schwei, an English teacher at Case High School in Racine, Wis. “African American and Hispanic residents have been far more likely to see spikes in both outbreaks and deaths from the virus. This has impacted my students directly and created a need for CONTINUE READING: An Unequal Starting Place

DID YOU MISS DIANE RAVITCH'S BLOG TODAY? A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

DID YOU MISS DIANE RAVITCH'S BLOG TODAY? 

A site to discuss better education for all

Candace Valenzuela Wins Her Race for Democratic Nomination for Congress in Texas!

by dianeravitch / 22min

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The Debate About Reopening Intensifies: What Some Other Nations Are Doing

35by dianeravitch / 1h

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Black Students and Staff Speak Out About Charters

by dianeravitch / 3h

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by dianeravitch / 4h

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by dianeravitch / 14h

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Thomas Pedroni: Detroit School Board Votes to Reopen Schools Despite Concerns of Teachers and Parents

100+by dianeravitch / 19h

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Houston: Schools Not Ready to Reopen in Midst of Pandemic Surge, Board and Union Agree

33by dianeravitch / 20h

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Trump Guts Environmental Protections

28by dianeravitch / 21h

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New York Times: DeVos Allies Try to Understand Her Abandonment of Local Control

by dianeravitch / 1d

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Making Black Lives Matter in School

23by dianeravitch / 1d

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Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all