David Gamberg: A New Vision is Needed Now for Education! | Diane Ravitch's blog

David Gamberg: A New Vision is Needed Now for Education! | Diane Ravitch's blog

David Gamberg: A New Vision is Needed Now for Education!

David Gamberg recently retired as superintendent of schools in two adjoining towns on New York’s Long Island—Southold and Greenport—where he was beloved for his child-centered approach to schooling. In this article, he calls for new thinking and the courage to break free of the obsession with standardized testing and punitive accountability. He announced his retirement in January, not knowing what was about to happen to schools across the nation and the world.

He understands that the status quo of high-stakes testing and demoralizing punishment has failed.

He writes:

I argue that the emphasis must be on capturing the hearts and minds of our students, and not primarily seeking to make up for lost ground academically as noted by education author Alfie Kohn. We must abandon any pretense that the metrics used in recent years to judge, sort, and separate students, teachers and schools through a ranking system based on data that focused on math and ELA standardized testing will serve them well in the near future.

Therefore, the first step is an immediate cessation of the current accountability system, based primarily on the use of high stakes, standardized testing in grades 3-8 that CONTINUE READING: David Gamberg: A New Vision is Needed Now for Education! | Diane Ravitch's blog

Miami-Dade Schools Sever Ties with K12 Online Corp. | Diane Ravitch's blog

Miami-Dade Schools Sever Ties with K12 Online Corp. | Diane Ravitch's blog

Miami-Dade Schools Sever Ties with K12 Online Corp.

The Miami-Dade school board voted to sever ties with the notoriously awful for-profit K12 online corporation.

K12 has long been known as a huge money-maker that produces bad education and high attrition rates.

The Miami-Dade County School Board has voted unanimously to stop using My School Online, the district’s controversial new online learning platform many say is at the center of the failed start of school.

The board voted to sever ties just before 2 a.m. Thursday, 13 hours after the meeting began. Teachers can begin using other platforms immediately.

The early morning decision sent some elementary schools into a scramble. Some schools that never used Microsoft Teams, like Bob Graham Education Center, were caught off guard and quickly went to work to set up Zoom meetings to find a way to educate students.

The School Board debate and vote stretched into the middle of the night because members had to finish public comment on Vice Chair Steve Gallon’s catch-all proposal to get to the bottom of what went wrong. In the first board CONTINUE READING: Miami-Dade Schools Sever Ties with K12 Online Corp. | Diane Ravitch's blog

Education Matters: Greene gets what she wants, more people in schools.

Education Matters: Greene gets what she wants, more people in schools.

Greene gets what she wants, more people in schools

 More people in schools mean more danger for children and staff. This, however, is what Greene wants, and let that sink in.

Over the next few weeks, the hybrid model which allowed middle and high school students to do some of their learning from home comes to an end.

From First Coast News, 

More students are about to be in Duval County Public Schools as the school system begins phasing out its hybrid learning model in accordance with Florida's emergency order mandating full-time, in-person learning options.

https://www.firstcoastnews.com/article/news/education/more-students-in-school-dcps-hybrid-model-phase-out-begins-monday/77-2fc70368-6344-4b27-862f-

Greene says this complies with the executive order from the state but like usual she blames the state for doing her dirty work. She doesn't even acknowledge that the state lost its court case, though it was stayed to keep the new normal, which in Jacksonville includes the hybrid model. 

She might say the rollback of the hybrid is a compromise, but it's only a compromise if there were other options on the table. It is only a compromise if the super proposed keeping the hybrid through the first nine CONTINUE READING: Education Matters: Greene gets what she wants, more people in schools.

Join Steve Suitts and Me on Zoom to Talk about the Origins of “School Choice” | Diane Ravitch's blog

Join Steve Suitts and Me on Zoom to Talk about the Origins of “School Choice” | Diane Ravitch's blog

Join Steve Suitts and Me on Zoom to Talk about the Origins of “School Choice”

Please sign up and join the discussion between Steve Suitts and me on Zoom on Wednesday September 16. We will be talking about Steve’s new book Overturning Brown: The Segregationist Legacy of the Modern School Choice Movement. You will be amazed to learn of the true history of school choice. It is definitely not the “civil rights issue of our time,” as Trump and DeVos claim.

Steve has been involved in civil rights work throughout his career. He was founding director of the Alabama Civil Liberties Union; executive director of the Southern Regional Council; and vice president of the Southern Education Foundation. He is also the author of a biography of Hugo Black, a member of the U.S. Supreme Court Justice who played a large role in history.

You can sign up here.

Steve and I will talk for an hour, and then we will open the floor for your questions.

Join Steve Suitts and Me on Zoom to Talk about the Origins of “School Choice” | Diane Ravitch's blog

Remember to Look Beyond the Crisis of the Day | JD2718

Remember to Look Beyond the Crisis of the Day | JD2718

Remember to Look Beyond the Crisis of the Day

New York City public schools have been open for staff for two, three, now four days. And we have been busy dealing with problems.

Our immediate focus was drawn to personal protective equipment (PPE) and associated cleaning supplies (disinfectant spray, wipes, sanitizer). That seems to be solved? Maybe. Took some schools (Hi there!) two days to get deliveries; many are still incomplete. But most “stuff” is in most places. There are still issues. In some schools principals are refusing to distribute sanitizer, wipes, and gloves. Various parts of deliveries were short. But for the most part, “stuff” has arrived.

And then there was a storm over ventilation. Trust me, we will hear more about that topic. We are looking at a whole bunch of half-measures, many of which will no longer suffice on September 21 when kids arrive. Interior offices are a ventilation nightmare. (Stay out, if you can, unless you have been promised safety, in writing). And what spaces are safe, under what conditions, without HEPA or MERV13+ filters? And ventilation all goes to hell when the heating season starts. It is the height of irresponsibility to open schools in September, hoping that you will think of a plan for November. Who knows, and is remaining silent?

And now? Three COVID-19 cases in school so far. Nope. Six cases. Nope. Eight cases. Actually, sixteen so far. And this was just day three. There will be a flurry of concerned news stories. Except perhaps the NY Times, whose ace reporter thinks cases will happen and we should get over it, when she is not retweeting CONTINUE READING: Remember to Look Beyond the Crisis of the Day | JD2718

SOMEBODY NEEDS TO CREATE A TEACHER WELL-BEING INITIATIVE – Dad Gone Wild

SOMEBODY NEEDS TO CREATE A TEACHER WELL-BEING INIATIVE – Dad Gone Wild

SOMEBODY NEEDS TO CREATE A TEACHER WELL-BEING INITIATIVE

“Besides, to like something, to really like it and come out and say so, is taking a terrible risk. I mean, what if I’m wrong? What if it’s really no good?”
― T.C. Boyle, If The River Was Whiskey

“I am somewhat of a meliorist. That is to say, I act as an optimist because I find I cannot act at all, as a pessimist. One often feels helpless in the face of the confusion of these times, such a mass of apparently uncontrollable events and experiences to live through, attempt to understand, and if at all possible, give order to; but one must not withdraw from the task if he has some small things to offer – he does so at the risk of diminishing his humanity.”
― Bernard Malamud, The Fixer

This past week I found out that my favorite teacher of all time had died. Clancy Dennis was tough and he was also full of shit. I was often encouraged to try and match wits with him, but I’d be a liar if I didn’t admit that at times he put a little fear in me. He was bitingly sarcastic with a god awful toupee, along with a deep knowledge of his subject matter and a willingness to share. I can still hear his deep resonate wry laugh, forever carrying with it a deep sense of irony coupled with a sense of amusement over human nature. He was prone to slip into a fake English accent, one that however proved effective when sharing his favorite Shakespearean passages. He was a man of many contradictions.

He was a dedicated conservationist who created an environmental science class way before most people were even taking conservationism seriously. A large portion of the class was conducted in the outdoors and could be considered an early version of what is now referred to as project-based learning. He just called it good teaching. To this day, whenever I’m by a creek, I turn over rocks and look for mayfly larvae as a means to gauge the health of a waterway. Just one of his lessons that stuck.

He instilled in me a love for Shakespeare that has endured going on 40 years. He was a renaissance man in the truest sense, loving literacy, and the outdoors equally.

An argument was something to be savored, not carelessly entered into. Debate was considered by him an art form, not a distraction. An art form that he was so skilled in, he seldom entered into a CONTINUE READING: SOMEBODY NEEDS TO CREATE A TEACHER WELL-BEING INIATIVE – Dad Gone Wild

Teacher Tom: Full of Meaning Rather Than Absence

Teacher Tom: Full of Meaning Rather Than Absence

Full of Meaning Rather Than Absence

I couldn't find my wallet, which was particularly worrisome because I always keep it in one of three places: my pocket, a narrow counter in the bathroom, or on the table beside where I sit and write blog posts. After looking in all of those places, I looked in those places again. Only then could I consider the possibility that I had slipped up and placed my wallet, or, heaven forbid, left it somewhere else. It would be another 15 minutes of fruitless hunting before I would begin to wonder, accusingly, if someone else had had a hand in its disappearance.

I hate hunting for lost items. It's one of those things, like cleaning out my email inbox or folding laundry, that gives me the miserable feeling that I'm wasting a chunk of my precious life. I don't care to look for lost people either, but at least those moments tend to be accompanied by the heart-in-your-throat anxiousness that lets you know you're alive. Hunting for lost items, especially run-of-the-mill things like wallets, keys, and phones, is just pure frustration for me, which is why I like to have designated places to keep them and also why, when they are lost, I tend to be at a loss. 

I know not everyone feels like this. In fact, I have one friend who insists that she actually "likes" looking for lost things. The hunt, for her, is a quest and she anticipates the feeling of accomplishment when she finally finds what she's been seeking. Whatever the case, there's no denying that trying to find something does a peculiar thing to your perception. In a flash, the world is turned into a place defined by an absence. Existence is suddenly reorganized on the basis of what is sought, giving it the quality of a ghost, glimpsed in the similar color of something else entirely, in the heft of CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: Full of Meaning Rather Than Absence

SSPI THURMOND STUFF THIS WEEK FROM THE CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

 California Department of Education

SSPI THURMOND

STUFF THIS WEEK FROM THE

CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

SEP 10

New Seal of Civic Engagement

1d

California State Board of Education approves State Seal of Civic Engagement Award.

SEP 09

Webinar on Public Health Guidance

2d

State Superintendent Tony Thurmond convenes California school leaders to review public health guidance for safe learning.

LivingWorks Virtual Youth Summit

2d

shines a light on mental wellness and suicide prevention.

September 6, 2020 Statewide Emergency: Fires

3d

On September 6, 2020, Governor Gavin Newsom issued an emergency proclamation for the counties of Fresno, Madera, Mariposa, San Bernardino, and San Diego County.

Public Safety Power Shutoff Event September 2020

3d

Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) and Southern California Edison (SCE) have announced that public safety power shutoffs are in progress due to extreme weather and fire danger.

Summer Food Service Program Annual Update 2020-21

3d

The California Department of Education (CDE) has opened the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) Annual Update in the Child Nutrition Information and Payment System (CNIPS) for School Year (SY) 2020–21 (October 1, 2020, through September 30, 2021).

California Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom Free Two Day Virtual AgVentura

3d

The California Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom (CFAITC) is offering a free two day virtual AgVentura in lieu of the 2020 California Agriculture in the Classroom Conference.

SEP 08

Youth Mental Health First Aid Virtual Training 2020

3d

Youth Mental Health First Aid (YMHFA) No Cost Professional Development Virtual Training 2020 digital flyer.

Thurmond Issues Statement in Response to Trump

21 3d

State Superintendent Tony Thurmond Issues Statement in Response to President Trump's Threats Directed at California Schools

 California Department of Education