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

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

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

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 specifically implored them to “Be the resistance against forces that will derail you from doing what’s right for students.”  DeVos evoking the language of progressive activism is rich – almost as rich as DeVos herself.

She has gotten scant attention in the chaos of these last days.  It seems unjust to allow her to go so quietly from the party.  It is only in the shadow of Bill Barr, Scott Pruitt, Michael Flynn, Wilbur Ross, Steve Bannon, Paul Manafort, Mike Pompeo, Ben Carson, Stephen Miller and many others that DeVos’s breathtaking awfulness would go uncelebrated.

I am here to right that wrong.

As with other Trump appointees, her most luminous qualification for the position was absolute disdain for the CONTINUE READING: Steve Nelson: Farewell to the Worst Secretary of Education Ever! | Diane Ravitch's blog

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

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

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 and asks, "What color is that?"

This is a stupid question. 

Here's another example: a child is playing with marbles, exploring gravity, motion and momentum. An adult picks up a handful of marbles and asks, "How many marbles do I have?"

The adult already knows the answer. The child probably does as well, in which case, the adult is distracting her from her deep and meaningful studies in order to reply to a banality. Or she doesn't know the answer, in which case the adult is distracting her from her deep and meaningful studies to play CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: They Say There are No Stupid Questions. I Beg to Differ.

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

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 to hope for with Biden. It's already been announced that right-wing, neoliberal hatchetman Bruce Reed will be Biden's Deputy Chief of Staff, and the choice of seemingly apolitical Miguel Cardona is probably for a reason.

At the end of the day Biden was part of the second worst administration for education. The damage doltish Arne Duncan did prior to Trump is what opened the door for DeVos in the first place.

DeVos = Duncan + Dominionism *

solidaridad: Outgoing Administration Admits Charters are not Public Schools

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

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

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. 

First, there is no time for the Department of Health and Human Services create an application process specific to this school voucher purpose and to process new grant applications for states or entities and for those states or entities to establish processes to identify and distribute funds to qualified individuals and for those individuals to locate private schools or other qualifying services, either before the school year ends (we’re a semester in) or before the Trump presidency ends.

Second, even if states and other entities are allowed to redirect current CSBG funding toward Trump’s eleventh-hour voucher flash-in-the-pan, doing so would mean just that– taking money designated for other purposes– which is bureaucratically easier said than done in justifying the reallocation, actually redirecting the money, and establishing a process for its disbursement for a new purpose– and, again, the clock is running out on both the 2020-21 school year and the Trump presidency.

This school choice executive order appeared on December 28, 2020, the day after Trump signed the latest COVID relief bill, which did not include the school voucher funding exiting US ed sec Betsy DeVos wanted. Also on December 28, 2020, DeVos publicly lamented the CONTINUE READING: Trump’s School Choice Executive Order: A Big Nothing | deutsch29: Mercedes Schneider's Blog

CURMUDGUCATION: Schools And Social Capital

CURMUDGUCATION: Schools And Social Capital

Schools And Social Capital

I'm in the middle of reading Robert Putnam's new book (The Upswing) 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, another of his books well worth reading, is that it refers to "connections among individuals – social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them." My own shorthand is to think of it as the ability to say, in any situation, "I know a guy."

Your child has expressed an interested in playing piano, and you have an old friend who plays, so you call up to ask about lessons. Your child says they'd like to know more about how the hospital works, and you know an administrator up there that you did some work for once. Your child is in trouble over some light theft, but you went to school with a guy in the prosecutors office, so maybe you make a call, or maybe you don't even have to because he says, "I know this kid's family. Let's go easy."

For someone with lots of social capital, there is always slack to be cut and always a large network of support on which one can depend. It is what we think about when we look back to a past where if you were a resident of tight community, a member of a squad, a part of the team, then somebody CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Schools And Social Capital

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

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

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, as well as “any other information in the school’s custody that the College Board requests for the purpose of determining my eligibility for testing accommodations on College Board tests“.  The form also grants the “College Board permission “to discuss my disability and needs with school personnel and other professionals.” 

The Chicago parent was concerned with these overly broad permissions and crossed out portions that she disagreed with. Unfortunately for this parent, she subsequently discovered that her child’s previous high school had apparently already released confidential information to the College Board without asking for her consent.  

We wonder if this has happened to other parents. Have parents been asked to sign this form authorizing the school to release their children’s highly sensitive disability information, or worse, have CONTINUE READING: Parents of Disabled Students: Do NOT Grant College Board Unlimited Access to Your Child’s Sensitive Information | Parent Coalition for Student Privacy

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

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

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 to be concerned about in the face of a pandemic which is affecting millions of people around the country and the world. It speaks to one of my biggest fears for the children when they return. In our determination to “catch them up,” I fear that we will lose who they are and what they have learned during this unprecedented era.

 What on earth are we trying to catch them up on? The models no longer apply, the benchmarks are no longer valid, the trend analyses have been interrupted. We must not forget that those arbitrary measures were established by people, not ordained by God. We can make those invalid measures as obsolete as a crank up telephone! They simply do not apply.

When the children return to school, they will have returned with a new history that we will need to help them identify and make sense of. When the children return to school, we will need to listen to them. Let their stories be told. They have endured a year that has no parallel in modern times. There is no assessment that applies to who they are or what they have learned.

Remember, their brains did not go into hibernation during this year. Their brains may not have been focused on traditional school material, but they did not stop either. Their brains may have been focused on where their next meal is coming from, or how to care for a younger sibling, or how to deal CONTINUE READING: glen brown: When Children Return to School by Teresa Thayer Snyder

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

Big Education Ape: THIS WEEK IN EDUCATION Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... The latest news and resources in education since 2007 - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2020/12/this-week-in-education-larry-

Here’s Info On “Public Domain Day”

by Larry Ferlazzo / 2h

geralt / Pixabay This is from Duke’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain : On January 1, 2021, copyrighted works from 1925 will enter the US public domain, 1 where they will be free for all to use and build upon. These works include books such as F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, Ernest Hemingway’s In Our Time, and Franz Kafka’s The Trial (in the origin

Wednesday’s Must-Read Articles & Must-Watch Videos On School Reopenings

by Larry Ferlazzo / 4h

MIH83 / Pixabay Here are new additions to THE BEST POSTS PREDICTING WHAT SCHOOLS WILL LOOK LIKE IN THE FALL Covid testing plans leave England’s school leaders guessing is from The Guardian.

Depressing Statistic Of The Day: A Lot of Our Students Have Disappeared Since Last Spring

by Larry Ferlazzo / 12h

Report Estimates 1 to 3 Million Students Missing From School Since March, But Data on Disrupted Learning is ‘At Best a Moving Target’ is an article that appeared in The 74 in late October about research on this issue, and NPR published a less detailed piece this morning about it. I’ve never met or heard from several students who are on my rosters, despite many attempts to connect. And others are,

A Look Back: What My Students Say About Teachers Mispronouncing Their Names

by Larry Ferlazzo / 12h

I thought that new – and veteran – readers might find it interesting if I began sharing my best posts from over the years. You can see the entire collection here . This post originally appeared in 2013. I’m a big advocate of teachers making a point to pronounce student names correctly (see The Best Resources On The Importance Of Correctly Pronouncing Student Names ). I always do a lesson on names

“Author Interview: ‘Reading & Writing with English Learners'”

by Larry Ferlazzo / 18h

Author Interview: ‘Reading & Writing with English Learners’ is the headline of my latest Education Week Teacher column. Authors Valentina Gonzalez & Melinda Miller answer questions about their book Reading & Writing with English Learners: A Framework for K-5. Here’s an excerpt:

This Was Interesting – Biden Says He Wants K-8 Schools Open In 100 Days; Doesn’t Mention Secondary Ones

by Larry Ferlazzo / 18h

President-Elect Biden spoke today about the pandemic, and said his goal was to open K-8 schools in his first 100 days. I might be wrong but, though he’s talked about reopening schools in his first 100 days, I believe this is the first 

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