Friday, January 15, 2021

Sara Stevenson: Our “Lord of the Flies” Moment | Diane Ravitch's blog

Sara Stevenson: Our “Lord of the Flies” Moment

Sara Stevenson was a middle school teacher and librarian in Austin, Texas, for many years. She wrote this post in response to the current crisis, which reminded her of Lord of the Flies.

She begins like this:

Several editorialists have compared recent events to the 1954 classic and bane of high school students for decades, The Lord of the Flies by William Golding. As a former high school English teacher, I taught the novel about a group of British school boys, early teens and younger, whose plane wreck lands them on a deserted island with no adult supervision.

Watching the images of the Trump mob assaulting the Capitol, the parallels with the novel stood out sharply, especially images of Jake Angeli, the face-painted “warrior” in a Viking hat, also known as QAnon Shaman.

In The Lord of the Flies, when the boys first realize there are no adults, they are jubilant. Soon the boys choose CONTINUE READING: Sara Stevenson: Our “Lord of the Flies” Moment | Diane Ravitch's blog

Another F – Tennessee Education Report

ANOTHER F

The Education Law Center recently published its annual analysis of school funding in the states. Once again, Tennessee received a grade of “F” in both funding level and funding effort. I could actually write this exact same story every single year. Tennessee doesn’t adequately fund our schools. The bipartisan group TACIR – Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations – says the state is $1.7 billion behind where we need to be in funding for schools.

We also fail at funding effort – that is, we have significant untapped revenue and high dollar amounts held in reserve while our schools lack the critical resources they need to be successful.

Meanwhile, so-called education advocates like SCORE run around touting the latest new thing (this year, it’s a literacy scheme) instead of using their considerable clout and fundraising ability to push for meaningful investment in schools. Of course, the leadership over at SCORE is not hurting for cash based on their salaries.

Here’s the Education Law Center’s state-by-state breakdown on school funding: CONTINUE READING: Another F – Tennessee Education Report

Hack Education: Behaviorism, Surveillance, and (School) Work | National Education Policy Center

Hack Education: Behaviorism, Surveillance, and (School) Work

I was a speaker today at the #AgainstSurveillance teach-in, a fundraiser for Ian Linkletter who is being sued by the online test-proctoring software company Proctorio.

I am very pleased but also really outraged to be here today to help raise money for Ian Linkletter's defense and, more broadly, to help raise awareness about the dangers of ed-tech surveillance. It's nice to be part of an event where everyone is on the same page — politically, pedagogically — and I needn't be the sole person saying "hey wait, folks. This ed-tech stuff is, at best, snake oil and, at worst, fascist."

The challenge, on the other hand, is to not simply repeat the things that Sava, Maha, Benjamin, Chris, and Jesse have already said. I am lucky that these five are not just colleagues but dear friends, and the love and support they have shown me and the solidarity that all of you show today give me great hope that we can build better educational practices and that we aren't stuck with snake oil or fascism.

I will say this, even if it's been stated and restated a dozen or more times today: test proctoring is exploitative and extractive. It is harmful to all students, but particularly to those who are already disadvantaged by our institutions. To adopt test proctoring software is to maintain a pedagogical practice based on mistrust, surveillance, and punishment. To adopt test proctoring software is to enrich an unethical industry. To adopt Proctorio in particular is to align oneself with a company that has repeatedly demonstrated that it sees students, teachers, and staff as CONTINUE READING: Hack Education: Behaviorism, Surveillance, and (School) Work | National Education Policy Center

Will Public School Budget Cuts Boost Charter Movement? - LA Progressive

Will Public School Budget Cuts Boost Charter Movement?

The Charter Schools Movement Sees Public Schools Preparing for Deep Funding Cuts as a Growth Opportunity

Apromotional message on the website of the Minnesota Math and Science Academy (MMSA), a K-12 charter school in Saint Paul, Minnesota, boasts that since the school was founded in 2014, it has been “growing exponentially.”

In the span of just a few years, the school has built up significant enrollment numbers. Currently, more than 500 kids attend MMSA, according to the school’s website—where the school appears eager to take on even more students, with a bright green banner inviting parents to “Enroll Now” and complete an online form.

The school’s determination to expand has landed it before the Saint Paul City Council. In an effort to add more kids, MMSA has asked city council members to approve its request for $15 million in tax-exempt conduit bonds, as a means to help the school pay for construction costs associated with its growth, according to reporting by the Saint Paul Pioneer Press.

At a city council meeting in November, MMSA received preliminary approval for the conduit bond request on a 5-2 vote. At the same meeting, Hope Community Academy—another rapidly growing Saint Paul charter school—requested and received initial approval for $23 million in conduit bonds from the city.

Desperate parents and a new funding mechanism boost school privatization schemes across the country.

Hope Community Academy’s request was formally approved at a December city council meeting, while a decision on MMSA’s bond application has not yet been made.

All of this comes on the heels of another conduit CONTINUE READING: Will Public School Budget Cuts Boost Charter Movement? - LA Progressive

Biden to ask for tens of billions of dollars to help open schools - The Washington Post

Biden, aiming to reopen schools, set to request infusion of cash

President-elect Joe Biden will ask Congress for $130 billion to help K-12 schools reopen, plus billions more to implement rapid coronavirus testing in schools, a far more aggressive response than anything lawmakers have approved to date.

Another plank of Biden’s proposal, announced Thursday, aims to mount a national vaccination plan that could facilitate school reopening as well, with vaccinated teachers more willing to return to classrooms.

The proposals are part of a $1.9 trillion “rescue plan” that also includes $1,400 stimulus checks to most households and other aid to state and local governments, transition officials said. A senior official called it a “bold and historic emergency package to change the course of the pandemic.”

For schools, Biden says his goal is to have a majority open for in-person classes within 100 days of his inauguration. It’s unclear how he will measure success, and some research suggests the nation may have achieved his goal.

The Trump administration has not kept track of how many schools or school districts are open for in-person classes, and a transition spokesman said the new administration will work to improve data collection.

Biden reiterated Thursday that he would do everything he could to safely reopen “a majority of our K through 8 schools” by the end of his first 100 days.

“We can do this if we give the school districts — the schools themselves, the communities, the states — the clear guidance they need as well as the resources they need that they can’t afford right now,” he said.

Biden hopes to achieve his goal with the help of a hefty federal aid package. At $130 billion, the K-12 schools piece of his proposal is more than twice the $64 billion provided to date over two previous relief CONTINUE READING: Biden to ask for tens of billions of dollars to help open schools - The Washington Post

Teacher Tom: The Magnificence of Humans

The Magnificence of Humans

As I rounded the corner, I saw her at the end of the block, a woman on roller blades. She spun like a ballet dancer, then started heading my way, her arms swinging to build momentum. With a snap she turned her back toward me, then raised her right leg into an arabesque, toes pointed sharply, one arm over her head, which was, like her raised leg, parallel to the ground.

The space between us was closing rapidly. I wondered if she was going to barrel into me, but somehow, I knew she wouldn't. She was too much in control of herself for that. Dropping into a sitting position, one leg outstretched, her back still toward me, she seemed, impossibly, to accelerate. She was approaching a terrain of sidewalk gratings that would certainly cause her to fall if she wasn't alert. Did she know they were there? Of course, she did, standing and spinning around all in one motion, her momentum unaffected, she magically tip toed through the hazard, passing by me in a surge of backdraft as she now accelerated.

Stunned into stillness, I turned to watch her pass, thrilling at her speed and grace. Suddenly, she leapt, her head nearly CONUTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: The Magnificence of Humans

MLK Jr. Day Reader 2021 – radical eyes for equity

MLK Jr. Day Reader 2021

From 1984 until 2002, 18 years, I taught high school English in the town and school where I grew up and graduated, moving into the classroom of my high school English teacher, Lynn Harrill, where I had sat as a student just six years earlier.

My first few years were overwhelming and at times terrifying; I taught five different preparations—managing fifteen different textbooks—and several of the classes were filled to capacity, 35 students packed into the room.

Throughout those two decades spanning the 1980s and past the 1990s, I was a student-centered teacher who had a wonderful relationship with my students—lots of mutual love and respect. However, there was always some tension between me and white redneck boys.

Again, these white redneck boys were who I had been growing up, and even the least aware among them likely sensed deep down inside that I knew who they were.

One of the worst days of my teaching career—sitting among having to confront a student gunman and returning to school after three children burned down the school building—included the actions of one white redneck boy.

A significant sub-unit of my nine-week non-fiction unit included walking CONTINUE READING: MLK Jr. Day Reader 2021 – radical eyes for equity

Education Matters: Just how bad was the DCPS Covid dashboard

Just how bad was the DCPS Covid dashboard

So DCPS has changed the dashboard AGAIN. Supposedly to increase transparency. I think anything THIS district does to improve transparency is a good thing, but I wonder why now. It's probably because most people have known the dashboard has been tragically wrong, and this gives them the opportunity to pass the bunch to the DOH.

From the Times Union,

Wednesday evening, when Duval Schools families refreshed the district’s COVID-19 dashboard, they saw a massive spike in cases. But the district says it’s because of the new, more proactive way they're reporting things, not a school-specific case surge.

Instead of waiting for confirmation from the local Department of Health, Duval County Public Schools announced Wednesday that it will start reporting potential COVID-19 cases into its system as soon as officials become aware of a case.

The change took effect Wednesday night, with 170 new cases populating for one day.

The district said in a post to its website that this will help families and the community make informed decisions CONTINUE READING: Education Matters: Just how bad was the DCPS Covid dashboard

Back By Unpopular Demand! My Kindle E-Book About My Life | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

Back By Unpopular Demand! My Kindle E-Book About My Life

Anyone who reads this blog knows that I’m a math teacher. Math and teaching are two of my life passions and they are two things that I have some talent for. I would say that I’m a ‘very good’ teacher but merely a ‘good’ mathematician.

I’m also a writer. I’ve written 7 books (4 math books, 2 books on teaching, and co-authored 1 children’s book), about 20 published articles in various magazines and journals, and, of course, hundreds of blog posts. Writing is another passion of mine and, in my opinion, the thing that I do best. I never wanted to go through what it takes to make a living as a writer. I’m not someone who can really force my writing so I don’t think I would like the pressure of needing to write to eat.

So over the past thirty years, I’ve gotten the urge, from time to time, to work on my collection of personal essays about my life. I started writing these when I was about 21 and, over the years, would write an essay when I’d see a call out for the ‘Chicken Soup For The Soul’ series of books or just when I’d get the urge to write. Even though I’ve been a prolific blogger, these essays are much more difficult to write. There are only about 25 of them written in the past thirty years.

Though you might know me as a serious writer who writes about education and charter schools and who makes scatter plots about value-added data, the type of writing that I do is ‘humor.’ Comedy is something that I’ve been drawn to since I was a child. When I was about 11 years old my mother gave me a record of Woody Allen doing his stand-up from the 1960s and I listened to it all the time.

You never know if you are really funny until you try to perform stand-up in a New York City comedy club and, as a hobby over the past 15 years, I have done that from time to time and have always done well. Here’s a montage of some shows over the past 15 years.

About 8 years ago I published a Kindle e-book of essays I had CONTINUE READING: Back By Unpopular Demand! My Kindle E-Book About My Life | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

Biden’s Education Plan Addressed Lagging School Funding: Now with a Democratic Senate Majority, He Needs to Act | janresseger

Biden’s Education Plan Addressed Lagging School Funding: Now with a Democratic Senate Majority, He Needs to Act

President Elect Joe Biden prioritized public school funding as the center of his education plan during his campaign to be the Democratic nominee for President. Why did he prioritize public school finance and why is it so urgently important in 2021?

Here are Jack Schneider and Jennifer Berkshire, in their new book, The Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door, explaining the problem: “Almost every state reduced spending on public education during the Great Recession, but some states went much further, making deep cuts to schools, while taking aim at teachers and their unions… Moreover, states including Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, and North Carolina also moved to permanently reduce the funds available for education by cutting the taxes that pay for schools and other public services. In Wisconsin, Governor Scott Walker took aim at education through Act 10—what was first called the ‘budget repair bill.’ Act 10 is remembered for stripping teachers and other public employees of their collective bargaining rights. But it also made $2 billion in cuts to the state’s public schools.” (The Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door, pp. 35-36)

In August of 2018, the late Jim Siegel at the Columbus Dispatch summarized an important report by Ohio’s school finance expert, Howard Fleeter: “Nearly 77 percent of the total revenue increase from state funding and local taxes in the past 20 years occurred before 2009, according to a new analysis by the Ohio Education Policy Institute… State funding increased 35 percent from 1999 to 2009, but in the past 10 years it has actually fallen nearly 2 percent CONTINUE READING: Biden’s Education Plan Addressed Lagging School Funding: Now with a Democratic Senate Majority, He Needs to Act | janresseger

Rebecca Klein: These Textbooks In Thousands Of K-12 Schools Echo Trump’s Talking Points | HuffPost

These Textbooks In Thousands Of K-12 Schools Echo Trump’s Talking Points | HuffPost

These Textbooks In Thousands Of K-12 Schools Echo Trump’s Talking Points

Their religion-centered, anti-Democrat, anti-science, anti-multicultural message mirrors the Christian nationalism seen at the U.S. Capitol riot.

Christian textbooks used in thousands of schools around the country teach that President Barack Obama helped spur destructive Black Lives Matter protests, that the Democrats’ choice of 2016 nominee Hillary Clinton reflected their focus on identity politics, and that President Donald Trump is the “fighter” Republicans want, a HuffPost analysis has found.

The analysis, which focused on three popular textbooks from two major publishers of Christian educational materials ― Abeka and BJU Press ― looked at how the books teach the Trump era of politics. We found that all three are characterized by a skewed version of history and a sense that the country is experiencing an urgent moral decline that can only be fixed by conservative Christian policies. Language used in the books overlaps with the rhetoric of Christian nationalism, often with overtones of nativism, militarism and racism as well.

Scholars say textbooks like these, with their alternate versions of history and emphasis on Christian national identity, represent one small part of the conditions that lead to events like last week’s riot at the U.S. Capitol, an episode that was permeated with the symbols of Christian nationalism. Before storming the Capitol, some groups prayed in the name of Jesus and asked for divine protection. They flew Christian and “Jesus 2020” flags and pointed to Trump’s presidency as the will of God. The linkage between Christian beliefs and the violent attack on Congress has since pushed evangelical leaders to CONTINUE READING: These Textbooks In Thousands Of K-12 Schools Echo Trump’s Talking Points | HuffPost

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/2021/01/this-week-in-education-larry-ferlazzos_9.html

A Lot Is Going On! Here’s Everything (Well, ALMOST Everything) You Need For Teaching About Martin Luther King Jr., The Inauguration, Impeachment & Insurrection

by Larry Ferlazzo / 2h

mohamed_hassan / Pixabay What a crazy time we live in! You might be interested in: WAYS TO TEACH ABOUT TODAY’S INSURRECTION – SHARE YOUR OWN (it has tons of additions since it was first posted) THE BEST SITES FOR LEARNING ABOUT THE PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURATION – 2020 THE BEST RESOURCES FOR LEARNING & TEACHING ABOUT THE POSSIBLE SECOND IMPEACHMENT OF PRESIDENT TRUMP The Best Websites For Learning Abo

Video: “How to Master Anything: PEAK by Anders Ericsson”

26by Larry Ferlazzo / 13h

johnhain / Pixabay I’m adding this video to The Best Resources For Learning About The 10,000 Hour Rule & Deliberate Practice :

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