Hope During a Pandemic is Both Hard and Inescapable | gadflyonthewallblog

Hope During a Pandemic is Both Hard and Inescapable | gadflyonthewallblog

Hope During a Pandemic is Both Hard and Inescapable

I cried when I got my second Covid-19 shot.

Not a lot.

Just a few drops.

But the flood of emotions I felt that accompanied that tiny pinch in my arm was totally unexpected.

It was like I gasped for breath and hadn’t realized until then that I was suffocating.

I looked up at the volunteer who had injected me to see if she’d noticed, but it’s hard to read someone’s expression under a mask.

So I found myself shrugging the feeling off, giving her a brisk “Thank you” and heading off to file my paperwork, get another stamp on my vaccination card and plopping in a chair for 15 minutes of observation before heading on my way.

As I sat there, I started to feel this growing sense of excitement in my chest.

Two weeks, I thought.

In two weeks I will be fully vaccinated.

Moderna is 94.1% effective at preventing infection. That means I should be able to return to school and teach my students in-person. Safely.

Some of them have been back in the classroom for weeks now, but I’ve had to stay CONTINUE READING: Hope During a Pandemic is Both Hard and Inescapable | gadflyonthewallblog

What ‘learning loss’ really means - The Washington Post

What ‘learning loss’ really means - The Washington Post

What ‘learning loss’ really means

It’s not a loss of learning.

Last May, I published a post with this title: “Can we stop telling the ‘corona kids’ how little they are learning?”

Written by Rachael Gabriel, associate professor of literacy education at the University of Connecticut, it made the case that students were actually learning when schools closed last spring as the coronavirus pandemic hit the United States — just not all of the things they would have learned in class:

Students are learning how to reset the rhythms and structures of their days. They are learning different patterns and modes of communication. They may be taking on different roles in their homes and learning how to complete new tasks, engage in new games and develop or sustain new and different activities.

Some are learning from the outdoor world on walks that go slower and last longer than before. Others are watching nature change day-by-day out their window, in their gardens, and along trails and bodies of water. Some are spending more time in their imaginations because it’s the only place to go, but this is not unimportant work.

Students cannot help but learn about themselves, others and the world around them in this time when solitude has steadily increased alongside disconnection and uncertainty. Even those who are too young to verbalize their understandings understand their world has changed, and are changing right along with it.

Gabriel is back with a new look at “learning loss” and what it really means.

Gabriel has written or edited five books for literacy teachers, leaders and education researchers, as well as numerous articles, and teaches courses for educators and doctoral students pursuing specialization in literacy.

By Rachael Gabriel

There is no such thing as learning loss.

When it comes to K-12 schooling, the truth is that some of us are more used to interruptions than others. Those of us who have to move around a lot, are living between two countries, or who have experienced a major injury, illness or are chronically ill, and even those who just changed schools once know what loss feels like. CONTINUE READING: What ‘learning loss’ really means - The Washington Post

Teacher Tom: The Girl Who Didn't Know How to Play

Teacher Tom: The Girl Who Didn't Know How to Play

The Girl Who Didn't Know How to Play

A few summers back, a family moved to Seattle for the summer from Vancouver, British Columbia for the sole purpose of enrolling their five-year-old daughter Anjoli in Woodland Park's Summer Program. This sort of thing happens sometimes, because of the blog. I find it embarrassing and not necessarily in the best interest of children to commute long distances to attend preschool, especially when I know there are outstanding play-based programs closer to home. 

When I asked this father why they had left the girl's mother and older siblings to come so far just for four two-and-a-half hour sessions a week, he told me he was worried about Anjoli. "She doesn't know how to play." All of his children had attended school from the earliest age possible, schools that promised academic achievement, but he had recently seen the error of his ways. He told me that he felt it was too late for his sons, but he hoped that it wasn't for Anjoli.

It all seemed both heartbreaking and bizarre to me, but the father was sincere. I'd never met a child who didn't know how to play. Maybe, I thought, this father simply didn't know what play looked like. Indeed, I started our first day together on CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: The Girl Who Didn't Know How to Play

Les Perelman: We Need an FDA for Educational Assessments | Diane Ravitch's blog

Les Perelman: We Need an FDA for Educational Assessments | Diane Ravitch's blog

Les Perelman: We Need an FDA for Educational Assessments

Les Perelman, former professor of writing at MIT and inventor of the BABEL generator, has repeatedly exposed the quackery in computer-scoring of essays. If you want to learn how to generate an essay that will win a high score but make no sense, google the “BABEL Generator,” which was developed by Perelman and his students at MIT to fool the robocomputer graders. He explains here, in an original piece published nowhere else, why the American public needs an FDA for assessments, to judge their quality.

He writes:

An FDA for Educational Assessment, particularly for Computer Assessments

As a new and much saner administration takes over the US Department of Education led by Secretary of Education Designate, Miguel Cardona, it is a good time, especially regarding assessment, to ask Juvenal’s famous question of “Who Watches the Watchman.” 

Several years ago, I realized computer applications designed to assess student writing did not understand the essays they evaluated but simply counted proxies such as the length of an essays, the number of sentences in each paragraph, and the frequency of infrequently used words.  In 2014, I and three undergraduate researchers from Harvard and MIT, developed the Basic Automatic CONTINUE READING: Les Perelman: We Need an FDA for Educational Assessments | Diane Ravitch's blog

Rep. Jamaal Bowman & Randi Weingarten: America's Covid spring shouldn't include standardized tests for any students - NBC NEWS

America's Covid spring shouldn't include standardized tests for any students

America's Covid spring shouldn't include standardized tests for any students

After the year our children have had, we must consider their well-being above all else when making decisions about schooling.

By Rep. Jamaal Bowman, Democratic U.S. representative from New York’s 16th district and Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers

On Feb. 22, the Biden administration released its guidance for our country’s schools on how to manage standardized testing this spring. In an attempt to accommodate the extreme measures that schools and teachers have had to take to meet students’ needs during the pandemic, the Department of Education offered schools some flexibility but failed to offer a blanket waiver for all testing this year.

While we appreciate the effort to give schools and educators some leeway, and to make standardized test results less consequential overall, we fear that maintaining testing requirements for this spring will cause more harm than good.

As two former educators whose predominantly Black and brown students not only had to take these tests in “normal times” but often excelled at them, we understand why they exist: to collect nationwide educational performance data to effectively allocate resources to the students that need them most. But the data is not in and of itself a solution.

As we surpass this morbid milestone of half a million lives lost to this pandemic, the challenges faced by students across the country must be addressed. That starts with getting the pandemic under control, shots in people’s arms and more students back into classrooms. But standardized testing will not help the national effort to asses student needs and monitor their social, emotional and academic progress. CONTINUE READING: America's Covid spring shouldn't include standardized tests for any students

CURMUDGUCATION: Dear Mike Bloomberg: No

CURMUDGUCATION: Dear Mike Bloomberg: No

Dear Mike Bloomberg: No

Michael Bloomberg, former NYC mayor, failed Presidential candidate, and rich guy, took to the pages of the Washington Post to argue that Joe Biden should keep schools open this summer. 

Bloomberg says that we are facing "the greatest challenge to public education" since schools defied Brown v. Board of Education. He says that "the evidence that remote learning has been disastrous for children, especially those from low-income families, could not be clearer." Well, yes, it could. There aren't many teachers, students or parents saying, "This remote stuff is great--we should do it all the time." But we don't have much actual evidence about how disastrous any of this has or has not been (and no, the "research" about Learning Loss doesn't fill that bill). Bloomberg also seems to be nodding at Raj Chetty's highly debatable work when he declares that the "harmful effects" will be "worsening racial income and wealth gaps" for generations.

Bloomberg says to follow the science, which "strongly supports reopening schools," which is not that strong an endorsement, but that's beside the point anyway, because Bloomberg here sorts himself with the folks who always stop that sentence before they get to the subordinate "if" clause-- "science strongly supports reopening schools IF PROPER MITIGATION STEPS ARE TAKE." Sorry. I hate to shout, but some folks just keep skipping that part, and unfortunately, some of those folks are in charge of school districts. 

If that omission isn't enough to clarifying where Bloomberg is coming from, we can also take his note that it's good that Biden prioritized vaccinations for teachers because it "will help persuade more of them to return to the classroom." The vaccination won't provide protection for them--just leverage CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Dear Mike Bloomberg: No

Teachers I Respect and Admire–William Appling | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Teachers I Respect and Admire–William Appling | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Teachers I Respect and Admire–William Appling

William Appling taught choral music at Glenville High School in Cleveland (OH) in the 1950s and 1960s. I met him when I arrived as a novice teacher in 1956. While nearly all students were Black coming from working class and middle-class families in the Glenville neighborhood, only half of the faculty were Black when I began teaching history. A few years older than me, Appling had been at the school directing the choir and building a reputation as a demanding teacher who loved music, performance, and his students.

William Appling teaching choral music in 1965

Decades later, one former student who became a music teacher, Dr. Marsha Kindall-Smith, remembered him in this way:

Appling also composed music, conducted ensembles and orchestras, and performed on piano and other instruments. He became an expert on the music of CONTINUE READING: Teachers I Respect and Admire–William Appling | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

NANCY BAILEY - Education Secretary Cardona, End Third Grade Retention and High-Stakes Standardized Testing!

Education Secretary Cardona, End Third Grade Retention and High-Stakes Standardized Testing!

Education Secretary Cardona, End Third Grade Retention and High-Stakes Standardized Testing!

The Biden administration chose a real educator to be education secretary. Now Dr. Cardona should move to end third-grade retention, a procedure that would be especially cruel administered with this pandemic. Many alternative plans are available to help children do better in school that won’t involve the humiliation of retention.

Cardona should withhold federal funds to school districts that flunk third graders. He could accomplish this better if he’d cancel the high-stakes tests.

Educators and parents are furious about the Biden administration going forward with high-stakes testing. Repeatedly Americans are told that children have mental problems and are depressed because they’re not in school, not learning with their favorite teachers, or socializing with their friends. It’s disingenuous to claim one cares about a child’s emotions and send them to school to take a high pressured test during this pandemic!

Worse is to tell a child they failed the test and will stay in the same grade! Or to say they didn’t do well on the test, but if they don’t want to fail, they can retake the test!

This rotten practice got momentum in the State of Florida under former Governor Jeb Bush. If Bush had wanted to do right by children, if he’d been a savvy leader for CONTINUE READING: Education Secretary Cardona, End Third Grade Retention and High-Stakes Standardized Testing!

Kids as Customers – Have You Heard

Kids as Customers – Have You Heard

Kids as Customers

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is creating a network of tuition-free Montessori-inspired preschools for low-income students. But his vision of schools that nurture the autonomy and creativity of kids is on a collision course with the Amazon workplaces Bezos has engineered for adults. Special guest: Mira Debs, author of Diverse Families, Desirable Schools: Public Montessori in the Era of School Choice. Transcript available here.

Note: Have You Heard listeners can get 20% of Mira’s book if they eschew Amazon and order direct through Harvard Education Press. Just enter the code DFDS21. 

And if you’re a fan of Have You Heard, consider supporting us on Patreon. Right now, if you subscribe at the $10/month rate, we’ll send you an autographed copy of A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door.

Have You Heard · #108 Kids as Customers

Kids as Customers – Have You Heard

Rapid COVID Testing to Facilitate School Reopening - Year 2021 (CA Dept of Education)

Rapid COVID Testing to Facilitate School Reopening - Year 2021 (CA Dept of Education)

State Superintendent Tony Thurmond Underscores How Rapid COVID Testing Can Facilitate Safe Reopening of Schools

SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond hosted a statewide webinar today with health experts and educators that addressed the use of rapid COVID-19 testing as a tool to safely resume in-person learning on school campuses.

“I strongly believe that while we wait for a full vaccine roll-out, we also need to be moving toward a strategy for the deployment of rapid COVID testing that is cost-effective for schools,” Thurmond said. “This is one tool in our tool box—but an important one. Rapid COVID testing is a game-changer. With mounting data that students are suffering from mental health issues and learning disruptions, rapid testing is a real help for districts looking for ways to get students safely back into classrooms.”

During the presentation, Thurmond shared how the use of BinaxNOW COVID-19 Cards, which provide test results in 15 minutes at a cost of $5 per test, will be used at the California Department of Education's (CDE) three State Special Schools to safely return students to in-person instruction.

Along with Superintendent Thurmond, other individuals who presented at today’s webinar were:

• Dr. Charity Dean, Public Health Physician and past Co-Chair of the Governor’s Testing Task Force, who provided an overview of the BinaxNOW COVID-19 test and stressed the effectiveness of the tests.
• Dr. Tony Iton, Senior Vice President of Healthy Communities at the California Endowment, who provided an overview of the rapid test pilot program that is currently underway with 11 school districts.
• Roy Mendiola, Superintendent of the McSwain Union Elementary School District, who reported on his district’s positive experience using the rapid tests through the pilot program.
• Lisa Constancio, Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction at the CDE, who addressed funding sources available to school districts for rapid testing.

Ensuring schools can access regular testing has been at the forefront of Thurmond’s agenda since last fall. He has been in close contact with Governor Gavin Newsom and lawmakers to include those resources in the signing of AB 86, which provides $2 billion for schools to return to in-person learning by April 1.

Following the presentations, a question-and-answer session covered such topics as test accuracy and false positives, school eligibility for the tests, and student privacy. The entire event can be viewed on the CDE Facebook page.

School districts can find more information on funding sources for the COVID tests on the CDE CARES Act Funding web page. For questions on rapid COVID testing or the webinar, email RapidTesting@cde.ca.gov.

# # # #

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

Rapid COVID Testing to Facilitate School Reopening - Year 2021 (CA Dept of Education)

TO LAUGH, OR TO CRY – Dad Gone Wild

TO LAUGH, OR TO CRY – Dad Gone Wild

TO LAUGH, OR TO CRY

“The flute of the Pied Piper of Hamelin has never left us and it is essential that we train our ear to detect its false notes because in our case the flute is being played by the rats.” ― Dimitris Mita

 

Yesterday, was one of those days that seem to be occurring with more frequency. I spent the day researching numerous education initiatives, both on the state and the district level. It was research that evoked the conundrum of whether to laugh or cry. It seems the more things change, the more they stay the same. All of it would have fallen into the category of the former if it didn’t have such a negative impact on people – students, teachers, families.

One of the things I watched was Tuesday’s Teaching and Learning School Board Committee meeting. We’ll revisit it in greater depth come Friday, but some of the comments made by Chief of Schools Mason Bellamy are just so egregious that they can’t be left until later in the week.

The overarching question that I want to ask Bellamy, after 3/4 of a year observing and listening to him, is do you think we are all stupid? Is it your belief that you came down from Clarksville, where you spent your entire career, to the land of the rube? A place where we are all so ill-informed that we’ll buy the snake oil you are peddling sans question? If that’s the case, perhaps you should study a little bit more about the team that preceded you, they came in with a similar mindset and it didn’t CONTINUE READING: TO LAUGH, OR TO CRY – Dad Gone Wild

CURMUDGUCATION: The Greatest Testing Stories Never Told

CURMUDGUCATION: The Greatest Testing Stories Never Told

The Greatest Testing Stories Never Told

As testocrats continue their full court press to back up the Biden  edict that 2021 Big Standardized Tests must occur, it's worth remembering that we have been doing this for twenty-ish years.

That means that we are long past the point when tests should be sold based on the wonderful things they are going to do; instead, we should be hearing about all the wonderful things they have done.

For instance, instead of arguing that the BS Tests are a necessary tool for addressing pandemic-exacerbated inequity, testocrats ought to be telling the story of how BS Test data has helped erase inequity in the past. 

We should be hearing the story of East Egg High School where, armed with BS Test data, the school closed the achievement gap. "We crunched that data," says Principal Hiram Pothetical, "and within just a few years, our achievement gap and equity issues had disappeared."

Or maybe the "we need tests to target resources" crowd could be telling us the stories of schools across the country where, armed with BS Test data, state legislatures raced resources and support to those schools that looked as if they were in trouble, and within a few years, the school was totally recreated as a high-achieving model. Hell, even in states where "target for resources" actually turned out to mean "targeted for resources and take-over by privatizers," there are no continue reading: CURMUDGUCATION: The Greatest Testing Stories Never Told

NewBlackMan (in Exile) TODAY #BLM #BLACKLIVESMATTER

 NewBlackMan (in Exile)

NewBlackMan (in Exile) TODAY

Big Education Ape: THIS WEEK WITH NEWBLACKMAN (IN EXILE) - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2021/03/this-week-with-newblackman-in-exile-blm.html

'Through The Cracks' Reexamines How An 8-Year-Old Girl Disappeared From A D.C. Homeless Shelter

by Mark Anthony Neal / 19h

"Here & Now 's Tonya Mosley speaks with Jonquilyn Hill , host of the podcast "Through The Cracks." The podcast revisits the disappearance of 8-year-old Relisha Rudd from a Washington, D.C., homeless shelter seven years ago." -- Here & Now

Invisible Blackness – Double Oppression: the Black Woman, an Interview with Ladybug Mecca

by Mark Anthony Neal / 20h

" Digable Planets was the pinnacle of cool for early 1990s hip hop culture. LadyBug Mecca was the sole female voice of this seductive trio of music revolutionaries, waltzing the line between pop crossover culture and conscious hip hop. In this episode of Invisible Blackness , Adrian Younge and LadyBug Mecca discuss the power behind the black female voice in culture's past, present and future."

Soulful Stitching: The Visual Art of The Siddis of Karnataka, India

by Mark Anthony Neal / 20h

"The Siddis of Karnataka, India are the descendants of both early African immigrants to South Asia and enslaved Africans brought to Goa on India’s west coast by the Portuguese beginning in the 16th century. Gradually, they escaped slavery and moved southward into the remote Western Ghatt mountains of Northern Karnataka in order to create free, independent African diaspora communities. While they

Perspectives on Anti-Blackness in the Arab World

by Mark Anthony Neal / 20h

"Anti-Black racism exists all over the globe, but varies according to the context and society. In Arab societies, anti-black racism is pronounced, widespread, and largely denied by the intelligentsia, the ruling elites and clergy despite its roots in either the trans-Saharan slave trade or the Indian Ocean slave trade. his roundtable discussion was coordinated by Duke professor Mbaye Lo , and fea

Music Education In The Pandemic And Beyond

by Mark Anthony Neal / 2d

"Teaching orchestra, choir or band virtually in a pandemic presents some unique challenges. Even with schools reopening, it's difficult to hold in-person band practice in a way that's safe and socially distant. How has music education changed during the pandemic? And what does its future in U.S. education look like?" -- 1A

Actor Daniel Kaluuya’s Road to Revolutionary

by Mark Anthony Neal / 2d

"Actor Daniel Kaluuya -- known for his roles in Get Out and Queen & Slim -- portrays Fred Hampton in the new film, Judas and the Black Messiah , which follows Hampton’s meteoric rise through the party, a multiracial class movement and the series of betrayals that led to his untimely fall. Weeks before he won the Golden Globe award for “ Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motio

Leroy Moore, Krip Hop Nation and the Politics of the Paralympics

by Mark Anthony Neal / 2d

"On this episode of Edge of Sports , host Dave Zirin speaks with Leroy Moore , one of the founders of the hip hop organization, Krip Hop Nation about the Paralympics. Edge of Sports also talks to Moore about his love of Hip-Hop, his favorite artists, and growing up in New York City during the birth of the music genre." Edge of Sports ·

The Quarantine Tapes 165: Sanford Biggers

by Mark Anthony Neal / 2d

"On episode 165 of The Quarantine Tapes , guest host Imani Perry is joined by Sanford Biggers . Sanford is an artist working across a wide range of disciplines. He talks with Imani about some of his recent work with quilting,

 NewBlackMan (in Exile)