Latest News and Comment from Education

Friday, June 5, 2020

'This Is No Time For Us to Look Away' - NEA Today

'This Is No Time For Us to Look Away' - NEA Today

‘This Is No Time For Us to Look Away’



Within three months, the world saw egregious attacks on black Americans:
Feb. 23: While out on a jog—Ahmaud Arbery, a black man, was shot and killed by two white men with ties to the local police department. Arbery’s case made national news on May 5, when a 28-second cellphone video capturing the killing was leaked onto social media.
March 13: Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technician and a black woman, was shot eight times and killed by Louisville Metro Police during a late-night, “no-knock,” forced entry on her home. The warrant did not include the victim’s name and was issued for another home miles away. And, the person the police was looking for was already in custody. Taylor’s death also made national news in May.
May 25 (morning): Amy Cooper, a white woman, called the police on Christian Cooper (no relation), a black man, in Central Park during an encounter involving her unleashed dog. Christian Cooper recorded the encounter  in which he is largely silent while she tells police he is threatening her and her dog. Amy Cooper is heard saying, “I’m going to tell them there’s an African American man threatening my life.”
May 25 (afternoon): George Floyd, a black man, was killed in broad daylight when an officer from the Minneapolis Police Department pressed his knee to Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds. The officer did not remove his knee even after Floyd lost consciousness.
These attacks on black bodies—plus those that have gone untelevised, ignored, excused, or denied—is not new ground for most people of color. In fact, they are reminiscent of the racial terrorism and intimidation black Americans have experienced since the founding days of this country.
“This is no time for us to look away,” says Lily Eskelsen GarcĂ­a. “Police violence against black people happens too often. The threat and real violence toward black people daring to exist in public spaces and even in their own homes is the direct CONTINUE READING: 'This Is No Time For Us to Look Away' - NEA Today

Changing What We Teach | Teacher in a strange land

Changing What We Teach | Teacher in a strange land

Changing What We Teach



Over the past couple of days, there has been a steady stream of resources, generously shared, for anti-racist teaching.  Here, for example.  Here, here and here and here. And this, just this afternoon.
There are plenty of articles out there speculating on when and how we go back to school, and the consequences of going back too soon. But all the handwringing over alternate schedules, classroom lunches and sanitizing the playground are a great example of focusing on the urgent rather than the important.
Going back to School as Usual only works for a segment of privileged kids in well-resourced schools. All schools, including those where parent satisfaction is high and student achievement is admirable, can benefit from re-thinking what we teach—more than how we teach.
There have been endless conversations on Twitter and Facebook about the value of suggested resources and materials, just how age-appropriate they are, and how they intersect—or don’t—with traditional, standards-based curricula. These conversations, even when argumentative and heated, are good.
This is (or should be) teachers’ professional work. These should be the things we’re reading about, dissecting with our colleagues, discussing with our friends. We can’t go CONTINUE READING: Changing What We Teach | Teacher in a strange land

Students in masks? Sick kids staying home? Teachers aren’t convinced plans will keep them safe. - The Washington Post

Students in masks? Sick kids staying home? Teachers aren’t convinced plans will keep them safe. - The Washington Post

Students in masks? Sick kids staying home? Teachers aren’t convinced plans will keep them safe.



Christian Herr is only 35, but he has been on medication ever since he suffered a heart attack in his classroom nine years ago. His cardiologist is clear: Herr’s condition puts him at risk of dangerous complications if he contracts the novel coronavirus.
So two months after his school closed, and with next school year on the horizon, Herr, a sixth-grade science teacher in the District, wonders: Can he go back when classrooms reopen? Will he be safe? How will he know?
School districts across the country are sharing rough drafts of what the fall could look like. They are under increasing pressure, from parents and politicians, for those plans to include at least some in-person learning.
But teachers, especially ones who are older or medically compromised, worry those plans do to little to protect them.
The plans are also just unrealistic, teachers say. They can’t envision students maintaining social distance, keeping masks on, or walking in the same directions in hallways, all things health officials are recommending. Even before the pandemic, teachers said, their schools struggled to keep ample soap and water running in the bathrooms.
“When I hear about keeping students socially distant, I just kind of laugh at that,” said Crysta Weitekamp, a 47-year-old special education teacher at Southeast High School in Springfield, Ill., who has asthma. “They’re social creatures.”
So, teachers say, they’re anxious about returning. But they’re also anxious about what happens to their job if they refuse.
“It does make me nervous to say no,” said Lara, a high school teacher at a Los Angeles charter school who is immunocompromised. (Worried about her job, she spoke on the condition that she be identified CONTINUE READING: Students in masks? Sick kids staying home? Teachers aren’t convinced plans will keep them safe. - The Washington Post

We Protest Police In The Streets, So Why Do We Let Police In Our Schools? - PopularResistance.Org

We Protest Police In The Streets, So Why Do We Let Police In Our Schools? - PopularResistance.Org

WE PROTEST POLICE IN THE STREETS, SO WHY DO WE LET POLICE IN OUR SCHOOLS?

 
The Fear Of Black Students And White Savior Ideology In Educators And Policymakers Is Keeping Police In Under-Resourced Schools Despite Their Role In The School-To-Prison Pipeline And The Well-Known Harm To Students.

In the wake of the murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, police violence has again been brought to the forefront of our country’s discussions as a systemic issue that must be addressed. Over the last 13 years I’ve taught in high schools at Chicago Public Schools, I have lost students to police violence. Every time a Black person is murdered by the police, I, like many others, am outraged. As an educator, I picture my own students, their families, or even my own colleagues being in their place.
Instead of just being upset, why are we as educators not taking an obvious step and escorting police out of our schools?
There is a large body of research that shows that having police in schools negatively impacts student learning and makes kids feel unsafe. It took the murder of Philando Castille in 2016 and George Floyd, but the Minneapolis Public School Board voted last night to cut ties with the Minneapolis Police Department. We have examples in Chicago and across the country of police abusing our students in schools. This includes police tasing a student, body-slamming a 12-year-old, flipping a student’s desk and dragging them across the floor, slapping and kicking a student, and arresting students as young as six years old.
Yet we often brush these off as the actions of ‘one bad cop’ and fail to see the systemic connections to policing, racism, and prison. Outside of schools, politicians make the ‘one bad cop’ argument all the time and then invest millions more into failed policing and criminalization.
We ignore the fact that even though schools across the country need more resources for educating students, policing in school budgets gets hundreds CONTINUE READING: We Protest Police In The Streets, So Why Do We Let Police In Our Schools? - PopularResistance.Org

Public Funds Public Schools Website Provides Compendium of Research on School Vouchers | janresseger

Public Funds Public Schools Website Provides Compendium of Research on School Vouchers | janresseger

Public Funds Public Schools Website Provides Compendium of Research on School Vouchers


Ohio was one of the first states, in 1996, to impose school vouchers, and today across Ohio and many other states, vouchers are devastating local school district budgets. Nationally, the nation’s loudest voucher cheerleader, Education Secretary Betsy Devos, continues to promote vouchers and their cousins—tuition tax credits and education savings accounts.  To support advocates for a strong system of public education, Public Funds Public Schools—a project of the Education Law Center, the Southern Poverty Law Center and Munger, Tolles & Olson—provides a compendium of research exploring whether vouchers are an effective school reform strategy. The research inventory is online. It is, I presume, being updated as new research is released.
In Ohio, at least, legislators try to justify vouchers as the salvation of students enrolled in so-called “failing” schools.  Public Funds Public Schools‘ summary of research studies is invaluable for public school leaders, parents, and community advocates who need to be able to document that vouchers are not, in fact, an effective strategy for expanding educational opportunity for our nation’s poorest and most vulnerable students. In fact, the expansion of vouchers has devastated the very school districts that need greater public investment to serve concentrations of children living in poverty, but vouchers extract essential dollars from those very districts.
Why is this online resource so important? The school district where I live and where we educated our children is the best example I know. Cleveland.com reports that in the Cleveland Heights-University Heights School district during the current 2019-2020 school year, EdChoice, one of Ohio’s four statewide voucher programs, extracted $7.2 million from the total CONTINUE READING: Public Funds Public Schools Website Provides Compendium of Research on School Vouchers | janresseger

Black Math Teachers Are Good For More Than Race Stuff | The Jose Vilson

Black Math Teachers Are Good For More Than Race Stuff | The Jose Vilson

BLACK MATH TEACHERS ARE GOOD FOR MORE THAN RACE STUFF



This #Blackout era has provided some of us with a quixotic yet prosperous platform to center our experiences without apology. The recent murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery at the hands of police, plus the ensuing uprisings across the world have created a level of urgency among white educators to become more aware of their complicity. Rather than an abrupt “I told you so,” I’m choosing to engage this new set of subscribers with a huge sense of responsibility and awareness of the moment, holding steadfast to my identity and all the anchors that held this boat steady even when the current smacked against its starboard.
If anything, this moment has shown us how critical Black educators have been to this work.
There’s a burgeoning literature out there suggesting the importance of Black educators, from our distinct ability to recommend students for gifted and talented programs to our focus on relationship and community building. However, too many of us have paths carved out for us that has little to do with will and more to do with opportunity. School cultures often push back against our very existence as authority figures in school buildings. When we’re accepted, we’re normally assigned the more difficult classes, or, when one of our colleagues finds a student difficult, pushes said student in our direction. When we’re elevated, it’s usually to a position of dean and/or an assistant principal who works as the de facto dean of discipline. We’re often hired in the spaces with the least resources, forcing us into spaces that we thought we might change only to perhaps replicate the trauma we once CONTINUE READING:  Black Math Teachers Are Good For More Than Race Stuff | The Jose Vilson

With A Brooklyn Accent: NYPD At The Crossroads- Some Background History

With A Brooklyn Accent: NYPD At The Crossroads- Some Background History

NYPD At The Crossroads- Some Background History


All over the nation, protesters are demanding that police budgets be cut and that the funds saved be invested in community development projects in working class neighborhoods, particularly those which have high concentrations of Black people.
As this movement spreads to NYC, it might be useful to review the history of police expansion and militarization in NYC, its surprising origins and unintended consequences.
Although most people don't know this, the first big expansion of the NYPD after its budget was cut during the Fiscal Crisis of the 70's took place under the Mayoralty of David Dinkins! The demand for this expansion came largely from the city's poorest neighborhoods, which were under siege as a result of crack related violence In neighborhoods where gun battles were taking place all hours of the day and night, making people afraid to go to work, go shopping, or send their children to school. In response to this, community organizations in the Bronx, East New York and other hard pressed areas began calling for more police and more arrests so that people they represented could go about their daily lives safely.( If you don't believe me, read Noel Wolfe's 2015 dissertation "A Community At War: The Bronx and Crack Cocaine") The Dinkins Administration responded to these CONTINUE READING: With A Brooklyn Accent: NYPD At The Crossroads- Some Background History


A little more about Chaz | JD2718

A little more about Chaz | JD2718

A little more about Chaz

Chaz's School Daze: The Best Of Chaz's School Daze.
It’s been a month to the day since the world lost Eric Chasanoff to Covid, and a month to the day since the New York City teacher/blogger universe lost Chaz’s School Daze.
I wrote about Chaz in this space – my immediate reaction to his passing. Many others wrote, too. I submitted something to UFT Honors, and they used a few of my words. And then one of the editors suggested I leave a comment – and I did:
I also went back through more of his writing. I had forgotten that Eric had endorsed me for UFT Exec Board not just in the last election, but every time I ran. 2019201620132010.
Our views tended to coincide on contractual and labor issues. But we diverged, mostly on issues related to race, poverty and integration. In recent years I commented less, as his readership (at least in the comments) drifted towards the right.
But our first disagreement? I was in favor of demoting Pluto from planet status. Eric gamely defended the micro-planet (see comments).
A little more about Chaz | JD2718

SPI Announces Initiatives on Implicit Bias, Racism + ACSE Agenda June 17, 2020 - Year 2020 (CA Dept of Education)

SPI Announces Initiatives on Implicit Bias, Racism - Year 2020 (CA Dept of Education)

State Superintendent Tony Thurmond Announces Multi-Pronged Partnerships, Initiatives to Address Implicit Bias and Racism



ACSE Agenda June 17, 2020 - Administration & Support (CA Dept of Education)
- https://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/se/as/acseag0620.asp
Important Notice

Please note, the June 2020 Advisory Commission on Special Education (ACSE) meeting will be held as a teleconference; Room 1101 (board room) will be closed to the public. Please see ACSE Meeting Logistics section below for options to view and participate in the meeting.



SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond on Thursday announced that the California Department of Education (CDE) has received a $500,000 philanthropic grant to train all of CDE’s 2,500 employees in implicit bias and to create guidance for school districts across California to help them accelerate their efforts to dismantle systemic racism in education.
During a virtual media check-in earlier today, Thurmond said this initiative is an important step to addressing the persistent inequities students of color have faced—including academic achievement gaps and disproportionate discipline—for decades in public education.
“Although this work was underway before the tragic deaths of George Floyd and others sparked the widespread unrest we see across the country, we know that we must accelerate the work of disrupting institutional racism with a sense of urgency,” said Thurmond. “We are grateful to be the recipient of such a large statewide investment that will support educators closing achievement gaps and securing racial justice for our students.”
The $500,000 grant was awarded by the S. D.  Bechtel, Jr. Foundation and secured through a partnership with the Californians Dedicated to Education Foundation (CDEF), the philanthropic arm of CDE. The grant will fund the California Implicit Bias Training Initiative, a multi-pronged, months-long plan to partner with implicit bias and racial justice experts who will not only train CDE employees across the state, but also help CDE develop resources and guidance for schools to infuse implicit bias training into existing professional development.
During his remarks, State Superintendent Thurmond also called for greater mental health and counseling support for students who are experiencing trauma. The emotional distress of processing the impacts of the pandemic and the tragic events and unrest sweeping across the country are having a cumulative impact on all students, especially black and brown students who are more likely to experience chronic trauma that impacts their academic achievement.  
The State Superintendent invited two experts to join Thursday’s remarks: Dr. Daniel Lee, President-Elect for the New Jersey Psychological Association and Principal Consultant of N-PSY-T Psychological Services, who is developing a model for schools to address the impacts of implicit bias on student achievement, and Christine Stoner-Mertz, CEO of the California Alliance of Child and Family Services. Both spoke to the role that access to quality mental health resources can aid students during this time. During remarks, both offered insight into how they will be working with the State Superintendent as he and CDE lead next steps in this effort. 
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

Diane Ravitch in Conversation with Amy Frogge - Network For Public Education

Diane Ravitch in Conversation with Amy Frogge - Network For Public Education

Diane Ravitch in Conversation with Amy Frogge


Start: Wednesday, June 10, 2020  7:30 PM  Eastern Daylight Time (US & Canada) (GMT-04:00)

End: Wednesday, June 10, 2020  9:00 PM  Eastern Daylight Time (US & Canada) (GMT-04:00)

Conversations_keynote_template.001

The Network for Public Education invites you to join us for a video conference with NPE President Diane Ravitch. Diane's guest this week will be Metro Nashville Public School Board Representative and Executive Director of Pastors for Tennessee Children, Amy Frogge. Join Diane and Amy for a conversation about the fight for better schools in Tennessee.
Diane Ravitch in Conversation with Amy Frogge - Network For Public Education

CURMUDGUCATION: Graduation in the Age of Covid-19

CURMUDGUCATION: Graduation in the Age of Covid-19

Graduation in the Age of Covid-19


There are three bridges that run in and out of my small town. Currently, each bridge is flying a batch of banners that collectively list the entire 2020 graduating class at our high school. When the banners went up, a photo of some seniors looking for their names on the banners ran on the front page of the local paper.

High school graduation is a big deal in small town USA. My old high school (the one where I taught for almost forty years and from which I graduated back in the day) holds the graduation ceremony in the city park. Graduates step up onto the band stand while all their family and most of their friends and a fair-sized helping of community people who aren't even related to any graduates all gather on the cool green grass under a canopy of trees, next to a Civil War monument. For years, a colleague and I led the procession of seniors down the sidewalk that cuts diagonally through the park, splitting the huge home town crowd as folks jostled to snap the first pictures of the day. Seniors speak and perform music; administrators speak briefly.


It's a big deal, possibly equaled only by a wedding, though nobody's wedding will be this well-attended by such a broad cross-section of the community. But it serves as one of the few moments in anyone's life in which their status, their place in the world, their fundamental self-image change in just a few moments' time. Small towns like mine are the kind of place in which where you went to high school remains one of your primary identifiers, like job and spouse, for the rest of your life.

The banners are, of course, just one sign that those transformational moments are not going to happen this year. My old school is hoping to stage a "regular" graduation later this summer. If it CONTINUE READING: 
CURMUDGUCATION: Graduation in the Age of Covid-19


In a Big News Week, Updated Schools and Communities First Quietly Qualifies for the November Ballot – Los Angeles Education Examiner

In a Big News Week, Updated Schools and Communities First Quietly Qualifies for the November Ballot – Los Angeles Education Examiner

In a Big News Week, Updated Schools and Communities First Quietly Qualifies for the November Ballot



Back in April, backers of Schools and Communities First submitted a record-breaking 1.7 million signatures to the Secretary of State to qualify the funding measure for the fall ballot. While the state had to verify the signatures, less than 1 million were needed so it was all-but-certain the measure would earn its ballot spot.
And over the weekend, the state made it official. Schools and Communities First will be on the ballot.
“With the steep cuts in our county budget we’ll be faced with really difficult decisions that will jeopardize people’s access to these critically needed services,” writes Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheilia Kuehl.
“I was supportive very early on of Schools & Communities First before the COVID-19 pandemic, but now this initiative is needed more than ever, because we simply can’t afford these corporate tax loopholes that have gone on for decades.”
The State of California estimates that Schools and Communities First would raise an estimated $8-$12.5 billion a year for education, public health and other local infrastructure by changing the state constitution and raising property taxes on California’s largest businesses.
If passed, the measure would raise money by repealing a portion of the CONTINUE READING: In a Big News Week, Updated Schools and Communities First Quietly Qualifies for the November Ballot – Los Angeles Education Examiner
Goldberg and former UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl during her re-election campaign this winter.

Teacher Tom: "Where Love Rules There is Not a Will to Power"

Teacher Tom: "Where Love Rules There is Not a Will to Power"

"Where Love Rules There is Not a Will to Power"



Psychologist Carl Jung wrote, "Where love rules there is not a will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking." This, I think, is an important thing upon which modern educators in general, and early childhood educators in particular, could stand to meditate.

I strive to place love at the center of my practice, as I know is true of most of my colleagues. We genuinely love the children we teach and they love us. I've witnessed this to be widely true wherever I've visited. It's perhaps our greatest reward (because it sure isn't financial). When it goes as it should, we spend our days loving and being loved, swimming in it, breathing it. Our job is to keep them safe and to otherwise simply be there, loving them and helping them as they figure out how to connect with, to love, more people. This is the foundation of not just all learning, but all living in the fullest sense of the word.





When I look at our habitual idea of schooling, I see a lot of loving individual teachers working in a system in which love has been pushed to the side, and where power therefore predominates. From our earliest years, we are judged by our educational system, one that pretends to know what is normal and to then act to enforce it. The French philosopher Michel Foucault sees this as an exercise in power, a form he calls "normalization," in which our souls are imprisoned by expectations and standards and this has characterized our schools right up to our current era of high stakes CONTINUE READING: 
Teacher Tom: "Where Love Rules There is Not a Will to Power"

Helping Students Heal + Tuesdays, Twice a Month | Live Long and Prosper

Helping Students Heal | Live Long and Prosper

Helping Students Heal


The education blogosphere, as well as the general media, is full of articles dealing with opening schools in the fall, keeping students safe, social distancing by lowering class size, doubling the number of buses, and other, expensive fixes. Additionally, schools will have to take into consideration the mental and emotional health of students and deal with the multiple traumas they will carry with them.
As of this writing (June 3, 2020), the death toll from COVID-19 in the US is over 105,000 which has left hundreds of thousands of Americans grieving for their lost loved ones. Many have had to postpone or forego funerals and memorials in order to stay safe themselves. Among those who have lost family members are thousands of children who, already traumatized by the fear of illness or the loss of contact with their friends and teachers, are further hurt by the very real loss of parents, grandparents, relatives, teachers, or friends.
The coronavirus pandemic has caused economic trauma, too…and with economic trauma comes social upheaval as families living from paycheck to paycheck start to panic when the food runs out…when the rent or mortgage is due…when the insurance coverage ends.
And we can’t talk about social upheaval without acknowledging the excessive number of deaths of Black Americans and the damage to communities of color by the racism present in Amerian society…racism which is exacerbated by economic trauma and political cowardice. The current political upheaval around the country will also traumatize students before they return to school in the fall, no matter how much their parents try to protect them from it.
Public schools have always been a stable force in students’ lives and when the CONTINUE READING: Helping Students Heal | Live Long and Prosper
Tuesdays, Twice a Month | Live Long and Prosper - https://wp.me/pUgLi-1uJ
Together Tuesdays

SPECIAL EDITION PROTEST AND EDUCATION 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



SPECIAL EDITION PROTEST AND EDUCATION
Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... 
The latest news and resources in education since 2007


TODAY

CBS News Video: “Authors Robin DiAngelo and Ibram X. Kendi on how to become aware of privilege”
I’m adding this new video to New & Revised: Resources To Help Us Predominantly White Teachers To Reflect On How Race Influences Our Work :
I’m Not Convinced That Student Learning Losses This Year Are Traumatic, But They Will Be Bad If We’re Online Next Year
Research Shows Students Falling Months Behind During Virus Disruptions is a new article by Dana Goldstein in The New York Times. The article cites various studies warning of dire learning losses this year from school closures. One of the studies is from McKinsey & Company, which has a truly awful track record when it comes to education studies. One of the others is based on an online learning pro
“Six Truths About Racism That White Teachers Must Know”
Six Truths About Racism That White Teachers Must Know is the headline of my latest Education Week Teacher column. Two educators challenge White teachers to confront “hard truths,” including recognizing the role of White privilege and acknowledging their own biases. Here are some excerpts:

YESTERDAY

The Best Resources Demonstrating The Wealth Gap Between African-Americans & Whites
aitoff / Pixabay There are many inequities between Blacks and Whites in the United States. One of them is the “wealth gap.” Here are some resources describing what it looks like (you might also be interested in The Best Resources About Wealth & Income Inequality): US black-white inequality in 6 stark charts is from CNN. The black-white economic divide is as wide as it was in 1968 is from The Wash
New TED-Ed Video & Lesson: “A day in the life of an ancient Peruvian shaman”
LoggaWiggler / Pixabay I’m adding this latest TED-Ed lesson and video to the section on our World History class blog where we cover the Aztecs and Incas :
Powerful PBS NewsHour Video: “How the coronavirus crisis offers a glimpse of what poor, black communities ‘feel every day’”
You’ll want to watch this video from tonight’s PBS NewsHour – especially if you’re White. You can see the transcript here .
New NPR Video: “How The Pandemic Will Affect This Year’s Election”
AnnaliseArt / Pixabay I’m adding this new video from NPR to THE BEST RESOURCES FOR TEACHING ABOUT THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION :
The Tiananmen Square Protests Were Put Down On This Day In 1989 – Here Are Related Resources
Chinese Army troops put down the Tiananmen Square protest on this day in 1989. You can find related resources at The Best Sites For Learning About Protests In History . Chinese army troops storm Tiananmen Square, this day in 1989. https://t.co/hDlRLbm6Ft pic.twitter.com/V3k43OyqhP — NYT Archives (@NYTArchives) June 4, 2017
‘Educators Must Realize That There Is No Neutral Position on Issues of Racial Justice’
is the headline of my latest Education Week Teacher column. Three educators offer lessons teachers can learn from the death of George Floyd, such as neutrality has no place in the struggle for racial justice and White educators must stop expecting their colleagues of color to do the “heavy lifting.” Here are some excerpts:

JUN 03



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