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Monday, June 8, 2020

FLASHBACK - 10 Of The Most Heavily Armed School Districts In The US - Listverse #BlackLivesMatter #BlackLivesMatterAtSchool #CounselorsNotCops!

10 Of The Most Heavily Armed School Districts In The US - Listverse

10 Of The Most Heavily Armed School Districts In The US


AirTalk® | Military surplus sent to schools under examination ...

Big Education Ape: A Big Education Ape Brief History of Police in Education News #BlackLivesMatter #BlackLivesMatterAtSchool #CounselorsNotCops! - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2020/06/a-big-education-ape-brief-history-of.html
On August 12, 2014, video footage emerged out of Ferguson, Missouri: American citizens were facing off against a small-town police department that looked more like an army unit launching a combat mission overseas. Following several days of unrest in the wake of a controversial police shooting, largely peaceful protesters were attacked by officers in military formation, dressed like commandos and armed with fully automatic machine guns. Rotating turrets, mounted on top of enormous armored combat vehicles, fired tear gas, rubber bullets, and flash grenades at unarmed citizens.
In the ensuing days and weeks, the public would learn about the now-controversial government program that civil libertarians had been clamoring about for years—the US Department of Defense’s “Excess Property Program,” colloquially referred to as “1033,” after the section of the congressional National Defense Authorization Act that made it a reality.
In response to a glut of military surplus—combined with concern surrounding several high-profile school shootings and an increasingly militarized approach to the war on drugs—the Department of Defense gave or sold weapons of war to small, local police departments across the country. Suddenly, tiny police departments with just a few officers were training with fully automatic machine guns, gas masks, night vision equipment, armored personnel carriers, rocket launchers, and anti-mine vehicles.
But it didn’t stop there. School districts, large and small, decided to get in on the action, militarizing their school security teams against the possibility of an “active shooter” situation. Here are 10 of the most war-ready school districts in the nation.

10San Diego, California

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Photo credit: KPBS
San Diego is known for pristine beaches, laid-back living, beautiful weather—and a six-wheeled, 18-ton Caiman model Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) armored vehicle that patrols their schools. Valued at nearly $750,000, the San Diego Unified School District snagged the MRAP for a cool $5,000—just the cost of transporting it to its new home.
The acquisition created a stir in the beach community. Residents worried that the monstrous combat machine could give the impression that San Diego was at war with its students. Officials responded by removing the gun turret, painting the vehicle white, embossing it with a red medical cross, and filling it with medical supplies and (obviously) teddy bears. The parent of one student lamented that the beastly machine “makes Humvees shrivel up with feelings of inadequacy.” Another parent said they would have rather seen the money spent on more “shade trees” on the playground or maybe “another teacher.”

9Los Angeles, California

9_M79
The Los Angeles Unified School District acquired an MRAP of its own from the 1033 program. It is steel plated, 6 meters (20 ft) long, and weighs more than 14 tons. It was designed to battle insurgents on the streets of Iraq—specifically in situations where the lead vehicle in a convoy was blown up, leaving troops in the middle of the convoy trapped and under attack by gunfire from an elevated position. The district said the vehicle “was obtained as a way to rescue students in the event of a large-scale attack that prevented the Los Angeles Police Department and Sheriff’s Department from responding.” But for now, the MRAP just sits idle.
Not to be outdone by its southern neighbor in San Diego, however, Los Angeles took campus safety to an explosive new level. The city school district beefed up its “readiness” with the acquisition of 61 assault rifles and—just in case—three 40mm M79 grenade launchers that were originally designed for fighting in the jungles of Vietnam.

8Pinellas County, Florida

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Pinellas County scored 28 M16 assault rifles from the 1033 program to use in their schools. Use for what, you ask? The police chief stated that if “something’s happening on a campus, you don’t want to have to get up close to shoot.” Can’t argue with that. M16s are military distance rifles touted by the Marines as “pinpoint accurate” even at 550 meters (1,800 ft). M16s can be adapted for semi-automatic firing, fully automatic firing, or firing in three-round bursts.
The .40-caliber semi-automatic pistols the school police formerly had would have required officers to get far too close, which is why the chief had M16s on his wish list before he even found out about the Pentagon’s surplus program. At around $1,000 a pop, they were “cost prohibitive.” But thanks to 1033, the school police can now shoot from afar for just $50 per gun.

7Granite, Utah CONTINUE READING: 10 Of The Most Heavily Armed School Districts In The US - Listverse




A Big Education Ape Brief History of Police in Education News #BlackLivesMatter #BlackLivesMatterAtSchool #CounselorsNotCops!

Big Education Ape


Big Education Ape A brief History of Police in Education News


Big Education Ape: We Came to Learn: A Call to Action for Police-Free Schools - Advancement Project - Advancement Project - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2018/09/we-came-to-learn-call-to-action-for.html

Big Education Ape: empathyeducates – “To This Mayor [Rahm], Black and Brown Lives Do Not Matter” #DumpRahm - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2015/04/empathyeducates-to-this-mayor-rahm.html

Big Education Ape: Teaching teens about police contact before confrontation :: SI&A Cabinet Report - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/10/teaching-teens-about-police-contact.html

Image result for Teaching teens about police contact before confrontation

Big Education Ape: If competition is good for education, how about the police? - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2015/05/if-competition-is-good-for-education.html

Big Education Ape: Geofeedia Touted Surveillance Of Students To Sell Services To Police - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2018/09/geofeedia-touted-surveillance-of.html

Big Education Ape: DHS/Police Are Paying School Kids To Spy On Classmates | PopularResistance.Org - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2015/11/dhspolice-are-paying-school-kids-to-spy.html

Big Education Ape: Coalition calls for end of police presence in schools | Center for Public Integrity - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/09/coalition-calls-for-end-of-police.html

Big Education Ape: ‘Education’ in a Police State – In California Alone, Schools Call the Cops Every 2.6 Seconds | Alternet - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2015/11/education-in-police-state-in-california.html


Big Education Ape: Teaching about race, racism and police violence: Resources for educators and parents - The Washington Post - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/07/teaching-about-race-racism-and-police.html

police animated GIF

Big Education Ape: Seattle police pepper sprayed a teacher who was walking and talking to his mom - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2015/01/seattle-police-pepper-sprayed-teacher.html

Big Education Ape: Seattle Police Chief Defends Officer Who Assulted Me With pepper spray | I AM AN EDUCATOR - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2015/10/seattle-police-chief-defends-officer.html

Big Education Ape: Seattle Police Assault Outspoken Teacher. Get Away With It. As Usual. | HorsesAss.Org - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2015/01/seattle-police-assault-outspoken.html

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Big Education Ape: Teaching About Policing and Race in America | Alan Singer - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2015/03/teaching-about-policing-and-race-in.html



Big Education Ape: Tevlin: Plot twists in case of Minneapolis drama teacher's arrest - StarTribune.com - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/06/tevlin-plot-twists-in-case-of.html

Big Education Ape: New Bill Would Have Teachers Diagnose Psychological Issues in Children and Report them to Police | The Free Thought Project - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2015/03/new-bill-would-have-teachers-diagnose.html

Big Education Ape: A response to the Boston Police Union Attack on Black Lives Matter at School: “This is a movement for equity, inclusion, and the uplifting of Black students” – Black Lives Matter At School - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2020/02/a-response-to-boston-police-union.html

Big Education Ape: Protesters file excessive force claim against Oakland Unified | EdSource - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2019/11/protesters-file-excessive-force-claim.html


Big Education Ape: #CounselorsNotCops: Black Girl at Pennsylvania high school brutalized i
by a school police officer; Black Lives Matter At School rallies around the country


https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2019/02/counselorsnotcops-black-girl-at.html

Big Education Ape: When California schools call cops for small infractions it disproportionately hurts minority students, civil rights study finds - LA Times - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/10/when-california-schools-call-cops-for.html

Big Education Ape: Resisting Good/Bad Teacher/Police Frame and Confronting Systemic Flaws in Education, Law Enforcement | the becoming radical - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2015/11/resisting-goodbad-teacherpolice-frame.html

Big Education Ape: First Marylin Zuniga – Now Art and Humanities Classes – Cops Calling the Shots in Discourse at NJ Public Schools - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2015/06/first-marylin-zuniga-now-art-and.html

Big Education Ape: You're Nobody 'Till Somebody Kills You: Baltimore, Freddie Gray and the Problem of History | Yohuru Williams - https://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2015/04/youre-nobody-till-somebody-kills-you.html



Revisiting Predictions On Technology in Classrooms | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Revisiting Predictions On Technology in Classrooms | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Revisiting Predictions On Technology in Classrooms



My record on predictions is abysmal. If I get half of the forecasts I make correct, I puff out my chest. Yet humans are wired to speculate about the future, particularly when times are uncertain. Considering the coronavirus pandemic of 2020, nearly everything has become uncertain about the next year and for sure, the next five years. So like most Americans I take a deep breath and try to look around the corner before I exhale.
But I am not going to make any predictions about the effects of Covid-19 (tune in later because I am, well, hard-wired to predict). for this post, I look back on predictions I made a decade ago amid the surge of technology spilling over U.S. classrooms. Here is what I wrote in 2010 looking ahead to 2020.
I just read a list of high-tech tools that have become obsolete in the past decade (e.g., floppies, fax machines). I used many of these myself and remember junking them, saying to myself: hey, these were highly touted, I bought the second- or third-generation version and now I am dumping them (of course, in an ecologically correct manner). Still the number of high-tech machines and applications that hit their expiration date so quickly stunned me.
Then I read another list of high-tech predictions for 2020 that was equally entertaining about the future of schools, well, not schools as we know them in December 2010. This list posted by a high-tech enthusiast who yearns for a paperless society and totally customized instruction with smaller, greener schools tickled me because while I do agree with some of the items, others are, CONTINUE READING: Revisiting Predictions On Technology in Classrooms | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Video: Watch Bill Gates Defend His Decision to Fund the Common Core | Diane Ravitch's blog

Video: Watch Bill Gates Defend His Decision to Fund the Common Core | Diane Ravitch's blog

Video: Watch Bill Gates Defend His Decision to Fund the Common Core



Layton wrote a comprehensive account of how the Common Core was funded single-handed by Gates. Gates engineered a “swift revolution,” a near coup, by subsidizing and promulgating the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), with cheerleading by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.
CCSS may have been the biggest policy disaster in the history of U.S. education. States and districts spent billions of dollars to implement new standards, new tests, new teacher training, new software, new textbooks, new professional development, all in pursuit of illusory standardization.
The U.S. Department of Education paid $360 million for two consortia to develop tests (PARCC and the Smarter Balanced Consortium). The consortia started life with almost every state but most have now dropped out. Gates paid for everything else. By some estimates, he invested as much as $2 billion subsidizing the writing, development, evaluation, and promotion of CCSS.
The Common Core was adopted by almost every state because states had to adopt common standards if they CONTINUE READING: Video: Watch Bill Gates Defend His Decision to Fund the Common Core | Diane Ravitch's blog

Russ on Reading: Instruction for the Vulnerable Reader: Vocabulary

Russ on Reading: Instruction for the Vulnerable Reader: Vocabulary

Instruction for the Vulnerable Reader: Vocabulary



Previous posts in this series on quality instruction for vulnerable readers have addressed word work and spelling. this post will address vocabulary. I have addressed the topic of vocabulary in a number of posts over the years. There are three key things I think we need to keep in mind when helping vulnerable readers build on their vocabulary.

1. Always work to build vocabulary from a conceptual base; that is, vocabulary is best learned through connections with already established concepts that children possess. If we want children to understand the concept of domestic animal, it is best to work to expand the knowledge they already have about pets.

2. Children need many meaningful encounters with a word before they own it. CONTINUE READING: 
Russ on Reading: Instruction for the Vulnerable Reader: Vocabulary


Stronger Together - Health Services & School Nursing DON'T MISS THE NEWS CONF. FACEBOOK.COM/CAEducation 11:15 am pdt

Stronger Together - Health Services & School Nursing (CA Dept of Education)

Stronger Together


A Guidebook for the Safe Reopening of California's Public Schools





This guidance was created through the statewide reopening schools task force that fostered a collaborative process for our educators and stakeholders to lend their important voices. Also informed by the technical assistance and advice of many health and safety organizations including the Centers for Disease Control, California Department of Public Health, California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, the intent of this document is to be a guide for the local discussion on safely reopening schools.

Single Document Version

Stronger Together Guidebook Coverpage





Web Version

Table of Contents

Questions:   California Department of Education | COVID19@cde.ca.gov

Stronger Together - Health Services & School Nursing (CA Dept of Education)


Schools and Communities First Earn a Ballot Spot - LA Progressive

Schools and Communities First Earn a Ballot Spot - LA Progressive

Schools and Communities First Earn a Ballot Spot



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.

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.

“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 iconic “Proposition 13”, a 1978 ballot initiative that changed how property taxes are collected and led to the slow steady retreat of California’s fiscal support for public education.
The landmark Proposition 13 initiative overhauled how the state taxes property, capping property tax increases at no more than 2% each year on homes, businesses and farmland. Properties were to be reassessed only when sold.
The impact on California’s schools was stark. When Proposition 13 was first passed, California’s public schools were a national model, bolstered by some of the most impressive per-student funding in the country. Today, the exact amount spent per student is somewhat in question, CONTINUE READING: Schools and Communities First Earn a Ballot Spot - LA Progressive