ANDRE PERRY: Teaching about Breonna Taylor is a 'must' for teachers

Teaching about Breonna Taylor is a 'must' for teachers

Teachers need to talk about Breonna Taylor

Teaching a Shakespearean tragedy simply won’t do when you’re confronted with real ones every day

No one has been held accountable for the killing of Breonna Taylor, another innocent victim of police, who shot her at least five times in the hallway of her home during the disastrous execution of a search warrant.

A grand jury declined to indict the two police officers who killed Taylor, 26, in her Louisville apartment, finding they had acted in self-defense after one was shot by Taylor’s boyfriend, who stated he did not know the men breaking into the apartment after midnight were police officers. A third officer, Brett Hankison, was fired in June for shooting into the apartments in Taylor’s building, but only charged last week with a lesser offense of first degree wanton endangerment. The residents of those apartments were white, according to an attorney for the Taylor family.

Educators need to encourage students to say their own names when society doesn’t.

If not for Black Lives Matter, Taylor’s case probably would not have received national attention. BLM activists have rallied behind the social media hashtag #sayhername to bring attention to the Black women victims of “racist police violence,” whose stories are often untold and typically don’t make national headlines.

The grand jury decision in Louisville is just one more brutal reminder that Black women are not protected by law or the police in this racist, patriarchal society. This is why I was not surprised by the outcome, only disheartened and dejected. The pall of doubt and cynicism weighs heavy on many, and I often worry that it will extinguish even the hope for a CONTINUE READING: Teaching about Breonna Taylor is a 'must' for teachers

NYC Public School Parents: Student discontent and high attrition at Success Academy; hearings next week about their intent to ditch three planned high schools in Brooklyn

NYC Public School Parents: Student discontent and high attrition at Success Academy; hearings next week about their intent to ditch three planned high schools in Brooklyn

Student discontent and high attrition at Success Academy; hearings next week about their intent to ditch three planned high schools in Brooklyn

The following post is by Brooke Parker of NYC Kids PAC.  Public hearings will take place next week, Sept. 29 and Sept. 30 on Success Academy's request to revise their charter by eliminating three previously planned Brooklyn high schools.  In this post, Brooke speculates about the real reasons for this charter revision below.  The images are screenshots taken from the Instagram account @survivors_of_successacademy.  and include comments of current and former Success students and staff.

While most New Yorkers may not know what goes on behind the blue doors of  Success Academy charter schools (more on that later), their relentless demand for more space and expansion definitely rings familiar, including many well-publicized events when Success Academy closed all of its schools to have their students and parents lobby in Albany for expansion and more space in public schools.

Any public school advocate will tell you that Success Academy almost always wins their fights for space. Eva Moskowitz, the firebrand CEO of Success Academies has Governor Cuomo’s ear, and the organization has access to boat loads of money. [Note from LH: not in this one case where DOE tried to give them the entire school building of PS 25 in Bed-Stuy without going through the legal process – assuming their attempt to close PS 25 would go through – but a judge blocked them.]

In 2014, Success Academy held multiple press conferences and sued the city, demanding public school space for three of its schools while granting space for five other of its schools. Mayor de Blasio explained that these three would mean displacing disabled D75 students.  The city ended up renting and paying for private space for these schools at great expense.  In 2017, they launched a $5M television ad campaign for more middle school space.

Success Academy’s argument has always been that they just don’t have enough space for the huge wait lists of families clamoring to be in their schools. We must open more! We must give them more space! [And yet studies show that half of the students accepted at the school never enroll.]

Yet Success Academy has quietly requested revisions to their charter authorizer, SUNY, with announced hearings on Sept. 29 and Sept. 30 , to cancel the opening of all three planned high schools in Brooklyn: Success Academy Williamsburg, Success Academy Cobble Hill, and Success Academy Bed Stuy 2.  [You can sign up to speak or attend these online hearings here.]

Last June, they requested that their total planned high school enrollment from these schools be eliminated, and instead 118 additional students be added to Success Academy Harlem 1, located in the Norman Thomas building on E. 33 St. in District 2 this fall.  Success Academy’s reason for the closing of the three planned high schools in Brooklyn is “due to facility constraints.” Yet as far as we can tell, they never requested more space from DOE, so this excuse seems questionable. 

Moreover, because of a state law passed in 2014, the city is required to help pay the rent for private space of any new or expanding charter school in private space if they are not provided with space in a public school.  As detailed in this report issued last year by Class Size Matters, DOE spent $2.9 million in FY 2019 alone, leasing nine buildings for Success charters.  In addition, they spent $2.2 million that same year for two Success Academy charter schools to rent space in the Hudson Yards complex on the west side of Manhattan, even though the Success Academy charter management organization owns the space. Not to mention that Success CMO enjoyed a huge surplus in 2018 of more than $60 million according to the IRS data  and $12 million for the charter schools themselves.  In 2019, they received an additional $9.8 million to expand and open new schools, including  a new high school. 

Revising their charters and moving students around  isn’t new to Success Academy. In recent years, they’ve changed planned enrollments at their middle schools  and shuffled students from one area to another. What is notable about this hearing is there will be NO Success Academy high school in Brooklyn in spite of having five Success Academy middle schools in the borough.

Given what we know about Success Academy, and their promises to families that they will continue to offer high school seats to all graduating 8^th graders, combined with their relentless push for space in public school buildings regardless of community opposition, we were curious why Success Academy didn’t fight for space for their high schools in Brooklyn.

Success Academy opened in 2006 with just one school and 83 Kindergartners. They now boast 47 schools serving 18,000 students. Success Academy doesn’t admit students from outside their system after 4th grade, so middle schools and high school entry is exclusive to students who have been enrolled in their elementary schools. 

Gary Rubinstein has written about Success Academy’s attrition, calculating the rate per year at 17% after 4th grade when there is no more back-filling of students. Rubinstein analyzed the graduating class of 2020 and found: 

“…there was a combined 353 students in the cohort [2nd grade].  By 6th grade, they were down to 263 students and by 9th grade it was 191.  In 10th grade they were 161 students and in 11th grade, 146.  And now, according to the New York Post article based on a Success Academy press release, they have 114 seniors.  So only 32% of the students who were there in second grade made it through their program.  And even more startling is that of the 191 9th graders that had been at Success Academy for 10 years, only 59% of them are on track to graduate three years later.”

Still, given the network’s rapid expansion, one would anticipate enough rising 8th graders for a Brooklyn high school. That is, unless you look at Bed Stuy 1, where the 2019- CONTINUE READING: NYC Public School Parents: Student discontent and high attrition at Success Academy; hearings next week about their intent to ditch three planned high schools in Brooklyn

Breaking News: @AERA_EdResearch weighs in on Censoring attempts from Politicians | Cloaking Inequity

Breaking News: @AERA_EdResearch weighs in on Censoring attempts from Politicians | Cloaking Inequity

BREAKING NEWS: @AERA_EDRESEARCH WEIGHS IN ON CENSORING ATTEMPTS FROM POLITICIANS

President Trump is targeting the 1619 Project. Julian Zelizer writes that The New York Times’ 1619 Project attempts to bring the effects of slavery in American history. Instead of beginning the story of the country with the Revolution against the British Empire, the project pushes the timeline back to 1619, the year enslaved Africans were brought to Jamestown in order to reveal how slavery and racial injustice have been an integral part of American history.

Trump has called this approach “poison.”

In response to the censorship attempts from politicians, I was impressed by the statement today from the American Education Research Association (AERA). Here’s an excerpt:

Just as a democratic society needs to support the production of scientific and scholarly knowledge free of political manipulation or intrusion, we need educational systems that are not politicized and censored, but rather seek the truth by exploring even the most difficult truths. We need to teach students to engage on difficult topics with intellectual integrity and respectful discourse. We are troubled by actions that appear to reject these principles, and especially on topics as salient to U.S. society as equality and justice for all.  We must also respect the rule of law in our educational systems, including Congressional prohibitions of federal government prescriptions and prohibitions of curriculum content in our schools.[2]  

https://www.aera.net/Newsroom/Statement-in-Support-of-Anti-Racist-Education

Glad they weighed in.

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Breaking News: @AERA_EdResearch weighs in on Censoring attempts from Politicians | Cloaking Inequity

HOW MUCH IS TOO MUCH? Screen Time Guidelines For Distance Learning - capradio.org

Don’t Cite Pre-Pandemic Screen Time Guidelines For Distance Learning, Pediatricians Say - capradio.org

HOW MUCH IS TOO MUCH?

Screen Time Guidelines For Distance Learning

Big Education Ape: Scores of Education Experts Call on Schools to Reject Screen-Saturated Return to Learning | Common Dreams News - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2020/08/scores-of-education-experts-call-on.html

Editor’s note: We’ve updated this story’s headline to clarify the recommendations were based on guidelines, not a study.

When Sacramento City schools started back up again just before Labor Day this year, parents were scrambling to figure out their kids’ online learning schedule for the fall.

The teachers union and the Sacramento City Unified School District still hadn’t agreed on a distance learning plan during the pandemic. So the school system sent out the schedule as they wanted it, and the teachers moved forward with their own. 

The crux of their dispute? About an hour of screen time a day.

The district wants first graders to have at least three hours of live time with their instructor. But teachers say, that’s too much screen time. It should be less than two hours for that age group.

“We can’t support a district plan that puts our 6-, 7- and 8-year-olds in front of a screen on zoom for three or more hours a day. It goes against research on screen time and brain development, ” said Erin Macy, a teacher at John Cabrillo Elementary School, to reporters on Labor Day.  

“This goes against our professional judgement and our ethical judgement,” she said.

The Sacramento City Teachers Association points to research from the American Academy of Pediatrics, which warns that too much screen time could lead to obesity, and could interfere with children’s sleep. Pediatricians say electronic device use should not get in the way of children getting a minimum of an hour of exercise a day, and, as a general framework, it’s healthy to keep screen time to less than two hours of recreational use a day.

But the doctors don’t think their guidelines should be used in the district’s fight.

“I don’t think they can be extrapolated that way,” said Dr. Cori Cross, spokesperson with the American Academy of Pediatrics. She said that pre-pandemic media-use guidelines “really applied to time when they weren’t doing homework.”  

She said their recommendations were mostly based on recreational screen use, not school work.  It’s better for kids to learn in-person, she said, but the COVID-19 pandemic has required education to be conducted in other ways.  

“The next best thing is remote education. So just because it’s on a screen, it’s not ideal, but it’s still better than nothing,” Cross said. “It has a lot more value than playing video games, or surfing the internet, or Facetiming with a friend.”

Still, the SCUSD and the Sacramento teachers are at odds over how many minutes should be live teacher instruction versus how much is independent study.

---

State education policy expert Alix Gallagher said schools across the state vary in the mix of live teacher interaction and independent study that is provided under distance learning.

But Gallagher, the director of Strategic Partnerships with Stanford University’s Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE), said that the state does set some standards through Senate Bill 98.

The state law requires a minimum amount of daily instruction by grade level, daily live CONTINUE READING: Don’t Cite Pre-Pandemic Screen Time Guidelines For Distance Learning, Pediatricians Say - capradio.org

Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the case of the 13-year-old girl strip-searched at school - The Washington Post

Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the case of the 13-year-old girl strip-searched at school - The Washington Post

Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the case of the 13-year-old girl strip-searched at school

The late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg left a deep mark on the world of education, opening doors for women, upholding the separation of church and state, supporting school desegregation and taking other stands to widen opportunity.

Perhaps her best-known education-related case came in the 1966 majority opinion she wrote that barred the Virginia Military Academy from excluding girls.

The state of Virginia argued to the court at the time that women could not handle tough military training, and it set up a separate program at Mary Baldwin College that Ginsburg wrote in the opinion was a “pale” imitation of the VMI program. That violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, she wrote.

But another case served to underscore the humanity with which she approached her decisions and why many court watchers say it is so important for the Supreme Court to include a diverse group of justices with different experiences and points of view.

The case was Safford Unified School District v. Redding, in which the court in 2009 ruled that the strip search of a 13-year-old girl at her school in Arizona was unconstitutional. Justice David Souter wrote the opinion for the majority, which included Ginsburg, who also wrote her own opinion explaining why she agreed with parts of the majority but dissented from another.

The girl, Savana Redding, was in math class at Safford Middle School when Assistant Principal Kerry Wilson escorted her to his office and told her she had been accused of giving out pain medication — both prescription and over-the-counter — to other students. The accuser was a student who had been caught with some of the medication. Redding, who had no history of disciplinary problems at the school, denied it.

School officials searched her belongings but found nothing, and then, with no reason to think that any pills were on her person, told her to remove her outer clothing and allow them to see under her bra and underpants to continue the search. She complied; they did not find any pills. CONTINUE READING: Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the case of the 13-year-old girl strip-searched at school - The Washington Post

Schott Foundation Adds New Members to its Board of Directors | Cloaking Inequity

Schott Foundation Adds New Members to its Board of Directors | Cloaking Inequity

SCHOTT FOUNDATION ADDS NEW MEMBERS TO ITS BOARD OF DIRECTORS

It’s official! The Schott Foundation has announced their new Directors. I am honored to join the Schott Foundation Board of Directors and get to work. Honestly, it’s been a dream of mine to serve in a leadership role for the Schott Foundation. Here is the press release:

The Schott Foundation for Public Education is pleased to announce six new members elected to its Board of Directors. “Our country is at an important intersection where racial equity is central to our ability to challenge present conditions and create pathways to a more resilient future, said Carolina Espinal, Schott Board Chair. “On behalf of the Board, I am honored to welcome these immensely talented leaders to join Schott in advancing social justice through a movement for public education that provides all students – and communities – an opportunity to learn and thrive.”

“These diverse leaders are deeply committed to Schott’s mission and bring a wide range of invaluable expertise and experience to our team,” said John H. Jackson, President & CEO.

I am really excited about the potential impacts of the philanthropic work that the Schott Foundation plans to undertake in the next three years. I have often said that the Schott Foundation really is the national model for serving as a bridge between philanthropic partners and advocates to build movements to provide all students an opportunity to learn.

I am always willing to be a voice for good ideas from community stakeholders and committed to being a tenacious voice for equity in all of the Boards that I serve on— just ask Kate Walsh at NCTQ about my vigorous discussion with her recently.

New Members SCHOTT Board of Directors

Schott Foundation for Public Education - http://schottfoundation.org/

The Schott Foundation for Public Education is pleased to announce six new members elected to its Board of Directors. "Our country is at an important intersection where racial equity is central to our ability to challenge present conditions and create pathways to a more resilient future, said Carolina Espinal, Schott Board Chair. “On behalf of the Board, I am honored to welcome these immensely talented leaders to join Schott in advancing social justice through a movement for public education that provides all students - and communities – an opportunity to learn and thrive."

“These diverse leaders are deeply committed to Schott’s mission and bring a wide range of invaluable expertise and experience to our team," said John H. Jackson, President & CEO.

	Alandra Washington Vice President for Transformation and Organizational Effectiveness at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Read full bio here >
	Amir Windom An A&R executive working with major film companies, including Sony Pictures, Universal Pictures, Lionsgate Films Read full bio here >
	Dorian Burton, Ed.L.D. Chief Program Officer and Assistant Executive Director at the William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust in Chapel Hill, NC Read full bio here >
	Julian Vasquez Heilig, Ph.D. Dean of the University of Kentucky College of Education Read full bio here >
	Kyle Serrette Senior policy analyst at the National Education Association (NEA) Read full bio here >
	Michael S. Wotorson Senior Community Investments Officer at the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving in Hartford, CT Read full bio here >

Please Facebook Like, Tweet, etc below and/or reblog to share this discussion with others.

Check out and follow my YouTube channel here.

Twitter: @ProfessorJVH

Click here for Vitae.

Schott Foundation Adds New Members to its Board of Directors | Cloaking Inequity

Dr. Leslie Fenwick Explains Why the “Schemes” of Reformers Keep Failing | Diane Ravitch's blog

Dr. Leslie Fenwick Explains Why the “Schemes” of Reformers Keep Failing | Diane Ravitch's blog

Dr. Leslie Fenwick Explains Why the “Schemes” of Reformers Keep Failing

In this brief video, Dr. Leslie Fenwick, former dean of the College of Education at Howard University, explains why the “schemes” of corporate reformers always fail. She doesn’t hold back about charters, vouchers, Broad superintendents, and Teach for America.

The video is part of a series of hundreds of interviews of educators, conducted by former teacher Bob Greenberg. He calls his series the Brainwaves Video Anthology. After you watch Dr. Fenwick’s wonderful interview, you should browse his collection. It’s very impressive.

Dr. Leslie Fenwick Explains Why the “Schemes” of Reformers Keep Failing | Diane Ravitch's blog

Teacher Tom: To Remind Us to Keep Inventing it for Ourselves

Teacher Tom: To Remind Us to Keep Inventing it for Ourselves

To Remind Us to Keep Inventing it for Ourselves

I've never written about the day I became a father. I think about that day and often tell parts of the story, but so far I've not found all of the words to do so, if words are even adequate. What I need to say is too complex to express in my normal way. Maybe it requires a novel. Maybe it requires poetry, sculpture, or painting, or it's possible that the way to say what I need to say hasn't been discovered yet.

Those of us who have spent our lives around young children, are familiar with their creative struggle to express themselves. It's part of the process of learning the language, of course, so the conversational short cuts and "good enough" putty with which we spackle our day-to-day adult conversation is yet to be learned. Children regularly find themselves thinking thoughts or having feelings for the first time and they need to communicate about them. Without being able to make use of the cliches upon which we adults rely, they must invent a way of saying it.

An excited five-year-old once replied to an adult who had off-handedly asked, "How are you?" by replying, "This day has a powerful, huge, even big magic in it!"

A three-year-old described an accidental lever she had made on the playground in the form of a chant: "Push down, go up, push down, go up, push down . . ."

Another preschooler, playing with a wine cork in a tub of CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: To Remind Us to Keep Inventing it for Ourselves

Arizona: Charter Leader Sentenced to 3+ Years in Prison for Misappropriation of $2.5 Million | Diane Ravitch's blog

Arizona: Charter Leader Sentenced to 3+ Years in Prison for Misappropriation of $2.5 Million | Diane Ravitch's blog

Arizona: Charter Leader Sentenced to 3+ Years in Prison for Misappropriation of $2.5 Million

The former principal of a closed charter school in Arizona was sentenced to 3.75 years in prison for participating in a scheme to loot $2.5 million by inflating enrollment. The principal was a high school graduate, which is okay in Arizona, where credentials don’t matter. The principal and his associates forged documents for phantom students.

Craig Harris of the Arizona Republic wrote:

The former principal of a closed West Valley charter school was sentenced to 3.75 years in prison on Monday, after pleading guilty to engaging in a $2.5 million enrollment-inflation scheme.

Harold Cadiz, 56, expressed contrition and took responsibility for his actions before Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Jay Ryan Adleman, but Cadiz placed much of the blame on two co-defendants who also face prison sentences in the fraud case.

“I’m tremendously sorry,” Cadiz said. “The state is so short-funded for kids, and for this to happen is appalling CONTINUE READING: Arizona: Charter Leader Sentenced to 3+ Years in Prison for Misappropriation of $2.5 Million | Diane Ravitch's blog

A Note to My Leaf-Burning Neighbors | Live Long and Prosper

A Note to My Leaf-Burning Neighbors | Live Long and Prosper

A Note to My Leaf-Burning Neighbors

AUTUMN

Ah…who doesn’t love the nostalgic scent of burning leaves in the fall?

Answer: Anyone with lungs!

It’s Autumn in Indiana and my woodsy neighborhood is filled with fallen leaves. Many of my neighbors are recycling them by mulching them into their lawns or gardens or hiring crews to pick them up. Some others, are piling them up and setting them ablaze, and by doing so filling the air with poisonous toxins and choking ash.

IT’S JUST ONE LITTLE FIRE

What damage can one little fire cause?

It’s not just one little fire…it’s several since we live in an addition with dozens of houses and hundreds of leaf-dropping trees. The point is that “multiple fires in one geographic area can cause concentrations of air pollutants that exceed federal air quality standards” – at least until the current EPA decides that the right of citizens to breathe is just not a priority.

And, about those lungs…

Besides being an irritant, leaf smoke contains many hazardous chemicals, including carbon monoxide and benzo(a)pyrene. Carbon monoxide binds with hemoglobin in the bloodstream and thus reduces the amount of oxygen in the blood and lungs. So carbon monoxide can be very dangerous for young CONTINUE READING: A Note to My Leaf-Burning Neighbors | Live Long and Prosper

COVID-19 Widens Inequality Among America’s Young People, But So Far, There Is No Plan to Address It | janresseger

COVID-19 Widens Inequality Among America’s Young People, But So Far, There Is No Plan to Address It | janresseger

COVID-19 Widens Inequality Among America’s Young People, But So Far, There Is No Plan to Address It

What are all the ways the COVID-19 pandemic has thrown obstacles in the paths of America’s poorest young people?  The numbers are staggering. Hardship is so overwhelming that it is almost impossible to grasp the deeper meaning of the data in the reports from major policy organizations.

Here is the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: “Households with children are more likely to have trouble affording food or paying the rent or mortgage than households without children. Based on five weeks of Census Bureau Pulse Survey data collected from June 18 to July 21, we estimate that: Approximately 19 million children, or 1 in 4 children, live in a household that isn’t getting enough to eat, is behind on rent or mortgage payments, or both. These levels of hardship are substantially higher among Black and Latino children, reflecting longstanding inequities that the current crisis has exacerbated.”

The Economic Policy Institute describes barriers to learning: “The pandemic has exacerbated well-documented opportunity gaps that put low-income students at a disadvantage relative to their better-off peers. Opportunity gaps are gaps in access to the conditions and resources that enhance learning and development, and include access to food and nutrition, housing, health insurance and care, and financial relief measures. One of the most critical opportunity gaps is the uneven access to the devices and internet access critical to learning online. This digital divide has made it virtually impossible for some students to learn during the pandemic.”

First Focus on Children tracks family suffering:”The Household Pulse Survey from the Census Bureau tracks food insecurity, financial hardship, and other indicators of child and family CONTINUE READING: COVID-19 Widens Inequality Among America’s Young People, But So Far, There Is No Plan to Address It | janresseger

A Pivotal Moment for U.S. and Public Schools? (Part 2) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

A Pivotal Moment for U.S. and Public Schools? (Part 2) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

A Pivotal Moment for U.S. and Public Schools? (Part 2)

Do individuals like you and me know for sure at the time something occurred that it was momentous, a historic turning point in the flow of events and individual lives. Probably not.

After all, it is only in retrospect–after the future becomes the present–that people look back at prior events and then can pinpoint something that occurred as pivotal. Surely, in 1859 when John Brown attacked the U.S. armory at Harper’s Ferry (VA) to get weapons to lead a slave rebellion, neither he nor most Americans knew that his actions (for which he was put to death) became instrumental in launching the Civil War over a year later.

Some other examples of not knowing when an event is a turning point:

When silversmith Paul Revere set out on his midnight ride on April 18, 1775 to alert militias in Lexington and Concord that British regulars were marching toward them to destroy stockpiled munitions, he surely did not know that the next morning’s events would be the beginning of the end of the 13 British colonies with a Declaration of Independence the following year and a war that lasted until 1783 leading to the formation of the United States of America.

The initial people infected with the coronavirus in Wuhan, China in late-2019 did not know that authorities would lockdown the city of 11 million as Covid-19 CONTINUE READING: A Pivotal Moment for U.S. and Public Schools? (Part 2) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice