Thursday, November 26, 2020

Respect for Teaching: One Person’s Tale | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Respect for Teaching: One Person’s Tale | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice
Respect for Teaching: One Person’s Tale




Most of my adult life I have been a teacher. And on this day of Thanksgiving, I give thanks for the six decades I have been with students.

As a teacher, however, I winced whenever someone disrespected what I and others did not only for a living but a calling. Sometimes I did more than wince by responding in words at the moment or wrote about it later. 

One incident occurred to me over 40 years ago when I worked in the Washington, D.C. schools that was an act of disrespect for teaching. Sure, four decades ago is ancient history so readers will have to judge whether the disrespect displayed in the incident continues today or is merely a historical curiosity.

I wrote the following piece for a Washington alternative journal in 1971.

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I have taught off and on for nearly fifteen years. When not teaching, I have been an administrator…. I directed an experimental teaching project called the Cardozo Project in Urban Teaching 1963-1967. [Afterwards] I taught half-time while writing a book. The following year, in the hope of working with others who shared my interest in [reform], I returned to administration as the Director of Staff Development in the D.C. schools. That lasted two years since the budget and program [were] gutted … by the D.C. Council….  At that point [1970] I decided to return to the classroom rather than occupy a desk [downtown].

It was an uncommon decision I discovered. To understand why, you have to appreciate the nagging guilt that haunts administrators about leaving the CONTINUE READING: Respect for Teaching: One Person’s Tale | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Special Report: To reopen or not to reopen – That is the fraught question for U.S. schools | The Mighty 790 KFGO | KFGO

Special Report: To reopen or not to reopen – That is the fraught question for U.S. schools | The Mighty 790 KFGO | KFGO
Special Report: To reopen or not to reopen – That is the fraught question for U.S. schools





By Kristina Cooke, Benjamin Lesser and M.B. Pell

(Reuters) - After a two-week deluge of calls and messages from parents - and at least one death threat - the school board in Chandler, Arizona, called a special meeting this fall.

The board would revisit its decision, prompted by the coronavirus, to temporarily close local campuses and offer all classes online.

Parents, teachers and others poured out their thoughts in 1,100 public comments posted online before the September meeting. “If our schools do not open in person I will yank both my boys OUT and take them to another school district!!!” one parent wrote.

Many teachers assailed the district, which serves about 44,000 students near Phoenix, for wavering. “You look weak to the public; you look unconcerned for safety to your employees,” wrote one instructor. Ultimately, the board backtracked, voting 3-2 to start reopening school buildings. Eight-six percent of students returned to campus.

Across the United States, district leaders face pressure from all sides as they grapple with how to educate children during the pandemic, a Reuters survey of 217 districts showed. Many parents are balking at online instruction, seeing it as inferior to classroom learning and disruptive to life at home and work. Other parents worry about sending kids back into classrooms prematurely amid a raging pandemic.

At the same time, many teachers, some backed by powerful unions, say they are not comfortable CONTINUE READING: Special Report: To reopen or not to reopen – That is the fraught question for U.S. schools | The Mighty 790 KFGO | KFGO

We let school buildings crumble for years - that neglect is locking kids out - Hechinger Report

We let school buildings crumble for years - that neglect is locking kids out
Rundown schools forced more students to go remote
Government refused to fund crumbling schools for years. Now the neglect has locked children out of learning.





Yvette Alston-Johnson was seething when she got the news. Children in Paterson, New Jersey would not be allowed to go to school in-person this fall, while many of their peers in predominantly white and affluent suburbs would return.

Alston-Johnson attended Paterson public schools, as did her five children, and she has watched the buildings fall steadily into disrepair over the years. She is now the primary caregiver for her grandson Rayahn, who is in eighth grade at the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Educational Complex, where close to 90 percent of students are Black or Latino.

“I feel like we get the short end of the stick,” said Alston-Johnson, who is 54. “We’re always last in line when it comes to our schools and money.”

“It’s cold in those buildings in the winter and then the A.C. doesn’t work in the summer; there’s mice running around,” she added. “If they did more upkeep on the buildings, the teachers would have been able to teach them in the buildings.”

Paterson, which serves mostly low-income families, has struggled to find the money to repair its buildings. In 2016, New Jersey allowed historically underfunded districts to submit requests for health and safety improvements. Paterson asked for ventilation repairs in 11 buildings, but all their requests were denied. In fact, of the roughly 90 applications to fix unsafe heating or air conditioning and ventilation systems, just two were CONTINUE READING: We let school buildings crumble for years - that neglect is locking kids out

Teacher Tom: I'm Thankful to Have a Day Like This

Teacher Tom: I'm Thankful to Have a Day Like This
I'm Thankful to Have a Day Like This



I have so many things for which to be thankful. At the top of my list is our daughter (who, like many young people, is spending  Thanksgiving away from us today) and my wife to whom, as of two days ago, I've now been married for 34 years. I'm also thankful for my mother and father who I won't be seeing in a few hours, along with my brother and sister and their families and every dog who has ever been my companion. And then there are the children and families that make up, and have always made up, the Woodland Park Cooperative School community, people who, in a very real sense, created the man I am today. I would not trade my life for any other: if I could do it all again, I'd do it exactly the same way, mistakes and all. 

Not long ago, I read about a survey in which it was reported that the average American, no matter our socio-economic station, feels that they could be economically satisfied with about 10 percent more money. This was true of both billionaires and paupers. I suspect this is true about most of the good things in our lives. For instance, I know I could do with about 10 percent more sleep, 10 percent more free time, and 10 percent more sex, in addition to that 10 percent pay increase. So, as we don't gather today to reflect upon those CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: I'm Thankful to Have a Day Like This

Happy, Complicated Thanksgiving! | Diane Ravitch's blog

Happy, Complicated Thanksgiving! | Diane Ravitch's blog
Happy, Complicated Thanksgiving!


This is the first time that any of us has experienced Thanksgiving in the midst of a national pandemic. Many people will heed the advice of doctors and cancel their family get-togethers. Others will gather in small groups, hopefully with masks and social distancing. A strange holiday, as will be Christmas and New Year’s.

I want to wish you and your families a Happy Thanksgiving and wish you the strength and good health to persevere. The pandemic will not last forever.

On a personal note, I want to let you know that I am taking a weekend break. It’s something I have not done since I started the blog in April 2012. Right now, there are only a limited number of topics that seem relevant. Whether schools should be open or closed; the joy in seeing Betsy DeVos no longer in charge of the U.S. Department of Education; speculation about who might replace her; and intense concern about whether President-Elect Biden will resurrect the failed Race to the Top strategies or whether he will forge a new path that actually supports students, teachers, and schools instead of punishing them.

These are all important issues. I will turn to them again on November 30, when I resume blogging. If something important happens in the next few days, like Biden naming the new Secretary of Education, you will hear from me. Or if I want to share something. If not, silence.

Stay well. Protect your health and that of your loved ones.


Should COVID vaccinations be required for students? For school staff members? | Ed In The Apple

Should COVID vaccinations be required for students? For school staff members? | Ed In The Apple
Should COVID vaccinations be required for students? For school staff members?



On Friday I stood on a COVID testing line for four hours, a lovely day, chatting with my line mates, their bosses had given them time off; they needed a negative COVID test in order to fly somewhere. The test, the nose swab, took minutes and my phone beeped with the results before I was home. (Negative). I’m staying at home for Thanksgiving.

Two vaccine developers, Pfizer and Moderna announced vaccines with 90 plus percent protection rates; at least five other companies are near competing trials and China and Russia report they’re already distributing vaccines.

The final hurtle is less than a month away, the CDC/FDA will probably approve the vaccines for use around December 10th.

The distribution procedures, called Operation Warp Speed (Read here) created a nationwide network, over 60 regions with distribution networks in each region, from hospitals down to pharmacies.

Warp Speed has been criticized by the scientific community as being too tied to big pharma and not transparent.

It will take months, perhaps many months to ramp up production, in the CONTINUE READING: Should COVID vaccinations be required for students? For school staff members? | Ed In The Apple



SOMETIMES IT’S WHAT YOU DON’T SAY – Dad Gone Wild

SOMETIMES IT’S WHAT YOU DON’T SAY – Dad Gone Wild
SOMETIMES IT’S WHAT YOU DON’T SAY




“The slickest way in the world to lie is to tell the right amount of truth at the right time-and then shut up.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

Another Tuesday night and another board meeting has left me scratching my head – trying to decipher what I just witnessed.

One thing that is becoming more and more clear is that the MNPS’s leadership is growing increasingly disconnected from what’s actually taking place in schools. Presentation after presentation paints a picture of events unfolding uniformly across the district when the reality is entirely different from school to school – often even within buildings themselves.

Whether it is instruction during quarantine, small group instruction, usage of Florida Virtual School curriculum, or even the Navigator program, results and adoption are greatly varied across the district despite claims from district leadership. Lost in the whole conversation is the increasing level of stakeholder frustration, the declining level of student engagement, the number of students failing, or the actual impact that district initiatives are having on teachers and other building staff.

Take the Navigator program for example. Last night it was painted by Dr. Keri Randolph, Executive Officer – Strategic Federal, State, and Philanthropic Investments, as being highly successful and widely embraced by teachers across the district, Which just isn’t true. The requirements of the CONTINUE READING: SOMETIMES IT’S WHAT YOU DON’T SAY – Dad Gone Wild

Mike Klonsky's Blog: The first thing Biden promised to do...

Mike Klonsky's Blog: The first thing Biden promised to do...
The first thing Biden promised to do...





Biden was at a candidates event in Houston with National Education Association members in July 2019 when he said: “First thing, as president of United States — not a joke — first thing I will do is make sure that the secretary of education is not Betsy DeVos. It is a teacher. A teacher. Promise.” -- 
WaPO

Biden's cabinet is filling up fast. So far, once you get past all the chatter about a "second Obama presidency"; or about slipping a disgraced Rahm Emanuel in through the back door (NO, NO, NO please), or even about appointing Trump Republicans as opposed to anyone from the left, the process has been pretty transparent and necessarily fast-moving. 

But we're still waiting for more than whispers about his pick for Secretary of Education. This may be the most important pick of all given that most school districts remain in limbo or possibly on the brink of collapse because of the pandemic and Trump/DeVos's disastrous response. But even under the new administration, plans for a necessary, safe reopening are CONTINUE READING: Mike Klonsky's Blog: The first thing Biden promised to do...

CURMUDGUCATION: FL: Big Brother Is Watching Your Child

CURMUDGUCATION: FL: Big Brother Is Watching Your Child
FL: Big Brother Is Watching Your Child


Eyebrows shot up around the country this week as the Tampa Bay Times reported on how the Pasco County Sheriff's Office keeps a secret list of "at-risk" kids who could “fall into a life of crime." Creating the list involves the office collecting and factoring a whole bunch of different you-probably-thought-they-were-confidential records, including records from the school district and from the state's Department of Children and Families. 

"We have an agreement with the Sheriff's Office," the superintendent said in an interview with the Times. "The agreement requires them to use (the data) for official law enforcement purposes. I have to assume that's exactly what they are using it for."

Low grades? Absenteeism? Violence in the home? You may well be flagged as a possible future criminal. The Sheriff's Office has a whole manual. And a list, with 420 names on it. And none of the families connected to the names knows a thing about it. This is not a targeted search, where someone is concerned about Pat McStudent; this is a blanket sweep of the entire list of records from the various institutions.

Mark Lieberman at EdWeek did some checking to see if this practice is illegal (if you're old enough, you may remember when FERPA protected students from this kind of thing). The answer seems to be CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: FL: Big Brother Is Watching Your Child