Please send a letter on the need to lower class size to your State Senator today! and other updates | Class Size Matters

Please send a letter on the need to lower class size to your State Senator today! and other updates | Class Size Matters and other updates | A clearinghouse for information on class size & the proven benefits of smaller classes

Please send a letter on the need to lower class size to your State Senator today! and other updates

Please send a letter today to your State Senators by clicking here, urging them to sign onto S.6296, the bill introduced by Sen. Robert Jackson, to update and renew NYC’s commitment to lower class size in all grades – especially now since we’re due to get full Foundation funding from the state. As of today, it’s already signed onto by eight other Senators from both parties– Senators Brad Hoylman, Julia Salazar, Jose Serrano, Brian Benjamin, Andrew Gournades, Zellnor Myrie, Andrew Lanza, and Jessica Ramos! Much thanks to all of them and Robert Jackson for their support.

2. NYC is due to receive more than $8 billion in additional state and federal funds over the next two to three years. We would like your input on how the money should be spent, to help us structure our discussions at our upcoming May 22 Parent Action Conference, co-sponsored with NYC Kids PAC. Please take this five-minute survey to rank your priorities.

3. Then, if you have time, read this this wonderful Daily News oped by Regent Kathleen Cashin, about how smaller classes utterly transformed the schools she led in Brooklyn and Queens, when she was a Regional superintendent. And check out my latest Talk out of School podcast with Danny Dromm, former teacher and current head of the City Council Finance committee, who explains why he has made class size reduction a priority to fight for in the city budget for next year.

4. Finally, (and I know I’m asking a lot); it’s my birthday tomorrow and it would be great if you could give to Class Size Matters to mark the occasion. We couldn’t hold our regular annual fundraiser for the last two years because of the pandemic; I really on your support to keep advocating for NYC children and their right to receive a quality education. Please give here if you can afford it.

But remember to send a letter to your State Senator about class size first; it’s free!

thanks so much, Leonie

Please send a letter on the need to lower class size to your State Senator today! and other updates | Class Size Matters and other updates | A clearinghouse for information on class size & the proven benefits of smaller classes

Cancel the Tests and More! - Network For Public Education

Cancel the Tests and More! - Network For Public Education

Cancel the Tests and More!

Join NEA’s national campaign to cancel the tests. Here is what they suggest.

1. Take Action. Submit a comment to the Department of Education. The proposed waiver template does not go far enough to offer states and districts the flexibility we believe they need to support students and rebuild schools. 

2. Spread the word.  Help get as many folks as possible to sign onto the open letter at www.nea.org/CancelTheTests. Signing on begins with you. 

Keep in touch with what is happening. Sign up for our new blog. 

The best blogs of the day will be delivered to your mailbox every day when you sign up at: https://networkforpubliceducation.org/best-posts/

Charter schools are underfunded? Ummm, this new report from Class Size Matters Leonie Haimson says, “not so fast.”

Read about how New York City charter facilities are overfunded with enhancement grants, while co-located publics are underfunded here.

NPE’s latest report, Chartered for Profit, is in the news.

Read this excellent analysis of our report by Valerie Strauss of The Washington Post here. If you have not read our report, click this link:https://networkforpubliceducation.org/chartered-for-profit/

Cancel the Tests and More! - Network For Public Education

From Sec. Cardona: A Letter to Parents & Students - ED.gov Blog

From Sec. Cardona: A Letter to Parents & Students - ED.gov Blog

From Sec. Cardona: A Letter to Parents & Students

Click here for a copy of this letter in Spanish

To our Nation’s Parents and Students:  

I write first, as your new Secretary of Education, to acknowledge the extraordinarily challenging year you’ve endured. Between the health crisis, economic hardship, staunch national division, and the struggle to make progress in learning while apart from teachers and peers, the impact of the pandemic is still very real and will be felt for years to come.   

And yet, you’ve kept going. As a parent of two who experienced these same concerns and uncertainties, and an educator who has been moved by the resilience of the students and families I’ve met, let me say: you deserve recognition and you have my deepest thanks.   

Brighter days are ahead. We are making progress. More schools across the country are reopening for in-person learning, and they’re doing so with the help of clear, science-based guidance from experts in the field. The Department has released part one of a COVID-19 Handbook to help schools implement guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and we’re working on the second volume. Together, these guides will provide more evidence-based strategies for schools to minimize disruptions caused by school closures, especially for our most vulnerable students and communities and address the impact of COVID-19 on educational opportunity across communities. 

The most pressing challenges we face aren’t new. Since I began teaching more than 20 years ago, opportunity gaps remain. There are still unacceptable disparities in high school graduation rates and higher education is still out of reach for too many students, including learners of color, those from low-income families, and those, as I was, who would be the first in their families to attend.   

These inequities aren’t just holding our children back from achieving their full potential – they’re holding our nation back, too. We all benefit when our children have high-quality opportunities to develop their skills and build their knowledge – and then, share their gifts and talents with the world.  

Our first priority is to return students to the classroom for in-person learning, but we know there’s more work to be done once we’ve achieved that goal. We’re also working toward building better career pathways, making college more affordable, ensuring all students have access to high quality schools with a balance of quality coursework that include the arts and sciences, supporting teacher quality and improving teacher diversity, ensure teachers receive the support and respect they need and deserve, expanding access to high-quality preschool, and supporting high-quality career and technical education.   

President Biden’s plans are bold, but they match the urgency that the challenges before us demand. And as Secretary, I will always keep students and their success at the heart of the Department’s work.  

We know that, given the right support, resources and opportunities, our potential is boundless. Despite our worries as parents, this year we’ve seen new proofs of our children’s ingenuity, optimism, and ability to overcome the toughest of circumstances.   

If we all commit to approaching the remainder of this school year – and the years to come – with this same mindset of possibility, dedication, and innovation, we can and will make good on our promise to America’s students. As an educator and as a parent, I commit to safeguarding and advancing the dreams of your children, as I commit to the dreams of my own son and daughter.  

Our nation’s students deserve – and they will get – our very best efforts, our most collaborative thinking, and our deepest belief in their abilities. Together, we can build a future of promise and opportunity that makes no exceptions.  

Sincerely,   

Secretary Miguel Cardona 

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From Sec. Cardona: A Letter to Parents & Students - ED.gov Blog

Open Letter to SC House and Senate Concerning Bill 3613 – radical eyes for equity

Open Letter to SC House and Senate Concerning Bill 3613 – radical eyes for equity

Open Letter to SC House and Senate Concerning Bill 3613

I am contacting you with an urgent caution about Bill 3613 and the historical failures of addressing reading in South Carolina through micromanaging legislation that has not resulted in improving home, community, individual equity or learning outcomes for students living in poverty, Black students, Emergent Bilinguals, or students with special needs.

Currently, I am in year 37 of being an educator in SC, serving as a high school English teacher at Woodruff High for 18 years before moving to teacher education at Furman University for the past 19 years. I entered education in SC in 1984, the first days of the accountability movement in our state.

Despite changing standards and high-stakes testing multiple times over the past four decades, political and public perception remains convinced our schools are failing, and that our students are, specifically, failing in reading achievement.

Read To Succeed was a serious mistake at its inception since it misreads both how students learn to read and how best to teach reading. Reading growth is not simple, and test scores are a stronger measure of poverty and social inequities than the state of student learning or the quality of teaching.

Bill 3613 is making the same mistake political leaders have been making since the 1980s, tinkering with prescriptive legislation aimed at our students and CONTINUE READING: Open Letter to SC House and Senate Concerning Bill 3613 – radical eyes for equity

NYC Educator: Bad Admin and Crickets

NYC Educator: Bad Admin and Crickets

Bad Admin and Crickets

Do you feel like the kid in the picture sometimes? An awful lot of teachers do. It seems, particularly with an evaluation system that bares its teeth at us, that a lot of supervisors speak to us like that.

I began as an English teacher. I ended up as an ESL teacher by happy accident. For one thing, I could never find a permanent job as an English teacher. By the time I did, I was already enamored of teaching kids from other countries. I turned down an appointment, took a job playing guitar in the worst Irish wedding band on earth (it paid well), and waited until I actually had the credits to teach what I wanted.

Nonetheless, I'm a lifelong reader, and my preference is fiction. Fiction places you in a position to see and feel other viewpoints, but it's looked down upon by the geniuses in Albany, not to mention the Common Core architects. NY State has dropped the Common Core name, but fiction is still devalued. Instead we make kids read tedious tomes that interest them not at all. I'd argue it would be better to have them read comics, like the kid in the picture, and learn to love reading, rather than dread it. Of course, I'm only one voice.

Still, there are a lot of crazy administrators. Look, for one example, at the large number of them who insist on enrolling as teachers in Google Classroom. There is absolutely no viable rationale for that. Most of us now place all our grades online. Anyone can see them. All of the assignments we give are available to anyone registered as a CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: Bad Admin and Crickets

NYC Educator: Another Letter from the Chancellor

NYC Educator: Another Letter from the Chancellor

Another Letter from the Chancellor

Dear Colleagues,
 
As we approach the end of the calendar year, I am reflecting back on some of the events of 2020. We have confronted uncertainty and pain together, working as a community dedicated in service to our city’s children. Because their safety is paramount, we took a principled stand and vowed to close schools as soon as the positivity rate reached 3%.
 
It goes almost without saying that we backed off on that stand as soon as public pressure began. I took some hard criticism—the hardest, perhaps, of my lifetime, and of course I backed off my principles completely. We have all worked incredibly hard to protect our children and our communities from COVID-19, and continue to do so.  That’s why we’ve now tripled our threshold for closure to 9%, and when it hits that, we’ll read a few nasty op-eds in the Post and raise it again.
 
But the difficulties of this year extend beyond the coronavirus crisis, of course. This has been a watershed year for the struggle for racial justice in this city and country. Rest assured that we at the DOE will make you travel through COVID infested trains and buses no matter what color you are. We don’t care what religion you are or what CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: Another Letter from the Chancellor

NYC Educator: Another Message from Our Esteemed Chancellor

NYC Educator: Another Message from Our Esteemed Chancellor

Another Message from Our Esteemed Chancellor

Dear Colleagues,

This has been an eventful and challenging year on so many levels. Not for me, of course. I’ve been able to not only sit in my office at Tweed, but also stay home and not even get out of bed over the past several weeks. To date, we have seen a COVID-19 positivity rate of only 0.19 percent out of more than 120,000 students and staff tested. This has been a reassuring sign that testing anyone who felt like getting tested, as opposed to actual random samples of people in schools, has been an effective measure. 

Indeed, the Times and Post are full of columns saying we ought to stay open, but the teacher union is insisting we follow the damn agreement. What do I care? I sit here regardless.

As you are aware, the City as a whole is experiencing elevated rates of COVID-19 transmission. As you may recall. President Trump said the problem wasn’t too much COVID, but too much testing. By avoiding actual testing, we’ve proven him right. If you just test the same handful of people over and over, you can make it look like the spike isn’t happening.

As of this morning, the City has now reached this threshold of test positivity citywide and, as a result, the DOE will temporarily close down all public school buildings, effective Thursday, November 19. This action, along with other city-wide measures, is a key component to address the CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: Another Message from Our Esteemed Chancellor

NYC Educator: Yet Another Life-Altering Email from the Chancellor

NYC Educator: Yet Another Life-Altering Email from the Chancellor

Yet Another Life-Altering Email from the Chancellor

Dear Colleagues, 

Seven months after your endless caterwauling forced us to close our school buildings, this morning we began welcoming our  3-K, Pre-K, and District 75 students back for in-person learning. I’ll be sitting here in my office making phone calls, ordering take out, and watching YouTube videos. I have people to do work for me. It’s the best!

Today’s beginning of the reopening process marks a the third time we’ve tried this, which has been a huge disaster not only for the public perceptions of Blaz and me, but also for the more than 400,000 families who look to our schools to anchor their children’s lives. If they don’t get sick, die, or transmit the virus to their families, and manage to survive, I keep clinging to the hope that all of this stuff we pull off at the very last minute—will make our children’s lives better. 

It is also a moment to congratulate all of you noisy bastards for publicizing every damn mistake Blaz and I have throughout this entire ordeal. Maybe that’s why we drove you to the verge of striking, and condemned you to the utter terror you’d feel returning, particularly considering the loss of nearly 80 of our colleagues.  From our luxurious, well-ventilated Tweed offices with multiple air conditioners and purifiers, things look pretty good for us, so we still can’t be bothered with your petty concerns.

Yet through all of our indifference, your restraint is remarkable: no one has thus far bombed our offices or, to the best of my knowledge, burned us in effigy; even as we’ve still failed to hook up more than 300,000 students with devices and Internet connections; and while we pulled off successful creation of Regional Enrichment Centers for children of front-line workers; we’ve wasted thousands of hours of work and neglected countless details to enable New York City schools to safely reopen starting today, as opposed to a CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: Yet Another Life-Altering Email from the Chancellor

Take Action to Save the USPS and the Election | Live Long and Prosper

Take Action to Save the USPS and the Election | Live Long and Prosper

Take Action to Save the USPS and the Election

The following information and letter is from the Schools Matter blog by Jim Horn (not to be confused with the School Matters blog by Steve Hinnefeld). I have made some changes to correct typos and errors. Please feel free to personalize and edit the letter below. Let’s make sure that all members of Congress, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents wake up tomorrow morning to full in-boxes!!

Today’s Action to Save the PO and the Election

Please feel free to use the letter below or any parts of it to write your elected federal officials TODAY. Thank you–your children and grandchildren will thank you.

[Find Senators’ and Representatives’ phone, email, and US mail addresses here and here.]

Dear

Because I believe you to be among the 90 percent of Americans who deeply value the essential work of the United States Postal Service, I am writing to request your help. Media reports currently abound about deliberate efforts by the Trump Administration to hobble the USPS by cutting work hours, altering work rules and record-keeping requirements, removing postal collection boxes, decommissioning mail sorting equipment, reorganizing management to centralize power, and destroying hundreds of expensive barcode sorters.

The President, himself, has admitted more than once of taking an active role in CONTINUE READING: Take Action to Save the USPS and the Election | Live Long and Prosper

Mr. G for District 3: Chris Guerrieri's Education Matters: Secrecy and subterfuge is the future of DCPS

Mr. G for District 3: Chris Guerrieri's Education Matters: Secrecy and subterfuge is the future of DCPS

Secrecy and subterfuge is the future of DCPS

I am both outraged and terrified at the districts plan to keep cases of COVID-19 secret in our schools, unless the schools are forced to close. Spoiler alert if people know there is a case, we may never get to the point where a school has to close. This planned secrecy is going to risk lives.

I have heard stories of cases at two local high schools, cases that were kept secret from the majority fo staff, and even from people who might have been exposed. Superintendent Greene has said if it was up to her despite the risks she would open schools, so I have to question the lengths she would go to keep them open.

Sadly our district may not be the only one that plans to keep people in the dark.

From the Tampa Times,

  Teachers at Pierce Middle School learned this week that a coworker tested positive for COVID-19 after coming on campus Friday to prepare for the upcoming school year.

They did not hear that news from the Hillsborough County school district, nor from principal Pablo Gallego. It came in an email Tuesday from social studies teacher Aron Zions.

“I believe Mr. Gallego followed the proper protocols,” Zions wrote, noting that CONTINUE READING: Mr. G for District 3: Chris Guerrieri's Education Matters: Secrecy and subterfuge is the future of DCPS

NYC Educator: The Chancellor Sends Us Another Email

NYC Educator: The Chancellor Sends Us Another Email

The Chancellor Sends Us Another Email

Dear Colleagues,

  

I hope you and yours are safe and healthy, and experiencing a bit of rest and relaxation this summer. You'd better get as much rest as you can now, because September's coming, and we have no idea what the hell is going to happen.

  

Last month, I wrote to you with information about our plan for blended learning in the fall. Today, I am writing to share details about some newly announced health and safety protocols, which we hope will work, but who knows? They didn't work anywhere else, but we think our way is the charm. Uncertainty is a constant during this pandemic, and our plans must be flexible enough to allow us to make excuses and weasel out of blame when they fail. But in all cases, your safety and the safety of our students and families would be the first priority—no matter what, if it weren't for my boss's reckless insistence on opening buildings.

  

We all experienced anxiety and alarm from the events of this pandemic starting back in March, as we failed to close public schools after having closed Broadway. Since then, we have been working diligently and in partnership with other city agencies to build on the lessons learned and prepare fully for a new school year. Last time we failed to follow our own rules and let Covid-infested buildings linger open for a long time. We are drawing on your feedback and on the best-available public health guidance to craft our plans for the fall. This is difficult, since we haven't asked what you want, but my magic 8-ball has gotten me this far,

  

Full details of the protocols are available on the DOE website. I also encourage you to read the plan we recently submitted to the State Department of Health, which Governor Cuomo says is an outline rather than a plan. Screw him. He doesn't pay my salary.

The major components of our health and safety planning include the following: 

·         Building Safety Measures:   

o   At all times, students and staff must wear face coverings protecting their nose and mouth while on school property or on DOE-provided transportation, unless students cannot medically tolerate a face covering or wearing the face covering is developmentally inappropriate. If other CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: The Chancellor Sends Us Another Email