California: Nearly 50,000 Teachers and Parents Say NO to Biden Testing Demand | Diane Ravitch's blog

California: Nearly 50,000 Teachers and Parents Say NO to Biden Testing Demand | Diane Ravitch's blog

California: Nearly 50,000 Teachers and Parents Say NO to Biden Testing Demand

UPDATE TO NEWS RELEASE: 50,000 signatures submitted to SBE-parents, educators urge waiving standardized testing

 NEWS RELEASE                      

California Teachers Association                                                                    1705 Murchison Drive Burlingame, CA 94010

www.cta.org   Contact: Claudia Briggs cbriggs@cta.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Educators Call on State Board of Education to Seek Waiver from U.S. Department of Education Suspending Standardized Testing for Current School Year

More than 40,000 concerned parents and educators sign petition echoing concerns over undue pressure on students, technology inequities, and data reliability; call for focus on other supports in response to pandemic

BURLINGAME — The California Teachers Association (CTA) has submitted a letter to the State Board of Education (SBE) urging the California Department of Education (CDE) to submit a waiver requesting the U.S. Department of Education (USDOE) to suspend standardized testing for the 2020-21 school year. In the February 22, 2021, letter to the SBE, CTA cites problems with both feasibility of administration, useability and reliability of resulting data, and the cruelty of putting students, families, and educators through high stakes assessments in the middle of a pandemic. If submitted and approved, the waiver would suspend summative assessments required under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), normally conducted in the spring.

Most California students are still engaged in distance learning, and many students still lack reliable internet bandwidth and access or inconsistent learning and testing environments. Educators have also expressed concerns about the validity and comparability of a statewide test administered under widely varying and largely uncontrolled circumstances. CTA is advocating for the suspension of high stakes tests that will take away precious instructional time and put unnecessary additional stress on students and their families.

CTA has also sent a letter to Acting U.S. Secretary of Education, Phil Rosenfelt, urging the USDOE to issue assessment waivers to states as soon as possible, reiterating educator concerns about the harm that standardized testing in the middle of a pandemic would cause.

“Given widespread inequities in student access to technology and the internet, as well as the concerns both educators and parents have about the value of any data gathered from traditional annual testing in the midst of a global pandemic, we firmly believe testing would be detrimental to students, and of little use to teachers and school districts,” said CTA President E. Toby Boyd. “These factors lead us to urge policy makers to instead focus on providing support to students in distance learning and their safe return to physical classrooms instead of on assessments of little value.”

A petition by the California Teachers Association calling for the suspension of state standardized testing has so far gathered 40,000 signatures from parents and educators who are deeply concerned about the continuation of normal testing during this most challenging school year. That petition is being shared with the SBE and the USDOE.

More background on these letters, standardized testing, and CTA’s position on suspending testing this year can be found here. 

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The 310,000-member CTA is affiliated with the 3-million-member National Education Association.

Claudia Briggs, Communications Assistant Manager, California Teachers Association (EST 1863)

916.325.1550 (office) | 916.296.4087 (cell) | cbriggs@cta.orgThe California Teachers Association exists to protect and promote the well-being of its members; to improve the conditions of teaching and learning; to advance the cause of free, universal, and quality public education; to ensure that the human dignity and civil rights of all children and youth are protected; and to secure a more just, equitable, and democratic society.

California: Nearly 50,000 Teachers and Parents Say NO to Biden Testing Demand | Diane Ravitch's blog

California teachers unions mobilize against Democratic school reopening bill

California teachers unions mobilize against Democratic school reopening bill

California teachers unions mobilize against Democratic school reopening bill

SACRAMENTO — California teachers unions are demanding that the Legislature maintain pandemic restrictions on school reopenings and have begun mobilizing against a Democratic bill introduced last week that could force schools to reopen in March.

In separate letters to legislative leaders, the California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers urge lawmakers to avoid rushing to reopen K-12 schools as Capitol momentum builds to address learning loss and education inequities. Most of the state's 6 million public schoolchildren remain at home with distance learning.

"The teachers and classified professionals of CFT ask that science and community safety, not political pressure, be the guiding force in any discussion about reopening our schools to in-person instruction," California Federation of Teachers President Jeff Freitas said in a letter obtained by POLITICO on Wednesday.

In a letter dated Tuesday, also obtained by POLITICO, CTA President E. Toby Boyd added that safety "should not be a relative or subjective term up to regional or political interpretation" and called for uniform state standards for reopening schools.

The unions' December rush to address newly introduced legislation is unusually early — and a sign of how they are trying to stop a reopening requirement before it gains steam.

AB 10 criticism: Both CFT and CTA say their members want to be back in classrooms but that it is still not safe to do so, pointing to a surge in Covid-19 cases this month and widespread shutdown orders from Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The unions voiced particular concerns with CA AB10 (21R), which would require CONTINUE READING: California teachers unions mobilize against Democratic school reopening bill

Choosing Democracy: SCUSD Imposes a Plan for Distance Learning - Lets see what teachers do !

Choosing Democracy: SCUSD Imposes a Plan for Distance Learning - Lets see what teachers do !

SCUSD Imposes a Plan for Distance Learning - Lets see what teachers do !

 The Sacramento City Unified School District adopted a distance learning plan Saturday after starting the school year two days before without one. The teachers union says its teachers will not follow the plan.

The two groups have been working for weeks to determine how much time teachers will spend in direct instruction via video conference calls and how much time students will be asked to learn asynchronously, or independently

The district decided to move forward without an agreement with the union. The plan is the same originally set forth less than a week ago on Aug. 30

The district is calling for more time spent in synchronous instruction and less time doing independent work. Although both plans meet state education requirements, SCTA’s relies more on independent study in favor of face-to-face screen time. 

The Sacramento Bee has an editorial on the impass. 

Administrators do not teach., Teachers do.  Lets see what happens next.

Choosing Democracy: SCUSD Imposes a Plan for Distance Learning - Lets see what teachers do !

California teachers fight back against pressure to reopen schools

California teachers fight back against pressure to reopen schools

California teachers fight back against pressure to reopen schools
The standoff in the nation’s largest state underscores the difficult road ahead for governors and local leaders.

SACRAMENTO — California Gov. Gavin Newsom insists schools need to make their best attempt to open this fall, warning of the educational and social-emotional impacts of keeping kids out of the classroom.

He’s ordered a mountain of masks and other protective gear for schools to encourage safety amid a rash of new coronavirus outbreaks that have forced him to reinstate stay-at-home orders and shutter bars and restaurants that had barely reopened.

But the California Teachers Association, one of the largest and most powerful unions in the country, says it’s still worried. The union is insisting on prolonging distance learning instead of forcing its army of more than 300,000 educators back into schools.



“We hope we don’t have to go there, but if it comes to it, we do retain the right to refuse to work under unsafe conditions,” said David Fisher, president of the Sacramento City Teachers Association. “The virus is raging, and the circumstances that we were thinking we might be dealing with in September only a few weeks ago seem to be changing by the day. It just is looking increasingly unlikely that we will be able to teach in person at any level when schools first open.”



As President Donald Trump ramps up pressure on states to get kids back in the classroom — his education department going as far as threatening to cut aid to schools that don’t reopen — the standoff in the nation’s largest state underscores the difficult road ahead for governors and local leaders. Many are conflicted about what to do, citing the unknowns surrounding how children can spread the disease and the impact of a country without schools on the economy. But even for those CONTINUE READING: California teachers fight back against pressure to reopen schools