Los Angeles Teachers, Parents Stand Up Against Politicians' Threats - LA Progressive

Los Angeles Teachers, Parents Stand Up Against Politicians' Threats - LA Progressive

Los Angeles Teachers, Parents Stand Up Against Politicians’ Threats

Despite pressure from local politicians, businesses, Gov. Gavin Newsom, Mayor Eric Garcetti, and the Los Angeles Times, teachers throughout California—and especially in Los Angeles—have mobilized to demand vaccinations before school reopening.

The teachers, backed by parents, have actively responded to this attack on their United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) union for demanding a full complement of safety measures. They note that this is the same lineup of forces who opposed the teachers strike 18 months ago that transformed UTLA into a much stronger union and won important victories.

On Saturday, February 20, a 100-car caravan stretched through downtown Los Angeles—sponsored by Students Deserve, Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, Los Angeles Alliance for New Economy, Eastside Padres Contra Privatization, Reclaim Our Schools, and UTLA.

Cars were adorned with bilingual signs saying Not My Child, Schools Are Not Safe; End Educational Racism; Teachers Lives Matter; AND Don’t Save the Economy by Risking a Child’s Life.

Teachers, backed by parents, have actively responded to this attack on their UTLA union for demanding a full complement of safety measures.

The February 17 Los Angeles Times editorial denounced the teachers for not returning to work without vaccinations and also attacked LA school superintendent Austin Buettner for not forcing the teachers back.

The editorial also said “the union is jeopardizing its own popularity. If it continues to put the needs of students and families last.” Such hypocrisy from a newspaper that attacked the strike by teachers for improved conditions and reduce class size in the schools.

As a 17-year veteran teacher, I agree with other teachers by saying that we shall not lose our CONTINUE READING: Los Angeles Teachers, Parents Stand Up Against Politicians' Threats - LA Progressive

Media “Experts” + Parental Zeal + Political Knee-jerk Legislation + Market Forces = Failing Reading, Again – radical eyes for equity

Media “Experts” + Parental Zeal + Political Knee-jerk Legislation + Market Forces = Failing Reading, Again – radical eyes for equity

Media “Experts” + Parental Zeal + Political Knee-jerk Legislation + Market Forces = Failing Reading, Again

In the pre-pandemic world that seems much further in the past than it is, I traveled from South Carolina to Milwaukee in February of 2020 to speak at the Wisconsin State Reading Association (WSRA) annual convention.

My public work had been dominated by refuting the “science of reading” movement for more than a year at that point—including having a book in press on the “science of reading” as another version of the Reading War—so I arrived in Milwaukee a bit apprehensive about how I would be received.

My session was well attended by an energetic crowd of teachers who seemed eager to engage in why the “science of reading” movement was misguided, but I also encountered another distinct frustration among teachers I had not anticipated.

A significant part of the “science of reading” agenda has been to attack popular reading reading programs, notably programs associated with Lucy Calkins and Teachers College (see here and here, for example).

As I interrogated and discounted many aspects of the “science of reading” agendas, the attendees were supportive of my analysis, but teachers often expressed very negative experiences with Calkins’s programs, the third most CONTINUE READING: Media “Experts” + Parental Zeal + Political Knee-jerk Legislation + Market Forces = Failing Reading, Again – radical eyes for equity

ANDRE PERRY: The first presidential debate showed our leaders are not acting that way

The first presidential debate showed our leaders are not acting that way

‘Stand by.’ ‘Shut up.’ Is this really what we want to teach our children?

Our leaders must also be teachers, but they’re not acting that way

Frustrated by interruptions from President Donald Trump at the first presidential debate, an exasperated former Vice President Joe Biden blurted, “Would you shut up, man?” Biden sounded like a bad substitute teacher who was being overrun by a belligerent child.

During that exchange, I turned to my 9-year-old son, who was sitting next to me, and asked him to leave the room. I’d hoped by watching the candidates discuss government, leadership and the most important issues facing our world, he would learn something positive. But it was no teaching moment. Instead, bad teaching was on full display.

Our elected officials may not see themselves as teaching professionals, but that is exactly what they are. They model behavior with their words, deeds and policies. When they promote laws and regulations based on science, whether it’s following public health recommendations about masks or pushing for legislation that would take climate change seriously and shrink our carbon footprint, children memorizing their periodic tables understand that what they’re learning matters. When our officials promote free and fair elections and demonstrate how power is passed on peacefully in a democracy, children witness the pages of their social studies textbooks come to life. And when they act out our country’s core values of equality and unity by ensuring every American is treated with fairness and justice, CONTINUE READING: The first presidential debate showed our leaders are not acting that way

Bully Politics, Eugenics, and the Last Days of American Pretense – radical eyes for equity

Bully Politics, Eugenics, and the Last Days of American Pretense – radical eyes for equity

Bully Politics, Eugenics, and the Last Days of American Pretense

If the American character included the ability to admit that the country’s founding was deeply flawed but aspirational—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as goals we are still trying to achieve for all, not just some—we would not have to admit in 2020 that much of what America believes is simply lies.

Instead, the American character is often trapped in James Baldwin‘s “rigid refusal to look at ourselves,” now disturbingly embodied by the Trump/Pence administration.

Of the many lies at the founding of the U.S. that continue to poison our aspirations for individual liberty and robust democracy, possibly the most disturbing and immediately damning is that people fled England in pursuit of religious liberty.

For some frustrating reason, throughout my 18 years of teaching high school English, students were bombarded by American literature focusing on the Puritans, specifically reading/viewing both Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and Arthur Miller’s The Crucible.

Students tended to recognize after these works that those first Puritans were CONTINUE READING: Bully Politics, Eugenics, and the Last Days of American Pretense – radical eyes for equity

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

NYC Educator: No Matter How Bad Things Are, De Blasio Makes Them Worse

NYC Educator: No Matter How Bad Things Are, De Blasio Makes Them Worse

No Matter How Bad Things Are, De Blasio Makes Them Worse

I've been relatively quiet for the last few days. I'm shocked at the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the predictable machinations of Trump and his morally bankrupt Senate. Trump's now taken stands against science, against actual history, and essentially against humanity.



So it's harder to sit here in my little corner of the universe and focus on things like education, but I'm working tomorrow, even if the system as a whole may not be. You look at de Blasio's plan, shattered and torn, and wonder how things could possible get any worse. 

But Bill de Blasio holds fast to his plan, no matter how ridiculous it is, and now says he's going to hire thousands of teachers to enable it. While we're waiting, the DOE seems to have approved unconscionable class sizes in some schools, in bizarre plans that make the original insane idea look relatively good. I'm really at a loss to explain how anyone thinks this is a good idea.

De Blasio's plan has been around for a while. Yet it's only now, days before we open schools in one form or another, that we're looking at hiring teachers to enable it. Can we find 4,500 teachers in a week? It's optimistic at best. Meanwhile, just in case a miracle doesn't happen, Carranza announced that no, in fact NYC students will not necessarily be receiving synchronous instruction every day as promised. It makes you wonder why the city embraced this plan in the first place.

So now, city students will go to physical school buildings a day or two each week. If they're extraordinarily lucky, they may go three days. They will sit masked and socially distanced, unable to substantially interact with one another. Teachers will have to enforce these unnatural conditions. If students don't run screaming in horror from this bad science fiction scenario, they'll do something or other in class. If all the stars are in alignment, they'll learn something aside from the terrifying conditions under which education takes place in 2020.

What about the three or four days when they aren't there? I'm really not clear on that. I suppose they could receive asynchronous instruction. That might be assignments. It CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: No Matter How Bad Things Are, De Blasio Makes Them Worse

Jersey Jazzman: Correcting the Hacks on NJ Taxes

Jersey Jazzman: Correcting the Hacks on NJ Taxes

Correcting the Hacks on NJ Taxes

Nothing makes me crazier than hacky discussions of tax and fiscal policy. And if you want the hackiest hacking about New Jersey's taxes, there's only one place to go: the Star-Ledger's opinion pages, where you'll find conservative Mike DuHaime and "liberal" (snort) Julie Roginsky hacking out the hackiest fiscal hacking imaginable:

Mike: Trenton Democrats will never let a good crisis go to waste. They are using COVID to raise income taxes, raise business taxes, raise taxes on healthcare and borrow billions. I am surprised Sweeney and Coughlin are supporting an income tax increase. The top 1% of earners in New Jersey are paying 40% of New Jersey’s income taxes. The top 10% pay 70% of the taxes. Wealthy people are leaving New Jersey, and as they leave, it is the middle class who keep getting more and more of the tax burden.

Julie: This deal fell into place because Speaker Coughlin was committed to provide real relief to working middle-class families and was finally able to spearhead an agreement that does just that by providing families with children with the money to pay for back-to-school expenses and other bills next year.

Mike: This is less than one-half of 1% of a tax credit for the average New Jersey household. Taxpayers deserve structural reforms that lower the cost of government and lower our heavy tax burden.

Julie: I agree, Mike. But in all the years a Republican governor was at the CONTINUE READING: Jersey Jazzman: Correcting the Hacks on NJ Taxes