CURMUDGUCATION: Should Schools Offer Virtual School Options In The Fall?

CURMUDGUCATION: Should Schools Offer Virtual School Options In The Fall?

Should Schools Offer Virtual School Options In The Fall?

 I'll admit that this blooming controversy snuck up on me. In Pennsylvania, school districts have offered virtual options for years in the Time Before Covid. It would never have occurred to me that a district shouldn't. But apparently we're going to have fussing about that. kickstarted today by the NYC mayoral announcement that public schools will be all in person this fall.

That's a dumb idea. 

I understand where some of it comes from, given the insistence that we must get students back in school Right The Hell Now. Political leaders trying to court a certain constituency are going to go this route, plus it will also be a way to signal that you aren't going to be pushed around by the teachers unions for all those folks buying the bullshit narrative about how the evil teachers are solely responsible for the closing of school buildings. 

It's still a bad idea.

Mostly it's a bad idea to demand only-in-person districts because the alternative sucks. And it's not going away. There are many, many states already offering "free" online "public" [sic] school, and that's before we even get to cyber-schools that hide behind the mask of homeschooling. 

Cyberschooling isn't going away any time soon for three reasons. First, it does actually work for a small percentage of students with very specific special needs. Second, particularly in states with PA with dumb rules governing cyber-tuition, it is a very attractive way to make a lot of money. Third, the charter worlds not only finances a good assortment of astroturf groups, but it also funds plenty of regular lobbyists, too. Legislatures could shut cyber charters down, but it's a lucrative business CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Should Schools Offer Virtual School Options In The Fall?

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Remote Learning - What Have We Learned?

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Remote Learning - What Have We Learned?

Remote Learning - What Have We Learned?

Update from Massachusetts:

Beginning May 29th, masks will no longer be needed at recess, students can begin sharing school items in the classrooms, and no masks for outdoor activities. 

Via Twitter today:

No remote education option next year in NJ. "All students will be back in school for full-time, in-person instruction for the 2021-2022 school year. Full-time remote learning option for families will be removed."

I’m not sure that is a good idea for the next school year but, as states make their own choices, we’ll all have a front row seat to see how it works out.

One item to note - even before COVID, districts around the country were absolutely trying more online learning and some of it WAS remote. For CONTINUE READING:  Seattle Schools Community Forum: Remote Learning - What Have We Learned?

Moms Have Borne the Brunt of Pandemic Turmoil at Work and at Home – Mother Jones

Moms Have Borne the Brunt of Pandemic Turmoil at Work and at Home – Mother Jones

Moms Have Borne the Brunt of Pandemic Turmoil at Work and at Home

A Mother’s Day labor force check-in: It’s getting a bit better. It’s still bad.

Let our journalists help you make sense of the noise: Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter and get a recap of news that matters.

On this Mother’s Day, let’s remember the pandemic’s dire impact on American moms, who have shouldered the burden at work and at home.

In April 2020, the coronavirus’s impact on working mothers was disproportionately acute. In the United States, the number of mothers both working and living with school-aged children fell 22 percent from the previous April, a sharper decline than among fathers, the New York Times reported. The 10 million mothers not working meant that one third of moms with school-age children in the US were unemployed, a Census survey noted in March. Single mothers have been hit especially hard, with the sharpest decline in labor force participation and the slowest recovery.

The flip side of this decline is the disproportionate share of childcare at home mothers are handling themselves. And working moms are more likely than working dads to say they face challenges in the office due to balancing work and family responsibilities, according to the Pew Research Center. CONTINUE READING: Moms Have Borne the Brunt of Pandemic Turmoil at Work and at Home – Mother Jones

Some kids never logged on to remote school. Now what? - POLITICO

Some kids never logged on to remote school. Now what? - POLITICO

Some kids never logged on to remote school. Now what?

Connecticut was the first state in the nation to provide every student in need with a remote learning device. It wasn’t enough

Kristen Record, a science teacher at Bunnell High School in Stratford, Conn., looks forward to the day she can use regular lab equipment again. Teaching AP Physics through a computer is hard, even for Connecticut’s 2011 Teacher of the Year.

Record’s taught pupils over Zoom for most of this school year, but some students never appeared on her screen. Even after students had the choice to remain remote or return to the classroom, she estimates about 10 percent didn’t show. Emails to their homes went unanswered, or listed family phone numbers were no longer in service. It was like pushing information into a black hole.

“I have missing kids,” Record said. “Kids that are on my roster who I haven't seen in weeks, and are not going to pass my class. I wish I could go to their home and sit and talk them through whatever is going on. I wish a team of us could be doing that.”

In December, Connecticut Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont declared his state the first in the country to get a laptop computer for every elementary and high school student who needed one for remote learning.

That moment was significant, and not just because state education commissioner Miguel Cardona was on the verge of being named President Joe Biden’s pick to replace Betsy DeVos as education secretary in Washington. Record marveled at how quickly her students and classes shifted to online learning. One former Lamont aide likened Connecticut's benchmark to nailing the final, golden spike into the transcontinental railroad. CONTINUE READING: Some kids never logged on to remote school. Now what? - POLITICO

During Pandemic, More Parents Come To Appreciate Teachers and Understand Teaching | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

During Pandemic, More Parents Come To Appreciate Teachers and Understand Teaching | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

During Pandemic, More Parents Come To Appreciate Teachers and Understand Teaching

Teacher Appreciation Week begins May 3rd. With school closures over a year ago and the onslaught of remote instruction, many parents have come to appreciate not only what teachers do in classrooms (and now on screens) than ever before (see here) but also how complex the act of teaching is.

Celebrities sport T-shirts asking that teacher should have higher salaries. Actor Ron Farrell who has three children being home schooled was seen in his neighborhood picking up garbage.

Celebrity parents calling for higher salaries only mirrors now more than ever that Moms and Dads sitting in kitchens and bedrooms hovering over their children have a deeper understanding (and appreciation) about teaching being not only a complex activity but also a relationship built on trust and respect.

That appreciation and understanding were too often unconsidered by many CONTINUE READING: During Pandemic, More Parents Come To Appreciate Teachers and Understand Teaching | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

NYC Educator: Is Remote Learning Here to Stay?

NYC Educator: Is Remote Learning Here to Stay?

Is Remote Learning Here to Stay?

A Daily News article explores that this morning.  It works for some families, evidently:

“When they’re home, they can be one on one with you,” said Livingstone, a single mother of a fourth and eighth-grader who doesn’t work because of a disability.

I can see how it would appeal to people who have no issue staying home and supervising their kids. These days, though, that's likely a relatively small group. I can also imagine how supervised students might function better in online classes. If my kid were in an online class, I wouldn't allow her to place a cat picture up in Zoom and nap through classes. (Alas, a good portion of my students lack that level of supervision.)

And indeed the article covers drawbacks in online education:

“It doesn’t replace the magic that being in a classroom does, either instructionally, or just taking care of kids,” said Nate Stripp, a teacher at Middle School 50 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, who’s also completing a masters degree in educational technology.

I don't know who Nate Stripp is, but I agree with him. I am acutely aware that what I've been doing for the last year does not compare with what I've done for most of my career. I'm constrained in many ways. For one, I simply do not trust the notion of giving tests online. I can't imagine why someone, especially someone hiding behind an avatar, wouldn't a. look up the answer on Google, b. text a friend for the answer, c. check classwork for a solution, or d. all of the above. 

More importantly, I don't believe that subject matter is the only thing we provide students. We are role models. On a fundamental level, every student who sees us sees people who get up every morning and come to work. They see people who've gone to CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: Is Remote Learning Here to Stay?

COVID online school hits 1 year: Teachers, kids share powerful quotes - USA TODAY

COVID online school hits 1 year: Teachers, kids share powerful quotes

A year after COVID shut schools, students and teachers share what shook them — and what strengthened them

From grade school to graduate school, developing young minds in close physical proximity halted abruptly in mid-March 2020.

What happened next to schools and families was devastating and electrifying, thought-provoking and quieting, unifying and isolating. Homes became entire worlds. Working parents juggled daytime teaching. College students studied from childhood bedrooms. Millions of kindergarteners started school in a format previously unfathomable: on Zoom.

Teachers shifted to nurturing and encouraging through screens — with little training. Many hunted down students in person to ensure they were safe, fed and outfitted with resources to learn.

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a set of real-world lessons too close and too fresh to be captured by textbooks: How does one manage lives lost? Calculate the damage of lost income? Measure new levels of mental fatigue? We interviewed more than 30 students and educators, of all ages and experience, about how they grew and changed in 2020 — or just made it to the next day.

On the anniversary of this extraordinary year, here’s what they learned. 

What surprised you the most about virtual or hybrid learning?

“The mask environment — having to teach through that, having to work with students through that and communicate through this barrier was a struggle. I couldn’t quite tell if they were getting it. My dad jokes just didn’t land.” — Josh Montgomery, 43, associate professor of computer science at Southern State Community College in Hillsboro, Ohio

When personal protective equipment was scarce at the beginning of the pandemic, Montgomery organized about 200 volunteers, most of them local educators, to create and assemble face shields for first responders. With the help of 3D printers, the educators distributed more than 4,000 face masks to 51 medical organizations. CONTINUE READING: COVID online school hits 1 year: Teachers, kids share powerful quotes

National Education Policy Center Criticizes RAND for Overstating Results of Study of Online Learning | Diane Ravitch's blog

National Education Policy Center Criticizes RAND for Overstating Results of Study of Online Learning

National Education Policy Center Criticizes RAND for Overstating Results of Study of Online Learning

The National Education Policy Center frequently engages researchers to review studies, reports, and evaluations. NEPC recently released a review of a RAND study that looks at online learning and whether it deserves federal funding. The title of the RAND report is “Remote Learning is Here to Stay,” but the body of the report does not support that conclusion, according to reviewer David R. Garcia of Arizona State University.

Garcia summarizes his review:

The RAND Corporation recently released a report based on a national survey of school district superintendents and charter management organization (CMO) directors (or their designees) about their experiences navigating the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey asks non-biased questions about how school districts and charter schools have responded to the pandemic and about their greatest educational needs. But some issues arise with the report’s reporting of results and with one of its two recommendations. The report is curiously titled, Remote Learning is Here to Stay, but that headline is surprisingly unsupported by the sur- vey responses. In fact, the CONTINUE READING: National Education Policy Center Criticizes RAND for Overstating Results of Study of Online Learning

Private schools pull students away from public schools - Axios

Private schools pull students away from public schools - Axios

Private schools pull students away from public schools

Private institutions are attracting wealthy families who are frustrated with public schools' flip-flopping on remote and in-person learning.

Why it matters: The trend is weakening public schools, which will lose funding as they lose students, and deepening the divide between how rich and poor kids are educated.

What's happening: In districts across America, public schools have had to follow local and state guidelines and stick with online school, while private schools have offered in-person alternatives.

• That's appealing to parents who are fed up with virtual learning because it forces them to juggle work and child care or because the schooling is not as high in quality as in-person instruction.

Just 5% of private schools were virtual this fall, according to survey data from the National Association of Independent Schools, cited by CNBC. Compare that with the 62% of public schoolkids who started the fall on Zoom, per Burbio, which has been tracking public school re-opening plans.

Private schools have a clear advantage in how they've been able to handle the pandemic:

• They were able to devise and advertise their reopening plans throughout the summer while CONTINUE READING: Private schools pull students away from public schools - Axios

Teachers and students face COVID winter break challenges - Los Angeles Times

Teachers and students face COVID winter break challenges - Los Angeles Times

Facing a spike in Fs, winter break isn’t a vacation for many teachers and students

During her winter break, English teacher Keara Williams has hit the phone, making call after call determinedly trying to make contact with her students and their parents.

She needs to reach 28 students, including 11 seniors, who received an “incomplete” grade at the end of the fall semester. She tells them they will fail her class if they don’t complete make-up work to raise their grade to at least a D by the end of January. There is still time to get the work done, do not give up, Williams says. And she lets them know that she is here for them — all winter vacation if that’s what it takes to avoid an F.

She has reached 13 students and left messages and emails with the others. But when she last checked her computer, only one had signed in online to look at the make-up work.

Williams, like so many teachers in the Los Angeles school district, is grappling with wrenching grading decisions amid the hardships of the raging pandemic that has shuttered campuses for nine months. An F grade in a required class would delay or deny a high school diploma, require a make-up class and could ruin a GPA during the college admissions cycle. How do they balance compassion and empathy with the low grade points in their record books? How do they find and engage their lost students before it’s too late? The magnitude of work ahead for both teachers and students feels CONTINUE READING: Teachers and students face COVID winter break challenges - Los Angeles Times

Audio: A Quiet And 'Unsettling' Pandemic Toll: Students Who've Fallen Off The Grid | 89.3 KPCC

Audio: A Quiet And 'Unsettling' Pandemic Toll: Students Who've Fallen Off The Grid | 89.3 KPCC

A Quiet And 'Unsettling' Pandemic Toll: Students Who've Fallen Off The Grid

For American families and their children, school is more than just a building. It's a social life and a community, an athletic center and a place to get meals that aren't available at home. The pandemic has disrupted — and continues to disrupt — the lives of U.S. students in profound ways.

Many kids haven't set foot in their schools since March, when most in-person schooling shut down across the country. Teachers are working tirelessly to educate their students online, but they are growing increasingly anxious about the kids who aren't showing up at all.

An estimated 3 million students may have dropped out of school learning since March, according to Bellwether Education Partners, a national nonprofit that focuses on underserved youth. The group's study cited a lack of Internet access, housing insecurity, disabilities and language barriers as major obstacles to attending virtual classes during the pandemic.

"It is really, really unsettling," says Alex, a teacher in western Virginia, who asked that her last name not be used for fear of repercussions for speaking out. "I think people don't realize how much we need to see these kids. A lot of times in schools, we are the first line for seeing signs of child abuse, for seeing signs of food insecurity. And you don't have that with virtual students. Especially when they ghost."

That "ghosting" is a constant problem for school employees who track attendance in CONTINUE READING: Audio: A Quiet And 'Unsettling' Pandemic Toll: Students Who've Fallen Off The Grid | 89.3 KPCC

glen brown: Of course, teachers are considering quitting because of the pandemic

glen brown: Of course, teachers are considering quitting because of the pandemic

Of course, teachers are considering quitting because of the pandemic

"The coronavirus pandemic has put significant pressure on America’s teachers. Some have been asked to weigh risks to their personal health and teach in person. Some have been asked to teach from behind computer screens and perfect distance learning. Many have been asked to do both. These pressures are taking a toll on teachers across the country. 

"According to a new report, 77% of educators are working more today than a year ago; 60% enjoy their job less, and 59% do not feel secure in their school district’s health and safety precautions. Roughly 27% say they are considering leaving their job, retiring early or taking a leave of absence because of the pandemic.

"Horace Mann Educators Corporation surveyed 1,240 U.S. educators from K-12 public schools for the report. 'Before the pandemic, large numbers of U.S. educators were already leaving the profession due to the financial pressure the job puts on their lives. Then COVID-19 came along.'

"Richard Milner, professor of education at Vanderbilt University says these figures do not surprise him.  'In fact, I suspect those numbers will probably increase over time,' he says. 'Many teachers are barely keeping their heads above water and we don’t know how much longer we’re going to be in this space.'

"Teachers have long raised concerns about the difficult financial circumstances that educators often face. Over the past several years, tens of thousands of teachers have gone on strike for improved pay and school funding.

"These financial concerns are also highlighted in the Horace Mann report: CONTINUE READING: glen brown: Of course, teachers are considering quitting because of the pandemic

Online proctoring services pose privacy concerns for remote learning - Vox

Online proctoring services pose privacy concerns for remote learning - Vox

How teachers [sic] are sacrificing student privacy to stop cheating

Surveillance software for remote learning is drawing criticism from privacy advocates and lawmakers.

As the fall semester began at the University of Nevada, Reno, psychology professor Mark Lescroart faced an increasingly common dilemma for teachers: How to prevent his newly remote students from cheating on the quizzes and exams he’d designed to be taken in class with supervision.

“I have been uncomfortable with the idea that cheating is pretty easy when you’re online,” Lescroart told Recode in October.

One possible solution his university provided was Proctorio, an online proctoring service that uses machine learning. But Lescroart didn’t like the prospect of third-party software recording and analyzing his students in their homes. Ultimately, he decided that violating their privacy was worse than leaving a potential cheater uncaught.

But many teachers around the country have come to a different conclusion. As online education has become the norm in the Covid-19 pandemic, they’ve opted to use services like Proctorio. The services have ignited controversy, too. Privacy advocates hate them, and students have protested, starting petitions and accusing the services of being invasive, discriminatory, and inaccurate.

In December, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) accused five online test proctoring services, including Proctorio, of unfair and deceptive trade practices in a complaint filed with the Office of the Attorney General of the District of Columbia. EPIC also informed the five companies that it is preparing to file a lawsuit unless they change their practices. Several US senators have also recently written to the companies producing these tools to request more information about privacy, bias, and accessibility concerns raised by their tools.

Some educators have spoken out against this tech or, like Lescroart, have opted not to use it. But for the most part, the schools that use the software haven’t budged, citing the importance of maintaining academic integrity.

“All these things are kind of predicated on a relationship where academic dishonesty is CONTINUE READING: Online proctoring services pose privacy concerns for remote learning - Vox

How students should be protected from surveillance during remote learning | Parent Coalition for Student Privacy

How students should be protected from surveillance during remote learning | Parent Coalition for Student Privacy

HOW STUDENTS SHOULD BE PROTECTED FROM SURVEILLANCE DURING REMOTE LEARNING

December 2020

Endorsed by Access Living, ACLU of Illinois, Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, Children’s Screen Time Action Network, Civitas ChildLaw Center, Hartlieb & Horste, LLC, Illinois Families for Public Schools, Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, Raise Your Hand for Illinois Public EducationDownloadable as a Full document | or a one-page Summary

Many US public schools have been operating remotely since March, either full-time or part-time as a result of the Covid pandemic.  And with infection rates steeply increasing in the US, the timing of any return to fully in-person schooling remains uncertain.

The use of technology was widespread even before this spring. Now its use is nearly universal. But tech use should not impinge on students’ right to privacy and access to schooling.

In a recent national survey, 60% of educators said students would face negative consequences for having cameras off.   However, students should never be forced to choose between maintaining their privacy and receiving an education .  Moreover, surveillance does not equal safety.

Surveillance can be especially stressful for disadvantaged students, CONTINUE READING: How students should be protected from surveillance during remote learning | Parent Coalition for Student Privacy

Students accused of truancy when they didn’t turn in their work

Students accused of truancy when they didn’t turn in their work

They didn’t turn in their work for remote school. Their parents were threatened with courts and fines

After their kids experienced tech glitches or turned off cameras during online learning, these families were accused of truancy and received legal threats

Hayden, 12, had been having panic attacks about school even before a letter arrived at his home last month, threatening legal action for his alleged absences from distance learning. 

The sixth grader has been attending online class from his home outside Austin, Texas, since August, and having difficulties adjusting. When his grades dropped, he started having intense bouts of anxiety, working himself up until he cried so hard he could barely catch his breath. He wailed that he hated himself and wished he could do better in school.

When the letter arrived from Round Rock School District in November, saying that legal charges punishable by fines or court action could be brought against his mother for his absences, Hayden spiraled into a dayslong episode, says his mother Holly Barentine. He started crying even before they finished reading the letter, disclosing fears about worst-case scenarios that he would fail his classes. When he went to stay the night at his dad’s house, the crying continued. His father emailed Barentine, expressing concern for their son’s well-being.

Hayden, a sixth-grader, hadn’t actually been missing online school. However, his school district only counts kids present in some classes if they both show up and submit their homework for the day. Some of Hayden’s homework hadn’t been reaching his teachers due to apparent technological glitches on the school’s online platform, or in some cases because he hadn’t handed it in ― an oversight he didn’t expect to be met with potential legal action. 

Around the country, school districts are subject to state truancy laws and regulations. However, as the coronavirus pandemic has turned schools upside down and put most learning online, some of these rules are CONTINUE READING: Students accused of truancy when they didn’t turn in their work

Will Pandemic Changes in Schooling Be Temporary or Permanent? | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Will Pandemic Changes in Schooling Be Temporary or Permanent? | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Will Pandemic Changes in Schooling Be Temporary or Permanent?

“As Customers Move on Line, Shopping Is Forever Changed,” a New York Times article announced. For the holiday season, Macy’s department stores in a few states have closed their doors to in-person shopping and become fulfillment centers for online shoppers.

Jeff Gennette, Macy’s chief executive, said the dark stores are part of an experiment as the company responds to customers buying more online and demanding ever-faster shipping for free. But the conversion of a department store into a fulfillment center, even temporarily, reflects how retailers are succumbing to the dominance of e-commerce and scrambling to salvage increasingly irrelevant physical shopping space.

The U.S. continues in the throes of a three-decade school reform movement in which business and civic leaders have pressed schools to be more efficient in operations and more effective in raising test scores, high school graduation rates, and college admissions–the “bottom line” for tax-supported public schooling in the U.S. Will brick-and-mortar schools succumb to online instruction as the major form of schooling as Macy’s and other department stores shift to online shopping?

I don’t think so.

Let’s count the changes that have occurred in organization, curriculum, CONTINUE READING: Will Pandemic Changes in Schooling Be Temporary or Permanent? | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

ANATOMY OF A DECISION – Dad Gone Wild

ANATOMY OF A DECISION – Dad Gone Wild

ANATOMY OF A DECISION

“Choose not to look, however, at your own peril. The owner of an old house knows that whatever you are ignoring will never go away. Whatever is lurking will fester whether you choose to look or not. Ignorance is no protection from the consequences of inaction. Whatever you are wishing away will gnaw at you until you gather the courage to face what you would rather not see.”
― Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

 

Like most MNPS’s parents, the wife and I spent the week trying to decide what our choice for schooling would look like starting after the first of the year. Would we return to in-person instruction or remain virtual.

Nashville in-person instruction is scheduled to begin on January 7th for those opting in. Based on rising COVID-19 cases – the district’s recently revealed measurement tool shows the city currently at 9.3 out of 10 – it’s hard to imagine that deadline actually being honored. But, the measurement tool doesn’t factor in political winds, so there is no guarantee.

We are one of the fortunate families in that this year has been pretty similar to past years. The kids haven’t exactly embraced remote learning, but they are slowly mastering it. Along the way improving important life skills like time management, self-advocacy, and technical mastery while becoming more self-sufficient. I continually see CONTINUE READING: ANATOMY OF A DECISION – Dad Gone Wild