It's Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... A VERY BUSY DAY | The latest news and resources in education since 2007

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007

It's Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... A VERY BUSY DAY

The latest news and resources in education since 2007

REL Answered My Ed Research Question & They Can Answer Yours, Too

by Larry Ferlazzo / 12h

terimakasih0 / Pixabay Regional Educational Laboratories are publicly-supported organizations that do educational research and, as I’ve shared in the past, will do free research for educators who have specific questions (see Send An Ed-Related Research Question To One Of The Regional Educational Laboratories – And They’ll Answer It! ). I’ve also previously-shared some research they did for me on

Ed Tech Digest

by Larry Ferlazzo / 12h

Eight years ago, in another somewhat futile attempt to reduce the backlog of resources I want to share, I began this occasional “” post where I share three or four links I think are particularly useful and related to…ed tech, including some Web 2.0 apps. You might also be interested in THE BEST ED TECH RESOURCES OF 2019 – PART TWO , as well as checking out all my edtech resources . Here are this

New National Geographic Video: “Volcanoes 101”

21by Larry Ferlazzo / 12h

Pexels / Pixabay I’m adding this new video from National Geographic to The Best Sites For Learning About Volcanoes :

New Video From NASA: “An Introduction to the James Webb Space Telescope Mission”

by Larry Ferlazzo / 12h

WikiImages / Pixabay NASA is supposed to launch the often-delayed James Webb Space Telescope in about a year, and released this video today talking about it. You might also be interested in what it’s replacing at The Best Sites To Learn About The Hubble Telescope .

A Look Back: “What Does It Mean To Be A Good Citizen?”

by Larry Ferlazzo / 12h

I thought that new – and veteran – readers might find it interesting if I began sharing my best posts from over the years. You can see the entire collection here . One of my New York Times posts for English Language Learners several years ago was titled “What Does It Mean To Be A Good Citizen?” (note that The Times is having difficulties with older links and if you get an error message, just refr

Three Videos Explaining What Might Happen In The Impeachment Trial

by Larry Ferlazzo / 14h

Clker-Free-Vector-Images / Pixabay Here are new additions to THE BEST TEACHING & LEARNING RESOURCES ABOUT IMPEACHMENT :

BBC Two-Minute “Explainer” Series

by Larry Ferlazzo / 1d

TheOtherKev / Pixabay I have links to a number of short video “Explainer” series from various news outlets at The Best Online “Explainer” Tools For Current Events, including ones from the BBC. Today, though, I discovered what appears to be yet another series that the BBC does – ones whose descriptions end with the words “…in two minutes.” You can find them all here . This is their latest:

A Look Back: “Getting students to engage — not just comply”

by Larry Ferlazzo / 1d

I thought that new – and veteran – readers might find it interesting if I began sharing my best posts from over the years. You can see the entire collection here . Getting students to engage — not just comply is a piece I wrote for The 

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007

An Under-The-Radar SCOTUS Case Could Obliterate The Line Between Church And State | HuffPost

An Under-The-Radar SCOTUS Case Could Obliterate The Line Between Church And State | HuffPost

An Under-The-Radar SCOTUS Case Could Obliterate The Line Between Church And State
A Montana education program at the center of a Supreme Court case was filled with anti-LGBTQ schools.

Nearly a third of the schools that participated in a Montana education tax credit program at the center of a controversial Supreme Court case maintain explicitly anti-LGBTQ policies, according to a HuffPost analysis. 

The program at the center of Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, which the Supreme Court is hearing later this month, provided tax credits to individuals and corporations that donated to private school scholarship groups. However, because Montana has a constitutional provision barring public dollars for religious schools ― and nearly all of the schools participating in the program were religious ― the Montana Supreme Court found the program unconstitutional and shut the program down in 2018.

Now, after the plaintiffs appealed, the case is before the Supreme Court, with public school advocates worrying the conservative-leaning court could call into question whether states are allowed to bar public funding for religious entities. But the issue isn’t just one of church and state or education funding, it is also about public dollars going to institutions with discriminatory practices, they say.  

A previous HuffPost investigation found that at least 14% of private religious schools around the country that receive public funding through programs like the one in Montana actively discriminate against LGBTQ staff and employees. In the Montana tax credit program, these numbers were even higher. 

Anti-LGBTQ Policies On The Books

Of the 13 schools that had signed up to participate in the Montana tax credit program as of 2018, when the program was shut down, four have anti-LGBTQ policies. One of these schools, Stillwater Christian School, is attended by the children of the plaintiffs in the case, who say they would benefit from the program.  

• Stillwater Christian School in Kalispell, Montana, says in its handbook that “God CONTINUE READING: An Under-The-Radar SCOTUS Case Could Obliterate The Line Between Church And State | HuffPost

CURMUDGUCATION: National Parents Union: Do You Smell Astroturf

CURMUDGUCATION: National Parents Union: Do You Smell Astroturf

National Parents Union: Do You Smell Astroturf

This week Lauren Camera treated us to a warm, fuzzy piece of launch PR for the National Parents Union; the US News editor announces right in the headline that this group is here to challenge the teachers unions, but in a totally organic grass roots kind of way.

Two Latina mothers from opposite sides of the country have joined forces to form their own union to disrupt an education agenda they say is pushing out parents like them and, more importantly, leaving behind poor students and students of color.

Well, maybe not exactly like them, because these two moms have a pretty hefty record in the ed reform world.

It's always a good idea to look underneath

Weirdly enough, the National Parents Union already exists-- well, a group with that same name. They were/are a coalition of state groups in New York City, Connecticut, Texas, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, plus Moms for School Choice, which gives you an idea of what they were up to. They even had a gathering in 2013 featuring such notables as Howard Fuller, Steve Perry, and the California state director of DFER, the hedge funder-founded group intended to nudge the Democrats in the direction of school choice. However, the New York chapter was part of the push to close down InBloom and stop then-commissioner John King from cashing in on student data.

In fact, when invited to join as a founder of the new group, Gwen Samuel, a founding member of CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: National Parents Union: Do You Smell Astroturf

"We Are All Reformers" (Part 3) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

"We Are All Reformers" (Part 3) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

"We Are All Reformers" (Part 3)

So what do I remember of those years in the three Pittsburgh Public Schools I attended? Two non-spoiler alerts to readers about what I experienced in elementary and secondary schools.

The first alert is my fallible memory. Bits and pieces of being in school come back to me albeit in blurred, inexact ways. But those memories persist. Nonetheless, it is not a spoiler to alert readers to the inherent flaws of trying to remember what occurred decades ago. As the Italian writer Primo Levi put it:

Human memory is a marvelous but fallacious instrument. The memories which lie within us are not carved in stone; not only do they tend to become erased as the years go by, but often they change, or even increase by incorporating extraneous features.

The second alert is that going to school is only one part of a child’s life—albeit an important one. Multiply 180 days (average number of days the 50 states require school to be in session over past few decades) by the hours that most U.S. students spend in school  (6.5 hours), the total is nearly 1200 hours a year in school.

Consider further that in such a year the child and youth is awake nearly 6,000 hours (subtracting 8 hours of nightly sleep). In other words, in each year, about 80 percent of a student’s life is spent outside of school. This is a round-about CONTINUE READING: "We Are All Reformers" (Part 3) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

AstroTurf Alert: National Parents Union is Thinly Veiled Union Busting Backed by Billionaire Cash | gadflyonthewallblog

AstroTurf Alert: National Parents Union is Thinly Veiled Union Busting Backed by Billionaire Cash | gadflyonthewallblog

AstroTurf Alert: National Parents Union is Thinly Veiled Union Busting Backed by Billionaire Cash

How do you do something disgusting without hurting your image?

If you’re the Walton Family, you hide behind a mask.

That’s what their latest AstroTurf front group is – the so-called National Parents Union (NPU).

It’s a way to bust teachers unions, destroy public schools and profit off of students behind the guise of a friendly parents organization.

Oh, it’s all funded with oodles of cash from the Walton family and other billionaires but they get to pretend to be nothing but supporters on the sidelines.

The people who bust unions before most of us have even had breakfast yet claim they have nothing to do with this anti-union movement. It is all the parents doing. The Walmart heirs just put up the money to let these parents live their dream of union free schools – as if schools where educators have no rights or intellectual CONTINUE READING: AstroTurf Alert: National Parents Union is Thinly Veiled Union Busting Backed by Billionaire Cash | gadflyonthewallblog

NYC Educator: UFT Delegate Assembly January 15, 2020--The Census, the UFT Legal Plan, and the Chapter Leader Network

NYC Educator: UFT Delegate Assembly January 15, 2020--The Census, the UFT Legal Plan, and the Chapter Leader Network

UFT Delegate Assembly January 15, 2020--The Census, the UFT Legal Plan, and the Chapter Leader Network

UFT President Michael Mulgrew welcomes us. 4:34

Speaks of support for chapter leaders and delegates. Says chapter leader most important union position, as members identify with CL. Says work from focus group will go live February 3rd to several districts. Will roll out over week. There will be a chapter leader community on internet and CLs can ask questions. There is a knowledge base that UFT phone support uses, and from February on CLs will have access to it. This knowledge base evolves as new questions are asked.

There are issues with incorrect answers to questions and knowledge base can help cut down on that. Will be a CL chat room. There will be rules, and legalities, not for political use inside and outside of the union. Urges against bad language.

There will be a my school section with basic info. There will be a repository of school info so new CLs can see it, including SBOs and grievances. Union looking for other ways to use it, new applications, and urges constant back and forth. CL handbooks may be put online.

Looking to have a high percentage of registration for this. Tying this to a project. Everyone will get a letter signed my Mulgrew, Carranza and president of CSA saying that math and ELA must have a plan tied to new standards. Test scores aren’t everything, but we don’t want a dramatic drop either. UFT will do inventory, and CLs will have to log on and provide info on what materials school uses. Union will provide support.

Majority of existing materials are not aligned to new standards. Materials can be modified to do so. Will have to be evaluated by committees, which will approve or not.

Phase two will be lists of approved materials. Schools can choose from these materials and curriculum and programs will be provided by DOE. Each school district in NYC, and each CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: UFT Delegate Assembly January 15, 2020--The Census, the UFT Legal Plan, and the Chapter Leader Network

Choosing Democracy: Help Qualify Schools Initiative

Choosing Democracy: Help Qualify Schools Initiative

Help Qualify Schools Initiative

Collect Signatures Now.  
mlares1972@gmail.com

Choosing Democracy: Help Qualify Schools Initiative

‘Are You Thinking About Suicide?’ - NEA Today

‘Are You Thinking About Suicide?’ - NEA Today

‘Are You Thinking About Suicide?’

By Mary Ellen Flannery


“In the last nine days, in just this area, we’ve lost another three students to suicide,” said Tim Warnock, a physical education teacher in the suburbs of Phoenix, after a series of student deaths in October 2019.

The numbers are scary and sad, but not shocking to Warnock or his wife Lorie, a high school English teacher of 28 years. The couple knows all too well that Arizona’s teen suicide rate has increased 25 percent over the past three years. “There is a suicide epidemic,” says Lorie Warnock flatly.

An incredible one in six high school students reported “seriously considering suicide” in 2017, including nearly one in four girls and almost half of gay, lesbian, and bisexual students, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data. At this rate, every high school teacher—and many educators of younger students—knows a student considering suicide. But these young people can be kept safe, experts say.

This topic can be really overwhelming. It can feel like, ‘Oh my gosh, is there nothing we can do as a society?’” says psychologist Lindsey Giller of the Child Mind Institute. “There are things we can do. Suicides can be prevented.”

Recognizing risk factors is one thing. What’s more important is knowing to pull up a chair and ask, “Are you thinking of suicide?”—and when you hear yes, knowing where to take CONTINUE READING: ‘Are You Thinking About Suicide?’ - NEA Today

Paul Horton: Technology and Unemployment: A Lesson - Living in Dialogue

Technology and Unemployment: A Lesson - Living in Dialogue

Technology and Unemployment: A Lesson

By Paul Horton.

It is clear to most critics and economic commentators that digital technology is displacing work and cheapening much of the work that remains.  Amazon is likely to replace many warehouse jobs with robots once robots are created that can grasp packages. The consulting firm McKinsey predicts that many retail jobs will be replaced by the digital market and home delivery in the next fifteen years.

Defenders of the new tech economy counter this commentary with the idea that when robots replace people, more programmers and technicians will be needed to create more robots. But many doubt that enough jobs will be created, and Marc Zuckerberg, for example, has begun to support the idea of a minimum earned income for those who are unemployed or underemployed as a result of technological unemployment.

Jaron Lanier and Jonathan Taplin are two of the critics of the tech sector’s assault on the middle man and the middle class.  Both Lanier and Taplin are especially critical of the squeezing of what might be called the “creative class” of knowledge workers and artists who had been heretofore seen as the harbingers of innovation within a postindustrial society. For both, economies of scale created by digital platforms controlled by the likes of Amazon, Facebook, and YouTube are driving down the value of the work produced by artists, musicians, and writers.

Not only is all work threatened by robotics, but creative work that is produced outside of the corporate technosphere, work that is associated with creative innovation, is cheapened or bought and coopted at lower value.

As you read the following, think about whether you agree or disagree with Lanier and Taplin. Do they exaggerate in your opinion?

From Jaron Lanier: Who Owns the Future? (2003):

As the information economy arises, the old specter of a thousand science fiction CONTINUE READING: Technology and Unemployment: A Lesson - Living in Dialogue

News about arguments in our class size lawsuit & WEDNESDAY’s radio show | Class Size Matters

News about arguments in our class size lawsuit & tomorrow’s radio show | Class Size Matters | A clearinghouse for information on class size & the proven benefits of smaller classes

News about arguments in our class size lawsuit & WEDNESDAY’s radio show

Dear friend,

1.Yesterday, the class size lawsuit against the city and the state that we filed more than a year ago, along with nine NYC parents from every borough and the Alliance for Quality Education, was heard in the Appellate court in Albany. Our pro bono attorney, Wendy Lecker of the Education Law Center, did a fabulous job, those of us in the courtroom agreed, which included two of the parent plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Litza Stark of Queens and Johanna Garcia of Manhattan, along with Johanna’s daughter Hailey, back from her first semester in college. NY Senator Robert Jackson, who spearheaded the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case, was also there to support us, as well as retired teacher Norm Scott.  A photo of all of us after the arguments were heard is on our blog, taken by Norm outside the courtroom in Albany.

A panel of five judges listened intently as Wendy related how the NYC Department of Education had violated the state Contracts for Excellence law passed in 2007, which specifically mandates that the city lower average class sizes in all grades over five years – but instead, class sizes had sharply increased so that they are now far larger than they were when the law was first passed. In response, the attorneys for the city and state tried to argue that since the five years outlined in the original law had lapsed, there was no longer any requirement for the DOE to lower class size.

Yet as Wendy pointed out, the state legislature renews and reauthorizes the C4E law every year, including its class size mandate, with no specific end point for when the city’s obligations would cease; thus there is indeed a continuing legal requirement on the part of the DOE.

The attorneys for the city and state also claimed that the court had no jurisdiction over this matter, but that the Commissioner of Education had the sole power to determine whether the city had adequately complied with the law. Yet as Wendy counter-argued, the court indeed has the authority to decide whether the Commissioner has accurately interpreted the language of the statute, and the court’s authority to do so as regards this specific law was re-confirmed by the Appellate court in 2011. By essentially nullifying the city’s class size obligation under the law, she said, the Commissioner had essentially usurped the legislature’s role.

Though no one can predict how the court will rule, those of us in the room felt that Wendy’s arguments were far stronger than those of the city or state attorneys, who did not even try to dispute the facts in the case: that class sizes had increased sharply since 2007, and this had unfairly deprived NYC students of an quality education.

In any event, the Appellate Court will likely not issue any decision until this summer at least, and we are not content to sit back and wait for this to occur. Instead, we are urging the Mayor and the Council to put a down payment on the quality of our children’s education by allocating $100 million for class size reduction, starting next year, first in the early grades and in struggling schools. More on how you can help with this soon.

2. Also yesterday, the Board of Regents approved the final regulations for our NY state student privacy law, originally passed in 2014. We have won the battle to ensure that as the law proscribes, NO school vendors can sell personal student data.

Tomorrow on our WBAI radio show, “Talk out of School”, which airs every Wed. at 10 AM, we will interview Cassie Creswell, a privacy advocate in Chicago and Scott Drury, an attorney, about their federal class action lawsuit against the College Board for its continued practice of selling student data. The College Board makes an estimated $100 million per year from this practice, despite the fact that it violates the law in more than half of all states, including Illinois and NY. Then we will talk to Sen. Robert Jackson , about what we should expect from the NY Legislature this year in terms of education funding and accountability for charter schools.

You can also download the show afterwards here; or subscribe to it as a podcast on iTunes, Spotify or Google Play.

Thanks as always for your support,

Leonie Haimson
Executive Director
Class Size Matters
124 Waverly Pl.
New York, NY 10011
212-529-3539

News about arguments in our class size lawsuit & tomorrow’s radio show | Class Size Matters | A clearinghouse for information on class size & the proven benefits of smaller classes

CURMUDGUCATION: DeVos on Fox: Six Minute Baloney Digest (With Homelessness)

CURMUDGUCATION: DeVos on Fox: Six Minute Baloney Digest (With Homelessness)

DeVos on Fox: Six Minute Baloney Digest (With Homelessness)

Betsy DeVos went on Fox and Friends this week, the softest of soft interview destinations form members of this administration. If you want a quick six-minute sampler of her current talking points, you could do worse, but it you don't think you can take looking at the patented smile d'smarm, here are the highlights- and there are a couple of revealing moments here.

The segment is nominally titled "Combating the Homeless Crisis In Schools," and it starts with some b roll of homeless folks while noting that over 114,000 students in NYC were homeless last school year, which works out to about one in ten. "So what can be done to make sure disadvantaged kids have access to top quality education?"

Well, from "homeless" to "disadvantaged" is a bit of a leap, but it really doesn't matter, because we're never going to talk ab out this issue for the rest of the segment. It's time to introduce DeVos, whose smile is having even more trouble than usual making it all the way up to her eyes. After the intro, we re-present the question as "what more can be done to make sure that everyone gets access to quality educations" (yes, that's how he said it). The homeless have now vanished from the conversation.

deVos opens by invoking NAEP and citing made-up statistics. Two out of three eighth graders "can't read or do math at the level they should be able to" which is a meaningless statement-- "should be" according to whom-- but shows her CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: DeVos on Fox: Six Minute Baloney Digest (With Homelessness)

“Insect-Based Teacher Training, Part 2” | The Merrow Report

“Insect-Based Teacher Training, Part 2” | The Merrow Report

“Insect-Based Teacher Training, Part 2”

Last week in this space I took a poke or two at what I called “Insect-Based Teacher Training,” specifically the practice of wiring teachers so that remote observers can hear and see what they do in their classrooms.  What they call “Bug in the Ear training” enables experts to interrupt teachers and tell them what they are doing wrong. In theory, that allows teachers to improve on the spot.  You may remember that the expert I observed in action wasn’t particularly effective.

(Full disclosure: In last week’s essay I took a small liberty with the two veteran teachers whose opinions I cited: neither of them actually referenced ‘ants in underpants’ or ‘ticks on dicks.’   I owe my readers an apology because the teachers did not say that.  I made that up, just for the fun of it. 

Why would I do that?  Well, after so many years of reporting for public broadcasting, where the emphasis is on truth, making stuff up gives me a huge adrenalin rush.

However, everything else in that essay  is 100% accurate.  You can take that to the bank.)

But I digress. What I want you to know is the morning after “Insect-Based Teacher Training” was published, I received a call from the School Superintendent whose district I had visited.   He was upset about my portrayal of the process, saying that the observer had a bad day.  Moreover, he said, I had failed to grasp the subtle, CONTINUE READING: “Insect-Based Teacher Training, Part 2” | The Merrow Report