By Amanda Menas
It’s time to say, “Bye, bye, Betsy!” and hello to a new education secretary. As President-elect Joe Biden announces his cabinet picks and senior officials, educators are speaking out about what they want to see in DeVos’ replacement. Betsy DeVos served up a four-year nightmare for students and educators by ignoring or attacking public schools to promote private school voucher schemes that siphon money away from public schools. She also removed protections for sexual assault survivors, LGBTQ+ students and educators, and communities of color.
Educators have had enough, and helped get out the vote to elect a president who supports public schools. The Biden administration aims to ensure that all students, regardless of where they live, have access to a high quality education by supporting educators and investing in higher education.
One great step toward that goal would be the appointment of a highly qualified Secretary of Education, who has experience teaching in a public school.
Educators already have a colleague in the White House: First Lady Jill Biden, who is an NEA member. Over this past year, she has made sure educators were heard, hosting conversations around the digital divide, hybrid learning, and other challenges heightened by the COVID-19 pandemic. She even plans to continue working as a community college professor while in the White House.
Joe Biden has credited his wife Jill with helping him understand the realities of the teaching profession and what public schools need to succeed.
Here are what fellow educators want a Biden-Harris Secretary of Education to know about their priorities:
When a Biden victory in the 2020 presidential election became certain, supporters of public education gleefully took to social media to say good riddance to U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. DeVos came into office with an agenda to further the privatization of public education by expanding charter schools and by encouraging families to opt out of public schools by any means possible.
During her tenure, she effectively used her bully pulpit to cheer on efforts by Republican state lawmakers to expand various forms of voucher programs that give parents public money to homeschool their children or send them to private schools.
She awarded many of the nation’s largest charter school chains with millions in federal funding, and she used the pandemic as an opportunity to redirect emergency funds for public schools to private schools and internet-based instruction—all the while refusing to even visit struggling public schools.
Narrowing the conversation to ideological issues backed by outsiders risks crowding out more research-based approaches to school improvement.
Biden is expected to oppose voucher programs and limit the growth of the charter school industry. But despite the promising prospect of a transition from DeVos to a Biden administration, progressive public school advocates can’t afford to overlook a threat to democratically governed schools that preceded DeVos and will continue when she is long gone.
In midsized metropolitan areas like Indianapolis and Stockton, California, parents, teachers, and public school advocates warn of huge sums of money coming from outside their communities to influence local politics and elections, and bankroll school board candidates who support school privatization. CONTINUE READING: School Board Elections Swamped by Outside Money - LA Progressive
Following the Thanksgiving holiday, there’s a lot to catch up on in the Oklahoma education world, including Epic Charter Schools settling a 2019 legal claim and Gov. Kevin Stitt replacing a State Board of Education member.
Catch up on the Oklahoma education news you need with this weekly collection of headlines from reporters around the state.
Gov. Kevin Stitt abruptly replaced one of his own appointees to the Oklahoma State Board of Education this week.
The Tulsa World’s Andrea Eger reported Friday that Kurt Bollenbach of Kingfisher, whom Stitt appointed in April 2019 to serve a four-year term, was removed from the board and replaced by Enid resident Melissa Crabtree.
Bollenbach recently supported a high-profile move to recoup more than $11 million in state funding from Epic Charter Schools. He also supported a failed attempt to mandate CONTINUE READING: The week in coveducation: Stitt removes State Board of Education member
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — President-elect Joe Biden’s Cabinet has been taking form in recent days and the Democrat is expected to announce his first round of personnel choice on Tuesday.
Biden has already picked Ron Klain as White House Chief of Staff and Janet Yellen as Treaury Secretary. He is also expected to pick Antony Blinken as Secretary of State, according to reports.
Another potential cabinet pick for the Biden administration is a name New Yorkers know well: the former head of the United Federation of Teachers Randi Weingarten.
She now leads the American Federation of Teachers and her name has been floated for Education Secretary.
WCBS 880’s Steve Burns spoke with Weingarten recently to ask how she feels about the possible job and her feelings around Biden himself.
Q: What was your experience like with [Biden] when he was a part of the Obama administration?
“You know, it's not a secret that the Obama administration had a different view of schooling than we did at times and they were very focused on a top-down accountability model. They were real believers in public schooling but, they also believed that the market could it do far more than, frankly, we think it can. You have to actually meet the needs of all children, not hope that an accountability system will shake everybody up. And what I have found was that Joe Biden, during that period of time, really was our go-to person. He would deeply listen – very, very, very loyal to the president, as the vice president has to be, but he would find ways to not just listen, but to find a mechanism by which we could really try to solve problems.”
Q: And the First Lady-to-be has to be a point of pride for you as well. What kind of influence do you think she, as someone who wants to continue teaching in the White House even, what kind of influence do you think she could have on the policy here?
“I think it's revolutionary and I think that will have a real renaissance in terms of public education. She has the lived experience of what it takes to meet the needs CONTINUE READING: Ex-NYC teacher’s union boss could be Biden’s Education chief
Historically, attacks on educators were confined to attacks on “liberal” professors. Not any more!
Photo Credit: Posted by Gen Z Conservative
“As Trump clearly signals an escalated attack on teachers, remember that these right wing groups from Turning Point USA to Campus Watch are not only targeting professors but high school teachers. He has blown his dog whistles, so watch out for the vicious dogs now.” (First Posted by Hyung Nam on Facebook 10/31/18. Updated:7/5/2020 )
Attacks on educators— and the whole public education system —will continue. Raging since the 80’s, this modern-day battle for control of education will not simply end with the election of a new president. Any single president is not integral to success of the plan. The plan requires organized control of the rules of governing.
Founded in 2012, Turning Point USA (TPUSA) is led by Charlie Kirk, an affluent young man that sees no need to continue his own formal education. Partnering with the Leadership Institute, the multi-million dollar TPUSA offers activism grants for conservative students around the country.
“Tax filings show the organization is funded by many of the same groups that CONTINUE READING: Attacks on Educators | The Crucial Voice of the PeopleThe Crucial Voice of the People
The New York Times published an article recently by Natasha Singer–one of the best reporters on education issues in the Times–about the toll that the pandemic is taking on teachers. An extraordinary number say the burden of teaching remote classes and in-person classes is not sustainable. Large numbers of teachers are planning to retire, or have retired.
All this fall, as vehement debates have raged over whether to reopen schools for in-person instruction, teachers have been at the center — often vilified for challenging it, sometimes warmly praised for trying to make it work. But the debate has often missed just how thoroughly the coronavirus has upended learning in the country’s 130,000 schools, and glossed over how emotionally and physically draining pandemic teaching has become for the educators themselves.
In more than a dozen interviews, educators described the immense challenges, and exhaustion, they have faced trying to provide normal schooling for students in CONTINUE READING: Teacher Burnout in the Pandemic | Diane Ravitch's blog
“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.”
― 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
I was initially against the referendum. I know the district needs money, but a referendum ties its hands with what it could do. A millage increase could be used for anything, including salaries, and as veteran teachers are about to get @*#$ed, we see how important having flexibility would be. I was told by a district official to get me to support it that when the referendum passed, the district would have some more flexibility to help with pay; well, friends, where is it?
We heard it over and over again, the district is spending 500k a month on emergency maintenance from the general fund. Well, that time is rapidly coming to an end, and I would love to know where that money is going to go because it doesn't look like salaries. If the past is prologue, we can expect to see some more high-priced suits and a new computer program or too.
Look, I get it, the state sucks, but that doesn't mean the world comes to an end. It means you get creative.
What about experience and longevity bonuses. Bonuses aren't the same as salary, but they do put money in people's pockets. What about increase work time to 8 hours for veterans and letting them work that last 2/3 hours remotely at their discretion, an idea a friend on FB came up with. Those teachers are already working it and now let's just get them paid for it. This wouldn't be a raise, but it would put more pay in people's pockets. CONTINUE READING: Education Matters: DCPS needs to let people know where that extra 500k a month is going.
Individuals writing about what they learned from former teachers is common. It is uncommon, however, for teachers to write about what they learned from former students. I do not mean those many instances when tech-savvy students helped teachers solve hardware and software problems. I mean the kinds of learning that doesn’t come from only books but from the questions students ask and the thoughts they express in and out of class.
I learned from Carol Schneider, a 16 year-old junior in my U.S. history class at Glenville High School in Cleveland. The year was 1958. I was a 23 year old teacher beginning my third year of teaching at Glenville. I relished teaching six classes of U.S. history a day in this largely black high school. By the end of the day, I was bone-tired (yeah, I shudder to think what teaching four straight classes, a break for lunch, then two more in the afternoon would do to my body and mind now). I went to Western Reserve University (soon to become Case Western Reserve) two evenings a week to get my Masters degree in history and had begun to prepare classroom lessons in what was then called Negro history. I created readings to supplement the history textbook that said little about slavery, Reconstruction, and Jim Crowism. Of my six classes, three responded very well to the readings (do any readers remember the purple-stained hands that came from using the school’s “spirit master” or ditto machine?). The other three classes, well, they were much less enthused. Carol was in one of those responsive classes.
Carol who came from a working class family steeped in left-wing political CONTINUE READING: What I Learned from a High School Student | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice
For many teachers, large classes present problems which adversely affect their practice and their pupils’ learning. This is what our surveys show. But researchers and commentators often have a different view. For them the class size debate can be summed up with the question: does class size affect pupil attainment?
As we show in our new open access book, ‘Rethinking Class Size: The Complex Story of Impact on Teaching and Learning’, published by UCL Press this week, researchers (contrary to a practitioner view) commonly find that the statistical association between class size and attainment is not marked and so conclude that class size does not matter much. This has led some to even suggest that we could raise class sizes, and instead invest savings in professional development for teachers. Currently, in the wake of the Covid pandemic and teacher absences, there are reports of some schools being forced to create supersized classes of 60 pupils.
The view that class size is not important is probably the predominant view among researchers and policy makers, and so they may be relatively relaxed about increases in class size. We therefore need – more than ever – good quality evidence on class size effects, but in our view much research is limited and leads to misleading conclusions.
We identify three problems. One issue is that the exclusive concern with the association between class size and academic attainment in first language and mathematics is limited. It may be that teachers in large classes prioritise these subjects (and this might help account for the relatively small difference in pupil academic outcomes, compared to smaller classes) but this raises a question about the possible way large classes affect other pupil ‘outcomes’, e.g., creativity, independent and critical thinking and motivation to learn. There is very little research that addresses this question.
Second, class size is not an ‘intervention’ like the distinct pedagogical approaches with which it CONTINUE READING: UCL Institute of Education: Does Class Size Matter? We’ll Get a Better Answer If We Rethink the Debate | National Education Policy Center
