A patriotic education should include Black history

A patriotic education should include Black history

Here is what patriotic education should look like

resident Donald Trump recently announced his intention to create a 1776 Commission, charged with restoring patriotic, “pro-America” education to public schools.

Trump pointed to The New York Times’ 1619 Project, which explored the legacy of slavery in modern America and has been adopted by many districts across the country, as an example of framing America’s founding around “the principle of oppression, not freedom.”

The president fails to understand that acknowledging our shortcomings doesn’t mean perpetuating a story of oppression. We can admit our mistakes while also celebrating the heroes of our history — which must include Black history.

A truly patriotic education should inspire our students to reach their greatest potential — to lead movements, solve unsolvable problems, create new enterprises and fight for freedom. And to do that, we must build an education system that embraces Black history and cultures for the sake of all our children. 

A patriotic education should include the contribution of a Black doctor named Dr. Charles Drew, who developed techniques for preserving blood plasma — the very techniques that are showing promise in treatments for Covid-19 today. 

A patriotic education should include the story of  Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, the first doctor to perform open-heart surgery and a Black man who graduated from medical school just 18 years after the abolition of slavery. And it should include Gladys West, a Black mathematician whose work CONTINUE READING: A patriotic education should include Black history

U.S. Neglects Tomorrow | Live Long and Prosper

U.S. Neglects Tomorrow | Live Long and Prosper

U.S. Neglects Tomorrow

In Aesop’s tale of the ant and the grasshopper, the busy ant made preparations for the coming winter, while the flighty grasshopper played away the summer. When winter came, the ant was prepared with substantial food for the winter while the grasshopper was starving.

The United States seems determined to play the grasshopper when it comes to our future. We use up our energy without a thought of what will happen when it runs out — and fossil fuels, no matter what other arguments one might make about them — are a finite resource. We fill our landfills to bursting…and recycling is failing in its promise. We ignore the changing climate that is drying out the “nation’s breadbasket” and burning up California’s farmland. And, most important, we don’t seem concerned with preparing our future citizens and leaders, our children.

In 1989 Carl Sagan said,

…we have permitted the amount of poverty in children to increase. Before the end of this century, more than half the kids in America may be below the CONTINUE READING: U.S. Neglects Tomorrow | Live Long and Prosper

NEWS FROM THE CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

California Department of Education

NEWS FROM THE CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

COVID-19 Guidance in the Child Nutrition Programs

17h

Provides background information, policy waivers, guidance, claiming and reimbursements requirements, resources, FAQs, and state agency contacts for program sponsors operating the Child Nutrition Programs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

CNP COVID-19 Frequently Asked Questions

17h

Provides Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for program operators of the Child Nutrition Programs (CNP) during the COVID-19 pandemic.

CNP COVID-19 Policy Guidance

17h

Provides federal and state waivers and policy guidance for program operators of the Child Nutrition Programs (CNP) during the COVID-19 pandemic.

SSPI Announces Face Masks Donation by GM

23h

State Superintendent Tony Thurmond announces donation of 500,000 face masks by General Motors to aid safe school reopening.

California Department of Education

Cartoons on Parenting During the Pandemic | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Cartoons on Parenting During the Pandemic | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Cartoons on Parenting During the Pandemic

If you are like me, you know family members and close friends who have had to school their children (and grandchildren) since March. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 93 percent of people living in households with school-age children reported some form of distance instruction is occurring. The pandemic has tattooed remote instruction onto the bodies of millions of students and their families. No one asked for the tattoo but there it is.

I have collected cartoons about parenting during the pandemic. Enjoy!

MORE CARTOONS: 

Cartoons on Parenting During the Pandemic | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Oakland, California: Elect a Slate of Pro-Public School Candidates! | Diane Ravitch's blog

Oakland, California: Elect a Slate of Pro-Public School Candidates! | Diane Ravitch's blog

Oakland, California: Elect a Slate of Pro-Public School Candidates!

Oakland has been a playground for the privatization industry for many years. The state took control of Oakland in 2003 because of a budget deficit and removed its school board. Billionaire Eli Broad selected its new superintendent (and his successors), and reformers took charge, opening charter schools and promising revolutionary improvement. Their goal was to turn the public schools into a “free market.” Five years after the takeover, Oakland had 32 charter schools and 111 regular public schools. Needless to add, there was no dramatic improvement in Oakland. Today, Oakland has the highest proportion of students in charter schools of any city in California.

Tom Ultican wrote here about the saturation of Oakland by billionaire privatizers, who just can’t leave the district alone and are determined to pour in more resources until there are no public schools left.

Four advocates of public schools are running for the school board.

They are: Sam Davis (District 1), VanCedric Williams (District 3), Mike Hutchinson (District 5) and Victor Valerio (District 7).

Tom Ultican posed this question: Oakland, California: Elect a Slate of Pro-Public School Candidates! | Diane Ravitch's blog

NYC Educator: Why Have a Chancellor When a Rubber Stamp Will Do?

NYC Educator: Why Have a Chancellor When a Rubber Stamp Will Do?

Why Have a Chancellor When a Rubber Stamp Will Do?

Chancellor Richard Carranza presided over keeping schools open way too long, and dozens of UFT members now lie dead as a result. We are doing mostly remote learning now because it's simply not safe to place everyone in schools. Now, in an attempt to appear he actually accomplished something rather than failed miserably and inexcusably, Carranza wants to dump gifted and talented students into remote learning even post-apocalypse. 

Evidently, high achieving students don't need guidance from live humans in Carranza's fantasy world. Remote learning is something we developed to deal with an emergency, not a Carranza innovation. When we were pushed into this back in March, Carranza offered us no support whatsoever. He dragged us into buildings for three days and told our administrators, none of whom had or have experience with remote learning to somehow train us. 

Furthermore, rather than prepare or support us for this school year, he pursued an outlandish hybrid program that depended on 25-50% more teacher than actually exist. The only possible good that could come out of this would be a buyout, so that the new teachers aren't discarded when and if this emergency passes us by. Remote learning is a stopgap, and Carranza has failed to support it, us, or our students. For him to embrace it now is the height of hypocrisy.

As bad as he is, he's got nothing on the subordinates in "legal." This is a group of lawyers Bloomberg put together to make sure principals could do any goshdarn thing they pleased. They sit around somewhere and tell principals to ignore the contract so that chapter leaders waste an enormous amount of time before finally winning grievances CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: Why Have a Chancellor When a Rubber Stamp Will Do?

Calling Joe Biden: You Promised to Cut Back Federal Testing Mandates, Remember? | Diane Ravitch's blog

Calling Joe Biden: You Promised to Cut Back Federal Testing Mandates, Remember? | Diane Ravitch's blog

Calling Joe Biden: You Promised to Cut Back Federal Testing Mandates, Remember?

Joe Biden needs to have a talk with his policy director Stef Feldman. During the campaign, Biden made specific commitments to reduce the mandates for standardized testing and to reduce the stakes attached to testing. But Stef Feldman met with the Education Writers Association and she didn’t seem to know anything about what Biden had repeatedly said about the misuse and overuse of standardized testing. She said the question should be left to the transition team and the new administration. What?

Feldman refused to commit to granting waivers to the states to bypass the federal mandate for annual testing in spring 2021. DeVos granted waivers in 2020 after almost every school closed down due to the pandemic but said she would not do it again in spring 2021 (hopefully by then she will be back in one of her mansions or on one of her yachts).

It is now late October and the pandemic is still surging. Why not grant universal waivers to the states so that CONTINUE READING: Calling Joe Biden: You Promised to Cut Back Federal Testing Mandates, Remember? | Diane Ravitch's blog

Audio: America's School Funding Crisis: Budget Cuts, Rising Costs And No Help In Sight | 89.3 KPCC

Audio: America's School Funding Crisis: Budget Cuts, Rising Costs And No Help In Sight | 89.3 KPCC

America's School Funding Crisis: Budget Cuts, Rising Costs And No Help In Sight

Back in May, school funding experts predicted a looming financial disaster for the nation's K-12 schools.

"I think we're about to see a school funding crisis unlike anything we have ever seen in modern history," warned Rebecca Sibilia, the founder of EdBuild, a school finance advocacy organization. "We are looking at devastation that we could not have imagined ... a year ago."

But those warnings, like everything else that happened in May, feel like a lifetime ago. Where do things stand now? First, a little good news:

"So we're not looking at a disastrous year this year," says Michael Griffith at the Learning Policy Institute. He says the CARES Act, signed in March, helped states avoid a short-term school funding disaster.

Remember: Schools get about half their funding from state tax revenues, which have taken a big hit in the pandemic. States were facing budget cuts in the 20-30% range, Griffith says. But thanks, in part, to those federal CARES Act dollars, it's just "a bad year," he explains — "between 15 and 20%."

The bad news is: Those cuts are still pretty deep.

"There are about 570,000 fewer local education jobs" this year compared to the start of the previous school year, says Michael Leachman, who studies state fiscal policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. "Those are teachers, bus drivers, cafeteria workers, secretaries, librarians, counselors."

Sibilia says one reason we haven't seen even more cuts is "because all of our elected leaders are putting their head in the sand."

Many politicians are wary of making big, unpopular cuts before the election, Sibilia explains, and instead are draining their rainy day funds or hiding the pain with CONTINUE READING: Audio: America's School Funding Crisis: Budget Cuts, Rising Costs And No Help In Sight | 89.3 KPCC

COVID-19 Guidance in the Child Nutrition Programs - Nutrition (CA Dept of Education)

COVID-19 Guidance in the Child Nutrition Programs - Nutrition (CA Dept of Education)

COVID-19 Guidance in the Child Nutrition Programs

Overview

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) issued nationwide federal waivers and approved state specific requests intended to provide temporary flexibilities to certain regulatory requirements of the Child Nutrition Programs (CNP). The CNPs referenced are the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), School Breakfast Program (SBP), Seamless Summer Option (SSO), School Food Service Program (SFSP), and the Child and Adult Food Program (CACFP). The California Department of Education (CDE) is assisting Program Operators of the CNP by posting policy guidance and waivers, providing information on how to operate the programs during the pandemic, directions on how to claim for reimbursement and COVID-19 funding, providing bi-monthly Townhall webinars for questions and answers and best practices, connecting program operators with resources, answering Frequently Answered Questions (FAQ), and providing contact information for additional assistance. The CDE is striving to continue to support and protect access to nutritious meals for children and adults in California.

For the latest announcements and updates, visit the CDE Nutrition What’s New Disaster Tab web page.

• Background
 
• Policy
 
• SNP Operations
 
• CACFP Operations
 
• Claiming
 
• Webinars
 
• Resources
 
• FAQs
 
• Contacts

Background

Governor Gavin Newsom issued Executive Order N-26-20 on March 13, 2020, regarding the physical closure of schools by local educational agencies (LEA) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The order provides that even if schools close temporarily because of COVID-19, LEAs will continue to receive state funding so that they can:

• Continue delivering high-quality educational opportunities to students to the extent feasible through, among other options, distance learning or independent study;
  
  
• Provide school meals in noncongregate settings through the SFSP and SSO, consistent with the requirements of the CDE and USDA;
  
  
• Arrange for, to the extent practicable, supervision for students during ordinary school hours; and
  
  
• Continue to pay employees.

This guidance provides a framework for how LEAs can continue to deliver high-quality educational and meal opportunities to students when the school site is physically closed and the LEA has suspended onsite instruction. In providing this instruction, it is critical that LEAs take steps to ensure that these opportunities are available to all students, especially disadvantaged students. On March 16, 2020, the California Legislature on approved an initial $100 million for LEAs and child care centers to cover school cleaning expenses to help ensure the safety of staff and students.

President Trump signed into law H.R. 6201, Title II, on March 18, 2020, the COVID-19 Child Nutrition Response Act. This law modifies USDA food assistance and nutrition programs to allow certain waivers to requirements for all federal CNP, which includes, NSLP, SBP, CACFP, SFSP, and SSO.

As the pandemic continues, the USDA Food and Nutrition Service continues to release waivers and guidance to state agencies and program operators. Please refer to the CNP COVID-19 Policy web page for updated information.

COVID-19 Guidance in the Child Nutrition Programs - Nutrition (CA Dept of Education)