How Our Biggest ISPs Are Failing Students During COVID-19 - PopularResistance.Org

How Our Biggest ISPs Are Failing Students During COVID-19 - PopularResistance.Org

HOW OUR BIGGEST ISPS ARE FAILING STUDENTS DURING COVID-19

Early in the pandemic, one of our MediaJustice Network members reached out to us in hopes we could support a group of high school students in Baltimore who were trying to amplify their campaign. The students are leaders in a Latinx and immigrant student organization called Students Organizing for a Multicultural and Open Society (SOMOS), and this was their first time organizing for digital equity.

When school ended last year, SOMOS realized that many of their fellow Baltimore city schoolmates who’d relied on Comcast’s Internet Essentials discount program didn’t have a connection fast or reliable enough for online school. Whenever they could get into virtual classes, they’d often get kicked off multiple times a day and sometimes multiple times during a single class. Households with multiple students or family members working from home had to schedule who could be online, when and for how long. Families were put in impossible situations, forced to negotiate whose education or work was more important, and who would have to sacrifice and fall behind.

Philadelphia MediaJustice Network member Movement Alliance Project (MAP) had been working with allies and students on a #ParkingLotWifi campaign highlighting stories that have become all too familiar in 2020: parents and students sitting in parking lots (like Taco Bell) just to get access to WiFi for CONTINUE READING: How Our Biggest ISPs Are Failing Students During COVID-19 - PopularResistance.Org

NYC Public School Parents: DOE to delay the release of any class size data due Nov. 15 until Dec. 31, and any disaggregated data until Feb.15

NYC Public School Parents: DOE to delay the release of any class size data due Nov. 15 until Dec. 31, and any disaggregated data until Feb.15

DOE to delay the release of any class size data due Nov. 15 until Dec. 31, and any disaggregated data until Feb.15

See the letter from Karen Goldmark below of DOE responding to the letter from CM Mark Treyger, saying they will not release any class size data until December 31, based on the size of classes on November 13, rather than the legal deadline established by city law of November 15.  It also appears from the letter that they do not intend to report any disaggregated data till February 15-- still based on the size of classes as of November 13  (!).

It is very difficult to understand why this should take so long, especially as at the Mayor's press conference on Oct. 26, the Chancellor said that schools have been reporting attendance data and thus class size in "literally three buckets of attendance every single day": in-person classes, remote blended learning classes, and full-time remote classes. 

One suspects that DOE officials just don’t want people to know how large the online classes actually are, as reported by parents and the media here, here and here.

 

Trump/DeVos may have lost the election, but the battle for public education has just begun. - SF PUBLIC SCHOOL MOM

Trump/DeVos may have lost the election, but the battle for public education has just begun. - SF PUBLIC SCHOOL MOM

Trump/DeVos may have lost the election, but the battle for public education has just begun.

The Covid-19 Pandemic has created an unprecedented crisis for public education. Lack of support from the Federal Government, in the form of testing, health and safety guidance, and sufficient resources has further exacerbated this crisis. States have had to fend for themselves and this has ultimately resulted in inconsistent support for school districts who are left with limited resources piecing together plans for crisis distance learning and school reopening.

Flexibility or free-for-all?

While we count the days to President-elect Biden assuming office (I’m literally counting the days), we still have a lot of work ahead to protect our public education system. Meanwhile, every district in our state is faced with the daunting challenge of reopening with a lack of funding and other important infrastructure.

Just as individual states have had to compete for PPE, ventilators, and testing resources, each and every district in our state has had to compete with other districts to figure out reopening plans while it struggles to meet the basic needs of families during crisis distance learning. Each individual school district has/will have to figure out school reopening which includes: logistics of social distancing, hybrid learning models, building assessments, staffing plans, and COVID testing for thousands of workers.

This summer, the California Department of Education drafted school reopening guidelines which marketed the plan’s “flexibility” in allowing school districts to figure out what works best for them. In reality, this free-for-all approach ended up privileging private schools, charters, and small suburban school districts that have higher per-pupil spending, smaller class sizes, modern facilities, and rich benefactors. This has resulted in larger urban districts like San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, and San Jose getting left behind. The guide is titled “Stronger Together”, yet after several months of CONTINUE READING:  Trump/DeVos may have lost the election, but the battle for public education has just begun. - SF PUBLIC SCHOOL MOM

Teacher Tom: Education Has Nothing to do With Intelligence: It is About Growth

Teacher Tom: Education Has Nothing to do With Intelligence: It is About Growth

Education Has Nothing to do With Intelligence: It is About Growth

Not long ago, I took an online IQ test. It appears that my IQ is between 133 and 149, "or it may even be higher!" which means it may be over 160, so you might very well, right now, be reading the words of a bona fide genius.

Art: Karntakuringu Jukurrpa

Naturally, I'm joking. No intelligent person puts any stock in the validity of tests that purport to measure intelligence. I sure don't, especially a self-administered online test that only took a few minutes, but there was a part of me that was nevertheless disappointed to learn that I'm pretty much average. We all know about the cultural biases that go into these tests, so of course, being a middle-aged, middle-class, white male, one might expect a person like me to score between 133 and 149. And that's the most reliable thing CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: Education Has Nothing to do With Intelligence: It is About Growth

President Elect Biden’s Public School Agenda Addresses the Opportunity Gap | janresseger

President Elect Biden’s Public School Agenda Addresses the Opportunity Gap | janresseger

President Elect Biden’s Public School Agenda Addresses the Opportunity Gap

A strong supporter of public education will move into the White House on January 20. President Elect Joe Biden has promised to close the Opportunity Gap by investing in public school improvement and pledging to support reform of healthcare and other conditions that worsen economic inequality. There is an important difference between Biden’s saying that we as a society have failed our children by neglecting to pay for educational opportunity and more than two decades of education policy—under Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Trump—that blamed public school educators for failing our children.

Closing the Opportunity Gap is a more ambitious and far more expensive goal than merely blaming and punishing public school teachers for what policymakers have, for decades, called the achievement gap. The Opportunity Gap is defined by the complex web of structural economic and racial inequality in America, not by the failure of teachers to raise test scores quickly. Framing the educational goal as “closing the achievement gap” brought us No Child Left Behind’s test-and-punish policies and the Race to the Top which merely punished the schools at the bottom—the schools without adequate property taxing capacity and that serve the poorest children.

President Elect Biden’s focus is funding equity in the public schools themselves instead of creating escapes for a few children out of so-called “failing” schools. For four years we have been listening to Betsy DeVos promote vouchers and every kind of privatized school choice for parents. Before that, we had Arne Duncan promoting charterizing public schools, closing low scoring public schools as a turnaround plan, and evaluating teachers by their students’ CONTINUE READING: President Elect Biden’s Public School Agenda Addresses the Opportunity Gap | janresseger

Choosing Democracy: SCUSD Ends 2019-20 with $23 million surplus, reserve fund grows to $93 million

Choosing Democracy: SCUSD Ends 2019-20 with $23 million surplus, reserve fund grows to $93 million

SCUSD ENDS 2019-20 WITH $23 MILLION SURPLUS, RESERVE FUND GROWS TO $93 MILLION

Sac City Unified Budget - A Message from Superintendent Aguilar - Sacramento City Unified School District - https://www.scusd.edu/e-connections-post/sac-city-unified-budget-message-superintendent-aguilar on @officialscusd

In 2012-13, the State of California introduced a new way of financing K-12 education with the introduction of the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF).  It was implemented beginning in the 2013-14 school year.

A look at the budget projections of the Sacramento City Unified School District (SCUSD) one year prior to the implementation of LCFF, and the seven years since, demonstrates SCUSD’s a clear and consistent pattern of grossly inaccurate budget projections.

In California, school districts are required by law to submit three budgets during a fiscal year.  The Original Budget is submitted in July, the First Interim Budget in December, and the Second Interim Budget in March.  At the conclusion of the year, a districts actual performance is released in September as its “Unaudited Actuals.”  Chart 1 looks at the SCUSD Original, July 1, budgets for 2012-13 and compares them to Unaudited Actuals for that same year.

School districts of the size of SCUSD are also required a minimum Unrestricted Cash Balance Reserve of 2% of its expenditures.  For 2019-20, the 2% represented $11.9 million.

It is worth noting, that in the last eight years, SCUSD ended with a deficit only in 2017-18.  Ironically, in December of that same year, the Sacramento County Office of Education strongly advised District administrators to reduce expenses by $15.7 million during the remainder of that school year.  SCUSD ignored the SCOE recommendation, and instead actually increased its unbudgeted unrestricted fund spending including on the following:

• A $6 million vacation buyout for top administrators;
• The introduction of a poorly planned and administered Summer School Program;
• The additional of 18 unbudgeted administrative positions;

This led to SCOE rejecting the SCUSD 2018-19 budget, the first time in SCOE’s history a Sacramento County school district has had its budget rejected.  Since then, SCOE has rejected three additional SCUSD budgets.

Chart 2 looks at the inaccuracy of SCUSD budget projections for the last two school years—even with a SCOE-appointed Fiscal Advisor helping to administer SCUSD finances—since SCOE first rejected the SCUSD budget.  Because SCUSD budget was rejected, it is required to submit a Third Interim Budget in May.

Throughout 2018-19, SCUSD claimed to be on the brink of insolvency.  It ended the year with a unrestricted fund surplus.  Again in 2019-20, SCUSD still claimed to be on the brink of insolvency and projected a $12 million deficit for the year.  With six weeks remaining in the fiscal year, the District now projects a $3.2 million surplus—a $15.5 million turnaround, which might be noteworthy except that it is consistent with the District’s budgeting practices for at least the last eight years.

2019-20 was even more extreme.  SCUSD started the fiscal year projected a $12.3 million deficit.  It ended the year with a $23.6 million surplus, a difference of $35.9 million. SCUSD’s unrestricted reserve fund now is $84,699,103 and its total unrestricted/unrestricted reserve fund is $93,048,611, the highest in SCUSD history.  It is worth noting that SCUSD’s Third Interim Budget which was released in May 2020 with fewer than six weeks remaining in the fiscal year underestimated the District end of the year surplus by over $20 million.

Choosing Democracy: SCUSD Ends 2019-20 with $23 million surplus, reserve fund grows to $93 million

NYC Public School Parents: DOE delays Panel vote on acquiring Reliant busing

NYC Public School Parents: DOE delays Panel vote on acquiring Reliant busing

DOE delays Panel vote on acquiring Reliant busing

DOE has made another incongruous and costly decision related to busing, this time to create a new non-profit that will acquire the Reliant company that apparently owes millions in unpaid pension and health insurance costs.  Their debt, according to the NY Post, may be as large as $148 million.  The contract was about to be voted on tonight Nov. 17 at the Panel for Educational Policy but was postponed because of the unresolved questions and concerns of Panel members.

As I said to the NY Post, "Without knowing the cost of the company and what kind of debt the city may be assuming, it is impossible to tell whether this is a good deal or not. In any case, for the DOE to take on more financial risks and obligations at this time seems irresponsible, given the economic crisis we face.”

DOE officials have so far refused to release the proposed contract with this new non-profit, called NYC School BUS, CONTINUE READING: 

October 20, 2020 Tuesday at 2 Webinar - Nutrition (CA Dept of Education)

October 20, 2020 Tuesday at 2 Webinar - Nutrition (CA Dept of Education)

October 20, 2020 Tuesday at 2 Webinar

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Main Web Page

The California Department of Education (CDE) Nutrition Services Division (NSD) hosted the twelfth Tuesday @ 2 School Nutrition Town Hall webinar on October 20, 2020 for school food service operators, chief business officials, and community partners to listen to a discussion on best practices in meal service as schools continue the 2020–21 school year while mitigating COVID-19.

Panelists included speakers from Parlier Unified School District (USD), Pajaro Valley USD, and Fontana USD. The panelists discussed strategies for working with vulnerable populations, serving families with limited transportation, and building valuable partnerships.

The next Tuesday @ 2 School Nutrition Town Hall webinar will be held on Tuesday, December 8, 2020 at 2 p.m. More information on future webinars is available on the Tuesday @ 2 School Nutrition Town Hall Webinar web page.

Contact Information

If you have any questions regarding this subject, please contact Julie BoarerPitchford, Nutrition Education Consultant, by phone at 916-322-1563 or by email at jboarerpitchford@cde.ca.gov.

Questions:   Nutrition Services Division | 800-952-5609

October 20, 2020 Tuesday at 2 Webinar - Nutrition (CA Dept of Education)

Schools Matter: New Secretary of Education Sweepstakes

Schools Matter: New Secretary of Education Sweepstakes

New Secretary of Education Sweepstakes

Joe Biden's team (Dr. Jill and who else) will be choosing a new Secretary of Education. Of those listed, who's your pick?  If you say Randi (Rhonda) or Lily, your comment will not be posted. 

From WaPo:

Under Secretary Betsy DeVos, the Education Department has rolled back some civil rights protections as well as Obama-era efforts to hold for-profit colleges accountable for poor outcomes. She’s promoted alternatives to public schools and tried to slash federal funding for education. Biden is expected to reverse all of that, with more money for K-12 and higher education, new and revived civil rights protections and a focus on racial equity.

Biden has said he will name a public school educator as secretary of Education, a stab at DeVos, who had no experience with public schools. Many expect that to be someone from the K-12 world. Among those talked about for the job include a handful of big-city school superintendents, such as Sonja Santelises from Baltimore, Janice Jackson from Chicago or Seattle’s Denise Juneau.

Potential picks: CONTINUE READING: 

Schools Matter: New Secretary of Education Sweepstakes

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

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

Big Education Ape: THIS WEEK IN EDUCATION Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... The latest news and resources in education since 2007 - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2020/11/this-week-in-education-larry-ferlazzos_14.html

“Give Students Choice When It’s Time to Read”

by Larry Ferlazzo / 11h

Give Students Choice When It’s Time to Read is the headline of my latest Education Week Teacher column. Three educator contributors, and several readers, share strategies for encouraging students to read, including offering choice and time in class. Here are some excerpts:

Wednesday’s Must-Read Articles & Must-Watch Videos On School Reopenings

by Larry Ferlazzo / 12h

USA-Reiseblogger / Pixabay Here are new additions to THE BEST POSTS PREDICTING WHAT SCHOOLS WILL LOOK LIKE IN THE FALL : Mass Nationwide School Closures Loom as Coronavirus Cases Spike is from US News. CDC quietly removes guidance pushing for school reopenings is from The Hill. Schools want to end online classes for struggling kids, but COVID-19 cases may send everyone home is from USA Today. Are

Video: “Crash Course” To Begin Geography Series

by Larry Ferlazzo / 12h

Free-Photos / Pixabay “Crash Course,” the popular YouTube education channel, has announced that they will begin a Geography series on November 30th. I’m sure it will be informative, and that portions – at least – will be usable in classes. I just hope the host speaks at a slower pace than the typical Crash Course video but, if that’s a problem, it’s always easy to just put the speed at .75…. Here

A Look Back: My Mind Was Blown Today After Learning How To Collaboratively Annotate PDFs On Google Drive

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 . I’m starting with posts from earlier this year. Clker-Free-Vector-Images / Pixabay I’ve always had problems trying to figure out how to get Google Docs to play nice with PDFs. I had given up, and concluded that Actively Learn was going

The Best “Words Of The Year” Features For 2020

by Larry Ferlazzo / 12h

I do an annual “Word of the Year” feature, sharing the choices from various organizations around the world. Only a few have been chosen so far, but the pace will pick up over the next few weeks and I’ll be adding links to this post. 

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