Rating the August 13 UFT Town Hall | JD2718

Rating the August 13 UFT Town Hall | JD2718

Rating the August 13 UFT Town Hall

Technical – calls seemed to have gone out on time. Some people needed to dial in. The audio quality was fine on my end, though several callers complained about theirs. They had trouble connecting some questioners, and lost at least one partway through the question.  I did try pushing the question button, and got silence, not even a “the queue is full” message. Overall the technical side was ok. It was certainly far better than the May DA. Grade: B

Pace – it seemed to me that the amount of light banter (which for people who want to ask questions is frustrating) was reduced from July. Honestly folks, it only makes one or two questions difference, but I get that you want to move ahead. Mulgrew had a longer opening report, but only slightly. My count had the number of questions drop from about 30 to about 25, which makes sense with the slightly longer report. The number of long, rambling answers was about the same, but that may have been intentional. Grade: B+

Clarity – some answers were quite clear, but many were not. There were veiled threats of doom and gloom when there should have been explicit discussion of what the city and state have already proposed. There was a direct question about teaching assignments, asking if we have an agreement in writing. Direct questions from members should have direct answers (even if the answer is “it’s complicated”). There was none. I did not get much clarification on what is actually happening now. The lines between CONTINUE READING: Rating the August 13 UFT Town Hall | JD2718

Mr. G for District 3: Chris Guerrieri's Education Matters: Empowering the voters with knowledge

Mr. G for District 3: Chris Guerrieri's Education Matters: Empowering the voters with knowledge

Empowering the voters with knowledge

Empower Jax is an organization known for wanting to strip protections away from LGBTQ people. They fought against the HRO and push an agenda that wants to see gay people shoved back in the closet, and don't take my word for it, take the Times Unions. Oh, and why does this matter? It's because they found their candidate in district 3.

From the Florida Times-Union,

The newly formed group trying to repeal Jacksonville laws designed to protect gay and transgender people from discrimination is tied to a statewide organization known for its anti-gay platform.

Empower Jacksonville is registered with the state as a fictitious name for Florida Family Action, a step businesses take when they want to operate under a different name. Florida Family Action and sister organization Florida Family Policy Council are both led by John Stemberger, a conservative activist and attorney based in Orlando.

https://www.jacksonville.com/news/metro/elections/2017-09-02/empower-jacksonville-group-looking-repeal-hro-has-ties-orlando-anti

They are an astroturf group whose main purpose ist to strip rights away from LGBTQ citizens.

I received a survey from them in Mid July, and after answering a few questions, I couldn't continue because I could see where they were going, and it was a place that I found unacceptable.

Mrs. Pearson, however, must have seen it differently as she just deposited a five hundred dollar check from CONTINUE READING: Mr. G for District 3: Chris Guerrieri's Education Matters: Empowering the voters with knowledge

Live Conversation: Do America's Cities Love Black people? | Schott Foundation for Public Education

Live Conversation: Do America's Cities Love Black people? | Schott Foundation for Public Education

Live Conversation: Do America's Cities Love Black people?

Schott Foundation President & CEO Dr. John H. Jackson and Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools Executive Director Keron Blair talk about racial injustice, inequities in public education, and how COVID-19 has revealed the lovelessness of institutions toward Black children and their families.

Live Conversation: Do America's Cities Love Black people? | Schott Foundation for Public Education

California: The Year of Teaching Dangerously, Part 1 | Diane Ravitch's blog

California: The Year of Teaching Dangerously, Part 1 | Diane Ravitch's blog

California: The Year of Teaching Dangerously, Part 1

Capital & Main published a five-part series on teaching during the pandemic. The series is called “The Year of Teaching Dangerously.”

Sasha Abramsky launched the series with an article about how schools in California were adapting to the pandemic.

Abramsky writes about the uncertainty, confusion, and conflict that accompanied the shutdown, as teachers were required to address new realities and to confront stark inequities.

In March, when Northern California counties issued stay-at-home orders, followed shortly afterwards by a statewide shutdown, schools scrambled to improvise a pivot to online “distance learning.” Some were able to make the change within days; others took many weeks. Grading and assessment systems were largely put to one side, at least in the public school system. And school districts rushed – and in some cases struggled – to purchase and distribute Chromebooks or iPads to students who didn’t have them; to set up Wi-Fi hotspots for families lacking home Internet access; to work out how to keep distributing food to children from low-income families who relied on school breakfasts and lunches; and to set up methods of teaching online that wouldn’t CONTINUE READING: California: The Year of Teaching Dangerously, Part 1 | Diane Ravitch's blog

Florida Gov. DeSantis pressured schools to open with threat of withholding state aid - The Washington Post

Florida Gov. DeSantis pressured schools to open with threat of withholding state aid - The Washington Post

A Florida school district wanted to wait to reopen school buildings. Gov. Ron DeSantis threatened to cut its funding

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Florida is making a high-stakes gamble on school openings, with superintendents pressured into decisions that some fear will result in outbreaks of covid-19. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis this week forced one of the country's largest school districts to reopen campuses by the end of August, threatening to withhold up to $200 million in state aid.

The Republican’s administration told Hillsborough County — the eighth-largest system in the country — that it would lose state aid if it did not drop plans to reopen schools remotely for the first month of the 2020-2021 school year. So the county revised its plan and will start with just one week of remote learning. Then parents will choose whether to send their children into school buildings.

“It was very clear. If we do not follow their emergency order, we will be financially hindered,” Hillsborough Superintendent Addison Davis said Thursday. “We would forfeit close to $200 million. We just can’t do that. That would bankrupt us. It would put us in a terrible situation financially.”

DeSantis, a strong ally of President Trump, who wants schools opened, cited Martin County Superintendent Laurie Gaylord’s view of reopening schools as a mission “akin to a Navy SEAL operation.”

“Just as the SEALs surmounted obstacles to bring Osama bin Laden to justice, so, too, would the Martin County school system find a way to provide parents with a meaningful choice of in-person instruction or continued distance learning,” DeSantis said in a speech Wednesday.

That day, nine students were sent home from an elementary school in Martin County to quarantine after a student showed covid-19 symptoms.

Florida governor compares reopening schools during coronavirus pandemic to U.S. military raid that killed Osama bin Laden

At least a dozen school systems in the state opened their doors for face-to-face learning this week, while still giving parents the option for virtual classes.

DeSantis’s administration is playing hardball with other school districts, too, in a state that is one of the nation’s coronavirus hot spots, forcing them to reopen buildings now or earlier than they want. Other CONTINUE READING: Florida Gov. DeSantis pressured schools to open with threat of withholding state aid - The Washington Post

Mr. G for District 3: Chris Guerrieri's Education Matters: The ZOOM Lawsuit to decide the fate of teachers and students

Mr. G for District 3: Chris Guerrieri's Education Matters: The ZOOM Lawsuit to decide the fate of teachers and students

The ZOOM Lawsuit to decide the fate of teachers and students

I am confused why the judge didn't just say, well as long as we have to have court through zoom, we should have school through zoom too.

Corcoran and DeSantis are attempting to usurp the authority of districts and force them to do what they want them to do, not what the local supers and boards think is best, and nowhere is this more evident than in Hillsborough county.

From the Tampa Times,

Hillsborough County school officials were up against a deadline.

State officials had instructed them to revise their reopening plan or lose millions in funding. The School Board’s vote to start the year with four weeks of virtual lessons to lessen the chance of coronavirus infections didn’t meet state expectations. Plus thousands of teachers and more than 200,000 students were in limbo.

So on Thursday, superintendent Addison Davis announced a new timetable: The school year will begin Aug. 24 with all-virtual instruction. Then, for those who choose it, in-person school will begin a week later.

https://www.tampabay.com/news/hillsborough/2020/08/13/hillsborough-state-reach-compromise-on-school-reopening/

The state's strategy seems to be delay, delay, delay. First, they wanted a change of venue, then they wanted CONTINUE READING: Mr. G for District 3: Chris Guerrieri's Education Matters: The ZOOM Lawsuit to decide the fate of teachers and students

“Confessions of a School Reformer”(Part 1) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

“Confessions of a School Reformer”(Part 1) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

“Confessions of a School Reformer”(Part 1)

I am drafting chapters for my next book with the above title. I described the idea of the book and my experiences in the Pittsburgh schools during the Progressive reform era (see the five-part series “We Are All Reformers”on this blog).

In alternating chapters, the book will describe and analyze each of three reform movements during my lifetime and then trace my life in and out of school as a student, teacher, administrator and researcher who experienced these reforms for over three-quarters of a century.

Since 1939 when I entered first grade until 2020, three major reform efforts have swept across American public schools: the Progressive movement (1890s-1940s); Civil Rights movement (1950s-1970s), and business-inspired standards, testing, and accountability movement (1970s-present).

I have completed a draft chapter of my years as a teacher (1955-1972) in three school districts during the Civil Rights movement. I begin the multi-part series with this post. Comments appreciated.

As a teacher I was not a civil rights activist. While I did participate in a few marches, I was never arrested at a demonstration. Nor did I join any organizations at the forefront of the movement. I did work, however, for a few months at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, a federal agency committed to desegregated schools in the 1960s. It was a disaster (see below).

While my wife Barbara and I contributed to civil rights groups and moved our family into an integrated Washington, D.C. neighborhood, my public CONTINUE READING: “Confessions of a School Reformer”(Part 1) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

NYC Educator: De Blasio's Three Prongs of Wrongs

NYC Educator: De Blasio's Three Prongs of Wrongs

De Blasio's Three Prongs of Wrongs

It'ts not easy getting something so wrong that there's no way out. But Mayor Bill de Blasio is special. He's managed to do three things in such an utterly inept fashion that there's evidently no coming back.  

Error number one was the most egregious, because that's the one that enabled errors two and three. The first thing de Blasio did was, rather than decide what the best thing was he could do for city schools and city kids, he simply come to the conclusion that he needed to open the buildings. 

Maybe he was upset in being forced to close them back in March. Waiting too long to do that is the thing that will forever overshadow his past accomplishments, including pre-K. This summer, whatever the reasons, de Blasio came to a conclusion and worked his way back to rationalize it. That's backward and I rate it ineffective.

Error number two is arithmetic. I don't know which million-dollar consultant the mayor (who's now contemplating mass layoffs) wasted his money on. Whoever it is charged too much. The plan is worth less than nothing.

It's not really tough to poke holes in. Let's say we all teach English and there are five of us in the department. Let's say we teach 25 classes. Under de Blasio's plan, whoever teaches live doesn't teach online. However, whoever teaches live only meets ten students at a time. High school teachers know well that class size is 34, so what happens to the other 24 students?

They, of course, are learning online, somehow. Our department now has 50 classes rather than 25, but we still have only five teachers. Bill de Blasio thinks we can have a half-hour conversation with whoever in the morning and get that person up to speed. There are two issues with this. The first, and the most important, is that this person simply does not exist. That's the hurdle you have to get over in order to get to the second CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: De Blasio's Three Prongs of Wrongs

WHEN LIFE EMULATES AN ICEBREAKER – Dad Gone Wild

WHEN LIFE EMULATES AN ICEBREAKER – Dad Gone Wild

WHEN LIFE EMULATES AN ICEBREAKER

“We should be rigorous in judging ourselves and gracious in judging others.”
― John Wesley

“Authority is supposedly grounded in wisdom, but I could see from a very early age that authority was only a system of control and it didn’t have any inherent wisdom. I quickly realised that you either became a power or you were crushed.”
― Joe Strummer

Several years ago I attended a training for one of those things that I’ve been trained in over the last several years. The training kicked off with an “icebreaker.”

The room was divided into teams of 8. Each was given a bag of 6 items – maybe a piece of yarn, a marble, 2 spaghetti sticks, and a rubber band. Other bags may have a rubber ball instead of a marble, or two straws instead of the spaghetti sticks. Each group was tasked with using the items in their bag to find a solution to a common challenge in under 20 minutes.

After being given their assignment and the slimmest of details, teams lept into action. Some pursued creative efforts, while others went a more practical route. Some were focused and created highly detailed plans and some came up with the barest of plans and were content to spend most of the allotted time socializing. Some of the groups worked together as if they had been at this forever, while some were dominated by two people, or they disintegrated into a mass of disagreement – bickering at fighting among themselves.

The facilitators meanwhile walked the room, observing the participants at each table – on occasion throwing in a comment or two, an eye always on the stopwatch. Every so often they’d give a cry out, “You’ve got 12 minutes left.”

“Just so you are aware, you’ve got 5 minutes!”

After 20 minutes, time expired. Each team was asked to present their solutions. Most every team had arrived at some kind of operable solution, some more executable than others. We oohed and aahed over the good ones, and quickly dismissed the poor ones. The overseers of the challenge CONTINUE READING: WHEN LIFE EMULATES AN ICEBREAKER – Dad Gone Wild

SSPI THURMOND STUFF THIS WEEK FROM THE CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

 California Department of Education

SSPI THURMOND

STUFF THIS WEEK FROM THE

CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

2020-21 Middle School Foundation Academies

20h

This is an RFA for Middle School Foundation Academies Planning Grant.

New Special Education Director Named

33 21h

State Superintendent Tony Thurmond Appoints Former Illinois Special Education Leader Heather Calomese as New Director of Special Education Division

AUG 13

Recommendations Proposed for Ethnic Studies

1d

State Superintendent Tony Thurmond and Civil Rights Leaders Propose Recommendations for Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum.

COVID-19: USDA Child Nutrition Responses #39–#43

1d

The California Department of Education Nutrition Services Division is pleased to announce that on August 4, 2020, the U.S. Department of Agriculture released Nationwide Waivers that provided one new waiver and three waiver extensions.

AUG 12

SSPI Outlines Priorities for a Return to Learning

2d

State Superintendent Tony Thurmond commends students, families, and educators on return to learning and outlines ongoing priorities.

AUG 11

Nutrition Services Operational Planning Fall 2020

3d

The California Department of Education (CDE) may provide program operators including, school districts, county offices of education, charter schools, residential childcare institutions, and private schools participating

2020-21 FFVP Grant Recipient List Announced

3d

The 2020-21 Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program (FFVP) first allocation grant recipients have been posted on the California Department of Education (CDE) Funding Results: FFVP web page.

AUG 10

July 28, 2020 Tuesday at 2 Webinar

4d

The CDE NSD hosted its sixth Tuesday at 2: School Nutrition Town Hall webinar on July 28, 2020 to listen to a discussion on transitioning back to school and moving forward in meal service amidst COVID-19.

AUG 07

ACSE Agenda August 19-20, 2020

7d

Advisory Commission on Special Education (ACSE) meeting agenda.

CACFP Training Worksheets and Crediting Handbook

7d

The CDE NSD is pleased to announce that USDA TN has released several new CACFP resources, including interactive worksheets (in both English and Spanish) and the new Crediting Handbook for the CACFP.

 California Department of Education