Fewer new teachers in the pipeline. – Fred Klonsky

Fewer new teachers in the pipeline. – Fred Klonsky

Fewer new teachers in the pipeline

Over Spring break I had lunch with an old teaching buddy of mine.

It has been nearly a decade since I retired from teaching but we keep in touch.

Not as often because of the pandemic. But, we are both vaccinated now. I wanted to share a Little Village bodega/restaurant with him and catch up.

The tacos de canasta were, as usual, fantastic. And I had one taco with sweetbread. I grant you it is an acquired taste.

I have acquired it a long time ago.

He loved the place, as I knew he would.

He told me about the number of teachers from our school who were planning to retire this year and in the next couple of years.

It is a lot of people.

It’s not just about the pandemic. In fact, while the pandemic has been the cause of CONTINUE READING: Fewer new teachers in the pipeline. – Fred Klonsky

Peter Greene: I Believe in Public Education | Diane Ravitch's blog

Peter Greene: I Believe in Public Education | Diane Ravitch's blog

Peter Greene: I Believe in Public Education

Peter Greene is well-known as a blogger, a teacher, a columnist for Forbes, and a humorist. He taught in the public schools of Pennsylvania for nearly 40 years. He wrote this article at my request.

He wrote:

I believe in public education.

I believe in the promise that every child should have a free quality education. And not by going out to shop for it, to hunt it down like looking for deals on a toaster or a used car, nor to travel far from home to find it, nor to have to beg and apply and hope that the school will accept them, but to have it delivered to them in their own community without exception.

Not that we’ve always hit the bullseye in this country. Our system of tying school financing to housing leaves much to be desired. The same forces of racism and economic inequity that twist and turn our society as a whole also leave their mark on our education system. Those forces CONTINUE READING: Peter Greene: I Believe in Public Education | Diane Ravitch's blog

Secretary of Education Dr. Miguel Cardona Joins Roundtable Discussion with Students to Discuss Experiences During the Pandemic | U.S. Department of Education

Secretary of Education Dr. Miguel Cardona Joins Roundtable Discussion with Students to Discuss Experiences During the Pandemic | U.S. Department of Education

Secretary of Education Dr. Miguel Cardona Joins Roundtable Discussion with Students to Discuss Experiences During the Pandemic

Following the Department of Education's release of the COVID-19 Handbook, Volume 2: Roadmap to Reopening Safely and Meeting All Students' Needs, which includes research-based strategies to address the impact of the pandemic on students, educators, and staff, Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona held a virtual roundtable with a diverse group of students and parents to discuss their educational and personal experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. Secretary Cardona listened to students and parents and promised to take the information he learned and the stories he heard back to stakeholders and policymakers.

During the conversation, participants shared highlights and asked for improvements based on their experiences during the pandemic. Some of the students spoke about the importance of continuing to use prevention practices such as wearing masks consistently and correctly. The Secretary encouraged them to share that same information with their peers as a way to support everyone's safety and hasten a return to safe social events.

Other students shared that they miss social activities and interactions among their peers. A twelfth-grade student who joined the conversation said, "I would say in class we would have discussions, when we moved to virtual it is impossible to get the same type of engagement in class discussions. A lot of the communication between students and teachers broke down."

Secretary Cardona also asked each student about how they are dealing with their mental and emotional health. "Parents and teachers think that kids can handle all of the stress, but there are mental health issues that are being neglected. We haven't been able to see our friends and need more social interaction during school," said a seventh-grade student who participated in the conversation.

Secretary Cardona said, "Listening to all of you, I feel that there's a sense of urgency to get this right because our kids are waiting. Throughout this conversation, I took great notes. I'm gathering information so when I meet with the President, when I meet with policymakers and folks that are interested in education, we have your voice at the table."

Secretary of Education Dr. Miguel Cardona Joins Roundtable Discussion with Students to Discuss Experiences During the Pandemic | U.S. Department of Education

Compulsory Dyslexia Screening: A Trojan Horse To Advance Data Collection For Predatory Pay For Success Deals in Pre-K and Early Literacy – Wrench in the Gears

Compulsory Dyslexia Screening: A Trojan Horse To Advance Data Collection For Predatory Pay For Success Deals in Pre-K and Early Literacy – Wrench in the Gears

Compulsory Dyslexia Screening: A Trojan Horse To Advance Data Collection For Predatory Pay For Success Deals in Pre-K and Early Literacy

I put together a presentation to warn California educators, parents, and elected officials about Boston Consulting Group’s ties to compulsory dyslexia screening legislation. See the consulting firm’s July 2020 white paper, The Economic Impact of Dyslexia in California. This is the cost-offset analysis that will be used to justify future data extraction schemes. BCG was behind the closure of 23 schools in Philadelphia in 2013. That event launched my personal journey into researching human capital finance. This article I wrote in 2018, Silicon Valley: A Laboratory of Smart Surveillance and Privatization, provides useful background on impact investing in the Bay Area. Pay particular attention to the parties involved with the Strong Start and Big Lift pay for success deals (pre-k and early literacy). The latter effort is backed by the San Mateo County Office of Education one of the funders of the UCSF dyslexia risk screening tool AppRise, which has ties via Curious Learning to global ed-tech investors and defense / neuroscience interests. CONTINUE READING: Compulsory Dyslexia Screening: A Trojan Horse To Advance Data Collection For Predatory Pay For Success Deals in Pre-K and Early Literacy – Wrench in the Gears

Voucher tax money follows the grift, not the child: a case study - Public Enemy Number 1

Voucher tax money follows the grift, not the child: a case study - Public Enemy Number 1

Voucher tax money follows the grift, not the child: a case study

A "Sparrow Academy" experience demonstrates why the Step Up for Students voucher school "marketplace" needs a grand jury, a Grady Judd task force, and fundamental reform -- not an expansion.

I’ll be referring to the mother in this article by her initials, CS. And I’m using the pseudonym “Terry” for her son.

On April 1, CS received a strange note about her son’s “McKay” special needs voucher from the school secretary of Lakeland’s Sparrow Academy. Sparrow is a voucher school with 100 percent special needs/ESE enrollment that Terry had formerly attended. You can see some of Sparrow’s marketing content above.

Good morning, I was about to put [Terry’s] packet in the mail when the scholarship checks arrived. If it would be OK when you come to sign the check can I give you his packet?  There isn't school tomorrow, Good Friday.

Sparrow principal Vance Linholm had kicked Terry out of school via text on March 16, two weeks before that email. I’ll show you that text in a second. Since that day, CS had been struggling to get any documentation of Terry’s performance and discipline record for his 18 months or so with the school. She had been going back and forth with the secretary. Now, the school was saying it would give her a packet of his work “when you come to sign the check” — weeks after the school had dismissed Terry.

The money follows the student. LOL

“The money follows the child” is a well-worn cliche of voucher grifters like Jeb Bush and Kelli Stargel and Richard Corcoran and basically all Republican and a few Democratic CONTINUE READING: Voucher tax money follows the grift, not the child: a case study - Public Enemy Number 1

Teacher Tom: "First Puzzles are Hard, Then You Turn them Easy"

Teacher Tom: "First Puzzles are Hard, Then You Turn them Easy"

"First Puzzles are Hard, Then You Turn them Easy"

I've always felt that classic jigsaw puzzles held a special place in our classroom. They stand out as uniquely directive in that there is, in the end, only one right way assemble them. Yes, of course, a child might have other ideas. Someone might, say, build a tower with the pieces or something and once a group of children used puzzle pieces as a kind of currency in the game they were playing, but for the overwhelming majority of children I've taught, puzzles, be they on table tops or on the floor, say to children, "sit down, concentrate, and solve me." 

Certain toys tell children how to play with them. Balls can be used for all sorts of things, but among the things they say most loudly is "throw me," which is why, if you don't want balls flying around the classroom, we tend to restrict balls to the outdoors. Puzzles are not usually the most "glamorous" thing in the room and they are often overlooked. Frequently, a child engaged in more active play will simply cruise by, dump all the pieces out their frames, then walk away, leaving a jumbled pile of pieces from several puzzles in a messy heap. It's one of the most common ways children use puzzles towards something other than the right answers that are built CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: "First Puzzles are Hard, Then You Turn them Easy"

Cardona’s Flexibility on Standardized Testing Creates Confusion and Rancor | janresseger

Cardona’s Flexibility on Standardized Testing Creates Confusion and Rancor | janresseger

Cardona’s Flexibility on Standardized Testing Creates Confusion and Rancor

After a chaotic schoolyear including remote learning and sometimes complicated hybrid schedules of in-person and remote learning, students are returning to full-time school to face the annual standardized tests. These are the tests that Congress requires under the Every Student Succeeds Act, the tests first required by No Child Left Behind (NCLB). They are the foundation of a two-decade-old scheme to hold schools accountable. Betsy DeVos cancelled required standardized testing last spring after schools shut down as the pandemic struck the Unites States.

The U.S. Department of Education announced in late February, before Education Secretary Miguel Cardona was even confirmed, that it is requiring standardized testing this spring. There is a whole lot of confusion between the federal government and the states right now because the federal guidance about testing this year features “flexibility.”

Here is some of the letter, dated February 22, 2021, from acting assistant secretary of education, Ian Rosenblum, a letter which informed states they must test students this year: “We remain committed to supporting all states in assessing the learning of all students. The Department is, therefore, offering the following flexibility with respect to your assessment, accountability, and reporting systems for the 2020-2021 school year… We are inviting states to request a waiver for the 2020-2021 school year of the accountability and school identification requirements… A state receiving this waiver would not be required to implement and report the results of its accountability system, including calculating progress toward long-term goals and measurements of interim progress or indicators, or to annually meaningfully CONTINUE READING: Cardona’s Flexibility on Standardized Testing Creates Confusion and Rancor | janresseger

NYC Public School Parents: Parents & community members protest closure of PS 88 in the Bronx; will they be forced to take DOE to court to stop this irrational proposal?

NYC Public School Parents: Parents & community members protest closure of PS 88 in the Bronx; will they be forced to take DOE to court to stop this irrational proposal?

Parents & community members protest closure of PS 88 in the Bronx; will they be forced to take DOE to court to stop this irrational proposal?

Stories on the proposed closure of PS 88 have appeared in the Daily News and on Bronx News-12 TV.

DOE officials are trying to close a small, beloved K-3 zoned school in District 9 in the Bronx, PS 88, also called CES 88 or the Silverstein Little Sparrow School.  They want to leave the entire building empty and send the current students to PS 53, a 4th-5th grade school blocks away.  Why?

They claim that the school has lost enrollment this year, but so have 60% of all NYC public schools.  They claim the school is under-enrolled, but this ignores that the school utilization formula is aligned with class sizes larger than the state's highest court in the CFE lawsuit said were necessary for a sound basic education.  The DOE refused to revise the school utilization formula to allow for smaller classes, despite the fact that their own advisory Blue Book Working group urged them to do so.

Instead, PS 88's relatively low enrollment and available classroom space has meant that their students have been able to attend school in person five days a week during the pandemic, complete with small classes and social distancing,  in nearly ideal learning conditions especially for a high-poverty school.  If these kids are shunted off to PS 53, their class sizes will likely double and fewer kids will be able to attend in person, that is if the safety protocols require any social distancing in the fall.

Moreover, if DOE officials are really so concerned about the school's under-enrollment, all they have to do is add a 3K and/or a preK class to the school, neither of which it currently has  though strangely, they did insert preK classes into PS 53, sharing that building with 4th and 5th graders. 

Alternatively, they could also rezone the neighborhood, so that more children now attending the Walton Avenue School (09X294) and Lucero Elementary School (09X311) just a CONTINUE READING: NYC Public School Parents: Parents & community members protest closure of PS 88 in the Bronx; will they be forced to take DOE to court to stop this irrational proposal?

Private schools could end up with no public money if they press too hard

Private schools could end up with no public money if they press too hard

Could public money finance private-school discrimination, religion and fake history?

If states can't control what's taught with taxpayer money, the upshot could be ending charter schools and public funds for private tuition altogether.

With bills pending in more than 20 state legislatures to expand private school voucher programs, this spring could usher in the biggest transfer in funds from public schools to private schools in our nation’s history. But something more is at stake with this new round of voucher legislation: When the public pays for private schooling, will the public get to decide how taxpayer dollars are used in private settings, or will the public be forced to abandon norms as simple and fundamental as nondiscrimination?

The problem started last year when the Supreme Court held in Espinoza v. Montana that states cannot adopt blanket policies to exclude religious schools from voucher programs. The court left open the possibility that states could still place limits on what private schools do with the money. States might still prohibit them from using public money to teach religion or discriminate based on religion, race, sex, gender, sexual orientation and other protected classes.

But choice advocates argue these minimal requirements are unconstitutional, too. 

Satisfied slaves, divine intervention

This distinction is lost on a lot of states, which make no attempt to stop private schools from using public dollars to teach religion, discriminate or deliver curriculum that flies in the face of historical and scientific facts. Students in North Carolina, Florida and Indiana have tried to use their vouchers at religious schools only to be turned away because they didn't fit the CONTINUE READING: Private schools could end up with no public money if they press too hard

An Open Letter from the Jealous Cabal

 An Open Letter from the Jealous Cabal

 An Open Letter from the Jealous Cabal

In case you haven’t heard yet, the State Board of Education (SBE) approved a settlement with the Oklahoma Public Charter School Association during their March 25 Board meeting. Against the advice of their in-house counsel, the SBE voted 4-3 essentially to allow charter schools to have access to local revenue, in addition to the state revenue they already receive.

I’m not going to rehash that decision, which for the record, I find problematic. Instead, I’d like to address the multi-faceted defense of that decision that seems to rest on the shoulders of the newest member of the SBE, Trent Smith.

Smith made the motion to approve the resolution settling the lawsuit and has been its most vocal proponent. This weekend alone, he appeared on News 9’s The Hot Seat with Scott Mitchell and penned a letter to the editor that appeared in the Tulsa World. 

The letter in the World was pretty straightforward. He simply stated that the resolution rights a mis-application of state law. Those of us opposed to the settlement disagree and point to the original intent of the charter school movement, which leaned on public-private partnerships for the funding of charter schools. 

Smith’s interview with Mitchell, however, was quite a journey. I watched it a few times, took CONTINUE READING:  An Open Letter from the Jealous Cabal

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 NewBlackMan (in Exile)

NewBlackMan (in Exile) TODAY

Big Education Ape: THIS WEEK WITH NEWBLACKMAN (IN EXILE) - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2021/04/this-week-with-newblackman-in-exile-blm_10.html

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'Filled With Her Spirit,' A Louisville Art Exhibition Honors Breonna Taylor

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Long Marred By Racism, St. Louis Elects 1st Black Female Mayor

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In Conversation: Anthea Butler and Melissa Harris-Perry

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"How Do You Filter the Infinite?": Oliver Wang and Mark Anthony Neal in Conversation (2008)

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 NewBlackMan (in Exile)