TOP POSTS THIS WEEK 7/18/20 #REDFORED #tbats #EducationVotes #COVID-19 #REOPENSCHOOLS #edJustice #DEMOCRACY #BIDEN2020 #JohnLewis

A Dangerous Political Game In the midst of our Coronavirus Crisis , President Trump and Education Secretary DeVos are playing a dangerous political game. Gambling on parent’s desire for their children to go back to school, Trump and DeVos are pushing for in-person instruction this fall in all schools. But they have no authority over that decision. So why would they make the demand? The Obvious S

Introduction to My Next Book (Part 3) And so, the last century of reform in America has been the story of these three political and social movements beginning with excited policy talk, then moving to downsized policy actions, and finally erratic implementation spilling over public schools. Beyond these reformers achieving a few of their intended goals in each era, what often goes unnoticed are s

Gina Bellafante: Schools Beat Plagues with Outdoor Education, Why Can’t We? | Diane Ravitch's blog Gina Bellafante: Schools Beat Plagues with Outdoor Education, Why Can’t We? This is a terrific article that appeared in the New York Times by the regular city columnist Gina Bellafante. It is about how schools beat plagues in the early 20th century by opening outdoor classes. The Times is making art

We Have Lost "The Conscience of Congress": John Robert Lewis (February 21, 1940 - July 17, 2020) “The life of the US congressman John Lewis, who has died aged 80 after suffering from pancreatic cancer, is a paradigm for the history of race relations in the US over those eight decades. Born into segregation, Lewis took a leadership role in civil rights protest as a young man, and was at the heart

Have the powers that be thought about what in-school teaching would look like in the age of COVID The powers that be say, it will be fine, we'll have a mask policy, practice social distancing, clean in between classes and wash, wash, wash our hands and things will be fine, to which I say, they are %#&%ing nuts if they think that's going to be both easy or doable. Let's take those items one at a

State Superintendent Tony Thurmond Issues Statement in Response to Governor's Updated School Guidance SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond issued the following statement today in response to the Governor’s updated guidance for schools: “I want to commend the Governor for his leadership and for his focus on prioritizing public safety during what might be one of the

Everything's Made Up (And Nobody Is Behind) This is the opportunity we're missing, but to grab it would require us to look at things that some of us would rather not look at. We can start with the notion that students are currently "falling behind." Well, now-- behind what, exactly? Is there some line scribed by the Hand of God in the intellectual sand that tells us, yes, a child who has been on

NYCDOE, where’s our masks? Write your NYC Council Person / Tweet your NYC Council Person Write politicians? I usually don’t. Most days it’s just a great big time sink. But today? Safety in schools and COVID-19? Issues they all care about. So I’m writing. We don’t have answers from Carranza? Fuzziness from our union? Let’s ask the elected officials to get us some answers. I wrote an e-mail versio

ELECTION SEASON IS UPON US “If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.” – J.D. Salinger, Catcher in the Rye “The weak-minded ch

Are Parents, Teachers and School Boards Epidemiologists? State Ed Gives Districts Wide Discretion in Crafting Reopening Plans The NYS Department of Education released re-opening guidance, all 145 pages of guidance. (Read here) The key sentence: “The guidance encourages community involvement and allows for flexibility so that districts and schools in every corner of the state can assess their uni

Wishing Doesn’t Make it So UPDATE: Link at the end of the post… America’s schools will start to open in a few weeks…some as early as the beginning of August…some after Labor Day. With this small window of time to plan, the unhinged President and his unqualified Secretary of Education demand that … …kids need to be back in school, and that school leaders across the country need to be making plans

NewBlackMan (in Exile) A Photography Community for Black Women by Mark Anthony Neal / 18h ' Polly Irungu , digital editor at The Takeaway , joins us to discuss founding Black Women Photographers , a community and database of Black women photographers across the country and globally.' -- All Of It Fishko Files: Harlem Renaissance by Mark Anthony Neal / 19h 'A cultural movement of Black writers an

Education Research Report THIS WEEK Education Research Report Does "naming and shaming" of colleges with large tuition increases make a difference? by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 1d AMERICAN EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ASSOCIATION SHARE PRINT E-MAIL WASHINGTON, July 16, 2020--Since 2011 the U.S. Department of Education has published two annual lists of higher education institutions with the highest percentage

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007 THIS WEEK IN EDUCATION Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... The latest news and resources in education since 2007 Critical Question For Us Teachers: What AREN’T We Going To Cover This Year by Larry Ferlazzo / 1h As you probably have heard, this past week most of us here in California finally got som

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all KEEP UP/ CATCH UP WITH DIANE RAVITCH'S BLOG A site to discuss better education for all Parent: Why Not Open Outdoor Classrooms in Tents and Other Temporary Structures? by dianeravitch / 11min Josh Bell is a New York City public schools parent. He wrote this article for the New York Daily News. The article reminded me that New York

Steve Suitts: The Supreme Court is Reversing the Landmark Brown Decision Steve Suitts is a civil rights lawyer who has worked for the Southern Education Foundation for many years. His recent book Overturning Brown documents the segregationist history of the school choice movement. He wrote recently that the Espinoza decision , which awards public money to religious schools, is another step in th

FaceBook: Fount of all Wisdom, Wellspring of Stupid I know all the things that are wrong with Facebook , all the reasons why now might be the perfect time to Just. Step. Away. Several friends have virtue-signaled their unwillingness to play nice with a man who sells them (and their data) out and closed down their accounts. Many more have taken extended breaks, keeping a toe in (and, I suspect, c

Latino Families Not Equipped for Distance Learning The spike in COVID-19 cases across the country is forcing many school districts to reconsider plans to return to in-person instruction. The announcement this week that Los Angeles and San Diego Unified School districts would continue with distance learning may trigger a wave of other large districts to do the same. As the realization that home-s

Congratulations to Desmon Redmond, Schott's Proud #PublicSchoolGrad Scholarship Winner Local public schools and their educators have produced America’s most brilliant artists, scientists, doctors, musicians, lawyers, presidents, and more — people from all walks of life, contributing to society in countless ways. Given the incredible challenges and obstacles presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, we

'Reckless, callous, cruel': teachers' chief denounces Trump plan to reopen schools ‘Angry’ AFT president Randi Weingarten tells Guardian proposal from Trump and Betsy DeVos could result in teaching exodus Plans put forward by Donald Trump and his education secretary to reopen America’s schools in the fall are “reckless” and could result in many teachers leaving the profession, the president of o

Trump's Push to Reopen Schools Is Scaring Teachers, Says AFT Union President President Donald Trump's insistence that all K-12 schools reopen in the fall has caused a backlash among parents and teachers, according to Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, the second largest teacher's union in the country. Between the middle and the end of June, the union polled its m

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007 The World Day Against Trafficking in Persons Is On July 30th – Here Are Teaching & Learning Resources 25 by Larry Ferlazzo / 12h sammisreachers / Pixabay The United Nations has declared July 30th to be The World Day Against Trafficking in Persons. You might be interested in The Best Resources For Lear

Teachers Fear for Their Lives You can't really blame us. I saw my doctor the other day, and she told me if she didn't have to come in, she wouldn't. Of course there's not really a substitute for medical care. She does teletherapy too, but you can't give blood over Skype. Not many teachers ask their students to give blood at all, as far as I know. Of course, this feeling isn't limited to teachers

School Districts Need Budget Relief as School Starts Amid Pademic: U.S. Senate Must Pass HEROES Act | janresseger School Districts Need Budget Relief as School Starts Amid Pandemic : U.S. Senate Must Pass HEROES Act Here we are in mid-July. Facing enormous challenges, school district leaders are trying to figure out how they can safely provide school this fall. Here are the two biggest questions:

Shanker Blog: Five Things Not To Do When Schools Re-open | National Education Policy Center Shanker Blog: Five Things Not To Do When Schools Re-open This post is part of our series entitled Teaching and Learning During a Pandemic , in which we invite guest authors to reflect on the challenges of the Coronavirus pandemic for teaching and learning. Our guest today is Pasi Sahlberg, Professor of Edu

Lenny Curry's reckless behavior is going to cost lives (draft) I said to the district official, well, several south Florida districts have ignored the state's order and said they are starting school on-line why couldn't we? They said the cities those districts are in have rolled back to phase 1, and we are in phase 2, which gives them the cover to do so. This is the thing mayor Curry would have

Safety First That’s the message! We hear it a lot. I’ve written it. Mulgrew’s said it. It’s a sentiment many of us share. But me saying it or Mulgrew writing it or you thinking it – none of that makes it true. Me writing “Safety First!”, shouting “Safety First!”, repeating “Safety First! Safety First! Safety First!” doesn’t make it true. I have been saying it a lot. I started mid-June, when the

Yahoo/YouGov Poll: A Quick View of Results Related to Mask Wearing and to K12 Education On July 16, 2020, Yahoo News and YouGov released results of this 159-page poll , conducted on a variety of issues of immediate public concern, including coronavirus, the economy, the direction of the country. Some backgroud on the survey, as reported by Yahoo News : The Yahoo News survey was conducted by YouG

FL: The Broad Outlines of the PPP Cash-in So it turns out that all you have to do to get some charter and voucher schools to admit they're businesses is just wave some sweet, sweet business-purposed money at them. We've heard the individual stories from here and there about this, but a friend of the Curmudgucation Institute sent along an astonishing piece of data crunching. I don't have a handy

Parents must have a say in districts’ distance learning plans under new California law Districts must create new "learning continuity plan" in coming weeks issatisfied with the uneven quality of distance learning among school districts after they closed in March, Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature established minimum requirements for the next school year in legislation accompanying the 2020-2

McKeesport Area School District’s Reopening Plan is Based on Dubious Facts, Bad Reasoning & Takes Unnecessary Risks: An Open Letter to the Superintendent Dr. Mark Holtzman: I am extremely concerned about the reopening plan for the McKeesport Area School District you offered on video Tuesday . As a parent of a child in the district and a teacher in a neighboring district , I find the plan you put

AFT Prez Weingarten Outlines Legal & Strike Strategy to Resist Unsafe School Re-Openings As the recession delivers severe budget cuts to education, many teachers are worried they won’t be able to re-open schools safely, which has left some considering the possibility of a strike. Given the physical distance needed, teachers are considering the “hybrid basis,” of teaching as the best model for re

Ethnic Studies Virtual Event with Dolores Huerta - Year 2020 (CA Dept of Education) State Superintendent Tony Thurmond Hosts Virtual Classroom Session on Chicano Latino Studies with Civil Rights Icon Dolores Huerta SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond today hosted the second in a series of virtual classroom sessions about ethnic studies. Guests included students fro

Dilemmas Facing Policymakers in Re-opening Schools Here is the best summary that I have found thus far on the policy dilemmas facing school boards and superintendents in deciding how and when to re-open schools. It comes from a blog called Electoral Vote . Curated and written by two academics, one (Andrew Tanenbaum) an expert on statistics and public opinion polls and the other (Christopher Bate

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all DID YOU MISS DIANE RAVITCH'S BLOG TODAY? A site to discuss better education for all Candace Valenzuela Wins Her Race for Democratic Nomination for Congress in Texas! by dianeravitch / 22min Candace Valenzuela is one of the most inspiring candidates in the current election cycle. She won her primary in Texas on Tuesday. Please watch

A Teacher's Opinion on School Reopening: "But What Do I Know? I'm Just a Teacher" “Everyone has an opinion about how and if schools should reopen for this coming school year. We’ve heard from the governors, the pediatricians, the parents, the education secretary, and the president. Everyone has a ‘study’ and ‘research’ to back up their claims, but unfortunately (as always with decisions made in

Report: Zuckerberg’s Favorite Digital Ed Program Is All Sizzle, No Steak Last month, the National Education Policy Center released a new report: Big Claims, Little Evidence, Lots of Money: The Reality Behind the Summit Learning Program and the Push to Adopt Digital Personalized Learning Programs. It looks at one of the most prominent digital learning platforms, and how money and power are able t

My School District’s 2020-21 Planning, Including Surveying Employees and Parents In this post, I offer info on what my school district is doing in its efforts to plan for the 2020-21 school year, with the goals of informing individuals in my district as well as offering ideas to other schools and districts. A critical point is that my school district did what I see parents and teachers from othe

TEACHING RECTANGLES HOW TO FIND AN AREA I didn’t write a close-out post. I feel like NYC public schools already closed back in March, back when I thought our country might have a chance to see kids again the last two weeks of June. Everyone who’s read this blog for some time knows that hope is my passenger , realism my backseat driver . As Rebecca Solnit says: “Hope locates itself in the premise

Talk out of School with Beth Ellor & Brad Lander: REC centers, safe reopening of schools, and need for child care & wraparound services next year In today's podcast of Talk out of School , I spoke to Beth Ellor, a former Kindergarten teacher and preschool director, who described what it’s like working at the REC centers, which opened up to serve the NYC children of essential workers when schools

Is DCPS passing the buck with health decisions? The answer is yes, and this lack of leadership is going to cost people their health or worse. At the last school board meeting, the superintendent spoke about how the health department will conduct "investigations" when somebody presents signs of the virus or tests positive. There was absolutely no description of what this would look like, but we c

Confederate Monuments and Southern Memory: The Case of One Confederate General By Paul Horton. Part 1: Historians and the “Lost Cause” of the Confederacy Part 2: The Confederate “Lost Cause” and Southern Women As calls are made to remove monuments devoted to those who fought against the Union during the Civil War are being made, increasing attention is being focused on learning history from diff

A Response To Critics Of My Research On NJ Teachers Earlier this week, the Sunshine Policy Center put out a critique of my report , published by the New Jersey Policy Perspective, on the shrinking numbers of teacher candidates in preparation programs in New Jersey. That report references an earlier report I wrote for NJPP on the NJ teacher workforce; that report looked at, among many other thing

State Superintendent Tony Thurmond Applauds Schools for Making Student and Educator Safety Center of Reopening Decisions SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond on Wednesday commended school districts across California for making student, teacher, and staff health and safety the foremost priority as they formalize plans for resuming learning this fall. During his late

An Unequal Starting Place Staying home due to the coronavirus has been tough. Days have morphed into weeks that blurred into months. Even as some schools and businesses reopen, stress and anxiety is mounting. And, unfortunately, the coronavirus revealed a glaring reality —that many people in our country lack the advantages that others enjoy and may even take for granted. “If there’s a silver lin

Seeking SOLUTIONS to Help With Schooling During Covid-19: Here’s 18! Seeking SOLUTIONS to Help With Schooling During Covid-19: Here’s 18! How can we help students learn at home during this school crisis? Many parents and teachers are still uncomfortable with plans to reopen schools. Some school districts are postponing school re-openings. Remote learning and Internet connection should be availabl

Mike Pence: We Don’t Want CDC Guidelines Determining When We Open Schools. (This Is Not an Onion Headline) There are times when the news is so outrageous it almost seems satirical and then there is the Trump administration, which has skirted the line between truth and fiction so much that there is no line anymore. On Tuesday, the vice president, who may or may not be a sexless robot or a piece o

'I'm scared': In Detroit, a city hit hard by COVID-19, reopening classrooms sparks protests As school leaders agonize over whether and how to reopen, fights like the one in Detroit this week could soon play out across the country. DETROIT — The fury surrounding the start of summer school in Detroit this week offers a preview of the emotional battles that could hit many more communities this fall

Most Big School Districts Aren’t Ready to Reopen. Here’s Why. All but two of the nation’s 10 largest districts exceed a key public health threshold, according to a New York Times analysis. As education leaders decide whether to reopen classrooms in the fall amid a raging pandemic, many are looking to a standard generally agreed upon among epidemiologists: To control community spread of the coron

Addressing Disparities in America's Education System Amid Push to Reopen Schools Schott President Dr. John H. Jackson appeared on Fox News this past weekend, arguing that the COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the inequities in America's cities far beyond the schoolhouse, and that educators, districts and states will need billions of dollars in support from the Federal government in order to re-ope

TO ALL THE WHITE ALLIES SEEKING TO BECOME CO-CONSPIRATORS, HERE ARE THINGS TO THINK ABOUT George Floyd, gasping for air, uttered a desperate final plea that was heard around the world: “I can’t breathe.” The image of a black man dying under the knee of a white cop is horrific — and symbolic of the racism embedded in every institution in America. Pre-K-12 education is no exception. The white-domi

Schools Should Prioritize Reopening, But They Need A Lot More Money: New Report Communities most impacted by COVID-19 could see even worse outcomes if they reopen schools too quickly, according to education and medical experts. Schools should try to reopen if they think they can do so safely, prioritizing students with disabilities and children in kindergarten through fifth grade, according to a

June 30, 2020 Tuesday @ 2 Webinar - Nutrition (CA Dept of Education) The next Tuesday @ 2 : School Nutrition Town Hall webinar will be held on Tuesday, July 28, 2020, at 2 p.m Coronavirus (COVID-19) Main Web Page The California Department of Education (CDE) Nutrition Services Division (NSD) hosted the fourth Tuesday @ 2: School Nutrition Town Hall webinar on June 30, 2020, for School Nutrition Pr

Pittsburgh Charter Schools Take Federal Bailout Money Meant for Small Businesses Are charter schools small businesses or public schools? They can’t be both. Several Pittsburgh area charter schools took a bailout meant for small businesses after already getting monetary relief meant for public schools. Environmental Charter School at Frick Park , Hill House Passport Academy Charter School , Manch

'We Failed Children,' Says Co-Author Of New National Back-To-School Report This fall, public school districts should prioritize full-time, in-person classes for grades K-5 and for students with special needs. That's the top line recommendation of a new report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. The report includes an updated review of the evidence from around the wor

Virtual education was ‘a disaster’ for my son with Down syndrome. Here’s what students with disabilities really need When covid-19 began to spread in the United States this past spring, schools closed around the country and most of them stayed that way through the end of the 2019-20 academic year. Districts had hoped that remote learning could replace in some measure the learning that students w

Making Black Lives Matter in School The following article appeared in the Grio and was co-authored by Dr. Andre Perry, Jitu Brown, Keron Blair, Richard Fowler, Stacy Davis Gates and Tiffany Dena Loftin. George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and now Rayshard Brooks — all Black people whose lives and purposes were snuffed out by White Supremacy. These four slain Americans were fathers, brothers, mothers,

What Mrs. Jennings Understood: Why Standardization is Always the Enemy of Learning I went to kindergarten back in the 1960's. We played outdoors, built with blocks, pretended, and made some art. I don't think there was any particular curriculum or ideology behind the program offered by Mrs. Jennings and Mrs. Ruiz. We mostly played, much like the kids do at Woodland Park, although I remember one

As Pence says to ignore the CDC, the CDC says America is in for some super dark times Oh my gosh, this is surreal. You couldn't sell this as a screenplay because Holywood would say it was too unbelievable. Vice president Pence yesterday said CDC recommendations should not stop anyone from opening schools. From WWLTV.com, Pence was blunt Tuesday in dismissing those guidelines in favor of a quick

School Opening Optimism Collapses: In Midst of COVID-19 Surge, Many Districts Will Open Online Only Until last week it seemed that nobody—apart from the school administrators and teachers considering staggered schedules this fall to ensure social distancing as smaller groups of children share classroom space and buses—seemed to be thinking about the feasibility of opening school this fall. Then

SB 98: State Meal Mandate Update Senate Bill (SB) 98, Education Finance: Education Omnibus Budget Trailer Bill (Chapter 24, Statutes of 2020) was amended and signed into law on June 29, 2020. You can view this law on the California Legislative Information web page California Education Code ( EC ) Section 49550 requires school districts and county offices of education (COE) to provide nutritional

Do We Need to Open for Student Emotional and Social Well-being? I hear we need to open the buildings from a lot of people. Some of them, in fact, are people I respect . Alas, most are not . But the argument, that kids are missing something really important, is not even debatable. The flaw with that argument is this--even if we open the buildings, kids aren't going to get what they were missing.

Teachers Are Worried About Schools Reopening & Here Are 15 Of Their Biggest Concerns While some states have made progress in reducing new coronavirus cases, many others are battling new surges in infections after moving to reopen businesses. Despite these recent spikes, President Donald Trump has been pushing states to reopen schools for full-time, in-person instruction. As debate over reopening

Do #BlackLivesMatter in schools? Why the answer is ‘no.’ We’ve seen a movement arise in recent months, led by Black Lives Matter, demanding racial and social justice following the police killing of an unarmed black man, George Floyd, in Minneapolis in May. Protesters have filled the streets of hundreds of cities and towns, calling for an end to America’s institutional racism and the defunding of

The Reopening Question: Is It Safe? There is one basic principle that must be honored in deciding whether and when to reopen schools: SAFETY FIRST. No child or teacher or staff member should die because of a rush to reopen. NBC News reported : WASHINGTON — As the calls from the White House to fully reopen schools grow louder, evidence continues to pile up to show that scenario is unlikely to hap

Miserable Bankruptcy of Neoliberal "Takeover" Reports | Dissident Voice Miserable Bankruptcy of Neoliberal “Takeover” Reports For decades, one of the main strategies used by neoliberals to destroy public enterprises and eliminate the public interest has been: Starve It, Demonize It, Discredit It, Privatize it. Since the late 1970s, neoliberals and their state have made greater use of the “Takeove

After Years of Underfunding, Now Public School Teachers Are Supposed to Save the Nation’s Economy? | Ed Politics AFTER YEARS OF UNDERFUNDING, NOW PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS ARE SUPPOSED TO SAVE THE NATION’S ECONOMY? “After 9/11, New York City police and firefighters were hailed as heroes,” said Mary Parr-Sanchez, president of the New Mexico affiliate of the National Education Association, when I spok

New York City: How Does a District with More than One Million Students Plan to Reopen? Leonie Haimson writes here how New York City hopes to reopen its public schools, which enroll more than one million students. Haimson has chided the city for years about its failure to reduce class sizes, and that long history of neglect is making it even more difficult to find space to reopen with small class

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 “Q&A Collections: Student Voices” by Larry Ferlazzo / 4h Q&A Collections: Student Voices is the headline of my latest Education Week Teacher column. All Classroom Q&A posts featuring commentari

The Administration's Favorite Word: Privatize – BillMoyers.com The Administration’s Favorite Word: Privatize Will the pandemic kill public schools? The big news today was the administration’s escalating insistence that our public schools must reopen on schedule for the fall. Today, on “Fox News Sunday,” Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos told Chris Wallace (who is one of the Fox News Channel’s ac

The Test Many School Districts Failed Before The Pandemic Even Started You’ve heard about an emotional bank account , a metaphor for the investments in personal relationships that keep them healthy and able to deal with the bumps and bruises that come along in any relationship. Build trust and deposit in the account in good times, make withdrawals in the lean times, and maintain a healthy balanc

Intro to Next Book (Part 2) Here is another segment of the Introduction to my next book, “Confessions of a School Reformer.” Part 1 was published July 9, 2020 Since the early 1900s, three overlapping social and political movements have churned across the U.S. and left marks on government, business, and community institutions, including public schools: The Progressive movement (1900s-1950s), the

Let’s End this Debate and Talk about Best Practices for Remote Teaching One way or other, the debate will end.Last week the Chancellor announced that NYC schools would engage in some sort of blended learning – a hybrid model – for September. Sometimes kids would be in school, sometimes kids would be out getting remote instruction, but they would have five days, and some would be in school. Teach

Reopening Schools: A Decision to Die For! Would I die for my students? Probably. Teachers have placed themselves in harm's way for their students countless times. But, not like this. Not in a situation where decisions could be made that would keep our students and educators safe. A 61 year old educator in Arizonza was infected with COVID19, along with two other educators who were working in the

New York State Tip-Toes Toward a Measured School Opening with Significant Local Input and a Long List of Unanswered Questions. As the President and the Secretary of Education call for a full school reopening, with threats aimed at states that are more cautious, the fifty states and 14,000 school districts consider the options. John Hopkins University posted a reopening policy tracker , a user-fr

Now is not the time Now is not the time to open schools! Yes, I know we need to get the economy open. I know parents need to get back to work. I know children are losing important time in school. I know all the reasons why we need to open schools. Unfortunately, now is not the time. We keep hearing that we need more testing, more contact tracing, social distancing, and masks. Even if we had 100%

Superintendent Greene's less than inspiring Meninak Meeting After I read the Times Union's summary of the meeting, I didn't feel much confidence that teachers and their concerns are being addressed. https://www.jacksonville.com/news/20200713/duval-schools-superintendent-greene-gives-hints-for-back-to-school-plan-ahead-of-tuesdayrsquos-meeting You know papers have deadlines and space limits, so I

IF ONLY IT WAS SO SIMPLE “Though we are politically enemies, yet with regard to Science it is presumable we shall not dissent from the practice of civilized people in promoting it” ― John Hancock “Every year, if not every day, we have to wager our salvation upon some prophecy based upon imperfect knowledge.” ― Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. School districts across the country have begun releasing the

Educators, This is Our Call To Arms! by Dr. Michael Flanagan — Badass Teachers Educators, This is Our Call To Arms! by Dr. Michael Flanagan * Refuse To Return to schools until districts show fourteen days of no coronavirus cases, and until schools are funded adequately in order to open safely. In a campaign of hate, you have to constantly throw red meat to the dogs. Guess who’s the red meat? As a

Independent Reading in a Pandemic We need to get books into our student's homes and hands. This tweet from the estimable Jennifer Serravallo appeared on my feed this morning. I believe she is right. Schools should not be forced to re-open and the likelihood that a forced re-opening will lead quickly to a renewed shutdown is high. Districts, school leaders and teachers should be preparing for mor

Randi Weingarten: ‘No way’ schools can return this fall without more funding Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, said there’s “no way” schools across the country could reopen this fall because of a lack of federal funding. “There’s no way that you’re going to have full-time schools for all the kids and all the teachers the way we used to have it,” Weingarten t

Parent Letter Template—We Demand Safe Schools! - SF PUBLIC SCHOOL MOM Parent Letter Template—We Demand Safe Schools! This weekend, I had the opportunity to work with teachers across the country, Stacey Shubitz , Julie Jee , and Sarah Gross , to create a letter that parents and caregivers can customize to contact their local school districts about reopening plans. (Click links to follow them on Tw

The Parent Trap Covid-19 has exacerbated capitalism's impossible demands on mothers. Having children is one of the great mysteries of life. Like having sex, or falling in love, or developing faith in a higher power, it’s an experience that falls short of any description. Also like sex, love and religion, having children sucks about half the time, and it particularly sucks now, thanks to the coro

Trump administration cites the American Academy of Pediatrics to make its case for school reopening. Here’s what the AAP really said. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recently issued guidance saying that school districts should try to get students back to campuses this fall for their health — and the Trump administration has used it to bolster its new push to force public schools to open

No, Trump and DeVos can’t withhold funding from schools whenever they want. Here’s what they can do. President Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos have told public school districts that they must open fully for the 2020-2021 school year during the coronavirus pandemic, and they threatened to withhold federal funding from school districts that don’t. The threats, however, are largely just t

Canceled?: The Day Comedy Died Lenny Bruce is not afraid “Its the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine),” R.E.M. Recently, when I watch standup specials through online services, I think about Don McLean’s “American Pie.” As I have explained before , a foundational part of my critical Self was established during my teen years through listening to the comedy of George Carlin and Richard

Which Charter Schools Got Federal PPP $$ in Your State or Zipcode? Do you wonder which businesses, schools, and nonprofits in your neighborhood or state got a piece of the hundreds of billions of dollars handed out by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in the Paycheck Protection Program? He tried to keep the names of the recipients secret but eventually released the list. Now you can easily revie

De Blasio to UFT, CSA, DC37, and 1.1 Million Schoolchildren: Drop Dead It's really hard to outdo the outrageous lack of planning that went into the DOE's hybrid instruction plan. Nonetheless, Bill de Blasio and Richard Carranza have once again outdone themselves. I was interviewed for this piece in NY 1 , suggesting that equity and excellence is yet another carefully orchestrated DOE mirage. I'm

Trump and DeVos Want Schools Open Full Time, Five Days A Week: The Realities Are Far More Difficult Now, in mid-July, America is suddenly waking up to the need to think about how COVID-19 will affect the institutions that serve children come August and September. The press is finally reporting that opening public schools for over 50 million young people is going to be complex, difficult and expe

Biden's Education Platform The Unity Task Force has been working hard to convince Sanders supporters to back Biden to come up with policy statements that will appeal to all wings of the party, thereby promoting Unity! Huzzah! I almost didn't bother to look; this is a document that will be fed into the shredder that is the Official Platform Process, and it's pretty hard to compare about party pla

Education and the pandemic, how our leaders, the people not in the classroom are failing and risking lives Everyone's starting point, whether you are the President of the United States, the superintendent of the district, a teacher in a classroom, or a cafeteria worker, is we want to be back in school and that in school learning is by far the best method of educating children. That being said, i

The NYC Dept of Education Intends to Violate 65 Sq Ft Social Distancing Guideline Strong language? No. The Department of Education intends to violate social distancing guidelines. + They made 6 foot social distancing a recommendation, not a requirement. Here’s the link . And here’s a screenshot: + They sent out revised capacity estimates with exaggerated room sizes. They got every single room in

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007 “Five Ways to Use Music in Lessons” by Larry Ferlazzo / 1h Five Ways to Use Music in Lessons is the headline of my latest Education Week Teacher column. Five educators share ways to use music in lessons across the curriculum, including for textual analysis and to help create a positive classroom cultu

A VERY BUSY DAY Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... The latest news and resources in education since 2007 Four Pandemic Resources Useful For When We’re Teaching About It by Larry Ferlazzo / 23min geralt / Pixabay Here are four new additions to A BEGINNING LIST OF THE BEST RESOURCES FOR LEARNING ABOUT THE CORONAVIRUS : How 2020 Remapped Your Worlds is from Bloomberg and is a good lesson idea

Hell Of A Week Edition Well, that was a hell of a week, between administration backflips and dictates over covid policy and the general rising tide of panic. Here at the Institute, I've decided to skip the 642 pieces I've read about reopening schools this week, because chances are you didn't miss any of them. But in the meantime, a few other things have dropped that are worth your attention. The

Secret CDC Report Warned of Danger of Opening Schools Without Proper Safeguards Eileen Sullivan and Erica L. Green of the New York Times managed to get a copy of an internal (secret) report from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) that warned of the dangers of opening schools without adequate protection of students and staff. WASHINGTON — Federal materials for reopening schools, shared the wee

Never Let A Good Crisis Go To Waste: Michigan Ed Reform Edition | Eclectablog Never Let A Good Crisis Go To Waste: Michigan Ed Reform Edition If you’ve seen your teacher friends warning about the dangers of the Covid-19 pandemic providing an opportunity for unscrupulous education reformers, like US Secretary of Education and serial public school defunder , Betsy DeVos, to dismantle our system of

Do what I want: Betsy DeVos tells school districts trying to open for 2020-21 Education Secretary Betsy DeVos made clear on Sunday she wants schools to reopen fully for most students for the 2020-21 academic year, even as coronavirus infection rates are soaring in some parts of the country and some superintendents say it is impossible for them to do that. DeVos made her latest statement about wh

High School Scheduling Will Not Work With the Carranza Hybrid Plan Putting the “right” number of students into a building does not guarantee the “right” number of students goes into each room. In fact, in most high schools, it’s not possible under the Carranza Hybrid plan. Why not? First period, my school, juniors and seniors. Normally we’d have about 200 upperclassmen divide into 7 classes, any

Internet buries Betsy DeVos for ‘total trainwreck’ CNN interview: ‘Why is she in charge of ANYTHING?’ – Raw Story TODAY'S BETSY DEVOS "HIT" PARADE Internet buries Betsy DeVos for ‘total trainwreck’ CNN interview: ‘Why is she in charge of ANYTHING?’ – Raw Story - https://www.rawstory.com/?p=1643921 Education Secretary Betsy DeVos both stunned and appalled Twitter commentators on Sunday morning aft

How Many Teachers Are at Risk of Serious Illness If Infected with Coronavirus? | KFF How Many Teachers Are at Risk of Serious Illness If Infected with Coronavirus? As the nation continues to struggle to contain the spread of coronavirus, there is considerable debate about when and how to reopen schools. Education is primarily a state and local concern, and although they have received mixed guidan

California teachers fight back against pressure to reopen schools The standoff in the nation’s largest state underscores the difficult road ahead for governors and local leaders. SACRAMENTO — California Gov. Gavin Newsom insists schools need to make their best attempt to open this fall, warning of the educational and social-emotional impacts of keeping kids out of the classroom. He’s ordered a m

Los Angeles Campuses Urged to Remain Closed Amid COVID-19 infections and deaths surging to record highs, Trump’s threats to open schools prematurely, and a groundbreaking research paper that outlines necessary conditions for safely reopening schools, the UTLA Board of Directors and Bargaining Team are calling on LAUSD to keep school campuses closed when the semester begins on Aug. 18. “It is tim

EdAction in Congress July 12, 2020 Parents and educators say schools must reopen safely The Trump administration is pushing to reopen school buildings and college campuses even if it means violating the administration’s own safety guidelines. The president tweeted that Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines for reopening safely are “very impractical things.” Education Secreta

Fauci versus DeSantis, who do you trust? It's incredible to me that whenever DeSantis speaks about opening schools, he never mentions adults. Despite mounting evidence to the contrary, he says children are safe, but never once seems to connect that children live with adults and are taught by adults. He seems ignorant about that fact and Dr. Ananthony Fuci indicates it doesn't stop there. Before

New Orleans High School Parent: “My Son Is Being Socially Promoted.” EL is the father of a student at New Orleans-based Sophie B. Wright (SBW) charter school. L resides in Washington, DC, and shares custody of a son who has attended SBW since he was a seventh grader in the 2015-16 school year. In 2019-20, L’s son was a high school junior. L’s first communication with SBW occured on July 28, 2015

Listen to this – 2020 #2 – Do We Open School or Not? BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE Schools and teachers are faced with a no-win situation because of the coronavirus pandemic. What it could cost to reopen schools with COVID-19 safety measures Read this, from someone who never attended a public school, never worked in a public school, and never sent her children to a public school, yet is tasked

The Confederate “Lost Cause” and Southern Women - Living in Dialogue The Confederate “Lost Cause” and Southern Women Strengthening the Bonds of Patriarchy as a Path to Power By Paul Horton. Part One: Historians and the “Lost Cause” of the Confederacy Part Two: The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) and other groups played a central role in the push to erect Confederate monuments between 18

Teachers on re-opening schools: “Not without protecting kids” WASHINGTON—When the issue comes down to reopening the nation’s schools as the coronavirus plague continues, GOP President Donald Trump says “yes,” but leaders of teachers unions say “no”—or at any rate, not until you can truly protect the kids. The uproar started with a Trump dog-and-pony show with his Education Secretary, Elizabeth “