TOP POSTS THIS WEEK 7\4\20 #REDFORED #tbats #EducationVotes #NEARA2020 #edJustice #DEMOCRACY #BIDEN2020

Success Academy Parent: SA “Discriminatory, Hurts Public Schools” On July 02, 2020, I received an email from a Success Academy parent asking “to submit an anonymous (to avoid retaliation) letter about our firsthand experience,” with the goal to “encourage parents and inspire change one day” at Eva Moskowitz’s New York-based Success Academy charter school network. The parent added, “I did a lot o

At 2020 NEA RA, Educators Vow to Help Lead Nation Through Crisis At 2020 NEA RA, Educators Vow to Help Lead Nation Through Crisis Of all the events and activities that ground to a halt amid the greatest public health crisis in the nation’s history, the 2020 National Education Association Representative Assembly (RA) wasn’t going to be among them. On July 2 and 3, the more than 7,000 delegates gat

Rick Hess shares part of the record of some of those Confederate Monsters Rick Hess sometimes gets things right. He’s not about to endorse Jacobin mobs pulling down statues on their own, but he does realize that these Confederate “heroes” were monsters. Here is part of his article : “Start with Nathan Bedford Forrest, whose name appears on eight U.S. schools, more than all but five other Confede

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Baradaran: The Neoliberal Looting of America Mehrsa Baradaran, who wrote The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap (a properly self-explanatory title), had a great piece this week in the New York Times-- not directly about education, but involving many points that folks in the education world will recognize. " The Neoliberal Looting of America " is behind the usual paywall, and i

NewBlackMan (in Exile) The Afro-Latinx Experience Is Essential To Our International Reckoning On Race by Mark Anthony Neal / 21h '"Blackness is heterogeneous." On this episode of Alt.Latino , deep conversations about the Afro Latinidad and Blackness.' 'John Lewis: Good Trouble' by Mark Anthony Neal / 21h 'Director Dawn Porter discusses her new documentary, John Lewis: Good Trouble. -- All Of It

Education Research Report THIS WEEK Education Research Report Prospective teachers misperceive Black children as angry by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 1d Study findings suggest ramifications for Black youth AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION Prospective teachers appear more likely to misperceive Black children as angry than white children, which may undermine the education of Black youth, according to n

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 “Q&A Collections: Facing Gender Challenges in Education” by Larry Ferlazzo / 2h Q&A Collections: Facing Gender Challenges in Education is the headline of my latest Education Week Teacher

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 Celebrating July 4 by dianeravitch / 20min Having grown up in the middle of World War II, I have always been patriotic. We were the good guys. We stand for liberty, freedom, and the rights of all. I was aware from a young age that we didn’t live

Some teachers unions, districts at odds over live distance learning instruction At issue is a pre-internet law giving teachers control over classroom recordings. In negotiations with school districts around the state, the California Teachers Association has argued, with some success, that school districts lack the authority to force teachers to do live online instruction or to record lessons for

Assembly bill would shield California school districts from coronavirus lawsuits A new education bill — which State Assemblymember Patrick O’Donnell, D-Long Beach — introduced this week seeks to limit liability related to the coronavirus for school districts this fall. O’Donnell, who chairs the Education Committee in the California Assembly and is a high school history teacher, said his bill wil

Valuing Black Lives: Understanding Racism in American Education, Housing and Policing | Schott Foundation for Public Education Valuing Black Lives: Understanding Racism in American Education, Housing and Policing What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? | Schott Foundation for Public Education - http://schottfoundation.org/node/4243 The deliberate devaluation of Black-majority cities stems from a

Teaching Teenagers and Graduate Students I offer my experience in teaching high schoolers and graduate students as an honest, perhaps naive, way of self-consciously reflecting on how I taught both during the same day for an entire semester. While the teaching that I describe occurred many years ago, I believe that those experiences apply to both teachers and professors now. Readers will have to

'Perverse': Justice slams Supreme Court ruling allowing taxpayer money to be given to religious schools | The Independent 'Perverse': Justice slams Supreme Court ruling allowing taxpayer money to be given to religious schools Ruling overturns lower court order that shut down public funding of scholarships to private religious schools As COVID-19 takes toll, Betsy DeVos denounced for new ‘craven’

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007 TO DAY My Latest BAM! Radio Show Is On “Five Good Reasons and Five Great Ways to Teach With Music” by Larry Ferlazzo / 2h Five Good Reasons and Five Great Ways to Teach With Music is the topic of my latest ten-minute BAM! Radio Show. I’m joined by Denise Facey, Alycia Owen, Jennifer Schwanke, Rachelle

Linda Darling-Hammond on state's new expectations for distance learning EdSource · Linda Darling-Hammond on state's new expectations for distance learning Aware that distance learning didn’t go well in many districts the first time around, the Legislature has imposed new requirements for the fall. This week, Linda Darling-Hammond, an education adviser to Gov. Gavin Newsom and president of the St

Roberts’ Decision in Espinoza Case Undermines Protection of Church-State Separation; Will Damage Public Education On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court released a long awaited decision in the church-state separation case of Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue . Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion in the 5-4 decision. NY Times Supreme Court reporter, Adam Liptak quotes Robert

KENTUCKY COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION CANDIDATE PROFILES Three candidates remain for the job of Kentucky Commissioner of Education, and they were each asked the same three questions about themselves and their plans for the department by KDE. I’ve reblogged below the release verbatim from here . He’s been dean of the College of Education at the University of Kentucky for a year, but Dr. Julian Vasqu

COVID-19 Reclassification Summative English Language Proficiency Assessments for California (ELPAC) COVID-19 Reclassification Summative English Language Proficiency Assessments for California (ELPAC) Dear County and District Superintendent and Charter School Administrators: COVID-19 Reclassification Guidance for 2019–2020 and Fall Administration In January and September 2019, the California Depar

We fight for a democracy worthy of us all! - Lily's Blackboard We fight for a democracy worthy of us all! This is my final address to the NEA Representative Assembly, and I was able to get through it without crying. Thank you, Becky and Princess and Kim, and my incredible Executive Committee and the NEA staff who work night and day for you – they moved mountains to bring us together in this histo

NEA President: Educators Will Help Determine Our Democracy's Future NEA President: Educators Will Help Determine Our Democracy’s Future The nation stands at a crossroads, said NEA President Lily Eskelsen García in her final keynote address to the 2020 NEA Representative Assembly on Thursday, and it’s up to educators everywhere to make sure it chooses the correct path. Even though the 2020 RA is b

Oh Good Lord In Heaven We're Going To Mess With College Loans Again One hallmark of the DeVos era has been a deep devotion to debt-- specifically the debt of students who tried to go to college, and making sure that Those People don't try to wiggle out of it . She has stayed close to companies in the debt biz , a biz that she has her own ties to . All of this is why some folks have looked askanc

De Blasio Says He'll Open School Buildings. What Could Go Wrong? Mayor de Blasio has had an interesting couple of days. First, he determined it was too dangerous to open restaurants for indoor dining. Then, he decided to just open all the school buildings . After all, three of four people who took his open online survey, the one you could fill out anonymously as many times as you wished, said th

Thoughts For Parents And Educators On School Reopening For those of us in the northern hemisphere, we will be starting our next school year in the coming weeks and months. Depending on where you live, there will be really difficult decisions made about how school will proceed during the current pandemic the world is facing. Will school be all online? If so, will it be better than the online expe

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 White House Defense of Trump: He Didn’t Know! No One Told Him by dianeravitch / 49min Ignorance is usually not a good defense when you get caught. In Trump’s case, it is the default response when things go wrong. You could write a book about what Tr

From anti-vax to anti-mask: School districts brace for parent resistance SACRAMENTO — California’s anti-vaccine movement has a new target: masks. The same parents who loudly opposed school vaccine requirements in Sacramento last year are turning their attention to mask recommendations that districts are considering as they figure out how to send kids back to the classroom in the middle of a pand

OPINION: ‘Anxiety and depression among students have become central issues, and not all young people are affected equally’ The coronavirus's disproportionate effect on Black, Latino and Native American communities The Hechinger Report is a national nonprofit newsroom that reports on one topic: education. Sign up for our weekly newsletters to get stories like this delivered directly to your inbox

How Schools Work: A Practical Guide for Policymakers During a Pandemic This post, unlike most of the others on this blog, does not rely on data analysis or research reviews. It is, instead, the observations of someone who has spent decades working in PreK-12 schools. I'm offering it because I've read and heard a lot of commentary from a lot of people who seem to think we can quickly prepare for

Private and Religious School Backers See Broad Victory in Supreme Court Decision The court drew its decision narrowly when ruling against a Montana tax break that excluded religious schools. But denominational school advocates will push a broad application. WASHINGTON — A Supreme Court ruling on Tuesday against Montana’s exclusion of religious schools from a state scholarship program may have be

NewBlackMan (in Exile) Op-Docs: The Scars of Being Policed While Black by Mark Anthony Neal / 17h 'Based on more than a decade of research, this Op-Doc from anthropologist Lawrence Ralph serves as an instant primer on the roots of police violence. Right now, somewhere in the United States, similar episodes of police violence are still playing out.' -- New York Times When Essential Workers Earn L

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007 Around The Web In ESL/EFL/ELL by Larry Ferlazzo / 1h BiljaST / Pixabay Six years ago I began this regular feature where I share a few posts and resources from around the Web related to ESL/EFL or to language in general that have caught my attention. You might also be interested in THE BEST RESOURCES,

Derek Black: Untangling the Supreme Court’s Espinoza Decision Derek Black is a law professor at the University of South Carolina who specializes in education, civil rights, and equity. His new book, which I have read and intend to review here, is Schoolhouse Burning. It is phenomenal. It is a new history of American education that documents the historic role of public education in our democracy

Implied (or not so implied) Bias, White Privilege and Racism: Are We Turning around 400 Years of Bigotry? It was the last day of school; we raced home, picked up our bags and off to Kennedy for our overnight flight to Paris. Months earlier my wife was invited to an International Conference on Gifted Education in Hamburg; the planning expanded. We arranged to exchange our apartment with a French

Yet Another Letter from the Chancellor Dear Colleagues, Last night, we celebrated the extraordinary class of 2020—and in case you don't find that impressive enough in itself, I'm going to name drop like there's no tomorrow. If you don't believe me, pl ease visit nycclassof2020.com to relive some of the best moments, including messages from Jennifer Lopez, Alex Rodriguez, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Kena

Update on final NYC budget and what it means for our schools Whether the budget that was just passed by the City Council was a good one or not depends on whether you’re looking at the glass half empty or half full. According to the Council press release , they negotiated the restoration of $100 million in proposed cuts to Fair Student Funding, $11.6 million for the Single Shepherd guidance couns

Provincializing “Western Civilization” and European Exceptionalist Narratives: Where do we Begin? - Living in Dialogue Provincializing “Western Civilization” and European Exceptionalist Narratives: Where do we Begin? By Paul Horton. When Mahatma Gandhi was asked what he thought about Western Civilization, he reportedly replied that, “I think it would be a very good idea.” While Gandhi certainly m

Application for COVID-19 Disaster Relief Coronavirus (COVID-19) Main Web Page The California Department of Education (CDE) is providing program operators, including, school districts, county offices of education, charter schools, residential childcare institutions, and private schools participating in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), School Breakfast Program (SBP), Seamless Summer Optio

Betsy Devos's Happy Day There is plenty of joy in some Reformsterville neighborhoods these days, thanks to the not-unexpected ruling by the Supreme Court on Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue . As some education f olks have pointed out , it could have been worse. The court said that if states are going to pay for any non-public schools, they must include religious schools in the mix, whic

Seattle’s educators: Defund the police and expel them from schools! A version of this Op-Ed originally appeared in the Seattle Times . Seattle’s Education Association representative assembly — the union body that represents Seattle’s teachers, nurses, librarians, instructional assistants, office professionals and educational support staff — has overwhelmingly passed seven resolutions in solidari

Diane Ravitch in Conversation with Andre Perry Start: Wednesday, July 08, 2020 • 7:30 PM • Eastern Daylight Time (US & Canada) (GMT-04:00) End: Wednesday, July 08, 2020 • 9:00 PM • Eastern Daylight Time (US & Canada) (GMT-04:00) The Network for Public Education invites you to join us for a video conference with NPE President Diane Ravitch. Diane's guest this week will be Brookings Institute fell

Three candidates named in Kentucky’s education commissioner search | Kentucky Teacher Three candidates named in Kentucky’s education commissioner search The Kentucky Board of Education on July 1 released the names of three candidates vying to become Kentucky’s next commissioner of education. The board will meet July 6-7 to conduct second-round interviews with the three candidates in Louisville. T

State Superintendent Tony Thurmond and Task Force on Safe Schools Take First Steps to Address Statewide School Police Reform SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond today convened a hearing that took a comprehensive look at the role of police officers in schools and the impact that law enforcement presence has on students, learning, and campus safety. The hearing was

A Hybrid (Remote + Live Instruction) Model that Works A teacher described her niece and nephew’s school. A and B weeks. (not high school). Everyone knew the schedule, followed it. Worked. Everyone wore masks. And kids had the option of staying remote, but they did not, and they will go back live in September. BS fantasy? No. NYC? No. NYC probably cannot successfully do blended learning. Oh, we a

Let’s Talk About “Reopening Schools” Like many of us, I’ve been paying close attention to the various plans and suggestions for “reopening schools” this fall. It’s been more than a tad confusing to track the various recommendations coming from partisan legislative groups, professional associations, school district task forces, and the governor’s advisory board on reopening schools.I wish more th

Oakland is at the forefront of a national movement to abolish police from K-12 schools Amid a national conversation about cops and racism, Oakland Unified abolishes their school police force Oakland, Calif.— Last week, amid national cries for defunding and abolishing the police , the Oakland school board voted unanimously to abolish the Oakland Unified School District Police Department, a police

Supreme Court deals a blow to the separation of church and state - Vox The Supreme Court’s big decision on the separation of church and state, explained Chief Justice Roberts just gave us a reminder that he’s still a conservative Republican. The Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue , as Justice Sonia Sotomayor writes in dissent, “weakens this country’s longsta

Guide to California’s education budget deferrals: pros, cons and costs of delayed payments Districts won't be reimbursed for $11 billion in spending until 2021-22 Prevailing in negotiations with Gov. Gavin Newsom, the Legislature passed a state budget that will let K-12 schools spend at the same level in 2020-21 as this year — avoiding the billions in cuts that Newsom had proposed. But there’s a

Sacramento City Unified removing school resource officers, will use funds for alternative safety plans SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KTXL) — The Sacramento City Unified School District is taking police officers out of its schools. On Thursday, the Board of Education approved a budget for the upcoming school year that does not include any money for school resource officers with the Sacramento Police Depart

It’s My Birthday So I Write What I Choose That’s a joke headline. True that it’s my birthday but I write what I choose every day. Sometimes I’m right, sometimes I’m wrong, but I write what I choose. This is a freedom I gained when I realized that I’m free from ambition. At my exalted age (82), there is nothing to tempt me. I don’t yearn for a job or an appointment to anything. I don’t seek money

Personalized Learning May Appear to Solve Pandemic Education Challenges but New Research Raises Big Concerns Here we are at the beginning of July, and the COVID-19 numbers are soaring across many states. The recessionary collapse of state budgets makes public school funding look shaky, and nobody can quite say how to make school safe. With the 2020-21 school year expected to start in six weeks,

Schools Don't Need No Stinking Air Filtration But malls do , according to Governor Cuomo. You see, shoppers need fine air. They can't go around breathing deadly toxins. After all, how is that going to positively influence the economy? No, the sick and the dead are simply not adequate consumers. What do they buy? No, they are just a suck on the economy, lying around in hospital beds and using exp

With Pass-Fail, What’s the Point of Grades? (Jack Schneider) This opinion column appeared in New York Times , June 25, 2020 Jack Schneider ( @Edu_Historian ), an assistant professor of leadership in education at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, is the director of research for the Massachusetts Consortium for Innovative Education Assessment. In the wake of the novel coronavirus pandemic, c

Fraud at Sweetwater Maybe but Unlikely By Thomas Ultican 7/1/2020 For the past week, local San Diego TV and Print media have been filled with damning headlines like the NBC affiliate’s , “ Audit of Sweetwater Union High School District Finds Evidence of Fraud” or the online publication Voice of San Diego’s “Audit Finds Sweetwater Officials Deliberately Manipulated Finances.” Every local news out

Mr G. for District 3 ----------------- Chris Guerrieri's Education Matters: Let's talk abut the issues, libraries. Let's talk about the issues, libraries. I am going to do a series on the issues and I wanted to talk briefly about libraries. For a district with a reading problem it did not make any sense to get rid of the libraries but we did we sure did. This may have started under Pratt-Dannals

Gun crazy! Gun sales are skyrocketing around the country including in the Chicago area. A mainly white racist fear/rage response to Trump's looming election loss, government's pandemic "mask-wearing tyranny," BLM protests, and threatened defunding or disbanding of police is driving long lines at gun shops around the country. In Illinois, for example, from June 1 to June 17, there were more than

Grassroots Education Network- June 2020 Newsletter The NPE Grassroots Education Network is a network of 150 grassroots organizations nationwide who have joined together to preserve, promote, improve, and strengthen our public schools. If you know of a group that would like to join this powerful network, please go here to sign on. If you have any questions about the NPE Grassroots Education Netwo

Small Town and Suburban Racism Doesn't Cut it On College Teams or in Many Portions of the Workforce One of the things that the Trump loving, Confederate flag waving racial epithet spouting white folks in small town America need to realize is that they are compromising the futures of their most talented young people This fall at least five white athletes as schools ranging from Cornell to Marquet

| A clearinghouse for information on class size & the proven benefits of smaller classes Another way to urge the Mayor and NYC Council to increase the budget for schools next year Dear friends– Thank you so much sending a message via Action Network to the Mayor & Chancellor to let them know school budgets next year must be increased rather than cut to ensure the health & safety of students and s

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007 Just Sent-Out Free Monthly Email Newsletter by Larry Ferlazzo / 2h geralt / Pixabay I’ve just mailed out the July issue of my very simple free monthly email newsletter . It has over 3,000 subscribers, and you can subscribe here . Of course, you can also join the eighteen thousand others who subscribe

How the Supreme Court eroded the separation between church and state - The Washington Post How the Supreme Court’s decision on religious schools just eroded the separation between church and state The Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 on Tuesday that a Montana tax incentive program that indirectly helps private religious schools is constitutional, a major victory for Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and

Education Research Report K–12 Student Digital Divide Much Larger Than Previously Estimated by Jonathan Kantrowitz / 1h With the prospect of another distance learning school year on the horizon due to the coronavirus pandemic, a new analysis released today finds that a full 15 to 16 million public school students across the United States live in households without adequate internet access or com

Opinion | Remote School Is a Nightmare. Few in Power Care. - The New York Times Remote School Is a Nightmare. Few in Power Care. Government should treat the need to reopen schools as an emergency. Scott Stringer, the comptroller of New York City, has sons who are 7 and 8 years old. Over the last three months, like many parents, he’s tried to navigate what schools are optimistically calling “remot

Rule Followers, Unite! And Stay Alive… Meme wisdom: Those who have stayed inside, worn masks in public, and socially distanced during this entire pandemic are the same people who are used to doing the whole group project by themselves. Of all the hundreds of things I’ve read about distancing, risk assessment, statistical analyses and their failings, back to school/stay home , and whether masking

Housekeepers and custodians, fearful as campuses reopen, demand more protection from their schools After about two months off the job, Gliny Gonzalez, a 51-year-old housekeeper at the University of Maryland in College Park, was finally called back to work last month. But even after 14 years, she suddenly felt unprepared. There was some training, including on updated cleaning procedures and ways

Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... | The latest news and resources in education since 2007 The Hajj Will Be Limited This Year, But Here Are Teaching & Learning Resources by Larry Ferlazzo / 1h GLady / Pixabay Millions of Muslims make the annual pilgrimage, called the Hajj, to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Because the Islamic calendar is a lunar calendar based on the motion of the moon, the time of

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 California Charter Schools Collect Millions Intended for Small Businesses by dianeravitch / 1h The Network for Public Education has been tracking the charter schools that collected from the federal Paycheck Protectiin Program intended to help small

Trapped On a Runaway Train to a Public School Disaster Congratulations, America. We did it. We screwed up the response to COVID-19 so badly that things can only get worse in the fall . I’m a public school teacher and the father of a public school student. I spent the last 9 weeks of class trying to create a new on-line curriculum for my 7th and 8th grade students out of thin air . Meanwhile, I h

What lesson is the district giving its teachers and kids with its reopening plan. (draft) I have to say having a zoom call to discuss reopening subjects is a terrible look. If you don't feel safe enough to meet in person, why would you expect staff and students. I want to thank the board and district for working so hard to ensure students can return to the classroom. It is what we all want and I

BREAKING NEWS: Supreme Court Rules Against Montana Ban on Funding Religious Schools The Supreme Court just released a 5-4 decision in the case of Espinoza V. Montana that struck down a provision in the state constitution banning public funds to religious schools. The decision seems to be narrowly tailored to say that if a state provides aid to private schools, it can’t bar aid to religious schoo

Why This Historic Moment Is Special: My Reflections on the Movements Sweeping the Nation I am tremendously optimistic about the current historic moment because the Black Lives Matter movement has grown to proportions as large, or larger than any movement I have seen in my lifetime, including the anti-war movement of the 60's which it resembles most. What has been most astonishing has been the nu

State Superintendent Tony Thurmond Announces Ethnic Studies Webinar Series Featuring Civil Rights Leaders and Special Guests SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond today announced that the California Department of Education (CDE) will lead a series of virtual ethnic studies webinars and lessons in the coming weeks. As the CDE prepares to submit a revised Ethnic Studi

Calling All Teachers: Please Complete This National Teacher Survey Kate Phillippo is an associate professor in social work at Loyola University in Chicago. In 2019 , I reviewed her excellent book about competitive school choice in Chicago, A Contest Without Winners. During this time of coronavirus and massive protest, Dr. Phillippo and her colleagues have created a national teacher survey, which

UFT Executive Board June 29, 2020 What in the World Are We Gonna Do in September? Roll Call 5:50 UFT Secretary LeRoy Barr --Minutes have passed via email. UFT President Michael Mulgrew--We will be talking during the summer. We are at the end of the city budget. DOE has been cutting central and outside contracts, to some degree, but this is phase one. If we don't have fed package, state will do m

PARENTS: GOOGLE CLASSROOM IS NOT YOUR FRIEND The following is by Carrie McLaren, a Brooklyn parent. If others have similar experiences with Chromebooks, please let us know at info@studentprivacymatters.org A couple of years ago, my then-4th grade son started watching YouTube videos about Magic, a trading card game. These were snoozy, lo-tech commentaries that struck me as quasi-educational. But

Government Watchdog Report Shows DeVos Delayed Students From Receiving Stimulus Money Last week, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report evaluating the federal government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The watchdog’s report showed that the implementation of the coronavirus relief law, known as the CARES Act, from Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and the Department of Ed

White Hero Teacher and White Paternalism (#3) What ‘white folks who teach in the hood’ get wrong about education Christopher Emdin teaches at Columbia University Teacher College and is Associate Director of the Institute for Urban and Minority Education at Columbia. He identifies a pervasive narrative in urban education: a savior complex that gives mostly white teachers in minority and urban com

To Everyone Who Was Never A Classroom Teacher, Re Pandemic School Openings To everyone who was never a classroom teacher but who has some ideas about how school should be reopened in the fall: Hush. Just hush. There are some special categories of life experiences. Divorce. Parenthood. Deafness. Living as a Black person in the US. Classroom teacher. They are very different experiences, but they a

Back to school likely to include online class. How can we improve it? 'This is hell': Parents and kids hate online classes. Going back to school likely will include more of it. In his suburban New Jersey home-turned-classroom this spring, parent Don Seaman quickly found himself in the role of household vice principal. While his wife holed up in the bedroom to work each day, Seaman, a media and ma

Barbara Veltri: TFA Is Still Feeding at the Trough Barbara Veltri is a teacher educator at Arizona State University. She has mentored TFA corps members, and she wrote a book about TFA. In this essay, she notes that Doug Ducey, Republican Governor of Arizona and a favorite of Charles Joch, is an avid supporter of Trump, school choice, and TFA. She writes: Tara Kini, wrote, “We’re hearing a lot of

NEA to Host Virtual Representative Assembly July 2-3 For the first time in its more than 160-year history, the National Education Association (NEA) will host a virtual Representative Assembly, a necessary and prudent safeguard for its delegates during a global pandemic. “NEA’s Board of Directors has decided to convert the 2020 NEA RA into a virtual meeting, which is our safest option,” said NEA

U.S. Pediatricians Call For In-Person School This Fall The nation's pediatricians have come out with a strong statement in favor of bringing children back to the classroom this fall, wherever and whenever they can do so safely. The American Academy of Pediatrics' guidance "strongly advocates that all policy considerations for the coming school year should start with a goal of having students phy

Will Two Cities Defund School Police? In Oakland, an Emphatic Yes; In L.A., Not So Fast A mid ongoing protests against police brutality and racial injustice, two of California’s largest school districts this week joined other education leaders across the country pressured to rethink their policing of students. In Oakland and Los Angeles, thousands of protesters of all races and ethnicities spent

Get police out of schools — including university campuses Municipal police departments' racist policing practices do not stop when policing university campuses The brutal police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Tony McDade, among many others, and the wave of national Black-led protests against racist police brutality that followed, have permanently altered the realm of the possible.

Confronting DiAngelo’s “White Fragility” in the Time of #BlackLivesMatter For a book on racism written by an academic, Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility has experienced a level of popularity over the last two years that is interesting, if not surprising. With the #BlackLivesMatter movement re-ignited after the killing of George Floyd by a police officer, DiAngelo’s book has also experienced anoth

A decade of research on the rich-poor divide in education Many studies show large and growing inequities Americans like to believe that education can be a great equalizer, allowing even the poorest child who studies hard to enter the middle class. But when I looked at what academic researchers and federal data reports have said about the great educational divide between the rich and poor in our

What are the California school rules for online learning? - Los Angeles Times Online or in the classroom, teachers and students must show up every day, new rules say When it comes to education, the new state budget goes beyond providing $70.5 billion in funding for K-12 schools — it sets fundamental accountability rules for a new era of distance learning in California by requiring teachers to tak

Children and the Pandemic The Pandemic Shows the Importance of Funding Early Childcare and Education Infrastructure T he COVID-19 pandemic that shut down the economy in March has led to sharp declines in employment and output. In December, women made up more than half the workforce; now, for the first time, women have lost jobs at a more rapid rate than men. They need to be able to return to emp

A system designed only to benefit born-billionaire Betsy DeVos – with special guest columnist Helaine Olen Helaine Olen on Twitter: @HelaineOlen Buy Helaine’s book Pound Foolish: Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry HERE . Helaine Olen’s work at The Washington Post is HERE. Helaine Olen at The Washington Post : Betsy DeVos is an abysmal failure and our nation’s schoolchildren

Final CARES Act Disribution Rule Still Favors Private Schools Over Public Schools Betsy DeVos just released binding final guidance for states to distribute $13.2 billion from the CARES Act to public school districts and private schools. States and public school districts have been pushing back against DeVos’s preliminary non-binding guidance, which favors funding for private and religious school

DCPS looking to spend millions on plastic shields, masks still optional. (draft) You know for years I have been advocating for later start times for high schools. The science is pretty clear that high school kids should start later in the day. https://www.cdc.gov/features/school-start-times/index. The district always replies we can't afford it because of magnet school busing. Buses rum multiple

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Yes, It's Still Happening Edition (6/28) Yes, It's Still Happening Edition I haven't reminded you for a while-- if you read something here that speaks to you, go to the original posting site and share that puppy. You have the power to amplify voices. Everything that ever went viral was shared one person at a time. So do your part and spread the word. An Experiment in the So

I'm Trying Not To Take Sides These are complicated times, and in the interest of serving ALL students (and avoiding as many problems with parents as possible), I’m renewing my commitment to avoid pushing my own personal values and ideology and just sticking to the facts. It’s not that hard in early American history. I mean, sure – there’s the issue of Columbus and whether he “discovered” America

EdAction in Congress June 28, 2020 House takes initial steps to end police brutality The House passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act (S. 3912/H.R. 7120) by a bipartisan vote of 236-131 while a separate bill failed to advance in the Senate. The bill passed by the House takes initial steps to end police brutality, protect the civil rights and liberties of all people, and change the cultu

It’s time to revisit the Washington Murals debate. I firmly stand behind my vote to paint down the Life of Washington Murals. I don’t need white (and Asian) alumni, many of whom graduated from the school before it was even integrated as a result of Brown v. Board of Education, to tell me what those murals represent. The Black children and families that walk into the school each day seeing their

Burger Chef and Dan Died on the Same Day If you’re like most 16 year old males, there’s a better than average chance that the suit inventory in your wardrobe consists of a total of one. And by suit I mean the matching sport coat and pants that was purchased on clearance from a discount warehouse that has as much chance of staying in business as a groundhog attempting to take up tenure on the 18t

Police education is broken. Can it be fixed? A patchwork system for training police focuses too much on military approaches and not enough on de-escalation and anti-bias. Past attempts at reform haven’t led to wholesale change. In late May, when video began circulating of George Floyd trapped under the knee of a police officer, struggling to breathe, it was the latest reminder of America’s failu

Defund the police, not education In a country as wealthy as the U.S., you would think ensuring that students have access to quality education and services would not be an issue. You would think that in a country as wealthy as ours, it would be a priority that students and their families remain in good health and have access to health care, as well as mental health care during a global pandemic.

How Racism Gets Taught and Misrepresented in Our Schools Teaching It Forward The not-so-subtle purpose of compulsory schooling is to ensure a populace subservient to the status quo which primarily serves the ruling class. What we call education is derived from a Prussian model designed to reward individuals based on how well they stay in line and do as they’re told through the process of grading

VOICES: River City, Episode 67: California’s School-to-Prison Pipeline BY: VOICES: THE PODCAST JUNE 23, 2020 Do cops belong in schools? The answer is obvious: No. Yet Americans have spent the last seven decades increasing their presence in institutions of education, to devastating results. We discuss chapter three in Alex Vitale’s ‘The End of Policing’ ( which you can download for just $3 from V

It’s Ridiculous to Treat Schools Like Covid Hot Zones (David Zweig)* This article appeared in Wired Magazine June 24, 2020. “ David Zweig writes about technology and culture for a number of publications, including the New York Times, the New Yorker, and the Atlantic. He is also the author of the book Invisibles: Celebrating the Unsung Heroes of the Workplace.” On May 18, education ministers from

22 Reasons Why Schools Should NOT Reopen in the Fall Well-meaning parents and schoolboards have been working remotely to determine how to safely reopen schools, but these plans are filled with uncertainty. Many of the changes make schools unrecognizable. The Coronavirus has involved conflicting information. Now we’re seeing an uptick in cases. It’s not what anyone wants, but fall doesn’t seem li

Paul Horton: Why Study History? I invited Paul Horton, a history teacher at the University of Chicago Lab School, to write on the topic, “Why study history?” He wrote this essay. Betsy Devos’ War on History is Just Another Trip to Fantasyland Without history we are lost. Without history we are disconnected, thrown into limitless space and time that has no ground or purpose. Learning history is c

Meeting with Mulgrew about Reopening Schools Last Tuesday afternoon I attended a curious Zoom Meeting about reopening schools in September. Michael Schirtzer (teacher, Leon Goldstein HS, and UFT Executive Board Member, High School Division) organized it. He wanted to bring some hard questions to the UFT leadership. There were six classroom teachers: Mike; me; the two co-programmers from Michael

Details of Allegations Against KIPP's Mike Feinberg Do you remember Christine Blasey Ford's emotional and riveting testimony related to her decades-old sexual assault at the hands of Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, when he was a drunk, horny punk who enjoyed terrorizing and humiliating females? If you do, you're likely to remember, too, that institutional sexism functioned as it always h

Support Mr. G for district 3 by getting a (free) button Hello friends, I hope this finds you well. As many of you know I am running for school board! Today we are starting a social media campaign to boost knowledge about the campaign and we would love your help! Are you in? If so PM us your address and we will put a button in the mail to you ASAP! Even if you do not live in district 3 we want yo

Florida Tightens The Public Education Noose I have run out of words for Florida. It's been a little more than a year since I dubbed them "the worst," and there really isn't anything to add to that, except of course there is. The leadership positions under Governor Ron DeSantis have been handed over to profiteers and people whose whole life story is anti-education, plus a very active astro-turfy

New York’s Largest Charter Network, Known for Its Abusive Discipline of Children of Color, Gets Praise From Private-Charter Support Site “citizen ed” One of the well-funded Internet sites advancing the private-charter narrative these days is citizen ed . Funded by brightbeam , this site relies heavily on the taped interviews by Chris Stewart (a.k.a citizenchris). One noticeable interview by Stew

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 SEL Weekly Update by Larry Ferlazzo / 54min I’ve recently begun this weekly post where I’ll be sharing resources I’m adding to The Best Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Resources or other relate

Big Education Ape TOP POSTS THIS WEEK 6/27/20 ‘Slaying Goliath’: Diane Ravitch argues in new book that public education advocates have beat back efforts to privatize schools - The Washington Post The real story of New