Next comes the question of the day--synchronous or asynchronous? Shall we record and upload an asynchronous lesson using video, power points and websites, while talking only to ourselves? Or, should we go live with a synchronistic lesson on Zoom or Google Meets where we can interact in real time with our students? Only to realize that we are still pretty much--talking to ourselves.
Read MoreMichael Hynes’s Staying Grounded is a good read filled with many wonderful concepts for improving school operations. I recommend the book.
Finally, I really liked this quote Hynes shared from Aristotle,
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
Read MoreAs long as the pandemic keeps school buildings closed or keeps them running at less than capacity, the chances of mandating high stakes testing during the crisis goes down.
Read MoreEducators who are close to retirement must make a fateful decision for next year. The stakes are high. Return to school and teach our precious students--at the risk of our very lives--or gamble on retirement and hope that there will be money left in our pensions so that we can survive. We must pick our poison.
Read MoreIn the billionaire financed effort to privatize public education, CREDO has become their source for data proving things like smaller class sizes and teacher professionalism are not important. The “Cities Project” commissioned by an organization intent on privatizing public schools through promoting the portfolio management scheme – The City Fund – is biased toward the privatization agenda. Rather than shining the light of scholarly work on education policy, it obscures reality with obfuscation.
Read MoreOne of the more devious ways to starve public schools is Step Up for Students, the not-for-profit tax dodge that began as a way for Jeb Bush to evade the court decision that declared his voucher program unconstitutional.
Read MoreThe Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and other power brokers, plan to remake public schools. The timing is right to ask the mothers of America, of which I am one, how they would like to reimagine public schools after the pandemic is over.
Read MoreKids need to be in the presence of physical human beings in a real environment with their peers to maximize their learning. We need smaller classes, equitable funding, desegregation, social justice, wide curriculum, and an end to high stakes testing, school privatization, science denial and anti-intellectualism.
Read MoreMake no mistake, Bill Gates is no savior. He is not being altruistic. In the world of virtual learning, he will be selling the computers and software. He is not reimagining education, he is creating a market for his products. As will the other corporations and billionaire education reformers. That is disaster capitalism.
Read MoreWe know there’s a place for technology, and we can never, nor should we, go back to schools without it. But if ever a time could show us how valuable human connectedness is, that time is now. If only those who want to drastically change schools to their vision could see that.
Read MoreThank you to all of the teachers that are doing their best, we see you! It’s time we push for what we really want for teacher appreciation! “But, for me and many others, showing teachers appreciation really has nothing to do with chocolate and gift cards.”
Read MoreMy bottom line is that simplified indexes run in popular news magazines may sell advertising but they are misleading and do damage. Many wonderful schools were erroneously deemed failures by No Child Left Behind testing. If education leaders had looked at the accrediting agency reports instead of just the simple standardized testing results, they would have never destroyed those schools operating mostly in poor minority neighborhoods. Likewise, your “Challenge Index” with its easy to understand ratio runs the risk of promoting unhealthy education practices.
Read MoreTurzai is like a man who calmly says it’s not raining outside while a thunderstorm beats down on the neighborhood. Instead of pointing out the truth, the media simply reports what Turzai said and at most gives equal weight to a meteorologist. But there is no OPINION about facts! And whether scientific consensus holds with his crackpot conspiracy theories about how the Coronavirus spreads or not IS a fact.
Read MoreDuring this time of uncertainty, America needs to support and uplift its public schools like never before. They are our schools. They don’t belong to just Betsy DeVos and her friends in high places.
Read MoreWe have to ask ourselves – will we continue to support a culture of death where war and inequality are prioritized over nurturing and care? Or will we finally engage in a culture of life, where education and equity are the driving forces of society?
Read MoreThe abrupt end of this school year has been overwhelming for all students, but what these 12th graders have endured is profound. Far to many are quietly internalizing the anxiety and depression over the loss of their final year of high school. With the incalculable pain and suffering this virus has caused for millions of people, missing out on senior year may seem minor. But to these students, the pain, anger and frustration are very real.
Read MoreShould the order come down to resume in-building classes, Educators must refuse and not allow schools to reopen until it is safe for our students to return to their classrooms: Regardless of what the President, the Administration, the States, or any other authority says.
Read MoreWhy are billionaires spending so much to undermine professionalism in public education? It is probably not altruism. More likely, they want to reduce the biggest cost associated with education; teacher’s salaries. In the antebellum south, plantation owners preached anti-tax ideology because they owned the most and paid the most. Today’s billionaires aren’t much different. Most of them won’t put their children in public schools and really don’t value high quality public education. It seems the big motivation is to reduce tax burdens and simultaneously create new education industries.
Read MoreThe film does seem to have a theme about how we expect everything from schools and teachers and don’t reward them well enough. But this is undercut by the obvious villainy of people who use that discrepancy to take advantage of the trust the public has placed in them.
Read MoreMore than students’ attempts to message each other through the lesson or the constant screaming in the background at some kids homes or the vacant stares of the child with ADHD whose IEP calls for teacher proximity and eye contact, but how do you do that from across town? – more than all of that is the silence.The empty, deafening silence of the majority of kids who don’t even show up.
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