KIDS LIVING IN POVERTY DON'T HAVE ANY LOBBYISTS
Schools have closed for the coronavirus pandemic and most will likely not open again this school year. Many school systems have gone to online learning, but because a significant percentage of students have little or no access to the internet, some students are not being served.
How can schools best serve all students (including students with special learning or physical needs) and what happens next year when some students have had the benefit of online learning experiences and others have not? Do we test all the kids to see where they are? Do we retain kids? (answer: NO!) The coronavirus pandemic, like other disasters and disruptions, hurt most, the kids who need school the most and have the least.
From Steven Singer
in Virtual Learning Through Quarantine Will Leave Poor and Disabled Students Behind
This just underlines the importance of legislation. Special education students have IDEA. Poor students have nothing. There is no right to education for them at all.
From Steve Hinnefeld and Pedro Noguera
in Time for ‘educational recovery planning’
...the massive and sudden shift to online learning is exposing huge gaps in opportunity. Some communities lack reliable internet service. Many families are on the wrong side of the digital divide. As Superintendent of Public Instruction Jennifer McCormick said, a parent and three school-age children may share a single device, often a smartphone.
“The kids who have the least are getting the least now,” UCLA education professor Pedro Noguera told Hechinger Report. “They will, in fact, be behind the kids who are learning still.”
From Peter Greene
in Should We Just Hold Students Back Next Year?
Retention in grade doesn't help -- even in the face of nation-wide disruption.
...We have been suffering for years now under the notion that kindergarten should be the new first grade; next fall, we could give students room to breathe by making first grade the new first grade. In other words, instead of moving the students back a grade to fit the structure of the school, we could shift the structure of the school to meet the actual needs of the students.
From Nancy Flanagan
in If Technology Can’t Save Us, What Will?
Most important of all...kids need their teachers. They need human interaction which improves learning -- and positive teacher/student relationships, even more. See also A PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP, below.
It turns out that technology cannot, will not replace the human touch, when it comes to learning that is worthwhile and sticks in our students’ brains and hearts. We already knew that, of course. But it’s gratifying to know that school—bricks and mortar, white paste and whiteboards, textbooks and senior proms—is deeply missed.
Public education is part of who we are, as a representative democracy. We’ve never gotten it right—we’ve let down millions of kids over the past century or two and done lots of flailing. There are curriculum wars that never end and bitter battles over equity, the teacher pipeline and funding streams.
But still. We need school.
IT'S TRUE WHETHER OR NOT YOU BELIEVE IN IT
From Rob Boston
in The Religious Right’s Disdain For Science Is Exactly What We Don’t Need Right Now
Science is a process, not an outcome. We must improve our science education so students understand science. We ignore science at our peril.
The rejection of science and refusal to see facts as the non-partisan things that they are have consequences, as Jerry Falwell Jr. – and his students at Liberty University in Virginia – are painfully learning. Put simply, viruses don’t care whether you believe in them or not. They will wreak their havoc either way.
REMOVE TESTING FROM THE HANDS OF PROFIT
From Diane Ravitch
in Noted education scholar says parents now more aware of vital role of schools, by Maureen Downey.
The profit motive won't create better tests. Teachers who know their students will.
If federal and state leaders gave any thought to change, they would drop the federal mandate for annual testing because it is useless and pointless. Students should be tested by their teachers, who know what they taught. If we can’t trust teachers to know their students, why should we trust distant corporations whose sole motive is profit and whose products undermine the joy of teaching and learning?
IT'S POVERTY -- STILL
From Jitu Brown, National Director for the Journey for Justice Alliance
in One Question: What Policy Change Would Have the Biggest Impact on Alleviating Poverty?
The fact that poor children are suffering more during the current world crisis than wealthy students should not be surprising. We have always neglected our poor children.
According to the United Nations, America ranks twenty-first in education globally among high-income nations. When you remove poverty, the United States is number two. This tells me that America knows how to educate children, but refuses to educate the poor, the black, brown, and Native American.
NO MATTER WHAT THEY CALL IT, IT'S NOT PRESCHOOL
From Rhian Evans Allvin, CEO of NAEYC,
in Making Connections. There’s No Such Thing as Online Preschool
Using public dollars intended for early childhood education to give children access to a 15-minute-per-day online program does not expand access to preschool. It doesn’t address the crisis in the supply of quality, affordable child care. It doesn’t help parents participate in the workforce. And it doesn’t help families choose an “alternative” option for or version of pre-K because it is something else entirely. To what extent we want to encourage parents to access online literacy and math curricula to help their 3- and 4-year-olds prepare for school is a conversation for another column. In this one, the only question is whether these technology-based programs can be “preschool”—and the answer is no.
ACCESS TO BOOKS
From P.L. Thomas
in Misreading the Reading Wars Again (and Again)
Proponents of whole language and balanced literacy have never said that phonics wasn't important. What they do say, however, is that other things are important, too.
Test reading is reductive (and lends itself to direct phonics instruction, hint-hint), but it is a pale measure of deep and authentic reading, much less any student’s eagerness to read.
Because of the accountability movement, then, and because of high-pressure textbook reading programs, we have for decades ignored a simple fact of research: the strongest indicator of reading growth in students is access to books in the home (not phonics programs).
A PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP
From Russ Walsh
in Hula Dancing, Singing and a Teacher's Impact
Over the years I've had several former students relate to me what they remembered from my class. I had a student tell me how important an art project was as a connection to his father. Another student thanked me for helping her during a difficult time in her family. A student who grew up to be a teacher and taught in my district told me that she was reading the same book to her students that I read to her class. Many students, in fact, talked about my reading aloud to them as the most important thing they remember. And a student remembered how I had trusted her to clean off the top of my desk every day after school.
I never had a student come to me and thank me for teaching them how to multiply...or spell "terrible"...or take a standardized test...or count syllables in a word. I take that as a compliment.
The messages we send to kids last a lifetime and they are not often about the times table or coordinating conjunctions or how many planets are in the skies. It is the personal messages and connections that are remembered. It is the belief a teacher instills that we can do that resonates through the years. It is that one book that made a special impression that we remember. That is a lesson we all must take into every interaction we have with a child.
SAY HELLO
From John Prine
in Hello in There
Thanks, and good night, JP.
So if you're walking down the street sometime
And spot some hollow ancient eyes,
Please don't just pass 'em by and stare
As if you didn't care, say, "Hello in there, hello."
🎧🎤🎧
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