Archives for the month of: March, 2020
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Coronavirus Crisis: Nearly One-Quarter of Schools Have No School Nurse

By dianeravitch
March 13, 2020 //
14

Jersey Jazzman documents a crucial shortage in school nurses, who serve multiple roles in protecting the health of children in school.

He writes:

As the coronavirus threat increases in the United States, policymakers are assessing our nation’s capacity to handle a pandemic. One of our first lines of defense — and one I’ve yet to see discussed — is our school nursing workforce.

Ask anyone who has worked for a while in a school, and they will tell you how valuable it is to have a good nurse on staff. This is because school nurses do a lot more than put bandaids on boo-boos. They are, in many cases, a primary healthcare provider for school-aged children. They disseminate information to staff, students, and families. They monitor the health of school buildings and ensure employees and students follow good sanitary practices. They administer medicines to younger students who need supervision. They provide vision, hearing, and dental screenings. They are first responders in emergencies, and the liaison between trauma care providers and the school.

And, as I’ve seen time and again in my career, they are often the first adult a child trusts when that child is in crisis. Countless tragedies have been avoided because a school nurse was there to hear a student’s cries for help.

In the face of the looming coronavirus threat, I think we need to take a minute and ask about the current state of our school nurse workforce. Luckily, there is a very good paper from 2018 that conducted a survey on school nurses. Surveys like these are tough for a variety of reasons, but my read of the paper is that this is a high-quality piece of research that aligns with previous work on the topic. [At this point, he inserts graphs, which you should see by opening his post].

One in five American schools has no nursing coverage. And another one in five has less than full-time coverage. The breakdown by region suggests to me that part of the issue is that we’ve got a lot of rural schools in the West that are probably too small to be able to sustain a full-time nurse. That said, you’d think these schools would find a way to share nurses so they’d get at least part-time coverage. But the data suggest a lot of schools can’t make this work….

The breakdown by urban/rural supports this idea: 17 percent of urban schools have no nursing coverage, while 30 percent of rural schools have no coverage. Still: how did we get to a place where one in six urban schools have no nurses?

Reviewing the data, he finds that 37% of American schools do not have a full-time nurse. Especially at a time like the present, this is unacceptable.

Education Week writes about the nation’s shortage of school nurses, who are critical every day, but especially now in the midst of a global pandemic.

School nurses have a critical role to play as schools grapple with responding to coronavirus.

They can advise district leaders on how best to communicate key information from health authorities to their school communities. They can oversee their school’s tactics for limiting the spread of the virus, through handwashing demonstrations and talking to parents. And their health expertise can help administrators make important decisions about limiting large group gatherings or ramping up cleaning schedules.

But not every school has a full time nurse—or any type of dedicated health professional—to lean on. Almost 25 percent of schools have no nurse all, according to a 2016 workforce study by the National Association of School Nurses. Nearly 40 percent of schools employed full-time nurses, while 35 percent had part-time nurses, the study found.

School nurses do so much more to protect children. After Philadelphia reduced the number of school nurses to cut the budget, at least two children died in schools that had limited nurse coverage after Republican Governor Corbett cut $1 billion of the city’s school budget, forcing the city to lay off 4,000 staff, including reducing the number of nurses from 289 to 179. One child died of an asthma attack in a school where the nurse was available only two days a week, and the nurse was not at the school on that day. School nurses in that city recently protested the cutbacks and the interference of unlicensed administrators; the school system did not replace its sole physician. The Pennsylvania Legislature barred the exclusion of unvaccinated children from school.

Categories Health

Why Won’t Trump Declare a National Emergency?

By dianeravitch
March 13, 2020 //
36

Because he doesn’t want to admit he was wrong when he compared the coronavirus to the flu.

James Hohmann of the Washington Post wrote:

Democrats want Trump to declare the coronavirus outbreak a national emergency. He’s hesitating.

President Trump declared a national emergency last February to divert billions that had been appropriated for the military to fund construction of his wall along the southern border. White House lawyers told Trump he could reprogram that money without the declaration. But the president was determined to announce a national emergency, we reported at the time, for fear of looking weak if he didn’t.

Thirteen months later, Trump has appeared afraid of looking weak if he does declare a national emergency to respond to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. He’s resisted a growing chorus of pleas from local leaders, as well as congressional Democrats, to declare a national emergency. Under the 1988 Stafford Act, this would enable the Federal Emergency Management Agency to take disaster-level action and free up billions in assistance for states and municipalities on the front lines of the pandemic.

Trump remained noncommittal when asked Thursday in the Oval Office whether he will declare a national emergency. “Well, we have things that I can do,” he replied. “We have very strong emergency powers under the Stafford Act. … I have it memorized, practically, as to the powers in that act. And if I need to do something, I’ll do it. I have the right to do a lot of things that people don’t even know about.”

Trump added that he may invoke the Stafford Act “at some point” but suggested that things are not yet bad enough to do so. “It may be some of the more minor things at this point,” he said. “But, you know, look, we’re in great shape. Compared to other places, we are in really good shape, and we want to keep it that way. That’s why I did the ban with respect to Europe.”

Trump’s reluctance to claim executive power amid the gravest crisis of his presidency, when he’s had a penchant for doing so in less dire circumstances, is one of the more puzzling elements of what has been his administration’s muddled and confused response to the outbreak. There are now more than 1,600 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the United States and at least 41 deaths. The Dow plummeted 10 percent on Thursday, posting its largest one-day point loss in history. In percentage terms, it was the worst day for the markets since Black Monday in October 1987, despite the Federal Reserve – which Trump doesn’t control – announcing it would pump $1.5 trillion into the short-term lending markets.

This has made for a surreal reversal of roles. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) used the word “emergency” 10 times during a 16-minute speech about the coronavirus. “We are dealing with a national emergency, and the president should declare one now,” said Sanders, who helped champion the unsuccessful effort in the Senate last year to overturn Trump’s border-wall emergency. “The number of casualties may actually be even higher than what the Armed Forces experienced in World War II.”

Three dozen Senate Democrats signed an open letter urging Trump to invoke the Stafford Act and declare a national disaster. “Why he hasn’t done it is a mystery,” Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a speech on the Senate floor. “We need him to do it and do it now.”

Part of Trump’s hesitation to declare a national emergency has seemed to be about saving face. Just last week, for example, he said it would be unnecessary. “I don’t think you’ll need that because I really think we’re in extremely good shape,” he said. Declaring an emergency after making comments like that would put in stark relief the flat-footed nature of his initial reaction.

“Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar is pushing for the designation. But Vice President Mike Pence, who Trump tapped to lead the administration’s coronavirus response, is wary it could trigger an economic tailspin,” Politico’s Anita Kumar reported on Wednesday. “There’s no deadline for a decision, but one of the people familiar with the talks said Trump’s aides will not give the president a final verdict until Jared Kushner, the president’s senior adviser and son-in-law, talks to relevant parties and presents his findings to the president.” The story quotes an unnamed “Republican who speaks to Trump” saying: “The president isn’t persuaded because [an emergency declaration] contradicts his message that this is the flu.”

CNN reported Thursday that Trump has decided he’s willing to invoke the Stafford Act, but the declaration is going through legal review at the White House “as officials navigate how broad it can be.”

There are consequences to the delay. The FEMA Disaster Relief Fund has $42.6 billion. Trump declaring a national emergency would give the administration access to that pool of money to help manage the fallout from the spread of the virus, including setting up mobile hospitals and transporting the infected. Perhaps more importantly, it would open a gusher of money to states, counties and cities that may soon be overwhelmed by a surge in cases. An emergency declaration means that the federal government picks up 75 percent of the cost of eligible protective measures so long as the state picks up the other 25 percent.

The New York Times’s editorial page, in urging Trump to declare a national emergency, acknowledges the irony: “This editorial board is not inclined to grant the president more executive power, given his track record. But this crisis demands such quick action in the interests of the American people that we can only hope he will set his more selfish impulses aside and rise to the moment.”

The internal debate about whether to declare an emergency highlights Kushner’s growing role in the White House’s response to the coronavirus. “Even Trump — a man practically allergic to admitting mistakes — knew he’d screwed up by declaring Wednesday night that his ban on travel from Europe would include cargo and trade, and acknowledged as much to aides in the Oval Office as soon as he’d finished speaking,” Philip Rucker, Ashley Parker and Josh Dawsey report. Kushner “reassured Trump that aides would correct his misstatement, four administration officials said, and they scrambled to do just that. … Trump — who believed that by giving the speech he would appear in command and that his remarks would reassure financial markets and the country — was in ‘an unusually foul mood’ and sounded at times ‘apoplectic’ on Thursday as he watched stocks tumble and digested widespread criticism of his speech …

“The speech was largely written by Kushner and senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, who were still making tweaks to the text until moments before Trump delivered it … Thirty minutes before Trump appeared live on camera, a final draft of his remarks still had not circulated widely within the White House … And senior health experts in the administration did not review a final draft of the remarks, according to a senior administration official. … ‘Everyone usually gets [Trump] where he needs to be within a couple of days,’ one official said. ‘The problem is we don’t have a couple of days.’”

“This was the most expensive speech in history,” Luca Paolini, chief strategist at Pictet Asset Management, told the Financial Times after the markets tanked because Trump’s Oval Office address make investors more jittery. “Investors are voting with their feet, and I can’t blame them.”

“After feeling besieged by enemies for three years, Mr. Trump and some of his advisers view so many issues through the lens of political warfare — assuming that criticism is all about point scoring — that it has become hard to see what is real and what is not,” Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman report in the New York Times. “Even when others with Mr. Trump’s best interests at heart disagree, they find it hard to penetrate what they see as the bubble around him. Thomas P. Bossert, a former homeland security adviser to Mr. Trump, has tried repeatedly in recent days to be patched through to the president or [Pence] to warn them just how dire the coronavirus pandemic really is, only to be blocked by White House officials … Among the advisers who share the president’s more jaundiced view is [Kushner], who considers the problem more about public psychology than a health reality, according to people who have spoken with him.”

Categories Education Reform, Trump

Jeanne Kaplan: What’s the Matter with the New Denver Board of Education?

By dianeravitch
March 13, 2020 //
4

Jeanne Kaplan served two terms on the elected board of education in Denver. She has been an outspoken critic of the Disruption policies of the Michael Bennet-Tom Boasberg era, and she worked with other parents and activists in Denver against the monied interests that promoted Disruption, high-stakes testing, and charters in that city.

Miraculously, a new board was elected last fall which had a majority of advocates for public education. But they have implemented none of the changes they promised.

In this post, she wonders why the new, supposedly pro-public education board has been so passive.

Her post begins:

On November 5, 2019 Denver voters gave education reform an “F” which was reflected by the election of three new board members, none of whom was supported by the usual suspects in Denver’s education reform landscape: DFER (Democrats for Education Reform), SFER (Students for Education Reform), Stand for Children or as I recently heard referred to as STOMP ON CHILDREN. The three winners – Tay Anderson, Scott Baldermann, and Brad Laurvick, joined two other non-reform members to make what should have been an easy 5-2 majority. Taking action to undo the District’s business model of education reform should have been a gimme. It is now four months later, and while there are members who want to see the District go in a new direction, the sense of urgency is definitely not there. The new majority appears to be unwilling or stymied as how best to make essential change and how best to honor the voters’ desires. I have attended various DPS events these past few weeks, and I was struck by how easily it could have been 2009 or 2013 or 2017. Many of the same people are in charge, most of the same policies are being pursued, the same policy governance baloney is being pushed. Education reform continues to dominate the conversation and decision making. The window of opportunity for this board to act is closing rapidly and before we know it, a new election cycle will be upon us. Denver Board of Education – it is incumbent upon you to act now. If you continue to drag your feet, we will lose another generation to education reform and its portfolio model. Some possibilities as how to proceed and achieve change quickly follow:

The Board must begin a search for a new superintendent. Superintendent Susana Cordova and all of her senior team must be replaced. For a short while I believed Ms. Cordova could stay without her current senior staff, but it has become apparent that that would be an unworkable situation. All who are so deeply vested in the education reform direction the District has followed need to be replaced by qualified leaders who are not afraid to admit the failures of the last 15 years and who are willing to develop a bold, new direction for the District. The current leadership in DPS is wedded too heavily to the past (some might call it the status quo). Denverites want change and have said so clearly in the past two elections. The only way for that to happen is for a complete change in top leadership. In a recent post written specifically for Loving Community Schools Newsletter, The CURE, education historian and hero of the transformers’ movement Diane Ravitch said this:

“The new Denver school board should use this unique opportunity to repudiate the failed “reforms” of the past decade. They have not closed achievement gaps; they have not improved the opportunities of all children. They have failed.

“It is time for the school board to find new leadership willing to strike out in a new direction. That means leaders who do not define schooling by deeply flawed standardized tests and who understand that a great public education system benefits all children, not just a few.”

The Board must take back power it has ceded to the superintendent.

It must:

*decide what board meeting agendas should look like.
*direct the superintendent to direct the staff to follow up on Board Directors’ subjects of interest.
*consider returning to two public board meetings per month. That used to be the norm until the Bennet/Boasberg regimes. The reduction in meetings has resulted in less transparency and fewer meaningful public discussions.
*revise policies DJA and DJA-R so the threshold for Board approved purchases is lowered from the current $1 million.
*reduce the number and length of PowerPoint presentations. One thing DPS has improved over the past 15 years is its PowerPoint presentations. They are now very colorful, very long, and very, very obtuse. No more “Death by PowerPoint.”

The Board must change the budget and educational priorities from one based on reform-oriented tenets and expenditures to one that reflects priorities voted for in the elections of 2017 and 2019.
SPF – Accountability based on data, data, data which is based on testing, testing, testing. Why is the District continuing to pursue and spend taxpayer money on a flawed, racist, punitive, inequitable accountability system upon which most of its other educational decisions are based? While the SPF is being “re-imagined” and the possibility of using the state system is being considered, few board members seem willing to tackle real change which could result in a wholly different accountability system. Why is the Board not directing the staff to develop an entirely new accountability system focused on “school stories,” for example, based on things other than test scores? Why is the Board unwilling to make real change but instead seems satisfied to just nibble at the edges?

Choice – A complicated, expensive to operate, stressful system where the number of “choices” has increased from five schools to twelve schools per student. Who could really be satisfied with a number past even five? Is this just another way for DPS to pretend a reform is working by saying “XX% got one of their top choices. Look. It’s working!” And why is the Board majority allowing the District to continue to ignore focusing on most family’s first Choice, their neighborhood schools? What are the costs of Choice from implementation to transportation and everything in between? And how could that money not be better spent in the classroom?
Charter Schools – these “publicly funded, privately managed ‘public’ schools” seem to have it both ways; they are funded with taxpayer dollars, yet they are not overseen by our duly elected officials. The Board must work with the legislature to bring more transparency, oversight and accountability to charter schools in general. (See next section). Just last week in a 2 hour, 27 page PowerPoint presentation, DPS had a Focus on Achievement study session devoted to “Positive Culture Change for Educators of Color.” None of the data reflected Charter School recruitment, hiring, demographics, retention, turnover. Nothing. The head of Human Resources actually said, “We do not include charters in this data. Charters are not required to provide their employee data or demographic data to the District.” (minute 39) WHAAAT?? Sixty out of 200 schools are charters. 20%. No accountability to the Board. As for bond and mill levy monies? Same thing. DPS is touted for sharing these funds with its charters, yet once again there is no oversight and accountability for the charters.

Bonuses – Awarding bonuses is one of those business practices that works better in the private sector than the public sector. As DPS has plowed forward with all things reform, bonuses have become a huge part of its model. Teachers earn bonuses based on criteria established in the 2019 strike settlement. The dollar amount per year starts at $750 and can go as high $6000 a year. Administrators earn bonuses based on criteria established by, one assumes, by the superintendent. Denver’s Inter-Neighborhood Cooperation (INC) has engaged a financial analytics consultant to analyze salary and expenditure trends within the DPS budget. Detailed compensation data for the fiscal years ending 2014 – 2019 was provided by DPS to INC through a Colorado Open Records Act request.

From this data, DPS is showing that the largest beneficiaries of Bonus Compensation were those in the “Administrator” job classification. For the six-year period, Administrators received 82% ($3.8 million) of the total bonuses paid ($4.6 million). What’s more, the 20 highest bonused Administrators received 33%, or $1.4 million of the overall $4.6 million. Let that sink in – $1.4 million paid from 2014-2019 went to 20 Administrators. In a District strapped for cash. In a District that is asking teachers to make up a budgetary shortfall by increasing their pension contributions.

Please read the rest of the post. It is all sensible and reasonable. It is time for the board to represent the constituents who asked for a change in the status quo.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Courage, Creativity, Denver, DFER, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Testing

Teacher Responds to Review of SLAYING GOLIATH in “The New York Times”

By dianeravitch
March 13, 2020 //
20

I confess that I was very disappointed by the review of my new book in the New York Times. The reviewer thought that I should have presented “both sides,” not argued on behalf of public schools, which enroll 85-90% of American children. If we starve the public schools that enroll most children, we harm them and the future of our society. I debated whether to respond on this blog but then decided against it. Sometimes it is best to remain silent.

Happily, Neil Kulick, a teacher, critiqued the review. He posted his comment here.

Thank you, Neil!

He writes:

Your new book gives public school teachers (like me) hope. You are truly our champion. Thank you.

A while back, I read the review of “Slaying Goliath” in the NY Times. I did not quite like the review. Here is my reply to it:

Readers of Annie Murphy Paul’s review of Diane Ravitch’s “Slaying Goliath” (in the February 2 NYT Book Review) can be forgiven for thinking that Professor Ravitch has lost her way and written a book in which she exults in the failures of all who are interested in strengthening our public schools.

In fact, “Slaying Goliath” is a work of meticulous scholarship that chronicles the failure of every single “reform” in recent decades, most of them market-based (as if children or their teachers were commodities, or schools factories) and virtually all funded by billionaires who know little about teaching and learning but are glad to call the shots when it comes to our schools. Professor Ravitch is not against reform but rather the particular set of “reforms” that have been foisted on our public schools and our teachers and students, including so-called merit pay and the oddity of evaluating teachers based on their students’ test scores. Her book ends with a call for genuine reform, which would require adequately funding our public schools so that they have a fair chance of educating a population that includes so many children born into poverty and who come to school already behind and lacking the supports at home of their more affluent peers. It would also require funding programs to support impoverished families. Our public schools are not broken; our society is.

Professor Ravitch accurately terms those who push (and, astonishingly, continue to push) for these failed reforms “disrupters,” because the purpose or effect of their actions is to undermine the very institution of the public school. And yes, Professor Ravitch does name names. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, for one, is not an advocate of public schools. Rather she favors “choice,” as if that were an end in itself. But that choice does not include a well-funded public school for every child, though if Secretary DeVos had her way it would include a charter school. Charter schools, unfortunately, are generally no better than public schools, and some are militaristic, so that students learn not to question but to obey. Nor are charters known for serving the needs of children with learning disabilities or who have emotional or behavioral problems or for whom English is not their first language. They do, however, succeed in draining money from public schools.

Ultimately, Professor Ravitch is optimistic, believing that today’s “reformers” will inevitably lose, despite their vast wealth, because the “resisters” — parents and grandparents, schoolchildren, and their teachers — are multitudinous and motivated by passion. And they cannot be bought. As a public school teacher, I hope Professor Ravitch is right.

Some might wonder why public schools matter. Apart from the fact that the vast majority of American schoolchildren attend them, public schools are our best hope for a flourishing democracy. In public schools, children from diverse backgrounds come together as one community. They learn together, and they learn from each other. John Dewey understood how essential public schools are to our way of life: “A democracy,” he wrote, “is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience.”* It is just this “conjoint communicated experience” that public schools afford.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Disruption, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Supporting public schools, Testing, Vouchers

K-12 Teacher: Why I Oppose the Common Core Math Standards

By dianeravitch
March 13, 2020 //
42

This anonymous K-12 teacher wrote an extended explanation of why he or she opposes the Common Core mathematics standards. The essay was a guest post in David Kristofferson’s blog.

The teacher writes that the math standards

claim to stress “deep understanding” in addition to procedure, which sounds like a good thing at first, until you take a closer look at how this goal is actually approached. To call what they focus on “understanding” is both misleading and wrong, and there’s a clear trend showing persistent loss of procedural proficiency among our students as a result. The end result of the Common Core-aligned math curriculum is STEM-deficiency rather than STEM-proficiency. It is now a generally accepted fact that only honors compression or outside tutoring will achieve the STEM-readiness that used to be accessible to any motivated and capable student.

They fail to prepare students for college math.

I have met too many administrators who’ve swallowed the Common Core proponents’ story hook, line, and sinker. When asked about issues related to the worsening trend of poor student comprehension and poor knowledge transfer from one context to another, they insist that it cannot be happening under the new standards and the greater “depth of understanding” that they embody. Meanwhile, they are dismissive of objections coming from parents, teachers, and students on the ground.

Many parents see the performance of their children dropping not only in math, but also with spelling and grammar[9], and they are frustrated about it. They object that they can no longer help their children with or even understand the math homework that is being assigned, while students lose valuable elective classroom time to all the required standardized testing. The same administrators who dismiss these parents for their questioning of all the canned verbiage about the benefits of the new standards (and there is a whole lot of it, indeed) have also balked when teachers expressed frustration with being forced to do away with their well-established and vetted curricular materials as the wheels of education are being reinvented right under their feet.

When Common Core first took hold, there was enough missing curricular material to explain the early drops in student performance. (The very fact that this material was not developed and provided long before the switchover is quite telling of the mindset that drove its adoption.) Now that these curricula have been published and put into use for some years, the middling results are less easy to dismiss. I will outline the fundamental problems as I see them in this article, and I’ll get into more detail about each problem in a series of follow-ups.

Despite having so many of these intrinsic issues, countless administrators, teachers, and education researchers have contributed to or been swayed by the story put forward by Common Core proponents, that these new standards have been designed and built from the ground up to present and foster a deeper understanding of the material, starting at the beginning and running all throughout the K-12 curriculum. The standards have been written and organized to have this patina, but it is mostly an empty facade.

Read on. Do you agree or disagree?

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Education Reform, Failure, Testing

Watch the Brilliant Katie Porter Force the Director of CDC to Guarantee Free Testing for Coronavirus

By dianeravitch
March 12, 2020 //
21

This tape takes about four minutes. Watch the amazing, brilliant Congresswoman Katie Porter question the director of the Centers for Disease Control, Dr. Robert Redfield, to use his legal authority to assure that every American is entitled to receive free testing for coronavirus. Watch Dr. Redfield duck and weave and obfuscate, trying to avoid to making that commitment. Watch as he finally says, “Yes,” because she won’t let him off the hook.

I love Katie Porter! She is up for re-election in her California district. Send her $15 if you too loved what she did for the American people today.

Categories Courage, Health

Los Angeles: UTLA Calls on Superintendent and Board to Close the Schools and Create Support System for Students

By dianeravitch
March 12, 2020 //
9

The United Teachers of Los Angeles issued this statement tonight:

UTLA calls for LAUSD to close schools

Tonight UTLA called on LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner to take decisive action to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

“We are calling for the rapid, accelerated, and humane closure of LAUSD schools,” UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl said. “Other countries have shown that a proactive — not reactive — approach slows the spread of the virus, makes sure healthcare providers are not crushed with overwhelming demand, and dramatically reduces fatalities.”

As part of the call for school closures, UTLA released 10 Common Good Community Demands to support students and families, including 15 additional paid sick days for all LA County workers, a weekly disaster stipend, and creation of a food supply network.

“The state has a $20 billion reserve and this is exactly the time to tap into that reserve to support students and families,” Caputo-Pearl said. “There is an opportunity here to build a social safety net through our Common Good Community Support demands. Let’s take the opportunity to build those now.”

UTLA’s call for an accelerated timeframe for school closures is supported by the National Union of Healthcare Workers, which represents nurses, medical technicians, and other healthcare experts across the country.

“As a healthcare union representing workers on the front lines of this pandemic, we must take proactive steps to protect our communities,” said Sal Rosselli, president of NUHW. “Although closing schools is a difficult decision, only decisive action will slow the exponential growth of this pandemic and prevent our healthcare system from becoming overloaded.”

Link to the UTLA Statement on the Proactive Closure of LAUSD Schools

Categories Education Reform, Health, Los Angeles

Ohio: Governor DeWine Announces Three-Week Spring Break and Says Don’t Worry about the State Tests

By dianeravitch
March 12, 2020 //
11

Governor Mike DeWine acted decisively to close all schools in Ohio, starting at the end of the day Monday. Some schools will close sooner.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced Thursday that all Ohio schools will have a three-week spring break – starting next week – as precaution against the spread of coronavirus.

Ohio K-12 schools will be closed from 3:30 p.m. Monday through at least April 3, DeWine said. The order applies to public, private and charter schools.

“We have to do this if we are going to slow this down,” DeWine said during his daily coronavirus update.

DeWine acknowledged that unless a child has a medical problem, the risk of death for a child from COVID-19 is not very high. But he noted that children can be carriers.

“We are announcing today that children in the state will have an extended spring date. The spring break will be the duration of three weeks and we will review it at the end of that,” DeWine said.

This action for K-12 schools is in addition to suspension of in-person classes announced earlier by colleges and universities….

DeWine said he understood there were many unanswered questions.

“We’re going to try to use common sense. We are all in this together. No one is going to impose a crazy regulation that doesn’t make sense,” the governor said. “This is a crisis.”

As for the details, such as normally mandated tests, DeWine said: “If we can’t have testing this year, we will not have testing this year. The world will not come to an end.”

I tweeted last night: “We need more coronavirus tests, and less standardized testing.” #priorities

Governor DeWine has his priorities right.

Categories Health, Ohio, Testing

Democrats Propose a Response to the Coronavirus. Republicans Say No, We Need Tax Cuts.

By dianeravitch
March 12, 2020 //
28

Last night, House Democrats introduced the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, which includes:

Free coronavirus testing for everyone who needs a test, including the uninsured;

Paid emergency leave with both 14 days of paid sick leave and up to three months of paid family and medical leave;

Enhanced Unemployment Insurance, a first step that will extend protections to furloughed workers;

Strengthened food security initiatives, including SNAP, student meals, seniors nutrition and food banks;

Clear protections for frontline workers, including health care workers and other workers who are in contact with those who have been exposed or are responsible for cleaning at-risk places;
Increased federal funds for Medicaid, as states face increased costs.

According to USA Today, Republicans objected to the Democrats’ proposal:

The Families First Coronavirus Response Act is being brought to the floor less than 24 hours after Democratic leaders unveiled the legislation, a stunningly swift turnaround that indicates Congress’ alarm about an emergency that has so far claimed 38 lives in the U.S., roiled the stock market, prompted a ban on travel from Europe and forced the suspension of the NBA season.

It does not include a payroll tax break that President Donald Trump is calling for. And GOP House leader Kevin McCarthy, D-Calif., said the Democratic package “comes up short.”

One of his criticisms is that the way the bill ensures paid sick leave would take months to administer, long after the relief is needed.

Even if it passes the House Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell signaled his opposition to the Families First measure.

“Unfortunately, Speaker Pelosi’s first draft from late last night was off-base,” the Kentucky Republican tweeted. “It does not focus immediate relief on affected Americans. It proposes new bureaucracy that would only delay assistance. It wanders into policy areas that are not related to the pressing issues at hand.”

Trump said Thursday he opposes the bill as well, partly because it doesn’t have the payroll tax cut but also because it includes “goodies” he said Democrats have been trying to get approved for years.

Doesn’t the Bible tell us to feed the hungry and help the sick? Is there anything in the Bible about tax cuts?

Categories Education Reform, Health, Republicans

St. Paul, Minnesota: Teachers Strike to Demand More Investment in Services for Their Student

By dianeravitch
March 12, 2020 //
9

(FORGIVE MY SENIOR MOMENT–BEING SO UPSET WITH THE DAY’S NEWS, I MISTAKENLY PLACED ST. PAUL IN THE WRONG STATE, WHEN I KNOW IT IS ONE OF THE TWIN CITIES OF MINNESOTA. I HAVE LEARNED TO OWN MY MISTAKES.)

The teachers of St. Paul, Minnesota, are on strike. Their number one demand is the expansion of mental health services and counseling for their students. The #Red4Ed movement continues, as teachers become first-line protectors of their students.

Teachers and support staff in Saint Paul, Minnesota, are on strike for the first time since 1946.

The union says students need more counseling and mental health support than the district and current staff can provide.

The strikers are demanding a mental health team at every school. The team would include social workers, psychologists, nurses, and behavior intervention specialists, in numbers proportional to the number of students in the school.

Despite marathon bargaining sessions over the weekend, the district made no real movement on the core issues. The union rejected the district’s last-minute offer to call off the strike and take the contract dispute to arbitration instead.

“There are so many kids with so many issues,” said middle school teacher Leah Van Dassor. “Kids are depressed because they have problems at home. They don’t have anyone to talk to.”

St. Paul Federation of Educators (SPFE) Vice President Erica Schatzlein sees a wide range of needs in her work as an elementary teacher with English language learners.

“A students that had a parent pass away, instead of acting out, becomes completely withdrawn,” she said. A newly homeless student “has a meltdown, and I have to evacuate the classroom.”

In addition to its mental health demands, the union is asking for more bilingual teacher’s aides and limits on class size for special education.

“It’s too bad that all these important social services fall on the shoulder of the schools, but they do,” said Van Dassor, who is also on the bargaining team. “We have to try to figure out a way to help.”

Categories Minneapolis, Minnesota, Students, Teachers, Unions
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