Archives for the month of: April, 2020
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Washington Post: U.S. Shipped Millions of Dollars of Face Masks, Ventilators to China in January

By dianeravitch
April 18, 2020 //
14

One reason that the U.S. was unprepared for the pandemic is that we were shipping medical supplies to a China even though government officials had been warned that the disease was likely to reach our country.

U.S. manufacturers shipped millions of dollars of face masks and other protective medical equipment to China in January and February with encouragement from the federal government, a Washington Post review of economic data and internal government documents has found. The move underscores the Trump administration’s failure to recognize and prepare for the growing pandemic threat.


In those two months, the value of protective masks and related items exported from the United States to China grew more than 1,000 percent compared with the same time last year — from $1.4 million to about $17.6 million, according to a Post analysis of customs categories which, according to research by Public Citizen, contain key PPE. Similarly, shipments of ventilators and protective garments jumped by triple digits.
“

Instead of taking steps to prepare, they ignored the advice of one expert after another,” said Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Tex.). “People right now, as we speak, are dying because there have been inadequate supplies of PPE.”


While the percentage increase of exports to China was steep, they represent a small fraction of the overall U.S. need. Throughout the country, the shortage has forced hospitals, nursing homes and first responders to ration masks and other protective gear as they treat infected and high-risk patients, creating a secondary health crisis among first line providers.


In the early days of the covid-19’s exponential march across the globe, when it was still mostly contained in China, there was no widespread sense of crisis in the White House. But by the end of January, briefings to White House national security staff made clear that the danger of a major pandemic was real. By then seven Americans had fallen ill, and experts said the need for an adequate supply of protective gear should have been apparent.


Nonetheless, on Jan. 30, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Fox Business that the outbreak could “accelerate the return of jobs to North America” because companies would move factories away from impacted areas.

You can open the link and read the article. Both the Washington Post and New York Times are making articles about the coronavirus free, not behind a paywall.

Categories Health

Teachers and Principals in Oakland Give More to Neediest than Billionaires

By dianeravitch
April 18, 2020 //
11

The blog started today with an account of the paltry amounts of money that our leading edu-philanthropists are contributing to alleviate the suffering of students and families during this crisis and to help public schools through the crisis.

By contrast, some principals and teachers in the Oakland Education Association have agreed to give half or all of their stimulus checks to the families of undocumented workers, who will receive nothing. In proportion to their wealth, the teachers and principals are about a million times more generous than the billionaires.

The educators at the Oakland Unified School District launched the Stimulus Pledge campaign Thursday in response to the enormous stress and despair they say they are witnessing among immigrant parents who have lost all income under shelter-in-place orders, but are left out of unemployment insurance and many other benefits.

“We are in contact with our families every day and what we are hearing is heartbreaking,” said Anita Iverson-Comelo, a principal at Bridges Academy at Melrose, in East Oakland. “We feel like we have to do something.”

At least eight teachers at Bridges Academy, including some making less than $50,000 per year, have pledged all or part of their stimulus checks, said Iverson-Comelo. She and six other principals, whose higher salaries might disqualify them from the coronavirus federal cash aid, also plan to donate.

Many families have no income at all and rely for food on the district’s “grab and go” food program. They sure could use some help from Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg or Reed Hastings or Jeff Bezos.

Speaking of billionaires, Robert Reich said on Twitter that Jeff Bezos has increased his net worth by $24 billion during the crisis but still won’t give Amazon workers paid sick leave.

Feeding the hungry is not on the billionaires’ agenda. It’s not innovative. It’s not a game-changer.

It’s an act of love.

Categories Billionaires, Love, Oakland, Philanthropy, Teachers

CNN: Four Countries that Were Most Successful in Confronting Pandemic

By dianeravitch
April 18, 2020 //
53

CNN describes what four countries did to achieve control over coronavirus. The key to success, it appears, is to be prepared, to test extensively, and to act decisively.

The four countries are Taiwan, Iceland, South Korea, and Germany.

Their infection rates and death rates are well below those in the U.S., where states have had to compete for supplies and testing has been inaccessible for most people.

Taiwan, with a population of around 24 million people, has recorded just over 390 cases and six deaths, and yesterday, it reported no new cases at all. It’s managed to do that without implementing severe restrictions, like lockdowns, or school and nursery closures…

Compare that to the United States — now the world’s hardest-hit nation, at least in raw numbers — which has reported at least 26,000 deaths. Even when you take population size into account, a level of success like Taiwan’s could have meant just 83 deaths in the US.

Although Taiwan has high-quality universal health care, its success lies in its preparedness, speed, central command and rigorous contact tracing.

According to the COVID tracker, the US has thus far tested 3.5 million people, or about 1% of its population.

We are not testing enough people. The coronavirus is highly contagious. There is no vaccine. Many people carry the disease but are asymptomatic. Several states have announced that they are lifting restrictions on social contact without testing or a vaccine. To say this is dangerous is an understatement.

Categories Health, International

New York Times: Kids Say They Miss School

By dianeravitch
April 18, 2020 //
13

The New York Times asked children how they felt about learning online at home and most said they would rather be at school.

This article was written by Henry Dodd, age 11, whose father works for the Times.

Kids are getting more bored by the day. We wish we could go back to school to see our friends. But some of us are also really scared about getting the coronavirus, and we don’t want our friends and family to get it either.

That’s what kids across the country told The New York Times (where my dad works) when they were asked about learning from home during the coronavirus outbreak.

Some are having fun with their parents and their brothers and sisters, but most are missing their teachers, their friends and their normal lives. (As Dahlia Stringer, who is 11 like me, said in her letter, “Everyone knows little sisters are annoying” — little brothers sometimes are, too.) And a lot are frustrated about missing out on things like spring break, field trips and graduation.

“I’m hoping that things will be back to normal someday,” wrote Sasha Udovich, 9, from Los Angeles.

Same. Home-school is definitely boring, but I really hope we can make it through this safely and return to how things used to be. I miss my friends.

Here are some of the feelings about learning from home that kids across the country shared in letters and emails. They were gathered together and lightly edited by Adeel Hassan, who works with my dad.

Dahlia Stringer, an 11-year-old from San Francisco, has a lot to say about home schooling.

Let’s start with the positives: Family time, freedom and snacks.

I like that I can stay with my parents the whole day because I really, really love them. I like that we can have our own P.E. with our dad. The only thing I don’t like is math. But I still would have been doing that in school, so I guess it’s better to do it at home at least.

— Judah Rajski, 7, Tampa, Fla.

Alice: I like being home because you can eat and drink while you are doing your schoolwork. And you get to do your homework with your sister. You can ask mom or dad to help you, because they are both at home now. You don’t even have to raise your hand.

Shelby: You can go outside and play when you finish your work, while at school, you have to read silently after you finish.

— Shelby Sanders, 10, Alice Sanders, 6, Baton Rouge, La.

It gives me time to work and complete assignments on my time throughout the day. Rather than sit in school for six hours, I can break up the work throughout the day and use the extra time to work around the house or go outside.

— Ana, 15, Southbridge, Mass.

The positive thing about being home during the coronavirus pandemic is that I get to spend time with my family and share with them what I’m learning. I get to involve my parents in activities that I have only done with my friends. I also get to see what my siblings are learning and help them.

— Miabella Capote, Denver, N.C.

I enjoy staying home as long as I don’t think too much about why I’m not at school. I actually have more time on my hands than I know what to do with. I’ve been trying to use that extra time for productive things, like learning how to cook.

— Charlie, 17, Kirkland, Wash.

Samuel: The best thing about being at home is you get to hang around your family more and not being able to be around other people helps you get outside, and do some exercise.

Anna: I do like learning from home because I get more work done than I usually do because I have my parents’ assistance. I don’t because I am away from all of my friends and my teacher’s assistance. It is also difficult to see and do assignments online. But I do get to take breaks, go to the bathroom when I want, eat snacks, go outside, etc. I also don’t have to do any homework if I get all my work done for the day.

— Samuel Rogers, 12, and Anna Rogers, 12, Berea, Ky.

Declan Walsh, a 9-year-old from Brooklyn, says that he misses his friends at school. And he’s bored, too.
But there is a lot that makes it hard.

The worst is that the teachers might not always see your hand when you’re raising it. I really miss my friends and play dates. My mommy, and sometimes my daddy, have to help because it’s too hard sometimes.

— Noah Bresler, 6, Brooklyn

Life without school is much more boring then I thought it would be. Without the summerlike feeling of no work and being able to see friends, it’s actually very depressing.

— Una Hoppe, 14, Beacon, N.Y.

It’s really easy to get distracted at home. I like going to school and using the time at school to do schoolwork. Now all schoolwork is done at home, so my brain thinks there’s more homework because my brain hasn’t adjusted to staying home the whole day. Learning is difficult because before you were jogging and now you are crawling.

— Juny Tranel, 11, San Francisco

The thing I miss most about school is my friends, but I FaceTimed my friend today and I liked it.

— Ruth Rajski, 6, Tampa, Fla.

It’s hell. My teachers think what a responsible amount of work to be assigning is 40 minutes (about a class period) plus half an hour plus of homework. This is from EVERY teacher, so it adds up real fast. Over the last few days, I’ve had more work than I would usually have if schools weren’t closed — and I have to do it all sitting in the same spot for hours.

— Jasper Smith 17, Brooklyn

Because the work is optional, and the homework is not for a grade, I know many friends who choose not to work on it. Along with that, the assignments do not go along with what I’m currently learning at school. The homework is assigned to the entire grade, the levels of students academic-wise are different. Some students may be taking geometry, while others may be taking algebra or math. The assignments are often easy for a certain group of people, while for others it’s difficult.

— Bryan, 14, Pennsylvania

“I like our video morning meeting every day with my teachers and friends,” says Ella Diwan, 6, of Manhattan. “It makes me feel like I’m still at school. My baby sister won’t leave me alone, so I decided to let her join.”
“I like our video morning meeting every day with my teachers and friends,” says Ella Diwan, 6, of Manhattan. “It makes me feel like I’m still at school. My baby sister won’t leave me alone, so I decided to let her join.”
The technology can be fun, but it doesn’t always help.

I’m doing online learning through Google Classroom, and sometimes it’s difficult. My math problems won’t attach, the file didn’t save properly. But we have to work through that, and it’s necessary to help others.

— Eleanor Pitcher, 14, Wales, Mass.

I like our video morning meeting every day with my teachers and friends. It makes me feel like I’m still at school. My baby sister won’t leave me alone, so I decided to let her join.

— Ella Diwan, 6, Manhattan

I’m a visual learner, and so I prefer to take a hands-on approach, including marking up and annotating the work before me on actual paper. However, with online learning, it’s difficult, and I find myself writing much more than I usually would. My phone is right next to me, so it’s so easy to pick up my phone and text my friend, who I see on the screen, or check the newest post on Instagram and TikTok.

— Daniella Ojugo, 17, Burlington, N.J.

It’s harder to focus at home as there’s no one to discipline you for playing on your phone or talking to a friend. It’s harder to grasp certain concepts, specifically those that are more hands-on. It’s harder to ask questions since there’s no way to virtually raise your hand. And it’s harder to keep a smile on my face, because I don’t know if or when I’ll see my teachers and classmates in person again.

— Josephine Dlugosz, 18, Woodstock, Conn.

Image
Sasha Udovich, 9, left, and Anna Schofield, 8, finding a way to say hello in Los Angeles.
Sasha Udovich, 9, left, and Anna Schofield, 8, finding a way to say hello in Los Angeles.
Many kids miss their friends and would rather be at school.

I miss my friends and having a regular schedule. I used to complain every day about having to go to school, but being in quarantine has really made me appreciate being in class. I’m sure that when I go back in the fall, I’ll probably go back to disliking it again, but for now I wish I was back in school.

— Molly Lawrence, 16, Hyattsville, Md.

I would prefer to go to school rather than be taught curriculum at home, because then I would be able to play with my friends at recess and talk with them at lunch. My parents don’t know what my teacher would teach, so I can’t learn the new science curriculum. I can only review science I have already been taught.

— Kaelin Cunningham, 11, Fairfax, Va.

It’s not as glorious as it seems. It gets boring. I personally am starting to miss my friends and my teachers. I sit inside all day and work. Yes, I am grateful for what I have, and I am grateful I still have a family. Staying home and doing distant learning has made me discover deep respect for teachers I didn’t even know I have. Now I see how hard they work for their students. I see how much they care.

— Tatum Connolly-Wazewski, 13, New Windsor, N.Y.

There are days where I don’t want to do any work, and it’s really easy to just not do it. Learning at school definitely helps motivate me to get my work done, because I’m in the environment to do work and there’s really nothing else I can do. At home I have the liberty to literally do anything other than schoolwork.

— Valeria Ramos, 16, Riverdale Park, Md.

I feel like I understand more at school than at home looking at the screen. I think some of my teachers try their best to teach me through video calls, but for some subjects, it doesn’t always work or help. Sometimes I am lost. Even if I ask a million questions, I don’t feel that it is the same, and I can’t believe I am going to say this, but I would rather be at school than home. I find it distracting that I am at home and learning at the same time, because there are so many distractions — you either hear the TV on, someone’s cooking, police and ambulance sirens in the background, etc. I can say emotionally my teachers have been very helpful and caring, which I love the most.

— Syeda Saima, 15, Queens

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Anna Rogers, 12, of Berea, Ky., depicted the global impact of the coronavirus.
Anna Rogers, 12, of Berea, Ky., depicted the global impact of the coronavirus.
The virus is scary. And thinking about it can make you sad.

Every day I take a walk around my neighborhood with my parents and when I see my friends, I’m told I’m have to stay six feet away. I get really sad I can’t be with them. I’m also scared they’ll never find a cure and I’ll never get to play close with my friends again. I’m hoping that things will be back to normal someday.

— Sasha Udovich, 9, Los Angeles

I’m in my last year of middle school, and I will probably have to finish it from home. I wonder about the students next year, students who I’ll spend the next four years with, whose family died because of this, whose parents died because of this. I wonder about my family. Are they going to get sick? I wonder about the children who’ll die. I wonder if I’ll be one of them. If my family will be the one this virus reaches next. I start high school next year, and I wonder how.

— Louisa Elena, 13, Jacksonville, Fla.

My little brother asks every morning if the germs went away yet — he really misses school like me.

— Tessa Podvesker, 7, Montclair, N.J.

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Juny Tranel, 11, of San Francisco, says that he tries hard not to get distracted at home.
Juny Tranel, 11, of San Francisco, says that he tries hard not to get distracted at home.
It’s hard to know what the future will be like.

Online school is the equivalent of no school. The one-on-one time, the accountability, the schedule and routine are all gone. No parent is perfect, and no parent can effectively replace seven to eight teachers, all with different subjects. The issue is the loss of many factors for success. Isolation, no routine, even just the lack of repercussions for not doing work. All of this leads to a decline.

— Pres, 17, Fayetteville, Ark.

Thousands of juniors (including myself) have selected rigorous courses for our last full year before our apps our due. Many of us are taking five or six A.P. classes and finally getting leadership positions for the clubs and activities we dedicated so much time to. As I sit at home, I feel that the edge that I have been working so long for is slipping away. I was ready to make this last full semester count.

— Fahad Mohsin, 17, Northborough, Mass.

I feel as if I can’t take a break or “turn off” school. I’m up at 7 a.m. and doing some form of school work or studying until 7 p.m. I even take my flashcards down while I make lunch.

— Madisen Cordell, 17, Lake Stevens, Wash.

Most schools in America have senior prom, Senior Ditch Day, senior prank, senior banquets, and most important, graduation. No one signed a contract giving me the right to any of that, but then again, I feel entitled to my senior year.

When I walked out of school on March 11, I didn’t expect that to be the last time I would see the people and the places that helped me mature into the person that I am today. Now when people ask what high school taught me, I can honestly say that I learned something outside of math and science: Nothing in life is promised.

— Rachel Osband, 18, San Jose, Calif.

Categories Education Reform, Students

Richard Rothstein: Pandemic Reveals Dramatic Economic and Social Inequities

By dianeravitch
April 18, 2020 //
13

Richard Rothstein, author of The Color of Law and the classic Class and Schools has written an important article showing how the coronavirus is exposing and deepening the inequities in our society.

This article was originally published by Shelterforce: The Voice of Community Development.

Richard Rothstein writes:

The COVID-19 pandemic will take existing academic achievement differences between middle-class and low-income students and explode them.

The academic achievement gap has bedeviled educators for years. In math and reading, children of college-educated parents score on average at about the 60th percentile, while children whose parents have only a high school degree score, on average, at the 35th percentile.* The academic advantages of children whose parents have master’s degrees and beyond are even greater.

To a significant extent, this is a neighborhood issue—schools are more segregated today than at any time in the last 50 years, mostly because the neighborhoods in which they are located are so segregated. Schools with concentrated populations of children affected by serious socioeconomic problems are able to devote less time and attention to academic instruction.

In 2001 we adopted the “No Child Left Behind Act,” assuming that these disparities mostly stemmed from schools’ failure to take seriously a responsibility to educate African-American, Hispanic, and lower-income students. Supporters claimed that holding educators accountable for test results would soon eliminate the achievement gap. Promoted by liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans, the theory was ludicrous, and the law failed to fulfill its promise. The achievement gap mostly results from social-class based advantages that some children bring to school and that others lack, as well as disadvantages stemming from racial discrimination that only some children have to face.

The coronavirus, unfortunately, will only exacerbate the effects of these advantages.

With schools shut, white-collar professionals with college degrees operate homeschools, sometimes with superior curricular enhancements. My own children, with post-graduate degrees, are introducing my young grandchildren to Shakespeare and algebra, topics they would ordinarily encounter only in later grades. A friend, a biologist in normal times, now staying home from work, is taking her pre-school, kindergarten, and 2nd grade children for walks in the woods where they learn the names of birds, why goldfinches get their bright yellow wings, about sexual selection in birds and their funny displays to attract a mate, and how moss reproduces with spores. They found some of that moss in the woods and saw that when you touch the red part, it lets out a puff of tiny spores; this was a huge hit with the children.

In neighborhoods that are socioeconomically segregated, friends and classmates of children like these have similar experiences. Parents with full-time professional jobs never before had the opportunity to be full-time instructors, and many make the most of it.

Meanwhile, many parents with less education have jobs that even during the coronavirus crisis cannot be performed at home – supermarket clerks, warehouse workers, delivery truck drivers. Even with distance learning being established by schools and teachers—many of whom are now busy with their own children at home—too many students in low-income and rural communities don’t have internet access: 35 percent of low-income households with school-aged children don’t have high-speed internet; for moderate-income families it is 17 percent, and only 6 percent for middle-class and affluent families. When measured by race and ethnicity, the gap is greater for African-American and Hispanic families.

In New York City, 300,000 students live in homes with no computer. The Philadelphia school system, a majority of whose students are from low-income families, initially chose not to conduct online classes during the coronavirus shutdown because it would be so inequitable: “If that’s not available to all children, we cannot make it available to some,” the schools superintendent announced. He has since relented and announced that the district would purchase Chromebooks and lend them to students without computers. This did not, however, solve the problem for students who have no high-speed internet service at home, something the district is trying to address, but only with great difficulty and not in time to bridge the current digital divide.

For students in some states, the shutdown could last for almost half the school year. The achievement gap between low-income and other children is already equivalent to at least two years of schooling. Might the coronavirus shutdown expand that by another half year?

We have evidence that tells us what to expect. Increased reliance on homework, for example, widens achievement gaps. Children whose parents can more effectively help with homework gain more than children whose parents can do so less well.

We also know that the educational gap is wider when children return after summer vacation than it was in the spring, because middle-class children frequently have summer enrichment that reinforces knowledge and experience. The larger gap shows up in test scores, but also in less easily quantifiable areas that are particularly valued in higher education, professional workplaces, and civic life, such as cooperative skills in group activities, possibly due to enrichment from things like summer camp and family travel.

Children living in low-income, disinvested, overcrowded, or less-safe neighborhoods are more likely to experience toxic stress from exposure to violence, homelessness, and economic insecurity that interfere with emotional health and learning, as well as leading to behavior challenges that affect the classroom environment for others.

For some, school is the safest place. Teachers report that when children in low-income neighborhoods who are living in overcrowded and highly stressed homes return to school after breaks, evidence of physical abuse is more noticeable. (Two examples of research on this can be found here and here). It is frightening to consider the consequences of a three- or four-month break when some children and parents will be isolated and frustrated in overcrowded conditions.

Congressional consideration of a massive economic program to minimize a virus-induced depression has properly focused on immediate needs to save small businesses, enhance and extend unemployment insurance, and guarantee sick leave. But when schools reopen, the expanded achievement gap will be in urgent need of intervention.

We can’t (and in a free society, probably shouldn’t) try to reduce the resources that advantaged parents can give children (although Philadelphia’s attempt to forego online instruction on equity grounds offers a contrary ideal). But we can increase resources for other children to provide more equity. Federal law now provides added support for schools serving low-income children. It enables, for example, the hire of additional teacher aides or reading specialists, the purchase of some additional curriculum materials, reduced class sizes in schools serving concentrations of low-income students, or a truncated summer school program focused on basic skills. The stubborn persistence of the achievement gap shows it is not nearly enough.

We should do much more. Not only should we substantially increase teacher pay, but also finance nurses, social workers, art and music teachers, instructional librarians, and after school and summer programs that not only provide homework help but clubs that develop collaborative skills, organized athletics, and citizenship preparation—like the expansive education that middle class children typically receive at parents’ expense.

Most important, all children should have publicly funded, high-quality early childhood education, including preschool for three and four year olds with evidence-based programs. If a research consensus exists on anything in education, it is that the socioeconomic gap in cognitive performance is well-established by age three.

The continued segregation of children by income and race, however, will dilute the impact of even these reforms. In the long run, redressing this segregation has the potential for a much bigger impact. That redress should include both opening up middle-class and affluent neighborhoods to diverse residents, and improving the quality of existing disadvantaged neighborhoods, not only with better resourced schools, but with mixed-income housing, transportation access to good jobs, markets that sell fresh food, and walkable options.

Americans have become dramatically more divided by income and wealth. Upward mobility has declined; inequality is increasingly transmitted inter-generationally. We can act to prevent the coronavirus from accelerating these trends.

__

*The estimates of achievement differences by parental educational attainment, and of how achievement gap can be expressed in “years of schooling” are based on an average of fourth and eighth grade scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The estimates were developed for this article by economists at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), using the online NAEP Data Tool. Martin Carnoy is a professor of education at Stanford University and an EPI research associate, and Emma Garcia is an EPI staff economist. I am grateful to them for their assistance.

Read other Shelterforce COVID coverage, or sign up here to receive Shelterforce Weekly in your inbox.

Categories Accountability, Health, Inequity

Chalkbeat: Big Education Philanthropists Are Missing in Action on Coronavirus Response

By dianeravitch
April 18, 2020 //
13

Matt Barnum of Chalkbeat checked to see what the billionaire philanthropists are doing in response to the coronavirus. The answer: Not much.

When asked to underwrite charter schools, Teach for America, and wacky teacher-evaluation systems, they shell out hundreds of millions of dollars. When the nation’s schools are closed by a pandemic, and it’s clear that millions of children need food security, computers, and internet access, the money slows to a dribble. When the nation’s schools face massive budget cuts because of declining revenues, and these cuts will increase class sizes, cause layoffs, lead to drastic cuts in the arts and athletics, Will they wake up and pitch in to help?

He writes:

Here’s how four of the largest education foundations and grantmakers are responding:

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation says its “commitment to and overall objective of our education strategies are not changing.” But it is prioritizing supporting teaching by expanding “access to interactive, student-facing digital content and high-quality print materials” and “supporting data collection efforts to understand the impact of COVID-19 on educators and families.”

The City Fund, which is funded primarily by John Arnold and Reed Hastings, said it has committed new $100,000 grants to in its 14 active cities, and also allowed those organizations to repurpose $100,000 of existing grants to respond to the coronavirus. That will total nearly $3 million in emergency support. In Oakland, for instance, the Oakland Reach has used this to provide small cash payments of families in need. In D.C., money has gone to a fund to make Wi-Fi and laptops available to students. In St. Louis, a nonprofit has created a “remote learning innovation fund.”

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative has awarded over $1.6 million to education groups, including money to those aiming to expand broadband access in the San Francisco Bay Area, to disseminate resources to parents, and to provide guidance to school districts moving instruction online.

The Walton Family Foundation did not offer details. But along with the Kauffman Foundation, it has contributed to a $2 million education relief fund in Kansas City designed to support teachers, families, and schools with costs and challenges associated with COVID-19.

So far, most of the private grants in response to the virus amount to a few million dollars at most. By comparison, the federal stimulus for K-12 schools totaled $13.5 billion — and many worry it won’t be anywhere near enough, considering that high-poverty school districts are facing a daunting combination of greater needs and less money.

When billionaires pony up only a few million in the face of a national catastrophe, that’s not a contribution. That’s a tip. That’s surely not “putting children first.”

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Philanthropy, Privatization

FOX New Guests Withdraw Their Statements About Coronavirus

By dianeravitch
April 17, 2020 //
35

FOX New commentators have been apologizing.

Dr. Drew said on FOX News that the flu was far worse than the coronavirus.

Dr. Anthony Fauci pointed out that the coronavirus has a mortality rate that is ten times worse than the flu. Dr. Drew apologized.

Dr. Phil said that automobile crashes, swimming deaths, and smoking cause more deaths than COVID-19, yet we don’t close down the country for them. He claimed there were 360,000 swimming pool deaths annually, which was ten times the actual number. When reminded that automobile deaths, drowning, and smoking are not contagious, he apologized.

Dr. Oz said that schools should be reopened, even though there might be a mortality rate of 2-3% and got such a loud and angry response that he apologized.

FOX News did not apologize.

Categories Accountability, Health, Ignorance

Dana Milbank: Trump’s Big Lie About the World Health Organization

By dianeravitch
April 17, 2020 //
21

Dana Milbank is a regular columnist for the Washington Post.

He writes:

“It would have been so easy to be truthful.”

Thus spake President Trump this week on the very day he surpassed the milestone of uttering 18,000 falsehoods during his presidency, as tallied by the Post’s Fact Checker.

But on this day, Trump was not admitting to losing his own struggle with the truth. He was accusing the World Health Organization of “covering up the spread of the coronavirus” and failing to “share information in a timely and transparent fashion.” He declared he was cutting off funding for the world’s public health body in the middle of a pandemic.

The next day he called the WHO a “tool of China” and floated the vile conspiracy theory that the WHO deliberately concealed the danger of the virus: “There’s something going on” at the WHO “that’s very bad,” and “I have a feeling they knew exactly what was going on.”

This is not merely a falsehood. This is a damnable and murderous lie.

As Trump surely knows, and as I have learned from people with knowledge of the situation who spoke to me on the condition of confidentiality, 15 officials from his administration were embedded with the WHO in Geneva, working full time, hand-in-glove with the organization on the virus from the very first day China disclosed the outbreak to the world, Dec. 31. At least six other U.S. officials at WHO headquarters dedicated most of their time to the virus, and two others worked remotely with the WHO on covid-19 full time. In the weeks that followed, they and other U.S. government scientists engaged in all major deliberations and decisions at the WHO on the novel coronavirus, had access to all information, and contributed significantly to the world body’s conclusions and recommendations.

Everything that the WHO knew, the Trump administration knew — in real time. As congressional investigators who requested WHO documents and communications are now learning, senior Trump administration officials — Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Robert R. Redfield Jr., Anne Schuchat, Ray R. Arthur and Jeffrey McFarland; the National Institutes of Health’s Anthony S. Fauci and H. Clifford Lane, and many others — consulted with the WHO throughout the crisis.

Trump came to power on the basis of smears — against opponents, immigrants and minorities. Now he prepares to center his reelection campaign on demonizing China, even though he repeatedly praised China’s response to the virus, specifically that of his “very, very good friend,” Chinese President Xi Jinping. Key to this attack is making a scapegoat of the WHO, which fits his usual criteria because, like the U.N. and the World Trade Organization, it is an international entity (globalists!) run by a foreigner, Ethiopia’s Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

But this smear is particularly deadly. As the virus bears down on less-developed countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Central and South America, and South and Southeast Asia, the WHO has had to divert attention from the pandemic to defend itself against Trump’s smear and the loss of its top funding source, the United States. Thousands of Americans are dying needlessly because of Trump’s dithering. How many more around the world will die because of his scapegoating of the WHO for his own failures?

Almost immediately after China disclosed the outbreak, I’m told, 15 CDC officials at the WHO headquarters began working on covid-19 and other U.S. officials there were reassigned to the outbreak from their work on Ebola. U.S. officials participated in person in the twice-daily meetings of the WHO’s emergencies division. In addition to top-level conversations involving Redfield and Fauci, which would be expected, other Trump administration scientists were in all “incident-management” meetings and participated in the WHO’s pandemic “expert network.”

They participated in a teleconference between top WHO officials in Geneva and the WHO’s regional and national offices. When the WHO formed its “emergency committee” in January to fight the virus, Martin Cetron, the CDC’s head of quarantine and global migration, was on it. Schuchat, the CDC’s No. 2 official, and Lane, a Fauci deputy, were on the WHO’s “Strategic and Technical Advisory Group for Infectious Hazards.” Others worked with the WHO group coordinating research on therapeutics, diagnostics and vaccines. This is as it should be: The CDC and NIH experts did their job. It’s Trump who didn’t.
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Now Trump would blame the WHO for failing to sound alarms about the virus, even though the CDC had an office of 14 people in China “to contain infectious disease outbreaks before they spread globally.” And he would blame the WHO for failing “to call out China’s lack of transparency” — even though, on Jan. 24, he tweeted: “China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American People, I want to thank President Xi!”

Trump has decided that reelection requires him to attack the World Health Organization at the height of a pandemic. Multitudes could die for his lie.

Categories Accountability, Health, Lies, Trump

Trump Openly Foments Domestic Rebellion

By dianeravitch
April 17, 2020 //
14

Trump took to Twitter to encourage protestors in three states with Democratic governors, urging them to defy authority. Is he violating his oath of office?


Trump tweets call to “LIBERATE” states where people are protesting virus restrictions.

President Trump on Friday began openly fomenting right-wing protests of social distancing restrictions in states where groups of his conservative supporters have been violating stay-at-home orders, less than a day after announcing guidelines for how governors could decide on an orderly reopening of their communities.

In a series of all-caps tweets, Mr. Trump declared “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” and “LIBERATE MINNESOTA!” — two states whose Democratic governors have imposed social distancing restrictions that have shut down businesses and schools and forced people to remain at home. He also tweeted “LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!”

Mr. Trump’s tweets were a remarkable example of a president egging on demonstrators. Earlier this week, more than 1,000 protesters organized by conservative groups created a traffic jam on the streets around the State Capitol in Lansing, Mich., to complain that the restrictions were bad for small businesses. Other protesters, not in vehicles, waved banners in support of Mr. Trump and protested Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who has been a target of his ire, by chanting, “Lock her up.”

In St. Paul, Minn., a group calling itself “Liberate Minnesota” held a protest Friday in violation of stay-at-home orders in front of the home of Gov. Tim Walz. Hundreds showed up, according to news reports. The group’s Facebook page says that “now is the time to demand Governor Walz and our state legislators end this lock down!”

Mr. Walz was asked about the tweet at a news conference Friday. “I just don’t have time to figure out why something like that would happen,” he said, adding that he had tried calling both the president and the vice president and had yet to hear back.

”I just have to lead,” said Mr. Walz. “If they’re not going to do it, we’re going to do it, and I don’t mean that critically.”

As he spoke, protesters gathered outside his mansion.

Mr. Trump’s tweets began just moments after a Fox News report by Mike Tobin, a reporter for the network, about protests in Minnesota and elsewhere. The report featured a protester from Virginia saying “those of us who are healthy and want to get out of our house and do business, we need to get this going again. It’s time.”

Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington State, where there was an early outbreak, said the president’s tweets could lead to violence and an increase in infections. “The president is fomenting domestic rebellion and spreading lies even while his own administration says the virus is real and is deadly, and that we have a long way to go before restrictions can be lifted,” Mr. Inslee, a Democrat, said in a statement.

At a news conference on Friday afternoon, Ms. Whitmer said she hoped the president’s comments would not incite more protests. “There is a lot of anxiety,” she said. “The most important thing that anyone with a platform can do is try to use that platform to tell people, ‘We are going to get through this.’”

“There is no one more eager to start re-engaging sectors of our economy than I am,” she added. “We are going to do this safely so we don’t have a second wave.”

And when Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia was asked about the president’s comment at a virus news briefing Friday, he said: “I do not have time to involve myself in Twitter wars.”

On a phone call between Vice President Mike Pence and Senate Democrats, Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia asked why Mr. Trump was trying incite division in the middle of pandemic, in reference to Mr. Trump’s “LIBERATE” tweets, according to a person familiar with the call. When Mr. Pence said that the administration was working respectfully with governors, Mr. Kaine noted that the tweets in question were not respectful.

Categories Michigan, Virginia, Wisconsin

NPE ACTION ENDORSES JOE BIDEN!

By dianeravitch
April 17, 2020 //
64

Please read the NPE Action endorsement of Joe Biden for President.

We support public schools.

Donald Trump and his Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, are hostile to the very idea of public schools. They have spent three years proposing deep cuts to public education and attempting to establish federally-funded vouchers for private and religious schools.

In contrast, Joe Biden has proposed dramatic increases in funding to public schools by tripling the amount that Title I schools would receive. He has voiced strong support for more counselors and psychologists in our schools, as well as increased funding for high-quality pre-kindergarten programs. He supports community schools that link social services and the school together to serve children and their families better.

At the Public Education Forum held in Pittsburgh in December of 2019, Joe Biden was asked by NPE Board member Denisha Jones if he would commit to ending standardized testing in schools. His unequivocal response was, “Yes. You are preaching to the choir.” He said to a national audience that “teaching to a test underestimates and discounts the things that are most important for students to know.” He described evaluating teachers by the test scores of their students as a “big mistake.”

At the same public forum in Pittsburgh, he was dismissive of the policies of Secretary of Education DeVos, saying that under his administration, “Betsy DeVos’s whole notion of charter schools…are gone.”

The public statements expressed by Joe Biden encourage us to believe that he does not intend to follow the disastrous education policies of the Obama years included in Race to the Top, which were closely aligned with the failed policies of George Bush’s No Child Left Behind.

We are taking candidate Joe Biden at his word. We believe that he recognizes that Race to the Top and No Child Left Behind were harmful to our schools and our children.

However, if those policies re-emerge, we will vigorously oppose them. We will also continue to be engaged in monitoring the words of both candidates and their parties’ platforms.

We urge our supporters and all friends of public education to go to the polls in November and vote for Joe Biden. The future of our public schools and our democracy is at stake.

In the words of NPE Action President, Diane Ravitch, “We support Joe Biden because he has promised to reverse the failed “test-and-punish” federal policies of the past two decades. For the sake of our children, their teachers, our public schools, and our democracy, Trump must go.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Networkfor Public Education Action Fund, Privatization, Race to the Top, Support for public schools, Teacher Evaluations, Testing, VAM, Vouchers
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