Archives for the month of: June, 2020
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

No, the Unemployment Rate Did Not Tumble

By dianeravitch
June 6, 2020 //
10

A number of informed observers noted that the U.S. unemployment rate did not fall precipitously.

During the campaign of 2016, Trump insisted that the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics was a hoax.

The data may not be a hoax, but they are wrong.

Robert J. Shapiro explained in the Washington Monthly that the data were wrong.

The Washington Post reported a “misclassification error” that reduced the unemployment rate.

The Post reported that:

When the U.S. government’s official jobs report for May came out on Friday, it included a note at the bottom saying there had been a major “error” indicating that the unemployment rate likely should be higher than the widely reported 13.3 percent rate.
The special note said that if this “misclassification error” had not occurred, the “overall unemployment rate would have been about 3 percentage points higher than reported,” meaning the unemployment rate would be about 16.3 percent for May. But that would still be an improvement from an unemployment rate of about 19.7 percent for April, applying the same standards.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics, the agency that puts out the monthly jobs reports, said it was working to fix the problem.

Of course, these careful statements did not present Trump crowing about the jobs report and claiming outrageously that the recently murdered George Floyd would be happy to see the new data. Trump beloveds

Categories Economy, Education Reform, Trump

What Do We Know About Online Education and Virtual Charter Schools?

By dianeravitch
June 6, 2020 //
37

A group of scholars recently published a peer-reviewed study of online schooling and virtual charter schools. The authors are Brian Fitzpatrick, Mark Berends, Joseph J.Ferrare, and R. Joseph Waddington.

The University of Kentucky College of Education, where Waddington is a professor, summed up the findings:

Online Schooling’s Impact on Student Achievement

Online schooling quickly became the new normal for U.S. students when school buildings shuttered to help curb the spread of COVID-19. Although the full impact this will have on student performance will not be understood for quite some time, a study published in the April issue of the journal Educational Researcher may offer a glimpse.

Dr. Joseph Waddington, an assistant professor in the University of Kentucky College of Education Department of Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation, is part of a research team that analyzes student performance in charter schools. Virtual charter schools are offered in 21 states across the U.S., including in Indiana, where the majority of Waddington’s research data is collected.

The results of the study published in April do not bode well for virtual learning. The research team found that students who switched from traditional public schools to virtual charter schools saw test scores in mathematics and English/language arts drop substantially, and the lower scores persisted over time.

When students across the U.S. abruptly shifted to online learning, Waddington and his colleagues considered whether their performance would mirror that of students in virtual charters.

“Researchers, policymakers, teachers, school administrators, and parents alike have all been concerned about the negative consequences for student learning resulting from the dramatic shift to online instruction during COVID-19, amongst other health, safety, and socioemotional outcomes,” Waddington said. “We knew we could not directly compare virtual charter schools and the online learning taking place during COVID-19. However, we thought it would be beneficial to provide the community with a research-informed discussion of the two online learning environments, since many individuals have been eager to catch a glimpse of the potential impacts on student achievement.”

The discussion was published by Brookings, a non-profit public policy institute based in Washington D.C. It, along with the study published in Educational Researcher, was authored by Brian R. Fitzpatrick and Mark Berends at the University of Notre Dame, Joseph J. Ferrare at the University of Washington-Bothell, and Waddington at UK.

A bill allowing charter schools in Kentucky, HB 520, was signed into law in 2017. Kentucky’s charter school legislation does not allow for virtual charter schools.

In the authors’ Brookings blog Post, they explain their peer-reviewed work. The major conclusion is:

We find the impact of attending a virtual charter on student achievement is uniformly and profoundly negative, equating to a third of a standard deviation in English/language arts (ELA) and a half of a standard deviation in math. This equates to a loss of roughly 11 percentile points in ELA and 16 percentile points in math for an average virtual charter student at baseline as compared to their public school peers (see Figure 1 above). There is no evidence that virtual charter students improve in subsequent years. We could not “explain away” these findings by looking at various teacher or classroom characteristics. We also use the same methodology to analyze the impact of attending brick-and-mortar charter schools. In contrast, we find that students who attended brick-and-mortar charters have achievement no different from their traditional public school peers (see Figure 2 below). Our confidence in these results is further buoyed by other studies of virtual charter schools in Ohio and nationwide having similar findings.

If we want to dumb down a generation of students, we will make distance learning a permanent part of the landscape.

Categories Education Reform, Online Learning

Pennsylvania Charter Leader: Protesters “Disgust Me”

By dianeravitch
June 6, 2020 //
47

The leader of an influential charter advocacy group in Pennsylvania’s wrote on Facebook that the people protesting the murder of George Floyd “disgust me.”

Ana Meyers, head of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools, posted — and then deleted — a statement on her personal Facebook page in which she called the protests spurred by the killing of George Floyd “not okay.”

Maybe she didn’t know that people were protesting racism and police brutality. Very likely the students in charter schools and their families were among those who “disgusted” her.

Whatever. She deleted her post.

Categories Charter Schools, Pennsylvania, Racism

As Europe Reopens, COVID Remains Under Control

By dianeravitch
June 6, 2020 //
18

Many medical experts expressed concern about what might happen when restrictions were relaxed and the ecomony reopened. The experience in Europe offers hope that it is possible to restart the economy without triggering a new wave of the COVID.

THE Washington Post reports:

ROME — When Italy ended its lockdown one month ago, Angelo Pan, an infectious-disease doctor, was worried. His hospital, at the epicenter of the country’s outbreak, braced for the possibility that progress against the coronavirus might slow or reverse — and that beds might again become crowded with people struggling to breath.


But that is not what has happened.


In Italy and across most of Europe, countries have restarted their economies and resumed a degree of socializing without visible signs of the dire health consequences forecast by many. Pan’s northern Italian hospital, rather than seeing an uptick, has been able to restore once-paused services and dismantle the intensive care beds added during the emergency.


As of Friday, it hadn’t admitted a coronavirus intensive care patient in 12 days.
“

It’s amazing that [the virus] has not started back,” said Pan, who leads the infectious-disease unit at the public hospital in Cremona.


Virologists from Milan to Berlin have become much more optimistic about Europe’s ability to manage the pandemic and say that, at least through the summer, the continent might have nothing more than localized and hopefully-containable hot spots.


Europe’s experience, at least so far, suggests that sending children back to school, reopening restaurants and even making way for large outdoor protests does not lead to an inevitable resurgence of the virus.


But scientists also readily admit there’s much they don’t know about the idiosyncrasies of this virus. They are still trying to make sense of why it is behaving as it has in Europe and whether those trends will hold — and what the answers might mean for the rest of the world.


Many disease experts say enduring behavioral changes, from hand-washing to mask-wearing, could by themselves be substantially limiting the spread in Europe. They say the continued ban of large-scale events is probably capping the damage wrought by highly contagious people — the “super-spreaders” who account for much of the transmission.


They also say there’s growing evidence that the virus could be proving seasonal — ebbing based on the temperature or other climactic conditions. Though warmer weather doesn’t stop the virus, it can aid in the fight.
[

Europeans, heeding warnings that the virus is more transmissible indoors, have adapted their lives accordingly — something easier to do in warmer months. In Rome, the parks and alfresco restaurant tables are full; the tables indoors are empty. 


In Germany, confined indoor gatherings have led to small outbreaks, while outdoor mass demonstrations against the lockdown in several cities — some drawing thousands of people — have not led to obvious consequences.





“There might be [open-air] transmissions occurring but they are rare,” said Dirk Brockmann, a professor at Humboldt University in Berlin who models infectious diseases for Germany’s Robert Koch Institute, the federal agency tasked with disease control.


“When you are in a club and there are hundreds of people dancing and breathing and yelling in a confined space — that’s a whole different ballgame,” Brockmann said.


One contested theory, aired by two Italian doctors this past week, is that the virus has weakened or become less aggressive. Many health officials have pushed back forcefully against that claim, saying there is no peer-reviewed evidence of such changes, and that cases every day are still proving deadly.


Massimo Ciccozzi, head of the molecular epidemiology unit at the Rome-based University Campus Bio-Medico, said his lab would be studying ways the virus may have mutated. But he said there were other reasons serious pneumonias might be developing less frequently — among them, the wider use of new therapies. Other experts have raised the possibility that a younger cohort of people is now being infected.


There is accumulating evidence that the “viral load” is linked to the severity of the infection, and that outdoor summer transmissions could make for a milder disease.


“It’s like a huge, huge puzzle,” Ciccozzi said. “Every day you find a piece.”
All the while, in country after European country, reported daily case numbers have not just leveled off, like in parts of the United States, but continued to plummet.


In Italy, the number of coronavirus patients in ICUs has declined from 4,000, at the peak in early April, to 400; it ticked down every single day of May. In Germany, many contact tracing teams sit idle, without enough new infections to trace. In Belgium, which had been one of the worst-hit countries, hospitals are clearing out, and doctors don’t report any unusual spikes in patients reporting flu-like symptoms.

Categories Health, International

89 Former Defense Officials: The Military Must Never Be Used to Violate Constitutional Rights

By dianeravitch
June 6, 2020 //
8

The Washington Post published a statement endorsed by 89 individuals who served in the U.S. Department of Defense.


President Trump continues to use inflammatory language as many Americans protest the unlawful death of George Floyd and the unjust treatment of black Americans by our justice system. As the protests have grown, so has the intensity of the president’s rhetoric. He has gone so far as to make a shocking promise: to send active-duty members of the U.S. military to “dominate” protesters in cities throughout the country — with or without the consent of local mayors or state governors.


On Monday, the president previewed his approach on the streets of Washington. He had 1,600 troops from around the country transported to the D.C. area, and placed them on alert, as an unnamed Pentagon official put it, “to ensure faster employment if necessary.” As part of the show of force that Trump demanded, military helicopters made low-level passes over peaceful protesters — a military tactic sometimes used to disperse enemy combatants — scattering debris and broken glass among the crowd. He also had a force, including members of the National Guard and federal officers, that used flash-bang grenades, pepper spray and, according to eyewitness accounts, rubber bullets to drive lawful protesters, as well as members of the media and clergy, away from the historic St. John’s Episcopal Church. All so he could hold a politically motivated photo op there with members of his team, including, inappropriately, Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.


Looting and violence are unacceptable acts, and perpetrators should be arrested and duly tried under the law. But as Monday’s actions near the White House demonstrated, those committing such acts are largely on the margins of the vast majority of predominantly peaceful protests. While several past presidents have called on our armed services to provide additional aid to law enforcement in times of national crisis — among them Ulysses S. Grant, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson — these presidents used the military to protect the rights of Americans, not to violate them.


As former leaders in the Defense Department — civilian and military, Republican, Democrat and independent — we all took an oath upon assuming office “to support and defend the Constitution of the United States,” as did the president and all members of the military, a fact that Gen. Milley pointed out in a recent memorandum to members of the armed forces. We are alarmed at how the president is betraying this oath by threatening to order members of the U.S. military to violate the rights of their fellow Americans.


President Trump has given governors a stark choice: either end the protests that continue to demand equal justice under our laws, or expect that he will send active-duty military units into their states. While the Insurrection Act gives the president the legal authority to do so, this authority has been invoked only in the most extreme conditions when state or local authorities were overwhelmed and were unable to safeguard the rule of law. Historically, as Secretary Esper has pointed out, it has rightly been seen as a tool of last resort.


Beyond being unnecessary, using our military to quell protests across the country would also be unwise. This is not the mission our armed forces signed up for: They signed up to fight our nation’s enemies and to secure — not infringe upon — the rights and freedoms of their fellow Americans. In addition, putting our servicemen and women in the middle of politically charged domestic unrest risks undermining the apolitical nature of the military that is so essential to our democracy. It also risks diminishing Americans’ trust in our military — and thus America’s security — for years to come.


As defense leaders who share a deep commitment to the Constitution, to freedom and justice for all Americans, and to the extraordinary men and women who volunteer to serve and protect our nation, we call on the president to immediately end his plans to send active-duty military personnel into cities as agents of law enforcement, or to employ them or any another military or police forces in ways that undermine the constitutional rights of Americans. The members of our military are always ready to serve in our nation’s defense. But they must never be used to violate the rights of those they are sworn to protect.


Leon E. Panetta, former defense secretary


Chuck Hagel, former defense secretary


Ashton B. Carter, former defense secretary


William S. Cohen, former defense secretary


Sasha Baker, former deputy chief of staff to the defense secretary


Donna Barbisch, retired major general in the U.S. Army


Jeremy Bash, chief of staff to the defense secretary
Jeffrey P. Bialos, former deputy under secretary of defense for industrial affairs


Susanna V. Blume, former deputy chief of staff to the deputy defense secretary


Ian Brzezinski, former deputy assistant defense secretary for Europe and NATO


Gabe Camarillo, former assistant secretary of the Air Force


Kurt M. Campbell, former deputy assistant defense secretary for Asia and the Pacific


Michael Carpenter, former deputy assistant defense secretary for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia


Rebecca Bill Chavez, former deputy assistant defense secretary for Western hemisphere affairs
Derek Chollet, former assistant defense secretary for international security affairs


Dan Christman, retired lieutenant general in the U.S. Army and former assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff


James Clapper, former under secretary of defense for intelligence and director of national intelligence


Eliot A. Cohen, former member of planning staff for the defense department and former member of the Defense Policy Board


Erin Conaton, former under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness


John Conger, former principal deputy under secretary of defense


Peter S. Cooke, retired major general of the U.S. Army Reserve


Richard Danzig, former secretary of the U.S. Navy


Janine Davidson, former under secretary of the U.S. Navy


Robert L. Deitz, former general counsel at the National Security Agency


Abraham M. Denmark, former deputy assistant defense secretary for East Asia


Michael B. Donley, former secretary of the U.S. Air Force


John W. Douglass, retired brigadier general in the U.S. Air Force and former assistant secretary of the U.S. Navy


Raymond F. DuBois, former acting under secretary of the U.S. Army


Eric Edelman, former under secretary of defense for policy


Eric Fanning, former secretary of the U.S. Army


Evelyn N. Farkas, former deputy assistant defense secretary for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia


Michèle A. Flournoy, former under secretary of defense for policy


Nelson M. Ford, former under secretary of the U.S. Army
Alice Friend, former principal director for African affairs in the office of the under defense secretary for policy


John A. Gans Jr., former speechwriter for the defense secretary


Sherri Goodman, former deputy under secretary of defense for environmental security


André Gudger, former deputy assistant defense secretary for manufacturing and industrial base policy


Robert Hale, former under secretary of defense and Defense Department comptroller


Michael V. Hayden, retired general in the U.S. Air Force and former director of the National Security Agency and CIA


Mark Hertling, retired lieutenant general in the U.S. Army and former commanding general of U.S. Army Europe


Kathleen H. Hicks, former principal deputy under secretary of defense for policy


Deborah Lee James, former secretary of the U.S. Air Force


John P. Jumper, retired general of the U.S. Air Force and former chief of staff of the Air Force


Colin H. Kahl, former deputy assistant defense secretary for Middle East policy


Mara E. Karlin, former deputy assistant defense secretary for strategy and force development


Frank Kendall, former under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics


Susan Koch, former deputy assistant defense secretary for threat-reduction policy


Ken Krieg, former under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics


J. William Leonard, former deputy assistant defense secretary for security and information operations


Steven J. Lepper, retired major general of the U.S. Air Force


George Little, former Pentagon press secretary


William J. Lynn III, former deputy defense secretary


Ray Mabus, former secretary of the U.S. Navy and former governor of Mississippi


Kelly Magsamen, former principal deputy assistant defense secretary for Asian and Pacific security affairs


Carlos E. Martinez, retired brigadier general of the U.S. Air Force Reserve


Michael McCord, former under secretary of defense and Defense Department comptroller


Chris Mellon, former deputy assistant defense secretary for intelligence


James N. Miller, former under secretary of defense for policy


Edward T. Morehouse Jr., former principal deputy assistant defense secretary and former acting assistant defense secretary for operational energy plans and programs


Jamie Morin, former director of cost assessment and program evaluation at the Defense Department and former acting under secretary of the U.S. Air Force


Jennifer M. O’Connor, former general counsel of the Defense Department


Sean O’Keefe, former secretary of the U.S. Navy


Dave Oliver, former principal deputy under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics


Robert B. Pirie, former under secretary of the U.S. Navy
John Plumb, former acting deputy assistant defense secretary for space policy


Eric Rosenbach, former assistant defense secretary for homeland defense and global security


Deborah Rosenblum, former acting deputy assistant defense secretary for counternarcotics


Todd Rosenblum, acting assistant defense secretary for homeland defense and Americas’ security affairs


Tommy Ross, former deputy assistant defense secretary for security cooperation


Henry J. Schweiter, former deputy assistant defense secretary


David B. Shear, former assistant defense secretary for Asian and Pacific security affairs


Amy E. Searight, former deputy assistant defense secretary for South and Southeast Asia


Vikram J. Singh, former deputy assistant defense secretary for South and Southeast Asia


Julianne Smith, former deputy national security adviser to the vice president and former principal director for Europe and NATO policy


Paula Thornhill, retired brigadier general of the Air Force and former principal director for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs


Jim Townsend, former deputy assistant defense secretary for Europe and NATO policy


Sandy Vershbow, former assistant defense secretary for international security affairs


Michael Vickers, former under secretary of defense for intelligence


Celeste Wallander, former deputy assistant defense secretary for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia


Andrew Weber, former assistant defense secretary for nuclear, chemical and biological defense programs


William F. Wechsler, former deputy assistant defense secretary for special operations and combating terrorism


Doug Wilson, former assistant defense secretary for public affairs


Anne A. Witkowsky, former deputy assistant defense secretary for stability and humanitarian affairs


Douglas Wise, former deputy director of the Defense Intelligence Agency


Daniel P. Woodward, retired brigadier general of the U.S. Air Force
Margaret H. Woodward, retired major general of the U.S. Air Force


Carl Woog, former deputy assistant to the defense secretary for communications


Robert O. Work, former deputy defense secretary


Dov S. Zakheim, former under secretary of defense and Defense Department comptroller

Categories Accountability, Citizenship, Democracy, Justice

Trump Claims that the New Jobs Data Made George Floyd Happy. Is He Insane?

By dianeravitch
June 5, 2020 //
37

Dana Milbank writes a regular opinion column for the Washington Post.

Today, he lacerated Trump for what must be a new low, a speech so disgusting that it is incomprehensible that any sane person would say what Trump proudly said. While the nation is reeling and convulsed by protests because of the murder of George Floyd while in police custody, Trump claimed that the new jobs number made the recently deceased Mr. Floyd happy. This murdered man , Trump imagines, is smiling because Trump is happy.

George Floyd died in police custody nearly two weeks ago, leaving a fatherless 6-year-old girl. The video of an officer’s knee on his neck set off international protests. The nation still convulses with unrest and violence, and unidentified military personnel brutalize peaceful protesters.


But no worries: It’s all good!


“Hopefully George is looking down right now and saying, ‘There’s a great thing that’s happening for our country,’” President Trump said in the Rose Garden Friday, celebrating a May unemployment report that showed “only” 21 million people — 13.3 percent of the workforce — out of work.


“This is a great day for him, it’s a great day for everybody,” Trump continued. “This is a great, great day in terms of equality.”


For about the millionth time in the past four years, America asks: What the hell is he talking about?


Trump has long presumed to speak for the dead and their thoughts as they “look down” at us.

But implying, as Trump appeared to do, that George Floyd is having “a great day” in the afterlife because of the May jobs report? Trump’s effrontery has no end.


His racism and encouragement of strong-arm police tactics contributed heavily to the rage now gripping the nation — but he has the gall to suggest that the slain Floyd would see an unemployment report showing black joblessness rising to a decade-high 16.8 percent as a “tremendous tribute to equality”?


There are no words.


PBS White House reporter Yamiche Alcindor, who is black, asked Trump about his plan to combat racism.
He replied that a strong economy is “the greatest thing that can happen for race relations, for the African American community.”


NBC’s Peter Alexander asked: “How would a better economy have protected George Floyd?”
Trump didn’t answer.


Alcindor pointed out that black unemployment had increased in May. “How is that a victory?”


Trump waved his hand dismissively. “You are something,” he said.

How could he be so crass, crude, self-aggrandizing, and downright vile?

There are no words.

Categories Shame, Stupid, Trump

Randi on Jobs and Racism

By dianeravitch
June 5, 2020 //
7

The AFT issued this statement:

Statement by AFT President Randi Weingarten on Jobs Report

WASHINGTON—American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten issued the following statement after the U.S. jobs report showed the loss of more than half a million additional public sector layoffs amid a rebound in private sector jobs:

“The jobs report out today confirms what we already know: The CARES Act is working, but if we don’t act now on a new round of stimulus for states, communities and schools, then millions more Americans will be out of work.

“An additional 585,000 public sector jobs were lost, following a drop of 963,000 in April. That includes another 375,000 educators, for a total of 750,000 so far during the COVID-19 pandemic, double the carnage of the Great Recession.

“The numbers are an argument for state and local aid, not against it. Business wants to come back, but we can’t halt stimulus now, particularly for states and schools, otherwise we’ll be confronting a fresh slump that will wreak havoc for years.

“We are in the midst of three crises: a pandemic, an economic crisis and a crisis of systemic racism. The news that private sector jobs grew was a step in the right direction, but these crises are far from over.

“The president’s comments today about George Floyd were tone-deaf. Floyd was murdered by police, and racial inequalities remain unaddressed. The report showed that Black unemployment rose, as African Americans continue to feel the disproportionate effects of the downturn.

“There are no magic fixes for this economy—only a path to recovery if we keep up the stimulus and investments to fund, rather than forfeit, the future. We urgently need the federal funding included in the HEROES Act that helps states, cities, towns and schools weather this rolling storm. If we fail to act, essential services will be gutted, schools won’t be able to reopen and public employees will stay laid off.”

Categories Accountability, Civil Rights, Economy, Racism

A Conversation with Jitu Brown, Leader of Journey for Justice Alliance, About Racism and Action

By dianeravitch
June 5, 2020 //
34

The Network for Public Education has sponsored a series of weekly ZOOM conversations in which I interview someone who has important things to say.

On Wednesday, I interviewed Jitu Brown, a prominent community organizer in Chicago and leader of the Journey for Justice Alliance, which has organizations in thirty cities.

When we set up the discussion, we thought we would talk mostly about privatization and Jitu Brown’s successful fight to save the Walter H. Dyett High School in Chicago. Jitu Brown is one of the heroes of my new book SLAYING GOLIATH, for his success in stopping Rahm Emanuel from closing Dyett.

These topics were discussed but the main focus was on the murder of George Floyd and racism in America. Jitu Brown has quite a lot to say about racism, in large part because of his experiences. We also talked about a Rahm Emanuel, and his disastrous role in running the public schools as mayor of Chicago.

Listeners said it was a “riveting” conversation.

Listen and see for yourself.

Next week, I will talk with Amy Frogge, a great leader of the resistance to privatization in Metro Nashville. She is a member of the Metro Nashville public school board, as well as a parent of public school students and a lawyer.

She too is a hero of SLAYING GOLIATH for her leadership in defending public schools.

We will talk about “The Fight for Better Public Schools in Tennessee.” The billionaires and their puppet organizations have poured many millions into school board races in an effort to capture control of the district. Amy has fought valiantly against proponents of charters and vouchers.

This is a battle that is being played out in urban districts across the nation.

Join us on Zoom on June 10 at 7:30 pm, EST.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Chicago, Civil Rights, Closing schools, Education Reform, Emanuel, Rahm, Racism, Tennessee

Jan Resseger: The Best Post-Pandemic Strategy May Be Community Schools

By dianeravitch
June 5, 2020 //
24

Jan Resseger explains here why community schools may be the best post-pandemic strategy for reopening schools.

Jeff Bryant recently profiled Mary Parr-Sanchez, the current president of the National Education Association’s New Mexico affiliate, speaking about what education will be like after the pandemic: “‘I think we’re all going to be different after this… When I first learned of the community schools model, it hit me like a lightning bolt,’ she told me. ‘I loved it because it focused on the academic and nonacademic needs of children, and the focus was on learning and a culturally relevant curriculum, not just test scores.’ Now, she is convinced the community schools model is the most promising way forward for schools as they reopen to the new realities of recovering from the fallout of COVID-19.”

Here is how the New York City Children’s Aid Society’s National Center for Community Schools defines a full-service, wraparound community school: “The foundations for community schools can be conceptualized as a Developmental Triangle that places children at the center, surrounded by families and communities. Because students’ educational success, health and well-being are the focus of every community school, the legs of the triangle consist of three interconnected support systems: A strong core instructional program… expanded learning opportunities… and a full range of health, mental health and social services designed to promote children’s well-being and remove barriers to learning.”

Community schools are designed locally to meet the needs of the particular school community, but they share essential characteristics. The Children’s Aid Society explains that community schools are not mere ad hoc school community partnerships, but are instead the product of careful planning and staffing. A Community School Director—an administrator—partners with the principal to coordinate the social, medical and enrichment services housed in the community school with the academic program. Each community school has a designated lead partner agency, which “maintains a full-time presence in the school and engages in regular joint planning with the Community School Director, the staff, and the community.”

The goal is to meet all the needs of children, not just their academic needs.

Categories Creativity, Education Reform, New Mexico

An Explosion of Police Brutality, Encouraged by Trump

By dianeravitch
June 5, 2020 //
29

Anyone who follows Twitter or other social
media platforms has seen the sickening videos of police using excessive force to attack peaceful protestors. We are witnessing in public the brutal tactics that people of color have long experienced. And we are seeing the effects of Trump’s advice to officials to “dominate” the streets even when people are exercising Constitutionally protected rights. You may even recall when he spoke to a convention of police in New York and advised them not to be too nice to the people they arrest. At the time, some police officials worried that Trump was encouraging police brutality. Of course he was.

One of the prime examples of violent action by law officers occurred a few days ago in Lafayette Park in D.C., when armed men in uniforms violently cleared away peaceful demonstrators so the president could walk with his entourage to St. John’s Church to brandish a Bible. Observers saw the political stunt as typical Trump phoniness, staged in front of a church he never attended with a book he never read. Trump retweeted a letter by his former lawyer John Dowd referring to the unarmed peaceful demonstrators as “terrorists.”

The White House has since been turned into a “fortress,” symbolizing government’s fear of the people.

Some of these videos show police beating anyone in their path. This video from Los Angeles is a shocking example. Two police officers in Buffalo were suspended for shoving a 75-year-old man to the ground, where he lay in a puddle of his blood. Police used their batons as clubs to beat back peaceful demonstrators.

The imposition of curfews, intended to curb looting, has created clashes between people exercising their First Amendment right to assemble peaceably and police tasked with enforcing the curfew. See here and here

Over 400 people who formerly worked in the de Blasio administration signed a letter strongly opposing his failure to rein in police brutality or reform the city’s policing policies. The mayor was booed when he spoke at a memorial for George Floyd.

The police are supposed to serve and protect the public. They are law officers. They are supposed to administer the law, not break it.

I respect the police. I have always respected the police. I am white and privileged. Many people like me are now at the receiving end and are seeing for the first time how people of color have long seen the police, as an occupying force.

There must be a concerted effort at every level of government to stop police brutality, to weed out those who don’t respect the rights of citizens and those who are racist.

If you want to understand how people of color see the police, listen to Jitu Brown.

Categories Inequity, Injustice
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »