Archives for category: Health
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Washington Post Fact-Checks DeVos on COVID-19 Claims

By dianeravitch
July 24, 2020 //
24

Betsy DeVos wants schools to open. She wants to help Trump win re-election. Trump wants schools to open so the economy will restart. DeVos claimed that children don’t get sick from the virus, so they won’t spread it. She thinks they might even be a brake on the virus. The Washington Post gave her claims a fact check.

The Fact Checker wrote:

“More and more studies show that kids are actually stoppers of the disease and they don’t get it and transmit it themselves, so we should be in a posture of — the default should be getting back to school kids in person, in the classroom.”

— Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, in an interview on “The Conservative Circus” (iHeart radio), July 16

Our eyes popped out when we first heard this comment by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, as she pressed the administration’s case for reopening schools in the fall with in-person classes.

Could children actually be “stoppers” of covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus? That would be great news — if true. The interruption of school threatens to create a learning deficit — and many parents may find it difficult to return to work if children are not in classes.

Let’s examine DeVos’s evidence that children do not transmit the coronavirus, as it appears to be influencing administration policy. President Trump echoed her claim in a news briefing Wednesday evening. “They do say that [children] don’t transmit very easily, and a lot of people are saying they don’t transmit,” he said. “They don’t bring it home with them. They don’t catch it easily; they don’t bring it home easily.”

The Facts

An Education Department spokesperson supplied four reports from around the world:

American Academy of Pediatrics: Evidence suggests that children don’t contract or spread the virus the way adults do, in contrast to how they spread influenza.

New South Wales, Australia: Eighteen infected people who had contact with nearly 900 people resulted in only two additional infections, with “no evidence of children infecting teachers.”

France: An infected 9-year-old in France came into contact with 172 people while attending three ski schools, and none of them — not even the child’s siblings — appeared to contract the virus.

Saxony, Germany: A study (in German) found no evidence that schoolchildren play a role in spreading the virus, with a researcher quoted in a news report as saying that “children may even act as a brake on infection.”
“We’re mainly looking at the German study — one of the people who helped run it is the one who first said that kids can act as ‘brakes’ on virus transmission,” the Education Department spokesperson said.

Well, there’s a problem with that. The German study has not been peer-reviewed; it is still in preprint review by the Lancet, meaning it should not be used to guide clinical practice.

Moreover, the German researchers told The Fact Checker that the results do not apply to a country such as the United States, where infections have been soaring. Germany, by contrast, is among the countries that are considered to have handled the outbreak with skill and diligence, keeping infections per million people relatively low.

“Our results depict a situation with low infection rates after the initial transmission peak is under control,” Jakob Armann, a pediatric infectious-disease specialist at University Children’s Hospital in Dresden and co-author of the study, said in an email. “If you have rising infection rates — as in the United States currently — putting people in close contact will obviously lead to transmission of respiratory viruses as SARS-CoV-2.”

The key, he said, is to get the situation under control, as most Europeans countries have. Then “there is a way to safely reopen schools and schoolchildren are not ‘hidden’ hotspots of transmission.”

Reinhard Berner, Armann’s colleague, made the “brake” comment, but Armann said his quote was “widely exaggerated through in the media.” (The phrase does not appear in the study.)

“The point he was trying to make is that these findings are in contrast to the earlier assumptions that children will spread the virus to a much higher degree than adults,” Armann said. “We are not trying to argue that children do not spread the virus at all, and you are absolutely right that in high-infection communities, children will get infected and will transmit to close contacts.”

It’s easy to find studies and news reports that contradict DeVos’s assertion:

South Korea: A large study using contact tracing found that children ages 10 to 19 can spread the virus at least as much as adults do; children younger than 10 were half as likely to transmit the virus, but there was still a risk.

Israel: At least 1,335 students and 691 staff members contracted the coronavirus after Israel reopened its entire school system without restrictions on May 17, believing it had beaten the virus. The spike in infections among the children spread to the general population, according to epidemiological surveys by Israel’s Health Ministry. As of mid-July, 125 schools and 258 kindergartens have been closed because of infections. (One study suggested that the disease spread quickly at a high school, affecting more than 260 people, during a heat wave, when mask rules were suspended and air conditioning was in constant use.)

In the United States, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, 241,904 child coronavirus cases were reported as of July 16, with children representing 8 percent of all cases. There was a 46 percent increase in child cases from July 2 to July 16, although mortality remains low, with 24 states reporting no child deaths so far.

Although there have been relatively few deaths of children — fewer than 70, according to state reports — about 3.3 million adults ages 65 and older live in a household with school-age children, according to a July 16 analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation. That’s about 6 percent of all seniors in the United States, who have a greater chance of becoming severely ill from the virus if a child becomes infected.

Michael T. Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, said that too often people have latched on to studies that later turn out to be flawed. “There have been so many studies, sometimes with strident conclusions, only to be blown out of the water later” when conditions change, he said. “The bottom-line message is that school-age kids will see transmissions. How much is unclear, but they definitely are not brakes.”

After we communicated the response from the German researchers, we received this statement from the Education Department: “The science remains on the side of reopening schools, even at the highest levels of the medical field. As the Secretary has said, we have to think about the impact on the whole child if schools continue to remain closed. In addition to a quality education, students need the peer-to-peer interaction, access to mental health care, and nutritious food that schools provide. As she has said previously, decisions on schools fully reopening will need to be made on case-by-case basis depending on the local health situation, and the goal should be fully reopening in the fall.”

The Pinocchio Test

As a Cabinet secretary, DeVos has a responsibility to provide accurate information to the public. It’s easy to pick and choose medical studies to assert a political point. But it’s irresponsible to mainly rely on a news account of a report that has not even been peer-reviewed yet — and that concerns a low-infection environment not yet applicable to the United States.

There is evidence that children may not get as sick as adults, and younger children especially may not transmit the virus as easily. From an educational perspective, certainly it would be better to provide in-class instruction than to continue remote learning. But to claim that children actually may stop the spread of the disease shows a stunning lack of due diligence.

DeVos earns Four Pinocchios.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Health, Lies

Dave Grohl: In Defense of Our Teachers

By dianeravitch
July 24, 2020 //
29

Musician Dave Grohl wrote this article in The Atlantic in honor of his mother, who was a dedicated teacher. America’s teachers need a plan, not a trap, he writes.

My mother was a public-school teacher.

As a single mother of two, she tirelessly devoted her life to the service of others, both at home and at work. From rising before dawn to ensure that my sister and I were bathed, dressed, and fed in time to catch the bus to grading papers well into the night, long after her dinner had gone cold, she rarely had a moment to herself. All this while working multiple jobs to supplement her meager $35,000 annual salary. Bloomingdale’s, Servpro, SAT prep, GED prep—she even once coached soccer for a $400 stipend, funding our first family trip to New York City, where we stayed at the St. Regis Hotel and ordered drinks at its famous King Cole Bar so that we could fill up on the free hors d’oeuvres we otherwise could not afford. Unsurprisingly, her devoted parenting mirrored her technique as a teacher. Never one to just point at a blackboard and recite lessons for kids to mindlessly memorize, she was an engaging educator, invested in the well-being of each and every student who sat in her class. And at an average of 32 students a class, that was no small feat. She was one of those teachers who became a mentor to many, and her students remembered her long after they had graduated, often bumping into her at the grocery store and erupting into a full recitation of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, like a flash mob in the produce aisle. I can’t tell you how many of her former students I’ve met over the years who offer anecdotes from my mother’s classroom. Every kid should be so lucky to have that favorite teacher, the one who changes your life for the better. She helped generations of children learn how to learn, and, like most other teachers, exhibited a selfless concern for others. Though I was never her student, she will forever be my favorite teacher.

It takes a certain kind of person to devote their life to this difficult and often-thankless job. I know because I was raised in a community of them. I have mowed their lawns, painted their apartments, even babysat their children, and I’m convinced that they are as essential as any other essential workers. Some even raise rock stars! Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, Adam Levine, Josh Groban, and Haim are all children of school workers (with hopefully more academically rewarding results than mine). Over the years, I have come to notice that teachers share a special bond, because there aren’t too many people who truly understand their unique challenges—challenges that go far beyond just pen and paper. Today, those challenges could mean life or death for some.

When it comes to the daunting—and ever more politicized—question of reopening schools amid the coronavirus pandemic, the worry for our children’s well-being is paramount. Yet teachers are also confronted with a whole new set of dilemmas that most people would not consider. “There’s so much more to be addressed than just opening the doors and sending them back home,” my mother tells me over the phone. Now 82 and retired, she runs down a list of concerns based on her 35 years of experience: “masks and distancing, temperature checks, crowded busing, crowded hallways, sports, air-conditioning systems, lunchrooms, public restrooms, janitorial staff.” Most schools already struggle from a lack of resources; how could they possibly afford the mountain of safety measures that will need to be in place? And although the average age of a schoolteacher in the United States is in the early 40s, putting them in a lower-risk group, many career teachers, administrators, cafeteria workers, nurses, and janitors are older and at higher risk. Every school’s working faculty is a considerable percentage of its population, and should be safeguarded appropriately. I can only imagine if my mother were now forced to return to a stuffy, windowless classroom. What would we learn from that lesson? When I ask what she would do, my mother replies, “Remote learning for the time being.”

Remote learning comes with more than a few of its own complications, especially for working-class and single parents who are dealing with the logistical problem of balancing jobs with children at home. Uneven availability of teaching materials and online access, technical snafus, and a lack of socialization all make for a less-than-ideal learning experience. But most important, remote setups overseen by caretakers, with a teacher on the other end doing their best to educate distracted kids who prefer screens used for games, not math, make it perfectly clear that not everyone with a laptop and a dry-erase board is cut out to be a teacher. That specialized skill is the X factor. I know this because I have three children of my own, and my remote classroom was more Welcome Back, Kotter than Dead Poets Society. Like I tell my children, “You don’t really want daddy helping, unless you want to get an F!” Remote learning is an inconvenient and hopefully temporary solution. But as much as Donald Trump’s conductor-less orchestra would love to see the country prematurely open schools in the name of rosy optics (ask a science teacher what they think about White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany’s comment that “science should not stand in the way”), it would be foolish to do so at the expense of our children, teachers, and schools…

America’s teachers are caught in a trap, set by indecisive and conflicting sectors of failed leadership that have never been in their position and can’t possibly relate to the unique challenges they face. I wouldn’t trust the U.S. secretary of percussion to tell me how to play “Smells Like Teen Spirit” if they had never sat behind a drum set, so why should any teacher trust Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to tell them how to teach, without her ever having sat at the head of a class? (Maybe she should switch to the drums.) Until you have spent countless days in a classroom devoting your time and energy to becoming that lifelong mentor to generations of otherwise disengaged students, you must listen to those who have. Teachers want to teach, not die, and we should support and protect them like the national treasures that they are. For without them, where would we be?

Categories Health, Safety, Teachers

The Lincoln Project: Trump’s Failure on Pandemic

By dianeravitch
July 23, 2020 //
50

The latest video from the Lincoln Project documents Trump’s pronouncements about the pandemic. It is brilliant.

Categories Failure, Health, Lies, Shame, Trump

Civil Rights and Education Groups File Suit Against DeVos

By dianeravitch
July 22, 2020 //
15

A group of civil rights and education organizations have filed suit against Betsy DeVos, who seeks to divert public funding to private schools. Say this for DeVos: She is maddeningly consistent in her efforts to fund private schools. Whether authorized or not, she presses forward on behalf of the private school sector. She doesn’t care about public schools or their students. She wants them to open in the middle of a pandemic without regard to safety of students or teachers.

DEVOS SUED BY PUBLIC SCHOOL PARENTS, NAACP, AND SCHOOL DISTRICTS TO BLOCK ILLEGAL RULE THAT DIVERTS CRITICAL COVID-19 AID FROM PUBLIC SCHOOLS TO PRIVATE SCHOOLS

A rule issued by the U.S. Department of Education this month coerces school districts to use an illegal process to inflate the amount of federal COVID-19 aid they must share with private schools. The rule will drastically diminish the resources available to support public school children and historically underserved student populations during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a lawsuit filed today by public school parents, districts, and the NAACP. The lawsuit seeks to block the rule.

The lawsuit, NAACP v. DeVos, explains that the rule imposes illegal and harmful requirements on the emergency relief funds allocated to public school districts under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. Under the rule, school districts must divert more funding for “equitable services” to private school students than the law requires or face onerous restrictions on the use of those funds in their public schools. Both options violate the clear language and intent of the CARES Act and will undermine district efforts to adequately serve students who desperately need services and supports due to the impacts of the pandemic.

The CARES Act directs public school districts to calculate the amount they must set aside for private schools based on the number of low-income students enrolled in private schools. However, DeVos’ rule forces school districts to comply with one of two illegal options, either: (1) allocate CARES Act funds for private schools based on all students enrolled in private school, which includes students from affluent families, or (2) allocate these funds based on the number of low-income students at private schools, but face severe restrictions on how the rest of the district’s CARES Act funds can be used, including a prohibition on their use to serve any students who do not attend Title I schools.

The rule was first introduced in April as non-binding guidance from Secretary DeVos and received widespread criticism from education leaders and lawmakers that the guidance violated the CARES Act and would leave districts without resources essential to address the impacts of COVID-19. Several state attorneys general have also filed suit to challenge these new rules.

“Amid a national health crisis, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is robbing public school children of desperately needed relief and diverting it to private schools,” said Derrick Johnson, president and CEO, NAACP. “This is a new low, even for an administration intent on promoting inequality in education. Children and families across the nation are facing unprecedented risks to their safety and educational opportunities. COVID-19 has magnified the hardships for children from low-income households and diminished access to quality instruction, digital technology, nutrition, social development, and other vital resources. These are consequences that will last a lifetime.”

“Forcing districts to spend even more funding on private schools exacerbates existing inequities in Arizona,” said Beth Lewis, Title I school parent and teacher in the Tempe Elementary School District and cofounder of grassroots advocacy group Save Our Schools Arizona. “Our public schools have been defunded for decades and already lose hundreds of millions of dollars to private schools via vouchers every single year. Secretary DeVos’s binding rule forces our neighborhood schools to give desperately needed federal aid to private schools that have already accepted small business bailouts. Meanwhile, Title I public schools like mine have to rely on local charities and donors to help us feed students and stock classrooms. This rule will harm the students and families who need resources the most.”

“Secretary DeVos’ new rule is plainly illegal because it violates the clear language and congressional intent of the CARES Act,” said Jessica Levin, Director of the Public Funds Public Schools campaign, a collaboration of the organizations that represent the plaintiffs in the case. “The impact on students and schools will be severe, as the rule shows complete disregard for the reality that public schools need increased resources as they continue to serve 90% of our nation’s students during this incredibly challenging time.”

The coronavirus pandemic has focused the nation’s attention on the essential role public schools play in the lives of families and communities. Since closing buildings in March, public schools across the country have worked tirelessly to maintain instruction and provide students with meals, access to technology, health services, and social and emotional supports. Public schools now need more – not fewer – resources. Yet, Secretary DeVos continues to exploit the pandemic to promote her political agenda of funneling taxpayer dollars to private schools.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are represented pro bono by the law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson, LLP, as well as Education Law Center (ELC) and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), all of whom collaborate on Public Funds Public Schools.

Press Contact:
Sharon Krengel
Policy and Outreach Director
Education Law Center
60 Park Place, Suite 300
Newark, NJ 07102
973-624-1815, ext. 24
skrengel@edlawcenter.org

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Cheating, Civil Rights, Health, Safety, U.S. Department of Education

New York City: Teachers Worried about Risks of Reopening

By dianeravitch
July 22, 2020 //
7

Teachers in New York City are fearful about returning to classrooms without adequate protection for their health.

Some educators and union leaders say fear and mistrust over the partial reopening plan is pervasive…

“There’s a lot of fear and anxiety out there,” said UFT President Michael Mulgrew. “A lot of school staff passed away. And they’re like we’re not going back unless the rules are followed, and that’s what happened in March — the rules weren’t followed.”

Mulgrew said the city has a lot of work to do before any in-person classes are viable, including its promised upgrade of school HVAC ventilation systems….

Educators say they are deeply concerned about the quality of remote learning. But some say the city would be better off allocating all its time and energy over the summer to providing training and support for online teaching rather than moving full throttle ahead with reopening questions.

“I feel like we could use this time to advantage,” said Alexander-Thomas. “Arguing doesn’t get us anywhere.”

Even teachers who are comfortable in theory with returning to school buildings this fall say the devil is in the details — many of which are still being worked out.

“I would show up in my hazmat suit,” said Liza Porter, a middle school teacher at Public School 99 in Brooklyn. But she worries about logistics like how staff will safely share a bathroom.

“We literally share a bathroom with 20 other adults the size of the smallest closet in your apartment. They would have to have buckets of sanitizer for us,” she said…

City officials have acknowledged they’ll need extra staff to handle the smaller groups of students. Schools chancellor Richard Carranza said the Education Department is scouring its ranks for central office employees with teaching licenses who may be able to step in. But with hiring freezes and layoffs on the horizon following a more than billion dollar cut to the Education Department budget over fiscal years 2020 and 2021, the staffing shortages could grow worse.

Categories Health, New York City, Safety, Teachers

Jan Resseger: If Trump Wants Schools to Open, Why Won’t He Pay for It?

By dianeravitch
July 22, 2020 //
30

Jan Resseger reviews the Catch-22 situation in which schools are trapped: Trump demands that they open in a few weeks or he will cut their federal funding. The CDC says that a safe opening requires hyper-vigilance about health, safety, social distancing, small classes, cleaning, masks, etc.

But Trump and Congress have refused to pay for reopening.

Bottom line: schools can’t reopen unless it is safe for students and staff.

Categories Accountability, Funding, Health, Safety, Science, Trump

David Dayen: Why Florida’s Teachers Are Suing to Block Reopening

By dianeravitch
July 21, 2020 //
25

David Dayen explains why Florida’s teachers are suing to block Governor DeSantis’ order to reopen all public schools for full in-person instruction.

The short version:

1) Florida is in the midst of a surge in the pandemic.
2) Neither the state nor the federal government has put up the money to provide even minimal safety for students and adults.

First Response
Last Friday the governor of Missouri, Mike Parson, told a right-wing radio host that coronavirus would infect children and we all just have to put up with it. “If they do get COVID-19, which they will,” Parson said, “they’re going to go home and they’re going to get over it.”

The nonchalance of this comment reinforces the impression of the Republican Party as a literal death cult. Not only do children suffer serious injury, and yes, die, from the virus, but as Parson appears not entirely aware, kids don’t teach themselves. And teachers and school personnel aren’t as sanguine as the Governor of Missouri of being marched into a contagious environment and playing the equivalent of Russian roulette.

The flashpoint for this is Florida, where yesterday state and national teachers unions filed suit to block Governor Ron DeSantis’ executive order reopening public schools. School districts in the state begin classes as early as August 10, and teachers must report a week earlier. So this is a last-minute effort to prevent a public health disaster.

“Teachers are scared, they have a high trepidation of going back into school buildings, given that Florida is the epicenter,” said Fedrick Ingram, president of the Florida Education Association, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. “We can’t make our schools vectors for the virus, infecting parents and multi-generational families at home. Our goal is to not open schools, it’s to keep schools open.”
Read all of our Unsanitized reports here

Click to Support The American Prospect

Florida educators have a leg up in this case, because the state Constitution states explicitly that “[a]dequate provision shall be made by law for a uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools.” The words “safe and secure” are paramount here, requiring the Governor and the Commissioner of Education institute policies meet that standard, the lawsuit explains. And they have not done anything close to that.

“The only thing the [DeSantis] executive order says is that there will be a brick-and-mortar option five days a week,” Ingram told the Prospect. No guidelines and certainly no money for social distancing policies have been included. If you need to cut class sizes in half to allow children to be separated from teachers, will there be money to hire twice as many teachers? Or give overtime to the existing ones to double their workday?

That’s just the beginning. No testing and tracing regime has been instituted. No money for PPE has been allotted. No decisions have been made on band or chorus rehearsals, recess, or assemblies. If a teacher gets sick and needs to quarantine for 14 days, there’s no understanding of whether they would get their job back. Air conditioning within the schools, a critical issue in Florida, that recirculate air would need to be altered. Buses would either have to run twice as much or with twice as many drivers hired. “I can go through a myriad of issues and we can talk into tomorrow,” Ingram said. Yet no money has been put toward this purpose, in a state that has historically underfunded its schools.

Reopened schools in several countries around the world have generally led to decent results, although that’s not universal. In Israel, schools had to be shut two weeks after opening after outbreaks raged through them, and new studies show children over age 10 can spread the virus as efficiently as adults. Critically, most countries getting back to school have low and decreasing levels of the virus, the opposite of what we see in Florida, which has registered 10,000 new cases every day for the last two weeks. The initial CDC guidelines on reopening generally call for a 14-day drop in cases.

The case, which has the support of the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, includes several Florida teachers. One, Ladara Royal, is a young African American man with asthma, who according to Ingram would leave the profession if forced to go back to work. Another, Stefanie Beth Miller, spent 21 days on a ventilator in a medically induced coma from COVID-19. A third, Mindy Festge, has an immunosuppressed son that she’s keeping out of high school, and doesn’t want to bring the virus home to him.

“We’re forcing these parents and teachers to make lifelong decisions,” Ingram said. “We have other teachers making out their wills because they have to go back to school.” He noted that the state started last academic year with over 3,000 classrooms without a certified teacher. That shortage is sure to increase at a time when more would be needed to properly social distance.

The lawsuit calls for emergency relief to protect the first wave of teachers and students set to enter schools in just a couple weeks. A state where over 17,000 children have already contracted the virus would be home to a grisly and uncertain experiment unless the DeSantis order is stopped. The consequences of not opening schools are tragic for students who might fall behind and parents needing to concentrate on work during the day. But the consequences of creating thousands of death traps is worse.

Categories Accountability, Florida, Funding, Health, Safety, Students, Teachers

Leonie Haimson: Obstacles to a Safe Reopening

By dianeravitch
July 21, 2020 //
6

Leonie Haimson, executive director of Class Size Matters, wrote an open letter about the steps required before schools can begin to reopen.

She wrote:


Last week, Governor Cuomo, the State Department of Health, and the NY State Education Department all came out with detailed guidance on what measures schools should take to reopen in the fall to ensure health and safety as well as provide instructional and emotional support to their students. If the COVID positivity rates of all regions of the state remain under 5%, as they do currently, schools will be eligible to reopen if they adopt the recommended protocols.

Yet nothing was said in these documents about how schools can afford the expensive health and safety measures, as well as the extra staffing and space necessary to keep students engaged in learning while attending school in person in shifts to ensure social distancing.

As the National Academy of Sciences pointed out, “Many of the mitigation strategies currently under consideration (such as limiting classes to small cohorts of students or implementing physical distancing between students and staff) require substantial reconfiguring of space, purchase of additional equipment, adjustments to staffing patterns, and upgrades to school buildings. The financial costs of consistently implementing a number of potential mitigation strategies is considerable.”

Our schools’ desperate need for more funding has been aggravated by the fact that Governor Cuomo hijacked the extra dollars that were funded by Congress in the CARES ACT to fill holes in state aid, instead of sending these funds to schools to help them deal with the additional expenses caused by the COVID crisis.

Now is the time for the Governor and our State Legislators to stand up for our schools and protect our children by providing them with the funds that are badly needed. They could do that easily by boosting taxes on the ultra-wealthy, including the Ultra-millionaires Tax (S.8164 / A.10364) on residents who earn above $5 million annually; or above $1 million annually (S.7378/A.10363); and the Pied-a-terre Tax (S.44 / AA.4540), a surcharge on non-primary residences worth over $5 million.

There is no doubt that the ultra-wealthy can afford this. In NY State, 118 billionaires saw their wealth increase by $77.3 billion during first three months of the pandemic. Michael Bloomberg saw his net worth increase by $12 billion during this period alone. All New Yorkers, including the ultra-wealthy, need to pitch in during this time of need, to ensure the health, safety and education of our kids. Below are links to your Legislators’ contact information and a script you can use. They are back in session today.

Thanks Leonie

Directions: Call your Legislators in their district offices – unless their phones are busy and then please call their Albany offices.

You can find your Assemblymember’s phone number here and your State Senator’s phone number here.

Script: Hi, my name is ________ and I am a constituent.

Our public schools desperately need more state aid to deal with the pandemic. I want to urge [Elected Name] to support the Fund Our Future package, including the Ultra-Millionaires Tax, the Billionaire Tax Shelter Tax and the Pied-a-terre Tax, so our kids can attend school safely next year. Can I count on [Elected Name] to sign onto these bills, and to ask the Legislative leaders to bring them to a vote?

Afterwards, if you have time, please enter their responses into our Google form here. Thanks!

Leonie Haimson
Executive Director
Class Size Matters
124 Waverly Pl.
New York, NY 10011
phone: 917-435-9329
leonie@classsizematters.org
http://www.classsizematters.org
Follow on twitter @leoniehaimson
Subscribe to the Class Size Matters newsletter for regular updates at http://tinyurl.com/kj5y5co

Subscribe to the NYC Education list serv by emailing NYCeducationnews+subscribe@groups.io

Host of “Talk out of School” WBAI radio show and podcast at https://talk-out-of-school.simplecast.com/

Categories Accountability, Cuomo, Andrew, Funding, Health, New York, Safety

Teacher: This Is How I Will Teach when School Reopens

By dianeravitch
July 21, 2020 //
37

Mamie Krupczak Allegretti teaches French. She described how her teaching will change when school reopens during the pandemic. The lesson I draw from her note is that the most pressing issue facing our nation is not opening the schools but getting the disease under control so it is safe to return to school.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how I am actually going to teach if we go back to school in person.

I think people might have the idea that everything will be “normal” in schools if we go back in person. Kids will be able to socialize and everything will be fine.

I imagine me standing more than 12 feet from the kids giving a lesson. I’m wearing a mask and a face shield and kids are wearing masks (hopefully). They all have their laptops in front of them. After I give my spiel, they do some work on the laptop and submit it to me.

All the windows are open regardless of outside temperature.

I am NOT circulating around the room helping kids. I will have students minimize talking so as not to spread the virus (or other cold, flu germs for that matter!!!).

I may hand out papers but to do this I will have to go into the faculty room (which is small and has no windows) to make copies. I’m NOT going to have students hand in any papers. There won’t be any group or pair work.

Since we won’t be able to do that, what will I substitute for communicative activities (I teach French.)? Maybe we will watch more French movies. Maybe I’ll read them a French book. They may do more writing on their laptops. No more art projects because even if they have their own materials, they will want to talk to each other while doing their project. I’m not encouraging that.

So, my teaching is not going to look like it normally would, and it’s possible that I’m not going to be teaching much of the same material.

I’m certainly not going to stay after school to help kids with work. And even if I did, we would have to stay far apart.

Kids aren’t going to be able to socialize as they normally would. They won’t be able to sit with friends for the most part. They may have to stay with a particular group.

I’m concerned about going into the small faculty bathrooms that have no ventilation. They are also close to student bathrooms which are small and have no ventilation.

So, just because kids are back in school doesn’t mean a whole lot of socializing will take place. Of course, it will probably be different at the elementary level.

I’ve also brought up the psychological issues of constantly being aware of the safety of one’s environment and how learning will take place therein. I’m wondering how the teachers out there are envisioning teaching in person in school. Have they thought about the logistics of this and if they will have to change their curriculum at all and if so, how? Thank you.

Categories Health, Safety, Teachers and Teaching

Public Education Partners: Ohio Is Not Ready for a Safe Reopening

By dianeravitch
July 21, 2020 //
10

Public Education Partners is the leading volunteer advocacy group for public schools in Ohio.

They issued this statement last night.

We are public education experts.

Public Education Partners (PEP) is a statewide, grassroots public education advocacy group whose mission is to preserve, protect, and strengthen Ohio’s public schools. Public Education Partners is an integral part of education policy deliberations through legislative consultation, Statehouse testimony, and community forums, among other actions. Over 90% of Ohio’s children attend public schools, and Ohio’s public-school system is the largest employer in the state.

The PEP Board is an entirely volunteer group comprised of:
active and retired educators and administrators with a collective total of over 350 years of teaching experience in Ohio’s public schools’ urban, suburban and rural districts;
public school board members;
city council members;
parents and grandparents of Ohio Public School students

PEP is a nonprofit organization that does not endorse political candidates. Public Education Partners has no paid members.

We believe district-sourced remote learning is warranted for the opening of the 2020-2021 school year across Ohio.

PEP believes that opening the school year with full-time remote learning, sourced within school districts, is the best approach to keeping children, school staff and their families safe from the public health crisis of coronavirus infection and spread.

As much as we know teachers miss face-to-face teaching and students miss their school communities and activities, PEP urges Ohio to embrace a statewide commitment to remote learning until the pandemic is brought under control. Returning to school buildings for on-site teaching and learning should be reassessed quarterly following science-based evaluations of the containment of the virus.

The recent rise in coronavirus cases in Ohio is cause for extreme caution. Subsequent to the gradual reopening of Ohio’s economy beginning in mid-May, coronavirus cases dropped 40% until mid-June; after June 21 the number of cases in Ohio has more than doubled through Sunday, July 19.

During the past four weeks, Ohio has recorded twelve of the fourteen highest daily case totals of the entire pandemic, including a record 1,679 cases Friday July 17, another 1,542 cases Saturday July 18, the third-highest number reported since March, and an additional 1,110 cases Sunday July 19.

Currently, more than 60% of Ohioans are living in counties declared a Level 3 Public Emergency: very high exposure and spread. Governor DeWine’s state orders for Level 3 counties call for limiting activities outside the home as much as possible and wearing face coverings inside all public buildings.

A full 36% of total cases throughout the four months of the pandemic have come in the past twenty-five days. The total number of confirmed and probable cases as of Sunday July 19 is 74,932. A record 9,555 Ohioans have been hospitalized, and 3,174 Ohioans have died of COVID-19.

While we all share the goal of returning to school buildings as soon as possible, experimenting with our children’s health and safety does not reflect a society where we put children first.

Given the rise in coronavirus cases, any full-time or “hybrid” plan to reopen school buildings for on-site teaching and learning puts the lives of Ohio’s children, teachers, administration, school staff, and their families at risk.

Our recommendations are rooted in Science.

School districts should reopen according to evidence-based research from scientists, public health experts, and educators. Because children’s welfare relies on schools’ decisions, neither political expediency nor profit motives should be given priority over science.

According to health experts, COVID-19 is a highly contagious, deadly disease and the role of children in the transmission of COVID-19 is currently unknown. Health experts fear it can cause potential lifelong damage in children and emphasize that the long-term consequences of coronavirus in children are unknown.

A troubling trend concerning children and the virus is the recent report that children in Florida are showing a 31.1 percent positivity rate for COVID-19 infections based on state testing data. Children in Florida are testing positive for the virus at a 20 percent higher rate than adults who have about an 11 percent positivity rate.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recently declared that it was not confident that reopening schools in the middle of this public health crisis is the best option for children. This reversal of its earlier statement exemplifies the speed with which schools continue to receive vague and conflicting information from the medical and scientific communities.

This is a novel and evolving virus. There is emerging evidence that airborne transmission is a significant factor in the virus spread. Scientists continue to discover new symptoms, risk factors, and methods of virus transmission. The long-term effects of the disease to Covid-19 survivors are yet unknown.

Ohio is not ready to open schools.

PEP believes that in order for a county to safely reopen its school buildings, the coronavirus transmission rate needs to be scientifically demonstrated to be near zero. Our conviction is consistent with the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and ongoing reports from Dr. Anthony Fauci (Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) that the United States remains in the first of what will most likely be a series of viral waves.

In Ohio and most of the United States, there has been no flattening of the curve. The data cited above regarding these continuing spikes in infection rates in July is clear evidence the pandemic is not under control.

Other countries, such as New Zealand, Vietnam, and Germany, have responsibly reopened schools but did so only after they flattened the curve and drastically reduced infection rates through rapid case identification, contact tracing, and isolation.

Our recommendations are rooted in our deep commitment to the role of public schools.

Always, our number one priority in public schools is to keep our school communities safe.

The reopening of schools must be primarily about the health and safety of the learning environment, for the sake of students, faculty, support staff, and their families.

Despite exhaustive efforts throughout the state and the country to safeguard a return to school,
there is currently no tenable plan for keeping children infection-free in our schools,
there is currently no tenable plan for keeping adults infection-free in our schools.

The realities of education budgets must be considered in any discussion about this pandemic.

State funding:

Ohio’s K-12 public school budget has been slashed by $330 million as an emergency measure to cope with Ohio’s collapsing economy. Financially strapped taxpayers are not able to make up the school funding shortfall with additional school levies bringing higher property taxes for homeowners. Schools would be challenged without a pandemic to make the reduced budget work—in the midst of this global pandemic, unprecedented help is needed.

Pandemic-related expenses:
Neither the state of Ohio nor the federal government has provided adequate resources for increased health and safety precautions in school buildings.

Similarly, increased technological needs necessitated by the pandemic and increased distance learning, such as internet infrastructure and personal computers for all students, have not been met.

School buildings with aging heating and cooling systems lack the filtration features that reduce viral transmissions, and windows that do not open properly to promote air circulation will further increase the chance of pandemic spread.

Following CDC recommendations of keeping schools clean and maintaining six-foot physical distances between people, even in makeshift fashion or reduced capacity, is unrealistic. However careful teachers are to facilitate social distancing, mask wearing, and hand washing, students are active social beings who are used to learning and playing close together.

Teacher and staff substitution potential:

Consider some basic facts about Ohio’s teaching workforce-

25% of the teacher workforce is over the age of fifty, which by definition puts them at higher risk of suffering serious illness from Covid-19.

Most schools do not have full-time nurses in their buildings.

The anticipated medical exemptions for teachers who are immunocompromised or have high-risk health conditions will be significant in number.

A shortage of both long-term teachers and substitute teachers that pre-dates the pandemic will only make the infection rates and coverage of teacher absences more difficult for students.

Virus testing is neither universally reliable and timely, nor universally available in Ohio.

Already during the pandemic, mental health issues have escalated in a significant proportion of the population from anxiety and fear of exposure to the virus. The trauma associated with rapid unexpected change will be exacerbated by every known case of viral spread within schools.

The idea of quarantining entire groups of teachers and students upon the discovery of a confirmed case of Covid-19 is untenable, and such disruption compromises the effectiveness of on-site teaching and learning for everyone.

We categorically reject the idea that schools must reopen on behalf of the struggling economy.

PEP believes that federal mismanagement of the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States is the cause of the extreme economic upset that has ensued. It is neither the schools’ responsibility, nor sound policy, to attempt to remedy the situation by reopening school buildings at high risk to the school communities. The health and safety of Ohio’s students, staff, and families must remain our top priority.

Conclusion:

Ohio’s K-12 public school district communities share in the suffering caused by this coronavirus pandemic. Lives have been turned upside down, and the uncertainty of this evolving global crisis causes loss, disequilibrium, and anxiety. PEP believes that moving into the upcoming school year with calm and resolve is the best way to maximize the effectiveness of Ohio’s system of public education.

Public Education Partners continues to be an educational resource for school districts and local communities across Ohio. PEP proposes pooling our collective community resources to keep our public schools safe. Shared responsibility in creating a risk-free school reopening plan will allow us to emerge stronger together in our commitment to public education and the children and families we serve.

Sources

Home


https://coronavirus.ohio.gov/wps/portal/gov/covid-19/public-health-advisory-system/
https://www.dispatch.com/news/20200715/watch-pandemic-path-leads-dewine-to-heart-to-heart-talk-with-ohioans

https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/507442-almost-one-third-of-florida-children-tested-are
https://www.aappublications.org/news/2020/07/10/schoolreentrysafety071020
https://www.educationdive.com/news/more-robust-coronavirus-guidelines-needed-to-protect-high-risk-educators/581711/

http://digital.olivesoftware.com/olive/ODN/ColumbusDispatch/shared/ShowArticle.aspx?doc=TCD%2F2020%2F07%2F19&entity=Ar00303&sk=E4AD08E3&mode=text
http://digital.olivesoftware.com/olive/ODN/ColumbusDispatch/shared/ShowArticle.aspx?doc=TCD%2F2020%2F07%2F19&entity=Ar02301&sk=94FADAE9&mode=text

Click to access summary1_page_.pdf

Click to access samestormdiffboats_final.pdf

https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2020/07/14/covid-19-online-school-los-angeles

Categories Health, Ohio, Safety, Science, Students, Teachers
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »