In the midst of the pandemic, with Americans subject to a deadly disease, the Trump regime filed yet another court effort to invalidate Obamacare. This would strip millions of people of health insurance.
How cruel.
Do Trump voters know?
Trump is the biggest fool ever to be elected president. He says stupid things proudly. The number of coronavirus cases detected is surging, mostly in the south and west, and Trump says it’s because there’s is more testing. Other nations are testing and seeing a decline in cases.
Trump said in Wisconsin today:
“If we didn’t test, we wouldn’t have cases,” he said later at a shipyard in Marinette, Wis. “But we have cases because we test. We’ve done an incredible, historic job.”
No testing. No cases. Stupid.
Media Advisory
June 25, 2020
Contact:
Pamela L. Pugh
pamela@urbanregenerationllc.com
989-992-6353
Prominent Civil Rights Attorneys, Political Pundit, Public Education Advocates and Activists to Hold Education Justice Virtual Town Hall Amid National Uprising in Support of Racial Equity
WHAT: A virtual town hall about the state of public education and a call to end systemic racism and inequities in Michigan and the U.S. education system more broadly.
WHEN: Saturday, June 27 from 2:00 pm-3:15 p.m.
EST. Media is encouraged to attend.
WHO: A discussion featuring:
Benjamin Crump, National Civil Rights Attorney;
Nina Turner, National Co-Chair Bernie Sanders Campaign, Former Ohio State Senator, Professor;
Jamarria Hall, Student Plaintiff in Gary B. v Whitmer, Detroit Right to Literacy;
Helen Moore, Education Activist;
Thomas Pedroni, Associate Professor, Wayne State University;
Mark Rosenbaum, Director of Opportunity Under Law, Public Counsel Law Firm;
Pamela Pugh, Vice President, Michigan State Board of Education;
Lamar Lemmons, Former President, Detroit Public School District Board of Education.
Terrence Martin, Executive Vice President, Detroit Federation of Teachers
Register here:
https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Jb-U7BRcTM6sMwLq7GETVQ.
For more information, you may also contact Pamela Pugh at pamela@urbanregenerationllc.com.
*Click to see The Detroit Equity Action Lab [DEAL] outline entitled, “White Supremacy & The Denial of Literacy, The 101 Guide” or Timeline and Status of the Detroit Right to Literacy case.
####
The National Education Policy Center reviewed Summit Learning Program, which has been heavily subsidized by the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative and the Gates Foundation, is spreading, but careful review shows no evidence for its success.
The Summit Learning Program: Big Promises, Lots of Money, Little Evidence of Success
Key Takeaway: Despite a lack of evidence that it is effective, the Summit Learning Program, propelled by a flood of Silicon Valley money, continues to spread.
Find Documents:
Press Release: https://nepc.info/node/10398
NEPC Publication: http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/summit-2020
Contact:
William J. Mathis: (802) 383-0058, wmathis@sover.net Faith Boninger: (480) 390-6736, fboninger@gmail.com Alex Molnar: (480) 797-7261, nepc.molnar@gmail.com
BOULDER, CO (June 25, 2020) – Virtual learning and personalized learning have been at the forefront of education reform discussions for over a decade. One leader of this sector, Summit Public Schools, has been backed by almost $200 million philanthropic dollars from the Chan- Zuckerberg Initiative, the Gates Foundation, and others. Summit Public Schools has aggressively marketed its Summit Learning Platform to schools across the United States since 2015. As a result, the Summit Learning Program is now one of the most prominent digital personalized learning programs in the United States.
In “Big Claims, Little Evidence, Lots of Money: The Reality Behind the Summit Learning Program and the Push to Adopt Digital Personalized Learning Platforms,” Faith Boninger, Alex Molnar, and Christopher M. Saldaña, of the University of Colorado Boulder, provide a thorough analysis of Summit Public Schools, an 11-school charter network operating in California and Washington. Summit Public Schools began marketing its proprietary Summit Learning Program to potential “partner” schools in 2015 as a free, off-the-shelf, personalized learning program; it is now used in nearly 400 schools nationwide.
The marketing message of Summit Learning Program trades on the alleged success of the Summit Public Schools. Summit claims to have developed a “science-based” personalized learning model of teaching and learning that results in all of its students being academically prepared for college. It further claims that its students succeed in college and are prepared to lead successful, fulfilled lives. These successes, it claims, are the result of its unique approach to personalized learning and the use of the digital platform at the heart of its approach.
None of these claims made by Summit Public Schools have been confirmed by independent evaluators. In fact, other than scant bits of self-selected information provided by Summit itself, Boninger, Molnar and Saldaña found no evidence in the public record that confirms the claims. Nor did Summit Public Schools provide the information that the authors solicited in a California public records request.
Despite the lack of evidence to support the claims made by Summit Public Schools, the Summit Learning Program has been adopted by nearly 400 schools across the country. While Summit has offered positive anecdotes and some selected data, there is no solid evidence that “partner” schools are experiencing the promised success; to the contrary, there have been a number of reported incidents of problems and dissatisfaction. Further, the student data collected pursuant to the contracts between Summit and these partner schools presents a potentially significant risk to student privacy and opens the door to the exploitation of those data by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and possibly by unknown third parties—for purposes that have nothing to do with improving the quality of those students’ educations.
Virtual education and personalized learning are at the top of the education reform agenda in large measure because of hundreds of millions of dollars in funding and advocacy by philanthropic organizations (e.g., the Gates Foundation), large digital platforms (e.g., Facebook and Google), and venture capitalists anxious to access the school market.
Exacerbated by the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, schools across the country are struggling to find safe ways to educate their students. The rapid spread of the
policymakers with to protect the public interest by establishing oversight and accountability mechanisms related to digital platforms and personalized learning programs.
Find Big Claims, Little Evidence, Lots of Money: The Reality Behind the Summit Learning Program and the Push to Adopt Digital Personalized Learning Platforms, by Faith Boninger, Alex Molnar and Christopher M. Saldaña, at:
http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/summit-2020
This research brief was made possible in part by the support of the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice (greatlakescenter.org).
The National Education Policy Center (NEPC), housed at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education, produces and disseminates high-quality, peer-reviewed research to inform education policy discussions. Visit us at: http://nepc.colorado.edu
David Berliner is one of the nation’s most eminent researchers of education. I am delighted that he sends original posts to me. I have informed him that “mi casa es su casa,” and he is always welcome here.
Why Universities Need Support, Need to Stay Open, and
Need to Have Their Students on Campus
David C. Berliner
Regents Professor Emeritus, Mary Lou Fulton College of Education, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ
Over the last few years higher education enrollment in the USA has declined. The cost of colleges and universities has certainly been one factor in that small but steady drop in enrollment, particularly when return on investment is added to concerns about costs. The steep rise in tuition in recent years has an explanation: It is largely due to states’ disinvestment in their universities and colleges. From 2008, before the start of our last recession, to 2019, before the pandemic, my state of Arizona cut its contributions to higher education 54.9% (Mitchell, Leachman, & Saenz, 2019). When I first came to my wonderful university, I was impressed that tuition was relatively low, and it still is, but it is also 92.4% higher than it was in 2008! (Mitchell, Leachman, & Saenz, 2019)
So, for many, in the midst of this pandemic, the sacrifices that students and their families once made to obtain college degrees now appear to be less reasonable, perhaps even less possible. And families rightly worry that the rewards of a university degree are less tangible, compared to what they were in my generation. Incurring a large debt for attending college, particularly for those who may choose to be teachers, social workers, librarians, historians, or for those who major in literature, seems to many folks not to be worth it. A simple cost-benefit analysis will support that argument.
The current pandemic has produced a shock to our systems of higher education: most families, most institutions of higher education, and all of our American states, are now strapped for funds. Under conditions such as these, enrollments are likely to fall even faster and further than they have in recent years. This, of course, brings in less revenue for our colleges and universities. And that requires universities to employ fewer faculty, thus providing fewer majors and courses, making them seem less valuable than they were. Frank Bruni, in the New York Times, recently noted, “our devastated economy leaves [university] missions and identities in limbo, all but guaranteeing that more students will approach higher education in a brutally practical fashion, as an on-ramp to employment and nothing more.”
Would that matter much? If scenario’s like these are likely, what would be lost? Really, what in the world does a university prepare one for? What is it that a university makes?
When I was younger and part of the administrative team at Arizona State University, we were forced to address these questions. We had to compare ourselves to, and try to determine our competitive advantage over, the still young but rapidly growing University of Phoenix– and its many imitators around the country. We busied ourselves by greatly expanding our offerings and enrollments, and becoming one of the largest and best universities in the world. But the private, for profit, online, diploma granting institutions which were without the expense of the bricks and mortar that make for an authentic campus were growing just as fast as we were. To deal with that, I sometimes had to speak to parents and community members about what we did at our university that was different and of value. What I said then seems as relevant today as it was when we felt threatened by institutions that were cheaper, and where students could complete coursework in much less time. I said that “At our university we make humanity.”
Our public K-12 school system was, at least for the better part of the 20th century, designed for employability. But in the latter part of the 20th century that system was transformed and emphasized preparation for college.
Colleges and universities had then taken on the role of preparation for employability, albeit in the better paying and more prestigious fields such as medicine, law, business, engineering, and the like. Enrollments grew.
But the universities that welcomed massive increases in enrollment had some centuries-old, fuddy-duddy traditions that were not often integral to our K-12 systems. (I use the term fuddy-duddy deliberately. It is a term for a person or institution that is likely to be old-fashioned, traditionalist, perhaps conservative, sometimes almost to the point of eccentricity.)
Engineering, business, computer science, nursing and almost anything else that was practical and being taught at modern universities became, over time, quite acceptable majors. But universities also wanted all of its graduates to have knowledge of the humanities—history, philosophy, literature, art, music–and to learn, as well, something from the more contemporary relatives of the humanities, the social sciences…the human sciences!
Quoting Berry (2009) I told interested community members and parents of those who might enter our university that “Underlying the idea of a university — the bringing together, the combining into one, of all the disciplines — is the idea that good work and good citizenship are the inevitable by-products of the making of a good — that is, a fully developed — human being.”
Further, again quoting Berry (2009), I told them that in particular, what residential colleges and universities are “mandated to make…are human beings in the fullest sense of those words — not just trained workers or knowledgeable citizens but responsible heirs and members of human culture. If the proper work of our public schools and universities is only to equip people to fulfill private ambitions, then how do we justify public support? If it is only to prepare citizens to fulfill public responsibilities, then how do we justify the teaching of arts or sciences? The common denominator has to be larger than either career preparation or preparation for citizenship. Underlying the idea of a university [is the idea of making] a good — that is, a fully developed — human being.”
Some of our teacher education students, or their parents, wanted our college to be more like a trade school, emphasizing the teaching of this or that subject and how to do “discipline.” They all knew of schools that granted degrees in less than four years, where students studied only the minimum needed for employment as a teacher. But I always said to them that any other goal for a university than the full development of a human being, especially for America’s teachers, was unlovely!
So, I defend the humanities and social sciences for all students, asking that they learn more than just the skills needed to code, build bridges, run an industry, or teach! And I argue that the contemporary danger of too many fast-track teacher preparation programs is that the educators they produce may not be the fully developed human beings we want our children entrusted to.
“So what’s a humanities?” Sam Smith (1979) asked decades ago. He answered his own question this way: “I can’t really give you one answer. But I can give you several. It’s asking why before we say yes. It’s remembering something someone wrote two centuries ago when we can’t remember what we wrote yesterday. It’s mistakes we don’t have to make because they’ve already been made and solutions we don’t have to dream up because someone has already thought of them. It’s how we got where we are and where we might go from here. It’s things we can’t measure yet know have depth and breadth. It’s parts of our culture we might lose like the Indian tribe writing its language down and putting it in a book. It’s parts of our culture that we’re often slow to recognize as such, like the legislature in Georgia finally making “Georgia on My Mind” the state song and inviting Ray Charles to come down and sing it. It’s the moral, philosophical, and historical issues hidden behind the political babble. It’s rights and beliefs and their protection. It’s preserving the past and the future and not just exploiting today. It’s thinking as well as talking, questioning as well as answering. And it’s placing human values and culture at the center of our world and making machines and technology and [some TV channels] serve us rather than the other way around.”
The fuddy-duddy universities, with their roots in the middle ages, now must address modernity, employability, fiscal exigencies, and the like, but as they do so I hope that they continue to insist that the heart of a university—whatever other activities in which they engage—are the humanities and the social sciences. It is from the university’s offerings in these areas that we form fully developed human beings. And it is why we need students on campus. It is highly desirable to have our youth enmeshed in a culture where the subject matters dealt with in humanities and social science courses are discussed. At least for a few years, before our university students enter the world of work and full adulthood, they should live in an environment that values what is taught and discussed in the humanities and social sciences. That is why our colleges and universities need to stay open and find ways to keep students on campus.
As an example of the possible effects of the humanities and the social sciences, I point to the current protests demanding societal change following the death of George Floyd (and hundreds of other Black Americans). A look at the protesters shows that they are certainly not all Black, and sometimes not even majority Black. African-American protesters have been joined by large numbers of white, college educated citizens, in larger numbers than might have been predicted. The New York Times (Harmon & Tavernice, June 17, 2020) reports that in surveys of recent protests in three cities, 82 percent of white protesters had a college degree! These are white citizens who are more likely to have been exposed to the humanities and social sciences than previous generations, and they learned in those courses what an imperfect nation we have, starting right from its hallowed beginnings.
These better educated, young, patriotic citizens are compelled to stand with their Black sisters and brothers in desiring a more perfect nation. Their experiences in the humanities and social sciences may well be what leads college-educated students of all races to hold more liberal or progressive views, views that are more sympathetic to our nations’ most recent outrages and the protests they inspire.
In fact, among people who identify as progressives, 67% thought that colleges and universities had a positive effect on our country. I think so too. But among those identifying with the more conservative side of our democracy, those who lean Republican in their voting, 59% said that college attendance was having a negative effect on America (Fingerhut, 2017)! This is consistent with the views of one of conservative America’s, heroes, Ronald Reagan. At a press conference in Sacramento on Feb. 28, 1967 Reagan said that taxpayers should not be subsidizing “intellectual curiosity”! Wold renown universities such as the UC Berkeley and UCLA, he said, should shift their focus to teaching workforce entry skills!
The effects of the liberal arts, the humanities, and the social sciences, accompanied by myriad discussions, disagreements, and heated arguments of the issues raised in such courses, at a genuine university do change who we are and what we think of our democracy. Conservatives are right to be wary of fuddy-duddy universities. Hundreds of those institutions may actually have educated our youth in exactly the ways they intended!
But now, a crisis is faced by so many of the institutions that actually did a pretty good job of educating America’s young adults to be thoughtful citizens. The pandemic we are experiencing, Rosenberg (2020) argues, is “uniquely and diabolically designed to undermine the foundations of traditional colleges and universities, [It does so because] we have pathologized closeness. Working side by side with a professor in a laboratory? Forbidden. Meeting with an adviser in an office to discuss one’s academic future? Impossible. Living together, dining together, studying together, [arguing together]? Banned by medical advice and often by governmental edict.” If students’ personal interactions with others on a campus are overly restricted, the changes frequently brought about by the humanities and social sciences are less likely to occur.
It seems that the combination of taking courses in the humanities and social sciences, as well as living in a college community, produce graduates who are better informed citizens: citizens who want to see our country move closer to its ideals; citizens who are more willing to protest injustice. And thus, our universities are graduating citizens more likely to bring about change. Are these improper aspirations for the college experience? And of all the college majors that exist, shouldn’t America’s teacher education programs be the most assiduous in wanting the humanities and social sciences to be a part of every teachers’ university experience? Making humanity is what good universities do and it is really a far more important goal for a university in a democracy than providing the specific course work that develop our nations’ computer programmers, business majors, architects, or teachers.
As Bruni (2020) notes, “A vaccine for the coronavirus won’t inoculate anyone against the ideological arrogance, conspiracy theories and other internet-abetted passions and prejudices that drive Americans apart. But the perspective, discernment and skepticism that a liberal arts education can nurture just might.”
These are difficult times. But if we don’t require a healthy dose of coursework in the humanities and social sciences, paired with a community of learners who discuss the issues raised in those courses, our universities are much less likely to “make humanity.” This may well mean reduced thoughtfulness and caring in our society. It may mean fewer people to stand with those that protest injustice in hopes of making us a better nation. And that, I think, would be a shame.
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Berry, W. (2009). Home Economics: Fourteen Essays. Berkeley Ca: Counterpoint Press
Bruni, F. (2020, June 4). The End of College as We Knew It? Sunday Review, New York: New York Times. Retrieved June 16, 2020 from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/04/opinion/sunday/coronavirus-college-humanities.html
Fingerhut, H. (July 20, 2017). Republicans skeptical of colleges’ impact on U.S., but most see benefits for workforce preparation. Washington DC: Pew Research Center. Retrieved June 16 from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/07/20/republicans-skeptical-of-colleges-impact-on-u-s-but-most-see-benefits-for-workforce-preparation/
Harmon, A & Tavernice, S. (2020, June 17). One Big Difference About George Floyd Protests: Many White Faces. New York Times. Retrieved June 18 from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/us/george-floyd-white-protesters.html?searchResultPosition=1
Mitchell, M., Leachman, M., & Saenz, M. (2019, October 24). State Higher
Education Funding Cuts Have Pushed Costs to Students, Worsened Inequality. Washington, DC: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Rosenberg, B. (2020, April 13). How Should Colleges Prepare for a Post-Pandemic World? The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved June 16, 2020 from https://www.chronicle.com/article/How-Should-Colleges-Prepare/248507
Smith, S. (1979, September 17). What’s a humanities? Sam Smith’s Essays. Retrieved June 14 from https://samsmitharchives.wordpress.com/1979/09/17/from-our-overstocked-archives-whats-a-humanities/
Marilee Coles-Ritchie is a teacher educator in Utah. She wrote this advice for her fellow educators and other concerned citizens in Utah but it is good advice for everyone.
Here are her recommendations:
1. Decrease standardized tests. They harm students who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color.
2. Increase the numbers of teachers from these groups across the schools.
3. Eliminate all police officers in schools. Restorative justice empowers students to resolve conflicts on their own and in small groups. This strengthens school communities, prevents bullying, and reduces student conflicts. Early adoption has shown drastic reductions in suspension rates, and students report feeling more welcome, safe, and calm.
4. Require all students to take at least one course of history and literature of these groups.
5. Increase linguistic and cultural appreciation in all schools, diversifying the voices that are represented in the curriculum, with a goal of equity and inclusion.
I have been watching the polls, and Joe Biden is ahead in all of them. He is ahead in all of the battleground states, except North Carolina. Biden leads in Wisconsin, Florida, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
Trump went berserk when CNN reported that Biden had a 14-point lead on June 5, and he assailed CNN reporters as fakes and frauds, etc. But then FOX News reported that Biden has a 12-point lead, and Trump was briefly silent.
Biden has taken a decisive lead without campaigning. My advice to him is that he should run what used to be called a “front-porch campaign.” That’s a campaign where the candidate basically stays home, sits on his front porch, and gives interviews.
This is not a good time for Biden to hold rallies, as Trump does, spreading the coronavirus wherever he goes.
Biden is doing just fine without going into crowds.
He should give an occasional speech, describing his policies and priorities.
And he should stay home.
Trump shoots himself in the foot on a daily basis. His dictatorial instincts are on display daily. His racism and megalomania will drive voter turnout.
Biden should spend his time planning an FDR-style recovery, priming the pump, reviving the public sector, figuring out a massive infrastructure program that puts people back to work, devising ways to extend medical insurance to the entire population, coming up with a creative plan to cancel billions of dollars of student debt that burdens millions of young people, and of course, honing plans to re-envision K-12 education with new investments in Title I, special education, and a rescue plan for schools that must meet the needs of children in the post-pandemic era with small classes and safe environments for teaching and learning. He must attend to rebuild the civil service and restore the departments and agencies that Trump has endeavored to destroy. And, of course, he must be ready immediately to repair our relationships with our allies, to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord, and to reassure the other nations of the world that the Trump era was an aberration and it is over.
Stay home, Joe. You are doing just fine by presenting yourself to the American people as a man of intelligence, experience, judgment, wisdom, and a readiness to step into the job on day one and replace the nation’s most incompetent and corrupt administration in history.
While many primary races are too close to call, due to large numbers of uncounted absentee ballots, Jamaal Bowman scored a decisive upset in his race to replace veteran Cingresman Elliot Engel, chair of the House Foreigh affairs Committee.
Jamaal is/was a middle school principal who was active in the opt out movement. He received the endorsement of AOC, Sanders, Warren, and many others, including me.
Here is the speech he gave when his victory appeared certain.
Jamaal will be a strong, clear, and informed voice for the voiceless in Congress.
The Tulsa school board went into executive session and talked until 1 am, then voted to extend Deborah Gist’s contract for two years. Two board members voted no.
The vote occurred one week before an election runoff for two board seats.
Gist is a member of Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change, which supports charters, vouchers, and high-stakes testing. As State Superintendent in Rhode Island a decade ago, she achieved fame and notoriety for firing the entire staff of Central Falls High School due to low test scores. Central Falls is the poorest district in the state. It still has the lowest scores in the state.
After Johns Hopkins University wrote a scathing critique of the Providence public schools, Governor Gina Raimondo and her new Commissioner of Education took control of the city’s schools. They just announced their turnaround plan and predicted that the low-performing schools of Providence would be on par with the top 25% of schools in the state in five years.
Among the major points of the plan:
It places enhanced focus on the performance of multilingual learners, who represent 34% of Providence students but have been shown to be missing out on an adequate education. Going forward, the district will place more attention on the recruitment of qualified English-as-a-second-language teachers, prioritize meeting the expectations laid out in a Department of Justice settlement over the district’s handling of multilingual learners and double the number of students served by bilingual programs over five years.
The district will renegotiate the collective bargaining agreement with the Providence Teachers Union to make it easier to fire low-performing teachers, hire the best candidates and require additional professional development days, according to the plan.
In order to better engage families, the district will implement a central phone number or text-messaging system for information-sharing that will be accessible 24/7, create a parent and students bill of rights and start a “parent academy” that will train families in how to best advocate for their children. Peters already announced this spring that he plans to completely restructure central office.
The plan also prioritizes hiring more teachers of color, who are underrepresented in Providence schools compared with the student population, in part by partnering with local colleges and universities to attract more diverse candidates to the profession.
The turnaround plan includes an extensive series of metrics that the district aims to hit within five years of implementation, such as increasing the percentage of students who are present for nearly the entire school year to 90% from its current baseline of 62.7%.
To ensure accountability, the district will post updates on the plan’s implementation on 4PVDKids.com and publish a yearly report on its progress.
Nothing was said about additional funding.
