Live Long and Prosper...

Weingarten has been an outspoken opponent of national health care for a while. Like other national union leaders she says she wants to protect the health care her AFT and other union locals have bargained.

Now that 30 million newly unemployed workers are without employer provided health insurance, this defense rings hollow...

Abdul El-Sayed, an epidemiologist and former health commissioner for the city of Detroit, argued that the coronavirus outbreak demonstrates why the country needs a single-payer system like Medicare for All rather than just an expansion of the Affordable Care Act.

“We have an opportunity to go bigger because this moment demands it,” El-Sayed said, arguing for an amendment that was eventually defeated.

What a time to vote against national healthcare.

So out of touch.

Now guess who will suffer most from an early, poorly designed return to in-person schooling this fall.

It is not shocking that Black parents, and many other parents of color, are choosing the lives of their children over going to school. Children in the United States are more likely than kids in other countries to have underlying health conditions, such as asthma, that place them at an increased risk of becoming severely sick with COVID-19. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Black children suffer from asthma at more than double the rate of white children.

It again comes back to racism. Black people are more likely to live in the areas hit hardest by the epidemic, as a result of the segregation and pollution that worsened it.

How To Stop Magical Thinking In School Reopening Plans

Here's a good idea. Let's use science and facts to plan how we will go back to in-person education this year. It's important for kids to have live interaction with a teacher. Young children may not be as susceptible to the dangerous aspects of COVID-19. But older children and adults in school buildings are susceptible to the illness. What's more, they are more likely than young kids to spread the disease. Some children and adults have preexisting conditions that make exposure to the coronavirus a life-threatening experience. Some children and adults have parents and grandparents living in their homes who would be threatened by the virus.

There's no reason to scold teachers for their very real fear about going back to school. There's every reason to believe that teachers, staff members, and administrators know more about how to teach -- even how to teach during a pandemic -- than politicians.

I can only speak for myself: I am not yet ready to abandon the idea that we can go back to school safely this year. I think it's going to take a lot of work and more resources than we're currently talking about at the national level. I also think we are going to be very hard pressed to make this work by Labor Day. But if we can get the virus under control outside of school, get together the necessary resources, and make an honest assessment of the risks and rewards... OK.

But we're not going to get that honest assessment unless and until we stop thinking that magical plans will allow us to reopen schools in a few weeks. I know this will come as a shock to many pundits, but people who actually work in schools have almost certainly already thought of your "creative" solution to the problem. The likely reason they aren't implementing it is because they don't have the luxury of not questioning the very real issues you didn't address in your op-ed.

If that sounds harsh, I'm sorry -- but lives are literally at stake. 

Open schools are the exception, not the rule, around the world

The President and his billionaire Secretary of Education are either too stupid to see the difference between the way the US and successful countries have handled the pandemic, or they don’t care. Personally, I think it’s at least a little of both.

The few countries that have successfully reopened their schools have lowered the incidence of COVID-19 in their countries so that their children and school workers will be safe. We haven’t.

The few countries that have successfully reopened their schools have universal health care so that citizens who need health care don’t have to worry about losing their health care if they lose their job. We don’t.

The few countries that have successfully reopened their schools have included teachers and other school workers in the planning so that reopening is done by people who know what goes on in a school. We haven’t.

Opening schools when we're still seeing a thousand deaths a day is just stupid.

Each of these European countries provide universal health care and have a nationwide pandemic plan. To the extent that decisions are delegated to local levels, as they are in Germany, there is national coordination.

Teacher unions have typically been involved in planning school reopenings in Europe, which is critical, since teachers are the most viable enforcers of new safety rules. “There's a great deal of trust in authorities because we know that we can always sit down and talk about things,” Dorte Lange of the Danish Union of Teachers said.

Educators Prepare for Reopening with Living Wills and Life Insurance

The public school infrastructure in the US is so inadequate in some places that a safe return to school during the pandemic is impossible. Teachers want to teach their students, but they don’t want to risk their lives to do it.

To safely return, educators want personal protective equipment (PPE) for every staff member and student. They want hand-washing supplies. They want safely ventilated classrooms, fully staffed custodial and deep-cleaning crews, and school transportation plans that don’t include crowded buses. “One thing that could help is if we had a plan to resume safely,” said Miami high school teacher Nyree Washington. “We do not have this plan.”

Educators like Washington’s Rieker know what it’s like to be in a classroom with 27 or 28 fourth graders. “A kid needs to blow their nose, sharpen their pencil. How do you do these things and stay socially distanced?” she asks. “I have individual desks in my classroom, but some of my coworkers have tables. We don’t even have desks for everyone.”

PRIVATIZATION: PPP MONEY TO CHARTER SCHOOLS

NPE Publishes Comprehensive, State-by-State Listing of PPP Money to Charter Schools

There’s no doubt about it. Charter schools are not “public schools.”

Public schools have been prohibited from getting small business loans from PPP funding. Charter schools have not. Public schools are forced to use the money received from the cash-strapped state for their operation. Charter schools are raking in money meant for small businesses as well as using money from the state.

Here is a link to a list of charter schools that received Small Business Administration PPP funding.

National List of Charter Schools/CMOs/EMOs That Received Small Business Administration PPP Funding

On July 24, 2020, I posted about ProPublica’s PPP loan search engine, which allows the public to easily investigate PPP loans disbursed to any small business or nonprofit, including scores of charter schools, private schools, and other education-related businesses and nonprofits.

PRIVATIZATION: VOUCHERS

The Proof Is In The Ballot Box: Voters Don’t Like Private School Vouchers

Hey, Indiana...do you remember when we, as voters, chose to divert millions of education dollars from our public schools to school vouchers for mostly religious schools?

Neither do I...because we didn’t. The legislature, under the direction of Governor Mitch Daniels, decided to move public money from the schools that 90% of our students attend to religious institutions.

Although Trump, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Republican officials believe that vouchers are an issue worth pursuing to gain support, the voting record on this matter shows otherwise: Vouchers are not popular with voters. AU has compiled a list of ballot initiatives from states all over the country dating back to the 1960s that planned to use public taxpayer funding to support private schools. In all of these instances, voters rejected voucher schemes, proving that policies like school vouchers actually have very little support among the American electorate. (In Arizona, voters went to the polls in 2018 and rolled back an expansion to that state’s voucher plan that had been approved by the legislature – 65 percent to 35 percent.)

The National Coalition for Public Education, an umbrella organization of defenders of public education that AU co-chairs, points out that there are several reasons why people do not support school vouchers and why vouchers are actually largely ineffective at helping to improve the education system. For instance, school vouchers take needed assistance away from public school systems to fund the private education of a much smaller population of students.

Private school vouchers also do not save taxpayers dollars in the long run. The number of students using private school vouchers to leave public schools is so minimal that it does not affect the operating costs of public schools. Therefore, public schools are only losing out on necessary funding at the hands of the voucher system. In addition, many pro-voucher supporters have argued that they help give education options and opportunities to low-income students. However, as NCPE notes, studies have found that “private school vouchers do not adequately serve low-income students.” This is because the price of private school tuition and fees often exceed the amount of the voucher itself.

Besides being an irritant, leaf smoke contains many hazardous chemicals, including carbon monoxide and benzo (a) pyrene. Carbon monoxide binds with hemoglobin in the bloodstream and thus reduces the amount of oxygen in the blood and lungs. So carbon monoxide can be very dangerous for young children with immature lungs, smokers, the elderly, and people with chronic heart or lung diseases. Benzo (a) pyrene is known to cause cancer in animals and is believed to be a major factor in lung cancer caused by cigarette smoke and coal tar as well as leaf smoke.

These toxic fumes can aggravate allergies, trigger asthma attacks, corrode metal siding and paint, and release dioxin that causes cancer. A study from the American Lung Association found that a pound of burning leaves produces significantly more air pollution than a pound of coal burned in a plant.

My neighborhood (Google Earth). Note the dark green...trees.

You could compost those leaves yourself. Dry leaves alone will break down slowly over time, but you can speed that process by mixing the leaves with green plant materials, such as grass clippings, garden discards and produce scraps. Or you could add a source of nitrogen, such as livestock manure or commercial fertilizer. Mix (turn) the pile occasionally to keep a good supply of air in the compost. A good-sized compost pile should be a minimum of 3 cubic feet. The compost will be ready to use as a soil conditioner in several weeks to several months, depending on size and management techniques.

Shredded leaves also can be used as a mulch around garden and landscape plants. Mulches provide many benefits, including weed suppression, moisture conservation and moderation of soil temperature. Leaves can be applied to dormant plants in winter to prevent young plants from heaving out of the ground. Leaf mulch can help keep soil cooler in summer. No more than a 2- to 3-inch layer of leaves should be used around actively growing plants. Chopping or shredding the leaves first will help prevent them from matting down and preventing air from reaching roots.

Directly applying the leaves to a garden or unused area of soil is another option. Try to spread the leaves over as large an area as possible, then till or plow them under. Chopping or shredding the leaves first will help them to break down faster.

My personal favorite option is to simply shred the leaves through my lawn mower until the pieces are small enough to just leave them right there on the lawn! Dry leaves are much easier to handle through the mower than moist ones. If possible, remove the bagger so all of the leaves are deposited right back onto the lawn as they shred.

Click this image for information on how to use leaves in your garden.

1. We allow the question of “What should the government do, and what should private enterprise do?”—a totally ideological concept – to get in the way of providing collectively for our children...

2. We allow non-education “experts” to hang up shingles and pretend that we do not know what works...

3. We pretend there is not enough money to do the job well...while spending large proportions of our budgets on measuring rather than learning...

4. We allow businesses to demand that schools deliver specifically trained employees to their door with certifications, licenses, core skills, and work ethics to reduce their cost of doing business, but we do not ask them to pay their fair share to educate the workers they will need...

5. We insist we want to educate all children equally well, but sabotage poor districts when they do well...

6. We know from studies that the quality of teachers is the primary determiner, outside of quality of homelife and basic health, in whether a child/children learn well. Yet, we continue to micro-manage, undermine, underpay, and refuse to listen to teachers who have consistently performed well...

7. We continue to report and accept reports of school performance based on invalid and useless test scores as though they meant something...

8. We allow people to publicly lie about our schools, the children in them, and the people who work for them without contesting or refuting what they say on a regular basis...

For the past three decades, Medicaid has helped pay for services and equipment that schools provide to special-education students, as well as school-based health screening and treatment for children from low-income families. Now, educators are warning that the GOP push to shrink Medicaid spending will strip schools of what a national superintendents association estimates at up to $4 billion per year.

That money pays for nurses, social workers, physical, occupational and speech therapists and medical equipment like walkers and wheelchairs. It also pays for preventive and comprehensive health services for poor children, including immunizations, screening for hearing and vision problems and management of chronic conditions like asthma and diabetes.

Fleming County [Ky] Schools Superintendent Brian Creasman was taken aback when he discovered the bill would make cuts that could devastate his ability to provide health services to needy and disabled kids.

Here in rural Kentucky, the heart of Trump country where three out of four voters cast ballots for Donald Trump and many regard McConnell as their political protector, Creasman initially thought the bill’s potential cuts to school districts must be a misunderstanding.

Only they weren’t.

“This study confirms what many have suspected – private school vouchers are not a solution to helping kids succeed in school,” Indiana State Teachers Association President Teresa Meredith said.

“As we see more and more evidence that private school vouchers aren't benefiting kids, I call on legislators and the governor to undertake an analysis of the financial accountability of the state's voucher program as well.”

But advocates of the program say it's not just about academics, it's about a parent's choice to pick the proper educational environment for their child.

Wiley's group pushes for school choice and said those using the study to criticize the program “have never said a positive thing about school choice in their lives.”

“Should Indiana policymakers be accountable to the public for using their tax dollars on a program that's hurting children?” he asked, “Policymakers should pay attention to evidence, and not just advocacy groups!”

In a May 23 statement denouncing Trump’s education budget, the National Coalition for Public Education (NCPE) noted that the Indiana voucher program isn’t alone in its lack of academic success: “Recent research in Indiana, Louisiana, Ohio and Washington, D.C., is clear: Students who use vouchers perform worse academically than their peers who do not use vouchers.”

NCPE, which Americans United co-chairs, noted several other concerns: “[V]ouchers underserve many students, including low-income students who often cannot afford private schools even with a voucher, students in rural areas who may have no other educational options nearby, and students with disabilities who often cannot find private schools to serve their needs.”

Additionally, vouchers lack accountability to taxpayers, threaten the religious freedom of both taxpayers and religious schools and can deprive students of the rights guaranteed to public school students, NCPE pointed out...

Bill Gates, Eli Broad, Mark Zuckerberg, Reed Hastings, Jeff Bezos, and the Walton Family

This intellectual arrogance has never been demonstrated more clearly than in recent pronouncements concerning education in America. Brilliant people in diverse fields outside of education feel perfectly comfortable making judgments and policy recommendations about education that impacts millions of students as well as educational professionals. Their audacity is appalling and their ignorance is inexcusable. Bill Gates and his wife Melinda have announced their goal to prepare 80 percent of American high school students for entrance into universities. Eli Broad, another billionaire, gives money to school districts with the clear expectation that they will implement his business-based plans. Alan Bersin, a US Attorney political appointee, believed high school students would learn best with three hours a day of genre studies. He imposed this policy by threatening termination of educational professionals who disagreed with him. Similarly, mayors have their own ideas about how to improve student achievement, notably without any substantive research to support them. George Bush’s No Child Left Behind policy used testing to determine the success of schools, however testing in itself, has not provided solutions to educational achievement. Arne Duncan and President Obama pushed merit pay and charter schools when substantive research does not support either of these policy initiatives. Trump’s DeVos hasn’t a clue about educational research as her feeble efforts have ably demonstrated. The advocacy for these already repudiated initiatives reflects a lack of understanding of the ultimate impact on students and educational professionals.

Personal learning entails working with each child to create projects of intellectual discovery that reflect his or her unique needs and interests. It requires the presence of a caring teacher who knows each child well.

Personalized learning entails adjusting the difficulty level of prefabricated skills-based exercises based on students’ test scores. It requires the purchase of software from one of those companies that can afford full-page ads in Education Week.

Witness the latest example of political skullduggery playing out in the great State of Indiana where GOP Governor Mike Pence has found it necessary to take extreme liberties with the reporting of the state’s healthcare exchange data—all to justify his anti-Obamacare political positioning.

Anyone paying attention to data projecting what a health insurance policy will likely cost on the newly formed individual policy insurance exchanges could hardly miss the headlines late last week announcing that premiums for health insurance policies stood to rise to an average monthly price of $570—a 72 percent increase over current rates in Indiana.

Of course, if this data is correct, it would be quite a blow to Indiana residents at the hand of the dreaded Obamacare.

I'm not sure if is this is a pro-education page, or a bash Republicans page. This isn't public education related, regardless if you are a fan of [Governor Pence's] education policies or not!

It's not just Republicans. In Illinois, New York, on the Federal level and in other places around the country, the Democrats are just as involved in privatizing public education as are the Republicans. The main difference is that Democrats are not as focused on vouchers as a method of turning over public education to the private sector. Race to the Top, President Obama's education program, focuses on closing schools and reopening as charters. Rahm Emanuel, in Chicago (a Democrat) is intent on privatizing the city's public school system. The Democrats for Education Reform started lobbying to replace public schools with charters in New York City with the help of then-Democratic mayor Michael Bloomberg. The privatization of public education is truly a bipartisan effort!

Poverty is a huge issue in education reform. In the US our low-poverty public schools achieve at rates comparable to the highest achieving nations in the world. The problem public schools face is that here in the US, the "richest country on Earth" we have one of the highest child poverty rates in the industrialized world. Almost a quarter of our children live in poverty. That's something we ought to be ashamed of...

We know that poverty affects student achievement...and children who live in poverty have to fight the effects of it. Academic achievement is much more difficult when you don't have adequate food, clothing, shelter, medical or dental care, or if you live in a place where violence and drug abuse (which often go together) is rampant.

The late education researcher Gerald Bracey said, "Poverty is not an excuse. It's a condition. It's like gravity. Gravity affects everything you do on the planet. So does poverty."

When children aren't provided with proper health and dental care they can't function well. You know that you're not as good at your job when you're sick, but for most of us, we can go to our family doctor for advice and diagnosis and then take medications or other non-drug therapies to heal from whatever ails us...at least most of the time. But there are millions of uninsured children in the nation living in poverty and that has an impact on their academic achievement.

Health care and health care availability is absolutely part of education policy.

All who envision a more just, progressive and fair society cannot ignore the battle for our nation’s educational future. Principals fighting for better schools, teachers fighting for better classrooms, students fighting for greater opportunities, parents fighting for a future worthy of their child’s promise: their fight is our fight. We must all join in.