Live Long and Prosper...

Today marks the fifteenth blogoversary of this blog. When I began it on September 14, 2006, I was in my late 50s, teaching Reading Recovery in a small public school in northeast Indiana (which has since closed), the US was at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, there had just been a mass shooting at Dawson College in Montreal, and George W. Bush was the US President.

In September of 2006, Beyoncé and Justin Timberlake released their second albums and Elton John released his 29th; naturalist Steve Irwin and former Texas governor Ann Richards died; the Cubs finished last in the National League Central (a year later they would finish first); and Star Trek celebrated 40 years of television and movies (premier Sept 8, 1966).

Public education in the US was deep into the mess of No Child Left Behind. Testing defined everything taught in America's public schools. In Indiana, we hadn't started spending millions of dollars of tax money on vouchers and charter schools. Hoosier teachers still had seniority rights, the right to due process before getting fired, and collective bargaining for things like prep time and class size.

My blog's focus was on 1) the overuse and misuse of standardized testing, 2) the overwhelming intrusion of politics and politicians into public education, 3) my students, and small, occasional forays into music and baseball. I was reading education authors like Richard Allington, Gerald Bracey, Susan Ohanian, and Alfie Kohn.

I taught part-time for a few years, and then retired in 2010, taught a semester at a community college, volunteered in three different elementary schools after retirement, and joined with others to advocate for public education. Since retirement, and in no particular order, I moved to a new house; made a few trips to the hospital; fought and beat cancer (so far); voted in seven elections; watched the Cubs win the World Series (Bucket List item #1); signed up for Social Security and Medicare; welcomed two more grandchildren, a grandchild-in-law, and a great-grandchild into my life; made new friendships and said good-bye to some old friends and family members; drove Route 66 from California to Illinois; celebrated a fifty-first wedding anniversary; reached half-a-gross years in age, and written 1423 blog posts (this one is #1424).

Here are some quotes about life and education that I've gathered the last year.


EDUCATION

“Three years ago, we started to learn how to run from armed intruders. Last year we learned how to pack bullet wounds. This year, we’re trying to figure out how to bring back learning in a pandemic.” -- St. Louis psychology teacher Amanda Kaupp


"We live in a country where the state legislature must mandate play but congress doesn't need to approve a war." -- Tweet by Fred Klonsky


"Public education isn't important because it serves the public, it is important because it creates the public." -- [Attributed to] Neil Postman, former chairman, Department of Culture and Communication, New York University


“I have stayed true to my own memories of childhood, which are not different in many ways from those of children today. Although their circumstances have changed, I don’t think children’s inner feelings have changed." -- Beverly Cleary, 1916-2021


APHORISMS

"Don’t be afraid of walking away from a mistake just because you took a long time making it." -- Unknown


"The moment you’re in now is the moment that matters." — Don Lemon in This is the Fire.


"Silence in the face of evil, is itself, evil...Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act." -- Misattributed to Dietrich Bonhoeffer


"The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant." -- Maximilien Robespierre


"Don't be in such a hurry to condemn a person because he doesn't do what you do, or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn't know what you know today." -- Quoted by Maya Angelou (quote reproduced in James L. Conyers, Andrew P. Smallwood, Malcolm X: A Historical Reader, Carolina Academic Press, 2008, p. 181 and Elaine Slivinski Lisandrelli, Maya Angelou: More than a poet, Enslow Publishers, 1996, p. 90)


“You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” ― Misattributed to C. S. Lewis

POLITICS, RACISM, AMERICAN HISTORY, AND THE AMERICAN EXPERIMENT

“You can’t teach American history without talking about race, it’s impossible. If you do that, what are you really teaching your students?” -— Rodney D. Pierce


“Assertions that CRT is being taught in America’s elementary and high schools is ludicrous–as I have been complaining pretty much forever, schools aren’t even teaching the most basic concepts required for civic literacy, let alone a theory that requires a familiarity not just with the Constitution and Bill of Rights, but with significant elements of America’s legal structures.” — Sheila Kennedy


[Frederick] Douglass announced that the abolition of war and peace he envisioned, would never “be completed until the black men of the south and the black men of the north shall have been admitted fully and completely into the body politic of America.” — Race and Reunion by David W. Blight.


“It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.” -- James Baldwin


"It is possible to read the history of this country as one long struggle to extend the liberties established in our Constitution to everyone in America." -- Molly Ivins, great American newspaperwoman


"This country once led the global effort to eradicate deadly diseases for the benefit of all.
"It's a sad testament of our decline as a nation and the selfishness of who we've become as a people that we no longer lead the way in something as easy to do as getting a vaccine." -- Jim Wright


"We must all live together and work together no matter what race or nationality. If you have an opportunity to accomplish something that will make things better for someone coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." -- Roberto Clemente


"We either overcome our innate tribalism and learn to live amicably together, or this experiment we call America is over." -- Sheila Kennedy

On the occasion of Isaac Asimov's 101st birthday, I offer some quotes relevant to today's political and cultural environment.

ON IGNORANCE

A Cult of Ignorance,  by Isaac Asimov. Newsweek, January 21, 1980

It’s hard to quarrel with that ancient justification of the free press: “America’s right to know.” It seems almost cruel to ask, ingenuously, ”America’s right to know what, please? Science? Mathematics? Economics? Foreign languages?”

None of those things, of course. In fact, one might well suppose that the popular feeling is that Americans are a lot better off without any of that tripe.

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

The complete article, A Cult of Ignorance, by Asimov, may should be read here.



ON DENIAL

From The Gods Themselves

The easiest way to solve a problem is to deny it exists.

From Isaac Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations

It is the easiest thing in the world to deny a fact. People do it all the time. Yet it remains a fact just the same.

ON WISDOM

From Isaac Asimov's Book of Science and Nature Quotations

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.

ON SCIENTIFIC LITERACY

From Combatting U.S. Scientific Illiteracy in The Los Angeles Times, March 31, 1989

Increasingly, our leaders must deal with dangers that threaten the entire world, where an understanding of those dangers and the possible solutions depends on a good grasp of science. The ozone layer, the greenhouse effect, acid rain, questions of diet and heredity. All require scientific literacy. Can Americans choose the proper leaders and support the proper programs if they themselves are scientifically illiterate? The whole premise of democracy is that it is safe to leave important questions to the court of public opinion—but is it safe to leave them to the court of public ignorance?

ON RIGHT AND WRONG

From Foundation

Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.

ON VIOLENCE

From Foundation

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

ON SCIENCE, EVIDENCE, AND TRUTH

From an Interview by Bill Moyers on Bill Moyers' World Of Ideas

Science doesn't purvey absolute truth. Science is a mechanism. It's a way of trying to improve your knowledge of nature. It's a system for testing your thoughts against the universe and seeing whether they match. And this works, not just for the ordinary aspects of science, but for all of life. I should think people would want to know that what they know is truly what the universe is like, or at least as close as they can get to it.

From The Roving Mind

I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I'll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be.

SCHOOLS AS A COMMON GOOD

The End of Public Schools Would Mean the End of the Common Good

What is the purpose of public education? Is it a "factory for human capital" or a place to raise citizens in a democracy?

The "business model" of education supported by many "reformers," focuses on churning out workers from the public schools. The idea that public education is a Common Good like libraries, roads, and municipal water systems, seems to be ignored by those who have tried to make a profit on public education.

From Jon Shelton in Jacobin Magazine

If education is nothing but the “capital” that helps one get a job, then the argument to make it a private commodity is far too convincing. If we want to save our schools, then we have to stop looking at them as factories for human capital and instead as serving to educate our kids to be citizens in a democracy with expectations for better lives. When we talk about the purpose of education, we have to see it as only one part of a broader series of social-democratic rights that includes the right to a secure job, good housing, and quality health care — no matter what kind of education credential you have.

END PRIVATIZATION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION

The Foundational Fallacy Of Charter Schools

Do we save the public money with charter schools or do we duplicate services and spend more of our communities' resources?

The idea that we need charter schools as "competition" for public schools implies that teachers and schools aren't putting forth the effort to educate their students -- and competition makes everything better (spoiler: it doesn't). Higher achievement is frequently promised by education "reformers," most of whom have little or no educational experience, but rarely delivered. Research into charters show that some do better than public schools, some do worse, and most do about the same.

One thing is for sure...duplicating services doesn't save money.

From Peter Greene in Forbes

You cannot run multiple school districts for the same amount of money you used to spend to operate just one.

This really should not come as a surprise to anyone. When was the last time you heard of a business of any sort saying, "The money is getting tight, and we need to tighten our belts. So let's open up some new facilities."

Opening up charter schools can only drive up the total cost of educating students within a system, for several reasons.

Let's imagine a school district that serves 1,000 students. Five charters open up in the district, so that now the public system serves 500 students, and each of the charters enrolls 100.

END HIGH STAKES TESTING

Does Your School Suffer From Advanced Testivitis

An interesting question from Peter Greene: Do standardized tests serve the needs of students, or the needs of schools to "prove" themselves?

From Peter Greene at Curmudgucation

...a school in the grip of testivitis is upside down. It is not run to serve the needs of students; it is run to get the students to serve the school's need for certain scores. And it will beat on those students like test-taking pinatas in an attempt to get the "right" scores to fall out. This apparently includes considering actions like requiring students to break pandemic distancing in order to come to school and take the test.

TEACHING DURING A PANDEMIC

Teaching in the Pandemic: ‘This Is Not Sustainable’

Teachers have faced challenges since the nation-wide shut-downs in March 2020. The conflict is between keeping schools open, which we know is better for students, going to hybrid teaching, which essentially doubles teachers' workload, or going completely virtual which contributes to other issues such as keeping students on task and the difficulties for parents who work outside the home. All the research into COVID-19 up to now has shown that children are generally not as susceptible to the effects of the disease as are adults, but schools aren't just where children learn. They are also places where adults work. Schools have to weigh the difference between the dangers their students and staff face in meeting in person against the difficulties in distance learning.

Because of COVID-19, teachers are leaving the profession in higher numbers than ever, exacerbating the already severe teacher shortage the nation is faced with. When the pandemic ends, when vaccines have given the nation herd-immunity, who will be left to staff the nation's classrooms?

From Natasha Singer in the New York Times

“Three years ago, we started to learn how to run from armed intruders,” said Amanda Kaupp, a high school psychology teacher in St. Louis. “Last year we learned how to pack bullet wounds. This year, we’re trying to figure out how to bring back learning in a pandemic.”

700 Epidemiologists Were Surveyed. This Many Were Sending Their Kids Back To School.

Interesting fact for teachers, parents, and policy-makers.

From Stu Egan at Caffeinated Rage

"...only one-quarter of epidemiologists surveyed say they would send kids to school, or even on outdoor playdates."

Ten Things I Used to Think

As usual, teachers are to blame because they are lazy, only in it for the money, selfish, or they hate children. Because we know that all teachers go into the field because of the huge salaries, all the free time, and they love to hang out with the children they can't stand. [/sarcasm]

From Nancy Flanagan at Teacher in a Strange Land

I used to think that teachers, in spite of their lousy pay and lack of control over their own work, were regarded as community heroes and helpers. But now—there’s this. This. This. And thousands more. Today, I read an outrage-inducing piece claiming that yeah, teachers are getting sick and dying (isn’t everyone?) but there’s no way to prove they actually caught the coronavirus at school—so hey, everybody into the water. The negative repercussions on this entitled attitude—teachers are so selfish when it comes to their own health!—will last for decades.

Today marks the fourteenth blogoversary of this blog. When I began it on September 14, 2006, I was in my late 50s and teaching Reading Recovery in a small public school in northeast Indiana (which has since closed), the US was at war in Iraq, there had just been a mass shooting at Dawson College in Montreal, and George W. Bush was the US President.

In September of 2006, Beyoncé and Justin Timberlake released their second albums and Elton John released his 29th; naturalist Steve Irwin and former Texas governor Ann Richards died; the Cubs finished last in the National League Central (a year later they would finish first); and Star Trek celebrated 40 years of television and movies (premier Sept 8, 1966).

Public education in the US was deep into the mess of No Child Left Behind. Testing defined (and still defines) everything taught in America's public schools. In Indiana, we weren't yet spending huge amounts of tax money on vouchers and charter schools, and Hoosier teachers still had seniority rights, the right to due process before getting fired, and collective bargaining for things like prep time and class size.

My blog's focus was on 1) the overuse and misuse of standardized testing, 2) the overwhelming intrusion of politics and politicians into public education, and 3) my students. I was reading education authors like Richard Allington, Gerald Bracey, Susan Ohanian, and Alfie Kohn.

Since then I've taught part-time before I retired; volunteered in three different elementary schools after retirement; joined with others to advocate for public education; moved to a new house; made a couple trips to the hospital; voted in six elections; watched the Cubs win the World Series (Bucket List item #1); signed up for Social Security and Medicare; welcomed two more grandchildren, a grandchild-in-law, and a great-grandchild into my life; made new friendships and said good-bye to some old friends and family members; drove Route 66 from California to Illinois; celebrated a fiftieth wedding anniversary; reached half-a-gross years in age; and written 1370 blog posts (this one is #1371).

Here are some thoughts about life and education that I've gathered over the last year.


LIFE: LIVING AND UNDERSTANDING

The Earth is ours, not mine or yours. We're all in this together so we need to work together. "We all do better when we all do better." -- Paul Wellstone

From The Tris Speaker speech in The Sporting News (February 20, 1971), p. 44.

Roberto Clemente, Feb 20, 1971

We must all live together and work together no matter what race or nationality. If you have an opportunity to accomplish something that will make things better for someone coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth.

Why Are Poor Countries Poor?

Media creator and author, John Greene argues for "us," not "them." We're all in this together.

If these problems aren't "our" problems, I'm troubled by how we're defining "us." I don't want to be part of an "us" that makes a "them" of the world's most vulnerable people.

Ricky Gervais' funniest ever interview | 60 Minutes Australia

Success in life is at least partly a matter of perspective. Once we realize that most of the world's (or the nation's, or of the family's) history happened without us, we can let go and start treating our lives as a holiday. This is our chance. Let's enjoy it.

Ricky Gervais

Why are we here? Well, we just happen to be here. We couldn't choose it. The chance of us being born - that sperm hitting that egg - is 400 trillion to one. We're not special, we're just lucky. And this is a holiday. We didn't exist for 14 and a half billion years. Then we've got 80 or 90 years, if we're lucky, and then we never exist again. So, we should make the most of it.

Nightfall, A Novel

The "Us vs. Them" mentality has reared its ugly head in the US and has been exacerbated by the combined health and economic crises, and lack of competent leadership that are now challenging us.

Why don't we do what science tells us to do to end the pandemic and heal the climate crisis?

Why is there a growing distrust of intelligence and rational thought?

We're living in a time of "medieval emotions."

Isaac Asimov

It's the old hatred of the intellectual that crops up whenever medieval emotions start surfacing.

EDUCATION: TEACHING AND LEARNING

Martin Luther King Jr., The Southern Christian Leadership Conference Presidential Address, 8/16/1967

Societal bandaids like vouchers and charter schools won't solve the problems of inequity and poverty. Poverty is like gravity...it has an impact on everything that happens. It has an impact on student health and it has an impact on student learning.

It's not enough to say, "The poor will always be with us." We have an obligation to work to eliminate poverty, if not for those who are living in poverty, then for our children and grandchildren, so that we leave them a happier, healthier world.

We all benefit from an equitable society. We must stop thinking in terms of what "I need" and start thinking about what "we need."

"We all do better when we all do better."

Martin Luther King, Jr.

...we are likely to find that the problems of housing and education, instead of preceding the elimination of poverty, will themselves be affected if poverty is first abolished.

Kids will need recess more than ever when returning to school post-coronavirus

Relationships are important in the learning process. Teachers must build relationships in their classrooms. Students won't remember that you taught them the times table, the Preamble to the Constitution, or what carbohydrates are. They will remember who you are.

Students will need those relationships more than ever to heal from the trauma of the pandemic while it continues and once it ends.

Lauren McNamara (Ryerson U) and Pasi Sahlberg (UNSW)

What matters to students, first and foremost, is friendships, social connections and feelings of acceptance and belonging. And this happens through play, recreation and leisure activities — at every age.

I. Asimov

Can you learn anything outside of school?

Isaac Asimov

I received the fundamentals of my education in school, but that was not enough. My real education, the superstructure, the details, the true architecture, I got out of the public library. For an impoverished child whose family could not afford to buy books, the library was the open door to wonder and achievement, and I can never be sufficiently grateful that I had the wit to charge through that door and make the most of it. Now, when I read constantly about the way in which library funds are being cut and cut, I can only think that the door is closing and that American society has found one more way to destroy itself.

The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers

As a teacher, if you don't care about what you teach, your students won't care either.

The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers by Maxwell King

Fred Rogers remembered that when [Margaret Beall] McFarland wanted to expose the little children at the Arsenal Center to the work of a sculptor, she gave these instructions to the artist she invited to her classes: "'I don't want you to teach sculpting. All I want you to do is to love clay in front of the children.' And that's what he did. He came once a week for a whole term, sat with the four- and five-year-olds as they played, and he 'loved' his clay in front of them. The children caught his enthusiasm for it, and that's what mattered. Like most good things, teaching has to do with honesty."

POLITICS, GOVERNMENT, AND DEMOCRACY

I found the following quote in a comment somewhere on the internet. I don't have a link to the original article or the author's name, but it speaks to the current threat to the US Postal Service. The Post Office is a government service, not a profit-making business. It's not supposed to make money anymore than roads are supposed to make money. It's supposed to be there for us when we need it. If we insisted that it make a profit then our neighbors in rural areas won't have mail-service -- just like they don't have internet service.

Us...not me.

Anonymous

The Government isn't SUPPOSED to make money. It's supposed to provide services for citizens and promote the general welfare. If you only have services that are profitable, then the rural areas of this country will have no public transportation, no electricity, no roads. And therefore, no town. The horrible money-wasting Government laid the Interstate. Developed radar. Built huge hydroelectric dams that powered our rural regions. Landed on the moon. Split the atom. Created the Internet. Since convincing ourselves that the Government can't do anything, we can't fix a bridge. Because some billionaire would lose his Almighty Tax Cut. While the nations of Europe - that we call "Socialist" - have shot ahead of us in innovation and technology.

Kindness is the foundation for peace and happiness.

COVID-19, PUBLIC HEALTH, STARTING SCHOOL

The Covid-19 Experiment: Facing the Sins of a Nation that Quit Caring About Public Education Long Ago

Education is the largest portion of the budget in Indiana, yet it's underfunded. People want services -- like good public schools -- but aren't willing to pay for them. Hoosiers, like many Americans, are shortsighted and selfish. We aren't thinking about the future when we underfund schools....and we have a tendency to think, "my kids have good schools, too bad for those other kids," without realizing that the "other kids" futures have an impact on all of us. What could be more foolish than to allow more than half our children to live in poverty? As Carl Sagan said,

What kind of a future do we build for the country if we raise all these kids as disadvantaged, as unable to cope with the society, as resentful for the injustice served up to them? This is stupid.

We all benefit from good schools for everyone. We all do better...when we all do better.

From Nancy Bailey

Suddenly it’s important to have clean air to contain the virus. Crumbling facilities with poor ventilation systems have always made air questionable for the children and teachers in poor schools. I’m remembering past students who dealt with allergies and asthma, who’d come to school ill and struggle to learn. Their test scores obviously affected my school’s standardized testing performance. Who listened then?

School reopening plans linked to politics rather than public health

Education is, as usual, a political football. When the pandemic came to the US, teachers were being lauded for their ability to switch gears in the middle of a year and provide online learning to their students. Now, hopefully, everyone understands that school is more than just "passing on information to the next generation." Unfortunately, the importance of schools to the economy is as a holding place for children so parents can work.

From Jon Valent at Brookings.edu

In reality, there is no relationship—visually or statistically—between school districts’ reopening decisions and their county’s new COVID-19 cases per capita. In contrast, there is a strong relationship—visually and statistically—between districts’ reopening decisions and the county-level support for Trump in the 2016 election. Districts located in counties that supported Trump are much more likely to have announced plans to open in person. On average, districts that have announced plans to reopen in person are located in counties in which 55% voted for Trump in 2016, compared to 35% in districts that have announced plans for remote learning only. Unsurprisingly, the one remaining group in EdWeek’s data—“Hybrid/Partial”—falls right in the middle, at 44%.

Why I'm OK with my kids "falling behind" in school during the pandemic

"Falling behind" what? The standards we use in Indiana are arbitrary. We should adjust them if kids need more time. Forget the tests for once. Think about kids who have been traumatized by the fear of, or the actuality of losing friends, grandparents, and even parents. We need to help them through this...relationships matter more than math facts, or the ability to answer questions on a standardized test. As a bonus, kids will learn better when they're happy and feel safe.

From Mary Elizabeth Williams

I think often of Lily Tomlin's decades-old observation: "Even if you win the rat race, you're still a rat."

31 school districts go virtual only: McCormick blasts efforts to force in-person teaching

"Threats don't open schools..." I learned, over 35 years of teaching, that threats, whether directed at teachers or students, don't produce results. The old adage, "you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar" is true.

And while we're talking about it, elections matter. We need to elect leaders who are strong enough to stand up against the bully in Washington.

From Indiana State Superintendent, Jennifer McCormick

...she had harsh words for Congress and other officials pushing to withhold federal dollars from districts that don't open to in-person instruction. U.S. Rep. Jim Banks, R-Fort Wayne, has pushed this measure.

“Threats don't open schools,” she said. “I have no patience for that – that is a poor example of leadership.”

AMERICA'S CULT OF SELFISHNESS

The Cult of Selfishness Is Killing America

The current occupant of the White House is not an aberration. He is the logical result of America's selfish cult of "individualism."

This morning I read, We are witnessing the fall of a great power in the Canberra Times. It's worth reading.

From Paul Krugman

I’m not saying that Republicans are selfish. We’d be doing much better if that were all there were to it. The point, instead, is that they’ve sacralized selfishness, hurting their own political prospects by insisting on the right to act selfishly even when it hurts others.

What the coronavirus has revealed is the power of America’s cult of selfishness. And this cult is killing us.

CELEBRATE WHO YOU ARE

“I Wouldn’t Give Up My ADHD”: “It’s been hard, but, as with any difficult thing, you learn something, don’t you?” Take notes from these women leaders with ADHD.

It takes a long time to get to the point of not worrying what others think of you...and most of us never get there entirely. As a middle and high school student, I remember wanting to be able to be like my friends. Aside from the usual teenage feelings of insecurity about looks and popularity, I had the added worry of being a poor student who tested high, so I was constantly told to "try harder," "put forth more effort," and labeled "lazy." (See You Mean I'm Not Lazy, Stupid, or Crazy?!)

From Trudie Styler, Actor and filmmaker, New York, New York

As a kid, you obsess about wanting to be normal. As you get older, being normal is not such a big thing. Your gifts are important. Celebrate who you are, and listen for the small voice.

TAKE CARE OF THE PEOPLE AROUND YOU

Don't Waste Time

Finally, Peter Greene wrote something that touched me. I retired in 2010, but I still miss much of what made teaching my life's work. I miss talking to kids. I miss helping them find their way. I miss sharing a love of books with them.

I volunteered for nearly seven years after I retired, but had to give that up after health issues made continuing difficult, if not impossible. I still feel the tug when August rolls around and "back to school" is in the air.

From Peter Greene

After retirement, you become sort of a ghost at your old school, but the magic of texting and social media blunts much of that effect.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Isaac Asimov's Book of Science and Nature Quotations, Blue Cliff Editions, 1988

"Get your facts first, then you can distort them as much as you please." -- Mark Twain

"Science bestowed immense new powers on man, and, at the same time, created conditions which were largely beyhond his comprehension." -- Winston Churchill

BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE


Schools and teachers are faced with a no-win situation because of the coronavirus pandemic.

What it could cost to reopen schools with COVID-19 safety measures

Read this, from someone who never attended a public school, never worked in a public school, and never sent her children to a public school, yet is tasked with running the nation's public schools...

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos made clear on Wednesday she is not impressed with hybrid models and wants students in school full time. “They must be open, and they must be fully operational,” she said Wednesday at the Education Department.

On Tuesday, she said at the White House: “It’s clear our nation’s schools must fully reopen and fully operate this school year. Anything short of that robs the students, not to mention taxpayers, of their futures.”

Secretary DeVos insists that all students attend school full time in the fall because the schools that she previously referred to as a "dead-end" are now so important that staying home to avoid an illness "robs the students...of their futures."

She followed her remarks with a ten-page set of instructions on how to keep schools safely open during a pandemic which the US Education Department will provide to every teacher in America.

...Just kidding. She offered nothing...except the "musts."

THERE'S ANGER IN THE LAND

No matter what schools do some people will be angry. If schools open, some parents will be angry. If schools stay closed and use distance learning some parents will be angry. If schools require masks and ppe some people will be angry. If schools don't require masks and ppe some people will be angry.

We live in a country where one person's "stupid superstitious uninformed opinion" is just as good as another's expertise and experience. Schools and teachers, as usual, will take the blame no matter what happens.


WHAT TO DO?

Here are some thoughts about the challenges facing public schools as they figure out how they're going to open during a pandemic. They include ideas and questions like...

• Where will schools get the money for ppe, cleaning supplies, extra staff, more buses, and the unexpected, yet guaranteed things that arise when going into a completely unknown situation?

• How will we keep masks on our smallest children? Speaking of smallest children, what happens when a kindergartner or first grader can't tie his schools, skins her knee, loses or breaks his mask, or starts crying because she was afraid to ask to go to the bathroom? Is this the nurturing school experience you want for your child?

• What will happen when an asymptomatic COVID-19 positive child shows up in the class of an elderly teacher? or a teacher with an elderly parent at home?

• How can we reduce class size to allow for social distancing?

• If students stay home and do online learning, who will pay for the infrastructure needed for students who don't have computers, other devices, or internet access?

• How will the lunch staff feed the kids who are in attendance as well as the ones who are at home?

There is still one question, however, that seems to have slipped from our consciousness...

• How will schools run school shooter drills when students are supposed to be masked and socially distant from each other. Yes. This is how we live now.

Announcing that schools need to start, yet ignoring the obvious questions about how to make sure that students and staff are safe and healthy, is irresponsible.


LISTEN TO THIS

Schools Are Not the Problem

Doesn't it bother anyone that we have once again blamed K-12 schools as the national scapegoat for our enormous failings in health, housing, child care, and economic policy?

by Mitchell Robinson

If children are at more risk out of school than in school, then the problem isn’t school.

• If kids who aren’t in school are hungry, then increase funding to food pantries and community kitchens. (BTW–many public schools have been feeding kids all summer.)

• If kids who aren’t in school are in greater danger of abuse, then improve child protective services, counseling, and intervention services.

• If kids who aren’t in school don’t have a safe place to stay, then build more shelters for families in need.

• If kids who aren’t in school are more likely to suffer from mental health problems like anxiety and depression, then let’s spend more money on mental health care and increase access for young people to social workers, mental health counselors, and child psychologists.

Thoughts on "opening" schools

Where will the money come from?

by teacherken

...let’s just start with teachers. To limit the number of students in classes requires probably doubling the number of teachers, when in many states there is already a shortage of qualified teachers (very true in AZ for example). Where to schools and school systems get them? Where could they get the funds to pay them and provide benefits? Remember that states and local governments are usually banned from running deficits, and those with rainy day funds are already draining them.

24 WRONG Reasons to Reopen Schools

End the wasteful test-and-punish culture of American education. Save money. End testing.

by Nancy Bailey

10. Students need testing to find academic losses.

Students have only missed some school. Education reformers are already assuming they have fallen behind. More testing is a ridiculous reason for students to go back to school.

The AAP's school guidance principles don't align with Trump/DeVos mandated reopening.

by Mike Klonsky

But the AAP guidance goes on to present an extensive list of key principles that should be considered in the course of any reopening. The list includes elements like physical distancing requirements, protective equipment, cohort crossovers, school visitors, common and outdoor space (playgrounds and hallways), on-site health and counseling, special education services, block scheduling in high schools, cleaning and disinfection, and virologic testing and screening and much more.

So, What Happens If A Teacher Gets COVID-19 While At School?

Why are these decisions always made by people who have no idea what it's like to teach?

by Caffeinated Rage

...the people who are doing the funding and policy making are mostly people who have no idea about the day to day operations of a public school.

They think they know what it entails and how much it should cost. Now we are in unchartered territory.

Want Schools Open In The Fall? All The Money In The World Can’t Solve These Problems

Remember the protesters at the Michigan State House? Would you like them to visit your child's school?

by Peter Greene

Family compliance with protocols. At this point we have all seen plenty of video footage of anti-maskers vocally and violently objecting to masking requirements in stores. Imagine that those folks, and others like them, have children to send to school. How do you think they’ll react to school demands that their students observe all safety protocols?

What it could cost to reopen schools with COVID-19 safety measures

Betsy wants the schools open. Is she willing to fight for funding?

by Valerie Strauss

...the Association of School Business Officials International and AASA/School Superintendents Association did an analysis on costs for an average school district: 3,659 students, eight buildings, 183 classrooms, 329 staff members and 40 buses, transporting at 25 percent capacity.

It found the cost for opening up completely under new safety guidelines could amount to $1,778,139. For larger districts — New York City schools, for example, have more than 1 million students — the costs would be dramatically higher.

The case against reopening schools during the pandemic — by a fifth-grade teacher

by Rose Levine

Sharing a classroom allows our elementary cohorts to become like family. We play games, exchange smiles, sit in circles on the rug and tell stories. We taste each other’s food and whisper in each other’s ears. We have casual exchanges during downtimes at recess or transitions between subjects. We share supplies, collaborate and take turns, and in so doing we build a model of accountability to one another and our community.
None of this is possible with six feet of social distancing. If we attempt to maintain this distance in the classroom — an impractical feat on its own — community building would be challenging.

COVID School: Breathing the Air, Staying Apart, and Shortening the Day

by Mercedes Schneider

Can you imagine a first-grade class in which students must remain six feet apart all day? No free play? No hands-on, physically-close assistance or encouragement at all from the teacher?

Not possible, and not healthy.

In many schools, in-person teaching and learning will take a distant back seat to managing the COVID-19 school day.

We underfunded schools for years — and only now are leaders realizing how much we need them

Have we actually discovered that teachers and schools are "essential?"

by Jeff Bryant

What’s sadly ironic about all this sudden newfound appreciation for teachers as essential to the economy is that government leaders and policy makers, from both major political parties, have spent years attacking the economic well-being of public schools and teachers.

School districts have never recovered from budget cuts states imposed during the Great Recession that started at the end of 2007..."When COVID-19 hit, K-12 schools were employing 77,000 fewer teachers and other workers—even though they were teaching two million more children, and overall funding in many states was still below pre-2008 levels.”

Teachers now make 4.5 percent on average less than they did more than 10 years ago, according to the National Education Association, and public school teachers earn 17 percent less than what comparable workers earn, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

Pediatricians, Educators, and Superintendents Urge a Safe Return to School This Fall

from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), American Federation of Teachers (AFT), National Education Association (NEA), and AASA, The School Superintendents Association.

“Returning to school is important for the healthy development and well-being of children, but we must pursue re-opening in a way that is safe for all students, teachers and staff. Science should drive decision-making on safely reopening schools. Public health agencies must make recommendations based on evidence, not politics. We should leave it to health experts to tell us when the time is best to open up school buildings, and listen to educators and administrators to shape how we do it.

How President Trump Politicized School Reopenings

quote from Lily Eskelsen Garcia, president of NEA, in Time.

“There are 3 million teachers and support staff out there who desperately want to hug their kids,” says Lily Eskelsen García, president of the National Education Association teacher union. “But we will not be complicit in standing by and letting politicians cavalierly warehouse those kids without caring about their safety because, oh, we need their moms and dads to go back to work. We could do this in a safe, medically sane way, but it’s going to take money. Why was that not even a question when it was Shake Shack that might have to lay people off and go bankrupt?”

This post is from July 4, 2016. I've updated it to reflect the current year. Tomorrow's post will be a Medley of articles about the recent Supreme Court decision on vouchers, along with relevant quotes from the founders.

"The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people and be willing to bear the expenses of it. There should not be a district of one mile square, without a school in it, not founded by a charitable individual, but maintained at the public expense of the people themselves." -- John Adams

JOHN ADAMS

The quote above from John Adams, who began his adult life as a school teacher in Massachusetts, is a clear indication of his belief in the importance of a public education system that would educate everyone...by "the whole people" for the benefit of "the whole people." He also specifically declares that it is to be done at public expense -- public funding for public schools.

On the 244th anniversary of the declaration of our nation's independence, it's worth noting that public education is not something new. It's one of the basic foundational institutions of our democracy supported by the authors of the nation.

Adams himself was well educated and cared about public education. He made two assertions which would likely dismay "reformers" in their quest to privatize public education. First, as the quote above makes clear, the federal government has a clear responsibility for education that includes paying for it.

Second...

That a primary purpose of education is to “raise the lower ranks of society nearer to the higher.”

The public pays for it. The public supports it. The purpose is to equalize the education of the citizenry.

THOMAS JEFFERSON

The education of the citizenry was so important that even Adams' political rival, Thomas Jefferson, declared in his 1806 State of the Union address that the government should support public education.

...a public institution can alone supply those sciences which though rarely called for are yet necessary to complete the circle, all the parts of which contribute to the improvement of the country and some of them to its preservation.

Jefferson proposed a constitutional amendment to fund public education. When that never materialized he directed his attention...

...to his beloved state of Virginia. He developed a comprehensive plan for education which encompassed elementary, secondary, and university levels.

Jefferson believed the elementary school was more important than the university in the plan because, as he said, it was "safer to have the whole people respectfully enlightened than a few in a high state of science and many in ignorance as in Europe" (as cited in Peterson, 1960, p. 241). He had six objectives for primary education to bring about this enlightenment and which highlighted what he hoped would make every person into a productive and informed voter:

1. "To give every citizen the information he needs for the transaction of his own business;
2. To enable him to calculate for himself, and to express and preserve his ideas, his contracts, and accounts, in writing;
3. To improve, by reading, his morals and faculties;
4. To understand his duties to his neighbors and country, and to discharge with competence the functions confided to him by either;
5. To know his rights; to exercize with order and justice those he retains; to choose with discretion the fiduciary of those he delegates; and to notice their conduct with diligence, with candor, and judgment;
6. And, in general, to observe with intelligence and faithfulness all the social relations under which he shall be placed." (as cited in Peterson, 1960, p. 239)

Adams and Jefferson, so often on opposite sides of political arguments, were in accord when it came to supporting public education. The nation needed a publicly funded school system that would educate all. Public education was an institution necessary for the maintenance of our democracy.

IMPROVE PUBLIC EDUCATION

Public schools, supported by public dollars, accept all children. If a charter or private school cannot provide for a wheelchair-bound child's physical needs the child returns to a public school. If a charter or private school cannot provide for the needs of a child with special academic needs the child returns to a public school. Public schools must provide for all children...those with special needs, those of average ability, those who have no home, those who are hungry, and those whose language skills are inadequate to communicate.

We don't improve our democracy by redirecting public dollars to private and charter schools, many of which do not accept all children.

We need to improve our public schools so they are equipped to provide services to every child by

• lowering class sizes.
• providing a well rounded, rich curriculum including the arts, civics, and physical education.
• providing resources including a fully stocked library/media center with qualified librarians.
• providing social support including qualified counselors, nurses, psychologists, and social workers.
• addressing inequities that enrich schools for the wealthy while providing scant resources for schools in high poverty areas.
• providing developmentally appropriate education (not test-driven) beginning in pre-school.
• respecting and developing professional educators who are paid at comparable rates as others with their education and experience, who have time to adequately plan lessons and collaborate with colleagues, and who are provided with relevant, high-quality professional development.
• providing appropriate services to all students with special physical, academic and language needs as required by the law.
• providing facilities that are well-maintained and show respect for those who work and go to school there.
• engaging parents to fully participate in their child's education.
• fully funding public schools.

We need to fix our public schools...not close them. On that, I think Adams and Jefferson would agree.

Children Learn What They Live
By Dorothy Law Nolte, Ph.D.
Copyright © 1972 by Dorothy Law Nolte


OUR CHILDREN ARE WATCHING

If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn.

"You're CNN. You're fake news ... you don't have the brains you were born with" -- asked why he's playing clips of people praising him about a pandemic that has killed tens of thousands of Americans, Trump attacks a reporter pic.twitter.com/8qyBVUe8dR

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 19, 2020

If children live with hostility, they learn to fight.

“The president's attacks have done some damage,” Fox News anchor Chris Wallace said Wednesday at an event at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. He cited a Freedom Forum Institute poll this year where more than three-quarters of Americans said “fake news” is a serious threat to democracy.

“I believe President Trump is engaged in the most direct, sustained assault on freedom of the press in our history,” Wallace said.

If children live with fear, they learn to be apprehensive.

The ICE raids, carried out under the leadership of a Donald Trump-appointed US attorney, took place at seven food processing plants in six Mississippi cities. Photographs of crying children left distraught when their parents were taken into custody immediately went viral worldwide.

Father Jeremy Tobin, a Catholic priest who works with the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance (Mira), told the Guardian he had been flooded with worried calls and messages from immigrants, documented and undocumented alike.

If children live with pity, they learn to feel sorry for themselves.

The world has loved, hated and envied the U.S. Now, for the first time, we pity it -- Fintan O’Toole

If children live with ridicule, they learn to feel shy.


If children live with jealousy, they learn to feel envy.

Trump seems terrified that history will look more kindly on Obama’s presidency than on his own.

If children live with shame, they learn to feel guilty.

Peter Alexander, White House correspondent at NBC News, asked the US president: “What do you say to Americans, who are watching you right now, who are scared?”

Erupting in anger, Trump unleashed a tirade: “I say that you’re a terrible reporter. That’s what I say. I think it’s a very nasty question and I think it’s a very bad signal that you’re putting out to the American people.”

WHAT WE WOULD LIKE CHILDREN TO SEE

If children live with encouragement, they learn confidence.

In the middle of difficulty there is opportunity. – Albert Einstein

If children live with tolerance, they learn patience.

We either overcome our innate tribalism and learn to live amicably together, or this experiment we call America is over. -- Sheila Kennedy

If children live with praise, they learn appreciation.

Blessed is he who has learned to admire but not envy, to follow but not imitate, to praise but not flatter, and to lead but not manipulate. —- William Arthur Ward

If children live with acceptance, they learn to love.
If children live with approval, they learn to like themselves.

A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval. – Mark Twain

If children live with recognition, they learn it is good to have a goal.

The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated. -– William James.

If children live with sharing, they learn generosity.

Nothing is yours. It is to use. It is to share. If you will not share it, you cannot use it. ― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed

If children live with honesty, they learn truthfulness.

MARIANA: Come, let's return again, and suffice ourselves with the report of it. Well, Diana, take heed of this French earl: the honour of a maid is her name; and no legacy is so rich as honesty. ― William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well

If children live with fairness, they learn justice.

Fairness does not mean everyone gets the same. Fairness means everyone gets what they need. ― Rick Riordan, The Red Pyramid

If children live with kindness and consideration, they learn respect.

There are three ways to ultimate success: The first way is to be kind. The second way is to be kind. The third way is to be kind. -- Fred Rogers

If children live with security, they learn to have faith in themselves and in those about them.
If children live with friendliness, they learn the world is a nice place in which to live.

Studies routinely show that students learn better when they feel safe, for example. Yet interventions that focus on visible signs of safety—metal detectors, wand searches, and so on—have not been found to deter crime and actually can make students feel less safe at school. What does reduce bullying and make students feel safer? According to an analysis of the National Crime Victimization Survey, only one intervention: more adults visible and talking to students in the hallways, a mark of a climate with better adult-student relationships.

ROLE MODELS

Meaningful quotes...

KIDS LIVING IN POVERTY DON'T HAVE ANY LOBBYISTS

Schools have closed for the coronavirus pandemic and most will likely not open again this school year. Many school systems have gone to online learning, but because a significant percentage of students have little or no access to the internet, some students are not being served.

How can schools best serve all students (including students with special learning or physical needs) and what happens next year when some students have had the benefit of online learning experiences and others have not? Do we test all the kids to see where they are? Do we retain kids? (answer: NO!) The coronavirus pandemic, like other disasters and disruptions, hurt most, the kids who need school the most and have the least.

From Steven Singer
in Virtual Learning Through Quarantine Will Leave Poor and Disabled Students Behind

This just underlines the importance of legislation. Special education students have IDEA. Poor students have nothing. There is no right to education for them at all.

From Steve Hinnefeld and Pedro Noguera
in Time for ‘educational recovery planning’

...the massive and sudden shift to online learning is exposing huge gaps in opportunity. Some communities lack reliable internet service. Many families are on the wrong side of the digital divide. As Superintendent of Public Instruction Jennifer McCormick said, a parent and three school-age children may share a single device, often a smartphone.

“The kids who have the least are getting the least now,” UCLA education professor Pedro Noguera told Hechinger Report. “They will, in fact, be behind the kids who are learning still.”

From Peter Greene
in Should We Just Hold Students Back Next Year?

Retention in grade doesn't help -- even in the face of nation-wide disruption.

...We have been suffering for years now under the notion that kindergarten should be the new first grade; next fall, we could give students room to breathe by making first grade the new first grade. In other words, instead of moving the students back a grade to fit the structure of the school, we could shift the structure of the school to meet the actual needs of the students.

From Nancy Flanagan
in If Technology Can’t Save Us, What Will?

Most important of all...kids need their teachers. They need human interaction which improves learning -- and positive teacher/student relationships, even more. See also A PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP, below.

It turns out that technology cannot, will not replace the human touch, when it comes to learning that is worthwhile and sticks in our students’ brains and hearts. We already knew that, of course. But it’s gratifying to know that school—bricks and mortar, white paste and whiteboards, textbooks and senior proms—is deeply missed.

Public education is part of who we are, as a representative democracy. We’ve never gotten it right—we’ve let down millions of kids over the past century or two and done lots of flailing. There are curriculum wars that never end and bitter battles over equity, the teacher pipeline and funding streams.

But still. We need school.

IT'S TRUE WHETHER OR NOT YOU BELIEVE IN IT

From Rob Boston
in The Religious Right’s Disdain For Science Is Exactly What We Don’t Need Right Now

Science is a process, not an outcome. We must improve our science education so students understand science. We ignore science at our peril.

The rejection of science and refusal to see facts as the non-partisan things that they are have consequences, as Jerry Falwell Jr. – and his students at Liberty University in Virginia – are painfully learning. Put simply, viruses don’t care whether you believe in them or not. They will wreak their havoc either way. 

REMOVE TESTING FROM THE HANDS OF PROFIT

From Diane Ravitch
in Noted education scholar says parents now more aware of vital role of schools, by Maureen Downey.

The profit motive won't create better tests. Teachers who know their students will.

If federal and state leaders gave any thought to change, they would drop the federal mandate for annual testing because it is useless and pointless. Students should be tested by their teachers, who know what they taught. If we can’t trust teachers to know their students, why should we trust distant corporations whose sole motive is profit and whose products undermine the joy of teaching and learning?

IT'S POVERTY -- STILL

From Jitu Brown, National Director for the Journey for Justice Alliance
in One Question: What Policy Change Would Have the Biggest Impact on Alleviating Poverty?

The fact that poor children are suffering more during the current world crisis than wealthy students should not be surprising. We have always neglected our poor children.

According to the United Nations, America ranks twenty-first in education globally among high-income nations. When you remove poverty, the United States is number two. This tells me that America knows how to educate children, but refuses to educate the poor, the black, brown, and Native American.

NO MATTER WHAT THEY CALL IT, IT'S NOT PRESCHOOL

From Rhian Evans Allvin, CEO of NAEYC,
in Making Connections. There’s No Such Thing as Online Preschool

Using public dollars intended for early childhood education to give children access to a 15-minute-per-day online program does not expand access to preschool. It doesn’t address the crisis in the supply of quality, affordable child care. It doesn’t help parents participate in the workforce. And it doesn’t help families choose an “alternative” option for or version of pre-K because it is something else entirely. To what extent we want to encourage parents to access online literacy and math curricula to help their 3- and 4-year-olds prepare for school is a conversation for another column. In this one, the only question is whether these technology-based programs can be “preschool”—and the answer is no.

ACCESS TO BOOKS

From P.L. Thomas
in Misreading the Reading Wars Again (and Again)

Proponents of whole language and balanced literacy have never said that phonics wasn't important. What they do say, however, is that other things are important, too.

Test reading is reductive (and lends itself to direct phonics instruction, hint-hint), but it is a pale measure of deep and authentic reading, much less any student’s eagerness to read.

Because of the accountability movement, then, and because of high-pressure textbook reading programs, we have for decades ignored a simple fact of research: the strongest indicator of reading growth in students is access to books in the home (not phonics programs).

A PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP

From Russ Walsh
in Hula Dancing, Singing and a Teacher's Impact

Over the years I've had several former students relate to me what they remembered from my class. I had a student tell me how important an art project was as a connection to his father. Another student thanked me for helping her during a difficult time in her family. A student who grew up to be a teacher and taught in my district told me that she was reading the same book to her students that I read to her class. Many students, in fact, talked about my reading aloud to them as the most important thing they remember. And a student remembered how I had trusted her to clean off the top of my desk every day after school.

I never had a student come to me and thank me for teaching them how to multiply...or spell "terrible"...or take a standardized test...or count syllables in a word. I take that as a compliment.

The messages we send to kids last a lifetime and they are not often about the times table or coordinating conjunctions or how many planets are in the skies. It is the personal messages and connections that are remembered. It is the belief a teacher instills that we can do that resonates through the years. It is that one book that made a special impression that we remember. That is a lesson we all must take into every interaction we have with a child.

SAY HELLO

From John Prine
in Hello in There

Thanks, and good night, JP.

So if you're walking down the street sometime
And spot some hollow ancient eyes,
Please don't just pass 'em by and stare
As if you didn't care, say, "Hello in there, hello."