Listen to this - 2020 #2 - Do We Open School or Not?

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?”

🎧🎤🎧

Musical Interlude: July 7, 1940

Ringo Starr is 80 years old today...

Over the last couple of decades, a three word phrase has dominated Ringo's life: "Peace and Love."

So it's not surprising that he is one of many well known and talented musicians who participate in Playing for Change, a movement dedicated to inspire and connect the world through music.

There's no need to review Ringo's life history or contribution to popular music -- there's enough of that in the real world. Instead, here's a video of Ringo, Robbie Robertson (The Band), and musicians around the world, playing The Weight, celebrating the song's 50th anniversary last year.

The notes from the video...

“The Weight,” features Ringo Starr and The Band's original member Robbie Robertson, along with musicians across 5 continents. Great songs can travel everywhere bridging what divides us and inspiring us to see how easily we all get along when the music plays. Special thanks to our partner Cambria® for helping to make this possible and to Robbie Robertson, Ringo Starr and all the musicians for joining us in celebrating 50 years of this classic song.

From one old drummer to another...Happy Birthday, Ringo!

🎼🥁🎹

Public Education: Born on the Fourth of July, 2020 Medley #14

SCOTUS decision: Espinoza v. Montana,
Founders on church-state separation

Independence Day is a good time to explore the thoughts about public education expressed by the Founders. This year, we have witnessed the weakening of America's public education system with the latest SCOTUS ruling on Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue -- a decision that will divert even more public funds to religious institutions in addition to weakening the concept of church-state separation.

First, let's hear from the Edu-blogosphere. The writers of each of the following posts have several concerns. First, by allowing public tax dollars to go to religious institutions, the state (here, with the permission of the federal judiciary) is "forcing" citizens to pay for religious instruction...to pay for religion. As Ben Franklin wrote...

When a Religion is good, I conceive that it will support itself; and when it cannot support itself, and God does not take care to support, so that its Professors are oblig’d to call for the help of the Civil Power, ’tis a Sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.

Second, vouchers divert money from and damage public education.

Third, if governments provide money for religious schools, those funds ought to come with government restrictions -- the same as the restrictions imposed on public schools. If it is illegal for public schools to discriminate in hiring when spending public dollars, it ought to be illegal for private schools to do the same. However, a church would rightfully argue that they ought to be able to hire those people who support and are willing to extend their mission. In other words, public funding of religion creates an "entanglement of church and state." To get around this entanglement, the court requires few strings attached to the money churches might receive from the state, which means that taxpayers might be paying for religious behavior and instruction with which they disagree.

This is the very reason that the Founders separated church and state in the First Amendment. Demanding restrictions on churches for the use of public dollars violates the rights of the church. Forcing taxpayers to fund religious doctrine violates the rights of the people. It's best not to let them entangle at all. "Render unto Caesar..."

REACTIONS TO SCOTUS DECISION: ESPINOZA V. MONTANA DEPT OF REVENUE

SCOTUS Just Poked Another Hole In The Wall Separating Church And State; Schools Will Suffer.

Peter Greene: The SCOTUS has elevated the Free Exercise clause over the Establishment clause.

Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue has further extended the precedent set by Trinity Lutheran v. Comer, a case that for the first time required “the direct transfer of taxpayers’ money to a church.” Historically, the free exercise clause of the First Amendment has taken a back seat to the establishment clause; in other words, the principle was that the government’s mandate to avoid establishing any “official” religion meant that it could not get involved in financing religious institutions, including churches or church-run private schools.

This has been a big stumbling block for the school voucher movement, because the vast majority of private schools that stand to benefit from vouchers are private religious schools. In fact, where school vouchers have been established, they are overwhelmingly used to fund religious schools.

Court embraces ‘short-sighted view of history’

Steve Hinnefeld: The court majority is reacting to a simplistic view of the history of church-state separation.

The majority opinion — and especially concurring opinions by Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas — framed the decision as a blow against anti-Catholic bias enshrined in state constitutions via 19th century “Blaine amendments.” But that view papers over complex history, said Steven K. Green, a legal scholar at Willamette University and a leading expert on church-state issues.

Green told me it was disappointing that the court, in a highly consequential decision, “relied, to a certain extent, on a shortsighted view of history, not recognizing the nuances behind the development of the no-aid provisions.” Green elaborates on that history in an amicus brief submitted to the court on behalf of several Christian religious organizations that supported Montana’s position.

Five Takeaways From Today’s Supreme Court Ruling On Vouchers

Americans United for Separation of Church and State: This compels taxpayers to support religious schools and forces them to support faith-based discrimination.

This ruling is a serious blow to church-state separation and religious liberty: in his majority opinion, Chief Justice John G. Roberts rejected the notion that compelling taxpayers to support religious schools is a violation of an individual’s religious freedom rights. Rather, he asserted that when religious schools are denied access to certain taxpayer-funded programs, it is their religious freedom that’s being violated – a nonsensical claim that turns the very concept of religious freedom on its head.

The ruling exposes taxpayers to forced funding of discrimination: Of the 12 private schools taking part in Montana’s program, 10 have discriminatory policies that they apply to students, teachers and staff. These policies either require adherence to a certain faith tradition and/or refuse admission to LGBTQ students or children with disabilities altogether. Taxpayers of Montana will now effectively be required to support these schools, unless Montana’s legislature takes action to prohibit Montana’s program from supporting schools that engage in discriminatory practices. Importantly, the decision does not address whether states that fund private education may deny funding to schools that have discriminatory admissions or employment policies, or whether it is constitutional for states to fund such discriminatory schools if they want to do so.

Roberts’ Decision in Espinoza Case Undermines Protection of Church-State Separation; Will Damage Public Education

Jan Resseger: Vouchers drain money from public schools. Private schools are not required to provide protections for student rights.

Why are supporters of public education so concerned about the implications of this case? In the first place, voucher programs drain needed tax dollars out of public schools. In Ohio, for example, a state that already permits public funds to flow to religious schools, EdChoice vouchers extract $4,650 for each elementary and middle school voucher and $6,000 for each high school voucher—right from the local public school district’s budget.

Another serious problem with vouchers is that the law protects students’ rights in public schools, but the same laws do not protect students enrolled in private schools. Writing for Slate, Mark Joseph Stern worries that now, after Espinoza: “Taxpayers in most of the country will soon start funding overtly religious education—including the indoctrination of children into a faith that might clash with their own conscience. For example, multiple schools that participate in Montana’s scholarship program inculcate students with a virulent anti-LGBTQ ideology that compares homosexuality to bestiality and incest. But many Montanans of faith believe LGBTQ people deserve respect and equality because they are made in the image of God. What does the Supreme Court have to say to Montanans who do not wish to fund religious indoctrination that contradicts their own beliefs?”

FOUNDERS ON CHURCH-STATE ENTANGLEMENT

James Madison

James Madison, the "Father of the Constitution," was emphatic in his opposition to church-state entanglement...

James Madison And Church-State Separation

Madison was against discrimination based on religious beliefs.

Madison was one of the first thinkers in colonial America to understand why church and state must be separated. His advocacy for this concept grew out of his own personal experiences in Virginia, where Anglicanism was the officially established creed and any attempt to spread another religion in public could lead to a jail term.

Early in 1774, Madison learned that several Baptist preachers were behind bars in a nearby county for public preaching. On Jan. 24, an enraged Madison wrote to his friend William Bradford in Philadelphia about the situation. "That diabolical Hell conceived principle of persecution rages among some and to their eternal Infamy the Clergy can furnish their quota of Imps for such business," Madison wrote. "This vexes me the most of any thing whatever. There are at this time in the adjacent County not less than 5 or 6 well meaning men in close Gaol [jail] for publishing their religious Sentiments which in the main are very orthodox. I have neither the patience to hear talk or think any thing relative to this matter, for I have squabbled and scolded abused and ridiculed so long about it, to so little purpose that I am without common patience. So I leave you to pity me and pray for Liberty of Conscience to revive among us."

Religion and the Founding of the American Republic

Madison led the fight in the Virginia legislature to pass Jefferson's Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, the basis of the First Amendment.

James Madison, the leading opponent of government-supported religion, combined both arguments in his celebrated Memorial and Remonstrance. In the fall of 1785, Madison marshaled sufficient legislative support to administer a decisive defeat to the effort to levy religious taxes. In place of Henry's bill, Madison and his allies passed in January 1786 Thomas Jefferson's famous Act for Establishing Religious Freedom, which brought the debate in Virginia to a close by severing, once and for all, the links between government and religion.

Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessment

James Madison: If the government can force you to pay for religious schools, then that same government may, in the future, force support for religion in other ways.

Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects? that the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence only of his property for the support of any one establishment, may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever?

Thomas Jefferson

Jefferson's Letter to the Danbury Baptists

Jefferson explained his position clearly in his letter to the Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut in 1802.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.

82. A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, 18 June 1779

Earlier (1779), Jefferson drafted the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, which Madison helped pass in the Virginia legislature.

We the General Assembly of Virginia do enact that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.

🇺🇸📚🗽

Public Education: Born on the Fourth of July

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.

🇺🇸🗽🇺🇸