Public School Boards Need to Do Better at Embracing Transparency

May 9, 2022May 10, 2022 stevenmsinger Accountability, Budget, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Credibility, Education, Facebook, Journalism, Labor, Local Control, McKeesport Area School District, Parents, Pennsylvania, Politics, Prejudice, privatization, Propaganda, School Choice, School Funding, school vouchers, Schools, Students, Teachers, Technology, Uncategorized, Unions communication, community, community schools, education, freedom, Open Meetings, parents, Politics, public schools, school board, schools, teachers, transparency

They say sunlight is the best disinfectant.

So why do so many public school boards hide in the shadows?

One of the shining virtues of public schools is the requirement that they be transparent and open to the public.

And they are!

But too often school directors do so in ways that are unnecessarily burdensome, equivocal or combative.

Let me give you an example.

I live in the McKeesport Area School District (MASD) – a community just south of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania.

When I heard my school board was considering a proposed district budget for 2022-23 without a tax increase, I wanted to take a look at it. So I went to the district Website and there was a link labelled:

“Preliminary Budget Information for 2022-23 School Year.”

I clicked on it and got this:

“The Board of Directors of the McKeesport Area School District has prepared a Preliminary Budget in the amount of funds that will be required by the School District for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2022. The Proposed Budget is on file in the Office of the Business Manager/Board Secretary, and is available for public inspection in the McKeesport Area School District Administration Building…” [Emphasis mine.]

What the heck!?

Why not just post the preliminary budget on the Internet!? Why make me go all the way to the administration building (during business hours) to see a copy?

It’s not like I can even turn to my local newspaper to tell me about the district’s budget. With so many cutbacks in local media, our papers rarely even cover school districts anymore unless there’s a big story.

If I want to know how my district proposes to spend the community’s tax dollars next year, I need to either go to the school board meeting or go to the administration office and look at a copy. Will I be able to take a copy with me to peruse at my leisure? Maybe or maybe not.

We should be able to do better than this.

Don’t get me wrong.

Authentic public schools are way better than privatized schools.

They’re preferable to anything you’d find at charter or private schools that take school vouchers.

And one of the biggest reasons why is this requirement of local control, self-government, and a free exchange of information between representatives and the community who elected them.

Authentic public schools HAVE TO hold public meetings to conduct their business.

They HAVE TO take comments from the community.

They HAVE TO make their documentation available to the public.

And except under extreme circumstances, they HAVE TO be run by elected school boards.

None of that is a given at charter and voucher schools.

The problem is how too many public school directors meet these obligations.

MASD, for example, makes its proposed budget available – but not in the most convenient way that it could.

Let’s be honest. It wouldn’t take much to improve this.

Posting the full budget online would take just a few seconds. In fact, it’s actually more trouble to have it available in the administration building and task a secretary with presenting it to anyone who comes in-person and asks for it.

The same thing goes for school board meetings.

Before I became a public school teacher, I was a journalist often covering public schools.

I’ve gone to a lot of school board meetings in my life. A LOT.

And almost every board put unnecessary or onerous restrictions on public comments.

Residents could come to the meetings and address the board but they often had to sign in before-hand. They couldn’t just show up and speak. They had to let the board know days in advance that they were coming and the subject they planning to speak on.

If something came up during the meeting unplanned, technically residents weren’t allowed to comment – though I admit I’ve never seen a school board hold to such a policy in the case of unexpected events.

Also there are almost always time limits on public comments.

Now I know it’s unreasonable to expect members of the public who volunteer to serve as school directors to spend all night listening to rambling or incoherent comments. But these time limits are often way too restrictive – especially when only a handful of people actually turn up to speak.

Limiting people to two minutes of public comment in a month or even a two-week period is ridiculous.

Then we have the issue of audio visuals at board meetings.

Many school boards have microphones for people to speak into during the proceedings. This is supposed to allow everyone present to hear what is being said. However, the equipment is often so bad that it actually ends up blurring the speaker’s voice until its incomprehensible or board members who don’t want to be heard simply don’t speak into the microphone.

Sure – the entire proceedings are being taken down by hand by an administrator for an official written copy of the minutes. But this isn’t even available to the public until a month later when the board votes on last month’s minutes document. The public can’t get a copy of this material until more than a month has passed from it taking place. And it probably isn’t available on-line.

Finally, we have recordings of the meetings.

Many school boards now video tape their meetings and stream them live on YouTube, Facebook or some other social media site.

This is a nice improvement from when community groups had to do this, themselves. And, in fact, it’s really a response to that phenomenon to gain control over what becomes public record. School boards began recording the meetings to discourage others from doing it so the district would have control over this material. And in most cases it worked.

However, these recordings are almost always of exceedingly poor quality.

Cameras (and microphones) are placed so far away that it is almost impossible to tell what is happening, what is being said or who said it.

Any teenager with a smart phone and a YouTube channel could do a better job.

Moreover, these videos often don’t stay posted online for very long. They could easily remain posted so anyone could rewatch them and catch up with what happened at a school board meeting they were unable to attend in-person. But school boards make the express decision to take these videos down so that record is not available.

Very few of these are accidents. In most cases these are intentional to push the public away at the exact time when they should be inviting them in.

These are just some examples of how school boards comply with transparency requirements but do so in ways that are inconvenient, onerous or antagonistic.

It is so unnecessary.

Things don’t have to be this way.

School boards should welcome transparency. They should embrace public participation in the process.

After all, this is one of the major factors that distinguish authentic public schools from privatized ones.

School directors complain about losing revenue to charter and voucher schools. If they treated the public more like valued members of the decision-making process, they would do a lot to boost their own reputation.

President James Madison wrote:

“[a] popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy.”

School directors should take this to heart.

Public schools should not be shadowy corners for school directors to try to sneak through policies under the nose of stake holders.

They should be shinning centers of the community.

The sooner school boards understand this, the better it will be for the state of public education and the students, families and communities we are supposed to be serving in the first place.

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I’ve also written a book, “Gadfly on the Wall: A Public School Teacher Speaks Out on Racism and Reform,” now available from Garn Press. Ten percent of the proceeds go to the Badass Teachers Association. Check it out!

Top 5 Charter School Myths Debunked

April 15, 2022 stevenmsinger #BlackLivesMatter, Accountability, capitalism, Charter Schools, Child Safety, Civil Rights, Corporate Education "Reform", Education, history, Learning, Local Control, Parents, Politics, Prejudice, privatization, Racism, School Choice, School Funding, school segregation, Schools, Social Justice, Standardized Testing, Student Mobility, Students, Teachers charter schools, debunked, education, Myths, parents, Politics, public schools, school privatization, Students, teachers

If there’s one thing people love to argue about, it’s charter schools.

Go to any school board meeting, PTA forum or editorial page, and you’re bound to see folks from all different walks of life getting red in the face over these institutions.

But what are they anyway? And why do they generate so much passionate disagreement?

To answer these questions and many more, I’m going to examine five of the most pernicious myths about charter schools, debunk the fallacies and come to the simple truths.

1. Charter Schools are Public Schools

That’s what charter school supporters say, anyway. But it’s only partially true.

In short, charter schools are schools that were opened by special arrangement (or charter) with a state or authentic public school district that allows them to exist without having to abide by all the rules and regulations that govern all the other schools. Thus, the charter school can go without an elected board, it can pocket public money as private profit, hire uncertified teachers, refuse to admit special education students, etc. The degree of latitude depends on the special arrangement.

Is that a public school? In one way it most certainly is. All charter schools are funded by public tax dollars. Everything else is up for grabs.

They don’t even have to accept all the students in their coverage area like authentic public schools do. You still have to support them with your taxes though.

Is that a public school?

QUICK ANSWER: NO.

2. Charter Schools Save Money

This is another claim by the charter school industry that has been in contention for their entire 30 year existence.

Charter schools were invented in 1991 and only exist in 43 states and the District of Columbia. They enroll about 6% of the students in the country – roughly three million children.

However, the idea that they could save money is pretty absurd. They duplicate services that already exist at neighborhood public schools. When you pay for two providers to do the same thing, that doesn’t lower the cost.

It drains money from the existing public schools and often forces school directors to raise taxes so they can continue to provide the same services as before.

However, not only do charter schools increase costs, they often waste the extra money taxpayers are forced to provide.

Consider that more than a quarter of charter schools close within 5 years of opening. By year 15, roughly 50% of charter schools close. That’s not a stable model of public education.

Moreover, 1,779 charter schools (37 percent that receive federal grants) never opened in the first place or were quickly shut down. Since 1994, the federal government has spent $4 billion on these types of schools. Think of how much money has been wasted that could have been put to better use in our much more dependable authentic public schools!

To be fair, some charter defenders will argue that since they are free from the same regulations as public schools, they can cut costs WITHIN their institutions and provide the same services for less. However, they never return that savings to the taxpayers. They simply cut services for their students and then pocket the savings. Lowering quality may be a way to cut costs, but it’s not exactly an innovation – and certainly not something to be envied.

This may be cost effective to the bureaucrats and profiteers running charter schools, but it is not a savings to you and me – to speak nothing of how it hurts the students hoping to receive a quality education.

So do charter schools save money?

QUICK ANSWER: NO!

3. Students do Better Academically in Charter Schools

This is what it says on all those charter school advertisements you see popping up everywhere. But is it true?

The problem with answering that is one of apples and oranges. How do you fairly compare charter and public school students when each group is so different?

Charter schools can legally cherry pick their students. They serve far fewer students with disabilities and English Language Learners. If a student is hard to teach, they “convince” them to go somewhere else.

Meanwhile, authentic public schools can’t do that. They take all comers.

As a result, charter schools can APPEAR to do better for their students but that appearance is due to privileged rules not better teaching or academic programs.

However, even with such advantages, charter schools have failed to show consistent results over authentic public schools on comparative studies.

According to a 2010 Mathematica Policy Research study funded by the federal government, middle-school students who were selected by lottery to attend charter schools performed no better than their peers who lost out in the lottery and attended nearby public schools. This was the most rigorous and most expensive study of charter school performance commissioned by the US Department of Education, and it found no overall positive benefit for charter schools.

And there have been many others. A 2016 study found that Texas charter schools had no overall positive impact on test scores and, in fact, had a negative impact on students’ earnings later in life.

Even a 2020 study by the charter-friendly Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) found that charter schools are not exceeding public schools in most areas of the country. In addition, the study found vast variations in the quality of charter schools – some being better and many being much worse than the norm.

So, taken as a whole, do charter schools outperform authentic public schools?

QUICK ANSWER: NO!

4. Charter Schools are About Innovation

This was, in fact, one of the selling points of the charter school concept when it was first proposed. Being freed of the regulations that authentic public schools have to abide by would allow charter schools to be laboratories for innovation.

However, after 31 years, practices at charter schools can be seen as somewhat different than at authentic public schools, but are they innovative?

According to a 2018 report by IBM Center Visiting Fellow for Evidence-Based Practices, the practices connected with most positive academic outcomes at charter schools are:

1) Longer school days or academic years

2) Zero tolerance and other strict discipline policies associated with rewards and sanctions

3) Centering the curriculum on improving test scores and test prep.

These are pretty much the opposite of what developmental psychologists, education experts and civil rights activists want for children.

Forcing adolescents to spend more time in the classroom is the exact opposite of what other high achieving countries (like those in Scandinavia) do. Treating children like prisoners with harsh punishments for not conforming to strict rules is not considered best for developing young minds. And narrowing the curriculum to drill and kill reading and math test prep may improve scores but it certainly doesn’t create well-rounded adults with strong critical thinking skills.

Moreover, those few charter schools that do engage in creative practices such as organizing the curriculum around a theme like creative arts or racial justice issues aren’t doing anything that isn’t already being done at authentic public schools – specifically magnet and lab schools.

The creativity and innovation you find at most charter schools is in the accounting department – finding new ways to reduce the services students would find at the neighborhood public school and redefining the savings as profit. That and circumventing conflict of interest regulations to allow the corporation that manages the charter school to buy properties from itself at a hefty mark up.

Is any of this innovation?

QUICK ANSWER: NO!

5. Charter Schools Improve Civil Rights

This is perhaps the most often cited benefit of charter schools. In fact, the impression has been that charters are the choice of people of color and serve them better than their neighborhood public school.

However, the facts show a somewhat different reality.

Yes, charter schools do serve a disproportionately high percentage of children of color. According to 2016 data from the National Center for Education Statistics, 26% of all charter school students are black (832,000) compared with 33% of Hispanics (1,056,000) and 32% of whites (1,024,000).

However, approximately 57% of charter schools are located in cities compared to only 25% of authentic public schools.

So black people aren’t selecting charter schools more often as much as charter schools are deciding to locate in areas where more black people live and are often marketing their services directly to black and brown populations.

Are these schools doing a better job of meeting the needs of these children? A 2016 report from UCLA casts doubt on this idea.

Charter schools are notorious for suspending their black students at much higher rates than their white students. While suspensions for students of color are high at public schools as well, they are much more extreme at charter schools.

More than 500 charter schools suspended Black students 10 percent more often than white students. Moreover, the same figure holds for students with disabilities at 1,093 charter schools. In fact, 374 charter schools suspended 25% of their entire student bodies at least once.

Charter schools are also notorious for increasing racial segregation in the neighborhoods where they locate. Nearly half of all Black secondary charter school students attended a charter schools that was hyper-segregated (80% Black) and where the aggregate Black suspension rate was 25%.

However, this increased segregation isn’t just something that affects Black charter school students. It affects white charter school students, as well.

A 2018 report by The Hechinger Report found that 10 percent of charter schools enrolled a disproportionately high number of White students as compared to the racial demographics of the district at large. Writer Kimberly Quick calls these “White-Flight Charters”.

In the first case, the charter schools end up with a disproportionate percentage of Black students and the white students are left in the public schools. In the later case, the Black students are left in the authentic public schools and the white kids flee to the charter schools.

Both cases are not good for civil rights. They allow students of color to be targeted for disinvestment and reductive curriculum while further privileging the white students.

Don’t Black students deserve the right to an education where corporations can’t teach them on the cheap? Don’t they deserve educations free from developmentally inappropriate long days, harsh discipline policies and narrowed curriculum? Don’t their parents deserve the right to participate in the running of their schools through elected school boards?

The idea that it is somehow in the best interest of children of color to be provided with schools containing fewer safety precautions is kind of insulting.

Far from improving civil rights, charter schools too often violate them.

This is why the NAACP has repeatedly called for a moratorium on new charter schools. Members of the organization’s educational task force released a statement saying:

“With the expansion of charter schools and their concentration in low-income communities, concerns have been raised within the African American community about the quality, accessibility and accountability of some charters, as well as their broader effects on the funding and management of school districts that serve most students of color.”

Black Lives Matter organizers also called for a charter school moratorium. Charters, they wrote, represent a shift of public funds and control to private entities. Along with “an end to the privatization of education,” the Movement for Black Lives organizers are demanding increased investments in traditional community schools and the health and social services they provide.

Moreover, the Journey for Justice Alliance – a coalition of grassroots community, youth, and parent-led organizations in over 30 cities – has gone even further calling for an end to all school privatization.

The organization posted on it’s Website:

“The evidence is clear and aligns with the lived experience of parents, students and community residents in America’s cities: school privatization has failed in improving the education outcomes for young people. There is no such thing as “school choice” in Black and Brown communities in this country. We want the choice of a world class neighborhood school within safe walking distance of our homes. We want an end to school closings, turnarounds, phase-outs, and charter expansion.”

So do charters improve civil rights?

QUICK ANSWER: NO!

There are a lot of myths spread about charter schools – many of them being propagated by the charter school industry, itself.

Most of these are not facts; they are marketing.

While there are some charter schools that do a decent job educating children, the charter school concept is deeply flawed.

Authentic public schools are far from perfect, but taken as a whole they are much more effective, reliable, economical, transparent and democratic than the alternatives.

We should take steps to end the charter school model and transition those schools that are working back to the authentic public school system that has served our students well for more than a century.

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Gadfly’s Most Outrageous Articles in 2021 That You May Have Missed or Been Too Polite to Share

December 30, 2021 stevenmsinger Accountability, Allegheny County, Betsy DeVos, bloggers, Budget, capitalism, Charter Schools, Child Safety, church and state, Civil Rights, Common Core, Corporate Education "Reform", COVID-19, Data, Democrat, Education, Election, Harrisburg, history, Joe Biden, Journalism, Labor, Learning, Local Control, Parents, Pennsylvania, Philosophy, Pittsburgh, Politics, Poverty, Prejudice, private schools, privatization, protest, Racism, Republican, School Funding, school vouchers, Social Justice, Standardized Testing, Student Mobility, Students, Teachers, Technology, Uncategorized, voting, White Fragility Bill Maher, coronavirus, COVID-19, critical race theory, education, lesson plans, New Year, pandemic, parenting, parents, Politics, roundup, school sports, teachers, vaccine, white supremacy, Year End, year in review

The most popular topic people wanted to read about on my blog this year has been how teachers are dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic.

In short, it’s a mess.

We’re struggling big time.

In the media, they call it a teacher shortage, but it’s really an Exodus away from the profession for educators who are fed up with being treated like crap.

But that’s not the only thing I wrote about in 2021.

At this point in my career with everything crumbling around me, I have no more F’s to give.

I’m laying it all out straight. And this is from a blogger who has often been criticized for not holding anything back BEFORE!

Now I am pointing out all the elephants in the room.

And jaws have been hitting the floor.

Sacred cows? Not here. Have a burger.

So after already publishing a top 10 list of my most popular articles from the past year, I’ve compiled a list of ten more (or so) that didn’t get the acclaim but deserve it.

Some of these articles are not for the faint of heart.

If you’re tired of being polite and ignoring all the flaming dumpster fires that well behaved teachers aren’t supposed to mention, then you might enjoy some of these stories.

So buckle up. Here we go:

10) Lesson Plans Are a Complete Waste of Time

Published: Sept. 16

Views: 2,971

Description: The title says it all. Stop wasting teachers’ time by making us fill out paperwork that won’t help us do our jobs but will make administrators and principals look good. We make our own plans for ourselves. We don’t need to share with you a bunch of BS with Common Core nonsense and step-by-step blah-blah that will probably have to change in the heat of the moment anyway.

Fun Fact: Teachers in my building rarely say anything to me about my blog. But I got some serious appreciation on my home turf for this one.

9) Where Are the Parents? The School Shortage We Ignore

Published: Nov. 17

Views: 2,997

Description: We talk about missing teachers, subs, aides, bus drivers, but not parents or guardians. We should. They are absolutely essential to student learning. I think there are a lot of good reasons why parents don’t participate in their children’s schooling, but they will never get the help they need if we continue to ignore this issue and throw everything on teachers and the school.

Fun Fact: So many liberals lost their minds on this article saying I was attacking parents. I’m not. If people were drowning, you would not be attacking them by pointing that out and demanding help fishing them out of the water. It is not “deficit thinking” to acknowledge that someone needs help. It’s authentic advocacy for both students and parents.

8) I Triggered Bill Maher By Writing About Standardized Testing and White Supremacy

Published: Nov. 3

Views: 2,076

Description: It wasn’t just liberals who were butt hurt by my writing – it was neoliberals, too. Comedian Bill Maher actually mentioned my article “Standardized Testing is a Tool of White Supremacy” on his HBO show. He joked that I was devaluing the term ‘white supremacy.” Sure. These assessments only help white people unfairly maintain their collective boot on the throats of black and brown people. That’s not white supremacy. It’s melanin deficient hegemony. Happy now!?

Fun Fact: Maher’s assertion (I can’t claim it’s an argument because he never actually argued for anything) seems to be popular with neoliberals trying to counter the negative press standardized testing has been receiving lately. We need to arm against this latest corporate talking point and this article and the original give plenty of ammunition. My article was republished on Alternet and CommonDreams.org.

7) School Sports are Overwhelming Academics. Time to Kick Them Out

Published: Dec. 10

Views: 2,080

Description: Most of the world does not have competitive after school sports. Kids participate in sports through clubs – not through the schools. I suggested we might do that in the US, too. This would allow schools to use more of their budgets on learning. It would stop crucial school board decisions from being made for the athletics department at the expense of academics. It would remove litigation for serious injuries. Simple. Right?

Fun Fact: So many folks heads simply exploded at this. They thought I was saying we should do away with youth sports. No. Youth sports would still exist, just not competitive sports through the school. They thought poor kids wouldn’t be able to participate. No, sports clubs could be subsidized by the government just as they are in other countries. Some folks said there are kids who wouldn’t go to school without sports. No, that’s hyperbole. True, some kids love sports but they also love socialization, routine, feeling safe, interaction with caring adults and even learning! But I know this is a radical idea in this country, and I have no illusions that anyone is going to take me up on it.

6) Critical Race Theory Articles

A) If You’re Afraid Kids Will Learn Racism is Bad, Perhaps Public School is Not For You

B) Public Schools Are Not Indoctrinating Kids About Racism. Voucher Schools ARE

C) Muzzling America’s Teachers with a Ban on Critical Race Theory is What Orwell Warned Us About

Published: (A) Oct. 14, (B) Jun3 17, (C) July 2

Views: (A) 1,918, (B) 1,869 , (C) 1,207

Description: Republicans have a new racist dog whistle. They pretend white people are being taught to hate themselves by reference to a fake history of the US called Critical Race Theory. In reality, schools are teaching the tiniest fraction of the actual history of racism and Republicans need that to stop or else they won’t have any new members in a few generations. I wrote three articles about it this year from different points of view than I thought were being offered elsewhere.

Fun Fact: I’m proud of this work. It looks at the topic from the viewpoint of academic freedom, the indoctrination actually happening (often at taxpayer expense) at private and parochial schools, and the worthy goal of education at authentic public schools. Article B was republished on CommonDreams.org.

5) County Council Election Articles

A) Why a Public School Teacher is Running for Allegheny County Council

B) A New Children’s Fund – Reducing Student Inequality Through Allegheny County Council

C) I Fought the Do-Nothing-Incumbent, and He Won

Published: (A) March 19, (B) April 2, (C) May 26

Views: (A) 514 (B) 111 (C) 248

Description: I ran for office this year in western Pennsylvania. I tried for Allegheny County Council – a mid-sized position covering the City of Pittsburgh and the rest of the second largest county in the state. Ultimately, I lost, but these three articles document the effort.

Fun Fact: These articles explain why a teacher like me ran for office, how I could have helped public schools, and why it didn’t work out. Article C was republished on CommonDreams.org.

4) Vaccine Articles

A) How I Got the Covid Vaccine: an Immunization Odyssey

B) Hope During a Pandemic is Both Hard and Inescapable

Published: (A) Jan. 30, (B) March 11

Views: (A) 451 (B) 229

Description: These are terrifying times. In the future people may look back and wonder what happened. These two articles document how I got vaccinated against Covid-19 and my thoughts and feelings about the process, the pandemic, and life in general.

Fun Fact: It hasn’t even been a full year since I wrote these pieces but they somehow feel like they were written a million years ago. So much has changed – and so little.

3) What is Taught in Public Schools? Volunteer as a Substitute Teacher and See for Yourself!

Published: Oct. 20

Views: 733

Description: Pennsylvania Republican state legislators were whining that they didn’t know what teachers were doing in public school. So they proposed a BS law demanding teachers spend even more of their never-ending time giving updates. I suggested legislators could just volunteer as subs and see for themselves.

Fun Fact: So far no Republicans have taken me up on the offer and their cute bit of performative lawmaking still hasn’t made it through Harrisburg.

2) We Don’t Need More ADVICE on How to Safely Reopen Schools. We Need RULES.

Published: July 29

Views: 1,180

Description: When it comes to stopping a global pandemic, we need federal action. This can’t be left up to the states, or the counties, or the townships or every small town. But all we get from the federal government about Covid mitigation in schools are guidelines. Stand up and do your F-ing jobs! Make some rules already, you freaking cowards!

Fun Fact: As I write this, President Joe Biden just came out and said there is no federal solution to the pandemic. It’s not that I think the other guy would have done better, but this was a softball, Joe. History will remember. If there is a history after all this is over.

1) What I Told My Students About Yesterday’s Attempted Trump Coup

Published: Jan. 8

Views: 2,297

Description: On January 6, a bunch of far right traitors stormed the Capitol. This articles documents what it was like to experience that as a public school teacher with on-line classes during the pandemic.

Fun Fact: Once again, history may want to know. Posterity may have questions. At least, I hope so. The article was republished on CommonDreams.org.

Gadfly’s Other Year End Round Ups

This wasn’t the first year I’ve done a countdown of the year’s greatest hits. I usually write one counting down my most popular articles and one listing articles that I thought deserved a second look (like this one). Here are all my end of the year articles since I began my blog in 2014:

2021:

Gadfly’s Top 10 Articles of 2021 – Shouts in the Dark

2020:

The Most Important Education Articles (By Me) That You Probably Missed in 2020

Outrunning the Pandemic – Racing Through Gadfly’s Top 10 Stories of 2020

2019:

Sixteen Gadfly Articles That Made Betsy DeVos Itch in 2019 

2018:

A Gadfly’s Dozen: Top 13 Education Articles of 2018 (By Me)

2017:

What’s the Buzz? A Crown of Gadflies! Top 10 Articles (by Me) in 2017

Hidden Gadfly – Top 5 Stories (By Me) You May Have Missed in 2017

2016

Worse Than Fake News – Ignored News. Top 5 Education Stories You May Have Missed in 2016

Goodbye, 2016, and Good Riddance – Top 10 Blog Post by Me From a Crappy Year

2015

Gadfly’s Choice – Top 5 Blogs (By Me) You May Have Missed from 2015

Who’s Your Favorite Gadfly? Top 10 Blog Posts (By Me) That Enlightened, Entertained and Enraged in 2015

2014

Off the Beaten Gadfly – the Best Education Blog Pieces You Never Read in 2014

Where Are the Parents? The School Shortage We Ignore

November 17, 2021 stevenmsinger absenteeism, Accountability, capitalism, Child Safety, Civil Rights, Corporate Education "Reform", COVID-19, Education, Labor, Learning, Local Control, Parents, Politics, Poverty, Prejudice, school closings, Schools, Students, teacher autonomy, Teachers, Technology education, parents, schools, shortage, Students, teachers

Our public schools are suffering from crippling shortages.

Classroom teachers, substitute teachers, special education aides, even bus drivers are hard to find.

But of all the essential personnel who have gone missing, the group with the largest impact is the one we least want to mention – parents.

I’m a middle school Language Arts teacher.

Every year I look forward to parent-teacher conferences.

I gather samples of student work, journal entries, drawings and grade reports. I put out a row of chairs in the hall so people have a place to sit if they have to wait for one group to finish before they can see me. And I write in big, bold, colorful chalk on the board, “Welcome, Parents!”

Then I sit at my desk trying to stay awake as the hours creep by in my empty classroom.

Where are all the parents?

Seriously. Where did the moms and dads go? Where are the grandparents, the older siblings, the guardians, the primary or even secondary caregivers?

On Parent-Teacher Day, they must be somewhere, but they’re not here.

We typically have a section from noon to 3 and one from 5 to 8 pm so that people with various schedules can come in.

And every year it’s the same. Only about 20-30% of my students’ parent or guardians usually visit me on these days – and that’s after the promise of bonus points if they come in!

Even then it’s most often the parents of the kids with the best grades who show up. It’s the parents of kids who say “Please” and “Thank you,” the kids who smile when you walk in the room, the kids who want you to hang up their drawings on the bulletin board.

The children who are struggling, the ones who don’t know how to behave and look at you out of the corner of their eyes expecting pain and negativity – their parents rarely show up.

And it’s these bruised and battered kids who are in the majority.

Where are their parents?

They’re missing. Gone. Poof.

We saw this when schools went to on-line learning at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Teachers would turn on their Zoom links to give lessons to their students only to find many of the kids vanished.

These kids usually were there when school was in-person. But on-line they were MIA. And even if they were technically present, they often hid behind a turned off camera and didn’t hand in their work.

Why?

At school, the teacher was there to make sure these kids took care of business. But at home there simply was no one to hold them accountable. No one to get them up, feed them, and make sure they were online when classes began, ensure they paid attention and did their work.

That’s why so many kids were absent or otherwise failed the online experience.

Granted this kind of cyber learning is developmentally inappropriate for most K-12 students – certainly those up through middle school. But with the proper parental support, most children would have done much better.

It just wasn’t there.

Now let me be clear about one thing – I am not blaming anybody here.

It is not my intention to pass judgment on anyone.

As a parent, myself, I know from experience how difficult the job is – especially during a global pandemic.

But we have to face the facts. As a whole, parents were the weak link in the chain. And it didn’t start with Covid – they have been the weak link for decades.

Teachers can’t go to every student’s home and be caregiver as well as educator. The fact that so many children are struggling with basic socialization skills after as much as two years of online schooling goes to show how much of the responsibility for raising children has rested on schools and teachers.

This year many students don’t know how to talk with each other without instigating a fight. They constantly pick on each other, demand respect they aren’t giving and are starving for any kind of attention they can get.

Without daily in-person contact with teachers, many children have become socially awkward and need to relearn the basics of interpersonal interaction. That’s how much we’ve come to expect teachers to be co-parents from year-to-year.

Let me stop again and clarify that I am not talking about all parents.

Many parents go out of their way to be present in their children’s lives.

They get their kids up for school, make sure they eat a nutritious breakfast, ensure they catch the bus or get a ride to school, make sure they do their homework after the day is over and establish a healthy bedtime.

But this should be the norm, not the exception.

I know how hard it is to do. Waking my daughter up every morning often takes a stick of dynamite. And getting that girl to eat a healthy breakfast is a battle I often lose. But her mother and I make darn sure she does her homework and we even sit down with her to help it get done. And weekday bedtimes are religiously adhered to – no one wants a cranky, fussy child the next morning.

However, it’s easier for us because we have certain advantages.

Class, privilege, wealth, upbringing, social status all conspire to give us a boost.

My wife and I don’t have to work more than one job to make ends meet, for example. It would probably help if we did, but neither of us has the wherewithal, and we get by.

But many folks are not so lucky.

They DO have to work multiple jobs. They have work schedules that are less in tune with the school day. They can’t be home to wake up their kids and send them off. They can’t be home when kids are dismissed and don’t have the time to help with homework. Some barely have the education, themselves, to be of much assistance.

Disadvantaged parents often had bad experiences with school when they were students. So they don’t instill the importance of education to their kids. Nor do they prove good role models since they often don’t read for pleasure, speak in the dominant vernacular or respect teachers.

All this has tremendous effects on the education children receive.

In fact, many academic studies have shown that the most important factor in the education process isn’t the school or teachers – it’s the parents.

Roughly 60% of academic achievement can be explained by family background – things like income and poverty level. School factors only account for 20% – and of that, teachers account for 15%. (see Hanushek et al. 1998; Rockoff 2003; Goldhaber et al. 1999; Rowan et al. 2002; Nye et al. 2004).

Estimates vary somewhat from study to study, but the basic structure holds. The vast majority of impact on learning comes from the home and out-of-school factors. Teachers are just a small part of the picture. They are the largest single factor in the school building, but the school, itself, is only one of many components.

Study after study conclude that students with involved parents are more likely to earn higher grades and test scores, have better attendance and social skills, and adapt well to school.

According to the National Parent Teacher Association (PTA), the most accurate predictors of student achievement in school are the extent to which families create home environments that encourage learning, communicate high yet reasonable expectations, and become involved in the children’s education at school.

Moreover, when parents are involved, the performance of all the children at school tends to improve – not just the academics of kids with involved parents. The more comprehensive the partnership between school and home, the higher the student achievement.

Put simply – parents are vital to good learning.

But our society doesn’t do much to allow parents to parent.

To some extent, the pandemic is making things worse.

More than 750,000 Americans have died from COVID-19.

According to the CDC, more than 140,000 children in the U.S. have lost a primary or secondary caregiver such as a live-in grandparent or another family member to the virus.

This is wreaking havoc on kids support systems.

But an even larger problem is economics.

When schools went online, employers could have allowed more parents to work from home so they could be there for their children. However, profits were more important.

Even in non-pandemic times, employers need to provide more time and resources for parents. There is too much demand for overtime hours, increased productivity and very little family leave or other such services.

I truly believe that most parents want to be there for their children but feel like they can’t due to the stresses and strains of work.

We live in one of the richest countries in the world. Much of the labor we force people to do is strictly unnecessary. It’s there just to justify our economic system. If we reordered things around people instead of capital, parents could more easily be involved in their children’s educations.

This is fundamentally the problem with all the educational shortages we’re seeing.

These are symptoms of an economic failure. We can continue to prop up this faded machine or create a world that values life over profit.

But we pretend this isn’t true.

We’ve been trying to run our schools as if parents weren’t that important and then throwing all the blame on teachers when parents don’t show up.

This has to stop.

It’s time to admit how important parents are to their children’s educations and then provide them with the tools necessary to be parents.

It’s time to include parents in the circle.

It’s time to expect them to show up.

Because we can’t continue educating their children without them.

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Why Does Your Right to Unmask Usurp My Child’s Right to a Safe School?

August 17, 2021 stevenmsinger Accountability, Allegheny County, Child Safety, Civil Rights, COVID-19, Credibility, Data, Democrat, Education, Healthcare, home school, Junk science, Labor, Learning, Local Control, Parents, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Politics, Poverty, Prejudice, protest, Republican, school closings, Schools, Social Justice, Student Mobility, Students, teacher autonomy, Teachers, Uncategorized, Unions child safety, children, Civil Rights, coronavirus, COVID-19, mask optional, masking, masks, pandemic, parents, Politics, right to education, right to life, safe schools, Students, teachers

“Daddy, I’m afraid.”

My 12-year-old daughter just had a nightmare, and I was sitting on her bed trying to calm her down.

“What’s wrong, Sweetie?”

“I’m worried about school.”

That’s something with which I can certainly relate.

Even after teaching for 18 years, I always get anxious before the first day of school, and I told her as much.

“Really?” She said.

“Yeah. But I can understand why you might be even more nervous than usual. I’ll be teaching the same thing I’ve taught for years. I’ll be in the same classroom working with the same adults. Only the students will be different. But you will be in a new building with new teachers…. And you haven’t even been in a classroom in over a year.”

“That’s just it, Daddy. What if the other kids make fun of me for wearing a mask? What if I get sick?”

Our local district is reopening in a week with a mask optional policy and no vaccine requirements.

Her question was expected, but I had been dreading it.

I knew my answers and they sounded inadequate – even to me.

I explained how she would be wearing a mask and is fully vaccinated so it will be extremely unlikely for her to get sick. And even if she does, it will be extremely unlikely she’ll get VERY sick.

“And if the other kids make fun of you, just ignore it. You are going to be safe. If they take chances, they’ll just have to suffer the consequences.”

It seemed to satisfy her, but I left her room feeling like a bad parent.

Covid-19 cases are on the rise again.

Nationwide, nearly 94,000 new child Covid cases were reported last week- a substantial increase, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Children’s Hospital Association (CHA).

Even in the Pittsburgh region where we live, the number of kids hospitalized with Covid at UPMC Children’s Hospital has nearly doubled in the last week, according to KDKA. That’s 50 hospitalizations in the past month including 20 in the last week.

My daughter is scared? So is her daddy.

I went to the local school directors meeting and asked the board to follow recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Allegheny County Health Department by requiring masking and vaccinations for eligible students and staff. They refused.

Now I’m stuck in the position of keeping my little girl at home for another year by enrolling her in the district’s terrible on-line program, Edmentum, or rolling the dice with in-person schooling.

I’m told there will be more synchronous teaching this year in the remote program, but I don’t trust it.

Last year, she only made it through because my father-in-law – a former math teacher – and myself basically taught her everything the on-line program struggled to get across.

We just couldn’t do it again this year. It was a full time job – several full-time jobs – too hard on him and me both.

I hope we won’t regret it.

And then there’s my own work situation.

I teach at a neighboring district that looks like it will reopen the same way with masks and vaccines mere options.

I’m fully vaccinated but immunosuppressed. Might I be putting my own health at risk teaching under these conditions?

Last year, even with masks a requirement, students and staff at both districts came down with the virus nearly every week.

With the more infectious and deadly delta variant on the rise, might it be even worse this year – especially if we are lowering precautions?

Last year I burned my sick days waiting to be vaccinated before returning to the physical classroom. This year I could take a leave of absence, but once again my district is making no accommodations for people like me. I have to work or else try to survive on a reduced salary.

When you’re already living paycheck-to-paycheck, that’s not much of an option.

I just don’t understand it.

Don’t my daughter and I have rights?

We hear a lot about the anti-maskers and the anti-vaxxers. A lot about their rights. What about our right to safe schools?

Why is it that the right NOT to wear a mask supersedes the right to go to a school where everyone is required to wear one?

Because it isn’t – as I told my daughter – a matter of everyone having to deal with just the consequences of their own actions. My daughter and I have to deal with the consequences of everyone else’s actions, too.

Or to put it another way – if one person pees in the pool, we’re all swimming in their urine.

If someone else doesn’t wear a mask, hasn’t been vaccinated and hasn’t taken the proper precautions, they can spread the Covid-19 virus through the air and infect whole classrooms of people.

Everyone else could be wearing a mask. It just takes one person who isn’t.

Is it fair that everyone else has to pay the price for one person’s carelessness?

We talk about rights so much we seem to have lost entirely the idea of responsibilities. They go hand-in-hand.

Yes, you have the freedom to do whatever you like so long as it doesn’t hurt another person.

When your actions do hurt others, you have a responsibility to stop. And if you won’t do that, the government has a responsibility to stop you.

But in this anti-intellectual age, we’ve almost completely given up on that idea.

If people take precautions by masking up and getting vaccinated, the worst that will happen is they’ll be unduly inconvenienced. If my daughter and I are forced to exist in the same spaces with people not taking the proper precautions, we could get sick and die.

It’s not like we’re talking about two equal sides here. This is people who believe the overwhelming scientific majority vs. those who get their answers from YouTube videos and political figures. It’s doctors, researchers and immunologists vs. conspiracy theorists, internet trolls and the MyPillow guy.

I’m not even judging – believe what you like so long as it affects only you. But when it affects me, too, then we have a problem.

The lowest common denominator is allowed to run wild. They can do whatever they like and the rest of us just have to put up with it.

That’s why we’re beginning year two and a half of a global pandemic! Not enough of us got the vaccine by the end of the summer.

Now infections are rising and few policy makers have the courage to take a stand and protect those of us who took precautions from those of us who did not.

And don’t tell me our lawmakers don’t have the power. There is a mountain of precedent showing they have.

On the highway, you can’t just go wherever you want, whenever you want. There are lanes, speed limits, traffic lights.

Even vaccines! To enroll in Kindergarten, parents already have to prove their kids have been vaccinated against measles, mumps, rubella and a host of other diseases. Why is Covid-19 any different?

Public safety is a PUBLIC issue not a private one.

It just makes me feel so helpless.

I can’t do anything to protect my students.

I can’t do anything to protect myself.

I can’t do anything to protect my baby girl.

And I can’t wait for the school year to start!

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Will PA Schools Ask Parents to Oversee CDT Testing at Home?

December 12, 2020 stevenmsinger Accountability, Betsy DeVos, capitalism, Child Predators, Child Safety, Civil Rights, computers, Corporate Education "Reform", COVID-19, edtech, Education, Learning, Local Control, Parents, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Schools, Pittsburgh Public Schools, Politics, school closings, Schools, Standardized Testing, Student Mobility, Students, Teachers, Technology CDT, Classroom Diagnostic Tools, Data Recognition Corporation, DRC, economics, education, parents, Pennsylvania, Politics, Profit, schools, standardized testing, Students, teachers

Should parents be asked to administer on-line tests to their own children at home?

Back in May someone at Data Recognition Corporation (DRC) had an idea.

Since a global pandemic had shuttered classrooms, no children were being forced to take the multi-billion dollar testing company’s products.

Federally mandated assessments like the Pennsylvania System of School Assessments (PSSA) and Keystone Exams – which are made by DRC – were cancelled.

And local districts weren’t even making students take assessments like the Classroom Diagnostic Tools (CDT) – an optional test to determine if kids were ready to take the mandatory tests.

If someone at DRC didn’t act quickly, the Commonwealth might ask for a refund on the $1.3 billion it spent on standardized testing in the last eight years.

The Minnesota-based DRC, a division of CTB McGraw-Hill, wasn’t about to issue any refunds.

So someone had to figure out a way to keep children testing even though they were currently at home sheltering in place.

But that’s it!

Tests like the CDTs are taken online anyway. Theoretically, kids could access them in their own homes, they just need someone to help them sign in, navigate the Web portal and make sure they aren’t cheating.

Normally, that would be the job of classroom teachers, but educators can’t do that AND have students test at the same time.

During the pandemic with most schools shuttered, teachers only communicate with students remotely – through applications like video conferencing sites such as Zoom. If teachers proctored the tests, too, that would require students to take the tests on one Web accessible device and have the teachers communicate with them on another.

Can you imagine a child taking a test on her iPad while participating in a Zoom meeting on her cell phone? If she even had both devices? And the bandwidth to run both simultaneously?

That’s where parents come in.

Students can test on their computers or devices with their parents, in-person, troubleshooting and monitoring their behavior.

Thus, a truly stupid idea was born.

To my knowledge, not a single district in the Keystone state has yet taken advantage of this scheme.

And why would they?

Even the most data driven local administrator or test obsessed school director knows that a sure way to infuriate parents is to ask them to do something that is essentially the school’s job.

Moreover, in these difficult times, parents have their hands full just keeping food on the table. If they can somehow get their kids to log in to their online classes every day, that’s a plus. If they can get their kids to actually turn in the assignments, it’s a miracle.

But to add proctoring a test on top of everything else!? Districts would have to be nuts to even try!

However, DRC and the state Department of Education aren’t giving up.

As an increasing number of schools go on-line, the state extended the program through the 2020-21 school year, and some districts are actively considering it.

Here’s how it’s supposed to work.

Classroom teachers would provide parents with testing materials including a log-in ticket for each child in the home taking the test. Students would have to access the test online through the Chrome Internet browser. Then they’d have to copy and past the URL into the browser (which would be provided in the testing materials), and input their usernames and passwords.

Normally, the test is given in writing, science and math, has 50-60 questions and can last between 50 and 90 minutes. However, DRC is recommending districts give a new shorter version of the assessment that has 15-18 questions and can last between 20-30 minutes (10-20 minutes longer for the reading test).

During this time, you should watch your children as they take the tests. It is up to you to make sure they aren’t copying down any information from the test or cheating.

You can let your child have scratch paper, highlighters and calculators. But no preprinted graphic organizers, cell phones, dictionaries, thesauri, grammar or spell checkers, other computers or devices.

And if you have any technical issues, DRC wants you to know the company has your back. Meaning that they can’t and won’t help – call your local school district.

Here’s what DRC’s Parent/Guardian Test Administration Guide recommends for technical support:

“If technical issues arise during testing, parents/guardians are asked to contact the student’s teacher and/or the student’s school office for technical support. DRC customer service staff cannot directly support issues related to each home’s technology configurations.” [Emphasis mine.]

And this is true even if the test, itself, directs parents to contact the corporation:

“If a student receives an error message during the test administration that includes instructions to contact DRC for technical support, the parent or guardian who is assisting with the test administration should contact the student’s teacher or school office for additional instructions. Parents or students should not attempt to contact DRC’s customer service directly for technical assistance.
Teachers and/or a school’s technology staff will have the information needed to provide parents/guardians with the level of support to resolve most technology issues. If additional support is required, a school or district representative will reach out to DRC to determine a resolution.”

However, technical problems are never much of an issue with the CDT – and by “never” I mean ALWAYS.

In the past five years that I’ve given the test to my students in the classroom, they are routinely kicked off the program, have trouble accessing it, and their answers are not always counted, requiring them to re-enter inputs numerous times.

Taking this test remotely is certain to put quite a strain on districts since these technological problems will occur not as they normally do within school buildings but potentially miles away in students’ homes.

Let’s be honest – this plan will not work well.

Few students will be able to take the tests and finish.

Of those that do, even fewer will give it their best effort outside of a classroom setting. In fact, there is no quicker way to turn off a student’s curiosity and motivation to learn than sitting them down in front of a standardized test.

Of those that do somehow manage to finish and score well, there will be no certainty that they didn’t cheat.

Many of my students have secondary electronic devices like cell phones that they use in addition to their iPads. In fact, that’s a part of my remote classes.

I often have them play review games like Kahoot where the questions are displayed through their Zoom screens and they input the answers on their cell phones.

A significant percentage of students will inevitably use these secondary devices to define unknown vocabulary, Google facts and anything else to get the right answers – if they care enough about the results.

In my own remote classes, tests are designed to either assess student skills or access information they already compiled in-class on several study guides which they are encouraged to use during the test. In short, cheating is more work than paying attention in class.

These CDTs will not be like that at all. The scores will be completely worthless – more so than usual.

And few parental proctors will be able to fully comprehend, control or participate in the process.

So why not just skip parents and have classroom teachers proctor the tests through Zoom?

Because of the physical distance involved.

On video conferencing sites, teachers can only see what their students are doing if the kids turn their cameras on. They rarely do.

And even if kids DO turn their cameras on, they have complete control over what those cameras are pointed at, how long they stay on, etc.

It would not take a very enterprising student to cheat while a teacher tried to monitor 20 students online at the same time.

So why not wait until in-person classes resume?

Because it is entirely uncertain when it will be safe to do so given rising infection rates across the country.

However, even if it were safe, most schools are running way below capacity and with hybrid schedules. Students have shortened periods or attend on alternate days. Giving a standardized test under these conditions would be piecemeal, disjointed, discourage kids from even attending school and eat up a tremendous amount of very limited class time.

It would be like taking a dehydrated person’s blood instead of giving him a drink of water.

No matter how you look at it, this is a project designed to fail.

Because it is not about academics. It is about economics.

This is about DRC saving its bottom line. That’s all.

And any administrator or school director who can’t see that is incredibly naive.

Why take these tests at all? Especially during a global pandemic?

We already know students are struggling.

Many are checked out and don’t participate in the remote instruction being offered. And many of those who do participate are having a hard time learning without as much social interaction and hands on activities.

We should be focusing on ways to improve remote instruction. We don’t need a standardized test to tell us that. We certainly don’t need a test before the test.

Most districts use CDT data to place kids in their classes the following year. Kids with high test scores are put in advanced classes, kids with low scores in remedial classes, etc.

We already have daily assessments of how kids are doing. They’re called classroom grades. We don’t have to halt all instruction to allow some corporation to take over for days at a time.

Parents should call their local administrators and school directors and demand the CDTs not be given this year.

In fact, not only should the CDTs not be given this year – they should not be given at all – any year. They’re a total waste of time that dampen kids curiosity and drive to learn.

Moreover, the federally mandated tests (in the Commonwealth, the PSSAs and Keystone Exams) should be cancelled again this year for the same reasons. In fact, they should be abolished altogether.

This is another reason why corporate education reformers have been so adamant that schools remain open during the pandemic. Remote learning means increased difficulty in giving standardized assessments. It’s not that pro-testing fanatics value schooling so much – they don’t want to have to go another year without testing companies making huge profits giving these assessments.

The worst school policies are driven by economics, not academics.

And that’s what we have here, too.

So will any district be stupid enough to attempt to save DRC by sacrificing students and parents?

Only time will tell.

Click here to see DRC’s Parent/Guardian Test Administration Guide

Click here to see DRC’s CDT Public Browser Option – Test and Technology Setup Guidance

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Contact Tracing Does NOT Prove Schools Are Safe During a Pandemic

November 28, 2020November 28, 2020 stevenmsinger Accountability, Betsy DeVos, capitalism, Child Safety, Civil Rights, Compassion, Corporate Education "Reform", COVID-19, Data, Education, Junk science, Learning, Local Control, Parents, Pennsylvania, Politics, Prejudice, school closings, School Funding, Schools, Student Mobility, Students, Teachers child safety, contact tracing, coronavirus, COVID-19, economics, education, Emily Oster, parents, Politics, remote learning, reopening schools, safe schools, schools, Students, teachers

“No close contacts were identified within the school district.”

That’s what it says on today’s email from my district reporting that two elementary staff and one student tested positive for COVID-19.

That’s what it said on Tuesday’s email about a different elementary staff member testing positive.

And the email from last Sunday about two elementary staff, and last Monday about a middle school staff member, and the one from Nov. 19 about an entire Kindergarten class and its teachers being quarantined.

Actually, that last email said the outbreak was limited to the Kindergarten class and teachers – that no close contacts were identified beyond its doors, in the building or the wider district as a whole.

However, considering that at least five more elementary teachers and another student tested positive later, I’m not sure I believe it.

All of which prompts the question – how accurate is contact tracing?

How Contact Tracing Works

Let’s say a little girl, Ava, gets COVID-19.

Where did she get it from?

Let’s do some contact tracing to find out.

We ask Ava to think back two days before she showed symptoms up until now. Who was she in close contact with (within six feet for at least 15 minutes)? She doesn’t remember much, but she gives us a list of two or three people who may fit the bill.

We call them, find that none of them are sick, none have been out of the state or country, ask them to quarantine and that’s it.

So where did Ava get the virus? Who did she get it from?

We don’t know.

And contact tracing rarely produces an answer to that question.

In fact, that’s not really its point.

Contact tracing is a key strategy for preventing the further spread of an infectious disease. Its goal is to limit spread beyond this point.

We already know Ava has the virus (or is suspected of having it). We’re trying to find out who she may have spread it to – as much as, if not more than – who she got it from.

In the process of doing that we may be able to trace the spread of the virus back to its source before Ava. But probably not.

Why Does Contract Tracing Often Fail to Lead Us Back to the Source of an Outbreak?

If we had rapid and ubiquitous COVID tests, perhaps we could achieve that goal. But we don’t.

Moreover, we’re relying on individuals to voluntarily cooperate with contact tracers and to provide detailed information about who they came into contact with over a wide period.

At best, people are scared and not as specific as they might be. At worst, they refuse to participate at all.

Michael Huff, Pennsylvania’s director of testing and contact tracing efforts, said that more than 34,000 new cases were reported over the past week, but case investigators were only successful in reaching about 8,332.

And of those they did reach, ninety-six people refused to quarantine.

His response:

“Why? Because people don’t want to answer the phone. Because people do not realize how important it is to give the information we need to make certain we can control disease.”

To make matters worse, most children who get the disease (especially those younger than 10) are asymptomatic or have only mild symptoms, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Though they are still capable of spreading the disease, they go undetected by contact tracing entirely.

So it is entirely disingenuous to claim contact tracing proves much of anything about how the virus is spread. It’s usefulness is in stopping COVID-19 from going any further.

How Contact Tracing is Used to Make Wild Claims

Students, teachers and other school staff have come down with the virus in significant numbers.

More than 1 million children have been diagnosed with Covid-19 according to a report by the American Academy of Pediatrics released last week.

No such estimate exists for school staff, but about 1 in 4 teachers – nearly 1.5 million – have conditions that raise their risk of getting seriously ill from Coronavirus, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

And though many thousands of school staff have contracted the disease, more than 300 district employees have died nationwide from the virus according to the Associated Press.

Where did all these people get COVID-19?

Contact tracing provides no definitive answer, however, policymakers are pretending that means something.

They’re pretending that the failure of contact tracing to find a direct link means there is no link.

Since contact tracing has rarely been able to identify the source of an outbreak to a particular person in school, they assume that means the virus isn’t spreading much in our schools.

Nonsense!

First of all, there have been significant contact tracing studies that have found these direct links.

In fact, the largest contact tracing study ever conducted shows that children and young adults are potentially much more important to transmitting the virus than previous studies had identified.

The study of more than half a million people conducted by researchers at Princeton, John Hopkins and the University of California at Berkeley suggests the role of schools in the spread of the virus is much greater than previously believed.

However, many policymakers overlook this evidence as contrary or inconclusive.

They insist that contact tracing’s inability to consistently find the causal link is enough to disregard the existence of that link.

Balderdash!

That’s like sniffing the air and claiming with absolute certainty that there is no leak of carbon monoxide. The gas is odorless and colorless. A sniff test will never tell you if it’s present. You need special equipment.

The fact is Ava has only been to two places in the last two weeks – home and at school.

At home there’s just Ava, her three brothers and her parents.

At school, there are hundreds of students and 8-9 staff she comes into contact with every day.

She is probably in closer contact with the people at home than at school. But the sheer number of people she is in contact with at school multiplied by the number of hours and then days – is tremendous!

The likelihood that Ava caught the virus at school is quite high – no matter how good the precautions being taken.

Taking Advantage of Our Ignorance

It is ludicrous to assume that the lack of a direct causal link after only a few months of schools being open to reduced capacity means much of anything.

Add to that the absence of a standard national database of school cases, and it’s beyond absurd.

States don’t compile COVID cases at schools. The federal government doesn’t either. In fact, no one really does.

A few self-proclaimed experts have tried to put together what data they can – and used that data to make extreme claims.

Economist Emily Oster has used a mere two weeks worth of data in September to argue that the virus isn’t spreading much in schools.

And policymakers have jumped on that bandwagon all across the country including director of the CDC Dr. Robert Redfield.

Oster is now trying to have it both ways – defending her argument but chiding anyone for taking it too seriously.

Her Website incorporates data that school districts publish voluntarily, along with some data reported directly to the site. However, Oster says it’s far from complete, and she was surprised Dr. Redfield was citing it as fact.

She told CNN:

“It is totally bananas. I think we are doing as good a job as we can. This is not my field. It’s crazy.”

She later clarified in a series of Tweets, “…it is bananas that there isn’t a better federal effort to get these data….”

“Our data is, I think, the best available. It’s not perfect, and I’ve said that elsewhere many times…”

Besides the case of COVID-19 in schools, Oster is best known for making outrageous and often disproven claims such as that drinking alcoholic beverages during pregnancy is safe.

What About When Outbreaks Happen?

But it’s not just Oster who wants to have it both ways.

Policymakers say kids aren’t getting COVID at school and then walk back such claims when outbreaks happen in communities with high levels of infection.

Salt Lake City, Utah, had one of the biggest outbreaks in schools in the nation. However, that happened as infection rates reached more than double the level at which the state recommended distance learning.

“You can only open your school safely if you have COVID under control in your community,” said Benjamin Linas, an associate professor of medicine and epidemiology at Boston University School of Medicine who has advocated for opening schools under strict safety measures.

Which kind of disproves his position.

If COVID doesn’t spread much in schools, the infection rate in the community shouldn’t matter. If it does, then the virus can and does spread significantly in schools.

The situation in Utah has been partly attributed to community resistance to safety precautions like mask wearing and social distancing. When parents won’t take precautions, neither will children.

Keeping Schools Open During a Pandemic Increases Reckless Behavior

However, this highlights another danger of keeping schools open while infections are high.

Even if viral spread was low in schools, keeping buildings open minimizes the danger of the pandemic.

If Ava can see her friends in school, why shouldn’t she get together with them after school, too?

In-person learning enables more in-person extra-curricular activities, sporting events, parties and other social gatherings outside of school.

Under normal circumstances, this would be great. When there’s a raging pandemic – not so much.

With kids, it’s not always what you say. It’s what you do. And if it’s safe enough to have in-person schooling, kids aren’t as likely to social distance outside of school.

Conclusions

The point isn’t that school cannot exist during a pandemic.

In communities where infection rates are low, even in-person classes can be conducted in relative safety with proper precautions and adequate funding.

However, if the community infection rate is moderate to high, classes should be conducted remotely.

We have to take the virus and the risks it poses seriously.

We have not been doing that.

Helen Bristow, MPH, program manager of Duke’s ABC Science Collaborative, which guides schools on COVID-19 safety, cautions:

“We’re nine to 10 months into a brand-new disease. We’re regularly learning something we didn’t know before.”

We have to stop pretending that the partial data we have is enough to make broad and reckless decisions about keeping students and staff safe during this crisis.

Decisions should be made with an abundance of caution.

Protecting life and health have to be the overriding concerns.

We need a national database of COVID cases in schools for students and staff.

We need free, quick and ubiquitous viral screenings done frequently for all students and staff.

And darn if a working and safe vaccine wouldn’t be helpful, too.

But in the absence of all of these things, we should not be rushing to open schools to in-person classes.

The virus definitely is spreading in our schools.

In most communities, it’s not where the contact tracing leads. It’s the sheer number of cases, the quarantines, staffing shortages and, yes, even funerals.

For all its faults, remote learning is far preferable while the virus runs free.

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Now is Not the Time to Reopen Steel Valley Schools

October 24, 2020 stevenmsinger Accountability, bloggers, Budget, Child Safety, Civil Rights, Compassion, COVID-19, Data, edtech, Education, Healthcare, Learning, Local Control, Parents, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Politics, protest, School Choice, school closings, School Funding, Schools, Student Mobility, Students, Teachers, Technology child safety, coronavirus, COVID-19, education, Homestead, Munhall, pandemic, parents, Pennsylvania, public schools, reopening plan, reopening schools, safe schools, schools, Steel Valley Schools, Students, teachers, West Homestead

On Friday, Johns Hopkins University reported the highest number of cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began.

That’s 83,757 new cases and 943 new deaths.

Now is not the time to reopen schools.

This comes after 77,000 cases were reported the day before – which, itself, had been the record.

At this rate, the US will have 100,000 new cases and 1,000 new deaths a day very soon.

Now is not the time to reopen schools.

Allegheny County has 14,818 cases and 421 deaths.

Cases have increased by 8% this week.

Now is not the time to reopen schools.

I don’t know how to say it any other way.

You just have to look at the facts.

The second wave of COVID-19 is sweeping across the nation, Pennsylvania, and our communities of Munhall, Homestead and West Homestead.

Nearby district McKeesport had an outbreak of at least 9 cases in a little over a week. Baldwin-Whitehall and Hempfield schools closed just last week because of outbreaks.

Steel Valley Schools haven’t had to deal with such problems because the district has been closed to in-person classes since March.

The school board wisely decided to continue virtual instruction for all students at the beginning of the school year. Its plan has been a model other districts should follow – especially those with 1:1 devices like ours.

But now district decision makers are putting forward a new plan to bring students back in the building on a half day basis starting the first week of November.

The school board will review the plan at its work session meeting on Monday in the high school auditorium at 7:30 pm. The meeting also will be live streamed on YouTube.

The board is expected to vote on the plan at its regularly scheduled meeting on Thursday, Oct. 29, at 7 pm.

It’s a terrible plan.

I hate having to say it.

I’m a Steel Valley teacher.

I don’t want to have to contradict the school board and my administrators.

I don’t want to have to insert myself into this debate.

But I feel like I have no other choice.

Since I don’t live in the district, I can’t go to the school board meeting and speak.

And when I have expressed my concerns to those in charge, they have been repeatedly brushed aside.

So I am putting them out there in the public space.

This is what a Steel Valley teacher really thinks about this proposed plan.

This is what I feel I must say even at the risk of my job and future in this district – the proposed plan should not be adopted. We should continue with virtual instruction until infection rates in the county are extremely low.

The proposed plan would have students dividing into two groups – one would attend in the mornings and the other in the afternoons.

Both groups would have all of their classes for 20 minutes each for four days a week – Monday – Thursday. Friday would be a half day virtual learning day.

Consider that students currently have their full classes on-line for four days a week. Wednesday is an asynchronous learning day.

So the new plan would cut instruction time by half.

And this is true even for double period classes. Two 20 minute in-person classes is better than one, but not as good as two 40 minute virtual classes.

Just imagine it.

If this plan is approved, students and staff would be rushing here-and-there for the tiniest fraction of possible instruction in-person, and then rush home to do the mountains of classwork that would be necessary to move forward at all.

And the price for all this breathless activity will be increased risk of infection and bringing it home to family and friends. Not to mention the cost on teachers like me who will be exposed to hundreds of children in enclosed spaces with few windows and poor ventilation on a daily basis.

But parents will be given a choice whether to subject their children to this schedule or not.

Parents will have to decide whether they want their children to attend in-person or receive virtual instruction.

However, the virtual instruction being offered under this new model is not in many cases the same as what children receive now.

Remote students in K-5 would still meet with a classroom teacher on video platforms.

However, remote students in 6-12 would have to enroll in the district cyber program. This is a canned ed tech initiative modeled on credit recovery. They will have minimal to no interactions with classroom teachers or lessons taught by district educators.

This would replace an exemplary district-designed curriculum with a subpar service to parents and students in the hope that they will opt for in-person instruction instead.

No matter which option you choose for your child, from an academic standpoint, this new proposal is a step backward.

Most students would receive less instruction from classroom teachers – either half of what they’re receiving now (but in-person) or next to nothing on-line in grades 6-12.

This plan does not solve any academic problems. It only partially solves the problem of child care.

Let’s be honest. That’s what the priority is here.

With many parents having to leave the home to work, they need babysitting options for their kids.

With school buildings closed, this incurs an additional cost for parents.

Moreover, local business owners find it more difficult to justify keeping their own establishments open to the public – bars, restaurants, etc. – while schools are closed.

But we already know what the result of such a plan will be.

District buildings were open exactly two days to students since the pandemic began – Sept 8 and Oct 6.

These were transition days where only 5th and 9th grade students were in the buildings. Both instances resulted in a teacher testing positive for COVID-19.

Imagine this large scale.

I’m sorry, but there are things more important than childcare right now.

The reason we are experiencing a second wave of COVID is because of plans like this one.

You can’t have some schools and businesses doing the right thing and others doing whatever they want.

That’s not how you stem the spread of a deadly virus.

Sensible districts like ours put safety first. Others reopened their classrooms with hybrid or other models.

The result is an increase in infections.

And that will continue to happen until we work together to provide a coordinated defense against the pandemic.

You can’t have half of the schools close their doors and the other half keep them open and expect the virus to just stop. You can’t have some people wear facial masks in public and others go without and expect the virus to disappear.

We need to work together or else prepare ourselves to hunker down for a very long COVID season. Or – even worse – a very short one.

If you are a resident of Munhall, Homestead or West Homestead and you feel the same way I do, I am begging you to go to the school board meetings.

Please tell the board not to proceed with this plan.

It will result in many, many people getting sick.

Some may die. Others may have life-long debilitating complications as a result of the virus.

That’s just not worth it.

That’s just not worth a little more in-person instruction and a little less out-of-pocket childcare costs.

Healthcare, hospital stays and funeral preparations are much more expensive.

Thank you for hearing me out.

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Parental Choice Won’t Save Us From Unsafe School Reopening Plans

August 10, 2020 stevenmsinger Accountability, Budget, capitalism, Child Safety, Civil Rights, Compassion, computers, edtech, Education, Labor, Learning, Local Control, Parents, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Public Schools, Politics, Poverty, Prejudice, protest, School Choice, School Funding, Schools, small class size, Student Mobility, Students, teacher autonomy, Teachers, Technology, Tom Wolf, Unions coronavirus, COVID-19, education, pandemic, parental rights, parents, reopening schools, school board, Students, teachers, technology, virtual learning

I am the parent of a public school student.

And I have a choice.

I get to decide whether my daughter will go back to school in-person or online.

That’s the only thing that should matter to me.

At least, that’s what the superintendent of my home district told me when I went before school directors last week asking them to reconsider administration’s unsafe reopening plan.

At McKeesport Area School District (MASD), Dr. Mark Holtzman and administration propose unlocking the doors for half day in-person classes Mondays through Fridays.

Kids would be split into two groups – one attending in the mornings, the other in the afternoons. That way, with buildings at half capacity, there would be enough physical space for social distancing. The remainder of the time, kids would be learning online.

However, if you don’t approve, you can opt out.

Any parent who is uncomfortable with this plan could keep his or her children home and have them participate in the district’s existent cyber program.

The board hasn’t voted on the proposal yet. It won’t do so until Wednesday.

But as I stood up there at the podium last week outlining all the ways this scheme was unsafe and asking my duly-elected representatives to instead consider distance learning for all children, Holtzman told me to be happy I could choose whatever I wanted for my own child and sit back down.

Which brings up the question – is parental choice enough?

Is the fact that I can choose for my daughter the only concern I should have?

Thankfully, no one is forcing me to subject my child to in-person classes. If I don’t think they’re safe, I can keep her away and still have access to an education for her through the Internet.

What else do I want?

Plenty.

First of all, the quality of education offered by the district cyber program is not the same as the district could provide if all students were enrolled in virtual classes.

Dr. Holtzman has outlined what that would look like if school buildings were shut down by the governor or the district were overcome with sick students, teachers and/or family.

Teachers would provide synchronous classes online through video platforms like Zoom. Students would get to interact virtually with each other and their teachers.

By contrast, the existent cyber program is asychronous. Students watch videos and do assignments at their own pace, but human contact and social interaction – even via the Internet – is much harder to come by.

Let’s be honest – both options pale in comparison to face-to-face instruction. But the kind of instruction students will receive in-person during this global pandemic will not be face-to-face. Students will interact behind masks and plexiglass barriers under an ever present shadow of fear and menace. Under the proposed MASD plan, teachers would have a mere 20 minutes a period to try to get something done other than just taking role, attempting to get students to comply with safety precautions and calming their fears.

Both cyber options are preferable because they avoid these problems. But one of them – the synchronous option with a dedicated class and a teacher behind the curriculum – is superior to the one being offered.

Is it selfish to want the better plan for my daughter?

Should I just be glad I have a choice at all? Should I put the individual good of my child aside for the good of others?

No. Because administration’s plan is not in the best interests of other children, either.

If we reopen schools to in-person classes, chances are good that kids will get sick.

A new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics found more than 97,000 children tested positive for Covid-19 just in the last two weeks of July.

To put that in context, out of more than 5 million people diagnosed with the virus in the US, approximately 338,00 are children.

And nearly a third of those cases have come as we’ve reopened schools and summer camps, as we’ve increasingly exposed kids to the virus.

Children typically had low infection rates because schools were closed in March and kids were quarantined before the virus had spread through most of the country.

Since June, there have been numerous outbreaks at summer schools in Massachusett s, Arkansas, Arizona, Connecticut, New York, Wisconsin, Missouri, Michigan, and Hawaii, among others. And with some schools now starting their academic year, outbreaks have been even more numerous.

I live in Allegheny County – the western Pennsylvania region around Pittsburgh – where Covid cases have spiked.

Many local school districts like East Allegheny, Woodland Hills and Wilkinsburg have passed plans to start the year with classes being conducted 100% online. South Allegheny and Duquesne City Schools just passed such plans in the last few days. And the biggest district in this part of the state – Pittsburgh Public Schools – has done the same.

If the virus is present in the community – as county health department data shows – opening the schools to students also opens them to Coronavirus.

But with the schools open, the virus will no longer be confined to just a few homes. It will come with kids to class and spread among students and staff before it’s brought to their homes as well.

That’s how epidemics work. Opening the schools will spread the virus throughout the entire community.

And that will affect me, too, regardless of whether I choose a cyber option for my daughter or not.

When I go to the local grocery store, gas up my car, even go for a walk – I will be more likely to come into contact with someone infected with the virus and get sick.

I can make the safe decision for my family but still suffer the consequences of the irresponsible decisions of others – especially school directors.
In fact, it doesn’t even have to be my own local school board. The decisions of school directors in neighboring districts affects me, too.

After all, in my part of the state, school districts are pretty small geographically – not nearly as large as most counties. There are 42 public districts in Allegheny County, alone. So it should be no surprise that I routinely travel through several different districts just running day-to-day errands.

MASD school directors can decide to keep buildings closed (and I hope they will) but if a district just one township or borough over decides differently, we will suffer the consequences in McKeesport, too.

This is why issues of public safety are usually decided at the county, state or federal level. These decisions affect all of us, but these days no one wants to take the responsibility.

It doesn’t even make sense democratically.

Since I don’t live in more than one district, I don’t get a say in what school directors at neighboring districts decide. I just have a say in what happens in my tiny portion of the world. But the consequences are not nearly as respectful of our man-made borders.

For instance, I work as a teacher at a neighboring district. But since I do not live there, I am barred from speaking at the board meetings unless I am invited to speak as an employee of the district.

I can give a report as part of the safety commission if invited by administrators, but I can’t otherwise sign up to speak as an employee concerned about how district policies affects me, my students or their families.

I’m a believer in local control, but sometimes control can be too localized.

This is why you haven’t heard much from many educators. If they’re allowed to speak, they’re often afraid of how doing so will make them a target for reprisals. If they can get their union to back them, they can speak collectively that way, but otherwise, they have no pathway to being heard at all.

As a parent, I get a choice for my child in my district.

But what choice do teachers have – especially if they don’t live where they teach?

If school directors decide to reopen to in-person classes, they’re forcing educators to decide between their employment and their own families. If teachers return to the classroom with their students in a physical setting, they risk not only their own lives but that of their friends and families.

That concerns me even with my choices as a parent.

I’ve had some outstanding teachers. My daughter loves her teachers. Is it okay if I don’t want to see them get sick and their lives cut short? If I worry about my own chances of surviving the pandemic and the demands of my employer?

Finally, what about people of color? The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says African Americans and other minorities are hospitalized from the virus four to five times more often than white people.

I think their lives matter. But as minorities and people subjected to systemic inequalities, they get less of a say in policy. Should decisions that disproportionately impact their health really be up to a committee? Doesn’t their right to life surpass the decisions making abilities of a handful of elected officials or even middle and upper class parents?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m thankful I have choices as a parent for how my daughter is educated.

But that doesn’t overcome my concerns about a bad school reopening strategy.

School directors need to make reopening decisions that are in the best interests of everyone because we’re all in this together.

That’s what so many folks seem to be forgetting.

Yes, even from a completely selfish point of view, unsafe school reopening will affect each of us.

But epidemics spread through communities. Only communities can effectively combat them.

Dividing ourselves into smaller and smaller fiefdoms only empowers the virus. If we all try to fight Covid-19 individually, we will lose.

We have to understand that what’s good for our friends and neighbors is in our individual interest, too.

We have to care about our fellow human beings.

That’s why I will continue to fight these unsafe plans and ask school directors to reopen schools virtually.

That’s the path I’ve chosen.

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Pennsylvania Wants YOU to Give Standardized Tests to Your Kids at Home

May 23, 2020May 23, 2020 stevenmsinger Accountability, Betsy DeVos, capitalism, Child Predators, Child Safety, Civil Rights, computers, Corporate Education "Reform", Data, Democrat, edtech, Education, home school, Keystone Exams, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Philadelphia Schools, Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Public Schools, Politics, Poverty, Prejudice, privatization, protest, Racism, Republican, school closings, School Funding, Schools, Social Justice, Standardized Testing, Students, Teachers, Technology CDT, Classroom Diagnostic Tools, Data Recognition Corporation, education, high stakes testing, Opt Out, parental rights, parents, Pennsylvania, Politics, Profit, public schools, schools, standardized testing, Students, teachers, teaching to the test, Test Prep, test-based accountability, transparency

A multi-million dollar corporation wants to make sure Pennsylvania’s children keep getting standardized tests.

Data Recognition Corporation (DRC) and the state Department of Education are providing the optional Classroom Diagnostic Tools (CDT) assessments for use in students’ homes.

Students are not required to take the CDT in the Commonwealth unless their district decides to give it. The test is encouraged by the state as a way of telling how students will do on the required tests.

With this new option, parents finally can give multiple choice standardized tests to their own children on-line.

Which is kind of hilarious because no one really asked for that.

In fact, many parents, teachers and students breathed a sigh of relief when the requirement that students take high stakes assessments was waived this year nationwide.

With the Coronavirus pandemic closing most school buildings and students transitioning to on-line classes created from scratch by their teachers, there hasn’t been much time for anything else.

But the folks at DRC, a division of CTB McGraw-Hill, have been busy, too.

The Minnesota-based corporation sent out an email written by Matthew Stem, Deputy Secretary of Elementary and Secondary Education at the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) to district contacts from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia encouraging the use of this newly available online CDT.

“I am pleased to announce that PDE is providing the Classroom Diagnostic Tools (CDT) as an optional additional resource for your Continuity of Education Plan,” Stem began.

“We anticipate that this option will be available through the reopening of schools in 2020.”

So if school boards and administrators choose, districts could assign the CDT at the end of this school year, during the summer or at the start of next school year even if school buildings are not yet open due to lingering pandemic problems.

This is the kind of academic continuity we should be rethinking not finding new ways to force on children.

For some state officials and testing executives perhaps it’s comforting that no matter what happens in this crazy world, at least we’ll still be able to sort and rank kids into Below Basic, Basic, Proficient or Advanced.

The rest of us would prefer more authentic education and assessment.

EVERYDAY USAGE

It should be noted that the CDT is not, in itself, a high stakes test.

It’s an optional test districts can assign to students in reading, math and science to predict how well they’ll do on the actual high stakes tests.

Normally, districts are encouraged (but not required) to give the CDT to students multiple times a year to determine where they’ll struggle on DRC’s other fine products like the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) tests given to children in grades 3-8 and the Keystone Exams given to high schoolers.

Of course this data is often used to determine which classes students are placed in, so it can play a huge role in deciding which resources and opportunities kids have.

A child who scores well can get in the advanced courses and gain access to all the field trips, guest speakers, pizza parties and other perks. Kids who score badly are often placed in remedial courses where they forgo all the glitz for extra test prep and the abiding label that they’re inferior to their classmates in the higher academic tracks.

However, you don’t really need the CDT to make such placements. Just put all the kids from wealthier families in the higher courses and kids living in poverty in the lower courses and you’ll have pretty much the same distribution.

Because standardized testing doesn’t really measure academics. It appraises socio-economics. And race. Let’s not forget race!

The Coronavirus pandemic actually leveled the playing field for the first time in nearly a century. Everyone – rich and poor – had their education disrupted.

But at least now with the reintroduction of the CDT, we can continue to discriminate against the poor black kids while privileging the richer whiter ones.

In some ways, that’s just the everyday injustice of American school policy.

However, the method DRC and PDE are using to clear the way for this particular scheme is truly spectacular.

A DISASTER WAITING TO HAPPEN

They’re enlisting parents as test proctors.

Normally, as a classroom teacher when my administrator demands I give the CDT to my students, I have to block out a few days and give the tests, myself.

I have to pass out entry tickets with each student’s username and password so they can login to the DRC app on their iPads and take the test.

If there’s a problem signing in, I have to try and fix it.

If kids are kicked out of the testing program and can’t sign back in, I have to deal with it.

If there’s a problem with the Internet connection…. I think you get the idea.

And all of these problems are extremely common.

In the last five years of giving the CDT, I have never had a single day go by when I didn’t experience multiple technological snafus, disruptions or downright clusters.

And that’s not to say anything of the times students read a question, don’t understand what it’s asking, wave me over and I’m just as dumbfounded as they are.

In fact, the only positive I can imagine from such a situation is that parents will finally get to see how badly written and full of errors these tests truly are. Even the guidance materials are full of misspellings and confusing verbiage.

When presented with this nonsense, many kids simply zone out, clicking random answers so they can be done as soon as possible and then put their heads down for the remainder of the time.

This is the lions den the state wants to throw parents into.

PARENTS AS CORPORATE DEFENSE

Admittedly, parents won’t have a full class of 20-30 students to deal with, but complications are guaranteed.

However, the good folks at DRC are prepared for that.

They have a handy “Parent/Guardian Test Administration Guide.”

Here’s what it has to say on ASSESSMENT SECURITY:

“Parents/Guardians should remind their student that the CDT test content must remain secure at all times. None of the materials from the online test may be copied or recorded in any manner.”

That’s quite a step down from what the same company warns students on the PSSA:

“…Copying of material in any manner, including the taking of a photograph, is a violation of the federal Copyright Act. Penalties for violations of the Copyright Act may include the cost of replacing the compromised test item(s) or a fine of no less than $750 up to $30,000 for a single violation. 17 U.S.C. $ 101 et seq”

I guess that since the CDT questions are just the ones that prepare you for the REAL test questions, it doesn’t matter as much if their security is put at risk here. Or perhaps the risk of letting kids go without testing and having people realize how unnecessary these tests are is greater than any loss in test security or accuracy.

TECHNICAL ISSUES EXPECTED

The guide also cautions that the test only may be taken using a Google Chrome Internet browser. If students don’t have one installed, there is a link for parents to follow so they can install it for their kids.

For some parents, I’m sure this would be no problem. But many of my students’ parents have little access or knowledge of technology. They would pull out their hair at the very suggestion and come running to teachers and administrators for help.

Which is exactly what DRC suggests they do.

Here’s what the guide recommends for technical support:

“If technical issues arise during testing, parents/guardians are asked to contact the student’s teacher and/or the student’s school office for technical support. DRC customer service staff cannot directly support issues related to each home’s technology configurations.” [Emphasis mine.]

And this is true even if the test, itself, directs parents to contact the corporation:

“If a student receives an error message during the test administration that includes instructions to contact DRC for technical support, the parent or guardian who is assisting with the test administration should contact the student’s teacher or school office for additional instructions. Parents or students should not attempt to contact DRC’s customer service directly for technical assistance.

Teachers and/or a school’s technology staff will have the information needed to provide parents/guardians with the level of support to resolve most technology issues. If additional support is required, a school or district representative will reach out to DRC to determine a resolution.”

This is certain to put quite a strain on districts since these technological problems will occur not as they normally do within school buildings but potentially miles away in students’ homes.

Moreover, one of the most common glitches with the CDT often occurs with the entry tickets. These are typically printed by administrators and distributed to teachers who give them to students on test day. Students use the logins and passwords to gain access to the tests.

Stem’s plan would have these tickets distributed digitally over Google Classroom or whatever file sharing service is being utilized.

So this requires yet another level of distance and technological competency from parents and students just to access the tests. And once that access is gained, these logins need to be readily available in the highly likely event that students get booted from the program and have to reenter this data.

I’m sure there will be noooooooo problems at all with this. It will run very smoothly.

PARENTS AS PRISON GUARDS

But let’s say parents are able to help their children login to the test and no technical problems arise.

Can parents let their kids simply take the test alone up in their rooms?

No.

As a test proctor, you are expected to watch your children every second they’re testing to ensure they aren’t copying any information or cheating.

One concession DRC makes is that parents are encouraged to give the shorter Diagnostic Category CDT and not the full version. I’m sure distinguishing between the two on your child’s screen will be no problem at all.

This would reduce the test to 35-45 minutes – about half of the full CDT. However, times may vary – my own students have taken more than 180 minutes sometimes to finish the full version.

Still, none of this comes close to my favorite part of this catastrophe in waiting.

If parents still are uncertain about how to do all this, there is a link to a series of training videos on the PDE Website.

These are pretty much the same videos teachers are required to watch every year before giving the CDTs.

As you can imagine, they are perhaps our favorite moments of the year. We sometimes watch them over and over again. Not because they’re so riveting but because we’re required to before we give these infernal tests!

Oh, parents, you are in for a treat if your district decides to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity!

AN IMPOSITION ON PARENT’S TIME

Speaking of which, I wonder when Stem thinks parents will have the time to do all this.

Parents are working hard just to make ends meet. They’re trying to earn enough money to support the household, cook dinner, clean house, do laundry, and a host of other things.

Teaching is a full-time job and most parents don’t have the privilege to set aside that kind of time nor are they disposed to do this stuff in the first place.

When I teach my students over ZOOM, I rarely see parents guiding their kids through the lessons.

If a kid falls asleep, it’s up to me to somehow prod him awake over the Internet. If a child isn’t paying attention or playing on her phone, it’s up to me to direct her back on task.

In class, that’s fine. It’s my job and I’m right there in front of the child.

On-line, I cannot do it nearly as effectively. But I do my best because I can’t realistically expect all parents to step in here.

Yet DRC is expecting parents to do just that by becoming test proctors.

CONCLUSIONS

This is a terrible idea.

It will lead to fabulous disasters where teachers, administrators and parents fumble to make things work as DRC pockets our tax dollars.

Over the past decade, Pennsylvania and local school districts paid more than $1.3 billion for standardized testing. In particular, the state paid DRC more than $741 million for the PSSAs, Keystone Exams and CDT tests. Two of three DRC contracts were given sole source no-bid extensions.

Imagine what cash-strapped districts could do with that money.

Yet Stem, a former assistant superintendent in Berks County and former administrator in Lancaster, thinks we should give this money to corporations and then break our own backs meeting their needs.

Even if we could give the CDTs seamlessly online at home, it would hurt our most underprivileged children by taking away opportunities and unjustly labeling them failures.

No, if you ask me,it is not time to try to save standardized testing with a tone deaf plan to enlist parents as test proctors while kids are chained to the Internet.

It’s well past time to rethink the value of these tests in the first place.

We don’t need them.

Teachers can assess learning without the help of corporate America.

Our kids and their families deserve better than this.

Contact your local school directors and demand they NOT give the CDT – not now, not during the Coronavirus pandemic, not when the crisis is over, not ever again.

And if they won’t listen, opt your children out of standardized testing including diagnostics like the CDT. Then run for school board, yourself, with other likeminded parents and community members.

Write letters to the editor of your local paper, make some noise.

The people still hold the power. And we’re all being tested in more ways than one.

THE FULL EMAIL:

The following communication was initially broadcast by the Pennsylvania Department of Education on May 18, 2020. DRC is forwarding the same message to the district and school contacts on file in our databases.

May 18, 2020

To: Superintendents, Principals, Charter School CEOs, and IU Directors
From: Matt Stem, Deputy Secretary
Subject: Availability of the Classroom Diagnostic Tools (CDT) for use by students at home

I am pleased to announce that PDE is providing the Classroom Diagnostic Tools (CDT) as an optional additional resource for your Continuity of Education Plan. The CDT is a set of online tools designed to provide diagnostic information to guide instruction and provide support to students and teachers. It is aligned with the content assessed on the PSSA and Keystone exams. We anticipate that this option will be available through the reopening of schools in 2020.

This at-home testing option will allow students to access the CDT from a “public” browser without having it installed on their computers or being configured to their District’s Central Office Services network. The test-setup tasks that teachers/school assessment coordinators routinely complete for classroom administrations of the CDT are the same for the at-home administrations. Test tickets (login credentials) will be distributed directly to the students by school staff. Teachers will have access to all CDT data/reports from the at-home administrations as usual. An overview of the at-home testing option and a guidance document for parents/guardians can be accessed from the following links (or directly from DRC’s INSIGHT Portal under General Information >> Documents >> 2019-2020 Classroom Diagnostic Tools >> Memos/Documents).

At-Home Testing Overview: https://pa.drcedirect.com/Documents/Unsecure/Doc.aspx?id=32997b8e-13cf-42f0-9c2c-af1689d89323
Parent/Guardian Guidance: https://pa.drcedirect.com/Documents/Unsecure/Doc.aspx?id=cc242168-e06e-44d1-9fd4-ef859a519dab

All CDTs (Full and Diagnostic Category) are available for use. However, it is highly recommended to only have students take the Diagnostic Category CDTs at this time. Students and their parents/guardians may benefit from a much shorter testing experience using the Diagnostic Category CDTs that are aligned to current instructional content. The shorter, more focused testing will still provide teachers and administrators with the same level of reporting and resources to adjust instruction and planning during distance learning.

Thank you for all your efforts to support students during this challenging time. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please contact the curriculum coordinator or CDT point of contact at your local Intermediate Unit. If you are interested in using CDT for the first time, contact PDE here.

Sincerely,

Matthew Stem
Deputy Secretary, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education
Pennsylvania Department of Education

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gadflyonthewallblog

"To sting people and whip them into a fury, all in the service of truth."

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