What Would Re-Opened Schools Look Like? Who Decides?

The UFT President Michael Mulgrew has been holding virtual meetings with teacher union (UFT) members: focus groups to get 1:1 feedback, scores of them as well as Town Halls, virtual meetings with many hundreds of members. One of the first questions was about school re-openings. Mulgrew was frank, the re-opening meetings are just beginning, nothing will be decided for many weeks, on the table, half days to reduce class size in the elementary schools, alternate days in upper grades, and, of course, safety first will be the guide.

A few days ago the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued long delayed guidance; however, Washington has no authority over school openings or closing, these decisions are reserved for the states.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

 Governor Cuomo has daily briefing and opening sections of the state to phase 1 openings, Long Island may join the others areas next week. (See detailed re-opening guide here).

The CDC guidance has a special section for schools with specific recommendations.

o Ensure that student and staff groupings are as static as possible by having the same group of children stay with the same staff (all day for young children, and as much as possible for older children).

o Restrict mixing between groups.

o Cancel all field trips, inter-group events, and extracurricular activities.

o Limit gatherings, events, and extracurricular activities to those that can maintain social distancing, support proper hand hygiene, and restrict attendance of those from higher transmission areas.

o Restrict nonessential visitors, volunteers, and activities involving other groups at the same time.

o Space seating/desks to at least six feet apart.

o Turn desks to face in the same direction (rather than facing each other), or have students sit on only one side of tables, spaced apart.

o Close communal use spaces such as dining halls and playgrounds if possible; otherwise stagger use and disinfect in between use.

o If a cafeteria or group dining room is typically used, serve meals in classrooms instead. Serve individually plated meals and hold activities in separate classrooms and ensure the safety of children with food allergies.

o Stagger arrival and drop-off times or locations, or put in place other protocols to limit close contact with parents or caregivers as much as possible.

o Create social distance between children on school buses (for example, seating children one child per seat, every other row) where possible

Read the entire school section here

The CDC sets a very high bar, for many unrealistic for schools; CDC guidance is not a requirement; the governor can accept the CDC guidance, can set New York State opening standards or can derogate the standards to school districts.

What will be the role of teacher unions? Parent groups? Other elected bodies, such as school boards, local elected leaders or the Assembly and Senate?

In New York City the UFT, the teacher union will play a major role.

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the national teacher union led by Randi Weingarten released a data-based guide to schools openings, read here

The unanswered questions are endless: will high risk teachers (by age or health concerns) be required to return to school or can they continue to remote instruct in some capacity?

What happens in a school if a child or teacher tests positive? Does the entire school return to remote instruction?

What would instruction look like in a world of fully implemented CDC guidance?

The NYU Metro Center issued a report, GUIDANCE ON CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE-SUSTAINING SCHOOL REOPENINGS: Centering Equity to Humanize the Process of Coming Back Together.(Read  report here).

The country is on the brink of beginning again. And as we restart our national engines, let’s do so with a steady and caution hand, not taking for granted the sobering lessons that COVID-19 is teaching us: that in a nation as fundamentally carved out of its differences as ours, equity matters. Thus, it would be a mistake to imagine the school reopening process absent an acknowledgement that something fundamentally has taken place in our world, that the thing that interrupted life for millions of Americans afflicted vulnerable populations in ways disproportionate to more privileged populations. In acknowledging this, we provide this document—a set of suggestions and topics to think about—for humanizing the school reopening process

The report goes far beyond the CDC guidance and sees an opportunity,

A joy-based reimagining of schooling will involve more human-to-human interaction, collaborative learning, less or no homework, very few assessments that are continuous in nature and group assessments that feel less burdensome. A joy-based reimagining of schooling is one where we replicate spaces that center students of the global majority (BIPOC)* and let go of anything that continues to marginalize, exclude, and harm them.

 * Black/Indigenous People of Color

 

For many the NYU Metro Center paper will be treated with exultation, a fresh start, for others, disdain, let’s return to an instructional model that we have spent decades fine-tuning.

A  respected college professor,Sarah Woulfin,

Yessss! I’ve shared this plan with a couple of districts

The highly influential LI Opt Outs leader, Jeanette Deutermann gives thoughtful advice, with over 150 comments, many angry …

Jeanette Brunelle Deutermann

I know the question of whether schools will reopen in the fall, and if so what they will look like, is scary and making everyone anxious (with anger mixing into that anxiety). … Everyone is arguing over things that are just theories right now …please take a breath. The virus itself is not political. The solution for schools won’t be either. I don’t care if you believe the virus is real or not. It doesn’t change the fact that September will be unrecognizable. That is the only fact we know. The real work will be in designing something that works to keep our kids and school staff safe.

I am updating this by saying that I’m not urging school officials not to begin planning. I’m urging parents not to go to war over theoretical possibilities. The work on this will be a four month process that is just beginning. One thing is for sure- raging battles in our communities amongst each other will NOT benefit the process…

As Jeanette says, “please, take a breath,” any decision will be driven by data and, the decisions require extremely complicated logistics. How do you create social distancing on school buses? How do you arrange bus schedules if schools go to separate morning and afternoon sessions?  And on and on.

Stress is unhealthy: exercise, meditate, healthy diet, take care of yourself, anger can be corrosive.

Listen to Carole King, “You’ve Got a Friend”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qde5NMy7WTU

Graduation Requirements: Should We Move the Bar Upwards?

Occasionally at the end of a class when a kid was leaving room s/he would say, “Gee Mr. G; that was really hard.” I smiled; I knew I was doing my job.

I knew if students came to my class every day, and stayed engaged, the Regents Examination would be a breeze.  In my first period class I would bring a box of donut holes, enough for half the class, first come, first served: I had surprisingly good attendance at 8 am.

The Board of Regents (BOR) and the New York State Department of Education (NYSED) are engaged in a lengthy review of high school graduation requirements, called Graduation Measures: view the webpage here.

Regional Meetings will be held across the state from now until April, see the date, time and location of the meetings here.

The format of the meetings will be tables of attendees, facilitated by the host district, discussing five questions. Read a thorough description of the process here,

The five questions:

 

1. What do we want students to know and to be able to do before they graduate?

 

2. How do we want students to demonstrate such knowledge and skills?

 

3. How do you measure learning and achievement (as it pertains to the answers to #2 above) to ensure they are indicators of high school completion?

 

4. How can measures of achievement accurately reflect the skills and knowledge of our special populations, such as students with disabilities and English language learners?

 

5. What course requirements or examinations will ensure that students are prepared for college and careers or civic engagement?

 

Unfortunately the public debate has almost entirely dealt with Regents Examinations.

Should the exams be continued? Abolished? Reduced in importance? Should portfolios replace the exams? Should the exams be part of a composite grade, and, if so, how much should the exams count?

The five questions supra have pretty much been ignored.

I wrote supporting retaining Regents Examination here  as did Alan Singer here.

Marc Korashan, an experienced educator demurred here and, the former # 2 at the New York City Department of Education, Eric Nadelstern commented,

The single most devastating condemnation of American education is that our high schools haven’t changed since 1968 (or 1896 more likely). However, schools such as those in the Consortium have developed time-tested structures and instructional approaches for the past 35 years. It’s long overdue that we’ve finally decided to pay attention to our successes with an eye toward how these break the mold schools can infirm systemic secondary education reform.

What dies “break the mold” schools mean?

 Jeanette Deuterman, the leader of Long Island Opt Outs argues that Regents scores should be part of a composite score, and a minor part, she calls the process, “Do Not Harm.” (Read here)

I fear limiting the discussion to Regents Exams is short sighted. Is the primary goal to increase graduation rates or to prepare students for the world after high school?

We know that students who barely pass Regents do poorly in community colleges. The retention rates are abysmal. We also know that City College and Baruch, two CUNY schools lead the nation in moving students out of poverty into the middle class.(See Raj Chetty research here) and both entrance requirements and coursework are rigorous.

The My Brothers Keeper (MBK) initiative in  a number of unscreened Hudson Valley high schools have produced impressive results for Young Men of Color. (Read description of practices here).

Success in the MBK schools:  rigorous is instruction, access to advance coursework including Advanced Placement classes, in other words keeping  the bar high.

I fear we are edging towards moving the bar lower.

At a New York City Council hearing an invited guest asked, “Why did I have to take Algebra 1, I was never going to use it,” to applause from the audience.

As I review data on the New York State data portals and the New York City school performance dashboards fewer and fewer students move up ladder. After passing Algebra 1 fewer students take the Geometry Regents and fewer still take the Algebra 2 Regents. How many schools even offer pre-calculus, or, heaven forbid, Advanced Placement Math courses. The same can be said for science, after Living Environment fewer take Chemistry and very few take Physics, in fact, how many schools even offer Physics?  Do high schools offer Computer Science courses? How about basic computer skills, such as, Power Point, Excel and other basic computational skills?

Is Accounting offered in any high schools?

The debate should move away from the narrow discussions about the future of Regents Examinations and move to the first question at the Regional Meeting,

What do we want students to know and to be able to do before they graduate?

A just released research paper from Education Next, “End the ‘Easy A’: Tougher grading standards set more students up for success” might move us in a better direction.

Seth Gershenson writes,

My results confirm that “everyone gets a gold star” is not a victimless mentality. Not only do students learn more from tougher teachers, but they also do better in math classes up to two years later. The size of these effects is on the order of replacing an average teacher with one near the top of her game.

 Parents faced with stressed-out children and an increasingly competitive college-admissions process may resist calls for more-rigorous grading. Educators and school leaders may be tempted to satisfy them, which is part of how the grade-inflation problem was created to begin with. But policymakers and other decision-makers would deserve a genuine A if they reminded parents, principals, and teachers that they aren’t doing students any favors by depriving them of appropriate academic challenges or an accurate picture of their knowledge, skills, and abilities.

It’s twenty-five years since we discussed graduation requirements: we better get it right!