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Planning for ELA in an age of remote learning
Editor’s note: This blog post was first published by Partnership Schools.
Topics
Commentary
VIDEO: Fordham staffers’ new “coworkers”: A slideshow to brighten your day
We at Fordham, like so many around the world, are working at home. Our usual colleagues have been replaced by new “coworkers.” These are often of the younger variety, be they human children or beloved family pets. But not always. This is for them:
Commentary
Commentary
What we’re learning about remote learning
Days after we shut down all twenty-four of our New York City schools, we opened back up as a remote learning organization serving nearly 10,000 students in their homes.
Commentary
Papa Academy
Ours isn’t nearly as sophisticated or elaborate as the “Grandparents’ Academy” that Jake Halpern described in the New York Times, but after ten days of experimenting with it, I’ve had fun, my grandchildren have taken it seriously and worked at it, and we’ve all learned a thing or two.
Commentary
In wake of COVID-19, teacher unions could learn from Rhode Island
If you had asked me a few weeks ago if I’d be publicly lauding the teachers unions in my state of Rhode Island, I would have probably shot back with a quick “sure, when hell freezes over.” I am a former union member in two states (NEA) and have gone on the record repeatedly to say that I don’t think unions—at least in their current form—should be anywhere near public education.
Commentary
Do-it-yourself educational lessons
Joy Hakim runs a storyteller's website intended for anyone who likes to learn—at home, in school, or wherever. It may take you places in the past you haven't been before. It deals with big ideas and true stories, many of which are about science. Its offerings may be helpful for families adjusting to home instruction during the COVID-19 crisis.
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Schooling without school buildings: Early lessons from Partnership Schools
Nearly every school building in the country has now closed to help stem the spread of coronavirus.
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Coronavirus has dealt a massive blow to Catholic schools
As the nation works to stem the spread of coronavirus, American schools are bearing an enormous part of the burden. With as many as nine in ten schools now closed, almost overnight they have retooled to navigate a new era of large-scale distance learning in an effort to meet the academic needs of the dispersed students they serve.
Commentary
School accountability in the time of virus
We can’t hold schools accountable for academic results over the next three months. Too much is out of their control. But there are steps that they—and their districts, networks and states—can and should take to ensure that kids learn and to encourage transparency. Once they deploy online assignments, for example, what about simple counts of how many kids actually complete them? What steps are schools and teachers taking to contact, nudge and help those who aren’t?
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Betsy DeVos deserves our thanks for removing a major barrier to remote learning
As a Never-Trumper who suggested to Secretary DeVos that she resign after the 2018 election, I haven’t exactly been this Administration’s biggest fan.
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Keep kids learning while school is out: Bring back “current events”
I’m a disciple of E.D. Hirsch, Jr.’s prodigious work on reading and language proficiency, and an unabashed fan of his Core Knowledge curriculum (full disclosure: I was recently invited to join the board of the Core Knowledge Foundation).
Podcast
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance
The Education Gadfly Show: COVID-19 concerns: Special education and accountability
On this week’s podcast, Mike Petrilli and Checker Finn discuss Betsy DeVos’s quick and laudable U-turn on distance learning and
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Can schools avert the coronavirus cliff?
Last week, schools across the nation shuttered their doors en masse, prompted by an unprecedented public health scare, the ramifications of which are yet to be fully realized.
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From the top down: A fifty-state look at school choice transportation policy
A plethora of research and a dollop of common sense tell us that the viability of school choice depends on families being able to access the choices available to them. One key to access is transportation. Yellow buses are so ubiquitous as to border on symbolic representation of education itself.
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District responses to COVID-19 school closures
More than 100,000 public schools across the country have closed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many are expected to remain closed for weeks, and in some cases, for the remainder of the 2019–20 school year. A project from the Center on Reinventing Public Education is tracking how districts shift instruction, student support, and organizational operations.
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3 Indianapolis charter school networks that are all in on virtual learning
Three much-admired school networks in Indianapolis didn’t skip a beat in going virtual.
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COVID-19 closed schools. When should they reopen?
Click here to read this article at Education Next.
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Charter Schools
COVID-19 and schools: One story from New Jersey
A week ago, we thought we were probably going to have to close our schools for a couple of weeks. We started to plan. Our network—College Achieve Public Schools (CAPS)—operates seven charter schools on six campuses in Paterson, Plainfield, North Plainfield, Neptune, and Asbury Park, NJ.
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Teachers & School Leaders
They didn’t get to say goodbye
I have spent the week having flashbacks to a Friday in 2001 when I sobbed in my classroom. It was the middle of March and I was leaving my teaching job to accompany my future husband on his Navy orders to San Diego. There is plenty to debate about my personal decision to leave mid-year, but that’s far from the point of this piece.
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Curriculum & Instruction, Personalized Learning
Great YouTube channels for middle schoolers and high schoolers for learning from home during COVID-19 school closures
Parents who will be homeschooling (temporarily) while schools are closed because of COVID-19 can only do so much to keep kids learning, so do your parents a solid and use this time to find subjects that get you excited! There’s only so much Netflix you can watch before you get a funny taste in the back of your mouth.
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Personalized Learning
Smiling through: Thirty-two resources for entertaining energetic preschoolers during daycare and preschool closures
Any working parent of toddlers or infants will tell you that juggling home and work life isn’t without a slew of unique challenges. From chronic sleep deprivation to daily battles with your toddler to put on pants before leaving the house, the life of a working parent ain’t easy.
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Curriculum & Instruction
COVID-19 and worst-case policy
Why are some schools and districts crashing to provide their pupils with online learning and/or “lesson packets” during this period of social isolation, while others have essentially just shut their doors and turned off the electricity, leaving kids and families to fend for themselves—and inviting the coronavirus version of “summer learning loss?”
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Accountability & Testing
The chronic condition of American education
I proudly serve on the board of the Colorado League of Charter Schools.
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Curriculum & Instruction
Remote learning advice from Eva Moskowitz: “Keep it simple”
“This is unprecedented,” said Eva Moskowitz “We’re not used to planning for a pandemic.”
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Curriculum & Instruction
Page to screen: a comparison of reading habits and comprehension in digital vs. print
As society becomes more immersed in the digital age—including during the current coronavirus crisis—students are increasingly utilizing technology for schoolwor
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Personalized Learning
Supporting low birth weight babies helps long after infancy
A recent working paper from NBER takes the notion of “early intervention” f
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Curriculum & Instruction
An open letter to Checker Finn and Mike Petrilli
In a recent article in The Bulwark, promoting your
Commentary
Personalized Learning
Resources for learning from home during Covid-19 school closures
With more than half of states closing their schools due to the coronavirus pandemic, hundreds of thousands of parents, grandparents, and other caregivers have become de facto “home schoolers” practically overnight. Students in this situation will likely be spending a fair amount of time on screens—as a lifeline, respite, or both. We have compiled some excellent suggestions—updated several times since initial publication—for making at least some of that time educational.
