CER Daily Media Clips

Your Daily News Clips for March, 19 2021

CER Daily Media Clips for March 19, 2021

NYC parents push back on City Hall’s ‘gold standard’ school reopening

Mar 19, 2021 | New York Post | school districts | Towns, States, Northeast, New York

Angry New York parents have lashed out at Mayor Bill de Blasio, saying his so-called reopening of schools is a “farce” and a failure.

Why Child Care Staff Had to Show Up While Teachers Worked Remotely

Mar 19, 2021 | New York Times | teachers unions | Towns, States, Northeast, New York

Over the last year, some educators, school officials and teachers’ union leaders in New York and across the country have declared that teachers are not babysitters, and that schools are not child care centers. The sentiment has been meant to convince the public that teachers should not be responsible for supervising children just so that parents can return to work.

San Francisco Runs Public School Pods Amid Covid-19 Lockdown Frustrations

Mar 19, 2021 | Wall Street Journal | learning pods | Towns, States, West, California

They are run by the city government, which has no direct control over schools but is spending $63 million on the program intended to replicate the pods that many affluent families across the country formed to help small groups of children attend online school. The program is in part a challenge to the policies of the San Francisco Unified School District, with which city officials have publicly fought over reopening plans.

Andrew Yang lays blame on teachers union for sluggish pace of school reopenings

Mar 19, 2021 | Politico | teachers unions | Towns, States, Northeast, New York

The leading mayoral candidate, who has a 5-year-old son in a Manhattan public school, took aim at the city’s 190,000-member United Federation of Teachers for its perceived role in delaying school openings during an interview with POLITICO this week.

NH Moms: An Open Letter To Dr. Jill Biden: Please Support Our Education Choices

Mar 19, 2021 | Patch | parent power | States, Northeast, New Hampshire

In this opinion piece, several New Hampshire mothers and advocates of school choice, ask the president's wife to advocate on their behalf.

Opinion: Fairfax, enough is enough: Open schools full-time

Mar 19, 2021 | The Washington Post | school districts | Towns, States, South, Virginia

This week, the D.C. area declared it would not fully reopen schools until the fall at the soonest. Arlington, Loudoun, Montgomery and Fairfax County made announcements, hoping to stem the tide of disenrollment and criticism. They have accomplished neither.

Boston Parents Reach 700 Signatures in Online Petition Requesting Denial of BPS Waiver

Mar 19, 2021 | Charlestown Patriot-Bridge | parent power | Towns, States, Northeast, Massachusetts

In less than a week, more than 700 people coming from every Boston neighborhood have signed a Change.org petition encouraging Commissioner Jeffrey C. Riley of the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) to reject any waiver from Boston Public Schools (BPS) and to demand that the district open five full days a week for grades K-5 in April.

Editorial: Full-time, in-person schooling: It’s where the science is heading

Mar 19, 2021 | Los Angeles Times | state policy | States, West, California

More important than the three-foot rule, though, is what the CDC already has made clear: Teachers do not need to be fully vaccinated to return safely to school. Yet California has done almost nothing to force a quicker return to the classroom.

‘We are not learning enough’: In marathon meeting, Philly school board gets an earful

Mar 19, 2021 | Philadelphia Inquirer | school boards | Towns, States, Northeast, Pennsylvania

The board listened to hours of impassioned testimony that underscored how COVID-19 has challenged and shaped this school year.

Education Committee spends minutes on voucher expansion, hours on home-school debate

Mar 19, 2021 | Wisconsin Examiner | school choice | States, Midwest, Wisconsin

The steady expansion of programs that siphon public money into private schools is seen by public school advocates as an existential threat to public school districts around Wisconsin. But a bill that grows the statewide private school voucher program passed out of the Assembly Education Committee on Thursday without discussion or debate.

In Remote School, F Students Quadrupled

Mar 19, 2021 | New Haven Independent | remote learning | Towns, States, Northeast, Connecticut

The Covid-19 pandemic has produced a new batch of sobering data: The number of New Haven high schoolers who failed five or more classes this winter was four times higher than it was the previous year as learning went remote.

Monongalia Co. Board of Education going to Supreme Court over charter school decision

Mar 19, 2021 | WBOY | charter schools | Towns, States, South, West Virginia

When West Virginia Academy’s (WVA) application to become the first charter school in West Virginia failed, some thought that was the end of the story, but the saga continues.

Proposal would change Tennessee law to let for-profit companies run charter schools

Mar 19, 2021 | Chalkbeat | charter schools | States, South, Tennessee

The Senate Education Committee voted 6-3 for a proposal backed by National Heritage Academies, a Michigan-based company and one of the nation’s largest private education providers.

Ross Valley Charter gets 5-year renewal from state

Mar 19, 2021 | Marin Independent Journal | charter schools | Towns, States, West, California

The state Board of Education has approved a five-year renewal petition for Ross Valley Charter in Fairfax, assigning oversight to the Marin County Office of Education.

Michigan lost 62,000 students this fall. Black enrollment fell 5%.

Mar 19, 2021 | Detroit Free Press | enrollment | States, Midwest, Michigan

But the declines were not limited to kindergarten. Enrollment in certain categories fell more steeply than overall enrollment, notably among white well-off students, as well as students who are African-American, or from low-income families.

Finding silver linings in remote learning for post-pandemic learning

Mar 19, 2021 | Newsday | remote learning | Towns, States, Northeast, New York

Still, O'Hara said pandemic schooling has not been favorable for all students, necessitating home visits, knocking on doors and other attempts to reach out. “Our struggle, and who we’re worried about is, you know, pre-pandemic, you have secondary students who are disengaged or difficult to engage, and we’re finding that the students that were somewhat disengaged before the pandemic are more disengaged now.

Texas students could need 4 to 5 years to recover from COVID learning loss

Mar 19, 2021 | CBS Austin | accountability | States, South, Texas

The coronavirus pandemic is being blamed for robbing Texas students of months of learning. On Thursday, the Commissioner of Education said the pandemic is worse than a typical summer slide.

Column: Charter Schools Get Left Behind On Reopening Act

Mar 19, 2021 | Rhino Times | charter schools | States, South, North Carolina

Unfortunately, as a result of not being included in the bill, charter schools do not have the same flexibility traditional schools now enjoy opening in Plan A for students in grades 6-12, a flexibility which many charter schools wish to have.”

Opinion: All scholarship families deserve spending flexibility

Mar 19, 2021 | The South Florida Times | school choice | States, South, Florida

The new income-based scholarship program would become an education savings account like how Gardiner works. That means giving more families more ways to spend their children’s education dollars. They can choose to spend it on school tuition, technology, learning materials, therapies, and other educational uses – matching them with their children’s needs.

Teacher’s union continues opposition over school reopening law

Mar 19, 2021 | Carolina Journal | teachers unions | States, South, North Carolina

Even as a bill to reopen schools across North Carolina garnered unanimous bipartisan support and was fast-tracked through the legislature, North Carolina’s teacher’s union released a statement blasting Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and lawmakers from both political parties for the compromise.

President Of NYC Teachers’ Union Stands Behind Controversial Two-Case COVID Closure Rule

Mar 19, 2021 | Gothamist | teachers unions | Towns, States, Northeast, New York

The president of the New York City teachers union, the United Federation of Teachers, said he’s still in favor of rules that shut down public schools for 10 days at a time when city health officials identify two unlinked coronavirus cases within a school building.

Defying union leaders, Oakland teachers group protests April schools reopening

Mar 19, 2021 | The Chronicle | general teacher issues | Towns, States, West, California

The organizers of the Wednesday protest, which included the union reps from individual schools, rather than Oakland Education Association leadership, urged district teachers to vote against the deal, which would have the first students — in preschool through second grade — back in classrooms on March 30, with older elementary students and high-needs students across all grades phased in over the following two weeks.

Opinion: Colorado charter schools stand out during a hard year for public education

Mar 19, 2021 | Colorado Sun | charter schools | States, West, Colorado

The pandemic has caused many of our state’s students to regress. Innovative programs like the ones our charter schools have proposed can be an important step to mitigating that impact.

Another try for charter schools

Mar 19, 2021 | Montana Free Press | charter schools | States, West, Montana

Throughout the more than two-hour discussion, supporters framed charter schools as giving Montana parents and students more choices in K-12 education. Debra Lamm, who worked alongside then-Rep. Mark Blasdel in 2011 to craft that session’s bill, said the instructional flexibilities afforded by charter schools would work well for children looking for an alternative to public school or for those who have “fallen through the cracks.

Arizona still atop nation in educational freedom

Mar 19, 2021 | The Center Square | school choice | States, West, Arizona

Twenty years after the initial study, Arizona still gives parents the most choices regarding where their children will be educated and how they’ll pay for it.

New Hampshire Senate Gives Initial OK to School Voucher Bill

Mar 19, 2021 | US News & World Report | school choice | States, Northeast, New Hampshire

The Republican-led New Hampshire Senate has given preliminary approval to a school voucher bill that supporters say would especially benefit children who’ve struggled during the coronavirus pandemic.

Court filings present dueling visions of school choice in Vermont

Mar 19, 2021 | Valley News | school choice | States, Northeast, Vermont

The Vermont Supreme Court’s 1983 decision in Mason v. Thetford School Board contains a crystallizing sentence about the limits of school choice in the state: “There is no constitutional right to be reimbursed by a public school district to attend a school chosen by a parent.

Commentary: New Mexico Students and Parents Need School Choice Now

Mar 19, 2021 | KRWG | school choice | States, West, New Mexico

Even before the pandemic, the New Mexico education system has performed poorly. Despite the continuous and ever-increasing stream of money from the state designated for education, we consistently rank as one of the worst, if not the worst, states in the nation on educational success.

Public education advocates skeptical of bill expanding South Carolina ‘school choice’

Mar 19, 2021 | WCIV | school choice | Towns, States, South, South Carolina

Some Lowcountry education advocates say a bill in the state legislature could lead to more private governance in public schools.

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