Six on Schools: NY State Teams With Gates Foundation to 'Reimagine Education' Amid Pandemic; Assessing the Needs of Black Students During the Coronavirus Crisis; Cuomo advisory panel to reopen state (over 100 individuals and zero K-12 educators); How
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Right after schools closed, we called up all of our students’ parents to make sure they were OK. I made probably four or five hours of calls, checking in on the students’ mental health and seeing how they were doing. But there was also a huge push, right away, from the Department of Education, for us to get as many students logged on to Google Classroom as we could. So because none of us teachers had ever used Google Classroom, as we were calling up students’ parents and checking in, we were also learning the system ourselves and then making video tutorials for students on how to log in. We also had to get internet-enabled iPads for students without devices at home. On March 20, I put in three orders for devices for students, but it wasn’t until last week—the last week of April—that all the orders finally came in. It took over a month for some of my students to get their device—it was just crazy.
I teach fifth grade—reading, math, science, social studies, and writing—at a public school in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. My class right now is a mix of Latinx students, Chinese students, and some South Asian students, and many of their parents don’t speak English. Luckily, I have some knowledge of Spanish and Chinese, but a lot of other teachers were really struggling to reach parents because they don’t speak those languages and had to find translation.
I’m also a special education teacher, so a lot of my job now is also trying to help students focus and making sure they have the right testing accommodations, like having everything that isn’t a reading comprehension assignment read out loud. A lot of the first two weeks of remote teaching involved providing tech support, and writing out my students’ individualized education plans for their special ed services, and helping parents get their students acclimated to Google Classroom.
I have 12 students, and I have three paraprofessionals in my classroom. And in our class alone, we’ve had something like 13 deaths, among our students’ and staff members’ families. So it’s been a challenge trying to roll out assignments while also supporting the mental health needs of my students, their families, and staff: Is this assignment I’m pushing right now really important when my students’ relatives are dying or sick? Some students really need an assignment to feel like there’s some normalcy in their day, but some kids are really struggling because they can’t focus, they’re scared. Some of my students have told me they haven’t gone outside since schools closed, so they’ve been inside for over a month. I’m trying to find a balance.
New York State Teams With Gates Foundation to 'Reimagine Education' Amid Pandemic
New York state will work with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on a plan to "reimagine education," developing new online learning strategies as it continues to grapple with the coronavirus pandemic, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Tuesday.
The state's schools are closed for the remainder of the school year to slow the spread of the virus and, like every other state, New York leaders are considering what schools should look like when they reopen. Some governors have raised concerns about maintaining social distancing in classrooms and planning for rapid, emergency transitions back to online learning if the virus resurges in their areas. Cuomo, a Democrat, seemed to suggest the work with the Gates Foundation would move beyond that, planning for larger changes.
"So, it's not about just reopening schools," Cuomo said at his daily coronavirus briefing. "When we are reopening schools, let's open a better school, and let's open a smarter education system. ... Bill Gates is a visionary in many ways, and his ideas and thoughts on technology and education he's spoken about for years, but I think we now have a moment in history where we can actually incorporate and advance those ideas."
Learning from Crisis
Cuomo sandwiched his thoughts on education between broader remarks about learning from the state's experience during the crisis in areas like transportation.
He said the education system did "a great job" transitioning to remote learning with very little advanced warning, but that some teachers needed more training in virtual instruction, and some students lacked technology and devices.
"We've all been talking about tele-education, virtual education, remote education, and there's a lot that can be done" he said. "The old model of everybody goes and sits in a classroom and the teacher is in front of that classroom and teaches that class, and you do that all across the city, all across the state, all these buildings, all these physical classrooms. Why, with all the technology you have?"
Cuomo did not outline the scope and aim of the state's work with the Gates Foundation. As he spoke, he showed a slide that showed questions like, "Where can we use technology to provide more opportunity to students no matter where they are?" and "How can we use technology to meet educational needs of students with disabilities?"
Criticism of Gates Plan
Cuomo's announcement was met with concern from some educators, who believe it focused too heavily on technology, overlooking the value of in-person education and supporting students' growing social and emotional needs as the state recovers.
"Remote learning, in any form, will never replace the important personal connection between teachers and their students that is built in the classroom and is a critical part of the teaching and learning process—which is why we've seen educators work so hard during this pandemic to maintain those connections through video chats, phone calls and socially distant in-person meetings," New York State United Teachers President Andy Pallott said in a statement. "If we want to reimagine education, let's start with addressing the need for social workers, mental health counselors, school nurses, enriching arts courses, advanced courses and smaller class sizes in school districts across the state."
Cuomo's remarks also were also panned educational activists who question the Gates Foundation's support for initiatives like test-based teacher evaluations and common core standards and are critical of the foundation's overall influence on the education sector.
In a tweet to Cuomo, parent activist Leonie Haimson cited the state's 2014 decision to pull the plug on its relationship with inBloom, a controversial Gates-supported effort to store and sort student data for states and districts that faced concerns from student-privacy groups.
Gates Foundation Coronavirus Response
The Gates Foundation has responded to the pandemic by offering emerging aid to existing grantees to help them "confront their most urgent needs," Bob Hughes, the foundation's director of K-12 education, told Education Week opinion blogger Rick Hess last month.
"We're working with partners such as the Council of Chief State School Officers to help state departments of education and school districts navigate the immediate programmatic and financial implications of this emergency," Hughes said. "We're also supporting partners who are expanding online learning and coordinating meals and other supports for K-12 students, and helping lessen the financial shock felt disproportionately by low-income college students due to lost housing, food, and wages."
The Gates Foundation provided few details about the New York initiative Tuesday.
"The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has committed to work with New York State on its efforts to ensure equitable access to education for its students in response to the COVID-19 pandemic," the organization's press office said in a statement. "We will provide further details as they become available."
A spokesman for the state's education department referred questions to the governor's office.
"The Board of Regents and Department recently announced they will be creating a statewide task force on re-opening made up of education leaders, which has been widely supported by New York's education community," the agency said in a statement. "By working with our partners across the state, we can ensure our guidance is grounded in the principles of practice and our children's educational, developmental and overall wellbeing is considered during this important discussion"
Education Week has reached out to Cuomo's office for more information about the plan. We will update this post if they respond.
Photo: A still from C-SPAN video of Gov. Andrew Cuomo's May 5 coronavirus briefing.
"So now, as we sit in the question, "What can schools do to specifically support Black students during the school closure crisis?" We must ask it in ways that are tethered to the sociopolitical realities unfolding before us all during this coronavirus pandemic. Sociopolitical realities that are exacerbating enduring truths about how our nation has managed to position Black communities, and subsequently, Black students, as most vulnerable in the face of COVID-19. The underlying risk factor is racial inequity. The Black mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters of Black students are more likely to be poor and working-class essential workers without the privilege of remote working options. Black families are less likely to have access to equitable health care or healthy foods in the food deserts that exist in too many Black communities. And when Black people do have access to health care, testimony and research reveal salient disparities in how Black people are (under) treated while faced with the racial empathy gap across medical institutions.
Importantly, the question, "What can schools do to specifically support Black students during the school closure crisis?" is not an invitation to pity or save or ogle Black pain. It is an invitation to call out and hold the systemic-level intersections of racial and class oppressions, which act together to force this level of need. And with this repositioning, we must also be clear that when it comes to Black students, we are never addressing at-risk youths, but at-risk systems—that is, systems that continue to fail Black youths as opposed to Black youths who continue to fail within systems. So how can schools at risk of not adequately addressing the needs of Black students in this time step up to the plate during the school closure crisis? The answer is obvious. They must ask Black students. How?"
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