Hoping for a better year for our children… They have dealt with so much this past year…
Yet, I am not so sure it will be much better…
We are still dealing with residual issues from the past year, due largely from the consequences from the previous presidency…
This pandemic is not over! We have a new variant… And, we have citizens in our Country who are extremely resistant to follow the necessary protocols and the recommendation of getting vaccinated…
Thus, our children and schools will suffer from this divisive inaction!
The CDC is now recommending children twelve and older get vaccinated…All children, teachers, essential staff wear masks indoors…
Yet here in Florida and other Republican controlled states, not always follow the necessary guidelines…
And now Governor Ron DeSantis is preparing to sign an executive order that would keep schools from mandating students wear masks in schools;
And will withhold state funds from schools with mask mandates…
Once again our children…may experience consequential repercussions!
In addition to such restrictions, Florida and Republican controlled states are even dictating what children will learn in history…
Teachers; the professionals we are; and many parents; are extremely concerned…We know how dangerous this is!!!
We know children need to be able to get a foundation in truth… without bias, with a developmentally, appropriate curriculum…
The new child tax credit parents are now receiving, could lift more than 5 million kids out of poverty and give families in need that extra boost!!!
This new year, we will now have a wonderful opportunity to get the much needed funding from the American Rescue Plan…The Biden-Harris Administration got passed!!!
Lifting many children out of poverty…
From my own teaching experiences working with children from poverty…I so realized that those children who came to school hungry were restless and inattentive…
Because our school district was concerned for our struggling families…. They made sure our schools in need had free breakfast and lunch programs; even throughout the summer…
In addition, our district made sure children had access to wifi during the pandemic…
Now with extra monies allocated by the American Rescue Plan more resources for struggling families will be available…going directly to parents in need and schools getting extra funding!!!
With the new child tax credit parents are now receiving, it could lift more than 5 million kids out of poverty and give families in need that extra boost!!!
This upcoming year may still be quite daunting…I pray that our Country do better for our children …
We now have a President, Vice President, Secretary of Education; an Administration that truly care… knowing to provide monetary resources we have so yearned for our children…
Now really it is up to all of us …
Please…Follow CDC guidelines…so we can manage the pandemic, and our children will be safe at school…
And the citizens of Florida…
Vote for a governor that represents our children and public schools… 💞🌈🙏🏼🍎🇺🇸
Children were a priority…Integration and Early Childhood Education were paramount…And Head Start began…
However, as the years passed, by the nineties I realized that due to changes at the Federal level: our public school children were less of a priority because they were losing the funding to privatization, and the resources needed to do all we could for our children were diminished…
Yet our expectations were unrealistic and we were being blamed…
There now was teacher accountability, developmentally inappropriate curriculum and over testing….Yet fewer resources…
And moreover since the new millennium…with all these drastic changes…. Dismantling of public schools…teacher shortage….Poor leadership… A Pandemic..
We are facing a crisis…
However, through all of these changes I always maintained there would be that better day!!!
And now with the election of a new President….we may see a change!!!
” Biden’s education plan: Targets inequity, expands federal role”…Laura Meckler and Danielle Douglas-Gabriel Washington Post
The federal government has long been a bit player in education… Under an expansive vision being rolled out this spring by President Biden, that would change…
Biden has proposed — or is expected to propose — a half dozen education programs that would constitute the largest federal investment in education in at least a half century. Any one of them would be significant on its own. Taken together, if approved by Congress, they form a cradle-to-college plan that aims to reduce inequities that course through American schools by infusing hundreds of billions of dollars into virtually every level of the system….
“These are truly unprecedented investments in education,” said Sarah Abernathy, executive director of the Committee for Education Funding…
Much of Biden’s strategy is focused on cold, hard cash, a show-me-the-money plan that would more than double federal support to high-poverty districts, rebuild crumbling schools and subsidize pre-K and community college alike. It’s excited educators up and down the system, but left some allies wondering if the administration is doing enough to use the money to drive policy changes by states and districts. For their part, Republicans oppose such sweeping new spending as well as the tax increases proposed to offset some of the cost…
Should Biden’s entire agenda become law, the U.S. educational system could morph from a 13-year guarantee — where children are entitled to free education from kindergarten through 12th grade — to a 17-year promise, where prekindergarten is available starting at age 3 and tuition is free through two years of community college…
“Think of it this way: Joe Biden is adding four years to a student’s education. It’s the largest increase in educational time since high school became universal,” said Rahm Emanuel, a longtime Biden ally who championed similar policies for early childhood and community college when he was Chicago’s mayor. Early-childhood education, he said, will prepare children to learn, while postsecondary programs prepare them for the workforce…
Biden does enjoy support for his education agenda among liberals, who are pushing him to aggressively confront educational inequity, and centrist Democrats, who like several pieces of this package…
“He’s investing in things like apprenticeships and community colleges and pre-K and all kinds of things that moderate Democrats love,” said Lanae Erickson, who heads social policy at Third Way, a centrist Democratic think tank. “There’s something in there for everybody in the party and that’s how he’s keeping folks on board.”Even when he had a Democratic Congress, Obama did not ask for this level of spending. After passing into law a recovery act meant to respond to the 2008 financial crisis, he telegraphed his interest in fiscal responsibility. At his first Cabinet meeting in April 2009, he announced that federal agencies would be hunting for cuts and efficiencies, saying he had challenged his secretaries to find $100 million in reductions…
Never give up on your dreams…
President Biden is determined…. making his Presidency consequential… Our children a priority; making our public schools stronger… Providing our children the success they so need…
This is a significant amount of money’: COVID-19 relief bill would send nearly $170 billion to schools..…Jillian Berman
The Covid Relief Bill passed, and will now be enacted!!!
This is historic!!! Our children will be able to get back to their routine of going to school, and being able to socialize with their friends…
They will be able to finally have the opportunity to receive an education they so deserve!!!
Our schools will have the necessary funding to provide the safety protocols, along with the ability to vaccinate all essential staff…And there will be the necessary funding to hire more teachers and staff!!!
What a dream coming true!!!
Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona and First Lady Jill Biden visit a school as part of the administration’s push to reopen schools. MandelNgan/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images. As part of the COVID-19 relief bill passed by the Senate Saturday, schools from kindergarten on up will receive billions of dollars in funding… The money comes as K-12 public school systems and higher education institutions grapple with how best to cope with the fallout of the pandemic on both their students and budgets. Public schools at all levels rely on state and local government money for funding, resources that could be squeezed by the pandemic inducted downturn… At the same time, schools are wrestling with how to return to some semblance of normalcy as more widespread vaccination brings hope of emerging from the pandemic in the next several months… If the bill is approved by the House of Representatives and signed by Biden, the roughly $170 billion lawmakers are sending to educational institutions could help with these efforts. It comes on top of the $82 billion they received in COVID-related relief Congress passed in December and the roughly $31 billion they received as part of the CARES Act passed in March…
Here’s what’s in the bill for schools: Kg-12 schools: Lawmakers voted to send $128 billion to state and local education agencies, which mirrors President Joe Biden’s request for $130 billion for K-12 schools in the relief package he laid out in January.
“This is a significant amount of money,” said Terra Wallin, associate director for P-12 accountability and special projects at Ed Trust, an organization that focuses on education equity.“We think that it gets much closer to addressing the needs of schools than the previous relief packages have.” Schools will likely use some of that money to work towards safe, in-person reopening… School reopenings have become a flashpoint over the past several weeks as questions about whether Biden will meet a goal of reopening schools in his first 100 days and what exactly that means have surfaced… The Centers for Disease Control issued guidelines last month on the safe reopening of schools, which outlined a tiered approach to in-person learning tied to COVID-19 transmission in the community…In addition to the guidelines, the Biden administration has taken steps to push schools towards in-person instruction including launching a vaccination program for teachers in March and using the bully pulpit. On his second day on the job, Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona joined First Lady Jill Biden on a tour of schools offering in-person instruction…
Though the Biden administration doesn’t have the power to reopen schools on their own — those decisions are made at the state and district level — the funding will certainly help. To re-open safely,schools may need to hire more teachers to offer smaller class sizes, redesign classrooms for social distancing, retrofit ventilation systemsand more… But the funding provided is aimed at addressing more than just the immediate challenge of getting students learning in person… Local education agencies have to use at least 20% of the funds, respectively, to deal with learning loss resulting from the pandemic…Schools could use this money on things like intensive tutoring, extending the school year through the summer, hiring more teachers, and more to address the learning loss students have suffered during this period, said Victoria Jackson, senior policy analyst on the state fiscal team at the the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a think tank focused on the impact of budget and tax issues on inequality and poverty… The bill also provides guard rails to ensure that the funding for students who likely have been hardest by the challenges of remote school — those from underserved communities, including low-income students, students of color, students with disabilities and others — is protected, Wallin said…
The proposal lawmakers passed Saturday is the first COVID relief package to include a maintenance of equity provision… The requirement means that if states and school districts have to make cuts, they can’t cut any more from their highest poverty districts and schools than the per-pupil average…“The idea here is that it requires that states protect the highest need or highest poverty district and that districts in turn protect their highest need schools,”Wallin said…
Higher education: Congress will besending nearly $40 billion to colleges and universities as part of the relief package. Though it’s less than the $97 billion, the AmericanCouncil on Education, a higher education lobbying group, estimated schools and students would need, they praised it as the “largest federal effort so far to assist students and families struggling to cope with lost jobs or reduced wages and collegesand universities facing precipitous declines in revenues and soaringnew expenses.”Indeed, many colleges’ major sources of revenue — tuition, room and board, conferences, camps, parking and more — have been dinged as a result of the pandemic.
During the Great Recession, public colleges in particular struggled with cuts to state funding, “but colleges just didn’t lose revenue to the same extent,” as over the past several months, said Robert Kelchen, an associate professor of higher education at Seton Hall University.“The big challenge for colleges is they’re not replacing the revenue they got from not having students on campus,” he said...Colleges across the country have made cuts in staff andPrograms to cope with the lost revenue, Kelchen noted. At the same time, they’ve spent money on COVID tests, technology and other infrastructure necessary to try and make campuses safe. If the bill becomes law, a lot of the money colleges receive from Congress “will be used to backfill what they’ve already spent,” Kelchen said.At least 50% of the funds colleges receive will have to go directly to students for emergency financial aid...The pandemic and accompanying down turn has put up obstacles in the way of attending and completing college, particularly for the most vulnerable students.
The relief package requires that colleges spend some of the money they receive on outreach to students to let them know they can get more financial aid if their circumstances have changed… The bill also allocates $91 million to the Department of Education to reach out to students and borrowers about financial aid and other benefits for which they may be eligible.
JillianBerman covers student debt and millennial finance. You can follow her on Twitter @JillianBerman.
Not since the defeat of Hillary Clinton, the candidate who would have prioritized our children, and their right to a strong public education….
And Donald Trump becoming President…a staunch supporter of the privatization of schools, and his choice of Betsy Devos…an unqualified supporter of privatization…as his secretary of education…
Because of their intent….Our schools are in crisis…Our children and public schools are systematically being dismantled… We have a critical teacher shortage due to unrealistic demands like arming teachers….and poor pay….And our public schools lack resources for necessary programs because their funds being diverted to…
Charter Schools…Profit and Non Profit… schools that do not have the oversight and same regulations and standards that public schools must adhere to…And our tax dollars fund…
With the upcoming presidential election in 2020, we certainly have a crucial opportunity to change all this for our children!!!
We have a strong chance to save our public schools if we elect a democratic candidate… one who supports our children who count on a public school education…There are now about 24 candidates who are in this race…
It is important to listen to the candidates, and how they plan to prioritize our children…with policies that will strengthen our public schools…And I do have my eye on a few…
One candidate that had impressive educational credentials…yet virtually unknown is Michael Bennet…a former school superintendent and senator from Colorado…
He was superintendent of Denver Public Schools from 2005 to 2009…Bennet was closely tied to the education reform movement;
Closing low-performing Denver schools ; changing the district’s merit pay system in a way that favors newer teachers. Both were decisions unfavorable to veteran teachers and some students….but he has since realized these mistakes …
During the Obama administration, as a senator, Bennet did help author the Every Student Succeeds Act, the overhaul of No Child Left Behind….
Bennet is a vocal opponent of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos!!!
Where he now calls for preschool for all…
Another strong candidate choice is Joe Biden…former vice president…As Barack Obama’s vice president, Biden is tied to the many education policies that Obama encouraged…
Although many of which were detrimental including: evaluating teachers in part through their students’ test scores, the expansion of charter schools, and common standards for what students should learn… President Obama has since regretted these policies, and did enact the Every Student Succeeds Act in December of 2015…
Biden’s plan is to implement more funding into public school education; tripling Title I funding, implementing universal pre-kindergarten, and doubling the number of health professionals in schools…
Biden also said he doesn’t support any federal funding going to for-profit charter schools…However his education platform doesn’t mention charters…
Another concern I had, although happened so long ago, was revealed during the first debate by California Senator Kamala Harris, asking Biden if he was wrong to oppose busing back in the sixties and seventies…
Biden’s answer…“I did not oppose busing in America,”… “I opposed busing ordered by the Department of Education. That’s what I opposed.”
Relating to my own personal experience, as a young teacher during those critical years…I knew busing was the only solution to integrate our schools and federal intervention was most definitely needed!!!
His stance has evolved, and recently expressed in reinstating Obama-era desegregation guidelines that were repealed by the Trump administration in July 2018…
Biden has stated, the first thing he would do as president is to appoint a teacher as education secretary!!!
I have always thought highly of Cory Booker, the senator from New Jersey…. However he not always advocated for public schools…
Booker too has been a leader in the school choice movement.. promoting charter schools, test-based accountability for low-performing schools, and ratings for teachers linked to student performance…Healso has supported private school vouchers, a policy few Democrats favor. He is currently a cosponsor of a bill to reauthorize the federally funded D.C voucher program…
However… Booker has evolved too as many of the candidates…. even plans to run “the boldest pro-public school teacher campaign there is,” noting that his state’s teachers unions had previously endorsed him…
Booker now states… “I’m a guy who believes in public education and, in fact, I look at some of the charter laws that are written about this country and states like this and I find them really offensive,” !!!
Booker has also stated he wants to provide better health care access to low-income communities in order to give those children better health care, so they would be more successful in school…
Pete Buttigieg, is the young mayor of South Bend, Indiana and an up and coming… candidate…Who may be lacking in years of experience however an ageless wisdom that accentuates hisintelligence…
He too, as many of the candidates indicate wants higher teacher pay… More Federal funds allocated to Title I schools… Wants debt free college…Does not believe for profit-charter schools as part of his vision…And he strongly opposes Florida’s guardian program, which gives districts the option to arm their staff.….“It’d be such an enormous, condemnation of our country if we were to to become the only developed nation where this is necessary.”
Julian Castro former secretary of housing and urban development…is another candidate with strong ideas for children and public schools…and whose wife was a former public school math teacher for many years….
As mayor of San Antonio, Castro expanded Pre-K acess, having more children in high-quality early childhood programs…If elected president, Castro wants to create a grant-funded, universal “Pre-K for USA” program…
He’s even created a ” People First Education” platform which will fund $150 billion to grow technology in schools…. ending tuition in public colleges….Raising teacher pay by $10,000…and ideas for safety and policing in schools…
He would promote school integration through efforts to integrate housing and “voluntary busing.” … recalling from his own personal experiences…“Today we’re still grappling with so many of the same issues that we were grappling with 30, 40, 50 years ago.”
One candidate who is one of my favorites...Kamala Harris, a former prosecutor, now a senator fromCalifornia…who strongly advocates for our children and publicschools…
One of her education ideas is to propose federal funding to boost teacher salaries by an average of $13,000…and supports an increase school funding…Stood up for better working conditions in her state when California’s teachers went on strike…She has criticized Betsy Devos and has rejected the education secretary’s suggestion for arming teachers…
She is also proposing more federal funding to boost scholarships, research, and grants to historically black colleges and universities…And as a prosecutor, has prosecuted cases involving charter schools and truancy…
Amy Klobochar, senator from Minnesota…is one to watch…She was a front runner, but has fallen behind…
She too is a strong advocate for public schools….She wants in increase infrastructure by a trillion dollars to repair schools, increase teacher pay, make community colleges free, reduce rates on student loans, and expand Pell grants…
She is against private school vouchers and hold higher standards to charter schools…
Beto O’Rourke has become quite popular…He is a former representative from El Paso, Texas…He ran against Ted Cruz in 2018 for his senate seat…And now a vocal advocate gun reform…
He does support non-profit charter schools; believing they enhance innovation…Vocally opposes vouchers and taking funding away from public schools…
Beto’s children attend public schools and his wife was a former public school teacher…Now recruiter for new charter schools and launched a dual-language charter in El-Paso…
He is against high- stakes testing…Funding our schools with $500 billion that will help close the racial barrier inequities, and increase teacher pay … And for those teachers having at least taught for five years… debt forgiveness on their college loans…
Bernie Sanders, senator from Vermont…is one of the most popular candidates espousing many of the progressive policies for the democratic platform…And was very powerful running in 2016 against Hillary…
Sanders has developed a 10-point platform called A Thurgood Marshall Plan for Education… outlining his program will include tripling Title I funding, and spending $5 billion on summer and after-school programs. He also proposes using federal funding to promote school integration…He has proposed making community college free for all…
He too has supported the teacher strikes…by paying them a starting teacher salary of at least $60,000… Restraining charter school growth by eliminating federal monies…and ban profit charter schools (which presidents do not have the authority)…
As a senator he voted against the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001. In June, he introduced student loan forgiveness, expand what Pell grants can pay for, and eliminate tuition at public four-year colleges and universities.
Last is Elizabeth Warren another of my favorites…She is a senator Massachusetts…An advocate for progressive policies… although supports non profit charter schools…
Warren’s platform is progressive…She wants free community college…and student loan forgiveness…Her Pre-K plan will have a sliding scale for tuition, and those in poverty, tuition will be free… As of yet Warren has not shared her K-12 policy plan… In the past….She formally supported accountability testing…Which Warren now believes an education is not about testing…
She has shared she will appoint a public school teacher as her secretary of education…and has definitely stated her disapproval for the current secretary of education… Betsy Devos…
I have included Marianne Williamson, author and activist to be extremely interesting because of her philosophical ideas and approach to a political run for president…
Williamson believes that undereducation is a form of oppression…And wants a change…A whole-person educational system…and less testing…
These eleven candidates may be strong possibilities, and have some beneficial ideas for our children and public education… However there are thirteen more…We have our next debates on September 12 and 13… And there may be changes until those dates…and some may not qualify for the debates…
But the one critical factor I am counting on is …
Our children and their right to a strong public school education…must be that priority… 💙🇺🇸🍎
It will be up to all of us…united to support a candidate that will make that happen…
When will educating all our children be a priority?
At the beginning of my teaching career in the early seventies… schools were finally integrated and and the funding of federal programs such as Head Start…were in place to provide the necessary resources to help with educating all children that were in need ….
I was so inspired and hopeful to be a part of this moment…We were giving our children opportunities they never had before….
However, progress slowed down in the nineties due to the enactment of “No Child Left Behind”… by then Florida Governor Jeb Bush…
This policy would continue through the millennium and into the present….
Even with the Obama administration, who too, was a proponent of privatization and the charter school movement…Monies that had once been allocated to our public schools were now being funneled back into private schools with our tax dollars; Affecting many of the necessary resources and programs that had been in place, providing our children… a chance for that strong, public education….
We in turn began utilizing into the curriculum, thanks to Bill Gates and his Foundation… Core Curriculum, a developmentally inappropriate curriculum; which included the use of a sophisticated battery of standard testing…
Trying to bridge this learning gap associated to those children who struggle …
Now resulting in an inappropriate program with more objectives and standards for children to master…With fewer resources to meet those standards!
Then, just before President Obama left office, finally realizing our children in public schools deserved more opportunities to achieve success, he signed:
The Every Student Succeeds Act in December 2015 that governs the United States K–12 public education policy. This new law was to replace , the No Child Left Behind Act, …This was to be that wonderful opportunity for all children…
Graduating with a bachelor’s degree from the University of Florida, on March 18th, 1972, just three days after my twenty-third birthday… I was so ready to influence; moreover make a difference for our children… Being a mother of a two year old, I was so excited to make that impact!
I was so willing to travel ninety miles a day to teach at an elementary school in a diverse community…So, on April 1, 1972, I began this journey, to Browning Pearce Elementary in Palatka, Florida… At the time, we had just gone through integration, and that particular school had two campuses… One originally being the school for African American students, was now the school’s intermediate grades…And I was to finish the year in a fourth grade…
Boy, how unready I was… Yet so very excited…It was the last ten weeks of school, and I was assigned to take over a for a seasoned teacher, who was relocating to Tallahassee to be with her husband …
I might have cried most days feeling overwhelmed, however with the wonderful assistant principal, and a caring colleague…I made it through!! Learning so very much ; This challenging opportunity was just my beginning!!!
The next year I was then assigned to teach kindergarten …Not being certified, I was required to get early childhood classes from my alma mater, University of Florida, to be certified in early childhood … This wonderful placement was an opportunity for such growth… My love for young children, and an appreciation of diversity thrived…Many of whom had been migrants…
My next opportunity in my teaching career lead me a little closer to home, now I was only traveling about 30 miles a day to a newly integrated community elementary school… Alachua Elementary…Another diverse population of young children…first working as a paraprofessional, then teaching first graders….
This placement was for sixteen years, from seventy four to ninty; These were exciting times for public education and children coming from diversity… I felt my passion for teaching flourish …The federal government was providing programs and resources for our children… At Alachua…I have some of my fondest memories in my years of teaching…I had the wonderful opportunity of team teaching with Mary Towers, a seasoned teacher…We taught together for nine wonderful years…teaching high risk first graders…in one such federally funded program…“Early Childhood Preventative Curriculum”,ECPC…
I learned so much about the developmental ablities of young children with the challenges they may face… However, with a smaller class size, and the extra assistance of an aide… And curriculum developmentally appropriate….I was to learn later, that many of our children grew into successful adults…
Upon Mary’s retirement in 1984, which tremendously impacted my growth …
I had another strong influence on my career, team teaching with Wetona Johnson…We taught together for five years…teaching first grade in Chapter I; Another federally funded program giving young children extra reinforcement in reading and math skills…
I must also thank the the two principals I worked under at Alachua Elementary School, who guided this growth…
First of whom was Mr. Bill Irby…A man of tremendous integrity… When Mr. Irby retired…this wonderful community even built an elementary school in his honor… The second was another strong leader, Mrs. Pansy Post…who became principal of Alachua when Mr. Irby retired…Mrs. Post brought such a creative flair to Alachua…
I must again acknowledge and appreciate these opportunities that instilled such values making me the strong teacher I was to became; sixteen glorious years at Alachua Elementary …
I was now forty years old…a seasoned teacher ready for my next learning opportunity…And now I was closer to home, by less than five miles… Terwilliger Elementary…A neighborhood school enriched with diversity….A wonderful blend of students…This was nineteen eighty-nine, and public education was changing, not for the better… Here in Florida, we especially felt this impact with the “No Children Left Behind Act” thanks to our Governor, Jeb Bush… If it weren’t for the blend of wonderfully talented and professional teachers; and that mixture of diverse students, these years were filled with such blessings… I was able to teach upper level students: a year in fourth grade, and five years at fifth grade…Both were great… I also had the opportunity to teach second grade for five years…Even taking an educational sabbatical where I was able to attend the University of Florida in graduate level courses in counseling education…
However, due to health issues, I retired in 2002… after thirty years… I was so proud of my years of inspiring and influencing children…
I still had more to accomplish in my teaching career….More children needed my influence, especially in the times we were heading, in the twenty first century…
So, I was so blessed to be able to resume my teaching career in 2008…at Idywild Elementary, a diverse population of children where many of my students were from challenging homes situations….
I was back teaching first grade…. where, with the many years of experience, I was able to provide my children a strong, structured, safe and loving classroom…. Moreover, with a strong support staff providing our children the best education we were able…And, given these times of less funds…more testing and developmentally inappropriate curriculum…
Our children were successful!!!…
As for me…What a gift I was given…to be able to teach eight more years, thirty-eight in all …I then felt I was ready to retire from my teaching career …in 2015…
These last eight years at Idywild turned out to be my most rewarding…I truly felt I had made that difference I so hoped when I began this journey!!!
And now have the time advocating for our children, and their right to a strong public school education….
Not since the defeat of Hillary Clinton, the candidate who would have prioritized our children, and their right to a strong public education….
Janis Sexton...Teacher...Advocate 