If you are not asking questions about COVID Funding for Schools? You simply don't care about children!

 

Last night, I was part of a panel discussing "How to spend the $90 million" coming from the new COVID Relief Funding to the Waterbury Public Schools in Connecticut. 

I wonder how much money other Black, Brown, and Poor school districts are getting? and even more important, "where is that money going?" 

I thought about Art, Music, filling libraries with Culturally Relevant Books, helping after-school lift programs, and building better sports programs. You know, the stuff that motivates, engages, and makes children want to come to school. Then, I remembered... the same people who spend  $2 billion every year on standardized testing ~  they will be in charge of this new funding. 

There was a time before high-stakes test scores defined school success in America. 

A time before test scores were the sole determination of the success of our nation's children. Schools were not perfect. 

Our education leaders, community leaders, and legislators valued poor schools.

They valued them with great art and music programs. 

Schools with impressive libraries, great after-school activities, and sports were viewed as successful schools. 

Today... all that matters are a school's test scores. 

Nearly $2 billion every year goes to standardized testing in America.  None of that $2 billion goes to creating great art/music programs, great libraries, or after-school programs for Black, Brown, Poor, and Special Education children.  Right now, America is providing billions and billions of much-needed COVID relief funds to Black, Brown, and Poor School Districts across the nation, over the next sixty days... "How will they spend this money?" 

If you can't see the damage high-stakes testing is doing in the name of education reform in America ~  You just can't see!

If you don't understand the damage of COVID Relief funding not lifting art, music, after-school programs, libraries, and sports ~ You just don't understand! 

If you are not asking how school districts will spend billions and billions of COVID Relief dollars ~ You really just don't care.

Respectfully,

Dr. Jesse P. Turner 

Uniting to Save Our Schools 

If you are wondering what tune inspired my morning walk today? It is the cover of Teach Your Children by Play For Change > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZIx55cFf-o <

Ain't nothing like the real thing, and low expectations

 

My Grandfather introduced me to real books. In school, all we had were abridged versions of the great books. Looking at my Langauge Art school book, he said they left out all the great stuff.

The man who never had more than a sixth-grade education fought in World War 1, went to the March on Washington, painted New York City Bridges, and built church chapels said: I am not having any of this. Boy, go get my hat, we are going to the library. Like the old Ad for Coke, there ain't nothing like the real thing. 

He died before I would leave for college; I doubt he ever imagined his namesake grandson would become a university professor. However, he started me on the path of being a reader, and open the door to this world’s greatest universities, our libraries. To be perfectly honest, Basel Readers, these books containing abridged versions of real, are mainly used in Black, Brown, and Poor schools; Affluent White Schools always get real books. This difference ensures lower expectations in our public schools for children of color. I attended school in a poor urban district, I would not see a real novel until grade 9. We were given Dickens "Great Expectations," a book I had read years before. Of course, I reread it again and loved talking about it in class. Real books build reading stamina and prepare you for life and your college years, where you are expected to read whole books.  My Grandfather countered the low expectations for reading of my schools with his own high expectations.  

Grandfather knew what the great educators and professors, mentors always knew; you need real books. He inspired me to read great books early on,
Got to have real books and a decent hat,
Dr. Jesse P. Turner
Professor of Literacy, Elementary, and Early Childhood Education

If you like to listen to the tune that inspired my morning walk today? It was Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell, "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing." 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz_D-greh8Q

Dear Pandemic Teachers

Dear Pandemic Teachers, 

President Abraham Lincoln was a man who knew adversity well. Knew both defeat and victory, pain and joy. When reflecting on his 1858 election night lost to Stephen A. Douglas he said:

“The path had been worn hog-back and was slippery. My foot slipped from under me, knocking the other one out of the way, but I recovered myself and lit square, and I said to myself, “It’s a slip and not a fall.”

Two years later he would defeat Douglas, winning the presidency, and become our 16th president. Like Lincoln, our nation’s teachers, have always known adversity, held on, may slip, but never do they fall. 

 While administrators, policymakers, and Governors living on Zoom demand teachers return to full face-to-face school. Often Blaming, shaming, and even bullying classroom teachers for asking for a safe return to school for their students. I refuse to play their "blame teachers” game in the middle of the deadliest pandemic in over 100-years. This is not teaching and learning in normal times, this teaching in a crisis. 

Let me tell the world who our teachers really are? 

They are the ones endlessly writing lessons, 

Preparing to teach in person, virtually, and for many a combination of both,

Working not only their paid contact hours, 

But on average working without pay for an extra 15-20 hours a week,

Making sure their google classrooms work, 

Sharing their screens,

Making sure their mute button is on,

Taking attendance of students in their physical room, and online ones,

Doing all they can to make learning as normal as possible for their students,

Uploading endless demands for more compliance data, 

Adjusting to endless changes in administrative demands, 

Grading,

Writing weekly progress reports, 

Preparing parent conferences, 

Helping children to follow CDC protocols,

Doing bus duty,

Lunch duty,

Hall duty,

Attending far too many School meetings and professional development sessions, that sometimes blame teachers, 

Constantly demanding more from fatigued and stressed teachers,

Always demanding more.

Who are these pandemic teachers?

They are the ones saving public education,

They are the ones giving everything they have to make this pandemic schooling crisis feel normal. 

They are the glue holding our schools together. 

They are my heroes. 

I refuse to call them anything less.

Dear Teachers,

Please, remember to practice self-care,

Understand too much is being asked of you,

Know that the reason you collapse at the end of every school day, 

You are being abused, by a system that refuses to listen to teachers,

You are exhausted from giving your total self to the children, parents, and schools you teach in,

This abuse must end. 

Who are these Pandemic teachers?

Our tireless heroes teaching in a pandemic crisis, 

Our abused and discarded heroes. 

I wish I had more than words,

I want teachers to know something,

One day this COVID Pandemic will end,

Like President Lincoln, you were never falling, merely slipping a bit, never ever falling,

History shall call you our pandemic teaching heroes,

The ones who never fell, but time and time again rose up to the challenge of teaching in a pandemic crisis. 

Who are you, teachers?

You are our heroes rising, 

Hold on, 

Be extra kind to each other,

Be understanding to each other,

Be the shoulders to cry on for each other, 

Be good to yourselves, 

Be good to your families,

Be good to all, and

Whenever you can find 30 seconds in your school day,

Breathe in deeply, breathe out, and say this is temporary,

If the day gets away from you, 

Forgive yourself,

Like the heroes of old, you may slip, but you will not fall.

Hold on,

COVID is not forever,

Someday, it will be normal again to welcome all at your classroom door,

Minus the masks,

Minus the fear,

And one day, 

You  teaching heroes, 

Our tested pandemic veterans, 

You shall welcome every child back to normal schooling.

Who are teachers?

They are our Pandemic Hero Teachers.

With the deepest of respect,

Dr. Jesse P. Turner 

CCSU Literacy Center Director

Uniting to Save Our Schools 

If you like to listen to the tune I listen to on my morning walk today? It was  Josh Groban and Helen Fischer singing I'll Stand by you" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOre5B_KbJU