What Is the Real Reason Teachers Are Being Asked To Return to School?

Someone on a teaching feed I'm on asked, "What is the real reason why teachers are being asked to return to school?" The real answer is a long one which involves the whole history of school funding, so I made it my blog post for this week.

People can't go back to work if their children can't go back to school.  Trump and Republicans need people to be working so that their donors' stocks will keep going up and so that they can keep denying the effects of COVID-19 in the 100 days before the election.  But they also refuse to provide funding to make this happen because the Republican doctrine is that they are fundamentally opposed to "big government," "socialism," or anything that would involve using tax money to assist working people rather than corporations and the wealthiest 1%.  There is also racism embedded in this as many of their followers oppose funding schools if it means it might help "those other children" and promote more equity, which they fear might endanger the advantages they get from a racist system.  But of course they don't want to say that, so they mask it with terms such as "freedom," "choice," and "opposing socialism." 

 

Teachers have been caught in the middle of this political debate for the past 20-30 years.  As the Republicans have been hacking at the social safety net and the middle class, more children and working families are looking to schools to replace the services they've lost.  As a result, the work load for teachers have been increasing. 

 

On the other hand, Republicans have been vehemently opposing increasing funding to public schools for the reasons I described above.  Betsy DeVos, our "Secretary of Education," is openly calling for dismantling public schools and instead using the tax money that funds schools to fund vouchers for private and charter schools.  She is even using this pandemic as an "opportunity" to make that happen.  But this has been on their agenda since the Reagan Administration, and even Arne Duncan under the Obama Administration was often an ally to this movement.  This, too, has a racial component: the "school choice" movement became part of the Republican agenda during the Johnson Administration's "War on Poverty," school de-segregation laws, and its elimination of any tax cuts for private schools with discriminatory admissions policies.  "School choice" is really just code for "segregation," which is the real end goal.  The insistence to cut funding for public schools also came out of this -- particularly once it became clear that our tax money was going to be funding public schools for everyone, not just the white kids.  This is also why schools are still locally funded, which is why children in wealthy areas get a very different quality of education than students in poor areas. 

 

In a further attempt to sabotage public education, Republicans (and pro-privatization Democrats) have also increased the amount of testing, red tape, and other requirements that schools and teachers must meet.  This is a classic Republican strategy:  cut funding and increase required work until you run an undesirable agency or institution into the ground, then when the agency can't possibly meet all the requirements imposed on it with the budget it's been given, criticize it for being dysfunctional and either eliminate it, reduce it, or restructure it to something more to your party's liking.  They have done this with the EPA, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, etc.  They have been attempting to do this to our schools for over 20 years. More and more funding that was supposed to go to schools has gone to creating, printing, distributing, collecting and grading state tests -- a massively expensive endeavor that does almost nothing to improve the quality of education, and that in fact detracts from students' learning.  In any case, no amount of measuring gaps in education will resolve the issue that the system I described above created.  Nevertheless, all these measures have massively expanded teachers' workloads because they are required to spend more and more time on test prep, pre-tests, pre-pre-tests, and tracking all of the data these generate for each student.  In addition, the amount of other documentation we're legally required to do has increased exponentially.  Teachers have to follow and document information for IEPs, 504s, social-emotional needs, students who require counseling services, students whose reading or math scores are below grade level, plus produce written lesson plans for each day.  While many of these things aren't bad things to do, teachers have not been given any additional time or compensation to make this happen.  As a result, many end up working weekends and evenings.  At the same time, low pay means that many need to work second jobs. Along with trying to gut schools' funding while sabotaging their effectiveness, Republicans have also led a massive media blitz against schools. They have propagated the myth that "our schools are failing" so loudly and so frequently that now many people blindly repeat that as if it was an axiomatic truth -- despite the fact that most of this "failure" can be attributed to funding issues, and despite the fact that many families like the public schools that their own children attend. Nevertheless, almost everyone seems to have had at least one "bad teacher" (out of the approximately 50 teachers they would have had in their K-12 education) and uses that as a justification to tut that "our schools are failing." The dichotomy of the "bad" teacher" vs. the "saintly teacher" is another insidious myth which is used to both justify expecting teachers to "go above and beyond" and blaming them when they can't do so successfully enough to overcome all of the funding and red tape that have been purposely used to attack schools. All of this is coming into play during this pandemic, when teachers are being called on to be saints and potentially martyr themselves by reopening their classrooms for the good of society, or are being blamed as "uncaring" if they raise legitimate concerns about their own safety and the safety of their students. Republicans, led by Betsy DeVos, are using teachers' reluctance to risk their own and others' lives as an opportunity to declare that "lazy" teachers won't do their jobs and to further de-fund, dismantle, and privatize (and segregate) our public schools. Once again, teachers are being voluntold to "make it work" or are being threatened with liquidation if they refuse. I don't think Trump and his followers realize what a short stick they are threatening us with.

 

As a result of all of this, the resources and materials provided to teachers, as well as the staff in our schools required to meet all these mandates, has decreased -- even as students' and families' needs have increased.  This is especially the case in areas that need the resources and staffing the most.  Class sizes have increased.  Pay has not kept pace with inflation or cost of living, so in real wages, teachers make less than they did in previous decades.  Colorado's teacher pay ranks 50th in the nation in terms of wage competitiveness.  Teachers are caught between a public that increasingly demands individualized learning, adaptation to individual children's and families' needs, personalization, and customization, services for for students with disability and trauma, and additional services such as providing meals, but within a system in which the numbers, funding, and time constraints make that impossible and in which the compensation does not come close to being adequate.  Inevitably, teachers get blamed when they "fail" to create success out of an unworkable system.  When teachers bring this up, administrators shrug and say, "there isn't any money," and inveigh their teachers to "do more with less."  Then families, politicians, and administrators all fall back on saying that if the teachers really cared about the kids, they would find a way to make it work -- with the implication that if they don't want to spend their own time and money to subsidize other people's tax cuts by finding or creating the resources that no one else could "afford" to provide, then they must be "bad teachers" who "don't care" and that maybe they shouldn't be working as teachers at all. 

 

For decades, teachers have been trying to patch the broken system with hacks that often involve dollar-store purchases and clever DIY projects they found on Pinterest.  Now they're spending their summer vacations and weekends making shields with PVC pipes and shower curtains because the same pearl-clutchers who insisted that schools HAVE to reopen "for the good of the children" couldn't seem to find the money for plexiglass shields.

 

The center cannot hold.  Teachers cannot keep mending a broken and chronically-underfunded system with elbow grease, duct tape, and late nights.  It's one thing when they're trying to decorate a classroom, or build cubbies for student storage, or create a more efficient grading system (although teachers really should be getting the funding, time and resources for all of these as well).  It's another when the materials are needed to increase the odds of keeping everyone alive and free of a disease that could also cause life-long health implications.  It is not our job to sacrifice ourselves and endanger the children we are supposed to protect because other people have realized -- too late -- that our schools are essential to a functioning economy.

 

In-person Classes are Going to Become Hyflex Courses -- And How to Start Preparing

We all want everything to go back to normal.  We miss seeing our students, the insights that come out of spontaneous discussions, laughter, touching, working together, working with groups, hands-on lessons and labs, hallway conversations, and lunch with friends.  We miss the joy.  Our students miss all of this too.  

So far, the party line from many schools and colleges has been that they plan on reopening in the fall, and resuming in-person classes.  Many of us are eagerly moving forward with planning instruction on the assumption that we will be back in classrooms with our students at least some of the time.

Spiking rates of COVID-19 might  force us to start teaching online again;  we should all have contingency plans for a repetition of last March.  Even if that does not happen, our classrooms are not going to return to normal.  Some schools are planning on having each half of a class meet on alternate days. Others are allowing students and their families to choose whether to attend online or in-person.

Even if our classes are meeting in person, teachers are going to have to navigate a patchwork of attendance issues.  How will students access our classes if they are quarantined for two weeks? Or if they are sick? Or if they are too concerned for their safety to come to class? Not to mention that we will have to excuse any student who says they feel sick, or who says that returning to school doesn’t feel safe. Attendance policies will become meaningless. Assignment deadlines might too.

We are going to need to re-think how we structure our courses.

Currently, course structures are usually categorized as: 

• In-person = traditional classes that are entirely in person)

• Online = courses where all content is provided online and that has two categories:

• Synchronous online = online courses where people meet at the same time via Zoom or other formats

• Asynchronous online = online courses where content is provided through text, video, screencasts, or asynchronous chats, where students can do the coursework at any time they want.

• Hybrid courses = courses where some content is provided online (either synchronously or asynchronously) and some is provided in person

• Hyflex courses = courses where students can choose to come to the class in person or to access coure content online. In some cases the online option might allow people to synchronously “attend” class via Zoom or another format. In others, they might be able to allow students to access the content online in an asynchronous format, such as a video recording of the lecture. Some courses may even allow all three options, of coming to the class in person, “zooming” in to participate virtually, or asynchronously allowing students to view a film of the class or other content at a later time.

Until a treatment or cure for COVID-19 is found, all of our “in-person” classes are going to become de facto hyflex classes.  Inevitably, even if our class is defined as an “in person” class, we will end up having to provide online options, and likely both synchronous and asynchronous options as well.

Some of my colleagues have taught hyflex graduate courses, and they say that teaching in that format can double, or even triple, planning time because they need to plan what each class is going to look like for students who are 1) in the room, 2) Zooming in, 3) not able to attend at that time, who will need to access the recorded content later.  But they also said that the amount of work involved can depend on how we structure our courses.

I am not writing this to freak anyone out.  We can mitigate some of the negative impacts if we start planning for this reality now.  We should start considering what our classes and course policies will look like in hyflex formats.  I don’t think any of us have all the answers for what quality hyflex instruction looks like -- particularly at the K-12 level.  But here are some questions and ideas to consider as we adapt to hyflex models:

What would you want students to be in class for?  What can students get from face-to-face meetings that they can’t get in any other format?  

• Consider what most needs to happen when you see students in person and prioritize using class time for that.

• To the extent possible, consider the best ways to replicate that interaction for students who cannot come to class at all.  How can they join in through their screens or share their thoughts at other times?

• Consider flipping your course and providing content online, while using in-person meetings to help students individually or in small groups, or to help them troubleshoot what they were stuck on when they tried to work at home.  This format lends itself well to hyflex teaching.

Where will students primarily get information for your course?

• Lectures -- consider ways to film and post your lectures.

• Written directions -- make them available digitally as well as in class.

• Reading texts -- can students access the text on PDFs or websites if they aren’t in class?

• Annotating texts -- I haven't used these yet, but a colleague recommended hypoth.is or Perusall.

• Video or screencast -- ensure that clips or films you would show in class are available online.  Here’s how to upload a DVD to youtube. In my experience, streaming a video in Zoom so your whole class can watch it together doesn't work because it uses too much bandwidth. It works better to give students time to watch the film independently (with their mics off) and then resume the discussion when they have finished.

What will students need to do? What work will you need to see and check?

• If students are doing worksheets or quizzes, consider putting those in digital formats such as quizzes on your course management system or on Google Forms, Quizlet, Cahoot, etc.

• If students need to listen and take notes, consider ways for them to listen to lectures or screencasts online.  Consider using Google Forms or other formats to create note-catchers and graphic organizers they can fill in.

• What do students need to turn in to you?  Ensure that there is a way to do this online through a course management site like Google Classroom or through another format.

What kinds of feedback do students need from us and at what times?

• How will students see (and show that they have read) our written feedback?  Course management systems, plus Google Docs, Google Classroom, Microsoft Word, and many other systems allow us to write comments directly on documents.

• How and when will students be able to talk with us about their work?  We could consider using Zoom meetings, texting, emailing, or screencasts of us reading their work and providing verbal feedback.

• How and when will students use rubrics or other documents to measure how well they met standards?  How will we make sure they understand what the rubric is measuring?  This is an area where screencasting could be helpful -- teachers could make a screencast of a talk-through of the assignment, the rubric, or even a model that a student gave us permission to use.

How and when will students interact?  

• Small groups -- create break-out groups in Zoom.  Or use laptops to zoom in a student and move the laptop to put them in groups with the students.

• Whiteboard -- Zoom has a whiteboard feature that multiple students can use at once. Or there are multiple other whiteboard collaboration programs.

• Discussions -- use chat discussions in your course management system, or on another site, such as Backchannel Chat.

• Create posters or a written document -- create shared documents in Google docs or Google Slides, and add all students with “can edit” privileges.  This will require getting each student’s email and then typing or pasting them into the “Add people/groups” field when you click “share.”

• Consider finding other ways for students to share their thinking with Flipgrid, Padlet, or other interactive programs.

What physical materials will students need?

• Classroom supplies -- ask students to find these at the start of the lesson, or send an email in advance telling them what to bring to class meetings.  Work with the district or school in advance to send or loan materials to students who can’t come to school.  Or consider other items they could use at home or access digitally.

What else we will need to do to make hybrid teaching a success

Teach norms

Just as we explicitly teach students how to interact with each other in our classrooms, we will need to explicitly teach them how to interact online, or how to interact when some students are in the room and some are online.  Consider what you will need to teach your students about dressing appropriately, eating and drinking at appropriate times, appropriate language, turn-taking, attentiveness, how and when to “chat” either in person or with Zoom’s “chat” feature, how to raise their hands, how to be excused, and all other behaviors you would expect regardless of whether they are in person or online.

Rethink class policies

Many of us give credit for attendance, but we are entering a term where there will be multiple, often legitimate, reasons why students cannot attend class.  We may need to have more flexible attendance policies.

Homework policies

What would provide students enough structure to be successful while also providing enough flexibility to allow them to manage access, health, and other issues? Perhaps instead of attendance and rigid due dates, we should consider:

• Check-ins -- contact with us by a certain date

• Progress checks -- checking how well students are meeting completion benchmarks in the process of completing a project or meeting a standard

• Standards-based grading -- some schools were already grading based on completion of work and demonstration of meeting standards by the end of the unit.  This might be a good time to consider adopting those policies.

Opportunities for Growth

While hyflex teaching is going to create a lot of challenges and changes, disruptions to our typical teaching schemas can also lead to innovation.  This can be an opportunity for all of us to rethink what content is really important for students to learn, what kinds of interactions among students we are trying to foster, and what pedagogies and policies will best help students be successful.  Are there other forms of instruction that are as good or better than teaching all of our students the same content, at the same time?  Are there ways that more choice and flexibility could help students learn better and foster a stronger sense of agency and ownership?  Are there forms of interaction that could foster a stronger sense of community or provide better feedback?  Does “teaching” always mean having to teach a group of 30 students all at once?  Does learning always have to happen in lockstep?  So many of us have been working within the brick and mortar classroom paradigms for so much that we haven’t been able to do much thinking out of the box (literally).  Maybe we don’t all know what hyflex learning will look like this year, but we will have a chance to work together to expand our thinking about teaching and learning.

I would love to see or hear about what people are doing to move to hyflex instruction.  Please add what you’re doing to the comments!

Famous Last Words -- Sliding Expectations Around Reopening Schools

Famous Last Words

Sliding Expectations Around Reopening Schools

All of us who are teachers have caved. We can admit it. 

We know the questions:

“I can’t make it to the class, but I need to take it and pass.  Could I pass the class just by doing what’s available on the course management system?”

“I need to take the five-week summer school course, but I have to miss the last week.  Will that work?”

“Why can’t I just turn in all of the work during the last week of class?”

“Could I re-do all the assignments I have low grades on and have you re-grade them?”

“I’m not feeling challenged by this class.  Why can’t you let me do a separate independent study?”

For most of us who have encountered these questions in our college (or K-12) classes, the answer is usually a flat “no.”  But we all have our moments of weakness.  Maybe the student had a particularly compelling reason.  Maybe they happened to ask us on a day when we were already worn down and didn’t have any more energy to argue.  Maybe an administrator twisted our arms.  

And we find ourselves saying, “Well, maybe that would work IF . . .”

Sometimes we’re kicking ourselves even as we say it.

Maybe doing this has worked out for other people, but whenever I have said these words, I have lived to deeply regret them. Students frequently nod their heads and steadfastly agree to do everything after the IF. But later, for one reason or another, meeting those conditions does not happen.  Then they come back to my office, upset about their grade, asking why they didn’t do well, and wanting to know what else they (I) should do to resolve this issue.  They often also blame me for not clearly communicating expectations, even when I had outlined a whole list of things they would need to do and consequences if they did not, including, “if you aren’t able to do all of these things, you may fail the class.”

Some of the issue seems to be what we say to students vs. what students hear.  We may say, “This class was not designed to be an online class, it was designed to be an in-person class.  Some of the assignments for the class will be completed during class, and people who don’t come to class will not get credit for those assignments, so it will be impossible to do well in this class if you are not coming to class.  Nevertheless, since the major assignments are all online, I suppose it might be possible to turn in only those assignments and perhaps pass with a 'C' or a 'D.'  But that would mean that YOU would need to use the course management site independently, do ALL of the online assignments independently and on time, and read and follow the directions to do the complete assignment correctly.  If you are unable to do all of this on your own, you will not pass the class.” 

That’s pretty strong professor-speak for “there is a high likelihood that this will not work, but since you’re an adult I will let you choose to try to be the exception to the rule as long as you’re comfortable accepting the risk of failing the course.”

But students often leave the conversation having heard: “I talked to the professor and they said it will be fine.” 

Then they don’t do any of the things I’d told them they would need to do because, hey, they’d talked to me and I’d said everything would be cool.

Then when they are not passing and things are not cool, they feel lied to.  Even though what they’d heard had almost nothing to do with what I’d said.  In their view, I had not communicated clearly, which means I am at fault, which means I have a responsibility to fix the problem.

“Maybe we can try it, IF . . .” almost always opens a Pandora’s box.  I end up having to have meetings, take late work, re-grade assignments, give an “Incomplete” and keep grading work even after the term is over, or I end up having multiple meetings and emails up the chain of command where I have to explain and re-explain what our original agreement was and why I refuse to make still more accommodations after the first ones weren’t met.

Watching the discussions about reopening the schools is bringing me back to all the “Maybe we can try it, IF . . .” discussions I have had over the years.  In June, the CDC started putting out guidelines saying that we could try to reopen schools, IF all students get temperature checks and wellness checks before they enter,  wear masks, stay spaced six feet apart throughout the day, remain in groups of 10 or fewer students, wash their hands frequently with soap and water, and IF the schools frequently administer COVID-19 tests to students and staff, install plexiglass shields and other PPE, frequently disinfect rooms, and keep all spaces well-ventilated.

That is a lot of IFs.  Immediately, teachers had questions.

Many brought up that their classrooms didn’t have windows that opened, let alone HVAC systems, let alone HVAC systems that are monitored and cleaned regularly.  Or they started pointing out that bathrooms at their schools have push-down faucets that don’t allow people to hold both hands under the faucet, or that their school bathrooms only had cold water, or frequently ran out of soap.  Or that anyone who thinks students will wear a mask all day and never touch their faces or touch each other after touching their faces (not to mention other orifices) has not been in a classroom.  We wondered who was going to pay for the Plexiglass, boxes of disposable masks, vats of hand sanitizer, and cleaning products and cleaning staff to make all this possible.  How was this going to fit into slashed budgets?  Would Clorox wipes and Lysol spray even be available by fall?  We’d already started shopping around to try to buy our own -- just to be safe -- and we couldn’t find any stores or websites that had these in stock.

Even so, the public heard, “We can re-open schools.  The CDC said it will be fine.”

As with students’ amnesia about all of the stipulations that come after the IF, or expectations that those stipulations will also be negotiable, the CDC’s recommendations were glossed over.  Then they got distilled down to fewer “real” recommendations.  Then even those got walked back to being “guidelines.”  Then Trump and Pence declared that the CDC guidelines would be too expensive and “too impractical,” and demanded that the CDC make changes that would allow schools to reopen. A few days later, the Trump Administration told hospitals not to share data with the CDC, effectively keeping it from doing its job to craft policy based on the most up-to-date data.

Meanwhile, the public continued to demand that schools reopen.  Even experts and pediatricians -- not to mention economists -- started falling into line and publishing articles about why schools NEED to reopen.  Some parents, and even some school board members, had bought into Trump-circulated myths that COVID-19 was “a hoax,” or that case numbers were inflated, or that it is no different than the flu, so why close schools for for COVID-19 when kids get the flu every year?  As conspiracy theories abounded, more and more people insisted that re-opening our schools would be completely safe, and that the original CDC guidelines should be options for students, teachers, and families who wanted to take additional precautions.

Often, when I go against my better judgement and allow a student a “You can try this IF. . .” they thank me profusely and rave about how great I am.  But as all the things that came after the IF come into focus or become too difficult or unwieldy, they either ignore them or I become the “bad guy” who is making all of these unfulfillable and unmanageable demands. What had started as an extra chance becomes twisted into my being perceived as being inflexible and having unreasonable expectations, or becomes my being perceived as demanding they jump through a bunch of additional hoops to get the grade they thought they deserved.  We can see the same thing happen to schools and to teachers as districts and families start to come face to face with all the requirements the CDC had said they would need to meet -- and with how to pay all the costs.

I’ve had administrators or department chairs who are pressuring me to find a work-around for a student and allow a “You can try this, IF. . .” option ask me what the problem is when I’m reluctant.  With one, I got exasperated and said, “Because making this work always ends up on my back.  It ends up being my job to find a time to meet with the student that fits with their schedule, and then it's up to me to figure out an option that will work, and then I usually have to follow up with them and remind them of what they’re supposed to be doing, and then if they don’t do what was required or their work isn’t passable, I end up looking like the Wicked Witch of the West, and then it becomes my job to explain that again and figure out what to do next.”  He finally kind of heard that.

Teachers are now expressing the same concerns.  We’ve been down this road before, and we know where it leads.  We’re already starting to get that twisting feeling in the pit of our stomachs as we realize who will have to maintain all these rules, do all this cleaning, accommodate constant absences, and argue with parents about why yes, their children really do need to follow these rules -- while simultaneously reassuring anxious parents that the rules are being followed.  Most -- if not all - of it is going to land squarely on our shoulders -- again.  

With most of the “We can try this, IF . . .” options I’ve given to students, the stakes have been an "F" in my course -- at most.  Given the cost of college tuition, even those stakes are pretty high.  But with reopening schools during a pandemic, the stakes are much higher.  How many children’s lives are we willing to risk if we can’t do all of the CDC’s IFs that followed their statement that it was safe to reopen?  How many lives of teachers and staff are we willing to risk?  Or lives of parents, grandparents, and other family members?   What if the CDC’s conditions aren’t possible in our buildings or with our students?  What if there is no money to pay for meeting these requirements?  What if all the schools in the country create a run on tissues, hand sanitizer, face masks, Clorox wipes, Lysol spray, and other cleaning supplies, so that there aren’t enough of these required items to stock each classroom?  What if students and families don’t want to follow the rules and refuse?   What if we all manage to follow the CDC’s recommendations, but they turn out not to be enough to curtail the spread of COVID-19 and there are still outbreaks?

Even while teaching college classes, I've learned that sometimes it's my job to be the adult and say no -- even if saying that makes some people angry. Sometimes I have to tell people that they might think they will have no problem with doing all the things after the IF, but that there are good odds they will have problems because all the things I listed after the IF means there will be no margin for error. I've taught long enough to know that, even before COVID-19, things happen. People get sick. They get tired. They lose focus. They have to cover additional shifts at work. Or deal with something that happens in their families. In one way or another, even the best-laid plans frequently go awry. Sometimes I have to tell people what they don't want to hear and I have to say "NO." And I have to explain that I'm saying "no" because I care about them and because it is not ethical to set someone up to fail. Online, I've written to people who think that COVID-19 is a hoax and that it's completely safe to reopen schools that making your own run for a Darwin Award is your choice, but that it's unconscionable to sign up children. Our children are trusting us, not just to make them happy, but to keep them safe. As with teaching, that means being the adult and sometimes saying "no." It means making the safe, but unpopular choice and keeping them home. Especially when the stakes are so high, it is not ethical to set people up to fail.