Key Education Recommendations for Reopening the K-12 Classroom

Homeroom has taken on a literal meaning over the past two months. Parents, while always their children’s first and foremost educators, have had to fully embrace homeschooling as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. And although that has been working great for many families – some 40% now say they’re more likely to continue homeschooling even when schools reopen – for others, it is either not the right fit for their child or doesn’t work with their job requirements.

Many families rely on that custodial function of the physical K-12 school to enable them to go to work. And although teleworking is likely to become a more prominent feature of American life moving forward, many families are eager to reunite their children with their teachers and classmates in person, in their public, charter, or private schools. Governors, school districts, and principals should plan to reopen schools safely as soon as possible.

The National Coronavirus Recovery Commission recently released a comprehensive set of 264 recommendations to guide America through this pandemic, while protecting both lives and livelihoods. The work of local school leaders in the public and private sectors will play a critical role in helping America get back to work, and the economy back on track.

What follows is a list of 10 recommendations put forward by the commission geared specifically toward K-12 schools across the country.

In these trying times, we must turn to the greatest document in the history of the world to promise freedom and opportunity to its citizens for guidance. Find out more now >>

1. K-12 schools should act proactively in concert with state and local health officials to assist school administrators in making reopening decisions. School leaders should review all aspects of the school’s facilities and operations, looking for ways to best prevent transmission. That includes student transportation to and from school; class schedules, density, and layout; rotation of teachers instead of students; pedestrian traffic patterns; and the use of personal protective equipment and hand sanitization. They should implement thorough cleaning and sanitization guidelines for all surfaces, especially eating areas, locker rooms, and bathrooms.

2. State and local governments should allow K–12 schools to open this fall and selectively quarantine any students, faculty, or staff who show COVID-like symptoms by sending them home. Districts that have low incident rates should begin plans to reopen, and all school districts should have emergency response plans (including quick transitions to online learning) if they are forced to close again. If a student is sent home due to illness, or if a school has to close, the school should continue to provide online instruction for students who are sent home. For parents who choose to keep their children at home, schools should continue to offer online instruction while enabling students to demonstrate proficiency in mandatory subjects.

3. State and local governments should make decisions based on data for the local district, and even the specific school, not the entire state. If the cases in a single school that is not geographically connected to another school or schools rise beyond the number deemed appropriate by health professionals, in-person operations in an entire state or district do not need to be suspended.

4. State and local governments should consider suspending in-person operations schoolwide only if a school’s COVID-19 cases increase beyond an acceptable number as determined by health professionals. In the event of a local outbreak, school personnel should consult with health officials as to whether social distancing rules should be applied to certain events, such as athletic events, but such disruptions should be implemented only on an as-needed basis.

5. States should help families return to work and students maintain education continuity by making education funding student-centered and portable. Families across the country are currently unable to access the public schools they pay for through their tax dollars and are looking for continuity in their children’s education. In order to help families maintain education continuity, states should restructure per-pupil K–12 education dollars to provide emergency education savings accounts (ESAs) to students, enabling them to access their child’s share of state per-pupil funding to pay for online courses, online tutors, curriculum, and textbooks so that they can continue learning.

6. States with online schools lift any barriers to access, including caps, enrollment restrictions, or grade prohibitions for students in grades K–12. Every student should have equal access to online education regardless of zip code or district boundary, and all students—regardless of academic need or socioeconomic circumstance—should have access to online education options.

7. Congress should provide spending flexibility with existing education dollars. The CARES Act passed in April allowed schools flexibility to carry forward unused Title I spending and repurpose existing professional development spending for online instruction. Congress should build on this flexibility and allow states to use all of their existing federal education dollars for any lawful purpose under state law.

8. Congress should make federal funding portable for children from low-income families and children with special needs. Congress should immediately make funding authorized under the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) student-centered and portable, allowing children with special needs to access learning services to which they are entitled under federal law. Similarly, Congress should allow federal Title I dollars for low-income districts to follow students to private online education options of choice.

9. Congress should also support the education of military-connected children. The children of active-duty military families currently do not have access to the public schools nearest to the base to which their parents are assigned. Congress should provide the children of active-duty military families with education savings accounts, enabling them to access online tutors, online courses, textbooks, and curricula to provide educational continuity during this time.

10. Congress should expand access to 529 savings accounts. Congress should allow Americans to access their 529 savings plans for homeschooling expenses. Currently, 529 saving plans can pay for a broad range of education-related costs, such as college expenses and, more recently, private elementary or secondary school tuition. Yet homeschooling expenses are excluded from the eligible uses of 529 savings accounts. Immediately expanding qualified expenses to include homeschooling—reflecting the fact that nearly every American family currently has to homeschool as a result of COVID-19—would be a timely and targeted policy.

Students can’t afford to have their education put on hold, and parents, as taxpayers, should have access to the money that is spent on behalf of their children in schools across the country. These 10 recommendations will help quickly get American education back on track, safely and more effectively than ever.

For the complete list of recommendations, visit the National Coronavirus Recovery Commission’s website at CoronavirusCommission.com.

SOURCE





College admissions cheating is sleazy, but it shouldn't be a federal case

LORI LOUGHLIN and Mossimo Giannulli threw in the towel last week. The married couple, a Hollywood actress and a fashion designer, pleaded guilty in federal court to conspiracy to commit fraud in connection with the "Varsity Blues" college admissions scandal. Abandoning their year-long attempt to get the charges dismissed, they accepted a plea deal under which Loughlin would serve two months in prison and pay a fine of $150,000. For Giannulli, prosecutors recommend five months behind bars and a $250,000 fine.

I won't be shedding any tears for Loughlin and Giannulli. Their behavior, it is clear, was dishonest and disgraceful. What isn't clear is why this had to be turned into a federal matter.

Like the dozens of other rich celebrities and CEOs charged in the case, Loughlin and Giannulli were accused of swindling their children's way into college with the help of ringleader Rick Singer. So far, more than 30 of the parents named by the FBI and the US Attorney for Massachusetts have pleaded guilty. They made payments to Singer's "charitable" foundation; he used the money to facilitate cheating on the kids' college entrance exams, or to bribe coaches to designate the students as highly sought-after athletes. Loughlin and Giannulli, for example, paid $500,000 and got their daughters admitted to the University of Southern California as recruits for the USC crew team, even though neither girl had any rowing experience. Another actress, Felicity Huffman, paid Singer to have someone rig her daughter's SAT scores.

So rich parents spread money around to grease their kids' way into elite colleges they might not have gotten into on their own merits. It was underhanded. It was deceitful. It was also the kind of thing that many rich parents have been doing for their kids since the beginning of time.

But was it a crime against the United States of America?

It is hard to see how this case ever legitimately justified a sweeping federal prosecution. For tampering with tests and college applications, the parents could have been pursued in state court. The colleges themselves could have sued the parents and Singer for suborning coaches and bribing proctors.

Why did the federal government need to get involved? Myriads of illegal crimes and conspiracies — opioid smuggling, counterfeiting, healthcare fraud, human trafficking, identity theft — are indisputably public threats. Combating such offenses, plus the scourge of public corruption, often requires deploying the intimidatingly immense resources of the FBI and the Justice Department. But to nail a few dozen rich couples because they cut corners and paid bribes so their children could attend tony colleges? Was that really a national priority? Or was it overkill driven by a desire to score juicy press coverage?

"Since J. Edgar Hoover's time, the FBI has been obsessed with chasing headlines that made them appear like righteous avenging angels," says investigative journalist James Bovard, who has made a career of exposing government overreach. Those headlines are amply justified when the crooks being taken down are Ponzi schemers like Bernie Madoff, gangsters like Whitey Bulger, terrorists like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, or racist mass killers like Dylann Roof. It is harder to see what the public gains, apart from the schadenfreude of seeing a rich celebrity fall humiliatingly from grace, when the feds make it their goal to lock up movie actresses like Loughlin and Huffman, who aren't a danger to society.

Most of the "Varsity Blues" defendants have been convicted of committing (or conspiring to commit) "honest services fraud," which is banned by a notoriously vague statute that makes it illegal "to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services." It was passed by Congress in 1988 to make it easier to convict corrupt public officials (mere dishonesty being easier to prove than actual bribery or extortion), and it's sometimes used by prosecutors to reach fraud in corporate settings. But the statutory language could theoretically reach any transaction that involves logrolling or string-pulling. In a 2009 opinion, the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia warned that aggressive prosecutors could use the nebulous "honest services" hook to go after "a mayor for using the prestige of his office to get a table at a restaurant without a reservation."

US attorneys have wide latitude in deciding when and whether to prosecute potential crimes, and they are obliged to exercise that discretion wisely. Would the feds have pursued this case if they didn't know the public would eat it up? The "Varsity Blues" parents behaved badly, but this was overkill.

SOURCE






An Australian university that unlawfully sacked a professor for criticising colleagues for their research on the impact of global warming on the Great Barrier Reef is back in court

James Cook University is appealing the Brisbane Federal Circuit Court's finding that it contravened the Fair Work Act when it dismissed Peter Vincent Ridd in 2018.

Judge Salvatore Vasta made 28 findings in April 2019 against the university, which censured Prof Ridd for remarks against a coral researcher, the Australian Institute of Marine Science and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies.

The university was later ordered to pay Prof Ridd more than $1.2m for lost income, lost future income and other costs.

Before sacking the geophysicist, the university alleged Prof Ridd had violated its code of conduct during an August 2017 interview on Sky News when he remarked some of the university's research could "no longer be trusted".

It also alleged Prof Ridd wrote of a researcher in an email to a student: "It is not like he has any clue about the weather. He will give the normal doom science about the (Great Barrier Reef)".

Judge Vasta found the university's actions, including the dismissal, were unlawful.

"Incredibly, the university has not understood the whole concept of intellectual freedom," he wrote in his findings.

"In reality, intellectual freedom is the cornerstone of this core mission of all institutions of higher learning."

Freedom of expression and the interpretation of the university's code of conduct were the focus of the appeal submissions on Tuesday.

The university's lawyer, Bret Walker SC, said the university was responsible for enforcing standards of behaviour to protect intellectual freedom and the code of conduct.

Mr Walker said staff had the right to intellectual freedom and the right to express certain views but not bully, harass or intimidate others.

"Freedom .... is not without limit, restriction or standard," he told the court.

The two-day hearing continues.

SOURCE