Democracy

Is Democracy at Risk? A Lesson Plan for U.S. and Global History Classes (New York Times)
Often we take for granted that the United States is a democracy, and that democracy is a form of government worth celebrating. This lesson starts there, but then pushes students to reflect on why democracies are worth protecting, what elements are essential to a healthy democracy and how it is that democracies sometimes fail. Continue Reading

Is More Democracy Always Better Democracy? (The New Yorker)
Parties are losing control over their candidates. Two scholars argue that ordinary Americans are the ones paying the price. Continue Reading

Opportunity/Inequality

How resources and opportunities differ for NYC students (Hechinger Report)
Resources, instructional materials are drastically different for public school students living in the same city. Continue Reading

Democrats Win Control Of The Wealthiest Districts -- But Also The Most Unequal (Forbes)
Democrats took control of the House, gaining at least 30 seats (there are still technically 422 of 435 seats undeclared), and bringing the balance of power up to 225 Democrat representatives against 197 Republican. Democrats, in fact, now represent 41 out of the top-50 wealthiest congressional districts - and all 10 of the top-10 wealthiest districts, according to a recent election study. Continue Reading

Conservative Arkansas could soon have the highest effective minimum wage in the country (The Washington Post)
Arkansas is likely to have the highest effective minimum wage in the country soon, setting up a grand experiment in whether a high minimum wage in a poor state can raise workers out of poverty - or derail the state's economy. Continue Reading

Engagement

The 'Gateway Drug to Democracy' (The Atlantic)
When people are asked how they would like to spend their tax dollars and are given an option to directly implement that binding decision themselves, "it really inspires a different way of thinking about our governments and our cities." Continue Reading

City Voters Resoundingly Decide to Place Term Limits on Community Boards (Sunnyside Post)
Voters in New York City have decided to place term limits on community board members. Community board members currently serve two-year terms, and are re-appointed without limit. Continue Reading

Record voter turnout in 2018 midterm elections (CBS News)
An estimated 113 million people participated in the 2018 midterm elections, making this the first midterm in history to exceed over 100 million votes, with 49 percent of eligible voters participating in the election. By comparison, the 2014 midterm elections had one of the lowest turnouts in American history, with only 36.4 percent of eligible voters participating. In 2010, the first midterm of President Obama's tenure, 41 percent of voters participated. Continue Reading

K-12

A rich Michigan district gets $10.1K per student. Its poorer neighbor gets $7.9K. Will Michigan's new divided government change the math (Chalkbeat)
With Republicans solidly in control of the Michigan legislature, governor-elect Gretchen Whitmer's education agenda may depend on finding a sliver of common ground with the opposite party. Continue Reading

EDlection2018: 2016 National Teacher of the Year Jahana Hayes Elected to U.S. Congress in CT, Promising to Back Teachers and Increase School Funding (The 74)
Democrat and 2016 National Teacher of the Year Jahana Hayes made history Tuesday night, becoming the first black woman elected to Congress in Connecticut. Continue Reading

Report: Schools investing in ed tech they don't use (Education Dive)
With the massive increase in ed tech and, as a result, education apps, schools continue to boost their investment in these programs - but in the end, they don't really use them. Continue Reading

Higher Ed/Workforce

Cal State Sees Major Gains in Graduation Rates (Inside Higher Ed)
Administrators at the California State University System worried two years ago when the system set ambitious goals for increasing graduation rates. They were concerned that low-income students and students of color would be harmed by the new targets. One criticism, for example, was that students would be pushed into courses they were not prepared to take. Instead, the nation's largest and most diverse public university system is seeing record levels of achievement and narrowed equity gaps among low-income and minority students. Continue Reading

A Divided Congress Is Unlikely to Compromise on Higher Ed. But What if It Did? (The Chronicle of Higher Education)
In the wake of Tuesday's election results, there will inevitably be talk of reauthorizing the Higher Education Act, the main federal law governing student aid and other key higher-education policies, during the next two years. Continue Reading

A Lesson From Montanans' Vote to Tax Themselves to Fund Higher Education (The Atlantic)
At a time when Republican trust in college overall is low, voters tend to keep supporting their local schools. Continue Reading

Health Care

Why Doctors Hate Their Computers (The New Yorker)
Digitization promises to make medical care easier and more efficient. But are screens coming between doctors and patients? Continue Reading

Healthcare providers concerned, unsure how to address CMS price transparency final rule (Healthcare Finance)
There is growing concern about how much value the rule really provides for patients and the potential perception problem it creates for hospitals. Continue Reading

Industry slow to improve patient health literacy (Modern Healthcare)
It wasn't long after the primary-care focused Rio Grande Valley Health Alliance in McAllen, Texas, was formed in 2013 that it became apparent the accountable care organization's patients had trouble talking with physicians about their health during office visits. Part of the problem was language related-most of the ACO's 7,500 patients in the southern Texas border town speak English as a second language. But a bigger challenge was the intimidation patients felt when they were meeting a doctor in the clinic was limiting their understanding of their health and how to improve or maintain it. Continue Reading

Friends in Civics, we have some exciting news. The Florida Joint Center for Citizenship at the Lou Frey Institute is now offering a free online Canvas course targeting primarily new and beginning civics teachers in Florida, though it is open to any and all civics educators who are interested.

This program will provide educators new to civics with a supported professional
learning experience while teaching middle school civics. They will learn,
implement and reflect on educational best practices, engage with a cohort of
other educators and network with experienced civic education professionals. You can learn more about the course series here!

For those teachers in Florida seeking points towards certificate renewal, this course series offers that opportunity through the ePDC (electronic Professional Development Connections) system. In the infographic below, you can see the scope and sequence of the course series.

“I just wanted to thank you for offering the online Civics Modules, I learned so much during the first one and can’t wait to implement some of the things I learned.” —A beginning civics teacher “Thank-you also for the course- I learned quite a bit about how to teach Civics in Florida and to especially to 7th graders.” —An experienced teacher new to civics in Florida

Later this month, we will be starting the next cohort for COURSE ONE. We hope to have Course Two ready later this fall or early winter.

A Prepared Classroom will focus on understanding the role of course descriptions and the Civics End-of-Course Test Item Specifications, utilizing curriculum and pacing guide resources, strategically planning and preparing for instruction, as well as providing data informed instruction based on formative and summative data. You can view the syllabus for the first course here: FJCC A Prepared Classroom Syllabus

You can enroll yourself in the course here! https://canvas.instructure.com/enroll/KWYTK4. Or, https://canvas.instructure.com/register and use the following join code: KWYTK4

Are you more interested in the second or third courses because you feel pretty good about the content in the first one? That is fine! You DO NOT have to take every course; Florida teachers may earn renewal points for EACH course in the series. We will be piloting the second course, A Cognitively Complex Classroom, in late 2018 or early 2019 with a small group of teachers, and will let you know when we launch it after what we hope will be a successful pilot!

Each course in the series will be offered through the free version of the Canvas platform. Canvas Free for Teacher accounts are always free, but they do not contain all features available to institutional users of Canvas. For example, no client support beyond access to the Canvas Guides is offered to you as a Free for Teachers user. With a Canvas Free for Teachers account users can access and participate in courses as well as create (and host) their own online courses. Please note that you WILL have to create a new account to use this version of the platform; it is not compatible with the institutional version you may use in your school or district. You can learn more about this version of the platform here.

In order to enroll in the course, you will need to be sure that you register through the ePDC system. Let’s walk through the process together. First, go to the PAEC website at PAEC.org.

Once there, click on ePDC and if this is your first time, click on ePDC and then ‘Create an Account.’ Once you confirm your account registration, sign in and then click again on ePDC and select ‘Course Offerings’. You should see a screen like this:

Click on ‘Course Offerings’, and you will see something like this:

In the ‘Search Text’ bar, you can type ‘FJCC’, and the course should appear! BE SURE TO ENROLL IN THE NOVEMBER COURSE. 

Click on ‘Register’ and you should be in. The ePDC course is setup to automatically direct the person that registers for the course to the Canvas Course page.  You will have to create an account if you do not already have one but the link to the September course is embedded in the ePDC PAEC course.

You can expect a follow up email or two from your course instructor in Novemeber, prior to the start of the course. At this time, registration is limited to the first 25 participants, but it may be possible to make exceptions!

How are in-service points handled?
PAEC extracts in-service records from the ePDC and submits in-service data for member and participating districts to the Florida Department of Education as a service to districts. Teachers from outside of PAEC member or participating districts should print the Certificate of Completion for each course and submit the certificate to the appropriate district professional development office.

We do hope to see you in this online space for learning and the development of a virtual professional learning community. Please share this with anyone you believe might benefit from this course series! 

Questions about this entire course series, or the first course in the series (‘A Prepared Classroom‘), can be directed to Dr. Steve Masyada or Ms. Peggy Renihan.

At Tisch College and Tufts, we are extremely proud of Moon Duchin and her team in the Metric Geometry and Gerrymandering group. This new video takes less than two minutes to play and introduces their work:

Moon and her colleagues are generating tools, participating in legal processes, and training people (from k-12 students to expert witnesses)–all in the interests of democratizing influence on the redistricting process.

As an example, they develop algorithms that start with the existing map and randomly generate enormous numbers of additional maps. Observing that set of possible maps allows one to see whether any given one is more partisan–or otherwise less fair–than the norm. Often, the real or proposed map is an outlier because it reflects a political agenda.

I am pleased to help promote this initiative on the eve of an election that will be deeply shaped by gerrymandering–and likely to affect the electoral map for the next decade.

See also Rebooting the Mathematics Behind Gerrymandering by Moon Duchin and me.