- We start the week with our own Aaron Churchill’s latest op-ed. Title: “Even in a crisis, students must earn their diplomas”. Wonder how that’s going to go over? (Vindy.com, 5/3/20)
- I’m not sure why anyone—besides a handful of Fordhamites, that is—thinks that K-12 students should work just as hard to earn their grades during distance learning when student teachers are thrilled that they do not. Ohio’s student-teaching time requirement got cut in half “within about a week” of the first school closure order. By my reckoning, that means they’ll end up about half as competent as previous student-teachers but I must be missing something in the equation because this story says that all of them will receive their full teaching licenses despite the lack of experience. The idea that the cut down time is seen as “overcoming” an impediment that could have taken them “off track” is just the icing on the garbage cake. (Dayton Daily News, 5/3/20)
- Lordt only knows what those student teachers were even doing during their minimal online classroom time, because parents (or big sisters in this case) are apparently doing all the actual remote teaching. From my perspective, we’ve somehow gone from “nothing can replace the in-class teacher/student interaction” to “why bother trying to replace it?” (It takes a minute to get to the obligatory “teacher parent” perspective in this piece, but it’s there. Honestly, it should have a copyright symbol next to it anymore.) And what if we don’t get back to full in-class teaching next school year? Sounds like more guaranteed backward movement to me. (Toledo Blade, 5/4/20)
- Speaking of which, remember when those law students petitioned the state to let them get their licenses without passing the bar exam? Wonder which side of this year’s passage rate those petitioners would have fallen on? (Highland County Press, 5/4/20)
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