The state of California will need at least $500 million to ensure all students across the state have Internet access and the technology required for at-home education during the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond said Wednesday.
According to Thurmond, about 600,000 students in California are in need of a computer or tablet and as many as 400,000 students lack Internet access at home.
Thurmond said the state wouldn’t discriminate in reaching that total, whether the funds came from a federal stimulus package or philanthropic Internet service providers.
“You can just break it down into small parts,” Thurmond said in a Wednesday morning briefing on the so-called “digital divide.” “That means 100 companies that make a commitment of at least $5 million to help our students have the success that they need. We can get there in any different way.”
Thurmond maintained that he expects the state’s public schools to re-open for in-person classes in August and September with health and safety modifications like the use of face coverings, smaller class sizes and increased distance between desks to prevent the spread of the virus.
The state’s Department of Education plans to announce its school re-opening plans in early June, according to Thurmond.
“We’ve got 10,000 schools (in California),” Thurmond said of the state’s re-opening guidance. “There is no one size fits all. … We’ve actually been talking with school districts about the guidance so that we can calibrate it with the work that they’re doing, with the plans that they’re making so that we also can address questions that they have.”
I helped tutor low-income children via Zoom during this shutdown. It was an absolute disaster! Those children were ill-served by so-called distance learning. Even students from middle and upper income families received less than adequate instruction. Many students stopped showing up, if they ever did in the first place. This proposal is simply an evil lie, promising something the Superintendent of Schools knows will be a disaster for education.
I’m not surprised. I’ve taken a number of online or partially online classes since the late 1990s. They’ve all been plagued by the same issues.
Even when the tech is working properly, it’s hard to stay engaged with the material. Most of the classes I attempted to take were in topics I was fascinated by and I was an adult with a decent attention span. I can’t imagine how a child would deal with mandatory classes in that format.
And that’s the good classes. Then you have your low-effort teachers whose lack of time and skill ensure that you’ll get next to no explanation or feedback if you waste your time dealing with their material. You’ll never learn, even if you’re highly motivated. And is your average kid motivated…?
Plus, one thing that can never be duplicated on video is the shared social energy that happens in a classroom. The person who asks the question that most of the class is too afraid to ask. The teacher being able to see and read the students’ body language when they’re confused or to excite them and engage them as a group.
I’ve found the online format makes it a lot harder to learn. If there’s anything that worries me more for the future than the coming depression, it’s that we’re condemning an entire generation to a substandard education. You can’t remediate every educational gap people have at the community college level– a lifetime of perfecting and absorbing writing or math can’t be done in a couple of years.
These kids are going to be living with the consequences of downgrading education for what, 50, 60, 70, 80 years? They deserve far better than they’re getting.
Open up the schools, problem solved
All the technology in the world won’t help if the students do not have the necessary support and encouragement at home. I’ve spoken to several of my friends and neighbors who are teachers and they all say the same: after a while, students dropped off and just stopped caring about attending class or doing their work. Thurmond would do well to review report card data for the last quarter. He will find an extremely high failure rate. That needs addressing before we can speak of “success”.
From my own tutoring experience this quarter (with low-income students in under-performing schools) I have seen first-hand the devastation this school closure has caused. Students with already huge learning gaps missed the entire last quarter of school and are now even further behind. Where is the plan to mitigate for that?
No one is allowed to fail. No grade lower than the prior quarter/semester is allowed. Only way to fail is if you failed the prior quarter or semester.
No
Open the economy and start making money stop begging from the Feds…
Exactly, bdml! This is becoming a big gravy train with everyone’s hand out. Oh, and didn’t they say that masks not mandated for 12 yr olds and under due to choking hazard? Now face coverings will be used…
Sorry, state bureaucracy, but haven’t you heard? No more money for you. You destroyed the tax base, you idiots. Where do you think all that money came from?
The most ironic news of all will be when Fartitano and the rest of the county health services get their budgets slashed. The entire county bureaucracy is going to have to cut back 30% this year, and next year it will get worse. All because nobody in leadership had the stomach to stand up to the pseudo-scientific tyrants at county health.
On the plus side, public education just died. The wealthy and the middle classes will home school or make other arrangements. The poor will get crumbs, as usual.
Nice job, panic mongers. You just killed the golden goose. Now you get nothing.
The clock has started on when the county decides that half a million a year is just a bit too much to pay Fartitano and his cohorts. Or will they keep their salaries and cut services for the poor? We shall see, soon enough.
$500M is just another joke from the newscum clown like he tried on the prop 13 that was never passed and. This will probably be on the November proposal. yeah I do not see either how this is gonna work from what Mr. and Mrs. Chuckle said.
So when Mom and Dad go back to work who’s going to stay home with the K-8 (9-12) students to make sure they stay on task?
I certainly wouldn’t leave my K-5 kid home by themselves (all day) no matter what. Isn’t there a law leaving young kids at home by themselves?
This is BS. Open the schools, business as usual.
I am sure there is a law about leaving your kids at home alone under 18 Well if teenager can be trusted that gonna be a no good deed go unpunish because parents said they will find an adult to watch over their children and/or teenagers and decide to leave them home alone Yes, just open up the school back up this whole thing about keeping the school closed and use $500M for technogy not the answer.
The only way to get students learning again is to open the schools in the fall
and repeat last year. This assumes that the virus is controlled better by then.
If the students don’t have access to internet/computers, than some arrangement will have to be made to make assembling students safer, in the case that we don’t have control of the virus.I honestly don’t know if that is possible.
Send China the bill.
That the good ideal send china the bill is better. they are now the enemy
It’s 2020, and there’s NO WAY that 400,000 don’t have Internet access, give us all a Break!!!
I believe about MDUSD has at 3,500 without internet.
And heaven forbid that we expect parents to, you know, take care of their own children they chose to have?
Most schools only have a few days left and it appears schools will re-open in the Fall. It should be optional for those parents who want their child to repeat the grade. Although kids were online mid-March through May, they were in school September through mid-March.
You’re correct, Noj
And yet, although at least 26% of Japan’s population is over the age of 65, and at higher risk of getting sick with coronavirus, most did not get sick.
The country of 126 million people has declared its nationwide state of emergency over, and many are saying their success story was due to the Japanese government’s messaging. Instead of social distancing, the government exhorted the public to avoid the three Cs, referring to closed spaces, crowded places, and close-contact settings.
hahaha. Good luck with that request
Have ultra-rich tech billionaires step forward and pick up the bill not the taxpayers. Also stop throwing away perfectly usable old laptops when they get a new one because people don’t know how to shred the drives on the old one so private data can’t be found.
There are a hundred or so active cases of the virus in the county with a whole thirteen in the hospital. Send the children back to school and teach them how they have always been taught. The last thing a kid needs is a computer to play foresight on or whatever it is called. These blighters will spend money on anything.
Well so I guess sending 1billion dollars to our enemy China for some 3rd rate masks was ….well wait now did they actually send them and if so why where they shoddy seems Gavin got scammed
Not surprised
But yeah obviously he robbed the school funds
Just like brown did but he gave it to illegals
Hey I do t care who it is but the fed needs to audit demifornia and cut off the money the democrat politicians are raising g this states tax money and funding illegally Pay to play politicians
They don’t even hide the corruption anymore as long as it has diversity or all of us tagged to it they can take what ever they want
No more fed money to this state they couldn’t manage it anyways even if they were actually using it for us
The schools shut down in early March. It’s almost June and they’re just now starting to think about this?? No one ever thought to plan ahead on how California will maintain distance learning and/or open the schools? Hmmm, could this have something to do with trying to jam the Heroes bill through….
Meanwhile, the largest school district in the county is having a board meeting tonight to approve 5 NEW management positions with plans to deny the teacher’s tentative agreement ratified in January. This fall will be the third year without a contract. Having laid off many teachers this Spring, they are INCREASING class size in this pandemic. How can elementary classes be taught safely and be a conducive place to learn? Try keeping 32 7 year olds sitting at a desk with a mask on. Yes, that’s the new number 32 for K-3 and 34 for 4-5. One teacher all day also means No Specials, no Recess, No PE ( all PE positions eliminated) How does a student get counseling, intervention support services or IEP support if they only get see one teacher a day? The general education teacher already has their hands full keeping everyone in their seats and teaching phonics with a mask on. District classrooms can’t hold that many student six feet apart. As adults, we know how important it is NOT to eat lunch at your desk everyday is for mental health and productivity at work. Now we are expecting students to do just that. The district just furloughed many workers for 10 days this school year with more for next year. I get it, they didn’t do the belt tightening they said they would do last year and now students will pay the price. There is so much more wrong with this situation, the classrooms are getting hit with everything while the district office is ADDING more positions. Call MDUSD board members and tell them your position before they vote tonight.
I work for an ISP and my company offers free internet to those who qualify. While it’s not BLAZING speed, it’s enough for basic education needs – however, a good amount of time is spent by myself and co-workers on trouble calls that the internet is not working, nevermind the 20 devices that are connected to the WiFi at the same time the child is trying to attend a Zoom class!
Exactly!!
So much time is spent (wasted) IN a classroom when there is something wrong with technology. If the teacher can’t figure it out she asks the student, if the student can’t figure it out they call the campus tech. Oh, but wait he’s not there five days a week, he splits his time between 2 or 3 schools…
It’s not going to work.
An last time they had a solution to a problem which did not include hiring people and spending more of your tax dollars.
We’ll wait while you try to remember one . . . . . . . . .
Chinese and Japanese populations have an entirely different mindset than Americans. Remember China has a totalitarian government and everyone does what the government orders without question. The Japanese have an inborn herd mentality, nobody wants to stand out or go against the grain. If everyone around a person is wearing a mask, that person will feel naked without one.
The Morton Salt girl and an Umbrella is all I’ll ever need.
It would be much more than nice to cut down on all the sleazy fake ads and falsified claim services that : are prevalent and unveiled at tax payers expenses AS WELL.
You ain’t getting any more money from me.
Most of my students stuck to it. Teachers did take it a little easier on them. Not all homes are alike. Some still had no parents at home to help, and many parents expected that it would all take care of itself, which it doesn’t. I am proud of how hard most of them worked. Some did give up. But some give up under regular circumstances. IF we do need Internet and equipment for kids, for a future problem, now would be a good time to plan. It may be 2020, but I have some students without phones, and even those with phones can’t write essays on phones. Not all are middle class.
You know makes a lot of sense to stay out of the extreme outdoor harsh environments. Plain paper books and supplies always trumps these electronic devises . What ever happened to the pen pal programs I grew up with in my youth ?
It’s always a huge cash grab, ffs.