We Educate Miami

Looking forward to a new year and new education policies. COVID-19 update report. On this day in history, 1980, Rappers Delight becomes first hip hop album to crack Billboard top 40. 

Time for resolutions. Those who write down realistic goals tend to be more effective in achieving  lasting change. As we enter a new year, educators are calling for a new approach to education, including reexamining 12-month learning. Tips for working with young students to increase love for learning. 

Where are we with COVID-19 in Miami. Avoid large gathers and indoor spaces--stay vigilent. Support for Miguel A. Cardona, Joe Biden’s education secretary pick. What are some of the benefits of online learning for students?

As of yesterday,  Florida has well more than a million cases of COVID-19 and Miami-Dade County has consistently suffered with approximately one-quarter of that total. More than 300,000 Americans have died and death counts continue to be high. More than 20,000 Floridians have died due to COVID-19, and more than 4,000 Miami-Dade residents have died due to the virus.

Unfortunately, the Miami-Dade County Public Schools COVID-19 dashboard, which tracks infections for students and staff in the district, continues to climb as well.

This week, several significant developments in the good news department, which we hope means that 2021 will have better outcomes for more people than 2020. 

First off, The Electoral College formally chose Joe Biden on Monday as the nation’s next president, giving him a solid electoral majority of 306 votes and confirming his victory in last month’s election. The state-by-state voting took on added importance this year because of President Donald Trump’s refusal to concede he had lost.

As we know, Florida voters were in the minority nationally, selected Donald Trump as the nominee in his adopted home state. 

The coronavirus tests forced one of the 29 electors, Senate President Wilton Simpson, R-Trilby, to drop out after he tested positive for the coronavirus Sunday night.

Simpson, who was formally chosen as Senate president last month, is the most high-profile state lawmaker known to test positive for the virus. 

The second piece of good news for this week, is that Florida is planning to get COVID-19 vaccines to more than 150 hospitals by next week. The news of Moderna’s likely federal authorization puts the state on a timeline to vaccinate front-line healthcare workers at more than 150 hospitals within the next two weeks.

On this Day:  December 15, 1791, the new United States of America ratified the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, confirming the fundamental rights of its citizens.  Howard Zinn said, 'We should celebrate, honor, all those people who risked their jobs, their freedom, sometimes their lives, to affirm the rights we all have, rights not limited to some document, but rights our common sense tells us we should all have as human beings."
Dec. 15, 1791: Bill of Rights Ratified - Zinn Education Project (zinnedproject.org)

State Approach One Million Positive COVID-19 Cases

Florida’s Department of Health on Monday confirmed 6,659 additional cases of COVID-19, pushing the state closer to the one million mark.

Florida has a total of 999,319 confirmed cases, the third highest number of total confirmed cases in the country after Texas and California, according to the New York Times COVID-19 database.

As of yesterday,  Miami-Dade County reported 1,962 additional confirmed cases of COVID-19 and one new death, according to Florida’s Department of Health. The county has a total of 229,618 confirmed cases and 3,835 deaths. Percent positivity for new cases decreased from 10.06% to 9.81%. The 14-day percent positivity average was 8.25%, according to Miami-Dade County’s “New Normal” dashboard.

Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said she tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday and is experiencing mild symptoms. The county’s new mayor linked her diagnosis to her husband, a doctor, contracting the virus from exposure to a patient last week during a house call.

On this Day:  Dec. 1, 1955: Rosa Parks Refuses to Give Up Her Seat - The Montgomery Bus Boycott was one of the first successful protest of segregation in the Deep South, inspiring other nonviolent civil rights protest. 

Please observe the recommendations against holiday travel this Thanksgiving. Instead, check out some virtual activities. If you are gathering, please do so outside. Thanksgiving trivia, even a few Thanksgiving jokes in this episode.

This is from the National Museum of the American Indian, which is part of the Smithsonian in Washington, DC: The harvest celebration of 17th century settlers at Plymouth in reality was very different from what we generally think of as the “First Thanksgiving” between Pilgrims and Indians. How far off is the modern story of Thanksgiving from what actually happened? What do you think about the idea of the “Thanksgiving myth” as a representation of what we celebrate today? Find out at The Harvest Celebration. 

The Miami-Herald asks whether Gov. DeSantis is pursuing a policy that will allow the virus to spread freely in the state until most of the population becomes infected — or is vaccinated with a yet-to-be obtained vaccine — while attempting to protect those thought to be most vulnerable.

Two months after a deadly summer surge and months before a realistic goal to begin rolling out a vaccine, the governor issued an order that opened up nearly every part of commerce, ended restrictions on restaurant dining, and barred local governments from enforcing mask mandates and social-distancing rules. 

He has since spent more time and commanded more media attention to his “open-everything” policy than on encouraging people to prevent contagion. It is the same policy advanced by Scott Atlas, the controversial White House coronavirus adviser who does not have a background in infectious diseases. 

It is also an approach that has made DeSantis the target of fierce criticism from Democrats who accuse him of pursuing a controversial and deadly “herd immunity” strategy, as well as from scientists, who usually use more diplomatic language.

“I sincerely hope that Florida doesn’t go down that path,” said Tom Inglesby, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security last month. “It’s pretty clear that a small minority of people have been infected at this point. If political leaders decide to go down that trail and encourage people to get infected … extraordinary numbers of people are going to die from this illness before immunity is achieved in the population.”

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Betsy DeVos just got her pink slip. Throughout her four-year tenure, she did everything she could to undermine public education. Instead, she promoted the idea that schooling should be a competitive free-for-all in which parents shop for schools with tax dollars and then hope it all works out. Now it is time to end that war against public schools as she walks out the door. It is time to chart a course away from the failed reforms that began with George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind (NCLB), accelerated with Barack Obama’s Race to the Top and brought us to the place we are today.
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This Day in History. Nov. 10, 1898: Wilmington Massacre https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/wilmington-massacre-2/

On Nov. 10, 1898, white supremacists murdered African Americans in Wilmington, North Carolina and deposed the elected Reconstruction era government in a coup d’etat.

The highest number of cases is at Miami Senior High which has eight. Kendale Lakes Elementary has 7, followed by Miami Lakes K-8 Center with 6.  Coral Reef Senior High and Henry E. S. Reeves K-8 Center both have 5.  Other schools on the list have 4 or less.

This week, President Hernandez-Mat, Vice President White, and Secretary-Treasurer Grimes-Festge are joined by Balsera Communications Vice President Sonia Diaz. 

We are extremely concerned with the continued spread of the disease and are hearing reports every day about new infections in schools that have yet to be officially added to the dashboard. In addition, we hear reports every day about teachers, staff, and students being quarantined because of the positive test in in their schools. These stories are heartbreaking and, as a union, we have been focused on this as the most pressing local issue. We need to get the election right for the sake of our country, but we also need to make sure we vote all the way down the line to the School Board races so that when our teachers and district staff are facing a crisis we have responsible leadership to work with. The numbers of infections keep climbing. 

With one week left before the General Election, Early Voting locations are open every day. 

This Day in History. Oct. 27 On October 27, 1810, U.S. President James Madison proclaimed that the United States should take possession of West Florida between the Mississippi and Perdido Rivers, based on a tenuous claim that it was part of the Louisiana Purchase. The West Florida government opposed annexation, preferring to negotiate terms to join the Union. Governor Fulwar Skipwith proclaimed that he and his men would "surround the Flag-Staff and die in its defense". William C. C. Claiborne was sent to take possession of the territory, entering the capital of St. Francisville with his forces on December 6, 1810, and Baton Rouge on December 10, 1810. Claiborne refused to recognize the legitimacy of the West Florida government, however, and Skipwith and the legislature eventually agreed to accept Madison's proclamation. Congress passed a joint resolution, approved January 15, 1811, to provide for the temporary occupation of the disputed territory and declaring that the territory should remain subject to future negotiation. 

Florida has obscured the true extent of its COVID-19 pandemic by using a misleading measure of positive cases to justify reopening schools and businesses, state data indicates. 

While Florida has publicized that its “positivity rate” has regularly fallen below 5%, other health organizations are publishing data that shows the rate may be dramatically higher.  Independent experts, including Johns Hopkins University, consistently list Florida’s positivity rate at 10% or higher, twice the recommended level for widespread reopening. 

Florida itself calculates another version of the rate — not widely publicized — that shows the pandemic is worse than state officials have championed. Those figures show that the rate has never fallen to the 5% threshold, the South Florida Sun Sentinel discovered.

The result: As coronavirus cases again threaten to rise in Florida, with schools and businesses fully open, it is becoming increasingly difficult to answer a simple question: What percentage of people tested positive for COVID-19 on any given day — and are we justified in going about our business without worry? Or did Gov. Ron DeSantis put people at risk when he allowed businesses to return to normal?

On this day in history October 20th, we recognize and pay tribute to suffragette (a woman seeking the right to vote through organized protest) Alice Paul, who began a seven month jail sentence for protesting for women’s rights back on October 20th 1917. 

The arrested suffragists were sent to a prison in Virginia. Paul and her compatriots demanded to be treated as political prisoners and staged hunger strikes. Their demands were met with brutality as suffragists, including frail, older women, were beaten, pushed and thrown into cold, unsanitary, and rat-infested cells.  Arrests continued and conditions at the prison deteriorated.  For staging hunger strikes, Paul and several other suffragists were forcibly fed in a tortuous method.  Prison officials removed Paul to a sanitarium in hopes of getting her declared insane.  When news of the prison conditions and hunger strikes became known, the press, some politicians, and the public began demanding the women’s release; sympathy for the prisoners brought many to support the cause of women’s suffrage.  Upon her release from prison, Paul hoped to ride this surge of goodwill into victory.

In 1919, both the House and Senate passed the 19th Amendment and the battle for state ratification commenced. Three-fourths of the states were needed to ratify the amendment. The battle for ratification came down to the state of Tennessee in the summer of 1920; if a majority of the state legislature voted for the amendment, it would become law. The deciding vote was cast twenty-four year-old Harry Burn, the youngest member of the Tennessee assembly. Originally intending to vote “no,” Burn changed his vote after receiving a telegram from his mother asking him to support women’s suffrage. On August 18, 1920, Tennessee ratified the 19th Amendment. Six days later, Secretary of State Colby certified the ratification, and, with the stroke of his pen, American women gained the right to vote. 

For more information on Alice Paul and the suffragette movement, visit www.alicepaul.org or search for “Alice Paul” on www.sharemylesson.org, a great, totally free, resource for lessons and study materials that educators and parents should know about. 

As Miami’s education professionals, including teachers, district staff and security personnel, our colleagues in United Teachers of Dade take our role as education advocates seriously when issues arise that threaten the well-being of our community. Since the COVID-19 pandemic took root in the United States, we have been advocating non-stop for a science-based public policy approach guided by medical experts and data.

If that sounds like high-minded jargon, what that simply means is that our goal is to save lives through safeguarding health. We are concerned about our students and our own children since we do not know the long-term impact of this “novel” (meaning “new”) virus, and we see the short-term devastation on our elders, the medically fragile and even on strong, able-bodied athletes throughout the country. 

On This Day in History: On Oct. 13, 1792, the White House cornerstone was laid.

How many students learn in textbooks or tours to D.C. that while the Obamas were the first African American “First Family,” they were not the first African American residents of the White House?

Enslaved laborers were likely involved in all aspects of White House “construction, including carpentry, masonry, carting, rafting, plastering, glazing and painting, . . .and shouldered alone the grueling work of sawing logs and stones.”

More than one in four U.S. presidents were involved in human trafficking and slavery. These presidents bought, sold, and bred enslaved people for profit. Of the 12 presidents who were enslavers, more than half kept people in bondage at the White House. 

Constructed in part by black slave labor, the home and office of the president of the United States has embodied different principles for different people. For whites, whose social privileges and political rights have been protected by the laws of the land, the White House has symbolized the power of freedom and democracy over monarchy. For blacks, whose history is rooted in slavery and the struggle against white domination.