Posts Tagged ‘datechguy's magnificent seven’

Report from Louisiana: Education Disparity during Covid Closure

Posted: April 27, 2020 by Pat Austin in Uncategorized
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By:  Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT – One of the issues this pandemic has exposed has been the complete and utter lack of preparedness by education systems for such an event. Granted, nobody could have expected a nationwide shutdown of the economy and stay-at-home orders for weeks on end. But, in Louisiana at least, this is not completely without precedent. When Hurricane Katrina decimated New Orleans, we dealt with extended school closures in specific areas of the state. The difference, of course, as far as education goes at least, is that those displaced students had other school systems still in operation where they could transfer. That is not the case now.

What has emerged is a patchwork of fixes and plans between school systems. Each district is working in different ways to educate their students and there is little uniformity between systems much less within each individual district.

The result is that some students are receiving an education and others are not. The Advocate reports on survey results by the state Department of Education:

Educators said the coronavirus pandemic has exposed a national digital divide that is especially jarring in a state like Louisiana, where about two-thirds of students — nearly 500,000 youngsters — live in low-income households.

When the shutdown order came, the school in which I teach, for example, was winding up Spring Break. We walked out of our classrooms that previous Friday fully expecting to return in ten days. My classroom right now is exactly as I left it on March 6.

School districts across the nation scrambled to enact a plan. Nobody knew how long we would be closed. Students did not leave the campus with textbooks, work packets, or technology.

In a Title I school, like mine, the problems are compounded by the fact that many of our students do not have home computers or Wi-Fi.  But, in another school across town, kids have Wi-Fi, strong parental support, and personal computers.  

What were districts to do? How can you level this field over night?

We did the best we could, I guess. We set up dates where students could come to the school and sign out Chromebooks if they needed technology, but that doesn’t solve the Wi-Fi problem. Some students were given copied work packets. We enacted a “do no harm” policy where students can be graded on the work they turn in, but can’t be given a zero for work they don’t do, and overall a student’s grade can not go down from what it was on March 6.

Is this ideal?  Nope. But what’s the answer?

And how do you prepare for something like this?

Some school districts across the country have set up mobile Wi-Fi hotspots in buses parked in the neighborhoods, but obviously this has not been a uniform practice.

According to the survey:

Officials in the East Baton Rouge Parish school district told the state that 55% of their students lack access to a laptop; Central, 50%; Jefferson Parish, 40%; Livingston Parish, 38%; St. John the Baptist Parish, 65%; West Baton Rouge Parish, 65%; and St. Landry Parish, 60%.

At the other end of the spectrum for students lacking laptops is Ascension Parish, 1%; Lafayette Parish, 20%; Orleans Parish, 20%; St. Bernard Parish , 15%; St. Charles Parish, 5%; Plaquemines Parish, 10% and Zachary, 0%.

The shortage is even worse in rural areas, where five mostly north Louisiana school districts say 75% or more of their students lack access to a laptop or tablet at home.

Governor Edwards is planning to begin to reopen Louisiana for business at the end of the week and will announce his plans during a press conference later today. He has cautioned residents to temper their expectations and notes that this will be a very gradual process.

One of the things we certainly must address in the near future is to develop some kind of emergency plan that does not contribute to the already huge disparities in our education systems. While it’s impossible to prepare for what you don’t know, it is possible, now that we DO know, to create some kind of contingency plan for our students.

Pat Austin blogs at And So it Goes in Shreveport and is the author of Cane River Bohemia: Cammie Henry and her Circle at Melrose Plantation. Follow her on Instagram @patbecker25 and Twitter @paustin110.

Who else has the Coronavirus Lockdown blues?

Posted: April 23, 2020 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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I’ve been having a difficult time coming up with a topics for my weekly articles.  After brooding about it I decided my problem is that this endless Coronavirus crisis has gotten me feeling quite down.  I’m suffering from the blues.  I know my suffering is trivial compared to those who have lost loved ones to the virus or compared to those who have been infected with the virus.  Compared to most I’ve got it quite good.  I’m just so worried about everything that’s going on and I’m heartsick about all of the suffering everyone else is dealing with.

Like most I’m wishing and praying that this nightmare will soon end.  Not knowing when the pandemic will end and how severe it will get before it’s all over are the two things weighing most heavily on me.  Unfortunately no one has any answers to these questions. All of the original models and so many of the experts have been proved so wrong.  It is wrong to blame anyone but the Chinese and the World Health Organization for this.

It is heartbreaking to know that so many have lost their livelihood because so many businesses have been forced to shut down.  I’m worried that when this is finally over far too many businesses will never reopen their doors, 

Going out to restaurants and bars with groups of friends and relatives was a pastime I engaged in quite often.   It is something I miss a lot.  Getting take out is not the same at all.  Who knows when anyone will be able to just sit and enjoy themselves in one of those fine establishments again.

Not being able to go where I please is something that bothers me a great deal.  I despise being told what I can and can’t do by the government at any level.  There is something completely un-American about that.  The American people will only put up with that for so long.  The demonstrations have already begun and will soon spread.  Hopefully those protesting take proper precautions against rapidly spreading the virus.  Unreasonable measures taken by the different government levels will only make the protests worse,

I pray that this nightmare will soon end with a minimal amount of future death and suffering.  That will be the best medicine for my blues and blues of everyone else,

Report from Louisiana: Sleep Anxiety

Posted: April 20, 2020 by Pat Austin in Uncategorized
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By: Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT – As this lockdown continues, I have seen more and more people comment on the disruption of their sleep patterns, and I would be lying if I didn’t admit to experiencing this myself.

In a normal world, I am in bed by 10 and up by 5:15. I am a teacher and have to be at work at 7:05 (although I always get there about 6:40.) On the weekend I might sleep until 7 or 7:30. In this new Covid-world, I have been waking up at all hours of the night and sleeping later in the morning. I mean, wide awake at 3:00 kind of awake. And what difference does it make? I don’t have to wake up at 5:15, I’ll tell myself.

It is odd to me because I don’t feel especially stressed or worried about anything; I haven’t lost my job or my pay. I do not suffer food insecurity. I’m not any more worried about bills than I ever am. Nobody in my immediate family is ill. And, overall, I’m basically perfectly content staying at home, so what’s the problem?

Many people are reporting disruptions in sleep right now and there is an explanation for this:

Stress is both the short and the long answer. Whether it’s insomnia, daytime sleepiness, struggling to stay awake in the evenings or waking earlier than usual (or, if you’re really lucky, a combination), sleep-disturbance is a well-documented manifestation of stress. And while stress is usually a precursor to the fight-or-flight response we’re in the slightly odd situation where having to reckon this stress is wreaking havoc on our bodies while we’re safe in lockdown in our homes. We are in a high-alert state; our brains busily preparing our bodies for dealing with disaster, even if it doesn’t fall into our direct path.

In short, our stress hormones are on overload. Compounding the problem, we are not releasing stress in some of our more typical ways like going to the gym or socializing with friends, so everything stays all bottled up. We eventually run out of closets to clean out, fences to paint, garages to clean out.

Experts have many recommendations for easing this sleep anxiety that many of us seem to be facing, such as limiting screen time before bed, avoiding too much news, avoiding sugar, and eliminating that afternoon nap.

Face it, our world is different now and may never be the same. Certainly many of the social distancing policies we now practice will remain part of our daily lives for some time to come. Maybe this is part of our anxiety.

As states now begin to figure out ways to reopen and get back to a new normal, perhaps we can all get a good sleep.

Pat Austin blogs at And So it Goes in Shreveport and is the author of Cane River Bohemia: Cammie Henry and her Circle at Melrose Plantation. Follow her on Instagram @patbecker25 and Twitter @paustin110.

The Democrats held up the Coronavirus stimulus so they could try and steal elections

Posted: April 16, 2020 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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It is absolutely unconscionable that Speaker Nancy Pelosi held up the Coronavrius relief package for about a week in order to advance a progressive wish list.  The worst provisions of this progressive wish list were those that were supposed to federalized elections.  This would have guaranteed that Democrats would win the majority of all elections going forward, especially presidential elections.

The provisions imposing voting by mail and same day registration on all states would have opened US elections to an enormous amounts of fraud.  This is nothing compared to the amount of fraud that would have unleashed on US elections if the provision discussed in this Breitbart article Pelosi ‘Stimulus’ Bill Imposes Nationwide ‘Ballot Harvesting’ Without ‘Any Limit’ was imposed on all 50 states.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s new stimulus bill would mandate nationwide “ballot harvesting,” allowing party operatives to return other people’s ballots to polling places without “any limit” on the number of ballots.

“Ballot harvesting” was legalized in California in 2016, and first used in the 2018 midterm elections. It allows anyone to drop off someone else’s mail-in ballot at a polling station. There is no process for vetting or verifying those delivering the ballots — no background checks or identification requirements. Democrats dropped hundreds of thousands of ballots off at polling stations in 2018, helping Democrats as they flipped seven Republican seats.

Here is the actual text of the ballot harvesting provision.

shall permit a voter to designate any person to return a voted and sealed absentee ballot to the post office, a ballot drop-off location, tribally designated building, or election office so long as the person designated to return the ballot does not receive any form of compensation based on the number of ballots that the person has returned and no individual, group, or organization provides compensation on this basis; and (B) may not put any limit on how many voted and sealed absentee ballots any designated person can return to the post office, a ballot drop off location, tribally designated building, or election office.

When Nancy Pelosi attempted to insert the ballot harvesting provision into the bailout legislation she knew well that it will lead to Democrats stealing elections because it succeeded when it was tried in California.  This is documented in the Breitbart article Blue State Blues: Democrats Stole the Election in California — Legally, Through ‘Ballot Harvesting’

California Democrats “stole” the midterm election using a new method that is illegal elsewhere but completely legal in the Golden State: a practice called “ballot harvesting,” which allows third parties to submit mail-in ballots for voters.

The practice explains several mysteries about the 2018 election, such as: why mail-in ballots caused massive shifts toward Democrats in races Republicans thought they won on Election Night; why Republicans won the turnout battle in the primary, but lost it in the general election; and why Democrats with party backing defeated fellow Democrats without it — even when the latter had more money.

It is true that the proposed changes to election law could favor both parties however the Democrats have demonstrated a remarkable proclivity for cheating and fraud.  That is because they have embraced Marxist philosophies and Saul Allinsky’s Rule for Radicals. Their success is documented in this San Francisco Chronicle article

California Democrats took advantage of seemingly minor changes in a 2016 law to score their stunningly successful midterm election results, providing a target for GOP unhappiness that is tinged with a bit of admiration…Few people noticed when Gov. Jerry Brown signed the changes in AB1921 into law two years ago. In the past, California allowed only relatives or people living in the same household to drop off mail ballots for another voter. The new law allowed anyone, even a paid political campaign worker, to collect and return ballots — “harvesting” them, in political slang.

In Orange County alone, where every House seat went Democratic, “the number of Election Day vote-by-mail dropoffs was unprecedented — over 250,000,” Fred Whitaker, chairman of the county Republican Party, said in a note to supporters. “This is a direct result of ballot harvesting allowed under California law for the first time. That directly caused the switch from being ahead on election night to losing two weeks later.”

Mitch McConnell and the rest of the Senate Republicans must hold strong.  They must make sure the Democrats never take control of our electoral system.

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