Just like teachers themselves are a mixed bag. Some are dedicated and wonderful. Some are toxic and horrible and lazy and so forth. A lot try to do the best they reasonably can given the circumstances around them and otherwise keep their heads down to make it to retirement. My problem is that there are teachers who burn out after 15-20 years and deliver a subpar education to their students because they want that pretty retirement package that NYS offers. Again and again, we've watched younger, more enthusiastic teachers lose a position when cuts come along and those with seniority get first dibs. It's disheartening for sure.

Why is the Chamber of Commerce saying anything about the student visa situation??????

If you want to get rid of teachers' unions and the terrible school system there is only one real solution; abolish public schools. That is EXACTLY what I want to happen. I'm with Team Shut Down Schools, Furlough Employees, Waive School Taxes, Reimburse State Money to Families. I like my teacher friends, they're nice people with mostly good intentions. They are also clueless about everything UNLESS teaching is their second career. Those teachers are GEMS.

Cuomo and Schumer duking it out back in March: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/cuomo-says-feds-wont-help-on-education-aid-but-schumer-says-ny-will-get-dollar2-billion/ar-BB11Xtnf “Federal government gave us zero. Nada. Yente. Zilch. We're going to have to cut. We're going to have to cut education aid because that's the Number One expense," Cuomo said on Friday. When asked about the billion-dollar federal education aid package on Monday, Cuomo budget spokesman Freeman Klopott did not budge from the Cuomo administration’s insistence that Washington had turned its back on New York school children and their teachers. “This isn’t a game, despite the way Washington likes to play,” Klopott said in an email statement. “The federal government provided states with zero funding in their $2 trillion appropriation to help offset the deep revenue loss they face, which for New York state is expected to amount to more than 10% of our state-funded operating budget. I know this is from March. Just saying.

was “arbitrary and capricious.” One could say that sending students home at spring break thinking they would be returning to finish the semester, then closing campus and barring them from retrieving their belongings and forcing them into substandard online classes with no refunds is “arbitrary and capricious," but alas, it is a pandemic, doncha know.

I wondered just how much federal funding there is in K-12 education. The average seems to be about 10% of a school budget (if I understand this correctly) is based on federal funds. http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2018/12/federal-funding-devos-education-states-winners-losers.html Also keep this in mind: Federal education funding tends to make up roughly 10 percent of total spending on public schools, so relatively short-term changes in Beltway aid tend not to have the same impact on any individual state as changes agreed to by that state's lawmakers or local district decisionmakers. In my state, that 10% can cause a world of hurt when the state contribution is shrinking.

OL, Yes, as someone who is not a fan of sitting around waiting for things to happen, I find myself resigned to trust in Trump as well. COVID has really put a dent in my usual optimistic outlook. I am surrounded by fools.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/506225-devos-demands-fully-operational-schools-in-the-fall-its-not-a-matter https://www.theepochtimes.com/trump-calls-on-schools-to-reopen-vows-to-pressure-governors_3415144.html “To step back toward normalcy, our country will need K-12 and college students to resume their schooling,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who is committed to granting legal protections for schools so that they don’t have to worry about being sued if students get sick when they return. Meanwhile, school systems are still looking at options and strategies when they reopen. Some districts are considering a hybrid model, meaning that students will go to school for traditional in-person learning for a few days and learn from home the rest of the week. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, however, rejects the idea of part-time reopening, saying on Tuesday that she expects schools to be “fully operational” in the fall. This is THE class divide. Either you can work from home and support your kid's remote learning experience or you can't.

I just read a rather interesting novel by a local author called "Copperhead." It takes place in a thinly disguised Ithaca (beautifully describing upstate NY in November), and is about a racial incident that takes place over a weekend and the elements that blow it up beyond the actual event. While I thought some of the characters and the church itself were caricatures, it makes a strong case for the value of a rock solid father figure in a boy's life, and ultimately about how racism today is a class issue more than a tribal one. The female characters are crap, but the step-father is one of the more complex characters I've encountered in contemporary literature and I'm glad to have read the book.

I did note on that NYTimes article that they are not allowing comments on the topic, probably because their readership is strongly in favor of having the kids back in school in September.

Robin, re Miss M’s post on Trump and money for education. What!! I thought he would be holding it back. Is that what you were thinking? WTF? THAT'S exactly what I was thinking. I'm really disappointed about this unless he's dangling it in front of states like mine while actually handing it out to states that have committed to reopening.

President Trump is delivering for America's students! Ugh, for real?

I actually had no idea what the honey badger business was, but this video seems to have created the meme. NSFW, lots of swearing and pretty hilarious. https://youtu.be/4r7wHMg5Yjg

By the way, the latest Ted Cruz podcasts have been great. He interviewed Senator Tim Scott, who has received some vicious voicemail over being a Republican. He also tells how he turned away from a troubled youth and got his act together. I highly recommend this episode and the one portraying William Barr as "Honey Badger." https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/verdict-with-ted-cruz/id1495601614

I didn't believe you CH, but then I checked what time I took a photo of the sky just before sunrise on my dog walk and it was 5:55am. Damn. I'm not really ready to roll towards shorter days. The fireflies have been amazing this year, apropos of nothing. Good morning.

DrJ, I'm jealous. We had a really late spring, so even planting the hardy greens got delayed. We had our first batch of chard and kale and have been eating lettuce and basil for weeks. Now, I'm watching the green beans and cucumbers flower and the jalapeño and banana peppers start to produce. I do love eating out of the garden!

NEW: ICE just put down a notice to students in the US on student visas that they must leave the United States if their classes are going to be only online this fall. If they want to stay, ICE says they must transfer to a school with in person instruction. This is all over my FB feed, with the locals FREAKING OUT about students returning, but also FREAKING OUT about international students being told to leave (they never left as they weren't sure they would get back in. It looks like checkmate to me by the Administration. Want to hold online classes only? Fine, your students don't need their visas so send them home. Hahahaha - I love it. I think Trump is giving states until the end of the month to decide what to do about k-12 in person classes and then he'll drop the federal $$ bombshell. So many parents, many of them active voters, want/need their kids in school. This is stepping up to become a huge election issue and I don't think the teachers' unions have figured that out yet. They think they have the cards stacked in their favor and the goodwill of parents. Think again.

Speaking of which, someone suggested to me that conservatives et al start talking up All Black Lives Matter -- and that "we" get in their faces about all the killings in Chicago, etc. The way I see it, we "smother them with kindness", we talk about the sanctity of ALL black lives so much that they beg us to stop talking about Black Lives. THAT IS BRILLIANT. I'm going to start on that immediately.

JamesD, I know it's a losing battle to take a stand with the school districts, but I'm just outraged by the bs we've been handed over the last 4 months. If parents actually threatened and then showed up at schools all over the country on the first day with kids in tow (high schoolers can certainly be dropped off), it would at least send the message that it wasn't the parents who were scared of being in the buildings. Two months is a long way away. Anything could happen.

Good morning. So sorry to hear about your father, Steph. My fear is that schools won't open which is going to completely screw working parents. In my mind, the fact that colleges are opening to students BECAUSE they were told the students were going to show up in town anyway is instructive. And hopeful. GenZ may be a very happy surprise in the coming years. Porch, I think parents ought to be telling their k-12 districts right now that they'll be dropping their kids off at school on Day One of the 2020-21 school year (Sept. 9th here in NY), so they better have a plan in place for how to deal with them. The college students have just showed us how this works - we should take a page from their book.

I noticed you took out the 'mistakenly' part, Robin. Busted.

She heavily implied lyle + wine could = lyle mistakenly shooting her. Maybe THAT'S the problem. Margaritas +shogun + Robin = dead husband

Porch, Yes, most of us are thrilled. There are a bunch of Karens freaking out (and perhaps seeing the writing on the wall for K-12), but we've lost so many beloved businesses over the last few months that it's a relief to know that the students/customers made Cornell's decision for them. Now I'm wondering if we should just all drop our kids off at school on Sept. 10th.

This comment from the Red State piece about sums it up: Rick Grenell was right. Washington D.C. is at war with the American people. The IRS, FBI, CIA, ALL of the Federal Government that owns us lock stock and barrel, sucks the life out of us as if we were Keanu Reeves in that tank of goo in the Matrix. 96% of ALL political contributions from the DOJ go to Democrats. Washington D.C. is the most corrupt city in world history going back to Sodom and Gommorrah. Sure, you can get killed easier in Mogadishu, but when it comes to money changing hands and the stench of political corruption, Washington D.C. is a steaming pile of sh*t where maggots/politicians/lobbyists exist, only to further their own interests. Nancy Pelosi is worth 100 million dollars. Read Tucker Carlson's book, "Ship Of Fools". It is a bucket of cold water for the folks who still think there are 2 parties in competition with each other for our votes. Great article, but, it is still another indication of how far gone we are in this country and how much blood will have to be spent in order to get it back. I want to buy a shotgun, but my husband is in complete disagreement about the need for it. I can't even....

If you're traveling to New York from the following states you must self-quarantine for 14 days. The states are: AL, AR, AZ, CA, FL, GA, IA, ID, LA, MS, NC, NV, SC, TN, TX, UT. My parents escaped back to TN just in time. I suppose this will all be over by the end of August when the students roll back into town. Cornell has caved and is holding a mix of in-person and online classes as well as allowing students into the dorms. The primary driver of this move was the thousands of students who live off campus who said they were coming to Ithaca regardless of how Cornell decided to deliver classes. Lesson for the rest of us? Irish rebellions work.