April 2010

From bad to worse

• 04-01-2010
• 

The Economist

As the Obama administration spreads enthusiasm about a proposal to replace a patchwork of state education standards with national ones, it might also heed a cautionary tale. In the 1990s California too established rigorous standards. “We thought they were the highest,” up there with those of Massachusetts and Indiana, says Mike Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education think-tank in Washington, DC. But California never translated those standards into results. Its public schools are, with some exceptions, awful. Moreover, the state’s fiscal crisis is about to make them even worse. California’s 8th-graders (14-year-olds), for example, ranked 46th in maths last year. (more...)

Advanced Placement: Good for top students, oversold to others?

• 04-01-2010
• 

By Scott Jaschik/USA Today

The Advanced Placement program is becoming more and more popular, with 25% of high school graduates taking at least one AP examination, elite colleges expecting to see applicants' transcripts full of the courses, and politicians demanding that more and more high schools offer them. The program has become "the juggernaut of American high school education," according to the introduction to a new book, AP: A Critical Examination of the Advanced Placement Program. The book, about to be released by Harvard Education Press, is the result of a 2007 conference at Harvard University that brought together leading education researchers to consider the evidence about AP. Despite the immense popularity of the program, the research evidence on its value is minimal, the book argues. The College Board, the program's sponsor, publishes or promotes its own research (favoring the program) and promotes "glowing accounts" of AP. But is this really the consensus? (more...)

A message for Washington on schools: Don't mess with Texas

• 04-01-2010
• 

By Michael Birnbaum/Washington Post

As vendors sold yellow "Don't Tread on Me" flags nearby, Texas State Board of Education member Don McLeroy assured a gathering of Tea Party activists one recent evening that President Obama was going to keep his hands off the schools in the Lone Star State. There would be no bid for Obama's Race to the Top grant program, no endorsement of new math and English standards that Obama backs. And the state school board, under McLeroy's prodding, would continue its push to adopt social studies standards that set Texas apart from other states because, among other changes, they recast sections on the American Revolution to put more emphasis on Christianity and less on the writings of Thomas Jefferson. (more...)

Why Delaware and Tennessee won Race to the Top

• 04-01-2010
• 

By Michele McNeil/Education Week

In two words: stakeholder support. Both states had strong plans and significant buy-in from local school districts and teachers' unions. Other reasons the two states won, according to the Education Department: Delaware •Unanimous participation, broad collaboration: 100% of the state's districts and teachers signed on; 100% of the state's students will benefit; stakeholders include governor, state education department, local districts (LEAs), unions, business community •New state law on teacher/principal effectiveness: no educators can be rated as "effective" unless their students demonstrate satisfactory levels of growth; teachers rated as "ineffective" for two to three years can be removed from the classroom, even if they have tenure. (more...)

Harlem Children’s Zone times 20

• 04-01-2010
• 

Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess

Non-profits and school districts nationwide will soon vie for $200 million that President Obama envisions as seeding the next generation Harlem Children’s Zones. A local school superintendent and organizers of the Santee neighborhood in south San Jose, a mix of poor Vietnamese and Hispanic immigrant families, hope to be one of them. They’ve lined up philanthropic dollars and persuaded agencies to come together to form their own Children’s Zone. The Harlem Children’s Zone is matrix of interwoven schools and social services for children and adults, spanning from cradle to college, that its visionary, Geoffrey Canada, hopes will wipe out intergenerational poverty in New York City’s famous uptown neighborhood. (more...)

Race To The Top's "Blackmail" while California schools suffer

• 04-01-2010
• 

By Robert Cruickshank/California Progress Report

Calitics alum David Dayen takes a look at the recent announcement that Delaware and Tennessee have won a chunk of the "Race To The Top" funds awarded by Education Secretary Arne Duncan, and reaches a conclusion I wholly endorse: I hope we can be honest about what this actually represents: blackmail. It forces states to change their education laws to fit particular notions about how to manage public education in America. And it does so at a time of crippling state budgets, when the Race to the Top funds mean the difference between thousands of teachers laid off or kept on the job, between class sizes expanding or shrinking. Basically, Arne Duncan and the White House are leveraging crisis to make preferred changes in education policy.... (more...)

About one-quarter of East Bay school districts are on the state's "watch list" for insolvency

• 04-01-2010
• 

By Theresa Harrington/Contra Costa Times

Nine East Bay school districts are on the state's "watch list" for insolvency because they will be unable to balance their budgets in the next three years without substantial cuts. Two districts — Hayward in Alameda County and John Swett in Contra Costa County — are in such bad financial shape that they will not be able to pay all their bills this year or next year without drastic cuts. Both districts filed "negative" budget reports in December and March, showing that they have been unable to dig themselves out of financial holes that were apparent months ago. They are working with county-appointed fiscal advisers who have veto power over expenditures to identify cuts that will enable them to remain solvent. The advisers have frozen Hayward's nonessential expenditures, board President Paul Frumkin said. (more...)

Analysis: San Mateo County schools losing $25 million in state money

• 04-01-2010
• 

By Neil Gonzales/San Mateo County Times

Public school districts in San Mateo County stand to lose more than $25 million in state funds through the 2010-11 fiscal year, according to an analysis released Monday by the California Budget Project. However, that amount is just part of the overall budget cuts that districts are bracing for given the state's $20 billion deficit and other economic factors. "Our numbers are just state numbers," said Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project, a nonpartisan public policy research group. "Depending on the district's individual situation, it could be worse. We just wanted to give people around the state a sense of the magnitude of the reduction in their local school district." The California Budget Project analyzed the governor's proposed fiscal plan and broke down state funding losses in kindergarten to 12th grade education district by district and county by county statewide. (more...)

Sacramento-area districts deal with problem math books

• 04-01-2010
• 

By Diana Lambert/Sacramento Bee

Five times three equals five. Second-graders at 79 Sacramento-area schools can find that equation in their new math books. Other students using the math series are being asked to count the flies in the playground – only there's no picture of a playground on the page. These are just a few of the errors in the Macmillan/McGraw-Hill math series that two area school districts – Sacramento City Unified and Folsom Cordova – started using this year in kindergarten through sixth-grade classrooms. Among the others: lesson plans that don't connect to homework assignments; tests that don't match textbook lessons; student texts that don't parallel teachers' books; and mistakes in the answer keys. (more...)

Jaime Escalante's legacy: Teaching hope

• 04-01-2010
• 

By Claudio Sanchez/NPR

For 20 years, Jaime Escalante taught calculus and advanced math at Garfield High School in one of East Los Angeles' most notorious barrios, a place where poor, hardened street kids were not supposed to master mathematics, and certainly not algebra, trigonometry, calculus. But Escalante believed that a teacher should never, ever let a student give up. "You have to love the subject you teach and you have to love the kids and make them see that they have a chance, opportunity in this country to become whatever they want to," he told NPR several years ago. The Bolivian-born teacher, who inspired the 1988 movie Stand and Deliver, died Tuesday at 79 after a long battle with cancer. (more...)

Teachers don't support parent-led plan to convert Riviera Elementary into charter school

• 04-01-2010
• 

By Douglas Morino/LA Daily Breeze

Upset about looming budget cuts and increasing enrollment, a group of parents has been pushing to turn Torrance Unified's highest performing campus into a charter school by September. But just a month after the group formed, plans to reorganize Riviera Elementary School have stalled because of a lack of support from a crucial group - the school's teachers. Parents, however, say they're continuing to explore options for the school's future. "Our goal is to preserve what's good about Riviera," said PTA member Jim Delurgio, who has two children at the school and has led the movement. "We can't accept that our children's education will continue to be degraded." By Delurgio's count, the group consists of about 35 families. They sprung into action after Torrance Unified announced scores of preliminary layoff notices would be sent to teachers to help offset a $27.6 million deficit over the next two years. (more...)

Landmark Indian education law comes into effect

• 04-01-2010
• 

By Anjana Pasricha/Voice of America

Indian students take lessons from their teacher inside a classroom at a school in Calcutta, India, In India, a landmark law which makes education a fundamental right for all children between six and 14, has come into effect. But many challenges lie ahead in ensuring access to education for all in a country with the world's largest number of young people. As the groundbreaking Right to Education law came into effect Thursday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made a rare address to the nation to express his government's commitment to ensuring education for all children. The prime minister, who came from a rural area and went on to do a doctorate in economics at Cambridge, recalled his own story to emphasize the importance of putting all children in school. (more...)

College said to enrich disadvantaged students most

• 04-01-2010
• 

By Alyson Klein/Education Week

The students who are least likely to attend postsecondary education are the very ones who stand to derive the greatest economic benefit from earning a college degree, according to a study scheduled for publication today in the American Sociological Review. The study found that college graduates whose demographic and academic backgrounds suggested they’d be among those least likely to go to college—including black and Latino students, low-income students, and those whose parents did not attend postsecondary education—got the biggest bump in income from their diplomas. (more...)

Facing deep cuts, more schools make fiscal 'watch list'

• 04-02-2010
• 

Blog by Corey G. Johnson/California Watch

The number of California school districts in financial trouble is on the rise. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell has announced that 126 districts were on the state's fiscal "watch list" - a whooping 17 percent increase from last June. In 2006-07, there were only three districts on the "negative certification" list - at risk of not paying their bills. And 19 districts were on the "qualified certification" watch list - with finances bad enough to be concerned, according to the Department of Education. As of last month, 12 districts were on the negative certification list and 114 districts had a qualified certification status. Nine districts in the East Bay - approximately 25 percent of schools in the area - are on the state's "watch list" for insolvency because they will be unable to balance their budgets in the next three years without substantial cuts, according to the Contra Costa Times. (more...)

Does 'last hired, first fired' really make sense?

• 04-02-2010
• 

By Heather Wolpert-Gawron/Teacher Magazine

It’s spring 2010, and I am no longer called Heather among my peers. Instead I am known by my number: 173. That’s my place on our district’s seniority list. With the pink slip plague rippling out from our district’s first-year teachers toward those of us in our 10th, all of us in the danger zone are sweating. And it doesn’t stop here. If some teachers are nixed this year, and none are hired to replace them, then those of us who survive this round actually become even more vulnerable next year when the cuts continue.It’s a frustrating time in education. And many of us are wondering, “Why me?” How can some of our hardest working or highest-quality teachers be bumped from the classrooms, just because they were recruited more recently? Does it make sense to preserve every teacher who is higher in the rank order, when at least a few of them should not be allowed to cling to their positions without challenge? (more...)

Students stage walkout, protest over teacher pay cuts

• 04-02-2010
• 

By Scott Martindale/Orange County Register

Hundreds of students staged a half-hour walkout and a raucous protest at a Capistrano Unified high school Thursday morning to protest the 10.1 percent pay cuts that have been imposed on all district teachers by the school board. About 200 students at Dana Hills High School in Dana Point walked out of class around 9:51 a.m., the start of the school's 28-minute tutorial period, and congregated on a front lawn, Principal Robert Nye said. School administrators and sheriff's deputies were able to convince about 100 of them to return to class, but the rest remained outside for about 30 minutes. "We were having conversations with them, but it was clear they weren't going to go back into class," Nye said. "Quite frankly, we felt it was safer if we just let them sit there." About five minutes before tutorial period ended, the protestors got up and headed toward the school's central quad, where they began a noisy demonstration just as students were getting out of class for a five-minute morning break, Nye said. (more...)

Merchant program will aid school finances

• 04-02-2010
• 

Sacramento Bee

Organizers of a new K-12 school-funding program in Sacramento say it will enable local merchants to help area schools through everyday transactions. The program, Learning Point Rewards, recently was registered with the state attorney general's office. For now, it is being set up for Sacramento-area school districts, although the plan is to ultimately implement it statewide. Under the program, schools receive a percentage of expenditures made at local businesses by students, their families and others. Schools are provided free membership cards that can be scanned by participating merchants whenever a transaction is made. (more...)

Poizner's book on San Jose students sparks protests

• 04-02-2010
• 

KTVU

South Bay students fought back Thursday evening against a characterization that they said they don't deserve--one written by Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Poizner in his new book, "Mount Pleasant." They insisted they are being stereotyped in a new book by Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Poizner. It was one of the more heated book signings you can imagine and certainly for a candidate for governor. For the protesters, it was clearly personal. About 100 people from San Jose's Mount Pleasant high school community demonstrated outside a Barnes and Noble store because inside Steve Poizner was signing his new book called Mount Pleasant about his semester volunteering as a teacher at the school back in 2003. (more...)

Busing fight highlights struggles with diversity

• 04-02-2010
• 

By Dakarai I. Aarons/Education Week

More than a half-century after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered schools desegregated, districts are still grappling with how best to create the kind of demographically diverse public schools that many experts believe improve outcomes for disadvantaged students. The recent decision by a North Carolina district to move from a nationally recognized student-assignment policy that promoted socioeconomic diversity to one centered around community-based schools has alarmed advocates of greater integration in the schools. Yet school district leaders elsewhere, including in San Francisco and Kentucky, continue to work on crafting student-assignment plans that allow them to make demographic diversity a priority. They are doing so against a legal backdrop that changed dramatically three years ago, when the Supreme Court handed down a ruling that made it harder for school leaders to base student-assignment decisions explicitly on race. (more...)

Summer school cuts could weaken the limited lifeline

• 04-02-2010
• 

By Emily Alpert/Voice of San Diego

As San Diego Unified shortens its school year, it's also weighing whether to pare back on summer school to help close an estimated $87 million deficit, joining other school systems in the county and across California where school will be out -- totally out -- for thousands of students this summer. Cutting summer school could worsen academic backsliding during the summer, a phenomenon called summer learning loss, which hits poorer children hardest. If elementary or middle summer school is cut, it could force more failing students to repeat a grade, a hotly debated and potentially harmful practice. And doing so would weaken a lifeline for struggling teens. San Diego Unified usually invites all failing high schoolers and thousands of younger students in grades 1, 3 and 8 with low grades or test scores to summer school; it used stimulus money to expand it to fifth and sixth graders last year. (more...)

Nation, state mourn passing of Jaime Escalante: ‘He opened the doors of success for his students'

• 04-02-2010
• 

By Dan Aiello/California Progress Report

The extraordinary California math teacher who ignored the stereotypes of inner city youth attending a tough East Los Angeles high school and inspired the movie, "Stand and Deliver," died Tuesday evening. He was 79. Family friend Keith Miller says Jaime Escalante died at Washoe County Medical Center in Reno, Nevada, where he was undergoing treatment for bladder cancer. Mr. Escalante had been staying at his family home in Roseville, California, a Sacramento suburb. An immigrant from Bolivia, he transformed L.A.’s Garfield High School by motivating struggling students to tackle and excel at advanced calculus and science. The school had more Advanced Placement calculus students than all but three other public high schools in the country, a result so improbable it was initially rejected, requiring his students to retake the exam. (more...)

Grand jury indicts a top LAUSD official

• 04-02-2010
• 

Blog by Andrew Blankstein and Jack Leonard/Los Angeles Times

A grand jury has indicted a top Los Angeles Unified School District manager for allegedly funneling business from the district’s massive school-building effort to a company he co-owned, highlighting flaws in the way one of the nation’s largest public-works projects has been overseen. The indictment charges Bassam Raslan with nine counts, accusing him of conflict of interest, but it also takes the school district to task for failing to prevent the alleged crime even though it knew of Raslan's interest in the company. “LAUSD knew of this but did not direct Mr. Raslan’s supervisors to take action or implement specific policies to prevent” the conflict, the grand jury said. (more...)

New civil rights rules unveiled

• 04-02-2010
• 

Education Week

The U.S. Department of Education has announced that, for the 2009-10 school year, districts will have to collect data in several new categories that relate to students’ civil rights. The data for many of the new categories must be broken out to show how they apply to students of different races and ethnic backgrounds, students with disabilities, male and female students, and English-language learners. The announcement came less than two weeks after Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said in a speech that the Obama administration planned to step up enforcement of civil rights laws in schools. ("Duncan Vows Tougher Civil Rights Action," March 17, 2010.) New categories for which student-participation data must be reported by race and gender include Advanced Placement courses, act and sat college-admissions tests, math and science courses, International Baccalaureate programs, and General Educational Development (GED) programs. (more...)

States skeptical about ‘Race to Top’ school aid contest

• 04-05-2010
• 

By Sam Dillon/New York Times

A dozen governors, led by Bill Ritter Jr. of Colorado, sat with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in a hotel ballroom in Washington a few weeks back, praising his vision and gushing with enthusiasm over a $4 billion grant competition they hoped could land their states a jackpot of hundreds of millions of dollars. But for many of those governors, the contest lost some sizzle last week, when Mr. Duncan awarded money to only two states — Delaware and Tennessee. Colorado, which had hoped to win $377 million, ended in 14th place. Now Mr. Ritter says the scoring by anonymous judges seemed inscrutable, some Coloradans view the contest as federal intrusion and the governor has not decided whether to reapply for the second round. “It was like the Olympic Games, and we were an American skater with a Soviet judge from the 1980s,” Mr. Ritter said. (more...)

Lasting lessons of a teacher who delivered

• 04-05-2010
• 

By Sandy Banks/Los Angeles Times

High expectations. That's been the shorthand explanation for the accomplishments of Garfield High math teacher Jaime Escalante, whose death on Tuesday prompted tributes from Washington, D.C., to East Los Angeles. Escalante was lionized in the 1987 movie "Stand and Deliver" for turning barrio kids into calculus whizzes by stressing hard work and high standards. But could it really be as simple as that? I went to Escalante's former students to find out what his legacy tells us. Anthony Garcia wasn't one of Jaime Escalante's calculus stars. He was an 11th-grader enrolled in basic math when the new teacher was assigned his Garfield High class. (more...)

MORE:

Protest over 'Mount Pleasant' book: Poizner declines to apologize

• 04-05-2010
• 

By Troy Wolverton/San Jose Mercury News

Given a chance Thursday to apologize to — or just meet with — those upset by his comments and statements about Mount Pleasant High School, the East Side San Jose school where he taught for a year, gubernatorial candidate Steve Poizner declined, leaving to simmer a controversy stirred by the release of his new book. At a book-signing at the Barnes & Noble bookstore at Eastridge mall, members of the community who were protesting Poizner — more than 100 — outnumbered his supporters. The insurance commissioner defended his book, "Mount Pleasant," which describes his experience as a teacher. Poizner said he understood the reaction to his book and argued that some of his comments had been taken out of context.
"I stand by my book, cover to cover," he said. (more...)

State’s STEM plan mediocre

• 04-05-2010
• 

Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess

California is the source of America’s innovation in science and technology, and a slew of its companies, foundations, universities and non-profits are underwriting science and math education through science fairs, teacher training, new curriculums and all kinds of cool, interactive technologies. (That includes Silicon Valley Education Foundation’s Lessonopoly.) If any state should get STEM education right, it’s California. But in its Race to the Top application, California was nearly skunked in the bonus section for STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education. (more...)

Union fails to restrict charter schools

• 04-05-2010
• 

By Jason Song/Los Angeles Times

A lawsuit filed by the Los Angeles teachers union to block the city's school district from giving new campuses to charter schools was denied Friday by a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge. The suit was filed in December on behalf of United Teachers Los Angeles as a result of the Los Angeles Unified School District's controversial school reform plan, which sought to turn over 30 campuses to bidders from inside and outside the district, including charter school organizations. The lawsuit claimed that L.A. Unified could not allow charter operators to take over new campuses unless 50% of the district's permanent teachers petitioned for it. Charters are independently managed public schools and are generally nonunion. (more...)

Parents fight kids returning to LAUSD

• 04-05-2010
• 

By Melissa Pamer/Los Angeles Daily News

Faced with the possibility that a strict new Los Angeles Unified School District policy will force her daughter to attend Westchester High next year, Lynda Mitsakos has been shopping for homes in pricey Manhattan Beach. That's because she wants her child to stay at the beach city's Mira Costa High, a well-regarded campus where she can take Latin and compete on the Division II swim team. Those options are not available at lower-achieving Westchester. "You can't just pull a kid out of high school. There are all kinds of other things going on. They're on a track," said Mitsakos, who lives in Playa del Rey. (more...)

A student's challenges parallel his school's

• 04-05-2010
• 

By Howard Blume/Los Angeles Times

Jorge Garcia represents the past, the present and, potentially, the future of long-struggling Jefferson High School. As a freshman in 2006 at the South Los Angeles school, he failed all his classes and was kicked out after starting two fights, one of them especially violent. Since then, he's survived five bullet wounds, dealt with his father's fatal illness and become a parent himself. This year Jorge, 17, returned to Jefferson -- to set an example for his son. Like the school itself, Jorge wants to turn things around. And like Jorge, Jefferson suddenly has a chance at redemption. Last month, the Los Angeles Board of Education could have turned over the job of improving Jefferson to an outside operator. Instead, it chose a plan created by Jefferson's teachers. (more...)

Grade 10 diploma not a wise idea

• 04-05-2010
• 

Opinion by Ze'ev Wurman, Sandra Stotsky/San Francisco Chronicle

Ze'ev Wurman, a California electrical engineer, was a member of the committee that wrote the 1997 California Mathematics Framework. He served as a senior policy adviser in the U.S. Department of Education between 2007 and 2009. Sandra Stotsky holds the 21st Century chair in teacher quality at the University of Arkansas

Monterey County educators look for guidance: Chula Vista's students shine

• 04-05-2010
• 

By Claudia Meléndez Salinas/Monterey County Herald

When Monterey County educators look for guidance about how to improve student achievement, the name of one school district has circulated in the halls of the county's Office of Education: Chula Vista. Chula Vista Elementary School District, located on the U.S.-Mexico border, made impressive gains in the past decade: Two-thirds of its schools — 31 of 44 — surpassed the California Academic Performance Index target of 800. Forty-seven percent of their English-language learners scored as proficient or advanced in English in 2009, compared with 33 percent in California and 25 percent at the Alisal Union District in Salinas. Overall, 62 percent of Chula Vista's students are considered proficient or advanced in English, compared with 52 percent in California and 30 percent at the Alisal district. (more...)

Chinese government's funding of Southland school's language program fuels controversy

• 04-05-2010
• 

By Ching-Ching Ni/Los Angeles Times

Most students in the Chinese language class at Cedarlane Middle School in Hacienda Heights have never heard of Confucius. "Con what?" asked Ricardo Ramirez, 11, who loves to impress classmates with his loud and clear greetings of "Hello!" and "I love you!" in Mandarin. But a proposal to bring more resources to his school's Chinese program has sparked heated debate over whether the Chinese government -- in the ancient philosopher's name -- should have a role in helping American schoolchildren learn. It's a controversy that lays bare tensions in a community that has undergone a major demographic shift and is now more than a third Asian. (more...)

Utah parents protest schools' promotion of 'democracy'

• 04-05-2010
• 

By Rosemary Winters/Salt Lake Tribune

Some parents are calling on a school district to stop spreading "false educational ideas." First and foremost, the parents say, the district needs to clamp down on its use of the D-word: "democracy." This week, a spokeswoman for Utah's Republic, a group that advocates for a strict interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, asked the Board of Education in Alpine to scrap its democracy-centered mission statement. The issue has sparked a dustup over the past month, garnering petition signatures from hundreds of Alpine parents and a rebuke of the school board by the Provo Daily Herald's editorial board. Alpine's mission statement is "Educating all students to ensure the future of our democracy." (more...)

Healthy, and safe, school lunches

• 04-05-2010
• 

Editorial/New York Times

It is probably too much to hope that the more than 30 million school lunches served every day will taste absolutely fabulous. But Congress should at least make certain that whatever lands on those cafeteria trays is nutritious and safe to eat. Every day it delays doing so is another mealtime when millions of students are cheated of programs that could help relieve hunger and reduce obesity. A reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act is now before the Senate. The bill’s main sponsors, Blanche Lincoln, an Arkansas Democrat, and Saxby Chambliss, a Georgia Republican, have written useful revisions and improvements. The measure deserves prompt approval. It is also time for the House to produce its own version. If Congress can act by late spring, next year’s school cafeteria crowd can be more confident that the food is healthier and safer to eat. (more...)

Race to the Top judges cite California's lack of union support, weak data system

• 04-06-2010
• 

By Laurel Rosenhall/Sacramento Bee

California stands to lose out on up to $700 million in federal education money because of two entrenched problems in the state's public schools: a contentious relationship with the teachers union and a weak data system for tracking student performance. Reviewers cited those as significant factors in explaining why California didn't make the cut in the first round of the nationwide competition known as Race to the Top. States are being offered a second chance to compete for a share of nearly $4 billion in education grants from the Obama administration – but California's odds of winning anytime soon appear low. (more...)

More:
Report: correct Race to Top ’scoring deficiences'
Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess 

States strive to overhaul teacher tenure

• 04-06-2010
• 

By Stephen Sawchuk/Education Week

Over the past year, a handful of states have begun to overhaul their tenure-granting processes by increasing the number of years it takes teachers to win due process rights, and by trying to improve the evaluations that are supposed to guide determinations of whether a teacher qualifies for the benchmark. The recent efforts differ in several ways from prior waves of reform. With the lone exception of Florida, the states seek to change the tenure-granting process, rather than abolish it. The revisions are also being coupled with movements to tie tenure to student academic achievement, reflecting an increased emphasis in national policy circles on the importance of gauging teachers’ impact on student learning. (more...)

A new agenda for school reform

• 04-06-2010
• 

Opinion by Diane Ravitch/Washington Post

I used to be a strong supporter of school accountability and choice. But in recent years, it became clear to me that these strategies were not working. The federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) program enacted in 2002 did not produce large gains in reading and math. The gains in math were larger before the law was implemented, and the most recent national tests showed that eighth-grade students have made no improvement in reading since 1998. By mandating a utopian goal of 100 percent proficiency, the law encouraged states to lower their standards and make false claims of progress. Worse, the law stigmatized schools that could not meet its unrealistic expectation. (more...)

Should undocumented students get federal support?

• 04-06-2010
• 

Expert blog by National Journal

Thousands rallied on the National Mall on March 21 in support of comprehensive immigration reform, including the DREAM Act. Formally known as the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act, the measure would allow undocumented student immigrants who meet certain conditions to receive federal assistance to attend college and a possible pathway to citizenship. The College Board estimates that 65,000 undocumented students graduate from U.S. high schools annually. Do you support the DREAM Act? Why or why not? (more...) 

Silicon Valley Foundation rescues summer school

• 04-06-2010
• 

Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess

In a destructive year in which districts everywhere in California are eliminating summer school and cutting way back on training for teachers, the Silicon Valley Community Foundation is stepping into the breach. It has awarded nearly $2 million in grants for summer and after-school programs and year-long professional development for middle school teachers in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties. The target is smart and strategic: The money will go toward improving algebra instruction and substantially increasing the numbers of students, particularly from low-income minority districts, who are proficient in algebra by the time they enter high school. (more...) 

Maywood activists' fight against new school costs L.A. Unified $20 million

• 04-06-2010
• 

By Ruben Vives/Los Angeles Times

Some say this small city's struggle to block construction of a high school may be a losing battle, but a tenacious group of Maywood activists has managed to hit the Los Angeles Unified School District where it hurts -- in the wallet. By calling on a very powerful friend in Sacramento and organizing hundreds of families who would have to vacate their homes and apartments to make way for the proposed school, Maywood officials succeeded recently in depriving L.A. Unified of $20 million in state matching funds. And that figure could grow. "How does that old saying go? We may have won the battle, but we haven't won the war," said Tere Nuñez, one of the affected residents and mother of four. (more...)

SB campus shows difficulty of fixing failing schools

• 04-06-2010
• 

By Debbie Pfeiffer Trunnell/San Bernardino Sun

Few were surprised when Davidson Elementary School landed on a list of the state's worst five percent of public campuses last month. Since being named a California Distinguished School in the late 1990s, Davidson's test scores have been among the poorest in the San Bernardino city school system, which had more failing schools than every district in the state except Los Angeles. For more than a decade, district and schools officials have thrown every potential solution they could muster at Davidson, from extra teaching aides and individualized attention, to new technology and data-tracking methods. Then last year, the school's standardized test scores - already far below state standards - fell another. (more...) 

Inglewood Board of Education grapples with budget deficit

• 04-06-2010
• 

By Jonathan Kendrick/Intersections L.A.

After cutting over $7 million from next school year’s budget less than three weeks ago, the Inglewood Board of Education is continuing to reduce spending in the face of rising deficits. At a recent school board meeting, Inglewood Superintendent of Schools Gary McHenry said an additional $10 million could be slashed over the next three years. “We have to save every dollar we can,” McHenry said at the meeting in late March. “We will only be filling critical positions right away so we can save as much as possible.” The first round of budget cuts, approved during the board’s March 10 meeting, will eliminate 16 mostly administrative positions and reduce 88 hours per week of adult school classes. (more...) 

West Contra Costa teachers union recalls president

• 04-06-2010
• 

By Shelly Meron/Contra Costa Times

Pixie Hayward Schickele will not finish her current term as United Teachers of Richmond president after West Contra Costa teachers voted to recall her. "Teachers' voices have now been heard," said Lucy Giusto, one of several union members who pushed for the recall. "It's a message that we will be heard." The recall — supported by 54 percent of union voters — came just weeks after a general election in which teachers favored Diane Brown for president instead of bringing back Hayward Schickele for a second term; recall voting took place throughout last week. Current Vice President Terri Jackson, who has served as president before, will take over immediately and head UTR until Brown takes office July 1. (more...) 

Haiti schools reopen for 1st time since quake

• 04-06-2010
• 

By Mike Melia/San Francisco Chronicle

Elene attends a math class at the Bom Berger Baptist School, Cite Soleil slum, Port-au-Prince, Monday, April 5, 2010. Schools are opening across Haiti's capital for the first time since a devastating earthquake hit nearly three months ago. The official reopening of schools among the ruins of Haiti's capital brought unbridled joy Monday to students like 12-year-old Moris Rachelle. After nearly three months on the streets with nothing to do but help her mother look after two younger brothers, Moris wore white ribbons in her hair as she ran, laughed and hugged friends she had not seen since the Jan. 12 catastrophic earthquake. (more...) 

School matters: Parents must be key to education reform

• 04-07-2010
• 

By Jack Loveridge/New America Media

When then-Sen. Barack Obama was campaigning in Chicago in June 2008, he chided black fathers for not taking an active interest in their children’s lives. “Yes, we need more money for our schools, and more outstanding teachers in the classroom, and more afterschool programs for our children,” he told a church congregation. “But we also need families to raise our children.” Whether he was speaking the truth or talking down to families of color, it seemed clear that candidate Obama passionately believed that parents should play a critical role in a child’s success. On this at least, he was right. Study after study has confirmed that parent involvement—from helping with homework to volunteering–helps students succeed in school. (more...)

Students learning English at U.S. schools show improvement

• 04-07-2010
• 

USA Today

Schoolchildren who are still learning English made progress on state tests over the last three years, according to a report that may indicate tougher accountability standards have resulted in positive gains among a growing segment of the U.S. public school population. In a study released Wednesday, the nonprofit Center on Education Policy looked at the performance of English language learners — those students with limited English skills — on state tests in math and reading from 2006 to 2008, the years after federal testing for this group under the federal No Child Left Behind law became finalized. The study notes gains across many states: Twenty-five of 35 states with sufficient data made gains in fourth grade reading among English language learners. In grades four and eight in reading and math, 70% of those states made gains in the number of students scoring as "proficient." (more...)

Florida bill would mandate civics lessons in schools

• 04-07-2010
• 

By Hannah Sampson/Miami Herald

Hoping to turn out students who wouldn't embarrass themselves if quizzed on national television, Florida lawmakers are poised to enact a law that would force kids to pass a middle school civics test in order to get to high school. "I call this the anti-Jay Leno bill,'' said state Senator Nancy Detert, the bill's sponsor, referring to the host's "Jaywalking'' segment. "Because I'm not amused by the fact that nobody knows anything about their government -- although they all have an opinion.'' Florida law says students in middle school must take social studies courses, including civics, but does not require them to pass a test to be promoted. That would change under the bill. (more...)

Dan Walters: California's school-funding woes hit home

• 04-07-2010
• 

Column by Dan Walters/Sacramento Bee

The depth of California's educational crisis was underscored a few weeks ago when new nationwide test results placed the state's fourth- and eighth-graders at or near the bottom in basic academic skills. The dismal academic rankings were released just after California failed to qualify for one of the Obama administration's Race to the Top education improvement grants even though it had hurriedly made school governance changes, albeit after some nasty political infighting. The political climate was so divisive that California could not muster the required level of support for Obama-style reform from school districts, teachers and unions to qualify for a grant. And the atmosphere remains so toxic that California may not even apply in subsequent rounds. (more...)

A poster school for failed reforms

• 04-07-2010
• 

Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess

Citing a decade-plus of failed reforms at a Los Angeles middle school, a new report by the Education Sector credits President Obama’s effort to turn around the nation’s lowest performing schools, but raises serious questions about the administration’s execution of it. Deadline pressures and insufficient turnaround dollars could stymie the first round of restructuring troubled schools this year, including 188 in California, concludes “Restructuring ‘Restructuring’: Improving Interventions for Low-Performing Schools and District.” And the least restrictive restructuring option that most school districts will choose – the vague “transformation strategy” – could encounter significant obstacles, says author Rob Manwaring. (more...)

US Education Department to give $350M to states that revamp testing

• 04-07-2010
• 

USA Today

The U.S. Department of Education is looking to hand out up to $350 million to states willing to revamp how they test students. The money is designed to encourage states to develop standardized tests that accurately measure how much a child has learned each year and ensure the student is ready for college or a career after high school. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Tuesday the tests must be designed to accurately depict what students know and can do. The criteria for the grants were created after 10 public meetings held across the country since last year. (more...)

Both value and harm seen in K-3 common standards

• 04-07-2010
• 

By Catherine Gewertz/Education Week

The common academic standards proposed for state adoption outline what students must master by graduation in order to flourish in college or good jobs. Defining how they reach those goals, however, means spelling out what they must learn at each step of the way, starting in kindergarten. And those expectations are getting a mixed reception among early-childhood experts.In some quarters, the standards are being greeted as valuable guidance for teachers of children in K-3, or as a tool that can improve preschool programs. In others, educators are concerned that the standards ask more of many youngsters than their developmental progress allows. Some fear they could drive play-based learning from children’s classrooms or serve as a basis for high-stakes decisions such as denying kindergartners promotion to 1st grade if they cannot show they have learned required skills. (more...)

L.A. Unified rescinds permit change, for now

• 04-07-2010
• 

By Carla Rivera/Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles schools Supt. Ramon C. Cortines said Tuesday that most students who attend schools outside of the district can continue to do so next year, a retreat from a recent, more restrictive policy that provoked an outcry from parents, other school districts and some members of his own Board of Education. But whether students who live in the Los Angeles Unified School District will be allowed to continue to attend schools elsewhere after the 2010-11 school year remains unresolved. Cortines said he expects to return to the board in September with a new policy. He said he will assess, among other things, why families are rejecting L.A. Unified for what they consider better options. (more...)

ELLs' math, reading proficiency rises, study finds

• 04-07-2010
• 

By Mary Ann Zehr/Education Week

The percentage of English-language learners nationwide attaining proficiency in reading and mathematics on state tests increased in many states from the 2005-06 through the 2007-08 school years, says a report released today by the Washington-based Center on Education Policy. That increase was present at the elementary, middle, and high school levels, though it was less prevalent in high school than at the other levels, according to the center’s analysis.
But while the study found positive trends in test scores for ELLs, it notes that the gap in reading and math achievement between ELLs and non-ELLs remains huge in many states. The analysis didn’t look at whether that gap narrowed or widened in states in those school years. The report includes a number of caveats to its findings, noting the frequent unreliability of data on English-learners. (more...)

School districts clamp down on transfer requests

• 04-07-2010
• 

By Hannah Dreier/Contra Costa Times

Debbie Barnes was shocked when she received a letter last spring from the Oakley elementary school district saying that her daughter could no longer go to the small Knightsen school that she had attended for four years. The Bethel Island family lives within the boundaries of the Oakley school district but send their 10-year-old daughter, Autumn, to the Knightsen district, which has a rural atmosphere. "First, second, third, fourth grade, no problem," Debbie Barnes said. "I went in to do the fifth-grade year, all of a sudden, Oakley had decided they weren't doing transfers anymore." Barnes said her daughter "just totally freaked out that she might not be able to go to the school she's gone to for years — she didn't understand." (more...)

Children make the rules at this school

• 04-07-2010
• 

By Emily Alpert/Voice of San Diego

The meeting came to order. Wriggling second graders gathered into a circle on the rug, jostling and toying with each others' hair. Scrawled in a child's handwriting on the agenda: "Smelt it delt it." One boy earnestly explained to classmates that he didn't like when people joked, "You smelt it, you dealt it!" after he smelled something bad. "It makes me feel embarrassed," he told his classmates. "And I didn't really do it." So his classmates weighed the matter. One boy scoffed that the saying was just a joke. Another said it hurt his feelings, too. The second graders voted to set a simple rule: Just don't say it. Their teacher, Erica Diamond, sat alongside them, offering suggestions but never overruling them. (more...)

New chief looks to reinvent Oakland schools

• 04-07-2010
• 

Column by Chip Johnson/San Francisco Chronicle

The Oakland Unified School District faces a massive $85 million general fund budget deficit, Oakland teachers have set a one day walkout for April 22, and five students were shot - two fatally - in separate shootings on March 27. Yet as daunting as those realities seem, they aren't Smith's biggest challenge. Smith, formerly the No. 2 man in the San Francisco public school system, must find a way to make Oakland residents believe in public schools, because they are leaving the district in a steady flow. (more...)

Tying teacher evaluation to student achievement

• 04-07-2010
• 

By Susan H. Fuhrman/Education Week

The Obama administration, through its Race to the Top initiative, is encouraging states to develop approaches for evaluating teachers that incorporate student-achievement results. This aspect of the program has been controversial, prompting some teachers’ unions to refuse to endorse state applications for competitive federal grants. However, a number of efforts to develop such indices of teacher effectiveness are under way, and the American Federation of Teachers’ president, Randi Weingarten, has publicly endorsed including student-achievement results along with other measures to evaluate teacher success. It is likely, then, that some form of teacher evaluation linked to student achievement will play a significant role in a number of upcoming policy initiatives. (more...)

California's big whiff on education-reform money

• 04-08-2010
• 

By Jason S. Mandell/LA Weekly

For a minute there, it looked as if California might finally begin stitching up a few gaping wounds in its education system. State officials had spent much of the winter drafting reforms included in a proposal that they believed would charm Obama's Department of Education into handing over up to $700 million in "Race to the Top" funds. "I thought we had a really good shot," says Rick Miller, then–deputy superintendent of the Department of Education, who helped write the application to the feds. Miller and lots of influential players, from the media to politicians, were blindly optimistic about where California stood with Obama and his education czar, Arne Duncan. (more...) 

Districts report grim outlook as stimulus fades

• 04-08-2010
• 

By Alyson Klein/Education Week

School districts across the country are warning of widespread layoffs and severe cutbacks in programs as funding under the federal economic-stimulus package begins to dry up, according to a report released Thursday by the American Association of School Administrators. The infusion of up to $100 billion in education aid under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which passed Congress last year, clearly helped districts avert personnel reductions, the report concludes. But many districts are facing a bleak fiscal picture as that aid starts to run out later this year, despite signs of improvement in the overall economy. “The cessation of ARRA dollars, paired with the continued budget strains at the state and local levels, … represents a one-two punch to education funding that will further insulate schools from economic recovery,” the report says, “and will likely translate into more budget cuts, more job cuts, and fewer resources for programs and personnel.” (more...)

Before it ends, schools ‘Race’ is a success

• 04-08-2010
• 

Editorial/New York Times

Critics of the Obama administration’s signature education initiative have been breathing fire since it was announced that only Delaware and Tennessee had won first-round grants under the program, known as Race to the Top. Politicians from some losing states have denounced the well-designed scoring system under which the 16 finalists were evaluated. Others have thrown up their hands, suggesting that retooling applications for the next round is more trouble than it’s worth. Plenty of states will line up for the remaining $3.4 billion. But even if the program ended today, it already has had a huge, beneficial effect on the education reform effort, especially at the state and local levels. (more...)

State has little power to correct failing schools, experts say

• 04-08-2010
• 

By James Rufus Koren/San Bernardino Sun

State and local school officials say California can take over a public school that habitually performs poorly, but it's never done so, leaving San Bernardino's low-performing schools faced with nothing but an empty threat. While officials and experts disagree on the best way to judge schools' performance, they do seem to agree that federal and state education laws don't give schools much of a reason to improve. The revelation points to a huge flaw in the nation's No Child Left Behind Act, which aimed to compel failing schools to get better. "There has been no instance where either the federal or state government has stepped in and said, `This is unacceptable,"' said David Plank, an education professor at Stanford University. (more...)

Race to Top rules aim to spur shifts in testing

• 04-08-2010
• 

By Catherine Gewertz/Education Week

Competition opened yesterday for $350 million in federal money to design new ways of assessing what students learn. Rules for the contest make clear that the government wants to leave behind multiple-choice testing more often in favor of essays, multidisciplinary projects, and other more nuanced measures of achievement. In the final regulations for the competition, the U.S. Department of Education says it seeks assessments that “more validly measure” students’ knowledge and skills than those that have come to dominate state testing in recent years. (more...)

Obama ed "blueprint" will widen achievement gaps

• 04-08-2010
• 

Gues blog by Lisa Guisbond and Monty Neill/Washington Post

At a time when the gaps between educational haves and have-nots are as stark as at any time in our nation’s history, President Obama's and Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s blueprint for intervening in our most troubled schools promises to widen these gaps. The Blueprint fueled hopes for real change by eliminating NCLB’s disastrous adequate yearly progress mechanism. It’s too bad AYP wasn’t killed while the law was being written, when it was first noticed that it would paint nearly all schools as failures. (See FairTest’s 2004 NCLB report on why.) But scrapping it now is better than never. Duncan aims to correct AYP’s absurdly broad-brush approach by focusing on the 5%-10% of schools doing worst on state tests. This has both common sense and political appeal. (more...)

Impasse near, teachers told: Sac City schools chief to present demands tonight

• 04-08-2010
• 

By Melody Gutierrez/Sacramento Bee

The Sacramento City Unified School District will unveil its proposal tonight for concessions it is asking the teachers union to make to save teacher jobs, programs and smaller class sizes. Superintendent Jonathan Raymond said informal talks with the Sacramento City Teachers Association had broken down, and the district was taking the necessary legal steps before declaring an impasse. Should that happen, a state mediator would be assigned to help resolve it. "We've been trying through informal talks to get an agreement and we weren't able to," Raymond said Wednesday. "We are going to try all remedies under the law. I'm confident our teachers will do what's right." Teachers association President Linda Tuttle did not return calls Wednesday. She said last month that the union doesn't have to open its contract until it expires in the summer of 2011. (more...)

Rethinking high school education in Oakland

• 04-08-2010
• 

Blog by Rachel Gross/New York Times

It’s almost deadline, and Christopher Scheer’s journalism class at Skyline High in Oakland is working feverishly on the upcoming issue of The Oracle, their school paper. Computer keys clack. Time ticks down. They’re editing articles, writing editorials, designing page layouts. To coin a phrase (or not), it’s something of a baptism by fire, but the students are learning skills and how to work independently and under pressure. Alice Han pauses for a moment from her work configuring a page. “It can be pretty stressful,” she tells me from behind a computer screen. While President Obama prepares to reveal his education revamp aimed at bringing the nation’s educational standards up to speed with the rest of the world, Oakland Unified and other districts are already rethinking academics at a local level. (more...)

Pink slips may cause shortage of teachers

• 04-08-2010
• 

By Cheri Carlson/Ventura County Star

Facing another round of deep state funding cuts, California school districts issued pink slips to thousands of teachers this year — a situation that state officials warn could lead to a shortage of qualified teachers. Locally, 525 teachers were handed layoff notices in March, informing them they could be out of work at the end of the school year. “This is leading to fewer beginning teachers staying in the profession and fewer candidates entering teacher preparation programs. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of educators will retire within the next decade,” said state schools chief Jack O’Connell in a statement released Tuesday. “All these factors are contributing to a significant future teacher shortage in California,” he said. (more...)

States push to pay teachers based on performance

• 04-08-2010
• 

By Dorie Turner/Associated Press

For parents and politicians hungry for better schools, the idea of paying teachers more if their students perform better can seem as basic as adding two and two or spelling "cat." Yet just a handful of schools and districts around the country use such strategies. In some states, the idea is effectively illegal. That could all be changing as the federal government wields billions of dollars in grants to lure states and school districts to try the idea. The money is persuading lawmakers around the country, while highlighting the complex problems surrounding pay-for-performance systems. (more...)

Video featuring Megan Fox blasts state school cuts

• 04-08-2010
• 

By Connie Llanos/Los Angeles Daily News

Frustrated with the stream of recent budget cuts that have left California schools overcrowded and understaffed, a group of Hollywood-savvy parents decided to go viral with their ire Wednesday. Local parents from Wonderland Avenue Elementary, a Los Angeles Unified School in the Hollywood Hills, recruited the help of celebrity couple Megan Fox and Brian Austin Green, as well as producers at the comedy Web site www.funnyordie.com, to put together a video that urges state officials to restore education funding. Posted Wednesday morning, the video had more than 147,000 views by early evening. "Our hope was not to make a video that would fix everything, but to make a video that could help start a movement," said Green, a parent of a second-grader at Wonderland Avenue who is best known for starring in the original "Beverly Hills 90210" series. (more...)

As state defers payments, some school districts take out loans

• 04-08-2010
• 

By Diana Lambert/Sacramento Bee

The Natomas Unified School District paid $300,000 in interest this school year – enough to have saved three counselors from being laid off – on a $12 million loan to keep its lights on and staff paid. It took out the loan because the state of California has failed to send money in a timely fashion, deferring payments to the school district until the state can come up with the money it owes Natomas Unified for operations for the current school year. The state in general sends fewer dollars to California schools these days – a total of $18 billion less over the last two years. And much of the money districts do receive is coming late – sometimes as much as five months after the payments originally were scheduled. (more...)

D.C. deal with teachers union a model for U.S.?

• 04-08-2010
• 

By Claudio Sanchez/National Public Radio

After more than two years of wrangling, District of Columbia schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee has reached a tentative agreement with the city's teachers union on a new contract. The deal could become a model for efforts nationwide to tie teacher pay to student performance. One of Washington, D.C.'s angriest, most bitter disputes may be coming to an end. After more than two years of wrangling, District of Columbia schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and the city's teachers union have reached a tentative agreement on a new contract. The deal could become a model for school reform around the country. (more...)

Funding cut has New Jersey Schools scrambling

• 04-08-2010
• 

by Nancy Solomon/NPR

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says he plans to cut the state's education budget by $820 million. His big target: teacher pay and benefits. With state budgets in crisis, education is on the chopping block across the country. Schools are laying off employees and axing programs. California is so cash-strapped that its kids might have to start summer vacation early. School districts across New Jersey recently found out they were losing a big chunk of their state funding. A number are losing all of it. That's thanks to Gov. Chris Christie, who rode a wave of resentment about lost jobs and high property taxes into the governor's mansion last fall. He pledged to cut government spending, and during his recent budget address, he said his $820 million cut to education was aimed squarely at teacher pay and benefits. (more...)

Why great teachers matter to low-income students

• 04-09-2010
• 

By Joel I. Klein, Michael Lomax and Janet Murguía/Washington Post

In the debate over how to fix American public education, many believe that schools alone cannot overcome the impact that economic disadvantage has on a child, that life outcomes are fixed by poverty and family circumstances, and that education doesn't work until other problems are solved. This theory is, in some ways, comforting for educators. After all, if schools make only a marginal difference, we can stop faulting ourselves for failing to make them work well for millions of children. It follows that we can stop working to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (currently known as No Child Left Behind) and stop competing in the Obama administration's Race to the Top initiative, which promises controversial changes. (more...)

Let districts decide on Race to the Top

• 04-09-2010
• 

Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess

It’s not surprising that Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell and Gov. Schwarzenegger’s secretary of education, Bonnie Reiss, are ambivalent about reapplying to Race to the Top. You can sense the dread in between their words. California ranked 27th out of 40 states in the first round; having gone through one knock-down over reforms, the Legislature is in no mood to go through another. Districts that didn’t sign up the first time won’t change their minds. The California Teachers Association isn’t about to encourage them. And it will take a huge amount work to make the state’s application competitive – if that’s even possible, given glaring faults that judges pointed out. (more...)

More cuts coming to school budgets

• 04-09-2010
• 

By Amy Scott/Marketplace

STEVE CHIOTAKIS: If you have kids in public school, chances are they'll see some big differences next year. A new report shows how public schools are faring with all the state budget cuts, and the picture isn't pretty. AMY SCOTT: Here's what happens when school budgets are slashed: technology upgrades, like new computers, get put off. Bus routes disappear. So do teachers and staff. The American Association of School Administrators surveyed its members around the country. More than half said they're cutting extracurricular activities next year. More than a third may eliminate summer school. Federal stimulus money helped schools avoid some cuts. But the group's Noelle Ellerson says that money is running out. (more...)

Loophole may allow schools to escape state-mandated reforms

• 04-09-2010
• 

Blog by Corey G. Johnson/California Watch

Last month, the state trotted out a bunch of scary must-do reforms when it released the list of the so-called "worst-performing schools." Fire the principal and staff. Convert into a charter school. Or possibly shut your doors forever. But absolutely no more business as usual.Child, please. According to some excellent reporting by the Contra Costa Times and the Oakland Tribune, a loophole as emerged. It turns out, the reforms were tied to the acceptance of federal School Improvement Grants. Backed by federal stimulus dollars, the U.S. Department of Education offered up to $4 billion in SIG funding to turn around schools deemed consistently low performers. But here's the rub: the program is voluntary. So, if a school district decides to turn down the grant money, the state can't make them adhere to the reforms. (more...)

LAUSD considers closing schools week early, parents speak out

• 04-09-2010
• 

By Tracy Oppenheimer/Intersections L.A.

Desperate school district calls for desperate measures. The Los Angeles Unified School District might close its $640 million budget gap by closing schools one week early this year. Superintendent Ramon C. Cortinez says it would be a "temporary fix" until the states budget crisis is over. That won't be happening anytime soon. A final decision isn't expected until the weekend. Tracy Oppenheimer of Annenberg Radio News asked parents how they feel about the decision. (more...)

Schools test a new tool for improving evaluation of teachers

• 04-09-2010
• 

By Crystal Yednak/New York Times

In a Chicago Public Schools system where half the schools are on probation yet 93 percent of teachers are rated “excellent” or “superior,” administrators are testing an evaluation process to more accurately measure a teacher’s classroom performance — with an eye toward closing the huge gap. A pilot program called Excellence in Teaching, now being tested in 100 Chicago schools, seeks to produce an honest conversation about performance, useful feedback to teachers from principals and more realistic evaluations of performance in the classroom. Instead of a vague checklist that principals use to rate teacher effectiveness, the new program aims to define good and bad teaching, gives principals and teachers a common language to discuss frankly how to make improvements, and requires evidence that teachers meet certain criteria. (more...)

Florida lawmakers approve sweeping school changes, including teacher pay measure

• 04-09-2010
• 

By Michael C. Bender/Palm Beach Post

Florida lawmakers, starting Thursday afternoon and not finishing until nearly 2:30 this morning, approved a sweeping package of public school changes that could eventually reach every student and teacher in the state. The divided House ultimately approved a quartet of bills that could prove to be the most significant education changes passed out of the state legislature in a decade. The proposals would change the way teachers' contracts and raises are negotiated, make class sizes larger, high school graduation tougher and send more state money to private schools. "This is transformational," House Republican Leader Adam Hasner of Boca Raton said of the package. "For Florida to be economically and educationally competitive in the twenty-first century, then the status quo is unacceptable." (more...)

Yes on Measure D for West Contra Costa schools

• 04-09-2010
• 

Editorial/Contra Costa Times

West Contra Costa school officials are going back to the well for the fifth time since 1998, asking district voters to approve yet another bond measure for school construction. Admitting that they grossly underestimated the cost of rebuilding and refurbishing the dilapidated schools throughout the district, they are asking voters for authority to issue another $380 million in bonds. This is on top of the $890 million voters have already authorized, bringing the total to nearly $1.3 billion. While we have serious concerns about the mounting costs of the reconstruction project, we recognize the district's facilities were in desperate need of upgrade and we are impressed by the new and refurbished schools we have seen so far. (more...)

Sac City's contract move surprises teachers union

• 04-09-2010
• 

Sacramento City Teachers Association officials said they were caught off guard Thursday by the Sacramento City Unified School District's decision to make its concessions proposal public. The district presented a list of concessions – including three furlough days – for the teachers union at Thursday's board meeting, which trustees approved unanimously. Making the proposal public – or "sunshining" it – is the first step toward declaring an impasse. Should that happen, a state mediator would be assigned to help resolve issues. (more...)

Capitol expo spotlights need for education technology

• 04-09-2010
• 

By Darrell Smith/Sacramento Bee

A group of educators took turns using a digital whiteboard, while a few feet away, Jared Gallegos, a senior at Sacramento's New Technology High School, prepared for an upcoming mock trial, reviewing questions sent to his smart phone as he sat in a tent on the Capitol's north lawn. It's the changing face of the classroom – interactive, mobile, digital – but it can't arrive soon enough for members of the state's business community who complain that California students aren't prepared to compete in a 21st-century digital workplace. That was the backdrop for what Assemblyman Tom Torlakson, D-Antioch, billed Wednesday as an education technology exposition at the Capitol. (more...)

MDUSD may not chase 'carrots' dangled by state

• 04-09-2010
• 

By Theresa Harrington/Contra Costa Times

The Mt. Diablo school board plans to hold a community workshop about its lowest-achieving schools in mid-May. Schools on the list are: Bel Air, Meadow Homes, Rio Vista and Shore Acres elementary schools, and Glenbrook and Oak Grove middle schools. Trustee Gary Eberhart and teachers' union president Mike Noce both expressed concerns March 23 about the state's selection of these schools. The district has not yet decided whether to apply for federal School Improvement Grants, ranging from $50,000 to $2 million a year for three years, to implement one of four interventions: close the school, replace the principal and at least half the staff, replace the principal and make other changes such as increasing instructional time, or reopen the school under new management, such as a charter. (more...)

Study: Most teachers pan No Child Left Behind

• 04-12-2010
• 

By Debbie Pfeiffer Trunnell/San Bernardino Sun

As early as kindergarten, California teachers spend as much as 40 minutes to an hour a day doing assessments of their small charges in preparation for the years of testing to come. By second grade, much of the school year is devoted to readying students for a whole week of testing in English-language arts and math, and the momentum only builds through 11th grade. The focus on reaching the high standards of the No Child Left Behind Act means educators spend hours every day sharing test-taking skills with students and teaching math and English, with only minutes left in the day to teach other subjects. "When you look at the philosophy of teaching the whole child, you have to expose the children to all possibilities," said Gerald Kasinski, the former principal at San Bernardino's Davidson Elementary School. (more...)

Even Megan Fox knows Calif. has an education crisis

• 04-12-2010
• 

Blog by Valerie Strauss/Washington Post

You know that the crisis in California’s public education system is really severe when even the actress Megan Fox -- not exactly identified with intellectual pursuits -- knows there is a really big problem. She and her boyfriend, Brian Austin Green, star in a short video for the www.saynotocuts.com website, which tells the tale of massive budget cuts in California that have left many schools without nurses, janitors, librarians and counselors. Sports programs are now considered a luxury, and teachers are being laid off across the state in droves. The word “crisis” is used with such profligacy today that saying something is in crisis doesn’t raise much concern. (more...)

Summer school: To have or not to have?

• 04-12-2010
• 

Blog by Emily Alpert/Voice of San Diego

San Diego Unified is recommending the school board spend $4.6 million to keep its summer school programs largely intact this year, offering summer classes to all high schoolers who need to make up Ds and Fs, along with students at risk of being held back in grades 1, 3 and 8 and kids entering algebra at schools in a special transition program. District officials had earlier feared that San Diego Unified might have to pare back on summer school to save money. The school board will decide Tuesday morning whether or not it takes that step. For instance, the board could choose to offer summer school to fewer grades and students in order to save money. Only supplying summer school to high school seniors, for instance, would cost $555,000. The money comes from federal funds for disadvantaged students and state funding. (more...)

State looking to rate California's preschools

• 04-12-2010
• 

By Maritza Velazquez/San Gabriel Valley Tribune

The state may implement a new preschool rating system that would boost accountability, encourage higher quality programs and help parents make more informed decisions. A 13-member advisory committee aimed at improving early childhood learning programs in California is currently collecting data to create a fair, accurate scale that would hold preschools accountable and be understandable for parents. Officials will make recommendations for a grading system by the end of the year. The system could start as soon as July 2011. (more...)

The candidates on education / So far, not much more than sound bites and silence

• 04-12-2010
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Editorial/San Diego Union Tribune

This is a critically important time for education policy in California. A swelling population, dwindling state revenue, more international competition for students, and some encouraging chatter from the Obama administration about holding teachers accountable for student performance all tell us the same thing: the next governor must make education reform a top priority. The trouble is, at least at this point, none of the major gubernatorial candidates – state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, or Attorney General Jerry Brown — passes the test. Poizner has earned the ire of Latino activists for comments he made in a new memoir of the year he spent teaching at the largely Latino campus of Mount Pleasant High School in East San Jose. (more...)

Teachers agree to shorten LAUSD school year

• 04-12-2010
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By Jason Song/Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles teachers union members have ratified a deal to shorten the school calendar this and next year, officials announced Saturday. Nearly 80% of United Teachers Los Angeles members who cast ballots approved of the deal, which could save the Los Angeles Unified School District up to $140 million, save the jobs of about 2,100 employees and maintain class sizes. Under the agreement, which was negotiated over several months, teachers would take an unpaid day off the Friday before Memorial Day and schools would close four days earlier for summer vacation. Seven additional instructional days would be cut from the 2010-11 academic year. (more...)

Standardized tests’ Holy Grail

• 04-12-2010
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Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess

The much-maligned multiple-choice test, the crux of California’s and other states’ accountability exams, will be replaced partly, if not entirely, by more complex, lengthier and probably more costly, state tests. As part of its Race to the Top program, Education Secretary Arne Duncan has set aside $350 million to pay for the development of new standardized tests, plus high schools measures of career and college readiness, over the next four to five years. Duncan and President Obama, who has derided “fill-in-a-bubble” standardized tests, are expecting that the new “performance assessments,” along with the common-core standards to which they’ll be aligned, will guide teachers’ instruction and improve student results. (more...)

San Diego's expulsion purgatory

• 04-12-2010
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By Emily Alpert/Voice of San Diego

Thirteen year old Shakaijah Calvin had been out of school for more than a month after O'Farrell Community Charter School kicked her out for a string of problems. Her mother Mavis Thompson rattled off her misdeeds: Not wearing the right uniform. Swiping a cell phone from a classmate. But when Thompson showed up to enroll her daughter at her neighborhood public school, Bell Middle, the principal turned her away. He gave her a terse, handwritten note to for the O'Farrell school director. "I will no longer be accepting your students in the middle of the school year," it read. Shakaijah was smack in the middle of the gap between charter school and school district rules on how to handle misbehaving students. Though O'Farrell kicked Shakaijah out under its own rules, her future was still in the hands of San Diego Unified, which ultimately oversees O'Farrell and other charter schools. (more...)

School bell could ring a little earlier for LAUSD

• 04-12-2010
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By Connie Llanos/Los Angeles Daily News

Summers could get shorter for thousands of local teens who would start the fall semester three weeks before Labor Day if new school calendars are approved by Los Angeles Unified officials this week. LAUSD board members will vote on two plans Tuesday that would affect school start times and winter and summer breaks for 16 San Fernando Valley high schools. The first plan would start classes for 13 local high schools on Aug. 16 and end the year on June 3. The goal is to simulate the college calendar and allow students to take winter finals before their December vacations start. A separate plan being considered Tuesday would put three high schools in the East San Fernando Valley on a calendar that starts the year on Aug. 9 and ends it on June 23. (more...)

Bilingual ed., immersion found to work equally well

• 04-12-2010
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By Mary Ann Zehr/Education Week

In the first randomized-assignment study in which English-language learners were followed for as long as five years, researchers have found that Spanish-speaking children learn to read English equally well regardless of whether they are taught primarily in English or in both English and their native language. The findings from the Center for Research and Reform in Education at Johns Hopkins University may take some fuel out of the fire in the national debate over which is best for teaching children from immigrant families to read: English immersion or bilingual education. “People have been fighting for years and years about the language of instruction, thinking that it was either terribly important to teach in English the whole time or terribly important to teach in Spanish and then English. Both groups were wrong,” said Robert E. Slavin, the director of the center, in Baltimore, and one of the researchers. (more...)

Facts don’t lie! Students paying the price for Governor’s education cuts

• 04-13-2010
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Opinion by Steve Maviglio/California Progress Report

On Thursday, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s spokesperson continued to make claims that have no basis in fact, denying that California’s schools are being subjected to billions in cuts. He made these claims in response to a popular viral video featuring actress Megan Fox in an over-crowded classroom suffering from the state’s devastating education budget cuts. The video is part of a campaign by the Wonderland Avenue Elementary School PTA in Los Angeles to oppose the statewide budget cuts to schools. When asked about the Wonderland PTA’s video, Schwarzenegger spokesperson Aaron McLear belittled the messengers, claiming: "David Silver’s numbers are wrong," referring to the character played on TV by one of the spokespeople in the video. (more...)

No longer highest paid teachers

• 04-13-2010
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Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess

Teachers in California no longer earn, on average, the most of any state in the nation. New York has taken over that distinction. California has the second highest student to teacher ratio in the nation (20.9:1), next to Utah’s 21.4. And its spending per student has fallen two notches to 43rd in the nation. These are some of the statistics from the National Education Association’s annual report Rankings and Estimates for 2010. There aren’t many surprises, given the state’s fiscal mess. And since most of the data comes form the 2008-’09 year, figures on school spending will likely detereorate, relative to the rest of the nation, over the next two years. (more...)

Meager gains on NAEP reading assessments

• 04-13-2010
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Column by Diane Ravitch/Education Week

Dear Deborah, In my book I argue that No Child Left Behind was a failed strategy. We both know the reasons why. It narrowed the curriculum; it introduced a culture of testing and test prepping into the nation's schools; it represented an unprecedented extension of federal control into the nation's schools; it required teaching to what are admittedly inadequate tests; it demanded an unrealistic goal of 100 percent proficiency for all children in all groups; it encouraged states to inflate their scores; it promoted cheating and gaming the system; and it harmed public education because no state was able to reach the law's utopian goal. I further argued, based on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data from 2003 onward, that NCLB did not even produce significantly higher test scores. (more...)

NEA plan for rewriting NCLB departs from Obama's

• 04-13-2010
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By Stephen Sawchuk/Education Week

The National Education Association has put forward its most detailed recommendations to date for the overhaul of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, in what a union official calls a new approach for the federal law. “We think there is a real opportunity for policymakers to change the framework of what’s in the statute,” said Donna Harris-Aikens, the director of education policy and practice for the 3.2 million-member union. “I don’t think there was an appetite for doing that during the last time around. It probably doesn’t mean every single word [in ESEA] is going to change, but we’re using this as a way to start a discussion.” The union’s close engagement in the law—even as the legislative window for moving a bill this year begins to close—stands in contrast to the rewrite that resulted in the current version of the ESEA, the No Child Left Behind Act, which became law in 2002. (more...)

Capistrano Unified School District teachers may vote to strike

• 04-13-2010
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By Adolfo Guzman-Lopez/KPCC

The teachers union at the Capistrano Unified School District has called for a Thursday afternoon, closed-door meeting at which members will debate whether to go on strike. On a 6-1 vote, the board approved cutting teacher salaries by 10 percent to close a large funding deficit. Months of talks over proposed cuts, including a proposal from a mediator, had produced no agreement between teachers and administrators. Teachers' union president Vicki Soderberg said it’s likely teachers will vote whether to give union leaders authority to go on strike. "Teachers normally are there in the classroom for the kids so this is a really hard decision for teachers to make," she said. "This is something that they do not take lightly." (more...)

How should students be assessed?

• 04-13-2010
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Expert blog by National Journal

The Education Department unveiled final regulations last week for its $350 million assessment grant competition. A component of the $4.35 billion Race to the Top program -- the Obama administration's signature education initiative -- the competition aims to "create a new generation of tests that measure critical thinking skills and a broader range of content." To compete for the money, states must form groups and apply as consortia; applications are due June 23 and the winners will be announced in September. According to Education Week, the rules make clear the administration's desire to shift away from multiple-choice testing in favor of more sophisticated methods of evaluating students. (more...)

SD school board may ease curbs on promotions

• 04-13-2010
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By Maureen Magee/San Diego Union-Tribune

This year could mark the end of a policy that keeps failing students in San Diego from being promoted to the next grade level unless they complete summer intervention classes. The school board will take a hard look at its summer school offerings during a meeting today that will examine different scenarios designed to save money and serve the most students. Administrators with the San Diego Unified School District have recommended that the board spend $4.6 million to maintain its summer program this year for students on the brink of failure in first, third and eighth grades. High school students also would have a chance to retake summer classes to make up Ds and Fs they earned in core courses. (more...)