July 2010

Lawmaker wants to shift some 'Race to the Top' funds to prevent teacher layoffs

• 07-01-2010
• 

By Nick Anderson/Washington Post

A senior House Democrat proposed Wednesday to slice President Obama's Race to the Top fund and other school reform initiatives to help pay for a $10 billion measure to save education jobs. The proposal by Rep. David R. Obey (Wis.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, would eliminate about $500 million from the $4.35 billion Race to the Top fund and another $300 million in other education programs through an amendment to a supplemental war spending bill. (more...)

Steinberg's teachers bill survives its first test

• 07-01-2010
• 

Column by Dan Walters/Sacramento Bee

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg's bill to overhaul teacher layoffs and reassignments survived its first legislative test Wednesday despite the opposition of teacher unions. The measure is one of several points of friction between Steinberg and the unions, especially the powerful California Teachers Association, which has used billboards and mailings to criticize the Democratic head of the Senate from Sacramento. (more...)

Charter advocates defeat restrictions

• 07-01-2010
• 

Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess

Charter schools’ lobby and friends have beaten back the latest effort to tighten financial and academic oversight of charter schools. AB 1950 had easily passed the Assembly. But on Tuesday, the eve  before her bill would have been heard – and likely voted down — in the charter-friendly Senate Education Committee, the bill’s sponsor, Democratic Assemblywoman Julia Brownley, withdrew it.That will be it for imposing additional charter regulations for the session, unless Brownley and the California Charter School Assn. can cut a deal on new rules for closing poorly performing charter schools. (more...)

California's high school drop out crisis

• 07-01-2010
• 

By Duane Campbell/California Progress Report

California has a Secretary of Education as well as a Superintendent of Public Instruction. The Superintendent organizes the state educational programs and implements state mandates. The Secretary of Education is an advisor to the Governor. The current Secretary is Bonnie Reiss, about the 5th Secretary under Arnold Schwarzenegger. Secretary Reiss has a letter to the editor in the Sacramento Bee of Tues. June 29, responding to an earlier column by Dan Walters about the state’s persistent high drop out rate. The letter is a classic piece of propaganda.  (more...)

Calif. schools on brink of bankruptcy

• 07-01-2010
• 

By Scott Neuman/NPR

More than a dozen California school districts face imminent bankruptcy and dozens more are at risk of going under, according to a Los Angeles Times report on Wednesday. The state has 1,077 school districts, 14 of which are classified as "unable to meet future financial obligations," according to the state Department of Education. The L.A. Times quotes state Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell: "Schools on this list are now forced to make terrible decisions to cut programs and services that students need or face bankruptcy." (more...)

Also: Whittier Daily News

States, districts scramble on turnaround deadline

• 07-01-2010
• 

By Lesli A. Maxwell/Education Week

The fast-track effort to overhaul low-performing schools, a centerpiece of U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s school improvement agenda, has state and local education leaders scrambling to prepare and launch aggressive interventions at their most troubled campuses. Within two months, hundreds of low-performing schools targeted for turnaround must make drastic changes—in many cases, replacing the principal and at least some teachers—under new rules for the federal Title I School Improvement Grant program. Taking those steps hinges largely on states’ receiving their shares of the $3.5 billion available for the grants, an unprecedented federal investment in the nation’s chronically underperforming schools. (more...)

L.A. Unified payroll system still troubled, grand jury says

• 07-01-2010
• 

In the wake of a costly, much-publicized fiasco, the payroll system of the nation's second-largest school district remains dangerously incomplete and inadequately monitored, a grand jury has concluded. The L.A. County Grand Jury annual report, released Wednesday, took aim at the malfunctioning payment system launched in January 2007 in the Los Angeles Unified School District. For months, thousands were overpaid, underpaid or not paid at all. The grand jury investigation, which will not result in criminal charges, traveled well-worn ground in examining what went wrong, noting inadequate employee training and an insufficient trial run to work out glitches. (more...)

17 LAUSD schools are up for grabs

• 07-01-2010
• 

By Connie Llanos/Los Angeles Daily News

Dozens of teachers, charter school operators and nonprofits have signaled their interest in taking over daily operations of 17 Los Angeles Unified campuses. District officials are expected to announce a final count today of initial bids for the second round of LAUSD's "Public School Choice" plan, which will allow outside groups and LAUSD staff to compete to run nine new and eight existing low-performing public schools. Among the campuses up for grabs this year are two long-awaited San Fernando Valley high schools - in Granada Hills and San Fernando - that are expected to enroll more than 3,000 students combined and could be divided into seven small schools. (more...)

School board OKs Kowba, $100 million in cuts

• 07-01-2010
• 

By Maureen Magee/San Diego Union Tribune

Celebration over Bill Kowba’s promotion to superintendent of California’s second-largest school district on Tuesday was quickly tempered by the formal approval of $100 million in cuts to next year’s $1.1 billion operating budget. The San Diego school board voted 4-0 to hire Kowba, offering the former interim chief a $250,000 salary on a three-year contract. That’s less than former Superintendent Terry Grier’s $269,000 annual pay and four-year contract. Trustee Shelia Jackson abstained from the vote to hire Kowba without explanation. After months of budget hearings and community workshops, the divided board barely passed its budget, tentatively adopted last week. (more...)

Is 2010 the year of the education documentary?

• 07-01-2010
• 

By Greg Toppo/USA TODAY

In 2006, An Inconvenient Truth shined a light on global warming, bringing images of collapsing ice sheets and drowning polar bears to multiplexes nationwide. Could 2010 be the year moviegoers get the angry urban parent with a hand-drawn placard, demanding more high-quality charter schools and an end to teacher tenure? This summer, no fewer than four new documentaries, most of them independently produced, tackle essentially the same question: Why do so many urban public schools do such a bad job — and what can be done to help kids trapped in them? (more...)

Charter School Lessons

• 07-02-2010
• 

By UCLA IDEA Staff

Charter schools have emerged as a great education hope for the 21st century. It’s easy to be outraged by low performance in traditional schools and imagine how charters can solve many serious problems. Charters emerged as laboratory sites where educators could carefully test innovative learning and teaching strategies that might then be useful in the more general public school environment. To accomplish this mission charters were relieved of many of the regulations and benchmarks that applied to the non-chartered schools in the system. However, this original mission is being expanded into a model for transforming the ways public schools are organized. (more...)

Three decades of underfunding education

• 07-02-2010
• 

Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess

A new report by the California Budget Project – “Race to the Bottom? California’s Support for Schools Lags the Nation” – underscores what’s at stake in the coming battle  between Gov. Schwarzenegger and Democratic leaders on state education spending, a key difference in the stalemate over the state budget. The report tracks 30 years of underfunding K-12 schools. Its conclusion: “The spending gap (between California and other states) widened after the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, narrowed from the late 1990s through 2001-02, and has grown substantially since 2006-07.” (more...)

School spending falls further behind rest of nation

• 07-02-2010
• 

By Louis Freedberg/California Watch

California continues to fall behind other states when it comes to school funding. Just how far? California now ranks 44th in how much it spends on its students – or $2,546 less than the average spent in the rest of the United States. That's the lowest it has been in 40 years, in a depressing report from the California Budget Project. The report calculates that just to bring California to the national average would require an extra $15.4 billion in spending – an increase of 29.5 percent. Those numbers underscore the impossibility of California catching up to the rest of the nation within any reasonable time period – if ever.  (more...)

Despite veto threat, House passes Edujobs with Race to the Top cut

• 07-02-2010
• 

By Alyson Klein/Education Week (subscription required)

The U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation late Thursday night to help prevent teacher layoffs, despite opposition from the Obama administration, which threatened to veto the measure if it includes $800 million in cuts to its key K-12 initiatives. The legislation takes aim at three of the administration's most prized education priorities. That includes cutting $500 million from the $4.35 billion Race to the Top program, which rewards states for making progress on certain education redesign initiatives. It also would cut $200 million from the Teacher Incentive Fund, which doles out grants to support pay-for-performance programs, and $100 million intended to help start new charter schools. (more...)

Diversity, facilities a focus of New Charter Alliance CEO

• 07-02-2010
• 

By Dakarai Arons/Education Week (subscription required)

Peter C. Groff, named today as the new president and chief executive officer of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, says he will push for better, school-appropriate facilities for charters, equitable funding for charter schools, more diversity in the charter school movement and continued innovation to serve the needs of children and their families. "It's an era of unprecedented opportunity and space for growth in this sector," he told me during an interview yesterday afternoon at the organization's annual conference, held this year in Chicago. "For that growth to happen, we need to make sure there are high-performing schools that are sustainable." (more...)

Charters, teachers vie to take over L.A. Unified schools

• 07-02-2010
• 

By Howard Blume/Los Angeles Times

The nation's second-largest school system is once again inviting bidders to take over poorly performing and new campuses, in a school-control process that is, once again, pitting teachers and their union against independently operated charter schools, most of which are nonunion. Teachers working for the Los Angeles Unified School District put in bids for every school. And charters are vying for all but one. At stake is the education of more than 35,000 students who will attend those schools. (more...)

Garcia re-elected L.A. Unified School board president

• 07-02-2010
• 

By Adolfo Guzman-Lopez/KPCC

Garcia won all but one vote. In an acceptance speech, she said that in spite of large budget cuts she’d continue to push for decentralization. She described her approach to improving schools as, "created on the ground, by innovators in our community, on the school sites and always accountable to our parents."  L.A. Unified is in the process of transferring administration of many new and low-performing schools to teacher-led groups and nonprofit organizations such as charter school companies. Improvement, Garcia said, starts with people directly involved in schools. (more...)

Declining property values mean $20 million less for local cities and schools

• 07-02-2010
• 

By Bonnie Eslinger/San Jose Mercury News

San Mateo County cities, schools and special districts will receive about $20 million less in 2010-11 because property values have decreased for a second straight year, according to data released Thursday by the county assessor's office. Assessor Warren Slocum blamed "depressed housing and commercial markets and a lagging local economy," and noted that in his 24-year tenure he has never seen a year-to-year decline in assessed property values. The 2010-11 annual assessment roll reflects the assessed value of all properties in the county as of Jan. 1 after accounting for changes in property values from the previous year. The county's annual assessment roll decreased by 1.39 percent, or $2 billion, from the previous year, according to the data. (more...)

Oakland schools chief finishes rocky first year

• 07-02-2010
• 

By Katy Murphy/Oakland Tribune

When word got out last year that Tony Smith was in the running to be the next superintendent of the Oakland school district, friends urged him to reconsider. He said some told him it would be "suicide" to take the job at the fiscally rocky and notoriously unstable school district. Not only was the district emerging from a six-year state takeover with a massive long-term debt amid the worst economic crisis in decades, but it was in the throes of a deadlocked labor dispute with its teachers. The year since then has been as tumultuous as promised. (more...)

School district rehired workers it paid to leave, again

• 07-02-2010
• 

By Emily Alpert/Voice of San Diego

San Diego Unified offered its veteran employees a golden handshake last summer: If they left the school district they could get paid one year of their salary. More than 1,000 workers took the deal. Replacing its most expensive, experienced workers with newer ones -- or not replacing them at all -- was projected to save the school system more than $41 million last year and spared San Diego Unified from layoffs as it faced a $93 million deficit. (more...)

Morongo School is one of first fully funded, run by a tribe in U.S.

• 07-02-2010
• 

By David Olson/Riverside Press-Enterprise

When Maurice Lyons attended Banning public schools several decades ago, he said he and other Indian students were "invisible," victims of teachers' low expectations. "They never gave us any attention," said Lyons, vice chairman of the Morongo Band of Mission Indians. "What sense was there in sitting there and doing nothing?" Lyons dropped out after ninth grade. On Thursday, Lyons beamed as he helped preside over the dedication of Morongo School, one of the country's first schools fully funded and run by an Indian tribe, according to a federal official.  (more...)

Pérez and Steinberg: Democrats united behind budget plan to protect jobs and fully fund education

• 07-06-2010
• 

By Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and Assembly Speaker John A. Perez/California Progress Report

Hello, this is Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg. And I’m Assembly Speaker John Pérez. As we continue the hard work of closing the state budget deficit, Legislative Democrats are united behind a balanced and responsible set of principles to protect jobs, improve government and close our deficit. We recognize the fundamental truth that the only way to truly stabilize our economy and budget situation is to create quality jobs. The Governor’s proposed budget will cost Californians more than 430,000 jobs—boosting our unemployment rate to 14.5 percent. In and of itself, that makes his plan unacceptable. (more...)

Jobs bill collides with Obama education agenda

• 07-06-2010
• 

By Alyson Klein/Education Week

The sharp division between the Obama administration and key congressional Democrats over education policy and priorities may never have been more clear than it was Thursday night when the U.S. House of Representatives voted to cut $800 million from key administration initiatives to help pay for an effort to avert teacher layoffs. The legislation—which the White House has threatened to veto—takes aim at three of the administration’s most-prized education priorities. Most notably, it would cut $500 million from the $4.35 billion Race to the Top program, which rewards states for making progress on certain education redesign initiatives. (more...)

Also: Wall Street Journal * Washington Post

Governor should use final months in office to push for new school finance system

• 07-06-2010
• 

Editorial/San Jose Mercury News

If anyone remains unconvinced that California's system of financing schools is broken, last week brought compelling new evidence. On Tuesday, state superintendent Jack O'Connell announced that a record 174 districts — including two in San Jose — were classified as "financially distressed," a 38 percent increase in one year. On Wednesday, the California Budget Project released a report ranking the state 44th in the nation in per-pupil spending and 50th in the number of students per teacher. It's no coincidence that dismal proficiency levels in reading and math remain pervasive. California's students are being deprived of a decent education, putting the state's future at risk. (more...)

Needed - a way to finance the schooling we demand

• 07-02-2010
• 

Opinion by Scott F. Plotkin/San Francisco Chronicle

Scott P. Plotkin is the executive director for the California School Boards Association.

California's school finance system is broken, and our students are paying the consequences. As a result of this irrational finance system, students are being denied the opportunity to master the educational program the state requires. Now, 60 students and parents, nine school districts, the California School Boards Association, the Association of California School Administrators and the California State PTA have filed a lawsuit, Robles-Wong vs. California, which argues that the California Constitution requires the state to provide a school finance system that supports the educational program students are entitled to receive. (more...)

The ABCs of saving a failing school

• 07-06-2010
• 

By Claudio Sanchez/NPR (audio)

If a school is consistently failing and kids aren't learning, shut it down. Start over with new teachers and administrators willing to do something dramatically different. Closing failing schools and turning them around has been in vogue since No Child Left Behind, and now the Obama Administration is embracing the idea. It's even offering millions of dollars to school districts to help them do it. (more...)

School Daze: Schools need to be creative to make up for serious budget cuts

• 07-04-2010
• 

By Marcella S. Kreiter/UPI

As the summer heats up, school districts across the United States are trying to shore up budgets and realign programs pressured by gaps in state aid and other recession-triggered shortfalls. Some 300,000 public school personnel nationwide -- more than half of them teachers -- received pink slips before the end of the school year, and though some likely will be retained thousands likely won't be seeing the inside of a classroom again for some time. The National Education Association estimates there were 3.23 million elementary and secondary teachers in the 2008-09 school year. (more...)

California teacher layoffs hit poor performing schools hard

• 07-06-2010
• 

By Diana Lambert and Phillip Reese/Sacramento Bee

A year of sweeping teacher layoffs at schools around the state has exposed a stark reality for California's lowest-performing schools: The schools with the lowest test scores – and traditionally the highest numbers of poor and minority students – tend to be staffed with the least experienced teachers. Because California law requires that, in a time of layoffs, teachers with least experience in a district are the first to go, this past year of budget slashing has hit the staffs of low-performing schools disproportionately hard. (more...)

Teachers’ union shuns Obama aides at convention

• 07-06-2010
• 

By Sam Dillon/New York Times

For two years as a presidential candidate, Barack Obama addressed educators gathered for the summer conventions of the two national teachers’ unions, and last year both groups rolled out the welcome mat for Education Secretary Arne Duncan. The National Education Association's convention began Saturday. No one from the Obama administration is set to speak. But in a sign of the Obama administration’s strained relations with two of its most powerful political allies, no federal official was scheduled to speak at either convention this month, partly because union officials feared that administration speakers would face heckling. (more...)

Key votes on common core this week

• 07-06-2010
• 

Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess

The Academic Content Standards Commission will be back at it today and tomorrow in Sacramento. If still on schedule by the end of Wednesday, the 21-person committee will have made the momentous recommendation of whether California should adopt the common-core standards that will form the basis of a de facto national curriculum in math and English language arts. The state commission will  return for a final two days next week to decide how much, if at all, they should add and reorder the common-core package. Common core is an effort organized by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, with encouragement from the Obama administration. (more...)

Cupertino school district backing lawsuit against state

• 07-03-2010
• 

By Matt Wilson/San Jose Mercury News

A local school district has decided to back a legal battle being waged in superior court to change the way California schools are funded. On June 15, the Cupertino Union School District board of trustees unanimously voted to support a lawsuit filed in May in Alameda County by a coalition of more than 60 students and families, nine school districts, the California School Boards Association, California State PTA and the Association of California School Administrators. (more...)

Meals programs offer hungry students a break during summer

• 07-03-2010
• 

By Alexandra Zavis/Los Angeles Times

When María Elena García rushes off to work at a Mexican restaurant, she takes comfort in knowing that her two children, ages 12 and 16, will get a healthy lunch at school. But now that school is out, she worries about what they will eat. "I know it is nothing good," said the MacArthur Park mother. "We don't have good food at home." The summer months can be some of the most difficult for families that rely on federally subsidized school meals to provide an important part of their nutritional needs. (more...)

Ark. lawsuit: Forced school consolidation threatens national security

• 07-06-2010
• 

Education Week (subscription)

Supporters of a small Arkansas school district have filed a federal lawsuit against the state, arguing that the closure of rural schools threatens the country's security and food supply. The suit, filed Wednesday in federal court in Little Rock, challenges the state's law mandating the closure of school districts whose enrollments drop below 350 students for two years in a row. The state ordered the closure of the Weiner School District, which was merged with the nearby Harrisburg School District on Thursday. (more...)

Some schools grouping students by skill, not grade level

• 07-06-2010
• 

USA Today

Forget about students spending one year in each grade, with the entire class learning the same skills at the same time. Districts from Alaska to Maine are taking a different route. Instead of simply moving kids from one grade to the next as they get older, schools are grouping students by ability. Once they master a subject, they move up a level. This practice has been around for decades, but was generally used on a smaller scale, in individual grades, subjects or schools. Now, in the latest effort to transform the bedraggled Kansas City, Mo. schools, the district is about to become what reform experts say is the largest one to try the approach. (more...)

Senators' logic for fighting cuts to Race to Top flawed

• 07-06-2010
• 

Blog by Valerie Strauss/Washington Post

There is some confused reasoning in a letter that 13 U.S. senators wrote to oppose proposed cuts to three of President Obama’s education programs. The letter was written by a group of senators, led by Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Indiana) about legislation approved in the House that includes $10 billion to help save the jobs of thousands of teachers and other state employees threatened with layoffs. The senators -- 12 Democrats and an Independent -- say that they support the principle of keeping teachers in classrooms, but they object to the way the bill’s sponsor, Rep. David Obey (D-Wisconsin) proposes to pay for some of it: by cutting $800 billion from Obama’s programs. (more...)

Educators await peer review of Race to the Top proposal

• 07-07-2010
• 

Blog by Louis Freedberg/California Watch

An obscure peer review panel is deciding the fate of California's application for $700 million to fund its K-12 schools in Round 2 of the Obama administration's $4.3 billion Race to the Top competition.  That proposal was submitted to Washington on June 1. Further scrutiny of the peer review process is warranted in light of California's lack of success in the first round, as well as on another grant proposal to set up a longitudinal data system to track California students from kindergarten into college and eventually into the workforce.  (more...)

Fewer poor kids getting free summer meals

• 07-07-2010
• 

By Vivian Po/California Progress Report

A new report reveals that due to budget cuts the government-funded summer nutrition programs fed only one out of six low-income children in the United States last year. The Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) report, “Hunger Doesn’t Take a Vacation: Summer Nutrition Status Report 2010,” which was released on Tuesday, found that education cutbacks forced many state and local governments across the country to reduce or eliminate their summer school programs for kids. As a result, the report said, only 2.8 million children participated in summer nutrition programs in July 2009 — about 73,000 children fewer than in July 2008. (more...)

California lawmakers must pass teacher reform

• 07-07-2010
• 

Editorial/San Jose Mercury News

Because of a prolonged weak economy and declining tax revenues, California schools have been forced to cut their budgets, often by laying off large numbers of teachers. However, the pain of the cutbacks has not been borne equally. Low-performing schools in poorer neighborhoods have suffered disproportionately in many districts throughout the state. In the state's largest school district in Los Angeles, for example, three schools faced losses of as much as 60 percent of their faculty, while many schools were scheduled to lose 15 percent or less. (more...)

Grand jury urges districts to merge

• 07-07-2010
• 

Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess

With school districts strapped for dollars and looking for pennies to pinch, the Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury is urging smaller districts to consider one money-saving option that most won’t like: consolidation. The Mercury News reported that the 19-member jury, an investigative body that issues advisory reports, estimates annual savings of $51 million if the county’s 31 school districts were unified and consolidated. “Achieving School District Efficiency Through Consolidation” recommended that small elementary feeder districts combine with four high school districts – Fremont Union, Mountain View-Los Altos, Los Gatos-Saratoga and Campbell Union – to form four K-12 districts. (more...)

Fremont High's grand experiment begins

• 07-07-2010
• 

By Howard Blume/Los Angeles Times

A revamped Fremont High, which opened its school year Tuesday with a majority of new teachers, has become a local test case for a controversial school makeover approach being tried around the country. Last December, Los Angeles schools Supt. Ramon C. Cortines announced that he would personally oversee sweeping reforms at Fremont. The most striking was his edict that all staff members — including teachers, counselors, custodians and cafeteria workers — had to reapply for their jobs at the persistently low-performing South Los Angeles campus. Among the disturbing data that led to his decision: Fewer than 2% of students tested as proficient in the math course they took last year. (more...)

Also: KPCC * Los Angeles Daily News * Patt Morrison/KPCC

One struggling school seeks stability over a shake-up

• 07-07-2010
• 

Blog by Emily Alpert/Voice of San Diego

Teachers like Allison Voet felt deflated this spring when Burbank Elementary landed on a California list of persistently failing schools, one of just six schools across the county to get the dreaded label. School officials argued over whether it was fair to compare its scores over time after the school added fourth and fifth grade, since older students tend to score lower. They questioned the formula that singled it out. (more...)

Teacher strike nets Capistrano $1.7 million

• 07-07-2010
• 

By Scott Martindale/Orange County Register

It crippled the Capistrano Unified School District for three days, causing lost instruction time, wild swings in student attendance and unexpected bills for substitute teachers, security guards and consulting fees. In the end, though, the teacher strike in Orange County's second-largest school district in April netted Capistrano $1.7 million in extra cash, even after all of the bills were paid, according to a Register financial analysis. The money comes from the pay that teachers were docked by walking the picket lines instead of reporting to work, and has already been applied to help close the district's $34 million budget gap for the 2010-11 school year. (more...)

Schools trustees consider parcel tax

• 07-07-2010
• 

By Maureen Magee/San Diego Union-Tribune

It might be a bold move during these bleak times, but the San Diego school district is poised to ask property owners to pay a new tax to help protect public education from the state’s worsening fiscal crisis. The San Diego Unified School District has proposed a parcel tax for the November ballot to help pay for teachers, protect class sizes and maintain education programs. It would generate $58 million annually over five years. If the measure is placed on the ballot and approved by voters, single-family homeowners would be charged $98 annually while condominium and apartment owners would be taxed $60 per unit. Low-income seniors would be exempt. (more...)

Keeping students in school helps the economy

• 07-08-2010
• 

By Melody Gutierrez/Sacramento Bee

Lowering the dropout rates of minority students in Sacramento would drive $223 million into the local economy through increased spending and home and car purchases, a study released Wednesday found. The advocacy group Alliance for Excellent Education studied the 45 largest metropolitan areas in the United States, finding an estimated 600,000 minority students dropped out of the Class of 2008. Cutting that number in half would generate $2.3 billion in increased earnings nationally for the Class of 2008, the study found. (more...)

Education reforms will miss the 'top' without broader consensus

• 07-08-2010
• 

By Scott Lilly/Center for American Progress

I am sure that Jonathan Alter’s recent column in Newsweek, “How Congress Keeps Screwing Up Education—President Obama’s school-reform programs are falling victim to the teachers’ unions,” is as funny to the lobbyists of teacher unions as it is to me. The column is in fact not about Congress, but rather about Rep. David Obey (D-WI), who Alter claims “is in danger of (leaving office) as a water carrier for the teachers’ unions—the man who gutted President Barack Obama’s signature program on education, Race to the Top.” (more...)

'Mutual Consent' teacher placement gains ground

• 07-08-2010
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By Stephen Sawchuk/Education Week

A handful of districts and two states are doing away with the forced placement of teachers in schools in favor of a system requiring both the teacher and principal to agree to a transfer. The movement is generally supported by school leaders, who say that they must be able to have a choice in the selection of talent in their building if they are to be held accountable for achievement results. “Schools are incredibly mission-driven organizations, and each has its own unique culture,” said Tom Boasberg, the superintendent of the Denver school district. (more...)

Sacramento Bee editorials continue to attack teacher unions in support of SB 1285

• 07-08-2010
• 

By Duane Campbell/California Progress Report

The Sacramento Bee editorial writers again attack teachers unions on July 7, 2010 in their support of SB 1285 to alter seniority rules. Lets look at what they  are actually advocating. In low performing schools new teachers, teachers with 1 -3 years of experience would not be laid off. So, more experienced teaches, teachers with 4-6 years of experience would be laid off. There is little gain here. It is a tragedy that young teachers will be laid off.  It will impact their lives, their careers, and the future of the schools. But, what are the Bee editorial writers not saying ?  They are not saying that the national economic crisis produced a fiscal crisis in the states, and in the last two years California has cut over $16 billion from its schools. (more...)

Save teachers or education reform programs?

• 07-08-2010
• 

Expert blog/National Journal

Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., defied the White House and shook the education community with his decision last week to cut from the administration's education reforms to pay for $10 billion in federal aid to avert teacher layoffs (see related story here). The jobs money is part of a military supplemental package passed by the House last Thursday. Now it is up to the Senate, which returns from recess on July 12, to pass the bill out of Congress. The White House has threatened to veto the measure if the $800 million cut from the education reform programs -- Race to the Top, the federal Charter Schools Program and the Teacher Incentive Fund -- is not restored. (more...)

A new look at Teach for America

• 07-08-2010
• 

Blog by Valerie Strauss/Washington Post

Around the country today thousands of young Teach for America recruits are getting a crash course in how to teach students in low-income urban and rural schools, a job they have promised to do for the next two years. The recruits are recent graduates from elite colleges, most of whom do not have a background in education, and they have been the subject of a running debate about how well they can serve needy schoolchildren. Teach for America began in 1990 with 500 teachers in six communities and has grown to more than 8,200 individuals teaching in 39 rural and urban areas, including the San Francisco Bay Area, Chicago, the Mississippi Delta, and the Washington D.C. region. (more...)

Most on ‘worst’ schools list going after feds grants

• 07-08-2010
• 

Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess

Sixty percent of the state’s 188 “worst” schools ended up applying for federal money to turn their schools around this fall. The 113 schools – among the persistently lowest performing 5 percent of schools statewide – are more than some predicted would apply, given districts’ anger and frustration over the selection and application process, the tight deadlines, and restrictions on using the money.  Many schools could get far less than the amount they’re requesting.  Nonetheless, the possibility of getting as much as $2 million per year for the next three years ultimately was enough to lure many cash-strapped districts to apply by last Friday’s deadline. (more...)

Margaret Spellings, Arne Duncan -- What's the difference?

• 07-08-2010
• 

By Joseph A. Palermo/Huffington Post

Joseph Palermo is Associate Professor of American History at the California State University in Sacramento.

In her new book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education, Diane Ravitch, who was a devotee of No Child Left Behind-type policies when she served as Assistant Secretary of Education under Poppy Bush, shows that the data is in and the corporate educational "reforms" that have been rammed through for the past twenty years have amounted to nothing more than the downsizing and shredding of what was once a thriving public education system in this country. (more...)

Bill seeks changes for school lunch program

• 07-08-2010
• 

By Christina A. Samuels/Education Week

More children would be enrolled in the federal free school lunch program and schools would be reimbursed a higher amount for those lunches under bipartisan legislation introduced last month in the U.S. House of Representatives. The Improving Nutrition for America’s Children Act of 2010 would allow schools in high-poverty areas a new option called “community eligibility,” which permits free meals to all students without collecting paper applications. The bill would, for the first time, establish mandatory national nutrition standards for foods sold outside of the cafeteria, such as in vending machines, and would expand direct certification for school meals for foster children and children who are eligible for Medicaid. (more...)

New school tax faces higher hurdle, new foes

• 07-08-2010
• 

Blog by Emily Alpert/Voice of San Diego

Faced with another year of budget cuts, San Diego Unified may ask voters to shoulder a new temporary tax to help keep classes small. If it does, the school district will face its toughest challenge at the ballot box in more than a decade. While the school district handily passed a construction and renovation bond in 2008 to repair schools and install new technology, a parcel tax that can be used for teachers and other day-to-day costs has to pass a steeper bar, getting two-thirds of voters instead of the 55 percent needed for a bond. (more...)

School Decline as a Spectator Sport

• 07-09-2010
• 

By UCLA IDEA Staff

After a month-long slog, the finale of the world’s biggest sporting event—the FIFA World Cup—will take place Sunday. From a field of 32 teams, two have powered through increasingly difficult matchups to represent their nations in the final contest—Spain, arguably the best team coming into the tournament, and the Netherlands, who won every match leading to Sunday’s final contest. Who can resist? At our best, we spectators admire these winners for their sterling performance on the field, and we feel the pain of their worthy but losing opponents.  For sports fans, it’s a delicious mix of life’s most consequential moments and complete frivolity. (more...)

Intriguing alternative to rating schools by tests

• 07-09-2010
• 

Column by Jay Matthews/Washington Post

I have to question my own judgment and fairmindedness when I ignore--for three years!-- a report that raises important questions about the way we have been using test scores to rate schools. I have always been open to better ways of assessing how our children are taught. But I usually say standardized tests are the best available tool at the moment. So I am embarrassed that it took me so long to read “Keeping Accountability Systems Accountable” by Martha Foote, published in the Phi Delta Kappan education journal in January 2007. (more...)

Feinstein objects to cuts in K-12 jobs bill

• 07-09-2010
• 

Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess

California stands to get $1.2 billion for K-12 schools, enabling 13,300 teachers to keep their jobs, according to calculations by the Education Commission of the States, if the U.S. Senate approves – and President Obama signs – a $10 billion education jobs bill that the House a week ago. But the president is threatening to veto it, even though it once backed a jobs bill three times as large, because the “Keep Our Educators Working Act” also contains $800 million in cuts to his reform initiatives, including a whack out of the $4.35 billion Race to the Top fund. (more...)

Teachers declare 'no confidence' in Race to the Top

• 07-09-2010
• 

Blog by Emily Alpert/Voice of San Diego

The outgoing leader of the San Diego Unified teachers union helped spur teachers unions from across the country this weekend to declare "no confidence" in the guidelines for Race to the Top, a competition between states for stimulus money that emphasizes linking teacher evaluations to test scores. Labor leaders from across the country gathered last week in New Orleans for a conference that lasts through today. They represent the National Education Association, one of two major teachers unions nationwide. (more...)

Relationship chills between teachers unions, Obama

• 07-09-2010
• 

By Claudio Sanchez/NPR

The nation's two largest teachers unions are holding their annual conventions this week and have been saying some harsh things about the Obama administration's education agenda. Some teachers are even calling for Education Secretary Arne Duncan to resign. This seems to suggest that despite the unions' support for many of the administration’s proposals, the relationship has begun to sour. But if Duncan is worried about the angry rhetoric coming from the presidents of the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, he certainly won't admit it. "I just have huge respect for them as individuals. (more...)

Scholars target Arizona's policies for ELL students

• 07-09-2010
• 

By Mary Ann Zehr/Education Week

Arizona’s program for teaching English-language learners, which has been implemented for two school years by state mandate, will “almost certainly” widen the achievement gap between ELLs and their mainstream peers, concludes a qualitative study of five Arizona school districts released today by a California research-and-advocacy group. Researchers for the study say the program, which requires ELLs to be separated into classes for four hours a day to learn discrete English skills, provides instruction to ELLs that is inferior to that received by other students, and ELLs aren’t learning enough English in one year to succeed in mainstream classrooms, as the program design had intended. (more...)

Empty West Contra Costa schools to be leased, not sold

• 07-09-2010
• 

By Shelly Meron/Contra Costa Times

Empty school properties in West Contra Costa will likely be leased, not sold, to help the school district generate much-needed cash and keep unused buildings from being vandalized. The future of four campus buildings was discussed by the school board this week. Members considered potential values and uses, and whether to sell or lease the properties. "There was a definite sentiment that the district not sell property right now," said Bill Fay, associate superintendent for operations. The schools are Seaview Elementary, El Sobrante Elementary and Adams Middle School, which are already closed, and Portola Middle School, which will be closing this year. (more...)

Proposed parcel tax a good thing, but likely won’t help

• 07-09-2010
• 

San Diego News Network

In these tough, often desperate, economic times, having more and more taxes levied on you isn’t likely to bring with it sunshine and smiles. But a new parcel tax, proposed for the November ballot by the San Diego Unified School District, would at least go toward something beneficial for the future: the education of our children. Voice of San Diego’s Emily Alpert writes that the ballot measure is expected to be a tough sell to voters. The tax would be a short-term fix, and would not stop the inevitable cuts to education because of lacking revenue for statewide school districts. (more...)

Glassell Park High School receives most letters of intent for PSC 2.0

• 07-09-2010
• 

Eastern Group Publications

Central High School #13 is scheduled to open fall 2011 in the Glassell Park area of Northeast Los Angeles. It is one of several schools selected to participate in the second round of Los Angeles Unified School District’s Public School Choice initiative that allows interested groups to apply to manage some of LAUSD’s most academically underperforming schools, and schools in areas with high drop out rates. The new high school is expected to relieve overcrowding at Eagle Rock (Eagle Rock), Marshall (Los Feliz) and Franklin High (Highland Park) Schools. (more...)

Learning new words

• 07-09-2010
• 

By Maureen Magee/San Diego Union Tribune

It’s not the kind of graduation ceremony that gets much attention. There are no greeting cards that scream, “Congratulations! You are fluent in English.” But getting reclassified from an English Learner to a fluent speaker is a major, if not elusive, milestone for students and their families whose native language is other than English. Hardy Elementary School in San Diego’s College Area makes a big deal out of reclassification. On Thursday, 21 students — about 33 percent of the campus English learners — received medals and certificates during a ceremony that celebrated the accomplishment. (more...)

Mexico schools teach lessons in survival

• 07-09-2010
• 

By Chris Hawley/USA TODAY

Schools across Mexico are teaching students to dive to the floor and cover their heads as the violence-torn country sees more urban gunfights between drug gangs. At least nine shootouts have erupted in school zones since mid-October, three of them in the past month. On June 15, soldiers and gunmen battled for an hour 60 feet from a preschool in the central town of Taxco. Several Mexican states require "shootout drills" and incorporate them into summer teacher-training courses, which will begin next week. School ends Friday in most of Mexico. (more...)

Second lawsuit seeks billions more for California schools

• 07-12-2010
• 

By Howard Blume/Los Angeles Times

A coalition of education activists filed a lawsuit Monday to seek a vast increase, by billions of dollars annually, in California's funding of education. This litigation follows a similar legal claim filed in May by other groups. In both cases, the defendants are California and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The governor's office has said it will vigorously oppose the other suit, while also asserting that it supports efforts to improve and pay for education. Similar suits brought in other states have yielded new revenues for schools. (more...)

Obama's school-aid showdown

• 07-12-2010
• 

Editorial/Los Angeles Times

All across the country, the most pressing need in schools right now is to keep as many teachers, janitors, counselors and librarians as possible. Less important: expanding charter schools and linking teachers' evaluations to their students' test scores. So we're surprised by the tumult over a school-aid package approved by the House last week as part of a larger appropriations bill. It would provide $10 billion to keep as many school employees as possible in their jobs during the recession, but would do so, in part, by imposing some cuts on the Obama administration's key education initiative. (more...)

A skill, not a weakness

• 07-11-2010
• 

Opinion by Laurie Olsen and Shelly Spiegel Coleman/Los Angeles Times

Learning more than one language is a 21st century skill. It provides students with economic opportunities across the globe and at home. Many students enter our schools fluent in a language other than English. They speak Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Farsi, Arabic, Khmer and dozens of other languages important in international trade. They come with a resource. Ideally, these students — more than 1.5 million in California who enter school speaking a language other than English — would gain English proficiency while enhancing their home language skills. (more...)

Also: The Spanish road to English Opinion by Bruce Fuller/Los Angeles Times  Quality counts Opinion by Alice Callaghan/Los Angeles Times

School districts back lawsuit claiming California's school finance system is unconstitutional

• 07-12-2010
• 

By Maritza Velazquez/San Gabriel Valley Tribune

School districts are rallying behind a lawsuit calling for an overhaul of the way California pays for its public schools. Baldwin Park Unified, Bonita Unified, Walnut Valley Unified, Alhambra Unified and East Whittier City school districts recently approved resolutions backing the Robles-Wong v. California lawsuit, filed in Alameda County in May. It alleges the resources allocated to state schools are disjointed from the educational program school districts are required to provide. (more...)

Also:

County schools office supporting funding lawsuit against state By Jorge Barrientos/Bakersfield Californian

Southern California teachers lobby Congress for education dollars

• 07-12-2010
• 

By Kitty Felde/KPCC

When you say the words “Washington lobbyist” a particular picture comes to mind. Not all lobbyists have fancy offices on K Street. This trio of first-time lobbyists usually work out of classrooms in Southern California. Don’t let anyone tell you lobbying isn’t hard work. Just ask Tahnya Nodar. "My feet are like ground hamburger going from capitol building to capitol building, from one side to the other to talk to the different Congress people and Senate people to get our message across." (more...)

State bond helps district build badly needed schools

• 07-12-2010
• 

By James Rufus Koren/San Bernardino Sun

In 1970, three years after Cajon High School opened, San Bernardino was home to about 104,000 residents. The city's population would grow by more than 81,000 - about 78 percent - before the San Bernardino City Unified School District built another high school, opening Arroyo Valley High in 2000. "The 1980s especially was a period of tremendous growth in student enrollment," said Wael Elatar, administrator of the school district's facilities department. "We're still not catching up." Hampered for decades by changes in state law, failed attempts at passing local bond measures and a population that grew without bringing new houses, the district now has millions in state funds and is in the middle of a building binge that leaders hope will end chronic overcrowding." (more...)

A chosen few are teaching for America

• 07-12-2010
• 

By Michael Winerip/New York Times

 Alneada Biggers, Harvard class of 2010, was amazed this past year when she discovered that getting into the nation’s top law schools and grad programs could be easier than being accepted for a starting teaching job with Teach for America. Ms. Biggers says that of 15 to 20 Harvard friends who applied to Teach for America, only three or four got in. “This wasn’t last minute — a lot applied in August 2009, they’d been student leaders and volunteered,” Ms. Biggers said. She says one of her closest friends wanted to do Teach for America, but was rejected and had to “settle” for University of Virginia Law School.  (more...)

RFK is LAUSD's most costly campus – and it needs more cash

• 07-12-2010
• 

By Connie Llanos/Los Angeles Daily News

Already ballooning to $572 million, Los Angeles Unified's most expensive school – and possibly the nation's – looks like it will need a final $6 million infusion before fully opening this fall. The Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools, a K-12 complex on the former site of the Ambassador Hotel where Kennedy was assassinated in 1968, needs the money to satisfy environmental regulations. School board members are scheduled Tuesday to vote on the additional funding request. The school will consist of six different learning centers and enroll 4,260 students, making the cost per seat about $135,000 – nearly 40 percent higher than the average school built in the central Los Angeles area over the past two years. (more...)

Filming gives schools boost

• 07-12-2010
• 

By Christina Hoag/Los Angeles Daily News

In an era of yawning budget deficits and teacher layoffs, schools in the Los Angeles area are looking at a nontraditional source for some extra cash – Hollywood. School districts from Lawndale to Glendale are seeking to earn thousands of dollars a day from renting their campuses as locations for movies, TV shows, commercials, and even truck parking. The money is being used to save teachers' jobs, upgrade school facilities and replenish districts' dwindling funds. "Schools have historically been reluctant to make themselves available, but now they're falling over themselves," said Scott Graham, leasing director for the sprawling 1,000-school Los Angeles Unified School District.  (more...)

S. Africa holds education summit before WCup final

• 07-11-2010
• 

By Donna Bryson/Associated Press

South Africa's president read fellow leaders a lesson before inviting them to join him at Sunday's World Cup final. Just hours before the Dutch-Spanish final, President Jacob Zuma convened leaders from Burkina Faso, Kenya, Togo, Mozambique, the Netherlands and neighboring Zimbabwe at an education summit in the capital. At the meeting, he urged African leaders to ensure parents don't have to pay school fees or buy uniforms, factors that keep children out of school. He also called on leaders from developed countries to honor pledges to support education in poor countries. (more...)

Lawsuit seeks changes in California school funding

• 07-13-2010
• 

By Terence Chea/San Jose Mercury News

Groups representing low-income families sued the state of California Monday in the second major legal action alleging the government is failing to adequately fund public education. The complaint was filed in Alameda County Superior Court by a coalition of parents, nonprofit advocacy groups and students representing low-income families. The plaintiffs allege the state's school finance system is unconstitutional because it fails to provide a quality education to all students, noting California ranks near the bottom nationally in academic achievement, per-pupil funding and student-teacher ratios. (more...)  Campaign website

Also: San Francisco Chronicle * KPCC Los Angeles * Business Week * Oakland Tribune * San Gabriel Valley Tribune * KGO TV San Francisco * Education Week * Educated Guess *  San Francisco Bay Citizen

Gates Foundation playing pivotal role in changes for education system

• 07-13-2010
• 

By Nick Anderson/Washington Post

Across the country, public education is in the midst of a quiet revolution. States are embracing voluntary national standards for English and math, while schools are paying teachers based on student performance. It's an agenda propelled in part by a flood of money from a billionaire prep-school graduate best known for his software empire: Bill Gates. In the past 2 1/2 years, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged more than $650 million to schools, public agencies and other groups that buy into its main education priorities. (more...)

Schwarzenegger suggests ending public school superintendent's office

• 07-13-2010
• 

Blog by Louis Freedberg/California Watch

As if California doesn't have enough to deal with, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has opened up a new front in the education and political wars: He wants to abolish the office of the superintendent of public instruction.  In his radio address Friday, he berated the Legislature's "inaction" for failing to pass a budget, saying they should not "even think about raising taxes or borrowing" before eliminating inefficiencies in government.  One of the principal inefficiencies Schwarzenegger suggests streamlining is one of the least prominent of statewide elected offices: the nonpartisan superintendent of public instruction. (more...)

Teacher accountability schemes let teens off the hook

• 07-13-2010
• 

Guest blog by Daniel Willingham/Washington Post

Not long ago a student told me a story about taking the SAT. Students were to bring a photo I.D., and the girl in front of her in line had not brought one. When she was told that she couldn’t take the test without the i.d., she was incredulous. She literally did not believe that there would be a consequence for her forgetfulness. She assumed that there would be a Plan B for people like her. When it became clear that plan B was “go home and next time, bring your I.D.,” she was angry and scornful. I see this attitude not infrequently in freshmen I teach. They are unaccustomed to the idea that they are fully responsible for their actions, at least in the academic arena. (more...)

Transformation: Most popular school improvement mode

• 07-12-2010
• 

By Lesli Maxwell/Education Week

Schools receiving millions of dollars in federal money meant to reverse years of low achievement are overwhelmingly opting for "transformation," the least disruptive of four intervention methods endorsed by the U.S. Department of Education. With all but 11 states now approved to receive their share of the $3.5 billion in Title I School Improvement Grants, many state departments of education have announced grant awards to those eligible schools that applied and were judged to have strong plans for improvement. (more...)

Poll: Fewer opportunities seen for minority kids

• 07-12-2010
• 

By Ileana Morales/San Jose Mercury News

Minority children have fewer opportunities than their white peers to gain access to high-quality health care, education, safe neighborhoods and support from their communities, according to a nationwide survey of professionals who work with young people. Of the professionals surveyed, 59 percent said young white children in their communities have "lots of opportunity" to play in violence-free homes and neighborhoods, while only 36 percent said the same about Hispanic children, 37 percent about African-American children and 42 percent about Native American children. (more...)

Who's in charge at charter schools?

• 07-12-2010
• 

By Greg Richmond/Education Week

As the deadline for round two of the federal Race to the Top grant competition loomed in May, the New York state legislature passed a contentious bill that symbolizes the nation’s hopes and fears for the charter school movement. New York raised the cap on the number of charter schools allowed in the state from 200 to 460, expanding future educational opportunities for thousands of children. And it prohibited new charter schools from hiring for-profit companies to manage those schools, thus constricting the range of the new opportunities. (more...)

LAUSD budget by necessity is lean, mean

• 07-13-2010
• 

Opinion by Ramon Cortines/Los Angeles Daily News

Ramon Cortines is Superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The exodus continues out of 333 S. Beaudry Ave., the central headquarters of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Every time I get on the elevator I see employees carrying boxes and other personal belongings. Some speak and manage a half-hearted smile. Some avert their eyes. Others even glare coldly. Their grim faces and slumped shoulders personify a tsunami of budget cuts. LAUSD's budget was reduced by another 19 percent at Beaudry Avenue and 50 percent at local district offices for 2010-2011. Including these cuts, total budgets will have been reduced by 48 percent for the central office and by 72 percent for the regional offices since the 2006-2007 school year. (more...)

Tell the whole sad story of Fremont High

• 07-13-2010
• 

Opinion by Samantha Koos/Los Angeles Times

I've waited a long time for Fremont High School to be written about in the papers, about its dire need for help. But Howard Blume's July 7 article, "Fremont High's grand experiment begins," didn't present the story that needs telling. I taught at Fremont in South L.A. for two years, from 2001 to 2003. I went into the job confident that I could change the world for the better, socioeconomics be damned. But in two short years, despite my love of teaching and knowing I had the potential to be a great teacher like my mother and her mother before, I left through that infamous revolving door of frustrated teachers. (more...)

Students face closure of alternative schools because of L.A. County budget cuts

• 07-13-2010
• 

By Carla Rivera/Los Angeles Times

Nearly 700 students enrolled in specialized programs will be uprooted Wednesday if Los Angeles County education officials proceed with plans to close nearly two dozen alternative schools because of budget cuts. Students, teachers and some county leaders are mounting a last-ditch effort to keep the schools open, at least temporarily. "I don't think I have a place to go, to tell you the truth," said Gabriel during a break between classes at Downey Community Day School, one of those slated to close. Like many of the students, Gabriel had been in trouble, running with a gang and ditching classes at his regular school. (more...)

Senator wants review of OC Arts school

• 07-13-2010
• 

By Scott Martindale/Orange County Register

A state senator is calling on the officials who oversee Orange County's largest public charter school to consider revoking its operating license, after a popular journalism and yearbook teacher who stood up for her students' free-speech rights was abruptly let go last month. Konnie Krislock, who has been teaching journalism and yearbook at the Orange County High School of the Arts in Santa Ana for the past four years, was dismissed in June via a curt letter from the school that read, in part, "Your services are no longer needed." State Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, says Krislock was essentially fired for defending her students' rights to publish a factual news story last fall that school administrators found unflattering. (more...)

Long Beach school board votes to lay off 357 employees

• 07-13-2010
• 

By Kevin Butler/Long Beach Press-Telegram

The Long Beach Board of Education on Monday voted to lay off 357 teachers, counselors and social workers as part of a budget-balancing plan. The five-member board first unanimously voted to lay off 557 employees, mostly teachers. But the board then immediately rescinded 200 of the pink slips in accordance with a labor agreement with the teachers' union, reducing the number of actual layoffs to 357. The agreement requires teachers to take furlough days next school year, a move LBUSD officials said is saving 200 jobs from elimination.  (more...)

School layoffs: 2,005 still face job losses

• 07-13-2010
• 

By Fermin Leal and Scott Martindale/Orange County Register

Orange County school districts have rehired nearly half the certificated staff – the group that includes permanent teachers – originally slated for layoffs, but still plan to cut as many as 2,005 other workers. The big list includes more than 1,000 temporary teachers, plus classified, support staff. It only reflects posts in which an individual is being let go, not those where hours are being reduced or vacant posts going unfilled.  Some of the posts, especially for classified workers, represent part-time posts. (more...)

Beyond the test-prep bounds

• 07-12-2010
• 

By Shelly Banjo/Wall Street Journal

Twenty children gathered on a carpet at the Seth Boyden Elementary School here, taking turns building a mountain of wooden blocks. With each block they placed, children had to name an item they wanted, such as an iPod or bicycle. As the tower grew shakier, the teacher described it as a lesson in "greed and gratitude," a tangible reinforcement of a fairy tale read earlier in the day on the dangers of wanting too much. "For some kids, it was only once they saw the blocks crash down that they could truly understand the story and get the point," says Lynn Kelly, who teaches a combined first and second grade.  (more...)

Parents’ real estate strategy: Schools come first

• 07-13-2010
• 

By Christine Haughney/New York Times

When Ann and Jonathan Binstock started shopping for an apartment in Manhattan in 2007, their first call was not to a real estate broker. Instead, they hired an education consultant, to show them where the best schools for their daughter, Ellen, were. After the consultant suggested the most desirable zones , they chose a two-bedroom apartment near Public School 87 on the Upper West Side. Public records show it cost $1.975 million. Ann Binstock, her husband, Jonathan, and their daughter Ellen heading toward lunch at a neighborhood diner in New York City. Ms. Binstock said the family’s apartment “was a stretch financially.” (more...)

Taking education funding problems to court

• 07-14-2010
• 

By K. Oanh Ha/California Report (audio)

As the budget crisis ripples through the state's school districts, painful cuts in staffing and services are prompting lawsuits. A group representing thousands of low-income and minority students filed suit against the state yesterday. It's the second lawsuit of its kind filed this year.  (more...)

Also: Courhouse News Service

Squabble over $10 billion for teachers delays Afghanistan war money

• 07-14-2010
• 

By Gail Russell Chaddock/Christian Science Monitor

So, what do public school teachers and US forces in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have in common? Answer: a defense supplemental spending bill that is having an unusually tough time getting through Congress this summer. If there’s one point on which Democrats and Republicans typically agree, it’s that funding for US forces in wartime is must-pass legislation, no question. But this year’s war funding bill is tied up, possibly for weeks, in a tangle of disputes between Democrats and Republicans, complicated by a late-breaking rift between House Democrats, the Obama administration, and one of the most loyal segments of the Democratic base – public school teachers.  (more...)

Proposed legislation would make it easier for schools to pass parcel taxes

• 07-14-2010
• 

By Tracy Garcia/Whittier Daily News

As the Little Lake City School District considers pursuing a parcel tax to help fill gaps in state funding, proposed legislation is also making its way through the state Senate that would make it easier for school districts to get parcel-tax approval from voters. The legislation, S.C.A. 6 by Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, was introduced in early 2009 and would amend the state's Constitution by lowering the voter-approval rate for parcel taxes from a two-thirds majority to 55 percent. (more...)

Proposal to revoke Decile 1 charter schools

• 07-14-2010
• 

Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess

At its monthly meeting today and tomorrow, the State Board of Education will consider new regulations enabling it to shut down poorly performing charter schools. Under pressure to weed out bad charters, the board has been looking various proposals for months. The latest proposal would be the simplest and clearest: Charter schools whose state API scores the previous year ranked in the bottom 10 percent and that fell in the bottom 20 percent in the similar schools ranking would automatically have their charter at least reviewed, if not yanked,  by the State Board. (more...)

California panel scrutinizes common standards

• 07-14-2010
• 

By Catherine Gewertz/Education Week

If you find it interesting to track the common-standards movement, you might want to cast your eye toward the West Coast. Things are getting interesting in California. (Remember, we warned you about this.) A newly appointed commission in California is charged with reviewing the common standards and making recommendations to the State Board of Education. By the time the dinner hour rolls around on Thursday, they're supposed to have made their recommendations. (more...)

Dispute puts school openings in jeopardy

• 07-14-2010
• 

By Connie Llanos/Los Angeles Daily News

A dispute between Los Angeles Unified and the teacher's union could delay the fall opening of two small schools, including one at San Fernando Middle School. Groups of teachers at San Fernando Middle School and Lincoln High School in Los Angeles won the rights earlier this year to run small pilot schools, which operate with fewer restrictions and under more flexible union contracts than traditional campuses. Both pilot schools are expected to open Sept. 13. United Teachers Los Angeles leaders believe their agreement with the school district to allow pilot schools was violated because the alternative schools were approved without taking a full vote of all teachers at the schools. (more...)

County Supervisors question LACOE decision to close schools

• 07-14-2010
• 

KPCC

County supervisors today expressed frustration with a decision by the Los Angeles County Office of Education to close 20 alternative schools and pushed for solutions that might allow some classrooms to reopen in September. "These schools (serve) a very important function,'' said Supervisor Don Knabe, but acknowledged that the board didn't have the power to reverse the LACOE's action. The agency closed the schools June 30. About 700 total students -- including juveniles on probation, pregnant teens and others not well served by mainstream options -- were enrolled at the 20 sites. (more...) 

Price tag for schools complex at former Ambassador Hotel site now tops $578 million

• 07-14-2010
• 

By Howard Blume/Los Angeles Times

The price tag for a complex of schools at the site of the famed Ambassador Hotel has become the Los Angeles Unified School District's most expensive school project, now surpassing $578 million. The latest cost increase, approved Tuesday by the Board of Education, adds $6.6 million for expenses related mostly to safety and historic preservation at the complex for 4,200 students. The main campus of the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools will open this fall. Two small schools already operate on the back portion of the 24-acre Koreatown site. (more...)

Also: La Opinión * Los Angeles Daily News

Capo school factions gear up for 'ugly' election

• 07-14-2010
• 

By Scott Martindale/Orange County Register

The recall election date hasn't even been officially set and challengers can't legally declare their candidacy yet. But the parents and other activists in the Capistrano Unified School District who are trying to oust two trustees have already hand-picked the candidates they want to replace Ken Lopez-Maddox and Mike Winsten. On Tuesday, the Capistrano Unified Children First coalition endorsed corporate attorney John Alpay and community college professor Gary Pritchard, jumpstarting what's sure to be another bitterly fought, divisive election this fall in the politically fractured school district. (more...)

Palo Alto school district gets gift from Google

• 07-14-2010
• 

By Diana Samuels/San Jose Mercury News

The Palo Alto Unified School District's wireless network is about to get stronger, thanks to the "contribution" from Google of 350 wireless access points and other networking hardware, the district announced Tuesday. According to a statement released by the district, the points will be spread across its 18 campuses. "This contribution will more than double the number of wireless access points in our network, allowing us to expand coverage to every classroom in the district and enable our high school students to connect their personal devices to the network," Ann Dunkin, the district's director of technology, said in the statement. (more...)

End of federal stimulus funding to trigger significant teacher layoffs nationwide

• 07-15-2010
• 

By Theresa Harrington/Oakland Tribune

Federal stimulus money that helped school districts shore up programs and save jobs is running out and educators across the nation now must turn to layoffs and cuts to make up the shortfall, according to a new report. Starting in June 2009, Congress set aside about $100 billion to provide a two-year cushion to school districts through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Many districts have spent all the money they received and are having to shut down programs and lay off employees, according to a report released today by the national, independent Center on Education Policy. (more...)

Also: Education Week