What effect will D.C. teachers' new contract have?

• 06-10-2010
• 

Expert blog by National Journal

After two and a half years of emotional and controversial negotiations, the Washington, D.C., teachers union ratified a new contract last week that dilutes the strength of seniority protections and introduces a voluntary pay-for-performance program. Union members approved the new agreement overwhelmingly in a 1,412-425 vote. The new contract includes a pay raise of 21.6 percent over five years (retroactive to the expiration of the old contract) that will raise average annual salary from $67,000 to $81,000. Philanthropic support made the generous financial package possible. Under the new regime, principals will use job performance, as opposed to seniority, as the top criterion to make decisions about staff reductions when budget or program changes require it. (more...)

Recent Election Could Increase Education Gaps

• 06-11-2010
• 

By UCLA IDEA Staff

On Tuesday, California voters in seven school districts approved parcel taxes to boost their local school funding.  Parcel tax votes failed in two districts—Cutler-Orosi USD in the Central Valley and Los Angeles USD.  (Ballotpedia).  Last year 29 school districts put parcel taxes on the ballot, and 20 passed (San Jose Mercury News).  This year 22 such measures have been brought to a vote, and 16 have passed. (more...)

Graduation rate for US high-schoolers falls for second straight year

• 06-11-2010
• 

By Stacy Teicher Khadaroo/Christian Science Monitor

The national high school graduation rate has slipped in recent years, despite an array of public and private efforts to boost the percentage of students going on to college. But some districts are beating the odds, succeeding with many students who otherwise may have fallen through the cracks.  The percent of students earning a standard diploma in four years shifted from 69.2 percent in 2006 to 68.8 percent in 2007, according to an analysis of the most recent data in “Diplomas Count 2010.” It was the second consecutive year of decline, says the report, which was released Thursday by Education Week and the Editorial Projects in Education (EPE) Research Center, a nonprofit in Bethesda, Md. That translates to 11,000 fewer graduates in 2007 than in 2006. (more...)

New teacher distribution methods hold promise

• 06-10-2010
• 

By Stephen Sawchuk/Education Week

With effective teaching a top policy priority, certain school districts, the federal government, and nonprofit groups are renewing efforts to pilot and study strategies for pairing effective teachers with students in low-performing, high-poverty schools.  The results could offer clues about how to rectify an imbalance in the distribution of the best teachers within districts—a requirement of both the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the 2009 economic-stimulus law, and one of K-12 education’s most intractable problems.  The initiatives differ from earlier attempts to equalize teacher talent by using more sophisticated techniques to identify and target top teachers, including the use of value-added data. (more...)

Teacher layoffs undermine school reforms

• 06-11-2010
• 

By W. Norton Grubb and Lynda Tredway/San Francisco Chronicle

E.R. Taylor Elementary's third-graders worry that McClaren Park's weeds will go wild because of unexpected rain. These park stewards take their responsibilities seriously. Virginia Dold, Taylor's principal for nine years, worries too, but not about weeds. Most of San Francisco's second-largest elementary school's third-graders won't become park stewards next year. Their beloved science teacher - and one of two remaining reading-recovery specialists who'd made half the Latino students proficient readers - was laid off.  Stability drove the success of Dold's school. "I have an incredible staff," Dold says. "My teachers don't leave, unless they retire or move."  (more...)

North-south divide on parcel taxes

• 06-11-2010
• 

Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess

This is proving to be a tough year to pass a parcel tax – unless you live in the Bay Area, where voters in even low-income districts are coming to accept a parcel tax as a necessary price in a low-funded state.  This week, voters in Los Angeles Unified and two other districts rejected parcel taxes by substantial margins, while in Silicon Valley, one community college district and four elementary and unified districts approved parcel taxes ranging from $34 to $160, according to School Services of California, which tracked the results. In addition, San Francisco Unified passed a $32 parcel tax for school building maintenance and earthquake safety measures, and Oak Grove, a small San Jose district, for the fifth time extended a $68 parcel tax permitted under the Gann Limit, a vestige of the Prop 13 era. (more...)

Under pressure, teachers tamper with test scores

• 06-10-2010
• 

By Trip Gabriel/New York City

The staff of Normandy Crossing Elementary School outside Houston eagerly awaited the results of state achievement tests this spring. For the principal and assistant principal, high scores could buoy their careers at a time when success is increasingly measured by such tests. For fifth-grade math and science teachers, the rewards were more tangible: a bonus of $2,850. But when the results came back, some seemed too good to be true. Indeed, after an investigation by the Galena Park Independent School District, the principal, assistant principal and three teachers resigned May 24 in a scandal over test tampering. (more...)

Board paves way for Berkeley's first charter schools

• 06-10-2010
• 

By Doug Oakley/Pasadena Star News

Berkeley's school board approved the city's first charter schools Wednesday night, a victory organizers say will help better educate the city's black and Latino students.  By a vote of 4-1 with John Selawsky dissenting, the board approved the Revolutionary Education and Learning Movement, which plans to open middle and high schools serving 200 students each starting in September 2011.  Victor Diaz, a Berkeley school principal who spearheaded the drive to start the schools, said he hopes to put the middle school in an empty district building at University Avenue and Bonar Street called the West Campus.  He said organizers are looking for commercial space somewhere west of San Pablo Avenue in the city's industrial zone for the high school. (more...)

Valley charter school operators charged with embezzling $200K

• 06-11-2010
• 

KPCC

Yevgeny Selivanov, 38, and his wife, Tatyana Berkovich, 32, who operate the Ivy Academia charter school, are scheduled to be arraigned Friday morning at the downtown Los Angeles courthouse, according to Deputy District Attorney Sandi Roth.  Selivanov and Berkovich are each charged with five felony counts of misappropriation of public funds, embezzlement by a public or private officer and filing a false tax return, along with a misdemeanor count of failing to file a statement of their economic interests for 2008, according to the criminal complaint.  Selivanov is additionally charged with six counts of misappropriation of public funds, embezzlement by a public or private officer, money laundering and filing a false tax return, while Berkovich is charged with a misdemeanor count of conflict of interest. (more...)

Grad rate falls 5 percentage points in a decade

• 06-14-2010
• 

Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess

Fifteen states saw a decline in their high school graduation rates from 1997 to 2007, and California, with a drop of 4.7 percentage points, from 67.4 to 62.7 percent, was the second worst, behind Nevada, according to  Education Week’s latest Diplomas Count. The national dropout rate of 68.8 percent in 2007 was 3.1 percentage points higher than in 1997, though there was a slight decrease from 2006. Although California’s graduation rate lagged the national average in 2007 by a full 6.1 percentage points, each of its major racial and ethnic subgroups actually outperformed students nationwide in 2007. (more...)

Education initiatives hit political head winds

• 06-13-2010
• 

By Alyson Klein/Education Week

Two of the Obama administration’s signature initiatives—the economic-stimulus program’s Race to the Top competition and a massive expansion of federal School Improvement Grants—are running into some resistance on Capitol Hill.  Key lawmakers charged with crafting a renewal of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act continue to argue that the four models offered in regulations for the $3.5 billion School Improvement Grants are inflexible, unproven, and unrealistic, particularly for rural schools.  Lawmakers also have qualms about a separate proposal from the administration to extend the $4 billion Race to the Top competition for another year, citing questions about the scoring process and the desire by some to steer as much funding as possible to formula-driven programs rather than competitive grants. (more...)

Black students added to discrimination probe at L.A. Unified

• 06-13-2010
• 

By Howard Blume/Los Angeles Times

Under pressure from local community leaders, the federal Office for Civil Rights will look at whether low academic achievement of African American students results from discrimination -- intentional or not -- by the Los Angeles Unified School District. The probe, disclosed in a recent letter to community groups, expands an ongoing investigation into services provided to students who are learning English. Black community leaders hailed the news at a Saturday community forum at the Southside Bethel Baptist Church in the Green Meadows neighborhood of South Los Angeles. (more...)

Ruling on teacher layoffs a beacon of equity for kids

• 06-14-2010
• 

Opinion by Darrell Steinberg/Sacramento Bee

Darrell Steinberg is president pro tempore of the California Senate.

Last month, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge struck a major victory for civil rights by interpreting a section of the voluminous California Education Code to be about what's best for schoolchildren. Imagine that. In response to a lawsuit filed by attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union and Public Counsel, Judge William Highberger enjoined the Los Angeles Unified School District from laying off wildly disproportionate numbers of teachers at three middle schools. Because of state law generally requiring districts to lay off their least senior teachers first, these three schools, with mostly junior teachers, faced losses of as much as 60 percent of their faculty, compared to 15 percent or less at other district middle schools across town. (more...)

Lawsuit challenges school funding system

• 06-14-2010
• 

By Canan Tasci/Contra Costa Times

State officials have about a week to respond to a lawsuit that could force lawmakers and the governor to overhaul California's school finance system and policies. The suit says the current education financing system is unconstitutional and asks the court to require the establishment of one that provides the proper funding for all of the state's programs. The case was filed in Superior Court in Alameda County on May 20 by more than 60 students and their families, nine school districts, the California School Boards Association, the state PTA and the Association of California School Administrators. The state has 30 days to respond. (more...)

Symantec Chairman calls for Prop 13 reform

• 06-14-2010
• 

Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess

This was not your typical after-dinner acceptance speech by a corporate honoree.  On receiving the Silicon Valley Education Foundation’s  annual Pioneer Business Leader Award last week, Symantec Corp. Board Chairman John Thompson called for reforming Proposition 13 to provide more money for public schools.  “No one wakes up every morning and says,  ‘I want to pay more taxes,’” Thompson told 600 people at the Foundation’s annual dinner in San Jose. But the insufficient funding of schools is a “core issue” that needs to be dealt with. Proposition 13 limits taxes on real estate to 1 percent of a property’s assessed value. (more...)

Bill would keep children under 5 out of school

• 06-14-2010
• 

By Jill Tucker/San Francisco Chronicle

Last fall, 24 kindergarten students walked into teacher Keiko Nobusada's classroom at Oakland's Thornhill Elementary School, their ages ranging from 4 to 6 - with a 19-month gap separating the oldest and youngest.  Some knew their letters and numbers. Others struggled to hold a pencil or cut with scissors.  "The developmental levels between a 4-year-old and a 6-year-old are so great," Nobusada said. "It's very difficult for that child who turns 5 in November to compete with a child born a year earlier." (more...)

Year-round schools return to traditional schedule in Sacramento area

• 06-13-2010
• 

By Diana Lambert/Sacramento Bee

You've heard the debate for years: Year-round school vs. a traditional calendar with that nice long summer vacation built in – which is better for learning? How about for families?  When student enrollment was ballooning in the 1990s, switching to year-round was all the rage. It was better for kids, educators said, because they had less time to forget their lessons. And besides, it allowed schools to put large groups of students on multiple scheduling tracks, meaning you could squeeze more students into existing space. That meant building fewer new schools – and spending less money. (more...)

Studying engineering before they can spell it

• 06-14-2010
• 

By Winnie Hu/New York Times

In a class full of aspiring engineers, the big bad wolf had to do more than just huff and puff to blow down the three little pigs’ house. To start, he needed to get past a voice-activated security gate, find a hidden door and negotiate a few other traps in a house that a pair of kindergartners here imagined for the pigs — and then pieced together from index cards, paper cups, wood sticks and pipe cleaners. “Excellent engineering,” their teacher, Mary Morrow, told them one day early this month. (more...)

Charter school leaders charged with stealing over $200,000 in public funds

• 06-13-2010
• 

By Howard Blume/Los Angeles Times

The leaders of a high-performing San Fernando Valley charter school were charged this week with stealing more than $200,000 in public funds through embezzlement, money laundering and filing false tax returns, among other alleged crimes.  Eugene Selivanov, 38, and his wife, Tatyana Berkovich, 33, have denied any wrongdoing, according to their attorney.  An arraignment scheduled for Friday in Los Angeles County Superior Court was postponed until next month.  The couple faces 38 felony and misdemeanor counts for alleged actions from 2004 through 2009 in their operation of Ivy Academia, a charter school with test scores that place it in the state's top 30% of schools. (more...)

Survey shows how California schools are coping with budget cut pains

• 06-15-2010
• 

By Rupa Dev/New America Media

 Faced with budget cuts, K-12 public schools in California are grappling with terrible choices about what should get the ax. A new survey of almost 400 schools finds the cuts over the last two years were felt everywhere from grounds upkeep to instructional material to school nurses.   The online survey, administered by the California Department of Education, asked administrators in county offices of education, school districts, and charter schools about how they balanced their budgets in light of state budget cuts to public education.  “The survey found that administrators made a valiant effort to make cuts in areas that affect students the least,” said Tina Jung, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Education.  (more...)

Schools face test on budget math

• 06-15-2010
• 

By Mark Whitehouse and Amy Merrick/Wall Street Journal

For seventh-grader Kyle Scarpa, budget strains affecting schools across the country are hitting where it hurts. In the wake of the worst recession in more than half a century, many communities find themselves with no choice but to cut funding for education. In Downe Township, N.J., the cuts are hitting where it hurts. In addition to freezing wages and jettisoning its librarian, the school he attends here in southern New Jersey will cancel his after-school remedial math and literacy classes. His teacher believes the tutoring helped him build confidence and get his average grade up to a C from a D. "He could fall through the cracks," says teacher Rose Garrison, noting that Kyle is among four kids in her class having trouble keeping up. "When you're teaching exponents and you have kids who don't know the multiplication tables, how are you going to teach them?" (more...)

Human rights report reveals widespread non-compliance with mandatory policy aimed at stemming 'pushout' crisis in South Los Angeles Schools

• 06-15-2010
• 

San Francisco Examiner

As part of the U.S. Human Rights Fund's national convening being held in Los Angeles tomorrow, Community Asset Development Re-defining Education (CADRE), Public Counsel Law Center, and Mental Health Advocacy Services, Inc. (MHAS) released the primary findings from their report, Redefining Dignity in Our Schools: A Shadow Report on School-Wide Positive Behavior Support Implementation in South Los Angeles, 2007-2010.  The report, which is the culmination of two years of comprehensive monitoring by South LA parents, parent organizers, attorneys, and researchers, analyzes the extent of implementation of Los Angeles Unified School District's mandatory School-Wide Positive Behavior Support Discipline Policy ("SWPBS Policy") in Local District 7 (LD 7), a district that covers much of South Los Angeles. (more...)

Race to Top buy-in level examined

• 06-15-2010
• 

By Michele McNeil/Education Week

States significantly increased buy-in from local teachers’ unions in round two of the Race to the Top competition, but made far less progress in enlisting districts or expanding the number of students affected by the states’ education reform plans. Those patterns emerged from an Education Week analysis of applications from 29 states and the District of Columbia, all of which entered both rounds of the $4 billion federal grant contest. Although the changes made in applications from the first to the second round varied widely from state to state, union buy-in increased on average by 22 percentage points, with states such as Florida, Michigan, and Wisconsin making big leaps. (more...)

Naming and shaming of schools is counterproductive

• 06-14-2010
• 

Blog by Walt Gardner/Education Week

Marquee-name reformers are engaged in a masterfully orchestrated campaign to convince taxpayers that competition between teachers will play a pivotal role in curing the ills afflicting public schools. They insist that what works in business to pinpoint accountability will work in education. Rather than engage in the familiar rebuttal that schools are not businesses, I'll focus instead on the experiences of Finland and Japan, where collaboration—rather than competition—between teachers has resulted in impressive student performance. I think the evidence speaks for itself. At the very least, it calls into question the assumptions being made. (more...)

Long Beach schools facing $100 million in cuts over next few years

• 06-15-2010
• 

By Kevin Butler/Long Beach Press-Telegram

The Long Beach Unified School District expects to make nearly $100 million in budget cuts over the next few years to cope with state funding reductions, the district's finance chief said Friday. "The development of this recession is still unfolding on our school district," said Kim Stallings, LBUSD chief business and financial officer. "We have made massive cuts and we are looking at (more) massive cuts," he added. The Long Beach Board of Education on Monday will consider a proposed 2010-2011 fiscal year budget that reflects about $57 million in cuts that the school board has approved in phases over the past six months. (more...)

Sacramento City schools, teachers union reach deal

• 06-15-2010
• 

By Melody Gutierrez/Sacramento Bee

A stalemate between the Sacramento City Unified School District and its teachers union ended Monday after officials signed an agreement with considerable concessions by the Sacramento City Teachers Association. The givebacks include pay cuts over two years, changes in health benefit payments, increasing how many years employees must work before becoming vested, and giving the district more flexibility over the calendar. The two-year agreement ends months of contentious negotiations, which had appeared to be deadlocked until the last two weeks. SCTA members will vote this week on whether to accept the agreement before it moves on to the school board for approval. (more...)

A good move for South L.A. neighborhood

• 06-15-2010
• 

By Scott Gold/Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles officials are close to completing a deal that would relocate a metal finishing company that has long been the bane of a poor neighborhood -- the final piece of an ambitious quarter-billion-dollar plan to bring affordable housing to a pocket of South L.A.  The company, Palace Plating, has become symbolic of the enduring troubles that followed South L.A.'s slapdash development. Opened in 1941, it's the type of factory that drew thousands of working-class families to the city during the boom years of World War II. Yet it was wedged onto a narrow street next to homes and across from 28th Street School, which soon became one of the largest elementary campuses in the nation.  (more...)

New York charter schools lag in enrolling Hispanics

• 06-15-2010
• 

By Jennifer Medina and Robert Gebeloff/New York Times

When charter schools began opening in New York a decade ago, they were hailed as a better opportunity for children in poor neighborhoods, where failing schools had been the norm. But while charter schools are open to all, they have catered to one demographic group far less than another.  Although Hispanics are the largest ethnic group in New York City’s public schools, there are almost twice as many blacks among the 30,000 charter school students, an analysis by The New York Times shows. The issue is a sticky one among charter school advocates, who say the most important aspect of any school is that it educates the students who attend. (more...)

Belmont High students unleash their pain on paper

• 06-15-2010
• 

By Beth Shuster/Los Angeles Times

The assignment was straightforward: What is the greatest obstacle you have ever overcome, and how did you overcome it? The results were extraordinary. Belmont High School English teacher Cassandra McGrath didn't expect the essays and poems to be as powerful, moving and, in some cases, tragic. Her ninth- and 10th-graders wrote eloquently about the death of a beloved cousin, motherhood, self-injury, domestic violence, alcoholism, abuse. The project gave McGrath, 25, a second-year teacher, a new perspective on the kinds of challenges her students bring to school each day. (more...)

Record number of US kids facing summer of hunger

• 06-16-2010
• 

By Judy Pasternak/AOL News

With the school year ending in communities across America, more than 16 million children face a summer of hunger. While classes were in session, they relied on free or discount cafeteria meals subsidized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But they will not be reached by the patchwork summer food programs financed by the USDA, which feed fewer than one in five of the total number of kids poor enough to qualify.  The children caught in the gap will likely spend the next few months cadging leftovers from neighbors, chowing down on cheap junk, lining up with their families at food banks that are already overmatched or simply learning to live with a constant headache, growling stomach and chronic fatigue. (more...)

Making sure kids are ready for kindergarten

• 06-16-2010
• 

By Patti Fisher/San Jose Mercury News

In the summer of 1992, when California was grappling with an $11 billion budget deficit and my oldest daughter was preparing to start kindergarten, then-Gov. Pete Wilson wanted to change the birthday cutoff for entering kindergartners from Dec. 2 to Sept. 1 to shrink the incoming class by 110,000 and save $350 million. The governor cited studies showing that children who had not turned 5 by the start of school often lacked the maturity to succeed and would benefit from waiting a year. He pointed out that most states had earlier cutoff dates. Although Wilson's theory was sound, his timing was lousy. My kid was turning 5 on Sept. 4, and I didn't know until mid-August, when Wilson abandoned his idea, whether she would be going to school.  (more...)

Quest for best could kill good kindergarten bill

• 06-16-2010
• 

Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess

For two decades, bills to exclude 4-year-olds from kindergarten have foundered in the Legislature, even though child advocates and kindergarten teachers all but universally agree that children that young don’t belong in their classes.  The latest effort, Sen. Joe Simitian’s SB 1381, has passed the Senate and is halfway home. Whether it ultimately becomes law will depend on whether Simitian, a Democrat from Palo Alto, can hold the middle ground on what to do with savings generated by bill. SB 1381 would require that students starting kindergarten must turn five by Sept. 1 of the school year, instead of Dec. 2, the current deadline.  (more...)

The great accountability hoax

• 06-16-2010
• 

Column by Diane Ravitch/Education Week

Dear Deborah,  The evidence continues to accumulate that our "accountability" policies are a great fraud and hoax, but our elected officials and policymakers remain completely oblivious to the harm caused by the policies they mandate.  Over the past several years, efforts to "hold teachers accountable" and "hold schools accountable" have produced perverse consequences. Instead of better education, we are getting cheating scandals, teaching to bad tests, a narrowed curriculum, lowered standards, and gaming of the system. Even if it produces higher test scores (of dubious validity), high-stakes accountability does not produce better education.  (more...)

Jobs-bill backers searching for strategy to win passage

• 06-16-2010
• 

By Alyson Klein/Education Week

Supporters of a federal education jobs bill aimed at helping school districts stem a tidal wave of layoffs were still searching for a legislative vehicle late last week. Rep. David R. Obey, D-Wis., the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, had initially sought to include $23 billion in aid to states and districts in an emergency spending bill financing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But he was forced to seek a new strategy in the face of opposition from Republicans and some conservative Democrats. The package could be scaled back to as little as $10 billion, according to published reports. (more...)

Emerging nonprofit journalism ventures set sights on education

• 06-16-2010
• 

By Louis Freedberg/California Watch

One of the more interesting questions in the burgeoning nonprofit journalism landscape is the extent to which new reporting ventures will focus on one area of coverage, or, like California Watch, will cover a range of topics.... Now a second generation of topic-specific journalism ventures is emerging – this one focusing on education.  The reason? Just like health, there are numerous local and national foundations which have a major interest in education (and in some cases are entirely focused on it). So it is natural to expect a surge of foundation-supported reporting initiatives in this arena.  (more...)

South L.A. schools failing to prevent dropouts

• 06-16-2010
• 

By Ariel Edwards Levy/Intersections L.A.

South L.A. schools are largely failing to prevent students, especially African-Americans, from dropping out, according to a study released this week. The report, released as part of the U.S. Human Rights Fund national convention, says that only half of the students who start high school in the Los Angeles Unified School District will graduate. Part of the reason is the high use of disciplinary measures like suspension or expulsion, which often lead students to drop out or be "pushed out" rather than reformed, said Laura Faer, an attorney with the Publilc Counsel Law Center, who helped write the report. (more...)

LAUSD moves to alter teacher layoffs

• 06-16-2010
• 

By Connie Llanos/Los Angeles Daily News

Los Angeles Unified officials approved Tuesday a largely symbolic plan that seeks to block the practice of basing layoffs only on seniority while making it easier to fire bad teachers. The district is expected to negotiate the proposal with union leaders, who oppose the resolution. The measure also urges the district to support proposed state legislation to eliminate "last hired-first fired" rules for layoffs. "We need to be able to make decisions, in times of layoffs, based on who is the most efficient teacher first," said board member Yolie Flores. "This is the first step in ensuring that every student in this district gets a quality teacher." Teachers union officials said the plan was an unfair attack on teachers and their job protections. (more...)

Long Beach teachers still face layoffs

• 06-16-2010
• 

By Adolfo Guzman Lopez/KPCC

The school district sent 10 preliminary pink slips to teachers at Whittier Elementary School. Rather than put the envelopes in teacher mailboxes, Principal Ed Garcia said he left each teacher a note for a one-on-one meeting. "I’m sure when they got that note in their box to come see me they had an idea of what was happening," he said.  He says no one got mad; no one cried. Whittier Elementary had weathered other crises in recent years that united the school community. Garcia says he believes talking with teachers throughout the layoff process helped keep morale from sinking. (more...)

The Schoobrary's $32.5 million deficit

• 06-16-2010
• 

By Liam Dillon/Voice of San Diego

A final decision on the city of San Diego's new $185 million downtown central library is planned for the end of this month without a legally binding commitment for private donors to fund a substantial portion of the cost. The city remains $32.5 million short of the money needed to finish schoobrary construction, according to a City Council committee report -- nearly the same amount as the Library Department's annual budget. Taxpayers could be on the hook for funding the deficit or repaying state grant money should private funding not materialize. Donors and the Mayor's Office say that won't happen.  (more...)

Carpenter Avenue Elementary a new charter school

• 06-16-2010
• 

By Connie Llanos/Los Angeles Daily News

Los Angeles Unified officials Tuesday unanimously approved converting Carpenter Avenue Elementary school, one of the San Fernando Valley's highest performing campuses, into a charter school. The Studio City school will operate as an LAUSD affiliated charter, which means that staff will still receive district employee benefits and remain union employees and the school will not have to lease its own space. The school must also enroll all of its students from its current district-approved attendance boundaries. "The parents, teachers and community members of Carpenter spoke very clearly that this is what they wanted for their school so I was happy to support them," board member Tamar Galatzan said.  (more...)

Financing schools in today's recession

• 06-17-2010
• 

Blog by Walt Gardner/Education Week

It's no longer news that public schools across the country are facing the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Because the federal government contributes less than 10 percent of funding, public education depends heavily on state and local support in roughly equal proportions. But the recession has shrunk revenues from both sources. As a result, states are engaged in a series of unprecedented reforms to deal with the deficits they face.  At the heart of the movement is the belief that despite spending more per student than most developed countries, the U.S. still performs below average on tests of international competition in math and reading. (more...)

Steinberg bill remedies suit over layoffs

• 06-17-2010
• 

Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess

Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg has introduced a bill directly responding to issues raised in a February lawsuit challenging the large-scale layoffs of teachers at three Los Angeles Unified middle schools and in low-performing schools elsewhere in California. Passage of SB 1285 could go a long way toward settling a serious suit with uncommon speed. The bill would explicitly give superintendents and schools boards the authority to override teacher seniority rules in order to prevent disproportionate layoffs at any school. A federal judge ruled last month that districts already have this power under state law; they just don’t use it. (more...)

Duncan courts state lawmakers on reform agenda

• 06-17-2010
• 

Blog by Lesli Maxwell/Education Week

Seeking more allies for his school improvement agenda, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today asked a select group of state legislators to keep "pushing very, very hard" on the policy levers that he and President Barack Obama have made a top priority. Mr. Duncan also asked the lawmakers to back the administration's beleaguered $23 billion jobs package that he has said is crucial for saving hundreds of thousands of teaching jobs. "We need bipartisan support for this," he said, asking them to use "your collective voices, as much as you are comfortable talking about this."  The lawmakers, representing 17 states, spent the day at the Education Department's Washington headquarters listening to presentations and asking questions of Duncan's top deputies. (more...)

Bill would 'redshirt' 4-year-olds from kindergarten

• 06-17-2010
• 

Blog by Corey G. Johnson/California Watch

In college sports, the practice of "redshirting" is used to give still developing athletes extra time to successfully transition and adjust. A bill currently before the state Assembly would do the same to children under the age of 5. Currently, any child who turns 5 before Dec. 2 can enter kindergarten. But Senate Bill 1381, would change that entry date to Sept. 1. Those who can't make the cut would have to sit out a year - hence the redshirt analogy. On the surface, you might ask: What's the big deal? Well, apparently a lot could be at stake. (more...)

Los Angeles Unified says it is saving nearly 2,500 jobs

• 06-17-2010
• 

By Howard Blume/Los Angeles Times

Employee furloughs, federal funds and cost-cutting measures are saving nearly 2,500 jobs in the Los Angeles Unified School District, officials said this week. Despite that qualified good news, 682 teachers and professional "support personnel" still face losing their positions June 30, a much smaller number than the 3,090 who received notices March 15 that they could be laid off.  Many layoffs were prevented because schools used new authority over their budgets to rehire some staff members. The other job saver has been 12 unpaid furlough days agreed to by employee unions. (more...)

Maywood activists oppose LAUSD eminent domain

• 06-17-2010
• 

By Adolfo Guzman Lopez/KPCC

L.A. Unified wants to buy eight acres in Maywood to build a 1,200 student school. The property near the 5 and 710 freeways is not a vacant lot — more than a hundred homes and eight businesses are there. Parents, most of them Spanish speakers, say the district hasn’t been up front with them — and could build the school elsewhere. Hector Alvarado, of the housing advocacy group Union de Vecinos, is helping area residents oppose the project. "Basically it would be about 300 families. Another important thing is that here in Maywood where elections are won by four to five votes, by removing those residents that would remove about four percent of the registered voters.  (more...)

School board announces three could-be-Superintendents

• 06-17-2010
• 

Blog by Emily Alpert/Voice of San Diego

San Diego Unified announced the three finalists in the running to become the next superintendent of the second largest school district in California: Oakland nonprofit leader Debbra Lindo, former Hayward Unified superintendent Dale Vigil and the current interim superintendent, Bill Kowba. Whoever is the ultimate pick for superintendent will be expected to work within an organizational structure, a mission and with top employees who were already chosen by the school board. That is relatively unusual: Superintendents usually pick their staff and often reorganize school districts they enter, shaking them up each time a new chief comes to town. "What we don't want is someone who's going to come in and turn the district over again," school board President Richard Barrera said, describing all three as having "a collaborative leadership style." (more...)

California’s Budget Is Getting Redder

• 06-18-2010
• 

By UCLA IDEA Staff

California schools’ ability to educate and support students becomes further compromised with each passing week.  The Wall Street Journal’s map shows that while many states’ budgets are getting more in the red, none is redder than California, which is is cutting core instructional programs and services (Wall Street Journal).   According to a survey released this week by the California Department of Education, 58% of districts have cut funds for instructional materials and 40% of districts have reduced their teaching force (New America Media, California Department of Education).   48% of districts reported they have cut nurses, counselors, and psychologists.  14% of respondents say their schools will cut food and nutrition services (California Department of Education) .  These are services students desperately need, especially those without health care (New America Media, CDE).(more...)

Are American schools returning to segregation?

• 06-18-2010
• 

By Patrik Jonsson and Stacy Teicher Khadaroo/Christian Science Monitor

Fronted by tall, proud columns, Goldsboro High in North Carolina was once a flourishing school reflecting the city's 50-50 black-white mix. But the nearly 100-year-old school has verged on academic failure in recent years. Particularly troubling to civil rights advocates, the student population has become racially and economically isolated – to the point that the high school is now a symbol of "resegregation" in America's classrooms.  In the central attendance zone for Wayne County's schools – a zone that includes Goldsboro High – 93 percent of the students are African-American, and 90 percent are low-income, according to county statistics. By contrast, another attendance zone in the county is 69 percent white, 41 percent low-income.  This past December, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) filed a civil rights complaint against the Wayne County Board of Education.  (more...)

Newsweek’s ‘Best High Schools list’ has plenty from California

• 06-18-2010
• 

Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess

More than one out of six – about 18 percent – of public high schools on this year’s list of Newsweek’s “best high schools” are from California. They make up 285 of the 1,663 schools on the list, which comprise 6 percent out of America’s 27,000 high schools. Ten California high schools made the top 100, including four charter high schools. The top three are Oxford Academy (#11) in Cyprus, a school for the academically gifted that requires an entrance exam;  and two charter schools: Preuss (#16), which is affiliated with the UC-San Diego and consists totally of low-income students, and Pacific Collegiate (#19) in Santa Cruz, whose low-income students comprise only 3 percent of the student body. (more...)

Minn. law spurs charter sponsors to think twice

• 06-18-2010
• 

By Dakarai I. Aarons/Education Week

A major overhaul to a Minnesota law aimed at strengthening accountability for those who sponsor charter schools is drawing both praise and criticism and spurring some districts to consider getting out of the business of authorizing such schools. Among the districts contemplating leaving authorizing behind is St. Paul, the home of the nation’s first charter school. Minnesota is the national birthplace of the charter school movement, having enacted the first charter school law in 1991. It’s now home to 152 charter schools that enroll about 33,000 students statewide, and nearly 50 organizations—including school districts, universities, and nonprofit groups—serve as charter authorizers. (more...)

Sac City Unified teachers approve new union contract

• 06-18-2010
• 

By Melody Gutierrez/Sacramento Bee

Sacramento City Unified teachers approved a two-year contract that will allow the district to bring back pink slipped teachers and counselors. The Sacramento City Teacher Association reported on its voice mail this morning that 1,607 qualifying ballots were counted, with 1,009 members voting yes and 598 voting no. That's a 63 percent approval rate.  SCTA's voice mail said the vote represented a high level of participation among its 3,000 members. The contract will now go to the Sacramento City Unified school board for approval. The two-year agreement ends months of contentious negotiations, which had appeared to be deadlocked until the last two weeks. (more...)

Schools chief finalists step before the public

• 06-18-2010
• 

BY Maureen Magee/San Diego Union Tribune

Now that the candidates for the San Diego’s next school superintendent have been identified, the public vetting is under way. Interim superintendent Bill Kowba, nonprofit leader Debbra A. Lindo of Oakland and former Hayward superintendent Dale W. Vigil held a whirlwind of meetings with media and community members on Thursday to promote their candidacy for the top job in California’s second-largest school system. The San Diego Unified School District is searching for its fourth superintendent in less than five years.  (more...)

Los Angeles teacher makes algebra cool with a hip-hop beat

• 06-18-2010
• 

By Christina Hoag/San Jose Mercury News

The class of eighth graders at a Los Angeles middle school tap their rulers and nod their heads to the rhythm of the rap video projected on a screen. It's not Snoop Dogg or Jay-Z. It's their math teacher, LaMar Queen, using rhyme to help them memorize seemingly complicated algebra and in the process improve their grades. "It gets stuck in your head," says Cindy Martinez, a 14-year-old whose math grade went from a C-average to a B. Queen, 26, is now known at Los Angeles Academy as the rap teacher, but his fame has spread far beyond the 2,200-student school in this gritty neighborhood. He's won a national award and shows teachers and parents how to use rap to reach children. "Math is a bad word in a lot of households," he says. "But if we put it in a form that kids enjoy, they'll learn." (more...)

A better way to assess students and evaluate schools

• 06-21-2010
• 

Opinion by Monty Neill/Education Week

Monty Neill is the interim executive director of FairTest, the National Center for Fair & Open Testing, in Boston.

Most Americans agree: We need a better way to assess students and evaluate schools. The latest Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup poll found that only one out of four respondents thought the No Child Left Behind law, the current version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, had helped schools in their community. Even U.S. Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., an original sponsor of that legislation and the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, agrees that NCLB may now be, as he put it, “the most negative brand” in the country. As state testing intensified under the law and punitive sanctions were imposed, score gains on the National Assessment of Educational Progress slowed or halted for reading and math at all grade levels for almost all groups. (more...)

Slowing graduation rate growing problem in state

• 06-21-2010
• 

Editorial/San Francisco Chronicle

Graduating from high school is a treasured rite of passage and emotional touchstone for most students. Unfortunately, fewer and fewer California students have the opportunity to experience it. The national high school graduation rate of 68.8 percent in 2007 was 3.1 percentage points higher than in 1997. As a country, that means far too many students are still slipping through the cracks - but at least we're making small steps in the right direction.  An exception is California.  (more...)

Assembly leader Perez drums up support for budget proposal; questions about its legality are raised

• 06-21-2010
• 

Blog by Anthony York/Los Angeles Times

Assembly Speaker John Perez (D-Los Angeles) on Friday stood with members of the education community in Los Angeles to support his budget proposal one day after the state attorney general's office raised questions about its legality. Perez has devised a plan -- it involves a new tax on oil extraction coupled with borrowing billions of dollars -- that would bypass the need to make many of the deep cuts proposed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. He has dubbed his plan the "California Jobs Budget," and has held news conferences with various interest groups in the Capitol extolling the proposal. Perez's budget offers public schools $5 billion more than the governor's proposal.  (more...)

Schools budget calls for hard cuts across board

• 06-21-2010
• 

By Jill Tucker/San Francisco Chronicle

The San Francisco school board will face the unsavory task Tuesday of approving a budget that cuts virtually every program offered to the city's schoolchildren.  Art would be cut. Music too. Counselors. Physical education. Books. Summer school. Teachers. Custodians. Administrators.  All cut by a little or a lot.  The 444-page budget document up for a vote Tuesday, the board's last meeting before summer break, has been months in the works as district officials struggled to figure out how to balance the books despite a $113 million budget shortfall expected over the next two years. (more...)

School districts 'race to the top' despite teacher dispute

• 06-21-2010
• 

By Rob Rogers/Marin Independent Journal

Six Marin County school districts have signed on to the state's second application for federal Race To The Top funding, five fewer than applied for the first round in January. The $4.35 billion program provides stimulus funds to districts that agree to undergo reform measures favored by the Obama administration. Yet a central provision of the Race To The Top program - ending seniority as the primary criteria for teacher pay - remains highly controversial. Advocates of the program believe teacher raises should be based on evaluations and on how well their students perform on state tests, rather than on how long they've been teaching, as California law requires. (more...)

A struggle to educate the severely disabled

• 06-21-2010
• 

By Sharon Otterman/Los Angeles Times

Donovan Forde was dozing when the teacher came around to his end of the table. Pale winter light filtered in through the grated classroom window, and the warm room filled softly with jazz. It fell to his teacher’s aide to wake him up from his mid-morning nap.  She shined a small flashlight back and forth in his eyes like a dockworker signaling a ship, and called his name. Then she put her hand on his cheek, steering his head forward as he focused his eyes.  The teacher, Ricardo Torres, placed a red apple against Donovan’s closed left hand, and then held it near his nose so he could smell it. “Donovan, the fruit holds the seeds of the plant,” he said.  (more...)

Sac City teachers approve contract givebacks

• 06-21-2010
• 

By Melody Gutierrez/Sacramento Bee

Sacramento City Unified School District Superintendent Jonathan Raymond said he is grateful to teachers and union leadership for approving a two-year contract Friday that will allow the district to bring back pink-slipped teachers and counselors. "This is a really good day for our community," Raymond said. "This is a good sign of unity and moving forward." The Sacramento City Teachers Association reported on its voice mail Friday that 63 percent of teachers who voted approved the contract. The union said 1,607 qualifying ballots were counted, with 1,009 yes votes and 598 no votes. (more...)

School officials may seek oil spill compensation

• 06-21-2010
• 

By Alyson Klein/Education Week

State education officials throughout the Gulf Coast, worried about economic fallout for already-strained K-12 coffers from the massive BP oil spill, are weighing whether to seek reimbursement from BP to make up for it. Meanwhile, at least one top school official is raising the specter of health concerns for students in schools near the oil-tainted gulf—and even the prospect of relocations. “This has the potential of having an impact equal to some of the many [hurricanes],” said Tom Burnham, the Mississippi state superintendent. “It’s just a different kind of storm.” (more...)

San Diego Unified’s Superintendent search

• 06-21-2010
• 

Interview by Gloria Penner/San Diego KPBS

GLORIA PENNER (Host): Last night, the public had a chance to meet the three finalists for the top job at San Diego city schools. The district has taken an unusual approach in the process of hiring its next superintendent – openness and transparency. Here to tell us about how it's all working and about the candidates for the job is KPBS education reporter Ana Tintocalis. Ana, welcome. ANA TINTOCALIS (KPBS News): Thank you.  PENNER: So what happened at the meeting last night? It’s sort of like the first of a meeting like this.  TINTOCALIS: Yeah. It was something that I had never experienced before. There was a lot of energy. People were really excited, who came to the town hall meeting, although it wasn't greatly attended.  (more...)

'Hip Hop High' charter school in its closing days

• 06-21-2010
• 

By Howard Blume/Los Angeles Times

As he offered a routine explanation of corporations in a recent class, high school economics teacher Dan Schlick hardly came across as subversive. But just by directly talking to students, just by teaching them, Schlick was part of a self-styled staff revolt in the closing days of a Hawthorne school nicknamed Hip Hop High. The teacher "rebellion" against an online-only curriculum marked a final stage at the Academy for Recording Arts, a school that first became known for giving troubled students access to an on-campus recording studio. (more...)

Schools no longer safe in Arizona

• 06-21-2010
• 

By Valeria Fernández/New America Media

Schools may no longer be safe zones for undocumented students in Arizona. Educators and attorneys fear that police could enforce the state’s new immigration law in the public schools. Nothing in Arizona’s SB 1070, the law that makes it a crime to be undocumented in the state, exempts minors from being questioned by police when there is probable cause, according to several legal experts.  “If they don’t commit a crime, they won’t be asking them. If a student commits a crime, it’s always been the case that they could inquire about their legal residence,” said Arizona Superintendent of Education Tom Horne.  (more...)

Fight brewing over new controls on charter schools

• 06-22-2010
• 

Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess

The chairwoman of the Assembly Education Committee is citing embezzlement charges against the operators of a Southern California charter school organization as evidence why her two charter school accountability bills should become law. The bills are sponsored by Democrat Julia Brownley of Santa Monica. They are now in the Senate, which must decide whether new laws could prevent the type of alleged fraud by the husband-wife creators of Ivy Academia charters, and if not, whether additional financial oversight and restrictions on charters are needed anyway. AB 572, which was waylaid by the Senate last year and remains stuck in committee, would prohibit anyone with a financial interest in a charter from serving on its board of trustees. (more...)

Slate cards influence outcome of state schools chief race

• 06-22-2010
• 

Blog by Louis Freedberg/California Watch

Tony Quinn, co-editor of California Target and one of the most knowledgeable analysts of politics in the state, has an explanation for how a virtual unknown – Larry Aceves – came out as the top vote getter in the first round of the race for state Superintendent of Public Instruction. A decisive factor, he says, were privately funded, and unofficial, slate cards many voters received in the mail, produced by well-established firms like Larry Levine & Associates (for Democratic candidates) and Landslide Communications (for GOP ones). In an article published in the Capitol Morning Report, Quinn, argued the following: Picking through the results of California's historically low-turnout election last week, one conclusion jumps out – candidates and measures that put their money into slate cards made a good investment. (more...)

Bill would ensure more equitable teacher layoff process

• 06-22-2010
• 

Editorial/San Jose Mercury News

The state's wave of teacher layoffs is a tragedy, but at low-performing schools, the results could be downright disastrous. Because newer teachers predominate at these schools, and layoffs are based on seniority, students there could lose a majority of their faculty in a single year. That's not just a hypothetical. A judge last month ordered a halt to layoffs at three struggling Los Angeles middle schools where up to three-quarters of teachers had already lost their jobs. The judge said the layoffs violated the students' equal protection rights; districtwide, the layoff rate was 15 percent. State Senate President Pro-Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, is sponsoring a bill to end this kind of unconscionable inequity.  (more...)

Deep in the heart of Texas

• 06-22-2010
• 

By Stanley Fish/New York Times

A number of responses to my column about the education I received at Classical High (a public school in Providence, RI) rehearsed a story of late-flowering gratitude after an earlier period of frustration and resentment. “I had a high school (or a college) experience like yours,” the poster typically said, “and I hated it and complained all the time about the homework, the demands and the discipline; but now I am so pleased that I stayed the course and acquired skills that have served me well throughout my entire life.” Now suppose those who wrote in to me had been asked when they were young if they were satisfied with the instruction they were receiving? Were they getting their money’s worth? (more...)

Ravitch to Obama: 'Change course before it is too late"

• 06-22-2010
• 

Interview by Valerie Strauss/Washington Post

I conducted an email interview with Ravitch to get an update on what she is encountering as she meets teachers and parents: Q) I am interested in hearing what you are hearing and learning as you go around the country. Are you getting an earful? A) Over the past three months I have traveled from one end of the country to the other. All told, I have spoken to about 20,000 people, mostly teachers. They are deeply demoralized. They don’t like [the $4 billion competition called Race to the Top; they don’t like NCLB. They feel that education has been turned into a testing game, with all the life and creativity sucked out of it. (more...)

Kagan e-mails show resolve on K-12 issues

• 06-22-2010
• 

Blog by Mark Walsh/Education Week

In 1997, as President Bill Clinton's administration was pursuing an initiative on voluntary national testing, a White House education aide suggested the possibility of a high school test to follow proposed 4th and 8th grade tests. Elena Kagan, who was deputy director of the White House Domestic Policy Council at the time, reviewed the memo from the aide, Michael Cohen, which was intended for the president's eyes. "Do we really want to raise the prospect of a high school test?" Kagan wrote in an e-mail to Cohen on June 13, 1997. "I think with only six states in hand on our initial goal, people would ridicule such a call. ... In short, I am afraid this will make us look semi-oblivious."  (more...)

Vote set on LAUSD deputy superintendent

• 06-22-2010
• 

By Connie Llanos/Los Angeles Daily News

The Los Angeles Unified school board today could appoint a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation director as the district's No. 2 man, possibly setting him up to succeed schools chief Ramon Cortines when his contract expires. The board is scheduled to vote in closed session on the appointment of John Deasy, the deputy director of education at the Gates Foundation where he has worked since 2008. For months, top district officials have searched for candidates to fill the No. 2 post, which has remained empty since Cortines vacated it in late 2008. Cortines took over leadership of the district after the school board bought out former Superintendent David Brewer's contract. (more...)

Sacramento City schools chief seeks accountability officer

• 06-22-2010
• 

By Melody Gutierrez/Sacramento Bee

Sacramento City Unified School District Superintendent Jonathan Raymond has talked at great length about accountability since he was hired in August. Now, Raymond is moving forward on two initiatives to bring more accountability to the city school district. Raymond is asking the school board to approve a new position – chief accountability officer – who will oversee a new section of the district's website aimed at providing school-by-school information. The website is in the initial planning stages after the district signed a $52,000 contract in January with Mariner, a North Carolina data and performance management company. (more...)

Teacher group prescribes evaluations overhaul

• 06-23-2010
• 

By Anthony Rebora/Teacher Magazine

To be realistic vehicles of school improvement, teacher evaluation systems need to be revamped to utilize more clearly elucidated professional standards and include bona fide assessments of both classroom practice and student work, according to a new report by a group of distinguished teachers in California. The group, known as Accomplished California Teachers, was created by the National Board of Professional Standards in 2008 as a way to bring teachers’ knowledge and perspective to bear on pressing education policy issues. ACT is funded in part by the National Board Resource Center at Stanford University, which is directed by Stanford education professor Linda Darling-Hammond. (more...)

California Jobs Budget keeps over 35,000 teachers, counselors on the job educating kids

• 06-23-2010
• 

By Assemblymembers Julia Brownley and Hector De La Torre/California Progress Report

Hello, this is Assemblymember Julia Brownley. As Chair of the Assembly Committee on Education, I’m proud that protecting tens of thousands of teachers is a priority in Assembly Democrats’ efforts to close the budget deficit. This budget process began at budget town hall meetings up and down the state, where Californians made it clear one of their top priorities is education. A recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California reflects this sentiment, with over two-thirds of Californians saying they want new revenues to spare K-12 education from budget cuts. (more...)

Governor insists: End seniority-based layoffs

• 06-23-2010
• 

Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess

Last week, it looked like plaintiffs for children suing the state and Sen. President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg had cut a deal to protect students in low-income schools from disproportionate layoffs of their teachers. This week, that appears a no-go. Secretary of Education Bonnie Reiss said yesterday that Gov. Schwarzenegger would veto SB 1285, the bill Steinberg is sponsoring to try to settle the suit, unless it includes a requirement that school districts lay off teachers based on performance, not on seniority. “The Steinberg bill is not what children need,” Reiss said in an interview. “It does not ensure that children in low-performing districts will have effective teachers.” (more...)

L.A. Unified hires Gates Foundation official as deputy superintendent

• 06-23-2010
• 

By Howard Blume/Los Angeles Times

A top official with the influential Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was chosen Tuesday as second in command in the Los Angeles Unified School District, raising speculation that he would be a top candidate for superintendent within two years. The Board of Education hired John Deasy as deputy superintendent in a 6-0 vote in closed session. Board vice president Yolie Flores abstained because she has accepted a job funded by the Seattle-based Gates Foundation. Deasy, 49, has deep experience in local and large school systems and, more recently, worked in the forefront of the foundation's nationwide efforts to change the way teachers are evaluated. (more...)

Also:  San Jose Mercury News * Pasadena Star News

Board OKs LAUSD budget with thousands of layoffs

• 06-23-2010
• 

By Connie Llanos/Los Angeles Daily News

Despite the pleas and protests of hundreds of employees, Los Angeles Unified officials Tuesday approved a 2010-11 budget that includes thousands of layoffs of teachers, custodians, office workers and other staff. The school board also approved hiring John Deasy as the district's new deputy superintendent, seen as a potential successor to Superintendent Ramon Cortines, who is rumored to be eyeing early retirement. For now, Deasy, currently a deputy director at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, would advise Cortines and stand in for him in his absence. LAUSD faced a deficit of some $640 million for the 2010-11 school year and officials had initially looked at raising class sizes at grade levels through middle school and cutting some 6,300 jobs.  (more...)

District promotes from within for superintendent

• 06-23-2010
• 

By Maureen Magee/San Diego Union Tribune

Bill Kowba, a retired Navy rear admiral and trusted administrator, has been named superintendent of the San Diego Unified School District. In a hastily scheduled announcement Tuesday, the board of education ended a four-month search for a schools chief by identifying the district’s interim superintendent as its choice for the job “I’m thrilled. I have to step back and confirm that I heard what the board just said,” Kowba said upon learning that he won the job. “As excited as I am, I am under no illusions about how difficult next year will be for the district, given the budget projections.” (more...)

Also:  Voice of San Diego

Alameda parcel tax fails, preliminary results show

• 06-23-2010
• 

By Peter Hegarty/Oakland Tribune

A parcel tax that supporters said would prevent deep cuts to local schools appeared to have failed at the ballot box Tuesday by the slimmest of margins, according to preliminary election results. Measure E, which would have pumped $14 million annually into the Alameda Unified School District over the next eight years, secured 65.39 percent of the vote. It needs at least 66.7 percent, or a two-thirds majority, to pass. With so few votes deciding the outcome, both supporters and opponents were cautious about recognizing the results Tuesday night. "The outstanding question is, 'How many ballots are still out there?" said John Knox White, a leading campaigner for Measure E. "Until the vote is certified, it's not done." (more...)

Parents in Santa Monica raise money for schools

• 06-23-2010
• 

By Lisa Napoli/NPR (audio)

Public schools are letting out for the summer, but for many budget-strapped school districts this year, there isn't going to be time for vacation. In wealthy Santa Monica, Calif., parents will be spending the summer trying to raise $7 million to keep class sizes the same, teachers employed and school nurses and librarians on the job. (more...)

A California high school that values college, and the real world

• 06-24-2010
• 

Blog by Rachel Gross/New York Times

Is the role of high school always to steer students toward a four-year university or even a two-year college? Or should today’s high schools also be considering vocational training and other alternative pathways? Some educators believe students can have it both ways. In communities where students may rule out college before even applying, some high schools are employing more radical ways to keep students on the path to a higher education — while giving them the real-world skills they need to land a career if college doesn’t work out. (more...)

LAUSD Supt. Cortines backs community plan to improve troubled Fremont School

• 06-25-2010
• 

By Olu Alemoru/Los Angeles WAVE

Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Ramon Cortines this week threw his support behind community-backed reforms to enhance a plan to restructure South Los Angeles’ chronically underperforming Fremont High School. Cortines addressed a packed room of Fremont students and parents Monday at the headquarters of the Community Coalition, where they, along with community activists, presented him with a reform program aimed at closing the achievement gap, improving test scores and cutting the area’s high dropout rates. The meeting was called in the wake of Cortines’ December announcement that called for radical changes to improve the school’s academic performance. (more...)

Schools brace for a cliff as stimulus money peters out

• 06-24-2010
• 

By Emily Alpert/Voice of San Diego

Millions of stimulus dollars that helped school districts across San Diego County survive this year and patch together their budgets for next year are drying up next summer, leaving districts that relied on the money to pay teachers or other employees fending off deficits as deep as before. It is a new, if predictable, threat. Financial wonks call it "the funding cliff" -- and school districts are now headed straight toward it. "The reality is, all the stimulus did was save us for a few years," said Dianne Russo, chief financial officer for the Sweetwater Union High School District. (more...)

Three groups apply for Race to Top test grants

• 06-24-2010
• 

By Stephen Sawchuk/Education Week (subscription required)

At least three state consortia will vie for $350 million in federal financing to design assessments aligned to the recently unveiled common-core standards, according to applications submitted today to the U.S. Department of Education. Part of the Race to the Top program, the competition aims to spur states to band together to create measures of academic achievement that are comparable across states. Two consortia—the SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium , which consists of 31 states, and the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers , or PARCC, which consists of 26 states—will compete for the bulk of the funding, $320 million, to produce comprehensive assessment systems. (more...)

CalPERS orders California, schools to boost contributions

• 06-24-2010
• 

By Marc Lifsher/Los Angeles Times

California's biggest public pension fund, which has suffered tens of billions of dollars in investment losses, is ordering the state government and a thousand school districts to boost their contributions to employee retirement funds by $709 million a year, beginning next month. On Wednesday, the board of the California Public Employees' Retirement System voted unanimously for the increase, about $601 million of which would come out of state coffers. Schools would pay the remaining $108 million to cover retirements of non-teaching personnel. (more...)

Online learning to drive charter schools’ innovation and expansion

• 06-24-2010
• 

Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess

Netflix CEO and charter school benefactor Reed Hastings attracted attention two months ago when he bought the education software company DreamBox Learning for $10 million.  Losing interest in charters and moving on to a new challenge? Hastings said he was asked. To the contrary, Hastings said this week, technology and charter schools will reinforce each other. Savings from the use of new technology will fuel the expansion of charter schools, and their growth will force hidebound school districts in turn to adapt innovative technologies that will improve learning. (more...)

South Bay school district may seek $96 parcel tax

• 06-24-2010
• 

By Janine Zuñiga/San Diego Union Tribune

The South Bay Union School District today will consider asking property owners in November to tax themselves $96 annually in an effort to get a $1.7 million annual boost to its struggling budget. The district is facing a potential $2.3 million shortfall in its 2010-11 spending plan that begins July 1, even after $1.4 million in federal stimulus funds and the loss of 60 teachers. The district will still need to borrow from its reserves to balance the budget. At a meeting scheduled for 6 p.m. today, district officials will ask the school board to approve next year’s $65 million budget, as well as a resolution to place a parcel tax on the Nov. 2 ballot.  (more...)

Nonprofit official named to LAUSD's No. 2 post

• 06-24-2010
• 

By Christina Hoag/KPCC

The board voted Tuesday to name John Deasy, deputy director of education for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as deputy superintendent. Deasy currently oversees the $200 million educational grant program for the Gates Foundation, the nation's biggest player in the school reform movement. The action fills a post that has been vacant since the previous deputy superintendent, Ramon Cortines, was appointed superintendent two years ago. The appointment also creates a possible successor to the 77-year-old Cortines, who has 18 months left on his contract. (more...)

Corporate welfare and California's budget deficit

• 06-24-2010
• 

Column by Michael Hiltzik/Los Angeles Times

I believe we can all agree on the root cause of the state's $20-billion budget gap. It's welfare: all those millions of taxpayer dollars going to recipients who line up for their government handouts instead of competing in the marketplace on a level playing field like the rest of us, who don't pay their fair share of taxes and who get protected by a politically powerful lobby. Yes, I'm talking about the business community. For all the hand-wringing by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger about how there's almost nothing left to cut in the state budget except services to children, the aged and the destitute, hundreds of millions of dollars are spent every year on handouts to business. (more...)

Union blasts Chicago Public Schools' tenure attack

• 06-24-2010
• 

By Rosalind Rossi/Chicago Sun Times

Chicago School Board members Wednesday went on the attack against teacher tenure, agreeing to lay off the worst-rated teachers first -- regardless of seniority -- amid moves to raise class size and shrink a record budget deficit. Chicago Teachers Union President-elect Karen Lewis immediately blasted the action as "very belligerent'' and "very confrontational.'' Union attorneys will examine its legality, she said. Experts called the system's new layoff rules unusual but part of a "growing drumbeat'' to allow districts to use something other than seniority and tenure in determining who should be laid off, especially in tough economic times. (more...)

Parents and Organized Labor Work Together for Education

• 06-25-2010
• 

By UCLA IDEA Staff

The Los Angeles Unified School District passed a 2010-2011 budget that will lead to layoffs of at least 2,700 office workers, teachers, custodians, and many elementary school plant managers (Los Angeles Daily News).   Unions representing these workers, joined forces with students, parents, and teachers to protest the cuts.  For now, their efforts did not succeed, but all the protesting parties saw promise in this growing coalition. The protesters spoke of how economic threats to families, layoffs of school employees, school program cuts, poor working conditions at insecure and low-paying jobs, and job losses in the community all combine to impact children’s education. (more...)

Financial woes afflict summer school

• 06-25-2010
• 

By Erik W. Robelen/Education Week

With summer having officially arrived this week, children are heading to camp, the beach, the pool, and in some cases, back to the classroom for the dreaded summer school. If it’s available, that is. Amid difficult budgetary times, many school districts have scaled back, or even largely eliminated, their summer school offerings. Though no national data are available on the scope of the situation, examples span the country, from San Francisco and Los Angeles to Colorado Springs, Colo., and Harrisburg, Pa. At the same time, however, some districts are actually ramping up—and even reinventing—summer programming for student. (more...)

Stockton, Calif., targets bad data on dropouts

• 06-25-2010
• 

By Lesli A. Maxwell/Education Week

Most socioeconomic indicators in the midsize Central Valley city of Stockton, Calif., would point to a high school dropout problem more severe than it actually is. But, for the second straight year, the dropout rate in the 38,000-student district, where roughly 70 percent of students come from poor, Latino families, is expected to shrink, thanks to an aggressive effort to identify the students who have left high school, locate them, and lure them back—or cross them off the Stockton rolls if they’ve enrolled elsewhere. (more...)

Libraries fading as school budget crisis deepens

• 06-25-2010
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By Donna Gordon Blankinship/San Francisco Chronicle

Students who wished their school librarians a nice summer on the last day of school may be surprised this fall when they're no longer around to recommend a good book or help with homework.  As the school budget crisis deepens, administrators across the nation have started to view school libraries as luxuries that can be axed rather than places where kids learn to love reading and do research. No one will know exactly how many jobs are lost until fall, but the American Association of School Administrators projects 19 percent of the nation's school districts will have fewer librarians next year, based on a survey this spring. (more...)

Going for grants: 31 states join to create national academic tests

• 06-25-2010
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USA Today

A group of 31 states has banded together to compete for a federal grant to create a series of new national academic tests to replace the current patchwork system. In the current system, every state gives a different test to its students. In some states, passing the exam is a graduation requirement. The federal government has said it will award up to two grants of up to $160 million to create a testing system based on the proposed new national academic standards in reading and math. Washington state is submitting the application on behalf of the group of states. (more...)

School is turned around, but cost gives pause

• 06-25-2010
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By Sam Dillon/New York Times

As recently as 2008, Locke High School here was one of the nation’s worst failing schools, and drew national attention for its hallway beatings, bathroom rapes and rooftop parties held by gangs. For every student who graduated, four others dropped out. Now, two years after a charter school group took over, gang violence is sharply down, fewer students are dropping out, and test scores have inched upward. Newly planted olive trees in Locke’s central plaza have helped transform the school’s concrete quadrangle into a place where students congregate and do homework. “It’s changed a lot,” said Leslie Maya, a senior. (more...)

A golden apple and a pink slip

• 06-25-2010
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Column by Steve Lopez/Los Angeles Times

Last Wednesday, Alhambra High School library technician Terry Cannon rose to a standing ovation from his peers as he was named the school's employee of the year. Two days later, the employee of the year got laid off. And so it goes in California, home of the never-ending school budget cuts. Happy summer to all. Cannon's work was outstanding, said Alhambra Valley Unified Supt. Donna Perez, who called budget-driven layoffs "heart wrenching.  (more...)

San Francisco school board OKs layoffs, cuts

• 06-25-2010
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By Jill Tucker/San Francisco Chronicle

San Francisco school board members cited heavy hearts as they voted unanimously for a budget that bridges a two-year $113 million spending gap with a long list of cuts and layoffs across schools and district departments.  With rising costs far outpacing funding, they said they had no choice but to put a red line through highly prized programs like art and summer schools - things they know benefit children. "I can seriously tell you that in my 34 years as an educator, this has been the toughest year," said Superintendent Carlos Garcia of the cuts needed to balance the budget. "Despite having to cut $113 million over the next two years, we're going to be OK. We're going to make it." (more)

Villaraigosa backs charter school bids, rips Cortines

• 06-25-2010
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By Howard Blume/Los Angeles Times

The mayor of Los Angeles sided publicly with local charter schools Thursday in their latest bid to take over new and low-performing campuses, while sharply criticizing the L.A. schools superintendent, his onetime deputy. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa spoke one week before a deadline for applicants to submit bids for nine new campuses and eight low-performing ones in the Los Angeles Unified School District. In the first round of the groundbreaking competition, groups of teachers in February defied early expectations to claim the vast majority of campuses. (more...)

Also: Los Angeles Daily News