May 2010

Calif. bill seeks to raise age for kindergarten

05-03-2010

By Robin Hindery/San Francisco Chronicle

As a group, California's kindergartners are among the youngest in the nation, but that may change under a bill being considered in the state Legislature. The legislation by Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, would require children to have turned 5 by Sept. 1 to begin kindergarten in that school year. The current cut-off date is Dec. 2, one of the latest in the country. Roughly 100,000 of the state's 430,000 kindergarten students enter school before their 5th birthday, according to the state Department of Education. The Legislative Analyst's Office estimates Simitian's bill could save the state $700 million per year by reducing enrollment. The measure would direct half of those savings to preschool programs and the rest to help plug the state's $20 billion budget deficit, Simitian said. (more...)

State superintendent race tests education reforms, union power

05-03-2010

By Rebecca Kimitch/San Gabriel Valley Tribune

California residents looking for their chance to sound off on charter schools, open enrollment between districts, and other major education reforms will find an opportunity on the June ballot. The race for the state's highest elected education official, Superintendent of Public Instruction, is shaping up to be a referendum on much-debated school reforms, as well as a test of the enduring power of California's teachers unions. The race pits reform-minded Democrat Sen. Gloria Romero, who has long represented parts of the San Gabriel Valley, against her Democratic colleague, union-backed Assemblyman Tom Torlakson, who represents a district in the Bay Area. (more...)

Despite push, success at charter schools is mixed

05-03-2010

By Trip Gabriel/New York Times

In the world of education, it was the equivalent of the cool kids’ table in the cafeteria. Executives from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, McKinsey consultants and scholars from Stanford and Harvard mingled at an invitation-only meeting of the New Schools Venture Fund at a luxury hotel in Pasadena, Calif. Founded by investors who helped start Google and Amazon, this philanthropy seeks to raise the academic achievement of poor black and Hispanic students, largely through charter schools. Many of those at the meeting last May had worried that the Obama administration would reflect the general hostility of teachers’ unions toward charters, publicly financed schools that are independently run and free to experiment in classrooms. (more...)

A war of words against the achievement gap

05-03-2010

By Emily Alpert/Voice of San Diego

The dictionary was out of sight as Tara Malm quizzed her fifth grade class about vocabulary. The kids had already learned one meaning of "critical" -- careful and thoughtful deliberation, as in "critical thinking." But Malm asked them where else they'd heard the word and what else it might mean. "Oh!" exclaimed 12-year-old Latrell Judge. "Sometimes after a movie comes out there are critics." Slowly the kids cobbled together that a critic is someone who judges things, so being critical could mean judging things. Malm took it a step further and explained that more specifically, it means when someone believes that people or things are bad. "Like Simon Cowell on American Idol," Latrell added. (more...)

Lawsuit decided on eighth-grade algebra

05-03-2010

By Marsha Sutton/San Diego News Network

The California School Boards Association won the appeal in its 2008 lawsuit against the State Board of Education, which was filed over the SBE’s decision to mandate Algebra I for all eighth graders in California. On April 30, the Third District Court of Appeal supported CSBA’s position and declared that the SBE had violated the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act by failing to give adequate notice of its intended action and violating the state’s open-meeting laws. According to CSBA, “SBE had conceded to the court that it had violated the open meeting law and as a result, the court held that the SBE’s action mandating Algebra I for all eighth graders was null and void.” (more...)

The time is right for teacher-tenure reform

05-03-2010

Commentary by Patrick McGuinn/Education Week

The Obama administration’s Race to the Top initiative has begun a long-overdue debate on how to improve state systems of teacher evaluation and tenure. Instituted during the early part of the 20th century, tenure systems established a set of guidelines to protect teachers from the arbitrary, unfair, and often discriminatory dismissal practices that were common in local schools. While these due process protections remain necessary today, their expansion over time has made it so difficult and costly for districts to dismiss tenured teachers that they now rarely attempt to do so, even when serious concerns about a teacher’s effectiveness arise. Data from the U.S. Department of Education’s 2007-08 Schools and Staffing Survey reveal that, on average, districts dismiss or decline to renew only 2.1 percent of teachers (tenured and nontenured) for poor performance each year. (more...)

About poverty and school success

05-03-2010

Guest blog by Daniel Willingham/Answer Sheet

If you follow education you have doubtless heard someone express the following sentiment: We can’t educate every child until something is done about poverty. Two things about this idea bother me. First, it is insulting at the individual level, carrying the implicit message, "If you are poor, we cannot expect that you will achieve what the wealthy will." Second, it is defeatist in the aggregate. "Solve poverty, then we’ll talk about teaching poor kids," is too close to a cop-out. If you hold this attitude, I’ll admit that you’re in good company. An article in the venerable magazine The Economist, made this point in double-talk. The article included this graph. The Gini coefficient is a measure of wealth disparity--large values mean large gaps between the rich and poor. (more...)

6 districts to steer Race to the Top

05-03-2010

Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess

A half-dozen school districts , including Los Angeles Unified, will direct California’s second-round application to the federal Race to the Top competition. They must not only fight a tight deadline – June 1 for submission – but also the low odds of moving from 27th among states in the first round to the top 12 or 15 to get a piece of the remaining $3.4 billion. On Friday, Gov. Schwarzenegger gave the go-ahead for Race to the Top, after weeks of vacillation and a personal pitch from Education Secretary Arne Duncan not to drop out. In moving ahead, administration officials also signaled a different approach. They recognized that writing a plan to appeal to as many risk-averse districts and local unions as possible is a losing strategy. Instead, they’ll hand the reins to a urban few districts that are comfortable with the reforms that Duncan is requiring. (more...)

Teachers always show up

05-03-2010

Column by Gail Collins/New York Times

Sometimes, in election season, I have the feeling that the entire audience at political events is made up of teachers. O.K., maybe an exaggeration. Democratic political events. And you do see people from other unions, although, unlike the teachers, they tend to come in large buses and wear identical T-shirts. And there will be students, as long as the event in question takes place in a university gymnasium. But the teachers — good citizens who are always worried about what the government will do to them next — win the political participation prize. (more...)

Principled San Jose teen stands up to principal

05-03-2010

Column by Scott Herhold/San Jose Mercury News

In an era of student apathy and fear, Jennifer Phan of Santa Teresa High School might be the shining exception. And it's all the more remarkable that she writes her protest in four-foot letters of pink chalk. A slender young woman with a careful command of rhetoric, Jennifer confronted the administration at Santa Teresa High on Friday with a 15-minute walkout to protest budget cuts affecting counselors, psychologists and career staff. Then, after school, several dozen students showed up at East Side Union High School District headquarters to decorate the sidewalks with chalked expressions of outrage. "Write your passions!" she told them. That passion led her to a clash with Santa Teresa Principal John Duran this week. And it raises the question of just how well-behaved we want kids to be when they confront political and social problems. (more...)

Teachers resist merit pay

05-03-2010

By Debbie Pfeiffer Trunnell/San Bernardino Sun

In early March, California missed out on Race to the Top funding because many teachers unions declined to sign an agreement requiring them to accept drastic reforms. Among the changes low-achieving schools were asked to make was linking teachers' pay to student performance, an issue unions representing teachers have long opposed. Now, the matter is again in the forefront as two area school districts negotiate with their unions on what the new, state-ordered transformation plans mean for teachers. The intervention, which the Fontana and San Bernardino school boards recently decided to put in place for the next school year, includes the option of providing financial incentives for teachers to improve student achievement. (more...)

Latino kindergartners' social skills found strong

05-03-2010

By Mary Ann Zehr/Education Week

A majority of Latino children enter kindergarten with the same social skills as middle-class white children, while low-income Latinos demonstrate stronger social skills than low-income African-American kindergartners at the start of school, says a studypublished in the May issue of Developmental Psychology. The article is one of seven focusing on factors leading to the success or lack of success of Latinos in school published this month in both the print and online editions of the journal. The studies show that, overall, Latino children tend to start school with some strong assets, but those early gains are likely to soon disappear if they attend low-quality schools and live in low-income neighborhoods. (more...)

L.A. Unified expected to reap 'multimillions' in lawsuit win over property taxes

05-03-2010

By Howard Blume/Los Angeles Times

A long-running legal battle over local property taxes has ended in a court decision that will mean a multimillion dollar windfall for the Los Angeles Unified School District. But estimates of the amount vary dramatically — from about $20 million in the near term to $1.14 billion in years to come. “It’s very significant,” said John Walsh, assistant general counsel for L.A. Unified. “It’s a source of revenue and we can use it for schools.” He estimated a gain of $600 million to $1.14 billion over the next 40 years and “multimillions” in reimbursements going back to about 1994. An opposing attorney with Los Angeles County declined to estimate future revenues, but said reimbursements to the district should go back just three years. (more...)

S.B. district taking action at 11 campuses ranked among lowest in state

05-03-2010

By Darrell R. Santschi/Riverside Press-Enterprise

At least five principals will be replaced and six schools will be converted to charter status in the wake of a state report ranking 11 San Bernardino schools among the state's lowest-performing 5 percent. Two of the principals -- Karen Craig of Arroyo Valley High School and Sandy Robbins of San Gorgonio High -- already planned to retire, San Bernardino City Unified School District Superintendent Arturo Delgado said by phone. The other three principals, at Barton and Marshall elementary schools and Serrano Middle School, may be moved to another school or demoted, he said. Principals must be removed from low-performing schools using a transformation model, one of four alternatives laid out by the state Department of Education when it released its list of low-performing schools in March. (more...)

Oakland teachers' one-day strike is over: What's next?

05-03-2010

By Katy Murphy/Contra Costa Times

The day before his teachers joined a one-day strike, Steven Daubenspeck was a sleep-deprived ball of nerves. It's not unusual for the principal of Futures Academy to worry about the well-being of his elementary school students, who are exposed to high levels of violence and stress in their East Oakland neighborhood. The impending strike, however, brought his anxiety to new heights. "We're dealing with a community that's dependent on our school," Daubenspeck said. "We'll make do, we'll survive. I just don't want it to be at a cost to the children." On Thursday, his young teaching staff lined International Boulevard with picket signs, drawing supportive honks from passing cars and trucks. It was a sunny day, but not too hot. The mood was upbeat, even festive. (more...)

LAUSD parcel tax measure drive gets a slow start

05-03-2010

By Connie Llanos/Los Angeles Daily News

Just five weeks before the June 8 election, backers of a parcel tax to support Los Angeles Unified schools have only raised $100,000 and acknowledge they face a tough fight persuading voters to support the measure amid a weak economy. Measure E would raise the parcel tax by $100 per year and generate $92 million for LAUSD annually for the next four years. District and campaign officials concede their fundraising has fallen short of where they should be at this point in time, and they have yet to win the backing of the district's biggest union. They have also not sent out any mailers or launched an official website. By comparison, the campaign for Measure Q, the $7 billion LAUSD construction bond that voters approved in 2008, had raised about $260,000 by this point in the campaign and $1.4 million by the time of the vote. (more...)

Rivals vie for job of California schools chief

05-04-2010

By Lesli A. Maxwell/Education Week

Three Democrats—state Sen. Gloria Romero, assemblyman Tom Torlakson, and retired superintendent Larry Aceves—are emerging as the front-runners in a field of 12 candidates vying to become the next schools chief in California. But the campaign for state superintendent of public instruction, officially a nonpartisan office, is just as much a three-way fight entangling the teachers’ unions, an education reform group backed by billionaires, and the organization that represents school administrators. Each group has a stake in a contest that showcases contentious issues such as how the state will fix hundreds of chronically underperforming school; how—or if— California will move to tie teachers’ evaluations, pay, and job security to how well their students perform; and whether the state will free up, or restrict, charter schools and other forms of school choice. (more...)

Romero for schools chief

05-04-2010

Editorial/Sacramento Bee

The hotly contested primary for the superintendent of public instruction is shaping up as a battle for the soul of the Democratic Party on public education. On one side is the traditional educational establishment of teachers' unions and organizations representing administrators and school boards. They have focused primarily on funding issues to maintain the status quo. On the other side is a new coalition of parents, civil rights groups and philanthropists. It has been given a big boost by the election of President Barack Obama, who has taken on the establishment. Their view is that children get only one shot at an education and that too many schools have stagnated for too long. (more...)

California rejoins Race to the Top race, sort of

05-04-2010

Editorial/Los Angeles Times

California wanted to apply for the second round of federal education grants but had too few school districts willing to sign on. The Obama administration badly wanted California to apply, in order to avoid the embarrassment of having the biggest state with the most children rejecting its signature Race to the Top initiative. The solution: The U.S. Department of Education agreed to consider a California application made up of just a handful of districts in the state, including Los Angeles Unified. It's a match made in heaven, if that's what you can call Sacramento. It never made sense for the Education Department to insist that only entire states could apply for Race to the Top grants, or for that matter, that the states needed near-universal support from school districts. (more...)

Education chief vies to expand U.S. role as partner on local schools

05-04-2010

By Sam Dillon and Tamar Lewin/New York Times

Education secretaries usually keep a low profile, in keeping with their agency’s backseat status to states and local districts, which control schools. Arne Duncan has been called the most assertive secretary of education ever, breaking sharply from the less-visible role of his predecessors. Mr. Duncan visited recently with Nakiyah Rowe, left, and Lois Appiah-Agyeman at their charter school in Brooklyn. But there was Secretary of Education Arne Duncan one recent day, racing through Washington traffic in a black Chevrolet Suburban, sirens wailing to clear traffic on his 13-block trip to the National Public Radio studios for an hourlong call-in show that he crammed into his hectic schedule. Mr. Duncan is a man in a hurry. (more...)

Deborah Meier's education advice to Obama

05-04-2010

Guest blog by Deborah Meier/Answer Sheet

As the Obama administration explores new ways to support a national culture of learning – as opposed to our current national culture of testing – it faces a central dilemma: How to satisfy all of our country’s education stakeholders at once. There are our students, who need timely and instructive feedback that reflects what they really know and are able to do; our parents, who need accurate evidence about their children’s progress; our teachers, who need information that helps them improve the quality of their professional practice and better meet the learning needs of their students; and the general public, which needs to know if schools and teachers are helping children learn how to use their minds well. (more...)

The end of making excuses

05-04-2010

Opinion by D.C. Lambert/Education Week

The other day, a pregnant student of mine got into a fight with another pregnant student in the middle of homeroom. My co-teacher, worried about the unborn babies, tried to stop the fighting. One of the girls—they each weighed at least 200 pounds—shoved this 54-year-old veteran teacher to the ground. As she lay stunned on the cold floor (we were all wearing winter jackets that day because the heat wasn’t working, as usual), one of the girls burst into tears. “Oh, Miss S!” she cried. “I didn’t mean to hurt you!” Afterwards, my co-teacher picked herself up, injured shoulder and all, and kept teaching. We all do. The kids need us. (more...)

Union, Megan Fox want funds to stop mass teacher layoffs

05-04-2010

By Greg Toppo/USA TODAY

Facing a recession and the coming end of billions of dollars in federal stimulus funding, school districts nationwide are handing teachers pink slips for the upcoming school year. The Obama administration estimates that as many as 300,000 teachers could lose their jobs unless Congress steps in with emergency money. The cuts may ultimately be milder than the dire predictions — and critics are already joking that school advocates should soften the "teacherpocalypse" rhetoric. But the grim predictions have already generated protests. (more...)

Despite loophole, 11 San Bernardino schools to undergo state reforms

05-04-2010

By Corey G. Johnson/California Watch

San Bernardino City Unified School District will initiate drastic reforms at 11 schools, becoming the second school district to implement the state's plan for transforming under-performing campuses. District Superintendent Arturo Delgado told the Press-Enterprise that school officials want to convert six of the 11 schools into charters. Each of the five remaining schools will have their principals replaced. Two of the principals – Karen Craig of Arroyo Valley High School and Sandy Robbins of San Gorgonio High – had already planned to retire. The other three administrators may be moved to other schools or demoted, the Press-Enterprise reported. (more...)

Capistrano district activists collect 32,000 recall signatures

05-04-2010

By Scott Martindale/Orane County Register

A group of Capistrano Unified activists attempting to recall two district trustees from office this November has collected more than 32,000 petition signatures per trustee from community members, about 50 percent more than the minimum number required to put the issue on the ballot, organizers said. The signatures will be submitted to the county registrar by the end of the month to be counted and verified, organizers said. If a minimum 21,850 signatures are declared valid, the politically fractured school district will face its second recall election in as many years. "The response was just huge," said Pete Espinosa, a spokesman for the Parents for Local Control recall group. "It was very satisfying to see the amount of signatures collected in that short period of time. It shows parents really know what's best for their children." (more...)

State senate approves bill to increase charter schools

05-04-2010

By Jennifer Medina/New York Times

The New York Senate passed a contentious bill Monday evening that would more than double the number of charter schools in the state, a move seen as key to helping the state win up to $700 million in federal grant money, although the legislation is unlikely to pass in its current form in the Assembly. After a two-hour debate, the Senate voted 45 to 15 to raise the cap on charter schools in the state to 460, up from 200. Most Republicans supported the bill, and about one-third of the Democrats voted against it; Gov. David A. Paterson, a Democrat, voiced his support. The bill would also require that charter schools — privately run, but publicly financed — enroll more special education students and those still learning English. (more...)

Colorado bill raises stakes for teachers

05-04-2010

By Eve Troeh/Marketplace

A new Colorado bill would tie a teacher's evaluation to student scores on standardized tests. Depending on how the teacher performs, it could mean the difference between job protection or a pink slip. (more...)

Parent activist says lasting changes must come from ‘the bottom up’

05-05-2010

By Kido/California Progress Report

A funny thing happened on the way to education reform: No one really talked to the parents. That’s why this May 11, as the anniversary of Brown v. Board approaches, I’m going to Sacramento to speak to my elected officials, the people who are supposed to represent me and my children. I’m going as part of the Parent Leadership Action Network (PLAN) and the Campaign for Quality Education (CQE). And in a role reversal, we’re going to give California grades on its public school system over the last decade. The theme for our visit is “M.I.A.: California Ditching Schools from 2000 – 2010” and as expected the grades in Funding, Graduation Rates, and College and Career Readiness are failing. (more...)

Judge OKs California's shift of funds from redevelopment to schools

05-05-2010

By Anthony York/Los Angeles Times

State officials dodged a $2-billion bullet Tuesday when a judge ruled that last year's shift of funds away from redevelopment agencies to pay for schools was legal. In a 26-page ruling, Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Lloyd Connelly said the state was within its rights to move the money. The maneuver saves more than $1.7 billion in the current budget year and $350 million for the 2010-2011 budget year. Legislators have been trying to borrow from and shift various pots of money as part of their continuing effort to balance the state's books, which are more than $18 billion out of whack. The moves have prompted lawsuits, some of which have ended in rulings that the state acted illegally. (more...)

Cash-strapped districts shift their dollars

05-05-2010

Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess

If triage is the new goal of K-12 education, then school districts can claim success. A survey by the Legislative Analyst’s Office revealed that districts are cutting programs that the Legislature once considered essential in order to keep core classes going. Districts reported that the flexibility to spend “categorical” money as they choose helped them keep teachers on the job and make their budgets. Impressed with the first year’s spending flexibility, the LAO is recommending lifting the restrictions on some of the remaining categorical programs, including class-size reduction, which the teachers’ unions will fight to preserve, and school transportation. (more...)

On National Teacher Day, unions rail against school cuts

05-05-2010

By Amanda Paulson/Christian Science Monitor

On Tuesday, which was National Teacher Day, teacher unions and lawmakers highlighted the grim future looming for some districts that are being forced to ax teachers – among other school cuts – in order to balance their budgets. The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) launched a “Pink Hearts, Not Pink Slips” campaign designed to bring attention to the 300,000 teachers, school staff, and college faculty who it says are in danger of losing their jobs this year. The campaign supports legislation that would provide an additional $23 billion in federal money to help avert layoffs. “The level and magnitude of these cuts are unsustainable,” said AFT president Randi Weingarten in a press conference Tuesday morning. “It’s lunacy to be making cuts of this magnitude as we’re working on education reform to help all students learn.” (more...)

Ed reformers eye jobs bill as vehicle for change

05-05-2010

By Eliza Krigman/National Journal

Two prominent education groups are lobbying for a pending education jobs bill to include teacher tenure reform. "If we want to improve teacher effectiveness, we have to make it count," said Timothy Daly, president of the New Teacher Project. "Ignoring performance when it comes to high-impact decisions like layoffs sends the message that we aren't really serious about putting a great teacher in every classroom." Nationwide, most schools make teacher layoff decisions based on seniority, a system dubbed "last-hired, first-fired" by critics. The New Teacher Project and the Education Trust advocate for using criteria that gauge teacher effectiveness, instead of relying solely on seniority, to make staffing cuts. (more...)

Students at L.A. middle school get computers to take home

05-05-2010

Blog by Howard Blume/Los Angeles Times

Sixth-graders at Stevenson Middle School in Boyle Heights will get personal notebook computers to take home as part of a pilot program to provide technology to low-income students. The effort, formally unveiled Tuesday, is a public/private venture called School2Home, which is aimed at narrowing what has been called the “digital divide,” the gap in access to technology that separates the poor from the more prosperous. At many schools, advanced course work presumes home access to computers, printers and broadband Internet, yet many families still lack these tools. (more...)

More cuts expected for educators, staff

05-05-2010

By Amy Scott/Marketplace

Did you send an apple to school with your child today? It is National Teacher Day. But for thousands of teachers around the country, it's not an especially happy one. Education Secretary Arne Duncan predicts up to 300,000 teachers and other public school staff could lose their jobs as states make drastic budget cuts. AMY SCOTT: This morning at the Pleasantdale School in West Orange, N.J., a group of preschoolers lined up on the gymnasium floor. GYM TEACHER: All right, let's put our hands behind us. Lift up like a table. At the end of the school year, their teacher Alyssa Calabrese will be out of work. (more...)

Race to Top hopefuls seek to crack 'buy-in' puzzle

05-05-2010

By Michele McNeil/Education Week

In the round-two scramble for $3.4 billion in federal Race to the Top Fund grants, the need for school district and union buy-in—a relatively small, but important part of any winning formula—poses a policy puzzle for the competing states. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who in past statements has emphasized the importance of such support, has recently made it clear that a watered-down Race to the Top application won’t win on the strength of significant school district and union backing. And figuring out just how much buy-in matters in the 500-point scoring system is not a simple endeavor. (more...)

Adjust kindergarten age limit

05-05-2010

Editorial/Long Beach Press-Telegram

Most states in the nation require children entering kindergarten to be at least 5 years old by the beginning of the school year. It's a common-sense rule that means incoming students aren't too young for the challenges of elementary school. California, however, has a late cut-off date of Dec. 2, meaning that an estimated 100,000 kindergarten students are only 4 years old at the beginning of the term. Research has found that starting at age 5 instead of 4 gives kids a significant learning advantage. A bill by Bay Area state Sen. Joseph Simitian would move the state's kindergarten cut-off date to Sept. 1, putting it in alignment with most U.S. schools. (more...)

Voters in 5 districts approve parcel taxes

05-05-2010

By Sharon Noguchi/San Jose Mercury News

Their schools battered by steep cuts forced by declining state revenues, voters in several South Bay communities agreed Tuesday to tax themselves more to support their schools, as at least five districts surpassed the two-thirds hurdle to approve parcel taxes. "I'm beyond thrilled and thankful," said Superintendent Polly Bove of the Fremont Union High School District. "I'm so glad for our kids and for our community." Her district along with Palo Alto Unified, Union elementary in San Jose, Portola Valley elementary and Menlo Park elementary appeared headed toward passing parcel taxes late Tuesday. But with late-arriving ballots uncounted and the tally running close, results remained up in the air in two Santa Cruz Mountain districts, Lakeside and Loma Prieta. (more...)

PUSD parcel tax appears headed for defeat

05-05-2010

By Brian Charles/San Gabriel Valley Tribune

Measure CC appeared to be headed toward defeat late Tuesday, as only 52 percent of votes counted were in favor of Pasadena Unified School District's proposed parcel tax, a county election official said. Under state law, a two-thirds majority is required to pass a parcel tax. With voters dropping off ballots until 8 p.m. Tuesday, county officials expect the final vote tally to be completed by Thursday, said Marcia Ventura, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk's Office. Opponents of the proposed parcel tax were quick to criticize the Pasadena school board for even suggesting the tax. (more...)

Calexico students excited to be back in school

05-05-2010

By Dwane Brown, Pamela Davis, Nick Stoffel, Ana Tintocalis/KPBS

Even before last month's devastating earthquake Calexico in the Imperial Valley had the highest home foreclosure and unemployment rates in California. And school officials were struggling to keep students in class. Today, schools in Calexico Unifed will reopen after repairs from earthquake damage. DWANE BROWN: Ana, you've been to this area before. How has it changed? ANA TINTOCALIS: Well, I can tell you that kids are actually excited to come to school today. As you mentioned, they've had problems -- attendance problems -- in this district, but already there's a number of kids waiting outside the school that I'm at, which is Mains Elementary, to get into school. Parents are dropping their kids off, staff and faculty are showing up, so there is a real excitement. (more...)

More than 100 teachers face budget ax

05-05-2010

Blog by Emily Alpert/Voice of San Diego

More than 100 educators in their first few years at San Diego Unified will get warnings that they might lose their jobs this summer, according to teachers union President Camille Zombro, who was notified of the number today. The school board finalized the plan behind closed doors Tuesday after months of deliberating over how many teachers, if any, would receive the dreaded warnings. Zombro said the vote was 4 to 1, with school board President Richard Barrera casting the only dissenting vote. The warnings let a teacher know that they might be out of work this summer. California school districts have to send notices to teachers if they want to lay them off later. If they don't, they can't dismiss them. (more...)

School funding leaves gifted students behind

05-05-2010

By Jill Tucker/San Francisco Chronicle

As California's public schools have increasingly poured attention and resources into the state's struggling students, high academic learners - the so-called gifted students - have been getting the short shrift, a policy decision that some worry could leave the United States at a competitive disadvantage. Critics see courses tailored for exceptional students as elitist and not much of an issue when compared with the vast number of students who are lagging grades behind their peers or dropping out of school. But a growing chorus of parents and advocates is asking the contentious question: What about the smart kids? (more...)

Oakland teachers authorize union leaders to call strike

05-05-2010

By Katy Murphy/Oakland Tribune

Teachers in the city's public schools have granted union leaders the authority to call a longer strike to settle a labor dispute with the district. One-quarter of the union's 2,800 members turned out to vote Monday night; the results were released Tuesday evening. Of the 755 ballots cast, about 75 percent were in favor of the authorization, the union reported. The authorization means the union's 16-member board may call a strike that's less than 10 days long. An indefinite strike must be approved by a council of representatives from each of the district's 100-plus schools. "It gives us a real mandate for what we've been doing: keeping the heat on the district," said Betty Olson-Jones, Oakland Education Association president. (more...)

Teenage researchers probe flaws in their schools

05-06-2010

Blog by Debra Viadero/Education Week

When was the last time you heard a high school student spouting quotes from Paulo Freire and W.E.B. DuBois? That's what I heard over the weekend at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association. This year, for the first time, the association invited high school researchers from around the country to come and share findings from their own "action research" projects. The researcher "mini-me's" came from inner-city high schools in Chicago; Los Angeles; Oakland, Calif.; Tucson; and other cities. (more...)

Saving the teachers

05-06-2010

Editorial/New York Times

Last year’s $100 billion education stimulus plan insulated the public schools from the worst of the recession and saved an estimated 300,000 jobs. With the economy still lagging and states forced to slash their budgets, Congress must act again to prevent a wave of teacher layoffs that could damage the fragile recovery and hobble the school reform effort for years to come. Back in March, Representative George Miller, a Democrat of California, introduced a jobs bill that included a $23 billion school rescue plan. Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat of Iowa, has since introduced a similar plan fashioned as an emergency spending bill. The House version is the better of the two. (more...)

The face of local school boards could be remade

05-06-2010

By Emily Alpert/Voice of San Diego

School districts in San Diego County are eyeing legal threats across the state as cautionary tales that could prompt big changes in the way school boards are elected, spurring them to pick leaders from specific areas rather than the district as a whole. The threats have already generated buzz at the San Diego County Office of Education, which hosted a meeting in April with school district officials from across the region to talk about whether local school systems could be vulnerable to similar, potentially costly suits. (more...)

State education cuts hurt economy, report says

05-06-2010

By Tom Abate/San Francisco Chronicle

Political gridlock in Sacramento threatens the Bay Area's economy by undermining the educational system needed to train a 21st century work force, says a report being issued today by the Bay Area Council Economic Institute. The 70-page study analyzes the economy of the nine-county Bay Area and estimates where the region would rank in terms of gross domestic product if it were a country - that is, 25th, after Saudi Arabia and Norway but ahead of Austria and Taiwan. The Council, a privately supported public policy group, will discuss the report today with about 800 business and political leaders at its annual Outlook Conference in Santa Clara. (more...)

New South Whittier teacher contract calls for pay cuts of more than 10 percent

05-06-2010

By Tracy Garcia/Whittier Daily News

The South Whittier School District has reached a two-year contract agreement with its teachers that calls for a pay cut of more than 10 percent this year, as well as a freeze on bilingual stipends and other salary hikes. The agreement comes after about a year of negotiation that saw numerous protests outside board meetings by the teachers' union, which accused the 3,800-student district of fiscal mismanagement. The district and the South Whittier Teachers Association came to an impasse in contract talks last year, which prompted a state mediation process that also came up short, officials said. (more...)

LAUSD begins to slash library funding

05-06-2010

By Connie Llanos/Los Angeles Daily News

During recess Wednesday at Pomelo Drive Elementary as one student searched the online catalogue of the school's library, for books about pizza, another paced the fiction aisles digging for a "Star Wars" selection. Two second-graders curled up on one of the room's big red couches while another group of students enjoyed the sunny day to read under some trees right outside the library. "At recess and lunch this place can get crowded" said Fran Johnson, the library aide at Pomelo Drive. When urged to explain her library obsession fourth-grader Reika Rashidi's answered promptly "I love my library...it's a quiet place to think." (more...)

Torrance school board, teachers agree to furlough days, shorter year

05-06-2010

By Douglas Morino/Torrance Daily Breeze

Teachers in the Torrance Unified School District have agreed to take unpaid days off to help balance a district budget that has been hit hard by state cuts during the last four years. A bargaining agreement between the Torrance Unified School District and the Torrance Teachers Association will shorten the 2010-11 school year by five days for students and amount to a 2.5 percent pay cut for teachers. The agreement, approved Monday by the school board, calls for another five furlough days for teachers in the 2011-12 school year. (more...)

Digital textbooks coming, quickly and surely

05-06-2010

Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess

Few high schools have yet to put them to use, but free digital textbooks keep on coming. There are now 27 textbooks, partly or completely aligned with state standards, with two more in the wings, following completion last week of the second phase of textbook review by a state agency, the California Learning Resource Network (CLRN). All but one that went through the review process are math and science textbooks, primarily written by college professors. The exception is an outline of American history. It’ll be a few years before digital texts find their way into the classroom, but the first wave is coming and inexorable. (more...)

Piru School will not become charter, state board rules

05-06-2010

By Timm Herdt/Ventura County Star

A controversy that longtime Piru resident Carolyn Jimenez said has disrupted her community more severely than “floods, storms and earthquakes” was settled Wednesday when the state Board of Education voted to deny a petition to convert the town’s only school into a charter school. The petition, initiated by nine of the school’s 17 teachers, had been previously rejected by the Fillmore Unified School District and the Ventura County Board of Education. The state board was the last avenue for appeal. The nearly three-hour hearing was attended by literally busloads of people from Ventura County, including those who arrived after an all-night ride on two buses chartered by Piru parents using money raised through taco and tamale sales. (more...)

Governor, State Board to ACLU: We’re on your side

05-07-2010

Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess

The lawsuit against Los Angeles Unified and the state over seniority-based teacher layoffs and massive cuts to state education funding has taken some strange twists. Both Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state Board of Education – defendants in the case – are taking the position that they agree with the plaintiffs. Their message: Don’t sue us. We’re on the side of kids in low-income schools whose teachers have been handed pink slips in disproportionate numbers. The latest jockeying – unusual but not unprecedented – may be a sign that an initial settlement is near. A court hearing into a preliminary injunction has been pushed back a week, until Tuesday, at the request of plaintiffs attorneys, in order to conduct negotiations with the defendants. (more...)

Push to spur innovation raises hopes—and eyebrows

05-07-2010

By Erik W. Robelen and Michele McNeil/Education Week

The decision by a dozen major education grantmakers to team up on an initiative designed to dovetail with the federal Investing in Innovation grant competition is being seen by supporters as a chance to maximize the power of public and private resources to help transform K-12 education. But it’s also renewing concerns that the Obama administration and the philanthropic sector are becoming too intertwined—in ways that could crowd out support for worthy reform ideas not favored by the federal government. The initiative’s April 29 unveiling came as school districts, schools, and nonprofit organizations were gearing up for next week’s application deadline for a slice of the competitive $650 million federal fund, dubbed i3. (more...)

Californians on public education — the latest PPIC survey results

05-07-2010

By Lisa Schiff/California Progress Report

The Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) released last week the results of its latest statewide survey of attitudes of Californians regarding K-12 public education. Part of a regular series focusing on “K–12, higher education, environment, and population issues,” this latest survey is the sixth focusing on the K-12 area and thus provides not only an important picture of current attitudes and understandings, but sets those in a context that can help elucidate trends and changes in those same attitudes and understandings. All of this is extremely important for public education supporters trying to be more effective in getting clear messages to policy makers and likely voters regarding the challenges and related needs that must be addressed in our continuing effort to improve public schools for all children. (more...)

In nail-biter elections, one school parcel tax passes while another fails

05-07-2010

By Sharon Noguchi/San Jose Mercury News

In two nail-biting elections, one Santa Cruz Mountains school district narrowly passed its parcel tax, while a neighboring district lost its bid by just over 1 percentage point, according to official final results. The Lakeside Joint School District's Measure C won 517 yes votes, or 67.23 percent of the 769 votes cast. The Loma Prieta Joint Union School District's Measure G got 1,008 yes votes, or 65.45 percent of the 1,540 votes cast. Both measures needed two-thirds approval to pass. Both districts were seeking to boost local revenue to backfill against state cuts. The districts, which include large, sparsely populated areas covering both Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties, conducted their elections by mail. (more...)

Failed parcel tax will cost PUSD at least $500,000

05-07-2010

By Brian Charles/Pasadena Star News

The Pasadena Unified School District will get a half-million-dollar bill from the county in the wake of its failed bid to pass Measure CC, county election officials said Wednesday. The final invoice, which will be ready in about 30 days will likely total $530,000 - more than the combined cost of all parcel tax elections held in Los Angeles County in 2009. And, it's nearly triple what the district spent to place Measure TT on the November 2008 consolidated ballot, according to Steve Brinkman, Pasadena Unified School District chief of facilities. Pasadena Unified has 90 days from the date of the election to pay the bill, said Eileen Shea, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County Registrar- Recorder/County Clerk. (more...)

Hundreds of Monterey High students protest teacher transfers

05-07-2010

By Laith Agha/Monterey County Herald

Monterey High School students tried to send a collective message to school district brass Thursday: Leave our teachers be. More than 500 of the school's 1,300 students marched from the district office in Monterey to the Pacific Grove city limits to protest a district shake-up that could send some of the high school's most beloved teachers to other schools in the district. "The fact that they're trying to take our oldest teachers away, teachers that have been here for 30 years and taught our parents, I think that's just rude that they're going to take away our teachers and send them over to Seaside just to fix their test scores," said Chelsea Balding, 17, a Monterey High senior. (more...)

Group of teachers says tenure reform bill is misguided

05-07-2010

By Marcy Miranda/Fort Coliins Coloradoan

Most Poudre School District teachers aren’t afraid of being evaluated. In fact, they encourage it. But proposed changes to the evaluation process being considered by the state Legislature are misguided, some local educators said. “They are trying to enact a massive overhaul of the teacher evaluation system … but when a teacher shouldn’t be in the classroom, whose responsibility is it to correct that and work to improve that teacher?” said Mary Dietrich, an English teacher at Fort Collins High School. Dietrich is among about 20 teachers from the Poudre Education Association, the local teachers’ union, who are actively speaking out in Fort Collins and in Denver against Senate Bill 191, also called the teacher tenure bill or the educator effectiveness bill. (more...)

Blaming teachers is easy, but is it fair?

05-10-2010

By Claudio Sanchez/NPR

When schools are failing and students aren't learning, who is responsible? The answer these days seems to be teachers. When it comes to education reform, most of the current focus is on making teachers accountable for their students' performance. But is it fair to assign so much of the burden for the success or failure of schools to teachers? (more...)

California's kids fall deeper into poverty, homelessness

05-10-2010

By Viji Sundaram/New America Media

The indicators are coming in thick and fast: • One in four California students lives in poverty, compared to one in six before the recession began. • Students’ health, psychological and social service needs have increased with the recession. • An epidemic of hunger grips many counties – a lot of students don’t eat at all when they go home. • Homelessness among students is growing. These are some of the grim findings from a recent statewide poll of a representative sample of 87 principals conducted by UCLA's Institute for Democracy, Education and Access (IDEA) and the University of California All Campus Consortium on Research for Diversity (ACCORD). (more...)

Commercial properties finagle out of property taxes

05-10-2010

Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess

With state funding of K-12 schools stuck on empty for at least several more years, school districts and teachers unions are starting to sound the call for more local authority to raise taxes. That’s not likely to happen, however, until the Legislature has the fortitude to confront the distortions caused by Proposition 13’s stranglehold on the state’s tax system. A new study by the California Tax Reform Association and the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment adds evidence to begin that discussion. The 122-page “System Failure: California’s Loophole-Ridden Commercial Property Tax” details what others have broadly asserted for years: Since the passage of Proposition 13 three decades ago, residential property owners have borne an increasingly larger proportion of the property tax. (more...)

Socioeconomics replacing race in school assignments

05-10-2010

By Mary Ann Zehr/Education Week

A growing number of school districts are trying to break up concentrations of poverty on their campuses by taking students’ family income into consideration in school assignments. Some of the districts replaced race with socioeconomic status as a determining indicator after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that using race as the primary factor in assigning students to schools violates the Constitution. Other districts that take family income into account never included race as a factor. Meanwhile, at least two districts—North Carolina’s Wake County and Charlotte-Mecklenburg—whose race-based diversity policies have been scrutinized by federal courts and which have used socioeconomic status as a consideration in student assignments, have backed away from the practice. (more...)

Parcel taxes a tough sell for cash-strapped schools

05-10-2010

By K. Oanh Ha/California Report (audio)

The budget crisis has forced many school districts to lay off teachers, increase class sizes, and shorten the school year. To avoid even deeper cuts, a record number of districts are asking voters to pass parcel taxes. (more...)

School council staffing decisions 'gut wrenching'

05-10-2010

By Jorge Barrientos/Bakersfield Californian

A first-of-its-kind move at the Bakersfield City School District to let school site councils make some high-level budget decisions has resulted in the saving of administrators at the expense of dozens of aides, clerks, library workers, counselors and others. Pools of money for school supplies and campus functions, including field trips, were also cut, according to a Californian review of meeting minutes and other reports plus interviews with employees. School safety was the chief reason for saving deans and vice principals, according to administrators. "That's more important than anything else," Superintendent Michael Lingo said. "You want to believe that students are safe. (Schools) deal with so many issues in addition to writing, reading and arithmetic." (more...)

Hundreds protest proposed cuts to school funding

05-10-2010

By Dana Littlefield/San Diego Union-Tribune

Teachers, students and parents joined together to send a message to state legislators about their dissatisfaction with proposed budget cuts to schools. About 600 people rallied in Balboa Park on Saturday to protest a state budget proposal to cut funding to schools. The event, held at Sixth Avenue and Laurel Street, drew a range of concerned participants, including teachers, parents and children, many of whom chanted “No more cuts!” and carried signs urging citizens to voice their concerns directly to the Legislature. The message wasn’t lost on the younger demonstrators. “I think we have a lot of support,” said Darius Cade, 10, a fourth-grader from Birney Elementary School in University Heights. “I’m in school, too, and I’m a child and I need a good education.” (more...)

Guest-teaching Chinese, and learning America

05-10-2010

By Sam Dillon/New York Times

Zheng Yue, a young woman from China who is teaching her native language to students in this town on the Oklahoma grasslands, was explaining a vocabulary quiz on a recent morning. Then a student interrupted. Two other Chinese instructors teach in the Lawton district. “Sorry, I was zoning out,” said the girl, a junior wearing black eye makeup. “What are we supposed to be doing?” Ms. Zheng seemed taken aback but patiently repeated the instructions. “In China,” she said after class, “if you teach the students and they don’t get it, that’s their problem. Here if they don’t get it, you teach it again.” (more...)

School parent volunteering could become mandatory

05-10-2010

San Francisco Chronicle

A San Jose school district could make parent volunteering mandatory. An Alum Rock Union School District committee is crafting a proposal that requires parents of its 13,000 students to volunteer at least 30 hours in the classroom each year. It could be a tough order. Most of the Alum Rock district's 28 schools don't even have a PTA, and 88 percent of district students are poor with working parents who don't have extra time to spend in the classroom. But trustee Gustavo Gonzalez says studies show students do better when their parents are involved. (more...)

Calexico schools face loss of learning challenges following earthquake

05-10-2010

By Ana Tintocalis/San Diego KPBS

Hundreds of school kids wait anxiously outside Mains Elementary School for classes to begin. This is first time they've seen each other in more than month. The girls hug and hold hands. The boys tease and crack jokes. Mains Elementary is one of 13 Calexico schools that shut down after the so-called Easter earthquake. Damages included exposed electrical wires, asbestos contamination, cracks in ceilings and roofs and busted water pipes. Mains Elementary School Principal Carlos Gonzales says most repairs are done. He’s focused now on getting kids quickly caught-up in school. He hopes they can survive California's state standardized tests. “It's a huge assessment,” Gonzales said. “We have to show growth. That is something that is on our minds. (more...)

One day. Two tests. Which one do you care about?

05-10-2010

Blog by Emily Alpert/Voice of San Diego

Imagine you had to take two tests in a single day. One could help you skip classes and spend less time in college, saving money for you and your family. Another wouldn't affect your future at all. Which test would you try your hardest on -- and which would you treat as a deserved break? a.) I'd work hardest on the test that matters to my future. b.)I love tests. I try my hardest no matter what. If you answered a, you're exactly what Scott Giusti is worried about. Giusti is principal of Mira Mesa High, where teens were scheduled to take state tests this week, at the same time as their stressful Advanced Placement exams. If they score well on the state tests, Giusti will leap for joy. The California state tests are eyed by parents and school officials who are trying to judge schools. (more...)

Teachers have a plan for school in Sylmar

05-10-2010

By Connie Llanos/Los Angeles Daily News

Energized by recent reforms at Los Angeles Unified, a group of teachers at Sylmar High School want to create their own school for teens in this working-class neighborhood. The proposed Humanitas Academy would start on the campus of Sylmar High this fall, but if all goes well, it would move to its own location by the start of the 2011-12 school year. The academy plans to have 17 teachers and room for about 500 9th-12th-graders. Today, the teachers will explain their plans at a town hall meeting with parents, students and community members at Tia Chucha's Centro Cultural and Bookstore in Sylmar. (more...)

School boosters' lemonade stand: $95 per cup

05-10-2010

By Sharon Noguchi/San Jose Mercury News

When the ballot box gives you lemons, make lemonade — and charge $95 for a glass. That's what parents in the Loma Prieta Joint Union School District are doing, as they launch a lemonade fundraiser today for schools. Disappointed that voters defeated their parcel tax, Measure G, by the slimmest of margins Tuesday, they're targeting the 1,000-plus voters in the Santa Cruz Mountains community who said yes to the tax, said Jennifer Straw, a parcel tax campaigner. Measure G would have imposed a $95 four-year tax to raise about $200,000 a year for schools. Without additional funds, the schools could increase class sizes while losing library clerks, music and art. (more...)

L.A. schools on sharper lookout for gifted students — and they find them

05-10-2010

By Howard Blume/Los Angeles Times

Second-grader Emariye Louden would debate just about anything with his mother from the time he could talk. At 4, he knew his letters, spelled his name and memorized birthdays and phone numbers. His mother figured he was smart, but odds are that until recently no one at his school would have singled him out for special attention. Few students were being recognized as academically gifted at 99th Street Elementary in South Los Angeles, a common scenario at campuses that enroll low-income minority students in the Los Angeles Unified School District. That's beginning to change. (more...)

Our education needs are California's needs

05-11-2010

Commentary by Jolene Rodriguez/New America Media

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” It’s not a very original question, but I hear it often, from parents, teachers and administrators. But here I go again: My name is Jolene Rodriguez. I am 16 years old and I attend Cabrillo High in Long Beach, Calif. And when I grow up, I want to be a social worker and work with kids. But to be honest, I’m not sure I’m going to get there. Not because I’m not smart enough or don’t work hard enough, but because I’m part of a segregated school system that does not adequately prepare me for college and a career after I graduate. (more...)

Say what, Secretary Duncan?

05-11-2010

Blog by Valerie Strauss/Washington Post

Education Secretary Arne Duncan said something in an interview with the New York Times that was so scary wrong that it leaves me hoping he was kidding. The alternative--that he really means it-- is even scarier. In an article about how activist an education secretary he is, Duncan said that his far-reaching efforts to change public schools are facing no opposition from the public. “Zero,” he was quoted as saying. “And as hard as we’re pushing everybody else to change, we’re pushing the department to change even more. There’s just an outpouring of support for the common-sense changes and the unprecedented investments we’re making.” (more...)

New study questions bans on seniority teaching rules

05-11-2010

Blog by Debra Viadero/Education Week

When it comes to staffing assignments, the tradition in education has always been clear: The senior-most teachers get the plum teaching jobs. In these tough budget times, however, that practice is fast becoming a hot issue. In California, Rhode Island, New York, and other places where the prospect of teacher layoffs loom large, new laws or proposed laws seek to end schools' longstanding "last hired, first fired" practices. The idea, of course, is to free up administrators to hire or fire the best candidate for an open slot, rather than being forced to take the person with the most experience. But there's another reason to think about eliminating teacher seniority rules: Could it be a way to even out imbalances between the "have" and "have not" schools in a district? (more...)

Schools scooping up outside money to keep moving in tough times

05-11-2010

By Emily Alpert/Voice of San Diego

Rusting weight machines sit in batting cages next to the football field at Point Loma High School, exiled from a classroom trailer that was condemned and then removed. Parents are relieved that's finally going to change. Point Loma High is getting a new weight room -- but not because budget cuts have let up in San Diego Unified schools. The school snagged a $90,000 grant from a NASCAR racing champion and Lowe's Home Improvement after teens made their case in a pleading video and parents wrote an application. (more...)

SD school board to vote on policy against Arizona

05-11-2010

By Ana Tintocalis/San Diego KPBS

San Diego's five school trustees will vote on a resolution that warns school kids and their families not to travel to or spend time in Arizona. That same policy has been approved by other governmental agencies in the past weeks. However, San Diego Unified could be the first large, urban school district in California to take a stand. School board president Richard Barrera says it is the district's responsibility to protect all children, including students with parents who could be deported. He says federal immigration policies have already hurt the children of undocumented parents in San Diego. “Literally a student can go to school and come home and their parents are gone,” Barrera said. (more...)

Agreement will alter teacher evaluations

05-11-2010

By Jennifer Medina/New York Times

The State Education Department and New York’s teachers’ unions have reached a deal to overhaul teacher evaluations and tie them to student test scores, brokering a compromise on an issue the unions had bitterly opposed for years. The agreement, reached in time for the state’s second bid at $700 million in federal education grants, would scrap the current system whereby teachers were rated simply satisfactory or unsatisfactory. Instead, annual evaluations would place teachers in one of four categories — highly effective, effective, developing and ineffective. While the deal would not have any immediate effect on teacher pay, it could make it easier for schools to fire teachers deemed subpar. (more...)

Ammiano carries bill to amend Prop. 13 rules

05-11-2010

By Carolyn Said and Marisa Lagos/San Francisco Chronicle

With California mired in a budget crisis, some lawmakers are eyeing revisions to Proposition 13, the state's landmark law limiting property-tax increases, considered the untouchable third rail of California politics. Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, is sponsoring legislation that he said would stop commercial property owners from evading higher taxes when businesses change hands, a practice that he said deprives cash-strapped cities and counties of hundreds of millions of dollars. "There's a loophole in the law, and it's morally incumbent upon us to close it ... so when businesses change ownership, there's no game-playing," Ammiano said Monday. (more...)

High standards by what measure?

05-11-2010

Blog by Patrick Riccards/Eduflak

Since the introduction of AYP measures more than eight years ago, we have heard many a tale of states accused of "cooking the books" in order to look strong under the latest school evaluation tools. The most common tale is that of states that continually drop their state standards, hoping to demonstrate the sort of continuous student gains the federal law was seeking. Instead of improving instruction, states simply lowered expectations. Each year, more students on the fringes would hit proficient. But what, exactly, did proficient mean? Now that the U.S. Department of Education has taken up reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, issued a rallying cry for common core standards, and encouraged a strengthening of such standards through Race to the Top, the subject has taken on even greater importance. (more...)

The education jobs bill and reform

05-11-2010

Expert Blog/National Journal

A growing number of education groups are insisting that a $23 billion bill intended to avert hundreds of thousands of teacher layoffs should include reform-minded stipulations and accountability requirements (see here, here and here). The Keep Our Educators Working Act was recently introduced by the two congressional education committee chairmen, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Rep. George Miller, D-Calif. Some groups are arguing that the legislation should include changes to the teacher tenure process and fix a "loophole" that may allow states to backfill their budgets rather than hire or retain teachers. (more...)

School districts auction supplies for cash

05-11-2010

By Jorge Barrientos/Bakersfield Californian

Schools throughout the county have been cleaning out storage spaces -- piling up desks, computers and other equipment they no longer use -- and selling them in local public auctions for little cash officials say is valuable during budget crunches. They include cassette tape recorders and typewriters deemed obsolete, outdated computer screens, hundreds of televisions and scores of overhead projectors. "This is stuff that has little to no value to (schools) anymore," said Michael Brouse, assistant superintendent of business services at Panama-Buena Vista Union School District. "We're talking small amounts of money, but everything helps." (more...)

Breaking down Meg’s ed numbers

05-11-2010

Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess

Meg Whitman’s gubernatorial campaign never got back to me to explain the candidate’s continued assertion that 40 percent of education dollars are squandered on “administration and overhead.” But a K-12 expert at the Legislative Analyst’s office did pass along a url that’s the likely basis of the claim. Sure enough, it’s in the ed-data section of the Dept. of Education’s website. So call it up, and let’s go over what it says. Go midway down to “General Fund Expenditures by Activity.” What Whitman is calling money in the classroom is the 50 percent – $26 billion – spent on Instruction (defined as including teacher salaries and benefits, aides and books) and 12 percent on Special Education ($6 billion). (more...)

UCSF scientists partner with public schools

05-11-2010

By Erin Allday/San Francisco Chronicle

Eleven-year-old Joseph Bohan sat at the back of a classroom sucking the air out of a plastic container and watching a balloon inside inflate by some invisible force, when an observer suggested it looks like magic. He narrowed his eyes and looked disgusted. "Not magic," Joseph said with disdain. "It's air pressure." There was an unsaid "idiot" on the end of that sentence, for sure. That was last Friday afternoon, and Joseph and his fourth- and fifth-grade peers at Alvarado Elementary School were conducting experiments. They're part of an unusual partnership between UCSF and San Francisco public schools, in which scientists pair with classroom teachers to help children learn not just hard sciences, but the special skills needed to conduct laboratory research. (more...)

It's time for schools of education to embrace new routes to teacher certification

05-11-2010

Opinion by Jonathan Zimmerman/Los Angeles Times

Let's suppose you have spent your career as a professor at an American education school, training future teachers. Then suppose that your state decided that teachers could get certified without attending an education school at all. That's called "alternative certification," and most of my school of education colleagues are outraged by it. I take a different view. These new routes into teaching could transform the profession, by attracting the type of student that has eluded education schools for far too long. (more...)

Making teacher quality reform's latest red herring

05-13-2010

By Peter Berger/Education Week (free subscription required)

Nobody ever suggests curing our health-care woes by replacing doctors and nurses with better ones. But many policymakers tout restaffing schools with better teachers as the key to healing public education. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is one of them. As is true for carpenters and dentists, there are some teachers who are bad at what they do. I’ve known a few of them. Most teachers, though, are competent. That’s not to say that many of us are excellent, but that is the nature of excellence: It’s rare. Any scheme to rescue public education that rests on staffing schools with “excellent” teachers is a pipe dream. Most teachers will never be excellent. (more...)

High court pick has sparse K-12 policy record

05-13-2010

By Mark Walsh/Education Week

President Barack Obama’s choice for his second nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court&amdash;current U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan—is a nonjudge without the record of dealing with education law issues typical of nominees who have served on federal appeals courts. Nonetheless, the nominee to succeed Justice John Paul Stevens, who will retire at age 90 at the end of the current term, had education as part of her portfolio when she served as deputy director of the White House Domestic Policy Council under President Bill Clinton from 1997 to 1999. “She is very smart,” said Michael Cohen, who is now the president of Achieve, an education policy organization in Washington and who was an education policy aide to President Clinton during that time. (more...)

Few states meet NCLB goals for English-Learners

05-13-2010

By Mary Ann Zehr/Education Week

Only 11 states met their accountability goals for English-language learners under the No Child Left Behind Act in the 2007-08 school year, concludes a study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education. That same school year, 59 percent of school districts or district consortia that receive federal money for English-language-acquisition programs achieved all their goals for ELLs. Those are some of the findings included in three research briefs released this month by the Washington-based American Institutes for Research. The briefs are precursors to a much more comprehensive study evaluating implementation of Title III, the section of the NCLB law that authorizes aid for English-language-acqusition programs, which is being underwritten with an Education Department grant for $2.7 million over three years. (more...)

Bricks and clicks: part two

05-13-2010

Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess

California is lagging behind other states, like Florida, in online education, in part because of regulations enacted nearly a decade ago to clamp down on independent study scams masquerading as charter schools. As a result, virtual schools face stifling rules dictating student-teacher ratios, limiting their operations to contiguous counties, and requiring teachers leading virtual courses – they could be living anywhere – to have California credentials. Flex Public Schools, which will open the state’s first hybrid, “bricks and clicks” online schools, will be able to sidestep regulations governing non-classroom-based online schools and launch a truly innovative approach to education. (more...)

Long Beach district to cut five school days

05-13-2010

By Adolfo Guzman-Lopez/KPCC

Students in the Southland’s second-largest public school district are the latest to lose instructional days because of cuts in state education funding. Long Beach Unified’s 87,000 students will not attend classes the week of Thanksgiving. They’ll also have a four-day weekend next March. Leaders of the school district’s teachers’ union agreed to the five furlough days so the district can address an expected $60 million deficit in its budget. “While the shorter school year is not ideal, it is part of a fair agreement that helps us to save jobs and protect students and teachers from even deeper cuts to the classroom,” Long Beach Unified Superintendent Chris Steinhauser said in a statement. (more...)

LAUSD to change School Choice plan procedure

05-13-2010

By Connie Llanos/Los Angeles Daily News

Los Angeles Unified officials said Tuesday they have learned lessons from the first year of the landmark School Choice reform plan and intend to make key changes as they prepare to launch the next round later this month. The School Choice plan, which lets outside operators bid to run new and low-performing schools, was approved by the school board last summer. It drew fierce opposition from district employee unions that called the effort a "giveaway" of schools, while some of the bidders complained they had little time to prepare. This year, however, district officials said they will have fewer schools go through the process, and applicants will have more time to develop proposals and get community members involved. (more...)

Long Beach school district will issue 243 pink slips, mostly to teachers

05-13-2010

By Kevin Butler/Long Beach Press Telegram

As teachers marched nearby in protest, members of the Long Beach Board of Education on Tuesday voted to issue pink slips to 243 employees - mostly teachers - at the end of this school year as part of a budget-cutting effort. The five-member board unanimously voted to lay off the employees to help the Long Beach Unified School District cut $90 million over the next two fiscal years. Ninety of those affected are workers on year-to-year contracts, while the remainder are permanent or probationary employees. Tuesday's pink slips are expected to be the first round of teacher layoffs and represent the latest step in a complex layoff process dictated by state law. (more...)

As schools cut back, S.F. steps up summer camps

05-13-2010

By John Coté/San Francisco Chronicle

Budget cuts mean summer school will be all but nonexistent in San Francisco this year, but rather than youths hanging out on the streets, Mayor Gavin Newsom says he has a plan: summer camp, and lots of it. Newsom announced Tuesday that the cash-strapped city is almost tripling the number of summer-camp spots and beginner swim classes offered through the Recreation and Park Department, while waiving participation fees for the estimated 2,100 children living in public housing. (more...)

Colo. district boots traditional salary schedule

05-13-2010

By Stephen Sawchuk/Education Week

The much-lauded ProComp system in Denver is unquestionably Colorado’s most famous contribution to the intensifying dialogue about performance-based compensation, but it now has competition from a district just 60 miles to the south: Harrison School District Two. Located at the southern end of Colorado Springs, the 11,000-student district this fall will be among the first in the nation to replace the traditional salary schedule with a pay system based entirely on observations of teacher practice and student-achievement results. (more...)

Home-school is so popular, some are getting suspicious

05-13-2010

By Jennifer Radcliffe/Houston Chronicle

More than 22,620 Texas secondary students who stopped showing up for class in 2008 were excluded from the state's dropout statistics because administrators said they were being home-schooled, according to Texas Education Agency figures. But that's where the scrutiny of this growing population seems to end, leaving some experts convinced that schools are disguising thousands of middle and high school dropouts in this hands-off category. While home-schooling's popularity has increased, the rate of growth concentrated in Texas' high school population is off the chart: It's nearly tripled in the last decade, including a 24 percent jump in a single year. “That's just ridiculous,” said Brian D. Ray, founder of the National Home Education Research Institute. “It doesn't sound very believable.” (more...)

Obama administration says it supports measure to avoid teacher layoffs

05-14-2010

By Nick Anderson/Washington Post

The Obama administration on Thursday threw its support behind a $23 billion measure intended to avert large-scale teacher layoffs, urging Congress to include the effort in a spending bill lawmakers are drafting to fund wartime costs and other urgent needs. "We are gravely concerned that ongoing state and local budget challenges are threatening hundreds of thousands of teacher jobs for the upcoming school year," Education Secretary Arne Duncan wrote in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). (more...)

Judge orders injunction against LAUSD teacher layoffs in ACLU lawsuit

05-14-2010

By James Panetta/KPCC

It really is all about the money. … more precisely, the lack of it. California’s budget issues have reached a boiling point. In one indication of where the state is financially, an L.A. County Superior Court judge is preventing LAUSD from laying off teachers at three troubled Los Angeles middle schools. Apparently the state has arrived at a point in which it is so upside down with its budget that it can’t afford to fire them. The three schools in question, South L.A.'s Samuel Gompers and Edwin Markham, and John H. Liechty, located in Pico Union, are in horrendous shape. (more...) (Patt Morrison's interview - audio)

Don't rush to link teacher evaluation to student achievement

05-14-2010

Guest blog by Susan H. Fuhrman/Washington Post

The Obama administration’s “Blueprint for Reform” of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act encourages states to evaluate teachers based in part on their students’ scores on standardized tests. It is likely, then, that linking teacher evaluation to student achievement will play a significant role in upcoming policy initiatives and renewal of ESEA, the federal law more commonly known as No Child Left Behind. In order to ensure fairness, most plans to evaluate teachers based on their students’ performance attempt to control for differences among students and other factors that are beyond the teachers’ control. They use the so-called “value-added” approach. (more...)

California budget cuts target school bus service

05-14-2010

By Diana Lambert/Sacramento Bee

The little yellow school bus may soon be coming to the end of the road. Budget cuts and increased fuel costs are combining to make it harder for school districts to provide bus service for students. And a new state proposal could render transportation funding as optional for school officials. The plan also would reduce state school transportation spending by 20 percent, to $496 million. The budgeting moves won't affect special education transportation funding. State funding for transportation has lagged for years, with most districts receiving less than half of the funding needed from Sacramento to keep programs rolling, according to California Department of Education statistics. (more...)

In Pasadena, a vote of confidence for public schools

05-14-2010

By Peter Dreier/Huffington Post

Tony Gordo, Ruth Strick, Cushon Bell, and George Brumder spent much of the last two months making phone calls several nights a week from a make-shift office on the second floor of the First United Methodist Church in Pasadena, California. Gordo was calling Spanish-speaking voters, urging them to vote "yes" on Measure CC, a $120 parcel tax for the Pasadena Unified School District. The 50-year old Gordo has worked for PUSD for 16 years, first as a teacher's aide and for the past 10 years as a painter with the district's maintenance division. He has two children at PUSD's John Muir High School and another at Pasadena Community College. His union, Teamsters Local 911, initially recruited Gordo to the CC phone bank, but he soon began showing up at the church on his own on a regular basis. (more...)

Personal tools

Sections

Calif. bill seeks to raise age for kindergarten

State superintendent race tests education reforms, union power

Despite push, success at charter schools is mixed

A war of words against the achievement gap

Lawsuit decided on eighth-grade algebra

The time is right for teacher-tenure reform

About poverty and school success

6 districts to steer Race to the Top

Teachers always show up

Principled San Jose teen stands up to principal

Teachers resist merit pay

Latino kindergartners' social skills found strong

L.A. Unified expected to reap 'multimillions' in lawsuit win over property taxes

S.B. district taking action at 11 campuses ranked among lowest in state

Oakland teachers' one-day strike is over: What's next?

LAUSD parcel tax measure drive gets a slow start

Rivals vie for job of California schools chief

Romero for schools chief

California rejoins Race to the Top race, sort of

Education chief vies to expand U.S. role as partner on local schools

Deborah Meier's education advice to Obama

The end of making excuses

Union, Megan Fox want funds to stop mass teacher layoffs

Despite loophole, 11 San Bernardino schools to undergo state reforms

Capistrano district activists collect 32,000 recall signatures

State senate approves bill to increase charter schools

Colorado bill raises stakes for teachers

Parent activist says lasting changes must come from ‘the bottom up’

Judge OKs California's shift of funds from redevelopment to schools

Cash-strapped districts shift their dollars

On National Teacher Day, unions rail against school cuts

Ed reformers eye jobs bill as vehicle for change

Students at L.A. middle school get computers to take home

More cuts expected for educators, staff

Race to Top hopefuls seek to crack 'buy-in' puzzle

Adjust kindergarten age limit

Voters in 5 districts approve parcel taxes

PUSD parcel tax appears headed for defeat

Calexico students excited to be back in school

More than 100 teachers face budget ax

School funding leaves gifted students behind

Oakland teachers authorize union leaders to call strike

Teenage researchers probe flaws in their schools

Saving the teachers

The face of local school boards could be remade

State education cuts hurt economy, report says

New South Whittier teacher contract calls for pay cuts of more than 10 percent

LAUSD begins to slash library funding

Torrance school board, teachers agree to furlough days, shorter year

Digital textbooks coming, quickly and surely

Piru School will not become charter, state board rules

Governor, State Board to ACLU: We’re on your side

Push to spur innovation raises hopes—and eyebrows

Californians on public education — the latest PPIC survey results

In nail-biter elections, one school parcel tax passes while another fails

Failed parcel tax will cost PUSD at least $500,000

Hundreds of Monterey High students protest teacher transfers

Group of teachers says tenure reform bill is misguided

Blaming teachers is easy, but is it fair?

California's kids fall deeper into poverty, homelessness

Commercial properties finagle out of property taxes

Socioeconomics replacing race in school assignments

Parcel taxes a tough sell for cash-strapped schools

School council staffing decisions 'gut wrenching'

Hundreds protest proposed cuts to school funding

Guest-teaching Chinese, and learning America

School parent volunteering could become mandatory

Calexico schools face loss of learning challenges following earthquake

One day. Two tests. Which one do you care about?

Teachers have a plan for school in Sylmar

School boosters' lemonade stand: $95 per cup

L.A. schools on sharper lookout for gifted students — and they find them

Our education needs are California's needs

Say what, Secretary Duncan?

New study questions bans on seniority teaching rules

Schools scooping up outside money to keep moving in tough times

SD school board to vote on policy against Arizona