May 2010

Charter-school bandwagon avoided by some states

• 05-14-2010
• 

By Jessie L. Bonner and Dorie Turner/USA Today

In her small timber town in northern Idaho, Christina Williams enrolled her son in the closest public school because she had few other choices near her home. But as she watched him struggle for years — many mornings prying him out of bed and forcing him to go to school — Williams sought an alternative to the traditional classroom. The single mother now drives about 140 miles roundtrip each day to her 12-year-old son's charter school in Sandpoint. "It's killing my poor little car, but it is so worth the drive to me," Williams said in a telephone interview. "He was not getting the education he needed." (more...)

Report: Few Hispanic high school dropouts earn GED

• 05-14-2010
• 

By Christine Armario/KPCC

A report released Thursday by the Pew Hispanic Center found that one in 10 Hispanic students who drop out of high school go on to earn a General Equivalency Development degree. Educators and students say limited outreach, immigration and pressure to work may be to blame. Using data from the Census Bureau, researchers found that fewer Hispanic students earn a GED credential than white or black dropouts. Black students earned a GED at a rate of two in 10. For white students, the rate is three in 10. The nonpartisan research organization says the lower rate among Hispanics is notable because they also have higher dropout rates: 41 percent of Latinos ages 20 or older do not have a regular high school degree, compared to 23 percent of blacks and 14 percent of whites. (more...)

26 LAUSD elementary schools earn high marks on API rankings

• 05-14-2010
• 

KPCC

Six Los Angeles Unified high schools, one middle school and 26 elementary schools ranked among the top 10 percent of schools statewide, according to public school rankings released today by the state Department of Education. The state ranks schools academically on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 representing the top 10 percent, to determine a school's standing compared to other schools statewide. The rankings are based on the school's base Academic Performance Index, which is calculated for elementary, middle and high schools based on results of the Standardized Testing and Reporting Program and California High School Exit Exam. In the LAUSD, 26 elementary schools received the highest rank of 10, placing them in the highest 10 percent of elementary schools statewide. (more...)

LAUSD scores mixed

• 05-14-2010
• 

By Connie Llanos/Contra Costa Times

While more local schools are reaching state targets on benchmark tests, nearly three-quarters of Los Angeles Unified campuses rank among the state's lowest-performing schools, according to data released Thursday by the California Department of Education. The latest Academic Performance Index results show some positive trends for LAUSD, such as 158 schools meeting a target score of 800 points (on a 200-1000 point scale), up from 141 schools last year Also, 33 district schools were ranked among the top 10 percent of schools statewide. Still, 72 percent of the district's campuses remain in the lower half of the state's ranking. That's slightly worse than five years ago, when just under 70 percent of LAUSD schools were ranked in the bottom half. The results show that while many LAUSD schools are improving their API scores each year, they are not quite keeping with overall API gains statewide. (more...)

San Mateo County schools surge in state rankings

• 05-14-2010
• 

By Neil Gonzales/San Mateo County Times

The county saw 71 schools gain a statewide rank of at least 8 — up from 67 the previous year, according to the 2009-10 Accountability Progress Reporting results released Thursday by the California Department of Education. The county also had 43 campuses earn a "similar schools" rank of 8 or above, an increase from 37, according to the results. The rankings run from 1 to 10, with 10 being the best. The statewide rank compares a site to others of the same kind — elementary, middle or high school — across California. The similar-schools rank shows how sites with similar demographics, challenges and educational opportunities compare to one another statewide. (more...)

Area schools hit bottom

• 05-14-2010
• 

Debbie Pfeiffer Trunnell/San Bernardino Sun

Thirty-one schools in the San Bernardino area received the lowest statewide ranking for performance on standardized tests, according to data released Thursday by the California Department of Education. Schools in San Bernardino City Unified, Fontana Unified and Colton Joint all saw a ranking of one on their Academic Performance Index for 2009. On the flip side, schools in Redlands Unified, the Snowline Unified School District and in the Rancho Cucamonga area fared much better. "How a school is faring in comparison to all schools in the state or to those similar in nature is of vital importance to parents, teachers, education advocates and the business community who are interested in student performance," said Jack O'Connell, State Superintendent of Public Instruction. (more...)

Modesto teachers reach deal: Less pay, more kids

• 05-14-2010
• 

By J.N. Sbranti/Modesto Bee

The union that represents teachers in the Modesto City Schools district has reached a tentative contract agreement that would prevent most layoffs among its members while accepting a pay cut and fewer workdays. The deal for the Modesto Teachers Association would mean fewer school days for children and more students per classroom. The 2010-11 school year would shrink to 175 instructional days, five less than this year. For teachers, the deal means nearly a 4.5 percent pay cut, primarily because they will be working fewer days The school district expects the deal will save it $13 million next year, assuming teachers ratify the agreement when they vote May 26-28. (more...)

Calif. bill could jail parents if kids miss school

• 05-14-2010
• 

By Don Thompson/San Luis Obispo Tribune

The state of California would hold parents responsible if their children are chronically truant under a bill the state Senate approved Thursday. The bill would let prosecutors charge parents with misdemeanors punishable by up to a year in jail and a $2,000 fine if their kids miss too much school. Judges could delay the punishment to parents as an incentive to get their children to class. It applies only to parents or guardians of children age 6 or older in kindergarten through eighth grade. Prosecutors would have to prove the parents failed to reasonably supervise and encourage the student to attend school. (more...)

Schwarzenegger's budget a blow to the poor

• 05-17-2010
• 

By Shane Goldmacher/Los Angeles Times

Proposing a budget that would eliminate the state's welfare-to-work program and most child care for the poor, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday outlined a stark vision of a California that would sharply limit aid to some of its poorest and neediest citizens. His $83.4-billion plan would also freeze funding for local schools, further cut state workers' pay and take away 60% of state money for local mental health programs. State parks and higher education are among the few areas the governor's proposal would spare. The proposal, which would not raise taxes, also relies on $3.4 billion in help from Washington — roughly half of what the governor sought earlier this year — to help close a budget gap now estimated at $19.1 billion. (more...)

Amid the havoc, K-12 relatively spared for now

• 05-17-2010
• 

Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess

In his revised budget, Gov. Schwarzenegger is not suggesting any more cuts to K-12 schools than he proposed in January. But that should provide little comfort or confidence to school districts. They’ll likely spend the summer watching a stalemate in Sacramento while worrying whether the school budgets they’ll set in June, using the governor’s revised state budget in May, will turn out to be too high. There’s a good chance they will be – even with the big spending cuts they’ll already include. There are ugly choice out there. If the Legislature agrees to Schwarzenegger’s plan to eliminate CalWORKS, the state’s primary welfare program, providing day care and living expenses for a million children, and cut state-subsidized child care for 142,000 children, then the state’s most vulnerable children will be thrown into chaos. (more...)

Educational attainment rises among all Americans

• 05-17-2010
• 

By Erik W. Robelen/Education Week

Americans across major racial and ethnic groups became better educated over the past decade, though significant gaps remain in the rates at which blacks and Hispanics earn a high school diploma or college degree, a new analysis of U.S. census data finds. The report from the Brookings Institution also highlights the continued “demographic transformation” of the United States, with nonwhites accounting for 83 percent of population growth between 2000 and 2008, a trend observers say heightens challenges for schools across the country. The percentages of both Hispanic and black adults, age 25 and older, who hold at least a high school diploma climbed by about 8 percentage points between 2000 and 2008, the Brookings analysis finds. For Hispanics, it reached 61 percent, and for African-Americans, 81 percent. (more...)

Kindergarten eligibility date is key to brighter academic picture

• 05-17-2010
• 

Editorial/Los Angeles Times

For better or worse, kindergarten has replaced the cookies, milk and naptime of old with reading lessons and numbers worksheets. It's hard enough for a 5-year-old to negotiate; teachers complain that those younger than 5 are especially likely to fall behind. That's why most states have changed their laws, requiring children to have turned 5 close to the start of the school year in order to enter kindergarten. California is one of a dozen that haven't; here, the cutoff date is Dec. 2. A bill by state Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) would do more than remedy the situation. By phasing in a Sept. 1 cutoff date, it would save California more than $9 billion over 15 years — an average of nearly $700 million annually during the years when it would be fully implemented. (more...)

R.I. district to rehire fired teachers

• 05-17-2010
• 

USA Today

A school district that gained the support of President Obama for promoting accountability after it fired all its teachers from a struggling school announced Sunday it reached an agreement with the union to return all the current staffers to their jobs. The two sides said a so-called transformation plan for Central Falls High School for the coming school year would allow the 87 teachers, guidance counselors, librarians and other staffers who were to lose their jobs at the end of this year to return without having to reapply. More than 700 people had already applied for the positions. The agreement also imposes a longer school day, more after-school tutoring and other changes. (more...)

In India, can schools offer path out of poverty?

• 05-17-2010
• 

By Nishant Dahiya/NPR

India recently passed a law providing children with the right to free education. But public schools are inadequate and child labor remains common. As a result, many parents turn to better-equipped -- but costly -- private schools. On the Grand Trunk Road that crosses South Asia, NPR explores the plight of young people in this series. India has some stellar educational institutions. The government-supported Indian Institutes of Technology churn out thousands of world-class engineers every year. The fields of medicine and business have similar elite colleges. Hundreds of thousands more young men and women graduate from colleges and universities just a rung or two below in terms of excellence. Yet as students toil in classrooms and coaching centers, desperate to get into these elite institutes, even larger numbers of Indian youths barely get a start. (more...)

Calif. bill would block Texas textbook changes

• 05-17-2010
• 

By Robin Hindery/San Jose Mercury News

California may soon take a stand against proposed changes to social studies textbooks ordered by the Texas school board, as a way to prevent them from being incorporated in California texts. Legislation by Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, seeks to protect the nation's largest public school population from the revised social studies curriculum approved in March by the Texas Board of Education. Critics say if the changes are incorporated into textbooks, they will be historically inaccurate and dismissive of the contributions of minorities. The Texas recommendations, which face a final vote by the Republican-dominated board on May 21, include adding language saying the country's Founding Fathers were guided by Christian principles and a new section on "the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s." (more...)

South Bay schools relieved, anxious over budget cuts

• 05-17-2010
• 

By Sharon Noguchi/San Jose Mercury News

Buffeted by successive years of budget reductions, school officials breathed a surprised sigh of relief Friday after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger suggested sparing education from deeper cuts. "I'm glad it's not worse," said Ann Jones, chief budget official of San Jose Unified School District, even as she recited the list of cuts the district already plans for next year: larger high-school class ratios of 33-to-1, fewer administrators and five days of furloughs for every employee. "I don't know how we could have responded to anything deeper than what he's already proposed." In his revised budget released Friday, the governor appeared to cut slightly more than $2 billion from education, with most of the new cuts aimed at child-care programs for the working poor and job-training programs. (more...)

SDUSD schools make API test score gains

• 05-17-2010
• 

By San Diego News Network

One San Diego Unified high school, one middle school and 18 elementary schools ranked among the top 10 percent of schools statewide, according to public school rankings released Thursday by the state Department of Education. The state ranks schools academically on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 representing the top 10 percent, to determine a school’s standing compared to other schools statewide. The rankings are based on the school’s base Academic Performance Index, which is calculated for elementary, middle and high schools based on results of the Standardized Testing and Reporting Program and California High School Exit Exam. Because of the nature of the system, 10 percent of schools statewide will always be in each decile. (more...)

Layoffs take toll on teachers

• 05-17-2010
• 

By Stacy Brandt and Craig Shultz/North County Times

Over the past two months, thousands of educators in the region received layoff notices and ---- though most of those notices have been rescinded ---- hundreds of teachers from Temecula to Oceanside are still poised to lose their jobs. Many of those educators are temporary teachers and, because they're employed through one-year contracts, districts don't count those cuts as layoffs. More than 300 temporary teachers are being let go in North County districts, officials estimate. Only a few districts are cutting permanent teachers including San Marcos Unified, which is laying off 40 such workers, and Encinitas Union, where the number is 26. (more...)

Online books arrive; schools study ways to use the free texts

• 05-17-2010
• 

By Canan Tasci/Inland Valley Daily Bulletin

Free digital textbooks may provide some of California's cash-strapped schools with relief from having to buy expensive school books. More than 30 standards-aligned digital textbooks are available for high school classrooms as part of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Digital Textbook Initiative. The first-in-the-nation, free initiative, digital resources - which were submitted by textbook publishers, teachers and other experts - were reviewed against the state's academic content standards to give teachers confidence that the materials are appropriate for classrooms. "We're excited about this, because we know the future is going to be online and digital learning and textbooks, especially in the classroom," said Tim Ward, assistant superintendent of instruction for the Ontario-based Chaffey Joint Union High School District. (more...)

Test scores keep improving, even if slowly

• 05-17-2010
• 

Editorial/Fresno Bee

There were no real surprises in the latest Academic Performance Index ratings of San Joaquin Valley school districts. Most Valley schools continue to struggle academically, although some are making improvements in classroom performance. The majority of Valley schools ranked in the bottom half of schools in California. That's a trend that must be reversed if our children are going to be able to compete in the California job market. Standardized test scores generally follow the poverty line, and the Valley's poor demographics are among the reasons that our schools do poorly on the state assessments. But that cannot be used as an excuse, and Valley schools districts must find creative methods of improving student performance. (more...)

Teachers union tells Steinberg to halt education cuts

• 05-18-2010
• 

By Susan Ferriss/Sacramento Bee

 A fresh billboard heading into Sacramento  off Interstate 5 showcases the California Teachers Association's dissatisfaction with a chief ally in the state Capitol: Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg. "Dear Senator Steinberg," reads the pink billboard, which appeared over the weekend. "Stop the blame. Stop the cuts." The state's largest teachers union is also launching a direct-mail campaign to exert pressure on Steinberg as he gears up for negotiations with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and other legislators over how to address the state's $19.1 billion budget deficit.  "Please stop the devastating cuts that have increased class sizes, shut down libraries and eliminated art, music and technical training classes," the mailing to voters in Steinberg's Sacramento district says. (more...)

Group links 4th-grade reading proficiency, national success

• 05-18-2010
• 

By Greg Toppo/USA TODAY

If educators want to shrink the number of students who drop out of high school each year, they must greatly increase the number who can read proficiently by the time they're in fourth grade, a key non-profit children's advocacy group says in a new report.  The findings, out today from the Baltimore-based Annie E. Casey Foundation, echoes research on reading proficiency going back decades, but it's the first to draw a direct line between reading and the nation's long-term economic well-being.  "The bottom line is that if we don't get dramatically more children on track as proficient readers, the United States will lose a growing and essential proportion of its human capital to poverty," the authors say.  (more...)

Now or never to sign Race to the Top MOU

• 05-18-2010
• 

Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess

A 19-page memorandum of understanding for signing up for Round 2 of Race to the Top went out Monday.  District, county offices of education and charter schools will have only until Wednesday to indicate whether they’re in or out.  This time, there will be no coaxing or convincing, with a wink or a nod, that districts can always back out later if they don’t like the terms. This time, the state’s not going all out to build a big tent of participants at the sacrifice of strong commitments. This time, superintendents, local union presidents and presidents of the boards of trustees should sign the dotted line only if they’re  prepared to agree to a specific and lengthy set of reforms. (more...)

Is stimulus funding helping save K-12 jobs?

• 05-18-2010
• 

Blog by Mc Nelly Torres/Edmoney.org

The White House announced recently that its $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funded 682,779 jobs during the first quarter of 2010, including teachers, cops and road construction workers.  The figure reflects the number of people whose jobs were directly paid for with stimulus funds, a number reached after assessing more than 179,000 reports filed by state, local and corporate recipients.  But a recent report conducted by the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington in Seattle, suggests that education jobs remain in an unprecedented decline. The analysis, "Schools in Crisis: Making Ends Meet," by Marguerite Roza, Chris Lozier and Cristina Sepe, found that while federal stimulus dollars have prevented states from making massive cuts to the education workforce, it had not helped in creating jobs. (more...)

Don't fall for Arnold's wedge

• 05-18-2010
• 

By Robert Cruickshank/California Progress Report

Facing a growing revolt over his previous budget cuts, including the devastating cuts to public schools, Arnold Schwarzenegger's May Revise 2010 takes a very different approach to insane and reckless spending cuts than was proposed back in 2009. Understanding this difference is key to defeating him.  In 2009, Arnold's cuts hit everyone, and hit everyone hard. Well, everyone except the rich, who Arnold believes should be immune from being asked to contribute to solving the budget crisis. The middle-class saw services cut, particularly schools. State parks were slated for closure, and local government funds were stolen. (more...)

Students suffer when deportation tears families apart

• 05-18-2010
• 

By Ana Tintocalis/KPBS

Three teenage boys hang out after a long day at school. They're getting ready for dinner at a friend's house. The conversation revolves around girls and the upcoming weekend. The three friends go to the same high school in San Diego. They have something else in common – their family members are undocumented immigrants. “It's my mom, my dad, and myself,” said Jonathon, an 18-year-old who asked his family name not be revealed for fear of getting caught. His black hair compliments his light green eyes. Jonathon's parents crossed the border from Mexico when he was just a small boy. He's lived in San Diego most of his life. Now that Jonathon's a teenager, his parents warn him not to tell his friends or teachers about his status. His family and relatives have become pseudo-informants for one another, helping each other avoid certain areas and places where authorities might be. (more...)

Palos Verdes Peninsula district courting transfer permit students

• 05-18-2010
• 

By Melissa Pamer/Los Angeles Daily Breeze

In an effort to raise revenue and reverse a trend of declining enrollment, the Palos Verdes Peninsula school district has begun aggressively marketing a policy allowing parents who work on The Hill to send their children to the area's high-achieving campuses. Those who are employed at least 15 hours per week within the district's boundaries can apply for a transfer permit for their child. District officials have in recent weeks reached out to the four local city councils, the chamber of commerce, private preschools, golf courses, and Terranea Resort, which opened nearly a year ago and is expected to provide the bulk of the new students, said assistant superintendent Susan Liberati. (more...)

The teachers’ unions’ last stand

• 05-18-2010
• 

By Steven Brill/New York Times

Michael Mulgrew is an affable former Brooklyn vocational-high-school teacher who took over last year as head of New York City’s United Federation of Teachers when his predecessor, Randi Weingarten, moved to Washington to run the national American Federation of Teachers. Over breakfast in March, we talked about a movement spreading across the country to hold public-school teachers accountable by compensating, promoting or even removing them according to the results they produce in class, as measured in part by student test scores. Mulgrew’s 165-page union contract takes the opposite approach. It not only specifies everything that teachers will do and will not do during a six-hour-57 ½-minute workday but also requires that teachers be paid based on how long they have been on the job. (more...)

LAUSD official hopes to block more layoffs

• 05-18-2010
• 

By Connie Llanos/Los Angeles Daily News

A Los Angeles Unified School district official hopes to block further layoffs at local schools based only on seniority and is expected to introduce plans today that would launch negotiations with labor organization to end the state-mandated and union contract required practice. The move follows an injunction issued last week that blocked further layoffs at three South Los Angeles middle schools during the 2010-11 school year, this after civil rights groups filed a class-action lawsuit in February against the district and the state of California over job cuts at these campuses. The groups said that the high numbers of less experienced teachers working at these inner-city schools would result in high turn-over that would deprive students at the campuses to their right to an equal education. (more...)

San Marino turns to private donations to avoid teacher layoffs

• 05-18-2010
• 

By Brian Charles/Pasadena Star News

With state education funding cuts claiming teaching jobs across California, San Marino Unified School District is turning to $3 million in private donations to help save its teachers. "We call ourselves a semi-private school district," said Gary Woods, San Marino school superintendent. San Marino Unified has become synonymous with high test scores and high parcel taxes. Property owners pay $1,090 in parcel taxes to the schools. With a private donation drive raising $3 million to subsidize schools, nearly 40 percent of the district money now comes from sources other than the state of California, Woods said. "In San Marino, we believe it costs $8,900 to educate a student," he said. "We're expecting to receive $4,600. (more...)

Going back to school: Fired staff is rehired

• 05-18-2010
• 

By Katie Zezima/New York Times

All the staff members of Central Falls High School, who were fired in February as part of a turnaround plan for the chronically underperforming school, will be able to keep their jobs under an agreement ratified Monday. The accord, which the Central Falls Teachers Union overwhelmingly approved Monday afternoon, resolved months of tension and negotiation between the union and the schools superintendent, Frances Gallo. Among other things, it calls for a longer school day, more in-depth teacher evaluations and mandatory after-school tutoring for each student. “The agreement provides for supports for students and tools for teachers that teachers will need to help our students succeed,” said Jane Sessums, the president of the union, at a news conference with Dr. Gallo and the schools commissioner, Deborah Gist. (more...)

Budget Cuts Mean Thousands of Teachers Lost

• 05-19-2010
• 

By Marty Hittelman/California Progress Report

As President of California Federation of Teachers (CFT), I vow to continue CFT’s campaign, the “Fight for California’s Future,” as an alternative to the governor’s position that we have no choice but to further reduce important social programs. Lost tax revenue due to loopholes for the rich and large corporations is costing the state's general fund billions of dollars every year. Governor Schwarzenegger is leaving a clear legacy – a legacy of saying one thing and doing the opposite. In January, he claimed he was not going to cut education, and in May he proposes to cut it by $2 billion. How does that protect education?  This governor has made more than $17 billion in cuts to education over the last two years.  Tens of thousands of teachers are being laid off. Class sizes are rising, school years are being shortened, new textbooks are not being purchased, and nurses, bus drivers and other essential personnel and programs are being eliminated. (more...)

Schools 4 $Sale: Inquire at U.S. DOE

• 05-19-2010
• 

Column by Diane Ravitch/Education Week

Dear Deborah,  You and I are old enough to remember heated debates about what democracy in education means. Some argued that it had to do with the governance of education, with the ability of the public to participate in decisions affecting their children. Some maintained that it had to do with the provision of a high-quality education in every school, so that the education available to those with the least resources was as good as the education available to those with the most resources. There were many other definitions, but this much is clear: The argument did not center on whether to have good public schools, but how to make them better for all. Now we are at a new juncture. The Obama administration has resolved that "school reform" requires privatization of as many public schools as possible.  (more...)

US education chief warns 300K teacher jobs could be lost

• 05-19-2010
• 

By David Abel/Boston Globe

US Education Secretary Arne Duncan warned today that as many as 300,000 teachers nationwide could lose their jobs this year, including 4,000 teachers in Massachusetts, if Congress doesn’t provide additional money to aid struggling states and municipalities.  Duncan, the keynote speaker at Lesley University’s commencement ceremony at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, said he and President Obama are “deeply concerned” about the potential job losses and cited the recent layoffs of 480 teachers in Brockton – more than one-third of the district’s teaching staff – as an example of what could happen elsewhere in the country.  “If Congress does not take swift action now, millions of children will experience cutbacks through increased class size, reductions in class time, cuts to early childhood programs, and reduced course offerings, extracurricular activities, and summer school,” he said. (more...)

Massachusetts leads, California lags

• 05-19-2010
• 

Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess

California likes to be linked with Massachusetts as states with the nation’s most rigorous academic standards.  Call it bragging by association.  A big difference, though, is that the Bay State is also high-achieving – near the top of the National Assessment of Educational Progress state rankings, among other measures ­– while California bumps along year after year near the bottom.  The two states’ approaches to evaluating common-core standards, being developed by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers,  are revealing as well – and tell  a lot about how seriously the two states go about deciding education policy.  While the concept of common math and English language arts K-12 standards and accompanying assessments is compelling, every state should be taking a hard look at the proposals and especially the cost implications of new curricula, assessments and textbooks. (more...)

Scoring Race to the Top: A Look Behind the Curtain

• 05-19-2010
• 

Column by Steven Brill/Education Week

In an article I wrote for The New York Times Magazine about Race to the Top that is being published this Sunday and which has just been posted on the Times website, I only touch briefly on issues related to administering the contest. But readers of Education Week might be interested in more detail of what I discovered in finding, as the article puts it, that “good intentions can’t guarantee perfect execution in a federal bureaucracy.  When the federal government gives out billions of dollars in grants, it can’t be done based on the gut feel of some policy wonks, however honest and well-meaning, that this state deserves it and that one doesn’t. So before he left the government last fall, U.S. Department of Education adviser and Race to the Top architect Jon Schnur recruited Joanne Weiss, who has an impressive résumé in both the nonprofit and business sectors running education-related ventures, to create a rigorous process for giving out the money by using vetters who would be screened rigorously for conflicts of interest. (more...)

Aligning Standards and Curriculum Begets Questions

• 05-19-2010
• 

By Catherine Gewertz/Education Week

As the draft common standards undergo their final revisions, many minds are turning to the question of how to put them into practice in classrooms.  But as a recent meeting of leading educators and policymakers illustrates, that query generates far more questions than it does clear-cut answers.  At a two-day gathering in Washington last month, more than two dozen experts began to explore the issues they consider vital to creating good curriculum materials aligned to the common standards. The meeting was convened by the National Governors Association, which, along with the Council of Chief State School Officers, is leading the Common Core State Standards Initiative. (more...)

For-Profit Companies And Public Education

• 05-19-2010
• 

Expert blog by National Journal

According to a report by the Center for Public Education, for-profit education management organizations run about 16 percent of charter schools and are behind the growth in "virtual" charter schools, which operate online. For-profit EMOs have increased the number of virtual charter schools they run from 13 in the 2003-2004 school year to 50 in 2008-2009. With states strapped for cash, for-profit EMOs could be a part of the financial solution, given that they draw in private investment and have a track record of leveraging technology in ways that reduce the cost of education. Should more public school districts look to partner with for-profit EMOs? Does making a profit present a conflict of interest in serving the educational needs of children? (more...)

This schools tax is a bargain

• 05-19-2010
• 

Column by Steve Lopez/Los Angeles Times

Good morning. May I have your attention?  Go ahead, enjoy your caramel macchiato while we chat, or is it an iced cinnamon dolce latte?  I'm not going to kid you, folks. As my colleagues on the editorial board pointed out last week, there are lots of good reasons to vote against Measure E on the June ballot, the temporary $100 annual parcel tax that would raise $92.5 million a year during each of the four years it would be in effect for Los Angeles Unified schools.  For starters, times are tough, and people don't want to dig into their pockets right now, especially since there's no citizen oversight written into the measure. (more...)

This tax gets a solid 'F

• 05-19-2010
• 

Editorial/Long Beach Press-Telegram

The voters inside the boundaries of the Los Angeles Unified School District have been generous to schools.  Very generous - billions-of-dollars generous. In the last 13 years, property owners have taken on $20 billion worth of debt in the form of five bond measures to build schools. The debt comes due twice a year in property tax bills and will continue well into the next two decades.  But that generosity has a limit, and LAUSD may have reached it with the four-year, $100-a-lot parcel tax on the June8 ballot. School officials make the case that education has taken a huge hit in the economic crisis. No doubt it has, and it will continue to do so before the economy improves.  (more...)

O.C. schools finalize more than 1,500 teacher cuts

• 05-19-2010
• 

By Fermin Leal and Scott Martindale/Orange County Register

Orange County's public school districts will slash at least 1,546 jobs for teachers, counselors, administrators and other certificated employees.  That's 17 percent less than the amount targeted in March, when districts issued preliminary layoff notices.  State law requires school districts to issue final notices by May 15 to teachers and other certificated staff.  Many districts have also issued preliminary notices to classified employees – secretaries, aides, bus drivers and other classified employees. Districts have targeted the elimination of least 388 classified jobs. All job cuts would become effective at the end of the current school year. (more...)

School Buses Now Take Wireless Internet For A Ride

• 05-19-2010
• 

By Peter O'Dowd/NPR

Each school day, bus driver J.J. Johnson picks up his high school passengers outside a local fairground in southern Arizona. Thus begins the unique journey to Empire High School.  The bus ride sweeps through the sparse high desert near Sonoita, a short drive from the U.S.-Mexico border. The Vail School District covers more than 400 square miles, and these students can easily spend more than 2 1/2 hours on a school bus every day.  But since November, the high school students aboard the buses have enjoyed a distraction, or a study aid, depending on the moment: access to wireless Internet. (more...)

Schools, PTA sue California over education funding

• 05-20-2010
• 

By Sharon Noguchi/San Jose Mercury News

Claiming California's level of school funding violates the state Constitution's guarantee to make education a priority, a coalition of schools, officials and the state PTA filed suit today against the state of California. The suit, which asks the courts to scrap the financing system and direct the governor and Legislature to create one that is "sound, stable and sufficient," could prove to be California's most significant school litigation in decades. "Schools have been cut to the bone for the last two years. These cuts are just the tip of the iceberg," said Frank Pugh, president of the California School Boards Association, one of the plaintiffs.  (more...)

Also:  Los Angeles Times * Educated Guess

California school reform shouldn't look like this

• 05-20-2010
• 

By Jakada Imani/California Progress Report

Jakada Imani is the Executive Director of The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, a non-profit strategy and action center working for justice, opportunity and peace in urban America.

The California State Department of Education recently released student performance rankings based on standardized tests. In the suburban Pleasanton school district, every single school scored in the top 20 percent statewide.  In the city of Oakland, however, 50% of our schools received the lowest possible rank.  On the heel of these new rankings, the California budget was released- cutting school budgets to the bone. Additionally the Governor is championing Senate Bill 955 which would attack the rights of school employees to have a due process in firings and would disregard seniority in layoffs. Though SB955 is being portrayed as good for low income communities of color, in truth it's just a divide-and-conquer strategy to attack unions and shift the debate away from the schools' lack of resources as the root of our educational problems.  (more...)

Change the conversation on teaching

• 05-20-2010
• 

Blog by Deborah Meier/Education Week

Dear Diane,  Reading The New York Times Magazine pieces on medicine is always intriguing. Education and medicine are often compared—in ways that remind me how little our frame for considering teaching is realistic. The other night I heard several very good "educators" on C-SPAN answering questions from the Labor and Education Committee of the Senate. Both the AFT's Randi Weingarten and Michigan State's Deborah Ball were sharp, clear, and convincing. But...  They, too, talked about what we can learn from other professions, focusing primarily on the preparation that law and medicine offer prospective candidates. Yes, and we can learn from the preparation of electricians and carpenters, too. (more...)

Public schools need a bailout

• 05-20-2010
• 

Opinion by Randi Weingarten/Wall Street Journal

Ms. Weingarten is president of the American Federation of Teachers.

A number of sectors of the economy appear to be bouncing back. Housing starts, home foreclosures and job creation all show movement in the right direction. But the fiscal situation in most states will not improve for quite some time. And, for public schools, the coming year promises to be the worst yet of the economic downturn.  Years of budget cuts in the vast majority of school districts already have taken their toll, with sharp reductions in after-school programs, academic enrichment and other so-called extras. Most states have exhausted their federal stimulus funds, and many states long ago tapped out their financial reserves. School districts now are cutting into bone, eliminating classroom teachers and core academic offerings like foreign languages.  (more...)

Teachers facing weakest market in years

• 05-20-2010
• 

By Winnie Hu/New York Times

In the month since Pelham Memorial High School in Westchester County advertised seven teaching jobs, it has been flooded with 3,010 applications from candidates as far away as California. The Port Washington District on Long Island is sorting through 3,620 applications for eight positions — the largest pool the superintendent has seen in his 41-year career.  Even hard-to-fill specialties are no longer so hard to fill. Jericho, N.Y., has 963 people to choose from for five spots in special education, more than twice as many as in past years. In Connecticut, chemistry and physics jobs in Hartford that normally attract no more than 5 candidates have 110 and 51, respectively.  (more...)

School Beat: Arnold strikes again

• 05-20-2010
• 

By Lisa Schiff/San Francisco Beyond Chron

Governor Schwarzenegger submitted his revised budget May 14th and the only good thing about it is that it’s his last one. The “Governator” has made one final effort to destroy as many social programs as possible including public education where he is cutting the K-12 budget anywhere from just under $900 million to $1.5 billion, depending on who’s counting. And even with higher education, although he technically kept his bizarre pledge to increase funding for this sector, he did so at the cost of increased student fees, which can only reduce the overall effect.  The California Budget Project (CBP) has provided an immediate “quick and dirty” analysis of the Governor’s proposal, which they are updating regularly.  (more...)

CalPERS retreats on request for more taxpayer funds

• 05-20-2010
• 

By Marc Lifsher/Los Angeles Times

Facing political fire, the state's largest public pension fund Wednesday retreated for a month from a plan to approve a $700-million increase in taxpayer contributions it gets from the state and about 1,000 school districts. State Treasurer Bill Lockyer, a member of the California Public Employees' Retirement System board, said the fund needs to assess the consequences of the huge hike on California at a time when the state faces an estimated $19-billion budget deficit.  Putting an additional burden on the state budget "seems to me to be imprudent," the treasurer said. "This is something we need to think about more."  The board agreed and postponed the vote to its next regular meeting in June — and then may vote to postpone action for a year.  (more...)

LAUSD insists: federal aid

• 05-20-2010
• 

By Yolanda Arevalos/La Opinión (text in Spanish)

Again in a hurry.  The Los Angeles Unified School District is working against the clock in order to ready its Race to the Top Application. Even though California ranked 27 among the 41 states that submitted applications, not even making the list of 15 finalists, there are still $3.5 billion dollars available.  California might be able to get $700 millon dollars, and the LAUSD, $150 million of these.  "This time we have changed our strategy and we have the support of specialized consultants that are helping us through the process," said Bonnie Reiss, California State Secretary, not hiding her disappointment over the district's poor results in the first phase.  (more...)

Save Our Schools rally protests further funding cuts to education

• 05-20-2010
• 

By Tracy Garcia/Whittier Daily News

About 100 school employees, trustees, parents and students turned out Wednesday for a Save Our Schools rally at El Rancho High, one of about 35 events statewide intended to protest proposed cuts to education.  It was organized by a new statewide network of school supporters called CAUSE, or California Advocates United to Save Education, which is pushing for legislators to promise to protect education funding during budget talks.  "We're trying to take a proactive approach," said Josie Tafoya, a classified staffer at the 3,800-student South Whittier School District who helped organize the El Rancho rally.  "Schools were guaranteed funding through 2010-11. And if our legislators renege on that, we have to hold them accountable," Tafoya said. "If the schools aren't fully funded, not only does it cause losses in staff and teachers, but programs and services for students." (more...)

To fight 'dropout factories,' school program starts young

• 05-20-2010
• 

By Greg Toppo/USA TODAY

The day has barely begun here at Feltonville School of Arts and Sciences, a middle school in the city's northeast corner, and Adam Jackson already is using his cellphone, hoping to get a parent on the other end.  The north Philadelphia native, 22, is an unlikely truant officer in an experiment to get more city kids to graduate from high school.  Moments earlier, as he wandered through the sixth-grade homeroom he's assigned to, Jackson noted that two students were absent. As the group made its way to the first class of the day, he slipped into a quiet courtyard, popped his cellphone from a belt case and traced his finger down a list of phone numbers.  (more...)

Flawed Assumptions Distort Education Funding Debate

• 05-21-2010
• 

By UCLA IDEA Staff

Attempting to close a $19.1 billion deficit, Gov. Schwarzenegger released his revised budget proposal last week. Two false assumptions are likely to undermine the debates and negotiations over money designated for California schools. First, it is being implied or stated outright that that the funding proposal will not further impact education. Second, many people don’t know or ignore the fact that support for education includes much more than what flows directly to schools. (more...)

Obama-era education policy

• 05-21-2010
• 

Commentary by By Ronald E. Chennault/Education Week

One of the education innovations President Barack Obama seems to be enamored of is the extension of the school day or school year (or both). Whether he means providing more after-school programs, creating more learning opportunities during the traditional summer break, or literally adding hours to the school day and days to the academic year is not clear, though he appears to be in support of all of the above.  But what the president actually means matters, because requiring students to spend more time in school—even more than was envisioned over 25 years ago when A Nation at Risk promoted the idea—is a policy we in fact know very little about. And what we do know suggests that adding more time is not worth the effort. (more...)

A second school suit is in the chute

• 05-21-2010
• 

Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess

If one major school suit weren’t enough for the governor, another is heading his way.  The Campaign for Quality Education and other groups representing low-income students and their families sent Gov. Schwarzenegger a letter on Thursday, which he will no doubt ignore, threatening to file their own lawsuit unless he acts immediately “to provide all California public school students with a new school finance system that sufficiently and equitably supports its public schools.”  The nine-page letter which reads like a legal complaint that lacks only a stamp on the envelope, documents calls for action over the years and the efforts by community groups to lobby for it. (more...)

Schools, students sue state over funding

• 05-21-2010
• 

By Jill Tucker and Marisa Lagos/San Francisco Chronicle

More than 60 children and nine school districts across California filed a historic lawsuit Thursday, arguing that elected officials have failed in their constitutional obligation to support public schools.  The case has the potential to completely overhaul how, and how much, money flows into schools.  In short, the case seeks to force the state Legislature and governor to fix a broken education funding system - one that has failed to take into account what it actually costs to educate a child, plaintiffs' attorneys said. (more...)

Also: Sacramento Bee * San Jose Mercury News * New York Times blog * Washington Post blog * Education Week * Business Week * California Progress Report * Riverside Press-Enterprise *  Ventura County Star * San Gabriel Valley Tribune * KPCC

How to combine learning, assessment, accountability

• 05-21-2010
• 

Guest blog by Lisa Guisbond and Monty Neill/Washington Post

Lisa Guisbond and Monty Neill are with the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, known as FairTest, a non-profit organization that works to end the flaws and misuse of standardized testing. 

Politicians sometimes trot out this homespun expression to show they understand how frustrated many students, parents and teachers are about the way the current fixation on standardized testing crowds out time for deeper learning.   It’s a great irony of the current accountability movement that policies like No Child Left Behind starve our children of time to think, create and learn in order to measure them with simplistic tests.  In FairTest’s previous Answer Sheet guest blog, we described a way to weigh and fatten the pig at the same time. The idea is to replace standardized testing as the main measure, the tool that rules school, with classroom-based measures of student growth. (more...)

Schools bailout package should have strings attached

• 05-21-2010
• 

Editorial/Los Angeles Times

The stirrings of better economic times have not reached state budgets and certainly haven't led to increased or even stable revenue for schools. And if the country is going to continue to invest in jobs as part of the economic stimulus, it only makes sense for some of those to be the jobs of teachers. We have strong reservations about the $23-billion Keep Our Educators Working Act, expected to reach the Senate floor by the beginning of next week, but those are outweighed by the alternative scenario in which millions of students around the country would lose their teachers.  The new package would come on top of $54 billion in stabilization funds given to schools last year in addition to Title I and other federal education spending. That money was supposed to last schools for two academic years, but unions exerted heavy pressure on school districts to spend all or most of it in the first year in the hopes that more money would show up by the next year.

(more...)

Californians say don't cut our schools: Poll

• 05-21-2010
• 

By Rupa Dev/New America Media

An overwhelming majority of Californians think not enough state funding is going to their public schools and that K-12 education is the area they most want to protect from spending cuts, according to a recent survey.   “Californians and Education,” an annual survey released by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), found 62 percent of Californians polled who think their local schools aren’t receiving enough state funding. That’s a 10 percent increase from last year’s survey.  “This year, we are seeing growing concern in what’s happenings with funding and resource issues in California and how this will affect local schools,” said Sonja Petek of the PPIC.  (more...)

District asks parents for $225 a child to keep classes small

• 05-21-2010
• 

By Jaime Lynn Fletcher/Orange County Register

The Los Alamitos Unified School District is again asking parents to donate $225 a child to lower class sizes as the district fights budget constraints that officials say may threaten the quality of education.  This is the second year the district has launched the fundraising campaign. Last year's efforts raised $70,000 to go toward keeping class sizes low from kindergarten through high school.School officials say smaller class sizes means more personal attention and fewer discipline problems in the classroom, among other benefits.  The state over the last two years has cut $18.5 million from LAUSD's budget, school officials reported. The district this year is working with about a $73 million budget. School officials expect to generate a little more than $69 million in revenue, leaving a $4 million gap.  (more...)

Reading test scores in LAUSD are mixed

• 05-21-2010
• 

By Connie Llanos/Los Angeles Daily News

Despite gains made over the last seven years, Los Angeles Unified's fourth- and eighth-graders are still among the nation's worst readers, with test scores that lag behind most major urban districts, according to a report released Thursday.  The Nation's Report Card, released by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, shows that LAUSD scored behind those in New York, Chicago and Boston - but ahead of Detroit - on tests that measure reading comprehension, retention and vocabulary.  LAUSD officials acknowledged the need to improve on the tests, which are administered by the U.S. Department of Education.  "We still have a significant amount of work to do but we could look at the glass as half empty, because we're at the bottom of the barrel," said Judy Elliot, the district's chief academic officer. (more...)

Schools won't race to the top -- again

• 05-21-2010
• 

Blog by Emily Alpert/Voice of San Diego

This is probably not a big surprise, but San Diego Unified is not going to take part in the California application for the second round of Race to the Top, a competition for more federal money for schools.  San Diego Unified was the biggest California school district to sit out the first round, saying it had too little information about what reforms would be demanded of it if it signed on. That decision angered some community groups and parents who said it had passed up a chance for money and change.  The competition pits states against each other to convince the federal government that their innovations and reforms are worth investing in. It also prizes school systems that link teacher evaluation to student test scores, something that doesn't fly with most members of the San Diego school board. For some background on the federal competition, check out this New York Times Magazine article about it.  (more...)

Little Rock District files suit on charter schools

• 05-21-2010
• 

Education Week (free subscription required)

The Little Rock School District has asked a federal judge to enforce an agreement by the state that it would not hinder desegregation efforts in Pulaski County's three school districts.  The motion filed Wednesday in federal court claims the state violated that agreement — which also provides those three districts with millions of dollars of extra school money each year — by allowing charter schools to operate in the county.  The district argues that the state has permitted the charter schools without considering the effect they have on desegregation efforts in traditional public school.  (more...)

Education groups set forth principles for TIF (Teacher Incentive Fund)

• 05-21-2010
• 

By Stephen Sawchuk/Education Week

On the heels of the opening-up of $437 million in competitive federal dollars to support performance-based compensation systems, three national groups representing teachers, district administrators, and school boards have put forward a set of guidelines to aid members who choose to seek the funding.  The National Education Association, the American Association of School Administrators, and the National School Boards Association put together 11 principles, which stress cooperation among the parties in the development and implementation of the plans. “We knew from the few past examples that if you don’t collaborate with administration, teachers, and the board, you end up with a product that isn’t going to work,” said Anne L. Bryant, the executive director of the NSBA.   (more...)

State again denied education stimulus funds

• 05-24-2010
• 

By Louis Freedberg/California Watch

It was bad enough that California, with a population of 36.9 million, was rejected by the Obama administration in its request for hundreds of millions of dollars in federal education Race to the Top funds.  In that grant competition, Delaware and Tennessee, with populations of only 885,000 and 6.2 million respectively, were the winners, walking away with $600 million between the two of them.  Now, California's application for improving its longitudinal data system to track students from pre-kindergarten through high school, college and into the workplace has also been given the cold shoulder. The system would have allowed the state to assess the effectiveness of its education programs, as well as monitor the progress of students through the entire education system. (more...)

Lawsuit is risky, but it may help focus school funding

• 05-24-2010
• 

Column by Peter Schrag/Sacramento Bee

Nobody should be surprised by the big school funding lawsuit that hit the state Thursday – Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, its chief target, least of all. The state, never generous to begin with, has been stiffing the schools for years, and its children – and its future – along with them.  California now has among the largest classes in the country and, for many, a shorter school year. Compared with nearly all other states, there are fewer teachers per student, and fewer counselors, nurses and librarians. Compared with past years, themselves never rich in educational opportunities, there are fewer programs in the arts and music, less summer school. (more...)

California punishes school kids to balance budget, groups say

• 05-24-2010
• 

Courthouse News Service

California makes "absolutely no attempt" to see that its school funding is adequate to meet the goals it claims to have set, nor even to determine how much that would cost, nor to provide school districts with the money they need to do it, 60 students, nine school districts and parents, school boards and administrators say. "Just to reach the national average, California would need an additional 104,000 teachers," according to the constitutional complaint in Alameda County Court.   "(T)he state violates the constitutional requirement that it shall 'first set apart' the funding necessary to support the education program," the plaintiffs say, citing the California Constitution. "Far from making education its first priority, in recent years the state has cut school funding as a primary means to balance its budget.  (more...)

School turnaround models draw bipartisan concern

• 05-24-2010
• 

By Alyson Klein/Education Week (subscription required)

The Obama administration’s prescription for turning around low-performing schools—particularly the models districts must follow in making those improvements—is raising eyebrows on Capitol Hill, as Congress gears up for reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle say the four models for intervening in perennially foundering schools spelled out in the U.S. Department of Education’s regulations for the $3.5 billion School Improvement Grant program are inflexible, particularly for schools in isolated, rural areas, and don’t put enough emphasis on factors such as the need for community and parental involvement. (more...)

Mr. Secretary, listen to us teachers

• 05-24-2010
• 

Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess

Today, an Oakland Unified science teacher-coach and 11 other teachers will get what they’ve been seeking for six months: the ear of  U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.  The dozen teachers will have a 30-minute teleconference with Duncan to state some of the views they’ve been making on the Facebook page Teachers’ Letters to Obama, which Anthony Cody of Oakland started six months ago out of frustration with the directions that Duncan and President Obama were taking in education. Cody’s hoping this will be the first of a series of dialogues with Duncan, whom he says needs to hear more from teachers in the field.  Cody, who also has a column in EdWeek’s Teacher Magazine, posted an open letter to Obama last fall. That was followed up with 107 letters from teachers that were sent to the White House. They made it as far as the bowels of the Ed Department. (more...)

Cash-strapped districts cutting summer school

• 05-24-2010
• 

Education Week

Amber Bramble had to scramble to arrange summer plans for her 5- and 7-year-old daughters after their suburban Kansas City school district gutted its summer school program this spring.  Her daughters were among about 2,500 of the Raymore-Peculiar district's 6,000 students who enrolled for free last summer in a program that combined traditional subjects with enrichment classes like music. But with state funding uncertain, the district decided to focus this year on about 800 students who either need to make up credits to graduate or are struggling to keep up with classmates.  Across the country, districts are cutting summer school because it's just too expensive to keep. The cuts started when the recession began and have worsened, affecting more children and more essential programs that help struggling students. (more...)

Colorado education law may mark a national shift

• 05-24-2010
• 

By Eliza Krigman/Los Angeles Times

landmark Colorado law that ties teacher evaluations to the progress of their students on achievement tests could help build momentum for a national movement that seeks to overhaul how instructors' tenure and pay is earned, education leaders say.  Colorado's law will hold teachers accountable for whether their students are learning, with 50% of a teacher's evaluation based on students' academic growth as measured partially by test scores. In California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is pushing legislation that will change the way teachers are evaluated, but its prospects are less certain; the state's teachers union strongly opposes it.  (more...)

Texas Board approves new social studies curriculum

• 05-24-2010
• 

NPR

Texas schoolchildren will be required to learn that the words "separation of church and state" aren't in the Constitution and evaluate whether the United Nations undermines U.S. sovereignty under new social studies curriculum.  In final votes late Friday, conservatives on the State Board of Education strengthened requirements on teaching the Judeo-Christian influences of the nation's Founding Fathers and required that the U.S. government be referred to as a "constitutional republic" rather than "democratic."  The board approved the new standards with two 9-5 votes along party lines after months of ideological haggling and debate that drew attention beyond Texas. (more...)

Bad standards: Not just in Texas

• 05-24-2010
• 

Blog by Valerie Strauss/Washington Post

Texas isn’t the only place with lousy social studies standards, though you might be forgiven for thinking so considering all the attention that the Texas Board of Education has received in recent months as it adopted a new set of standards.  The majority of the members voted Friday on the new standards, which were originally written by a team of educators and then revised by a majority of the board who chose to insinuate their own religious and political views into the curriculum of nearly 5 million schoolchildren.  The standards, among other things, now portray the United States as a country founded by men who were guided by religious principles and were not really keen on creating a secular state. Additionally, they promote the benefits of low taxes, little regulation and free enterprise. (more...)

Flush with $2.2 million success, Cupertino parents share secrets

• 05-24-2010
• 

By Sharon Noguchi/San Jose Mercury News

If parents in the Cupertino Union School District had been graded on their recent campaign to fill the district's budget chasm, they would have soared so off the charts they would have destroyed the curve.  Their energetic, grass-roots effort raised $2.2 million in eight weeks to help stave off more than 100 layoffs and preserve 20-to-1 student-teacher ratios in kindergarten through third grade.  Barely pausing to celebrate, the parents behind the Their Future Is Now campaign are mapping out a new strategy and sharing their know-how with others hoping to replicate their success.  Their forum Sunday drew both veterans of the Cupertino Union campaign and parents from places such as Union City, San Francisco and Scotts Valley eager to get some blueprints. (more...)

More English-language learners at LAUSD, state test shows

• 05-24-2010
• 

By Connie Llanos/LA Daily News

The percentage of English-language learners at Los Angeles Unified who can read, write and speak English fluently decreased slightly in 2009, according to state test results released today.  This year, 37 percent of all English language-learners reached proficiency at LAUSD, according to the 2009 California English Language Development Test data. That is virtually flat from last year's rate of 38 percent but the dip drew concern from LAUSD Superintendent Ramon Cortines.  "I am disappointed," Cortines said in a letter to district officials and boardmembers.  "I have sent e-mails and letters to principals and local district administrators on the importance of providing English language development and access to grade level standards."  With 220,000 students, LAUSD has the largest population of English-language learners of any district in the country.  (more...)

Parents fight how schools assigned

• 05-24-2010
• 

By Jill Tucker and Rachel Gordon/San Francisco Chronicle

A group of San Francisco parents is hoping to take the fight over the school assignment system to the ballot box this fall, starting a petition drive that would require the district to let students attend the school closest to home.  How San Francisco Unified assigns students to schools has long been a battleground among parents and politicians.  The school board recently adopted a new system that would consider proximity to a school, but not as the top priority. The new assignment policy would give first pick (after siblings and those attending public preschool at the select school) to students living in census tracts where test scores are low. (more...)

Growing pains hit as schools include children with disabilities

• 05-24-2010
• 

By Emily Alpert/Voice of San Diego

While his fifth grade classmates at Marvin Elementary played Jeopardy to learn about nephrons and neurons, 11-year-old Ben Cary moaned and rested his forehead on the table. His assistant, Michael Brown, coaxed him to play a parallel game, matching labels to body parts.  "What are you working for?" Brown reminded Ben, a boy with autism who doesn't speak but can employ technology so nimbly he once used a Sesame Street recording to show his parents he wanted noodles.  Ben pointed to a laminated card reading "listen to music" -- his reward for schoolwork -- and sat back up to match labels to feet and fingers as his classmates were quizzed about glands. (more...)

Union again balk at Race to the Top

• 05-25-2010
• 

Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess

The six districts leading the state’s second round Race to the Top application were  able to recruit nearly 100 other districts and 200 charter schools to the cause. They failed, however, to persuade their own teachers unions to sign the application. And that lack of union participation will likely doom the state’s already iffy odds of winning a piece of the $3.4 billion that U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has dangled for states in exchange for committing to an agenda of school reforms.  Friday was the last day for districts and unions to sign a memorandum of understanding. Of the half-dozen unified districts that formed the working group for Race to the Top, only unions in Fresno and Sanger, a small rural district, signed on. The big ones – in Long Beach, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Clovis – in the end said no.  Of the 43 unions that signed, about half represented teachers in charter schools. (more...)

Lawsuit moves school duel to new level

• 05-25-2010
• 

By Dan Walters/Sacramento Bee

California's perpetual public debate over the sad condition of its K-12 schools entered a new and potentially climactic phase last week when a coalition of education groups filed a lawsuit alleging that the entire 6 million-student system is unconstitutional.  The suit, filed in Alameda County, declares that the state "has failed its constitutional obligation to support its public schools in a way that ensures that all students are provided an opportunity to meet the state's academic goals."  Whether the state has such an obligation is debatable, since the state's constitution is ambiguous, declaring: "A general diffusion of knowledge and intelligence being essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people, the Legislature shall encourage by all suitable means the promotion of intellectual, scientific, moral, and agricultural improvement."  (more...)

Juniority rights

• 05-25-2010
• 

Blog by Claus von Zastrow/Public Insights

Is teaching a young person's game? That seems to be the prevailing belief in some quarters. Teachers with lots of experience cost more, and that makes them easy targets in a deep recession. Some pundits have taken this issue well beyond complex debates over seniority rights. They're pushing for something new: Call it juniority rights.  A growing number of bloggers and think tank folk are arguing that we should let older teachers go because they're older. Teachers with juniority don't merely cost less than their more experienced peers. They also have that Teach for America (TFA) cachet. An ideal school system, it seems, would regularly push the old-timers out. Some are suggesting that we let teachers stay in their jobs for 5-10 years, max. (more...)

Are the Administration's turnaround models too strict?

• 05-25-2010
• 

Expert blog/National Journal

Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., challenged the Obama administration's school turnaround models last week with the release of a report arguing for more flexibility in school improvement methods (see story here). "The heavy-handed imposition of punitive measures in the current models run the risk of impeding long-term success," the report contended. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has aggressively pushed the four models for struggling schools that are up for School Improvement Grants. The administration hopes to codify their use through the Elementary and Secondary Education Act reauthorization. Are the federal prescriptions for turning around schools too narrow? Does Chu's report offer a superior framework? (more...)

Outrage over teacher unemployment

• 05-25-2010
• 

Blog by Walt Gardner/Education Week (subscription required)

Once eagerly awaited as a time of relaxation, summer this year for as many as 150,000 teachers nationwide will be a season of angst. That's because the recession has forced districts to issue pink slips even to teachers in once hard-to-fill subjects such as special education, chemistry, physics and math. The desperation is seen in the lopsided ratio of applicants to openings. This imbalance applies to traditional public schools as well as to charter schools.  Recognizing the implications, the U.S. Senate has a pending bill aptly titled Keep Our Educators Working Act. The best estimate is that it will take at least $23 billion to avoid an educational catastrophe in the fall. As Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, argued in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal: "The federal government didn't let Wall Street fail. Why would we do less for our public schools, which undeniably are too important to fail?" ("Public Schools Need a Bailout," May 20).  (more...)

Supreme Court to weigh Arizona tuition tax credits

• 05-25-2010
• 

By Mark Walsh/Education Week

In a move welcomed by school choice supporters, the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to weigh the constitutionality of a 13-year-old Arizona program offering tax credits for donations made to organizations that provide scholarships for children to attend private schools.  The case accepted May 24 involves a ruling by a federal appeals court last year that Arizona’s tax-credit program is likely to impermissibly advance religion in violation of the First Amendment’s prohibition against any government establishment of religion.  A three-judge panel of the U.S, Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, in San Francisco, in an April 2009 opinion found that the majority of those Arizona scholarships go to students attending religious schools, and that some of the “school tuition organizations,” or STOs, restrict their scholarships to that purpose. (more...)

San Diego school year to end one week early next year

• 05-25-2010
• 

By Ana Tintocalis/San Diego KPBS

The traditional school year in the San Diego Unified School District will end one week earlier in June next year due to teacher furloughs.  That means parents will have to tack-on an extra five days to their child daycare plans in the summer.  The district plans to save money next year by requiring all teachers take five furlough days. That means teachers won't get paid for an entire week and students will have less class time.  The San Diego Education Association, San Diego Unified’s teachers union, determined those days be placed at the end of the school year.  Union president Camille Zombro says ending the school year early was the best option.  (more...)

Bidders can vie for eight schools, including L.A. High; charter schools file lawsuit

• 05-25-2010
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Blog by Howard Blume/Los Angeles Times

Eight low-performing Los Angeles-area schools and nine new campuses will be open to bids from groups inside and outside the school system, officials announced Monday. The winning bidders would take over management of these schools in the fall of 2011.  The two high schools on the list are Huntington Park High and Los Angeles High in Mid-Wilshire. Most are middle schools: Audubon in Leimert Park, Clay in unincorporated West Athens, Harte in Vermont Vista, Mann in unincorporated Westmont and Muir in Vermont-Slauson. Woodcrest, also in Westmont, is the sole elementary school.  Except for the high schools, all the low-performing campuses are, broadly speaking, in low-income minority neighborhoods north and west of the intersection of the 110 and 105 freeways.  (more...)

Mayor's fiancee brings tough-on-education talk to Sacramento

• 05-25-2010
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By Melody Gutierrez/Sacramento Bee

Controversial education reformer Michelle Rhee brought her get-tough-on-education stance to Sacramento on Monday, saying schools need to be run like Fortune 500 companies, but with student achievement replacing capital.  The fiancée of Mayor Kevin Johnson acknowledged her reputation as a callously outspoken chancellor of the Washington, D.C., public schools system.  "I am someone who does not mince words; I don't spare feelings," said Rhee, speaking to the Sacramento Press Club downtown. (more...)

Concern over accented teachers not original to Arizona

• 05-25-2010
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Blog by Valerie Strauss/Washington Post

The state of Arizona has gotten a lot of attention lately for its decision to remove teachers who speak with pronounced foreign accents and/or whose speech is ungrammatical from classrooms with students learning to speak English.  But the idea wasn’t original to the Arizona Board of Education.  Almost 20 years ago, there was a proposal to ban teachers with accents from some elementary classrooms where kids were still learning English in Westfield, Mass., according to a 1992 New York Times story.  The city’s mayor, George Varelas, a Greek immigrant who spoke with an accent, actually agreed with the proposed ban. He was quoted as saying:  "Persons like myself -- and I cannot be confused with someone from Boston or Alabama -- should not be in a self-contained classroom for a full year teaching 5- and 6-year-olds the multitude of phonetic differences that exist in the English language. (more...)

More scrutiny as charter schools look to expand

• 05-25-2010
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By Nicholas Confessore and Jennifer Medina/New York Times

During its first years of operation, the Niagara Charter School in Niagara Falls, N.Y., spent thousands of dollars on plane tickets, restaurant meals and alcohol, and more than $100,000 on no-bid consulting contracts. Yet the school’s teachers resorted to organizing a fund-raiser to buy playground equipment.    When the Roosevelt Children’s Academy, a charter school in Long Island, fired its management company after paying it more than $1 million a year, it hired two of the school’s board members as new managers — and paid them hundreds of thousands of dollars.  And in the Bronx, the Family Life Charter School pays $400,000 annually to rent classroom space from the Latino Pastoral Action Center, a “Christ-centered holistic ministry” led by the Rev. Raymond Rivera. Rev. Rivera also happens to be the school’s founder. (more...)

School reform must be inclusive

• 05-25-2010
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Editorial/San Bernardino Sun

San Bernardino school officials have a shot at making meaningful and lasting reforms at 11 of the city's lowest-performing campuses, and we hope they don't blow it.  For the better part of three months, the San Bernardino City Unified School District has worked feverishly on a plan to turn around the schools, ranked as some of the lowest-achieving in the state.  Five of the 11 campuses targeted for intervention will see new leadership come fall, and the remaining six will be reinvented as district-sponsored charter schools, officials have stated.  Tonight, the school board is expected to make those proposals final and take up the last bit of unfinished business before they present their plan to state and federal officials - who will control the charter schools?  School board members have been mulling over a recommendation to create a "partnership" that would oversee the six charter schools, but we see little difference between this proposal and the governance structure currently in place at all schools. (more...)

As rising tide of inequality drowns education, don't blame teachers

• 05-26-2010
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Opinion by Marty Hittelman/San Jose Mercury News

Marty Hittelman is president of the California Federation of Teachers.

The May revision of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget proposal includes an additional $2.5 billion reduction to public school funding, on top of $17 billion in cuts over the past two years.  The human cost of these cuts is staggering. Across the state, the ability of teachers to deliver quality education is being drastically compromised. Many thousands of teachers and support personnel will have to seek other employment. Class sizes are skyrocketing. School librarians and school nurses are becoming scarce. Fewer janitors must rotate classrooms to clean instead of cleaning nightly. Art, music and adult education programs are being eliminated.  Students don't get a second chance at second grade. They should have the attention of a teacher when they need it. But when there are 29 other kids who need attention, instead of 19, that becomes difficult. (more....)

Prospects for school funding help wilt in U.S. Senate

• 05-26-2010
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By Lisa Lambert and Susan Cornwell/Reuters

Senator Tom Harkin said on Tuesday he would drop plans to attach a $23 billion public education fund to a supplemental defense spending bill, bowing to Republican opposition and procedural complications.  Harkin, a Democrat who chairs the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said he would find another way to create the fund, that was modeled after the $40 billion state stabilization account in the economic stimulus passed last year.  The House of Representatives has included the fund in its supplemental appropriations bill. Once that bill passes, and the two chambers of Congress confer to reconcile their legislation, Harkin said he would fight to keep the fund in the final bill to be sent to President Barack Obama to sign into law.  "Republicans are adamant that they don't want to fund the education. I have no Republicans who will vote for it," he said  (more...)

New push launched for education jobs bill

• 05-26-2010
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By Alison Klein/Education Week (susbscription required)

The presidents of both national teachers’ unions joined key lawmakers and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on Capitol Hill today to drum up support for legislation that would provide $23 billion to help school districts cope with a looming tidal wave of layoffs.  Supporters say up to 300,000 education jobs—including teachers, support-staff members, and others—may be riding on the latest version of the bill, which relies on a funding mechanism that supporters say is more narrowly targeted than previous education aid under the federal economic-stimulus program.  Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said he plans to introduce the measure as an amendment to the must-pass emergency-spending bill for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that his panel is considering tomorrow.  (more...)

Comparable, schmomparable

• 05-26-2010
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Blog by By Raegen Miller/Center for American Progress

Inequity haunts U.S. public school finance. Some federal programs are demonstrably unfair in allocating funds to states, and there prevails in many states a negative relationship between the rate of student poverty in school districts and the amount of per student revenues made available by the state funding formula. There is also reason to believe that the distribution of funds to schools within districts systematically disfavors schools serving the highest concentrations of low-income students. The reason is that funds follow teacher experience. Teacher salary, the largest category of school expenditure, is tightly linked to seniority, which also confers transfer privileges. Teachers tend to exercise these privileges to flee high-poverty schools for ones serving more affluent communities. (more...)

Hour of decision for low-performing schools

• 05-26-2010
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Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess

With the June 1 deadline looming for school districts to apply for dollars for chronically poor-performing schools, the state hasn’t heard from the U.S. Department of Education whether it’s getting any money to actually pass around. That unanswered question has added uncertainty to what’s already a been tense process for districts.  California’s share of the $3.5 billion one-time stimulus money for School Improvement Grants is supposed to be  $414 million – a hunk of change for districts to help turn around schools. And there’s no saying an amount nearly this large will be available for that purpose in coming years, given the federal deficit and growing criticism in Congress over the prescriptive methods that President Obama has chosen as remedies for failing schools.  The U.S. Department of Education has notified 28 states how much they’d be getting. (more...)

Calif. teachers lobby lawmakers to protect school funding

• 05-26-2010
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KPCC

Teachers from across California are converging in Sacramento to lobby state lawmakers to stop cutting funding to public schools.  The California Teachers Association says more than 200 educators are hitting legislators' offices Tuesday to ask them to sign commitment cards pledging to protect public education from further budget cuts.  Several lawmakers plan to join the teachers for a news conference to announce the names of legislators who signed the cards.  The teacher lobbying campaign comes as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature negotiate over how to close a projected $19 billion state budget deficit.  (more...)

LAUSD to rescind 522 more layoffs

• 05-26-2010
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By Connie Llanos/LA Daily News

The Los Angeles Unified school board Tuesday unanimously approved rescinding 522 layoff notices for elementary school teachers.  The move drops the number of overall expected layoffs next year to about 1,000 - down from the initial decision earlier this year to send layoff notices to nearly 3,100 teachers, administrators, nurses, librarians and counselors.  The number could be further reduced as officials continue to look for additional funding sources and savings.  To date the district has rescinded pink slips for 1,802 elementary school teachers, 85 counselors and 56 nurses. It has also saved the jobs of 63 permanent librarians and expects additional savings from individual schools that are allowed to "buy back" teacher positions through shifts in their own budgets. (more...)

Small high schools plan improvements, but produce little savings

• 05-26-2010
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Blog by Emily Alpert/Voice of San Diego

After San Diego Unified pressed the small high schools on the San Diego High and Crawford High campuses to find ways to save money and fix an admittedly choppy academic record, the schools pulled together and developed plans to help more students succeed and share teachers' expertise.  But the plans don't save much money, which would leave a gap in the planned budget for next school year unless the small schools can improve student attendance to make up the funds. Bill Kowba, the interim superintendent, said improving the small schools, not the bottom line, is their focus. The plans were discussed at a school board workshop today.  "We're not dictating them to get $300,000," Kowba said, referring to the initial amount that the schools-within-a-school were expected to cut. "It was a starting point."  The schools-within-a-school were created in 2003 by dividing up large high schools into smaller, themed schools on the same campus.
(more...)

Teachers, district remain at stalemate over pay

• 05-26-2010
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By Jill Tucker/San Francisco Chronicle

Oakland teachers walked away from the bargaining table this week, leaving little hope that they could broker a deal with the district by summer break and drawing out the threat of a long-term strike.  The two sides restarted negotiations this month after a one-day teacher walkout on April 29. After four bargaining sessions, the teachers called off talks late Monday.  Union officials said the sides were too far apart to keep the classroom teachers who are participating in negotiations away from their students with three weeks left in the school year.  It's unlikely the union will call a strike before the last day of school, said Oakland Education Association President Betty Olson-Jones. But a strike may loom when students head back to school in August. (more...)

Economic segregation rising in US public schools

• 05-27-2010
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By Stacy Teicher Khadaroo/Christian Science Monitor

More than 16,000 public schools struggle in the shadows of concentrated poverty. The portion of schools where at least three-quarters of students are eligible for free or reduced-price meals – a proxy for poverty – climbed from 12 percent in 2000 to 17 percent in 2008.  The federal government released a statistical portrait of these schools Thursday as part of its annual Condition of Education report. When it comes to educational opportunities and achievement, the report shows a stark contrast between students in high-poverty and low-poverty schools (those where 25 percent or less are poor).  Economic segregation is on the rise in American schools, and that “separation of rich and poor is the fountainhead of inequality,” says Richard Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, a public policy research group in Washington.   (more...)

Is CALPADS unfixable? No answer yet

• 05-27-2010
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Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess

State education officials expressed deep disappointment last week on learning that California was out of the running for money to expand the statewide student data system.  They haven’t heard yet why the state placed 26th out of 50th in a grant competition that funded only the top 20 states. But they shouldn’t be surprised if the feds’ answer is, “Are you kidding? Why would you expect taxpayers to enlarge a data system when  you have yet to get it to work right?”  Nearly one year into its operation, CALPADS, the California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System, is still struggling. Five months after a consultant warned of an imminent system collapse and urged a top-to-bottom review, the student data system is still being fixed.  (more...)