May 2010

A lawsuit for adequate education funding, Proposition 13 and more

• 05-27-2010
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By Lisa Schiff/San Francisco Beyond Chron

The lawsuit California public school supporters have been waiting for is finally here. Last Thursday a coalition of individuals, school districts (including the San Francisco Unified School District) and educational organizations announced the filing of the California School Finance lawsuit, which has the goal of entirely refashioning public education funding in California. While public school families and educators are well aware of the insufficiency of funding levels at our schools, the complex method of distributing resources is an equal factor contributing to the problems the state’s public education system faces. As a recent Public Policy Institute of California report details, California’s public school finance system is impossible to understand and leads to a variety of inequities, despite efforts to remove them. This finding echoes a similar conclusion drawn in the much cited 2005 Getting Down To Facts report commissioned by Governor Schwarzenegger in which researchers found that not only were funding levels inadequate, but the funding system itself serves as a barrier to fully use of funds and requires a complete overhaul.  (more...)

Without good schools, business is doomed

• 05-27-2010
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By Robert Cruickshank/California Progress Report

The San Francisco Chronicle's article on the Alameda parcel tax for schools vote posits a false choice. The article by Carolyn Jones makes it sound as if Alamedans have to decide between their schools and their businesses. In reality, the choice is between good schools and strong businesses on the one hand, and bad schools and declining business on the other:"If it passes, many small business owners, already struggling with the recession, say they'll be forced to close, stripping Alameda of its mom-and-pop charm. If the measure fails, the district's superintendent warns that half the schools in town would close. "If this doesn't pass, all bets are off in Alameda," said Encinal High School Principal Mike Cooper, a fifth-generation Alamedan."We're watching the collapse of public education. We've been trying to make this work, but something's got to give."  (more...)

The future of racially integrated schools

• 05-27-2010
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Commentary by By Zoë Burkholder/Education Week (subscription required)

Zoë Burkholder is an assistant professor of educational foundations at Montclair State University in New Jersey.

Three years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court made it even harder to create racially integrated public schools in its decision on two closely related school integration plans in Seattle and Jefferson County, Ky., which includes Louisville. The court effectively ruled that while it is acceptable for school districts to create a school-assignment plan that promotes “diversity,” it was illegal to define this diversity solely in terms of race. This created a real challenge for educators who believe that creating racially integrated schools is one of the most effective ways to promote educational equality for all children. The Supreme Court ruling presented a new challenge: How can communities promote racially integrated schools without considering students’ “race”.  (more...)

100,000 teachers nationwide face layoffs

• 05-27-2010
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By Nick Anderson/Washington Post

Senior congressional Democrats and the Obama administration scrambled Wednesday to line up support for $23 billion in federal aid to avert an estimated 100,000 or more school layoffs in a brutal year for education budgets coast to coast. As early as Thursday, the House Appropriations Committee expects to take up a bill that couples the school funding with spending for the Afghanistan war -- a measure that has bipartisan support. But a parallel push in the Senate stalled this week after a leading proponent concluded that he couldn't muster enough votes to surmount Republican opposition.(more...)

ESCONDIDO: Teachers stage dramatic protest over proposed cuts

• 05-27-2010
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By Gary Warth/North County Times

Teachers frustrated about a proposal to cut their pay and reduce school days made a dramatic show of solidarity at the Escondido Union School District meeting Wednesday, with several employees throwing shirts on the floor before trustees.  Romero Maratea, president of the Escondido Elementary Educators Association, told trustees that teachers already have had to accept greater deductions and larger co-payments in health insurance, and they see the latest proposal as a breaking point. "It seems to reason that the next item you want is the shirt off our backs, so I'm going to go ahead and give you the shirt off my back," Maratea said before pealing off his shirt.  (more...)

Latino children's social skills erode in middle school

• 05-27-2010
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Interview by Vivian Po/New America Media

The American Psychological Association recently published a special section highlighting research on Latino children and educational performance in the journal Developmental Psychology. It found that Latino children, despite growing up in poverty, started kindergarten with strong social and classroom skills. These skills make children better learners.  However, those good qualities tended to erode during their middle school years. Bruce Fuller, professor of Education and Public Policy at UC Berkeley, who co-edited the section, shared the findings with New America Media. Fuller said steps can be taken to prevent the loss of social skills, particularly through culturally sensitive teachers and strong parental advocacy.  (more...)

Can Lawsuits Untangle School Funding?

• 05-28-2010
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By UCLA/IDEA Staff

Maya Robles-Wong, along with about 60 other students, is suing the state of California for failing to meet its constitutional requirement to adequately and equitably fund public schools (San Francisco Chronicle,  Education Week, New York Times blog). Other plaintiffs in Robles-Wong v. California, which was filed last Thursday in Alameda Superior Court, include the state PTA, nine school districts, and associations for school boards and administrators.  Ten years ago, when Maya was a first-grader, another group of student-plaintiffs sued to gain necessary and equitable access to materials, facilities and qualified teachers. That suit, Williams v. California, was settled in 2005, allocating $138 million in extra funding for the lowest-performing schools. However, the adequacy and equity issues are far from resolved, prompting new lawsuits.  (more...)

School suit offers chance for reform

• 05-28-2010
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Editorial/Sacramento Bee

It should be no surprise that California is the latest state to face a lawsuit attacking its school funding system. The current system is utterly broken. It was only a matter of time before someone took the state to the courts.  The Robles-Wong v. State of California lawsuit, spearheaded by the California School Boards Association, certainly is a high-stakes gamble.  But if the threat gets lawmakers and the governor moving to revamp school finance on their own to avoid a court-imposed system, Californians should be all for it.  (more...)

How to prevent huge teacher layoffs

• 05-28-2010
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Opinion by Christina D. Romer/Washington Post

Christina D. Romer is chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

The emergency spending bill before the House would address the education crisis facing communities across America -- and the jobs of hundreds of thousands of teachers are at stake. Because of continued high unemployment, state and local budgets are stressed to the breaking point. Many states and localities are drastically cutting education spending. This year school districts in Hawaii went to only four days of instruction a week. In many other districts, officials are ending the school year early to save money.  Most worrisome, hundreds of thousands of public school teachers are likely to be laid off over the next few months. As many as one out of every 15 teachers could receive a pink slip this summer, the White House Council of Economic Advisers estimates. These layoffs would be spread throughout the country -- in urban, rural and suburban districts. (more...)

Layoffs scaring off future teachers

• 05-28-2010
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Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess

Many of the 26,000 teachers in California who got pink slips in March may have their jobs back by August,  if their colleagues agree to furloughs or give-backs and if districts pass parcel taxes next month and come up with other savings. Los Angeles Unified alone  has rescinded two-thirds of the 3,100 layoff notices it issued two months ago.   But the damage to the teaching profession will last beyond the disruptions and uncertainty of the next few months. In a paper issued this week, the Santa Cruz-based Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning openly worries about the impact on the future supply of teachers that California will need over the next decade.  “The current rash of layoffs most certainly will harm morale and, even more important, the downstream effect of pink slipping on the teacher development system is already evident,” the Center concludes in “Who will be left to teach?  (more...)

Many English learners still struggle with the language, study shows

• 05-28-2010
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By Teresa Watanabe/Los Angeles Times

Nearly 60% of English-language learners in California's high schools have failed to become proficient in English despite more than six years of a U.S. education, according to a study released Thursday.  In a survey of 40 school districts, the study found that the majority of long-term English-language learners are U.S. natives who prefer English and are orally bilingual. But they develop major deficits in reading and writing, fail to achieve the academic English needed for educational success and disproportionately drop out of high school, according to the study by Californians Together, a coalition of 22 parent, professional and civil rights organizations. (more...)

Also: Education Week

In defense of teachers

• 05-28-2010
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By Raina Kelley/Newsweek

I think it’s fair to say that most people know we’re in the midst of an educational emergency. Just this week, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan told CNN, “There isn’t one urban school district in the country—Chicago, L.A., New York, D.C., Philly, Baltimore—there’s not one urban system yet where the dropout rate is low enough and the graduation rate is high enough.” And for those people who work in the school system, no issue has come to represent the struggle to save public education more than the fight over charter schools. For the sake of clarity, let me just note that a charter school is one which uses public funds to run a school that is managed privately, thus giving them the freedom to experiment as well as hire nonunion teachers. Charters such as the Harlem Children’s Zone HCZ in New York have longer school days (and a longer school year) with kids often required to come in Saturdays to work with tutors.  (more...)

Obama's shallow plan to spend $23 billion on education

• 05-28-2010
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Editorial/Washington Post

In a speech Monday on the Obama administration's economic policy, National Economic Council Director Lawrence H. Summers argued that deficit spending is still needed to boost growth -- but must be designed to produce maximum "bang for the buck." "There is no macroeconomic rationale for wasteful spending," he insisted.  So why are Mr. Summers and Christina D. Romer, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, along with the rest of the Obama administration, promoting the $23 billion education jobs bill now before Congress? Its sponsors on Capitol Hill have labeled it "emergency" legislation, worthy of exemption from President Obama's anti-deficit pay-as-you-go rules. But it's certainly not a uniquely effective way to stimulate the economy.  (more...)

1 in 6 U.S. students in high-poverty school

• 05-28-2010
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By Valerie Strauss/Washington Post

A government analysis of U.S. schools shows that one in six public school students attend high poverty schools and that the percentage of high-poverty schools has significantly increased over the past decade.  It also confirms what we’ve long known: student achievement at high-poverty schools is lower than at other public schools.  The analysis of high-poverty schools was part of the 2010 Condition of Education, an annual report just released by the Education Department’s National Center for Education Statistics. The analysis looks at the latest available data on public schools.  Here are the conclusions from the analysis on high-poverty schools. High poverty is identified as those schools where 76 percent to 100 percent of the student enrollment is eligible for free or reduced-price meals. (more...)

Cuts will hit teachers hard in June

• 05-28-2010
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By Carol Veravanich/Orange County Register

Q. Can you do me a favor and put the cuts coming to our salary in dollars and cents for your readers so quick to criticize us? Do they know how much is being taken out of our pay this coming month? These furlough days are a huge hit to us and yet I keep hearing people say we need to do our share. How many of them would like to take this huge chunk out of their pay?  A. Next month, we will have three furlough days, which equals a 1.5 percent pay cut for the whole school year taken out of June's paycheck. This means a teacher who makes $70,000 will have $1,050 cut out of their last paycheck and most of us will not be paid again till September. Some districts spread out these end-of-year furlough day pay cuts over two to four paychecks and others will come entirely out of June. Next year, the pay cuts will be spread over the 10 months we are paid, but the cuts will go way higher than 1.5 percent. (more...)

L.A. Unified faces tough task in selling parcel tax

• 05-28-2010
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By Howard Blume/Los Angeles Times

Save a niche in local political history if the Los Angeles school system passes a parcel tax June 8. Convention holds that there's no logical way Measure E can achieve the two-thirds majority it needs. Backers maintain hope, insisting that, above all, the cause is just and the emergency dire.  Measure E would raise $92.5 million annually over four years for the Los Angeles Unified School District through a tax of a flat $100 per parcel. The money would undo some cutbacks made to offset a $640-million deficit for next year and beyond.  (more...)

Natomas Unified closes all 8 elementary school libraries

• 05-28-2010
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By Diana Lambert/Sacramento Bee

Is it the end of an era, or just a blip on the education budget radar?  As school districts throughout the Sacramento region confront another year of multimillion-dollar deficits, school libraries have moved into the cross hairs.  On Thursday, the Natomas Unified School District closed all eight of its elementary school libraries in a last-ditch effort to overcome a $17.3 million shortfall.  "These kinds of cuts are a last resort," said Heidi Van Zant, Natomas district spokeswoman. "No one wants to close elementary school libraries, but our budget situation is so severe there was no choice."  (more...)