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Mile High Parents Campaign Launches in Denver Schools New Program Encourages Parents to Spend 5,280 Minutes Per School Year or 30 Minutes a School Day Supporting their Children's Education
Last update: 12:27 p.m. EDT Sept. 16, 2008 DENVER, Sep 16, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Denver Public Schools Parent Empowerment Council, supported by Denver Public Schools Superintendent Michael Bennet and Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, in association with a host of community partners, today announced the official launch of the Mile High Parents Campaign. The program is designed to increase parent engagement and to celebrate the hundreds of things parents already do to further their kids' academic success. Structured as a multi-year initiative, the 2008-2009 school year marks the official kick off of Mile High Parents. By enrolling in the program, parents agree to proactively engage with their children and invest 5,280 minutes, or 30 minutes a day, per school year. Parents then track their time through forms provided by participating schools and eventually through an online system. Mile High Parents will be the driving force of encouragement and support for parents and participating schools throughout the process. Suggested activities include reading with a child, attending cultural activities like the zoo, helping with homework, or discussing current events like politics and the importance of elections. Parent engagement is paramount to the success of children when it comes to overall academic achievement. Studies suggest that simple, intentional actions taken by parents each day can result in higher grades, higher test scores, higher graduation rates and increased self esteem for school-aged children. And, studies also indicate that parents need not have large amounts of free time to benefit their children. Any level of parent involvement has a significant impact and engagement transcends boundaries related to household income, education level, and culture. "Parents aren't aware that they already do dozens of things each day to support their children," said Marlene DeLa Rosa, chair of the Parent Empowerment Council. "Our role is to be their cheerleaders, support their current engagement and provide them with the tools necessary to increase their investment." The campaign will be implemented district-wide and 35 schools have already elected to participate for the 2008-2009 school year. The program can be customized by each principal to meet the needs of individual school communities. Mile High Parents will provide each school with an arsenal of tools to support engagement efforts including parent ambassadors and toolkits. The toolkits include information for teachers and parents, tracking forms, and suggested ways to engage with children. Participating parents have an opportunity to earn incentive gifts and win a variety of prizes including tickets to the ballet, college savings accounts, and more. Participating schools can also receive additional support including parent education events, coaching and support for staff. The program launches on Wednesday, September 17th at Whittier Elementary, located at 2480 Downing Street. Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper and Denver Public Schools Superintendent Michael Bennet will be the first parents to officially pledge their support. At the event, the Mayor and Superintendent will sign up for Mile High Parents and agree to spend 30 minutes per school day engaging in their children's school success. Remarks will begin at 9:15 a.m. Parents can sign up by visiting milehighparents.org and schools can enroll by calling 720-980-5252. About Mile High Parents Mile High Parents is a parent engagement program designed to promote, support, celebrate and increase sustained parent engagement in Denver Public Schools. The program is presented by the Denver Public Schools Parent Empowerment Council and is managed and supported by Assets for Colorado Youth, a nonprofit positive youth development organization. More information for parents and schools is available at milehighparents.org SOURCE: Mile High Parents for Mile High Parents Keely Spencer, 303-302-2138 keely@traction-communications.com Return to Top of Page
In Rush to White House, 'No Child' Is Left Behind
Obama, McCain Reveal Little on Updates for Plan
By Maria Glod Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 15, 2008; A04
For the next president, one of the first domestic challenges will be to reshape the No Child Left Behind law, hailed six years ago as a bipartisan solution to America's education troubles. But in their race for the White House, Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) are distancing themselves from what has become a tainted brand. Education experts say the candidates have offered, at best, a fuzzy vision for the future of the No Child Left Behind law. Obama pledges to "fix the failures" of the law, while McCain seeks to avoid mention of it. "This is the 10,000-pound gorilla, and yet nobody wants to talk about it. At both conventions, you hardly heard anyone say the words 'No Child Left Behind,' " said Michael J. Petrilli, vice president for national programs and policy at the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, a nonprofit organization that seeks to raise education standards. "I think that says a lot about how unpopular the law is, or at least the brand. Politicians, not wanting to take unnecessary risks, are keeping quiet." A national poll released last month by Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup found that 67 percent of Americans think the law should be significantly changed or scrapped. A quarter of those polled said it's helping schools; 22 percent said it's hurting. Education has been largely a back-burner issue in a campaign dominated by rising oil prices, a slumping economy and the Iraq war, but McCain and Obama have given clues on key school issues. Obama wants $18 billion in new federal spending, a major increase; McCain favors maintaining current funding. McCain has made school choice central to his education agenda, vowing to use public funding to help students attend private schools. Obama opposes vouchers. McCain is squarely for teacher merit pay based on test scores; Obama supports pay for performance but only in cooperation with unions. Obama supports a significant expansion of early childhood programs. McCain supports the creation of more online schools and classes. In recent days, as millions of parents sent their children back to school, the campaigns kicked up the rhetoric on education, each accusing the other of lacking a reform record. A McCain television advertisement says Obama's "one accomplishment" on education has been to support "comprehensive sex education" for kindergartners. Recently in Norfolk, Obama said McCain "has not done one thing to improve the quality of public education in our country, not one real law or proposal or initiative. Nothing. It has not been a priority for him." The next iteration of the No Child Left Behind law, now overdue in Congress, could have major effects for millions of students and teachers. The law marked an unprecedented federal foray into public schools, requiring a dramatic expansion of testing. It aims to boost the achievement of students from poor families who have long trailed those who come from the middle and upper classes. Both candidates say they support the law's lofty goal of leading every student to proficiency in reading and math. McCain voted for the legislation in 2001, as did many prominent Democrats who now support Obama. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), whose endorsement boosted Obama in the Democratic primary, was among the law's architects. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) also voted for it. Obama has criticized the law's emphasis on standardized tests, calling No Child Left Behind "one of the emptiest slogans in the history of politics" and saying it needs more funding. One of his advisers, Jon Schnur, who was an education adviser in the Clinton White House, said the senator "doesn't want the country to retreat from the notion of high standards, accountability and a focus on assessments done right." McCain, on his campaign Web site, says he will "build on the lessons of No Child Left Behind." But in major speeches, he hasn't mentioned the law. His advisers, including former Arizona school superintendent Lisa Graham Keegan, say McCain wants to give children in schools with poor test performance quicker access to private tutoring, which is mandated under the law. McCain also supports a program that provides scholarships to low-income D.C. students for private school. At the GOP convention, McCain said that when public schools fail to perform, "parents deserve a choice in the education of their children. And I intend to give it to them. Some may choose a better public school. Some may choose a private one. Many will choose a charter school." Obama, who has offered a more detailed education platform, wants to significantly expand early childhood programs. His plan would provide public schools more money to add hours or days to the school year, or expand after-school programs. He also has pledged to "recruit an army of new teachers" with higher salaries and more support. At Granby High in Norfolk, Obama said he supports higher pay for teachers and more spending on charter schools. "Let's finally help our teachers and principals develop a curriculum and assessments that teach our kids to become more than just good test-takers." But neither candidate has offered detailed plans for No Child Left Behind. Michael A. Rebell, a professor at Teachers College at Columbia University, said the candidates are tiptoeing around the law because the debate has changed. In 2000, it was about values and promising to ensure that all kids learn. Now it's about the nitty-gritty -- whether to delay the law's 2014 target for universal proficiency; whether to use other yardsticks besides state tests to rate schools; and whether to ease sanctions on lagging schools. "Both candidates have been walking very gingerly around the NCLB landmines and don't want to take a strong stand," Rebell said. "It alienates a lot of constituencies no matter what they do." On the Democratic side, teachers unions are critical of the law. In a July speech, Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.4 million-member American Federation of Teachers, called it a well-intentioned effort that has "become a blunt instrument for attacking, not assisting, our public schools." Many teachers, she said, consider it a "four-letter word." But civil rights groups, including the NAACP and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, have been vocal supporters of a law they see as a way to ensure minority children aren't ignored. Many Republicans say Washington is meddling too much in the operation of schools, traditionally the purview of state and local governments. Even the staunchest supporters want changes. Making everyone happy is impossible. " 'No Child Left Behind' -- those four words really have become this hot-button issue," said Marc S. Lampkin, executive director of Strong American Schools Ed in '08, an effort funded through philanthropists Bill Gates and Eli Broad to raise education issues' profile in the election. "If you're a right-winger conservative, you don't like the federal intrusion. If you're a left-wing, pro-union person, you don't like the fact that the accountability system with its penalties focuses on teachers." The Washington Post Return to Top of Page
Been There, Done that! Great Depression and Herbert Hoover, 1929-33 In 1929, 60% of all families had annual incomes of $2,000 or less; 42% had annual incomes of less than $1,500. More efficient machines had made it possible for the productivity of industrial workers to increase by 32% during the 1920s, but their wages had increased only 10%. Profits from the industrial corporations grew 62% and went largely to the wealthiest 5%. Year | Richest 5% | Richest 1% | 1923 | 22.9 | 12.3 | 1929 | 26.1 | 14.5 |
Until 1925, increases in installment buying by the expanding number of white-collar workers made it possible to consume the goods pouring off the assembly lines. The use of automobiles went from 9,000,000 to 20,000,000 between 1920 and 1925, (122%)but only to 27,000,000 by 1930 (35%). By 1929, automobiles absorbed 20% of the steel, 75% of the glass, and 80% of the rubber produced in the US. The oil industry and the many gasoline filling stations, repair garages, auto dealers, roadside restaurants, and places to spend the night depended upon the auto. The auto was so important that the national government adopted a highway marking system to facilitate driving and national, state, and local governments began road building programs. Much of the country's cement production went to highway building. The slump in automobile sales was paralleled by the decline in the construction of new housing, causing unemployment in the building trades. Fewer suburban houses meant fewer markets for appliances, wall coverings, and other activities related to home building. The economy was in trouble but people, dazzled by a surging stock market, ignored it. Agriculture was in a depression as farmers sold in a competitive market while having to buy in a protective market because US business subverted free enterprise by having the government tax foreign manufactured goods high enough to guarantee sales to US producers. Improvements in farm technology, which allowed farmers to produce more, only made the situation worse for demand was inelastic. The consumer economy was slowing as incomes skewed to the rich. In 1929, the richest 10% of families received 39% of disposal personal income while the bottom 10% only got 2%. People seemed to be forgetting that capitalism needs to expand, that demand for housing, clothes, automobiles, stoves, and many other consumer goods generates demand in other sectors of the economy. But mass production necessitates mass consumption. Mass consumption necessitates an income distribution that allows consumers to buy. Without the appropriate income distribution, warehouses will burst at their seams and production lines will clog. Ethnic discrimination usually meant lower pay for the affected groups. The coal industry was in economic trouble as US consumers and businesses switched more and more to petroleum or hydroelectric sources of power. The introduction of synthetic fibers, such as nylon, dealt body blows to the cotton and wool textile industries. The wealthy bought luxuries but could not buy enough to sustain the consumer economy. Many of the wealthy, as well as others, joined the speculative stock market sending stock prices to greater and greater without regard to company performance; In October, 1929, the bubble burst. The crash meant the tremendous loss of capital as prices declined $74 billion from 1929 to 1932 and the repatriation of much of US investment abroad. The Germany economy collapsed followed by the British and french economies. Germany could not pay the reparations it owed to the victors of WWI or make debt payments to US lenders, setting off a chain reaction. The world entered an economic depression. President Herbert Hoover did not know how to meet this crisis. His government began buying farm surpluses in order to prop up prices but it did not buy enough to make a difference. The Farm Board loaned money to farmers to establish cooperatives (a socialist measure) but the millions of farmers scattered across millions of miles had difficulty in cooperating. Farm income went from $8 billion in 1929 to $3 billion in 1993, a decline of 62.5%. Republican wisdom said that high tariffs were good for the economy and, besides, in a time of world crisis countries tend to become very nationalistic, so the Congress passed, with Hoover's acquiescence, the very high Hawley-Smoot Tariff in 1930. Raising the tariff made things worse because it meant that foreigners could sell less in the US and thus earn fewer US dollars with which to buy US goods or make payments on debts owed to US citizens. Exports fell 50%. As historians Peter N. Carroll and David W. Noble note, Hoover feared that the collapse of the large corporations would bring down the entire US capitalist system. After all, one percent of the banks held 50% of banking assets. Three corporations—Ford, Chrysler, General Motors—manufactured 85% of the automobiles sold in the US. Chain stores dominated retail sales and their difficulties had national repercussions. Business and industry met the crisis as they had always done—they cut production, lowered wages, reduced working hours, and fired workers. Unemployment rose from 1.5 million in 1929 to 13 million in 1933, a figure which represented 25% of the labor force. Even such a high percentage hid the dimensions of the problem because it did not what percentage had been forced the part-time work. Industrial wages fell from $42.50 a week to $17 a week, a decline of 32%. By 1932, sawmill workers were only earning five to ten cents an hour; Tennessee female mill workers earned $2.39 for 50 hours work; and Connecticut women got between 60 cents to a dollar for a 55 hour week. To help the situation, the Hoover administration sept close to a billion dollars in public works programs but he would not go further. Nor would he argue for direct relief to the unemployed and starving because he feared that doing so would corrupt them. Although he had administered relief progress in Europe after the First World War, he saw that as only an emergency measure caused by war. He believed that doing a similar thing in the the US would become a permanent practice. To many, he was callous. As people lost their homes and created shanty towns, they derisively called the "Hoovervilles." Hoover argued that private charities and state and local governments should be the institutions to provide relief. But they were suffering as well and could not deal with a problem of this magnitude. Hoover and the Republicans saw aid to corporations as being different. Whereas they believed that helping the individual citizen weather the Depression would corrupt him or her, aiding corporations and other business was different. To many, it appeared that the Republicans were only interested in the rich. The newly-created Reconstruction Finance Corporation aided only the large corporations. Hoover broke precedent because the national government assumed some responsibility for what happens during an economic depression but he was not willing to go far enough. He believed that the depression was part of the normal business cycle and had been caused by international factors and not US ones. to him, "prosperity was just around the corner." The best thing for the country to do would be to wait the crisis out. Historical Text Archive Return to Top of Page
California Budget 101: A guide to what's gone wrong in Sacramento
YOUR QUICK GUIDE TO THE CONTINUING CAPITOL MESS By Mike Zapler Mercury News Sacramento Bureau Article Launched: 09/13/2008 07:30:23 PM PDT SACRAMENTO — You know something's awry in Sacramento. Something that involves ungodly sums of money and bickering politicians. But you're not really sure how the never-ending battle over the state budget affects you, let alone why we even need a budget. Well, consider this a quick guide to what's gone wrong at the Capitol and why no one's been able to fix it — State Budget 101, if you will. We answer 13 burning questions about the showdown that's lasted 76 days and counting, helping you understand why the lawmakers you elect can't seem to get the job done. Q Why does California even need a budget? AWithout one, there would be no plan for spending all that tax money we send to Sacramento. Besides, without a budget the state can't legally make billions in payments to nursing homes, foster care homes, community colleges and construction contractors, to name just a few. Q Every other state seems to be able to pass a budget. Why can't California? A There are a lot of reasons, but the big kahuna is a rule that budgets in California have to pass each house of the Legislature by a two-thirds vote. We're one of only three states with that type of hurdle. While Democrats control the Legislature, they don't have enough votes to clear that threshold. Hence the gridlock. Q Are things as messed up in the other states that require "supermajorities'' to approve their budgets? A Nope. Democrats hold huge majorities in Arkansas and Rhode Island, so clearing the budget bar isn't nearly as much of a problem. Also, while Arkansas has a three-fourths vote requirement for making appropriations, it carves out some major exceptions. Votes on education and highways, for example, take only a majority vote. Q Where did that two-thirds rule come from anyway? A Ironically, the idea came from Democrats in the 1930s, according to Joe Mathews, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation. After a long period in the minority, Democrats came into power and wanted some protections in case they didn't remain there. Voters passed a constitutional amendment with a number of budget reforms, including the two-thirds rule for any budget that grew by 5 percent or more. Three decades later, California voters approved a follow-up measure saying that all budgets need to be passed by two-thirds of legislators before heading to the governor's desk. Q Do lawmakers get paid for the extra time they spend bickering over the budget? A During the impasse they don't get paid at all. But once it's over, they'll get back pay, plus $170 per diem for the days they're in Sacramento working on the budget. With 120 legislators, that works out to more than $100,000 a week in taxpayer money, assuming both houses are in session each weekday. Q When does the budget morass really start to affect my everyday life, like my kid's education or new roads to ease traffic congestion? A This is tough to gauge because the effects vary. But they are real and will become more and more severe the longer the impasse lasts. If a budget isn't in place by later this week, for instance, more than $3 billion pegged for schools and community colleges will stay in Sacramento for the time being. Transportation advocates say ongoing road construction projects could shut down midstream, as billions of dollars in payments to contractors are halted. Q This seems nuts. How long could this last? A That's the $64,000 question. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says he's willing to wait it out through the fall and into next year if that's what it takes to get the budget he wants. But the pressure to act could become overwhelming before then. Legislators did seem to make some progress toward a deal last week, but it was unclear where that will end up. Q Aren't legislators worried voters will boot them from office in the next election? A Not really. Because district lines have been drawn to favor incumbents, they rarely face a serious challenge. That's one big reason the governor is pushing for reforming the ways legislative districts are drawn. Q Didn't Schwarzenegger promise to fix this budget stuff during the recall five years ago? What's the deal? A Taming the budget has proved harder than anyone, especially the governor, imagined. He's taken his case to voters, cajoled legislators, hoped a thriving economy would take care of it, all to no avail. What's more, Schwarzenegger rescinded the unpopular car tax in his first act as governor. That blew a $6 billion hole in the budget that the state is grappling with to this day. Q Why do we seem to go through the same drama every five or six years? Can't they just figure this out once and for all? A Again, not so easy. The state's tax system is extremely volatile. About half of the general fund comes from personal income taxes, and the more money you make the higher percentage you pay in taxes. That means when the wealthy are doing well (in, say, the stock market), the state is flush. But a downturn like the one we're now experiencing sends state finances into the tank. Politicians have talked for years about changing the tax structure to rely on more stable sources of revenue, but that's a tricky thing to pull off, especially because low property taxes are sacrosanct in California. Q Is it really that hard to balance the budget with cuts? A Depends on whom you ask. But no one claims it's easy. Even the Republicans rely on billions of dollars in borrowing and accounting maneuvers to balance their budget. When Schwarzenegger proposed 10 percent across-the-board cuts to most programs, legislators and interest groups of all stripes were up in arms. Q So I guess it's inevitable that we'll end up with higher taxes. Aren't taxes high enough already? A Schwarzenegger is proposing a one-cent sales tax increase (although after three years it would go away and be cut an extra quarter-cent). Democrats pitched about $10 billion in taxes, mostly on the wealthy. But so far Republicans aren't budging. There are lots of ways to measure California's tax burden, but the independent Legislative Analyst's Office said last year that it was about average compared with other states. Q Isn't there some way to make the Legislature do its job? A Good luck. So far, lawmakers have calculated that the benefits of holding out for what they want outweigh the costs of not cutting a deal. And no one really knows when the scales will tip. Contact Mike Zapler at mzapler@mercurynews.com or (916) 441-4603. San Jose Mercury News Return to Top of Page
McCain's 'Education' Spot Is Dishonest, Deceptive Thursday, September 11, 2008; A04
A new John McCain ad caricatures Barack Obama's education record by claiming that his only achievement is to pass legislation ensuring "comprehensive sex education" for kindergartners. It implies that its critique of the Democratic presidential nominee has been endorsed by the nonpartisan journal Education Week, when in fact it is a hodgepodge of quotes from a variety of sources stitched together to form a highly partisan political attack. THE FACTS
Education Week bills itself as the "journal of record" for education professionals. In March last year, it ran a generally positive article about Obama, describing him as one of several Democratic candidates with a demonstrated interest in education policy. The article noted that Obama had gained considerable "grassroots experience" in education problems in Chicago as the member of a board of a school reform initiative known as the Annenberg Challenge. It went on to say that he had not made "a significant mark on education policy" in either the Illinois Senate or the U.S. Senate, but that he had pushed for the expansion of early-childhood education. The McCain ad includes captions attributing the quotes on accountability and Obama's alleged support for "the existing public school monopoly" to a Washington Post editorial and an op-ed in the Chicago Tribune. (Needless to say, the ad omitted The Post's criticism of McCain for failing to come up with a detailed education plan.) But a casual viewer or listener could easily get the impression that all the quotes came from Education Week. The McCain ad is wrong when it claims -- in a voice dripping with sarcasm -- that Obama's "one accomplishment" in the education field was a sex education bill for kindergartners. While it is true that Obama supported the bill, he was not one of the sponsors. As far as kindergartners were concerned, the principal purpose of the bill was to make them aware of the risk of inappropriate touching and sexual predators. Other states, including California and Massachusetts, have passed similar legislation. Obama was more closely identified with other education legislation in the Illinois Senate, including a 2003 bill he co-sponsored to double the number of Chicago charter schools from 15 to 30. On substance, Obama has attempted to tread a fine line between his opposition to vouchers and his support for greater choice for parents, including support for charter schools. In a speech in Dayton, Ohio, earlier this week, he proposed doubling the funding for "responsible charter schools." THE PINOCCHIO TEST
Nobody expects television ads to be fair and objective analyses of public policy. Almost by definition, the ads are partisan sales pitches, designed to promote one political brand while running down the rival brand. But they should not misrepresent the record of the other side and should clearly distinguish quotes from nonpartisan news sources from standard political rhetoric. The McCain "Education" ad fails this test. THREE PINOCCHIOS: Significant factual errors Washington Post
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Education Department names two Sac City sites national Blue Ribbon schools
Two Sacramento City Unified School District campuses were named 2008 No Child Left Behind-Blue Ribbon Schools, U.S. Department of Education Margaret Spellings announced earlier today. West Campus High School and Golden Empire Elementary School are the only schools in Sacramento County to win the award and two of 32 in the state. A total of 320 schools nationwide received the designation this year. “This is a credit to the hard work at the schools and that includes the administration, teachers, support staff, and, of course, the students and their parents,” Interim Superintendent Susan E. Miller said. “We’re very proud of this prestigious accomplishment. Now, we’ll take time to have collegial discussions so that we can replicate their extraordinary work at our other sites.”  The No Child Left Behind-Blue Ribbon Schools Program honors schools that are either academically superior or demonstrate dramatic gains in student achievement to high levels. The schools are selected based on one of two criteria: • schools with at least 40 percent of their students from disadvantaged backgrounds that dramatically improve student performance to high levels on state tests; and • schools whose students, regardless of background, achieve in the top 10 percent of their state on state tests or in the case of private schools in the top 10 percent of the nation on nationally-normed tests. Under No Child Left Behind, schools must make Adequate Yearly Progress, or AYP, in reading (language arts) and mathematics. Each state—not the federal government—sets its own academic standards and benchmark goals.  Irene Eister, the principal at Golden Empire, said that her community has supported the intense effort to ensure each child succeeds at her school site. “This means our constant hard work has been validated,” Eister said. It is all of us working hand in hand to get the best possible education for all of our students. All of us work together. We cannot do it by ourselves.”
Evelyn Baffico, the second-year principal at West Campus said the award was not only a reflection of the work being done on her campus, but of the entire district. “West Campus did not do this alone,” Baffico said. “It started at home and continued into preschool and kindergarten. We have to share this with every school that impacted these students. I want to thank every parent, preschool, elementary school and middle school who helped these students achieve.”
A total of 413 schools nationwide can be nominated. This number is determined based on the number of K-12 students and the number of schools in each state, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. The Chief State School Officer (CSSO) nominates public schools, and the Council for American Private Education (CAPE) submits private schools' nominations. The schools are invited by Secretary Spellings to submit an application for possible recognition as a No Child Left Behind-Blue Ribbon School. This year's winners will be honored at an awards ceremony in Washington, D.C. on October 20-21.
2 Sacramento Schools Receive National Honor 320 Schools Nationwide Receive Award UPDATED: 4:51 pm PDT September 9, 2008 SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Two Sacramento City schools were named 2008 No Child Left Behind Blue Ribbon Schools, district officials said Tuesday. West Campus High School and Golden Empire Elementary School were the only schools in Sacramento County to receive the award. A total of 320 schools nationwide were named Blue Ribbon Schools. “This is a credit to the hard work at the schools and that includes the administration, teachers, support staff, and, of course, the students and their parents,” Interim Superintendent Susan E. Miller said. The award honors schools that are either academically superior or have a dramatic increase in academic achievement, officials said. KCRA Region has four schools on federal blue ribbon list
Published 12:00 am PDT Wednesday, September 10, 2008
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell released a list Tuesday of 27 public schools and five private schools identified by the federal Department of Education as No Child Left Behind blue ribbon schools. Four were in the Sacramento region: Oak Ridge High School in El Dorado Union High School District; Granite Oaks Middle School in Rocklin Unified; and Golden Empire Elementary and West Campus High School, both in Sacramento City Unified. The schools are selected based on one of two criteria: • Schools with at least 40 percent of their students from disadvantaged backgrounds that dramatically improve student performance to high levels on state tests. • Schools whose students, regardless of background, achieve in the top 10 percent on state tests, or in the case of private schools, in the top 10 percent of the nation on nationally normed tests. – Bee Metro Staff Go to: Sacbee / Back to story Return to Top of Page
Education board to weigh possible delay in testing-
Published 12:00 am PDT Wednesday, September 10, 2008State Board of Education members will consider whether to ask the federal government for more time to institute a controversial statewide math standard, requiring all California eighth-graders to be tested on algebra. The board meets for two days beginning at 9 a.m. today at the state Department of Education, Room 1011, 1430 N St. The state board voted in July to test eighth-graders in algebra to bring California schools into compliance with the federal No Child Left Behind act. Last week, the California School Boards Association and the Association of California School Administrators filed a lawsuit in Sacramento Superior Court, challenging the vote. Sens. Darrell Steinberg and Tom Torlakson and Assemblyman Gene Mullin have sent a letter to state board President Ted Mitchell asking the board to reconsider the July vote. – Bee Metro Staff
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State GOP refusing to budge on taxes Lawmakers say they've learned from history By Ed Mendel STAFF WRITER September 6, 2008 SACRAMENTO – The last three Republican governors all signed major tax increases, but history does not seem to be repeating itself for the current Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger. His inability to get Republican legislators to vote for a tax increase, which the governor hopes would get votes from Democrats for long-term budget “reform,” is the main sticking point in a record state budget deadlock. The three previous GOP governors all raised taxes during their first year in office: Ronald Reagan ($943 million) in 1967, George Deukmejian ($780 million) in 1983 and Pete Wilson ($7.3 billion) in 1991. Now Schwarzenegger, in his fifth year in office, faces a united front of opposition from Republican legislators as he proposes a $5 billion temporary 1-cent increase in the sales tax to help close a huge deficit. What's changed? The current Republican legislators, saying they have learned from history, cite the previous tax increases as a reason for opposing tax hikes now. In his assessment, Assembly Republican Leader Mike Villines of Clovis doesn't include the Deukmejian tax increase – nearly a dozen minor increases that ranged from the car tax to vending machine sales. At the time, however, some called it the second-largest tax increase in California history. It was overshadowed by an agreement that would raise the sales tax if revenue fell below projections, but that never happened. What Villines and his fellow Republicans point to are the broad packages under Reagan and Wilson that raised a number of taxes including the big two: the income tax for upper-income Californians and the sales tax. “We have gone through the analysis,” Villines said. “We have looked at those, and we say either way there are problems.” Reagan raised taxes when the economy was growing and the state “spent every penny” because there were no spending controls, Villines said. Wilson raised taxes during a slow economy, producing less revenue than expected and substantial cuts the following year. “I have vivid memories of the Wilson tax increase,” said state Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Thousand Oaks. “That was the biggest in the state's history. It broke the back of the economy. It turned a recession into a near depression.” Some economists argue that the main reason for the economic downturn after Wilson raised taxes was a recession driven by a cut in defense spending at the end of the Cold War and the burst of a housing bubble in Southern California. “It's hard to link the aerospace and housing downturn to tax policy,” said Steven Levy, director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy in Palo Alto. Levy is the co-author of a paper issued last month arguing for a small tax increase. He said tax revenue stays in the economy through government spending and avoids disruptions in classrooms, health care and transportation. “San Diego prospers not because of the tax rate, but because San Diego is an incredible place to live and work,” Levy said. “If you cut infrastructure too much, you would be making a huge mistake.” The Public Policy Institute of California issued a study last year concluding that businesses aren't relocating to other states because of high taxes in California, as some have claimed. But California is a high-tax state with an unfavorable tax climate for businesses, according to the Tax Foundation, a nonprofit think tank in Washington, D.C. The Tax Foundation ranks the state and local tax burden in California sixth among states. The California business tax climate is ranked 47th, ahead of only New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island. Although previous Republican governors raised taxes during their first year, Schwarzenegger fulfilled a campaign pledge by repealing an increase in the car tax, or vehicle license fee, during his first hour in office in 2003. He stoutly defended the car-tax cut in his State of the State address last January, saying he would do it again even though some were saying it's part of the reason the state has a huge deficit. “It is not fair to punish people who can barely afford the gas to get to work, and on top of that then to ask them to pay for a tax increase to cover Sacramento's overspending,” he said. The car-tax cut is now costing the state $6 billion a year. Budget experts say it's a coincidence, but that also is about the annual amount of the temporary tax increase proposed by Schwarzenegger. The governor's temporary, three-year sales tax increase of 1 cent on the dollar would yield $4.8 billion a year – followed by a permanent quarter-cent cut below the current rate, producing a net tax decrease in the long run. Schwarzenegger also is proposing a temporary suspension of business tax credits for previous years, yielding about $1 billion a year. The tax increase would help plug a big hole in the $103.4 billion general fund budget that the governor has proposed. His Finance Department estimates that current taxes will produce $93 billion this fiscal year, with an additional $2 billion from fines, fees and penalties. The governor's press secretary, Aaron McLear, told reporters on Tuesday that what Schwarzenegger hopes to get along with the tax increase is “sustainable budget reform,” something not obtained by previous governors who raised taxes. Schwarzenegger had made two previous attempts at spending restrictions. One was rejected by Democratic legislators during his first weeks in office. The other was rejected by voters three years ago. Now he is proposing a budget control that would give governors the power to make midyear cuts to keep the budget in balance. In addition, 3 percent of annual general fund revenue would be placed into a “rainy day” reserve until the reserve reaches 12.5 percent of revenue. Republican legislators, who are working on an alternative budget with no major tax increase, also are pushing a hard spending cap based on the annual growth of inflation and population. Democrats are opposed. “We have cut more than $12 billion over the last few years,” said Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles. “So if we have a rigid spending cap, how then do you restore funding to programs?” Senate Republicans blocked an attempt by Senate Democrats to pass a modified version of the governor's sales-tax-based plan, with no offsetting cut after the increase. Democratic leaders have urged Schwarzenegger to split the Republican caucuses and pick off votes. Budgets and tax increases need a two-thirds vote of approval, requiring at least two Republican votes in the Senate and six in the Assembly. Schwarzenegger has held news conferences throughout the state on budget reform, urging the public to pressure legislators to pass his budget. But he has made few visible attempts to get votes by building long-term relationships with individual legislators or using the carrot and stick – tactics favored by previous governors. “We talked about all kinds of different issues and different ways of how to balance the budget, moving forward, and how to include the economic stimulus package,” Schwarzenegger said after meeting Thursday with Senate Republicans. However, all but one of the Republican legislators have signed a pledge against raising taxes. Schwarzenegger, facing a more heated anti-tax climate than his predecessors, would not say whether he expected any of them to break their vow. “That's something you have to discuss with them,” the governor said. “All I can tell you is we had a very productive meeting.” Find this article at:
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Suit won't stop algebra plans By Tracy Garcia and Caroline An, Staff Writers Article Launched: 09/08/2008 10:47:57 PM PDT
Despite a lawsuit that seeks to nullify a state decision requiring all eighth-graders to take Algebra I, Pasadena-area educators say they will continue preparing students for that goal. Last week, the California School Boards Association and the Association of California School Administrators filed suit against the state Board of Education for the way it decided at its July 9 meeting to require algebra for all eighth-graders. They claim the board failed to give proper notice to the public that it was considering such a "fundamental change" to state policy. They also claim the board has no authority to mandate when algebra should be taught. As such, the CSBA and ACSA have asked a Sacramento County Superior Court judge to set aside the board's action. Local educators said they agreed with some of the lawsuit's claims, but it won't change their efforts to prepare students for algebra. Alice Petrossian, Pasadena Unified School District's chief academic officer, said the district will continue with plans to teach algebra to its eighth-graders this year. "The bottom line for us is we will continue to provide a rigorous curriculum for all content areas, and that includes algebra in the eighth grade," she said. "This won't make any difference." The goal is to have all eighth-graders enrolled in Algebra 1 by the start of the 2009-10 school year. Officials are examining the elementary math curriculum to see where adjustments and revisions have to be made, she added. "We are looking at the data, particularly how many students aren't getting algebra, and see what the next steps are," Petrossian said. At the San Gabriel Unified School District, Superintendent Susan Parks said faculty is moving ahead in preparing students as quickly as possible to enroll in algebra. She said there is a "pretty good number of students who take algebra on time" and earlier. While there are ninth-graders who enroll in Algebra I, any changes, while significant, won't result in a "total system shift," she said. "There are variety of strategies that we are looking at. Some students may need a summer boost, but there will be those who need significantly more help," Parks said. While districts continue to discuss and implement the changes to their math curriculum, the lawsuit raises the issue of school districts' responsibilities, officials said. "What we would like is to have the ability to make appropriate decisions on what to do with these individual students," Petrossian said. "These instructional decisions shouldn't be dictated from up high." At the 8,800-student East Whittier City School District, officials say they had already been examining how to boost the numbers of eighth-graders taking algebra. But they don't want to force unprepared students into those classes. "We do not believe every (eighth-grader) should be in algebra, because not everyone is ready for that," said Assistant Superintendent Dorka Duron. Back in July, the governor-appointed state Board of Education voted 8-1 to authorize the algebra requirement. That followed a last-minute push by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and came despite opposition from State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell and school districts. California School Boards Association Director Scott Plotkin said the board's decision was made in a vacuum. "The SBE didn't provide the public with an opportunity to express how such a change in policy will have significant ramifications for all aspects of the educational system," he said. Teacher credentialing, districts' allocation of instructional time, professional development, instructional materials and strengthening K-7 math standards were all impacted by the board's unilateral action, Plotkin said. tracy.garcia@sgvn.com (562) 698-0955, Ext. 3051 Pasadena Stare-News Return to Top of Page
Bringing schools and communities closerevent to show effective partnershipsBy Alistair Beaton Published: 09/09/2008 A PIONEERING event to promote closer links between communities and schools will be held at Meldrum Academy later this month. Every parent council in Aberdeenshire has been invited to send two representatives to the region’s inaugural parent involvement conference on September 27. More than 30 seminars will be staged during the day on a variety of topics including the curriculum for excellence, health promotion in schools, and child protection. Minister for Schools and Skills Maureen Watt will also give a presentation during the event at Oldmeldrum which runs from 9.30am-3.45pm. Keynote speakers include Colin MacLean, head teacher of Auchinleck Academy in Ayrshire, and Lorraine Sanda, the national parental involvement co-ordinator for learning and teaching in Scotland. Aberdeenshire Council’s director of education, learning and leisure Bruce Robertson and committee chairman councillor Richard Stroud will also speak. Council quality improvement officer Fiona Cruickshanks said: “We have a large number of seminars and exhibitions organised, which will show how effective working partnerships can be between parents, schools and the wider community.” The Press and Journal
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Allow a majority budget voteThe delay in passing a state fiscal plan is not the fault of Republicans or Democrats but of the state's supermajority rule. George Skelton
Capitol Journal
September 8, 2008
SACRAMENTO — Don't blame Democrats for the record-long budget stalemate that is forcing the state to stiff private suppliers, community colleges and healthcare centers for the poor.
They've tried to compromise, agreeing to cut programs for schools, welfare families and the impoverished aged, blind and disabled. They're even willing to accept some of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget "reforms."
Don't blame Republicans either. They're being asked by the governor to break their pledges -- however misguided they were -- not to raise taxes. Moreover, most are philosophically opposed to taxing people more -- particularly during a recession -- and are sticking to their principles. That's supposed to be an admirable trait.
And Schwarzenegger? The Republican governor has little clout with GOP lawmakers and seems incapable of eliciting any of their votes. But give him credit: He did recently offer a revised budget proposal -- including a one-cent sales tax increase and deeper program cuts -- that could provide the framework for probably the best, most honest deal anyone's going to get.
No, don't blame the politicians, at least not entirely. The chief culprit is that archaic demon: the required two-thirds majority vote for passage of a budget.
It's a good bet that 51% of the Legislature would have voted for a budget by now -- maybe even had one in place for the July 1 start of the new fiscal year. But 67% is required.
Only two other states have such a monstrous hurdle. And both are better positioned to deal with it because, unlike California, their legislatures are lopsidedly dominated by one party.
California's Senate is 63% Democrat; its Assembly 60%.
But in Arkansas, the Senate is 77% Democrat and the house 75%. That state actually requires a three-fourths majority vote on appropriations except for education, highways and paying down debt. That leaves a sizable chunk of the budget that can be passed on a simple majority vote.
Rhode Island's Senate is 84% Democrat; its house 81%. A two-thirds majority is needed, but with that kind of party control, the budget should fly through the Legislature.
Illinois has an intriguing law aimed at ensuring on-time budgets. Until June 1, a budget can be passed by a simple majority. After that, it takes three-fifths.
State Sen. Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks), a hero of fiscal conservatives, long has favored allowing a majority budget vote.
"The two-thirds vote for the budget has not contained spending, and it blurs accountability," McClintock says. "If anything, in past years, it has prompted additional spending as votes for the budget are cobbled together."
Cobbled together by trading votes for pet programs and pork projects.
"It dilutes the responsibility of the majority party for the budget," McClintock continues. With a simple majority vote, he believes, the ruling party "would be much more careful about what it put in the budget."
Assembly Republican leader Mike Villines of Fresno County is moving toward McClintock's position, but isn't quite there yet. "There's a discussion to be had," he concedes.
"As a conservative Republican, it's frustrating to work out a budget that's always bad. You're just trying to make it a little bit better, but it's still never one you like."
Villines adds: "I can understand the argument to let the majority party own the budget. If people realized how out of touch the liberal majority party was, they'd be shocked. Voters would say, 'Why are we electing these liberal Democrats to run California?' "
Whatever. At least the budget might get passed on time.
Both incoming Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) and Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) say they'll consider developing a 2010 ballot initiative to permit majority-vote budgets.
"I'm telling you, I'm very serious about it," Steinberg says. "We can't keep doing this. This is ridiculous. It's unproductive."
Bass figures there would be plenty of financial support for a ballot campaign from labor unions, healthcare providers and others who rely on public funds and are frustrated by incessantly tardy budgets.
"This budget crisis we're in is a perfect example of why we need to be like 47 other states," Bass says. "I'm not sure what we have in common with Arkansas and Rhode Island. . . .
"We would have had a budget by the constitutional deadline, June 15."
Maybe not this year. Without a tax increase, it's virtually impossible to permanently plug the current $15-billion deficit hole. And a tax hike also requires a two-thirds majority vote, a handcuff applied 30 years ago by Proposition 13.
Selling Californians -- let alone Republican politicians -- on a simple majority vote for tax increases would be a tough sell. McClintock and Villines would oppose that.
Steinberg and Bass will order up a lot of polling and focus groups before they decide whether to attempt that move. "When you try to do all or nothing, too often you wind up with nothing," Steinberg notes.
Most states, 34, allow taxes to be raised on a majority vote of the legislature. The other 16 require some supermajority.
At the very least, California should return to a pre-1962 law that allowed budgets to be passed on a majority vote if spending didn't increase above 5%. That provision apparently had never been used because budget growth always exceeded 5%. So the clause was clumsily deleted in a constitutional streamlining.
That idea is endorsed by Joel Fox, former president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., the Prop. 13 sponsor. "The 5% cap would serve as a spending limit," he notes.
But I'd go all the way and require only a majority vote for both budget and taxes. Get things moving in Sacramento. The governor can always use his veto.
Let the legislative majority rule and be held accountable. We'll know whom to blame -- maybe even credit.
george.skelton@latimes.com
Los Angeles Times Return to Top of Page
Opinion Campaign Stops: On the Republican Convention: McCain Is Wrong About School Vouchers By Bruce Fuller Published: September 6, 2008 In this installment of Education Watch, Bruce Fuller and Lance T. Izumi discuss John McCain’s view on education, particularly school vouchers. Go to Mr. Izumi’s post. Bruce Fuller is a professor of education and public policy at the University of California at Berkeley. (Full biography.) John McCain’s fusion to President Bush’s ideological hip couldn’t be tighter when [...] The New York Times Company Return to Top of Page
Rhee's 'Plan B' Targets Teacher Quality
Strategy Might Include New Evaluation Process, Linking Licenses to Classroom Performance
By Bill Turque
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 8, 2008; B01
Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee is preparing to bypass the Washington Teachers' Union in pursuit of the objective she considers essential to overhauling the District's public schools: the power to fire at will teachers she deems ineffective. What she calls "Plan B" involves a more aggressive use of powers she already has and that are not subject to contract negotiations with the union. These could include strengthening the existing system of annual personnel evaluations that spell out procedures for terminating teachers. Rhee is also positioned to benefit from a potentially groundbreaking revision that has unfolded largely outside public view during contract talks. It would make the District school system one of the few in the country to link the licensing of teachers to their classroom performance, rather than their academic credentials. New rules, scheduled to go into effect this week, would grant State Superintendent of Education Deborah A. Gist the discretion to create an advanced teaching credential specifying the bench marks instructors would have to meet to keep their jobs. Speaking to a roundtable of education writers on Friday, Rhee declined to discuss her alternative path in detail, except to say that it had "multiple facets." She said she wanted to make changes in collaboration with the union -- and in a way that teachers would profit financially -- but that she was prepared to move ahead unilaterally. "The contract is the way that I would prefer to go," Rhee said. "But if we can't get to agreement on the contract, there's another very clear way that we can get there. . . . The bottom line is we are going to bring accountability in a very significant way to the educator force in this school district." Since mid-July, Rhee has tried to sell union leaders and the rank and file on a proposal that would propel salaries to more than $100,000 annually in pay and performance bonuses for many teachers. But in exchange, she insists that they relinquish tenure and spend a year on probation -- risking dismissal. Instructors have the option of keeping tenure and accepting lower raises. New hires would have no choice, remaining on the probation griddle for four years, twice as long as the current requirement. The pay proposal, along with a slew of other initiatives, has turned Rhee into a national standard-bearer for urban school reform and, in particular, a champion for those who regard teachers' unions as the most significant obstacle to progress. From Charlie Rose to Katie Couric to Newsweek, she has become the national media's go-to figure for discussions of what ails big-city schools. Rhee had once hoped to wrap up a contract by June, but as national and local acolytes look on, she has been unable to build a consensus among teachers, who remain sharply divided over the pay plan. As contract talks continue, she is pressing George Parker, president of the teachers' union, to bring the salary package to a membership vote. So far, he has resisted. In recent weeks, Rhee has moved to defuse expectations surrounding the contract and novel pay package. Asked earlier this year by Fast Company magazine what happens if she fails to get the labor deal she wants, Rhee replied, "Then I'm screwed." But at Friday's roundtable, she suggested that "Plan B" could have a national impact as far-reaching as the pay plan because it would show other cities a path to reform that does not require winning over unions and spending millions more on raises. Rhee's ultimate goal is clear: to weed the District's instructional corps of underperformers and remake it, at least in part, with younger, highly energized graduates of such alternative training programs as Teach for America, where she began her career. Unlike many tenured Washington teachers, those emerging from such programs are unlikely to invest their entire working lives in education. But they will, in Rhee's estimation, be more inclined to embrace her core message: that children can learn no matter what economic and social conditions they face beyond the classroom, and that teachers should be held directly accountable for their progress through test scores and other measurements. Without union buy-in, however, Rhee faces a longer, harder slog, which might involve changes in teacher licensure. Under current D.C. rules, a teacher can receive a standard license by completing a college- or university-based teacher education program and passing Praxis, a teacher exam. It is renewable every five years upon completion of six credit hours of course work or 90 hours in professional development workshops. Gist, who as state superintendent can set professional standards, has proposed amending the District's municipal regulations to make most licenses non-renewable. Teachers would be required to get a new "advanced teaching credential" by demonstrating classroom effectiveness through criteria she will determine during the next six to 12 months. Her plan would also broaden the range of accepted teacher education programs to include such nonprofit groups as Teach for America. The proposed rules would give Rhee "maximum flexibility in selecting and placing candidates," according to a PowerPoint presentation on the state superintendent's Web site. Gist has been working on the revisions through the rulemaking process, which does not require review by the D.C. Council or the D.C. State Board of Education. The revisions were posted on the D.C. Register Aug. 8 and become effective this week. Parker said he had no idea what Rhee's "Plan B" entails but that any attempt to use the licensing process to weaken tenure protections was unacceptable. "It really appears to be a backdoor process of firing teachers," said Parker, who sent an e-mail to most of the District's 4,000 teachers last week warning them of the proposal. He added that there is no evidence that the proposed revisions would apply to non-unionized charter schools. "If this is so important, how come it doesn't apply to charter schools?" Parker said he had no indication that Gist and Rhee, who meet regularly, were acting in a concerted fashion to develop the new licensure rules. Asked for an interview last Wednesday, Gist said she first had to receive clearance from Carrie Brooks, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty's chief of staff. Gist, who reports to the mayor, did not respond to the request. Brooks did not return a phone message. Rhee is free to unilaterally overhaul the school system's "Professional Performance Evaluation Process," and even Parker readily acknowledges that it needs work. Instructors judged by principals to be underperforming can be placed on a 90-day "improvement plan" and assigned a "helping teacher." What follows during the three months is a series of classroom observations, each of which must be preceded by a principal-teacher "pre-conference" and then a follow-up meeting. All must take place within precise time frames, a challenge for often harried, distracted administrators. "You blow one deadline, you go back to ground zero," said one principal, who asked for anonymity because she was speaking without authorization. She said she has used the 90-day plan just once in nearly a decade. Asked last month how many tenured teachers the District fired for poor performance last year, former Rhee spokeswoman Mafara Hobson initially said only one. She subsequently said the number was not correct but did not provide a revised total. Union leaders say administrative bungling and principals with little expertise in evaluating teachers enable the union to reverse many firings through the appeals process. "It's very poorly implemented," Parker said. "This is what frustrates me. A lot of times teachers and unions get blamed for holding on to poor teachers, when the bottom line is they haven't trained the principals correctly." The Washington Post Return to Top of Page
My View: Budget crisis burdens everyone in California By Arnold Schwarzenegger - Special to The Bee
Published 12:00 am PDT Sunday, September 7, 2008 This is not the first time California's state budget has been late – far from it. In fact, the state budget has been enacted by the beginning of the fiscal year only four times in the past 20 years and has not been passed out of the state Legislature by its June 15 deadline since 1986. The problem is that our entire budget system is broken and that legislators back themselves into their ideological corners and refuse to compromise. The differences this year are that we are later than ever, and also that I am insisting that we do more than simply pass a budget – we must fix our system once and for all. Two weeks ago, I asked the Republicans and the Democrats to come out of those partisan corners and to work for the people of California rather than for their parties. I proposed a compromise budget that includes elements both Democrats and Republicans like but that also requires everyone to give something up and meet in the middle. Since then, the Democrats took a vote on their own budget, which relied on massive tax increases. It not only failed to pass, but it failed to get the support of all of the Democrats. Republicans then responded with a budget proposal that borrows from the future and pushes our problems to next year. Even the Republicans have acknowledged that this budget has no chance of passing. So, 67 days into the fiscal year and still without a budget in sight in the Legislature, I say: Pass my compromise budget proposal. The compromise budget I have proposed maps out a responsible plan for addressing our state's $15.2 billion budget shortfall. First, it includes difficult but necessary cuts that amount to nearly $10 billion. It also provides new revenues, including a temporary 1-cent increase to the state sales tax (after three years, not only would the tax rate go down by 1 cent, but it would drop an additional 1/4-cent for a permanent tax decrease) and a simple plan to modernize and get more out of our underperforming state asset, the Lottery, for future budgets. My proposal also protects education funding (it increases the Proposition 98 education funding guarantee by $1.2 billion over last year, to $57.9 billion) and local government funding (by refusing to borrow from local government or transportation funds that voters have approved). Most important, my compromise budget fixes our broken budget system once and for all. Right now, California deals with a roller coaster of cash flow that brings large increases in revenues one year and then severe shortfalls the next. My proposal creates a strong rainy-day fund so that we are forced to put money away in the good years for use in the slow years, like the one we're in now. Also, we currently don't have the ability to make swift adjustments to the budget when we see a deficit coming mid-year. My proposal remedies that. I won't sign a budget that doesn't help correct these systemic problems. What I have proposed is truly a compromise budget because it includes elements that both parties will like but also requires that everyone come out of their partisan corners and give something up – myself included. The record-long delay in the Legislature is costing California dearly. For example, I have proposed a number of ways to save money within our budget, but because we could not put those savings in place in July when the fiscal year began, we have already missed the chance to cut $628 million from our deficit. If we delay another month, that tab will go up to $1.1 billion. That is your money – taxpayer money – completely wasted. There are other real consequences of this delay that are affecting Californians' daily lives. Day-care centers, providers of services to the developmentally disabled, nursing homes, clinics and hospitals are not getting paid without a budget in place. There are thousands of college students starting a new school year whose state financial aid checks won't be sent out until there is a budget. Soon, we will be forced to shut down our state data center, which would put a stop on virtually every state service, including emergency services. While some legislators have proposed costly Band-Aid solutions to these issues, the only responsible solution is to come to an agreement on a budget plan immediately. There is a massive weight we must lift off of our state and, as I have said before, I cannot lift it alone. I need your help. All Californians need to come together and urge the legislators to meet in the middle and solve this budget problem once and for all. Go to: Sacbee Return to Top of Page
Byron Williams: Time to fix the mess in Sacramento By Byron Williams
Columnist Article Last Updated: 09/06/2008 11:05:55 PM PDT HOW DID IT come to this? This year's state budget gridlock can be reduced to a single adjective: Dysfunctional. Twenty-two years of failing to meet the constitutionally mandated budget deadline, years of financial gimmicks and borrowing to politically claim a budget was in place, and initiatives passed by the voters to tie the hands of the Legislature there is simply no more room to maneuver. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger urged residents to contact their lawmakers and demand that they step out of the ideological gridlock to end the budget stalemate.
The governor has offered a temporary 1-cent increase in the state sales tax with billions of dollars in spending cuts to address the $15.2 billion deficit.
A frustrated Schwarzenegger said at a press conference this week, "I think it is very important for the California people to know that while the state is 21/2 months late on a budget, and while there are severe consequences "... to education and health care and hospitals and law enforcement and firefighting, there are absolutely no consequences for the legislators."
I couldn't agree with the governor more. But is he or, more important, the California electorate prepared to do what is necessary to end the madness?
The long, drawn out budget debate is the result of the chickens coming home to roost. At whatever point California passes a budget will not diminish its need for political reform.
Redistricting As long as legislators are granted "safe seats" they have no incentive to make tough budget choices or cross the political aisle in a bipartisan manner to strike deals. Moreover, as long as members of the Legislature are charged with redistricting there can be no progress. California needs a bipartisan group that is not members of the Legislature to draw district lines for the Senate and Assembly with an emphasis on competition. This will not prohibit safe seats, but increased competition will enhance incentives to make budget deals. Get rid of the two-thirds vote requirement. California is one of three states that employ this archaic system. A two-thirds majority vote in both houses only to approve a budget offers undo power to the minority and makes it difficult to compromise, which is key to the political process. Revise Prop. 13 I know this is the third-rail of California politics. The mere mentioning of revising Prop.13 will blow-up my e-mail and voicemail, which will undoubtedly include my father. But there is a portion of Prop.13 that is not in the public interest and is costing the state annual revenue. When commercial property is sold or merged, if the property stays technically deeded to the corporation that sold it, ownership of the property can change hands without triggering Prop. 13's provision that ties the amount of tax based on the property's resale value. By using a "shell company" to hide behind, corporations have for 30 years benefited from a major loophole in Prop. 13, while the state has lost revenue. The result is an absurd situation where corporations owning commercial real estate could have a lower tax burden than private homeownership.
End term limits
If the other reforms were put in place, then the elimination of term limits would be the next logical step. California's reactionary and draconian term limits has not improved accountability within the Legislature. A redistricting plan would put the responsibility of term limits in the hands of the voter.
Clean money elections California needs a volunteer, public campaign financing system, known as "clean money" like those in Arizona and Maine. The public financing system in Arizona and Maine has lowered overall campaign spending, has freed candidates from fundraising, increased turnout and encouraged more qualified people to run, which increases competition.
Currently, Assemblywoman Loni Hancock's clean money bill is awaiting the governor's signature.
These reforms, if addressed comprehensively, will not create Nirvana. But something must be done. If there is no reform that changes the way California does business all we should expect is the further immortalization of Yogi Berra's words because each budget debate hereafter it will feel like déjà vu all over again.
Byron Williams is an Oakland pastor and a columnist for the Bay Area News Group-East Bay. E-mail him at byron@byronspeaks.com or leave a message at (510) 208-6417.
Insidebayarea.com
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School Quality, State Leaders Get Bad Grades as Budget Showdown Looms
Californians Want Schools Spared From Cuts But Resist Higher Taxes
SAN FRANCISCO, California, April 30, 2008 — Californians rank jobs and the economy as their biggest worry, but they also see the quality of the public school system as a significant problem. A majority of residents believe that the state’s schools need major changes, according to the fourth annual survey on K-12 education released today by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) with funding from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. But while Californians identify K-12 education as the area they most want spared from budget cuts, they are divided in their willingness to pay more taxes to maintain current school funding. As a showdown looms over the state budget, Californians’ negative views of the public school system and lack of consensus on how to pay for it coincide with a sharp decline in their confidence that their elected officials can handle the challenges ahead. “There’s incredible concern about the budget crisis and its impact on schools,” says PPIC president and CEO Mark Baldassare. “People are uneasy with the way we make decisions about education, but they haven’t changed their views on how involved they should be in paying for it. That leaves the key question unanswered: How do we improve the quality of public schools?” ECONOMY IS CALIFORNIANS’ TOP WORRY, FOLLOWED BY SCHOOLS Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger dubbed 2008 the “Year of Education.” But that was before a national economic slump and a deteriorating state fiscal outlook prompted him to propose across-the-board spending cuts to balance the state budget. The state’s residents feel the shift in the state’s fortunes acutely, with 36 percent calling jobs and the economy the most important issue facing Californians, more than double the proportion (15%) who saw this as the No. 1 issue a year ago. Education and schools rank as the second most important issue (12%), slightly higher than last year (9%) but far lower than April 2006 (24%). Immigration ranks third (11%) and gasoline prices fourth (10%). More than half (53%) of the state’s residents say the quality of K-12 public schools is a major problem, and nearly a third (31%) consider it somewhat of a problem. The responses were similar last year, when 52 percent characterized school quality as a big problem and 28 percent said it was somewhat of a problem. Among parents with children in public schools, 43 percent this year regard educational quality as a big problem, a finding identical to last year’s. Among all Californians, 59 percent say the school system needs major changes. This is a view shared across party lines, by 67 percent of Democrats, 64 percent of Republicans, and 52 percent of independents. But when it comes to their own local schools rather than the system as a whole, Californians give higher grades. More than half (54%) give their public schools an A (18%) or B (36%). Public school parents are even more positive, with 27 percent giving their schools an A and 40 percent giving them a B. CONFIDENCE IN GOVERNOR, LEGISLATURE PLUMMETS At a time when the governor and the legislature need to reach an agreement to resolve the state budget crisis, Californians’ confidence in the state’s leaders has declined, particularly in the area of K-12 education. Four in 10 Californians (41%) approve of Schwarzenegger’s overall job performance, down 3 points since last month (44% approval) and a steep 16 points since December (57% approval). Just 25 percent approve of his handling of K-12 education, down 11 points since last April and the lowest point since we began asking this question in January 2005, when the governor’s approval rating in this area stood at 34%. The legislature fares worse in Californians’ estimation. Just one in four Californians (26%) approve of the way lawmakers are doing their jobs overall, down 4 points since last month (30% approval) and 15 points since December (41% approval). Only 21 percent of Californians approve of the way the legislature is handling public schools, down 8 points from last April (29%). RAISE TAXES? IT DEPENDS ON WHO YOU ASK, WHO HAS TO PAY A strong majority (60%) of Californians choose K-12 public education as the area they would like to protect from budget cuts, ahead of health and human services (18%), higher education (11%), and prisons and corrections (8%). This view holds true across political party lines, regions of the state, and among all racial and ethnic groups. Where Californians are split is in their willingness to pay higher taxes to avoid proposed cuts in public school funding. Among all residents, 49 percent say they are willing to pay more, and 48 percent are not. Democrats (60%) are much more likely than independents (48%) or Republicans (33%) to agree to higher taxes. The divide is regional as well. A majority of San Francisco Bay Area residents (57%) are willing to pay more, but many in the Central Valley (52%) and Inland Empire (51%) are not. “There is consensus on the problem and the need for resources,” Baldassare says. “But there’s no commitment to action.” Support for specific tax proposals also varies, depending on who would be most affected. An increase in the top rate of income tax for the wealthiest state residents gets strong support, with 67 percent in favor. But a sales tax increase that would be felt by all residents draws strong opposition, with 63 percent against such a tax. Californians also expect money to be spent more wisely on schools. While a majority (63%) believe that more money would lead to better schools, only 8 percent feel that money alone will improve education. A large majority (85%) say educational quality would improve if the state simply made better use of the money it spends on schools now. Considering Californians’ negative views of state decisionmakers and positive views of their own public schools, it is no surprise that residents would prefer that spending decisions be made at the local level: 46 percent say local school districts should decide how state money is spent, and 34 percent say teachers and principals should. Just 15 percent say the state government should have most of the control. But residents’ willingness to spend more money on their local schools is limited. Most (65%) would support a hypothetical bond measure to pay for a local school construction project if their district put it on the ballot, a type of measure that requires a 55 percent “yes” vote to pass. But asked if they would support a hypothetical proposal to raise property taxes to boost school funding, only 48 percent said yes — far short of the two-thirds majority required to pass a tax increase. PERCEPTIONS AND GOALS: A RACIAL AND ETHNIC DIVIDE While there’s overall agreement that the public school system needs major changes, racial and ethnic groups differ strongly in their perceptions of school quality and their beliefs about the goals of K-12 education. Blacks (72%) and whites (60%) are much more likely than Latinos (42%) and Asians (38%) to say that educational quality is a big problem. Perceptions of the key problems in education vary across racial and ethnic groups, as well. Californians were asked to assess the relative importance of three education issues: the high school dropout rate, teacher quality, and teaching children with limited English language skills. Overall, seven in 10 (69%) say the dropout rate is a big problem, followed by teaching children with limited English skills (46%) and teacher quality (28%). But there are striking differences among groups. - Latinos (84%) and blacks (80%) are much more likely than whites (61%) and Asians (51%) to view the dropout rate as a serious problem.
- More than half of blacks (53%) and whites (52%) say that teaching English learners is a big problem, while far fewer Latinos (41%) and Asians (32%) agree.
- Blacks (47%) are far more likely than Asians (30%), whites (27%), and Latinos (26%) to see teacher quality as a big problem.
What’s the most important goal of the public school system? It depends who you ask. College preparation is the top choice (35%) among adults overall, followed by preparation for the workforce (17%), and teaching the basics (15%) and teaching life skills (15%). But the results vary widely across demographic groups, with 61 percent of Latinos placing college preparation first, compared to 31 percent of Asians, 30 percent of blacks, and 21 percent of whites. Whites (22%) were as likely to list workforce preparation as the top goal. SUPPORT FOR HIGH SCHOOL EXIT EXAM BUT CONCERN ABOUT FAILURE RATE Since 2006, high school students have had to pass the California High School Exit Exam to graduate, and most adults support this requirement. The high level of support for the exit exam this year (72%) has been consistent since the first time PPIC asked the question, in 2002. But that support is coupled with rising concern about the higher failure rates of students in lower-income areas. The exit exam, which includes math and English language arts, is first given to students in grade 10. Students who fail either or both portions have five more chances to take the exam. In each of the first two years that the test has been required, over 90 percent of high school seniors passed. But differences among racial and ethnic groups persist, and economically disadvantaged students are less likely to pass the exam than their wealthier counterparts. More than eight in 10 Californians are very concerned (50%) or somewhat concerned (34%) about the differences in failure rates, higher than a year ago (44% and 35%, respectively). Blacks (77%) and Latinos (60%) are especially likely to say they are very concerned. One proposal to address the problem is to provide students who fail the exam with smaller English and math classes taught by fully credentialed teachers. Two-thirds of adults (66%) say they support the idea even if it costs the state more money. But that support has declined by 6 points (72%) since last year. While Democrats (73%) and independents (63%) favor it, Republicans are evenly split (49% in favor, 48% opposed). MORE KEY FINDINGS - Most Californians think schools in low-income areas have fewer resources – Page 18
Nearly eight in 10 Californians (78%) say schools in low-income areas have less money for teachers and classroom materials than those in wealthier areas, a finding that holds true across all regions, demographic groups, and political parties. If new money were available, a majority would spend more of it on low-income schools (72%) and schools with many English language learners or students with disabilities (63%) than on other schools.
- Residents value data on student and school performance – Page 25
Nearly nine in 10 residents (88%) say tracking performance is somewhat or very important, similar to last year’s findings (90%). But support for this goal has slipped among parents (from 65% to 58%). While a solid majority of adults favor spending more money on a better data system, support has fallen in this area as well, from 66 percent to 59 percent in favor.
- Most say art and music are important – Page 24
Strong majorities of Californians across political and demographic groups say the arts are very important (60%) or somewhat important (28%) in the school curriculum, which is in line with last year’s findings. Blacks (68%) are more likely than whites (64%), Latinos (58%), or Asians (50%) to say that art and music are very important.
ABOUT THE SURVEY This edition of the PPIC Statewide Survey is part of a series supported by funding from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The intent of this series is to inform state policymakers, encourage discussion, and raise public awareness about a variety of K-12, higher education, environment, and population issues. Findings are based on a telephone survey of 2,502 California adult residents. To account for the growing use of cell phones, this PPIC Statewide Survey for the first time incorporates interviews on cell phones along with those on landline phones. Interviews took place between April 8 and April 22, 2008. They were conducted in English, Spanish, Chinese (Mandarin or Cantonese), Vietnamese, and Korean. The sampling error for the total sample is +/- 2% and for the 1,406 likely voters is +/- 3%. For more information on methodology, see page 29. Mark Baldassare is president and CEO of PPIC, where he holds the Arjay and Frances Fearing Miller Chair in Public Policy. He is founder of the PPIC Statewide Survey, which is now in its 10th year and has generated a database of responses from more than 180,000 Californians. PPIC is a private, nonprofit organization dedicated to informing and improving public policy in California through independent, objective, nonpartisan research on major economic, social, and political issues. The institute was established in 1994 with an endowment from William R. Hewlett. PPIC does not take or support positions on any ballot measure or on any local, state, or federal legislation, nor does it endorse, support, or oppose any political parties or candidates for public office. Download the Complete Report Return to Top of Page
The Way We Live Now 24/7 School Reform
By PAUL TOUGH
In an election season when Democrats find themselves unusually unified on everything from tax policy to foreign affairs, one issue still divides them: education. It is a surprising fault line, perhaps, given the party’s long dominance on the issue. Voters consistently say they trust the Democrats over the Republicans on education, by a wide margin. But the split in the party is real, deep and intense, and it shows no signs of healing any time soon. On one side are the members of the two huge teachers’ unions and the many parents who support them. To them, the big problem in public education is No Child Left Behind, President Bush’s signature education law. Teachers have many complaints about the law: it encourages “teaching to the test” at the expense of art, music and other electives, they say; it blames teachers, especially those in inner-city schools, for the poor performance of disadvantaged children; and it demands better results without providing educators with the resources they need. On the other side are the party’s self-defined “education reformers.” Members of this group — a loose coalition of mayors and superintendents, charter-school proponents and civil rights advocates — actually admire the accountability provisions in No Child Left Behind, although they often criticize the law’s implementation. They point instead to a bigger, more systemic crisis. These reformers describe the underperformance of the country’s schoolchildren, and especially of poor minorities, as a national crisis that demands a drastic overhaul of the way schools are run. In order to get better teachers into failing classrooms, they support performance bonuses, less protection for low-performing teachers, alternative certification programs to attract young, ambitious teachers and flexible contracts that could allow for longer school days and an extended school year. The unions see these proposals as attacks on their members’ job security — which, in many ways, they are. As the fall campaign and a new school year begin, both the unionists and the reformers find themselves distracted by the same question: Which side is Barack Obama on? Each camp has tried to claim him as its own — and Obama, for his part, has done his best to make it easy for them. He reassures the unions by saying he will reform No Child Left Behind so teachers will no longer “be forced to spend the academic year preparing students to fill in bubbles on standardized tests,” and he placates reformers by calling himself a “strong champion of charter schools.” The reformers point to his speech in July to the National Education Association, during which he was booed, briefly, for endorsing changes to teachers’ compensation structure. The unionists, in turn, emphasize his speech a week later to the American Federation of Teachers, during which he said, “I am tired of hearing you, the teachers who work so hard, blamed for our problems.” On blogs and at conferences, the two sides have continued to snipe at each other, all the while parsing Obama’s speeches and policy pronouncements, looking for new clues to his true positions. It’s possible, though, that both camps are looking in the wrong place for answers. What is most interesting and novel about Obama’s education plans is how much they involve institutions other than schools. The American social contract has always identified public schools as the one place where the state can and should play a role in the process of child-rearing. Outside the school’s walls (except in cases of serious abuse or neglect), society is seen to have neither a right nor a responsibility to intervene. But a new and growing movement of researchers and advocates has begun to argue that the longstanding and sharp conceptual divide between school and not-school is out of date. It ignores, they say, overwhelming evidence of the impact of family and community environments on children’s achievement. At the most basic level, it ignores the fact that poor children, on average, arrive in kindergarten far behind their middle-class peers. There is evidence that schools can do a lot to erase that divide, but the reality is that most schools do not. If we truly want to counter the effects of poverty on the achievement of children, these advocates argue, we need to start a whole lot earlier and do a whole lot more. The three people who have done the most to propel this nascent movement are James J. Heckman, Susan B. Neuman and Geoffrey Canada — though each of them comes at the problem from a different angle, and none of them would necessarily cite the other two as close allies. Heckman, an occasional informal Obama adviser, is an economist at the University of Chicago, and in a series of recent papers and books he has developed something of a unified theory of American poverty. More than ever before, Heckman argues, the problem of persistent poverty is at its root a problem of skills — what economists often call human capital. Poor children grow into poor adults because they are never able, either at home or at school, to acquire the abilities and resources they need to compete in a high-tech service-driven economy — and Heckman emphasizes that those necessary skills are both cognitive (the ability to read and compute) and noncognitive (the ability to stick to a schedule, to delay gratification and to shake off disappointments). The good news, Heckman says, is that specific interventions in the lives of poor children can diminish that skill gap — as long as those interventions begin early (ideally in infancy) and continue throughout childhood. What kind of interventions? Well, that’s where the work of Susan Neuman becomes relevant. In 2001, Neuman, an education scholar at the University of Michigan, was recruited to a senior position in George W. Bush’s Department of Education, helping to oversee the development and then the implementation of No Child Left Behind. She quit in 2003, disillusioned with the law, and became convinced that its central goal — to raise disadvantaged children to a high level of achievement through schools alone — was simply impossible. Her work since then can be seen as something of a vast mea culpa for her time in Washington. After leaving government, Neuman spent several years crisscrossing the nation, examining and analyzing programs intended to improve the lives of disadvantaged children. Her search has culminated in a book, “Changing the Odds for Children at Risk,” to be published in November, in which she describes nine nonschool interventions. She includes the Nurse-Family Partnership, which sends trained nurses to visit and counsel poor mothers during and after their pregnancies; Early Head Start, a federal program, considerably more ambitious than Head Start itself, that offers low-income families parental support, medical care and day-care centers during the first three years of the lives of their children; Avance, a nine-month language-enrichment program for Spanish-speaking parents, mostly immigrants from Mexico, that operates in Texas and Los Angeles; and Bright Beginnings, a pre-K program in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district in North Carolina that enrolls 4-year-olds who score the lowest on a screening test of cognitive ability and manages to bring most of them up to grade level by the first day of kindergarten. Neuman’s favorite programs share certain characteristics — they start early, focus on the families that need them the most and provide intensive support. Many of the interventions work with parents to make home environments more stimulating; others work directly with children to improve their language development (a critical factor in later school success). All of them, Neuman says, demonstrate impressive results. The problem right now is that the programs are isolated and scattered across the country, and they are usually directed at only a few years of a child’s life, which means that their positive effects tend to fade once the intervention ends. This is where Geoffrey Canada comes in. He runs the first and so far the only organization in the country that pulls together under a single umbrella integrated social and educational services for thousands of children at once. Canada’s agency, the Harlem Children’s Zone, has a $58 million budget this year, drawn mostly from private donors; it currently serves 8,000 kids in a 97-block neighborhood of Harlem. (I’ve spent the last five years reporting on his organization’s work and its implications for the country.) Canada shares many of the views of the education reformers — he runs two intensive K-12 charter schools with extended hours and no union contract — but at the same time he offers what he calls a “conveyor belt” of social programs, beginning with Baby College, a nine-week parenting program that encourages parents to choose alternatives to corporal punishment and to read and talk more with their children. As students progress through an all-day prekindergarten and then through a charter school, they have continuous access to community supports like family counseling, after-school tutoring and a health clinic, all designed to mimic the often-invisible cocoon of support and nurturance that follows middle-class and upper-middle-class kids through their childhoods. The goal, in the end, is to produce children with the abilities and the character to survive adolescence in a high-poverty neighborhood, to make it to college and to graduate. Though the conveyor belt is still being constructed in Harlem, early results are positive. Last year, the charter schools’ inaugural kindergarten class reached third grade and took their first New York state achievement tests: 68 percent of the students passed the reading test, which beat the New York City average and came within two percentage points of the state average, and 97 percent of them passed the math test, well above both the city and state average. Obama has embraced, directly or indirectly, all three of these new thinkers. His campaign invited Heckman to critique its education policy, and Obama has proposed large-scale expansions of two of Neuman’s chosen interventions, the Nurse-Family Partnership and Early Head Start. Most ambitiously, Obama has pledged to replicate the Harlem Children’s Zone in 20 cities across the country. “The philosophy behind the project is simple,” Obama said in a speech last year announcing his plan. “If poverty is a disease that infects an entire community in the form of unemployment and violence, failing schools and broken homes, then we can’t just treat those symptoms in isolation. We have to heal that entire community. And we have to focus on what actually works.” Obama has proposed that these replication projects, which he has labeled Promise Neighborhoods, be run as private/public partnerships, with the federal government providing half the funds and the rest being raised by local governments and private philanthropies and businesses. It would cost the federal government “a few billion dollars a year,” he acknowledged in his speech. “But we will find the money to do this, because we can’t afford not to.” It remains to be seen, of course, whether Obama will convince voters with this position, and whether, if elected, he will do the heavy lifting required to put such an ambitious national program in place. There are many potential obstacles. A lot of conservatives would oppose a new multibillion-dollar federal program as a Great Society-style giveaway to the poor. And many liberals are wary of any program that tries to change the behavior of inner-city parents; to them, teaching poor parents to behave more like middle-class parents can feel paternalistic. Union leaders will find it hard to support an effort that has nonunion charter schools at its heart. Education reformers often support Canada’s work, but his premise — that schools alone are not enough to make a difference in poor children’s lives — makes many of them anxious. And in contrast to the camps arrayed on either side of the school-reform debate, there is no natural constituency for the initiative: no union or interest group that stands to land new jobs or new contracts, no deep-pocketed philanthropy devoted to spreading the message. The real challenge Obama faces is to convince voters that the underperformance of poor children is truly a national issue — that it should matter to anyone who isn’t poor. Heckman, especially, argues that we should address the problem not out of any mushy sense of moral obligation, but for hardheaded reasons of global competitiveness. At a moment when nations compete mostly through the skill level of their work force, he argues, we cannot afford to let that level decline. Obama’s contention is that the traditional Democratic solution — more money for public schools — is no longer enough. In February, in an interview with the editorial board of The Journal Sentinel in Milwaukee, he called for “a cultural change in education in inner-city communities and low-income communities across the country — not just inner-city, but also rural.” In many low-income communities, Obama said, “there’s this sense that education is somehow a passive activity, and you tip your head over and pour education in somebody’s ear. And that’s not how it works. So we’re going to have to work with parents.” In the end, the kind of policies that Obama is proposing will require an even broader cultural change — not just in the way poor Americans think about education but also in the way middle-class Americans think about poverty. And that won’t be easy. No matter how persuasive the statistics Heckman is able to muster or how impressive the results that Canada is able to achieve, many Americans will continue to simply blame parents or teachers for the underperformance of poor kids. Obama’s challenge — if he decides to take it on — will be to convince voters that society as a whole has a crucial role to play in the lives of disadvantaged children, not just in the classroom but outside schools as well. Paul Tough is an editor at the magazine. His book, “Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America,” will be published next week. New York Times Return to Top of Page
Editorial: AYP, API: conflicting measures of school improvement Mercury News Editorial Article Launched: 09/04/2008 08:43:27 PM PDT
California released its annual schizoid report card on schools on Thursday, leaving parents and teachers perplexed about the status of their schools. By the state's primary measure, the three-digit API score, most schools in Silicon Valley are continuing slow, steady progress; some, including a half-dozen downtown elementary schools in San Jose Unified, have made substantial gains. But by AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress, the federal measure under the No Child Left Behind law), many schools and districts will soon be falling hopelessly behind — if they aren't already — and will face serious sanctions, possibly including closing schools and opening with new staffs and principals. The mixed messages occur because the state and the feds basically use the results of the same annual standardized tests to set different objectives. There are strengths and weaknesses in both systems, but schools would be better served with one measure, based on the state model. That won't happen, though, until the state strengthens the API, and the feds relent on No Child Left Behind. Under No Child Left Behind, every child must be at grade level in English and math by 2014. Only those states, like Texas and Mississippi, with low standards will ever meet that implausible goal. To its credit, for the most part California has not gamed the system. As a result, nearly every school district will be out of compliance soon enough. At that point, sanctions will be meaningless and overwhelming to administer. Last year, only about a quarter of students had to be proficient; 71 percent of schools in Santa Clara County met the goal. But this year, between 32 and 37 percent of students, including every ethnic and racial subgroup, had to be proficient; only 57 percent of schools met the target. Next year's proficiency goal will be about 46 percent, then 56 percent in 2010 and so on to 100 percent. A train wreck is coming. That's why there's an outcry to change the law. The API index measures gives credit to students who show progress, even if they aren't yet at grade level. Since 2000, the median API score of Santa Clara County schools has increased a respectable 54 points, to 795. That's just shy of the state's goal of 800, based on a scale of 1,000. But proficiency is really 875, so the state's expectations are too low. And most schools have to nudge their scores only a few points every year to meet their growth target. So a lot of mediocre schools are scraping by under the definition of progress. Statewise, 157 schools more than doubled their API growth targets for two straight years, yet missed their targets under No Child Left Behind in both years. Both API and No Child Left Behind have forced school districts to focus on basic skills. That's been good. But the systems' good news/bad news have confused to parents and frustrated principals and teachers. They, too, need improvement. For scores on local schools, see Page 1B or go to www.mercurynews.com/education San Jose Mercury News
School groups challenge Calif. algebra mandateThe Associated Press Article Launched: 09/04/2008 06:58:06 PM PDT
SACRAMENTO—Groups representing school administrators and local education boards are challenging California's requirement that all eighth-graders be tested in algebra. The California School Boards Association and the Association of California School Administrators filed the lawsuit Thursday. It seeks an injunction to prevent the state Board of Education from imposing the requirement. California is the first state to mandate algebra classes at such an early level. The lawsuit, filed in Sacramento County Superior Court, says the action by the state board was taken in violation of the state's open-meeting laws. It says the public was not given adequate time to comment on the policy. Last month, the board moved quickly to adopt Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's last-minute recommendation to test all eighth-graders in algebra, despite fierce opposition from Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell. About half of California's eighth-grade students enroll in full algebra, up from a third four years ago. O'Connell said only about 23 percent of those students score as proficient or above on standardized tests. The rate is even lower for black, Hispanic and poor students. The governor sent a letter asking for the mandate the night before the board meeting in early July. The board members are appointed by Schwarzenegger and adopted his recommendation on an 8-1 vote. San Jose Mercury News Return to Top of Page
Editorial: Dropout figures show the need LATEST NUMBERS PUT NEW FOCUS ON REFORMS IN CITY HIGH SCHOOLS-
Published 12:00 am PDT Thursday, September 4, 2008The first part of the state's new data system, accurate figures on dropouts, already is having the right effect on schools and districts. The new system means that fewer kids are likely to fall through the cracks, disappearing without a trace. In our highly mobile society, kids and families move a lot, and schools ought to be able to track them. Now they can do that with individualized information. And schools are on the spot to follow through. To be sure, the new information was a shock to schools, districts and parents when it came out in July. In every district in our region, the data meant that dropout rates increased compared with the old reporting system. In Sacramento City Unified, for example, the entering Class of 2007 dropout numbers doubled under the new data system, from 508 to 1,014 students. "How could this happen?" asked school board president Manny Hernandez. "We've worked so hard on the dropout issue." The major culprit: Schools were reporting that kids have transferred to another school. The new individualized data was showing that many of these kids never turned up at another school. These "lost transfers" now have to be counted as dropouts. The good news is that the new individualized information has created an incentive for school districts to try to find these students. And they have. For example, in Sac City Unified, high school registrars found 225 lost transfers and were able to document that these kids had enrolled at other schools. That makes Sac City's actual number of dropouts 642 students for the entering Class of 2007. That's still higher than reported under the old system (508), so the city schools still have more dropouts than the old numbers indicated. But at least now, the numbers are real. Those numbers indicate that Sacramento's schools have a lot of work ahead of them. Hiram Johnson High School is a case in point. Under the old system, that school reported 82 dropouts for the entering Class of 2007. Under the new system, that grew to 191. In the last two months, the school has found 71 lost transfers, so the revised dropout number is 120 – still the highest number of dropouts in the district. Way too many kids at that school still are falling through the cracks. (Hiram Johnson had 223 graduates in 2007.) Luther Burbank High School, in contrast, has improved somewhat. After finding lost transfers, Luther Burbank went from 103 dropouts reported under the old system to 98 today. (Burbank had 353 graduates in 2007.) The new data system is providing an incentive for schools to make sure that students who leave actually enroll in another school, which is a good thing. But change can't just be about creating a well-coordinated process to document when students come and go. The real task is finding new ways to keep students in school and grabbing their interest. As interim Superintendent Susan Miller notes, Sac City Unified's new small high schools have helped these last five years. The district's reform effort has kept more students who start in ninth grade enrolled through 12th grade. But this is no time for complacency. With these new dropout numbers, the school board and school board candidates should give renewed attention to reforming and improving the performance of the district's high schools. Go to: Sacbee / Back to story Return to Top of Page
Republican Smoke and Mirrors Budget Proposal Disaster for Students, Public Schools and CollegesDavid A. Sanchez, president of the 340,000-member CTA released the following statement in response to the Republican State Budget proposal outlined today:
August 30, 2008
“Republican leaders took a step backwards with the state budget proposal they outlined today. Filled with smoke, mirrors and risky borrowing schemes, this proposal would be a disaster for students, public schools and colleges. The Republican proposal cuts more than $5 billion from education and replaces ongoing money with one-time dollars, causing more deficit problems next year and putting the state's minimum school funding guarantee at risk.
“Locking in California education funding at the bottom of the nation is not budget reform; it’s a budget catastrophe that destroys our children’s future. The Republican proposal gives the governor the power to cut local school budgets in the middle of the school year, making it impossible for schools to function, meet the needs of students or attract and retain quality teachers.
“It’s time for state lawmakers to put politics aside, show some leadership and listen to voters by supporting a responsible state budget plan that includes some additional revenues to prevent even deeper cuts to education, healthcare and other vital services.”
### The 340,000-member CTA is affiliated with the 3.2 million-member National Education Association. California Teachers Association Why is the governor spreading the CTA's lies about a '$5 billion cut' in education spending? Why? Why? Why? It's a lot more difficult for Arnold to surprise me nowadays. I've long since internalized the fact that the Arnold of 2005 -- the Arnold who realized the Sacramento status quo stunk and tried to change it -- is gone, never to come back. Nevertheless, it still astounds me that the governor's staff would send around this Aug. 30 press release from the California Teachers Association to build support for Arnold's budget compromise. Republican Smoke And Mirrors Budget Proposal Disaster For Students, Public Schools And Colleges David A. Sanchez, president of the 340,000-member CTA released the following statement in response to the Republican State Budget proposal outlined today: "Republican leaders took a step backwards with the state budget proposal they outlined today. Filled with smoke, mirrors and risky borrowing schemes, this proposal would be a disaster for students, public schools and colleges. The Republican proposal cuts more than $5 billion from education ..." That is an utter lie, and it's grossly irresponsible for Arnold to spread it around as if it were true. As I documented last week, total K-12 spending of all kinds was $54.1 billion in 02-03. It was $71.34 billion in 07-08. That is a 32 percent increase -- in a period of flat enrollment growth. Any claim the schools are starved is a lie, plain and simple. That the governor now sees the CTA as an ally completely confirms my supposition that behind closed doors, Arnold promised Democrats and their special interests that if they backed his spending control mechanism, he'd back a vast expansion in what the state sales tax applies to. Three years ago, the CTA did more than any other group to kill Arnold's reform initiatives. Now Arnold and the CTA have paired up. I fear for this state, I really do. Posted by Chris Reed at September 2, 2008 03:59 PM SignOnSanDiego.com Return to Top of Page
Tough lessons for charter school By Melissa Pamer, Staff Writer Article Launched: 09/01/2008 09:53:26 PM PDT
The realization of two sisters' long-held dreams of opening a charter school in Carson has remained, for now, just out of reach. Faced with delayed state funding and a makeshift campus in a community church that they found out - too late - wouldn't be approved as a school, Stephany Glover and Lisa Edwards have come close to giving up on their plans to open Legacy Charter High School this fall. "We've already cried," Edwards said. "This has been completely out of our control." The pair had wanted to open a campus that would offer hip-hop music and video production classes in addition to a traditional education. The school would have been an alternative to local campuses such as crowded Carson High School, which last year ranked in the bottom tenth of similar schools academically and was reported earlier this summer to have an estimated 26.1 percent dropout rate. Fifty-five freshmen were set to enroll at Legacy, but the sisters have reluctantly told parents to look elsewhere in case they are unable to open by a state-mandated deadline of Sept. 30. When the proposed school went before the board of the Los Angeles Unified School District in March, the hip-hop element of the school's curriculum was the target of some tough questions. But the charter was nonetheless approved. It was not the first try for the sisters, who have previously been denied charters by Centinela Valley Union High School District and Inglewood Unified School District. They turned to LAUSD because they perceived it as more charter-friendly. The massive Los Angeles-based district has more than 100 charters - more than any other school district in the country. Even before the pair got approval from LAUSD, there had been an unexpected bump in the road for the campus they hoped to call Millennium Charter High School. A month after they submitted their application to the district, they read with dismay a story in the Daily Breeze that described another charter school, also planned for Carson, with an unbelievably similar name: New Millennium Secondary School. Edwards and Glover recently told New Millennium - which is set to open next month in the Southbay Pavilion shopping mall - that they'd change their name. "Carson residents were completely and still are confused," Edwards said. "I feel really bad about that." There have been other hurdles as well, most of them similar to the ones that have challenged charters statewide. Legacy has struggled with a tight budget that's dependent in large part on federal grant money distributed by the California Department of Education. After getting a $50,000 start-up grant from the state last year, the sisters were approved for a $450,000 grant in June to help open the school. But now that money is being held up until the Legislature passes a budget. It could be up to four weeks from when a budget is passed before Legacy gets its first installment grant money, state education officials said. "I think it's very fair to say they have been impacted by the state budget," said Joan Strohauer, a consultant who administers California's Public Charter Schools Grant. Unlike New Millennium and other charters that have received funding from private foundations, Legacy does not have outside financial support. "We are not funded. We do not have the kind of backing that other charters schools have," Edwards said. Without a benefactor or aggressive fundraising, charter schools frequently have a much more difficult time opening, said Gary Larson, spokesman for the California Charter Schools Association. This coming school year, there will be about 750 charter schools in California, where the schools were first approved in 1992. The movement has grown significantly in recent years, particularly in the Los Angeles area. But about 4 percent of charter schools have failed since 1992, Larson said. And, while funding opportunities have improved, Larson said, it can still be very challenging for small, independent charter founders to succeed. Every year, between six and 12 charters fail to open, he said, "due to challenges like the ones Legacy is facing." "It's difficult to open. It's difficult to create a sustainable school," Larson said. Aside from the funding delays, the school site itself has proved to be the biggest obstacle for Edwards and Glover, both longtime teachers who most recently taught at Catholic college-prep St. John Bosco High School in Bellflower. Problems with securing an appropriate campus are common for charter schools, but with Legacy the issue was unexpected. They were happy to have reached a rental agreement with Peace and Joy Christian Church, on Figueroa Street in Carson, for space on the church's second story. They made some federally required improvements to the church's bathrooms and thought they were ready to go. But when they went last month to get a certificate of occupancy from the city of Carson, they found the church couldn't be used as school. They thought that because the church had been used for educational functions, they would be OK. "We assumed that these things were already taken care of," Glover said. "It was kind of like a clerical mishap on everyone's part." The city of Carson has to review architectural plans to approve the school, and it's not clear how long that will take, Glover said. "We're playing it by ear every day," Edwards said. If everything falls into place - Carson approves the site, a state budget is passed within days, and the grant check comes quickly - Legacy may still be able to open. But that's unlikely, and the sisters are already talking about 2009. Opening a year later could give them time to do some outside fundraising, Glover said. "There has been literally a mixed feeling. The relief is naturally there, but we've been working so hard for these years," she said. "We've been trying to keep our spirits up because we know in the end the kids will benefit." melissa.pamer@dailybreeze.com dailybreeze.com Return to Top of Page
Sisters Vie for City School Board to Help Students Succeed, Make History SACRAMENTO—Two sisters are attempting to change the fortunes of local schoolchildren by making history in their attempt to become the first siblings ever elected to serve together on the Sacramento City Unified School District Board of Education. Toni Colley-Perry and Darlene Anderson, who have been longtime fixtures in the city schools as students, parents, volunteers and advocates, are running to represent the newly created Trustee Areas 5 and 4 respectively in the November election. Colley-Perry, (51), graduated from John F. Kennedy High School in 1975. She has served as PTA President, as a member of various school site councils and worked for the district for 11 years as a Parent Adviser. Colley-Perry will complete her masters degree in January 2009 in urban education leadership, an adult education teaching credential, and a child development site supervisor permit. She has been appointed to the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission, Sacramento Commission on Geographic Manage Care and the Child Care and Development Planning Council. Anderson, (50), graduated from John F. Kennedy High School in 1976. She currently serves as chair of the District Citizens’ Title I/State Compensatory Education Programs Advisory Committee and as a Board Member for The California Alliance for School, Family, and Community Partnerships. Anderson has served as an advocate for low-income and special education parents and families, been elected president of the District Advisory Committee and served on several school site councils. For more information on these two history-making candidates, please call Toni Colley-Perry at (916) 519-9189 or Darlene Anderson at (916) 452-6218.
Requiring Eighth-Grade Algebra Makes No Sense By Dave Ellison In several op-ed pieces appearing in The Argus recently, Sacramento Bee pundit Dan Walters chronicled a series of "disturbing signs" in California's public schools. First, on June 16, Walters summarized the resurgent debate around teaching algebra in eighth grade, pitting those who favor a "historically rigorous set of academic standards" against others who prefer "fuzzy concepts over precise calculation." In subsequent columns, he bemoaned the rising tide of high school dropouts and graduates unprepared for community college courses. Truly, much is disturbing about public education in California and the nation. One of the greatest crises, however, may be the misguided crusade to enroll all students in a college-track curriculum, exemplified by the new state standards forcing so many eighth-graders to take algebra. Ironically, it may be these irrational standards, more than anything else, that have encouraged so many youngsters to abandon their education or to flounder in community college remedial classes. Algebra-in-eighth-grade proponents are correct that the course is a "gateway" to all higher mathematics and college. In addition, much-publicized results of the International Mathematics and Science Study reveal other first-world students surpass U.S. eighth-graders in the level of mathematics they study and in their performance on an international math exam -- the former supposedly explaining the latter. However, there were other factors: Far more American children than their foreign peers start school without speaking the classroom language; far more dwell in poverty, lack health care and suffer from depression; far more attend segregated and too-often dilapidated schools; far more receive instruction from teachers ill- prepared to teach algebra; and very few at all receive a K-7 math education with algebraic concepts integrated throughout as so many of their international counterparts do. The fact of the matter is, for a host of reasons, we in the United States have failed to enable so many of our eighth-graders to engage in the abstract thinking algebra requires. Nonetheless, in the interest of competition and higher standards, we've simply raised the bar on them, with disastrous consequences. In the fall of 2004, for example, 44 percent of Los Angeles high school freshmen who were enrolled in beginning algebra failed, and seven percent received a grade of "D." Of those students who repeated the class in the spring, almost three-fourths failed again. The solution is to require algebra even earlier, in eighth grade? Such a misguided academic "reform" harms everyone. Students who are ready and eager for a challenging, exciting Algebra course languish while the hapless instructor repeats explanations for others who are not. Those others, who still desperately need to learn the basics in math, don't and become increasingly discouraged. And, oh, what fun to teach such a class! "[Algebra] triggers dropouts more than any [other] single subject," said then-Los Angeles schools Superintendent Roy Romer. It triggers despair among math teachers as well, many of whom seek other professions. Meanwhile, I wonder: If only 25 percent of this nation ever earns a college degree, why insist that all children take algebra in eighth grade? I attended a private suburban grade school and a Jesuit high school academy, but even I didn't begin algebra until the ninth grade. And why, in defiance of all the research demonstrating children grow and mature -- physically and intellectually -- at different rates even under the best of circumstances, do we insist they all take the same college-prep curriculum lock-step together? To ask such questions doesn't mean I want to "water down" standards or that I support "fuzzy concepts." It reveals only that I recognize how the many and complex challenges our public schools and our children face belie simplistic solutions such as "higher standards." Dave Ellison's column appears on alternate Mondays in the Local section. Originally published by Dave Ellison, The Argus. (c) 2008 Oakland Tribune. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved. Story from REDORBIT NEWS:
http://www.redorbit.com/news/display/?id=1540909 Return to Top of Page
School districts retool for career tech studies
College prep blends with job trainingBy Chris Moran UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER September 1, 2008 
SCOTT LINNETT / Union-Tribune Career technical education is targeted for students such as Luis Vargas Jr., who cut metal in a welding and metal fabrication class at Sweetwater High School. |
Sometimes it's unclear which of Manuel Santos' classes are college prep and which are vocational. Last year, he took medical terminology, classified as vocational but heavy on the advanced vocabulary he'll need if he majors in pre-med in college. And though the Sweetwater High School senior has taken all the advanced science courses he needs to be admitted to his top college choice, the University of California Berkeley, it may be another vocational course, medical assistant training, that is best preparing him for pre-med. National City's Sweetwater High and schools across San Diego County are developing a new brand of education that is a hybrid of college-prep and job training, a series of classes that will equip high school graduates to simultaneously impress employers and university admissions counselors. New and more sophisticated job-training classes have emerged as a response to calls from industry for a skilled, homegrown work force and the rising awareness of a dropout epidemic among students who don't find school relevant. Funding increasedThe movement has received a boost from Sacramento, too. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has championed what is now known as career technical education, citing business courses he took in high school as vital to his success in the entertainment industry. Schwarzenegger also has presided over an 18 percent increase in funding for career technical education over the past two years, said Scott Himelstein, a former member of the Schwarzenegger administration. Last year, state funding for career technical education programs was about $650 million, according to the California Department of Education. “It's one of the few places in a miserable state budget situation where there are actually increased state dollars,” Himelstein said. Himelstein was Schwarzenegger's interim secretary of education before he returned to San Diego last year to become director of the the University of San Diego's Center for Education Policy and Law. Real-world connectionsTraditional vocational education, which prepared students who didn't intend to go to college for blue-collar jobs, has turned into career technical education, which equips students with technical and academic skills to pursue higher education or to adapt to the changes in the industry they enter. To capture the new both-sides-of-the-aisle approach, the San Diego Unified School District last year renamed its vocational education department. It's now known as College, Career and Technical Education. Poway Unified's career education department is redesigning its courses so that all of them will qualify students for college credit, industry certification or completion of a University of California prerequisite. “I think there's really this false dichotomy between saying 'college-ready' and 'career ready,'” said Kathleen Porter, director of Career, Technical and Adult Education for the Poway Unified School District. “Having real-world connections in academic classes is every bit as important as having real-world classes reinforce academic skills.” At Poway High, Advanced Placement physics students supplement their lectures on electrical circuits by visiting the school's auto shop to see the circuits at work. And as a result of consulting with the physics teacher, auto shop teacher Ken Faverty said he teaches his students more about multiple circuits to reinforce classroom concepts they will face on state science tests. Himelstein is trying to accelerate the movement. He convened a summit on career technical education last month at the San Diego County Office of Education to start a regionwide conversation on job-training education. At the summit, Himelstein released a University of San Diego report, which states that local schools receive $68 million in job-training funding annually but in a time of budget crisis may be leaving money on the table because educators can't penetrate the thicket of California school finance rules. USD also unveiled what Himelstein calls an online funding map that shows where the state and federal job-training money is and how to get it. It's money that the movement will need to add classes, recruit and train teachers and convert classrooms into workshops. Relevance to studentsThe money could go a long way at Sweetwater High, where the new sports medicine class is held in a converted girls' locker room that still has shower stalls and a cage at the back of the room from which mariachi students retrieve their instruments during the early minutes of class. The unconventional environment didn't prevent 17-year-old senior Alfredo Trujillo from successfully taping the ankle of classmate Berenice Lepe during a two-minute drill last week. They will soon be student trainers for the school's football team. “Right now I'm working at McDonald's, but I don't really like it,” Alfredo said. “So maybe I can get a job related to this.” Himelstein believes career technical education is crucial to training students for jobs in emerging industries and to lowering dropout rates. Based on the first-time use of individual student data, the state in July reported a county dropout rate of 22.9 percent, a number far higher than previous estimates. The state rate is 24 percent. The selling point of job-training classes by any name has been their relevance. “This answers the age-old question in school, 'When am I ever going to use this?' ” Sweetwater High Principal Wes Braddock said during a visit to a medical assistant training class. Braddock has more than 400 students in career technical education classes. Areli Hernandez takes the class because she wants to be a doctor, and she doesn't have to wait until college to see the relevance of the class. “You can also help your family when there's not a doctor at home with the skills you learn here,” said Areli, a 17-year-old senior. Among the state's high school graduates, about 26 percent statewide immediately enroll at a four-year college, according to the California Postsecondary Commission. “What is happening with these other kids? Are we giving them an option of college or career and making (school) relevant enough to keep them engaged?” Himelstein said.
 Chris Moran: (619) 498-6637; chris.moran@uniontrib.com| | Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20080901-9999-1m1career.html |
50 Ways Parents Can Help Schools The Center for School Change (n.d.) lists the following ways that parents can become involved in schools: - Come to school to assist.
- Share information with a student or class about a hobby.
- Share information with a student or a class about a career.
- Share information with students about a country you visited or lived in.
- Tutor one or a small group of students in reading, math, or other area.
- Help coach an athletic team.
- Help check a student's written work.
- Help put out a school or classroom newsletter (can also be done at home).
- Help sew or paint a display.
- Help build something (such as a loft in a classroom or new playground).
- Help students work on a finalexhibition or project (can also be done at home or workplace).
- Help answer the schools' phone.
- Help plan a new playground for the school.*
- Help plan a theme-based presentation for students.*
- Help present a theme-based program for students.*
- Demonstrate cooking from a particular country or culture to students.*
- Share a particular expertise with faculty (such as use of computers, dealing with disruptive students).
- Help students plan and build an outdoor garden or other project to beautify the outside of the school.
- Help coach students competing in an academic competition (such as Odyssey of the Mind, Future Problem Solving, Math Masters).
- Help bring senior citizens to school to watch a student production.
Help arrange learning opportunities in the community. - Help set up an internship or apprenticeship for a student at your business, organization, or agency.*
- Host a one-day 'shadow study' for one or a small group of students about your career in business or some other organization.
- Go on a local field trip with a teacher and a group of students.
- Go on an extended (3-5 day) cross-country field trip with a teacher & students.*
- Contact a particular local business or organization regarding possible cooperation.*
- Help to create a natural area outside the building where students can learn.
Serve on an advisory or decision-making committee. - Serve on the school-wide site council.
- Serve on a school committee that reports to the site council.
- Serve on a district committee representing the school.
- Serve as an officer in the school's PTA.
- Help organize a parent organization for the school.
- Help design a parent and or student survey for the school.
- Help conduct and or tabulate results of a parent survey regarding the school.
Share information or advocate for the school. - Serve as a member of a 'telephone tree' to distribute information quickly.
- Write a letter to legislators about the school.
- Write a letter to school board members about the school.
- Go to a school board meeting to advocate for the school.
- Go to another school to provide information about this school.
- Help design a brochure or booklet about the school.
- Help translate information from the school into a language other than English.
- Help translate at a parent-teacher conference for people who don't speak English well.
- Provide transportation to a parent-teacher conference for a parent who needs a ride.
- Write an article for publication in a magazine about the school's activities.
- Help arrange for a political leader (mayor, city council, state representative, member of Congress) to visit the school.
Increase financial resources available to the school. - Help write a proposal that would bring new resources to the school.
- Donate materials to the school.
- Arrange for a business or other organization to donate materials to the school.
- Help with a fundraiser for the school.
Help other parents develop their parenting skills. - Help teach a class for parents on ways they can be stronger parents.
- Help produce a videotape for parents on ways they can be more effective parents.
- Help write, publish, and distribute a list of parenting tips."
North Central Regional Educational Laboratory Return to Top of Page
Calif.’s most vulnerable in peril with state budget still in limbo Author: Marilyn Bechtel
People's Weekly World Newspaper If California’s budget, now stalled since July 1, isn’t resolved by the end of the Labor Day holiday, it will set a dismal new record.
In the longest previous delay, a budget was finally passed on Sept. 1, 2002, and signed by then-Gov. Gray Davis on Sept. 5.
Organizations serving hundreds of thousands of the state’s most vulnerable residents — seniors, mentally and physically disabled children and adults — are increasingly hamstrung by the current delay. Marty Omoto, director/organizer of the California Disability Community Action Network, said on californiaprogressreport.org this week that the delay is causing “havoc and uncertainty” among all such organizations, with some now needing to cut services or even to close.
A conference committee addressed the $15.2 billion shortfall in the state’s $101 billion general fund weeks ago, with a compromise budget featuring higher taxes for the very wealthy and the corporations, as well as cuts. But with California the only state requiring a two-thirds majority both to pass a budget and to raise taxes, the Democratic majority in the Legislature still can’t overrule their Republican colleagues, who have locked arms against any tax hike.
While the stalled compromise would roll back some of the harshest cuts Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed earlier this year, educators and health care providers worry about those that remain, and are deeply concerned that vital programs may be cut even further.
“Having already seen legislators slash more than $2 billion from school funding, the governor now proposes to cut an additional $1 billion,” Marty Hittelman, president of the California Federation of Teachers, pointed out, also on californiaprogressreport.org. “We education leaders are left with the bitter pill of calling for adoption of the Democratic conference committee budget, which reduces education funding by $2.4 billion. Talk about bad choices.”
While the conference committee budget restored many cuts, nearly 300,000 children would still lose health coverage, the Health Access coalition said this week. “As the budget debate drags on, and Republicans refuse to agree to increased revenues to fund our state’s basic needs, more lives will be on the line,” Hanh Kim Quach wrote on the coalition’s web site. “There have been rumored mutterings of more cuts, meaning more children will be unable to get eyeglasses, teeth cleanings and basic health services that would keep them healthy for years to come.”
The needs are sure to grow. This week the California Budget Project said median income in the state dropped 2 percent in 2007 over the previous year, and residents with incomes below the poverty line rose slightly, to 12.7 percent. Meanwhile, the state’s unemployment rate reached 7.3 percent in July, the highest in 12 years.
“What low- and middle-income Californians gained in 2006, they began to lose in 2007, and they’re likely to continue to lose in 2008,” CBP’s deputy director, Alissa Anderson, said. “The current downturn points to the importance of having a strong safety net in place for families to rely on during tough economic times.”
An interesting question: With all Assembly members and half the state Senate up for election in November, will the Republicans really want to be tagged as the villains in the budget tangle?
mbechtel @ pww.org People's Weekly World Newspaper
Hard Times Hitting Students and Schools LOUISVILLE, Ky. — With mortgage foreclosures throwing hundreds of families out of their homes here each month, dismayed school officials say they are feeling the upheaval: record numbers of students turning up for classes this fall are homeless or poor enough to qualify for free meals.
“We’re seeing a lot more children in poverty,” said Lauren Roberts, spokeswoman for the Jefferson County school system, a 98,000-student district that includes Louisville and its suburbs.
At the same time, the district is struggling with its own financial problems. Responding to a cut of $43 million by the state in education spending and to higher energy and other costs, school officials in Jefferson County have raised lunch prices, eliminated 17 buses by reorganizing routes, ordered drivers to turn off vehicles rather than letting them idle and increased property taxes.
The Jefferson County system is typical this school year.
As 50 million children return to classes across the nation, crippling increases in the price of fuel and food, coupled with the economic downturn, have left schools from California to Florida to Maine cutting costs. Some are trimming bus service, others are restricting travel, and a few are shortening the school week. And as many districts are forced to cut back, the number of poor and homeless students is rising.
“The big national picture is that food and fuel costs are going up and school revenues are not,” said Anne L. Bryant, executive director of the National School Boards Association. “We’re in a recession, and it’s having a dramatic impact on schools.”
Louisville’s pain is minor compared with the woes of some cities. Detroit has laid off at least 700 teachers, Los Angeles 500 administrators and Miami-Dade County hundreds of school psychologists, maintenance workers and custodians.
Schools in many states have cut bus stops to save diesel. Districts in California and Ohio have gone further and eliminated bus service either completely or for high schools, leaving thousands of students to find their own way to school.
In Maine, officials worried about the cost of heating their classrooms this winter have restricted travel for field trips to save money. Districts in Louisiana, Minnesota and elsewhere have taken a more radical measure and adopted four-day school weeks. Hundreds of districts, responding to higher food prices, are charging more for cafeteria meals.
In interviews, educators in many states said they were seeing more needy families than at any time in memory. Two charities in suburban Detroit announced in August that they would hand out student backpacks, attracting hundreds of families.
“They went through all 300 backpacks in three hours, boom, and that was that,” said Kathleen M. Kropf, an official in the Macomb Intermediate School District. “We’re seeing a lot of desperate people.”
There were no giveaways for Jacci Murray, 28, a single mother in West Palm Beach, Fla., who said she lost her job six months ago. Ms. Murray bought pencils and crayons for her son, Cameron, who is in the second grade, from a discount bin at Office Depot. Saying she felt “cheap and broke,” she pored fretfully over her school supplies list, afraid to waste gas by making more than one shopping trip.
“It’s been tough this year,” Ms. Murray said. “I’m depressed about school.”
And so are many educators.
West Virginia officials issued a memorandum recently to local districts titled “Tips to Deal With the Skyrocketing Cost of Fuel.” Last week, David Pauley, the transportation supervisor for the Kanawha County school system, based in Charleston, met with drivers of the district’s 196 buses to outline those policies. Mr. Pauley told them to stay 5 miles per hour below the limit, to check the tire pressure every day and to avoid jackrabbit starts.
The Caldwell Parish School District, in northern Louisiana, took a more sweeping approach to saving fuel by eliminating Monday classes. The district joined about 100 systems nationwide, most of them rural, that in recent years have adopted a four-day schedule.
The district’s superintendent, John Sartin, said the move should save $145,000 in a $15 million budget. The decision, made in June, came after crude oil prices had risen for 29 consecutive days, Mr. Sartin said.
“People here worry that they won’t have enough money to last through the month,” he said.
Similar concerns in the Southern Aroostook Community School District in Maine have delayed adoption of the budget.
“We’ve tried to pass it twice, and we’re trying a third,” said Terry Comeau, the superintendent, who has restricted field trips and taken a bus off the road.
“People are saying, ‘I don’t want my taxes to go higher; I need the money to pay my bills,’ ” said Mr. Comeau, adding that one worry is that heating costs will soar this winter.
The problems in many districts can be traced to battered state budgets. According to a July report by the National Conference of State Legislatures, 31 states had budget gaps totaling $40 billion, and many had cut school financing.
California still has a $15.2 billion budget gap, although many districts there have made cuts, including Los Angeles Unified, which sliced $400 million from its $6 billion budget in June partly by laying off 500 administrators and secretaries, though no teachers.
Many districts are serving increasing numbers of needy students. In Mobile, Ala., the number of homeless students tripled to about 2,500 at the end of the last school year from 850 in the 2006-7 term.
“And our numbers are going to be a whole lot higher this year,” said Larissa Dickinson, a school social worker there. “We’ve had phone call after phone call from families evicted over the summer.”
Officials in districts in a half-dozen states reported similar surges.
In Louisville, 7,600 homeless students were enrolled when the term ended in June, up from 7,300 the year before. But Anne Malone, who coordinates efforts to help homeless students, said the figure would be “way up over that this year.” Ms. Malone cited foreclosure statistics from the Metropolitan Housing Coalition in Louisville that about 10 families were evicted every day here.
The number of students whose family’s income qualifies them for subsidized meals is up, too.
Under the National School Lunch Program, children in a family of four whose parents earn no more than $39,220 a year qualify for a subsidized 30-cent breakfast and 40-cent lunch. If the parents earn no more than $27,560, the children qualify for free meals.
Last year, about 58,000 Jefferson County students were eligible for free or reduced-price meals. This year, the number is likely to reach 62,000, said Mary R. Owens, who coordinates the program here. In interviews, officials in California, the District of Columbia, Florida and Wisconsin also projected increases in the number of students who would qualify for free or reduced-price meals.
Nationally, 14.9 million students qualified for free lunches last year, according to data from the Agriculture Department; the Bush administration’s budget estimates that an additional 283,000 students will be eligible this year.
A department spokeswoman, Jean Daniel, said that subsidized meals were an entitlement and that no students would be turned away if participation exceeded estimates.
The office here where parents fill out forms to qualify for subsidized meals has seen a stream of anxious parents this year, often in tears, pleading for the free meals for their children because they do not have 70 cents a day to pay for the reduced-price meals, Ms. Owens said.
“We’ve had a lot of daddies coming in to say their check doesn’t cover like it used to,” she said. The New York Times Company
Audit criticizes Butte County charter schoolThe Associated Press Article Launched: 08/30/2008 01:29:16 PM PDT
GRIDLEY, Calif.—The Butte County District Attorney's office has been asked to investigate allegations of nepotism and financial fraud at a local charter school. An audit of the Oak Hills Charter School found several potential financial improprieties. They included $8,000 in missing equipment, false billing and use of credit cards with no evidence showing the charges were related to school activities. The audit was ordered by the local superintendent of schools. It also found instances of potential nepotism in which close friends and family members of the principal were hired or given raises. For example, the audit found the principal hired her mother as a teacher and appointed herself as her mother's direct supervisor. Inconsistencies in student enrollment also were uncovered, with auditors unable to confirm the existence of several students. Auditors said the charter school's enrollment was perhaps 30 students less than officially reported. The Biggs Unified School District closed the charter school last October because of health and safety violations. Information from: Chico Enterprise-Record, http://www.chicoer.com San Jose Mercury News Return to Top of Page
Ex-Suns player to kick off program PHOENIX - A former NBA All-Star and Phoenix Suns point guard will kick off the Phoenix Teaching Fellows program this month. Kevin Johnson, a Sacramento mayoral candidate, will visit Phoenix Elementary and Murphy Elementary school districts. He will attend an after-school event at Murphy's Alfred F. Garcia Elementary School at 3 p.m. on Sept. 16. The Phoenix Teaching Fellows recruits, selects, and trains outstanding citizens who enter high-needs schools and teach in the areas of math, science, special education, language arts, and elementary education. The program brought 28 new teachers on board at Phoenix Elementary and Murphy Elementary school districts. About 470 individuals applied. azcentral.com Return to Top of Page
Guest Editorial: Budget woes no excuse to abandon state’s poorest students BY PAMELA SHORT-POWELL, EDNA HERRING & DWIGHT BONDS
As the State of California faces a financial crisis, everyone from the governor to legislators to local elected officials are scrambling to find the best way to close the budget gap.
As a result, talk around the Capitol has begun to resemble a math textbook with its emphasis on figures: $17 billion budget deficit, 10 percent cuts across the board, $4 billion in proposed education cuts.
Without a doubt, these numbers are daunting. As leaders work to create a balanced state budget, these numbers will weigh heavily on their minds. We would suggest, however, that our elected officials remember several other numbers as well: 2004, 17 and 2.5.
In 2004, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the State of California affirmed that access to a high-quality education is the right of every student. In response to a lawsuit filed on behalf of California’s poorest students, the courts mandated that all California K-12 students have qualified teachers, clean and safe schools, and instructional materials in the core areas of reading, math, social studies and science. Now called the Williams Settlement, the 2004 legislation resulting from settling the court case, is viewed as a major tool in addressing the achievement gap that has long remained between students in affluent communities and students in poor neighborhoods.
While the Williams Settlement is moving us in the right direction, equity in education is still a long way off. In 2005, approximately 17 percent of African-American youth earned a college degree, compared with 34 percent of white youth in the same age bracket. Clearly, significant disparities in achievement exist among California’s students. And, unless these students have access to qualified teachers, quality instructional materials and a safe place to learn, they will continue to fall further behind.
A study by Stanford University professor Eric Hanushek, entitled “The Role of Education Quality in Economic Growth,” found that the cost in lost U.S. economic output due to the achievement gap between 1990 and 2002 was a staggering $2.5 trillion, enough to cover the entire cost of K-12 education in the nation during that same period.
This is not just an issue for the African-American community. It is a disadvantage to society and to the economy if a significant number of Americans remain consistently underserved and undereducated.
The Honorable Augustus F. Hawkins, the first African-American from California to serve in the United States Congress, may have said it best when he said: “Black children are the proxy for what ails American education in general. And so, as we fashion solutions which help Black children, we fashion solutions which help all children.”
Without a doubt the budget crisis is real and will require our public policy leaders to make difficult choices. Those choices should not be shortsighted. The crisis should not serve as an excuse to abandon poor children. The Williams Settlement mandates basic equity in our schools. These mandates must be maintained. Our leaders must consider the real costs to society when we fail to educate our students. We cannot afford to fail those students who already are paying the price for the lack of qualified teachers, instructional materials and safe and clean schools.
Short-Powell is the superintendent of Inglewood Unified School District and president of the California Association of African American Superintendents; Herring is superintendent of the Rialto Unified School District. Bonds is acting executive director of the California Association of African American Superintendents.
Los Angeles Wave Return to Top of Page
Open up state board of education meetings Posted by John Fensterwald on August 8th, 2008 at 9:33 am A blogger from Ukiah has started an online petition to demand that the state Board of Education join the Legislature in broadcasting its meetings on the Internet. The governor appoints members of the state board, which approves curriculums and textbooks and instructional materials, hears appeals and sets regulations over charter schools, and administers federal sanctions under No Child Left Behind — among its charges. It also grants waivers from the Ed Code — a sleeper power that, if I had to bet, it may use in the coming year to give districts more freedom to try reforms. Ted Mitchell, the president of the board, also chaired the Governor’s Advisory Committee on Education Excellence. The board’s agendas are posted online, but as Dave notes, some folks in the south and north would have to drive six hours to attend one of its meetings. As boring some of the meetings will be, there’s no excuse for not putting them online. Petition organizer Dave Johnston, a telecom consultant who does the blog on education issues and whatever else comes to mind, says that 15 states broadcast or teleconference similar meetings. Take Action Now! online petition "Freedom is when the people can speak; democracy is when the government listens."--Alastair Farrugia, University of Waterloo Return to Top of Page
Get Pad and Pen: The School Supply List Is Long By LISA W. FODERARO
Among parents with school-age children, it is known simply as the List. The one for Myung Kim’s sixth grader in Ardsley, N.Y., ran to 30 items, including three packages of clay and a protractor. In Manhattan, Ellen Schorr’s 9-year-old had hers broken into three categories: “student supplies,” “community supplies” and “materials to have at home.” Increasingly, amid the requisite three-hole punch and colored pencils are items with double-digit price tags — flash drives, scientific calculators and disposable cameras. And the lists are heavy on hygiene: Lysol, Band-Aids, hand sanitizer, tissues and paper towels, things the custodian or school nurse used to have on hand. “I’m assuming that 10 boxes of baby wipes is a typo,” said Ms. Schorr, a writer and class parent at Public School 163 on the Upper West Side, where her 5-year-old, Isadora, is starting kindergarten. “I’m not buying 10 boxes.” As school districts both poor and prosperous struggle to finance such basics as teacher salaries, utilities, building maintenance and textbooks, many are asking parents to purchase more — and more particular — school supplies. Gone are the days when back-to-school shopping meant making sure each child had new shoes and a three-ring binder. Now, according to the New York State School Boards Association, supplies run an average of $100 for high school students and $60 for middle schoolers. The trend has even touched the toddler cohort. At Eladia’s Kids Child Care Center in Brooklyn, the parents of an 18-month-old were asked to provide, among other things, a backpack, a two-pocket folder (for daily communications and periodic assignments) and special-occasion stickers (“special because they’re from you!”). Many New York teachers extended their lists this year after the City Council cut the Teacher’s Choice fund, created two decades ago to reimburse teachers for personal spending on classroom supplies, to $13 million from $20 million. Teachers who used to receive an allotment of $240 each now can count on $150. But opposition to the ever-growing lists has led some school districts to put on the brakes. In the suburbs of Rochester, the Gates Chili Central School District last year capped the amount that parents were expected to spend on supplies at $10 a child, adding $100,000 to the budget to make up the difference. The sprawling Fayette County Public Schools in Lexington, Ky., set a limit this fall of $120 a child for the year, including field trips. At Springhurst Elementary School in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., teachers have agreed on a standard list so the parent organization can buy in bulk, handing each family a shrink-wrapped package costing $37 to $44 this week. “I think we have an obligation to provide a free public education,” said Superintendent Rick Stein of Gates Chili, which has 5,000 students, a third of them poor enough to qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. “I think a youngster needs to come to school on a level playing field, and it’s much harder for some families to accomplish that than others. Our long-term goal is to get it to zero.” Amy Ellen Schwartz, director of the Institute for Education and Social Policy at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development at New York University, said that the shifting of responsibility for supplies from schools to families reflected two competing ideals in public education: equity and parental involvement. While many teachers tuck things like paper towels and tissues at the bottom of their lists, under a “donations” heading, Dr. Schwartz cautioned that such optional requests could create an atmosphere of favoritism. “The parents who are most able to provide the resources might garner attention for their children,” she said. “Do we have evidence that this happens? No. Is it far-fetched that it could? No.” David Albert, a spokesman for the New York State School Boards Association, said the cost of school supplies was “a burgeoning issue right now” because of the weak economy and high fuel and food costs, particularly among poorer families or those with many children. “You hear grumblings from different districts where parents look at these lists of supplies and ask whether they’re all necessary,” he said. Indeed, many parents interviewed this week expressed frustration not only at the length, specificity and oddball nature of some lists, but also at the inefficiency of asking each parent in a class to buy a single ream of paper when school districts could undoubtedly get discounts for large quantities. Others cringe at seeing the things they searched for on store shelves sit unused. “I spent $198 last year on supplies, and there are so many markers and highlighters and pencils they don’t use,” said Ms. Kim, the Ardsley mother of two who was shopping in a CVS. “We barely touched the clay,” added her 12-year-old daughter, Grace, who is going into the seventh grade. Lisa Deffendall, a spokeswoman for the Kentucky school district that set the $120 limit, said the school board there also banned requiring students to provide communal items like cleaning supplies and copy paper, and asked principals to review all lists. “We wanted to make a commitment to our families that the items you send in with your child are really going to be used by your child,” she said. At a Staples in Scarsdale, N.Y., the other day, Dee Thompson, a subway conductor and single mother who lives in the Bronx, was fretting over folders for her daughter Nazaria, who won admission to the Salk School of Science, a selective middle school in Gramercy Park. “They’ll say folders, but they have plastic folders, vinyl folders, folders with three holes, and you don’t know what kind they mean,” she said. Nazaria’s list of 24 items included 8 optional ones marked as “donations.” Among the must-haves were a flash drive, a dictionary, a thesaurus, a scientific calculator and graph-paper composition notebooks — which presented a problem, since Staples had graph-paper pads, but not notebooks. At the top of the list was an additional sticker shock: notice of a $50 lab fee. “I can’t afford a private education for her,” Ms. Thompson said, “so this is my payback.” Maria Baez, the manager of a laundry service in Brooklyn, spent $125 the other day on supplies for her daughter, Mireya, who is about to start the seventh grade, and still needed to find a calculator — and it had to be by Texas Instruments. “We need help because it’s a lot of stuff, especially if you have three kids,” said Ms. Baez, who also has a kindergartner and a college student, and was shopping for back-to-school clothes at Cookies in the Fulton Mall in Downtown Brooklyn. But Ajith Nair, the father of a first grader and a fifth grader in Dobbs Ferry, opted against the elementary school’s prepackaged supplies and headed to a nearby Staples, even though he knew it would most likely cost more. “I love to do this,” he said. “This is something I can do for my kids — to give it a personal touch.” And Tory Perry, who lives on the Upper West Side with three school-age children, said she did not think the lists were excessive. “It would be wonderful if they were included in the budget, but the reality is that there’s no funding for supplies,” Ms. Perry said as she shopped at Staples on Broadway at 80th Street. “We’re fighting for reduction in class size and really basic things. This is a way of supporting the teacher.” Teachers themselves say they feel caught in a bind, especially given dwindling resources for supplies from the main office. “I try to limit it,” said Cara Cashman, who teaches first graders at P.S. 280 in Norwood, in the Bronx, referring to her list. “I’ve seen lists that are ridiculous.” Ms. Cashman, like so many other teachers, spends her own money for supplies, and keeps eyes peeled for specials and giveaways, like the free pocket folders available at most Staples locations through Saturday. (OfficeMax is offering protractors and compasses for a penny from Sunday through Sept. 6.) Ms. Cashman clutched 28 white pocket folders, one for each of her students, at the Staples store on Central Avenue in Scarsdale. “They had free glue sticks a couple of weeks ago, so I stocked up on glue,” she said. The New York Times Company Return to Top of Page
A Watershed Labor Negotiation
By Steven Pearlstein
Friday, August 29, 2008; D01
As we head into the Labor Day weekend, it is only fitting that we consider what may be the country's most significant contract negotiation, which happens to be going on right here in Washington between the teachers union and the District's dynamic and determined new schools chancellor, Michelle Rhee. Negotiations are stalled over Rhee's proposal to give teachers the option of earning up to $131,000 during the 10-month school year in exchange for giving up absolute job security and a personnel-and-pay system based almost exclusively on years served. If Rhee succeeds in ending tenure and seniority as we know them while introducing merit pay into one of the country's most expensive and underperforming school systems, it would be a watershed event in U.S. labor history, on a par with President Ronald Reagan's firing of striking air traffic controllers in 1981. It would trigger a national debate on why public employees continue to enjoy what amounts to ironclad job security without accountability while the taxpayers who fund their salaries have long since been forced to accept the realities of a performance-based global economy. Union leaders from around the country, concerned about the attention the Rhee proposal has received and the precedent it could set, have been pressing the Washington local to resist. But Rhee clearly has the upper hand. The chancellor has the solid support of the mayor and city council, and should it come to a showdown, there is little doubt that the voters would stand behind her in a battle with a union already badly tarnished by an embezzlement scandal and deeply implicated in the school system's chronic failure. Caught somewhat in the middle is George Parker, the Washington Teachers' Union's thoughtful new president, who genuinely understands the need to get ahead of the reform wave and move the union toward greater pay and greater accountability. Parker is already getting push-back from the local's older guard, which has seen superintendents come and go and remains suspicious that Rhee is out to fire everyone. At the same time, he has been frustrated by a strong-willed new superintendent who is demanding significantly more discretion in personnel and pay decisions without getting tied up in endless "due process" procedures. At the moment, the biggest sticking point has to do with a one-year "probationary" period that even experienced teachers would have to go through if they volunteer to give up tenure in exchange for becoming eligible for up to $20,000 a year in bonus pay. Union member Jerome Brocks probably spoke for many teachers when he told The Post that he found such a tradeoff "degrading and insulting" -- and I'm that sure for someone who has taught special education for 34 years, it probably feels that way. But when you weigh the potential damage to teachers' egos, self-esteem and economic security against the unfairness of dooming generations of District children to lifetimes of underachievement, that looks like a pretty easy choice. Sure, there will be times when teachers will be treated in an arbitrary and capricious way if they give up their tenure rights. Guess what: It happens all the time in the private sector, where hiring, promotion and pay decisions are sometimes made with incomplete information, favoritism, or undue emphasis on one factor or another. But despite this imperfection, despite the numerous instances of unfairness and poor judgment, somehow the vast majority of Americans manage to find a job, move up the ladder and enjoy their work, and companies manage to operate successfully and turn a profit. Pretty incredible, huh? The standard line from union leaders is that teacher pay, promotion or job security shouldn't hinge on such subjective criteria, but it should rest on solid objective standards, like years of experience or academic credentials. But when you suggest another objective measure -- standardized tests to gauge student progress -- their enthusiasm for objectivity suddenly disappears. You know the litany of complaints: Standardized tests aren't a good measure of achievement, they distort the teaching process, and in any case, it's unfair to use test results to evaluate teachers because lots of factors determine a student's progress. So let's get this straight: Teachers say their careers and incomes are too important to be left to the subjective whim of managers, but also too important to be left to objective measures, such as standardized tests. A classic Catch-22. The way out of this pedagogical thicket is pretty obvious: Teachers, like all workers, ought to be hired, fired, promoted and paid based on a combination of subjective and objective criteria that bear some relation to the ultimate purpose of the enterprise, which in this case means imparting to children the skills and knowledge they need in life. For years, teachers and their unions have been saying that's exactly what they want, but for years they've been unable to find an acceptable way to do it. Rhee has now put forward an innovative proposal that finally delivers on the promise of paying good teachers what they deserve while demanding the accountability that frustrated taxpayers demand. It's not perfect, and there are surely risks involved. But the greater risk is for teachers in Washington and other cities to cling to a status quo based on tenure, seniority and deep distrust of management while students and funding continue to flow to charter and private schools that put the needs of children before the interests of adults. Steven Pearlstein can be reached atpearlsteins@washpost.com. The Washington Post Return to Top of Page
The California Budget Gets a Tardy and an Incomplete Grade: The Governor and Legislative Republicans Undercut Education  By Marty Hittelman
President
California Federation of Teachers
The calendar is moving us forward to the first week of school. Meanwhile in Sacramento, the governor and legislative Republicans are moving us backwards, holding up adoption of a state budget and slashing school funding. Being both tardy and incomplete on the state budget undercuts improvements in public schools.
Having no school funding level set so late in the summer harms schools and colleges. Schools and colleges can’t properly plan or hire without budget authority. Some teachers and school staff may not know until the week school opens whether they will have a job or not. Think of the first-grade student arriving next week to a school in such a funding straitjacket. That child only gets one chance at first grade. Failing her this year due to political malfeasance causes her harm that may never be completely undone.
Beyond being “tardy,” the governor’s latest budget plan provides incomplete school funding. Having already seen legislators slash more than $2 billion from school funding, the governor now proposes to cut an additional $1 billion dollars. We education leaders are left with the bitter pill of calling for adoption of the Democratic conference committee budget, which reduces education funding by $2.4 billion. Talk about bad choices.
Republicans are holding their breath until they turn blue rather than support taxes for education and other critical services. Irresponsibly, the Republicans refuse to specify where they would cut billions. They hope to hide from the pain their budget proposal imposes on public schools. But there are many fair ways to raise revenues to balance the multibillion-dollar cuts schools will be forced to absorb.
Incredibly, the Republicans’ budget plan includes a reward for the sub prime lending industry. The loss carry-forward scheme proposal that would allow those that helped to cause our foreclosure crisis to charge their current losses against their past gains in order to pay less taxes – at the very time that we are cutting budgets for vital services. Do these bankers who knowingly sold high-interest mortgages to high-risk families that couldn’t shoulder that kind of debt deserve support more than schoolchildren? The Republicans have proposed a constitutional amendment, ACA 19, which undermines Proposition 98, lowers school funding and does not allow the Legislature to address the woeful under-funding of education in California. California is 47th in per student funding in K-12, 45th in community colleges.
California is the richest state in the richest country in the world. We should be able to adequately fund our schools, parks, roads, health care (for seniors and young people at least), fire protection, and the rest of vital services of the state.
We can do so if we close tax loopholes, tax oil as other states do, and repeal the Bush tax cuts on upper incomes (above $300,000 per year).
As the Republicans call for a budget that closes schools and lays off teachers, please remember last week’s New York Times article on a new report (from the federal Government Accountability Office) that found that two-thirds of U.S. corporations paid no federal income taxes from 1998-2005. We should find out how California loopholes allow California corporations to dodge their fair share of taxes.
It’s time for those who can afford to pay, those who are avoiding paying their fair share, and those legislators who are holding up a fair budget, to support adequate funding for public schools. When first-graders knock on that school door after Labor Day, the school should be open, funded and ready to provide her the fast start she deserves. Tempus fugit!
Marty Hittelman, a community college math professor from Los Angeles, is the President of the California Federation of Teachers (CFT) which is a member of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). The CFT represents faculty and other school employees in public and private schools and colleges, from early childhood through higher education in California. California Progress Report Return to Top of Page
Cities Debate Privatizing Public Infrastructure
Cleaning up road kill and maintaining runways may not sound like cutting-edge investments. But banks and funds with big money seem to think so. Reeling from more exotic investments that imploded during the credit crisis, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, the Carlyle Group, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse are among the investors who have amassed an estimated $250 billion war chest — much of it raised in the last two years — to finance a tidal wave of infrastructure projects in the United States and overseas. Their strategy is gaining steam in the United States as federal, state and local governments previously wary of private funds struggle under mounting deficits that have curbed their ability to improve crumbling roads, bridges and even airports with taxpayer money. With politicians like Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California warning of a national infrastructure crisis, public resistance to private financing may start to ease. “Budget gaps are starting to increase the viability of public-private partnerships,” said Norman Y. Mineta, a former secretary of transportation who was recently hired by Credit Suisse as a senior adviser to such deals. This fall, Midway Airport of Chicago could become the first to pass into the hands of private investors. Just outside the nation’s capital, a $1.9 billion public-private partnership will finance new high-occupancy toll lanes around Washington. This week, Florida gave the green light to six groups that included JPMorgan, Lehman Brothers and the Carlyle Group to bid for a 50- to 75 -year lease on Alligator Alley, a toll road known for sightings of sleeping alligators that stretches 78 miles down I-75 in South Florida. Until recently, the use of private funds to build and manage large-scale American infrastructure assets was slow to take root. States and towns could raise taxes and user fees or turn to the municipal bond market. Americans have also been wary of foreign investors, who were among the first to this market, taking over their prized roads and bridges. When Macquarie of Australia and Cintra of Spain, two foreign funds with large portfolios of international investments, snapped up leases to the Chicago Skyway and the Indiana Toll Road, “people said ‘hold it, we don’t want our infrastructure owned by foreigners,’ ” Mr. Mineta said. And then there is the odd romance between Americans and their roads: they do not want anyone other than the government owning them. The specter of investors reaping huge fees by financing assets like the Pennsylvania Turnpike also touches a raw nerve among taxpayers, who already feel they are paying top dollar for the government to maintain roads and bridges. And with good reason: Private investors recoup their money by maximizing revenue — either making the infrastructure better to allow for more cars, for example, or by raising tolls. (Concession agreements dictate everything from toll increases to the amount of time dead animals can remain on the road before being cleared.) Politicians have often supported the civic outcry: in the spring of 2007, James L. Oberstar of Minnesota, chairman of the House Committees on Transportation and Infrastructure, warned that his panel would “work to undo” any public-private partnership deals that failed to protect the public interest. And labor unions have been quick to point out that investment funds stand to reap handsome fees from the crisis in infrastructure. “Our concern is that some sources of financing see this as a quick opportunity to make money,” Stephen Abrecht, director of the Capital Stewardship Program at the Service Employees International Union, said. But in a world in which governments view infrastructure as a way to manage growth and raise productivity through the efficient movement of goods and people, an eroding economy has forced politicians to take another look. “There’s a huge opportunity that the U.S. public sector is in danger of losing,” says Markus J. Pressdee, head of infrastructure investment banking at Credit Suisse. “It thinks there is a boatload of capital and when it is politically convenient it will be able to take advantage of it. But the capital is going into infrastructure assets available today around the world, and not waiting for projects the U.S., the public sector, may sponsor in the future.” Traditionally, the federal government played a major role in developing the nation’s transportation backbone: Thomas Jefferson built canals and roads in the 1800s, Theodore Roosevelt expanded power generation in the early 1900s. In the 1950s Dwight Eisenhower oversaw the building of the interstate highway system. But since the early 1990s, the United States has had no comprehensive transportation development, and responsibilities were pushed off to states, municipalities and metropolitan planning organizations. “Look at the physical neglect — crumbling bridges, the issue of energy security, environmental concerns,” said Robert Puentes of the Brookings Institution. “It’s more relevant than ever and we have no vision.” The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that the United States needs to invest at least $1.6 trillion over the next five years to maintain and expand its infrastructure. Last year, the Federal Highway Administration deemed 72,000 bridges, or more than 12 percent of the country’s total, “structurally deficient.” But the funds to fix them are shrinking: by the end of this year, the Highway Trust Fund will have a several billion dollar deficit. “We are facing an infrastructure crisis in this country that threatens our status as an economic superpower, and threatens the health and safety of the people we serve,” New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg told Congress this year. In January he joined forces with Mr. Schwarzenegger and Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania to start a nonprofit group to raise awareness about the problem. Some American pension funds see an investment opportunity. “Our infrastructure is crumbling, from bridges in Minnesota to our airports and freeways,” said Christopher Ailman, the head of the California State Teachers’ Retirement System. His board recently authorized up to about $800 million to invest in infrastructure projects. Nearby, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, with coffers totaling $234 billion, has earmarked $7 billion for infrastructure investments through 2010. The Washington State Investment Board has allocated 5 percent of its fund to such investments. Some foreign pension funds that jumped into the game early have already reaped rewards: The $52 billion Ontario Municipal Employee Retirement System saw a 12.4 percent return last year on a $5 billion infrastructure investment pool, above the benchmark 9.9 percent though down from 14 percent in 2006. “People are creating a new asset class,” said Anne Valentine Andrews, head of portfolio strategy at Morgan Stanley Infrastructure. “You can see and understand the businesses involved — for example, ships come into the port, unload containers, reload containers and leave,” she said. “There’s no black box.” The prospect of steady returns has drawn high-flying investors like Kohlberg Kravis and Morgan Stanley to the table. “Ten to 20 years from now infrastructure could be larger than real estate,” said Mark Weisdorf, head of infrastructure investments at JPMorgan. In 2006 and 2007, more than $500 billion worth of commercial real estate deals were done. The pace of recent work is encouraging, says Robert Poole, director of transportation studies at the Reason Foundation, pointing to projects like the high-occupancy toll, or HOT, lanes outside Washington. “The fact that the private sector raised $1.4 billion for the Beltway project shows that even projects like HOT lanes that are considered high risk can be developed and financed privately and that has huge implications for other large metro areas,” he said . Yet if the flow of money is fast, the return on these investments can be a waiting game. Washington’s HOT lanes project took six years to build after Fluor Enterprises, one of the two private companies financing part of the project, made an unsolicited bid in 2002. The privatization of Chicago’s Midway Airport was part of a pilot program adopted by the Federal Aviation Administration in 1996 to allow five domestic airports to be privatized. Twelve years later only one airport has met that goal — Stewart International Airport in Newburgh, N.Y. — and it was sold back to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. For many politicians, privatization also remains a painful process. Mitch Daniels, the governor of Indiana, faced a severe backlash when he collected $3.8 billion for a 75- year lease of the Indiana Toll Road. A popular bumper sticker in Indiana reads “Keep the toll road, lease Mitch.” Joe Dear, executive director of the Washington State Investment Board, still wonders how quickly governments will move. “Will all public agencies think it’s worth the extra return private capital will demand?” he asked. “That’s unclear.” The New York Times Company Return to Top of Page
How do we address the have-nots? I attended a leadership summit on Monday (it was actually pretty good stuff, with concrete plans, goals, and generally more than you get out of your average bit of professional development) and, not surprisingly, a serious focus was on technology. I think people are finally realizing that, while technology is no substitute for highly-qualified teachers, careful and well-planned used of technology can seriously drive student achievement, offer remediation opportunities, and more easily differentiate instruction. We’re actually looking at a number of ways that kids can access materials at home, not only becoming discerning users of technology in independent settings, but also improving achievement and reinforcing skills with tools that can guide students in the absence of teacher or parent involvement (obviously, the first isn’t possible at home and, unfortunately, the latter can be hard to come by). This is where we get ourselves into problems, however. The very kids who often need reinforcement and remediation beyond school hours and who lack the necessary parental involvement to be really successful with homework are often those who can’t afford a computer or broadband. Even in many cases, dedicated, hard-working parents can still sit on the wrong side of Digital Divide. So what do we do for these kids? How do we equitably provide access to the wide range of tools in which we are investing? One easy step that we took was to roll out OpenOffice instead of Microsoft Office at the elementary schools. This free suite introduces kids to the same office productivity concepts as Microsoft Office, but more importantly teaches them about a free alternative that they can use at home on a variety of hardware. It may not be the speediest, but it will run on just about anything. We are also looking at opening the computer labs around the district for after- and before-school hours and evening hours. While not everyone can walk to one of the schools, many people can find transportation if we rotate the location of these “open labs.” Parents also have the added assurance of content filtering in a setting like this. Municipal and rural wifi is a much harder sell, with major projects failing across the country. However, there are a variety of cheap ways to share a wifi connection across a decent range. This is the perfect opportunity for public-private partnerships, partnerships between towns and schools, and other bits of resource sharing to take any of a variety of cheap PCs that kids can get a hold of (or have donated) and get them online. What else have you seen that bridges the Digital Divide in your community? 
Christopher Dawson is the technology director for the Athol-Royalston School District in northern Massachusetts. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations. ZDNet News & Blogs Return to Top of Page
Surging Latino growth has country looking to California schools OTHER STATES STUDY CALIFORNIA FOR LESSONS Article Launched: 08/27/2008 01:30:41 AM PDT
Latinos make up nearly half of California's K-12 public school students, and their numbers are surging across the country, underscoring a growing challenge for educators who are looking to the Golden State for ways to adapt to the changing face of America's classrooms. Almost one in three of the country's Latino students go to school in California. But the numbers, revealed Tuesday in one of the first comprehensive looks at Latinos in public schools, show Latinos now make up the largest minority student group in 22 states. Since 1990, the number of Latino school-age children nationwide almost doubled and now is projected to swell another 166 percent through 2050. By contrast, whites, blacks, Asians and other non-Hispanics in K-12 edged up just 9 percent in the same 16 years, and will slow to 4 percent growth through 2050, according to the report by the Pew Hispanic Center. And the report illuminated a significant challenge across the country: More than one-third of Latino students have a parent who hasn't completed high school - considered a bigger factor in student success than English fluency. The changing dynamics are already playing out in California, where educators are struggling to address an academic achievement gap between Latinos and blacks and their higher-performing Asian and white peers. Test scores Test "scores around the country are going to go down," because there will be more children with disadvantages such as not speaking English, said Marty Krovetz, professor emeritus of education at San Jose State University. However, the numbers of Latinos who identified themselves as fluent in English were surprising. While 70 percent of Latino students speak a language other than English at home, 82 percent speak English fluently, according to the report based on the Census Bureau's 2006 American Community Survey of 3 million households. But the low education level of Latino parents is putting a greater burden on schools to educate and guide students toward college and career tracks, experts say. Without parents who understand the school system, "they are at a startling disadvantage," said Richard Fry, one of the authors of the Pew study. As a result, "you're asking an awful lot of high school guidance counselors, because the parents aren't there to help students." It also has immediate economic repercussions. Whether students are likely to live in a household earning $50,000 or more is related to the education level of their parents, the survey reported. Silicon Valley schools are years ahead in figuring what works and what doesn't when it comes to changing demographics. The biggest challenge for schools is educating immigrant students, especially those who start school at an older age. Students who don't become fluent in English are more likely to drop out. According to a June 2007 U.S. Department of Education report, 37 percent of foreign-born Latinos age 16-24 drop out, while only 14 percent of second-generation and 12 percent of third- or higher-generations Latinos drop out. "When language is a factor, it becomes extra challenging to meet the high standards," said Manny Barbara, superintendent of the Oak Grove School District in San Jose. Last year in Oak Grove, 47 percent of the 11,600 students were Latino. And the district has changed as it evolved into a demographic "mini California," Barbara said. "We really want to be culturally responsive in our teaching." Teacher training The district offers training in teaching English learners. Barbara convenes a Latino advisory committee, which conducts meetings bilingually, and principals also meet with Latino parents. Schools offer English classes to parents, and also a program to help parents prepare their children for college. Such outreach, coupled with high standards, has resulted in higher achievement. In 2006-07, Oak Grove's Latino students - and all other demographic groups - met the state's increasingly tougher language and math standards. High expectations and teacher and parent commitment also are key to success of four small schools in San Jose educating primarily Latino students, Krovetz said. 'Relentless focus' Those schools - SUCCESS in Franklin-McKinley district and Renaissance, Adelante and LUCHA in the Alum Rock district - "have a relentless focus and high expectations for kids," he said. So states like Minnesota, Rhode Island, Arkansas, Nebraska and Maryland with growing Latino populations in public schools might be looking at schools here. "Much of the country," Krovetz said, "is going to have to learn the lesson from pockets of success in California, New Mexico and Texas."
San Jose Mercury News Return to Top of Page
For Readers, A Conversation About Education
By Jay Mathews
Monday, August 25, 2008; B02
I retired in June, sort of, but not really. When I took the early retirement package The Post offered, it was clear to everyone -- my family, my colleagues and particularly me -- that I was too immature to change my daily routine in any way and not fall apart. So The Post kindly gave me a contract so I could keep coming to work and writing about schools. It's pathetic, but that's all I want to do. Part of the deal is this new education column, to run every Monday in the Metro section, in addition to the Extra Credit column I do for The Post's Extra sections on Thursday and the Monday online column, Class Struggle, I do for washingtonpost.com. There are not many education columns these days. Some would allege that is because the subject is so dull. I would say it is because it is too dangerous. Columnists who write about sports or politics or finance can say anything they want, and people will accept it as interesting commentary, since most of us, when it comes to those fields of endeavor, are just spectators. We might have a little money on a game or a candidate or a stock, but that's about it. Schools, on the other hand, are an integral part of our lives. Almost every one of us went to school. Many of us have children struggling with homework. Most American parents think the most important thing they can do for their kids is make sure they get a good education. Writers who mess around with such a personal issue find that readers have very passionate views on the matter. Factions form. Tempers are lost. You can get scorched if you aren't careful. But I have been writing about students, educators, parents and policymakers long enough to know that I can avoid serious injury by remembering, whenever I start tapping at the keyboard, that none of us knows for sure what will help our schools improve, and many people know more than I do. That being the case, I need your help. I intend this column to be a weekly conversation. I will be responding to e-mails, having online chats and occasionally writing columns readers have suggested. Since I walked into Garfield High School in East Los Angeles 26 years ago and was intrigued to see low-income students succeeding in a torturously difficult calculus class, I have searched for other teachers and schools that defy expectations by significantly raising the achievement of our most disadvantaged children. Most of my books have addressed that issue, in my view the most important of our era. I have also written about schools in our most affluent communities and where they sometimes go wrong. In the Washington area, we have some of the best schools in the country, and some of the worst. I will write about both, particularly about their teachers. In my experience, they are the most knowledgeable, and often least consulted, experts on how to enhance learning. What will this school year bring? Here are some questions I plan to explore: 1. Will Michelle A. Rhee succeed? The D.C. schools chancellor, and her ally Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, are the most interesting education story in the country. She is making many changes that the best teachers I know support, and a few changes that puzzle them. 2. Will Prince George's County finally reach its potential as an educational model for ethnically diverse suburbs? The Maryland district, despite its checkered political history and large number of disadvantaged students, has also picked a superintendent -- John Deasy -- whose moves please the teachers who most influence my views. 3. Can schools in Fairfax and Montgomery counties and our other wealthy suburbs survive another round of budget cuts without tarnishing their reputation as some of the best public systems in the country? I often call suburban Washington the golden triangle of American schools. Nowhere else is the teaching as good or the standards as high. But tax revenues are down. That will make it difficult to maintain such quality. 4. Can those two sworn enemies, regular and charter public schools, ever learn to live together? It often seems impossible to get those two groups of intelligent and caring educators to agree on anything. That is not good and doesn't help kids. 5. Is there a way a parent can arrange a good education for a child with learning disabilities without going broke, or crazy? I have not covered this important subject very well. I hope to do better. 6. Can our obsession with college admission be turned into a love of learning? Maybe. Maybe not. Stay tuned. 7. What can we do about dropouts? This is the educational problem for which we have the fewest solutions. We need to look for more. For good measure, here are three more: Why are colleges so clueless about how to help high schools prepare students? Can we do anything about the erratic and confusing way children are graded? And, crucially, how can we produce the best teachers possible for every one of our kids? My e-mail address is mathewsj@washpost.com. Tell me what you know. We may get into a lot of trouble. My contract is only year to year. There are great risks in looking closely at schools. But let's give it a try. washingtonpost.com Return to Top of Page
A Plan to Test the City’s Youngest Pupils
The Bloomberg administration, which has made accountability the watchword of its overhaul of public education, is asking elementary school principals across the city to give standardized tests in English and math to children as young as kindergartners. In an e-mail message sent on Monday evening, the Education Department’s chief accountability officer, James S. Liebman, urged principals to join a yearlong pilot program with five testing options for kindergarten through second grade, including timed paper-and-pencil assessments in which students record answers in booklets for up to 90 minutes, as well as ones in which teachers record observations of individual students on Palm Pilots. Mr. Liebman, the architect of the city’s much-debated program of assigning schools letter grades of A through F, said in his message that because New York — like most of the country — now begins formal testing in third grade, the system does “not give schools credit for this foundational work or provide you with the means to evaluate the effectiveness of your K-2 programs.” The pilot program, which will cost $400,000 and was not publicly announced, is already inciting outrage among some educators and advocates who worry that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s efforts to overhaul the school system have been overly focused on standardized testing. While the federal No Child Left Behind law has required schools nationwide to administer tests starting in the third grade since 2002, Mr. Bloomberg has gone further, using test scores to determine school grades as well as bonuses for teachers and principals. The administration has also expressed interest in using test scores to determine teacher tenure, an idea that is being blocked by legislators in Albany. Throughout the city and across the nation, teachers and parents have protested the increasing time spent on testing — and test preparation — particularly in elementary grades, where critics say that development of children’s creativity has suffered. Some experts question the effectiveness of such assessments for very young children, where lessons about sharing and socialization are sometimes considered as important as facts and figures. “It sounds like a downward extension of whatever’s good, but also what’s bad about standardized testing in the higher grades, with more risk because we know that standardized testing isn’t appropriate at those ages,” said Lorrie Shepard, dean of the School of Education at the University of Colorado at Boulder. “Now they’re venturing into territory where many more people say that the negative will far outweigh any positive.” In an interview on Tuesday, Mr. Liebman stressed that the pilot program was voluntary — he said 50 of the city’s 700-some elementary principals had already expressed interest — and that the tests were not high-stakes. They would not, for example, determine whether students moved to the next grade, as is the case with older children. Mr. Liebman also pointed out that kindergartners and first and second graders are already evaluated by their teachers. Most schools use a system called the Early Childhood Literacy Assessment System, which takes teachers a long time to administer because they must meet with every child individually. The new testing methods combine results in English and math for a single cumulative score for each child, he said, making comparisons across classrooms and over time easier. “This is a substitute for something that is already taking place and has been for years, and which schools have found to be very powerful but want to be more powerful because they want to be able to measure progress,” he said. “If you told a doctor, ‘I want you to treat me but I do not want you to take my temperature, I don’t want you to take any blood samples, I don’t want you to do any diagnosis, just treat me,’ the doctor would be at a loss to know what to do.” He said this year’s experiment could include up to 12,720 of the city’s 200,000 or so kindergarten through second graders, and that depending on the results, the city could mandate a single test to be used next year, allow principals to choose which tests they prefer or go back to doing things the way they were done before. His e-mail message to principals promised that their feedback “will provide an important basis, among others, for deciding whether it would be appropriate in coming years to measure progress in grades K-2 and, if so, how best to do so.” Mr. Liebman said that in future years, elementary school principals might be able to request that their kindergarten through second-grade scores be incorporated into their overall report card grades. Asked whether all school report card grades might someday include the youngest children’s scores, he said: “We just haven’t been thinking about that. We’ve talked about the option possibility.” In fact, Mr. Liebman said the new pilot program was developed after principals complained that the A through F grades, which judge schools largely on the basis of yearly progress on standardized tests, did not reflect the progress they had made with their youngest children. But Jane Hirschmann, the founder of Time Out From Testing, a New York City anti-testing group, called the pilot program “criminal behavior,” saying of the Bloomberg administration, “They’re committed to turning curriculum into a testing regime.” “They knew they were going to be up against a very big movement saying, now you’ve gone way too far, so what do they do?” said Ms. Hirschmann. “They wait until the summer, and they sneak it in the back door.” Tovah P. Klein, director of the Barnard Center for Toddler Development, said that even if the tests were not intended to have real consequences, they would. “Once you have a number behind a kid, it becomes high stakes because teachers make judgments on kids — ‘Oh, this kid needs remedial help, this kid’s not learning as well.’ It ranks kids,” she said. “What these tests do is say to the teachers, ‘This is what matters, that kids know this single decontextualized piece of information.’ ” Among the options that principals may choose from are two written exams — designed by the well-known testing companies CTB/McGraw-Hill and Pearson — one of which will be given twice a year in English (55 to 70 minutes per test) and math (40 to 65 minutes), the other three times a year in both subjects (60 to 90 minutes each). Two other options involve 10-minute assessments, given three times a year, in which teachers record student observations based on a scripted dialogue. The fifth has students complete a test online, for 20 to 35 minutes, three times over the course of the year. Virginia Pepe, the principal of Public School 163, Alfred E. Smith, on the Upper West Side, said she would send someone to learn more about the testing at a coming information session. “We’ll be going in as critical consumers and we will be making, I think, thoughtful decisions about what’s going to be best for the children in our school,” Dr. Pepe said. “Working in a very targeted way with children based upon assessment information can really have very positive results, if it’s not used to shackle instruction but it’s used to enrich the learning opportunities.” But she noted that parents might balk at some of the options, saying: “If you’re selling a 60-minute test in kindergarten, I’d be hard-pressed to make that sale.” The New York Times Company Return to Top of Page
DPS, teachers reach tentative deal By Jeremy P. Meyer
The Denver Post Article Last Updated: 08/22/2008 11:42:21 PM MDT
Denver's teachers and the school district announced they reached a tentative agreement in an ongoing labor dispute that the two parties say "resolves all open issues," according to a joint statement issued late Friday.
Details regarding the agreement were not disclosed. The agreement must be ratified by the school board and the union's membership.
"On behalf of our respective organizations, we are pleased to have reached this settlement," said Superintendent Michael Bennet and Denver Classroom Teachers Association President Kim Ursetta in a joint statement. "After many months of tough negotiations, we have committed to the first three-year negotiated agreement on terms and conditions of employment, including compensation, between the parties in nearly 20 years.
"This three-year deal will accomplish our mutual goal of rewarding and retaining our current teachers, attracting new teachers to DPS, and allowing all of us to focus our efforts over the next three years on the continuing progress in our schools and classrooms. We are both pleased with the outcome."
The agreement comes after three days of mediation with a professional arbiter at a Denver hotel, which lasted well into the wee hours of the morning on most days. The stakes were high, because union leadership had told its members to be prepared to strike if an agreement was not met.
The two sides were trying to hammer out a contract for Denver's 4,500 teachers, whose current contract expires Aug. 31. Denver teachers will convene at 3 p.m. Sunday at South High School to vote on accepting a resolution. The Denver Post Return to Top of Page
Report: Low education scores could slow U.S. growth
Sacramento Business JournalA national assessment of students’ math and science scores points toward a knowledge deficit that could worsen the country’s ability to produce skilled workers. According to a report issued Tuesday by the American Electronics Association, only 39 percent of 4th graders and 31 percent of 8th graders tested at or above the proficient level in math in 2007. Between 1996-2005, the number of 4th grade students testing at or above proficient in science increased by only 1 percent, while the science proficiency of 8th graders did not improve. Massachusetts leads the country with 58 percent of 4th grade students and 51 percent of 8th grade students reaching the proficient level in math. New Mexico and Mississippi rank at the bottom of the scale. California claimed the 40th spot, with 30 percent of 4th graders and 24 percent of 8th graders reaching proficiency in math. The statistics were compiled by the Department of Education’s National Assessment of Educational Progress. “America’s ability to compete in the 21st century global economy depends in large part on the math and science skills of our workforce,” said Josh James, AeA’s director of research and industry analysis. “Yet the latest results show that math and science proficiency among 4th and 8th graders remains unacceptably low. And in a world that is increasingly being driven by technology, these skills are going to continue to be in high demand regardless of the field of study.” Sacramento Business Journal Return to Top of Page
Remarks as Prepared for Delivery by Reg Weaver, President, National Education Association
Last update: 7:19 p.m. EDT Aug. 25, 2008 DENVER, Aug 25, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- The following is a transcript of a speech, as prepared for delivery, by Reg Weaver at the Democratic National Convention on Monday, August 25, 2008: Scheduled for delivery: August 25, 2008 - 5:00-6:00 pm MT EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE ON DELIVERY
I am here today on behalf of 3.2 million NEA members to tell you why we support Barack Obama for President of the United States. The world has changed dramatically since I started teaching in 1961. Unfortunately, as a nation, our approach to education has not kept pace. We aren't giving all children the education they will need to succeed in the 21st century.
I know a man who knows that NEA is not for the status quo, that we are an organization that has changed as the needs of children have changed. And together we must change public education. I know a man who offers new ideas and new commitments to public education, while his opponent proposes to continue or expand the failed policies of the current administration, policies that fail our children. I know a man who knows we can't be prepared for the 21st century, rebuild our economy, and secure our nation without a well-educated workforce.
When the man I know is president, he will expand access to early childhood education, so all children are prepared to learn when they enter kindergarten. Because he recognizes children learn differently. He will support local school districts in establishing policies to ensure they have small class sizes, so every child receives the attention they deserve. He will support programs that help parents become involved in their child's education.
He will tear down financial barriers that prevent many students from attending college. He will work with teachers and other education personnel, treating us as allies instead of adversaries. He knows that you must respect educators and include them in the education dialogue. This will be a partnership for children. He knows we must hold schools accountable. But that the world is too complex and diverse to judge students by a single, multiple choice, and high stakes test.
The man I know understands that public education helped make this country great and will restore the commitment. He will invest in our children's education because he knows that it is a basic human and civil right, and our nation's future is in their hands. We need a president who will treat children as more than test scores, and provide basic resources so educators can help every child succeed. This man has a plan.
Barack Obama is that man, and his plan is at barackobama.com. That, my friends, is why the 3.2 million members of the National Education Association are organized, energized and mobilized to help elect Barack Obama as the next president of the United States of America. Thank you.
SOURCE 2008 Democratic National Convention Committee
Obama: Parental involvement critical to education
By: Journal Staff
The Toledo Journal
Originally posted 10/1/2008
In a major policy address and later in an interview with the editor of The Toledo Journal and two others, presidential candidate Barack Obama said the success of his education initiative will depend largely on the people most often not in the public schools ‚-- parents.
''In the end, responsibility for our children's success doesn't start in Washington,'' the Democrat said in Dayton earlier this month. ''It starts in our homes. It starts in our families. Because no education policy can replace a parent who's involved in their child's education from day one, who makes sure their children are in school on time, helps them with their homework after dinner, and attends those parent-teacher conferences.
''No government program can turn off the TV, or put away the video games, or read to your children,'' Mr. Obama, the father of two school-age girls, said during his Sept. 9 speech on education. ''So yes, we need to hold our government accountable. Yes, we have to hold our schools accountable. But we also have to hold ourselves accountable.''
Afterward, Mr. Obama was interviewed by Journal Editor Myron Stewart, Ike Mgbatogu of the Ohio Call & Post newspaper and Dan Yount, editor in chief of The Cincinnati Herald. The candidate repeatedly answered questions in terms of parental responsibility, suggesting it will be the foundation of his attempt as president to improve public education in the U.S.
He said an Obama administration would invest more in early-childhood education so that ''we make sure that those students are better prepared when they start school.'' But parents have to be there for their children as well, he said.
Teachers become discouraged and many ''drop out'' of the profession
because so many children come to them several years behind in reading ability, he said. They become more discouraged when parents seemed unconcerned about their children's discipline problems, he said.
''We've got to have parents and the community rally behind teachers,'' Mr. Obama said.
Mr. Stewart asked about the persistent educational attainment gap between black and white students. He asked Mr. Obama if more highly structured gender oriented public schools intended for minority students, such as Toledo's Lincoln Academy for Boys and the Stewart Academy for Girls, are needed in local central city school systems for academic achievement. The private Catholic School system seems to excel in gender oriented schools Mr. Stewart told the candidate. ''I have a theory that it's not that many of these black children don't care about school, they're not being taught enough things of interest to them in school, like who they are, and their ancestors' history of their survival in America then and now. For the most part, beyond their young life experiences, all they know of themselves is what they see on TV, or hear from some degrading anti-black ''hip hop'' rapper music.
''If these same students knew the truth about their ancestral heritage, (history / his story), they could obtain a higher self esteem, and might do better in both learning and preparing for what they want to accomplish in institutions of learning.''
Mr. Obama, within reach of becoming America's first African American president, didn't totally agree, but did agree we should experiment with a number of educational options.
''I believe that my kids need to learn about their culture, but they also need to learn about the Hispanic culture and white culture, American culture, European and Asian culture,'' he told The Journal's editor. ''I don't want our children to feel like they can only learn about people who look like them. The world is much more complex.''
Mr. Obama said many African American youth living in high-poverty areas and surrounded by negative influences still are excelling academically. The principal explanation for that, he said, is the values they are learning at home.
''The reason that all those negative images don't affect them is because they have positive images of their own offered by their parents and by their families and by their communities, by their neighbors,'' Mr. Obama said. ''We've got to provide them a vision of where they can go.
''A lot of the things start at home and parents have to say, 'Look, education is your focus.''
Mr. Stewart agreed with Mr.Obama's point of view, but believes it's still more important to know who you are, compared to who another person is. The two views go hand and hand.
Raised by a single mother and his grandparents, the presidential candidate used himself as an example. His degree earned at Harvard
University was the result of values instilled in him as a boy, he said.
''You see, I wasn't born with a lot of advantages,'' Mr. Obama told the journalists. ''But I was given love and a lot of support and an education.''
Mr. Young told the candidate that from his perspective, restoring
American public education to excellence ''seems like an insurmountable problem.'' Mr. Obama said that along the campaign trail he's come across many public schools, including some operated by charter school companies that are turning things around. Innovation in curriculum and instilling a sense of accountability -- including with parents -- have helped those schools excel, he said.
''I don't think it's insurmountable but I think it's pretty hard,'' Mr.Obama said about fixing public education. ''We're not going to turn around these schools overnight, but what we can do is we can start putting these schools on a trajectory ... and each year start seeing steady improvement, and more children are reading at grade level, more teachers are sticking around and more kids are graduating from high school.
''What happens is at a certain point you achieve a tipping point where the culture in the school changes, where the norm is success as opposed to failure. The problem we have right now is at a lot of these schools the norm is failure. So kids, they go in and they look around and the assumption is 'We'll, I'm not going to graduate.'''
Public schools, with parental, community and government support, need to ''reverse the culture,'' Mr. Obama said.
''The assumption is 'I'm not going to be reading at grade level. So if you're reading at grade level, you're the oddball,'' he described many public schools today. ''We have to teach the kids to start realizing that it's normal to do your homework, it's normal to succeed, it's normal to be interested in the subject that you're learning in the classroom.
''It's not going to happen, as I said, overnight, but it can change with some good leadership from a principal and the teachers and a government that is supportive of them.''
He told Mr. Stewart and the other newspaper journalists that he was recently introduced to a high school in Denver, Colo., that has a majority Latino enrollment and once had an alarmingly high dropout rate. Educators and parents teamed up to restore academic excellence, he said.
''They have reduced the dropout rate to zero,'' Mr. Obama said.
''Everybody graduates. Everybody's going to college. They changed the expectations and the culture in the school.''
Smaller class sizes, a different curriculum and high expectations of parents went into that school's winning formula, he said.
''That kind of creativity is what changes school systems,'' he said. ''In every city you see successes like that, but the problem is ... that kind of innovation isn't happening in every school.''
Earlier, during his speech, Mr. Obama listed many of the initiatives he would implement as president, including tuition assistance for college students who agree perform community service while in college or after graduation, and providing financial incentives for master teachers who agree to teach in underperforming schools. Public schools -- both traditional and charter -- will be rewarded if they develop innovative and successful education models for other schools to copy, he said.
He said that under a President Obama administration, public education would remain a national priority.
''Every four years, we hear candidates talk about the vital importance of education, about how improving our schools is key to the future of our children and the future of our country,'' Mr. Obama told his Dayton audience.
''Every four years, we hear about how this time, we're going to make it an urgent national priority. Remember the 2000 election, when George W. Bush promised to be the 'education president'?
''But just as with energy independence and health care, the urgency of upgrading public education for the 21st century has been talked to death in Washington. And that failure to act has put our nation in jeopardy. Well, the day of reckoning is here. Our kids and our country can't afford four more years of neglect and indifference.
''At this defining moment in our history, America faces few more urgent challenges than preparing our children to compete in a global economy. The decisions our leaders make about education in the coming years will shape our future for generations to come.''
He put public education in the context of not only American living standards but of national security.
''If we want to keep building the cars of the future here in America, we can't afford to see the number of Ph.D.s in engineering climbing in, China, South Korea, and Japan even as it's dropped here in America,'' Mr. Obama said. ''We can't afford a future where our high school students rank near the bottom in math and science, and our high school drop-out rate is one of the highest in the industrialized world.
''If we want to build a 21st century infrastructure and repair our crumbling roads and bridges, we can't afford a future where a third of all fourth graders and a fifth of all eighth graders can't do basic math, and black and Latino students are even further behind; where elementary school kids are only getting an average 25 minutes of science each day when over 80 percent of the fastest-growing jobs require some knowledge in math and science.'' Later, when meeting with Mr. Stewart and the other journalists, Mr. Obama said he has ''historically been a strong supporter of charter schools.'' Many public charters have introduced innovative and effective teaching programs, he said. Many schools within traditional pubic systems also have done so, he said.
''My attitude is let's give parents more choices within the public school system,'' Mr. Obama said. ''We've always got to maintain high levels of accountability, so that our young people are getting the best possible education. If the programs aren't working, or the schools aren't working, we need to try something different.
''The bottom line to me is, how are these students performing?''
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa wants shortcut past school laws By George B. Sanchez, Staff Writer Article Launched: 10/03/2008 12:00:00 AM PDT
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's school partnership is seeking exemptions from 86 state education laws, outraging employee unions that fear the move will weaken educational quality. The partnership, overseeing 10 of the district's lowest-performing schools, has asked to be free from requirements on teacher certification, math training, the employee merit system, student promotion, student retention and other issues. The partnership has to request the waivers from the district, which would then seek approval from the state. In response to the mayor's plan, district staffers wrote a proposal for the state Board of Education essentially to "waive all laws that can be waived." "Everyone agrees that the regulations imposed by Sacramento have taken dollars away from our classrooms and wasted them on the bureaucracy," said mayoral spokeswoman Emma Soichet. LAUSD board members clashed on the proposal Thursday during a committee meeting. "We can't entertain waiving education codes without knowing what those codes are," said Adriana Salazar of Teamsters Local 572, representing district supervisors. Only the state Board of Education can exempt schools from education law. The waiver request asks the state board to grant the powers to the district board. While the proposed waiver is meant for the mayor's 10 schools, it would also apply to schools in other district partnership programs. Superintendent David Brewer III, board President Monica Garcia and board member Marlene Canter urged a speedy resolution. "We need to do this quickly because things have not been working in the district for a long time," Garcia said. Board member Julie Korenstein questioned the urgency. "I need more information," Korenstein said. "It's too general right now." Union leaders blasted district officials for drafting the proposal without community input and questioned the scope of the exemptions. "The stakeholders need to hear about this before it goes to you," said Mike Ford, a representative of the California School Employees Association. A.J. Duffy, president of the teachers union, said the process, lacking teacher input, was "absolutely appalling." Canter sought to quell the controversy by repeatedly stating the waiver was merely a proposal. The district's own, two-page plan based on the partnership's request was broader in scope than the mayor's. The mayor's plan was spelled out in a seven-page proposal created by Tad Parzen, an attorney. Omar Mario del Cueto, executive director of the district's iDesign Schools program, assured officials that union contracts would be upheld under the proposal. "I want the elected board to have ... flexibility at their disposal without doing the one-by-one process," he said. george.sanchez@dailynews.com 818-713-3738
Opinion: McCain, Obama have sharp differences improving schoolsBy Bruce Fuller
Special to the Mercury News Article Launched: 10/01/2008 04:00:19 PM PDT
The nation's voters — especially the nonpartisan women who may decide the presidential election — are eager to learn about how John McCain and Barack Obama plan to lift the public schools. McCain's first entry: a deceptive television ad claiming Obama voted to insert sex education into kindergarten classrooms. As the Democratic candidate's image comes into focus, the narrator asks, "learning about sex before learning to read?" This Illinois legislation, which Obama did not sponsor and never became law, aimed to help young children deal with menacing strangers. It was written by the state PTA and local pediatricians. Equally harmful, these episodes distract voters from learning about how the candidates differ sharply in their plans for improving the schools. McCain is a hawk on school choice, even when it drains public dollars from public schools. He wants to expand voucher experiments, like those operating in Cleveland, Milwaukee and Washington, D.C., to allow more parents to enroll their children in private or sectarian schools at public expense. Even McCain's social-conservative running mate, Sarah Palin, opposes vouchers. McCain promises to initially freeze discretionary spending, including spending for special-needs children, despite Palin's promise at the Republican convention that parents of disabled youngsters "will have a friend and advocate in the White House." Palin, as a working mother of five children, could easily become the alpha-dog of day care. Yet McCain has repeatedly voted against bipartisan legislation to expand and upgrade Head Start preschools. The Republican candidate vows to back renewal of President Bush's No Child Left Behind initiative. Four in five Americans disagree with McCain, saying the law should be trashed or rewritten by Congress, according to a Gallup Poll last month. Obama agrees that government should press stiff accountability for schools but not narrow the curriculum only to topics that are easily tested. While McCain's bizarre hit-piece grabbed the attention of news editors last week, Obama was announcing that he would, if elected, "double the funding for responsible charter schools." He spoke on the edge of Dayton, Ohio, where over half the city's children have left regular schools, bound for charter institutions. Obama acknowledged that many fly-by-night charter schools have closed overnight, including several in California, leaving kids and parents out in the street. Charters that don't raise student achievement "will get shut down," Obama said. The Democrat proposed awarding middle-class college students a $4,000 tuition credit if they promised to serve needy communities after graduating — reminiscent of President George H.W. Bush's call for "a thousand points of light," urging churches and neighborhood organizations to experiment with charter schools and put millions of idealistic graduates to work. Obama also took aim at structural constraints that affect middle-class schools, promising to help recruit "an army of new teachers" who are better trained. Breaking from the teachers unions, Obama said that "when teachers succeed in making a real difference in our children's lives, we should reward them by finding ways to increase teacher pay." Elevating the nation's uneven range of public schools won't be cheap. But Obama has consistently argued that simply ending President Bush's tax breaks for the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans would yield over $16 billion in revenue each year, an estimate confirmed by the Brookings Institution. But Obama should clarify whether his ambitious school reforms are fully matched by new revenues. McCain supports the president's tax policies. Obama, earlier this summer, was criticized for being long on passion and short on specific policies. But vivid contrasts are now emerging on how the candidates hope to advance the schools and backstop working families with young children. For its part, let's hope the media works to clarify these telling policy contrasts in the coming weeks. Let's encourage serious debate over the candidates' plans for elevating the schools, rather than chattering about the meaning of lipstick, whether applied to a hockey mom or a pig.
Bruce Fuller, a University of California-Berkeley sociologist, writes an education blog for the New York Times (nytimes.com/pages/opinion). He wrote this article for the Mercury News.
Teachers to Be Measured Based on Students’ Standardized Test Scores
New York City is beginning to measure the performance of thousands of elementary and middle school teachers based on how much their students improve on annual state math and reading tests. To avoid a contentious fight with the teachers’ union, the New York City Department of Education has agreed not to make public the reports — which described teachers as average, below average or above average with various types of students — nor let them influence formal job evaluations, pay and promotions. Rather, according to a memo to principals from Chancellor Joel I. Klein and Randi Weingarten, the president of the United Federation of Teachers, sent on Wednesday night, the reports are designed to be guides for the teachers themselves to better understand their achievements and shortcomings. “They won’t be used in tenure determinations or the annual rating process,” the memo said. “Many of you have told us how useful it would be to better understand how your efforts are influencing student progress.” Still, even without formal consequences for teachers, the plan is likely to anger teachers and parents who are already critical of the increasing emphasis on standardized test scores as a substitute for judging school quality. It follows the city’s much-debated issuance of report cards labeling individual schools A through F largely on the basis of student improvement on state exams. The State Legislature this spring prohibited the use of student test scores in teacher tenure decisions. The new measurement system — called “teacher data reports” — is an expansion of a pilot program that the city began in January involving about 2,500 teachers at 140 schools. The pilot program was so controversial that several participating principals did not tell teachers they were being monitored. Christopher Cerf, the deputy chancellor overseeing the program, said it was important to get teachers “comfortable with the data, in a positive, affirming way.” “The information in here is a really, really important way to foster change and improvement,” he said. “We don’t want people to be threatened by this.” In introducing the pilot program, Mr. Cerf said it would be a “powerful step forward” to have the teacher measurements made public, arguing, “If you know as a parent what’s the deal, I think that whole aspect will change behavior.” But this week, he said that for now the reports will be treated as personnel records not subject to public-records laws. Principals interviewing prospective teachers from other schools would be permitted to ask candidates for their reports, but the candidates would not have to provide them. Ms. Weingarten said that the assurance that there would not be a public airing of individual teachers’ information made her more comfortable with the idea of the reports, which she said could help teachers identify their strengths and weaknesses. “This can be used to inform instruction and advance it,” she said in an interview. “If this is something that becomes a ranking facility, opinions will be very, very different. That door has now been closed.” Still, Ms. Weingarten said the reports answer only “a very narrow question” of how a particular teacher’s students do on tests. She and others have long argued that there are many other criteria on which teachers should be evaluated. The new reports are part of a broader bid by the city to improve the ways teachers are recruited, trained and measured. Last year, the Education Department began a push to get rid of subpar teachers before they earned tenure, forming a team of lawyers and consultants to help principals amass enough information to oust those who are deemed deficient and do not show signs of improvement. There have been similar efforts across the country, as politicians and academic experts say that teachers are the most important element in improving student performance and closing the gap in achievement between white and minority students. School systems in Texas and Tennessee, for example, have used student performance and improvement as a tool to evaluate teachers. New York City plans to generate reports for roughly 18,000 teachers — every math and English teacher in fourth through eighth grades. Amy McIntosh, the Education Department’s chief talent officer, who helped develop the system, said that her team would continue to explore ways to monitor the effectiveness of the city’s nearly 60,000 other public school teachers, but that for now the state tests were the only data on which to reliably base evaluations of them. The teacher data report balances the progress students make on state tests and their absences with factors that include whether they receive special-education services or qualify for free lunch, as well as the size, race and gender breakdown of the teacher’s class. Using a complicated statistical formula, the report computes a “predicted gain” for each teacher’s class, then compares it to the students’ actual improvements on the test. The result is a snapshot analysis of how much the teacher contributed to student growth. The reports classify each teacher as average, above average or below average in effectiveness with different categories of students, like those who score in the top third or the lowest third on the test, and those still learning English or enrolled in special-education programs. It also contains separate measurements on effectiveness in teaching boys and girls, though it does not distinguish performance by students’ race or income level. Teachers will also be given a percentile ranking indicating how their performance compares to those who teach similar students and to a citywide pool. “When we have talked to teachers about this, there is real insight about the students,” Ms. McIntosh said. “They will say, ‘I didn’t realize I was teaching to the bottom,’ or, ‘I am really great with boys, and less so with girls.’ ” Last year’s pilot program also attempted to measure how well a principal’s perception of teachers aligned with the student test score data. According to the Education Department, about 69 percent of the teachers whom principals rated “exceptional” were in the top half on the reports. And 73 percent of those whom principals called “fair, poor or very poor” were in the bottom half. Frank Cimino, the principal of Public School 193 in Brooklyn, which participated in the pilot program, said he was still uncertain about how useful the reports were. “I would like to make a comparison to see what it shows this year to what it showed last year,” he said. “I don’t think anything can replace getting into the classroom.”
Schools Chief O'Connell Invites Comment on Reading/Language Arts-English-Language Development Instructional Resources
SACRAMENTO — State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell announced today that the instructional materials submitted for the 2008 Reading/Language Arts–English-Language Development (RLA/ELD) adoption for kindergarten through grade eight are now available for public review and comment in locations throughout California. The complete list of recommended materials is attached. The comment period began immediately after the Curriculum Development and Supplemental Materials Commission today released the list of instructional materials it recommended for adoption to the State Board of Education. "The public must have a role in reviewing these materials so they may share their thoughts on providing students with the best reading/language arts textbooks that will guide what our children learn in school," said O'Connell. "I encourage parents and all interested parties to participate in this process. Their comments will then inform the State Board of Education about the new adoption list to consider." In all, 35 programs submitted by 15 publishers were reviewed. The programs are designed to provide support for all of California's students, including those who excel, as well as those who are struggling. Publishers submitted programs in five categories: basic, basic with English language development, basic in a primary language, intervention, and intervention for English learners. Three publishers submitted programs in Spanish for the basic primary language category designed to be used as primary language programs and provide materials to transition students to English. The intervention programs are designed to provide accelerated support for students reading two or more levels below grade level. More than 200 classroom teachers, administrators, and experts in language arts instruction and English Language Development reviewed the programs. The instructional materials submitted for adoption have been on display since late May at 21 Learning Resources Display Centers located throughout California. The public may view the materials and submit written comments on forms available at the Centers. For locations of the Centers, please visit Learning Resource Display Centers (LRDC) - Curriculum Frameworks & Instructional Materials. The State Board of Education adopts instructional materials for grades K-8 and is scheduled to take action on November 5-6, 2008. Comments must be received by October 31, 2008, to be considered by the Board. The public may also mail comments to: Tom Adams, Director, Curriculum Frameworks and Instructional Resources Division, California Department of Education, 1430 N Street, Suite 3207, Sacramento, California 95814-5901. Comments may be sent by e-mail to read@cde.ca.gov or by fax to 916-319-0172. Comments and concerns may also be presented at a public hearing of the Board on November 5-6, 2008, with or without a completed public comment form. The public hearing will mark the end of the review for the instructional materials submitted for the 2008 RLA/ELD Primary Adoption grades K-8.
Roosevelt talk on unstable economy oddly prescientIn this Oct. 29, 1932 file photo, Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt of New York is shown in his c...
Wed Oct 1, 7:29 AM EDT
The "mirage" of American economic invulnerability has vanished, along with "much of the savings of thrifty and prudent men and women," the presidential hopeful told the crowd. "We need to correct, by drastic means if necessary, the faults in our economic system from which we now suffer," he said. Those words could have come from John McCain or Barack Obama this week, but they were spoken to the graduating class of Atlanta's Oglethorpe University by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the Democrat who went on to win the 1932 election three years into the Great Depression. His comments — which ring eerily true to Americans this week — are contained in the original May 22, 1932, speech typed in blue ink and signed by Roosevelt that Oglethorpe plans to display starting Friday. Roosevelt biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin says Roosevelt understood the importance of making citizens feel their leaders were handling the situation. "He just understood that action was critical," she said. "You just have to make people feel that they are taking hold of the situation." Roosevelt said circumstances that were entirely avoidable led to 1929's infamous "Black Friday," the stock market crash that finally shattered the myth of an invincible U.S. economy. "We have not been brought to our present state by any natural calamity — by drought or floods or earthquakes or by the destruction of our productive machine or our man power," Roosevelt told the crowd. "This is the awful paradox with which we are confronted, a stinging rebuke that challenges our power to operate the economic machine which we have created." Many of today's issues were around then, including war, globalization and the falling value of the American dollar. And so Roosevelt cautioned against the danger of inaction, a warning also echoed this week in Washington. "The country needs and — unless I mistake its temper — the country demands bold, persistent experimentation," he said before delivering one of his most-often quoted lines: "It is common sense to take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something." ___ On the Net: Oglethorpe University: http://www.oglethorpe.edu/
 | |  | K-12 education coming to a computer near you | | Looking to go on vacation but not sure who you can leave the kids with while they attend school? If you're a Florida resident, the decision to finally take the ski trip you've been longing for might soon be an easier one, thanks to an innovative new program where students can earn a diploma from local public schools entirely online. A new state law requires school districts to create their own full-time, virtual schools, or partner with other districts or virtual education providers to allow any student from kindergarten to twelfth grade to take classes from anywhere, so long as they have a computer and Internet access. According to the Palm Beach Post, during the 2007-08 school year, more than 57,000 students took at least one Florida Virtual School course, though few students received an entire education online. The benefits of an online education are varied. For starters, because students range in abilities and habits in a given class, online tools allow students to work at their own pace and at their chosen hours. Night owls (a.k.a. teenagers) can work through the night and sleep all day. Gifted students who digest a lesson quickly don't get stuck in the same lesson as those who digest the material more slowly. Students in rural areas can attend programs and classes previously unavailable or difficult to get to. Sick days are also less of a problem in an online world.
"This is a new world, and children have different learning modalities," said Debra Johnson, principal of what will become Palm Beach County's virtual school. "We need to be preparing ourselves for not only the future, but we need to be addressing students' needs now and providing different opportunities."
Opponents of virtual learning worry that a lack of face-to-face interaction between student and teacher, and between students could stunt emotional and cognitive development. There's also the issue of ensuring a student maintains good oversight of their learning and how to address financial quagmires such as whether to provide state funding for private school students taking public school classes. There are also costs to consider. While some say having an online curriculum means not needing to build new buildings to keep up with population growth, others predict the costs of creating the online environment, including the additional teaching curriculums needed for the virtual world, eliminates any cost benefits from not having to construct traditional learning environments. Perfecting the online system also comes at a high price, says Susan Patrick, president of the North American Council for Online Learning. Patrick warns that it would be a mistake for all 67 Florida counties to create virtual schools from scratch, without sharing resources with one another and more importantly, with states like Minnesota that began offering virtual curriculums in 2002. "There's a lot of planning money to reinvent the wheel that may not be necessary," Patrick told the Palm Beach Post.
Indeed. According to the Department of Education, 40,000 to 50,000 students in 37 states take advantage of virtual schooling in some form or fashion. And while many parents of online student are thrilled that their children have access to more advanced learning tools and the best curriculums available, there are certainly kinks to be worked out. Most noteworthy may be seen in Wisconsin schools, where a student can enroll in whatever school district's online program they choose. The state simply compensates each district $5,400 per student, per year. But competition for students has incited a marketing war between school districts, and instead of spending money on education, districts are pouring money into direct mailing campaigns and advertisements to lure students into their programs. Is it money well spent? For the schools: yes. For the taxpayers? Not so much.
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SPECIAL REPORTWith Freedoms, Charter Schools Face Financial Risks
Part two of a two-part series. Read part one.
Thursday, Sept. 25, 2008 | Charter schools were first dreamed up as hotbeds of innovation. They are public schools that are run independently by their own boards, free from school district rules and red tape.
Teachers unions are optional. Hiring isn't controlled by the school district. Many excelling charters in San Diego chalk up their success to those freedoms.
They can hire teachers without worrying about seniority. They can choose their own custodians and spend the savings in the classroom if they get a good deal. And they generally don't have to follow the rules that their local school board passes; instead they are run by their own boards that craft policies for each individual school.
Their freedom comes with greater responsibilities and harsher consequences, meant to make charters accountable and limit abuses. Unlike traditional schools, they can be shuttered by school districts if they break their own policies or the law, mismanage their funds, or fall short of their student goals.
But that same freedom has spawned an unintended risk for charter schools: vulnerability to fiscal mismanagement. Charter schools usually shoulder the business tasks that school districts handle for traditional schools, and some educators and boards are overwhelmed by the task.
Michael R. Hazelton is a charter school administrator who specialized in the business side of education, and his story underscores the financial perils for charters that entrust their operations to a single person. He oversaw the business side of three charter schools in four years, and each has suffered from deficits, allegations that Hazelton improperly enriched himself, or both.
His last school in Encinitas was shuttered based on allegations of fiscal mismanagement and self-dealing by Hazelton and his wife; two earlier schools he ran were destroyed or hobbled by deficits. A school outside San Bernardino tanked while both Hazelton and his corporation were paid with school funds. Another charter in downtown San Diego lost money while Hazelton boosted his own pay, according to an audit.
His "track record has not been the best," said Gary Larson, spokesman for California Charter Schools Association.
His story is not unique: Charter advocates say far more charter schools fall prey to financial woes or mismanagement than close because test scores are faltering. Roughly 5 percent of the 1,043 charter schools that have opened in California have been shut down and an additional 17 percent have closed on their own as of July 2008, according to staff at the California Department of Education.
The California Charter Association estimates the figure slightly lower at 4 percent closed and 4 percent shuttered, and states that charters usually close for financial reasons, such as lacking affordable facilities. A nonprofit that advocates choice among schools, the Center for Education Reform, identified only two California charters that were closed for academic reasons out of 73 schools closed or shut down statewide as of February 2006.
Loath to see more scandals and school meltdowns, the group is prodding leaders and boards to seek out training and support. It is branding schools with good governance as "certified." It aims to prevent abuses without quashing successes and recreating the bureaucracy that charters were created to escape. And it readily criticizes charters that give the movement a bad name.
"Charter schools are a viable movement that is happening across the nation," said Emma Lechuga, who cofounded a school with Mike Hazelton and later quit because of disagreements with him. "Unfortunately, individuals like Mike put the movement in a bad light."
Hazelton has denied the accusations of the Encinitas Union School District that led to his last school's closing, arguing that he and his wife were unfairly attacked because their school competed successfully with district-run schools in Encinitas.
Most charters are stuck in the awkward position of competing with the same school districts that oversee them, a situation that Larson compares to Blockbuster overseeing Netflix. When school districts lose students to charter schools, they also lose funding to them.
That tension undergirds the interrelationship between school districts and charters, and politicizes the already heated debates over when troubled charters should be given a chance, and when to pull the plug.
Proposed Law Would Combat Conflicts of Interest
School districts are pushing a different solution: Making charter schools follow a key code meant to stop employees from milking public funds.
State Government Code 1090 bans public officials and employees from participating in the creation of contracts that could impact them financially. Experts dispute whether 1090, which predates charter schools, already applies to them.
Major groups such as the San Diego County Office of Education and the statewide Association of California School Administrators back a proposed law that would make charters follow the same conflict of interest rules as school districts. They invoke the notorious case of C. Steven Cox, a charter school operator who diverted millions in public funds to his own corporation. It was only after a highly unusual and rigorous audit found evidence of actual theft -- not just conflicts of interest -- that prosecutors could charge Cox in a case with millions at stake.
"It has to rise to the level of the worst imaginable offense before we can do anything about it," said Pamela Bachilla, a lobbyist with School Innovation and Advocacy, a firm that advocates for school districts. "That's ridiculous."
Cox was also panned by the California Charter School Association, which laid some blame with the school districts charged with overseeing his many schools. It pushed for a rule that banned charters from being sponsored by faraway school districts that could only exercise limited oversight, and lobbied unsuccessfully for another that would allow the state Board of Education to stop school districts from approving future charters if they fail to properly oversee them.
Charters argue that the proposed conflict of interest law is a ham-handed way to pluck "bad apples" such as Cox, and are prodding Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to veto the bill, which has already passed through the Legislature.
The bill would also force board members to live in the area served by the school, preventing experts who don't live nearby from overseeing schools. It would also keep employees such as teachers off their governing boards to avoid conflicts.
That would undermine the do-it-yourself quality of charters, said Eric Premack, director of the Charter Schools Development Center.
"We can get around the we-them relationship that decimates so many traditional school districts," Premack said, noting that nonprofit boards routinely and legally include employees. "There are other ways to mitigate those conflicts of interest," such as employees recusing themselves from voting on their salaries.
The clash over the law is unsurprising. Tension is already built into the relationship between charter schools and school districts, which oversee the same schools they compete with, and districts are sometimes accused of unfairly eliminating their rivals.
Shutting down the last school that Hazelton headed, Theory Into Practice Academy, spurred similar complaints from parents and charter advocates who argued that Encinitas Union School District discounted their efforts to reform the school, such as remaking their board and firing Hazelton and his wife, the principal.
"The school district gets to be the judge and jury," said parent Tim Cusac.
Weak Oversight by Boards and Educators
Ideally a board or principal would squelch financial mismanagement before a school was endangered, preventing the heartbreak and controversy of closing a charter. But educators who lack financial savvy may not discover problems until they become glaringly obvious.
A recent study by the National Charter School Research Project at the University of Washington found that charter leaders tend to be newcomers to running schools, less seasoned than their counterparts in traditional public schools.
Management expertise was a liability for two of the educators who partnered with Hazelton as their financial guru.
One was Lechuga, the cofounder of a small nonprofit that helped high school dropouts earn their degrees. Leaders at a San Bernardino-area school district rejected her efforts to form a school singlehandedly, but got behind the idea once she paired with Hazelton. Another principal who joined with Hazelton, Jacqueline Hicks, said her heart was in counseling teens, not handling "the business side" of Cortez Hill Academy.
Boards are also vulnerable, often lacking the training and expertise to oversee schools, said Priscilla Wohlstetter, director of the Center on Educational Governance at the University of Southern California.
Weak boards with revolving doors were unable to properly oversee Hazelton or effectively question how he managed his schools.
Board members were constantly changing at Las Banderas, which only learned of its financial woes from an outside audit. Teacher and board member JoAnne Hux confessed she still doesn't understand how the school was being run and why another corporation founded by Hazelton was contracting with the school. Even the school district representative on the Las Banderas board was clueless.
"I wasn't really knowledgeable as to how they actually were to operate," said Marge Mendoza-Ware, a board member at the Colton Joint Unified School District. "... Finance was not my area of expertise."
Similar turnover afflicted the Cortez Hill board, which replaced at least five of its seven voting members under Hazelton. Board members weren't aware of financial problems until after Hazelton quit with the rent unpaid. Months later an audit concluded that deficits had grown and Hazelton had given himself an unauthorized $18,350 raise.
"The board was not very functional under Mike," said Will Stillwell, secretary of the Cortez Hill Academy board. "We were supposedly over him, but we were not."
Hazelton made it even tougher to track school finances because he formed corporations that contracted -- or tried to -- with his schools. Hiring a nonprofit or corporation as a manager is legal and common among charters, but it complicates oversight of public funds. Questions about whether Hazelton was double-dipping by earning a Las Banderas salary and paying his corporation as well went unanswered; the corporation never filed its tax returns, leaving no paper trail to track who earned money from the group.
"You lose the opportunity to follow the money" when outside corporations are involved, said Herbert Fischer, formerly superintendent in San Bernardino County, where the California Charter Academy scandal erupted. "The school district or the county office of education can't oversee a private entity."
To avoid the headaches and risks of running their own operations, some "dependent charters" pay school districts to manage functions such as finances, payroll and staffing, freeing them to focus on instruction. That model provides more oversight from experienced bookkeepers and business staffers, said Susan Fahle, assistant superintendent of business for Chula Vista Elementary School District.
But dependency means "you're stuck with their rules and procedures," said Tad Parzen, a charter school consultant. Instead of relying on school districts or a single financial expert, many Southern California charters have remained independent but outsourced their operations to a recognized nonprofit or corporation. Several have sprung up across the state, and the California Charter Schools Association recommends them to newly started schools.
It is a delicate question of balancing the risks and rewards of the freedom that charter schools enjoy -- a question that still worries parents such as Ginger Relyea, a mother who loved the educational outlook of Theory Into Practice Academy but condemned the way that Hazelton ran the school.
"I still really believe in charter schools. They fulfill a need," Relyea said. "But the system is broken."
Please contact Emily Alpert directly at emily.alpert@voiceofsandiego.org with your thoughts, ideas, personal stories or tips. Or set the tone of the debate with a letter to the editor.
Schools fail to meet No Child Left Behind goalsNanette Asimov, Chronicle Staff Writer Tuesday, September 23, 2008 (09-22) 20:20 PDT -- If the system mandated by No Child Left Behind to fix thousands of failing schools were subjected to its own rigorous standards, it too could fail. That's the conclusion of the first large study examining whether school-restructuring programs required by the federal No Child Left Behind education act are actually working. The study, released today, found that the number of schools failing to meet achievement goals nationwide under No Child Left Behind jumped by 50 percent since last year - with California leading the way. California now has more than 1,000 persistently failing schools forced to undergo drastic restructuring, the study found. That's more than any other state, yet few are being helped by the mandated process. "We think the federal law is like a first draft of a paper - and we don't think it's developed very well," said Jack Jennings, president of the independent Center on Education Policy in Washington, D.C., which has studied No Child Left Behind for years and has now turned its attention to "school restructuring" efforts in five states, including California. The study name says it all: "A Call to Restructure Restructuring." Little guidance from fedsThe U.S. Department of Education "has offered little guidance on what to do about persistently struggling schools," according to the report. As a result, the study found that local efforts to comply with the law and turn schools around are often poorly focused and tend to lack a key ingredient: qualified teachers. "I would agree," said Jack O'Connell, California's elected schools chief. "You have to question your entire accountability program when you're setting all your schools up for failure." The idea of No Child Left Behind is that 100 percent of students will score "proficient" in reading and math by 2014. To get there, a rising percentage of students at every school has to score proficient each year. Program ImprovementSchools failing to meet those annual proficiency goals two years in a row enter Program Improvement. The first few years include carrots: free tutoring for kids, extra training for teachers and other technical help. Schools that still don't meet the goals after three years face drastic restructuring measures: reopening as a charter school, replacing all staff, being operated by an outside agency or - the most popular - "any other major restructuring" they choose, such as changing the curriculum. More than 3,500 schools across the country are in the restructuring phase of Program Improvement this year. That's a 50 percent increase from last year, when about 2,300 schools had to restructure, the study says. The problem is that even those drastic measures don't help in most cases. Success is measured by whether a school meets academic goals. (Last spring, about 35 percent of California students had to score proficient in reading and math at each school. Next spring, it will jump to about 45 percent.) If a school succeeds for two years in a row, it can exit Program Improvement. Schools stuck in phaseBut once in Program Improvement, the study found, schools rarely exit. For example, in 2007, when just 25 percent of students had to score proficient at each school, only 14 percent of restructuring schools in California met the academic goals. Cox Elementary in Oakland entered Program Improvement years ago, before the ink was dry on the No Child Left Behind law. By 2005, it had failed so many times that drastic restructuring was required. Cox chose to reopen as an autonomous public charter school that could make its own decisions - an idea embraced by the U.S. Department of Education as a good move for troubled schools. Three years later, the school has yet to meet its academic targets. "Program Improvement does nothing for me," said Principal Fernando Yanez, who works for the nonprofit Education for Change, which now operates Cox. "Program Improvement is a stigma that's placed on a school. There's no funds - No Child Left Behind is great political rhetoric. But is it really realistic that 100 percent of our students will get there by 2014?" Money is a big problem, the study found. Funding drops dramaticallyEach state is required to set aside 4 percent of its federal Title 1 funds for low-income children specifically to help schools in Program Improvement. Two years ago in California, that was $69 million. But last year, it plunged to $33 million because a clause in the law says states can't set aside the full amount if doing so would deprive other schools of money they are entitled to. The study also found that "dramatic flourishes" such as transformation into charter schools really didn't help with achievement. For example, replacing the staff - one of the law's recommended approaches - often had the unintended consequence of leaving the school with no qualified replacements. Focus on better instruction"These methods satisfy the adults because you can walk away and say, 'I really kicked ass - I made them abolish their school,' " said Jennings, president of the group that conducted the study. "But instead of shaking up the school, it may be that we need to improve instruction." The study found more success at schools that focused intensely on improving instruction, extending the school day and tutoring. Written by consultant Caitlin Scott, the study offers several recommendations for "restructuring restructuring." These include expanding the list of strategies that work, better monitoring of schools and their plans, and replacing teachers only if there are enough experts to take their place. How restructuring works Schools enter Program Improvement if they miss No Child Left Behind's academic targets for two years in a row, and if they receive federal Title 1 money for low-income schools. In California, more than 6,000 schools are eligible, and more than 4,500 are in Program Improvement. Schools exit Program Improvement by making targets two years in a row. During the first two years of Program Improvement, schools receive help from the school district. This ranges from free tutoring for certain students to professional development for teachers. In the third year, the district steps in with greater oversight. If the school still fails to meet targets, it enters the Restructuring phase of PI. Here's what happens: Year 4 The district continues providing technical assistance and professional development, and it must notify parents of the school's status; children have the right to transfer to a higher-performing school, and to receive tutoring. The district and school must choose which restructuring method they will implement: -- Reopen school as a charter. -- Replace all or most staff, including principal. -- Contract with outside entity to manage school. -- State takeover. -- Any other major restructuring. Year 5 The school and district carry out restructuring. The school remains in Program Improvement until it meets academic goals for two consecutive years. Source: California Department of Education Restructuring 1,013 Number of California schools required to restructure 48 Number of restructured schools in the state that met academic goals Online To see the full report, go to the Center on Education Policy at www.cep-dc.org. http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/09/23/MN7N132L5U.DTL This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
Letter to Sacramento BEE Editor Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger once again showed his long-term commitment to charter schools in California by signing Senate Bill (SB) 658, which contains around $100 million of public funds for privately operated charter schools. It has been a very busy summer for the governor with the budget crisis and all. Getting caught up with his tremendous backlog of legislative bills that require his signature, he may have missed the financial meltdown on Wall Street. This meltdown has been attributed to deregulation and lack of transparency and oversight. I say that the Governor may have missed the meltdown because at the same time that he pitched his charter school cohorts a cool 100 million of tax payer funds, he vetoed AB 2115 (Mullin) that would have required members of charter school governing boards to comply with the same conflict of interest laws as other public officials, including school board members. The bill would have also established minimum eligibility criteria for charter school board members. The bill would prohibit charter school employees from serving on their governing boards. In vetoing AB 2115, Governor Schwarzenegger stated “Not only would this bill create state mandated costs for charter schools to comply with its provisions, the measure runs counter to the intent of charter schools, which were created to be free from many of the laws governing school districts. For these reasons, I am unable to sign this bill”.
So let’s see if I got this right, transparency and oversight is good for our public schools but “runs counter to the intent” of the laws that govern privately operated charter schools because it cost too much. This is exactly the philosophy that may cost the country $700-billion taxpayer dollars in the current deregulation SNAFU.
Locally the “dark shadow of doubt” that befalls the leading proponent of charter schools in Sacramento is a prime example of the need for regulation, transparency and oversight in the private charter school industry. When financial institutions fail, it cost us money, when schools fail, the cost is far beyond financial. Governor Schwarzenegger, if AB 2115 is not the right way to provide transparency and oversight to charter schools, would you please assure us that in 5-6 years we will not be reading in The BEE about the “meltdown in the private charter school industry”. Mike Simpson, Parent
Vetoed by Governor CURRENT BILL STATUS
MEASURE : A.B. No. 2115
AUTHOR(S) : Mullin.
TOPIC : Charter schools: governing boards.
+LAST AMENDED DATE : 06/11/2008
TYPE OF BILL :
Inactive
Non-Urgency
Non-Appropriations
Majority Vote Required
State-Mandated Local Program
Fiscal
Non-Tax Levy
LAST HIST. ACT. DATE: 09/24/2008
LAST HIST. ACTION : Vetoed by Governor.
VETOED
COMM. LOCATION : SEN APPROPRIATIONS
COMM. ACTION DATE : 06/30/2008
COMM. ACTION : Senate Rule 28.8.
TITLE : An act to add Sections 47604.1 and 47610.3 to the
Education Code, relating to charter schools. State conflict-of-interest policies need to apply to charter schools By Gene Mullin and Bonnie Garcia
Special to The Examiner 8/18/08 SAN FRANCISCO – It is time to ensure that public taxpayer dollars spent on the education of students in all schools are allocated by school boards free from financial conflicts of interest. Current law prohibits school district board members from being financially interested in decisions made by the board, requires members to file a statement of economic interest with the Fair Political Practices Commission (just as we both do as members of the Assembly), prohibits employees of school districts from serving on the board of the district that employs them and requires open, public board meetings. However, none of this protection of our public funds extends to the school boards that administer charter schools. The conversation about charter school boards and conflict-of-interest policies has continued for years in the Legislature. Now is the time to bring sunshine to charter school boards in the same way that we do for the rest of the public schools in California, by requiring their boards to comply with the same conflict-of-interest and open-meeting laws that apply to school district boards. Assembly Bill 2115 will place these same uniform protections on charter schools across the state. This bill will soon arrive on the governor’s desk for his consideration, and we urge him to sign the legislation. News reports of charter school board members engaging in inappropriate financial mismanagement highlight the need for charter school conflict-of-interest laws to be clarified. Audits of several charter schools have found state taxpayer dollars used for inappropriate expenses, including charter school board members staying at luxury hotels while on school business. Some charter schools even have large contracts with for-profit corporations for everything from business services to curricula, and those corporations are owned by the charter school director or family. One charter school serving students in grades nine through 12, which abruptly closed its doors without notice to students or staff, was found to have redirected more than $12 million in state funding to another organization that was offering training to adults, while charging tuition to its students who, like all students, were entitled to a “free and appropriate public education.” Charter schools may be run by for-profit corporations or nonprofit corporations. Though there may be advantages to this, in some cases the same board that controls the nonprofit or for-profit corporation also makes all the financial decisions for the school. With a single board making financial decisions for the corporation and the charter school, these boards are clearly filled with financially interested board members. Charter schools are given more autonomy than traditional public schools in order to foster innovation in education. We both support this innovation. However, charter schools, just like all other public schools, should have conflict-of-interest and open-meeting requirements that cast a bright light on the financial decisions that they make, thus preventing the temptation for fraud and making those decisions completely transparent to the taxpayers that fund them. Gene Mullin is a Democrat from South San Francisco; Bonnie Garcia is a Republican from Cathedral City. Both are members of the state Assembly.
From the SCUSD Observer
A Public meeting space for discussion and news related to the Sacramento City Unified School District. Not affiliated with or sanctioned by the district in any way -- this blog is an exercise in free speech by private citizens interested in sharing ideas about the public education system in Sacramento, California.
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The damning story in the Sacramento Bee today (updated 12:30 p.m. additional story) has to compel the SCUSD School Board to start seriously considering a revocation of the charter at Sacramento High School. The revelations that St. Hope, under Kevin Johnson's leadership, used federal funds inappropriately (at the very least) is yet another nail in the coffin on the failing experiment that is Sacramento Charter High School.
Maria Lopez, spokeswoman for the Sacramento City Unified School District, said the district will seek clarification from St. HOPE about whether the suspension will affect its charter schools. Lopez pointed out that the district does not provide financial support for independent charters. "Charters have an obligation to remain fiscally solvent," she said.
Apparently that fiscal solvency has long passed its grace period. With more revelations to come, it would behoove the current SCUSD board to start revocation proceedings.
Update: 1:02 p.m.
Along with the lack of fiscal solvency, there are numerous federal violations outlined in the inspector general's statement released today: - Misusing AmeriCorps members, financed by federal grant funds, to personally benefit Johnson, including driving him to personal appointments, washing his car and running personal errands. - Unlawfully supplementing St. HOPE staff salaries with federal grant funds by enrolling two employees in the AmeriCorps program and giving them federally funded corporation living allowances and education awards. - Improperly using members to engage in banned political activities, namely supporting the election of Sacramento school board candidates. - Improperly taking members assigned to serve in Sacramento to New York City to promote St. HOPE's establishment of a Harlem charter school. - Misusing AmeriCorps members, who, under the grant, were supposed to be tutoring elementary and high school students, to instead serve in clerical and janitorial positions at St. HOPE's charter schools. - Misusing AmeriCorps members to recruit students for St. HOPE's charter schools.
Market FailureTwo professors explain why small government, loose regulations and an over-reliance on markets eventually cost taxpayers. By: Ryan Blitstein | September 27, 2008 | 07:00 AM (PDT) |  Comments  The era of big government is far from over. Quick, somebody tell the politicians, before we go broke. Don't run straight to the tax-and-spend lib erals, though, Lawrence Brown and Lawrence Jacobs caution in The Private Abuse of the Public Interest: Market Myths and Policy Muddles. Conservatives bear just as much of the blame for our fiscal predicament. America now faces blowback from 40 years of political dominance by right-wing market utopians, who championed extreme industry deregulation only to increase government's size and power. Beginning in the Nixon administration, conservative policymakers adopted the philosophy of academic free-marketeers like the late Milton Friedman: Government was not only less efficient than business; it was the problem. The solution to challenges like underperforming schools or skyrocketing health care costs, they said, was slicing government down and letting an expanding market come to the rescue. As former Texas Congressman Richard Armey once put it, "Markets are smart; government is dumb." This Manichaean view has worked its way into much of American political discourse, with Democrats such as Bill Clinton aping anti-statist language to win elective office. What's ironic, Brown and Jacobs write, is that small-government rhetoric often directly contradicts real-world policy. During the supposed free-market era, real federal spending on consumer, environmental and other protections jumped from $1 billion in 1960 to $20 billion early this decade, with money for economic regulation climbing 400 percent. As of 1999, 2 in 5 American households contained at least one person who either worked for the government or held a job falling within a government contract or grant. Republicans and Democrats alike imposed rules in sectors from international finance to aerospace, tripling the number of pages in the federal register during the Nixon-Ford era, growing them by another 25 percent in the years through 2000 and increasing them by an additional 16 percent in the early George W. Bush administration. Conservatives like Alan Greenspan and Newt Gingrich have lamented the fact that federal spending rose twice as fast during Bush's first term as during the Clinton years and that the government work force grew by more than 1 million people between late 1999 and 2003. Even deregulation champion Ronald Reagan imposed more than $15 billion in new regulatory costs during his final two years in office. What explains the hypocrisy of shrink-government speeches and expand-government policymaking? For Brown and Jacobs, it's rooted in a misreading of Adam Smith and other classical political economists. Smith wasn't the profit-obsessed, laissez-faire advocate that many of his current proponents make him out to be (in fact, Smith never even used the term "laissez faire"). Though he strongly supported markets, Smith feared that without some regulation, self-interest could "generate wasteful, expensive luxury, managerial inefficiencies and devious business practices that undermined competition." For much of American history, U.S. government regulation followed Smith's advice, waxing and waning as regulators strove for a delicate balance between capital and labor. After the regulatory and spending peaks of the New Deal, World War II and the Great Society, a backlash arrived in the form of Friedman and his cohorts. They charged that government was an incompetent failure that had no business intervening in the economy. Even in its traditional spheres of influence, such as public education, government needed to get out of the way and let the market work its magic. Soon, these economists were whispering in the ears of mainstream Washington, which chose the simplistic "government bad, markets good" mantra over the more nuanced approach of old. Private Abuse traces the way these market-utopian ideas played out in three areas: transportation, schools and health care. Though events and players are different, the cycle is the same. The free-marketeers define the problem as insufficient reliance on markets, then convince the legislature or government agency to widen the market and diminish government involvement. Eventually, the privatized institutions perform terribly, citizens complain and politicians send in bumbling government entities. Public schools, for example, have long struggled to adequately teach all students, especially low-income children. The market utopians proposed that school districts should think of families not as recipients of a public service but as consumers of a marketed product. If the market let parent-consumers choose where to send their kids every day, competition would force schools to shape up. Their theories became reality as cities like Milwaukee and Cleveland started offering vouchers to families, and a charter-school movement expanded from a handful of schools to thousands nationwide. Despite mixed (at best) evidence that these programs could effect positive change, it soon became conventional wisdom that they would work wonders. One 1990 book published by the Brookings Institution called vouchers a transformative "panacea" for schools. The real-world results weren't promising. Cleveland created a program designed to allow city children to attend schools in an adjacent, suburban district — except none of those schools accepted any of the mainly poor and black students. And often, instead of pushing schools toward better teaching, competition moved them toward corporate-style public relations tactics to attract already high-achieving students. In more than a few cases, disaster struck: One of the country's largest operators of charter schools collapsed without warning, leaving 6,000 California schoolchildren scrambling to find an alternative and their parents "swearing and shouting." A Darwinian marketplace creates both winners and losers, and the market failures and management abuses that result from unadulterated capitalism may not be so terrible when the worst that can happen is people pay a little extra for a television set. When one of those losses means a child gets no education — or, as in other cases, poor health care or no electricity — the market cannot correct itself quickly enough to sustain a society. After privatization or public-private partnerships make things worse, Brown and Jacobs show, citizens clamor for big government to clean up the mess — at considerable taxpayer expense. Americans favor economic growth and fear a strong government — that is, unless we want Washington to bail out our bank, save our mortgage, protect us from toxic chemicals or step in to enact yet another special-interest regulation on cancer-causing tanning beds or diet pill producers. The overall result is a "disconnect between a national narrative trumpeting small government and steadily increasing expectations of government." At times, the authors use telling anecdotes, usually drawn from the popular press, to support their thesis. Yet too often, Brown, a public health professor at Columbia University, and Jacobs, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for the Study of Politics and Governance, fall back on the muddled phrases and circuitous sentences of academic writing. They do offer a much-needed reality check for anyone who believes the last four decades have succeeded in shrinking and simplifying government. Still, crucial questions remain unanswered: Are the politicians true believers, unknowingly making short-term mistakes that will catch up with us a decade from now? Or are they knowingly lying, claiming to shrink government on the stump while increasing it through pork-barrel spending and regulation to please constituents? Understanding such motivations would make a considerable difference for any architect of a solution. The authors describe, in general terms, a reasonable middle ground between anti-statism and anti-capitalism, where government both performs more efficiently and better regulates the private sector. How exactly to strike that balance, though, they'll leave up to the men and women in charge.
Editorial Comment: Dear Sacramento Bee Editor:
I would like to thank you for your continued coverage of public education in Sacramento. I am a parent of a child in the Sacramento City Unified School District. I often spend time reading about education issues in various newspapers and websites from around the nation. What I have found is that the Sac Bee does an extraordinary job in providing information and ideas about public education. You have great reporters that have helped me become a better parent through the stories and articles that they write.
I have used the sacbee.com site search to discover that the Bee listed 358 articles on Charter Schools. Charter Schools seem to be the focus (or obsession) of the Sacramento community particularly in education and political circles. Charter Schools are hallmarks of the NCLB concept of school choice, an option that allows parents to select alternate education opportunities. Several thousand Sacramento families have chosen to pursue a Charter education for their children rather than send them to traditional public schools. I think the Bee has done a more than adequate job of covering the Sacramento charter school movement. Parents need to know about the choices. It seems to be the point of your editorial entitled “The 5-year hitch: Why is school board hindering charters?” However, I disagree with your conclusion about the board action. Our school board seems to be divided on the Charter question, as is much of our community. With the majority of the Board leaving office next year, it is prudent to delay the long-term decision until the new board is seated. In your Editorial on March 9, 2008 entitled “For Sacramento, a chance to focus on schools”, the Bee stated that our community would have an opportunity to shape the future of public education. We should allow the people to speak on this subject in November.
I have noted that several thousand parents have chosen the charter school option. However, I would like to remind everyone that Sacramento families of over 50,000 children have currently selected a public school education. With the amount of ink, school board time and SCUSD resources that has been given to the Charter School issue, you would think that the numbers were reversed. Most parents of the SCUSD support traditional public schools. As you have reported, there are parents that are not satisfied with the quality of education in Sacramento and their voices are heard on the pages of the Sac Bee and in the SCUSD boardroom. Yet they have not chosen the Charter school option.
I would like to state for the record that I am NOT in favor of independent Charter Schools. I feel they have taken the focus off the real progress that is being made in our district and the challenges of the future. I think dependent Charter schools have a far greater potential to provide the same innovations that is promised by independent Charter schools without the RISK! Allowing our teachers to teach and experiment in an environment that has proven checks and balances built-in is far superior to rolling the dice with independent charters. There are ample nationwide examples of the problems of “free enterprise” independent charters following the practices of Enron and Arthur Anderson accounting. In Texas (considered the birthplace of NCLB and a leader of the Charter movement) state records show Charter schools have received more than $26 million in undeserved state funding through inaccurate student attendance reports. The Dallas Morning News reported that the Texas Education Agency is trying to recover $17 million from nearly half the charter schools in the Lone Star State. State officials cannot collect money from the 20 charters that have gone out of business, leaving taxpayers to pay the debt. Click here to read the complete article.
Since education is about learning, there are some things that charter schools have proven to be successful. Two things stand out in my mind: 1. Learning can flourish without the impossible burden of ineffective rules, regulation and legislation. 2. The other principle that has been proven in charter schools and public schools alike is the inclusion of parents in the decision making process makes the education system more successful.
It is referred to as parent involvement in the NCLB regulations (Section 1118) but has been called several things including family involvement, community involvement and parent engagement. I did a search of the sacbee.com site and discovered that the Bee listed 78 articles mentioning parent involvement. Most politicians and education leaders have given lip service to parent involvement. However, the real discussion of the benefits of parent involvement seems to be but a quiet whisper.
Paul Houston, the executive director of the American Association of School Administrators stated in an article on the association’s web site:
“We are often told that we should act more like a business. Setting aside the obvious problem that children are not widgets, you still are left with the chore of sorting out who the customers are.
One of the greatest problems of American education is a confusion over who we serve. Some would argue that the children are the customers. They sit in the seat each day receiving instruction. Others believe the community, big business, colleges or even the military are the customer since they hire or place the student.
I believe the parent is the customer. Customers are the people who can choose to take their business elsewhere. Students are captive to the process and the broader community must live with the product regardless. Students should be considered the workers since it is their productivity that really counts. The broader community, business and the rest are the shareholders. They own stock in the operation. These distinctions become very important when you understand that shareholders have very different expectations and values than customers. Shareholders want return on investment. Customers want value and service.”
So if Mr. Houston is correct, then we the parents, the customers of our public schools want to focus the debate in Sacramento and the rest of the state on making our public schools more successful, engaging all parents. Not dismantling our schools like some corporation being raided in a hostile takeover or being downsized to allow for private entities to take the place of public education. For over 300 years, this country’s public education system has been the bedrock of our economy, our nation, our culture and our democracy. Now is not the time to gamble our nation’s future on the latest gimmick that purports to be the solution to our current educational challenges when the real answer is to continue to make a public school education the place where the greatest ideas of our time are learned. Moreover, the measure of the success of this learning will be evident in the promise and richness of the community in which we live.
Michael Simpson, Parent
Undocumented students have a degree of anxiety
Undocumented college students endure hardships over their status, then see an uncertain future.
By Gale Holland
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 8, 2008
He took 15 AP classes in high school, and kicks himself for passing up two others. Now, he is graduating from UCLA, with a double major in English and Chicano Studies and a B-plus grade point average.
But for all his success, Miguel does not share the full-bodied exuberance of the graduating seniors who marched last month five abreast into Pauley Pavilion, belting out the '60s hit "Build Me Up, Buttercup." A native of Puebla, Mexico, he is an illegal immigrant.
Around the UCLA campus, ubiquitous kiosk signs encourage students to "Jump Into Great Jobs!" But for Miguel, any employment will be difficult. Like many undocumented students, he may elect to prolong his studies to stave off an uncertain future.
"When you're in school you have a place in society, you're a university student," Miguel, 23, said during an interview at a campus coffee spot on graduation day. "When you graduate, you're just an immigrant again."
Miguel and other students, who asked that their full names be withheld for fear that they or their families could face federal action, are caught between contradictory U.S. immigration policies.
A 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision entitled illegal immigrants to public education from kindergarten through high school; 50,000 to 70,000 graduate from U.S. high schools each year (California's share, by some estimates, is 40%), according to experts. But the students' access to higher education has not been guaranteed by the courts and Congress.
Over the last seven years, California and nine other states have encouraged undocumented college students to pursue higher education by offering many who graduated from California high schools in-state tuition. California public universities do not ask about legal status on applications. Some private universities, including Loyola Marymount and Santa Clara, have scholarships tailored for illegal immigrants. They are not entitled to most financial aid or loans at public colleges.
Their numbers at the university level remain low. The UC system had an estimated 271 to 433 undocumented students, out of total enrollment of 214,000, in 2006-2007, the latest figure available, a spokesman said.
But attending college, and even doing splendidly, does nothing to alter these students' illegal status. A proposed federal law called the Dream Act would have offered a pathway to citizenship for many college students and members of the military. But supporters last year were unable to secure enough votes to prevent a filibuster of the bill.
Opponents said the students are looting limited educational resources that should go to citizens and legal residents.
"To these students, I say I hope you return to your home country right away," said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach), "and I hope you repay what you have spent of other people's money. It's a horrible crime."
Students have come far
Advocates argue that it's inhumane and counterproductive to ostracize students who have come so far with so little.
"These students have been here since they were small children, and we've done everything to encourage them to stay in school and help them prepare for college," said UCLA Asst. Vice Provost Alfred Herrera of the Center for Community College Partnerships. "The sad reality is most of these students are the best and the brightest."
And if history is any guide, they aren't leaving. Some, instead, remain in school.
Living off academic stipends, scholarships and a steady diet of ramen, these students play out an endless "Groundhog Day" script of school applications, research projects and degrees.
"They mostly hang around colleges, assistantships, getting paid to do surveys. It's not employment, it's catch-as-catch can," said Michael Olivas, an expert on immigrants in higher education who teaches at the University of Houston Law Center.
"I think continuing your studies is the best option for us now," said Tam Tran, 24, who heads to Brown University this fall for a five-year doctoral program in American Civilizations.
Born in Germany to Vietnamese parents, Tran has a complex immigration history: a U.S. immigration board in 2001 found that her family faced political persecution in Vietnam for past anti-Communist activities, but ordered them deported to Germany.
Germany, however, would not take them. The nation only recognized as citizens children born on its soil to German parents.
She said she would have liked to stay at UCLA, maybe go to film school. But the public university can't give her aid, while both Brown and Yale universities offered generous packages.
Robert Lee, professor in the Department of American Civilization at Brown, said the university is not bothered that Tran might be unable to work in the U.S. in her academic field. "Even as students, they're producing important academic product," Lee said. "We don't train all students to become university professors; they might end up working for an NGO [non-governmental organization], or a film producer . . . or in government service, maybe not in the U.S."
'Miley Cyrus Americans'
Stephanie, 22, drops out roughly every other quarter towork at low-paying jobs like making cardboard boxes.
"The reason I don't feel bad about it taking me so long to get through is that as long as I'm a UCLA student, I can say, 'We're on our way, we're up-and-comers," said Stephanie, over dinner recently at a Japanese restaurant.
Stephanie's parents brought her here at age 4, after the disco craze dissolved in the Philippines, leaving her father, a lighting installer, without a job, she said. Her parents only told her she was undocumented when she tried to transfer to UCLA, she added.
"What people don't get is we're Miley Cyrus Americans," said Stephanie, an aspiring writer and copy editor. "English is the only language I speak."
A story about Stephanie in the Daily Bruin newspaper earlier this year drew scant sympathy. Stephanie "has a choice to make: become a legal resident or continue to live a life of deferring the task her parents should have taken care of years before," a letter to the editor said.
Stephanie and Miguel said they would risk deportation if they sought legal status.
Even the most prestigious academic posting has not shielded students from immigration authorities. Dan-el Padilla Peralta, a classics scholar, Princeton salutatorian and illegal immigrant from the Dominican Republic, was able to pursue a masters at Oxford University without facing possible exclusion upon his return only through an intense legal and publicity campaign, his lawyer, Stephen Yale-Loehr said. Yale-Loehr is an immigration law professor at Cornell Law School.
As it is, Padilla was able to obtain only a temporary waiver and visa so he could travel to the U.S. during summer and vacations to work on a research project for Princeton.
"Naturally the uncertainty over my status has been a source of anxiety," Padilla said in an e-mail from Oxford. "But I've tried to keep that anxiety quite separate from my academic and extracurricular pursuits. I feel enormously privileged to have studied first at Princeton and now at Oxford."
This same optimism pervaded speeches at a small graduation ceremony arranged by the UCLA chapter of IDEAS, a campus support organization for students, documented and undocumented, who receive the in-state tuition exemption.
About 10 students talked about life as an "Underground Undergrad" (the title of a book undocumented UCLA students released this spring): the two- to three-hour commutes, crashing on couches, eating only if somebody could sneak them into the dining hall. Several said they were hopeful the Dream Act will be reintroduced soon, and this time pass, opening the door to legalization.
But mainly, they expressed gratitude for their education.
"I choose not to place the burden [of my situation] on everyone," said Matias Ramos, another graduating senior, whose grandmother flew in from Argentina for the event. "I have had the blessing of encountering a lot of people who've helped me."
"A lot of stereotypes that linger on, we break all of them," said Miguel. "All of us are very assimilated and we're very proud of it. . . . We're driven by huge optimism."
But as she cleared cut fruit from the refreshment table, Tran grew wistful.
"We're always in a position where we're oppressed and privileged at the same time," she said. "I wonder if getting a PhD in American studies is going to prove I'm an American?"
gale.holland@latimes.com From the Los Angeles Times
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School rallies around dismissed Watts teacher deemed too 'Afro-centric.'
Karen Salazar was let go from Jordan High. Other instructors say they plan to resign or transfer in protest.
By Howard Blume
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
June 12, 2008
Students and fellow educators are rallying behind a fired Jordan High School teacher they say was sacked for encouraging political activism among her students.
About 60 students rallied Wednesday at the Watts campus, while a colleague of the fired teacher said he and 15 other instructors planned to resign or transfer to other schools to protest the dismissal of Karen Salazar, a second-year English teacher.
The dust-up has gone digital as well. Salazar backers have posted videos on the website YouTube. The postings, which have attracted thousands of hits, intersperse music, outraged protesters and interviews, as well as statements from the outspoken educator.
"You embody what it means to be a warrior-scholar, a freedom-fighting intellectual," she told students through a bullhorn in one video. "You are part of the long legacy, the strong history, of fighting back."
In another instance, Salazar rips the Los Angeles Unified School District, saying, "This school system for too long has been not only denying them human rights, basic human rights, but doing it on purpose in order to keep them subservient, to subjugate them in society."
A union official said the critique against Salazar included a statement that her teaching was too "Afro-centric." An assistant principal, in his evaluation of a particular lesson, accused Salazar of brainwashing students, according to Salazar and others.
Her course materials include "The Autobiography of Malcolm X," which is approved for students. Salazar, 25, also sprinkles in lyrics of slain rapper Tupac Shakur and the poetry of Langston Hughes.
Salazar's political science degree from UCLA includes minors in African American studies and Chicano studies. She recently completed a master's in education at UCLA.
A veteran teacher assigned to mentor Salazar took issue with the negative characterization of Salazar's teaching.
"I did not see the same things that the administrator said he saw," said Miranda Manners, who observed the same lesson during a different class period. "I saw a new, young teacher teaching her lesson according to the objectives she stated on the board. I saw her engage with her students and interacting with them in a very positive way."
As for Salazar's overall campus profile, "she is definitely a teacher who wants kids to wake up and look around them and ask questions and be motivated and be engaged."
It was the latter penchant that caused the furor, said others.
Salazar served as faculty advisor for campus student activists who wanted to pass out surveys about the school and students' education. Unlike at other schools, Principal Stephen G. Strachan forbade the distribution of surveys on campus.
Salazar said Strachan also accused her of starting a separate student activist group that demanded more culturally relevant courses as well as accurate, up-to-date student records. Some students have complained that transcript errors result in them being placed in the wrong classes.
"She's one of the teachers that needs to stay here," said junior Deysy Ruiz, 16, who estimated that at least half of her teachers had been ineffective by comparison.
Another group behind the protest was the Assn. of Raza Educators, which includes Santee Education Complex teachers who advocated successfully for the removal of a principal at that high school.
Strachan did not respond to a request for an interview Wednesday. But the video footage suggests that Salazar's removal is justified, said Senior Deputy Supt. Ramon C. Cortines through a spokesman. The course materials are appropriate, but the advocacy may have crossed the line, he said.
Salazar, who was informed of her pending dismissal in April, needed at least one more year of service to earn district tenure, which limits her recourse.
"I think she was a terrific teacher, who had a real connection with kids, but teachers in her position have a hard time winning these battles," said Joshua Pechthalt, a vice president with United Teachers Los Angeles.
howard.blume@latimes.com
From the Los Angeles Times
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Canada to apologize to native students
Prime Minister Stephen Harper will seek to make amends for the schools that for a century plucked Indian children from their homes in order to wipe out their language and culture.
By Maggie Farley Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
June 10, 2008
OTTAWA — For eight years, Thomas Louttit was forced to attend a residential school whose mission was to "Christianize and civilize" Canada's native people. He doesn't remember much of what he learned, but he is keenly aware of what he lost.
"They gave us a number. That's all our name was. We didn't speak their language, and we were not allowed to speak ours," he said. Like other students, he said, he was sexually abused, a secret that filled him with shame and remained untold until many years later.
"You forget how to cry, you forget how to show your feelings," he said, staring out of his window. "We were never taught to say, 'I love you.' We were never taught to forgive."
Now, 12 years after the last residential school shut down, Canada is asking the 150,000 students and their descendants if it is indeed possible to forgive. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper will formally apologize to Canada's aboriginal people and declare his support for a truth and reconciliation commission.
A $1.9-billion compensation fund, created after the federal government settled a lawsuit in 2006, has already begun payouts. Every student is receiving some money; those who were abused are getting higher amounts. But some say the process may be more for the perpetrators than the victims.
"The important thing is that they own up to what they did, admit that it is unconscionable, and it was genocide," said Roland Chrisjohn, the director of the Native Studies program at St. Thomas University in Saskatchewan, and a member of the Iroquois nation. "But they are afraid that such an admission would bring with it criminal liability."
Over a century, Canada's government and churches built 130 residential schools across the country. Childrenwere forcibly taken from their parents to instill mainstream language, culture and values. An Indian Affairs official in 1920 said the goal was "to kill the Indian in the child."
"Our object is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed . . . and there is no Indian question," wrote Duncan Campbell Scott, deputy superintendent general of the Indian Affairs department. Native rituals such as pow-wows were outlawed, and entire communities relocated.
A commission concluded in 1996 that the program indelibly damaged generations of aboriginal people and subverted their culture, prompting the last of the schools to be shut down. It outlined a program of healing and redress, but that has been a long time coming.
For Justice Harry LaForme, the chair of the newly formed Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the truth is now largely known; the real work will be in the reconciliation.
"Today, the idea that you could order the removal of a people from the fabric of a nation is a human rights violation of the first order," he said in an interview in the commission's new office across from Canada's Parliament. "In order to move forward, we need to listen to people's voices, to hear the 'whys' behind it, to write the missing chapter that everyone knows is there."
A Mississauga Indian, LaForme was the first aborigine to sit on an appellate court in Canada, where he has ruled in landmark cases to recognize same-sex marriage, and to legalize medicinal marijuana.
The commission, created under the terms of the lawsuit settlement, will hold seven national events and many more local ones involving church leaders, school survivors and government officials. LaForme says that unlike its South African model, the panel will leave "naming names" to civil courts.
One of the largest shifts in attitude has come from Canada's churches, which ran most of the schools and have since settled lawsuits for physical and sexual abuse.
"The 'good guys,' no matter how kindly or well intentioned, have to confront they were complicit in a system of evil," said Jamie Scott, the United Church of Canada officer for residential schools.
The United Church was one of the first to withdraw from the schools, in 1969, and in 1986 was the first of the churches to apologize. Between 1991 and 1994, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate from the Catholic Church, the Anglican Church and the Presbyterian Church also issued apologies. They have agreed to participate and donate to the commission. Scott said staff members have their own tales to tell.
"Many of the people who worked in those schools never beat a kid," he said. "They saw themselves called to help people they saw as marginalized. They have a side of the story too."
But the dominant narrative will probably be stories like Thomas Louttit's.
Louttit, 60, now an elder of the Moose Factory First Nation, tosses some tobacco leaves into the flames as an offering to the spirits, a gesture that was once against the law. He watches them burn, then turns the gas fireplace off with a switch, and begins his story.
When he was 5, he and his sister were taken from their home and put on a motorboat to Fort George on James Bay, a day's journey. Their parents weren't sure where they spent 10 months of the year, didn't know that they answered to numbers, did heavy labor, and were mentally and sexually abused in the school that was run by the Catholic Church.
"One summer after I went home, my father was calling and calling me," Louttit recalled. "I didn't answer him because I was not used to hearing my name. He asked what was the matter with me. I never told him."
Louttit said he passed that distance and dysfunction on to his children.
"I never knew how to bring up my kids," he said. "After I stopped drinking, I shared my stories with my daughter in a sacred circle. She said she had been miserable with my drinking and the violence. I told her I love her, and it took a long time for me to say that."
Louttit has made a point of instructing his community in the ways of the tribe and the world, taking boys to sweat lodges in the bush. He has kept his hair in a long, graying braid, and his eagle feather fan is close at hand.
"Many of my classmates have gone over to the spirit side. Seven committed suicide. I wish I could have found them first," he said.
On the day of Harper's apology, Louttit will be in the bush, unsure it will make a difference.
"It's not from him inside. Someone else wrote it for him," he said. "I will share my story to people who want to hear it. I will be comfortable to listen to theirs. But I wonder if they will really listen to ours.
"I think it's going to be a long journey."
maggie.farley@latimes.com
From the Los Angeles Times Return to Top of Page
The Charter School Mess Continued Editorial: Sac High in perspective
Published 12:00 am PDT Thursday, May 8, 2008 This story is taken from Sacbee / Opinion / Editorials.
As Sacramentans ponder an allegation of inappropriate touching involving the founder of Sacramento Charter High School, they ought not lose sight of the institution itself. The findings of an independent, outside agency are useful in that regard.
Like other Sacramento high schools, Sac High is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. This agency looks for quality and a commitment to self-improvement. Sac High first went through the WASC process in spring 2005 and won a six-year accreditation. A midterm progress report was completed last month. It shows Sac High has capacity to learn and improve.
For example, like most charter schools in the startup phase, Sac High has had higher teacher turnover than other public schools. But the WASC update indicates that since 2005 the school has instituted a professional development program, creating time for teachers to exchange ideas and work together. This should help allay concerns like those of a teacher in a November Bee story: "I felt like the doors were opened and the teachers were pushed (into the classroom) and the doors were closed. We were given no support."
Sac High also has an advisory program that is considered a model, according to Peter Thorp, chair of the 2005 WASC visit and member of the 2008 WASC visit. (Thorp is the founder of San Francisco's Gateway charter school and chief of staff at the California Charter Schools Association.) At Sac High, every staff member advises 12 students who meet regularly on achieving success, both day-to-day and beyond high school.
As the charter school and the Sacramento City Unified School District, the chartering authority, work through issues related to the handling of the 2007 allegation, they will certainly find room to improve policies and practices. But calls in some quarters to revoke the Sac High charter are uncalled for at this stage.
This school has a five-year record of improvement. There's no reason to doubt that it will improve on this front, too. The community should expect no less.
This story is taken from Sacbee / Opinion / Editorials.
Comment by SCUSD Observer at 6:53 AM PST Thursday, May 8, 2008 said:
The perspective also must include
federal money that may have been improperly spent by St. HOPE for political and religious activities. Kevin Johnson would like to term it a simple "audit" but this is misuse of public money. The alleged misconduct has occurred over a five-year period, so calls to revoke the charter are not premature -- they are long overdue. Sacramento High School should become a public facility, yet again, under the direction of the public school system. The community should expect no less.
Return to Top of Page
The Charter School Mess Continued see editorial below: Trustees postpone vote on St. HOPE proposal
By Kim Minugh - kminugh@sacbee.com
Published 12:00 am PDT Friday, May 2, 2008
St. HOPE Public Schools administrators have asked Sacramento City Unified trustees to postpone consideration of their request to open a charter middle school in Oak Park.
In March, St. HOPE submitted a charter petition seeking to open the Oak Park Prep Middle School, a fifth- through eighth-grade school on the campus of Sacramento Charter High School.
St. HOPE officials said they brought forward the charter petition at the request of community members concerned that Oak Park has not had a middle school of its own for 45 years.
Staff members were expected to make their recommendation on the proposal during a Sacramento City Unified board meeting Thursday night. Instead, district officials agreed to take up the issue May 15. Board members will vote on the proposal at the same meeting.
Deputy Superintendent Tom Barentson said St. HOPE requested the delay because officials needed more time to clarify their proposal.
On Friday, district Superintendent Maggie Mejia sent a letter to Bernard Bowler, chairman of the St. HOPE Public Schools board of directors, citing her "serious concerns regarding the safety and security of students attending Sacramento Charter High School," as well as students supervised by St. HOPE in other programs.
In the letter, Mejia cited recent articles by The Bee regarding St. HOPE's handling of allegations last year that founder Kevin Johnson acted inappropriately with a student at Sacramento High. Johnson, a former NBA all-star, is running for mayor of Sacramento.
Sacramento police investigated and found no basis for the allegation.
Mejia requested "a detailed response to the allegations raised by these articles in order for the (Sacramento City Unified) board to carry out its oversight responsibilities and to ascertain any need for further steps."
The Bee obtained the letter from the district after submitting a request under the state Public Records Act.
This story is taken from Sacbee /News / Education. Return to Top of Page
Editorial Comment: The Charter School Mess
The St. Hope mess points to a weakness in the law that authorizes Charter schools in California. Governing Boards are required to authorize, establish, support and monitor Charter Schools. The Governing Boards must pay for the cost of these required actions and services. The enormous amount of time and other resources necessary to discharge this responsibility continues to consume inordinate amount time and effort of the SCUSD Board of Education, senior staff including the superintendent, associate superintendents, business and accounting services as well as legal services often at the expense of other pressing issues. In an era of severe budget cuts, why do we continue to allow a handful of schools to take the focus off the challenges facing all the schools in the district? The California charter law requires it.
At a recent board meeting, five district schools were honored for achieving “Distinguished Schools” status. An achievement of major proportion considering there were only 48 schools that attained the award of nearly 6000 public schools statewide. That celebration lasted under 10 minutes. Much of the rest of the board meeting was spent discussing new and existing charter schools. Many of the board meetings in the past few years have included glowing anecdotal praise from students, parents and staff of the charter schools as well as the obligatory bashing of the board by groups opposed to the charter. Each of these sessions takes away precious time needed to deal with other public issues facing our district and often obscure the success that happens daily in our district schools.
I hope the allegations that have initiated the current investigation of St. Hope are found to be without merit. My hope is for those students, parents and staff at the St. Hope charters. They deserve a good, safe education, whether public or charter.
The question of Charter schools is not only a local one but one that has national proportions. In almost every state that has a charter school law (41 states have such laws) problems exist. Charges of fraud, mismanagement, racism and sexual abuse as well as outright charter failures and closures continue to drive the debate and consume scarce education resources.
In Texas (considered the birthplace of NCLB and a leader of the Charter movement) state records show Charter schools have received more than $26 million in undeserved state funding through inaccurate student attendance reports. The Dallas Morning News reported that the Texas Education Agency is trying to recover $17 million from nearly half the charter schools in the Lone Star State. State officials cannot collect money from the 20 charters that have gone out of business, leaving taxpayers to pay the debt. (http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/040608dnmetCharterMain.3a5ff8c.html)
Across the country, there are calls for Charter School Reform. Two states (Ohio and New York) have considered a two-year moratorium on the issuance of charters for new schools. (www.daytondailynews.com and www.nysais.org)
It is ironic that the remedy for failing public schools is to make them charter schools. Maybe it is time for California to implement a moratorium on charter schools. In light of the outrageous budget cuts that are looming over schools, the continued drain on educational resources represented by the "charter school mess" must be contained.
Mike Simpson, SCUSD parent. Return to Top of Page
Literacy begins at home
School programs like Reading First can't do the job until parents do theirs.
By Esther A. Jantzen
May 15, 2008
In "Bush’s reading program doesn’t pass," The Times editorial board said that the Reading First program didn't work the way it was intended.
I doubt if anyone with experience in urban education is surprised at the announcement. We're disappointed that, once again, a generation of public school kids didn't get whatever is needed in order to learn to read well.
But we're not surprised. We've been barking up the wrong tree a long time.
The most astonishing literacy-related information I've ever seen came out over 10 years ago, in Betty Hart and Todd R. Risley's "Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children." Their shocking news: There is a huge difference in the number of words and the prohibitive or affirmative tone of words heard by young children depending on whether their parents are on welfare, in the working class or professionals.
They found that by age 3 children of welfare parents heard 10 million words, those with working-class parents heard 20 million words, and those with professional parents heard 30 million words. In addition, with children 13-18 months old in welfare families, almost 80% of the feedback to the child was negative, in working-class families about 50% was negative, and in professional families more than 80% of feedback to the child was affirmative.
It turns out that verbal development is not so much about IQ, parental love or socioeconomic status. These skills are related to how much a child is talked to and the tone of the communications. Literacy is founded on words heard and words used. What this means is that the critical place that literacy develops is the home, not the school, and that the crucial intervention period is very early in the life of a child.
Duh! Families that produce children who read well and achieve in school know this and act on it from birth onward.
Therefore, I contend that the interventions that must be made if we are to improve academic achievement in America need to happen in the home. And young, inexperienced, multi-tasking parents and caregivers need assistance, encouragement and clear information.
Please don't look at this point of view with disdain and say, "That's been tried. We've tried parental involvement. We can't reach the parents who really need it." Parental education has not been tried the way it could be tried. How about an out-and-out, 10-year culture-change effort to assist parents in doing the things that help kids become better readers and learners?
Imagine, for example, how quickly all of us would act if, God forbid, there were a water-borne epidemic. Imagine that we needed to let people know to drink only boiled water for the rest of their lives because to do otherwise would cause immediate boils and bleeding. Imagine how quickly everyone would react, how fast momentum would build, how fast boiled-water products would reach the market.
That's the energy we need around literacy, with school districts and departments of education stepping up to take the lead in involving everyone.
Here are ideas: How about directing some Title I funds to educate and support parents in lower-wage workplaces--big-box stores, fast-food restaurants, factories, hotels, data-processing companies, government offices -- places where many employees are young mothers and fathers. How about enrolling the goodwill of the Salvation Army, Red Cross, United Way and the huge nonprofits that attract lots of volunteers of all classes and education levels, and bring them on board to reach out and encourage parents?
How about harnessing the political campaign troops of all parties, the caring people who make calls to our homes? How about involving the direct sales industry and those who create those recorded sales calls? How about using the public service components of media in all its shapes, sizes and forms -- radio, television, gaming and entertainment, newspapers and magazines?
How about providing workshops, materials and leadership for churches, hospitals, clinics and social welfare offices? How about setting up video-link programs in prisons so that parents in jail could talk and read to their children?
The simplest form of the message we need to get out is this: Parents, grandparents, caregivers, baby sitters, uncles and aunts -- talk kindly to children a lot from birth on, using big words. Listen to them and read aloud to them in whatever language you want to use. And do these no-cost things often.
If the foundation for literacy is laid in the home, then schools can do their job. If foundation is not laid, even heroic amounts of intervention by the school won't be sufficient.
It's that straightforward. And yes, we can.
Esther Jantzen is a children's literacy advocate and writer. She has 25 years of experience in urban school districts.
Blowback is an online forum for full-length responses to our articles, editorials and Op-Eds. Click here to read more about Blowback, or submit your own by e-mailing us at opinionla@latimes.com.
From the Los Angeles Times Return to Top of Page
From the Los Angeles Times
COLUMN ONE
Teacher fired for refusing to sign loyalty oath
Cal State system ousts another instructor who objects on religious grounds to a pledge adopted by California in 1952 to root out communists.
By Richard C. Paddock
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
May 2, 2008
When Wendy Gonaver was offered a job teaching American studies at Cal State Fullerton this academic year, she was pleased to be headed back to the classroom to talk about one of her favorite themes: protecting constitutional freedoms.
But the day before class was scheduled to begin, her appointment as a lecturer abruptly ended over just the kind of issue that might have figured in her course. She lost the job because she did not sign a loyalty oath swearing to "defend" the U.S. and California constitutions "against all enemies, foreign and domestic."
The loyalty oath was added to the state Constitution by voters in 1952 to root out communists in public jobs. Now, 16 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, its main effect is to weed out religious believers, particularly Quakers and Jehovah's Witnesses.
As a Quaker from Pennsylvania and a lifelong pacifist, Gonaver objected to the California oath as an infringement of her rights of free speech and religious freedom. She offered to sign the pledge if she could attach a brief statement expressing her views, a practice allowed by other state institutions. But Cal State Fullerton rejected her statement and insisted that she sign the oath if she wanted the job.
"I wanted it on record that I am a pacifist," said Gonaver, 38. "I was really upset. I didn't expect to be fired. I was so shocked that I had to do this."
California State University officials say they were simply following the law and did not discriminate against Gonaver because all employees are required to sign the oath. Clara Potes-Fellow, a Cal State spokeswoman, said the university does not permit employees to submit personal statements with the oath.
"The position of the university is that her entire added material was against the law," Potes-Fellow said.
In February, another Cal State instructor, Quaker math teacher Marianne Kearney-Brown, was fired because she inserted the word "nonviolently" when she signed the oath. She was quickly rehired after her case attracted media attention.
It is hard to know how many would-be workers decline to sign the pledge over religious or political issues. Some object because they interpret the pledge as a commitment to take up arms. Others have trouble swearing an oath to something other than their God.
Public agencies do not appear to keep a record of people denied employment over the oath. Union grievances and lawsuits are rare.
Some agencies take the oath more seriously than others. Certain school districts and community colleges have been known to let employees change the wording of the oath when they sign or to ignore the requirement altogether. Others, including the University of California, advise employees on how they can register their objections yet still sign the pledge.
All state, city, county, public school, community college and public university employees -- about 2.3 million people -- are covered by the law, although noncitizens are not required to sign.
UC Berkeley was the first to impose a tough anti-communist loyalty oath in 1949 and fired 31 professors who refused to sign.
After a version of the oath was added to the state Constitution, courts eventually struck down its harshest elements but let stand the requirement of defending the constitutions. In one court test, personal statements accompanying the oath were deemed constitutional as long as they did not nullify the meaning of the oath.
Now, the University of California advises new employees who balk at signing the pledge that they can submit an addendum, as long as it does not negate the oath.
UC even provides sample declarations, such as: "This is not a promise to take up arms in contravention of my religious beliefs," or "I owe allegiance to Jehovah."
The California State University system takes a firmer approach.
Kearney-Brown, the math instructor fired by Cal State East Bay, said she added the word "nonviolently" just as she had when taking previous jobs as a high school teacher. The university, however, told her she could not alter the pledge.
After her case attracted media attention and help from the United Auto Workers, which represents some Cal State employees, the university reversed course. The office of Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown drafted a statement declaring that the oath does not commit employees to bear arms in the country's defense. Cal State agreed to let Kearney-Brown attach it to her oath and she was reinstated.
Kearney-Brown said she believed she was defending the Constitution by objecting to the oath and argued that signing a pledge should not be reduced to a meaningless formality.
"The way it's laid out, a noncitizen member of Al Qaeda could work for the university, but not a citizen Quaker," she said.
The 23-campus Cal State system has fired instructors over the oath at least twice before.
In 2001, Cal StateDominguez Hills dismissed geography lecturer Alejandro Alonso after he refused to sign. He said at the time that he identified with the Jehovah's Witnesses and that swearing an oath to anyone but God violated his religious beliefs.
When his request for a religious exemption was denied, he proposed signing the oath and attaching a personal statement. That also was denied. Alonso, who went on to teach at USC, has become an expert on Los Angeles gangs and runs the website www.streetgangs.com.
In 1995, Methodist minister Bud Tillinghast was teaching a course on comparative religion at Humboldt State University, when he was pulled out of class by campus police and fired because he had not signed the oath.
Tillinghast said he believed that swearing an oath to the state helped establish the government as a religion.
"I was teaching world religions and I ran up against a state religion," the retired minister recalled. "My concern was that this was breaking down the separation of church and state and making the state a religion you swear allegiance to."
He filed suit against Cal State for reinstatement arguing that the oath violated the 1993 federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act. But after a court found that law unconstitutional, his suit was thrown out.
In all, Tillinghast said, he went up against the loyalty oath three times. Before being fired by Humboldt, he taught a religion class at a community college for nearly a decade. For that job, the school allowed him to sign an alternate oath.
Last year, he was named to the Humbolt County Human Rights Commission. A potential problem was averted when officials decided he didn't need to sign the oath.
Efforts to remove the oath from the state Constitution have been unsuccessful, although the matter came under scrutiny in 1998 when a congressional subcommittee held a hearing on religious freedom.
Among those who testified was Zari Wigfall, a Jehovah's Witness who said she twice lost jobs at Sacramento City College in 1994 because of the oath, first as a student tour guide and later as a theater house manager for a children's play.
"Citizens are entitled to certain rights, and also minorities, including religious minorities, are given certain guarantees," she told the committee. "And I just didn't think that . . . because of my religious beliefs I would have two jobs taken away from me."
She is now a dancer, choreographer and teacher in Southern California.
For Gonaver, the oath came up unexpectedly.
She was offered the job at Fullerton teaching two classes last fall, Introduction to American Studies and Introduction to Intercultural Women's Studies. She received two appointment letters and signed a contract. When she attended an orientation session for new faculty, she heard of the oath for the first time.
After researching the issue and learning that UC allowed its employees to provide personal statements, she submitted her own six-sentence declaration to Fullerton.
In her statement, she wrote that the oath violates the 1st Amendment and discriminates against religious pacifists, such as Quakers and Buddhists. She called the pledge an "instrument of intimidation." And she wrote that employees who sign it "while harboring legitimate religious and political objections" could be exposed to a charge of perjury.
Margaret Atwell, the Fullerton school's associate vice president for academic affairs, replied in an e-mail that Gonaver was not allowed to submit any statement, no matter what the practice at UC. Gonaver would have to sign the oath or lose the job, Atwell said.
Gonaver refused.
Potes-Fellow, the Cal State spokeswoman, said the university stands by its stricter interpretation of the requirement and is not affected by how UC or other public institutions handle the oath.
"The university concluded that state law did not allow her to attach her addendum," Potes-Fellow said.
The attorney general's statement that Kearney-Brown was allowed to attach her oath did not violate Cal State's policy because it was not an addendum, Potes-Fellow said. "We think the circumstances are different in both cases," she said.
Gonaver said the attorney general's statement does not go far enough in answering her objections to the oath. But if she had been offered a chance to use it last fall, she said, she probably would have signed the oath and would have been teaching all year at Fullerton.
Now, she would like to see the oath eliminated for all public employees except those who deal with sensitive information. She also would like an apology and a job next year.
"It makes no sense that they do this to people," she said. "It's people who take it seriously who don't get hired."
richard.paddock@latimes.com From the Los Angeles Times Return to Top of Page
Gay Youth's Slaying Spurs Call for Tolerance
By Ashley Surdin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 29, 2008; A02
LOS ANGELES -- With his school uniform, eighth-grader Lawrence "Larry" King wore purple eye shadow, nail polish and pink lipstick. In the weeks before he died, he added purple boots with three-inch heels.
Classmates at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard, Calif., mocked his makeup and slung anti-gay slurs at him in the halls. Sometimes, the words transformed the expressive teenager into a wallflower.
Still, rumor spread that King, openly gay, was trying to find the courage to ask another student, Brandon McInerney, to be his valentine. On Feb. 12, McInerney allegedly approached King in a computer lab and shot him in the head. King, 15, died two days later.
The crime -- for which McInerney, 14, has been charged as an adult -- horrified parents, educators and students in the community and across the nation. But according to gay rights groups and experts on adolescent sexuality, it is the extreme consequence of a growing but often-ignored phenomenon.
Reassured by changing pop culture and easy access to information on the Internet, the age of sexual identification has dropped over the last few decades to the early teens and as young as 10, experts say.
"For years, representations of homosexuals were deviant, bleak, living outside the margins of society. There were no happy endings. Now, we have Ellen DeGeneres hosting the Academy Awards and RuPaul on the Home Shopping Network," said Caitlin Ryan, a San Francisco State University clinical social worker and director of the Family Acceptance Project there.
"So, it's no surprise that young people would realize who they are at earlier ages," Ryan said.
But many schools do not have programs that promote tolerance among students, provide training for educators, or include policies that specifically prohibit harassment and bullying based on sexual orientation, activists say.
There is disagreement on whether even discussing homosexuality in schools is appropriate.
"The vast majority of parents believe it's their role and their responsibility to teach their kids about sexuality," said Bill Maier, vice president and resident psychologist for Focus on the Family, a conservative Christian organization. "The way you handle the problem is that you crack down on any sort of bullying or aggression on any child. You don't single out sexual orientation as this somehow special status."
Clubs for gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual students, such as Gay-Straight Alliances, are widespread in high schools and colleges. In California, for instance, about 650 high schools support GSAs, compared with 14 middle schools.
But in the weeks since King's death, interest among middle schools in these organizations has spiked, according to Carolyn Laub, executive director of the San Francisco-based Gay-Straight Alliance Network.
"We're looking at that right now," said Jerry Dannenberg, superintendent of Hueneme School District, which oversees the school King attended. "Junior high schools are a little bit different than high schools," he added. "We've never had anyone expressing that type of desire before."
Harassment is not limited to gay students, either, according to Beth Reis, co-chair of the Seattle-based Safe Schools Coalition, a gay rights organization and author of a five-year statewide study documenting abuse from kindergarten through 12th grade. Those perceived as gay and those who have gay parents endure the same torment.
But harassment policies vary from district to district, with some explicitly prohibiting sexual orientation harassment, others only general harassment.
Proponents of education in schools about homosexuality and gender variance say they are sensitive topics, given that sex education is unwelcome by some parents. But they point out that such education is about teaching tolerance, not values. And pop culture -- in the form of television and the Internet -- is bringing the issue into many homes.
A minority of states have passed anti-bullying laws that specifically mention sexual orientation. Others are considering it. Some cities have confronted the problem, too. In New York, about 1,000 educators are training with the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network to address bullying and harassment.
Many hope the increased attention will translate to help for students such as King who, friends say, was picked on by most of his peers. Erin Mings, 12, one of King's few friends, said of him, "He was the very, very outcast of our school."
The Washington Post Company Return to Top of Page
March 14, 2008
Public Lives
A Product of Private Schools, Advocating for Public Education
By ROBIN FINN
ZEKE M. VANDERHOEK, the upstart behind the extravagant, much-debated idea that paying teachers at his fledgling charter school $125,000 a year will translate into a top-notch education for students, is tethered by circumstance to a chair in his Chelsea office. It should be noted that Mr. Vanderhoek, 31 and showing the signs of an addiction to almond croissants, had to be coerced into making time to chat.
A public education advocate, innovator and, to some minds, revolutionary, he did not attend a single day of public school — he spent the years from kindergarten through 12th grade at the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Rockville, Md., and segued to Yale. He has a set-in-stone philosophy: teachers should not be fiscal martyrs. He found that out while earning $30,000 a year teaching — and occasionally screaming at — a class of 34 unruly sixth graders at Intermediate School 90 in Washington Heights, a slightly neglected neighborhood he grew to love and where he has chosen, with permission from the New York City Department of Education and the State Board of Regents, to hatch his own school.
Teachers at his charter school — The Equity Project Charter School, or TEP — will not toil for the measly salary he earned. He picked the $125,000 base pay because it fit his budget. “Actually, I think it should be higher,” he says. The teachers may also earn a maximum annual performance bonus of $25,000 in addition to their salary.
Mr. Vanderhoek is quite anxious to clear up some misconceptions about the school, starting with the criticism that it will attract more mercenaries than teachers.
But he disputes that. “The money, as funny as this may sound, is not about the money,” he says. “The money is a signifier. Because money, in our culture, is a signifier of how jobs are valued, and right now schools are telling teachers that they are not valued. The great and talented people who go into teaching are incentive-ized in every possible way to leave the classroom for jobs in administration or jobs outside of schools altogether. What we are trying to do is reverse those incentives. We want the best teachers to keep on teaching, to be challenged and valued.”
The school has received 70 “quality applications” so far for its teaching slots, and more than 100 substandard applications (doomed to Mr. Vanderhoek’s No Response File for failing to follow explicit directions). Applicants have to submit multiple examples of their students’ achievements and of their own teaching innovations, and must have scored in the 90th percentile in the verbal section of the GRE, GMAT or similar tests. Mr. Vanderhoek anticipates “a very veteran staff.”
“We’re not hiring first-year teachers,” he said.
The school’s inaugural class in 2009 will have 120 fifth graders, shepherded by seven “master” teachers. Plans call for a move into a new $17 million home by 2011.
Mr. Vanderhoek will serve as a hands-on and proprietary principal with a self-imposed starting salary of $90,000. “My uniform will be Bermuda shorts,” he quips, “and I plan to keep on being principal until I get fired.”
Unlikely; after all, he’s the boss, and the school’s board is likely to subscribe, as he does, to the theory that passionate and innovative teachers, not class size or a flashy curriculum, are the stimuli for academic success, particularly with underprivileged children.
The mandatory uniform for the students, who will eventually number 480, has yet to be decided. Mr. Vanderhoek confides that he is leaning toward generic khakis.
He looks somewhat miserable when asked about the bare walls in the executive office at Manhattan GMAT, the educational testing firm he started from scratch and parlayed into a multimillion-dollar testing and tutoring service, billed as the nation’s largest. His method? Attract smart tutors and compensate them handsomely, a recipe similar to the one that is the backbone of TEP.
Mr. Vanderhoek, who is keen on reinvention (before creating Manhattan GMAT in 2000, he taught at I.S. 90 for three years, subsisting on falafel and moonlighting as a tutor based at his local Starbucks), has updated the 3Rs to fit his teachercentric credo: Rigorous Qualifications, Redefined Expectations, and Revolutionary Compensation. No wonder he’s had no chance to personalize his office.
“I have a pretty strong aesthetic sense,” he says, “and I guess it’s kind of funny, or sad, that my own work space reflects none of it.” The wooden clock (“Not my taste, really”) is a parting gift from his staff at Manhattan GMAT — he stepped down as chairman in January 2007 to devote himself to his dream project, TEP. The plastic bear-shaped honey jar is his own; Greek yogurt, his latest food crave, requires sweetening. But the bright yellow mini-Lamborghini on the windowsill? “Don’t get the wrong idea about that,” he cautions. “It’s just a play on that classic obsession chief-executive-officer types have with fancy cars. I hate cars.” He doesn’t own one; he takes public transportation to and from the Harlem co-op he shares with his wife, Stephanie, and 11-month-old Ella.
His most recent extracurricular foray is a ditty (he is adept on guitar and piano), “Cookie McGirt,” written for Ella. He says his love of music is not why music is one of the school’s two electives (the other is Latin). Rather, they are geared for the students, mainly Dominican, many of whom are not proficient in English. As he puts it, “Music and Latin are the two subjects proven to most positively impact linguistic development.”
Mr. Vanderhoek seems very sure of this. He is also sure he won’t hire his mother, a professor of genetics at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, if she applies. “A great teacher, but on the merits, she might need a little more middle-school experience.” Sorry, Mom.
NY Times.com Return to Top of Page
Latino parent group counts its successes
Payoff comes in students who graduate
By CLAUDIA MELÉNDEZ SALINAS
Herald Salinas Bureau
Monterey County Herald
Article Last Updated:09/29/2007 01:40:59 AM PDT
From a wall full of pictures in a meeting room at El Sausal Middle School, Rosa Mar a Lopez points out her nieces and nephews, adults who as children passed through this school and have gone on to successful careers.
"This is Natalie, she just graduated from Fresno State. Jocelyn is a nurse. Roberto is a policeman right here in the city. Francisco too is a nurse, and Anthony, he's still in high school," the 37-year-old Salinas resident said in Spanish.
The wall in the classroom of Liz Sanchez, community coordinator at El Sausal, is full of pictures that depict these stories: mothers and fathers who come to her weekly meetings and bring their children — youngsters who have gone on to higher education. On Friday, as she celebrated the 10th anniversary of "Comadres," as her group is called, she said that's precisely why she founded it.
Her biggest accomplishment is "to see the children's progress. That's the end goal," she said. "When parents get involved, there's better behavior and grades on the part of children. That's why we're here."
A native of Mexico, Sanchez founded the school group because she saw the need for parents of this largely immigrant neighborhood to share their experiences and get information about the community and their children's education.
She's worked at El Sausal for 15 years, and before she started the group, the parents would tell her their stories on an individual basis.
"There was no school involvement," she said. "I wanted something more organized."
At first it was only six or seven parents who would come to the group. Later it grew to 15 to 20. These days, 30 to 40 parents come to receive information on parenting, resources available to their children and even on city- and countywide happenings.
Supervisor Simon Salinas was Friday's guest speaker. He painted a broad picture of his comings and goings at the county and state level, but he also encouraged the parents to remain involved in their children's education.
"When I used to teach and we had 'Back to School' night, I used to tell the parents 'I want to know you,'" he told the group of mostly women.
"Seventy five percent of the children didn't give me problems, and the remainder 25 percent had themselves problems at home. If there's alcohol or drugs, things are very different for that child."
Even though her children did not start attending El Sausal until last year, Rosa Maria Lopez has been coming to Comadres for seven years.
"She gives us a lot of good information," she said. Sanchez "is a fighter. She's always fighting for the community."
During the meeting, Lopez told Supervisor Salinas she was concerned with the amount of traffic that uses Del Monte Avenue, where two of her children attend elementary school. Salinas in turn suggested that the group get in touch with their city representative.
It may take some time, Lopez said, but she feels she can voice her concerns during Comadres meetings and eventually she'll get results.
"It gets really ugly," she said. "There's a lot of traffic and a lot of accidents. I know (fixing these issues) takes time."
At the end of the meeting, Sanchez hugs her "comadres" and bids them farewell until next Friday. A 25-year-veteran of Salinas schools, Sanchez said parent involvement is only accomplished through personal connections.
"A piece of paper has no importance. Parents receive tons of papers," she said. "If I send a piece of paper, they're not going to come. The personal touch is more important."
Claudia Meléndez Salinas can be reached at 753-6755 or cmelendez@montereyherald.com.
Monterey County Herald Return to Top of Page
Don't wait for invitation to your children's education
(September 7, 2007) — Davis Passmore's latest mission to find a few good men made headlines this week. Yesterday it made him smile.
Passmore heads the Rochester School District's Fatherhood Initiative, and this year he coordinated local participation in a national campaign named Million Father March.
The campaign called on black men in 200 cities across the country to get involved in their children's education by taking that first step, quite literally: by taking their children to school.
When we spoke on the first day of classes for city students Thursday, an excited Passmore says that a parent liaison at one elementary school reported seeing more men than women.
At the other schools surveyed — about half of the district's 52 elementary schools — parent liaisons counted some 1,123 fathers. And he's still counting.
"It means fathers are ready," he says. "Once you ask them, and put a vehicle up to do it, they step up."
Setting up that vehicle to drive parents into classrooms and schools is not just an urban problem.
That much was made clear in another article published in this paper earlier this week, about efforts to beef up declining membership in PTA groups across the area. They, too, are looking for a few good men with time on their hands —though women still fill most of their membership lists.
A teacher friend this week passed along another article from this month's neatoday, a publication from the National Education Association that can be accessed online at neatoday.org, of interest along the same lines.
The article, "Parents in the Picture," details ways that schools and even other volunteers can engage families in their children's education.
The examples of parents who don't get involved are what struck me. One woman feared she'd embarrass her kids. Another mother, an immigrant whose family moved here to make a better life for the children, was ignored at a PTA she did attend.
There's a whole other group, according to the article, that may be the hardest to engage. These "silent, alienated parents" are the ones who don't trust the system or perhaps had bad school experiences.
The NEA, in its publication and on its Web site, gives all kinds of ways to get parents involved, from enlisting trusted community members to offering programs that accommodate working-parent schedules.
One school started an early morning "Donuts for Dads" program aimed at working fathers. Another introduced an Immigrant Parent Leadership Initiative to teach families how to interact with the school.
There are certainly local examples of how schools are reaching out to parents. Passmore, who works for the Rochester School District's Department of Parent & Community Involvement, teaches workshops on ways men can help their children get a better education.
That includes what happens outside of the classroom, he says. Read to children at home, make sure they have a quiet place to do their homework, get them on an after-school schedule that includes school work along with a snack.
"The most important (lesson) is the one at home," he says.
Parents have to take some responsibility, too. We shouldn't wait to be invited into our children's educational experience.
Passmore hopes that is what the men — and women — who walked their children to school this week mastered.
Democrat and Chronicle Return to Top of Page
leaders debate racial academic achievement gap
By Juliet Williams
ASSOCIATED PRESS
4:49 p.m. November 13, 2007
Associated Press
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell talks with Barbara Wagner and Bob Bleicher from CSU Channel Islands.
SACRAMENTO – Education leaders have accepted for too long the notion that poverty is the main cause of underachievement for certain groups of students and that there is little schools could do about it, the state schools superintendent said Tuesday.
That attitude, and the assumptions that underlie it, is no longer acceptable in California,
Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell told thousands of educators who convened for a two-day summit.
O'Connell called the meeting to address the achievement gap between different groups of students, primarily black and Hispanic students and their white and Asian counterparts.
He said greater focus on rigorous curriculum has boosted achievement for many students.
“But the data also clearly shows us that the achievement gap is not closing, nor is it solely based on poverty,” he said. “We have a racial achievement gap also.”
The summit comes as state leaders are increasingly focusing on education issues ahead of 2008, which Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has declared “The Year of Education.”
Researchers and experts urged school leaders not to ignore research that shows all students can learn if they have the same resources and are held to the same expectations.
Improving academic performance among all groups of students has proven to be a monumental challenge, however. Few solutions have emerged.
O'Connell, a Democrat, appointed a statewide council to consider the suggestions that arise from the two-day gathering and make recommendations to him. The superintendent said he will offer his own recommendations during his annual State of Education Address early next year.
Douglas Reeves, a researcher at the Colorado-based Center for Performance Assessment, said it's a myth to believe that cultural differences account for students' varying levels of interest in school.
He said research shows all students value high achievement levels in the earliest grades but that interest in academic success tapers off as children get older. That is a failure of schools, he said, not students or parents.
“We're the ones responsible for the culture in our schools,” where trophy cases typically celebrate athletics, not academics, he said.
The most recent statewide achievement tests showed California students made only slight gains last year in English and none in math. Meanwhile, double-digit achievement gaps between students in different racial categories persisted.
Sen. Denise Ducheny, D-San Diego, said the problem is too urgent for politicians to continue debating it.
“I don't think we can sit back and wait and just sort of act like we can't do anything about it. That really is unacceptable,” she said.
Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20071113-1649-ca-achievementgap.html Achievement Gap Summit website http://www.sjcoe.org:80/summit/index.aspx Return to Top of Page
 State Superintendent Jack O'Connell Releases 2007 STAR
Results Showing Encouraging, Troubling Trends
INGLEWOOD/SAN DIEGO — State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell today released the results of the 2007 Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) Program that show California students are continuing to improve academically in most subjects and grades.
"This year's results offer both encouragement and reason for serious concern," O'Connell said. "We can be pleased that gains in student achievement made over the past five years are either increasing or holding steady. This progress means that hundreds of thousands of California students will have a better shot at success. But the data also show the persistent achievement gaps in our system that California simply cannot afford to accept – morally, economically, or socially."
Compared with 2003, when all the California Standards Tests (CSTs) were for the first time completely aligned to state standards, the percentage of students scoring advanced or proficient in 2007 increased by 8 points in English-language arts (ELA) or from 35 percent to 43 percent, (Table 1) and 6 points in math, from 35 percent to 41 percent (Table 5).
The percentage of students scoring at the proficient and advanced levels on the fifth grade science test has increased by 13 points since 2004; the first year the test was given (Table 10).
The percentage of students scoring proficient or advanced in grades two, four, seven, and eight have increased in ELA by double digits over the four-year span beginning in 2003 (Table 1).
The greatest improvement over the four-year period for math was made by students in grades three, four, five, and seven with the proficient and advanced percentage increasing by 12, 12, 14, and 10 points, respectively (Table 5).
O'Connell pointed out the lack of progress made in closing the achievement gap among racial groups. While all student subgroup populations have continued to improve since 2003, the gap in achievement between African Americans or blacks and whites and the gap in achievement between Hispanics or Latinos and whites remain relatively unchanged.
"Once again, these annual test scores shine a glaring light on the disparity in achievement between students who are African American or Hispanic and their white or Asian counterparts. We know all children can learn to the same high levels, so we must confront and change those things that are holding back groups of students."
This achievement gap cannot always be explained away because of the poverty that has been so often associated with low performance, he said.
"The results show this explanation not to be universally true," he said. "In fact, African American and Hispanic students who are not poor are achieving at lower levels in math than their white counterparts who are poor. These are not just economic achievement gaps, they are racial achievement gaps. We cannot afford to excuse them; they simply must be addressed. We must take notice and take action."
In response to this pressing issue, O'Connell early this year charged the statewide P-16 council – including leaders from all segments of education as well as business, labor, and community leaders – with examining factors contributing to achievement gaps and strategies for closing those gaps. He is calling on all those interested in this issue to attend the Achievement Gap Summit scheduled for November 13-14, 2007, in Sacramento.
"The intent of this working Summit is to create an inclusive, interactive, and collaborative environment where educators will gather to share best practices and learn strategies immediately useable to address their daily challenges," he said.
"I'm committed to addressing this issue, to creating the partnerships, sharing the information and employing the strategies that will ensure success for all California students," O'Connell said. "I am excited about this challenge because I know it is one we can overcome. I believe in the ability, in the talent, and in the dedication present in our public schools."
Under the STAR program, California students attain one of five levels of performance on the CSTs for each subject tested: advanced, proficient, basic, below basic, and far below basic. The State Board of Education has established the proficient level as the desired achievement goal for all students. This goal is consistent with school growth targets for state accountability and the federal No Child Left Behind requirements. The state target is for all students to score at the proficient or advanced level. Approximately 4.8 million students participated in 2007 in the STAR program, which is comprised of five components:
California Standards Tests (CSTs) are standards-based tests that measure the achievement of state content standards in English-language arts, mathematics, science, and history-social science.
California Alternate Performance Assessment (CAPA) is for students who have significant cognitive disabilities.
California Achievement Tests (CAT/6) are nationally norm-referenced tests, taken in grades three and seven only.
Aprenda: La prueba de logros en español, Tercera edición (Aprenda 3) is a nationally norm-referenced achievement test of general academic knowledge in Spanish for Spanish-speaking English learners (for grades five through eleven in 2007).
Standards-based Tests in Spanish (STS), are designed for Spanish-speaking English learners to measure the achievement of state content standards in reading-language arts and mathematics in Spanish, for grades two, three, and four in 2007.
The STAR Program data released today is preliminary because a small number of school districts have not yet completed testing and have not yet had time to complete a review of the results to verify their accuracy. A second posting of preliminary results that will include all students tested is scheduled for September. Final results after local corrections are incorporated are scheduled for posting during December.
School, school district, county, and state level results for the 2007 STAR Program have been posted on the California Department of Education's Web site at :
http://star.cde.ca.gov/.
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