“A Date Which Will Live in Infamy”

Calling for deep cuts and avoiding broad tax hikes, Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders agree on ways to close California's $26.3-billion deficit

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From the California Progress Report

Devastating Cuts for Education, the Poor, Health Care, and Local Governments

by David M. Greenwald
Editor
California Progress Report

Last night the “Big Five” agreed to a deal that would eliminate the current $26 billion budget deficit. The budget is an all-cuts budget that cuts over 26 billion dollars from the budget. There are no revenue enhancements here, only cuts.

Taking the brunt of the blow once again is education which has now had over $17 billion in cuts in the last two budget deals. That represents nearly one-third of the funding for education which is also the single largest line item on the budget.

Education lost $4.3 billion directly and another $1.7 billion in deferrals. How will this impact us locally? It is hard to say. DJUSD seemed fairly confident they could ride through whatever summer revisions to the budget existed without further cuts, but in the next few years it may require additional cuts.

On the other hand, Democrats were able to avoid a suspension of Proposition 98 which would have devastated education further by changing the formula by which educational funding was allocated outside of this year. In addition, the Democrats got an agreement to put around $9.5 billion back into the budget in future years. Thus in the short term these cuts will be devastating to many school districts, in the longer term, money will end up going back into education.

Higher education also took a huge hit in the budget. We have discussed at length the UC Furloughs and student fee hikes and we have the proposed CSU furloughs, fee hikes and cutbacks to enrollment. Higher education took a $3 billion hit, just under one-third of their state revenue, though a small portion of their overall operating budget.

California Progress Report Our latest headlines

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• The Shame of California

From the California Progress Report

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Nine steps to a smart start

As the lazy days of summer slip away, it will soon be time to put away the beach chairs and corner lemonade stands and prepare for going back to school. Here are some tips to make the transition easier.

Adjust to the new routine

Ease into the school-year schedule. Getting back into the school routine can be a challenge for everyone in the family. To make the adjustment easier, start early.

GreatSchools tip

Start a family calendar in a common area where each family member can write down his or her activities.

Hit the books

For the younger child, reading books together about going back to school is a good way to start conversations about his excitement and fears. To get you started, here are some suggestions for elementary-school–age children:

For the middle school child anxious about making the transition to high school, here is a book bound to help with easing the anxiety:

Spethman, Martin J., and Klein, Chuck. High School Bound: The Ultimate Guide for High School Success and Survival (Westgate Publishing & Entertainment, 1997)

Get organized

Take advantage of the slower pace during your time away from school to set up for the busy school year ahead.

• Many schools send out school information and a packet of forms to fill out before school starts. If you can discipline yourself to fill out the paperwork several days before it's due, you'll avoid a last-minute panic.
• Have the necessary immunization records available for easy reference.
• Update school emergency contact and health information for the coming year.
• As you read through all the school information, mark important dates (such as back-to-school night, parent-teacher conferences and school holidays) on the family calendar.
• Start a folder for school newsletters and other papers so that you can easily find and refer to them if necessary.
• Establish a "get ready the night before" policy. Pick clothes for the next day and pack the backpack every evening before bedtime, and you'll save precious time in the morning.

Shopping: take advantage of sales

School clothes

It's always a great idea to buy what you know you'll need early, if you can. Go through your children's wardrobes and weed out everything they've outgrown. By reducing the clutter, you will be able to get them dressed quickly and easily.

Keep in mind school dress codes while shopping. Some schools prohibit short skirts and tank tops for girls and "sagging" (baggy trousers that hang low) for boys. Schools may also have rules regarding printed words or phrases on clothes.

School supplies

Although it's difficult to predict what different teachers will require, you can get ahead of the game by buying certain staples. Here's a general list of items that elementary school students usually need:

• Glue stick
• Scissors
• No. 2 pencils
• Eraser
• Colored pencils
• Box of crayons
• Kleenex
• Water-based markers
• Ballpoint pens
• Notebooks
• Binder
• Loose-leaf notebook paper
• Pocket folders
• Printer paper
• Drawing paper
• Construction paper
• A plastic ruler with English and metric measurements
• Pencil sharpener
• School box (for storing items)
• Scotch tape
• Stapler
• Backpack

Here are some additional items middle and high school students usually need:

• Two combination locks (one for the hall locker and one for the gym locker)
• Binder dividers
• Calculator

Nutrition: plan healthy meals

Get creative with easy, healthy ideas for school-day meals. If you plan and gather what you need on the weekends, you'll make life a lot less stressful and meals more nutritious during the week.

Breakfast

Remember the most important meal of the day. Fruit smoothies make a quick and healthy addition to the usual fare.

Lunch

If you will be packing a lunch from home, be sure to have a sturdy lunch box or a supply of paper bags on hand. Here are some quick and creative ideas for making school lunches healthy and fun:

• For the younger child, use cookie cutters to make sandwiches into interesting shapes.
• Sneak vegetables like lettuce, cucumber or zucchini slices into sandwiches.
• Buy baked chips and low-fat crackers or pretzels. Avoid items with trans fats in them such as packaged cookies, snack cakes and regular chips.
• Choose 1% or fat-free milk or 100% fruit juices.
• Make fruit fun to eat by cutting it into slices and putting it on a skewer or include small containers of applesauce or pineapple packed in its own juice.
• For the younger child, write a surprise message or draw a funny picture and put it in her lunch.
• Get older children to help pack their lunches. You may need to arrange the morning routine (or evening routine if you do this the night before) so that you don't do this chore by yourself.

Dinner

Plan dinners for the week ahead and shop on the weekends to avoid last minute trips to the grocery store.

Set priorities and schedules

To make the best use of your time and keep life from being harried, think about priorities for family members and then schedule them into the week.

For children

• Before school begins, discuss what extracurricular activities your child will participate in. If your child needs a little extra encouragement to audition for jazz band or to take that early morning Italian class, now is the time to go over the benefits of these activities. If, however, your child needs to have limits set, have her pick her favorite activities and forgo the rest. Be realistic and don't fall victim to over-programming.
• Make sure to leave enough time to do homework and for family time.

For parents

Determine how much time you can give to the school each month as a volunteer and involved parent: in the classroom, on field trips, for fundraising events and on school-wide committees.

For the family

Start a family calendar in a common area where each family member can write down his or her activities.

Prepare for the homework ahead

Having set routines and a place to study at home will make it easier for your child to be organized and successful at school.

• Set up a well-lit, quiet place with a good work surface to do homework. Try to keep this place dedicated to homework and free of other clutter.
• Establish a regular homework time. This will help your student to complete assignments on time.
• Discourage distractions such as television, radio, the Internet or phone conversations during homework time.

Arrange for transportation

Everyone will feel better if transportation to and from school is addressed well before the start of the school year, particularly if your child is walking, riding his bike or taking the bus.

Walking or biking

• Chart out a route to school or to the school bus stop.
• If your child is going to a new school, take a dry run a few days before school starts.
• Go over the rules of stranger awareness and traffic safety. Warn your child to always walk with a friend, and to avoid vacant lots and places where there are not a lot of people.
• Be sure your child has your daytime phone number (including area code) and address, as well as the number of another familiar adult.
• Scout out safe houses in the neighborhood where your child can go in case of an emergency.

Taking the bus

• Remember to get the new bus schedule!
• If your child will be taking the bus for the first time, discuss the bus route and bus safety rules with her.

Driving

• If you will be driving your child, have a backup arrangement with another parent in case you are delayed for some reason.
• Confirm carpool arrangements in advance and make sure your child knows who will be picking him up before and after school.
• Become familiar with your school's traffic safety rules, drop-off and pick-up procedures.

Confirm after-school care arrangements

Most after-school care arrangements must be made months ahead, frequently in the winter or spring before your child starts school. As the school year approaches, however, it's a good idea to confirm your plans.

• Make sure your child knows where he is going after school.
• Double-check on your care plans and communicate with the provider a few days before school starts.
• If your child will be home alone after school, establish safety rules for locking doors and windows, and for answering the door and the telephone. Make sure she knows to check in with you or another adult when she arrives at home.

GreatSchools.net

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NEA, Obama Administration May Not Be in Sync

Blessed by perfect, sunny weather, delegates to the National Education Association’s annual meeting here had plenty of opportunities to sneak away and visit this city’s world-famous attractions.

Most chose not to. The day before official business began at the Representative Assembly, nearly 7,000 of the union’s delegates packed into the city’s convention center to listen to Arne Duncan, the U.S. secretary of education.

Beginning a few hours later—after Mr. Duncan had departed for Washington—and throughout the holiday weekend, union delegates proposed and debated resolution after policy resolution on elements of the Obama administration’s emerging education policy agenda.

In other words, this year’s convention, which ended yesterday, was marked by the NEA’s first major attempts at getting a handle on what the administration’s push into sensitive policy areas will mean for the union’s 3.2-million members. Issues on the table for the union, which represents mostly teachers and education-support personnel, include the expansion of charter schools, the “turning around” of low-performing schools, and now with Mr. Duncan’s latest address, structural changes to the way teachers are compensated and evaluated.

In his July 2 speech, the fourth he has given on the “assurances” states must meet in exchange for receiving funding through the economic-stimulus measure, the secretary called on teachers’ unions “to become full partners and leaders in education reform” and to be willing to collaborate with districts to create fair ways of incorporating student-achievement growth into evaluation and pay systems.

“Test scores alone should never drive evaluation, compensation, or tenure decisions. That would never make sense,” Mr. Duncan said. “But to remove student achievement entirely from evaluation is illogical and indefensible.”

In addition, he said that teachers’ unions must be willing to reconsider seniority provisions and rework tenure processes, two hard-won rights that unions have long defended.

“When inflexible seniority and rigid tenure rules that we designed put adults ahead of children, then we are not only putting kids at risk, we’re putting the entire education system at risk. We’re inviting the attack of parents and the public, and that is not good for any of us,” Mr. Duncan said. “I believe that teacher unions are at a crossroads. These policies were created over the past century to protect the rights of teachers, but they have produced an industrial, factory model of education that treats all teachers like interchangeable widgets.”

Performance-Pay Worries

Delegates applauded Secretary Duncan’s calls for continued federal funding for education, better training for administrators, and improved teacher-mentoring experiences. But they booed and hissed when he mentioned tying pay and evaluation to test scores.

Echoing President Barack Obama’s November education speech, Mr. Duncan sought to reassure teachers that he would seek reforms to the teaching profession in collaboration with them. But he also appeared to acknowledge teachers’ hesitancy to engage on some of those issues, especially given the union’s poor relations with the Bush administration.

“You can boo; [but] just don’t throw any shoes, please,” he quipped partway through his speech, to laughter and applause.

During a town hall-style meeting with Mr. Duncan following his remarks, delegates raised concerns about the use of test scores.

“In too many cases, our state boards of education, our local boards of education are not getting that message” that pay programs should be based on multiple measures of teacher performance beyond test scores, one delegate said.

Others were more frank about their dislike for performance-based pay. “Quite frankly, merit pay is union-busting,” said another delegate, to applause from her peers.

Officially, NEA policy allows for pay bonuses for teachers who hold advanced certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, for those who take on additional responsibilities such as mentoring less experienced teachers, and for teachers serving in hard-to-staff schools. It does not endorse higher salaries for math and science teachers or for performance-based pay. And it eschews the use of test scores in pay and evaluation decisions.

State and local affiliates are free to experiment with other types of pay and evaluation plans, including those that incorporate student-achievement data. But they cannot receive support from the parent union to do so.

Two days after Mr. Duncan’s speech, NEA President Dennis Van Roekel assured delegates that he would seek further clarification from the secretary on the use of student-achievement data for pay and tenure.

In an interview, Mr. Van Roekel added that he hopes to clarify the administration’s purpose in encouraging states to use stimulus funds to build data systems to link individual teachers to their students’ test scores, a key requirement for including student-achievement information in teacher evaluations and pay decisions.

“I hope to create the engagement and the conversation [with the administration] so we don’t debate positions yet,” Mr. Van Roekel said. “If you can’t get agreement on the purpose of the systems, then the details will never work.”

Data systems should be used for teacher improvement, not for punitive purposes, and teachers have good reasons to be wary of them, he added.

“What makes it hard is that teachers don’t have a blank slab,” Mr. Van Roekel said. “They have been subjected to the misuse of data systems for seven years under [the No Child Left Behind Act].

Charters and Turnarounds

The union’s sentiments about the administration’s other plans emerged as delegates debated a number of new proposals. They approved two on charter schools, including one proposal directing the union to oppose “any initiative to greatly expand the growth of charter schools.”

Delegates supporting that item spoke with concern about the Obama administration’s use of discretionary Race to the Top Fund grants under the stimulus program to pressure states to lift caps on charter schools, even though Mr. Duncan has called on the charter community to better police its own schools.

Any federal funding for charter schools would likely come from the $4.35 billion in Race to the Top funding.

Other delegates, especially those from Wisconsin, a state with unionized charters, voiced their concerns that putting further restrictions on NEA’s policy around the independent public schools would prevent the union from effectively representing teachers in those schools.

The Representative Assembly voted down a proposal to organize a campaign to inform teachers and the public about charter schools’ funding, operational costs, salaries, curriculum, and “intrinsic problems and corruption.”

On school turnarounds, delegates agreed to allow the NEA to attempt to influence policy on the $5 billion, five-year school turnaround plan recently proposed by the Education Department.

On performance pay, the administration put an additional $200 million into the Teacher Incentive Fund, a federal performance-pay program, in the stimulus program. In addition the administration is requesting $517 million for TIF in the fiscal 2010 budget. ("Obama Budget Choices Scrutinized," May 20, 2009.) But several potentially controversial issues remain outstanding in that program, such as whether districts receiving the grants would have to bargain the pay programs collectively with their local unions.

NEA officials said earlier this year that they would prefer the Obama administration increase funding for the Title II teacher-quality state grants rather than put additional funds into TIF.

The Title II program provides funds to every state and can be spent on initiatives such as class-size reduction or professional development, in comparison to the narrowly defined and discretionary TIF program.

edweek.org

George Washington Carver School of Arts and Science
Summer Arts Academy

Last week he told the legislature that the day of reckoning is here: "Our wallet is empty. Our bank is closed. Our credit is dried up."

With good reason, lenders no longer trust California to pay its bills. State Controller John Chang said California will run out of cash by the end of July, and it probably can't borrow more without putting a new budget deal in place by June 15.

State voters last month turned down a series of referendums authorizing tax increases and borrowing to close a gap in the state budget for fiscal 2010, most recently estimated at $24 billion, but growing.

"People are writing California off," Schwarzenegger said to the legislature. "They are talking about the end of the California dream. They don't believe that we in this room have the courage and the determination to do what needs to be done or that the state is even manageable."

He got that right, anyway.

Improbable Rescue

Either California takes care of its own problems or it will throw itself on the mercy of the federal government. Given the federal government's own problems, the latter would take a lot of nerve.

California has a projected deficit equal to 5% of the state's gross domestic product; the federal government is running a deficit of 12% of GDP. California's total state debt is 21% of state GDP; the gross public debt of the federal government exceeds 75% of GDP.

The average Californian is richer than the average American and California has more than its fair share of rich people (who pay the bulk of state and federal taxes). But Schwarzenegger and the dysfunctional legislature are hoping Washington will provide the same kind of deus ex machina rescue that it is providing to big banks. Naturally, they want a better deal than the feds are giving to General Motors and Chrysler, because states don't go bankrupt.

Who says they don't?

Prop. 13 vs. the Spendthrifts

California's budget problems started with the inflation of the 1970s, which drove up local property-tax assessments and created financial windfalls for municipalities. Cities, towns and counties spent all the money and more, ignoring taxpayers' cries of pain, particularly from an aging population trying to make ends meet on fixed incomes.

Geezers and cheapskates struck back, using the power of initiative to amend the state constitution in their favor. Proposition 13, enacted in 1978, limited property taxes to 1% of value and limited future increases in assessments to 2% per year.

Californians dug a tax shelter for themselves and crawled in. Existing owners were shielded from assessment increases in excess of 2% a year, although new homes and old homes sold to new owners could be assessed at full value. Prop. 13 also benefited commercial and residential landlords.

The longer a Californian holds on to property, the further his assessments are out of sync with reality and the less likely he is to sell. Scarcity then pushed up house prices, raising assessments and taxes on new homeowners. Prop. 13 also pushed development far out into the countryside, where land was cheap and property taxes could pay for services -- at least for a time.

All over the state, local spending on education began to decline. Intolerably. Voters and court decisions put pressure on the state to increase aid to municipalities, and in 1998, the voters passed another referendum to guarantee state funding for education.

In the good years of the 1990s, the legislature had surplus revenue and increased funding by more than the minimum requirement. The state now must spend 45% of its budget on education.

Prop. 13 had also attempted to control increases in state sales tax and income tax, requiring two-thirds majorities in each house of the legislature to enact tax increases. It hasn't worked out very well.

For example: When the Democratic majority in the state legislature decided to raise unemployment compensation from $230 a month to $450 a few years ago, they could do it with a majority vote, and they did. But they needed two-thirds majorities to raise the unemployment tax on employers, and Republicans wouldn't provide the needed votes. The result: An unemployment fund that will pay out $29 billion in benefits and raise $11 billion in taxes during 2009 and 2010. The difference is being made up by interest-free borrowing from the federal government, but the loan is supposed to be repaid by 2011.

Shifting the Burden

Prop. 13 failed to reduce Californians' total tax burden; it shifted it from property taxes to state sales, income and corporate taxes. And fiscal crises as predictable as drought have prompted frequent state tax increases. Californians now pay the highest income and sales-tax rates in the country. Cold comfort that the property-tax rate ranks 45th.

The new system rained money on local governments. This produced a bounty for public-employee unions. Municipalities could raise teachers' pay, police pay, firemen's pay and so on, and Sacramento would foot the bill.

Other initiatives and referendums in the years since 1978 have mandated further spending, often through bond issues. Last year, carefree voters approved a $10 billion bond issue to start building high-speed rail links among the state's big cities, even though the economy was falling off a cliff and the state credit rating was falling to the lowest of the 50 states. California gives the "A" rating a bad name.

The tax increases, in turn, drove out state businesses and business owners. Arizona, Nevada, Oregon and other states have prospered at California's expense.

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denverpost.com

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Nightmare Scenario for

School Lunches

By Diane Trzcinski  Cab Drollery

In case anyone needed more evidence that a lot of Americans are going through desperate times, this article from Tuesday's Sacramento Bee provides plenty.

About 53.6 percent of Sacramento County's public school students received a subsidized lunch during the 2008-2009 year, up from exactly 50 percent the year before, according to a Bee analysis of recent California Department of Education data. That translates to an extra 5,000 Sacramento County kids taking a free or reduced-price lunch. ...

To get a free or reduced-price lunch, a family must be financially strapped. A household of four, for instance, cannot make more than $39,200 and still get a subsidy. [Emphasis added]

The figures for Sacramento match those of the state overall. During the 2007-08 school year, 3,118,053 California students or 50.9% of the school population received the subsidized lunch. During the 2008-09 school year, those figures jumped to 3,158,808 or 53.5%.

Two things leap out in these statistics. The first, of course, is that over 50% of the school age children in this state are poor enough to qualify for this program. The second is that this isn't a brand new phenomenon, one that is simply appeared with the change in administrations. It's at least two years old.

This program is about to be stressed further, however.

Most of the lunch costs are paid for by the federal government, but the state reimburses districts 22 cents for every $2.70 free meal. The state announced recently, however, that it dropped its contribution to 6 cents for April and June.

The move by the state comes in the wake of the disastrous budgetary problems California is going through.

From the California Progress Report

Supreme Court to Address Meeting the Needs of Special-Education Students

In a case with potential financial repercussions for school districts and families alike, the United States Supreme Court will soon decide when public schools must reimburse parents of special-education students for private-school tuition.

The case before the court involves a struggling Oregon high school student, identified in court documents only as T.A., whose parents enrolled him in a $5,200-a-month residential school after he became a heavy marijuana user and ran away from home.

Although his guidance counselor had noticed his difficulties and arranged an evaluation, the boy, who had angry outbursts and a history of behavioral problems, was found ineligible for special-education services at his high school in the Forest Grove School District.

“The district evaluation looked only at whether he had learning disabilities,” said Mary Broadhurst, the lawyer representing the boy. “Even though staff notes mentioned suspected attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, they never evaluated him for it. So they refused to help.”

Forest Grove, in its effort to reverse an appellate court decision ordering it to pay the boy’s tuition, argues that precisely because the boy never received special-education services in public school, he is not eligible for tuition reimbursement under the federal disabilities law.

Disability rights advocates, backed by the federal Department of Education, argue that the law must allow such reimbursement, even for children who were never in special education, or risk forcing them to waste precious learning time languishing in classrooms where they are not getting an appropriate education.

School districts, though, contend that paying for private school for students whose parents enrolled them without district consent — and without previous eligibility for special-education services — diverts precious resources from the millions of special-education students served in the public schools.

In this case, Forest Grove School District v. T.A., No. 08-305, the district said the family agreed with the initial finding that their son was not eligible for special education, and removed him to private school without following all the procedures to get what ultimately was a diagnosis of ADHD and other problems for their son.

The Supreme Court, which heard arguments in the case in April, is taking its second pass at the issue. Two years ago, in New York City Board of Education v. Tom F., the court deadlocked after Justice Anthony M. Kennedy recused himself without an explanation. In the case, Tom Freston the former chief executive of Viacom, sought tuition reimbursement after enrolling his learning-disabled son in private school without ever trying public school. The split left standing the appellate court ruling in favor of Mr. Freston. In the Forest Grove case, the Federal District Court ruled that the boy’s family could not receive reimbursement, but the decision was overturned by the appellate court.

There are substantial differences between the two cases. In New York, a wealthy family sought tuition reimbursement without trying public school. In Forest Grove, though, T.A. was in public school from kindergarten until his junior year, receiving extensive in-home help from his mother and older sister to move from grade to grade but unable to get special-education services, despite his mother’s pleas for “some method of teaching more appropriate for him.”

But legally, both cases center on the interpretation of a 1997 amendment to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which provides that disabled children are entitled to a “free appropriate public education.”

That amendment says that parents of children with disabilities “who previously received special-education” services in a public setting may be entitled to reimbursement for private-school tuition if their public school did not make a free appropriate public education available in a timely manner.

While most of the nation’s six million special-education students attend public school, the law allows parents to seek public financing for private school if the public schools cannot adequately serve their children, and almost 90,000 students are in private placements — most of them with their public school’s agreement.

But increasingly, thousands of families unilaterally enroll their learning-disabled, emotionally disabled or autistic children in private schools — often with staggeringly high tuitions — and then seek reimbursement.

T.A.’s family, backed by the federal Department of Education and many disability rights groups, say that reimbursement must be available, even if the school district has refused to provide special-education services.

Otherwise, they say, school districts would have an incentive not to identify a student as disabled or provide services.

“A lot of kiddos, like this one, develop emotional problems in high school, when the stress gets greater,” Ms. Broadhurst, the lawyer, said. “In this case, the family asked for help at school and they were denied. If the Supreme Court says that means they can’t get reimbursement, there’s a perverse incentive from schools to sit on their hands and not find the kid eligible, but just wait until the parents find some other solution.”

The Education Department said in a friend-of-court brief that a policy precluding reimbursement for students who had not already received special-education services in the public schools would produce “absurd results, especially in cases like this one, where the only reason the child did not receive public special education is that the school wrongly refused to provide it.”

But the Forest Grove district, backed by New York City and many school groups, argues that unless reimbursement is limited to those who have previously received special-education services in the public schools, families have a troubling incentive to keep their children out of public school.

“The whole point of IDEA is to encourage cooperation between parents and school districts to ensure the education of disabled children in as mainstream a setting as possible,” said Michael Best, general counsel to the New York City Department of Education. “If you allow parents to place their children in private school without ever trying public school, it undermines that cooperation.”

Mr. Best said reimbursing parents for private-school tuition, even if they never considered public school, would lead to a ridiculous situation in which parents who tried public school and complied with the procedures to determine whether private-school placement was required would have a harder time getting reimbursement for private-school tuition than those who never set foot in public school.

The New York City schools paid $89 million for private-school placements for disabled students in 2007-8, up from $53 million two years earlier.

 

The New York Times

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New CEO: Gates Foundation learns from experiments

By DONNA GORDON BLANKINSHIP – 5 hours ago

 

SEATTLE (AP) — The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation spent billions of dollars exploring the idea that smaller high schools might result in higher graduation rates and better test scores. Instead, it found that the key to better education is not necessarily smaller schools but more effective teachers.

 

Some people might cringe while recounting how much money the foundation spent figuring this out. But the foundation's new CEO, Jeff Raikes, smiles and uses it as an example to explain that the world's wealthiest charity has the money to try things that might fail.

 

"Almost by definition, good philanthropy means we're going to have to do some risky things, some speculative things to try and see what works and what doesn't," Raikes said Wednesday during an interview with The Associated Press.

 

The foundation's new "learner-in-chief" has spent the nine months since he was named CEO studying the operation, traveling around the world and figuring out how to balance the pressures of the economic downturn with the growing needs of people in developing nations.

 

The former Microsoft Corp. executive, who turns 51 on Friday, joined the foundation as its second CEO after Patty Stonesifer, another former Microsoft executive, announced her retirement and his friends Bill and Melinda Gates talked Raikes out of retiring.

 

In the past decade, the foundation has given away nearly $20 billion, mostly in global health, global development and U.S. education.

 

It has been ramping up its giving since Warren Buffett, head of Omaha, Neb.-based Berkshire Hathaway, announced in June 2006 that he would make annual donations of about $1.5 billion to the foundation, with the money to be distributed in the year it is donated.

 

Raikes is also from Nebraska, where he grew up on the family farm near Omaha. He and his wife, Tricia, formed the Raikes Foundation in 2002 to support youth development, education and community issues in the Seattle area.

 

He hasn't lost his easygoing manner during his transformation from business leader to nonprofit CEO.

 

One of the things he's learned is the foundation must take a different direction with its education grants. The most effective path, he said, is to support good, effective teachers.

 

Between 2000 and 2008, the foundation spent about $2 billion toward improving America's high schools and another $2 billion for scholarships, primarily for low-income and minority students.

 

It saw graduation rates go up in many foundation-supported schools. But it didn't see significant improvements in student achievement or in the number of students who left high school ready to enroll in college.

 

Raikes said the responsibility for social innovation often falls on nonprofit organizations because the private sector doesn't see the profit margin in it and most citizens don't want the government speculating with their tax dollars.

 

The foundation plans to continue to experiment with its education policy.

"We're going to try some things and I'm quite confident that some things will succeed and I'm quite confident that some things will fail," Raikes said.

 

He noted that half of the more than 1 million students who drop out of school in the United States each year are from just 100 school districts.

What can make a difference for those kids? Raikes wants to find out.

 

The foundation also is investing money to improve data collection in public schools — in part, to better find out what works — and to help community colleges improve graduation rates.

 

Raikes talked of a study of the Los Angeles Unified School District after an initiative to reduce class sizes led to a liberalization of rules on who could be hired to teach.

The district found that whether a teacher had a certificate had no effect on student achievement.

 

Raikes said the district found that putting a great teacher in a low-income school helped students advance a grade and a half in one year. An ineffective teacher in a high-income school held student achievement back to about half a grade of progress in a year.

 

"We really have to focus classroom-by-classroom," said Jim Morris, chief of staff at the L.A. district. "Every teacher matters just like every student matters."

 

Morris said the most important factor to successful schools is excellent teachers and supporting what they do in the classroom.

The Harvard researcher who studied the Los Angeles district, Thomas J. Kane, now works for the Gates Foundation as deputy director of education for data and research.

On the Net:

• Gates Foundation: http://www.gatesfoundation.org
• L.A. Unified School District: http://snurl.com/laschl

 

 

The Associated Press

 

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“Multiple Pathways”

By Susan E. Miller
Interim Superintendent

 

 

Last month, our district launched the next step toward redesigning our high school programs to better meet student needs now and for the future. This next step, called “Multiple Pathways,” builds on the work that we have already implemented since 2002....click here to continue  

 

E21 SCUSD Small High Schools Click Here

 

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Parents united

 

LAUSD moms and dads are mad and not going to sit it out anymore

Updated: 05/12/2009 05:42:34 PM PDT

IF there is a bright spot in the otherwise dark picture of public education and the Los Angeles Unified School District, it is the burgeoning activism of parents fed up with budget cuts that continually diminish the quality of schools.

 

A growing army of parents has begun to organize in response to the latest round of LAUSD cuts totaling $600 million, including planned layoffs of 3,000 teachers. They were moved by the prospect of what those cuts will mean to their children's education - larger class sizes and further reductions to physical education, music classes, field trips and all those other programs that round out a child's education.

 

Worse, seniority rules mean administrators and veteran teachers can bump newer teachers out of a job - meaning many schools will see an upheaval in staff next year.

 

Yet parents - and by extension, students - have had little say in budget discussions despite their obvious interest. No wonder they're angry.

But they've done something smart - turned their anger into action by staging protests, initiating letter drives and organizing marches. More rallies are being planned, including one on the steps of the Capitol in Sacramento.

 

Right on.

 

School district leaders and politicians only seem to take the concerns of ordinary people seriously when they become persistent and noisy.

It's about time parents demand a greater role in L.A.'s public schools. Right now, administrators and public employee unions call the shots. It is essential that the strongest advocates for children - their parents - have an equal opportunity to influence decision-makers.

 

Too often parents have been passive participants in public education, content to let the bureaucrats, board members and teachers union decide how to run our schools.

 

And school districts have done little to encourage parental involvement, particularly at the LAUSD, where parents are forced to deal with a monster government agency and a maze of red tape. Even those dedicated parents who schlep downtown to LAUSD board meetings aren't guaranteed an opportunity to address the board.

 

Fortunately, there are signs that parents are beginning to hold greater sway in these important budget choices. School-site councils, made up of staff and parents, will make decisions on how to spend federal stimulus dollars. Parents will be able to decide whether to hire back teachers or reinstate certain programs with the money.

 

School districts and teachers should welcome greater parental activism. These moms and dads can be the best allies - they want more funding for schools and they want to keep good teachers in the classroom, and they're willing to march on Sacramento to make it happen.

 

LA Daily News

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Who is Next?

 

Superintendent of Public Instruction  4 year term,   Election Cycle: 2006, 2010
		No Party Affiliation; (Democratic)	Public Instruction Superintendent  Jack T. O'Connell • First elected: 2002; re-elected: 2006 • Seat up for election: Tuesday 2 November 2010 • Open Seat - At term limit. Possible candidate for Governor in 2010.
		Democratic			Francisco Reveles
		Democratic			state Senator  Gloria Romero
		Democratic			state Assemblyman  Tom Torlakson

 

 

From the  SCUSD Observer 

 

 

 

 

Roy Grimes to Run for State Superintendent?

 

 Pia Lopez reports in The Swarm that SCUSD Board of Trustees President Roy Grimes is forming an exploratory committee to make a possible run at Jack O'Connell's job.

Perhaps Mr. Grimes should first explore the current political challenges in front of him. Besides the problems in the school district (budget cuts, lack of a superintendent, closures, imminent staff and teacher layoffs, etc.), Mr. Grimes obviously will have to sell himself pretty well ...Continue reading this story at the SCUSD Observer 

 

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Hancock: 2/3 requirement must go to save schools

 

 

By Josh Richman
Tuesday, May 5th, 2009 at 9:31 pm

State Senator Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley, on Tuesday welcomed to the State Capitol a group of public-school parents who bicycled up from Oakland to protest cuts in state education funding and to deliver a petition demanding more state support for public schools and removal of the 2/3 requirement to pass a budget or to raise taxes.

 

 

It’s interesting that Hancock made no mention of her opposition to Proposition 1A, which she has contended will hamstring California’s ability to rebuild the bedraggled education system. Back in February, she was one of only five legislative Democrats to buck their leadership and vote against putting 1A on the ballot, but perhaps with the measures’ polling numbers down in the dumps, she has decided to move on and pour her ardor into rolling back the 2/3 requirement.

From the Contra Costa Times.com

 

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More black lawmakers open to school vouchers

 

By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY

 

WASHINGTON — Back when he was on the city council for the District of Columbia, attorney Kevin Chavous would occasionally run into fellow Democrats concerned about the state of the USA's urban schools.

 

They were open to a lot of ideas, but most Democrats have historically rejected taxpayer-supported private-school vouchers, saying they drain precious cash from needy public schools. Chavous, who served from 1992 to 2005, openly supported vouchers. He would ask others why they didn't.

 

"Several of them would whisper to me, 'I'm with you, but I can't come out in front,' " Chavous says.

 

That was then.

 

While vouchers will likely never be the clarion call of Democrats, they're beginning to make inroads among a group of young black lawmakers, mayors and school officials who have split with party and teachers union orthodoxy on school reform.

 

The group includes Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, Newark Mayor Cory Booker and former Washington, D.C., mayor Anthony Williams.

 

"You can no longer dismiss this as Catholic or right-wing," says Jeanne Allen of the Center on Education Reform, a Washington think tank.

 

Allen has pushed for vouchers and charter schools for decades. She originally thought the shift was generational. "But I actually think it has more to do with more-principled people who understand and have seen how badly the existing system has hurt minority kids."

 

While Chavous and others say vouchers are far from the perfect solution, they're worth offering to students in the nation's bleakest public schools. Urban Democrats, he says, "see that what's happening to our kids in these schools just is unacceptable — we need to look at all options."

 

The party split will be on display Wednesday when former Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman, now an independent, chairs a hearing on Washington, D.C.'s federally funded Opportunity Scholarship Program. It's perhaps the most high-profile voucher hearing of the past five years, coming a few days after two prominent Democrats, Dianne Feinstein and Robert Byrd, joined a handful of Republicans to criticize President Obama for letting funding for D.C.'s program lapse.

 

Lieberman's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is scheduled to hear testimony from families whose children attend private schools through the program. He'll also hear from Williams and Bruce Stewart, head of Sidwell Friends School, where Obama's two daughters are enrolled.

 

Obama last week said he'd fund the D.C. program until its current students graduate, but he maintains that vouchers are not a long-term education reform. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama suggested that he'd weigh the evidence on vouchers but did not keep them in his first budget last week. Instead, he and U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan agreed to fund D.C.'s program until the 1,716 students now enrolled graduate.

 

Lieberman last week called it "a start," but said the scholarship "is a valuable program that should be available to new students as well."

 

Obama and Duncan are unlikely to budge anytime soon — Duncan recently acknowledged D.C.'s woes, calling its public schools "a national disgrace." But he added: "We have to be much more ambitious for ourselves and have higher expectations — we have to help every child in D.C. The answer is not vouchers for a few. It's massive change, massive reform for all, absolutely as quickly as possible."

 

First proposed in 1955 by University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman, private-school vouchers have had a decidedly rocky history and have never fully taken root in U.S. public schools. While the federal government routinely underwrites college students' tuition and fees to attend private colleges and universities, K-12 vouchers are limited to a few scattered programs in cities such as Cleveland, Milwaukee and, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans. Special-education students in Florida also attend private schools on the public dime, but voters in about a dozen states have rejected voucher proposals over the past few decades.

 

Fifty-four years after Friedman first proposed vouchers, only 61,000 of the nation's 50 million students attend school with a voucher — just over one-tenth of 1%. Another 100,000 in six states benefit from tax credits for private-school tuition.

 

D.C.'s program — formally known as The District of Columbia School Choice Incentive Act — has served as a lightning rod since Congress approved it in January 2004 as the first federally funded private-school voucher.

 

A federal evaluation, released April 3 by the U.S. Education Department, found that after three years, there was a "statistically significant positive impact" on students' reading test scores, but not on their math scores. Overall, voucher students performed about three months ahead of their peers in public schools in reading, but no better in math.

 

Mary Lord, a member of the D.C. State Board of Education, says the statistics may be misleading because many of the voucher kids attend the city's worst schools. She says the voucher, which provides up to $7,500 a year, gives "enormous bang for the buck," considering that the city's per-pupil budget for year is, by one estimate, nearly $17,000 per student.

"It's a no-brainer to me," she says.

 

 

USA TODAY

 

 

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From the  SCUSD Observer 

 

Who is running this show?

 

At the risk of simply blogging as a Sacramento Bee critique, today we'd like to draw your attention to an editorial: Superintendent Search Drags On.

The piece illuminates two (particularly) noticeable points:

• Thirteen months after Maggie Mejia announced her retirement, SCUSD is without a permanent superintendent.
• Teachers, principals and Teamsters unions announced Thursday that they do not want a search. They want the board to appoint interim Superintendent Susan Miller as the permanent superintendent.

Why isn't a permanent superintendent in place now? Is it a result of board incompetence that this search is not complete? Are our new representatives so green that they  ..... continue reading at SCUSD Observer 

 

 

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STAND

"Tavis Smiley has a new 90-minute documentary film coming out called "STAND" that explores the African-American male experience through history, politics, music, and culture. STAND features Cornel West, Michael Eric Dyson, Dick Gregory, BeBe Winans, the late Isaac Hayes and other black men as they travel to the birthplace of blues to talk about and reflect on African-American men who "stood" for something in the past and what it means as African-American men continue to "stand" for something today. The documentary will be released on Sunday, May 24, 2009 exclusively on TV-One. There will be screenings of the film in select cities.

 

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School Beat: How to Spend SFUSD’s Stimulus Money
by Lisa Schiff‚ May. 07‚ 2009

In a truth–is-stranger-than-fiction moment, public education activists may actual have something to thank Governor Schwarzenegger for and that is being first in line to receive federal dollars from the education portion of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), often referred to as stimulus money. This money is for traditionally (under)funded programs that the federal government requires of school districts, such as programs for educationally disadvantaged students (Title 1) and special education services (IDEA).

Unlike some of his fellow Republican governors, Schwarzenegger had no hesitancy about taking the money or about agreeing to any of the conditions that went along with it, so a near $4 billion has been sent to our state. The timing was perfect for a governor whose clinical aversion to revamping our tax structure has resulted in a staggering budget deficit and a structural inability to adequately provide social services.

Whatever the motivations, the resources are a welcome infusion of cash, although they will soon create a new source of pain as this money is not the first installment in an ongoing stream of revenue, but is more or less a one-time deal. The stimulus funds are meant to stave off disaster, not to change underlying conditions. While that battle for sufficient and reliable school budgets goes on, enacted in such events as the upcoming June 23rd California Children’s Campaign in Sacramento, emergency stimulus money is finally arriving.

Just this past Monday, May 4th, State Superintendent of Schools Jack O’Connell issued a press release announcing that stimulus money was being released to Local Educational Agencies (LEAs, otherwise known as school districts). To help clarify what’s going on the California Department of Education (CDE) has put up quite a useful set of pages about ARRA issues, including links to see how the stimulus money is being apportioned to school districts, county schools, and charter schools (which are considered “autonomous” educational entities).

The document detailing Title I allocations for the upcoming 2009-2010 school year shows that the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) is slated to receive $8,745,393 in ARRA Title I funds, which will be added to the $12,557,933 in regular Title I funding we are already scheduled to receive. The first ARRA Title I distribution will be coming this month, totaling $3,935,427.

Additional education ARRA grants are still available for school food equipment for districts participating in the National School Lunch Program. Applications are being accepted until May 27th, and awards will be announced on June 30th. This is something our district should definitely jump on.

In addition to the CDE site, the SFUSD has an overview of ARRA, including estimates of what the district thinks it will receive from the program. As exciting as those speculative numbers are, from its main page devoted to ARRA the district has issued this important caveat: “SFUSD is committed to spending these funds on durable investments that have long-lasting benefits and do not require on-going spending.”

In other words, while ARRA money can be used to prevent layoffs of current staff, it can’t responsibly be used to start new programs or hire additional permanent staff, a constraint which really limits the options. It’s also a constraint that clearly points out how disconnected policy makers are with the real on-the-ground situation in schools. One time influxes of money can do some things, but can’t help make the big leaps that we are so anxious to take.

For instance, one of the federal suggested uses of the money, as summarized by the California Department of Education is to create professional development opportunities to encourage instructional leadership among teachers. This is a good thing and should be part of any well functioning school district, but it’s certainly not transformative on its own.

Another suggestion is about “Developing and expanding longitudinal data systems…,” something that is hard to imagine doing without sustained and increased staffing levels. Investments in systems (hardware purchases and software design and implementation) might be possible, but systems don’t run on their own. Again, this is another reasonable characteristic of a solid school district, but fits somewhat uncomfortably in the “stimulus” model. A more complete set of suggestions from the feds for states to use as guidelines in applications has more of the same.

Missing from the SFUSD ARRA pages are descriptions of our district’s specific plans for the stimulus money. Instead, the district has provided an email address to which people can submit their ideas: stimulus@sfusd.edu.

Although the constraints are many, as detailed above, this is an opportunity to give voice to some ideas that may have gotten lost in previous times. We school community members, especially those with the closest connections to students — families and teachers — should take advantage of this, but in a way that doesn’t leave our suggestions lost in an overflowing email inbox. For those who have an idea to share with the district, consider sharing it with the rest of us. During the month of May, if you email stimulus@sfusd.edu consider cc’ing the School Beat column at sflschiff@yahoo.com, so that a summary of the various suggestions can be made for us all to see.

ARRA for education provides a large amount of money that we are happy to receive, but it also leaves much to be desired. It gives schools just enough to keep going, but not enough to make the real changes we all want and everyone expects. Let’s make sure to remind policy makers of this in the months to come when they expect miracles from this temporary infusion.

Lisa Schiff is the parent of two children who attend McKinley Elementary School in the San Francisco Unified School District and is a member of Parents for Public Schools of San Francisco and the PTA and is a board member at the national level of Parents for Public Schools.

 

 

Beyond Chron.org

 

 

 

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Duncan Does the Math On Education Budget

$100 Billion to Fix the Public Schools

 

 

Washington Post

 

 

Stimulus Guidance Spotlights Teacher Evaluations

By Stephen Sawchuk and Erik W. Robelen

 

 

 

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today started rolling out $44 billion in economic-stimulus aid for education that comes with new teacher-quality reporting requirements for states and districts, and also with significantly more spending flexibility on school construction than many administrators had expected.

 

New guidance from the Department of Education spells out in more detail how states, districts, and institutions of higher education will receive money under the $39.8 billion State Fiscal Stabilization Fund and the $8.8 billion Government Services Fund, as well as how they may use it. Unveiling the first payments at a school in Capitol Heights, Md., Mr. Duncan emphasized that the funding could be a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon.

 

“We have this magical opportunity to invest significantly in these best practices and scale up what works,” he said of aid under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

 

The requirements outlined by the department mark a notable foray by the federal government into several issues that have mainly been the province of states and districts—notably teacher evaluation and the shape of data systems.

 

As part of the teacher-quality assurance states must fulfill to receive fiscal-stabilization money, for instance, the department plans to demand that states report for each district the number and percentage of teachers and principals scoring at each performance level on local teacher- and principal-evaluation instruments.

 

Once districts have received their stabilization funds and used them to backfill cuts, however, the guidance allows districts to spend their remaining funds on a host of activities, including new school construction. Republican lawmakers had opposed funding for school construction during the drafting of the $787 billion stimulus package, which President Barack Obama signed into law in February.

 

The combination of new requirements and funding-flexibility language adds to ongoing debates in policy circles about whether the $115 billion in total education aid—the largest single federal investment in education in history—will lead to fundamental reform in the nation’s education system or have the opposite effect of ossifying current features that may hinder improvement.

 

“[School construction] has the potential to eat up a lot of these funds, particularly for states that don’t have severe funding shortages,” said Vic Klatt, a lobbyist with the Washington firm Van Scoyoc Associates, who previously served as the staff director for Republicans on the House education committee. “People who are hoping a lot of this money will go for education reform activities may be a little disappointed.”

 

Spotlight on Evaluation

 

In a letter and detailed guidance sent to the states today, Mr. Duncan laid out the Education Department’s marker for the four “assurances” states must address to receive their second cut of stabilization funds later this year.

 

The new reporting on teacher evaluations, experts said, will lay out baseline data on the state of current teacher-evaluation systems, as well as whether they incorporate some measure of student achievement.

 

Thomas Toch, a co-director of the Washington-based think tank Education Sector, who wrote a paper last year on teacher evaluation, praised the new requirements.

 

“I think it’s a really important step,” he said. “I think we’re seeing an increase in attention to teacher evaluation in reform discussions at district, state, and now the federal level, and that’s a good thing.”

 

Mr. Toch said that most evaluation systems around the country are superficial and not finely tuned to make distinctions about teachers’ performance.

 

“What will happen is an overwhelming majority of teachers will be reported to be adequate or have satisfactory ratings. That in and of itself may shine a spotlight,” he said. “In an urban district, if 30 percent of your schools are not [meeting testing benchmarks] and ... all your teachers are doing well on your evaluations, that’s going to be embarrassing.”

 

The president of the 1.4 million-member American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, said she hoped the reporting would encourage stakeholders to craft more-nuanced evaluation systems in collaboration with teachers, through collective bargaining agreements. She added, though, that she had concerns about whether districts and states might take the data out of context.

 

“Ultimately, if data is used to make sound judgments, that’s a good thing,” she said. “If data is used in a way that is rudimentary or unfair or gets you to conclusions that are not warranted, if it becomes another ‘gotcha’ tool, that will be bad, ... but I think it’s too soon to tell.”

 

The guidance also describes in greater detail what the Education Department expects of states in improving the capacity of their education data systems. They must, for example, be prepared to connect student-achievement data to individual teachers, and to track students from high school through college graduation.

 

Both of those priorities could pose challenges: Teachers’ unions have successfully lobbied legislatures to outlaw teacher-student data linkages in states such as California, while other states prohibit the sharing of data across systems for privacy purposes.

 

Also, the department is calling on each state to report information on charter schools, including whether the state has a cap restricting the number of such schools, how many charters are currently operating, and the number closed within the last three years for academic reasons. President Obama recently called for states to lift their caps on charters, provided they are ensuring strong accountability for the schools.

 

The metrics for the four assurances proposed in Mr. Duncan’s letter will be subject to the public rulemaking process, but the Education Department will have the final say over their shape.

An ‘Epic’ Loophole?

 

The guidance also offers states and districts more flexibility than anticipated to use fiscal-stabilization money that remains after they have backfilled instructional cuts on school construction.

 

During the drafting of the stimulus package, Republicans in Congress successfully stripped a proposal on new-school construction from the bill. The completed bill permitted districts to undertake modernization and repairs.

 

But the stimulus guidance says districts may spend recovery funds on any activities authorized under the No Child Left Behind Act and other statues—including the federal impact-aid program, which authorizes funds for building new schools.

 

The little-known program is normally used only to subsidize districts whose local tax bases are affected by the presence of military installations or other federal property.

 

In an April 1 conference call with reporters, Secretary Duncan said the interpretation offers districts the flexibility to work on construction projects that fit local needs.

 

“There’s a need there—there’s a need to do renovation and rehabilitation,” he said. “You have areas that are significantly overcrowded, and children jammed into buildings. That doesn’t work.”

 

Republican officials, not surprisingly, protested the interpretation.

 

“This is a loophole of epic proportions,” said Alexa Marerro, a spokeswoman for Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon of California, the ranking Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee. “By funneling funding through the impact-aid program, it appears that states will be able to completely circumvent congressional intent and spend tens of billions in taxpayers’ money on virtually anything—including new school construction, something Congress deliberately did not allow for in the legislation.”

 

But Mary Kusler, the assistant director of government relations for the American Association of School Administrators, based in Arlington, Va., predicted that few districts would use the money for construction of new schools, given other pressing needs.

 

“I just don’t think there’s enough money,” she said.

 

Even so, activities under impact aid are so broadly defined that the Obama administration’s decision to permit funds to follow that program could curb other school improvement priorities. The guidance, for example, acknowledges that districts can use the impact-aid authority to pay down past debt, although it encourages them to spend it to advance reforms, such as providing extended learning time for low-income schools and expanding the number of seats in publicly funded early-childhood education.

 

The guidance resolves one issue that potentially could have pit state institutions against one another: It clarifies that a state may not restore its funding support for only K-12 or higher education, and that a governor may not retain any portion of the money for state purposes. And it makes clear that a state may not limit how a local district uses its share of the stimulus money.

 

In a statement, Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the chairman of the House education committee, praised those clarifications.

 

“While states allocate the funds, it should be up to local school districts and colleges and universities to decide how to use this emergency aid, not states,” the statement released by his office says.

 

Last month, Rep. Miller and other House Democrats from California wrote a letter to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, and state education officials urging them to release the fiscal-stabilization funds to school districts as soon as the state receives them.

 

But Charles Barone, the director of federal policy for Democrats for Education Reform, a New York City-based political action committee, argues that by giving states no authority over how districts spend money in the stabilization fund, the federal Education Department severely constrains its own objectives.

 

“There’s not much there to hang reform on,” he said. “How can you be a governor and try to pursue a statewide policy when none of the districts have to go along with you?”

 

States do have discretion in deciding how to spend money in the $8.8 billion Government Services Fund, which can be used for “public safety and other government services,” including assistance for K-12 or higher education, as well as to support administrative costs associated with implementing reporting requirements.

 

As a final request to states to use their funding wisely, Mr. Duncan repeatedly said in his conference call with reporters that any states playing “shell games” with stimulus spending would disqualify themselves for future funding. He singled out the $4.35 billion in discretionary money he has dubbed the “Race to the Top” fund.

 

Mr. Duncan said the first competition for that money, which is meant to scale up innovative programs in states and districts, will be held in June. Applicants will have to show demonstrable progress in all four of the assurance areas to receive the incentive funding.

 

“This is not a menu; this is not, ‘I’ll take two out of three,’ ” the secretary said. “These are states that are pushing the envelope in all four areas.”

 

Staff Writer Dakarai I. Aarons contributed to this report.

 

Education Week

 

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Some schools are cutting back on homework

When is homework just busywork? Weighing stress against learning, some districts are cutting back on academic work outside the classroom.

By Seema Mehta

March 22, 2009

Rachel Bennett, 12, loves playing soccer, spending time with her grandparents and making jewelry with beads. But since she entered a magnet middle school in the fall -- and began receiving two to four hours of homework a night -- those activities have fallen by the wayside.

"She's only a kid for so long," said her father, Alex Bennett, of Silverado Canyon. "There's been tears and frustration and family arguments. Everyone gets burned out and tired."

Bennett is part of a vocal movement of parents and educators who contend that homework overload is robbing children of needed sleep and playtime, chipping into family dinners and vacations and overly stressing young minds. The objections have been raised for years but increasingly, school districts are listening. They are banning busywork, setting time limits on homework and barring it on weekends and over vacations.

"Groups of parents are going to schools and saying, 'Get real. We want our kids to have a life,' " said Cathy Vatterott, an associate education professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, who has studied the issue.

Trustees in Danville, Calif., eliminated homework on weekends and vacations last year. Palo Alto officials banned it over winter break. Officials in Orange, where Rachel Bennett attends school, are reminding teachers about limits on homework and urging them not to assign it on weekends. A private school in Hollywood has done away with book reports.

"As adults, if every book we ever read, we had to write a report on -- would that encourage our reading or discourage it?" asked Eileen Horowitz, head of school at Temple Israel of Hollywood Day School. "We realized we needed to rethink that."

Nancy Ortenberg is happy about the change.

"Homework is much more meaningful now," said Ortenberg, whose daughter Isabelle, 9, was in school before the policy took effect in 2007. Before the change, it was a chore for her daughter, but "now she reads for the pure joy of reading."

Homework was once hugely controversial. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, social commentators and physicians crusaded against it, convinced it was causing children to become wan, weak and nervous.

In a 1900 article titled "A National Crime at the Feet of American Parents" in the Ladies' Home Journal, editor Edward Bok wrote, "When are parents going to open their eyes to this fearful evil? Are they as blind as bats, that they do not see what is being wrought by this crowning folly of night study?"

California was at the vanguard of the anti-homework movement. In 1901, the California Legislature banned it for students under 15 and ordered high schools to limit it for older students to 20 recitations a week. The law was taken off the books in 1917.

Homework has fallen in and out of favor ever since, often viewed as a force for good when the nation feels threatened -- after the Soviets launched Sputnik in 1957, for example, and during competition with Japan in the 1980s.

The homework wars have reignited in recent years, with parents around the nation arguing that children are being given too much.

Much of the debate is driven by the belief that today's students are doing more work at home than their predecessors. But student surveys do not bear that out, said Brian Gill, a senior social scientist with Mathematica Policy Research.

Instead, in today's increasingly competitive race for college admission, student schedules are increasingly packed with clubs, sports and other activities in addition to homework, Gill said. Students -- and parents -- may just have less time, he said.

Not all object, however.

"Obviously we want to think it's busywork, but most of the time it's really helpful," said Allison Hall, 16, a junior at Villa Park High in the Orange district. Allison, who is taking five Advanced Placement classes, has up to three hours of homework a night; she also is on the cross country, track and mock trial teams and does volunteer work.

But others say there is just too much, especially for younger children. Karen Adnams of Villa Park has four children. She said that heavier course loads make sense for older children but that she doesn't understand the amount of work given in lower grades.

"I think teachers have lost touch with what a third-grader or a fifth-grader can really do," she said.

Vatterott, a former principal, said she became interested in the subject a decade ago as a frustrated parent. Her son, who has a learning disability, was upset by assignments he didn't understand and couldn't complete in a reasonable time.

She decided to study the effectiveness of homework. That research showed that more time spent on such work was not necessarily better.

Vatterott questioned the quantity and the quality of assignments. If 10 math problems could demonstrate a child's grasp of a concept, why assign 50, she asked? The solution, she said, was not to do away with homework but to clarify the reasons for assigning it.

Some schools, among them Grant Elementary in Glenrock, Wyo., have gone further. Principal Christine Hendricks had grown concerned that students were spending too much time on busywork and that homework was causing conflicts between parents and children and between teachers and students. So she got rid of it last year except for reading and studying for tests.

"My philosophy, even when I was a teacher, is if you work hard during the day, I don't like to work at night. Kids are kind of the same way," she said.

Other districts, including San Ramon Valley Unified in Danville, Calif., have taken a more nuanced approach.

Since San Ramon revised its homework policy last year, the youngest students are given no more than 30 minutes a night; high school students have up to three hours of work. District trustees also decided that aside from reading, no homework should be given to elementary and middle school students on weekends or vacations.

In the Orange Unified School District, trustee John Ortega grew concerned about the workload carried by his middle school daughter. "We would have a swim meet all weekend, and she would be worried about coming home and having to finish homework," he said. "She was stressed about it."

After speaking with other parents, Ortega raised the subject publicly in the fall, prompting a series of discussions in the district. It turned out that although the board had set limits on homework, they were not always followed, said Marsha Brown, assistant superintendent of educational services. She said teachers have now been informed about the policy and principals are working to clarify the purpose of homework.

Brown said children's social growth must be nurtured alongside their academic development. "We don't want just academic children. We want them involved in sports and music and art and family time and downtime," she said. "We want well-rounded citizens. I think we will always be struggling with that balance."

seema.mehta@latimes.com 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Obama Echoes Bush on Education Ideas

By Erik W. Robelen

 

President Barack Obama campaigned on a message of change, but when it comes to K-12 education, he appears to be walking in the policy footsteps of his recent predecessors, including George W. Bush.

 

Mr. Obama is sounding themes of accountability based on standards and assessments. He’s delivering tough talk on teacher quality, including a call for performance-based pay. And he’s promoting an expanded charter school sector.

 

To be sure, his economic-stimulus package shows he is ready to pump far more money into education than Mr. Bush did. And Mr. Obama says he opposes private school vouchers, a consistent Bush agenda item.

Still, some observers see little difference between the two so far—and aren’t happy at the similarities.

 

“He is operating almost in a straight line from President Bush,” said Diane Ravitch, an education historian at New York University, who co-writes a blog for edweek.org. She has criticized core elements of Mr. Obama’s K-12 agenda, such as his enthusiasm for the charter sector and what she worries is an overreliance on standardized testing to judge schools and teachers.

Sound Familiar?

 

The four most recent occupants of the White House have sounded similar themes on education.

 
President Barack Obama

(Address to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, in Washington, March 10, 2009)

 

“Obama is, in effect, giving George W. Bush a third term in education,” said Ms. Ravitch, who served as an assistant secretary of education under the first President Bush.

 

Alfie Kohn, an education author and longtime critic of standardized testing, echoes that assessment.

 

“This is what passes for quote-unquote ‘reform’: an intensification of the status quo that reflects the sensibility of politicians and corporate executives rather than educators,” Mr. Kohn said.

 

He warns that if Mr. Obama holds to that pattern, his agenda may pose a challenge for some of his natural constituencies.

 

“A lot of liberals and those on the left desperately want to believe that Obama represents a qualitative change, not just in education, but in all kinds of domestic and foreign-policy issues,” Mr. Kohn said. “And even as many of them become slowly disenchanted, the political issue becomes: How hard do we push?”

 

But Andrew J. Rotherham, a co-director of the Washington-based think tank Education Sector, argues that the president is sending the right signals, from promoting charter schools to pushing on teacher quality and “improving accountability, not jettisoning it.”

 

He said that even while he believes Mr. Obama’s critics are wrong to suggest there is little difference between him and Mr. Bush on education, those hoping for a “radical departure” will be disappointed.

 

“There was a lot of overlap between Bush I and Clinton, and between Clinton and Bush II,” said Mr. Rotherham, a former aide to President Bill Clinton. “Not surprisingly, there’s going to be a lot of overlap between Bush II and Obama.

 

“That says less about any of them per se than the direction education reform has been going for well over a decade.”

 

Charting a Course

 

Analysts caution that it’s still too soon to know exactly where President Obama will come down on education. The key, they say, is how the Obama administration translates its rhetoric into action and detailed policy prescriptions.

 

For instance, how serious will the administration be in enforcing the education accountability demands in the recently enacted stimulus plan? How will it seek to define performance pay? And what specific changes does Mr. Obama have in mind for the upcoming reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act?

 

Leading teachers’ union officials, at least publicly, sound receptive to most of the president’s ideas.

 

Randi Weingarten, the president of the 1.4 million-member American Federation of Teachers, said Mr. Obama has laid out a “very broad, comprehensive, and thoughtful agenda.”

 

The president is wading into touchy territory for the unions with his advocacy of expanding charter schools and promoting performance-based pay, themes he sounded on the campaign trail.

 

“I know that these conversations sometimes are uncomfortable for us to have, but we’re willing to have them,” Ms. Weingarten said when asked about Mr. Obama’s discussion of performance pay.

 

She and other union officials say that Mr. Obama’s election brought about a critical change that isn’t about policy or money. It’s a belief—reinforced by the president’s public statements—that teachers and their unions will have a seat at the table in policy discussions.

 

“He’s going to listen,” said Anne T. Wass, the president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, an affiliate of the 3.2 million-member National Education Association. “There wasn’t very much trust in President Bush as far as our issues, and very little access.”

 

‘The Same Old Debate’

 

The considerable attention President Obama has paid to education since taking office has surprised many observers, especially given the relatively minor role the issue played in the 2008 campaign and the focus on the economic crisis.

 

The president and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan have made clear that they view the economic-stimulus law, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act—with some $115 billion in aid for precollegiate and higher education—as a means to launch education plans from improvements in standards and data-collection systems to performance pay. The unprecedented, one-time infusion of federal aid is being touted not only as a lifeline for schools but also a bargain of more money in exchange for substantive changes. ("Stimulus Scale Seen as Issue," Feb. 11, 2009, and "First Education Stimulus Aid Flows to States," April 8, 2009.)

 

Last month, Mr. Obama outlined his education agenda in broad strokes during an address to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, setting the stage with a fairly stark portrait.

 

“[W]e’ve let our grades slip, our schools crumble, our teacher quality fall short, and other nations outpace us,” he said.

Some critics say Mr. Obama was unfairly negative and used flawed information to make his case.

 

For instance, he said that U.S. 8th graders have “fallen to ninth place” in math. Although the 2007 results for the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, or TIMMS, do confirm that ranking, it was an improvement from the 2003 U.S. ranking of 15th place. In 1999, the United States ranked 19th out of 38 nations.

 

The president appeared to be on solid statistical ground in some other areas, however. He said that “just a third of our 13- and 14-year-olds can read as well as they should,” which seems to refer to the 31 percent of 8th graders rated “proficient” in the 2007 results for the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

 

He also lamented the “stubborn”—and widely recognized—achievement gap between African-American and Hispanic students and their white peers.

 

Mr. Obama has been generally consistent in his stated education agenda since taking office, reiterating much that he said during the campaign. That includes improvement proposals touching on every aspect of the U.S. education system, from early childhood to college and the workplace.

 

He has trumpeted his goals repeatedly, from his address to Congress in February to a virtual town-hall meeting on March 26. But he articulated his vision most extensively in his March 10 speech in the nation’s capital to Hispanic business leaders.

 

“[W]hat we get here in Washington is the same old debate ... more money versus more reform, vouchers versus the status quo,” Mr. Obama said. “What’s required is not simply new investments, but new reforms. It’s time to expect more from our students. It’s time to start rewarding good teachers, stop making excuses for bad ones. It’s time to demand results from government at every level.”

 

On the K-12 front, Mr. Obama called on states to develop stronger academic standards and better student assessments, and urged a move toward common standards across states—a point he did not make on the campaign trail. He talked of extending the school day and year, and increasing assistance for dropouts. He promoted efforts to recruit, prepare, and reward teachers.

 

In addition, Mr. Obama called for more innovation in schools, and pointed to some charter schools as exemplars. Going beyond his campaign plan to increase federal aid for charters, he also urged states with charter caps to lift them, provided those states ensure “greater accountability” and have plans to “close charters that are not working.”

 

The president carefully couched his rhetoric in ways that make it akin to a Rorschach test, with something for almost everyone.

 

He said he wants “tougher, clearer” standards, but also assessments that “don’t simply measure whether students can fill in a bubble.” He wants more “effective” charters, but also tougher action to close those that fall short. He wants not only to hold teachers accountable, he said, but also to treat them like professionals.

 

Political Balancing Act

 

“Obama has been very artful with this from the very beginning,” Christopher T. Cross, a veteran education expert who was an assistant education secretary under the first President Bush, said of his ability to deliver multiple messages. “There’s enough in there that, depending on where you sit, you can see something you stand for.”

 

As a result, his education vision has managed to appeal to a wide range of education policymakers and analysts.

 

“He is saying a lot of things that sound all too familiar to me,” said former U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, pointing to Mr. Obama’s backing of teacher incentive pay, charter schools, and high standards to help close achievement gaps. “I want to sing right along.”

 

John P. Bailey, a former aide to President George W. Bush on education and labor issues, said that while he has been encouraged, it shouldn’t be surprising to hear familiar themes coming from the new president.

“What it shows, to me, is there is an emerging consensus around some real bipartisan, center-oriented reforms,” Mr. Bailey said.

 

Indeed, leading congressional Democrats on education, including Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Rep. George Miller of California, were partners with the Bush administration in drafting the bipartisan No Child Left Behind Act eight years ago, though they later complained bitterly that Mr. Bush was not willing to fund it adequately.

 

President Clinton—the previous Democrat to hold the office—was also a champion of standards and accountability, and signed into law major changes to federal policy that helped pave the way for NCLB. In addition, he was an early and vocal proponent of charter schools, and pushed for new demands on states and districts to improve teacher quality.

 

For his part, President George H.W. Bush offered an agenda that included advocating national goals and standards across states and providing seed money for “break the mold” schools.

 

Still, the ideas Mr. Obama is embracing don’t sit well with everyone.

Alex Molnar, an education professor at Arizona State University, said that while he finds merit in some of Mr. Obama’s plans for early-childhood and higher education, he sees little to like in the current administration’s K-12 agenda, whether it’s the “fascination with standards and assessments” or the embrace of charter schools.

 

“He’s just served up a plate of leftovers: leftover ideas, leftover ideology, and I must say, he’s serving leftovers of food that wasn’t very good to begin with,” Mr. Molnar said.

 

Ms. Wass of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, said that while she supports many of Mr. Obama’s plans, she is “less enthusiastic” about performance pay.

 

“If it means paying individual teachers based on student test scores, ... we would have a hard time ever compromising on that,” she said.

Secretary Duncan has said test data would be one component of performance-pay plans.

 

Bruce Reed, the president of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council and formerly President Clinton’s chief domestic-policy adviser, argues that the vast sums President Obama has secured for education through the stimulus package will help build the political leverage he needs with unions and others to achieve his agenda. The administration estimates that the stimulus money will help avert hundreds of thousands of teacher layoffs. ("As Stimulus Tap Turns On, Districts Can't Escape Cuts," April 8, 2009.)

 

“Don’t underestimate the value of money, especially in these hard times,” Mr. Reed said. “A leader’s job is to push the envelope and bring everybody along, and that’s what Obama’s trying to do.”

 

But Frederick M. Hess, the director of education policy studies at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank, isn’t so sure what the president will get for all the money being committed.

 

“What I see is lots of new money,” he said, “and I see a whole lot of ambiguity when it comes to which of these changes are actually going to be anything meaningful.”

 

Vol. 28, Issue 28, Pages 1,18-19

 

Education Week

 

 

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 What Counts as Parent Involvement?

Posted By Aaron Pallas On April 6, 2009 @ 5:42 pm

 

The New York Post’s relentless shilling for the renewal of Mayor Bloomberg’s control of the New York City schools continued today with the claim that Mayor Mike doesn’t get adequate credit for his accomplishments in involving parents in the schools.  Carl Campanile’s article identifies a number of accomplishments, including the institution of parent coordinators at each school;  the creation of the Office of Family Engagement and Advocacy;  making parent involvement part of the system of accountability for principals and schools;  and increasing the quantity and quality of information about schools available to parents.  Ironically, on the same day, Meredith Kolodner filed a story in the Daily News on the problems that parents and other stakeholders are having obtaining information on the performance of various programs and on decisions regarding future plans.

 

My colleague Joyce Levy Epstein, Director of the Center on School, Family and Community Partnerships at Johns Hopkins University, has developed a typology of six different types of parent involvement.  The framework includes:

• Helping all families establish home environments to support children as students

• Designing effective forms of school-to-home and home-to-school communications about school programs and children’s progress
• Recruiting and organizing parent help and support
• Providing information and ideas to families about how to help students at home with homework and other curriculum-related activities, decisions, and planning
• Including parents in school decisions, developing parent leaders and representatives
• Identifying and integrating resources and services from the community to strengthen school programs, family practices, and student learning and development

 

I’m not a big fan of this typology, because I don’t think it reflects the ways in which parents might be involved in their children’s schooling at multiple levels of the education system.  I would also prefer to see a clearer focus on children’s learning and development.  Some forms of parent involvement have direct consequences for children’s learning at home and in the classroom;  others may be equally important, but the consequences are indirect.

 

For example, many parents are passionate about district policies regarding the relocation or closure of schools, or eligibility for citywide gifted and talented programs, or investments in smaller classes.  Such policies and practices may be important in determining children’s opportunities to learn, but they are also somewhat distant from a student’s experiences in a particular school.  Parents may exercise different amounts of influence at the district, school and classroom level, and different policies and practices are relevant to involving parents at each of these levels.

 

It seems pretty clear to me that the most vocal critics of the Bloomberg-Klein era of reforms are primarily concerned about the perceived decline in parental involvement in district-level decisions.  Many see the Chancellor and his team as acting unilaterally without consulting parents or other stakeholders.  I think it’s worth having a parallel discussion about the strategies that the current leadership of the Department of Education has relied upon to strengthen the ways that parents can directly support their children’s learning in the classroom and at home.  Do we know which strategies have been successful, which have floundered, and why?

 

GothamSchools

 

 

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Supporting Teachers Early in Careers Best Practice for Education Stimulus

By Dr. Angelo Collins

The images are enough to get the hearts and the minds of any educator stirring.  President Barack Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan speak of “honoring science,” of “recruiting, retaining and rewarding an army of new teachers,” and of “raising expectations” when it comes to our children’s academic pursuits.  It is not just talk either.  In the recently enacted economic-stimulus bill the government has set aside $100 billion in new education funding.  The Obama administration has made it clear that education is a top priority, even going so far as to require every state to take steps to improve teacher effectiveness. 

With dollars like that being promised — and affirmation of the value of teachers coming from the very highest levels — we at the Knowles Science Teaching Foundation feel compelled to come forward and say – Thank you.  Thank you for acknowledging that teachers do matter.

Now come the big questions.  The new funding is designed to restore cuts and reward schools for innovation and reform.   But what exactly does this mean?  What constitutes reform?  What will give the American people the greatest return on their investment?

We say invest in teachers and do it early in their careers. 

The current national trend is that nearly half of all teachers leave the profession within the first five years.  By contrast, KSTF has averaged an 86% retention rate since we first introduced our Teaching Fellowships in 2002.   KSTF awards 5 year fellowships to the nation’s best and brightest teaching graduates – specifically those pursuing math and science high school teaching careers.   We provide these beginning teachers with the structured mentoring, the professional development, and the sense of community that they need to improve their teaching strategies. Most importantly, we insist on treating teachers as professionals worthy of respect – the same respect our society affords to other highly-trained experts in their fields.

With so many teachers nationwide leaving the profession, consider the huge financial cost to schools and districts to constantly hire and re-hire teachers.  Consider the cost to students to always have a teacher who is just learning the craft or teaching outside of their subject area.  Then, imagine if a beginning teacher had the time during the day to work on plans, to observe senior teachers, to meet with trained mentors and engage in professional development?  Imagine what would happen if this professional development was relevant to the subject and the students they were teaching? It’s what we make happen for over 100 KSTF Teaching Fellows in 25 states and it works.  

Exceptional teacher training and support pay off in enriched educational experiences for students. A KSTF teacher in Michigan guided her students to winning 1^st place honors in a national engineering competition with the creation of a device to assist the handicapped in typing.  Another teacher in Virginia achieved a 92% pass rate in the state’s standardized chemistry test – a rate nearly 20 points higher than that of her peers.  One of the KSTF Fellows in California will be the sole teacher to take part in a history-making research expedition to the South Pole.  The lessons he learns in that expedition will be converted into a polar science curriculum to be used in classrooms across the nation.

Teaching is complex. At a minimum, a teacher must understand the content and the nature of the discipline she is teaching, how students learn, how to know what students know, how to design instruction and evaluate its effectiveness, how to motivate students, how to work with parents and the community, and how to stay current on their discipline, teaching, learning, instruction and technology tools.

This is an urgent time for education.  The National Center for Education Statistics predicts that in the next eight years, 2.8 million teachers must join the existing 3.2 million teachers because of retirements, higher enrollment and teacher turnover.  While there may be some quick fixes that provide temporary relief, changes in education and the roles and responsibilities of teachers require sustained efforts over a long period of time.  Let’s help beginning teachers get off to a good start.  Let’s invest in teacher education and early-career professional development. We can then develop that “army of new teachers” that our President has referred to in his speeches - an army that has the qualifications and the staying power to effectively educate the next generation. 

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Dr. Angelo Collins, is the executive director of the Knowles Science Teaching Foundation.  Since 1999, the Foundation has invested in our nation’s teachers to improve the quality of math and science education.  Dr. Collins is a science educator who has taught at both the high school and university level and spent decades studying how to best prepare teachers for this complex, intellectually-demanding profession. She directed Stanford's Teacher Assessment Project and led the national committee that produced the only National Science Education Standards.

 

OpEdNews

 

 

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UC Berkeley professor takes on school spending

In his book, "The Money Myth: School Resources, Outcomes, and Equity," W. Norton Grubb argues that how much is spent is less important than how it is spent.

8:20 PM PDT, April 6, 2009

Do we spend enough on public education? What does it mean that California has fallen from near the top of per-pupil spending in the United States to very near the bottom?

Money has long been at the center of debates over education. Now a book from a UC Berkeley professor argues that the entire debate is wrongheaded.

In "The Money Myth: School Resources, Outcomes, and Equity" (Russell Sage Foundation, 2009), W. Norton Grubb argues that how much we spend is less important than how we spend it. For decades, Grubb says, school spending has inexorably risen, while student achievement has stayed relatively stagnant. Maybe it's time to look at which expenditures actually improve education, he argues, and which are a waste. The Times' Mitchell Landsberg spoke to Grubb about his book.

Let me try to boil down the message in your book: Money matters, but only if it's spent well. Is that right?

That's certainly one of the conclusions, absolutely. And again, this phrase that I use constantly in the book is, "It's often necessary, but it's not sufficient." So it's finding what the necessary resources are in the school and then directing money and other resources -- like leadership, vision, cooperation, collaboration -- to them that makes a difference. And part of the point is an attempt to move the debates away from money to resources, because a lot of the debates in school finance have just been about money.

When you talk about resources, what does that take into account?

The resources that everybody talks about most of the time are what I call simple resources. So, most people argue most of the time about class size, teacher salaries, the average experience and credential levels of teachers, about the amounts of spending on books and computers and science labs and so forth. And that is certainly one category of resources and, under some conditions, they matter -- I'm not saying they don't matter. But many of the resources in schools turn out to be compound resources. We spent a lot of money in California on class-size reduction, and the evaluation that was undertaken showed no increases in test scores on average, because what happened is that the districts had to lower the quality of teachers to get more of them, particularly in urban schools. Teachers were leading their classes in broom closets and auditoriums and stuff like that -- inappropriate spaces. And I think, most of all, nobody had given the teachers any training in how to teach in smaller classes. If you're just going to lecture, it doesn't matter if you've got 25 or 15 students in a class -- you're not going to do anything different. You need to learn how to change teaching approaches. So the effective resource is class-size reduction and professional development to teach the teachers how to teach differently and adequate physical facilities and keeping the quality of teachers up. Which is what I call a compound resource. And then there are complex and abstract resources. Complex resources are things like instruction, the quality of teaching. I don't know how to put this -- it sounds kind of banal when I say it -- but learning depends on the quality of teaching, and it specifically depends on teachers moving away from information transfer, and drill and repetition, to forms of teaching that are often called conceptual, or teaching for meaning, or the current term that a lot of teachers use is balanced instruction.

So are our assessment tools, which is to say standardized tests, appropriate to measure this?

You know, they're not. And I think that what may happen under Round 2 of the movement for accountability -- Round 1 being a lot of state tests and No Child Left Behind -- is that we might try to develop more subtle assessments. For example, the California state tests that are used for both the state and federal accountability systems don't test conceptual thinking, they don't test higher-order thinking, they don't test a lot of the skills of the 21st century that a lot of people have been calling for. And what that does in low-performing schools is to drive the curriculum toward the most ineffective kinds of curricula and the most remedial kinds of pedagogy.

You say in the book that money is especially likely to be wasted in urban schools.

Well, I think instability in urban schools contributes to that. Because urban schools do seem more unstable than many suburban or rural schools. And it really just plays havoc with any sort of forward movement. For example, schools will get started on a particular reform under a principal, and then a new principal comes in and says, "Oh no, we're not going to do that, we're going to do this." Well, all that time and whatever money was spent on the older reform is now wasted, right? It's gone. And that does seem to be a much more powerful feature of urban schools than suburban schools.

Are there other ways that urban schools waste money?

Boy, the ones that I'm in contact with are constantly doing things like not getting state funding, categorical funding [to schools on time]. So they'll get it to schools in April. Well, that's too late to spend in any kind of coherent way. So that's a real problem. And one of the most serious kinds of problems comes in conflicts between districts and their schools. In a number of districts, they have specified the curriculum that schools must use, and in particular under No Child Left Behind they've specified these kinds of drill-oriented curricula, or scripted curricula. So you know, schools and teachers typically hate these things, and yet they find these imposed on them. And this is a recipe for disaster. Another kind of example that I hear about constantly is the district ordering books and curriculum materials for schools that schools haven't asked for. And then the books sit in storage cabinets somewhere.

At the moment, we have schools losing state funding [but] gaining federal stimulus money. Is this an opportunity to change the way they do business?

Well, I think it is, or at least it could be. If the federal stimulus money is just used to fill in shortfalls caused by the state budget problem, then of course there won't be any pressure for change. But my understanding is that the Obama administration is trying to use some of the stimulus money in what we would call project grants, grants for which districts have to apply and show what they're doing with that money in more innovative ways. But whether this happens or whether there is innovation in this moment of crisis, the coming of this new money, is really unclear to me.

You say that the United States has greater inequality of educational outcomes than any other developed country. Why is that?

Well, that's a $64,000 question. One reason is that we have greater inequality of the conditions in families that, in turn, cause the inequality in schools. We have greater inequality in our earnings distribution than almost any of the developed countries that we like to compare ourselves with. The connection between family background, particularly parental education, and how well kids do in school is profound. And then what we really do in this country is, we take the kids that are the most ready for school given their family backgrounds, and we put them in the best schools, and then the kids who are least ready for conventional school, we put them in really some of the worst schools with some of the most inexperienced and uncredentialed teachers. When you look at a country like Finland, which has a very narrow distribution of learning scores, the Finns have developed a series of practices in schools that are designed to help students who have fallen behind. In this country, we haven't done that, or we haven't done it effectively. We have a number of programs in schools that most educators call interventions, but when you actually look at them in schools, they're fragmented, ineffective and incomplete.

You write about second-chance programs, which are essentially the intervention programs you just referred to, and say this is an example of misused resources.

Well, no. I'm actually very ambivalent about these second-chance programs. It's true that many of them end up being misused resources, but I guess I hope they're not inevitably that way. The U.S. has more second-chance options than other school systems do. When you go to European countries, for example, or the Japanese or Korean system, if a kid doesn't get something in the normal course of schooling, they don't get a second chance. They don't get interventions. There's no institution like the community colleges for people who haven't done well enough in high school but could make it up and continue on to a four-year college. So I think it's a good thing that we have these second-chance programs. They enhance equity, they give chances to people who maybe blew it the first time but can pull themselves up by their bootstraps. It's a very American thing to do. On the other hand, the conditions in these second-chance programs are not great. We've got them, but we don't really deliver on what they could be.

You don't seem persuaded that charter schools are the answer.

The problem with talking about charter schools is that they vary so much. And there are, of course, some brilliant charter schools, and there are some charter schools that are doing everything right. And there are certainly some charter schools that are trying to get equity issues right. But the core of the charter school movement, I think, is this group of schools that I've labeled entrepreneurial. And they are schools managed by educational management organizations and charter management organizations. They tend to have a franchising model, so they develop a model for schools, and they expand by developing franchises, which may or may not understand much about education. They tend to see education as a managerial problem and an administrative problem. There's very little attention in this particular entrepreneurial sector of charter schools to the quality of instruction. They -- many of them, like the KIPP schools -- basically get in young, energetic 22-year-olds, don't provide them very much training, and then burn them up. They're not investing in the kind of resources that really make a difference to outcomes.

I know that KIPP would argue that their results suggest that they're doing the right thing.

I'd have to look at the KIPP results more carefully. And I haven't done that, and I don't know what the KIPP research looks like. But one of the things that happens in many schools, not just KIPP schools, is that they start with a number of students and then the ones who don't like the approach drop out. So you have a kind of filtering effect, where only the most successful students stay in the institution, and then at the end of the year, you end up evaluating the effect of the institution on the most successful kids.

Do you see examples of districts that are using their resources well?

Sure. [Good districts] have much better communication between the district level and the school level, they try to support schools in what they're doing, they pay much more attention to the quality of instruction, they tend to use tiered systems, that is, they put more resources into the schools that are in the worst shape.

And so what are these model districts?

Well, let's see. San Diego, to some extent. Long Beach is always mentioned. A group called Springboard Schools profiled three of them: Elk Grove, Oak Grove and Rowland, which is a district I've never heard about. These are known places, and people have been visiting them, and I don't think it's a secret what they're doing, but getting districts to change is difficult.

Any discussion about resources in schools usually comes around to the role of teachers unions and whether they're a force for, you know . . . Good or evil?

Good or evil. Where do you come down on that?

Well, I have to say that there are several different kinds of teacher unions. And the dominant one, unfortunately, is one that's usually called an industrial union. And it follows the pattern of unions that have developed in industry where the main concerns are wages, working conditions and employment rights. And unions that follow that pattern are the ones, for example, who will defend teachers at almost any cost -- will be very reluctant to concede that there are teachers who are not doing their jobs. And these are the kinds of unions that I think people usually think of when they talk about unions impeding reform. There have been some movements in this country toward professional unions, which are more concerned with the professional status of teaching, with making sure that teachers are the ones making instructional decisions, with making sure that teachers have the competencies necessary to make decisions about instruction, and which are willing to work much more collaboratively with administrators in a model that's usually called distributed leadership. Unions don't have to be barriers, but I think they sometimes are, given that we have lots of old-style industrial unions. I think reforming unions needs to go on in parallel with everything else.

mitchell.landsberg@latimes.com

 

From the Los Angeles Times

 

 

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Bill Gates And His Silver Bullet

 

 

Contributors

 

Diane Ravitch 11.19.08, 12:01 AM ET

Back in 2000, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation had a big idea about how to fix the problems of American education. Break up large high schools and turn them into small schools and "small learning communities" of 400 or fewer students.

The foundation believed that its new small high schools would lift graduation rates and student achievement, especially among minority students, because of the close relationships between students and teachers.

 

In 2005, Bill Gates told the National Governors Association that "America's high schools are obsolete." The next year, I heard him in Davos, Switzerland, at the World Economic Forum, where he said that the key to the success of the small schools created by his foundation was that they made everything "relevant," through hands-on activities and familiar topics.

The foundation spent some $2 billion promoting the dissolution of large high schools and the creation of small schools. Big-city superintendents stood in line, ready to jump on the Gates' bandwagon, and today there are small schools in every urban district.

 

Funded by Gates, some 2,600 new small high schools opened in 45 states and the District of Columbia. New York City alone has more than 200 such schools, with high schools devoted to such themes as leadership, the sports professions, technology, health professions, the media, diversity, peace and social justice.

 

On Nov. 11, the Gates Foundation convened a meeting of leading figures in American education to admit candidly that the new small high schools had not fulfilled their promise. The foundation acknowledged that "we have not seen dramatic improvements in the number of students who leave high school adequately prepared to enroll in and complete a two- or four-year postsecondary degree or credential."

 

The bad news about the Gates' initiative began to accumulate in 2005, when a Gates-funded study by the American Institutes for Research showed that students in traditional, comprehensive high schools were learning more mathematics than those in the Gates' small schools. The researchers also found that "relevance" was not correlated with the quality of student learning. Then in 2006, additional research commissioned by the foundation concluded that the Gates-funded small schools had "higher attendance rates but lower test scores" than other high schools within the same school districts in both reading and mathematics.

 

We must give the Gates Foundation and its founders credit for their honest self-scrutiny. Most proponents of education reform defend their ideas against all critics, regardless of what evaluations show.

 

At his recent meeting in Seattle, Bill Gates pointed to New York City's Gates-funded small high schools as a success because early reports showed a 70% graduation rate compared to a district-wide average of 50%. But what Gates did not realize was that the small schools in New York City were permitted to restrict the admission of English-language learners and disabled students, meaning that the large schools got a disproportionate share of students with high needs.

Last April, The New York Times revealed that some of New York City's small schools achieved higher graduation rates by practicing "credit recovery," meaning that students could get full credit for a course they had failed or never attended by showing up for an extra class for a few days or by finishing a project out of school.

 

But even in New York City, Mr. Gates acknowledged, less than 40% of the graduates from the small high schools were ready for their college classes at the City University of New York.

 

The Gates Foundation's mistake was in believing that there is a silver bullet to solve the problems of inner-city schools, which enroll large numbers of students who are poor, have limited English language proficiency, and are more likely to require special education. Small schools are just right for students who need intense remediation and lots of extra attention, but they do not offer the same menu of advanced courses and electives, extracurricular activities and vocational courses that most students associate with going to high school. And many students have health problems and issues related to their family's poverty that even the smallest of schools can't solve.

Our nation used to have huge numbers of small high schools; they were rural schools, which were unable to offer the same educational opportunities as big-city high schools. The press for small schools, now taken up by almost every big-city district, has diverted our attention from the need to strengthen curriculum and instruction, beginning in elementary schools.

Whether a school is small or large, the essential questions in education cannot be ignored: What should students learn? How should they be taught? Are classes too large, especially for struggling students? Are teachers well-prepared in the subjects they teach? Do teachers have the resources they need? Do students arrive in school ready to learn? Until we answer these questions, the size of schools is not a relevant issue.

The good news is that the Gates Foundation, with its vast resources, has pledged to devote its attention to what happens in the classroom. The first thing it will learn is that there are no quick fixes. If it targets its dollars wisely, exercises a measure of humility, and continues to evaluate its efforts rigorously, it can make a positive difference.

Diane Ravitch is a member of the Koret Task Force at the Hoover Institution at Stanford and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.

 

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Title I Turnaround Programs Due for Big Cash Boost

By David J. Hoff In the seven years since enactment of No Child Left Behind Act, the number of academically troubled schools identified for turnarounds has grown steadily.

The federal money for the work of turning around them hadn’t—until now.

The change came last month when President Barack Obama signed the economic-stimulus measure into law. The $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will give states a previously unexpected $3.4 billion to spend on improving the schools that are farthest from reaching the NCLB law’s goal that all children be proficient in reading and math by the end of the 2013-14 school year.

“With these kind of revenues, you can do some things that had been on the table but weren’t attainable,” said Peter McWalters, Rhode Island’s commissioner of education. He listed options such as summer professional development for teachers, leadership training for principals, and academic and leadership coaches for struggling schools.

Help on the Way

Federal money for school improvement projects will rise dramatically this and next fiscal year.

SOURCE: Education Week

Note: Totals include money appropriated specifically for school improvement and money reserved for that purpose under the NCLB law’s Title I. Other state leaders are mulling similar ways to use the $3.4 billion in stimulus money for school improvement over the next two years.

Such comprehensive approaches are important, one researcher said, because schools identified for help under the program need comprehensive and sustained interventions for them to succeed.

“It’s a really complex problem, and no single thing ... is guaranteed success,” said Caitlin Scott, who has studied states’ school improvement efforts for the Center on Education Policy, a Washington-based research and advocacy group that is tracking implementation of the NCLB law. “There’s not just one thing you can purchase.”

Big Pay Day

As with several other K-12 programs, the so-called school improvement section of the NCLB law will receive a sudden infusion of money that many in the education field could not have expected before the nation’s economy fell into crisis, prompting the stimulus package.

The new measure appropriates $6.5 billion in fiscal 2009 and again in fiscal 2010 for the NCLB law’s Title I program, which serves schools with high numbers or percentages of disadvantaged students. In each fiscal year, $1.5 billion is reserved for the so-called school improvement program under Title I.

 

And of the $5 billion remaining each year, the No Child Left Behind law requires states to reserve 4 percent for improving schools that have persistently failed to make adequate yearly progress, or AYP, under the 2002 law and to provide other technical assistance to districts.

 

In all, that will give states $1.7 billion in fiscal 2009 and fiscal 2010 for school improvement.

What’s more, states will receive another $1.1 billion for school improvement efforts under the fiscal 2009 omnibus spending bill that President Obama signed last week. ("Winners vs. Losers In 2009's Budget," this issue.)

With a total of $2.8 billion allocated in fiscal 2009, and probably at least that much again in fiscal 2010, states’ school improvement efforts will receive a dramatic influx of cash over spending levels from two years ago.

Using that money to fix struggling schools will be a key part of the Obama administration’s efforts, federal officials say, to reduce the dropout rate and increase the number of students earning college degrees.

“Stemming the tide of dropouts will require turning around our low-performing schools,” President Obama said in a March 10 speech at a meeting of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

And in guidance released March 7 on how to spend the stimulus money available for education, the U.S. Department of Education underscored the emphasis on school improvement efforts by saying it would not grant states’ requests to spend the improvement money on other priorities in the Title I program.

Working With Districts

Under the NCLB law, states must allocate 95 percent of such improvement money to districts. So far, states have taken several approaches to spending it, according to Ms. Scott of the Center on Education Policy, who has studied such efforts in five states.

Most states send a team of experts to review a school who recommend and monitor changes. In that process, the team or other consultants provide professional development for teachers and principals. Some states hire academic coaches for teachers or mentors for principals, with the aim of helping them improve their instructional strategies and leadership.

Arkansas, for example, is using America’s Choice, a school improvement model developed by the National Center for Education and the Economy, based in Washington.

But critics say such approaches have been inadequate so far.

“By and large, most cities feel that [states’ help] isn’t meeting their needs, is weak, is not focused, and is not terribly effective,” said Michael Casserly, the executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools, a Washington group that represents about 60 of the nation’s largest urban districts.

Big Task

At the end of the 2007-08 school year, about 3,600 public schools—or 4 percent the total—had failed to make adequate yearly progress for five or more years. That number had doubled by 2008-09. ("Schools Struggling to Meet Key Goal on Accountability," Jan. 7, 2009.)

And states may end up considering drastic steps in schools failing to show signs of improvement.

Those steps could include closing poor-performing schools and converting them to charter schools, or using school interventions that have proved successful elsewhere, said Alex Medler, the vice president of research and analysis for the Colorado Children’s Campaign, a Denver-based advocacy group that helps run school improvement programs.

Without such aggressive moves, improvement efforts could result in little change or progress, said Rae Belisle, a member of the California board of education.

“We keep doing the same old thing out there,” said Ms. Belisle, who is the chief executive officer of EdVoice, a Sacramento-based nonprofit organization that links donors with parent groups working to improve California schools.

“They piddle this money away,” she said of her state’s efforts under the NCLB law and state programs.

SOURCE: Education Week

 

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Published Online: March 23, 2009

State at Vanguard of Standards Movement Starts Over

By David J. Hoff

 

Kentucky lawmakers have passed a bill to overhaul the state’s K-12 assessment system, putting the Bluegrass State in the spotlight on testing issues—and possibly making it a national leader on the issue once again.

 

The legislation overwhelmingly approved this month would create a series of tests aligned to new standards that are to be internationally benchmarked and designed to ensure students are prepared to enter the workforce or go to college.

 

The new testing system also would add a norm-referenced test to give parents and policymakers a measure of how individual students are performing against the national average. And it would drop the state’s writing portfolio, heeding complaints from educators and parents that the portfolio took too much time away from instruction.

 

Gov. Steve Beshear, a Democrat, has said he will sign the law.

“This will be brand-new for Kentucky,” said Ken Draut, the state’s associate commissioner for assessment and accountability. “This is the next generation of our assessment/accountability system being born.”

 

Kentucky has been seen as a bellwether on testing and accountability since 1990, when the legislature restructured the state’s education system in response to a 1989 Kentucky supreme court decision saying the school system was unconstitutional. In the 1990 Kentucky Education Reform Act, Kentucky became the first state to set academic standards, write tests to measure students’ progress toward them, and hold schools accountable for ensuring students are proficient in them.

Activity Elsewhere

The bill to rewrite Kentucky’s assessment system comes as other states are considering major changes to their testing programs.

 

Washington state Superintendent Randy Dorn has unveiled a new testing program that would reduce testing time, publish test scores faster, and rely more on technology. The changes would fulfill a promise he made during his election campaign last year to overhaul the Washington Assessment of Student Learning.

 

In Texas, former Lt. Gov. Bill Ratliff, a Republican who helped design the state’s testing program as a state senator in the 1990s, and other state leaders are urging lawmakers to reduce the state’s reliance on standardized, multiple-choice tests to make accountability decisions.

The changes are a sign that states are responding to calls to improve the quality of their tests, expand the uses of them, and reduce the time dedicated to testing, said Stanley Rabinowitz, the senior program director for assessment and standards development for WestEd, a San Francisco-based regional laboratory providing services to states.

 

“Everything goes in waves,” he said. “The wave this time will be on the need to prove your standards have been properly benchmarked, rigor-wise.”

 

States also are under pressure to reduce the amount of time dedicated to testing and to deliver test results that help inform teachers’ instructional decisions, said Mr. Rabinowitz, whose center at WestEd designs state tests, including Kentucky’s.

Officials also are facing pressure to measure whether students have the critical thinking and other skills needed to succeed after graduation, even as states continue to track whether students know specific content, said Roger Sampson, the president of the Education Commission of the States, a Denver-based clearinghouse of information about state policy.

 

“It shouldn’t be: Do we do 21st-century skills or content?” he said. “It’s got to be both.”

Accountability on Hold

In Kentucky, the new testing system is scheduled to be ready for use in the 2011-12 school year. Until then, the state are to discontinue delivering school-level accountability reports based on all of the subjects in the Kentucky assessment system.

 

While the new testing is being built, the state would continue to report accountability results based on reading and mathematics scores to comply with the 7-year-old No Child Left Behind Act. The NCLB law requires states to assess student performance in those subjects in grades 3-8 and once in high school and determine whether states are making adequate yearly progress toward all students becoming proficient in reading and math by the end of the 2013-14 school year.

 

The state intends to continue to give its tests in science, social studies, and writing. It also plans to continue to publicly report schools’ scores but not include them in any accountability system.

 

Long-time advocates of the state’s accountability rules are concerned that parents and community members won’t be getting an easy-to-understand report on how specific schools are doing.

“We’ve always been really pleased that Kentucky was willing to [hold schools accountable for] the whole curriculum,” said Robert F. Sexton, the executive director of the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence, a Lexington, Ky.-based group of community activists that has been the leading supporter of the state’s 20-year-old effort to improve its schools.

 With accountability now to be limited to reading and math, Mr. Sexton said he fears teachers will focus narrowly on those subjects and slight other subjects.

 

But the absence of accountability in the short term won’t change practice, said one school superintendent.

 

“We’re going to ensure that every child gets a total education, regardless of whether the area is assessed or not,” said Jerry Ralston, the superintendent of the 4,200-student Barren County schools.

New Beginning

As they start over almost 20 years after Kentucky’s groundbreaking accountability law, officials’ first step would be to rewrite the academic standards, which Mr. Draut of the state education department characterized as “very wide and shallow.” The goal is for the new standards to be “deeper, fewer, and clearer,” he said.

 

“That’s what will make the assessments fundamentally different from what we had before,” Mr. Draut said.

 

Under the bill, starting in the 2009-10 school year, Kentucky would add a new norm-referenced test and continue the state’s existing testing system, except for the writing portfolios.

 

A new battery of tests would be ready for the 2011-12 school year. Those news tests would be aligned to the new standards.

The state’s board of education plans to design a new accountability system to match the state tests.

 

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

 

 

Education Week

 

 

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Education system hurt through proposed use of stimulus funds

BY ROBERT M. MCNAB

 

 

Fungible: "being of such a nature that one part or quantity may be replaced by another equal part or quantity in the satisfaction of an obligation"

- Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, 2009

In his March 21 Soapbox commentary in The Salinas Californian, "Education leaders should communicate plans to the public," U.S. Rep. Sam Farr, D-Carmel, decried the inability of state leaders to quickly formulate and make publicly available a plan for federal stimulus dollars.

Yet, it is becoming quickly apparent that the legislators in Sacramento do have a plan for these funds, a plan that again attempts to balance the budget on the already broken back of the education system.

The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office recommended to the Assembly Education Committee and Assembly Budget Subcommittee on March 18 that California should use its almost $5 billion in stabilization funding for education to "maximize General Fund relief in 2009-10 and 2010-11." Yet the federal stimulus package contains language that state governments must maintain a level of effort equivalent to that of 2005-06. How can these two views of the stimulus be reconciled?

In public budgeting, we use the term "fungible" to categorize funds that can be swapped for other purposes. The state government, I fear, is proposing to do just that. To use the federal education stimulus funds for deficit relief, the Legislature will have to cut education BELOW 2005-06 levels and use the education stimulus to backfill the funding shortage. As state Senate President Pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg argued, "Money is money, and the fact of the matter is that we have to triage, we have to get through this crisis."

It's not that the state government lacks a plan; it is that the state government's plan runs counter to the needs of local school districts. By not publishing a plan to use the education stimulus, by not routing the education stimulus to local districts as quickly as possible, and in fact, by delaying decisions until after the May special election, the Legislature and the governor are placing school districts in the unenviable position of having to notify teachers of impending layoffs.

It is not that the governor and Legislature have failed to place the education stimulus in context, it is that their context does not include the needs of children to receive quality education in an environment where they are not competing with 30 or more children for the teacher's attention.

•Robert M. McNab is an associate professor of economics at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey and a member of the Spreckels Union School District Board of Trustees.

Salinas Californian

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Arne Duncan: Educating our way to a better economy

04:48 PM CDT on Monday, March 23, 2009

 

President Barack Obama recently challenged all Americans to overcome the stale debates that have paralyzed progress on education so that we can offer every child in this country the chance to out-compete any worker worldwide. That is a central mission of the budget that President Obama is submitting to Congress.

 

This budget makes a substantial down payment on our education agenda – aimed at preparing Americans from the cradle up through a career. That means raising the quality of early childhood programs; ending state caps on the number of allowable charter schools; rewarding good teachers and removing bad ones; adding learning time to the school year; and putting the dream of a college degree within reach for anyone who wants one.

 

It is an ambitious agenda and enacting it will require both resources and political will. We have the resources. But do we have the will?

 

I was heartened by the reaction to the president's speech. Union leaders vowed to have an open mind on issues like performance pay, higher standards and charters, asking only that reform be done "with them, not to them." Officials at every level of government are also broadly supportive.

 

They are also asking the right questions: how can we ensure that taxpayer dollars make a meaningful and lasting difference in the classroom? How can we make sure these funds are spent effectively?

 

The answer is simple: We are demanding absolute transparency for every tax dollar spent and we will use the power of the bully pulpit and the power of the purse to reward what is working and to reform what is not.

 

At a minimum, the Recovery Act will help keep teachers teaching and students learning. But if all we do is perpetuate the status quo, we will miss this historic opportunity. That's why states that are accepting funding from the Recovery Act must commit to making four reforms. They must:

 

•Adopt internationally benchmarked standards and assessments that better prepare students for college and a career. Today, some states intentionally lower standards, essentially lying to kids by telling them they are ready for college when they are not.

 

•Build high-quality data systems that track a student's academic career, making it possible to tell which teachers, programs and schools are effective. Better data can foster a shared understanding among educators and parents about what is necessary to improve a child's education, creating, as President Obama said, "a culture of accountability."

 

•Recruit more high-quality educators to underperforming schools as well as to subjects like math and science. If recruiting teachers and principals to the schools and subjects that need them most means offering them extra pay, we should provide it.

 

•Support effective strategies to turn around underperforming schools. Closing failing schools and replacing staff is tough medicine, but the alternative is unacceptable.

 

To receive subsequent funding from the Recovery Act, states must develop a detailed plan to advance these reforms. States with the most comprehensive and cutting-edge reform plans can also win a share of a $5 billion "Race to the Top" fund – a portion of which will go directly to districts and non-profits that are achieving results.

 

Obama called on Americans to stop fighting with each other about education and start fighting for our kids. That means not only passing this budget but also doing all we can – as parents, teachers, principals, administrators, and national leaders – to help restore America's global leadership in education. That is how we will not only make America more competitive in the 21st century – but ensure that all our sons and daughters have a chance to fulfill their God-given potential and reach for the American dream.

 

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/viewpoints/stories/DN-duncan_24edi.State.Edition1.284b17c.html

 

 

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Education Excerpt President Obama's

Costa Mesa Town Hall meeting

 

 

Q    Thank you.  Hi.  I'm a teacher in Santa Ana.  (Applause.)  Thank you.  And I got my RIF notice on Saturday and --

 

 

THE PRESIDENT:  I'm sorry, you got what notice?

 

 

Q    My RIF notice, which is I'm going to be -- the intention to be laid off.

 

 

THE PRESIDENT:  A pink slip?

 

 

Q    Yes, a pink slip.  That's why it went pink.  My question is -- oh, I'm so nervous, okay.  Thank you for coming.

 

 

THE PRESIDENT:  You're doing great.

 

 

Q    I just love you.  Okay.  Our class sizes are between 36 and 44.  This is normal.  I've been in the district for over 25 years.  I have seen what our kids can do when someone cares.  The Teacher of the Year also received a pink slip.  We're talking about quality teachers being laid off because of something -- I don't know what.  Tomorrow we have a meeting.

 

 

My real question is, you have put money towards retention.  How are we going to make sure that money comes to our districts that need it the most, the urban districts?  (Applause.)

 

 

THE PRESIDENT:  Well, look, most of -- almost all of the money -- almost all of the money that's going to states under the Recovery Act for education is designed to retain teachers.  Almost -- the lion's share of it.  I mean, there's some money for school construction as well, and there's some money for innovation because we can't just put more money into the schools without also reforming the schools and making them better.

 

 

But a huge -- right now the biggest chunk is for teacher retention.  It generally flows in the same way the Title I monies flow, so that there should be a formula that the states are working with in terms of how it's allocated to various districts.  I don't know the exact figures here in California or what would happen in terms of this school district.  Your school superintendent is here, though -- there he is right here --

 

 

AUDIENCE:  Boo!

 

 

THE PRESIDENT:  Wait, wait, wait, wait.  Hold on a second.  Hold on.  Hey, hold on a second.  It's not his fault that the state has run out of money.  So he is going to -- he is -- he was in a meeting with Arne Duncan, our Secretary of Education, and I stopped by in the meeting -- and these were the school superintendents for all -- all across the country, to come together and work on how do we both deal with the immediate short-term crisis, but also how do we think about long-term reforms?

 

 

You're right that class size is something that we've got to deal with.  You can't have a 5th grade class with 40 kids.  There's no teacher who can deal with 40 kids all at the same time, especially if many of them are at different levels in terms of reading and math skills and so forth.  So we've got to do something about that.

 

 

But what's also true, though, is we've got to provide better teacher training.  There are teachers who may not know their subject matter as well as they should.  They've got to be given more time to -- for professional development.  We've got to have more flexibility, I believe, in terms of how we reward teachers.  I think that it is important for us to make sure that we have assessments that everybody can agree -- because ultimately we've got to know that our kids are meeting high standards.

 

 

Now, it can't just be a single high-stakes standardized test -- but we do need to have strong, powerful measures of performance, because schools are like anything else.  We can't afford our kids to be mediocre at a time when they're competing against kids in China and kids in India who are actually in school about a month longer than our kids.  So there's a whole bunch of reforms that we're going to have to do.

 

 

And the last point that I always make -- so I'll make this again -- is we've got to do our jobs as parents.  You can't put all the burden on a teacher.  (Applause.)  You can't put all the burden on a teacher.  If you're not making sure your child does their homework, if you're not reading to them, instilling a sense of excellence and a thirst for knowledge in them, then they're not going to do very well, no matter how good your teacher is.  Okay, so that's very important.

 

 

One last point I want to make about education:  This budget that we are now arguing about -- and you're going to be hearing a bunch of arguments about, oh, you know, Obama, he's a spendthrift, et cetera, et cetera, -- we reduce non-defense discretionary spending as a percentage of gross domestic product, but what we insist on is that we make some investments in education.

 

 

And I haven't -- and one of the things that we haven't talked about is higher education.  I've said we've got to increase student loans, student grants, the Pell Grant program. That's got to be a priority.  (Applause.)  That's our future, and I'm going to fight for it.  I don't care how long it takes, we're going to make it more affordable to go to college, because that's what everybody needs.  (Applause.)

 

 

All right, we need a gentleman.  Gentleman in the tie right here.  Since he wore a tie today, I appreciate that.  (Laughter.)

 

Full text of President Obama's Costa Mesa Town Hall meeting

 

 

 LAT Home > Blogs > Top of the Ticket

 

 

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Remarks of the President to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

_____________________________________________________________________

For Immediate Release March 10, 2009

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT

TO THE HISPANIC CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

ON A COMPLETE AND COMPETITIVE AMERICAN EDUCATION

Washington Marriott Metro Center

Washington, D.C.

9:54 A.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. (Applause.) Si se puede.

 

AUDIENCE: Si se puede! Si se puede! Si se puede!

 

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you so much. Please, everybody have a seat. Thank you for the wonderful introduction, David. And thank you for the great work that you are doing each and every day. And I appreciate such a warm welcome. Some of you I've gotten a chance to know; many of you I'm meeting for the first time. But the spirit of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the desire to create jobs and provide opportunity to people who sometimes have been left out -- that's exactly what this administration is about. That's the essence of the American Dream. And so I'm very proud to have a chance to speak with all of you.

You know, every so often, throughout our history, a generation of Americans bears the responsibility of seeing this country through difficult times and protecting the dream of its founding for posterity. This is a responsibility that's fallen to our generation. Meeting it will require steering our nation's economy through a crisis unlike anything that we have seen in our time.

 

In the short term, that means jump-starting job creation and restarting lending, and restoring confidence in our markets and our financial system. But it also means taking steps that not only advance our recovery, but lay the foundation for lasting, shared prosperity.

 

I know there's some who believe we can only handle one challenge at a time. And they forget that Lincoln helped lay down the transcontinental railroad and passed the Homestead Act and created the National Academy of Sciences in the midst of civil war. Likewise, President Roosevelt didn't have the luxury of choosing between ending a depression and fighting a war; he had to do both. President Kennedy didn't have the luxury of choosing between civil rights and sending us to the moon. And we don't have the luxury of choosing between getting our economy moving now and rebuilding it over the long term.

 

America will not remain true to its highest ideals -- and America's place as a global economic leader will be put at risk -- unless we not only bring down the crushing cost of health care and transform the way we use energy, but also if we do -- if we don't do a far better job than we've been doing of educating our sons and daughters; unless we give them the knowledge and skills they need in this new and changing world.

 

For we know that economic progress and educational achievement have always gone hand in hand in America. The land-grant colleges and public high schools transformed the economy of an industrializing nation. The GI Bill generated a middle class that made America's economy unrivaled in the 20th century. Investments in math and science under President Eisenhower gave new opportunities to young scientists and engineers all across the country. It made possible somebody like a Sergei Brin to attend graduate school and found an upstart company called Google that would forever change our world.

 

The source of America's prosperity has never been merely how ably we accumulate wealth, but how well we educate our people. This has never been more true than it is today. In a 21st-century world where jobs can be shipped wherever there's an Internet connection, where a child born in Dallas is now competing with a child in New Delhi, where your best job qualification is not what you do, but what you know -- education is no longer just a pathway to opportunity and success, it's a prerequisite for success.

 

That's why workers without a four-year degree have borne the brunt of recent layoffs, Latinos most of all. That's why, of the 30 fastest growing occupations in America, half require a Bachelor's degree or more. By 2016, four out of every 10 new jobs will require at least some advanced education or training.

 

So let there be no doubt: The future belongs to the nation that best educates its citizens -- and my fellow Americans, we have everything we need to be that nation. We have the best universities, the most renowned scholars. We have innovative principals and passionate teachers and gifted students, and we have parents whose only priority is their child's education. We have a legacy of excellence, and an unwavering belief that our children should climb higher than we did.

 

And yet, despite resources that are unmatched anywhere in the world, we've let our grades slip, our schools crumble, our teacher quality fall short, and other nations outpace us. Let me give you a few statistics. In 8th grade math, we've fallen to 9th place. Singapore's middle-schoolers outperform ours three to one. Just a third of our 13- and 14-year-olds can read as well as they should. And year after year, a stubborn gap persists between how well white students are doing compared to their African American and Latino classmates. The relative decline of American education is untenable for our economy, it's unsustainable for our democracy, it's unacceptable for our children -- and we can't afford to let it continue.

What's at stake is nothing less than the American Dream. It's what drew my father and so many of your fathers and mothers to our shores in pursuit of an education. It's what led Linda Brown and Gonzalo and Felicitas Mendez to bear the standard of all who were attending separate and unequal schools. It's what has led generations of Americans to take on that extra job, to sacrifice the small pleasures, to scrimp and save wherever they can, in hopes of putting away enough, just enough, to give their child the education that they never had. It's that most American of ideas, that with the right education, a child of any race, any faith, any station, can overcome whatever barriers stand in their way and fulfill their God-given potential. (Applause.)

 

Of course, we've heard all this year after year after year after year -- and far too little has changed. Certainly it hasn't changed in too many overcrowded Latino schools; it hasn't changed in too many inner-city schools that are seeing dropout rates of over 50 percent. It's not changing not because we're lacking sound ideas or sensible plans -- in pockets of excellence across this country, we're seeing what children from all walks of life can and will achieve when we set high standards, have high expectations, when we do a good job of preparing them. Instead, it's because politics and ideology have too often trumped our progress that we're in the situation that we're in.

 

For decades, Washington has been trapped in the same stale debates that have paralyzed progress and perpetuated our educational decline. Too many supporters of my party have resisted the idea of rewarding excellence in teaching with extra pay, even though we know it can make a difference in the classroom. Too many in the Republican Party have opposed new investments in early education, despite compelling evidence of its importance. So what we get here in Washington is the same old debate about it's more money versus more reform, vouchers versus the status quo. There's been partisanship and petty bickering, but little recognition that we need to move beyond the worn fights of the 20th century if we're going to succeed in the 21st century. (Applause.)

 

I think you'd all agree that the time for finger-pointing is over. The time for holding us -- holding ourselves accountable is here. What's required is not simply new investments, but new reforms. It's time to expect more from our students. It's time to start rewarding good teachers, stop making excuses for bad ones. It's time to demand results from government at every level. It's time to prepare every child, everywhere in America, to out-compete any worker, anywhere in the world.

 

(Applause.) It's time to give all Americans a complete and competitive education from the cradle up through a career. We've accepted failure for far too long. Enough is enough. America's entire education system must once more be the envy of the world -- and that's exactly what we intend to do.

 

That's exactly what the budget I'm submitting to Congress has begun to achieve. Now, at a time when we've inherited a trillion-dollar deficit, we will start by doing a little housekeeping, going through our books, cutting wasteful education programs. My outstanding Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, who's here today -- stand up, Arne, so everybody can see you. (Applause.) I'm assuming you also saw my Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis. (Applause.) But Secretary Duncan will use only one test when deciding what ideas to support with your precious tax dollars: It's not whether an idea is liberal or conservative, but whether it works. And this will help free up resources for the first pillar of reforming our schools -- investing in early childhood initiatives.

 

This isn't just about keeping an eye on our children, it's about educating them. Studies show that children in early childhood education programs are more likely to score higher in reading and math, more likely to graduate from high school and attend college, more likely to hold a job, and more likely to earn more in that job. For every dollar we invest in these programs, we get nearly $10 back in reduced welfare rolls, fewer health care costs, and less crime. That's why the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that I signed into law invests $5 billion in growing Early Head Start and Head Start, expanding access to quality child care for 150,000 more children from working families, and doing more for children with special needs. And that's why we are going to offer 55,000 first-time parents regular visits from trained nurses to help make sure their children are healthy and prepare them for school and for life. (Applause.)

 

Even as we invest in early childhood education, let's raise the bar for early learning programs that are falling short. Now, today, some children are enrolled in excellent programs. Some children are enrolled in mediocre programs. And some are wasting away their most formative years in bad programs. That includes the one-fourth of all children who are Hispanic, and who will drive America's workforce of tomorrow, but who are less likely to have been enrolled in an early childhood education program than anyone else.

 

That's why I'm issuing a challenge to our states: Develop a cutting-edge plan to raise the quality of your early learning programs; show us how you'll work to ensure that children are better prepared for success by the time they enter kindergarten. If you do, we will support you with an Early Learning Challenge Grant that I call on Congress to enact. That's how we will reward quality and incentivize excellence, and make a down payment on the success of the next generation.

 

So that's the first pillar of our education reform agenda. The second, we will end what has become a race to the bottom in our schools and instead spur a race to the top by encouraging better standards and assessments. Now, this is an area where we are being outpaced by other nations. It's not that their kids are any smarter than ours -- it's that they are being smarter about how to educate their children. They're spending less time teaching things that don't matter, and more time teaching things that do. They're preparing their students not only for high school or college, but for a career. We are not. Our curriculum for 8th graders is two full years behind top performing countries. That's a prescription for economic decline. And I refuse to accept that America's children cannot rise to this challenge. They can, and they must, and they will meet higher standards in our time. (Applause.)

 

So let's challenge our states -- let's challenge our states to adopt world-class standards that will bring our curriculums to the 21st century. Today's system of 50 different sets of benchmarks for academic success means 4th grade readers in Mississippi are scoring nearly 70 points lower than students in Wyoming -- and they're getting the same grade. Eight of our states are setting their standards so low that their students may end up on par with roughly the bottom 40 percent of the world.

 

That's inexcusable. That's why I'm calling on states that are setting their standards far below where they ought to be to stop low-balling expectations for our kids. The solution to low test scores is not lowering standards -- it's tougher, clearer standards. (Applause.) Standards like those in Massachusetts, where 8th graders are -- (applause) -- we have a Massachusetts contingent here. (Laughter.) In Massachusetts, 8th graders are now tying for first -- first in the whole world in science. Other forward-thinking states are moving in the same direction by coming together as part of a consortium. And more states need to do the same. And I'm calling on our nation's governors and state education chiefs to develop standards and assessments that don't simply measure whether students can fill in a bubble on a test, but whether they possess 21st century skills like problem-solving and critical thinking and entrepreneurship and creativity.

 

That is what we'll help them do later this year -- that what we're going to help them do later this year when we finally make No Child Left Behind live up to its name by ensuring not only that teachers and principals get the funding that they need, but that the money is tied to results. (Applause.) And Arne Duncan will also back up this commitment to higher standards with a fund to invest in innovation in our school districts.

 

Of course, raising standards alone will not make much of a difference unless we provide teachers and principals with the information they need to make sure students are prepared to meet those standards. And far too few states have data systems like the one in Florida that keep track of a student's education from childhood through college. And far too few districts are emulating the example of Houston and Long Beach, and using data to track how much progress a student is making and where that student is struggling. That's a resource that can help us improve student achievement, and tell us which students had which teachers so we can assess what's working and what's not. That's why we're making a major investment in this area that we will cultivate a new culture of accountability in America's schools.

Now, to complete our race to the top requires the third pillar of reform -- recruiting, preparing, and rewarding outstanding teachers. From the moment students enter a school, the most important factor in their success is not the color of their skin or the income of their parents, it's the person standing at the front of the classroom. That's why our Recovery Act will ensure that hundreds of thousands of teachers and school personnel are not laid off -- because those Americans are not only doing jobs they can't afford to lose, they're rendering a service our nation cannot afford to lose, either. (Applause.)

 

America's future depends on its teachers. And so today, I'm calling on a new generation of Americans to step forward and serve our country in our classrooms. If you want to make a difference in the life of our nation, if you want to make the most of your talents and dedication, if you want to make your mark with a legacy that will endure -- then join the teaching profession. America needs you. We need you in our suburbs. We need you in our small towns. We especially need you in our inner cities. We need you in classrooms all across our country.

 

And if you do your part, then we'll do ours. That's why we're taking steps to prepare teachers for their difficult responsibilities, and encourage them to stay in the profession. That's why we're creating new pathways to teaching and new incentives to bring teachers to schools where they're needed most. That's why we support offering extra pay to Americans who teach math and science to end a teacher shortage in those subjects. It's why we're building on the promising work being done in places like South Carolina's Teachers Advancement Program, and making an unprecedented commitment to ensure that anyone entrusted with educating our children is doing the job as well as it can be done.

 

Now, here's what that commitment means: It means treating teachers like the professionals they are while also holding them more accountable -- in up to 150 more school districts. New teachers will be mentored by experienced ones. Good teachers will be rewarded with more money for improved student achievement, and asked to accept more responsibilities for lifting up their schools. Teachers throughout a school will benefit from guidance and support to help them improve.

 

And just as we've given our teachers all the support they need to be successful, we need to make sure our students have the teacher they need to be successful. And that means states and school districts taking steps to move bad teachers out of the classroom. But let me be clear -- (applause.) Let me be clear -- the overwhelming number of teachers are doing an outstanding job under difficult circumstances. My sister is a teacher, so I know how tough teaching can be. But let me be clear: If a teacher is given a chance or two chances or three chances but still does not improve, there's no excuse for that person to continue teaching. I reject a system that rewards failure and protects a person from its consequences. The stakes are too high. We can afford nothing but the best when it comes to our children's teachers and the schools where they teach. (Applause.)

 

Now, that leads me to the fourth part of America's education strategy -- promoting innovation and excellence in America's schools. One of the places where much of that innovation occurs is in our most effective charter schools. And these are public schools founded by parents, teachers, and civic or community organizations with broad leeway to innovate -- schools I supported as a state legislator and a United States senator.

 

But right now, there are many caps on how many charter schools are allowed in some states, no matter how well they're preparing our students. That isn't good for our children, our economy, or our country. Of course, any expansion of charter schools must not result in the spread of mediocrity, but in the advancement of excellence. And that will require states adopting both a rigorous selection and review process to ensure that a charter school's autonomy is coupled with greater accountability -- as well as a strategy, like the one in Chicago, to close charter schools that are not working. Provided this greater accountability, I call on states to reform their charter rules, and lift caps on the number of allowable charter schools, wherever such caps are in place.

 

Now, even as we foster innovation in where our children are learning, let's also foster innovation in when our children are learning. We can no longer afford an academic calendar designed for when America was a nation of farmers who needed their children at home plowing the land at the end of each day. That calendar may have once made sense, but today it puts us at a competitive disadvantage. Our children -- listen to this -- our children spend over a month less in school than children in South Korea -- every year. That's no way to prepare them for a 21st century economy. That's why I'm calling for us not only to expand effective after-school programs, but to rethink the school day to incorporate more time -- whether during the summer or through expanded-day programs for children who need it. (Applause.)

 

Now, I know longer school days and school years are not wildly popular ideas. (Laughter.) Not with Malia and Sasha -- (laughter) -- not in my family, and probably not in yours. But the challenges of a new century demand more time in the classroom. If they can do that in South Korea, we can do it right here in the United States of America.

 

Of course, no matter how innovative our schools or how effective our teachers, America cannot succeed unless our students take responsibility for their own education. That means showing up for school on time, paying attention in class, seeking out extra tutoring if it's needed, staying out of trouble. To any student who's watching, I say this: Don't even think about dropping out of school. Don't even think about it. (Applause.)

 

As I said a couple of weeks ago, dropping out is quitting on yourself, it's quitting on your country, and it's not an option -- not anymore. Not when our high school dropout rate has tripled in the past 30 years. Not when high school dropouts earn about half as much as college graduates. Not when Latino students are dropping out faster than just about anyone else. It's time for all of us, no matter what our backgrounds, to come together and solve this epidemic.

Stemming the tide of dropouts will require turning around our low-performing schools. Just 2,000 high schools in cities like Detroit and Los Angeles and Philadelphia produce over 50 percent of America's dropouts. And yet there are too few proven strategies to transform these schools. And there are too few partners to get the job done.

 

So today, I'm issuing a challenge to educators and lawmakers, parents and teachers alike: Let us all make turning around our schools our collective responsibility as Americans. And that will require new investments in innovative ideas -- that's why my budget invests in developing new strategies to make sure at-risk students don't give up on their education; new efforts to give dropouts who want to return to school the help they need to graduate; and new ways to put those young men and women who have left school back on a pathway to graduation.

 

Now, the fifth part of America's education strategy is providing every American with a quality higher education -- whether it's college or technical training. Never has a college degree been more important. Never has it been more expensive. And at a time when so many of our families are bearing enormous economic burdens, the rising cost of tuition threatens to shatter dreams. And that's why we will simplify federal college assistance forms so it doesn't take a Ph.D to apply for financial aid. (Applause.)

 

That's why we're already taking steps to make college or technical training affordable. For the first time ever, Pell Grants will not be subject to the politics of the moment or the whim of the market -- they will be a commitment that Congress is required to uphold each and every year. (Applause.) Not only that; because rising costs mean Pell Grants cover less than half as much tuition as they did 30 years ago, we're raising the maximum Pell Grant to $5,550 a year and indexing it above inflation. We're also providing a $2,500-a-year tuition tax credit for students from working families. And we're modernizing and expanding the Perkins Loan Program to make sure schools like UNLV don't get a tenth as many Perkins loans as schools like Harvard.

 

To help pay for all of this, we're putting students ahead of lenders by eliminating wasteful student loan subsidies that cost taxpayers billions each year. All in all, we are making college affordable for 7 million more students with a sweeping investment in our children's futures and America's success. And I call on Congress to join me and the American people by making these investments possible. (Applause.)

 

This is how we will help meet our responsibility as a nation to open the doors of college to every American. But it will also be the responsibility of colleges and universities to control spiraling costs. We can't just keep on putting more money in and universities and colleges not doing their part to hold down tuitions. And it's the responsibility of our students to walk through the doors of opportunity.

 

In just a single generation, America has fallen from 2nd place to 11th place in the portion of students completing college. That is unfortunate, but it's by no means irreversible. With resolve and the right investments, we can retake the lead once more. And that's why, in my address to the nation the other week, I called on Americans to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training, with the goal of having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by the year 2020. And to meet that goal, we are investing $2.5 billion to identify and support innovative initiatives across the country that achieve results in helping students persist and graduate.

 

So let's not stop at education with college. Let's recognize a 21st century reality: Learning doesn't end in our early 20s. Adults of all ages need opportunities to earn new degrees and new skills -- especially in the current economic environment. That means working with all our universities and schools, including community colleges -- a great and undervalued asset -- to prepare workers for good jobs in high-growth industries; and to improve access to job training not only for young people who are just starting their careers, but for older workers who need new skills to change careers. And that's going to be one of the key tasks that Secretary Solis is involved with, is making sure that lifelong learning is a reality and a possibility for more Americans.

 

It's through initiatives like these that we'll see more Americans earn a college degree, or receive advanced training, and pursue a successful career. And that's why I'm calling on Congress to work with me to enact these essential reforms, and to reauthorize the Workforce Reinvestment Act. That's how we will round out a complete and competitive education in the United States of America.

 

So here's the bottom line: Yes, we need more money; yes, we need more reform; yes, we need to hold ourselves more accountable for every dollar we spend. But there's one more ingredient I want to talk about. No government policy will make any difference unless we also hold ourselves more accountable as parents -- because government, no matter how wise or efficient, cannot turn off the TV or put away the video games. Teachers, no matter how dedicated or effective, cannot make sure your child leaves for school on time and does their homework when they get back at night. These are things only a parent can do. These are things that our parents must do.

 

I say this not only as a father, but also as a son. When I was a child my mother and I lived overseas, and she didn't have the money to send me to the fancy international school where all the American kids went to school. So what she did was she supplemented my schooling with lessons from a correspondence course. And I can still picture her waking me up at 4:30 a.m., five days a week, to go over some lessons before I went to school. And whenever I'd complain and grumble and find some excuse and say, "Awww, I'm sleepy," she'd patiently repeat to me her most powerful defense. She'd say, "This is no picnic for me either, buster." (Laughter and applause.)

 

And when you're a kid you don't think about the sacrifices they're making. She had to work; I just had to go to school. But she'd still wake up every day to make sure I was getting what I needed for my education. And it's because she did this day after day, week after week, because of all the other opportunities and breaks that I got along the way, all the sacrifices that my grandmother and my grandfather made along the way, that I can stand here today as President of the United States. It's because of the sacrifices -- (applause.) See, I want every child in this country to have the same chance that my mother gave me, that my teachers gave me, that my college professors gave me, that America gave me.

 

You know these stories; you've lived them, as well. All of you have a similar story to tell. You know, it's -- I want children like Yvonne Bojorquez to have that chance. Yvonne is a student at Village Academy High School in California. Now, Village Academy is a 21st century school where cutting edge technologies are used in the classroom, where college prep and career training are offered to all who seek it, and where the motto is "respect, responsibility, and results."

 

Now, a couple of months ago, Yvonne and her class made a video talking about the impact that our struggling economy was having on their lives. And some of them spoke about their parents being laid off, or their homes facing foreclosure, or their inability to focus on school with everything that was happening at home. And when it was her turn to speak, Yvonne said: "We've all been affected by this economic crisis. [We] are all college bound students; we're all businessmen, and doctors and lawyers and all this great stuff. And we have all this potential -- but the way things are going, we're not going to be able to [fulfill it]."

 

It was heartbreaking that a girl so full of promise was so full of worry that she and her class titled their video, "Is anybody listening?" So, today, there's something I want to say to Yvonne and her class at Village Academy: I am listening. We are listening. America is listening. (Applause.) And we will not rest until your parents can keep your jobs -- we will not rest until your parents can keep their jobs and your families can keep their homes, and you can focus on what you should be focusing on -- your own education; until you can become the businessmen, doctors, and lawyers of tomorrow, until you can reach out and grasp your dreams for the future.

 

For in the end, Yvonne's dream is a dream shared by all Americans. It's the founding promise of our nation: That we can make of our lives what we will; that all things are possible for all people; and that here in America, our best days lie ahead. I believe that. I truly believe if I do my part, and you, the American people, do yours, then we will emerge from this crisis a stronger nation, and pass the dream of our founding on to posterity, ever safer than before. (Applause.)

 

Thank you very much. God bless you. God bless the United States of America. Thank you. (Applause.)

 

END 10:20 A.M. EDT

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• Barack Obama

 

 

 

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State budget delay could affect stimulus funds for California education

By Kimberly S. Wetzel

Contra Costa Times

Posted: 02/18/2009 05:53:04 PM PST

The ongoing state budget rift could affect or delay the amount of money California schools receive under the federal stimulus package, State Department of Education officials said Wednesday.

Officials have estimated that California could get about $9 billion in stimulus money to offset state budget cuts to education and pay for such things as special education and No Child Left Behind programs.

But California Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell said Wednesday that if state legislators do not resolve the budget stalemate soon, California schools could receive less per the discretion of new U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, and distribution to local school districts could be delayed.

"We have to have a clear budget in place with real numbers so we'll be able to try and secure as much money as possible," O'Connell said.

The state Legislature has been wrangling over how to close a $42 billion budget gap for months. As of Wednesday night, one more vote was needed for passage.

U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., echoed O'Connell's concerns at a Wednesday news conference in Sacramento, where she called on legislators to end the stalemate for California to realize the full $26 billion it is poised to receive for economic recovery.

"We will be jeopardizing the ability to move quickly and get people to work if we don't get that one vote," Boxer said.

The state budget plan calls for a $7 billion slash to education. School district leaders throughout California already are slicing budgets through layoffs, school closures, furloughs, spending freezes and more.

The state-level cuts will hurt, but an approved budget with cuts is still better than no budget, O'Connell said. He called on the Legislature to maximize California's ability to get the full stimulus funding out to schools as quickly as possible.

"As bad as this budget is, it will provide some certainty to our schools," O'Connell said. "The uncertainty is creating a massive challenge. As long as lawmakers in Sacramento continue to struggle to pass a budget, California schools and districts are not able to plan and budget for their own operations."

The $787 billion stimulus plan — signed into law by President Barack Obama on Tuesday — allots about $100 billion for education nationwide. About $54 billion of that money will go toward offsetting state-level cuts to education, while $25 billion will be set aside for No Child Left Behind and special education programs. About $32 billion goes toward increasing Pell Grants. The money is a one-time infusion to keep school districts and colleges afloat and stave off layoffs and other cuts.

About $6 billion of the stimulus money geared toward California education will help restore some state cuts to prekindergarten through college programs, and modernizing schools. About $1.3 billion will go toward economically disadvantaged students, while $1.2 billion will pay for special education programs.

"Clearly, the amount of money that will be coming to California will help local school districts in a very substantial way," said U.S. Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee.

But O'Connell noted that no one is talking about continuing the funding three years out.

"This stimulus package is helpful, but it's not a panacea," he said. "I characterize it as a lifeline."

Bay Area school districts already are feeling the fiscal sting. The Mt. Diablo school district has cut millions from its budget. West Contra Costa Unified officials — who permanently shuttered four campuses last week to save money — enacted a spending freeze that has forced many schools to skimp on basics such as paper. The Acalanes Union district has announced plans to lay off dozens of employees.

"We don't know what part of our budget the state will fund for the current year, even though we're two-thirds of the way through it," West Contra Costa Superintendent Bruce Harter said in his February message to the school community. "We think part of the federal stimulus package will help our schools, but we don't know how much, when the funding might start, in what areas or for how long that funding will last."

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Reach Kimberly S. Wetzel at 510-262-2798 or kwetzel@bayareanewsgroup.com.

Stimulus package

For a list of how much local school districts may get under the plan, go to

edlabor.house.gov/documents/111/pdf/publications/CALIFORNIA-20090213-HR1-LEAs.pdf.

San Jose Mercury News

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Parent-Teacher Talk Gains a New Participant

 

 

 

By KAREN ANN CULLOTTA

 

 

STREAMWOOD, Ill. — For years attendance was minimal at Tefft Middle School’s annual parent-teacher conferences, but the principal did not chalk up the poor response to apathetic or dysfunctional families. Instead, she blamed what she saw as the outmoded, irrelevant way the conferences were conducted.

 

 

Roughly 60 percent of the 850 students at Tefft, in this working-class suburb some 30 miles northwest of Chicago, are from low-income families. Many are immigrants, unfamiliar or uncomfortable with the tradition of parents perched in pint-size chairs, listening intently as a teacher delivers a 15-minute soliloquy on their child’s academic progress, or lack thereof.

 

 

“Five years ago, the most important person — the student — was left out of the parent-teacher conference,” Tefft’s principal, Lavonne Smiley, said. “The old conferences were such a negative thing, so we turned it around by removing all the barriers and obstacles,” including allowing students not only to attend but also to lead the gatherings instead of anxiously awaiting their parents’ return home with the teacher’s verdict on their classroom performance.

 

 

Recently, 525 parents attended parent-teacher-student conferences, Ms. Smiley said, compared with 75 parents in 2003. No appointments were needed, and everyone was welcome at the conferences this year, spread over two days that school officials called a Celebration of Learning.

 

 

Student-led conferences are gaining ground at elementary and middle schools nationwide, said Patti Kinney, an associate director for middle-level services at the National Association of Secondary School Principals in Virginia.

 

 

Although researchers have long hailed the benefits of such conferences — anointing students as the main stakeholders in their education, accountable for their performance during the school day and responsible for their academic future — their popularity appears to be increasing in part because of the rapidly shifting demographics at public schools nationwide. The classrooms, after all, are where a community’s changing cultural identity is often first glimpsed.

 

 

“I think we’re learning that every school has its own DNA, and there is not a prescription for conferences that works for every school,” Ms. Kinney said. “There is such an increasingly diverse population at our nation’s schools, the one-size-fits-all model conference just doesn’t work anymore.”

 

 

At some schools, not only are students on hand for conferences, but their siblings are also welcome, as are grandparents, aunts and uncles, even family friends.

 

 

When Mark Heller accepted a job as an assistant principal at the middle school in his hometown of Plano, Ill., he discovered that the community had changed a lot in the eight years he had been a teacher in Iowa. The population had nearly doubled to 10,000 residents, and 37 percent of the students at Plano Middle School were now from low-income families.

 

 

Bolstered by the success of student-led conferences at his Iowa school, Mr. Heller also realized that changing the model was not enough to accommodate families with limited English proficiency, many of whom work shifts at area factories.

 

 

The traditional parent-teacher conferences without a student present are always available by appointment, and sometimes necessary, for example, to discuss a private matter concerning a noncustodial parent, a family crisis the child is unaware of or a special education diagnosis.

 

 

Still, Mr. Heller is convinced that a true dialogue concerning a student’s academic progress is impossible without both the child and the parent engaged and present, and with the teacher on hand to share impressions and answer any questions the parents have about homework, standardized test scores, behavior and other issues.

 

 

First, Mr. Heller made sure to schedule the student-led conferences when as many children, parents and teachers could attend, which turned out to be over two days in late October.

 

 

“We looked to our community to define what time we needed to hold our conferences,” said Mr. Heller, who scheduled the first conference day from noon to 8 p.m., followed by an 8 a.m.-to-noon schedule the next day.

 

 

Mr. Heller’s staff arranged meetings for 93 percent of their 300 seventh and eighth graders, and 82 percent of the families attended the conferences. Now, the principal and his staff members are reaching out to the families who did not attend; their goal is a 100 percent rate of teacher-parent contact.

 

 

“Our veteran teachers who have been around for a while and have seen our town grow see this weird correlation,” Mr. Heller said. “It might be more difficult to get a hold of parents these days, but we are seeing more people at our student-led conferences than we ever had in the past.”

 

 

At the C. L. Jones Middle School in Minden, Neb., parental involvement has never been a problem. The principal, John Osgood, describes the rural community in south central Nebraska as tight-knit with mainly middle-class residents — the kind of place where students are apt to sit down for supper with their families every night, sharing stories of their school day at the kitchen table.

 

 

Nonetheless, Mr. Osgood is convinced that its student-led conferences, which he started 10 years ago just as they were taking root across the country, are crucial to the school’s continued success.

 

 

In 2007, a newly elected school board strongly questioned the practice’s efficacy and led a campaign to return to the traditional conferences of their own youth. But the critics were deterred after a survey that Mr. Osgood championed found that 93 percent of parents approved of conferences that included their children.

 

 

“I can remember attending the old-style conferences with my own children, some of whom had a few problems with a particular class from time to time,” Mr. Osgood recalled. “We’d get back home, and try to talk to our kids about something we heard, and it would end up with me getting angry and yelling, and the kids telling me what I heard wasn’t true. It always turned into, ‘Who’s the liar here?’ ”

 

 

That is a far different experience than Cierra Turks, 13 and a seventh grader at Tefft Middle School, shared recently with her mother, Scheree Issa. Cierra was all smiles as she started off her conference sharing the details of a typical school day with her mother.

 

 

Inside her math classroom, Cierra, an honor roll student who dreams of attending Georgetown University, used a portfolio of her assignments — homework, quizzes and even standardized test scores — to deliver a quantitative and qualitative snapshot of her progress and her goals. Above all, she had the chance to introduce her mother to her favorite teacher, Patricia Pluchrat.

 

 

“At the student-led conferences, our children are learning to be organized and capable adults someday,” Ms. Issa said. “When I was growing up, my parents went to my conference, and I waited at home, scared they would come back with some concerns. With this new kind of conference, there are no secrets.

 

 

“My daughter is learning that the teacher is not responsible for her learning. Cierra knows that she is responsible for her own success.”

 

 

New York Times

 

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