In This Issue:  | | • | PPIC STATEWIDE SURVEY: CALIFORNIANS AND EDUCATION, FRUSTRATED BY LITTLE PROGRESS AND LACK OF FAITH IN PROCESS, PEOPLE LOSE FOCUS ON K-12 EDUCATION | | | • | ALARCÓN WANTS A CITY DEPT OF EDUCATION + ANTONIO'S SCHOOLS (AVUSD) | | | • | WHY TEACHERS LEAVE | Teachers Dropping Out Too: A study blames working conditions. Higher pay isn't the answer, it says. | | | • | AcaDeca: FORGET PARADISE; THEY'RE STUDYING! | | | • | HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest of the Stories from Other Sources | | | • | EVENTS: Coming up next week... | | | • | What can YOU do? | |
Featured Links: | | | | A SAMPLING OF THE HEADLINES on the Public Policy Institute of California survey on California Education released Friday:
• San Jose Mercury News: POLL REFLECTS UNEASE OVER EDUCATION POLICY
• Tri-Valley Herald Poll: VOTERS GIVING UP ON SCHOOL SYSTEMS FIX
• Contra Costa Times: POLL FINDS VOTERS LACKING FAITH IN EDUCATION EFFORTS
• San Francisco Chronicle: SURVEYS SHOW FRUSTRATION AMONG TEACHERS ...
• California Progress Report: PPIC POLL: CALIFORNIANS SUPPORT MAJOR EDUCATIONAL CHANGES AND ...
• Central Valley Business Times: POLL: CALIFORNIANS FRUSTRATED BY LITTLE IMPROVEMENT IN SCHOOLS
• Los Angeles Daily News: POLL: ARNOLD LACKS SUPPORT ON EDUCATION
• Capital Notes: EDUCATION: MORE MONEY, BUT NOT MINE
(The survey was a non-story in the LA Times - The Times ran three-count ‘em-three education stories Friday – and ChiTrib’s probably conserving ink for the big “Cubs Win Series” headlines!.
Same story, different takes – and in the end that’s probably how it should be. There are other issues in California. Healthcare. Potholes. The war. Global warming. Gangs.
4LAKids pretends+aspires to be nothing more than a single-issue messenger to a single-issue audience in a complicated and complex world. But I think we all get that public education can be the tool* the fix the others – including the potholes. The operative terms are Unease, Frustration, Giving up, Lacking faith. As we are neither summer soldiers nor sunshine patriots we must persist. Because there are 720,000 special interests/single issues in LAUSD and ten million in California. Because ignorance is the outcome and the cause and the effect of being ignored.
ADULTS NOT HELPING: This week’s Coachella Festival places Temptation in the Desert coincident with C track finals week; what’s with that? It’s a decision from the same wonderful adults-over-thirty who decided that Hawaii was the best venue for the Academic Decathlon (see below: @least Granada Hills HS has no C Track) When I was in college I elected to not to go to the 1968 Monterey Pop Festival to study for a final (If you are reading LAKids instead of studying for Chemistry — and doing that instead of witnessing the reunion of Rage Against the Machine: STOP READING HERE!) …THAT was a wrong decision!
I HAVE JUST RETURNED WITH OTHERS from a whirlwind tour (there was a tornado out of town!) of the Houston Public Schools. In similar and simpler circumstances they are doing an upstanding job – an ‘up-and-walking’ job – of much of what we are trying to do in LAUSD.
They do it mostly by keeping it simple.
Do they have all the answers? No.
Do they have some “best practices” to emulate? Yes.
Can we and they do better? Yes.
And we will. Onward! —smf
PPIC STATEWIDE SURVEY: CALIFORNIANS AND EDUCATION, FRUSTRATED BY LITTLE PROGRESS AND LACK OF FAITH IN PROCESS, PEOPLE LOSE FOCUS ON K-12 EDUCATION
NO BLANK CHECK: RESIDENTS WANT MORE ACCOUNTABILITY, MORE RESOURCES GROWING PERCEPTION THAT GOAL OF K-12 IS COLLEGE PREP
Public Policy Institute of California Press Release
SAN FRANCISCO, California, April 25, 2007 — Is frustration with California’s faltering education system so profound that residents are simply disengaging from the vital issue? Although they continue to be deeply critical of the quality of K-12 education in the state, and of state leadership on the issue, the number of residents ranking education and schools as the most important issue facing California has fallen to its lowest point in three years, according to a survey released today by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) with funding from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
The number of Californians who say education is the most important issue facing the state has dropped to 9 percent – fewer than at any time since August 2004. A sign that state residents have seen progress on K-12 education? Far from it: Most Californians today (80%) still believe the quality of the state’s K-12 education is at least somewhat of a problem, with about half (52%) calling it a big problem. This number is virtually unchanged from January 2000, when 53 percent viewed K-12 education quality as a big problem. Moreover, nearly seven in 10 residents (69%) say the quality of education has gotten worse or stayed the same during the past two years, similar to 2000 when 73 percent held this view. And many Californians believe the K-12 system is in need of major changes (57%); 30 percent say it needs at least minor changes; only 9 percent say it is fine the way it is.
In the past decade, voters have faced education related measures on just about every ballot and have passed nearly $45 billion in school related bonds. Perhaps as a result of this spending, a majority of Californians (56%) today believe that the state ranks at or above the national average when it comes to spending per pupil (in reality California ranks 29 out of 50 states). In April 1998, only 42 percent of Californians believed that the state ranked at or above average in per pupil spending. Is a perception of greater investment changing views about education quality? Residents today (53%) are about as likely as they were in 1998 (49%) to say that test scores for California students rank below average or near the bottom compared to other states. “While education remains a critical issue for most Californians, they clearly see a lack of progress and appear to be questioning the return on all the investment and activity of recent years,” says PPIC President and CEO Mark Baldassare. “The Governor has declared 2008 the ‘Year of Education Reform’. The question is, does the public have the will – and the faith in state leaders – to tackle this complex and controversial issue?”
ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT: RESIDENTS DING STATE LEADERS ON EDUCATION
State leaders have three steep challenges to overcome if they hope to rally support for additional education funding and reform: First, majorities of state residents are critical of the way the governor and state legislature are handling the issue. Second, residents clearly lack confidence in the state to allocate resources to schools. And third, residents are reluctant to increase spending on education without fiscal accountability.
An otherwise popular governor sees his approval rating plummet to 36 percent when it comes to his handling of education issues, while his overall approval stands at 53 percent. The same general pattern holds true for the state legislature: While 38 percent of California adults approve of the overall job the legislature is doing, just 29 percent approve of their handling of education issues. One ray of hope for them: Residents today are less likely than they were last year to disapprove of the performance of the governor (37% today, 51% in April 2006) and the state legislature (46% today, 55% in April 2006) on education issues.
Some of the critical views of state leaders on education issues may stem from the fact that Californians view the issue as one best handled at the local level, rather than in Sacramento where the power to allocate school resources actually resides. Most state residents (78%) would prefer to see local players – specifically teachers (34%) and local school districts (31%) – make decisions about how to allocate resources to improve student performance. Thirteen percent choose school principals. Only 14 percent say they prefer to see the state make those decisions. The clear preference for local authority and autonomy might explain why residents seem to feel more positive about their local schools than about the system as a whole. For example, although they are negative about K-12 education in California overall, a strong majority of state residents (80%) give their neighborhood schools passing grades of A (16%), B (36%), or C (28%). Public school parents are even more favorable than are residents generally: Sixty-one percent give their neighborhood schools a grade of A or B.
SPENT! VOTERS SAY NO TO MORE SPENDING WITHOUT REFORM
Still, with their overall confidence depleted, many Californians are no longer willing to ante up more dollars for the K-12 system. Surprisingly high numbers – 44 percent of all adults and 39 percent of public school parents – say their local schools have just enough, or more than enough, funding. While a majority of public school parents (57%) say local schools do not have enough funding, that margin fades among all Californians (48%). By comparison, 63 percent of Californians in August 2000 said their local public schools lacked adequate funding.
At this point, residents are unwilling (47% yes, 48% no) to increase property taxes to provide more funds for local schools. Although most Californians (66%) would support a bond measure to pay for local school construction projects, they are less likely than they were in December 1999 to support such a measure (66% today, 77% in 1999). At the state level, a majority of residents (64%) reject the notion of raising state sales taxes to provide additional funding for K-12 public schools. Is there a tax Californians will support? One that someone else will pay: More than two-thirds (68%) favor raising the state’s income tax rate on the wealthiest Californians to provide additional funding for K-12 education.
In general, Californians today are demanding accountability to go along with their spending. Slightly less than half (48%) say the state needs to spend more wisely and increase the amount it spends, while 37 percent think the state can improve educational quality by just making better use of existing funds. A mere 11 percent of Californians say increased funding alone is the answer. But if residents were assured that funds would be used efficiently, a full 75 percent say they would support increasing money for K-12 public education. Where would they want the additional education dollars to go? Majorities of Californians favor the following policies, even if they cost the state more money:
• Providing students who fail the high school exit exam with smaller classes and fully credentialed teachers until they pass the test (72%);
• Hiring more counselors and social workers in lower-income areas to help increase graduation rates (72%);
• Providing teachers who work in lower-income areas with additional training and professional development (76%), and attracting and retaining teachers in those areas by paying them higher salaries (67%);
• Developing a statewide database system to track school resources and student performance (66%);
• Providing more money for school facilities in lower-income areas than in other areas (79%).
PERCEPTIONS OF QUALITY, GOALS OF K-12 EDUCATION DIFFER BY RACE/ETHNICITY
While there is little ambivalence among all Californians about the poor quality of the state’s K-12 education system, the level of concern among racial and ethnic groups differs dramatically. For example, blacks (65%) and whites (61%) are far more likely than Latinos and Asians (36% each) to say the quality of education in the state is a big problem. But when it comes to K-12 quality, the pessimism of black residents stands out: 44 percent of blacks say the quality of education has worsened in the past two years compared to just 28 percent of whites, 21 percent of Latinos, and 20 percent of Asians.
Significantly more blacks are also “very concerned” about a slew of education related problems in lower-income areas. On the issue of high school drop-out rates, for example, concern is higher among blacks (77%) than among other groups (Latinos 54%, Asians 53%, whites 51%). When it comes to worrying about students in lower income areas failing the state’s High School Exit Exam, the differences are also stark (blacks 64%, Latinos 53%, Asians 39%, whites 37%). Moreover, three in four blacks (75%) – compared to 61 percent of Latinos, 49 percent of whites, and 46 percent of Asians – say they are very concerned that lower-income areas suffer from a shortage of good teachers.
Blacks (86%) are more likely than Latinos (79%), whites (75%), and Asians (56%) to say that lower-income areas should receive a larger share of resources – such as teachers and classroom materials – as a result of any new funding that might become available. This view is strongly supported by residents across the board (74%), by likely voters (70%), and by majorities in all major political parties (Democrats 79%, Independents 73%, Republicans 64%).
Striking racial and ethnic differences also emerge on the goal of K-12 education. Latinos (56%) are more likely than blacks (34%), Asians (28%), and whites (20%) to say preparing students for college is the most important goal. On the other hand, preparing students for the workforce is less important to Latinos (7%) than it is to whites (21%), blacks (20%), and Asians (16%). Nine in 10 Latinos (91%) and nearly as many blacks (89%) say it is very important that local schools prepare students for college, while fewer Asians (77%) and whites (76%) agree.
Despite their intense focus on college, more Latinos (74%) think it is very important to include career technical, or vocational, education as part of K-12 curriculum than do blacks (65%), whites (64%), or Asians (61%). Overall, more Californians say the premier goal of K-12 education should be preparing students for college (32%), followed by preparing students for the workforce (16%), teaching students life skills (16%), preparing students to be good citizens (15%), and teaching students the basics (13%).
MORE KEY FINDINGS
• Where to Begin? Little Consensus About Biggest Education Problem — Page 9
Californians have very different views about what aspect of K-12 public schools most needs improvement. Seventeen different topics were volunteered by at least 2 percent of survey respondents, the most common being teacher quality (11%), followed closely by class size and overcrowding (10%), teaching the basics (9%), discipline and values (8%), insufficient funding (6%), and safety and crime (5%).
• Drop-Out Rate A Bigger Problem than Teacher Quality — Page 12
Residents were asked to rate the seriousness of three issues affecting California’s K-12 education system: the high school drop-out rate, teaching children with limited English language skills, and teacher quality. While majorities say that each of these issues is at least somewhat of a problem, two in three (66%) call the drop-out rate a big problem, and half (50%) say teaching English learners is a big problem. Only 28 percent say the same about teacher quality.
• Extra Boost For English Learners — Page 20
A strong majority (73%) of residents favor providing English language learners with extra educational support, even if it means that they receive more assistance than other students.
ABOUT THE SURVEY
This edition of the PPIC Statewide Survey is the third in a series of surveys funded by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation focusing on education in California. This survey is intended to raise public awareness, inform decisionmakers, and stimulate public discussions about a variety of education issues facing the state. Findings are based on a telephone survey of 2,500 California adult residents interviewed between April 3 and April 17, 2007. Interviews were conducted in English, Spanish, Chinese (Mandarin or Cantonese), Vietnamese, and Korean. The sampling error for the total sample is +/- 2%. The sampling error for subgroups is larger. For more information on methodology, see page 29.
Mark Baldassare is the President and CEO of PPIC, where he holds the Arjay and Frances Fearing Miller Chair in Public Policy. He is founder of the PPIC Statewide Survey, which he has directed since 1998.
PPIC is a private, nonprofit organization dedicated to improving public policy through objective, nonpartisan research on the economic, social, and political issues that affect Californians. The institute was established in 1994 with an endowment from William R. Hewlett. PPIC does not take or support positions on any ballot measure or on any local, state, or federal legislation, nor does it endorse, support, or oppose any political parties or candidates for public office.
ALARCÓN WANTS A CITY DEPT OF EDUCATION + ANTONIO'S SCHOOLS (AVUSD)
►ALARCÓN WANTS A CITY DEPT OF EDUCATION
From CityWatchLA.com by way of a Councilman Alarcóns media office [as of this writing neither the press release nor the invitation are posted on Alarcón’s website]
In light of the recent court decisions to throw out AB 1381, Los Angeles City Councilmember Richard Alarcón, Chair of the City Council’s Education & Neighborhoods Committee, announced that he will hold a hearing on the feasibility of establishing a Department of Education within the City of Los Angeles. Within this Department’s purview would be the ability to create and administer City-run charter schools.
“We cannot let the recent court decision on AB 1381 diminish our efforts to reform the Los Angeles Unified School District,” said Councilmember Alarcón.
Alarcón will conduct this hearing on May 11, 2007 at 9 a.m. at City Hall. Representatives from various City offices, the Mayor’s Office, and the Los Angeles Unified School District, educational organizations and business groups are invited to provide testimony and speak to the feasibility of creating such a Department. Neighborhood Councils and stakeholders are invited to attend and participate in the Public Comment period.
►ANTONIO'S SCHOOLS (AVUSD): Mayor needs authority to set up his own charters
Daily News Editorial
Saturday, April 28, 2007 - Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa struggles to get some control over the Los Angeles Unified School District — the courts have struck down his takeover legislation, and next month's school board races promise to be close. So City Councilman Richard Alarcón has come up with a promising alternative: Let the city start up its own district.
Well, not exactly, but close enough. Alarcón is proposing that City Hall open an Office of Education, which would be empowered to create and run charter schools.
Assuming the office could run its schools better than the district does, which shouldn't be hard, students would start streaming in, and what we could then call the Antonio Villaraigosa Unified School District — or AVUSD — would thrive.
Although this proposal is no substitute for reform at the LAUSD — or for electing reformers in next month's school board election — it could help. Given the district's hostility to charters, it would be useful to have another local entity empowered to create them.
Somehow, we need to bring change and a sense of urgency to the LAUSD. If the "AVUSD" is the answer, so be it.
▲ NOTE TO COUNCILMEMBER ALARCÓN: The City Charter actually creates a City Department of Education that has the authority you’re talking about. It’s called the Los Angeles Unified School District and it is governed by the Board of Education of the City of Los Angeles. Look it up. And there is an additional city government office engaged in education – the Commission on Children, Youth and their families. It’s staffed by educators including a former LA, New York and Pasadena superintendent now holding the title of Deputy Mayor. And take a look at your California Constitution and the part that clearly separates municipal government and school district governance. When the mayor first began his campaign that provision hadn’t been tested; now it has been; there have been a couple of court decisions recently that define and confirm that guarantee. Finally, if you’re more interested in the public will than the law take a look at the PPIC survey (above): the people – We the People – think that the biggest problem in California public education is in Sacramento. Quoting: “Most state residents (78%) would prefer to see local players – specifically teachers (34%) and local school districts (31%) – make decisions about how to allocate resources to improve student performance. Thirteen percent choose school principals.”
Councilman, mayors and cities aren’t on the list. —smf/4LALids
WHY TEACHERS LEAVE | Teachers Dropping Out Too: A study blames working conditions. Higher pay isn't the answer, it says.
by Howard Blume, LA Times Staff Writer
April 27, 2007: As a mid-career professional with a doctorate in chemistry, Maurice Stephenson appeared made to order for the Los Angeles Unified School District, especially because he was eager to teach at a high-poverty campus in a system woefully short of qualified science teachers.
But the honeymoon ended abruptly after less than two years. Fed up with student insolence and administrative impotence, he stalked out of Manual Arts High School on March 12 and never went back.
Few teachers quit so dramatically, but leave they do. In California, teachers are departing the profession in alarming numbers — 22% in four years or fewer — but simply offering them more money won't solve the problem, according to a report released Thursday.
The real issue is working conditions, which are the flip side of a student's learning conditions, said Ken Futernick, who directs K-12 studies at the Center for Teacher Quality at Cal State Sacramento.
His study, which was based on a survey of nearly 2,000 California teachers, maps a growing crisis that fundamentally affects student learning.
The study also casts doubt on commonly pursued remedies both for the teacher shortage and student achievement in general.
Classroom interruptions, student discipline, increasing demands, insufficient supplies, overcrowding, unnecessary meetings, lack of support — all play a role in burning out teachers.
"They're not just driving teachers crazy; they're driving teachers out of the classrooms," Futernick said.
Stephenson is among the 35% of L.A. Unified teachers who quit within five years, according to school district data.
And as in most other cases, salary wasn't the primary factor.
In fact, L.A. Unified's data lists salary as the No. 9 reason why new hires leave. No. 1 is "moving." But also cited are "lack of support from administrator," "student discipline policy" and "unmotivated students."
Those results are consistent with Futernick's findings: "When teaching and learning conditions are poor, we discovered that many teachers see their compensation as inadequate. When these teaching and learning conditions are good, not only do teachers tend to stay, they actually view their compensation as a reason for staying."
The findings suggest that when teachers unions advocate primarily for salary, they have it somewhat wrong. On the other hand, Futernick said, administrators are clearly misguided when they focus single-mindedly on getting rid of "bad teachers."
That issue pales in importance to teacher retention. Moreover, at a struggling school, "one is hard-pressed to know the good teachers from the bad. Such a place is not conducive to good teaching," he said.
At high-minority and high-poverty schools, teacher turnover typically runs at 10% annually.
"If this churning is going on, you can be sure you have a dysfunctional school," Futernick said. "As long as we think of these schools as combat zones, we'll never solve the retention problem and we'll never close the achievement gap" between white and Asian students and their black and Latino peers.
Indeed, some researchers have cited the quality of teaching as perhaps the single most important factor that affects student achievement.
High-poverty schools have the additional hurdle of a more limited teaching applicant pool, and they are more likely to have teachers who work outside their field of training.
By some estimates, about $455 million per year is squandered in teacher training in California because of premature departures. Vastly improving teaching conditions probably would cost much more.
"We have a high-school dropout problem," Futernick said, "in large part because we have a teacher dropout problem."
Stephenson, 52, had two pressing complaints at Manual Arts. For one, he said, 39 students were enrolled in a lab class that he said could safely hold only 30.
Then there were the students themselves.
"They were showing up to class totally unprepared, with no pens, no pencils, no paper to work with," he said.
That was particularly irksome, he said, because students could obtain free supplies from a school office.
When he did that errand for them, fellow teachers chastised Stephenson for enabling bad student behavior. Meanwhile, he said, the message from the administration was: The students are staying. Make the best of it.
When the new term started in March, Stephenson took a different tack: "I gave them one week to get all the materials they needed so they could do all their work."
They ignored him. He walked.
So was this teacher worth keeping? Other instructors at the same school have inspired their students. And at a school where freshmen outnumber seniors 3 to 1, any student inside a class could be considered a striving survivor.
District officials had no immediate response to Stephenson's account.
A teachers union official insisted that Stephenson had a solid reputation among instructors.
He became a teacher after years as a science consultant to grant writers and contractors seeking government work.
Officials from L.A. Unified, the largest school district in the state, insisted that they were focusing on the teacher retention problem as never before. The school system has increased its percentage of credentialed teachers to 94% from 78% in the last four years. It also offers pay incentives for teachers in needed fields and for teachers who go to hard-to-staff schools.
The teacher vacancy rate is at an all-time low, said Vivian Ekchian, the district's deputy chief of human resources.
Also, at 22 high schools, including Manual Arts, the district has assigned a full-time teacher to help struggling colleagues and provided a pool of substitutes who attend staff meetings and work at the campus full time.
Teachers union President A.J. Duffy is unimpressed: "L.A. Unified is very good at creating the illusion that they're on it and that things are getting better — and we don't believe that anymore. Which is why our thrust is local control of schools with accountability."
That view has some resonance with academics. California, in its desire for accountability, has made education ever more bureaucratic, rule-oriented and regimented, said Stanford University education professor Susanna Loeb at a conference last week.
Special-education teachers are inundated with paperwork and other stresses that push them out of teaching or at least out of teaching the disabled.
"I told everybody I would teach as long as it was fun," said Barbara Millman, who left her teaching job at a school in San Pedro for the severely disabled at age 63. "They kept squeezing more kids into a class and trying to get by with less assistants. I felt the kids were not getting the kind of attention they needed and that we also were not valued as experts."
Other states, including Arizona, Nevada and North Carolina, use teacher survey information in ways that California does not, Futernick said. North Carolina, in particular, has adopted workplace standards that protect teachers from unnecessary interruptions, paperwork and meetings.
Such standards seem a universe apart from the experience of a former Los Angeles middle school teacher who said she taught at a rodent- and roach-infested campus where students read at a second-grade level and frequently wandered the grounds because no one made them go to class.
"It got to the point where my morale was so low, and I cared so little that I would show up 15 minutes late, with my students waiting outside. No one ever said a word to me. I was still a star," said the former teacher, who asked not to be named because she has returned to the school system for a job outside the classroom.
She had to leave the classroom because "I saw myself turning into the others. What we attract are the martyrs and the lazy, and the conditions perpetuate it."
howard.blume@latimes.com
*
WHY TEACHERS LEAVE: Top 10 reasons cited by California teachers who quit or planned to quit teaching, or who planned to transfer out of their current schools, because of job dissatisfaction:
Percent saying each reason affected decision
Bureaucratic interference: 57%
Poor support from district: 52%
Low staff morale: 45%
Lack of resources: 42%
Unsupportive principal: 42%
Poor compensation: 41%
Too little decision- making authority: 40%
Too little time for planning: 36%
Accountability pressures: 35%
Lack of teamwork: 35%
--
Note: Responses are from 220 current and former California teachers who participated in a 2005 online survey by the California State University Center for Teacher Quality.
--
Source: California State University Center for Teacher Quality
Los Angeles Times
AcaDeca: FORGET PARADISE; THEY'RE STUDYING!
►AcaDeca: FORGET PARADISE; THEY'RE STUDYING!
LUAUS? VOLCANOES? LEIS? IT ALL HAD TO WAIT AS EL CAMINO CRAMMED FOR THE NATIONAL DECATHLON FINALS IN HAWAII.
by Mitchell Landsberg, LA Times Staff Writer
April 28, 2007 — Since arriving here earlier this week, teams competing in the National Academic Decathlon in Waikiki have snorkled, hiked, visited Pearl Harbor, played Ultimate Frisbee under the stars, shopped, taken dinner cruises, hung out — all the things you'd expect a group of teenagers to do on what is, for many, their first trip to Hawaii.
But the eight students from El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills, who arrived Monday, have opted for a different Hawaiian experience. Each morning, they have risen at 6 a.m. and studied or taken part in the competition until 10 p.m. Then they have gone to sleep.
"It's nice to see the view from our window occasionally," said an only slightly wistful Sam Farahmand, a gangly member of the team known for his dry wit.
The odds-on favorite in the competition, El Camino's team is gunning for a record-tying fifth national title at this annual Super Bowl of brains, which this year has teams from 39 states.
"I think 'focus' is the key word with these kids," said Cliff Ker, the Academic Decathlon coordinator for the Los Angeles Unified School District. "They know exactly what they need to do, and they're doing it."
What is it about Los Angeles schools and the Academic Decathlon?
Year after year, California ranks near the bottom in most national measures of academic proficiency. Los Angeles Unified ranks near the bottom of the state.
But in recent years, L.A. Unified has come to practically own the Academic Decathlon. Since 1987, when Marshall High School fielded the first district team to win the decathlon, teams from Los Angeles have won eight more national championships, including the last three in a row, two by El Camino and one by Taft High.
"They have always told us that it is more competitive ... at the L.A. city championships than the nationals," said Teresa Luna, the coach from Madison Academic High School in Jackson, Tenn. "It's like football in Texas."
And as in football, these students have had their game faces on.
On Thursday, when the teams dressed up for their official portraits, there were lots of boys in dress shirts and khakis, and lots of girls in demure dresses.
Then El Camino showed up, looking like the team from the FBI. The five girls and three boys all wore black or dark navy suits and dead-serious expressions. When the photographer, Michael Kelling, asked them to act goofy for one final shot, the students just stared at him.
"Boy, this is a fun group, isn't it?" Kelling said.
Even the team's two coaches, Lissa Gregorio and Liz Johnson, seemed to sense that the students needed to loosen up. "We've got to get them out of these suits," Johnson said.
The thaw ended late Friday after the Super Quiz, the final competitive event and the only one open to the public. El Camino didn't win it, largely for technical reasons. (The Super Quiz is the only event that tallies scores from all nine contestants on a team, and El Camino has only eight, one student having quit earlier in the school year.)
Still, despite the handicap, El Camino placed third, missing only one of the 40 questions the team was asked on this year's Super Quiz topic, climatology. Gregorio said that was a better showing than she had expected and augured well for the final results, which will be announced this afternoon after scores from all events are tallied.
"If this is any indication ... we're sitting in a good position right now," she said.
With the hard part past them, the El Camino students turned giddy, hugging and laughing and high-fiving. Asked about her plans for the night, the normally talkative Shengya Cao smiled wearily. "Relax. Food. Eat." As an afterthought, she added, "Enjoy Hawaii."
Since the beginning of the National Academic Decathlon in 1982, the event has been dominated by two states: California and Texas. California teams have won 13 national titles; Texas, 11. The only other state to win a title is Wisconsin, with a sole victory in 2002.
Those who follow the decathlon say there are three reasons why California schools in general, and Los Angeles schools in particular, do so well. California has the largest high schools in the country, giving each school a big pool of talent. It also has the most schools, so teams that rise to the top have to defeat many rivals.
The state's reputation as a decathlon powerhouse has raised the event's profile, making more students want to participate. And, finally, some districts, especially L.A. Unified, decided early on to make the decathlon a priority and put far more resources into it than their counterparts in other states.
L.A. Unified has a full-time decathlon coordinator and offers stipends for coaches that are the equivalent of what some athletic coaches receive — roughly $4,700 per team per year. The decision to offer coaches extra pay "institutionalized it as much as being head football coach or head baseball coach," said David Tokofsky, a school board member who coached the 1987 Marshall team.
Los Angeles schools are also allowed to offer Academic Decathlon as an elective course, which is not the case everywhere. That gives students an extra hour a day to devote to the team. Still, the teams do most of their studying after school, and it can be an all-consuming pursuit. El Camino's team begins studying in July, and at the start of the school year the students stay every day until 5 p.m. Then, each month, they raise the time commitment until, by January, they are studying five days a week until 10 p.m. and putting in at least an eight-hour day every Saturday.
"We tell their parents, 'We're borrowing them for nine months, and at the end of it, they'll come back newborn kids,' " Gregorio said.
Some have questioned the district's priorities, wondering how it can devote so much attention to the Academic Decathlon when many of its schools are struggling to get their students to graduate. But Ker said he believed that the decathlon is important because it shows what Los Angeles schools can accomplish if they try and because it sends a message to students that academics count.
"There are many people in the district who are tired of getting knocked around for the failures that various people perceive, and after a while, you begin to think that what you're doing is futile," Ker said. "But when that team in 1987 won the national championship, it gave everyone ... a shot of confidence that we could do incredible things."
Academic Decathlon teams win competitions based on overall team point totals, accumulated in a grueling series of speeches, student interviews and academic tests — which include math, social science, language and literature, art, economics and music. Many of the questions had to do with this year's main theme, China. Point totals in statewide competitions offer a way to informally rank teams entering the national championships, because the test material is the same from state to state.
El Camino entered the national showdown with the highest point total from its state competition: 50,486. The next highest-scoring competitor, Waukesha West High School of Waukesha, Wis., had 49,226, a respectable showing but lower than the scores of El Camino's top three statewide competitors, Granada Hills Charter High, Moorpark High and North Hollywood High.
El Camino came to Hawaii expecting a tough challenge from Waukesha, which won the national title in 2002, and from Whitney Young Magnet High School in Chicago, the Illinois state champion and a perennial powerhouse in the national competition. Whitney Young took first place in the Super Quiz; Waukesha tied for second.
Most teams enter the competition knowing they have no chance at the title. There are teams competing that won their state titles with scores that are less than half what the top teams earned. Some can compete for Division II or Division III titles, which go to smaller schools. But they are no more likely to win the overall national title than a minor league baseball team is to beat the Yankees in the World Series.
"California has that tradition and that pride going for them, and everybody else pretty much concedes to them," said Debbye Reed, who coaches the Madison Central High School team from Madison, Miss., a school of 1,300 that won last year's Division II national championship and finished seventh overall.
Some competitors resent California's dominance. An online message board devoted to the Academic Decathlon is full of people rooting for Anybody But El Camino Real. "Nothing against them personally, very strong school, very strong team, but it would be a nightmare come true if they won," one student wrote.
But Reed said she admires the commitment that California districts have made to the competition.
"They know how to do it," she said. "As an educator, it's fun to watch that."
HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest of the Stories from Other Sources
►LAUSD SEES A FUTURE IN CAREER ED by Rick Wartzman | California & Co./LA Times
As Supt. David L. Brewer pledged last week to transform the culture of the troubled Los Angeles school system, he once again emphasized the need "to ensure every student graduates … college-prepared and career-ready."
Though it sounded like the same old, same old to me, Santiago Jackson couldn't help but smile. He loves that line.
Until it became Brewer's mantra, "I hadn't heard the words 'career-ready' coming from a superintendent for a long time," says Jackson, the Los Angeles Unified School District official who's in charge of what traditionally was called vocational education but is now known by a new term of art: career technical education.
Jackson and his colleagues are in the midst of putting together a blueprint to increase and improve the delivery of career-oriented classes to LAUSD's vast student body. By June or July, they hope to have mapped out the district's current hodgepodge of offerings in this area and developed a plan for better distributing these resources. [more]
►BOARD BATTLE: MAYOR VILLARAIGOSA’S SCHOOL TAKEOVER BID HAS COME DOWN TO A RUNOFF ON THE BOARD OF EDUCATION by Dean Kuipers | Los Angeles CityBeat
►A DRILL CAN'T FIX LAUSD: THE MAYOR CAN NO LONGER RELY ON GIDDY ENTHUSIASM IN HIS QUEST TO REFORM L.A. SCHOOLS by Sandra Tsing Loh, Contributing editor, LA Times
►LUNCH AT L.A. UNIFIED: A FEW PUBLIC SCHOOLS ARE TWEAKING THEIR CAFETERIA MENUS; IS IT WORTH THE EFFORT? By Joel Stein, LA Times Columnist
►SCHOOLS DO NEED OVERSIGHT Editorial: LA Downtown News
►DISTRICT SCHOOL HONORED FOR GREEN DESIGN: Maywood Academy HS
►'OPEN COURT' STILL ON TRIAL IN LAUSD: CURRICULUM DEBATED AS ELECTION LOOMS by Naush Boghossian, Staff Writer, LA Daily News
►A POOR GRADE FOR LAUSD SCHOOL AGAIN: Westchester High ranks in bottom fifth in state. Review hits on achievement, communication, truancy and discipline issues.
by Paul Clinton, Daily Breeze Staff Writer
and
►WE DON’T KNEAD NO COOKIE DOUGH! by Dan Basalone & Scott Folsom | from the AALA Newsletter
EVENTS: Coming up next week...
The ribbon cutting for the JACK & DENNY SMITH LIBRARY AND COMMUNITY CENTER AT MOUNT WASHINGTON SCHOOL will be a 11AM on Monday, April 30th. This is the culmination of over a decade of collaboration and battles with LAUSD, involving the Mount Washington community, civic leaders, community activists, schoolchildren grown to young adulthood, politicians, teachers, a cast of characters from Smith’s columns and most notably Mount Washington’s First Family: the late Jack and Denny Smith.
That Jack and Denny have a children’s library as their memorial is as apropos as Mulholland’s fountain.
The adventure has its parallels in the adventures of Jack and Denny in building their Baja dream home recounted in “God and Mr. Gomez” – and indeed it was only through the grace of God and Mr & Mrs Smith that Monday morning’s dream comes true. Jack lived the beginning of the adventure and he would’ve loved and relished the convoluted entirety of it. Had he written of it as it was going on it would’ve been infinitely more fun. Onward!
11 AM Monday April 30
Mt. Washington Elementary School
3981 San Rafael Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90065
There are other events next week I’m sure, but the LAUSD servers are down for scheduled maintenance – or so they say – so the calendar is a mystery! Or maybe everyone is going to the California PTA Convention in Sacramento May 3-6?
________________________________________
• SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION BOND OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE:
http://www.laschools.org/bond/
Phone: 213.633.7493
____________________________________________________
• LAUSD FACILITIES COMMUNITY OUTREACH CALENDAR:
http://www.laschools.org/happenings/
Phone: 213.633.7616
What can YOU do?
• E-mail, call or write your school board member:
Marlene.Canter@lausd.net • 213-241-6387
Monica.Garcia@lausd.net • 213-241-6180
Julie.Korenstein@lausd.net • 213-241-6388
Marguerite.LaMotte@lausd.net • 213-241-6382
Mike.Lansing@lausd.net • 213-241-6385
Jon.Lauritzen@lausd.net • 213-241-6386
David.Tokofsky@lausd.net • 213-241-6383
...or your city councilperson, mayor, the governor, member of congress, senator - or the president. Tell them what you really think! • There are 26 mayors and five county supervisors representing jurisdictions within LAUSD, the mayor of LA can be reached at mayor@lacity.org • 213.978.0600
• Call or e-mail Governor Schwarzenegger: 213-897-0322 e-mail: http://www.govmail.ca.gov/
• Open the dialogue. Write a letter to the editor. Circulate these thoughts. Talk to the principal and teachers at your local school.
• Speak with your friends, neighbors and coworkers. Stay on top of education issues. Don't take my word for it!
• Get involved at your neighborhood school. Join your PTA. Serve on a School Site Council. Be there for a child.
• Register.
• Vote.
|
