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| 4LAKids: Sunday, Aug 17, 2008 |  | | | In This Issue: | | • | CALIFORNIA TEST SCORES ARE HIGHER, BUT HIGHER FEDERAL TARGETS PUT MORE SCHOOLS AT RISK | | | • | ALGEBRA MANDATE WILL COST CALIFORNIA $3.1 BILLION, EDUCATION CHIEF SAYS | | | • | HOT FOR THE WRONG TEACHERS: Why are public schools so bad at hiring good instructors? | | | • | 2 from the Downtown News: TAYLOR YARD SETTLEMENT IS UGLY AND EXPENSIVE + BIG BONDS AND BEYOND | | | • | 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: | | | | An article in the Sacramento Bee on Friday opens: "The fate of the state's 19 million egg-laying hens is coming to a polling place near you.
"Same-sex marriage, parental notification of abortion – California's November ballot is studded with weighty issues, but none is ruffling feathers like Proposition 2, which would effectively ban farms from raising hens in cages."
One stops reading.
As of 1PM Saturday here is no public progress on the budget or education funding reform in the works.
We are asked to vote to better house chickens …but not to better educate children. The governor is converting fossil fuel into global warmth flying between a Governor's Conference in Universal City (his old workplace) and his new office in Sacramento. The Lege is supposed to vote today - Sunday - on a budget - but unless we've all lost the ability to count Republican noses the outcome is foregone. Forewent. Four-or-more short. (In all probability an entire quorum short unless the sergeant-at-arms has some real strong padlocks.) If our elected representatives are to break the Fourth Commandment (the third for you Catholics and Lutherans) let them accomplish something!
MEANWHILE THE RUSSKIS ARE UP TO SOME OLD TRICKS. Using the Olympics (and the media fixation on women's beach volleyball and Michael Phelps) as cover and the Iraq war as a diversion they have invaded a naughty former puppet state — just like they did in 1956 in Hungary while we were distracted in Suez and Melbourne.
(The '56 Olympics were in the southern hemisphere — allowing the Suez War, the Hungarian Revolution and the Games of the XVIth Olympiad to coincide in November.) To those who would argue that it was the Georgians who started it this time …I would remind you that the Hungarians started it last time!
In Aug 1968 - as the Viet Nam War and the protests thereto were at their height - the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia and crushed the Prague Spring reforms two days before the Chicago Democratic Convention/Police Riots. The Games of the XIXth Olympiad were seven weeks later in Mexico City
If Ray Charles were still alive maybe the president would send him to Tbilisi:
"Georgia, Georgia, no peace I find
Just an old sweet song keeps Georgia on my mind."
¡Onward/Hasta adelante! -smf
CALIFORNIA TEST SCORES ARE HIGHER, BUT HIGHER FEDERAL TARGETS PUT MORE SCHOOLS AT RISK
LATEST RESULTS SHOW L.A. SCHOOLS IMPROVING AT A FASTER RATE THAN THE STATE AVERAGE BUT STILL LAGGING BEHIND OVERALL.
By Howard Blume and Sandra Poindexter, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
August 15, 2008 - Scores on state standardized tests took a step upward in annual results released Thursday, but that rise won't prevent more schools from failing federal targets that have become more difficult this year.
In Los Angeles, schools improved at a faster rate than in the state overall -- a familiar and hopeful pattern. But they also continued to lag behind the state average. And here, too, increasing federal standards will inevitably lead to more schools being categorized as unsuccessful.
Key Elementary School in Anaheim met the federal targets last year and its scores rose in math and English this year, yet the school is at serious risk of falling below the new standard. Principal Charles Lewis wants to escape being labeled a failing school: "We feel confident we're doing excellent work, and we'd like to not have that hanging over our head."
In Gardena, 135th Street Elementary also met its federal targets last year and improved this year. Principal Antonio Jose Camacho talks proudly of his teachers and the coaches who assist them. They not only work in teams to improve lesson strategies, he said, but discuss how to help individual students in a high-poverty school that operates year-round because of overcrowding.
"We may just miss the cut," Camacho said. "But we just need to keep focused on what our task is. Even though we've improved, it's still not acceptable that only 35% of fifth-graders are reading proficiently."
Schools that don't keep pace ultimately face sanctions that could include replacing faculty and administration, measures the state has been reluctant to impose. But unless there is relief at the federal level, more schools every year are almost certain to become "substandard" as federal targets rise sharply until 2014, when nearly every student is expected to be academically proficient under the No Child Left Behind law.
Pasadena Supt. Edwin Diaz said the federal system could do harm by damaging morale at schools: "It's a huge issue."
The state won't issue federal accountability reports for about two weeks. The Times was able to preview the trend by analyzing Thursday's release of the California Standards Tests, on which the federal rating will be based.
STEADY PROGRESS
State officials chose to accentuate the positive in the STAR tests. In English, the percentage of California students who scored proficient or better rose from 43% to 46%. Math proficiency scores increased from 41% to 43%.
In L.A. Unified, scores rose three percentage points in English, to 34%, and four percentage points in math, to 35%.
"For the sixth year in a row, California students are continuing to make solid, steady progress," said state Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell during a news conference at a Pasadena school. "We still have a lot of work to do to reach our goal of universal proficiency, but this year's gains are particularly encouraging."
Over those six years -- which is when the state's tests were fully based on California curriculum -- the percentage of students scoring proficient or advanced increased by 11 percentage points in English, from 35% to 46%. In math, scores rose eight percentage points, from 35% to 43%.
During that same period, L.A. Unified has gained 10 percentage points in reading and nine in math.
But only 28% of seventh-graders tested as proficient in math this year and 29% of 10th-graders were proficient in English.
Scores went up at Maclay Middle School in Pacoima, but still only 16% of students tested as proficient in English. At Jefferson High in South Los Angeles, English scores rose 85% in one year. But that still left 88% of students below proficiency in English.
Maclay and Jefferson didn't meet federal standards last year and were never realistically in the running this year.
At the state level, California met its federal target last year for every group of students except those with disabilities. And even that group nearly met the former standard. This year, the state is likely to fall short for African Americans, Latinos, English learners and students from low-income families -- even though each of these groups scored better than last year.
TROUBLING GAP PERSISTS
By any standard, a yawning achievement gap persists between test scores of white and Asian students and their Latino and African American peers. As he has before, O'Connell said that closing the gap is a social, economic and moral imperative.
In that regard, the state should have made more progress, said Russlynn Ali, executive director of the Education Trust-West, an Oakland-based research and advocacy organization.
"Indeed, with time, the narrowing of achievement gaps between groups slows in the elementary grades, stops in middle school, and then begins to widen again in high school," Ali said in a statement.
The California Assn. for Bilingual Education castigated O'Connell's department for the widening achievement gap facing English learners. Among other measures, the association demanded thousands of more qualified instructors.
Support for O'Connell's efforts came from Debra Watkins, who heads the California Alliance of African American Educators. She added that self-help had to be part of the solution. "We have been almost passive in our allowing of other people to educate our children," Watkins said. "The community of African Americans themselves are beginning to very much mobilize behind this issue."
ALGEBRA MANDATE WILL COST CALIFORNIA $3.1 BILLION, EDUCATION CHIEF SAYS
by Dana Hull | The Mercury News (Silicon Valley)
August 13, 2008 - California's schools chief warned Tuesday that the state would need to spend an additional $3.1 billion to meet a new mandate that all eighth-graders take algebra by 2011.
Not only did the daunting figure raise questions about where the state would find the cash, it also set the stage for a bigger debate: What will it really take - and cost - to get California students ready for tougher math classes?
Superintendent Jack O'Connell said the infusion of cash is needed to reduce class sizes in sixth- and seventh-grade math, recruit additional math teachers and add extra time for pre-algebra math. About 52 percent of all California eighth-graders now take Algebra I courses, but not all of them pass.
Skeptics were quick to call the price tag unreasonable - especially while the state is scrambling to plug a $16 billion budget deficit - and some questioned whether O'Connell was throwing up roadblocks to a policy decision he doesn't like.
"Obviously it will take some more money - $3.1 billion is the price of the fully loaded Christmas tree," said Bill Lucia, policy director of EdVoice, an education advocacy group.
But others said O'Connell's estimate is realistic.
"We're supposed to have 100 percent of kids take algebra in eighth grade, and be proficient," said Santa Clara County schools chief Chuck Weis. "What is it going to take to get that kind of change? It's going to take a real investment in services and support. I don't think Jack is overestimating."
Last month, the state Board of Education voted to require that, within three years, every eighth grader take and be tested in algebra.
The new requirement has enormous support from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and many in the business community. But it infuriated O'Connell and others, who say that implementing it is impossible without additional funding.
"We must make the investments in our school system now in order to meet this extremely tight timetable," said O'Connell. "It is now up to the Governor to keep his commitment by fully funding the Algebra I Success Initiative."
The governor's office responded to O'Connell's plan, but declined to discuss any additional funding.
"I'm glad to see the State Superintendent is embracing the goal of teaching algebra to all California eighth-graders and moving forward to improve educational achievement in California," said Schwarzenegger in a statement.
The big-ticket items in O'Connell's plan include:
• $1.5 billion to increase instructional time for middle grades so all sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade students receive sufficient mathematics, pre-algebra, and algebra instruction.
• $528 million to lower class sizes in the seventh and eighth grades.
• $108 million for teacher training.
• $80 million to recruit additional math teachers.
The latest round of math wars arose earlier this year when the federal Department of Education found California out of compliance with the No Child Left Behind law when it came to testing students. Some eighth-grade students were tested in algebra, while others were tested in a lower-level general math.
The federal government told California to enroll all students in Algebra 1 within three years, or develop an alternate test that would include some Algebra 1 concepts. O'Connell and his staff chose to develop a new eighth-grade math test that included some algebra. But many business leaders, education advocates and the governor objected, calling it "algebra lite." The state education board rejected O'Connell's plan.
Now the race is on to get California's 6.3 million public school students prepared for the more rigorous requirement.
"If one really believes that every single eighth-grader should take algebra and be proficient in it, then an investment of $3 billion is not that substantial," said John Mockler, the former executive director of the California State Board of Education. "Education improvement is not an elevator ride. You have to take the stairs."
HOT FOR THE WRONG TEACHERS: Why are public schools so bad at hiring good instructors?
By Ray Fisman | Slate.com | Posted Friday, July 11, 2008
PS 49 in Queens used to be an average school in New York City's decidedly below-average school system. That was before Anthony Lombardi moved into the principal's office. When Lombardi took charge in 1997, 37 percent of fourth graders read at grade level, compared with nearly 90 percent today; there have also been double-digit improvements in math scores. By 2002, PS 49 made the state's list of most improved schools. If you ask Lombardi how it happened, he'll launch into a well-practiced monologue on the many changes that he brought to PS 49 (an arts program, a new curriculum from Columbia's Teachers College). But he keeps coming back to one highly controversial element of the school's turnaround: getting rid of incompetent teachers.
Firing bad teachers may seem like a rather obvious solution, but it requires some gumption to take on a teachers union. And cleaning house isn't necessarily the only answer. There are three basic ways to improve a school's faculty: take greater care in selecting good teachers upfront, throw out the bad ones who are already teaching, and provide training to make current teachers better. In theory, the first two should have more or less the same effect, and it might seem preferable to focus on never hiring unpromising instructors—once entrenched, it's nearly impossible in most places to remove teachers from their union-protected jobs. But that's assuming we're good at predicting who will teach well in the first place.
It turns out we aren't. For instance, in 1997, Los Angeles tripled its hiring of elementary-school teachers following a state-mandated reduction in class size. If L.A. schools had been doing a good job of picking the best teachers among their applicants, then the average quality of new recruits should have gone down when they expanded their ranks—they were hiring from the same pool of applicants, but accepting candidates who would have been rejected in prior years. But as researchers Thomas Kane and Douglas Staiger found, the crop of new teachers didn't perform any worse than the teachers the school had hired in more selective years.
This unexpected result is consistent with the findings from dozens of studies analyzing the predictors of teacher quality. Researchers have looked at just about every possible determinant of teaching success, and it seems there's nothing on a prospective teacher's résumé that indicates how he or she will do in the classroom. While some qualifications boost performance a little bit—National Board certification seems to help, though a master's degree in education does not—they just don't improve it very much.
It's worth keeping in mind that economists study changes in test scores, not love of learning or comprehension of course material—it's possible that some of the teachers who look good to researchers are just good at teaching to the test. Needing some measure of success in the classroom, economists mostly rely on "value added" in test scores—that is, how much students' scores improve as a result of a year in a teacher's classroom. Since researchers study entire school systems over many years, they're able to separate out how much of an individual student's improvement is due to personal circumstance and how much is the result of inspirational teachers. If a student's test scores increase year after year, then no teacher gets any credit for it; similarly, no one's on the hook for a bad student's repeated failure to progress.
What economists have found is that only one thing tells us how much a teacher will boost his students' test scores next year: the amount he raised test scores in previous years. A good teacher this year will very likely be a good teacher next year. Unfortunately, when making hiring decisions, principals rarely have that information at their fingertips. Most hiring decisions are made before applicants have a teaching record. And an individual school has neither the necessary data nor the ability to run the complicated regression analyses needed to discern whether an experienced teacher has had a positive effect on his students in the past.
Which leaves school officials in the position of having to find a way to get rid of the inevitable bad hires. Anthony Lombardi's approach at PS 49 put him at the top of the teachers-union hit list. (The union head refers to Lombardi as a "tyrant.") Lombardi placed higher demands on his teachers, requiring, for example, detailed and cogent lesson plans. (He recalls that some teachers had one-word class outlines before the new rules were put in place.) He also started showing up in class to keep tabs on what was going on. While he may not have been able to discern teaching quality from a résumé, he knew effective teaching when he saw it in the classroom. Teachers who either couldn't or wouldn't perform up to his standards were given an ultimatum: Request a transfer or get saddled with an unsatisfactory rating, leading to an onerous (for all concerned) two-year review. Since his arrival, a third of PS 49's teachers have been squeezed out through Lombardi's efforts.
Of course, this just meant they were moved to another classroom in another school, lowering the test scores of someone else's children. So while this might be a way of cleaning up PS 49, it's not much use in reforming an entire school system. New York's school chancellor, Joel Klein, has gotten rid of some teachers through a program that effectively gives them a golden parachute out of teaching—they aren't allowed into the classroom, though they stay on the payroll. But this is a very expensive Band-Aid.
What if there were a way to screen out the bad teachers before they get entrenched? Currently, New York City teachers get their union cards their first day on the job. In theory they're on probation for three years after that, but in practice very few are forced out. Lombardi suggests replacing this system with an apprenticeship program. Rather than requiring teaching degrees (which don't seem to improve value-added all that much), new recruits would have a couple of years of in-school training. There would then come a day of reckoning, when teachers-to-be would face a serious evaluation before securing union membership and a job for life.
Lombardi's proposal isn't without its problems and complications: What would the effect be on the morale of older teachers? Would the teachers unions ever agree to such a system? But none seems insurmountable. Researchers Kane and Staiger, together with coauthor Robert Gordon, have also suggested an apprenticelike system and have put forth a detailed proposal on how to implement it.
We live in an age of increasing inequality. While it's not fair to park the problem of global inequities at the doorstep of teachers unions, the continued floundering of public education in America is at least partly to blame: Education is an awfully good predictor of future earnings, and keeping bad teachers in classrooms filled with kids from poor families certainly helps to reinforce the cycle of poverty. The difference between a teacher in the 25th percentile (a very good teacher) and one at the 75th percentile (a not very good teacher) translates into a 10 percentile point difference in their students' test scores. (As a frame of reference, on the SAT, 10 percentile points translates into an 80 or so point difference in raw test score.) After a string of good teachers or bad teachers, it's easy to see how you can end up with very wide gaps in student achievement. And this is all the more tragic since at least part of the answer—doing a better job of evaluating and selecting teachers—is readily at hand.
• Ray Fisman is the Lambert Family Professor of Social Enterprise and research director of the Social Enterprise Program at the Columbia Business School. His book with Ted Miguel, Economic Gangsters, is forthcoming in October 2008.
2 from the Downtown News: TAYLOR YARD SETTLEMENT IS UGLY AND EXPENSIVE + BIG BONDS AND BEYOND
►TAYLOR YARD SETTLEMENT IS UGLY AND EXPENSIVE
LA Downtown News Editorial
August 16, 2008 - DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES - It is impossible to feel good about the proceedings involving a disputed plot of land in Taylor Yard, just north of Downtown. As Los Angeles Downtown News reported last week, the Los Angeles Unified School District agreed to write a $50 million check to prominent landowner Meruelo Maddux Properties. The amount - technically a settlement - is disconcerting, especially considering the land could have been purchased for about $20 million less just three or four years ago.
Blame for the bungled situation can be attributed to both the district and the landlord. Each would like to foist the burden on the other, but neither is without guilt.
Downtown News reported that on June 17, the seven-member school board voted 6 to 1 to approve the payment, which closes an eminent domain dispute over the site. The vote was taken in closed session, and while there may have been a reason for this, it feels wrong that no steps were taken to inform the public about the decision concerning a huge amount of taxpayer dollars. One can assume that would have remained the case had a reporter not begun asking questions.
It feels like the citizens of Los Angeles have been ripped off. We hate to resort to old clichés/s, but it seems like a scenario where inept bureaucrats intersected with a greedy landowner.
The site in question is a 23-acre plot in a larger area known as Taylor Yard (a park opened on part of the property last year). In 2004, in the effort to relieve overcrowded conditions and eliminate the busing of students at other area high schools, the District sought to buy the land for $27 million, and the school board authorized spending up to $29.4 million for the property. Instead, the next year, Meruelo Maddux bought the land with a slightly higher offer of $31.8 million. Although the district's current budget for a school on the site is $161 million, somehow they could not figure out how to come up with just a few million more.
An outcry erupted immediately, and many made note of the fact that Meruelo Maddux principal Richard Meruelo has close ties to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and has been a significant contributor to his campaigns. Optimists held out hope that somehow the school district would gain control of the land for a fair price.
Nothing was that simple, and Meruelo Maddux soon broached plans for a joint-use project that would have included a school as well as housing and retail, with the entire project taking advantage of its location near the Los Angeles River. The sides were never able to work together, partly because neither party seemed to trust the other.
Thus, in 2006, the District initiated eminent domain proceedings. A judge in November 2007 ruled that the District would get the land, and the lawyers began arguing over the fair market value of the property. That ultimately led to the $50 million settlement. LAUSD board members agreed to it, said board Vice President Yolie Flores Aguilar, because they feared that ongoing litigation could have been even more costly.
That may be the case; it's impossible to tell. But it does nothing to remove the stink, to give Angelinos confidence in the LAUSD's negotiating abilities, or to raise sympathy for Meruelo Maddux. We leave the situation knowing that a better offer a few years back would have secured the land for less and avoided all the trouble, but that the people we trust to take care of these matters could not pull it off. We leave knowing that the connected landowner both made a boatload of money and delayed a school.
No wonder people are angry.
►BIG BONDS AND BEYOND: So Many Assessments, So Many Annoyed Voters, So Little Time
by Jon Regardie in the LA Downtown News
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES - Imagine this: You slip on a banana peel, tumble down the stairs like a tornado of Huey, Dewey and Louie, and wind up with a broken arm. The next day, while reaching for a dish on a high shelf, a bowl tumbles out and thunks you on the skull, requiring a trip to the emergency room and seven stitches. The day after that, while in the grocery store, a 7-year-old on a Skittles high plays bowling-for-pedestrians and sends a shopping cart down an aisle where it collides with your ribs.
After all that, when you're bloody, bowed and beaten, a guy with a huge smile and a $2,300 silk suit comes up to you and, in his best sales spin, offers you a wonderful opportunity: How would you like it, he asks, if he'd rear back his leg and kick you full force in the groin, just like Steve Martin did in The Jerk when he met Iron Balls McGinty? Even better, he adds, he'll kick not just you, but all your neighbors in the groin, and he'll only charge you, your children and your grandchildren $7 billion to do it.
Is that something you'd be interested in?
If you nodded enthusiastically like this is the best thing to happen to you since the opening of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, then you're just the type of person the Los Angeles Unified School District is hoping will show up to the polls on Nov. 4. The LAUSD isn't alone, for on that day, voters will peruse a ballot that offers the rare opportunity to dig into their pockets to say yea or nay to no less than seven proposed taxes or bonds.
Okay, this may be taking things a little far, but like Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's 2006 pledge that trash fee hikes would only be spent on new police hires, there's a tiny kernel of truth here. There's also a tremendous misread of the public by politicians at all levels of government in the state, who are asking voters to approve a tidal wave of spending measures at a time when more and more people are barely able to tread water financially.
This isn't to say that the $7 billion LAUSD construction bond (which would be funded with property tax increases) is automatically a bad thing, or that the state's proposed $9.95 billion high speed rail bond should be shot down because it essentially only makes a really fast choo choo. It doesn't say that a $980 million state bond for children's hospitals is wasteful, or mean that the city's proposed $36-a-year levy on parcel owners to raise money for gang-prevention efforts will just become the latest in a long line of poorly managed save-our-youth funds.
These, and three other expensive measures, could all be good things (seriously, though the operative word is "could"). The problem is, when it costs $75 to fill up the gas tank and the price of health insurance makes it a luxury item, folks are choosey about how they spend money. So when the pols pile bond on top of tax on top of bond like a Texas cheerleading pyramid, they're just asking for things to come tumbling down.
There's a Mr. Magoo-like myopia at play here, as the spending measure backers care so much about their individual darling propositions that they don't recognize the clogged landscape and seem unable to comprehend that so much company may mean misery for everyone. Who was their focus group for putting all these on the ballot at once, Paula Abdul, Flava Flav and the two Coreys?
A couple of these propositions would have a decent shot on a less crowded ballot, and indeed, once the commercials start airing and the targeted mailers begin arriving, several could be approved. But when the voters are being asked to pay for the above and to cover a $3.5 billion community college construction bond, as well as a $5 billion renewable energy effort, there is an ever-greater chance that previously generous folks will just Inkavote the whole thing No.
Consider another proposition likely to make the ballot: the proposed half-penny sales tax to benefit the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. While almost no one has a warm and fuzzy feeling toward the agency responsible for late, crowded buses and uniquely scented subway stations, there is finally a mass recognition that Los Angeles needs more public transportation. But while that may lead to a predisposition to say yes to the tax, the chance of it passing drops precipitously if it's one of seven deadly assessments voters are asked to approve.
In other words, the citizenry will accept a bit of pain if they think that it's fair, that it will pay off in the end and that they're not being taken advantage of. But if they're already hurting financially and then are asked to accept not just that $7 billion groin kick, but also the $9.95 billion elbow to the solar plexus, the $36-a-month pinch to the eyeball and the half-cent sand-in-the-eye fling, among others, don't be surprised if a lot of people just say no. To all of it.
●● smf 2¢: The LA Downtown News is aggressively pro developer, how could it not be? They are supporters of Mr. Meruelo's development projects and one must presume they were selected to 'break" the story of the Muerelo/LAUSD settlement - two months old and hidden until last week as item #3 on the unpublished minutes of a closed session agenda of the school board. The LADN is doing its best to put a good (pro-Meruelo) spin on the whole wretched mess - portraying the original purchase of the Taylor Yard property as a routine real estate transaction. That is hardly the truth. Mr. Meruelo has used the tactic of swooping in and purchasing land out from public agencies before; it is imperfectly legal.
On the "Big Bonds and Beyond" piece the LADN gets a little more agreement from me. After all I appreciate the wild metaphor — and I certainly appreciate the undue influence of the mayor's office upon the board of ed. One item is factually challenged: The bond "would be funded with property tax increases" is incorrect; the new bond, should it pass - would continue current tax rates for an added time - not increase them. The main objection against the Seven Billion Dollar Bond at this time must be that it may be illegal in that it fails to specifically allocate expenditures as constitutionally required.
Gentle readers, I draw your attention to the so called "endorsement" of the proposed bond by the Bond Oversight Committee on July 31 - the actual language says: "At this time the Oversight Committee reserves endorsing the anticipated bond measure for the November 4, 2008, election ballot pending: (a) review of the final language of any ballot measure authorized by the Board of Education; (b) an assessment of the advisability of placing a school bond measure on the November 4, 2008 ballot; and (c) substantial progress in establishing independent outside review of Oversight Committee operations."
HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest of the Stories from Other Sources
ALL MALE EDUCATION IN LA I, II & III
Eastern Group Publications - a local circulation newspaper chain of ten local papers with a combined circulation of 104,000 based in Northeast, East and Southeast LA - "The oldest and largest chain of Hispanic owned newspapers in the US" has recently been living up to its own billing: "Nobody reports on City Hall and Education like EGP".
This week EGP completed a provocative three-part-series on Single Gender Education in Los Angeles, written by Karl Zynda. 4LAKids highly recommends and commends the effort.
► PART I: • how female college graduates are outnumbering males • an all-male classroom program in South Los Angeles • the emergence of all-male classrooms across the country.
► PART II: • the principals of Salesian and Cathedral High Schools about all-male education • a teacher in a Catholic boys high school explains the Gurian Method.
► PART III: • Villariagosa, Brewer ‘Open’ to Gender-Separated Classes; • Local District Superintendent Richard Alonzo and Boardmember/small school champion Yolie Flores Aguilar weigh in also.
► PLUS (from 4LAKids) ARGUMENTS FROM PENNSYLVANIA (and 1983) that "boys only" is inequitable and discriminatory towards girls.
●●smf's 2¢: Personally I find it interesting/ironic/whatever that in my work with a district committee reviewing all of the approximately 350 Small Learning Community plans from almost every high school in the district NOT ONE of the SLC's proposed was for single gender education! Perhaps being visionary and politically correct are mutually exclusive?
CALIFORNIA'S ALGEBRA PROBLEM: EVEN IF THERE WERE MONEY TO PAY FOR IT, THE STATE'S NEW ALGEBRA MANDATE WOULD STILL BE A BAD IDEA.
Now that the State Board of Education is foolishly requiring every eighth-grader to take algebra, starting in three years, all that remains to be figured out is, how on Earth is this going to happen when so few kids are on track to get there?
The solution, according to state Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell, is to spend $3.1 billion on a "California Algebra I Success Initiative" that would recruit and train math teachers, lengthen the middle-school day, reduce class sizes in math and so forth.
CALIFORNIA BUDGET GIMMICKS: THE LATEST IDEA TO CLOSE THE STATE'S SHORTFALL INVOLVES THE WRONG KIND OF TAX CODE MANIPULATION.
Seven weeks into the new fiscal year, the scrum in Sacramento over the California budget continues unabated. How the Legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will close the $15-billion-plus gap between anticipated tax revenues and the cost of ongoing programs remains in doubt, as numerous ideas -- some harebrained, some not -- continue to be tossed into and out of the mix.
STATE ORDERS TALKS ON SOUTH L.A. RAIL: AS FOES OF STREET-LEVEL CROSSING CHARGE ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM, PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION INTERVENES IN EXPO LINE CONTROVERSY.
LOS ANGELES — Community and school board forces fighting against what they call “environmental racism” scored a major victory Monday when the state Public Utilities Commission rejected plans for a street-level “holding pen” crossing of the proposed MTA Expo Light Rail Line and ordered the Metropolitan Transportation Authority into mediation over the type of crossing the commission could approve.
A State Without a Budget :: Day 46 LATEST GAMBIT IN BUDGET IMPASSE | CALIFORNIA EMBROILED IN BATTLE OVER BUDGET | ASSEMBLY SPEAKER PLANS BUDGET VOTE SUNDAY
The Legislature is likely to vote Sunday on a new version of the Democrats' budget that includes more spending cuts and fewer tax increases than their previous version, Assembly Speaker Karen Bass said Thursday.
But the budget is not expected to garner the required two-thirds majority vote in the Legislative houses because no Republicans have indicated they will vote a spending plan that hopes to help erase the state's $17.2 billion budget gap by raising taxes, GOP leaders in the Assembly and the Senate said.
from LOOKING FOR HOLLYWOOD'S TREASURES - about a CRA effort to make sure it preserves history
An "historic resources inventory" is being compiled for the city's Community Redevelopment Agency, which is overseeing construction of housing and commercial buildings in neighborhoods it considers blighted....Its $110,000 survey is being conducted in Hollywood in coordination with the city's Office of Historic Resources.
Jim Brownfield, a 1947 graduate of Hollywood High School and former president of its alumni association, expressed alarm that the 105-year-old school may be a redevelopment target.
A State Without a Budget :: Day 45 BUDGET PLAN COULD BE A MAJOR BOON TO SUBPRIME LENDERS
The Closed Loophole That Keeps on Giving: Subprime lenders could get bigger than usual tax breaks if the proposal, which is snarling budget talks, goes through. The idea is to offset a three-year suspension of write-offs, backed by Democrats.
AUG '08 HINET: SUMMARY OF RESOURCES AT THE MIDDLE AND HIGH SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT OFFICE; SECONDARY, POSTSECONDARY, AND ADULT LEADERSHIP DIVISION; CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION (CDE).
A summary of resources specific to high school education; education in general; grants and funding opportunities; and statewide and regional events, conferences, and training. Details are provided for each item following the list.
A State Without a Budget :: Day 44 PERATA SAYS HE HAS BUDGET DEAL WITH SCHWARZENEGGER, NEEDS GOP VOTES
Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata said Wednesday that Democrats have negotiated key points of a compromise state budget with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and that he considers negotiations over.
A State Without a Budget :: Day 44 SCHWARZENEGGER PUSHES FOR BUDGET WHILE HOSTING GOVERNORS CONFERENCE
¿what carbon footprint? California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will spend Wednesday shuttling back and forth between giving the state budget a push in Sacramento and opening the 26th Annual Border Governors Conference in Los Angeles.
A State without a Budget :: Day 44 FUZZY OUTLINE OF BUDGET DEAL EMERGES
It's still a long way from being fully cooked, but the fuzzy outline of a deal on the much-delayed, deficit-ridden state budget is becoming visible as the deadline for placing measures on the November ballot draws near.
Secretary of State Debra Bowen says Saturday is the deadline, but Capitol types believe it could be stretched a week or two. And the deadline, whenever it may be, is an important ingredient in any budget deal, because at least one of the pending elements would have to be placed before voters.
CHARTER SCHOOL IS NO SHOP CLASS: New Millennium School to focus on technology. When Carson's first new school in years begins classes next month, the campus will be a teenager's dream. It's in a shopping mall.
New Millennium Secondary School, which will welcome its initial freshman class in September, will be at the Southbay Pavilion, between JCPenney and Chuck E. Cheese.
"Most parents worry that if their kids skip school, they go to the mall," said Carson resident Tony Thomas, who will have a daughter and a grandson at the campus in a few weeks. "Now my kid is already in the mall."
L.A. UNIFIED COLLEGE PREP GOAL SEES LITTLE PROGRESS
School district's 'A-G' program promises to make university prep classes standard by 2012. In three years, it has made little headway.
COUNCILMAN HUIZAR FINED BY ETHICS PANEL FOR IMPROPERLY USING A FUNDRAISING COMMITTEE TO CONDUCT POLITICAL RESEARCH ON FORMER SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER TOKOFSKY
The Los Angeles City Ethics Commission voted Tuesday to issue nearly $15,000 in fines against Councilman Jose Huizar, after investigators determined that he improperly used a fundraising committee to conduct political research on former school board member David Tokofsky.
A State Without a Budget :: Day 43 THE DIFFICULTIES OF DEALING WITH CORNERED WOUNDED PARTY ANIMALS
The image that is coming into focus on the California budget is unmistakable. California Republican legislators are behaving like a pack of wounded cornered animals—and they are always dangerous. They have little to lose and no responsibility for governing. And the two-thirds rule requiring a supermajority to pass a budget and their irrelevancy on most other matters as a shrinking minority party provides the mechanism for what is being acted on out the state of our legislature’s floor.
CONNECT THE DOTS...AND SEE HOW ANTONIO AND CITY HALL SELL YOU OUT.
If you want to understand how public corruption works, the standard maxim is follow the money, which usually leads you to how palms get greased, back room deals get made and the public gets screwed. Take the case of downtown L.A.'s biggest property owner, Richard Meruelo, who has turned his family's shop specializing in quinceanara and wedding dresses into a staggering fortune with control of millions of square feet and dozens of properties.
Book Review: FERTILIZERS, PILLS AND MAGNETIC STRIPS - The Fate of Public Education in America
The title of the book is of course a tribute to - and and a jibe at - Jared Diamond's watershed GUNS GERMS,AND STEEL - where Diamond reappraised human history and society through the lens of anthropology, biology and technology - scientifically rather than historically. Glass is a statistician; statistics (masquerading as data) have been used by educational theorists (and their wannabe's) of late to beat up education. Turn about being fair play, Glass proceeds to return the favor to the educational reform flavor-of-the-month-club crowd.
EXPO LINE/SCHOOL SAFETY ISSUES: Dispatches from the Front
At the PUC Hearing today on the Expo Line crossings by Dorsey HS and Foshay Learning Center, the assigned Judge Kenneth Koss issued the following statement as part of his ruling: "With the submission of Expo's information it appears that a grade separation at Farmdale is in fact practicable."
This means that the street-level application with the holding pen is off the table!
ANTI-GRAFFITI INITIATIVE MAY MAKE TAGGERS, PARENTS PAY: L.A. County Supervisor Gloria Molina seeks to hit graffiti offenders in the pocketbook: 'This is tough love all the way around.' Buoyed by the success of a six-month program to reduce graffiti in Pico Rivera and unincorporated Whittier, Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina will ask her colleagues Tuesday to approve a measure allowing authorities to hold taggers -- and their parents -- liable for civil damages.
COLFAX's CHARTER ROUTE WILL RETAIN LINKS TO LAUSD After operating as a traditional Los Angeles Unified school for more than 50 years, Colfax Avenue Elementary will switch to a charter this fall after a frustrated staff voted to break with the district's rules.
COLLEGE BOARD TO DEBUT AN 8th GRADE PSAT EXAM: The test, expected to be released in 2010, aims to identify talented students and get them into college-prep classes early. But many critics say students already face too many tests and too much stress
Too Much Testing/Too Much Pressure? High school students already face a battery of standardized tests on their way to college. Now, the college testing frenzy is reaching into middle school.
The College Board, which owns the SAT, PSAT and other tests, plans to introduce an eighth-grade college assessment exam in 2010, a top College Board official said this week.
NEW NAME, NEW LIFE FOR BELMONT SCHOOL: After a long haul, the costly campus rebuilt atop an old oil field is finally set to open. Veteran school administrator Scott Braxton could not help but wonder about his new assignment, principal of the school formerly known as the Belmont Learning Complex.
Was this most infamous of schools safe?
EVENTS: Coming up next week...
*Dates and times subject to change. ________________________________________
• SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION BOND OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE:
http://www.laschools.org/bond/
Phone: 213-241-5183
____________________________________________________
• LAUSD FACILITIES COMMUNITY OUTREACH CALENDAR:
http://www.laschools.org/happenings/
Phone: 213-893-6800
What can YOU do?
• E-mail, call or write your school board member:
Yolie.Flores.Aguilar@lausd.net • 213-241-6383
Marlene.Canter@lausd.net • 213-241-6387
Tamar.Galatzan@lausd.net • 213-241-6386
Monica.Garcia@lausd.net • 213-241-6180
Julie.Korenstein@lausd.net • 213-241-6388
Marguerite.LaMotte@lausd.net • 213-241-6382
Richard.Vladovic@lausd.net • 213-241-6385
...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.
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| Scott Folsom is a parent and parent leader in LAUSD. He is immediate past President of Los Angeles Tenth District PTSA and represents PTA as Vice-chair on the LAUSD Construction Bond Citizen's Oversight Committee. He is a Community Concerns Commissioner, Legislation Team member and a member of the Board of Managers of the California State PTA. He serves on various school district advisory and policy committees and is a PTA officer and/or governance council member at three LAUSD schools.
• In this forum his opinions are his own and your opinions and feedback are invited. Quoted and/or cited content copyright © the original author and/or publisher. All other material copyright © 4LAKids.
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