In This Issue:  | | • | GOOD WILL HUNTING | | | • | GREEDHEAD'S CHRISTMAS: The Seedy Side of Entrepreneurial Education Reform | | | • | THE BEST SCHOOL DISTRICT SOME BILLIONAIRES CAN BUY? Some Qs, fewer As, more Qs, some outrage and an org chart | | | • | SBX5–4: RttT COMPROMISE HEADS TO ASSEMBLY + smf's 2¢ | | | • | 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: | | | | I was at a meeting this week and a speaker spoke of 'a significant amount of chaos'.
One shouldn't speak that way around me, I immediately questioned if there is such a thing as an 'insignificant amount of chaos'? ...and - because it fit - I stole the line to frame This Week in Public Education with its significancy of local, state and national chaos to title this issue of 4LAKids. Thank you Ilene.
● "NCLB and the Race to the Top are really the same, except that President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan's 'Race' has nearly $5 billion as a lure to persuade states to climb aboard the express train to privatization."
— Diane Ravitch to Deborah Meier | 12/15 | http://bit.ly/8cF7Zo
● "Now the states are rushing to reinvent public schools in the model of privately managed chains of schools. (The Massachusetts state Senate has passed a shocking bill to that effect. Massachusetts was one of those states whose test data outperformed virtually all international competitors before NCLB and charters!)
"Meanwhile back at the ranch (NYC's schools): Mayor Bloomberg … has won his election, and nothing will stop him, not even a state law requiring greater participation by parents and the public under mayoral control. Democracy may be a fragile and utopian idea at best. But this is "democracy" as satire."
— Deborah Meier to Diane Ravitch | 12/17 | http://bit.ly/8Xq2u1
So there you have it, EdWeek puts together two learned educational experts to debate Ed Reform tooth+claw and they come to the same conclusion from their different perspectives and viewpoints: Race to the Top is bad policy. (Translation: If you are a middle schooler, teach middle school or have a middle schooler in your family: "RttT, evil spawn of NCLB, sucks!" And not in the lush romantic way of the Twilight series either!)
PUBLIC SCHOOL CHOICE is more of this same old². A whistle stop on the express train to privatization.
THE ORIGINAL FLAVOR OF PUBLIC SCHOOL CHOICE - the circa 2001 No Child Left Behind PSC - said that parents in underperforming schools could choose to send their kids to better schools in the same district. This was good thinking that LAUSD pretty much ignored and avoided - using the "there's no room at the inn" argument. This drove many parents to charter schools and private schools, both of which only compounded LAUSD's problems …and lost ADA.
● NCLB's Official Title: "The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 2001 - An act to close the achievement gap with accountability, flexibility, and choice, so that no child is left behind" Has ANY of those things happened?
EIGHT YEARS LATER WE HAVE OUR OWN HOME-GROWN LAUSD FLAVOR OF PUBLIC SCHOOL CHOICE: "A New Way at LAUSD PSC" — where the Board of Ed chooses to give away schools to outside operators …based, it is assumed, on how well they can write a proposal. Bond Oversight Committee chair David Crippins - an appointee of the Chamber of Commerce not given to hyperbole - has called this PSC (which includes giveaways of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of brand new schools) "The biggest riverboat gamble I've ever seen". The taxpayers have put up their dollars; the board of ed is placing their bet.
AND, TO FURTHER COMPLICATE THE ISSUE AND COMPOUND THE ACRONYMS, LAUSD is choosing to embrace and roll out both flavors of PSC next year!*
So now we have NCLB - PSC as a new option in the already confusing-to-the-point-of-incomprehensibility Choices Brochure (aka the magnet school application). To further confuse the confusion we have moved the deadline up a month (that was it last Friday!) and increased the workload and reduced staff in the Options/Magnet Office. If you tried to call the handy helpline you were on hold forever …IF you got through!
Incidentally, the SCHOOL REPORT CARDS - which could've helped parents make informed decisions about their magnet and NCLB PSC choices - come out Jan 19th! Or the 22nd is you're waiting for the photo op. (The mayor was there last year - it ain't a photo op without hizzonner!)
MEANWHILE, the deadline for the A NEW WAY AT LAUSD PUBLIC SCHOOL CHOICE program applications (parents need not apply, it is for outside operators to choose to be chosen) is in early January - and community meetings at the focus schools ('focus' being the euphemism for 'target') are well underway …if, for the most part, thinly attended. Gentle readers, it isn't that parents and the community don’t care …they don't know. Or understand. How could they?
¡Onward/Hasta adelante! - and Happy Holidays!
- smf
*Students of physics here must remember Einstein's relativity of simultaneity. According to the special theory of relativity, it is impossible to say in an absolute sense whether two events occur at the same time if those events are separated in space. In this case, we observers are passengers on the metaphorical Polar Express to privatization; the observed events would be simultaneous train wrecks. The fact that they are not absolutely simultaneous does not mean they are not absolutely train wrecks.
GOOD WILL HUNTING
by smf for 4LAKids
The adjectives in the blast of the week's headlines say it all: Poor Teachers, Weak New Teachers, Substandard Teachers, Ineffective Beginning Teachers and Poor Performing Teachers. It tells one everything one needs to know: BAD NEWBIE TEACHERS ARE THE PROBLEM AT LAUSD AND THE SUPERINTENDENT IS ON IT LIKE WHITE ON RICE!
Heave a sigh of relief; the crisis is over …you may return to your homes!
Those headlines also distract from headlines earlier in the week like:
●KEY LA UNIFIED STAFF POSITIONS ARE FUNDED PRIVATELY http://bit.ly/8ZaeoU …about how outsiders are taking over the schools and paying for senior management positions in LAUSD - the very senior managers overseeing the giveaway. This is not a conflict of interest, it's prudent fiscal policy. It's Economics 101 as taught by Adam Smith: The party who benefits pays the tab. If foxes are going to guard the henhouse it's best to have the Brotherhood of Foxes pick up the payroll.
● …or TEACHERS AND STUDENTS PROTEST CAMPUS TAKEOVER BY LAUSD SUPERINTENDENT http://bit.ly/6KWYp1 - wherein the Decentralizer-in-Chief centralizes like a laser.
Dear readers, these are tying times - but the first to be tried in the trials shouldn't be new teachers. Last year new teachers were on the bubble - and some were laid off - purely because they were inexperienced in a bad budget year. Now the onus of failure has been added to the curse of inexperience in the looming 2010–11 RIF. Happy New Year Ms. Chips.
Being a teacher is hard; being a beginning teacher is harder still. Even in good times fully one-third of entry-level teachers - bright young people with their degrees and their credentials and their student loans - folks who dreamt of teaching and spent four or five years in college preparing themselves - are not in the profession five years later.
Mostly they self-select out, for whatever reason. They realize they can't do the job they thought they could do. They can't afford the salary. They won't suffer the foolishness of the system, or the kids, of the parents - of bloggers on a mission.
I come from the show biz; the joke was it's the hardest way possible to make an easy buck. Nothing about teaching is easy except taking cheap shots at the profession.
The superintendent is right: "We do not owe poor performers a job'.
And there ARE teachers who won't leave on their own who need to be eased out, pushed out, shoved out, kicked out. Not a lot – certainly not enough to solve or even ease the budget crisis – but a few. Some of 'em have been bad for a while and are getting worse – exposing kids to year-after-year of Poor, Weak, Substandard and Ineffective Underperformance.
In an Ed Week OpEd Tuesday - 'Thinking Anew About Teacher Tenure' http://bit.ly/8o5LMd - Paul Sutton, a Washington state HS English teacher wrote: "In most cases, the track for K-12 teacher tenure is too short, and tenure itself is too long."
If a young teacher teaches better than an old teacher and there's only room for one, the old one should go. If an old teacher and young teacher teach equally well and there is only room for one, experience wins out. If an old teacher and a young teacher teach equally poorly there isn't room for either. Ever. Being rid of poor teachers isn't a way to save money; it's a way to save children.
From The Times: "Julie Slayton, the district's former head of research and planning, said the [superintendent's] move appeared to be more of a knee-jerk reaction to outside pressure than a thoughtful approach to a complex problem. She said Cortines' action makes evaluations punitive, rather than a process to help teachers improve.
"This is where it's easiest to focus attention," said Slayton, who now teaches at USC. "But the real challenge is improving the overall quality of instruction, including permanent teachers who could be better but need help."
4LAKids worries that this is another salvo in contract negotiations, an attempt to back the unions - teachers' and administrators' - into a corner and see if they'll fight their way out. I'm terribly sorry, but we are all - every one of us from the lunch room ladies and parents to the board and the supe - in that corner. A corner where not-enough time, money, resources and good will meet a challenge as daunting and important as they come. There are kids that are cornered too …600,000 plus of them.
UNFORTUNATE QUOTE O' TH' WEEK/Broadcast on KPCC: AJ Duffy, the president of United Teachers Los Angeles, the union that represents the teachers, has concerns about the Cortines order. He says the evaluation system for teachers is flawed.
“Administrators are not properly trained," he said. "This is not a knock on administrators. One of the worst things that this district does is they don’t know how to train people, whether its administrators or teachers or anybody else.” http://bit.ly/8Nx8a0
Duffy's "…anyone else", 4LAKids can only assume, includes students.
Your homework assignment is to read what the writers wrote, filter it though what you know and make up your mind. That's the only test that ever matters.
The first question is "Do any of us have a clue?"
And the first task at hand for the New Year is to address is the shortage of good will!
____________________
Failure gets a Pass: LOW BAR FOR LIFETIME JOB IN L.A. SCHOOLS http://bit.ly/6d6tQH
Los Angeles Times - By Jason Felch, Jessica Garrison and Jason Song
A Times investigation found that the Los Angeles Unified School District routinely grants tenure to new teachers after cursory reviews -- and sometimes none ...
LA SCHOOLS ORDERED TO WEED OUT POOR TEACHERS http://bit.ly/6w3QYq
San Jose Mercury News
AP LOS ANGELES—The head of the Los Angeles Unified School District says bad teachers must go. Superintendent Ramon Cortines on Thursday ordered ...
LA SCHOOLS CHIEF ORDERS WEAK NEW TEACHERS OUSTED http://bit.ly/86rdlU
Los Angeles Times - Jason Song, Jason Felch
Teachers must be let go by seniority, according to state law, which has forced the Los Angeles Unified School District to ignore performance in its ...
CORTINES: NO MORE CODDLING SUBSTANDARD TEACHERS IN LAUSD http://bit.ly/5rtsvC
Contra Costa Times - Connie Llanos
AJ Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles, said the ability to remove probationary teachers is already within the rights of district administrators ...
LA UNIFIED TARGETS INEFFECTIVE BEGINNING TEACHERS http://bit.ly/4HbAfv
89.3 KPCC - Jonathan Pobre
United Teachers Los Angeles president AJ Duffy says the Cortines proposal is misguided. To improve teacher quality, Duffy says the district should work with ...
LA SCHOOLS CHIEF TARGETS POOR-PERFORMING TEACHERS http://bit.ly/7GZTbY
Los Angeles Times
Ramon C. Cortines today announced that the Los Angeles Unified School District would begin aggressively weeding out poor-performing teachers and ...
GREEDHEAD'S CHRISTMAS: The Seedy Side of Entrepreneurial Education Reform
By Chester E. Finn Jr. & Frederick M. Hess from The American, The Journal of the American Enterprise Institute (!)
Thursday, December 17, 2009 - Officials charged with safeguarding school dollars should get wise to the greedheads.
'Twas the week before Christmas, and Race to the Top
Was the vendors’ obsession and focus nonstop.
The consultants were drafting proposals for states
With smug affirmations of positive fates,
While chiefs in their gray suits and governors, too,
Looked to Arne for dollars—please, more than a few.
In Oliver Stone’s Wall Street, Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) infamously asserted that “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.”
In K-12 education, we submit, greed can be good, albeit ugly; but ensuring that children and taxpayers eke real benefits from the education market demands that consumers be at least as discerning as the suppliers are ardent. Today, that is too rarely the case.
We’re veteran champions of entrepreneurs, for-profits, outsourcing, competition, deregulation, and kindred efforts to open public education to providers other than government and operators other than bureaucrats. We’ve served on boards of some of these organizations, advised them and generally supported them.
AS WE SURVEY TODAY’S EDUCATION LANDSCAPE, WE FIND FAR TOO MANY GREEDHEADS ON THE VENDOR SIDE AND FECKLESSNESS ON THE BUYER SIDE.
We’ve zero sympathy for hypocritical establishment grumps who aver that these “nontraditional” providers have darkened the previously pristine world of public schooling with the stain of self-interest. That world has long been dominated by adult “stakeholder” groups that are at least as self-interested as anybody in the private sector. They’ve been shielded by a government monopoly that has ill-served children and taxpayers alike while resisting every effort to reform it or render it more efficient.
Yes, many of today’s for-profit and non-profit operators are self-promoters out to make a buck—and some are little more than snake oil salesmen. Many others, of course, are honorable ventures with a track record of doing right by children and schools.
In the long run, however, whether children and taxpayers benefit from any of this depends on buyers as well as sellers. The problem is that today’s buyers are themselves creatures of the erstwhile government monopoly. They are mostly state and district officials, sometimes school leaders, with scant experience at gauging value for money. They’re only sporadically accountable for the wisdom or efficacy of their purchasing decisions. They’re not rewarded for cost savings or punished for failing to increase productivity. And they don’t spend their own money.
THE WHOLE ‘RACE TO THE TOP’ ENTERPRISE HAS BECOME A RED LIGHT DISTRICT FOR LUSTY CHARLATANS AND RANDY PEDDLERS.
Sometimes it works. There are now places and segments of schooling that can claim reasonably vigorous markets, multiple providers, proliferating choices, and signs of improved efficiency and client-mindedess. Bravo, we say. Yet as we survey today’s education landscape, we find far too many greedheads on the vendor side and fecklessness on the buyer side.
Textbook publishers, for example, enjoy a cozy oligopoly, golfing with superintendents, lobbying states to squelch competitors, and gulping up any rivals that survive the gauntlet long enough to develop viable businesses.
As 2009 ends, we see those same publishers angling for advantage in the nascent plan to devise tests to accompany the new “common core” standards. Regrettably, the whole “Race to the Top” enterprise has become a red light district for lusty charlatans and randy peddlers. Big firms full of wealthy MBA types—people who earn in a quarter what teachers make in a year—have gobbled up the $250,000 per state that the Gates Foundation offered as part of its own generous “consultant stimulus act,” along with additional dollars that states have tossed into the kitty. In return, they’re readying cool PowerPoint presentations, nifty white papers, and jargon-littered plans, all geared to helping states persuade Education Secretary Arne Duncan that yes, they are ready and eager to do his bidding.
IT IS VITAL THAT BUYERS BE DISCERNING, PARSIMONIOUS, PERSISTENT, AND EXACTING. THE BURDEN IS ON THEM TO DEMAND VALUE IN RETURN FOR THE MONEY THEY’RE SPENDING.
Ah, the holiday spirit. Devising a competitive plan is thought by state officials to require the careful hanging of many glittery ornaments upon their proposals. Conveniently, the consultants (and states) are aided in this task by platoons of self-promoters who tout themselves as one-stop solutions—whether or not they’ve ever actually done successfully that which they’re now promising. “You need school turnarounds? We got turnarounds.” “You want Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics? Look no further.” Plenty of outfits will promise to build your data system, take care of school leadership, fix teacher quality, or whatever else you may need. They’re often non-profits but they get pretty nearly the same plush salaries and reputation-boosting meetings with state and federal honchos, opportunities to self-importantly Blackberry late into the night, and future security—as new connections set them up for future rounds of philanthropic and taxpayer largesse.
It isn’t just Race to the Top, however, and it certainly isn’t new. The ink was scarcely dry on No Child Left Behind when slicksters were offering every imaginable form of “supplemental education services.” The operators of too many “virtual charter schools” deliver shoddy goods at high prices to taxpayers. Data gurus, professional developers, Individualized Education Program specialists, and curriculum refurbishers happily take state, federal, and/or local funds for a few days of running through their stock lectures. National “stars” fly in for a cool $10,000 or more to spend a day running dazzling sessions with checklists, inventories, and assorted “kids will love this” strategies. Motivational speakers pitch creative affirmation and welcoming learning environments. Equipped with jargon like “at-promise” (instead of “at-risk,” of course) and worksheets on the “invisible backpack of white privilege,” consultants and education school professors have padded their salaries with school funds at a handsome clip for decades.
Computer vendors and developers of learning software have long pitched a heady array of snazzy education technologies… that then sit, barely used, in the back of classrooms. We need scarcely mention the purveyors of buses, class rings and photos, cafeteria food, construction, and building maintenance, or any of the other good, old-fashioned enterprises that serenely and profitably peddle away while exploiting careless or bureaucratic purchasing habits.
IT’S THE TAXPAYER’S MONEY PURCHASERS SPEND, THEY’RE NOT ALWAYS SURE HOW TO JUDGE QUALITY, THEY LACK MEASURES OF EFFECTIVENESS OR EFFICIENCY, AND IT’S TEMPTING TO AVOID TOUGH DECISIONS OR UNPLEASANT CONFLICT.
Let us say it again: plenty of private vendors offer quality products and services that benefit schooling and millions of young people. There’s a robust baby cooing in the scuzzy bathwater. Nor should anyone imagine that public education is unique in attracting profiteers along with value-for-your-buck entrepreneurs. Who doesn’t recall military procurement horror stories or the “Big Dig” ceiling panels that fatally fell off because the contractor cut corners?
Markets are supposed to be where buyers and sellers find mutual satisfaction, where prices get established by the willingness of some to pay enough that others find it worthwhile to produce the desired goods and services. Done right, markets are meritocratic as well as efficient.
This despite the proclivity of sellers to be greedy. Markets don’t presume that vendors will be selfless do-gooders. But it is vital that buyers be discerning, parsimonious, persistent, and exacting. The burden is on them to demand value in return for the money they’re spending. And in schooling, too often, purchasers have been heedless, ill-informed, bureaucratic, or gullible. It’s the taxpayer’s money they spend, they’re not always sure how to judge quality, they lack measures of effectiveness or efficiency, and it’s tempting to avoid tough decisions or unpleasant conflict. Reformers and would-be watchdogs often allow state chiefs and local superintendents to excuse irresponsible fiscal stewardship with airy talk of closing achievement gaps and the nobility of the education mission—thus ensuring that the greedheads will prosper another day.
EQUIPPED WITH JARGON LIKE ‘AT-PROMISE’ AND WORKSHEETS ON THE ‘INVISIBLE BACKPACK OF WHITE PRIVILEGE,’ CONSULTANTS AND EDUCATION SCHOOL PROFESSORS HAVE PADDED THEIR SALARIES WITH SCHOOL FUNDS AT A HANDSOME CLIP FOR DECADES.
No, not a pretty picture. The only thing worse is when a monopolistic government tries to do everything itself. There, we have plenty of depressing history; aggrieved constituencies, the weight of bureaucratic routine, and the tug of employee demands means that it just doesn’t improve. The private market taking shape isn’t beautiful today but does hold the promise of getting better tomorrow. And it’ll get better faster if purchasers of these diverse goods and services demand value for their bucks and become more discriminating and less susceptible to faddish enthusiasms. We continue to believe in education entrepreneurship. But we’d be a lot happier if the officials charged with safeguarding school dollars would get wise to the greedheads. Gordon Gekko’s defense of self-interest was tinged with truth—but nobody really wants Gordon Gekko running their schools.
So they wrote many words and promised everyone a win,
Thus filling states’ stockings and bringing a grin
To the faces of teachers and school boards galore—
And doing right by the kids whom they say they adore.
Off to the side sat the taxpayer with battered purse,
Now so empty that he was right tempted to curse.
Observing all this, Rick and Chester are led
To entertain Grinch-like concerns in their head
About a world that is generous with gifts and good cheer
But leaves bills for the kids to pay in some future year.
Still, it’s the holiday season, so they’ll suspend doubt and fear—
And wish you much happiness in the New Year.
● Frederick M. Hess is a resident scholar and director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. Chester E. Finn Jr. is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.
● The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI) is a conservative think tank founded in 1943. AEI scholars are considered to be some of the leading architects of the second Bush administration's public policy.
THE BEST SCHOOL DISTRICT SOME BILLIONAIRES CAN BUY? Some Qs, fewer As, more Qs, some outrage and an org chart
from the AALA Update
[4LAKids is publishing the following excerpt - with our 2¢ worth - from the Dec 14 Edition of the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles Update. The whole thing - complete with contract negotiation rhetorical outrage (hyperbole of another color) is here: http://bit.ly/6YoVCt ]
Dec. 14 - In mid-November, AALA President Judy Perez asked the Superintendent the following questions:
1. a. What monetary loss does LAUSD suffer when a District school is taken over by an independent charter?
b. How much will implementation of the Public School Choice Resolution cost the District?
2. Will this potential loss of funds affect your decisions regarding the selection of school proposals during the Public School Choice process?
LAUSD Chief Financial Officer, Megan Reilly, provided some answers to the first question, and the Superintendent responded to the second. Here is a summary of their written responses:
1. The District loses significant funds when District schools become charters, but the amount varies from school to school. In the case of Birmingham High School, which converted to charter status in July 2009, the District lost a minimum of $15 million.
Mrs. Reilly did not provide an answer to the second part of Question #1 because the District has not calculated the costs associated with implementation of Public School Choice.
[smf: This, if correct, is the smoking gun in the PSC debacle. "The District has not calculated the costs…" is either an accusation or confession of fiduciary incompetence, possibly malfeasance. ]
2. On Dec. 10, 2009, the Superintendent wrote in a memo to Judy, “I do not believe that I will be considering a funding loss in selecting plans for implementation of the Public School Choice Resolution. I do not believe it is about dollars but it is about the best education for students going forward in those schools that are engaged in the Public School Choice.”
[smf: The superintendent's concern about the 'best education for students going forward' is well placed …but it needs to be for ALL the students of LAUSD. The very real concern here is that PSC is advantageous to the schools that are engaged in PSC AT THE EXPENSE of the rest of the schools.]
Considering the answers we have received so far, here are further questions for the Superintendent:
1. In this time of financial crisis, how can the District embark upon a potentially expensive course of action without determining the cost in advance?
2. How much of the District’s deficit would be eliminated if all focus and new schools under Public School Choice remained District schools?
3. Given the District’s budget crisis, is it wise or prudent to bleed the District of funds that could be used to help mitigate our enormous deficit?
4. What “strings” are the Broad, Walton and Wasserman Foundations pulling at Beaudry?
The Update continues:
We are questioning the continuing personnel additions that are floating through and around the 24th floor.
AALA’s concerns are especially heightened when matched with the Superintendent’s threats to cut large numbers of administrators, teachers and classified staff.
As reported in a memo to the Board of Education, dated December 13, 2009, Matt Hill, Administrative Officer, stated that 13 Senior Staff members have been hired. Their positions are funded by the Broad, Wasserman, and Walton Foundations.
Perhaps the District is in the throes of a “takeover” by the Wasserman, Walton and Broad Foundations.
If so, that would explain the potential selling off of schools and the Superintendent’s threats of layoffs of loyal, hardworking District employees.
Let’s try and understand senior staff’s motivation! The Superintendent has repeatedly said the District needs to support the schools by providing available resources to local sites. Yet administrators, teachers and classified staff at schools have been reduced in force and the aforementioned foundations arefunding numerous additions to the Superintendent’s staff. Further, it is reported that these new foundation-funded employees receive District-provided health benefits.
SBX5–4: RttT COMPROMISE HEADS TO ASSEMBLY + smf's 2¢
by John Fensterwald in The Educated Guess
December 17th, 2009 -- Removing the annual cap on charter schools is out; giving parents in failing schools the right to transfer to another district is in. And so is a public commission, with plenty of teachers on it, to review proposed changes to state academic standards.
In the latest twist in a battle of wills and education lobbies, the Senate yesterday passed a new version of Race to the Top legislation – SBX5-4 – and sent it to the Assembly. It’s not a done deal, but the bill followed intense negotiations involving aides for Gov. Schwarzenegger, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and Assembly Speak Karen Bass. Bass, in a statement, said “we have resolved all of the essential issues.’’ And the Legislature knows it has all but run out of time, with the state application for a piece of the $4.3 billion Race to the Top competition due Jan. 19.
That’s not to say the Assembly next week won’t stick in amendments that could queer the deal. Bass noted that there remains disagreement on issues “not directly related to Race to the Top.”
That’s code for parental choice.
Last week, the Assembly Education Committee defeated the original Senate bill, pushed by Schwarzenegger and Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, that would have given parents in low-performing schools the right of out-of-district transfer – a big change in state education policy. Also, if 50 percent of parents in a low-performing school or feeder schools signed a petition, school trustees would have been forced to take dramatic action to turn the school around, such as hiring a new principal and staff or inviting in a charter school operator.
But what may have seemed radical two weeks ago gained momentum when parent groups in Los Angeles massed behind it as a civil rights issue. And the state could argue that parental choice could enhance a Race to the Top application, even though it’s not explicitly tied to federal guidelines.
The compromise in SBX5-4: The parents’ petition provision will be limited to 75 schools, still a significant number, and the right of transfer will be limited to parents in the low-achieving 10 percent of schools. A representative of Los Angeles Unified testified in favor of the bill – much to my surprise.
The fight over charters
The importance of lifting the cap on charters, for additional application points, has been overstated. There are currently under 900 charter schools; the cap is 1,350 and grows 100 per year. The feds know California is charter-friendly.
The Assembly bill – ABX5-8, sponsored by Education Committee Chairwoman Julia Brownley, lifted the cap but, in its earlier versions, included some potentially meddlesome language restricting charter growth. But differences have narrowed, so it became a battle over who has authority to regulate charters: the Legislature or the state Board of Education, appointed by the governor.
Compressed deadline for common-core standards
California and other states have been prodded by Race to the Top rules to join a hasty process to adopt national standards in math and English. The bill would commit the state to adopt, by late summer, 85 percent of the common core standards yet to be developed by National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers. Critics fear that the result will lower California’s academic standards.
Creating an Academic Content Standards Commission, appointed by the Senate, Assembly and governor, would at least provide some oversight and an ability for the public to be heard.
SBX5-4 also requires establishing alternative training programs for aspiring teachers in science, math and technology, along with career academics – a move particularly advocated by business leaders in Silicon Valley.
●●smf's 2¢: It seems to me that if the bill fails to eliminate the cap on charter schools it fails to meet the requirements of RttT. Game over.
HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest of the Stories from Other Sources
HAWAII EDUCATION TALKS FAIL; SCHOOL CLOSURES GO ON: by The Associated Press 12/6 --- Honolulu – Hawaii schools w... http://bit.ly/8HTzdC
TEACHERS LEARN TOO + CYBER-BULLYING LESSONS: Letters to the LA Times | December 19, 2009 Teachers learn too Re ... http://bit.ly/4Km48e
US CHAMBER OF COMMERCE CALIFORNIA EDUCATION REPORT CARD: from Leaders and Laggards State Report Cards http://bit.ly... http://bit.ly/83ExsE
BRIEFLY: CA ED NEWS 12/18: from UCLA IDEA CA News Roundup Does grading bias apply to education reports? 12-17-... http://bit.ly/73qhZW
RttT/NCLB v 2.0: STATE SENATE PASSES NEW COMPROMISE EDUCATION BILL: Calif. Senate passes new compromise education b... http://bit.ly/5i2WAz
12/19 for 12/20: TOMORROW'S LAUSD NEWS TODAY: from Google News LA schools chief orders weak new teachers ousted L... http://bit.ly/6ScbQ7
RttT/NCLB v.2.0: MEIER: 'THE ALTERNATIVE?' TRANSPARENCY & HONEST DATA: by Deborah Meier - from the Bridging Differ... http://bit.ly/53n2Tm
3% OF THE STUDENTS, 100% OF THE CONTROVERSY: Opinion by Timm Herdt /Ventura County Star 12-16-2009 -- There are 10... http://bit.ly/4WDZe9
Three part series: THE TEACHER WHOM NOBODY CHOSE, SLOWING THE REVOLVING DOOR OF POOR SCHOOLS, A FREE MARKET FOR TEA... http://bit.ly/7xSZjg
PUT POWER OVER CALIFORNIA’S SCHOOLS IN THE HANDS OF PARENTS +smf’s 2¢: Parent Revolutionary Ben Austin says pa... http://bit.ly/6Uioq2
FOLLOWING ‘OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY’: DO BILLIONAIRES GET WHAT THEY PAY FOR?: LAUSD gets $6 million in grants to ... http://bit.ly/55fqRf
Coda: DAE’VON BAILEY’S KILLER GETS 25 TO LIFE; Dae’von gets an unmarked grave.: By Hector Becerra | LA Times ... http://bit.ly/5cdWyN
Race2Top/NCLB v. 2.0 – Two Letters from Diane: THE RACE TO NOWHERE + OPEN LETTER TO THE U.S. D.O.E. RE: THE RACE ... http://bit.ly/6eUmT2
Race2Top: [INLAND EMPIRE] LOCAL SCHOOL DISTRICTS WARY OF 'RACE TO THE TOP' INITIATIVE: School districts that wa... http://bit.ly/6UDxdB
No budget/No clue: CALIFORNIA DEBT SERVICE TO SURPASS $10 BILLION, SCHWARZENEGGER NAMES ANA MATOSANTOS FINANCE CHIE... http://bit.ly/8q5EmO
SIGN THE PETITION: Maintain the Integrity of the Arts Instructional Programs of LAUSD + traduccion en español: Vie... http://bit.ly/8Rmh7t
SOUTH PASADENA TEEN’S DEATH AFTER PARTY STUNS COMMUNITY: Los Angeles Times - http://bit.ly/8MZSdB http://bit.ly/8vwlR9
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
Tamar.Galatzan@lausd.net • 213-241-6386
Monica.Garcia@lausd.net • 213-241-6180
Marguerite.LaMotte@lausd.net • 213-241-6382
Nury.Martinez@lausd.net • 213-241-6388
Richard.Vladovic@lausd.net • 213-241-6385
Steve.Zimmer@lausd.net • 213-241-6387
...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.
• If you are eligible to become a citizen, BECOME ONE.
• If you a a citizen, REGISTER TO VOTE.
• If you are registered, VOTE LIKE THE FUTURE DEPENDS ON IT.
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