In This Issue:  | | • | Testing: COMMUNITY-BASED ASSESSMENT MAKES THE GRADE | | | • | DEBUNKING THE CASE FOR NATIONAL STANDARDS | | | • | TOP-SCORING CHARTER SCHOOL NAMED FOR UCLA PROFESSOR + smf’s 2¢ | | | • | HOW TO DISCUSS THE HAITI DISASTER WITH YOUR STUDENTS | | | • | 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: | | | | “The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education.’’
- Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968
“Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.”
- MLK
______________
EL DORADO, BEFORE IT WAS A TAIL-FINNED CADILLAC was a fabulous place where – myth has it – a prince or priest of the Amazonian Musica people coated himself in gold, dove into a clear mountain lake and emerged a king. In translation (“The Golden One”) this legend obsessed the Conquistadors – and after them Sir Walter Raleigh (who sought his El Dorado up the Orinoco rather than the Amazon) - and Milton in Paradise Lost and Voltaire in Candide. In Heart of Darkness Conrad (and The Company) sends Marlow up the Congo in search of Kurtz on a boat of the Eldorado Exploring Expedition.
Edgar Allan Poe in 1848 – the year California gold fever swept the nation, wrote:
Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of El Dorado.
But he grew old-
This knight so bold-
And o'er his heart a shadow
Fell as he found
No spot of ground
That looked like El Dorado.
And, as his strength
Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow-
"Shadow," said he,
"Where can it be-
This land of El Dorado?"
"Over the Mountains
Of the Moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,"
The shade replied-
"If you seek for El Dorado!"
LAST WEEK, IN A MOMENT OF BIZARRE THAT EVEN HARPER'S WOULD FIND OUTLANDISH, the State Board of Education proved Mark Twain's Maxim of Educational Leadership yet again. [“First God made idiots; that was for practice. Then He made school boards.”] It ruled that charter schools need not follow the Special Education Plan of the school district they serve – or even the County they're in. [State Board of Ed Agenda Item # 32 - http://bit.ly/5CwL78]
Charter Schools – never strong at serving Special Ed and Special Needs students - can, the board ruled, shop around for a better deal in Special Ed and services for Students with Disabilities. A better deal for charter schools ...not kids! And for good measure they served it up on a golden platter.
WELCOME TO EL DORADO COUNTY on the Eastern slope of the Sierra, Population 172,889. And the El Dorado Charter Special Education Local Plan Area (SELPA | definition: http://bit.ly/4RmTG5). And the “Local” in “Local Planning Area”? Everywhere is local to somewhere -- in Beverly Hills the schools are “Locals Only!”
This amounts to El Dorado for the folks up there because they get a piece of federal buckos for overseeing and administering all those special ed big city charter school children.
And El Dorado for the charter operators because well – how much accountability is there gonna be from or to El Dorado County? And the county seat of Placerville.(formerly Hangtown)?
And if the Special Ed parents get their knickers in a twist because Amino Hypothetical Charter School #4 isn't serving their child they can go straight to the El Dorado Charter SELPA Community Advisory Committee up in Placervillle (353 miles from LA) ...and straighten that matter out!
There are 118 Local SELPAs in California – and one exception: The El Dorado Statewide “Local” Charter SELPA.
Dr. Barber, the El Dorado County Superintendent writes:
"On July 9, 2007, the State Board of Education approved a three year pilot for the El Dorado County Charter SELPA. Although we believe it is always preferable for a charter school to participate with their geographic SELPA, we do realize that choice regarding SELPA participation may be of interest to some. On January 7, 2010 the State Board of Education took action to lift our pilot status and approved the continuance of the El Dorado County Charter SELPA." [http://bit.ly/4JBYve]
"Although we believe it is always preferable for a charter school to participate with their geographic SELPA......?" C'mon: If Dr. Barber truly believes that it is 'always preferable' (...and she is right!) she shouldn't be the enabler for the contrary because "...it may be of interest to some".
This is the Tyranny of the Some; a prime example/easy answer/ half-baked solution. With unintended consequences and children left behind queued up from here to kingdom come.
Unless you have a child attending a charter school in El Dorado County (there are a few - though the official list [http://bit.ly/5VWrXk] includes schools in Sacramento, Costa Mesa and Huntington Park) this is about the worst Special Ed policy decision imaginable!
They call them Special Education LOCAL Plan Areas for a reason. What part of Local is it that's so hard to understand?
Gentle Reader, it's federal funds that underfund Special Ed – and I'm looking forward to some very amusing testimony in a federal courthouse. And I seriously doubt if it will be in Placerville!
¡Onward/Adelante! --smf
The story/The spin: STATE BOARD GIVES MORE CONTROL TO CHARTER SCHOOLS FOR STUDENTS WITH SPECIAL NEEDS
by Connie Llanos, Staff Writer | LA Daily News
01/08/2010 | http://bit.ly/7zMbwh
Testing: COMMUNITY-BASED ASSESSMENT MAKES THE GRADE
by Todd Farley | from the Feb & March issue | www.edutopia.org/
12/23/2009 – We're fast approaching a point in this country when the promotion or graduation of students will result not from their classroom work or the opinions of the educators who spend each day with them but from their performance on a single standardized test. Because I've spent the last 15 years inside the testing industry -- working for many of the biggest companies on many of the biggest tests -- this trend doesn't seem so smart to me.
In fact, I'd say linking federal education funds to regional standardized test scores (as No Child Left Behind does) or teacher pay to student test results (the probable, but unintended, outcome of President Obama's Race to the Top [1] program) are ideas that should be reconsidered.
My complaint with large-scale assessment does not lie with the multiple-choice tests, because those are scored electronically. The real trouble begins in the realm of open-ended tests, where students answer questions in their own words and are assessed by fallible human beings. The testing industry wants those subjective student responses to be scored as consistently as multiple-choice tests.
To do this, the industry establishes hard-and-fast rules for its short-term "professional scorers" to adhere to. In my experience, these rules -- written for recently hired temporary employees -- ultimately turn the process into a theater of the absurd. I know, because I've sat through the training sessions.
Working on a national assessment test in 2005, I helped establish scoring rules for a test question that asked students performing a hands-on science task to describe what happened when they mixed a liquid and a solid. The rubric, written by classroom teachers, said full credit should be awarded to answers showing "complete understanding."
But everyone had a different idea of "complete understanding." So the test company tried to specify exactly what that meant. I sat in on a lengthy conference call filled with test developers and science teachers as we tried to hammer out the right and wrong student responses, and I was amazed as those earnest educators considered potential responses.
"If we accept 'The liquid bubbled,'" one scientist said, "then I don't see how we can't accept 'It sizzled.'"
"But sizzled isn't the same as bubbled," another argued, and soon everyone on the phone was debating whether boiled meant the same as sizzled, fizzled the same as sizzled, fizzed the same as fizzled.
When people ask how I would reform standardized testing, I point to models that work on a smaller scale. In the current system, temporary employees must adhere to unyielding rules established to deal with tens of thousands of student responses. A reformed system would have a smaller number of scorers assessing the work of a smaller number of students. This means placing assessment back in the hands of the teacher who can make thoughtful decisions about the students he or she knows.
If small-scale assessment sounds like an expensive solution that won't fly in today's economy, consider Washington State's recent achievements. In response to a 2004 ballot initiative, the state rolled out a comprehensive classroom-based-assessment program for social studies, health, and the arts. These CBAs are written and administered on the state level, but student results are assessed by classroom teachers. This makes for a win-win: Administrators and policy makers receive standardized results across the state, and students are spared the obvious downfalls of large-scale test scoring.
Organizations like Boston-based FairTest [2] consider programs such as Washington's to be authentic assessments. This is because the CBAs are based on student performances or portfolios they produce over a period of time. In this scenario, assessment no longer rests on the open-ended answers that students recall on one stressful day.
It is increasingly important to change the testing industry. Race to the Top is based on national assessment criteria, and that is set to become the new gatekeeper for federal education funding. Absent reform, we are placing life-changing assessments about students in the hands of bored temps who give fleeting glances to students' work.
- Todd Farley is the author of Making the Grades: My Misadventures in the Standardized Testing Industry [3].
More on 21st-Century Assessment
Share your thoughts on this topic at Edutopia.org's Assessment group. [4]
Source URL: http://www.edutopia.org/community-based-assessment-testing-reform
Footnote Links:
[1] http://www.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop/index.html
[2] http://www.fairtest.org
[3] http://p3books.com/makingthegrades
[4] http://www.edutopia.org/groups/assessment/11400
DEBUNKING THE CASE FOR NATIONAL STANDARDS
Commentary By Alfie Kohn in EdWeek
January 14, 2010 – I keep thinking it can’t get much worse, and then it does.
Throughout the 1990s, one state after another adopted prescriptive education standards enforced by frequent standardized testing, often of the high-stakes variety. A top-down, get-tough movement to impose “accountability” began to squeeze the life out of classrooms.
A decade ago, many of us thought we had hit bottom—until the floor gave way and we found ourselves in a basement we didn’t know existed. Now every state had to test every student every year in grades 3-8, judging them (and their schools) almost exclusively by test scores and hurting the schools that needed the most help. Ludicrously unrealistic proficiency targets suggested that the federal law responsible was intended to sabotage rather than improve public education.
Today, we survey the wreckage. Talented teachers have abandoned the profession after having been turned into glorified test-prep technicians. Low-income teenagers have been forced out of school by do-or-die graduation exams. Countless inventive learning activities have been eliminated in favor of prefabricated lessons pegged to state standards.
And now we’re informed that what we really need … is to standardize this whole operation from coast to coast.
Have we lost our minds? Because we’re certainly in the process of losing our children’s minds.
Let’s be clear about this latest initiative, which is being spearheaded by politicians, corporate CEOs, and companies that produce standardized tests. First, what they’re trying to sell us are national standards. They carefully point out that the effort isn’t driven by the federal government. But if all, or nearly all, states end up adopting identical mandates, that distinction doesn’t amount to much.
Second, these standards will inevitably be accompanied by a national standardized test. “Standards alone,” warns Dane Linn, a key player, “will not drive teaching and learning”—meaning, of course, the specific type of teaching and learning that the authorities require. Even if we took the advice of the late Harold Howe II, a former U.S. commissioner of education, and made the standards “as vague as possible,” a national test creates a de facto national curriculum, particularly if high stakes are attached.
Third, a relatively small group of experts—far from classrooms—will be designing standards, test questions, and curricula for the rest of us. Incredibly, the official Web site of the Common Core State Standards Initiative insists that these will be “based on evidence” rather than reflecting anyone’s “individual beliefs about what is important.” But evidence can tell us only whether a certain method is effective for reaching a certain objective—for example, how instruction aligned to this standard will affect a score on that test. The selection of the goal itself—what our children will be taught and tested on—unavoidably reflects values and beliefs. Should those of a single group of individuals determine what happens in every public school in the country?
Advocates of national standards say they want all (American) students to attain excellence, no matter where they happen to live. The problem is that excellence is being confused with entirely different attributes, such as uniformity, rigor, specificity, and victory. Let’s consider each in turn.
Are all kids entitled to a great education? Of course. But that doesn’t mean all kids should get the same education. High standards don’t require common standards. Uniformity is not the same thing as excellence—or equity. (In fact, one-size-fits-all demands may offer the illusion of fairness, setting back the cause of genuine equity.) To recognize these simple truths is to watch the rationale for national standards collapse into a heap of intellectual rubble.
"Uniformity is not the same thing as excellence—or equity."
I know of no evidence that students in countries as diverse as ours with national standards or curricula engage in unusually deep thinking or are particularly excited about learning. Even standardized-test results, such as those of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, provide no support. On 8th grade math and science exams, eight of the 10 top-scoring countries had centralized education systems, but so did nine of the 10 lowest-scoring countries in math and eight of the 10 lowest-scoring countries in science.
So if students don’t benefit from uniformity, who does? Presumably, corporations that sell curriculum materials and tests will enjoy lower costs. And then there are the policymakers who confuse doing well with beating others. If you’re determined to evaluate students or schools in relative terms, it helps if they’re all doing the same thing. But why would we want to turn learning into a competitive sport?
It’s not only that national standards are unnecessary, they’re also based on the premise that “our teachers cannot be trusted to make decisions about which curriculum is best for their schools,” as the University of Chicago’s Zalman Usiskin put it. Moreover, uniformity doesn’t just happen—and continue—on its own. Someone has to make everyone apply the same standards. What happens, then, to educators who disagree with some of them or with, say, the premise that teaching must be split into separate disciplines? What are the implications of accepting a system characterized by what Deborah Meier has called “centralized power over ideas”?
I’ve written elsewhere about another error: equating harder with better and making a fetish of “rigorous” demands or tests whose primary virtue (if it’s a virtue at all) is that they’re really difficult. Read just about any brief for national standards and you’ll witness this confusion in full bloom. A key selling point is that we’re “raising the bar”—even though, as Voltaire reminded us, “That which is merely difficult gives no pleasure in the end.” Nor does it enhance learning.
Then, too, there is a conflation of quality with specificity. If children—and communities—are different from one another, the only safe way to apply one standard to all of them is to operate at a high level of abstraction: “We will help all students to communicate effectively,” for example. (Hence Harold Howe’s enduring wisdom about the need to keep things vague.) The more specific the standard, the more problematic to impose it on everyone. Pretty soon you’re gratuitously defining some children as failures, particularly if standards are broken down by grade level.
The reasonable-sounding adjectives employed to defend an agenda of specificity—“focused,” “coherent,” “precise,” “clear”—ought to make us nervous. If standards comprise narrowly defined facts and skills, then education consists of transmitting vast quantities of material to students, material that even the most successful may not remember, care about, or be able to use.
This is exactly what most state standards have already become, and it’s where national standards are heading (even if, in theory, they could be otherwise). Specificity is what business groups and newspaper editorialists want. It’s demanded by theorists who think being well educated mostly means knowing lots of facts. It’s been a major criterion by which Education Week and conservative think tanks like the Thomas B. Fordham Institute evaluate standards documents. In any case, Achieve Inc. and the governors probably won’t need much convincing; they’ll give us specific in spades.
Finally, what’s the purpose of demanding that every kid in every school in every state must be able to do the same thing in the same year, with teachers pressured to “align” their instruction to a master curriculum and a standardized test?
"A prescription for uniform, specific, rigorous standards is made to order for those whose chief concern is to pump up the American economy."
I once imagined a drinking game in which a few of those education reform papers from corporate groups and politicians were read aloud: You take a shot every time you hear “rigorous,” “measurable,” “accountable,” “competitive,” “world-class,” “high(er) expectations,” or “raising the bar.” Within a few minutes, everyone would be so inebriated that they’d no longer be able to recall a time when discussions about schooling weren’t studded with these macho managerial buzzwords.
But not all jargon is meaningless. This language has very real implications for what classrooms will look like and what education is (and isn’t) all about. The goal here isn’t to nourish children’s curiosity, to help them fall in love with reading, to promote both the ability and the disposition to think critically, or to support a democratic society. Rather, a prescription for uniform, specific, rigorous standards is made to order for those whose chief concern is to pump up the American economy and triumph over people who live in other countries.
If you read the FAQs page on the common-core-standards Web site, don’t bother looking for words like “exploration,” “intrinsic motivation,” “developmentally appropriate,” or “democracy.” Instead, the very first sentence contains the phrase “success in the global economy,” followed immediately by “America’s competitive edge.”
If these standards are more economic than educational in their inspiration, more about winning than learning, devoted more to serving the interests of business than to meeting the needs of kids, then we’ve merely painted a 21st-century facade on a hoary, dreary model of school-as-employee-training. Anyone who recoils from that vision should strenuously resist a proposal for national standards that embodies it.
Yes, we want excellent teaching and learning for all—although our emphasis should be less on achievement (read: test scores) than on students’ achievements. Offered a list of standards, we should scrutinize each one, but also ask who came up with them and for what purpose. Is there room for discussion and disagreement—and not just by experts—regarding what, and how, we’re teaching and how authentic our criteria are for judging success? Or is this a matter of “obey or else,” with tests to enforce compliance?
The standards movement, sad to say, morphed long ago into a push for standardization. The last thing we need is more of the same.
- Alfie Kohn's 11 books about education and human behavior include The Schools Our Children Deserve, The Homework Myth, and What to Look for in a Classroom. He lives (actually) in the Boston area and (virtually) at www.alfiekohn.org
TOP-SCORING CHARTER SCHOOL NAMED FOR UCLA PROFESSOR + smf’s 2¢
by Howard Blume | LA Times L.A. NOW Blog
January 14, 2010 | 6:51 pm
A four-year-old high school that became a 2009 California Distinguished School was formally named today for a respected expert on education and business management and his civic activist spouse.
The new William and Carol Ouchi High School is in its first school year in its new, $17-million Hyde Park-area campus, which was built in 56 days, officials said. The simple, two-story structure has two computer labs and updated technology hookups, but no cafeteria, no gym and limited recreation space on its 2.5-acre site, which includes an adjacent middle school.
The school’s test scores dipped slightly this year but its Academic Performance Index score of 799 ranks it among the best-scoring high schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District. The school is operated by the Alliance for College-Ready Public Schools, a locally based charter school management organization that also operates other high-scoring schools.
About 100 of the school’s original 189 ninth-graders will be in the school’s first graduating class this year, said Principal Ena LaVan. All graduates must fulfill entrance requirements to apply for the University of California/Cal State system. And the first class had to endure a temporary location and a stint in trailers while awaiting the completion of the campus.
Charters are independently run and free of some restrictions that govern traditional schools, including strict state school-construction rules that drive up construction costs and slow down the building process for schools built by L.A. Unified. Charters instead can erect their schools under city building codes.
As a fundraising tool, the Alliance sells naming rights for its schools, and in this instance, Ouchi was nominated by former Mayor Richard Riordan, an education philanthropist and political power broker who has long relied on Ouchi, a UCLA professor, for expert guidance. Riordan has donated or committed a total of $2.8 million to Alliance schools.
Ouchi has long promoted a form of school decentralization. He says principals — not a school district central office — should make decisions on how to spend a school’s money and then be held accountable for the results. In his most recent book, “The Secret of TSL,” he chronicled how principals, especially in New York City, have used autonomy to reduce the total number of students that each teacher must manage in a year. He says this allows teachers to get to know and to better assist each student. Principals have accordingly reduced support and administrative staff to pursue this strategy — because it yields results, Ouchi wrote.
At his namesake school, Ouchi helped establish a Saturday business academy offering tutoring and enrichment classes to introduce students to potential careers.
Carol Ouchi has served on the boards of philanthropic organizations including the Santa Monica YWCA, Santa Monica College Foundation and Children’s Home Society.
________________
●●smf’s 2¢: The story above is reprinted entire as it appeared in the Times blog – in the print edition the Times editors removed all reference to the school being a charter school. As it is the poster child for successful charters one would almost think anti-charter forces were at work in the newsroom. Almost.
Ouchi is an educator – but his expertise is in business, not in education. And in politics – he was Mayor Riordan’s chief of staff. Ouchi’s book: "Making Schools Work" - championed the concept of local control – empowering principals to run their own schools at the expense of central district control. He proposed this at the time when centralist Roy Romer was LAUSD superintendent – and UTLA has a hard time empowering principals to do anything except take notes at faculty meetings.
4LAKids supports much of Ouchi’s message – but as a business school scholar and a retired businessperson I question how far business school business practices go in public education. Balancing the checkbook would be good, but in K-12 education Return on Investment is measured a generation later, not in a quarterly report. And today’s LAUSD principal; has not been prepared to run their school – especially in a world where entrepreneurship collides with governance by the pink memo from downtown. Today’s pink memo seems to say: “You will be independent and that’s an order.”
Ouchi’s original message wasn’t in advocacy of charters, but the charter community has embraced it and made it their own.
TIMING IS EVERTHING
This announcement is trobling against the backdrop of the Haiti Earthquake. One must remember that charter schools built with private funds – such as the Ouchi School – “Built in 56 days!” - are not subject to the same stringent building codes and earthquake standards (“The Field Act”) as publicly funded/publicly owned schools; charters only conform to local building codes. Haitian schools and Sichuan schools conformed to local building codes. The California charter law permits this …but how many parents with their children in charter schools are aware of this?
And how will they feel after The Big One?
HOW TO DISCUSS THE HAITI DISASTER WITH YOUR STUDENTS
By Elena Aguilar, Teacher | from the Edutopia blog | http://bit.ly/8EjN9f
1/14/2010 – The unthinkable happened in Haiti on January 12, when a massive earthquake destroyed the nation's capital city and killed tens of thousands of people. The magnitude of the devastation is still unknown, but the stories and images coming out of Port-au-Prince are haunting. There is no doubt that life in Haiti -- already the poorest country in the hemisphere -- has just become much, much more difficult.
All day long, as I heard the news and read reports coming from the island, I was overwhelmed by my feelings of wanting to do something, and by the frustration of not feeling like there is anything I can do. It doesn't feel like it's enough to donate money to relief organizations (although it's definitely needed).
TEACHABLE MOMENTS
Today, I really missed being in the classroom. When I was teaching and a catastrophic event happened, I felt like I could do something: I could support kids in how to think about a tragedy like this one, I could cultivate empathy in children, I could help them analyze media coverage, or I could provide them with history to understand the situation.
If I was in the classroom right now, I think I'd also take the opportunity to teach kids something about Haiti: play Haitian music, read a folktale, learn some geography -- and for older students, I'd teach them something about Haiti's amazing history.
For those who don't know, Haiti was the first independent nation in Latin America, the only nation whose independence was gained as part of a successful slave rebellion, and the first postcolonial independent, black-led nation in the world.
I'd expand students' knowledge of the country and its people so that their impressions of Haiti are not only one of tragedy.
I was teaching when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans. I helped students organize a drive to collect donations for schools. I designed a number of lessons on critically analyzing the media coverage. I also pushed students to explore the concept of a natural disaster.
I thought about this today. The earthquake in Haiti is not a natural disaster; the disaster is the result of underdevelopment, poverty, and a complex series of political and economic decisions made by first world powers over the last 200 years. The earthquake has exposed Haiti's desperate poverty; it is underdevelopment that is a disaster.
If I was teaching kids right now, I'd find some way to communicate this fact to them. It feels urgent. It makes what has happened in Haiti something that the world is responsible for -- particularly the United States and France, Haiti's former colonizers. But you'd have to understand something about Haiti's history in order to understand why I'm saying that.
SERVICE AND SOLIDARITY
I'd help students think about what they could do to help others -- what they can do right now to help Haitians, and what they might do one day to help others. I'm really big on the idea that everyone should contribute to the world, and I find that children are easily engaged with this notion. They want to be of service to people, or animals, or the environment. In my experience, kids really want opportunities to volunteer and help.
Perhaps in learning about the desperate need in Haiti right now for doctors or nurses, or for sniffer dogs or people who speak French or Creole, a child might be inspired to pursue a career that one day could lead them into a tragedy like this one to help others.
And so I'd use this situation to push this idea: We all belong to the same planet and have a responsibility to help each other. What can you do? What will you do?
I think I'd also push the idea of solidarity, a concept we should reclaim and resurrect: What can a group of kindergartners do in solidarity with the people of Haiti? What does it mean to be in solidarity with a group of people? What are the many ways we can show our solidarity?
It's really about building empathy, opening our hearts, and expanding our notion of who belongs in our community. As an educator, I often feel like this is my primary charge -- all I really aspire to do.
Readers, please share: How have you addressed catastrophes like the earthquake in Haiti in the classroom? What have you done or what might you do with students in response to the earthquake? What are the opportunities for teaching that can come out of this tragedy? Please contribute your thoughts and ideas.
_____________________
- ELENA AGUILAR has taught in Oakland, California, since 1995. She was a founding member of ASCEND, a small autonomous school in the Oakland Unified School District, which opened in 2001. At ASCEND, she taught history and language arts to children in grades 6-8 using project learning. Aguilar has also taught at the elementary school and high school levels. She is a lecturer in San Francisco State University's Department of Elementary Education and an instructional coach in one of Oakland's middle schools. She works closely with BayCES, the Bay Area Coalition for Equitable Schools, to dramatically improve educational experiences, outcomes, and life options for students and families who have been historically underserved by their schools and districts.
HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest of the Stories from Other Sources
Letters to the Times: CHARTER SCHOOLS, BEVERLY HILLS ‘LOCALS ONLY’ SCHOOLS: LA Times Letters to the Editor 1/16 C... http://bit.ly/7J5MjO
LAUSD RECALLS 3 HIGHLY REGARDED CAMS TEACHERS IN BUDGET MOVE: By Melissa Pamer Staff Writer | Daily Breeze 01/15/... http://bit.ly/7KJh8x
BIDDERS FOR LAUSD SCHOOLS BEGIN PRESENTING PLANS TO PARENTS TODAY: meeting schedule: http://bit.ly/5NrxqK Howard... http://bit.ly/4BhkbJ
JAN 15: MLK’s ‘REAL’ BIRTHDAY — “The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think criti... http://bit.ly/4K01GV
THE FUTURE (OF ARTS EDUCATION) BELONGS TO US? Sign the Petition! | http://bit.ly/arts_petition: LA WEEKLY ARTS NEW... http://bit.ly/7NGeVq
Friday, January 15, 2010 7:02 AM
BERKELEY CHARTER SCHOOL PRAISED AND DENOUNCED AT HEARING: By Doug Oakley - Berkeley Voice 01/14/2010 04:56:24 PM ... http://bit.ly/7f4HVH
SCHEDULE FOR PUBLIC SCHOOL CHOICE APPLICANT PRESENTATION MEETINGS FOR PARENTS AND THE COMMUNITY: check District We... http://bit.ly/5NrxqK
ONLY TWO APPLICATIONS RECEIVED TO OPERATE AND IMPROVE SAN FERNANDO MIDDLE SCHOOL: Written by Diana Martinez, Edito... http://bit.ly/6gGVVj
Daily News: BANNINGS COACH FERRAGAMO STEPS DOWN, STRICTER RULES FOR CHARTERS, PSC APPLICATIONS IN: Banning's Ferr... http://bit.ly/57B8Jz
Fiscal malfeasance?: L.A. SCHOOLS PAID $200 MILLION MORE IN SALARIES THAN BUDGETED: By Howard Blume | LA Times | h... http://bit.ly/4w1uWd
TEACHER EVALUATIONS, UC BERKELEY RANKS HIGH IN MINORITY ENROLLMENT, CHARTER ACCOUNTABLITY IN LAUSD: from L.A. Time... http://bit.ly/8P2pmq
LAUSD RECEIVES APPLICATIONS TO OPERATE AND IMPROVE SCHOOLS :Superintendent Ramon Cortines Encouraged by Continued ... http://bit.ly/5PLx2V
SCHOOL BUILT ON SITE WHERE RFK SHOT NAMED FOR HIM: By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS From the NY TIMES 12 Jan - 9:23 p.... http://bit.ly/6ExeWz
LAO: SCHWARZENEGGER’S ASSUMPTIONS FOR FEDERAL AID UNREALISTIC: It is "unclear" whether the governor has complied w... http://bit.ly/7vcueg
ED WEEK REPORT CARD IGNORES FAMILY DATA + CA LAWMAKERS APPROVE GAS & OIL TAX FOR EDUCATION + …POT TOO!: States' re... http://bit.ly/7Rt9fe
MOST ORANGE COUNTY DISTRICTS SAY NO TO OBAMA EDUCATION REFORMS: By SCOTT MARTINDALE and FERMIN LEAL | O.C. Registe... http://bit.ly/64oqx8
NYT: AS SCHOOL EXIT TEST PROVE TOUGH, STATES EASE STANDARDS: By IAN URBINA | New York Times | http://bit.ly/7959Kq... http://bit.ly/6Sms7u
EVENTS: Coming up next week...
• PUBLIC SCHOOL CHOICE: BIDDERS TO TAKE OVER LAUSD SCHOOLS ARE PRESENTING PLANS TO COMMUNITIES OVER THE NEXT TWO WEEKS - A SCHOOL NEAR YOU YOU IS "UP FOR GRABS"!
meeting schedule: http://bit.ly/5NrxqK
*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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