In This Issue:  | | • | THE PROMISE AND PERIL OF RACE TO THE TOP | | | • | BROWN UNVEILS EDUCATION REFORM PLAN | | | • | NEW ANALYSIS BLASTS OBAMA’S SCHOOL TURNAROUND POLICY – AND TELLS HOW TO FIX IT + “FRAMEWORK FOR PROVIDING ALL STUDENTS AN OPPORTUNITY TO LEARN | | | • | CIVIL RIGHTS: A PRINCIPLED EDUCATION | | | • | 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: | | | | “Dear President Obama, you say you believe in an equal education for all students, but you are embarking on education policies that will never achieve that goal and that can do harm to America’s school children, especially its neediest.
"Stop before it is too late.” - from an article in the Washington Post (smf: just because it's quoted totally out of context doesn’t mean it isn't true!)
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ECONOMIST PAUL KRUGMAN opined on ABC's This Week this morning that there is thought among economic theorists he disagrees with that more sacrifice and pain are necessary before we can pull out of this recession. I come from a long line of New England WASPs and wish to repudiate that kind of neo-Puritan philosophy -- unless the sacrifice is enhancing revenue sand increasing support for education and services for children. It's called investing in the future.
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ON FRIDAY I attended a presentation by the LA County Department of Children and Family Services to the State PTA - responding to the recent series of articles and revelations about DCFS in the LA Times -- and really addressing how DCFS can protect the interests of county's children as need increases and funding and staffing (and by extension: political will) decrease. That is a conversation that must continue.
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SEE THE LA TIMES EDITORIAL from today (THE PROMISE AND PERIL OF RACE TO THE TOP - following) about Race to the Top v.2.0 and compare+contrast it with Jerry Brown's proposed Education Policy (BROWN UNVEILS EDUCATION REFORM PLAN - link follows) rolled out this week.. Now bring the NEW ANALYSIS BLASTS OBAMA’S SCHOOL TURNAROUND POLICY – AND TELLS HOW TO FIX IT + “Framework for Providing All Students an Opportunity to Learn” ( follows) into the thinking.
The reality of reality is slowly becoming more real across the political spectrum. And always remember: Data is the lowest level on the taxonomy of knowledge; the hierarchy goes data > information > knowledge > wisdom. To be "data-driven" is to knee-jerk-react to the bits and bytes themselves - "researchdriven" at least adds some thought and evaluation to the process. To be knowledge-driven or wisdom-driven would be laudable.
YOU’VE READ IT IT HERE, over and over. It's not an original thought - but it bears repeating until we all get it: There are no short cuts, no quick fixes, no silver or magic bullets. No resolutions from the board of ed or city hall; no federal mandate or act of congress or tweak to the union contract - no matter how well-intentioned or crafted will solve the dilemma of public education ...any more than throwing money at it or or cutting it to budgetary shreds will. No legislation or court action solves this. Only hard work and good thinking in the classroom, in the front office, in District HQ, and DC and Sacramento -- and by students and parents and educators and the community - Democrats and Republicans and Declines-to-States - TOGETHER - the magic is in the word "together" - solves this.
¡Onward/Hasta Alelante! - smf
PS: If you choose not to believe any of the above and are looking for a Man on a White Horse to lead you on the short cut to the promised land of quick fixes, the Daily News has the answer: ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA COULD BE THE EDUCATION MAYOR -- IF HE TAKES CHARGE OF LAUSD REFORM | http://bit.ly/bRYJH9
THE PROMISE AND PERIL OF RACE TO THE TOP
CALIFORNIA IS IN THE RUNNING FOR A GRANT FROM THE FEDERAL RACE TO THE TOP PROGRAM. THAT'S THE GOOD NEWS. THE BAD IS THAT TOO-HASTY REFORMS WILL PROVE TO BE NO REFORM AT ALL.
LA Times Editorial
August 1, 2010 - As encouraging as it is to see California in the running to win a Race to the Top grant for its schools, we can't help wondering how great a price the state will pay for the possibility of receiving as much as $700 million.
The U.S. Department of Education announced last week that California is one of 19 finalists in the second round of grant applications. Should it succeed — and the odds are decent, because officials say that more than half the finalists will receive grants — many of California's neediest schools will receive infusions of new money. Even so, we see this potential win as mixed news.
It's impossible not to celebrate the prospect of extra funding when the schools are in such bad straits. Only a third of students in California are represented by the state's application, but they are among the most disadvantaged — including those in the Los Angeles Unified School District — and thus the most in need of both reform initiatives and extra funding.
The worrisome part of the Race to the Top program is reflected in its very name — it is indeed a race to reform, quickly and dramatically, with inadequate attention to conducting pilot studies or discerning what research shows to work or not work in schools. California is among dozens of states that have scrambled to reinvent their education policies along the lines called for by Education Secretary Arne Duncan, and we hope those changes won't prove counterproductive, especially because the grant, at its highest, would add up to less than 2% of what the state spends on public education in a year.
Potential problems are already becoming clear as the state Education Department begins to implement legislation that was hastily cobbled together last year during California's unsuccessful attempt to win a grant in the first round of funding. One element of that legislation, the so-called open enrollment provision, allows students at low-performing schools to transfer to schools in other districts, assuming they can find a spot in one. But the provision was so awkwardly worded that the list of low performers includes schools that score 800 out of 1,000 on the state's Academic Performance Index. An 800 is considered the goal for the state's public schools, yet the legislation is categorizing these high-scoring schools as inadequate. Not only does this stigmatize them, but it could set them up to lose students and the funding that comes with higher enrollment.
Similar paradoxes might plague the "parent trigger" provision. Parents at "low-performing schools," as measured by the federal No Child Left Behind Act, can petition to have their schools turned into charter schools or reconstituted with new administration and teaching staff. But under the California legislation, these schools can have an API of up to 799. In other words, they can be fine schools that fall barely short of the state's goal, yet the jobs of their principals and teachers can be at risk.
On a practical level, we'd like to think that parents would be happy enough with such highly rated schools that they wouldn't want to instigate a coup. But in that case, why include these schools in a measure intended to target those that need a kick in the pants? Fortunately, last-minute changes to the California legislation limited the number of parent-trigger schools to 75 statewide. There is merit to the idea of empowering parents to force change at truly abysmal schools, but the state is right to move slowly as this concept plays out.
At least California was more moderate than other states when it came to evaluating teachers. In response to Race to the Top's emphasis on rating teachers by how well their students do on standardized tests, some states have vowed to make test scores count for half or more of a teacher's evaluation. That's unreasonable. We agree that student scores should be part of the evaluation — improving test performance is, after all, part of what we ask teachers to do. But too many factors beyond a teacher's control can affect scores; at the same time, many teachers accomplish a great deal with their students that may not be reflected in test scores or that might show up in later years.
In California's grant application, the state promised that test scores would count for 30% of a teacher's evaluation. This might or might not end up being a valid number. More important, standardized tests should be revamped to be a more worthwhile measure of what students are learning — especially in California, where the tests cover broad but shallow stretches of knowledge. In addition, the state has not yet developed a strong teacher evaluation procedure that includes classroom observation by supervisors and peers. California and other states should bend to this task before attaching significant importance to test scores.
The Obama administration touts Race to the Top as a measure that has brought about swift reform with a minimum of spending. That much is true. The simple chance of winning extra funding at a time when schools are laying off teachers and raising class sizes has been enough to push states into making bigger and faster changes in the past year than No Child Left Behind wrought in the previous seven years.
Yet that, in its way, has also been the weakness of Race to the Top. There is no real evidence that most of the reforms it champions will lead to greater achievement. The most promising initiative to come out of this federal push has been the creation of new educational standards in English and math, which California's Board of Education will consider adopting on Monday. Those standards alone might not improve performance, but they are well crafted and promote deeper learning. They would make sense whether or not there was a carrot at the end of the string, and they don't involve punishing teachers and schools that might deserve accolades.
The U.S. Department of Education praised this round's finalists as having the boldest reform plans, but boldness must be tempered with smart, research-based proposals that are tested before they are applied nationally. Race to the Top has unfortunately emphasized big and fast over well structured and thoughtful.
BROWN UNVEILS EDUCATION REFORM PLAN
THE DEMOCRAT CALLS FOR CHANGING THE STATE'S END-OF-YEAR TESTING SYSTEM SO TEACHERS RECEIVE RESULTS QUICKLY, AND HE BACKS INCREASING THE AMOUNT OF SPENDING ON COLLEGES.
By Seema Mehta, Los Angeles Times
image July 29, 2010 - Democratic gubernatorial nominee Jerry Brown unveiled an education reform plan Wednesday that calls for a wholesale restructuring of California's public school system, from changing the way schools are funded to revamping the state's higher education system.
The eight-page plan touches upon the major issues facing the state's education system, from the increasing cost of college to the state's dismal dropout rate. Some of the proposals, such as changing the way schools are funded, would take years. Brown urged patience.
"There is no silver bullet that will fix everything," he wrote. "Education improvement takes time, persistence and a systematic approach."
Education experts lauded some proposals, such as the call for changing the state's end-of-year testing system so teachers receive results quickly and can use them to craft instructional plans. But several said the plan is short on specifics, such as how Brown would increase the graduation rate or narrow the achievement gap between white and Asian students and their Latino and black classmates.
"It's a mixed bag. There are some positives, and there are some things I would like to see fleshed out," said Arun Ramanathan, executive director of Education Trust-West, an Oakland-based nonprofit. "There's a lack of detail on strategies."
Educators also described as alarming the lack of discussion about increasing school funding. The state routinely ranks in the bottom nationally for per-pupil spending, and billions of education dollars have been cut in recent years.
"It is surprising there wouldn't be some discussion of the need for more funding so California can enter the bottom third rather than being among the very lowest," said John Rogers, director of the Institute for Democracy, Education & Access at UCLA. "If you're going to maintain high goals, clearly you need to have a decent level of investment."
The plan was released without fanfare on Twitter.
Brown said the state's master plan for higher education, which was created in 1960 to assure every high school graduate would have access to higher education, needs to be revisited. He called for increasing the amount of spending on colleges by pursuing savings in the state's prisons, a move fraught with difficulties given court mandates over the system. He also proposed aligning community colleges with the UC and Cal State schools to ease transfers.
Brown would alter the way schools are funded so that schools get a set amount per pupil, with the figure weighted to include factors such as poverty or English-language proficiency. He would do away with many of the so-called categorical funds, which can only be spent on specific programs such as smaller classrooms. The money could then be spent on the districts' most pressing needs.
The plan backed away from some of the edgier topics at the forefront of education reform, such as layoffs currently based on seniority rather than skills. Such proposals are anathema to teachers' unions, which have lined up behind Brown. On Wednesday, the powerful California Teachers Assn. joined a coalition of unions that is advertising on Brown's behalf against Republican nominee Meg Whitman. The union is contributing $750,000 to that effort.
Some of the ideas Brown unveiled Wednesday are similar to reform proposals put out by Whitman, such as reducing categorical spending, streamlining the state education code and giving local districts more control.
She also proposes increasing college-level spending by $1 billion, money she says would come from savings because of her proposed welfare and budgetary reforms.
The Whitman campaign, which has criticized Brown as having no solutions to the state's problems, did not respond directly to Brown's proposal. Instead, spokeswoman Sarah Pompei slammed education outcomes during his prior terms as governor and as Oakland mayor.
"Jerry Brown…is the last person Californians can trust to fix our struggling public schools," Pompei said in a written statement.
NEW ANALYSIS BLASTS OBAMA’S SCHOOL TURNAROUND POLICY – AND TELLS HOW TO FIX IT + “FRAMEWORK FOR PROVIDING ALL STUDENTS AN OPPORTUNITY TO LEARN
NEW ANALYSIS BLASTS OBAMA’S SCHOOL TURNAROUND POLICY – AND TELLS HOW TO FIX IT + UPDATE + “FRAMEWORK FOR PROVIDING ALL STUDENTS AN OPPORTUNITY TO LEARN”
By Valerie Strauss | The Washington Post
6:30 AM ET, 07/28/2010 - The Obama administration’s approach to improving the most troubled schools are nothing more than a toughened version of largely unsuccessful strategies concocted under president George W. Bush and should be replaced with a flexible system that involves parents and communities, according to a new analysis being released today. [analysis follows in this post]
The sternly worded analysis is the second punch that the administration has received this week over its education policies. It is landing on the same day that Education Secretary Arne Duncan is addressing the Urban League’s convention in Washington D.C., and a day before President Obama defends his education policies in a major speech to the same gathering.
The report, by a new national coalition of 24 community-based groups, includes a proposal for a new school transformation model that emphasizes community involvement, and a list of more than 2,000 schools across the country targeted for one of the four transformation models now allowed by the administration.
A coalition of civil rights groups released a framework for education reform on Monday which thrashed Obama’s education policies on a number of issues -- including funding equity and charter schools -- and said the government should stop using low-income neighborhoods as laboratories for education experiments.
The analysis of school turnaround strategies, released by a new national coalition of community-based groups called Communities for Excellent Public Schools, criticizes the administration for taking “top-down school improvement efforts” that are part of No Child Left Behind and thinking that they will somehow be successful by “adding teeth.” It says that they ignore a growing body of research about what does work.
These are the school turnaround options for districts that were outlined in Obama’s “Blueprint for Reform,” the administration’s plan for reauthorizing No Child Left Behind (formally called the Elementary and Secondary Education Act) and that are being tested through the School Improvement Grants program (SIG) :
• Turnaround: The school’s principal and all of its teachers are fired. A new principal may rehire up to 50 percent of the former teachers and must then implement Department-outlined strategies to improve student academic and graduation rates.
• Restart: The district must either convert the school to a charter, or close it and reopen it under outside management--a charter operator, charter management organization or education management organization.
• School Closure: Schools may be closed, with students being transferred to “other, higher achieving schools.”
• Transformation: This model requires that the school principal be replaced (if s/he has been at the school longer than two years) and that schools must choose from an department-determined set of strategies. But under the SIG program, school districts with more than nine targeted schools can only use this model for no more than half.
The report, entitled "Our Communities Left Behind: An Analysis of the Administration’s School Turnaround Policies," calls them “bad policy and bad educational strategy” for reasons including:
• They are imposed rather than developed with the community, even though research shows that community engagement is essential to sustainable reform of low-performing schools.
• They focus primarily on structural, rather than educational change.
• They are “one-size-fits” all and do not take into consideration local political, cultural and fiscal considerations.
This analysis includes a list, released for the first time in one document, of 2,136 schools that have been identified as eligible for federal intervention under the School Improvement Grant program. The compilation is the first effort to identify and assess the characteristics of the schools and their students, a demographic analysis compiled by the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University:
• Nearly 1.5 million students attend these schools.
• Eighty-one percent of student in these schools are students of color.
• Eighty-five percent of the most urgently targeted schools have high concentrations of poverty (defined as more than 50 percent of students eligible for federal free and reduced priced lunch).
• Black students are 7 1/2 times more likely to be in a SIG-eligible school than white students.
• Hispanic students are 4 1/2 times more likely to be in a SIG-eligible school than white students.
“Few of the schools will see significant academic gains as a result of these interventions,” the report says. “And even fewer of these gains will be sustained over a period of years.”
The report includes a proposal for a new approach to school intervention called “Sustainable School Transformation,” which has these central elements:
1) A strong focus on school culture, curriculum and staffing.
This includes:
• Strong leadership
• Staffing structures that facilitate collaboration
• Professional development designed to meet individual needs of the staff
• A research-based, thoughtfully crafted teacher evaluation program, developed in conjunction with parents, students, teachers and administrators
• A well-rounded, culturally relevant and enriched college and career preparatory curriculum
• Intensive literacy support and “reading recovery” programs to ensure a focus on literacy
2) Wrap-around supports for students
This includes:
• Access to guidance counselors at the high school level
• A positive behavioral approach to school discipline
• Access to primary health care services to address basic wellness issues, including emotional/mental health issues
3) Collaboration to ensure local ownership and accountability
This includes:
• A comprehensive assessment of the school’s individual strengths, challenges and impediments to student success that takes a full school year.
• Students, parents and community members must be full partners in all stages,
“Yes, dramatic action is needed. But we have to get it right." the report says.
Let’s hope the Education Department is listening.
CIVIL RIGHTS GROUPS SKEWER OBAMA EDUCATION POLICY (UPDATED)
By Valerie Strauss | The Washington Post
It is most politely written, but a 17-page framework for education reform released Monday by a coalition of civil rights groups amounts to a thrashing of President Obama’s education policies and it offers a prescription for how to set things right.
You won’t see these sentences in the piece: “Dear President Obama, you say you believe in an equal education for all students, but you are embarking on education policies that will never achieve that goal and that can do harm to America’s school children, especially its neediest. Stop before it is too late.”
But that, in other nicer words, is exactly what it says. The courteous gloss on this framework can’t cover up its angry, challenging substance.
The “Framework for Providing All Students an Opportunity to Learn” is a collaboration of these groups: Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Rainbow PUSH Coalition, Schott Foundation for Public Education, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, National Coalition for Educating Black Children, National Urban League, and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.
Leaders of these groups were scheduled to hold a press conference Monday to release the framework but it was cancelled because, a spokesman said, there was a conflict in schedules. The delay was, presumably, not connected to public appearances this week by Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan at the convention marking the 100th anniversary of the Urban League in Washington D.C. Obama is making a speech on Thursday; Duncan on Wednesday.
The framework’s authors start the framework seeming conciliatory, applauding Obama's goal for the United States to become a global leader in post-secondary education attainment by 2020.
But quickly their intent is clear. They take apart the thinking behind the administration’s education policies, and note a number of times the differences between what Obama and Duncan say about education and what they do.
To wit:
About Race to the Top, the competitive grant program for states that is the administration’s central education initiative thus far, it says:
“The Race to the Top Fund and similar strategies for awarding federal education funding will ultimately leave states competing with states, parents competing with parents, and students competing with other students..... By emphasizing competitive incentives in this economic climate, the majority of low-income and minority students will be left behind and, as a result, the United States will be left behind as a global leader.”
Ouch.
About an expansion of public charter schools, which the administration has advanced:
“There is no evidence that charter operators are systematically more effective in creating higher student outcomes nationwide....Thus, while some charter schools can and do work for some students, they are not a universal solution for systemic change for all students, especially those with the highest needs.”
And there’s this carefully worded reproach to the administration:
“To the extent that the federal government continues to encourage states to expand the number of charters and reconstitute existing schools as charters, it is even more critical to ensure that every state has a rigorous accountability system to ensure that all charters are operating at a high level.”
Double ouch.
But there’s more.
The framework says that the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind, formally known as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, “should seek buy-in from community advocates.” But it notes that Obama’s Blueprint for Education reform makes "only cursory mention of parent and community engagement in local school development.”
It blasts the administration’s approach to dealing with persistently low-performing schools, saying that closing them in the way now being advanced is wrong, and it says that the administration is not doing enough to close gaps in resources, alleviate poverty and end racial segregation in schools.
And it says that the government should stop using low-income neighborhoods as laboratories for education experiments:
“For far too long, communities of color have been testing grounds for unproven methods of educational change while all levels of government have resisted the tough decisions required to expand access to effective educational methods. The federal government currently requires school districts to use evidence-based approaches to receive federal funds in DOE’s Investing in Innovation grant process. So, too, in all reforms impacting low-income and high-minority communities, federal and state governments should meet the same evidence-based requirement as they prescribe specific approaches to school reform and distribute billions of dollars to implement them.
“Rather than addressing inequitable access to research-proven methodologies like high-quality early childhood education and a stable supply of experienced, highly effective teachers, recent education reform proposals have favored “stop gap” quick fixes that may look new on the surface but offer no real long-term strategy for effective systemic change. The absence of these “stop gap” programs in affluent communities speaks to the marginal nature of this approach. We therefore urge an end to the federal push to encourage states to adopt federally prescribed methodologies that have little or no evidentiary support – for primary implementation only in low-income and high-minority communities.”
This is really tough talk, and it is about time that America’s civil rights leaders are speaking up.
The only question is whether anybody in the Obama administration is actually listening.
CIVIL RIGHTS: A PRINCIPLED EDUCATION
Themes in the News for the week of July 26-30, 2010 | By UCLA IDEA staff
07-30-2010 -- The promise of American public education is to teach, enable, and inspire generations of youth to participate fully and equally in all spheres of civic life—social, economic, and political.
Educational access and opportunity are so tightly linked to the other rights Americans cherish that education itself stands as a civil right. As President Obama leads much-needed education reform, civil rights groups and advocates are looking carefully at the civil rights implications of the reform proposals. Their views are varied, but their hopes and concerns appear to coalesce around three fundamental principles or indicators of education as a civil right.
The first is universality. Does a high-quality education reach every student in every community? On Monday, a group of eight civil rights groups, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the National Urban League, issued a framework for reform that was mindful of this principle (Washington Post). The groups are concerned that Race to the Top, will pit states, schools and others against each other leaving low-income and minority students further behind. Though they laud some aspects of the president’s education agenda, they stressed, “…It is our responsibility to seek to close and ultimately eliminate the opportunity and achievement gaps experienced by communities of color."
Broadly speaking, the Obama administration seems committed to universality, but it is not clear to everyone how incentive-based, competitive programs can overcome gaps among groups and schools (The Atlantic|http://bit.ly/cypRoM, Bloomberg|http://bit.ly/bxrDwp). Speaking to the National Urban League Wednesday, Secretary Arne Duncan said, “In so many ways, our reform agenda is all about equity… Competition isn’t about winners and losers. It’s about getting better” (U.S. Dept of Education|http://bit.ly/cCmS0I, Education Week|http://bit.ly/btYru5). The administration will have to work hard to be sure that betterment prevails over winners and losers.
Informed participation is another principle of education as a civil right. Do students, parents and local communities have the information and resources to make sound decisions and course corrections? The reform framework created by the Civil Rights coalition highlights the importance for schools to report on learning opportunities and to ensure student and parent participation in meaningful decision making.
Similarly, Communities for Excellent Public Schools (CEPS)|http://bit.ly/bbyjU8 considers the administration’s four reform models to lack community engagement and research. Instead, CEPS favors a participatory model proposed by the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University (Washington Post). CEPS says the four models put forth — turnaround, restart, school closure, and transformation — will not work since they lack community input, a focus on educational change and consideration of local issues.
A third principle of civil rights is fairness. Do school policies and practices provide students with due process? Do educators treat all students with dignity and respect? The Office of Civil Rights, under the direction of Assistant Secretary Russlynn Ali, is launching investigations of discipline practices that lead to extremely high rates of suspension and expulsion for African American males. The broader rights community shares Ali’s concern with racially disparate discipline policies and worries more generally about the overuse and misapplication of discipline practices that effectively exclude students from the educational process.
It is fitting that in a week when advocates and policy makers in Washington, D.C. talked about universality, informed participation, and fairness, tens of thousands in Arizona and across the nation exercised their rights to speak, assemble, and petition the government to redress their grievances.
HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest of the Stories from Other Sources
• LA SCHOOLS CHIEF RESCINDS $24 PER ATHLETE BUS PLAN: The Associated Press 07/29/2010 10:00:58 AM PDT -- LOS ANGELE... http://bit.ly/am9ahm
• JUDGE WEIGHS IN ON ESTABLISHMENT OF TWO PILOT SCHOOLS: KPCC Wire Services | KPCC AFP/Getty Images - A studen... http://bit.ly/9vKAxh
• BROWN UNVEILS EDUCATION REFORM PLAN: The Democrat calls for changing the state's end-of-year testing system so tea... http://bit.ly/ch15K0
• YouTube Videos from SaveBlake.com: 8 9 more voices raised Pavor, Regresen al Nuestra Principal Suzanne Blake ... http://bit.ly/9ksVFp
• LAUSD ATHLETES MAY BE STRANDED: District seeks $24 donations from parents to fund buses to sporting events.: By Me... http://bit.ly/9BYVCE
• ONLINE K-12 EDUCATION SURGING, BUT OFFICIAL SAYS ‘BUYER BEWARE’: By Melody Gutierrez | Sacramento Bee Monday, Jul... http://bit.ly/attBYZ
• NEW ANALYSIS BLASTS OBAMA’S SCHOOL TURNAROUND POLICY – AND TELLS HOW TO FIX IT + Update + “Framework for Providing... http://bit.ly/btNH0i
• RttT 2.0: CALIFORNIA CLEARS HURDLE FOR FEDERAL FUNDING + addl. coverage: The state, which lost out on its first tr... http://bit.ly/b7qgre
• CALIFORNIA AWARDED FEDERAL CHARTER SCHOOLS GRANT: Release: •10-83 July 26, 2010 Contact: Tina Jung E-mail: ... http://bit.ly/btdOQl
• Q&A@HS#9: by smf for 4LAKidsNews Tuesday, July 27, 2010 - Yestereve, at Central Los Angeles High School #9, other... http://bit.ly/cqlqAN
• Administrators’ Union asks: WHY WAS THE PRINCIPAL AT ARTS HIGH SCHOOL TRANSFERRED? …AND REQUESTS HER RETURN: FROM...
• Q&A w/Steve Zimmer: WHY PUBLIC SCHOOLS NEED A BAILOUT: by Liz Dwyer from Good Magazine/Blog July 20, 2010 at 6...
• FAMILIES’ HOPES ARE DASHED AS NEW BEVERLY HILLS UNIFIED POLICY OUSTS NONRESIDENT CHILDREN FROM DISTRICT SCHOOLS: R... http://bit.ly/aXq3FL
• STUDENTS PROTEST ARTS SCHOOL PRINCIPAL OUSTER: Los Angeles Downtown News Friday, July 23, 2010 4:03 PM PDT -- DO... http://bit.ly/cJG24F
• LOCAL SCHOOL BOARDS WIN APPEAL ON CHARTER SCHOOLS: Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer Tuesday, July... http://bit.ly/auNfvg
• COURT OF APPEALS REVERSES TRIAL COURT, SENDS CASE BACK TO COURT IN CALIFORNIA SCHOOL BOARDS ASSOCIATION v. STATE B... http://bit.ly/claSFu
• Study: EFFECTIVE PRINCIPALS EMBRACE COLLECTIVE LEADERSHIP: By Christina A. Samuels - Premium article access courte... http://bit.ly/99mfDO Monday, July 26, 2010
• Audit: SLOPPY BOOKKEEPING COST LAUSD SCHOOLS $10M: by The Associated Press on KNX1070.com smf notes: As a clas... http://bit.ly/cCw2e8
• THE WORDS OF THE PROPHETS ARE WRITTEN ON THE SUBWAY WALLS: Feedback to 4LAKids about the replacement of the Principla @ HS#9... http://bit.ly/crlZek
• NYT: OAKLAND SCHOOLS STRUGGLE, BUT EMERYVILLE MAY POINT A WAY UP: By GERRY SHIH | New York Times July 22, 2010 - ... http://bit.ly/9y7Y5X
• Schools Stacking the Deck? SHORTER SCHOOL YEAR ADDS TO CONCERN: :42 PM PDT on Sunday, July 25, 2010 By LOUIS FRE... http://bit.ly/duZv3i 6:29 AM Jul 26th via twitterfeed
• $71 MILLION STIMULUS DELAY STUNS EDUCATION ADVOCATES: by Corey G. Johnson | California WatchBlog July 26, 2010 | ... http://bit.ly/da64gS
• LAUSD LOST ALMOST $10 MILLION IN INEFFICIENT INVENTORY SYSTEM, AUDIT FINDS: The report says thousands of textbooks... http://bit.ly/9PWWEm 3
• IN FINAL MONTHS, LAUSD CHIEF RAMON CORTINES INTENT ON ACHIEVING GOALS: By Connie Llanos, Staff Writer LAUSD Super... http://bit.ly/aQaXZM
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: 213-241.8700
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! • Find your state legislator based on your home address. Just go to: http://bit.ly/dqFdq2 • 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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