Sunday, October 31, 2010

Tempestuousness in the Tea Party

Onward! smf SchoolBoard!
4LAKids: Sunday 31•Oct•2010 Happy Halloween
In This Issue:
SAN PEDRO HIGH SCHOOL TO HOUSE TRUANCY CENTER + LAUSD News Release
SURVEY SAYS NEARLY HALF OF ALL STUDENTS HAVE BEEN BULLIED IN LAST YEAR
DEFUNDING BULLIES: Schools, including colleges, will be required to adopt anti-bullying plans after an incident or face the loss of federal aid
HIGH SCHOOL DROPOUT, GRADUATION, AND COMPLETION RATES: BETTER DATA, BETTER MEASURES, BETTER DECISIONS
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:
4 LAKids on Twitter
PUBLIC SCHOOLS: an investment we can't afford to cut! - The Education Coalition Website
4LAKids Anthology: All the Past Issues, solved, resolved and unsolved!
4LAKidsNews: a compendium of recent items of interest - news stories, scurrilous rumors, links, academic papers, rants and amusing anecdotes, etc.
`Really, now you ask me,' said Alice, very much confused, `I don't think--'

`Then you shouldn't talk,' said the Hatter.

- Lewis Carroll "The Mad Tea-Party", Chapter VII of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. http://bit.ly/cRNlrA


IF THE POLLING TRENDS HOLD the Dems are going to lose fairly big time - and the Repos will gain - in Tuesday's election. Except in California ...and this may be why we live here!

I would feel much better about this is the public was voting displeasure with the Obama Education Agenda - but they aren't.

In a last minute tempest the teapartiers have threatened hapless McDonald's employees that they would close up shop and close down their Mickey D's franchise in Ohio if the employees don't vote Republican. http://huff.to/aFvavD The underlying threat to All American salt-and-saturated-fat infused dining is palpable. When forced to choose between free expression in the political arena or inexpensive chicken nuggets in the fast-food outlet -- how would YOU vote?

In California the Boxer Campaign suggested to LA Teachers that working as volunteers for the Boxer Campaign might be a great way for students to earn extra credit: http://bit.ly/c52UD8. And the Howard Jarvis Tea-Partiers screamed foul: HTTP://bitchily/9LgfHG (Or "fowl" if you're still considering the McDonald’s perplexity.) The very folks who would don warpaint+feathers and dump the California Ed Code into the harbor - and turn public schools over to Privateers/Charterers and Vouchers quote the Ed Code chapter, verse and section (Chapter 3, Section 51520).- misapplying the code for on-campus-fundaising to off-campus-political-volunteerism.

Free Speech is apparently about unlimited secret campaign funding, not public political expression.

POLITICAL ENDORSEMENTS: I'm not making any* - do your research and vote your own mind. Just vote! I did spend Saturday and this AM walking a precinct in Eagle Rock for the Dems - but this blog is about public education and we are way too short on independent thinking.

That said, MY SOLE CAMPAIGN RANT IS ABOUT STEVE COOLEY. Cooley didn't prosecute Stephen Rooney - a serial child molester/school district employee http://bit.ly/bSrMGB -so Rooney could molest little girls at schools AGAIN. Going all negative: Rooney is a bad man and Cooley is a bad DA.

A SURVEY says that nearly half of students have been bullied over the past year.. So, in two years....

ANOTHER STUDY SHOWS we don't have good data (and, by extension, a clue) on what Graduation and Dropout Rates really are. In California. The Gübernataor has defunded the gathering of grad-and-dropout-rate data - so we'll just use the tired old erroneous data in identification of bogeyman Bad Schools, Bad Teachers and Failing Systems.

MICHELLE RHEE'S LAST DAY at what she promised would be her last job in education was last Friday.

OTHER STUDIES show we are unable to evaluate charter schools in California.

New York City will release VALUE-ADDED TEACHER SCORES. . Oops ...no they won't!


"Nothing you do for children is ever wasted. They seem not to notice us, hovering, averting our eyes, and they seldom offer thanks, but what we do for them is never wasted." - Garrison Keillor

Thank you for everything you do for kids every day.

¡Onward/Adelante! - smf


* OK - Brown, Newsom, Bowen, Chiang, Lockyer, Harris, Jones, Torlackson, Boxer., Noguez - YES on 21,24,25,27 - NO on 19, 20,22.23,26.


SAN PEDRO HIGH SCHOOL TO HOUSE TRUANCY CENTER + LAUSD News Release

SAN PEDRO HIGH SCHOOL TO HOUSE TRUANCY CENTER: One of eight new Attendance Improvement Centers in LAUSD + LAUSD News Release
Daily Breeze - From staff reports | http://bit.ly/9cMTFY

10/25/2010 08:35:42 AM PDT - SAN PEDRO :: San Pedro High School will house one of eight new truancy intervention centers being set up by the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The so-called Attendance Improvement Centers are set to open Nov. 1.

Instead of getting a citation for skipping school, students will be taken to the centers, where they will be provided grade-level instruction while they wait for parent pickup.

"The district is working on expanding educational options for students that do not fit the typical protocol of a student," said LAUSD Chief Academic Officer Judy Elliott in a press release. "The AIC is but one way to provide a multipronged approach to keeping students in schools and off the streets."

Referrals to community resources and services and other assistance will be provided for students or parents who are facing problems related to truancy, the district said.

The centers will be open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. They are a collaboration between the school district, local law enforcement agencies, the courts and the community.


LAUSD ANNOUNCES OPENING OF ATTENDANCE IMPROVEMENT CENTERS

The eight centers will serve as an alternative to truancy citations issued for curfew violations

LAUSD news Release | http://bit.ly/aJ9tUs


October 22, 2010 - Los Angeles—The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is investing in a deterrent/intervention program for truants with the opening of eight new Attendance Improvement Centers (AIC) across the District beginning November 1. These centers will serve as an alternative to truancy citations that are issued for daytime curfew violations.

“We are thrilled to be offering an alternative to truancy and citations for our LAUSD youth. The Attendance Improvement Centers (AICs) are places where we intend to get students back on track by providing options to truancy and drop out,” said Dr. Judy Elliott, LAUSD’s Chief Academic Officer.

“The District is working on expanding educational options for students that do not fit the typical protocol of a student. We have increased our use of technology and online courses for credit recoupment and acceleration. The AIC is but one way to provide a multi-pronged approach to keeping students in schools and off the streets. Our goal is 100 percent graduation. To that end, we must create the options our students need,” she added.

Under the Los Angeles Municipal Code (45.04), juveniles are prohibited from loitering during the hours of the day when school, which the minor would normally attend, is in session, on days when that school is in session. Additionally, California’s Compulsory Education Law (EC section 48200) requires that every child between the ages of 6-18 years old must attend school every day and on time.

LAUSD officials believe the AICs will not only provide a service to the District’s neediest students by preventing them from becoming victims or perpetrators of crimes, but help them on their path to becoming productive members of society.

Currently, school truancy is one of several patterns of behavior known to increase the likelihood of delinquency. Youth who do not attend school are more likely to become involved with drugs, alcohol, gangs and violence than youth who attend school. Truancy can cause students to fall behind in school, which can lead them to dropout. Dropouts have higher rates of incarceration and addiction, lower-paying jobs and a greater tendency for unemployment over their lifetime.

The Attendance Improvement Centers also provide truant students with a safe educational program during the school day while they await parent pick up. While at the AICs, students will receive instruction and are required to complete grade-level work assigned to them.

Students held at the AICs must exhibit appropriate behavior in the AIC classroom. The objective is to teach students to assume responsibility for their actions, to learn to exercise self-control, and to provide them with an intervention that can guide them towards success.

The AICs will be located on the campuses of:

* Sepulveda MS (Local District 2)
* Belmont SH (Local District 4)
* Burbank MS (Local District 4)
* Santee Education Complex (Local District 5)
* El Sereno MS (Local District 5)
* Gage MS (Local District 6)
* Washington Preparatory SH (Local District 8)
* San Pedro SH (Local District 8)

During the school year, the Attendance Improvement Centers will be open from 8 a.m. until 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday.

The Attendance Improvement Centers are a collaborative effort involving the LAUSD, local law enforcement agencies, the courts, and the community. The centers’ goals are to ensure an education for every child, improve attendance, reduce juvenile crimes, and increase parent involvement and accountability. Assistance will be provided to students/parents who may be experiencing problems or issues related to truancy. Referrals to resources and services in the community will be provided so families can seek additional help.

To learn more about the Attendance Improvement Centers, please call (213) 241-3844.


SURVEY SAYS NEARLY HALF OF ALL STUDENTS HAVE BEEN BULLIED IN LAST YEAR
By Melissa Evans, Staff Writer | LA Daily News | http://bit.ly/dBNohB

28 October 2010 - Nearly half of the nation's high school students say they have been bullied in the last year and an equal number say they they taunted or teased a classmate, according to a new survey.

The survey of more than 43,000 high school students by the Josephson Institute of Ethics in Westchester comes on the heels of recent suicides by teens relentlessly tormented by bullies.

The institute found that 47 percent of respondents said they had been harassed in a way that was seriously upsetting, and half admitted to bullying a classmate. Nearly a quarter of students said they do not feel safe at school.
from THE josephson Institute of Ethics |http://josephsoninstitute.org/

2010 Report Card on the Ethics of American Youth: Bullying and other at-risk behavior
Bullying is widespread, says Institute study

Results from a survey of over 40,000 high school students reveal high rates of at-risk

"This is a real problem," said Michael Josephson, founder and president of the nonprofit institute, which runs school-based character-building programs. "The numbers are pretty disturbing."

The survey is considered an accurate bellwether of beliefs among young people. The respondents included teens from different age groups, geographic regions, academic levels and socioeconomic groups. The margin of error is less than 1 percentage point.

Conducted since 1992, the survey included questions about bullying for the first time this year. Though kids have always bullied, Josephson said it appears the growing popularity of online social networking and the Internet in general has given bullies a powerful new tool to cause harm.

"At least before you could change your school, or your environment," he said. "That doesn't work anymore.

Now you cannot escape it, and the chances of this causing deep scars and deep depression are really increasing."

A recent spate of suicides among teenagers subjected to bullying - including Tyler Clementi, a Rutgers University freshman who was videotaped having a sexual encounter with a man, then jumped off a bridge after the video was posted online - provide anecdotal evidence of this trend.

A number of politicians, including President Barack Obama, have spoken out on the issue in recent days. On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Education sent out letters to schools, colleges and universities reminding them of their federal obligations to protect students.

At Los Angeles Unified, bullying is defined as "the deliberate antagonistic action or creation of a situation with the intent of inflicting emotional, physical, or psychological distress."

According to district policy, bullying can also include cyber-bullying, and recenty officials have taken special actions to target the bullying of gay students who report being harassed at higher rates than their heterosexual peers.

"Bullying is a serious issue and it's one that students are very concerned with, they talk to me about it all the time when I meet with them," Superintendent Ramon Cortines.

"I am telling all my teachers and principals to talk to their students and parents when these issues arise," he said. "I don't want them to just say these things just happen."

Cortines addressed bullying in this week's "On the Record," which airs via KLCS-TV, the LAUSD's Education Station. It will be repeated at 7 a.m. Sunday.

Josephson said parents should talk to their kids regularly, and be proactive in reporting harassment to school officials and, in some cases, to the parents of bullies. Schools, meanwhile, need to be innovative in the way they approach bullying, they said.

"We have to create much more positive environments, pro-respect environments, not just anti-bullying environments," Josephson said.

He added that children also need to be more resilient in the face of bullying, because "we're not going to be able to shield from name-calling. We need to fortify our young people to deal with that, and not take it so personally."

Staff Writer Connie Llanos contributed to this report.


DEFUNDING BULLIES: Schools, including colleges, will be required to adopt anti-bullying plans after an incident or face the loss of federal aid
LA Times Editorial | http://lat.ms/95KOSX

October 28, 2010 -- School officials invariably express great sorrow when campus bullying leads to tragedy; they also usually say that they are shocked to find that anyone was being harassed, even when the victim or parents have complained. But nothing actually gets schools to change their behavior like the promise of money or the threat of its removal. That's why it was heartening to learn that the U.S. Department of Education took its first strong steps against bullying this week by announcing that schools might lose federal funding for failing to stop bullying of gay students on campus.

There are federal civil rights laws that, at least theoretically, prohibit harassment of students on the basis of race, national origin, gender or religion, and in his announcement, Education Secretary Arne Duncan told schools to use them to enforce rules against bullying. In addition, the department will use court rulings on gender discrimination to include gay and lesbian students among those protected groups. Schools, including colleges, will be required to adopt anti-bullying plans after an incident or face the possible loss of federal aid. The U.S. Department of Justice also might be brought in to investigate. The new get-tough policy came after the recent suicides of five gay teenagers who had been harassed at school, as well as the suicides of several straight teenagers who had been bullied.

The Education Department is right to use all the powers at its disposal, and it should indeed take tough legal action when schools fail to protect vulnerable populations. But federal civil rights laws are an awkward tool for changing student culture on campus, and even department officials concede that the laws would be invoked only in the most extreme cases. And what about the bullying of students who don't fall within one of the protected categories? All students have the right to feel safe on campus. The tolerant attitude toward bullying among many school officials is as unacceptable as the harassment itself.

It's too bad the Education Department took so long to take steps against bullying. It could have used the Race to the Top program, under which states receive large federal grants for agreeing to education reforms, to push for meaningful state laws that would create effective anti-bullying programs for all public schools, and require the schools to use them.

That opportunity was missed, but there will be others. Many schools have successfully changed campus culture. We already know what works — a combination of educating students and the community to understand that cruel behavior hurts others in terrible ways, and disciplining the bullies rather than trying to get the victims to change. Duncan should use both his funding clout and his bully pulpit to send an insistent message that states and individual schools must use both weapons against the kinds of bullying that make school a daily misery for too many students.


HIGH SCHOOL DROPOUT, GRADUATION, AND COMPLETION RATES: BETTER DATA, BETTER MEASURES, BETTER DECISIONS
National Academies Press | http://bit.ly/dtd4ww

* High school graduation and dropout rates have long been used as indicators of educational system productivity and effectiveness and of social and economic well being. While determining these rates may seem like a straightforward task, their calculation is in fact quite complicated. How does one count a student who leaves a regular high school but later completes a GED? How does one count a student who spends most of his/her high school years at one school and then transfers to another? If the student graduates, which school should receive credit? If the student drops out, which school should take responsibility?
* High School Dropout, Graduation, and Completion Rates addresses these issues and to examine (1) the strengths, limitations, accuracy, and utility of the available dropout and completion measures; (2) the state of the art with respect to longitudinal data systems; and (3) ways that dropout and completion rates can be used to improve policy and practice.
* Authors:Robert M. Hauser and Judith Anderson Koenig, Editors; Committee for Improved Measurement of High School Dropout and Completion Rates: Expert Guidance on Next Steps for Research and Policy Workshop; National Research Council and National Academy of Education

October 28, 2010 -- A new joint report from the National Research Council and the National Academy of Education offers guidance on measuring high school dropout and graduation rates -- a key and sometimes controversial indicator of a school system's effectiveness. The most accurate rates are those that track students over the entire course of their schooling, the report says. It adds that accountability policies should require schools and districts to set and meet progress goals for improving their graduation rates

SUMMARY [Prepublication Copy, uncorrected proofs]

High school graduation and dropout rates have long been used as indicators of educational system productivity and effectiveness and of social and economic well being.

While determining these rates may seem like a straightforward task, their calculation is in fact quite complicated. How does one count a student who leaves a regular high school but later completes a GED? How does one count a student who spends most of his/her high school years at one school and then transfers to another? If the student graduates, which school should receive credit? If the student drops out, which school should take responsibility?

The Committee on Improved Measurement of High School Dropout and Completion Rates was asked to address these issues and to examine (1) the strengths, limitations, accuracy, and utility of the available dropout and completion measures; (2) the state of the art with respect to longitudinal data systems; and (3) ways that dropout and completion rates can be used to improve policy and practice.

The Rates and How They Are Calculated

In their simplest sense, graduation rates reflect the percent of students who earned a regular high school diploma, and dropout rates reflect the percent of students who did not. However, the requirements for earning a regular diploma vary widely among states and districts, and there are multiple means of completing school besides earning a regular diploma after attending high school for four years. Students may earn a GED, a certificate of attendance, or another alternative type of diploma. They may take longer than the typical four years before completing high school and may transfer across schools or districts before graduating or dropping out. There are a variety of strategies for accounting for these factors in calculating dropout, completion, and graduation rates; different strategies will affect the appropriateness of the rate for a given purpose. Thus, decisions about how to handle these factors should be consistent with the purpose for calculating the rate.

For example, if the purpose is to describe the level of education of the population, what matters is people’s eventual level of education, not what kind of diploma they received or how long it took them to earn it. But if the purpose is to evaluate a school’s effectiveness in graduating students in four years, those factors are of critical importance.

All methods for calculating the rates require decisions about who to include in the numerator and denominator of the rate and how to handle certain groups of students, such as those who receive a GED or who take longer than four years to graduate.

We recommend that analysts and users keep their purpose in mind when selecting from among the various kinds of rates and choose the indicator best suited to that purpose (Recommendation 4-11). To help users draw sound conclusions, analysts should document the limitations of the rate and the decisions that went into calculating it (Recommendations 3-1 and 3-2). When the limitations are made explicit, alternative rates can be calculated to verify any conclusions drawn from the statistic (Recommendations 3-3 and 3-4).

1Recommendation 4-1 is the first recommendation in Chapter 4. Other recommendations are numbered accordingly.

The most accurate rates are those based on longitudinal data that track students over the course of their schooling, and we recommend that dropout and completion rates be based on individual student-level data whenever possible. This will allow for the greatest flexibility and transparency with respect to how analysts handle methodological issues that arise in defining the numerator and denominator of the rates (Recommendation 4-2).

Building Data Systems

Calculating rates based on individual data requires that states have a system for tracking students over time. At a minimum such a system needs unique student identifiers as well complete information on students’ enrollment status throughout high school. However, a more comprehensive system would incorporate data elements that allow school systems to monitor students’ progress, identify students at risk of dropping out, and evaluate the effectiveness of programs to reduce dropping out. To perform these functions, data systems require detailed longitudinal data (Recommendation 6-1).

Producing accurate rates requires that states and districts adopt procedures to ensure the quality of their data; we, therefore, recommend that all states and districts maintain written documentation of their processes, procedures, and results. The documentation should be updated annually and should include a process for adding elements or making changes to the system (Recommendation 6-2).

Because the quality of the data begins at the point when data are collected and entered into the system, it is important that training be provided for those who carry out these tasks. We recommend that all states and districts implement a system of extensive and on-going staff training that addresses procedures for collection, storage, analysis, and use of the data (Recommendation 6-3) and conduct regular audits to verify data quality (Recommendation 6-4).

How Data Systems Can Improve Policy and Practice Improving graduation rates in this country requires more than simply reporting accurate rates. To truly improve outcomes for students, data systems need to incorporate information that enables early identification of at-risk students. Research suggests a number of factors associated with dropping out: frequent absences, failing grades in reading or math, poor behavior, being over age for grade, having a low ninth-grade GPA, failing ninth grade, or having a record of frequent transfers. These findings suggest that states and districts should build data systems that incorporate documented early indicators of the risk of dropping out. At the same time, they should also conduct their own studies to determine the factors associated with dropping out from their school systems. Once determined, measures of these factors should be incorporated into the data system so at-risk students can be identified in time to intervene (Recommendation 5-1).

Finally, the federal government should play an active role in this area by collecting data on these early indicators. These indicators should be collected by grade level and should include variables such as the number of students missing a month or more of school, average number of days absent, average number of course failures, number of students failing one course or more, mean GPA, and indicators of behavior problems. Collecting these data would allow for indications of progress toward graduation at the national level and enable comparative studies on early indicators of dropout across states and localities (Recommendation 7-4).

As educational accountability focuses increasingly on the successful completion of high school, appropriate, relevant, and understandable measures of high school dropout and completion are becoming more important as indicators of the functioning of schools and of students’ preparation for college and work. The findings and recommendations of this report are provided to guide the creation of such indicators at the local, state and national levels.


Link to Complete Report



HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest of the Stories from Other Sources
PSL v2.0: GROUPS OFFER COMPETING PITCHES TO RUN GRANADA HILLS SCHOOL: By Connie Llanos, Staff Writer | Los Angeles... http://bit.ly/8ZPvaT

TEACHERS AND STUDENTS LOSE OUT WITH ACLU-LAUSD AGREEMENT: Say no to layoffs, support public school teachers, famil... http://bit.ly/aBvQ8T

RESULTS AT ARENE DUNCAN’S FIST CHICAGO TURNAROUND SCHOOL RAISE EFFICACY AND LEGAL QUESTIONS + smf’s 2¢: by Li... http://bit.ly/a681O7

OVERCOMING BULLYING IN LAUSD SCHOOLS: Superintendent Cortines Discusses a National Epidemic--BULLYING: LAUSD News ... http://bit.ly/9a7cav

HIGH SCHOOL DROPOUT, GRADUATION, AND COMPLETION RATES: BETTER DATA, BETTER MEASURES, BETTER DECISIONS: National Ac... http://bit.ly/co5wAf

48th IS NOT A GOOD PLACE: World Economic Forum ranks U.S. 48th out of 133 developed and developing nations in qua... http://bit.ly/9kZ1cr

It’s time for Civic Participation: STUDENTS LEARN HOW IN SCHOOLS: Themes in the News for the week of Oct. 25-29, 2... http://bit.ly/d8FgYE

REPORT: STUDENT LEARNING EXPECATIONS GAP CAN BE TWICE THE SIZE OF NATIONAL ‘BLACK/WHITE ACHIEVEMENT GAP’: What st... http://bit.ly/d8v4FE

BROWN’S AND WHITMAN’S PLATFORMS:Notable differences in style and substance: By John Fensterwald - Educated Gu... http://bit.ly/bCjEpE

MICHELLE RHEE OUTSPOKEN TO THE END OF HER TENURE AS D.C.SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR: Takes on ineffective teachers and the ... http://bit.ly/dnZRXR

OBAMA PLAYS CHEERLEADING ROLE FOR STEM EDUCATION + video: By Erik W. Robelen | EdWeek Vol. 30, Issue 10 | http://b... http://bit.ly/b1xWJR

IS FEAR OF BILINGUALISM PART OF U.S. CULTURE?: By Mary Ann Zehr | EdWEEK | http://bit.ly/du5MRM October 29, 2010 ... http://bit.ly/9nLFpv

OVER 10 MILLION STUDENTS NOW USE GOOGLE APPS FOR EDUCATION: By Frederic Lardinois / ReadWriteWeb.com | http://rww.... http://bit.ly/brplW8

SOCIAL JUSTICE OR ATTACK ON LA TEACHERS?: Randy Childs, a member of United Teachers Los Angeles, looks at how an e... http://bit.ly/cG2hmj

VENICE HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS REPORT CAFETERIA FOOD SHORTAGE: By Cathy Asapahu - The Oarsman Venice High School Los ... http://bit.ly/9RQBqj

SURVEY SAYS NEARLY HALF OF ALL STUDENTS HAVE BEEN BULLIED IN LAST YEAR: Survey says nearly half of all students ha... http://bit.ly/bhrUop

DEFUNDING BULLIES: Schools, including colleges, will be required to adopt anti-bullying plans after an incident or... http://bit.ly/aAHu4r

LAUSD IMPROVES ITS HIRING OVERSIGHT: Audit shows fewer conflicts of interest since 2006: By Connie Llanos, Staff W... http://bit.ly/9Qzz5d

CITY AUDIT OF L.A. UNIFIED IS RELEASED; REPORT FOCUSES ON SYSTEMIC PROBLEMS: by Howard Blume – LA Times/LA Now | h... http://bit.ly/bgdZVy

CITY CONTROLLER RELEASES PERFORMANCE AUDIT OF LAUSD’S FACILITIES SERVICES DIVISION, NEW CONSTRUCTION BRANCH: SELEC... http://bit.ly/d6pIUE

MELROSE ELEMENTARY KIDS GET THEIR HANDS DIRTY WITH WOOLLY SCHOOL GARDENS AND CHEF ANDREA CAVALIRE: LA Weekly Blog ... http://bit.ly/8XHbEX

SAN PEDRO HIGH SCHOOL TO HOUSE TRUANCY CENTER: One of eight new Attendance Improvement Centers in LAUSD + LAUSD Ne... http://bit.ly/bWUoex

THE LOWDOWN ON HOMEWORK: How much homework is too much?: Grade-by-grade guidelines for what kids can reasonably be... http://bit.ly/cnnRU6

ICEF REVISITED: by smf for 4LAKids I received a phone call this AM from Caprice Young -- the CEO of ICEF Charter ... http://bit.ly/cpDqxw


EVENTS: Coming up next week...
• Monday Nov 1, 2010
SOUTH REGION MIDDLE SCHOOL #2: RIBBON-CUTTING CEREMONY
Time: 10:00 a.m.
Location:
South Region Middle School #2
3620 Gage Ave.
Bell, CA

• Wednesday Nov 3, 2010
BARACK OBAMA GLOBAL PREPARATION ACADEMY (AKA SOUTH REGION MIDDLE SCHOOL #6)
Grand Opening Ceremony
Time: 9:00 a.m.
Location:
Barack Obama Global Preparation Academy
1700 W. 46th St.
Los Angeles, CA 90062

• Friday Nov 5, 2010
VALLEY REGION ELEMENTARY SCHOOL #10: RIBBON-CUTTING CEREMONY
Time: 10:00 a.m.
Location:
Valley Region Elementary School #10
7335 N. Lubao Ave.
Canoga Park, CA 91306


*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


• LAUSD BOARD OF EDUCATION & COMMITTEES MEETING CALENDAR



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.


Who are your elected federal & state representatives? How do you contact them?




Scott Folsom is a parent leader in LAUSD and is Parent/Volunteer of the Year for 2010-11 for Los Angeles County. • He is Past President of Los Angeles Tenth District PTSA and represents PTA on the LAUSD Construction Bond Citizen's Oversight Committee. He is a Health Commissioner, Legislation Team member and a member of the Board of Managers of the California State PTA. He serves on numerous school district advisory and policy committees and has served as a PTA officer and governance council member at three LAUSD schools. He is the recipient of the UTLA/AFT 2009 "WHO" Gold Award for his support of education and public schools - an honor he hopes to someday deserve. • In this forum his opinions are his own and your opinions and feedback are invited. Quoted and/or cited content copyright © the original author and/or publisher. All other material copyright © 4LAKids.
• FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 4LAKids makes such material available in an effort to advance understanding of education issues vital to parents, teachers, students and community members in a democracy. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
• To SUBSCRIBE e-mail: 4LAKids-subscribe@topica.email-publisher.com - or -TO ADD YOUR OR ANOTHER'S NAME TO THE 4LAKids SUBSCRIPTION LIST E-MAIL smfolsom@aol.com with "SUBSCRIBE" AS THE SUBJECT. Thank you.



Sunday, October 24, 2010

Well begun ...and the great sucking sound.

Onward! smf SchoolBoard!
4LAKids: Sunday 24•Oct•2010 UN Founded 1945
In This Issue:
A STUDENT’S PERSPECTIVE AT THE RIBBON CUTTING AND DEDICATION OF SOUTH REGION ELEMENTARY SCHOOL #3
NATIONAL REPORT CARD: CALIFORNIA GETS A “C” IN FUNDING, A “D” FOR EFFORT – State ranked 31st in funding for education …or 32nd, …or 24th, …or 46th
LAUSD HOLDS OFF VOTE OVER TAKING ON $320 MILLION IN NEW LOANS
THE THREATS TO SCHOOL REFORM ARE WITHIN SCHOOL REFORM
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:
4 LAKids on Twitter
PUBLIC SCHOOLS: an investment we can't afford to cut! - The Education Coalition Website
4LAKids Anthology: All the Past Issues, solved, resolved and unsolved!
4LAKidsNews: a compendium of recent items of interest - news stories, scurrilous rumors, links, academic papers, rants and amusing anecdotes, etc.
"WHERE, AFTER ALL, DO UNIVERSAL RIGHTS BEGIN? IN SMALL PLACES, CLOSE TO HOME—so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerned citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world."

–Eleanor Roosevelt - remarks delivered at the United Nations on March 27, 1958 for the Tenth Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

WE HAVE LOTS OF NEW SCHOOLS IN LAUSD with numbers and without names. We have no school named for Eleanor Roosevelt.


• THIS WEEK SAW THE RIBBON CUTTINGS (or ribbons cutting for the grammatically exact) of four new schools - three without names - in LAUSD. I was honored to attend and speak at three of them ...and I doubt that the fourth was any less wonderful. These schools are the once-and-future 'small places' where Mrs. Roosevelt says knowledge and imagination connect to form the greater thing.

They have already educated their communities in being communities; the three schools I visited are Public School Choice schools.

Here I will offer my apologies to school board-member Yolie Flores who drove the PSC bandwagon while I questioned. I was not a fan of the concept of putting new schools "up for bid" - and I still question whether the "choice" is the public's or the Board of Ed's. But I say it here: The choices made at Esteban Torres High School and South Region Elementary School #3 and South Region Elementary School #2 were well made+made well.

The process has been well begun.

The winning proposals from those three schools came not from outside operators but from within the community; the community of teachers and educators in-the-community - and from the communities and neighborhoods themselves.

The Public Chose ...and the Board of Ed ratified their/our choice.

I can wax poetic about how all this wonderfulness happened - but I direct your attention to the following article in this 4LAKids - where a student explains it all for believer and doubter alike. Had Susana Moran spoke up a year ago I probably would've drunk the Kool-Aid.

Please skip down and read ...and come right back!


For shining moments the level of school and community engagement - the cooperative involvement of teachers, administrators, local district, parents, students and the communities around them was exquisite. Like John Reed, we have seen the future and it works. Small Schools and Small Learning Communities, Schools-Within-Schools and Academies designed by-and-for the communities they serve. I'm not sure it gets any better than this.

In the case of Esteban Torres High School the program has a powerful cheerleader/sponsor/advocate/champion/role-model in Congressman Torres. (He has endorsed my opponent in the school board race - nobody’s right all the time!) It helps that the principals at SRES#2 & SRES#3 are visionary leaders of the first rank with the full faith and support (and dare I say it: Love) of their communities and staffs.

The Right People were forced to Do the Right Thing for the Right Young People in the Right Places at the Right Time - forced by the threat of the scarey outside bogeyman: Unwanted Outside Operators! Hiss! Boo!

At another level, my friends in the charter community - and I do have a couple - are deserving of better treatment than to be The Monster in the Closet that Goes Bump in the Night. Maybe this was Yolie & Co.'s idea all along - to force the Right Thinking/'Right-Thinging': "You must pass this test or you'll stay in kindergarten FOREVER!"

The carrot or the ugly stick. If that was the idea it worked ...if it wasn't it worked that way anyway.

(The corporate execs at Coca-Cola have always denied that the disastrous roll-out on New Coke wasn't a devious ploy to drive folks back to the brand. They say they were not that smart ...we will never know.)

All this said, it remains to be seen whether the experience can or will be be duplicated/replicated going forward. I am certainly not seeing much effort at similar community engagement/involvement in my neighborhood around Central High School #13/Taylor Yards. There it seems to be divvying-up-the-spoils!


OVER THE LAST WEEKEND WE SAW THE OTHER SHOE DROP as the leadership of ICEF Charter Schools was replaced and one/sixth of the staff laid-off. http://bit.ly/cXqaMv In the business cycle of entrepreneurial start-ups this is a predictable event. The kids who started the company in a dorm room are replaced by responsible adults from the venture capitalists. Meg Whitman to EBay. And, because exceptions prove rules: John Sculley to Apple.

ALSO OVER THE WEEKEND RIF NOTICES WENT OUT TO MANY LAUSD EMPLOYEES WHO WILL BE LAID OFF, BUMPED OR REASSIGNED. This is not good news for the people affected - and those people are each an every one of us at every school - and most importantly: Students. http://bit.ly/bkL5DY Despite all the hue and cry the decision making was being driven solely by SENIORITY - not "good-of-the-organizaton", "fair", merit,, competence, ability or need. The Peter Principle played out in reverse. In the great vernacular of middle school: This sucks!

On MONDAY MICROSOFT GAVE $1 MILLION in computer stuff to one of Mayor Tony's schools. http://bit.ly/cpYBwg - while at another of the mayor's schools parents and students protested truancy ticketing. http://bit.ly/9BSxqE

TUESDAY THE BOARD HEMMED AND HAWED and decided not to go into further debt to finance capital improvements by leveraging the operating (general fund) budget while looking down the barrel at a huge operating deficit. http://bit.ly/dhmb6i Not for now. COPS and ROBBERY some called it. (C.O.P.s are Certificates of Participation, debt obligations outside Prop 13 the voters don't have to approve. I'm waiting to hear what R.O.B.B.E.R.Y. is an acronym for ...maybe Retroactive Obligations to Borrow Bond Encumbrance to be Repaid Yesterday?)

WEDNESDAY THE BOND OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE MET - and received a very interesting report describing exactly why Charter Schools can build schools cheaper+cheaper schools than school districts can. And why the comparison compares Apples to Oranges. [http://bit.ly/9j0Cu5 - agenda Item #13/following pp 175 - I will post this more accessibly next week]

THURSDAY THE STATE AUDITOR RELEASED AN INCONCLUSIVE REPORT on whether charter schools are addressing student's nutritional needs. http://bit.ly/d4OEFH + http://bit.ly/cTeQba In both instances we seem to be nearing the event horizon where charter schools and traditional public schools meet separate-and-inequitable.

ON THE EAST COAST THE NY CITY SCHOOLS - run without transparency and accountability by their mayor and his hand-picked chancellor - ran headlong into the Value Added Teacher Assessment Debate. Unblinkingly the NY City Schools committed to release the data - not publicly -but to only a few. The few being the NY Daily News, NY Post and NY Times - more Teacher Assessment by the Press. The courts said "not so fast". Stay tuned.

DURING THE WEEK THERE WAS A REPORT ON HOW WELL AND MUCH CALIFORNIA SPENDS ON SCHOOLS. http://bit.ly/dtHczc Not well, not much, not enough.

AND MICHELLE RHEE - who promises in "Waiting for Superman" that her sole sojourn in public education would be her soon-to-end stay in D.C. - either is or is not headed to New Jersey. It's interesting to note that New Jersey (2nd) and D.C.(3rd) outspend California (31st) per-pupil big-time. And that Superman seems to have gifted the Newark schools (another suggested Rhee destination) with an additional $100 million.

Undaunted+Unashamed ....but not unafraid o' th' ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggetty beasties and things that go bump in the night - ¡Onward/Adelante! - smf


A STUDENT’S PERSPECTIVE AT THE RIBBON CUTTING AND DEDICATION OF SOUTH REGION ELEMENTARY SCHOOL #3
A speech by Susana Moran - Tuesday, Oct 19, 2010

Good Morning,

My name is Susana Moran. I am a 5th grade student in Ms. Morales’ class.

A little over a year ago, my mom dragged me to a community meeting at Theresa Hughes Elementary. They were talking about the new school that was being built here in Cudahy. I really did not understand why we had to be there. Well that meeting led to another and another and another. Before we knew it, my mom and I became part of the plan writing team to submit a proposal for this new school under the Public School Choice Process.

Although I did not do much of the writing, I sat in and heard all the ideas and discussions about the vision of what this school would be like. I helped to pass out flyers to persuade parents and community members to vote for the B/C Pie Plan. I became invested in the plan, so when the Board of Education announced that the team had been awarded the school, I knew I wanted to be a student here. That was when my personal challenge began.

My challenge was to convince my parents to let me transfer to SRE #3. They wanted to know why I was so interested in attending SRE #3. I explained that the new school would have two small learning communities, a Math/Science and Humanities. Students would be assigned to each small community based on the results of a multiple intelligence inventory. This inventory shows us how we learn and the areas of strengths and weaknesses. I am part of the Humanities Small Learning Community. In my class we learn through project based studies. This means that we learn about reading, writing, math and other subjects by working on projects in groups. We do research on the internet to learn more about our themes. My teacher Ms. Morales integrates the sciences and social studies into all our lessons. I also explained, that at SRE#3 the Arts (art, music, dance) would be taught to all students. I was most excited about this because I love to dance, sing and draw.

Another cool feature about SRE #3 is the university themes. Every teacher chose a university to promote in their classroom. Seeing and learning about so many colleges and universities motivates us to do well in school and aspire (not the competition in South Gate) to go to college. My classroom has adopted Cornell University in New York. I have learned that Cornell has a very good School of Veterinary Medicine. I would like to be a veterinarian when I grow up. Cornell University would be a good university for me to attend.

My parents were convinced and agreed that I should attend SRE #3.

I am happy to be at this exciting new school.


NATIONAL REPORT CARD: CALIFORNIA GETS A “C” IN FUNDING, A “D” FOR EFFORT – State ranked 31st in funding for education …or 32nd, …or 24th, …or 46th
By John Fensterwald - Educated Guess | http://bit.ly/9v1Zi8

10/15/10 • In terms of unadjusted state and local spending for education, California ranks 24th in the nation. But adjust spending to account for the regional cost of living, as Education Week does annually, and California’s per student spending falls to 46th in the nation.

Which ranking you cite in debates with colleagues and around the dinner table is usually a giveaway as to where you stand on the need for more K-12 funding. (I tend to go with Ed Week.)

Now, a new study of the state school funding that claims to be the most comprehensive is ranking California in 31st place, with an adjusted spending of $9,030 ­– $1,102 below the adjusted U.S. average of $10,132 and nearly $7,000 below top-ranked Wyoming.

“Is School Funding Fair? A National Report Card,”[http://bit.ly/bksBMI] funded by the Ford Foundation, used 2007 figures, which predated the recession, though the authors ­– a Rutgers professor and two researchers from the Education Law Center in Newark – said little changed in a post-study update for 2008.

Like Education Week, “Is School Funding Fair?” adjusted spending calculations to incorporate regional wages, but it also factored in population density, extent of a state’s poverty, and economies of scale (district size).

The study also looked at three other measures to determine fairness in state funding, which it defined as ensuring equal opportunity by sufficiently funding districts to meet the needs of students in poverty. (It assumed that the poverty was also an accurate indicator of other needs, such as those of English learners.)

The other measures were funding distribution (whether more money is disbursed to districts with higher proportions of poor students), effort (how much the state spends relative to its capacity to tax), and a new measure, “coverage” (the percentage of children who attend public vs. parochial and private schools, which the authors claim also is an indicator of funding relative to student poverty).

Rob Manwaring, a former K-12 education director for the California Legislative Analyst’s Office and now a senior policy analyst with the nonpartisan Education Sector, praised the report for bringing together data from different sources. “They did a great job of organizing a lot of different measures and putting them into one place,” he told Education Week.

In none of the measures did California fare well.

Distribution: This is the most important factor, next to amount of spending. California got a C, measuring the difference in per student funding between districts with the lowest percentage of poor students and highest poverty districts. There’s only a 3 percent difference: $287.

“In a state that likes to think of itself as progressive,” Manwaring said, “this is not the type of equity that California should want.”

Oddly enough, Utah, which spends among the least in overall student funding, ranked highest in directing dollars to districts with the poorest students (a $2,900 difference between rich and poor districts). Eighteen states ranked above California. New Hampshire, which funds schools almost entirely on property taxes, is the most regressive, with districts with the highest numbers of poor students getting about $4,700 less per student than districts with very few poor students. New York, which just went through a huge equity suit, was surprisingly among the least progressive.

Effort: California squeaked by with a D, just above the 13 states, including Oregon and Washington, with F’s. This particular measure used per capita gross domestic product, a measure of economic output. Other studies define effort as school spending as a percentage of per capita income; by that measure, California is near the bottom as well.

Coverage: This measure combined the percentage of 16-year-olds in public schools (89.2 percent in California) with the household income differences between public and private school students (public school families earn about half as much as private school families). California ranked 32nd. The authors assume the flight of wealthy families from public schools is a sign of willingness to equitably fund public schools.

Six states received good or excellent ratings on all four measures: Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Vermont, and Wyoming. Four states bombed on all four: Louisiana, North Carolina, Illinois, and Missouri.

The report does not present evidence that more equitable funding improves student achievement. That, it said, should the the subject of a future report.

The report does argue that the federal government should revise its definition of poverty, which disadvantages high-cost states like California and New York. Uniformly applied to all states, poverty is defined as under $20,000 income for a family of four. For students to qualify for the federal free and reduced school lunch program, the family of four cannot earn more than $37,000. If the regional cost of rental housing and other expenses were factored in, California’s child poverty rate would rise from 16 to 24 percent, according to the study.

• Executive Summary & State Ranking Chart | http://bit.ly/9qxIN7
• The Entire Report: http://bit.ly/bksBMI


LAUSD HOLDS OFF VOTE OVER TAKING ON $320 MILLION IN NEW LOANS
By Connie Llanos, Staff Writer - LA Daily News | http://bit.ly/9VqWtC

10/20/2010 - Los Angeles Unified officials postponed a vote Tuesday on a plan to take out $320 million in loans for new capital improvement projects after a recent report raised questions about the spending plan.

District officials want to use certificates of participation, loans that fund projects and are generally repaid from the same fund that pays for salaries and supplies, to borrow money for projects including solar panel installations and relocating a police station.

Under the plan, the district would pay back at least part of the loans with reserves left over from projects funded by voter approved bonds.

A financial review by an independent company last week said spending the reserves to make payments on new loans could leave the district's building program in a deficit if unexpected costs occur, or if the state does not come through with all its promised funding due to the financial crisis.

The report by Capital Program Management, Inc., found that while district officials expect nearly $900 million in bond funds from the state, they should only count on receiving about $220 million for now.

That could force the district to dip into its general fund - used to pay for salaries, programs and supplies - to pay back future loans.

While the district technically still has billions of dollars in voter-approved bonds to build projects, most of the money has been allocated for projects and the rest is state funds that are not being released due to the economic crisis.

The district's financial staff asked the board to postpone the vote on this item, so that they could further analyze the impact it could have on the district's budget, officials said.


THE THREATS TO SCHOOL REFORM ARE WITHIN SCHOOL REFORM
By Mike Rose | Guest blog in the Washington Post | http://wapo.st/dACWIQ

SIX AREAS OF CONCERN:

1. Tone down the rhetoric
2. The problem with “cleaning house”
3. Be careful of the "Big Idea"
4. Focus on instruction
5. Privileging youth over experience
6. Don’t downplay poverty

October 20, 2010; 12:30 PM ET - Here’s an all-too-familiar storyline about reform, from education to agricultural development: The reform has run its course, has not achieved its goals, and the reformers and other analysts speculate in policy briefs or opinion pages about what went wrong. The interesting thing is that the reform’s flaws were usually evident from the beginning.

As someone who has lived through several periods of educational reform and has studied schools and taught for a long time, I see characteristics of the current reform movement, as powerful as it is, that could lead to unintended and undesirable consequences. But when reform is going strong it can become a closed ideological system, deaf to the cautionary tale.

I have six areas of concern:

• Tone down the rhetoric

In the manifesto “How to Fix Our Schools” published on October 10 in The Washington Post, New York City’s chancellor, Joel Klein and 14 colleagues wrote: “It’s time for all the adults – superintendents, educators, elected officials, labor unions, and parents alike – to start acting like we are responsible for the future of our children.” The collective “we” is used here, but it’s pretty clear rhetorically that the signatories believe that they are already on the side of the angels. Anyone who is not on board with their reforms is acting out of self interest.

This is not the way to foster the unified effort called for in the sentence. Reformers have been masterful at characterizing anyone who differs from their approach as “traditionalists” who want to maintain the status quo, putting their own retrograde professional interests ahead of the good of children. Teachers unions are the arch-villain in this Manichean tale of good and evil, and schools of education are right behind.

I’m reminded of the toxic rhetoric of patriotism that characterized the 2008 presidential campaign. So, if I may, in the interest of the children, I suggest a less adversarial language. Many of the people on the receiving end of it have spent a lifetime working for the same goals voiced by the reformers, and the reformers need their expertise.

There is another language issue, and that’s the unrelenting characterization of public schools as failures. To be sure, this crisis rhetoric predates the current reformers, going back to the 1983 document “A Nation at Risk.” Since then, the language of crisis and failure has intensified. Crisis talk can give rise to action, but heard consistently enough and long enough, such rhetoric can also lead to despair and paralysis.

There is a crisis in American education, and it involves mostly poor children, and thus it is a moral as well as educational outrage. But it is just not accurate to characterize public education itself as being in a 30-year crisis.

I can’t tell you how many professional people I meet who, upon finding out what I do, erupt with damning statements about public schools: they are a catastrophe, we are doomed, the situation is hopeless. What is telling is that they are not speaking from experience; they don’t have kids, or their kids are in private school, or are grown. They are voicing the new common sense. Unless you’re in the free market camp of the reform movement, this reaction is not good news, for it suggests hopelessness and withdrawal from support for public education.

• The problem with “cleaning house”

Some districts are so dysfunctional that clearing them out seems the best option. But the history of reform in education – and other domains as well – reveals the shortsightedness of such action.

In even the most beleaguered school district there are good teachers and administrators, and their skills and local wisdom are tossed out in the clean sweep. And in most communities there are grass roots movements to improve the schools, and they are typically ignored.

Finally, this approach predictably is going to piss people off, not only those who are part of the problem, but many others in the community as well. No one likes to be pushed around – as the voters in Washington D.C. just demonstrated. Clean sweep reform shakes things up and attracts the media, which might be useful. But these tactics can generate more heat than light. Though it is tedious and calls for great skill, a more targeted and discriminating approach that builds on what is good has a better chance of long-term success.

• Be careful of the "Big Idea"

Reformers are often driven by a big idea, a grand process or structure that will transform the status quo. Not too long ago, the big idea in education reform was turning large schools into small ones. For No Child Left Behind it was a system of high-stakes tests that would drive achievement. One appealing big idea today is charter schools.

The problem with the big idea approach to school reform is that large-scale educational problems have more than one cause and thus require more than one solution.

The mother of big ideas in contemporary school reform is the belief that we can capture dynamic phenomena like learning or teaching with a few numerical measures. This is the logical fallacy of reification, and the last century of psychological science is filled with unfortunate examples, as Stephen J. Gould trenchantly observed in The Mismeasure of Man.

Though most reformers acknowledge the problems with NCLB, they continue to try to build a better technocratic mousetrap, not questioning the assumptions behind their use of testing and accountability systems. We’re seeing all this play out with currently popular "value added" methods of evaluating teachers as reformers ignore the concerns raised by statisticians and measurement experts.

One more manifestation of this way of thinking is the attempt to develop quantitative models of teacher effectiveness. In a nutshell, the approach attempts to pinpoint specific teaching behaviors and qualities and correlate them with a numerical measure of student achievement.

There’s another logical problem here, the reductive fallacy –the attempt to explain a complex phenomenon by reducing it to its basic components. Even if researchers are able to specify a wide range of behaviors and qualities, the further problem is that it’s likely, given the history of such attempts, that the result will be a small number of significant correlations with the measure of achievement – which itself might be flawed.

We’ll end up with a thin composite of good teaching.

We just witnessed with NCLB the way high-stakes testing can narrow what gets taught; a reductive model of teacher effectiveness could lead to a corresponding narrowing of teaching itself.

• Focus on instruction

It is characteristic of contemporary school reform to focus on organizational structure and broad testing and accountability systems, but change at that level is a necessary but not sufficient condition for reform. As Deborah Meier, the maven of the original small schools movement, once said: You can have crappy small schools too. What goes on in the classroom makes all the difference.

It could be argued that standardized tests give us a window onto learning, but it is a pretty narrow window, distant from the cognitive give and take of instruction.

And it could also be said that aforementioned measures of teacher effectiveness will bring characteristics of good teachers to the fore. Even if they work, these methods won’t help us think about curriculum, the organization of the classroom, what we want students to do intellectually, how we address academic under-preparation, and so on.

Instruction is the gigantic missing element in reform, and without it, all the structural changes in the world won’t get us very far.

• Privileging youth over experience

Reformers have a tendency to downplay the value of experience and to celebrate the new. You will rarely see a career public school teacher featured in reform media, but will see young teachers in KIPP schools or Teach for America volunteers.

Furthermore, ask yourself, when in a reform document have you found reference to the rich Western tradition of educational thought, from Plato through Horace Mann and W.E.B. DuBois to the 20th century treasure trove of research on learning. It seems that the reform movement’s managerial-technocratic orientation has an anti-intellectual streak to it.

I greatly admire the young people who sign up for Teach for America or work diligently in schools like KIPP. I began my career in education via an earlier alternative program, Teacher Corps, so I know the exhilaration and challenge. But I also know how green I was, and how the wisdom of veteran teachers saved me from big blunders.

What I’m concerned about is the way young teachers are used in reform publicity, what they symbolize. The message is not simply the accurate one that we need to attract bright and committed young people to teaching, but that the new and the alternative will save our schools.

In what other profession would such an appeal be made? Can you imagine proposals to staff hospitals with biology majors or the courts with pre-law graduates?

Merit pay could be related to experience, though many merit pay schemes link pay to test scores. The original Race to the Top proposal did mention professional development and career trajectories, though I haven’t read much more since. This cult of the new is interwoven with the reformers’ attempts to remove seniority and to not consider teachers’ academic credentials.

However these issues play out in management-union negotiations, reformers are going to have to develop ways to draw on experience and expertise, not with add-on rewards but as central to the reform enterprise.

• Don’t downplay poverty

Low socioeconomic status does not condemn a child to low achievement. This fact has led some reformers to downplay – and in some cases dismiss – the harmful effect poverty can have on the lives of children in school. To raise the issue of poverty is to risk being accused of making excuses or of harboring “the soft bigotry of low expectations.”

I grew up poor and have worked a fair amount of my life with low-income students. To be poor affects everything from health to housing – which weighs mightily on children.

There is also the extraordinary gap in educational resources. While a poor kid is trying to work through an outdated textbook at the kitchen table, his affluent peer across town is being tutored in algebra in her own room. Only someone who hasn’t been poor could say that all this can be overcome by school. It is telling that the Harlem Children’s Zone, a rightfully celebrated crown jewel of reform, incorporates health and social services with schooling.

Reformers slip into either/or thinking here. They are right to insist that schools provide poor kids with a top-flight education, but to insist on excellence does not require negating the brutal realities of being poor in America.

If education involves children’s psychological and social as well as cognitive well-being, then we have to address poverty, and the reformers have an unprecedented bully pulpit from which to do it.

Wealth and income gaps are widening in the United States, and no less a figure than Warren Buffet observed that we’re in the middle of class warfare, and the rich are winning.

Which is all the more reason to get school reform right this time.


• Mike Rose is on the faculty of the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies and is the author of “Possible Lives: The Promise of Public Education in America" and "Why School?: Reclaiming Education for all of Us.”
• I'd like to thank Megan Franke, Kris Gutierrez, Felipe Martinez, Janelle Scott and Matt Stevens for their help.


HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest of the Stories from Other Sources
State Auditor: REPORT ON HOW WELL CHARTER SCHOOLS MEET STUDENT NUTRITIONAL NEEDS: California State Auditor REPORT ... http://bit.ly/cTeQba

CALIFORNIA UNABLE TO DETERMINE IF CHARTER SCHOOLS ARE MEETING STUDENTS' NUTRITIONAL NEEDS + STATE FAILS TO TRACK F... http://bit.ly/d4OEFH

NATIONAL REPORT CARD: CALIFORNIA GETS A “C” IN FUNDING, A “D” FOR EFFORT – State ranked 31st in funding for educati... http://bit.ly/dtHczc

Michelle Rhee, Whither goest thou? FORMER D.C. SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR HESITATES IN ACCEPTING OFFER TO BECOME N.J. EDUC... http://bit.ly/b92jPa via twitterfeed

Update: NEW YORK CITY DELAYS RELEASING CONTROVERSIAL TEACHER RATINGS + NY Times + addl. coverage: by Jason Song – ... http://bit.ly/d8zSti

TORRES HIGH TIME CAPSULE STORES EAST LOS ANGELES’ STRUGGLES AND TRIUMPHS / CÁPSULA DE TIEMPO COMPARTIRÁ EVIDENCIA ..

NEW YORK CITY SCHOOLS TO RELEASE TEACHER’S RATINGS: The decision by the country's largest school district is expec... http://bit.ly/cdbULI

THE THREATS TO SCHOOL REFORM ARE WITHIN SCHOOL REFORM: By Mike Rose | Guest blog in the Washington Post | http://w... http://bit.ly/bAHNQv

LAUSD HOLDS OFF VOTE OVER TAKING ON $320 MILLION IN NEW LOANS: By Connie Llanos, Staff Writer - LA Daily News | ht... http://bit.ly/dhmb6i

STUDENTS, TEACHERS AT L.A.’s ROOSIVELT HIGH PROTEST TRUANCY TICKETING POLICY + smf's 2¢: Ching-Ching Ni – LA Times... http://bit.ly/9BSxqE

MICROSOFT DONATES $1 MILLION TO LOCAL EDUCATION EFFORT: socaltech.com | http://bit.ly/bKzlGN Wednesday, Octo... http://bit.ly/cpYBwg

STATE EDUCATION OFFICIALS DECRY FUNDING VETO: Jason Song – LA Times | http://lat.ms/6CpGxf October 18, 2010 | 4:... http://bit.ly/9iVzCu

“Every School Affected”: NEARLY 1000 LAUSD WORKERS WILL LOSE JOBS ON NOV. 30: By Melissa Pamer - Staff Writer | Da... http://bit.ly/bkL5DY

L.A. CHARTER GROUP LAYS OFF ONE-SIXTH OF STAFF: ICEF squeezed by state budget cuts and unwise borrowing + comments... http://bit.ly/cXqaMv

OBAMA ON THE ROLE OF PARENTS IN THE SCHOOL: The biggest single ingredient in school performance is the parent.: ... http://bit.ly/bq7Bss


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


• LAUSD BOARD OF EDUCATION & COMMITTEES MEETING CALENDAR



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.


Who are your elected federal & state representatives? How do you contact them?




Scott Folsom is a parent leader in LAUSD and is Parent/Volunteer of the Year for 2010-11 for Los Angeles County. • He is Past President of Los Angeles Tenth District PTSA and represents PTA on the LAUSD Construction Bond Citizen's Oversight Committee. He is a Health Commissioner, Legislation Team member and a member of the Board of Managers of the California State PTA. He serves on numerous school district advisory and policy committees and has served as a PTA officer and governance council member at three LAUSD schools. He is the recipient of the UTLA/AFT 2009 "WHO" Gold Award for his support of education and public schools - an honor he hopes to someday deserve. • In this forum his opinions are his own and your opinions and feedback are invited. Quoted and/or cited content copyright © the original author and/or publisher. All other material copyright © 4LAKids.
• FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 4LAKids makes such material available in an effort to advance understanding of education issues vital to parents, teachers, students and community members in a democracy. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
• To SUBSCRIBE e-mail: 4LAKids-subscribe@topica.email-publisher.com - or -TO ADD YOUR OR ANOTHER'S NAME TO THE 4LAKids SUBSCRIPTION LIST E-MAIL smfolsom@aol.com with "SUBSCRIBE" AS THE SUBJECT. Thank you.