In This Issue:  | | • | L.A. UNIFIED BESTS REFORM GROUPS IN MOST CASES, DATA SHOW | | | • | LACCD Bond Scandal: CALIFORNIA SEEKS PROBE OF ALLEGED COMMUNITY COLLEGE RIGGING | | | • | Census: PARENTS READING MORE WITH THEIR CHILDREN | | | • | STUDENT TEST SCORES SHOW MODERATE GAINS + GAINS ON STANDARDIZED TEST SCORES + CDE & LAUSD PRESS RELEASES | | | • | 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: | | | | Thursday's L.A. Times Headline: “LAUSD BESTS REFORM GROUPS IN MOST CASES: Struggling Schools Under District Control See Scores Raise More Than Some Run by Mayor and Others” (story follows) made my heart sing.
The truth, they said on THE X FILES, is out there. And sometimes it's there on Page One, two columns wide, above-the-fold in 40 point Times New Roman.
Truth be told, this was not news. The word 'surprising' in the first sentence was either written by or for someone not paying attention.
On Monday the CDE released the STAR test score data ...and insiders like the superintendent had it earlier than that. One didn’t need to be too much of a nerd or a wonk – too obsessed by API, AYP, PI and the alphabet soup of what passes for accountability – to crunch the numbers and compare-and-contrast. You know they did it at Beaudry and city hall and Green Dot. The evidence was there even before – all the other data; all the information - empirical, experiential and anecdotal the data-driven chose to ignore. It's a Male/Female, Venus/Mars, Type A/Type B, Hunter/Gatherer thing: Hunters find what they are looking for, Gatherers find what's there.
Before I drive too far: The Mayor's Partnership schools are not charter schools. Crenshaw is not a charter school. Green Dot @ Locke are plural, but not charter schools. These are traditional neighborhood attendance-area schools operated by outside operators. Only Green Dot is a charter operator.
These schools were given to these operators as part of the “choice” and “transformation” provisions in No Child Left Behind. There has been neither choice nor transformation – and children have been left behind.
These hybrid operations combine almost all of the bad things and little of the good things about district operated schools and charter schools. And the evidence and the data and the scientific proof has been out there for a decade – since Edison Schools began to operate neighborhood schools in Philadelphia, Cleveland, Wichita and Baltimore. It works for a year when the thinking and the uniforms are new and reform+change is cosmetic. But outside operated neighborhood schools end up underperforming both traditional schools and charter schools. This is the worst of both worlds. (See PBS Frontline: Public Schools Inc. | http://to.pbs.org/n1ugXS) Some might say that that Edison was for-profit and these are non-profits. "Nonprofit is a tax structure, not a business model" has been the investment-strategy-mantra – theoretically recession proof. Tell that to ICEF.
The tragedies are that students – children – have been the subjects in these experiments to prove the proven again. And that LAUSD continues to give over schools and the lives+futures of children in the continuing experiment – giving a whole new meaning to the term “double blind” . Jordan High School is being divided among the Mayor's Partnership and Green Dot next month – in the hope that someone will get it right this time. “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” - Albert Einstein
MEANWHILE THE LOS ANGELES COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT continues to operate in a way that makes LAUSD look like a finely tuned machine. The State Controller points out possible criminal activity – and the LACCD Trustees pull the suspects from the lineup and assign them to the investigation committee.
TWO STUDIES show that parents are happy with their their public schools and teachers [http://t.co/XJzq975]– and that the economy is wreaking havoc on the public education of children that isn't apparent in the short term (Test scores are up!) – but will become obvious later on down the line – the damage done. [http://t.co/Q5wSV5k]
WORTH NOTING/WORTH NOTHING:
President Obama wants to invest in School Infrastructure Stimulus – to promote jobs and school repair.[http://lat.ms/q9KbUw]
People who should follow Thumper's Fathers Excellent Advice instead criticize golfer Michelle Wie's decision to get a degree at Stanford rather than play golf. [http://lat.ms/o21lfy]
Wrong guy/Wrong time/Right thing: Mayor Tony flew up to Sacramento to take on Prop 13.
The Unemployment Rate went up in CA to 12%. How many of the newly unemployed were laid-off public school employees?
From the wonderful folks who brought you he Houston Miracle, Creationism in text books and the rehabilitation of Joseph McCarthy at the expense of Thomas Jefferson: Rick Perry!
Finally: Will someone please fix LAUSD and public education in California? I want to write like Chris Erskine: http://lat.ms/pddaqJ
¡Onward/Adelante! - smf
L.A. UNIFIED BESTS REFORM GROUPS IN MOST CASES, DATA SHOW
STRUGGLING SCHOOLS UNDER DISTRICT CONTROL SEE TEST SCORES RISE MORE THAN MOST OPERATED BY THE MAYOR, A CHARTER ORGANIZATION AND OTHERS, A TIMES ANALYSIS FINDS.
By Howard Blume and Sandra Poindexter - Los Angeles Times | http://lat.ms/owgdCK
Campus
Graduates celebrate at Locke High School. The charter school saw lower percentage-point increases in test scores than similar LAUSD schools. (Arkasha Stevenson / Los Angeles Times)
August 18, 2011 - In a surprising challenge to four school reform efforts run by outside organizations, the Los Angeles school district has not only held its own in improving math and English test scores, but in most cases outpaced the others, according to a Times analysis of the city's lowest-performing schools.
The district's showing was even more surprising given that its schools didn't benefit from outside funding and other extra resources brought in by reform groups for their schools.
"The results are eye-opening, that conventional schools display stronger results," said Bruce Fuller, a UC Berkeley education professor.
One of the most striking comparisons was with a group of schools under the control of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. The mayor's schools — elementary, middle and high schools — all improved less than the district's by some key measures.
The mayor had repeatedly derided the L.A. Unified School District as ineffectual when he unsuccessfully tried to take over the whole system nearly six years ago.
New test scores released Monday showed that the percentage of students in low-performing district-run high schools working at a "proficient" level in math increased 116% since 2008. That compared with a rise of 57% at two high schools under Villaraigosa's purview. The figures were more nuanced in other categories.
Villaraigosa expressed surprise at the results but also complimented the district's success. While his schools "are improving as well, I want them to be improving at a more accelerated rate," he said. "We're committed to the long haul."
He added: "We've decided to go to some of these similar [district] schools that are outpacing some of our schools and look at what they're doing."
The Times analysis looked at district schools whose test scores ranked in the bottom 20% of the state in 2008. Those schools are, in many ways, the ultimate litmus test for local school improvement. They enroll neighborhood students whose families haven't left to take advantage of a growing number of alternatives, including independently operated charter schools and the district's own popular magnet program.
The district scores were then compared with those of schools that have been part of four highly touted reform efforts aimed at boosting achievement at the lowest-performing schools.
All of these groups had the goal of breaking the long-standing pattern of academic failure by bringing in outside expertise, new resources and new leadership to end what critics view as the stultifying grip of district bureaucrats and entrenched faculties.
Three years later, the scores at many of these schools remain poor — often extremely so.
Because so many students started out at such a low level, many schools in the analysis showed large improvements in proficiency rates, despite overall low scores, most notably Locke High School. There, the percentage of students with proficient math scores more than tripled, even as enrollment grew.
But another illuminating statistic is the change in percentage points, which more closely reflects how many more students rated proficient in math and English.
In percentage point gains, the district outpaced all the outside organizations. Test scores in reading at the district high schools rose 7.8 points; math scores climbed 6.3 points.
Among the outside efforts, Crenshaw High School, which is being overseen by the Los Angeles Urban League, the Bradley Foundation and USC, fared the worst under the analysis. Reading scores at Crenshaw were down 2 percentage points over three years, while math scores nudged upward 0.3 point.
Crenshaw has seen the most grass-roots effort and enjoyed the most consistent support from the teachers union. The school's governing board includes teachers and parents.
Despite criticism that responsibility for the school is too diffuse, Urban League President Blair Taylor listed elements of progress: fewer suspensions, more graduates, more counseling and safer routes for students walking to and from school.
"We really want this model to be community-based engagement," Taylor said. "It's a harder exercise, but I do believe and hope and feel that, in the long run, it's more sustainable because it has buy-in."
Watts' Locke High School, run by Green Dot Public Schools, showed a 5.1 percentage point increase in English scores, and a 5.7 point increase in math.
Locke is probably the best-funded effort and the only one run by an independent charter organization, which is not bound by L.A. Unified's labor agreements. Green Dot could choose which staff members to keep; it retained fewer than a third of the teachers.
"The edge that charter schools have is more flexibility in their hiring of personnel," said Eric Hanushek, a senior fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution.
Green Dot board Chairman Shane Martin said the goal is to create a new campus culture, with everyone committed to the same vision. "It's about limiting the distractions and focusing on what's truly important," said Martin, adding that the Green Dot approach could be a model for improving the lowest-achieving district schools.
At South L.A.'s Manual Arts High School, which is run by L.A.'s Promise, a locally based nonprofit, reading scores rose 4.6 points and math scores 3.4 points.
Promise also points to rising high school exit exam results and higher college acceptance rates, among other milestones.
The approach at Promise and the mayor's schools is thematically similar: Bombard schools with high-quality teacher training, support and high expectations, while hiring strong administrators to pore over achievement data and insist on results.
From the start, the mayor's organization — Partnership for L.A. Schools — has been made up of elementary, middle and high schools, which has enabled it to reach some struggling students earlier.
The mayor's high schools showed a 5.7 percentage point increase in English and a 1.5 point increase in math, a smaller rise than the district's.
The head of the mayor's education team, Marshall Tuck, said the proficiency gains did not take into account other evidence of improvement, including the "large number" of students who made progress but still weren't proficient. He also said the mayor deserved credit for initiatives that benefited all district students. Those included identifying more gifted minority students and leading a successful bid to prevent disproportionate layoffs at any school because of budget cuts.
Villaraigosa also quietly (smf: ¿quietly?) endorsed the management shake-up that brought his top education advisor at the time, Ramon C. Cortines, to L.A. Unified in April 2008. Cortines directly supervised the work of improving the low-achieving schools that remained under district control, first as deputy superintendent, then as superintendent. The veteran educator critiqued school-improvement plans and personally removed some principals, while authorizing various approaches — some with broad support, some controversial.
New Supt. John Deasy, who took over in April from Cortines, said that the district and the reform groups could learn from each other and that L.A. Unified was ultimately responsible for students at every school.
"We have lots of room to grow, but the growth over time is important," he said. "These types of schools have been the most difficult to improve across the nation…. We're making progress in that area in L.A."
LACCD Bond Scandal: CALIFORNIA SEEKS PROBE OF ALLEGED COMMUNITY COLLEGE RIGGING
AUDITOR FOR STATE CONTROLLER JOHN CHIANG TELLS L.A. COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT TRUSTEES THAT AN INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION IS NEEDED INTO WHETHER AN INSPECTOR GENERAL WAS IMPROPERLY HIRED.
By Gale Holland and Michael Finnegan, Los Angeles Times | http://lat.ms/qFOTpp
August 19, 2011 - State auditors have urged the Los Angeles Community College District to seek a criminal investigation into allegations that the selection of an inspector general to police the district's troubled construction program was rigged.
Jeffrey Brownfield, chief auditor for state Controller John Chiang, told the district's Board of Trustees that an independent probe was needed to determine how the district allegedly violated its own bidding rules in choosing someone with no experience in audits or investigations over higher-rated applicants.
The district created the inspector general's office last year to investigate possible fraud and corruption in the $5.7-billion program to rebuild its nine aging campuses.
Brownfield recommended a criminal inquiry while briefing the trustees Wednesday night on an audit of the construction program that Chiang released last week. The audit cited "possible malfeasance" in the hiring of Christine E. Marez as inspector general.
"We'd recommend an investigation by the district attorney, the attorney general or the county grand jury," Brownfield said. "Something independent."
Board members did not appear receptive to the suggestion and took no immediate action on it.
Kelly Candaele demanded to see evidence that the selection process was "rigged to help one firm over another."
"That's why we're asking the district to investigate further," auditor Andrew Finlayson replied.
District Chancellor Daniel LaVista also resisted the idea of a criminal investigation. "Given what I know, I do not believe there is sufficient information to take us to that place," he said.
Scott Svonkin, one of two people who joined the seven-member board in July, was the only trustee to speak in favor of an independent investigation, though not necessarily a criminal one.
"The chancellor and those that continue to make excuses are doing a real injustice to the reform efforts we are working on," Svonkin said.
Miguel Santiago, the board president, appointed Trustees Steven Veres and Mona Field to study the auditors' findings.
Chiang could refer the inspector-general issue for investigation on his own, but said in an interview that he would wait to see what the college board decided.
The Los Angeles County district attorney's office investigates allegations of official corruption only in response to a formal request, a staff attorney said.
The auditors were invited to Wednesday's special board meeting to discuss Chiang's findings that the district had inappropriately spent $140 million in construction funds. In the audit, Chiang challenged the use of construction money to pay for public relations and public art and criticized a "passive, perfunctory and ineffective" citizen oversight system, as well as the selection of the inspector general.
The board awarded the position to Marez's newly formed company, Policy Masters. From 1998 to 2003, Marez worked for a construction management firm owned by Art Gastelum, a leading campaign donor and fundraiser for the district's elected trustees and a major contractor on the campus building program.
Finlayson told the board that Marez was not qualified for the position and that the initial selection committee scored her proposal second to last among 11 submitted. The district's bidding rules, he said, required the contract to go to the highest scorer.
A second committee recommended Policy Masters as "far and ahead the best firm" but also forwarded Ernst & Young's proposal "as a distant second choice." LaVista recommended Marez's company to the board, which approved the contract.
Marez has said she is qualified for the position and believed the selection process was proper.
LaVista said at the board meeting that he had discovered new information that cast doubt on the controller's analysis of the initial ranking of applicants, and that Marez had actually scored in the top tier.
Hallye Jordan, a spokeswoman for Chiang, said LaVista's presentation of a "second set of books … at the eleventh hour" raised a new set of "red flags" that the controller intended to examine.
●● smf's 2cents : Randomly observed -
“The district created the inspector general's office last year to investigate possible fraud and corruption in the $5.7-billion program to rebuild its nine aging campuses.” Now it appears there was fraud and corruption in the appointment of the IG
.
"By employing an inspector general who reports directly to us, the Board will be improving our oversight of the District's bond program and hopefully will be increasing efficiencies over the remaining years of the construction projects," said Georgia L. Mercer, president of the Board of Trustees. (Oct 6, 2010)
How do you 'increase efficiencies' when you are dealing with total dysfunction? “You can’t fix stupid’, says comedian Ron White. “Not even with duct tape.”
It seems obvious to that the intent wasn't to favor one firm over another as Trustee Candaele would like us to disbelieve. The intent was to appoint a lightweight who might be more compliant to the direction of the trustees, the chancellor, staff , general counsel and the facilities executive – not someone who was an Independent Inspector general. Ms. Marez was not appointed because she was connected – she was appointed because she was disconnected! (Not unlike the Citizens Oversight Committees whom the controller and the trustees seem to like to blame.)
At the meeting Wednesday night Ms. Marez’ greatest defenders were Chancellor LaVista and Trustee Field – the only people in the room directly involved in her appointment.
And Trustee Field was appointed to the ad-hoc two-person committee to investigate the appointment. “...an independent investigation is needed...”
...But wait, there’s more wrong with this picture!
“The Los Angeles County district attorney's office investigates allegations of official corruption only in response to a formal request, a staff attorney said.” Was nothing learned from the Bell fiasco? There, as here, the LA Times uncovered corruption and the State Attorney General was the first to bring action.
It is always easy to read too much and too little into curious things; to ignore the obvious and/or find the conspiracy. Some comment was made at the meeting of Ms. Marez' MySpace (or was it Facebook?) page showing her pole dancing at the Playboy Mansion. Girls will be girls, that’s what boys like about them. No comment was made of her Facebook?/My Space?/Linked In? entry that seemed to intimate that her appointment/contract as IG was matter of wishing her luck.
Good luck to us all.
Census: PARENTS READING MORE WITH THEIR CHILDREN
By Sarah D. Sparks | Edweek | http://bit.ly/oJie7Q
Published Online: August 19, 2011 - Today’s parents—especially low-income parents—are more involved with their young children than they were a decade ago, in ways that research has shown could boost children’s academic careers down the road.
Amid dense new data released Aug. 11 from the U.S. Census Bureau’s most recent Survey of Income and Program Participation, several indicators show American children are spending more time with their parents, from reading to playing to eating dinner, than they did in 1998. The latest data, which are for 2009 and come from interviews with a nationally representative sample of more than 42,000 households, could signal the potential for more parent involvement in education, even as federal, state, and district money for parent engagement shrinks.
Sheila Smith, the early-childhood director for the New York City-based National Center for Children in Poverty, said the indicators came as a hopeful surprise.
“We might almost expect the opposite trend because of the economic pressures,” she said. “When parents are under greater economic pressure, they may have less time and be under more stress and risk of depression.
“But on the other hand, there has really been a kind of convergence of new efforts to make parents aware of how important parent involvement in general, and reading with children in particular, are to school readiness and success.”
Among such positive trends, the Census Bureau found:
• Parents overwhelmingly reported that they not only want, but expect, their children to graduate from high school and college. While fewer than half of low-income parents in 1998 expected their children to graduate from college, 54 percent of that group expected their children to earn a college degree in 2009.
• Among children in poverty, 45 percent of 1- and 2-year-olds and 40 percent of children ages 3 to 5 had parents who read to them at least seven times a week in 2009; by contrast, in 1998, among families in poverty, only 37 percent of the toddlers and 34 percent of the preschoolers read with their families as often. The proportion of low-income children being read to by their families increased faster than for their wealthier peers.
• Low-income parents were 10 percent more likely in 2009 than in 1998 to have frequent conversations with their preschool or elementary-age children “just for fun” throughout the day, with more than half doing so.
• Parents in general were far more likely in 2009 to play and eat dinner with their children, and to praise their children at least three times a day, though younger children got more positive reinforcement than did teenagers.
“It’s not management language like, ‘Do this, do that,’ ” Ms. Smith said of these sorts of parent-child conversations. “Instead it’s, ‘Oh, remember what we did on the number-six bus going to the dentist?’ It’s language that tends to be more complex in syntax and structure.
“That’s the kind of language that helps children learn to read,” she said.
Evidence for Quality Time
Research shows increasing that type of “quality time” between parents and children can have a big effect on development and academic progress. A landmark 1995 studyRequires Adobe Acrobat Reader, Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children, found that the vocabularies of children of parents on welfare lagged behind those of the children of professionals by an average of 1,537 words by age 3, in large part because professional parents engaged their children in more frequent and more positive conversations.
The effects on future student academic achievement are very large—differences among children at entry into kindergarten in the skills that are a product of the home environment are more powerful predictors of future academic achievement than variables under the control of K-12 schools,” said Grover J. “Russ” Whitehurst, the director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Washington-based Brookings Institution. He is also the former director of the federal Institute for Education Sciences and a longtime researcher on parent involvement.
The Census Bureau data showed that parents of all income brackets tended to read more often with their toddlers than with older children. Betty Hart, an associate professor emeritus in the University of Kansas child-language doctoral program and a co-author of the influential 1995 study on parent talk, said that tendency could reflect low-income parents’ greater level of comfort with reading to younger children.
“With a toddler, you can just talk about the pictures,” Ms. Hart said. “Once they get older, you have books with more plot, and you need to have someone who can read well.”
Supporting Involvement
That’s where education partnerships have come in during the past decade, experts agree. They point to an explosion of programs intended to help parents connect with their children, particularly in academics, from federal literacy initiatives like Early Reading First to private nonprofit book-distribution programs like Reading Is Fundamental and Reach Out and Read.
Such programs proliferated in the early to mid-2000s, but many have lost financial support. In the fiscal 2011 budget, Congress did not fund Early Reading First, Reading Is Fundamental, or the Even Start Family Literacy grants, after research showed lackluster results for the programs.
Yet parent-involvement advocates argue that schools should continue to play a role in parent training.
“While all parents can engage in these rich conversations, they often need some modeling; they need to know what it looks like,” Ms. Smith said. “It’s really something that schools can do without a lot of additional funding.”
It may be difficult to directly link broad increases in the kind of involvement highlighted in the Census Bureau data to specific parent-intervention programs, but Ms. Hart said the trends could inform education researchers and policymakers.
“It’s really encouraging that [parent involvement] has increased,” Ms. Hart said. “The government should keep that in mind when they come to cutting the budget.”
STUDENT TEST SCORES SHOW MODERATE GAINS + GAINS ON STANDARDIZED TEST SCORES + CDE & LAUSD PRESS RELEASES
CALIFORNIA STUDENT TEST SCORES SHOW MODERATE GAINS
by Howard Blume | LA Times/LA Now | http://lat.ms/pwrDem
August 15, 2011 | 1:39 pm - California students posted moderate gains on test scores released Tuesday, continuing a trend of recent years.
The results for the Los Angeles Unified School District also mirrored past years: Gains were higher than for the state overall, but scores still fell below the state average.
Overall, 54% of California students scored "proficient" or above in English-language arts and 50% scored proficient or better in mathematics, the best results since the program’s inception in 2003.
In L.A. Unified, proficiency in English language arts increased from 41% to 44%. In mathematics, from 39% to 43%.
District officials hailed the results in the wake of budget cuts that have made academic progress more challenging.
“These results are a result of their amazing hard work,” said L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy, referring to teachers and other staff. “We are at our highest point in student achievement.”
These relative positives come with caveats.
For one, the scores at the high school level, the culmination of the K-12 system, continue to lag sharply behind elementary school performance.
In other words, huge numbers of students who appear to be on track as young children fall far behind as they get older. And those who drop out entirely aren’t even around to be tested toward the end of high school.
In L.A. Unified, fewer than 20% of high school students scored proficient or better in general mathematics, algebra, geometry and Level 2 algebra.
Another persistent issue is the achievement gap separating Asian and white students from Latino and black students — although these groups saw gains.
Statewide, 76% of Asian students and 71% of white students were proficient or better in English, for example, compared with 42% of Latinos and 41% of African Americans.
In math, the numbers are 76% for Asians, 61% for whites, 41% for Latinos and 34% for African Americans.
Compared with past years, the statewide gains are moderate, and they are almost certainly inflated by the transfer of more disabled students to a different testing system.
The transfer might be appropriate for these students, but the effect is to remove many low-scoring test-takers from the pool and thus boost the percentage of students scoring as proficient.
L.A. Unified estimated its scores rose less than 1 percentage point by removing some disabled students from the testing population. State officials did not provide an estimate for the statewide effect.
___________________________
STUDENTS SHOW GAINS ON STANDARDIZED TEST SCORES
By Connie Llanos, Staff Writer, LA Daily nes | http://bit.ly/pLvnWT
8/15/2011 02:24:19 PM - Even with a shortened school year and shrinking campus resources, more Los Angeles Unified students mastered reading, math, science and social studies last year, according to standardized state test results released today.
According to the Standardized Testing and Reporting Program data, 44 percent of LAUSD students scored proficient in reading and 43 percent in math.
This compares well with 2010, when 41 percent tested proficient in English and 39 percent showed the same competency in math.
In addition, 51 percent of LAUSD's fifth- and eighth-graders scored proficient in science and 40 percent of middle-school students demonstrated proficiency in social studies.
The district is still challenged, however, with achievement gaps between older and younger students, boys and girls, minority children and students from low-income families versus those from more affluent areas.
"I am pleased, but not satisfied," said LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy.
For example, 63 percent of elementary school students scored proficient in math last year compared to just 16 percent in high school.
Also this year, 47 percent of LAUSD's female students scored proficient in English compared with 41 percent of the district's boys.
And while 75 percent of LAUSD's Asian students, and 69 percent of white students scored proficient in math, just 39 percent of Latino children and 33 percent of black children scored at the same level.
The STAR test measures proficiency in English and math at every grade level.
Fifth- eighth- and 10th-graders are also tested in science, while eighth-graders and 11th-graders are tested in social studies and history.
Student proficiency is ranked as advanced, proficient, basic, below basic and far-below basic, with a state goal of all students reaching a score of at least proficient in all subject areas.
The STAR test results also make up the majority of the data used to calculate schools' Academic Performance Index, or API, which ranks schools from 200 to 1,000 points, with a state goal of reaching 800
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2011 STAR RESULTS SHOW STEADY IMPROVEMENT STATEWIDE
California Department of Education News Release
August 15, 2011 - RESEDA — California's students continue to steadily improve their performance across the board, with a larger proportion than ever scoring proficient or higher on the 2011 Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) Program exams in English–language arts, mathematics, science, and history–social science, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson announced today.
Approximately 4.7 million students participated in the 2011 STAR program, with 54 percent scoring proficient or above in English-language arts and 50 percent scoring at proficient or above in mathematics, the highest percentage since the program's inception in 2003.
The full results can be found on the California Department of Education Standardized Testing and Reporting Web page at Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) Results.
"The significant and sustained improvements we've seen for nine consecutive years prove how hard teachers, school employees, administrators, and parents are working to help students achieve despite budget cuts that have affected our schools," Torlakson said. "Their heroic teamwork is paying off for California."
HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest of the Stories from Other Sources
Letters: TEST SCORE KUDOS FOR LAUSD: Letters to the Editor of the LA Times Re "LAUSD bests reform groups in most... bit.ly/nWeSsd
EDUCATION BUDGET CUTS IMPERIL REFORM :: CEP Report: Strained Schools Face Bleak Future: Districts Foresee Budget... bit.ly/oXrh1T
CA LEGISLATURE TO STUDY STATUS OF BOYS AND MEN OF COLOR: Themes in the News for the week of Aug. 15-19, 2011 by UCLA/IDEA... bit.ly/oKpFkA
STATE AUDITOR CALLS CALSTRS A HIGH RISK: SB27 -Anti-spiking bill - will be test of Legislature's resolve: By Joh... bit.ly/qobADU
GRADUATION DATA ‘A BIG WIN’ FOR CALPADS AND ACCOUNTABILITY - Torlakson: Reliable numbers allow for a sharper focus – from CSBA... bit.ly/psD4Gu
News: MR. WRONG SAYS THE RIGHT THING: smf for 4LAKidsNews 20 August 2011 “I'm here to shine a light on a dark cloud.” ... bit.ly/rgCV22
What works in education? TEST SHOW LAUSD OUTPERFORMS CHARTERS: «KPCC: Episode :: Patt Morrison for August 19, 20... bit.ly/nIUQIp
Poll: PARENTS GIVE THUMBS UP TO LOCAL SCHOOLS + the poll!: ..and though reported in USA Today, its a real poll b... bit.ly/p19JlA
LACCD Bond Scandal: CALIFORNIA SEEKS PROBE OF ALLEGED COMMUNITY COLLEGE RIGGING - Auditor for state Controller J... bit.ly/ocF8xU
LA LEADERS DISCUSS GROWING ‘PARENT ENGAGEMENT’: By Elyse Galles, EGP Staff Writer |Eastside Sun / Northeast Sun ... bit.ly/qXcpnz
LA COMMUNITY COLLEGE BOARD MEETS TO DISCUSS AUDIT AS GROUP PROTESTS: State Controller’s Office advises criminal ... bit.ly/qQQLRE
L.A. UNIFIED BESTS REFORM GROUPS IN MOST CASES, DATA SHOW: Struggling schools under district control see test sc... bit.ly/o3nSG0
OCEAN CHARTER SCHOOL SEEKS TO REMAIN AT WALGROVE ELEMENTARY: Ocean Charter School Seeks Support to Remain on Mar... bit.ly/pGq8H9
School officials grow nervouser+nervouser: CALIFORNIA REVENUES DOWN, DEPT OF FINANCE CONFIRMS - Finance official... bit.ly/psBwxO
smf: I'm attending Coro CrossTalk on Prop. 13 conta.cc/oMrNtl #corocrosstalk
STAR TEST RESULTS NEED AN ASTERISK*: Fewer Special Ed students taking CSTs: By John Fensterwald - Educated Guess... bit.ly/qnM1f9
GRANTS & AWARDS: Opportunities for Educators, Students, Schools, & Communities + Grant writing tips: from the NE... bit.ly/nh7q55
UPDATE-Prior tweet:Teachers-Do U get pressured over standardized tests? SHOULDA BEEN ADDRESSED 2 ALL SCHOOL STAKEHOLDERS! Poll:bit.ly/pyX9yW
Solving problems in 140 characters-or-less: SECRETARY DUNCAN TO HOLD #AskArne TWITTER TOWN HALL: Posted on The U... bit.ly/nDno50
STAR Results Update: STUDENTS SHOW GAINS IN ENGLISH & MATH SCORES + SOUTH BAY STAR TESTS SHOW GAINS + STAR RESUL... bit.ly/pgTOgw
Teachers: Do you get pressured over standardized tests? Tell KPCC.: bit.ly/pyX9yW
STUDENT TEST SCORES SHOW MODERATE GAINS + GAINS ON STANDARDIZED TEST SCORES + CDE PRESS RELEASE + LAUSD PRESS RE... bit.ly/poYcBw
CARTOON: School furniture of the future?: by teacher Joe Kevany, Irving Middle School – from the UTLA News.. July 15, 2011 U... bit.ly/rn39z3
Ravitch - “Read it and weep!”: NY REGENTS PAY A POLITICAL PRICE FOR THEIR FREE ADVISORS, DISSENTERS WARN: By MIC... bit.ly/pAsKfK
Op-Ed: FACING REALITY ON DROPOUTS MAY AID REFORM+ smf’s 2¢: By Alan Bonsteel,M.D., president of California Paren... bit.ly/oiqKOi
EVENTS: Coming up next week...
Save the Date/Make your Reservation Aug 31/7-8:30 pm: KPCC EDUCATION SUMMIT - THE WAY FORWARD FOR YOUR CHILD'S EDUCATION & LAUSD: Patt Morrison hosts Supt Deasy, Board of Ed Pres. Garcia and UTLA Pres. Fletcher | http://bit.ly/pkKMcT
*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:
Tamar.Galatzan@lausd.net • 213-241-6386
Monica.Garcia@lausd.net • 213-241-6180
Bennett.Kayser@lausd.net • 213-241-5555
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 Brown: 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. THEY DO!.
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