In This Issue:  | | • | AN OPEN LETTER TO THE PEOPLE OF CALIFORNIA | | | • | John Deasy: CALIFORNIA LEAVES $49 MILLION FOR EDUCATION ON THE TABLE + smf’s 2¢ | | | • | NEW TEACHER CONTRACT COULD SHUT DOWN SCHOOL CHOICE PROGRAM + smf's 2¢ | | | • | CALIFORNIA SCHOOL QUAKE SAFETY HAS LAX OVERSIGHT + AUDIT FACT SHEET | | | • | RECLAIMING AMERICAN VALUES FOR SCHOOLS--FOR THE COUNTRY + HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT | | | • | EVENTS: Coming up next week... | | | • | What can YOU do? | |
Featured Links: | | | | This past week, in no particular order:
Governor Brown unveiled his Nov 2012 Initiative to save schools and public safety by raising taxes (income taxes on the rich and sales tax on everyone else) and to embed his prison realignment plan into the state constitution. As those two things are two different things the initiative itself may be unconstitutional – that is for others to determine.
Superintendent Deasy called out Governor Brown for other failings – and in a separate action began to bring a lawsuit against the state for budget cuts that won't (but probably will) happen until next Thursday – the Dec 15 mid year budget "correction." The good news is that revenues are above the most recent dismal projections …and so are expenses! San Diego is notifying employees, Monica Garcia is mobilizing parents and Deasy is calling the attorney. Does anyone remember the Tom Lehrer song from the great folk music scare of the '60's?: "If you're looking for adventure of a new and different kind/And you happen upon a Girl Scout who is similarly inclined/Don’t be nervous, don’t be flustered, don't be scared/Be Prepared!"
Mayor Tony was out of the country. | http://bit.ly/virhCR
The State Ethics folks declared that if a public official is dating a lobbyist they don't have to disclose their expenses. (I didn't make that up! see http://lat.ms/umXRRF0 )
The NAEP test scores came out – Not Good - and another report describes how the Title One funding to Title One Schools doesn't help sufficiently. The writing of reports that state the obvious with graphics and footnotes and scholarly references don't help sufficiently either.
NEA put out a report on parent involvement/engagement that suggests embedding it in the union contracts(!) and in LA County the PTA and the Head Start Parent Engagement Programs met and committed to continue an alignment+partnership that is going national.
All in all a quiet week in Lake Wobegon. And although this is pledge week in public education please don't touch that dial – next week should be really interesting as UTLA votes on their new agreement Monday, the LAUSD Board approves its budget on Tuesday and the State of California pulls the automatic budget trigger and blows it out of the water on Thursday.
¡Onward/Adelante! - smf
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE PEOPLE OF CALIFORNIA
by Jerry Brown | http://wapo.st/tfN4vw
December 5, 2011
When I became Governor again—28 years after my last term ended in 1983—California was facing a $26.6 billion budget deficit. It was the result of years of failing to match spending with tax revenues as budget gimmicks instead of honest budgeting became the norm.
In January, I proposed a budget that combined deep cuts with a temporary extension of some existing taxes. It was a balanced approach that would have finally closed our budget gap.
I asked the legislature to enact this plan and to allow you, the people of California, to vote on it. I believed that you had the right to weigh in on this important choice: should we decently fund our schools or lower our taxes? I don’t know how you would have voted, but we will never know. The Republicans refused to provide the four votes needed to put this measure on the ballot.
Forced to act alone, Democrats went ahead and enacted massive cuts and the first honest, on-time budget in a decade. But without the tax extensions, it was simply not possible to eliminate the state’s structural deficit.
The good news is that our financial condition is much better than a year ago. We cut the ongoing budget deficit by more than half, reduced the state’s workforce by about 5,500 positions and cut unnecessary expenses like cell phones and state cars. We actually cut state expenses by over $10 billion. Spending is now at levels not seen since the seventies. Our state’s credit rating has moved from “negative” to “stable,” laying the foundation for job creation and a stronger economic recovery.
Unfortunately, the deep cuts we made came at a huge cost. Schools have been hurt and state funding for our universities has been reduced by 25%. Support for the elderly and the disabled has fallen to where it was in 1983. Our courts suffered debilitating reductions.
The stark truth is that without new tax revenues, we will have no other choice but to make deeper and more damaging cuts to schools, universities, public safety and our courts.
That is why I am filing today an initiative with the Attorney General’s office that would generate nearly $7 billion in dedicated funding to protect education and public safety. I am going directly to the voters because I don’t want to get bogged down in partisan gridlock as happened this year. The stakes are too high.
My proposal is straightforward and fair. It proposes a temporary tax increase on the wealthy, a modest and temporary increase in the sales tax, and guarantees that the new revenues be spent only on education. Here are the details:
• Millionaires and high-income earners will pay up to 2% higher income taxes for five years. No family making less than $500,000 a year will see their income taxes rise. In fact, fewer than 2% of California taxpayers will be affected by this increase.
• There will be a temporary ½ cent increase in the sales tax. Even with this temporary increase, sales taxes will still be lower than what they were less than six months ago.
• This initiative dedicates funding only to education and public safety—not on other programs that we simply cannot afford.
This initiative will not solve all of our fiscal problems. But it will stop further cuts to education and public safety.
I ask you to join with me to get our state back on track.
/s/Jerry Brown
John Deasy: CALIFORNIA LEAVES $49 MILLION FOR EDUCATION ON THE TABLE + smf’s 2¢
Op-Ed in the L.A. Daily News By John Deasy | http://bit.ly/sBNRQf
12/09/2011 - It's not easy to understand the world of public school budgeting in California, but it's quite simple to discern where the responsibility lies for the appalling lack of financial support for schools up and down the state. In a word: Sacramento.
Further evidence was provided recently when the governor's office inexplicably chose not to sign the state's application for Race to the Top funds, which are provided through the U.S. Department of Education. In Round 3 of the program, California schools would have received $49 million (with at least $10 million for the Los Angeles Unified School District) -- enough funds to hire back hundreds of exceptional teachers and help improve our data systems and technology infrastructure.
It's a travesty to leave this much money on the table -- especially in the midst of one of California's worst budget crises in history. What kind of message does this latest setback send to our families?
I have consistently called out the Legislature for its repeated refusal to provide anything above a meager, pathetic level of funding to operate LAUSD. Parents, teachers, administrators and students feel the same way; for years they have visited the offices of local legislators from both major parties, pleading for increased levels of support for schools. The failure of our elected officials to even meet their request half-way has in essence condemned an entire generation of California schoolchildren to a substandard education.
Count me among those who were optimistic that the election of Jerry Brown as governor in 2010 portended at the very least a better reception for our schools in Sacramento, if not significant improvements in funding levels. Brown has always been a friend of public education, as well as a politician with a reputation for achieving results.
One year later, I can see that my optimism is fading. Not only is the Legislature as resistant as ever to doing more for millions of students in this state, but the governor himself is now acting in a manner that appears harmful to the cause.
Signing the Race to the Top application would have cost the state and governor nothing. California's unique application only committed participating districts (of which LAUSD was one) to implement reforms. The state submission specified cooperation with local districts to improve teaching and student outcomes.
At the same time, the application would not have committed the state of California to anything. It was merely a plan to provide a better education for all of our youth, regardless of background and income levels.
In addition, Round 3 of Race to the Top would have simply required eligible states to submit a scaled- back version of their Round 2 proposal. The rules would not have allowed it to be materially different.
Most important, this latest round was not an actual competition; as a Round 2 finalist, California was automatically eligible to receive these funds.
Yet due to the action -- or inaction -- of the governor's office, as well as the state superintendent of instruction and the state board, this is no longer a possibility.
For the governor, this is a seemingly inexplicable position given his stand on local control. He strongly supports the divestiture of responsibility to local authorities for California's vast prison-industrial complex -- yet can't support the local push for education reform, and the local responsibility for these reforms.
In the meantime, those of us who work in public education in California are left to wonder when the madness will end, if ever. It almost seems as if we have created a culture in this state that allows for the continued evisceration of school funding.
What else can we conclude when a state rejects $49 million from Washington, D.C., to help our students learn?
John Deasy is the superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District.
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●●smf’s 2¢: The superintendent misuses the word ”inexplicable” twice in his op-ed.
Gov. Brown and Superintendent of Public Instruction Torlakson and the State Board of Ed have explained their position, follow the links. Dr. Deasy - committed otherwise - doesn’t choose to accept those explanations. Nobody likes to take “No” for an answer and far be it from me to put words in another's mouth… but maybe the ‘-picable’ he was looking for to describe his reaction to the situation is “despicable”?
He is right – it wouldn’t have cost the state a thing to submit the application – but there is no evidence the U.S. Dept of Ed would’ve accepted the highly unusual CORE proposal (representing a subset of the state in an application that was supposed to represent California in its entirety) even if the governor had signed it. Additionally it would have cost California more than it was worth in actual cost, political capital and sacrificed principle to accept the money – including committing to the value-added program of teacher assessment. Deasy claims the money could’ve been used to “hire back hundreds of exceptional teachers”; who exactly gets to define “exceptional”? Will they use the same whacki-pedia as was used to define “inexplicable”?
He further explains how the money could've been used to “improve our data systems and technology infrastructure” – buzz words for data analysis to facilitate teacher assessment based on standardized test scores. Plus the California Longitudinal Student Data System is infamously mired in bureaucratic and technologic gridlock already – a sinkhole for public funds.
Dr. Deasy sorely misses the $10 million LAUSD would’ve/could've received in this third heat of Race to the Top. Public education needs every cent we can get – but $10 million is .16% (16/100ths of 1%) of LAUSD’s annual $6 billion general fund budget. The money would come with strings attached. And $10 million funds LAUSD for 1/3 of one imaginary day in a hypothetical 180 day school year.
NEW TEACHER CONTRACT COULD SHUT DOWN SCHOOL CHOICE PROGRAM + smf's 2¢
IF TEACHERS APPROVE A TENTATIVE THREE-YEAR PACT, THE DISTRICT WOULD NO LONGER HAND OVER CAMPUSES TO CHARTERS OR OTHER OUTSIDE NONPROFITS.
By Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times | http://lat.ms/seTzsP
December 11, 2011 :: As schools across California bemoan increasing class sizes, the Alliance Technology and Math Science High School has boosted class size — on purpose — to an astonishing 48. The students work at computers most of the school day.
Next door in an identical building containing a different school, digital imaging — in the form of animation, short films and graphics — is used for class projects in English, math and science.
At a third school on the same Glassell Park campus, long known as Taylor Yards, high-schoolers get hands-on experience with a working solar panel.
These schools and two others coexist at the Sotomayor Learning Academies, which opened this fall under a Los Angeles school district policy called Public School Choice. The 2009 initiative, the first of its kind in the nation, has allowed groups from inside and outside the Los Angeles Unified School District to compete for the right to run dozens of new or low-performing schools.
For two years, the school board has selected the winners after painstaking reviews and intense politicking. The process has led to acrimony, litigation and layoffs, but at Sotomayor, there's been an almost startling degree of cooperation.
The competition for schools could end immediately, however, if teachers approve a tentative three-year pact with L.A. Unified this week. The district would no longer hand over campuses to outside nonprofits, including charter schools.
That would be a step backward, said former school board member Yolie Flores, who wrote the Public School Choice policy two years ago.
"What we created, by way of a competition, helped people behave differently," said Flores, who now heads an education advocacy group. The policy created "a sense of urgency" that compelled schools to change for the better, she said.
At Sotomayor, two of the five schools are run by charters, which are independently managed and exempt from some rules that govern traditional schools. Most charters are nonunion.
In the Alliance charter, first-year Spanish teacher Perrin Legg manages 48 students per class in groups of 16: one works with her, others collaborate on projects, while the remaining students work individually at computers.
Damon Siah, a ninth-grader, said he likes the format because he can work ahead in math, his favorite subject, something he couldn't do at his traditional school.
Freshman Juan Ortiz said his math grades have surged through his use of computer programs that isolate the areas he needs to work on. He said he's now tutoring other students.
The school using digital art on the Sotomayor campus, called ArtLAB, also includes special education students in rigorous academic courses and adds another teacher to such classes.
ArtLAB is one of the three Sotomayor schools founded by teams of L.A. Unified teachers. These schools are directly overseen by L.A. Unified and abide by district union contracts.
At another of the three on that campus, the L.A. River School, instructors are teaching students to use solar cells, a soil lab and a water lab, which are outfitted with industrial equipment. So far, this school has attracted more students than the others at Sotomayor. The River School groups its classes by interest and aptitude rather than by grade level.
The third non-charter there is the School of History and Dramatic Arts. The other charter, Early College Academy for Leaders and Scholars, is managed by Partnerships to Uplift Communities, which has 13 schools.
Competing while having to share a campus "has demanded that all of us be on our 'A game,'" said Paul Payne, a math teacher who helped start the River School. "We have five really amazing schools on this campus." The schools work together to divide cafeteria hours and organize campuswide sports teams and clubs.
From the start, however, Public School Choice has been criticized.
School board member Steve Zimmer said charter operators campaigned almost exclusively for the new campuses rather than trying to take on existing schools, which he regards as the heart of the mission.
Teachers complained that plan development was onerous on top of their regular duties.
Charter bids frequently attracted fierce opposition. At Clay Middle School in the Athens neighborhood of unincorporated South Los Angeles, for example, local district officials — including school board member Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte — insisted that the school was making progress.
Alliance College-Ready Public Schools dropped plans to compete for Clay. "This work is hard enough when people want to work together," said Judy Burton, chief executive of Alliance, which runs 20 schools, including one school at Sotomayor.
Another charter organization, Green Dot Public Schools, pressed on, however, and ultimately won control of Clay through its lobbying and track record. The teachers union has sued to reverse the takeover.
Political pull worked in various ways. The district initially set up nonbinding elections by which parents and others could vote on competing plans. Grass-roots organizing by the teachers union helped teacher groups dominate these elections. Union opponents, with the support of L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, subsequently used their clout to end this voting.
The first year, pressure from unions and others prevailed to win additional campuses for plans led by district teachers. The second year, charter school advocates turned the tables.
Last year, five charters opened in new campuses. This fall, six opened in new schools and two opened at Clay. Other nonprofits have claimed four schools. The new charters this year eliminated about 150 jobs formerly held by district teachers.
It's difficult to assess the effects of Public School Choice on student achievement after only one full academic year.
Some defenders of the effort say L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy tossed aside a promising program and gained nothing meaningful.
The superintendent "gave away a crown jewel of education reform that put L.A. on the national map," said former state Sen. Gloria Romero.
But Deasy said the agreement with the teachers union could give all district schools the advantages of charters. Any school could opt out of provisions of the union contract as well as district policy, gaining new freedoms.
The principal of one of the Sotomayor charter schools said Deasy's deal could be good for students overall.
"I love the idea that the district schools are receiving more autonomy," said Mara Simmons, a former L.A. Unified teacher who heads the Partnerships to Uplift Communities charter. "That was one of our original wishes and intentions when we put in a bid for this school."
●● smf's 2¢: "Public School Choice", leveraged an ultimate sanction option in No Child Left Behind to reconstitute chronically underperforming schools by giving them over to outside operators, including charter schools. However PSC (mis)applied this sanction to brand new campuses that were obviously not underperforming in what was theoretically (and oxymoronically) a "preemptive reform" – but was in reality, a giveaway masquerading as a Request-for-Proposal contract process while pretending to offer the public a choice in the operation of their new school. If you doubt it was a political giveaway I invite you to view the tapes of the school board meetings when the gifts were given – to compare the division of the spoils to Pirates of the Caribbean demeans big budget movies based on theme park attractions and besmirches the good name of freebootery.
And now former Senator Romero bemoans the giveaway of the giveaway.
That said – the process as it has evolved, requiring educator-led groups to engage and plan for new schools is a good thing and a best practice continued under this new contract – up for a ratification vote tomorrow. It remains to be seen whether the process can work without the threat of Big Bad Outside Operators at the door.
CALIFORNIA SCHOOL QUAKE SAFETY HAS LAX OVERSIGHT + AUDIT FACT SHEET
CALIF. SCHOOL QUAKE SAFETY HAS LAX OVERSIGHT + AUDIT FACT SHEET
By Erica Perez & Corey G. Johnson, California Watch/ San Francisco Chronicle | http://bit.ly/uFwwJd
Friday, December 9, 2011 - SACRAMENTO -- State regulators charged with overseeing school construction have failed to ensure that the buildings children occupy are safe, according to a state audit released Thursday.
The report by the California state auditor's office found that the Division of the State Architect has limited authority to penalize school districts for not complying with California's landmark earthquake safety law for public schools and that its oversight is "neither effective nor comprehensive."
Legislators called for the audit in May after a California Watch investigation revealed that the state had allowed children and teachers to occupy buildings with structural flaws and potential safety hazards reported during construction.
In a written response to the audit, Fred Klass, director of the Department of General Services, said the audit's findings were consistent with his agency's own internal review.
The department, he wrote, "is fully committed to promptly and completely addressing the issues identified in the audit report. In general, the actions recommended by the (Bureau of State Audits) have merit and will be promptly addressed."
State auditors found nearly a quarter of school construction projects completed during the last three fiscal years were not certified as safe by the state. They said the state doesn't adequately document the safety issues it identifies and does not prioritize projects with safety concerns.
California Watch's report revealed that at least 20,000 projects had been completed without receiving final certification. The state audit, which was limited in scope, found more than 16,000 projects still lack certification required by the Field Act, the earthquake safety law.
School board members, builders, architects and inspectors can be charged with a felony for failing to follow the Field Act's provisions. School board members could face additional criminal charges if a student or staff member dies or is injured by earthquake damage at a school without Field Act certification.
But under the law, even if the Division of the State Architect denies safety certification to a school construction project, districts can fill them with children and teachers anyway. The law does not give regulators authority to penalize school districts for occupying uncertified buildings, the report said.
Still, auditors found, the state rarely uses the enforcement tools it does have. When regulators identify safety concerns, they can issue an order to comply, which tells the district it must resolve problems or the division may order construction to stop, or a stop-work order, which shuts down construction until the district resolves the problems.
The state issued only 23 orders to comply and six stop-work orders during the last three fiscal years, auditors found.
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CALIFORNIA STATE AUDITOR FACT SHEET | http://1.usa.gov/uorq0R
Date: December 8, 2011
Report: 2011-116.1
The California State Auditor’s Office released the following report today:
Department of General Services: THE DIVISION OF THE STATE ARCHITECT LACKS ENFORCEMENT AUTHORITY AND HAS WEAK OVERSIGHT PROCEDURES, INCREASING THE RISK THAT SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS MAY BE UNSAFE
BACKGROUND
The Division of the State Architect (division), within the Department of General Services (General Services), is responsible for supervising the design and construction of projects at K-12 schools and community colleges to certify that they comply with the Field Act (act) and certain building standards. During fiscal years 2008–09 through 2010–11, there were nearly 18,000 school construction projects, costing an estimated $44.5 billion active throughout the State. To oversee the construction phase, the division’s field engineers (licensed structural engineers) make periodic visits to construction sites and communicate with division-approved project inspectors who ensure that school districts comply with division-approved plans and specifications. When construction is completed according to approved plans and required documents are filed, the division certifies the projects.
KEY FINDINGS
During our review of the division’s implementation of the act, we noted the following:
• It has limited authority to penalize school districts for noncompliance with the act—school districts can occupy projects regardless of whether projects are certified. Nearly 25 percent of school construction projects closed during the last three fiscal years were uncertified.
• Although it can take some steps to mitigate the risks that uncertified projects may pose—such as ordering districts to stop work on projects when the division identifies a potential threat to public safety—the division rarely does. In fact, the division issued only 23 orders to comply and six stop work orders during the last three fiscal years.
• Even though over 16,000 projects remain uncertified, the division neither documents the reasons for classifying some uncertified projects as having safety issues nor prioritizes actions related to projects with safety concerns.
• Its school construction oversight is neither effective nor comprehensive. Of the 24 closed projects we reviewed, we did not see any evidence of a site visit on file for three projects—which lasted between five and 32 months and have estimated costs as high as $2.2 million—and found evidence of only one site visit each for another eight closed projects.
• The division does not provide the same level of construction oversight in fire and life safety and accessibility as it does for structural safety, even though it reviews plans for school construction projects for all three disciplines.
• Although it relies on project inspectors to ensure proper construction, we noted concerns with the division’s oversight of inspectors.
• • School districts sometimes proceed with projects before the division approves their inspectors—on 22 of 34 projects we reviewed, the inspector was not approved until well after construction began.
• • It sometimes excuses inspectors from required trainings, does not always ensure inspectors have passed all parts of the latest certification examination, and has not always clearly documented verification of an inspector candidate’s prior experience.
• • The division does not have a formal evaluation process for inspectors and thus, may not be consistently and adequately addressing performance issues, and may also be unable to defend its disciplinary actions against inspectors.
KEY RECOMMENDATIONS
We made several recommendations to General Services including that the division better use the enforcement tools at its disposal such as orders to comply and stop work orders to enforce compliance with the act. We also recommend that it modify current policies regarding classifying uncertified projects with safety concerns and to use the information to prioritize its efforts to follow up on projects based on risk. Further, to ensure it provides adequate oversight of school construction projects, it should develop an overall strategy that establishes specific expectations for conducting field engineers’ site visits. Additionally, it should streamline its inspector approval process to ensure they are approved prior to starting construction and should re-establish a formal process for evaluating inspectors.
►REPORT 2011-116.1 SUMMARY http://1.usa.gov/tnds0i
►REPORT 2011-116.1 FULL REPORT: http://1.usa.gov/t2c2tJ
RECLAIMING AMERICAN VALUES FOR SCHOOLS--FOR THE COUNTRY + HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT
RECLAIMING AMERICAN VALUES FOR SCHOOLS--FOR THE COUNTRY: Themes in the News for the week of Dec. 5-9, 2011 by UCLA IDEA | http://bit.ly/tXzM9G
12-09-2011 :: This week, President Obama gave a speech that mirrored much of the “New Nationalism” promoted by President Theodore Roosevelt more than 100 years ago. It was no coincidence that the speech was made in the very same place—Osawatomie, Kansas
Roosevelt’s domestic agenda, his “Square Deal,” sought to balance the federal government’s laissez faire policies with greater protections for workers and the middle class. Roosevelt said the country needed federal legislation to dampen the abuses and uncontrolled power of trusts and some very large businesses. For example, he brought new authority to regulate interstate commerce and increased the government’s power to protect consumers through legislation such as the Pure Food and Drug Act.
Obama pointed to imbalances similar to those of a century ago—saying that in the last decade the incomes of most Americans have fallen by about 6 percent, while top-earners have continued to increase their wealth.
“Now, this kind of inequality—a level that we haven't seen since the Great Depression—hurts us all. When middle-class families can no longer afford to buy the goods and services that businesses are selling, when people are slipping out of the middle class, it drags down the entire economy from top to bottom,” Obama said (Washington Post). Obama also mentioned that the education pathway into the middle class was in danger.
Recently, the U.S. Department of Education revealed how this inequality shows up in schools. While Title 1 funds are supposed to provide additional resources to schools with high proportions of low-income students, staffing patterns in many districts mean that this often does not happen. According to the Department’s study (link follows), nearly half of schools that serve mostly low-income families spend less on personnel than other more affluent schools within the same district. The report documents what’s widely known—teachers at low-income neighborhood schools, on average, have less seniority and hence are paid less than teachers at other more well-off sites
While it is clearly inequitable for more resources to flow to more affluent schools, merely shuffling experienced teachers across schools is likely to cause disruption and yield few benefits for Title 1 schools. Problematic staffing patterns have arisen over many years due to discrimination and a failure of districts to ensure that all schools provide attractive conditions for teaching and learning. An equitable distribution of staff requires, among other things, dramatically improving these conditions in Title 1 schools.
Furthermore, school finance expert Bruce Baker points out improving the distribution of resources within districts “is only a very small piece of a much larger equity puzzle.” The biggest inequalities in school funding are not generally within districts, they are between districts. And funding differences across districts exacerbate inequality between the affluent and everyone else [http://bit.ly/t4mL4h].
The threat to America’s endangered middle class is both a cause and result of what has happened to America’s schools: years of budget cuts, teacher layoffs, overcrowding, prohibitively expensive higher education and more. The distribution of quality schooling parallels America’s distribution of wealth and income: A few are doing extraordinarily well, and the rest are or ought to be very worried about their futures.
In order to get onto a sound footing, schools need what many economists say the whole country needs—an emergency influx of new revenue. At the same time, we need to begin building a rational and moral school-funding system to go with fair and just taxes. That square deal holds as much promise today as it did a century ago.
I believe that this country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share, when everyone plays by the same rules. These aren't Democratic values or Republican values. These aren't 1 percent values or 99 percent values. They're American values. And we have to reclaim them.
—President Obama
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HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other Sources
THE 99 PERCENT AND FOSTER CARE: By Daniel Heimpel | Op Ed in the Daily News | These are hard and patently unfair times. For the 99 percent occupying the streets, systemic economic inequality dims optimism and stokes rebellion. But now think of the other 1 percent - the children and adults who have or are experiencing foster care; or worse, both foster care and the juvenile justice system at once. http://t.co/Vech1j5a
SOBERING NAEP SCORES FOR FRESNO, L.A. - Achievement gap grows sharply in San Diego: By John Fensterwald - Educat... http://bit.ly/tNtNNu
John Deasy: CALIFORNIA LEAVES $49 MILLION FOR EDUCATION ON THE TABLE + smf’s 2¢: Op-Ed in the L.A. Daily News By... http://bit.ly/t3HAk0
Judy Elliott on NCLB reset: DON’T TURN BACK THE CLOCK ON OUR CHILDREN’S FUTURE: By Judy Elliott |LA Daily News O... http://bit.ly/solsA4
Countdown to Dec 15: LAUSD SUPERINTENDENT ASKS BOARD TO FILE SUIT BLOCKING TRANSPORTATION CUTS: By Barbara Jones... http://bit.ly/t8RqUt
NEA RELEASES NEW REPORT ON FAMILY-SCHOOL PARTNERSHIPS: from NEA via PTA Takes Action: Federal Policy Update—Dece... http://bit.ly/w4Uda5
Countdown to Dec 15th: A CALL TO ACTION FROM SCHOOL BOARD PRESIDENT MÓNICA GARCÍA AND THE CALIFORNIA SCHOOL EMPL... http://bit.ly/vVD0NQ
FWD: @DrDeasyLAUSD: Looking forward to my discussion with #LAUSD teachers on #UTLA contract tentative agreement LIVE on KCLS tonight 12/ ...
Countdown to Dec. 15: CALIFORNIA SCHOOLS BRACE FOR FISCAL FALLOUT - Midyear budget cuts force administrators to ... http://bit.ly/v7OQtN
CALIFORNIA STUDENTS GROSSED OUT BY SCHOOL WATER FOUNTAINS: New California rules are meant to get school kids to ... http://bit.ly/tdZRnP
HOW TO RESCUE EDUCATION REFORM: By FREDERICK M. HESS and LINDA DARLING-HAMMOND - nEW yORK tIMES Op-Ed Contributo... http://bit.ly/sFY1iD
WHAT ‘MULTIPLE MEASURES’ REALLY MEANS IN EVALUATION: By Lisa Guisbond and Monty NeillValerie Strauss’ Answer ... http://bit.ly/tjxHRR
SAN DIEGO SCHOOL EMPLOYEES WARNED OF CUTS, LAYOFFS: Superintendent sends letter to 14,000 outlining financial pr... http://bit.ly/uC5vKQ
GOV. JERRY BROWN ASKS CALIFORNIA VOTERS TO BACK TAX INITIATIVE TO FUND SCHOOLS, PUBLIC SAFETY + Initiative text ... http://bit.ly/t8wdG4
FREEING UP LAUSD: Agreement to shift back to more autonomy for individual schools makes sense for these times, b... http://bit.ly/u48m91
IZABELLA MIKO SUPPORTS THE HEALTHIER LUNCH MENUS IN LOS ANGELES SCHOOLS: By Perri Nemirof, Shockya.com |... http://bit.ly/tymPPl
Cartoon: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH: jump start ny robb Armstrong/united features syndicate/12-4-11 | http://bit.ly/vgiIKt
In the know: LAUSD TEACHER EVALUATIONS: Editorial in the UCLA Daily Bruin by GINA KASS | http://bit.ly/sPBIOs
SCHOOL BOARDMEMBER TAKES STANDARDIZED TEST FORCED ON KIDS: “It makes no sense to me that a test with the potenti... http://bit.ly/rU7Prk
4LAKids Scott Folsom
KOREATOWN SCHOOLS AT FOREFRONT OF EDUCATION REFORM: Katherine Kim,New America Media | http://bit.ly/sS5os6
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
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• 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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