Sunday, April 29, 2012

Priorities, ...straight.


Onward! 4LAKids
4LAKids: Sunday 29•Apr•2012
In This Issue:
 •  AT SCHOOL, IT'S KIDS vs. ADULTS: L.A. Unified must choose. But cuts to either would be tragic.
 •  LAUSD SLASHES SUMMER SCHOOL, SMALLEST OFFERINGS EVER
 •  WHEN PUT TO A TEST, TESTING CULTURE FLUNKS
 •  Two Articles: NEW LAUSD BOARD DISTRICT MAP APPROVED
 •  HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest (but not neccessariily the best) of the Stories from Other Sources
 •  EVENTS: Coming up next week...
 •  What can YOU do?


Featured Links:
 •  Follow 4 LAKids on Twitter - or get instant updates via text message by texting "Follow 4LAKids" to 40404
 •  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.
"His priority did not seem to be to teach them what he knew, but rather to impress upon them that nothing, not even knowledge, was foolproof."
- J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.


First thing first: GRANADA HILLS CHARTER HIGH SCHOOL WON THE NATIONAL ACADEMIC DECATHLON ON SATURDAY WITH THE HIGHEST SCORE EVER POSTED. Congratulations Highlanders!


ON FRIDAY KTLA PROCLAIMED: -- “Good news for students, but bad news for teachers.

“The Los Angeles Unified School District announced plans to shave four days off the 2011-2012 school calender (sic) year due to budget constraints.

“LAUSD spokesman Tom Waldman said classes will now end on June 19 for schools on a traditional calender (sic) and May 29 for those on the early-start schedule.”

“District officials made the announcement after an arbitrator ruled LAUSD can reduce the number of school days as a money-saving measure.”


It couldn’t be worse news for students …but our argument isn’t with KTLA.

The rest of the news outlets proclaimed throughout the day:
LA UNIFIED SCHOOLS TO LET OUT 3 DAYS EARLY; SCHEDULE DETAILS
89.3 KPCC (blog) - ‎1:30 PM
LA Unified officials said today it will end this school year three days earlier after an arbitrator ruled the district could impose up to five furlough days on teachers. The district will send out a letter to parents today that details the scheduling...

LAUSD WINS FURLOUGH RULING, WILL SHORTEN SCHOOL YEAR BY 4 DAYS
Los Angeles Daily News - ‎1:55PM
Los Angeles Unified will end the school year four days early after an arbitrator ruled the district can force teachers to take unpaid furloughs as a money-saving measure, officials said Friday. District spokesman Tom Waldman said LAUSD will shave four ...

DETAILS: LA UNIFIED PLANS TO IMPOSE ALL FIVE ALLOWABLE FURLOUGH DAYS
89.3 KPCC (blog) – 5:30 PM
Hundreds of protesters gathered outside LA Unified headquarters downtown as the board met inside to discuss the district's dire budget picture in March. LA Unified plans to impose all five furlough days on teachers as allowed by an arbitration ruling ...

•• You’re probably catching the theme here: Three, four or five days? Who knows? …but our argument isn’t with Tom Waldman.

This from @DrDeasyLAUSD in a tweet:
“At SuperQuiz in Albuquerque watching #lausd GranadaHills charter team. Currently in 2nd place!”
3:01 PM - 27 Apr 12 via Twitter for Android •

Yes, he spelled Albuquerque that way, but our argument isn’t with @Dr.Deasy’s spelling – it takes a brave man to tweet Albuquerque on a smartphone with no spellcheck.

•• Our argument, put into the context of a school district eliminating school days, whether three, four or five – and embracing the fact that the Academic Decathlon (of which the SuperQuiz is a part) is one of the things that LAUSD does best – is this:

¿WTF was @Dr.Deasy doing in Albuquerque on Friday?

It wasn’t like he was a contestant in the SuperQuiz – or a coach. I hope he wasn’t a judge.

Lest anyone forget, @Dr.Deasy has eliminated the Academic Decathlon from next year’s LAUSD budget. Zeroed it out. But somehow there was money to send him to New Mexico this year. And he had time in his schedule.

Stephen R. Covey of the Seven Habits says: “The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” And as I’m beating up @Dr.Deasy with Stephen R. Covey: ““Priority is a function of context.” And from there we can go to the Context of No Context – but we won’t. (Or I won’t; don’t let me stop you: Within the Context of No-Context by George W.S. Trow: The New Yorker http://nyr.kr/JGHVAH)


AN ANGRY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL LIBRARIAN/LIBRARY AIDE/BIBLIOTECHNICIAN WRITES:

“So what the hell is wrong with this picture? Target funds the renovation of a new library at Leo Politi Elementary along with money for all new books and Deasy, yes I said DEASY, he of "children don't learn to read in libraries” dribble, shows up for the photo op, tweets how great it is ….

• 26 Apr ‏ @DrDeasyLAUSD: At Leo Politi elementary school with our partner Target. They are donating another 250,000.00 to a LAUSD school for literacy. Thanks Target!

• 26 Apr ‏ @DrDeasyLAUSD: If you want to see an amazing elementary school and model for whole community learning visit Leo Politi!

• 26 Apr ‏ @DrDeasyLAUSD: We are celebrating our LAUSD/Target partnership at Leo Politi Elementary School. One of six #LAUSD schools getting full Library makeovers!

“…..and even offers to help make sure there is a Library Aide there in the library for next year!’

Our librarian continues: “Hello???? I am banging my head against War and Peace and don't get it. Target was upset when they found out that the school had only funded the LA position for 3 hours, officials then offered to kick in the funding for the other 3. Well, duh, 3 hours for a school with over 700 students which sits in Monica Garcia's area BTW.

“It has taken 60 years to get us back on track to the West Side with the reinstated Exposition line. How many years will it take us to recover from all this off the track thinking?????

“God help me from all these arrogant twits.

“Thanks. I don't feel better.”


We preach and Sunday-sermonize here in 4LAKids; we try to show the sinners the way. But we usually don’t pray. But God help the children. Every one.

I was at the Arts Education Branch’s Arts Summit on Saturday at Cortines High School – the talent and creativity of our young people makes my heart sing. I walked away with two messages.

1. Nobody has more fun on the stage than middle schoolers doing Shakespeare.
2. We need politicians and superintendents and school board members who don’t say how important Arts+Music Education is one day …and then vote against it on the next.


“THERE WERE SUCCESS STORIES [in the effort to Rebuild L.A. following the Riots of ’92] says John Mack, who headed the Urban League of L.A. With support from Toyota, they created a job training program in car repair.

“‘It was successful for 12 years, where we placed 3,000 or more previously unemployed or underemployed members of the community,’ Mack says.

“‘All that the applicants had to do to qualify was read at the 8th grade level, and that turned out to be a problem.’ Mack says the program didn't end because of Rebuild L.A.'s failures, but because the school system failed.

“‘It became a real problem in finding enough people who could qualify for admission,’ he says.” [After L.A. Riots, A Failed Effort for a Broken City: NPR Weekend Edition - 29April12 - http://n.pr/IiHY2W ]

••The lessons we should’ve learned are two:
•An Eighth Grade Education – not just a high school diploma or a college-prep curriculum is a milestone. The CAHSEE essentially measures 8th grade capacity; maybe we should insist students pass it to get into 9th rather than get out of 12th? This is not lowering-the-bar; milestones are not destinations – they are waypoints.
•And maybe we need to reevaluate the role of Adult Education in the life of the city?

And if an Eighth Grade Education is critical, why is Middle School tertiary to Elementary and High School?

¡Onward/Adelante! - smf



AT SCHOOL, IT'S KIDS vs. ADULTS: L.A. Unified must choose. But cuts to either would be tragic.
ADULTS STRUGGLING TO LEARN FACE NEW CHALLENGE: IN CHOOSING WHETHER TO CUT EDUCATION FOR CHILDREN OR GROWN-UPS, L.A. UNIFIED NEEDS FOCUS ON THE YOUNG, BUT SACRIFICING ADULTS IS TRAGICALLY SHORT-SIGHTED.

By Steve Lopez, LA Times columnist | http://lat.ms/JiQYC6

April 28, 2012, 8:20 p.m. :: I'd been sitting back, fielding the occasional pitch for a column, but telling people it was a little too soon to write about what might happen to adult education in L.A. Unified.

Sure, the district has threatened to make big cuts, or even eliminate the program. But education funding is so insane in California that it's hard to know where things will end up.

And, as the parent of a third-grader in L.A. Unified, I have to ask this question: When money is tight, what's the core mission of a school district — to educate children or offer an assist to adults?

The former, I think, but having to scale back either would be tragic and cost us all in the end.

Still, the passionate pitches for adult ed kept coming my way, and they made an excellent point. With roughly a quarter of a million students currently enrolled in adult ed, do we really want to bulldoze their best chance at earning bigger paychecks and contributing more taxes to pay for public institutions such as — yes, education?

One adult ed teacher put me in touch with a former student of hers, saying he was just one among the countless success stories she'd seen. Javier Pinales, a student in the late 1980s, went on to East L.A. College and then graduated from Cal State Long Beach with a degree in business administration.

"I grew up in Mexico and when I moved here, the first thing I needed to do was learn English," said Pinales, 41, who took ESL classes and got his GED from adult ed before going on to college.

He left the business world in 2003 after returning to school for a credential. He wanted to be an adult ed teacher.

"I want you to meet Jilma," Pinales told me one day last week when I visited him in the Huntington Park High School bungalow where he now teaches. Jilma Barrera, who fled the war in Nicaragua in the 1970s, sometimes arrives late to class because of doctor appointments, and she's often in pain caused by Lupus.

"I'm determined to get my GED," said Barrera, who wants to go on to become a nurse.

Pinales' students range in age from their late 20s to mid-60s. Gloria Garcia, 63, takes the bus to school or walks three miles. She lost a garment factory job after 15 years, she said, and now wants to become an elder care therapist because she thinks there'll be more job stability there.

"When I came in three months ago, I didn't know a lot," said Emilia Acua, one of 10 family members who share a unit in a trailer park. "But now I'm sure to pass the GED test, and I want to go to college to become a nurse."

Pinales' students told of juggling family obligations and jobs so they can squeeze in school, some of them taking two three-hour classes daily. You couldn't help but be inspired by the spirit of self-improvement in that classroom, and there are tens of thousands more students like these across the city struggling to learn English and vocational skills and become more productive members of society. Many are in their late teens and early 20s, trying to get high school diplomas they never got because of family obligations or mistakes they now regret. Others say they want to learn English to better serve their children's interests and monitor their progress in school.

But there are also thousands of native-born students trying to reposition themselves in a tight and changing economy, and some of the stories are more surprising than others.

"I'm 53, moved around a lot, went to high school in Manhattan Beach and dropped out in my 11th year," said Kathrin Middleton, an actress and the wife of Richard Middleton, executive producer of "The Artist."

She felt a degree of shame as a dropout, Middleton said, and began thinking seriously a few years ago about "wanting to clear this up, and make it right and go on to college." So now she drops her daughter off at kindergarten in the morning, and then goes to the Rinaldi Adult School to work on her GED.

"And now here are all these rumblings about how there might not be adult ed anymore. I think it's a shame, not for me but for everybody. It's going to hurt the city and state tremendously if people can't continue their educations."

L.A. Unified board President Monica Garcia, who says she reluctantly voted to chop adult ed and has earned the wrath of advocates, told me she hopes at least half to three-fourths of the current program can be saved. It will depend on a new accounting of state revenues, possible concessions by L.A. Unified teachers, and whether Gov. Jerry Brown's tax increase plan and an L.A. parcel tax proposal are passed. Garcia also thinks the district should consider charging a nominal fee for classes that are now free.

I still think kids have to come first, but it would be tragic to lose adult ed.

Nevertheless, we once again wait to hear which penny-wise but pound-foolish cuts will have to be made for the next school year, certain of nothing, but determined, it seems, to once more sabotage our own best chance of economic recovery.


LAUSD SLASHES SUMMER SCHOOL, SMALLEST OFFERINGS EVER

By Barbara Jones, Staff Writer, Daily News | http://bit.ly/J2k2Ar

4/25/2012 07:12:22 PM PDT :: Facing unrelenting budget pressure, Los Angeles Unified has pared its summer school program - again - to its smallest size ever, with only a limited number of courses available to failing high school students who need to make up classes to graduate.

Credit-recovery classes will be offered at just 16 of the district's nearly 100 high schools, with online classes hosted at eight campuses. Only seniors who have received a "D" or "F" in a required subject like health or algebra and sophomores and juniors who have failed one of those core classes can enroll.

Unlike past summers, credit-recovery classes will not be offered at LAUSD's adult schools, which are on the chopping block because of a $390 million deficit facing the district. District officials hope California voters will pass a sales-tax hike and local voters will pass a $298-a-year parcel tax so they can salvage the adult schools.

"We're in a horrible (financial) bind from the state," Assistant Superintendent Alvaro Cortes said Wednesday. "We've been going through this for the last four years, and it's not going to get any better.

"This is our smallest program in history, and it may be eliminated altogether next year."

This year's summer program offers just one session, which will meet three hours daily from July 9 to Aug. 3.

Seniors who need only one core course to meet their graduation requirements will get first priority, followed by those who have to make up more than one class. Juniors and sophomores will be accepted if there are still seats available.

Superintendent John Deasy said priorities were set in anticipation of a change in graduation requirements for next year.

His staff has proposed eliminating the requirement for 75 hours of elective courses so that struggling students can get remedial help in their core classes - known as the A-G curriculum - during the school day.

"This is not a good situation for this summer," Deasy said. "We're hoping that the combination of the parcel tax and the way that we're going to approach A-G could make it better for students next summer.

"That's why we skewed the priority for kids closer to graduation."

Classes will be held at 16 campuses, including Monroe High in North Hills, along with Canoga Park, North Hollywood, Reseda and San Fernando High schools. Online courses will also be hosted at NoHo and San Fernando, with students having to attend the first and last class on campus.

In addition, special education classes offered through the district's Extended School Year program will be provided at selected elementary and middle school sites.

The limited credit-recovery options have forced parents to look to other programs - and even other districts - to make up those lost credits.

El Camino Real and Granada Hills are among the charter high schools offering summer school, with first priority given to their own students.

"We're making sure that all of our kids are taken care of first," said David Hussey, assistant principal at El Camino in Woodland Hills. "After that, other schools can partake."

That's also the case with Burbank Unified, which this year is adding an online curriculum and partnering with Woodbury University to expand its traditional offerings, said Sharon Cuseo, director of instruction and accountability.

Options for Youth, a system of charter schools that includes campuses in the San Fernando Valley, has seen demand for its summer programs explode since the budget crisis hit Los Angeles Unified.

"It's really unbelievable," said Bill Toomey, deputy superintendent of the Pasadena-based chain, which stretches from Victorville to the South Bay.

"In the past, we had a small influx in our summer program. Last year, we had 10,000 additional students and this year we expect 18,000."

Toomey said OFY began receiving summer school applications as early as February from parents who realized that their youngsters are struggling in school and may not graduate on time. Some of the classes, he said, are already filled.

"We plan to hire extra staff and are trying to do everything we can to accommodate them," Toomey said.

Los Angeles Unified has been whittling away at its summer school program since the recession hit five years ago, sending California into a financial free-fall and cutting deeply into the funding allocated to the state's school districts.

LAUSD now has just $1 million to spend on summer school, Cortes said, compared with $42 million a few years ago.


WHEN PUT TO A TEST, TESTING CULTURE FLUNKS

Opinion By Robert Schaeffer, Atlanta Journal Constitution | http://bit.ly/JsD2w7

Monday, April 2, 2012 :: Across the U.S., the politically mandated misuse of standardized tests is damaging public schools and the children they serve. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s investigation of suspicious test scores around the nation is just the latest example. Experts may debate the methodology, but there is no question that cheating on standardized exams is widespread. In just the past three academic years, FairTest has documented confirmed cases of test score manipulation in 33 states plus the District of Columbia.

These scandals are the predictable result of over-reliance on test scores. As the renowned social scientist Donald Campbell concluded more than 30 years ago, “The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.” Campbell continued, “[W]hen test scores become the goal of the teaching process, they both lose their value as indicators of educational status and distort the educational process in undesirable ways.”

Testing experts have long recognized this problem. Their professional standards for educational assessment warn against relying on tests as the sole or primary factor to make high-stakes decisions.

Enhanced test security may reduce the number of reported problems. A real solution, however, requires a comprehensive overhaul of federal, state and local testing requirements. President Barack Obama, Education Secretary Arne Duncan and many governors regularly issue high-sounding statements about assessment reform. At the same time, the federal government is adding incentives for cheating by ratcheting up the emphasis on standardized exam scores.

Many state officials are going along to win federal funds. Initiatives such as Race to the Top and the criteria for waivers from No Child Left Behind escalate the role of annual high-stakes annual testing. New requirements to assess teachers based on their students’ scores, in particular, virtually guarantee even more cheating will take place.

These policies contradict the findings and recommendations of Incentives and Test-Based Accountability in Education, released last year by the National Research Council of the National Academies of Science. That study’s distinguished panel of experts concluded that high-stakes testing has not improved educational quality

Cracking down on cheating is necessary but far from sufficient. The reports by the Georgia Office of Special Investigators should be a national model of “best practices” for detecting and responding to testing irregularities. Unfortunately, educational bureaucrats may have vested interests in protecting current policies and personnel.

Comprehensive reviews by independent law enforcement professionals are often necessary. Combined with the full range of forensic detection tools — including analyses for high numbers of erasures, unusual score gains and patterns of similar responses — this approach has proved most likely to root out the truth.

More policing and better after-the-fact investigations will not, however, solve the many problems caused by the misuse of standardized exam scores. Instead, high-stakes testing requirements must end. They cheat students out of a high-quality education and cheat the public out of accurate information about school quality.

Robert Schaeffer is public education director for FairTest: National Center for Fair & Open Testing.


Two Articles: NEW LAUSD BOARD DISTRICT MAP APPROVED
L.A. CITY COUNCIL APPROVES NEW SCHOOL DISTRICT MAPS
—Howard Blume, LA Times | http://lat.ms/JCuyS8

April 25, 2012 | 2:25 pm :: The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday approved new maps for school board seats that closely resemble the current seven districts.

Overall, the maps will keep together more neighborhood elementary and middle schools and the high schools they feed into. In District 5, school board member Bennett Kayser will have more familiar territory to represent, while in District 2, school board President Monica Garcia will add Garfield High to her boundaries.

The maps determine the voting areas for the sprawling Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second largest. They also establish which board member a student, parent or district employee would seek out about an issue at a particular school. Boundaries must be adjusted, as needed, every 10 years to account for population shifts.

Leading up to the vote, City Council members and staff raised concerns about maps that had come forward from an appointed redistricting commission. These concerns included the separation of Marshall High in Los Feliz from some of the schools and neighborhoods that feed into it.

The thorniest issue emerged from the proposed maps for District 5 and District 2, which together stretch across central Los Angeles as well as east and northeast of downtown, before dipping down into the cities of Southeast L.A. County.

A coalition of Eastside activists supported the map that emerged from the appointed commission. They praised it for uniting El Sereno, East L.A., Boyle Heights and Lincoln Heights in Garcia’s District 2.

In past elections, “the collective Eastside voice has been diluted since some of our struggling schools are mixed in with schools that face different barriers in terms of academic opportunities,” said Maria Brenes, executive director of InnerCity Struggle, an Eastside nonprofit group. Brenes spoke at a Wednesday morning hearing of the Council’s Rules and Elections Committee, which preceded the council vote.

But this consolidation was achieved by reworking District 5 in a way that split a half-dozen attendance areas among three board districts, said city mapping consultant Dave Ely. The city attorney’s office added there were concerns about whether the new maps could be legally defended if challenged under the federal Voting Rights Act. That law enumerates many rules for drawing up election maps. They include keeping “communities of interest” together, ensuring appropriate representation of minorities and ethnic groups, and responding to community input.

As a result, revised maps emerged Wednesday, when they were unveiled publicly for the first time.

One change embodied no controversy. Board of Education members Tamar Galatzan and Steve Zimmer both wanted the old north-south border between their districts restored.

To address the Eastside, city staff and consultants recommended one of two options — neither of which was the final commission-approved map. One option was an earlier commission map that had undergone extensive public review. But the second option — the newly revised map — carried the day. It restored much of the prior District 2 and District 5 boundaries.

In District 5, Kayser called the Council’s revisions a step in the right direction. His district still retains an odd shape: a north and south lump connected by a thin line, but that thin line will largely coincide with its current location, along the eastern boundary of L.A. Unified. He also will represent the Marshall High attendance area.

In District 2, Garcia had been a main beneficiary of the commission-approved map. But in the version favored by the City Council, she retained one gain that she wanted: Garfield High.

Brenes, generally an ally of Garcia, said the latest compromise improved somewhat over the status quo because more of the Eastside will be united, but not as much as her community wanted. She wasn’t certain at Wednesday’s meeting whether her own El Sereno residence had landed in District 2 or District 5.

Also at the meeting was a small contingent that disagreed with Brenes and wanted Garfield High to remain in District 5, represented by Kayser.

The latest revision passed in City Council by a vote of 9-2. Voting no were Bernard Parks and Jan Perry.

For starters, they objected to the process that had resulted in the commission’s original recommendation. The commissioners, they noted, had approved a map that arrived to them by email at 2 a.m. on the same day as their final vote.

In an interview, Parks said the final amended map was an improvement over the commission’s choice, but “I could not vote for a map that has not been vetted by the public.”

“I don’t have a preference for a map,” Perry said. “I have process concerns when I hear reports that people were drawing maps based on what assets people wanted in their districts as opposed to keeping neighborhoods intact.”

Perry and Parks have also criticized the separate, city redistricting process, which resulted in major changes affecting areas they represent.



L.A. COUNCIL APPROVES NEW POLITICAL DISTRICTS FOR LAUSD BOARD
By Rick Orlov Staff Writer, LA Daily News | http://bit.ly/I8o3kL

4/25/2012 06:42:01 PM PDT :: Making only minor changes to high school boundaries, the Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday approved new political districts for the Los Angeles Unified Board of Education.

The 9-2 vote will allow the new boundaries to be in place for the 2013 school board elections. Council members Bernard Parks and Jan Perry opposed the proposal.

The new maps resolve earlier complaints over how Marshall High School and its feeder schools were divided, taking out a substantial portion of the area represented by school board member Bennett Kayser.

"It was a major problem and I think we went a long way to keep that area together," said Councilman Tom LaBonge, who chairs the council's Rules and Election Committee that oversaw the maps proposed by a citizens redistricting commission.

Parks and Perry said they were concerned that the citizens panel ignored an alternative map offered by a member of the public, comparing it the City Council redistricting process that sparked similar complaints.

"It's a lot like the process we had here and how South Los Angeles was affected," Perry said, referring to dramatic changes made to her own council district.

However, the new school district maps drew praise from one of the panel's commissioners, Jimmie Woods Gray, who also had earlier complained about how the final maps were presented.

"I am glad to see you listened to the community and the parents," Gray said. "I think you have met the needs of the community and kept the Marshall community together."

Kayser, who had served on the city's Elected Charter Reform Commission and included a provision requiring that high schools and their feeder schools are kept together, said he was pleased with the new map.

"After all the drama and trauma, the `new' LAUSD Board District 5 is basically the district I ran for and won just nine months ago," Kayser said. "All I can say is, it's great to be back and I am thrilled for the chance to continue serving the very people who have placed their trust in me."


The map is avaialable here



HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest (but not neccessariily the best) of the Stories from Other Sources
SCHOOL DISCIPLINE DEBATE REIGNITED BY NEW LOS ANGELES DATA: By Susan Ferriss, iWatch News: The Center for Public... http://bit.ly/IJuxui

GRANADA HILLS HIGH SCHOOL WINS NATIONAL ACADEMIC DECATHLON: Granada Hills (again) wins Academic Decathlon By Ha... http://bit.ly/Jdm40L

MIRAMONTE ELEMENTARY TEACHERS ARE STILL HOLED UP ON AN EMPTY CAMPUS LEARNING HOW TO KNIT AND SEW | 2 stories + v... http://bit.ly/IFrjYE

ONE IN THREE AMERICANS FAIL IMMIGRANT NATURALIZATION CIVICS TEST: Xavier University's Center for the Study of th... http://bit.ly/Kau05Y

LAUSD LOWERS GRADUATION BAR: By Elly Weinstock, University High School Wildcat from http://my.hsj.org | ht... http://bit.ly/J2e3f4

Top-Ed: WEEKLY UPDATE ON EDUCATION IN THE CAPITOL: By Kathryn Baron, Thoughts on Public Education | http://bit.l... http://bit.ly/Ka6t4V

BRITISH INSPECTORS GO “BEYOND SPREADSHEETS” TO SCORE SCHOOL SUCCESS: By Marc Maloney, PACE from SI&A Cabinet ... http://bit.ly/J1TAXD

CALIFORNIA’S EARLY ASSESSMENT PROGRAM: ITS EFFECTIVENESS AND THE OBSTACLES TO SUCCESSFUL PROGRAM IMPLEMENTATION:... http://bit.ly/JLpwDL

EG PANEL MOVES AGAINST BROWN’S CHARTER AGENDA, SHOWDOWN LOOMING: By Tom Chorneau, School Innovations & Advocacy... http://bit.ly/J1xHb2

L.A. UNIFIED SCHOOLS TO LET OUT 3 DAYS EARLY; SCHEDULE DETAILS: By Tami Abdollah/KPCC | http://bit.ly/IxWBfO ... http://bit.ly/J1qgAx

POLLS SHOW SUPPORT LACKING ON TAXES TO FUND LAUSD: KTLA News | http://bit.ly/IXmx6q ... http://bit.ly/IwSCRJ

[Esc] LAUSD NAMES 10 TO LEAD ITS NEW REGIONAL OFFICES: By Daily News | http://bit.ly/IxMhVb 4/26/2012 09:06:10... http://bit.ly/J0UL9N

SERIOUS THREAT TO SCHOOL MEDICAID REIMBURSEMENT PROGRAMS: by e-mail from Medicaid in Schools | http://bit.ly/I... http://bit.ly/IA9o5u

U P D A T E D WITH MAP!: L.A. CITY COUNCIL APPROVES NEW SCHOOL DISTRICT MAPS — http://bit.ly/K0PCBE

B-Mad: BOARD MEMBER ACTION DAY ON FRIDAY JUNE 1: …where will the LAUSD Board of Ed be? smf: LAUSD and the LAUS... http://bit.ly/K0Lzp0

May 23, 2012: HEALTHY YOU, HEALTHY STUDENTS WEBINAR: from the dairy council of california April 18, 2012 Join... http://bit.ly/IRMk0C

MUD BARON PLANTS WHAT HE PREACHES: By MARY MACVEAN, Los Angeles Times …but from the Kansas City Star! | http://b... http://bit.ly/IDSvVX

WHEN PUT TO A TEST, TESTING CULTURE FLUNKS: Opinion By Robert Schaeffer, Atlanta Journal Constitution | http://b... http://bit.ly/IcD6dD

LAUSD BACKTRACKS ON MANDATORY COLLEGE PREP: The 2005 plan to mandate that incoming freshman be required to pass ... http://bit.ly/JQCfj1

OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO REAUTHORIZE PERKINS CAREER AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION ACT: Administration is investing $1 b... http://bit.ly/JsyYfk

Mónica García: LAUSD SCHOOL BOARD PRESIDENT TARGET OF RECALL / LANZAN CAMPAÑA PARA DESTITUIR A LA PRESIDENTA DE ... http://bit.ly/JxpH4k

Academia Semillas del Pueblo: CULTURAL SCHOOL’S CHARTER RENEWED DESPITE QUESTIONS: By Gloria Angelina Castillo, ... http://bit.ly/IbK5U7

SPELLING KOUNTS –or- ROBBING THE CRADLE OF ®EFORM: from School Board President Mónica García’s e-newsletter of 23 April ... http://bit.ly/Jwc2KE


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:
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!.


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 represented PTA on the LAUSD Construction Bond Citizen's Oversight Committee for ten years. 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.
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Sunday, April 22, 2012

What if they run it up the flagpole and nobody salutes?


Onward! 4LAKids
4LAKids:Sunday,22•April•2012 Earth Day
In This Issue:
 •  THE OPPORTUNITY TO REPEAT
 •  A “D” FOR DEASY? + MAGICAL THINKING + DIPLOMAS, YES; LEARNING, MAYBE
 •  THE LEGISLATIVE WEEK IN REVIEW: From student success to teacher removal
 •  ODE TO FERNIE
 •  HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest (but not neccessariily the best) of the Stories from Other Sources
 •  EVENTS: Coming up next week...
 •  What can YOU do?


Featured Links:
 •  Follow 4 LAKids on Twitter - or get instant updates via text message by texting "Follow 4LAKids" to 40404
 •  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.
NotYetLAUSD [http://bit.ly/I1HNKO], 4LAKids favorite if slightly off-color anonymous blogger, writes provocatively under the headline: WTFLAUSD. (Why The FrownLAUSD? When’s The Furlough?)

“SAME MEETING, SAME TOPIC, TWO DIFFERENT HEADLINES”

“LAUSD CONSIDERS LOWERING THE BAR FOR GRADUATION “ | LA Times | http://lat.ms/IcD2d4
“LAUSD PLAN CALLS FOR RAISING GRADUATION STANDARDS” | LA Daily News | http://bit.ly/JfQ8rz

“We will reach 100% graduation in LAUSD, no matter how low we have to tunnel. We will slap the finest labels on our curriculum. PS. Harvard's graduation rate is 98%. Most elite private colleges average a 90% graduation rate.” (smf: The Harvard 4 year grad rate is actually 87%. Only 9 US colleges do better than 90%. )


THE SPIN + THE ORWELLIAN NEWSPEAK have become the lingua franca; an LAUSD Tweet is 140 characters in search of a message.

LAUSD’s PROPOSED REVISIONS TO THE GRADUATION REQUIREMENTS were rolled out as “raising the bar”, L.A. Unified’s new flavor of A thru G will make everything great and usher in A Great New Wonderful Tomorrow -another magic bullet to solve the ills of public education.

Deputy Superintendent of Instruction Jamie Aquino announced the proposed revisions to the Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment (CIA) Committee of the Bd of Ed (twice) and to handpicked parents and community groups to what he characterized as favorable reviews (smf was with the parents group – my recollection is that reviews were discouraged.)

Gerardo Loera, LAUSD Executive Director of Curriculum and Instruction presented the plan to the CIA: “Raising the Bar for Graduation Standards” in a PowerPoint [http://scr.bi/JYg1Lh] and Dr. Aquino spoke enthusiastically from the horseshoe to close the deal.

Except nobody bought it.

Lowering the number of credits needed to graduate from 230 to 170 (the state minimum), eliminating Health Education and Technology classes, getting rid of required electives while continuing to recognize the grade of “D” as passing raised nothing but the ire of the board members and committee members present, public commenters, academe and the media …Yet Dr Aquino continued to represent the move as positive. (Aquino did quietly admit that the Health Ed Cuts may not stand – but then continued to advocate for them after the meeting.) Darn the naysayers, full speed ahead!

And nobody accepted for a moment that it was Loera’s plan or even Aquino’s: It was branded as Dr. Deasy’s plan from the get-go: “Superintendent John Deasy this week announced plans to…” | http://t.co/yn77Xa1o

Q: What if they run it up the flagpole and nobody salutes?
Now we know:
A: “In an email Deasy said he believes the lessons taught in health class are too critical to be offered as simply an elective. ‘We use this course for our work on many, many issues, like anti-bullying, healthy nutrition and lifestyle, etc. Given this, I feel that it must remain in the plan’.” | http://t.co/YCrOWD1z

This is (im)Plausible Deniability – as evidenced by the exact same story/different headline in Contra Costa: “LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy overrules staff to keep health-class requirement for high schoolers.” | http://bit.ly/JgZjN5

Remember the First Homework Policy? http://lat.ms/HWNIwI Bad staff work? … it’s like that.

[On Saturday – after Dr. Deasy’s Friday pronouncement about the critical nature of Health Ed - the District stiil posted a “Do you think health education should remain a requirement for graduation?” survey on the LAUSD Facebook page | http://t.co/EPotE14y]

THE GOOD NEWS is that worst part of a bad idea has apparently been jettisoned.
THE BAD NEWS is that under the current requirements – according to the standards this year’s graduates must meet – 170 credits is not even enough credits to even be a Senior …let alone a Graduate.

Across 4th Street from LAUSD Beaudry they shoot the television drama “Mad Men”. It’s going to take Don Draper himself to spin Deasy’s A-G Plan as a move in anything but the wrong directions.


LET US TRAVEL BACK IN TIME TO SEVEN YEARS AGO: 2005 – when the A thru G Graduation Requirements were the flavor of reform that would save us all. LAUSD would put every student in the District on the college track – by making the college entry requirements for UC and CSU the standard for receiving a high school diploma. There was loud public pressure supporting this from a small vocal minority – the community organized by community organizers: Families in Schools, Alliance for a Better Community and Inner City Struggle – supported by UCLA/IDEA – all well meaning folks – folks with an agenda and grants from Gates Broad and the usual suspects. [see By The Numbers - HOW TO TELL IF YOUR DISTRICT IS INFECTED BY THE BROAD VIRUS #29: A rash of Astroturf groups appear claiming to represent “the community” or “parents” and all advocate for the exact same corporate ed reforms | http://bit.ly/jqDocs]

THE VERY BAD SITUATION WAS THIS: LAUSD wasn’t offering access to college prep curriculum – the A-G courses – in “those” schools … you know, the schools where “those” kids go. And they were absolutely right. Opportunity was being systemically and systematically denied to students of color. It was 1968 all-over-again: The soft bigotry of institutionalized low expectations/ El suave intolerancia de las bajas expectativas institucionalizadas.

At the same time LAUSD was building itself out of the hole of overcrowded schools and inadequate facilities; there was light at the end of the tunnel. The solution was simple: Make sure all students in all schools have access to a college prep curriculum. Great thinking; well thought.

But if going to college is a good idea for all kids, why not make it a rule? What do Boards of Ed do if not make rules? ALL KIDS MUST TAKE THE COLLEGE PREP COURSES TO GRADUATE!

Almost immediately someone said there would have to be opt-out provisions – for kids who don’t want to go to college – and this was added to the Board of Ed Policy | http://bit.ly/LAUSDa-g. BUT BY MUTUAL AND UNSPOKEN AGREEMENT BY THE MAJORITY OF DISTRICT STAFF AND THE SPECIALLY INTERESTED IT WAS CONCEDED THAT THIS WOULD BE LIKE A PARENT REQUESTING EXEMPTION FROM A SCHOOL’S STUDENT UNFORM POLICY: WE KNOW BEST AND IT AIN’T GONNA HAPPEN!

And gentle readers, I’m not speculating here – I was there in the endless meetings of The A-G Task Force back in the day where the difficulties in implementing A-G were discussed, debated, addressed – and many solved. The challenges to master scheduling. The shortage of qualified teachers. The shortage of science classrooms. The difficulty in coordinating with Small Schools and Small Learning Communities. The difficulty in communicating with parents and counseling the students.

Solutions were planned. There would be Bridge Programs from elementary-to-middle and middle-to-high school. There would be Individualized Graduation Programs for every student. There would be Summer School and Intervention and Credit Recovery and every other imaginable support. Parents would be brought on as partners in their children’s education – a college going culture would be cultivated. Elective classes supporting A-G would be strengthened. Career and Technical Ed curriculum would be aligned with A-G; there would be Multiple Pathways.

LAUSD was totally going to do this!

The dilemma of the D grade – and perhaps not enough time in the six period day and the eight semester plan would be addressed later (Small Schools, SLC’s and the block schedule presented problems …but hey: We had seven – and then six – and then five years to work out the kinks!) Some decisions were put off ‘til later.

But then the money got scarce and meetings stopped happening and the leaders of the mission drifted away and superintendents came-and-went and the members of the board changed and we were all distracted by other things and …OMG: It’s 2012 already? Where did the time go?

Welcome to Later: Here we are making up another plan On the QT/On the Cheap.

The math the Instruction folks use to add up graduation credits needed divided by hours in the day over classes offered ignores that many students don’t pass the FitnessGram Test and must take PE in the 11th and 12th grades. Additionally PE is a class that state law says must be offered to all students in all four years of high school – LAUSD is relying upon a very interesting mandatory/voluntary opt-out paradigm.

Boardmember Kayser is suggesting a two tier graduation standard (something akin to the spurned-and-ignored opt-out option: one A-G, one not) Opponents are horrified. It’s tracking and discrimination and reeks of profiling and elitism. If done well this is hogwash; back in the storied golden age we had Courses Of Study and Major Sequences in high school. There were Science Majors and English Majors and Arts Majors and Industrial Arts Majors – and it said that right on your diploma, in Old English script.

AND HERE’S THE VERY, VERY SCARY NUMBER: It truly doesn’t matter what our graduation or drop-rate has been up ‘till now. Only 15% of LAUSD students to date have qualified to meet the A thru G standards. And we’ve been working on this for seven years. We are looking at a 15% graduation rate.

¡Onward/Adelante! – smf


THE OPPORTUNITY TO REPEAT

Themes in the News by UCLA IDEA Week of April 16-20, 2012 | http://bit.ly/Igc6gy

04-20-2012 :: The Los Angeles Unified School District is considering changing its graduation requirements. Current district policy requires the incoming class of 2016 to graduate college-ready, meaning students would have to pass the minimum sequence of subject-area courses required for eligibility into a University of California or California State University campus, known as a-g. However, faced with collapsing budgets and diminished support for teachers’ professional development, class size reduction, summer school, facilities and more, proponents want to pare down course offerings and graduation requirements.

The proposal, which will come before the full board in May, calls for eliminating all non- a-g electives and reducing the required number of credits to graduate from 230 to 170. District officials say requiring fewer credits will create flexibility in students' schedules so that they can make up failed courses (Los Angeles Times, Daily News, KPCC, ABC 7, CBS).

In 2005, the board passed a resolution to graduate all students college-ready, to create educational equity across the district and to close the achievement gap. While LAUSD’s new proposal is in keeping with the letter of that resolution, it strays from the spirit of expanding opportunities.

Seven years ago, most schools in South and East Los Angeles did not offer a full complement of a-g courses, or they rationed those classes to a small proportion of students whom schools considered college material. After parents and students organized and demanded greater access to college prerequisites (the opportunity to take and succeed in the a-g sequence), the board passed a resolution mandating a-g for all students and stipulated that the requirements be accompanied by "necessary learning supports, realignment and dedication of resources necessary beginning early in a student's education so that they are prepared to successfully complete the A-G course sequence at all grade levels from K-12." (http://bit.ly/LAUSDa-g)

But those “necessary learning supports... at all grade levels” never fully materialized. Indeed, some conditions have deteriorated dramatically, such as access to summer school, tutoring, and small class sizes. Without these and other supports, students are not passing their college-prep classes at acceptable rates. And, unless this pattern changes, once new graduation requirements are enforced, graduation rates will drop.

Some critics of LAUSD’s new plan believe that reducing the number of required credits and eliminating non- a-g electives will result in students from historically underserved neighborhoods becoming less engaged in school, less likely to graduate, less likely to be accepted to the most competitive colleges, and have fewer prospects for success if they do get to college.

The new “flexibility” created by the district’s proposal appears designed to allow students to make-up classes instead of finding some way to provide the k-12 resources that prepare students to pass their a-g classes the first time around. Of course, schools with lots of resources and with a history of high achievement might take good advantage of the new flexibility by adding more varied and engaging curriculum. But elsewhere, parents, students, and educators worry that their schools are falling into a cycle of failure, remediation, and poor prospects for college.

As members of the public and LAUSD officials deliberate about the policy in the weeks ahead, they would do well to consider several questions:

• If the proposed policy is implemented, will schools that presently experience high rates of failure in a-g classes add more credit recovery classes and subtract elective and advanced coursework?
• If they do, will students in these schools receive as full and rich an education as students at other LAUSD high schools?
• Is it acceptable to have some district schools that provide more varied and higher-level coursework than others?
• What can be learned from Los Angeles schools that already graduate substantial proportions of their students college-ready?
• What conditions prevail at these schools and their feeder schools?
• What does the district need to do to foster those conditions across all schools?


A “D” FOR DEASY? + MAGICAL THINKING + DIPLOMAS, YES; LEARNING, MAYBE

A “D” FOR DEASY?: Strive for A's Not D's

by Rebecca Joseph, Associate Professor, California State University, Los Angeles in the Huffington Post | http://huff.to/HUWUXt

04/19/2012 4:43 pm :: Superintendent John Deasy this week announced plans to adjust pre-approved changes to the graduation standards for the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the second largest school district in the country. This choice partially delays a brave plan LAUSD school board members passed in 2005 to raise graduation standards. Intended to go into effect next school year, the LAUSD school board graduation plan would have made it necessary for LAUSD students to take the required classes to make it four year public colleges, which includes raising the passing grade from a D to a C.

Earlier this week Deasy introduced a plan that would allow students to continue to receive D's on their transcripts for one additional year while reducing the credits to graduate from 230 to 160. While he keeps the college readiness standards, I believe his basic plans are flawed.

Academic scholar Mike Rose famously wrote, "Students will float to the mark you set." With D's in the teacher arsenal, they allow students to float near the bottom. With lower units to graduate, many other students will float at the bottom because failure will become a viable option as they can spend significant time during the school year repeating core classes rather than advancing.

Many brave school districts and charter schools around the country are eliminating D's, requiring college readiness standards, and pushing kids to take more rather than fewer units to graduate. Their students are doing better. They are not dropping out. They are not repeating classes multiple times. They are going to college.

In high schools across California, when students receive D's in core college readiness classes, they can graduate from high school. However, they cannot qualify for any of our public four year colleges for two reasons. None accept D's in core college readiness class, and all have minimum GPA standards. Moreover, to qualify for the University of California system, they must also complete 11 out of 15 required college readiness classes by the end of 11th grade. Truly competitive students take more the 15 classes, including honors and AP classes.

Currently, college readiness among LAUSD students is dismal. Less than 50% of seniors take the required college readiness classes to qualify for a public four year university in California. Even worse, only 15% of students who started in 9th grade and made it to graduation last year qualified for admissions to a University of California or California State University campus.

One of the major reasons is the huge prevalence of D's.

The D is a grade I've never quite understood. If students do enough work to get a D, then how hard is it for the teacher and student to work towards a C? If they do so little work that they get a D, then don't they truly deserve an F? At least with an F, they are forced to retake a class.

Yet for one more year D's will become a default grade for thousands upon thousands of teachers and students.

I meet LAUSD kids all the time who have received many D's. They are so much smarter than these grades. Some are happy with these grades, while others want to remake their records. Yet in these tough economic times, they have limited ways to make up these grades. Because of severe budgets, LAUSD has cut summer school for most students and has proposed severe cuts to other ways kids can remediate their grades-including adult school and online courses.

Moreover, budget cuts have led to significant counseling cuts throughout the district, state, and country. When I visited several high schools in March to promote college access, I met schools with limited resources to help kids make it to four year colleges. They help students graduate but stop there for the majority of students.

Sadly, a high school diploma is no longer enough to help most students make a decent living. There are fewer and fewer jobs available where high school graduates can receive living wages, career advancement, and benefits. Unemployment rates for these students are staggering. Additionally, research shows California's economy needs 100,000 more college graduates every year to make our economy more viable. Finally, community colleges in California are increasingly challenging places for students with low GPAs to make it through to AA degrees or four year colleges.

To help decrease the high school dropout and college readiness rates, Deasy should be focusing on increasing rigor in academic instruction. Rather than embedding it into the school day, he should be emphasizing multiple paths towards academic remediation, including support classes, smaller class sizes, tutoring, and summer and adult school. He should be increasing not decreasing intensive academic and college counseling in schools.

Our schools need to promote higher standards. LAUSD should and can become a leader in the country of a movement to move kids towards true college readiness. Keeping D's in place for an additional year and cutting core services allows the low bar to remain in place, and in my mind, is more indicative of the grade the Superintendent should receive for his current efforts.

• An Associate Professor at California State University, Los Angeles, Dr. Rebecca Joseph believes that college should be an option for all and devotes her teaching, research, presentations, evaluations, and service to helping all students receive a high quality, college ready education. She also helps students and schools focus on empowering students throughout the college readiness, application, and admissions process. She is an expert on helping student write powerful college application essays to communicate their unique stories as well as helping kids prepare to transfer to four year colleges. Dr. Joseph is a member of NACAC, WACAC, AERA, and NCTE and an expert for Unigo. She can be followed on twitter @getmetocollege and on her website getmetocollege.org.

LAUSD's TOO HIGH GRADUATION BAR: The district's policy requiring students to pass a college-prep curriculum to graduate was a product of magical thinking rather than wise educational leadership

LA Times Editorial | http://lat.ms/Je1DQn

April 19, 2012 :: There's a lot more to improving education than just raising the bar and expecting everyone to reach it, as the Los Angeles Unified School District is discovering about its ill-conceived, 7-year-old policy to require students to pass a college-prep curriculum in order to graduate.
The district's intentions were good. Not only were too few students attempting the so-called A through G curriculum — a required series of high school English, math, social studies and other courses required for entry to California's public four-year colleges and universities — but the numbers attempting it were much lower among disadvantaged black and Latino students. Before the policy was adopted, many school administrators assumed these students were incapable of or uninterested in a future in college and steered them toward a less rigorous course of study.

What the district should have done is to undertake a thoughtful overhaul of the curriculum, preparing students before they entered high school for the more challenging academic course load and continuing with tutoring and support as they moved from ninth to 12th grades.Instead, under political pressure from justifiably frustrated community groups, the school board merely passed a resolution calling for all students to be required to pass the full college-prep series of courses, starting with the freshman class of 2012.

The resolution was a product of magical thinking rather than wise educational leadership. It created no plan for how the new bar would be reached — a plan that should have started with an intensive focus on lower-school math, because the single biggest obstacle to completing college prep was that so many students arrived at high school unprepared for algebra and flunked it repeatedly. Board members and teachers who protested that the resolution would lead to high dropout rates were roundly booed.
As Times staff writer Howard Blume reported Wednesday, the administration now wants to scale back on graduation requirements, with Deputy Supt. Jaime Aquino echoing some words familiar from seven years ago: "We face a massive dropout rate" if the policy goes forward.

An abysmally small percentage of students who graduated from L.A. Unified schools last year — 15% — qualified to enter a four-year college. The district could certainly improve on this, yet the school board has little choice at this point but to ease the requirements; it would be unfair and counterproductive to hold students to a standard they have not been prepared to achieve. But in its next move to improve educational outcomes, the board should focus first on a coherent plan for improving instruction, not on an arbitrary bar.

L.A. UNIFIED GRADUATES: DIPLOMAS, YES; LEARNING, MAYBE

By Karin Klein, Editorial Staff, LA Times | http://lat.ms/HXsSQ2

April 19, 2012, 6:00 a.m. :: The call to lower graduation standards in the Los Angeles Unified School District reminds me of a conversation I had with a representative of the construction industry seven years ago, back when the school board was first considering requiring all students to take the full series of college-preparatory classes in order to earn a diploma.

His group favored the switch to a college-prep requirement because the sequence of courses known as "A through G" would also prepare students better for jobs that don't require a college degree. Precious few of L.A. Unified's graduates could pass the written test for his group's apprenticeship program in construction because they lacked the math skills.

I asked him what was required to pass that test, and he said Algebra I and some Geometry. That was curious because those courses already were required for a high school diploma in L.A. Unified; the college-prep requirement added a third year of high school math to that, Algebra II.

When told that the students already had to pass the two courses he had mentioned to graduate, he at first refused to believe that was true. Then he said that although the students might be taking the courses, they sure weren't learning the material.

There's the rub. The schools and the state can set all the requirements they want, but until we pay attention to whether students are actually learning what they need to learn rather than filling a seat in a class that meets a certain requirement, we will continue the frustrating reality of high school graduates who theoretically qualify for college but have to take remedial courses once they get there, and who cannot pass a basic test to drive a delivery truck or work on a construction site.


THE LEGISLATIVE WEEK IN REVIEW: From student success to teacher removal
By Kathryn Baron , Thoughts on Public Education | http://bit.ly/IggT1B
John Fensterwald co-wrote this article.

4/20/12 :: One day after Democrats on the Senate Education Committee rejected his sweeping approach to getting rid of poorly performing and badly behaving teachers, Republican leader Bob Huff mentioned an often cited but much disputed quote of the late Albert Shanker in letting the Democrats have it.

“The Senate Education Committee’s actions exemplify the comments made by Albert Shanker, former head of the United Federation of Teachers, who stated, ‘When school children start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of schoolchildren.’ Once again the Democrats on the committee have chosen to put the demands of some union bosses over the safety of our children,” Huff said in a press release. (Shanker’s wife, Edith, denies he ever made the statement.)

UPDATE: I contacted Shaker’s biographer, Richard Kahlenberg, who wrote Tough Liberal: Albert Shanker and the Battles Over Schools, Unions, Race, and Democracy. His email response regarding the authenticity of the quote: “I tried to track down the quotation for my biography of Al Shanker but I was unable to confirm it, so it may well be apocryphal.”

Democrats passed a much narrower bill, SB 1530, that pared away the due-process procedures for teachers being charged with offenses involving drugs, sex, and violence against children. Not that they got much love from union reps, who accused legislators from both parties of “grandstanding” on the issue.

Huff issued a chart showing that the Democrats’ bill wouldn’t alter the sometimes laborious dismissal procedures for teachers accused of a raft of other vile offenses that don’t fall into the new category of “serious and egregious” acts.

The odd thing is that, after the Democrats gutted an identical version of Huff’s bill in the Assembly this week, leaving in only two small reforms, the Republican co-sponsor of AB 2028 waxed poetic on the bipartisan achievement in a press release. “It was great to see Assembly Democrats today set politics aside and work with us to pass these vital reforms to get those who try to harm our kids out of the classroom,” said Assemblymember Cameron Smyth, R-Santa Clarita.

Not wanting to get caught in this dogfight, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Los Angeles Unified Superintendent John Deasy testified for both the Republican and Democratic versions.

STEPPING UP TO COMMUNITY COLLEGE PLATE

“I am a community college success story,” proudly proclaimed Jessie Ryan at a news conference Wednesday after the Senate Education Committee unanimously approved the Student Success Act. SB 1456 starts the process of implementing some of the 22 recommendations in the Student Success Task Force report, which was released late last year.

Ryan, the associate director of the Campaign for College Opportunity, grew up with a “struggling, single welfare mother,” and said community college was truly her “gateway to opportunity.” She was admittedly fortunate that her college helped her develop an education plan and held an orientation that put Ryan “on a path to success.”

SB 1456, by Sen. Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach), chair of the Education Committee, calls on all the state’s 112 community colleges to provide all students with the type of support Ryan received. More than half of all community college students fail to receive an AA Degree, earn a certificate, or transfer to a four-year college within six years, and the figures for Latino and African American students are even worse.

But the big drivers in the bill for boosting success were tempered amid an outcry from students and the reality of state finances. Provisions requiring students to declare a goal and not to exceed a certain number of units in order to be eligible for Board of Governors (BOG) fee waivers will not take effect unless colleges have the resources to provide the needed support services, said Lowenthal. Just looking at one of those, counseling services is daunting. On average, there are 1900 students for each counselor.

The bill would create a new fund which repurposes the $50 million in the matriculation fund to provide colleges with some money to focus on education planning and advising, but it’s not nearly enough, and the chancellor’s office said they’re looking to schools to develop innovative programs to help students make good decisions about which classes to take.
“These reforms are about doing the most we can with what we have,” said Erik Skinner, Executive Vice Chancellor of programs. “The next step is to make the case for more investment.”

BUS STOP

Gov. Brown’s effort to eliminate funding for home-to-school transportation at the time of the mid-year trigger cuts sparked legislation by Assemblyman Warren Furutani (D-Gardena) to introduce legislation protecting school bus service.
AB 1448 requires transportation funding for next year to be “at least equal to the appropriation provided in the budget for 2011-12.” The bill holds a special place for Los Angeles Unified, which, under a court-ordered desegregation plan must provide transportation.
Budget uncertainty marked many bills that came before the committees this week leading to one surprisingly stinging exchange between two lawmakers. During the debate on AB 1448, Assemblymember Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield), asked fellow education committee member Das Williams (D-Santa Barbara) why the democrats were trying to protect the school transportation funds when they were the ones who supported putting it in the trigger cuts when they approved the governor’s budget plan last year. Williams retorted almost before she could finish, noting that republicans forced their hand. “With all due respect,” said Williams, “that wouldn’t have happened if you had the courage to vote for taxes to support our education system.”

See also:

KINDERGARTEN FOR ALL COMES OF AGE: Bills would make Kindergarten Compulsory,
Kathryn Baron, ToPED | http://bit.ly/I2aDcj

April 17, 2012 :: For being so young, kindergarteners have incited more than their share of quarrels in California. State lawmakers and governors argued for a decade about how old kindergarten students should be, before voting in 2010 to raise the age to five. At the same time, they created Transitional Kindergarten (TK) for those who miss the new ........[continues>>>http://bit.ly/I2aDcj]




Click here for a list of education bills and their status



ODE TO FERNIE
By Franny Parrish, Originally published in the LASLA L.A. School Library Aides GoogleGroup.

Franny Parrish is the Library Aide/Librarian In the Julie Korenstein Library at Charles Leroy Lowman Special Education Center, an LAUSD K-12 school serving special needs children in North Hollywood

Fri, Apr 20, 2012 :: He was almost 17 when I met him. I heard him before I saw him, screaming with laughter at the top of his longs as he raced through the halls on an adult size tricycle, safety helmet jauntily placed on his head, with one of the older aides chasing after him, desperate to keep up. It was quite a sight. Turning on my heels I chased after them to ask if she needed help to stop this little guy before he hurt himself or someone else? Was he okay? Oh no, she said, Fernando was just fine, he was just so excited at the ease of the mobility he was experiencing, and he was soooooo pleased with himself that he had mastered pedaling! Silly me. He was laughing after all, maybe a tad on this side of maniacal, but he WAS laughing.

I walked back to my library thinking about the simple tasks in life and those little accomplishments that we take for granted, walking, feeding ourselves, pedaling a bike, and for these students these are every day struggles. Just as I sat back down at my desk I heard him, maniacal laughter, pure joy, exhilaration in his voice. He passed by the library, looked at me and waved, narrowly missing running into the wall. He never missed a beat and Mila was there to keep him on track. This was Fernando.

Short, 4' and counting, Fernando seemed taller because he walked on his tip toes, slight of build, hint of a mustache, beautiful brown eyes with eyelashes that any movie star could only wish to have. He wasn't Antonio Banderas, but he was definitely charming, on most days, in a way that Señor Banderas would have appreciated. He had his moments. For almost an entire year, every day, I would see him after nutrition or PE lying down on the yard, refusing to get up. We weren't sure what the issue was. Maybe he just wanted to do things at his own pace and time, not ours. Sometimes they just picked him and carried him in to the classroom, but most times he eventually made it on his own.

When Miss Josie would come to the library for reading it took a lot to get him there. He had to sit on his own chair apart from the others as he had developed a new habit of grabbing you by the hair and not letting go. (Trust me from personal experience it was not pleasant to be on the receiving end.) To make the experience of coming to the library more pleasant for Fernando, I often would play Mariachi music for the class as they were walking or being wheeled in to the room. Fernie LOVED mariachi music along with most other styles, but he seemed to come alive when he heard it. He would often ask me to sing Skidda Ma Rinky Dink... Mariachi. Yeah. Tough call, and I even asked friends who were composers and writers if they could figure out an arrangement of the song to surprise Fernie. No one could figure it out. No matter,I just added a few yips into the song and he was happy.

Once reading time was over, discussions done, Skidda Ma Rinky Dink sung, students, aides, and teacher filed out. Who was still there? Fernie. The only way I could get him out was to turn off the lights, whip on my sombrero, and start singing while backing out of the room so he would follow me. In his raspy voice, most times unintelligible, he would try to sing along and begin to leave. It became a weekly routine. The hat never weighed heavy on my head.

Talking with Fernando was usually one way. You never really understood what he was saying and, as is the case with many of these children, you really don't know how much they comprehend. Just before Thanksgiving when Fernie was around 20-21, I asked him, at his teacher's urging, what was he going to have to eat for Thanksgiving. As he gathered his air, you could tell he was working to get the words and strength together to answer me, he said "Turkey!" "That's great! And what will you have to go with the turkey?" Again, Fernie took his time, and in his raspy, squeaky, voice said "Pappas! (translation - Potatoes)

"This is turning into quite a meal.", I said to Fernie. Then I asked the final question, "And what will you have to drink with all this wonderful meal Fernando?" This time, there was no hesitation in his answer. Like an arrow shot straight from it's bow, he grinned and shouted out "CERVEZA!!!!" There wasn't a dry eye left in the room as all the adults laughed until our sides hurts. Fernando was laughing too. He knew. He had me forever in his heart.


Fernando died yesterday. He was 22. June would have been his last month with us here at Lowman. He went home a month ago after school not feeling well. He had pneumonia. He never could get enough air. I know that this is the hazard of working here at Lowman, but still, this time it really hurt. I can't go to the funeral or the viewing as it just doesn't seem natural to see him that way. For me, I will prefer to remember him like this, laughing boy, sharing a story with my fellow Library Aides of one child who made a difference in my life.

Thanks for letting me tell his story.


HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest (but not neccessariily the best) of the Stories from Other Sources
CORONA-NORCO USD IN INLAND EMPIRE GIVES TEACHERS THE FREEDOM TO EXPERIMENT INSTEAD OF PRESCRIBED LESSON PLANS, b... http://bit.ly/IlqxOn

4LAKids tweets: wtf?: A DAY AFTER DEASY SAYS HEALTH ED WILL BE SAVED LAUSD PUTS THIS SURVEY ON THEIR FACEBOOK PAGE: http://www.fa... http://bit.ly/Jff5a0

BENNETT KAYSER SHARES HIS VIEWS ABOUT LAUSD, PROP 39, REDISTRICTING & A-G: The School Board member talks about P... http://bit.ly/JyX42q

LAUSD CHIEF WANTS TO KEEP HEALTH CLASS AS GRADUATION REQUIREMENT: By Barbara Jones, Staff Writer, LA Daily News ... http://bit.ly/JdeLbP

LAUSD tweets: Dr. Deasy says he will NOT recommend eliminatIon of health ed grad requirement

L.A. UNIFIED GRADUATES: Diplomas, yes; learning, maybe: By Karin Klein, Editorial Staff, LA Times | http://lat.m... http://bit.ly/I4lNNc

A THRU G IN LAUSD: Magical Thinking, not Educational Leadership: LAUSD's TOO HIGH GRADUATION BAR: The district's... http://bit.ly/HWdbGQ

A “D” FOR DEASY?: Strive for A's Not D's: by Rebecca Joseph, Associate Professor, California State University, L... http://bit.ly/I4gs8u

OUT-OF-STATE EXPANSION OF CALIFORNIA CHARTER SCHOOL COMPANIES COULD AFFECT IN-STATE GROWTH: By Louis Freedberg ~... http://bit.ly/J1UoOM

CLINICS SET OUT TO LOWER ILLNESS RELATED ABSENTEEISM AT SCHOOLS: By: Mayra Ramirez LAUSD Journal | http://... http://bit.ly/IYzwbk

STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL’S OFFICE WARNS 2-TIER PRICING FOR COLLEGES IS ILLEGAL: By Vanessa Romo KPCC Blog: Pass /... http://bit.ly/IWzaBO

4LAKids tweets: OFFICIAL LAUSD SOCIAL MEDIA CONTINUES TO ADVOCATE ELIMINATION OF HEALTH ED - http://bit.ly/JhGvrA

SENDING 6500 KIDS TO A MOVIE ABOUT BULLYING DOESN’T END BULLYING, IT PROMOTES THE MOVIE: 6,500 LAUSD students to... http://bit.ly/IQRYgw

LAUSD PROPOSES TO ELIMINATE D’S AS PASSING GRADES: smf: ‘Proposes’ being the operative verb, not ‘eliminate’ By... http://bit.ly/IQOHOj

LAUSD CONSIDERS LOWERING THE BAR FOR GRADUATION: The district could face a flood of dropouts if it doesn't ease ... http://bit.ly/JhGvrA

DEADLY ‘CHOKING GAME’ COMES WITH BIG RISKS + 1 in 16 EIGHTH GRADERS PLAY IT: by Rob Stein Morning Edition | http... http://bit.ly/ITCaOv

I WENT TO SOME OF D.C.’s BETTER SCHOOLS. I WAS STILL UNPREPARED FOR COLLEGE.: OP ED By Darryl Robinson in the Wa... http://bit.ly/J33si7

Not tested? Not taught!: 1992 RIOTS ARE A POIGNANT LESSON IN L.A. SCHOOLS …WHEN TIME ALLOWS: Deidre Powell disc... http://bit.ly/Jrl6vt

REPRESENTING KIDS …OR ADULTS? + smf’s 2¢: by Patrick Riccards in Eduflack | http://bit.ly/IGHghR


EVENTS: Coming up next week...


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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 represented PTA on the LAUSD Construction Bond Citizen's Oversight Committee for ten years. 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.
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