The Class of 2017

4LAKids: Sunday 28•Oct•2012 In This Issue:  •  LOTS OF ‘IFS’ IN ADOPTING A-G: Districts must make commitment to students  •  A LOT IS NEW UNDER THE HOOD IN HIGH SCHOOL AUTO SHOP CLASSES  •  TEACHERS UNION REFUSES TO SIGN OFF ON LAUSD PLAN FOR RACE TO THE TOP GRANT  •  ‘YES, YES’: IT’S A MESS ....BUT DON’T PUNISH KIDS  •  HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other Sources  •  EVENTS: Coming up next week...  •  What can YOU do? Featured Links:  •  OUR CHILDREN, OUR FUTURE: What will California schoolchildren, your school district and YOUR School get when the initiative passes?  •  Follow 4 LAKids on Twitter - or get instant updates via text message by texting  •  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. THE LAUSD BOARD OF EDUCATION CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION COMMITTEE reconstituted itself and met after a hiatus last Tuesday. [Video: http://bit.ly/WTOiqI] The boardmembers on the committee: Marguerite LaMotte, Bennett Kayser and Richard Vladovic are trustees with classroom instruction experience – along with Steve Zimmer a quartet that should dominate the board …not the politically ambitious +connected “Tony’s Grlz". But reality and the tangled web of L.A. politics and political/foundation/philanthropic finance portend otherwise. The outside (ex-officio) members of the committee form a rare mix of LAUSD institutional memory – a commodity missing in an organization that has deliberately pushed out, RIFed, laid-off, and voluntarily separated itself from its own past …a culling of the herd through attrition, budget cuts, back-room political intrigue and rightsizing. During the C&I Committee meeting – during a PowerPoint-driven data dump celebrating the glorious upward sweep of test scores and graduation rates - the good news came eyeball-to-eyeball with the Elephant in the Room: The implementation of the A-G Graduation Requirements. When one looks at that data the trending – and the inevitability – is negative. Grad rates will plummet lower than they have ever been; the Dropout Rate (which is not the same) will climb off-the-charts because students will not stay in school if graduation is impossible. The Goal is 100% Graduation – 64% is the current rate – but only 32% of students are currently on track for Graduation under A-G. Excuse me for tossing away statistical analysis and trending algorithms for third-grade math …but 32% is half of 64%. “Wait!” you say; “Isn’t A-G isn’t already in place?” THE A-G GRAD REQUIREMENT was adopted with great fanfare by the Board of Ed in 2005, seven years ago – driven by Monica Garcia when she was Jose Huizar’s chief-of-staff; then Families in Schools maven/current LAUSD chief of parent engagement (enragement?) Maria Casillas [http://bit.ly/Tic1d2], and UCLA IDEA. But in the years since the A-G implementation has been oft-delayed+postponed. A-G now applies as a grad requirement for the first time to incoming high-school freshmen (freshpeople?) this fall. The Class of 2017 …students who were in the first grade in 2005. Monica is now the President of the Board of Ed; Ms. Casillas was the subject of vitriolic attack (and allegations of assault) from parents later in the C&I meeting, and UCLA IDEA has distanced itself from LAUSD’s diluted flavor of A-G |http://bit.ly/UVLSau. And after seven years to prep, LAUSD is neither ready nor prepared. We can blame the economy; District staff is prepared to blame the trigger cuts if those happen. A little hubris goes a long way. Nobody seems prepared to look in the mirror – especially those in the restrooms on the 24th floor at 333 South Beaudry Avenue. See: Blaming Your Own Team by Deborah Meier -- http://bit.ly/XqHsI3 San Jose Unified has had an A-G Grad Requirement since the class of 2002 and a Stanford U/Silicon Valley Education Foundation study recommends more districts adopt A-G …but: “…if and only if they have the means to implement the policy properly. A district must determine if they have the resources to establish adequate supports, provide sufficient professional development, and execute the other important steps discussed in the practical issues section. “Furthermore, we encourage districts to methodically plan for A-G well in advance, and to have committed leaders steering the initiative. “ [http://bit.ly/S5MIMi] That has to be one of the great “but… qualifiers” in public education. Everyone should have a Bentley …but only if they can afford one. On the face of it San Jose Unified has an 83.7% grad rate – which is phenomenal. But SJUSD recognizes a “D” as a passing grade in A-G courses; the UC/CSUs do not, LAUSD will not. Only 40.5% of SJUSD grads actually meet UC/CSU admission standards. [CDE data] When Deputy Superintendent Jaime Aquino – the LAUSD point person on A-G – was asked if the counselors, parents and the actual eighth grade students themselves – they who are the subjects and poster-children of this great social experiment – are aware of that status he was momentarily taken aback – and then began to describe a proposed tri-fold brochure to inform them. TRI-FOLD BROCHURES ARE NOT COMMUNICATING WITH PARENTS, STAFF or STUDENTS. And no self-respecting middle-scholar ever took any tri-fold brochure home that wasn’t about grad night at Disneyland, Magic Mountain or Universal Studios. And totally absent in the LAUSD plan for A-G (or the seeming lack thereof) – or in the apparently aborted application for the $40 million Race to the Top Grant – is any acknowledgement that any of this discussion has taken place before – that these plans have been planned before – that some of the groundwork has been done – and conveniently ignored – the process abandoned in favor of other, sparkly, shiny things. BEFORE THERE WAS PUBLIC SCHOOL CHOICE and Partnership Schools and Pilot Schools and all those Charter Schools – before there was Reform-with an-® – there were plans for deep and meaningful intervention programs, bridge programs for transitioning elementary-to-middle and middle-to-high schoolers. There was discussion and plans and programs about College Prepared and Career Ready where the career readiness part was more than two empty words. There were plans for Individualized Graduation Programs to engage students and their parents in own personalized education plans. There were comprehensive after, before and between-the-bells programs to address the gaps: Achievement, Opportunity and English Language Learners. There was Summer School. There was deep discussion among educators, parents, community partners and experts from preschool-to-higher-ed about A-G. There were task-forces and study groups and plans made. Nobody makes excellent plans and then puts them on a shelf to never look at them again better than LAUSD. IT ISN'T JOHN DEASY'S FAULT that LAUSD has failed to pursue and implement reforms defined and designed during Roy Romer and David Brewer’s tenures. But those reforms – newly rediscovered as this week’s flavor of reform in the RttT Application and A-G Implementation – reinvented and reverse engineered, the data digitized+disaggregated and labeled as New+Improved, are many days late and many dollars short. And they ignore the contributions, input and hard work of many stakeholders – including community partners, collective bargaining partners and past leadership since discredited, disrespected and forced out. They are not Deasy’s fault, neither are they Deasy’s doing. They are, like a past-due assignment, just late. It never was about bad teachers or bad teachers unions. It was and continues to be about poor leadership. It will probably continue to be so until July 1, 2013. __________ Gentle Readers, Much hinges on the election ahead. And the one after that. I have stated on these pages my support for Proposition 38 – which really sends real money to schools. If the argument was either 38 or 30 – or which is better for schools and kids – I’d have to say vote for 38 – but it isn’t. No Harm Can Be Done By Voting YES ON BOTH …and relying upon the pure democracy of the will of the majority for the one with the most votes to prevail. The polling and trending is sadly running negative on both – and the children of California will be harmed if both fail. Will they be harmed irretrievably? No, but damage will be done and they will be hurt by having class sizes increased, programs cut and the school year shortened. Not one of them will ever get the years spent with not enough money, time and programs back. I am not going to sermonize and weigh the decision between What is Politic vs. What is Right. Stephen Hawking describes the Arrow of Time. We cannot change its direction, only the way we face. SO YES ON 30/YES ON 38/AND NO ON 32. ¡EverOnward/SiempreAdelante! - smf LOTS OF ‘IFS’ IN ADOPTING A-G: Districts must make commitment to students By John Fensterwald – TOPEd/Educated Guess | http://bit.ly/Vx9n55 (a chestnut, suitable for roasting from April of last year) Posted on 4/27/11 :: Five large urban school districts[1] have joined San Jose Unified in adopting the course requirements for admission to California’s four-year universities as their high school graduation requirements, and plan to impose them within the next five years. A report by public policy seniors at Stanford University concluded that other districts also should consider doing so – but “if and only if they have the means to implement the policy properly.” With heavy budget cuts on the books and more looming, that will be increasingly difficult to do. Last month, the school board of one of the five districts, San Diego Unified, voted to push back the start of the new graduation requirement two years because of the expense involved in hiring more counselors, helping students struggling with higher standards, and adding academically demanding career technical programs at a time when existing career academies are under financial strain. The new graduation requirement will first affect this year’s seventh graders, the Class of 2016, according to Sid Salazar, assistant superintendent of the the state’s second largest district. Previous TOP-Ed posts (here: http://bit.ly/U7OtIU and here: http://bit.ly/ToDa2r) have debated the wisdom of adopting a universal college prep high school curriculum, which in California is 15 courses that the California State University and University of California require all entering students to have completed with at least a grade of C in each. Known as A-G, it includes four years of English, three years of math, two years of lab science, two years of history, two years of a foreign language, a year of visual or performing arts and a year of electives. What the report “RAISING THE BAR” makes clear is that data in California for and against the policy arguments is spotty. In part, that’s because San Jose Unified remains the only urban district to have adopted A-G, staring with the Class of 2002. Comparisons are limited. San Jose Unified reports that its dropout rate has not fallen, while its A-G completion rate has risen from about 30 percent in 1998 to 47 percent of the class of 2008, compared with the statewide rate of 35 percent. The percentage of Latinos in the district satisfying the A-G requirements was 29 percent, compared with 22 percent statewide. The percentage of students deemed college ready in math, under the Early Assessment Program that juniors take, was about 8 percentage points higher than the state average, but, at 23 percent, still very low. A majority of students at CSU campuses must take remedial courses to catch up. Dropout rates in California have been inaccurate (they soon will become accurate, however, as a result of four years of data using student identifiers); A-G course completion rates are self-reported by districts and, according to the UC system, very unreliable. Limited data notwithstanding, San Jose Unified argues that raising standards and expectations through A-G adoption has been a success. To an extent, that is true. But the 50 percent of students in the district still not satisfying A-G admission requirements, primarily because they received Ds or Fs (48 percent in math alone, according to an Education Trust-West study|http://bit.ly/XGatiX) raises two questions: Can districts adopt more and earlier interventions for struggling students? Should there be other options than A-G for students who decide, by the time they’re juniors, that they may want to pursue job training or an associate’s degree or vocational certificate after high school? San Diego Unified views career and college preparation as linked. The intent, Salazar says, is to require all high school students to take some career courses, whether culinary arts, pre-engineering or medical technology, exposing all students to technical skills and vocations. Seeing that all of the courses meet A-G requirements will be a challenge; adding a career component will be another expense, which is why the trustees put off formal adoption for now. East Side Union High School District in San Jose has adopted an opt-out policy for the inaugural Class of 2015, which will permit exemptions by students and families from A-G. In the Stanford report, educators disagreed as to whether that will end up being a high or low number. That will likely depend on how well students are prepared for higher level work when they arrive in ninth grade. The Silicon Valley Education Foundation (my employer) pushed East Side Union trustees to adopt A-G and is now helping the district prepare for it. It is starting Stepping Up To Science, a summer program preparing incoming ninth graders for biology; many otherwise would be assigned a non-A-G lab science. It is sponsoring a massive summer school program to prepare eighth graders in San Jose for algebra, the gateway course for college. And it is working with the elementary feeder districts to East Side Union to establish common student placement criteria for Algebra – something that’s been talked about for years. Foundations, with corporate help, can fund summer bridge classes and provide other vital help, especially now, but districts must create a college-going culture, educate parents on A-G, hire counselors, establish high school programs like AVID, train teachers and ensure there enough classes in A-G courses. San Diego Unified has estimated the cost during the first four years of implementing A-G at $16 million, according to the report; the district is facing $120 million in cuts this year. It is cruel to children – dooming many to failure and frustration – to raise standards and add courses without the method and means to support them. The onus lies not only on districts but on legislators who decide how much to fund them. (The authors of the report are Josh Freedman Max Friedmann, Cameron Poter and Anna Schuessler, all students in the Program in Public Policy program. Mary Sprague, senior lecturer, oversaw their work. Staff at the Silicon Valley Education Foundation also provided guidance to the students. For an executive summary of the report, click here|http://bit.ly/S5MIMi. Go to the bottom of this page for a link to the full study.) _________ 1.The five, with the dates affecting graduating seniors, are San Diego Unified (2016), East Side Union (2015), Oakland Unified (2015), San Francisco Unified (2014) and Los Angeles Unified (2012). RAISING THE BAR: Download the entire Report A LOT IS NEW UNDER THE HOOD IN HIGH SCHOOL AUTO SHOP CLASSES AUTO SHOP'S LONG SKID IN THE FACE OF BUDGET CUTS AND A SHIFT TOWARD COLLEGE-PREP CLASSES MAY BE REVERSING. NOWHERE IS THAT MORE APPARENT THAN IN THE SAN DIEGO UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT. By Tony Perry and Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times | http://lat.ms/VSRNyo October 28, 2012 :: SAN DIEGO — The days when auto shop was a major part of the high school curriculum have long since been consigned to revivals and reruns of the musical "Grease." But auto shop's long skid in the face of budget cuts and a shift toward college-prep classes may be reversing. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the San Diego Unified School District, where officials have built automotive program facilities at three high schools and hope to upgrade shops at two other schools if voters approve a bond issue next month. John Abad, who is 17 and studying auto body repair at a $3.7-million facility opened last month at Morse High, knows why this is being done. "As long as people buy cars, those cars are going to break," Abad told the ribbon-cutting gathering. "We're going to be the technicians who do the repair right the first time." Decades ago, many districts viewed training in car maintenance as a way to impart a job skill for the majority of students who were not college-bound. But tight budgets and a pervasive emphasis on academics, especially college preparation, contributed to the decline of auto shop. During years of overcrowding in the Los Angeles Unified School District, many shop rooms were converted to classrooms, said former district administrator Santiago Jackson. Yet many students still need vocational training, not to mention something to interest them enough to earn a high school diploma. These are not your father's or grandfather's auto shop classes, where guys install glass-pack mufflers and cheater pipes on their cars. "It's much more electronic, digital, computer-driven," said Rob Atterbury, executive director of Berkeley-based ConnectEd, the California Center on College and Career. The nonprofit is working with school districts throughout the state to bring back auto shop. In L.A. Unified, most auto training is available through adult school locations, where about 1,800 students are enrolled. At high schools, efforts are underway to link surviving auto tech classes with physics, algebra and geometry — all topics important to understanding the modern internal combustion engine. This linkage with such core subjects could preserve auto shop, because it can win state approval as part of a college-prep curriculum. An auto tech program at Belmont High is moving toward such certification. Last year, it enrolled 60 students who restored a 1960s Volkswagen Beetle, installing an electric engine, said Felipe Caceres, principal of Belmont High's SAGE Academy. With budgets still tight, school districts have relied on partnerships with private industry and community colleges, as well as bond issues. At the Morse ribbon-cutting in San Diego, officials thanked State Farm Insurance and other members of the Transportation Industry Advisory Board. Funding for the Morse facility came in part from a $1.5-billion bond issue approved by voters in 1998 for maintenance projects at 161 schools and construction of 12 new schools; a similar measure would raise $2.8 billion if passed in November. Morse and other auto shop programs aim to prepare students for immediate employment or an apprenticeship, or to provide the science instruction that will help those students heading to college. "It's not just a skill," said Shawn Loescher, director of college, career and technical education in the San Diego Unified School District. "It's a deep understanding of how things connect." Such connections are embodied in "common core" standards recently adopted by 45 states, including California. Students, for example, are supposed to apply their knowledge of history to an understanding of literature, or principles of music to math. Still, just like in the old days, the hands-on stuff can be the most engaging for many students. San Diego officials believe the return of auto shop and other practical vocational classes has helped cut the dropout rate, which now stands at 6%, the lowest of any big-city district in the state. Six of the district's auto shops focus on car maintenance and repair, while another — Morse — specializes in auto body repair, a demanding skill in the age of unibody construction. The programs are spread throughout the city, from Morse and Crawford on the eastern edge to Point Loma and La Jolla in the west, with Mira Mesa, Clairemont and Madison in between. The $3.7-million facility at Madison High opened two years ago. The floors are clean, the tools professional-quality. Cars are donated. Among other projects, students prepare for an annual competition sponsored by Hotrodders of America. Students have different motives for signing up for Omar Sevilla's class. Jeremy Ross, 17, plans to enlist in the Marines and work on tanks; Kioni Bishop, 17, and Carlie Brickley, 16, want to be able to repair their own cars; and William Codianne, 16, wants to attend a trade school and make auto repair a career. Sevilla teaches four auto-shop classes, about 140 students, including a dozen girls. "We're getting them ready for the real world," he said. TEACHERS UNION REFUSES TO SIGN OFF ON LAUSD PLAN FOR RACE TO THE TOP GRANT By Barbara Jones , Los Angeles Daily News Staff Writer | http://bit.ly/TNYhal Updated Saturday 10/27/2012 06:16:18 PM PDT :: The Los Angeles teachers union has refused to sign off on Los Angeles Unified's bid for a prestigious Race to the Top grant, costing the district a shot at winning $40 million in federal money, sources said Saturday. LAUSD had been negotiating for days with United Teachers Los Angeles, in the hope of gaining the endorsement it needed to submit the the Race to the Top application. Superintendent John Deasy had said he needed the application approved by Friday so there would be make revisions and overnight a finalized copy to the Department of Education in Washington, D.C., by Tuesday's deadline. Sources said talks broke off late Friday, and the district and union had no further contact on Saturday. Deasy and UTLA President Warren Fletcher could not immediately be reached for comment. This was the first time the Education Department had opened Race to the Top grants to individual districts, with a total of $400 million to be awarded. Deasy had said he considered the district's application to be very strong, and he had high hopes of winning one of the highly competitive grants. Sources said LAUSD's application targeted middle school students, with a multi-phased program to get and keep them on track for high school graduation. The proposal included hiring hundreds of teachers, counselors and social workers to step in and help underperforming students, sources said. It also included the resumption of summer school at the middle school level - courses that have been cancelled for the past several years because of the budget crisis. Money also would have been set aside to create clusters of small learning communities on high school campuses, sources said, an effort to boost graduation rates that have reached about 64 percent. There also would have been trips to college and university campuses in an effort to inspire students to continue their educations after getting their diplomas. Sources said the district's plan exceeded the grant total by about $3 million, but that money from private donors had already been raised to cover the additional costs. One requirement of the Race to the Top process is that districts include student test scores as a significant factor in teacher evaluations by the 2014-15 school year. That issue has long been a sticking point between LAUSD and its teachers union, with the two sides disagreeing over how to measure student success. Deasy supports a system uses classroom test scores and demographic data, a complex formula known as Academic Growth over Time. LAUSD is in the second year of a no-stakes pilot program that uses AGT to evaluate one teacher at each of the district's schools. UTLA maintains that the classroom scores are too volatile, and has expressed support for a schoolwide AGT model. In fact, the two sides have been trying to reach a compromise on a new evaluation system after a federal judge ruled said LAUSD had to start using student scores in job reviews in order to comply with the law. The district has declared an impasse in those talks, even as it tries to meet a Dec. 4 court-ordered deadline for creating a new evaluation system. In an effort to broker a deal on Race to the Top, sources said the district had proposed that nothing agreed to as part of the lawsuit would be binding on the application. However, that apparently didn't sway union leaders. ‘YES, YES’: IT’S A MESS ....BUT DON’T PUNISH KIDS Themes in the News by UCLA IDEA/Week of Oct. 22-26, 2012 | http://bit.ly/9k0ADx 10-26-2012 :: A majority of Californians support increased investment in public education, yet both statewide initiatives that would bring more money to public schools lag in the polls. How did California get in this mess? Earlier this year, at least three different political, ideological and educational “interests” were mobilizing for the ballot. Gov. Brown supported a measure recognizing that schools alone can’t address all the state’s health, welfare, and other supports California students require. Thus, money from his proposed measure would not be limited to k-12 schools, but could also lessen the impact of the state’s debt crisis on broad health, welfare and other education needs. The California Federation of Teachers and grassroots groups in the Restoring California Coalition favored, in particular, a “millionaires tax” that Brown initially found unacceptable. This group and Brown were able to achieve a compromise that would benefit students and not compete on the ballot. That compromise became Proposition 30, which would raise $6 billion annually for schools and other services. Molly Munger and the California PTA preferred a more restrictive approach—pretty much insisting that all the new monies go to schools and classrooms, pre-kindergarten to 12th grade. Unable or unwilling to compromise, Munger supported efforts to place her proposition on the ballot. These ideas are now found in Proposition 38, which would raise approximately $10 billion a year. However, as Election Day approaches and television and radio advertisements ramp up, separate polls have pointed to a dispiriting likelihood—neither 30 nor 38 may pass. Based on a telephone survey of 2,006 California adults, the Public Policy Institute of California found support for Proposition 30 dipping to 48 percent—a drop of 4 percentage points (EdSource Today, San Francisco Chronicle). Brown’s Proposition 30 would raise income taxes on higher-earners, along with a quarter-cent sales tax increase. The money would go towards public k-12 schools and community colleges. More importantly, the state budget is tied to this initiative. Should it fail, schools would automatically lose $5.4 billion, and the state’s public universities would also be forced to cut $250 million. Support for Proposition 38, which would use a sliding scale to increase income taxes, fell even more by 6 percentage points to 39 percent. A separate poll by USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times of 1,504 registered voters confirms those results. Forty-six percent of those surveyed support Proposition 30, while Proposition 38 has less than 30-percent approval (Los Angeles Times). It’s worth taking a closer look at those numbers and their breakdown. For Proposition 30, there are stark differences along party lines (65% of Democrats support, but only 19% of Republicans), and by race (54% of minorities support compared to 41% of whites). The youngest voters—those between 18 and 29 years old—were the most likely to indicate they would vote for Proposition 30. There were geographic differences as well with Bay Area residents expressing overwhelming support (63%) compared to tepid approval in the Central Valley (35%) and Southern California regions outside of Los Angles County (38%). One of the curiosities was that there was no real difference between households with children under the age of 18 and those without. Neither displayed majority support for the measure. Moving forward, one strategy both campaigns can employ is to focus on voter turnout and the groundswell of newly registered voters who are likely to come out during a presidential election. A second approach will be to target messages to sway voters on the margins. According to the USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll, 7 percent of likely voters expressed concerns (but not strong concerns) about Proposition 30—this group may well be open to persuasion. Many of these 7 percent are parents or grandparents of school-age children. A third approach will be for the 30 and 38 campaigns to switch gears in the final 10 days of the election. Rather than drawing distinctions between two visions for protecting California’s public schools, the campaigns can encourage all voters to check yes on both initiatives. Right now a quarter of Proposition 38 supporters indicate that they wouldn’t vote for Proposition 30. A full-throated endorsement of “Yes, Yes” might be what makes a difference in this election. An EdSource Infographic: COMPARING PROPOSITIONS 30 + 38: The Question Asked: Can I vote YES on Both? And Answered. YES! HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other Sources Prop 30 Vs. Prop 38: WHY TEACHERS AND PARENTS ARE DIVIDED: by Karla Robinson | Staff Reporter, Neon Tommy: the o... http://bit.ly/Rciczo PROPOSITION 30, 38: SCHOOL SUPPORTERS DUEL OVER TAX MEASURES; Voters have two approaches to weigh in deciding wh... http://bit.ly/XCqN4d Report: WEIGHTED STUDENT FORMULA ALONE NOT ENOUGH + Tipping the Scale Towards Equity: by John Fensterwald EdSour... http://bit.ly/RaX7p1 PROPOSITION 38 TRIES TO TURN A TAX LIABILITY INTO AN ASSET: By Jon Healey, LA Times Opinion LA | http://bit.ly/UQLRo0 CALIFORNIA’S EDUCATION (BUDGET) REFORM: “Change waits patiently in the voting booths…”: By Kaylee Hunt, [STUDENT JOURNALISM] ... http://bit.ly/RW0uls Free Money? LAUSD’s RACE TO THE TOP GRANT AWAITING ENDORSEMENT FROM UTLA: Los Angeles Daily News | By Barbara ... http://bit.ly/VQHsCV SCARE TACTICS – AND SCARY PROTESTS OVER PROP 30. AND SOME SCHOOL-BASED ADVOCACY MAY BE ILLEGAL.: By Kelly Puent... http://bit.ly/RaaYvU ‘YES, YES’: IT’S A MESS, BUT DON’T PUNISH KIDS: Themes in the News by UCLA IDEA/Week of Oct. 22-26, 2012 | ht... http://bit.ly/XxGxFA Proposition 3o: CAN’T CALIFORNIA DO BETTER?: By Peter Schrag| OpEd Special to The Secramento Bee | http://bit.ly/SIkkRc REED v. LAUSD SETTLEMENT VOIDED; TEACHER LAYOFF PROCESS TO GO TO TRIAL + UTLA STATEMENT: Howard Blume / LA Times... http://bit.ly/Xt7Elg Report: LAUSD MISSES MANDATED SPECIAL ED TARGETS, INDEPENDENT MONITOR REQUIRES CHARTER SCHOOL ACCOUNTABILIITY: B... http://bit.ly/SCbjsS BLAMING YOUR OWN TEAM: By Deborah Meier. Bridging Differences/Ed Week | http://bit.ly/RjjcW9 October 18, 2012 9... http://bit.ly/XqHsI3 RttT: L.A. SCHOOLS CHIEF URGES UNION COOPERATION ON FEDERAL FUNDS: Supt. John Deasy seeks teachers' backing on a... http://bit.ly/XpyI4J THE ‘60’s, redux: OHIO STUDENT PUNISHED FOR GROWING HIS HAIR FOR CHARITY, SCHOOL SAYS IT VIOLATES DRESS CODE: Bo... http://bit.ly/VIjDNA MORE THAN 2 DOZEN L.A. UNIFIED MAGNET SCHOOLS ARE UNDER-ENROLLED + smf’s 2¢: LAUSD magnet schools have long been... http://bit.ly/UvbZ7H Fact Check: MASSACHUSETTS SCHOOL TEST SCORES + smf’’s 2¢: Posted by Josh Hicks, Washington Post Campaign 2012 ... http://bit.ly/X5Klha ROMNEY'S 5 POINT PLAN: 1.Put rt. foot in. 2.Take rt. foot out. 3.Put rt. foot in. 4.Shake it all about. 5.Do the Hokie-Pokie #debate Who knew that Education Policy and Detroit Auto Makers are Foreign Policy? OK, Canada IS south of Detroit. We all[Heart]Teachers! #debate: Romney is describing Pakistan as "too scary to fail". An EdSource Infographic: COMPARING PROPOSITIONS 30 + 38: The Question Asked: Can I vote YES on Both? And Answ... http://bit.ly/UuisQt Deasy: TEACHERS DELAYING LAUSD BID FOR $40M IN FEDERAL GRANTS + smf’s 2¢: http://CBSLA.COM | CBS Los Angeles ... http://bit.ly/SiipCL 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. • FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 4LAKids makes such material available in an effort to advance understanding of education issues vital to parents, teachers, students and community members in a democracy. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. • To SUBSCRIBE e-mail: 4LAKids-subscribe@topica.email-publisher.com - or -TO ADD YOUR OR ANOTHER'S NAME TO THE 4LAKids SUBSCRIPTION LIST E-MAIL smfolsom@aol.com with "SUBSCRIBE" AS THE SUBJECT. Thank you.

The problem we all live with

4LAKids: Sunday 21•Oct•2012 In This Issue:  •  GATES FOUNDATION-FUNDED EDUCATION-REFORM GROUP TO CLOSE  •  Common Core (sub)Standards: FICTION vs. NONFICTION SMACKDOWN  •  Prop 39 Co-location Ruling by Court of Appeals: CHARTER SCHOOL NOT ENTITLED TO PICK+CHOOSE ITS LOCATION + smf’s 2¢  •  AALA LETTER TO THE SUPERINTENDENT & HIS REPLY  •  HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other Sources  •  EVENTS: Coming up next week...  •  What can YOU do? Featured Links:  •  OUR CHILDREN, OUR FUTURE: What will California schoolchildren, your school district and YOUR School get when the initiative passes?  •  Follow 4 LAKids on Twitter - or get instant updates via text message by texting  •  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. GEORGE McGOVERN  1922 - 2012 The presidential debates take up foreign policy on Monday evening, having avoided education policy successfully for about two hours and fifty-eight minutes of the prior three hours of debate. We know that Barack Obama evokes Ed. policy while dodging questions about gun laws – and apparently Mitt Romney likes Arne Duncan. Reasons enough to write-in Rocky and Bullwinkle on your sample ballot. 4LAKids – which is about public education in Los Angeles - has a foreign policy - as did+do Mayors Sam+ Tony - birds of similar feather in their befouled nest at City Hall. The story of Malala Yousufzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl who campaigned for the education of girls against the Taliban proscription – and who was shot and not quite killed for that advocacy (with the promise to keep trying until they get the job done right) - resonates in the chord/cord that connects my heart and mind and soul. http://bit.ly/T4DMWe To be a victim is not heroic – but this young woman was already a Hero. And if heroes must have a flaw it is this: She lives on planet earth where such evil is tolerated and promulgated by a few amongst us. “Ironic or Orwellian?: “Taliban” means “students” in Pashto. Public education lights a candle against the darkness of ignorance. "On January 6, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt set forth to Congress and the people 'four essential human freedoms' for which America stands. "In the years since then, those four freedoms: Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear - have stood as a summary of our aspirations for the American Republic and for the world. "And Americans have always stood ready to pay the cost in energy and treasure which are needed to make those goals a reality. "Today - wealthier, more powerful and more able than ever before in our history - our Nation can declare another essential freedom. "The Fifth Freedom is Freedom from Ignorance. “It means that every man, everywhere, should be free to develop his talents to their full potential - unhampered by arbitrary barriers of race or birth or income. We have already begun the work of guaranteeing that fifth freedom. "The job, of course, will never be finished. For a nation, as for an individual, education is a perpetually unfinished journey, a continuing process of discovery.” —LBJ, February 5 - Special Message to the Congress on Education, -- http://bit.ly/XCGNlS FDR was speaking to the world in his speech – the abstract made visual in Norman Rockwell’s illustrations | http://bit.ly/XCIvnj. LBJ was speaking to the nation – but it is time to embrace Freedom from Ignorance internationally and carve it in the stone alongside the other four. Rockwell even has an illustration: The Problem We All Live With - http://bit.ly/PhAy77 - which depicts Ruby Bridges, a six-year-old African-American girl, escorted by federal marshals to an all-white public school in New Orleans on November 14, 1960. The painting currently hangs outside the Oval Office. WHEN MEETING WITH IMPORTANT PEOPLE it is important to control the venue. I met with Steve Zimmer in an elevator – a small room with secure doors (guaranteeing audience captivity) at Beaudry last Wednesday, going from 1 to 24. Steve is on a mission, a seemingly-everywhere, an Energizer Bunny getting out the vote (GOTV) for the two school funding propositions on the Nov 6th ballot. | http://bit.ly/Vfwmlb. Steve had a new acronym for me: NYM – “Not Yet Mobilized” – critical of LAUSD’s not-very-committed-commitment-to GOTV. If both measures 30 + 38 fail, NYM can rank down there with DAMH – the Dog Ate My Homework! Buried two clicks into Maria Casilla’s LAUSD Parent Community Services Branch website is: “Below is the link provided for the Secretary of State’s website for individuals to register to vote”. And no mention of the funding initiatives, no attempt to educate parents. One hopes not too little/too late. To vote you must be eligible and register. • If you are ineligible find someone who is and SPREAD THE WORD. • If you are not registered: YOU HAVE ONE DAY LEFT. ______________ Monday is the last day to register to vote in the Nov. 6 election. Citizens 18 or older who are not registered or who have moved can pick up applications at many places throughout the state, including post offices, public libraries, Department of Motor Vehicle offices and county election headquarters. For the first time this year, signing up to vote may be done online by going to http://www.RegisterToVote.ca.gov. Mail ballots may be requested through Oct. 30. -- [http://lat.ms/ORw45O] - Cut+pasted from The Times, which may soon be purchased and published by Rupert Murdock, of Fox News, News of the World and Page Three Girls fame | http://lat.ms/T7kmod.* Zimmer’s not the only Energizer Bunny: Murdoch's made a speech to the G8 about Education [http://bit.ly/nd4Qq6], invested in Wireless Education [ http://bit.ly/q8khCt], picked up no-bid contracts to create test-score databases for NY State and NY City Schools [http://huff.to/qsyftd + http://wapo.st/oyVToJ] – and hired Joel Klien away from (Mayor) Michael Bloomberg (News) subsidiary, The New York City Department of Education. Supt Deasy writes elsewhere: “My entire focus is about helping the community understand the impact of both Prop 30 and 38.” That focus and urgency apparently hasn’t made it to the PCSB – and “community” is their second name! _____________ WEDNESDAY THE BOND OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE MET and had a major discussion on LAUSD’s effort to place and equip Parent Centers at all schools. The Inspector General presented a report on the efforts to date, future efforts contemplated, and what other districts and states have been doing: Best practices + Lessons Learned | http://t.co/NrCkb9i3. It became apparent that the District is committed to the capital improvement piece using bond money – but is not committed to funding training and staffing – in other words: Human Capital. Parent Centers become an unfunded mandate: “We will build them – but you should come up with the money to run them …but we won’t make you.” And there isn’t going to be enough money for nurses and librarians and supplies and staff and afterschool programs and art and music and cleaning and maintenance. So convert all those ‘and’s to ‘or’s and do your best as you pick+choose! The Building of Parent Centers is a legacy of Yolie Flores’ tenure on the Board of Ed. Yolie’s sponsorship of Public School Choice was a disastrous low point for the District; I like Yolie, I hate PSC. Much of that has been undone, more remains to be undone. Yolie must have been surprised by the greedy politics of PSC as school projects she nurtured in her district were given away as political favors against her, the superintendent’s, and the community’s wishes. And with no regard to the best interests of children. Do not doubt that Yolie was an enthusiastic supporter/true believer in the Gates/Broad/Villaraigosa/Garcia ®eform agenda …but never doubt Yolie believes first and foremost in children. I suspect that the political ugliness and the “Monica’s-way-or-the-Highway” leadership prompted Yolie to leave the board. Her legacy is the “Parents as Equal Partners in the Education of their Children” resolution, and the commitment to Parent and Family Centers at schools. The program has been implemented in slapdash style - with leadership outsourced, established parent groups tossed out in political coups, and no commitment to current (let alone ongoing) funding and support. This is unfortunate but correctable in next election cycle. Yolie left the board to form Communities for Teaching Excellence with funding from the Gates Foundation. Read Gates Foundation-funded Education-Reform Group to Close (below) to see how that turned out. IN ADELANTO, the adventure of The Parent Trigger continued as only 53 parents voted on behalf of the 697 students of Desert Trails Elementary as to what outside charter operator gets to take over their school. And like the feather in Yankee Doodle’s hat, they called it democracy | http://bit.ly/TAtaiy. Apparently having the parents and teachers form their own charter school wasn’t an option – it must be an outside operator. THE TRADITION OF USING "TERMS OF VENERY" or "nouns of assembly": Collective nouns that are specific to certain kinds of animals stems from a courtly English hunting tradition of the Middle Ages,. Hence a Covey of Quail, a Pride of Lions, a Cete of Badgers, and famously: an Exaltation of Larks. To this we can now add a Binder of Women. SO SCOTT …HOW’S THE RUN FOR SCHOOL BOARD GOING? I promise to keep my personal campaign out of 4LAKids as much as possible. I’m a Gemini – I should be able to maintain a duality without becoming duplicitous. There is another election coming up, two weeks from Tuesday; we need to stay focused on that. So Register by Tomorrow and Vote. Early and often. There was a Candidate Forum in Lincoln Heights Wednesday evening and six very engaged and engaging candidates showed up. The seventh candidate, incumbent Monica Garcia didn’t. She didn’t even bother to respond to the invitation A lively conversation with the community was had, good questions were asked and most were frankly and honestly answered – all except for “Where’s Monica?” The forum, sponsored by the District 2 Community Coalition, was held at a place called El ARCA (East Los Angeles Remarkable Citizens' Association), a community based, private non-profit that provides services and special programs to the developmentally disabled population of the community. 4LAKids will return and write more about this in the future. Monica did show up – albeit (and some would say disrespectfully) almost half-an-hour-late - for a thirty-minute candidate interview at the California School Employees Association (CSEA/classified employees) in Glendale on Thursday evening. I wasn’t in the room so I can’t report what she said. I was outside the room, it wasn’t necessary to put a glass against the door to hear – but… IN OTHER NEWS: • The Court of Appeals ruled that charter schools are not entitled to pick+choose their prop 39 co-location. • The Common Core Standards are not proving all that popular among Special Educators, English Teachers and Librarians. • The LA Times wants to publish more names and more test scores of more teachers. • And read the letter from AALA President Perez to Supt. Deasy. And his terse reply. Last week the water cooler rumor was nothing was happening at Beaudry that wasn’t about Tablets for Everyone. ¡Onward/Adelante! – smf *UPDATE: "Reports that News Corporation is in discussions with Tribune or the LA Times are wholly inaccurate" a News Corp spokesperson told the Hollywood Reporter on Saturday | http://bit.ly/XEaDGw ••smf: Murdoch owns FoxNews+the WSJ (which has been reporting this story) and he denies it to the Hollywood Reporter? GATES FOUNDATION-FUNDED EDUCATION-REFORM GROUP TO CLOSE COMMUNITIES FOR TEACHING EXCELLENCE, THE NATIONAL ORGANIZATION BASED IN L.A., PLANS TO CLOSE NEXT MONTH AFTER ITS BOARD VOTED TO SHUTTER IT AND THE GATES PHILANTHROPY ENDED FINANCIAL SUPPORT. By Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times | http://lat.ms/Rgm6Zs October 19, 2012 :: The Gates Foundation, the country's most influential education-policy organization, has quietly ended financial support for a national group formed to push for favored reforms, including an overhaul of teacher evaluations. Communities for Teaching Excellence, headed by former L.A. school board member Yolie Flores, is planning to close its doors next month. Although based in Los Angeles, the group had a presence in Hillsborough County, Fla.; Memphis, Tenn.; and in Pittsburgh — all locations where the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has funded the development of new teacher-evaluation systems. The group was formed in 2010 to influence public opinion and exert pressure on public officials to adopt sometimes controversial policies. Since then, a number of other groups have taken up a similar mission; Gates has helped fund some of those as well. When the organization started, Flores said, "there was not much going on in terms of advocacy. Fast forward three years, it's a pretty crowded space and it's a good thing." But Communities for Teaching Excellence was not hitting its marks in terms of generating press coverage and building community coalitions, said Amy Wilkins, chairwoman of the board of directors. She said the board voted to shutter the organization; the Seattle-based Gates Foundation agreed with the decision. "The field was more complex … and building these partnerships was more difficult than anybody had imagined," Wilkins said. "The inventors of this organization had envisioned more robust activity at the local level than we were achieving." Perceptions also were an issue: The group was depending on Gates for 75% of its budget. "Gates was such a big part of the funding," Wilkins said. "That made some of the partners and other funders nervous. How do you look like an independent actor? You have to show broad public support so you're not seen as a phony-baloney front for Gates. People criticized the organization for that and they didn't move closer to shaking that label." Wilkins praised Flores and her staff, but said that the "model" of a national advocacy organization wasn't working and that it made more sense for Gates to support local groups engaged in comparable work. (Wilkins also has ties to Gates funding as an official with Washington, D.C.-based Education Trust, for which the foundation has provided substantial support.) Flores' group brought together community organizations and activists in the different cities over issues including teacher tenure and seniority. Such a coalition kept pressure on the Los Angeles Unified School District to evaluate teachers on multiple measures, including students' standardized test scores. The district remains in negotiations with the teachers union over such an evaluation system. The group coordinated media campaigns and, at times, helped recruit a small army of parents who descended on school board meetings. Many of these parents were recruited from independently managed local charter schools, even though those campuses can enforce their own evaluation rules and were not directly affected. The group "was very effective at coalition building," said Ryan Smith, director of education, programs and policy for the United Way of Greater Los Angeles. "There's definitely a space that is still needed for that kind of work." Although Flores said test results are not the only way to gauge achievement, she said other options are not generally available and that such an objective measure has a necessary role in teacher reviews. Such positions prompted opposition from the teachers union in L.A. and others but have been supported by the Obama administration through grants and other incentives. Across the country, many school systems are revamping teacher evaluations as well as tenure and seniority rules. In the L.A. area, Gates has pledged $60 million to a consortium of charter-school groups for new teacher evaluations. The grants for other regions totaled $230 million. In Hillsborough County this year, new bonuses will be paid to teachers who raise the achievement of low-performing students. In Memphis, for the first time, student improvement on test scores makes up 35% of a teacher's evaluation. Pittsburgh will add such measures next year. Flores, 49, became the founding director of Communities for Teaching Excellence after a frequently stormy, four-year tenure on the L.A. Board of Education. Flores was frequently criticized by the teachers union and hailed by charter-school advocates and L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, among others. Her policy initiatives included a plan to allow charter schools and other groups to bid for control of new and low-performing campuses. Common Core (sub)Standards: FICTION vs. NONFICTION SMACKDOWN Jay Mathews: Columnist, The Washington Post | http://wapo.st/Ua4z9S October 17, 2012 :: There is no more troubling fact about U.S. education than this: The reading scores of 17-year-olds have shown no significant improvement since 1980. The new Common Core State Standards in 46 states and the District are designed to solve that problem. Among other things, students are being asked to read more nonfiction, considered by many experts to be the key to success in college or the workplace. The Common Core standards are one of our hottest trends. Virginia declined to participate but was ignored in the rush of good feeling about the new reform. Now, the period of happy news conferences is over, and teachers have to make big changes. That never goes well. Expect battles, particularly in this educationally hypersensitive region. Teaching more nonfiction will be a key issue. Many English teachers don’t think it will do any good. Even if it were a good idea, they say, those who have to make the change have not had enough training to succeed — an old story in school reform. The clash of views is well described by two prominent scholars for the Pioneer Institute, a Boston-based public policy group, in a new paper. (Executive Summary + link follows) Sandra Stotsky of the University of Arkansas and Mark Bauerlein of Emory University say the reformers who wrote the Common Core standards have no data to support their argument that kids have been hurt by reading too much fiction. They say analyzing great literature would give students all the critical thinking skills they need. The problem, they say, is not the lack of nonfiction but the dumbed-down fiction that has been assigned in recent decades. “Problems in college readiness stem from an incoherent, less-challenging literature curriculum from the 1960s onward,” Bauerlein and Stotsky say. “Until that time, a literature-heavy English curriculum was understood as precisely the kind of pre-college training students needed.” The standards were inspired, in part, by a movement to improve children’s reading abilities by replacing standard elementary school pabulum with a rich diet of history, geography, science and the arts. University of Virginia scholar E.D. Hirsch Jr. has written several books on this. He established the Core Knowledge Foundation in Charlottesville to support schools that want their third-graders studying ancient Rome and their fourth-graders listening to Handel. Robert Pondiscio, a former fifth-grade teacher who is vice president of the foundation, quotes a key part of the Common Core standards making this case: “By reading texts in history/social studies, science, and other disciplines, students build a foundation of knowledge in these fields that will also give them the background to be better readers in all content areas. Students can only gain this foundation when the curriculum is intentionally and coherently structured to develop rich content knowledge within and across grades.” The Common Core guidelines recommend fourth-graders get an equal amount of fiction and nonfiction. Eighth-grade reading should be about 55 percent nonfiction, going to a recommended 70 percent by 12th grade. Bauerlein and Stotsky say that could hurt college readiness. The new standards and associated tests, they say, will make “English teachers responsible for informational reading instruction, something they have not been trained for, and will not be trained for unless the entire undergraduate English major as well as preparatory programs in English education in education schools are changed.” Pondiscio says he admires Bauerlein and Stotsky and doesn’t see why English classes have to carry the nonfiction weight. Social studies and science courses can do that. The real battle, he says, will be in the elementary schools, where lesson plans have failed to provide the vocabulary, background knowledge and context that make good readers. Those who want the new standards say learning to read is more than just acquiring a skill, like bike riding. It is absorbing an entire world. That is what the fight in your local district will be about. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY | How Common Core’s English Language Arts Standards Place College Readiness at Risk A Pioneer Institute White Paper by Mark Bauerlein and Sandra Stotsky The aim of this paper is to convince state and local education policy makers to do two things: • To emphasize Common Core’s existing literary-historical standards, requiring English departments and English teachers to begin with them as they redesign their secondary English curricula. • To add and prioritize a new literary-historical standard of their own along the lines of “Demonstrate knowledge of culturally important authors and/or texts in British literature from the Renaissance to Modernism.” Far from contradicting Common Core, these actions follow its injunction that, apart from “certain critical content for all students, including: classic myths and stories from around the world, America’s Founding Documents, foundational American literature, and Shakespeare . . . the remaining crucial decisions about what content should be taught are left to state and local determination.” In other words, Common Core asks state and local officials to supplement its requirements with their own. It also expects them to help students “systematically acquire knowledge in literature.” This paper explains why the two priorities spelled out above are necessary if we seek to use the English curriculum to increase college readiness and the capacity for analytical thinking in all students. The paper begins by explaining why college readiness will likely decrease when the secondary English curriculum prioritizes literary nonfiction or informational reading and reduces the study of complex literary texts and literary traditions. It then shows that Common Core’s division of its reading standards is unwarranted. Common Core itself provides no evidence to support its promise that more literary nonfiction or informational reading in the English class will make all students ready for college-level coursework. In addition, NAEP’s reading frameworks, invoked by Common Core itself, provide no support for Common Core’s division of its reading standards into ten for information and nine for literature at all grade levels. Nor do they provide a research base for the percentages NAEP uses for its reading tests. Common Core’s architects have inaccurately and without warrant applied NAEP percentages for passage types on its reading tests to the English and reading curriculum, misleading teachers, administrators, and test developers alike. The paper proceeds with a detailed description of what is present and what is missing in Common Core’s literature standards. The deficiencies in Common Core’s literature standards and its misplaced stress on literary nonfiction or informational reading in the English class reflect the limited expertise of Common Core’s architects and sponsoring organizations. Its secondary English language arts standards were not developed or approved by English teachers and humanities scholars, nor were they research-based or internationally benchmarked. We conclude by showing how NAEP’s criteria for passage selection can guide construction of state-specific tests to ensure that all students, not just an elite, study a meaningful range of culturally and historically significant literary works in high school. Such tests can promote classroom efforts to develop in all students the background knowledge and quality of analytical thinking that authentic college coursework requires. Common Core believes that more informational readings in high school will improve college readiness, apparently on the sole basis that students in college read mostly informational texts, not literary ones. We know of no research, however, to support that faith. Rather, the history of college readiness in the 20th century suggests that problems in college readiness stem from an incoherent, less-challenging literature curriculum from the 1960s onward. Until that time, a literature-heavy English curriculum was understood as precisely the kind of pre-college training students needed. The chief problem with a 50/50 division of reading instructional goals in English language arts is its lack of an empirical rationale. NAEP’s division of passage types is based on “estimates” of the kinds of reading students do in and outside of school. NAEP expressly denies that its grade 12 reading tests assess the English curriculum, especially since it has (deliberately) never assessed drama. Moreover, the 50/50 division in grades 6-12 makes English teachers responsible for informational reading instruction, something they have not been trained for, and will not be trained for unless the entire undergraduate English major as well as preparatory programs in English education in education schools are changed. State law typically specifies only that state tests must be based on state standards. Since most states have adopted Common Core’s ELA standards as their state standards, and Common Core’s College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Reading are mainly generic reading skills, states can generate state-specific guidelines for a secondary literature curriculum addressing what we recommend above without conflicting with any of Common Core’s ELA standards. Otherwise, state and local policy makers will see the very problems in reading that Common Core aimed to remedy worsen. The achievement gap will persist or widen; while high-achieving students in academically-oriented private and suburban schools may receive rich literary-historical instruction, students in the bottom two-thirds of our student population with respect to achievement, especially those in low-performing schools, will receive non-cumulative, watery training in mere reading comprehension. click here for full report Prop 39 Co-location Ruling by Court of Appeals: CHARTER SCHOOL NOT ENTITLED TO PICK+CHOOSE ITS LOCATION + smf’s 2¢ COURT SAYS LAUSD OFFER OF FACILITIES AT BELMONT H.S. WAS ADEQUATE By a MetNews Staff Writer, Metropolitan News-Enterprise | http://bit.ly/RqdM8C Friday, October 12, 2012 :: The Los Angeles Unified School District did not violate the charter schools initiative by offering to locate a charter school in adjoining classrooms at Belmont High School, contrary to the wishes of the charter school’s directors, this district’s Court of Appeal ruled. While officials of Los Angeles International Charter High School preferred to be located at Franklin High School, Justice Richard Aldrich wrote for Div. Three, nothing in Proposition 39 requires the school district to accommodate that desire. The initiative—adopted in 1992 and officially titled the Charter Schools Act—generally requires that school districts make facilities available to charter schools so that all public school students, whether in traditional or charter schools, attend school in substantially equivalent physical surroundings. LAICHS, founded in 2005, is located in the Hermon area between Highland Park and Eagle Rock, not far from Franklin H.S. The school presently has a lease through 2020, but has expressed concern about meeting its rent, Aldrich explained. It requested facilities assistance from LAUSD under Proposition 39 for school year 2010-11, but said it did not wish to move from the area where it is now situated. Petition for Mandate After LAUSD concluded it could not assist the school, LAICHS filed a petition for writ of mandate and request for money damages. A Los Angeles Superior Court judge granted relief in the form of an order requiring the district to “make an offer of facilities to [LAICHS] for the 2010-2011 school year sufficient to accommodate all of [LAICHS’] 157 in-district students in conditions reasonably equivalent to those in which the students would be accommodated if they were attending other public schools in the district.” The district then offered to locate the students in eight adjoining classrooms at Belmont. The LAICHS then returned to court, arguing that the district did not comply with the writ because the evidence did not support the decision to locate the school at Belmont. Following a hearing, Judge Ann I. Jones ruled that the district’s offer to locate the school at Belmont complied with the charter schools legislation and with the writ, which she ordered discharged. ‘Uncontroverted’ Evidence In concluding the judge did not err, Aldrich agreed that there was “uncontroverted” evidence the school could not be accommodated at Franklin, as it wished, and that Belmont was the best option in the northeast area because of the availability of adjacent classrooms, access to shared facilities, and the amount of money the district was putting into upgrades at the campus. By contrast, the justice noted, placing the school at Franklin would have required spreading the students out and/or shifting Franklin students and teachers and altering schedules in mid-year. The “essence” of the charter school’s argument, Aldrich elaborated, was that LAUSD “abused its discretion by not offering facilities at Franklin High School, the school most of LAICHS’ in-district students would attend were they not in a charter school.” But the act, he noted, only requires that facilities be shared “fairly” and located reasonably near to the school’s desired location. In concluding that the Belmont offer met that standard, Aldrich wrote: “Belmont is located in Local District 4, just as Franklin High School is. Belmont lies only three miles outside the geographic area identified by LAICHS in its facilities application. Belmont is closer to the geographic area LAICHS desired than Wilson High School, another comparison school, and Marshall High School, one of the schools LAICHS named as an alternative. Meanwhile, all of the high schools in the comparison group, or in Local Districts 4 and 5 near LAICHS’ requested area, were operating at or above capacity. Only Belmont met all of the Proposition 39 factors.” In addition, he said, given the extent of the potential disruption of school life at Franklin, the district would actually be giving the charter school favorable, rather than equal, treatment if it acceded to its wishes. Attorneys on appeal were Gregory V. Moser, Kendra J. Hall and John C. Lemmo of Procopio, Cory, Hargreaves & Savitch for the plaintiff and David R. Holmquist, Mark Fall, and Nathan A. Reierson of LAUSD and Gregory G. Luke, Beverly Grossman Palmer and Byron F. Kahr of Strumwasser & Woocher for the district. ••smf’s 2¢ -- smf full disclosure: I went out of my way as a community member, Neighborhood Council Education chairperson and later President , supporter of public education and Bond Oversight Committee member arrange for Los Angeles International Charter High School’s (LAICHS) current location at a then vacant Christian school campus in Hermon. I supported their cause; I helped sponsor their fundraising, • I find LAICHS’ directors efforts to relocate – to find a cheaper location at the expense of the taxpayers and school district - an egregious breech of faith with our community. • I spoke at the Board of Education to oppose LAICHS’s charter being revoked when their directors had a financial hiccup - because I believed the school was a community asset. No good deeds go unpunished. I find LAICHS continuing attempt to secure a Prop 39 co-location – free rent - and instance upon co-locating on their own terms – a personal affront. And hopefully the ruling of the court sets precedent on charter operator’s abuse of co-location provisions in Prop 39. AALA LETTER TO THE SUPERINTENDENT & HIS REPLY From the Associated Administers of Los Angeles Weekly Update of Week of October 22, 2012 | http://bit.ly/SaRiLF As a follow-up to the resolution regarding AALA members’ working conditions that was passed at the Representative Assembly meeting on October 4, 2012, Dr. Judith Perez, AALA President, sent the following letter to the Superintendent, Dr. John Deasy, on Wednesday, October 17, 2012. The purpose of this letter is to ask you once again to address AALA's concerns regarding the impossible workload of school site administrators. Our members are so overwhelmed by the extra demands mandated by the District that they do not have time to fulfill their primary responsibilities, to ensure school safety and focus on instructional improvement. Their stress levels are so high that their health is being affected. You will recall that we raised these concerns during AALA-LAUSD negotiations, in regular meetings with you and the two Deputy Superintendents and at the Board meeting of October 9, 2012. We have made numerous recommendations regarding ways to alleviate our members' workload. On October l, you indicated during negotiations that you would respond to us shortly regarding these ideas. Yet we have heard nothing from you or your bargaining team. Subsequently, a small group of elementary principals scheduled a meeting at AALA after work hours to discuss their working conditions in depth. To our surprise, 25 frustrated principals, representing several ESCs, attended. On October 4, AALA's Representative Assembly unanimously passed a resolution (attached) recommending specific changes to District priorities. Given these facts, you will understand our disappointment yesterday when John Bowes informed us that you would have no response to our recommendations for reducing administrators' workload until sometime next month, thus forcing us to cancel negotiations previously scheduled for today. Despite the fact that not a single senior staff member has challenged AALA's assessment of our members' working conditions, we find it incredible that our concerns have been pushed to the back burner. This disregard for the working conditions of school leaders reflects a lack of respect for administrators who are holding this District together. We urge you to address our concerns now. DR. DEASY’S RESPONSE Dr. Deasy responded to Dr. Perez’ letter in little more than an hour. Below is an exact copy of the response sent via his iPhone: The actual future of this district is the number one priority of my office at moment. In care (sic) you are not aware we have the most critical election which will determine the very future of our survival in less than 3 weeks. My entire focus is about helping the community understand the impact of both Prop 30 and 38 HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other Sources Steve Lopez: DON’T DEMONIZE TEACHERS BECAUSE OF PENSION SYSTEM’S FAULTS: Yes, public pensions got out of hand. But teachers aren't the biggest culprits, nor are they why California has some of the nation's most shamefully underfunded schools. | http://bit.ly/WVqOzT National School Lunch Week: MOST STUDENTS GIVE MORE HEALTHFUL STATE SCHOOL MENUS THUMBS UP: By Marisa Gerber, Lo... http://bit.ly/VqUV4a Expand FEDERAL MANDATES ON LOCAL EDUCATION: COSTS + CONSEQUENCES – Yes, it’s a Race, but is it in the Right Direction?:... http://bit.ly/WTv8iZ DEVASTATING BUDGET CUTS TEAR A BIG HOLE IN STATE’S CHILD CARE NET: By Kimberly Beltran | SI&A Cabinet Report | h... http://bit.ly/RhhVwt JOHN GREENWOOD DIES AT 67, FORMER LAUSD BOARD MEMBER: John Greenwood, a moderate, opposed court-ordered mandator... http://bit.ly/Ul4gsW ‘CHOICES’ OPENS NEW DOORS FOR STUDENTS AT FAILING LAUSD SCHOOLS: By Barbara Jones, Staff Writer, LA Daily News |... http://bit.ly/WSj1ml TAILORING THE TESTS TO SPECIAL NEEDS: QUESTIONS RAISED ABOUT ADAPTIVE ASSESSMENTS …and feedback from an LAUSD sp... http://bit.ly/QxVnpM Where’s Monica? SUCCESSFUL 1st CANDIDATE FORUM IN LINCOLN HEIGHTS: District 2 Neighborhood Coalition | http://bi... http://bit.ly/Uau0bw According to the web there are 2301 people named Mónica Garcia in the U.S. None of them showed up @ the LAUSD District 2 Debate last night. Common Core (sub)Standards: FICTION vs. FICTION SMACKDOWN: Jay Mathews: Columnist, The Washington Post... http://bit.ly/R3ExAl Here they go again: L.A. TIMES SUES LAUSD FOR INFO ON TEACHERS: smf’s 2¢: The Times’ previous “Value Addled” eff... http://bit.ly/RH34e2 TONIGHT: LAUSD SCHOOL BOARD SEAT 2 CANDIDATE FORUM: Wed, Oct 17, 6:00pm - 8:30pm El ARCA - 3839 Selig Place Lin... http://bit.ly/XnDWNy Data or Reason?: THE POLITICS OF COMMON SENSE: In evaluating the candidates' (…or Fox News’ …or MSNBC’s …or the... http://bit.ly/V5TDeS REPUBLICANS FOR ‘SESAME STREET’: It's possible to support Mitt Romney and Big Bird too.: Op-Ed in the LA Times b... http://bit.ly/WupUdv 320 STUDENTS ABSENT AMID NOROVIRUS OUTBREAK AT CALIF. SCHOOL [in Thousand Oaks]: Students at Medea Creek Middle ... http://bit.ly/QmOuYc OMG! How do I Vote on Proposition B?: A PROPOSITION PARTY: Not THAT Proposition B! So smf is driving through... http://bit.ly/Qk6suf LAUSD Inspector General’s Audit Report: PROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF PARENT CENTERS: to be presented and discussed at... http://bit.ly/XeBIzY SUPPORT SLIPS FOR TAX MEASURES; SEPTEMBER REVENUES MIXED: State PTA president suggests that the governor and Mun... http://bit.ly/XeeIBg DISPROPORTIONALITY IN SPECIAL ED POSES NEW FEDERAL HAZARD TO DISTRICTS: By Tom Chorneau, SI&A Cabinet Report | h... http://bit.ly/RtLjyJ CONTRARY TO COMMON WISDOM, NOTHING IS ‘AWAY’ FROM THE CLASSROOM: By Seth Rosenblatt | EdSource Today | http://bi... http://bit.ly/QIvN2p ADVICE FOR PARENTS WHO WANT TO BE PARTNERS IN THEIR KID’S EDUCATION: By Sam Macer, Special to CNN | http://bit.l... http://bit.ly/QimuVu This year’s Nobel Prize in Economics: STABLE ALLOCATION, MARKET DESIGN AND ‘SCHOOL CHOICE’ + smf’s 2¢: by smf/4L... http://bit.ly/TU8lEi TRANSFORMING OUR SCHOOLS + WANT TO RUIN TEACHING? GIVE RATINGS: Transforming our Schools: Readers react to a st... http://bit.ly/TU8iZ4 NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND LOSING RELEVANCY?: By FERMIN LEAL / THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER |http://bit.ly/Wb2J9p Publi... http://bit.ly/TRB1O7 Prop 39 Co-location Ruling by Court of Appeals: CHARTER SCHOOL NOT ENTITLED TO CHOOSE ITS LOCATION + smf’s 2¢: ... http://bit.ly/WlYNRP 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. 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