Sunday, June 24, 2012

Beyond Beaudry.


Onward! 4LAKids
4LAKids: Sunday 24•July•2012
In This Issue:
 •  16 LAUSD SCHOOLS TO LOSE $60 MILLION IN STUDENT-ACHIEVEMENT FUNDS FOR FAILING TO MEET STANDARDS + smf (+other)’s 2¢
 •  SOME CUTS, SOME CASH IN BUDGET DEAL: No change in grade point eligibility for Cal Grant
 •  BUDGET CUTS DIMINISH EVALUATIONS OF TEACHER PREP PROGRAMS
 •  CONGRATULATIONS CLASS OF 2012!
 •  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.
On Thursday at noon they had a block party at Beaudry. Closed down a street – set up a stage – brought in some food trucks – bands of student musicians played.

It was good to see those one normally sees indoors in their cubicles and offices out in the clear – and disinfecting – sunshine of the light of day. I was great to witness the talent of the young people.

It wasn’t a union rally or an angry protest; no sports team had won a championship. It was a glorious Thursday afternoon in June. . School’s Out for Summer. And for some: the recently graduated, retired – or terminally RIFed – Forever.

It was Beyond the Bell’s celebration of itself and of LAUSD’s afterschool programs – and a fine time was had by all.

BtB is the brainchild and legacy of John Liecthy: The Man who Understood Middle Schoolers.

When John died far too soon they named a Middle School after him. In Britain they call vacuum cleaners “Hoovers”; when one vacuums one “hoovers” the rug. The noun and the verb. John was like that about middle schools and afterschool programs. Oh sure, John was irascible and a troublemaker. Bit of a loose cannon. Like those are bad things!

Never mind that Deasy&Co. plan to pull the plug on BtB afterschool programs – and padlock the playgrounds ten minutes after the last bell next year. 14,000+ K-8 kids will be affected at 85 campuses – sent home or out onto the streets at the end of the school day as LAUSD zeroes out afterschool programs. Flatline. BEEEEeeeep…..

Sure, some children will go to the library or the park or to little league practice. Some parents and boosters and PTAs and philanthropists will buy or sponsor afterschool programs at some schools. Some kids will be served. Some kids will be saved. Some kids will be safe.

“Kasserian ingera” is the traditional greeting between in the Masai people of the Serengeti Plain: “How are the children?”

“Sapati ingera”: “All the children are well,” is the traditional reply. All.

Thursday afternoon bands played and the sun shone and guys in taco trucks with high school diplomas sold a buck-and-a-quarter’s worth of beans and rice and sliced sausage to Master’s Degrees and Ph.D’s for $10. And nobody cared. The cupcakes were to die for. Never mind they cost $4. It hardly seemed like a wake at all.


THURSDAY EVENING SOME OF THE MEMBERS OF THE LAUSD BUILDING TRADES – the carpenters and painters and plumbers – the Maintenance+Operations folk who fix and repair stuff - who answer trouble calls and keep kids safe at a thousand schools spread out over 710 square miles - met in the Valley. Their RIF’s haven’t been rescinded. [Deasy kinda/sorta/waffly addressed this in an interview on Wednesday [http://bit.ly/MDLQw7] Tradespeople will have their RIFs rescinded based on seniority and the ability/willingness to “repurpose work”. M+O workers are seeing their jobs farmed and contracted out – their work “repurposed” – sometimes to members of different crafts or to other locals in their same unions. Divide and conquer/RIF and outsource. Their business agents don’t see the problem: union guys are getting the jobs. But their families and kids do …because they don’t have jobs.

They are told by the District that if the Governor’s Tax Plan doesn’t pass it will get worse (more RIFs/more furlough days) …while the teachers are promised that if the Governor’s Plan passes it will get better (RIF’s rescinded/less furlough days). Read that again. The difference in the language is slight …but insidious.


FRIDAY MORNING THERE WAS A PRESS CONFERENCE/PHOTO OP at Dahlia Heights Elementary School in Eagle Rock to try and save the Beyond the Bell Afterschool Program there and throughout LAUSD. http://t.co/0KPVykDL | http://bit.ly/Mq4BWv School Boardmemeber Kayser was there. Jackie Goldberg. Community activists. Representatives of LA’s BEST from the mayor’s office. Concerned policemen. Worried parents. PTA moms+dads. Sweet Alice Harris from Watts. Kids. Babies. The media. Educators and scholars downloaded data to prove the point everyone knows anecdotally already: Children need afterschool programs to be safe, to learn, to succeed, to grow and to play – because Play is the Work of Children.

As our friend the school policeman pointed out: “The gangs aren’t cutting back on their programs!”

Back on February 14th – on the day of the infamous Valentines Day Budget Massacre and before the “cone of silence” descended - Alvaro Cortes, executive director of Beyond the Bell, said in an interview with Ed Week [http://bit.ly/L5F95M ] the cuts to the after-school programs would be disastrous for students and their parents, leaving many without a place to go from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.
"I understand this is a horrific state of finances for all of our schools, but we have to decide what are the most essential programs and basic necessities for our students [when making budget cuts]," said Cortes. "I happen to think before-school and after-school care, providing a nurturing environment for our kids from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., is a basic necessity for our kids and something we owe their parents to provide."

Beyond the Bell’s afterschool program is being zeroed out, but Teacher Assessment and Evaluation, Value added and the ®eform, Inc. agenda are being obsessively pursued big time. ”I don’t think so but…” Jackie Goldberg said. “...perhaps those are good ideas. But we know that afterschool programs are a great idea that works. You don’t abandon successful ideas to try new ideas …especially not now when the money is scarce!”

A parent likened the situation to a very Grimm Fairy Tale: Things are going from bad to worse and the adults are dumping the kids onto the streets – into the very dark forest where we all know the wolves are. At Dahlia Heights we promised the kids that scary story won’t end that way. Now we and they need all of you – including you Dr. Deasy – to keep the promise every parent makes to every child: “You will be safe”.

IN THE CURRENT BEAUDRY REGIME LAUSD STAFF IS DISCOURAGED from speaking up and speaking against the current direction – discouraged even from speaking to school board members - whether in defense of programs or in questioning “what’s best for kids” – an attitude that might be looked upon by the Powers-that-Be as disloyalty to the Powers-that-Be.

In the Restructuring/Reconstitution/Privatization troublemakers need not reapply.

Educators are an opinionated bunch and thrive on sharing their opinions. The pervasive uncharacteristic silence by staff doesn’t signify lockstep wholesale agreement …. If they agreed they’d say so. It is evidence of something darker going on. There is a palpable culture of fear at Beaudry and at what’s left of the local districts and at the school sites. Employee morale is as low as it goes. Jobs and futures are at stake. The economy is in shambles. Big Brother is watching.

To paraphrase Pastor Martin Niemöller: “First they came for Adult Ed….” So it is and was and must not forever be.

There are exceptions. The school policeman – and president of the school police officers union – said he would’ve supported eleven days of furlough if that would’ve guaranteed that afterschool programs continued. I can’t speak for the guys in the building trades – but I suspect they would agree …IF the deal negotiations were open, honest and transparent.

IN OTHER NEWS: •California really doesn’t have a budget, it has a budget document and deal with the governor – whom it turns out – like his predecessor - has never seen a charter school he didn’t like. And none of it solves anything …until November – when everything changes, either for the bad …or for the worse. •A government study shows that charter schools aren’t serving special needs students. All together: Duh! •Autism help for Latino parents is insufficient. •Eliminating 52% of Adult Ed “saves” it – as does closing 20 Early Ed Centers. (‘Decimate’ only means eliminating 10%!) •The Brown Initiative - which adds no new funding stream to education – but does shore it and every other program at Sacramento’s whim up - and the PTA/Munger Initiative– which does bring about $10 billion in new funding (protected from Sacramento) to public education will be on the November ballot – along with 9 other initiatives. •Duffy is lonely. •And I’m not running the story of how some Eagle rock parents are suing LAUSD because their straight A child (who got a full ride to Stanford) didn’t get to be valedictorian.

In Philadelphia they convicted the monsignor of child endangerment. Not for what he did to children - but for what he didn’t do for children

School’s out. Please, let’s be extra careful out there.

¡Onward/Adelante! - smf


16 LAUSD SCHOOLS TO LOSE $60 MILLION IN STUDENT-ACHIEVEMENT FUNDS FOR FAILING TO MEET STANDARDS + smf (+other)’s 2¢
• 3 out of 4 middle schools cut from QEIA are in the mayor’s partnership.
• 85 LAUSD schools met the goals

By Barbara Jones, Staff Writer | LA Daily News http://bit.ly/Mg6YMr

6/22/2012 07:24:44 PM PDT :: Sixteen struggling Los Angeles Unified schools will lose nearly $60 million from a state program designed to boost student achievement after they fell short in raising scores on standardized tests, according to officials.

The district campuses are among roughly 130 statewide that will be dropped July 1 for failing to meet requirements of California's Quality Education Investment Act. With a fund of $2.7 billion, QEIA is designed to help nearly 500 California schools shrink class size and improve teaching staff as a way to raise test scores.

With the state mired in a financial crisis that has slashed public school funding, QEIA has been viewed as a godsend by districts trying to improve student reading and math skills and raise graduation rates. Without the state windfall to hire and train more teachers, officials say, the schools will have to find the money elsewhere or simply do without.

"It's devastating to a school," said Bo Vitolo, who oversees QEIA programs throughout Southern California for the Los Angeles County Office of Education. "In this fiscal climate, it's really a challenge."

QEIA (which most officials pronounce KEE-ah) was created in 2006 to settle a legal battle between the California Teachers Association and then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, after he suspended funding for public schools.

A total of 488 California schools were selected to participate, including about 100 in Los Angeles Unified. The schools all scored in the lowest 20 percent on the state's Academic Performance Index test, and most are in poor and predominantly Latino neighborhoods.
QEIA: Who gets the money?
The 2006 Quality Education Investment Act provides $2.7 billion to participating schools that meet seven benchmarks designed to improve student achievement. They are:

-- Class-size reduction (20:1 in grades K-3; 27:1 in core classes in grades 4-12)
-- High school student to counselor ratio of 300:1.
-- Core classes taught by "highly qualified teachers," as defined by the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
-- Meet district targets for experienced teachers.
-- Ensure students have sufficient instructional materials and that schools are clean and safe.
-- One-third of teachers must participate in professional development.
-- Exceed API growth target, averaged over three years.

Source: California Department of Education.

Schools get money based on enrollment -- $500 for each student in kindergarten through third grade, $900 for grades 4-8 and $1,000 for each high schooler.

QEIA schools got three years to phase in seven performance benchmarks, which had to be fully implemented in 2010-11.

The student-teacher ratio for K-3 classes can be no larger than 20 to 1, for instance, although the district norm is 24 to 1. High schools must have a counselor for every 300 students, a ratio that may be as high as 600 to 1 at the average campus.

The most critical mandate requires schools to exceed their API growth target, based on a three-year average of its scores.

Three LAUSD high schools -- Jordan, Fremont and Manual Arts -- lost their funds in 2011-12, despite a three-year QEIA investment totaling $22 million.

Seven other high schools, along with four middle and five elementary schools will be terminated in 2012-13 for missing their API targets.

Those 16 schools received a total of $20 million for the current fiscal year. Had they been able to continue in the program through 2014-15, when QEIA is now set to expire, they would have raked in some $60 million.

Three of the middle schools on the list -- Carver, Gompers and Stevenson Middle schools -- are among those taken over by the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, a reform movement organized by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Together, the three campuses received about $4.3 million this year. The loss to Stevenson was especially difficult since the school missed its API target by just one point.

"The schools were underserved and underperforming when we took over," said Marshall Tuck, the partnership's CEO. "We put in strong leadership, but we just couldn't move fast enough. It's absolutely heartbreaking."

LAUSD has 85 schools remaining in QEIA, including 14 in the San Fernando Valley. Among the noteworthy schools is Napa Elementary in Northridge, which raised 2011 API score by 130 points, the third-biggest jump in the district.

"It's important to say there has been some pretty magnificent improvement in some of our schools," said Donna Muncey, chief of LAUSD's Division of Intensive Support and Intervention.

Given the mixed results at QEIA schools, the state teachers union has hired an outside consultant to study the role of smaller class size and other factors on student achievement.

"We want to look at success beyond the test scores, at what is making a school successful," said CTA Vice President Eric Heins. "It's all part of a puzzle that fits together -- the teachers, the school administrator, the buy-in of parents and staff."

Ironically, QEIA was authored by Tom Torlakson, a former state senator who is now the superintendent of public instruction. His agency is now responsible for administering the law, which was passed in 2006, before the recession.

QEIA mandates that money taken from schools dropped from the program be used to help the others survive. While the law says schools can receive an annual cost-of-living increase, officials say the state's financial problems make that impossible. It's more likely, they say, that QEIA will simply be extended until the original $2.7 billion allocation is exhausted.

Local schools say they'd benefit more now from the additional state money -- especially with Gov. Jerry Brown threatening more budget cuts if voters reject his tax hike on the November ballot.

Reducing class size, especially in grades K-3, is becoming increasingly difficult and will be the next crisis facing QEIA schools, county and district officials say.

Deb Ernst, who oversees QEIA for LAUSD, said the program provides an additional incentive for polishing efforts that were already under way.

"There are many good things happening -- not just class size," she said. "There are many things that have to work together, that a dedicated principal has to do to leverage true increases in student achievement. QEIA doesn't hurt, but it isn't the primary lever."


••smf’s 2¢: The good news is that 85 LAUSD schools in QEIA DID meet the goals and did make a difference in the lives of students by investing the QEIA money well. The maybe even better news is that QEIA relies on class-size reduction to work – so now the data-driven and research-based can conclude that CSR is successful in LAUSD 85% of the time. Or they can ignore the evidence that doesn't support their agenda.

••2¢ more: Former boardmember David Tokofsky writes to 4LAKids:

Today's Daily News Front Page tells a lot but misses the point that the schools that lost the money were in fact almost entirely partnerships of one sort or another. (emphasis added)

LAUSD did not lose the money directly but only through the partners. …. $80 million plus [The $60MM this year and the $22MM last year] is a lot of money to lose compared to other initiatives especially since it was money already in poor kids classrooms.


SOME CUTS, SOME CASH IN BUDGET DEAL: No change in grade point eligibility for Cal Grant

By Kathryn Baron & John Fensterwald | Thoughts on Public Education http://bit.ly/MH2bQU

6/22/12 • Legislative leaders protected most student financial aid in the Cal Grants program and preserved status quo funding for charter schools in the budget deal announced yesterday between Democrats and Gov. Jerry Brown.

The agreement comes less than a week after legislators approved a $92 billion spending plan that eliminated some of the governor’s biggest education proposals, including his plan to switch the entire school finance system to a weighted student funding formula.

Few details were revealed from the agreement announced yesterday; Senate staff members said the specific language of the budget trailer bills would be written over the weekend and taken up in the budget committee on Monday. A floor vote could come as soon as Tuesday.

Staff confirmed that the bills would not raise the eligibility for Cal Grants, the $1.5 billion student aid program. Brown recommended raising the grade point average (GPA) required for the Cal Grant A program from 3.0 to 3.25, and increasing the GPA for Cal Grant B awards from 2.0 to 2.75.

Michele Siqueiros, executive director of the Campaign for College Opportunity and a board member on the California Student Aid Commission, said taking the GPA increases off the table is “absolutely a great thing for students,” because the proposal threatened to shift the core value of Cal Grants from a need-based scholarship into a merit-based program.

The Campaign for College Opportunity sent a letter to the governor last week opposing that and two other recommendations: reducing the Cal Grant award by 40 percent for new and continuing students attending independent nonprofit colleges in California, and linking Cal Grant eligibility to federal standards for the Pell Grant program. The budget deal reportedly contains neither of those proposals.

However, students attending private, for-profit colleges may want to check their schools’ graduation and loan default rates. The Legislature did accept Brown’s bid to crack down on so-called diploma mills, private for-profit institutions, by withholding Cal Grants from these schools for one year if their graduation rate falls below 30 percent or their student loan default rate is 15 percent or higher. That could affect more than 80 postsecondary institutions, according to an analysis conducted for the Student Aid Commission.

“It says to colleges, especially if they’re going to charge a lot of money, that students should be getting a lot of value for that money,” said Siqueiros, adding that means getting a job that pays enough to pay back the loan.

BROWN HAS CHARTER SCHOOLS’ BACKS

Brown has persuaded legislative leaders to restore an unexpected $50 million cut to charter schools that they approved in passing the state budget last week. The cut would have been $100 to $112 per charter student and would have widened a funding gap between charters and district schools.

But charter leaders will be holding their breath until the agreement is written into the language of a trailer bill and it becomes a done deal.

The money is for the block grant that charters get in lieu of small, restricted amounts of money for special purposes known as categorical programs. In his budget, Brown flat-funded the block program but included an additional $50 million to accommodate what the Department of Finance is projecting to be a 15.5 percent increase in charter school attendance next year, compared with less than 1 percent more in district schools.

The surge in enrollment reflects not only additional schools but also schools adding grades and more students per class to cope with budget cuts, said Jed Wallace, president and CEO of the California Charter Schools Association. Over the last four years, the average charter school has grown from 360 to 400 students.

Earlier this year, the Legislative Analyst’s Office calculated that charter schools received 7 percent or $395 per student less than district schools, including $150 per student less in categorical funding. That difference would have increased to $260 per student without the $50 million growth factor.

“Our members were very vocal about this,” Wallace said. “It looks as though funding will be restored, and we appreciate this.”

Brown, who was a creator of two charter schools while mayor of Oakland, has become a protector of charters as governor.


BUDGET CUTS DIMINISH EVALUATIONS OF TEACHER PREP PROGRAMS

By Tom Chorneau. SI&A Cabinet Report –http://bit.ly/NmXJFS

Wednesday, June 20, 2012 :: Site accreditation visits to 40 of the state’s teacher preparation programs will be put on hold for 2012-13 as the staff at the Commission on Teacher Credentialing takes a closer look at how institutional evaluations are done and what activities are actually needed.

The hold on site visits comes as the result of the grim funding forecast the commission faces next year. As one of the few state agencies completely self-funded, the CTC is struggling with a steep decline in revenues as the number of teacher applications and tests the agency administers has also fallen during the recession.

A 14-point response plan for revising the accreditation program for next year – approved by the commission last week – goes well beyond just suspending the site visits.

Also under review is the analysis of reports and reams of data that universities and preparation institutions submit in an effort to show that their teacher candidates are learning what they need to carry out instruction based on California standards.

“We believe the current system is robust,” said Teri Clark, director of the CTC’s Professional Services Division. “But the system may be a little overly intense for both institutions and commission staff. So we are going to look carefully to see which of these activities gives us good information and really need to be continued. And are there any activities that should be streamlined to reduce stress on the institutions and the commission especially if the activity is not giving the commission the assurances that the other activities are.”

In addition to its role as arbiter of discipline for educator misconduct cases in California, the commission also serves as the state standards board for teacher and administrator preparation – which includes oversight of college, university and other institutional training programs.

There are about 260 preparation programs in the state but some, like the California State University, includes a large number of separate pathway programs that all require individual review.

Currently, the commission has a seven-year evaluation cycle with preparation programs providing reports throughout that period. Candidate assessments are also reviewed to make sure the programs are testing for the right knowledge and skills. Finally, in year six, a team of experts –volunteers from within the same educational profession being evaluated – make a site visit to get a first-hand appreciation of the program.

Even with the volunteer support, site visits next year were estimated to cost the commission close to $160,000 – an expense the agency just cannot afford.

While they look for efficiency and innovation, the CTC staff plans to continue with the data collection and analysis and push back the site visit component one year.

Some employer groups, including the Association of California School Administrators, have warned the commission that the accreditation system is badly needed to ensure the quality of the work force, and that it should be careful when considering modification.

“We want to emphasize to everyone that this is only a one-year deferment of the site visits,” said Cheryl Hickey, Administrator of the CTC’s Professional Services Division, noting that there have been discussions in the past about cutting out the site visits completely and going only with a document review.

“But the panel that worked on this came to the conclusion that there are some things you just can’t get unless you are on the ground, talking to candidates, faculty, stakeholders and employers,” she said. “So we are very much aware that the site visit is a critical piece.”


••smf’s 2¢: One wonders how much of this is driven by LAUSD’s download of 110/591/600/604/over 8,000 allegations of teacher misconduct to the CTC – driven by LAUSD’s previous failures to report the same?


CONGRATULATIONS CLASS OF 2012!

Themes in the News: A weekly commentary written by UCLA IDEA on the important issues in education as covered by the news media. | http://bit.ly/9k0ADx

06-22-2012 :: As the school year comes to a close, UCLA IDEA would like to congratulate all the graduates in California's high school class of 2012. Roughly 25,000 of these students have special cause for hope.

Last week, President Obama issued an executive order halting deportations for young undocumented immigrants. That decision, taken together with legislation signed by Gov. Brown last year allowing qualified undocumented students to access state financial aid, means that more outstanding California students will be able to enroll in and graduate from California's colleges and universities. And, because Obama's order also grants undocumented youth work permits, this expanded pool of college graduates will be able to make use of their degrees and contribute back to the larger community.

Young immigrant rights activists like Tam Tran and Cinthya Felix played a critical role in bringing us to this point. These DREAMers—so named for their support of the DREAM Act and their vision of a better future—spoke out and protested at great personal risk. In so doing, they changed public perception and transformed political reality.

The task of creating just and inclusive immigration policies is far from complete. Young people, including graduates from the class of 2012, will need to lead the way.


HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other Sources
Not the end of the world, just another tragedy in the litany: ADULT ED BAKING CLASS ENDS; WHO'LL BE TAKING THE CAKES? Culinary instructor Susan Holtz knew the dough-strapped district was losing more than just a popular adult education class. There was also a baker's legacy at stake
.By Bob Pool, Los Angeles Times | http://lat.ms/MtFtLB

16 LAUSD SCHOOLS TO LOSE $60 MILLION IN STUDENT-ACHIEVEMENT FUNDS FOR FAILING TO MEET STANDARDS.: 3 out of 4 mid... http://bit.ly/MienbJ

FAMILIES RALLY IN EAGLE ROCK TO RESTORE AFTER-SCHOOL PROGRAMS SLATED FOR ELIMINATION: By Vanessa Romo - Pass / F... http://bit.ly/Miep3k

CATALOGING GARCIA+DEASY’S FAILURES IN 140 CHARACTERS OR LESS: Sorry David, “F”s all around!: from twitter | http... http://bit.ly/MGR1t6

Save Afterschool Programs: EMERGENCY PRESS CONFERENCE THIS MORNING 10:30AM DAHLIA HEIGHTS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL: by ... http://bit.ly/O4d04s

Special Report: LATINO PARENTS WITH AUTISTIC CHILDREN FACE MAJOR HURDLES: The series published on May 17th, 24th... http://bit.ly/LKzw0L

SIGNATURE COLLECTION UNDERWAY IN GARCIA RECALL: Summer break arrives, but recall proponents say their campaign i... http://bit.ly/MyaK23

YOU CAN HELP MAKE HISTORY FOR YOUR CHILD AND EVERY CHILD IN CALIFORNIA!: by email from the California State PTA ... http://bit.ly/MELBi8

Federal Study: CHARTERS + SPECIAL ED: by Diane Ravitch, from her blog has been UPDATED with LAUSD specific info | http://bit.ly/auDNT3

Federal Study: CHARTERS + SPECIAL ED: by Diane Ravitch, from her blog | http://bit.ly/NU5Tdy June 20, 2012 :: ... http://bit.ly/MClys6

wsj: CHARTER SCHOOLS FALL SHORT ON DISABLED: By STEPHANIE BANCHERO And CAROLINE PORTER, Wall Street Journal | ht... http://bit.ly/MvQUVc

THE GAO REPORT: CHARTER SCHOOLS - Additional Federal Attention Needed to Help Protect Access for Students with D... http://bit.ly/LHpOw7

DEMOTED ORVILLE WRIGHT M.S. PRINCIPAL ALLEGES RACIAL DISCRIMINATION BY LAUSD: Former Westchester middle school p... http://bit.ly/PAKlAW

A SODA BAN: L.A.(U.S.D) STYLE: A proposal by Councilman Mitchell Englander would end vending machine sales of su... http://bit.ly/Mxyt0C

Cutting 52% and “Restoring” 48% “Saves” Adult Ed: STATEMENT REGARDING THE RATIFICATION OF THE LABOR AGREEMENT BY... http://bit.ly/M7xwNv

BROWN, MUNGER/PTA + ONE OTHER TAX INITIATIVE QUALIFY FOR NOVEMBER BALLOT: There will be a total of 11 statewide ... http://bit.ly/M7uybM

BREAKING: 2 rival tax measures, one from @JerryBrownGov, the other from Molly Munger+PTA, both qualify for Nov CA ballot, says Secy of State

I am every politician’s nightmare – a supporter with no $! Please support my friend Eric Garcetti: He’s not Mayor Tony! http://bit.ly/donateEric

IS IT IT TOO EASY TO BE JOHN DEASY? Listen to him explain it all 4 you on KPCC 89.3 starting at 1pm Call in + turn up the heat: 866-893-5722

SUSPENDED CHARTER TEACHER CITES STUDENT TEST SCORES IN HIS DEFENSE: A teacher suspended from a Green Dot-run cha... http://bit.ly/NSxGw9

LAUSD’S INCREDIBLE SHRINKING SCHOOL YEAR: Patt Morrison for June 18, 2012 | 89.3 KPCC http://bit.ly/Kkx8rK LIST... http://bit.ly/NiUFy8

Retweet: @davidtokofsky: Where's the outrage over the severe cuts in our public schools?

LA UNIFIED CONDUCTS MASSIVE REORGANIZATION OF ITS MIDDLE MANAGEMENT + smf’s 2¢: By Tami Abdollah: Pass / Fail | ... http://bit.ly/N8MCAj

NEW FIGHT ON HEALTH EDUCATION AT LAUSD: HELP CHANGE THE MOU: email from: Edu Alert [edualerts@aol.com] Monda... http://bit.ly/LzRUt6

A.J. DUFFY IN EXILE: The former teachers union president misses his place at the education policy table.: LA ... http://bit.ly/MpFkcj

SUMNER REDSTONE SPONSORS ANTI-BULLYING TEXT LINE FOR L.A. SCHOOLS: By Meg James , LA Times, Company Town - Enter... http://bit.ly/MnKupe

AFTER SCHOOL PROGRAMS ELIMINATED FROM LAUSD BUDGET: 14,000 K-8 students will be forced to leave the school yard ... http://bit.ly/Mn7se4

CALIFORNIANS WANT TO INVEST MORE IN OUR LOCAL SCHOOLS, PTA SAYS: MEDIA ADVISORY June 15, 2012 ... http://bit.ly/Loof6a

ADULT EDUCATION’S EXISTENTIAL CRISIS + EdSource Report: AT RISK: Adult Schools in California: By Kathryn Baro... http://bit.ly/N5o4M6


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.
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Saturday, June 16, 2012

Dreamers in the Stream of Conciousness


Onward! 4LAKids
4LAKids: Sunday 17•June•2012
In This Issue:
 •  This just in: UTLA MEMBERS APPROVE TENTATIVE AGREEMENT
 •  CALIFORNIA'S CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE APPROVES MAIN BUDGET BILL + BUDGET IS FULL OF GIMMICKS
 •  L.A. TEACHERS FACE NEW EVALUATIONS
 •  ACADEMIC FRAUD: DOES ANYONE CARE?
 •  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.
Columbus came to America without knowing it. There’s a lesson there – but let’s not make too much of it. It won't be on the test.

Maybe six or seven years ago, when my daughter was a student at Marshall High School, a student she knew was deported back to a country he was from but really didn’t know. As I recall it was Sri Lanka. His family had – in the language of Homeland Security – “overstayed their visa”. He was a month or two from graduation; he had been accepted to college. John Donne, meet Eugene O’Neill: “Ask not for whom the I.C.E. man cometh, he comes for thee.” Nobody was any safer from terror or unemployment or any other menace, foreign or domestic, with the kid deported. Injustice was done and nothing was served. It wasn’t fair.

On Friday President Obama tried to do something about some of this. Tea Party Patriots screamed bloody murder: “No fair! We are a nation of laws!” they howled.

“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness…”

We are a nation of immigrants. Men and women, boys and girls. Willing and witless. WASPs and tea partiers and Minutemen in camo and Guardian Angels in red berets. Crossers of the ice shelf, conquistadors and pabladores, passengers on the Mayflower, on the slavers and the immigrant packets; boatlifters from Mariel, arrivers at Ellis Island and Angel Island and JFK and LAX; waders of the Rio Grande and the Tijuana Rivers. We are all Dreamers: tired and poor, huddled masses and wretched refuse and wretched excess. We are the documented and undocumented and those who doubt the documents of others. The Beastie Boys say we have to fight for our right to party. Perhaps the tea partiers take that right and that fight a little too closely to heart.


ON TUESDAY Judge Chafont issued his ruling on the Doe v. Deasy/Stull Evaluation lawsuit;

Attorney Jonathan J. Mott of Parker & Covert LLP provided the following for the AALA (principals’ union) Update:

“On June 12, 2012, a hearing was held in Los Angeles Superior Court on the Doe v. Deasy case concerning certificated evaluation, which has been pending since November 2011. To recap, unnamed students and parents sued LAUSD, Dr. Deasy and the Board members to have the court set aside the portions of the collective bargaining agreements regarding evaluation and impose new requirements for Stull Act evaluations without bargaining. AALA was granted the right to appear in the case as an interested party.

“Judge James Chalfant ruled that the District’s current certificated evaluations do not comply with Stull in the area of including pupil progress toward state and District standards as a factor in the evaluations. Judge Chalfant refused to set aside the collective bargaining agreements or order any specific methods to comply with Stull requirements for the evaluation process as demanded by the petitioners. He stated that implementation of changes is a matter within the District’s discretion and is therefore subject to bargaining. The Judge also rejected efforts by LAUSD’s lawyer to make the implementation of evaluation changes, utilizing academic growth over time (AGT) or other methods, a nonnegotiable item. AALA has offered for several months to bargain on the evaluation process, with no response from LAUSD. Now that the judge has ruled, we will continue our efforts to bargain over any changes to the evaluation process. The next hearing in court is set for July 24 to finalize the Judge’s order and set a date for LAUSD to explain what it will do to comply.” | http://bit.ly/NxOMzo


ALSO TUESDAY the Board of Ed voted for and Saturday UTLA announced the approval vote for as unreal/unfair/unbelievable a budget/operating plan/governance document for LAUSD as can be imagined. Teachers will work for free for as many as ten days. The instructional year will be reduced by as many as five days. Jobs will be saved – but not as many as you think. As tentative agreements go, be tentative …be very tentative. And you can safely strike the first two previous references to “as-many-as”.

ON FRIDAY the state legislature generated a similar work of magical realism pretending to be a budget.

The LAUSD one is a worst case scenario – with implied-but-unpromised promises to do better if the voters vote for the Governor’s Initiative. The state budget is all hopeful and best viewed with its own set of rose-colored glasses – similar to the Mormon seer-stones Urim and Thummim – reliant upon what other only hopes for. And no matter what, reality is sure to intervene. And everybody would like to keep their promises …alas, if only they could.


SATURDAY WAS BLOOMSDAY – James Joyce and Ulysses adrift on the stream of consciousness – as obscure and real/unreal as a holiday gets. On Saturday Aung San Suu Kyi gave her Nobel Lecture. As a cynic and a dreamer and the father of a young woman I cannot help but find Hope here: http://bit.ly/Lvh8nH. Sunday is the 40th anniversary of the Watergate part of Watergate; a light shone into a darkness that casts a shadow beyond today.

It is the season of graduation speeches – where old folks speak and young folks listen to the wisdom and folly of age+experience – and celebrate thirteen years of accomplishment and achievement and attendance with ten minutes of pith and cliché. Wear sunscreen. The kids and the superintendent in medieval attire+headgear tweet from the folding chairs and all is forgotten in due time.

As a middle-class middle-aged Anglo male I cannot help but note the brouhaha around David McCullough, Jr’s “You Are Not Special” speech to the class of 2012 at Wellesley High School in Massachusetts. http://bit.ly/LvniUV. Follow McCullough’s advice and read on: Read, read, read. I suggest starting with “Why Elites Fail” by Christopher Hayes from the current edition of The Nation. http://bit.ly/LVG4cl . But why listen to me?


AND IF YOU ARE TRYING TO MAKE ANY SENSE AT ALL OF THE ABOVE I direct you to Slate Supreme Court reporter Dahlia Lithwick’s Muppet Theory of the battle between chaos and order: http://slate.me/Mf7t5X

Doot doo, doo doo doo doo. Menominah. Doot doo doo doo.

¡Onward/Adelante! - smf



This just in: UTLA MEMBERS APPROVE TENTATIVE AGREEMENT

from e-mails and UTLA.Net | http://bit.ly/N3gjpT

June 16, 2012 5:28 PM :: UTLA members voted to approve the tentative agreement reached this month with LAUSD, with 58% of the members voting yes on the agreement and 42% voting no.

UTLA President Warren Fletcher issued the following statement in the wake of the vote:

Thank you to everyone who cast a ballot—either for or against the tentative agreement—and for taking part in making this difficult decision. The vote has saved thousands of jobs and stopped the dismantling of vital programs and services.

The superintendent and the LAUSD School Board came within an inch of boosting elementary class size by 25 percent and laying off thousands of teachers. They came within an inch of completely eliminating Adult Education, SRLDP, and Early Childhood Education from Los Angeles. They came within an inch of decimating arts education, physical education, nursing services, libraries, counseling services, and more in LAUSD.

Our members have once again taken on the burden of saving this District from itself, but it is clear from this close vote that our capacity to bear that burden year after year is at an end. UTLA members have begun to worry—justifiably—that by sacrificing and putting the needs of our students first, we are enabling LAUSD to continue its destructive pattern of adopting wildly destructive and irresponsible budgets.

The agreement that was just ratified includes a mechanism for using funds from the Governor’s education funding initiative to remove some or all of the potential furlough days for 2012-13. This would mean a full instructional year for both students and teachers for the first time since 2008.

Today UTLA, all 36,000-plus teachers and health and human services professionals, will begin the fight to make sure those funds are secured and that the School Board and the superintendent use those moneys to restore a full instructional year for every student and a full work year for every educator.

TA VOTE RESULTS

YES 14,195 58%

NO 10,206 42%


CALIFORNIA'S CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE APPROVES MAIN BUDGET BILL + BUDGET IS FULL OF GIMMICKS

CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE APPROVES MAIN BUDGET BILL: S&P, Moody’s threaten to lower ratings

Reuters: Reporting by Jim Christie; Editing by David Brunnstrom | http://reut.rs/Md2Zwy

SAN FRANCISCO | Fri Jun 15, 2012 6:33pm EDT :: (Reuters) - California's legislature on Friday approved the main bill in a state budget plan advanced by its Democratic leaders to close a $15.7 billion shortfall despite opposition from Democratic Governor Jerry Brown.

The votes by the Assembly and state Senate on the $92 billion budget plan followed vows by Democratic leaders of the bodies that they would meet the legislature's midnight deadline for a budget plan.

The bill now goes to Brown, who is at odds with top Democratic lawmakers over spending cuts aimed at programs providing services to the state's neediest.

Democratic leaders say Brown's proposed cuts are too severe and they intend to press on with talks with the governor on these and other matters in order to reach a budget agreement he can sign before the start of the state's next fiscal year on July 1.

The two sides are in agreement on many other moves to balance the state's books, including asking voters in November to approve a ballot measure to raise revenue by increasing the state's sales tax and income tax rates on wealthy taxpayers.

"We're not talking about radical differences in priorities," said Jack Pitney, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College.

Pitney said the two sides are engaging in political theater - Democratic lawmakers demonstrating concern for a key political constituency and Brown aiming to show the broad electorate he is willing to make draconian spending cuts to win their backing for tax increases.

"Each side has an incentive to make a strong public statement, but in private there is a great deal of opportunity for splitting the difference," Pitney said.

"REPUBLICANS JUST SPECTATORS"

Meanwhile, "Republicans are just spectators," Pitney said.

Republicans in the Assembly and Senate voted against the budget bill as they had said they would. They oppose its proposed tax increases and have complained that they were not included in budget talks in recent weeks. They also charge that the bill is full of accounting gimmicks.

Brown last year vetoed a spending approved by Democrats, saying it was not a truly balanced budget. The two sides resolved their differences, allowing Brown to sign the state budget before the start of the current fiscal year.

California's governor is technically required to sign a plan balancing the budget before start of the new fiscal year, but the state has a long history of its leaders engaging in protracted battles and missing deadlines for spending plans.

To remedy that, California voters in 2010 endorsed a ballot measure allowing the legislature to approve budgets that do not include tax increases by a simple majority vote - compared with a previous two-thirds vote requirement.

This effectively empowers Democrats to advance spending plans to the governor's desk on their own.

The ballot measure also provided for suspending lawmakers' pay if they do not approve a budget by their June 15 deadline.

Brown's office was not immediately available to comment on the votes by the Assembly and Senate, which, Pitney said, would allow lawmakers to continue to receive their paychecks.

Credit rating analysts have said they will take a close look at California's budget, which, when signed, will allow the state to sell short-term debt in the form of revenue anticipation notes to raise proceeds for its short-term cash needs.

Having a budget in place will also allow California to sell its general obligation bonds, which are popular with municipal debt investors despite the state's low credit rating.

Standard & Poor's has said its A-minus rating and positive outlook for the state could change if the legislature approves a budget filled with gimmicks.

Moody's Investors Service has said its A1 rating, with a stable outlook, could be lowered depending on how state leaders plug the budget shortfall.

(Reporting by Jim Christie; Editing by David Brunnstrom)

___________________

CALIFORNIA'S BUDGET IS FULL OF GIMMICKS …including delaying payments to schools

By DAN WALTERS, Sacramento Bee | http://bit.ly/LSD3JK

6-15-12 – SACRAMENTO :: The California Legislature's Democratic leaders insist that their new state budget is balanced, honest and contains an adequate reserve.

"Our budget contains no additional borrowing or so-called gimmicks," Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg said as details were unveiled.

Not.

It's "balanced" only with some very shaky income and outgo assumptions, it's "honest" only if one ignores dozens of bookkeeping tricks, fund shifts and other gimmicks, and its reserve is half of what Gov. Jerry Brown wants and a fraction of what it should be.

It is, in brief, a budget much like all recent budgets -- quite likely to fall apart when its suppositions meet reality.

The biggest of the shaky assumptions, of course, is about $8 billion in new sales and income taxes that require voter approval in November. Polls indicate that passage is no better than a 50-50 bet, and even if they do pass, they are likely to generate something less than the amount plugged into the budget.

Another assumption is that the deficit to be closed is what Brown says, $15.7 billion. Legislative analyst Mac Taylor has been telling his bosses in the Legislature that the gap between revenue and spending is probably $2 billion more but they chose the lower administration figure because it would be easier to cover.

Even without the increase in income and sales tax rates, the budget's underlying revenue assumptions are questionable. It assumes, for instance, that the state will get about $2 billion from Facebook's big stock offering, but the process was bollixed and the stock has been falling, not gaining in value.

The budget assumes that when the Air Resources Board auctions off cap-and-trade credits for carbon emissions next fall, it will generate a billion dollars and the state could use half of it for the general fund budget. But no one really knows how that auction will turn out, and using the proceeds, whatever they may be, for the general fund budget is of dubious legality.

By the same token, the budget would grab about $400 million from the national mortgage banking lawsuit settlement, even though it's supposed to be used to relieve pressure on homeowners.

Also very questionable are the local redevelopment agency funds that the state is seizing after abolishing the program. Taylor, among others, questions whether it will generate anything close to what the budget assumes, but the Legislature's budget uses an even higher number than the administration's $1.4 billion.

And then there are the gimmicks, such as raiding transportation money and other special funds (i.e., child abuse prevention money from special license plates) and delaying payments on loans and to schools and other agencies dependent on Sacramento.

An honest, gimmick-free budget? Hardly


L.A. TEACHERS FACE NEW EVALUATIONS

By ERICA E. PHILLIPS and STEPHANIE BANCHERO, The Wall Street Journal | http://on.wsj.com/MvIIUL

June 14, 2012, 8:27 p.m. ET :: Los Angeles teacher April Bain says she backs using tests to evaluate teachers, something her union opposes.

In the past three years, at least 30 states have begun to use student achievement to evaluate teachers, spurred in part by President Barack Obama's Race to the Top education initiative as well as by some Republican governors. California isn't one of them.

That could change after a ruling by a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge. At a hearing Tuesday, Judge James Chalfant said the Los Angeles Unified School District, one of the nation's largest, violated California's Stull Act, a 41-year-old law that requires teacher evaluations to take into consideration the performance of students.

The current evaluation system in Los Angeles focuses on teaching methods, such as how a teacher demonstrates knowledge or guides instruction, according to the district.

In his ruling, Judge Chalfant contrasted the high rate of positive teacher evaluations in the district—97.6 in the 2009-10 school year—with low student proficiency in English and math.

"These failures cannot be laid solely at the feet of the District's teachers," the judge wrote. "But the District has an obligation to look at any and all means available to help improve the dismal results of its student population."

The ruling is a victory for the anonymous group of parents and students who last fall sued the LAUSD for the changes. It also is a win for the district's superintendent, John Deasy, who has been pushing the teachers' union to accept a new evaluation system that includes student performance on standardized tests. "In many ways, we were tremendously affirmed by the judge's decision," Mr. Deasy said.

The union generally opposes using standardized tests for teacher evaluation, especially if the results could be used to fire teachers.

Some Los Angeles teachers welcomed the ruling. April Bain, a math teacher at Downtown Magnets High School, said she was "flabbergasted" the district rates teachers without considering student achievement and hopes the decision will force it to add student test data to evaluations.

"I think it will make me a better teacher because it will make the evaluations more meaningful, and put more teeth behind them," Ms. Bain said.

An advocacy group called EdVoice, which gets support from Los Angeles billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad, backed the students and parents who sued the district.

The fight in Los Angeles is a microcosm of a national debate over using student tests to evaluate teachers. Research has shown that the quality of the teacher is one of the main drivers of student achievement.

As U.S. public-school pupils have fallen further behind peers around the globe, states and districts have begun using test scores to evaluate teachers and grant them tenure.

The judge's ruling is believed to be the first to order a California district to follow the parts of the Stull Act that call for teacher evaluations based on student achievement. It is likely to reverberate throughout the state.

"What happens in Los Angeles sets the stage for what happens in other districts," said Arun Ramanathan, executive director of Education Trust-West, a nonprofit that advocates for low-income and minority children.

Critics of the move say state-developed exams aren't nuanced enough to judge teacher quality. States struggle to find ways to grade teachers in untested subjects such as art and music. Some parents complain the movement has led to more tests for children, which take up valuable instruction time.

Judge Chalfant is expected to sign the judgment and final order, which the petitioners are drafting, at a hearing in late July. Bill Lucia, chief executive of EdVoice, said his group will push the district to show it is in the process of full compliance by Sept. 1 and that, by the end of the 2012-13 school year, all teacher evaluations include student-achievement data.

The judge's decision allows for a range of methods for evaluating teachers tied to student performance, including grade-point averages and pass-fail rates.

Mr. Deasy said he hopes the decision will compel the district to accelerate adoption of a new evaluation system it has been trying out among several hundred teachers and administrators this year. United Teachers Los Angeles, the local teachers' union, opposed that program, saying the student-performance measures it uses—standardized test scores over time—were unreliable.

"As educators we don't want to introduce something into the process that's going to have the outcome of narrowing the curriculum and really degrading the value of an education," said Warren Fletcher, the union's president.

Mr. Fletcher said that in light of Tuesday's ruling, the union will address evaluations as part of the collective-bargaining process, "in a way that doesn't skip the bargaining step and requires that the resolution be arrived at mutually by management and the teachers."

A lawyer for the petitioners said the district has to comply with the Stull Act. "You may have to bargain with the union about how you come into compliance, but that doesn't mean you can get around the minimum the law requires," said Scott J. Witlin of Barnes & Thornburg LLP.

—Alexandra Berzon contributed to this article.

-- A version of this article appeared June 15, 2012, on page A6 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: L.A. Teachers Face New Evaluations.


ACADEMIC FRAUD: DOES ANYONE CARE?

By Diane Ravitch, Ed Week | http://bit.ly/Mw23oK

June 12, 2012 :: Hundreds of millions of dollars in federal and state funds are now being spent to build so-called data warehouses to track students from their earliest years through postsecondary education. Standardized test scores are a key feature of the tracking systems, especially when they are attributed to individual teachers. In time, enthusiasts of the data-is-great school of thought believe we will have the information we need to identify "effective" teachers and make sure that there is an effective teacher in every classroom. With the data comes a tight focus on targets: higher test scores and higher graduation rates.

As the pressure to reach the targets get tougher, many districts are devising ways to raise their graduation rates that have nothing to do with thinking and learning. A prime suspect is credit recovery. I became suspicious when I first learned about credit recovery several years ago. That is when I discovered that some high schools were allowing students who had failed a course to obtain full credit by submitting an essay or a project that was written without any oversight or attending a workshop for several days.

It turns out that the academic fraud goes even deeper than I suspected.

I received a series of emails from someone who works for a major national organization and who reviews the validity of course credits. This person was disturbed by what she learned. She sent me screen shots of course content and assessments that online programs now use to award high school credit. I do not know this individual, but our email exchange persuaded me that she is legitimate, and the information is genuine.

The screen shots showed material used by two kinds of corporations: Some material comes from online credit-recovery courses sold to traditional public schools to help them raise their graduation rates. Other material comes from courses offered by a major for-profit organization that owns online charter schools.

Now, there may be some online courses that are genuinely beneficial. I grant that.

But what I saw, and what I understand has now become common practice, is academic fraud. I saw course credit awarded for "courses" that may be completed in as little as three hours. Three hours of test-taking to get credit for a full semester or even a year! I saw assessments that consisted exclusively of simplistic multiple-choice or true-false questions. I saw responses of dubious value that were "graded" by machines. The level of difficulty of these exams is shockingly low.

But this fraud works. It is profitable. It is a win-win: The student gets credit, the corporation makes money, the school raises its graduation rate, the city leaders celebrate, and the media reports the good news. And the graduation rate means nothing, and the students get an empty "education."

What is going on has nothing to do with learning. It has nothing to do with preparing for the responsibilities of citizenship. It has nothing to do with the goals and substance of a good education. The students who get these phony credits will require remedial courses if they decide to go to a two-year (or four-year) college.

Imagine this: A student fails algebra. He takes an online credit-recovery course. On the very first set of questions, he answers 70 percent of the questions correctly because the questions are so low level that even someone who failed algebra can guess the right answer. The student then goes on to take a series of "exams" and to get more and more right answers. If he guesses the wrong answer, he can take the "exam" again and get the right answer! Eventually, maybe in a few days, he scores 100 percent. What a triumph.

In some of the online courses, the student can skip the canned instruction and go right to the assessment and start the guessing process immediately. The student can guess the wrong answer, keep guessing until he gets it right, and eventually get credit for a correct answer. In this case, "try, try again" means "guess, guess again," and you will pass the course with flying colors.

The questions I saw for juniors and seniors were of a pathetically low academic level. A student who failed junior year in English might be able to pass in a matter of hours or days by answering a simple multiple-choice question. Or guessing wrong answers until he got the right answer. One online assessment asked students to "describe a brief encounter that you have experienced in the last month and explain whether it made you feel good or bad." Anything the student answered, even sentence fragments, received full credit. The answers are machine graded, and the scoring machine makes no distinction between good and poor responses.

I have 12 pages of questions and answers, of scoring tables, of screen shots showing that the student answered incorrectly and was allowed to keep answering until he got it right.

This is academic fraud. These students are not getting an education. They are going through an exercise to pretend that they got an education so that they can graduate. The district will boast that its graduation rate is going up and up. Media figures will say that "education reform" is working. Big-name officials will exchange high-fives. And many thousands of young people will get a diploma that signifies nothing. If they are lucky, they will get remediation when they enter college. If they are unlucky, they will join the ranks of the unemployed and the underemployed and wonder why their education did so little to prepare them for the challenges of life.

Does anyone care?


HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other Sources
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: A shorter school year for students + Teachers can't do everything + Kids need health clas... http://bit.ly/MTDT52

BELVEDERE MIDDLE SCHOOL TEACHER DEFENDS HIS TEACHING AFTER ROCKY SUPERINTENDENT VISIT: By Tami Abdollah, Pass / ... http://bit.ly/OUgUJP

CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE APPROVES MAIN BUDGET BILL: S&P, Moody’s threaten to lower ratings: Reuters: Reporting by ... http://bit.ly/NtSUQN

LEGISLATURE ERASES GOVERNOR’S EDUCATION REFORMS: Weighted funding out, science mandate in: Package would allow K... http://bit.ly/MPjeip

CALIFORNIA'S BUDGET IS FULL OF GIMMICKS …including delaying payments to schools: By DAN WALTERS, Sacramento Bee ... http://bit.ly/OTcbZ3

AUSD FACILITIES CHIEF RESIGNING TO TAKE JOB AT UCLA: By Barbara Jones, Staff Writer, LA Daily News | http://bit... http://bit.ly/Mcw6A3

The conditional: L.A. SCHOOL CUTS COULD BE REVERSED IF JERRY BROWN'S TAX PLAN PASSES + smf’s 2¢: by Anthony York... http://bit.ly/OSTvbL

VOTE EXPECTED TO FINISH TODAY ON DRAFT LABOR AGREEMENT WITH 10 FURLOUGH DAYS FOR LAUSD TEACHERS: City News Servi... http://bit.ly/NsC19l

SacBee @kyamamura Lawmakers must digest 777-page budget and vote today (like a snake, they swallow it whole) http://goo.gl/OYM2P #CAbudget

Former LAUSD Teacher gets principal gig in Dedham, Mass.. http://www.dailynewstranscript.com/features/x448219198/New-Dedham-principal-has-history-in-Los-Angeles-schools#axzz1xt0gnsKm

Daily News on Test Scores: MOST LAUSD SCHOOLS AMONG STATE’S WORST, SOME VALLEY SCHOOLS ARE THE BEST!: Most LAUSD... http://bit.ly/LgQ28p

L.A. TEACHERS FACE NEW EVALUATIONS: By ERICA E. PHILLIPS and STEPHANIE BANCHERO, The Wall Street Journal | http... http://bit.ly/McEXjd

Parent melee at LAUSD Preschool graduation becomes YouTube moment, NY Daily News story! http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/finish-parents-turn-pre-k-graduation-fight-article-1.1096152

Breaking: WHITE HOUSE ANNOUNCES RELIEF FOR UNDOCUMENTED YOUNGSTERS: white house e-mail Friday, June 15, 201... http://bit.ly/McwGLV

LAUSD’S BIG TEST: A judge says the district and union must find a way to use student progress in teachers' evalu... http://bit.ly/MLnMX3

FWD fm UTLA: Go to LAUSD's link for list of UTLA members who are scheduled to receive a layoff rescission letter http://ow.ly/bAaZ7

K-12 ARTS EDUCATION NEWS: RIFs/Possible Rescissions: by e-mail from UTLA Arts Education Committee Chair Ginger F... http://bit.ly/LbnrRV

The famous 1984 Macintosh Super Bowl ad warned us: MAYBE BILL GATES IS “BIG BROTHER”: $1.1 million-plus Gates gr... http://bit.ly/NkAd1Q

Less days reduce test scores http://bit.ly/L59GDg LAUSD cuts days http://bit.ly/LD7cuy + uses scores 2 judge teachers http://lat.ms/OzLHvl

CRITICS DECRY LATEST SHRINKAGE OF L.A. UNIFIED'S SCHOOL YEAR: All sides agree that the tentative agreement to tr... http://bit.ly/LD7cuy

9AM TODAY - L.A. NOW LIVE CHAT W/HOWARD BLUME: LAUSD's shortened school year: L.A. Times: June 13, 2012 | 6:30... http://bit.ly/M3ashF

Realtime Coverage: EDVOICE/STULL LAWSUIT RULING: LA teacher reviews should include student achievement, judge sa... http://bit.ly/LT1NMu


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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