In This Issue:
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THE COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS: BOUGHT-AND-PAID-FOR BY THE GATES FOUNDATION – A Brief Audit of Bill Gates’ CCSS Spending |
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NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND: Federal education law traps schools in spiral of failure |
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NEW LAUSD TECHNOLOGY PANEL TACKLES DETAILS OF iPAD PROJECT |
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CALIFORNIA STUDENT’S TEST SCORES DECLINE, LAUSD’S EKES UP |
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HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest (but
not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other Sources |
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EVENTS: Coming up next week... |
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What can YOU do? |
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Featured Links:
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You are spared the Sunday Lecture from me today.
It’s a long and strange holiday weekend, with Friday having been
not-really Admission Day (Admission Day is actually Sept 9th – a week
from Monday!) And Saturday was the ersatz anniversary of the founding of
Los Angeles (Actually founded on Sept 4th) …and Monday being
‘how-can-it-be-Labor Day?’
We all know school starts after Labor Day, not weeks before. I am
totally unclear on when I give up my white bucks and the seersucker
jacket for business attire; when does one set aside one’s straw boater
for the fedora or homburg? I am thoroughly confused – there must be a
Farmer’s Almanac app for my iPad that addresses this!
And speaking of iPads, some kids got theirs last week. And the Board of
Ed had a committee meeting Wednesday where it became clear that not much
is clear or known or even figured out quite yet. But stay tuned. And
send your questions to CCTPquestions @gmail.com. The City of Los
Angeles’ Chief Information Officer declared officially on KABC Talk
Radio that kids can’t take their iPads home. And they are not.
He is an official …so what he says must be official.
Following is someone else’s rant for last week – or the week ahead,
depending upon how you consider such things. It’s formidable and lengthy
and the A/C doesn’t work at my house so I’m probably going to go to a
movie.
The heat brings me to the crossing over into the Lord’s keeping of the
bard Seamus Heaney – Heaney the poet/storyteller who translated the
definitive Beowulf.
Beowulf, Heaney tells us, is ‘an inheritance’- planked in the long ago, yet willable forward. Again and again and again.
Sometimes at pagan shrines they vowed
offerings to idols, swore oaths
that the killer of souls might come to their aid
and save the people. That was their way,
their heathenish hope; deep in their hearts
they remembered hell.
Godspeed.
¡Onward/Adelante! – smf
THE COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS: BOUGHT-AND-PAID-FOR
BY THE GATES FOUNDATION – A Brief Audit of Bill Gates’ CCSS Spending
by Mercedes Schneider from her EduBlog deutsch29 | http://bit.ly/16QoQFB
[ referred by DianeRav ]
August 27, 2013 :: This is a post about Bill Gates and his money, a
brief audit of his Common Core (CCSS) purchases. Before I delve into
Gates accounting, allow me to set the stage with a bit of CCSS
background.
It is important to those promoting CCSS that the public believes the
idea that CCSS is “state-led.” The CCSS website reports as much and
names two organizations as “coordinating” the “state-led” CCSS: The
National Governors Association (NGA), and the Council for Chief State
School Officers (CCSSO). Interestingly, the CCSS website makes no
mention of CCSS “architect” David Coleman:
The Common Core State Standards Initiative is a state-led effort
coordinated by the National Governors Association Center for Best
Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers
(CCSSO). The standards were developed in collaboration with teachers,
school administrators, and experts, to provide a clear and consistent
framework to prepare our children for college and the workforce.
[Emphasis added.]
Nevertheless, if one reviews this 2009 NGA news release on those
principally involved in CCSS development, one views a listing of 29
individuals associated with Student Achievement Partners, ACT, College
Board, and Achieve. In truth, only 2 out of 29 members are not
affiliated with an education company.
CCSS as “state-led” is fiction. Though NGA reports 29 individuals as involved with CCSS creation, it looks to be even fewer:
NGA first directly involved governors in nationalizing education
standards in June 2008, when it co-hosted an education forum with the
Hunt Institute, a project of former North Carolina Gov. James Hunt Jr.
In December 2008, NGA, the Council of Chief State School Officers
(CCSSO), and Achieve Inc. released a report calling for national
standards. The report recommended “a strong state-federal partnership”
to accomplish this goal.
Those three nonprofits answered their own call the next few months,
deciding to commission Common Core. NGA and Hunt’s press releases during
that time, and a paper describing NGA’s Common Core process by former
NGA education director Dane Linn, provide no endorsement of such
activity from more than a handful of elected officials. [Emphasis
added.]
Also involved in creation of CCSS is Student Achievement Partners, the
company David Coleman started in 2007 in order produce national
standards. Student Achievement Partners has no work other than CCSS.
NOW TO BILL GATES AND HIS MONEY.
The four principal organizations associated with CCSS– NGA, CCSSO,
Achieve, and Student Achievement Partners– have accepted millions from
Bill Gates. In fact, prior to CCSS “completion” in June 2009, Gates had
paid millions to NGA, CCSSO, and Achieve. And the millions continued to
flow following CCSS completion.
Prior to June 2009, NGA received $23.6 million from the Gates Foundation
from 2002 through 2008. $19.7 million was for the highly-disruptive
“high school redesign” (i.e., “small schools”) project, one that Gates
abandoned.
After June 2009, NGA received an additional $2.1 million from Gates, the largest payout coming in February 2011,
…to work with state policymakers on the implementation of the Common
Core State Standards, with special attention to effective resource
reallocation to ensure complete execution, as well as rethinking state
policies on teacher effectiveness
Amount: $1,598,477 [Emphasis added.]
Years ago, Gates paid NGA to “rethink policies on teacher effectiveness.”
One man, lots of money, nationally shaping a profession to which he has never belonged.
As for CCSSO: The Gates amounts are even higher than for NGA. Prior to
June 2009, the Gates Foundation gave $47.1 million to CCSSO (from 2002
to 2007), with the largest amount focused on data “access” and “data
driven decisions”:
MARCH 2007
Purpose: to support Phase II of the National Education Data Partnership
seeking to promote transparency and accessibility of education data and
improve public education through data-driven decision making
Amount: $21,642,317
Following CCSS completion in June 2009, Gates funded CCSSO an additional
$31.9 million, with the largest grants earmarked for CSSS
implementation and assessment, and data acquisition and control:
JULY 2013
Purpose: to CCSSO, on behalf of the PARCC and SBAC consortia to support
the development of high quality assessments to measure the Common Core
State Standards
Amount: $4,000,000
NOVEMBER 2012
Purpose: to support the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO)
in helping States’ to build their data inoperability capability and IT
leadership capacity
Amount: $1,277,648
OCTOBER 2012
Purpose: to support strategic planning for the sustainability of the
Common Core State Standards and the two multi-state assessment consortia
tasked with designing assessments aligned with those standards
Amount: $1,100,000
JUNE 2011
Purpose: to support the Common Core State Standards work
Amount: $9,388,911
NOVEMBER 2009
Purpose: to partner with federal, state, public, and private interests to develop common, open, longitudinal data standards
Amount: $3,185,750
JULY 2009
Purpose: to increase the leadership capacity of chiefs by focusing on
standards and assessments, data systems, educator development and
determining a new system of supports for student learning
Amount: $9,961,842
GATES MONEY ALSO FLOWED TO ACHIEVE, INC.; prior to June 2009, Achieve
received $23.5 million in Gates funding. Another $13.2 million followed
after CCSS creation, with $9.3 million devoted to “building strategic
alliances” for CCSS promotion:
JUNE 2012
Purpose: to strengthen and expand the ADP Network, provide
more support to states for CCSS implementation, and build strategic national
and statewide alliances by engaging directly with key stakeholders
Amount: $9,297,699
CCSS IS NOT “STATE LED.” IT IS “GATES LED.”
How foolish it is to believe that the man with the checkbook is not calling the CCSS shots.
The “nonprofit” Student Achievement Partners, founded by CCSS
“architect” David Coleman, also benefits handsomely via Gates. All that
Student Achievement Partners does is CCSS, and for that, in June 2012,
Gates granted Coleman’s company $6.5 million.
In total, the four organizations primarily responsible for CCSS– NGA,
CCSSO, Achieve, and Student Achievement Partners– have taken $147.9
million from Bill Gates.
COMMON CORE GATES STANDARDS.
Let us now consider major education organizations and think tanks that
have accepted Gates money for the express purpose of advancing CCSS:
• American Enterprise Institute: $1,068,788.
• American Federation of Teachers: $5,400,000.
• Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development: $3,269,428.
• Council of Great City Schools: $5,010,988.
• Education Trust: $2,039,526.
• National Congress of Parents and Teachers: $499,962.
• National Education Association: $3,982,597.
• Thomas B. Fordham Institute: $1,961,116.
(For most of the organizations above, Gates has funded other
reform-related efforts, including those related to charter schools,
small schools, teacher evaluation, and data systems. My comprehensive
listing of Gates grants for the organizations above [and then some] can
be found here: Gates Foundation Grants to Select Education and Policy
Groups)
From the list of organizations above, I would like to highlight a few
particular Gates purchases. First is this one, paid to the Fordham
Institute:
DATE: JANUARY 2011
Purpose: to track state progress towards implementation of standards and
to understand how what students read changes in response to the
standards
Amount: $1,002,000 [Purpose emphasis added.]
Even though CCSS was never piloted, Gates and Fordham want to watch
state “progress” in implementing CCSS, and they even want to know how
the untested CCSS shifts the curriculum– even though reformers are quick
to parrot that CCSS is “not a curriculum.” This “tracking” tacitly
acknowledges CCSS is meant to drive curriculum.
Next is this Gates purchase of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI):
DATE: JUNE 2012
Purpose: to support their education policy work in four distinct areas:
Exploring the Challenges of Common Core, Future of American Education
Working Groups, Innovations in Financial Aid, and Bridging K-12 and
Higher Ed with Technology
Amount: $1,068,788 [Purpose emphasis added.]
Gates is paying AEI to promote educational policy that bolsters CCSS.
And Gates is getting his money’s worth from AEI “scholar” Frederick
Hess, who offers these two articles advising “Common Core’ites.”
Third is the Gates purchase of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT):
DATE: JUNE 2012
Purpose: to support the AFT Innovation Fund and work on teacher
development and Common Core State Standards
Amount: $4,400,000
Even though AFT was not invited to the CCSS table until the “standards”
had already been drafted by the CCSS Inner Circle noted above, and even
though CCSS has not been piloted, AFT only called for a testing
moratorium and not for a cease-and-desist of CCSS altogether. It appears
that accepting $4.4 million in order to “work on teacher development
and Common Core Standards” precludes “just saying no” to what amounts to
the CCSS Colossal Education Experiment.
Fourth is the Gates purchase of the National Education Association
(NEA). In July 2013, NEA officially endorsed CCSS, and in July 2013,
Gates paid NEA for its support in the form of two grants totaling $6.3
million:
DATE: JULY 2013
Purpose: to support the capacity of state NEA affiliates to advance
teaching and learning issues and student success in collaboration with
local affiliates
Amount: $2,426,500
DATE: JULY 2013
Purpose: to support a cohort of National Education Association Master
Teachers in the development of Common Core-aligned lessons in K-5
mathematics and K-12 English Language Arts
Amount: $3,882,600
NEA was not at the CCSS birthing table with NGA, CCSSO, Achieve, and
David Coleman’s Student Achievement Partners. However, after the
establishment of CCSS without teachers, now Gates is willing to pay a
teachers union to create curricula that in the end do not really matter
since the CCSS power is in the assessments that are completely out of
NEA’s control.
I have saved my favorite CCSS-Gates purchase for last, this one to the Council of Great City Schools (CGCS):
DATE: JUNE 2011
Purpose: to promote and coordinate successful implementation of the new
common core standards in major urban public school systems nationwide
Amount: $4,910,988
DATE: MARCH 2010
Purpose: to support the development of a cross-sector proposal to pilot
test the new common core standards in a set of selected cities
Amount: $100,000 [Purpose emphasis added.]
It seems that Gates paid CGCS $100,000 to propose a pilot study of CCSS
in 2010 (not to conduct a pilot study– just to draft the idea for a
pilot). Fifteen months later, there is no mention of a “proposal” much
less a pilot study materializing; instead, Gates pays CGCS to “just go
ahead” and “coordinate successful implementation” of the untested CCSS.
So much Gates cash, and so many hands willing to accept it.
Bill Gates likes Common Core. So, he is purchasing it. In doing so,
Gates demonstrates (sadly so) that when one has enough money, one can
purchase fundamentally democratic institutions.
I do not have billions to counter Gates. What I do have is this blog and the ability to expose the purchase.
I might be without cash, but I am not without power.
Can Bill Gates buy a foundational democratic institution? Will America
allow it? The fate of CCSS will provide crucial answers to those looming
questions.
●●smf: Mercedes Schneider is, like each-and-everyone-of-us, a complicated person. A contradiction.
She is that rare thing, a public school teacher in Louisiana who doesn’t
teach in a charter school and doesn’t believe in vouchers and all the
rest of the Bayou State’s ®eform agenda – what a 4LAKids
correspondent/education reporter called: “The package deal in
Louisiana”.
She is an intellectual and a Christian and a creationist who
passionately believes in encouraging critical thinking in her students.
Her argument for creationism is that it creates Order from Chaos through
God’s Word: God spoke the world into existence. The Word and the Power
of The Word being All Powerful.
Before I write this philosophy off as “God as novelist” I am reminded of
my own little philosophic meme: “Fiction is something that didn’t
happen, not something that isn’t true.”
Schneider says: “Corporate reformers introduce chaos. The return on this investment is also chaos.”
That is truth to set us free.
U P D A T E D | AUGUST 31ST | T H E D A T A: …or $5000 here, a
hundred-thousand there and a couple of million somewhere else and it all
starts to add up to some serious money! .
NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND: Federal education law traps schools in spiral of failure
Commentary by Louis Freedberg | EdSource Today http://bit.ly/17tYDf7
August 29th, 2013 | Nearly a dozen years after President George W. Bush
signed the No Child Left Behind law, its deepest imprint may be its
labeling of 90 percent of California’s schools serving poor children as
failures.
That is the depressing conclusion to be drawn from the latest scorecard
of how California schools have done on the impossibly high bar set by
the law on a range of accountability measures.
It is by now well known that the law, whose purpose was to close the
achievement gap, has failed to do so. While there have been some
improvements in some states, the achievement gap, on average, between
white and Asian students, on the one hand, and black and Latino
students, on the other, remains far too high — between 20 and 30
percentage points on state tests.
What seems clear is that not only have many children been left behind, but so have many schools.
The 2002 law, now in its twilight years, imposed a set of rewards and
sanctions intended to nudge, prod and shove schools and districts to do
better, even if it meant removing staff, closing schools, or having the
state take over schools and districts.
Instead, NCLB has deteriorated into an elaborate accountability system
whose end result is to label more and more schools as failures, without
giving them the resources to improve.
The law did force schools to keep track of student performance based on
their racial or ethnic backgrounds and other characteristics. But the
latest results released by the California Department of Education
underscore the ineffectiveness of the law in achieving its primary goal.
Only 8 percent of elementary schools, 4 percent of middle schools and
24 percent of high schools covered by the law — schools receiving
federal Title I funds intended for poor children — made the necessary
“annual yearly progress” or AYP as prescribed by NCLB.
In a bizarre outcome, instead of having more schools succeed in response
to the law’s numerous sanctions, many more have ended up being labeled
as “in need of program improvement, which means that they (and numerous
student subgroups) have failed to make “annual yearly progress” for two
years in a row.
In 2002, 1,200 California schools were labeled as being “in need of
program improvement,” or PI schools, in the vernacular of the law. By
this year, the number has risen to 4,996 (out of 6,135 so-called Title I
schools). What’s more, entire school districts – 566 of them – have
also received the same “program improvement” label, the equivalent of a
failing school under the law.
This spiral of failure occurred exactly as the number of schools deemed
to be succeeding under California’s own accountability law – those with
an Academic Performance Index of more than 800 – increased steadily each
year, from 21 percent of schools in 2001-02 to 51 percent of schools
this year.
Further proof of the law’s ineffectiveness has been the near
impossibility of schools shedding the “program improvement” label once
it has been imposed. As the new figures from California show, of the
nearly 5,000 schools in program improvement, only 28 were able to “exit”
from “program improvement” last year, to use the confusing terminology
of the law.
One reason for this has to do with one of the law’s most basic
deficiencies: the unattainable requirement that 100 percent of children
be “proficient” in reading and math by the end of the current school
year, as measured by their performance on standardized state tests.
Each year, the bar has been raised, requiring ever-higher percentages of
students to be “proficient” on state tests – and then only on two
subjects (reading and math). Because California has relatively high
standards compared to many other states, and, unlike some others, has
refused to lower them, increasing numbers of schools have been unable to
escape being labeled as underperforming.
What has made “improvement” under the law even more elusive is that
students at a school could actually do better on state tests from one
year to the next, and yet the school would still be chastised for
failing to make “adequate yearly progress” because the improvement
wouldn’t be sufficient to meet the ever-rising percentage of students
that must score at a proficient level.
Requiring every one of numerous student subgroups to meet the prescribed
proficiency levels each year has added to the challenge. Last year 89
percent of students in every subgroup had to perform at a proficient
level — or the school would be be labeled as failing to improve. Come
testing time this spring, the target will jump to 100 percent.
Another flaw in the law is that California, like most states, has not
had the resources to intervene in schools that ran afoul of NCLB’s
standards. Especially as a result of the state’s budget crisis over the
last five years, intervention became a near impossibility as the number
of “failing” schools soared to stratospheric levels.
And none of this touches on the fact that the law only measured how
students — and schools — performed on two subjects, and then only
narrowly measured how much they had learned based on mostly
multiple-choice answers on tests, not the “deeper learning” that is
required for students to leave schools ready for college or careers.
Just last week U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan condemned the
NCLB law as “outmoded and broken. “Its inflexible accountability
provisions have become an obstacle to progress and have focused schools
too much on a single test score,” Duncan wrote in an opinion piece in
the Washington Post.
Duncan has granted waivers to 41 states – and eight districts in
California – which relieves them of the most counterproductive
requirements of the law, including those that result in schools being
labeled as failures, demoralizing staff at a time when they are expected
to enthusiastically implement another ambitous multi-state initiative,
the Common Core state standards. However, Gov. Jerry Brown and the State
Board of Education have balked at agreeing to the many new requirements
demanded by the Obama administration in return for an NCLB waiver.
Thus, other than those schools in districts with waivers, California
schools must still comply with a law that will likely soon result in 100
percent of schools serving low-income students being labeled as
failures, as prescribed by a law that even the Obama administration
derides as an anachronism.
• Louis Freedberg is the executive director of EdSource.
NEW LAUSD TECHNOLOGY PANEL TACKLES DETAILS OF iPAD PROJECT
By Barbara Jones, Los Angeles Daily News | http://bit.ly/1dvI35H
8/28/13, 7:17 PM PDT :: A day after LAUSD handed out iPads to kids at
two of its campuses, the school board’s Technology Committee started
its own deep dive into the program that will put a tablet computer in
the hands of every student by this time next year.
Chaired by Monica Ratliff, who gave up her teaching career after she was
elected to the board in May, the panel got an overview Wednesday of Los
Angeles Unified’s ambitious technology initiative. In a project that
rolled out Tuesday, about 30,000 students at 47 schools will get iPads
this year, with all 650,000-plus kids in the district being equipped
with the portable computers in 2014-15.
“I can’t reiterate enough about the excitement in the field about
improved instruction,” said Gerardo Loera, executive director of
curriculum and instruction. “The feedback is overwhelmingly very, very
positive.”
Although the technology project has been in the works for years and the
district’s iPad purchase has made the national news, committee members
had a lot of questions on the basics of the plan: Is there a cost to
students? What happens if the device is damaged, lost or stolen? And
just how does it fit in to what teachers do in the classroom?
Loera and Chief Information Officer Ron Chandler explained that the
district will register each iPad so it knows who has which device, but
there’s no cost to students — even if something happens to the tablet.
However, there is software that enables the district to track and
remotely “kill” a tablet, making it useless to thieves. There are also
filters to prevent kids from accessing inappropriate material, both at
school and at home.
Even more important, Loera said, is how iPads will help LAUSD implement
the Common Core curriculum standards being introduced in 2014 and
prepare students for college or careers. California and 44 other states
have adopted the standards, which will rely on online tests to gauge
student progress.
“This is led by instruction, but it’s powered by technology,” Chandler said. “It’s about the magic in the classroom.”
The iPads come preloaded with instructional software that teachers can
use as tools in devising their lesson plans. The software is the main
reason the cost of each iPad comes in at $678, well above what a shopper
could pick up off the shelf at a big-box store.
The Technology Committee is one of several ad hoc panels organized by
board President Richard Vladovic. He wants them to function as working
groups, providing their colleagues with more in-depth information than
available in past meetings.
Ratliff took detailed notes, pausing frequently to summarize issues and
assigning Chandler and Loera lists of information she’d like to discuss
in September. She also wants the public to weigh in with questions,
which can be emailed to cctpquestions@gmail.com
CALIFORNIA STUDENT’S TEST SCORES DECLINE, LAUSD’S EKES UP
►TEST SCORES OF STATE’S STUDENTS DECLINE AS EDUCATORS PREPARE FOR SEA CHANGE
By Rob Kuznia, LA Daily News/Daily Breeze | http://bit.ly/1a3ElPj
8/29/13, 11:48 AM PDT :: Test scores released Thursday by the state
of California revealed the first backslide in the overall score of the
state’s students in years.
Most education officials attribute the score decline to a transition
period under way as schools prepare for a coming sea change in testing
protocols.
Schools in California have just one more year to fully implement Common
Core, a national set of content standards that prioritizes critical
thinking and real-world relevance over the bubble-in testing and rote
memorization.
California’s accountability program as currently configured will be around for just one more year.
The Academic Performance Index assigns every school in the state a score
between 200 and 1,000 based largely on students’ performance on
California Standards Tests taken in the spring. (The state-set goal is
for every school to reach an API score of 800.)
For the first time since at least 2005, California’s API score slid backward, albeit by just two points, to 789.
On the other hand, the state’s release also reveals that the students’
performance on the high school exit exam has never been higher, with
95.5 percent of students in the class of 2013 earning a passing score.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson accentuated the positive in a Thursday statement.
“Despite the very real challenges of deep budget cuts and the ongoing
effort to shift to new, more demanding academic standards, our schools
persevered and students made progress,” he said.
Bucking the trend of the slipping API scores was the Los Angeles Unified
School District, which actually boosted its number by three points, to
749. But even this marked a notable departure from the double-digit
gains LAUSD has achieved in each of the last several years.
LAUSD officials noted that the three-point increase marked the second
highest gain among all urban districts statewide, behind San Diego
Unified, which picked up nine points for an API of 817.
“For the second-largest school district in the nation to outpace nearly
all urban districts in California in the API is an extraordinary
accomplishment,” said Superintendent John Deasy in a statement. “I’m
tremendously proud of our administrators, students, and teachers for
achieving this result while the District remained in the throes of a
devastating budget crisis.”
Tim Stowe, Torrance Unified School District’s chief academic officer,
said he believes Common Core will ultimately be good for kids, even if
it means taking a hit on test scores.
“It will help them develop into better critical thinkers and better 21st
Century learners,” he said. “Whereas the more fact-driven CSTs have not
done that. Educationally this is a step in the right direction, but we
have an assessment system that doesn’t align.”
______________________________________________
►LAUSD EKES GAIN ON STATE API, OTHER URBAN DISTRICTS STUMBLE
By Barbara Jones, Los Angeles Daily News | http://bit.ly/17oofOi
8/29/13, 12:14 PM PDT :: Updated: 31 secs ago :: Los Angeles Unified
continued its climb up the state’s Academic Performance Index for the
sixth consecutive year, one of only a handful of urban school districts
in California to show improvement on a key measure of student success.
After five years of double-digit growth, the state’s largest school
district gained three points to score 749 on the annual API, which was
released Thursday. The index is based on the results of standardized
state tests and the California High School Exit Exam.
By comparison, the state’s API fell two points, to 789, and such
districts as Burbank, Glendale, Simi Valley, Long Beach and Pasadena
also saw declines in their scores. At the same time, San Diego increased
by nine points, to 817, while San Bernardino and Las Virgenes Unified
reported two-point gains — to 729 and 896, respectively.
“Taken as a whole, this year’s API results show that the LAUSD continues
to make significant progress in providing students with a quality
education,” Superintendent John Deasy said. “The picture is resoundingly
positive for students who have long deserved it.”
Among Los Angeles Unified schools, 36 percent hit the statewide target
of 800 on a scale of 200 to 1000. A total of 25 middle and high schools
reached that goal — four more than last year — while the number of
elementary schools at that level slipped by seven,to 222.
Among the campuses reaching that elusive mark for the first time were
Anatola Elementary in Lake Balboa, which saw its score climb from 792 to
825; Nevada Elementary in West Hills, which went from 797 to 811; Napa
Elementary in Northridge, edging up from 799 to 814; and Cleveland High
in Reseda, which jumped from 789 to 807 — one of only nine high schools
to surpass 800.
Of the 171 charters authorized by Los Angeles Unified, 39 percent met or
topped the 800 mark, compared with 44 percent last year, according to
reports compiled by state and district officials.
Statewide, 51 percent of schools hit the 800 target, a two-point drop from the previous year.
In LAUSD, overall scores for African-American and Latino students rose
by one and four points, respectively, while English learners showed the
biggest improvement — a 28-point jump, to 706. For the first time,
however, scores fell among white, Asian and Pacific Islander students.
Deasy credited the district’s English-Learner Master Plan, which
provides strategic intervention for struggling students, as well as
efforts to reduce suspensions and keep kids on track for graduation.
“What you’re seeing is the district making strategic investment in our
youth,” he said. “The district is headed in the right direction.”
Along with the API scores, the state released figures showing that 95.5
percent of the class of 2013 passed the CAHSEE, the best showing since
the math and English tests were made a graduation requirement in 2006.
In LAUSD, a record 69 percent of sophomores passed both parts of the
exam on their first try. This compares with 67 percent the previous year
and 44 percent a decade earlier.
Students take the CAHSEE exam beginning in 10th grade, and those who
don’t pass can retake it as juniors or seniors. Students must pass the
reading, writing and math tests in order to get their diploma.
“Despite the very real challenges of deep budget cuts and the ongoing
effort to shift to new, more demanding academic standards, our schools
persevered and students made progress,” state schools Superintendent Tom
Torlakson said.
“These results should give us confidence as we start the new school
year, and our efforts to make college and career readiness a goal for
every student move into high gear.”
The academic report includes the Adequate Yearly Progress results, used
to measure whether schools met federal benchmarks in the No Child Left
Behind act.
The NCLB benchmarks steadily increase annually, and schools had to reach
a proficiency rate of nearly 90 percent in English and math to meet the
federal standards.
Those goals were met by 14 percent of schools statewide, 17 percent of charters and 10 percent of traditional schools in LAUSD.
A consortium of eight districts, including Los Angeles and Long Beach,
recently won a federal waiver from the NCLB targets. This will give them
more flexibility both in how they measure student performance and in
the ability to work toward improving academic performance.
However, the remaining districts in California are still subject to
those mandates, so even high-achieving schools that fall short of the
goals are subject to structured intervention.
HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T
FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other
Sources
MLK’s DREAM @ 50: Other Voices/Another Take -
Audio+Video from BBC Radio 4 Voices: Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King,
Congressman John Lewis, Dr Maya Angelou, Professor Muhammad Yunus,
Doreen Lawrence, Wei Jingsheng, Mary Robinson, John Hume, His Holiness
the Dalai Lama, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, Ndileka
Mandela, Ariel Dorfman, David Grossman, Dr Shirin Ebadi, Malala
Yousafzai, Satish Kumar , Maestro Jose Antonio Abreu, Joan Baez &
Stevie Wonder. | http://bit.ly/1dEpwUP
_____________________
UPDATED: THE COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS: BOUGHT+PAID-FOR BY THE GATES
FOUNDATION – A Brief Audit of Gates’ Spending …plus a spreadsheet for
the math inclined |http://bit.ly/15MglvA
JUDGE DELAYS RELEASE OF LOS ANGELES TEACHER RATINGS http://bit.ly/131dxd7
SCHOOL SUPPORT STAFF MUST BACK NEW CHARTER SCHOOLS UNDER BILL: LAURA OLSON , Associated Press/ AP California S... http://bit.ly/17vWmUD
Wait a minute!!: ADMISSION DAY IS SEPT 9th - eleven days from today!
Today is Warren Buffett's Birthday. And Constitution Day in Kazakhstan
Q: Why Do LAUSD Schools Have today Off? A: It’s Admission Day! Say What? - http://bit.ly/12Tz8nM
U P D A T E - LAUSD: STUDENTS CAN’T TAKE SCHOOL-ISSUED iPADS HOME: The quoted source is NOT a LAUSD spokesperson | . http://bit.ly/14K05vn
LAUSD: STUDENTS CAN’T TAKE SCHOOL-ISSUED iPADS HOME: by Michael Linder KABC NEWS/TalkRadio 790 | http:... http://bit.ly/1cmy6nc
Prop 39 Co-locations: MAKING ROOM FOR CHARTER SCHOOLS. Providing for them should not come at the expense of st... http://bit.ly/15ac81B
PATT MORRISON ASKS MONICA RATLIFF, THE NEW TEACHER ON BOARD: The fifth-grade teacher's improbable election vic... http://bit.ly/172cMOk
CALIFORNIA STUDENT’S TEST SCORES DECLINE, LAUSD’S EKES UP: Find out how your local school or district fai... http://bit.ly/17oxdLf
"NEW LAUSD TECHNOWLOGY PANEL...?" Uh-oh - I tweeted that? Is there such a thing as a Freudian typo?
NEW LAUSD TECHNOWLOGY PANEL TACKLES DETAILS OF iPAD PROJECT: By Barbara Jones, Los Angeles Daily News | http:/... http://bit.ly/1clL5W8
LAUSD ROLLS OUT iPAD-FOR-EVERY-STUDENT PROJECT IN THE SOUTH BAY: By Rob Kuznia, The Daily Breeze | http://bit.... http://bit.ly/1aQ7Ymt
U P D A T E: FIRST L.A.UNIFIED SCHOOL(S) GET iPADS - LAUSD launches its drive to equip every student with iPad... http://bit.ly/153Ffn7
THE COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS: BOUGHT-AND-PAID-FOR BY THE GATES FOUNDATION – A Brief Audit of Bill Gates’ CC... http://bit.ly/1dqgZ7V
Déjà vu/Toodle doo:- NYT Headline from 50 yrs ago …next to 200,000 MARCH
FOR CIVIL RIGHTS IN D.C. RALLY: U.S. PRESSES U.N. TO CONDEMN SYRIA|http://bit.ly/19M7vPf
Retweeted from the Mountaintop: MLK Jr's full "I Have a Dream" speech text http://www.archives.gov/press/exhibits/dream-speech.pdf … …
MLK's DREAM@50: "It was the greatest assembly for a redress of grievances that this capital has ever seen." http://nyti.ms/18jLm7Q
@DrDeasyLAUSD "Looking forward to API release on Thursday. Will be so
proud if LAUSD..." Pride goeth before destruction... Proverbs 16:18
FIRST L.A. UNIFIED SCHOOL GETS iPADS IN $1BILLION EFFORT: By Howard Blume, LA Times | http://lat.ms/17kzS4R ... http://bit.ly/1cezN5S
It isn’t how you take the test, it’s how it’s scored that counts: DECILE RANKINGS + MODIFIED SCORING FOR SPECI... http://bit.ly/1dney5V
LA UNIFIED STUDENTS HAVE NEVER KNOWN HIGH SCHOOL WITHOUT METAL DETECTORS: Jed Kim | Pass / Fail | 89.3 KPCC ht... http://bit.ly/1dnbczT
Commentary: TEACHERS DESERVE A SHOT AT RUNNING THEIR SCHOOLS: By Charles Taylor Kerchner | | EdSource Today ... http://bit.ly/1dn7gPE
Webinar Tuesday 27 August: ROOT CAUSES OF CHRONIC STUDENT ABSENCES INCLUDE STUDENT HEALTH AND SCHOOL ENGAGEMEN... http://bit.ly/16GGwzT
SCHOOL BULLYING PREVENTION EFFORTS FALLING SHORT, STATE AUDIT SAYS: By Jane Meredith Adams | EdSource Today ht... http://bit.ly/16GETlU
MEETINGS BREED: More meetings for LAUSD Board: by Rick Orlov, L.A. Daily News from Rick Orlov’s Tipoff: Playi... http://bit.ly/178XcX6
Today on DeadlineLA, the debate over Teach for America. 3pm PST, http://KPFK.org 90,7 FM Los Angeles.
●●smf:A Good Show! - Download: http://bit.ly/1712Mbm
The worst news saved ‘til last:
L.A. COUNTY FOSTER CARE SHORTAGE REACHES CRISIS LEVEL: A surge in demand for foster homes in L.A. County sends... http://bit.ly/1djgBIh
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
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
Monica.Ratliff@lausd.net • 213-241-6388
Richard.Vladovic@lausd.net • 213-241-6385
Steve.Zimmer@lausd.net • 213-241-6387
...or your city councilperson, mayor, the governor, member of congress,
senator - or the president. Tell them what you really think! • Find
your state legislator based on your home address. Just go to: http://bit.ly/dqFdq2 • There are 26 mayors and five county supervisors representing jurisdictions within LAUSD, the mayor of LA can be reached at mayor@lacity.org • 213.978.0600
• Call or e-mail Governor Brown: 213-897-0322 e-mail: http://www.govmail.ca.gov/
• Open the dialogue. Write a letter to the editor. Circulate these
thoughts. Talk to the principal and teachers at your local school.
• Speak with your friends, neighbors and coworkers. Stay on top of education issues. Don't take my word for it!
• Get involved at your neighborhood school. Join your PTA. Serve on a School Site Council. Be there for a child.
• If you are eligible to become a citizen, BECOME ONE.
• If you a a citizen, REGISTER TO VOTE.
• If you are registered, VOTE LIKE THE FUTURE DEPENDS ON IT. THEY DO!.
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