Thursday, November 28, 2013

Thankful



4LAKids: Happy Thanksgiving
In This Issue:


Featured Links:
 •  Follow 4 LAKids on Twitter - or get instant updates via text message
 •  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.
Thursday, November 28, 2013

Gentle readers:

Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Chanukah. This convergence happens oh-so-rarely, the festival of lights and the festival of bounty and harvest and all the ways to server cranberries imaginable. It won’t happen again until 2070, and after that in 2165, then in another 70,000 years.

The last time it happened was ion Nov 28, 1918 – seventeen days after The War to End All Wars ended. The peace didn’t last but the candles lit that day cast a glow that illuminated the hopes of our grandparents, parents; ourselves and progeny. Peace is never a failed experiment.

Other writers are writing lists of things to be thankful for. The LA Times editorial board this morning harkens back to the LA Times of a century ago, all business-friendly-and-civic boosterish – one can read between the lines to find thanks for the farmers in the Owens Valley for selling their water rights to the Otises and Chandlers and Angelinos to come – including you and me. The Times is thankful for the Local Control Funding Formula – and to Monica Ratliff for questioning the iPad deal. | http://lat.ms/1gm57S

Diane Ravitch has a list, here: http://bit.ly/1b6XJEY

I’m sure the Gates and Broads and Waltons have lists.

Strunk and White caution to avoid lists – and every Academy Award acceptance speech ever spoken is rife with the peril of forgetting one's agent or spouse.

I am thankful for all of you and your friends and colleagues and partners out there for everything you do for children, every day.

Thank you for caring and giving. Thank you for reading and thinking about it. Thank you for being among the few who make a difference; the difference you make moves worlds.

And, like the Times editorialists, an extra-credit thank you to those who read to the bottom of the page.

ThankfullyOnward!

- smf



Scott Folsom is a parent leader in LAUSD and is Parent/Volunteer of the Year for 2010-11 for Los Angeles County. • He is Past President of Los Angeles Tenth District PTSA and represented PTA on the LAUSD Construction Bond Citizen's Oversight Committee for ten years. He is a Health Commissioner, Legislation Team member and a member of the Board of Managers of the California State PTA. He serves on numerous school district advisory and policy committees and has served as a PTA officer and governance council member at three LAUSD schools. He is the recipient of the UTLA/AFT 2009 "WHO" Gold Award for his support of education and public schools - an honor he hopes to someday deserve. • In this forum his opinions are his own and your opinions and feedback are invited. Quoted and/or cited content copyright © the original author and/or publisher. All other material copyright © 4LAKids.
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Sunday, November 24, 2013

Testing, testing 1-3-2



4LAKids:Sunday 24•Nov•2013 Happy Thanksgivukkah
In This Issue:
 •  LAUSD EXECUTIVE RECEIVES $75,000 AWARD TO FIGHT CHRONIC ABSENTEEISM
 •  $1 BILLION FOR IPADS …BUT NOT $1.4 MILLION FOR TITLE ONE STUDENTS?
 •  THE LA SCHOOLS iPAD ADVENTURE KEEPS GETTING WORSE
 •  A COSTLY GIFT …..from the past
 •  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:
 •  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.
Between California’s kerfuffle with the federal mandate for standardized testing and LAUSD’s shenanigans with iPads – both in the name of the Common Core State Standards – the Common Core could get a bad name.

There is plenty of cause for concern about the Common Core [“Common Core Unrest Obvious in 17 States” http://bit.ly/17RP5zk] but on the Left Coast we choose our own battles, controversies, shenanigans+kerfuffles.

If you haven’t been following it, the US Department of Education and the California Dept of Education (and Governor Brown and Ed Secretary Duncan) have issues – dating from previous Ed Sects and Governors over previous standards, API v. AYP and teacher evaluation that can best be boiled down to: “Who’s in charge of public education in California?”

After all, the feds provide 11.8% of school funding …why shouldn’t they run the show?

Earlier this year the legislature – egged-on the governor and the state Dept of Ed and the teachers unions - did away with federally mandated high-stakes standardized testing for this year, signaling The End of the World as the feds and the testing companies know it.

The C.O.R.E. districts (including LAUSD) panicked – they had made their own Mephistophelean deal with Duncan and the Feds. “OMG: How can we evaluate teachers using standardized tests if there are no standardized tests?”

Arne and The Feds have threatened to withhold federal education funds – as much as $3.5 billion – if California doesn’t restore the tests. (The message here was very mixed and from the first both sides sought cover …even Arne said he wouldn’t withhold that much!) But the threat of the carrot and the stick paid off first with one compromise: to give one test in either English or Math – and then last week’s offered compromise to test in both subjects.

“Offered Compromise” over-describes and under-explains the situation – because it has been offered to the citizenry and the media and the education community – but not yet to the Feds. This was a trial balloon – or a test case for the testing of the test. (see: CALIFORNIA SWITCHES TESTING PLANS …BUT MAY STILL RISK LOSING $3.5 BILLION IN FEDERAL FUNDS http://bit.ly/17GvrUN). Stay tuned, but hold that thought; we will be returning to this twisted strand of the story later in this essay.

TUESDAY BEFORE LAST in an endless and fairly well documented meeting the LAUSD Board of Ed and Superintendent Deasy labored and gave birth to a convoluted and not-very-well-documented compromise over three hours that seemingly gave everybody everything they wanted in terms of iPads+Laptops. In actuality the compromise only authorized the superintendent to go to the Bond Oversight Committee and ask for the iPads for phase 2 and laptops for the woefully-named Phase 1L …plus a few more extra items like 49,000 keyboards and 2000 carts + 67,000 iPads for testing and 28,000 iPads so every teacher and administrator in the District could have one.

ON WEDNESDAY The Oversight Committee approved the 25,000 Phase 2 iPads to equip 38 schools and the Phase 1L laptops to equip 7 high schools …and sent back the “but wait …there’s more!” extras

● We sent back the keyboards because there was no cost detail attached to the program. No blank checks.
● We sent back the teacher and administrator iPads because we question whether all those people need all those iPads now …when most students won’t have them until 2015-16.
● We sent back the testing iPads+carts questioning the estimate of need – especially as no inventory has been made of all the computers the District already owns+operates in classrooms.

TO BE CLEAR: The oversight committee did not say “No way/No how.” We simply ask for more justification and detailed cost estimates and a delivery timeline.
● We also request a through program review and evaluation of Phase 1 and then Phase 2: What are the educational goals? Are we meeting them?
● We requested a review of all the Pearson software content no later than March 1. Show me the content.
● We want to see a plan for maintenance, replacement and continuation of the Common Core Technology Program when the Apple/Pearson contract expires in 2016.
● We want to see the legal questions definitively answered (They are still working on that Parent Responsibility Form…and what about taking them home?) …as well as the strategy for bond finance of short term assets.
● We want to see the impact of the iPads project on the facilities build and repair program: What won’t be doing if we buy all these iPads?

During the presentation District staff attempted to offer last minute/back o’ th’ envelope cost estimates – and the BOC chair shot that down. He didn’t say: “Do your homework!” – but he might as well have. As representatives of the voters and taxpayers the Bond Oversight Committee doesn’t want guestimates – we want boring through detailed cost projections and needs assessments.

The Times wrote; “The [Oversight Committee] vote is advisory, but Supt. John Deasy has been unwilling to oppose the panel.”

The Daily News: “’I’ll be finalizing my recommendation to the board over Thanksgiving break,’ Deasy said. ‘I am considering adjustments after listening to the concerns raised by the Bond Oversight Committee.’”

The superintendent can ask the Board of Ed to reject the Bond Oversight Committee’s recommendations; he does so at his own peril. The Board could accept the superintendent’s proposal and reject the BOC’s advice. I believe that would break hard won faith and trust with the voters and taxpayers. There is a glaring example of the Board working outside Bond Oversight Committee advice - and its name is “Belmont Learning Center”| http://lat.ms/1epP3OF.

…Or the superintendent and his team can return next month, next year or when the time is right with the numbers which we ask and with a convincing argument for what he asks.

REMEMBER HOW YOU WERE HOLDING THAT THOUGHT ABOUT TESTING? The new testing paradigm, if accepted by the feds, simplifies the ask for the iPads and the pressure for testing. There will be one test – not two - combined English and Math, given in a single 3½ hour sitting, lightening the demand on computers, students and teachers.

Don’t let this get by without chewing on it: The Smarter Balanced Field Test to be given this spring will be the farthest thing from “high stakes”. The old California STAR Tests never counted for much except evaluating schools and (in Dr. Deasy’s dreams) teachers. No college admissions officer or prospective employer ever asked to see a student’s STAR results. This year the test scores for students, teachers and schools will not be known; it is a Test of the Test solely for the benefit of the Testers. And perhaps practice for the kids and teachers. As it is not even a full test how can it serve to benchmark future results? Why do the feds even care except that it shows they can make us do it? I fail to see the benefit to the taxpayers and voters. The Smarter Balanced Field Test is a distraction subtracting from instruction.

RETIRED PRINCIPAL AND LONG TIME 4LAKIDS READER/FREQUENT CORRESPONDENT DAN BASALONE writes from retirement in Idaho: “While I am glad to hear that the Board passed Monica Ravitch's motion to scale back the distribution of the iPads, the entire program needs to be taken off the table.

“LAUSD has experience with the payroll fiasco of a few years back to draw from when getting involved in a billion dollar program. The payroll technology was presented as a 70 million dollar investment and years later the total cost was far greater. Look what is happening with the Affordable Care Act.

“Has a survey been taken to see where students already have personal computers in sufficient quantity at schools and where there is a technology gap which could be filled with longer library hours and computer center hours. Weren't community schools where libraries and other facilities stayed open longer a goal of the District in years gone by? And, isn't this an area where the Mayor of Los Angeles could better support schools by making the area around schools be safer for students and parents to use during evening hours?

“While I don't currently work in LAUSD, I do have a very real interest in the schools of LAUSD after serving for 40 years in the District.

“Hmmm...which company will hire Deasy has a high priced consultant when he is fired at LAUSD...will it be Apple, Pearson or Microsoft? Isn't anyone in the LAUSD ethics office concerned about sweetheart contracts? Why aren't teachers and local school administrators selecting the methods to deliver curriculum to their students with parental input where appropriate? There are many older schools in LAUSD that could certainly use the one billion dollars that the citizens in LAUSD voted to build new schools and refurbish older schools. Deasy is not an educator, nor is anyone on the Board who supports his corporate schemes. Smaller class size, more counselors, especially college counselors in high school, librarians, art, music and PE teachers in elementary schools along with principals and assistant principals in all schools would improve education..not drill and test technology. Test scores in Grades 1 - 3 increased dramatically when class size was reduced to 20 to 1. Didn't that experience teach the Board Members anything?

“The Board needs a true educator as Superintendent. One who will support and enforce the policies of this new Board majority. The electorate voted for change..and the major change that a Board makes is that of naming a Superintendent who will reflect the change.”

OTHER ITEMS OF INTEREST THIS WEEK: The California Legislative Analyst Office reported Wednesday the minimum funding guarantee for schools next year is likely to be $8 billion higher than current spending. The LAO is suggesting existing debts should be priorities before new programs or service expansions are considered. Among the current obligations that should be at the top of the list, he said, are those owed to schools – the $6.2 billion in appropriation deferrals and $4.8 billion in unpaid mandate claims. http://bit.ly/1c1PoXJ
However… (there is always ‘However..’) The LAO is predicting that even its healthy revenue projections for Proposition 98 funding will not be enough to fully fund the Local Control Funding Formula in eight years, as the administration of Gov. Jerry Brown is counting on http://bit.ly/1i5rb8e

LAST WEEK AN LAUSD MIDDLE SCHOOL TEACHER POSTED ON HIS FACEBOOK PAGE: “Thinking a lot about the "almost fight" today between two of my 7th graders today. I stopped being a PE teacher and tried to just be an empathetic adult, helping these two boys-becoming-teenagers process their intense feelings, pain, and anger with each other. I was very proud of the courage it took to hang in there and keep talking through the tears Mr. S and Mr. R. Your willingness to try to dialogue gives me hope. Of course, it would give me even more hope if LAUSD would fund a real counselor and PSW for every school, so our youth could be properly supported in their growth.”

smf: Thank you Daniel for being the adult who was/is/will be there for those young men as they grow. As people and committees in Beaudry grapple with policy and process and bulletins [Ignoring the speed-bumps: THE CHALLENGE OF AUTHENTICALLY IMPLEMENTING SCHOOL DISCIPLINE POLICY IN LAUSD http://bit.ly/17SKtZT] you are doing the real work

I agree that every school needs those missing staff members: counselors and PSWs and nurses and librarians – but in the long run it isn’t just the school that needs those folks.
●it’s the kids – whether they are Early Childhood Ed kidlets or nineteen year old seniors struggling to get those last few credits.
●It’s educators like yourself who need the support.
●It’s the City of Angels we aspire to be that needs the support …the community our schools are the vibrant, throbbing heart of.

There is no app for that.


Children, especially middle-schoolers are rarely appreciative – it’s not in their job description. For Thanksgiving I am thankful that you are there. And for Chanukah/The Festival of Lights I celebrate the light that you and your colleagues light every day. And as it’s Budget Season – let’s get you and yours, our schools and these kids the things you need – not the shiny sparkly things from the Apple Store.

Happy Thanksgiving. Happy Chanukah.
The two are not expected to occur simultaneously again until 2070, then 2165, then in another 70,000 years.

¡Onward/Adelante! - smf


LAUSD EXECUTIVE RECEIVES $75,000 AWARD TO FIGHT CHRONIC ABSENTEEISM

By Barbara Jones, Los Angeles Daily News | http://bit.ly/1aK98yT

11/19/13, 11:44 AM PST :: Debra Duardo, a former high-school dropout who went on to earn her doctorate and to head LAUSD’s dropout-prevention program, was announced Tuesday as the recipient of a $75,000 fellowship from the Durfee Foundation.

Duardo, executive director of the Student Health and Human Services Division, will plans to use the two-year award to decrease chronic absenteeism, a strong predictor of dropout rates.

“Congratulations to Debra on this richly deserved honor,” said Superintendent John Deasy. “She has done remarkable work in addressing the problem of student drop outs. Largely through her efforts, the LAUSD is making considerable strides in reducing the drop rate and keeping students focused on graduating.”

Duardo was hired as a Los Angeles Unified as an attendance counselor in 1996, after working 12 years for the Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women.

Duardo was among six recipients of the fellowship, which is awarded to civic leaders working to improve life for Los Angeles residents. She is the first school district employee to receive the award.


$1 BILLION FOR IPADS …BUT NOT $1.4 MILLION FOR TITLE ONE STUDENTS?

Associated Administrators of Los Angeles Update | Week of November 25, 2013 |http://bit.ly/1aQBLJz

Nov. 21, 2013 :: As the LAUSD Board of Education moved forward with its Common Core Technology Project to provide iPads to all students last week, it took a step backward in the decision to not restore Title I funding to schools within the 40 – 49 percent threshold. In a 3-3 vote with one member abstaining, Tamar Galatzan’s and Monica Ratliff’s resolution, which would have allowed 23 schools to regain the Title I funds that they lost in 2011 when the cut-off for participation was raised from 40% poverty to 50% by Superintendent Deasy with Board acquiescence, failed. While we have disagreed with Ms. Galatzan on occasions in the past, we support her and Ms. Ratliff in this effort. Despite the pleas of children, parents, teachers and administrators, the Board was unable to reach a majority vote, thereby compelling the resolution to fail. It would have cost only $1.4 million to include these 23 schools in the budget, or a reduction of less than $5 per student at the schools that are currently in the program.

When one looks at the ever escalating costs of the iPad project, it is mind-boggling to try to understand why Board Members would be so divided about a million dollars. To the 23 schools, it means the loss of counselors, clerical support, library aides, after-school programs and other supplemental activities. We’re guessing that the schools would gladly give up some of their iPads to get back some tangible resources that have proven their effectiveness. We are aware that the construction bond money being used for the devices cannot be spent on salary or personnel, but we are just as sure that the $1.4 million needed could be found elsewhere. How can one justify committing the District to a $1 billion project that has a shelf life of 3-5 years, requiring new curriculum purchases after 3, when schools are still suffering from the budget cuts of 2009 that reduced staffing, resources and maintenance?

We understand that Board Members must represent their districts, but they must also act in the best interests of all of the children in LAUSD. In this case, they acted with blinders on, only looking at their respective areas and adamantly refusing to give up anything, even if it was for the greater good. We know that this is a difficult issue with compelling arguments on both sides, but on a day when a vote was taken to barrel ahead on an ill-prepared plan for iPads costing $1 billion and rising, it seems irresponsible, uncompassionate and miserly to deny these 23 schools a few extra dollars. Board Member Bennett Kayser, who abstained from voting, intends to raise the issue at the meeting of the Budget, Facilities and Audit Committee on December 12, 2013. Hopefully, this will result in an agreement to revisit the motion at the full meeting of the Board of Education in January. If not, the old adage, penny-wise and pound-foolish, seems especially appropriate.


THE LA SCHOOLS iPAD ADVENTURE KEEPS GETTING WORSE
By Michael Hiltzik, LA Times Business columnist | http://lat.ms/1jyG2Dy

5:14 PM PST, November 20, 2013 :: One thing about cautionary tales -- the cautions just seem to proliferate as time marches on. That certainly seems to be the case with the Los Angeles Unified School District's increasingly fraught involvement with education by iPad.

In the latest development documented by my indefatigable colleagues Howard Blume and Stephen Ceasar, it turns out that the district costs for the software on its thousands of student-friendly tablets could be $60 million a year higher than anticipated.

That's because the licenses for the educational programs installed on the devices expire after three years. Originally, the district was led to believe that once the programs were paid for, they belonged to LAUSD, lasting "as long as the iPads themselves," as Blume and Ceasar write. But no. As LAUSD board member Monica Ratliff extracted from a district staffer, "at the end of three years, that content is going to disappear or we're going to be violating something by attempting to use this content."

The most obvious lesson to be learned from this is the necessity of dotting your i's and crossing your t's when you contract for any goods or services with a vendor. That sort of fiasco can happen whether you're a public body purchasing chalk, floor wax or electricity.

But what's more important is that this belated discovery that software commonly isn't sold but leased (anyone who owns a computer running on Microsoft Windows and using Microsoft Word should know this already), gives the lie to a fundamental rationale put forth for moving from books to computer tablets. That rationale is that books go out of date but software is infinitely upgradable.

Yes, but at a price. The question is whether that price is worth it, and the answer in this case is no. At issue is the tablet-based English and math curriculum, which is hardly subject to cutting-edge changes. As I've pointed out in the past, the text of, say, "Romeo and Juliet" has been pretty much locked down since 1709. Even if you're inclined to teach by multimedia, the Bax Luhrmann MTV-style movie version came out in 1996 and isn't likely to get upgrading unless it's for 3-D. (And who needs that?) And it isn't as though high school calculus needs rethinking, even with new discoveries in particle physics.

The aspect of technology-based teaching that never gets the attention it deserves is the cost of ownership. Tablets need to be fixed or replaced, for hundreds of dollars a shot. And as the LAUSD has discovered, software isn't forever. Think of the teachers and real pedagogical tools that could be paid for with $60 million a year, and how much added value they'd provide to students.

Here's a question for LAUSD Supt. John Deasy, who has pronounced the iPad program "an astonishing success." Does he still think so? Feel free to deliver your answer via iPad-compatible digital video, Mr. D.

__________________

ROOSEVELT HIGH ALLOWED TO USE IPADS AFTER TWO-MONTH HIATUS
By Howard Blume, LA Times | http://lat.ms/1fAURIn
Roosevelt High allowed to use iPads after two-month hiatus
Story | November 23, 2013 | 8:30 AM
Two months after losing iPads because of a security breach, Roosevelt ... using the devices again last week. The iPads remain out of service at two other schools ... within a day or two of getting the iPads, more than 300 students at the Roosevelt ...

► OTHER SCHOOL DISTRICTS BUY IPADS TOO, THOUGH MORE CHEAPLY

By Karin Klein, LA Times | http://lat.ms/1cKmycx
Other school districts buy iPads too, though more cheaply
Story | November 23, 2013 | 8:00 AM
... District is way out in left field to be buying iPads for its students, consider this: According ... briefly vents frustration with the cost of iPads, noting that she could buy a Google Chromebook ... there have nonetheless been purchasing iPads with their own funds from various sources


A COSTLY GIFT …..from the past

By Alan Warhaftig in Teacher Magazine | bit.ly/1c3k9vi

Originally Published: October 1, 2005

You know the story. Four [now twelve] years ago, the boxes and wires were installed. The boxes were speedy G3 iMacs running OS 9 with 128 megabytes of RAM; the T1 connection was wicked fast, boding a limitless future. Today, those nifty boxes are, well, G3 iMacs with 128 megs of RAM, at least $200 shy of being able to run Tiger, the current Macintosh operating system—and, even then, running it slowly. Upgrading would demand more than $100,000 for a school with 500 computers, an impossibility in an era of shrinking budgets.

Four [twelve] years ago, education technology appeared to be all upside; it had been bought with money allocated specifically for that purpose. Few understood that though the boxes and wires had been purchased with one-time funds, the costs of maintaining them were ongoing. The concept, well-known in the business world, is “total cost of ownership,” and these days schools are learning painful lessons about TCO.

The problem is deeper than stretching funds to buy toner for printers and $300 bulbs for digital projectors. The former technology coordinator is back to teaching five periods, or, in other schools, math classes are three students larger because a teaching position has been diverted to technology. The nice young man who goes around fixing computers is now paid under Title I—money that could be used for many other purposes—and he still doesn’t have medical insurance.

Technology is a commitment with an embedded logic: Once installed, it must be maintained, so budgets have to include network access and security, software licenses, repairs, and, ultimately, hardware replacement. It’s a far cry from the initial impression of “free money,” placing technology on a collision course with other priorities.

A reorientation of priorities would be justified if the result were improved learning, but the effect of instructional technology to date has been far more modest, to put it kindly. Installing networks and hardware was a significant accomplishment, but what has been done with the capability they provide? Most professional development focused simply on using computers and applications; curricular integration was the holy grail to be pursued later. Constructivist bromides about project-oriented learning were neither helpful nor convincing.

Good ideas have surfaced occasionally, but several years into the rollout, just what constitutes an appropriate use of technology in the classroom has yet to be defined.

Computers may be fabulous, but are webquests and similar online projects a means to achieve adequate yearly progress? To what extent should multimedia presentations replace the essay in the 21st century?
The now-graying technology in schools was rolled out without serious consideration of its relationship to a school’s core mission. True believers, dazzled by the possibilities, forgot what K-12 education is supposed to accomplish—and how they themselves had become educated. Superintendents and board members regarded technology’s benefits as self-evident, certain that good things would happen when computers arrived, a classic confluence of vendor hype and the “ready, fire, aim” propensity of the education establishment.

In Teacher’s August/September 2005 issue, Kevin Bushweller wrote about the absence of a national standard for face-to-face contact in online courses. The rush to implement technology in general has often been half-baked, with too little effort to identify effective practices and belated consideration of how much technology the schools can afford to sustain. My experience with nonvirtual schools is that many fine teachers don’t use instructional technology much, and not because they’re technophobes. Most have not been persuaded that altering their curricula will improve learning. First and foremost, IT must stand for “instructional time,” and the best teachers are frustrated by how little remains after days lost to standardized testing, final exams, and school activities.

So under what circumstances should teachers use instructional technology? I would like to propose a common-sense rule: Use technology in academic classes only if it allows you to teach what you’re supposed to teach better than you could do it without technology. If this dictum were followed, technology might find its proper place in education—as a beneficial tool rather than a monster demanding to be fed.

● Alan Warhaftig teaches English at the Fairfax Magnet Center for Visual Arts in Los Angeles. He still does.


HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other Sources
Ignoring the speed-bumps: THE CHALLENGE OF AUTHENTICALLY IMPLEMENTING SCHOOL DISCIPLINE POLICY IN LAUSD http://bit.ly/17SKtZT

CALIFORNIA SWITCHES TESTING PLANS …BUT MAY STILL RISK LOSING $3.5 BILLION IN FEDERAL FUNDS: By Sharon Noguchi,... http://bit.ly/1cejqWj

TWEET: When I find myself in times of trouble, Julie Andrews comes to me, Speaking words of wisdom: Do Re Mi. | http://bit.ly/1aGyptw

Nov 22, 10:30 AM, PST: by smf Nov. 22, 2013 :: That other November 22nd was a Friday also. At 10:30 am I was... http://bit.ly/18WL8V7

IMPACT OF FEDERAL FUNDING ON PUBLIC EDUCATION: 1 in 4 U.S. students at districts and/or schools that depend on... http://bit.ly/1aDbgbz

TEACHERS & ADMINISTRATORS TOGETHER: NEA and AASA Executives Call on Congress to Get Serious About Investing in... http://bit.ly/1bY1Ur6

Mass. gives schools option of putting off CCSS tests. Asked if CA might follow suit, BdofEd Pres Kirst replies: "No" http://bit.ly/1aCT4yH

Deasy on iPads:“I am considering adjustments after listening to the concerns raised by the Bond Oversight Committee.” http://bit.ly/1i1C6zD

Deasy on iPads: “I’ll be finalizing my recommendation to the board over Thanksgiving break.". more>>>

THE 2 TEST COMPROMISE: California students will take ½ of English+½ of math test in this spring's Test o' th' Test. http://bit.ly/1doekvO

4 STORIES + A PRESS RELEASE ON “TESTING THE TEST”: The headline says students will be tested …that isn’t quite... http://bit.ly/1e81nT3

LAUSD iPAD PROGRAM GETS MIXED REVIEW FROM COMMITTEE: By Barbara Jones, Los Angeles Daily News | http://... http://bit.ly/18SZcij

L.A. UNIFIED COMMITTEE VOTES TO CURTAIL EXPANSION OF iPAD PROGRAM: The Bond Oversight committee authorizes $45... http://bit.ly/18SYl16

TWEET: A Twitter Party for Arts in Schools! Join us TODAY at 11AM. use hashtag #KIDSCRE8 GO VIRAL FOR THE ARTS/TWEET IT ON! http://bit.ly/1aGklj0

LAUSD’s iPads: BOND OVERSIGHT INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY TASK FORCE REPORT & RECOMENDATIONS FOR CCTP PHASE 2: To ... http://bit.ly/1atqNKZ

iPads: THE STORY CHANGES YET AGAIN AS PARENTS, TEACHERS PROTEST: iPad software licenses expire in three years,... http://bit.ly/1c1ZcPD

Some Kids “Aren’t Brilliant”? THIS DUNCAN BLUNDER IS BIGGER THAN IT FIRST APPEARS: by email from deutsch29 ... http://bit.ly/1dXUWBQ

TEACHING AS PIECEWORK? @howardblume:Giving "stronger" teachers more students - and presumably more pay. From Fordham: http://ow.ly/qYVGN

NEWS FLASH: @LASchoolReport: #LAUSD Bd of Ed met in open session but forgot to turn the camera on. Board now retired behind closed doors.

TWEET: @HowardBlume Today 3PM KPFK 90.7:a talk w @DianeRavitch, interviewed during recent LA visit. She pulls no punches on topic of Ed ®eform


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
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!.


Who are your elected federal & state representatives? How do you contact them?




Scott Folsom is a parent leader in LAUSD and is Parent/Volunteer of the Year for 2010-11 for Los Angeles County. • He is Past President of Los Angeles Tenth District PTSA and represented PTA on the LAUSD Construction Bond Citizen's Oversight Committee for ten years. He is a Health Commissioner, Legislation Team member and a member of the Board of Managers of the California State PTA. He serves on numerous school district advisory and policy committees and has served as a PTA officer and governance council member at three LAUSD schools. He is the recipient of the UTLA/AFT 2009 "WHO" Gold Award for his support of education and public schools - an honor he hopes to someday deserve. • In this forum his opinions are his own and your opinions and feedback are invited. Quoted and/or cited content copyright © the original author and/or publisher. All other material copyright © 4LAKids.
• FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 4LAKids makes such material available in an effort to advance understanding of education issues vital to parents, teachers, students and community members in a democracy. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
• To SUBSCRIBE e-mail: 4LAKids-subscribe@topica.email-publisher.com - or -TO ADD YOUR OR ANOTHER'S NAME TO THE 4LAKids SUBSCRIPTION LIST E-MAIL smfolsom@aol.com with "SUBSCRIBE" AS THE SUBJECT. Thank you.


Sunday, November 17, 2013

After midnight



4LAKids: Sunday 17•Nov•2013
In This Issue:
 •  BERNSTEIN HIGH FOOTBALL PLAYERS EARN LETTERS — OF PARENTS' LOVE
 •  DETAILS OF IPADS /COMMON CORE TECHNOLOGY PROJECT PHASE 2 EMERGE
 •  SOME L.A. UNIFIED SCHOOLS TO SEE CUT IN ANTI-POVERTY FUNDS
 •  POINT/COUNTERPOINT ON VERGARA v. CALIFORNIA
 •  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:
 •  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.
Saturday’s first ever LAUSD 5K “Move It” Challenge and Free Health Festival at Dodger Stadium was a tremendous success.

A partnership between LAUSD’s Operations Dept and the Beyond the Bell and the Health and Human Services Branches together with the Los Angeles Dodgers and the A.C. Green Foundation sponsored a 5K Run/Walk and Family Health Fair that was an excellent kick-off for what should be an annual event. And yes, IT WAS BOTH FUN AND GOOD FOR YOU! ….although the bacon and garlic topped French fries may not have been the healthiest possible food option!

Teachers, Parents, Students, School staff and the Community had fun together.

There was running and marching bands and free Starbucks and bicycles raffled -off and health information shared. There were little kids and big kids. There were Senior Deputy Superintendents and there were kids in strollers. There were middle school garage bands and food trucks and a farmers market and free plants to take home. There were more endorphins than fear and loathing ….and we were done before noon. It doesn't get much better than that!

Conspicuously absent: Superintendent Deasy and Boardmember Garcia in whose district it was; Mónica sent out a zillion o’ e-mail invites but had something else to do on the day. All the Unions weren’t there now that I think about it! A tug o' war between the red-shirt union and the purple-shirt union - with the loser being pulled through a vat of green Jell-O would've had a certain colorful appeal. Maybe next year!

THE BIZARRE TRAGEDY OF MIRAMONTE played out in court Friday with a no contest plea and a twenty-five year sentence and no chance of parole. Maybe now we and the young victims will find closure. [http://bit.ly/17bTieI] ANOTHER INCIDENT OF ABUSE – this by children against children came to light a Chatsworth elementary school (http://bit.ly/1aKpT8t) – with the near identical complaint of the District failing to inform parents of wrongdoing.

THIS WEEK’S THE iPADS PIECE played at the Board of Ed meeting Tuesday afternoon and evening and late into the night. …with a compromise that took until Friday night to even define [http://bit.ly/17zuOJr / http://bit.ly/1bDTuVH / 'Details Emerge' (following)] -with surprises yet to come. As usual the solution raised more questions than it answered – and next Wednesday’s Bond Oversight Committee Meeting will certainly not bring anything close to conclusion.

WHILE HARDLY ANYONE WAS PAYING ATTENTION Tuesday night the school board gave the superintendent free rein/reign to unilaterally determine Prop 39 charter co-locations with no oversight, recourse or public process. One fears naughty schools will be punished and cooperative schools rewarded. [http://bit.ly/19uCXOZ / Item#13] “Step out of line”, the song says, “…the Man comes and takes you away.”


LEST WE FORGET: WE ARE RAISING CHILDREN HERE – not test scores or return-on-investment or the value of multinational limited liability corporations.

Wonderful, beautiful, meaningful things happen every day – see the following.

¡EverOnward/SiempreAdelante! - smf


BERNSTEIN HIGH FOOTBALL PLAYERS EARN LETTERS — OF PARENTS' LOVE
AT COACH MASAKI MATSUMOTO'S PROMPTING, THE MOMS AND DADS OF DRAGONS PLAYERS POUR OUT THEIR FEELINGS ABOUT THEIR SONS. IT ALL IMPARTS A LESSON ABOUT COMMITMENT AND SUPPORT.

By Eric Sondheimer, LA Times , Column One| http://lat.ms/I8604p

November 14, 2013 :: Damian Sanchez was downcast. It was the day after his football team's first loss of the season, and the senior defensive back from Hollywood Bernstein High was having a tough time shaking the disappointment.

After a team meeting, he returned to the one-bedroom apartment near Koreatown he shares with his mother and two younger brothers, took a shower, then opened the door to a closet to reach for a clean shirt.

That's when he was once again drawn to the piece of paper taped to the wall next to his clothes. He paused to read the handwritten words.

"I want to tell you that from the moment you were in my belly, I loved you dearly. I love you then, today and always. You are my world, my everything. Without you, there's no me."

It was a letter from his mother, Myrna, and it had the desired effect.

"I see it every day in the morning before I go to school," said Damian, 17. "It makes me think everything will be fine."

Myrna Rivera was a teenager herself when she became a mother. Now she puts in long hours as an office worker to support her family, and there is little time to rest, let alone collect her thoughts and write a letter to her boy about how much she loves him.

A request from Damian's high school football coach coaxed her into expressing her feelings and transformed the relationship she has with her son.

Bernstein Coach Masaki Matsumoto was raised by a single parent and knew firsthand the value of feeling loved. He came to the United States from Japan with his mother, Keiko, when he was 7. "It was just her and I," he said.

Matsumoto, 31, estimated that 60% of the nearly 100 players on his varsity and junior varsity teams are guided by single mothers, the reason, he added, that "my heart is so big for these kids."

The idea for the letter, which he borrowed from coaches at Bothell High, outside Seattle, was simple: Write a letter to your son and say something positive while expressing your love. Matsumoto had written instructions to the parents delivered by their sons — 70 in Spanish, 30 in English, each containing a blank piece of notebook paper.

Once written, the letters were returned in sealed envelopes to Matsumoto by the players, who had no idea what was inside.

When they found out, the reaction was more than anyone imagined.

Damian hand-delivered the envelope to his mother while she was preparing dinner.

Her immediate reaction wasn't positive. "Oh my God, I have to do homework for my kids? I have to do this?" she recalled thinking.

She stuck Matsumoto's letter in a desk drawer, where it stayed for about a week. Then, one night as she lay in bed, she started thinking about Damian and recalling how at 18 she was not prepared to be a mother when he was born.

She was a teenager and wanted to act like one rather than to always be responsible for a baby. As he grew older he noticed, and felt abandoned.

"I was there, but going out with my friends," Rivera said. "He was 5 and remembers. He felt I didn't love him."

So she pulled out a pen and poured her emotions onto the piece of blue-lined paper.

"I admire your efforts to be a better person. I am happy to have you in my life, though I know sometimes I may get on your nerves, but I just want you to know that all your dad and me want is a better life for you."

“You know deep inside I love you. And you're the most important thing in my life. You know I would die for you."

Damian's father is in prison, and the boy had been acting out, arguing with his mother, drinking alcohol and staying out well past his curfew. But lately he had been trying to do better and was getting mostly A's and Bs in school. His mother was proud of him, but hadn't really told him that.

"In the real world, you come home, you cook, you have two other children that have homework. When do you have time to sit down?" Rivera said. "You should say, 'I love you,' but we forget."

Bernstein High is across the street from KTLA-TV Channel 5 studios, and the Hollywood sign, not too far away in the hills, can be seen from the football field.

When 45 varsity football players arrived at the school's gymnasium in July, they anticipated performing conditioning exercises. Instead, each was handed an envelope and told to find a quiet spot where he could read what was inside and reflect.

What happened next took everyone by surprise. For the next 15 minutes or so, wherever Matsumoto looked he saw players sobbing — against walls, in corners, bent over in chairs.

"I've never seen anything like it," said Shalls Jacome, the team's 22-year-old offensive coordinator.

Cesar Orozco, a senior offensive lineman, broke down when he read what his mother had written in Spanish: "You know deep inside I love you. And you're the most important thing in my life. You know I would die for you."

"I don't really get told that at home," Cesar said. "For me to be reading that, it really touches me."

John Mercado, a sophomore lineman, sobbed so hard reading his mother's letter that he had to pause before finishing. He had come close to quitting the team when his parents lost their jobs and needed financial help.

His mother wrote in Spanish: "I'm very proud. You're the nicest kid I've ever raised and during hard times you don't ever ask for anything."

Matsumoto then gathered the players together and asked whether anyone wanted to share their thoughts and make a commitment to the team. One by one, players stepped forward.

A lineman revealed that his father was an alcoholic. Sick in the hospital because of his drinking, his father had made him promise to compete in a sport. "That's why I'm on the team," the boy said. He had quit sports before. He said he wouldn't do it again.

A running back said the reason he wore the same clothes to school every day was that his family was poor. His father was unemployed, and the boy had considered him lazy and uncaring. His father's letter changed that opinion, showing him he really was loved.

Matsumoto seized on what he saw as a teaching moment. "Hey, you guys know you're loved," he told them. "Not just at home, but here. You have a family here. Any struggles you're going through, you have a family here and at home."

Matsumoto played football at a Seattle high school and in college at Trinity International near Chicago. He earned a master's degree in special education from Point Loma Nazarene.

When Bernstein High opened in 2008, he was hired as a special education teacher, and became an assistant football coach for varsity teams that had records of 0-9, 1-8 and 1-9 the first three seasons. A
fter one year at another school, Matsumoto returned to Bernstein last season as the head coach, and his team went 8-3.

But he's never judged his success solely by wins and losses.

"If your goal is to win, you're never going to fulfill that every year," he said. "But if your goal is to change lives and be a positive impact on them and help them become better people, then I believe that's a win, and the wins on the scoreboard will come with that."

After a loss to Sun Valley Poly High in the second game of this season, Bernstein's Dragons have won eight in a row and will enter the Los Angeles City Section Division III playoffs Friday with a record of 9-1.

Whether the season ends in a championship or not, Matsumoto has met his goal of reconnecting players with their parents.

"I told the parents in my letter that as a young man growing up without a father it helped me that my mom told me she loved me and supported me, and the coaches I had cared," he said. "That gave me the motivation to keep going, and I wanted them to do the same for these kids."

Rivera was resting on her bed after a 10-hour workday when Damian entered the room. She recalled that his eyes were red and swollen and she suddenly became alert with concern.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

Damian was just returning from that July practice.

"Mom, I love you," he said.

"I love you, too," Myrna said, "but what's wrong?"

He started to cry. "Thank you for my letter," Damian replied, and then he kissed her.


● PHOTO GALLERY: http://lat.ms/I8604p


● VIDEO OF PLAYERS READING LETTERS



DETAILS OF IPADS /COMMON CORE TECHNOLOGY PROJECT PHASE 2 EMERGE
BOARD BUSINESS: LOS ANGELES UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT - Board Moves Forward With Tablet Rollout: Laptop Pilot and Other Revisions Added to Phase 2

● from the Common Core Technology Project “Board Business” THE WEEK OF NOVEMBER 11, 2013 http://bit.ly/1jdXWeq
● With added material from Board of Ed Report 129-13-14 Common Core Technology Project Phase 2 and Phase 1L


The Board of Education Tuesday voted to move forward with Phase 2 of the District's Common Core Technology Project (CCTP). The project's goal is to equip every LAUSD student with the technology needed for 21st century
learning.



Below is a summary of the amended resolution, which was approved by a 6-1 vote, allowing the District to move forward with Phase 2:

• Nearly 40 schools will receive tablets this spring, giving priority to schools based on need.

24,541 iPads at 38 schools.

• Every remaining teacher and principal across the District will receive tablets, and a related training orientation, currently scheduled for completion by April, 2014.

28,385 iPads

• Schools lacking technology will receive shared tablet carts, so students can participate in field tests of the online Smarter Balanced Assessments, currently scheduled for spring 2014. The assessments are aligned with the new Common Core Technology Standards in English Language Arts and Mathematics.

67,480 iPads in 1,928 carts with keyboards

• Keyboards will be purchased for students in grades 2-12 and half of the students in K-1 participating in Phases 1 and 2.

48,741 keyboards

• In the recently approved amended resolution, up to seven high schools can voluntarily participate in a separate laptop pilot (currently up to one non-Phase-1 high school per Board District).

Additional details to be determined.

• Phase 3 will be voted on by the Board at a later date.

item – from attachment A

• individual computing devices
$ 104,279,165
• device carts
$ 7,000.529
• learning management system
$ 1,646.453
• security
$ 654,242
• staffing
$ 1,760,000
• contingency (2.5%)
$ 3,291,095
• • TOTAL: $ 134,934,915

_______________________________
...but wait, there's more:

BE IT RESOLVED: iPADS AND THE GENERAL STATE OF CRAZINESS!

A longtime 4LAKids reader, a teacher and teacher-of-teachers, e-mails:

Mon, Nov 11, 2013 3:04 pm :: The [teachers union and administrators union] survey results clearly indicate that teachers need much more support and training on the use of the iPads in order to feel comfortable with them in the classroom.



WHEREAS iPads are not a constructivist tool but an informational tool, and

WHEREAS students cannot complete the higher order thinking and application skills of analysis and synthesis on an informational tool, and

WHEREAS teachers are unprepared to manage classrooms of 35 and above with extensive special needs students included,

BE IT RESOLVED that the LAUSD has taken its final turn down the path to utter destruction.

What in all that is wonderful and worthwhile is going on?!


SOME L.A. UNIFIED SCHOOLS TO SEE CUT IN ANTI-POVERTY FUNDS
SEVERAL BOARD MEMBERS FAILED IN BID TO REVERSE A DECISION TO CHANNEL FEDERAL TITLE 1 FUNDS TO SCHOOLS WHERE AT LEAST HALF THE STUDENTS ARE LOW-INCOME.

By Howard Blume, Los Angles Times | http://lat.ms/HXVVYB

November 16, 2013, 7:50 p.m. :: More than two dozen local schools face reduced funding next year as the Los Angeles school district funnels more federal money to campuses with a higher percentage of low-income students.

The tighter budgets affect 28 schools next year, including the Sherman Oaks Center for Enriched Studies, Chatsworth and Westchester high schools and Walgrove Elementary. Some of these schools are relatively high-performing academically.

Contingents from these schools argued for a reprieve at the Board of Education's meeting last week. But a measure to restore the funding fell just short of a majority on the seven-member body.

The proposal would have returned federal anti-poverty dollars to schools where just under half the students come from low-income families. L.A. Unified gets this funding for every low-income student, but the money doesn't necessarily follow the student. Instead, the dollars go to schools with the highest concentration of poverty. The goal is to address the cumulative effects of intense pockets of poverty, which describes much of the nation's second-largest school system.

It's up to L.A. Unified to decide where to draw the poverty line for these Title 1 funds. For years, schools that are 40% low-income received some of the money. But in 2011, L.A. Unified redrew the line, limiting the funds to schools where at least half the students are low-income.

Rio Vista Elementary fell short by nine students, which will cost it $87,000 next year. That money paid for academic intervention, more hours for a nurse, a psychologist and teaching assistants, said Principal Pia Sadaqatmal.

Board member Tamar Galatzan argued for the restoration. She said it would cost the higher-poverty schools only $5 per student, dropping their federal anti-poverty aid from $502 to $497 per pupil. The restored schools would have received $277 per student.

But Monica Garcia, whose schools serve predominantly low-income areas, objected.

"Maybe we don't understand poverty," she said. "Five dollars is a lot.… Poverty needs to be interrupted. Today we're hearing from the people that the system works best for…. Even when you take away privilege there is privilege in the system."

She added: "I'm having a hard time understanding how the kids at the most successful schools are being somehow harmed in the organization of this district."

Galatzan countered that affected schools are successful, in part, because they've used their anti-poverty funds so well, and, in many cases, have become attractive enough to lure back some middle-class families.

"These schools are being penalized because they've done exactly what we've asked them to do," she said later. "We're forcing these schools to crash and burn before we'll come to their rescue with any extra dollars."

But her motion failed when Bennett Kayser abstained, saying he sympathized with both sides. The supporting votes were cast by Galatzan, Monica Ratliff and Steve Zimmer. Joining Garcia in voting no were Richard Vladovic and Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte.


POINT/COUNTERPOINT ON VERGARA v. CALIFORNIA
EDUCATION REFORM THROUGH THE COURTS AND WHY IT’S NECESSARY

commentary By Marcellus Antonio McRae in EdSource Today | http://bit.ly/1cCJGd4

November 15th, 2013 :: In California – and in many other states – the Legislature has proven devastatingly ineffective at ensuring equal educational opportunity in our public schools and protecting the fundamental rights of students.

Fortunately, our government has another branch – the judiciary – whose express purpose is to protect constitutional rights, to step in when popular will or an ineffective legislature tramples the rights of the voiceless and the powerless. It is in the courts where legal challenges to statutes that infringe on constitutional rights can be resolved, free from powerful special interests and lobbyists.

Vergara v. California, the lawsuit filed last year against the State of California by nine public schoolchildren and sponsored by the nonprofit organization Students Matter, challenges the outdated teacher tenure, dismissal and layoff system in California that entrenches grossly ineffective teachers in classrooms while pushing highly effective, but less senior, teachers out. Because these laws keep ineffective teachers in schools, especially when there are effective teachers willing to take their places, these laws violate students’ fundamental right to equal educational opportunity.

This week, Plaintiffs – public schoolchildren from all over California from 8 to 17 years old – filed with the court a mountain of evidence demonstrating that the statutes violate the Equal Protection Clause by forcing school districts to keep failing teachers in the classroom year after year, with devastating consequences for the students assigned to their classrooms. The state and the teachers unions that intervened to justify the statutes, on the other hand, asked the court in September to summarily dismiss Plaintiffs’ claims without any trial at all. This week, I and the other attorneys on the case, Theodore B. Olson and Theodore J. Boutrous, filed a motion full of compelling evidence to demonstrate how the State of California is knowingly forcing school districts to keep ineffective teachers in the classroom, and the real-world consequences that this has on students.

In a Los Angeles Daily News article about the Vergara lawsuit, a representative of the California Teachers Association accused the Plaintiffs of “circumventing the legislative process to strip teachers of their due-process rights.”

This accusation is simply not true. The uncomfortable truth for many is that this suit merely seeks determinations that are consistent with what the Constitution demands; namely, that teacher employment provisions take student educational needs into account. Rather than attempting to subvert California’s constitution, this suit is aimed at enforcing the constitution’s guarantee of equal educational opportunity.

The role of the courts and impact litigation in education reform is far from new. A long line of cases has paved the way and laid the foundation for the Vergara challenge today.

Perhaps the most famous education equality lawsuit, Brown v. Board of Education, decided in 1954, ended the forced segregation of public schools in America, establishing that separate is not equal.

It is hard to imagine now that some opposed the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education as an improper exercise of judicial power. It is even harder to imagine where we would be as a nation had the Supreme Court declined to act. Yet it did, and in doing so, it educated the nation that fundamental interests trump fear of change, ignorance and the misinformed view that constitutional provisions are mere suggestions rather than rights. Just as we cannot countenance statutes that engender racial marginalization, we cannot countenance statutes that engender educational marginalization of any child, let alone our most vulnerable children.

The landmark California state case Serrano v. Priest, litigated in the mid-1970s, challenged the system of funding school districts through property taxes, claiming the vast differences in the personal wealth of families living in different districts resulted in wide discrepancies in school funding that jeopardized the quality of public education in poorer districts.

The Serrano case recognized that a child’s right to an education is a fundamental interest guaranteed by the California Constitution.

And in Butt v. State of California, decided in 1992, the California Supreme Court ruled that “the State itself bears the ultimate authority and responsibility to ensure that its district-based system of common schools provides basic equality of educational opportunity.” Laws that inflict a “real and appreciable impact” on the fundamental right to education and that are not narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest are unconstitutional.

We know now that educational quality depends on more than just curriculum and a classroom. Just as students have a fundamental right to access facilities and educational resources that meet a basic threshold of quality, students have a constitutional right to equal access to an effective teacher.

Children do not have a voice in the legislative process, a seat at the bargaining table or vast amounts of funds to lobby lawmakers. The challenge to California’s harmful and outdated teacher employment system must be brought to the courts. When decisions made above children’s heads violate their fundamental right to have an equal opportunity to learn – denying many of them their only shot at elevating themselves out of poverty – the only recourse these children have to defend their fundamental rights is the courts. It is the judicial enforcement of these rights that will compel legislatures in California and other states to fulfill their obligation to respect the educational rights of all our children.

•••

● Marcellus Antonio McRae, a partner in the Los Angeles office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, is currently representing nine California public schoolchildren in the statewide education equality lawsuit Vergara v. California, sponsored by the nonprofit organization Students Matter. Mr. McRae is a member of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s Litigation, White Collar Defense and Investigations, International Trade Regulation and Compliance, and Media and Entertainment Practice groups.

_________________________________



Vergara v. State of California: CTA/CFT TO INTERVENE IN BASELESS, MERITLESS LAWSUIT BY CORPORATE SPECIAL INTERESTS ATTACKING TEACHER PROFESSIONAL RIGHTS

From CTA website: http://bit.ly/1jefG9C

March 28, 2013 :: The California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers have filed a motion to intervene in litigation known as Vergara v. State of California — a lawsuit aiming to overturn due process protections for teachers. If upheld, this lawsuit will make it harder to attract and retain quality teachers in California’s schools. The lawsuit, filed by “Students Matter,” alleges that California Education Code provisions governing teacher dismissals, due process rights and layoffs are unconstitutional and should be eliminated.

“This lawsuit is baseless and meritless, and hurts student learning,” said CTA President Dean E. Vogel. “It is the latest attempt by corporate special interests and billionaires to push their education agenda on California public schools. This time, in an effort to keep parents and educators out of education policy decisions, they are doing it through the courts. This lawsuit is trying to legislate from the bench and exclude meaningful input from parents, educators and lawmakers.”

The issues surrounding layoffs do not originate in Education Code provisions or local collective bargaining agreements, but in lack of funding. The real issues facing California’s students today are the lack of adequate resources, smaller class sizes, parental involvement and quality teacher training.

Hiding their agenda behind kids, “Students Matter” named eight kids in their lawsuit including 13-year-old Beatriz Vergara.

“The people who agreed to lend their names to this wrong-headed lawsuit are attempting to crowd out the voices of all other parents in California. We should be working to bring students, parents and teachers together — not driving them apart. Legislation, informed by the experience and testimony of all members of the education community, is the best process for improving public education,” said CFT President Josh Pechthalt, parent of an eighth-grade student in the Los Angeles Unified School District. “The real agenda of this suit is to attack and weaken teachers and their unions in order to privatize public schools and turn them into profit centers for the corporate sponsors behind the lawsuit.”

The backers of this lawsuit include a “who’s who” of the billionaire boys club and their front groups. Their goals have nothing to do width protecting students, but are really about undermining public schools.

If there are legitimate problems width education laws, they should be addressed through the legislative process where parents, educators and all community members can be heard, rather than through filing costly lawsuits.

•••

● CTA and CFT seek to ensure all stakeholders have input in education policy decisions and to protect the rights of educators. After all, the students are the ones most affected by any of these decisions and their voices must be heard.


HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other Sources    
smf @4LAKids radio interview on parent involvement, etc. http://bit.ly/HZZCgH

DETAIL OF IPADS /COMMON CORE TECHNOLOGY PROJECT PHASE 2 EMERGE: BOARD BUSINESS: LOS ANGELES UNIFIED SCHOOL DIS... http://bit.ly/1f3PXDo

THE FORTHCOME AMENDED iPAD RESOLUTION LANGUAGE + smf’s 2¢: More and less than you wanted to know, far later than you wanted to know it... http://bit.ly/1ah0yau

Tonight at 7PM. smf /@4LAKids on #Parent Engagement / Involvement / Empowerment + Miramonte in the rearview mirror , etc - KPFK 90.7. Call in! ●●SHOW ARCHIVED AT: http://bit.ly/HZZCgH

AMENDED LANGUAGE FORTHCOMING: Everything you need to know about the iPad compromise reached yesterday: by e-ma... http://bit.ly/1bFyJqU

SELLING THE FARM AN ACRE AT A TIME…: smf writes: Nov. 13, 2013 :: Unreported elsewhere: Last night the LAUS... http://bit.ly/1cUY9pz

L.A. UNIFIED SCHOOLS PLANS TO MOVE FORWARD WITH TRIMMED DOWN iPAD PLAN + smf’s 2¢: A tense vote by sharply div... http://bit.ly/1bDjWwK

LAUSD BOARD WON’T CENSURE PRESIDENT RICHARD VLADOVIC FOR ALLEGED SEXUAL HARASSMENT, BULLYING: Galatzan’s motion fails to get second... http://bit.ly/1cnAvwT

TWEET+RETWEET: @howardblume: Informed speculation had been that Villaraigosa worked out deal: Deasy gets endorsement to stay; Vladovic censure dies.

TWEET+RETWEET: @howardblume: 4 insiders: Informed speculation had been that Villaraigosa worked out deal: Deasy gets endorsement to stay; Vladovic cens ...

TWEET+RETWEET: @UTLAnow: @LASchools could not move forward with Dr. Valdovic's censure. No BM would 2nd Galatzan's motion. @Monica4LAUSD was not present.

TWEET+RETWEET: @LADNschools: Apple and content developer Pearson will NOT participate in #iPad debate. Because of looming contract, "cone of silence" i ...

TWEET+RETWEET: @howardblume: The door remains open, however, for a possible private meeting between Apple, Pearson and the Board of Education. ●●smf’s 2¢: Such a private meeting would probably be a violation of the Brown Act …but maybe a private meeting between Apple, Pearson and the Inspector General is in order?

TWEET+RETWEET: @howardblume: Apple also declines to allow Pearson, the subcontractor providing curriculum, to appear as part of public meeting.

TWEET+RETWEET: @howardblume: Apple declines to participate in public meeting on the iPads, according to board member Monica Ratliff at board meeting.

LA SCHOOL BOARD TO VOTE ON FUTURE OF iPAD PROGRAM: Annie Gilbertson | Pass / Fail | 89.3 KPCC http://bit.... http://bit.ly/1dmi7FC

Deasy’s Saturday “Midnight Surprise” apparently misses the LA Times’ Tuesday print publication deadline http://bit.ly/auDNT3

LAUSD OFFICIALS CONSIDER COMPETING PLANS FOR 41-BILLION iPAD PROJECT: Openness+Transparency 101: The Superinte... http://bit.ly/1bs1FnT

from the wonderful folks who brought you Parent Revolution & the Parent Trigger: CELEBRATORY SELF CONGRATULATION! ... http://bit.ly/1i69Qt7

BE IT RESOLVED: iPads and the general state of craziness!: A longtime 4LAKids reader, a teacher and teacher-of... http://bit.ly/1dlj5SN

LOS ANGELES SCHOOLS SLOW ROLLOUT OF iPADS AMID SECURITY CONCERNS: By Alex Dobuzinskis/REUTERS, from the New Yo... http://bit.ly/1cQXLbx


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
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!.


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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