In This Issue:
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Is
giving students laptops a terrible idea?: WHY ONE DISTRICT IS THROWING
ALL ITS STUDENT LAPTOPS AWAY + A Blast from the British Past + smf’s 2¢
x2 |
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85 LAUSD HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETICS PROGRAMS THAT WERE FUNDED IN 2013-14 HAVE BEEN CUT MORE THAN 50% FOR 13-14 |
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NEW DISPUTE OPENS OVER LCAP REPORTING MANDATE - Changes suggest the
LCAP becoming a document driven by compliance rather than student
outcomes |
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The District 1 Board of Ed Race: MCKENNA CONTINUES TO GARNER ENDORSEMENTS |
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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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Our lazy summer break is almost over; Early Start gets earlier every year.
School’s still out. The school board hasn’t met/hasn’t solved
anything/hasn’t complicated matters further. It’s been an LAUSD-free
couple o’ months.
Those of us who visit District HQ – the Beaudry mother ship – notice the
lack of neckties, suit jackets, and the occasional and welcome visiting
child …though not enough of these are seen at the corridors of power.
(Decision making, of course, is at the school site - it says so in the
memo – but local control gets no more local than 333 S. Beaudry.)
Long-time readers know that 4LAKids Editorial Policy calls for lots o’
kids and an excess of youthful exuberance in all the Beaudry hallways:
bells ringing, balls bouncing, locker doors slamming in the
superintendent’s lobby and furtive attempts at making out in the
stairwells. The administrators, consultants and educrats need reminding
who the customers are, how they act and what they think.
Q: What …they think?
A: That IS what we are trying to encourage here!
We have had light diversions to distract us during the summer: Wars in
the Middle East, Ebola. Ukraine. Congress* . Water mains failing, The
Texas National Guard mobilized to stem the flow of invading children
from Central America. (The US House of Reps voted for the feds to repay
Texas for this on Friday night – along with a vote to repeal Deferred
Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA); dream on you dreamers!)
If your LAUSD addiction couldn’t go cold turkey for a couple of months
we have had the very ugly little school board election campaign in Board
District One. And the airing of dirty laundry in the guise of
transparency in the UTLA v. LAUSD contract negotiations. The District
trumpets as each of the other bargaining units signs off the 2% + 2% +
another 2% (if we have it!) offer – but neglects to mention that every
other contract has a “me too clause” …if UTLA gets more, everyone gets
more!
To which 4LAKids adds: Those not at the bargaining table – Students –
win big with Class Size Reduction. And to those who say the data doesn’t
prove it, I’m not going to call you liars …but those statistics are
lies.
BEFORE I GO FURTHER: One of the fun summer distractions, in the form of
articles, rants and reverberations in the L.A. Times has been about The
End of the English Language As We Know It: The Contrary Grammarians v.
The English is a Constantly Evolving Idiom Crowd. [http://lat.ms/1nY3eBl & http://lat.ms/1tHs4su - Also read: “Eats, Shoots and Leaves” /Teachers’ Guide: http://bit.ly/1kdIqFT]
I don’t have a favorite in this; I am an unrepentant word butcher. But I
watch from the sidelines and cheer both sides as the Apostrophe Police
do battle with the Twitter Terrorists, Social Mediots and those who
e-mail only in lower case.
To both sides I reprint verbatim the following, which appears
uninvited+unexplained at the bottom of LAUSD in the News – a daily
compendium of news articles for District staff:
- Begin quote -
Theory of Change: If we transform human capital by ensuring there are
EFFECTIVE EMPLOYEES at every level of the organization focuses on
IMPROVING STUDENT OUTCOMES, give our students and parents a PORTFOLIO OF
HIGH QUALITY SCHOOL CHOICE, and hold ourselves accountable through
STRONG PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT, then, every student in our schools will
graduate COLLEGE-prepared and CAREER-READY.
- End quote – the ALL CAPS is Boldface in the original -
One doesn’t know where the bad grammar, punctuation, and typos end …and the Broadian ®eformish balderdash begins.
THE NEW SCHOOL YEAR IS RAMPING UP this coming week as the Same Old/Same Old begins anew.
UPGRADE YOUR RESUME WITH RHETORIC: On Monday Superintendent explains the
importance of educating young men of color, something he speaks of
often but something his track record is deficient at.
There was an LAUSD before Deasy arrived. Before Deasy there was
Cortines. Before Cortines was Brewer. Admiral Brewer had the bad timing
to arrive at LAUSD coincident with the (not-so)Great Recession and with
the enmity of Mayor Tony. But he was The Guy on educating young men of
color; that’s what he did in the navy.
The following is from a missive from LAUSD that announces Monday’s event
– summoning all teachers (and the media) to a voluntary/uncompensated
training.
- Begin quote -
L.A. UNIFIED BROADENS EFFORTS TO SUPPORT YOUNG MEN OF COLOR
District joins President Obama's plan to change educational outcomes for
African American and Latino boys by conducting workshops focusing on
men of color
WHAT: How do we better support young men of color to graduate ready for
college and career? How do we better meet the needs of Latino and
African American boys? Demonstrating an ongoing commitment to helping
all of our students graduate and thrive, the Los Angeles Unified School
District is holding a conference for teachers to provide instructional
training and strategies that will help educators position Latino male
students for educational success.
Co-sponsored by Loyola Marymount University, this daylong conference
will focus on serving the needs of young Latino males; the inaugural
session on June 9, 2014 focused on the educational development of young
African American males.
Experts will address subjects such as: College readiness and global
competitiveness; understanding what adolescent Latino male readers need
and how to engage readers; and how to validate and affirm the strengths
of Latino males to achieve personal and academic success.
LAUSD has already witnessed progress in helping males of color achieve
but there is a long way to go. Last week, LAUSD joined President Obama's
pledge to ensure preschool efforts better serve males of color,
increase access to Advanced Placement, honors and gifted programs,
monitor the progress of males of color, reduce the disproportionate
number of males of color who are absent, suspended, expelled or placed
inappropriately in special education classes, and work to transform high
schools with low graduation rages (sic) among males of color.
WHEN: Monday, August 4, 2014
8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
WHERE: Roski Dining Room, University Hall
Loyola Marymount University
1 LMU Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90045
- End quote -
Repeating the Districts own questions…:
• How do we better support young men of color to graduate ready for college and career?
• How do we better meet the needs of Latino and African American boys?
And their invitation…
• Demonstrating an ongoing commitment to helping all of our students
graduate and thrive, the Los Angeles Unified School District is holding a
conference for teachers to provide instructional training and
strategies that will help educators position Latino male students for
educational success.
smf: WTF happened to African American Boys?
Offhand, I would say that eviscerating DISTRICT ATHLETICS PROGRAMS and reducing their budgets by 58% is not a good first step.
…or that making big deal about supporting ARTS+MUSIC EDUCATION ...and
then cutting the budget $2,888,381 ($18,870,456 were spent in arts
during FY 2013-14 and $15,982,075 have been earmarked for 2014-15) isn't
much of a second step.
Sports and Arts+Music are magnets for young people - especially young
men of color. I suppose the “choice” in the portfolio of high quality
school choice for student athletes is the archdiocesan schools.
The mythology of every inner city youngster getting into the NBA and NFL – or becoming music stars - is mythological.
But there are athletic college+university scholarships - - and ones in
music the arts - which promote college readiness and attendance - and
the potential for career preparedness. Athletics, Arts and Music attract
kids to school and keeps them engaged (as-in off-the-streets) after
school.
The mythology creates hopefulness. And Hope isn't just a poster on Deasy's wall.
ON TUESDAY the General Superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School
District will explain it all to the rest of us at his Annual Address to
Administrators at 9AM at Garfield High School, sure to be rebroadcast ad
infinitum on KLCS.
Watch this space.
¡Onward/Adelante! - smf
_______________________________________
* “Congress” is a term that means the US House of Representatives and
the US Senate, working together–“In congress assembled”. No laughing. It
can also refer to sexual intercourse. Just sayin’.
Is giving students laptops a terrible idea?: WHY ONE
DISTRICT IS THROWING ALL ITS STUDENT LAPTOPS AWAY + A Blast from the
British Past + smf’s 2¢ x2
The Hechinger Report / By Jill Barshay | http://bit.ly/1xH0mJN
July 30, 2014 | Inside Hoboken’s combined junior-senior high school is
a storage closet. Behind the locked door, mothballed laptop computers
are strewn among brown cardboard boxes. Others are stacked one atop
another amid other computer detritus. Dozens more are stored on mobile
computer carts, many of them on their last legs.
That’s all that remains from a failed experiment to assign every student
a laptop in this northern New Jersey suburb of New York City. It began
five years ago with an unexpected windfall of stimulus money from
Washington, D.C., and good intentions to help the districts’ students,
the majority of whom are under or near the poverty line, keep up with
their wealthier peers. But Hoboken faced problem after problem and is
abandoning the laptops entirely this summer.
“We had the money to buy them, but maybe not the best implementation,”
said Mark Toback, the current superintendent of Hoboken School District.
“It became unsustainable.”
None of the school administrators who initiated Hoboken’s one-to-one
laptop program still work there, but Toback agreed to share Hoboken’s
experiences so that other schools can learn from it.
Despite tight budgets, superintendents and principals around the country
are cobbling together whatever dollars they can to buy more computers
for their classrooms. This year alone, schools are projected to spend
almost $10 billion on education technology, a $240-million increase from
2013, according to the Center for Digital Education. Educational
technology holds the promise of individualizing instruction, and some
school systems, like Mooresville, North Carolina, and Cullman, Alabama,
have shown impressive student learning gains. But districts like Los
Angeles and Fort Bend, Texas, who jumped on the tech trend without
careful planning, have had problems with their programs to distribute a
laptop or a tablet to every student, and are scrapping them, too.
By the time Jerry Crocamo, a computer network engineer, arrived in
Hoboken’s school system in 2011, every seventh, eighth and ninth grader
had a laptop. Each year a new crop of seventh graders were outfitted.
Crocamo’s small tech staff was quickly overwhelmed with repairs.
We had “half a dozen kids in a day, on a regular basis, bringing laptops
down, going ‘my books fell on top of it, somebody sat on it, I dropped
it,’ ” said Crocamo.
Screens cracked. Batteries died. Keys popped off. Viruses attacked.
Crocamo found that teenagers with laptops are still… teenagers.
“We bought laptops that had reinforced hard-shell cases so that we could
try to offset some of the damage these kids were going to do,” said
Crocamo. “I was pretty impressed with some of the damage they did
anyway. Some of the laptops would come back to us completely destroyed.”
Crocamo’s time was also eaten up with theft. Despite the anti-theft
tracking software he installed, some laptops were never found. Crocamo
had to file police reports and even testify in court.
Hoboken school officials were also worried they couldn’t control which
websites students would visit. Crocamo installed software called Net
Nanny to block pornography, gaming sites and Facebook. He disabled the
built-in web cameras. He even installed software to block students from
undoing these controls. But Crocamo says students found forums on the
Internet that showed them how to access everything.
“There is no more determined hacker, so to speak, than a 12-year-old who has a computer,” said Crocamo.
All this security software also bogged down the computers. Teachers
complained it took 20 minutes for them to boot up, only to crash
afterwards. Often, there was too little memory left on the small
netbooks to run the educational software.
Hoboken math coach Howard McKenzie says he also had problems with the software itself.
“We wanted to run a program for graphing calculators, but it didn’t work
very well; it was very sticky,” said McKenzie “We kind of scrapped it.”
Ultimately, the math teacher just showed it to the class on a Smart Board, an interactive whiteboard.
Superintendent Toback admits that teachers weren’t given enough training
on how to use the computers for instruction. Teachers complained that
their teenage students were too distracted by their computer screens to
pay attention to the lesson in the classroom.
Michael Ranieri, a junior at Hoboken’s high school, aspires to be an
electrical engineer. He said when he did use the computers for
schoolwork, it was mostly for word processing and Internet browsing. He
would write an essay on the laptop for English class, for example, or
research information using Google.
“We didn’t really do much on the computer,” said Ranieri. “So we kind of
just did games to mess around when we had free time. I remember really
big was Crazy Taxis that we used play. If we found solitaire on line, we
used to play it.”
Ranieri said he was relieved to be free of the stress of keeping track
of his laptop. Families had to sign papers agreeing to be financially
responsible if the computers were lost. Every week Ranieri roamed his
classrooms looking for his.
“It was usually under my desk in English class,” he said.
Superintendent Toback inherited the laptop program when he arrived in 2011. At first, he tried to keep it going.
But he faced skyrocketing costs, which hadn’t been budgeted for. The
$500 laptops lasted only two years and then needed to be replaced.
Toback said new laptops with more capacity for running educational
software would cost $1,000 each. Licenses for the security software
alone were running more than $100,000 and needed to be renewed every two
years.
And the final kicker: the whole town was jamming the high school’s wireless network.
“A lot of people knew the username and password,” Toback said. “So a lot
of people were able to walk by the building and they would get wireless
access. Over a period of years, you had thousands of people. It bogged
it down, it made it unusable.”
Allison Powell says Hoboken’s headaches are not unusual. Powell is a
vice president for state and district services at iNacol, the
International Association for K-12 Online Learning, where she works with
school leaders on how to use computers to personalize instruction by
delivering different lessons to each child.
But Powell says many schools are continuing to make Hoboken’s mistake of
shopping for technology without a plan to make teaching in the
classroom more effective.
“Probably in the last few months I’ve had quite a few principals and
superintendents call and say, ‘I bought these 500 iPads or 1000 laptops
because the district next to us just bought them,’ and they’re like, now
what do we do?” Powell said.
Back in Hoboken, the school staff will spend the summer going through
the laptops one by one, writing down the serial numbers and drafting a
resolution for the school board to approve their destruction.
Then they’ll seek bids from recycling companies to figure out how much it will cost Hoboken to throw them away.
- Jill Barshay, a contributing editor, is the founding editor and writer
of Education By The Numbers, The Hechinger Report's blog about
education data. Previously she was the New York bureau chief for
Marketplace, a national business show on public radio stations.
●●smf’s 2¢: Vin Scully, who has had the same job for 66 years without a
promotion, said that “Experience is the art of recognizing one’s
mistakes when one makes them again.”
●This story, with laptops stored+ignored in storage closets cupboards
rather than distributed to students, rang a bell. A bell from 2012. From
across the pond.
SCHOOLS WASTING MONEY ON GADGETS: MILLIONS OF POUNDS WORTH OF
TECHNOLOGY IS “LANGUISHING UNUSED” IN SCHOOL CUPBOARDS BECAUSE TEACHERS
ARE BEING DUPED INTO BUYING THE LATEST GADGETS, ACCORDING TO RESEARCH.
SchoolsWorld | http://bit.ly/1nXF2A2
Nesta, the innovation charity, claimed that millions of pounds were
being wasted on useless technology in schools such as tablet computers,
education games and electronic whiteboards with little or no evidence
that they benefit children’s education.
Researchers warned that teachers were increased pulled in by the “hype
and lure of digital education” without properly considering how to use
the technology.
The study was based on an analysis of more than 1,000 research papers drawn up into the use of technology in education.
Researchers suggested that schools across Britain collectively spent
more than £1.4bn on the latest gadgets in the last three years alone.
But the study warned that: There was: “little tangible impact” on
pupils’ education as technology was often “imported into classrooms
without the necessary changes to teacher practice and school
organisation to support them”.
The report – entitled “Decoding Learning” – also warned that tablet
computers were being handed to pupils with no training in how to use
them.
“TABLET COMPUTERS OFFER A WINDOW TO VAST SWATHES OF INFORMATION, BUT SO
DOES A TRADITIONAL LIBRARY,” it said. “TO USE EITHER EFFECTIVELY, A
CHILD NEEDS STRUCTURED TEACHING TO HELP TURN INFORMATION INTO
KNOWLEDGE.”
smf: I’m just wondering if we can have that bit of wisdom tattooed, in
mirror image, across the foreheads of Dr. Deasy and Matt Hill?
The study highlighted a number of ways in which technology could be used
to boost pupils’ education. This included the use of a robotics kit for
secondary schools that enables pupils to attach lights, sensors and
motors to a customised control board – and then programme their machines
using a simple app. In another example, pupils were able to use
powerful sound equipment and specially-positioned digital equipment to
simulate an earthquake in a geography class.
►Also from 4LAKidsNews (Nov 2012) :
TEACHERS’ OBSESSION WITH TECHNOLOGY SEE GADGETS WORTH MILLIONS SIT IN CUPBOARDS
ACROSS THE POND: Millions of pounds (£) of technology is languishing in
school cupboards because teachers are being lured into buying the latest
gadgets, according to research.
●●smf: “None of the school administrators who initiated Hoboken’s
one-to-one laptop program still work there, but Toback agreed to share
Hoboken’s experiences so that other schools can learn from it.”
It’s probably too-late-for-that for those of us in LAUSD.
I know that there are pallets of iPads from last year in District
warehouses that probably won’t be un-shrink-wrapped until testing season
next year. A warehouse. A cupboard. A cabinet. The big government
warehouse from the last reel of Raiders of the Lost Ark. All the same.
I admit that I initially-if-cautiously supported Dr. Deasy and Mr.
Hill’s Common Core Technology Project …though ultimately the way they
rolled it out drives me the very-short-distance-from-where-I-am to to
drink,
I refer us all to the Decoding Learning quote …and to Vince Scully’s quote. Again. Amen.
85 LAUSD HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETICS PROGRAMS THAT WERE
FUNDED IN 2013-14 HAVE BEEN CUT MORE THAN 50% FOR 13-14
From a “Heads Up” from a 4LAKids reader.
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
73 high schools are getting $30,603, regardless of enrollment and/or programs,
7 of them are getting $15,303, and
5 of them are getting zero, nada, zilch.
● Is that enough to keep high school athletics alive at LAUSD?
● What will be the ramifications of this funding decision?
● What will be the response of parents and alumni?
● What will voters who voted for Prop 30 say?
Methodology: The total allocation to athletics in FY 2013-14, as derived from adding the athletic budget for each high school.
● Said budget obtained by downloading from LAUSD's servers in the last week or so, was $5,577,510.
● Doing the same from the release of the school budgets made on June 8, the total athletic budget for FY 2014-15 is $2,341,215.
Of course, all budget decisions are made at the school sites – that’s
where the local control decision makers are. There was no central hand
or direction from Beaudry to cut the overall LAUSD athletics budget 58%.
NEW DISPUTE OPENS OVER LCAP REPORTING MANDATE -
Changes suggest the LCAP becoming a document driven by compliance rather
than student outcomes
by Tom Chorneau | SI&A Cabinet Report :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet http://bit.ly/UBK741
July 30, 2014 (Calif.) :: A festering dispute over how much freedom
local officials should have over education spending has reignited,
pitting school managers against advocates for low-income families and
some key members of the Legislature.
The current tempest involves plans local educational agencies are now
required to produce showing how new state funds are being used to
support disadvantaged students.
A template of the new plan pending before the California State Board of
Education would require districts to provide actual spending figures on
each pupil subgroup – a mandate that school officials say undermines
Gov. Jerry Brown’s often cited principal of subsidiarity.
They also argue that actual spending reports typically trail the end of
the fiscal year by months and thus cannot be included in the Local
Accountability Control Plans, which must be approved and adopted before
July 1 each year.
“The LCAP was never intended to be an expenditure document that a lay
person could pick up to see the LEA’s entire budget in black and white,”
a coalition of school management groups and local districts said in a
July 28 letter to the state board.
They noted some of the proposed changes “suggest an erosion of the
governor’s original vision and instead move the template towards
becoming a document driven by compliance rather than student outcomes
and closing the achievement gaps.”
Representatives from some of the state’s largest school management
groups signed the letter including the Association of California School
Administrators, the California School Boards Association and the
California Association of School Business Officials.
It arrived, along with scores of others from education stakeholders,
during the final days of a public comment period tied to proposed
changes to regulations governing the state’s new Local Control Funding
Formula and next year’s LCAP.
The changes, discussed by the state board at its July meeting, are
expected to come back for further review at the September meeting.
On the other side of the question, social justice groups praised the
proposed disclosure requirement, noting that it would result in
districts clearly acknowledging schoolwide spending that under some
conditions could include students who do not qualify as “educationally
disadvantaged” –defined by state law as low-income, English learners or
foster youth.
Debra Brown, associate director for Children Now – also in a July 28
letter to the board – said the new requirement “goes a long way toward
closing a loophole in the regulations that made it unclear whether the
funds for unduplicated students would be spent on their behalf.”
If the disagreement might appear to be modest and technical in nature,
it is reflective of a broader struggle schools groups and advocates for
low-income families have waged virtually since the LCFF was first
proposed two years ago.
Brown’s original plan called for the removal of all spending
restrictions on billions of dollars in state support to schools, with
additional funds provided to schools and districts serving high numbers
of disadvantaged students. Little more accountability was proposed
initially, which provoked strong opposition from social justice groups
as well as a significant portion of the Legislature’s Democratic
majority.
Eventually the governor and legislative leaders agreed on the LCAP as a
condition of receiving new freedom to spend state funds – a report that
requires consultation with parents and community leaders to create and
outline student needs, educational goals and spending decisions.
Although the elements of the LCAP were worked out in budget negotiations
last year and Brown has said he opposes any major changes until schools
and communities have had a chance to go through the process once or
twice, some activist lawmakers and advocacy groups have continued to
press for greater accountability.
School officials said privately this week that they are concerned that
the LCAP process will become a new “categorical” program over time – a
reference to the previous system where dozens of school spending
programs were defined in legislation and controlled from Sacramento.
At the July hearing, members of the state board cautioned advocates on
both sides of the issue to consider how much common ground had been
covered in recent months to refine the LCAP into the form it is today.
“The real problem,” said one Capitol observer close to the issue, “is a
continued lack of trust between school districts and the social welfare
folks.”
The District 1 Board of Ed Race: MCKENNA CONTINUES TO GARNER ENDORSEMENTS
From the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles Weekly Update |http://bit.ly/1o2cdCv
July 31, 2014 :: As the date of the election rapidly approaches, Dr.
George McKenna, candidate for LAUSD Board of Education District 1, is
continuing to gather support from current and previous elected
officials, educators, parents and community activists. At a press
conference on July 29, 2014, in front of Los Angeles City Hall, new
endorsees announced their support. LAUSD Board Members Steven Zimmer and
Bennett Kayser, joined L.A. City Councilmembers Gil Cedillo and Paul
Koretz, previous Board Members Barbara Boudreaux, Warren Furutani,
Jackie Goldberg, Genethia Hudley-Hayes, Rita Walters, Julie Kornstein
and David Tokofsky, UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl and other current
and retired City Councilmembers in encouraging voters to support Dr.
McKenna. All spoke of his impeccable credentials, experience, character
and commitment to children. While the opponent can only engage in
negative campaigning, Dr. McKenna, known as the community’s choice, can
stand on his record of
putting children first, supporting teachers and administrators, being an
independent thinker and a pillar in the national educational arena.
AALA and UTLA have both endorsed him and we encourage our members and
friends to help get the word out that he is the only qualified
candidate. It is imperative that we have someone representing District 1
on the Board of Education who is knowledgeable, fair and will focus on
doing what is right for District children and
employees.
The opponent is using his corporate and political deep pockets to
saturate the voters with defamatory material in an attack that the
editor of the Los Angeles Times, Jim Newton, has called scurrilous. http://lat.ms/1pujSor
While Dr. McKenna has chosen to not respond to the false attacks, we
as educators and concerned citizens need to make our support known.
• There are two final opportunities in which you can aid the McKenna
campaign: a meet and greet hosted by adult school administrators Candace
Lee and Elsa Madrid on August 5 (see flyer: August 5-McKenna)
• and another event given by various educators on August 6 (see flyer:
August-6-McKenna ). The election is August 12. There is no time to
waste.
●●OK: There are THREE final opportunities! THE LAST McKENNA MEET &
GREET/FUNDRAISER OF THE CAMPAIGN – Wednesday Aug 16 at 4:30 – 6PM at
Taix Restaurant | http://bit.ly/1pQ8i7o
HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T
FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other
Sources
AIR GOING BACK TO COURT: The American Institutes for
Research is headed back to court in an effort to invalidate a contract giving
Pearson the right to develop, administer and score the PARCC exams. The
contract was awarded in New Mexico, but it includes pricing that applies to the
entire consortium. PARCC officials expect most member states to adopt the
contract, which gives Pearson the testing business for four years. AIR wants to
split the contract in two, allowing Pearson to continue its work during the
first year of the exams and then opening up a competitive bidding process for
the following years. “If you’re going to tie up testing in 14 states for the
next four to eight years with a single vendor, which is their business model,
it ought to be based on a fair and open competition,” said Jon Cohen, president
of AIR Assessments.— PARCC says
AIR’s appeal won’t delay new Pearson exams. “The PARCC
consortium is not interested in appeals of appeals that have already been
decided and only serve to improve AIR’s market share,” PARCC spokesman David
Connerty-Marin said. “The consortium is focused on implementing high quality
standards in the best interests of kids and the states are continuing with that
work.” Stephanie Simon has more here: http://politico.pro/1u4Xw11 and here: http://politico.pro/1pK1RTl
Nonprofit
group's class teaches youths basic skills for college -- Marcus
Davis admits that he didn't try as hard as he should have in high school and
often skipped class, got into fights and hung out with the wrong crowd. "I
messed up," he said. Jason Song in the Los
Angeles Times http://lat.ms/1s0DDqw
Brown administration looks to diminish influence of API
Move over API. You’re not the top dog for determining school success anymore,
the president of the state’s Board of Education said this week. S&I Cabinet Report http://bit.ly/1nhxeDj
“Tablet computers offer a window to vast swathes of information, but so
does a traditional library. To use either effectively, a child needs
structured teaching to help turn information into knowledge.” | http://bit.ly/auDNT3
85 LAUSD HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETICS PROGRAMS THAT WERE FUNDED IN 2013-14 HAVE BEEN CUT MORE THAN 50% FOR 13-14 | http://bit.ly/XhecI3
Editorial: LAWSUIT SETS OFF HEALTHY QUESTIONS ABOUT CALIFORNIA KIDS’ PHYS ED | http://bit.ly/UM6iEy
LAUSD Board District 1 election: ZIMMER, KAYSER BACK McKENNA; VILLARAIGOSA IN FOR JOHNSON | http://bit.ly/1kmUdSG
Griffith Park Free Shakespeare Fri Aug 1:TAMING OF THE SHREW + Robin Lithgow’s PLAYACTING IN SHAKESPEARE'S CLASSROOM | http://bit.ly/1kmR8lu
NEW DISPUTE OPENS OVER LCAP REPORTING MANDATE + LAUSD LCAP PARENT ADVISORY COMMITTEE UPDATE | http://bit.ly/1pGi9wu
KAMALA HARRIS PUSHES SCHOOL TRUANCY BILLS; 47% of LAUSD students missed class 3+ times w/o an excuse in 2012-13 | http://bit.ly/1s3FUTQ
PASADENA UNIFIED TO FILE LAWSUIT AGAINST ACTON-AGUA DULCE UNIFIED FOR AUTHORIZING CHARTER SCHOOL IN PASADENA | http://bit.ly/1oapX8h
ALEX JOHNSON’S SHAMEFUL CAMPAIGN ATTACKS ON GEORGE McKENNA | http://bit.ly/1n0lHrQ
TEACHERS UNION, LAUSD AT ODDS OVER BARGAINING TACTICS | http://bit.ly/1ppdHVE
Vergara, anyone? - TEACHER TENURE LAWSUITS SPREAD FROM CALIFORNIA TO NEW YORK [2 count 'em 2 stories from NPR] http://bit.ly/1pCNfVS
THE GÜLEN ARCHIPELAGO: The Red Queen explains Magnolia Charter Schools + the foreign policy + religious ramifications | http://bit.ly/UIzQ5O
MICROSOFT FIRES 18,000 WORKERS WHILE SEEKING VISAS FOR FOREIGN WORKERS - by Diane Ravitch | http://bit.ly/1oEiSBV
NEW CalArts RESIDENCY TRANSFORMS ARTISTS INTO TEACHERS | http://bit.ly/1qaMaGc
CALIFORNIA SCHOOLS FACE LAWSUIT OVER PHYSICAL EDUCATION CLASSES + smf’s 2¢ http://bit.ly/1rSpLQW
3 of 4 KIDS WITH MENTAL HEALTH NEEDS DON’T GET HELP, LAUSD CUTS MENTAL HEALTH FOR SPECIAL ED STUDENTS http://bit.ly/1pmm5oP
Suppose they hold a school board election and nobody votes? THE LAUSD BOARD ELECTION MATTERS; VOTERS SHOULD TURN OUT http://bit.ly/1rtp4LR
MOODY’S ASSIGNS Aa2 RATING to LAUSD's GENERAL OBLIGATION BONDS: $138.4 M new debt/rating affirmed on outstanding debt http://bit.ly/1zjv0f2
JUDGES RULE AGAINST LETTING PUBLIC SEE LAUSD TEACHERS' PERFORMANCE | http://lat.ms/1mSg0fq
UNION INVITES TEACHERS, PARENTS AND THE PUBLIC TO THE BARGAINING TABLE WITH LAUSD | http://bit.ly/WX1JsO
FEDS BACK ENGLISH LEARNER LAWSUIT AGAINST CALIFORNIA, allegation is that 2% of qualified kids slip through the cracks http://bit.ly/WX0idW
Union-Backed Bill Seeks More Tenure Protection for school employees in Calif Read: http://tl.gd/n_1s2l8jl
CALIFORNIA LAW CUTS PREP FOOTBALL FULL-CONTACT PRACTICE TIME | http://bit.ly/1xi0DD0
Either LAUSD staff overreacted or the Bd of Ed underreacted. WHICHEVER IT WAS MAGNOLIA CHARTERS GET OUT OF JAIL FREE.|http://bit.ly/WIrCga
JUDGE FINDS “EVIDENCE ESTABLISHING FINANCIAL MISMANAGEMENT” …BUT ALLOWS MAGNOLIA CHARTERS TO REMAIN OPEN http://bit.ly/WIrCga
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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