In This Issue:
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IN A SUNDAY ‘RETREAT,’ LAUSD PICKING FIRM TO FIND NEXT SUPERINTENDENT |
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IN REFORMING NEW ORLEANS, HAVE CHARTER SCHOOLS LEFT SOME STUDENTS OUT? |
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MAKING THE LOCAL CONTROL FUNDING FORMULA WORK ...AND THREE REASONS WHY CURRENT LCAPS DON’T! |
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LATINO STUDENTS STRUGGLE TO CLOSE GAP WITH WHITES IN CALIFORNIA ACT SCORES + smf’s 2¢ |
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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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“The host thus forming a single united body, is it
impossible either for the brave to advance alone, or for the cowardly to
retreat alone.” – Sun Tzu: The Art of War
re●treat
noun re·treat ri-ˈtrēt
1a (1) : an act or process of withdrawing especially from what is
difficult, dangerous, or disagreeable (2) : the process of receding
from a position or state attained
b (1) : the usually forced withdrawal of troops from an enemy or from an advanced position (2) : a signal for retreating
c (1) : a signal given by bugle at the beginning of a military flag-lowering ceremony (2) : a military flag-lowering ceremony
2: a place of privacy or safety : refuge
3: a period of group withdrawal for prayer, meditation, study, or instruction under a director
_____________
I understand the difference between retreat as a strategic or tactical
withdrawal and a group meditation+introspection, but the semantic
troublemaker within me caused me to rattle Admiral Brewer’s cage back
in that day when he called periodic ‘retreats’ with senior staff. I was
successful enough that he would call them ‘advances’.
A meditative retreat by public officials in the era of Open Meetings
Laws is an impossibility; we were all invited to watch Sunday morning as
the LAUSD Board of Ed – perhaps in t-shirts and shorts as the LA School
Report suggests – sing “Kumbaya” or “Getting to Know You” while picking
a search firm to select the next superintendent. Maybe someone will
bring a karaoke machine? The idea of a retreat with the whole world
watching and taking notes seems the antithesis of communal
self-examination: Omphaloskepsis as spectator sport.
(The aforementioned Admiral Brewer was the last LAUSD supe identified by
a search firm – unless one counts the firm of Broad, Gates &
Villaraigosa who picked the last three …counting Cortines twice!)
In my neighborhood of Hollywood there is a convent of cloistered nuns,
the Monastery of the Angels, who pray and intone the plainsong chants
and the liturgy of the hours for the souls of their neighbors –
admittedly a lost cause. They also bake an excellent pumpkin bread – a
heavy loaf of salvation, sugar, spice, butter and walnuts – and offer a
retreat to believers who wish to set aside their worldly lives and live a
while in contemplation in a small cell on a hard bed – absent the
abusive sheriff’s deputies.
“Reform,” New Yorker editor David Remnick tells us, “is not a period of retreat.” By any meaning of the word.
THIS WEEKEND MARKS KATRINA AT TEN AND THE MARCH ON WASHINGTON AT 52. We
tend to forget that the main force of Katrina missed New Orleans – the
disaster in that city was caused after the storm by the one-two collapse
of infrastructure when the levees failed with water well below levels
they were designed to withstand – and the subsequent+simultaneous
failure at all levels of government: Local, state and federal.
Of course, the levee failure swept away the truly awful New Orleans
Public Schools – and replaced them with wall-to-wall/levee-to-levee
charter schools. Some have called New Orleans the most ambitious
experiment ever in public education; others characterize it as a
systematic privatization of public education. US Secretary of Ed Arne
Duncan called Katrina "the best thing that happened to the education
system in New Orleans."
“If it keeps on raining, levee's going to break,
If it keeps on raining, levee's going to break,
When the levee breaks I'll have no place to stay.”
Rebecca Solnit’s essay "The Uses of Disaster: Notes on Bad Weather and
Good Government" was published by Harper’s magazine the day that
Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf coast. She went on to write her 2009
book: “A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that
Arise in Disaster”.
• Solnit: “More and more I think of privatization as being not just
about the takeover of resources and power by corporate interests, but as
the retreat of citizens to private life and private space, screened
from solidarity with strangers and increasingly afraid or even unable to
imagine acting in public.”
• MLK wrote: “History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of
this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad
people, but the appalling silence of the good people.”
• Pogo Possum said: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
“Crying won't help you, praying won't do you no good
Now, crying won't help you, praying won't do you no good
When the levee breaks, mama, you got to move.”
¡Onward/Adelante! - smf
IN A SUNDAY ‘RETREAT,’ LAUSD PICKING FIRM TO FIND NEXT SUPERINTENDENT
by Mike Szymanski | LA SCHOOL REPORT | http://bit.ly/1JrfZNR
28, 2015 9:57 am :: The LA Unified board is going to the end of the
earth, or close to it, to accelerate the search for the district’s next
superintendent.
The seven board members are gathering at 10 a.m. Sunday at the Point
Fermin Outdoor Education Center in San Pedro, about a quarter mile from
the Pacific Ocean, for a retreat that board President Steve Zimmer had
intended to hold earlier this month but couldn’t because of members’
travel plans.
So it was finally scheduled on a day all could attend, even through it
precedes by only a few days the September board meeting, planned for
Tuesday in the usual place, the district’s downtown headquarters.
The Sunday retreat differs from a regular board meeting in two ways:
• One, it’s less formal, which means members might show up in shorts and t-shirts and certainly without ties.
• And, two, only one item is on the open session agenda: a decision on
which of five executive search firms will win a $250,000 contract to
find the district’s next leader.
“The Sunday meeting will give board members the opportunity to spend
important time together to make sure we all understand each step in the
process that lies ahead of us,” Zimmer told LA School Report. “It has
been almost a decade since LAUSD conducted a national search for our
superintendent. We all know that this is a pivotal moment for public
education and the collaborative equity mission of this district. And
that the eyes of the nation are upon us.”
In recent weeks, the board has requested proposals from the following firms:
Hamilton, Rabinowitz & Associates of Carmel, California
Hazard, Young, Attrea & Associates of Rosemont, Illinois
Leadership Associates of La Quinta, California
McPherson & Jacobson of Omaha, Nebraska
Ray and Associates, Inc. of Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Each company has submitted a formal bid, and the members are expected to
discuss them in a closed session before announcing the winner. That
decision will kick off the formal start to replacing Ramon Cortines, who
intends to end his third term as superintendent in December.
Cortines, who turned 83 last month, will also be part of the search firm selection process.
“I am grateful that Superintendent Cortines will be joining the Board
and working with the Board on Sunday,” Zimmer said. “He is the most
accomplished public education leader in the United States. And the
effort he has made to bring the entire LAUSD family together this past
year is one of the great acts of public service in our time. We will be
leaning on and learning from Superintendent Cortines’ wisdom and
experience throughout this process and throughout this school year.”
The retreat format also gives the board’s two newest members, Scott
Schmerelson and Ref Rodriguez, a chance to mingle with their colleagues
without the more formal trappings of the Beaudry headquarters.
Rodriguez, in particular, drew sharp criticism from some board members,
including Zimmer, for the tone and substance of his election campaign,
in which he ousted Bennett Kayser.
The Tuesday meeting is far more routine, with the usual laundry list of
agenda items, most of which are approved with little controversy or
debate.
This meeting, too, will include a closed session in which one of the
more troubling issues to on the agenda is the class action teacher jail
lawsuit evolving out of the district’s disciplinary action against
teacher Rafe Esquith.
Among issues scheduled for open discussion is the Girls Academic
Leadership Academy (GALA), which would become the district’s only
all-girls school.
There will also be four items involving charters, one seeking to deny a
charter for Today’s Fresh Start Adams Hyde Park. The board is being
asked to approve charter revisions for two Citizens of the World schools
to add a site and to approve a five-year charter for Equitas Academy 4
in Pico-Union.
These will be the first charter issues to come before Rodriguez, who
served as a charter school executive before winning his board seat.
The board will also hold public hearings to consider applications from
three other charters seeking five-year terms — El Camino Real K-8
Charter School at Highlander, El Camino Real K-8 Charter School at Oso
and Rise Kohyang High School in Koreatown.
On the labor front, the board will consider approving Salary Reopener
Agreements between the district and the Los Angeles School Police
Association, the Teamsters Local 572 (which includes food service
employees) and Office-Technical and Business Services employees.
IN REFORMING NEW ORLEANS, HAVE CHARTER SCHOOLS LEFT SOME STUDENTS OUT?
From the PBS NewsHour | http://to.pbs.org/1LJI1Ii
View in YouTube: https://youtu.be/rrft5Cp4gtE
August 28, 2015 at 6:35 PM EDT :: Ten years ago, New Orleans public
schools were headed for academic rock bottom. And then Hurricane Katrina
came, a disaster so devastating that it offered the rare opportunity to
start over. Charter schools, empowered to take over, have raised test
scores and graduation rates. But some say that success comes from
bending the rules. Special correspondent John Tulenko of Education Week
reports.
TRANSCRIPT: JUDY WOODRUFF: That brings us, appropriately, to our look at
what’s happened to New Orleans’ schools over the course of the past
decade and the big changes that they have undergone.
It’s a story we have reported on closely throughout.
Tonight, John Tulenko of Education Week, which produces stories for the NewsHour, has our report.
JOHN TULENKO: As you can see, in parts of New Orleans, life seems to be
getting back to normal 10 years after Katrina. But many folks are
wondering about the public schools. For the last 10 years, they have
been engaged in what some have called the most ambitious experiment ever
in public education. And whether or not it’s working depends on whom
you ask.
WOMAN: I do see improvement in the kids and in the schools.
JOHN TULENKO: Is it working?
MAN: No.
WOMAN: The charter system has done tremendously well for the local kids here.
WOMAN: It’s working for those who have their money, their hand in the cookie jar.
MAN: I think they are better than they were 10 years ago.
JOHN TULENKO: Ten years ago, New Orleans’ public schools were headed for
rock bottom. Fewer than a third of eighth graders could pass a reading
test. And corruption was so deep, the FBI had set up an office inside
the school administration building.
Patrick Dobard, who oversees the schools today, remembers those days.
PATRICK DOBARD, Superintendent, Recovery School District: Orleans Parish
School Board at that time, unfortunately, it was really academically
and in some instances morally and financially bankrupt.
And then Katrina came. When you have a catastrophe like that, it is an
opportunity to start anew, because a lot of the institutional barriers,
both real and perceived, were literally and figuratively, unfortunately,
washed away.
JOHN TULENKO: Seizing the moment, the state took control of the city’s
failing schools. Pink slips were sent to all 5,000 teachers and the
state set out to remake New Orleans as a city where nearly all the
schools would be independently run charters. Local school officials were
no longer in charge.
MAN: I will know you’re ready because your eyes will be just on me. Thank you so much.
JOHN TULENKO: Some charters split up the boys and girls. Others focused
on the arts. Most introduced uniforms and strict rules, and all were to
be held accountable for results.
PATRICK DOBARD: And then you have a five-year contract. And if you don’t
meet the terms of that contract, we have the ability to not allow you
to continue in existence.
JOHN TULENKO: Charters were new and different. And it took some getting used to for parents like Cheryl Griffin.
CHERYL GRIFFIN, Parent: The first time I came to a meeting here, I’m
going to tell you the truth, I was like, what kind of crap is this
bojangle? What are they doing? I am not going to be a part of this. And
so when I really got it, when I see that Summer got it this way, I said
well, that’s the process. The process is to get it. She loves it.
MICHAEL FRANKLIN, Parent: Definitely, the environment is safe.
Definitely, the teachers — I mean, they have excellent teachers. They
have more things for kids to do.
JOHN TULENKO: Michael Franklin is another parent the charters won over.
MICHAEL FRANKLIN: With the charter school systems, there’s more creative
thinking. I think there’s more creative exploration as far as helping
kids and ways to get kids to meet their — to achieve their potential.
JOHN TULENKO: New schools were opening every year and the results were promising.
MAN: We went up in every grade in every subject. Congratulations.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
JOHN TULENKO: Today, graduation rates have climbed from 54 percent to 73
percent. Test scores are substantially higher, and more students are
enrolling in college.
For some, New Orleans has become a model of urban school reform.
PATRICK DOBARD: When I think about, nationally, people looking at it, it
makes me realize how big this is, because what we’re doing is extremely
different and progressive, but it’s also, in my mind, like the
fundamental things we should be doing across this nation regardless.
JOHN TULENKO: But there is another side to this story. Some say charter
schools, operating with little oversight, have succeeded by bending the
rules in their favor.
WOMAN: So, your shoes cannot have gray on them. Must be all white or all black.
JOHN TULENKO: Critics point in particular to school discipline codes, which charters write themselves.
ASHANA BIGARD, Parent: The rules — like, a lot of the schools have rules
called like willful disobedience, right, which is subjective. It’s
anything I want it to be.
JOHN TULENKO: For 10 years, Ashana Bigard has been helping parents
navigate the schools here. Her daughters attended local charter schools.
ASHANA BIGARD: So willful disobedience could be anything from you not
tracking the teacher with your eyes to being perceived as coughing too
much in the classroom.
JOHN TULENKO: The punishment for that is what?
ASHANA BIGARD: A lot of times, suspension.
MAN: If you’re meeting these expectations, you’re going to be stepping
out of this room, and you might not come back to this room.
ANTONIO TRAVIS, New Orleans: They wasn’t interested in trying to help a
problem child. I would say that. They wasn’t interested in trying to —
in seeing what your issue was at home or why you are coming to school
and why you’re having a bad day. It was five days and go home.
JOHN TULENKO: Antonio Travis says five-day suspensions for minor infractions were the norm at his charter school.
Did you see the students in your class start to disappear?
ANTONIO TRAVIS: Yes, most definitely. From numerous amounts of
suspensions, parents would just get tired of it and just take them out
of school.
JOHN TULENKO: Just two years ago, some charters were suspending 40 percent or more of their students.
ASHANA BIGARD: They want to have great test scores. If you’re a low
tester and I really want to get you out of my school, one of the tools
that I have seen used is suspension.
JOHN TULENKO: While some charge students were being pushed out, others claim their kids couldn’t even get a foot in the door.
SUE BORDELON, Parent: The first time we went and applied at a charter
after Katrina, what I heard was, oh, we can’t — we can’t accommodate
him.
JOHN TULENKO: Sue Bordelon’s son, Clarke, has autism.
SUE BORDELON: And this was repeated over and over at every charter school we went to.
JOHN TULENKO: Parents of students with disabilities took their claims to court and won stricter oversight and regulation.
But even before the lawsuit, state officials had begun to reassert
control over charter schools, starting with a new centralized system for
admissions.
PATRICK DOBARD: Within our central enrollment system, it’s agnostic and
doesn’t know whether or not the kid has a disability. So, schools, once
you get a kid in a school, the child is assigned to the school, you have
to serve that kid.
JOHN TULENKO: The approach to discipline is also changing. Any expulsions must now be approved by the state.
But what about suspensions?
ASHANA BIGARD: Oh, they can suspend as much as they want. And if you’re
14 or 15, 16 and you’re on suspension every two weeks, every two weeks,
after awhile, you’re not going to come back to school.
JOHN TULENKO: Charters point to declining suspension rates as evidence
they’re not pushing students out. To keep kids in school and address
behavior, some are bringing in more counselors. It’s a start, but
there’s hard work ahead.
PATRICK DOBARD: I think the next 10 to 15 years is literally around
mental health interventions that we could put in place. Like, do we need
more than school psychologists? Maybe we need psychiatrists.
Those are the things that traditionally haven’t been, like, the main focus of schools, but we have to look at that.
JOHN TULENKO: The difficult work of school reform has also made New Orleans look within.
PATRICK DOBARD: We have to have like a federalist type of oversight.
Government has to play a role and make sure that all students are being
served well.
But then, within that framework, we want to be able to give like
individual rights to charters, much like states’ rights. That’s in
essence what we’re building.
JOHN TULENKO: Whether charters schools can deliver on their promise to
provide quality education to all students here remains to be seen.
In New Orleans, I’m John Tulenko of Education Week, reporting for the PBS NewsHour.
MAKING THE LOCAL CONTROL FUNDING FORMULA WORK ...AND
THREE REASONS WHY CURRENT LCAPS DON’T!
1. DISTRICTS DID NOT ADDRESS EACH STATUTORY METRIC.
2. MOST DISTRICTS FAILED TO ACCOUNT FOR A MAJORITY OF THEIR LCFF FUNDS.
3. THE MAJORITY OF DISTRICTS DID NOT IDENTIFY AND EXPLAIN THE
RATIONALE FOR NON-TARGETED USES OF THE ADDITIONAL FUNDS GENERATED BY
HIGH-NEED STUDENTS.
By: David Sapp, Director of Education Advocacy for the ACLU of California | http://bit.ly/1KqW9oe
August 16, 2015 :: While students, parents, faculty and school staff
gear up for the excitement of a new school year, a critically important
process is unfolding largely out of public view.
California schools are nearing the conclusion of the second annual cycle
of the district planning and budgeting process ushered in by Local
Control Funding Formula (LCFF), the historic reform of the state’s K-12
education finance and governance system.
And what we are seeing so far raises serious concerns.
Under LCFF, school districts receive additional funding based on how
many high-need students—English learners, foster youth, and low-income
students—they enroll. They also now have significantly more discretion
over how to use their state funding.
In exchange for the increased flexibility, districts must engage local
stakeholders in developing an annual Local Control Accountability Plan
(LCAP). That plan shows how the district will use its funding, including
the additional money for high-need students, to improve student
outcomes based on specified metrics across eight state priority areas.
Districts had to adopt their LCAPs by July 1, and county offices of
education must review and approve those plans by October 8.
LCFF has tremendous potential to improve student outcomes and close
opportunity gaps for high-need student groups. By linking goals for
student outcomes with actions and expenditures across multiple
indicators, the LCAP process is intended to make analysis of student
need the touchstone for all decisions about services and programs, while
helping districts engage the community when making hard choices about
how to prioritize limited resources.
When districts adopted their first-ever LCAPs in July 2014, the ACLU of
California reviewed those plans from a random sample of 40 districts
around the state to identify trends and to inform our ongoing advocacy
around LCFF implementation. Among our findings, three significant issues
stood out as significant barriers to whether LCFF will ultimately be
successful:
1. DISTRICTS DID NOT ADDRESS EACH STATUTORY METRIC.
School districts have much greater flexibility over how to use their
resources, but they are expected to track their progress within the
eight state priority areas, using the specified metrics. Ten of the 40
districts, however, failed to address at least half of the required
metrics, and only one district’s LCAP addressed each relevant statutory
metric. And, as reflected in this chart, certain metrics were
particularly likely to be omitted.
When districts do not address all of the statutory metrics, districts,
stakeholders, and state policymakers cannot assess whether the local
choices about the educational program reflected in the LCAP are, in
fact, improving outcomes across the state priorities and make
adjustments necessary to support a culture of continuous improvement.
2. MOST DISTRICTS FAILED TO ACCOUNT FOR A MAJORITY OF THEIR LCFF FUNDS.
The LCAP is supposed to function as the central planning and
accountability tool under LCFF. But excluding two districts that
reported expenditures exceeding their total LCFF funds, the districts in
our sample accounted for only $2.5 billion of the $6.3 billion in total
LCFF funds they received in 2014-15, meaning that $3.8 billion in LCFF
funding was not accounted for. In fact, 29 of the districts failed to
account for 90% or more of their LCFF funds.
Districts cannot reliably assess why they are, or are not, making
progress toward their goals across the eight state priority areas if a
majority of their education program is not even reflected in the LCAP.
Additionally, failing to account for the bulk of LCFF funds in the LCAP
makes meaningful stakeholder engagement impossible because the public
cannot assess how the few actions identified fit within the district’s
broader program.
3. THE MAJORITY OF DISTRICTS DID NOT IDENTIFY AND EXPLAIN THE RATIONALE
FOR NON-TARGETED USES OF THE ADDITIONAL FUNDS GENERATED BY HIGH-NEED
STUDENTS.
Districts may use the additional funding they receive for high-need
pupils for schoolwide and districtwide, i.e., non-targeted, programs, as
long as they identify each such use in the LCAP and explain how it
advances goals set for the high-need students. Our review found,
however, that 10 districts failed to identify schoolwide and
districtwide uses of these funds, and 20 districts identified only one
or two examples, rather than identifying all such uses. And only 10
districts made a meaningful attempt to explain why the schoolwide or
districtwide uses that they did identify advanced outcomes for the
high-need students who generate the funds.
This requirement is essential to ensure that the funds the Legislature
intended to meet the greater needs of high-need student are not treated
as indistinguishable from the base funding districts receive. Providing
the required explanation ensures that the decisions are anchored in the
particular needs of the students who generate the funds, and that
stakeholders have appropriate insight into the rationale so that they
can participate meaningfully in the local conversation about priorities.
We shared our findings with key stakeholders throughout the spring. We
also flagged these issues in a letterthat the ACLU of California and
Public Advocates sent to every district and county superintendent in the
state in June.
We hoped and expected to see improvement on these areas in the second
round of LCAPs, which districts had to approve by July 1. Unfortunately,
our preliminary review of a small sample of just-adopted LCAPs reveals
that districts are still struggling with these foundational issues.
Implementing the dramatic changes enacted by LCFF is a significant
undertaking. It has been and will continue to be a learning process.
There have also been many positives over the last few years and some
promising practices in LCAP development that I will highlight separately
later this month.
But, taken together, these three issues cut to the heart of whether LCFF
will succeed. If districts fail to address and monitor progress on
numerous statutory metrics, include only a sliver of their LCFF funds,
and fail to transparently explain how they are using the additional
funds generated by high-need students to serve those students, the LCAP
simply cannot be useful as a tool for continuous improvement or to
facilitate meaningful local engagement or accountability.
We must all work together to make LCFF work, and getting these
foundational components of the LCAP right is essential. County offices
have until September 15 to recommend changes to LCAPs, and we believe
these three issues should be front-and-center to the ongoing review
process.
Also see:
LCAP/LCAP: POOR KIDS’ SCHOOL AID DIVERTED?
Schools got extra money for ‘high-need’ students, but ACLU study
suggested funds going elsewhere. Commentary By Dan Walters, The
Sacramento Bee | http://bit.ly/1IqcFyx
MOST VOTERS HAVEN’T HEARD OF LOCAL CONTROL FUNDING FORMULA
By John Fensterwald | EdSource | http://bit.ly/1fLfZ0n
CALIFORNIA VOTERS BACK EXTENDING PROPOSITION 30 TO FUNNEL MORE MONEY TO PUBLIC SCHOOLS
PACE/USC Rossier Poll shows voters have little knowledge of Local
Control Funding Formula reform meant to dramatically alter public school
finance and accountability in the state
Policy Analysis for California Education | http://bit.ly/1KSxhS2
LATINO STUDENTS STRUGGLE TO CLOSE GAP WITH WHITES IN CALIFORNIA ACT SCORES + smf’s 2¢
STANDARDIZED TESTING | EDUCATION MATTERS: HOW SCHOOLS MEASURE LEARNING
By Joy Resmovits | LA Times | http://lat.ms/1Ejt3pw
26 Aug 2015 :: A performance gap on the ACT college entrance exam
persisted this year between California's Latino and white high school
students, according to new test results.
Educators and experts find this trend particularly concerning. They had
hoped for better results from the relatively small segment of test
takers who are largely a self-selected group of students who are
motivated to get to college.
"I find it really disturbing," said Mark Schneider, a vice president at
American Institutes for Research who previously directed the federal
government's education research arm.
Across the country, the class of 2015 stagnated, with 40% of the 1.9
million test takers showing what the organization calls "strong
readiness," according to results released Wednesday.
In California, 30% of the class of 2015 took the test.
California students overall outperformed their peers nationally. While
28% of students across the country met all four ACT targets, intended to
represent college success, 37% of California's test takers did so.
"California had some higher-performing students than the country did,"
said Jon Erickson, ACT's president of education. "That's a good sign."
California's test takers had an average overall score of 22.5, compared to 21 nationally. A maximum score is 36.
The gap between Latino and white students has remained since at least 2011.
In 2011, 25% of Latino students met three or more ACT targets, compared
to 69% of white students. In 2015, 28% of Latino students met three or
more, compared to 70% of whites — representing a continuous gap of more
than 40 percentage points.
The ethnic breakdown of test takers is not precisely the same as the
state's: nearly 28% of test takers were white, and about 38% were
Latino. According to census data, California's population between the
ages of 18 and 24 is 31% white and 47% Latino.
In all four subject areas, English, reading, math and science, the
difference between the percentage of white and Latino students meeting
ACT benchmarks ranged from 37 to 39 percentage points.
In California, about twice as many students take the SAT college
entrance exam as the ACT, which is typically more popular in the
Midwest. Many universities require students to take either the ACT or
the SAT as part of the admissions process.
According to the ACT, 23% of test takers came from families that made $36,000 a year or less.
Poverty can have a profound effect on education — but income inequality
by itself does not explain educational disparities, according to Ryan
Smith, the executive director of Education Trust-West.
"Race does play a factor in student achievement. It's not just an issue
of class," Smith said. "It's a conversation that is lacking,
particularly among education leaders."
"My national concern is that those gaps aren't closing rapidly,"
Erickson said. "I'd say the same thing for California. I was hoping to
see those gaps narrow, and it's pretty much been stable."
With its limited scale, the ACT results are piecemeal. But they still
provide a piece of the puzzle in evaluating California's schools during a
drought of state testing data. For two years, the state has not
released standardized test results as California eases into teaching the
Common Core standards, a set of learning goals in math and English
language arts that specifies what a student should know by each grade.
In California, Common Core test results will be released in September,
officials say, but even those numbers will not show progress — rather,
as the first set of scores, they will set a baseline for future
performance.
The ACT defines college readiness as the minimum score a student must
achieve to have a 75% chance of earning a C or higher, or a 50% chance
of earning a B or higher in a typical first-year college course.
Although test scores are a source of anxiety for parents and the public,
what is often lost is that they measure probability, said Anthony
Carnevale, a Georgetown University professor who researches workforce
skills and a former vice president of the Educational Testing Service.
"A test score is a probability statement," he said. "The whole apparatus
is an artifice designed to get kids from high school to Harvard."
●●smf’s 2¢: “The ACT defines college readiness as the minimum score a
student must achieve to have a 75% chance of earning a C or higher, or a
50% chance of earning a B or higher in a typical first-year college
course.” Which one is it? Cs and Bs are perfectly good passing scores
in college!
• Note that The Times and Their Education Matters sponsors head this as: Standardized Testing: How Schools Measure Learning
• Note that the actual quoted testing expert/educator says: "A test
score is a probability statement… the whole apparatus is an artifice…."
What part of “artifice” is so hard to understand?
AR·TI·FICE
ˈärdəfəs/
noun: artifice; plural noun: artifices
1. clever or cunning devices or expedients, especially as used to trick or deceive others.
HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T
FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other
Sources
► GOVERNOR SIGNS LAW GRANTING CAHSEE REPRIEVE TO
CALIFORNIA HIGH SCHOOL SENIORS :: SENATE BILL 725 ALLOWS STUDENTS
WHO’VE FULFILLED ALL OTHER GRADUATION REQUIREMENTS TO RECEIVE DIPLOMA /
THOUSANDS OF HIGH SCHOOL SENIORS WERE LEFT IN LIMBO AFTER JULY TEST
CANCELED
By Alexei Koseff, Sacramento Bee | http://bit.ly/1fIFmjr
27 August 2015 :: Thousands of students left in limbo by the
cancellation of California’s required high school exit exam will be able
to graduate after all.
On Wednesday, Gov. Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 725, suspending the
test for the class of 2015 and allowing students who’ve fulfilled all
other graduation requirements to receive their diplomas. About 5,000
high school seniors were blocked from graduating this year when the
California Department of Education canceled a final administration of
the exit exam in July because its contract with the provider had
expired.
Concerned that students would be prevented from enrolling in college or
the military, lawmakers introduced the quick-fix legislation, which will
take effect immediately. The University of California and the
California State University later announced that they would not deny
entry to admits affected by the exam cancellation.
Brown signed SB 725 without comment, but on Monday, his deputy press
secretary, Deborah Hoffman, said he would approve the bill: “Students
who’ve been accepted into college should not be prevented from starting
class this fall because of a test cancellation they could not control.”
_____________________
► Just in Late Friday: CAL. DEPT OF ED RESPONDS TO CRITICISM BY DECIDING TO RESTORE DATA FROM OLD STATE TESTS TO WEB SITE.
@howardblume LA Times Education Reporter tweets:
beginning at 4:35 PM - 28 Aug 2015
• Just in: Cal.Dept of Ed responds to criticism by deciding to restore data from old state tests to familiar part of web site.
• Earlier, the state had removed data from old test in prep for upcoming
results from new tests. Officials had discouraged comparisons.
• Word is that much lower % of students will be "proficient" per new
test, which differs in content & form from prior STAR exam.
• State officials had suggested/implied that state law gave them the
authority or mandate to remove old results to avoid faulty comparisons.
• That position caused firestorm among critics, who called for
transparency & continued access to data with instructional/research
value.
• State officials pointed out that the old data was still accessible although harder to find online.
• As of Friday morning, the state was working on web site changes that would make the old data more accessible.
• By later Friday, state ed said the data would simply be restored where
people were used to finding it, in interests of transparency.
____________
► smf: For fans of long form journalism, I give you:
THE LIFE & DEATH OF JAMAICA HIGH SCHOOL: What’s really at stake when a school closes?
Annals of Education | August 31, 2015 Issue of The New Yorker
By Jelani Cobb | The New Yorker | http://nyr.kr/1hifmwk
________________
IN A SUNDAY ‘RETREAT,’ LAUSD BOARD PICKING FIRM TO FIND NEXT SUPERINTENDENT
http://bit.ly/1NEQbSr
MOST VOTERS HAVEN’T HEARD OF LOCAL CONTROL FUNDING FORMULA …but favor Prop 30 extension (2 stories)
POOR KIDS’ SCHOOL AID DIVERTED? + Making the LCFF/LCAP Work ...and 3 reasons why current plans don’t!
http://bit.ly/1Uilx08
Is this what it takes? HUNGER STRIKE STRETCHES INTO 11th DAY TO SAVE CHICAGO SCHOOL
http://bit.ly/1hIAYmo
GOVERNOR SIGNS LAW GRANTING CAHSEE REPRIEVE TO CALIFORNIA HIGH SCHOOL SENIORS
http://bit.ly/1NK3hge
BEST JOBS FOR YOUNG ADULTS: Physician's assistant, actuary, statistician, biomedical engineer …or elevator repairman! http://bit.ly/1Ka9C5e
LATINO STUDENTS STRUGGLE TO CLOSE GAP WITH WHITES IN CALIFORNIA ACT SCORES + smf’s 2¢
http://bit.ly/1KldgaN
MUSIC CENTER ON TOUR: Arts performance grant opportunity for PTA Schools in L.A. County http://bit.ly/1NIldrC
"I’m a teacher, and I’m tired of being scapegoated": WHY THE GOP’s ATTACKS ON EDUCATORS FLUNK THE EVIDENCE TEST
http://bit.ly/1JxdJGl
The Demographic Divide: POLITICO AM ED+OTHERS OPINE ON PHI DELTA KAPPA/GALLUP COMMON CORE/TESTING POLL | http://bit.ly/1MJi7TF
FAFSA FOLLIES: To Gain a Student, Eliminate a Form | The New York Times
http://nyti.ms/1JscyDr
PHI DELTA KAPPA/GALLUP POLL (Not Fox News) SHOWS 54% MAJORITY OPPOSE COMMON CORE STANDARDS | EdSource
http://bit.ly/1PNqCgh
A-G: RAISING GRADUATION BAR POSES CHALLENGES FOR SCHOOL DISTRICTS | EdSource http://bit.ly/1NFlKKT
CALIFORNIA’S TEACHER PIPELINE NEEDS A BOOST
http://bit.ly/1MHCYGO
WHY SO MANY TEACHERS QUIT AND HOW TO FIX THAT - Education Matters/LA Times
http://lat.ms/1KEAIeU
IS THERE STILL ROOM FOR PLAY IN CALIFORNIA KINDERGARTENS? | The California Report | KQED News
http://bit.ly/1WLm3Yt
EVENTS: Coming up next week...
• Special Board Meeting - Sunday, August 30, 2015 - 10:00 a.m
Point Fermin Outdoor Education Center
920 West 36th Street
San Pedro, CA 90731
10:00 a.m., Sunday, August 30, 2015
• Regular Board Meeting - September 1, 2015 - 1:00 p.m.
*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:
Scott.Schmerelson@lausd.net • 213-241-8333
Monica.Garcia@lausd.net • 213-241-6180
Ref.Rodriguez@lausd.net • 213-241-5555
George.McKenna@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, county supervisor, state
legislator, 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 at http://registertovote.ca.gov/
• If you are registered, VOTE LIKE THE FUTURE DEPENDS ON IT. THEY DO!
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