In This Issue:
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THE MIRACLE ON BEAUDRY AVENUE: 3 stories |
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Vergara on Appeal: TEACHER TENURE BACK ON TRIAL IN CALIFORNIA |
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WHERE'S THE COLOR IN KIDS' LIT? Ask The Girl With 1,000 Books (And Counting) |
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SOLUTIONS FOR STRESSED-OUT HIGH-SCHOOL STUDENTS |
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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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LAUSD’s adventures with A thru G have been - uh - adventurous. And now we go from adventurous to miraculous.
The A thru G Initiative was driven by so-called grass-roots community
activists, spurred on by ivory tower education theorists and
inside+outside LAUSD politicians looking for an issue – plus inner city
parents who were promised that their kids would go to college as well as
well-meaning do-gooders with the best of intentions.
Those selfsame best intentions that the Road to Heck is paved with.
Q: WHAT IF THE LAUSD GRADUATION REQUIREMENTS WERE THE SAME AS THE ENTRY
REQUIREMENTS FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AND THE CALIFORNIA STATE
UNIVERSITY SYSTEM?
A: THEN ALL HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES (OF WHICH THERE SHALL BE 100%) – WHITE
AND BLACK AND BROWN AND ASIAN; RICH AND POOR AND MIDDLE-CLASS, SHALL GO
TO COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY!
The High School Diploma as a golden ticket to college!
“'Cause I've got a golden ticket
I've got a golden chance to make my way
And with a golden ticket, it's a golden day.”
- Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, words and music by Leslie Bricusse
-
…and (as we all know). The Road to College (stretching the road metaphor
far further than it should go) leads to a Great New Wonderful Tomorrow.
Never mind that some kids don’t want to go to college. Never mind that
the UC/CSU systems couldn’t possibly accommodate all those students if
they did graduate. Never mind that there were real issues that college
prepared graduates who had met the A-G requirements were failing
entrance exams, needed remedial courses and were not truly college
prepared.
I remember sitting on various LAUSD A-G task forces back in the day
eleven years ago – we discussed many roadblocks about A-G …but we never
discussed how our surfeit of high school graduates could afford college.
Those task forces included truly qualified and committed folks: Senior
LAUSD staff and the Chief Admissions Officer from the CSU system and
mucky-mucks from the UCLA schools of Education and Social Justice. Dr.
Jeannie Oakes from UCLA IDEA went on to become the Ford Foundation
Director of Education and Scholarship; I can think of four task force
members who went on to become superintendents at other districts.
We started meeting every other week, with encouragement from the
superintendent and sandwiches and coffee and cold drinks. Then we went
to monthly and then bi-monthly with cookies and water. We made concrete
proposals and began designing plans for Individualized Graduation Plans
and elementary-to-middle-school and middle-school-to high-school
bridging programs – and robust summer school and intervention and credit
recovery plans. There would be training and professional development
for every teacher at every level. Parents were going to be involved
every step of the way.
We debated but never resolved whether a “D” would qualify as a passing grade.
The programs proposed – like the sandwiches, coffee and parking
validations – cost money. The economy went south along with the
District’s focus+budget. And, after all, the implementation date was
years away. Superintendents and Boards of Ed changed – and the
commitment wavered and then waned. There were other crises and other
shiny sparkly things. Small Learning Communities. Mayoral Control.
Charter encroachment. Miramonte. iPads.
Binders full of plans were bound and shelved.
We would get around to it later. The plans went from shelves to the
archives. And later got to be sooner. MLK said there’d be days like
this: “We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are
confronted with the fierce urgency of now.
And it is All Hands on Deck and Emergency Room Triage and
D-is-a-passing-grade. Credit Recovery v. Content Recovery. Online
classes. Edgenuity. Quick fixes and Band Aids for a problem years in the
making.
• KPCC discusses “…negotiating a contract with a teacher to change a student's grade, from an F to D…”
• The Times says LAUSD’s Chief Academic Officer stopped just short of saying that the academic rigor was completely undiluted.
• 4LAKids wonders where on the slippery slope between Social Promotion and Social Graduation we find ourselves.
LAUSD does its best work responding to crisis; if you don’t think so
consider the Porter Hills gas leak and emergency relocation of two
schools in three weeks.
And now the Graduation Crisis is fixed in one month.
It takes thirteen years for a student to progress from kindergarten to
twelfth grade. And apparently, if something goes wrong, it can be fixed
in the last semester of their senior year.
(In the showbiz we call that ‘fixing it in post.” They give an Academy
Award for that, it’s for Best Achievement in Film Editing. Watch for it
tonight.)
Who needs a plan when you have a Tiger Team?
Miracles? You gotta believe. W.C. Fields said; “Everybody has to believe in something. I believe I’ll have another drink.”
Sleep tight, gentle readers. Sweet dreams. And don’t let the bed bugs bite.
¡Onward/Adelante! – smf
_____________
A BLATANT APPEAL by Scott Folsom
My daughter, the lovely+talented Alana Folsom, has been the editor of
the literary journal at every educational institution that would have
her.
• She edited the literary journal at LAUSD’s John Marshall High School, Class of ‘08
• She edited Seeds, the literary journal at Bates College in Maine, Class of ‘12
• She is currently editing the literary journal for the MA/MFA program
at Oregon State University in Corvallis. Actually, she and her English
Major Graduate Student friends created the literary journal, 45th
Parallel.
Alana and her OSU EMGS friends have big plans for 45th Parallel and will
be hawking their journal at Association of Writers & Writing
Programs [AWP16] Conference & Bookfair at the Los Angeles Convention
Center & JW Marriott at the end of March/Beginning of April.
But before that they need to raise some money to actually print 400
copies of their journal …so they have a Kickstarter campaign. They need
to raise $1500 (the truth is they already have) but, as they say,
“…we’ve also made some ‘dream goals’ – goals beyond our base funding
that we can only dream, dream, dream of having happen.”
“A dream is a wish your heart makes
When you're fast asleep
In dreams you will lose your heartache
Whatever you wish for you keep”
Become a Patron of the Arts! Click on the link; Alana, on video, will explain it better than I.
THE MIRACLE ON BEAUDRY AVENUE: 3 stories
►Miracle on Beaudry Avenue: WHY L.A. UNIFIED'S GRADUATION RATE IS EXPECTED TO SOAR THIS YEAR
By Howard Blume | LA Times | http://lat.ms/1KSXK8s
Feb. 24, 2016 :: The beleaguered Los Angeles Board of Education had
that rare moment Tuesday when it could celebrate good news that verged
on the spectacular: The nation's second-largest school system seems
headed for a record graduation rate despite more rigorous standards and
despite fears — as recently as last week — that half of students would
not make it into their caps and gowns.
Although this turnaround has raised eyebrows among outside observers, it
was welcome balm at the school board meeting for officials accustomed
to catcalls for the ills of the long-struggling school district.
Board member Ref Rodriguez was "thrilled."
"I'm encouraged," said George McKenna. "I'm really enthusiastically encouraged."
The projected graduation rate could rise as high as 80%, compared with last year's 74%, those presenting the update said.
"We're shooting for the stars," said Supt. Michelle King.
Doubts were few.
Monica Ratliff voiced hers almost as an afterthought, and only because
McKenna, who chaired the meeting, asked her if she had anything to say
before he gaveled it to a close.
"I love the progress that has been made," Ratliff began. But "are these
credit recovery courses really rigorous [college-preparation] courses?
How do we know? What is our evidence? How do we make sure the … diploma
is the same for everyone?"
Chief Academic Officer Frances Gipson stopped just short of saying that
the academic rigor was completely undiluted. In an interview after the
meeting, she noted that these efforts to get foundering students quickly
back on course through online classes and other means are overseen by
L.A. Unified teachers.
"It's still L.A. Unified teachers working with L.A. Unified students," she said.
In other words, the standards should be comparable to those of the
teachers who flunked these same students in required classes not so long
ago.
Former school board member David Tokofsky saluted the urgency but
questioned how much students were learning as they crammed to make up
course credits.
"Credit recovery is not content recovery," said Tokofsky, who coached a
championship academic decathlon team at Marshall High School.
The potential crisis was years in the making.
In 2005 district officials, under pressure from community groups,
decided that all students, starting with the class of 2016, would have
to pass the courses needed to qualify for a four-year state college. To
be eligible to apply, students also would have to earn at least a C in
each class.
But students were not hitting those marks. And last year, the school
board lowered the standard to a D for the college-prep classes. About
half of students weren't hitting this target either as recently as
December.
Instead of backing down from the requirements, district educators from
the top down began what Gipson likened to "emergency-room" triage.
At Tuesday's meeting, Gipson and other senior administrators went
through a long list of efforts being made, including having emissaries
from district offices travel to each school to ask about individual
students and what special programs they are taking part in.
Online classes were a key part of the formula. They require at least 60
hours of seat time — and passing unit tests — to get credit for a
semester of work, Gipson said.
Schools had varying approaches. Verdugo Hills High School was allowing
students to finish course work on computers at home but noticed that
some students were getting stuck at night. So the school assigned a
teacher to work evenings, someone who could be contacted for help.
Another novel method at many schools is negotiating a contract with a
teacher to change a student's grade, from an F to D — if the student
takes on additional work that would have resulted in a D had the student
done the job the first time.
Board President Steve Zimmer said he's concerned that students who are
back on track could still slip off again before June. And he wants to be
sure the district sticks with students who have no hope of a June
ceremony.
But he, too, was pleased.
"It's evident we're changing the way we work," he said. "And that's really positive for the families that need us the most."
______________
►Miracle on Beaudry Avenue: WHY LAUSD'S PROJECTED GRADUATION RATE SHOT UP 9 POINTS IN 1 MONTH
By Kyle Stokes | KPCC 89.3 | http://bit.ly/1KSTPJ5
February 23 2016 :: When second semester classes came to an end in
January, barely half of the 32,000 seniors in Los Angeles Unified high
schools were on-track to graduate at the end of this year.
Now, six weeks later, 63 percent of L.A. Unified seniors are on-track to
earn diplomas, a district memo shows — and another 17 percent are only
one or two courses behind.
But what looked like a sudden shift in the numbers is the result of what
district officials described Tuesday as part of a year-long,
district-wide effort to ensure off-track high school seniors earn the
credits they need to get their diplomas.
Specifically, the updated numbers include for the first time students
who made up credits during the fall semester. Some even finished their
credit recovery work over winter break, said L.A. Unified Chief Academic
Officer Frances Gipson.
But only 43 percent of this year’s seniors are currently on-track to
graduate with a C average or better — a bar students must clear to be
eligible for admission at University of California or California State
University campuses.
Superintendent Michelle King has set a goal that 100 percent of L.A.
Unified students graduate on-time, but efforts to increase the number
predate her time in the district’s top job.
Last August, the district “decentralized” its efforts to ensure all
students met all of the so-called “A-G requirements,” giving local
school leaders the autonomy to determine how to meet students’ credit
recovery needs in their differing neighborhoods, Gipson said.
And starting in mid-January, counselors began sending certified letters
to parents of every student in the Class of 2016 who was off-track.
"It’s evident we’re changing the way we work,” L.A. Unified school board president Steve Zimmer during a Tuesday meeting.
Preliminary figures showed 74 percent of L.A. Unified's Class of 2015
graduated on-time. On Tuesday, district officials and school board
members expressed cautious optimism that the Class of 2016 might top
that mark, but Gipson did not want to make any predictions.
“Credit recovery’s like the emergency room and we want to attend to that
and make sure [the student is] healthy and well,” Gipson said. “It’s
about the health of our education system and making sure we have
rigorous instruction, quality instruction.”
Students who’ve fallen behind are recovering lost credits in a range of
ways, district officials said Tuesday. Since August 2015, L.A. Unified
students had enrolled in more than 11,900 courses through an online
credit recovery program called Edgenuity; they'd completed more than
2,900 semester courses.
But the district also offers more traditional face-to-face instruction
that helps students make up those credits. Gipson said her team is still
sorting through the data to determine the breakdown of how many
students are enrolled in online, classroom-based and blended credit
recovery courses respectively.
Students who end up in credit recovery programs often are among a
school’s most vulnerable or at-risk, said Jessica Heppen, who directs
research on teaching and learning technology at the American Institutes
for Research.
Heppen conducted a study on ninth graders in Chicago who had failed a
first semester Algebra course, comparing how these students fared in
face-to-face and online credit recovery courses. The results of her
study were mixed; while students in face-to-face courses recovered the
credits at somewhat higher rates, students in online courses appeared to
have taken away somewhat more content knowledge.
But either way, "we don’t have a lot of evidence that they really had a
launching point in order to be more successful in mathematics going
forward,” said Heppen.
While expressing optimism at the numbers district officials discussed
Tuesday, L.A. Unified board member Monica Ratliff closed Tuesday’s
session by raising similar questions:
“Are these credit recovery courses really rigorous A-G courses? How do we know? What’s our evidence?"
______________
►Miracle on Beaudry Avenue: ARE LAUSD STUDENTS REALLY READY FOR COLLEGE?
The Times Editorial Board | http://lat.ms/24uvYpc
Feb 26, 2016 :: In a burst of optimism, the Los Angeles Unified school
board voted in 2005 to require all students in the district to pass a
full set of college-prep courses in order to graduate high school.
Recognizing that it would be difficult and time consuming to prepare for
such a change, the board announced that the rule wouldn't take effect
for 12 years. That time is now up; beginning this school year, every
student who hopes to graduate must for the first time earn a grade of D
or better in a set of courses that includes four years of English and
three years of math.
But it was a poorly conceived mandate from the start. It wasn't a
surprise to most observers that this ruling from on high didn't
magically improve instruction, curriculum or learning. Nor was it
terribly surprising when the district announced in December that because
of the new rules, it expected to face a huge dip in its graduation rate
this year — from the 74% it had reached after years of trying, down to a
gloomy 54%. And it would have been a lot worse than that if the board
hadn't previously dropped an even more onerous requirement that students
get a C or better in all those courses, which would qualify them for
admission to the California State University system.
That was where things stood until last week, when the seemingly magical
happened. Although there have been only a few weeks of school since the
December report, L.A. Unified announced that suddenly the expected
graduation rate is up to 63% and might go as high as 80%.
How did this come about? Thanks largely to the online “credit-recovery”
courses that students were allowed to take in order to pass courses they
previously had failed. And though the district probably had no choice
but to allow this lest its own bad policymaking unfairly rob students of
a diploma, some legitimate questions are now being raised about whether
all these students have truly mastered the material that had previously
eluded them.
Probably no one frets about dropouts more than Russell Rumberger,
director of the California Dropout Research Project at UC Santa Barbara,
and he takes a skeptical view of online credit-recovery programs. Not
that there aren't good ones, he says, and he acknowledges that there are
online courses that suit the learning styles of some students. But
there are also quick-fix models that do not impose the kind of rigor and
standards that students would find in a classroom. He's seen online
English courses that conferred an A grade after requiring a single book
and about 12 hours of computer work, as opposed to the five books and
more than 100 hours of instructional time that a regular English class
would have required.
L.A. Unified says that's not what's happening and that it has done
quality control to ensure that its credit-recovery classes are
meaningful. Students spend about 60 hours on the courses, officials say,
and must pass unit tests to get credit. Students are overseen in their
work by teachers.
Still, there's some apparent concern even on the board about the speed with which the district turned the numbers around.
“I love the progress that has been made,” said board member Monica
Ratliff at a meeting this week. But “are these credit-recovery courses
really rigorous courses? How do we know? What is our evidence?”
Setting high standards for graduation is a fine idea, but they must be
achievable or else they can be counterproductive. And once they're set,
students must be helped to meet them fair and square. Not through
shortcuts or last minute brush-ups. That means building a solid scaffold
of curriculum, instruction and other programs that improve actual
learning, which was supposed to be the goal all along.
Vergara on Appeal: TEACHER TENURE BACK ON TRIAL IN CALIFORNIA
THE RATIONALE BEHIND TEACHER LAYOFFS IS ONCE AGAIN AT STAKE IN THE GOLDEN STATE.
By Lauren Camera | US News and World Report | http://bit.ly/1QE46oh
Feb. 24, 2016, at 4:33 p.m. :: A California appellate court is set to
hear oral arguments Thursday in a case that could dramatically shift the
state's education landscape.
In 2012, a group of nine California students filed a lawsuit against the
state, arguing that its teacher tenure, seniority and layoff policies
resulted in unequal student outcomes and therefore violated the state's
constitution.
The case, Vergara v. California, garnered national attention and was
just the latest in a slew of suits that took aim at teachers unions.
The students argued that, among other things, California's two-year time
period for anointing a teacher with tenure is too short; its procedure
for dismissing ineffective teachers is too difficult; and its layoff
policy, which is based on seniority and often called "last in, first
out," doesn't take into account how effective teachers are.
Last year, a judge ruled in the students' favor, but delayed the actual
banning of the policies pending appeals – a process that begins with
Thursday's arguments.
On Wednesday, the two national teachers unions sought to get out ahead
of the case, issuing statements castigating the students' suit.
"The Vergara v. State of California lawsuit is an example of using our
court system for political goals," said Lily Eskelsen García, president
of the National Education Association, the country's largest teachers
union. "Due process policies such as tenure are an important job
protection that teachers value highly. These policies don't prevent bad
teachers from being fired; they prevent good teachers from being fired
for bad reasons."
The American Federation of Teachers chimed in as well.
"In reality, rather than trying to recruit, support and retain teachers –
particularly for the students most in need – it aimed to strip teachers
of basic job protections," said Michael Powell, a spokesman for the
union. "The suit is wrong, on both the law and the facts."
However, new survey data from Teach Plus, an education advocacy group,
show that a majority of principals in California agree with the
plaintiffs when it comes to teacher layoffs.
_____________
●●smf NOTE: from the New York Times by Sam Dillon | http://nyti.ms/1QE4S4R
May 21, 2011 - INDIANAPOLIS — A handful of outspoken teachers helped
persuade state lawmakers this spring to eliminate seniority-based layoff
policies. They testified before the legislature, wrote briefing papers
and published an op-ed article in The Indianapolis Star.
They described themselves simply as local teachers who favored school
reform — one sympathetic state representative, Mary Ann Sullivan, said,
“They seemed like genuine, real people versus the teachers’ union
lobbyists.” They were, but they were also recruits in a national
organization, Teach Plus, financed significantly by the Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation.
For years, Bill Gates focused his education philanthropy on overhauling
large schools and opening small ones. His new strategy is more
ambitious: overhauling the nation’s education policies. To that end, the
foundation is financing educators to pose alternatives to union
orthodoxies on issues like the seniority system and the use of student
test scores to evaluate teachers. [article continues…]
______________
Out of more than 500 principals from across the state, 69 percent said
they are dissatisfied with the state's current teacher layoff system,
while only 11 percent reported being satisfied.
What's more, 71 percent of principals who had been at their schools for
five or more years reported losing teachers due to layoffs. And when
those principals were asked whether they had lost a teacher even though
he or she was better than another teacher with more seniority, 72
percent said such a scenario had occurred.
The most common complaints about the current policy included principals'
inability to create a strong teaching staff and an overall feeling that
the system reflects negatively on the teaching profession.
"Seniority-based layoffs are what holds our profession back from respect
and progress," one principal commented in the survey. "We are doing a
great disservice to our students and communities when we honor tenure
and seniority above doing right by our kids."
Indeed, 63 percent of respondents said they think a layoff system based
on a teacher's seniority is viewed negatively by people considering
joining the profession, while only 11 percent of respondents think it's
viewed positively.
"The seniority system makes education look unprofessional when compared to other professions," a different principal said.
Still, both principals and teachers aren't in favor of completely negating the importance of seniority.
"Our teachers deserve to be honored for their years of commitment,
dedication and cumulative expertise," one principal responded.
Principals indicated they'd prefer teacher layoffs be determined 69
percent by a teacher's performance and 31 percent by seniority. Notably,
a 2015 Teach Plus report involving a survey of more than 500 California
teachers found that on average, they were in favor of a system that
weighted performance and seniority equally.
Principals also are worried about superintendents using a layoff system
that incorporates effectiveness to dismiss high-performing senior
teachers over high-performing but less experienced teachers purely for
budgetary reasons, since senior teachers are typically paid the most.
Another common concern was that current teacher evaluation systems need
to be strengthened before moving toward a layoff policy that
incorporates teacher performance.
"There needs to be a common performance tool created that can truly
measure a teacher's performance over a period of years," one principal
wrote. "Then, and only then, can we successfully weigh a teacher's
performance and decrease the need to [lay off] by seniority."
Teachers unions have harped on this point for some time now, arguing
that evaluation systems that use student test scores – which many states
adopted in the wake of the Obama administration's Race to the Top grant
program and No Child Left Behind waivers – have proved unreliable so
far as states continue to refine and change their testing regimens.
In Powell's statement Wednesday, he said that instead of layoff
policies, the teaching profession would be better suited by focusing on
improving hiring practices, especially in the midst of a nationwide
teacher shortage.
"With enrollment in teacher training programs plunging, a high
percentage of new teachers leaving the profession in the first five
years and the retirement of large numbers of seasoned educators, it's
irrational to try and further deplete their ranks or make teaching an
unattractive profession," Powell said.
In the wake of the original ruling, teacher unions have also pointed out
that states with the highest academic performance actually have some of
the strongest seniority protections for teachers, including Maryland
and Massachusetts, and that multiple studies show two-thirds of the
factors contributing to student outcomes are actually issues that occur
outside the classroom, like poverty, family background and inadequate
housing.
Meanwhile, civil rights groups – including the Lawyers' Committee for
Civil Rights Under Law, the Education Law Center, the Southern Poverty
Law Center and others – have underscored that the real culprit in
depriving students of a quality education, especially low-income and
minority students, is inadequate school funding.
WHERE'S THE COLOR IN KIDS' LIT? Ask The Girl With 1,000 Books (And Counting)
NPR Morning Edition | http://n.pr/1S8DPUG
Listen to the Story: 3:41 | http://n.pr/1pfTbLD
Published February 26, 20165:14 AM ET
DAVID GREENE, HOST: Marley Dias is 11 years old. She loves reading. But
she noticed that a lot of the books at school were about white boys. Or
dogs. Or, like the award-winning children's novel, "Shiloh," they were
about white boys and their dogs. We asked Marley to elaborate on what
bothered her.
MARLEY DIAS: Basically, it was the lack of diversity in my fifth-grade
class. We were only reading books such as "Where The Red Fern Grows,"
"Crash," the "Shiloh" series and "Old Yeller." So I noticed that. Then I
was frustrated because I was never reading books about black girls or
any different type of character so I went home and I told my mom, and
she said, well, what are you going to do about it? So I decided to start
a campaign in which black girls are the main character and then give
those books to various schools.
GREENE: Wow. You're 11 years old, and you just decided, this is a problem and I'm going to take it on myself.
MARLEY: Yes, yes I did.
GREENE: And just tell me why it was important to you and why you think
it's important for 11-year-olds, you know, to be reading books that have
more diversity?
MARLEY: Well, I think it's important in general for kids to be reading
books with diversity. When you read about character that you can connect
with, you'll remember the things that they learned. So if I like hair
bows and the character I'm reading about likes hair bows, I will
remember what he or she learned in that book because I have something in
common with them.
GREENE: And so it was not a matter of you wanting books to be about
black girls, you just wanted the characters to be people who you could
relate to more.
MARLEY: Yeah, I just - I think that it was definitely about access. At
home, I could read those books and I could read as many as I wanted, but
when I came to school it wasn't really available for me to read.
GREENE: OK so you take it upon yourself and you start collecting books
that have more diverse characters in them. Where were you getting these
books? Were you buying them, or, what was happening?
MARLEY: No, we weren't buying them, we were getting donations from
people who saw the campaign on social media. And I think that it's a lot
better when they give books because then they know where their money's
going. We did get some money donations, which is definitely helpful for
us when we travel, and we had to hire people to help log books because
there's so many.
GREENE: Were you sort of the boss? Were you kind of giving them instructions on how you wanted this to be done?
MARLEY: Yes, I am, but because I have school I can't spend, like, the
day helping opening books all the time, but I try my best because I
don't want to just be the boss and be the representative. I want to be a
part of every aspect of the work that I created. I just don't want to
be, like, the big boss who doesn't do much.
GREENE: I love that. That seems like a very good lesson to learn in life
very early on. What's been the most memorable moment so far since
you've started doing this?
MARLEY: That's a tough one. Well, of course when we reached 1,000 books,
which is so big of a deal, it was really awesome. And then when I went
on the "Ellen" show - I've never been on TV or done anything, like, that
made me famous or anything in any respect. It's just - all of it really
is super important and super special.
GREENE: So the bottom line - you were trying to collect a thousand books
and give them away, and you kind of blew right through your goal and
have collected a lot more, which is awesome. Do you have a new goal now?
MARLEY: We don't have a new goal, but I do have a bigger idea now that
we've reached the goal. It's that we have school boards assigning books
where it's very diverse and it's not just one type that they're trying
to focus on, it's all different characters, all different races, all
different genders. So that's definitely one of the big things that I
want to achieve because I know that I'm definitely not the only kid or
student out there who's experiencing this problem.
GREENE: Marley, you've probably heard this before - you're a very impressive young woman.
MARLEY: Thank you.
GREENE: Best of luck to you, and thanks for taking the time to talk to us about this.
MARLEY: No problem.
GREENE: She is only 11 years old. That's Marley Dias, and you heard her on MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
►The thing NPR Ed wanted to know? Her take on a subject she now knows
well: books about black girls. Here are her top five picks.
• BROWN GIRL DREAMING by Jacqueline Woodson
Age level: Grades 6-8
Genre: Autobiography
Why Marley recommends it: "It's definitely one of my favorites,
mainly because I am a very avid reader and it was one of the first books
I ever had a challenge reading. I know that sounds not really good
because then you couldn't understand it. But it was like the first time
that I ever fully had to wait and think through something and take my
time, which I think is definitely something important because you have
to be patient.
"It's also a poetry book and I think that poetry is cool even though
I don't really write poetry that much. I do think it's cool to read it.
And it's a very important book and there's a lot of themes in the book.
There's a lot of ways to interpret it, but it's about the '60s and '70s
and Jim Crow laws in South Carolina and New York and how a girl talks
about her family and racism and how they experience it."
• ONE CRAZY SUMMER by Rita Williams-Garcia
Age level: Grades 3-5
Genre: Historical fiction
Why Marley recommends it: "The black girls that I know ... thought
that this was one of the best books about black girls. I haven't
finished reading it yet. I know it's kind of disappointing that I
haven't read one of the most popular books that we've been getting. It's
about three girls who go to see their mother, who they haven't seen
ever since they were babies. So, they go to visit the summer with her
and they have a whole giant adventure."
• PRESIDENT OF THE WHOLE FIFTH GRADE by Sherri Winston
Age Level: Grades 3-5
Genre: Fiction
Why Marley recommends it: "It's about a girl named Brianna Justice
who runs for fifth-grade president." Marley explains that the main
character is following in the footsteps of her role model, "who's a
cupcake baker from the same town in Michigan that she's from. So, it's
about her whole journey to become president of the whole fifth grade.
It's a series and there's President of the Whole Sixth Grade as well."
• ROLL OF THUNDER, HEAR MY CRY by Mildred D. Taylor
Age level: Grades 5-8
Genre: Historical fiction, classic
Why Marley recommends it: "I like this one because it's a classic
book in general and it's one of the most famous black girl books ever.
The main character, she's very independent. She's very strong. She's
very family-oriented and she protects her family. So, that's definitely
one of the main things that the book is popular for. It has a very
important life lesson: to be protective of the things you have, even
though you might not be 100 percent grateful for it, and to always stand
up for what you believe in, even if you're the only one. So, I think
those are definitely good themes that could help girls — and boys —
learn how to represent their voices when there's a problem."
• PLEASE, BABY, PLEASE by Spike Lee, Tonya Lewis Lee and Kadir Nelson
Age level: Ages 2-5
Genre: Comedy
Why Marley recommends it: When it comes to books for little kids,
Marley has a tie: Please, Baby, Please and Please, Puppy, Please.
"They're really funny and sweet little books about a baby who is being a
little troublemaker and then about a dog who's being a little
troublemaker. They're funny and they're sweet and kids enjoy them."
Marley continues to accept donations. You can send books to:
59 Main Street, Suite 323, West Orange, NJ 07052
SOLUTIONS FOR STRESSED-OUT HIGH-SCHOOL STUDENTS
WITH GROWING EVIDENCE THAT STUDENTS ARE SUFFERING
FROM THE INTENSE COMPETITION FOR COLLEGE ADMISSION, SCHOOLS AROUND THE
COUNTRY ARE RETHINKING EVERYTHING FROM TESTS TO CLASSES TO START TIMES
By NIKHIL GOYAL | Wall Street Journal | http://on.wsj.com/1QEfccV
Feb. 12, 2016 1:28 p.m. ET :: Last year, at the West
Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District in central New Jersey,
superintendent David Aderhold decided that students had had enough.
District staff had recommended mental-health assessments for more than
120 middle- and highschool students for depression, anxiety and suicidal
thoughts—a pronounced increase from the previous year. In a letter to
parents last fall, he wrote, “I cannot help but think that we may be
failing [our students] by reinforcing an educational system that
perpetuates grades at the expense of deep and meaningful learning.”
Mr. Aderhold isn’t alone in questioning the high-pressure environment at many schools.
With growing evidence that students are suffering from the intense
competition for college admission, schools around the country are
rethinking everything from tests to classes to start times.
Mr. Aderhold, whose district near Princeton University includes 9,800
students, has enacted reforms. He abolished midterms and final exams and
instituted a no-homework policy during breaks and some weekends. It
hasn’t all gone smoothly. Some parents have complained, worried that the
changes will leave their children unprepared for elite colleges.
Other schools are making similar changes. Last year, the board of
education of Montgomery County Public Schools in Rockville, Md., one of
the largest and highest-ranking districts in the U.S., voted to
eliminate high-school final exams and to replace them, starting next
fall, with in-class projects and tasks. Some schools have scrapped
Advanced Placement classes, saying that they contribute to academic
pressure.
Others are aiming to give students more opportunities to explore their
passions, work on real-world projects and collaborate and learn from
other students of all ages. The idea is that education must be for life
and “school needs to stop getting in the way of curiosity,” said Ira
Socol, an educator at Albemarle County Public Schools in
Charlottesville, Va.
The Albemarle district has added music studios and spaces for hackers
and “makers” to its middle and high schools in the past several years so
that students can take charge of their own learning and do
interdisciplinary, hands-on work. At one middle school, students built
tree houses in the cafeteria, learning problem-solving and technical
skills along the way. Students can now sit in the tree houses to eat
lunch, congregate and relax. The schools have also begun to gravitate
away from traditional exams and toward portfolio-based assessments.
To deal with the problem of sleep deprivation, some schools have adopted
later start times. In 2014, researchers at the University of Minnesota
examined data collected from more than 9,000 students at eight high
schools in Minnesota, Colorado and Wyoming that had made this shift. The
study found that when schools started at 8:30 a.m. or later, teenagers
reported lower rates of depression and substance use, fewer car crashes,
less absenteeism and tardiness, and higher test scores. In November,
the Seattle School Board voted to require city high schools to move
start times from 7:50 to 8:45 a.m., making it one of the largest
districts in the country to implement the change.
College and university administrators have started to take notice as
well. In January, a report from the Harvard Graduate School of Education
called for a fundamental reimagining of college admissions. Endorsed by
more than 80 college presidents, deans, professors and high-school
administrators—including every Ivy League admissions dean—the report
argued that colleges must value ethical and intellectual engagement,
“deflate undue academic performance pressure” and “redefine achievement
in ways that create greater equity and access for economically diverse
students.”
The recommendations included: discouraging students from overloading on
AP or International Baccalaureate classes; asking candidates for
admission to describe only two or three meaningful extracurricular
activities on their applications, to show that the colleges value
quality over quantity; and evaluating whether the SAT and ACT
standardized tests should be optional.
The reformers hope that these steps will ease the high-stakes
achievement culture. As Mr. Aderhold of West Windsor-Plainsboro told me,
“We’re not producing widgets. We’re producing citizens of the world.”
—Mr. Goyal is the author of “Schools on Trial: How Freedom and
Creativity Can Fix Our Educational Malpractice,” to be published Feb. 16
by Doubleday.
HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T
FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other
Sources
WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF AN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL ABOLISHED HOMEWORK? THIS. - LA Times
http://lat.ms/1N8eSS5
VERGARA LAWSUIT, CHALLENGING TEACHER JOB PROTECTIONS, GOES TO APPEALS COURT- LA Times
http://lat.ms/1LnF0Ol
HOW TO RAISE HAPPY TRANSGENDER KIDS - LA Times
http://lat.ms/1XT1fO2
JOE THE PLUMBER TAKES ON PUBLIC EDUCATION
http://bit.ly/1KTBgUW
SOLUTIONS FOR STRESSED-OUT HIGH-SCHOOL STUDENTS
http://bit.ly/1TGHGbs
Tuesday morning, March 1st: SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS TOWN HALL MEETING IN PACOIMA
http://bit.ly/1KIs99C
April 4th/Save the Date|YOUR FEEDBACK IS NEEDED: SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA MEETING ON THE FUTURE OF HIGH SCHOOL EXIT EXAM
http://bit.ly/1PXcOkg
MOODY'S ASSIGNS Aa2 TO LAUSD GENERAL OBLIGATION BONDS; OUTLOOK IS STABLE
EVENTS: Coming up next week...
• Tuesday morning, March 1st 8 a.m.: SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS TOWN HALL MEETING IN PACOIMA
http://bit.ly/1KIs99C
• March 1, 2016 - 10:00 a.m. - CURRICULUM, INSTRUCTION AND EDUCATIONAL EQUITY COMMITTEE MEETING | Agenda:http://bit.ly/1LNJ7yc
*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 the Superintendent:
superintendent@lausd.net • 213-241-7000
...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. Volunteer in the classroom.
Join your PTA. Serve on a School Site Council. Be there for a child -
and ultimately: For all children.
• 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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