In This Issue:
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GATES FOUNDATION FAILURES SHOW PHILANTHROPISTS SHOULDN’T BE SETTING AMERICA'S PUBLIC SCHOOL AGENDA |
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Local Control Funding Formula: STATE OFFICIALS FIND LA UNIFIED SHORTCHANGED STUDENTS |
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EARLY-ONSET EXISTENTIAL CRISES: Many thanks to the College Board and capitalism |
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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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Muhammad Ali
1942 – 2016
"Muhammad Ali shook up the world," the President and First Lady said in a
statement released by the White House yesterday. "And the world is
better for it.”
“We are all better for it.”
Last Thursday morning LAUSD celebrated itself+its excellence:”
CELEBRATING OUR STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT” at special meeting of the
Curriculum, Instruction and Educational Equity Committee. [Video Stream:
http://bit.ly/1Y8eJaO]
We measure success in myriad ways.
The program/meeting was a compendium of the things LAUSD has been doing,
is doing and does well/better/best – and it was mostly presented by
kids!
There were presentations of multicultural/multilingual education:
STUDENT VOICES FROM LANGUAGE PROGRAMS. There was an announcement that
future dual-immersion bilingual programs will include Arabic, Armenian,
and more. We have come a long way from reclassifying English Language
Learners …and we are doing well at doing that!
There was a presentation on LINKED LEARNING – and how the District is
positively linking learners, programs and outcomes through Project Based
Learning and Pathway Portfolio Defense.
…followed by a celebration of DISTRICT ARTS PROGRAMS, including a
musical number from the Daniel Webster Middle School Chorus,
Presentations in Visual Arts by two students: Pedro Gomez a 5th grader
from Los Angeles ES and Kathleen Gonzales, a senior from Valley Academy
of Arts+Sciences …plus a showstopper presentation from Kittridge
Elementary’s production of The Lion King!
The STEM (SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING AND MATH) contingent may have
been upstaged ….but were not about to be outdone – with presentations
by three of Millikan Middle School’s robotic teams and a presentation on
Cyber Patriots from North Hollywood High.
The committee members left the room humming the same tune: and in the
full realization that it’s not about what the students have learned …but
what they teach us.
The Chicago Tribune/L.A. Times – formerly known as Tribune Publishing
has changed its name to “tronc” (always lowercase) in a moment of silly
rebranding unmatched since New Coke. | TRIBUNE PUBLISHING, NOW ‘tronc,’
ISSUES WORST PRESS RELEASE IN THE HISTORY OF JOURNALISM - The Washington
Post http://wapo.st/1Zn8zlF
“If you wanted to signify the pathetic nasal honks of the last dying
dinosaur, "tronc" would be a pretty good word.” - @qhardy) June 2,
2016
…and it kinda/sorta rhymes with Trump. In a post-modern way.
Thursday the LA Times (…or is it the L.A. tronc?) published an editorial
that really needs repeating+reading+rereading: GATES FOUNDATION
FAILURES SHOW PHILANTHROPISTS SHOULDN’T BE SETTING AMERICA'S PUBLIC
SCHOOL AGENDA (follows)
And ever-so quietly the State Board of Ed issued a letter that muffled
the sound (“¿¡tronc! ?”) of the other shoe dropping as the state
declined to accept LAUSD’s unique way of computing the Local Control
Funding Formula/Local Control Accountability Plan. The department stated
in a May 27 report that L.A. Unified improperly attributed $450 million
in benefits for special education students as also contributing to
meeting the requirements of the Local Control Funding Formula
Stay tuned as all sides lawyer-up …what’s half a billion dollars among friends?
¡Onward/Adelante! - smf
GATES FOUNDATION FAILURES SHOW PHILANTHROPISTS
SHOULDN’T BE SETTING AMERICA'S PUBLIC SCHOOL AGENDA
Editorial by The Times Editorial Board | http://lat.ms/1TUw3A4
June 1, 2016 :: Tucked away in a letter from the Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation last week, along with proud notes about the
foundation’s efforts to fight smoking and tropical diseases and its
other accomplishments, was a section on education. [http://gates.ly/1TUuTEW]
Its tone was unmistakably chastened.
“We’re facing the fact that it is a real struggle to make systemwide
change,” wrote the foundation’s CEO, Sue Desmond-Hellman. And a few
lines later: “It is really tough to create more great public schools.”
The Gates Foundation’s first significant foray into education reform, in
1999, revolved around Bill Gates’ conviction that the big problem with
high schools was their size. Students would be better off in smaller
schools of no more than 500, he believed. The foundation funded the
creation of smaller schools, until its own study found that the size of
the school didn’t make much difference in student performance. When the
foundation moved on, school districts were left with costlier-to-run
small schools.
Then the foundation set its sights on improving teaching, specifically
through evaluating and rewarding good teaching. But it was not always
successful. In 2009, it pledged a gift of up to $100 million to the
Hillsborough County, Fla., schools to fund bonuses for high-performing
teachers, to revamp teacher evaluations and to fire the
lowest-performing 5%. In return, the school district promised to match
the funds. But, according to reports in the Tampa Bay Times, the Gates
Foundation changed its mind about the value of bonuses and stopped short
of giving the last $20 million; costs ballooned beyond expectations,
the schools were left with too big a tab and the least-experienced
teachers still ended up at low-income schools. The program, evaluation
system and all, was dumped.
The Gates Foundation strongly supported the proposed Common Core
curriculum standards, helping to bankroll not just their development,
but the political effort to have them quickly adopted and implemented by
states. Here, Desmond-Hellmann wrote in her May letter, the foundation
also stumbled. The too-quick introduction of Common Core, and attempts
in many states to hold schools and teachers immediately accountable for a
very different form of teaching, led to a public backlash.
“Unfortunately, our foundation underestimated the level of resources and
support required for our public education systems to be well-equipped
to implement the standards,” Desmond-Hellmann wrote. “We missed an early
opportunity to sufficiently engage educators — particularly teachers —
but also parents and communities, so that the benefits of the standards
could take flight from the beginning.
“This has been a challenging lesson for us to absorb, but we take it to
heart. The mission of improving education in America is both vast and
complicated, and the Gates Foundation doesn’t have all the answers.”
It was a remarkable admission for a foundation that had often acted as
though it did have all the answers. Today, the Gates Foundation is
clearly rethinking its bust-the-walls-down strategy on education — as it
should. And so should the politicians and policymakers, from the
federal level to the local, who have given the educational wishes of
Bill and Melinda Gates and other well-meaning philanthropists and
foundations too much sway in recent years over how schools are run.
That’s not to say wealthy reformers have nothing to offer public
schools. They’ve funded some outstanding charter schools for low-income
students. They’ve helped bring healthcare to schools. They’ve funded
arts programs.
The Gates Foundation, according to Desmond-Hellmann’s letter, is now
working more on providing Common Core-aligned materials to classrooms,
including free digital content that could replace costly textbooks, and a
website where teachers can review educational materials. That’s great:
Financial support for Common Core isn’t a bad thing. When the standards
are implemented well, which isn’t easy, they ought to develop better
reading, writing and thinking skills.
And foundation money has often been used to fund experimental programs
and pilot projects of the sort that regular school districts might not
have the time or extra funds to put into place. Those can be extremely
informative and even groundbreaking.
But the Gates Foundation has spent so much money — more than $3 billion
since 1999 — that it took on an unhealthy amount of power in the setting
of education policy. Former foundation staff members ended up in high
positions in the U.S. Department of Education — and, in the case of John
Deasy, at the head of the Los Angeles Unified School District. The
foundation’s teacher-evaluation push led to an overemphasis on counting
student test scores as a major portion of teachers’ performance ratings —
even though Gates himself eventually warned against moving too hastily
or carelessly in that direction. Now several of the states that quickly
embraced that method of evaluating teachers are backing away from it.
Philanthropists are not generally education experts, and even if they
hire scholars and experts, public officials shouldn’t be allowing them
to set the policy agenda for the nation’s public schools. The Gates
experience teaches once again that educational silver bullets are in
short supply and that some educational trends live only a little longer
than mayflies.
Local Control Funding Formula: STATE OFFICIALS FIND LA UNIFIED SHORTCHANGED STUDENTS
By John Fensterwald | EdSource | http://bit.ly/1PvDoUP
June 1, 2016 |In a ruling with statewide implications and financial
repercussions for the state’s largest school district, the California
Department of Education has determined that Los Angeles Unified has
shortchanged low-income students, English learners and foster children
by hundreds of millions of dollars they should have received through the
state’s new funding system.
The department stated in a May 27 report that L.A. Unified improperly
attributed $450 million in benefits for special education students as
also contributing to meeting the requirements of the Local Control
Funding Formula, which is weighted to provide additional services for
children in greatest need. The department found that by counting the
same expenditure twice, the district spent less than required on
high-needs students. As a remedy, the state has ordered the district to
revise its 2016-17 spending plan, known as the Local Control
Accountability Plan, or LCAP, to add additional services and programs
for the district’s high-needs students.
“We applaud the department for issuing its straightforward legal ruling
and ordering L.A. Unified to comply with the law under the Local Control
Funding Formula,” John Affeldt, managing partner of the nonprofit law
firm Public Advocates, said in a statement. “We look forward to seeing
the district halt this illegal practice and invest more fully in its
low-income students, English learners and foster youth.”
In a statement late this afternoon, L.A. Unified said it intends to
challenge the decision, “which we believe is an incorrect interpretation
of the Local Control Funding Formula. If the decision is allowed to
stand, it would seriously undermine the district’s ability to continue
providing our deserving students with the effective instruction and
support services they need to succeed.“
“The state put districts in a bind. Funding is not enough for
non-high-need students to receive an adequate education,” said John
Affeldt, managing partner of Public Advocates, which filed the
complaint. “But the answer is not to rob from supplemental and
concentration dollars.”
Insisting that the district “has long been committed to serving the
needs” of children receiving extra support from the Local Control
Funding Formula, the statement said the state’s decision “would require
L.A. Unified to shift money away from these programs and impair our
ability to best serve our students. To be very clear, the district is
fulfilling its responsibility to provide rigorous and effective
instruction, along with social and emotional services, to the hundreds
of thousands of high-needs students in Los Angeles. The (department’s)
decision runs counter to the intention of LCFF and to our duty to
educate our students.”
Public Advocates and the ACLU Foundation of Southern California filed a
complaint that led the state education department to investigate the
allegations. Affeldt said he was aware of no other district that had
double-counted special education dollars as L.A. Unified had.
L.A. Unified is already facing financial pressure as a result of
declining enrollment and rising expenses in pay and pension costs that
could consume hundreds of millions of dollars over the next several
years if state voters do not approve an extension of an increase on
personal income taxes. If the state ruling stands, it could force the
district to shift money in its general fund to services and programs
primarily benefiting high-needs students.
Public Advocates and the ACLU estimate the total would be $380 million
next year, building to $450 million annually in coming years. That’s on
top of the $690 million that the district estimates it will receive in
additional funding for high-needs students when the Local Control
Funding Formula is fully funded, which the state projects for 2020-21.
But, the ruling noted, the district could also lower that amount by
documenting that some special education services, such as language
supports for English learners with disabilities, qualified as
appropriate expenditures for high-needs students under the funding
formula. Affeldt expressed doubts that the district could justify
substantially lowering the total.
‘Strained’ legal interpretation
The funding dispute involves a critical but complex calculation that
districts make to determine how much money they must spend annually on
high-needs students as the Local Control Funding Formula is phased in.
Each year, districts must spend an increasing portion of the difference
between what they were spending on high-needs students before the new
formula was passed in 2013 and the extra money, called “supplemental and
concentration dollars,” that they will receive at full funding. The
more money that districts claimed they spent on high-needs students when
the law was enacted, the less they have to spend moving forward.
L.A. Unified spent about $570 million of its general fund in 2013-14 on
special education services. Because 79 percent of disabled students also
were English learners and low-income children, the district counted
$450 million of that expense as spending for high-needs students,
thereby reducing what the district would have to spend at full funding
of the formula.
District attorneys, in responding to the complaint, said their
calculation was a legal application of the funding formula statute. But
the Department of Education agreed with Public Advocates and called the
district’s approach a “strained” interpretation of the law. The intent
of the funding formula is to provide additional programs and services
for high-needs students beyond the level provided for all students, the
decision said. Money for special education generally doesn’t meet that
standard, because it’s provided to all students who have a disability,
regardless of their high-needs status under the law, the department
concluded.
“Thus, dollars spent on special education services are not expenditures
on services targeted for high need students and may not be counted as a
prior year expenditure for high need students,” Public Advocates wrote
in its complaint.
Public Advocates first questioned the district’s underfunding in 2014
and sued a year later. Last November, it agreed to an intermediate step
of filing a formal complaint with the state. Public Advocates had asked
that the state require the district to retroactively fix the funding
errors that reduced supplemental and concentration dollars by $126
million in 2014-15 and $288 million this year. The state ruled that the
district need only provide additional funding for high-needs students
moving forward.
L.A. Unified has 35 days to appeal the ruling. Both the district and
Public Advocates can also turn to the courts to resolve the dispute.
Affeldt said he is sensitive to pressures that districts are facing on
their base-level funding from rising pension and other expenses, but
L.A. Unified “should have been more prudent in approving any new
substantial expense, including pay raises, knowing that the issue of
special education funding had been raised.”
“The state put districts in a bind. Funding is not enough for
non-high-need students to receive an adequate education,” he said. “But
the answer is not to rob from supplemental and concentration dollars.”
“We urge LAUSD to move swiftly to adopt the state’s decision, and to
work with the community to consider ways to make up for the last two
years of underfunding of services for those students. LAUSD has already
wasted too much time and money pursuing an interpretation of the law
that shortchanged students who need more, not less, support,” Hector
Villagra, executive director of the ACLU of Southern California, said in
a statement.
• EdSource reporter Michael Janofsky contributed to this article.
• John Fensterwald covers education policy.
EARLY-ONSET EXISTENTIAL CRISES: Many thanks to the College Board and capitalism
Editorial in the Los Feliz Ledger by Belen Cahill, Polytechnic High School (Pasadena) ‘17 ·
June 2, 2016 :: Describe yourself in 400 words or less:
I am not a woman. I am not a poet. I am not the daughter of Nancy and
Jason or the granddaughter of Sally and Lisle, Ann and Peter. I am not
Olivia’s best friend. I am not a patient with a neurological condition
and titanium in my heart. I am not someone who had an eating disorder. I
am not a kid who loves their guitar more than most humans. I am not an
activist. I am not sad. I am not a democrat, I am not Irish, I am not
smart.
I am a B+ average.
I am not a lover of road trips or Joni Mitchell. I am not fascinated by
manatees. I am not a storyteller. I am not a child. I am not spiritual. I
am not enamored of the ocean. I am not a wonderer. I am not a wanderer.
I am not sensitive. I am not vulnerable. I am not made sublimely happy
by the smell of rain. I am not most at home when engulfed by the stars. I
am not someone who knows every line of Arrested Development. I am not
introverted, I am not naive, I am not afraid.
I am a 3.5 GPA.
I am not someone who laughs. I am not someone who screams. I am not
someone who cried ceaselessly as they watched two baby squirrels die on
top of one another; one from puncture wounds, the other from heartbreak.
I am not from a background of suicide and stifled joy. I am not from a
background of alcoholism and dancing on tabletops. I am not obsessed
with Jane Austen. I am not a sucker for boys with kind eyes. I am not an
insomniac, I am not a bad driver, I am not imperfect.
I am a number. I am a statistic. I am a dot on a scatter plot. I am a
transcript. I am an SAT score. I am a frozen smile on an application. I
am manipulative. I am bitter. I am stagnant. I am self-loathing. I am a
gaping hole of someone else. I remember what it feels like to be a
person, but I forget how.
In 371 words, that is who I have become. I wrote a speech this past year
on why we should eliminate academic awards at my high school, the
larger themes of which mostly dealt with the depersonalization of
education which, to me, is the single most upsetting aspect of the
contemporary educational experience in America.
What makes my school and schools similar to it in level of demand feel,
on some days, unbearable, is this survival-of-the-fittest attitude
towards success. There is no time, room, or true empathy for mistakes,
unforeseen obstacles, or exhaustion.
And so, we are effectively dehumanizing kids during the time of their
lives that is most formative—and that damage, although not irreparable,
is lasting. Maybe adults forget that we are still just kids, and so
perhaps it is hard for them to see that a good part of our childhood is
being drowned by the weight of an educational
system-turned-anxiety-propelled industry that depends directly upon the
dwindling of our sanity not just to function, but to exist.
As someone who came into high school incredibly confident, passionate
and curious, and as someone who has been reduced to not much more than a
suffocating self doubt, I have no doubt that this dynamic is not
reflective of callow students simply buying into a mindset, but is
instead systemic.
More harmful than the pressure to take APs, the sheer workload, or the
power of an ACT score is the dark underbelly of it all: the cavernous
absence of forgiveness.
Some of my teachers harbor much bitterness about, but show little
interest in, my inconsistent presence in class. Few of them know that I
had a disease when I was younger that rendered my immune system scarily
vulnerable, and that I consequently am ill probably more often than not.
Few of them know that I have struggled with depression since my brain
surgery in seventh grade, and that some days I cannot get out of bed.
We talk a lot about community and there is something undeniably magical
about my school. But we cannot continue to invalidate the very human
experiences students undergo because the reality is that those
experiences are inevitably going to bleed into our school lives and we
aren’t just automatons with an on/off switch.
This is not about relinquishing student responsibility—it is about
seeing students as multidimensional people, through a lens of genuine
empathy. Because at the end of the day, we are just a bunch of kids
doing our best to keep it together, and the odds are not in our favor.
HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T
FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other
Sources
BREAKING: UTLA Members vote YES on Tentative
Agreement. The TA will be voted on by the @LAUSD School Board June 14.
Follow week-long series @CapitalAndMain documenting HOW THE PUSH FOR CHARTER SCHOOLS IMPACTS PUBLIC EDUCATION IN CA.
http://capitalandmain.com/failing-the-test-series/ …
DOES 'CHARTER' MAKE YOU LOOK SMARTER?? Principal of LAUSD's newest affiliated charter says Yes!- LA School Report
http://bit.ly/1UkIKhP
EVENTS: Coming up next week...
Special Board Meeting - June 7, 2016 - 9:00 a.m. - Including Closed Session Items
Start: 06/07/2016 9:00 am
*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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