In This Issue:
 |
| • |
THE BODY OF AN AMERICAN |
|
| • |
THE PROP 30 WINDFALL – NOT YET |
|
| • |
Vergara v. California: LAWSUIT AGAINST TEACHER TENURE + SENIORITY ADVANCES + Background |
|
| • |
from the L.A. Times Op-Ed page: A BETTER WAY TO GRADE TEACHERS + A SMARTER WAY TO GRADE SCHOOLS |
|
| • |
HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest (but
not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other Sources |
|
| • |
EVENTS: Coming up next week... |
|
| • |
What can YOU do? |
|
Featured Links:
|
|
|
|
On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month a stillness fell upon the Western Front. One could hear the wind that blew between the rows of crosses planted neatly, row-on-row, in Flanders fields. When the Great War to End All Wars finally ended, the London Daily Express proclaimed November 11 the “greatest day in history.” There were over 11,000 casualties that morning before the cease-fire was declared.
Official communiqué from Paris - 6:01 A.M., Nov. 11, 1918
Marshal Foch to the Commander-in-Chief:
1. Hostilities will be stopped on the entire front beginning at 11 o'clock, November 11th (French hour).
2. The Allied troops will not go beyond the line reached at that hour on that date until further orders.
/s/ Marshal Foch
5:45 A.M.
"I dream of giving birth to a child who will ask, 'Mother, what was war?'" -Eve Merriam
"As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest
appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them." –JFK
---
The passage of Prop 30 and the Democratic sweep in both houses of the
legislature offers new hope and promise for public education in
California. The state will fund the education for a whole (rather than
half) of this year – and will repay deferrals. Some in the media call
this a ‘windfall’ for education. (After Superstorm Sandy, the
meteorological metaphor is the newsroom rage: The number of candidates
filing for city office, school board and community college trustee is an
‘avalanche’ …which I guess makes me a snowflake.)
The new legislative majorities portend that good things will happen for
public schools – providing that is the will of the new majorities. And
if such things can get past the governor’s blue pencil. The special
interests are no less interested. The more things change….
Dr. Deasy’s intent to return a week to the instructional calendar – and
make good on furlough days offers a level of hope that even the most
cynical would be loath to question.
The first word in the next paragraph is inevitable: “However…”
But first let me say Thank You to the 793,000 more voters in California
who voted “Yes” on 30 than voted “No”. Let me also commiserate with the
“No” voters who couldn’t swallow 30 because of its cynical lack of
fairness ...or the tortured calculus that not cutting funding somehow
equals raised funding. Or who voted “No” in protest of real or
perceived malfeasance, misfeasance or general ‘stuck-on-stupid’
operation of LAUSD …or any of the other 1100 school districts in the
state. The Grover Norquistian “No new taxes” “No” voters are
acknowledged without sympathy.
Thank you also to the two-and-a-half million plus Californians who
overcame the fearmongering and political hogwash to vote “Yes” on Prop
38 – which would’ve actually (rather than figuratively) increased
funding to schools. Thank you to Molly+Steve. Thank you California PTA.
Thank you Eddie Olmos. MacArthur and Arnold are not particularly
heroes of mine – but we’ll be back.
If we have crested some hill or traversed a pit filled with allegories;
if what we see at the end of the tunnel is a light: Hallelujah!
Not a victory march, but – with apology to Leonard Cohen, a cold. broken and complicated Hallelujah.
In watchmaking, adding features beyond telling the hours and minutes are
called ‘complications’: Day and date, stopwatch, alarm, moon phases,
etc. The complications ahead for the tightly-wound LAUSD are (in no
particular order) the sequestration of federal funds (the fiscal cliff),
the reauthorization of ESEA/NCLB, the OCR settlement, Tablets-for-All,
pending court actions including Doe v.Desay and Vergara v. California,
and the current regime’s fanatical dedication to Value Added Teacher
Assessments and UTLA’s equally impassioned resistance thereto; the
implementation of Common Core Standards, Charter schools, Privatization,
a widening disengagement from parents, an absolute failure to
communicate, Race to the Top, lack of vision, etc.
BEFORE US ARE THE BASKETS WE HAVE EMPTIED: Arts, Music, Health Ed, Adult
Ed. After school. Summer School. Intervention. Gifted and Bilingual and
Special Ed. Field trips and nurses and librarians clean classrooms and
unlocked bathrooms. Paper towels and class size reduction. All the
programs where Categorical Flexibility have us contorted like pretzels.
The employees RIFed and rightsized and outsourced and furloughed and
treated poorly. Fired for being young and eager where that is cherished
in students and punished in employees
Where we put our first eggs back will say much about us. Now more than
ever our priorities define us and the very meaning of ‘success’ and
‘failure’.
The investment must be in the People Basket: The first people basket is
Kids. All together now: If children are the first priority, everyone
else can’t have everything else they want.
Our eggs can’t just go into the Teacher and Administrator’s basket –
but also in the classified and worker basket. Because we – teachers and
administrators and students and parents - need librarians and library
aides and painters and electricians and plant managers and mental health
people and the folks who make the computers compute.
Because otherwise all those shiny new tablets the powers-that-be want might as well be Big Chief Tablets [http://amzn.to/Uwovof] – or the Babylonian cuneiform.
If we put the eggs in right baskets and invest and reinvest in the
people and programs that work – not just what’s shiny and new but also
what’s proven and effective - the investment will pay off in better
educated students.
Technology doesn’t replace libraries, it enhances them.
Test scores are not results; they are data points on the PowerPoint and cells in the spreadsheet.
Progress is not an outcome, it’s a process.
¡Onward/Adelante! - smf
THE BODY OF AN AMERICAN
John Dos Passos | http://bit.ly/Z9aSv6
There is perhaps no finer tribute to American veterans than John Dos
Passos's "The Body of an American," the concluding chapter of 1919
(1932), the second book of The U.S.A. Trilogy.
Whereasthe Congressoftheunitedstates byaconcurrentresolutionadoptedon
the4thdayofmarch last-authorizedthe Secretaryofwar to cause to be
brought to theunitedstatesthe bodyofanAmericanwhowasamemberoftheAmerican
expeditionaryforceineuropewholosthislifeduringtheworldwarandwhoseidentityhasnot
beenestablishedforburial inthememorialamphitheatreofthenational
cemeteryatarlingtonvirginia
In the tarpaper morgue at Chalons-sur-Marne in the reek of chloride of
lime and the dead, they picked out the pine box that held all that was
left of enie menie minie moe plenty of other pine boxes stacked up there
containing what they’d scraped up of Richard Roe and other person or
persons unknown. Only one can go. How did they pick John Doe? . . .
how can you tell a guy’s a hundredpercent when all you’ve got’s a
gunnysack full of bones, bronze buttons stamped with the screaming eagle
and a pair of roll puttees?
. . . and the gagging chloride and the puky dirtstench of the yearold dead . . .
The day withal was too meaningful and tragic for applause. Silence,
tears, songs and prayer, muffled drums and soft music were the
instrumentalities today of national approbation.
John Doe was born (thudding din of blood of love into the shuddering
soar of a man and a woman alone indeed together lurching into and
ninemonths sick drowse waking into scared agony and the pain and blood
and mess of birth). John Doe was born and raised in Brooklyn, in
Memphis, near the lakefront in Cleveland, Ohio, in the stench of the
stockyards in Chi, on Beacon Hill, in an old brick house in Alexandria
Virginia, on Telegraph Hill, in a halftimbered Tudor cottage in Portland
the city of roses, in the Lying-In Hospital old Morgan endowed on
Stuyvesant Square, across the railroad tracks, out near the country
club, in a shack cabin tenement apartmenthouse exclusive residential
suburb;
scion of one of the best families in the social register, won first
prize in the baby parade at Coronado Beach, was marbles champion of the
Little Rock grammarschools, crack basketballplayer at the Booneville
High, quarterback at the State Reformatory, having saved the sheriff’s
kid from drowning in the Little Missouri River was invited to Washington
to be photographed shaking hands with the President on the White House
steps; —
though this was a time of mourning, such an assemblage necessarily has
about it a touch of color. In the boxes are seen the court uniforms of
foreign diplomats, the gold braid of our own and foreign fleets and
armies, the black of the conventional morning dress of American
statesmen, the varicolored furs and outdoor wrapping garments of mothers
and sisters come to mourn, the drab and blue of soldiers and sailors,
the glitter of musical instruments and the white and black of a vested
choir— busboy harveststiff hogcaller boyscout champeen cornshucker of
Western Kansas bellhop at the United States Hotel at Saratoga Springs
office boy callboy fruiter telephone lineman longshoreman lumberjack
plumber’s helper, worked for an exterminating company in Union City,
filled pipes in an opium joint in Trenton, N.J.
Y.M.C.A. secretary, express agent, truckdriver, fordmechanic, sold books
in Denver Colorado: Madam would you be willing to help a young man work
his way through college?
President Harding, with a reverence seemingly more significant because of his high temporal station, concluded his speech:
We are met today to pay the impersonal tribute; the name of him whose
body lies before us took flight with his imperishable soul . . .
as a typical soldier of this representative democracy he fought and died
believing in the indisputable justice of his country’s cause . . .
by raising his right hand and asking the thousands with the sound of his voice to join in the prayer:
Our Father which art in heaven hallowed by thy name . . .
John Doe’s
heart pumped blood:
alive thudding silence of blood in your ears
down in the clearing in the Oregon forest where the punkins were
punkincolor pouring into the blood through the eyes and the fallcolored
trees and the bronze hoopers were hopping through the dry grass, where
tiny striped snails hung on the underside of the blades and the flies
hummed, wasps droned, bumble-bees buzzed, and the woods smelt of wine
and mushrooms and apples, homey smell of fall pouring into the blood,
and I dropped the tin hat and the sweaty pack and lay flat with the
dogday sun licking my throat and adamsapple and the tight skin over the
breastbone.
The shell had his number on it.
The blood ran into the ground.
The service record dropped out of the filing cabinet when the
quartermaster sergeant got blotto that time they had to pack up and
leave the billets in a hurry.
The identification tag was in the bottom of the Marne.
The blood ran into the ground, the brains oozed out of the cracked skull
and were licked up by the trenchrats, the belly swelled and raised a
generation of blue-bottle flies.
and the incorruptible skeleton,
and the scraps of dried viscera and skin bundled in khaki
they took to Chalons-sur-Marne
and laid it out neat in a pine coffin
and took it home to God’s Country on a battleship
and buried in a sarcophagus in the Memorial Amphitheatre in the Arlington National Cemetery
and draped the Old Glory over it
and the bugler played taps
and Mr. Harding prayed to God and the diplomats and the generals and the
admirals and the brasshats and the politicians and the handsomely
dressed ladies out of the society column of theWashington Post stood up
solemn
and thought how beautiful sad Old Glory God’s Country it was go have the
bugler play taps and the three volleys made their ears ring.
Where his chest ought to have been they pinned
the Congressional Medal, the D.S.C., the Medaille Militaire, the Belgian
Croix de Guerre, the Italian gold medal, the Vitutea Militara sent by
Queen Marie of Rumania, the Czechoslovak war cross, the Virtuti Militari
of the Poles, a wreath sent by Hamilton Fish, Jr., of New York, . . . .
All the Washingtonians brought flowers.
Woodrow Wilson brought a bouquet of poppies.
THE PROP 30 WINDFALL – NOT YET
By Kathryn Baron | EdSource Today | http://bit.ly/W1WsZp
November 9th, 2012 :: When Proposition 30 won on Tuesday, it led a
sweep of nearly two dozen local school parcel taxes and close to a
hundred local school bonds approved by Californians that together will
bring in tens of billions in new revenue for education. And some of
those voters are already asking when their local schools will be
rehiring laid-off teachers, reopening school libraries, and installing
new technology. It will not be easy to explain that, at least for this
year, new revenue from Proposition 30 won’t be visible to the naked eye.
As EdSource Today has reported more than $2 billion of Prop. 30 funds
will go toward paying down some of the state’s late payments to schools.
Remaining funds won’t backfill the $8 billion that K-12 schools have
been cut in the past five years, about $1,400 per student.
The panel was moderated by Ron Bennett, left, CEO of School Services,
Inc., with panelists Joel Montero of FCMAT, Molly McGee Hewitt of CASBO
and Rick Simpson from the Assembly Speaker’s office. (click to enlarge).
“In some ways, I worry about it being very similar to what happened when
the lottery came in,” said Molly McGee Hewitt, executive director of
the California Association of School Business Officials (CASBO), during a
post-election webcast Thursday afternoon produced by School Services of
California. ”The number one question I’ve been asked my entire
professional career since the lottery is ‘What the heck have you all
done with all that lottery money?’ As if we’re keeping it in a back
room.” [The state lottery provides about 1.5% of K-12 education
revenues, or some $800 million per year]. She said she worries that
maybe backers of the ballot measures oversold it a little bit to the
public.
“Proposition 30 wasn’t a windfall for anybody; it sort of stops the
bleeding,” explained Rick Simpson, deputy chief of staff for Assembly
Speaker John Pérez. “But it does help stabilize the state general fund
as well as public schools.”
Ron Bennett, the president and CEO of School Services, who moderated the
event, underscored that point, telling about a meeting he had in a
large school district a few days ago. District officials told him that
if Prop. 30 had failed, they would have had to cut $60 million this
year. “Now they only have to cut $19 million,” said Bennett, noting,
with some irony, that they’re very relieved about that.
That’s because in its first year, more than $2 billion of Prop 30 funds
will be used to start paying off the nearly $10 billion in deferrals,
those late payments that forced cash-strapped district to borrow money.
Those payments should free up funds so in 2013-14, districts will start
to see some real money.
But that’s not what the public is necessarily expecting, and the finance
experts spent a good part of the hour-long webcast discussing the need
to make sure people understand the situation. They called for greater
transparency regarding education spending by putting more effort into
keeping the public informed.
“Proposition 30 creates a massive communication problem. Business folks
now have to go out and talk to people who have a particular
expectation,” said panelist Joel Montero, CEO of the Fiscal Crisis and
Management Assistance Team (FCMAT), which helps school districts manage
their finances. Their task, said Montero, is to explain the deferral
situation and emphasize that it took a while to get into this situation
and it will take a while to get out of it. ”Eventually that does save
school districts money, but that’s a fairly complex concept when
everybody thinks that Proposition 30 passes and all of a sudden we have
more money to spend.”
It’s not just the public that may not understand where the Prop. 30
money is going this year, but teachers, administrators, and even school
board members aren’t necessarily clear about it, added McGee Hewitt. She
said groups like CASBO and School Services will need to step up
training for school boards, and called for greater collaboration and
cooperation between district business officials and superintendents.
“I think that it’s a wonderful day and I’m grateful to where we’re
going,” said McGee Hewitt. “I’m a little bit hesitant to think that
happy days are here again. I think that we have a long way to go to get
to that again.”
Vergara v. California: LAWSUIT AGAINST TEACHER TENURE + SENIORITY ADVANCES + Background
By Teresa Watanabe, LA Times/LA Now | http://lat.ms/ZgFAS5
November 9, 2012 | 6:30 pm :: Supporters of a lawsuit to make it
easier to remove ineffective teachers hailed a court ruling Friday that
will allow them to proceed with efforts to overturn teacher tenure laws
and seniority rights.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Rolf M. Treu rejected efforts to
dismiss the lawsuit that seeks to overturn five state laws. They allow
teachers to gain tenure after 18 months, require layoffs to be
determined by seniority and force school districts to undergo a long and
expensive process to dismiss incompetent instructors. The parents are
arguing that the laws violate their children’s constitutional right to
an equal education.
“This is a significant first step for this lawsuit, which could change
the face of education in California,” said Theodore J. Boutrous, an
attorney representing eight parents in Los Angeles, Oakland and San
Jose. “This is about making sure that everyone has a fair shot and equal
opportunity to education.”
Jose Macias, one of the plaintiffs, said the lawsuit would help other
children avoid what he said was a devastating experience for his
daughter in an unidentified school in the Los Angeles Unified School
District. Macias said his daughter, Julia, had lost her self-esteem and
her desire to attend school after being told by her second-grade teacher
that she was not good at math and needed a special education program.
She is now a high-performing seventh-grader, he said.
“No child in the state of California deserves to go through that,”
Macias said. “This lawsuit will help prevent situations like my
daughter’s.”
In issuing his ruling Friday, Treu rejected arguments by the state
attorney general’s office that the lawsuit should be dismissed because,
among other things, there is no constitutional right to a quality
education. Jonathan Rich, an attorney representing Gov. Jerry Brown,
state Supt. of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson and the state education
department, argued that court rulings have found only that the
Constitution guarantees equal funding, not equally effective
instructors.
The Alum Rock Union School District also sought dismissal of the lawsuit.
The Los Angeles and Oakland unified school districts did not seek to
have the lawsuit thrown out. L.A. Supt. John Deasy has expressed
support for some of the lawsuit’s goals, including speeding the
dismissal process and ending what he has called the “burdensome
last-hired, first-fired rule.”
Jonathan Moss, a teacher in the Compton Unified School District who
appeared at the court hearing Friday, expressed support for changing
seniority-based layoff rules. The 27-year-old teacher said he had
started an after-school fitness program, coached sports, brought
students on weekend field trips and helped his fourth-graders achieve
the highest test scores at their grade level during three years at
McNair Elementary School. Yet, he said, he got pink slips every year he
was there.
Moss, now a Compton district substitute teacher, said he is thinking of
leaving teaching because of the frustration over constant layoffs.
"I pay my union dues but I’m not part of the union because I feel they’re protecting bad teachers,” he said.
Treu set the next court date for Feb. 22.
###
Background: CALIF. LAWSUIT CHALLENGES TEACHER TENURE, LAYOFF, DUE-PROCESS STATUTES
By Stephen Sawchuk, EdWeek | http://bit.ly/KLISq5
May 15, 2012 3:31 PM :: A handful of California parents have sued the
state over five laws that allegedly concentrate poorly performing
teachers in schools that primarily serve disadvantaged and minority
students.
Filed today in the California superior court, the lawsuit takes aim at
California rules that: require tenure be granted after only two years,
before a teacher's performance has been well documented; create some
dozen steps in the due-process procedures for dismissing teachers for
poor performance, which the plaintiffs say allows that process to drag
on for months or years; and mandate that seniority serve the major
factor (barring a few exceptions) in determining which teachers are laid
off during reductions-in-force.
The combination of these statutes, the filing reads, "inevitably
presents a total and fatal conflict with the right to education
guaranteed by the California Constitution because it forces an arbitrary
subset of California students to be educated by grossly ineffective
teachers who fail to provide them with the basic tools necessary to
compete in the economic marketplace or participate in a democratic
society."
Named in the lawsuit are the Los Angeles and Alum Rock Union school
districts, Governor Jerry Brown, schools Superintendent Tom Torlakson,
the California education department, and the California board of
education. It seeks an injunction against the five statutes in question.
This is one in what appears to be an increasing number of lawsuits in
the state that say students' educational civil rights are violated by
its own education laws. Two years ago, plaintiffs won a settlement
barring seniority-based layoffs in certain Los Angeles schools in a
lawsuit that drew on a similar argument. More recently, another group of
parents sued over the issue of teacher evaluations; it contends that
the state has not followed a 40-year-old state law requiring that pupil
progress be counted in teacher evaluations.
►The lawsuit was sponsored by a California nonprofit group called
Students Matter. Students Matter was advised by a committee including a
bunch of other education advocacy groups—some controversial in the
field—including Democrats for Education Reform, Parent Revolution,
StudentsFirst, and the Education Trust-West. [All “made” members of
®eform, Inc. - emphasis added by 4lakids]◄
A few other interesting things to note in this lawsuit. First, it leans
heavily on value-added research, referencing economist Eric A.
Hanushek's work and a second, recent study that connected better
teaching to higher lifetime earnings. It also cites a number of stories
in the California press about the difficulty and expense of dismissing
tenured teachers. Finally, litigators Theodore Olson and Theodore
Boutrous are among the attorneys representing the plaintiffs. They're
also the lead attorneys on an effort to overthrow California's
controversial Proposition 8, which barred same-sex marriage in the
state.
from the L.A. Times Op-Ed page: A BETTER WAY TO GRADE
TEACHERS + A SMARTER WAY TO GRADE SCHOOLS
► A BETTER WAY TO GRADE TEACHERS:
EFFECTIVE EVALUATION REQUIRES RIGOROUS, ONGOING ASSESSMENT BY EXPERTS
WHO REVIEW TEACHERS' INSTRUCTION, LOOKING AT CLASSROOM PRACTICE AND
EVIDENCE OF STUDENT LEARNING.
LA Times Op-Ed By Linda Darling-Hammond and Edward Haertel | http://lat.ms/Py1cri
November 5, 2012 :: It's becoming a familiar story: Great teachers get
low scores from "value-added" teacher evaluation models. Newspapers
across the country have published accounts of extraordinary teachers
whose evaluations, based on their students' state test scores, seem
completely out of sync with the reality of their practice. Los Angeles
teachers have figured prominently in these reports.
Researchers are not surprised by these stories, because dozens of
studies have documented the serious flaws in these ratings, which are
increasingly used to evaluate teachers' effectiveness. The ratings are
based on value-added models such as the L.A. school district's Academic
Growth over Time system, which uses complex statistical metrics to try
to sort out the effects of student characteristics (such as
socioeconomic status) from the effects of teachers on test scores. A
study we conducted at Stanford University showed what these teachers are
experiencing.
First, we found that value-added models of teacher effectiveness are
highly unstable. Teachers' ratings differ substantially from class to
class and from year to year, as well as from one test to the next. For
example, teachers who rank at the bottom one year are more likely to
rank above average the following year than to rate poorly again. The
same kind of wild swings hold true for teachers at the top. If the
scores were trustworthy measures of a teacher's ability, this would not
occur.
Second, teachers' value-added ratings are significantly affected by
differences in the students who are assigned to them. Even when
statistical models try to control for student-demographic variables,
teachers are advantaged or disadvantaged based on the students they
teach. Contrary to proponents' claims, these models reward or penalize
teachers according to where they teach and what students they teach, not
just how well they teach.
We found that a teacher receives a higher value-added score when he is
teaching students who are already higher-achieving, more affluent and
more versed in English than when he is assigned large numbers of new
English learners and students with fewer educational advantages. In
fact, when we looked at high school teachers who teach different
classes, the student composition of the class was a much stronger
predictor of the teacher's value-added score than the teacher. This
makes sense: With a classroom full of more-advantaged students, teachers
can move faster and cover more material, something the statistical
models used for value-added ratings fail to capture.
Finally, value-added ratings cannot disentangle the many home, school
and student factors that influence learning gains. These matter more
than the individual teacher in explaining changes in scores.
These findings have been replicated in many studies. As a result, most
researchers have concluded that value-added scores should not be used in
high-stakes evaluations of individual teachers. As the country's
leading research organization, the National Research Council, concluded:
"VAM estimates of teacher effectiveness … should not be used to make
operational decisions because such estimates are far too unstable to be
considered fair or reliable."
What is the alternative? Certainly we need teacher evaluation systems
that identify both excellent and struggling teachers based on what they
do and how their students learn. And we need systems that help teachers
improve, target assistance where needed and remove teachers who cannot,
with help, succeed in the classroom.
California's Educator Excellence Task Force recently released a report
that outlines the most successful practices internationally. It
illustrates that, as in other professions, good evaluation starts with
rigorous, ongoing assessment by experts who review teachers' instruction
based on professional standards. Evaluators look at classroom practice,
plus evidence of student learning from a range of classroom work that
includes (but is not limited to) school or district tests that directly
connect with the curriculum and students.
Studies show that feedback from this kind of evaluation improves student
achievement because it helps teachers get better at what they do.
Systems that sponsor the effective Peer Assistance and Review program
also identify poor teachers, provide them intensive help and remove them
if they don't improve.
If we really want to improve teaching, we should look to develop such
models of effective evaluation rather than pursuing problematic schemes
that mis-measure teachers, create disincentives for teaching high-need
students, offer no useful feedback on how to improve teaching practice
and risk driving some of the best educators out of the profession.
Linda Darling-Hammond, a professor of education at Stanford
University and co-faculty director of the Stanford Center for
Opportunity Policy in Education (SCOPE), co-chaired the California
Educator Excellence Task Force. Edward Haertel is a professor of
education at Stanford University and chairman of the National Research
Council's Board on Testing and Assessment.
______________________
► A SMARTER WAY TO GRADE SCHOOLS:
UNLIKE IN THE REST OF THE U.S., CALIFORNIA'S SB 1458 RIGHTLY ASSIGNS
JUST A PORTION OF STUDENT TEST RESULTS INTO THE API SCHOOL RATING
FORMULA. HOW THE REST WILL BE DETERMINED IS THE QUESTION.
LA Times Editorial | http://lat.ms/WLD2Or
California's SB 1458 counts just a portion of student test results into
the API school rating formula. (Anthony Russo / For The Times / November
8, 2012)November 9, 2012
November 9, 2012 :: While the Obama administration is putting
increased emphasis on standardized tests to measure teachers and
schools, California is moving in the other direction. A new law will
limit how heavily the annual standards exams can count toward a school's
score on the state's Academic Performance Index.
We think California has the better approach.
Though the tests, which measure whether students are at grade level in
various academic subjects, have value as an objective measurement of
student progress, they were never intended to become the sole criterion
by which good education is measured, and they shouldn't be. In too many
classrooms, the result has been a creativity-stifling tendency to drill
students for the multiple-choice tests.
Up to now, state officials have aggregated each school's test results
into a simplified API number that can range from 200 to 1,000, with a
score of 800 meaning that the school has met the state's target for
students' proficiency. But under the law signed this year by Gov. Jerry
Brown, the test results will count for only 60% of the API score
starting in the 2015-16 school year.
That's fine, but what about the other 40%? The problem with SB 1458, by
Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), is that it
leaves it to the California schools superintendent and the Board of
Education to figure that out. The law is expected to accomplish one
important goal: Finally, the state will have to include dropout rates in
the API calculation, something it was supposed to do all along but
ignored.
As for the rest, no one knows. The governor is responsible for the
vagueness; he vetoed a better, more detailed bill last year that called
for rating schools based on whether they offered an enriched curriculum
and prepared students for college and employment. At the time, he raised
valid concerns about how a love of learning, as well as deeper
analytical and writing skills, had been dropped from the education
equation. Perhaps panels of experts could measure these qualities
through school visits, he suggested.
Perhaps so. But a worthwhile, on-the-ground examination of a school's
quality is a time-consuming, very expensive proposition, and schools are
struggling as it is. There already are too many well-intentioned
reforms that have become meaningless because of the shortage of money to
do them right.
As education officials ponder the API scores of the future, they should
aim for a balanced approach to measuring schools that has real meaning
and as much objectivity as possible — and can be carried out in the
real, budget-challenged world.
_________
•• smf’s 2¢: Does this mean that The Times may abandon the Sue the
School District for the Test Scores under the Freedom of Information Act
and Crunch the Data to Sell Newspapers and Advertising Methodology for
reviewing teacher performance?
HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T
FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other
Sources
Vergara v. California: LAWSUIT AGAINST TEACHER TENURE
LAWS, SENIORITY RIGHTS ADVANCES + Plaintiff’s Press Releas... http://bit.ly/Z3LVkA
6 stories: WITH PASSAGE OF PROP 30 DEASY TO ASK LAUSD BOARD TO RESTORE SCHOOL YEAR/RESCIND FURLOUGH DAYS: "There... http://bit.ly/ZjcuBp
SUPT DEASY TO ASK BOARD TO RESTORE ALL FURLOUGH DAYS & LOST WEEK OF INSTRUCTION: By Tami Abdollah | KPCC Pass/Fa... http://bit.ly/Tgkccf
from the L.A. Times editorial page: A BETTER WAY TO GRADE TEACHERS + A SMARTER WAY TO GRADE SCHOOLS: ... http://bit.ly/Zeg27X
4LAKidsTweet: Doonesbury on blogging: No Comment! pic.twitter.com/LI0rTPy8
View photo
PROP 30: THE TRIGGER NOT PULLED: Schools win reprieve from triggers with passage of Prop. 30 By Kimberly Beltra... http://bit.ly/ZddnM0
85 Of 106 SCHOOL BONDS PASS, 15 of 25 SCHOOL PARCEL TAXES APPROVED: School Bonds require a 55% vote and can only... http://bit.ly/WL31Wa
4th time the charm?: WASHINGTON CHARTER SCHOOL INITIATIVE HAS SLIM LEAD: By Linda Shaw Seattle Times education r... http://bit.ly/ZcyxK6
PROP 30: Fielding questions about about retroactive income tax: By Tami Abdollah | Pass / Fail | 89.3 KPCC | htt... http://bit.ly/YWYzSt
PROP 30 TAX BILLS TO COME SOON: Income tax increases passed by voters on Tuesday will be retroactive to the begi... http://bit.ly/YWTJ7E
VAST INEQUALITY LURKS BEHIND MIND-NUMBING DATA ON SCHOOL SPENDING: By Arun Ramanathan in EdSource Today | http:/... http://bit.ly/TdkJvF
WHERE DID THE LOTTERY MONEY GO?: …..in which Boardmember Galatzan attempts to answer the question asked he... http://bit.ly/TdaMhD
FOUR SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA EDUCATORS NAMED ‘2013 CALIFORNIA TEACHERS OF THE YEAR’: by City News Service with contr... http://bit.ly/VKD0Vj
PROP 30 PASSES: What’s next? A retroactive tax? Where’s the money? CSU students get $249 refund: A series of art... http://bit.ly/YQMM82
TO MAKE BLENDED LEARNING WORK, TEACHERS TRY DIFFERENT TACTICS: By Katrina Schwartz, KQED Mind/Shift Blog | htt... http://bit.ly/Z3711C
L.A. TEACHERS UNION CALLS FOR RESTORING FULL SCHOOL YEAR: — Howard Blume | LA Times/LA Now | http://lat.ms/QoP ... http://bit.ly/WDwOQB
MESSAGE FROM SUPERINTENDENT DEASY ON THE APPROVAL OF PROPOSITION 30: http://bit.ly/SDkCZr November 7, 2012 ;:... http://bit.ly/YNv8Ck
4LAKidsTweet: #Prop38 ¡Thank you Molly+Steve EverOnward!
LAKidsTweet: 6 Nov Vote Yes on 38 Vote Yes on 38 @VoteYesOn38
4LAKidsTweet: Do you know people who are confused about #prop38? Give them the facts! http://ow.ly/f2M6w
TEACHER ABSENCE AS A LEADING INDICATOR OF STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT: New National Data Offer Opportunity to Examine Co... http://bit.ly/YU3Adm
This just in: MAYOR TONY IS STILL THE EDUCATION MAYOR!: “Who Knew?” you ask. The answer is: Melanie Lundquist, ... http://bit.ly/YEQzFt
Race to the Top: A MESSAGE FROM SUPERINTENDENT DEASY: From: Superintendent John Deasy [mailto:Superintendent_Joh... http://bit.ly/SXDt1W
Focus 0n 2012 Elections: EDUCATION ISSUES UNDERSCORE ELECTION STAKES AT ALL LEVELS: FROM PRESIDENTIAL RACE TO ST... http://bit.ly/YEQBNx
4LAKidsTweet: GO VOTE!: Soon the RoboCalls will end! Though I am
creating an app so non-voters will receive extra calls from "Rachel of
Card Services".
EVENTS: Coming up next week...
*Dates and times subject to change. ________________________________________
• SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION BOND OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE:
http://www.laschools.org/bond/
Phone: 213-241-5183
____________________________________________________
• LAUSD FACILITIES COMMUNITY OUTREACH CALENDAR:
http://www.laschools.org/happenings/
Phone: 213-241.8700
What can YOU do?
• E-mail, call or write your school board member:
Tamar.Galatzan@lausd.net • 213-241-6386
Monica.Garcia@lausd.net • 213-241-6180
Bennett.Kayser@lausd.net • 213-241-5555
Marguerite.LaMotte@lausd.net • 213-241-6382
Nury.Martinez@lausd.net • 213-241-6388
Richard.Vladovic@lausd.net • 213-241-6385
Steve.Zimmer@lausd.net • 213-241-6387
...or your city councilperson, mayor, the governor, member of congress,
senator - or the president. Tell them what you really think! • Find
your state legislator based on your home address. Just go to: http://bit.ly/dqFdq2 • There are 26 mayors and five county supervisors representing jurisdictions within LAUSD, the mayor of LA can be reached at mayor@lacity.org • 213.978.0600
• Call or e-mail Governor Brown: 213-897-0322 e-mail: http://www.govmail.ca.gov/
• Open the dialogue. Write a letter to the editor. Circulate these
thoughts. Talk to the principal and teachers at your local school.
• Speak with your friends, neighbors and coworkers. Stay on top of education issues. Don't take my word for it!
• Get involved at your neighborhood school. Join your PTA. Serve on a School Site Council. Be there for a child.
• If you are eligible to become a citizen, BECOME ONE.
• If you a a citizen, REGISTER TO VOTE.
• If you are registered, VOTE LIKE THE FUTURE DEPENDS ON IT. THEY DO!.
|
