Into the woods: Risky assumptions and cautionary tales.

4LAKids: Sunday 8•July•2012 In This Issue:  •  OUTSOURCING LIFESAVERS + TOLD YOU SO: Two items from the LA Times editorial page …with a slightly different spin  •  LAUSD TO FIGHT JUDGE'S ORDER ON SHARING CLASSROOM SPACE WITH CHARTERS + smf’s 2¢  •  NEW SNARL IN DELIVERY OF COMMON CORE MATERIALS TO CLASSROOM  •  ‘NO CHILD’ LAW WHITTLED DOWN BY WHITE HOUSE  •  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:  •  OUR CHILDREN, OUR FUTURE: What will California schoolchildren, your school district and YOUR School get when the initiative passes?  •  Follow 4 LAKids on Twitter - or get instant updates via text message by texting  •  4LAKids Anthology: All the Past Issues, solved, resolved and unsolved!  •  4LAKidsNews: a compendium of recent items of interest - news stories, scurrilous rumors, links, academic papers, rants and amusing anecdotes, etc. “When I had journeyed half of our life’s way, I found myself within a shadowed forest, for I had lost the path that does not stray.” - Dante, The Divine Comedy, Canto I, lines 1-3 “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” - Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854) A slow week gone as weeks go. School’s out. June Gloom lingers – between the furloughs and vacation days and basis calendar shifts it’s hard to find an educator. Check out the official District calendar here; http://bit.ly/NfNi6g– there just ain’t much goin’ on! It’s a great time to hatch a conspiracy, catch up on the reading you meant to read, or start the summer reading list. The week began poorly at Beaudry on Monday , picking right up where it left off Thursday | http://bit.ly/NibQ0s And celebrated with a bang in the middle for the 4th …in San Diego a rather big bang! | http://bit.ly/Nec3DO The theoretical physicists may have decoded the first Big Bang | http://bit.ly/MeXLBp . . .or perhaps the whole universe began when the Big Pryrotechnician hit the wrong key or a coding error as He turned on His laptop 14 billion years ago? The superintendent in his Beginning o’ th’ School Year Message [http://bit.ly/bHd7DO] , in reminding us that the first day of school is August 14th promises “no more shortened summers for our students”. All well+good – but the danger is a longer summer next summer …and an even shorter school year! “CALIFORNIA'S BUDGET PLAN BALANCED WITH RISKY ASSUMPTIONS” by Chris Megerian/Los Angeles Times (July 2, 2012 | http://lat.ms/L0Myqg) pretty well predicts that that light at the end of the California public education funding tunnel is an incoming runaway train – highballing to hell: “Gov. Jerry Brown has bet a portion of California's financial health on the expectation that a hyperpartisan Congress will change course on a hotly debated tax policy this year. The budget Brown signed last week assumes that over the next four years the state will reap almost $2.3 billion from the federal estate tax, a levy on wealth inheritance. California hasn't collected any revenue from the tax since 2004, and if Congress sticks with current policy it won't in the coming years, either. "It seems most likely the state will see no such revenues," said Jason Sisney, a deputy at the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office, which advises lawmakers on financial matters. A report from that office last fall warned that California should not anticipate otherwise. The Brown administration estimates a relatively small amount of revenue, $45 million, in the budget year that began this week. But by the 2015-16 fiscal year, officials are counting on $1.2 billion. That assumption has helped Brown and Democratic lawmakers insist that California will emerge from its financial turmoil with a budget surplus three years from now. "I believe that if we continue on this path, this era of unending deficits will be behind us," Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) told reporters after the Legislature finalized its budget bills last week. (more)” smf: Besides for the ‘ain't-gonna happen” inheritance tax revenues (beloved by the GOP as” Death Taxes” - not to be confused with “Death Panels” or Grover Norquist's “All Taxes are Dead on Arrival”) - and the dependence upon the governors tax initiative passing (and getting more votes than the PTA/Munger initiative) there is this bit of twisted illogic in the article – the illogic not driven by poor reporting, but by poor governing philosophy: “H.D. Palmer, a spokesman for Brown's Department of Finance, said it's not that simple. If the state pulls in less revenue, it won't be required to spend as much on public schools under California's voter-approved funding formula. (Prop 98) That would ease the burden on the budget." In other words, if revenues based on these irrational guestimates fall short – even if the governor’s tax increase is approved by the voters – they will cut funding to education. And the burden on the budget – but not on the schools or the students or the teachers – is “eased”. Eased? Because balancing the budget is the most important thing. Or is it teacher evaluation? Test scores? Getting reelected? It’s a Monty Python routine: “The two most important things are: The budget and test scores and… I mean the three… The article continues: "The analyst’s office said in a report last November: 'Most observers believe that, no matter what Congress does to the estate tax in 2012, California won't be able to collect money from it'. The report cautioned lawmakers NOT to incorporate any such revenue into the budget 'unless there is a clear indication from Congress' that it will be available." There was no such indication – and the governor and the legislature did it anyway. Like clockwork. What part of “Don’t do that!” is so had to understand? But hey, it’s summertime. We all forget stuff we learned in school over the summer. ¡Onward/Adelante! - smf OUTSOURCING LIFESAVERS + TOLD YOU SO: Two items from the LA Times editorial page …with a slightly different spin A Health Educator from LAUSD writes to 4LAKids: "I read the Times editorial today about the lifeguard kid back east. Then I started thinking. Take the word “lifeguard” (which is what health teachers are in a sense) and find+ replace it with “health teachers” TOSSING A LIFE-OR-DEATH LINE: In the case of LAUSD Health Teacher/ lifeguards, 40 RIFed John Does is a lesson in the dangers of putting public safety in the hands of for-profit online instructional companies. TIMES EDITORIAL (SORTA) 6 July 2012 :: In tight financial times, many school districts and cities save money by outsourcing district and municipal services such as clerical work to private companies. LAUSD is proposing to outsource high school Health Ed to an online contractor. But there is no service more central to government and the people it serves than health and public safety, which should remain the responsibility of public agencies. The case sof RIFed health teachers and a fired lifeguard in Florida are cautionary tales:. THE REAL L.A. TIMES EDITORIAL| http://lat.ms/OBGk0i : FLORIDA’S LAUDED, LET GO LIFEGUARD The case of fired Florida lifeguard Tomas Lopez is a lesson in the dangers of putting public safety in the hands of for-profit companies. July 6, 2012 :: In tight financial times, many cities save money by outsourcing municipal services such as clerical work to private companies. But there is no service more central to government and the people it serves than public safety, which should remain the responsibility of public agencies. The case of a fired lifeguard in Florida shows why. Beachgoers brought lifeguard Tomas Lopez's attention to a man floundering in shallow water. He raced to the scene; by then, the man had been pulled to the beach but had water in his lungs. Lopez tended to him until medical help arrived. The swimmer survived, but not Lopez's job. His employer, an aquatics company that provides lifeguard services to the city of Hallandale Beach, decided that he had quite literally crossed the line by running to an area that was not part of the company's contracted responsibility, exposing it to possible liability. Several other lifeguards quit in protest. And after a nationwide outcry, the company offered all of the guards their jobs back, saying that, in fact, Lopez hadn't left his sector of the beach unprotected. But the lifeguards aren't going back. Let's face it, it's not as though the job was such a great gig. Lopez was paid just $8.25 an hour, a little more than Florida's minimum wage. He and his fellow guards could make close to the same money flipping burgers rather than taking responsibility for strangers' lives. And their employer, Jeff Ellis Management Co., still doesn't get it. The issue isn't whether another lifeguard was available to cover Lopez's turf, or whether he went 1,000 feet beyond the boundary. Government agencies have a long history of mutual aid when it comes to providing public safety; they go to the rescue of people outside their boundaries when needed. They hire employees for reasonable pay and expect them to serve the public good. If municipal employees whose job involves first aid see a choking person on the other side of the city's line, they know it's not the time to call in to headquarters for permission to save a life or to calculate the potential liability. Even in the public domain, the concept of mutual aid has frayed a bit lately. Some cash-strapped California cities have begun charging nonresidents for emergency response if they are involved in an accident. But at least they provide the aid first, then ask questions (and send the bill) later. There's a lot that government can't afford anymore. But when we take shortcuts on our responsibility to rescue one another in life-or-death emergencies, we abandon the most basic function of communal welfare. _________ letters to the editor of the Times | http://lat.ms/OeZkhr A CAUTIONARY TALE FOR TEACHERS Re "Flunked students were a quick study in ingenuity," June 30 July 6, 2012 What happened at the STEM Academy is a cautionary tale on many levels. Students need to know that there are no shortcuts to a meaningful education, no matter what happened in this case. L.A. Unified School District officials claim to want academic rigor in classrooms, but when a teacher delivers that rigor, he is subject to undeserved scrutiny and reprimands in the media by his administrator. This incident should also be kept in mind when legislators consider changes to the way teachers are evaluated or disciplined. Teachers must be free to hold students to the highest educational standards, without wondering if it will trigger a negative evaluation or hurt their careers.Any legislation that would inject politics into the system or open the door to undue outside influence will hurt the academic program in the long run. Warren Fletcher Los Angeles The writer is president of United Teachers Los Angeles. ••smf’s 2¢: I mostly agree with Warren here. Despite the hue and cry about bad teachers and all the rest, college admission officers don’t consider the standardized tests like the CSTs in their decision making. CST scores are not even a consideration. Admissions decision makers – like classroom teachers - look at the whole student – with a special focus on the grades that teachers award and students earn - and on the student's portfolio of work. They read essays, they read letters of recommendation – and conduct actual interviews (what a concept!) . Most, but not all, consider college aptitude tests like the SAT and ACT - and subject tests like SAT and AP and IB – but NOT the CST’s or API or AYP that loom so large in the legend of ®eform Inc. Grades earned and GPA are make-or-break – and what happened at STEM Academy was a deliberate attempt to circumvent that process. Yes, there are hard teachers and hard classes – and Economics is a notorious hard one. I wonder how many of our current legislators took the easy way out of their high school Econ classes? …and how dearly we are all paying for that? Where I disagree with Warren is this: He is supposedly on his honeymoon. The byline says Los Angeles, but he’s In Paris, France. LAUSD and UTLA isn’t life Warren when you’re in Paris, just like Reality TV isn’t real even if you are in Hollywood.. Vous êtes à Paris sur votre lune de miel. They put bubbles in the wine and eat the garden pests …and they know exactly what they’re doing. ¡bonne chance! LAUSD TO FIGHT JUDGE'S ORDER ON SHARING CLASSROOM SPACE WITH CHARTERS + smf’s 2¢ By Tami Abdollah, Pass/Fail - 89.3 KPCC | http://bit.ly/OihqiH July 5, 2012 :: L.A. Unified has vowed to fight a judge’s order to comply with a state law that requires districts to share space equally among public school students, including those in charters, saying that it would bring “catastrophic” results, lopsided class sizes, and may force busing of students. Advocates for charter schools say L.A. Unified is overreacting, and that the district is wrong in how it determines class sizes; charter school students are legally entitled to more facilities than the district is providing. The point of contention is the method used to determine what is a classroom, and whether that includes facilities used by special needs students for more intensive work — or computer labs, parent centers and even classrooms that are still on the drawing board. Last week, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Terry A. Green ordered L.A. Unified to comply with the law, setting a July 11 deadline for sending revised offers for facilities to the roughly 45 charter schools that officials say could be affected by the decision. But calling the order impossible, district officials have promised to fight the ruling, saying that it would require L.A. Unified to displace students from their neighborhood schools, forcing them to be bused elsewhere, and would dramatically skew class-size ratios in favor of charter students. Under the order, the ratio of elementary school students to class size would be 24 to 1 on the district side of the school but 15 to 1 on the charter school side, said LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy. Facilities such as computer labs, parent centers and specially designated classrooms would have to be removed to create space for charter students, Deasy said. "I want to be very, very clear, this is not possible to carry out," Deasy told the L.A. Unified school board at its meeting last Thursday. Deasy said the district would have to start moving students "tomorrow" to comply with the order because the school year starts early, in mid-August. "And I for one believe it is completely inappropriate and against everything this board and district has done to relieve overcrowding, to take a student from a neighborhood school and move that student to a non-neighborhood school," Deasy said. The latest chapter in the legal battle for school space is centered around Proposition 39, a measure passed by voters in 2000 to ensure that space is shared equitably among public school students, including those in charters. The law requires districts to provide facilities to charter schools in the same ratio of classrooms to students as it would have if the students had remained in the district. The legal briefs have spanned years and include a 2008 settlement agreement that the district is not following, according an argument filed in May by the California Charter Schools Association. Under Proposition 39, qualifying charter schools with, for example, at least 80 students living within a district’s boundaries can apply each year to that district to request facilities. L.A. Unified currently applies a "norming ratio," or standard, to assign students to a classroom and offer facilities to charters. The ratio is no less than 24 students per classroom for grades K-3, 30.5 to 1 for grades 4-6, 28 to 1 for grades 7-8, and 30 to 1 for grades 9-12. The district argues that following this ratio when it allocates space to charters is in keeping with the "spirit and intent" of Proposition 39; all public school students receive the same space. But Charter Schools Association officials say the district's actions are illegal and unfair. "LAUSD's 'norming ratio' reflects many choices that LAUSD can make for itself, but not for charter schools," the association wrote in its brief. "When LAUSD makes choices about how to spend money and about collective bargaining, those choices can result in LAUSD putting more students into the classrooms it uses — for reasons other than a lack of classrooms. LAUSD is free to use its funds as it sees fit and to use fewer classrooms than it has available, but its choices...cannot be imposed on charter schools." In granting the motion, Judge Green agreed. David Huff, an attorney who represents the district in the case, said the judge's order is "supremely unfair" and violates the "spirit and intent" of Proposition 39. He said the association is more concerned about legal technicalities than truly providing equal facilities or its students. Huff said this is made clear by the association's focus on "inventory" or on what is considered a classroom. The association, in its brief, states that the law requires the district to count all classrooms "no matter how they are used or whether they are used." But Huff said the district would then be required to count rooms such as those used by special needs students for more intensive work -- or computer labs and parent centers -- as classrooms. Huff said charter schools are allowed to share these facilities. "We count what we actually provide to our students," Huff said, "because that's how we accommodate charter schools’ students as they would be accommodated if they otherwise attended their local neighborhood school." The district is also being asked to count classrooms that are not yet constructed or may not open for years under the order, Huff said. Additionally, it must count classrooms that may have been filled by charter students as available space for this ratio, Huff said. "That's not fair because it's just not reality," Huff said. But the association's officials argue that with declining enrollment and the district's multibillion-dollar voter-approved building program, there is more than enough space to comply with the law. "I'm disappointed that the school district has reacted in the manner it has," said Ricardo Soto, the general counsel for the Charter Schools Association. "The law requires [the district to] account for all the space at a school site and look at the total number of students served at that school site and make a comparable offer, an equitable offer, to charter schools based on that allocation," he said. Soto said the association has offered to work with the district to implement the order over the next months. But school board President Monica Garcia said at last week's board meeting that implementing the order in time for the 2012-13 school year will be "catastrophic and chaotic." L.A. Unified's six other school board members joined Garcia and the superintendent in echoing their opposition to the judge's decision. School board member Steve Zimmer said the order would create "a two-tiered system" of education. "The last time I checked, superintendent, there are federal civil rights implications to creating a two-tiered system at one public school," Zimmer said. "Our message is a very simple one, a very basic one," said board member Marguerite LaMotte. "We were voted into this office to uphold the public school system of Los Angeles, and as far as I’m concerned, no district child is going to be made to move from his or her neighborhood school because of charters. OK? It’s that simple for me." And board member Richard Vladovic said he felt betrayed by the Charter Schools Association's suit. "I look at every other district in the state, the 1,100 districts in this state. I don't see the charter association going after Beverly Hills," Vladovic said. "I don't see them going after any other district, but the one that's helped them the most." L.A. Unified, the nation's second-largest school district, is also the largest charter authorizer in the nation, according to district officials. The district has more than 210 charter schools serving more than 96,000 charter students or nearly 15 percent of the district's total student population in its area. These figures are one reason, Soto said, that the association has pushed this case. "I would say all districts have their challenges in complying with Proposition 39," Soto said. "...There are school districts that do better than Los Angeles Unified, there are school districts that do much much worse than Los Angeles Unified." Soto said that although the district had made strides in meeting Proposition 39’s requirements over the last few years, it has required continuous legal filings. He said the association hoped to work with the district outside the courtroom to comply with the law. •• smf’s 2¢: The provision in Prop 39 that gives charters access to 'surplus' and unutilized space in traditional schools is the problem, not Prop 39 itself - which set the approval threshold for school construction bonds at 55%. That is what the voters approved in 2000. Obviously community-based charter schools should have the right to apply to use truly unused school space - but not when it forces traditional schools out of libraries or parent centers - or to perpetuate classroom loading (class-size) at twice the numbers charter students enjoy. And never to force neighborhood families out of local schools. There was a school in Echo Park which had its auditorium closed and partitioned to accommodate a charter school. The leverage used by charters to obtain space under Prop 39 is not an unintended consequence of Prop 39. It was a poison pill placed there by the funder of the Prop 39 initiative, Netflix founder Reed Hastings - who also founded Aspire Charter Schools, NewSchools.org (which venture-capitalizes charter schools) & EdVoice (the collusive lawsuit Doe v. Deasy). Mr. Hastings is the godfather of corporate-model/charter management organization charter schools in California. And while much of this went down Mr. Hastings was also president of State Board of Education; as Mr. Rogers might have asked: "Can you say 'conflict of interest'?" The state constitution forbids ballot measures from addressing more than one issue per proposition - and no matter how well hidden this Easter-egg was - the courts need to root it out and return it to the bunny who brought it! NEW SNARL IN DELIVERY OF COMMON CORE MATERIALS TO CLASSROOM By Tom Chorneau • School Innovations & Advocacy Cabinet Report | http://bit.ly/MHXE4I Monday, July 2, 2012 :: Already well behind many states in bringing new national content standards into the classroom, California officials acknowledged last week a new snag that jeopardizes an effort to offer schools all the promised supplemental textbook materials aligned to the common core by early 2013. In a letter to publishers earlier this month and in communication with district representatives last week, the California Department of Education said it was temporarily dropping evaluation of key math programs offered by nearly two dozen publishers because of workload issues. That’s a potentially big problem, district representatives said, because the materials being set aside are specifically intended to bridge the content gap between the new common core standards and the old standards that serve as the basis of any K-8 math textbook being used statewide. No records are kept on how many students are using the most recently updated instructional materials in math, but there is a sense that many districts deferred the option to buy the latest 2007 adoption given the state’s fiscal crisis. Thus, school officials said, the supplemental materials that bridge the gap for any textbook are badly needed – especially given the looming 2014-15 deadline for when testing is set to begin based on the new standards. “Ideally, we need two years of instruction with common core standards before the full implementation of testing begins,” said Sherry Griffith, legislative advocate with the Association of California School Administrators. “So the materials are critical for both professional development and instruction.” Tom Adams, director of the CDE’s division over curriculum and instructional resources, said his office is still looking at alternatives but the problem to overcome is significant given two unexpected developments: a surprisingly large number of publishers responded to the California submission while fewer than expected volunteer content experts were willing to give up much of their summer to review and evaluate the materials. “We didn’t have enough reviewers to handle the workload, so we had to look at what realistically we could get done,” said Adams. An arcane but critical process, the development of new instructional materials is a multi-step program that typically takes years to complete. By law, the California State Board of Education is required to adopt standards-aligned instructional materials for K-8 schools. There has been in the past a six-year cycle for adoption of new subject materials. But since the onset of the recession, that schedule has been on hold. State law has suspended new textbook adoption through 2015-16 and has also provided districts flexibility with use of instructional materials funding through 2014-15. Even as California and most other states are dealing with deep budget deficits, the Obama administration began pushing the common core as a means of meeting national goals for what students should know and when they should know it. The common core standards in math and English language arts were adopted by California in 2010 along with 45 other states. A key part of that effort is providing schools new textbooks and instructional materials aligned with the new content standards – something California cannot afford to do anytime soon given a price tag that would run into the hundreds of millions of dollars. A short-term fix, mandated in legislation adopted last fall, calls on the CDE and the California State Board of Education to establish a list of “supplemental” materials publishers could offer districts that would bridge the gap between K-8 instructional materials currently in use and the new common core standards. That activity had been progressing toward a release next spring of endorsed materials that districts could buy – an important deadline given that testing in the new standards is set to begin in 2014-15. But in the June 19 letter to publishers, the CDE said it was suspending its review of the category two materials – those intended to link any textbook with the common core. The CDE said it will continue as planned with its review of supplemental materials offered by publishers that would bridge the gap between the common core and textbook programs developed as part of the state’s most recent math adoption done in 2007. The CDE also said there are no problems with the evaluation of the supplemental materials submitted on the new English language arts standards, a process that is advancing as scheduled. Adams said that the department received 30 submissions in English language arts to evaluate and has about 88 reviewers to perform the task. In math, however, there are 42 programs to look at and only 54 reviewers. “It was either the category one programs – the ones that bridge the currently adopted material to the common core; or category two, which is the general supplement,” he explained. “With over 30 programs in category two, we couldn’t review them all.” Legislative leaders as well as the Brown administration are looking at options. There has been some talk of revising some of California’s math content standards adopted just two years ago – for one to clarify eighth grade algebra. If so, the state might consider providing a full adoption in math sometime in the near future which would eliminate the need for supplemental materials altogether. But there’s still a problem with how districts are going to pay for new books and materials. Another option would be to push back the timelines and bring in more content experts – a move that might conflict with the state’s commitment to begin common core testing in two years. Griffith said either way the state should be taking the opportunity to promote competition among publishers in the California market that has long been dominated by only big players. “We are interested in developing a solution that ensures the greatest number of choices for districts,” she said. ‘NO CHILD’ LAW WHITTLED DOWN BY WHITE HOUSE By Motoko Rich, New York Times | http://nyti.ms/NcBN3n July 6, 2012 :: In just five months, the Obama administration has freed schools in more than half the nation from central provisions of the No Child Left Behind education law, raising the question of whether the decade-old federal program has been essentially nullified. On Friday, the Department of Education plans to announce that it has granted waivers releasing two more states, Washington and Wisconsin, from some of the most onerous conditions of the signature Bush-era legislation. With this latest round, 26 states are now relieved from meeting the lofty — and controversial — goal of making all students proficient in reading and mathematics by 2014. Additional waivers are pending in 10 states and the District of Columbia. “The more waivers there are, the less there really is a law, right?” said Andy Porter, dean of the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education. While No Child Left Behind has been praised for forcing schools to become more accountable for the education of poor and minority children, it has been derided for what some regard as an obsessive focus on test results, which has led to some notorious cheating scandals. Critics have also faulted the law’s system of rating schools, which they say labeled so many of them low performing that it rendered the judgment meaningless. In exchange for the education waivers, schools and districts must promise to set new targets aimed at preparing students for colleges and careers. They must also tether evaluations of teachers and schools in part to student achievement on standardized tests. The use of tests to judge teacher effectiveness is a departure from No Child Left Behind, which used test scores to rate schools and districts. Congress has tried and failed repeatedly to reauthorize the education law over the past five years because Democrats and Republicans cannot agree on an appropriate role for the federal government in education. And so, in the heat of an election year, the Obama administration has maneuvered around Congress, using the waivers to advance its own education agenda. The waivers appear to follow an increasingly deliberate pattern by the administration to circumvent lawmakers, as it did last month when it granted hundreds of thousands of young illegal immigrants a reprieve from deportation. The administration has also unveiled policies to prevent drug shortages, raise fuel economy standards and cut refinancing fees for federally insured mortgages. Critics question whether the waivers have done much to genuinely shift the focus of federal education reform, given their continued reliance on standardized tests. The waivers “should probably make the meh list,” said Joshua Starr, superintendent of the Montgomery County schools in Maryland, which was granted a waiver in May. Mr. Starr said he believed that education reform should focus on incentives to help teachers collaborate and help students learn skills that could not simply be measured by tests. “It is another example to me of how we’re not focused on the right things in the American education conversation today,” Mr. Starr said. “I have a lot of respect for Arne Duncan,” he added, referring to the secretary of education, “but it’s just sort of moving around the chairs on the Titanic.” Mr. Duncan, in a telephone interview on Thursday, said states that had received waivers, including New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, would also use a mix of other indicators to evaluate teachers and schools, like how many students actually enrolled in college or took Advanced Placement exams, as well as reviews of teachers by their peers, their students and their principals. “You have to look at multiple indicators and multiple measures,” he said. “There’s been historically a push to way oversimplify what is very complex.” House Republicans have repeatedly protested the Obama administration’s use of waivers as an end-run around Congress. In a speech to the American Enterprise Institute this year, Representative John Kline, a Minnesota Republican and the chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Work Force, accused the administration of using waivers “in exchange for states adopting the policies he wants them to have.” But education officials in the states that received waivers expressed relief from the pressure of the looming 2014 deadline. “There was a general feeling that there were these goals that no one was ever going to meet,” said Kelli Gauthier, spokeswoman for the Tennessee Department of Education. “Now we have standards that are possible.” Instead of labeling all struggling schools as failing, the waivers direct states to focus most attention on the bottom 5 percent of low-performing schools. “With the waiver we can focus on those schools that really need a lot of help,” said June Atkinson, North Carolina’s state superintendent of public schools. One of the most practical effects is that waivers will remove many schools from being branded with the tag that they had failed to make what the law deemed “adequate yearly progress” in getting more students to pass standardized tests. Across the country, nearly half of all schools missed their targets under No Child Left Behind in the 2010-11 school year. In some states, the rate was much higher. In Massachusetts, for example, 80 percent of schools did not make adequate progress during that school year, and in Virginia, the figure was 61 percent. Charles Pyle, spokesman for the Virginia Department of Education, said that in some cases, schools that had improved test performance still failed to meet federal goals. “The idea that 6 out of 10 Virginia schools are failing is preposterous,” Mr. Pyle said. But critics say putting a priority only on the lowest-performing schools will let too many others off the hook, especially those that serve minority students, poor children or high populations of students with special needs. “Are we saying all the schools are good except for 5 percent?” asked Margaret Spellings, education secretary under President George W. Bush, who now oversees education policy for the United States Chamber of Commerce. “I just don’t get it.” The administration said all schools would be required to show yearly improvement. “To label an improving school a failure is the worst thing you can do,” Mr. Duncan said. “If they’re doing the hard work to get better, it’s like, ‘Why are we killing ourselves to improve if we’re going to get slapped in the face for it?’ ” The waivers also free up about $2 billion in annual federal funding that No Child Left Behind required low-performing schools to use either to transfer students to other schools or for tutoring services. Maria Campanario, interim principal at Rafael Hernández School, a dual-language kindergarten-to-Grade 8 school in Roxbury, a Boston neighborhood, that has missed its federal targets four years running, said parents were often confused by the offer to transfer to another school. “I have parents who come in who are English-language learners, and they would say: ‘What does this mean, we can go to another school? You don’t want us to be here?’ ” she said. “They would say, ‘But we like the school and think it’s fine.’ ” Ms. Campanario said she welcomed the discretion to use the funding for “professional development that is going to support the whole school.” “If you give me that money,” she said, “ I will put it to excellent use.” SEE ALSO: 26 get out, 24 left behind: WASHINGTON AND WISCONSIN APPROVED FOR NCLB WAIVERS + CALIFORNIA SEEKS WAIVER FROM NCLB | http://t.co/70WJKkV4 HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other Sources CALIFORNIA'S BIGGEST COMMUNITY COLLEGE FIGHTS TO SURVIVE: by Ronnie Cohen/Reuters from http://chicagotribune.com | htt... http://bit.ly/RHupOu Field Poll: CALIFORNIA VOTERS DON’T LIKE MIDYEAR CUTS TARGETING EDUCATION: 72% oppose cuts, 44% think Brown is d... http://bit.ly/OLob04 GIVE COLLEGES MORE CREDIT v. A MORE CORPORATE COLLEGE MODEL: THE DOOMSAYERS ARE WRONG: America's higher-educati... http://bit.ly/Pvv4oN 26 get out, 24 left behind: WASHINGTON AND WISCONSIN APPROVED FOR NCLB WAIVERS + CALIFORNIA SEEKS WAIVER FROM “N... http://bit.ly/NuUyNM GREEN DOT CHARTER SCHOOLS MOVE TOWARD MERIT PAY INSTEAD OF SENIORITY FOR TEACHERS: By Rob Kuznia Staff Writer, D... http://bit.ly/ODWtT5 George McKenna: TOUGH EDUCATOR WHO ALWAYS RELISHED A CHALLENGE RETIRES AFTER A LONG CAREER THAT INCLUDED TRYING ... http://bit.ly/MI2kY8 LEG UPDATE: Three school discipline reform bills thought dead – revived: SI&A Cabinet Report | http://bit.ly/O ... http://bit.ly/ODN8dT AWAKENING CIVIC POTENTIAL IN THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION + Participatory Politics: New Media and Youth Political Acti... http://bit.ly/ODJEIp THE MYTH THAT ONLY FURLOUGHS CAN BALANCE SCHOOL BUDGETS: By Seth Rosenblatt | EdSource Today | http://bit.ly ... http://bit.ly/PsHmOT MOVING FORWARD: Securing a full school year in 2012-13: By Warren Fletcher UTLA President. President’s Perspecti... http://bit.ly/ODfmFD OVER 10,000 CALIFORNIA STUDENTS AWARDED “SEAL OF BILITERACY”: By Louis Freedberg| EdSource Today http://bit.... http://bit.ly/NJXkMX OUTSOURCING LIFESAVERS + TOLD YOU SO: Two items from the LA Times editorial page …with a slightly different spin... http://bit.ly/NtGS5F Maggie’s Meow: FOREVER ADULT EDUCATION: Op-Ed By MAGGIE ISHINO in the Rafu Shimpo, Los Angeles Japanese Daily Ne... http://bit.ly/Oe6iU6 RISKY ASSUMPTIONS IN THE EDUCATION BUDGET: By smf for 4LAKidsNews “CALIFORNIA'S BUDGET PLAN BALANCED WITH RISKY... http://bit.ly/MYtkA3 FIRING THE BAD TEACHERS: Ted Olson and LAUSD Parents Sue: By Hillel Aron LA Weekly | http://bit.ly/NmRm6W I... http://bit.ly/PfnQ8e Expand WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF EVIDENT: ●●By smf for 4LAKidsNews “We carried you in our arms on Independenc... http://bit.ly/MYe4TU MONICA GARCIA WINS SIXTH ONE-YEAR TERM AS L.A. UNIFIED PRESIDENT + smf’s 2¢: -- Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times ... http://bit.ly/NibQ0s 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 • LAUSD BOARD OF EDUCATION & COMMITTEES MEETING CALENDAR 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!. Who are your elected federal & state representatives? How do you contact them? Scott Folsom is a parent leader in LAUSD and is Parent/Volunteer of the Year for 2010-11 for Los Angeles County. • He is Past President of Los Angeles Tenth District PTSA and represented PTA on the LAUSD Construction Bond Citizen's Oversight Committee for ten years. He is a Health Commissioner, Legislation Team member and a member of the Board of Managers of the California State PTA. He serves on numerous school district advisory and policy committees and has served as a PTA officer and governance council member at three LAUSD schools. He is the recipient of the UTLA/AFT 2009 "WHO" Gold Award for his support of education and public schools - an honor he hopes to someday deserve. • In this forum his opinions are his own and your opinions and feedback are invited. Quoted and/or cited content copyright © the original author and/or publisher. All other material copyright © 4LAKids. • FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 4LAKids makes such material available in an effort to advance understanding of education issues vital to parents, teachers, students and community members in a democracy. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. • To SUBSCRIBE e-mail: 4LAKids-subscribe@topica.email-publisher.com - or -TO ADD YOUR OR ANOTHER'S NAME TO THE 4LAKids SUBSCRIPTION LIST E-MAIL smfolsom@aol.com with "SUBSCRIBE" AS THE SUBJECT. Thank you.

With apologies to Queen...

4LAKids: Sunday 1•July•2012 Canada Day, eh? In This Issue:  •  THE LAUSD BUDGET + an smf rant - The media that bothered to cover the story wrote:  •  Prop 39 Co-Locations: STATEMENT FROM SUPERINTENDENT DEASY & THE BOARD OF ED RE: CALIFORNIA CHARTER SCHOOL ASSOCIATION V. LAUSD + Court order  •  L.A. DISTRICT WEIGHING GRADUATION OF STUDENTS WHO FAILED CLASS  •  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:  •  OUR CHILDREN, OUR FUTURE: What will California schoolchildren, your school district and YOUR School get when the initiative passes?  •  Follow 4 LAKids on Twitter - or get instant updates via text message by texting  •  4LAKids Anthology: All the Past Issues, solved, resolved and unsolved!  •  4LAKidsNews: a compendium of recent items of interest - news stories, scurrilous rumors, links, academic papers, rants and amusing anecdotes, etc. CUE THE MUSIC: “Put a gun up to his head, pulled the trigger, now he’s dead…” ASSEMBLY BILL 1476 SEC. 53. (as enacted) http://1.usa.gov/LI38e2 Section 46201.4 is added to the Education Code, to read: 46201.4. (a) Notwithstanding Section 46201.2, for the 2012-13 and 2013-14 school years, a school district, county office of education, or charter school may provide an instructional year of not less than 160 days or the equivalent number of instructional minutes without incurring the penalties set forth in Sections 41420, 46200, 46200.5, 46201, 46201.5, 46202, and 47612.5. (b) Implementation of the reduction in the number of instructional days or instructional minutes authorized pursuant to subdivision (a) by a school district, county office of education, or charter school that is subject to collective bargaining pursuant to Chapter 10.7 (commencing with Section 3540) of Division 4 of Title 1 of the Government Code shall be achieved through the bargaining process. (c) (1) For the 2012-13 fiscal year, the revenue limit for each school district, county office of education, and charter school determined pursuant to Article 3 (commencing with Section 2550) of Chapter 12 of Part 2 of Division 1 of Title 1, Article 2 (commencing with Section 42238) of Chapter 7 of Part 24 of Division 3, or Article 2 (commencing with Section 47633) of Chapter 6 of Part 26.8 shall be reduced by a combined total of two billion seven hundred forty million three hundred seventy-seven thousand dollars ($2,740,377,000) in addition to the reduction in revenue limit funding set forth in Sections 2558 and 42238. (2) To achieve the reduction required pursuant to paragraph (1), the Superintendent shall adjust the amount of categorical funding allocated to basic aid school districts in the 2012-13 fiscal year. For purposes of this subdivision, "basic aid school district" means a school district that does not receive from the state, for the 2012-13 fiscal year, an apportionment of state funds pursuant to subdivision (h) of Section 42238. (d) (1) This section shall become operative on December 15, 2012, only if the Schools and Local Public Safety Protection Act of 2012 (Attorney General reference number 12-0009) is not approved by the voters at the November 6, 2012, statewide general election, or if the provisions of that act that modify personal income tax rates do not become operative due to a conflict with another initiative measure that is approved at the same election and receives a greater number of affirmative votes. If the Schools and Local Public Safety Protection Act of 2012 (Attorney General reference number 12-0009) is approved by the voters at the November 6, 2012, statewide general election, and all of the provisions of that act that modify personal income taxes become operative, this section shall not become operative and shall be repealed on January 1, 2013. (2) If this section becomes operative pursuant to paragraph (1), it shall become inoperative on July 1, 2015, and, as of January 1, 2016, is repealed, unless a later enacted statute, that becomes operative on or before January 1, 2016, deletes or extends the dates on which it becomes inoperative and is repealed. ...And that’s probably not the worst thing that happened public education last week. WORSE IF NOT WORST: THE 2012-13 LAUSD BUDGET, approved by the board on Thursday. All balanced, all legal – turned in on time; it made the deadline. A budget is plan for the future. There is nothing proactive or visionary about this budget. It is not just reactive, it is reactionary. It is crisis management – and bad at that. Don’t get me wrong, this budget is not the Board of Ed’s fault. But it is their budget. And their doing. The 2012-13 LAUSD budget is a strategy and plan, replete with line numbers and credits and debits and cash flow projections to poorly educate children and deliver less than adequate services, clean bathrooms less often, pay fewer teachers for working less days – and not pay them at all for some days they do work. Kids don’t need librarians, they can check out their own books. Uh, oh – where did all the books go? We can eliminate the Asbestos Abatement Unit and outsource the work to private contractors. This skates on the edge of legality. It puts students and staff at risk every time we open a ceiling, forget to polish the floor or go into a crawl space. It’s certainly not ethical and it circumvents the labor code and the union contract …but who’ll notice? Uh oh, we discussed it at the board meeting. Are those TV cameras on? Is anyone watching? I don’t know if the boardmembers listen when the speakers speak; I don’t know if they read what I write. But a magna cum laude graduate from Wilson High School spoke to them Thursday and told them only one bathroom at that school with 2333 students is open every day. Even if our student meant two bathrooms, one for boys, one for girls, that’s a student-to-bathroom-ratio of 1,666:1. That is a public health violation, an Ed Code violation and a building code violation. • “Restroom stalls shall be sufficient to accommodate the maximum planned enrollment and shall be located on campus to allow for supervision.” Ed Code, Title 5 Division 1, Chapter 13, Subchapter 1 | http://1.usa.gov/MKO1xI • “Schools should be provided with toilet facilities on each floor having classrooms. | "Title 24, Part 5, 2010 California Plumbing Code" |http://bit.ly/MKNITz Wilson is in your board district, Monica. Are you going to file the Williams Complaint or am I? For the record: There are people who think “furlough days” are days you get sent home for a little R+R; a little couch time with Oprah and the gals on The View. They are not. They are days employees work for free. The 2012-13 LAUSD Budget is based on some gloomy assumptions and touched with magical lack-of-realism. The budget document itself admits it hasn’t updated assumptions since the May Revise [pp10: "There have been no detailed state updates since the May revise." http://scr.bi/N2pEOb] and an awful lot has changed since then. The Big Bad Wishful Thought: If only the voters approve Jerry Brown’s Tax Increase, and if only the magical assumptions in the State Budget come true – which was final only hours before the LAUSD budget was approved. I can guarantee you that not one of the seven boardmembers had a chance (let alone the inclination) to read the final state budget as signed by the governor. And the Governor’s tax increase is drawing a lot o’ fire … and not just from the no-new-taxes bunch http://t.co/rELqaP9Y No part of the LAUSD budget was discussed at the board meeting. Straight up or down vote. No debate. There wasn’t even a copy on hand for the public. No line item, category, expense, or income projection was questioned, explained or put up on the big screen. • No one questioned the costs for Academic Growth Over Time Assessments, • …or allowances for replacing and housing an entire school staff for half a year because two teachers misbehave, • …or settlements for inappropriate conduct by previous superintendents and subsequent settlements for publicly disclosing confidential settlements, • …or costs of investigating charges of inappropriate behavior by school staff when that’s the job of the Commission of Teacher Credentialing and law enforcement … IF we had only informed them in a timely manner. School Districts report, the CTC and law enforcement investigate. It’s called a separation of powers. Yes, the Beyond the Bell Afterschool program was “saved”. But it was saved by the very folk that endangered it; avoiding discussion of their action. 45% of Adult Ed was “saved”, and 80% of Early Childhood Ed locations will remain open. If you were an Adult Ed student in the 55% eliminated, were you saved? If your child was to go to one of the 20% OF ECE centers closed, was that program “saved”? But all of the slots were kept they protest. We educate children in neighborhood schools, not widgets that fit conveniently into LAUSD’s slots. The budget was for $6.3 billion with a B and “It all looks fine to me”? That’s a little too much trust for a trustee. That thumping sound you heard was the rubber stamp hitting the page. These are members of the Board of Education, not DMV clerks! …and I apologize to DMV clerks everywhere for the unjust and unfair comparison. Thank you. Next. Is this a way to run a state? Is this the way to run a school district? Is this a way to educate our children? No, no and no. That’s why Dr. Vladovic voted No. The other six will have to explain their Yes votes. “What would you have them do?” a reporter asked me Thursday evening. I would have them do better. CIVICS 101: THE JUDICIAL BRANCH. THERE WAS LOTS OF ACTIVITY IN THE COURTS LAST WEEK …besides the Supremes! This is the logical outcome of the legislative and executive branches in D.C., Sacramento and locally not being sufficiently engaged in public education. And of there not being enough money and a fight over the little there is. And maybe a bit of excess greed. • Prop 39 Co-Locations: CALIFORNIA CHARTER SCHOOL ASSOCIATION V. LAUSD [following] • JUDGE ORDERS ASPIRE BACK FOR LOCAL PERMISSION OF ‘STATEWIDE BENEFIT’ CHARTER SCHOOLS + smf’s 2¢ http://bit.ly/OPhZqa • CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT SIDES WITH CHARTER SCHOOL AND DISTRICT IN CONVERSION DISPUTE: from CCSA | http://bit.ly/NccL05 • JUDGE TO DECIDE WHETHER TO OVERTURN LAUSD'S 'LAST HIRED, FIRST FIRED' EXEMPTION | http://bit.ly/OJa65q Are those TV cameras on? Is anyone watching? “Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy….?” ¡Onward/Adelante! - smf The Superindent's Final LAUSD Budget 2012-12 THE LAUSD BUDGET + an smf rant - The media that bothered to cover the story wrote: ►LAUSD BOARD APPROVES $6.3B BUDGET; AFTER-SCHOOL PROGRAM SAVED By Barbara Jones, Staff Writer, LA Daily News (from the Contra Costa Times) http://bit.ly/MFXxlL 5:56:36 PM PDT :: After scrounging up $6.7 million to preserve free after-school care, the Los Angeles Unified board on Thursday approved a $6.3 billion budget that shortens the 2012-13 school year, eliminates thousands of jobs and reshapes some of the district's most iconic programs. The board's 6-1 vote, with South Bay representative Richard Vladovic dissenting, capped an 11th-hour scramble to salvage the Beyond the Bell after-school program. It operates from 3-6 p.m. weekdays at every elementary and middle school in the district. About $4 million will come from money the district had set aside to put a parcel tax on the 2013 ballot - although district officials are still considering that plan - and the balance from an unexpected surplus in preschool revenue in the state budget that Gov. Jerry Brown signed on Wednesday. Prior to the vote, Superintendent John Deasy discussed highlights of the district's "dramatically tight budget" and what was saved - and lost - in closing a $169 million deficit. He also noted that the budget is based on the assumption that voters will pass a state sales and income tax increase on the November ballot and that even deeper cuts will result if it fails. "We are good until Election Day - everything depends on passage of that," he said. "We simply have to get that (tax hike) passed so we can have a school year." As it is, the school year that begins Aug. 14 will be two weeks shorter than usual, thanks to agreements by LAUSD's unions to take 10 unpaid days. There also will be about 5,000 fewer teachers, classified workers and skilled tradesmen on the district's payroll, the result of declining enrollment and state budget cuts. And as bad as the district's financial picture is, officials said, it could have been much worse. After projections in February showed LAUSD with a $557 million deficit, officials proposed eliminating adult and early-childhood education programs, along with elementary arts programs, expanding class sizes and laying off thousands of teachers and support staff. An infusion of unexpected revenue from the state helped narrow the shortfall, allowing the district to keep class sizes at existing levels and retain librarians, nurses and high school counselors. On the school board's orders, Deasy saved the Adult Ed Division, although its budget will be about $47 million instead of the $200 million allocated this year. The focus will be on credit-recovery and English-language classes, with limited job-training and older-adult courses offered on a fee basis. The district will offer early-childhood classes to the same number of students, but will save money by operating fewer centers. There also are cuts to the program that teaches English to preschool students. That left the Beyond the Bell Division, which had a $7.3 million budget to operate after-school drop-in centers, and other popular extracurricular activities. Early on, the district saved Academic Decathlon and the Honor Marching Band, but said it must close two outdoor classrooms and dissolve the Jazz Band and district orchestra. And after a concerted lobbying effort by parents, employees and board members, Deasy found the money for the after-school programs. The six-hour meeting was the last of the school year. The board will reconvene on Monday, when it will elect its president - a titular post that has been filled for the last four years by Monica Garcia. Her tenure at the head of the horseshoe-shaped dias prompted a move by board members Vladovic, Bennett Kayser and Marguerite LaMotte - who frequently join together as a minority voting bloc on controversial issues - to rotate the position on an annual basis. It failed 4-3. The meeting was also briefly disrupted by a demonstration by a few dozen students from Roosevelt High, who were protesting the presence of Planned Parenthood on campus. District police had to clear the meeting room. The board also heard from Mark Bryant, the partner of Scot Graham, the former facilities employee who leveled sexual harassment allegations against former Superintendent Ramon Cortines. A proposed settlement with Graham fell apart when the district prematurely released details of the deal. Bryant called on the district to investigate complaints in a timely manner and protect the privacy of those who file complaints against authority figures. ►LA UNIFIED OKS $6.3B BUDGET WITH LAYOFFS, CUTS The Associated Press from the Sacramento Bee | http://bit.ly/L89a9L Thursday, Jun. 28, 2012 - 8:38 pm :: LOS ANGELES -- The Los Angeles Unified school board has approved a $6.3 billion budget for 2012-13 that calls for thousands of employee layoffs, a shortened school year and cuts to adult education and preschool programs. The budget proposal passed Thursday night with a 6-1 vote. District Superintendent John Deasy said at the board approval meeting that program cuts and layoffs would have been worst if employees had not agreed to take 10 furlough days, which will result in five fewer days of classroom instruction. The district had to cut $169 million due to a loss of state funding. Deasy calls the budget "dramatically tight" but noted that some programs and furloughs could be restored if voters pass the tax initiatives on the November ballot that will raise more money for education. About 4,000 employees are slated to lose their jobs. NEW LAUSD BUDGET CUTS SCHOOL YEAR: The LAUSD Board signed off on a spending plan that officials say will eliminate thousands of jobs while saving others By Gordon Tokumatsu and Bill French, KNBC |http://bit.ly/OJ67G4 Thursday, Jun 28, 2012 | Updated 8:27 PM PDT :: With deficits in the tens of millions of dollars, Los Angeles Unified School District board members signed off on a $6.3 billion budget Thursday that eliminates thousands of jobs and shaves as many as 10 days off the next school year. Gordon Tokumatsu reports from Downtown Los Angeles for the NBC4 News at 5 p.m. on June 28, 2012. With deficits in the hundreds of millions of dollars, Los Angeles Unified School District board members signed off on a $6.03 billion budget Thursday that eliminates thousands of jobs and shaves as many as 10 days off the next school year. •• smf: Sloppy math alert: Tens or hundreds of millions. $6.3 or 6.03 billion? The difference is 300 million v. 3 million. The board voted 6 to 1 to approve the budget that closes a $390 million deficit the district faced heading into the new school year; LAUSD has faced a cumulative $2.7 billion deficit since 2008-09, due in large part to reduced state funding, according to a statement released by the district Thursday night. "The budget is dramatically tight," Superintendent of Education John Deasy told board members. "You can always advocate for additional things once the school year opens up." Adult education programs will be hit with 3,200 layoffs and a new payment structure may require some older students to pay fees, which members anticipate will save about $84 million. "I want to express the sadness of approving a budget that has less dollars and does the best we can to serve children well in a difficult time, but does not really honor the promise of what we have said we want for our children," board president Mónica García said in the statement. The district renegotiated union contracts, resulting in shorter school years, and about 1,400 layoff notices will be issued to teachers and support staff. That figure is smaller than originally anticipated. The statement cited district figures stating the agreements saved more than 6,200 jobs. "We are basically good until election day," said Deasy, reflecting on the importance of a voter tax initiative backed by Gov. Jerry Brown that will be on the November ballot. There was some positive news amid the cuts: class sizes will remain the same, librarian and nurse jobs will be spared, and arts and music programs will survive. Thirteen continuation schools slated for closure will now stay open. After-school programs for the 50,000 children districtwide whose parents work later hours will continue to have a place to go, at least until November. ►LAUSD APPROVES $6 BILLION BUDGET FOR 2012-13 WITH $169 MILLION IN CUTS By Tami Abdollah, KPCC Pass/Fail : http://bit.ly/LJkCZf June 28, 2012 :: The L.A. Unified Board of Education today overwhelmingly approved a $6 billion budget for 2012-13 with $169 million in cuts that manages to saves outdoor education, Academic Decathlon and the after school program, despite hefty cuts to adult education and the layoffs of thousands of educators. The 6-1 vote, with board member Richard Vladovic voting no, was made reluctantly by board members after about an hour of discussion. Superintendent John Deasy emphasized in a brief presentation that many of the savings were "for one year" and stressed that whether voters approve Gov. Jerry Brown's initiative to raise taxes will "determine the future of most of this." If the governor's tax initiative fails, L.A. Unified estimates it will have to cut an additional $264 million in 2012-13. Public schools across the state would suffer a nearly $6 billion cut under Brown's budget. But Deasy said there was no time to discuss "'what if after November,' it’s what must be. We simply have to get that passed so we can have a school year." The final budget came after months of a changing budget picture that brought hordes of angry protesters, parents and teachers to L.A. Unified's Downtown headquarters. The district initially unveiled a proposed budget in February that addressed a $557 million estimated shortfall. That figure was later revised down to $390 million after the state Legislature restored transportation funds to schools and the district had higher than expected revenues from the lottery and lower benefits costs. More than 11,700 educators received preliminary pink slips in March as the district worked to determine what its budget picture would look like. Talks included wholesale eliminations of programs such as adult education and early education. But savings such as concessions from unions — teachers, administrators and the classified workers union all agreed to take 10 furlough days, effectively shortening the school year by a week — resulted in the lower $169 million cut the board approved today. Still, under this budget, 3,295 educators will lose their jobs, more than half of those under the adult education program, which is being hit with a $84 million cut, according to district numbers. Cafeteria support will see an $18 million cut, and the school readiness language development program will receive a $9 million cut. That included trimming $84 million from the Adult Education Division and $9 million from school-readiness classes for young English learners. Board member Steve Zimmer said this budget avoided "catastrophic" cuts that would have completely changed "public education as we know it in the city of Los Angeles." But UTLA Secretary David Lyell told members he was concerned about lack of cuts to the central office, which were estimated at $23.6 million in May and ultimately ended as a $4.5 million cut. "All year long, we've heard about how UTLA members need to sacrifice, and we have," Lyell said. "I've been getting calls from members, there are a few areas of concern where the district isn't sacrificing." Lyell also questioned increases of tens of millions of dollars in budgeting for general supplies expenditures and instructional materials. Over the last month district officials have scrambled to find $7 million to prevent the elimination of the after-school care program Beyond the Bell, which serves about 50,000 students from the hours of 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Deasy said today that those funds will come from the $3.9 million that would have been set aside to put the parcel tax on the ballot and other restored funds from the state for early education. Deasy asked board members to remove the tax from the ballot in order to focus support around the governor's tax initiative in November, which he said is critical for the district's budget. "We are basically good until election day," he told board members. "And after election day every single solitary assumption in this budget depends on the passage of that" initiative. Parents and advocates praised the district's effort to save the after school program. Jose Sigala, who heads up the After School Action Coalition, told board members the program provides children with a "safe place to play and learn, but also provides a lot of working families with a sense of relief, where there is a place they can count on to watch their kids in a safe environment." Board member Tamar Galatzan, who is a mother of two boys who attend LAUSD schools said she uses the after school program and knows how important it is. She said working to save that program illustrated to her how complex the budget process and system can be. For example, though some parents found the program so valuable they were willing to pay, the district could not institute a sliding fee schedule under current state law. Charging for the program would have changed its status from drop-in program to child-care program, which would have required staffing and other specific requirements in place. Though schools could apply for state waivers, those would have to be sought and granted individually. Galatzan said she would be working next year to change state law to allow districts to charge a sliding fee for after-school drop-in programs, to prevent them from being categorized as child care, so that L.A. Unified can keep them open. "So many of these things in this budget, we're trying to be creative," Galatzan said. "...But frequently there are these barriers that we didn't construct that are put in our way _______________ ►The story you didn’t read in Friday’s LA Times: L.A. SCHOOL BOARD OKS FINAL BUDGET, INCLUDING SHORTENED SCHOOL YEAR --Stephen Ceasar, LA Times LA NOW (Online Only) | http://lat.ms/OIHdX6 ________________ •●smf: Thursday at 2:42 AM I tweeted: Today's ‪#LAUSDbudget (will be) ‬ lost in news cycle shadow of Supreme Court ‪#Obamacare‬/Holder Contempt/Banking Scandals ¡Don't let the kids get lost! Witchhunters take notice. The Obamacare story took all the ink in the Times, along with the Holder contempt charges, a rehash+update of the 2-year old Chris Brown/Rhianna story and coverage of a MTA meeting where Mayor Tony repeated his appeal for good-idea legacy-enhancing federal transportation funding that ain’t gonna happen. Yesterday The Board of Ed passed a budget permanently firing 5000 (not 3000 – but who’s counting?) employees, shortening the school year and reducing adult education by more than half, etc., etc., etc.), A budget that puts the bottom line and test scores and the ®eform, Inc. agenda of assessing and blaming teachers over the safety and welfare and (lets face it) education of children. Fiscal bankruptcy was avoided, moral and ethical bankruptcy embraced. Yes, the Beyond the Bell afterschool program was “saved” …but the superintendent’s acceptance of this was sourly presented as being the potential budget buster that District may never recover from if the Governor’s initiative doesn’t pass in November. Not that the Board of Ed has endorsed the Governor’s Initiative. The print edition of today’s Times did not cover any of this; not one column inch was dedicated to LAUSD. Not the board meeting. Not the UTLA lawsuit filing . Not the verdict in California Charter School Association v. LAUSD lawsuit that may well mark the end of the District. Proving perhaps that both public education and The Los Angeles Times are irrelevant in today’s Los Angeles. ________________ June 28, 2012 | 6:59 pm :: The Los Angeles Board of Education approved its final $6-billion budget Thursday, bridging a multimillion-dollar shortfall in the state’s largest school district by shortening the school year and laying off about 3,000 employees. In February, the board was tasked with closing an estimated $557-million shortfall. Through a series of negotiations with labor unions, which include unpaid days, a victory in arbitration with the teachers union and additional state funds, the district was able to whittle away at the massive deficit. The approved budget nonetheless includes about $169 million in cuts, but salvages some programs previously facing elimination, including adult education, preschool, after-school and arts programs. Richard Vladovic cast the only dissenting vote on the seven-member board. Much of the restorations are contingent on the November election. That ballot will include two funding initiatives for public education, including one backed by Gov. Jerry Brown. If it's approved, some funds may be used to restore the full academic year, said Supt. John Deasy. If voters turn down a tax increase, L.A. Unified budget woes would worsen considerably, Deasy said. Should it fail, the district would be facing about $264 million more in cuts. “I just want you to tell me it will be OK,” board member Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte said to Deasy before the vote. Deasy said he could not do so, stressing that the November initiative is necessary to stave off more drastic cuts. The budget scales back the district’s adult education programs, which previously faced elimination, by shrinking enrollment to about a third of current levels. Preschool programs will continue at reduced levels and the number of elementary school arts educators, nurses and librarians, as well as overall class sizes, will be maintained at current levels. The district this month reached an agreement with teacher unions that prevented thousands of layoffs in exchange for 10 unpaid days, which would shorten the school year by a week. Under that agreement, teachers will lose pay for five instructional days plus four holidays and one training day, equivalent to about a 5% salary cut. More than 9,000 teachers had faced being laid off as of June 30. Under the budget, 3,200 teachers and support staff will be fired. The district’s Beyond the Bell after-school program, which serves about 40,000 students, was set to be eliminated as recently as Wednesday. Instead, Deasy presented the board with the option of maneuvering funds that had been set aside for placing a parcel tax on the November ballot and using surplus state funds for preschool. That would amount to about $6.7 million. Should the board move to place the parcel tax on a future ballot, that money would have to be found elsewhere, Deasy said. Board Member Bennett Kayser, who was elected last year, said before his vote that during his campaign he was often asked if he would ever vote for a budget that includes teacher layoffs. “I said that it would be the last possible idea for a solution before I would vote for it,” he told the audience. “And -- it has come to that. So I vote yes.” Prop 39 Co-Locations: STATEMENT FROM SUPERINTENDENT DEASY & THE BOARD OF ED RE: CALIFORNIA CHARTER SCHOOL ASSOCIATION V. LAUSD + Court order LAUSD News Statement For Immediate Release June 28, 2012 Contact: Tom Waldman 11/12-239 STATEMENT FROM LAUSD SUPERINTENDENT JOHN DEASY AND THE LAUSD BOARD OF EDUCATION REGARDING A LAWSUIT: CALIFORNIA CHARTER SCHOOL ASSOCIATION V. LOS ANGELES UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT This week’s decision by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Terry A. Green in the California Charter School Association v. Los Angeles Unified case is a devastating blow to public school students in the Los Angeles Unified School District. The ruling would force the District to abandon its proven method for equitably allocating classroom space under Proposition 39, which assures both charter students and students attending District-operated schools, attend classes of equal size. The board is deeply concerned that the ruling could result in children across the District being barred from attending their neighborhood school, which is in direct contradiction to the promise of public education. Under the order, students attending District-operated neighborhood schools may be displaced to other locations, through involuntary busing and other means, in order to provide additional space to charter schools. Further, the District may be forced to eliminate space for essential programs, including Special Education and English Learner. The consequences would be devastating to our families, especially at a time of severe budget cuts. Making matters worse, this year classes begin August 14th, as part of the Early Start Calendar. To prepare for such a massive change in a shortened amount of time would be both catastrophic and chaotic. The District is currently exploring all avenues available to eliminate or mitigate the consequences of Judge Green’s order. CCSA v. LAUSD re Prop 39: Order granting CCSA's motion L.A. DISTRICT WEIGHING GRADUATION OF STUDENTS WHO FAILED CLASS AFTER THREE SENIORS FAILED A CLASS, MADE IT UP IN A FEW DAYS AND GRADUATED, TEACHERS CRITICIZE THE TURNAROUND. BUT OFFICIALS SAY THEY WORKED WITHIN THE SYSTEM. By Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times | http://lat.ms/KUIaJu June 29, 2012, 9:02 p.m. :: Los Angeles school officials are examining whether three students who flunked a required course should have been allowed to make up the class in a few days at another campus and then return to graduate with their classmates. Several teachers criticized the quick turnaround as inappropriate, saying it made a mockery of academic standards. They also questioned whether the well-liked students had received favorable treatment. Local administrators, however, insisted that the students instigated the transfers themselves and worked within the rules of the system to make up credits. The students withdrew from STEM Academy of Hollywood as late as June 13, a Wednesday, attended the adjacent Alonzo Community Day School the next day, and checked back into STEM to graduate that Friday. STEM Academy, with about 320 students, is located on the Helen Bernstein High School campus in Hollywood. The small school had 93 seniors; 77 graduated. The three seniors had failed economics or history classes taught by Mark Nemetz. "I would like to formally protest students who have failed one or more classes at STEM being allowed to graduate with their class," Nemetz wrote to fellow staff members in an internal staff online message group. "This is a disservice to the students and damages the credibility of STEM." "Why should next year's seniors make a serious effort next year if they know they have this option available to them at the end?" wrote teacher Julio Juarez. Other teachers expressed similar views in interviews. Nemetz declined to be interviewed. STEM Principal Josie Scibetta said the students checked out before their departure was called to her attention. "We were upset that it appeared so easy for them to get credit," Scibetta said. Still, "if they come with signed, sealed, official transcripts from an accredited school, we're obligated to take that. I'm not saying our system is right, but the kids didn't do anything wrong." Scibetta also described the grading policies of Nemetz as "rigid" and said she had concerns about them. The three students had not failed required classes taught by other teachers, she said. Alonzo, the alternative school, is intended for students who are at risk of dropping out. Although it has a traditional school day, it measures credits only by work completed, not the time the students spend in class, said Principal Victorio R. Gutierrez. It's difficult and rare, but not impossible, for a talented student to complete in two days material that another student might need a year to master, Gutierrez said. He added that his school's rigor does not necessarily match that of a regular high school, but his instructors teach the required material, and students have to produce work and pass quizzes to demonstrate their knowledge. Gutierrez said the three students had a window to salvage their graduation because they could withdraw from STEM and still receive credit for courses they were passing within the last two weeks of school. The three worked hard on campus and at home and fulfilled the course "contract" without special conditions, Gutierrez said. A district regional administrator reviewed the students' work after complaints arose, he said. Allowing students to make up classes in a couple of days at the end of the year would be uncommon and possibly inappropriate, said Gerardo Loera, the Los Angeles Unified School District's executive director of curriculum and instruction. It's "not even an option we particularly provide," he said, adding that the episode remains under review. One of the students, Javier Chacon, 19, knew about Alonzo because his sisters have attended it, according to district staff. But the first to enroll was Priscila Vela, 18, who started Monday or Tuesday of graduation week. Chacon enrolled about a day later, followed by 17-year-old Pietro Ruggiero. His father, Pedro Ruggiero, who sits on STEM's governing council, said he was unaware of any issue until 15 minutes before graduation. "They told me at the last minute — they said the problem they had was solved," Ruggiero said. "I had no idea what it was.... I didn't know that the other school existed. Now I'm learning more." HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other Sources DID JERRY BROWN PULL RANK TO IMPROVE HIS POSITION ON THE BALLOT?: smf: making no pretense at neutrality, please ... http://bit.ly/O7HCju Prop 39 Co-Locations: STATEMENT FROM SUPERINTENDENT DEASY & THE BOARD OF ED RE: CALIFORNIA CHARTER SCHOOL ASSOCI... http://bit.ly/O7HErE NEW SES REGS EXPAND PROVIDERS’ ABILITY TO DIRECTLY MARKET SERVICES TO PARENTS: By SI&A Cabinet Report | http://b... http://bit.ly/OPmS2o JUDGE ORDERS ASPIRE BACK FOR LOCAL PERMISSION OF ‘STATEWIDE BENEFIT’ CHARTER SCHOOLS + smf’s 2¢: By Tom Chorneau... http://bit.ly/OPhZqa CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT SIDES WITH CHARTER SCHOOL AND DISTRICT IN CONVERSION DISPUTE: from CCSA | http://bit... http://bit.ly/NccL05 JUDGE TO DECIDE WHETHER TO OVERTURN LAUSD'S 'LAST HIRED, FIRST FIRED' EXEMPTIONWHAT: By Vanessa Romo, PPCC Pass/... http://bit.ly/OJa65q THE LAUSD BUDGET: The media that bothered to cover the story wrote:: LAUSD board approves $6.3B budget; afte... http://bit.ly/OJ32Wv The story you didn’t read in today’s LA Times: L.A. SCHOOL BOARD OKS FINAL BUDGET, INCLUDING SHORTENED SCHOOL YE... http://bit.ly/N2a4QT Tweet: Supremes uphold #Obamacare Deasy’s first year: LAUSD SEE’S FEWER DROPOUTS BUT GRADUATION RATE GOES DOWN: By Barbara Jones, Staff Writer, LA... http://bit.ly/OBy1nm Tweet: Today's #LAUSDbudget lost in news cycle shadow of Supreme Court #Obamacare/Holder Contempt/Banking Scandals ¡Don't let the kids get lost! AFTER SCHOOL PROGRAM "SAVED! Like Adult Ed + Early Childhood Ed + Health Ed were "Saved"? Save the children of LAUSD from the savior! LAUSD SUPERINTENDENT "DISHEARTENED, BUT UNDETERED" AFTER SB 1530 DIES IN COMMITTEE: The law, meant to hasten the... http://bit.ly/QpMDUa LAUSD AFTER-SCHOOL PROGRAMS WILL BE SAVED; SUPERINTENDENT JOHN DEASY TO FIND $7M: By Barbara Jones, LA Daily New... http://bit.ly/OBmvsh LATCHKEY KIDS WOULD FEEL LAUSD’S CUT: L A Daily News Editorial |http://bit.ly/OqyuaP 6/26/2012 11:51:02 A... http://bit.ly/NEUkTc Tweet: FWD: @latams: Assembly passes #cabudget education trailer bill w/ $5B in automatic cuts to K-14 if voters reject Gov's tax hike. Tweet: FWD: @UTLAnow: Feeling healthy? Stop by Whole Foods Mrkt today (6/27) at Fairfax/3rd. They're donating 5% of profits to #LAUSD Arts program. KENNEDY HIGH BASEBALL COACH ARRESTED + FIRED FOR SMOKING POT WITH STUDENTS ON FIELD TRIP TO DODGER STADIUM: Base... http://bit.ly/QfzXPD LAUSD TO SPEND UP TO $400K TO REVIEW FILES OF 8,300 EMPLOYEES …with what money?: By Barbara Jones, Staff Write... http://bit.ly/Nzlpa7 UPDATED: A CALL-TO-ACTION FOR YOU FROM BOARDMEMBER KAYSER ABOUT THE IMPENDING ELIMINATION OF BEYOND-THE-BELL YOU... http://bit.ly/M29Blx Tweet: pp10 of supes final budget: "There have been no detailed state updates since the May revise." Hogwash. There is a negotiated state budget! 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 • LAUSD BOARD OF EDUCATION & COMMITTEES MEETING CALENDAR 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!. Who are your elected federal & state representatives? How do you contact them? Scott Folsom is a parent leader in LAUSD and is Parent/Volunteer of the Year for 2010-11 for Los Angeles County. • He is Past President of Los Angeles Tenth District PTSA and represented PTA on the LAUSD Construction Bond Citizen's Oversight Committee for ten years. He is a Health Commissioner, Legislation Team member and a member of the Board of Managers of the California State PTA. He serves on numerous school district advisory and policy committees and has served as a PTA officer and governance council member at three LAUSD schools. He is the recipient of the UTLA/AFT 2009 "WHO" Gold Award for his support of education and public schools - an honor he hopes to someday deserve. • In this forum his opinions are his own and your opinions and feedback are invited. Quoted and/or cited content copyright © the original author and/or publisher. 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