Would you like textbooks with your free public education?

4LAKids: Sunday 12•Aug•2012 In This Issue:  •  From the wonderful folks who inspired ‘The Sopranos’ and ‘Jersey Shore’: NEW JERSEY’S FAIRER WAY TO FIRE TEACHERS  •  Skelton on AB 1575: PROTECT CALIFORNIA’S STUDENTS FROM ILLEGAL FEES  •  THE GAP BETWEEN THE RICH + POOR: A New Look at The Achievement Gap  •  WRONGSIZING: Respecting Workers, Keeping Kids Safe  •  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. • "Access to public education is a right enjoyed by all - not a commodity for sale." - CA. Supreme Court, Hartwell v. Connell (1984) • "When it comes to K through 12 education, we see a $500 billion sector in the U.S. alone that is waiting desperately to be transformed by big breakthroughs ….” - News Corporation Chairman and CEO, Rupert Murdoch, on announcing purchase of 90% of Wireless Generation, a privately-held Brooklyn-based education technology company for approximately $360 million in cash Those two are difficult dots to connect. But not impossible. And note Murdoch’s qualifier: “in the U.S. alone…”. If the attack on public education by the billionaire Boy’s Clubbers and privateer-privatizers is a war, it’s a global. It’s World War 3.1. Remember Windows 3.1? It changed the world – and enriched the same entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, deregulation proponents, private equity investors, multinationals and leveraged buyout out artists as the war on free public education. Like MS/DOS, Windows really wasn’t really new; it was old stuff in a new shiny box – from Xerox PARC as re-imagined by Apple+Jobs and reverse engineered by Microsoft+Gates. Charter schools were dreamt up by teacher’s union leaders. ®eform, Inc. isn’t innovation, it’s old thinking in new packaging. (See Adam Smith: The Wealth of Nations – but read Machiavelli’s Prince first.) First you join the game. Then you change the rules. Then you change the game. Then you take over. If Public education is a “$500 Billion Sector” you buy a piece of it, grow your piece, change the rules ND change the game. It falls into a billionaire’s lap like a starlet at a cocktail party. The textbook and testing companies are multinationals. The 1%. The charter investors /private capitalists are entrepreneurial billionaires. The 1%. Moving funding control from school districts to the state changed the rules. The failure of the state to do the job drives federal oversight and supplemental funding and regulations changes the game. Deregulate it and it’s yours. The Charters and vouchers and Common Core Standards and standardized testing and value added assessments – the deunionization – the waivers and flexibility -change the rules and the game. Public control of public education (School boards are the most local of local government) is evaporating – transferring upward to city government, state government and the feds. And private investors are standing by to help. Themselves. Left unchecked the 1% will eventually be selling the 99% their free public education. See: Skelton on AB 1575: PROTECT CALIFORNIA’S STUDENTS FROM ILLEGAL FEES -http://bit.ly/QLgVVk CHANGING THE SUBJECT SLIGHTLY: I have been following the Olympics on the BBC. Their coverage is in real time and their jingoism has a tongue-in-cheekiness probably only I appreciate. Britain has been kicking Australia’s butt in medal count – historically the opposite has been true. For a while there New Zealand, Australia’s smaller next door neighbor was counting more Olympic bling than the Aussies. Once the gloating had passed the reasoned deconstruction was undertaken: This IS the BBC! Britain ten years ago instituted a program to promote sport in schools as a funded requirement. (In the UK ‘sport’ is singular; ‘maths’ is plural.) Australia abandoned sport as a requirement in schools – to save money and time in the instructional day. Sure the Brits have the home field advantage …but the Aussies are failing at sport they have always dominated in venues besides Sydney. A small lesson from the commonwealth: 2012: GREAT BRITAIN Gold:28 Silver:15 Bronze:19 Total:62 AUSTRALIA Gold:7 Silver:16 Bronze:12 Total:35 Four years ago: GREAT BRITAIN Gold:19 Silver:13 Bronze:15 Total:47 AUSTRALIA Gold:14 Silver:15 Bronze:17 Total:46 We know PE matters. Maybe the Olympics is the standardized test that proves it. No medal left behind. SCHOOL STARTS ON MONDAY FOR TEACHERS AND STAFF, TUESDAY FOR STUDENTS. Let’s stay cool, be safe and healthy and teach+learn good things. This is the year we turn it around. ¡Onward/Adelante! - smf From the wonderful folks who inspired ‘The Sopranos’ and ‘Jersey Shore’: NEW JERSEY’S FAIRER WAY TO FIRE TEACHERS #646 in the series: UNASKED-FOR SOLUTIONS TO PROBLEMS YOU PROBABLY DON’T REALLY HAVE. The LA Times Editorial Board says, parroting the Powers-That-Wanna-Be in Ed ®eform, Inc., “Ousting teachers in California is protracted, expensive and nearly impossible. Here's a better way”. ●●smf: Firing bad teachers is yet another magic bullet in the Ed ®eform six-shooter, replacing each spent and failed round as they misfire: • If only the state lottery could fund education, we wouldn’t need these pesky property taxes. • If only we could be rid of these pesky union contracts. • If only we left no children behind. • If only the mayor ran the schools. • If only every child graduated college ready and career prepared. • If only there were college slots and good jobs out there. • If only parents/charter operators/education theorists could choose, they would ALWAYS choose correctly. • If only we could use test scores to evaluate teachers. • If only my kid’s number in the lottery comes up. • If only schools would have done before what Eli and Bill believe now. • If only we could cut costs and improve test scores. • If only pizza and chicken nuggets and Mountain Dew were good for kids. • If only Superman…. Now it’s ‘If only there was a fairer way to fire teachers’. This sounds an awful lot like: ‘If only there was a more humane and mistake-proof way to execute criminals.’ There always have been folks in every profession that shouldn't be in that profession …and there’s no excuse for bad plumbers or waitresses or bank tellers. The teachers unions should be more like crafts guilds – making sure their brothers-and-sister teachers are as good as they can be. But it’s hard to be proud and competent and self-regulating with that target on your back. I’m pretty sure of this: The answer isn’t to let Chris Christie decide who the good and bad teachers are. Any more than the LA Times should be the decider. (In the online posting of the editorial is a picture of all 334 pounds of New Jersey governor Chris Christie, one cream puff short of gross, talking about this signature legislation. Photo Caption: Tenure will be harder for New Jersey teachers to get and easier to lose under a law Gov. Chris Christie, center, signed Monday. (Rich Schultz / Associated Press / August 6, 2012) ►NEW JERSEY’S FAIRER WAY TO FIRE TEACHERS •Los Angeles Times Editorial | http://lat.ms/PG3aA6 August 8, 2012 :: Every time a proposal to reform the hiring and firing of teachers is put forward in California, it's just as complicated and, in ways, as counterproductive as the current system. Ousting teachers here is ruinously protracted and expensive and, ultimately, nearly impossible. Legislation to fix this regularly fails, in part because the bills aren't well conceived, but mostly because of opposition from the California Teachers Assn. and reluctance by Democratic politicians who rely on the union for support. Yet just this week, the state of New Jersey proved that it doesn't have to be difficult to be fair to teachers while weeding the ineffective ones from the classroom. Gov. Chris Christie signed legislation Monday that lengthens the time a teacher must work before receiving tenure from three years to four. It also makes that probationary period more meaningful by requiring a year of working with a mentor and two years of satisfactory evaluations before tenure can be granted. If a school wants to fire a low-performing teacher who already has tenure, it must first try to help the teacher improve. If the teacher challenges the termination, the case is submitted to binding arbitration. Teachers are given a little more than three months to contest a firing, and the cost, which is paid by the state, cannot exceed $7,500. Efforts to terminate teachers must be based on comprehensive and regular performance evaluations. California's current teacher protection system is similar to how New Jersey had run things for decades, but is even more dysfunctional. Schools must make tenure decisions on new teachers within 18 months. Any termination attempt is subject to restrictions on when the teacher can even be notified that he or she has been targeted; appeals then go to an administrative law panel — whose makeup is slanted in favor of the teacher — that can take years to convene and decide a particular case. Legislation to streamline this ineffective process has gone too far in the other direction by making the appeals process advisory only. Because New Jersey's new law ensures that struggling teachers receive help and due process before they can be fired, it won the support of the state teachers union and bipartisan approval from legislators. At the same time, the law replaces the costly and time-consuming quagmire that has allowed seriously problematic teachers to remain in the classroom. Such reform requires a governor who is dedicated to the welfare of students; Christie has made education a cornerstone of his administration, while California Gov. Jerry Brown has yet to articulate a set of educational priorities. Also necessary was a teachers union that was willing to consider ending an unreasonable and increasingly unpopular system. It shouldn't be this hard to do the right thing by California's public school students. Skelton on AB 1575: PROTECT CALIFORNIA’S STUDENTS FROM ILLEGAL FEES by George Skelton | LA Times/Capitol Journal | http://lat.ms/QL741C August 6, 2012 :: SACRAMENTO — Not every proposed law is historic or sweeping. Some merely are pretty good ideas — perhaps even important for a low-income kid. One such bill is among the hundreds awaiting action as the Legislature heads into its final month. The measure's goal is to stop schools from socking students with illegal fees. Fees for sports and field trips and textbooks and art, for example. They're being charged despite a guarantee in the California Constitution of a free K-12 education. "Access to public education is a right enjoyed by all — not a commodity for sale," the California Supreme Court ruled in 1984. "Educational opportunities must be provided to all students without regard to their families' ability or willingness to pay fees…. "This fundamental feature of public education is not contingent upon the inevitably fluctuating financial health of local school districts. A solution to those financial difficulties must be found elsewhere." Nevertheless, according to a pending lawsuit filed two years ago by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, "the state has done nothing as its public school districts blatantly violate the free school guarantee by requiring students to pay fees and purchase assigned materials for credit courses." "Basically," says ACLU chief counsel Mark Rosenbaum, "the state is balancing the budget on the backpacks of kids." The state Department of Education, a defendant in the suit, even last year prepared a detailed memo advising which fees are legal and which illegal. But it seems to have been widely ignored by many schools. "Some of these school districts, I understand they're in a difficult situation," says Assemblyman Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens.) "God knows the state hasn't helped the school districts in terms of funding the education system. "But what some schools are charging in fees is against the law." And nobody apparently is enforcing the law. "We find it perverse," says ACLU attorney Brooks Allen, "that the only mechanism to enforce the constitutional right of a student who can't afford a textbook is to go out and hire a lawyer. "We want the state to have a role." It's not just the principle of a free public education that is at stake. It's also the practical effect of stigmatizing and humiliating poor kids who can't afford the teacher's demand to kick in money for a program. And if they're denied the same materials or participation granted better-off students, the children of struggling families are left behind in an academic disadvantage. Lara is pushing a bill (AB 1575) that would create a formal complaint process for parents who thought their kids had been charged fees illegally. They could appeal to the school principal and, ultimately, the state Board of Education. The state superintendent of public instruction also would be required to periodically advise schools about what's legal and what's not. And schools would need to update their fee policies. Pretty mild stuff, it would seem. But this sort of thing invariably is resisted by administrators and bureaucrats leery of being forced to move out of their comfort zones. Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a similar Lara bill last year. He contended it went "too far." It would have required the posting of a notice specifying legal and illegal fees in each classroom — like a workplace job safety notice — and mandated frequent auditing. The current bill has been toned down. Negotiations are underway between the bill's sponsors and the governor's office. Brown has not taken a position on the new measure. Neither has state schools chief Tom Torlakson. The bill, strongly backed by Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez (D-Los Angeles), passed the lower house and is awaiting a hearing in the Senate Appropriations Committee. The immediate goal of both sides — the ACLU and the government, particularly education officials — is to enact legislation that would render the lawsuit moot. The suit was filed after some parents complained to the ACLU. The organization then documented more than 50 school districts requiring pupils to cough up for textbooks, novels, science materials, P.E. uniforms, art classes, advanced placement exams and the like — for both classroom and extracurricular activities. Plaintiff "Jane's Spanish teacher wrote her name on the class whiteboard because she could not pay for assigned workbooks," the ACLU complaint charged. Also, her middle school "required that Jane [not her real name] pay more than $440 annually in course and uniform fees for her physical education class and musical instrument rental fees… "In some classes, teachers made grades partially dependent on the students' payment of course fees or awarded extra credit to students who bought $20 T-shirts." Some students who couldn't afford books were issued school copies, but they had to be read in the library and couldn't be marked up. No taking them home. The defendants asked a judge to dismiss the case. He refused. Subpoenas have been issued to 25 school districts ordering them to appear in court and explain their fee practices. The hearing is expected to be delayed until after the legislative session ends. A report produced last year by UCLA's Institute for Democracy, Education and Access found that "California's high schools increasingly are calling upon families to pay for services that had previously been covered by the school…. "As high schools shift costs to families, inequality between schools often grows." A new school year starts soon. The Legislature and the governor should unequivocally tell principals that the state Supreme Court had it right 28 years ago: They should look for money someplace besides students' pockets. ________________________ ••smf: This bill attempts to avoid the ACLU lawsuit and keep the administration of the state constitutional guarantee of a a free K-12 education and the enforcement of the 1984 Hartzell v. Connell decision out of the courts. Either the state will oversee school funding or the courts will – on a district-by-district basis. By not acting the legislature issues the challenge: “so sue the school districts”. If the intent is to bankrupt them, this accelerates that process. Better they should rise to the constitutional challenge they are already avoiding: funding K-12 public education. THE GAP BETWEEN THE RICH + POOR: A New Look at The Achievement Gap From the AALA Update | http://bit.ly/MPiSst Week of Aug 13, 2012 :: For many years a focus of education reform has been the reduction of the academic achievement gap between African American students and their white peers. Increasingly, Latino students have been included in this gap. Now as more and more school districts are finally seeing some reduction in the gap in certain grade levels, a recent study* by Dr. Sean Reardon, a researcher and director of a doctoral program in education policy at Stanford University, shows that the achievement gap between children from high and low income families is far higher than the gap between black and white students. As the incomes of affluent and poor families have diverged over the past three decades, so too has the educational performance of their children. In fact, the difference in test scores between children at the 10% income level vs. those at the 90% level is now nearly twice as large as the black-white achievement gap. Yet, just a half century ago, the achievement gap between black and white students was nearly 1 ½ times as large as the income gap. This study, published in 2011, is the first to look at the achievement gap between rich and poor children and compare it to the achievement gap between black and white children. A key finding was that the income achievement gap does not change, neither narrows nor widens, during the entire educational career of students. Dr. Reardon suggests that a big part of the processes that are responsible for this are things that happen in early childhood before kids get into kindergarten. This is another link in the chain that supports the expansion of high quality preschool programs, not the reduction. The cognitively stimulating environment that these programs can provide can help raise the achievement of all low income students, regardless of race. Statistics are showing that lower income students are doing better academically than decades ago; however, those at the top of the income scale are doing far better and have moved dramatically ahead of middle income kids. In fact, even the achievement gap between rich and poor white students has gotten bigger over time. There are many mechanisms that contribute to the gap and they have certainly never been fully defined nor understood, yet, higher parental education is one consistent, key correlation to higher incomes. But Dr. Reardon says that family income is almost as strong a predictor of how well children do in school as is their parents’ level of education. Main reasons for the growth of the income achievement gap, according to the study are: • - The income gap has increased dramatically over the past 40 years (it is now wider than it has ever been) with more than 22 percent of children under age 18 now living in poverty. • - High income and college-educated parents invest more time and resources (music lessons, travel, private tutors and summer camp) in the cognitive development of their children. • - Income inequality has led to residential segregation by income rather than race resulting in high income children having access to higher quality schools and more resources. This income achievement gap is exacerbated by unequal family resources, disadvantaged neighborhoods, insecure labor markets and worsening school conditions due to budget reductions. The free, public education that provided upward mobility during the past century is being threatened by this rising inequality of income. Those with political power and in leadership positions must make a concerted effort to develop a long-term solution to the budget crisis and prioritize support for education in this country if the nation is to remain competitive. *The Widening Achievement Gap between the Rich and Poor: New Evidence and Possible Explanations, published in Whither Opportunity? Rising Inequality, Schools and Children’s Life Chances, Russell Sage Foundation. More information may be found at https://www.russellsage.org/ publications/whither-opportunity. WRONGSIZING: Respecting Workers, Keeping Kids Safe By smf for 4LAKids News | http://bit.ly/OaNlnv 11 August 2012 :: LAUSD has craftspeople in the building trades on the payroll: carpenters, painters, plumbers, roofing and flooring workers, sheet metal workers; cement workers, plasterers and pavers; air conditioning folk, electricians, skip loader operators, sheet metal workers, machinists, etc. …skilled and experienced craftspeople – hard working men and women who do the day-to-day routine maintenance and operations of the school district. With over a thousand schools there is plenty o’ work; with the schools getting older daily the workload increases. As their numbers are dramatically slashed. They use words like “decimated” – but grammatically “decimated” is only a ten-percent cut. More than half of the employees in many crafts are gone in the recent Reduction in Force. If you have been at a school lately you have noticed the cutback in janitorial and custodial staff; schools are not as clean or well maintained as they have been in the past. Cleaning crews travel from school to school at night, the dedicated Plant Manager who did the on-site maintenance and light repair during the school day – reporting to the principal - has been replaced by a “broom operator” – if that. When the principal or a teacher needs something fixed they must issue a trouble call – and that is routed through a complex bureaucratic hierarchy and responded to when-and-if. Air conditioning not working? Graffiti on the handball wall? LAUSD will get around to it when they get around to it. Maybe the night crew will do it. In the latest round of cost cutting 70% of the painters have been laid off. The taggers aren’t getting less prolific and the paint hasn’t gotten any better – but the painters have gotten fewer and father between. Properly maintained the acres of LAUSD linoleum floors that contain asbestos are perfectly safe. Otherwise they are not. With the elimination of these jobs it looks suspiciously like LAUSD intends to – or is- outsourcing the work to outside contractors. If they are it is: 1. Anti-labor. A violation of the law, union contracts and the respect due to loyal and hardworking employees – who have families and house payments and mouths to feed. 2. False economy. A penny wise and pound foolish move that will cost much much more in years to come 3. Endangering children. LAUSD employees are vetted and trained to work around children – with the message embedded: Work safely and carefully around students. LAUSD workers understand that they work for the District – but their clients and first concern are students. Nothing against Bob, but Bob the Carpenter from ABC Contracting works for ABC – his job is to get the job done in 4.5 hours because that’s what it says on the work order. Bob thinks his TB test is current – he checked that box on the form. And did the Personnel Commission check to see if Bob is on the registry of sex offenders? No, they did not. You will be hearing more about this in the near future – hopefully not in headlines about children who are hurt or endangered. The effected and laid off employees have mounted a website to share information and inform the public. Their spelling and grammar could be better, but it’s here: http://backtoworkschools.wordpress.com/ The Back-to-Work Schools Blog HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other Sources FIRED CHARTER SCHOOL EXECUTIVE RECEIVES $245,000 IN SETTLEMENT By Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times | http://lat.ms/OgOr46 Crescendo charter schools founder John Allen sued for wrongful dismissal after he was fired for allegedly ordering staff to cheat on state standardized tests. L.A. UNIFIED SETTLEMENT BYPASSING SENIORITY-BASED LAYOFFS NULLIFIED By Stephen Ceasar, Los Angeles Times | http://lat.ms/OSauKg Appeals court nullifies the settlement meant to protect teachers with little seniority at 45 underperforming schools. LAWSUIT, BILL AIM TO KEEP K-12 EDUCATION FREE IN CALIFORNIA By George Skelton Los Angeles Times | http://bit.ly/NhGRq4 Legislation and an ACLU lawsuit tackle the increasing use of fees at public schools, a trend that is unfair to low-income students and increases disparities. AIG TO PAY L.A. UNIFIED NEARLY $79 MILLION IN CLAIMS SETTLEMENT By Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times | http://bit.ly/PaPCyu L.A. Unified had sued insurer AIG over its refusal to pay claims on schools needing environmental cleanup. BILL WOULD FORCE CREATION OF STANDARDS FOR TRANSITIONAL KINDERGARTEN SI&A Cabinet Report – News & Resources http://bit.ly/PaQ142 Even as hundreds of California schools prepare to launch transitional kindergarten for the first time this year, a bill awaiting a Senate vote would create standards for what and how the program’s not-quite 5-year olds should be taught. OVERHAUL OF TEACHER MISCONDUCT SYSTEM NEARING COMPLETION SI&A Cabinet Report – News & Resources http://bit.ly/ObxiGe Fifteen months after examiners found gaping holes in the state’s oversight. ROMNEY'S VP PICK PUTS K-12 SPENDING IN SPOTLIGHT Politics K-12 - Education Week http://bit.ly/PNitah As the chairman of the House Budget Committee, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has proposed a spending blueprint that some warn could lead to deep cuts in federal education programs. (August 11, 2012) SIZE MATTERS IN NEW DISTRICT-LEVEL 'RACE TO THE TOP', LAUSD hopes the new Race to the Top competition will bring... http://bit.ly/QQiWgO tweet: OK, maybe it’s Reed v. UTLA: CALIF. COURT OVERTURNS LAUSD'S 'LAST HIRED, FIRST FIRED' EXEMPTION: By Tami Abdolla... http://bit.ly/P4OsEG LAUSD CHIEF JOHN DEASY'S BACK-TO-SCHOOL PEP TALK INCLUDES PROMISE TO GET TEACHERS, STUDENTS COMPUTER TABLETS: By... http://bit.ly/P4OqMQ yweet: Re Previous Post: Reed case affecting staff RIFs at 45 LAUSD schools is correctly cited as: Reed v. California | http://bit.ly/RyfHtT tweet: Reed v.LAUSD, governing RIFs at 45 schools, has been reversed on appeal - says LAUSDPARENTS, quoting UTLA President Warren Fletcher 47 LA CITY POOLS TO CLOSE MONDAY MAY GET REPRIEVE: The Associated Press, from the Sacramento Bee AP State Wire N... http://bit.ly/OTYbO4 School Alert: LA COUNTY EMERGENCY HEAT ADVISORY CONTINUED THROUGH FRIDAY: To help keep you informed on school... http://bit.ly/Mw9zxo "Access to public education is a right enjoyed by all–not a commodity for sale" CA Supreme Court–Hartzell v.Connell'84 http://lat.ms/QL741C Skelton on AB 1575: PROTECT CALIFORNIA’S STUDENTS FROM ILLEGAL FEES: from the LA Times: Even though a California... http://bit.ly/QLgVVk PRINCIPALS: OUR STRUGGLE TO BE HEARD ON REFORM: By Carol Burris and Harry Leonardatos from Valerie Strauss’ Th... http://bit.ly/QDwuff THOUSANDS OF L.A. STUDENTS STILL NEED WHOOPING COUGH VACCINE: By Sammy Roth, Daily News, Los Angeles (MCT) from ... http://bit.ly/TdYExh A SCHOOL FUNDING PRIMER: A IS FOR ALLIGATOR: By John Fensterwald, EdSource Today | http://bit.ly/MLnkJZ August... http://bit.ly/Td6ebk LEGISLATURE TAKING NOTICE OF RISK SCHOOL INSOLVENCY POSES TO STATE: “For 20 years, we had seven districts in fin... http://bit.ly/Td1wKQ AIG TO PAY LAUSD NEARLY $79 MILLION IN CLAIMS SETTLEMENT: L.A. Unified had sued insurer AIG over its refusal to ... http://bit.ly/RZKSf7 SUMMER ENDS EARLY FOR LAUSD STUDENTS, SCHOOL STARTS AUG. 14: By Barbara Jones, Staff Writer, LA Daily News | Con... http://bit.ly/QBporL LAUSD EMPLOYEE FILES SEXUAL HARASSMENT CLAIM: by Howard Blume | http://latimes.com http://lat.ms/RZB0lA August... http://bit.ly/Rl8Xj5 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.

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4LAKids: Sunday 5•Aug•2012 In This Issue:  •  EAGLE ROCK HIGH (& others!) HOSTING FREE CLINIC OFFERING WHOOPING COUGH VACCINATIONS FOR INCOMING 7TH GRADERS.  •  PLAN TO SPLIT CARSON HIGH INTO 3 SCHOOLS RILES PARENTS, TEACHERS  •  LAUSD TO BEGIN PHASING IN COMMON CORE CURRICULUM STANDARDS  •  WHY SCHOOL REFORM WILL CONTINUE TO BE SO HARD  •  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. In honor of The Shortest Summer Vacation Ever: the shortest 4LAKids rant ever. School starts week after next, on Monday the 13th for teachers, on Tuesday the 14th (Did I say “of August?”) for students. How well this early start will go remains to be seen. How well the air conditioners in the Valley schools – and the increased peak load on the power grid - will hold up remains to be seen. Fritz and Garth and all the weather bookies are offering up continued heat …while the (Iced) Tea Partiers deny Global Warming. One only hopes that Everybody’s Wrong*. And that the PE teachers heed (or even understand) the Heat Episodes Bulletin 961.1 [http://bit.ly/QtF6oP] .The author of the bulletin and the contact person listed on the District website are no longer with LAUSD. When you see the kidlets running laps in 95° heat call the principal. I’ll be calling Child Protective Services. If you are an incoming 7th grader – or the parent thereof – make sure you have that TDAP booster – and that you can prove it on the first day o’ school. To fill up the time you’ve saved with this shortened edition of 4LAKids click on the link following and see how much your school will get when Prop 38 passes. Now go to the Prop 30 site to see what your school gets if Prop 30 passes. OK, I was being sarcastic. If Prop 30 fails next year’s summer vacation will be the longest ever. And not in a good way! ¡Onward/Adelante! – smf * Gratuitous Buffalo Springfield lyric reference. ¿How much will your school get when Prop 39 passes? EAGLE ROCK HIGH (& others!) HOSTING FREE CLINIC OFFERING WHOOPING COUGH VACCINATIONS FOR INCOMING 7TH GRADERS. Also: ZELZAH NURSING CENTER, BRETT HARTE PREP, AND MARK TWAIN, WILMINGTON & EDISON MIDDLE SCHOOLS NEW STATE LAWS REQUIRE BOOSTER SHOTS AGAINST THE ILLNESS. By City News Service from Eagle Rock Patch | http://bit.ly/MXrMJW July 30, 2012 - 5:00 am :: The first day of school in the mammoth Los Angeles school district is 15 days away, and the district today reminded parents that all incoming seventh graders in California must now be vaccinated against whooping cough. New state laws require booster vaccinations against whopping cough, also called pertussis, before they may enter a seventh grade class. Most toddlers are given such shots, but their effectiveness against the very-contagious, severe malady can wane with time. LAUSD officials have been calling, mailing and Twittering parents all summer, but said they expect some students to arrive for the first day of classes without their certificates. Free clinics to administer the pertusis booster shots, which are called a "tdap" shot, will be held from 7:30 a.m. to noon and again from 1 to 1:30 p.m. on the following schedule: • Monday at the Zelzah District Nursing Clinic, 6505 Zelzah Ave., Reseda; and at the Bret Harte Prep Middle School, 9301 S. Hoover St., South Los Angeles; • Tuesday at Eagle Rock High, 1750 Yosemite Dr., Eagle Rock; and at Mark Twain Middle School, 2224 Walgrove Ave., Mar Vista; • Wednesday at the Zelzah District Nursing Clinic, 6505 Zelzah Ave., Reseda; Wilmington Middle School, 1700 Gulf Ave., Wilmington; and Edison Middle School, 6500 Hooper St., South Los Angeles; • Thursday at Bret Harte Prep Middle School, 9301 S. Hoover St., South Los Angeles; and • Friday at Bret Harte Prep Middle School, 9301 S. Hoover St., South Los Angeles; the Zelzah District Nursing Clinic, 6505 Zelzah Ave., Reseda; and Edison Middle School, 6500 Hooper St., South Los Angeles. PLAN TO SPLIT CARSON HIGH INTO 3 SCHOOLS RILES PARENTS, TEACHERS By Rob Kuznia Staff Writer. Long Beach Press Telegram | http://bit.ly/T9XeUA 08/04/2012 05:25:13 PM PDT An imminent plan to split Carson High School into three separate schools is raising red flags for some parents, school affiliates and even City Council members, who say they were never consulted on the matter and worry that the move will encourage a form of academic segregation. The critics fear that the new configuration will take a toll on the school's celebrated diversity because one of the two splinter schools - the Academy of Medical Arts at Carson High - could potentially siphon a disproportionate number of the school's highest achievers, many of whom are Filipino. "My personal view is a lot of the high scores will be leaving Carson High," said Pamela Baysa, a parent at the school who has attended many of the community meetings about the coming change, which officially takes effect on Aug. 14, the first day of school. But there is also a more general wariness, a concern that the Los Angeles Unified School District is tinkering with a local institution from afar. "There's a lot of civic pride around that school," said Gary King, executive director of a mentoring and tutoring program at the school targeting mostly students of Pacific Islander descent. "I think it's something where, when you split that up and it becomes something else, there's always a chance that things can go awry." For their part, LAUSD officials say they are doing their best to ensure that the demographic makeup of the three schools is balanced, though they acknowledged there could be some "growing pains." But they say the plan to create three separate schools with three separate principals on the same campus - which will be known as the Carson Complex - will produce smaller learning environments that better prepare students for colleges and careers. "I think Carson High is going to be on the forefront of innovation in the South Bay area," said Rosie Martinez, the instructional director for LAUSD's Intensive Support and Innovation Center. The initiative is part of a wider effort by the district to get students on a career track - or at least get a taste of one early on. Over the past six years, LAUSD has created 37 such pilot schools, counting the two new ones in Carson, Martinez said. "Better to go through high school with a free education and know if that's what you want to do in college or not, than to wait for college to find out," Martinez said. The Academy of Medical Arts at Carson High will focus on the health care profession. The other new academy - Academies of Education and Empowerment - aims to prepare students for the teaching profession. Each will enroll about 500 students. In some ways, students won't notice much of a difference. For one, they'll all take classes on the campus, though each school will have its demarcated areas. All 2,800 students at the Carson Complex will share the cafeteria and be eligible to play on the same athletic teams. They will appear in the same yearbook and go to the same prom. More to the point, both academies have long existed within Carson High School in the form of "small learning communities." The difference is that now, each will be headed by a separate principal. And each will also have its own Academic Performance Index (API) score, which is that number between 200 and 1,000 assigned to every California public school based on the testing results of its students - and upon which all schools in this state are judged. This is a key area of concern. Although students need not have a minimum GPA to get into either of the new academies, some critics worry that they will self-segregate, as they have already been doing for the school's medical program. "Kids don't always pick academies or SLC's (small learning communities) based on what's best for themselves," Baysa said. "A lot of times they follow their friends." The fear is that, should that happen this year, Carson High could lose some of its recent API gains. Granted, the school's recent scores aren't exactly impressive; they've generally fallen in the bottom 20 percentile - not only when stacked against all schools statewide, but also all California schools with similar demographics. Still, Carson High's API has crept up in two years from 611 to 652, and educators are expecting a sizable jump in the next release of scores later this month. (The state-set goal is 800.) Also casting a critical eye on the upcoming changes are some members of the Carson City Council. "We have one of the most diverse communities in California," said Carson City Councilman Mike Gipson. "We support the inclusion of people, not trying to separate people." Gipson added that his son graduated from the school in 2007. "It was a blended, very diverse campus," he said. "To do away with that would be devastating." Mayor Jim Dear was also initially taken aback by the plan, in part because it seemed to come out of nowhere. "I was a little surprised there wasn't more forewarning," he said. "The Carson community has had a very good relationship with LAUSD. ... It was kind of out of character as far as what we are used to." But Dear said some of his concerns were allayed after meeting with LAUSD's Tommy Chang, who, as superintendent of the district's Intensive Support and Innovation, oversees all pilot schools. "At first I was skeptical, but I have more confidence now," Dear said. "But I'm going to be watching them very carefully." In a sense, the new configuration, which was created by teachers but approved by LAUSD, has reopened some old wounds in Carson, which tried without success about a decade ago to secede from the nation's second-largest school district. "It seems they don't really make any commitment to our parents or community," said Sai Momoli, chairman of Pacific American Student Services, a nonprofit group that works on the campus to support the school's Pacific Islander Club and students. "The arrogance of LAUSD is (this notion that) they are professionals and don't need community input." But the leaders of the new academies are not political people. Their reason for breaking off from Carson High is relatively simple: They want the autonomy to create the best schools possible. For instance, the medical academy is big on field trips and job shadowing at places like Harbor UCLA and the VA Long Beach Healthcare System. Under the new format, students will be off-campus at least twice a week, said the new principal, Leah Levy. Similarly, students in the education academy - headed by new Principal Michelle Bryant - will spend many days at Dolores Street Elementary in Carson, where they will co-teach a class a couple times a week. Meanwhile, Windy Warren, principal of Carson High School - which itself will be divided into three small learning communities - said she understands people's concern but is excited to get started on the new setup. "Change is hard," she said. "In the process of change, people get nervous of the unknown, so we speculate: `What if this, what if that.' ... But the data has shown that smaller is better." LAUSD TO BEGIN PHASING IN COMMON CORE CURRICULUM STANDARDS By Barbara Jones Staff Writer, from the San Gabriel Valley Tribune | http://bit.ly/Ncrtrg 08/04/2012 01:44:53 PM PDT :: The way that teachers teach and students learn is about to undergo a radical transformation at school districts nationwide. Students will start learning basic algebra and geometry skills in kindergarten. [ ••smf: This has been embedded in the California Standards for a decade.] Multiple-choice tests will be replaced with complex essays, taken and scored by computer. [ ••smf: Many LAUSD classroom computers are not new enough to support this functionality, whether the District and many school sites will have adequate bandwidth and network capacity at test time remains to be seen.] And across every grade level, students will be confronted with tougher reading lessons and more difficult writing assignments. California, 44 other states and the District of Columbia have adopted the Common Core State Standards - the first-ever national framework that outlines what every public school student should know. While plans call for implementing the reforms in fall 2014, Los Angeles Unified and a handful of other districts will begin phasing in the standards during this upcoming school year. "Common Core creates a set of expectations for student learning throughout the entire country," said Jaime Aquino, LAUSD's deputy superintendent for instruction. "It's not going to matter the ZIP code of where you live. We're going to expect the same out of every student." The Common Core standards are considered more rigorous than most of the states' current requirements, and are designed to help students master - not simply memorize - academic subjects and sharpen their critical-thinking skills. By using the math and English-language arts lessons as building blocks, educators hope to create a solid foundation Advertisement from which high school graduates can enter college or launch a career. "In our teacher-training sessions, I say, `Can our kids do this?' and they say, `Yes!"' Aquino said. "I say, `Are you sure?' They say, `They can't do it right now because we haven't taught them this way.' "So we need to make sure that we begin changing the way we teach." The Common Core State Standards Initiative was launched in 2009 by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, with the goal of preparing every U.S. student for college or a career. In June 2010, the group adopted a slate of grade-level benchmarks for math and English-language arts (which includes history, social studies, science and technical subjects). California education officials are now refining the standards' structure and content and reviewing instructional and testing materials. The state Board of Education can't sign off on the plans until next July. Aquino and other supporters insist that Common Core does not mandate how teachers should structure their lessons or dictate the classroom techniques they should use. However, the new standards do take a dramatically different approach to instruction. Reading and writing will be integrated, instead of being treated as separate subjects, and also will be incorporated into math lessons. In addition to narrative essays, students will learn argument and informative writing, with an emphasis on using technical vocabulary. Reports, speeches, manuals and similar material will comprise half of the reading material in elementary school. Reading at the high-school level will be just 30 percent literature and 70 percent informational text. "Unless you're going to be an English major, most of the text that one is going to read in the workforce or college is not literature," Aquino explained. "It's informational text, and it's much harder to read. "Literature obviously has its place. We're just making sure students are able to read and make meaning of information." That means that kindergartners will be taught to ask and answer questions about texts that are tougher than the children's stories they're used to. Reading, writing, speaking and language skills will be developed in subsequent years so that high-school students will be able to research and write a comprehensive analysis of complex material. "Students will be able to access information and decipher what it means," said Evan Bartelheim, deputy superintendent in the Las Virgenes Unified School District. "It builds on them being responsible, digital citizens." When it comes to math, differences between California's current standards and Common Core will be even more pronounced. Kindergartners will have to know how to count to 100, but also how to solve word problems - the bane of math students everywhere. They'll also have to add pairs of numbers to equal 10 - equations - taking a baby step on the long and bumpy road to algebra. And as students progress to geometry and statistics, they'll also learn to build arguments and critique their classmates' reasoning - again in preparation for real-world challenges. At the same time, there will be fewer skills for students to master in each grade so teachers will have more time to help students understand the more difficult material. Aquino said the new approach will be especially effective in teaching English-language learners, who comprise nearly one-fourth of California's public school students. "The current standards in California tried to cover too much, so learning was a mile wide and an inch deep," Aquino said. "Teachers will now be able to slow down and spend more time on essential concepts that students need to master." In crafting the new benchmarks, the Common Core authors looked to the standards set by high-performing countries in Asia and Europe, where students are performing better than their U.S. counterparts in math and language arts. "I'm not one of those who advocates adopting the educational system from a foreign country," Aquino said, but I am one who says, `Let's learn from what they're doing."' Along with the whole new way of teaching will come a whole new way of testing. The current California Standards Tests will be replaced by computerized exams that can adapt immediately to a student's performance. A student who answers a question correctly will then receive a more challenging problem, while an incorrect answer will generate an easier question. These new tests will include "performance tasks," in which students apply newly learned skills to examples of real-world challenges. A high-school math student, for instance, might have to review a financial report, conduct a series of analyses and write an evidence-based conclusion. "Assessment drives instruction, so teachers are inclined to teach to the test," Aquino said. "The CST is almost all multiple choice, but that's not going to be the case with the new assessment. It's going to be a lot of writing." Although the new tests will rely heavily on essays and explanatory answers, they'll be graded by computers that will scan for key numbers or phrases and will even be able to check for grammar and punctuation. "The tests are groundbreaking in that regard," said Jose Ortega, administrator of the Education Technology Office for the California Department of Education. "The automation and computerization will make the tests machine-readable. (Grading them) will be quite comparable to human consistency." Most of the concern about the Common Core standards is centered on the cost of implementation and whether the technology will be ready in time. California adopted Common Core in the hope of getting a federal Race to the Top grant, which would have provided millions of dollars to help implement the reforms. However, the state wasn't among the winners, which means that California - and its cash-strapped school districts - must reach deep into their own pockets for funding. Ortega said that money now used to administer the CSTs can be shifted to the Common Core, although officials are unsure whether that will cover the expense. A Fordham Institute study estimates it could cost California from $380 million to $1.6 billion to implement Common Core, with savings coming from the use of shared technology and resources. And there is a backup plan that would provide pencil-and-paper assessments if districts lack the appropriate Internet or Wi-Fi technology. To help ensure that Los Angeles Unified is prepared, San Fernando Valley school board member Tamar Galatzan last fall pushed to get nearly $100 million in bond revenue reallocated to install wireless networks in the 138 district schools that lacked Internet access. And, Aquino said, Superintendent John Deasy is lobbying tech companies to donate computer tablets or netbooks for every LAUSD student by 2013-14. "Technology is integrated into the learning of reading, writing and math," Aquino said. "It's not just assessments, but learning every day." Aquino designed Los Angeles Unified's Common Core implementation plan and has been helping to train administrators, principals and teachers. He said he's met little resistance from educators as they become more familiar with the reforms. "They say, `This is the way we would like it to be. It's not perfect, but it's much better than what we have now."' The head of Los Angeles Unified's teachers union however, is questioning whether educators will receive sufficient training and professional support, given the enormity of the reforms. "This is a huge change in the structure of curriculum, with almost no financial support from the state," said Warren Fletcher, president of United Teachers Los Angeles. "I'm worried that they're going to try to implement this complex and expensive change on the cheap." With the challenge of implementing Common Core in more than 1,000 campuses, Los Angeles Unified is phasing it in, starting with K-1, sixth and ninth grades. Thousands of teachers in those grades began Common Core training this summer and will continue the professional development sessions after classes start Aug. 14. Standards-based instruction will begin next spring, although students will still take the CSTs. Teachers in other grades, meanwhile, will be encouraged to begin shifts to Common Core techniques, like using complex text in reading and writing, and argument in math. Bulky textbooks will likely be replaced in the future with interactive lessons and even games that will reinforce what's being taught in the classroom. "Digital learning is designed to replace the textbook, not the teacher," said Judy Codding, a managing director of the Pearson Foundation, the charitable arm of Pearson Education Inc., which is developing of Common Core products and is piloting them in some LAUSD campuses. "You can have games to reinforce skills - vocabulary usage and grammar and math proficiency around all the concepts that kids have to master." Other districts are taking a more conservative approach to implementing Common Core. Las Virgenes and Burbank Unified, for instance, are focusing this year on teacher training, and Las Virgenes is upgrading its technology. Still, with just two years before Common Core is implemented, it's clear there's still a lot of work to be done. The 2012 Primary Sources survey funded by the Gates Foundation found that 78 percent of more than 10,000 teachers polled were aware of Common Core, but 27 percent felt unprepared to teach the new standards. "This is not a one-year effort, it's an entire revamp of instruction," said Bill Honig, the former state superintendent who now chairs California's Instructional Quality Commission. "For the first time, we're talking about the right thing - the quality of education." SAMPLE TEST QUESTIONS Here is a sampling of questions devised by the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, which is developing Common Core tests for California and 26 other states. Literature question: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence from John Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn" to support an analysis of what the poem says explicitly about the urn as well as what can be inferred about the urn from evidence in the poem. Based on a close reading, draw inferences from the text regarding what meanings the figures decorating the urn convey as well as noting where the poem leaves matters about the urn and its decoration uncertain. History question: Analyze how Abraham Lincoln in his "Second Inaugural Address" examines the ideas that led to the Civil War, paying particular attention to the order in which the points are made, how Lincoln introduces and develops his points, and the connections that are drawn among them. Literature/Drama question:"In plays, no one arrives on or leaves from the stage without contributing in some way to the complexity of the play." Consider the author's choices of how to have characters enter or exit in the section of the play offered here as well as in scenes from two other plays you have studied and compare the significance and impact of arrivals and departures from the stage. WHY SCHOOL REFORM WILL CONTINUE TO BE SO HARD By Peter Schrag, Ed Source Today | http://bit.ly/T9YF5s July 31st, 2012 | Listening to even the best people in California’s school reform discussions doesn’t leave much clarity about the direction our money-starved education system should go or much confidence that things will get perceptibly better any time soon. Many of those good people know what’s needed. It’s just that they don’t all know the same thing, or don’t know it at the same time. That much at least was apparent once again at a forum in Sacramento last week on school finance sponsored by PPIC, the Public Policy Institute of California. What they agreed on was that the fixes of the last 30 or 40 years – what state School Board President Michael Kirst called “the historical accretion” of programs – wasn’t working. It has become, State Sen. Joe Simitian said, “the Winchester Mystery House” of school finance, rooms added willy-nilly to solve one or another problem. Neither the policymakers nor the reformers are entirely – or maybe even mostly – to blame. In a state that now ranks in the bottom 10 nationwide in school spending, and among the lowest in the ratio of teachers, counselors, nurses, and librarians per pupil, there’s a long list of suspects. When a questioner at the PPIC forum asked what we mostly needed, someone stage-whispered, “more, more, more.” But in a culture that must rank among the world’s leaders in anti-intellectualism, and a society whose citizens can’t make up their own minds about what they really want from their schools – about standards, about testing, about social promotion, about evolution, and about a thousand other things – money is hardly the only problem. “Money matters,” Simitian said, “but it matters more if you spend it wisely.” The current fashion, at least at the State Board and in the office of Gov. Jerry Brown, has two main elements: Replacing the plethora of categorical state funding streams – the biggest is class size reduction – with a “weighted student funding formula” where every district gets a basic amount per student and additional money for each low-income student and every English learner – plus more for districts with high concentrations of such students. When some districts and other school interests complained that the formula was treating them unfairly, the formula was revised to reduce the extra funding that would be provided for poor and immigrant kids. Here again, the driver wasn’t any assessment of educational need, it was pure politics. More local control combined with local accountability under which the state would replace its detailed monitoring of input with measures of outputs. But the problem, as Catherine Lhamon, a veteran civil rights lawyer at the Los Angeles-based Public Counsel Law Center, pointed out, is how to guarantee that the locals provide adequate resources – good teachers, books, decent facilities, and all the rest – to schools with the poorest children and others without the political clout to secure them. Waiting until a district fails to deliver in measured student achievement is to consign yet another generation to failure. Just a few days ago, we learned that the state had reneged on the promises it made years ago when it settled another suit brought on behalf of poor and minority kids. The fact that the governor has been blocking the further development of the state’s educational data system doesn’t do much for confidence in either the ability or the willingness of the state to hold the locals accountable. Nor is there yet any clear idea of what the state would do when the locals don’t perform. We’ve never known before, and we don’t know now. Making school improvement still more complicated – for schools and teachers, for kids, for parents – is the shift to the national Common Core standards and the new testing system that comes with them. As a long-term pedagogical principle, Common Core, with its shift from fact-based and formulaic learning to understanding, analysis, and creativity, is long overdue. But the state has committed to making the transition within the next year or two, at a time when school spending is being cut, teachers are being laid off, and the teaching force is already demoralized. And the state expects the locals to buy the necessary materials. If this is not a sick joke, it’s close to it. The “historical accretion” that Kirst talks about is the result of the long-term failure of local districts, responsive as they always are to pressure from influential parents and other interest groups, unions among them, to allocate funds accordingly. It’s how we built that Winchester Mystery House. Given the special distrust of state government, local control always makes for an appealing political slogan. But we have a long history in which local control favored the privileged and short-changed poor and minority kids: Southern school segregation, school funding, the drawing of school attendance zones, the assignment of teachers to the nicest, brightest, newest schools, and a host of other decisions. Maybe this time it will be different, but there’s little yet in place that provides much confidence that it will. Jerry Brown has never been averse to the hair shirt. But almost always, it’s the poorest kids who will have to wear the hairiest shirts. P.S. Given all that, would it be better if we preserved the dismal status quo by passing Gov. Jerry Brown’s inadequate tax hike in November – and thus deferred for maybe five years any chance for anything better? Or would the catastrophe following defeat of Brown’s initiative finally wake the voters up? It’s not an easy decision. •Peter Schrag is the former editorial page editor and columnist of the Sacramento Bee. He is the author of “Paradise Lost: California’s Experience, America’s Future” and “California: America’s High Stakes Experiment.” His latest book is “Not Fit for Our Society: Immigration and Nativism in America” (University of California Press). He is a frequent contributor to the California Progress Report,, where this column first appeared. HIGHLIGHTS, LOWLIGHTS & THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT: The Rest (but not necessarily the best) of the Stories from Other Sources TWAIN MIDDLE SCHOOL'S BELL RINGERS BOUND FOR LONDON OLYMPICS: by Howard Blume LA Times/LA Now | http://lat.... http://bit.ly/QLM87U HuffPo continues the mis/disinformation: LAUSD+UTLA AGREE TO INCLUDE STUDENT TEST SCORES IN TEACHER EVALUATIONS:... http://bit.ly/RpTMCj Aug 14 is Back to School: LAUSD CALENDAR FOR THE NEW SCHOOL YEAR: Take note of important dates that affect your ... http://bit.ly/OF2tw2 INGLEWOOD UNIFIED TO ASK CALIFORNIA FOR A BAILOUT LOAN; WILL LEAD TO DISTRICT TAKEOVER: By Adolfo Guzman-Lopez P... http://bit.ly/Ol5i1e UNDER PRESSURE, LA SCHOOLS POLICE CHIEF REASSESSES SCHOOL TICKETING POLICIES: By Vanessa Romo, KPCC 89.3 F... http://bit.ly/OjWf0F The State of Preschool: CALIFORNIA AFTER THE BUDGET: by email from Preschool California by Catherine Atkin, P... http://bit.ly/QajEVH Twitterpated: L.A. Unified Completes First Ever Social Media Survey - NEW MEDIA COULD IMPROVE CRISIS COMMUNICATI... http://bit.ly/QaN2KI Asked+Answered: CAN KIDS BE TAUGHT PERSISTENCE?: By Jennie Rose in MindShift / KQED | http://bit.ly/PgMX4i EVENTS: Coming up next week... • LAUSD CALENDAR FOR THE NEW SCHOOL YEAR: http://bit.ly/OF2tw2 *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.