ACLU SUIT ALLEGES FLORIDA NEGLECTING SCHOOLS

By The Associated Press

●●smf’s 2¢: The class action suit: Aho, et al v. Florida, et al is interesting in that the defendants – essentially the students of the Palm Beach School District hold the plaintiffs – the governor and other statewide electeds including the state Board of Ed  – accountable for alleged local shortcomings in their education – not the local school board.

November 5, 2009 -- The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit  Thursday alleging that state officials in Florida are failing to ensure that students in Palm Beach County get a high quality education, as evidenced by their poor graduation rates.

The state court suit filed in West Palm Beach names Gov. Charlie Crist, the Board of Education and several political leaders and alleges that they are violating a requirement in the Florida Constitution to provide a "uniform, efficient, safe, secure and high quality" education.

"Palm Beach County is clearly not upholding its responsibility to provide a quality education to all of its students when so many of them are not graduating," Chris Hansen, senior staff attorney with the ACLU, said in a statement Thursday.

He added the issues in Palm Beach County are reflective of a national problem.

A spokesman for Crist did not have immediate comment.

Nat Harrington, a spokesman for Palm Beach County School District, said graduation rates have increased to 80 percent as a result of targeted initiatives.

“We know we still have work today, and are focused on getting that work done," said Harrington, who had not yet seen the ACLU's lawsuit.

The suit alleges a third to half of the county's students do not graduate on time with a regular diploma — well below state and national averages — and that graduation rates varied from 56 to 71 percent in 2006, depending on the methodology used to calculate them.

The ACLU also highlights the disparities between black, Hispanic and white student graduation rates. The gap between black and white graduation rates was 30 points over the past five years, the organization states, and 20 points between Hispanic and white students.

"All students, regardless of their age, race, special needs, ethnicity or gender, deserve an environment that breeds success, not failure," Muslima Lewis, director of the ACLU of Florida's Racial Justice Project, said in a statement.

STIMULUS FUNDING REPORTS POSE PUZZLE FOR WATCHDOGS

By Michele McNeil | Ed Week | Vol. 29, Issue 11

November 6, 2009 -- Even as the Obama administration tries to make good on promises of unprecedented transparency and accountability in economic-stimulus funding, the first reports from states and school districts show the difficulty of figuring out—in detail—how the money for education has been spent.

In the broadest sense, the quarterly stimulus reports made public Oct. 30 provide a first glimpse at how states are spending some $100 billion in education aid under the program.

The biggest chunk of the $14 billion in such aid spent by states and districts so far has been focused on creating and saving jobs, about 335,000 of them through Sept. 30, according to the reports.

Only about $600 million in education funds had been used for other purposes, such as payments to companies for purchases, or outside staff.

Yet getting details about exactly what jobs were created—and precisely how each purchasing dollar was spent—is harder. In many cases, states, districts, and other stimulus-aid recipients offered wide variation in how much detail they provided on the electronic reports. Some left blank key data fields, such as program descriptions.

So far, though, much of the focus by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has been on the big picture: how many jobs were created or saved with the education stimulus money, which is being allocated as part of the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed by Congress in February.

“Teachers are still teaching, ... education reform is still moving forward,” said Mr. Duncan in a Nov. 2 conference call. And the program, he added, is moving forward with “unprecedented transparency.”

While there are limitations in the reporting, that transparency does cast some light on how school districts are spending their money, which has been slow to trickle down to the district level.

At least $13 million in Title I funding for disadvantaged students, for example, has already been spent on technology, such as electronic whiteboards, computers, software, and technology training, according to an Education Week analysis of the reports available on Recovery.gov.

And about $50 million in special education aid so far has gone for tuition at other schools or placements for students with special needs.

How Transparent?

The extent of the transparency is sure to be tested.

News organizations such as the Chicago Tribune and USA Today have used the transparency Mr. Duncan described and discovered numerous reporting errors in education-related jobs, mostly involving numbers that were overreported.

For example, in some Illinois districts, the number of jobs reported as having been created or saved outnumbered the total number of staff members in the districts, according to the Chicago Tribune report.

The jobs data illustrate the limitations of the one-size-fits-all approach the Obama administration used for reporting so as not to not make it overly burdensome for recipients. Stimulus-aid recipients fill out the same form whether the money was used on a road project or in a school classroom. And often, the fill-in-the-blank questions are open to interpretation.

Among the limitations evident in the first reports:

• Reporting detail varies widely. Alaska, for example, reported that 91 “teaching and support staff” jobs had been created so far from the education portion of the stimulus program’s State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, but gave no further detail. Delaware, by contrast, reported 205 jobs saved or created, and gave this breakdown: 155 teachers, 29 paraprofessionals, seven administrative posts, four guidance counselors, four secretaries, three substitute teachers, two technical-support workers, and one nurse.

• When the U.S. Department of Education highlights the 325,000 jobs the administration says were created or saved under the recovery act, those include a substantial—though unspecified—number of jobs in higher education. California, for example, reported that money from the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund saved about 53,400 education jobs in the state, but only about 18,800 were for K-12 education. But many states didn’t specify how their education jobs were broken down.

• Finding out specifically what the money has been spent on is difficult. Interactive, user-friendly maps on Recovery.gov list the names of the companies or individual recipients with which aid recipients spent money, but not a description of what the money was used for. That information—if provided by an aid recipient—is contained in more-cumbersome data files that can be downloaded from Recovery.gov.

Looking Deeper

Still, the reports are useful in aggregating information that has so far been only anecdotal—especially since most of the discussion and media reports have focused on how the education stimulus money is being used to stabilize state budgets.

Often overlooked, for example, is that school districts also are getting $10 billion in additional Title I funding to help disadvantaged students.

The 18,000-student Martin County school district in Florida has some of the most detailed reports of Title I spending, including such specifics as $264 spent on math programs from “Hands-on Equations” and $719 on professional development with The MASTER Teacher company.

But even with such a detailed list of how the district had spent some of the $150,000 or so in Title I money it had gotten so far, the information doesn’t paint a full picture of how the district has been using its money.

Cathy Tedesco, the district’s Title I director, filled in those blanks in an interview last week.

The district has increased the number of Title I schools to seven from four, added reading coaches, and beefed up its parent-resource center, she said. Individual schools are deciding to decrease class sizes and invest in more professional development for teachers. All the while, Ms. Tedesco said, she’s tried to convey that the extra aid is temporary, one-time money.

“Yet we think what we’re doing is very sustainable, even when the money is gone,” she said.

For the 12,500-student Cabell County district in West Virginia, the reporting on federal aid doesn’t reveal the comprehensive plan the district has for its $3.5 million in Title I grants. (Money hasn’t trickled down far enough yet from the state to reflect precisely where the district has spent it.)

Allyson Schoenlein, the district’s director of Title I programs, said one of its big emphases is technology. The district is adding one mobile laptop lab for every two classrooms in its nine Title I schools, updating wireless technology in the buildings, and hiring three technology-integration specialists to help teachers learn to use the new features in their classrooms. The district will also be using part of the Title I funds to improve professional development for teachers.

Ms. Schoenlein said she’s been mindful of the federal reporting requirements—and all the rules and demands that every penny be tracked and accounted for.

“It’s overwhelming to keep track of all of the grants because there are so many new requirements,” she said. “I imagine it’s the same burden as winning the lottery.”

For policy advocates, the additional reporting requirements leave one crucial thing out: What are states, schools, and students getting for the money?

Asked Amy Wilkins, the vice president of government affairs and communications for the Washington-based Education Trust, which advocates on behalf of disadvantaged and minority students: “It’s clear school districts are spending their money on a wide variety of things, but are they getting results?”

Coverage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is supported in part by a grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, at www.hewlett.org.

SCHOOL-BASED PHYSICAL EDUCATION KEY TO IMPROVING HEALTH IN LOW-INCOME ADOLESCENTS

Science Daily

(Nov. 6, 2009) — School-based physical education plays a key role in curbing obesity and improving fitness among adolescents from low-income communities, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco and UC Berkeley.

The study, which identifies opportunities for adolescents to improve their health based on routine daily activities, finds that regular participation in PE class is significantly associated with greater cardiovascular fitness and lower body mass index.

"We took an incredibly comprehensive look at all of the opportunities kids have throughout their day to engage in physical activity and determined which are the most strongly linked to fitness and weight status," said first author Kristine Madsen, MD, MPH, an assistant professor of pediatrics at UCSF Children's Hospital. "Obesity continues to be a major public health concern, particularly in low-income communities, so it is imperative that we develop targeted interventions to improve the health of at-risk youth."

"This research will help support moving physical education policy forward. Clearly, physical education in schools is an underutilized tool in our efforts to reduce pediatric obesity," said Patricia Crawford, DrPH, RD, the study's senior author and director of the Dr. Robert C. and Veronica Atkins Center for Weight and Health at UC Berkeley.

The study appears in the November 2009 issue of the journal Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

Madsen and her co-investigators surveyed 9,268 seventh- and ninth-grade students at 19 racially and ethnically diverse public schools in low-income communities throughout California. The schools represented in the survey also were participants in The California Endowment's Healthy Eating Active Communities Initiative, a statewide program that aims to fight childhood obesity and to develop policy changes that will reduce risk factors for diabetes and obesity.

Students answered questions anonymously about their level of participation in several daily physical activities, including PE class, walking to and from school and playing on sports teams. They also rated how much they enjoyed PE and estimated the amount of time they spent exercising during PE class. An additional survey question addressed whether students regularly purchased food from snack carts, fast food restaurants or stores on their way to and from school.

Answers obtained through the survey were then linked to each school's results from the state-mandated Fitnessgram -- an annual assessment of students' fitness levels -- to determine which physical activities had a significant impact on weight and cardiovascular health. Weight was measured using body mass index scores, and cardiovascular fitness was assessed using the amount of time it takes to walk/run a mile.

The researchers found that engaging in at least 20 minutes of exercise during PE class was significantly associated with both shorter mile times and lower body mass index scores. Furthermore, as the students' reported levels of enjoyment of PE increased, their mile times decreased.

"PE was by far the most significant predictor of students' fitness and was the only variable associated with improved weight status," Madsen said. "I think this shows that we need to increase the importance of physical education in schools and set up tougher standards in the same way we set up tough standards around academic performance."

The data also showed a significant association between walking to school and shorter mile times; however, walking to school also was significantly associated with higher body mass index. The researchers state that this finding was not surprising, due to the fact that those students who walked to school were also more likely to buy food while in transit.

"The most affordable food options in low-income neighborhoods tend to be unhealthy, so it is not surprising that students who purchase more food on their way to and from school are more likely to be overweight," Madsen said. "We absolutely need to work with local vendors in these communities to improve the food environment and create healthy zones in the vicinity of schools."

According to Madsen, additional research should aim to identify the specific factors that contribute to students' enjoyment of PE, so that curricula can be shaped to improve the quality of classes and to achieve higher levels of physical exertion.

Additional co-authors include Wendi Gosliner, MPH, RD, and Gail Woodward-Lopez, MPH, RD, both of UC Berkeley's Center for Weight and Health.

The research was supported by The California Endowment and Kaiser Permanente and through grants from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the American Heart Association.

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STUDY: Physical Activity Opportunities Associated With Fitness and Weight Status Among Adolescents in Low-Income Communities ($)

Abstract: Environment is 1 potentially changeable factor in the fight against obesity. This study sought to identify physical activity opportunities most strongly associated with student health (cardiorespiratory fitness and weight status) among adolescents in low-income communities and to determine if associations were different in middle and high schools. Almost half of the students from these low-income communities were overweight or obese, and over half did not meet recommended physical fitness standards. As the proportion of students who reported liking school physical education classes, walking to school, and spending 20 minutes or more in exercise during physical education classes increased from 0% to 100%, physical fitness improved. Each additional day that students reported being active on school grounds outside school was associated with decreased time on a mile run. Active transport to school was associated with poorer weight status and greater odds of purchasing food while in transit. These findings point to potential policy opportunities to improve student health in low-income communities.

 

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Physical education could enhance health in low-income youngsters

from Health Jockey.com

It is said that physical exercise is extremely important for our health and well being. Now, bearing this topic in mind, a study from University of California, San Francisco and UC Berkeley claims that school-based physical education may play a major function in reducing obesity and enhancing fitness among teenagers from low-income communities.

The study recognizes openings for youth to develop their health based on regular daily activities. They discovered that frequent involvement in PE class could be considerably linked to better cardiovascular fitness and lower body mass index.

First author Kristine Madsen, MD, MPH, an assistant professor of pediatrics at UCSF Children’s Hospital, commented, “We took an incredibly comprehensive look at all of the opportunities kids have throughout their day to engage in physical activity and determined which are the most strongly linked to fitness and weight status. Obesity continues to be a major public health concern, particularly in low-income communities, so it is imperative that we develop targeted interventions to improve the health of at-risk youth.”

Around 9,268 seventh- and ninth-grade students were examined by Madsen and her colleagues. This survey was conducted in roughly 19 racially and culturally varied public schools in low-income communities all over California.

Students replied to questions in secret concerning their stage of participation in numerous every day physical activities, counting PE class, walking to and from school and playing on sports teams. They also had to rank how much they liked PE and estimated the quantity of time they used in exercising during PE class. A supplementary survey question apparently dealt whether students frequently bought food from snack carts, fast food restaurants or stores on their way to and from school.

Responses acquired through the survey were apparently then connected to every school’s outcomes from the state-mandated Fitnessgram, a yearly evaluation of students’ fitness levels. The experts wanted to verify which physical activities had a considerable influence on weight and cardiovascular health.

The scientists discovered that being immersed in atleast 20 minutes of exercise during PE class was said to be noticeably linked to both shorter mile times and lesser body mass index scores. In addition, as the students’ accounted levels of enjoyment of PE augmented, their mile times apparently reduced.

Madsen remarked, “PE was by far the most significant predictor of students’ fitness and was the only variable associated with improved weight status. I think this shows that we need to increase the importance of physical education in schools and set up tougher standards in the same way we set up tough standards around academic performance.”

Supposedly the data also exhibited an important link between walking to school and shorter mile times; nevertheless, walking to school apparently also was drastically connected to higher body mass index. The experts mentioned that this discovery was not astonishing, due to the fact that those students who walked to school supposedly had more chances to purchase food while traveling.

Madsen quoted, “The most affordable food options in low-income neighborhoods tend to be unhealthy, so it is not surprising that students who purchase more food on their way to and from school are more likely to be overweight. We absolutely need to work with local vendors in these communities to improve the food environment and create healthy zones in the vicinity of schools.”

Madesn is of the opinion that further study ought to aim to recognize the detailed issues that add to students’ enjoyment of PE, so that curricula could be designed to develop the quality of classes and to attain superior levels of physical exertion.

The study appears in the November 2009 issue of the journal Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

LAUSD REFORMS MAY SKIP PILOT SCHOOLS: District, teachers union at odds over expansion plan.

Cortines: "If the union puts a moratorium on pilots, I will push for more charters."

By Connie Llanos, Staff Writer | LA Newspaper Group/Daily News

Posted: 11/05/2009 09:33:32 PM PST/Updated: 11/05/2009 09:48:53 PM PST

Nov. 6 -- With just 10 days left before Los Angeles Unified begins accepting bids from outside operators to run some of its underperforming schools, the best option for the district to retain some of those schools might not be available.

Pilot schools — small schools where parents and staff have more influence, but the district still has control — have expanded in recent years as an alternative to traditional schools. They are also an alternative to popular charter schools, which are publicly financed but operate independently of the district.

Both types of schools are eligible to take over operation of traditional public schools under the district's ambitious "Schools Choice Plan."

But because the district and the teachers union have not been able to agree on a plan to expand the number of pilot schools, now limited to 10, it might not be an option at a time in the district's history when options and choices are needed most.

Since teachers at pilot schools work under a more flexible contract, the teachers union is uneasy about seeing them grow without more protection for teachers. District officials, which see the pilot schools as an innovative way of reforming schools without giving up control, want the union to step out of the way and allow pilot school expansion.

"I will not allow some teacher representatives to hold back educational progress ...," LAUSD Superintendent Ramon Cortines said recently in an interview. "If the union puts a moratorium on pilots, I will push for more charters."

The district would like to have an agreement by next week ahead of the Nov. 15 deadline for the first round of applications.

But United Teachers Los Angeles officials say certain elements of the contract need to be changed to ensure teachers are protected.

For example, UTLA wants to see teacher discipline handled by arbitration, rather than by LAUSD personnel, as the pilot school contract currently allows.

"I am trying to come up with contract language that expands pilots and that also has the possibility of passing a vote of my governing bodies," said UTLA President A.J. Duffy.

The pilot school model, imported to Los Angeles from Boston, has been generally supported by UTLA because it gives teachers more control.

At a pilot school, a board made up of teachers, parents, administrators and students in high school makes all budget, curriculum, calendar and staffing decisions.

But the amended contract under which teachers work at pilot schools — known as a "thin" contract because it is 70 pages compared to the standard 300-page contract — also streamlines several policies affecting teachers, including how they are hired, fired and disciplined.

As the union continues to work on a new proposal with the district, community organizations have begun to pressure UTLA to approve an expansion of pilots, and protests are being organized by local groups for next week.

Duffy said he understands the community's frustration.

"There are some very well-meaning people within the union who do not see change as something that is necessary, and I disagree," he said.

In the meantime, district officials in charge of guiding schools through LAUSD's reform effort say their hands are tied now as they wait for an agreement on pilot schools.

"The union is holding this hostage, and we find that unacceptable," said Edmundo Rodriguez, LAUSD's pilot school director.

"There are literally hundreds of teachers and thousands of parents that cannot stand to function in the same old educational system."

Currently there are seven pilot schools districtwide, all located around the Pico-Union neighborhood west of downtown, with 10 expected to open soon.

Rodriguez said an additional 40 schools across the district have now expressed interest in converting their schools to a pilot model, including at least half of the schools that LAUSD put out for bid under the school choice plan.

"I don't understand why the union would stand in the way of the most progressive option currently available for schools who want reform but also want to maintain district and UTLA affiliations," said Veronica Melvin, executive director of Alliance for a Better Community.

"It is so odd that they choose to do this now ... at a time when leadership is needed more than ever to allow reform to happen."

OBAMA OFFERS SCHOOLS MONEY FOR BACKING INITIATIVES

By JULIE PACE | Associated Press

5 November -- MADISON, Wis. — Pushing for a link between student test scores and teacher pay, President Barack Obama on Wednesday dangled $5 billion in federal grants to states willing to undertake a top-to-bottom overhaul of their schools in support of White House priorities.

The day after fellow Democrats lost gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia, Obama tried to turn attention to his education agenda, an area in which he has made significant progress. While the president said his first obligation was bringing the U.S. economy back from the brink of collapse, he added that long-term economic success can only be achieved by making investments in education.

"There is nothing that will determine the quality of our future as a nation or the lives our children more than the kind of education we provide them," Obama said while speaking at a Wisconsin middle school.

Obama came to Wisconsin a day before state lawmakers here planned to vote to lift a ban on using student test scores to judge teacher performance. The Obama administration has said that such restrictions would hurt a state's chances of getting part of the $5 billion competitive grant fund, dubbed "Race to the Top."

"If you're willing to hold yourselves more accountable, if you develop a strong plan to improve the quality of education in your state, we'll offer you a grant to help make that plan a reality," he said.

Obama's $787 billion economic stimulus bill included the education grants — the most money a president has ever had for overhauling schools — for which states can compete. Only Education Secretary Arne Duncan — not Congress — has control over who gets it. And only some states, perhaps 10 to 20, will actually get the money.

Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat, said his state needs to compete for those grants.

"We know, we have to step it up," Doyle said. "We have to face a hard truth here in Wisconsin that our achievement gap is among the worst in the nation."

Without the stimulus money the state has already received, Wisconsin would have cut the state's education budget by 10 percent, he said.

Those budgets are under pressure in every state, Obama aides acknowledged.

Nine states so far have taken steps to compete, and Wisconsin was expected to vote Thursday to lift a ban on using student test scores to judge teachers. That helps clear the way for an Obama priority: teacher pay tied to student performance.

"They had to make some changes just to join the race," Obama said.

Traveling with Obama aboard Air Force One, Duncan said the grants have helped to bring about change quickly.

"We have to get better faster," the education secretary told reporters. "There are teachers every single year where the average child in their class is gaining two years of growth — two years of growth per year of instruction. That is Herculean work. Those teachers are the unsung heroes in our society. And nobody can tell you who those teachers are."

States can't apply for the money yet, and relatively few may end up getting grants, but it's a key incentive for Obama to push forward his education plan.

The administration can't really tell states and schools what to do, since education has been largely a state and local responsibility throughout the history of the U.S. But the grants gives Obama considerable leverage. He sees the test score data and charter schools, which are publicly funded but independent of local school boards, as solutions to the problems that plague public education.

The national teachers unions disagree. They say student achievement is much more than a score on a standardized test and say it's a mistake to rely so heavily on charter schools.

AP Education Writer Libby Quaid contributed to this report from Washington.

Related stories

 

• Obama calls for end of 'firewall' rules that shield teachers | LA Times
• Obama Offers States Rewards For Overhauling Schools|npr.org
• Obama uses money to urge school changes|msnbc.msn.com
• Race to the Top: Teachers left behind?|weblogs.chicagotribune.com
• November 04, 2009 - Remarks by the President on Strengthening America's Education System – whitehouse.gov
• November 04, 2009 - Remarks by The President and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in Discussion with Students – whitehouse.gov

FORD FOUNDATION GIVES $100 MILLION TO REFORM URBAN HIGH SCHOOLS: The New York-based organization pledges the funds to seven cities, including Los Angeles, to research and improve teacher quality, student assessment and school funding, among other things.

By Mitchell Landsberg | LA Times

November 5, 2009 -- The Ford Foundation pledged $100 million Wednesday to "transform" urban high schools in the United States, focusing on seven cities, including Los Angeles.

The seven-year initiative is among the largest philanthropic efforts aimed at improving education in the United States and, as described, could both complement and challenge aspects of the Obama administration's education reform efforts. It will fund research and reform in four areas: teacher quality, student assessment, a longer school day and year, and school funding.

The initiative is being led by Jeannie Oakes, who until recently was head of the Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access at UCLA, where she was a strong advocate for reform aimed at helping disadvantaged students in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Besides Los Angeles, the Ford Foundation effort will focus on schools in New York, Newark, N.J., Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit and Denver.

Oakes said the foundation has already begun working with L.A. Unified Supt. Ramon C. Cortines to find ways to better distribute finances in the district. She said Ford also hopes to help Los Angeles land one of the Obama administration's "Promise Neighborhood" grants, which place public schools at the center of a comprehensive strategy of combating poverty and improving educational achievement.

She said the initiative dovetails with much of the administration's education reform efforts, but would try to avoid some of the most politicized aspects. "We don't want to get into anybody's ideological fights," she said. "We just want to cut through this and think about building an outstanding public school system for the kids who are least likely to have one now."

The announcement from the New York-based foundation quoted its president, Luis Ubiñas, as saying the initiative is intended "to shake up the conversations surrounding school reform and help spur some truly imaginative thinking and partnerships."

The initiative challenges conventional thinking in at least one way, offering a skeptical outlook on student assessment. It calls standardized tests "a blunt and inadequate tool by which to gauge student learning and school effectiveness," and calls for the development of "more meaningful methods of assessment and accountability."

Several large philanthropic organizations, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Broad Foundation, already fund significant educational research and reform efforts.

EDUCATION IN THE EASTSIDE

Op-Ed by Esteban E. Torres | Eastside Publications Group [Eastside Sun / Northeast Sun / Mexican American Sun / Bell Gardens Sun / City Terrace Comet / Commerce Comet / Montebello Comet / Monterey Park Comet / ELA Brooklyn Belvedere Comet / Wyvernwood Chronicle / Vernon Sun]

<<Photo: US library of congress

Over the past year, our communities have been hit hard by the economic recession, and our schools continue to pay the price. California, once known for having a top educational system, has now declined to a ranking of 50th in education spending, with no sign of relief in the months to come.

Despite the lack of funding, East Los Angeles residents and community stakeholders have begun to demand the improvement of our public schools, and see this as a time of opportunity for bold and innovative solutions that ensure we reach 100% graduation, with a graduating class prepared to meet the demands of the 21st century workforce. I am honored to join an effort that continues a legacy of struggle in East LA- I have always advocated on behalf of this community, as a community organizer and elected official.

The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) will open 50 new schools throughout the city; our greatest challenge will be to ensure they provide a world class education.

One of the schools soon to open is the new Esteban E. Torres High School, which is scheduled to open in the fall of 2010 in Unincorporated East Los Angeles. The new Esteban E. Torres High School will open with 5 small schools of up to 500 students each. Small Schools of 500 students or less will provide the opportunity for personalized instruction where students will no longer slip through the cracks and become another statistic.

We must work toward closing the achievement gap that exists in which only 45% of incoming freshmen graduate within 4 years from Eastside High Schools. There’s a clear urgency for our communities to begin working in collaboration to support community schools to reach academic success. The East Los Angeles Education Empowerment Zone (ELAEEZ) is a bold new vision for secondary education in East Los Angeles schools. The Empowerment Zone would create a network of small public schools that will include Esteban E. Torres, East Los Angeles Star Learning Center and Garfield High School.

This would be the first time in East Los Angeles history that families, parents, and students will be empowered to choose the type of school they want to attend within the East Los Angeles community ranging from Small Learning Communities to Pilot Schools at Esteban E. Torres High School.

Students will no longer be bound to the traditional notion of enrolling in a school based on attendance area; rather they will have the ability along with their families to choose a school based on their personal interest and needs in order to prepare them for college or 21st Century careers.

As new schools begin to open, I encourage us all to step up to the plate to define a new community driven vision for our schools, where our children are at the center and provided with the best teaching practices available. Secondly, in order for us to reach our new vision, we need to begin working in collaboration and build new traditions as we strengthen partnerships between parents, students, teachers, community stakeholders and local decision makers. I attended Garfield High School and know the rich tradition that exists. My hope is that the Esteban E. Torres High School will provide families and young people with the opportunity to excel in life. Finally, let us be the leaders in education reform and take the opportunity to reshape education and develop best practice models that will once again move us to the top in education.

• Esteban E. Torres, U.S. Congressman (Ret.). Torres was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982 to represent the newly-created 34th District in California that includes the East Los Angeles business district, Pico Rivera, Whittier and Santa Fe Springs, and other environs of the San Gabriel Valley. He was subsequently reelected seven times, each time with at least sixty percent of the vote. [COMPLETE BIO]  The schools of the Torres High School are included in the Public School Choice Resolution.

CALIFORNIA SCHOOL BOARDS GROUP SNUBS STATE LEGISLATORS

by Howard Blume | LA Times LA Now Blog

November 5, 2009 |  6:14 pm

And the winner is ... no one.

That’s right. Nobody won this year’s Legislator of the Year Award from the California School Boards Assn. because schools suffered so much from funding cuts approved by the state Legislature that the group didn't want to single out any lawmaker for praise.

“Sure, there are some legislators who have done good things for education, and others that we admire for their efforts,” Frank Pugh, the group’s president-elect and a board member for Santa Rosa city schools, said in a release. “But for crying out loud, schools have been cut by $2,100 per student.  We’d be nuts to present this award to anybody in a year when the cuts are going to have detrimental effects on an entire generation of students.  We just have to draw the line somewhere.”

The California School Boards Assn.'s snub may not get more than a shrug in the Legislature, but the organization has wielded some clout with strategic moves. The association, for example, has frozen, through the courts, an effort to force all California eighth-graders to take Algebra 1. The association wants to shift the focus to making sure students are prepared to take algebra by the eighth grade, said Executive Director Scott Plotkin.

The Sacramento-based association also is gathering support for a lawsuit over school funding. Its leadership asserts that schools need more money, but also need a reformed funding system, one that gives school districts the same freedoms to manage resources that are enjoyed by charter schools, Plotkin said.

For today, he said, the message is simply: “Bad job, Sacramento.”

“California has to figure out a way to create a system that does more than add layer upon layer of cuts to a public education system that is already woefully underfunded,” said current President Paula S. Campbell of the Nevada City School District. “Until that happens, this association sees no choice but to hold the Legislature accountable for its actions.”

CITY COUNCIL APPROVES UNIFORMS FOR LAUSD

from kabc-tv online

Report typo or inaccuracy

1. The Los Angeles County Unified School District?  Where does one begin?  There is no such school district.
2. Councilman Huizar was once a school board member and twice the president of the board of education. That was then, this – the last time I looked, is now.          The city council must have better things to do   …like balancing the city budget!
3. The California State Constitution and the Charter of the City of Los Angeles are both quite explicit on who runs the schools in Los Angeles and  it is not the city council. Councilman Huizar is an attorney, I refer him to the applicable case law: LAUSD v Villaraigosa [aka Rosa Mendoza et al v.State of California et al, Los Angeles Parents Union et al] decided in the Superior Court and reaffirmed in the Court of Appeal [ B195835] and made binding by the Supreme Court in their refusal to depublish.

 

The councilman is referred to the Clinton-era  US Dept of Education Guidelines on School Uniform Policy – he seems to have missed every point.

 

UPDATE: KCBS-TV Reports:

LOS ANGELES (CBS) ― The City Council unanimously passed a resolution Wednesday recommending school uniforms at all Los Angeles Unified School District campuses.

 

Recommended? One hopes they also recommended world peace.

LONG BEACH UNIFIED PARCEL TAX FAILS

By Kevin Butler, Staff Writer Long Beach Press Telegram

Posted: 11/03/2009 08:21:20 PM PST

<<11/3/09 - L-R Volunteers, Ward Johnson, Ida Thompson and Cynthia Motex were off to a slow start at the Olympic Sailing Center in Long Beach voting on Measure T. Photo by Brittany Murray / Press Telegram

 

Election results

LONG BEACH - A ballot measure that would establish a five-year parcel tax to fund the Long Beach Unified School District was defeated at the polls Tuesday.

Measure T, which needed a two-thirds majority of votes cast to pass, fell far short of that goal, with 43.11 percent of voters approving the tax and 56.89 percent rejecting it. Turnout was low, with only 13 percent of registered voters participating in the special election.

The measure, which the school board placed on the ballot, would have imposed a $92 annual parcel tax on property owners to fund schools.

LBUSD officials had estimated that the measure would bring in about $60 million over its five-year life span.

District officials say they may have to cut as much as $90 million from the district's budget over the next two years in an effort to cope with state budget cuts. Measure T proponents said the revenue would save programs and jobs.

LBUSD Superintendent Chris Steinhauser said he was disappointed that the measure was trailing in early returns.

"But the fact remains, if (Measure T) fails - and it doesn't look good now - we have $90 million we have to cut, and we have some really tough decisions to make," he said.

"And the voters - those who voted - have given us their decision," he added. "So we have to do what is best for our children and what is best for the fiscal solvency of this district. So we will move forward."

The district will continue to provide quality programs, he said.

"But they will be different," Steinhauser said. "I can't say what those will be because the board has to make the decision."

Measure T wasn't the only education matter on the ballot Tuesday.

Voters also cast ballots for school board races in the ABC, Bellflower, Norwalk-La Mirada, and Paramount unified school districts.

Voters also were to decide races for the Cerritos College Board of Trustees, as well as the Hawaiian Gardens City Council.

Artesia voters decided city council races and two tax ballot measures.

>>11/3/09 - Edwin Feo was a lone voter Tuesday morning and 23rd of the day to 10a.m. hour at the Olympic Sailing Center in Long Beach voting on Measure T, which requires a two-thirds vote to pass. Photo by Brittany Murray / Press Telegram >>

 

Artesia voters decided city council races and two tax ballot measures.

ENROLLMENT DIPS AT L.A. UNIFIED: The loss of students, apparently to charter schools in some cases, is bad news for the district's budget -- with funding based on attendance. It also has resulted in fewer teachers and larger classes.

By Howard Blume | LA Times

Andrew Needle teaches math at Mulholland Middle School in Van Nuys. The elective computer classes he taught were canceled after he was needed for the core subject. (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times / November 4, 2009)

November 4, 2009 -- An apparent exodus of students to charter schools, combined with an overall enrollment decline, is disrupting Los Angeles-area schools and exacerbating an ongoing budget crisis.

Local independently run charter schools added more than 9,500 students this fall, a surge of almost 19% to more than 60,000. At the same time, enrollment is down more than 19,000 students, about 3%, at schools affiliated with the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Total district enrollment has fallen to 678,441, down from a peak of 747,009 in 2003.

The drop has long-term implications, because school districts receive funding based on student attendance. Some ramifications are immediate: Schools simply cannot afford to employ more teachers than their student enrollment will pay for. The result is that many schools had to release teachers and distribute students into other classes a month or more into the school year.

The latest disruption comes on the heels of the layoffs of about 2,000 teachers in July. For the moment, no additional layoffs are planned, officials said. Edged-out teachers fill vacancies elsewhere or work as substitutes on full salary until a position opens. But that doesn't make the sudden changes any less disruptive.

By district calculations, Mulholland Middle School in Van Nuys had about eight teachers too many, though clever schedule shuffling and budget management reduced the casualties to four teachers.

Each of the four had been directly responsible for about 175 students, and almost no one among the school's 1,750 students escaped the effects.

Physical education classes, which already had been packed with more than 50 students, are now accommodating more than 60. At least one class ballooned briefly to 70. Elective computer classes ended; that teacher was needed for math. The band teacher agreed to mix beginners in with his advanced class, frustrating for eighth-grader Richard Catalan.

He also misses his former math teacher. "And classes are larger," he said. "It's harder for teachers to keep track of how the lesson is progressing."

Principal John White postponed back-to-school night for a month and Assistant Principal Jacqueline Purdy led a crisis team that reworked the schedule, giving priority to placing qualified teachers in core academic classes.

Purdy paid a former school clerk out of her own pocket to help out. The clerk had been bumped from the campus during the recent budget cuts.

Teacher Ricardo Stewart agreed to handle sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade history, tripling his preparation duties. Albert Estrada added on sixth-grade math and sixth-grade science to his eighth-grade science responsibilities. Match coach Gabriel Ortega added a math class to his full-time teacher-training duties while three other teachers gave up planning periods.

"It's hard getting used to new teachers, and new faces in the classrooms," said eighth-grader Emily Pinto. "It was a big adjustment."

Overall, the Mulholland faculty has shrunk by about 10 teachers and the enrollment by about 100 students, said Assistant Principal John Ford.

"The classes are kind of big," said Eva Vargas, Emily's mother. "And then they had to move all their schedules around. I'm worried that they're a little behind in math."

At the Santee Education Complex, a high school south of downtown, the faculty has shrunk from 140 to about 100 in a year, said Principal Richard J. Chavez. And ninth-grade enrollment was 200 fewer than expected.

Many factors affect enrollment, including birth rates, the availability of jobs and housing prices, but the growth of charter schools hasn't abated. Charters are publicly funded and operate free of many district regulations.

This fall, the Alliance for College-Ready Public Schools, a charter organization, opened five new schools, a connection not missed by Santee teacher Jose Lara.

"We think some of the students are going to charters," Lara said. "We've got to improve our educational program and prove to the community that we're doing a good job as well."

GAO CALLS FOUR STATES, INCLUDING CALIFORNIA, 'HIGH RISK' FOR STIMULUS SPENDING PROBLEMS

from news stories

The U.S. Department of Education has identified four states that are at “high risk” for economic-stimulus spending problems, according to a report issued  by the Government Accountability Office.

California, Illinois, Michigan, and Texas have been singled out for intensive technical assistance by the Education Department to help them implement good practices in using the federal money. The District of Columbia and Puerto Rico also made the department’s list.

click on image for full report>>

NO WAY TO SECURE SCHOOL FUNDING: A bill that would attract federal school grants also includes too many disparate ideas to be practical.

Los Angeles Times Editorial

November 4, 2009 -- If California schools want a piece of $4.2 million in new federal education grants, they'll have to make some changes. Legislation* by state Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles) and several coauthors would pave the way for those changes, but the bill is so awkwardly constructed at this point, with so many unnecessary and possibly harmful additions, that it doesn't deserve the fast-track passage Romero is seeking.

* smf: The Times' link points to a previous version of the bill, SBX5/1. CHECK HERE for the most recently amended version.

The bill moves in the right direction in enacting common-sense reforms that were outlined by U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan as requirements for states that want to compete for Race to the Top grants. The grants are intended to spur innovation at lackluster schools across the nation. One prerequisite: eliminating state limits on the number of charter schools that can be created. That's currently 100 per year in California. Romero's bill would lift the limit.

But from there, Romero goes off in her own direction with an unrelated proposal that would open enrollment throughout California's public schools. Children in low-performing schools could transfer to whatever school they wanted, in any district, whether or not those schools were open to taking more students, unless they could show they have no possible space. The Obama administration hasn't demanded any such change, and good public schools already have an incentive to welcome outside enrollment: They get more state money for each student. Legislation passed earlier this year will encourage more districts to admit students from outside their boundaries, but that's a decision each district should be free to make for itself.

Another provision would shut down some underperforming schools and send the students to surrounding schools. It's true that districts have been too reluctant to completely revamp failing schools, and the state needs a mechanism to force their hands. But those schools should be reconstituted with new leadership and staff and an improvement plan -- or be handed to a charter operator -- rather than having their doors shut. This bill would force students into longer commutes to schools that, in Los Angeles Unified at least, already are crowded.

Romero has tossed a hodgepodge of disparate ideas into this bill, some good, some poorly thought out, and others that already have been achieved through previous legislation. As her bill goes to committee this week, it should be streamlined into a simple piece of legislation that accomplishes one aim: qualifying California schools for the federal funds they urgently need.

BETRAYING THE CALIFORNIA DREAM: We're destroying the education system that made the state great

California's higher-education debacle: Watching the decline of the California State University system from within its boardroom mirrors the erosion of the California dream.

Op-Ed By Jeff Bleich | LA Times

November 4, 2009 -- For nearly six years, I have served on the Board of Trustees of the California State University system -- the last two as its chairman. This experience has been more than just professional; it has been a deeply personal one. With my term ending soon, I need to share my concern -- and personal pain -- that California is on the verge of destroying the very system that once made this state great.

I came to California because of the education system. I grew up in Connecticut and attended college back East on partial scholarships and financial aid. I also worked part time, but by my first year of grad school, I'd maxed out my financial aid and was relying on loans that charged 14% interest. Being a lawyer had been my dream, but my wife and I could not afford for me to go to any law schools back East.

I applied to UC Berkeley Law School because it was the only top law school in the U.S. that we could afford. It turned out to be the greatest education I have ever received. And I got it because the people of California -- its leaders and its taxpayers -- were willing to invest in me.

For the last 20 years, since I graduated, I have felt a duty to pay back the people of this state. When I had to figure out where to build a practice, buy a home, raise my family and volunteer my time and energy, I chose California. I joined a small California firm -- Munger, Tolles & Olson -- and eventually became a partner. This year, American Lawyer magazine named us the No. 1 firm in the nation.

That success is also California's success. It has meant millions of dollars in taxes paid to California, hundreds of thousands of hours of volunteer time donated to California, houses built and investments made in California, and hundreds of talented people attracted to work in and help California.

My story is not unique. It is the story of California's rise from the 1960s to the 1990s. Millions of people stayed here and succeeded because of their California education. We benefited from the foresight of an earlier generation that recognized it had a duty to pay it forward.

That was the bargain California made with us when it established the California Master Plan for Higher Education in 1960. By making California the state where every qualified and committed person can receive a low-cost and high-quality education, all of us benefit. Attracting and retaining the leaders of the future helps the state grow bigger and stronger. Economists found that for every dollar the state invests in a CSU student, it receives $4.41 in return.

So as someone who has lived the California dream, there is nothing more painful to me than to see this dream dying. It is being starved to death by a public that thinks any government service -- even public education -- is not worth paying for. And by political leaders who do not lead but instead give in to our worst, shortsighted instincts.

The ineffective response to the current financial crisis reflects trends that have been hurting California public education for years. To win votes, political leaders mandated long prison sentences that forced us to stop building schools and start building prisons. This has made us dumber but no safer. Leaders pandered by promising tax cuts no matter what and did not worry about how to provide basic services without that money. Those tax cuts did not make us richer; they've made us poorer. To remain in office, they carved out legislative districts that ensured we would have few competitive races and leaders with no ability or incentive to compromise. Rather than strengthening the parties, it pushed both parties to the fringes and weakened them.

When the economy was good, our leaders failed to make hard choices and then faced disasters like the energy crisis. When the economy turned bad, they made no choices until the economy was worse.

In response to failures of leadership, voters came up with one cure after another that was worse than the disease -- whether it has been over-reliance on initiatives driven by special interests, or term limits that remove qualified people from office, or any of the other ways we have come up with to avoid representative democracy.

As a result, for the last two decades we have been starving higher education. California's public universities and community colleges have half as much to spend today as they did in 1990 in real dollars. In the 1980s, 17% of the state budget went to higher education and 3% went to prisons. Today, only 9% goes to universities and 10% goes to prisons.

The promise of low-cost education that brought so many here, and kept so many here, has been abandoned. Our K-12 system has fallen from the top ranks 30 years ago to 47th in the nation in per-pupil spending. And higher education is now taking on water.

At every trustees meeting over the last six years, I have seen the signs of decline. I have listened to the painful stories of faculty who could not afford to raise a family on their salaries; of students who are on the financial edge because they are working two jobs, taking care of a child and barely making it with our current tuitions. I have seen the outdated buildings and the many people on our campuses who feel that they have been forgotten by the public and Sacramento.

What made California great was the belief that we could solve any problem as long as we did two things: acknowledged the problem and worked together. Today that belief is missing. California has not acknowledged that it has fundamentally abandoned the promise of the Master Plan for Higher Education. And Californians have lost the commitment to invest in one another. That is why we have lost our way in decision after decision.

Today, everyone in our system is making terrible sacrifices. Employee furloughs, student fee increases and campus-based cuts in service and programs are repulsive to all of us. Most important, it is unfair. The cost of education should be shared by all of us because the education of our students benefits every Californian.

We've gone from investing in the future to borrowing from it. Every time programs and services are cut for short-term gain, it is a long-term loss.

The solution is simple, but hard. It is what I'm doing now. Tell what is happening to every person who can hear it. Beat this drum until it can't be ignored. Shame your neighbors who think the government needs to be starved and who are happy to see Sacramento paralyzed. We have to wake up this state and get it to rediscover its greatness. Because if we don't, we will be the generation that let the promise for a great California die.

Jeff Bleich is the chairman of the Cal State University Board of Trustees and most recently served as special counsel to President Obama. This is adapted from his speech to the board.

HEALTH FOUNDATIONS JOIN FORCES TO IMPROVE CALIFORNIA SCHOOLS

by Amina Khan | LA Times LA NOW blog

November 3, 2009 |  6:58 pm

The California Education Supports project, a new joint venture between three nonprofit foundations, held its first forum Tuesday to address the effects of mental and physical health on California students. Nearly 100 community leaders, students, health and education professionals piled into a Manual Arts High School classroom to talk about those issues. 

The California Endowment, the James Irvine Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, which are funding the $700,000 effort,  plan to release policy papers and hold hearings in the next 12 to 24 months on a range of potential issues from childhood obesity to reproductive health.

The project is part of a broader effort to integrate student healthcare with educational goals, said Cecilia Echeverria of the California Endowment.

Manual Arts has an on-site health clinic, operated by St. John's Well Child and Family Center, which provides services to students, their families and the surrounding community. But some said the school should continue to focus on reducing violence.

"It makes people think about priorities a bit differently: 'How can we worry so much about vending machines when there are lockdowns on campus?'" said Linh Huynh with MLA Partner Schools, which helps manage Manual Arts. Huynh added that measures like school uniforms have significantly improved campus safety.

Erin Gabel, legislative director for state Assemblyman Tom Torlakson (D-Antioch), called Manual Arts High  “a great example of vision around student health services, but not necessarily a model of acting on that vision,” she said. “They’re demonstrating how difficult the steps are and how great the opportunities are.”

Torlakson, who chairs the Assembly Select Committee on Schools and Community, had planned the gathering as a legislative hearing, Gabel said, but the Assembly members slated to attend were called back to Sacramento to work on the water policy bill.

The event attracted health and education professionals from outside Los Angeles. Miguel Villarreal, food and nutritional services director for the Novato Unified School District in Marin County, raised the importance of providing students with inexpensive but healthy meals during a relatively short lunch break. “We want to see where they’re going and how we can leverage their work in our field — and make sure we’re included" [in the policy discussion], he said.

Camille Levee, executive director of Glendale Healthy Kids, came to see how the experts were planning to integrate dental, mental and physical care into public education. “We provide a connection between students and healthcare services, and we do case management,” she said. Levee said she came to see if any of the panelists were proposing a similar model.

CRISIS IN SCHOOL LEADERSHIP SEEN BREWING IN CALIFORNIA: Policy Experts Say State Lacks Comprehensive Human-Resources Policies for Principals

By Lesli A. Maxwell | Ed Week | Vol. 29, Issue 10, Page 9

Published Online: November 2, 2009

November 4, 2009| In California, where school budgets are being slashed and achievement remains stubbornly low in many districts, there is mounting concern that the supply of principals is too limited to manage the financial and academic challenges facing public schools.

Complicating matters, the state is at the front end of a wave of principal retirements, as some 40 percent of school leaders are expected to leave their jobs over the next decade. Large numbers of principals are also expected to depart the profession well before retirement age, making the recruitment of replacement talent and the retention of existing talent even more crucial.

But finding the best people to lead schools with a total of 6 million children—especially those serving large numbers of poor and low-achieving children—and creating the working conditions to keep them there, has not been a top priority for California education policymakers, some scholars and researchers say. When it comes to recruiting, training, compensating, and empowering principals to manage their schools effectively, the state’s policies are falling short, they contend.

“I think there are real questions about whether the principal workforce in this state is going to have the capacity to do this increasingly complex job and do it in the kind of budget environment that exists here in California,” said Susanna Loeb, an education professor at Stanford University, who co-wrote a recent policy brief that warns that school leadership in California needs urgent attention.

Said Margaret J. Gaston, the president of the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning, in Santa Cruz, Calif.: “We need to shine the same intensity of light on this school leadership issue that we’ve done on teachers. We know that the quality of teachers is inextricably linked to the quality of principals.”

Need for Information

Over the years, California policymakers have paid sporadic attention to school leaders. In 2003, they created leadership standards meant to guide what is taught in the state’s numerous principal-preparation programs. One highly regarded statewide professional-development program established in the 1980s, called the California State Leadership Academy, fell victim to budget cuts in 2003 and has never been fully re-established.

Persuading decisionmakers to focus on school leadership now may be difficult, as the state’s fiscal crisis is consuming most of their attention, and money remains too tight to invest in new programs.

But one education expert says the first step is gathering detailed information about who the state’s principals are, what kind of training they’ve had, and how they are distributed across schools.

<<"We know virtually nothing about this piece of the ... workforce. You have to know what you have before you can figure out what needs to be done to improve it."

MARGARET GASTON
President
Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning<<

“We know virtually nothing about this piece of the education workforce,” said Ms. Gaston, whose nonprofit Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning is helping to spearhead an effort to put the state’s principal workforce in the policy spotlight. “You have to know what you have before you can figure out what needs to be done to improve it.”

For example, Ms. Gaston said, no data exist to show whether California’s two-tiered system for obtaining an administrator credential makes a difference in the quality and skills of a principal. Under the system, which is somewhat unusual, prospective principals can take a test to earn their credential before they go on to participate in a formal preparation program.

“So we have no idea whether a principal who enters the job this way is doing as well as, better than, or worse than those who’ve been through a preparation program before they get the job,” Ms. Gaston said. “And we have so many administrators who enter the profession this way.”

Anecdotally, Ms. Gaston said that principals who enter their jobs through the “test-in” route tend to struggle like teachers who enter the profession with little to no training. And though California has created a longitudinal database for teachers, the data it collects for administrators so far is “limping behind,” she said.

And as is often the case with less-experienced teachers, Ms. Gaston expects to find that the least-prepared principals are probably assigned to oversee schools that most need to have accomplished veterans running them. A detailed report from Ms. Gaston’s organization will come out later this year.

Stretched Thin

But without even knowing the fine-grained characteristics of the state’s principal corps, Ms. Loeb points to several obstacles in California that have impeded the recruitment of top talent to the job and likely will continue to do so.

For starters, she said, school-based administrators in California are overworked compared with their peers nationally. During the 2006-07 school year—before the state’s fiscal crisis forced the layoffs of thousands of teachers and other academic support staff in schools—there were 447 students for every principal or assistant principal, compared with roughly 306 nationally. Losing teachers and staff members to tightening budgets has exacerbated that problem.

“There are just too few adults to help principals do the demanding work that’s required of them,” Ms. Loeb said. “When the field is stretched that thinly, it’s going to make recruitment of new talent very difficult.”

Then, when good prospects for the job—many of them members of the state’s teacher workforce—see the small pay differential between teachers and administrators, school administration becomes even less appealing, she said. For example, in the 2003-04 school year, principals earned an average of 1.6 times the base salary of teachers.

The state’s varied university-based preparation programs also present challenges to grooming the best school leaders, Ms. Loeb said.

Too few of them require their participants to have field-based internships, she said. In a national survey of principals conducted two years ago by Stanford University professor Linda Darling-Hamond, 63 percent of principals nationwide reported having internships as part of their training, compared with just 27 percent in California.

“That has got to change,” Ms. Loeb said. “This is a very demanding job in terms of the diversity of the tasks that principals have to do. How can anyone be expected to walk into the job as an instructional leader, an organizational leader, and a budget manager without first having a chance to experience that in their preservice training?”

Jon Schnur, the chief executive officer of New Leaders for New Schools, a nonprofit group based in New York City that recruits and trains promising school leaders and provides them with one year of a medical-school-like residency, said many of the California candidates for his program are drawn to the rich field experience they will get.

New Leaders places its principals in schools in the Oakland Unified School District, as well as in several charter schools in the Bay Area and one in Sacramento.

“They come to us because they feel like they are going to get really intensive training for how to achieve breakthrough gains,” Mr. Schnur said. “They don’t feel like they can really get that in other programs in the state.”

Mr. Schnur said aspiring principals in California also express frustration at the lack of pathways into the profession.

“You are going to lose out on a lot of the best people for this job if they think the only way they can get there is by going to be an assistant principal for 10 years,” he said.

Ms. Loeb, who singles out New Leaders as an exemplary program in her policy brief, also points to Long Beach Unified School District, where officials have created a leadership-development program that carefully identifies internal school leadership talent and provides opportunities to groom aspiring principals.

“We’ve got models in California that are working on a local level,” she said, “but we need to get serious about creating something on a much larger scale.”

Coverage of leadership and management issues is supported in part by The Wallace Foundation at www.wallacefoundation.org.

FALLING ENROLLMENT THREATENS LAUSD BUDGET: "The growth in charter enrollment, however, does not help the district's financial picture since the alternative schools are funded independently of LAUSD" – but 'Public School Choice' offers up 36 more this year!

EDUCATION: District sees student numbers shrink 10 percent since 2002

By Connie Llanos, Staff Writer LA Daily News (Online from the Contra Costa Times)

Posted: 11/03/2009 08:31:53 PM PST | Updated: 11/03/2009 08:33:33 PM PST

11/4 - Enrollment in the Los Angeles Unified School District has fallen to less than 680,000 students this year, nearly a 10 percent decline since its peak seven years ago, officials said Tuesday.

Enrollment at the district hit a high of more than 747,000 students in 2002, but that number has fallen steadily ever since.

District officials were not immediately available to explain general reasons for the decline, but they did say fewer students mean less money for the district overall, which could lead to further budget cuts and layoffs.

The district would have lost even more students had independent charter schools, which are publicly funded but free of most state and district mandates, not seen their enrollment grow by nearly 19 percent.

Enrollment in independent charter schools within the district's boundaries are included in the district's overall numbers.

This fall, 9,556 LAUSD students transferred from a district campus to a charter - bringing the district's charter school enrollment to nearly 57,000.

Total LAUSD enrollment fell to 678,584 for the 2009-10 school year, down from 688,138 in 2008-09 - a 1.4 percent decline.

The growth in charter enrollment, however, does not help the district's financial picture since the alternative schools are funded independently of LAUSD and do not hire district staff. While no teachers are expected to lose their jobs this year, hundreds were forced to move to new schools to fill vacancies caused by attrition and reorganization.

"If we have fewer students ... then we need fewer staff," said Vivian Ekchian, LAUSD's head of human resources.

"We are hoping we can work with our labor partners on ways to mitigate layoffs, but if the fiscal situation remains as it is, or worsens, there will be plans for additional reductions in force."

A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles, said the latest district enrollment figures only confirm the need for district officials to cut central office positions.

"We are always going to ask that the district cut away from the school sites because that is what's best for kids," Duffy said.

"We have been asking for years that the local district offices be cut ... now is the time."

The local increase in charter school enrollment is consistent with statewide growth trends. This fall saw the largest single-year gain in charter school enrollment in California, charter school officials said. Now, more than 809 charter schools are serving more than 341,000 students in the state.

"Parents and educators are looking to charters, more and more as mainstream options so we are seeing the pace of enrollment growth accelerate," said Jed Wallace, president of California Charter Schools Association.

"Of course, in Los Angeles we also have some of the highest-achieving, most respected charters in the country, which also affects the increase in enrollment."

The growth could even intensify in Los Angeles as LAUSD gets ready to launch its deep reform plan that will allow nonprofits and charters to bid to operate district schools.

For Profit/Higher Ed: AT UNIVERSITY OF PHOENIX, ALLEGATIONS OF ENROLLMENT ABUSES PERSIST

by Sharona Coutts, ProPublica

^^A University of Phoenix building in Tulsa, Okla. (Flickr user Lost Tulsa)^^

November 3, 2009 6:00 pm EDT - After federal regulators accused the University of Phoenix of systematic enrollment abuses in 2004, the school's parent company paid out nearly $10 million to resolve the allegations.

Phoenix allegedly had broken the law by tying recruiters' pay to enrollment numbers [1], U.S. Department of Education investigators found, creating pressure to sign up unqualified students.

In the years since, Phoenix cemented its stature as the nation's largest for-profit school and the single biggest recipient of federal student aid. But some of the school's recruiters have continued to use high-pressure, deceptive tactics, according to a dozen current and former students and two former recruiters who spoke to ProPublica and Marketplace [2] as part of a joint investigation.

______________________________________________________________

Document Dive

• Testimony on Recruiting Problems at For-Profit Colleges and Universities (PDF), National Association for College Admission Counseling, May 12, 2004
• University of Phoenix Program Review Report (PDF), Department of Education, August 2003

Two versions of this story were co-produced with National Public Radio Marketplace  One aired on Tuesday, Nov. 3, and the second will air on Wednesday, Nov. 4.

_____________________________________________________________

The students said Phoenix counselors misled them about whether credits would transfer to other schools, pretended to befriend them and lied about financial aid. The recruiters said they were told to rope students in with phony claims that classes were filling fast, or by suggesting federal grants would cover costs, even if that was uncertain.

Last week, Phoenix's parent company, the Apollo Group, announced that it had put aside $80 million to settle a whistleblower lawsuit that makes allegations similar to those in the 2004 investigation.

In making the announcement, Phoenix said its "compensation programs and practices were in compliance with the applicable legal requirements." And the university's president, Bill Pepicello, said in an earlier interview that if any recruiters had acted dishonestly, it was not with the company's approval.

Phoenix is not the only for-profit university to get into trouble in recent years. Over the past decade, federal and state agencies have found that other schools improperly paid recruiters based on how many people they sign up, falsified enrollment tests and fabricated financial aid documents.

But with the bad economy, the industry has boomed. Enrollments have leapt 20 percent in the last two years, as people look to gain skills or fill gaps in their resumes. Now the Obama administration plans to expand federal student aid programs to a record $130 billion, further benefiting the schools. Phoenix stands out. With 420,000 students, the school drew $3.2 billion in federal aid last year.

Critics worry that more students than ever are at risk of being sucked in by questionable enrollment methods and left with thousands of dollars of debt -- often without graduating.

"There is nothing more counterintuitive than to spend massive amounts of money and end up with actual adverse consequences, to leave people literally worse off after spending money on them," said Barmak Nassirian, of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, an industry group whose members include some for-profit schools.

But supporters say it's a mistake to paint the whole sector as scandal-ridden. Proprietary schools serve low-income and minority students, who often do not have access to traditional colleges, according to Diane Jones, a former Bush administration education appointee.

"I think to cast stones at the sector that is working the hardest to serve the most challenging students doesn't make sense," she said.

'Focused on the Numbers'

In July 2006, Brandon Burke took a recruiter job at the University of Phoenix in Portland, Ore. He'd previously worked at another for-profit university where he said he'd been pressured to enroll students so the school could collect the $50 application fee.

At first, things were different at Phoenix.

"It really was all about, 'Do the job the way it needs to be done and get the right people in here,'" Burke said.

But after two or three months, managers were pressuring recruiters to use what Burke felt were misleading techniques. Among other things, recruiters were encouraged to "create a sense of urgency," Burke said.

"One thing we would be told to do is call up a student who was on the fence and say, 'Alright, I've only got one seat left. I need to know right now if you need me to save this for you, because this class is about to get full.' Well, that wasn't true," Burke said. "We were told to lie."

The technique was often successful, according to Burke, who said recruiters also led students to believe that course credits could be readily transferred, even to top schools such as Stanford University.

"One of the things we were told to do was, 'You say we are regionally accredited, which means that they are transferred anywhere,'" Burke said.

Phoenix credits can be transferred, but the recipient school decides which credits to accept, and how many. Stanford has a cap on the number of credits it will accept from online schools, and performs its own assessment of whether the courses are equivalent, a university spokeswoman said.

Phoenix "became more focused on numbers. You had to enroll this amount of people all the time, and it started to become a little bit more about money," said Burke. "Not about finding the right students and helping the right students get into the program."

>>Michele Rambo found that her credits from the University of Phoenix were not transferrable.>>

Asked about such allegations, Pepicello, Phoenix's president, denied that counselors are trained to trick students into thinking that classes were filling up or that credit transfer was assured. But he defended telling students that credits could transfer to schools such as Stanford. He said recruiters are trained to explain that other institutions decide which credits to accept.

"We are regionally accredited, as is Stanford, and for that reason, normally credits will transfer between mutually regionally accredited institutions," he said.

Two former students told ProPublica that Phoenix recruiters had lied to them about the transferability of credits.

Angelia Baldwin of Aberdeen, S.D., signed up for a health care course at Phoenix in fall of 2006. Baldwin, 49, is part Native American and explained to her enrollment counselor that she wanted to study alternative therapies to further her new business making natural soaps and lotions. The business was inspired by her grandmother, Josephine, who was a medicine woman on the reservation in Minnesota where Baldwin grew up.

Baldwin said the counselor assured her she could take the general classes in health care and then transfer the credits to a school that offered alternative medicine.

After 18 months and $11,000 in tuition, Baldwin tried to enroll in Everglades University, another for-profit school, but was told her Phoenix credits would not count.

"I hit the roof," said Baldwin. "My enrollment was put on hold for six weeks before we worked some of this out. And I had to take clinical ethics and chemistry classes over again."

Michele Rambo, signed up at the Dallas campus. Rambo said enrollment counselors assured her that credits would transfer. After discovering problems with her financial aid, Rambo tried moving to Central Texas College and Tarrant County College, but neither would accept her Phoenix credits, she said.

"I don't really know if I’m going to be able to continue school after this," said Rambo, 23. "It's kind of, I had a plan and now I kind of don't."

University officials said they were unaware of such incidents.

Best Gloss on Financial Aid

Rambo also claims that the counselors misled her about financial aid.

"I told them specifically what I was looking for, and that was just grants and scholarships," she said. As counselors guided her through the paperwork, they assured her that, because she was six months pregnant, she was entitled to enough grants to cover her costs, Rambo said.

"They told me, it's like I was getting paid to go to school," she said. Then in May, Rambo got a call from a Phoenix counselor who wanted to move her into a bachelor's degree program. "One of the questions that she asked me completely stopped the whole conversation. She had asked me, 'So what kind of loan do you have?' And I told her that I didn't have a loan."

Rambo discovered she had loans that would total $18,000 by graduation. She is unemployed and her husband, who works in a factory, earns roughly $20,000 a year.

"They lied to me, and I signed things based on what they were telling me," she said.

Burke said managers were very clear that recruiters could not lie about the prospect of getting financial aid. But they were encouraged to make it seem likely.

"We would be told to say the phrase, 'And you don't know how much you might get in grants,'" he said. "So we were going by the letter of the law, in that we weren't promising a certain amount of grant money, but we were also told to phrase it in such a way that left it open and positive."

Pepicello said that he had not heard of such incidents at Phoenix and that they would not be condoned. "We train our financial counselors very carefully to provide an array of options to students and to try and be a specific as they can" about the implications, he said.

Burke and another counselor, Sarah Hunt, who worked at the Portland campus from 2004 to 2007, said there was pressure to push prospects into classes that clearly didn't match their desires.

Callers inquiring about a bachelor of education were steered into a communications degree, they said. People asking for psychology -- not offered at the school -- were steered into human services.

"We would get a lot of calls for CSI," said Burke, referring to the popular television show about forensic sleuths who solve crimes. "Sometimes we were told to go ahead and enroll them in the criminal justice program," he said.

The university confirmed that its criminal justice program might qualify a graduate to work as a prison guard, but not in forensic investigations.

Three women in different states say they were befriended by counselors but later came to see those friendships as a sales ploy.

<<Katherine Clark, with her boyfriend Daniel Ray and their dog Cadence, said her University of Phoenix recruiter was very friendly until Clark started having problems with the university.<<

Kat Clark of California and Teresa Barron, then living in Georgia, said Phoenix advisers invited them to meals. Clark went to a BBQ at her recruiter's house, and they exchanged text messages and e-mails during the work week.

Barron went to watch "Bruce Almighty" with her recruiter, who also talked to Barron about their shared religious beliefs. And Jewel Calderon, who then lived in Fayetteville, N.C., said her recruiter chatted with her grandmother.

"Every time he called, I was never home, so he would speak to my grandmother and he basically found out that we were Christian and deeply religious," she said. The recruiter prayed with Calderon's grandmother, in what Calderon described as "church over the phone."

"I just mainly felt like I could trust him since he said that he was so deeply religious," she said. "That's why I decided on that college as opposed to others."

In all three cases, when the students started having problems with the university, their new friendships evaporated.

"I don't think it was a genuine thing," said Clark. "I think it was more of a, 'This is my job and I'll do anything to make sure I get paid.'"

Pepicello, the Phoenix president, said the school does not encourage recruiters to use friendship as a sales technique. "Certainly that would not be a practice that we would condone," he said. "We try our best to instill a very professional demeanor in all our employees."

Asked why students would be steered to courses that didn't suit their needs, Phoenix spokeswoman Sara Jones said company policy is to "advise students of the educational options that would best meet their needs." Enrollment advisers undergo annual training on "ethics and misadvisement," she said.

Defenders of the University of Phoenix and other for-profit schools say a few anecdotes don't accurately represent practices in the entire sector.

"When you have a system that's this complex, with over 2 million students, with close to 3,000 institutions, once in a while you're going to have a rogue employee," said Harris Miller, president and CEO of the Career College Association, an industry lobby group.

"Any admissions officer who is misleading students should be fired," Miller said, "and if his or her supervisor told them to do so, that person should be fired."

The University of Phoenix is not the only for-profit school accused of misleading prospective students about credits. Class-action lawsuits against Phoenix's competitors -- including some of the biggest providers, such as Career Education Corporation and DeVry University -- make similar allegations.

The New Subprime?

In September, the Government Accountability Office published a report showing that some proprietary schools were enrolling students who did not meet the minimum requirements for college -- a high school education or its equivalent.

The GAO did not name any particular schools, but said that the instances had been referred to the Education Department's inspector general.

If prospective students don't have a high school degree or other academic credential, schools can admit them by administering an "ability to benefit" test, which is designed to ensure a candidate has sufficient skills for college.

The GAO sent two undercover inspectors to deliberately flunk the exam at one for-profit school. The contractors administering the test read the answers aloud to the applicants, and the inspectors later found that the school had crossed out their incorrect answers, and filled them in correctly.

At a congressional hearing about the report, Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, said he worried about an influx of unqualified students, many of whom take out government loans to pay tuition.

"We're developing a process here that looks a lot like subprime student loans," Miller said. "Knowing that these people don't have the capacity to pay it back, knowing that they may not have the ability to benefit from this education, we go ahead and extend them the credit."

Students at for-profit schools have higher than average loan default rates, according to the GAO report. The average rate at for-profits is 11 percent, compared with 6 percent across higher education, and just under 4 percent for nonprofit private colleges.

The University of Phoenix's rate, at 9.3 percent, is actually below the average at for-profit schools.

All of these numbers are low because, as earlier government reports have shown, the Department of Education tracks defaults only for the first two years after a student graduates. Defaults increase over time, exceeding 23 percent after four years at for-profit schools, according to the GAO.

Unlike other forms of debt, student loans cannot be erased in bankruptcy.

"Students who default on their student loans have their Social Security benefits intercepted, have their tax returns intercepted, have their wages garnished" and "are ineligible for any other federal benefit program until they arrive at a repayment solution," said Nassirian, of the association that represents college admission officers. "They are ruined for life."

Taxpayers don't suffer because, although the public underwrites the system by providing the loans, the program makes money overall, according to Department of Education estimates.

Some former students said they have had to postpone plans to go on to another college after dropping out of the University of Phoenix because they were saddled with debt.

Dropouts are an issue at Phoenix and other for-profits.

The Department of Education says 5 percent of students enrolled in University of Phoenix's online program graduate. The university says the rate is closer to 37 percent for an associate degree.

That is low for for-profit schools, according to the Career College Association's Miller, who said the average is about 60 percent -- the same as at four-year public universities, according to Department of Education data. Miller said the for-profit rate is higher than comparable two-year degrees at community colleges.

Nassirian said the combination of debt and low graduation means these colleges are hurting the people they're meant to help.

"When you see a pattern of consistent failure to deliver value," said Nassirian, "you are beginning to see, in my judgment anyway, a very high probability of institutional culpability."

Tougher Rules on Incentive Pay

Now, it looks like regulators may step up oversight of the sector.

This winter, the Department of Education will review the regulations governing for-profit schools, and compensation of enrollment officers is likely to be a key focus, said Jeff Silber, a financial analyst at BMO Capital who follows stocks of for-profit school.

Silber is bullish on the for-profit industry even as short-sellers crowd into the market, betting that shares of Phoenix's parent, the Apollo Group, and some other schools will plunge if regulators act.

Silber said regulators are looking seriously at tightening the rules on recruiter pay. Congress in 1992 passed a law banning enrollment-based compensation for schools that participate in the federal aid programs. But under the Bush administration, the Education Department introduced a dozen exceptions. Under those rules, Phoenix continues to use enrollment as one of several factors in recruiter pay.

Critics say those exceptions create pressure to cut corners. The National Association for College Admission Counseling, a group that represents high school and college admissions officers, said the exceptions, along with a "de-emphasis of oversight" during the Bush administration, "gutted" enforcement. The association wants the exceptions scrapped.

Industry backers say for-profit schools are being unfairly singled out by the Obama administration for political reasons. "It's no secret in Washington that for-profits are tremendous contributors to campaigns for Republicans," said Jones, the former Bush education appointee.

Education advocates say some fundamental changes are needed to protect students from abusive enrollment techniques.

"Too much of the federal funding that is pumped into the system in the name of increasing access to education is in fact being siphoned off by business men and women, and by Wall Street," said Nassirian. These companies "do not necessarily, in all instances, do a particularly spectacular job of delivering value."

STUNNED LONG BEACH WILSON HIGH STUDENTS GRIEVE FOR SLAIN CLASSMATE

Friday night's shooting jolts parents who consider campus to be the safest school in Long Beach.

Odell Smith, 16, covers his face and grieves with fellow Woodrow Wilson High students at the spot where Melody Ross was shot and killed. "I just saw her moments before she was shot...she was smiling," said Smith. (Barbara Davidson/Los Angeles Times / November 2, 2009)

By Seema Mehta | LA Times

November 3, 2009 -- Mourning students at Long Beach's Wilson High School gathered Monday by the pavement where classmate Melody Ross was shot after the homecoming football game. Leaving handwritten notes to Melody and her family, the teenagers lit candles and shed tears as they remembered the bubbly 16-year-old.

>>Melody Ross, a pole vaulter, was well-liked and had a positive attitude, friends say.Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times / >>

"Why her?" asked sophomore Micah Mathis, 15, who took French with Melody, an honors student. "That's what I want to know."

The mood at the coastal campus was somber as students, teachers and administrators struggled to comprehend what occurred Friday, when someone fired into a crowd of students leaving the game, striking three people, including Melody, who was fatally wounded.

Police patrol cars circled the school. The principal's voice cracked as she addressed students. Grief counselors met with a steady stream of teenagers, who wore black shirts in Melody's honor and released balloons during a lunchtime ceremony attended by her parents.

"It's a large high school, but it's like a family and it feels like we've lost one of our own," said Chris Eftychiou, spokesman for the Long Beach Unified School District. "The students are very resilient and they are helping each other get through this difficult time."

Wilson has 4,300 students, and is racially and economically diverse. The school serves some of the city's most affluent communities, yet half the students receive free or reduced-price lunches, a measure of poverty. Many parents consider Wilson, an early adopter of school uniforms, the safest high school in the city.

Tamura Howard of Signal Hill said her 14-year-old daughter previously attended a Christian school and that she believed Wilson is safe.

"That's why I put her in this school, it has a reputation for being safe and it's in a relatively good neighborhood," said Howard, noting that her daughter attended Friday's game. "This has given me nightmares."

The week had been a boisterous one on Wilson's campus, with pep rallies leading up to the game, and a dance. Students were hoping for an unlikely drubbing of crosstown rival Polytechnic High School, one of the nation's strongest high school football teams.

"Everyone was so, so excited," said senior Daisha Black, 17. "Everyone kept saying, 'Isn't it a good day to be a Bruin?' "

But minutes after the game, shots were fired on Ximeno Avenue just south of 10th Street, striking Ross and two others who are expected to survive.

Although there were hundreds of people leaving the campus, police have no witnesses or suspects. Anyone with information is asked to call the homicide detail at (562) 570-7244.

The Board of Supervisors is scheduled to vote today to offer a $10,000 reward.

Meanwhile, rumors swirled across campus about who shot Melody.

"People don't want to talk, they don't want to open their mouths," said Black, who was a few feet from Melody when the shooting occurred, and whose boyfriend comforted her while awaiting paramedics.

Students learned about the death Saturday morning through text messages and the Internet.

Madison Guest, 16, didn't believe the rumors until a friend asked her to bring flowers to track practice Saturday. She was on the team with Melody, and recalled hearing her boisterous cheers on the track.

"She was always happy and always supported me in my running," the junior said. "I'm still in shock. I just tried to go on with my day -- that's what she would have wanted."

Melody's parents were sequestered in their North Long Beach home Monday afternoon. The family fled the Khmer Rouge and the killing fields of Cambodia to move to Long Beach before Melody was born.

One month ago, tired of the violence in their last neighborhood, near Anaheim Street, the center of Long Beach's large Cambodian community, the family moved to North Long Beach.

The district's superintendent set up a fund to help the family with funeral costs and other needs at: http://www.lbusd.k12.ca.us/Community/Education_Foundation/melody_ross_fund.cfm.

Related stories

Updates from L.A. Now

• $10,000 reward likely in slaying of Long Beach honors student 11/03/2009, 6:31 a.m.
• No motive, no suspects in slaying of Wilson High honors student 11/02/2009, 6:57 a.m.

From the L.A. Times

• Student at Long Beach’s Wilson High fatally shot after homecoming game
• Wilson High School track athlete killed after football game in Long Beach
• 16-year-old girl fatally shot after high school football game in Long Beach

From other L.A. sources

• Wilson students in shock over fatal shooting|dailybreeze.com
• Teen girl dead in shooting after Wilson-Poly game|presstelegram.com
• 1 Killed, 2 Hurt in Shooting After HS Football Game|ktla.com

CA Elections: TAXES & BONDS TOP LOCAL BALLOTS - OXNARD, CULVER CITY & PALMDALE SEEK SCHOOL PARCEL TAX

Many cities and school districts, hit hard by the recession, will ask voters Tuesday to approve new spending.

By Jean Merl and Ann M. Simmons | LA Times

November 2, 2009 - Across Southern California, recession-pinched cities and school districts are asking their voters for help in Tuesday's local elections.

Besides choosing from among scores of candidates for city councils, school boards and other local agencies, voters will decide on a slew of ballot questions, many of which involve money.

With the state mired in its own budget problems and the effects of recession gripping California, local governments and school districts "are on their own" if they need more money, said Dan Carrigg, legislative director for the League of California Cities.

"Cities have been doing the best they can," Carrigg said, "but there are a lot of needs out there for infrastructure and services, and it looks like, for the next few years at least, we can't expect much assistance from the state."

Unlike the state Legislature, local governments generally cannot raise taxes without voters' permission. So measures seeking approval of parcel taxes or school bonds, increases in the sales tax or the updating and continuation of utility or communications taxes have become ballot staples in virtually every election cycle.

On Tuesday, voters in the Oxnard School District will be asked for a $99 tax on each property, to be collected annually for four years, to stave off program cuts and avoid teacher layoffs. Culver City and Long Beach unified school districts are seeking annual five-year parcel taxes of $96 and $92, respectively, also to spare schools from the budget ax. Such taxes require approval from two-thirds of participating voters.

Voters will be asked to approve hotel tax measures in the cities of Artesia, Banning, Blythe, Norco and Rancho Palos Verdes. South Pasadena wants to extend its library tax, and the city of Ventura is asking for a half-cent hike in the sales tax for four years to help pay for police, roads and libraries.

Other cities -- including Coachella, Huntington Park, Palm Springs and Pomona -- are hoping for permission to update and retain their utility-users or communications taxes. And Redondo Beach is asking voters to remove an exemption for a corporation-owned electricity-generating plant.

The city of Palmdale is pitching a proposed new city charter as its ticket to a more secure financial future, in part by giving officials more flexibility in contracting for projects and services.

"It doesn't cost us much," Palmdale City Manager Steve Williams said about the proposal to have the city operate under its own charter instead of municipal rules spelled out by the state, "but it gets us some benefits in determining our destiny."

"We see the charter as providing a lot of small opportunities to either save money or generate money," Williams added.

The measure, which requires a simple majority vote to pass, had initially concerned some unions, who suspected it could be a tool for lowering pay and benefits or for making it easier to privately contract for work traditionally done by public employees. But backers of the measure say it also provides leeway for officials to offer higher wages.

Quality-of-life issues also appear on some of Tuesday's ballots. In Ventura, voters will revisit a long-hot topic: protecting views in the city's historic downtown area.

A yes vote on Measure B would ban construction of any building taller than 26 feet for up to two years. During that period, a 23-member board, appointed primarily by backers of the measure, would write and seek approval of a permanent view protection ordinance.

The measure is backed by Ventura Citizens Organized for Responsible Development, a group concerned that development is destroying coastal and hillside views in downtown and mid-town neighborhoods. Critics say Measure B is overly complicated and not needed. If it is passed, a new hotel and other construction slated for the beach area could be put on hold. Opponents also say stricter regulation could stall economic growth.

Residents of several small unincorporated communities will weigh in on whether they want to be annexed to the city of Santa Clarita (Measure A), to form their own new city (Measure B) or to remain under the jurisdiction of Los Angeles County (Measure C). Measure A is a nonbinding advisory vote.

The Santa Clarita Valley communities include Sunset Pointe, Stevenson Ranch, Southern Oaks, Westridge, Tesoro, Castaic and Val Verde.

For communities considering annexation, the city of Santa Clarita boasts, in a color brochure, that it offers "excellent" municipal services and "great" opportunities for business, among other features. City Manager Kenneth R. Pulskamp said his city pursues annexation only "if people show they are interested."

He added, "There have been a lot of people who have made it very clear over the years that they want to be a part of Santa Clarita."

Leaders of some of the communities see things differently.

"Santa Clarita has for a long time wanted to expand their boundaries," said Ron Mechsner, president of the West Ranch Town Council, which represents some of the communities; he said those communities, commonly known as Westside, "feel pressured by" the city.

POLICY SKIRMISHING PUTS LAUSD REFORM AT RISK: Disputes by charter operators over boundaries and parents over where reforms are targeted first are threatening the Public School Choice initiative.

LA Times Editorial

November 2, 2009 -- It's back to business as usual at the Los Angeles Unified School District, and that's not a good thing. The district's potentially transformational initiative to open about 250 schools to outside management is in danger of being undermined as various interest groups stake out turf. The central goal of the program -- to radically refashion education for the district's most disadvantaged students -- could be lost in the skirmishing.

The Public School Choice policy approved by the school board in August was unfortunately vague, a strategy to overcome resistance from various quarters. Now that Supt. Ramon C. Cortines is crafting the detailed implementation of the policy, groups that sought to put their stamp on it are raising objections.

Strange to say, the biggest threat to the initiative comes from charter school operators, which have the most to gain from it. The program will allow outside organizations to bid to run about 50 new schools and 200 chronically underperforming ones over the next several years, and most of those proposals were expected to come from charter groups. But many charter operators are rebelling against a provision in the initiative that requires them to give enrollment preference to students within each school's attendance boundaries.

Charter schools usually admit students through a lottery regardless of where in the district they live, a requirement under state law. There are exceptions, though, the most notable one being Locke High School in Watts, which was taken over by Green Dot Public Schools last year under an agreement that it would educate the students within Locke's boundaries. But the California Charter Schools Assn. finds the district's attendance-boundary requirement untenable, and some charter operators are threatening to abandon the initiative altogether.

That would be a shame, but Cortines should hold firm and should receive the full support of the board on this issue. The attendance boundaries are among the strongest elements of the new policy. Neighborhoods throughout the district, many of them with the most disadvantaged students, have been waiting years for new schools to open and for reform at their existing local schools. The parents will play a role in deciding which organizations should run those schools, and their children should be guaranteed seats in them. Lotteries are a fair method for admitting students to traditional charter schools, but they also favor students whose parents are informed and involved enough to enter the lotteries in the first place -- which also means that these schools attract a motivated population of students and families. Left out are many students, such as foster children, who most need well-run schools.

What the charter operators do need is more flexibility in spending their money. They rightly object to provisions that would require them to use such district services as maintenance and cafeteria workers, even though they could get these services cheaper by hiring their own staffs or contracting outside. The district's service unions and some board members have been adamant about keeping this restriction. If they succeed, it should be with the requirement that the district provides competitive prices. Charters' ability to put more of their money into classrooms is key to their success.

Parent Revolution, a group that advocates an empowered role for parents, also is lobbying for a change of rules. It wants current and future parents at low-performing schools to be able to push their schools to the front of the reform line if more than half sign a petition. Cortines is only willing to designate such schools as "engagement schools," which would begin a long process of deciding whether and when they join the initiative. We have some doubts about the petition effort -- the district should give top priority to the lowest-achieving schools, not to the ones with the most organized parents. But the procedure Cortines has laid out seems more likely to frustrate parents than empower them.

If the Public School Choice initiative does not emerge as a strong reform policy, L.A. Unified will be signaling its ongoing inability to fix itself and its schools -- which could prompt an outside takeover of the district. It is imperative that students' needs not be overshadowed this time by adult priorities.

SCHOOL CHOICE PLAN TARGETS SAN FERNANDO MIDDLE SCHOOL AND 35 OTHERS

By Connie Llanos, Staff Writer, LA Daily News

---

Editor's Note: San Fernando Middle School is one of 36 campuses up for bid under the School Choice Plan, a reform effort that allows non-profit groups to vie to operate underperforming and new schools. The Daily News will follow this campus as it progresses throughout the controversial conversion this year.

---

Oct 31, 2009 | Established in 1896, San Fernando Middle School is viewed as a cornerstone of its community and a rite of passage for generations of residents who have passed through its halls.

Some traditions at the Valley's oldest campus are likely to end, however, as San Fernando finds itself on a list of 36 schools about to be taken over by outside operators.

In a last-ditch effort to improve performance at lagging campuses, Los Angeles Unified is putting them out to bid, a move that could result in San Fernando being converted to an independent charter, magnet or pilot school.

While the future of the school is uncertain, staff and parents are determined to pull together to make the best of the situation.

"The beauty of this community is that it's tight-knit and really cares about children and education," said Maria Reza, a former principal of the middle school.

"There are many families who have lived here for generations ... Whoever takes this school needs to capitalize on that to be successful."

Over the next four months, parents, educators and staffers at San Fernando and the 35 other "focus schools" will be asked to help determine the future of the local campuses.

Eduardo Solorzano, appointed this fall as San Fernando's principal, is responsible for navigating participants through the complex process.

"This is definitely trial by fire," Solorzano said.

No one at San Fernando Middle School expected the campus to be swept up in the School Choice Plan, which targets LAUSD's poorest performers.

"We were shocked and disappointed to be chosen," said Christine Provencio, a parent representative with LAUSD and the mother of a San Fernando student. "As parents we didn't understand why... We feel like we have a great school that's driven."

In fact, San Fernando has made significant improvements on standardized achievement tests in recent years, including a 35 point gain in its Academic Performance Index in 2008.

Parents also brag about the school's mariachi music program - the first in the Valley - and the campus' partnership with Project Grad and similar drop-out prevention programs.

And Reza, the school's former principal, was tapped last year to reform Fremont High School - one of the district's lowest performing schools.

Nevertheless, San Fernando still met the criteria for inclusion in the reform plan, such as:

Being a low-performing school for more than three years, based on state and federal academic benchmarks.

Having fewer than 21 percent of students proficient in English or math.

Declining state test scores in 2009. San Fernando's API score dropped three points last year.

"When you look at the criteria, it is the `what have you done for me lately' criteria," Solorzano said. "Whatever happened two or three years ago is irrelevant and we happened to meet every single criteria."

The selection was also a blow for teachers, who in recent years had tried to improve student achievement by dividing the campus by themes and grade levels.

Still, the 93-member teaching staff is prepared to work hard and to cooperate with the new operator.

"At this school we focus on solutions," said Laura Tracy, a union representative and history teacher at San Fernando for the last five years.

Still, Tracy said teachers plan to draft a plan that would incorporate the small learning communities already established at the school. Faculty members at the school have also expressed interest in the pilot school model - a district-operated campus that has flexibilities with budget, curriculum, schedule and staffing.

Whether the school remains a traditional campus, a charter, magnet or pilot school, community members want to ensure that long-established traditions are retained.

"We can see this as a negative or as an opportunity to improve," Solorzano said. "There is a confidence that has come out of this for our staff and we are determined to improve things for our students."

Meanwhile, elsewhere… FOR DEBATE: WHO PICKS SCHOOL BOARD

 

By WINNIE HU | New York Times

November 1, 2009 -- MONTCLAIR, N.J. -- THE hot button in Tuesday’s election in this school-obsessed suburb is not Democrat or Republican, Corzine or Christie, but something closer to home: Who gets to choose the school board?

Montclair, whose system of magnet schools has become a national model of racial integration, has one of the few remaining appointed boards in New Jersey (4 percent of school boards nationally are appointed).

A group of residents who felt the board ignored their concerns about school budgets and policies put a referendum on Tuesday’s ballot on whether to make the board elected, like those in 550 other New Jersey districts. A countergroup formed to defend the appointment process, and lines were drawn at farmers’ markets, parks and coffeehouses, in the local newspaper and on blogs.

“It’s out of control,” said Ofira Bondorowsky, 35, a mother of two boys who wants an elected board. “There are people who are getting a lot of heat from their friends.”

The school board issue has divided a township of about 37,000, whose voters have rebuffed four previous efforts to change to an elected board, the last time in 1995, by more than 2 to 1. The debate has caught on again, amid frustration over rising property taxes and an influx of newcomers who moved to Montclair largely for its schools and want more say over everything from budgets to principal selection.

Such campaigns have become more common in a tough economy, as parents with school-age children join forces with others to gain more control over the single largest expense for suburban communities: education. About 77 miles southwest of Montclair, Beverly residents will also vote on Tuesday on whether to switch from an appointed to an elected school board. In Brick Township on the Jersey Shore, which already holds direct school elections, voters unhappy with school spending helped to defeat a $172 million plan for school repairs in a September referendum.

Similarly, busing costs drove two New York districts, Blind Brook, in Westchester County, and Commack, on Long Island, to hold referendums last spring on transporting fewer students (both proposals failed). And more generally, anti-tax sentiments spurred homeowners in Evans, near Buffalo, to vote to downsize their town board next year to three members from five.

“People are feeling that they have lost their voice, and it’s reaching a point where it’s becoming unacceptable,” said Jerry Cantrell, president of the New Jersey Taxpayers Association, who blames school boards — elected and appointed — for failing to keep taxes in check.

But school superintendents and board members say the frustration over school spending is misdirected. They say they have little control over the fixed costs, like salaries and utilities, that make up more than three-quarters of school budgets. In many states, wealthy districts like Montclair get less state aid; and in suburbs with few businesses, homeowners carry the tax burden.

The 6,700-student Montclair district spends an average of $15,101 per student, slightly higher than the state average of $14,359. But state aid accounts for 9 percent of the district’s revenue, and local taxes, 86 percent, compared with a state average of 39 percent and 52 percent, respectively. The district raised its budget 3.3 percent this year to $113 million, the smallest increase in years, school officials said. Montclair homeowners faced a comparable increase in their property tax bills, to an average of $15,587.

Montclair’s school board has seven members, appointed by the mayor to unpaid three-year terms. There is no public vote on the budget. It is approved, instead, by a Board of School Estimate, which consists of the mayor and two members each from the school board and the elected Township Council.

“It’s too incestuous here,” Ms. Bondorowsky said. “There’s really no healthy debate going on. They’re all kind of connected, and it is one big party, you know?”

Jerry Fried, the mayor, acknowledged that the school board could communicate more about its decisions, and he is creating a nominating committee to involve more residents in selecting members. But he and some current school board members say the appointment system lets them focus on policy, not politics.

“This is not prime-time TV,” said Shirley Grill, 61, a business consultant who is serving her second term. “There’s a lot of deliberation, but I think they think we’re not doing anything because it’s quiet, it’s done.”

Shelly Lombard, 50, a financial analyst also in her second term, said many of the people raising concerns about the budget also worried about losing the best teachers to better-paying districts. “I think this notion that we can automatically wave a wand and keep the budget down is unrealistic,” she said.

But Michael Villella, 43, an engineering consultant who pays about $10,000 a year in school taxes, said too much was spent on administration. At Watchung elementary school, which his two daughters attend, Mr. Villella said parents are asked to buy basic supplies like paper towels, tissues, markers and glue sticks.

“The joke is, next year we’re going to have to buy the textbooks,” he said.

Supporters of an appointed school board — including the League of Women Voters of the Montclair Area — counter that school board elections statewide typically draw less than 15 percent of voters, and that they would cost the town $50,000 a year. They worry that an elected board would attract only candidates willing to campaign, and that it could be hijacked by special-interest groups or parents who want to return to a system of neighborhood schools.

Since 1977, Montclair’s system of 10 magnet elementary and middle schools and one high school has built a reputation for integration and reducing the achievement gap between racial groups. Today’s student body is 36 percent black, 7 percent Hispanic and 6 percent Asian.

“There are a lot of new people who don’t know the history of Montclair and the long, difficult struggle we went through to get to this point,” said Carolyn Lack, 80, a spokeswoman for Montclair’s League of Women Voters.

Advocates for an elected board include longtime residents like Thomas Russo, the former police chief, and Pegi Adam, who says she does not want to change the magnet system — just to be included in decisions. “The reason people live in a small town is so they can participate,” she said.

Ms. Adam handed out fliers the other night at a town debate on the school board issue that drew, among others, nine Boy Scouts taking notes for merit badges in citizenship and communication. Seven of the Scouts said they favored an appointed board.

“We have a lot of special programs and field trips that wouldn’t be possible without high budgets,” said Abe Kolko, 13, an eighth grader at Glenfield Middle School. “Compared to a lot of places in the country, we have a relatively wealthy economic situation, and I think we can afford it.”

Update: 16-YEAR-OLD GIRL FATALLY SHOT AFTER HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL GAME IN LONG BEACH

Cara Mia DiMassa | LA Times LA NOW blog

October 31, 2009 |  7:27 am

A 16-year-old girl died after a shooting following a football game at Wilson High School in Long Beach.Two people were wounded.

Long Beach police spokeswoman Sgt. Dina Zapalski said the shooting occurred Friday night at about 10 p.m., just as people were leaving a football game between Wilson and Long Beach Polytechnic.

Zapalski said details were still sketchy. LB Report said that a 18-year-old man and a 20-year-old man sustained non-life-threatening injuries and that the gunman was still at large.

Long Beach police interviewed students and others who were in the area near 10th Street and Ximeno Avenue.

It's unclear whether the victims were students at Wilson or Poly.

16-YEAR-OLD-GIRL FATALLY SHOT AFTER HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL GAME IN LONG BEACH

by Cara Mia DiMassa | LA Times LANow blog

October 31, 2009 |  7:27 am -- A 16-year-old girl died after a shooting following a football game at Wilson High School in Long Beach.Two people were wounded.

Long Beach police spokeswoman Sgt. Dina Zapalski said the shooting occurred Friday night at about 10 p.m., just as people were leaving a football game between Wilson and Long Beach Polytechnic.

Zapalski said details were still sketchy. LB Report said that a 18-year-old man and a 20-year-old man sustained non-life-threatening injuries and that the gunman was still at large.

Long Beach police interviewed students and others who were in the area near 10th Street and Ximeno Avenue.

It's unclear whether the victims were students at Wilson or Poly.

PLENTY OF QUESTIONS BUT NO EASY ANSWERS IN WAKE OF GANG RAPE: Brutality of the incident at Richmond High is hard to fathom.

A sophomore girl was raped and beaten at this Richmond High picnic area by as many as 10 people, police say. (Noah Berger/Associated Press / October 27, 2009)

By Sandy Banks | LA Ttmes columnist

October 31, 2009 - The sense of horror seems to be fading at Richmond High -- the Northern California school that made news around the world this week after a 15-year-old girl was gang-raped outside a campus homecoming dance while a crowd of students watched but did nothing to intervene.

Local school board members in this East Bay city near Oakland want to promote safety measures -- fences, lights, security cameras -- on the drawing board for years, now about to be delivered.

Richmond High students want outsiders to stop calling them animals and savages. "We feel like they're blaming the school," an angry senior complained at a school board meeting I attended Wednesday night. "It wasn't nobody's fault," she said. "People shouldn't be pointing fingers."

And school officials are making sure to emphasize the tragedies that didn't happen.

The homecoming dance "was a success in terms of safety because nothing happened at the event," a campus police officer announced. "We have a safe environment at Richmond High."

And I wondered if that made the students feel better, as I surveyed the secluded swath of campus where the sophomore girl was raped and beaten for two hours last Saturday night while the partygoers danced in the gym.

Police said as many as 10 people participated in the attack while 20 others watched -- jeering, taking photos and messaging friends to join them.

The sideshow went on until almost midnight, when police were called by a girl whose boyfriend had turned down the invitation to come have sex with "a drunk girl." Officers found the victim cowering under a bench, half-naked, intoxicated and semiconscious.

The girl was hospitalized for four days. Five suspects face felony charges.

I've thought about the theories offered by experts this week to explain the brutality of the attack and the onlookers' passivity.

They blamed music and video games that glamorize violence; desensitized men who treat women like pieces of meat; the disengagement of young people in a world ruled by technology, where real life is what's on YouTube. Or the powerlessness these disenfranchised kids feel in their violent neighborhood and fractured families.

All of it rang true to me. But it wasn't enough, so I headed for Richmond High and found students struggling to understand how their campus had become the latest example of urban depravity.

Their theories are drawn from campus gossip and what their own lives in this working-class town have taught them.

The troublemakers at Richmond are emulating what they see in popular culture. "A lot of them, they don't think they're going to be successful," said junior Olachi Obioma. "They've already been judged, so they go with that. They drink, they smoke, they pop pills. It's the 'bad boy' culture. That's how they see themselves."

And the girls are saddled with similar pressures. "It's our mentality that's wrong," said junior Kami Baker. "Look at our pop culture. The way the girls dress, the way the guys use them for sex and the girls keep going back. . . . It's hard for some girls to rise above that."

Kami is a friend of the girl who was raped. The last time she saw her, they were dancing together at homecoming. "She looked so happy, so pretty" in a sparkly purple dress, dangling earrings and silver heels.

"People are saying it's her fault because she got drunk. But that could have been me. They beat her up and no one did anything to help her."

Explain that, I asked the students I talked to. And their explanations were as good as the experts':

The kids who watched were scared to tell, afraid that "snitching" would make them targets.

Or they thought the girl was a willing participant; that it might be a gang initiation ritual. Guys get "jumped in" to gangs, girls get "sexed in," some said.

Or they didn't intervene because they didn't know the girl and didn't feel compelled to help a stranger. On a big, racially mixed campus like Richmond, you stick with your own and mind your business.

Or, they were simply so shocked their minds went blank.

"Maybe they were just caught in the moment," suggested Olachi, who wore a "Stop Violence Against Women" button pinned to her backpack.

She wasn't at the dance and didn't know the victim, but believes she would have tried to stop the attack. "I'm surprised that no one went and got a security guard," she said. "But maybe people didn't know what to do. Because we never thought this would happen. So we never learned about it."

::

I thought about all those sexual harassment classes and date rape warnings and "no means no" slogans we offer up to our sons and daughters. While they are binge-drinking, hooking up and freak dancing.

How, when confronted with such an obvious violation of humanity, could so many teenagers fall so short and feel so unashamed about it?

The students I talked to after the fact at Richmond High all said they would have intervened. And yet, none of them denounced the kids who didn't.

I sensed they couldn't reconcile the conflict between their ideals and their reality.

And we can't solve all their problems with taller fences, brighter lights and tighter security.

Kami Baker said she was friendly not just with the victim, but with one of the jailed suspects as well.

"He was a genuinely nice guy," she said. She'd tutored him in English class for one semester, two years back. "He was quiet, kind of shy."

The victim knew him too, she said. And when police found her stripped, beaten and violated, the boy was there.

"I just don't get it," Kami said.

Related stories

From other L.A. sources

• 2 Arrested in Gang Rape of Teen Outside High School Dance|ktla.com

Around the Web

• California City Mobilizes In Response To Rape|npr.org
• Video: Gang Rape Investigation|cbsnews.com

NAUGHTY ACROSTIC IN GOVERNOR’S VETO MESSAGE: What are the odds? (A lesson in statistical analysis – I swear)

By Ashley Harrell in San FranciscoWeekly News blog

Wed., Oct. 28 2009 @ 4:59PM

 

In examining Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's letter to the California State Assembly in which the letters I F-U-C-K Y-O-U appear vertically down the left-hand side, it is hard to imagine that it could have happened randomly.

The letter purportedly explains Schwarzenegger's refusal to sign AB 1176 -- an ordinary piece of legislation regarding the Port of San Francisco's finances -- which happened to be sponsored by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, who recently told the governator to "kiss my gay ass." Motive? Check.

In all seriousness, we wondered what the chances were that the letters "I FUCK YOU" ended up on the page via sheer coincidence. So we called a few math professors.

Stephen Devlin, the chair of the math department at the University of San Francisco, got excited about the challenge. The first thing he had to do was estimate how frequently the letters in question generally appear at the beginning of words.

"I was very friendly to our governor, here," Devlin said. He assumed that F, U, C, K, Y, O, and U start words about 10 percent of the time, when really some of them probably only appear at the beginning 2 or 3 percent of the time.   

Next, Devlin calculated the chances that each of those letters would appear in order at the beginning of seven lines of the same missive by raising 10 percent to the seventh power. That comes out to one in 10 million. (Devin felt that starting a letter with I was very common, so didn't factor it into his calculations. If he had, the chance of a random I FUCK YOU would have been one in 100 million).

"Not surprisingly, it's virtually impossible for this to happen," Devlin said.

He didn't think it was necessary to consider the well-placed blank lines in-between the I and FUCK and the FUCK and YOU. We, however, thought that called for more calculations.

Gregory McColm, associate professor of mathematics at the University of South Florida, was willing to go there. "Oh good heavens," he said, upon viewing the letter in question. Then he mentioned something about Edgar Allan Poe's "The Gold-Bug" and the frequency of letters, and eventually came up with same initial calculations as Devlin.

McColm, however, opted to include the "I" and go with one in 100 million. Then he did some fast figuring using something called "combinatorics" to account for the fact that the blank lines showed up in the right places to space out I FUCK YOU. McColm's ballpark figure of all this randomly occurring came out to one in 2 billion.

So you're saying there's a chance?