OBAMA’S RACE TO THE TOP: Who’ll blink first: the unions, or the White House?

OPINION | REVIEW & OUTLOOK from The Wall Street Journal

31 July, 2009 -- The Obama Administration unveiled its new “Race to the Top” initiative late last week, in which it will use the lure of $4.35 billion in federal cash to induce states to improve their K-12 schools. This is going to be interesting to watch, because if nothing else the public school establishment is no longer going to be able to say that lack of money is its big problem.

Four billion dollars is a lot of money, but it’s a tiny percentage of what the U.S. spends on education. The Department of Education estimates that the U.S. as a whole spent $667 billion on K-12 education in the 2008-09 school year alone, up from $553 billion in 2006-07. The stimulus bill from earlier this year includes some $100 billion more in federal education spending—an unprecedented amount. The tragedy is that nearly all of this $100 billion is being dispensed to the states by formula, which allows school districts to continue resisting reform while risking very little in overall federal funding.

All of this is on top of the education spending boom during the Bush years to pay for the 2001 No Child Left Behind law. Democrats liked to claim that law was “underfunded,” but the reality is that inflation-adjusted Education Department elementary and secondary spending under President Bush grew to $37.9 billion from $28.3 billion, or 34%. NCLB-specific funding rose by more than 40% between 2001 and 2008.

It’s also worth noting that the U.S. has been trying without much success to spend its way to education excellence for decades. Between 1970 and 2004, per-pupil outlays more than doubled in real terms, and the federal portion of that spending nearly tripled. Yet reading scores on national standardized tests have remained relatively flat. Black and Hispanic students are doing better, but they continue to lag far behind white students in both test scores and graduation rates.

< Education Secretary Arne Duncan and President Obama - Associated Press

So now comes “Race to the Top,” which the Obama Administration claims will reward only those states that raise their academic standards, improve teacher quality and expand the reach of charter schools. “This competition will not be based on politics, ideology or the preferences of a particular interest group,” said President Obama on Friday. “Instead, it will be based on a simple principle—whether a state is ready to do what works. We will use the best data available to determine whether a state can meet a few key benchmarks for reform, and states that outperform the rest will be rewarded with a grant.”

Sounds great, though this White House is, at the behest of the unions, also shuttering a popular school voucher program that its own evaluation shows is improving test scores for low-income minorities in Washington, D.C. The Administration can expect more such opposition to “Race to the Top.” School choice is anathema to the nation’s two largest teachers unions, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, which also oppose paying teachers for performance rather than for seniority and credentials.

NEA President Dennis Van Roekel told the Washington Post last week that charter schools and merit pay raise difficult issues for his members, yet Education Secretary Arne Duncan has said states that block these reforms could jeopardize their grant eligibility. We’ll see who blinks first. The acid test is whether Messrs. Duncan and Obama are willing to withhold money from politically important states as the calendar marches toward 2012.

Race to the Top is bound to have some impact, and lawmakers in several states—including Tennessee, Rhode Island, Louisiana and Massachusetts—already have passed charter-friendly legislation in hopes of tapping the fund. But the exercise will fail if it is merely a one-off trade of cash for this or that new law. The key is whether the money can be used to promote enough school choice and other reforms that induce school districts to change how the other $800 billion or so is spent.

Charter schools and voucher programs regularly produce better educational outcomes with less money. But as long as most education spending goes to support the status quo, Race to the Top will be mostly a case of political show and tell.

COURT SAYS ENGLISH-ONLY TESTS OK IN SCHOOLS

Bob Egelko, SAN FRANCISCO Chronicle Staff Writer

(07-30) 17:21 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- California is entitled to administer school achievement tests and high school exit exams in English to all students, including the nearly 1.6 million who speak limited English, a state appeals court ruled Thursday.

The First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco rejected arguments by bilingual-education groups and nine school districts that English-only exams violate a federal law's requirement that limited-English-speaking students "shall be assessed in a valid and reliable manner."

The federal law, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002, neither requires nor forbids testing in a student's native language and leaves such decisions largely up to the states, the court said in a 3-0 ruling. It noted that the U.S. Department of Education has approved the state Board of Education's testing plans since 2002, though department auditors recently suggested more accommodations for limited-English-speakers.

The law does not authorize a court to act as "the official second-guesser" of the reliability of a state's testing methods, Justice Timothy Reardon said in Thursday's ruling, which upheld a San Francisco judge's 2007 decision.

He also said developing native-language tests would be difficult, because students in California speak at least 40 languages. The state's voters approved a ballot measure in 1998 that prohibits bilingual instruction except in limited cases, Reardon said, and testing students in their primary language "could send confusing messages throughout California's education system."

Marc Coleman, a lawyer for the school districts and advocacy groups, said they would consider an appeal to the state Supreme Court.

"The court dodges the essential issue in the lawsuit, which is: What is the testing supposed to measure?" he said. "If you don't have to evaluate the testing, California gets a free pass on testing kids (who) don't speak English, using tests that they have literally no evidence of their validity."

No Child Left Behind requires states to test all students in math and reading or language arts once a year in grades three through eight, and at least once in grades 10 through 12.

For students who speak limited English, the law requires "reasonable accommodations," which can include extra time, use of dictionaries, and giving instructions in a student's native language. States can exempt students from the test during their first year in a U.S. school.

The law penalizes any school if any identified group of students falls short of state academic standards or fails to meet certain benchmarks for progress in any year. The penalty for several years of noncompliance can include changes in a school's administration.

The nine districts in Thursday's case all have schools that have been penalized under the law, including one school that has been placed in trusteeship, Coleman said.

In California, students are tested annually in grades two through 11 and must pass an exit exam to get a high school diploma.

CALIFORNIA’S EDUCATION SYSTEM BROKEN

EDITORIAL IN THE LOMPOC RECORD

July 31, 2009 -- To better understand why California’s public schools — once the envy of the nation and, perhaps the world — have fallen deep into the pit of academic despair, one has only to follow the recent interaction between federal education officials, and the folks who oversee this state’s school system.

Last week, federal officials — some holding fairly responsible jobs, such as president of the United States, and the head of the U.S. Department of Education — criticized California for its failure to make a direct connection between student achievement, as measured by standardized tests, and the abilities of adults charged with the task of teaching those kids.

A few days after that broadside, California schools Supt. Jack O’Connell, no stranger to a teacher’s situation at the front of a classroom, made a half-hearted effort to deflect the federal officials’ criticism.

We say half-hearted, because O’Connell chose the only public school district in the state that actually ties student test results to teaching ability. The photo op was held in the Long Beach Unified School District, which uses the test-score data to evaluate teacher performance.

O’Connell pointed to the successes in Long Beach as a model for the rest of the state — which, in reality, validates the federal complaints about California being behind the times, and the learning curve, when it comes to (1) finding out what’s wrong with our educational system, and (2) fixing the problem.

O’Connell’s attempt to justify California’s foot-dragging attitude with regard to improving public education — by focusing on a tiny island of reason, in what is an otherwise vast sea of chaos and confusion — speaks quite clearly to California’s precipitous fall from scholastic grace, to the depths of what has become chronic, embarrassing underachievement.

The state’s schools chief is, indeed, grasping at straws. We have known O’Connell for many years, since his days as a member of the state Legislature, where he played the role of champion for better education, and he seems a nice fellow, with good intentions.

But he is a bit disingenuous on the matter of California schools’ lagging test scores, and how best to deal with that problem.

Instead of doing the little diversionary, public-relations dance in Long Beach, O’Connell could, and should, be leading the charge for public education reform, and he should start by advocating a complete revision of California’s maddeningly obese Education Code.

Next, O’Connell, despite being a devout Democrat, should tell unions to step away from the business of running California’s school districts. Those unions — big and consistent contributors to political campaigns — have too often played the role of obstructionists when it comes to actually assigning blame to deficient teachers, who are largely protected by union contracts.

Don’t get us wrong. Unions have been an historically valuable tool in the advancement and protection of workers, in the labor-vs.-management tug of war. The problem is, these organizations have, in recent years, tended toward protecting their weakest members, at the expense of allowing society — in this case, California’s school system — to move forward, toward achieving necessary goals.

And you can’t really put all the blame on unions and teachers, for a system that is archaic, Byzantine, top-heavy with bureaucrats, and slower to start and stop than a mile-long freight train.

There is no magic elixir to cure what ails California’s public schools. But the situation won’t get better until someone takes the first positive step toward at least starting to rebuild this crumbling institutional system.

O’Connell has the credentials to take the helm of such change. The question is, does he have the will to do it?

WANT AN EDUCATION REVOLUTION? BREAK UP LAUSD!

 

Random Thoughts By Diana L. Chapman | CityWatch – an insider look at city hall

July 31, 2009 - My toes are curling and my head is spinning with the Mayor of Los Angeles’ recent endorsement to pretty much sell off our new schools and let non-profits, charters or teacher partnerships run them – rather than Los  Angeles Unified School District.

In a long editorial endorsement in the Los Angeles Times this week, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa wrote that the district board should support  LAUSD Board member Yolie Flores Aguilar’s motion to let others compete to take over all new schools .. and do so on Aug. 25. This forces the district to compete to operate its own spanking new campuses.

This definitely depicts an educational revolution – but the question is: Will it be a good one and when will we have gone too far? Revolution can be good – but it can be deadly when you keep picking off pieces from the vine in a haphazard way.

Remember the French revolution?

This seems just another move to cover up what the true revolt should be – a  breakup of the entire district.

I can’t somehow help but feel this motion gives the store away. The so-called  revolt is already well under way within the district, with 154 charters currently operating city schools (which still use public funding and are not private campuses although sometimes they act as though they are private).

Each of these schools have their own philosophy, do not have to follow district guidelines and have far fewer regulations to face then our district’ campuses that have a duty to help all children , no matter what their issues, developmentally disabled or otherwise. For instance, if a child is expelled from a charter, the public school still has to take that student in.

Or, if any charter  can show it doesn’t have the resources to aid special education students, or students with other issues, it can turn those students away. That scares me.

What this motion does is open the doors to have the district compete against other organizations to run each of its new schools scheduled to open 2010. This really diverts us from the reality of what really needs to happen: a break up of the district.

What I’d rather be looking at – which is a much greater form of liberation and protects all children at a much greater level  -- is to carve up the district into smaller regions and give each region more autonomy, a decentralization so to speak.

Now, that’s a true revolution and one I trust will ensure a public education for all.

In his endorsement, the mayor makes me worry even more – because I don’t believe an ounce that he cares for our kids like he claims. What he does care for is his political future. In his life, that has always come first it seems.

Despite his excuse that he’s not running for governor because he didn’t want to leave Los Angeles bleeding leaves me with much doubt. I believe it really stems more from  the polls  that reflected few of us really want him to become governor.

If he is so interested in our children, he would understand that the charter plan would not necessarily provide or protect what he states: that “every child in Los Angeles ought to have access to high-quality public school in his or her neighborhood,” and parents more access to schools than the public schools.

My son’s charter, which I took him out of, acted like parents were vampires and they had their crosses out.  They wanted parents – yes – to raise money, but didn’t really know how to deal with them after that. They didn’t want parents in the hallways, they stated in their school information.

That’s an instant red flag for me at any school. Why don’t you want parents?

In my son’s public schools in Los Angeles, I was able to volunteer  and be on his campuses in a variety of capacities.

Parents – as we all know even though we deny it– need to return and help at schools, whether we like it or not. There are just too many great issues at hand across the board.

My son has received an excellent education from LAUSD, even at one of the middle school’s most residents feared. Yes, he was in the gifted program, but since all the schools are moving toward  small campuses within each large public school  the district will be able to provide more mini-schools than ever.

I am all for breaking up the district and maybe having a lot less administration downtown, but a board with a heartbeat that can help each region and make sure all students – rich, poor, disabled or otherwise – get an education.

Breaking up the district, however, probably scares Los Angeles city officials, including our mayor.

Because isn’t that exactly what the city of Los Angeles needs to do? It’s become too large, too authoritative and cumbersome to truly care for its residents simplest needs.

If we break up the district, then the true revolution will begin and it might not just stop at the door step of the city’s schools. It might happen to the city. And maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

Photo art credit: WitnessLA.com. (Diana L. Chapman was a journalist for 15 years with the Daily Breeze and the San Diego Union. She can be reached hartchap@cox.net or visit her blog ) ◘ 

LAUSD MOUNTS ITS OWN CAMPAIGN FOR FEDERAL GRANTS

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

07/30/2009 12:39:52 PM PDT -- Cash-strapped Los Angeles Unified wants to compete on its own, rather than as part of a statewide effort, to secure federal stimulus money for education, officials said today.

Superintendent Ramon Cortines sent a letter to Education Secretary Arne Duncan, formally applying for money from the $4.35 billion "Race to the Top" fund, a competitive federal grant designated for education reform.

"I am writing to ask you to consider an application for Race to the Top funds directly from the Los Angeles Unified School District rather than through the state of California," Cortines wrote.

"If you compare LAUSD's enrollment of over 688,000 students to other states, we would rank 25th in the country in size."

State education officials did not immediately return phone calls for comment.

LAUSD's request comes after California was publicly reprimanded by Duncan for failing to institute education reform and for passing a law that prohibits the state from using test scores to evaluate teachers.

Despite laying off teaching and cutting programs to close a multimillion budget gap, officials worry they'll have to make other sacrifices under the state budget signed earlier this week by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

WHY CALIFORNIA MUST FUND MUSIC EDUCATION

OpEd by Ted Barone | San Francisco Chronicle - Barone is the principal of Albany High School.

Thursday, July 30, 2009 - The budget straits the state of California is facing are forcing our leaders to make a series of pernicious choices with legacy implications. One such choice is whether to fund music programming or refocus our funding priorities to the "core academics" (which happen to be those subjects tested in the statewide testing system).

I propose that we really don't have a choice. We must fund music.

From the rhythm of our breathing as infants and the comforting lullabies that helped us sleep, to the cacophony of song and sound that envelops our modern everyday lives, music is an essential factor in what defines us as human. Music is a messenger that carries the history and collective experience of a people across time and space. Music also helps develop our brains in a way that will increase our ability to address and solve the extraordinary challenges that lie ahead of us as a people. The musical key is the proverbial key. In other words, the structure and organization of music is exactly what makes it so important for brain development. From the notes, chords are built. Chords determine keys, within which a skillful musician creates an experience, a message, a movement. Mix in rhythm and a new order of time emerges.

Music is all about creating neural networks and expanding the speed and capacity of the pathways that determine skill and memory. A key finding from brain research is that once a neural pathway is established, and the more that pathway is used, especially with passion and emotion, the greater the "bandwidth" and strength of the connection. Memory is improved, processing speed is increased, and better, more sophisticated decisions are a result.

Music is all about the structural connections that are used to support memory. It's much easier to remember something that follows a familiar structure or pattern than something random and unfamiliar. These familiar structures serve as the foundation for building greater knowledge and even stronger and more extensive neural networks that support learning of all kinds.

In a world of extraordinary complexity, a premium is placed on one's ability to quickly process massive amounts of wildly varying types of information. Musical instruction helps young people develop the brain capacity to process a lot of information and to organize and present it.

Playing music cultivates a mind that is prepared to process and make sense of the rush of information and problems that have come to characterize the 21st century. Music is a core subject. We can't cut funding for music any more than we can cut funding for math.

Albany High School serves grades 9-12 in the Albany City Unified School District, just north of Berkeley, CA.

SPECIAL SESSION?

from sacBee CapitolAlert

In case you missed it:

• Legislators could find themselves back in the Capitol in late September for yet another special session.
• Kevin Yamamura examines the legal issues surrounding the governor's line-item vetoes.
• Still wondering what's in, what's out and what it all means? Read the Legislative Analyst's Office's summary of the package here.

WILLIAM R. “BILL” ANTON DIES AT 85; educator was L.A. Unified's first Latino superintendent. 'Heart and soul' of the district rose through the ranks to take top post during a time of fiscal crisis.

Anton in 1992. He began his career as a teacher at Rowan Elementary in East Los Angeles. – PHOTO Los Angeles Times

By Howard Blume  in the LA Times

July 29, 2009  - William R. "Bill" Anton, who rose through the ranks to become the first Latino superintendent of schools in Los Angeles, died Tuesday morning, according to friends and the Los Angeles Unified School District. He was 85.

Anton had suffered from declining health in recent years and did not speak at a 2007 district ceremony in his honor, but associates remembered him as a genial and strategic fighter who looked out for minority children in a school system that did not always have high expectations for them."Bill was the heart and soul of the district," said Peggy Barber, who met Anton as a parent and later worked for him. "He knew every principal by sight and name. He knew every person in the building. He was as kind and generous as anyone could be, but he could be tough when he had to be."

Anton began his career as a teacher at Rowan Elementary in East Los Angeles, according to district records, slowly and steadily winning the respect of colleagues as he earned promotions to higher positions. Anton filled a groundbreaking role in developing the district's Title 1 program, which was at the time a new experimental effort to help low-income and minority students.

In that capacity and others, Anton groomed future district leaders who would follow him into top positions. Jim Morris, chief of staff to Supt. Ramon C. Cortines, recalled taking an administrative training course for teachers given by Anton, who was then a deputy superintendent.

"Mr. Anton said if you want to be an administrator you have to find out who the hardest-working person in that school is, and you have to work twice as hard," Morris said.

A Garfield High School graduate who supervised schools in East Los Angeles, Anton championed equity and a fair distribution of resources for Latino students. But he was liked in all communities, said those who worked with him.

"Parents always had access to his office," said Barber, who is a district lobbyist. "And he treated parents as equals. He would tell the principals that he expected everyone to have a PTA and they would be evaluated on the strength of the PTA."

Many district insiders and community leaders were sorely disappointed when the school board chose outsider Leonard Britton over Anton as superintendent in 1987. After three years, Britton resigned, never having won over an L.A. Unified bureaucracy that included Anton. To much acclaim, Anton became schools chief in July 1990, but he was immediately confronted with union unrest, budget deficits and a city elite that had grown dissatisfied with the school system.

"It was Bill's job to save the district from going into bankruptcy," said Dominic Shambra, an administrator who worked closely with Anton. "It was a difficult time, much like it is today."

Anton remained as superintendent only 26 months, retiring at the age of 68 in September 1992. He said his greatest accomplishment as superintendent was simply holding the district together in spite of a fiscal crisis that forced spending cuts of more than $1 billion during his tenure.

The factors that induced him to leave, he said at the time, included a school board that often would not listen to him and would act improperly unilaterally, as well as a teachers union that he said had too much influence.

A full obituary of Anton will appear in Thursday's print edition and at latimes.com/obits.

howard.blume@latimes.com

L.A. RESIDENTS ARE NOT THE MOST CHARITABLE, STUDY FINDS

by Jessica Garrison from the LA Times

7:16 AM | July 29, 2009  - To the woes caused by bad traffic and bad air, Los Angeles can now add a new concern: uncharitable neighbors.

A new study from the Corporation for National and Community Service has found that Los Angeles ranks 45th out of 51 large American cities in the percentage of people who volunteer their time to help their neighbors or communities.

The winners, as in so many other municipal honors, were Minneapolis-St. Paul (ranked No. 1) and Portland, Ore. (No. 2). More than 35% of residents in those cities volunteer their time, compared with 21% in Los Angeles.

THE COMPLETE STUDY

from the study: Volunteering in Los Angeles, CA

Statistics for this area were collected within the Los Angeles Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). Major cities in this MSA include Los Angeles, CA; Long Beach, CA; and Santa Ana, CA

Highlights:

The bullets below are all based on an average using 2006 and 2008 data

• 2.0 million volunteers
• 20.5% of residents volunteer - ranking them 45th within the 51 large cities
• 28.9 hours per resident - ranking them 38th within the 51 large cities
• $5.8 billion of service contributed

Still, the study did identify some bright spots for California, chief among them that from 2007 to 2008, the number of Californians who worked with their neighbors jumped from 1.6 million to 2.2 million.

CALIFORNIA SCHOOLS CHIEF REACTS TO U.S. CRITICISM ON TEACHER EVALUATION: Jack O'Connell visits Long Beach to show that districts in the state are allowed to tie test scores to educator assessments. Obama and his Education secretary chided California on the issue last week.

By Seema Mehta | From the Los Angeles Times

The Long Beach Unified School District’s use of student scores to evaluate the effectiveness of programs, instructional strategies and teachers is a rarity in California, and state Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell called it a model for other California school districts. “Becoming a data-oriented culture, as Long Beach is, won’t be easy, and it won’t be overnight,” O’Connell said. “Long Beach is ahead of the curve. You’re a model for this new culture of data for education.”  photo: Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times

July 29, 2009 -- California's top education official sought Tuesday to counter federal criticism of the state's reluctance to use student test scores to evaluate teachers, paying a visit to Long Beach to highlight one of the few California school districts to make extensive use of such data.

The Long Beach Unified School District's use of student scores to assess the effectiveness of programs, instructional strategies and teachers is a rarity in California, and state Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell called it a model for other California school districts during a hastily arranged round-table discussion. Other participants included district administrators and staff.

"Becoming a data-oriented culture, as Long Beach is, won't be easy, and it won't be overnight," O'Connell said. "Long Beach is ahead of the curve. . . . You're a model for this new culture of data for education."

The visit followed comments last week by President Obama and U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, in which they criticized the state for not allowing such test data to be linked to teacher performance evaluations.

On Friday, Obama singled out California for failing to use student test scores to distinguish poor teachers from good ones and Duncan warned that states that bar linking such data to evaluations will be ineligible to compete for the $4.35-billion "Race to the Top" grants. That funding is part of roughly $100 billion earmarked for education in the economic-stimulus package.

The U.S. Department of Education will be awarding the money in competitive grants to states. Applications are due in December.

Duncan has repeatedly raised the issue, including during a trip to San Francisco in May, when he called California's position "mind-boggling."

"The firewall between students and teachers is bad for children and bad for education," he said. "I challenge the state to think very, very differently about that."

At issue is a 2006 California law that prohibits use of student data to evaluate teachers at the state level. O'Connell said Obama and Duncan misunderstand the law, which does not bar local districts from using the information.

"I need to do a better job making that case," the schools chief said, adding that he would be open to amending the law to clarify the matter. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has also supported such a move, though it would probably draw opposition from the state's powerful teachers unions.

O'Connell's Long Beach visit, which a district official said was not put on the schedule until Monday, was designed to show that California school districts are already able to use student data to assess teachers.

The 87,499-student Long Beach Unified School District has won national acclaim for its students' academic performance. Obama cited the district in his first major speech on education.

"The reason we have been successful . . . is because we base all of our decisions on data," Long Beach Supt. Christopher J. Steinhauser said Tuesday.

Seven years ago, the district developed a sophisticated centralized data system that allows it to track individual student achievement, attendance and discipline over time. The system also lets the district see how students are faring collectively in a particular classroom or school, and how subsets such as English learners or special education students are performing. District officials can then use the information for staffing decisions, such as where to send specialists.

Tom Malkus, principal of Lee Elementary School, said he and other school leaders use the data to spot struggling teachers and offer coaching, professional development and other support.

If that fails, Steinhauser said, the district has "courageous conversations" with teachers that can result in their leaving the profession.

The system allows teachers to look at their students' most recent work to ensure that they understand a particular lesson, or double back to concepts that are difficult for them.

"You can look at individual students' needs and you can look at the group's needs," said Christina Benson, a teacher at Lee Elementary. "It's perfect for me."

BLUE PENCILING THE LINE ITEMS: Full budget summary and breakdown of additional cuts

from the SAc Bee Capitol Alert | Posted by Torey Van Oot

In case you missed it: Today was blue-pencil day at the Capitol and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger didn't make any new friends with his"> line item vetoes of an already lean budget. Read the ">legalese of the reductions.

The 27-bill budget "fix" signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today included an additional $489 million in line-item veto cuts. Read the full budget summary or download a breakdown of the cuts.

A NEW CROP OF SCHOOL GARDENS: Even as state funding wilts, support for school gardens is growing.

 

PHOTO: Christine Cotter / Los Angeles Times - Ava Allred, 2, helps during a volunteer gardening day at Farragut Elementary School in Culver City.

By Krista Simmons | LA Times

July 29, 2009 -- A freckle-faced Malloy Sparling wraps her dirt-dusted fingers around a three-pronged cultivator and looks up with a big-toothed smile. "We're making a garden," she says, plucking a weed out of the ground, then wiping her little hands on her tomato red T-shirt.

Sparling and other young volunteers, plus parents and politicians, are taking part in a community work day at Farragut Elementary School in Culver City. But they're not the only ones spending this summer working toward a greener fall semester.

Krista Simmons / For The Times North Hollywood High School greenhouse.

Tools for getting started on school gardens Krista Simmons / For The Times July 29, 2009 -- The Master Gardener Program has been largely instrumental in implementing school garden programs in the area. You can access its start-up kits online, where there are several informative sites on how gardens can be worked into curricula. To join its e-mail list, go to the Common Ground Garden Program or e-mail Yvonne Savio at ydsavio@ucdavis.edu. For garden school curricula, go to the California Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom. Information on the Garden School Foundation can be found on its website.

While most schools sit like dormant ghost towns during the summer, a few are breaking up the asphalt, planting seeds that will be sprouting edible gardens come September.

It may seem counterintuitive to start new programs in this economic climate. Summer school was canceled at many campuses this year, the $1.7-million California Instructional School Garden Program grant to the Los Angeles Unified School District has expired, and the budget crisis has left countless teachers unemployed.

But this groundswell, largely sparked by parent and community interest -- and perhaps some inspiration from Michelle Obama's White House garden -- is finding support in all the right places.

Ben Ford, chef-owner of Ford's Filling Station, and Akasha Richmond, chef-owner of Akasha, both restaurants in Culver City, spearheaded the recent work day at Farragut where parents, grandparents, children, chefs and politicians worked to lay the ground for a green space for students.

There have been gardens on the Culver City campus for more than 50 years, which have gone through several cycles of productivity and abandonment, but Ford and Richmond are using their connections in the food industry to help make this plan as sustainable and financially painless as possible. They've secured soil, seed and supplies from local farms and nurseries, and food and refreshments for the volunteers from several local restaurants. In total, the two have spent only about $200 on the garden thus far.

The organizers at Farragut hope they'll soon be able to tap Alice Waters for an Edible Schoolyard (ESY) certification, which will bring not only publicity but a seasoned veteran's perspective. Waters' ESY program is known for her implementation of seed-to-table gardens within the Berkeley school district, and has recently gone national, helping schools throughout the country execute curriculum-based gardens and locally sourced school lunch programs.

In addition to her campus in New Orleans, Waters is working with the Larchmont Charter Schools in Hollywood, which have two fully functional gardens and a lunch program where meals are prepared with organic, local ingredients by an in-house chef.

Waters says there is a shift in priorities that needs to happen within federal policy to give garden programs longevity. In the 1960s, John F. Kennedy implemented the President's Council on Physical Fitness to instill values of physical fitness. She considers the current prevalence of childhood obesity and early-onset Type 2 diabetes to be signals for immediate action similar to the fitness council.

"Now we need a curriculum that's about ecology and about gastronomy so that we can make sure that children are making the right kinds of decisions for themselves, and for the planet. There's no way to address the issues of obesity unless you let children come into a relationship of food that's positive, restorative and desirable," Waters says.

Carlos Lopez, a graduate of the garden program at Crenshaw High School, thinks a garden's value extends beyond promoting good health. "This is a way of giving kids a sense of ownership, a place to stay off the street. It saved me, and it saved a whole bunch of us. It can become so much bigger than just a garden."

Lopez was part of the team that created Food From the Hood, a student-run business that sprouted from selling Crenshaw High's produce at local farmers markets and eventually expanded to create a national brand of salad dressing that was distributed at more than 2,000 locations. But since the students from Food From the Hood graduated, the garden has become overgrown and left unattended.

A teaching garden

This summer, the Garden School Foundation, led by master gardener Nat Zappia, hopes to change that. On the first garden cleanup day, dozens of community members, former students from Food From the Hood, teachers and volunteers from Starbucks showed up to re-till soil, planting the seed for the soon-to-be student gardeners returning in the fall.

Bill Vanderberg, dean of students at Crenshaw High, plans to use the garden as a vehicle for learning within the newly created Smaller Learning Communities (SLCs). He hopes the Business SLC will be able to model off the Garden School Foundation's 24th Street School garden, where the fifth-grade children have struck a deal with Pitfire Pizza Co. to trade their herbs for pizza.

But the possibilities for educational incorporation don't stop there -- science, botany, social studies, history, geography, art and nutrition have all been included in existing local programs. Zappia hopes to use his background in history to introduce garden beds that are shaped like continents, where classes of students will learn about the history and culture of other nations through food.

Mud Baron, gardening guru for LAUSD and caretaker of the North Hollywood High School farm, says that special-needs teachers often come to him for seedlings. "There's no such thing as a special ed sunflower. It's just a sunflower," he says.

His 7-acre North Hollywood High School farm serves as a nursery for the rest of LAUSD -- it hosts a small Chardonnay vineyard, a greenhouse, a plethora of dahlias, several chickens and a pig named Francine. Baron also oversees the remaining 500-some-odd gardens across the LAUSD, which are at varying levels of production. This summer, he'll be working with students from the Summer Jobs Program who will be cultivating 500 Green Zebra tomatoes for Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger, chef-owners of Ciudad and Border Grill.

But even with his infectious enthusiasm, Baron's job is constantly at risk. Though California Instructional School Gardens Program grant funds are no longer available, LAUSD Superintendent Ramon Cortines has agreed to match the funds that Baron and the LAUSD School Garden Program raise, given that they reach $100,000. Donations can be made at www.laschoolgardens.com, which will go live at the end of this week. Community support may be the only way for school garden programs to survive.

Friends of the earth

It appears that Angelenos from all walks of life are interested in lending a hand to advance the school garden movement, regardless of tough times. The Environmental Media Assn. and Yes to Carrots have partnered with LAUSD to sponsor 10 new school garden projects, one of which will be at Saturn Elementary in L.A.. Actor Jake Gyllenhaal will be their mentor, and architect Rogerio Carvalheiro, who worked on the Getty Villa and Union Station, will work pro bono on the design. Once completed this fall, they hope to add a "scratch kitchen," where children will prepare the food they grow.

Saturn's garden project was started by an enthused group of parents who call themselves the "Rings of Saturn." Through applying for grants, working with local politicians and school leaders, and fundraisers, they have put together a garden plan for Saturn that they hope will boost its public image.

"To be successful, this needs to be viewed as integral. These are skills that kids used to learn at home. Today, that's not a reality," says Melissa Patrick, who is heading the Saturn project.

"You can't expect a whole person if you don't educate the whole child," Baron says. "We don't strictly learn within four square walls."

VILLARAIGOSA ADVOCATES SELLING YOUR CHILD'S LAUSD EDUCATION TO WHOEVER'S GOT THE 'SUPERIOR' PLAN

Photo by ne* via Flickr

By Lindsay William-Ross in LAist News

July 27, 2009 11:30 AM -- If it's broke, fix it, right? Only what happens when the people who are supposed to fix it are the ones who broke it in the first place? And they happened to have run out of the money it's going to likely take to do the fixing? Easy solution: Sell management of the school(s) to the highest--well, "superior"--bidder.

The resolution is called "Public School Choice: A New Way at LAUSD" and will be voted on at the next Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education meeting on August 25th, having been postponed from July 14th. The proposal "opens ownership [of schools] to not only the district or charter operations but also the mayors office, private business and nonprofit groups," according to OurLA.org, and has already garnered objections from parents and teachers, and the stalwart support of some school board members--most prominently its backer, Yolie Flores Aguilar--and the Mayor's office. Perhaps because the Mayor's "alliance" for improving troubled schools earned him a failing grade from its participants at the end of this school year, today the LA Times has published an opinion piece authored by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa endorsing the plan.

As a counterstrike to the ineffective "staus quo," Villaraigosa is urging people to see that the proposed plan would allow non-bureaucrats to "get past the gatekeepers and stop preserving a system defined by low performance, low standards and low expectations." Essentially, the proposal opens up control of some schools to any interested party--including the LAUSD themselves--to apply for "ownership" by providing the Board with what boils down to a business plan for operating, and in theory, improving the school.

Who decides who gets control? Why the Board, of course. Yes--even though the Board may have a vested interested in securing control as one of the bidders.

VIllaraigosa's perspective bears the language of hope that, unfortunately, he's demonstrated rings hollow once implemented. He talks of "embrac[ing] new ideas," and the wish to "turn our public education system on its head," in order to give our grossly under-served children that chance at the quality education that evades them under the current reins. His campaign-style rhetoric is enough to indicate maybe a call to Shepard Fairey to commission a portrait of the Mayor looking dreamily but confidently into the distance under the giant letters spelling EDUCATION is not more than a moment away.

But really he's working to hush the already clamoring voices of objectors who see the option to "privatize" public education. Opines Villaraigosa:

I recognize that these changes won't come easily. I know that the voices of dissent -- the individuals and institutions that rely on and benefit from the status quo -- will try to drown out the calls for reform. But we cannot place the same old failing school system into brand new buildings and expect different results.

Rather than feel threatened by a new system, district leaders and unions should join the effort, present their own proposals, and take the lead in making these new schools the best in the city.

Flores Aguilar's measure is not designed to shut anyone out but to welcome new approaches and pursue models that are already known to work -- regardless of whether the plan comes from charter organizations, teachers or other reformers.

Passing the board measure represents progress on the broader agenda of shutting down failing schools and reopening them as reform campuses. We must not wait for another report card telling us we did not make the grade. We must work together and take action now.

So is this the solution?

Tell us what you think: Is this an idea you'd get behind?

H1N1: SWINE FLU GOES TO CAMP. WILL IT GO TO SCHOOL NEXT? + FLU SHOT ISN'T FOR H1N1

● SWINE FLU GOES TO CAMP. WILL IT GO TO SCHOOL NEXT? The summertime outbreak provides an education for school districts and universities, whose administrators are bracing for illness.

By Seema Mehta and Nicole Santa Cruz from the LA Times

July 27, 2009 - Hundreds of children have been sent home from summer camps across Southern California in recent weeks with flu-like symptoms, and camp counselors and directors are taking precautions to prevent the spread of the H1N1, or swine flu, virus in cabins and mess halls.

But officials say the sight of children arriving at sleep-away camps armed with the anti-viral medication Tamiflu is probably just a harbinger of what awaits schools in coming weeks as students move into dormitories, and elementary and secondary students begin classes.

Health officials predict a resurgence of the flu in the fall, and a vaccine effective against H1N1 is not expected to be available until long after the start of school.

School districts and universities are on alert, working with health officials to launch education campaigns, stockpile medical supplies and discuss worst-case scenarios.

State education officials are developing plans to provide lessons and meals for low-income children in case elementary and secondary schools close.

School closures would occur only by order of the superintendent or the county health department and only if so many children were sick that it was impractical to keep classes running, said Dr. Kimberly Uyeda, director of student medical services at the Los Angeles Unified School District.

UC campuses are stockpiling supplies, from paper masks and hand sanitizer to food and water. Officials are going over worst-case scenarios in case of campus-wide outbreaks. Officials are considering screening students for fever when they check into dorms.

"If we prepare for the worst, then we're going to get a better outcome," said Grace Crickette, chief risk officer for the University of California.

For now, sleep-over camps provide a look at what schools may face.

Before children are allowed to board camp-bound buses, nurses check temperatures and medical histories, hoping to ensure they are flu-free. Visitors days have been canceled at some camps, and makeshift infirmaries were created in some dining halls and lawns. High-fives and hand-holding are out, replaced by fist bumps and elbow-linking. Hand sanitizer is everywhere.

"We're all getting habitual with our Purell," said Jordanna Flores, executive director of Camp Alonim in Simi Valley, which has sent 160 children home in recent weeks. Many have since recovered and returned to camp.

Flu symptoms have been mild, but the virus is highly contagious, particularly when children are in close proximity.

Some organizations that cater to children with health issues, including the American Lung Assn. and the Muscular Dystrophy Assn., canceled camps because of concerns about the virus.

"It's not worth the risk," said Bob Mackle, a spokesman for the Muscular Dystrophy Assn. "It was a heartbreaking decision for us, and it was a tough decision."

Most camps remain open, according to the American Camp Assn. No organization has a complete list of outbreaks, but there have been anecdotal reports from across the country, notably in the Northeast, which has a deep tradition of sleep-away camps.

The California Department of Public Health has received reports of outbreaks at 16 camps in eight counties, though department officials suspect the number is higher.

At Camp Ramah in the Ojai Valley, 80 campers and staff members were sent home with flu-like symptoms in the first session; many have returned. Twenty-nine eventually tested positive for the flu, said Rabbi Daniel Greyber, the camp director. The camp canceled its annual visitors day, which typically attracts as many as 2,000 people, and instead brought in a petting zoo.

Once campers left, workers deep-cleaned the bunks, beds and bathrooms. The 600 campers attending the second session, which began Thursday, were advised to pack Tamiflu.

"We hope it's a proactive thing that we can do to minimize the flu within the camp," Greyber said.

Education is equally important. Greyber demonstrated proper coughing and sneezing etiquette (into the elbow or on the sleeve, not into the hands). Campers produced skits about "Swine '09."

But for some children who fell ill, the situation was traumatic.

At Camp Alonim, health center coordinator Cindy Petrak said some campers wept when they learned they would have to leave their healthy friends and siblings for seven days to recover.

"It felt like Ellis Island," she said.

On a recent day, children lined up in an infirmary to have their temperatures taken. Parents of any who had fevers were called to pick them up. As many as 20 campers rested on a grassy lawn, sitting on white sheets with their luggage, waiting for their rides home.

Austin, a sixth-grader from Encino, had a fever and a sore throat when he was sent home. He said he was sad to miss bunk night, when his cabin-mates picked the evening activities. When he returned, he said, he was happy that friends noticed his absence. "They all recognized I was back," he said.

Some camps have been spared, including Camp Paintrock and Blue Sky Meadow.

Camp Paintrock sends Los Angeles children to Wyoming for a four-week youth leadership development program. About half a dozen of the 60 campers had flu-like symptoms, but none tested positive for the flu.

Blue Sky Meadow, a science camp for Los Angeles area children in Big Bear, checked campers' temperatures and health histories before students boarded buses to the camp. Families of children who had not been feeling well recently were told to select another week to attend.

"It's sort of a healthy-campers-are-happy-campers philosophy," said Madeline Hall, director of the Los Angeles County Education Foundation, which runs Blue Sky Meadow.

Parents are trying to take the flu in stride.

"I think when kids are at camp, living in close quarters, there's always a chance. If one kid gets sick, all the kids get sick," said Mara Sperling, whose 12-year-old daughter Ella left last week for Gindling Hilltop Camp in Malibu. "It's one of the hazards of going to sleep-away camp."

Susan Freudenheim's 14-year-old daughter Rachel Core is attending Camp Alonim, where Tamiflu will be given to the entire cabin, with parents' permission, if two children in a cabin get sick.

She declined because she fears there could be a Tamiflu shortage and that unnecessary medication could lead to the development of a drug-resistant strain of the virus. Health officials, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, advise against giving the drug to healthy people.

Freudenheim, managing editor of the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, which has covered the outbreaks extensively, hopes her daughter stays healthy.

"It would be a disaster if she came home," said the former editor at the Los Angeles Times. "She'd have nothing to do, be sick alone at home, and I'm working full-time."

Educators plan to work in the coming weeks to prevent the spread of the virus in classrooms and dorms, but they said it ultimately comes down to education and personal responsibility.

"Wash your hands, wash your hands, wash your hands," said Crickette.

 

● Flu shot isn't for H1N1: The approved seasonal vaccine doesn't protect against swine flu. But you should get it anyway.

By Melissa Healy From the Los Angeles Times

July 25, 2009 -- With the so-called swine flu continuing to spread across the United States and the world, the Food and Drug Administration announced recently that it has given the go-ahead for the final preparation and distribution of a vaccine for the coming flu season.

But that vaccine will not protect against swine flu, more officially known as the novel influenza A (H1N1) virus. That virus has sickened almost 45,000 and killed more than 300 in the United States since the spring. Those numbers are only confirmed cases, however; the true number of people affected is much higher.

"The FDA continues to work with manufacturers, international partners and other government agencies to facilitate the availability of a safe and effective vaccine against the 2009 H1N1 virus," said the FDA announcement.

Six vaccine manufacturers will be producing the 2009-2010 influenza vaccine. And the vaccines will contain the strains of three viruses -- one of them an "H1N1-like" virus identified as A/Brisbane/59/2007. The strain in the seasonal flu preparation is not the same as the so-called swine flu, however and, therefore, is not expected to carry any protection against it.

So where the heck is that swine flu vaccine? And, in the meantime, why would you go to the trouble to get yourself vaccinated against a flu vaccine that doesn't protect you from the dreaded swine flu?

In meetings with state and local officials earlier this month, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said she expects a new swine flu vaccine to be available for distribution by mid-October -- fully six to seven weeks after American schoolchildren will have flocked back to the germ pools of their classrooms. Sebelius hasn't formally approved a nationwide vaccination campaign, which would detail which populations should get priority in the use of still-scarce vaccine. But she's expected to do so soon.

Time is of the essence. To get the vaccine to the public even by late October, several labs and companies have been rushing to develop and test formulations since late spring. The results of human trials testing the vaccine's safety and effectiveness at producing an immune response are not expected before early September.

In a teleconference earlier this month, the members of the National Biodefense Science Board, a federal advisory board, made clear they think the process should be accelerated. The board's members said vaccine makers should be asked to begin the preliminary steps toward producing vaccine on Aug. 15, before safety and effectiveness data are available.

That would have the effect of moving up the date by which vaccine would be available for distribution to mid-September rather than mid-October. But an acceleration of the process could also add an element of uncertainty about the safety of a vaccine that might be mandatory for virtually all schoolchildren.

The board, established by a 2006 law to advise the Department of Health and Human Services on matters of pandemic illness and other public health emergencies, recommended that the federal government "set a goal of having several tens of millions of doses available by Sept. 15."

Amid all the concern about swine flu, there may seem little point to getting the seasonal flu vaccine for which the FDA is giving the go-ahead now.

But as Dr. Aaron Glatt, a spokesman for the Infectious Diseases Society of America, pointed out: Seasonal flu may be the enemy we know, but it's still a deadly enemy. And it's not likely to take the season off just because the novel H1N1 strain is out there too.

"The real reason to get vaccinated for seasonal flu is because seasonal flu kills people," he said.

Dr. William Schaffner, chairman of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine's department of preventive medicine added that, in a season likely to be challenging for physicians, public health officials and patients, those who get their seasonal flu vaccination (shot or mist) will help simplify a complex and moving picture.

"We may actually have a double-barreled influenza season out there," said Schaffner. Patients who have gotten their seasonal flu shots are less likely to take up hospital beds and the time and attention of labs and physicians, he said. And that, in turn, can "kind of clear the decks" for those on the front lines battling swine flu, Schaffner added.

The patient who comes in with flu symptoms and has had a seasonal flu shot also might be a little easier to diagnose and treat, said Schaffner. A physician would be quicker to presume swine flu and to prescribe antiviral medications such as Tamiflu, which is no longer very effective against seasonal flu.

L.A.'s SCHOOLS – A NEW DAY? Mayor Villaraigosa calls on the Board of Education to vote for a reform that will allow groups to bid on running new L.A. schools.

LA Times Op Ed By Antonio R. Villaraigosa

July 27, 2009 -- We've all heard the horror stories about crumbling campuses, falling test scores, growing class sizes and decreasing graduation rates. Yet the debate over education reform remains stuck in neutral. School leaders, principals and unions haggle over contracts instead of hashing out lesson plans. We fight yesterday's battles -- over tenure and time sheets -- when today's economy demands real, tangible reform of what goes on in the classroom.

For too long, leaders at every level of government have defended a status quo that serves the interests of adults more than children; that gives bureaucrats a near monopoly over public education; that shuts parents out of the conversation; and that, over and over, fails our kids.

It's time to get past the gatekeepers and stop preserving a system defined by low performance, low standards and low expectations. It's time to embrace new ideas and reclaim concepts such as accountability and competition, and it's time to admit the need for more than one educational choice. Put simply, it's time to put students first.

On Aug. 25, the Los Angeles Board of Education will have the opportunity to take the first real step toward reforming our broken system and transforming our schools. Board member Yolie Flores Aguilar has proposed a measure that would fundamentally change the way we run our schools, giving organizations outside the Los Angeles Unified School District--charter school groups, teacher collaboratives and others -- the chance to compete to operate new campuses set to open in fall 2010.

Instead of merely handing these campuses over to the district, the school board would require prospective school operators to submit a detailed plan on how they would run the new school. The plans would be judged based on the operator's past record of success, the inclusion of metrics for measuring that success and the educational vision for the new school. The superintendent would evaluate each plan and recommend to the board the operator with the superior plan to run the school.

I urge the board members to pass this motion.

This measure can bring us closer to realizing the goals at the center of our reform efforts: Every child in Los Angeles ought to have access to a high-quality public school in his or her neighborhood.

Angelenos do not have to look far for examples of thriving alternatives to the traditional public school system. Charter groups in L.A. are using the best practices of the private sector in our most important public forum. They're cutting overhead costs and paying teachers better. Their campuses are cleaner and safer, and their students are getting more attention. Parents are required to participate far beyond parent-teacher conferences and back-to-school nights.

Just look at two examples from the last year alone. Under Green Dot Public Schools' leadership, Locke High School -- once a symbol of failure where just three out of 100 students went to college -- now houses eight small schools focused on a college-prep curriculum. Challenges remain, but a culture of achievement has taken hold.

On the Eastside, the Alliance for College-Ready Public Schools has partnered with Cal State L.A. to build a school focused on math, science and technology, equipping students with 21st century skills.

The measure before the school board offers us the chance not simply to tinker at the edges of our school district but to turn our public education system on its head. It offers children the chance to escape the pattern of failure that has long marked so many of our schools.

I recognize that these changes won't come easily. I know that the voices of dissent -- the individuals and institutions that rely on and benefit from the status quo -- will try to drown out the calls for reform. But we cannot place the same old failing school system into brand new buildings and expect different results.

Rather than feel threatened by a new system, district leaders and unions should join the effort, present their own proposals, and take the lead in making these new schools the best in the city.

Flores Aguilar's measure is not designed to shut anyone out but to welcome new approaches and pursue models that are already known to work -- regardless of whether the plan comes from charter organizations, teachers or other reformers.

Passing the board measure represents progress on the broader agenda of shutting down failing schools and reopening them as reform campuses. We must not wait for another report card telling us we did not make the grade. We must work together and take action now.

Antonio R. Villaraigosa is the mayor of Los Angeles.

●●smf's 2¢:

MOTHER RABBIT

               (reprimands)

                Thumper!

THUMPER

                Yes, Mama...?

MOTHER RABBIT

                What did your father tell

                you this morning?

THUMPER

               (sheepishly)

               If you can't say somethin' nice,

               don't say nothin' at all.

- Walt Disney's Bambi (1942) Larry Morey & Perce Pearce, screenplay from the novel by Felix Salten (1923)

LOS ANGELES UNIONS FIGHT SCHOOL PRIVATIZATION EFFORTS: Politicians, charter school companies are behind the scheme

By: David Feldman | from PSL.oRg

The writer is a public school teacher and member of UTLA.

Friday, July 24, 2009  -- On July 14, the Los Angeles Board of Education decided to delay the vote on a proposal that would have allowed charter and outside groups to bid on control of 50 new schools scheduled to open in the next four years.

Los Angeles teachers take action against budget cuts >

Technically, external organizations such as teachers’ unions, parent organizations and community organizations could vie to control schools. But in reality, charter school organizations with corporate funding, like Green Dot, would have an unfair advantage, due to the financial resources at its disposal.

The real aim of all charter school companies is the further privatization of education and the weakening of teachers’ unions.

Green Dot is a private company founded by Steve Barr. It is funded by non-profit organizations with corporate ties, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Broad Foundation. Green Dot received a $10.5 million gift from the Broad Foundation in December 2006, an organization founded by Los Angeles area capitalist Eli Broad. Broad is a billionaire who made his fortune in real estate. He is currently involved in plans to further gentrify downtown Los Angeles. (L.A. Weekly, Dec. 7, 2006)

Green Dot successfully took over Locke High School in Watts in September 2007. It currently runs seven schools in the Los Angeles area, funded by a combination of private and public money. Even though Green Dot receives public money, it is unregulated and unaccountable to the public.

Although much is made of holding public schools accountable by capitalist politicians, charter schools are not subject to any oversight regarding academic performance at all. A 2004 study published by the American Federation of Teachers found that when socio-economic factors are taken into account, public school students outperform students in charter and private schools.

The Bush administration announced the much-awaited results of the AFT study with little fanfare since the outcome of the study did not support their agenda of increased privatization. Even today, the general perception among many is that private and charter schools are superior to public schools. This false outlook is promoted by the bourgeois media.

At the July 14 hearing, supporters and opponents of the privatization proposal spoke in front of the Los Angeles Board of Education, which sets policy for schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Opponents of the measure include all unions that represent workers in Los Angeles schools, including the United Teachers Los Angeles and the Teamsters. Seven unions sent a letter to the school board calling the proposal "an insult to these children and their families to outsource education to charters and other private entities."

The proposal is also an underhanded attempt by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to get some schools under his control. Earlier attempts by Villaraigosa to take over "failing" Los Angeles schools were ruled unconstitutional by the California Supreme Court in 2006. Due to public pressure and union opposition, the vote on the privatization proposal will not be heard again until Aug. 25.

Supporting the proposal were members of the so-called Parent Revolution. The Parent Revolution is a phony coalition, which includes Green Dot schools. It is an outgrowth of the Parents Union, started by Green Dot owner, Steve Barr. Members of the Parent Revolution were bused to the board meeting. They all got up and left when a representative of the school administrators’ union spoke.

Charter school operators bombard working-class parents with anti-union propaganda, and focus parents’ justifiable anger at the poor quality of public schools at the wrong target—teachers and the union that represents them, UTLA.

At a Parent Revolution press conference, one Latina mother said, through a Spanish interpreter: "There are lots of good teachers in the district but there are more bad teachers. But we can’t hold teachers accountable because they are so well protected by their union. … So we need a union to help us too." The Parent Revolution is in fact a corporate-sponsored "counterrevolution" aimed at dismantling public education.

Green Dot owner Barr is an expert salesman, and a liar. He claims that teachers in his schools are unionized. But this union is also phony. According to Green Dot’s own website, Green Dot does away with teacher tenure so teachers can be fired at any time and the company maintains the right to break contracts. Green Dot and charter school operators are pushing an anti-worker agenda under the guise of "saving the children." Never mind the fact that charter school students in study after study do not outperform children in public schools.

Teachers’ unions provide benefits necessary to attract good workers to the profession. With recent budget cuts, the larger class sizes and shrinking resources that come with the cuts, the conditions under which teachers are forced to work are increasingly difficult. What incentive would an energetic teacher have to teach in difficult schools in oppressed neighborhoods if they have no benefits and could be fired at any time for any reason?

Unions not only fight for benefits for teachers, but also strive for a better education for everyone. The teachers’ unions demand increased funding for public schools and smaller class sizes, and oppose penalizing schools because of the results of culturally biased assessment tests.

Private capitalists are unwilling to provide for human necessities, such as retirement and health care. The private sector does not have an interest in giving all students a quality education. Green Dot and companies like it want to provide a good school for a small number of students, get good press, and then take over more schools so their owners can accumulate more profits. It is not sustainable on a systemic level. Plus, charter schools can pick and choose students they would like to enroll, unlike public education, which has a mission to educate everybody.

Ultimately, the problem is not bad teachers; the problem is the system itself. Capitalism prioritizes making profits for a few over meeting the fundamental needs of the public, like education. The federal government should slash the military budget, and infuse education with hundreds of billions of dollars to hire more teachers and build new schools.

At the state level, corporations and millionaires should be taxed heavily and stripped of all tax breaks they currently receive as an incentive to "do business" there. Huge urban school districts such as LAUSD should slash their immense bureaucracies, including mini-districts, and funnel the funds saved into the classrooms where they belong.

●●smf's 2¢: PSL.org is the Party for Socialism and Liberation – an unabashedly pro-labor and left of center voice.  PSL is certainly left of smf. Labels like Liberal and Progressive get bandied about – painting blue folks pink and red - but the above is essentially true; it well connects the dots ("green is not automatically  good") and follows the money – a partisan provocative roadmap/scorecard. On the same day that this came the LA Times editorial board bleated out another paean to Green Dot  --and Mayor Villaraigosa on Monday wrote a Times OpEd extolling the virtues of the plan excoriated here.

Read 'em all. Lines are being drawn in the sand and the waves are washing them away.

GREEN DOT CONNECTS: The charter is being used as a model for other groups that want to run up to 50 new LAUSD schools.

Editorial From the Los Angeles Times

July 25, 2009 -- When Green Dot Public Schools took over Locke High School a year ago, the thinking was that a well-run charter might prove an instructive model for improving Los Angeles' public schools. That might yet prove true. What few expected was that Green Dot would set a new example for other charter schools. But that's exactly what has happened, as evidenced by a recent proposal to allow charters and other organizations to compete for the right to operate 50 new L.A. schools over the next few years.

Public schools have long and justifiably complained that charter operators play by a different, more advantageous set of rules. Instead of drawing their students from within neighborhood attendance boundaries, they enroll students through voluntary registration. By the nature of this process, they generally attract motivated families from a broader geographical area that have the passion and wherewithal to seek out the schools. So it's no wonder charters often produce higher test scores.

At Locke, long an underperforming public school, Green Dot changed the equation by agreeing to accept all the students from within the attendance boundaries. That meant welcoming not just teenagers with their eye on a diploma and possibly college, but also gang-bangers, potential dropouts and students so impoverished or lacking in family support that just showing up at school each day was an achievement. It also meant accepting hundreds more students than Locke had capacity for, a reality regularly forced on public schools.

Though discipline and safety at Locke improved quickly, it will take a few years to see whether Green Dot's reforms result in more graduations and higher test scores.

Here's a more immediate benefit: Under a resolution sponsored by Yolie Flores Aguilar, vice president of the L.A. Unified school board, charter operators, along with unions and community groups, could submit proposals to run any of more than 50 new campuses that will open over the next three to four years. Laid out in the resolution, which the board is slated to consider next month, are stipulations that these operators would enroll students from within the regular attendance boundaries, mimicking Locke.

Several well-regarded charter groups are eager to submit applications under those rules. Charter school doors would open to students who otherwise wouldn't have a shot. By approving Flores Aguilar's resolution, the school board has a chance to do even more than provide innovative new choices for students; L.A. Unified could become the national model for a fairer, more open charter school system.

US SENATE CONFIRMS APPOINTMENT OF POMONA SCHOOLS SUPERINTENDENT FOR OBAMA ADMINISTRATION POST

Staff Reports LA Newspaper Group/LA Daily News

Posted: 07/25/2009 06:01:08 PM PDT

Updated: 07/25/2009 06:49:54 PM PDT

WASHINGTON - Thelma Melendez de Santa Ana, the Pomona Unified School District Superintendent of Schools, has been approved as Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education, Department of Education, according to information from the U.S. Senate Web site.

The Senate approved her nomination Friday night.

Melendez de Santa Ana was nominated May 20 for the post by President Barack Obama.

At that time, California Schools Chief Jack O'Connell congratulated her on her nomination.

"I could not be more pleased that the President has selected Thelma Melendez de Santa Ana for such a key post in his administration," he said in his statement.

"She is a highly respected educator whose commitment and passion for helping students inspires everyone who works with her. Her motto of `Respect, Responsibility, and Results' for every student, parent, and educator are key to improving student achievement. I know she will serve the nation's children well in her new position as President Obama's Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education. I look forward to continued collaboration with her and U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan on our efforts in California to improve public education and close the achievement gap."

Melendez de Santa Ana earned a bachelor cum laude in sociology from UCLA. As a Title VII Fellow, she earned a Ph.D. in language, literacy & learning from the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California.

During her career, Melendez de Santa Ana has worked in the Montebello and Pasadena school districts as a bilingual classroom teacher, middle school assistant principal for curriculum and instruction, elementary school principal and director of instruction for elementary and middle schools.

CALIFORNIA TAKES CONTROL OF CASH-STRAPPED MONTEREY COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger authorizes a $13-million loan to the King City Joint Union High School District. A state administrator will be named Thursday.

By Seema Mehta  LA Times

 

July 23, 2009  -- The state is taking over a Monterey County school district that was facing bankruptcy and lending it $13 million, state officials announced Wednesday.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed emergency legislation authorizing the loan to the King City Joint Union High School District. A state takeover is required by law once such a loan is granted.

Today, John Bernard will be named the state administrator to oversee the district, which has a nearly $24-million budget to serve 2,134 students in an agrarian community located 105 miles south of San Jose.

State takeovers of school districts are rare, but last month, state education officials announced that the number of districts deemed to be at risk of fiscal insolvency had quadrupled as the state cut billions from school funding because of the budget crisis.

The state budget plan announced earlier this week would cut an additional $6 billion from schools and community colleges.

School districts must file reports showing their financial health to the state, and the latest reports showed that 19 districts, including King City, would not be able to meet their financial obligations for the school year that just ended, or the upcoming school year, without making drastic cuts.

Eighty-nine districts, including big-city school systems in Los Angeles, Oakland, Santa Ana and Sacramento, are in jeopardy of not meeting their financial obligations in the school year that just ended or the next two years.

The news that didn't fit from July 26

OBAMA MAY DISQUALIFY SOME STATES – INCLUDING CALIFORNIA & NEW YORK - FROM SCHOOL GRANTS
Friday, July 24, 2009 10:04 PM
By Molly Peterson | Bloomberg.com  

CALIFORNIA THREATENED WITH LOSS OF FUNDS IF IT DOESN'T USE TEST SCORES IN EVALUATING TEACHERS: U.S. education secretary is expected to withhold millions of dollars in education stimulus money if the state doesn't comply with his demand.
Friday, July 24, 2009 9:16 AM
By Jason Felch and Jason Song From the Los Angeles Times 

CALIFORNIA SENATE PASSES BUDGET-BALANCING PLAN + BUDGET DEAL HIGH(LOW)LIGHTS
Friday, July 24, 2009 8:01 AM
BY JUDY LIN | ASSOCIATED PRESS FROM THE SANTA ROSA PRESS DEMOCRAT 

CALIFORNIA LAWMAKERS BEGIN VOTING ON BUDGET PACKAGE
Thursday, July 23, 2009 10:14 PM
By JUDY LIN | ASSOCIATED PRESS   23 JULY | 9:45 PM PDT SACRAMENTO, Calif.

2 MAJOR STICKING POINTS STILL HOLDING UP STATE BUDGET DEAL
Thursday, July 23, 2009 10:14 PM
Shane Goldmacher in LA Times LANow Blog  

VILLARAIGOSA SAYS ‘CYNICAL’ STATE BUDGET WILL ‘KNEECAP’ OBAMA’S STIMULUS PACKAGE
Thursday, July 23, 2009 10:13 PM
LATimes LANow Blog -- Phil Willon at L.A. City Hall 

DRAFT ‘COLLEGE-AND-CAREER-READINESS’ CONTENT STANDARDS ELICIT MIXED REVIEWS
Thursday, July 23, 2009 10:13 PM
By Sean Cavanagh and Catherine Gewertz | EdWeek

‘RACE TO THE TOP’ GUIDELINES STRESS USE OF TEST DATA
Thursday, July 23, 2009 10:12 PM
By Michele McNeil \ EdWeek  |

Steve Lopez: COULD PARENTS SCREAMS JOLT L.A. UNIFIED INTO ACTION? + A letter to Steve
Wednesday, July 22, 2009 11:29 AM

LA UNIFIED SCRAMBLING TO DECODE EFFECT OF BUDGET DEAL
Wednesday, July 22, 2009 9:55 AM
Howard Blume | LA Times LANow Blog 

LONG BEACH UNIFIED TO PUT PARCEL TAX ON NOVEMBER BALLOT
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 10:30 PM
By Kevin Butler, Staff Writer | Long Beach Press-Telegram 

CALIFORNIA’S EDUCATION SYSTEM TAKES ANOTHER HIT
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 10:13 PM
By Katy Murphy and Theresa Harrington | MediaNews staff | San Jose Mercury News  

LAWMAKERS STILL WAIT ON DETAILS OF FISCAL PACKAGE
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 9:57 PM
James Rufus Koren, Staff Writer | Redlands Daily Facts [LA Newspaper Group]

COURT WON’T HALT NEW LAUSD HIGH SCHOOL IN CARSON …O.K., Long Beach
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 9:45 PM
The Daily Breeze | from staff reports

BUDGET AGREEMENT PUTS CALIFORNIA DREAM ON HOLD
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 3:29 PM
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER | News Analysis|  New York Times 

CSU INCREASES FEES BY 20%
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 3:24 PM
by Miles Nevin | Report Card | Long Beach Post 

A KEY TEST FOR L.A.’s COMMUNITY COLLEGES: Two institutions are on probation for failing to conduct 'program review.' Though that sounds like a minor administrative matter, it helps schools answer a big question: Do our programs work?
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 8:14 AM
Editorial From the Los Angeles Times 

PIERCE COLLEGE PRESIDENT ANNOUNCES RESIGNATION + GARBER LEAVES PIERCE
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 8:15 AM
Pierce College president announces resignation  By Dana Bartholomew, Staff Writer | LA Daily News   

‘Agri-tainment’ or Education?: VALLEY FAIR, PIERCE COLLEGE VYING TO LEASE CAMPUS LAND LAND.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 8:13 AM
By Dana Bartholomew, Staff Writer | LA Daily News   

“HOUSTON, WE HAVE A BUDGET” …unfortunately it’s one for California
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 7:44 AM
LA Times: ‘The plan is not yet formally released’  …but they have a chart of the cuts (kids’ health insurance) & a chart of the not cuts (kids’ health insurance not eliminated!).

WHAT FRANK McCOURT COULD TEACH JOEL KLEIN AND ARNE DUNCAN Monday, July 20, 2009 3:08 PM
…what he could teach Antonio Villaraigosa, Ramon Cortines and 121 slow learners in Sacramento – what he could teach us all if we only listened.      by Leonie Haimson Executive Director, Class Size Matters in The Huffington Post 

OBAMA MAY DISQUALIFY SOME STATES – INCLUDING CALIFORNIA & NEW YORK - FROM SCHOOL GRANTS

By Molly Peterson | Bloomberg.com

July 24 (Bloomberg) -- States barring the use of student- achievement data to help set teacher pay would be ineligible for $4.35 billion in education stimulus funds under guidelines proposed by President Barack Obama today.

The measure would disqualify states such as California, New York and Wisconsin from applying for the grants unless they change laws excluding student-performance data from evaluations of teachers and principals.

“In too many places we have no way, at least no good way, of distinguishing good teachers from bad ones,” Obama said at a news conference. The grants will go to states that “use data effectively to reward effective teachers, to support teachers who are struggling and, when necessary, to replace teachers who aren’t up to the job.”

Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who have long pressed for merit-pay programs that reward teachers for gains in student performance, unveiled the guidelines at a news conference today. Teachers unions oppose linking pay to pupil test scores, saying they aren’t an accurate measure of teacher effectiveness.

“In education for some reason, we’ve been scared to talk about excellence, we’ve been scared to reward excellence,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said today on a conference call with reporters. “I don’t understand that. We think that’s the foundation from which all reform can come.”

More Than Tests

The administration will work with the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, the two biggest U.S. teachers unions, to ensure standardized test scores are “just one part of a broader evaluation” of educators’ impact on student achievement, Obama said.

“But let me be clear: success should be judged by results, and data is a powerful tool to determine results,” he said.

While the proposed requirements don’t say which states would have to change their rules, Duncan has said California, New York and Wisconsin are among those with laws that create a “firewall” between student data and teacher evaluations.

“To somehow suggest that we should not link student achievement and teacher effectiveness, it’s like suggesting we judge a sports team without looking at the box score,” Duncan said in a June 8 speech in Washington. “I think that’s simply ridiculous.”

States that apply for funds should make student performance a “significant factor” in decisions about teachers’ and principals’ compensation and tenure, the administration said in its proposal.

Unions Encouraged

NEA President Dennis Van Roekel and AFT President Randi Weingarten, who attended the briefing, said they were encouraged by Obama’s pledge to work with unions on the teacher-incentive guidelines.

“The era of teacher union-bashing was over today,” Weingarten said in an interview after the briefing.

Obama and Duncan “want to work with us, and not do things to us,” Van Roekel said. “A single test score just doesn’t measure what you do as a teacher.”

Among the other criteria for the stimulus grants are a commitment to developing common, nationwide academic standards; increasing the number of “highly effective” teachers and principals in high-poverty schools; and creating more “high quality” charter schools, according to the summary. The public has 30 days to comment.

The administration also wants to “challenge both districts and unions to make collective bargaining a tool for innovation instead of a barrier for reform,” Duncan said. “Adult dysfunction, in far too many places, has really been a barrier to student achievement.”

The Education Department said it plans to disburse the competitive stimulus funds in two phases, awarding the first round of grants early next year and the second by September 2010. States that fail to win grants in the first phase may reapply for the second phase, the agency said.

●●smf's 2¢: Not that it has anything to do with anything, but…

● in last week's New Yorker there was a comedy article about Global Warming/Climate Change in Hell. Among the listed names for Satan (Beelzebub, Lucifer, etc.) is (AFT President) Randi Weingarten.

● Bloomberg News – from which this story is pulled, is owned by New York Mayor, school takeover artist (currently engaged in a fight over who controls the NYC schools with the legislature in Albany – itself engaged in its own battle on who controls the legislature in Albany) and all-around billionaire (worth$16B) Michael Bloomberg.   Other billionaires with their own media outlets: Rupert Murdock and Silvio Berlusconi.

Bloomberg Quote: "If parents don't like the way I run the schools they can boo me at parades."

"Bloomy's" (what the NY Daily News calls him, sometimes prefixed with "Loony") attitude over this paltry $4.35 billion might be amusing.

CALIFORNIA BUDGET DEAL (almost!) CLOSES $26 BILLION GAP – No drilling, No stealing from local gas taxes – but plenty of begging, borrowing and stealing

By JENNIFER STEINHAUER  | New York Times

Published: July 24, 2009

LOS ANGELES — After several days of nearly endless debate, California lawmakers on Friday signed off on a budget deal that closes a $26 billion gap and shores up state finances, for now.

Related Times Topics: California Budget Crisis (2008-09)

The budget, an agreement made earlier in the week in near secrecy among party leaders and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, contains more than $15 billion in cuts to services, but spares local governments from serving as unwilling cash machines for the state’s general fund, and discards a plan to drill for oil off the coast of Santa Barbara.

Legislation mirroring the deal cobbled together by the leaders was approved by the State Senate early Friday morning after an original failure to get the two-thirds vote needed to pass.

State Assembly members settled midafternoon on a final deal that no longer contained a nearly $1 billion reserve from earlier versions, but also discarded plans to take gasoline tax revenues away from local governments, a plan that had enraged mayors and county leaders and invited lawsuits.

Mr. Schwarznegger, a Republican, will sign the document next week.

“It’s not an easy budget; it’s a tough budget; but it’s a necessary budget,” he said in a news conference immediately after the deal was sealed.

The budget contains a vast array of spending cuts that will soon be felt throughout the state. The K-12 education budget, which also includes community colleges, lost $6.1 billion from its roughly $58 billion base, and higher education took a $2 billion hit.

The state will save $1.3 billion by furloughing state workers three days out of the month. Medicaid took a $1.3 billion cut, not including a $129 million trim to the state’s program that insures children whose families make too much for them to receive Medicaid.

There were accounting tricks, like $1.2 billion that will be saved in a one-time deferment of state worker paychecks for one day, moving them into the next fiscal year.

The Senate had signed off on measures to move about $4.7 billion of local government monies into the state’s fund.

But now the state will borrow about $2 billion from local governments, which has to be repaid within three years, and which those governments can borrow against in the short term.

There will also be a $1.7 billion shift from local redevelopment agencies into state funds, which is likely to anger local governments, who were placated by the return of other money. The money previously planned to come from localities will now be made up by dipping into a nearly $1 billion planned reserve.

“In no way should this be misconstrued as kicking the can down the road,” said the Assembly speaker, Karen Bass, in prepared remarks. “Where local government, and the communities we serve are concerned, it’s more like we’re throwing a hand grenade out of the foxhole.”

The Assembly rejected a revenue-raising measure to drill for oil off Santa Barbara, blowing another $100 million hole in the plan that is likely to be compensated for in line-item vetoes made by the governor.

The state’s nebulous way of managing its budget negotiations, as well as other oddities of its fiscal situation, are almost certain to be taken on by outside groups this year who wish to change the state’s tax system and perhaps its entire Constitution.

 

CALIFORNIA BUDGET NEWS UPDATE

Google News as of 9PM Friday July 24

Assembly approves most of state budget, which now goes to governor

Los Angeles Times - ‎1 hour ago‎

The state Assembly this afternoon approved all but two budget pieces, worth $1.1 billion, of a package that would nearly close the state's deficit, ...

California budget deal approved

AFP - ‎1 hour ago‎

SAN FRANCISCO — California lawmakers passed a deal to fix the state's multi-billion-dollar budget deficit, approving a package of wide-ranging spending cuts ...

Legislature plan falls short of closing entire deficit

San Francisco Chronicle - ‎2 hours ago‎

Ending a long-running cliffhanger in cash-strapped California, the Legislature passed a plan Friday that closes most of the state's gaping deficit by making ...

---

"These are difficult economic times that demand courage from elected officials, including those in the legislature," Schwarzenegger said after both chambers of the California legislature approved the deal. "Both Republicans and Democrats stepped up to the challenge, and I want to thank the legislative leaders and the entire legislature for passing this difficult but necessary budget solution that cuts state spending, reforms government so that...

more by Arnold Schwarzenegger - 1 hour ago - AFP (20 occurrences)

---

SCENARIOS: California budget troubles

Reuters - Peter Henderson, Jim Christie - ‎2 hours ago‎

(Reuters) - California lawmakers on Friday approved a $24 billion package of bills to close a yawning budget hole, promising an end to a cash crisis that ...

FACTBOX: California budget troubles

Reuters - Peter Henderson, Jim Christie - ‎2 hours ago‎

(Reuters) - California lawmakers on Friday passed $24 billion in bills to close a growing budget hole, promising an end to a cash crisis that saw the ...

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Arnold Schwarzenegger's Knife Play

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Bad things happen when those in power lack seriousness. Not long ago we had a Republican president who told Iraqi insurgents: "Bring 'em on! ...

State Budget Deal Demonstrates California's Dysfunction

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By all indications, California has closed its $26 billion-plus budget deficit -- that would be the good news. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger touted the ...

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Legislature passes budget deal that doesn't quite close the gap

San Jose Mercury News - Steven Harmon - ‎5 hours ago‎

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Assembly still poring over California budget package

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Sacramento, CA, USA

State Assembly Approves Budget Plan; Goes To Governor Next

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California Senate Passes Budget Plan

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The State Senate has approved a 25 billion dollar plan to balance California's budget. The upper house voted on the more than 30 bills throughout the night ...

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A pitiful budget

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State Budget Passes, Off Shore Drilling Stopped Along with Some ...

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Most of budget passed

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CALIFORNIA THREATENED WITH LOSS OF FUNDS IF IT DOESN'T USE TEST SCORES IN EVALUATING TEACHERS: U.S. education secretary is expected to withhold millions of dollars in education stimulus money if the state doesn't comply with his demand.

By Jason Felch and Jason Song From the Los Angeles Times

July 24, 2009 -- California could lose out on millions of federal education dollars unless legislators change a law that prevents it from using student test scores to measure teachers' performance, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is expected to announce in a speech today.

California has among the worst records of any state in collecting and using data to evaluate teachers and schools.

Moreover, a 2006 law that created a teacher database explicitly prohibited the use of student test scores to hold teachers accountable on a statewide basis, although it did not mention local districts.

Only a few of the state's nearly 1,000 districts evaluate teachers by using their students' scores, though a dozen more are considering such moves, according to state officials. Los Angeles Unified, the state's largest, does not grade teachers based on student performance.

Data-driven school reform is a major focus of the Obama administration's education policies.

Duncan, who has repeatedly chastised states with similar laws, plans to withhold some economic stimulus money from those states, according to an advance text of his speech to be given today at the U.S. Department of Education in Washington.

Money from the administration's Race to the Top fund, about $4.35 billion, is intended to help states boost reform efforts at a time when most are facing severe budget cutbacks.

That money, a fraction of the nearly $100 billion provided for education through the economic stimulus bill, will be granted competitively in large chunks to a few states.

In recent public appearances, Duncan singled out California's law as "ridiculous" and "mind-boggling," saying that it prevents the state from identifying which of the state's 300,000 teachers are effective and which are not.

"No one in California can tell you which teacher is in which category," Duncan said at one meeting of education officials. "Something is wrong with that picture."

If Duncan stands firm on his position, state legislators may have to renegotiate the sensitive issue with the state's powerful teachers unions, which are concerned that their local collective bargaining agreements would be trumped by state law.

"We would have some very serious discussions with the Legislature" if they tried to rewrite the 2006 legislation, said David Sanchez, president of the California Teachers Assn.

"We'd suggest the state look very carefully at that before they made that move," said Gary Ravani, an official with the California Federation of Teachers.

State education officials said they have repeatedly told Duncan that the amendment -- inserted into the law at the request of teachers unions -- in no way prevents such accountability at school districts in the state, where evaluation and pay decisions are made.

The state's three top education officials wrote to Duncan earlier this month disputing his interpretation of the law.

"We want to reiterate to you that we have the capability to link teacher and student data, which is exactly what you are advocating nationally," said the July 9 letter signed by state Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell, state Board of Education President Ted Mitchell and state Secretary of Education Glen Thomas .

Duncan has not responded to the letter, but on Thursday a spokesman, Justin Hamilton, said the secretary "stands by his public comments."

And Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez), who is the chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, agreed with Duncan's interpretation and urged the state to alter its law.

"I hope states that don't presently meet the eligibility will decide to take the steps necessary to meet it. It's the right policy to take our education system to the next level," he said in a statement.

Regardless of the interpretation of the law, few would dispute that California is behind on data collection.

California ranks 41st among states in its use of education data, according to a 2008 survey by the Data Quality Campaign, a nonprofit based in Austin, Texas.

The federal guidelines have been widely anticipated for months and two other states, Arizona and Indiana, recently struck similar language from their laws to qualify for Race to the Top funds, according to the Data Quality Campaign.

Today's announcement will not be the final word on the dispute. States have a month to comment on the draft guidelines before they are finalized.

As part of that process, California's attorney general also can certify that the state law does not create a barrier to teacher accountability. State officials said they planned to argue their case forcefully.

If California is required to change its law, its reform efforts could be turned into confusion, some lawmakers say.

"My worry is that the debate over this particular provision ends up generating opposition to the whole notion of meaningful accountability and a meaningful data system," said state Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto), who wrote the 2006 legislation that created the statewide teacher database, known as CALTIDES.

"We were able to strike a balance that brought a lot of folks along on a very challenging issue. The consensus we've developed could be badly damaged."

The dispute over state laws is not the only controversial aspect of Race to the Top. The department will have spent more discretionary money on that program than any other reform in the last 29 years.

In recent speeches, Duncan has laid out four key areas of reform in which applicants must show progress: adopting rigorous academic standards; recruiting and keeping effective teachers; turning around chronically low-performing schools; and building data systems to track student achievement and teacher effectiveness.

"There are lots of things that are going to cause California and all 50 states to think differently about their education system," said Rick Miller, deputy superintendent of public instruction in California. "It fundamentally changes much of what we do."

ONLINE SCHOOLS APPROVED IN ROWLAND HEIGHTS: The Rowland Unified School District board Tuesday approved a middle and high school that will exist almost entirely on the Internet.

Corina Knoll - LA Times/LA Now Blog

1:46 PM | July 22, 2009

Updated 7:51 p.m. [LA Times]: An earlier version of this posting, as well as its headline, stated incorrectly that the online school was the first created in the state. The earlier post also failed to mention that middle school grades would be included.

smf: 4LAKids did not post earlier versions of this story because we knew the 'first in the state claim' to be incorrect.

THE PLAYERS, THE SCORECARD & CONNECT THE DOTS/FOLLOW THE MONEY: iQ Academy – a private/for-profit cooperation - is a brand of KC Distance Learning, KC Distance Learning, Inc. operates as a subsidiary of Knowledge Learning Corp – a wholly-Owned Subsidiary of Knowledge Universe, Inc.

Former LAUSD Board President/former California Charter Schools Association President Caprice Young is the President and CEO of KC Distance Learning and was formerly Vice President of Business Development and Alliances of Knowledge Universe.

Former Junk Bond King Michael Milken [bio1] [bio2] is Co-Founder and Chairman  of Knowledge Universe

The virtual campus, a charter school that will be known as iQ Academy California-Los Angeles, will operate out of Rowland Heights and will be open to students in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties.

“In our mission statement for our district we talk about being innovative,” said school board President Robert Hidalgo, who is also a high school history teacher. “A charter school is technically still a public school, but it is kind of a laboratory for experimentation. We saw that as an opportunity to be cutting edge and to be a pioneer in the online-virtual world.”

Full-time students will be given a laptop and access to wireless Internet and will be able meet with their teachers via webcasts or in person.

Those who attend a traditional brick-and-mortar high school can still utilize iQ Academy for supplemental classes or summer school. Parents will also be able to log on and look over their child’s progress.

A downside is that students will experience a limited social life because they aren’t physically going to school. But Hidalgo said the academy will offer networking opportunities to make up for that.

“Initially, I was a little bit apprehensive, only because you don’t have that face-to-face experience,” he said. “But after I saw some of the demonstrations and did some more research on it, I began to realize that kids learn in different environments. This is more of a self-paced, interactive type of school that might better accommodate some students.”

Lisa McClure, director of iQ Academy, said a virtual high school is an easy concept to grasp for the current generation. “Many school districts have already dabbled in online learning, and teachers coming out of universities now have taken courses online so they’re totally tuned into this,” she said.

McClure said she expects about 500 students to enroll for the fall season, which will begin Sept. 8. The academy has opened schools in eight other states.

CALIFORNIA SENATE PASSES BUDGET-BALANCING PLAN + BUDGET DEAL HIGH(LOW)LIGHTS

BY JUDY LIN | ASSOCIATED PRESS FROM THE SANTA ROSA PRESS DEMOCRAT

Published: Friday, July 24, 2009 at 7:00 a.m.

SACRAMENTO — The California Senate on Friday approved a plan to close the state's $26 billion budget deficit, giving a glimmer of hope after weeks of fiscal gloom.

State Senate Minority Leader Dennis Hollingsworth, R-Temecula, left, ponders for a moment while talking with Sen. Bob Huff, R-Diamond Bar, during the debate over one of the state budget measures at the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., Friday, July 24, 2009. Lawmakers worked overnight voting on a package of bills worked out between Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Legislative leaders to resolve the state's $26.3 billion budget deficit. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

The complex legislative package of 31 bills was still being debated in the Assembly as it struggled to secure enough votes on several measures.

Failure to pass any of them still could jeopardize the entire deal, potentially sinking California further into fiscal chaos.

Senators started their session Thursday evening and worked through the early-morning hours Friday to get enough votes to pass the more controversial measures, including three that took or borrowed billions of dollars from cities and counties.

Senate leader Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said lawmakers could take pride in dealing with difficult budgets during an unprecedented economic collapse.

"And California is still standing," he said moments after the final vote.

The compromise plan before the 80-member Assembly and 40-member state Senate was announced Monday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Democratic and Republican leaders of each house.

It eliminates nearly 60 percent of the deficit with spending cuts to core state services such as education, state parks and prisons.

The rest is reached by one-time raids on local government funding and accounting maneuvers, such as deferring state employee paychecks by one day for a savings on paper of $1.2 billion.

Both legislative houses quickly passed a key bill that enacts cuts to higher education, college grants, health programs, welfare, in-home supportive services and state prisons, but measures aimed at filling the rest of the deficit proved most difficult.

Some required two-thirds approval, so they needed support from a handful of Republicans, the minority party in each house.

Legislative leaders have acknowledged the solution is imperfect and cuts deeply into basic programs, including education, prisons, health care and welfare. But they say it is vital to address the state's cash-flow crisis.

 

BUDGET DEAL HIGHLIGHTS

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: Friday, July 24, 2009 at 4:03 a.m.

Highlights of details of the agreement between Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the four legislative leaders to close California's $26.3 billion budget deficit:

SPENDING REDUCTIONS

• Cuts $6 billion from K-12 schools and community colleges over two years.
• Cuts nearly $3 billion from the University of California and California State University systems. Although the federal stimulus program fills some of the gap, the depth of the cuts will mean higher student fees, fewer students and furloughs for employees.
• Cuts $1.3 billion from Medi-Cal, the state's health-care program for the poor; most of the savings would be through a proposal to bill the federal government for more money. In February, the state eliminated adult dental and eye care for recipients, a move that is being challenged in court.
• Saves $1.3 billion by retaining three unpaid furlough days a month for state workers, which is the equivalent of a 14 percent pay cut.
• Includes $1.2 billion in unallocated cuts to the state Department of Corrections.
• Cuts $528 million from CalWORKS, state's welfare-to-work program, partly by increasing sanctions for families that fail to meet work requirements. Schwarzenegger had proposed eliminating the program entirely.
• Cuts $124 million from Healthy Families, a program that provides health insurance for 930,000 low-income children. Lawmakers hope nonprofit groups, foundations and other organizations can fill in some of the losses. The program already has stopped accepting new applicants, the first time it has done so in its 12-year history.
• Cuts $226 million from state's in-home supportive services program for the frail and disabled. The governor initially proposed removing 90 percent of the 440,000 people enrolled in the program, but the budget compromise will eliminate care only for those who are more independent and able to do their own cooking and cleaning. It also includes Schwarzenegger's proposal to require fingerprinting of caregivers and most recipients, and would require caregivers to undergo background checks.
• Cuts about $8 million from state parks, allowing the majority of state parks, beaches and attractions to stay open. Some parks are likely to close, based on popularity and use.

OTHER MEASURES

• Borrows about $2 billion from local governments' property tax revenue, money that would have to be repaid with interest in three years. As a concession to angry city and county officials, the deal would prioritize repayment of the so-called Proposition 1A money after schools and bondholders are paid.
• Takes $1 billion in redevelopment money from local governments.
• Takes $1 billion in transportation funding from local governments.
• Speeds up collection of 2010 personal income and corporate taxes to bring in revenue earlier than anticipated.
• Sells off part of the State Compensation Insurance Fund, which the administration values at $1 billion. The fund is a quasi-governmental agency that is the state's largest writer of workers' compensation insurance.
• Allows limited expansion of oil drilling off Santa Barbara County, which the governor's office says will generate $100 million in the current fiscal year.
• Eliminates the Integrated Waste Management Board and the Board of Geologists and Geophysicists, which Schwarzenegger had targeted as wasteful and unnecessary.
• Gives school districts option of cutting the school year by five days.
• Defers state employee paychecks by one day for a savings on paper of $1.2 billion, which has been criticized by some as a gimmick. Instead of being issued on June 30, 2010, the paychecks would be issued on July 1, the start of the 2010-2011 fiscal year.
• Gives governor authority to pursue the sale of the Orange County Fairgrounds and about 10 state-owned office buildings as a potential revenue source in future years. The California Public Utilities Commission Building in San Francisco and the Ronald Reagan State Office Building in Los Angeles are among those that will be considered for sale.
• Rejects Schwarzenegger's proposal for a surcharge on homeowner insurance policies, which would have boosted funding for emergency services. The surcharge would have averaged about $48 a year per homeowner.

CALIFORNIA LAWMAKERS BEGIN VOTING ON BUDGET PACKAGE

By JUDY LIN | ASSOCIATED PRESS

23 JULY | 9:45 PM PDT SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California lawmakers on Thursday began voting on a complex budget deal struck by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders that is designed to reverse the state's slide toward insolvency.

The compromise before the 80-member Assembly and 40-member state Senate eliminates nearly 60 percent of a projected $26 billion deficit with spending cuts. The rest is reached by one-time raids on local government funding and accounting maneuvers, such as deferring state employee paychecks by one day for a savings on paper of $1.2 billion.

The Senate took the first step toward approving the massive legislative package. On a two-thirds vote, senators passed a bill that cuts higher education funding, college grants, health programs, welfare, in-home supportive services and state prisons.

It was the first of 31 bills that, if passed by both houses of the Legislature and signed by the governor, would close the state's budget shortfall through June 2010.

Given past budget debates, the voting was expected to last late into the night. Some bills will require two-thirds approval, which means they need support from a handful of Republicans, the minority party in each house.

It could take even longer before officials decide whether the deal will let California stop issuing IOUs.

Legislative leaders have acknowledged the solution is imperfect and contains distasteful provisions such as offshore oil drilling and cuts across all major programs, including education, prisons, health care and welfare. But they're making their case to 115 other lawmakers that the plan is vital to address the state's cash-flow crisis. The state Assembly has one open seat.

"Nobody likes this budget because there is not much to like about it," said state Senate leader Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, as he opened debate in his chamber.

He said he was pained by deep cuts to public schools and health and human services programs, and did not like having to raid city and county governments.

"But given the circumstances, I am grateful for all we have been able to save, the services we have been able to save," he said, emphasizing that the budget-balancing deal was a bipartisan compromise.

Initially, Schwarzenegger had proposed eliminating welfare and a program that provides health care to 930,000 low-income children.

The state Senate's minority leader, Republican Dennis Hollingsworth, noted that the plan closes the deficit without raising taxes. He also said it includes reforms to welfare and social service programs that Republicans believe will save the state money in the years ahead.

"We are solving a very big problem," he told his Senate colleagues. "There are no easy solutions to problems like this."

California's budget shortfall represents nearly 30 percent of its $88 billion general fund, an amount that brings the state's spending to the same level it was in 2005.

The nation's most populous state has been hammered by the national recession, leading to a steep plunge in income, sales, property and capital gains taxes. During the first five months of the year, personal income tax revenue to the state fell by 34 percent.

As the Assembly began taking up the bills, Assemblywoman Noreen Evans noted California's declining credit rating and how the state's reputation has been tarnished as it has slipped further into fiscal chaos.

She said she and fellow Democrats disliked the deep cuts to social programs but that there was no other choice but to accept the budget-balancing plan. The state must close its shortfall, she said.

"It's even worse to not have it in place," she said of the plan.

The rapid decline in tax revenue and Republicans' insistence on no tax increases have left the state with few options but to cut spending, borrow money from elsewhere and resort to various accounting tricks to balance its books.

Many aspects of the budget-balancing deal are distasteful to a wide array of interest groups, who have been protesting and lobbying lawmakers as details emerged throughout the week.

Hours before Thursday's legislative sessions, several big-city mayors held a conference call criticizing the raids from local governments. They said at least 130 local governments have agreed to sue the state to block the transfer of some money. They urged lawmakers to reject the package.

"We've laid people off. They haven't laid people off. They've done some furloughs, but they haven't gone nearly as far as cities have gone, and they need to go further," said Miguel Pulido, mayor of Santa Ana in Orange County.

Health and welfare groups and public employee unions, representing workers who have been furloughed three days a month, also have protested the cuts.

On Thursday, a group of seniors and disabled people tried to give Schwarzenegger a giant mock thank-you card from oil and tobacco companies, which they said fared well under the deal at the expense of California's most vulnerable. A spokesman for the group, Mike Roth, said they were turned away by the California Highway Patrol.

Passing the state Legislature will only be the first test of the budget-balancing deal. It also must satisfy the bond markets so California will be able to take out short-term loans to cover daily expenses until next spring, when most of the state's tax revenue arrives.

Obtaining the short-term loans is essential to the state's ability to stop issuing IOUs to thousands of state contractors and vendors, which it has been doing since early July in an effort to conserve cash.

Associated Press Writers Steve Lawrence, Juliet Williams and Samantha Young contributed to this report.

2 MAJOR STICKING POINTS STILL HOLDING UP STATE BUDGET DEAL

Shane Goldmacher in LA Times LANow Blog

3:56 PM | July 23, 2009 -- Sacramento  -- As they prepare to vote on a budget deal that includes a number of controversial issues, California lawmakers say two of the most significant are oil drilling and borrowing from local governments.

It is unclear when they will vote on the more than two dozen bills that contain the budget agreement, or whether all of them will pass.

Oil drilling

The deal allows for the first new oil drilling off the California coast in 40 years. In exchange, the state would receive $100 million in royalties from Plains Exploration & Production Co., the company that would be extracting the oil.

Many Democrats and environmentalists oppose the provision; the chairman of the California Democratic Party has called it a “sweetheart deal.” Most Republicans say they support it.

The plan can pass on a simple majority vote, but Republicans are the minority, so a significant number of Democratic votes would be needed for the provision to pass.

Local government

The budget agreement stipulates that the state would borrow $1.9 billion in property taxes, raid local coffers for $1 billion in transportation funds and take $1.7 billion from redevelopment agencies. More than 180 California cities have passed resolutions threatening to sue the state.

Both Democrats and Republicans say they don’t really want to do this but there are few, if any, viable alternatives as they push to close a $26.3-billion deficit.

—

VILLARAIGOSA SAYS ‘CYNICAL’ STATE BUDGET WILL ‘KNEECAP’ OBAMA’S STIMULUS PACKAGE

LATimes LANow Blog -- Phil Willon at L.A. City Hall

11:34 AM | July 23, 2009

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said this morning that the “gimmicks, accounting tricks and backdoor borrowing’’ in the proposed state budget deal would cost the city $260 million this year, while derailing state transit projects and putting thousands of criminals back on the streets.

The mayor vowed to join lawsuits being filed by local governments across California to block the Legislature from taking away billions of dollars in gas tax revenue, property tax dollars and redevelopment funds that were destined for counties and cities.

“This is a cynical money grab that will kneecap President Obama’s stimulus package and severely stint our economic recovery efforts,’’ Villaraigosa said at a morning news conference joined by leaders of the Los Angeles Police Department and the city police union.

First Assistant Chief Jim McDonnell said the proposal to reduce the state prison population by 27,000 inmates would have a definite “impact on our community.

“Its’ a shame that while we may save money in the short term, putting criminals back in our communities will cost us more in the long term, not only in money but in pain and suffering,’’ McDonnell said.

Police Chief William J. Bratton did not attend the conference because he is on vacation, said Mary Grady, an aide to the chief.  “If he had been here, he would have gone to the press conference.”

If the state ends up releasing prisoners, McDonnell said, police chiefs are urging corrections officials to focus on inmates who are nonviolent, elderly or ill.

Los Angeles Police Protective League President Paul Weber said any early-release program for inmates would be a “shortcut to disaster’’ for the city, and could impede the continuing drop in violent crime in Los Angeles.

“There’s a reason they are in state prison,’’ Weber said.

Villaraigosa, a former Assembly speaker, said that on Thursday night he spoke with legislative leaders and urged them to rethink the budget plan. At the very least, the mayor wants any money taken from local governments to be considered a “loan’’ to the state, to be repaid. That would at least allow cities such as Los Angeles to borrow money through the bond market to replace those lost funds. Villaraigosa said he was told that idea would be considered.

The mayor also criticized state lawmakers for going ahead with a vote on the budget cuts while postponing votes on a controversial provision to reduce the amount of time that thousands of inmates spend in prison. He said that was a clear ploy to provide political cover to Republicans so they would vote on the budget plan without looking soft on crime.

“The system is broken. Sacramento is in a meltdown,’’ Villaraigosa said. “Next year, we’re going to see more of the same. This is not going to get any better.’’

DRAFT ‘COLLEGE-AND-CAREER-READINESS’ CONTENT STANDARDS ELICIT MIXED REVIEWS

By Sean Cavanagh and Catherine Gewertz | EdWeek | Vol. 28, Issue 37

A draft of common academic standards, meant to bring greater coherence to the nation’s English and mathematics lessons, is drawing a mix of enthusiastic, ambivalent, and barbed responses from those who have seen it.

The working document, which was unexpectedly put out for public consumption yesterday, is meant to serve as the first step of a standards-writing process, led by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. The crafting and review of those academic guidelines is expected to play out at least through the end of the year.

The draft that was circulated on the Web yesterday attempts to set “college- and career-readiness” standards for English and math—the skills students need to succeed in credit-bearing postsecondary courses and workforce-training programs.

Draft Common Core State Standards

• Preamble

• English

• Math

From there, the NGA, CCSSO, and other organizations collaborating on the project will attempt to move back through the K-12 system, crafting English and math standards for earlier grades. Eventually, it will be up to state education leaders to accept or reject the final documents, after they have gone through several iterations, officials from the governors’ and chiefs’ organizations say.

Unlike some standards documents, the draft does not break out skills and knowledge by grade level—a level of detail that is expected to come, in some form, later. Instead, it spells out core standards, concepts, and principles in English and math in very simple terms, then provides more detailed explanations of what is meant by that guidance. It also offers sample texts for English, such as the Declaration of Independence, and sample problems, or “performance tasks” in math.

Forty-six states plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands have signed on to the common standards work so far, according to the NGA.

The draft document began drawing public reaction after it was unexpectedly posted on the Web site of Core Knowledge, a Charlottesville, Va., organization that advocates grounding students in a foundational and specific set of content across subjects.

Right or Wrong Direction?

Core Knowledge officials said they received a copy of the document, and since they knew of no restrictions on it, decided to post a link to it online. The organization offered a highly critical review, titling its summation “Voluntary National Standards Dead on Arrival.”

The English-language arts portion of the document offers too little guidance for teachers and parents on what specific literary texts should be taught, and places too much emphasis on skills rather than content, Core Knowledge officials argued.

“At first glance, these language standards are, despite the brave descriptors, very similar to the dysfunctional state standards already in place,” wrote Core Knowledge founder E.D. Hirsch Jr. “Like most state standards, they naively take a formalistic approach to language ability. They assume that the ability to understand literary and informational language is chiefly a how-to skill, whereas it is chiefly a topic-dependent skill that varies with specific topic familiarity.”

Others had a more favorable reaction.

Alan J. Farstrup, the longtime executive director of the 80,000-member International Reading Association, in Newark, Del., rejected Core Knowledge’s critique, saying the draft “appeared headed in the right direction,” and praised it for not giving overly rigid guidance to English teachers and schools.

The language of the draft, in fact, says it “will not prescribe how” the standards are taught, but will allow teachers and students the ability to learn in “instructionally relevant contexts.”

“I’d hate to see [it] devolve into a prescriptive set of standards,” said Mr. Farstrup, who recently retired from his post at the IRA. The draft needs to “give clear guidance, but allow local characteristics and needs to be taken into account,” and the document was a positive step, he said.

“It’s way too soon to issue blanket condemnations, or blanket praise to a draft,” Mr. Farstrup added.

Leaders of the CCSSO and the NGA, which are spearheading the common standards work, agreed, saying the draft was far from complete.

Gene Wilhoit, the chiefs’ executive director, said the draft does not yet incorporate the input of the “feedback groups” assigned to review it, or of state schools chiefs and governors, who are also looking at it. That feedback is due by the end of the month, he said.

“We are still at a very early stage,” Mr. Wilhoit said. “We wanted to do that in order to make revisions in it [and] to move it to the second phase of work. Although we’ve done some solid work to this point, we know it’s an incomplete product,” he said, and having the feedback groups and state officials respond to it would “make it even better.”

More Drafts to Come

Once the NGA and CCSSO receive that input, the standards will also be put out for broader public comment, said Dane Linn, the director of the education division of the NGA’s Center for Best Practices. That revised draft is expected to be posted online at corestandards.org in mid-August; the two groups will seek comment from such organizations as the national teachers’ unions and groups representing math and English teachers at that time, and revise the document again, Mr. Wilhoit said.

The process of gathering outside opinions takes time, Mr. Linn noted, since one of the aims of the work is to back up the standards with research and evidence and to internationally benchmark them. NGA and CCSSO were not especially surprised the draft was leaked, Mr. Linn said, given that the organizations were actively seeking comments on it from outside experts.

One teacher who had read the draft, Jim Burke, a California high school educator, said he thought the document encourages students to think “creatively and critically about a variety” of written documents—essential skills in college and the workforce.

“I’m not against [covering] canonical texts, but what you see being asked of people in the workplace and the university is more reflective of flexible techniques, and practices, and standards,” said Mr. Burke, an English teacher in Burlingame.

The college- and career-readiness standards have been drafted behind closed doors by two committees of experts, one covering English, the other math. Members of those working groups consist mostly of representatives of Achieve, a Washington policy organization; and two groups known for their work on college-admissions tests, ACT Inc. and the College Board. The working groups will expand later in the year to include other experts, as the groups delve into K-12 standards, NGA and CCSSO officials have said.

In addition, the governors’ and chiefs’ organizations have established feedback groups of experts to review the draft college- and career-readiness documents.

Michael W. Kirst, a Stanford University professor of education and business who focuses on college- and career-readiness, said he is concerned that the feedback groups are “not very deep” on representatives from community colleges and technical or vocational programs.

It is particularly important to have sound standards in those areas, Mr. Kirst said, since President Barack Obama is highlighting the role that such programs can play in ensuring that more Americans have some post-high-school education. He said the draft standards appear to presume, perhaps erroneously, that career and college skills are one in the same.

“There are many levels of postsecondary education that do career training, from technical schools to community colleges on up,” Mr. Kirst said. “Many of these technical programs require only three months to a year or more of training. It’s not clear that their standards are appropriate for that band of career-preparation programs.”

'Pleased and Optimistic'

Mr. Kirst also expressed doubt that the standards are equally well-suited for students headed to community college and those headed to four-year, selective universities.

“These [standards] may satisfy some elements of higher education, but there are over 4,000 institutions of postsecondary education in America, and the impression is that this is fine for all of them,” he added. “Those are so varied, from Harvard to the DeKalb Technical College in Georgia, that to say one set of standards fits that full range of postsecondary institutions is hard to substantiate.”

The math portion of the draft also drew varied responses.

Steven Leinwand, a principal research analyst at the American Institutes for Research, in Washington, said he was “pleased and optimistic” about the direction of the math standards, after seeing the early version. Mr. Leinwand has studied math curriculum in high-performing countries.

The researcher was particularly impressed that the draft appeared not to be organized around merely preparing students for precalculus or calculus, but instead emphasizes a broader set of math skills that students need to prosper in college and the workplace. Too many high school academic standards and curricula focus on “precalculus for all, to the detriment of most students,” he said.

Even so, the document was likely to yield strong reactions in the math community, where divisions over what math content is most essential have been playing out for decades, he said.

“There’s no question that people at both ends of the spectrum will have concerns,” said Mr. Leinwand, though he hoped the draft would also spark a “collective spirit of excitement and agreement,” which he says has become more prevalent in recent years.

Defining the Document

Henry S. Kepner Jr., the president of the 100,000-member National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, in Reston, Va., said the document heads in the “right direction,” though he also sees challenges ahead. One would be for the writers to explain who the standards are targeting, Mr. Kepner said. Are the standards meant to set a basic bar for all students, he asked, regardless of their post-high-school ambitions, or do they speak to the needs of the highest-achieving students, too?

“We have to be clear on that,” Mr. Kepner said. “We have to be careful with parents and administrators about what exactly this document means.”

Mr. Kepner, who serves on the math-feedback committee charged with providing input on the document, said he was given a draft of the document and had been looking it over.

Wilfried Schmid, a Harvard University mathematics professor, said he was surprised that the document was not organized around specific grades, with clearer expectations. While he found some of the draft’s language to be commendable, particularly its focus on paring down math curriculum and having students master it, Mr. Schmid also said it should have laid out a clearer “set of priorities—what matters most” in math. Mr. Schmid was a member of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel, a White House-commissioned group that produced a report last year on foundational math skills and preparing students for introductory algebra.

“I understand that there has to be some flexibility,” Mr. Schmid said of the draft, “but there also has to be some kind of sequence for what should be taught.”

But Mr. Linn said more grade-focused expectations were likely to come later in the standards-drafting process, as the expert committees move toward writing the K-12 standards. How closely those expectations are tied to specific grades, or spans of grades, he said, will be the decision of the writers of those standards, based on the research they collect.

‘RACE TO THE TOP’ GUIDELINES STRESS USE OF TEST DATA

By Michele McNeil \ EdWeek  | Vol. 28, Issue 37

The U.S. Department of Education’s proposed guidelines for awarding $4 billion in Race to the Top money send a strong message that any state hoping to land a grant must allow student test scores to be used in decisions about teacher compensation and evaluation.

According to draft plans to be outlined by department officials on Friday, states would be judged on 19 education reform criteria, from how friendly their charter school climates are to whether they cut state K-12 funding this year.

But only two criteria would be absolute requirements: States must have been approved by the Education Department for stabilization funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (most already have been), and states must not have any laws in place barring the use of student-achievement data for evaluating teachers and principals.

States not meeting those two absolutes would be ineligible to compete for aid from the Race to the Top Fund, a small but highly coveted slice of some $100 billion in federal economic-stimulus aid for education. That policy could eliminate California and New York—big states with powerful congressional delegations and a lot of students, but with legal firewalls between student and teacher data.

Being able to link teacher and student data is “absolutely fundamental—it’s a building block,” U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said in an interview. “We believe great teachers matter tremendously. When you’re reluctant or scared to make that link, you do a grave disservice to the teaching profession and to our nation’s children.”

Timetable for Grants

So far, those criteria are just proposals. The public will have 30 days to comment before the Education Department makes them final in October.

States would have 60 days to apply for the first round of grants, with applications due in December. Awards would be made by the end of March. The second wave of grants would go out in September 2010, with applications due in late spring. A state that won a phase-one grant would not be eligible to win a phase-two grant.

The state’s governor would have to officially apply for the money, but the state education chief and the president of the state education board would also be required to sign off. Notably, one of the criteria states would be judged on is whether they have statewide backing for their reform plans, including from teachers’ unions. A letter of endorsement from the state union would be evidence of such support.

A winning state could use half the award however it wished, but half would have to be distributed to school districts based on the formula for the Title I program for disadvantaged students. The money would not, however, have to be spent according to Title I rules.

There will be a separate competition for the $350 million of the Race to the Top Fund that Mr. Duncan has said will be used to help spur a movement for common student assessments. Also, details will be announced later for a $650 million innovation-grant program for school districts that is not part of the fund.

The fact that the Race to the Top Fund is just $4.35 billion of the $100 billion in education aid in the $787 billion recovery act passed by Congress in February belies the fund’s importance. Mr. Duncan is using these competitive grants to cajole states into making specific policy moves, such as lifting caps on the expansion of charter schools and tapping rainy-day funds rather than cutting state funding to K-12 schools. ("Racing for an Early Edge," July 15, 2009.)

The education secretary has been crisscrossing the nation for months, making dozens of speeches foreshadowing how his department would determine which states get the money. The list of criteria, therefore, is fairly predictable, revolving around the four “assurances” that states were required to make to receive stimulus money. They call for states to adopt internationally benchmarked standards; improve the recruitment, retention, and rewarding of educators; improve data collection; and turn around the lowest-performing schools.

States that have signed on to the common-standards movement being spearheaded by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers would be given preference under the Education Department’s draft. All but Alaska, Missouri, South Carolina, and Texas have done so. ("46 States Agree to Common Academic Standards Effort," June 10, 2009).

States that allow alternative-certification routes for teachers and principals, and have merit-pay plans for educators, also would be looked on favorably. States also would be judged on whether they used their share of the $39.5 billion State Fiscal Stabilization Fund on education reform efforts, rather than plugging budget holes.

Although Mr. Duncan has hammered on the issue of charter school caps, which he wants removed, states also would be judged on how equitably they fund charter schools compared with regular public schools, and on how much funding they provide for charter school facilities. Those criteria may answer some charter school advocates’ concerns that Mr. Duncan was focusing too much on caps and ignoring other components of of what advocates deem good charter school policy.

Use of Test Scores

Secretary Duncan had also stressed his disapproval of states that have laws barring the use of student-achievement data in teacher-evaluation decisions, but the proposed criteria go further: Having such a law would automatically disqualify a state. At least two states have such laws on the books: California and New York.

“I hope states that don’t presently meet the eligibility will decide to take the steps necessary to meet it. It’s the right policy to take our education system to the next level,” said U.S. Rep. George Miller, a Democrat and the chair of the House Education and Labor Committee, whose home state of California has such a law.

The idea behind linking individual teachers to student data is to determine the extent to which teachers are contributing to students’ achievement growth. In theory, such “value added” systems can filter out elements such as students’ ethnicity or family economic levels that have a correlation with academic performance.

The two states’ laws on the matter differ somewhat. California prohibits its newly established teacher-identification database from being used for decisions about teacher pay, promotion, evaluation, or other employment matters.

In New York, state legislators barred the use of student-achievement data in tenure decisions. That law is scheduled to sunset in 2010, according to the state department of education.

Teachers’ unions harbor concerns about the technical quality of the tests that would be used to judge their members’ performance, as well as the validity of many value-added methodologies.

Although in recent weeks both Mr. Duncan and leaders of the two national teachers’ unions have underscored the need to collaborate on reforms, the notion of using test scores in pay and evaluation is an area in which there may be fundamental differences between the Obama administration and its union allies.

Policy resolutions approved by the 3.2 million-member National Education Association eschew the use of student test-score data in pay and evaluation decisions. NEA officials would not comment until they had reviewed the proposed criteria.

The president of the 1.4 million-member American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, has in the past said that student test-score data should used primarily for informative and instructional purposes. ("Growth Data for Teachers Under Review," Oct. 22, 2008.)

More recently, she has said student-achievement results do have a place in evaluations, but must be incorporated in a way that is fair to all teachers—including those who teach subjects not covered by states’ standardized-testing programs.

In an interview, Ms. Weingarten demurred from commenting specifically on the proposal. “What I’ve learned about Washington is that you actually have to wait to see the exact language,” she said.

Other commentators felt that the proposed guidance sent a clear signal to the teachers’ unions.

“This is clearly poking the unions in the eye,” said Michael J. Petrilli, the vice president for national programs and policy at the Washington-based Thomas B. Fordham Institute. “What’s so good about this issue is there’s not a lot of nuance. Either you’re allowed to use this information for evaluations or you’re not.”

Although the criterion on linking teachers and student data would be an all-or-nothing eligibility requirement, still unresolved is whether any of the remaining criteria would be given more weight than others, and if so, which ones.

And, while states would be judged heavily on their plans for the Race to the Top money, it’s still unresolved how Education Department officials would balance a state’s proposed reform plan and the policies it already has in place. The department would, however, give extra weight to proposals that focused on science, technology, engineering, and math, known as the STEM subjects.

“We’re not just looking for a plan but a commitment, … what you are doing now,” Mr. Duncan said. “This is not about the hypothetical. You must demonstrate to us your plans, ideas, and capacity to deliver on this.”

Judging the applications would be a peer-review panel made up of education experts from outside the federal department. The applications would ask for evidence for the criteria, such as financial documents and copies of state laws, with the states’ respective attorneys general having to sign off on the laws.

Staff Writer Stephen Sawchuk contributed to this story.

Steve Lopez: COULD PARENTS SCREAMS JOLT L.A. UNIFIED INTO ACTION? + A letter to Steve

Parents, fed up by the state of public education, are demanding reforms and threatening to pull out their children, try to shut down schools and start charters.

Steve Lopez | LA Times Columnist

 

July 22, 2009  -- I don't know about you, but I'm doubling the dosage on my blood pressure meds.

We've got a California budget "fix" that kicks thousands of people in the teeth and gives us another three, maybe six months, before we'll need another one.

We had state nursing board members who twiddled their thumbs while nurses accused of gross misconduct stayed on the job for three years or longer, until the dirty secrets were exposed in this newspaper.

And now a slew of talented young teachers are looking for work after being fired for lack of seniority, even as dozens of other teachers keep getting paid despite their removal from classrooms for misconduct allegations.

The world's gone mad, no doubt. But shenanigans of this variety are so common, most people just shrug. That's why I'd like to call attention to some parents who are ticked off about the state of public education, but instead of shrugging, they're screaming.

There's the Lemonade Initiative, started by "three LAUSD moms who are mad as hell about the current state of education in Los Angeles," as their website says. And there's the Parent Revolution, which has more political clout and some financial backing from the Bill & Melinda Gates and Eli Broad foundations, among others.

I haven't yet met with the Lemonade moms, but I have been talking to the latter group, which has had it up to here with the Los Angeles Unified School District and the teachers union. So they're plotting a takeover, one school at a time, and demanding improvements -- or else.

Or else what?

Or else they'll pull out their children and try to shut down the schools, forming charters in their place, with a teacher contract that rewards the good ones and tosses out the bad apples.

"We have to pick some fires to light," said Laura Alice, a soldier in the Parent Revolution.

Two fires are now burning out of control, with no chance for containment. The posse, which you can learn more about at parentrevolution.org, has gotten signed support from a majority of parents at feeder schools for Mark Twain Middle School in Venice and Garfield High in East Los Angeles.

So now Parent Revolution leaders are meeting with officials at the schools their children will one day attend and demanding that they shape up fast. And the parents aren't asking for a few more textbooks and cleaner bathrooms. Ben Austin, executive director of Parent Revolution and a former political aide for both President Clinton and L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan, listed the top three demands:

A new labor contract for teachers.

Accountability from all educators.

And a whittled-down bureaucracy.

Well, yeah. Sure. Count me in.

But what are the chances?

"They cannot stop us," Austin said Tuesday morning at the Cow's End in Venice, where we had coffee with two fighting-mad parents. "We're not playing their game anymore."

Although I respect Supt. Ray Cortines and appreciate that teachers union boss A.J. Duffy's job is to fight for his members, I doubt that either institution is capable of the radical changes being demanded here. Trying to get a new contract is particularly daunting.

But if the schools don't respond, it's conceivable that Austin and his group can carry out their threat of forming charters.

Not that charter schools are necessarily better. Sometimes they are; sometimes not. But I like the idea of more options for parents, and Austin used to work for Green Dot Public Schools, which has a pretty good record.

Green Dot is one of four charter outfits lined up by the Parent Revolution to stand ready for combat with schools that don't change their ways.

Raul Fernandez, the principal at Mark Twain, told me he feels parents' frustration but insisted the school is showing gradual improvement in test scores.

Maybe, but the school website shows that fewer than one-third of its students are proficient in core subjects.

"Parents want more, and I understand they want more," Fernandez said. "They have to give Twain a chance."

Parent Revolution isn't opposed to that. Austin said he'd rather use the threat of charters to improve existing schools than to start new ones.

"But we're done playing around at the margins," he said.

Joining us for coffee, along with Laura Alice, was Barbara Einstein, whose three sons grew up in Venice but didn't attend Mark Twain.

"We played the game," Einstein said, meaning she did the LAUSD parent shuffle, mastering the science and politics of getting her kids into better schools through various means.

But now Einstein has four adopted daughters and she'd rather try to reform Twain than play the game again. Same with Alice, whose daughter will be a first-grader this year at a Twain feeder school.

"The power structure defends the status quo and says this is the best we can do," said Austin, whose mantra is that administrators and union bosses are out to protect their own interests before those of the children.

That will end, he said, when enough parents stand up and take charge.

It's going to be a little trickier than they're letting on. At most schools, parent involvement is minimal, and the challenges students bring into the classrooms are monumental.

But almost every day, there's more evidence that it's time for the kind of upheaval Austin is talking about.

I just talked to heartbroken teacher Susan Requa, who was heavily recruited by LAUSD last year because of her great promise and her conviction that public education and social justice are inseparable, only to get fired from Monroe High School because she had no tenure.

I just bumped into a parent who is pulling her child out of my daughter's L.A. Unified school because of growing class sizes and the firing of a great young teacher who didn't have enough seniority.

And I just heard from Susan Weber, a Bancroft Middle School teacher and administrator who is apoplectic over the transfer of a dedicated principal with whom she, parents and faculty had formed a bond after years of upheaval.

By Weber's count, the school is getting its fifth principal in six years, its eighth in the last 10.

"Shame on you," one parent wrote to a district administrator. "Please stop running this district like a 3-ring circus."

Bancroft faculty, parents and students are planning to rally at the school Thursday and demand that the transfer be rescinded.

Storm the gates, say I, and take no prisoners.

 

A letter to Steve:

Dear Steve,

H. L. Mencken said: "Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats."

Storming the gates has its attraction, but once one is committed to the barricades one needs to be ever so careful as to whom ones fellow insurrectionists are.

Mick and Keith tell us:

"Ev'rywhere I hear the sound of marching, charging feet, boy
'Cause summer's here and the time is right for fighting in the street, boy"
…but absent singing in the band they continue:
"There's just no place for a street fighting man  No!"

So as one singer in the band to another:  The Parent Revolution is the Los Angeles Parents Union with a different name. The occupy the same offices, have the same phone number and wear almost the same blue t-shirts.  Their paychecks – and many of them are paid – are signed by the same folks, and the folks who sign the checks and pay the bills are Green Dot Public Schools. When PR Executive Director Steve Austin isn't working for Green Dot and Steve Barr he's working for Mayor Villaraigosa and the Partnership for LA Schools. (If you're looking for a pattern the same can be said of PLAS CEO Marshall Tuck.)

The Parent Revolution aka The LA Parents Union are wholly-  if not unholy – owned subsidiaries of Green Dot Public Schools.

Having partaken of the Green Dot Kool Aid Parent Revolutionaries  espouse the Green Dot mantra and the cult of personality of Steve Barr. They are true believer/proselytizers - knocking at our door on a Saturday morning – tracts and pamphlets in hand – offering the Green Dot salvation.

Come away with us.

My argument isn't that this is evil or unfair or wrong or anything of the sort. Fighting the chaos and disorganization of LAUSD with  organization and a plan and funding and political connections and a belief in the beauty of your weapons is admirable.

But it's always prudent to remember the words of W. Mark Felt to Bob Woodward in the underground parking garage: "Follow the money." 

The Little Money is Green Dot's and Bill and Melinda Gates' – that's the venture capital.  The real money, The Big Money is the public money that charters pull from public education. The taxpayer's money. The children's money.

Onward!

-smf

smf midweek rant: THE BUDGET

 

Headline in The Times: OPPOSITION TO BUDGET DEAL ERUPTS - LA County threatens to sue, a state workers' union may strike and GOP protests release of prison inmates.

opinion by smf for 4LAKids

Wednesday, July 22, 2009 -- NOWHERE IN THE STATE CONSTITUTION does it say: "The Big Five shall retire to a secret room and come up with the state budget".

In the meshugas over the budget process and the resultant call for a Constitutional Convention maybe we should first think unconventionally …and get rid of the unconstitutional?

The idea, seemingly set in the granite and marble of the Capitol itself - that The Big Five writes the state budget all by themselves is only two budget cycles old and has failed miserably both times. 'Failed miserably' is Pollyannaish overstatement - California hasn't had a budget that passes the 'sniff test' of balance in recent memory …certainly not in Schwarzenegger Administration or the last few years of the Davis.

The concept of The Big Five retiring incommunicado without consulting with the legislature was dreamt-up by the last Big Five (only one of whom remains) to expedite the process of the '07-08 budget -- a moment of expedience at the expense of democracy.

"We'll eliminate the middlemen and cut to the chase." The middlemen/ muddlemen  bless their pointed-little-red-and-blue-heads, being the elected representatives of the people.

• Despite all the promises and brow-and-breast beating,  July 17, 2007, a day that coincides roughly with the advent of the "Let The Big Five Do It Plan", was the last day California had a balanced cash flow with equal receipts and expenses.
  
• Cash Flow measures receipts and expenses; and reflects actual money being actually spent; a budget is just a plan.
  
• And the '07-08 Budget, if you'll recall, was rejected by Wall Street and returned to Sacramento marked NSF.

  

The result is an all-chase disaster movie. And the children/taxpayers/voters/ citizenry of the state are the hapless pushcart vendor stacking produce at the side of the road as the heroes and bad guys barrel down in a screech of tires and a flood of testosterone. I come from Hollywood: No one ever saved a bad script in post production.

  

PUNDIT-PROVOCATEUR DAN WALTERS - Dean of the Sacramento Reporters - opens his SacBee column today: "Were California a corporation, rather than a state, its officers would be playing tiddlywinks with Bernie Madoff in the federal slammer, having engaged in years of hide-the-pea accounting tricks, under-the-table loans and other gimmicks to cover up the state's perpetual operating deficits."

The Lege and the Gubernator didn't see the global economic collapse coming - but they did build their house o' cards in the Sacramento floodplain - and they haven't done a thing to bolster the levees in years. We can blame it on Props 13 and 98 and term limits, safe seats and the 2/3rds rule. Or we can blame ourselves for bad decision making in the ballot box. Because, gentle readers: we voted for the Lege and the Gov and those things.

Throwing all the metaphors into the blender: Our elected representatives failed to learn the First Law of Economics learned by every preschooler and kept-at-home-kid with a bubble wand and bottle of soap solution: Every Bubble Bursts.

 

Onward relentlessly!  - smf

LA UNIFIED SCRAMBLING TO DECODE EFFECT OF BUDGET DEAL

Howard Blume | LA Times LANow Blog

12:24 PM | July 21, 2009

The state budget deal unleashed an epidemic of worry and head scratching among school officials statewide this morning. A spokeswoman for the nation’s second-largest school system said district number crunchers were still tracking down specifics.

“Right now, we just don’t know,” said Gayle Pollard-Terry of the Los Angeles Unified School District. “There are so few details.”

Calls from the media for this information have already come in to L.A. Unified from across the country and abroad.

Pollard-Terry said the school system of 688,000 students thought it had made sufficient — and painful — cuts to get through the next school year. But some conflicting media reports have put the size of the education reductions at levels that could require another round of tough budgeting decisions, she said. And getting a clear answer from officials in Sacramento has been difficult.

Budget actions in L.A. Unified have slashed about $1.29 billion starting with the 2008-09 school year, which ended June 30. On that date, the district laid off about 2,000 teachers; it has since been trying to determine which non-teachers to lay off and how many. The district's general fund, before the wave of cuts, was about $5.9 billion.

The district also is engaged in intense negotiations with its teachers union over compensation concessions that would, if successful, result in hiring back some laid-off teachers. District officials also have talked of placing a parcel tax on the ballot to fund ongoing operations. Until now, the district has asked voters only to approve school-construction bonds, which have to be reserved for building, repairing and upgrading school facilities.

The district’s budget plan, which includes many future reductions, was supposed to take the district through June 2012.

LONG BEACH UNIFIED TO PUT PARCEL TAX ON NOVEMBER BALLOT

By Kevin Butler, Staff Writer | Long Beach Press-Telegram

7/21 -- LONG BEACH - Voters in the Long Beach Unified School District will be asked to approve a five-year parcel tax in November to fund education.

The Long Beach Board of Education on Monday voted, 4-0, to place the tax - $92 per parcel annually - on the ballot, arguing that the revenue is needed to offset state budget cuts.

Board member Michael Shane Ellis was absent.

The tax, which would require two-thirds voter support, would start July 1, 2010, and last for five years.

Seniors, defined as people 65 or older, and people of any age receiving Social Security disability income payments would be exempt from the tax.

Board member Felton Williams said that the district needs to bring stability to its budget.

"If a parcel tax can help us accomplish that, then I'm all for it," he said.

With 125,352 parcels in the district, a $92 per parcel rate would raise about $11.5 million annually, though the actual amount would be slightly less due to exemptions, according to LBUSD officials.

The district may have to cut nearly $100 million in the next two years under a revised budget proposal that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger released in May, according to Kim Stallings, LBUSD chief business and financial officer.

Unlike an ad valorem property tax - which is based on property value - the proposed tax would charge a flat fee per parcel, or distinct unit of land, that lies wholly or partially in district boundaries.

According to the ballot measure, the tax revenue would go toward offsetting state cuts and maintaining small class sizes, vocational and career technical job training and college prep programs.

The revenue also would help preserve arts, music, sports and after-school programs.

Board member Jon Meyer noted that the annual tax would amount to about $7.67 a month per parcel.

"Gee whiz, it costs ... $12 just to go to a movie," he added.

If approved, the measure would create the first parcel tax for LBUSD, according to Superintendent Chris Steinhauser.

Board members postponed discussion on an application from Constellation Community Charter School to renew its charter for another five years. The board will make a decision by Sept. 1, Meyer said.

CALIFORNIA’S EDUCATION SYSTEM TAKES ANOTHER HIT

By Katy Murphy and Theresa Harrington | MediaNews staff | San Jose Mercury News

Posted: 07/21/2009 05:03:38 PM PDT | Updated: 07/21/2009 05:37:56 PM PDT

Summer school students at Ygnacio Valley High School leave campus Tuesday July 21, 2009 in Concord, Calif. The newly-crafted state budget includes huge cuts to schools. In the Mt. Diablo district, trustees eliminated summer school for elementary and middle school students and may not offer summer courses for those students in 2009-10, because of state cuts. (Karl Mondon/Staff) Click photo to enlarge -

7/22 -- Bay Area school districts and colleges, which have already slashed millions of dollars from their programs this year, are bracing for more layoffs, unpaid vacation days and a shortened academic year as a result of California's tentative budget deal.

Crafted by top lawmakers on Monday to close the state's $26 billion deficit, the agreement contains the deep cuts to public education that the governor proposed in late May. The new reductions will include an estimated $6.1 billion from school districts and community colleges — including cuts made retroactively for the 2008-09 academic year — and an additional $2.8 billion from the University of California and California State University systems.

The budget agreement, which still must make it through the Legislature, includes a provision to eventually repay schools about $9.3 billion when the budget outlook improves, although no timeline is attached to that promise. It does not suspend Proposition 98, the mandatory minimum funding guarantee for schools and community colleges, as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently proposed.

But those concessions don't ease the immediate fiscal reality facing California's public education systems. In February, the state cut spending on school districts and community colleges by about $8 billion for the same time period. The Oakland school district could close schools and increase class sizes this year. The Mt. Diablo district has already laid off more than 200 teachers, increased class sizes and eliminated summer programs for elementary and middle school students.

School officials in some districts, including those in San Mateo and Berkeley, also anticipated the $6 billion hit when they created their 2009-10 budgets.

"We were prepared for this," said Bill Huyett, superintendent of Berkeley's public schools. Huyett said his district cut funding for textbooks, facility repairs, school buses and nonteaching staff, and that it is only managing to keep its small class sizes because of a locally approved tax levy.

"We cut everything we could to make things balanced," he said.

College students and employees will also feel the pain. Both of the state's university systems have increased student fees, as have the state's community colleges, and California State University's employee union ratified a staff furlough Monday — a measure the faculty is also considering.

"This is the largest hit to the CSU system we've ever seen," said Russell Kilday-Hicks, vice president for representation for the California State University Employees Union, which agreed to a furlough as an alternative to thousands of layoffs.

"It looks like this is the beginning of some bad years ahead."

Helen Benjamin, chancellor of the Contra Costa Community College District, said the new budget proposal hikes the anticipated cuts to the community college system by $136 million, from $800 million to $936 million.

"That number is quite a bit larger than what we had planned for," Benjamin said. "We are anxious to see the details so we can know the impact.

"Right now, we just don't know. They're saying this is the deepest cut in the history of the California Community Colleges."

Student fees will be raised from $20 to $26 per unit and Benjamin estimates the district will have to turn away 5,500 students.

David Sanchez, president of the California Teachers Association, said he is disappointed that the budget includes additional cuts, but that his union is pushing for state lawmakers to pass the deal. "It's time to move on and get the state back to fiscal solvency," he said.

His message to lawmakers? "Vote for the damn budget."

A private firm that helps K-12 school districts interpret the state budget is advising them to wait until the Legislature votes on the plan before scrambling to act because changes could be made after legislators debate it Thursday.

"It continues to be a very volatile time for school agency budgets," Ron Bennett, president of School Services Inc., wrote in an e-mail to California districts, "and while the agreement on a deal is a strong indicator that change is on the way, it's still too early to make adjustments to local agency budgets."

LAWMAKERS STILL WAIT ON DETAILS OF FISCAL PACKAGE

James Rufus Koren, Staff Writer | RedlandS Daily Facts [LA Newspaper Group]

07/21/2009 09:22:12 PM PDT -- The day after legislative leaders and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger agreed on a deal to close the state's $26.3 billion budget gap, local lawmakers said they were still waiting to hear many of the details.

The Big 5 - Schwarzenegger and the top Democrats and Republicans from the Assembly and state Senate, reached an agreement Monday night, nearly three weeks after the new fiscal year began. The Legislature is expected to vote on the budget revision package Thursday evening.

In the meantime, Assemblyman Paul Cook, R-Yucaipa, said he was "trying to get the specifics" of the plan and an aide to state Sen. Gloria Negrete McLeod, D-Montclair, said the details of the plan "are still very sketchy."

"The Big 5 process is not my favorite," said Assemblyman Curt Hagman, R-Diamond Bar, who said he knew only the general points of the plan. "The devil's in the details. ... With these holistic numbers, what do they mean? What kind of reforms and programs are we doing?

Despite Assembly minority leader Sam Blakeslee, R-San Luis Obispo, and state Senate minority leader Dennis Hollingsworth, R-Murrieta, signing off on the deal, local Republicans said they are uncomfortable with parts of it, even though it does not raise taxes. Local Democratic lawmakers did not return calls for comment Tuesday.

"I'm very skeptical about this budget," said Assemblyman Anthony Adams, R-Claremont. "While we make some important moves in the right direction - we are cutting government down to one of the lowest levels it's seen in decades - it's certainly not enough."

He said if California's economy continues to struggle and the state doesn't take in as much money as expected, "the state is not braced for it, even with this budget."

The plan announced Monday cuts about $15.5 billion in spending from the original 2009-10 budget. It also calls for bringing in $3 billion from local governments, $2 billion from borrowing and about $5 billion by shorting the state's accounts in the next fiscal year and by using what some lawmakers have described as accounting gimmicks.

"It's not a perfect budget," Cook said. "Not everyone's going to like it. The only reason I'm excited is that there's no tax increases."

Lawmakers said they expect to get final budget language today.

The budget revision package will be broken into 28 bills, some of which will need a simple majority vote and some of which will need a two-thirds vote.

Those needing a two-thirds vote will have to draw at least a few Republicans in each chamber.

COURT WON’T HALT NEW LAUSD HIGH SCHOOL IN CARSON …O.K., Long Beach

The Daily Breeze | from staff reports

07/21/2009 06:16:55 PM PDT -- An appellate court has refused to halt construction of a new Los Angeles Unified high school that will cater to Carson students.

The city of Long Beach, where the 14-acre campus is being built adjacent to the Carson border, had argued that the school district did not adequately account for the impact of the new facility in a state-required environmental report.

Long Beach last year appealed a Los Angeles Superior Court decision in the school district's favor - a ruling that was affirmed July 16 by a three-judge panel of the 2nd District Court of Appeal.

The $145 million school, set to open in 2011 at the corner of Carson Street and Santa Fe Avenue, is expected to house about 1,800 students from Carson and Banning high schools. Construction began in October.

South Region HS #4, 56.40019

Northeast Corner of Carson St. and Santa Fe Ave., Long Beach, CA 90810

---

The District has acquired the site and intends to build a new high school. This school will consist of four small learning communities that include classrooms, science labs, and academy administration. School facilities shared by the small learning communities will include performing arts classrooms, a library, multi-purpose room, two gymnasiums, food service and lunch shelter, central administration, playfields, and underground parking.

Project Information

Board Member
Richard Vladovic

Local Superintendent
Linda Del Cueto

LA City Council
N/A

Comm. Outreach
Roberta Jones-Booker

Owner's Rep.
Ed Khachatourian

Architect
tBP Architecture

General Contractor
Suffolk Construction Co., Inc.

2-Semester Seats
1,809

New Classrooms
67

Site Acres
13.7

Approximate Sq. Ft.
200,532

CHPS Score
31

Schools Relieved
Banning HS/Carson HS

Schedule

Pref. Site Designated
Q1-2005

DSA Approval
Q3-2007

NTP Construction
Q3-2008

School Occupancy
Q3-2011

Cost

Total Budget
$ 184,743,549

Questions regarding this project?
Contact Community Outreach at 213-893-6800.

Project last updated on 02/18/2009

BUDGET AGREEMENT PUTS CALIFORNIA DREAM ON HOLD

By JENNIFER STEINHAUER | News Analysis|  New York Times

uly 22, 2009 -- LOS ANGELES — Even in the 1930s, Woody Guthrie warned America in a Dust Bowl song that the California dream could not be had on the cheap. Yet relative to other places, the state has historically been a pretty good bargain, with a low-cost, enviable higher education system, subsidized energy and an abundance of services for those down on their luck.

But three decades of staggering population growth — combined with three high-impact recessions, budgeting by ballot box, federal mandates, an unusual tax structure and the rising cost of social services — have finally combined for disastrous results, and the ramifications are now reaching across every aspect of life in this state.

The California dream is, for now, on hold, as demonstrated by the state budget that lawmakers and the governor agreed upon late Monday. At no point in modern history has the state dealt with its fiscal issues by retreating so deeply in its services, beginning this spring with a round of multibillion-dollar budget cuts and continuing with, in total, some $30 billion in cuts over two fiscal years to schools, colleges, health care, welfare, corrections, recreation and more.

The rest of the nation, which has historically looked to California as a model for fierce economic independence and free-wheeling innovation, may now see that the state looks like every place else — just with better beaches.

“We are now the state that can’t,” said Stephen Levy, the director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy, a private research organization in Palo Alto, Calif. “It can’t agree on its water problem. It can’t balance its budget, it can’t decide what to do with prisoners and it’s still fussing about its immigrants. And this is not the end of our economic problems. This is the beginning.”

California, of course, has weathered economic ups and downs for decades and rebounded in ways that left the rest of the nation eating its dust. The downturn in the defense industry in the 1990s, followed by plummeting housing prices, was met with a massive technology boom, and when that fell apart, the state roared back with a real estate boom.

But in the past, even when Ronald Reagan was governor, the state contended with its problems through a mix of taxes and cuts. Earlier this year, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his fellow Republicans agreed to increases in sales and vehicle licensing taxes, but this go around, they refused to approve any tax increase, and the Democrats had too few votes to force one.

In addition, the protracted national recession — rather than the shorter, more regional ones that bedeviled the state before — has delivered a big hit on the state’s greatest source of revenue, income taxes on rich people. Further, the state’s structural deficit has become exceedingly pronounced after years of accounting tricks and borrowing.

The net result is that Californians will find state offices closed three days a month. The poor will go without health care in a state that practically invented the health care safety net and as some financially embattled states seek to expand coverage for children.

Classroom sizes are about to explode, and state universities are furloughing professors, cutting class offerings and seriously reassessing, in the case of the University of California, whether the system can remain one of excellence for state residents anymore. All of this did not creep up overnight.

Expansive growth throughout the first half of the century led to rising housing prices and infrastructure growth, both of which came with higher taxes to pay for it all.

Those increases created an antitax rebellion that beget Proposition 13 in the 1970s, a voter-led initiative that artificially depressed property taxes and shifted school funding burdens to the state. It also led to the onset of a culture of ballot initiatives that have hamstrung state budgeters by earmarking funds for programs with one vote, and taking away the ability to pay for them with others.

The state’s increased population — over 38 million today from 23.6 million in 1980 — has also meant a growing need for costly services for the poor, especially at times, like now, when revenues are declining. (Back in the 1930s, when Mr. Guthrie was warning that people needed do-re-mi to live here, no one was on Medicaid.)

While the state’s property taxes are lower than average, its personal income tax rate and levies on capital gains are among the highest; so unlike states that pass the tax burden around, California can become disastrously imbalanced.

“Volatility is a challenge for budgeting,” said Jed Kolko, the associate director of the Public Policy Institute of California, a nonpartisan research organization in San Francisco.

Now, local governments, schools, the state university system and state agencies find themselves unable to provide the sorts of services residents here have been used to receiving.

“Compared to the post-World War II era, an in-migrant to California now faces higher cost housing, lower quality K-12 schools, and more expensive higher education,” said Daniel J. B. Mitchell, a professor-emeritus at the School of Public Affairs at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“He or she also faces job opportunities that more or less mirror what is available on average elsewhere in the U.S.,” Professor Mitchell said.

The fallout is already evident across the state. Summer school was canceled in many school districts. In Eureka, near the Oregon border, The Old Town Dental Center is about to close its doors. Its patient base is 90 percent Medicaid, and the state’s program will no longer pay anything beyond tooth extractions.

“There are a lot of people that are just not showing up,” said Nicole Eleck, the receptionist there. “Half our patients are saying, ‘If something bothers me, I will wait until it needs to get pulled.’ ”

Herrmann Spetzler, the chief executive of Open Door Community Health Centers, which operates 10 clinics in rural northern California, said the loss of money might result in the closing of clinics that are the only providers for miles around.

“If you sit in our waiting room, you will see the faces of everyone who lives in our region,” he said. “There is the local judge, the policeman, the mom with kids and the homeless person. In my health centers, we’ve had $5 million in cut since July, and we don’t know what the future will bring.”

What comes next is anybody’s guess, but it may be that California’s standing as paradise is meeting an organic end.

“In the end, we do not know for sure whether the California public really wants the California dream anymore,” said Bruce E. Cain, a professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley. “The population is too diverse to have a common vision of what it wants to provide to everyone. Some people want the old dream, some want the gated privatized version, and some would like to secede and get away from it all.”

CSU INCREASES FEES BY 20%

by Miles Nevin | Report Card | Long Beach Post

07.21.09 | In the context of California’s gigantic budget dilemma, the California State University (CSU) today voted to increase the State University Fee by 20%. This tuition increase at the country’s largest public university system marks a 30% increase over the last three months; a 10% increase was already implemented in May.

Seconds after the vote, at least ten students in the audience stood and began chanting, “Shame on you, shame on you.”

The vote was widely expected by stakeholders throughout the system. Written into law by the California government over fifty years ago, the CSU system is intended to provide an accessible, affordable, quality higher education to the people of California. However, beginning in the early 1990’s and continuing since then, the state legislature has repeatedly eliminated general fund support for not only the CSU, but also the UC and Community College systems.

They systems’ governing boards, appointed to ensure sound fiscal management of their respective colleges, have increased student fees while slashing department budgets, eliminating programs and adjusting contracts with labor groups.

CSULB will certainly feel the effect of today’s decision. The largest of CSU’s 23 campuses, CSULB students will experience an annual increase of about $750, taking the total to $4,827 per year. Systemwide, students will pay an additional $750 million dollars in the 2009-10 academic year.

A KEY TEST FOR L.A.’s COMMUNITY COLLEGES: Two institutions are on probation for failing to conduct 'program review.' Though that sounds like a minor administrative matter, it helps schools answer a big question: Do our programs work?

Editorial From the Los Angeles Times

July 21, 2009 - Two Los Angeles community colleges had their accreditation placed on probation this month, not because their academic offerings aren't good but because they have little way of knowing whether the offerings are good or not.

Failure to conduct "program review" might sound like a minor administrative weakness at schools that try to meet a thousand needs with limited funds. But one of the most basic things a college can do is examine its programs to see whether they work. How many of the students who plan to transfer to a four-year college are able to do so within two or three years? Do the graduates of vocational-tech programs find jobs? Is counseling to prevent students from dropping out actually keeping them in school?

With L.A. City College and L.A. Trade-Technical College now on probation because they were not conducting such examinations -- and L.A. Southwest College recently removed from probationary status that was imposed last year over similar issues -- the Los Angeles Community College District should be reviewing all of its nine campuses to make sure they are bringing accountability to their daily practices.

Instead, district officials tend to downplay such complaints from the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges. "They really are sort of technical issues," Gary Colombo, the district's vice chancellor for institutional effectiveness, told The Times regarding the latest disciplinary measures. It's true that the accrediting agency wasn't alleging anything like an inferior education. But in ways, program review is even more basic. The colleges have no way of determining how good they are at educating students -- and the public has no way of judging how well they serve the "community" they are named for -- without regular assessment.

That will be even more important now that President Obama has pledged to spend $12 billion on community colleges. Most of that new money will be in innovation grants to colleges that can show they have effective, efficient programs for keeping students in school and preparing them for jobs. Colleges without internal accountability measures in place will be at a competitive disadvantage.

It's easy to see how college administrators might let program review slide. In a bad economy, they are inundated with laid-off workers seeking training for new jobs, new college students looking for a cheaper path to a four-year degree and adults looking for low-cost recreational classes -- all of which they're supposed to provide with a predicted budget cut of hundreds of millions of dollars. That's all the more reason to ensure that every dollar is spent well.

PIERCE COLLEGE PRESIDENT ANNOUNCES RESIGNATION + GARBER LEAVES PIERCE

Pierce College president announces resignation

By Dana Bartholomew, Staff Writer | LA Daily News

July 21, 2009 -- WOODLAND HILLS - The Pierce College president who has boosted faculty, bolstered attendance and led a $200 million campus makeover announced Monday he will step down to care for his ailing adult son.

In an emotional resignation, President Robert Garber said he would leave Aug. 1 after serving the award-winning community college for 23 years.

<<Robert Garber, President of Pierce College

"All of these things - the awards, the building, the enrollment, it's never been about me," said Garber, 61, his voice breaking. "It's about the whole college community.

"It's been an amazing experience - and I leave extremely reluctantly. But the circumstances in my life and in my family trump anything that goes on in this work."

Garber, who was hired in February 2006 to replace Thomas Oliver as president, has been credited with fundamentally transforming the Woodland Hills campus.

Under his watch, Pierce College embarked on a voter-initiated capital improvement program that included a new child development center, student services and science buildings.

He also supervised the construction of new faculty offices, a campus mall, roadway and parking improvements and a state-of-the art heating and cooling system.

In addition, Garber hired two vice presidents and 80 full-time faculty members while keeping Pierce College in the black as other community colleges struggled to balance their budgets.

The result: college attendance increased 41 percent, from 17,000 to 24,000

full-time students.

"It's like changing a flat tire while driving down the street," Garber said. "It's been an interesting challenge. I've thoroughly loved (it)."

College administrators and business leaders were shocked to learn of his departure. No replacement has been named.

"We're all quite stunned," said Doreen Clay, marketing manager for Pierce College. "We had no warning. It came out of the cornfield."

In a letter to the Pierce College Community, Garber

Read Garber's resignation letter

said that his 23-year-old son Jesse had been diagnosed with acute liver failure stemming from a reaction to prescription medication for an unnamed illness.

He said his son, on the waiting list for a liver transplant, needs full-time care and monitoring throughout his recovery.

"Given the daily demands and unknown duration of his care and treatment, it has become clear that I can't possibly support Jesse and, at the same time, maintain the level of engagement that is necessary for me to serve Pierce as president," Garber wrote.

"It has been the the highlight of my career to serve as Pierce's president for the past 3 1/2 years, and I am truly distraught about leaving at this point in this way."

Garber, a native of Seattle, began at Pierce College in 1976 as a student counselor and rose to dean of student services. In 1996, he left to serve as an administrator at San Diego Miramar College before returning to Pierce as president in 2005.

On his first day at Pierce College, he witnessed students giving artificial insemination to cows. Nearly a decade later, he rode an elephant across campus.

In what could be a career motto, he said: "It's definitely better to be part of the solution, than part of the problem."

Under Garber's tenure, Pierce College received lifetime service awards from the Valley Industry & Commerce Association and the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley.

"He loves Pierce College and has worked hard for the community, to transform that college into a shining beacon of education and green technology," said VICA President Stuart Waldman. "It's a tragic loss."

"Really really really heartbroken to see him leave," added Bruce Ackerman, president and CEO of the alliance. "He was doing such a fantastic job for Pierce.

"My heart goes out to him. I can't believe what he's going through personally. Tough one. Really tough."

---

BREAKING NEWS: Garber Leaves Pierce

Pierce College President Garber is retiring

Anibal Ortiz/Pierce College Roundup

Monday, July 20, 2009 -- Pierce College President Robert Garber announced August 1 to be his last day as president today due to family complications in a letter to the Pierce Community.

In his letter, Garber explained that his younger son Jesse has been diagnosed with acute liver failure (ALF), a condition that, according to emedicine, normally targets younger people and weakens liver functions. His son is now on the waiting list for a liver transplant.

Garber has been president at Pierce for more than three years and has worked as part of the Pierce community for more than 23 years.

Garber will leave his position at Pierce in order to take care of his son saying,

“I am truly distraught about leaving at this point in this way. I hope all of you will know how painful it is for me to give up this position and will understand how it would be even more disturbing for me to stay and not do my best for either Jesse or Pierce.”

‘Agri-tainment’ or Education?: VALLEY FAIR, PIERCE COLLEGE VYING TO LEASE CAMPUS LAND

By Dana Bartholomew, Staff Writer | LA Daily News

^^PIERCE COLLEGE FARM--Field Manager Jeff Bloom oversees harvesting crops at the Pierce College farm. Since 2005 the farm has become a local favorite with it's fall harvest, corn maze and fresh vegetables. (Photo by David Crane/Staff)

<< PIERCE COLLEGE FARM--Corn is planted for the corn maze, a very popular attraction at the farm. Since 2005 the farm has become a local favorite with it's fall harvest, corn maze and fresh vegetables. (Photo by David Crane/Staff)

 

19 May 2009 -- A Pierce College foundation just spent $250,000 on farm equipment to grow a bumper crop of corn and tomatoes on campus, with plans to till the fields for the next quarter century.

But The Valley Fair could upend the farm's food cart, with its own plans for the campus farmland.

Both the Foundation for Pierce College and the state 51st District Agricultural Association plan to vie for a 25-year "agri-tainment" lease that will determine the farming future of the Valley's first agricultural college.

"We will be looking for agencies who are willing to care for the land - make it productive, make it green, make something out of it," said Larry Kraus, associate vice president of administrative services for Pierce College. "It's for running the farm market, growing produce, vegetables and for creating agri-tainment."

The Community College District board, which will award the lease, seeks 2 percent of the proceeds from veggie sales and events in addition to undetermined rents.

The deadline for proposals is Aug. 21, with a winner expected to be chosen by the end of the year. Both agencies are now readying bids.

On one side is the foundation, established four years ago to support Pierce College through the sale of crops, Christmas trees and its annual Halloween Harvest Festival at its Farm Center at Victory Boulevard and De Soto Avenue.

On the other side is The Valley Fair, established by the state 62 years ago to promote local agriculture through its annual June event. But the fair was canceled this year for lack of funds and appropriate facilities. Ever since it lost its fairgrounds to Cal State Northridge in 1961, the peripatetic fair has sought a stable home.

Both agencies say they intend to grow row crops at the site to teach the public about sustainable farm practices. Both intend to stage a harvest festival and other events that reflect the Valley's receding agricultural heritage.

And both say they want to work closely with Pierce College to offer jobs, instruction and support to students.

"It's very exciting what's happening there," said Margo Murman, board secretary of the Foundation for Pierce College, from her home in Oregon. "I think the Farm Center is wonderful - exactly what the community has wanted all these years."

But while the foundation has four years of experience in running the current farm stand, festivals, kiddie activities and a farmer's market - including a major investment in infrastructure - the Valley Fair intends to offer its signature event, year-round vegetables and a renewed focus on equestrian activities.

"Pierce College was an agricultural farm. We'd like to maintain it as an agricultural base. From what we're trying to do, we think it's a good match," said David Honda, president of The Valley Fair association. "We don't have another prospect. We've been looking for years."

The fair, originally held in Northridge, spent several years at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center before neighbors complained of noise.

It moved in 1998 and has been held at Castaic Lake, the Hansen Dam Recreation Area and Saugus Speedway in Santa Clarita. While officials said Hansen Dam failed to draw enough people to sustain the fair, Saugus was popular, but it was outside the fair association's jurisdiction.

There was also too little time at the speedway to set up and break down the fair, officials said. So with the state withholding its annual distribution of $180,000 this year because of the economy, fair officials decided to sit out 2009 in order to search for a permanent home in the Valley.

The Valley Fair board, appointed by the governor, includes William Lander, manager of the Equestrian Education Center at Pierce College.

"Our core mission is to educate our constituents on agriculture and livestock," Honda said. "Most of the kids here in the metro area, you asked them where grapes and apples come from, and they say `Vons."'

Equestrian advocates called Pierce College the right choice for The Valley Fair farm.

"We think it would be great," said Mary Kaufman, president of Equestrian Trails Inc. Corral 54, an equestrian advocacy group in Chatsworth. "Their mission is education in agriculture and such. It would be wonderful to have them go in there."

Kaufman said it would also benefit the horse community to have equestrian events again at Pierce College, something she said has been denied horse owners for the past few years.

The Foundation for Pierce College, with its well-established connections to the campus, believes it has a head start in the bidding battle.

Four years ago, Dennis Washburn - a former mayor and co-founder of the city of Calabasas - hired on as the foundation's director with a grand plan to create a $10 million model farm and education center. His service with the foundation will end this year after the college district eliminated his position.

College administrators had hoped to earn the same proceeds from the farm as a controversial and moribund golf course proposal of the 1990s - while preserving college land from development.

Plans called for row crops, a farmer's market, equestrian center and a Pierce College vineyard and winery - with the college's very own label - expected to rake in $800,000 a year for the campus.

Since then, they've built a Farm Center and pioneer village that hosts a harvest festival, corn maze and holiday tree sales that grosses $1.25 million a year.

But while foundation officials say they've contributed $1.7 million in college benefits - including Farm Center infrastructure and farm equipment - they decline to spell out how much money has been given to Pierce College student support.

"This is a class act," said Washburn, surveying the farm last week with Robert McBroom, the Farm Center director. "You've got to invest money to make money. With Rob's genius, he has envisioned not just a Harvest Festival and haunted house - which is the real moneymaker - he will make the Pierce College farm a long-term and viable success."

When the foundation's contract farmer abruptly pulled up stakes in February, McBroom, a former 4-H whiz-kid from Granada Hills, took on the farm operation itself.

He bought $250,000 in farm equipment, including a reusable drip irrigation system. He hired six farmhands, many of them students; hired soil experts; adjusted fertilizers to suit each section of corn, squash, tomato, eggplant, bell pepper and pumpkin crops; and reduced water use by 20 percent.

He also eliminated pesticides by introducing good bugs to go after bad ones.

The result of the agricultural tuneup: this year's crop yield shot up 500 percent - enough to donate 2,000 pounds of produce last week to a local food pantry.

"Through good luck, farming practices, we've had a much greater yield than we've ever had before," said McBroom, 41, as he picked up a zucchini bigger than his arm. "These come from our fields.

"Here, we can tell you how this is grown. It's the best zucchini I've ever seen, and the best tasting."

Out in the fields, corn sweet enough to eat raw hung on stalks as fresh-picked tomatoes were boxed for immediate sale.

Jeff Bloom, a Woodland Hills native with a degree in farming from the University of Hawaii, said the key is boots among the rows.

"A lot of it's all about has to do with good love," said Bloom, 28, project manager for the farm. "We've been doing all pesticides and herbicides free, which means we must walk through the fields more.

"As the old adage goes, `The best fertilizer is a farmer's footsteps."'

“HOUSTON, WE HAVE A BUDGET” …unfortunately it’s one for California.

LA Times: ‘The plan is not yet formally released’  …but they have a chart of the cuts (kids’ health insurance) & a chart of the not cuts (kids’ health insurance not eliminated!). No mention of the Gov’s proposal to euthanize pound animals sooner.

THE CHARTS: CUT

 

NOT CUT

Some programs won't be cut eliminated

Some of the proposals made by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state lawmakers over the last few months were not included in the final deal.

Among them:
* $1.50 per pack tax on cigarettes
* 9.9% tax on oil extraction
* $15 annual vehicle fee hike
* Elimination of CalWorks program
* Elimination of CalGrants for college students
* Elimination of Healthy Families insurance for children
* Mass closure of state parks

THE TIMES

Budget accord reached

By Shane Goldmacher and Evan Halper

Calling for deep cuts and avoiding broad tax hikes, Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders agree on ways to close California's $26.3-billion deficit.

Budget deal in place, now can they sell it?

By Evan Halper and Shane Goldmacher | 6:20 a.m.

As lawmakers prepare for a vote, emerging details could trigger opposition from local governments that would be hurt by the plan. Discuss

• Proposals for plugging the budget deficit

• Full coverage: State budget crisis

 

OTHER VOICES

California Reaches Budget Deal - Bloomberg

Bloomberg - ‎24 minutes ago‎

California says they reach the deal on the budget deficit. (Bloomberg News)

Deal reached on California deficit

Bizjournals.com - ‎24 minutes ago‎

About three weeks after the state had to resort to IOUs to pay its bills, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and California's top political leaders said late on ...

Governor, legislative leaders begin building support for their ...

Los Angeles Times - Evan Halper, Shane Goldmacher - ‎39 minutes ago‎

As lawmakers prepare for a vote, emerging details could trigger opposition from local governments and interest groups that would be hurt by the plan. ...

---

"We've accomplished a lot in this budget," said Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, as he emerged from his office with legislative leaders Monday evening to announce the deal, after an all-day negotiating session of the "big five" -- the governor and legislative leaders.

more by Arnold Schwarzenegger - 39 minutes ago - Los Angeles Times (2 occurrences)

---

California's budget Plugging the gap

Economist - ‎1 hour ago‎

Arnold Schwarzenegger emerged from a meeting late on Monday July 20th of the “big five” political leaders in California to announce that, at long last, ...

Lawmakers, Schwarzenegger agree California budget

AFP - ‎2 hours ago‎

SAN FRANCISCO — California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislators have agreed a plan to solve the state's multi-billion-dollar budget crisis after ...

All 2,919 related articles »

Blogs

The Golden State, The Hummer and Hydra-Headed Budget

Huffington Post - ‎5 hours ago‎

The Golden State. Seventh-largest economy in the world. The place where everyone has always wanted to come, for the weather, the scenery, the optimism, ...

Arnold Schwarzenegger: Compassionless Conservatism

Huffington Post - ‎Jul 14, 2009‎

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, amidst the worst economic depression in seventy years, demands that the state legislature dismantle what he calls ...

Calif. budget targets social programs

Marketplace - ‎3 hours ago‎

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger reached a deal to close the state's $26 billion deficit. The proposed budget makes deep cuts to public schools and ...

Details Emerge of Atrocious CA Budget Deal
Daily Kos
If a budget is indeed a moral document, it would seem from this budget that the state of California has the heart of a sociopath and an idiot. ...

 

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California, USA

Governor, legislative leaders agree on $26.3 billion budget fix

San Jose Mercury News - Steven Harmon - ‎8 hours ago‎

Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles, foreground, and state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, ...

Details of agreement to close California deficit

San Jose Mercury News - ‎9 hours ago‎

By AP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders from both parties announced a tentative deal Monday night to address California's $26.3 billion ...

Budget breakthrough solves California's long fiscal nightmare

San Jose Mercury News - Steven Harmon, Jessie Mangaliman - ‎10 hours ago‎

SACRAMENTO — A tense, months-long standoff over ever-shrinking resources gave way Monday to a deal to bridge California's $26.3 billion ...

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Sacramento, CA, USA

State Budget Deal Reached

KXJZ News - Marianne Russ - ‎6 hours ago‎

After a long day of talks yesterday, the four legislative leaders and the Governor emerged from Schwarzenegger's office together, smiling. ...

Big 5 Makes Big Cuts, but California Has a Budget

News10.net - Cristina Mendonsa - ‎6 hours ago‎

SACRAMENTO, CA -- The Governor and the Big 5 emerged Monday night from their last negotiation session with a budget deal. Governor Schwarzenegger told ...

A deal -- at last

Sacramento Bee - Kevin Yamamura - ‎7 hours ago‎

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders agreed Monday to erase California's $26 billion deficit by cutting broadly across state ...

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Los Angeles, CA, USA

Schwarzenegger Calls for Oil Drilling Off Ca. Coast

Opposing Views - ‎19 hours ago‎

By The Heartland Institute , Chicago-Based Think Tank - 13 Hours Ago Facing a widening budget deficit in the midst of a deepening recession, California Gov. ...

Community and Labor Groups Protest Budget Cuts

Uprising - ‎21 hours ago‎

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and state lawmakers have stalled in negotiations addressing the $ 26.3 billion budget shortfall. ...

California Sees Red

Truthdig - Franco Folini - ‎Jul 15, 2009‎

Looks like Republicans are going to win out in California's seemingly endless budget battle, despite holding a minority in the state Legislature. ...

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WHAT FRANK McCOURT COULD TEACH JOEL KLEIN AND ARNE DUNCAN

…what he could teach Antonio Villaraigosa, Ramon Cortines and 121 slow learners in Sacramento – what he could teach us all if we only listened.

by Leonie Haimson Executive Director, Class Size Matters in The Huffington Post

 

Posted: July 20, 2009 01:08 PM -- Frank McCourt died yesterday. He was a wonderful writer, and very unsentimental about the teaching profession. He taught in NYC high schools for thirty years and wrote a book about his experiences called Teacher Man. His insights would be very valuable to Joel Klein or Arne Duncan, if they had ever listened.

Check out this interview from 2005 on WNYC radio:

Leonard Lopate: "If you were named Schools Chancellor what would you do?"

Frank McCourt: "I'd certainly go to Albany and get more money for the teachers' salaries...and I'd cut the school day and certainly cut the size of the classes, because they're monstrous. And I've have a parliament of teachers, no supervisors and certainly no politicians."

He also mentions, heartbreakingly, how the huge teaching loads in NYC schools meant that he had too many students and too little time to develop real relationships with any of them.

When one or two students first asked him to have coffee, at first he said yes, but he soon learned that he just wasn't able to get to know them- with 175 students each semester.

He bemoans the lack of respect for teachers -- how hard they work, how little their opinions and professionalism matter to elected officials; and how their views are never heeded about how schools could be improved.

Indeed, in national surveys, over 90% of teachers regularly respond that the best way to raise the quality of education would be to reduce class size - over every other strategy proposed, including increased salaries, merit pay, professional development, or anything else.

And yet the powers-that-be always criticize this view as somehow merely reflecting self-interest, rather than in the best interest of the children as well. They never make the same attack on merit pay or increased teacher salaries, somehow -- just the one proposal that would directly improve classroom conditions and the ability of children to learn.

If 95% of doctors year after year proposed a certain reform as the best way to improve our medical system, would they be brushed off so easily? Not likely.

I remember a great speech McCourt gave at the UFT spring conference in 2006--- telling a packed audience at the Hilton a hilarious story about how he was once so overwhelmed with all the homework he had to correct that he threw all 175 student papers into a dumpster.

He also went on at some length about how elected officials and top administrators never listen to teachers, but unfortunately by that time, all of those who had been there, including Joel Klein, had left the room.

See also this interview, also from 2005:

McCourt: ... Teachers here are treated like second-class, third-class, fourth-class citizens. They're told to come in the back door. ....This is all a matter of class and status, and maybe snobbery. And the figures go along with this -- the lousy pay they get and the lack of respect.

When did you last see a teacher on a talk show? Movie stars and athletes and politicians -- criminals! They all get on the talk shows. But not the teachers. They are regarded as dull people. The ones who take care of the children every day. Almost like super babysitters. That's the way they are treated.

And then when you do see something on television, a panel on education, you see someone from the board of education, you see a professor of education, or you see a bureaucrat, someone from a think tank, a politician, but never a teacher. Never. Imagine a panel on medicine without a doctor? The uproar there would be from the medical profession!

But all the politicians think they own education. Just the way the pope and the cardinals think they own the [Roman Catholic] Church. Which they do, of course. We don't get the keys. The politicians have the keys to the educational system, they control the purse strings, and they don't have a clue about what education is. I know they've been to school and all themselves, but what goes on in the classroom is another story.

RITTER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, THE PARTNERSHIP FOR L.A. SCHOOLS & “TEACHER JAIL” IN LOCAL DISTRICT FIVE

A 4LAKids reader writes:

re: BOTTOM LINE: POLITICIANS AND ACTIVISTS DEMAND EQUAL EDUCATION ON WATTS CAMPUS

"Did you know that one of the teachers from Ritter ES , who complained 
'too loudly' about the discontinuation of the dual language program was sent  home?  And that 'teacher jail' at LD 5 is disproportionately populated by  teachers from Partnership schools?  I counted 8 out of 20 when I went to  meet with one of my 'jailed' colleagues down there. 

• By the way, in my experience, the number of "reassigned" teachers
  in  LD5 is usually 3-5.
• And by the way (part two): Why do Partnership schools, which made a  major point that they are not under the jurisdiction of the local district, send people to teacher jail at LD 5?"

MAYOR’S PARTNERSHIP SUPERINTENDENT: LA WAVE ARTICLE IS MISLEADING ON SCHOOL’S SUMMER PROGRAM

Op-Ed in the LA Wave  by Angela Bass, Superintendent of Instruction. Partnership for Los Angeles Schools

17 July, 2009 - The Bottom Line column “At this summer session in Watts, Black students need not apply” (July 9) was highly inaccurate and grossly misrepresented the Spanish language arts summer program taking place at John Ritter Elementary School.

Ritter, one of the 10 schools in the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, is not and would never, as the article suggests, discriminate against non-Spanish speaking students. This is far from true. All of the students (K-3) who participated in the Dual Language Program in the 2007-08 school year are welcome to participate in the summer program, which included Latino and African-American students.

The school is fulfilling a commitment it made to students and parents last year to provide Spanish-language instruction to students whose parents wanted to continue to provide Spanish language arts. This commitment was made after Ritter’s Dual Language Immersion Program was suspended. Parents of some of the dual language students were upset at the suspension of the program and asked that some compromise be reached. In accordance with this, the partnership agreed to offer a four-week dual language program for these students. 

As was accurately stated in the story, this program was in place before the Los Angeles Unified School District canceled summer school. What was highly inaccurate and misleading were Ms. Pleasant’s insinuations that the partnership is in any way acting in a racist manner by providing this Spanish language program. This could not be further from the truth. Additionally, this summer program is being paid for by the partnership with philanthropic dollars and not with public dollars.

As superintendent of instruction for the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, it is my responsibility that all students are provided with a high-quality education at Ritter. Along with the outstanding team of educators at Ritter under the leadership of Principal Charlene Green, the partnership team has worked diligently to provide support, interventions and enrichment during the instructional day and after school. We have also provided professional development for teachers and support staff. Our goal is to move Ritter Elementary School from formerly the lowest performing elementary school in the entire district (2007-08) into a school of excellence.

I would like to extend an invitation to Ms. Pleasant to walk through the halls of Ritter, visit classrooms and speak with teachers and staff. I am confident that she will find that the achievement and the morale are both much improved. If early data points are an indication, it looks like the mayor’s goal to improve schools for the children of Los Angeles is making the grade.

We all must remember that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has long been a champion of civil rights. He clearly understands that education is the civil rights issue of the 21st century. That is why he has held strong to his vision for the partnership to improve the education for all children and turn these schools into schools of academic excellence. This will certainly not happen overnight and will require the tenacious efforts of students, parents, teachers and community — and it will be done.

HOLLYWOOD STARS SUPPORT LAUSD GARDENING PROGRAM

By Jane Gates - LA Landscape Design Examiner | Examiner.com

July 19, 9:29 AM -- Sienna Miller may live an adventurous and romantic life on the big screen. But she admits that her personal life is quite different than her exciting public image. In fact, she claims that there is nothing she likes better than simply spending time in the garden and growing her own vegetables and fruits.

She has a garden in her London home and despite all the glamour, says she misses her garden and her dog the most when she is away on film shoots. Even with all the romance of travel and adventure-filled scripts, when asked about what intrigues her most Sienna Miller responds: “It's all about my vegetables!"

Celebrity gardeners are all over the world. Even Australian Hollywood superstar, Nicole Kidman, has owned up to loving gardening. “It's the Kidman women's hobby”, she owned up recently during an interview. Both her sister and mother are avid gardeners and Nicole has just discovered the allure.Nicole Kidman photo courtesy Hot-lifestyle-news

Here in the United States garden enthusiasts Lance Bass, Rosario Dawson, members of Maroon 5, Amy Smart, Matthew Rhys, Nicole Richie, Emily VanCamp and Emmanuelle Chriqui, are some celebs who have volunteered for the LAUSD school district to mentor students with creating and growing organic gardens during the next school year.

There are many celebrities who have discovered the benefits of gardening. And it’s something we can all enjoy that will keep us in good physical and mental shape as well as surrounding our homes with beauty and edibles!

AP: DEAL POSSIBLE SUNDAY ON CALIFORNIA BUDGET

By STEVE LAWRENCE (AP)

1:30 PM 7/18 -- SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California officials hope to reach a deal Sunday on how to erase a $26.3 billion budget deficit that has forced the state to issue IOUs for the first time in nearly 20 years.

Legislative leaders said they made "huge progress" Friday night in talks in the governor's office and plan to meet again Sunday night in hopes of finalizing an agreement.

A deal would clear the way for votes later in the week in the state Legislature.

"I expect by Sunday night that we are likely to have an agreement," Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said after the Friday night session ended.

A spokesman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Aaron McLear, said negotiators were "certainly in a position where we could close this very quickly ... but we still have some issues to work out."

They include how much to set aside in an emergency reserve fund, how much to borrow from local governments and whether to guarantee that schools will always be repaid lost funds when the economy sours.

McLear said staff members were trying to work out some details on Saturday.

California has had a series of budget shortfalls in recent years. The latest comes only 4 1/2 months after lawmakers and the governor ended months of negotiations over how to close a previous $42 billion deficit. The state's deteriorating economy and voters' rejection in May of a series of budget-balancing proposals created more red ink.

Lack of a budget agreement and a drop in state revenue has forced California to issue IOUs for the first time since 1992 to cover bills from thousands of state vendors. Some banks have stopped honoring the IOUs, adding to the difficulties state suppliers face in getting paid.

Lawmakers are trying to iron out the state's latest budget woes as members of California's largest state employee union, Service Employees International Union Local 1000, consider giving their leaders the authority to call a strike.

The SEIU announced Friday that it was sending out ballots to its members asking for authorization for workplace actions that could include a walkout.

SEIU members are angry over the prospect of wage cuts or being forced to take a fourth unpaid furlough day off a month because of the state's budget problems. They're also upset that Republican lawmakers blocked ratification of a new contract that would have limited them to only one furlough day per month.

The local represents 95,000 of the more than 200,000 state workers.

A spokesman for the union, Jim Zamora, said the vote would go ahead regardless of what happens with budget negotiations.

"If a budget is passed, our leadership will evaluate the situation and decide what's next," he said Saturday.

The news that didn’t fit from July 19

“…and that’s the way it was.”
Saturday, July 18, 2009 9:31 AM
smf for LAKids   As a passionate insider – the least trustworthy of reporters – I cannot allow the most trusted one to pass without notice.  Walter Cronkite was of the generation one of his colleagues called the greatest. 

SCHWARZENEGGER APPOINTS LAUSD LAWYER TO SUPERIOR COURT
Friday, July 17, 2009 10:26 AM
By a MetNews Staff Writer | Metropolitan News-Enterprise [edited by 4LAKids]  Friday, July 17, 2009 -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger yesterday announced the appointment of 11 new superior court judges in three counties, including the appointment of eight to the Los Angeles Superior Court.  Included in those tapped to fill local vacancies are LAUSD Assistant General Counsel Stephanie M. Bowick.

PROP 98 IS TESTED AGAIN: In the tug of war over state's deficit, Schwarzenegger would like to suspend it. The California Teacher's Assn. wants reassurances.
Friday, July 17, 2009 8:41 AM
By Eric Bailey | From the Los Angeles Times  July 17, 2009 -- Reporting from Sacramento — For years it has been this government town's equivalent of a stone fortress, a bastion of public policy under the watchful eye of a potent political army.  But this summer, Proposition 98, the law that guarantees public schools roughly 40% of general fund revenue, is being tested as it has been only a few

[Updated] MORE THAN 300 LOCAL SCHOOL BUSES TO BENEFIT AFTER PROPOSITION 1B IS RE-INSTATED
Friday, July 17, 2009 11:04 AM
School Transportation News  DIAMOND BAR, Calif. (July 16, 2009) — Los Angeles Unified School District will replace 260 of its oldest diesel buses with new CNG and propane vehicles following a $43 million vehicle replacement grant from the South Coast Air Quality Management District awarded to a total of 13 districts, signaling the return of the state’s Lower-Emission School Bus Program amid a

CALL TO ACTION: Save Early Education  [don’t let the feds so what we didn’t let the state do!]
Thursday, July 16, 2009 2:55 PM
from noschoolforsam.org/pre[k]now  Dear Friend,  A subcommittee in the House of Representatives took a BIG step backward last week when it came up $900 million short of President Obama's proposed early education budget.  But now the full budget committee has a chance to get it right.  Tomorrow they'll cast a crucial vote which can help to reinstate the funds cut from the president's proposal.

EDUCATION SQUABBLE STALLS CALIFORNIA BUDGET DEAL: Schwarzenegger offers his promise that school money would be restored when the economy rebounds. Democrats want it in writing
Thursday, July 16, 2009 9:31 AM
By Evan Halper and Eric Bailey |LA Times Online    5:43 AM PDT, July 16, 2009 Reporting from Sacramento -- Fresh off a disappointing evening of budget negotiations that halted amid simmering frustration, legislative leaders and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vowed to forge ahead today in hopes of settling on a final package to stem California's $26.3-billion deficit.  The prime obstacle that reared

LAUSD SHOULD BUCK THE STATUS QUO AND LET COMMUNITIES DESIGN THEIR SCHOOLS
Thursday, July 16, 2009 8:57 AM
LA Daily News Editorial  16 July 2009 -- HERE'S an apparently controversial statement: Communities should decide how to operate their local schools.   Those of you who thought that's how school districts already work - within the confines of federal and state standards, of course - are forgiven for your overly rosy view of public education. This is L.A., after all, a town so politicized that

CALIFORNIA COLLEGE CRUNCH: Budget cuts, fee hikes, forced days off -- the Cal State system is under siege + UC system: Lay-offs, not pay cuts
Thursday, July 16, 2009 8:56 AM
Budget cuts, fee hikes, forced days off -- the Cal State system is under siege.  By Vincent J. Del Casino Jr. | Opinion From the Los Angeles Times  July 16, 2009 -- In just under two months, students will start the new academic year at 23 Cal State campuses across the state. They'll encounter a new university, one that shows the effects of cutting $584 million from the budget.  If they are

CAL STATE CHANCELLOR CRITICIZES LOW STANDARDS AT HIGH SCHOOLS
Thursday, July 16, 2009 9:07 AM
by Howard Blume | LA Times LA Now blog  1:45 PM | July 15, 2009 -- California State University Chancellor Charles B. Reed said that what passes for algebra in high schools is really “algebra light,” and characterized as “outrageous” that school districts don’t require more of their students.   The backdrop for Reed’s comments, in an interview and in formal remarks before a lunchtime audience this

Dan Walters: OUT-OF-STATERS GLEEFULLY DELVE INTO CALIFORNIA’S WOES
Wednesday, July 15, 2009 5:29 PM
By Dan Walters | Sacramento Bee  Wed, Jul. 15, 2009 -- National Public Radio is running a series of broadcasts this week called "California in Crisis”. And NPR is not alone.  Network and cable television news shows, public broadcasters, major out-of-state newspapers and countless magazines are taking turns recounting and analyzing California's economic and fiscal travails. The tone of many

WSJ: CALIFORNIA CLOSE TO NEW BUDGET DEAL
Wednesday, July 15, 2009 5:04 PM
By STU WOO | The Wall Street Journal  JULY 16, 2009 - California leaders say they are near a compromise on fixing the state's $26 billion budget shortfall, signaling the end of a weeks-long impasse that has forced officials to issue IOUs to keep the state out of default.  Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders have held negotiations late into the night this week to work out the last

UTLA: LAUSD MAY REHIRE 2000 LAID-OFF TEACHERS
Wednesday, July 15, 2009 4:42 PM
Updated: Wednesday, 15 Jul 2009, 12:00 PM PDT    Published : Wednesday, 15 Jul 2009, 11:56 AM PDT      Text Story by: Associated Press    Posted on MyFoxLA.com by: Dennis Lovelace   Los Angeles (myFOXla.com) - The head of the Los Angeles teachers union says talks are under way that could lead to the rehiring of 2,000 teachers laid off in June.   

DEAL COULD RESTORE JOBS TO MANY LAID-OFF LOS ANGELES TEACHERS
Thursday, July 16, 2009 8:52 AM
by Howard Blume | LA Times LA Now blog  11:33 AM | July 14, 2009 : Los Angeles teachers would surrender some compensation in exchange for preserving jobs under terms being negotiated between the teachers union and the Los Angeles Unified School District, The Times has learned.  The deal, if completed, would reverse many, if not most, of just over 2,000 teacher layoffs that took effect on July 1.

LAUSD SHOULD FOCUS ON IMPROVING TEACHING SKILLS, NOT FIRING ‘BAD’ TEACHERS.
Saturday, July 11, 2009 7:11 PM
Op-Ed By John Perez | LA Newspaper Group/Daily News   Sunday, 12 July 2009 -- DURING 36 years as a teacher and union leader in the Los Angeles Unified School District, I ran across teachers who clearly should not have been at the head of a classroom.   They were, however, far fewer than commonly thought. Calls to fire "bad" teachers always fire up a crowd, but few of the 650,000 LAUSD students

LAWSUIT FILED TO BLOCK BIRMINGHAM HIGH SCHOOL CHARTER.
Saturday, July 11, 2009 6:24 PM
An e-mail to the Birmingham community from charter opponent Steve Shapiro  Thursday, 9 July, 2008  Dear Birmingham,  This e mail is to inform you all that a lawsuit has been filed today in Superior Court.  This is the first of several lawsuits that are designed to rectify many of the wrongs that have taken place over the past year.  On Monday morning, July 13, 2009, at 8:30 A.M. Superior Court,

“…and that’s the way it was.”

smf for LAKids

As a passionate insider – the least trustworthy of reporters – I cannot allow the most trusted one to pass without notice.

Walter Cronkite was of the generation one of his colleagues called the greatest.  I am a boomer – it was my parents’ generation. It has taken most of our generation for boomers to accept the greatness of our parents …much of our youth was taken repudiating our parents. As a parent myself I understand and embrace that – challenging your parents is the job description of youth.

Walter Cronkite however transcended that. When we didn’t trust anyone over thirty we trusted Walter. He was dispassionate and honest. He spoke to us and he spoke to our parents; he spoke the truth. Occasionally he spoke truth to power. Unemotional and detached on rare occasions he allowed his passions to rise. He shed a tear when announcing the death of President Kennedy. He simply said ‘Wow’ when men first landed on the moon. The police in Chicago in 1968 were ‘thugs’: the war in Viet Nam ‘unwinnable’. Saying those things did not make them true but it made their truth real.

Apropos of the moment we find ourselves in without him, he has left this: “America's health care system is neither healthy, caring, nor a system.”

You can learn from a man like that and we did. We still can.

SCHWARZENEGGER APPOINTS LAUSD LAWYER TO SUPERIOR COURT

By a MetNews Staff Writer | Metropolitan News-Enterprise [edited by 4LAKids]

Friday, July 17, 2009 -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger yesterday announced the appointment of 11 new superior court judges in three counties, including the appointment of eight to the Los Angeles Superior Court.

Included in those tapped to fill local vacancies are LAUSD Assistant General Counsel Stephanie M. Bowick.  Bowick, 46, has served as an assistant general counsel for the Los Angeles Unified School District since 2001.

Before then, Bowick served as a deputy city attorney for the cities of Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco.

She previously served as a litigation associate for Barrack, Rodos & Bacine, Berman & Clark, and Mills & Schroeder.

A graduate of Howard University School of Law and UCLA, Bowick fills the vacancy created by the resignation of Judge Joe W. Hilberman and is registered decline-to-state.

The compensation for each position is $178,789.

Full article: Schwarzenegger Appoints Eight to Los Angeles Superior Court

THE EDUCATION REVOLUTION: Cookie Cutter Kids?

By Diana L. Chapman | Random Thoughts column in CityWatch: an insider look @ LA

I have a sickening and increasing fear of the new education revolution that has charter schools popping up everywhere in Los Angeles– especially now that our mayor has endorsed this as the gateway to fixing public schools.

It stems from scary stories like this:

High School senior, Aurora Ponce, a class president, straight “A” student headed for a UC university, sat in a silent protest regarding enlarging class sizes and the elimination of college prep courses at her charter campus. After she did so, the Accelerated School (several South Los Angeles charters) suspended her for two days and tried to bar her from giving  a valedictorian speech.

Scores of protests forced the charter to allow her the opportunity she deserved.

Two teachers, during Black History Month, put together a program to remember 14-year-old Emmett Till, hanged in 1955 in Mississippi for whistling at a white woman. The program included placing a wreath down for Emmett at Celerity Nascent charters.

The 7th grade math teacher, Marisol Alba, and co-teacher, Sean Strauss, were both fired. School officials declared that telling Emmett’s story was too horrific for young students.

I signed the petition to rehire those teachers. This is the type of program I don’t only expect – but demand from good teachers.

These Los Angeles stories, and many others like them around the nation, bother me deeply that we are murdering our public education system and leaving behind our American values as individuals; the right to protest, the right to free speech, the right to learn about tolerance – which we’ve always learned at schools. And more so, the right to learn our history.

During my junior high school years, I learned about Native American Indians living on reservations, the brutality of the Civil Rights Movement and about the Klu Klux Klan. Not once did I believe these stories were too much for me to learn. In fact, those lessons helped shape me and taught me tolerance.

I want our children – our future – to be analytical and to know our history – no matter how dark it is. If we  avoid the Emmett Till story, will we ignore slavery too? How about the Lincoln assassination? Should we discuss JFK then? What about the Holocaust?

Even when charter test scores are high, I wonder what we eliminate: perhaps we destroy the concept of students thinking for themselves.

I gagged when I read about the American Indian Public Charter schools in Oakland.

These students live with strict military-style discipline at the school and achieved some of the highest test scores in the state – 976 – out of a 1000 on the API (Academic Performance Index). Mostly, strict academics are part of the structure such as math.

But my question is: at what costs? While public schools are teaching to the tests as well, teachers are often chagrined by this and continue their attempts to instill values, tolerance --- and our history. Maybe then we won’t repeat some of the same ugly mistakes we’ve already made.

As a parent, I took a short dip in and out of a charter school in San Pedro for my son, Ryan. It definitely was not the school for us for a variety of reasons, but in particular odd discipline policies and the amount of control the principal and executive director had was bothersome.

After that, the only recourse was to go to the board.  And students were not encouraged to speak up.

We didn’t make it past the first semester, especially after Ryan was disciplined with an eight hour in-house suspension for wearing the wrong shirt to school. At this point, I decided this campus just didn’t fit us. It did, however, suit other students who blossomed and flourished at the smaller school.

Still, what I fear most coming out of charters is the cookie-cutter approach to teaching, especially at charters that are wedded to the basics, and want to squash what their students say out loud.

It’s almost a dumbing-down of students, intimidating them to not speak out vocally or become the way most of us are as Americans: believing we have the right to speak.

Jose Cole-Gutierrez, heads all 156 charter schools for Los Angeles Unified which currently serves 60,000 students.

In the end, charters have wound up operating similar to public schools – some are excellent, some are average and some have failed.

What they did offer the school district is a need for competition, Cole-Gutierrez explained and for parents -- options.

The school district does not, in essence, manage day-to-day operations, Cole-Gutierrez said, but what has come out of the charter movement – which this district has the highest number of than any other in the nation – is offering choice to parents.

The district now offers magnet, pilot and smaller learning communities to its students and the district now has “the competition we need at all schools. We need to compete and give better choices,” he explained.

“We continue to be committed to high quality choices, providing charter schools with the autonomy allowed under the law and the accountability for which they are responsible,” the administrator emailed me.

David Kooper, the chief of staff for LAUSD Board Member Richard Vladovic, agreed and said the district will move toward forming small schools to compete against charters.

The small schools, which may reside on currently large campuses, will have their own counseling office and administration.

“We’ve decided to go with smaller schools and help them establish their own identity,”

This is good news – because like most of education’s ills, charters are only a part of the solution.  

(Diana L. Chapman was a journalist for 15 years with the Daily Breeze and the San Diego Union. She can be reached hartchap@cox.net◘ 

PROP 98 IS TESTED AGAIN: In the tug of war over state's deficit, Schwarzenegger would like to suspend it. The California Teacher's Assn. wants reassurances.

By Eric Bailey | From the Los Angeles Times

July 17, 2009 -- Reporting from Sacramento — For years it has been this government town's equivalent of a stone fortress, a bastion of public policy under the watchful eye of a potent political army.

But this summer, Proposition 98, the law that guarantees public schools roughly 40% of general fund revenue, is being tested as it has been only a few times before.

In the final stages of the weeks-long negotiations over the state's $26.3-billion budget gap, what to do about Proposition 98 has emerged among the last, and toughest, issues.

After saying they were close to a deal Wednesday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders did not meet Thursday, with the governor's spokesman saying the talks were hung up over school funds.

Schwarzenegger has talked of suspending Proposition 98 and has reopened a battle with the law's guardian and protector, the powerful California Teachers Assn. Both sides have waged war over the airwaves for the last week, with dueling TV commercials typically not seen in a nonelection year.

The governor and Republicans have rejected Democratic calls for new taxes on oil or tobacco. With no added taxes, cuts to schools are among the last ways the state can balance its books.

The unpopularity of such cuts guarantees difficult negotiations. But the talks over Proposition 98 have been made even more complex by lingering suspicions each side has of the other's motives.

Democrats concede they can't avoid more cuts to schools, but they want assurances that money being carved from school budgets will be restored in future years as the economy recovers.

The exact amount of cuts from schools is still uncertain, but education officials say there will be more teacher layoffs, more kids stuffed into classes, fewer librarians and counselors and reductions in art, music and gym classes.

"For us, it's been worse than the Great Depression," said Lisa Kaplan, a Sacramento attorney and a trustee at the suburban Natomas Unified School District, which has endured steeper funding cuts than during the early 1930s.

Proposition 98 and Proposition 13 -- one a touchstone for liberals, the other for conservatives -- are the enduring benchmarks of California's initiative wars.

In a state that has seen ballot measures win and lose but mostly disappear from memory like sandcastles in a high tide, "they're the twin pillars of political sanctity," said Dan Schnur, executive director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC.

"Propositions 13 and 98 are the two big prizes in a giant political game of capture the flag."

Proposition 13, passed in 1978, restricted property taxes and required a two-thirds vote for tax increases, thereby limiting money for schools and other government programs.

Proposition 98, passed 10 years later, was the response, backed by teachers and education groups. It wrote into the state Constitution a complex formula that sets a floor below which school spending is not allowed to drop.

But unlike Proposition 13, Proposition 98 can be suspended by a two-thirds vote of the Legislature. The state has done so twice during economic slumps: in the early 1990s as California's aerospace industry declined and again earlier this decade as tax revenue tanked after the dot-com bust.

In both of those cases, the suspension came with at least tacit approval from the teachers union, which has deep pockets, a militia of more than 300,000 members to call on and a track record of making or breaking political careers. In the Capitol, the union is among the most effective lobbying forces, a constant presence in every education battle.

"Protecting the integrity of Proposition 98 is definitely a top priority," said Becky Zoglman, a teachers association spokeswoman.

The union's power was on full display after Schwarzenegger negotiated the last suspension of Proposition 98 during the down economy of 2004.

At the time, negotiators refrained from even calling the move a suspension for fear of riling the union. Instead, they dubbed it "rebenching."

"Around here, suspension is a dirty word," said John Mockler, the longtime education consultant who wrote Proposition 98. "People just get into the spin and avoid telling the truth. They know it's a bad vote. They can slash here and slash there, but can always say they didn't suspend Proposition 98."

The next year, as the economy recovered, the union grumbled that the governor had gone back on his word to restore the cuts, and Schwarzenegger paid. The teachers were a force in defeating ballot measures championed by the governor in 2005. A year later the teachers association won a multibillion-dollar lawsuit settlement requiring the state to pay back education money diverted during the downturn.

This time around, Schwarzenegger has publicly maintained that he wants to ultimately repay schools whatever money they lose during the current economic crisis.

Democrats want payback assurances written into the budget package. They also want guarantees that schools would be repaid if they lost money in future downturns. Schwarzenegger has balked at that.

Education leaders believe they've already paid dearly. In the budget signed by Schwarzenegger in February, they say, 60% of the cuts hit schools. Those reductions amounted to a cut of 12% per pupil, said Robin Swanson, spokeswoman for the Education Coalition, which represents 2.5 million teachers, parents, administrators and school board members. "It's as if they see education funding as a giant piggy bank that they can raid."

Education officials worry that an outright suspension of Proposition 98 could mean deeper reductions if the economy continues to sour.

"It could open up a Pandora's box," said Assemblywoman Julia Brownley (D-Santa Monica).

Republican officials, meanwhile, acknowledge they'd love to see Proposition 98 simply go away, but they understand the political dynamics. Education is a top priority in public opinion polls, and Republicans don't want to be singled out for making cuts. Nor do they want to take on the union.

But they also sense a potential opening.

"The CTA is doing what they always do, protecting a two-decade-old political investment and franchise," said Rob Stutzman, a GOP consultant.

Tampering with Proposition 98 over the teachers association's objection "would set a dangerous precedent," he added. "But the sands are shifting on them. Sooner or later, CTA is going to lose one of these Prop. 98 fights."

[Updated] MORE THAN 300 LOCAL SCHOOL BUSES TO BENEFIT AFTER PROPOSITION 1B IS RE-INSTATED

School Transportation News

DIAMOND BAR, Calif. (July 16, 2009) — Los Angeles Unified School District will replace 260 of its oldest diesel buses with new CNG and propane vehicles following a $43 million vehicle replacement grant from the South Coast Air Quality Management District awarded to a total of 13 districts, signaling the return of the state’s Lower-Emission School Bus Program amid a new 1-percent sales tax increase affecting state vehicle purchases.

It was the largest single payout from Proposition 1B, approved by voters in 2006 to sell a $20 billion in bond debt to finance state transportation projects, including the Lower-Emission School Bus Program. California suspended the program last year as the state attempted to close the deficit in its general fund, something it is still trying to do.

In total, 304 school buses will be replaced by CNG and propane buses that emit no diesel particles, which SCAQMD says is a source of about 84 percent of air pollution-related cancer in the Southland. Besides LAUSD, other districts receiving grant funds are: Azusa; Long Beach; Newhall; Saugus Union; Sulphur Springs; William S. Hart; Westminster; Jurupa; Chaffey Joint; Chino Valley; Redlands; and Rim of the World. Previously, the state program took five remaining pre-1977 buses and 299 pre-1987 off the road.

SCAQMD also issued $3 million in Carl Moyer Program and unspent EPA funds to retrofit 176 diesel buses with particulate traps.

Since 2000, AQMD has approved more than $152 million to replace more than 930 older diesel school buses with cleaner models and retrofit 2,991 newer diesel buses with particulate traps. The next round of applications for CNG and propane replacements and for diesel retrofits ends on Aug. 29.

 

4LAKids finds it curious, improbable and illusionary that the State of California (which is paying bills with IOUs) and the Polled Money Investment Board (which has embargoed bond funded payouts on every other project) has actually released these funds.

UPDATE: This is one of those instances where the writer of press releases has been consuming the company Kool Aid

• The article is based on the SCAQMD's Board approval of the grant applications last week,  not on the reality of the money not being available from the state. The LAUSD application was submitted last July, 2008, and is just now being awarded.
• The grant requires school districts to commit a minimum of $25,000 of their own funds per bus, which does not include any district specific equipment options like air conditioning.
• The original intent was to leverage Measure Y & Q funds to meet the District's matching funds requirement. Given the current state of the District's budget and, the inability is finance Measure Q, LAUSD will probably only be able to accept of small fraction of this grant award.

BOTTOM LINE: POLITICIANS AND ACTIVISTS DEMAND EQUAL EDUCATION ON WATTS CAMPUS

Cortines: LAUSD has “no jurisdiction over the mayor’s Partnership Schools and, consequently, are not in the loop about anything they do.”

By BETTY PLEASANT, Contributing Editor | Los Angeles Wave

 

July 16, 2009 -- As the result of last week’s column on the “Spanish only” summer program at John Ritter Elementary School, LAUSD board member Marguerite LaMotte presented a motion at Tuesday’s board meeting calling for access and equity for all students in the school district.

Referenced article:The Bottom Line: At this summer session in Watts, Black students need not apply

The motion, which was co-authored by board members Richard Vladovic and Steven Zimmer, specifically addresses the revelation that a four-week summer school session for Spanish-speaking students only is under way at the Watts-area Ritter School while no summer instruction is being provided to English-speaking students.

The Ritter School is one of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s Partnership for Los Angeles schools — a group of 10 public schools carved out of the LAUSD system and given to the mayor to operate.

A furor has erupted in the city’s non-Spanish speaking population over Ritter’s special summer class, especially in light of the fact that no elementary and middle school summer classes are being provided for public school children anywhere else in the district, as they were all canceled because of the district’s catastrophic shortage of funds.

The Rev. Eric Lee, executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference-Los Angeles, was livid when he learned of Ritter’s Spanish-only summer school, and vowed: “We’re going to do something about this.” He said he spoke with Marshall Tuck, the CEO of the mayor’s Partnership Schools system, and listened to his explanations for the program.

“It still doesn’t make any sense to me,” Lee said. “If they were committed to have a Spanish-language instruction program, then they should have at least had an English-language instruction program as well.”

Lee, along with Adrian Dove, head of the California Congress of Racial Equality, met with the Black Education Task Force on the issue Monday and Lee said the group is demanding that Partnership Schools amass enough resources to have an English-language summer school at Ritter.

The National Association for Equal Justice in America (NAEJA) is scheduled to take up the Ritter summer school issue at its membership meeting Saturday, and the Urban Roundtable has issued a scathing indictment of the separate, but in-no-way equal, educational activity under way at Ritter and has vowed to fight it.

Ramon Cortines, superintendent of the LAUSD, said Monday that he and his district have no jurisdiction over the mayor’s Partnership Schools and, consequently, are not in the loop about anything they do. “But I want to make it plain that I never have believed and do not now believe in ‘separate but equal’ anything — certainly not a separate education,” Cortines said.

LaMotte, the only African-American on the LAUSD school board, angrily denounced the goings-on at Ritter.

“The Partnership Schools are still district-owned schools and are subject to all laws and policies of all district schools,” LaMotte said. “It is unacceptable and unconscionable that this has occurred in an LAUSD school. Although Partnership Schools have greater flexibility in their operation, this does not give them the right to discriminate in any way, and I personally, apologize to the students and parents who were denied access and appeal to the district and the Partnership to publicly do the same."

As to the LaMotte/Vladovic/Zimmer motion, it reads as follows:

“Whereas the alleged incident at an LAUSD IDesign Partnership School and other incidents have brought to light the disturbing reality that racism and social injustice continue to exist in the educational community, as well as the community at large; and

“Whereas, the Equal Protection clause of the U.S. Constitution, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and state doctrines, such as the California Constitution demand and guarantee equality of treatment, social justice, protection of civil rights and freedom from racial discrimination; and

“Whereas, the Los Angeles Unified School District is involved in a process to transform schools to improve student academic achievement and social behavior by having all students college prepared, career ready and performing at proficiency and advanced levels. Therefore, be it

“Resolved that the LAUSD Board of Education publicly recognizes its responsibility as the governing board of one of this nation’s leading educational institutions to serve as committed advocates for equality of every student, to be champions of social justice and civil rights and to hold accountable all parties involved in IDesign [Partnership] and the transformation process to adhere to these same access and non-discriminatory standards; and be it finally

“Resolved that a statement of agreement with the district’s position on access and equity will be specifically incorporated in all MOU’s and signed by all parties prior to the approval/acceptance of any LAUSD partnership or joint venture involving students.”

This resolution will be debated by the school board at its Aug. 25 meeting.

CALL TO ACTION: Save Early Education [don’t let the feds so what we didn’t let the state do!]

from noschoolforsam.org/pre[k]now

Dear Friend,

A subcommittee in the House of Representatives took a BIG step backward last week when it came up $900 million short of President Obama's proposed early education budget.

But now the full budget committee has a chance to get it right.

Tomorrow they'll cast a crucial vote which can help to reinstate the funds cut from the president's proposal.

I just wrote my Representative to make sure that this crucial early education funding doesn't get cut - will you click the link below and join me?

click > pre[k]now!  < here!

President Obama has pledged $10 billion in early education funding this year. But his commitment cannot be fulfilled if Congress doesn't do its part to authorize the funds.

You and I both know that investing in pre-k and other high-quality early childhood programs isn't just good education policy, it's good economic policy. It prepares our children for success in school, in their communities, and later on in their workplaces. If lawmakers are truly interested in long-term economic stability, this is not the time to make short-sighted cuts at the expense of our children's future.

It's up to us to ensure that the House doesn't short-change the thousands of kids who are counting on Congress to provide funding for these important programs.

Click the link below to join me in letting Congress know that under-funding early education is not an option!

click > pre[k]now!  < here!

EDUCATION SQUABBLE STALLS CALIFORNIA BUDGET DEAL: Schwarzenegger offers his promise that school money would be restored when the economy rebounds. Democrats want it in writing

By Evan Halper and Eric Bailey |LA Times Online

5:43 AM PDT, July 16, 2009 Reporting from Sacramento -- Fresh off a disappointing evening of budget negotiations that halted amid simmering frustration, legislative leaders and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vowed to forge ahead today in hopes of settling on a final package to stem California's $26.3-billion deficit.

The prime obstacle that reared up to undercut the talks late Wednesday was a difference over how to tweak voter-approved school funding formulas so the state can cut billions of dollars it still needed to balance its books -- but guarantee that school funding was restored when the economy rebounded.

"I hate to describe it as a setback," said Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles), referring to the talks, "but it is definitely a stall."

Schwarzenegger's spokesman, Aaron McLear, said resolution is nearer, "but there are still some difficult issues to be resolved."

Aside from the disagreement over education funding, McLear said Democrats remain "unwilling" to make deeper cuts to create a healthy reserve so the state can weather an economy that could get worse before it gets better.

Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders ended talks just after 10 p.m. As the lawmakers left the Capitol before midnight, no time had been set to resume today, though Bass promised that more bargaining sessions would take place.

Among the issues still unresolved are how to adjust voter-approved school funding formulas so the state can cut from education while offering assurances that school funding would be restored once the economy rebounds.

"When times are better and we can afford it," said state Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), "we want education to be paid back."

Democrats are pushing for the budget package to include formal assurances of the education repayment, which they pegged at $11 billion, but say Schwarzenegger has insisted on a simple handshake agreement while pressing for reforms to public employee pensions and fundamental changes in the state's tax code.

Schwarzenegger and school leaders have jousted before over school funding, with educators accusing the governor in 2004 of reneging on a promise to restore funding cuts. The powerful California Teachers Assn. sued and won a settlement two years later.

With distrust still lingering, Democrats are pushing for formal assurances in a bill as part of the budget package.

McLear, the governor's spokesman, said such a legislative fix would amount to improperly tampering with a voter-approved law now enshrined in the state Constitution.

"The governor has consistently supported repaying education," McLear said. "But he does not support the Democrats' efforts to slip in a constitutional amendment without going back to the people."

Though the education funding tiff drew most of the attention, several other sticking points remain.

Among them are changes to the structure of state government that the governor is demanding as part of any final deal. Schwarzenegger says the changes would produce long-term savings by making various programs more efficient. Democrats have resisted, saying there is not enough evidence that they would be effective, and they have not been properly evaluated through normal legislative hearings.

One contentious proposal would change the state welfare program to increase penalties for participants who do not meet minimum federal work requirements. Currently, emergency cash is available for children of parents in that category; those grants could be eliminated under Schwarzenegger's plan.

Participants in the discussions had expressed optimism before Wednesday's talks began.

"There is no nastiness in the discussions -- no blowups, chairs flying and what usually are the routines -- there's none of that," Schwarzenegger said at a morning news conference. "So I think that we have a good shot of getting the budget done today. But there are still, I have to just caution, there are still some very important things that are not resolved."

Against the backdrop of goodwill, however, political bickering persisted. The teachers association continues running advertisements attacking the governor for his plan to cut money from schools. And the governor is running advertisements that Democrats say wrongly accuse them of trying to sneak tax hikes into the budget.

The California Democratic Party filed a complaint Wednesday with the state's ethics agency, seeking to force the governor's spots off the air. The ads, the party says, are paid for with funds that may be spent only to promote initiatives and referendums. The governor's campaign team called the complaint a baseless "political attack."

LAUSD SHOULD BUCK THE STATUS QUO AND LET COMMUNITIES DESIGN THEIR SCHOOLS

LA Daily News Editorial

16 July 2009 -- HERE'S an apparently controversial statement: Communities should decide how to operate their local schools.

Those of you who thought that's how school districts already work - within the confines of federal and state standards, of course - are forgiven for your overly rosy view of public education. This is L.A., after all, a town so politicized that state pols regularly dump their Sacramento jobs for a piece of municipal governance.

As such, the proposal to let communities decide how their schools operate is such an obvious and simple idea that it has come under fire.

It figures that when something innovative and exciting finally comes out of the LAUSD leadership, it's instantly set upon by the naysayers like a pack of angry dogs.

On Tuesday the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education was set to adopt a schools of choice plan created by board member Yolie Flores Aguilar. Supported by school board President Monica Garcia and another board member, Richard Vladovic, it should have passed easily on Tuesday. But then union leaders started pulling out the big guns, the plan was dropped like a hot potato.

What the plan would do isn't revolutionary; it would create a process in which stakeholders of the schools - parents, teachers, administrators, businesses and anyone else who cared - could submit plans for how one of the district's new schools would run. Outside organizations, such as Green Dot that recently took over some existing LAUSD schools, could also make a bid for how the school should be operated.

These wouldn't be charter schools, but the plan is intended to accomplish the same thing - develop schools that cater to community needs and diverge from the failed programmatic approach that the district still employs.

No wonder it terrifies the teachers' union and the so-called "progressive" members of the board. Adopting this policy opens the doors to change and academic evolution of a sort that threatens the current power structure.

Technically, the vote was just delayed until the Aug. 25. But in the political world, a "delay" is often code for either relegating it to a bureaucratic death or watering it down until it offends no one and accomplishes nothing.

The last thing the LAUSD can afford right now is to do nothing. It's a district in freefall, with a deserved bad rep as a district that caring parents want to avoid. It's the reason that entire existing schools, such as Birmingham High School in Lake Balboa, are simply opting out by going charter.

The district and the board can bow to the unions who want the status quo, as bad as it is, or it can model the charter movement by embracing the academic excellence and choice that the communities want. If the district doesn't evolve it will continue to lose control of education in Los Angeles anyhow, student by student, school by school.

Flores Aguilar said she's not giving up and not going to weaken her proposal. We strongly support her and hope the rest of the board, including Garcia, do as well.

CALIFORNIA COLLEGE CRUNCH: Budget cuts, fee hikes, forced days off -- the Cal State system is under siege + UC system: Lay-offs, not pay cuts

 

Budget cuts, fee hikes, forced days off -- the Cal State system is under siege.

By Vincent J. Del Casino Jr. | Opinion From the Los Angeles Times

July 16, 2009 -- In just under two months, students will start the new academic year at 23 Cal State campuses across the state. They'll encounter a new university, one that shows the effects of cutting $584 million from the budget.

If they are lucky enough to get the courses they need and want, those classes will be more crowded than ever before. Teachers and support staff will be less available and more stretched and tired, as they educate and advise more students with fewer resources. The latest money-saving proposal from the chancellor would add two "days off" a month -- the equivalent of four weeks of campus closures for the school year, with all services except emergency management and the dormitories shut down.

The students' 2009-2010 fees, which already have been increased by 10%, are likely to go up another 15% to 20%. Cal State will put 33% of that increase into student financial aid. Still, most students will face a real tuition increase of 16% to 20% this year, even as they're expected to pick up the slack and teach themselves while their access to professors, libraries and technical support is decreased.

Given California's budgetary crisis, there is no doubt cuts can and should be made in the CSU system. And structural adjustments will continue to take place in the wake of the changing (and challenging) California economy regardless of what the Legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger do.

But the depth of these cuts means we're facing more than simply modifying Cal State's approach to education; we're looking at the potential wholesale abandonment of the master plan, California's commitment to providing a college education to all its young people who qualify. Enrollment alone won't take the hit, but it's instructive to see the cuts in those terms: Cal State's loss of $584 million is the equivalent of cutting 95,000 of the system's 450,000 students. As a department chair, I spend day and night trying to determine the best places to slash our very modest teaching budget to balance the needs of students with the realities of decreasing resources. What can be sacrificed? What must we protect at all costs?

Trust me, the faculty can and already does teach with the bare bones. But what happens when there is no money to replace failing technology or retiring experts in our fields? What happens when this institution's greatest assets -- its people -- either drift away, demoralized, or are shunted aside as the system downsizes? All because the state can't manage its affairs and fulfill its own policies and goals.

So what is the cost of gutting the Cal State system? Fewer nurses. Fewer teachers. Fewer engineers. Fewer poets and artists. Fewer film and electronic arts experts. Fewer MBAs. Fewer people to drive the future of California, including fewer geographers trained in my department. These reductions in educated human capital will hit California at a time when the state needs 2 million additional college graduates by the year 2020.

I have always looked forward to the first day of classes, but not this year. This year, I am going to have a hard time looking students in the face as I have to tell them: "Sorry, you probably won't graduate this year. We don't have the money to run all the classes you will need to complete your degree."

How do you explain to students that the state has given up on them? Governor, any good one-liners I might use?

Vincent J. Del Casino Jr. heads the geography department at Cal State Long Beach.

 

UC system: Lay-offs, not pay cuts

Rather than across-the-board salary cuts, getting rid of unproductive people makes more sense.

By Robert Cooter and Aaron Edlin | Opinion From the Los Angeles Times

July 16, 2009 -- The University of California remains outstanding. By some rankings, three of its schools are among the top 20 universities in the world. But for how long?

The budget has been cut by 20%. The Board of Regents votes today on UC President Mark Yudof's plan to deal with the shortfall.

Yudof's original proposal included salary cuts across the board of 8% or furloughs leading to an equivalent reduction. This at a time when UC salaries are already 10% or more below those at peer institutions. The current proposal is more nuanced, with cuts ranging from 4% for low earners to 10% for high earners.

The basic choice, though, is to cut employee salaries rather than lay off employees.

Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau has thanked his faculty and staff for agreeing to this shared sacrifice. He says the alternative would have been to immediately eliminate hundreds of staff positions, which would have made some units dysfunctional.

A colleague at dinner the other night quipped that some units are already dysfunctional.

We don't doubt the chancellor's arithmetic, but we wonder whether Birgeneau and Yudof are ducking even more difficult, but more effective, options.

Across-the-board salary cuts are the simplest way to balance the budget, but they are rarely the best. In the corporate world, smart organizations more often choose layoffs than salary cuts. And with good reason.

A crisis is a time to rethink what we do, how we do it and who does it.

Consider what the proposed salary cuts would mean. With employees paid up to 20% below what peer institutions pay, the best will leave. Yes, even in this recession, the best people will leave for other jobs or retire or switch professions. And those who remain will suffer from low morale.

Growth has led to bloat at UC. The bloat and bureaucracy stifle creativity and productivity. The bloat is in unproductive workers and unproductive jobs. Many jobs have little to do with our core missions of teaching and research. Within jobs, there is task bloat -- mission creep creates too many assignments of little import.

These problems are endemic to most large organizations, but they are particular problems for one like UC, where it is almost impossible to fire an unproductive worker, whether staff or tenured professor, and always easier to hire a new one.

Our plan would be simple. To meet Yudof's savings targets, a number of employees would be laid off sufficient to save 8% of the payroll. The choices in staff cuts would be difficult, but they are necessary if the regents are unwilling to raise tuition further. Specific decisions on whom to lay off would be decentralized to campuses, and within campuses to schools or departments.

In the case of tenured faculty, for better or worse, they have a good measure of protection. But if an entire unit is eliminated, tenured faculty within it can be fired. Thus, while tenure means that we cannot be fired for writing this Op-Ed article, the university can decide that it does not have the resources to have a law school.

Those who remain would get full pay but be asked to pick up much of the slack by cutting out their least productive 8% to 10% of activities. Together, these two steps would make UC stronger and more efficient, and we might get done nearly as much as before.

The budget cut is enormous, and if people and units are cut, mistakes will surely be made. But sometimes the only way to find out if you really need something is to have it gone and feel the pain. If the pain is severe, you rebuild it. If not, the organization is more streamlined.

Perhaps there is now only time to cut salaries and not people or units. In that case, the regents could cut salaries for only six months and demand employee reductions to start in January.

Then, those like our dinner colleague who are frustrated by UC bureaucracy might even come to view the current crisis as an opportunity. A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.

Robert Cooter is a professor of law and Aaron Edlin is a professor of law and of economics, both at UC Berkeley.

CAL STATE CHANCELLOR CRITICIZES LOW STANDARDS AT HIGH SCHOOLS

by Howard Blume | LA Times LA Now blog

1:45 PM | July 15, 2009 -- California State University Chancellor Charles B. Reed said that what passes for algebra in high schools is really “algebra light,” and characterized as “outrageous” that school districts don’t require more of their students.

The backdrop for Reed’s comments, in an interview and in formal remarks before a lunchtime audience this week, was the official opening of the new California State University Center to Close the Achievement Gap.

“We can’t get many school districts to adopt A-G,” Reed said, referring to the courses required to apply to the University of California and Cal State systems. “That is outrageous.”

And even students who take these classes aren’t learning what they’re supposed to, according to Cal State data. More than 60% of first-time freshmen require remedial education in English, mathematics or both. All these students passed the required college preparatory curriculum and earned at least a B grade point average in high school. The picture is more stark for minority students. More than half of African American students, for example, enter Cal State as proficient in neither math nor English.

Focusing on math teachers in particular, Reed said that “less than half” of algebra teachers “had algebra classes or were taught how to teach algebra.”

Developing remedies will be a focus of the new center, which is mostly privately funded, with a projected $1.6-million annual budget. The top four donors are State Farm Insurance, Edison International, Macy's and the United Way of the Bay Area. Cal State’s contribution includes office space and technical support.

The center will be run by veteran educator Jim Lanich, 52, as the next step in an earlier collaboration  with Cal State. In recent years, Lanich has headed California Business for Education Excellence, which also is mostly privately funded. In that role, Lanich helped develop an honor roll of high-achieving schools, including many that serve low-income and minority families. 

Lanich also has used this platform to fault the California school accountability system as overly lax and wasteful of taxpayer dollars.

In his remarks, during a gathering on the Cal State L.A. campus east of downtown, Lanich said the lever to change would be improving teacher quality, developing real accountability and focusing on practices that have produced results. Working teachers need an opportunity to learn from successful schools, he said.

Reed added that these top-flight programs also need to inform teacher training at the 22 Cal State schools with teacher credentialing programs, which produce 17,000 teachers a year.

Dan Walters: OUT-OF-STATERS GLEEFULLY DELVE INTO CALIFORNIA’S WOES

By Dan Walters | Sacramento Bee

Wed, Jul. 15, 2009 -- National Public Radio is running a series of broadcasts this week called "California in Crisis”. And NPR is not alone.

Network and cable television news shows, public broadcasters, major out-of-state newspapers and countless magazines are taking turns recounting and analyzing California's economic and fiscal travails. The tone of many reports is found in the German word "schadenfreude." It means taking pleasure from the distress of others.

The state's periodic social and economic upheavals have always generated that kind of media attention, something along the lines of "tarnish on the Golden State." But the current spate has an even edgier tone, suggesting that this time, it's worse and at least semi-permanent.

One example is California journalist and futurist Joel Kotkin, writing in Forbes magazine: "But the fundamental problem remains. California's economy – once wondrously diverse with aerospace, high-tech, agriculture and international trade – has run aground. Burdened by taxes and ever-growing regulation, the state is routinely rated by executives as having among the worst business climates in the nation. No surprise, then, that California's jobs engine has sputtered, and it may be heading toward 15 percent unemployment."

The Economist, a sober-sided British magazine, compares California to Texas, noting that the Lone Star State's economy has weathered the national recession nicely and suggesting it may have replaced California as the place creative and ambitious people flock to for opportunity.

The Economist cites "dysfunctional government" as a major California problem. It adds, "No state has quite so many overlapping systems of accountability or such a gerrymandered legislature," and describes the state's ballot measures as the "crack cocaine of democracy."

The New York Times surveys those who want to run for governor next year and wonders whether anyone can run an evidently dysfunctional state.

The carping tone and occasional inaccuracies aside, it's difficult to fault what the out-of-state media are saying about us. They see dysfunction because there is dysfunction. They wonder about our head-in-the-sand attitude about the state's economy, an assumption that everything will turn out all right, because that's exactly how we act.

Even as the state's economy continues to falter, state officials – including those in the Schwarzenegger administration – continue to add new layers of regulation, not to mention new fees and taxes, that contribute to the widespread belief that we are hostile to job-creating investment. And that doesn't include the psychological effects of chronic budget deficits, IOU payments to creditors and a credit rating much lower than that of any other state.

We desperately need to straighten out our laughingstock government, balance the state budget and demonstrate to the rest of the world that we're still in the game. The alternative is economic and social decay.

WSJ: CALIFORNIA CLOSE TO NEW BUDGET DEAL

By STU WOO | The Wall Street Journal

JULY 16, 2009 - California leaders say they are near a compromise on fixing the state's $26 billion budget shortfall, signaling the end of a weeks-long impasse that has forced officials to issue IOUs to keep the state out of default.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders have held negotiations late into the night this week to work out the last details of a budget plan, which staffers said could be finalized as soon as Thursday morning. "We're close," said Matt David, a spokesman for the governor. "There are still some details to be worked out."

Mr. Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders have agreed on $14 billion to $15 billion in spending cuts, with about a third of that in education, said staffers for the two sides. The remaining $11 billion gap would be closed through one-time fixes and accounting gimmicks -- such as issuing state workers' paychecks in July 2010 instead of June 2010 to save money for the current fiscal year -- despite the Republican governor's repeated demands for a lasting overhaul of spending.

Several controversial plans are still on the negotiating table, Mr. David said. Among them are the governor's proposals to scale back welfare programs, eliminate a college-scholarship program, close all state parks and borrow $2 billion from local governments.

The nation's most-populous state faces a $26 billion deficit in its $92 billion general-fund budget through June 2010. In February, lawmakers closed most of a $42 billion gap for fiscal years 2009 and 2010 through steep spending cuts and new taxes.

Budget stalemates are familiar in Sacramento, which has seen only a handful of spending plans passed on time in the past 30 years. But with the state on the brink of insolvency this year, this impasse has been far more costly.

Lawmakers missed a June 30 deadline to pass spending cuts, preventing them from reaping $3 billion in savings during the fiscal year that ended that day. That also forced the state controller to begin issuing IOUs to keep the state from running out of cash by July's end. The controller's office said it had issued 130,501 IOUs, worth a total of $588.1 million, by the end of Tuesday. The state will have to pay interest on the IOUs, while investors will charge California more for its annual short-term borrowing.

UTLA: LAUSD MAY REHIRE 2000 LAID-OFF TEAHERS

Updated: Wednesday, 15 Jul 2009, 12:00 PM PDT

Published : Wednesday, 15 Jul 2009, 11:56 AM PDT

• Text Story by: Associated Press
• Posted on MyFoxLA.com by: Dennis Lovelace

Los Angeles (myFOXla.com) - The head of the Los Angeles teachers union says talks are under way that could lead to the rehiring of 2,000 teachers laid off in June.

< AJ Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles, said Wednesday a deal appears to be close with the school district, but he would not provide details. He says talks have been serious and have lasted about five weeks.

Ellen Morgan, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Unified School District, would not comment.

The nation's second largest school district laid off the teachers last month due to a $600 million budget

 

smf: uh…a $600 million budget shortfall maybe?

DEAL COULD RESTORE JOBS TO MANY LAID-OFF LOS ANGELES TEACHERS

by Howard Blume | LA Times LA Now blog

11:33 AM | July 14, 2009 : Los Angeles teachers would surrender some compensation in exchange for preserving jobs under terms being negotiated between the teachers union and the Los Angeles Unified School District, The Times has learned.

The deal, if completed, would reverse many, if not most, of just over 2,000 teacher layoffs that took effect on July 1.

A key to the bargain is about $65 million in class-size reduction money that is expected to be available from the state, said sources close to the talks. Faced with a budget deficit, L.A. Unified surrendered these dollars rather than pay its share of what it costs to lower class sizes to a ratio of 20 to 1 for students in kindergarten through third grade. But if the union agrees to compensation concessions, the district would then have funds to qualify for the extra money. The lower class sizes would mean more classroom jobs.

Elementary teachers would be in line to reap the benefit, although the discussions have included possible ways to rehire secondary teachers as well.

The union membership would have to approve the deal, but union leaders could sell the pact as getting added value in exchange for the sacrifice.

The terms of the giveback are still being worked out. But a one-year freeze of automatic wage increases based on experience and training would save $65 million, according to district calculations. A temporary districtwide wage reduction of 1% would save $40 million.

An agreement on this type of trade-off could have been reached months ago, but the leadership of United Teachers Los Angeles has previously opposed all concessions as unnecessary -- or at least premature until the school system made more reductions elsewhere. Union president A.J. Duffy also pushed the district to use all of its federal economic stimulus money immediately rather than spreading it across the next two budget years, as the district plans to do. Duffy declined to comment on the ongoing negotiations except to say that he was encouraged by how they were going. 

Over the past few months, the state budget picture has worsened, and even a deal now would not spare the unions and the district from facing deep layoffs next year.

Because the potential pact is so late in coming, some teachers have found jobs elsewhere and some schools already have hired replacements. That means one goal of both sides — keeping school faculties intact — may not be realized.

A partial exception to this outcome could be the 10 schools under the stewardship of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. These schools were especially hard-hit by layoffs because they employ a large number of teachers with limited seniority. In anticipation of a possible deal, the mayor’s team agreed to pay for the health benefits of laid-off teachers through July. They also hired laid-off staff as long-term substitutes at their schools. The strategy was to keep these teachers at hand and solvent pending a deal that would save jobs, said Marshall Tuck, chief executive of the mayor’s Partnership for Los Angeles Schools.

Overall, teachers union officials have remained critical of the mayor’s team. They say the partnership has given teachers little input into managing its schools — in contrast, they say, to promises that were made.

The district, too, has processed laid-off teachers as substitutes, but has not to date provided a healthcare subsidy or kept all former positions open at schools in anticipation of a return of the laid-off staff.

All told, the district laid off 2,057 teachers as of July 1, of which 1,574 are elementary teachers. The remainder are secondary English and social studies teachers, according to district figures.

L.A. UNIFIED DELAYS BIDS ON SCHOOLS: Plan to let district, charters and other groups compete for new facilities draws union opposition.

By Howard Blume | LA Times

July 15, 2009  -- Faced with unrelenting union opposition, the Los Angeles Board of Education put on hold Tuesday a proposal that would have allowed charter operators and other outside groups to bid for control of 50 new schools scheduled to open over the next four years.

The plan, led by board member Yolie Flores Aguilar, would have made available, through a competitive process, new schools that are part of the nation's largest school construction project. The district could compete to run these campuses, along with independently run charter schools, the mayor's office and other institutions and nonprofit groups.

The biggest prize would be the collection of schools at the Wilshire Boulevard site of the Ambassador Hotel, one of the nation's most expensive school construction efforts. Charter operators see in the resolution a chance at new school facilities that are largely unavailable to them now. Some supporters also perceive the motion as a first step allowing the takeover of any school regarded as "failing."

"Choice is an important lever for change and innovation, both of which are needed," Flores Aguilar said. "This resolution is in response to the growing chorus for change and reform."

Part of that chorus was in attendance at Tuesday's board meeting. But board members were tuned in at least as closely to the critics.

"You've made a 'yes' vote to choice [into] a 'no' vote to labor and that is what is what we are opposed to," said Adriana Salazar, the business representative for Teamsters Local 572, which negotiates for about 3,500 district employees, including plant and cafeteria managers. But she said later that her union might see things differently if these campuses remained under contract with district unions. Most charter schools are nonunion.

In a letter to the board, seven unions, including Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, called the proposal "an insult to these children and their families to outsource education to charters and other private entities."

Board member Richard Vladovic co-sponsored the resolution, but he's also a traditional ally of Local 99 of the Service Employees International Union, which backed his bid for office. At Tuesday's meeting, he told Flores Aguilar that he supported the "concept" of the resolution, an apparent tactical retreat, and joined a general call for change.

Board President Monica Garcia, also a past union ally, stuck with Flores Aguilar, saying she was prepared to support the plan. Garcia and Flores Aguilar have been recent targets of recall threats by activists with United Teachers Los Angeles. It's not clear how serious this threat is.

United Teachers Los Angeles President A.J. Duffy said he saw the hand of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in the effort -- as a way to get more schools under his control.

The mayor's office said it strongly supports the resolution, but Villaraigosa's school board allies could not reach a majority vote this week.

Flores Aguilar vowed to accept ideas and revisions but not a dilution of her proposal.

District Supt. Ramon C. Cortines, who has his own reform plan, was notably noncommittal, but said he would work to reach consensus with the school board.

Parents and others spoke for and against the measure during a nearly two-hour debate.

"It's criminal what's happening right now," said George Cole, who represents Bell for a coalition of cities in southeast Los Angeles County. The district "ought to be prosecuted for educational malfeasance."

Cole has been among civic leaders who sought out Flores Aguilar after watching new schools open and immediately produce low test scores and high dropout rates.

"Right now schools can be open forever and fail forever," said charter parent Corri Tate Ravare, a vice president for charter operator ICEF. She pledged community support for board members who stood up to opposition: "We got your back."

The resolution is expected to return to the board Aug. 25.

VOTE ON CONTROVERSIAL SCHOOL PLAN POSTPONED

 

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

Updated: 07/14/2009 09:07:33 PM PDT

7/15 -- Facing opposition from employee unions and some community leaders, the Los Angeles Unified school board postponed voting Tuesday on a controversial plan that would let the community decide how new schools operate.

Board member Yolie Flores Aguilar, who authored the proposal, said she would delay the vote until next month's board meeting to get feedback from her colleagues and community members, but she fully intends to move forward with the plan.

"I will in no way accept in my resolution a watering down," Flores Aguilar said. "The next step of our work has to be about choice and competition."

Focusing on the 70 new schools that LAUSD expects to open in the next three years, Flores Aguilar's plan would open the campuses to a bidding process among educators, community organizations, parents and charter operators. Parents and community members would then have the power to decide which school model fits their campus best under the plan.

Opponents complained that the proposal left out existing schools that are failing.

"They are responding to the community groups who have applied political pressure while ignoring the hundreds of parents who have worked so hard on their school sites for years to try to improve their schools," said Bill Ring, a long-time parent advocate.

Declining to endorse or support the resolution, LAUSD Superintendent Ramon Cortines said he supported the idea of taking the plan and enhancing it to include all schools, taking a special look at schools that have failed to meet their federal and state standards in testing.

Under No Child Left Behind, schools that have failed to meet these standards can be shut down and restaffed, or given to charter operators.

Jackie Goldberg, a former LAUSD board member and community leader, also raised concerns that using the district's construction bond funds could be a violation of the law, if charters could receive new campuses in a competitive process. Her statements were echoed by the district bond oversight committee. As written, charter schools have a cap on the amount of funds they can receive from the district's construction program.

"If you're going to open this process to everyone, then let the games begin with program improvement schools. They need it the most," Goldberg said.

Board member Steve Zimmer also asked to add an element to Flores Aguilar's plan that would allow for an 11-member panel, consisting of board members, parents, union members and community leaders, to meet to discuss how all schools could be included and how current district options could be better used to provide parents more choice.

Appearing frustrated by the postponement of the vote, LAUSD board president Monica Garcia urged opponents of the plan to bring forward a different option - and quickly.

"In my world, four votes make things happen," Garcia said. "I want to know now we are doing everything we can to improve this district."

In the eyes of many parents, like East L.A. resident and mother of two Alejandra Mu oz, improving the district now requires more freedom of choice. "For many years we have been working to make our school better and still our kids are failing and dropping out," she said.

"Public School Choice: A New Way at LAUSD": LAUSD VOTING ON PLAN TO LET PUBLIC HAVE MORE SAY + INNOVATION AND THE LAUSD

LAUSD voting on plan to let public have more say

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

7/14 -- The Los Angeles Unified school board is scheduled to vote today on a bold plan that would transfer the power of deciding how new schools operate from the district to the community.

With some 70 campuses set to open in the next three years, the plan would invite proposals from community members including educators, charter operators and union leaders. Parents and community members would then decide on the proposals, including whether they want a magnet, pilot, charter or other type of school.

"This resolution is an effort to try something new and desperately needed," said LAUSD board member Yolie Flores Aguilar, who wrote the plan.

"We've found a way to include those people most involved in determining how we get academic (success)."

Supporters of the controversial plan say it is part of a much-needed reform effort that takes decision-making out of the hands of bureaucrats and special interests and puts it in the hands of parents and the community.

But critics fear it would take on more reform than the district is ready to handle, at a time when the district is struggling to survive financially.

The plan, entitled "Public School Choice: A New Way at LAUSD," is a key shift in the way the district does business, said Ben Austin, who was involved in writing the resolution and is executive director of LAUSD's Parent Union.

"The collective decisions of hundreds of thousands of parents doing right by their own child gets us to a better place than where we are now ... completely captured by bureaucrats and special interests," said Austin, who also works for Green Dot, a charter school operator that runs 17 schools in LAUSD and has pushed for the takeover of several low-performing district schools.

"There are risks associated with change, but a whole lot more risk associated with the status quo."

Union officials, however, worry the plan could unleash a competitive bidding process among private sector school operators that would ultimately lead to the demise of the district.

"What this district and this board is doing, is doing away with their responsibility and giving public schools away to the private sector instead of the district holding bureaucrats' and middle managers' feet to the fire," said A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles.

"They did not get the help of every union to build schools (only) to give them away to private enterprise."

LAUSD has more than 150 charter schools, the largest number of any district in the nation.

Duffy, who echoed the sentiments of several district employee unions, including Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, said while the idea of giving more power to parents and educators seemed novel, failing to take the steps in a strategic manner could lead to "mass chaos."

"Reform needs to be done in a logical sensible sequential way," Duffy added.

Modeled after similar initiatives in Philadelphia, Oakland and New York City, the Public School Choice resolution is rooted in an idea of turning around failing schools and encouraging healthy competition.

Matt Hill, an aide to LAUSD Superintendent Ramon Cortines, also said the plan mirrors many of the reforms laid out in the school chief's "First 100 days" plan.

"This began as a strategy to replace very large high schools that had very low graduation rates," said Melody Meyer, spokeswoman for the New York City department of education. Since the program launched in 2002, New York has opened 400 new schools, a majority of them failing schools that were reformed and reopened.

"Now, at our new schools, we consistently graduate about 75 percent of our kids in four years," Meyer said.

Districtwide, New York has also seen its overall graduation rate increase from under 60 percent to 66 percent since the start of the new school plan.

But unlike the Los Angeles proposal, New York instituted its plan in phases, starting out with only failing high schools and rolling it out slowly to all new schools.

Also, in New York there is a cap on the number of charter schools that can be opened, and they only have two models for parents to pick from - either a district school or a charter.

LAUSD board member Tamar Galatzan expressed her hesitation to sign off on a resolution that fails to explain the details of such an ambitious plan.

"This resolution taps into a desperate need for reform at L.A. Unified, and I wholeheartedly agree reform is not happening fast enough," Galatzan said.

"I just want to make sure reform isn't messier than the underlying problem. I have a lot of questions about how this process works: Who exactly is the community? ... What criteria will the community use to weigh competing proposals?" Galatzan asked.

The resolution specifically calls for the creation of a new position, to be paid for with foundation funding. Hill said a local organization has pledged to fund this and other reform efforts included in Cortines' plan, but he said he could not yet disclose the name of group.

If approved, district staff would develop the criteria that will be used to evaluate school proposals, with the goal of rolling out the plan by the fall of 2010.

connie.llanos@dailynews.com

 

Innovation and the LAUSD

A proposal to let groups bid to run 50 new L.A. schools is just the kind of fresh thinking the district needs.

LA Times Editorial

July 14, 2009 -- An attention-piquing item on today’s agenda for the Los Angeles Unified school board: a resolution to allow the operation of 50 newly built schools over the next four years by assorted groups, inside and outside the district. Charters, organized labor, parent organizations and community associations could submit plans to run the schools, with the district picking from among competing proposals.

To be frank, this idea, advanced by board Vice President Yolie Flores Aguilar, comes with all sorts of pitfalls: In a school district so politicized, there are too many opportunities for choices to be made on the basis of favoritism rather than merit. The district already does a lackluster job of tracking charters; how will it monitor these experimental schools? The proposal also raises worrisome questions about borderline organizations that might campaign to run a school.

We like it anyway.

In fact, Flores Aguilar's proposal is one of the most intriguing ideas to come along in many years. Without creating upheaval at existing schools, it opens up a portion of the district to groups that might reinvent local education. Its fair-minded provisions allow the teachers union, which has long complained about charter schools, to show that a teacher-managed school can do better. The district itself can propose running any of these schools, giving staff incentive to think creatively. And instead of sticking charters with the most rundown facilities, Flores Aguilar would let them share equally in the district's bond-funded construction, as state law decrees.

There has been significant push-back from United Teachers Los Angeles, concerned that charters, which are enormously popular with parents, would have the edge in this competition. Expect pressure today to delay Flores Aguilar's resolution.

That wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, and if it happens, we would like to see the time used to develop stipulations that ensure fairness and accountability. There must be objective criteria for judging applicants and assessing their performance. Managers of these schools should have tight deadlines for improvement as well as clear guarantees of freedom to operate with minimal interference. Schools that fall short must not be allowed to stumble along for years; the district needs well-defined procedures and timelines for reclaiming them. Not acceptable, though, would be using a delay to water down the proposal, which is what happened during the postponement of former board member Marlene Canter's resolution to streamline the firing of the worst teachers. Fear -- and even lack of confidence in the district's adeptness -- cannot be used as an excuse to block innovation.

The Flores Aguilar Resolution: PUBLIC SCHOOL CHOICE: A NEW WAY AT LAUSD

BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE CITY OF LOS ANGELES
Governing Board of the Los Angeles Unified School District
REGULAR MEETING ORDER OF BUSINESS
333 South Beaudry Avenue, Board Room
1 p.m., Tuesday, July 14, 2009

 

Item #33: Ms. Flores Aguilar, Dr. Vladovic, Ms. García - Public School Choice: A New Way at LAUSD

(Notice July 1, 2009)

Whereas, The Governing Board of the Los Angeles Unified School District is responsible for ensuring that the District provides all students a high quality education, which enables them to graduate college-prepared and career-ready;

Whereas, The Board must do everything it can to enhance the educational opportunities provided to students attending District schools;

Whereas, School transformation efforts are needed to address the longstanding opportunity gap in academic performance in schools across District;

Whereas, Given the chronic academic underperformance of a majority of public schools in the District, parents and communities have expressed a strong interest in playing a more active role in ensuring that students have more choice and access to high quality instructional programs;

Whereas, There has been a recent movement of parents and communities demanding better schools, with groups such as Alliance for a Better Community, Boyle Heights Learning Collaborative, East LA Education Collaborative, Inner City Struggle, The Parent Revolution, and the Southeast Cities Schools Coalition expressing a desire to play a more active role in shaping and expanding the educational options provided in their communities;

Whereas, The District is committed to engaging parents and the community in the quest to create diverse options for high quality educational environments, with excellent teaching and learning, for students’ academic success;

Whereas, The District has many outstanding schools that are setting a gold standard for excellence (traditional schools, pilot schools, iDesign schools, charter schools, small schools, magnet schools and others); schools whose high quality academic, collaborative, inclusive, and innovative practices should be replicated at other schools to improve educational outcomes and allow more students and families to benefit;

Whereas, A local foundation recently awarded the District a $4.375 million grant to help support the District’s transformative plan to ensure proficiency for all students by empowering schools to make decisions, right-sizing the District, increasing transparency, and using data to inform decision making;

Whereas, One of the project success measures for the grant is to “develop an open process for school communities and stakeholders to submit plans to operate new schools and develop a transparent and consistent process for the Board of Education to select the plan that best meets the needs of the students and families of the community,” with a deliverable date of Fall 2009;

Whereas, Developing an open process for school communities and internal and external stakeholders to submit plans to operate new schools, as well as a transparent and consistent process for selecting the plan that best meets the needs of students and families, supports the replication of successful schools and District transformation;

Whereas, New schools provide the greatest a unique opportunity to establish a school’s culture and lay the groundwork for students’ academic success; and

Whereas, More than fifty new schools will open in the District in the next three years, with twenty scheduled to open in the 2010-11 school year; now, therefore, be it and Whereas, These new schools are intended to relieve overcrowding at existing schools, thereby enabling the existing schools to return to a traditional school year; now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That through the Innovation and Charter Schools Division, the Los Angeles Unified School District will invite operational and instructional plans from internal and external stakeholders, such as school planning teams, local communities, pilot school operators, labor partners, charters, and external stakeholders others who are interested in collaborating with District or operating the District’s new schools, in an effort to create more schools of choice and educational options for the District’s students and families;

Resolved further, That any plan submitted must guarantee that the new school will enroll the requisite number of students from the impacted campuses that the new school is intended to relieve, and that students coming form the designated, overcrowded schools will be served first and foremost;

Resolved further, That the student composition at each new school must be reflective of the student composition at the schools it is intended to relieve (in terms of demographics, including but not limited to race/ethnicity, gender, socio-economic status, English Learners, Special Education, foster care placement);

Resolved further, That the Superintendent use secure the local foundation funding to hire a resource lead person to assist with the implementation of this project effort, so that General Fund resources are not used;

Resolved further, That the Superintendent convene a team of appropriate District staff (such as Instructional Services, Local Districts, iDesign, Charter Office, General Counsel, etc.), collective bargaining partners, teachers, administrators, and community and parent representatives to work collaboratively over the next 90 days to:

Resolved further, That the Board directs the leader of this effort to work collaboratively with appropriate stakeholder and community over the next 90 days to report back to the Superintendent with recommendations regarding the following:

• Review and analyze research on new school instructional plans, and identify best practices

• Develop a template and process for submitting plans to operate new schools

• Develop criteria and metrics for evaluating the plans submitted, including feedback from the appropriate local jurisdiction; criteria should include metrics for educational vision and leadership, instruction and curriculum, staffing requirements, wrap-around services, community and parent engagement, prior experience and success and others as appropriate

• Collect community feedback on the template, process, and evaluation criteria for plans to operate the operational plans of new schools

• Develop a process for school communities and stakeholders to evaluate the plans submitted and provide a recommendation to the Board on their preference preferred partner in the operation of the school; such a process must be objective transparent, fair, and ensure no conflicts of interest

• Develop a facility use agreement for selected school operators – if outside the District – similar to those used for Proposition 39 co-locations, including requirements for maintenance and operations, and common areas such as green space, libraries, playgrounds, cafeterias, etc.

Resolved further, That if sufficient progress is not made by the team in a timely manner, and/or if the team’s work stalls due to an unwillingness of stakeholders to collaborate or move the work forward, the Superintendent be directed to independently continue assume the responsibilities of the this team effort to ensure the work is completed;

Resolved further, That the Superintendent report to the Board by September 30, 2009, with a transparent process for plans to be submitted, reviewed, and evaluated by internal staff and external stakeholders;

Resolved further, That every decision must be about what is best for children – not adults – and how to provide them with the education they need and the future they deserve; Resolved further, That by December 30, 2009, the Superintendent will submit to the Board

internal staff and external stakeholders recommendations for plans that should be approved by the Board for each new school opening during the Fall of 2010; and be it finally

Resolved, That the Superintendent report to the Board on a monthly basis to share progress made in accomplishing the specifics of this resolution.

LAUSD SHOULD FOCUS ON IMPROVING TEACHING SKILLS, NOT FIRING ‘BAD’ TEACHERS.

Op-Ed By John Perez | LA Newspaper Group/Daily News

Sunday, 12 July 2009 -- DURING 36 years as a teacher and union leader in the Los Angeles Unified School District, I ran across teachers who clearly should not have been at the head of a classroom.

They were, however, far fewer than commonly thought. Calls to fire "bad" teachers always fire up a crowd, but few of the 650,000 LAUSD students would even notice if all 160 teachers reportedly serving a form of "house arrest" while charges against them are being investigated were gone tomorrow.

As a member of the California Postsecondary Education Commission since 2005, I have read a series of academic studies warning about a greater - and largely unreported - challenge to our children's education: We are not training enough new teachers to fill the vacancies in our state's classrooms.

Part of the solution, of course, is making the profession more attractive so more talented students will set their sights on a classroom career. But we can also avert the imminent shortage by retaining thousands of struggling teachers. Raising their skills would have a deep, broad, long-lasting effect on our kids' education.

The good news is that several methods have been proven to work.

Too many teachers quit before completing their fifth year in the classroom, but mentor programs can cut the "dropout" rate in half. LAUSD provides coaching for language arts and math in elementary schools, but that doesn't compare with new teachers learning their craft for their first five years under the guidance of an experienced mentor.

Teachers who lose their effectiveness can regain it with Peer Assistance and Review programs. In school districts with effective PAR programs - like Poway in San Diego County - more than 90 percent of ineffective teachers rejoin their colleagues as good teachers.

Students do best in classrooms with experienced educators, especially when the teacher has achieved National Board Certification. Their secret is developing lessons that teach the standards that students must learn. Teachers learn to do this through a process called "lesson study." More than half the new grants made annually by the California Postsecondary Education Commission to improve teaching skills are for lesson study.

There's more good news. United Teachers Los Angeles, which represents about 40,000 LAUSD teachers, is well-versed in all three methodologies. UTLA has consistently called for a mentor program for all new teachers, not just those learning to teach the Open Court reading program.

UTLA proposed a PAR program in the 1990s, but the state Legislature didn't get around to passing a watered down version for a decade. As for lesson study, UTLA has copyrights on two books about the process, along with an institute that has helped more than 300 teachers to improve their practice.

After the calls to "fire bad teachers" die down, the challenge of raising struggling teachers' skills will remain. LAUSD professional development programs have had little lasting effect on the quality of teaching.

It's time to give teachers the tools they need to teach their students more effectively while drastically reducing the number of ineffective teachers.

---

John Perez was president of UTLA from 2002 to 2005, and currently chairs the California Postsecondary Education Commission.

LAWSUIT FILED TO BLOCK BIRMINGHAM HIGH SCHOOL CHARTER

An e-mail to the Birmingham community from charter opponent Steve Shapiro

Thursday, 9 July, 2008

Dear Birmingham,

This e mail is to inform you all that a lawsuit has been filed today in Superior Court.  This is the first of several lawsuits that are designed to rectify many of the wrongs that have taken place over the past year.

On Monday morning, July 13, 2009, at 8:30 A.M. Superior Court, Department 85, located at 111 N. Hill St, Downtown Los Angeles, the case will be heard by the Superior Court judge.  In essence, we are seeking a court order to immediately block the charter at Birmingham.  Each of the defendants named in the lawsuit were served today, and those defendants are:

• Los Angeles Unified School District
• Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education
• Superintendent Ramon Cortines
• District 1 Superintendent Jean Brown
• Marsha Coates

Our lawyer has prepared an extraordinary case that shows how clearly pro-charter proponents broke the law in order to get the charter approved.  Our lawyer has prepared an extraordinary case that shows how clearly the Board of Education breeched their fiduciary responsibility when they approved the charter.  Attached please find  just one of the documents that has been filed.  We look forward to presenting the voluminous amount of information to the judge on Monday to help right this terrible wrong.

I would encourage all of you who can to come to court on Monday to witness this hearing.  If you are able to make it, I would appreciate it if you would e mail me so that I can get a sense of the turnout.  We certainly hope to make this a historic day for which we can all be proud for many years to come.

Sincerely,

Steve Shapiro

Shapiro Writ No 2 Rev 1

The news that didn’t fit from July 12

This just in: LAWSUIT FILED TO BLOCK BIRMINGHAM HIGH SCHOOL CHARTER

An e-mail to the Birmingham community from charter opponent Steve Shapiro

Thursday, 9 July, 2008

Dear Birmingham,

This e mail is to inform you all that a lawsuit has been filed today in Superior Court.  This is the first of several lawsuits that are designed to rectify many of the wrongs that have taken place over the past year.

On Monday morning, July 13, 2009, at 8:30 A.M. Superior Court, Department 85, located at 111 N. Hill St, Downtown Los Angeles, the case will be heard by the Superior Court judge.  In essence, we are seeking a court order to immediately block the charter at Birmingham.

STOP TEARING THE HEART OUT OF L.A.
Saturday, July 11, 2009 11:06 AM
Kamala Lopez in the Huffington Post| Photos by Benjamin Alfaro  Posted: July 11, 2009 12:21 PM   I first met Rocio Martinez at a St. Patrick's Day Party. She sat across from me, an attractive Latina woman with an underlying edge, and after staring past each other uncomfortably for a while we struck up a conversation. My first thought, when she told me that she was a Youth Relations Associate

US OFFICIALS PLANNING H1N1 SCHOOL VACCINE PROGRAM
Friday, July 10, 2009 8:53 AM
By Jennifer Corbett Dooren of Dow Jones Newswires from the Wall Street Journal  July 10, 2009 -- WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--Top U.S. government officials are planning an H1N1 influenza vaccination campaign aimed at school-age children that could start in October.   Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said there's a possibility that vaccinations could be offered at schools and

REAL LIFE SCIENCE AND MATH PROJECT LAUNCHED IN BOYLE HEIGHTS SCHOOLS
Friday, July 10, 2009 7:50 AM
By Gloria Angelina Castillo, Eastern Group Publications Staff Writer   JULY 10 - An initiative to arm Latino students with skills to lead the country and set the pace for other young people in the world of technology was launched in Boyle Heights on Monday.  STEM-Up, a pilot program funded by the United States Department of Defense (DoD), is the first of it’s kind in the nation, and aims to

CAL STATE UNIVERSITY SYSTEM TO HALT MOST SPRING ENROLLMENT
Friday, July 10, 2009 7:50 AM
by Larry Gordon in LA Times | California Briefing   July 10 - In a move to cut enrollment because of the state budget deficit, the 23-campus Cal State University system announced Thursday that, with few exceptions, it will not allow students to start at the university next spring. Cal State usually admits about 35,000 freshmen, undergraduate transfers and graduate students in the spring,

UTLA RE: PERIODIC ASSESSMENTS - Boycott suspended pending talks with LAUSD
Friday, July 10, 2009 7:48 AM
UTLA press release and fax to chapter chairs  Beginning July 9th, UTLA is suspending its boycott of periodic assessments to focus on discussions with LAUSD on making adjustments to the program.   UTLA members have been boycotting the assessments since January to highlight their concerns about the cost, content, and overall number of Periodic Assessments. The strong support for the boycotts by

RACING FOR AN EARLY EDGE: States jockey for position as the U.S. Education Department readies billions of dollars in 'Race to the Top' awards—the stimulus program's grand prize.
Thursday, July 09, 2009 7:34 PM
By Michele McNeil | Education Week | Published Online: July 9, 2009   July 15, 2009 -- Even before they've finished spending their first block of federal stimulus aid, states are getting a head start in a national "race to the top" for better public education, without even knowing rules to the game.  With up to $4.35 billion in competitive grants for education reform at stake, the most aggressive

ISRAELI, PALESTINIAN & LAUSD HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS COLLABORATE ON FILM THIS SUMMER
Thursday, July 09, 2009 4:56 PM
from the Galatzan Gazette, LAUSD Boardmember Galatzan's weekly e-newsletter  July 9 - As President Obama struggles with jumpstarting the Middle East peace process, a group of Cleveland High School students is participating in a project bringing together Israeli and Palestinian students. From July 6 through August 14, 15-20 Cleveland students will collaborate with their Palestinian and Israelis

HARDER THAN IT LOOKS: VILLARAIGOSA’S MODEL SCHOOLS BITE BACK: Meanwhile, the LAUSD dropout rate soars citywide
Thursday, July 09, 2009 7:15 AM
By David Ferrell | LA Weekly     “Teachers are in revolt at all but one of the schools Villaraigosa now controls… The ultimate insult came when teachers at nine of the 10 campuses gave Villaraigosa’s reform teams a “no-confidence” vote. At the 10th campus, a vote supporting his policies was being disputed because of voting irregularities.”   Illustration by Fred Noland     July 09, 2009 –Ronni

GAO: Few stimulus dollars are dedicated to education reform
Thursday, July 09, 2009 12:00 AM
AASA School Business SmartBrief | 07/08/2009  States largely used federal stimulus funds to fill short-term budget gaps rather than engage in long-term investments in education and other areas, says a Government Accountability Office report to be released today. http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-829  The Obama administration had expressed hope in February that stimulus funds would lead to needed

The end of mayoral control as he knows it: AS LAW EXPIRES, BLOOMBERG MOVES TO KEEP AUTHORITY OVER SCHOOLS + CHANCELLOR AVOIDS ARREST + MR. MAYOR, MEET CARL JUNG
Wednesday, July 08, 2009 4:22 PM
By JAVIER C. HERNANDEZ – New York Times  July 1, 2009 -- Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg was set to lose control of the New York City school system at midnight Tuesday, but despite dire predictions of chaos from the mayor and others, it appeared that the nation’s largest school district would continue to operate largely as usual.  The shift of power, from Mr. Bloomberg’s hands to the clutches of

NEW YORKER PROFILE OF GREEN DOT CHARTER SCHOOL CHIEF STEVE BARR IS PROPAGANDA, NOT REPORTING
Wednesday, July 08, 2009 3:37 PM
by Susan Ohanian – Substance News      smf notes: Without going all Tipper Gore, the following article contains questionable language – it would never pass mustard with the LAUSD e-mail server!  Mr. Barr, the subject of the article, is prone thereto – and obviously he’s been a poor influence on Ms. Ohanian. As the article is over a month old I probably should be leaving well enough alone. But

Be afraid, be very afraid: WHY NEW JERSEY IS IN WORSE SHAPE THAN GOV. ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER’S CALIFORNIA
Wednesday, July 08, 2009 12:49 PM
by Paul Mulshine/ The Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ)       ●●smf’s 2¢: There is nothing positive in being the laughingstock/paradigm of dysfunction in headlines like the above …even if there were a number of such headlines last week – comparing NJ, New York, Ohio and Chicago/Illinois to California’s budget plight.     (In all candor, the dysfunction in Albany does make Sacramento look like an amateur

IN CALIFORNIA, EVEN THE I.O.U.’s ARE OWED
Wednesday, July 08, 2009 12:48 PM
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER | New York Times                Registered warrants are being issued instead of checks. | photo: Max Whittaker/Reuters  July 8, 2009 -- LOS ANGELES — The only thing worse than being issued an i.o.u. rather than a check from the State of California may be not getting the i.o.u. at all — at least in time to meet the deadline of your bank.  But across California on Tuesday,

STATE EDUCATION LEADERS DECRY GOVERNOR’S PROPOSAL TO SUSPEND PROPOSITION 98
Wednesday, July 08, 2009 12:47 PM
Gentle Readers: It’s always the Unintended Consequences.                 Gov. Schwarzenegger ending of the Car Tax has cost the state about $6billion a year; the state’s revenue shortfall amounts to almost exactly $6billion per year of the  Schwarzenegger administration.                  In our haste to do away with the 2/3rds rule to pass a budget and raise taxes let’s not forget that it also

California’s B-B-Blues in the Night: FITCH DOWNGRADES CALIFORNIA GENERAL OBLIGATION BONDS TO ‘BBB’; MAINTAINS WAITING WATCH NEGATIVE
Monday, July 06, 2009 10:21 PM
THE DOWNGRADE TO 'BBB' is based on the state's continued inability to achieve timely agreement on budgetary and cash flo