Worth a Listen: from Patt Morrison on KPCC

LA School District Woes
[ Listen ]
First it was the payroll debacle that left thousands of LA school teachers overpaid or underpaid, now a vote by the district to spend up to $18 million to retain current teaching staff threatens a renewed fiscal crisis. Meanwhile, reports are surfacing that LA's schools aren't fulfilling their physical education requirements. Could it look worse? Yup. An attempt to improve the district's image by spending $10 million on communications — including quietly hiring a public relations firm — is getting the district into even more trouble. Patt brings LAUSD officials in for some in-studio detention.

• Howard Blume, LA Times reporter
• Tamar Galatzan, member of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education, District 3
• A.J. Duffy, President of United Teachers Los Angeles

L.A. Unified warned that it falls short of state standards

Not to downplay this story - but the letter it is about and the board informative referred to are both from September - and the superintendent has been very publicly forthcoming about the letter and his reaction to it since then.

This story is actually probably more telling about LAUSD's abysmal communications and public relations efforts - and as many of the folks being heralded in the "attempt to improve the district's image by spending $10 million on communications — including quietly hiring a public relations firm" in the new improved public information campaign have been at their jobs in some capacity since September (see previous) one really worries how much bang for the buck LAUSD is buying here! - smf

Along with 98 other districts, it faces penalties under No Child Left Behind.

By Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
November 29, 2007

The California Department of Education has alerted 99 school districts, including Los Angeles Unified, that they are in danger of being abolished, taken over or stripped of administrators and schools under their jurisdiction. But whether these and other harsh measures will come to pass is questionable at best.

Other districts that were informed that they face sanctions for failing to improve test scores for all students include Berkeley Unified, Montebello Unified, Pomona Unified, Santa Ana Unified, Antelope Valley Joint Union, Centinela Valley Union, Santa Barbara Elementary and Lennox Elementary.

PDF

Under the federal No Child Left Behind law, the state must adopt at least one of the sanctions laid out in this letter from a state official to the Los Angeles Unified School District. In the second letter, Supt. David L. Brewer delivers the news to the school board.

(Acrobat file)

Under the federal No Child Left Behind law, state officials have not adopted severe punishments against school districts, and they appear reluctant now.

But their authority to do so became sweeping this fall in the wake of the most recent results on state standardized tests.

For the first time, school districts that continue to fall short of academic benchmarks are exposed to severe measures, and federal law requires the state in the next few months to take some action.

Los Angeles school Supt. David L. Brewer armed himself with the state's written notification recently to defend himself against parents who were upset over his failure to consult with them before announcing his latest reform plan. He said the state's letter explained the urgency behind his actions.

"They can remove all of us," Brewer said referring to himself, his staff and the elected school board. And they could withhold funding: "I don't want them to mess with my money."

Among other actions, the state board also could authorize student transfers outside a district or break up a large school system.

The state board is scheduled to deliberate on what to do with L.A. Unified at its January meeting. And under federal law, it must adopt one or more specific options, all of which sound potentially extreme, and not only to officials in Los Angeles.

"A number of those sanctions could be very detrimental," said Brett Neal, director of school improvement for Antelope Valley.

Antelope Valley met 32 of 34 mandated goals, missing the mark on the academic proficiency of its disabled students as well as their participation rate on tests.

As a result, the district could not shed the unwanted label of being in so-called program improvement status.

"When you say a district is in program improvement, you have all kinds of ideas about what's not working," Neal said. "On the contrary, our district has grown academically" -- a message the district is trying to get out.

Brewer used the ostensibly disastrous news in a novel way: to get the upper hand with parent representatives at a late October meeting.

But down the line, should he -- and other superintendents -- be worried?

"We're getting a lot of calls," said Wendy Harris, assistant superintendent of the Department of Education. "There's a lot of angst out there. . . . Some of these options are very draconian and maybe not even doable under state law. I don't know how you abolish a district.

"We're trying to find a way to meet federal law that works within the California context and doesn't unravel the positive growth that districts have made," she said.

The president of the state Board of Education referred to the sanction alternatives as "the seven deadly cures." Kenneth Noonan, a former Oceanside Unified superintendent, also said he wants to get "input from each of the 99 districts to tell us what it is you need."

On measures used to calculate the federal standard of "adequate yearly progress," L.A. Unified passed muster in 43 of 46 categories.

L.A. Unified, the nation's second-largest district, fell short on its graduation rate and in two English language arts categories: English learners and disabled students.

State officials insist they don't have nearly the resources to step in and take control. In the past, the state has appointed its own administrators to run only school systems facing imminent bankruptcy. An exception was Compton Unified, where the state took charge for eight years through legislation characterizing the district as both educationally and financially bankrupt.

Critics have faulted the state's accountability system from both directions: Some say there are no meaningful sanctions; others say the state labels schools as failures without giving them sufficient means to improve.

Actions against low-performing school districts are "the part of No Child Left Behind that almost no one is paying attention to," said Chester E. Finn Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, based in Washington, D.C., which funds education research and supports charter schools.

"It is close to being a joke," he added, addressing a recent conference of educators. "I don't know if there is the political will or policy leverage" to use the sanctions.

The ultimate federal sanction under the No Child Left Behind law is withholding money from a state or school district, a rare tactic. The U.S. Department of Education could cite only one example: The department once penalized Texas for being late in delivering test results for schools.

Despite the lack of federal enforcement, "states are beginning to feel a little overwhelmed" at the high number of perpetually low-achieving schools and school districts, said Raymond Simon, deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Education.

Bush administration officials say they are open to some revisions in No Child Left Behind. An amended law, for example, could make helpful distinctions between schools and districts that fell just short of testing targets "for relatively minor infractions" and those "that continually miss year after year," Simon said.

ARE KIDS WORTH THE COST?

Business Week takes a look at children as just another consumer choice.

Broadsheet by Carol Lloyd

Nov. 16, 2007 | There's nothing like a business magazine's "special report" on the cost of kids to make you choke on your stale veggie booty. I guess you can't blame Business Week for wanting a piece of the child-free, mommy-warring, education-anxiety festival of journalistic thumbsucking that circumscribes our parenting discourse. After all, it's good fun and so rancorous!

Seriously, Business Week's report on kids went all the business-minded places you might imagine. One article explored tuition-free college. Another offered tips on saving taxes while providing financial assistance to adult children. Still another advised opening your child's IRA while she's still in diapers.

But a lot of the articles questioned the very value of human offspring -- a tone I imagine would have been unthinkable for a mainstream magazine to adopt even 20 years ago. The lead article "Is Raising Kids a Fool's Game?" describes parenting as "fulfilling," but focuses on the "overwhelming" financial burdens of child rearing and the "crimp" that kids put in your leisure time. A blow-by-blow slide show offers a visual display of all the ways kids can cost you money. The Debate Room asks: Are children worth the cost? A story about companies preying on insecure parents by producing ever more elaborate and expensive products and services for children. Weirdly, the reporter included organic baby food and the My Gym chain (the kiddy dance or acrobatics class is hardly a new phenomena) along with French perfume and $500 highchairs as examples of the absurd luxuries now being marketed to parents.

In general, the report extends the metaphor of children as just another menu item in an array of consumer choices. All of which leaves me wondering about the weird status of children in our popular media. Have things changed so much that we must run the numbers before deciding whether to have children? Or does the baby debate just confuse a larger debate about solvable social problems (like national healthcare, free public education, walkable well-designed communities) that make parenting (and getting sick or old) so costly?

The Great Presidential Mashup: THE DEMOCRATS ON EDUCATION

from Slate.com: Updated Friday, Sept. 7, 2007 -

• What have the candidates said on the issues so far?
• Are they changing their stories?
• Our cheat sheet on the previous debates will help you be the judge.

Here Slate offers background information on Education from previous debates:

---

---

Sen. Joe Biden

South Carolina Debate, April 26, 2007

Change the fundamental way we educate our children. There's two things everyone knows: The smaller the class size, the better the outcome; and the better the teacher, the better the outcome.

In [the nations that lead the world in education], a teacher makes as much as an engineer. If we want the best students in the world, we need the best teachers in the world.

Washington, D.C., Debate, June 28, 2007

One of the things that we all talk about is this achievement gap. We should remind everybody that the day before a black child, a minority child, steps into the classroom, half the achievement gap already exists. That is, they already start behind. So the moment they walk into that school, they are already behind.

And that gap widens. And it widens because we do not start school earlier. We do not give single mothers in disadvantaged homes the opportunities that they need in order to know what to do to prepare their children. A mother who talks to her child on a regular basis from infancy to being a toddler, that child when it's 2 years old will have a vocabulary 300 words more than a child not talked to.

So it's simple. You've got to start off and focus on the nurturing and education of children when they're very young, particularly children from disadvantaged families. You've got to invest in starting kids in preschool at age 4. They have a 20 percent better chance of graduating when they're there. And you've got to make sure, as you go through the system, you have smaller classrooms, better teachers in the disadvantaged schools.

CNN/YouTube Debate, July 23, 2007

[No Child Left Behind] was a mistake. I remember talking with Paul Wellstone at the time. And quite frankly, the reason I voted for it, against my better instinct, is I have great faith in Ted Kennedy, who is so devoted to education.

But I would scrap it—or I guess, theoretically, you could do a major overhaul. But I think I'd start from the beginning.

You need better teachers. You need smaller classrooms. You need to start kids earlier. It's all basic.

My wife's been teaching for 30 years. She has her doctorate in education. She comes back and points out how it's just not working.

The bottom line here is that I would fundamentally change the way in which we approach this.

My kids did go to private schools, because right after I got elected, my wife and daughter were killed. I had two sons who survived. My sister was the head of the history department. She was helping me raise my children at Wilmington Friends School.

When it came time to go to high school when they had come through their difficulties—I'm a practicing Catholic—it was very important to me they go to a Catholic school, and they went to a Catholic school.

My kids would not have gone to that school were it not for the fact that my wife and daughter were killed and my two children were under the care of my sister who drove them to school every morning.

Sen. Hillary Clinton

Washington, D.C., Debate, June 28, 2007

I really believe that it takes a village to raise a child and the American village has failed our children.

We have heard absolutely the right prescription. I have fought for more than 35 years for early childhood education, for more mentoring, for more parent education programs, to get our children off to a good start. I have fought to make sure that schools were fair to all children. That's the work I did in Arkansas, to try to raise the standards particularly for the poorest of our children, and most especially for minority children. And certainly in the White House years, and now in the Senate, I've continued that effort because I don't think there is a more important issue.

But I also believe we cannot separate the education part from the economic part. There is still discrimination in the workplace. There are still people who are turned down and turned away who have qualifications and skills that should make them employable. So this is a broader issue that we have to address.

CNN/YouTube Debate, July 23, 2007

Chelsea went to public schools, kindergarten through eighth grade, until we moved to Washington. And then I was advised, and it was, unfortunately, good advice, that if she were to go to a public school, the press would never leave her alone, because it's a public school. So I had to make a very difficult decision.

Sen. Chris Dodd

Washington, D.C., Debate, June 28, 2007

This evening there'll be many subjects that'll be raised, and important ones. None is more important, in my view, than the issue of education. Whether or not from the earliest education opportunity to the highest level of education opportunity, this is the key to equal access to our society. It is something that can never be taken away from you if you get it. To say today that you're going to exclude race as a means of allowing for the diversity in our communities is a major step backwards. And as president of the United States, I would use whatever tool is available to me to see to it that we reverse this decision today, get back on the track to see to it that our country once again will identify with the identity of unity as a nation, blind, if you will, to the racial distinctions in our society. That's the only way we're going to deal with the new frontiers of the 21^st century. The barrios, the ghettos, and the reservations of our society. That's what I stand for, that's what we'll achieve as a Democratic administration.

As I said at the outset on the first question, I don't believe there's any other issue as important as this one we'll discuss this evening, as education. There's a lot of good talk here, and I admire the fact that my colleagues here and candidates all care deeply about this issue. I stand before you as a candidate. We have to make a decision about, who is our best candidate to win the presidency in 2008?

For 26 years, through five terms in the United States Senate, I have dedicated myself to this issue. I'm very proud of the fact that Marian Wright Edelman of the Children's Defense Fund has come to me over and over again, and proud to have authored the legislation to deal with the whole child, that authored the first child-care legislation in this country, to begin in the earliest days to make sure that parents have the assurance that there will be a quality place for their child to be, and an affordable place, an available place, and then to begin with early childhood education, to see to it that we'd have a good Head Start program.

I'm proud of the fact that I was called the Senator of the Decade by National Head Start Association. I have walked the walk on these issues; I am committed to these issues. There's nothing that will be a higher priority to me as president of the United States than to see to it that America's children, from the earliest days of their arrival, certainly through the upper education branches of our educational system, have the equal opportunity.

None of us here can guarantee success—but we have an obligation to guarantee an opportunity to that success. The key to that door is the education of the American child.

CNN/YouTube Debate, July 23, 2007

My daughter goes to the public school as a preschool—kindergarten. But I want to come back to the No Child Left Behind.

Because I think remedying this—and I understand the applause here—accountability is very important. This is one country—we've got to have the best-prepared generation of Americans that we've ever produced in our educational system. No other issue, in my view, is as important as this one here.

And getting the No Child Left Behind law right is where we ought to focus our attention here so that we have resources coming back to our states. You measure growth in a child. You invest in failing schools. But I would not scrap it entirely. Accountability is very important in this country. We ought not to abandon that idea.

Sen. John Edwards

Washington, D.C., Debate, June 28, 2007

I think it's true that we need to pay teachers better. I think we ought to actually provide incentive pay to get our best teachers in the inner-city schools and into poor rural areas where they're needed the most. But it goes beyond that. We also have to make work pay for young men who are graduating from high school, the very group that you're describing, which means we're going to have to do a whole group of things. We need to significantly raise the minimum wage. We need to strengthen the right to organize. And we need to help low-income families save so they're not prey to predatory lenders that are taking advantage of them today.

CNN/YouTube Debate, July 23, 2007

I've had four children, and all of them have gone to public school. I've got two kids ... who are actually here with me in Charleston tonight, two kids, Emma Claire and Jack, just finished the third grade in public school in North Carolina, and Jack just finished the first grade in public school in North Carolina.

Sen. Mike Gravel

Washington, D.C., Debate, June 28, 2007

[Asked about the link between education and poverty and the inequities that keep many black families from prospering] I think we can cut a little more than 15 percent, very much so. Stop and think what the opportunity costs—now, you have heard these nostrums before. I've been watching your heads. You're nodding on all the programs. You've heard it 10 years ago, you've heard 20 years ago—why doesn't it change? The Democratic Party hasn't done appreciably better than the Republican Party in solving these problems. It has to be solved by the people, not by your leaders.

Stop and think. When he's talking about the money we're squandering—21 million Americans could have a four-year college scholarship for the money we've squandered in Iraq, 7.6 million teachers could have been hired last year if we weren't squandering this money. Now, how do you think we got into this problem? The people on this stage, like the rest of us, are all guilty and very guilty, and we should recognize that, because there is linkage!

CNN/YouTube Debate, July 23, 2007

My children went to public school and private school, and I'd recommend that we need a little bit of competition in our system of education. Right now, we have 30 percent of our children do not graduate from high school. That is abominable, and that is the problem of both parties.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich

Washington, D.C., Debate, June 28, 2007

We need to have a policy in education which first of all is guided by certain fundamental rights. Jesse Jackson Jr. has a bill that makes having an equal opportunity for education a matter of a constitutional privilege. And with this Supreme Court ruling, it is imperative that we have a constitutional amendment guaranteeing educational opportunity equality.

Next, in the meantime, universal free kindergarten. Every child age 3, 4, and 5 should have access to full, quality day care. Eliminate those disparities that we see early on in school. Eliminate No Child Left Behind, which is aimed at testing instead of improving children's educational opportunity through language, music, and the arts. And finally, we need to take the resources away from war and military buildups and assure that every child should have a chance for a quality college education as well.

CNN/YouTube Debate, July 23, 2007

My daughter, Jackie, went to the Columbus public schools and got a great education. And I want to make sure that that commitment that sent her to public school is a commitment that will cause all American children to be able to go to great public schools.

Sen. Barack Obama

Washington, D.C., Debate, June 28, 2007

Early childhood education. John [Edwards]'s exactly right, it starts from birth. And where we can get parenting counselors to go in and work with at-risk parents, it makes an enormous difference.

We've got to make sure that teachers are going to the schools that need them the most. We're going to lose a million teachers over the next decade because the baby-boom generation is retiring. And so it's absolutely critical for us to give them the incentives and the tools and the training that they need not only to become excellent teachers but to become excellent teachers where they're most needed.

We're going to have to put more money into after-school programs and provide the resources that are necessary. When you've got a bill called No Child Left Behind, you can't leave the money behind for No Child Left Behind. And unfortunately, that's what's been done.

But the most important thing is that we recognize these children as our children. The reason that we have consistently had underperformance among these children, our children, is because too many of us think it is acceptable for them not to achieve. And we have to have a mindset where we say to ourselves, every single child can learn if they're given the resources and the opportunities. And right now that's not happening. We need somebody in the White House who's going to recognize these children as our own.

CNN/YouTube Debate, July 23, 2007

I think the reparations we need right here in South Carolina is investment, for example, in our schools. I did a ... I did a town hall meeting in Florence, South Carolina, in an area called the "Corridor of Shame." They've got buildings that students are trying to learn in that were built right after the Civil War. And we've got teachers who are not trained to teach the subjects they're teaching and high dropout rates.

We've got to understand that there are corridors of shame all across the country. And if we make the investments and understand that those are our children, that's the kind of reparations that are really going to make a difference in America right now.

My kids have gone to the University of Chicago Lab School, a private school, because I taught there, and it was five minutes from our house. So it was the best option for our kids.

But the fact is that there are some terrific public schools in Chicago that they could be going to. The problem is, is that we don't have good schools, public schools, for all kids.

A U.S. senator can get his kid into a terrific public school. That's not the question. The question is whether or not ordinary parents, who can't work the system, are able to get their kids into a decent school, and that's what I need to fight for and will fight for as president of the United States.

Gov. Bill Richardson

Washington, D.C., Debate, June 28, 2007

You know, sometimes when I talk about education, and this is the first time we have talked about it in any debate, the first thing you hear is, how are you going to pay for it? Nobody asks how we're going to pay for the war. But it's important to state that improving our schools, improving education, access to education to all Americans, should be America's foremost priority. You know, I want to just state that for the record, I am for a minimum wage for teachers. The key to a good education is to pay our teachers and have accountability.

And we have to have also—we have to make sure that we deal with this achievement gap. One out of two minorities in this country, one out of two African-American, Latino kids don't make it through high school. They drop out. That has to be combatted with at-risk programs, with programs that deal with more parental involvement. We have to start early, universal preschool. We did this in New Mexico. We did this. Kids under 4—full-day kindergarten.

We have to have healthy breakfast for every child. And finally, we have to find a way to give every American access to a college education.

CNN/YouTube Debate, July 23, 2007

I would scrap it [No Child Left Behind]. It doesn't work.

It is the law. It is not just an unfunded mandate, but the one-size-fits-all doesn't work.

It doesn't emphasize teacher training. It doesn't emphasize the disabled kids.

It doesn't—English-learning kids don't get help.

The worst thing it does is it takes districts and schools that are not doing well, takes their funds away, penalizes them. If a school is not doing well, we help that school.

The last thing we need to do, relating to teachers, is the key to a good education in this country is a strong teacher. I would have a minimum wage for all our teachers, $40,000 per year.

And I would emphasize science and math.

And I would also bring, to make sure our kids that are not scoring well in science and math, 29^th in the world, to unlock those minds in science and math, I would have a major federal program of art in the schools ... music, dancing, sculpture, and the arts.

STATE OWES SCHOOLS, SUIT SAYS: Districts join advocates in seeking $1 billion for mandated programs + Background Press Release

by Judy Lin - Sacramento Bee

Wednesday, November 21, 2007 -- Education advocates are expected to file suit today against the state of California for shortchanging school districts $1 billion – a move they say has left districts feeling used like "credit cards."

The California School Boards Association, joined by a handful of school districts, wants the state to reimburse K-12 districts for programs they say the state required and should have paid for.

"The state expects schools to foot the bill for millions of dollars in mandated costs that they do not fund and rarely pay back," Kathy Kinley, president of the California School Boards Association, said in a statement.

Richard L. Hamilton, director of the Educational Legal Alliance, said the state owes school districts $415 million for programs it underfunded and $475 million for programs it never funded. The current budget contains $160 million in unfunded programs, he said.

"These are claims filed by school districts over the years," Hamilton said.

Kinley argued that the state paid only a fraction of what it owed this year, appropriating just $38,000.

Finance Department spokesman H.D. Palmer said the Schwarzenegger administration has not seen the lawsuit, which is expected to be filed in Sacramento Superior Court.

"We will have further comment once we have reviewed the particulars of this lawsuit," Palmer said. "Regardless of the suit, K-12 has been and will be receiving the lion's share of budget dollars even in a challenging fiscal environment."

Under a change in the state constitution instituted in the wake of property-tax-cutting Proposition 13, the state is required to reimburse local agencies when it mandates new programs or a higher level of service.

In the past, state finance officials have said school districts became increasingly demanding in requesting payment over the years.

Education advocates say Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature have avoided paying for a wide range of additional responsibilities given to schools.

The anticipated lawsuit is expected to seek reimbursement of "new programs and higher levels of service" the state demanded of school districts. School districts involved in the suit argue they never got paid.

Besides the school boards association, plaintiffs include the San Diego County Office of Education, Riverside Unified School District, San Jose Unified School District and Clovis Unified School District.

______________________

Background Press Release: CSBA, EDUCATION LEGAL ALLIANCE FILE LAWSUIT TO COMPEL PAYMENT BY STATE FOR MANDATES ON K-12 SCHOOLS

2007-08 mandates cost $160 million, only $38,000 appropriated in budget

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE November 20, 2007

by Brad Sherwood, CSBA Public Information Officer | Office: 916-669-3244

The California School Boards Association’s Education Legal Alliance, along with the San Diego County Office of Education, Riverside Unified School District, San Jose Unified School District and Clovis Unified School District as co-petitioners/plaintiffs, on November 21 will file a lawsuit against the State of California challenging its authority to defer state mandate payments to public schools. The case seeks to compel the state to comply with its constitutional obligation to fully reimburse school districts and county offices of education for all new programs or higher levels of service imposed upon them by the state. The case also seeks to set aside as unconstitutional those provisions of law by which the state has justified the “deferral” of its debt to school districts/ county offices.

“The state expects schools to foot the bill for millions of dollars in mandated costs that they do not fund and rarely pay back,” said Dr. Kathy Kinley, CSBA president. “Although the cost of the K-12 mandates for 2007-08 is estimated at $160 million, this year’s state budget appropriates only $38,000, or $1,000 per mandate statewide. The carry-over debt from prior years is approximately $415 million.”

Background:

For a number of years, CSBA and its Education Legal Alliance, as well as other education associations working on the state budget, have questioned the authority of the state to essentially defer payment of the 38 K-12 reimbursable state-mandated programs.

Starting with the 2002-03 fiscal year, the Legislature has failed to include an appropriation in the budget act to fully fund the mandate claims submitted by school districts/county offices. Instead, the Legislature has included in the budget acts, and the Governor has approved, only $1,000 per mandate, even though the costs of these mandates, and the claims submitted, far exceed that amount. The carried-over debt is known as the “credit card debt.”

The 2006-07 state budget appropriated some $900 million to fund the accumulated debt and added some funding for 06-07 mandates. However, this appropriation failed to pay off the past debt and was inadequate to cover the current year obligation. In the 2007-08 budget, the Legislature and the Governor have again pulled out the “credit card,” thus, deferred payments are a reality along with a continuation of previous debt incurred.

Summary of Case:

In 1978, California voters approved Proposition 13 which imposed significant constitutional limitations on the ability of state and local governments to impose new taxes, especially increased property taxes. A year later, constitutional spending limits were imposed on state and local governments, including school districts. In order to prevent the state from shifting financial responsibility for new programs or services to local entities (whose taxing powers had been limited via Proposition 13), the voters imposed a constitutional requirement that whenever the state mandates a new program or

higher level of service on any local government (including school districts), it must reimburse the local government for the costs incurred.

Thus, school districts/county offices are being forced to bear the costs of new programs and higher levels of service mandated by the state, until some future time when the state chooses to appropriate funding. The last time this “credit card” debt occurred, school districts/county offices had to wait five fiscal years before any effort was made to pay off the deferred debt.

Status of the Case:

The lawsuit will be filed November 21 in San Diego County Superior Court and the state has 30 days to respond. The case is California School Boards Association Educational Legal Alliance et al v. State of California.

ARE SCHOOLS HALF EMPTY OR HALF FULL?

Column by Dan Walters - Sacramento Bee

Friday, November 23, 2007 - Gary Hart is a former teacher and state legislator who authored many of the reforms enacted in the late 1990s, including tougher curricular standards and mandatory statewide testing. He takes umbrage at a recent assertion in this space about the new flurry of reports and seminars on California's educational problems:

"If this account of educational verbiage sounds a little jaded, it's because California's schools, at least as measured by such things as test scores and high school dropout rates, have been deteriorating for several decades despite countless studies and programs that were supposed to fix things."

Hart contends that while the state's educational performance remains very low, it has improved marginally in recent years and, in fact, may not be any worse than it was in past decades, although there are no hard, comparable data on what was happening previously.

It's almost one of those philosophical, half-empty, half-full debates. Hart points out that as measured by national academic tests, the percentage of California's fourth- and eighth-graders rated as proficient in English and mathematics, has risen, generally from the mid-teens to the middle to high 20s over the past 15 years. He also notes that similar gains have been seen in state standardized tests.

It's a good point, although the state's rate of improvement has slowed to a crawl in more recent years in both testing systems. Perhaps my original assessment was overly broad, but whether the recent gains represent a truly positive trend, or merely a blip on a record of long-term decline, is another issue that cannot be resolved by objective numbers simply because we don't have data from decades ago.

If Hart is taking the half-full side of the debate, the half-empty position is exemplified by an op-ed article that appeared recently in the Los Angeles Times, authored by John Rogers and Jeannie Oakes, co-directors of UCLA's Institute for Democracy, Education and Access.

They were critical of Hart's political protégé, state Superintendent Jack O'Connell, for convening an elaborate "summit" that drew 4,000 educators to Sacramento and focused solely on the "achievement gap" between white and Asian American students on one hand and African American and Latino kids on the other.

"Strikingly," they wrote, "the state's other 'achievement gap' was barely mentioned at the summit; this is the gap between California and the rest of the nation. The most recent results from the National Assessment of Education Progress test (popularly known as 'the nation's report card') place California's fourth- and eighth-graders below those in nearly every other state in math and reading achievement. ... This national achievement gap affects students across the state regardless of their race. If we don't address both the racial and national achievement gaps, it's hard to imagine solving either one.

"For example, for years, people have been describing and lamenting California's general decline in education. We've all heard it. Test scores of California's Latino and African American students are, on average, among the lowest in the country. However, white students don't do well either, and by a wide margin: California's white eighth-graders score below white eighth-graders in every state but West Virginia and Nevada on the NAEP reading test."

Whether the state's schools are performing better or worse than they were a generation or two ago ultimately is less important than what's happening now.

Even if they are improving slowly, as Hart contends, it may be too slow to prevent California from becoming lodged at the bottom of the barrel. The fact that in the most recent NAEP tests, California's fourth-graders were second from the bottom, ahead only of the District of Columbia, should be a wake-up call.

SCHOOL PLAN COMES AMID FISCAL CRISIS

Governor's education panel recommends new outlays, merit pay and other reforms. But lawmakers are facing a $10-billion deficit.

By Patrick McGreevy, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

November 23, 2007 -- SACRAMENTO -- A blue-ribbon panel is poised to propose a multibillion-dollar plan for overhauling education in California just as the state has become immersed in a fiscal crisis that could make its recommendations dead on arrival.

The 15-member committee, appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, concluded after two years of study that state schools are "hobbled in red tape, riddled with inefficiencies and impossible for parents and students to understand," according to a draft of the plan obtained by The Times.

The Governor's Committee on Education Excellence says in its 40-page report that "California's K-12 education system is broken. It is not close to helping each student become proficient in mastering the state's clear curricular standards, and wide disparities persist between rich and poor, between students of color and others, between English learners and native English speakers."

It proposes $6.1 billion in new spending and some controversial changes, including performance-based pay for teachers, special resources for students who primarily speak a language other than English and a stronger role for the elected superintendent for public instruction -- who now has little say in how school systems are managed.

The report was intended to provide a blueprint for Schwarzenegger's next legislative initiative: a restructuring of the state's education system. But it arrives as revenues are plummeting in the wake of a housing crisis, and lawmakers face a $10-billion deficit that experts predict will grow.

Officials who were hoping that next year would bring major improvements now say any significant efforts costing money will have to be shelved.

"Without any added revenues, it looks like we will be holding in abeyance any bills . . . that provide for comprehensive education reform," said Assemblyman Gene Mullin (D-San Mateo), chairman of the Education Committee.

The governor's education secretary, David Long, hopes some reforms would be possible but is pessimistic about changes requiring significant new financing.

"There will be some things, because of the fiscal picture, that we won't be able to do," he said.

Although the governor has ordered state department heads to draw up plans for 10% cuts for next year, he has sought to keep alive the chance to fix a system in which fewer than half of all ninth-graders end up with a high school diploma.

"We have had a bipartisan group go out and study our education, Democrats and Republican, really the No. 1 experts in the state, that have studied this now for two years, and we know what needs to be done," Schwarzenegger told a group of Silicon Valley executives this month. "So the question is, shouldn't we put that plan up there and say: Bring all the stakeholders together, and let's figure out a way of how we can do that?"

Schwarzenegger is expected to use his State of the State address in January to preview his education program. But some elements of the committee's report are already drawing fire from the teachers' unions and others.

Stephan Blake, the panel's executive director, cautioned that some proposals may change before the document is finalized and released in coming weeks.

The draft proposes creation of a new funding system for students in poverty and English-learners that would cost an additional $5 billion. It recommends an expansion of preschool that would cost $1.1 billion.

Some of the expense could be defrayed by better use of existing resources, said committee member Russlynn Ali, executive director of the nonprofit Education Trust-West, which works to reduce the achievement gap between minority and non-minority students and between the poor and those who are better off.

Ali said committee members are fully aware that the report arrives at a time when the state budget is in trouble. California spends about $50 billion annually on education.

Budget issues aren't the only potential obstacles.

Barbara Coe, head of the California Coalition for Immigration Reform, said her group would strongly resist expansion of programs aimed at English-learners because that would encourage schools to take in illegal immigrant children.

"That's not our obligation, to teach them English," she said.

Another hot-button issue is the way teachers are paid.

Performance pay is "a non-starter that just creates a brush fire around the whole plan," said Bob Wells, executive director of the Assn. of California School Administrators.

The draft suggests "linking compensation to performance that would directly reward teachers for, among other factors, gains in student academic achievement, additional responsibilities and demonstrated advancement of their skills and knowledge, as documented by their professional evaluations."

But the recommendation may lose support even within the committee before the report is finalized, said Ernesto Cortes, a committee member who is director of the Industrial Areas Foundation, a group that advocates for the poor.

"For me, merit pay is off the table," Cortes said.

The powerful California Teachers Assn. has batted down past merit pay proposals and would oppose any in the future, said union spokeswoman Sharon Jackson.

"It sounds like merit pay to me," she said. "If it is, we certainly would have a problem with it."

The draft report recommends bonus pay for "effective teachers" in math and science, where there is a shortage of instructors, and in "schools that serve high concentrations of low-income and minority students."

The committee also recommends a simpler way of disbursing money, reducing the number of funding categories and other existing requirements. A base amount would be set for each student, with 40% of that amount added for those from low-income families and 20% added for English-learners.

"The idea was to prune those funding categories back and streamline the process," said committee member David Gordon, superintendent of the Sacramento County Office of Education.

Paul Mitchell, of the education advocacy group EdVoice, said a change in funding could generate opposition because it would "rob money from high-income schools with high voting populations."

Controversy also may greet the committee's recommendation to overhaul the governing system for state education, which the governor's panelsaid is convoluted.

"Not only are local educators not effectively supported by the state, their efforts can be impeded by state operations," the report found.

The proposal would return primary decision-making authority to local officials and reduce the state requirements that local districts must meet. The superintendent of public instruction would, starting in 2011, serve as "an independent guarantor of success throughout the system," charged with creating and managing a network of school inspectors to hold districts accountable.

State Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell declined to comment on the report, saying he will wait until he reads the final document.

SHOULD SCHOOLS BE BLOWN UP? LAUSD Superintendent David Brewer on English reclassification, payroll problems and failing schools.

Superintendent Brewer's Q&A with the LATimes Editorial Board

from latimes.com/primarysource

November 21, 2007 - Admiral David Brewer, superintendent of the L.A. Unified School District, dropped by the editorial board the other day to discuss, among other things, the problems of English-language learners and his own on-again-off-again plan to create a mini-district for low-performing schools. Some highlights:

ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS

David Brewer: We have the largest English-language learner population in the nation, over 200-some-odd thousand students. If we were to carve them out as a separate district, they would be the sixth-largest district in the nation. That population right there is the most challenged population. And there's an irony with that population; 70% of them are native born. And so we said, OK, so what's driving this low achievement throughout the system? Well, the standard English learners, a percentage of whom are also African Americans, are also in this mix. So when we began to look at it we said, my God, if, if you look at one of the pieces, called Reclassification to Fluent English Proficiency, and we're reclassifying about 50% of that population K through 5. That means 50% of that population's showing up in middle school not prepared, frankly speaking, for middle school, because of language. And so we said, OK, then we have to go to a family-of-schools approach.

Now you've heard all the UTLA rumblings. If a separate district was the answer, let them run it, was my position. But when I went and presented to the task force our findings, UTLA came back and said — you know, they were clearly opposed to a separate district. When I look back at [former superintendent Ruben] Zacharias, people were opposed to his hundred schools, because of the labeling, of the stigmatism. And my counter to that has been quite clear. I think that in L.A. the general public, other than through the 1381 debate, you know, really does not know how well or how badly the schools are doing. I don't think they really know. I don't think they're really focused on it.

Jim Newton: You mean they don't know how the school where their children are going is performing or they don't know globally how the whole system is...

David Brewer: I think both, in some cases. If you asked the average parent, how well is your school doing, I wonder what they'd tell you. Now I haven't surveyed that. It really goes back to the whole, it counters the whole stigmatization argument. We have schools that have been in program-improvement status for nine years. Now I think most of those parents probably know that those schools are not doing well. Now program-improvement has its own politics, because you can have great students inside of those schools that are doing well, but the thing about NCLB is it shines a light on the schools that are in the shadows... Because we have such a large population of ELs and SELs, that's the reason I'm having this national summit in December. We have to focus like a laser on that in order to drive this school district to what I would consider world-class academic standards. [...]

Karin Klein: What kind of power will you have over the way pre-schools do things if you do manage to get more kids into pre-school? Because I know that LAUP's priority at this point is not to focus on English-language instruction and to let kids continue in their native language.

David Brewer: To the extent that I'm dealing the LAUPs and the private folks, then I have to, you know, work with them on that. To the extent that I have my own early education centers and I'm building more and more of those, then I'll have a lot of influence. You know, that's a partnering and articulation conversation that we're going to have to have. [...]

Karin Klein: What are the schools that successfully reclassify kids from English-language learner, what are they doing?

David Brewer: A lot of it goes back to professional development. A lot of it is just the way they do business. Many of them are using the same tool — open court — to do it. They're working harder and longer and have teachers working there who know how to get it done.

TRAINING FOR THE DISTRICT

David Brewer: People keep asking what I'm really doing. What I'm really doing is putting in the systemic changes inside the, what I call inside of the school walls, in order to make this district work the way it's supposed to work.

Jim Newton: Give us an example of one of those. What's a change you're making inside a school wall that is making life better for children in that school?

David Brewer: Professional learning development and leadership is going to be really at the core of this. If you're going to have a world-class faculty, world-class organization, your people have to be well trained in leadership and management. That is not the case. That's why I created a position — I recognized that probably within three to four months of getting here. I called for that appointment; I finally got it in July. What you will see in many cases is that you put people into positions with absolutely no training with the exception of credentialing for teachers and leadership academy for principals. But everything else, no. There's nothing there. And even there we can do a much better job, because our position is that teachers need leadership and management training just like principals do. For several reasons, because they eventually become your principles, in many cases. They eventually become your administrators. For a system not to have that in place, to me, is ridiculous... When you benchmark against other districts we are woefully behind. [...]

Tim Cavanaugh: How much does the district spend on professional development right now?

David Brewer: Right now we don't know. Because right now everybody's doing their own thing... Estimates run somewhere in the neighborhood of $400... That's everything that's out there. That's people coming up to us and saying we want you to try this program. Or some classroom teacher saying we want to try this program. I mean, right now there is no coherence in the program. [...]

Joel Rubin: Do you have any idea how much you're going to have to spend on professional development in the system that you want to have?

David Brewer: Ah, no, not yet, I don't have that yet, Joel. I don't know.

Karin Klein: When you say everybody does their own thing, is that at the school-site level, the principle decides what the professional training will be?

David Brewer: Yes, in some cases that is indeed what happens.

Karin Klein: Does the school have a dedicated amount of money with which to make those decisions?

David Brewer: No. The way it works in some cases is that some school sites will go out and get grants; that's not general fund money. They'll go out and get grants...

Jim Newton: And it's the same thing with the district; they'll just go out and do it on their own?

David Brewer: Yeah. In some cases that's the case. In some cases it's more centrally controlled but in some cases it is not. And so, we're just now at the beginning stages of getting our arms around that.

Tim Cavanaugh: The $400 million figure is from district general funds though?

David Brewer: No, not all...

Tim Cavanaugh: That's including grants and so forth?

David Brewer: Grants and other funds, yes.

WHAT CAUSED THE PAYROLL DEBACLE?

David Brewer: The failure was this: That first of all there was no contractor oversight. That there was no real person in charge of this thing, at least the person who was in charge of it was not technically smart enough to know how to work the system. There was no separate chief information/technology officer dedicated to this. That was the first thing. We were depending on people who frankly speaking did not know how to interpret the problems that the system had technically.

So what we had to do, we started making progress, and then the June fiasco happened, when a software glitch caused this major overpayment cycle. The system also has its own, in other words, when you go through a school-year pay cycle, there are certainly things that happen throughout the school year. You've got the start of school; you've got normal-day where you find out how many kids are there; you've got summer school, and you've got all of these things. So what should have happened was this payroll system should have been rolled out in parallel to the old pay system. And going through all of the things that you see us going into now, then you would have seen all the glitches and overpayments and stuff like that happen outside of the system, instead of inside the system. That did not happen.

And you did not have the expertise for contractor oversight to look at the contractor. In my previous job we had, I had $1.5 billion in contracts. But what I had was a separate organization that maintained contractor oversight and made sure the contractors were delivering what they were supposed to deliver. So we have EquaTerra doing that now. We hired EquaTerra in June, and so EquaTerra comes in, finds all these problems, and is now beginning to clean it up. So beginning in June to November we cleaned up one of the major problems, which was causing the overpay. It's a software glitch associated with something they call reannualization. And so we fixed that problem, but we are still not out of the woods because we've got to recoup money; we've got to do W-2s and we've got to simplify the pay system, and— and we just found out that SAP cannot account for about 500 people inside of the system who do not work to a standard calendar, even though we were told that we could. And now my contractor oversight says if that doesn't happen, they can't get paid.

Robert Greene: Is there still a contract with Deloitte for maintenance of the system?

David Brewer: Yes.

Robert Greene: So EquaTerra is on top of that?

David Brewer: Yes.

WHY DON'T THEY GIVE OUT FS ANYMORE?

Tim Cavanaugh: Do you see a correlation between the schools that do well with reclassification and the parent involvement that we were discussing earlier?

David Brewer: Yes. There is a correlation there.

Tim Cavanaugh: Then when we talk about successful and unsuccessful schools, and concentrating on the unsuccessful schools, is there a missing element in school choice, in that underperforming schools are not allowed to fail? That maybe some schools should just be allowed to go down to the point that they go out of business and the people who still go to those schools, who are left at those schools, are required to go somewhere else, where hard work and achievement are considered the norm?

David Brewer: Uh...try that again.

Tim Cavanaugh: Should some schools be allowed to fail?

Jim Newton: And then send those kids to places that don't fail?

David Brewer: Yeah, that's what I thought you said. Ha ha! That... No, no. Our job, my job is to make sure they don't fail. Why? Because there's a neighborhood component to this. OK. But this is a very interesting phenomenon. That's why I hesitated on this. Because some people are already voting with their feet. The 20,000 drop in enrollment, a large part of that was economic migration and some of it is just folks moving out of the system. But of the 20,000 reduction in enrollment, 6,000 was because they went to charter.

David Hiller: I thought they closed bad, and I thought it was under No Child Left Behind.

David Brewer: They can.

David Hiller: And I thought they closed bad schools, my recollection was in Chicago.

David Brewer: They can.

David Hiller: I think they closed a bunch of them. And it's a big controversial thing because, you know, they're neighborhood-based. But, you know, what's worse? Just continuing to send kids to failing schools or declaring Hey, time's up on that school, time to blow it up and start again.

Tim Cavanaugh: Not in so many words maybe...

David Hiller: No, in so many words. Arnie Duncan got crucified in some places, and you know what? Within a year the parents and students were back in schools that were better, including — some of them were charter schools, and now you've got a lot of parents saying all right, now life is better.

David Brewer: Reconstitution is an option, David. And I'm not saying that's off the table with me if we don't get what we want. Reconstitution is an option. Now, reconstitution has been tried in this district before. So you know, again, that's the politics of L.A. And I think that's why...well, Joel, you probably have a better feel for this than I do.

Joel Rubin: Well whether he knows it or not, he just quoted you. When you and I talked about reconstitution you said, "Blow it up."

David Brewer: That's right. Reconstitution is an option. I'm not backing...

Jim Newton: It's one the district has never availed itself of.

David Brewer: Again, I go back to the past. When this was tried before. I think Cochran Middle School this was tried before. I've been told. So I say, what happened? Cochran's still a high-priority school. You can reconstitute, but one of the things about No Child Left Behind is that the collective bargaining agreement allows teachers to follow their students. And so No Child Left Behind will not trump a local collective bargaining agreement.... It's not that it trumps federal law, it's that federal law has to respect collective bargaining agreements.

High Priority Schools

The latest version of the Superintendent’s Strategic Plan for High Priority Schools v. 9.0 Nov. 20, 2007 UTLA President A.J. Duffy's letter to Chapter Chairs and Co-Chairs Nov 15, 2007 both courtesy utla.net

The Private School Facilities Arms Race

Monday, November 19, 2007, by Marissa Gluck from Curbed LA

---

[Rendering of Brentwood School's Aquatics Center from Parallax Associates web site]

It seems LA's public schools aren't the only ones buildings bright, shiny new facilities for the young 'uns. Sure, the $600 million building boom currently taking place within the hallowed halls of LA's private schools is a mere drop in the bucket compared to the billions (yes, billions) the LAUSD is now spending to build new schools. A couple of LAUSD schools will have some nifty features like space-age theaters, but will they have an aquatic center? Private schools looking to attract the offspring of rich Brentwood parents are building new aquatic centers, "that looks like a modern equivalent of the Greco-Roman baths of ancient Alexandria" (naked same-sex wrestling not included), new libraries with digital media studios and firepits, and science labs with all the newest equipment (for making your own crystal-meth). While private schools are working to remain competitive with new facilities, some detractors feel the money may be better spent financial aid and higher teacher salaries. Surprisingly, these schools are feeling the heat not just from each other, but also from LAUSD's investment in new schools: "private educators are looking over their shoulders at the government funds pouring into public school improvements and the potential competition from public charter schools, which are attracting curious families who previously might have selected private education."

A building boom at L.A.'s private schools [LA Times]

What the "L"

MEASURE L - which was approved by the voters on March 7, 2007 - was the only part of the mayor's plan for school reform he trusted the voters with. L set term limits, adjusted compensation and limited campaign contributions for School Board Members.

One of the signatories to the VOTE YES arguments for Measure L was Monica Garcia.

Following is part of the text of Measure L (the whole wretched thing is at http://www.smartvoter.org/2007/03/06/ca/la/meas/LAUSD-L/

Section 803 of the Charter of the City of Los Angeles is amended to read:

Sec. 803. Election of (School) Board Members.

(b) Campaign Contribution Limitations.

(3) No person shall contribute a total of more than $1,000 to any candidate for the Board of Education and to his or her controlled committee for a single election. A candidate for the Board of Education shall not accept any contribution or contributions totaling more than $1,000 from any person for a single election.

(4) No person shall make to any committee (other than the candidate's controlled committee), which supports or opposes any candidate for the Board of Education, and no such committee shall accept from any such person, a contribution or contributions totaling more than $1000 in any calendar year.

Here is a recent fundraising appeal from Ms. Garcia:

click here for the whole thing/full size (Thank you Mayor Sam!)

...and here's some detail:

Note the maximum legal contribution limit is noted - but also note the not-very-veiled appeal for Co-chairs and Co-sponsors to raise Ten Thousand Dollars and Five Thousand Dollars for the reelection campaign kick-off reception.

• Legal? Probably.
• Ethical? Probably - if ethics gets to be decided by hair-splitting attorneys tap-dancing on the ethical fringe!
• What the Voters voted for? You tell me.

… and another sharp attorney might argue that those Co-chairs and Co-sponsors are creating de-facto partnerships of donors — and from there the slippery slope rapidly slides right into the ol' quagmire!

Education Meeting Bingo v 2.0

Education Meeting

B I N G O

knowledge base	test scores	think outside the box	standards	communication
multiple exposures	benchmarks	proactive	win-win	core competencies
action plan	results-driven	No Child Left Behind	At the end of the day	assessments
touch base	mindset	retention	effective learning	differentiated
background knowledge	skills	exemplars	reflection	implementation

Directions: Check off the appropriate corresponding block when you hear one of the words/phrases. When you get five blocks horizontally, vertically or diagonally stand up and shout “ENOUGH ALREADY, I GET IT!”

- from the AALA/Associated Administrators of Los Angeles News Update

• Note: This can also be made into a multi-player competitive variation of bingo by randomly mixing the placement of the buzz words, though “No Child Left Behind” should probably always be the free center square! - smf/4LAKids

UPDATE 11/07: There are new buzz phases to choose from: • research based, common, coherent and rigorous • standards-based • diverse learners • college-prepared and career ready • reflective cycle of continuous improvement • high-quality, personalized instruction • all students in all classrooms • school and district leadership teams • a cycle of continuous improvement • a community of informed and empowered parents, staff and community partners • personalized school environments • physically and emotionally safe and secure • opportunities and personal achievement optimized for all • systems of reporting, accountability and incentives.

The news that didn't fit from Nov 11th!

►NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND LOOKS TO BE STALLED: Bush and Kennedy had thought it would be reauthorized this year, but wrangling of friends and foes has stopped it.

Despite earlier optimism, the campaign to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind education law has stalled.

Not only has it not passed, no formal legislation has been introduced, and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who has been working with President Bush on the issue, says it will not happen this year.

►ARTS EDUCATORS BATTLE NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND

Raising school test scores in reading and math remains the biggest hurdle for No Child Left Behind, with many schools nationwide performing at less-than-acceptable levels, according to government proficiency tests.

But while districts scramble to improve on core subjects, educators say the latest subject to be left behind is arts education.

►More Arts: THE MUSEUM TAKES A FIELD TRIP TO THE CLASSROOM: LACMA On-Site brings artists and art instruction to LAUSD campuses.

Armed with a $24-million special endowment, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art has begun what its leaders say will be a long-term campaign to help plant visual art instruction securely in county public schools.

►WAS CARSON SCHOOL VOTE A LOST CHANCE?: A look back at a decision in 2001 against defecting from LAUSD shows that little, and much, has changed.

Six years ago last Tuesday Carson voters rejected a bid to carve out their own independent school system. Second guessers would like to guess again!