U p d a t e d: ASSEMBLYMEMBER PEREA DISCUSSES STATE AUDIT ON DEATH & ABUSE OF CHILDREN WITHIN CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES DEPARTMENTS. ACCUSES L.A. COUNTY CPS OF STONEWALLING + State Audit Report

 

UPDATE ON LOS ANGELES COUNTY AUDIT FROM LA TIMES - 10/28: California auditor criticizes agencies for failing to check sex offender registry By Garrett Therolf, Los Angeles Times - Vulnerable people ended up in state-licensed facilities that harbored sex offenders — either residents or employees — because regulators failed to screen them out. Auditors had sought to include data from Los Angeles County, but the county Board of Supervisors rebuffed subpoenas for child death information and hired outside lawyers to fight the inquiry, arguing that many of the records were subject to attorney-client privilege. In response, Assemblyman Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens) said the county's decision to litigate imposed "unnecessary cost onto taxpayers" and delayed work that could save lives. Lara noted that the governor, attorney general and other frequent auditees regularly recognize the state auditor's right to access privileged information, and he sponsored legislation that was recently signed by the governor to clarify that existing law requires Los Angeles County to turn over the records. Los Angeles County's attorney, Daniel P. Barer, informed the state earlier this week that the county will now comply with the subpoenas and state officials expect to produce an audit of those records in January. ENTIRE ARTICLE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Alisha Gallon 661-364-3655

October 27, 2011 | 3:07 pm

SACRAMENTO- Assemblymember Henry T. Perea (D-Fresno) discussed the results of an audit of the child protective services departments in three counties at a press conference in Fresno Thursday morning.

The audit, requested by Assemblymember Perea in February of this year, uncovered many issues in need of attention and reform within Sacramento, Alameda and Fresno counties, however there are two issues in need of immediate attention:

1,000 Sex Offenders Found Living in State Group Home Facilities

The Department of Social Services does not use the Department of Justice’s Sex and Arson Registry (sex offender registry) to identify sex offenders living or working in licensed state facilities or in the homes of foster children. A comparison of these databases uncovered 1,000 address matches of sex offenders living or working at licensed facilities or foster homes.

Current state law prohibits registered sex offenders from receiving a foster child placement and running a foster or group home. However, a registered sex offender is not “expressly prohibited” from living in those same facilities. A sex offender can visit a friend or family member who operates a foster home and stay there for up to a month without legally having to submit a criminal record review.

“If a sex offender is found living in a facility where children are cared for today, their only punishment is being told to pack their bags and leave. We need to take a long hard look at tightening the law here so our children are safe from predators,” Assemblymember Perea said.

Formal Child Death Reviews Not Done Consistently

Current state law does not require counties to review the deaths of every child killed as a result of abuse or neglect while in the County’s custody. The audit shows counties are missing opportunities to learn from mistakes made prior to a child’s death from abuse or neglect by not completing a child death review for every child.

“If a child dies while in the County’s custody they deserve a review. The number one goal of our child welfare agencies is to protect our children,” Assemblymember Perea said. “When that doesn’t happen and a child dies as the result of abuse or neglect we must do everything in our power to discover how it happened and find a way to fix the problem.”

The audit also shows counties have improved their systems thanks to past child death reviews and recommendations. The auditor used a tragic death in Fresno County as an example of how a child death review can help improve policies.

Los Angeles County Audit

This audit was supposed to include Los Angeles County’s CPS department, however the state auditor was denied access to records concerning the deaths of children who were being monitored by the department and was unable to complete the audit. The state has resumed the audit of Los Angeles County and is expected to release the report in January 2012.

“LA County’s stonewalling and their decision not to participate in the first round of this audit is not only costing the taxpayers but it’s putting more children at risk.”

Alisha Gallon

Office of Assemblymember Henry T. Perea

2550 Mariposa Mall, Suite 5031

Fresno, CA 93721

Office 559-445-5532

Cell 661-364-3655

from the report (pp 15) “The Joint Legislative Audit Committee (audit committee) asked the Bureau of State Audits to review one child protective services program in each of the State’s four regions: Northern California, Bay Area, Central California, and Southern California. We selected for examination Sacramento, Alameda, Fresno, and Los Angeles counties, based on factors including size, population, geography, and number of allegations.² “The audit committee also asked us to examine Social Services’ role in providing counties with guidance and assistance and monitoring counties’ compliance with applicable policies and procedures.” 2 Because Los Angeles refused to grant us access to certain records that are necessary for our audit but that it believed were not subject to our access authority, our audit work in Los Angeles was delayed. This report only includes information on Sacramento, Alameda, and Fresno counties. We disagree with Los Angeles and are undertaking additional efforts to obtain those records. We will issue a separate audit report on Los Angeles County at a later time.

California State Auditor, Bureau of State Audits

REPORT 2011-101.1 SUMMARY - OCTOBER 2011

Child Welfare Services: California Can and Must Provide Better Protection and Support for Abused and Neglected Children

HIGHLIGHTS

Our review of the child welfare services (CWS) system, which the Department of Social Services (Social Services) oversees, revealed the following:

• We found over 1,000 addresses in the Department of Justice's (Justice) Sex and Arson Registry that matched the addresses of Social Services' or county's licensed facilities or homes of children in the CWS system.
• After investigating the address matches we provided, Social Services indicates it has begun legal action against eight licensees and issued 36 immediate exclusion orders (orders barring individuals from licensed facilities), and counties removed children and ordered sex offenders out of homes.
• Social Services' mechanisms for overseeing its licensees are lagging behind statutory requirements and department-set goals.
• Although county CWS agencies generally performed required background checks of applicable individuals and quickly removed children if a home is found to be inappropriate, they did not consistently notify Social Services of deficiencies or forward required information to Justice.
• The number of children in the CWS system has dramatically decreased in the last 10 years.
• The percentage of children placed with foster family agencies has continued to increase over the last decade, which we estimate has resulted in spending an additional $327 million in foster care payments between 2001 and 2010.
• County CWS agencies generally comply with state regulations and county policies but need to improve the timeliness of investigations and the consistency of ongoing case management visits.
• While not required by law, some agencies have instituted formal death reviews that examine what the agencies could have done differently or better to prevent the death of the child.

RESULTS IN BRIEF

The Department of Social Services (Social Services) oversees the efforts of county child welfare services (CWS) agencies to protect California children from abuse and neglect. When these agencies determine that children's safety is at risk, they have the authority to remove them from their homes and place them with relatives, foster parents, or group homes (placements). Both Social Services and county CWS agencies need to better ensure that these placements are safe. Specifically, Social Services could make better use of the Department of Justice's (Justice) Sex and Arson Registry (sex offender registry) to ensure that sex offenders are not living or working among children in the CWS system. We compared the addresses of sex offenders in this registry with the addresses of Social Services' and county's licensed facilities, as well as the addresses of CWS placements, and found over 1,000 address matches, nearly 600 of which are high risk and in need of immediate investigation.

We provided these address matches to Social Services in July 2011. In October 2011 Social Services stated that it and county CWS agencies had investigated 99 percent of the address matches. Social Services indicates it has begun legal actions against eight licensees (four temporary suspension orders and four license revocations) and issued 36 immediate exclusion orders (orders barring individuals from licensed facilities). In six of the eight legal actions, Social Services found registered sex offenders living or present in licensed facilities. The department added that counties found 36 registered sex offenders having "some association" with county foster homes and took actions, including removing foster children from homes and ordering registered sex offenders out of homes.

We also found that Social Services' established oversight mechanisms—on-site reviews of its licensed facilities every five years and licensing reviews of county CWS agencies to which it has delegated licensing authority every three years—are lagging behind statutory requirements and department-set goals. Social Services cites the lack of resources as the primary reason why it has not implemented an automated sex offender address match and why its oversight mechanisms are falling short of requirements.

For their part, the county CWS agencies appear to be performing required background checks of applicable individuals before placing children in foster homes and generally appear to remove children quickly if the home is found to be inappropriate. However, they could improve their follow-up and communication related to allegations against a foster home or parent. Specifically, these agencies do not consistently notify Social Services' Community Care Licensing Division of allegations involving its licensees, and they do not always forward required information regarding instances of abuse or neglect to Justice.

While the number of children in placement has dramatically decreased in the last 10 years, the percentage of children placed with foster family agencies, which recruit and certify foster homes and whose monthly compensation is significantly higher than state- or county-licensed foster homes, has continued to increase. The dramatic growth in the use of foster family agencies, which originally were meant to be a substitute for group homes for children with elevated treatment needs, has been accompanied by a matching drop in the percentage of children placed in state- and county-licensed foster homes and a fairly steady percentage of children in group home placements. These data indicate that, rather than significantly reducing expensive group home placements, growth in foster family agencies has reduced relatively inexpensive licensed foster home placements.

A potential explanation for this trend is that, in contrast to requirements related to group home placements, Social Services does not require county CWS agencies to document the treatment needs of children placed with foster family agencies. The counties we visited admitted that some placements with foster family agencies are a function of convenience and necessity—for example, the unavailability of state- or county-licensed foster homes—and not the elevated treatment needs of children. Additionally, until a recent lawsuit, foster homes certified under foster family agencies received significantly higher monthly payments than foster homes licensed by the State or a county. County officials indicated that this pay differential contributed to their difficulty in recruiting licensed foster homes. We estimate that the growth in the percentage of placements with foster family agencies has resulted in spending an additional $327 million in foster care payments between 2001 and 2010-costing an additional $61 million in 2010 alone.

Our examination of the investigatory and ongoing case management practices of county CWS agencies found that they are generally complying with state regulations and county policies. However, improvements in the timeliness of investigations and in the consistency of ongoing case management visits are still needed. In recent years Social Services, which provides leadership and oversight to county CWS agencies, has shifted from a monitoring system focused solely on regulatory compliance to an accountability system that measures outcomes for children who have experienced, or are at risk of experiencing, abuse or neglect (outcome review). This outcome review appears to have resulted in some improved compliance with investigatory and case management requirements. Even so, Social Services could improve some of its measures of system performance and could use its Child Welfare Services/Case Management System (CWS/CMS) to determine if efforts to reduce the number of cases or referrals per worker (caseloads) have been effective.

Although the State has various means of analyzing child deaths and identifying improvements that can be made, one of the more effective locations for this type of review resides at the local level, within the county CWS agencies that are often most familiar with local and family-specific histories. While not required by law to do so, some agencies have instituted formal death reviews that examine what the agencies could have done differently or better to prevent the death of the child. However, other counties are missing opportunities to identify potential improvements because they do not conduct such reviews. Social Services could encourage this practice by including information on whether these death reviews took place in its annual report to the Legislature on child deaths.

RECOMMENDATIONS

To ensure that vulnerable individuals, including foster children, are safe from sex offenders, Social Services should complete a follow-up on any remaining address matches our office provided in July 2011 and take appropriate actions, as well as relay information to Justice or local law enforcement for any sex offenders not in compliance with registration laws.

Social Services should conduct regular address comparisons using Justice's sex offender registry and its Licensing Information System and CWS/CMS. If Social Services believes it needs additional resources to do so, it should justify and seek the appropriate level of funding.

To provide sufficient oversight of county CWS agencies with delegated authority to license foster homes, Social Services should complete comprehensive reviews of these agencies' licensing activities at least once every three years.

To ensure that its licensees (state-licensed foster homes, foster family agencies, and group homes) are in compliance with applicable requirements and that children are protected, Social Services should complete on-site reviews at least once every five years as required by state law.

To ensure that county CWS agencies send required reports of abuse and neglect to Justice, Social Services should remind the agencies of applicable requirements and examine the feasibility of using CWS/CMS to track compliance with these statutory provisions.

To ensure that payments to foster family agencies are appropriate, Social Services needs to create and monitor compliance with clear requirements specifying that children placed with these agencies must have elevated treatment needs that would require a group home placement if not for the existence of these agencies' programs.

To achieve greater cooperation from county CWS agencies and to make it possible for some of these agencies to improve their placement practices, Social Services should develop a funding alternative that allows the agencies to retain a portion of state funds they save as a result of reducing their reliance on foster family agencies and only making placements with those agencies when justified by the elevated treatment needs of a child.

Social Services should refine and use CWS/CMS to calculate and report county CWS caseloads.

To improve agency practices and increase the safety of children within the CWS system, all agencies should formally review the services that they delivered to each child before he or she died of abuse or neglect.

To encourage counties to perform internal child death reviews for children with CWS histories, Social Services should provide in its annual report information on whether county CWS agencies conducted formal reviews of child deaths with prior CWS history.

AGENCY COMMENTS

Social Services generally agreed with our findings and recommendations and outlined actions it plans to take in response to the recommendations. In some instances, Social Services stated that it would examine our recommendations in the context of ongoing CWS reform efforts and in other instances, it disagreed with our specific recommendations but proposed alternative actions.

 

Date Issued	Report Number	California State Auditor, Bureau of State Audits Report Title
October 27, 2011	2011-101.1	Child Welfare Services: California Can and Must Provide Better Protection and Support for Abused and Neglected Children

Fact Sheet (PDF)     |    Highlights Summary    |     Full Report (PDF)

Suitable for framing…

if you agree please sign the White House petition:

http://wh.gov/Tzj

Ensure THAT school libraries are properly staffed, open, and available for children every day

CALIFORNIA BUCKS TREND ON TEACHER EVALUATIONS

A report released by the National Council on Teacher Quality* finds most states have made significant changes in recent years. Many now consider student achievement when determining instructors' tenure or dismissal.

By Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times | http://lat.ms/slGlVR

trending analysis: consider the source * By the numbers: HOW TO TELL IF YOUR SCHOOL DISTRICT IS INFECTED BY THE BROAD VIRUS : #17-A (self-anointed, politically connected) group called NCTQ comes to town a few months before your teachers’ contract is up for negotiation and writes a Mad Libs evaluation of your districts’ teachers (for about $14,000) that reaches the predetermined conclusion that teachers are lazy and need merit pay. ["The (NAME OF CITY) School District has too many (NEGATIVE ADJ) teachers. Therefore they need a new (POSITIVE ADJ.) data-based evaluation system tied to test scores…”]

Brent Smiley is a social studies teacher at Lawrence Middle School in Chatsworth. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times / September 8, 2011)

October 26, 2011, 12:05 a.m. - About two-thirds of states have made significant changes in teacher evaluations in the last two years, with many for the first time taking into account student achievement in such high-stakes decisions as granting tenure protections and dismissing instructors for poor performance.

California is a notable exception. Critics insist the state is trailing the nation in this area while others applaud California for resisting unproven strategies.

The nationwide snapshot comes from a report released Wednesday by the Washington-based National Council on Teacher Quality, which compiles data and advocates for policies it favors.

These include teacher performance reviews that take into consideration students' academic growth and use this as the primary criterion for evaluating teachers, in addition to weighing other evidence of student learning.

Thirteen states now make student achievement growth — typically measured by test scores — the most important factor in teacher evaluations, up from four states two years ago. In these states, a teacher cannot be considered effective unless students in their classrooms are making sufficient progress. In the last two years, 11 states decreed that teachers cannot earn tenure protections without showing such gains.

Such efforts "are a marked improvement on evaluation systems that find 99% of teachers effective … and offer little meaningful information on teachers' strengths, weaknesses and professional development needs," the researchers wrote.

There are unanswered questions regarding the best ways to measure progress and how best to use the data, said Sandi Jacobs, the vice president of the teacher quality group.

The research was funded by the Seattle-based Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Joyce Foundation in Chicago.

The growing focus on data-based teacher evaluations has been spurred by the Obama administration. It pushed this policy, and others, in selecting states for the competitive Race to the Top grants. More recently, the administration has encouraged states to commit to using data in teacher evaluations when they apply for relief from the strict federal No Child Left Behind law.

California has changed direction on this front. Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger embraced key Obama administration policies; his successor Jerry Brown is more skeptical.

The views of state Supt. of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson align closely with the California Teachers Assn. They and others note that the current standardized tests were never intended to evaluate teachers. The tests are invalid instruments for that purpose, Deputy Supt. Deborah Sigman said.

Other states, however, are using tests this way.

Tennessee makes student achievement 50% of a teacher's evaluation. Probationary teachers in Colorado must earn three consecutive "effective" ratings to earn tenure protections that have been nearly automatic nationwide. Indiana, Michigan and Florida require notifying parents when their child has a teacher rated as ineffective.

And in hard economic times, the first teachers to be laid off in Indiana will be those judged least effective — rather than those with the least experience. In Rhode Island, five years of low ratings will bar teachers from renewing the credential that allows them to hold a teaching job.

And in Washington, D.C., 663 top-rated teachers received a $25,000 bonus. At the other extreme, 341 teachers lost their jobs over two years.

Without state endorsement, L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy is pressing for academic achievement to be part of teacher evaluations. He said that state law gives school systems more latitude than they've exercised. Union leaders disagree.

The district, the nation's second-largest, is in negotiations with its teachers union over evaluations. United Teachers Los Angeles has supported using test data to improve instruction, but not for teacher evaluations.

NOT YOUR MOTHER’s PTA – ADVOCACY GROUPS RAISE MONEY, VOICES, HOPES: Walton Foundation’s billions meet smf’s 2¢

 

By Bruno V. Manno in Education Next Winter 2012 / Vol. 12, No. 1 | http://bit.ly/ueBG8k

About Education Next: Education Next is a scholarly journal published by the Hoover Institution that is committed to looking at hard facts about school reform.  Other sponsoring institutions are the Harvard Program on Education Policy and Governance, part of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government at the Harvard Kennedy School, and the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation.

Mission Statement: “In the stormy seas of school reform, this journal will steer a steady course, presenting the facts as best they can be determined, giving voice (without fear or favor) to worthy research, sound ideas, and responsible arguments. Bold change is needed in American K–12 education, but Education Next partakes of no program, campaign, or ideology. It goes where the evidence points.”

• Bruno V. Manno is senior advisor for K–12 education reform at the Walton Family Foundation and former U.S. assistant secretary of education for policy in t he George H. W. Bush administration. He is also a Trustee Emeritus of Thomas B. Fordham Institute, one of the sponsors of Education Next.
• Parent Revolution, Education Reform Now, and Stand for Children Leadership Center are 501(c)(3) grantees of the Walton Family Foundation; the opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.

---

The organization that claims to represent the voice and interests of K–12 students and their parents is the Parent Teacher Association, widely known as the PTA. The organization aims to provide “parents and families with a powerful voice to speak on behalf of every child while providing the best tools for parents to help their children be successful students.” Founded in 1897 as the National Congress of Mothers, the PTA declared that it was “up to the mothers of the country to eliminate threats that endangered children.” Today, its goal is a “quality education and nurturing environment for every child.”

The PTA has worked to advance social changes that improved the lives of young people, including championing the creation of child labor laws, reorganizing the juvenile justice system, and improving a variety of children’s services. But today, its orientation to K–12 issues is most aptly described by education analyst Charlene Haar* as an “echo…of the teachers unions.”

*Charlene Harr is affiliated with PTO Today. There’s an interview with her here, alongside entire websites dedicated to”The Parent Trigger”, “The Tea Party Toolbox”, school vouchers and climate change denial.

Moreover, it has fallen on hard times. For example, many PTAs have withdrawn from the national organization, forming local Parent Teacher Organizations that no longer send dues to the national PTA. Membership in the national organization declined from more than 12 million in 1965 to around 5 million in 2010.

Truth be told, few in today’s K–12 education reform movement look to the PTA to fight for dramatic change or engage in direct conflict with the public education establishment. Education historian William Cutler explains in Parents and Schools that “educators and most school board members prefer to think of the parent-teacher association as an extension of the educational establishment, ‘an auxiliary to the public school,’ as the Los Angeles County Board of Education put it in 1908.”

Among today’s advocates for young people are nonprofit insurgent groups that challenge the education establishment by organizing, educating, and mobilizing parents in a variety of roles and in different ways, empowering them to engage in K–12 reform efforts. This organizing generates collective, durable power that advances the interests of K–12 education consumers—especially parents—rather than education producers.

Some organizations direct their activities only to district and/or charter school issues, such as improving teacher quality and effectiveness, developing new public charter schools, or closing and transforming failing district schools to create new high-quality schools of choice. Other organizations focus on the private school sector and issues such as using taxpayer-funded scholarships, or vouchers, or tuition tax credits to enable children to attend private schools. Still other organizations undertake cross-sector approaches like educating and mobilizing parents so that they are empowered to choose a quality school for their child, whether it be district, charter, or private.

In short, these advocacy groups empower parents to make their voices and choices a primary catalyst of school reform.

This piece limits its focus to three organizations that use parent mobilization and advocacy to catalyze district sector and charter sector reform: Parent Revolution, Education Reform Now, and Stand for Children. I do not consider others engaged in private school parent mobilization and empowerment or those using other approaches to educate or mobilize parents, e.g., GreatSchools.org, which provides information to parents on school quality and rankings.

These three organizations are similar in many ways, but differences in their legal structures affect the scope of their parent mobilization and advocacy strategies, activities, and tactics. The piece closes by presenting a framework for thinking more generally—one might say strategically—about different operating models for parent advocacy and organizing and by raising some key questions about the future of these efforts.

Parent Revolution

When the California Parent Empowerment Act—known for its parent trigger provision—became law in 2010, the Los Angeles–based nonprofit Parent Revolution had achieved one of its key legislative goals. The act allows at least 51 percent of all parents whose children attend a failing California school to petition the local school board to undertake one of several reform options. Among the options are closing a school and reopening it as a charter school; bringing in new staff and then exercising some control over staffing and budgeting; keeping school staff but firing the principal; and closing the school and sending students to a better school. The president of the California Federation of Teachers, according to the Wall Street Journal, called the parent trigger a “lynch mob provision.”

Parent Revolution supports parents in transforming their children's schools through community organizing.

Parent Revolution’s executive director is Ben Austin, former Los Angeles deputy mayor to Richard Riordan, senior advisor to Rob Reiner and First 5 California (the state’s comprehensive early-childhood initiative), aide to President Bill Clinton, and member of the California State Board of Education. Austin believes the parent trigger law “creates an entirely… new way of thinking about education reform. [It gives] parents the power to advocate for children.” These “new tools” no longer doom “parents to accept[ing] systemic failures for generations.” Parent Revolution is incorporated as a 501(c)(3). It has a small staff of around a dozen individuals, a mix of grassroots organizers and political activists.

Founded in January 2009, its mission is to “transform public education rooted in what’s good for kids—not grownups—by empowering parents to transform their own children’s low performing schools through community organizing.” Parent Revolution’s motivating belief is that power must be in the hands of the only people who do not have an inherent conflict of interest in education: parents. Other stakeholders have a natural and primary self-interest to pursue.

Parent Revolution organized the first campaign to “pull” the parent trigger in a Los Angeles–area district, using its staff to work with a field team of parents under the banner of McKinley Parents for Change. These parents knocked on the doors of other parents living in the Compton school district, inviting them to sign a petition to convert McKinley Elementary School to a charter school.

McKinley is a K–5 school serving nearly 500 students, 60 percent Hispanic and 40 percent African American. It is in the bottom 10 percent of schools statewide, having made adequate yearly progress only once since 2003 under the federal No Child Left Behind Act. It scored 1 out of 10 on the California “similar schools” ranking, meaning that the school is worse than almost all similar California schools.

Although the group had signatures from 275 of 442 parents, 62 percent of those with children in the school, the Compton school board voted 5–1 against the McKinley charter proposal, citing a variety of technicalities. The matter sparked a lawsuit and precipitated the involvement of the California State Board of Education, which wrestled for months with the law’s implementation. Eventually, the board reached a consensus on many issues, including how to draw up petitions and verify signatures, satisfying groups as diverse as Parent Revolution and the California Teachers Association. As of July 2011, McKinley remains a low-performing district-run school.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles County education officials gave its approval for Celerity Educational Group (the nonprofit charter-management organization whose petition to reopen McKinley as a charter school the Compton board denied) to open a new K–12 charter-school campus for 220 children. The new school is housed at Compton’s Church of the Redeemer, whose pastor, Kerry Allison, sees education reform as the civil rights movement of this century. One of Pastor Allison’s colleagues—Pastor K. W. Tulloss of Weller Street Baptist Church in Los Angeles—is the board chair of Parent Revolution.

Despite widespread community support, especially from African American and Latino parents, Parent Revolution has harsh detractors. Journalist Robert Skeels called it “a poverty pimp and privatization pusher collecting a check from plutocrat foundations.” But Los Angeles schools superintendent John Deasy described the trigger to a group of young people as a sad commentary on the state of K–12 schools: “It is a big shame on us [school administrators]. If we’re not going to do it [improve schools], they [parents] have to do it.”

Mississippi, Connecticut, and Ohio now have some form of a parent trigger law. Officials in at least a dozen states are interested in a version of a parent trigger, including Chicago’s mayor, Rahm Emanuel.

The controversy surrounding enactment of the Connecticut law may prefigure the battle ahead for trigger advocates. An internal document prepared off the record for American Federation of Teachers union activists and accidentally posted online explains how union lobbying in Connecticut worked to undermine a full version of the trigger. Plan A was “Kill Mode” and Plan B was “Engage the Opposition.” Since the union could not kill the bill, they worked to dilute it. The new law eliminates parent petition drives, creating instead school governance councils with parent, teacher, and community representation that provide advice only and have no governing authority to trigger a takeover. In the words of the Wall Street Journal, “Engagement meant pressuring legislators vulnerable to union muscle. That’s most of them—and the AFT’s muscle worked.”

When the California Parent Empowerment Act—known for its parent trigger provision—became law in 2010, the Los Angeles-based nonprofit Parent Revolution had achieved one of its key legislative goals.

Education Reform Now

In January 2010, the New York State legislature rejected legislation that would have lifted the cap of 200 charter schools allowed in the state. The action was part of several being considered by the legislature as it tried to improve the state’s chances of receiving $700 million in federal funds under the Obama administration’s Race to the Top competition (RttT). Opposed to lifting the cap was the United Federation of Teachers, the New York City union affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers. In a blunt assessment of the union’s role in dooming New York’s initial RttT application, the New York Daily News headlined, “They damned the kids: Teachers’ union and its lackeys sank bid for federal funds.”

A second round of RttT competition with a June 1, 2010, deadline provided an opportunity to target the legislature with a campaign to lift the cap. The strategy was straightforward but would be difficult to execute. One individual involved with the campaign explained, “Until the charter movement began to develop its own political operation and build a counterweight to the teachers’ union, it could never be successful in Albany, regardless of the results the schools produced.”

While many charter support and advocacy organizations in New York City and state had diverse agendas and perspectives, one campaign would need to unite them all, with one organization leading and executing the campaign. After much discussion, all the parties agreed that Education Reform Now (ERN) would be that lead organization, working with the New York Charter School Association, the New York City Charter School Center, and several charter management organizations.

In New York, many charter supporters and advocacy organizations with diverse agendas united under the banner of Education Reform Now, headed by school reformer, Joe Williams.

ERN is a national organization founded in 2006, with state affiliates in California, Colorado, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin. It has a national board overseeing state affiliates, a strong donor base, both 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) structures, and a political action committee (PAC) called Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), with a separate board but shared staff with its related organizations. ERN’s mission is to orchestrate “a powerful chorus of voices within the education policy debate advancing a true agenda of reform [that includes]…every child having…a quality public education.”

The individual coordinating the overall effort was Joe Williams, executive director of DFER. The New York Times recounts an incident involving Williams when Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew M. Cuomo was seeking donors from “certain members of the hedge fund crowd…what he heard was this: Talk to Joe. That would be Joe Williams, executive director of a political action committee that advances…a favorite cause of many of the wealthy founders of New York hedge funds: charter schools.”

The plan to raise the cap had four components: paid media, free media, field and grassroots organizing, and a strong lobbying effort in Albany. Joe Williams hired as campaign director Bradley Tusk, who managed Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s 2009 reelection campaign.

A key aspect of the grassroots campaign involved organizing the parents of the 40,000 children in charter schools as well as the 40,000 on charter school waiting lists. ERN built a field operation similar to a political campaign. It hired a staff that developed a canvassing and phone system and set up e-mail and fax capabilities along with an issue visibility program. The field plan included daily targets for parent visits, parent recruitment, parent activities, education events, lobbying, and an advertising and social media campaign.

Charter-school financial supporters were willing to fund the campaign and ask friends for additional support. An article in the New York Times reported, “Hedge fund executives are thus emerging as perhaps the first significant political counterweight to the powerful teachers unions…. They have been contributing generously to…a multimillion dollar war chest to lobby…for a bill to raise [the cap].”

Boykin Curry, a partner in Eagle Capital Management and founder of two New York charter schools, commented on the change in mind-set among his colleagues, “A lot of hedge fund and finance people in New York had decided that politics was too dirty and focused on their philanthropy. I think there’s an awakening now that we can be a force in Albany, but we’ve got to play a tougher game than before.”

Passing the bill entailed working first in the state senate with Senate Democratic conference leader John Sampson. After the bill to raise the cap to 460 schools from 200 passed by a margin of 45–15, attention focused on the state assembly. Speaker Sheldon Silver, an ally of the teachers union, vehemently opposed the bill. The ERN strategy was to frame the issue as an effort by teachers unions to keep New York from winning RttT rather than targeting specific members in a negative way.

ERN hired a staff that developed a canvassing and phone system and set up e-mail and fax capabilities along with an issue visibility program.

Over the course of the campaign, the phone and canvass program reached legislators in multiple ways: nearly 9,000 postcards were sent, more than 16,000 voice mails were left, and 23 face-to-face visits were logged. A concerted editorial-board campaign targeted major newspapers along with media buys to educate the public and state legislators, focusing almost exclusively on New York City and Albany. High-profile supporters were recruited, including former president Bill Clinton, candidate and now governor Andrew Cuomo, the Reverend Al Sharpton, and U.S. secretary of education Arne Duncan.

The bill finally passed the assembly 91–43 and was signed by Governor David Paterson on May 28, in time for the RttT application deadline of June 1. On August 24, U.S. secretary of education Arne Duncan announced that New York was among the 10 finalists to win the competition, receiving $700 million in funding. Secretary Duncan credited the legislature’s lifting the cap with helping to secure the award.

In 2010, ERN reported spending $6.6 million in lobbying expenses in New York State, split almost evenly between its (c)(3) and (c)(4), with another $41 million in (c)(3) expenditures directed to organizing and polling expenses, which the state does not consider lobbying. During that same time period, the New York State United Teachers reported $4.9 million in lobbying expenses. For the first time, ERN outspent the teachers union in lobbying expenses, which along with other activities helped win the fight to raise the New York charter cap.

Stand for Children

June 1, 1996—Stand for Children Day—marked what its organizers claim is the largest rally for children in U.S. history, in Washington, D.C., at the Lincoln Memorial, with around 300,000 participants. Stand for Children now has national offices in Portland, Oregon, and Waltham, Massachusetts, and state affiliates in Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, and Washington.

Stand’s CEO is Jonah Edelman, who along with Eliza Leighton cofounded the organization after Edelman studied different community-organizing and -advocacy organizations, moving to Oregon to test and further develop the Stand approach. (Leighton eventually left Stand to complete a law degree at Yale and works as director of strategic initiatives for Casa de Maryland, a Latino advocacy and assistance organization.)

Stand for Children organized a blue umbrella rally for a rainy day fund in 2010. The organization trains "everyday people" to become leaders who unite to improve programming for children, especially in the K-12 arena.

Edelman considers himself a second-generation civil rights leader “who grew up with these incredible parents who had been public servants all their lives.” Marian Wright Edelman, his mother, was the first African American woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar and is president and founder of the Children’s Defense Fund. His father, Peter Edelman, clerked for former Supreme Court justice Arthur Goldberg, was a close aide to Robert F. Kennedy, and served as a senior official in the Clinton administration until resigning over differences with the administration on the 1996 welfare reforms.

Stand is legally incorporated nationally as a 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4), with each organization having its own board and each state affiliate also having its own PAC. Affiliates are under the legal umbrella of the national organization and its respective boards, though each has advisory and other groups that provide counsel on specific issues.

Its (c)(3) is called Stand for Children Leadership Center and trains “everyday people” to become leaders who unite to win improvements in children’s programs, especially in the K–12 arena. The center’s web site contains resources on how to turn out individuals for meetings, plan effective community forums, choose a winning issue, educate decisionmakers, engage in lobbying to elicit a commitment from a legislator, and so forth. Its (c)(4) is a membership organization called Stand for Children, which uses grassroots action to convince elected officials (and voters) of the merits of specific legislation or policy.

Stand’s 2010 and 2011 work in Illinois on teacher effectiveness illustrates how the three distinct legal entities inform, educate, and advocate for specific legislative proposals. The (c)(3) organized and trained community members, educating them, policymakers, and the general public on school reform and teacher effectiveness issues. The (c)(4) targeted mainly legislators, although efforts were also made to convince voters to get their representatives to support the legislation. The PAC raised $3.5 million in 2010 and judiciously spent about $600,000 in support of state lawmakers running for office who would help forge the bipartisan consensus that led to the passage of the legislation. Stand leveraged its resources and activities through a partnership with Advance Illinois, a statewide 501(c)(3) K–12 education-reform advocacy organization. Other state and local organizations also joined the partnership.

Edelman characterizes Stand’s strategy by saying, “We go in…for the long term.” In Illinois, Chicago teachers union president Karen Lewis called the work of Stand—especially its PAC funds—as “pretty much union busting.” Chicago Democratic state senator Kwame Raoul commented that Stand’s cadre of lobbyists and cash “were making a clear statement that ‘If you were not willing to stand with the children, they would find somebody who would.’”

In 2011, Time magazine named Edelman one of the nation’s 11 most influential education activists, “poised to shake things up,” commenting further that with “formidable political fundraising prowess, Stand for Children is delivering results and changing how politicians think about grass roots education reform.”

Dimensions of K–12 Advocacy

Unlike the PTA, Parent Revolution, Education Reform Now, and Stand for Children are insurgent organizations that exist to challenge the conventional power arrangements of the K–12 public education system, organizing parents at the grassroots level to advance a school reform agenda. Thus far, all three organizations have been successful in raising funds to support their efforts. As 501(c)(3) entities, these organizations derive a significant portion of their revenue from foundations and individual donors. In addition, Stand has a fee-for-service arrangement for training state affiliates, which are responsible for raising their own operating funds. Both Stand and ERN raise their (c)(4) and PAC money from individual donors, who do not receive a tax deduction for contributions. Stand projects its 2011 budget will be around $22 million, nearly double its 2010 budget. Though the long-term financial outlook for the three organizations is difficult to predict, there are no immediate threats to their revenue sources.

While differences in the organizations’ legal structures have implications for their strategies, activities, and programs, three key elements create a framework for understanding their diverse operating models: a value proposition; civic mobilization; and coordinated action.

Value proposition: This includes a mission statement and core beliefs, as these inform the organization’s desired impact. It also describes the sector focus of the organization’s work, what types of parents it will mobilize, and a geographic focus. Finally, it provides a way to measure progress over time so the organization and its stakeholders can determine whether the intended results are being achieved.

An important issue in developing the value proposition is who defines it. Does a strong board of directors or advisors drive the process, with an executive focused on execution? Is it created from the bottom up, with a board affirming the consensus of the group? Or is there some combined approach?

Civic mobilization: This effort is a “call to action” whereby the organization seeks to build a cohesive group of parents who support the value proposition and fight to achieve and defend it. The objective is a tightly knit and inclusive network of like-minded activists who challenge the K–12 status quo.

Mobilization includes building relationships with other allies and partner organizations that broaden support for the coalition’s civic base. The advocacy organization engages in many outreach, education, and training activities to prepare its members and civic partners for coordinated action.

Coordinated action: The organization undertakes on-the-ground activity that pushes against resistance to change. It thereby alters present power relationships and changes existing policies and practices.

At the tactical level, activities include demonstrations, letter and e-mail campaigns, testifying at hearings convened by policymakers, public awareness campaigns, and other forms of public education and lobbying. These tactics are limited by the legal structure of the organization, for example, whether it is a 501(c)(3), 501(c)(4), or PAC.

Integrating these three elements creates each organization’s unique operating model: its programs, activities, capabilities, relationships, finances, goals, and metrics. Those who run these organizations must align, manage, and execute within this context.

Insurgent organizations like the ones described here seem to hold significant promise for mobilizing parents to advance an agenda that goes far beyond today’s PTA, whose critics, in the words of William Cutler, describe it “as a company union—part of the problem, not the solution. [It gives]…the illusion of parental influence, while discouraging the formation of community groups that might be more aggressive about the need for change.”

Ironically, the advocacy and organizing approach of these organizations mirrors the early work of the PTA, which was part of a nascent progressive political reform movement that changed the world of child welfare and children’s education programs. Are these groups heirs to that tradition?

Stand for Children exists to challenge the conventional power arrangements of the K-12 public education system, organizing parents at the grassroots level to advance a school reform agenda.

And there are other questions to be answered.

• How will opponents reorient their organizing prowess and financial resources to strike back against reform-oriented parent mobilization efforts?

• Will K–12 education philanthropy continue to support  reform-oriented advocacy organizations or move to support some new reform du jour?

• Will the national organizations with state affiliates begin to step on each other’s toes or work directly at cross-purposes, and will competition for philanthropic resources constrain their effectiveness and impact?

• Will tensions and conflicts emerge between those groups focused more on micro issues, like cultivating savvy consumers of choice, and those focused on macro issues, like legislation and electoral politics?

• Will organizations working in the charter and district sectors become openly hostile to those working in the private school sector, with its emphasis on vouchers and tax credits?

• Or will a “grand agreement” unite them under a banner of parent empowerment that places family educational choice at the core of K–12 reform, regardless of what educational option a parent chooses for a child—district, charter, or private?

Only time will tell.

 

smf:  Mr. Manno, senior advisor for K–12 education reform at the Walton Family Foundation, writes glowingly of  Parent Revolution, Education Reform Now, and Stand for Children Leadership Center -  grantees of the Walton Family Foundation. He names fifteen more “good guys” – each, I’m sure – also supported by Walton or Gates or Broad …or others of what Diane Ravitch calls the Billionaire Boys Club.

Why should we be surprised?

And Manno writes disdainfully of PTA, an organization that is not. And only has  5 million members.

How many members do all the organizations cited have?

OK – trick question. They are not membership organizations; they are issue organizations. And their issues are the Walton Family Foundation’s issues: Charter Schools, Vouchers and the Privatization, Deregulation and De-unionization of Public Education.  School Reform®.

Education Next issues the caveat, distancing itself from its own former director: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author  …and the Walton Family Foundation.

What that says is that this is not a scholarly article or a peer reviewed publication; it is a work for hire. Part puff piece and part hatchet job.

LAUSD REMOVES 10 SCHOOLS FROM PUBLIC SCHOOL CHOICE 3.0

NCLB: END IT, DON'T MEND IT

By Diane Ravitch in Ed Week | http://bit.ly/w46UON

October 25, 2011 9:45 AM | Have you been following the evolving story of the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind? I have, and it is disheartening. Instead of ditching this disastrous law, senators are trying to apply patches.

Most people now recognize that NCLB is a train wreck. Its mandates have imposed on American public education an unhealthy obsession with standardized testing.

● It has incentivized cheating, as we have seen in the well-publicized cheating scandals in Washington, D.C., and Atlanta.

● It has encouraged states to game the system, as we saw in New York state, where the state tests were made easier and more predictable so as to bolster the number of children who reached "proficiency."

● It has narrowed the curriculum; many districts and schools have reduced or eliminated time for the arts, physical education, and other non-tested subjects.

● It has caused states to squander billions of dollars on testing and test preparation, while teachers are laid off and essential services slashed. Now we will squander millions more on test security to detect cheating.

Because of NCLB, more than 80 percent of our nation's public schools will be labeled "failures" this year. By 2014, on the NCLB timetable of destruction, close to 100 percent of public schools will have "failed" in their efforts to reach the unreachable goal of 100 percent proficiency in reading and math. Has there ever been a national legislative body anywhere else in the world that has passed legislation that labeled almost every one of its schools a failure? I don't think so.

Despite the manifest failure of NCLB, the Obama administration proposes not to scrap it, but to offer waivers if states agree to accept the mandates selected by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. The secretary has a great fondness for teacher evaluation, having decided (in concert with the Gates Foundation) that the key to better education is to tie teachers' jobs and tenure to their students' test scores. This, of course, will raise the stakes attached to testing. Mr. Duncan has already used the billions in Race to the Top to bribe states to impose his unproven policies on their schools.

Happily, the latest version of the NCLB reauthorization does not include the teacher evaluation provisions that Mr. Duncan wants. That's good, but not good enough, because many states are already well down that path, not only the 11 that "won" the Race to the Top, but others that wanted to make themselves eligible. Tennessee was one of the "winners." NPR did a story about Tennessee's teacher evaluation program, which explained why the program is so thoroughly disliked by that state's teachers; see this article, as well.

When, if ever, will policymakers realize that they should find ways to support teachers, not to demoralize them? I just don't see how it is impossible to "improve" schools without the active engagement of the people who do the daily work of schooling. There is just so much top-down beating-up that can go on before teachers and principals rise up in protest, especially when so many at the top are not educators.

Lawmakers in D.C. and in the state capitals are not competent to decide how to reform schools and how to evaluate teachers. In what other profession would this kind of interference be tolerated?

The federal government does not know how to reform schools. Period. Congress doesn't, and the U.S. Department of Education doesn't.

The fundamental role of the federal government should be to advance equality of educational opportunity. That's a tall order. Congress should revive the commitments made in 1965, when the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was passed: To use federal resources on behalf of the neediest students; to protect the civil rights of students; to conduct research about education; to report on the condition and progress of American education.

So long as Congress tries to breathe life into the moribund NCLB legislation, its members are wasting their time.

Diane Ravitch is Research Professor of Education at New York University and a historian of education. In addition, she is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.

She shares a blog called Bridging Differences with Deborah Meier, hosted by Education Week. She also blogs for Politico.com/arena and the Huffington Post. Her articles have appeared in many newspapers and magazines.

From 1991 to 1993, she was Assistant Secretary of Education and Counselor to Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander in the administration of President George H.W. Bush. She was responsible for the Office of Educational Research and Improvement in the U.S. Department of Education. As Assistant Secretary, she led the federal effort to promote the creation of voluntary state and national academic standards.

From 1997 to 2004, she was a member of the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the federal testing program. She was appointed by the Clinton administration’s Secretary of Education Richard Riley in 1997 and reappointed by him in 2001. From 1995 until 2005, she held the Brown Chair in Education Studies at the Brookings Institution and edited Brookings Papers on Education Policy. Before entering government service, she was Adjunct Professor of History and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.

She is the author of:

The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education (2010)

Edspeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon (2007)

The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn (2003)

Left Back: A Century of Battles Over School Reform (2000)

National Standards in American Education: A Citizen’s Guide (1995)

What Do Our 17-Year-Olds Know? (with Chester Finn, Jr.) [1987]

The Schools We Deserve (1985)

The Troubled Crusade: American Education, 1945–1980 (1983)

The Revisionists Revised (1978)

The Great School Wars: New York City, 1805–1973 (1974)

COMPANIES, NONPROFITS MAKING MILLIONS OFF TEACHER EFFECTIVENESS PUSH

By Sarah Garland in The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, nonpartisan education-news outlet affiliated with Teachers College, Columbia University | http://bit.ly/vC820P

October 25, 2011 - New education reforms often translate into big money for private groups. Following the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act, states paid millions of dollars annually to companies to develop and administer the standardized tests required under the law. Companies also cashed in on a provision mandating tutoring for students at struggling schools.

Now, a movement to overhaul the teaching profession is creating a new source of revenue for those in the business of education. More than half of states have changed, or are in the process of changing, their laws to factor student test scores into teacher evaluations. Most are also adding new requirements for the classroom observations used to rate teachers, which in many districts are often cursory and infrequent.

The main intent of the new laws is to help identify which teachers are doing a good, bad or mediocre job so that those struggling in the classroom can be given extra support or, if their performance doesn’t improve, fired. But one early outcome of recent legislation is a booming new market services and products to help states and school districts scrambling to meet the new legal requirements.

“It’s an incredibly heavy lift for states,” says Sandi Jacobs, vice president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group. “Some have contracted out big pieces of it, whether it’s someone internal in the state or an outside provider.”

The laws are based on the belief that school districts have traditionally done little to measure and improve the performance of teachers despite the proliferation of research showing a clear link between teacher quality and student success. In most cases, new teacher evaluations will consist of two parts: observations of classrooms, which look at how teachers teach; and outcomes on tests, including scores for students and value-added data, which measure how students progress.

“Most of the laws were not that specific,” said Timothy Daly, president of The New Teacher Project, a nonprofit advocacy group. “Most outlined a broad concept, but left a lot of details to be figured out.”

<<Tim Daly, President, The New Teacher Project

Nonprofit groups and for-profit companies alike are going after public contracts to design evaluations, train teachers and principals in how to use them, and set up online platforms to help sort all of the new data that schools will be collecting. Private foundation money is subsidizing some of the contracts, but districts are also spending millions of public dollars, much of it from the Obama administration’s $4.3 billion “Race to the Top” initiative.

In Florida, the state paid Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, a for-profit textbook publisher, $4.8 million to develop classroom observation methods and nearly $4 million to the American Institutes for Research, a nonprofit, to create a value-added model for grading teachers based on student test scores, according to state officials.

This summer, New York also signed a contract with the American Institutes for Research to design its value-added system, for $2.7 million over three years, according to the state. In addition, the state is requiring school districts to hire state-approved contractors—which include for-profits, nonprofits and the state teachers union—to design their observation rubrics. While most of the rubrics are free, schools may pay as much as $4,500 per day for training in how to use them.

On the upside, the private sector offers expertise that many school officials lack, but there are concerns that low-quality, prepackaged systems could proliferate, just as simplistic multiple choice tests did under No Child Left Behind.

“The marketplace has become very, very competitive. All these simplistic models are coming out of the woodwork,” said William Sanders, the Tennessee-based researcher who has sold his own value-added system to dozens of states and districts.

Teachers unions, some of which have designed their own teacher evaluations models, are also concerned. “Some providers do not have a track record of developing strong teacher evaluation systems,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. “Too often, their priority is to make money, not improve teaching.”

Randi Weingarten>>

The New Teacher Project (TNTP) has been a strong advocate for changing evaluation systems to add student test scores into the mix and beef up teacher observations. In 2009, the group published a study called “The Widget Effect,” which helped jumpstart the national movement to overhaul how teachers are evaluated. The Obama administration’s Race to the Top grant competition, launched a month after the study’s release, embraced its ideas, and states passed new laws that would make them a reality.

Now, TNTP is among the groups vying for contracts to help create and implement the new evaluation systems.

“What we’ve been interested in doing is facilitating the design process for districts or states—ensuring when they select a design, not only is it sound but that it gets implemented the way it was intended to,” Daly said.

In Houston, TNTP was involved from start to finish in shaping a new system for judging teachers. In other places, such as Tennessee, it has acted in a consultant role. In Rhode Island, a state official said TNTP was paid $400,070 to train the evaluators—including principals and other school administrators—who will observe teachers. Private money has paid for part or, in a few cases, all of TNTP’s work in most places, Daly says.

Under No Child Left Behind, states spent more than $600 million annually on standardized tests, with the vast majority of the money going to the private sector, according to a 2009 Government Accountability Office report. Now, states say they are relying more on work by teachers, unions, school board members, principals and even parents as they design new teacher evaluations.

“There simply is not as much [money] to be made from professional development, or system design, as there is in testing students,” Charlotte Danielson, a researcher who developed a well-regarded teacher observation method that has been adopted by districts around the country, said in an email.

But private groups sense an opportunity nonetheless. “If these states could have bought something off the shelf, a lot of them would have,” said Jacobs, of the National Council on Teacher Quality. “It wouldn’t be surprising if people do look at how you can package this.”

Nonprofits like the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching, which created a teacher evaluation system used in Chicago and elsewhere, are offering their technical expertise to states. Mathematica, a research group that published a 2010 study warning about the use of value-added modeling in high-stakes decisions because of high error rates, was paid more than $500,000 to design the value-added model for the Washington, D.C. public schools, according to a DCPS spokesman. (About 275 teachers have been fired there because of low ratings.)

Pearson, a U.K.-based company with profits of more than $1 billion in 2010, began marketing Teacher Compass, a new teacher observation software program designed by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, in the United States last year.

Another company, Learning Sciences International, is selling iObservation, a computerized data system designed in collaboration with a group of researchers, including Danielson, who said she will earn a small royalty from any sales. On its website, the company is marketing the system as a solution to the new mandates facing Race to the Top winners.

Others are likely to follow in their footsteps. “I would think you’d see testing companies as well as the data-driven decision providers jumping in there,” said Trace Urdan, a research analyst who focuses on the business of education for Wunderlich Securities, a brokerage firm based in Memphis, Tenn.

Danielson says districts and states are doing the right thing by hiring outside experts as they design more rigorous classroom observations. “Entire states seem to be operating under the assumption that anyone can create a rubric. Then they want to use that for high-stakes decisions without having a clue what it takes,” she said.

But some observers worry that the fiscal crisis battering school districts could encourage administrators to seek out lower-quality products.

“There are real dangers,” said Monty Neill, director of FairTest, a group critical of standardized testing. “While observations make good sense, if you start bringing in outside people…you’re more likely to end up with arbitrary and capricious decisions from which someone makes money.”

A version of this story appeared on The American Prospect on October 24, 2011.

SCHOOLS ROLLING OUT NEW FUNDRAISERS: FOOD TRUCK NIGHTS

Public schools, hit by budget cuts, drops in donations and new fundraising guidelines, are capitalizing on the culinary craze. Mobile eateries park at campuses, dispensing meals to the hungry and money to cash-strapped facilities.

Angel Jennings, Los Angeles Times | http://lat.ms/w1eLrC

Diners come to Whitney High School in Cerritos for a food truck night that is helping the school raise money for a new multimedia room. Area high schools are starting to capitalize on the culinary craze by inviting trucks to campus and charging them a fee or asking for a donation. (Lawrence K. Ho, Los Angeles Times / October 17, 2011)

October 23, 2011 _ Echo Lau drove to Whitney High School on a recent Monday evening to pick up her kids. She left with dinner.

The student parking lot at the Cerritos campus is transformed every week into a congested food truck stop as eight mobile eateries attract the business of loyal followers, parents and students.

But this isn't a typical stop for these catering trucks; this is a school fundraiser, in which a portion of the proceeds go directly to Whitney to help pay for a new multi-media center.

Outdoor food courts are popping up in the parking lots of at least a dozen high schools across Southern California with more on the way. Financially strapped public schools — hit hard by budget cuts, new fundraising guidelines, and fewer donors — have found a way to capitalize on the food truck craze.

Schools typically earn up to $50 per food truck nightly. It's small change that quickly adds up, said Bryan Glonchak, assistant principal at Whitney. Since school opened, Whitney has made a total of $2,000 on the fund-raiser.

In most cases, schools host weekly food truck events, in which up to 10 vendors gather at dinnertime. Facebook and Twitter help spread the word.

The money is then used to fund scholarships, pay for equipment and school projects.

Last year, the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California sued the state for allowing school districts to charge students for books, uniforms and other basic supplies. A settlement agreement established protections against the fees but it also mandated that schools can no longer require students to fundraise.

Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a bill two weeks ago that would have created a law based on the settlement; the ACLU has refiled the case.

Prior to the December settlement, some schools had not only required student fundraising but set quotas for those who participated in extracurricular activities.

At Fullerton Union High School, football players had to come up with $300 through fundraising and parents' contributions. But in May, the assistant principal told faculty members they could no longer ask for students' time or money.

Since then, Fullerton has hosted its own food truck fundraiser to make up the difference. But the Orange County school put its own spin on the event.

On a recent Saturday, 22 food trucks circled the football field under high-voltage floodlights as music blared in the speakers that normally carry the voices of sports announcers. More than 1,000 residents, students and food truck followers sat on the field on blankets, in lawn chairs and around folded dinner tables.

Fullerton hosts events like this every six weeks.  Instead of charging the food trucks a set fee, the school asks the owners to donate what they want. The school receives about $100 to $150 per truck.

So far Fullerton has held four fundraisers and raised $13,000 — more than half the cost of uniforms for the varsity football team.

Cerritos High School has raised $3,000 since it held its first food truck fundraiser on a Thursday night in July. The money collected goes to the athletic program, and helps pay for field equipment and transportation to the games.

At Taft High School in Woodland Hills, the proceeds from the food trucks go toward college scholarships. Last year, a number of seniors received awards with the $5,000 raised at the events. In the past, community sponsors and alumni donated the money, but as the economy weakened, Taft noticed a decrease in charitable giving.

Other schools hope to host similar fundraisers, said Christian Murcia, the owner of the Crepes Bonaparte food truck. Murcia, the liaison between the schools and the catering trucks, said he receives calls weekly asking him to host a food truck night. He adds the schools' names to a growing list.

He wants to make sure he doesn't overextend his team or oversaturate the market. But he does acknowledge the benefits of being partners with high schools.

"Brick and mortar restaurants and shopping centers don't want us parking on the streets stealing business away from them," Murcia said.  "This keeps us out of trouble and allows us give back to the community."

Justin Moore-Brown, who works at Chunk-n-Chip Cookies, a food truck where customers design their own ice cream sandwiches, said: "It's a win-win situation for us both. There is a profit sharing system among the trucks, and the high schools come with an automatic base of kids and families."

At Whitney High School, as night crept over the parking lot, customers swarmed closer under the lights of the food trucks. 

Behind the Ragin Cajun truck, Paul Reyes of Anaheim, still dressed in blue hospital scrubs, turned the trunk of his Subaru sedan into a makeshift dinner table.  The 26-year-old respiratory therapist had just ended a 12-hour shift at Long Beach Memorial Hospital, but still made the hour and a half drive to Whitney for a Korean barbecue roll from Let's Roll It.

Reyes convinced his relatives to meet him at the food truck stop. After he finished his first round, he took the last $29 out of his pockets and headed back to his favorite truck. To Reyes, it's money well spent.

For the Lau family, the trucks are a weekly tradition that they've only missed once.

"I don't need to cook today" or any other Monday night, said Lau, a 47-year old Norwalk resident, in between bites of a twisted potato-on-a-stick from Tornado Potato. "And [this event] is supporting the school."

OBAMA REDUCES STUDENT LOAN DEBT PAYMENTS + STUDENT LOAN ANGST + CA LEADS U.S. IN COLLEGE COST INCREASE

Obama to reduce student loan debt payments

The president will cut to 10% the maximum percentage of income that students will have to pay on their loans. Similar measures passed by Congress were not due to go into effect until 2014.

By Alexa Vaughn, LA Times Washington Bureau | http://lat.ms/uJzeEI

October 25, 2011, 8:08 p.m. - Reporting from Washington—  President Obama will make student loans easier to repay for millions of borrowers without adding to the national deficit, his administration said Tuesday.
Bypassing an uncooperative Congress, Obama will, by executive order, reduce to 10% the maximum percentage of income that 1.6 million current students will have to pay toward their student loans. They will also be eligible for loan forgiveness in 20 years instead of 25.

Also Graphic: Growing student debt Student loans add to angst at Occupy Wall Street By Geraldine Baum, Los Angeles Times October 25, 2011 ...were in four-year colleges in 2009 used loans to pay tuition, accruing...pay off my student loans after college," House Budget...Michelle, came out of college and law school with $60,000 in student loan debt. "We were paying...

 

He will also allow at least 6 million people with different types of federal student loans a chance to consolidate them into one while reducing their interest rate by a half percent starting in January.

Congress passed similar measures last year, but they are not set to go into effect until July 2014.

"We know, during a time of struggle, families are borrowing more," said Melody Barnes, director of Obama's Domestic Policy Council. "We're trying to lift the burden off them so they can continue to meet their obligations."

Barnes said that burden was being lifted at no cost to taxpayers because of student loan restructuring that lowered the cost of government loan subsidies this year.

Obama will publicly introduce the policies Wednesday in an appearance at the University of Colorado campus in downtown Denver.

Along with the new policies, Barnes said she hoped the campaign also reached people who weren't taking advantage of the current income-based repayment plan, which requires borrowers to pay a maximum of 15% of their incomes. Out of 36 million Americans with student loan debt, only 450,000 have taken advantage of it.

In an example of what the savings will be per month, a nurse who is earning $45,000 a year while paying back $60,000 in federal student loans would pay $690 a month under the standard repayment plan, according to the White House statement. If the nurse took advantage of the current 15% income-based payment limitation, the nurse's monthly payment would drop to $358. Under the Obama plan, someone who graduates next year and is earning the same amount would pay $239 a month.

Unemployed students can pay interest only or defer payments, but the loan still accrues interest during the deferral period.

Barnes said Obama was using executive authority to push the proposals forward because "we cannot wait for congressional Republicans to act."

 

 

California leads nation in escalation of college costs

California's public universities enacted the highest average tuition increase, 21%, of any state, the College Board finds. Steep state funding cuts to higher ed were significant factors in pushing up tuition and fees nationwide.

By Larry Gordon, Los Angeles Times | http://lat.ms/s9Etmb

Cal students pass through Sather Gate at UC Berkeley. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

Also

Graphic: Change in costs

October 26, 2011 - Steep funding cuts to higher education in California and elsewhere were significant factors in pushing average tuition and fees up 8.3% at four-year public colleges and universities nationwide this fall, according to a report by the nonprofit College Board.

California's public universities enacted the highest average tuition increase, 21%, of any state, the annual study on college costs found. The state enrolls a tenth of the nation's public four-year college students.

But even excluding California, tuition prices at such colleges rose significantly nationwide this year, an average of 7%, the College Board found. Apart from California, Arizona and Washington had the highest rates of tuition increases at public four-year campuses, 17% and 16% respectively, while Connecticut and South Carolina were lowest, at 2.5% each.

Sandy Baum, a policy analyst for the College Board, said the recession's toll on tax revenues prompted some states to slash higher education funding. "California seems to be the leader of that" trend, she said.

Yet the study also showed that significant increases in federal grants and tax credits are shielding many students from some of the tuition pain even as unemployment is driving more people to enroll at colleges. "As the states have stepped back, the federal government to some extent compensated for the higher prices," Baum said.

Nationally, in-state tuition and fees at public four-year colleges and universities average $8,244 for this school year. With room and board, the average cost of such schools is $17,131, up 6% from last year, said the report, which is being released Wednesday.

Even with steep hikes, the Cal State system's tuition and fees total $6,521, still below the $7,186 national average for similar master's degree campuses. UC's tuition and fees figure, about $13,200 this year, is well above the national average of $9,185 for doctorate-granting institutions, although UC leaders say it is on par with other top public colleges.

At California's community colleges, this year's 37% tuition jump was the steepest percentage increase in the nation, but actual tuition and fees remain the lowest — $1,119 compared to an average of $3,288 for two-year colleges in the rest of the country.

Meanwhile, the nation's private nonprofit four-year colleges raised tuition and fees 4.5% this year, to a national average of $28,500. With room and board, the price tag averaged $38,589, up 4.4% from last year.

Critics of college pricing have long complained that tuition rises much faster than inflation, which was 3.6% for the year ending in July, and that schools should try harder to rein in costs. In the last decade, the percentage growth has moderated somewhat at private schools, averaging 2.6% above inflation annually, but has risen faster than in recent decades at public four-year schools, to 5.6% annually above inflation.

Patrick Callan, president of the Higher Education Policy Institute, a San Jose-based think tank, said universities still resist efficiencies, especially in adopting new technology and persuading research faculty to teach more classes. "There is a real lack of serious attention to productivity and innovation," he said.

Baum and other experts noted that the actual cost for students often is much lower than a college's sticker price. Grants and federal tax benefits averaged $5,750 for students at public four-year colleges and $15,530 for those at private nonprofit schools, according to a financial aid study also released by the College Board.

But even as the number and size of federal Pell Grants for financially needy families increase and more people are eligible for tuition tax credits, the report said, complex aid policies "make it difficult for many of those who most need the help to understand and navigate the system."

The study showed increased reliance on loans, especially those backed by the federal government. About 56% of students who earned bachelor's degrees at public colleges in 2009-10 graduated with debt, with an average burden of $22,000. At private nonprofit schools, 65% of graduates had loans, with an average debt load of $28,100.

WHY A SCHOOL DISTRICT REJECTED $2.5 MILLION FEDERAL GRANT + more

 

By Valerie Strauss,  Washington Post/The Answer Sheet | http://wapo.st/vvJvRw

1:01 PM ET, 10/24/2011 - In these troubled economic times, it would take a lot for a school district to turn down a gift of $2.5 million. But that’s just what the Oregon City School District has done.

The 8,100-student district was part of a group of school systems and a non-profit organization that applied to the federal government for a federal grant through the “Teacher Incentive Fund.” That fund awards money to districts that agree to implement performance-based compensation systems in high-needs schools for teachers and principals that include the use of standardized test scores and merit pay.

Officials in Oregon City’s district and teachers union thought, according to the Oregonian, that they could take the money — which the coalition won in 2010 — without implementing performance pay.

But the district, which has spent $55,000 of the $2.54 million grant, has been unable to come up with a merit pay plan, so it is leaving the program and therefore won’t use the rest of its allotted money, the newspaper reported. The U.S. Department of Education refused a request from the district to allow it to implement a plan that did not use test scores to hand out performance bonuses.

District Superintendent Larry Didway was quoted by the Oregonian as saying: “We certainly, as a team, do not believe that providing an incentive to teachers based on increased test scores of any individuals is going to make a difference in student achievement."

Right he is, and it’s past time that the Education Department acknowledged that there is no real evidence that using test scores for evaluation is a valid and reliable assessment tool.

The National Research Council issued a report earlier this year concluding that incentive programs for schools, teachers and students aimed at raising standardized test scores are largely unproductive in generating increased student achievement. The council is the research arm of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine.

Other studies too, have found fault with the validity of “value added” methods that are used to evaluate teachers and principals based on student standardized test scores, yet the Obama administration continues to push reforms that use this approach.

Some of the best performing school districts in the country right here in the Washington D.C. area — such as Fairfax County and Montgomery County, manage to have fine evaluation systems without using test scores. When will the federal government get the message?

Full coverage from Google News

School District Says No To Teacher Bonus Grant

NPR - Rob Manning - - ‎Oct 25, 2011‎

Education Secretary Arne Duncan visited Oregon earlier this month, and he heard from an Oregon City teacher who complained about the rules of a performance-based pay bonus grant. Education Secretary Arne Duncan visited Oregon earlier ...

Oregon City School District Walks Away From $2.54 Million Grant For ...

Huffington Post - Nick Lahanas - ‎Oct 24, 2011‎

The Oregon City School District has decided to reject a $2.54 million federal grant meant to reward top educators, partly because of philosophical concerns over performance-based pay. When the district won the money in September 2010 through a group ...

Where all the teachers are above average

OregonLive.com - - ‎Oct 25, 2011‎

By The Oregonian Editorial Board Frank Caro, the Tigard High School social studies teacher honored Monday as one of the nation's best teachers, is lucky he doesn't labor in the Oregon City School District. Teachers and administrators there are so sure ...

Oregon City teachers turn down bonuses

KATU - Patrick Preston - ‎Oct 24, 2011‎

OREGON CITY, Ore. - Oregon City educators rejected a multimillion-dollar grant meant to reward teachers, because the money would have been tied to student test scores. The superintendent says staff members couldn't agree on a plan to take advantage of ...

Oregon City School District rejects federal incentive pay for top teachers ...

The Republic - ‎Oct 24, 2011‎

AP OREGON CITY, Ore. — The Oregon City School District is rejecting a $2.5 million federal grant intended to reward top teachers. Superintendent Larry Didway says the district team evaluating the system couldn't agree on using test scores to give merit ...

All 9 related articles »

Oregon

Oregon City Schools Lose Grant Money For Teachers

OPB News - Rob Manning - ‎Oct 24, 2011‎

A Portland-area school district has lost federal funding for an initiative to give teachers money when they do extra work to help students. The Chalkboard Project won a $24 million federal grant last year to test new reward schemes for teachers at ...

Oregon City rejects federal bonus for top teachers

Corvallis Gazette Times - ‎Oct 24, 2011‎

AP | Posted: Monday, October 24, 2011 6:56 am | Loading… The Oregon City School District is rejecting a $2.5 million federal grant intended to reward top teachers. Superintendent Larry Didway says the district team evaluating the system couldn't agree ...

All 5 related articles from Oregon »