VERGARA v. CALIFORNIA LAWSUIT ENDS …but not really

Testimony ends, “final” arguments heard, both sides are to submit written briefs by April 10, with a ruling due within 90 days after that – in July.  Both sides already have said they would appeal if they lose.

Students' interests at center of trial over teacher protection laws

Plaintiffs want to be able to remove ineffective teachers more quickly, but the state says rules governing firings, layoffs and tenure help retain qualified educators.

By Howard Blume | Los Angeles Times | http://lat.ms/1pBkcCp

NOT IN SCHOOL ON A MONDAY: Plaintiff Clara Campbell, 9, adjusts her hair as she listens to attorney Theodore Boutrous speak about a lawsuit to overturn laws that provide seniority protections to California teachers. At the trial's end, both sides asserted that students' interests are at stake. (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times / January 27, 2014)

March 27, 2014, 8:50 p.m.  ::  A groundbreaking, two-month trial challenging teacher job protections in California concluded Thursday with both sides asserting that the interests of students are at stake.

The case, Vergara vs. California, seeks to overturn a set of laws that affect how teachers are fired, laid off and granted tenure.

The Silicon Valley-based group Students Matter brought the lawsuit on behalf of nine plaintiffs, contending that the regulations hinder the removal of ineffective teachers. The result is a workforce with thousands of "grossly ineffective" teachers, which disproportionately hurts low-income and minority students, attorneys said. This outcome makes the laws unconstitutional, they argued.

"Education is the lifeline of both the individual and society," attorney Theodore Boutrous told a Los Angeles courtroom with more than 130 observers. "These statutes are killing that lifeline."

The rules have been defended by the state of California and the state's two largest teacher unions — the California Teachers Assn. and the California Federation of Teachers. Their attorneys countered that it is not the laws but poor management that is to blame for districts' failing to root out incompetent instructors.

Job protections help districts to recruit and retain teachers — which benefits students, attorneys say.

"The interests of students and teachers are aligned," said attorney James Finberg.

The plaintiffs want to streamline a teacher dismissal process that can be long and expensive — and that affords more rights to teachers than to other state employees. They also want to end a layoff process for teachers that relies mostly on seniority rather than on determining which instructors are most effective.

Seniority may be entirely objective, said plaintiffs' attorney Marcellus McRae, but so would layoffs based on height, the alphabet or the ability to dunk a basketball.

Finberg countered that seniority is fair and that experience typically correlates to better performance.

At one point, Superior Court Judge Rolf M. Treu, who will decide the case without a jury, interrupted the defense to question the assertion that better management was the preferable solution if a change in law could benefit students in poorly managed districts.

Deputy Atty. Gen. Susan Carson, representing the state, said remedies include electing a new school board, placing pressure on the school system to fire a superintendent and converting a campus to an independently run charter school.

"If that's the best that the state of California can do to solve these problems, we are in a world of trouble," countered Boutrous during his rebuttal.

The plaintiffs also are contesting the tenure process, under which administrators must decide whether to grant these job protections after about 18 months.

Treu asked the defense why it was so important to defend the 18-month threshold if more time for evaluation could yield a better decision.

Finberg argued that a district could protect students from potential harm by letting go of a borderline instructor. Extending the review period could mean that a poor teacher would remain on staff longer, he said.

Over the course of the trial, attorneys for each side called more than 30 witnesses, including students who described their experiences with teachers they believed were ineffective.

The defense rebutted this testimony with evidence that some of these teachers are highly regarded.

Both sides are to submit written briefs by April 10, with a ruling due within 90 days after that. The losing side is almost certain to appeal.

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Teacher job protections attacked, defended in landmark trial’s closing arguments

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez | Pass / Fail | 89.3 KPCC http://bit.ly/1phI4N3

NOT IN SCHOOL ON A THURSDAY: Plaintiff Elizabeth Vergara speaks during a lunch break news conference during the closing arguments of the trial in Los Angeles. - Adolfo Guzman Lopez

March 27th, 2014, 4:32pm  ::  The closing arguments of the Vergara vs. California trial on Thursday painted two vastly different pictures of whether students are harmed by the job protections enjoyed by public school teachers.

“The statutes have a real and appreciable impact on the exercise of a fundamental right. And here that fundamental right is an equal shot at an education that will prepare one for life,” lawyer Ted Boutrous said to Judge Rolf Treu.

Boutrous is one of the lawyers representing nine California public school students who alleged in the lawsuit that led to the trial that their exposure to ineffective teachers denied them the state’s guarantee of an adequate education.

Boutrous reminded Judge Treu that his side questioned 30 witnesses over two months, including public school superintendents, teachers, parents, researchers and the student plaintiffs. Testimony showed, Boutrous said, that bad teachers aren’t fired early in their careers because the state’s seniority-based layoffs allow them to stay on the job. The granting of tenure and a complicated, costly firing process also keep bad teachers on the job, he said.  Boutrous played a video of witness Raj Chetty, a Harvard economist.

“Having a highly effective teacher significantly improves children’s outcomes and having a highly ineffective teacher conversely does substantial harm,” Chetty said in the video.

Chetty had done a study tracking 2.5 million public school students, during and after their school careers, to find out the impact of teachers on students.

“This is hard data, it proves our case, it proves these students are being harmed throughout their lives and we request that the court put a stop to this by striking down these statutes,” Boutrous said.

The trial is being closely watched by many of the state’s top education and political leaders and is widely viewed as a bellwether case for public education reform efforts nationwide.

The roughly 80 people in the audience included former California Governor Pete Wilson and LA Unified Superintendent John Deasy, who’d testified for the plaintiffs that the teacher firing process is ineffective. The presidents of the state’s top teachers unions held press events before the proceedings, in which they said that this case is an effort to undermine teacher protections which are crucial to academic freedom and effectiveness.

Judge Rolf Treu underlined the high-stakes nature of the trial before the first lawyer spoke. He asked everyone in the courtroom to turn around and look at two paintings on the courtroom’s back wall, portraits of Judges Earl Warren and Donald Wright.

“Justice Warren wrote the decision in Brown vs. Board of Education. Justice Wright concurred and was chief justice when the Serrano versus Priest cases came down. Both decisions have an impact on what we’re doing here today,” he said.

The Serrano ruling, four decades ago, struck down as unconstitutional the state’s school funding method, which used local property taxes to fund local schools.

Plaintiffs’ lawyers argued during the trial that their case would have a far-reaching effect, just as the Serrano case did.

Deputy California Attorney General Susan Carson – defending the state’s laws against the suit - opened her side’s closing arguments by questioning the validity of using student test scores to measure whether a teacher is doing a good job.

“Aside from a handful of anecdotes, plaintiffs have primarily relied on value added methodology, VAM studies, conducted in LAUSD to establish that there are a significant number of grossly ineffective teachers throughout California,” she said.

Carson and her side’s lawyers argued during the trial that well-managed districts are already able to identify and fire bad teachers under the current system with teacher job protections in place.

Plaintiff Brandon DeBose, who had testified that he experienced teachers who insulted his abilities, is now on his way to graduating and going to college, along with other student plaintiffs in the case.  That fact, according to comments by defendants’ lawyer Jim Finberg in his portion of closing arguments, underscores that the student plaintiffs did receive an adequate education, without any changes to teacher job protections.

“None of these plaintiffs suffered a real and appreciable harm and none of them faces imminent harm due to the challenged statutes,” Finberg said.

The Vergara trial is a bench trial, which means that Judge Treu - not a jury - will weigh the evidence and come up with a verdict. With the case adjourned on Thursday afternoon, the judge has up to 90 days after April  10 to make a ruling.

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Attorneys give final arguments in Vergara suit challenging laws for teacher hiring, firing

By John Fensterwald  | EdSource Today | http://bit.ly/1dTWjRj

The March 27th, 2014 ::  The  future of tenure and other laws governing how teachers are hired and fired in California is now in the hands of Judge Rolf Treu.

Attorneys in Vergara v. California made their final pitches Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court. The four hours of closing arguments paralleled opening statements two months to the day and 52 witnesses ago, with diametrically different views on whether teachers’ workplace protections harm  many – or any –  of the state’s most vulnerable schoolchildren.

<<Judge Rolf Treu must issue a ruling on the case by early July. Source: Courtroom View Network

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Beatriz Vergara of Los Angeles and eight other students in five California school districts by Silicon Valley businessman David Welch. He started the nonprofit Students Matter to file and promote the case and hired a high-profile team of lawyers, led by Theodore Olson and Theodore Boutrous. They challenged three statutes laying out the teacher dismissal process, two laws establishing tenure – the due process guarantees given teachers after two years on the job – and layoffs by seniority, known as LIFO for the “last in, first out” process.

The state’s two teachers unions have characterized Vergara as part of a larger, ideological effort by wealthy individuals like Welch to undermine unions, scapegoat teachers and divert attention from systemic issues like  inadequate school funding and poverty.

But in his closing argument, live streamed by the Courtroom View Network, Boutrous said the lawsuit has the right focus. “Teachers have the most important impact” in a school – that is not disputed, he said. “We would love to solve all of the problems and difficulties in our school system, but we focused on something that can be changed” – laws he asserts are damaging to children.

“We know grossly ineffective teachers harm students; they haunt them for the rest of their lives,” he said.

Lead plaintiffs attorney Theodore Boutrous makes a statement during closing arguments. Source: Courtroom View Network>>

Boutrous recapped the evidence of two expert witnesses in the case. Thomas Kane, an education and economics professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, presented data showing that a student taught by a teacher in the bottom 5 percent of effectiveness – what plaintiffs categorize as “grossly ineffective teachers” – would fall nine months behind in English and nearly a year in math, compared with students taught by an average teacher. Raj Chetty, another Harvard economics professor, crunched test score data on 2 million students over two decades and concluded that replacing the worst-performing 5 percent of teachers would increase college admissions, lower pregnancy rates and raise average lifetime income per student by $50,000. Boutrous cited the findings as proof of the ongoing human costs of keeping the worst-performing teachers.

But defense attorney Susan Carson, a supervising deputy state attorney general, said the data is “not effective or credible.” Both Kane and Chetty used a “value added methodology,” called VAM, which defense experts said is unreliable, to identify worst-performing teachers. And defense witnesses argued that multiple measures – observations, portfolios of student work and local assessments, not test scores alone – should be used to evaluate teachers. “None of our administrators testified that they used or needed to use VAM,” Carson said.

While agreeing that there may be a small percentage of grossly ineffective teachers in California, the two sides disagreed on the central issue of the case – whether the challenged laws were at fault and whether striking them down would be wise.

Boutrous and co-plaintiffs attorney Marcellus McRae, who also spoke during closing arguments, argued yes. The state’s teacher protection laws perpetuate a cycle of saddling classrooms with the worst teachers. They are concentrated in low-income schools, they said, disproportionately denying those students their constitutional right of an equal opportunity to an education.

“Have we not had enough of short-shafting poor people and minorities?” McRae asked. “This abomination must stop; there is no debate. They (ineffective teachers) are unequally distributed.” Because there’s clear harm and a violation of the constitutional rights of low-income children, plaintiffs argued, the burden falls on the state to prove the laws serve a valid purpose and there are no better alternatives. “Instead, the defense has been doing gymnastics to justify an irrational system,” Boutrous said.

But Carson and James Finberg, an attorney for the California Teachers Association and California Federation of Teachers, which joined the defense, said that teacher protections such as tenure provide job security. Striking down the laws  would “remove a factor creating a stable job force,” Finberg said.  And they said there was no evidence that the nine students had suffered appreciable harm and that the laws had anything to do with how teachers are assigned to schools or why more experienced teachers transfer to more affluent areas. They cited defense witness Linda Darling-Hammond, a Stanford University education professor, who testified that poor schools with adequate resources and effective principals will draw and keep effective teachers.

Laws together compound harm

Boutrous and McRae said the five laws act in tandem, causing “symbiotic harm” for students.

They said the current tenure law, which grants permanent status to teachers after two years on the job, doesn’t provide enough time – closer to 16 months in reality, according to witnesses  – for administrators to make informed decisions. Because teachers improve over several years, less time involves a “crap shoot” that is not good enough for children, McRae said, especially when there are alternatives, like a probation period of three to five years, which most states have adopted.

But as with most aspects of the case, dueling superintendents disagreed. Principals and administrators for the defense said they were able to judge who would be effective within 18 months or less. It wouldn’t make a difference to give mismanaged districts – Finberg repeatedly cited Oakland Unified as one – more time.

Boutrous said that once hired, the state’s 17-step “arduous, Byzantine dismissal statutes make it costly and time-consuming beyond belief” to fire teachers that “all would agree are grossly ineffective.” McRae said the independent Commission on Teacher Competence, which hears appeals of dismissed teachers, fires an average of 2 out of 277,000 teachers each year. That percentage is “so small you would need a subatomic microscope to see it,” McRae said.

<< James Finberg, attorney for the California Teachers Association and California Federation of Teachers, speaks during  closing arguments. Source: Courtroom View Network

Persuading teachers to agree to a financial settlement or to resign or transfer to another school are not adequate solutions, McRae said, adding, “A workaround is an admission of an ineffective statute.”  Superintendents testifying for the plaintiffs, who included Los Angeles Unified Superintendent John Deasy, and former superintendents Tony Smith of Oakland Unified and Jonathan Raymond of Sacramento City Unified, said costs, time and energy were factors in deciding whether to move ahead with dismissals, and they’d have pursued more if the laws were less onerous.

Superintendents for the defense testified that they have avoided costly dismissal proceedings. Finberg pointed out that numerous witnesses testified that when evaluations are done by well-trained administrators, teachers resign, retire or settle for small amounts, such health care coverage for a few months. That’s why McRae’s statistic is deceiving, he said.

Anticipating the defense’s argument, McRae said the claim that dismissal laws don’t pose a problem in well-managed districts is “callous.”

“Children can’t control whether they live in a well-managed district,” and the state Supreme Court has ruled that the state cannot leave it to districts to enforce a constitutional obligation to equal opportunity, he  said. The court said to the state, “Stop it, just stop it. Do not abrogate your responsibility,” McRae said, calling it “an embarrassment for any state, let alone this state, to take this position” and ignore bad laws.

There was no common ground on layoff laws. Finberg said basing layoffs on seniority is objective and fair. The alternative, UC Berkeley economics and public policy professor Jesse Rothstein testified, is an expensive, subjective and a divisive process of rating the effectiveness of every teacher each year. Boutrous said LIFO discourages teachers from entering teaching by preserving the worst teachers at the expense of some of the best. California is one of 10 states that require layoffs by seniority, he said; in 20 states, seniority cannot be the sole factor, while in two states, it cannot be considered at all. Local districts set their own rules in 19 states, according to the plaintiffs’ closing presentation.

Judge Treu can choose to strike down none, all, or some of the laws. He will have 90 days after final briefs are filed April 10 to sort through the conflicting testimony and constitutional issues before issuing a ruling. Both sides already have said they would appeal if they lose.

Going deeper

Plaintiffs’ presentation at closing arguments, March 27, 2014

Teachers unions’ press conference before closing arguments, March 27, 2014

Previous EdSource Today coverage of Vergara vs State of California

Vergara, as documented and  explained by plaintiffs Students Matter

Vergara, as documented and explained by the CTA and CFT

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More Coverage

California case challenges teacher job protection laws

Reuters - ‎Mar 27, 2014‎

"I'm here today because my education is very important to me," lead plaintiff Elizabeth Vergara, 16, told a news conference during a break in the hearing. "Right now we're kids and we can't do this alone." Students Matter boasts the firepower of a Los Angeles ...

California Teacher Tenure Seen Doing Permanent Student Harm (4)

Businessweek - ‎Mar 27, 2014‎

Theodore 'Ted' Boutrous Jr, lawyer at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLp, right, is joined by nine California public school students who are suing the state to abolish its laws on teacher tenure as he speaks during a news conference outside the Los Angeles ...

High-Stakes Teacher Tenure Case Goes to the Judge in California

Courthouse News Service - ‎Mar 28, 2014‎

Two years ago, the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher law firm signed on to represent eight California public students targeting teacher tenure, in Vergara v. California. The Superior Court case went to trial this year, with the students alleging that the state's education ...

Closing arguments in major California education reform case

Christian Science Monitor - ‎Mar 27, 2014‎

Lawyers made closing arguments Thursday in a California trial that could have far-reaching consequences for how teachers at public schools are hired and fired. Skip to next paragraph. In Pictures Inside American classrooms with Monitor photographers.

Attorneys argue value of California teacher tenure laws

Los Angeles Daily News - ‎Mar 27, 2014‎

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Attorneys argue whether teacher tenure laws help or hurt California students

Greenfield Daily Reporter - ‎Mar 28, 2014‎

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Attorney: End of tenure bad for students, teachers

Manteca Bulletin -‎Mar 27, 2014‎

More than 150 people, including numerous students, parents, teachers and administrators, were in court to hear Thursday's closing arguments. Among them were many of the nine students who brought the lawsuit, Vergara v. California. Also present were ...

Attorney: It's Too Time-Consuming to Fire a Bad Teacher

Patch.com - ‎Mar 28, 2014‎

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Lawsuit targets teacher tenure in California

abc7.com - ‎Mar 27, 2014‎

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Attorneys Lob Closing Arguments in Landmark Case for Education Equality in CA

NBC Southern California - ‎Mar 27, 2014‎

Added Elizabeth Vergara, the named plaintiff of the case: “We need good teachers in schools to help us, to inspire us and to work with us to learn.” Theodore Boutrous, the attorney for the plaintiffs, argued Thursday that there are grossly ineffective teachers in ...

Vergara approaching time for Treu judgement

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Teacher-tenure debate ends in court; decision likely months off

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Landmark Teacher Tenure Trial Concludes

Annenberg TV News - ‎Mar 27, 2014‎

PDT. story. A landmark education trial, Vergara v. California, concluded in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom on Thursday, as lawyers on both sides made the case for why teacher tenure and employment protection laws should either be kept or discarded.

Closing Arguments Conclude In Landmark Teacher Tenure Trial

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Lawsuit over California tenure laws

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LOS ANGELES—After weeks of testimony from top school officials and others, attorneys were preparing to make their final arguments in the trial of a lawsuit that seeks to make it harder for teachers to obtain tenure and easier to fire those judged incompetent.

Teacher job protections attacked, defended in landmark trial's closing arguments

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Anti-Tenure Lawyer: Bad Teachers Make Students Suffer for Life

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Russlynn Ali + The Case Against Teacher Tenure

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U.S. SCHOOLS PLAGUED BY INEQUALITY ALOMG RACIAL LINES, STUDY FINDS

In discipline, access to education and other factors, data on U.S. public schools show patterns of inequality tied to race.

By Lalita Clozel, L.A. Times | http://lat.ms/1hb83PZ

Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr., left, and Education Secretary Arne Duncan discuss results of a new civil rights study on access to education and unfair disciplinary practices in U.S. public schools during a visit to J.O. Wilson Elementry School in Washington. (Mark Wilson / Getty Images / March 21, 2014)

March 21, 2014, 10:07 p.m.  ::  WASHINGTON — Two-fifths of the nation's public school districts offer no preschool programs, and most of those that do offer only part-day programs. Black students account for less than a fifth of those in preschool across the nation but make up almost half of the students who are suspended from preschool multiple times.

Those results from the first comprehensive survey in nearly 15 years of civil rights data from the 97,000 U.S. public schools show they remain marked by inequities. The report released Friday by the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights, which includes data from the 2011-12 school year, offers no explanation for the stark differences.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr., who unveiled the report at J.O. Wilson Elementary School here, urged states and school districts to take steps to eliminate the disparities.

Duncan denounced the inequities as "socially divisive, educationally unsound, morally bankrupt and economically self-destructive." He said the report "paints a stark portrait of inequity," adding that "this must compel us to act."

The report found that black students were three times more likely to be suspended and expelled than white students.

Holder said these results confirmed that the "school-to-prison pipeline" is a reality for boys of color. "A routine school discipline infraction should land a student in the principal's office," Holder said, "not in a police precinct."

But he also said there were no plans to modify security measures in schools. "We want to support schools and make sure that we keep these schools safe," while being mindful not to contribute to the school-to-prison pipeline, he said.

In January, the Education and Justice departments unveiled new guidelines urging schools to implement alternative discipline solutions and avoid discriminatory practices.

Friday's report also highlighted racial inequities in access to education. For example, a quarter of the high schools with high percentages of black and Latino students do not offer Algebra II.

Minority students were more likely to be taught by first-year teachers, and in many districts teachers at schools with high proportions of black and Latino students were paid less than counterparts at schools with lower minority populations.

Blacks, who compose 16% of the total school population, represent 27% of students referred to law enforcement and 31% of students subjected to a school-related arrest, according to the report.

Pacific Islander, Native American and Native Alaskan children were also two times as likely as their white peers to be held back.

The report found that more than 8,000 toddlers out of more than a million had been suspended from preschool.

Walter Gilliam, an associate professor at Yale University who has conducted research on expulsion rates among black preschoolers, said the report did not provide enough context for a deep analysis but confirmed previous findings on early childhood school discipline.

There is a "grave overreaction to discipline" in early education, he said, citing a 2012 incident in which a Georgia kindergartner was arrested and handcuffed for throwing a tantrum in the classroom.

Preschool programs play a major role in reducing educational inequities, Gilliam said. Disadvantaged students profit most from these programs, which correlate with higher high school graduation rates, higher future incomes and a lower likelihood of committing crimes.

"The reason that we have preschool programs in the first place is to help give children an opportunity to be successful," he said. Expelling kindergartners makes as much sense as "taking sick people out of hospitals."

Another finding revealed that 1 in 5 high schools lacked even a single counselor.

Secretary Duncan chided school districts for failing to adopt local measures to end these systemic inequities.

He noted that President Obama had proposed a $300-million program in his budget to encourage "state and district efforts to aggressively tackle achievement and opportunity gaps."

"We just need Congress to catch up with what's going on in the real world," Duncan said.

But, Holder acknowledged, "achieving these goals will not be easy, and progress will not take hold overnight."

●●see also: 3 stories: Young black males DISPROPORTIONATELY SUSPENDED …EVEN WHEN THEY ARE PRESCHOOLERS in the March 23rd 2014 edition of 4LAKids

Avoiding the front-runners: UTLA BOARD RECOMMENDS - ¡Not Endorses!- 3 TEACHERS FOR LA UNIFIED SEAT

 

UTLA board endorses 3 teachers for LA Unified seat, not Omarosa

by LA School Report | http://bit.ly/1dn0U3P

March 20, 2014 9:37 am  ::  The board of directors of the Los Angeles teachers union, UTLA, voted last night to recommend that the union endorse three teachers for the vacant District 1 board seat. The special election is June 3.

In recommending Sherlett Hendy-Newbill, Rachel Johnson and Hattie McFrazier, a retired teacher, the board chose to withhold endorsing the fourth teacher in the race, Omarosa Manigault, who is a substitute teacher.

The board’s recommendations now go before the UTLA House of Representatives March 26 for a final decision on whom, if anyone, the union endorses. To win a UTLA endorsement, a candidate needs 60 percent of the representatives’ vote.

If a runoff is needed, the union will reconsider its options.

The other three candidates for the seat are George McKenna, Alex Johnson and Genethia Hudley-Hayes.

AALA VOTES TO ENDORSE DR. GEORGE MCKENNA

Associated Administrators of L.A. Update - Week of March 24, 2014

Members of the AALA Political Action Steering Committee reviewed records and interviewed nine candidates for election to the District 1 seat on the Board of Education and made recommendations to the full PAC Council during Representative Assembly on March 13, 2014 (see following article). The Council, AALA’s legal arm for conducting candidate and ballot measure activity, unanimously voted to endorse veteran educator and former LAUSD Local District Superintendent Dr. George J. McKenna.

Read More → [downloads pdf]

SAY GOODBYE TO PUBLIC SCHOOLS: Diane Ravitch warns Salon some cities will soon have none

 

"Why destroy public education so that a handful can boast they have a charter school in addition to their yacht?"

 

Josh Eidelson interviews Diane Ravitch for Salon |  http://bit.ly/1ewAMkT

 

 

Diane Ravitch (Credit: Paul Wolfe)

Wednesday, Mar 12, 2014 05:30 AM PST  ::  Once a George H.W. Bush education official and an advocate for greater testing-based accountability, Diane Ravitch has in recent years become the nation’s highest-profile opponent of Michelle Rhee’s style of charter-based education reform (one also espoused by Barack Obama).

In a wide-ranging conversation last week, Ravitch spoke with Salon about new data touted by charter school supporters, progressive divisions over Common Core, and Chris Christie’s ed agenda. “There are cities where there’s not going to be public education 10 years from now,” Ravitch warned. A condensed version of our conversation follows.

Salon: The conference of your Network for Public Education closed with a call for congressional hearings on high-stakes standardized testing. What would those hearings look like and what do you think they’d uncover?

Diane Ravitch: I think they would ask, for example, about costs. There are many states that are cutting the budget for public schools at the same time that they’re paying a lot out for testing… Texas, for example, a couple of years ago… cut $5.3 billion out of the public schools, and at the same time gave Pearson a contract for almost $500 million… They said that there would be 15 end-of-course exams in order to graduate high school and caused a parent rebellion: There were so many angry moms, they organized a group called TAMSA – Texans Advocating for Meaningful Student Assessment — better known as Moms Against Drunk Testing…

There are school districts where a very significant part of the school year is spent preparing to take the tests… Testing companies are selling what they call “interim assessments”… So kids are getting test prep for test prep. And the more time that is devoted to testing and preparing for tests, the less time is devoted to actual instruction…

I was in Pittsburgh last fall, where the budget cuts were so severe that [a] high school marching band has no instruments, but they have testing…

Los Angeles just made a deal a few months ago to spend $1 billion to equip every student and staff member with an iPad. The money was taken from a 25-year bond for school construction, to buy disposable equipment. The iPads will be obsolete in three or four years… Meanwhile, the schools have unmet repair dates… And at the same time, art teachers have been laid off. They’re talking about integrating the arts into other subjects, which means no art teachers… They’ve also closed half the libraries in the elementary and middle school. So what are the opportunity costs of spending all this money for testing?

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And I don’t think we’ve even begun to understand the bill that’s going to come in. Because as part of the move to Common Core, all testing is supposed to go online, across the nation. Well, this is a bonanza for all the vendors — and nobody has even investigated the question: How many billions are going to be spent to put every school and every child in front of a computer? … Kindergarten kids don’t know how to keyboard a computer.

We’re also interested… [in] abuses of standardized testing… This story that was all over that national media a few weeks ago, about this child who was dying in hospice — and the state of Florida insisted that he had to take his test… Then there was the child born without a brain stem — they wanted him tested too.

Salon: The iPads that you mentioned — were the iPads for the purpose of taking tests?

Diane Ravitch: They were taken solely for the purpose of preparing for Common Core testing…

In New York State when they gave the Common Core testing last spring, 3 percent of the English [language] learners passed it. 97 percent failed it…

It’s gotten out of control… Arne Duncan and Barack Obama’s Race to the Top requires states to use the test scores to judge the teachers… It’s not valid, it’s not accurate. You’re really grading the teachers by who are the kids in her classroom.

Salon:In a piece earlier this year critiquing high-stakes testing, [American Federation of Teachers President] Randi Weingarten maintained her support for the Common Core standards themselves, on the grounds that they are “a set of standards designed to help make the transition from just knowing and memorizing information to having the skills and habits to apply knowledge, which is critically important in today’s world.” Why do you disagree?

Diane Ravitch: Well, we don’t know that. The fact is, we have no evidence that the Common Core standards are what we say they are until we’ve tried them. They haven’t been tried anywhere, they’ve been tested — and we know that where they’re tested, they cause massive failure. So I would say we need to have more time before we can reach any judgment that they have some miracle cure embedded in them.

I know, and a lot of teachers know, they’re totally inappropriate for children in kindergarten, first grade, second grade and third grade, because when they were written there was no one on various writing committees who was an expert in early childhood education… They’re also totally inappropriate for children who have disabilities — they can’t keep up. There’s an assumption in the Common Core that if you teach everybody the same thing, everybody will progress at the same speed. And that’s not human nature. It doesn’t work that way.

But I think Randi also said — and she’s been evolving in her position — that the Common Core standards should be decoupled from the testing. And we’re on the same page. She also agrees — we’ve talked about this — that the standards need to be reviewed by expert teachers, and wherever a fix is needed, fix them. That’s my position. I’m not opposed to them, I’m opposed to them in their current form, and I’m opposed to the standardized testing that’s linked to them.

Salon:More broadly, how do you assess the roles of the national AFT, and the [National Education Association], in the fight over education reform? Are there transformations that you want to see within those unions?

Diane Ravitch: The teachers across America are being crushed… Experienced teachers, veteran teachers, excellent teachers, are feeling that it’s not a profession anymore — it’s just become a testing technician. It’s not the job they signed on for.

I was in North Carolina a couple of weeks ago — they’re having a massive brain drain of teachers. Florida just released the results of their teacher evaluations, and almost half of their Teachers of the Year were called “ineffective teachers.” I mean, there comes a point where, who would want to be a teacher in this country?

So I’d like to see the NEA in particular become more outspoken. I think Randi’s quite outspoken. But what’s happening at the state level is a nightmare for teachers, and for the teaching profession. What’s happening with federal policy is part of what’s encouraging an assault on the teaching profession.

The idea that you can judge teachers by the test scores of their students is not supported by evidence or experience. It is encouraging “teaching to the test.” It’s encouraging a narrowing of the curriculum. It’s encouraging massive outlays for standardized testing. And it just has no evidence behind it.

Salon: In 2012, when the Newark Teachers Union announced a deal to institute peer evaluation of teachers, but also [Mark] Zuckerberg-funded, testing-influenced performance bonuses, you told me that there was “a very good possibility that the Newark Teachers Union, and Randi Weingarten, is taking Chris Christie to the cleaners” in terms of the amount of money in the deal –

Diane Ravitch: Right.

Salon:– but that paying teachers based on test scores is “treating them like donkeys rather than professionals,” and that teachers elsewhere were saying “How are we going to be able to fight this off if they agreed to it in Newark?” How do you assess what’s happened there since then?

Diane Ravitch: What’s happening now is the superintendent of schools, appointed by Chris Christie, has said she has plans to lay off as many as one thousand teachers, and that she wants to convert about a third of the schools over from public schools to charter schools. And the privatization of public education is going rapidly apace in Newark, and she’s not backing down. In fact she announced that she wouldn’t go to any more meetings of the board of education — [which legally is] an elected advisory board.

Newark has not had local control of its schools for almost 20 years. They’ve been under state control…

And the teacher’s contract is null and void when it comes to all these school closings. So as they close schools they’re going to shed union teachers, crush the teachers, lay off people and replace them with Teach for America.

Salon:Do you believe that public education would be better off if Teach for America were to shut down?

Diane Ravitch: I think that public education would be better off if Teach for American trained young people to become assistant teachers, and they would then come into the classroom to help experienced teachers, learn their craft, and then spend two years as teachers. Obviously, they’re not going to shut down. They’re one of the wealthiest organizations in America… Look at their board of directors — wow. They got $50 million from Arne Duncan, $100 million from Eli Broad and friends, and $100 million from the Walton Foundation. They’re not going away, but what they need to do is, first of all, to make sure that when they send these young kids in the schools that they have some training. Five weeks of training does not a professional make. So they’re coming in unprepared for the challenges they face.

And then after two years, most of them are gone. They should make a commitment to three years, and the first year ought to be a year of preparing to learn how to teach.

Salon:What has been the impact on the national fight of the Chicago teachers’ strike?

Diane Ravitch: I think it was incredibly encouraging to teachers across the country to see the Chicago Teachers Union unified… What was particularly impressive was they were not striking for wages or benefits for themselves — they were on strike for better teaching and learning conditions. They were striking for the kids, and they also had the support of Chicago parents. The only support they didn’t have was the national media.

So that strike was massively mis-portrayed in the media, as “there go those greedy teachers again, look at how much money they’re making, making more money than the impoverished parents of their kids.” Which was ridiculous. But I think it was inspiring to teachers across the country, and it showed the teachers, at least in one city, were not going to lie down and allow their kids to be in an overcrowded classroom with no arts, no library, and a lot of things they didn’t have that Rahm Emmanuel’s kids expect as part of their schooling.

Salon:And the move in Chicago, as well as elsewhere, to boycott standardized tests — where do you see that going?

Diane Ravitch: The test that they’re boycotting — right now there’s just a couple different schools that are doing it — is a test that’s being phased out. So it doesn’t really have a lot of huge impact — and yet the Chicago public schools are reacting in a very punitive fashion.

In reading stories from the Chicago press, about how they keep sending out directives saying isolate the kids, tell the kids they have to sit and make an affirmative statement — it’s a hysterical response, about “oh my God, some child, somewhere, might not take a standardized test.” And you have to kind of step back and say, “When did Pearson and McGraw-Hill become the arbiters of privilege in American education?”

…It just goes on and on with the multibillion-dollar corporations determining who are the winners and who are the losers in American society. In effect, we have the standardized testing companies now as the arbiters of our meritocracy…

We’re doing to standardized testing what was done in “Brave New World.” And in “Brave New World,” the meritocracy was determined at conception. We use standardized tests as our means of sorting out kids, and saying “you’re at the top, and you’re at the bottom.” The problem with that is that suggests an end to social mobility. Because the one thing we know about standardized testing is that no matter what standardized test it is, those who have are at the top and those who have not are at the bottom…

There are a few kids who rise to the top despite all obstacles. And kids from really wealthy circumstances who fall to the bottom. But on the whole and consistently, the standardized test is a reflection of socioeconomic status. So in effect the standardized test then becomes a giving to those who have, and… certifying the have-nots as have-nots.

Salon:Governor Andrew Cuomo just told a pro-charter rally that was protesting Mayor Bill de Blasio, “We will save charter schools.” Charter advocates have claimed vindication in the latest 26-state CREDO study from Stanford… After finding in 2009 that charter school students lost the equivalent of 7 days a year of learning in reading compared to traditional public schools, CREDO found last year that they had instead gained 8 days. What do you make of that research?

Diane Ravitch: Who cares? Who cares? Charter schools [are] allowed to throw out the kids they don’t want. They’re allowed to throw out the kids with low scores. They’re allowed to exclude the kids who have severe disabilities. They’re allowed to not accept the kids that don’t speak English. And then you’re going to compare them to… the schools that take all those kids? I mean, really — this is ridiculous.

Every study of the demographics shows that New York charters, like charters everywhere, have different demographics. They are not taking the same kids… They are not taking the kids with English language issues, and when they have kids with disabilities, they are the mildest kind of disabilities. So all of the kids with severe disabilities are in the public schools, and then the charters say, “We beat you.”

…This is trending toward a dual school system: One school system for the privileged kids, or the kids who don’t have big problems… the charters, that are allowed to choose their students and exclude those they don’t want. And the other one, that’s required to take everyone.

Salon: Peter Cunningham, a former assistant secretary in the Obama Education Department, last year accused you of “openly and unrepentantly calling for low standards and implying that whole segments of the student population are not college material…” Is that fair?

Diane Ravitch: Well, that’s ridiculous. That’s ridiculous. You’ve got to remember: Peter is a PR man. He is not an educator. I have never called for low standards, and whatever he said was simply spin…

I just repeat: he’s a PR man. He is not an educator.

Salon: Have you seen any shift in any direction by the Obama administration since the beginning of the presidency?

Diane Ravitch: Public schools today are under siege… A Detroit news writer said Governor Snyder wants to destroy public education in Michigan. Have you heard Arne Duncan go to Michigan to complain about that? Did Arne Duncan go to Wisconsin to defend the public workers when Scott Walker was taking away all their collective bargaining rights and attacking the unions?

No. He was down in Miami, with the president and Jeb Bush, celebrating a so-called turnaround school that one month later got a notice that it was about to be closed, because it hadn’t turned around.

Salon:And so in your view, has the Obama administration’s approach gotten better or gotten worse over the past few years?

Diane Ravitch: It’s been consistent. Race to the Top was designed by people from the New Schools Venture Fund… a major nexus of charters and privatization and for-profit operations. And the Obama administration [has] now proposed and [is] getting confirmed the CEO of the New Schools Venture Fund to be the Number Two in the U.S. Department of Education…

The previous CEO of the New Schools Venture Fund… was Joanne Weiss, and she’s the one who helped design and oversee Race to the Top, and then became chief of staff to Arne Duncan… She wrote a blog for Harvard Business Review…where she said that creating national standards and tests creates a national market for vendors. Well, I never heard of the U.S. Department of Education having a policy based on creating a national marketplace for vendors.

I mean, what’s happened is that the Obama administration basically has the Republican agenda. The Democratic agenda was equity. Race to the Top is not about equity.

Federal policy should be about money goes where the kids have the highest needs. Federal policy today is competition and a race.

Salon: What is the policy agenda, then, that the Democratic Party should be putting forward on education?

Diane Ravitch: The policy agenda should be one of equity, which is to direct resources from the federal government to the neediest schools, where the kids have the highest needs.

To insist that every school offer children a full education that includes not only the basics of reading and writing and mathematics, but science and the arts, and for language and history and civics. Make sure that every school in this country is appropriately funded. That is, that it has the resources that it needs for the children it enrolls. That’s just basic. We don’t do that now.

There are schools that are being starved of funding, and more and more of the funding is being directed to vendors. And there are cities where there’s not going to be public education 10 years from now. That’s not good. Public education is one of the foundational institutions for a democracy. And yet there will be cities without public education. Their schools will be run by private management. And the private managers will be free to choose their students and exclude ones they don’t want.

Salon: How strong do you think the Obama position is within the Democratic Party at this point?

Diane Ravitch: I have no gauge of the Democratic Party per se. I can tell you that amongst parents and teachers, there’s a growing sense of outrage that their children are being cheated.

Teachers are leaving the profession in large numbers… Back in the 1980s, the modal year of teaching was 15. It’s down to one to two years… The research is very clear that first-year teachers are not the strongest teachers…

This has been the first year that the tide among parents has really turned against all the standardized testing. And the public is beginning to see the picture, which is that their schools are being starved of resources, the schools are on an austerity budget, but there’s plenty of money for vendors and testing.

Salon: Is your side still on defense in this fight nationally?

Diane Ravitch: No. Absolutely not. I mean, we are definitely outspent, there’s no question about that… I don’t think we’re on the defensive – we have the public with us. And if we’re still a democracy, we’re gonna win.

And we see the pushback happening in community after community… High schools are organizing — they’re organized in Providence, where they’ve got the superintendent of schools on their side, arguing with the state board of education… They’re saying don’t use a standardized test as a high school graduation requirement… The kids know more than the state [commissioner] does, because a standardized test by its design will fail a very significant number of kids. And we know who those kids will be…

In North Carolina… they’ve been demonizing the teachers, and one of the laws they passed took away career status from every teacher in the state. And two of the biggest school boards in the state have said, “We won’t comply with the law. We respect our teachers, we want to keep our teachers…we’re gonna sue the state”…

In Texas, we had the moms of Texas persuade the legislature to roll back all the testing. In Tennessee the moms are organized; they call themselves the Mama Bears. We have all kinds of groups all over the country forming as… almost a guerilla force, saying, “We want to protect our kids from all this over-testing, and the education is being hijacked by a philosophy of big data, and it’s bad for kids. And kids are not data points – they’re children… We don’t feel the least bit defensive… We are many and they are few.” But the other part of it is everything that they’re doing now – “they” being this corporate reform movement — is failing… Evaluating teachers by test scores doesn’t work. Charter schools are not better than public schools… Sure you can get more gains if you take out the low-performing kids, but who’s gonna educate the low-performing kids?

Aren’t they human beings? Aren’t they American citizens? Don’t they deserve an education?…

Why destroy public education so that a handful of people can boast they have a charter school in addition to their yacht?

PUBLIC DENIED ACCESS TO LA SCHOOL OFFICIALS’ iPAD SOFTWARE DEMONSTRATION + smf’s 2¢

by Annie Gilbertson, KPCC 89.3 FM  Pass/Fail | http://bit.ly/1iKxBrj

Tom Pennington/Getty Images

March 20th, 2014, 3:11pm  ::  Members of the L.A. Unified school board and a committee investigating the iPad project were given the first demonstration of the tablet's educational software Wednesday evening - but the public wasn't invited and a KPCC reporter was not allowed in the room.

The afternoon meeting with Apple and global education materials publisher Pearson was conducted in the school board's meeting room. Doors were locked and guarded by a security guard and a staffer checking names off a list. Those not invited - including a reporter - were told they were "trespassing" and asked to leave.

"This is the equivalent of us being in a conference room upstairs talking to a vendor," said Greg McNair, an attorney for the school system, outside the boardroom doors.

Controversy has surrounded the software since the start of the program in the fall. L.A. Unified purchased Pearson's program, the Common Core System of Courses, for the iPad based on only a few lessons and promises that the entire K-12 curriculum would be completed by the start of next school year, more than a year after the contract was awarded.

Board member Monica Ratliff, chair of the Common Core Technology Project Ad Hoc Committee probing the purchase, has been asking to see Pearson's program for months.

Ratliff was initially told Apple, the primary contract holder, wouldn't permit it. Later, Pearson scheduled a viewing for her, but canceled less than 24 hours ahead of the January 14th meeting.

Ratliff said she was then told she wouldn't be able to view the software for a few more months while the company bid a high school technology project at the district. At a committee meeting earlier this year, Ratliff called that a ridiculous excuse.

Finally, a review of the software was scheduled at district headquarters for Wednesday. The invitations, obtained by KPCC, said high school content would be excluded because a "cone of silence" has been placed on the high school laptop software bids.

Peter Scheer, at the First Amendment Coalition, said a closed door review like this would not violate California's open meetings law, the Brown Act, as long as no more than two board members were present. Only board members Monica Ratliff and Bennett Kayser attended the afternoon meeting, according to district spokeswoman Shanon Haber.

Apple and Pearson representatives actually participated in two meetings at district headquarters Wednesday - one at 10 a.m. and another at 5 p.m.

The L.A. Unified contract was highly coveted - 19 hardware and software bids came in. An investigation by KPCC found many serious software competitors — with finished, tested products — were turned down in favor of Pearson's unfinished product. Some game-based learning software was incorrectly deemed "digital textbooks."

If fully implemented, the contract with Apple and Pearson is worth about $500 million. Apple will not disclose Pearson's cut. Even district officials said they are kept in the dark but the number is likely in the 10s of millions.

Below is an edited clip of reporter Annie Gilbertson being shut out of the meeting. The other voices are district security guard Able Ochoa, McNair, and an unidentified district employee.

[AUDIO CLIP ::  Public shutout of LA schools' iPad software review]

smf: I attended the meeting as an ex-officio  member of the Board of Ed Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment Committee - and there was no content in the presentation that the public should have been denied access to. It was a pretty cut-and-dry (if positively promotional) presentation of the Pearson Common Core Systems of Courses as currently available on the LAUSD iPads. 

I am not an educator, I leave it to the professionals to adjudge the content and completeness of the Pearson’s content. I am waiting impatiently to hear that opinion. I certainly question the wisdom of entering into a contract of this size and scope with these sorts of terms.

But in the end it’s not about the process – its about the value of the educational content – and here are all reliant upon “take my word for it”.

The question “Why has the media been excluded?” was asked and answered by District staff.  District procurement executive Hugh Tucker said that ground rules for the demonstration established by Apple as prime contractor specifically  forbad the press being present. Representatives from Pearson at the front of the room and  representatives from Apple (unintroduced but identified as such to me) at the back of the room did not refute that statement.

• Pearson claims their content is complete.
• They claim they are delivering the content per the terms and timeline of the LAUSD-Apple contract.
• They represent that they would like to deliver the complete Pearson Common Core System of Courses curriculum for LAUSD review at this time but are forbidden by their contract with Apple – to which LAUSD is not a part - from doing so,

CELES KING IV, Civil Rights Leader, Community Activist, Education Advocate dies at 70

Of his friend and mentor Celes King IV, Miguel Paredes wrote on his Facebook page: http://on.fb.me/1nEcPy8

“I thought that you would outlive all of us...

The first time I met you, was when you were bailing me out of jail after I and countless others were arrested at the South Central Farm! I didn't realize who you were or the important legacy of your family.

< Celes King IV (center), Miguel Paredes (right)

One day a few years later, I was informed that a man named Celes King IV wanted to meet me because he heard I worked for the LAUSD from someone, and that I was vehemently opposed to "school choice" reform. This Giant of a man wanted to meet this Chicano? How could I pass up an opportunity to be mentored by an important figure from such a prominent Civil Rights family?

Meeting you has been one of the greatest blessings that Creator has given me. I learned so much about challenging power and speaking truth to the powerful. I learned to walk into a meeting like I owned the place, to be clear about my agenda and to always do so with dignity.

If this older man with advanced diabetes and a missing foot could walk this tall, what excuse could I ever have for not giving my best effort?

I promise to you that I will fight for our communities (Black and Brown) for as long as I live. I wish the world to know that you were a loving man, a straight up hustler, and one of the hardest working cats I've ever seen. The kind of man that would put his family, community, and loved ones always before himself. The kind of human being who would ask about your wife, your mother, and your sister...

I appreciate that you did for the dream of The Urban Oasis which is a model of self sustainable education that we worked on for nearly 3 years to create without any backing or resources. The model of education will come to fruition some day, but unfortunately you won't be here to see your dream come true.

I'm going to miss you cussing, your beat up jalopy that would run you up and down California, the way you would hug yourself with your arms when you wanted to act like a puppy dog, the way your eyes would light up and you would point at people when you were serious, but most importantly your beautiful smile! You had the kind of 1000 watt smile that would light up a room and your presence was always evident.

I'm going to miss you so much but I'm going to keep talking to you every day so you better listen up!

I Love You Man and I am grateful I was able to tell you that every time I saw you.

The last time I saw you was at the MLK King Day Parade...

Thank you for helping me get my job with SEIU ULTCW! The fact that such a grumpy older African American civil right leader talked so highly about me spoke volumes to them about my ability to work with other communities and I owe that all to YOU!

smf added on that same page:

Scott Folsom: Celes was a big crazy one-legged Black bail-bondsman - a character bigger than life who would've been unbelievable in fiction. He lived life bigger than fiction or what passes for reality in the media ...full of dreams and hopes; a planner and a doer, contagiously enthusiastic - seemingly unstoppable.

He was the real deal and the world is a far better place for him having lived large in it.

Keep the faith.

Miguel Paredes:  I hope his gravestone reads: "larger than life!"

●●smf:  Celes - I do not doubt for a moment that your dream of The Urban Oasis will be become real someday. No because we shut our eyes and believe but because we believe and move ever onward with our eyes wide open!

Godspeed.

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CELES KING IV, community activist and entrepreneur, dies at 70

LA Times Obituary | http://lat.ms/1eS7ObY

Then-Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca shakes hands with Celes King IV after Baca announced he was stepping down. (Mark Boster, Los Angeles Times / January 7, 2014)

March 18, 2014, 5:34 p.m.  ::  Celes King IV, 70, a South Los Angeles community activist whose father was civil rights advocate Celes King III, died Saturday at a San Diego hospital, a family spokesman said.

Adrian Dove, chairman of the California Congress of Racial Equality, said King died during surgery after a heart attack last week. King was the group's vice chairman.

Despite a previous heart attack, a stroke and the loss of a leg to diabetes, King vigorously advocated for educational and prison reform, among other causes, Dove said.

With his prosthetic leg, King drove his Saab convertible from Los Angeles to the state Capitol every week during legislative sessions. Dressed in sharp pastel suits with matching shoes, he buttonholed lawmakers on diverse issues, including prison realignment and other changes that have hit bail-bonds businesses hard.

That was a topic close to the family; in 1947, King's parents started a bail-bonds business in South Los Angeles that is now run by King's sister Teri.

King also built a coalition that changed plans for a proposed subway to keep businesses on Crenshaw Boulevard intact, Dove said.

Born in Los Angeles on Oct. 19, 1943, King was an entrepreneur who at various times operated a pool hall, set up an air shuttle between Miami and Las Vegas, and started a bar in Denver.

His first major foray into local affairs was organizing opposition that delayed the closure of the King-Drew Medical Center. His most recent efforts included advancing measures that would help financially stressed families keep their homes.

"All he ever really wanted was to walk in the footsteps of his father," Dove said. "More and more, he was carrying the torch."

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Noted L.A. civil rights and business leader Celes King succumbs

By Los Angeles Sentinel Newsroom  | New Pittsburgh Courier http://bit.ly/1fHFybI

Celes King !V

Mar 18, 2014   ::  On Saturday, March 15, 2014 well known community leader, political insider and businessman Celes King IV passed away. Celes King was a native of Los Angeles but over the recent years split time between his home here in Los Angeles and his “get a way” home in San Diego, CA.  Celes was the son of well known civil rights activist and businessman Celes King III (Celes King Bail Bond Agency).

King served for several years as the President and CEO of the Congress for Racial Equality (CORE) and was currently serving as active board member of the organization.  CORE which is the lead organization for the MLK Kingdom Day Parade here in Los Angeles and actively working in communities throughout California.

King was an advocate and lobbyist for several businesses and business endeavors throughout Los Angeles and the State of California, he could often be found walking the halls of Sacramento, meeting with legislatures on both sides of the isle and advocating on behalf of undeserved communities of color. King served as the vice chairman, government policy and community relations for Congress of Racial Equality CORE a nonprofit organization that advocates for marginalized communities of color, he was an active member of the Black Community, Clergy and Labor Alliance (BCCLA) and a strong supporter of Black Media throughout the region.

Upon being notified of his passing former BCCLA and SCLC President Rev. Eric P. Lee stated “We have lost a true leader in our community.  Celes followed in the footsteps of his father Celes King, III and was a friend and an advocate for all people, but he was and always has been an un-apologetic advocate for Black People first.  Our community will miss his leadership and I will miss his friendship”.

Funeral arrangements have not yet been set.

LEARNING TO THINK IS THE GOAL

Letter to the Los Angeles Times | http://bit.ly/OksXFm

Re “Common Core learning curve,” Editorial, March14

http://t.co/EHTNQkunD3

Not mentioned in the editorial is the astonishing amount of testing required by Common Core and the requirement that testing be done online.

No Child Left Behind required tests “only” at the end of the year in reading and math in grades three through eight and once in high school. Common Core aims to test all subjects in all grades and includes interim tests throughout the school year.

To take the tests, students must be connected to the Internet with up-to-date computers. After the computers are in place, there will be continual upgrades and replacements. The $1billion set aside by Gov. Jerry Brown for implementing Common Core in California is only the beginning.

There is no evidence that massive online testing will benefit students.

STEPHEN KRASHEN
Los Angeles

Dr. Krashen is a professor emeritus of education at USC.

FROM LAUSD’s SECOND INTERIM FINANCIAL REPORT: “There must be some way outta here, said the joker to the thief”

-- from: 03-18-14 BR271-13/14 2nd Interim Financial Report( Compressed).pdf, page 4 of 80 | District Certification of Interim Report to LACOE | CA Dept of Education |SACS Financial Reporting Software

TODAY’S LAUSD BOARD AGENDA: “the District may not be able to meet its financial obligations for the current fiscal year and for the two subsequent years”

After Prop 30, The LCFF …and the superintendent’s big raise?

New Business for Action
1. Board of Education Report No. 271 – 13/14
Office of the Chief Financial Officer
(2013-14 Second Interim Financial Report) Recommends approval of submission of Second
Interim Financial Report to the Los Angeles County Office of Education with a qualified
certification based on current projections that the District may not be able to meet its financial
obligations for the current fiscal year and for the two subsequent years.

Emphasis added – excuse the red ink, apparently I’m not the only one!

• Live Video Stream Available for this Meeting
• Legacy Video Stream (after the meeting)

 

MEETING MATERIALS

Attachment	Size
03-18-14 BR2713/14 2013-14 Second Interim (Informative).pdf	1.05 MB
03-18-14 BR271-13/14 2013-14 Second Interim Report and Multi-YearProjections.pdf	90.19 KB
03-18-14 BR271-13/14 2nd Interim Financial Report( Compressed).pdf	1.5 MB
03-18-14 Order of Business.pdf	60.28 KB

State Board makes it official: NO API SCORES FOR NEXT TWO YEARS

By John Fensterwald | EdSource Today http://bit.ly/1kFiAHs

March 14th, 2014   ::  With federal approval finally in hand to give a Common Core-aligned practice test this spring, the State Board of Education took the inevitable next step this week. It suspended the Academic Performance Index, the chief measure of schools’ academic growth or progress, for this year and next.

A reconstituted API will resume in 2015-16, incorporating results from the Smarter Balanced assessments, the new Common Core tests for English language arts and math that will be given to students in grades 3 to 8 and grade 11.

California is doing a Smarter Balanced field or practice test this year and formally launching the operational Smarter Balanced test in spring 2015. That test will provide the base API. Results from the 2016 test will provide the growth API, a basis for comparison and calculation of a school’s three-digit API number.

California is in the first stages of transforming its school and district accountability systems, including the creation of new standardized tests in nearly every subject. It is also rethinking the components of the API itself.

Last year, with the passage of AB 484, the state Legislature terminated the administration of nearly all California Standards Tests, the tests measuring students’ knowledge of the old state academic standards, and authorized the transition to new higher quality tests in all subjects, starting with Smarter Balanced assessments in English language arts and math. (Existing science tests in grades 5, 8, and 10, required by federal law, are continuing.) AB 484 also mandated a fresh start by explicitly banning the comparison of schools’ California Standards Tests scores with the Smarter Balanced scores. The state board’s vote to suspend the API officially creates a two-year hiatus.

Civil rights groups and some policy analysts, such as Anne Hyslop of New America Foundation (see her scathing March 13 column), criticized California’s break in accountability as an abdication of efforts to close the achievement gap and inform parents of their children’s progress. They pointed out that other states that adopted the Common Core standards created either transition tests or other ways to bridge the gap in scores between their old and new tests. U.S. Secretary Arne Duncan, pointing to the federal requirement under the No Child Left Behind law to administer annal state tests for accountability purposes, threatened to fine California millions if not billions of dollars.

But California’s education leaders, including state Superintendent Tom Torlakson, state board President Michael Kirst, and a majority of the Legislature took the unified position that California’s teachers and schools needed to focus exclusively on implementing Common Core  and preparing for the new, more rigorous tests. And Duncan relented earlier this month, granting California a waiver without penalties. The state will be allowed to give a Smarter Balanced field or practice test to all students this year and to resume reporting scores for federal accountability purposes under NCLB next year.

The API itself is evolving. Another state law, championed by Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, requires that at least 40 percent of the API incorporate other measures, such as high school graduation rates or perhaps indicators of college and career readiness, starting in 2015-16. The Local Control Funding Formula de-emphasizes the API and standardized tests by including it as only one of eight priorities of school and student achievement that districts must address.

The two-year break in the API will give the state board more time to think through how to fit various pieces and laws together.

Going deeper

• New EdSource report: “Reforming Testing and Accountability: Essential Principles for Student Success in California,” March 2014
• State Board of Education agenda item on suspension of API, item 15, March 2014
• Testing waiver approval letter from Deborah Delisle, Assistant Secretary of Department of Education, March 2014
• Analysis of Assembly Bill 484, changing testing system, June 2013

THELMA MELENDEZ, MAYOR’S EDUCATION ADVISOR, TO JOIN L.A. UNIFIED, Maria Casillas back as Deasy’s interim #2

By Howard Blume, LA Times | http://lat.ms/1g6ki51

March 17, 2014, 12:11 p.m. :: The mayor’s top education advisor, Thelma Melendez de Santa Ana, is joining the Los Angeles Unified School District as a senior administrator.

The 55-year-old Melendez, a former Obama administration official, was talked about in recent times as a contender for the top job at the nation’s second-largest school system.

At L.A. Unified, Melendez will serve as second-in-command for Beyond the Bell, a division that oversees after-school programs, among other functions. She's likely to take over that department after the anticipated retirement of the current head, L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy said.

“I’m very thrilled to have someone of her talent and experience to help us in LAUSD,” Deasy said. “And someone with her extensive knowledge of English learners.”

<<Thelma Melendez de Santa Ana, the mayor's top education advisor, has accepted a senior post in the L.A. Unified School District. (J. Paul Getty Trust)

Beyond the Bell focuses on activities outside the traditional school day, where there is often interplay with a city-sponsored program, a natural fit for Melendez, Deasy added.

In the mayor’s office, Melendez has played a low-profile role on behalf of L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti. That approach was in keeping with a mayor who has been intentionally less visible in the day-to-day affairs of L.A. Unified than his predecessor, Antonio Villaraigosa.

Melendez “has been a valuable member of our team, working on important programs that will improve the lives of young people in L.A., including increasing youth work and learning opportunities in the summer,” Garcetti said in a statement. “I congratulate her on this exciting new opportunity with LAUSD and am sure our work together will continue."

Before joining the mayor’s office, Melendez headed Santa Ana Unified in Orange County, among the state's largest school systems, for two years until her surprise retirement.

In Santa Ana, she developed a broad strategic plan, including a rapid transition to new learning standards adopted by the state. From 2009 to 2011, she served as assistant secretary for elementary and secondary schooling in the U.S. Department of Education. Before that, she headed Pomona Unified for about three years.

Melendez had an often rocky relationship with the teachers union in Santa Ana. Among other issues, the union had criticized a new discipline policy that it said led initially to classroom disruption.

Melendez’s salary will be $140,000, about the same as what she was earning at the mayor’s office.

Deasy also is bringing on retired administrator Maria Casillas as the interim replacement for Department Supt. Jaime Aquino, who left at the end of the year. Aquino was the No. 2 district official.

Casillas won’t be charged with setting policy, but will be a valuable and needed hand on deck until Aquino’s permanent replacement can be found. Casillas will be receiving a relatively nominal salary so that she can maintain her retirement benefits, according to L.A. Unified.

Most recently, she had headed the division in charge of parent education and engagement.