Discipline in a box?: TEACHER PLACED ON LEAVE IN FLAP OVER AUTISTIC BOY’S TREATMENT

The student tells his mother that he was ordered to sit in a cardboard box during class. The principal tells investigators that the boy voluntarily used the box as a refuge.

By Phil Willon, Los Angeles Times | http://lat.ms/xqmwka

February 28, 2012 ::  When Kim Rollins' son asked for a pair of scissors to take to school a few weeks ago, she was heartened that the fourth-grader, diagnosed with an autism-related disorder, was excited by a class project.

No, Sage Rollins explained, he didn't need the scissors for a project. He wanted them so he could cut a window in the cardboard box his teacher sent him to sit in.

Sage, 10, told her that his teacher at Ronald Reagan Elementary School, in the southwest Riverside County community of Wildomar, sent him into the box when she became upset with him. Before that, she forced him to sit in a darkened supply closet, according to Rollins.

"I was outraged. I was insulted," Rollins said from her home in Wildomar, near Lake Elsinore. "I cried when I heard.

School principal Nori Chandler told a Riverside County Sheriff's Department investigator last month that Sage went into a closet on his own, when he wanted "quiet time," and was never sent by the teacher. Sage also told the deputy he went on his own when he needed a quiet place.

The principal told the investigator that a district counselor provided a "decorated large cardboard box" for Sage that was placed in the back of the class, to provide a refuge for him when he had sensory overload, according to the investigative report, a copy of which Rollins gave The Times.

The box, about the size of a large television, was turned on its side, allowing Sage to use the open flaps as a door.

The deputy who investigated the allegations "failed to find any evidence of criminal wrongdoing," and the case has been closed, said Deputy Joshua Morales, a spokesman for the Sheriff's Department. The investigator's report said there did not appear to be any intent by any school employee to mistreat or abuse Sage.

Although she taught Sage in a mainstream classroom, Sabrina Beth MacFarlane has a state education specialist credential for working with special needs students. She has been placed on paid administrative leave by the Lake Elsinore Unified School District and was not available for comment.

"Appropriate personnel action has been taken, and the matter is under investigation," said district spokesman Mark Dennis. "We're taking this matter very seriously."

Rollins' attorney filed an administrative legal claim against the district and the teacher, a likely precursor to a lawsuit. The claim alleges that the isolation was involuntary, punitive and caused other fellow students to ridicule her son.

Using isolation as a punishment for a child with autism-related disorders not only is wrong, it is ineffective, said Ron Leaf of Autism Partnership in Seal Beach, which consults with school districts about teaching children with the disorders.

If the child knows that by acting out, he or she will be given a time out, the child may misbehave intentionally to avoid a stressful situation, such as a challenging lesson or participation in an activity, he said.

"What happened there is wrong in every which way," Leaf said.

Rollins said her son told her that the teacher had sent him to the closet or box for "time outs or when she was mad." She also said that her son went into the closet or box on his own as well.

"If he can get away from the person who is creating a meltdown for him, he would run and hide in the dryer," Rollins said, not being literal. "So the fact that he thinks the closet is a good thing, it means nothing to me."

Clinical psychologist B.J. Freeman, an autism expert at the UCLA School of Medicine, said children with autism "know how to push every button known to God," making it crucial that teachers have the temperament and training necessary to instruct students. That's especially important when students with special needs are placed in a mainstream classroom, Freeman said.

Sage said he found comfort in the darkness and isolation of the box.

"In the big box, I got to do so much relaxing in there," he told The Times. "I bring my jacket, a blanket. Some cushy things."

Rollins said she first noticed Sage's unusual behavior when he was 2 and avoided making eye contact. It wasn't until he was in school that he was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, which is within the autism spectrum of developmental disorders.

Children with Asperger typically are uncomfortable in social situations, have difficulty making friends and develop obsessive interests in a single object or topic. They also may speak in an overly formal manner. Sage is sensitive to loud noises and bright light, and a black curtain is draped across his bedroom to ward off the sunlight.

Until this year, his mother said, Sage had no problems at Ronald Reagan Elementary, where the staff implemented a specific education plan for him, including speech therapy class. An aide accompanies him during class, and a special education instructor and counselor monitor his progress, his mother said. The aide was not available for comment.

"I've always had good teachers who've been there for him," Rollins said.

That began to change when he entered fourth grade in August, Rollins said. She said her son often would complain about being scolded by his teacher. One day, the teacher threw all his colored markers into the trash when he was drawing during class, she said.

"Hey, I know he can get wound up, be a handful," said Rollins, who pulled her son out of school briefly after reporting the incidents. "But I don't see how anyone could act the way she did."

Sage is now in a different classroom, with another teacher. Still, he has had trouble adjusting. Twice in recent weeks he's thrown up after arriving home from school, Rollins said.

"Not because he's sick," Rollins said. "It's nerves."

CHILD ABUSE EXPERT CALLS ON LAUSD TO TEACH HOW TO SPOT PEDOPHILE BEHAVIOR

KNX 10.70 Radio: Reporting Ed Mertz | http://cbsloc.al/y2U3Q4

 

(credit: ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images)

February 27, 2012 11:45 AM LOS ANGELES (CBS) — Should teachers and parents with students in the Los Angeles Unified School District be taught a lesson on how to spot a pedophile?

KNX 1070′s Ed Mertz reports a string of alleged child molestation cases in recent weeks has put pressure on school officials to teach preventative measures to protect kids in the classroom.

“I believe we can spot a very large percentage of these cases,” said Diane Cranley, founder of the group Talk About Abuse to Liberate Kids (TAALK).

The Laguna Niguel-based organization is aimed at tips on how to identify pedophilia behavior and ways teachers and parents can support victims of abuse.

One of the ways molesters lure in their victims is by first gaining the trust of children and sometimes even their parents.

“People giving them gifts, people taking them on special outings,” Cranley said.

She expects even more allegations to surface in coming weeks after teachers at several LAUSD schools are under investigation for sexual abuse and other charges.

Cranley said while not all child abusers will exhibit the same behavior, there is really only one way to prevent new cases from emerging.

“Children should not be alone with adults or anybody that’s significantly older that them, more than a few years,” she said.

An estimated 80 percent of abuse cases occur in “one adult, one child” situations, according to Cranley.

LA UNIFIED TO CONSIDER NEW POLICY CHANGES IN RESPONSE TO MIRAMONTE AND OTHER MOSCONDUCT CASES + smf’s 2¢

By Tami Abdollah, KPCC Pass/Fail | http://bit.ly/zwIs32

 

Grant Slater/KPCC - Parents of students at Miramonte Elementary School escort they children out of school on February 6, 2012.

6:20 a.m. | L.A. Unified's Board of Education will consider a resolution at their next meeting that orders the superintendent to reexamine and reassess all complaints of sexual, physical abuse or harassment logged in its system over the last five years, as well as create standards on how and when the district informs parents of abuse allegations against an employee.

The resolution is being crafted by school board member Nury Martinez, who has spoken out about the need for a policy that improves communication between the district and parents, after many parents learned about the arrests of their children's teachers for sexual misconduct through media reports over the last weeks.

LAUSD is already conducting an internal investigation into whether it notified the state's Commission on Teacher Credentialing of accused teachers, and will (re)report all misconduct cases to the commission over the last three academic years to ensure no one slipped through the cracks.

This resolution, if approved by the board, would have the district go back through its employee files over the last five years for any sexual, physical or harassment complaints, and also involve checking in with principals and local superintendents for reports that might never have made it to the district level.

"It's going to be a daunting task," Martinez said. But "I feel we have to go back and reexamine some of complaints to make sure we did our due diligence and parents feel safe."

Martinez said the resolution will ask the superintendent to develop uniform guidelines and procedures on how best to inform parents of LAUSD employees accused of child abuse and other serious criminal behavior, without jeopardizing possible ongoing investigations, and bring back recommendations to the board for a vote within 60 days.

"We have policies in place and procedures to remove an individual when an allegation has been brought forward, and we have policies and procedures to move forward when we need to dismiss an individual," Martinez said. "But there are no policies in place when we need to notify parents and the community."

The resolution will also look at how "questionable transfers" take place.

"When people are transferred, sometimes it's for promotional reasons or to teach a different grade level," Martinez said. "Questionable transfers are when one principal needs to alert another — this is what you need to look for — and we currently don't do that. So these people fly under the radar."

The resolution would also look at creating a centralized confidential computer database to house all complaints related to sexual or physical abuse.

Sometimes personnel files do not follow a teacher from one school to another, or if word is passed on to someone at the school, when that person leaves that institutional knowledge is lost.

"People have rights, and certainly we don't want to mess with peoples' rights," Martinez said. "But we also have to ensure there's a centralized way we do business in the district, so we can prevent this from ever happening again."

Earlier this month, parents at Telfair Elementary School in Pacoima found out about a former third grade teacher who had been in jail on molestation charges for about four months via the newspaper. Martinez said she met with upset parents that morning in the school library. Most were outraged they had learned about what had happened from the media.

"Walking into Telfair, I told the superintendent, what breaks my heart is the parents just seemed so distrustful," Martinez said. "We've broken the trust of our parents, and trying to restore that is going to take a long time. We've got to do the right things, notifying parents when an investigation is taking place, but especially, especially when criminal charges and an arrest have been made."

As the mother of a three-year-old, Martinez said she can understand the fear and hurt of parents who want to know their children are safe.

"Parents don't want to hear x, y, z reasons why we don't notify you," Martinez said. "Parents just want to know their children are safe in our schools, and that should be our #1 priority."

In the case of former Miramonte Elementary School teacher Mark Berndt, charged with 23 lewd acts upon a child, the district has said a roughly year-long Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department investigation prevented them from providing information on the allegations to parents. When Berndt was arrested, parents learned what had happened from the media.

Superintendent John Deasy has been meeting with law enforcement officials including the sheriff's department and LAPD as well as officials from smaller incorporated cities within the district, to talk about how to improve notification procedures so that when an arrest of a teacher is made, the district is automatically informed and does not have to wait for a call from a detective or a media report, Martinez said. The district is also working on ironing out guidelines as to what is OK to tell parents without jeopardizing an ongoing investigation, she said.

"In the midst of such a horrific horrific horrible thing that's happened to these kids, something positive has to come out of this," Martinez said. "And the district has got to own this and fix it."

Martinez said the resolution will be put before the board at its next meeting on March 13

 

●●smf:  We are way past considering a resolution “…that orders the superintendent to reexamine and reassess…” and all the rest. 

We don’t need to correct the past, we need to keep students safe in the future.

And the future starts now.

No more studies, no more resolutions, no more passing the buck to the superintendent. The Board of Education are elected officials and they need to lead, establish and enforce policy, be transparent, and require staff – including the superintendent – to comply. 

The non-compliance by the superintendent and LAUSD with existing law, regulations and policy has already been identified and described.

To schedule this matter at the March 13th board meeting where the budget and lay-offs and program cuts and reductions will dominate the agenda relegates this matter to obscurity.

PROBABLY NOT THE LAST LAUSD REDISTRICTING MAP!

by email from the LA City LAUSD Redistricting Commission office

200 N Spring St. Room 285

Los Angeles, CA 90012

Mon, Feb 27, 2012 2:11 pm

I will attempt to post a larger/poster “suitable for framing”  version following

 

 LAUSD Schools and Facilities by Seat Number

 

TEACHERS NEED TRAINING TO SPOT CAMPUS MOLESTERS

WIRE REPORT By the Associated Press | http://bit.ly/zw89zl

2/27/2012 01:01:27 AM PST  LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Many school teachers across the nation are trained to pick up on clues of child abuse and neglect, but most are not trained to spot the signs of classroom pedophiles, leaving a gray area that could help teacher molesters operate undetected on campuses.

Experts say better training of school teachers and administrators in red-flag behavior could aid in catching molesters, pointing to the case of a former Los Angeles third-grade teacher who is charged with feeding some two dozen students semen-laced cookies, and blindfolding and gagging them over a five-year period.

"There are clear and consistent patterns of behavior. If you know what they are, they jump right out at you," said Diane Cranley, founder of Talk About Abuse to Liberate Kids based in Laguna Niguel, Calif. "But there's no awareness."

Only a fraction of the nation's 3 million educators are involved in any sexual misconduct with children. Although no national statistics are kept, a 2007 Associated Press investigation found 2,500 cases nationwide over five years where educators were punished for sexual abuse.

But that number is believed to be only a sliver of all sexual misconduct incidents.

Most abuse never gets reported because children are threatened not to tell, or are too ashamed. Moreover, many reported cases get dismissed because the child is not believed or the allegations can't be proven

Since last month's arrest of former Los Angeles teacher Mark Berndt at Miramonte Elementary School, six other cases involving improper sexual relations between students and teachers or school employees have cropped up just in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation's second largest school system.

Police and school officials attribute the rise to increased awareness resulting from that case's notoriety. They've received a flood of reports of possible sexual abuse since Berndt's arrest.

The prevalence of abuse reports underscores the need for better awareness training for school employees, said Victor Vieth, executive director of the National Child Protection Training Center in Minnesota.

Most school districts around the country require teachers and other employees to undergo training in spotting signs of child abuse and neglect. School staffers, as well as other professionals including police, physicians and social workers, are "mandated reporters," who are required by state laws to report suspected child abuse to law enforcement. If they fail to do so, they can be prosecuted.

But many training courses focus on how to detect signs that a child is being abused outside the school, such as drawings a child may make, behavioral changes, and suspect bruises. They do not generally include instruction on spotting suspicious behavior by a perpetrator, least of all by a colleague.

"We need to teach teachers that sex offenders don't wear trench coats, how to observe patterns, have that gut feeling and articulate it," said Vieth, whose organization has developed a college curriculum to help student teachers be more alert to protecting children.

Los Angeles Unified stepped up child abuse prevention training following a 2008 case of an assistant principal who was convicted of molesting a student. Part of the course involves showing employees how to respond to 40 different abuse scenarios, including that of a colleague molesting students, but not all school employees may have been given that particular scenario, said district spokeswoman Lydia Ramos.

In response to the Miramonte case, principals were mandated earlier this week to show staff the specific scenario involving signs of a campus pedophile, she said.

The problem is that the red flags of a child predator can be construed as innocent and easily dismissed.

Former students and parents at Miramonte Elementary School thought Berndt was kindly and warm, if a little quirky. Parents chuckled at the gym shorts and black tights he wore as part of a Halloween mouse costume.

He gave out cookies to kids and loved taking photos of them. He took them on field trips, sent them birthday cards and gifts, attended parties at their homes. He kept exotic insects in terrariums in his classroom and played funny music. He seemed to genuinely liked children and had a knack for building rapport with them.

But prosecutors say he also had a darker penchant -- putting his semen on cookies, taking photos as children ate them, blindfolding them and taping their mouths. He played what he told kids were "tasting games," sometimes pulling them out of an after-school program to come to his classroom alone.

Berndt has pleaded not guilty to 23 counts of lewdness on a child.

Overly childish behavior, over involvement with children and their parents, bestowing gifts and favors, singling out children as special, taking photos, being alone with a child and selecting children are classic signs of a predator "grooming" kids to go along with what he wants them to do, experts say.

Colleagues, however, may view those habits as not quite ordinary, but not sinister.

Informing on a colleague's idiosyncrasies is a difficult spot to put teachers in, said Frank Wells, spokesman for the California Teachers Association. "It's tough to go in and say so-and-so is weird," he said.

The state Department of Social Services' free training program for mandated reporters of child abuse covers different types of abuse in different settings, including sexual abuse, but it does not include awareness of pedophile behavior.

That may be an area where the program could be expanded, but it is a different training topic, said Jennifer Davis, assistant medical director of San Diego's Chadwick Center for Children & Families at Rady Children's Hospital, which has developed the course under a $600,000, three-year state grant.

"It is a slippery slope as to what is suspicious behavior," she said.

Child protection advocates say schools could simply do a lot more to minimize opportunities for pedophiles to operate. That includes enacting rules such as not allowing teachers to be alone with children, lock classroom doors or pull kids out of a class for an unauthorized reason.

That might have helped in a case in the Clovis, Calif., Unified School District last month where an elementary gym teacher faces various charges for allegedly pulling a second-grader out of physical education class and taking her to an empty classroom at least four times to play the "lollipop game" -- blindfolding her and having her give him oral sex which he photographed.

The case was discovered when the child's mother observed the class outdoors and noticed neither the teacher nor her daughter was there.

Establishing boundaries for interacting with children, such as forbidding home visits, giving gifts, informal field trips, or photographs, makes it easier to spot violators and report them, experts say.

"If you lay it out in black and white, it's very clear," said Cindy McElhinney, director of programs at Darkness to Light, a South Carolina-based nonprofit that conducts sex abuse awareness training and has conducted parent workshops at LAUSD. "Teachers get a lot of comfort in that."

Such rules have become de rigueur in recent years at organizations that serve young people such as Big Brothers Big Sisters of America and Boy Scouts of America, which have been hit with sexual abuse allegations and lawsuits.

Charles Wilson, senior director of the Chadwick Center, which has strict policies governing employee-child interaction, noted that awareness is the key: "It's about turning that culture of silence into a culture of vigilance."

PARENT TRIGGER LAW MEETS NEW TESTS IN ADELANTO

The Adelanto school board rejects parents' petition for change, saying signatures to overhaul Desert Trails Elementary were rescinded. Now a controversy that mirrors one in Compton is simmering.

By Teresa Watanabe, Los Angeles Times | http://lat.ms/z4ehrj

Parents of the Desert Trails Parent Union rally in Adelanto last month to support their parent trigger petition. This month, the school board denied the petition. (Irfan Khan, Los Angeles Times / January 12, 2012)

February 26, 2012, 11:15 p.m.  ::  It was supposed to be a historic victory in Adelanto, marking the first time California parents had forced sweeping changes at their struggling school under the state's pioneering parent trigger law.

Instead, in a stunning setback last week, the Adelanto school board unanimously rejected the parents' petition for change, announced that parents of one-fifth of the students had rescinded their signatures, and set the stage for another bruising battle over the controversial law.

“Even as she affirmed support for Parent Revolution (the Los Angeles-based educational group that lobbied for the law and trained parents in Compton and at Desert Trails Elementary School in Adelanto) former State Senator Romero - the author of the 2010 parent trigger law - called the group's two-petition tactic a ‘dubious strategic choice’ that was bound to confuse parents. She also criticized what she called ‘rookie political mistakes’.” ♫smf notes: Not Educational Mistakes or Parent Mistakes …Political Mistakes. The Executive Director of Parent Revolution is a former state school board member and a current Los Angeles Assistant City Attorney. He lobbied for the law while he held both of those positions – apparently he missed that conflict of interest class in law school. And this is Parent Revolution’s second go-round with the Parent Trigger Law – their actions are not mistakes, they are not rookies.

The fiasco in Adelanto, a community of 27,000 on the western edge of the Mojave Desert, raised key questions about the law — chiefly, whether parents who say they were misled about the petition are allowed to revoke their signatures. A similar issue arose a year ago in the law's first test case in Compton, where the school board also rejected a parent trigger petition amid charges and countercharges of deceit and harassment. The case remains in court.

Parent Revolution, the Los Angeles-based educational group that lobbied for the law and trained parents in Compton and at Desert Trails Elementary School in Adelanto, says recisions are not allowed and is threatening to sue the school board.

Gabe Rose, the group's deputy director, said some parents have said they were misled by petition supporters — who refused to identify themselves — into rescinding their signatures. He said the parents were told false stories that the school would be shut down the next day, for instance, if the petition was approved.

"Once again, we have seen defenders of the status quo use the full range of lies, misinformation, and dirty tactics to pressure parents into 'rescinding' their signatures," Rose said. "These anti-parent tactics are not only immoral, but are in direct violation of the parent trigger law … and they will not be allowed to stand."

But Adelanto Supt. Darin Brawley said the law does not address whether parents can rescind their signatures, and that those obtained under false pretenses ought not be counted. At a packed board meeting Tuesday, before an audience split with supporters and opponents wearing T-shirts for and against Parent Revolution, Brawley announced that parents representing 97 students had revoked their signatures. That helped drive down the number of valid signatures below the legal threshold of 333 needed to represent at least half of Desert Trails students.

The state Board of Education agrees that the law and related regulations are silent on the issue. "This is maybe a test case of this particular situation," said Patricia de Cos, the board's deputy executive director. "It would probably be something that attorneys at the local level would have to sort out."

Meanwhile, the author of the 2010 parent trigger law, former state Sen. Gloria Romero, said parents should be given one chance to revoke their signature within a specified time limit if they believe they were misled into signing the petition. "This would put the onus on organizers that you really have to be truthful and open and honest with parents," she said.

Cynthia Ramirez, a parent leader, said her group clearly explained the petition to those they approached and left them with written materials about it. A parent leader on the other side, Chrissy Alvarado, said her group spread no false information when speaking to parents about revoking their signatures.

Frank Wells, California Teachers Assn. spokesman, said the union helped Alvarado's group by providing three regional staff members to help parents understand charter law and to develop a process to check whether those who signed the petition understood it. (Parent Revolution provided Ramirez's group with three organizers to help with the petition campaign.) Wells denied Parent Revolution's charges that the union engineered the campaign, saying it was "parent-driven."

California's parent trigger efforts have been closely watched nationwide, as more than 20 other states have considered similar legislation. The law allows parents at low-performing schools, who represent at least half the students, to force changes in staffing and curriculum, close the campus or convert to a charter school. Charters are independent, publicly funded and mostly nonunion.

The Adelanto case also renewed questions over how to ensure that parents are fully informed about the petitions and how signatures ought to be gathered. The State PTA, for instance, reiterated its call for mandatory public meetings.

Adelanto board member Holly Eckes grilled parent leader Melody Medrano at the meeting on why her home was not included in the canvassing for signatures and questioned how inclusive the effort was. And board members repeatedly quizzed Medrano and others on their petition strategy.

The group had presented two petitions — one for a charter school and one for district reforms allowing them to hire their own principal with broad authority over staffing, curriculum and budgets. But they only submitted the charter petition as a tactic to force board action. They told parents they didn't want that option, either.

But board member Jermaine Wright asked parents if they were trying to "threaten" them and bluntly declared: "This is about power, not kids first."

Even as she affirmed support for Parent Revolution, Romero called the group's two-petition tactic a "dubious strategic choice" that was bound to confuse parents. She also criticized what she called "rookie political mistakes" in making demands she found politically unrealistic, such as a freer hand to hire and fire teachers, and allowing the debate to focus again on charter schools, which also occurred in Compton.

But Parent Revolution's organizing director Pat DeTemple defended the strategy as the best way to keep board members from simply dismissing parent demands. And Rose said his organization continued to stand behind Adelanto parents as they figured out their next step.

Meanwhile, at Desert Trails school, Principal David Mobley had a different goal in mind. "Let the healing begin," he said.

KEEPING KIDS FROM DROPPING OUT

BY DAVID OLSON STAFF WRITER , PREE ENTERPRISE (Inland Empire) http://bit.ly/AfaFnz

STAN LIM/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER - Students walk to class during a passing period on Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at North High School in Riverside. For story on how students might be at risk of dropping out if they had not enrolled in special programs at North.

26 February 2012 09:42 PM   ::  President Obama’s recent call for all states to require students to stay in school until age 18 is spurring discussion and debate across the country.

But California has had such a law since 1977, and high dropout rates in some schools illustrate how mandatory attendance laws fail to prevent some kids from leaving school.

Inland educators and national experts say the law sends a strong message to students and parents that staying in school is important. But they say that more crucial are classes, programs and teaching methods that engage pupils.

“The law is not the thing that makes the difference,” said Ray Culberson, director of youth services at San Bernardino Unified School District. “What will make the difference is whatever keeps students motivated.”

Twenty-one states and the District of Columbia require students to be in school until they turn 18 or graduate, according to the Education Commission of the States, a Denver-based group partially funded by states to advise them on policy. The rest have compulsory attendance ages of 16 or 17.

Several states have enacted age-18 laws in the past few years, and the president’s remarks are igniting more dialogue on what already has been a major education topic in state capitals, said Sunny Deye, a senior education policy analyst with the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Proposals to raise compulsory attendance ages to 18 have failed in a number of states, with opponents arguing that the cost of educating more students during a time of budget cuts is too high, that forcing students to go to school leads to disruptive classrooms and that the requirement is unfair to home-schooling parents, she said.

Research shows raising the compulsory attendance age keeps more students in school, said Jennifer Dounay Zinth, a senior policy analyst with the Education Commission of the States.

“The students who are disruptive are dropping out because the students don’t see real-world applications and think their classes are boring,” she said.

Pregnancy and financial obligations are among other reasons students drop out, she said.

California hasn’t studied the effects the 1977 law had on dropout rates, said David Kopperud, an educational programs consultant with the California Department of Education.

The law makes it illegal for a student under 18 who has not graduated to be absent from school without a valid excuse such as illness, and it holds parents responsible for their children.

The state had a 17.5 percent dropout rate in 2009-10. San Bernardino County’s rate was 20.9 percent and Riverside County’s was 16.3 percent. Experts say poverty, single-parent households and other socioeconomic factors contribute to higher dropout rates.

Many dropouts evade detection despite the law because it’s so expensive and time-consuming to locate every truant, said Russell Rumberger, a University of California vice provost and author of the recently released study, “Dropping Out: Why Students Drop out of High School.”

Schools need to address underlying issues that affect a student’s decision to drop out, he said. But budget cuts have reduced the number of teachers, counselors and others who develop the types of meaningful relationships that keep students coming to school, he said.

“We’re cutting the things that matter: people,” Rumberger said.

Rumberger said the more than 500 “partnership academies” in California schools – including dozens in the Inland area – are one way of motivating students. The academies, which receive extra state funding, include career-oriented curricula along with traditional academic subjects. Students have the same teachers for three years to build relationships.

Riverside’s North High School has three academies. Priscilla Reideman, a senior in North’s law enforcement and protective services academy, said she thought of dropping out of school after her mother died in January 2011. The mandatory attendance law didn’t faze her. But the academy’s coordinator, Carolina Tamayo, convinced her that she needed to stay in school to attain her goal of becoming a parole officer.

Reideman, 17, said she respects Tamayo and was comfortable confiding in her.

“I’m very close with her,” Reideman said. “I’ve known her for two years. I’m at a point where I can open up to her.”

Tamayo said by having the same students for three years, she can more easily spot potential problems.

“You don’t send them to a counselor,” she said. “You’re with them every day.”

Tamayo oversees 209 students. Counselors have 700 students each, Assistant Principal Rich Davis said.

Tamayo also coordinates the school’s multicultural council. Jodie Burton, 18, a student on the for-credit council, said she regularly skipped school her freshman and sophomore years but is now on track to graduate. She credits the multicultural council for keeping her in school.

“It gave me something to look forward to,” Burton said.

Bob Wise, former governor of West Virginia and president of the Alliance for Excellent Education, a Washington, D.C.-based educational-reform group, said anti-dropout strategies have future payoffs.

Cutting the dropout rate in half in Riverside and San Bernardino counties would infuse $184 million into the region’s economy, he said, citing an alliance study released last year that looked at the increased earnings and spending generated by a more highly educated workforce.

Richard Husband, director of student support services at Hemet Unified School District, said some students who would have dropped out when they turned 16 realize the importance of school as they get older and more mature.

That’s one reason it’s important to crack down on truancy and keep kids in the classroom, he said. Student resource officers regularly make rounds at parks, malls and other places truant kids may hang out, Husband said.

Police and sheriff’s department officials say they look out for underage students during regular patrols and pick them up.

San Bernardino Unified complements patrols with visits to truants’ homes, Culberson said.

The district’s 33.2 percent dropout rate is nearly double the statewide number. But the gap between the 42.9 percent rate at San Bernardino High School, which is in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the Inland region, and the 16.3 percent rate at Cajon High School, in a middle-class area, illustrates the effect poverty, educational attainment of parents and other factors have. San Bernardino is the nation’s second poorest big city, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates.

From August to January, more than 1,000 truant students in San Bernardino Unified were brought before special boards and panels that seek to combat truancy, and 256 parents were given citations, Culberson said.

Other Inland districts also have special panels, many of which include counselors to find out the root of a truancy problem and, in repeat cases, police and district attorney’s office representatives.

The carrot-and-stick approach, of offering assistance to students and parents but using punishment if that doesn’t work, is often effective, Culberson said.

“Schools that want to do the right thing are going to want to do whatever they can to have kids in school and have them graduate,” he said.

SOME CALIFORNIA SCHOOLS GET TWICE THE FUNDING -- AND MORE -- OF OTHERS

By Sharon Noguchi, San Jose Mercury News | http://bit.ly/zUPvlQ

A third-grade music class at Woodside Elementary, part of one of the best-funded districts in...

2/26/2012 05:37:03 PM PST :: Thirty-six years after the California Supreme Court ordered the state to fix its unequal system of funding schools, a gaping disparity remains between haves and have-nots.

And it may not improve much any time soon.

A scathing report on California's school finances not only repeats the indictment of an inequitable, insufficient and irrational funding scheme, but also details how California spends on average $620 less on a student living in a high-poverty area than one in an affluent neighborhood.

The report by the Education Trust-West, an Oakland-based education advocacy group, also attacks the complexity of California school financing. "The system is a haphazard collection of arcane and hard-to-navigate policies that manage to hide funding disparities from district leaders and policy makers, not to mention parents and the public," the report, released last week, reads. "The maze of programs and formulas makes it nearly impossible to understand whether dollars ever reach the schools and students for whom they are intended."

A yawning gulf separates even school districts serving students from similar demographic backgrounds. For example, in 2009-10, the latest data available, per-pupil revenue was $14,076 in Palo Alto versus $7,679 in Milpitas, both unified districts serving K-12 students. But clearly, affluence counts: In San Mateo County, the Woodside elementary district took in $18,894 per student, while Millbrae elementary got $7,362 per student.

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California School-Funding Sources

• 57% State government
• 23% Local property taxes
• 12% Federal government
• 7% Local miscellaneous funds (parcel taxes, fundraising)
• 1% State Lottery

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• Document: 'The Cruel Divide,' report of Education Trust-West
• Document: State and Local Per-Pupil Revenue for California School Districts
• Compare finances: At the Ed-Data site, click on "District," then "Compare Finances"

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But it's not always the case that districts serving poorer students take in less. Ravenswood City School District in struggling East Palo Alto received $12,119 per pupil, while the affluent area served by the Cupertino Union School District received $7,335 per pupil.

Those figures include federal, state and local revenue reported to the state Department of Education. That means that local parcel taxes and foundation grants were counted, but funds contributed by parent groups may not have been. The Education Trust-West report excluded federal revenues because it aimed its report at state policymakers, said Carrie Hahnel, the group's director of policy and research.

In the 1976 Serrano v. Priest case, the California Supreme Court ruled that the state's system of school funding, then based on local property taxes, was inequitable and unconstitutional. In 1979, Proposition 13 reduced local property taxes, and funding of schools shifted sharply to the state. As a result of the ruling and the tax initiative, California's school funding plan evolved into a complicated set of formulas. When voters passed Proposition 98 to set a funding floor for education, formulas became more complex.

As the recession has cut into the state's finances, local fundraising has increased in affluent areas and heightened the disparity in education funding, the report noted. "The impact of that is fairly significant in determining the size of the gap," said Arun Ramanathan, executive director of the Education Trust-West.

While he praised Gov. Jerry Brown's proposal to revise funding formulas as "a step in the right direction," he said he fears that there's no assurance that the neediest schools and students will receive the money.

"The state has a responsibility to ensure that districts are addressing those students with higher needs and to come up with accountability systems," Ramanathan said.

Brown has proposed a funding formula that gives weight to students' needs, so schools with more poor students and English language learners would get more money.

SCHOOLS PREP FOR LAYOFFS

By Heather Murtagh, San Mateo  Daily Journal Staff | http://bit.ly/wr7jgo

February 27, 2012, 05:00 AM  ::   Teachers could soon be getting bad news as school districts start to approve notifications that they may be laid off later this year.

California requires districts to send out preliminary notices to teachers by March 15, many of which will go before school boards starting this week. Often the number is refined before final layoff notices are sent out by May 15. Teachers who are laid off could be asked back over the summer, when the state’s budget becomes clear. Layoff numbers could be high this year as Gov. Jerry Brown’s current state budget proposal funds education at the same rate if tax measures are passed in November. Without it, districts will face mid-year cuts, which they need to budget for now.

On Monday, the Burlingame Elementary School District Board of Trustees will vote to send notifications to 14.5 full-time equivalent positions — including 7.5 elementary school teachers, 1.5 reading specialists and 2.5 physical education specialists.

New employees as well as positions funded through money the district isn’t sure will be there make up the list, explained Superintendent Maggie MacIsaac. MacIsaac added Burlingame is lucky since it has been supported locally through property taxes.

Earlier this month, the San Mateo-Foster City Elementary School District Board of Trustees discussed the possibility of notifying 29.35 FTEs, which partially includes: seven administrators, 3.75 elementary reading teachers, three student achievement facilitators, as well as reducing work for teachers who specialize in art, music and English language development, according to a staff report by Donna Lewis, assistant superintendent of human resources. The board will vote on a finalized number Thursday, March 1.

The state budget plays a big role in the possible cuts.

In the San Bruno Park Elementary School District, for example, the board previously discussed noticing 15 FTEs — 13 elementary teachers and two English/language arts instructors. Superintendent David Hutt explained that, without the proposed November taxes, districts will lose $370 per student or an estimated $970,000 in the case of San Bruno. Planning for that means looking at sending notifications to a “significant” number of teachers, he said.

Similarly, the Millbrae Elementary School District is planning for an estimated $838,790 loss, said Superintendent Linda Luna. With a bare-bones budget already, Luna told parents at Spring Valley Elementary School Friday there is nothing left to cut but people.

In the Hillsborough City School District, the Board of Trustees already approved a $600,000 budget cut plan that will lead to a few layoffs — two teachers due to increasing class sizes, an English language learner specialist, two Spanish teachers, a 12-hour per day computer specialist program and 1.5 positions at Crocker connected to electives. Superintendent Anthony Ranii doesn’t anticipate any additional reductions in staff.

SCHOOL DISTRICTS ALL OVER THE MAP ON MARIJUANA POSSESSION DISCIPLINE POLICY

By Gina Potthoff/Staff Writer, Lompoc Record | http://bit.ly/yBjVtf

Sunday, February 26, 2012 12:15 am | Whether a student is expelled for smoking marijuana depends a lot on where they’re caught, how many times they’ve been caught and if they give or sell the illegal drug to others.

Even first-time offenders can be kicked out of school.

The severity of the penalty varies from district to district, depending on school officials’ interpretation of California education code.

Only the “big five” offenses, outlined in education code 48915 (c), require no interpretation. Students who possess a firearm or explosive, brandish a knife, sell a controlled substance, or commit or attempt to commit a sexual assault or battery are automatically expelled.

Each school board determines policy for individual districts — some have zero-tolerance policies while others have three-strikes rules — and carries out those policies, according to Wendy Shelton, a spokeswoman for the Santa Barbara County Office of Education.

Last week, a high school senior was expelled from Santa Ynez Valley Union High School District after she was caught smoking marijuana in the school parking lot with another student. Hannah Burchardi, a first-time offender, first served a five-day off-campus suspension and was supervised in a classroom by herself for a month after she was caught with less than an ounce of marijuana and tobacco products Jan. 5. She also provided the drug to another student.

The district created a special four-person panel to make a

recommendation to the board of trustees, who made the final expulsion decision, per education code.

Santa Ynez officials consistently recommend first-time offenders for expulsion — four of eight students who were expelled for offering or selling drugs to other students since 2007 were first-time offenders — while other districts consider the action a last resort for students who cannot be helped through intervention programs or who are a danger to others.

Santa Maria Joint Union High School District officials have implemented more on-site interventions and programs to meet students’ needs, according to Tina Christen, director of special education and student services.

For years, the district has had a four-person panel of administrators to hear and make recommendations in expulsion cases. The number of expulsions is down from 93 in 2009-10 to 28 in 2010-11.

Other districts, including Guadalupe Union and Orcutt Union, do not have panels. Principals investigate incidents and make recommendations to the board of trustees for final decision.

Officials agree that students caught with marijuana on campus get an automatic suspension, typically off campus.

Expelling a first-time offender is not common in the Lompoc Unified School District, where a student most likely would be suspended and referred to counseling unless they sold drugs or had a large amount, said Art Diaz, director of student services.

Last year, eight of 53 expulsions were drug-related, Diaz said, and three students have been expelled for drug offenses so far this year.

“There’s a range,” he said. “It generally is not an expellable offense, unless it involves sale. There are instances where there are multiple charges, and we have to pick the most egregious of the charges. There wouldn’t be any students that would be recommended for expulsion based on first offense. Each case is different.”

Andrea Lee, coordinator of student welfare and attendance in the Lucia Mar Unified School District, cautions against comparing different school district policies.

Marijuana possession can be an expellable offense or involve suspension and rehabilitation, Lee said. She couldn’t generalize about Lucia Mar’s expulsions — there were 91 for violence or drugs in 2009-10 — but said expulsion depends on one case’s evidence.

“We all look at things differently,” she said. “We follow the due process law. We do have high standards for our students.”

Students are typically expelled for a year or less, per education code, working toward degrees in a district-recommended alternative program or a continuation school in the meantime.

While most area marijuana offenses occur at the high school level, drug use is not unprecedented for elementary or junior high students, said Mark Muller, Santa Maria-Bonita School District director of pupil services.

As for the best punishment, Muller reiterated the individuality of each case at any level.

“It’s kind of hard to take them out of context,” he said. “You try to do what's in the best interest of the child.”

 

OBAMA’s EDUCATION SECRETARY DOMINATES NBA ALL-STAR CELEBRITY GAME

by Anthony York , LA Times | http://lat.ms/x3KIiG

Photo: United States Secretary of Education Arne Duncan dribbles the ball during the NBA All-Star celebrity basketball game on Friday in Orlando, Fla. Credit: Lynne Sladky / Associated Press

February 25, 2012 |  8:52 am  |  Washington |  Gov. Jerry Brown met with Education Secretary Arne Duncan this week, hoping for some leeway for state schools facing pending federal sanctions.

By Brown’s own account, the meeting was not as productive as he had hoped, describing his relationship with the secretary as a “work in progress.”

The California governor has clashed with Duncan over the use of standardized testing to evaluate students and determine teacher pay and performance.

Within hours of his meeting with the California governor, Duncan headed to Orlando, Fla., to participate in the NBA’s celebrity All-Star game.

Comedian Kevin Hart was named the game's MVP, but Duncan, who played for Harvard where he was named a first-team Academic All-American and played professionally in Australia, had the best stat line of the night. He scored 17 points to go along with eight rebounds and five steals.

But for Brown, at least, Duncan provided no assists.

Steve Lopez: L.A. CATCHING UP TO CHICAGO IN SLEAZE

A University of Illinois study finds that we're the second most corrupt region in the U.S., due to an oversized helping of election crimes, conflicts of interest and other dirty deeds.

Steve Lopez, LA Times columnist | http://lat.ms/z39TMG

February 26, 2012  ::  Panning for gold in the local cesspool is always lucrative, but it's been one fat nugget after another lately.

We've got Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa marketing himself for his next job before he finishes this one; City Atty. Carmen Trutanich insisting he's not the liar he appears to be; auto painters at the DWP making $109,192 a year while the agency guns for a rate hike; and Los Angeles County Assessor John Noguez under investigation for an alleged scandal involving tax breaks for clients represented by his friend.

And now comes a study revealing that Greater Los Angeles is the second most corrupt metro region in the United States.

We cannot accept this, folks. With just a little more effort, I think we can knock Chicago off the top of the leader board.

In the "most corrupt" study, by University of Illinois professor Dick Simpson and his colleagues, our No. 2 ranking has a lot to do with the huge population of the area they analyzed, which includes not just Los Angeles County, but also Riverside, Orange, Ventura, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and San Bernardino counties. In per capita rankings, we fall back to ninth place. But still, we managed to rack up an impressive 1,275 federal convictions since 1976 (to Chicago's 1,531) for extortion, bribery, conflicts of interest and election crimes involving elected officials, government workers and the private citizens with whom they did their dirty deeds.

And those numbers don't include charges like the Los Angeles County district attorney's pending cases against the city of Bell rascals who got hauled away in handcuffs. In Illinois, the state doesn't prosecute public corruption, only the feds do. So we may actually have Chicago beat.

Why so many scoundrels here?

California historian Kevin Starr says there's a long history of corruption here, dating to the noir era and even earlier. And he says the roots of organized crime in the region are deep. But I think a better explanation for our current rot is that if you're a scheming public official in Los Angeles, stealing everything that isn't nailed to the wall is a breeze. Too many people aren't paying attention and can't be bothered to vote, which allows sleazy opportunists to easily build fiefdoms. And journalists can't bag every skunk, no matter how much we'd like to.

I didn't intend that as a segue to the Noguez story, but it works. The assessor has steadfastly denied any wrongdoing as county investigators snoop into his activities. But as Times scribes Ruben Vives and Jack Dolan have reported, a Ferrari-driving tax agent friend of Noguez, Ramin Salari, represented clients who got their property assessments reduced at great tax savings to them. Salari then allegedly asked clients to contribute to Noguez when he was running for assessor.

Whatever happens, the biggest crime in government and politics is what's legal rather than illegal. Three years ago, I advised readers to "run, don't walk," to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and apply for any job they had. Secretaries, custodians, gardeners and everyone else made far more than their counterparts at City Hall. Why? Because the politicians who approved those salaries wouldn't think of standing up to union boss Brian D'Arcy and cutting off the campaign cash spigot.

So now Bloomberg News reports that DWP employees make 40% more than their counterparts in other areas of city government.

More interesting, perhaps, is the fact that unanimous approval of the current contract came in 2009, when Villaraigosa controlled the DWP board, and the City Council voted unanimously to approve the contract even as the city budget hole was becoming a canyon. Voting yes were council members Jan Perry and Eric Garcetti, both of whom are running for mayor, and Dennis Zine, who is running for city controller.

So keep that in mind as you follow the coming news of rate hikes, and as our termed-out mayor leaves the mess to someone else as he prepares to move on.

"Los Angeles Mayor Sets Sights on a Bigger Stage," said a New York Times headline last week, and the story noted that he's not only heading the U.S. Conference of Mayors, but has been named by President Obama as head of the Democratic National Convention to be held in Charlotte, N.C.

Now look, I'm not one of the provincial squawkers who believe the mayor of a great international city should never go on overseas trade missions or to Washington, D.C., to claim a piece of the pie. Played right, looking beyond the city limits can serve our interests.

But with all he's left undone at home, is this really a good time for Villaraigosa to be running off to play at national politics?

Not to worry, Villaraigosa spokeswoman Sarah Sheahan told me, saying he's focused on schools, job creation and transit projects.

Yeah, but in Charlotte, or here?

Another local hero looking for a bigger stage is City Atty. Carmen "Nuch" Trutanich. As a candidate for his current job, Trutanich promised to complete two full terms before running for another office. He even signed a pledge that if he violated the promise, he'd donate $100,000 to L.A.'s Best, an after-school program, and take out a newspaper ad that says "I AM A LIAR."

Now he's running for district attorney.

I check the ads every day and all I see is Donald T. Sterling. I can't give Trutanich the $100,000, but I did offer to pay for an ad that all of Los Angeles can see.

For $1,500, Van Wagner Outdoor Advertising can get me up in the air for two hours, dragging a sign that says, "NUCH: I AM A LIAR."

"A lot of things have changed," Trutanich protested when I asked if he wanted to fly with me.

Like what?

D.A. Steve Cooley decided to leave office, Nuch said, and he's the man best qualified to replace him.

A guy who lied, and broke the hearts of kids in an after-school program, is qualified to be the top law enforcer in the county?

I'm going to head over to L.A.'s Best to see what it feels like to get stiffed by a politician. But I may go ahead with the aerial ad too.

"I'll salute you," said Trutanich.

With one finger, I presume.

LAUSD’s MRS. SHORT RETIRES AFTER 57 YEARS

By Barbara Jones Staff Writer, LA  Daily News | http://bit.ly/z3PKk9

Marylin Short shows the 1962 Valley News clipping of a story about her and her class watching coverage of the day John Glenn rocketed into space aboard the Mercury capsule Friendship 7. Short has worked in Los Angeles Unified for 57 years, and just recently retired from Castlebay Lane Elementary where she was one of the original teachers. (John McCoy/Staff Photographer)

02/24/2012 10:06:27 PM PST  :: Dwight Eisenhower was president and James Dean was a rebellious screen idol when Marylin Short started her teaching job with Los Angeles Unified.

Newly married and newly graduated from Los Angeles State College, Short was assigned to teach a classroom of third-graders at Coldwater Canyon Elementary in North Hollywood in January 1955.

As she stood in front of a class of girls and boys attired in cotton dresses and plaid button-down shirts, she had no idea she was about to embark on a career that would span nearly six decades.

"There is nothing as wonderful as teaching," said Short, who retired earlier this month after 57 years with the school district. "It's so rewarding and just so much fun to do."

Short taught seven years at Coldwater and three years at Beckford Elementary in Chatsworth and was among the first group of teachers at Castlebay Lane Elementary when it opened in the fledgling suburb of Porter Ranch.

There, she helped calm students in the aftermath of the 1971 Sylmar Earthquake and quell anger over forced busing later in the decade.

"It was very emotional," recalled Short, 78, in an interview at her Northridge home. "Parents were screaming and yelling, and we were trying to figure out what to do."

Former students recall Short as a maternal figure, one who exuded warmth in the classroom and taught them needlepoint along with English, math and social studies.

"My older sister had Mrs. Short and would tell me about her," said Wendy Abrams, who was in Short's fifth-grade class in the 1970s. "I couldn't wait to have her. She's one of the teachers in life I'll always remember.

"Her nature was so caring. It was like having your mom in the classroom."

Short retired from teaching in 1993, but remained at Castlebay for 19 more years, working in the office and pulling an occasional shift in the classroom. Her former co-workers at Castlebay will celebrate her 41-year tenure at the school during a party on Sunday.

"Marylin has been a cherished institution here at Castlebay -- loved by faculty, staff, students, and parents," said third-grade teacher Sandy Dorfman. "I, along my colleagues, will miss all her wonderful stories and reminiscing.

DRAFT LAUSD MAP CREATES 3RD MAJORITY LATINO DISTRICT

By Barbara Jones, Staff Writer LA dAILY NEWS |http://bit.ly/xOGRuc

  This is the basic map that was approved Feb. 23, 2012 by the LAUSD Redistricting Commission. A final version of the plan will be voted on Feb 29.

02/24/2012 09:35:25 PM PST  ::  The citizen commission redrawing LAUSD voting boundaries discarded its original draft maps and adopted a plan that carves out a third majority district for the city's Latino population.

The map given initial approval late Thursday by the LAUSD Redistricting Commission retains a Latino majority in Nury Martinez's east San Fernando Valley district, and extends Monica Garcia's reach from Koreatown through East Los Angeles.

However, board member Bennett Kayser finds himself representing a region where 56 percent of his constituents are Latino citizens of voting age. The new District 5 would be shaped like a pair of earmuffs, stretching from Eagle Rock to East Hollywood, with a skinny swath skirting Koreatown and downtown, then broadening again from Vernon to South Gate.

Kayser's office, as well as two Latino rights groups, were unhappy with the boundaries and said they were closely reviewing the plan.

"The southeast communities are not united with others that share the same economic and social interests," said Rosalind Gold, a senior policy official with the National Association of Latino and Elected Officials.

NALEO had partnered with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund to craft a map that secured a new, more compactly drawn Latino-majority district in the southeast region.

"We're reviewing the maps and evaluating communities of interest and the impact of the Voting Rights Act," said Steven Ochoa, the national redistricting coordinator for MALDEF.

The map is expected to be finalized next Wednesday when the commission holds its final meeting. It then goes to the Los Angeles City Council, which can make amendments of its own.

Although the map was approved about 11 p.m. Thursday, copies were not yet available for public review by the end of business Friday.

Doug Wance, the commission's executive director, said the panel struggled to create minority-empowered districts of roughly 640,000 people each that also retained communities of interest and school attendance areas.

"The maps were a result of a confluence of events and listening to what the public had to say," he said.

Wance also addressed criticism that the public wasn't sufficiently informed about the redistricting process or given enough time to analyze the proposed maps.

"Outreach was and is an issue when you're trying to reach that many people," said Wance, who estimated the panel spent about $120,000 of its $650,000 budget on community relations.

He said the commission will continue to publicize the LAUSD redistricting process as it shifts to the City Council.

While none of the school board members were drawn out of their districts, there would be several changes.

District 3 board member Tamar Galatzan would lose heavily Latino neighborhoods in Van Nuys and Reseda to Martinez and parts of Studio City and Toluca Lake to Steve Zimmer.

"Over the last few years, I have built relationships with schools and parents," said Galatzan, who is in her second term. "If I'm redistricted, it's going to take awhile for those schools and parents to build relationships with a new board member."

MUNGER-PTA INITIATIVE HITS THE STREETS: $10B for K-12, early childhood by raising income tax

By John Fensterwald - Educated Guess | http://bit.ly/yeVcEa

Posted on 2/24/12 • Unfazed by disparagement from Gov. Brown’s politicos, civil rights attorney Molly Munger and her chief ally, the state PTA, launched a drive Thursday to collect signatures for the November ballot for a $10 billion tax initiative to benefit K-12 and early childhood education.

“We would not do signatures if we did not feel confident,” Addisu Demissie, manager for the Our Children, Our Future Education Initiative campaign, said in a teleconference. “We know we are on the right track and are moving forward.” Unless someone blinks, the Munger-PTA initiative could vie on the ballot with the governor’s temporary tax initiative and perhaps a third plan, a tax on the income of millionaires, pushed by the California Federation of Teachers with help from the California Nurses Association.

Common wisdom in Sacramento is that multiple tax initiatives would doom all to fail, but Munger, the initiative’s creator and primary financier, and Demissie weren’t buying that talk. They can also count on the energy, time, and “pent-up frustration” of PTA parents, hundreds of whom have been trained in the past several weeks to collect signatures and make a pitch, said California PTA president Carol Kocivar. It’s unusual for the state PTA to put its weight behind an initiative so squarely and so early.

Repeated polling, Munger said, has shown that voters want to invest in schools. The initiative is “popular for good reason.” The campaign cites a USC Dornsife College poll which found that two-thirds of registered voters would pay more taxes to improve school funding, if they are confident the money would be spent in their own communities.

That’s not what Brown’s chief political aid has been saying. Last weekend, Steve Glazer let out a memo from Brown pollster Jim Moore, who concluded from a survey of 500 voters that “the Munger tax measure has virtually no chance of passage” and that “if multiple tax measures are on the ballot at the same time, voters will naturally choose one measure over another, which will make it extremely difficult for any one measure to receive over 50% of the vote.” Moore said that the Our Children, Our Future initiative came in last among the three tax proposals, with only 31 percent support. Munger dismissed the release of the poll, which she said was “an effort to fog the lens of the press.”

Brown is proposing to rescue the general fund with between $5.5 billion and $7 billion by raising the sales tax a half-cent and the income tax on families earning more than $250,00 through 2016. Between 40 percent and 50 percent would go to K-12 schools and community colleges.

The CFT’s permanent tax – 3 percentage points on those earning $1 million, 5 percent on those earning $2 million or more – would raise up to $6 billion, with 60 percent going to K-12 and higher education, and 40 percent to counties to shore up roads and social services.

Our Children, Our Future would raise the most money: $10 billion per year (and growing over its 12-year life), with nearly all dedicated to K-12 schools (85 percent), and the rest to early childhood education. The exception would be during the first four years, when, in a nod to the current state budget deficit, 30 percent (more than $3 billion) would go to pay off school construction bonds. That would free up money for non-education purposes in the General Fund.

The education money would go into a trust fund, outside of Proposition 98 and the Legislature’s control, distributed to schools on a per-pupil basis, with extra dollars to low-income children. (You can calculate how much would go to every school in the state using a calculator here.) None of the money can be used to increase salaries and benefits, and no more than 1 percent for administration. (You can’t accuse Munger of currying favor of teachers unions or the Association of California School Administrators.)

Munger said California now lags $2,580 behind the national average in per-student spending, the biggest gap in 40 years; the initiative would give schools a jolt of resources they need.

It would do so by raising the income tax 1 percent. Since the income tax is progressive, that would translate to, AFTER deductions:

• 0.40 percent or $11 for a couple earning $17,500;
• 1.10 percent or $428 for a couple earning 75,000;
• 1.80 percent or $3,266 for a couple earning $250,000;
• 2.00 percent or $27,266 for a couple earning $2 million;
• 2.20 percent or $210,266 for a couple earning $10 million.

Kocivar said that in an annual PTA survey, nine out of 10 parents say that “adequate funding is the most important issue. No one leaves the room when I mention taxes.”

Comments

1. 

   mcdez

   February 24, 2012 • 2:27 pm

   The Molly Munger/PTA initiative is the only one that funnels money directly to school sites and mandates parent and community input re how the money should be spent.  Local control is the only way to go.  Any initiative that gets money to the schools directly and avoids the black hole that is Sacramento gets my vote.  PTA lobbying for our kids -  for free  — for 115 years.

   Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/02/24/4287226/poll-finds-majority-support-for.html#mi_rss=Top%20Stories#storylink=cpy

   Today, our state ranks 47th nationally in what we invest to educate each student. We have the largest class sizes in America. Over the last three years, more than $20 billion has been cut from California schools and over 40,000 educators have been laid off. We are shortchanging our early childhood development programs, which are some of the best educational investments we can make. Our underfunded public preschool programs serve only 40 percent of eligible 3 and 4 year olds, and only five percent of very low-income infants and toddlers have access to early childhood programs.
   We can and must do better. Our Children, Our Future asks Californians to join together to invest in our children and our schools because we all share in the benefits of better schools and a better-educated workforce. Our Children, Our Future will also reduce the cost of education bonds to help end the state deficit and protect our children and schools from further budget cuts.
   $10 Billion in New, Dedicated Funding for Our Children
   The measure will raise $10 to $11 billion annually in new revenue through a sliding scale income tax increase that varies with taxpayers’ ability to pay. For couples, the increases range from 4/10ths of 1% on incomes after all deductions under $35,000 to 2.2% for couples with income after all deductions over $5 million. Couples would pay nothing on the first $15,000 of their income after all deductions, and existing tax credits will offset increases for most couples with income after all deductions of $40,000 or less. A couple earning $75,000 in income after all deductions would pay an additional $428 each year, while a couple earning $1.5 million after all deductions would pay $27,266 more.
   The money will be placed in a separate trust fund that can only be spent as authorized by the provisions of the Act. The Governor and Legislature are prohibited from using the money.

NEW YORK CITY SCHOOLS RELEASE (less than 25% of two-year-old) 'VALUE ADDED' TEACHER RANKINGS + THE NEW YORK EVALUATION DEAL “FINALLY RESOLVED”. Really?

NEW YORK SCHOOLS RELEASE 'VALUE ADDED' TEACHER RANKINGS: The action follows a battle, similar to one in Los Angeles, that pitted the teachers union against news organizations and parents who said the data should be public.

LA Times staff and wire reports | http://lat.ms/yNIHT2

5:04 PM PST, February 24, 2012 :: New York City's Department of Education on Friday released rankings of thousands of teachers based on student test scores, ending a battle that pitted the teachers union against news organizations and parent groups who argued the public's right to the data outweighed privacy concerns.

"The Department of Education should be ashamed of itself," Michael Mulgrew, president of New York's United Federation of Teachers, said in a statement, accusing officials of using "bad tests, a flawed formula and incorrect data to mislead tens of thousands of parents about their children's teachers."

Critics of the so-called value-added ranking system, which uses test scores to help determine a teacher's effectiveness, said it relied on outdated information and on results of standardized tests that can't be counted on to give a true picture of a child's grasp of a topic.

The value-added system gained national attention in 2010 when the Los Angeles Times used it to come up with rankings for several thousand teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Those rankings, based on seven years of math and English test scores, were published by The Times, the first time such information had been made public.

New York's teachers union went to court in 2010 to try to block rankings from being released in the city. But a judge ruled in January 2011 that public interest outweighed teachers' concerns. "The public has an interest in the job performance of public employees, particularly in the field of education," Judge Cynthia S. Kern wrote. An appellate court upheld the decision.

In an opinion piece published Friday in New York's Daily News, the schools chancellor, Dennis Walcott, noted that the rankings being released were based on test scores from the 2007-08 and 2009-10 school years — too old, he said, to ensure reliability.

"They include results for some teachers who don't even work in our schools anymore," Walcott wrote. "And many teachers' performance may have changed over the last two years. So don't assume that a snapshot from two years ago still holds true today."

The rankings cover about 18,000 English and math teachers and give value-added scores as well as ratings ranging from "high" to "low," based on those scores and other factors. The Department of Education began using the value-added system to evaluate teachers in 2008 but agreed not to release the information to the public.

The rankings cover less than a quarter of the 75,000 teachers in New York's public schools system, the nation's largest.

 

THE NEW YORK EVALUATION DEAL “FINALLY RESOLVED”. REALLY?

By Dr. Sean C. Feeney and Dr. Carol C. Burris , http://www.newyorkprincipals.org (edited/word-butchered by smf from an e-mail)

24 February 2012 -- As you certainly know by now, New York State United Teachers, NY State Education Commissioner King and Governor Cuomo reached a deal on teacher evaluation in New York State. After the deal was reached, a member of NYSUT’s board was quoted as follows: “What’s good is that this is finally resolved, and we can go about doing what we need to do in our locals to get it behind us.” (Newsday, 16 Feb 2012).

What a puzzling reaction to the deal! Nobody should be pleased that a deal that is bad for students and bad for schools is behind us. This deal gives Commissioner King unilateral veto power of locally developed scales, and it ensures that a teachers whose test scores declare them “Ineffective” cannot be categorized as “Effective” no matter how well they do on other parts of the evaluation rubric. Test scores trump all other aspects of a teacher’s performance.

We need to continue to argue our points:

• The use of scores as an evaluation tool is unreliable --- there are significant margins of error reported by even the most optimistic supporters of using scores to evaluate teachers
• The use of value added measures are unstable --- studies have shown teachers experience huge changes in their score from year to year
• The use of scores to evaluate teachers will change the nature of schools for the worse
• We are not afraid of “rigorous” evaluations; we welcome them! We cannot, however, accept seriously flawed evaluations.

A Brief Reading List

·       For those wondering where New York State is heading, be sure to check out today’s New York Times (http://nyti.ms/wWHwNY) and other city papers as they report the scores for New York City Teachers. The Times almost seems to recognize the danger of what they are doing by publishing the scores, but they go ahead and do it anyhow.

·       For a different perspective on the reporting of the scores, be sure to check out GothamSchools | http://bit.ly/zbgc1N

·       Diane Ravitch wrote an excellent piece on the New York Review of Books blog: http://bit.ly/yB1cyp

·       Carol wrote a terrific Washington Post Answer Sheet article that helps explain how flawed the teacher rubric is: http://wapo.st/wUk69x

This is Not a Done Deal!

Because it makes changes to It appears that this deal might need the approval of the legislature. As such, there are still steps you can take:

1. Support the NYS Principals’ letter

You are receiving this message because you have already signed your support. What about your family members? Neighbors? Friends? More support means a louder voice.

2. Write to your elected officials

http://bit.ly/wLJptq | Tell them that the “deal” is hardly a deal. There is far too much uncertainty about the use of these scores to make career decisions.

3. Contact the Governor

http://bit.ly/e36qe7 Let him know that you have been lobbying for students long before he thought of the line and will continue to do so long after he leaves Albany for his next venture.

4. Email the members of the Board of Regents

http://bit.ly/ymc4D9 Tell them to stop letting politics dictate education policy. Let’s protect education in New York State.

5. Talk to your school’s parent organization

Parents need to recognize that this is not a “fight” between State Ed and Teachers. This will impact their children and their schools. If they wait too long to get involved, it will be too late!

SUPPORT THE NEW YORK STATE PRINCIPALS' OPEN LETTER Regarding the NYS APPR Legislation | http://bit.ly/vhPuG5. We thank you for your support and would like to provide you with an update on activities of the past few weeks. As always, the most recent version of the APPR Position paper (with all signatures) is available at: http://bit.ly/uTDNwJ. Given that the paper with signatures is over 117 pages long, we have also created a separate link for the four-page paper alone.

As of this week, over 1380 New York State principals have signed the letter: that's over 30% of all principals in NYS! We have over 5800 total supporters right now. Be sure to check out our website for the most current information.

Thank you for your courage to stand up for our students and schools.

- Sean and Carol

DISTRICT ATTORNEY HAD CHANCE TO NAB FUGITIVE TEACHER ACCUSED OF SEX CRIMES

by Alan Zarembo and Richard Winton | LA Times/LA NOW | http://lat.ms/xERoWI

February 25, 2012 |  7:56 am  ::  New questions have emerged over the Los Angeles County district attorney's office's handling of a substitute teacher wanted for alleged sex crimes.

<< Photo: George Hernandez. Credit: Huntington Park Police Department

The teacher, George Hernandez, was arrested by Huntington Park police in September 2010 for allegedly exposing himself to a girl outside a middle school. Detectives who searched his Inglewood apartment discovered a videotape they say shows Hernandez molesting a second-grader in a classroom. He was released on bail and fled the country.

Court records reviewed by The Times show prosecutors chose not to seek the extradition of Hernandez even when they learned of his whereabouts in Mexico.

The records contradict statements made this week by a deputy district attorney, who said the teacher would be extradited as soon as authorities could locate him.

An investigator working for a bail bonds company found Hernandez early last year, and Jalisco, Mexico, state police briefly detained him on Jan. 19, 2011. In a letter faxed nine days later, the company informed the district attorney that it was continuing to track Hernandez and could help apprehend him.

photo: Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley   credit: stevecooley.com>>

But on March 15, Deputy Dist. Atty. Ann Huntsman responded saying prosecutors did not want to bring him back to Los Angeles.

"We have evaluated the case and have determined that we will not seek the defendant's international extradition from Mexico on this case at this time," Huntsman wrote. "The case will remain open and the defendant is still subject to prosecution in this case."

The revelation comes in a case that has focused attention on how schools can fail to weed out dangerous teachers. Before his arrest, Hernandez had been investigated three times at three L.A. Unified School District elementary schools for alleged sexual misconduct. He was never charged and apparently never reported to the state commission on teacher credentialing.

Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the district attorney, said the decision came after consultation with U.S. Justice Department officials, who said success was far from guaranteed.

Prosecutors also considered the fact that Hernandez, now 45, had no criminal record and that the charges they had filed against him — possession of child pornography and indecent exposure — fell short of child molestation, Gibbons said.

ADULT ED GETS REPRIEVE: LAUSD Takes Up Vote Again March 13

 

By Zamná Ávila, Assistant Editor, Random Lengths News (San Pedro) http://bit.ly/zDtk1k

Thursday, 23 February 2012   ::  While President Barack Obama broadly stressed the importance of education and workforce retraining in his State of the Union address, students, teachers, parents and advocates have been mobilizing to prevent Los Angeles Unified School District from making a half billion dollars in cuts at the expense of adult education.

Nationwide, state and local budget cuts have reduced workforces substantially, even as the private sector has been adding jobs continually for the past 23 months. From the highest levels in 2009 through the lowest levels in the first six months of 2011, job losses have totaled 137,860 in state governments and 570,711 in local governments, according to data from the Bureau of Labor statistics. Teachers make up a significant chunk of the latter, along with police and fire departments. So what’s happening with LAUSD is part of a significant nationwide pattern.

The school board first broached the subject in December 2011, when it appeared as a budget proposal at a board meeting. Adult education supporters have been protesting the proposals since.

On Feb. 14, the school board decided to delay the vote until March 13. The cuts, which total $557 million would ultimately shutdown 30 district facilities, including Harbor Occupational Center. However, supporters aren’t planning to let up the pressure anytime soon.

“This is not the final vote,” said Trudy Hawkins, principal of Harbor Occupational Center in San Pedro. “We still need to keep the word out. we still need people saying we need adult education."

Harbor Occupational Center serves about 7,772 students and employs about 60 part-time and full-time teachers and 30 classified staff members, all of whom stand to lose, where they to completely cut funds for adult education.

Random Lengths News made an effort to contact LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy, but the district’s spokeswoman Susan Cox said he was not commenting on the matter. Cox did provide the paper with a general statement that read:

“LAUSD has to date been confronted with annual deficits of at least $400 million, including a shortfall of at least $543 million for the 2012-13 school year,” The statement from Deasy read. “As a whole, funding to the District from Sacramento has been reduced by an estimated $2.5 billion over the past five years.

“Having made systematic and significant cuts in programs and personnel over that period—and with no additional revenues forthcoming—I, and the Los Angeles Board of Education, are left with no choice but to seriously consider massive reductions in critical areas, including arts programs for elementary school students, adult education, and early childhood education. We must do all that we can to preserve K-12 class size at acceptable levels for next year."

No Impacts on K-12

But cutting adult education would still have a negative impact on K through 12 students, Hawkins argued.

“If we didn’t have adult ed. and if parents were not trained, how would they feed the children?” she asked, rhetorically. “There is no way, if they don’t get a job, that they are going to be able to take care of the children. So, adult ed. is very, very important."

The board requested that Superintendent John Deasy return on March 8 with alternatives that save jobs and prevent program cuts, instructing him to work with the state, his staff and unions to develop a proposal. Deasy must prepare a revenue-generating parcel tax referendum to be voted on June or November ballots, or the March 2013 ballot.

The superintendent also was allowed to prepare layoff notices for non-tenured early education teachers and support staff, a precautionary process required in case of cuts. Cuts could impact about 5,000 employees, including teachers and classified personnel, who could receive pink slips. For the fourth consecutive year, the board has approved the dismissal of thousands of teachers in its effort to balance the district’s budget.

“Of all of LAUSD’s programs, adult education gives the highest return on the lowest investment,” Hawkins said. “Adult ed. is very, very efficient. It is only 2 percent of the LAUSD budget. Adult ed. has 2.8 percent of the district’s schools and centers, yet adult ed. accounts for 27 percent of the district’s student enrollment.

“Adult ed.is awarded grants and earns federal funding. In 2010, 11 were for a budget of $170 million. Adult ed. returned over $26 million to the LAUSD general fund.” About 350,000 adult education students would be affected throughout the district. Early education and arts programs also are in danger.

The board was considering banking on $557 million proposed state and local revenue initiatives, making $194 million cuts and using $362 million in new revenue sources, or make $557 million in cuts.

This past December, Gov. Jerry Brown announced $134.5 million cuts in programs for adult education. In reality, the cuts would total $269 million because the state provides matching funds to the district.

In the past three years the district has cut about $2 billion and is facing about a $500 million deficit.

More than 3,000 students signed a letter asking for district’s support in maintaining adult education, many of whom joined educators on Feb. 14 to demonstrate against the proposal at the board meeting.

Improving Lives

Marco Vásquez, a 31-year-old student at Harbor Occupational Center is one of those students. He said that he arrived to the United States from Nayarit, Mexico 11 years ago, was working two jobs and had no direction.

“As soon as I got into Harbor Occupational Center, finally I had direction,” said Vásquez, waving his ASE certification. “All the programs here honestly work and they deliver. I have proof right here; I have my certificate."

Not only has his experience at the center made it possible to build a secure financial future for him and his family, there also have been secondary effects.

“I grew as a person,” he said. “My self-esteem went up, I never struggle for money anymore and I can see that if they shut down the classes, it’s going to make a huge impact in other people,” he said.

So far, he’s attained certificates in brakes, electrical, engine performance and engine repair. He needs to complete five more certifications for automotive technology. In an economic environment as tough as this one, skills in automotive technology is still in high demand.

“What it means is that the program works,” he said. “If it works for me, it can work for anybody."
And yet, for others like diesel technology and welding student Frank Murillo, who has been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, attending Harbor Occupational Center is a tradition. The 20-year-old student went to the center soon after graduating from high school. His disability makes it hard for him to concentrate and working with hands offered an attractive alternative. He said that every time he completes a course he is motivated to move forward.
“I wanted to come here because my family came to this school,” said Murillo, who has been a student at the school for the past year. “When I grow old, I want my kids to come here… If (they) close it down, it’s going to be terrifying because I really like this job and its been helping me and in the future it’s going to get me a good job. For other students such as Francisco Federico, adult education offers second chances. He’s only been at the center for six months but in that time he’s attained a certificate in technology 1 and 2, and a forklift certification. “My goal is to try to get a job because I came from the streets,” Federico, 35, said. “I had no direction. I was lost in gangs and drugs. Now that I’ve come here to Harbor Occupational Center, I see a hope in trying to change my life and trying to get a job so I can be a productive member of society.”

Hope is a common theme said Lisa Andrade, Disability Services advisor.

“You can come here to make your life different and to get a job and to be self-sufficient in society,” Andrade said. “And, that is pretty much what we’ve provided for the community for the last 42 years."

That certainly is the case for María Peña, who is legally blind.

“For me this school is important because they give us the opportunity to be an independent person and find a job,” said Peña, a 48-year-old business administration student. “My life changed since I started coming to this school. It was completely down. And, to know I had a better future and don’t need to depend on another person, changes your life."

The Economic Impact on the City

Harbor Occupational Center’s Assistant Principal Victor Abadia said the school understands that there needs to be cuts, but adult education students and educators would prefer that those cuts be made proportionally.

Referencing a finding from the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and a letter from State Superintendent Tom Torlakson, Abadia noted the greater economic impacts considering that the Los Angeles has the highest rate of under-educated working adults of any metropolitan area in the country, that more than one-third of the district’s students are in the adult division programs and less than 2 percent of the budget goes toward the cost of those programs, and that cutting adult education would impact the health and jail system detrimentally to individuals and their families.

“Let’s say we use 300,000 students that we serve and we look at the return on investment,” Abadia said. “Assume a job of $10 an hour, that’s a little more than 20,000 a year. When we tax the individual that comes to about $1,800 a year. And, since there are provisions to get some of that money into education at a rate 37.9 percent, that represents about $700 that would not get into education.

“If we assume an attrition of 60 percent, we end up with about $2 million that will be lost. That represents $224 million in state revenue and that represents about $85 million that will be lost in education."