NEA SURVEY SHOWS THOSE WITH HIGHER EDUCATION WERE MORE LIKELY TO HAVE RECEIVED ARTS ED IN K-12

Mary Plummer | | Pass | Pass / Fail | 89.3 KPCC http://bit.ly/16vThEw/ Fail | 89.3 KPCC http://bit.ly/16vThEw

Maya Sugarman/KPCC - Teachers John Stephens, left, and Debasish Chaudhury lead a class in North Indian music on Friday, Aug. 2 at Cal Arts.

September 26th, 2013, 1:45pm  ::  Only about a third of high school graduates reported taking an arts class or lesson in childhood, according to a new national survey out Thursday, but rates increased with more education.

More than half of college graduates - 59 percent - said they'd taken an art class or lesson in childhood.

The survey is the sixth of its kind from the National Endowment of the Arts, which partnered with the Census Bureau to produce the 2012 data.

The most common class was music lessons. Of adults who said they'd received arts classes as a kid, 36 percent reported playing an instrument, 19 percent participated in visual arts and 18 percent took an arts appreciation or art history class.

"This iteration of the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts is our most comprehensive look yet at the myriad ways art works for Americans," NEA Senior Deputy Chairman Joan Shigekawa, said in a statement.

The percentage of adults who reported participating in arts education through "classes, lessons, or through informal instruction (from friends, family tradition, or teaching oneself)" at some point in their lives was 56 percent.

The Los Angeles Unified School District, which serves about 650,000 Southern California students, does not provide arts education to all students. The district estimates students on average spend 2 percent of their K-12 careers learning about the arts.

Arts education is just one facet of the NEA survey. It also looked at attendance rates for art events and asked adults whether they read novels or poetry, among other things. The group said it'll release more results next year.

The Survey of Public Participation in the Arts was first conducted in 1982.

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National Endowment for the Arts Presents Highlights from the 2012 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts

nea: Highlights report: 2012 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts | http://1.usa.gov/19355yn

The latest survey explores five areas of arts engagement

 

September 26, 2013

WASHINGTON, DC—How do Americans participate in the arts in the course of a year? What kinds of art forms and activities do they engage with, and in what numbers? The NEA investigates these questions and more in the 2012 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA), the nation’s largest population survey of arts participation trends. Today the NEA released an initial report of the survey's findings. A more comprehensive report will be available in 2014.

“One of the most important things we can do as the National Endowment for the Arts is to understand how our nation engages with the arts,” said NEA Senior Deputy Chairman Joan Shigekawa. “This iteration of the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts is our most comprehensive look yet at the myriad ways art works for Americans.”

A Yardstick for Arts Engagement

The NEA has partnered with the United States Census Bureau six times since 1982 to conduct the SPPA. The 2012 survey asked a nationally representative sample of adults ages 18 and older if they had participated in five broad categories of arts activity in the past year: attending, reading, learning, making/sharing art, and consuming art via electronic media.

Within the arts attendance category, the survey collected data on performing arts events; art museums, galleries, and visual arts events; destinations with historic or design value; and movies. In the reading category, the survey measured reading rates for literature (novels or short stories, poetry, and plays), as well as reading rates for any book (fiction or nonfiction) outside of school or work. The art-making or art-sharing category gathered data on dance; photography; various types of music; film/video; the fiber arts; leatherwork, metalwork, and woodwork; scrapbooking; creative writing and books in general; the visual arts; pottery, ceramics, and jewelry-making; theater; and opera. The survey also asked about electronic consumption of books and literature, the visual arts, dance, theater, opera, and various types of music. In addition, the survey asked people if they had taken an arts class or lesson in or out of school, or had learned arts subjects through some other means.

For the 2012 survey, the NEA doubled the sample size in order ask more questions and discover new patterns of arts engagement. The NEA developed the new questions through dialogues with researchers, policymakers, and practitioners in the arts. Since the survey captures more art forms, it also captures more people who are participating in the arts.

Key Findings

This initial analysis of the 2012 SPPA shows that large segments of the U.S. adult population reported taking part in at least one kind of arts activity. A closer look at the data reveals subtle shifts in demographic and behavioral patterns that occurred since 2008, the previous survey year.

Art and Electronic Media

• More than two-thirds of American adults (71 percent or 167 million) accessed art via electronic media, including TV, radio, handheld or mobile devices, the Internet, and DVDs, CDs, tapes, or records.

• Music viewing and/or listening is the most popular form of media arts participation—whether on TV, radio, or the Internet. Fifty percent of adults used TV or radio to watch or listen to music, and 29 percent used the Internet to watch, listen to, or download music.

• Mobile devices appear to narrow racial/ethnic gaps in arts engagement. Whether listening to music, looking at a photo, or watching a dance or theater performance, all racial/ethnic groups show roughly the same rates of engagement via mobile devices.

Attending Arts Events and Activities

• Nearly half of the nation's adults (49 percent or 115 million) attended at least one type of visual or performing arts activity. Fifty-nine percent of adults attended at least one movie, an activity that increased substantially among most demographic subgroups.
• Musical play attendance saw the first significant drop since the 1985 SPPA: a 9 percent rate of decline from 2008 to 2012. Non-musical play attendance fell at a 12 percent rate over the same period.  Museum-going also saw a decline: 21 percent of adults (or 47 million) visited an art museum or gallery in 2012, down from 23 percent in 2008.
• Non-white and Hispanic Americans saw no declines in their arts attendance rates from 2008 to 2012; on the contrary, they even saw increases in some categories. In 2012, African Americans outpaced whites' attendance rates at jazz events.

• Festivals show promise as entry points to the arts. One in four younger adults (ages 18-24) attended an outdoor performing arts festival in 2012, up from 22 percent in 2008. 

Art-Making and Art-Sharing

• About half of the nation's adults created, performed, or shared art of various types. Social dancing is the most popular form of art-making or art-sharing; nearly one in three adults (32 percent) danced at weddings, clubs, or other social settings. Young adults and Hispanic Americans are the most avid dancers; 40 percent of 18-34 year olds and 36 percent of Hispanics reported social dancing.
• One in four adults (26 percent) e-mailed, posted, or shared photography in 2012. One in five adults (21 percent) e-mailed, posted, or shared music. Fifteen percent shared their own photos, and 13 percent shared film or videos. Thirteen percent did photo editing, and 12 percent did photography for artistic purposes.

• In this category, the fiber arts were among the most popular. Thirteen percent of adults reported participating in weaving, crocheting, quilting, needlepoint, knitting, or sewing in 2012. Twelve percent of adults played a musical instrument. Nine percent reported singing, either alone or with others, and 8 percent created leatherwork, metalwork, or woodwork.

Reading Books and Literature

• More than half of American adults read a work of literature or a book (fiction or nonfiction) not required for work or school. However, adults' rates of literary reading (novels or short stories, poetry, and plays) dropped back to 2002 levels (from 50 percent in 2008 to 47 percent in 2012).

• Older Americans (65 and older) now have higher rates of literary reading than any other adult age group. 

Arts Education

As of 2012, roughly half of all adults had experienced some arts learning at some point in their lives, whether through classes or lessons, in or out of school, or outside of formal instruction. But disparities persist by gender, race/ethnicity, and level of general education. For example, a college graduate is nearly twice as likely to have taken an art class or lesson in childhood than a high school graduate (59 percent compared to 32 percent). Meanwhile, adults of all racial and ethnic backgrounds reported similar rates of taking arts classes or lessons in the last year.

• The most popular classes adults reported taking in childhood (in or out of school) were voice training or playing an instrument (36 percent), visual arts (19 percent), and art appreciation or art history (18 percent).

• A new, more inclusive question about arts education reveals more arts participants than before. Fifty-six percent of adults reported that they received arts education at some point in their lives—whether through classes, lessons, or through informal instruction (from friends, family tradition, or teaching oneself). This compares to the 49 percent who reported having taken formal instruction (a class or lesson, in or out of school) at some point in their lives. The most popular informal learning experiences were voice training or playing an instrument (18 percent), dance (16 percent), photography or filmmaking (13 percent), and music appreciation (11 percent).    

Next year, the NEA will release a full report with in-depth findings including more geographic and demographic details for arts engagement among U.S. adults. Beyond today's highlights report, the entire survey questionnaire, raw data, and user's guide are available to researchers and the public at arts.gov.

The SPPA Challenge: Presenting Arts Data Artfully

Big data presents big challenges, and the SPPA is no exception. Consequently, the NEA is issuing a challenge to create interactive visualization tools to make the 2012 SPPA more accessible to the public. This challenge seeks to help researchers, academics, and the media explore and explain the reach of the arts in American life.  More than $20,000 will be awarded to select contestants; learn more when the SPPA Challenge goes live on September 30 at Challenge.gov.

NEA Art Works: Research Grants

The SPPA and its host survey instrument, the Current Population Survey, include a wealth of demographic information that can be mined for detailed characteristics of arts participants. Researchers are encouraged to analyze the SPPA through the NEA Research: Art Works grant program; the next deadline is November 5.

About NEA Research

The NEA is the only federal agency to conduct long-term and detailed analyses of arts participation. For more than 30 years, the NEA Office of Research & Analysis has produced periodic research reports, brochures, and notes on significant topics affecting artists and arts organizations, often in partnership with other federal agencies such as the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The NEA is committed to extending the conversation about arts participation by making data available to both the research community and the public at large.

About the National Endowment for the Arts

The National Endowment for the Arts was established by Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. To date, the NEA has awarded more than $4 billion to support artistic excellence, creativity, and innovation for the benefit of individuals and communities. The NEA extends its work through partnerships with state arts agencies, local leaders, other federal agencies, and the philanthropic sector. To join the discussion on how art works, visit the NEA at www.arts.gov.

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Highlights From 2012 SPPA

Editorial+Letters: L.A. UNIFIED’S iPAD PLAN DOESN’T COMPUTE

L.A. TIMES EDITORIAL: The district's failure to resolve questions about theft, breakage and Web security is troubling.

By The Times editorial board | http://lat.ms/19LTUoB

Students explore the possibilities with their new LAUSD-provided iPads at Broadacres Elementary School. (Los Angeles Times / August 27, 2013)

September 27, 2013  ::  It has been a year since Los Angeles Unified schools Supt. John Deasy proposed putting a tablet computer in the hands of every student in the district. At that time, there were numerous questions about how and whether this would work. Could first-graders really take care of such expensive equipment? Who would be held responsible if one of the devices was stolen, lost or broken, or if apple juice was dripped into the circuitry? How would the district keep high-schoolers off porn sites? And how much would all this cost?

Deasy said these details would be worked out before any decisions were made. But all we know for sure a year later is the price tag: a whopping $1 billion to provide more than 600,000 students and their teachers with top-of-the-line, software-equipped iPads at $678 each, plus the necessary Wi-Fi in the schools. The district has forged ahead — 47,000 students have received iPads already, with a much bigger purchase planned soon — yet vital issues remain inadequately addressed.

Still unclear, for example, is who pays for accidental loss or damage to the iPads. Under the district's contract, Apple will replace up to 5% of the devices for free. After that, the district is on its own. Parents at different schools have been given different information about whether they would have to cover the cost, and Deasy said he's still trying to figure this out. Isn't this something he should have done before any iPads were purchased?

The district also is coming to terms with how quickly its students disabled the firewall on their tablets to gain broad access to the Internet when they're not on campus. There are potential liability and safety issues at stake — if, for example, a student were to make contact with a sexual predator on a school-issued iPad. While it tries to figure that out, the district has decreed that students may not take the tablets home, which seriously limits their usefulness as tools for integrating their class studies and homework. L.A. Unified has taken pains to discourage theft by enabling its iPads to be located and shut off if they are stolen. But are thieves really going to consider in advance whether the device they are looking to grab will work after it's stolen? More likely, once the tablet went dead, they would throw it in the trash.

There's also the matter of keyboards. Apparently the district hadn't foreseen that it might need to purchase them as well, at a so-far unknown cost.

Access to iPads and other high-tech devices could be of tremendous benefit to L.A. Unified students, many of whom have few digital resources at home. But at this point, the district should be well beyond the "we're figuring this out" phase. It has spent some $30 million already, and in November, Deasy is scheduled to ask for close to $200 million more to provide iPads for an additional 300,000 students by the end of the school year. Given the many easily foreseen questions that have not been resolved, the board should require a more gradual rollout so that problems can be identified and addressed before it is too late to change course.

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Letters: In LAUSD, iPads become toys

letters to the editor of the LA Times |http://lat.ms/1fMuk9l

September 27, 2013

Re "Give students A+ in hacking," Sept. 25

It amazes me that the L.A. Unified School District officials in charge of purchasing Apple iPads for students apparently did not foresee the security problems they would have in letting students take the tablets home.

Perhaps the people at Apple, who will sell hundreds of millions of dollars worth of iPads to L.A. Unified, should have been more upfront about the hacking possibilities that would allow students to use the tablets in ways the district didn't intend.

And what about the district's lawyers? I can just imagine the lawsuits after some child comes in contact with a predator while using an L.A. Unified-issued iPad.

Mary Brown

Los Angeles

 

Any teacher, and many parents, could have told L.A. Unified Supt. John Deasy exactly what would happen with his iPad scheme.

First, the wireless Internet at multiple-acre schools would not be up to the task — and probably never will be, no matter how many millions of dollars are poured into them.

Second, students are very tech-savvy. The Internet is a wonderful tool for research, but without librarians and teachers to supervise appropriate use, students will inevitably find amusement much more enticing (who wouldn't?).

Too bad the superintendent apparently didn't consult with the people who actually know the students and the school sites. He might have decided the money would be better spent on restoring librarians and adding teachers to reduce class size, thus improving education for all children.

Alexa Maxwell

Los Angeles

 

As a former high school teacher of technology going back to 1978, I would have given these students no better than a "C." What took them so long?

During the latter part of my career, my classroom had a computer at each desk. I and others in the district could catch the students visiting "inappropriate" sites, but we could never stop them. This was not for lack of trying.

A computer is a tool, just like a pencil is a tool. It is not possible to prevent the misuse of either.

The school district should expend less resources on policing and blocking usage and more on making students smart and safe users of all tools.

Dennis Baker

Corona del Mar

 

As a 1956 graduate of Roosevelt High School and a retired L.A. Unified teacher, I am proud of the Roosevelt students who wasted no time hacking their newly issued district iPads. This misbegotten idea was a waste of money from the start, and the administrators who thought the iPads were secure were very wrong.

Go Rough Riders!

Abraham Hoffman

Canoga Park

L,A. UNIFIED REPORTS 71 iPADS ARE MISSING

The lost iPads [71 of 1,200 = a loss rate of 17%]  are from a trial program last year.  L.A. Unified officials say security is being tightened and that student hacking is also being addressed.

By Howard Blume, L.A. Times | http://lat.ms/192XCiP

Students work on iPads in April at the Valley Academy of Arts and Sciences in Granada Hills. (Mel Melcon, Los Angeles Times)

 

September 26, 2013, 9:23 p.m.  ::  Los Angeles school district officials are trying to track down 71 missing iPads — including 69 from one campus — but said Thursday that new security measures are designed to frustrate future thefts.

Officials also acknowledged that student hacking of an iPad security system last week was more widespread than originally reported by the district.

The lost devices are among iPads used last year in a 13-school trial run of the Apple tablets. Since then, the L.A. Unified School District has launched a $1-billion program to equip every student in the nation's second-largest school system with the devices.

Central to the effort are security measures to keep track of the tablets, which cost nearly $700 apiece and were intended to be sent home with students.

The loss of last year's tablets is not an omen of things to come, but rather an experience that has resulted in stronger safeguards, said Lt. Jose Santome of the school district's Police Department.

"We have a very vigorous control for this rollout," Santome said. "We know what's going out and deployed on every campus."

In addition, five of the new iPads — out of about 14,000 so far distributed — disappeared, although one of those was subsequently recovered, Santome said.

The problem last year was most acute at the Valley Academy of Arts and Sciences in Granada Hills. Administrators distributed about 1,200 iPads there last year. At the end of the year, 69 did not come back.

The district was not able to respond quickly last year for several reasons, Santome said. First, officials needed to sort through storage carts to determine whether any iPads had ended up on the wrong one, for example, or whether two of the devices were placed into a storage slot meant for one. Then the district had to tabulate serial numbers for every computer to determine which ones were missing.

Ultimately, the district was able to link missing iPads to the students to whom they had been assigned. Investigators are in the process of interviewing those students.

But that's unlikely to resolve what happened. If students claim they turned in their device, the district may have no way to prove otherwise, Santome said.

He added that the district has addressed security shortcomings. Global positioning software can now be activated for every tablet. And an electronic inventory system is supposed to register at all times who is currently responsible for a particular iPad. The district also can shut down iPads that are reported as stolen.

Last week's hacking episode involved a different sort of security breach: high school students gaining access to unauthorized websites.

In interviews, students said they had been disappointed at their inability to get to social networking and music streaming sites, and they quickly figured out how to delete safeguards. As a result, students were able to visit any website when they used the tablets off campus.

In response, L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy has temporarily banned the home use of district iPads.

L.A. Unified knew immediately which students took their iPads out of the filtering system, chief information officer Ronald Chandler said. Officials still are weighing how best to provide sufficient but secure Internet access.

When the hacking came to light Tuesday, the district announced that 185 students had been involved. The current figures are 260 students at Roosevelt High in Boyle Heights, 10 students from Angelou Community High School in South Park and 70 at Westchester High.

Early reports indicated that Valley Academy students were also involved, but a district spokeswoman was unable to confirm that Thursday.

A student government representative at Westchester said the district count for his campus still sounded too low. He said administrators reported to students that 160 of their classmates were involved. The student requested anonymity because he was afraid of getting into trouble for having taken part in the unapproved Web access.

HOW DID LA STUDENTS BYPASS iPAD SECURITY? Board members ask tough questions + smf’s 2¢

Annie Gilbertson | Pass / Fail | 89.3 KPCC http://bit.ly/15wjpZT

Jed Kim - Science teacher Jodie Capper makes a presentation on her iPad as part of her training.

September 25th, 2013, 7:45pm  ::  Some school board members questioned the Los Angeles Unified School District's control over new iPads on Wednesday, after the first students to get the devices quickly unblocked Internet controls.

At its first-ever meeting, members of the Board of Education's Common Core Technology Project Ad Hoc Committee pounced on Ronald Chandler, L.A. Unified’s top technology officer, asking pointed questions about how 180 students at three campuses managed to bypass security measures within a few days of getting the devices.

“They figured out if they delete this one file, that it allows them to circumvent our filter," Chandler said.

Board member Monica Ratliff pressed him about what the iPads were doing at kids’ homes in the first place. After some tap dancing, Chandler said school principals were given leeway to decide that one.

Not anymore. The district swiftly put a moratorium on taking the tablets out of schools this week.

The tablets are in a pilot phase – only 47 schools will get them this year, and rollout has been slow. Only a handful of schools have the tablets now. Plans call for equipping every student with an iPad next year, but the board has not yet agreed to spend the additional money.

The pilot phase cost $30 million, paid with bonds voters had approved for school construction and improvements.

There are other problems inherent in letting students take the tablets home. Chandler said the three-year warranty the district negotiated with Apple covers defects, but not accidental breakage or theft. Parents will be on the hook in those cases.

There is much wrong in this article and it isn’t with the reporting but more in the absolute+utter failure to inform the reporter, the Board of Education,  the community, district staff, parents, …etc., etc., etc.

• It wasn't the first ever meeting of the Common Core Technology Project Ad Hoc Committee, it was the second.
• The reporter got one thing righter than anyone else working the story: There was no “hacking”, the students simply turned the security controls off.
• The contract language regarding accidental breakage or theft (“For replacement for reasons other than defects in materials or workmanship a Buffer Pool of devices (2.5% of purchase) will be established at no cost to the District…. “) requires explanation, 
• How 2.5% became 5% in other reporting needs clarification.

The rest is  mis-, over- and.or under- understanding of what’s going on by everyone in the room, And many who were not. Including me and you.

WHO PAYS IF L.A. UNIFIED STUDENTS LOSE OR BREAK iPADS?

L.A. Unified board grapples with the question of whether to force parents to pay for damaged or lost iPads. It's uncertain whether responsibility was made clear to all parents.

By Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times | http://lat.ms/185MHSi

Senior L.A. Unified officials acknowledge that they haven’t decided on consequences if the $700 iPads are lost or broken. “It’s extremely disconcerting that the parent and student responsibility issue has not been hammered out," said Board of Education member Monica Ratliff, above. (Anne Cusack, Los Angeles Times)

 

September 25, 2013, 7:51 p.m. ::  Another issue in the Los Angeles Unified School District's $1-billion effort to equip every student with an iPad surfaced Wednesday: Are parents liable if their child breaks or loses the tablet?

The question emerged after revelations that 300 or so students at Roosevelt High School skirted security measures on the device and visited unauthorized websites. In response, the district suspended all home use of the Apple tablets, which have gone out to about two dozen schools so far.

Ultimately, officials want the iPads used at home — that's considered a key element of their educational value. But their dollar value also became a concern at a meeting Wednesday of a district committee overseeing technology efforts. Senior district officials acknowledged that they haven't decided on consequences if the $700 iPads are lost or broken.

"It's extremely disconcerting that the parent and student responsibility issue has not been hammered out, and that different parents and students received different information during the rollout," said Board of Education member Monica Ratliff, who chaired the meeting.

At least three different parent information forms have been circulated, according to Ratliff's office. And the Spanish form was a computer-generated translation that was substantially incomprehensible, said committee member Linda Perez, president of the local chapter of the California School Employees Assn.

At least one form required a signature acknowledging that a parent is financially responsible if a student breaks or loses the device. The idea was that students would not receive an iPad until the signed form was returned.

But officials admitted they didn't know whether that approach had been used uniformly — or even if it should be.

"I was told the students were not being held responsible for the device," Ratliff said. The idea, she presumed, was to "promote responsibility," but the forms that parents signed were "not legally binding."

Not so, district lawyer Carl Piper told her. The agreement is binding if the district chooses to enforce it, he said.

And what if low-income families, who make up most of the school system, can't afford to take responsibility for a device that is supposed to replace student textbooks?

"Are we really going to be in a position of taking their textbook away?" Ratliff asked.

Under state law, families can be required to pay for damaged materials, said Brooks Allen, director of education advocacy for the ACLU of Southern California.

But, "at the end of the day, you have to make sure all students have equal access to instructional materials and that the ability to pay is not a barrier," he said in an interview.

Sara Roos, a parent whose children attend Westside schools, raised other matters: "I don't want my child responsible for a $600 device," she said. She added that some parents could refuse to sign a form because of philosophical objections to bringing in the high-cost, computer-based program.

"At school, that is the instructional material," said Gerardo Loera, head of curriculum and instruction. "You can't opt out of that."

But he had no answer regarding parents who refused to take responsibility for the tablets at home.

"We have to come back to you with that," he told the panel, which includes board members, union officials and others.

The district's contract with Apple stipulates that for three years, broken, lost or stolen machines will be replaced until they surpass 5% of the contract's value.

In any scenario, students will not be responsible for stolen iPads. In fact, officials said they don't want them to risk injury by resisting thieves.

The district hopes to discourage theft with tracking software and the ability to shut down stolen devices. The ability of high school students to defeat security measures, however, has raised some doubts about how foolproof these plans are.

Students at Roosevelt said they worked around district security measures to get to social networking and music streaming sites, among others.

The district is weighing both security fixes and the possibility of giving students more Web-surfing freedom, chief technology officer Ronald Chandler said.

"We're tweaking and really trying to balance how much access we give them," Chandler said.

Within a year, L.A. Unified plans to spend $500 million on the devices and educational software for all students; another $500 million will be needed to update schools with wireless capability.

 

re: The district's contract with Apple stipulates that for three years, broken, lost or stolen machines will be replaced until they surpass 5% of the contract's value.   The District’s broken, lost or stolen loss rate on textbooks is approximately 9% per year. Admittedly iPads are not textbooks; they are probably more subject to theft or breakage (though the cases on LAUSD iPads are pretty substantial!) and equally subject to loss – though more easily recoverable because textbooks don’t send out a signal when turned on.

As to whether parents are on-or-off the hook: One gets a different answer from different people every time one asks. I participated in an  official on-the-record meeting with counsel for the District and counsel for the Bond Oversight Committee present where senior staff said - and repeated when questioned -  that parents would not be held accountable for accidental loss or damage and I consider that official.

LAUSD REVIEWING iPAD POLICIES AFTER STUDENT SECURITY BREACH

Boardmember Ratliff concerned that the school board hasn’t been involved in making key policy decisions. ●●see #33  By the numbers: HOW TO TELL IF YOUR SCHOOL DISTRICT IS INFECTED BY THE BROAD VIRUS

By Barbara Jones, Los Angeles Daily News |  http://bit.ly/1906WnB

9/25/13, 6:58 PM PDT  ::  Los Angeles Unified officials vowed Wednesday to ratchet up efforts to prevent a recurrence of the security breach that involved 300 district-issued iPads, even as new concerns arose about just who is responsible if the devices are lost, stolen or broken.

Chief Information Officer Ron Chandler was questioned extensively by the school board’s Technology Committee [4LAKids will post a link to the streaming video of the meeting when it becomes available] about last week’s discovery that students at three high schools had bypassed security measures on their new iPads to access Facebook, YouTube and other unauthorized websites.

The breach was identified immediately, he said, and the district was able to track down the offenders and retrieve the iPads for reprogramming. However, because most of the students tampered with the computers while they were off-campus, Superintendent John Deasy immediately prohibited the devices from being taken home.

As a result of the breach, Chandler said, officials are working swiftly to draft a progressive discipline “matrix” so they can deal with varying types and occurrences of computer misuse. At the same time, the district plans to increase discussions with students about cybersecurity and the importance of being good “digital citizens.”

“Safety for us trumps everything else,” Chandler said. “The best way to correct behavior, and influence the right behavior, is around awareness.”

The three high schools involved — Roosevelt, Westchester and the Fine Arts Academy at Maya Angelou Community High — were among the first of 47 campuses getting iPads this year as Los Angeles Unified rolls out its ambitious plan to equip every student with a tablet computer by this time next year.

According to the district’s timeline, the board will consider the purchase of about 300,000 tablet computers during its meeting in November.

Before that debate, however, committee Chairwoman Monica Ratliff wants answers to a slate of questions raised Wednesday.

As a result of the security breach, Ratliff learned — to her surprise — that some students had been allowed to take their iPads home. District officials had previously said the devices had to remain on campus until liability issues were resolved, but Chandler said that decision had actually been left to principals at each school. Ratliff said she wants to know at the committee’s next meeting just who made that call.

“Ultimately, it’s the school board who gets to decide, but it’s never been brought to the board,” Ratliff said. “I do understand the desire to get the devices into the hands of students and to take them home. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

And she also wants clarity on who is responsible for replacing the tablets if they’re lost, stolen or broken. While Los Angeles Unified has said the district would foot the bill for replacing the $678 iPads, some parents and even students have been told they have to sign forms accepting responsibility for the devices.

After the meeting, Ratliff said she’s concerned that the school board hasn’t been involved in making key policy decisions.

“I think it is regrettable that we are deep in the process of rolling our iPads out and yet some policy decisions have not been made or have been made on the fly,” she said. “What’s clear is that district personnel really want this to work and are doing the best they can to make it work.

“Certain decisions have to be made at the highest level — that being the board — and these decisions have not.”

The iPads will be used in lessons and assessments being designed for the new English and math standards taking effect in 2014-15. Known as the Common Core, the new curriculum is designed to provide students with real-world skills to better prepare them for a job or college.

Responding to concerns from committee members that parents aren’t prepared to help their kids with Common Core, Ratliff said the panel will hold a special forum for parents during the next meeting on Oct. 22.

LA UNIFIED BEGINS JOB SEARCH TO REPLACE AQUINO + Job Posting + smf’s 2¢

by Hillel Aron in LA School Report | http://bit.ly/16LKjgD

Posted on September 25, 2013  ::  The Los Angeles Unified School District has begun the search to replace Deputy Superintendent for Instruction Jamie Aquino, who announced a week and a half ago that he would resign at the end of the year.

Jaime Aquino>>

The job posting seeks to find “an accomplished and visionary educator with considerable experience aligning student and school needs with the resources that ensure academic success.” The annual salary for the job is $250,000 a year plus benefits, about what Aquino was making.

Superintendent John Deasy said that he expects the job search to take months. Deasy has final say on the candidate, but the board retains the right to reject the choice.

Shortly after Aquino resigned, the teachers union’s twitter account tweeted that the opening represented an opportunity “to revisit the instructional direction of the District.”

---

1. There was no public job search when Aquino assumed the job he is now leaving. Aquino joined the District quite suddenly, two weeks after Deasy’s ascendance from deputy  to the superintendency. That was then.
2. This is now. Deasy has the right to select his #2. However, in-light-of (and complicated-by) his rather precarious tenure he doesn’t have the right to select his successor/heir apparent as superintendent any more than Eli Broad, Bill Gates, The Walton Family or the mayor of Los Angeles.
3. Applications for the job are due Nov. 4th. Deasy says the selection process will take months.  Aquino has been conspicuously absent from public meetings this week – sending representatives who were unable to answer questions about the Common Core Curriculum or the Common Core Technology Project – of which he is the point person
4. Who is going to serve as the Interim Deputy Superintendent of Instruction – and in the case of the CCTP/Ipads for All: crisis manager - during this interregnum?

2 pictures worth 2000 words

from Hemlock on the rocks |http://bit.ly/1840FEi

PARENTAL ADVISORY/CONTAINS EXPLICIT IMAGES: An actual screen capture of an actual Facebook Page from an actual LAUSD iPad!

May not be suitable for the squeamish.

A copy of these photos has been placed in student 00016375’s permanent record

NOTE: This image was posted as a public service for purely educational value and not to appeal to anyone’s prurient interests. Luckily the LAUSD iPad Police are all over this and hardly any young lives were irretrievably destroyed.

FEDS COME UP WITH WORKAROUND FOR “DOUBLE TESTING” … but No Help for California!

By Catherine Gewertz, EDUCATION WEEK  | http://bit.ly/15UKlGl

• Published Online: September 19, 2013 as: Next Steps Weighed on Federal 'Double-Testing' Relief
• Published in Print: September 25, 2013, as States Mull Next Steps On Testing

Ed. Dept. Outlines Leeway on Assessment Regimes

The U.S. Department of Education’s announcement that it will give states the chance to suspend some or all of their current tests in mathematics and English/language arts for the 2013-14 school year could spark big changes in student testing nationally.

The offer comes with strict conditions, however, and doesn’t mean that states can skip tests altogether.

To obtain the “double-testing flexibility” unveiled earlier this week, states must give their own tests, or field tests of new common-core assessments being designed by two state consortia, to 95 percent of their students in grades 3-8 and one grade in high school, as federal rules require. Each student must take a full-length test—either their state’s current test or the new field tests—in both math and English/language arts.

States already are considering a range of responses to the offer of flexibility, including a mix of field testing and their own tests. But the announcement sparked mixed reactions among advocates, some of whom are worried that the offer could water down accountability.

The Education Department’s offer is aimed at easing an assessment burden that looms this school year, as states face juggling their own tests with the field tests being designed by the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC.

Relief Valve

The U.S. Department of Education issued guidance for states about how they can avoid “double testing” in 2013-14, when they face juggling their own state tests with field tests of multi-state consortium assessments for the common standards.

“DOUBLE-TESTING FLEXIBILITY”

States can replace some or all of their state tests with field tests being created by the PARCC and Smarter Balanced assessment consortia.

To obtain “double-testing flexibility,” states must:

• Ensure that every student in tested grades takes a full-length test in both mathematics and English/language arts.
• Test 95 percent of their students in both subjects.
• Report the results of state tests for students taking those tests.
• Report participation rates overall, by subgroup, and by the relative portions of students who took state tests and field tests.
• Show that schools meet the department’s specifications for participation in field testing, which call for students to take the full form of either their current state test or the consortium field test.
• Require that students who are taking only some items of the field test also take their state’s full-form test in that subject.

—Note: States are not required to report the results of field tests.

“DETERMINATION FLEXIBILITY”

Schools that participate in field testing can maintain their federal accountability designations—such as whether they are “priority” turnaround schools—for one year, with accompanying interventions and supports.

Source: U.S. Department of Education

All but seven states are participating in those groups, and field-testing of those tests is projected to involve 3 million students across those states in the spring of 2014. The new guidance expands upon U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s brief, general offer of such flexibility in June.

In a Sept. 17 letter accompanying the new guidance, Deborah S. Delisle, the assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education, told schools chiefs that states and districts would not have to report results of the field tests, since they are still in development. But they would still have to report the results of their state tests, as well as participation rates in both the state and field tests.

Since schools participating in the field tests wouldn’t have results for accountability, the department also offered states the chance to obtain “determination flexibility” for those schools. That would allow schools to maintain their current federal accountability designations—such as “priority” or “focus” school—for one year, along with the interventions designed to help them improve.

The guidance envisions a mix of state and field tests being used in schools. It describes a scenario, for instance, in which one classroom of students takes the field test in math and the state test in English/language arts while the rest of the students in the school take state tests in both subjects.

But department officials confirmed that the flexibility could permit a state to go as far as substituting its own state tests for field tests in those two subjects, as long as the state met the department’s other testing and participation requirements.

Advocates’ Concerns

The prospect of having little or no accountability data, however, sparked concerns among those who have pushed hard for information about how well schools are serving students, especially those most in need of support.

The Education Trust, a Washington-based group that advocates for policies that improve schooling for disadvantaged students, had pushed for the department to require states to continue their current tests, so that the public can see how they’re doing, but to allow schools to hold their accountability designations steady and keep their interventions in place. That would enable teachers to adapt to the common core before consequences—such as the impact of negative evaluations—were linked to tests of the new standards.

Daria L. Hall, the Education Trust's director of K-12 policy, said she is disappointed that the Education Department’s guidance will allow some schools—possibly all schools in a state—to produce no test results for the public. That data is central to parents’ decisions about where to send their children to school, and to teachers’ plans for students with disabilities and English-language learners.

“Parents and members of the public need information on how students are doing,” Ms. Hall said. “To not give them that basic information for a full year is really going to be challenging, particularly for the groups we’re most concerned about. They’re being robbed of the information they deserve.”

Additionally, she said, the Education Department has created potential confusion by allowing field-testing schools to hold accountability ratings steady, but expecting schools that give the current test schoolwide to use those scores to calculate new accountability ratings.

But Education Department officials defended the new flexibility, saying it preserves accountability by requiring schools to continue with the plans they designed to help them improve.

“The key thing is that all interventions in all schools will continue for 2014-15 regardless of whether a school participates in the field tests or not. It’s not a relaxing of the interventions,” said Scott Sargrad, the deputy assistant secretary for policy and strategic initiatives.

He acknowledged that field-test participation will mean an absence of student-achievement data in math and English/language arts, which have been used by students, parents, teachers, and others to gauge how schools and students are doing. But in the department’s view, Mr. Sargrad said, “the accountability that is critical is that the interventions are continuing to happen for all schools and all kids.”

The Council of Chief State School Officers, which had pressed for testing flexibility in this year of transition to the common standards and assessments, welcomed the department’s new guidance and agreed with Mr. Sargrad that continuation of school interventions offered sufficient accountability this year.

The CCSSO’s program director for accountability, Kirsten Taylor Carr, also said that she expects many states to keep giving their state tests to at least some significant portion of their students. It’s worthwhile for them because it preserves the continuity of their test data, and because many have revised their tests to include common-core-aligned items, so they can get valuable feedback on how students and schools are doing on those items, she said.

No Help for California

But the new guidance doesn’t help California, which plans to substitute its math and reading tests for Smarter Balanced field tests this spring. The legislature has approved a bill outlining that plan, and it is awaiting Gov. Jerry Brown’s signature. It drew a sharp rebuke from Secretary Duncan earlier this month because the state’s plan would have any individual student taking the field tests in only math or English/language arts, not both, as the department wishes. ("California in Testing Showdown with U.S. Department of Education," Sept. 11, 2013.)

Despite Mr. Duncan’s warning that the federal department could penalize the Golden State by withholding some of its Title I aid, California still is moving forward with that plan, said the state’s Deputy Superintendent Deborah Sigman. Giving the field tests in both subjects to all students is not an option, she said.

“The plan was designed for a reason: to make sure we could stress the system enough to allow districts and their staffs to figure out what they need to do to get ready for 2014-15,” Ms. Sigman said. “We don’t want to stress the system so much that you lose the benefit of trying out the [new tests]. We mean this to be a transition year, and that means things look different.”

Montana is another state that hopes to suspend its current statewide testing in math and English/language arts this year and use only the Smarter Balanced field tests. In a July letter to Assistant Secretary Delisle, the state’s Superintendent of Public Instruction Denise Juneau outlined Montana’s plan, saying it would use its 2013 state test results to calculate “adequate yearly progress” and other data needed for federal accountability.

Like California, Montana is one of the nine states that have not obtained waivers from key parts of the No Child Left Behind Act, so it must still abide by the law’s requirements, such as reporting on students’ progress toward 100 percent proficiency by 2014. Ms. Juneau said her state will apply for the new testing and accountability flexibility, and would comply with the federal guidance requiring that each student tested take a full-form test in both subjects.

‘Perfect Tryout Year’

“This is the perfect tryout year for us, since we aren’t going to make AYP anyway,” she said of the federal accountability yardstick. “It’s a great year for us to test our schools’ technology, let our teachers get a look at what this new assessment will look like. The district superintendents I talk to say, ‘Pull off the Band-Aid, and let’s get going with the new assessments.’”

.Ms. Juneau said she’s been talking with counterparts in North Dakota, South Dakota, and Connecticut about submitting a joint application for testing and determination flexibility, since those states also are considering setting aside their own math and English/language arts tests and using Smarter Balanced field tests instead.

Vermont is proposing an entirely different approach. In 27 of its schools, it plans to give only the Smarter Balanced field tests, and each student will take both the math and English/language arts exams, said assessment director Michael Hock. In its other 260 schools, it will continue with the New England Common Assessment Program, or NECAP, as it has done since 2005. NECAP, a collaborative project of four states in the region, is given each fall.

“Taking students away from instruction twice a year, if we do the field tests and state tests in the same schools, is a hardship for schools,” said Mr. Hock. “They have to gear up for it, move staff around, maybe borrow computers from other buildings. So this flexibility is worth getting, even if [state and field] tests are not in the same month.”

Smarter Balanced’s contract with its field-testing vendor covers the cost of administering the field test to about 20 percent of the students, enough to make sound conclusions about how well the test and its items work, Mr. Hock said. But the state doesn’t have the budget to allow more students than that to take it, even though some schools lobbied him to participate in both the field test and NECAP, he said.

“I thought people would flock to the field test so they wouldn’t have to give both,” he said. “But some of our superintendents are really interested in seeing what they can learn from both.”

Vol. 33, Issue 05, Pages 1,25

comment: Susan Weikel Morrison

2:38 PM on September 20, 2013 :: California public school educators are suffering from whiplash. School started in mid-August, and they STILL don't know what they'll be accountable for.

Will it be the same curriculum and tests as before? Should they continue the same push as always and ignore Common Core for a year? If they do that, they will start next year utterly unprepared for Common Core.

If they experiment with Common Core, which is VERY different from before and VERY complex and confusing, then their test scores will go down and the media will wail that the schools are failing.

In any case, the test scores for the first full year of Common Core will be at the bottom, which is probably the best for a baseline year.

So if I were a CA superintendent, I'd stay with same old same old this year and not start my staff on Common Core until after STAR testing is over.

Oh, and make sure the media know in advance that the first year Common Core scores will be down because staff is still getting used to switching from apples to oranges.

NO MORE FUN-FUN-FUN AS DADDY DEASY TAKES THE iPADS AWAY! + comments from the peanut gallery

L.A. School District Shocked That Kids Would Figure Out How To Use iPads For Purposes Of Fun By Chris Morran in The Consumerist |  http://bit.ly/171w5M5 (kenfagerdotcom) September 25, 2013  ::  If you hand out iPads to a bunch of adult employees and tell them the devices can only be used for work purposes, some of them will abide by those guidelines. Do the same thing with a school full of kids and most of them will be Tweeting and on Facebook in a matter of seconds. And yet the nation’s second-largest school district is shocked that several hundred students have taken advantage of a simple work-around that turns a boring school tablet into a fun tablet computer. The Los Angeles Unified School District — not to be confused with the Manchester United Football Club — recently began rolling out its $1 billion program to get an iPad into the hands of every kid within a year. But so kids aren’t playing games or social media-ing when they are supposed to be learning, the iPads are locked down, giving the students only very limited access to apps and the Internet… at least until the student deletes her personal profile and then has access to the device’s full capabilities. The L.A. Times reports that students at one school immediately began tinkering with their new iPads once they realized they were useless outside of the school. “I’m guessing this is just a sample of what will likely occur on other campuses once this hits Twitter, YouTube or other social media sites explaining to our students how to breach or compromise the security of these devices,” wrote the L.A. Unified School District Police Chief in a memo to senior staff. “I want to prevent a ‘runaway train’ scenario when we may have the ability to put a hold on the roll-out.” The district is mulling over ways to fix the iPads so that they will go back to being expensive, electronic textbooks, but in a school district with more than 600,000 students, one of them will figure out a way around whatever walls the school district throws up. I say they should make this an ongoing project and, like the folks who put a bounty on the iPhone fingerprint scanner, reward students who are clever enough to solve whatever security riddles the school attempts to stymie them with.

LAUSD halts home use of iPads for students after devices hacked By Howard Blume, LA Times | http://lat.ms/1apvDqB LAUSD students have figured out how to bypass security restrictions on iPads issued to them by the school district, giving them access to non-scholastic Internet sites. Eric Spillman reports on KTLA September 25, 2013, 9:35 a.m.  :: Following news that students at a Los Angeles high school had hacked district-issued iPads and were using them for personal use, district officials have halted home use of the Apple tablets until further notice. It took exactly one week for nearly 300 students at Theodore Roosevelt High School to hack through security so they could surf the Web on their new school-issued iPads, raising new concerns about a plan to distribute the devices to all students in the district. "Outside of the district's network ... a user is free to download content and applications and browse the Internet without restriction," two senior administrators said in a memo to the Board of education and L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy. "As student safety is of paramount concern, breach of the ... system must not occur." Other schools reporting the problem were Westchester High and the Valley Academy of Arts and Sciences in Granada Hills. Students began to tinker with the security lock on the tablets because "they took them home and they can't do anything with them," said Roosevelt senior Alfredo Garcia. Roosevelt students matter-of-factly explained their technique Tuesday outside school. The trick, they said, was to delete their personal profile information. With the profile deleted, a student was free to surf. Soon they were sending tweets, socializing on Facebook and streaming music through Pandora, they said. L.A. Unified School District Police Chief Steven Zipperman suggested, in a confidential memo to senior staff obtained by The Times, that the district might want to delay distribution of the devices. "I'm guessing this is just a sample of what will likely occur on other campuses once this hits Twitter, YouTube or other social media sites explaining to our students how to breach or compromise the security of these devices," Zipperman wrote. "I want to prevent a 'runaway train' scenario when we may have the ability to put a hold on the roll-out." The incident, which came to light Tuesday, prompted questions about overall preparations for the $1-billion tablet initiative. The rollout is scheduled to put an iPad in the hands of every student in the nation's second-largest school system within a year. Roosevelt was among the first to distribute them, starting a week ago. Lobo Gris commented on the Times Website: 1:48 PM September 25, 2013   ::  Any reasonably intelligent person watching today's LAUSD Ad Hoc Committee meeting on the Common Core Technology Project would have to wonder if anyone at the District really knows what it's doing. In response to a variety of questions, Chief Information Officer Ron Chandler repeatedly said "I'll have to get back to you on that."  Really?  This project has been in the works for two years.  And when asked about keyboards, new devices when the iPads become obsolete, or a laundry list of other purchases that might be necessary in the future, Chandler and Executive Director of Curriculum Gerardo Loera consistently chanted that those were questions for the district's procurement division. We're spending $1 billion on these iPads and deserve better answers than those two gave at the meeting today.  And we deserve a better response to their lack of accountability by our school board members.  When you ask a question and it's sidestepped, you need to stand up and say, "you haven't answered my question." Public commenter Sara Roos suggested that it might be better for the district to spend money on living, breathing teachers than on iPads.  After watching the district's spinning and smoke blowing today, the answer would appear to be yes. ACCOUNTABILITY SUX -or- CALLING THE ‘UH-OH’ SQUAD: Some of these same questions asked at yesterday’s meeting of  the Curriculum and Instruction Committee were referred to this meeting.

‘PRIORITY SCHOOLS’ PLAN IS THE LATEST TO REMAKE FAILING L.A. UNIFIED SCHOOLS

 

Annie Gilbertson |

| Pass / Fail | 89.3 KPCC http://bit.ly/15s29oK

Annie GIlbertson/KPCC  | Jordan High School in Watts is under massive construction. Administrators hope improvement to academics will be equally as dramatic.

September 24th, 2013, 6:00am  ::  On a recent Friday morning at David Starr Jordan High School, students wander in from their Watts neighborhood one and two hours after the morning bell. Some show up for a class or two, then head back out to the streets.

Even in class, it can be hard to stay on track, said freshman Matica Marcel, who blames her classmates.

“There are like a couple of them – two or three, you could say – that don’t really do their work," she said. "But they are boys, you know."

Freshman Cody Brown points the finger at school leaders for Jordan's poor performance.

"They don’t have good teachers, and it’s in the ghetto," Brown said as he wandered in to school late one recent morning. "We live in the housing projects.”

It’s hard to remember a time when officials weren’t trying to resuscitate Jordan high. Fewer than 60% of its students are able to read and do math well enough to pass the high school exit exam. Even fewer graduate.

For decades, veteran educators have seen turnaround teams come and go from the campus, next-door to the Jordan Downs housing project in Watts.

As the Los Angeles Unified School District starts a new school year with a new contract with the federal government to fix persistently failing schools, 27 of its most poorly performing schools, including Jordan, got a new title: Priority Schools.

Even school board members are confused about what the change - part of a waiver from strict provisions of the No Child Left Behind law - means and how it will help students.

"What I’m hearing you say, and I need to you to clarify this for me, is that we are just giving them a different name – Focus, Priority and all this – but it’s the same schools with which we’ve been having difficulty all along,” Board of Education member Marguerite Lamotte said during a recent public meeting. “They are just in a different category, another name.”

Lamotte pressed for specifics on the particular interventions the new descriptions would prescribe – there are none. Schools come up with their own unique intervention plans. That raised questions from board member Monica Garcia.

“What I’m interested in is how you will track whether or not this effort does make difference for kids,” Garcia said.

The federal government has given waivers to No Child Left Behind 41 states, plus the District of Colombia. California's application was denied - in part because the state would not promise to use student test scores in evaluating teachers. But eight California school districts, including Los Angeles, Long Beach, Oakland and San Francisco - banded together and made their own waiver application. The federal government approved it last month.

The waiver lifts requirements for specific interventions - such as tutoring or transportation for students who choose to abandon persistently failing schools for better school ones. According to the California Department of Education, about 650 of L.A. Unified's roughly 1,000 schools have failed to meet growth targets. But the number includes even some high performing schools whose students do well but have plateaued and administrators complain cookie-cutter approaches required by No Child Left Behind often fail to address a specific school’s struggles.

As part of the waiver deal, L.A. Unified and the others have to focus on the lowest performing schools, labeling them "priority schools" and be more transparent about how well disadvantaged kids are learning district-wide. Instead of a school reporting data from groups of 100 students or more, as they used to, the threshold is now down to groups as small as 20 students. The public will see the progress – or lack thereof – of smaller populations of black or Latino students or students with disabilities or those from poor families. (A bill awaiting Gov. Jerry Brown's signature would shield standardized test results public next year and potentially the following year.)

The California districts' waiver does not require specific learning programs. Its big idea involves partnering failing schools with more successful schools with similar demographics. Those teams will sit down together over the next few weeks and come up with a plan which includes measurable goals, officials said.

If those specific goals aren’t met over the next few years, the principal or teachers at the poor-performing schools may be replaced and the school may be turned over to a charter organization, or simply closed. As two major initiatives collide - federal school reform and a switch by most states to new Common Core standards and tests - it’s unclear how the lack of test results this year will affect the plan.

The priority schools plan doesn’t apply to charters, some of which are also performing at the bottom of the district and are not subject to similarly mandated interventions.

Fredrick Hess, of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said any plan to improve educational outcomes for disadvantaged students is attractive. He said the problem is such plans seldom work.

“There is demand out there that folks out there in the states pretend they know how to make schools better and the U.S. Department of Education will pretend it believes their strategy,” said Hess.

The federal government has been writing policies to try to even out the playing field in schools since the 1965 passage of Title I act of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which called for equal services at schools. Landmark changes in 2001 under No Child Left Behind required every child be proficient in English and math for his or her grade level by 2004, a goal now widely understood to be unreachable.

Even L.A.’s former mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, had a plan. After his efforts to take over running L.A. Unified failed, he created the Partnership for L.A. Schools which now oversees 17 of the district's worst performing schools, including Jordan high.

Instead of replacing each other, years of reform programs can stack on top of one another. Hess said that leads schools to treat the next mandate that comes along as a checklist – new burdens rather than new opportunities.

Joan Sullivan, CEO of Partnership for L.A. Schools, said the waiver and its new outline will help focus the district on it’s lowest performing schools.

Her group has its own turnaround plan for Jordan, which saw test scores creep up a few points last year.

"Our focus begins with great school leaders. We know that great schools have great leaders," Sullivan said. "And, we invest a lot of energy in recruiting, training and supporting our leaders."

Partnership installed a new principal at Jordan this year - a Watts native they’ve been cultivating since his teachers days. It’s an example of the pipeline of teacher leaders Partnership is trying to create. With donor money, they can reward top talent with higher pay.

Principal Carlos Montes declined to be interviewed for this article and a reporter was not allowed into the school.

L.A. Unified officials said the new waiver rules don't stop Sullivan from implementing her own strategies - as long as she follows new data collection and oversight requirements.

Proponents of the priority schools framework said it might finally do what schools need – allow principals to address their own problems while synchronizing varying programs and competing agendas.

Donna Muncey, Chief of Intensive Support and Intervention for L.A. Unified, said the new framework allows schools to craft approaches based on those teaching strategies that up-to-date research shows work.

“That didn’t exist in 1984, 1994 or really, frankly, a lot of it didn’t exist in 2004," said Muncey, who has researched and worked in school reform in Chicago, suburban D.C. and other places across the country for three decades. "We haven’t tried everything we could try. There is no reason to give up.”

Clarification: An earlier version of this story did not fully explain Muncey's experience in school reform.

Make no mistake, the author of this flavor of  “turnaround/reconstitution” at Jordan - written without consultation with the Board of Education - and the previous one, was Superintendent Deasy. And that “suburban DC” school district that Donna Muncey worked ®eform at? That would be Prince George’s  County – where she worked for Deasy. The superintendent made a lot of noise at PGC – and got a lot of national attention. But he didn’t make much difference.  The same is true of his tenure at Santa Monica Unified.

LAUSD COMPLETES HARASSMENT PROBE OF RICHARD VLADOVIC, Results to remain secret

By Barbara Jones, Los Angeles Daily News | http://bit.ly/1anqyzb

(File photo by David Crane/Los Angeles Daily News)

9/24/13, 3:45 PM PDT   ::  Los Angeles Unified has completed a three-month investigation into allegations that school board President Richard Vladovic bullied and harassed district employees, but the results of the inquiry will not be released, the Daily News has learned.

Board members were being briefed Tuesday on the results of the investigation, which was launched in June after two district employees — a man and a woman — filed formal harassment complaints against Vladovic. Investigators also looked into allegations of harassment made by several other employees. The inquiry covered the time that Vladovic served as a local area superintendent as well as his tenure on the school board.

“We have concluded the investigation, which was conducted by an outside firm,” General Counsel David Holmquist said in a statement. “We are in the process of providing individual board members with the findings of that investigation.”

Vladovic, 68, of San Pedro, did not return a request for comment. He is scheduled to be briefed on the inquiry on Wednesday.

“He’s waiting for tomorrow to hear what the results are so he can bring this matter to a conclusion,” said his attorney, Howard Friedman. “He wants to get this over with and get back to the business of the district.”

Citing the potential for litigation, district spokesman Sean Rossall said the results of the investigation would remain confidential.

At the time the investigation was opened, Vladovic said he would cooperate and expected to be quickly exonerated. He also denied any misconduct involving employees, including one staffer he said had filed a complaint about an incident that occurred 12 years earlier.

The identities of the initial complainants have never been revealed.

Outgoing Deputy Superintendent Jaime Aquino said he himself did not file a formal complaint against Vladovic but was questioned by investigators who’d heard about run-ins he’d had with Vladovic. Aquino, the district’s instructional leader, said he described two separate telephone conversations in which the board member had screamed at him about his job performance.

“He was belligerent, intimidating and threatening,” Aquino said. “The first time that it happened, I think I’d been in the job only four or five weeks — that’s how I was welcomed to the district. When it happened again, I put it in writing to (Superintendent) John Deasy and (Chief Deputy Superintendent) Michelle King.

“After I put it in writing, I have to acknowledge, his tone changed and he became respectful. But it took my having to put it in writing.”

Aquino said that after the second incident with Vladovic, he sought reassurance from Los Angeles Unified attorneys on whether Vladovic was bound by the district’s Code of Ethics and Code of Conduct and was told that the guidelines for the treatment of employees also applies to elected officials.

Under questioning, Aquino said, he also told investigators he’d seen Vladovic threatening to fire an employee.

Vladovic has previously admitted that he yelled at Aquino during an argument about district operations but said the two had resolved their differences. Aquino recently resigned his position, effective Dec. 31, saying the board was interfering in the school administration’s work.

Vladovic was the subject of an separate investigation into the handling of molestation complaints made against former teacher Robert Pimentel at De La Torre Elementary in Wilmington. He was cleared of wrongdoing, while two former high-ranking administrators were demoted and a principal left the district.

Pimentel has pleaded not guilty to charges of molesting nine girls in 2011-12 and a female relative in 2002-04. He remains jailed on $14 million bail.

Vladovic was chosen to be school board president in July by a 5-2 vote of his colleagues. As president, he has no more authority than any other board member, but he runs the meetings and is generally considered to be a spokesman for the board.

Vladovic is a native of San Pedro who graduated from Cal State Long Beach and later earned a master’s degree from Pepperdine University and a doctorate in education from USC.

He started his teaching career as a social studies teacher at White Middle School in Carson, before beginning a decades-long career as an administrator in the South Bay. He retired in 2005 after a two-year stint as chief of neighboring West Covina Unified, then won his school board seat in 2007.

Vladovic generally comes across as a genial curmudgeon and is known to coworkers and supporters as “Dr. V.” However, a source has said that Vladovic is privately known to detractors as “Dr. Death” because of his angry outbursts.

STUDENTS HACK NEW LAUSD iPADS, VISIT YOU TUBE & (OMG!) FACEBOOK

Roosevelt students get access to unauthorized sites on new iPads Bianca Gomez, left, Humberto Salazar and Doroteo Cruz try out a new iPad at Roosevelt High School in Boyle Heights last week. This week, The Times has learned, some students had bypassed security systems to access unauthorized websites. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times / September 17, 2013) By Howard Blume, LA Times | http://lat.ms/1fBdH0c September 24, 2013, 4:09 p.m.  ::  More than 300 Roosevelt High School students found ways around security on their new school-issued iPads and visited unauthorized websites, The Times has learned. It took students at the Boyle Heights campus less than a week to decode the security measures, raising questions about overall precautions related to a $1-billion technology investment by the Los Angeles Unified School District. Roosevelt High was one of the first schools in the nation's second-largest school system to receive the tablet computers made by Apple, in the first phase of a district-wide rollout. Students began to receive the tablets a week ago, with devices still being handed out to some classes at the end of the week. But even by then, students figured out how to bypass security meant to prevent them from reaching such sites as YouTube and Facebook. "They had to shut down all the iPads yesterday," said ninth-grader Alan Munoz. L.A. Unified officials confirmed the problem. The district's communications office was preparing a statement Tuesday afternoon.

Students at three LAUSD high schools access unauthorized sites on new iPads By Barbara Jones, Los Angeles Daily News | http://bit.ly/181w6za Posted: 09/24/13, 7:05 PM PDT | Updated: 11:55 PM  ::  More than 300 students at three Los Angeles Unified high schools bypassed security measures to access unauthorized websites on their new district-issued iPads, prompting an immediate ban on taking the tablet computers home, officials said Tuesday. The breach was discovered Friday at Westchester High, Roosevelt High in Boyle Heights and the Valley Academy of Arts and Sciences in Granada Hills. Those campuses were among the first to receive the iPads in the first phase of a plan to equip every LAUSD student with one of the $678 tablets. Ron Chandler, the district’s Chief Information Officer, said tech-savvy students used their programming skills to alter settings and delete files, giving them access to sites like Facebook and YouTube. However, software embedded in the iPads immediately locked down the devices and alerted officials that they’d been tampered with. “We knew immediately what had happened,” Chandler said. Chandler said administrators had spoken with each of the students and are working to create a system of progressive discipline to deal with repeat offenders. “What this really forces us to do is ramp up the conversation about responsible use and accountability,” Chandler said. Although district officials have said the iPads would not be allowed off campus because of liability concerns, Chandler said that decision has actually been left up to principals at the 47 schools that are participating in Phase One of the rollout. On Tuesday, Superintendent John Deasy ordered a moratorium on letting the devices off campus “until the district can be 100 percent certain the problem has been resolved and students are using the devices safely and appropriately.” Chandler said some of the students told administrators they had bypassed the security measures because they were unable to access websites they needed for their studies. The district is testing various “filtering systems,” and one apparently had such narrow parameters that even the most innocuous sites were blocked. Those are the types of glitches that will be worked out as the district moves forward with its technology project, Chandler said. In the first phase, the district approved spending $30 million in bond revenue to buy iPads for students and faculty at 47 schools. The remaining campuses are expected to have the tablets by this time next year — in time for the implementation of new English and math standards that rely on technology for student assessments. Chandler is slated to give an update on the iPad project at the school board’s next Technology Committee meeting.

WILL LAUSD’s iPAD UPGRADE WORK?

By Sam Gliksman, Los Angeles Jewish Journal | http://bit.ly/16pQih2

iPad. Photo by Robert Scoble>>

September 24, 2013  :: The Los Angeles Unified School District, the second-largest public school district in the United States, has approved a plan that will provide every K-12 student and teacher in Los Angeles with an iPad by fall 2014. With more than 650,000 students and almost 26,000 teachers, this initiative represents a huge and risky investment that’s quickly growing from an initial estimate of $500 million to close to $1 billion. The initiative is being financed from monies in a bond fund that had been earmarked for school infrastructure.

Is it worth it?

As someone who has, literally, written the book on iPad use in the classroom, I can answer with a definitive: It depends.

Incorporating technology into learning can potentially enhance the quality of education — but only if such an initiative has clear objectives, is well planned and properly managed. The quality of a school’s education can’t be validated with a simple tally of the devices being used on campus. The iPad isn’t a magic pill that will cure the ailments of outdated educational models — not unless its use is integrated into holistic educational approaches that address the needs of 21st century learners entering adulthood in a technology-rich, unpredictable and exponentially changing society.

As a parent deciding between educational alternatives for my child, I would ask several key questions in deciding whether the new LAUSD initiative will improve public education:

How will technology use change the educational dynamics at the school?

We’ve all experienced the depth of “learning by doing.” In contrast to the traditional “sage on the stage” classroom lecturing model, technology can be used to empower learners to research, discover, create and connect within more student-centered, experiential processes. Given opportunity and support, students can analyze and work toward solutions of real-world problems. Student-centered educational models develop independent, lifelong learners that can thrive in a climate of societal change. As examples of student-centered models, consider the school in Culver City where students polled residents about their water usage in order to create public service videos as part of their campaign to promote water conservation. The students in a middle school class in Texas took it upon themselves to research and design cafeteria menus and school programs for healthier eating and increased fitness. When deciding to rebuild their outdoor play areas, one elementary school turned to its students and gave them the chance to debate and offer design suggestions.

We all get caught up in assessments and academic results. Remember, however, that preparing students for “the test” can often come at the expense of building important skills that prepare them for life. Education needs to focus on preparing children for the journey ahead and not for some arbitrary destination.

Will technology be used to break down classroom walls?

The traditional school design gathered students together in a walled-off, physical space, giving them access to a single content source (textbook) and a subject expert (teacher). That model remained largely unchanged for more than a century — and then along came the Internet. All of a sudden, huge libraries of content and teams of experts are available anywhere and at any time. We can steadfastly hold on to our old pedagogical models or embrace the opportunity to help our students connect, analyze, evaluate and utilize the incredible amount of information they have at their fingertips.

Access and connection — that’s the magic of technology. Imagine their awe when a class of fifth-grade science students in Ohio had a Skype video call with famed international astrophysicist Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson to discuss their interplanetary travel project. Consider the ninth-grade class I worked with that searched Twitter and found the author of the novel they were reading, then arranged a video conference to discuss how he developed the characters and plot. Think of all the classrooms where students can work collaboratively in groups, sharing their work online with others while developing the teamwork and collaborative skills demanded by employers in the workplace. An amazing transformation occurs when you go from “Refer to your textbook and answer the questions at the end of the chapter” to “How and with whom can I connect to develop the answers I’m seeking?”

How will teachers make the adjustment?

Deploying iPads effectively involves a major change in educational outlook and school culture. This requires ongoing training, mentoring and continual support. Will the teachers at your school receive training on integrating multimedia into lessons, screencasting presentations, creating and publishing class e-books and more … or will they be expected to continue lecturing and use technology for projecting and word processing? Without constant training and reinforcement, not only will technology fail to reform education but it will become a very expensive Band-Aid on an old educational model that isn’t working.

Will classes have a virtual learning environment?

Learning is occurring in both physical and virtual environments. Schools require a well-designed and implemented online presence that helps students engage in interactive communications and learning practices both before and after the afternoon bell rings. Does your school have an effective online presence that always communicates clear expectations for classes and students? More importantly, can students collaborate and interact with teachers and other students outside of class? Does the school’s online presence encourage and facilitate collaboration with teachers and students in other locations around the world?

The LAUSD plan is a brave and bold first step that recognizes the need to reform our schools. The key question is how schools will use technology to create a 21st century learning environment for students. Answer that question correctly and we’ll be doing our children a great service.

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Sam Gliksman is an educational technology consultant, author and speaker. He is the author of “iPads in Education for Dummies” and can be contacted at samgliksman@gmail.com.