SEPARATE STUDY CONFIRMS MANY LOS ANGELES TIMES FINDINGS ON TEACHER EFFECTIVENESS /or/ RESEARCH STUDY SHOWS LA TIMES RATINGS ARE NEITHER RELIABLE NOR VALID + smf’s 2¢

Separate Study Confirms Many LA Times Findings A University of Colorado review of Los Angeles Unified teacher effectiveness also raises some questions about the precision of ratings as reported in The Times. By Jason Felch, Los Angeles Times | http://lat.ms/h67pEC Students rush between class periods at Fairfax High School. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) February 7, 2011 - A study to be released Monday confirms the broad conclusions of a Times' analysis of teacher effectiveness in the Los Angeles Unified School District while raising concerns about the precision of the ratings. Two education researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder obtained the same seven years of data that The Times used in its analysis of teacher effectiveness, the basis for a series of stories and a database released in August giving rankings of about 6,000 elementary teachers, identified by name. The Times classified teachers into five equal groups, ranging from "least effective" to "most effective." After re-analyzing the data using a somewhat different method, the Colorado researchers reached a similar general conclusion: Elementary school teachers vary widely in their ability to raise student scores on standardized tests, and that variation can be reliably estimated. But they also said they found evidence of imprecision in the Times analysis that could lead to the misclassification of some teachers, especially among those whose performance was about average for the district. The authors largely confirmed The Times' findings for the teachers classified as most and least effective. But the authors also said that slightly more than half of all English teachers they examined could not be reliably distinguished from average. The general approach used by The Times and the Colorado researchers, known as "value added," yields estimates, not precise measures. The Colorado analysis was based on a somewhat different pool of students and teachers from the Times analysis, a difference that might have affected some of the conclusions. The Colorado researchers began with the same dataset released to The Times, but their ultimate analysis was based on 93,000 fewer student results and 600 fewer teachers than the analysis conducted for The Times by economist Richard Buddin. In addition, to improve the reliability of the results it reported, The Times excluded from its ratings teachers who taught 60 students or fewer over the study period. The Colorado study excluded only those teachers who taught 30 students or fewer. After a Times reporter inquired about that difference, Derek Briggs, the lead researcher on the Colorado study, said in an e-mail that he had recalculated his figures using only those teachers who had taught more than 60 students. Doing so reduced the number of discrepancies, he said; but still, up to 9% of math teachers and 12% of English teachers might have ended up in different categories using Colorado's method than they did in The Times' analysis. The authors also found that the way school administrators assign students to teachers — giving especially challenging students to a certain teacher and not to others, for example — could have skewed the value-added results. But recent research by a Harvard professor using Los Angeles school data did not find that such assignments created a bias in value-added scores. Buddin said that although most conclusions of the two studies were similar, the differences in data analyzed made it difficult to directly compare his results with those of the Colorado study. The Colorado study comes as education officials in Los Angeles and across the country are moving to incorporate more objective measures of performance into teacher evaluations. In the process, they are confronting the technical challenges involved in value-added analysis, which attempts to estimate a teacher's effect on student learning by measuring each student's year-to-year progress. Developing value-added scores requires numerous judgment calls about what variables to use and how to obtain the most reliable results. Each school district that has used value-added follows slightly different methods, and supporters of the approach say it should not be used as the sole measure of a teacher's ability. Briggs said his goal was to raise awareness about those issues. "You have an obligation to have an open conversation about the strengths and weaknesses" of the methodology, he said. Briggs' study was partly funded by the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice, which is run by the heads of several Midwestern teachers unions and supported by the National Education Assn., the largest teachers union in the country.   Download Full Research Report Download Two-page Summary Download Fact Sheet Concerning the LA Times' Article of February 7, 2011

Research Study Shows L. A. Times Teacher Ratings Are Neither Reliable Nor Valid New Research Shows Serious Flaws in the Research Behind the L.A. Times’ Controversial Ratings of Individual Teacher Performance University of Colorado Press Release | http://bit.ly/emuF1t Contact: Derek Briggs, University of Colorado at Boulder (303) 492-6320 derek.briggs@colorado.edu William Mathis, NEPC (802) 383-0058 William.Mathis@colorado.edu BOULDER, CO (February 8, 2011) – A new study published today by the National Education Policy Center finds that the research on which the Los Angeles Times relied for its teacher effectiveness reporting was demonstrably inadequate to support the published rankings. Due Diligence and the Evaluation of Teachers by Derek Briggs and Ben Domingue of the University of Colorado at Boulder used the same L.A. Unified School District (LAUSD) dataset and replicated the methods of the Times’ researcher but then probed deeper and found the earlier research to have serious weaknesses. Based on the results of the Briggs and Domingue research, NEPC director Kevin Welner said, “This study makes it clear that the L.A. Times and its research team have done a disservice to the teachers, students, and parents of Los Angeles. The Times owes its community a better accounting for its decision to publish the names and rankings of individual teachers when it knew or should have known that those rankings were based on a questionable analysis. In any case, the Times now owes its community an acknowledgment of the tremendous weakness of the results reported and an apology for the damage its reporting has done.” In August 2010 the Los Angeles Times published ratings that purported to show the teaching effectiveness of individual Los Angeles teachers. The teachers’ ratings were based on an analysis of their students’ performance on California state standardized reading and math tests. The researcher hired by the Times, Richard Buddin of the RAND Corporation (who conducted the work as a project independent of RAND itself), also published his work as a “white paper,” which provided the template from which Briggs and Domingue worked. Buddin used a relatively simple value-added model to assess individual teacher performance for the period from 2003 to 2009. He found significant variability in LAUSD teacher quality, as demonstrated by student performance on standardized tests in reading and math, and he concluded that differences between “high-performing” and “low-performing” teachers accounted for differences in student performance. Yet, as Briggs and Domingue explain, simply finding that a value-added model yields different outcomes for different teachers does not tell us whether those outcomes are measuring what is important (teacher effectiveness) or something else, such as whether students benefit from other learning resources outside of school. Their research explored whether there was evidence of this kind of bias by conducting what researchers call a “sensitivity analysis” to test whether the results from the L.A. Times model were valid and reliable. First, they investigated whether, when using the L.A. Times model, a student’s teacher in the future would appear to have an effect on a student’s test performance in the past—something that is logically impossible and a sign that the model is flawed. This is analogous to using a value-added model to isolate the effect of an NBA coach on the performance of his players. At first glance we might not be surprised when the model indicates that Phil Jackson is an effective coach. But if the same model could also be used to indicate that Phil Jackson improved Kobe Bryant’s performance when he was in high school, we might wonder whether the model was truly able to separate Jackson’s ability as a coach from his good fortune at being surrounded by extremely talented players. Briggs and Domingue found strong evidence of these illogical results when using the L.A. Times model, especially for reading outcomes: “Because our sensitivity test did show this sort of backwards prediction, we can conclude that estimates of teacher effectiveness in LAUSD are a biased proxy for teacher quality.” Next, they developed an alternative, arguably stronger value-added model and compared the results to the L.A. Times model. In addition to the variables used in the Times’ approach, they controlled for (1) a longer history of a student’s test performance, (2) peer influence, and (3) school-level factors. If the L.A. Times model were perfectly accurate, there would be no difference in results between the two models. But this was not the case. For reading outcomes, their findings included the following: • More than half (53.6%) of the teachers had a different effectiveness rating under the alternative model. • Among those who changed effectiveness ratings, some moved only moderately, but 8.1% of those teachers identified as “more” or “most” effective under the alternative model are identified as “less” or “least” effective in the L.A. Times model, and 12.6% of those identified as relatively ineffective under the alternative model are identified as effective by the L.A. Times model. The math outcomes weren’t quite as troubling, but the findings included the following: • Only 60.8% of teachers would retain the same effectiveness rating under both models. • Among those who did change effectiveness ratings, some moved only moderately, but 1.4% of those teachers identified as effective under the alternative model are identified as ineffective in the L.A. Times model, and 2.7% would go from a rating of ineffective under the alternative model to effective under the L.A. Times model. Accordingly, the effects estimated for LAUSD teachers can be quite sensitive to choices concerning the underlying statistical model. The choice of one reasonable model would lead to very different conclusions about individual teachers than would the choice of a different reasonable model. Briggs and Domingue then examined the precision of Buddin’s teacher-effect estimates – whether the approach can be used to reliably distinguish between teachers given different value-added ratings. They find that between 43% and 52% of teachers cannot be distinguished from a teacher of “average” effectiveness, once the specific value-added estimate for each teacher is bounded by a 95% confidence interval. Because the L.A. Times did not use this more conservative approach to distinguish teachers when rating them as effective or ineffective, it is likely that there are a significant number of false positives (teachers rated as effective who are really average), and false negatives (teachers rated as ineffective who are really average) in the L.A. Times’ rating system. Using the Times’ approach of including only teachers with 60 or more students, there was likely a misclassification of 22% (for reading) and 14% (for math). The new report also finds evidence that conflicts with Buddin’s finding that traditional teacher qualifications have no association with student outcomes. In fact, the researchers found significant and meaningful associations between value-added estimates of teachers’ effectiveness and their experience and educational background. Yesterday, on Monday February 7, 2011, the Times published a story about this new study. That story included false statements and was generally misleading. Accordingly, along with this study’s release, we are publishing a “Fact Sheet” about the Times’ new article (http://nepc.colorado.edu/files/FactSheet_0.pdf) Find Due Diligence and the Evaluation of Teachers, by Derek Briggs and Ben Domingue, on the web at: http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/due-diligence The mission of the National Education Policy Center is to produce and disseminate high-quality, peer-reviewed research to inform education policy discussions. We are guided by the belief that the democratic governance of public education is strengthened when policies are based on sound evidence. For more information on NEPC, please visit http://nepc.colorado.edu/. This research brief was made possible in part by the support of the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice (greatlakescenter.org).

●●smf’s 2¢: The LA Times isn’t just an advocate for value-added teacher assessments – it is a practitioner of the craft  in a sort of unofficial way: “We’re from the media and we’re here to help!”

The Times and Jason Felch  are far more than reporter and newspaper – they are provocateurs.

Going from reporter to newsmaker is dangerous enough – now the actual reporter/newsmaker reports on a critical outside review of his own effort (and it is critical) and gives himself and his employer a “good job” for the effort. :-)

Plus the critical study was funded in part by teacher’s unions… and you (or at least The Times) knows how they are!.

NEPC-RB-LAT-VAM_0

TEXAS’ FINANCES: Not as rosy as they seemed +It's gotten messy in Texas

Texas' finances not as rosy as they seemed

The state prides itself as a model of conservative spending and responsible budgeting. But a new $27-billion budget gap undercuts its image as a business-seducing, fiscally adaptive state.

By Evan Halper, Los Angeles Times | http://lat.ms/icuQXq

Texas Gov. Rick Perry likes to talk about his California "hunting trips" -- visits in which he sets his sights on businesses that might be persuaded to relocate to the Lone Star State. (Eric Gay, Associated Press / January 10, 2011)

February 7, 2011 - Reporting from Austin, Texas — The lecturing from Texas leaders about how California wouldn't be in such a budget mess if its politicians did business the way it is done in Austin has been relentless for years.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry delights in telling tales of his California "hunting trips" — hunting for businesses ready to flee the Golden State.

But the latest budget projections out of Texas have sharply changed the discussion: The Lone Star State is facing a budget gap of about $27 billion, putting it in the same league as California among states facing financial meltdowns. The gap amounts to roughly one-third of the state's budget.

In a place where government is already lean, there aren't many areas to make up that kind of cash. The budget blueprint Texas' Legislature is mulling would mean layoffs for tens of thousands of teachers, closure of community colleges, and a severe reduction in state services for the poor and those with mental health problems.

Texas has a two-year budget cycle, which allowed it to camouflage its red ink last year, thanks in large part to billions of dollars in federal stimulus money. Now, however, "someone just turned the lights on in the bar, and the sexiest state doesn't look so pretty anymore," said California Treasurer Bill Lockyer, with evident satisfaction.

The scene in the statehouse in Austin in recent days would be familiar to those who frequent California's Capitol. Throngs of advocates for the poor, the disabled and the elderly told ashen-faced lawmakers on the Senate Finance Committee about the various horrors that would befall their clients if the state made its planned cuts.

Nursing homes, rural health clinics and counseling centers for at-risk youth would close, they warned. One advocate said that under the Legislature's plan, her grandchildren in Louisiana would have a more secure safety net than Texas children. The unfavorable comparison to a state many Texans regard with disdain was delivered like a gut punch.

As if to punctuate the point that Texas has found itself in a California-style mess, a power-grid problem caused rolling blackouts statewide Wednesday as the Capitol was consumed with fiscal crisis.

"It's going to be a tough time for us," said Rep. Warren Chisum, a Republican from a rural Panhandle district that would be particularly hard hit by the education cuts. "I represent 19 counties. The school district is the biggest employer in every one of them."

Texas is confronting its budget crisis in a fashion that reflects its conservative politics. Its leaders do not talk in terms of shortfall. The word "shortfall" would imply that Texas ought to try to preserve the services it now offers, they say. Why have that conversation, they argue, if the money is not there?

The Republicans who dominate the statehouse won't be closing loopholes that emerged in a recently enacted business tax change, costing the state billions in anticipated revenue.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who wields considerable influence over the budget process, said talk of budget shortfalls reflects "establishment thinking."

"A lot of the things we are doing arguably aren't priorities for the people of Texas," he said. "People could stake me and Gov. Perry on the ground and torture us, and we still would not raise taxes."

Dewhurst provides some examples of bloat, like millions of dollars spent to put sand on beaches for tourists. But the real savings in the legislative budget plan come from slashing Medicaid and cutting per-student spending from more than $9,000 to $7,800 each year. The state's cap of 22 students per elementary school class is almost certain to be lifted.

State leaders also are loathe to dip into a rainy day fund that contains $9 billion in oil tax revenue, saying it would not be fiscally responsible.

"There is no indication that there is going to be a robust economic rebound," said Talmadge Heflin, a former Republican lawmaker who now runs the Texas Public Policy Foundation's Center for Fiscal Policy. Legislators aren't sure what the next budget scenario will be, he said, so "don't spend your savings now when you can get by just by cutting."

The Texas budget crisis is prompting some experts to reconsider what had been dubbed the Texas Miracle. The state has much lower unemployment than California, but economists note that many of the jobs are low-paying. One out of three wage earners in Texas earns too little to keep a family of four above the federal poverty level, according to a 2009 study by the Corp. for Enterprise Development, a Washington-based nonprofit. That is double the percentage of similarly low-wage Californians.

Such figures call into question whether Texas' economy has really transitioned into a new 21st century model, or whether it has been buoyed by high oil prices and lots of loosely zoned land where construction of cheap houses endured through the recession.

"You have to separate out what your public policies have done for you and what God has done for you," said Scott McCown, executive director of the left-leaning Center for Public Policies and Priorities in Austin. "People shouldn't be fooled by what is going on here."

Texas lags far behind California in major research universities, patents produced, high-tech infrastructure and venture capital investment, according to the Missouri-based Kauffman Foundation. The foundation's 2010 ranking of states in "movement toward a global, innovation-based new economy" put California at No. 7. Texas was No. 18.

"Their model is a low-wage economy with greater income inequality," said John Ellwood, a professor of public policy at UC Berkeley. "For all the talk of Texas being a high-tech state, they have never really caught up to California.… Look at the big new growth companies. Where is Facebook? Where is Google? Are any of these companies in Austin? No."

Even Perry's claims of companies that have decamped from California to lay down roots in Texas appear to be overblown. When the Austin American-Statesman looked into the Texas governor's boast that there were 153 such companies in 2010, reporters found the claim included California firms that stayed put but maybe opened a Texas branch. The newspaper concluded that Perry's figure was grossly inflated.

Perry's staff said the governor was too busy to be interviewed in Austin last week. Media reports later revealed that he was on a five-day trip through California, which involved trying to coax companies east. His spokesman refused to name the companies.

The state's dogged determination to not tinker with its tax system or lean on business in other ways is certain to win points with some executives. But some Texans question whether business leaders will tolerate the resulting deterioration of public infrastructure, particularly in the education system.

State Rep. Dan Branch, a Republican from the Dallas area, says his efforts to bolster the state's university system are colliding against a public perception that "governments are wildly bloated and massively in debt. When we have that perception out there, we have to manage it."

Yet if Texas simply makes drastic cuts, particularly in education, the state could suffer, he says. "We have been on a roll," he said, and the world has taken note. "If we start pulling back now, people will question whether it is a serious effort."

 

 

It's gotten messy in Texas

Think California's budget crisis is bad? Check out the latest news from Austin.

LA Times Editorial |

February 8, 2011- The Texas miracle is starting to look like one of those Virgin Mary-shaped burn marks on a tortilla: pretty exciting until it goes stale. With the Lone Star State facing a budget shortfall comparable to California's — a state that right-wing pundits have derided for years as a mismanaged liberal tax trap — it might be time to concede that conservative fiscal policies aren't necessarily the cure-all their apologists pretend them to be.

Texas officials have been able to conceal the bad news until recently because they pass a budget only every two years, so they got a free pass in 2010. Now, facing a $27-billion spending gap (about a third of the budget), and with a statehouse jammed with conservative lawmakers who would sooner trade in their pickups for Priuses than raise taxes, the legislature must consider devastating cuts to schools, Medicaid and public assistance programs.

California is obviously in no position to gloat. Although voters here will have the option of approving modest tax hikes, the Golden State's $25.4-billion budget hole will force similarly unpleasant cuts. But nobody was claiming Sacramento to be a paragon of fiscal virtue. Business interests inside California often point to Texas, which has lower corporate taxes, no personal income tax and an approach to environmental regulation that is considerably more lax, as an example we should seek to emulate. So do Texas politicians. Gov. Rick Perry enjoys boasting about all the California businesses lured to his state by the friendlier taxation environment, recently completing a five-day trip here trying to entice a few more. Perry also likes to rail against the federal economic stimulus program even though his state only managed to balance its budget in 2009 with the help of $12 billion in stimulus grants.

It is undeniably true that it's easier to find a job in Texas, with an unemployment rate of 8.3%, than in California, at 12.5%. But an awful lot of those jobs are the sort of low-paying posts you'd expect in a state that ranks No. 42 out of 50 in per-pupil education spending. Among wage-earners in Texas, one-third make too little to stay above the federal poverty line for a family of four, roughly double the percentage of such low-wage Californians. Businesses certainly are attracted to places with low taxes, but they also need an educated workforce and functioning infrastructure. It's questionable how much longer they'll be able to find that in tax-averse Texas.

Schadenfreude aside, we don't envy Texas lawmakers the choices they're facing. There aren't any easy solutions for the problem of how to keep government services running during an economic downturn. We trust, though, that we'll be hearing fewer claims that all the answers are to be found in Austin.

L.A. UNIFIED CONSIDERS CHAGES AT WIDNEY HIGH SCHOOL IN WAKE OF PROBLEMS

Teachers at the school, which serves developmentally disabled students, are doing a poor job, officials say. During a recent visit to the Jefferson Park campus, Supt. Ramon C. Cortines observed teachers watching a soap opera during class.

California Schools Guide: Joseph Pomeroy Widney High

By Jason Song, Los Angeles Times | http://lat.ms/gB4WWX

February 7, 2011 | Los Angeles Unified School District officials are reviewing personnel and curriculum at Widney High School, which serves developmentally disabled children, because staff members are doing a poor job of teaching the students and automatically giving overtime to workers who leave early and arrive late, according to documents and interviews.

During a recent visit to the Jefferson Park campus, Supt. Ramon C. Cortines observed instructors watching a soap opera during class time. "They didn't even make an effort to turn it off when I was there," he said.

Cortines said the move was unrelated to other recent restructuring of struggling campuses, including Fremont and Jordan high schools, which ranked among the lowest-performing schools in the district based on standardized test scores. Widney serves about 200 students with developmental disabilities who range in age from 13 to 22. The school focuses on preparing them for work.

"I'm taking action based on vulnerable students not being taken care of," Cortines said. "The whole place had a lack of accountability."

Cortines formed a task force to study the school in November, and the group delivered a final report to the superintendent last month.

The report found a series of problems at the campus, including a lack of safe places for students to sleep or rest, the failure to regularly account for staff attendance and work hours, the absence of evidence of student learning and the routine payment of overtime to some aides.

The task force made a series of recommendations to Cortines last month, including replacing the principal and assistant principal, assigning more academic coaches to the campus and providing more training to staff on how to feed students.

Widney Principal Jessie Lucas Thompson, who has held the post since 2001, and Chris Manners, who has been the assistant principal since 2005, did not return calls or an e-mail seeking comment.

Judith Perez, the president of the administrators union, said she was unaware of the alleged problems at Widney and had not been contacted by any of her members for help.

In a letter to Widney parents in early January, Cortines said he would not recommend that the campus be closed.

Sharyn Howell, the executive director of the district's division of special education, denied that there was widespread disorganization at Widney.

"I think there are some dedicated people at Widney," she said. "But whenever you get a school with up to 200 [disabled] students, there are so many challenges during the day."

Howell said the school needed to shift its focus by giving students more rigorous courses and phasing out students who are under the age of 16. She also pointed out that many of the students need full-time aides because of their conditions and are bused in from outside the area.

"The school obviously has employees who are working beyond their regular day, but we want to be sure that [overtime] is being used judiciously," Howell said.

Howell said any changes at Widney would focus mainly on ensuring that students receive the proper instruction, not solely on individual teachers or administrators.

But "there may be some movement of personnel," she said.

NY GOV CUOMO, PUSHING SCHOOL CUTS, OFFERS A TARGET: SUPERINTENDENT SALARIES

By THOMAS KAPLAN | NY Times | http://nyti.ms/fUAaUL

Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times: Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo suggested that school superintendent salaries were too high.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who has proposed cuts in school aid, suggested that superintendents were overpaid.  Read On

DESPITE OBAMA’S URGING, POLICY STYMIES SCIENCE STUDENTS, TEACHERS SAY: It May Be a Sputnik Moment, but Science Fairs Are Lagging

By AMY HARMON | NY Times | http://nyti.ms/hE5pjZ 

Jennifer Silverberg for The New York Times

Melissa Rey, 17, setting up her entry for a science fair Saturday in St. Louis. The fair was in danger of folding after losing a sponsor.

 

Published: February 4, 2011 - Rarely have school science fairs, a source of pride and panic for generations of American students, achieved such prominence on the national stage. President Obama held one at the White House last fall. And last week he said that America should celebrate its science fair winners like Sunday’s Super Bowl champions, or risk losing the nation’s competitive edge.

Doug Mills/The New York Times - The president took in winning science projects, like a solar car by Mikayla Nelson of Montana, in October at the White House.

Yet as science fair season kicks into high gear, participation among high school students appears to be declining. And many science teachers say the problem is not a lack of celebration, but the Obama administration’s own education policy, which holds schools accountable for math and reading scores at the expense of the kind of creative, independent exploration that science fair projects require.

“To say that we need engineers and ‘this is our Sputnik moment’ is meaningless if we have no time to teach students how to do science,” said Dean Gilbert, the president of the Los Angeles County Science Fair, referring to a line in President Obama’s State of the Union address last week. The Los Angeles fair, though still one of the nation’s largest, now has 185 schools participating, down from 244 a decade ago.

In many schools, science fairs depend on teachers who shoulder the extra work. They supervise participants and research, raise the money for medals and poster boards, and find judges — all on their own time.

To organize the Northeastern Minnesota Regional Science Fair this weekend, Cynthia Welsh, a science teacher at Cloquet High School near Duluth, has logged more than 500 unpaid hours since September.

“My husband helps,” Ms. Welsh said.

In middle school, science fair projects are typically still required — and, teachers lament, all too often completed by parents. And some high schools funnel their best students into elite science competitions that require years of work and lengthy research papers: a few thousand students enter such contests each year.

But what has been lost, proponents of local science fairs say, is the potential to expose a much broader swath of American teenagers to the scientific process: to test an idea, evaluate evidence, ask a question about how the world works — and perhaps discover how difficult it can be to find an answer.

The local fairs, which rose to popularity after World War II, have historically provided entree to science for those who might not consider themselves science fanatics.

“Science fairs develop skills that reach down to everybody’s lives, whether you want to be a scientist or not,” said Michele Glidden, a director at Society for Science & the Public, a nonprofit group that administers 350 regional fairs whose winners attend Intel’s International Science and Engineering Fair, the world’s largest high school competition. “The point is to breed science-minded citizens.”

Comprehensive national numbers are hard to come by, but Ms. Glidden said that several major regional fairs have been unable to scrape together the number of high schools required to participate in the Intel fair in recent years. “At the high school level, it’s on the decline,” she said.

In Indiana, high school participation in the state’s science fairs dropped 15 percent in the last three years. One fair organizer in Washington described last year’s fair there as “heartbreaking,” with few projects and not enough judges. The fair in St. Louis was in danger of folding this year when its major sponsor, Pfizer, moved its operations and dropped its sponsorship.

One obvious reason for flagging interest in science fairs is competing demands for high school students’ extracurricular attention. But many educators said they wished the projects were deemed important enough to devote class time to them, which is difficult for schools whose federal funding hinges on improving math and reading test scores. Under the main federal education law, schools must achieve proficiency in math and reading by 2014, or risk sanctions.

The Obama administration has urged broadening the subjects tested under the law — possibly including science. But some teachers say they are already burdened by state requirements to teach a wide range of facts — say, the parts of a cell — which prevents them from devoting class time to research projects.

“I have so many state standards I have to teach concept-wise, it takes time away from what I find most valuable, which is to have them inquire about the world,” said Amanda Alonzo, a science teacher at Lynbrook High School in San Jose, Calif., who advises her science fair students during her lunch and late evenings after school.

Some time-strapped teachers seek out scientists in industry and at universities to work with science fair students, but such connections are difficult to make. Even in the heart of Silicon Valley, it took two months of concerted effort before Craig Young, a physics teacher at Wilcox High School in Santa Clara, Calif., found a professional mentor to advise two students who wanted to use bacteria to generate electricity. He posted on the National Lab Network, a Web site devoted to such collaborations, but his requests went unanswered.

Still, several hundred thousand American high school students will participate in more than 350 science fairs during the next three months, with nearly a dozen on Saturday alone.

They include Melissa Rey, 17, who is glad that the St. Louis Honors Science Fair this weekend was able to find a new sponsor. “I love going around the science fairs and looking at everyone else’s projects,” she said.

A junior at John F. Kennedy Catholic High School, Ms. Rey, who has dyslexia, examined the effect of disabilities on the college entrance test scores of high school students.

Jeffrey Schwehm, a biochemistry professor at Lakeland College in Sheboygan, Wis., managed to recruit 16 high school participants for the fair he organized, in part by promising them that they would be done by 1 p.m. so they could get to their sporting events in the afternoon.

In St. Petersburg, Fla., on Saturday, more students from private high schools than public schools will be attending the Pinellas Regional Science and Engineering Fair, a shift over the last decade. And over all, there will be fewer students participating.

Still, Paul Dickman, a science teacher at Lakewood High School in St. Petersburg, who has run the fair for 20 years, said he was looking forward to it.

“I don’t know if you can generate that kind of excitement just teaching chemistry or physics in the classroom,” Mr. Dickman said, citing several former students who have called to say they are now working in a laboratory. “When kids get down and do a project themselves, they get excited about science.”

Mr. Dickman said he would spend Sunday getting the fair winners’ plaques engraved for the awards ceremony next week. Because whether or not they are hailed like Super Bowl champions, some celebration is in order.

NEW L.A. SCHOOLS LEADER JOHN DEASY CALLS FOR STUDENT HEALTHCARE

By Howard Brume | LA Times |http://lat.ms/epR1AT

February 4, 2011 |  The incoming leader of the nation’s second-largest school district is calling for free health, vision and dental care for any students who lack it.

John Deasy, who takes charge of the L.A. Unified school district in mid-April, spoke Wednesday night at Loyola Marymount University in Westchester, in what was billed as his first major address since being named superintendent.

Deasy had no clear strategy to pay for the benefits, but he talked in an interview of leveraging the district’s contracts with companies that provide health insurance to employees. He also wants to raise the profile of the issue to attract philanthropy.

In response to a question, the 50-year-old educator criticized former District of Columbia schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, whom he described as a colleague and friend, saying she allowed her work to become too political and polarizing.

He said her rhetoric, while making her a national touchstone on reform issues, was sometimes unhelpful in addressing problems, such as when she referred to some of her schools as "crappy."

She also fell prey, he said, to a hyper-orthodoxy on reform -- such as quickly evaluating teachers and firing the “bad” ones -- that closed the door to other ideas and to more fruitful collaboration with groups such as teacher unions.

He reiterated earlier statements that school districts cannot fire their way to success but vowed to link student data with teacher performance as a way to improve results.

Staff members, whether teachers or administrators, must be replaced when they are unable to improve student achievement or do not believe all students can and must learn, he said. Low performers at the top levels of the district must be replaced especially quickly, he said.

Deasy also called for ending busy work for students through credit for “service” classes in which they, for example, answer school phones, file paperwork and clean the campus.

The address was followed by a reception and small-group dinner that included a sprinkling of school district officials and a sizable contingent of charter-school operators and their board members.

In that setting, Deasy tried to debunk several myths. For example, he said the local teachers union, United Teachers Los Angeles, is not too intransigent to work with, the district is not too big and charters and traditional schools are not enemies and can function as allies.

The later gathering was not entirely serious in tone. One former L.A. school board member, Caprice Young, wanted to know if and where Deasy had tattoos. He confessed he had some, which is why he wears long-sleeve shirts, and he has no plans to obtain more.

Another former board member, Marlene Canter, who endowed the lecture series that Deasy inaugurated, presented him with a gift box. He said he hoped it contained a check for $408 million -- the current projected budget deficit for the school district. Instead, he got an L.A. Dodgers shirt.

STUDY FINDS DECLINE IN K-12 COMPUTER SCIENCE EDUCATION ● RUNNING ON EMPTY: The Failure to Teach K–12 Computer Science in the Digital Age

By Mitch Betts | Computerworld Magazine |http://bit.ly/eIv6fI

January 10, 2011 - Computerworld - Computer technology may drive the U.S. economy, but computer science education is absent in most American K-12 classrooms, according to a report by the Association for Computing Machinery and the Computer Science Teachers Association.

"Some states and some schools are offering some really excellent courses. But overall, the picture is pretty bleak," said report co-author Mark Stehlik, assistant dean at Carnegie Mellon University's School of Computer Science, last month.

The number of secondary schools offering introductory computer science courses dropped 17% from 2005 to 2009, and the number offering Advanced Placement computer science courses dropped 35% in that time period, the study found.

Federal initiatives such as No Child Left Behind and programs designed to boost science and math education have had the unintended consequence of undermining computer science programs, the report noted. Schools have responded to those initiatives by focusing on traditional science and math courses that are covered by achievement tests or are core requirements for high school graduation. Only nine states count computer science credits toward graduation requirements.

 

The Report:

Running On Empty: The Failure to Teach K–12 Computer Science in the Digital Age

Authors:Cameron Wilson, ACM + Leigh Ann Sudol, Carnegie Mellon University + Chris Stephenson, The Computer Science Teachers Association, Member of ACM’s Education Policy Committee + Mark Stehlik, Carnegie Mellon University, Member of ACM’s Education Policy Committee

About

• State-by-State Results
• High-level findings
• National Call to Action
• Recommendations

Executive Summary

Computer science and the technologies it enables now lie at the heart of our economy, our daily lives, and scientific enterprise. As the digital age has transformed the world and workforce, U.S. K–12 education has fallen woefully behind in preparing students with the fundamental computer science knowledge and skills they need for future success. To be a well-educated citizen as we move toward an ever-more computing-intensive world and to be prepared for the jobs of the 21st Century, students must have a deeper understanding of the fundamentals of computer science.

The report finds that roughly two-thirds of the country have few computer science education standards for secondary school education, and most states treat high school computer science courses as simply an elective and not part of a student’s core education.

Executive Summary                                                 Full Report

 

 

LAUSD’s VOTE ON PUBLIC SCHOOL CHOICE PROGRAM TO BE DELAYED BY THREE WEEKS

By Connie Llanos, Staff Writer | LA Daily News | http://bit.ly/ftHcSE

4 Feb, 2011 -- Results of the community vote in Los Angeles Unified's Public School Choice program will be delayed by three weeks to coordinate with the district's recently revised schedule, officials said Thursday.

The League of Women Voters, which is overseeing the vote of parents, students and residents, said the results will be announced Feb. 24 or 25, instead of today as originally planned. The group's decision came on the heels of an announcement by Superintendent Ramon Cortines that he was delaying his own recommendations.

The nonbinding election will help the LAUSD board decide who should control a dozen campuses, including new high schools planned for Granada Hills and San Fernando. Various charter operators, nonprofit organizations and teacher-led groups are competing for the opportunity to participate in the reform effort.

Raquel Beltran, executive director of the league, said the nonpartisan group will use the additional three weeks to more critically analyze the election data.

"Unlike what you see in a municipal election, where you just count all the ballots and see who got the highest, this is a customized election," Beltran said.

During the advisory vote, which ended in January, people cast ballots based on their connection to a school.

The ballot cast by a parent, for instance, differed from the one cast by a community member. The ballot categories are being tallied separately.

Leaders of United Teachers Los Angeles have criticized the three-week delay in the election process. They note that it will push back school board's final vote until March 15 - a week after a districtwide election for four of the seven board seats.

"The School Board's decision will impact the education of each child and determine the future of this district," said Julie Washington, elementary vice-president of the teachers union.

"The public has a right to know, before they head to the polls, the voting records of the candidates who want to run our schools."

This is the second year of Public School Choice, a reform program designed to give outside parties the chance to improve student achievement.

The first year's vote was marred by allegations of voting irregularities, and one school board member said that questions raised about this year's election point to the need for a different process.

"As was the case during the first round of Public School Choice, the advisory vote is not only extremely difficult (if not impossible) to run smoothly, it also creates false expectations among voters," board member Tamar Galatzan wrote in her weekly newsletter.

Galatzan said some students at Monroe High School, for instance, were prevented from casting ballots for their favored applicant to operate the new Granada Hills campus.

"It is for these reasons," she wrote, "that I am asking incoming Superintendent (John) Deasy to do away with this requirement before the third round begins and replace it with some other mechanism, like an online survey, to gauge stakeholder interest."

On Location: LAUSD PUTS CELEBRITY CHEF JAMIE OLIVER ON NO-FILM DIET

 

Richard Verrier | LA Times | Company Town/The business behind the show  |http://lat.ms/fiasmr

 
Photo: Jamie Oliver works to transform the school lunch program of Central City Elementary School in Hungtington, W.Va., in the ABC show "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. Credit: ABC.

February 3, 2011 |  2:09 pm - British chef Jamie Oliver's food revolution is giving LAUSD officials a case of indigestion.

The Los Angeles Unified School District has suspended all filming of reality TV shows in district schools after a standoff with the celebrity chef, who had been filming his ABC show "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution" at West Adams Preparatory High School in South Los Angeles for the last two weeks.

On Wednesday, the district denied Oliver's license to film at another school, Manual Arts Senior High School, which, like West Adams, is operated by MLA Partners Schools, an organization that runs schools in South L.A. under a performance contract with LAUSD.

A person close to the production said that district Supt. Ramon Cortines would approve the permit for Oliver's show only if he could guarantee that he knew everything about the production and that it would paint the district in a postive light.

A spokesman for FilmLA Inc, the nonprofit group that handles film permits for the LAUSD, said the district's action was prompted not by any specific complaints regarding Oliver's show but by a concern that such reality TV programs can be disruptive to students.

"Yesterday the district decided that having unscripted reality shoots while classes were still in session was probably not the best idea,'' said FilmLA spokesman Todd Lindgren. "Reality programming is unpredictable, and the district decided that it was better to restrict that kind of programming."

“If you look at the last series he [Oliver] did in Huntington, W.Va., it was full of conflict and drama, and we’re not interest in that,’’ LAUSD spokesman Robert Alaniz said.

He said district officials were concerned that Oliver’s show would not fairly reflect steps LAUSD has taken to improve its menus, such as banning junk food and sodas.  “Our guidelines are certainly way above the USDA guidelines,"  he said, adding the district remained opening to working with the chef.

Oliver, who has championed the cause of promoting healthier eating in schools in Britain and now America, recently moved to Los Angeles and is filming the second season of ABC's "Food Revolution."  He has been trying for months to gain entry into the country's second-largest school system, but he has received a cold reception from district officials.

Oliver was not available for comment. But a spokeswoman for the show said the production would continue outside the school, regardless of the in-school ban.

In a speech at the UCLA School of Public Health on Wednesday night, Oliver said he had been inspired by his experiences at West Adams Preparatory and shared his frustration with district officials.

"Yesterday my filming permit was terminated because I can't promise that the LAUSD doesn't look good,'' he said. "They fail to see me as a positive, and they fail to see the TV as an incredible way to spread the word, to inspire people, to inform parents, to see other teachers doing pioneering things.'

Although many local schools generate extra cash by leasing out their facilities for filming, some reality productions have irked school officials. Last year, officials at Hollenbeck Middle School complained about having to spend more than $100,000 to fix a substandard paint job left behind by the TV show "School Pride."

CENSORSHIP LIFTED: Fifth-grader will be allowed to perform song mentioning Jesus at LA-area school

California Catholic Daily | News release from Alliance Defense Fund |http://bit.ly/fdV1Ie

Feb. 2, 2011 - LOS ANGELES -- Los Angeles Unified School District officials announced Tuesday that they will no longer prohibit a 5th-grade student from performing to a Christian song at a Feb. 4 elementary school talent show. Alliance Defense Fund attorneys had filed a request for a temporary restraining order earlier in the day against the district, following their filing of a lawsuit against district officials on Friday.

The principal of Superior Street Elementary School had told the student’s mother that the song “We Shine” was “offensive,” allegedly violated the so-called “separation of church and state,” and suggested that her child pick a song that “does not say ‘Jesus’ so many times.” The Christian song discussed themes similar to other accepted songs, some of which contained mature content.

“Christian students shouldn’t be censored at public elementary schools because district officials think that religious speech may be offensive, which isn’t justified by the Constitution” said ADF Senior Counsel David Cortman. “The LAUSD did the right thing by recognizing the student’s constitutional rights and lifting its censorship of religious speech at the talent show.”

Several days after a January audition for the annual Superior Street Elementary School Talent Show -- which had no content restrictions on the songs, dances, or other talents that the elementary students were permitted to perform -- the mother was told by SSES Principal Jerilyn Schubert that her child was not permitted to perform to the song “We Shine” because of its religious message, which she considered to be “offensive” and a violation of the “separation of church and state.”

The concerned parent replied to Schubert by explaining that the song represents her child -- who personally selected the song and practiced for months -- and not the school, and that there were no restrictions on what students could perform in the show. Schubert then asserted that other students performing songs with profane and vulgar lyrics were also told to select different songs, in essence equating religious lyrics with profanity and vulgarity. The principal went on to ask the mother why her child couldn’t “pick a song that does not say ‘Jesus’ so many times?”

Before the lawsuit, officials approved the following songs for the show: “Freak the Freak Out,” focusing on relationship problems, “Shake It Up,” with the theme of dancing and celebrating, and “Eye of the Tiger,” with lyrics stating that “we kill with the skill to survive.” Students are not required to attend the talent show, which invites the community and is being performed in the evening.

ARCHDIOCESE MAY BE BACKING OFF PLANS TO EXTEND SCHOOL YEAR: After complaints from parents, archdiocese officials say they are leaving the decision on extending elementary school schedules by 20 days to individual campuses.

By Carla Rivera, Los Angeles Times  | http://lat.ms/fzaO8Z

Ex-UCLA athlete Danny Farmer plays with Immaculate Conception School students. The archdiocese had wanted to extend the school year by 20 days. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times / February 1, 2011)

February 2, 2011 - Los Angeles Archdiocese officials appear to have backed off of a controversial plan to extend the school year at all of its elementary schools by 20 days, saying that decision is being left up to individual campuses.

At an event Tuesday to launch a campaign to boost enrollment at schools run by the archdiocese, Chancellor Mary Elizabeth Galt said the additional days of instruction were "a recommendation."

"Our schools are independent and locally governed," she said at Immaculate Conception School downtown. "Many principals wanted the support of the archdiocese. But schools will work with parent boards....The needs are different all over the city."

Cardinal Roger Mahony and other officials announced last week that the extension of the school calendar would be adopted by most of the archdiocese's 210 elementary schools. That plan drew swift opposition from some parents who complained that the extension would interfere with family schedules and summer activities.

Officials had said the move would help boost student performance and attract new families at a time when public schools are being forced to reduce the school year because of budget cuts. Fifteen schools are already operating on an extended calendar and 70% of schools have said they would adopt the longer year.

At Tuesday's event, officials said the archdiocese schools have 30,000 open seats and that nine schools are in jeopardy of closing. Their marketing campaign is aimed at adding 1,000 students in the fall and increasing donations and other outside financial support for the endangered campuses.

The enrollment drive includes Spanish- and English-language radio ads, billboards, television and print promotions and neighborhood events.

Officials said the effort is imperative because Catholic schools here and nationally are being beset by declining resources and demographic shifts.

"Traditionally, Catholic schools were served by their individual parish and had no need to market themselves," said Steve Bumbaugh, executive director of the nonprofit Specialty Family Foundation, one of the partners in the campaign. "That whole model has changed with the diminution of priests and nuns running schools and the migration of middle-class Catholic families to the suburbs. The Catholic school system is trying to catch up with reality."

The group created the Catholic Schools Consortium two years ago and hired marketing and development directors to help turn around nine struggling elementary schools. One of the schools started renting out its playground for events and film shoots; others, like Immaculate Conception, opened preschools that have attracted new students.

At Immaculate Conception, where Pope John Paul II visited in 1987, enrollment is up by 45 students over last year to 265.

One of the challenges, said Principal Mary Ann Murphy, is to attract immigrant families who, in their home country, viewed a Catholic education as a luxury of the elite.

Catholic educators believe their success with low-income, minority students has received too little recognition as public and charter schools have seized attention. And although they say they aren't in competition with independently run, publicly funded charters, Catholic educators say that their campuses share many of the same characteristics — smaller schools and local decision-making.

INCOMING LAUSD SUPERINTENDENT PLEDGES TO WORK FOR ‘REBIRTH’ OF SCHOOLS

By Melissa Pamer Staff Writer | Daily Breeze | http://bit.ly/fBRWF1

3 Feb 2011 - In his first public speech on his vision for the nation's second largest school district, Los Angeles Unified's incoming superintendent on Wednesday pledged to work rapidly toward the "rebirth of L.A. public schools" but warned that there would be some stumbling along the way.

Speaking largely in generalities to a crowd of about 150 educators at Loyola Marymount University in Westchester, LAUSD Deputy Superintendent John Deasy referred to the sense of urgency contained in Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from a Birmingham Jail.

Saying improving instruction is a civil rights issue, Deasy quoted from King.

"We are going to move very quickly in LAUSD," Deasy said. "There is no time for the `tranquilizing drug of gradualism."'

He said the district was doing "groundbreaking" and "exciting" work, but was hampered with inefficiency, bureaucracy, "arcane rules" and "labor stalemates."

He promised to focus on improving instruction, referring to hot-button issues such as value-added teacher evaluations. He also vowed to find a "third way" to work with the district's powerful labor unions to pursue improved outcomes for students.

He framed the promised changes as an opportunity as California meets a "crossroads" educationally and as the district faces a "catastrophic" budget next year.

Last month, the Board of Education voted to appoint Deasy to the district's top job beginning April 15, when 78-year-old Superintendent Ramon Cortines leaves office. Since he was hired for the No. 2 position last summer, Deasy has been groomed to replace Cortines, though the two have reportedly clashed.

His speech Wednesday was geared toward an academic audience, and he gently rebuffed a request from Kentwood Elementary Principal Jean Pennicooke to have the address delivered to the district's staff of tens of thousands of teachers.

The speech - part of a new lecture series at the School of Education named for and endowed by former Westside LAUSD board member Marlene Canter - was titled "A Vision for LAUSD and the Roadmap for Human Capital Improvement."

That latter phrase ostensibly referred to Deasy's desire to focus on "adult learning" - getting teachers to help each other improve their instructional practice.

At the same time, he said he believes in pay for performance - a concept anathema to many labor unions.

"Poor performers ... should be dismissed from the system. There, I said it. It wasn't that difficult," he said to knowing laughter from the audience.

He said value-added evaluations - in which student test results are used to reflect on a teacher's performance - should be part of instructors' reviews.

The district, he said, would have a strong partnership with labor in moving toward those reforms.

"We're going to look for a third way forward. The country needs examples of that to happen. It will mean we will have difficult conversations, and we won't shy from those," Deasy said, "It will be done with our labor partners as opposed to to our labor partners."

The district shouldn't hire outside consultants to improve instruction and leadership, he said. The statement comes less than three months after the school board approved $4.5 million in contracts for consultants to develop new teacher evaluation methods, including "value-added."

"Beaudry has to become a much smaller, leaner place whose primary purpose it is to serve (school) sites," Deasy said, referring to downtown district headquarters.

Though he spoke about improving student access to high quality teachers and to more challenging courses, he offered few details. One specific example he did give was "service credit classes," in which students perform menial administrative tasks on campus instead of coursework. That would largely be stopped next year, he said, comparing the practice to "orange drink" instead of "orange juice."

Deasy's appointment to the superintendent position, which LMU President David Burcham said was perhaps the most challenging public service job in the state, makes him the fifth superintendent in a decade for LAUSD. *

The New England native comes to the district with nearly three decades of education experience, including stints as the head of Santa Monica-Malibu Unified and districts in Rhode Island and Maryland, where he was associated with successful reforms.

Though some union officials expressed disappointment that there was no nationwide search for Cortines' replacement, Deasy's appointment was largely welcomed by the education community locally; he even received praise from U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

At the end of his speech, Deasy called for the audience to embrace mentoring for Los Angeles youth, and to stand up for the successes that LAUSD has seen in the face of critical voices.

"This system is going to need evangelists," Deasy said.

 

*…albeit two of them were Cortines – and Roy Romer was the longest serving superintendent in LA County. - smf

SCOTT FOLSOM RE-ENTERS RACE FOR LAUSD SCHOOL BOARD AS WRITE-IN CANDIDATE

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

For Immediate Release

"One of the best outcomes in public education is when a dropout drops back in." With those words parent activist and current LA County Parent/Community Volunteer of the Year Scott Folsom returned to the campaign for LAUSD Board of Education Seat #5 - representing Northeast and Southeast Los Angeles.

"I left the race because I couldn't justify the amount of money I would need to raise to make a decent showing in a traditional campaign...and I'm returning because the political fundraising to date has left decency far behind as it veers towards obscene." Folsom said.

"Recent revelations about downtown developers pouring money into the campaigns of Board of Ed candidates favored by Mayor Villaraigosa - and the on-again/off-again endorsements by the teachers' union point out the reality that the current campaign is all about securing endorsements and raising money ...not successful young people."

"I think it's time to Raise Issues, Raise Awareness ...and perhaps Raise some Hell," Folsom said.

"This will be a write-in campaign, as such it will be uphill - it will be done without a lot of money but with a lot of passion. A true independent campaign to put an independent on the board of education.

"I am also concerned about the hardball politics played in some of last week's so called "community advisory votes" in the Public School Choice process - choosing operators for new schools across the District. I saw for myself that a charter school operator bused-in pro-charter voters from across town to one polling place. I now understand that the buses made additional stops and that bused-in voters voted multiple times at multiple school sites. Democracy may not be pretty ...but that is not democracy.

"I don't think our schools should be operated by "operators" - schools should be run by teachers and principals and parents - supported by by professional and accountable administrators - and overseen - but not controlled - by the superintendent of board of education.

"Charter schools should be run by their local boards in the communities they serve in an open, transparent and accountable manner," Folsom said. Not by corporate boards meeting behind closed doors - in essence becoming public schools operated on a private agenda.

"School leaders and elected officials and parents - all of us - need to teach and to model Civics and Ethical Behavior four our children. We need to conduct ourselves on the honorable side of legal and ethical - and I don't see how selling the naming rights to a yet unbuilt football stadium and using the money to buy seats on the board of education serves the best interest of Los Angeles schoolchildren. I am for pro football in LA; I used to own Rams season tickets back in the day - but I'm unwilling to swap seats on the Board of Ed for seats on the sideline.

"I have served on the LAUSD Bond Oversight Committee for nearly a decade; in that time we have successfully avoided becoming embroiled in the kind of politics practiced involving builders and developers that have historically plagued Los Angeles politics. The movie "Chinatown" was fiction - but fiction is something that didn't happen - not something that isn't true. The film was a metaphor for how Los Angeles land development and politics have been entwined since the early days of our city. For the most part we have kept politics and corruption out of the current school building and modernization process and we need to take that success and practice and apply it to the governance of this school district..

"In the next five weeks I will reach out to parents and the community and teachers and educators and school staff -- to anyone who will listen - and hopefully to those who will vote - about raising the bar together -- about how LAUSD, fairly-or-unfairly maligned as it is, is all of us, working together for our kids.

"Finally, today is Groundhog Day. In the movie of that same name the lead character was doomed to relive the same miserable day of his life until he got it right. I am back in this race this time to get it right because our children really only have one shot at education, one shot at the grade they're in - one try to learn what they need to learn today. We don't have enough money in the budget to do it the way we'd like to do it - but we need to get it as close to right as we possibly can - so that tomorrow we and they and all-of-us-together can get it better.

"It's about learning and teaching. And for the next five weeks part of the lesson is spelling. S-C-O-T-T F-O-L-S-O-M"

¡Onward/Adelante!

Scott Folsom for Board of Education Seat #5

committee in formation

contact: smfolsom@aol.com

www.4LAKids.blogspot.com

www.4LAKidsNews.blogspot.com

 

Scott Folsom is a parent leader in LAUSD and is Parent/Volunteer of the Year for 2010-11 for Los Angeles County. • He is Past President of Los Angeles Tenth District PTSA and represents PTA on the LAUSD Construction Bond Citizen's Oversight Committee. He is a Health Commissioner, Legislation Team member and a member of the Board of Managers of the California State PTA. He serves on numerous school district advisory and policy committees and has served as a PTA officer and governance council member at three LAUSD schools. He is the recipient of the United Teachers Los Angeles /American Federation of Teachers 2009-2010 "WHO" ('We Honor Ours') Person-of the Year Gold Award for his support of education and public schools • The names of the organizations above are for identification only - no representation is made or implied regarding endorsement. •

LAUSD TO DELAY ‘EARLY START’ SCHOOL CALENDAR BACAUSE OF STATE BUDGET UNCERTAINTY

By Connie Llanos Staff Writer | LA Newspaper Group:Daily News/Daily Breeze | http://bit.ly/fAqAH9

02/02/2011 - Los Angeles Unified will delay the launch of its "early-start" calendar until 2012-13 because of uncertainty about the state budget, officials said Tuesday.

Based on the success of the calendar during a test run at 17 schools, administrators had planned to implement it districtwide beginning this fall. Classes were scheduled to start Aug. 15 - three weeks earlier than usual - and end June 1, 2012.

The decision to delay the "early-start" calendar will be formally announced today.

During his State of State speech Monday, Gov. Jerry Brown urged lawmakers to put a series of tax extensions on the June ballot which, if approved by voters, would help avert massive cuts to education funding.

Officials estimate that Los Angeles Unified could lose up to $400 million if voters do not approve the taxes.

Because the June election would give district officials just two months to react to the outcome, officials decided to delay the launch of the new calendar.

NOTE: As of early Wednesday morning Feb 2nd  the LAUSD website does not reflect the above news andcontinues to publish the following comflicting information: District-wide Early Start Instructional Calendar Approved for 2011-2012 The newly-adopted Early Start Calendar for all students on single-track elementary, middle and senior high schools would start on August 15, 2011 and end on June 1, 2012. Details here.

Save the Date/Save our Schools: SAVE OUR SCHOOLS MARCH & NATIONAL CALL TO ACTION - July 28, 2011 to July 31, 2011

Save Our Schools March & National Call to Action July 28, 2011 to July 31, 2011

      For the future of our children, we demand the following . . .

• Equitable funding for all public school communities
  
• An end to high stakes testing for student, teacher, and school evaluation
  
• Teacher and community leadership in forming public education policies
• Curricula developed by and for local school communities
  

More Details...

 

Welcome to the Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action!

As concerned citizens, we demand an end to the destructive policies eroding confidence in our public schools, demoralizing teachers, and reducing the education for too many of our children to nothing more than exercises for test preparation.

A well-educated society is essential to the future of the United States of America. Our students must have access to a fully funded, world-class public education system and it is our responsibility to act now by holding our government accountable for providing the means to achieve it!

We, a collection of people from all walks of life and every corner of this nation, embody a mixture of ideas and opinions regarding how we can improve educational opportunities for all children. We stand united by one belief - it’s time for teachers and parents to organize and take back control of our schools.

                       Please join us. . .

July 30, 2011
Save Our Schools March in Washington, D.C.
July 28, 2011 - July 31, 2011
Save Our schools Days of Action events in D.C., including workshops,
film festival, speakers and educational events - with concurrent regional
and local events organized around the country.

 

Q:	What do Diane Ravitch (The Death and Life of the Great American School System), Yong Zhao (Catching Up or Leading the Way), Deborah Meier (The Power of Their Ideas), and Vicki Abeles (Race to Nowhere) all have in common?
A:	They support the SOS March & National Call to Action! View our full list of endorsers here.

 

Contact Us
SaveOurSchoolsMarch@gmail.com

Website
www.saveourschoolsmarch.org

UTLA WITHDRAWS ENDORSEMENT OF TWO CANDIDATES

The withdrawal of support for Jesus Escandon and John Fernandez boosts the efforts of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to maintain an allied majority on the L.A. Unified Board of Education.

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

A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles, opposes the candidacy of Jesus Escandon and John Fernandez for the L.A. Board of Education. (Lawrence K. Ho, Los Angeles Times / November 21, 2005)

February 1, 2011 - Leaders of the Los Angeles teachers union withdrew their backing of two school board candidates Monday, leaving their political strategy in disarray while boosting the efforts of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to maintain an allied majority on the Board of Education.

Under the union pressure, one candidate abandoned the race while the other vowed to continue.

Jesus Escandon signed a letter dated Saturday saying that he was dropping out effective immediately. John Fernandez has refused to step aside in the only contest without an incumbent, resulting in a union rebuke.

"We will vigorously oppose his candidacy as a matter of principle," A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles, said in a Monday statement to union representatives at campuses throughout the nation's second-largest school system.

The union said that both candidates failed to reveal relevant background information in interviews.

Escandon, 43, was convicted of drunk driving and public drunkenness in the 1990s, records show. Fernandez, 61, had a bankruptcy as well as state and federal tax liens, records indicate.

Fernandez said he fulfilled his tax obligations by filing his 2006 return Friday and his 2004 return Monday. In 2001, Fernandez was arrested and jailed for three days after two female companions were suspected of shoplifting, Fernandez said. No prosecution was ever pursued, he added.

The union, said spokeswoman Marla Eby, "would rather lose the campaign than have a candidate who didn't rise to our level of honesty and integrity. This is obviously something we didn't want to happen, especially with two candidates."

UTLA has one remaining endorsed candidate: two-term incumbent Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte in District 1. In every race, the union had chosen a candidate to oppose those favored by Villaraigosa. School board members allied with the mayor to varying degrees occupy four of the seven seats.

The mayor is backing incumbent Richard Vladovic in District 7 against Escandon and Roye Love. He's supporting incumbent Tamar Galatzan in District 3 against Louis Pugliese. Yolie Flores decided not to run again in District 5, where the mayor is supporting Luis Sanchez, chief of staff to board President Monica Garcia, the mayor's closest board ally. The other candidates are Fernandez and Bennett Kayser.

The union has had other setbacks with the March 8 election. It first lost Heather Kolodny in District 3, who changed her mind about running.

A former teacher, Escandon, 43, is a veteran staff member with the California Teachers Assn. and the father of three district students. In 1994 he was convicted of public drunkenness, an arrest that also resulted in a conviction for failure to appear in court. In 1997 he was convicted of driving under the influence and driving without a license.

"Like most people, I've made mistakes in my life," he said in a signed letter to the UTLA board. "I wanted to personally apologize to you and the teachers of L.A. for not sharing this with you earlier."

Escandon's wife, Martha, said Monday that UTLA wrote the letter and pressured her husband all weekend to sign it. At one point, after having agreed, he changed his mind at the urging of his family and called Duffy to tell him, she said. An angry Duffy allegedly warned him to talk to his employer and then hung up.

Fearful for his job, Escandon finally yielded and also agreed not to speak to reporters. His wife added that Escandon is a solid citizen who once worked three jobs so she could earn her undergraduate and master's degrees.

Others urging Escandon to drop out were campaign consultant John Shallman, who is working for UTLA, and former union president John Pérez. Duffy and Pérez could not be reached, but Shallman insisted that there was no coercion.

Fernandez said he may appeal to keep the endorsement to the union's House of Representatives. UTLA's backing typically comes with substantial campaign funding and volunteer support.

As of Friday, Fernandez had reported that he'd raised no money. A campaign on behalf of the mayor's favored candidates has raised more than $1 million.

Fernandez, a retired teacher and longtime Eastside community activist, called the pressure from Duffy "a vicious, racist, cowardly act."

Times staff writer Jason Song and researcher Scott Wilson contributed to this report.

 

Earlier coverage:

Howard Blume and Jason Song | LA Times/LA Now | http://lat.ms/e5emKu

January 31, 2011 |  United Teachers Los Angeles has abandoned its support of two candidates in the March school board election, throwing the union's political strategy into disarray.

Jesus Escandon has withdrawn from the race and John Fernandez has lost the endorsement of UTLA because of "serious concerns about Mr. Fernandez's truthfulness in the interview process and his qualifications and integrity to be a member of the school board," union President A.J. Duffy wrote in a Monday statement that was apparently faxed to union chapter chairs at schools in the L.A. Unified School District.

Escandon had filed to run in District 7, which covers the harbor area and portions of South Los Angeles, against one-term incumbent Richard Vladovic. Fernandez is running for an open seat in District 5, which covers a diverse area including Los Feliz, Silver Lake, Eagle Rock, East Los Angeles and the southeast L.A. County cities of Huntington Park, South Gate and Bell.

The issue with both candidates was lack of disclosure in the union interview process. A source familiar with the internal deliberations said the matter with Escandon related to one or more arrests and that the problems with Fernandez related to an arrest and his personal finances. A union spokesperson declined to confirm the specifics when contacted Monday morning.

Politically, the turn of events is an advantage for Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who is supporting other candidates -- Vladovic in District 7 and Luis Sanchez in District 5 -- in his effort to maintain an allied board majority.

The union has not ruled out endorsing additional candidates, although it would probably have to call an emergency meeting of its House of Representatives to do so. In District 7, the other remaining candidate is Roye Love, who has frequently run for office in the past. In District 5, the last standing alternative is recently retired teacher Bennett Kayser. Last week, Kayser won the endorsement of the union that represents district administrators. Administrators are endorsing Vladovic in the other contest.

Both Escandon and Fernandez were received with great favor by House delegates late last year when the body made its endorsements. Escandon is a well-liked staffer with the California Teachers Assn. and a district parent. Fernandez is a longtime community activist and was a union chapter chairman at Roosevelt High School prior to his recent retirement.

[Updated+Corrected] The Spin, the Spin: LAUSD’s PUBLIC SCHOOL CHOICE CLOSES 2nd ROUND OF COMMUNITY VOTING – in which “Neon Tommy” reports half the story …and gets it all wrong!

by Phoebe Unterman - Staff Reporter for Neon Tommy – produced by the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism through Annenberg Digital News | http://bit.ly/dWnR8k

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January 31, 2011 - Thirteen Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) campuses—ten brand new and three existing schools—have recently closed a community vote on whether or not they will remain as they are or switch to a charter school format, as part of LAUSD’s “Public School Choice” (PSC) program.

Voting occurred at several South L.A. schools over the last two weeks to prepare for February’s PSC proceedings. Superintendent Ramon Cortines was to present his recommendations to the LAUSD board for a vote on Feb. 22, but announced Monday that he would delay his report until March 15.

LAUSD voted 6-1 in favor of the program as part of their effort to improve some of the district’s existing underperforming schools and better manage the 160 new schools they plan to open in an effort to relieve overcrowding.

The first program of its kind in the nation, PSC was passed in 2009 and has already completed one round of voting in which an overwhelming majority of proposed campuses were converted to charter schools [100% untrue - smf]—tuition-free public schools open to all children, independent of school district bureaucracy. The schools are run either by a coalition of teachers at the school, a private company or a nonprofit.

The school board ultimately has the final say on which applicant would run the school, provided an affirmative community vote.

“What you hear over again in the public is two different things: the traditional system is not working well enough and needs to be reinvented,” said Jed Wallace, CEO of the California Charter Schools Association in a press conference. “[A]nd secondly, parents should have the right to choose where their kids go to school.”

As the two pillars on which PSC was created, these two public opinions have also been the fuel for the transformation of several schools.

What was different for the second round of voting was that community members had the opportunity to vote immediately after community meetings where all applicant teams will present their proposal. While these meetings were heavily attended last year, there were also a lot of major problems with how the vote was executed and information disseminated. 

[Those problems continued this year – and if anything were amplified. In the voting I attended on Saturday busloads of “community voters” were bused–in by a charter operator from across town, The majority of the ‘voters’ had not attended the community meetings and were presumably voting as instructed by the provider of the transportation-smf]

“This is a transformational time in LAUSD where we actually have some competition to really improve the quality of all the schools that are a part of our district,” said Ana Ponse, founder of Camino Nuevo Charter School.

update+correction: Phoebe Unterman writes: I'm sorry, I got my information from the California Charter School Association, and didn't think that it would be biased or incorrect. I should've checked with other sources, I'm sorry.  - Phoebe smf writes: Thank you Phoebe. I am shocked - shocked! - that information from the California Charter School Association would be biased or incorrect! We are - all of us in the public education debate - driven by our passions filtered through our biases - wrapped in the same holy hogwash that "it's for the kids". Ours is a fight over a lot of money that is - at once - not enough money. When push comes to shove it's the kids who get pushed and the truth that gets shoved. Mark Twain said the difference between words and the right words is the difference between lightning bugs and lightning. Thank you for paying attention and writing. Do not be discouraged - the truth is out there. Onward!  - smf

CORTINES DELAYS SECOND ROUND OF LAUSD REFORM PROGRAM

By Melissa Pamer, Staff Writer | Daily Breeze | http://bit.ly/f3dXrN

01/31/2011 06:28:43 PM PST - The second round of a closely watched Los Angeles Unified reform initiative - which lets outside groups bid for control of new and troubled existing campuses - has been delayed.

Superintendent Ramon Cortines announced Monday that he would delay his recommendation for so-called Public School Choice 2.0, which includes a campus that is under construction in Long Beach, just over the border from Carson.

Cortines is set to weigh proposals from outside the district and from LAUSD teams to run 10 new schools and three existing schools. His recommendations were originally slated for Feb. 22, but now will not be revealed until March 15, the district said in a statement.

The new local school, set to cater to Carson and Banning high students, is the subject of bids from LAUSD's Local District 8 and a group called MATTIE that ran a short-lived charter school in Long Beach.

After applications are reviewed by two committees, Cortines will make a recommendation to the Board of Education, which has final say over which groups run each school.