GROUP DEMANDING SCHOOL LIBRARY DEFIES ARREST THREATS ON THIRD DAY OF PROTEST

BY Maudlyne Ihejirika - Chicago Sun Times | http://bit.ly/dmcC2E

 

Pilsen residents cheer Friday after police removed barricades at Whittier Elementary School after several protesters pushed past them. CPS officials left the area. (Al Podgorski/Sun-Times)

September 18, 2010  -- On its third day, a sit-in by parents demanding a library for a Pilsen elementary school took several twists and turns -- with police at one point threatening arrests, then abruptly leaving after more than 100 parents, students and teachers pushed past barricades to support the protesters.

"Just because we live in an economically challenged neighborhood doesn't mean we shouldn't have the right to the same resources as anyone else," community activist Gema Gaete told Chicago Public Schools spokeswoman Monique Bond in one of many heated exchanges during the six-hour standoff at Whittier Elementary, 1900 W. 23rd.

Pilsen residents protest

Parents, community activists and students had commandeered the school's adjacent field house on Wednesday in protest over CPS' plans this month to raze the building it says is structurally unsafe, and replace it with an athletic field.

The protesters say the school, which has neither a library in-house nor in the community, needs one more than it needs a field, and claim the district is reneging on an earlier commitment not to demolish the field house. They want about $354,000 currently budgeted for demolition to instead be used toward the building's repair and renovation into a library.

"It would probably cost two or three times that amount to renovate, and with the current budget constraints, we have no funding sources right now that we can count on," Bond said, pleading with the parents to vacate the building.

"We have a structural engineer's report which states that the building is unsafe and recommends that it not be occupied," Bond said.

The parents countered with their own report by a structural engineer that found the building in need primarily of a roof replacement, but salvageable with minimal investment. The group also has garnered the support of their state legislators, with state Rep. Edward Acevedo promising to help find the rehab funds.

CPS officials arrived Friday morning with a cavalry of police blocking off the street. Bond persuaded the parents to evacuate all children from the building, where protesters had spent the last two nights.

The two sides then reached an hourslong impasse over the protesters' demand for a meeting with schools CEO Ron Huberman and his commitment to save the building. As the day wore on, Bond eventually gave Huberman's commitment to meet with the group next week, and a promise not to demolish until the two sides met.

But then the protesters asked for it in writing. That, Bond said, she could not do. Then leave, the parents countered, they would not do. Pronouncing it a stalemate, Bond left.

Officials swept in to tack "No Trespassing" signs all over the building. And police moved in. The group was given a 2:45 p.m. deadline to leave or be arrested. But just as the deadline passed, school let out, and a sea of parents, students and teachers pushed past the street barricades shouting, "Si Puedo!" They pushed past police, some fighting their way into the field house. And when it seemed the crowd was out of control, police and CPS officials suddenly broke camp and left. Shouts of, "We won!" went out.

"We stuck together and won!" pronounced community member Evelin Santos. "We're going to stay here until we get our letter of commitment!"

Political Event Advisory: FACEOFF AT FORUM FOR STATE SUPERINTENDENT CANDIDATES - Sept. 29 Evening Gathering at LACOE Presents Larry Aceves and Tom Torlakson

SOURCE Los Angeles County Office of Education/PRNewswire | http://bit.ly/anRenf

DOWNEY, Calif., Sept. 24

WHAT:

A forum featuring the two candidates for the office of California State Superintendent of Public Instruction. The candidates — Larry Aceves and Tom Torlakson — will discuss and take audience & panel questions on the critical issues impacting preschool-through-12th-grade education.

WHY:

To learn the positions and perspectives of the two candidates for the statewide, nonpartisan post that will be decided in the Nov. 2 general election.

WHEN:

WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 29, 2010 — 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. 

WHERE:

Education Center West — Main Conference Room

L.A. County Office of Education, 12830 Columbia Way, Downey, CA 90242 [map]

WHO:

Co-hosted by the Los Angeles County Office of Education and the Los Angeles County School Trustees Association, and co-sponsored with the League of Women Voters of California Education Fund and the California State PTA.

The event is free and open to the public. Seating is limited and RSVPs are encouraged. School community representatives from across the Southland, including board members, superintendents, administrators, teachers and other staff, as well as parents and students, are expected to attend. 

 The forum will be telecast live on The California Channel, and streamed on the cable system's website at:  calchannel.com

86-days-and-counting/hold your nose, not your breath!: CALIFORNIA STATE BUDGET BREAKTHOUGH ANNOUNCED

Wyatt Buchanan,Marisa Lagos, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau | This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle | http://bit.ly/bJmbsa

Friday, September 24, 2010 -  04:00 PDT Sacramento - -- State leaders have made a breakthrough in the record-breaking budget stalemate, announcing Thursday they have agreed on a framework for solving California's $19 billion budget deficit.

The bare-bones announcement came after the second day of meetings in Los Angeles, where negotiations were moved because Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has been sick and unable to fly to the capital.

The state has been without a budget for 86 days. Sources close to the talks said leaders had agreed to make $7.5 billion in spending cuts and that they are assuming the state will receive a significant amount of federal money, which has not been promised. The $7.5 billion in cuts is much less than the governor and Republicans have been backing - about $12 billion - and even less than the $8 billion in reductions Democrats had proposed.

Additionally, the framework relies on a $1.4 billion revenue estimate by the Legislative Analyst's Office, which is rosier than a Department of Finance estimate, along with $1.2 billion from the sale of state buildings that would then be leased back, sources said.

More details are expected in the coming days, including plans for pension budget reforms - the latter would be placed on the 2012 ballot.

More negotiations

Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear described the framework as "a conceptual agreement on where the numbers fall." He said the negotiations will return to Sacramento and more specific details will be worked out over the weekend. The goal is to come to a final agreement Monday, he said.

Assembly Speaker John Pérez called the progress "significant" and said, "Given the enormity of the deficit and the stark choices available to us in closing it, it's vital that we take the time to get it right in producing a budget plan that protects Californians from devastating job losses and economically hurtful decisions."

In recent weeks, the impacts of the lack of a spending plan in a state of nearly 37 million people have become more clear. And just hours before the announcement of the framework, one impact was made glaringly obvious: Caltrans announced it had to freeze another $1 billion in transportation funding because of the lack of a budget, bringing the total of delayed transportation money to nearly $4 billion.

Stalled Caltrans projects include $32.6 million in construction on Highway 101 between University Avenue in East Palo Alto and Marsh Road in Milpitas. Caltrans Director Cindy McKim also warned Thursday that another $2.3 billion in bond funds for projects is at risk of being delayed.

News of the breakthrough was cheered by Gloria Marshall, who runs a preschool in East Palo Alto and has not been able to pay her 22 teachers since July 31. Creative Montessori Learning Center gets about 80 percent of its funding from the state, because so many of its students are from low-income families.

"Oh my goodness. Praise the Lord," Marshall said when told of the possible budget deal. "I'm sitting here right now (with some of our) parents trying to figure out how we can do a paycheck next month. This is such excellent news."

To conserve the school's dwindling cash, Marshall didn't cash her July paycheck, and her employees are among the scores of Californians affected by the budget impasse.

Checks on hold

While the state has been able to continue paying most bills, state law prevents some checks from being sent out without a spending plan in place. Among those unpaid since July 1: health clinics that serve the poor, college students who qualify for financial aid, state-funded child-development programs - which serve more than 270,000 children - and hundreds of vendors that provide food for prisons, fuel for the California Highway Patrol and other goods and services to the state.

Assemblyman Sandré Swanson, D-Oakland, said he was pleased about the progress, adding it is "really unacceptable" that the state is 86 days into the fiscal year without a budget.

"This has been bad for schools, bad for business and bad for California, so I am hopeful they have a deal," Swanson said, though he added that he would be most interested in details for school funding.

Democratic leaders in both houses plan to brief their caucuses this morning on the framework of the deal.

DISTRICTS MISS OUT ON FEDERAL GRANTS: 2 Rural Districts, Charters get money

By John Fensterwald - Educated Guess | http://bit.ly/aY4BgE

Posted on 9/23/10 -- Two charter school groups and two rural districts are the only California recipients of the U.S. Department of Education’s  $1.2 billion Teacher Incentive Fund. The grant competition is designed to spur school districts to tie teacher and principal evaluations and pay to performance.

Most large districts in California steered clear of the program, reflecting the California Teachers Association’s opposition to performance-based pay and school boards’ skittishness over pressing the issue. The four grants to California charters and districts, totaling $29 million, represent only 2 percent of the five-year awards.

The big bucks went to the bold: $27 million to the Massachusetts Department of Education to attract and reward effective teachers in 22 “turnaround” schools in Boston and Springfield (rewards of $15,000 for teachers, up to $20,000 for principals); $52 million for performance-based pay in six districts in Maricopa County, Ariz.; and $40 million to the New York State Dept. of Education to create performance-based pay for 68 schools in Rochester, Yonkers, and Syracuse.

The largest California grant – $11 million – will go to The College-Ready Promise, a consortium of charter management organizations in Los Angeles that earlier this year was honored with a seven-year, $60 million grant from the Gates Foundation for teacher and principal development, including designing a “value-added” pay system. The organizations are Alliance for College-Ready Public Schools, ICEF (Inner City Education Foundation) Public Schools, Green Dot Public Schools, PUC (Partnership to Uplift Communities) Schools, and Aspire Public Schools. The groups are pledging that at the end of five years, 70 to 75 percent of elementary students in their schools will score at advanced or proficient levels on the state standardized tests, and twice the current percentage will enter college fully prepared for college-level work.

Also receiving money: $4.6 million to the Northern Humboldt Union High School District; $7 million to the 11,000-student Lucia Mar Unified along coastal San Luis Obispo County; and $7 million to ARISE High and three other Alameda County charter schools with 1,000 students. Four-year-old ARISE, located in Oakland’s low-income Fruitvale district, is affiliated with Mills College. Its standardized test scores dropped last year, pushing the school into Program Improvement under No Child Left Behind; as a result, the school will be designing evaluations partly tied to improved scores, said Co-Principal Romeo Garcia.

California districts stood a good chance of getting the money, had more of them applied. The Department of Education awarded 62 grants out of 96 applicants – far better odds than under No Child Left Behind, the i3 grants, and other Obama programs. A dozen California districts applied, including San Francisco Unified and the Riverside County Office of Education.

There is a catch: Congress has yet to approve the first two of the five-year grants; the awards assume that it will. At the end of five years, schools are expected to fund the incentive-pay systems on their own or with foundation help.

 

●●smf’s 2¢  There are two more catches. re: “The groups are pledging that at the end of five years, 70 to 75 percent of elementary students in their schools will score at advanced or proficient levels on the state standardized tests.”

● Catch 2.1: No Child Left Behind mandates that ALL STUDENTS AT ALL SCHOOLS score at advanced or proficient levels by 2014; five years is 2015. By federal law schools not performing at universal proficiency are subject to reconstitution or takeover.

● Catch 2.2: In five years there will be no state standardized tests, all is to be replaced by a federal assessment.

The Dream Act: SENATE KICKS OPPORTUNITY OUT OF REACH

Themes in the News for the week of Sept. 20-24, 2010 By UCLA IDEA - A weekly commentary written by UCLA IDEA on the important issues in education as covered by the news media | http://bit.ly/au4UeI

09-24-2010 -- Last week, IDEA’s Themes in the News reported on President Obama’s back-to-school speech urging students to work hard. If they did, he pledged, nothing would be beyond their reach. Then, on Tuesday, the U.S. Senate failed to pass the DREAM Act (Education Week). Just when many students’ aspirations seemed to be possible, the Senate kicked hopes and dreams beyond their grasp.

Nothing was gained by keeping exclusionary laws on the books and the lost opportunities are devastating. About 65,000 undocumented students—between 20,000 and 30,000 in California—will graduate high school this year without the same opportunities to continue their education as those afforded to their citizen classmates.

The DREAM Act would have set strict conditions for a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrant students, allowed them to pay in-state college tuition and attain scholarships for which they qualify. Many of these students have lived in the U.S. since they were small children—never knowing a home other than the United States.

By failing to pass the DREAM Act, the country, and California in particular, are losing a potential pool of college-educated adults prepared to contribute to the state in many ways, including the economy.  At a rally earlier this week, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa alluded to waste of individual efforts and taxpayer dollars when denying full opportunity to hard-working and well-educated youth.  Passage of the DREAM Act, he said, would provide “a great return on money we’ve already invested” (Los Angeles Times).

The denial of the DREAM Act also diminishes civic life. The status quo puts to lie our most cherished democratic ideals—equality under the law, one person one vote. Lacking legal status, undocumented residents have limited opportunities to share their civic ideas and civic energy. In classes everywhere students discuss the responsibilities of citizenship knowing that they are excluded from fully participating in society.

Without the DREAM Act, we continue to place caring educators in an untenable position. Teachers and college counselors face the task of educating students for a future they cannot afford or might not have access to. They must explain to students why it’s important to study for exams even as they can promise no payoff for these efforts.

The media and political leaders often trumpet tales of individual students who struggle and eventually overcome difficult circumstances to achieve educational success (New America Media). How then are we to understand the stories of tens of thousands of our students who work so hard and come up empty-handed?

Stuff Happens!: LAPTOPS STOLEN FROM CHARTER SCHOOL + FENCES TORN DOWN AT SOUTH BAY HIGH SCHOOLS

from LA Times/L.A. NOW | Southern California -- this just in | Category: Education | http://lat.ms/bcEsoM

Electronic equipment stolen at Watts Learning Center [Updated]

by Howard Blume, L.A. Times

September 23, 2010 |  4:17 pm - One of the city’s highly regarded schools, the Watts Learning Center, was the target of a break-in and the theft of most of its electronic equipment from a new classroom building, a school official said.
The losses included 20 laptop computers, half a dozen desktop computers, projectors and cellphones -- basically everything electronic from six of nine classrooms in the building, said Gene Fisher, the school’s founder and chief executive.

Watts Learning Center is an independently operated, free public charter school in the 300 block of West 95th Street in the Broadway-Manchester area.
“We’re still in a state of shock, and we have to assess what we do next,” Fisher said. “But we’re not going to be deterred. The good schools are not exempt from some of the ravages of crime.”

The break-in occurred sometime between 8:30 p.m. Sept. 15, after a parents' meeting, and 6:30 a.m. Sept. 16, when the school's staff arrived. [Corrected at 8:45 p.m.: An earlier version of this post erroneously reported that the burglary occurred Wednesday.]

The burglars apparently broke a thick window over the door, getting around the building’s security measures. While police investigated, teachers held classes outside and in the auditorium.

The school, which serves a low-income, mostly African American population, posted its highest score -- 860 -- this year on the state’s Academic Performance Index. The state’s target score for schools is 800. If every student at a school tested as academically proficient, a school’s score would be 875.

The perpetrators, Fisher said, “didn’t get the kind of education these kids are getting.”

Anyone with information should contact the Los Angeles Police Department at (877) 527-3247 or provide an anonymous tip by calling (800) 222-8477.

Fences dismantled at three South Bay high schools

by My-Thuan Tran | LA Times/LANow!

September 23, 2010 |  8:12 am - For the first time in years, three schools in the Centinela Valley Union High School District in the South Bay do not have iron fences surrounding their campuses.

Eight-foot-high fences in front of Hawthorne, Lawndale and Leuzinger high schools were removed during summer vacation to make the campuses "more welcoming," said Mike Ono, associate principal of Leuzinger High School in Lawndale.

The fences were installed in the 1990s, when the schools experienced more violence and racial tension, both on campus and off. During that period, gunshots rang out several times near the campuses, wounding students.

Administrators worried about gang violence, and the 1992 Los Angeles riots also created concern.

"I think the fences were taken down to make it a more welcoming school," Ono said. "When fences are up, it's a barrier."

Ono said the fences had been erected in the students' interest.

"It was protecting students from people coming on to campus from off campus," he said.

TWO L.A. NONPROFITS GET $500K EACH IN GRANTS TO CREATE PROGRAMS FOR LOW-INCOME AND MINORITY STUDENTS + GROUPS WILL TRY TO REPLICATE HARLEM CHILDREN'S ZONE IN L.A.

Two L.A. nonprofits get $500,000 each in grants to create programs for low-income and minority students

The 'Promise Grants,' meant to help disadvantaged students from cradle to college, go to the Youth Policy Institute and Proyecto Pastoral.

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

September 22, 2010 - Two Los Angeles nonprofit groups have received $500,000 each in federal grants to create programs modeled on a high-profile Harlem effort to help low-income and minority students from cradle through college, federal officials announced Tuesday.

The federal "Promise Grants" are an anti-poverty and education-reform initiative in one, an approach many experts applaud but also say is expensive, with goals that are difficult to achieve.

The grants will go to the Youth Policy Institute, based in Los Angeles, and Proyecto Pastoral at Dolores Mission in Boyle Heights. The funds are for planning a broad-based, community initiative that would emulate the Harlem Children's Zone project of Geoffrey Canada.

The zone covers a 97-block area of Manhattan and has a $48-million budget, or about $5,000 per child annually, not including government funding for schools that substantially surpasses education spending in California. Mothers can begin to participate in its programs when they are pregnant, and services follow their children throughout their education.

The two L.A. organizations will be in the running next year for federal grants of $10 million to $20 million; but ultimately the effort, if it follows the Harlem model, will depend on private funding and a more effective use of government funding for schools.

All told, federal officials handed out planning funds to 21 groups, including a Boys & Girls Club, universities, a housing organization and healthcare nonprofits in areas from New York City to the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana.

---

Groups will try to replicate Harlem Children's Zone in Los Angeles

By Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times/LA Now | http://lat.ms/d8DA3D

September 21, 2010 |  6:25 pm -- Two Los Angeles nonprofit groups have received $500,000 federal grants to create programs modeled on a high-profile Harlem effort to help low-income and minority students from cradle through college, federal officials announced Tuesday.

The federal Promise Grants are an anti-poverty and education-reform initiative in one, an approach many experts applaud but also say is expensive, with goals that are difficult to achieve.

The grants will go to the Youth Policy Institute, based in Los Angeles, and Proyecto Pastoral at Dolores Mission in Boyle Heights. They will fund planning for a broad-based community initiative that would emulate the Harlem Children’s Zone project of Geoffrey Canada.

The Harlem zone covers a 97-block area of Manhattan with a $48-million budget, or about $5,000 per child annually, not including government funding for schools that substantially surpasses education spending in California. Mothers can begin to participate in its programs when they are pregnant, and services follow their children throughout their education.

The grantees, among 21 groups chosen nationwide, will be working in communities where, for instance, no child had tested as academically advanced in school for several years. In another area selected, one-fifth of children had a parent sent to prison, said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

“This is about communities where educational outcomes haven’t been what any of us want,” Duncan said. “We want everybody rallying together” so children can be successful.

The two L.A. organizations will be in the running next year for federal grants of $10 million to $20 million, but ultimately the effort, if it follows the Harlem model, will depend on both private funding and a more effective use of government funding for schools.

The Los Angeles awards were announced at City Hall, where Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa spoke of a coordinated effort among city and county staffers, local nonprofits and the Los Angeles Unified School District, which was represented by school board President Monica Garcia.

L.A. Unified “has its arms open to the community to help us help our children and our families,” Garcia said.

Proyecto Pastoral will focus on a portion of Boyle Heights. The Youth Policy Institute will have one project area in Pacoima and another in Hollywood. Its efforts already include job training, computer donations, day labor centers, after-school programs and two charter schools.

Unsuccessful local applicants included the University of Southern California; a collaboration involving the Brotherhood Crusade, Community Coalition and Urban League; and ABC, a nonprofit working with UCLA in the neighborhoods around the new RFK Community Schools complex in Koreatown. These groups can still apply for future grants; Duncan said this year’s funding ran out before the list of deserving applicants.

Across the country, the groups chosen for planning grants included a Boys & Girls Club, universities, a housing organization and healthcare nonprofits in areas ranging from New York City to the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana.

‘VALUE ADDED’ TEACHER RATINGS ADD LITTLE VALUE

-

By Bill Boyarsky | Op-Ed in  The Jewish Journal | http://bit.ly/bL0Tsh

smf: FOR A BIT OF THE OLD COMPARE+CONTRAST SEE ALSO THE JEWISH JOURNAL DAVID LEHRER BLOGPOST: THE LA TIMES AT ITS BEST | http://bit.ly/bIbOSg  WHICH TAKES QUITE THE OPPOSITE POSITION.  ONE OF THE LESS VITRIOLIC RESPONSES TO THAT IS THIS TWEET FROM FORMER FEDERAL EDUCATION OFFICIAL DIANE RAVITCH, AUTHOR OF THE BESTSELLING “THE DEATH AND LIFE OF THE GREAT AMERICAN SCHOOL SYSTEM”: "LATimes should publish names of heart surgeons and patient mortality rates, plus lawyers win/lost scores. Why stop with teachers?"

September 21, 2010 - The teacher evaluations recently posted on the Los Angeles Times Web site deserve a careful but skeptical reading. 

I studied them both as a grandparent of public school kids and as a journalist who writes about schools for The Jewish Journal and LA Observed, a Web site that focuses on local politics, government and the media. I also know how important the public schools are to Jewish families concerned about their children’s education.

Like many other people, my attention was caught by the premise behind the series of stories in the Times and on its Web site — the promise of a new, trailblazing way of evaluating teachers. The Times has posted the names and evaluations of about 6,000 elementary school teachers on latimes.com. On the first day that the series ran in the print edition of the newspaper, two teachers were singled out, one shown in a large picture, as among the least effective in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD).

I was offended by the way the two teachers were singled out and the fact that thousands more names and ratings have been posted on the Web site. Even in their weakened states, newspapers, especially one as big as the Times, are powerful instruments. I began to dig into the evaluation system.

The Times evaluations are based on the value-added system. As the Times explained it, “In essence, a student’s past performance on tests is used to project his or her future results. The difference between the prediction and the student’s actual performance after the year is the ‘value’ that the teacher added or subtracted. ... If a third-grade student ranked in the 60th percentile among all district third-graders, he would be expected to rank similarly in the fourth grade.” If that student’s test scores fell, it would show his teacher was ineffective. If they rose, the teacher would be classified as effective.

A strong caution on the value-added system came from Mathematica Policy Research, an organization working for the U.S. Department of Education that is headed by Education Secretary Arne Duncan, a supporter of value added. Mathematica’s analysis offered “evidence that value-added estimates for teacher-level analyses are subject to a considerable degree of random error.”

When I asked Times Assistant Managing Editor David Lauter about this, he told me, “We took several steps to deal with the inherent error rate that is involved in any statistical measure.”

In the Times evaluation system, the possibility of error is expressed as confidence levels, in terms of plus and minus. The margin of error for English scores is plus or minus five for the highest and lowest scorers. For math, it is plus or minus seven. Accuracy is even lower for teachers who score midrange.

To see how this worked, I looked up a teacher I know to be outstanding. The teacher was rated “more effective,” just short of being rated most effective, in English and on his overall score. His highest ratings were in math. 

Then I learned something interesting. He did not teach his class math. This school used team teaching. He taught English and other subjects. But when it came time for math, the students went to the classroom of a teacher who specialized in math instruction. I thought this would seriously skew test results. I asked LAUSD officials about it.

One official said some, but not a majority, of Los Angeles schools engage in team teaching. It’s up to the principals and the teachers. At the beginning of the school year, the students in a class are assigned to a particular teacher. We’ll call him or her the “official teacher.” In elementary school, this teacher is responsible for teaching all subjects to the students assigned him or her. But in a team teaching school, the students may go to the math teacher’s classroom for instruction. Yet the “official teacher” administers all the tests and takes the credit or blame for students’ performance on all subjects. “They will get credit for teaching math, even though they didn’t teach math,” one official told me.

This seems to be a huge flaw in the teacher rating system. There are others. Statistical analysis involves random sampling. Random sampling is important in such analysis. But a study by the Economic Policy Institute said test results usually do not come from classes where students were enrolled at random or by chance. Instead, classroom assignments are made by principals based on such factors as spreading high and low achievers among classrooms, separating troublemaking friends and yielding to parental pressure.

Lauter told me the Times analysis took these factors into account and produced “unbiased results.”

That’s for the reader to determine. Test scores and the value-added system are a useful tool in evaluating teachers. But they are imperfect and fall short of telling the whole story.

The Times should have done a better job of revealing flaws in its system. When parents look up a teacher on the database, they should know the ratings have a substantial error rate and, at best, are a limited measure of a teacher’s ability.

As the old saying goes, don’t believe everything you read in the newspapers.

Bill Boyarsky is a former City Editor for the LA Times. He is a columnist for The Jewish Journal, Truthdig and L.A. Observed, and the author of “Inventing L.A.: The Chandlers and Their Times” (Angel City Press).

SCHOOLWORK: The overblown crisis in American education

by Nicholas Lemann Talk of the Town/Comment in The New Yorker | http://nyr.kr/a9Ohnl

September 27, 2010 -- A hundred years ago, eight and a half per cent of American seventeen-year-olds had a high-school degree, and two per cent of twenty-three-year-olds had a college degree. Now, on any given weekday morning, you will find something like fifty million Americans, about a sixth of the population, sitting under the roof of a public-school building, and twenty million more are students or on the faculty or the staff of an institution of higher learning. Education is nowhere mentioned in the Constitution; the creation of the world’s first system of universal public education—from kindergarten through high school—and of mass higher education is one of the great achievements of American democracy. It embodies a faith in the capabilities of ordinary people that the Founders simply didn’t have.

It is also, like democracy itself, loose, shaggy, and inefficient, full of redundancies and conflicting goals. It serves many constituencies and interest groups, each of which, in the manner of the parable of the blind men and the elephant, sees its purpose differently. But, by the fundamental test of attractiveness to students and their families, the system—which is one of the world’s most ethnically diverse and decentralized—is, as a whole, succeeding. Enrollment in charter schools is growing rapidly, but so is enrollment in old-fashioned public schools, and enrollments are rising at all levels. Those who complete a higher education still do better economically. Measures of how much American students are learning—compared to the past, and compared to students in other countries—are holding steady, for the most part, even as more people are going to school.

So it’s odd that a narrative of crisis, of a systemic failure, in American education is currently so persuasive. This back-to-school season, we have Davis Guggenheim’s documentary about the charter-school movement, “Waiting for ‘Superman’ ”; two short, dyspeptic books about colleges and universities, “Higher Education?,” by Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus, and “Crisis on Campus,” by Mark C. Taylor; and a lot of positive attention to the school-reform movement in the national press. From any of these sources, it would be difficult to reach the conclusion that, over all, the American education system works quite well.

illustration: tom bachtell

The school-reform story draws its moral power from the heartbreakingly low quality of the education that many poor, urban, and minority children in public schools get. This problem isn’t new, and the historical context is important: one of the cornerstones of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society was the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, which for the first time directed substantial national funding to schools attended by these children. (George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind was technically a tweak to Johnson’s law, and Barack Obama is incorporating his education-reform ideas into another tweak.) The gap in educational achievement between black and white children narrowed during the nineteen-seventies and eighties, and has been mainly stuck since then, but it’s misleading to suggest that the gap is getting bigger.

It should raise questions when an enormous, complicated realm of life takes on the characteristics of a stock drama. In the current school-reform story, there is a reliable villain, in the form of the teachers’ unions, and a familiar set of heroes, including Geoffrey Canada, of Harlem Children’s Zone; Wendy Kopp, of Teach for America, the Knowledge Is Power Program; and Michele Rhee, the superintendent of schools in Washington, D.C. And there is a clear answer to the problem—charter schools. The details of this story are accurate, but they are fitted together too neatly and are made to imply too much. For example, although most of the specific charter schools one encounters in this narrative are very good, the data do not show that charter schools in general are better than district schools. There are also many school-reform efforts besides charter schools: the one with the best sustained record of producing better-educated children in difficult circumstances, in hundreds of schools over many years, is a rigorously field-tested curriculum called Success for All, but because it’s not part of the story line it goes almost completely unmentioned. Similarly, on the issue of tenure, the clear implication of most school-reform writing these days—that abolishing teacher tenure would increase students’ learning—is an unproved assumption.

In higher education, the reform story isn’t so fully baked yet, but its main elements are emerging. The system is vast: hundreds of small liberal-arts colleges; a new and highly leveraged for-profit sector that offers degrees online; community colleges; state universities whose budgets are being cut because of the recession; and the big-name private universities, which get the most attention. You wouldn’t design a system this way—it’s filled with overlaps and competitive excess. Much of it strives toward an ideal that took shape in nineteenth-century Germany: the university as a small, élite center of pure scholarly research. Research is the rationale for low teaching loads, publication requirements, tenure, tight-knit academic disciplines, and other practices that take it on the chin from Taylor, Hacker, and Dreifus for being of little benefit to students or society.

Yet for a system that—according to Taylor, especially—is deeply in crisis, American higher education is not doing badly. The lines of people wanting to get into institutions that the authors say are just waiting to cheat them by overcharging and underteaching grow ever longer and more international, and the people waiting in those lines don’t seem deterred by price increases, even in a terrible recession.

There have been attempts in the past to make the system more rational and less redundant, and to shrink the portion of it that undertakes scholarly research, but they have not met with much success, and not just because of bureaucratic resistance by the interested parties. Large-scale, decentralized democratic societies are not very adept at generating neat, rational solutions to messy situations. The story line on education, at this ill-tempered moment in American life, expresses what might be called the Noah’s Ark view of life: a vast territory looks so impossibly corrupted that it must be washed away, so that we can begin its activities anew, on finer, higher, firmer principles. One should treat any perception that something so large is so completely awry with suspicion, and consider that it might not be true—especially before acting on it.

We have a lot of recent experience with breaking apart large, old, unlovely systems in the confidence of gaining great benefits at low cost. We deregulated the banking system. We tried to remake Iraq. In education, we would do well to appreciate what our country has built, and to try to fix what is undeniably wrong without declaring the entire system to be broken. We have a moral obligation to be precise about what the problems in American education are—like subpar schools for poor and minority children—and to resist heroic ideas about what would solve them, if those ideas don’t demonstrably do that. ♦

2 LAUSD SCHOOLS SEE TRIPLE-DIGIT GAINS IN API SCORES

KABC-TV | http://bit.ly/dnGLPI

Monday, September 20, 2010 - LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Two schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District saw triple-digit gains on their 2010 Academic Performance Index (API) scores, officials revealed Monday.

The schools are Los Angeles-Melrose Elementary School Math/Science/Technology Magnet and Broadway Elementary School.

Melrose Elementary School Magnet reported a 124-point increase, jumping from 715 to 839 in its API score while Broadway's score increased by 107 points to 855. 800 is the score most schools try to reach.

Melrose Elementary School Magnet undertook strategies which are being attributed to its improved API score. 5th graders participated in a robotics program, allowing them to apply their math and science skills. Others were involved in the school's gardening program, which is an integral part of the science curriculum.

"We really based our instruction on data and response to intervention, which brought on results," said Broadway Elementary School Principal Susan Wang in a news release. "We looked at the data and provided differentiated instruction to focus around the students' needs."

LOS ANGELES COUNTY TEACHERS & PARENT-VOLUNTEERS OF THE YEAR SELECTED FOR 2010-11 + FIVE LAUSD EDUCATORS WIN LA COUNTY TEACHER OF THE YEAR AWARD

The TOY Honorees Include Educators From Arcadia, Azusa, Canoga Park, Culver City, Downey, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Manhattan Beach, Paramount and Pasadena

from the Los Angeles County Office of Education

UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. and LOS ANGELES, Sept. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- A total of 16 winners were named today as the 2010-11 Los Angeles County Teachers of the Year, representing the profession's "best of the best" in the state's largest honors competition for K-12 educators.

At a morning hotel ceremony, the "Sweet 16" were named by Los Angeles County Interim Supt. of Schools Jon R. Gundry as outstanding educators who have been serving with praiseworthy distinction. Judged as the county's top public school teachers for this academic year, they will serve as standard-bearers for the teaching profession and their 80,000 classroom colleagues countywide.

The winning educators, comprised of 10 women and 6 men, teach a range of grades and subjects at a diversity of school locales, including: Arcadia, Baldwin Park, Canoga Park, Culver City, Downey, Los Angeles, Long Beach, Manhattan Beach, Paramount and Pasadena. (See full list following.)

The entire field of 81 teachers who participated in the L.A. County competition had all been recently selected as teacher(s) of the year by their respective school districts.

The L.A. County Teachers of the Year Program, presented by the Los Angeles County Office of Education, is the largest local competition in the state and nation, and is part of the oldest and most prestigious honors contest in the U.S. for public school teachers. The number of winners  — 16 — is determined by program rules based on the total number of school teachers (80,000) in L.A. County.

"These hard-working teachers have been judged by their colleagues as exemplifying the very best in this wonderful profession of public education. Every day in the classroom they make the most of a precious opportunity — to make a positive difference in the lives of their students," said Gundry about the group of 16, each of whom received a $1,000 cash prize courtesy of the California Credit Union, the program's main sponsor.

In addition to getting interviewed, contestants submitted essays, lesson plans and other materials to judging panels comprised of peers. At all levels, TOY contests are designed to focus public attention on teaching excellence and to honor exemplary dedication, compelling classroom practices, positive accomplishments and professional commitment.

State Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell participated in the announcement of the Sweet 16, who all automatically advance with other county titlists from around the state to the California Teachers of the Year competition this fall. The state is scheduled to announce its five (5) co-winners in November. But only one (1) of those state co-winners will be chosen to represent California in the National Teacher of the Year contest next spring.

The other sponsors of the Teachers of the Year program were:  eInstruction, DigitalEdgeLearning and Lakeshore Learning.

smf adds:

• In addition to the LACOE “Sweet 16” a total of 64 Teachers of the Year from individual school districts throughout the county were honored – includung 17 exemplary teachers from LAUSD.
• And Three Parent Volunteers of the Year were named:
• Edie Babbe from Manhattan Beach USD
• Dashema Coleman from Palmdale USD
• and Scott Folsom from LAUSD

The 2010-11 L.A. County Teachers of the Year (alphabetical by district):

ARCADIA UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT — KELSEY BROWN
Holly Avenue Elem School, 5th Grade; Years Teaching: 13; Residence: Pasadena

AZUSA UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT — KIMBERLY OPEL
Foothill Middle School, 7th Grade; Years Teaching: 6; Residence: Azusa

BALDWIN PARK UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT — BEVERLY GONZALEZ
Santa Fe School, 4th Grade; Years Teaching: 15; Residence: Upland

CULVER CITY UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT — PATTY ESKRIDGE
Farragut Elementary School, 1st Grade; Years Teaching: 34; Residence: Culver City

DOWNEY UNIFIED SCHOOL DISRICT — ALLISON ISRAWI
Williams Elem School, K-thru-3rd Grade; Years Teaching: 6; Residence: Downey

HACIENDA LA PUENTE UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT — ANDREW KING
La Puente High School, U.S. History; Years Teaching: 3; Residence: Walnut

LONG BEACH UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT — NICOLE JACKSON
MacArthur Elem School, Kindergarten; 4; Years Teaching: 17; Residence: Long Beach

LOS ANGELES UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT (#1) — JOSIE TORRES-SAFFIE
John Sutter Middle School, English; Years Teaching: 11; Residence: Winnetka

LOS ANGELES UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT (#3)  — ROBERT JEFFERS
Dorsey High School, English; Years Teaching: 8; Residence: Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT (#3) — ALLISON RIEF
Virginia Road Elem School, Pre-K; Years Teaching: 8; Residence: Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT (#5) — BRIAN MORITA
El Sereno Elem School, 6th Grade; Years Teaching: 8; Residence: Downey

LOS ANGELES UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT (#6) — ANTONIA GUZMAN
Intn'l Studies Learning Ctr, English/Journalism; Years Teaching: 11; Residence: Norwalk

MANHATTAN BEACH UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT — WILLIAM FAUVER
Mira Costa HS, U.S./World History; Years Teaching: 23;  Residence: Redondo Beach

PARAMOUNT UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT — DAVID BALSTAD
Paramount Park Middle School, 7th Grade; Years Teaching: 11; Residence: Long Beach

PASADENA UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT — TINA REPETTI RENZULLO
McKinley School, Kindergarten; Years Teaching: 21; Residence: Pasadena

SOUTH PASADENA UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT — PAUL GROVES
South Pasadena HS, Chemistry; Years Teaching: 32; Residence: Sylmar

 

Five LAUSD Educators Win Los Angeles County Teacher of the Year Award

Five LAUSD educators are among a group of 16 teachers named the “best of the best” in L.A. County public schools

Los Angeles Unified School District News Release

September 20, 2010 -- Los Angeles—The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) congratulates five educators who have been named 2010-2011 County Teachers of the Year (TOY) winners by the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE). These five exceptional LAUSD educators today were recognized at a ceremony in Universal City that honored the county’s top 16 teachers.

Antonia Guzman, a resident of Norwalk, has been a teacher for 11 years. She has taught English and journalism at the International Studies Learning Center in South Gate for four years.

Robert Jeffers has been an English teacher at Susan Miller Dorsey High School for seven years. He is a resident of Los Angeles and has taught for eight years.

Brian Morita, a resident of Downey, has been a teacher for eight years. He has taught math, science and health at El Sereno Elementary School for a year.

Allison Rief has been a teacher at Virginia Road Elementary School for a year. She is a resident of Los Angeles and has been teaching for eight years.

Josephine Torres-Saffie, a resident of Winnetka, has been a teacher for 11 years. She has taught English at John A. Sutter Middle School for eight years.

“I congratulate these five exemplary teachers for bringing dedication, passion and enthusiasm to class everyday to provide an engaging learning experience,” said LAUSD Superintendent Ramon C. Cortines. “These teachers have gone above and beyond to make a difference within their schools and contribute to their communities.”

The “Sweet 16” county winners were selected by judging panels comprised of their peers from a field of 81 contestants as part of the annual county competition. All candidates, including other LAUSD entrants, were recently named Teacher of the Year from their respective school districts. The county’s TOY program is the state’s largest and affiliated with the nation’s most prestigious honors competition for educators. The program recognizes contestants based on professional growth, commitment, personal attributes, professional skills and community involvement. Those selected are now eligible to compete for California Teacher of the Year this fall.

In Antonia Guzman’s English classroom at the International Studies Learning Center, learning is an adventure that goes “beyond the knowledge found in books.”

“We learn to develop a voice and create meaning for ourselves, to be critical and independent thinkers in our society,” Guzman said in her application. “I give them the tools necessary to develop their voice and be successful in life.”

Robert Jeffers believes in the “need for students to engage in school beyond academics,” which includes warming-up before a test much like any professional athlete does before competitions.

“I strongly advocate a commitment to academics, intensive community service, consistent participation in athletics, and involvement with the arts,” Jeffers said about his students at Dorsey High School. “In short, the importance of being a well-rounded person.”

As a mathematics teacher at El Sereno Elementary School, Brian Morita and his class collectively work together to extend learning “beyond the walls of the classroom” as a family.

“The students and I respect one another as members of a collective family,” Morita said in his application. “An often difficult concept to understand involves the multiplication of multi-digit numbers by two-digit numbers [so] I planned a family meeting titled, ‘Multiplication from Around the World.’”

Allison Rief greets her Pre-K students at Virginia Road Elementary School with a smile at the door “and sometimes a hug when they need it.” She also provides a safe learning experience for her students.

“I understand the importance of making learning accessible, multi-dimensional and hands-on,” Rief states in her application. “So when we were learning about fall, we went outside with magnifying glasses to look at the different colors and textures of the leaves.”

For students in Josephine Torres-Saffie’s classroom at John A. Sutter Middle School, they start the day off right with Michael Jackson’s song “Wanna’ Be Startin’ Somethin’ ” to motivate them to succeed.

“Despite heart wrenching obstacles, many students find it in themselves to move forward and accomplish far beyond expectations,” said Torres-Saffie in her application. “They are often a source of inspiration and certainly the core of my teaching.”

Past LAUSD winners include recent TOY winner Lewis Chappelear from Monroe High School, who was named a state TOY for 2008; and Monroe High School teacher Kelly Jean Hanock, who was a 2006 state winner. Before Hanock, the last LAUSD teachers recognized were Evaline K. Kruse from Audubon Junior High School in 1985, and Carole Billone from the Marlton School for the deaf, who received the award in 1976. Today, these five teachers could follow in the footsteps of other LAUSD TOY winners as they move on to compete for the 2010-2011 California Teacher of the Year.

Daniel Pearl Magnet High School: A MIGHTY HEART LEAVES A MIGHTY LEGACY

by Jonathan Dobrer

Sept 19, 2010 - Most of us know journalist Daniel Pearl’s name because of how he died. He was executed by the Taliban while trying to get a story that would have given them a human voice. They chose inhumanity and ended the life of a passionate journalist, a gifted musician and a loving man.

Yes, you know his name because of how he died, but his true legacy is in how he lived. His legacy is thriving, fittingly near where he grew up in the San Fernando Valley, and is taking form at the Daniel Pearl Magnet High School. Here three hundred and fifteen students are learning not simply about journalism; they are learning and doing journalism. They are learning investigative journalism, straight reporting and opinion. They are learning to write, to think and to edit the news. They are learning to create stories for ink and paper, for the Internet and for webcasting. Their skills span journalism from yesterday to today and both point them towards tomorrow. But their curriculum is far wider than simply being a kind of journalistic trade school. They are challenged to be and become leaders and communicators whatever field they may ultimately choose. Ethics and judgment are an important focus of their education.

 

Daniel Pearl Magnet High School - Center for Journalism & Communications has openings in their current enrollment and is NOW accepting applications from students interested in attending or transferring from other schools. Apply or enquire directly to Principal Janet Kiddoo DANIEL PEARL MAGNET HIGH SCHOOL 6649 Balboa Blvd. Van Nuys, CA  91406-5529 (818) 654-3775

Not only is there a great spectrum of journalistic learning taking place, there is a much wider vision. This is a comprehensive magnet. They study math, history, English and science. They also play—music and sports. Their teachers are dedicated and seem to thrive in, what is for public education, an amazingly intimate environment.

Along with Daniel’s parents, Dr. Judea and Ruth Pearl, I toured their new facility—actually a recycled and refurbished 1940s era military hospital with many courtyards and patios. I was impressed that Principal Janet Kiddoo knew the names of nearly everyone we saw in the halls and in the six classrooms we visited. With only 315 students, and room for 150 more, there is no place either to hide or to get lost. The full staff is there with and for the students. And what students! The spectrum of students is as wide as the subject matter. The classrooms look like America. The students are of all our ethnicities—and when they greeted each other at the start of the semester, they did so in 12 languages.

Their parents and grandparents came from all over the globe, and they come from all across Southern California: From Carson to Eagle Rock, from Down Town to the West Side. Some, it is rumored, come from the San Fernando Valley! Every class we visited reflected our rich diversity. The students in science reflected exactly the same spectrum of ethnicities as the Advanced Placement class.

There are students with physical, social and learning challenges ahead of them—but they have support. There are outstanding students who bring much to share with others. They too will be challenged. In this small school environment there is a visible degree of attention, community and dedication that is literally priceless. One teacher actually turned down a full-time position to be half time in this unique educational environment.

It looks good. It feels good. It sounds good. But does it work? Well, last year, their first graduating class graduated 65 students out of a class of 68. Compare this rate of 95.5% with the 53% rate for the district! Seven of their graduates were accepted at UCLA, with others going to USCSB, Irvine and Santa Cruz—as well as Pepperdine and Syracuse.

The Daniel Pearl High School Magnet is exemplified by last year’s valedictorian, Patricia Equiza. Born in the Philippines, raised here in the Valley, she plays sports, loves to compete and writes with wit, clarity and passion. She is so attached to the school that she came in to help conduct our tour just as she is starting her college career at UCLA.

When I say that she is attached to the school, what I mean is not an abstraction. She loves the students with whom she spent three years. She clearly is close to Principal Kiddoo and the teachers—all of whom greeted her by name. She too knew the name of every student—save the new kid who just showed up that day. She knew his name by the time we left.

This school is formed around a vision that exemplifies the values of Daniel Pearl. Ultimately it is about teachers and students creating an environment of learning, respect for learning, respect for the truth, respect for each other and for themselves. Does it work? The smiles on the faces of the Pearls and the enthusiasm in the eyes of the students, brought tears to the eyes of this writer. Does it work? I wish my kids were younger and could attend. I can’t wait for my 5 Valley grandchildren to be ready. I’ll volunteer in their classes. But why wait? I’ll volunteer now.

• Jonathan Dobrer is a professor of comparative religion at the University of Judaism in Bel-Air, is a frequent contributor to the Op-Ed page of the Los Angeles Daily News, and writes a syndicated column, Out of My Mind, which is carried by the Fullerton Observer. He blogs at insidesocal.com/friendlyfire. Write to him by e-mail at jondobrer@mac.com

WILL PACKED TORRANCE CLASSES PUSH THE LEARNING OUT?

By Rob Kuznia, Daily Breeze Staff Writer | from the Contra Costa Times | http://bit.ly/9EkCfA

“The swelling is most pronounced in Torrance, which suffers from an outdated state-funding formula that gives the district less money per student than the average California school district. Average class sizes also exceed 40 students for the upper two grades in the Los Angeles Unified School District.”

PHOTO: Major budget cuts have push classroom enrollments at many Torrance high school to more than40 students. Mark Duvall instructs the 43 students in his freshman English class at Torrance High. (Robert Casillas Staff Photographer)

9/20/2010 - Students in Mark Duvall's English classes at Torrance High School this year might be surprised to learn that as many as two-thirds of their essays won't be graded.

This isn't because he wants to go easy on them. Instead, the new approach is born of necessity: With each of Duvall's classes crammed with 40 or more students, there simply isn't enough time in the day to grade every paper.

Due to historic budget cuts, average class sizes at Torrance's four comprehensive middle and high schools have soared this year to around 40. That's up from an already high average of 35 the year before. As recently as two years ago, the average freshman English and math course in Torrance contained just 20 pupils, meaning the head counts in those classes have since doubled.

Meanwhile, the average size of the district's K-3 classes has shot up in two years from 20 to 30.

"I don't have all the numbers, but according to the reports I'm getting from the school sites, these are the largest sizes anyone has ever had to deal with," said Mario Di Leva, executive director of the Torrance teachers union. "The student-per-teacher ratio is incredibly high."

Crowded classrooms serve as an apt illustration of California's wretched economy. Last year, for instance, so many students were packed into one of Duvall's classes that the last student enrolled was forced to rove around the room every day, using the desk of whomever was absent.

The phenomenon is happening across the state, but on the South Bay the swelling is most pronounced in Torrance, which suffers from an outdated state-funding formula that gives the district less money per student than the average California school district. Average class sizes also exceed 40 students for the upper two grades in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The question is: Does class size matter?

Surprisingly, research on the effectiveness of class-size reduction for grades K-3 has been mixed: A study of California's program found no link between smaller class sizes and higher test performance. (A similar study in Florida came to the same conclusion, but a Tennessee study did find a correlation.)

In Torrance, the steady rise of class sizes over the past three years has failed to stymie the district's seemingly unstoppable improvement on test scores.

But it doesn't take an expert's testimony to know that at some point the huge classes will hinder learning. Michael Kirst, emeritus professor at Stanford and the author of the well-known California study, said he knows of no such research examining the effect of large class sizes.

"All the studies have been about low class sizes," he said. "We have no studies going the opposite way."

All this means that the Torrance Unified School District this next year will serve as a kind of unwitting case study.

Year after year, test scores in the K-12 Torrance Unified School District improve as if it were manifest destiny. Since 2004, the district's academic performance index - a score from 200 to 1,000 - has risen from 794 to the current 853. A sudden freeze in the progress would be telling.

Students say the crowded classes pose challenges.

"It just leads to more friends," said Walter Sketch, a junior at Torrance High School. "And the more friends you have, the more you goof around."

"Some people don't really get the books they need," said Monalisa Zulum, also a junior at the school. "If there's a lot of people, the teacher doesn't really focus. It's hard to answer everyone's questions."

As for Duvall, like many teachers, he tries his best to attend to every student's needs, but knows that when a classroom is teeming with bodies, something's gotta give.

"The biggest thing I notice is the ability to give feedback," he said. "That's where I think we're short-changing the kids the most. ... Classroom management usually isn't the issue."

Duvall, a veteran teacher, said he assigns essays even when he can't grade them all because students need the writing practice.

Torrance is hardly the only district to see class sizes increase. A recent report by California Watch, a nonprofit investigative reporting group, concluded that all 30 of the state's largest school districts have abandoned their K-3 class-size reduction programs, which were implemented across the state in the mid-1990s.

At LAUSD, classes for juniors and seniors are even larger; in a year, the average grew from 41 to 43. LAUSD's K-3 classes sizes are smaller than those in Torrance, though, at 24 compared with the suburban district's 30.

In Redondo Beach, K-3 classes have gone from 22 to 25; freshman English and math class sizes have increased from 20 to 30.

The Manhattan Beach, Palos Verdes Peninsula and Centinela Valley school districts have managed to avoid serious class-size increases.

Torrance school officials say the old funding model doesn't explain the entire discrepancy. Believe it or not, the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District - despite the affluence of its families - is also known as a "low-wealth district" due to the Byzantine funding formula. But unlike Torrance, the Palos Verdes Peninsula district has successfully floated two school parcel tax measures in recent years, allowing the district to hire teachers. (Torrance voters approved a school bond measure in 2008, but money from bonds can typically be spent only on construction.)

So Torrance had no additional funding to turn to during the budget shortfall of this past spring, when it reduced its work force by 90 teachers.

Parents and the Torrance Education Foundation are doing their best to make up the difference, launching a major fundraising campaign called "Save Our Schools" to rehire laid-off teachers. Thus far, they've raised $300,000 - enough to hire back maybe four.

As for Kirst, the Stanford professor who conducted the study that found no meaningful correlation between class size and student performance, he said for some reason, huge class sizes tend to be an issue confined to Southern California. He noted that class sizes don't even really afflict Northern California. That, he said, is because 80 percent of all school parcel taxes passed in California have occurred up there.

Kirst said despite the findings of his study, parents aren't wrong to be concerned about large class sizes.

"My grandkids in Nevada County (California) - their classes just went up to 34 and I'm horrified," he said.

Edutopia Webinar: CAREER AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION - Thursday, October 7, 2010 at 4 p.m. PDT

Career And Technical Education

Date/Time: Thursday, October 7, 2010 at 7 p.m. EDT/4 p.m. PDT

Presenters: Gary Hoachlander, president of ConnectEd and Joe Cocozza, teacher at Bravo Medical Magnet High School and assistant professor at USC Keck School of Medicine in Los Angeles

Presenter: Kathy Baron, features producer and research editor

Register: Register for this event to reserve your spot today!

Description: Students in Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs are less likely to drop out of high school and more likely to complete the classes required for college admission. CTE is revitalizing traditional vocational education by infusing a rigorous academic curriculum with job skills in specific occupations to prepare students for college and careers. The most successful CTE programs are built around a set of guiding principles and structures that focus on interdisciplinary, project-based learning. Our webinar panelists will share those tips for success, provide steps for starting a CTE program, and discuss the growing body of research on this growing trend in high school reform.

Edutopia Webinar Series

Edutopia presents engaging webinars hosted exclusively for our audience of educators, parents, and administrators throughout the year. These interactive events are free and universally accessible thanks to support from foundations, advertisers, and donors. Each webinar is designed to connect our valued audience with thought leaders in the movement for educational reform, providing opportunities to learn about the latest research, tools, and ideas from experts in the field.

Edutopia | What Works in Education | © 2010 The George Lucas Educational Foundation

THE MYTH OF A HIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION

by Manny Barbara | Thoughts On Public Education (TOP-Ed) - a forum on education policies in California and Silicon Valley sponsored by the Silicon Valley Education Foundation | http://bit.ly/9MnDtZ

9/15/10 • Recently the State Department of Education released results of the 2010 California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) with a complementary announcement of the narrowing of the achievement gap. Hispanic and African American students have apparently made some progress decreasing the gap in passing rate with White and Asian American students. Any data point that results in narrowing of an achievement gap that has become a persistent outcome of the education system is cause for some celebration.

Except in this instance it means very little.

The CAHSEE is not the data point we should be focusing on as the key metric to measure student performance. At best, the CAHSEE establishes a “floor,”  a minimum of what students should achieve by the time they exit high school. But at worst, the CAHSEE creates a false expectation that graduating from high school having passed the exit exam has somehow prepared students for college-level work.

If we really want to measure how successful students are upon exiting high school, the focus ought to be on the successful completion of the University of California/California State University high school course requirements called “A-G.”  The A-G requirements are a specific number and sequence of courses that students must complete to simply be eligible to apply to one of the UC or CSU campuses (see the summary of A-G elsewhere in TOP-ED). But not all students complete the A-G requirements, as it is not a requirement of all high schools that students complete the A-G courses. Some districts, like San José Unified, require students to complete the A-G coursework in order to graduate from high school.

Yes, there are challenges in making A-G the required course curriculum. For starters, safety-net programs such as summer school and after-school programs, which would provide students additional help in meeting a more challenging curriculum, are needed. The California education funding system is broken, and districts are struggling to provide just basic programs.

However, there is no reason why the A-G curriculum should not be the “default” coursework in California schools, with students having an “opt out” option. When the A-G coursework is the default curriculum, students must be placed in A-G courses starting at grade 9. Having A-G as the default curriculum ensures that students are placed in A-G classes and are not inadvertently placed in a non-A-G class. If the course proves too difficult, the student and parents can request a schedule change. But the burden would not be on the student and family to figure out the sometimes confusing A-G coursework. Many families do not understand the system well enough to navigate through the various course requirements that serve as the “ticket” to a four-year college. Even if a student is planning to attend community college, completing the A-G coursework provides a sense of assurance of college readiness far beyond what the California High School Exit Exam or a high school diploma provides.

It is not that state officials are deliberately promulgating the false expectation that graduating from high school implies college readiness. Far from it. But I suspect that many, if not most, parents and the larger community have a sense that a high school diploma does indeed certify that students are ready for college.

But the state of California makes no such promise. According to the Closing the Expectations Gap report by the American Diploma Project, California’s minimum high school requirements were lower or projected to be lower than that of 33 other states by 2009. The 2009 McKinsey report on the achievement gap points out that students in the United States score worse in international comparisons the longer they are in school, with high school students demonstrating the widest gap.

It is time to raise the high school standards and expect all high schools to insert the A-G coursework as the default high school curriculum. We ought not to allow one single student to miss out on a college opportunity because of the randomness of course requirements across districts.

Manny Barbara, former Superintendent of the Oak Grove School District, is VP of Advocacy and Thought Leadership for SVEF. He has been selected four times as Administrator of the Year by the Association of California School Administrators, and as Educator of the Year in 2008 by 100 Black Men of Santa Clara County. During his 10 years as superintendent, performance increased for all district student subgroups, including the number of students successfully completing algebra and geometry by the end of 8th grade.

CALIF. BUDGET IMPASSE ABOUT TO BECOME THE LONGEST EVER

By Judy Lin, Associated Press Writer | The Boston Globe | http://bit.ly/a7WoFb

Update:

California budget stalemate now longest ever 17 September | The impasse over solving California's $19 billion budget deficit reached an inglorious milestone today when it officially became the longest stalemate over the state budget in history, though some lawmakers think it may end soon.

September 16, 2010 - SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) —California lawmakers are on the brink of setting a record, but it's not one that is likely to boost their abysmal approval ratings among voters.

While budget impasses in the Golden State have become as common as Santa Ana wildfires, Thursday marks the 78th day -- the longest period ever that the Legislature has gone without approving a new state spending plan. There are ominous signs that the imbroglio will continue indefinitely.

The outcome may not be resolved until after the November elections, the leader of the state Senate has suggested, as Democrats and Republicans remain in a standoff over whether new taxes or more spending cuts are needed to close California's $19 billion deficit.

If Thursday passes without a budget, which seems entirely likely, it will break the current record for failing to produce a spending document set two years ago -- after deep spending cuts and grueling negotiations -- with the nation's most populous state sliding deeper into recession.

The impact of the new record delay hasn't been widely felt -- yet. State finance officials are able to keep paying most of the bills, and many businesses that rely on state funding have found loans or other ways to work through what have become almost yearly problems.

But that could change, beginning in October when available tax funds will diminish. To preserve cash, the state already has deferred billions in payments to schools and counties, delayed grants to about 65,000 low-income community college students and put off paying vendors that provide services and products to the state.

State workers remain under a three-day-a-month furlough order from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Plenty of people among the state's 38.6 million residents, particularly the most vulnerable who rely heavily on state services, are worried about their prospects if the impasse continues for weeks or months.

Democratic female lawmakers held a rally in front of the state Capitol last week demanding the governor find new revenue sources rather than hurting low-income women and children through proposed social service cuts. Schwarzenegger has proposed eliminating the state's welfare-to-work program, which would affect 1.4 million people, most of them children, according to the California Budget Project.

"Enough is enough," Assemblywoman Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, chanted at the rally.

Jenine Quinones, a single mother of two, spoke as someone who relies on $2,000-a-month in state child care assistance through the welfare-to-work program. The 43-year-old San Rafael resident works full-time with developmentally disabled adults at an assisted living facility but relies on state funded child.

The state recently sent her a letter notifying her that it will stop paying child care at the end of the month.

"If the budget gets cut, I will lose my job because I won't have child care. I'll be homeless," Quinones said.

For others, homelessness is a barely healed scar.

Sacramento resident Mark Green, 47, said it took him and his wife years to get to their low-income apartment. Helped by $459 in food stamps and $533 a month from the state's welfare-to-work program, known as CalWORKS, Green is looking for a job at warehouses between caring for their 20-month-old daughter Marlisha.

If the state eliminates the program as the governor and Republicans have proposed, Green said his family will go back to sleeping in fields, parking lots and sidewalks.

"We'd be right back out on the street," he said.

The payment delays caused by this year's budget stalemate have piled on to budget cuts in recent years for some programs and businesses. Three domestic violence shelters have closed this year, and four nonprofit health clinics and two dental clinics have shut down, in part because the state no longer reimburses them for adult dental care. Many of those were located in rural areas that provided critical care to the aging and disabled.

But the state has become so inured to fiscal disaster over the past two years a state of crisis has become the status quo.

In 2009 California handed out thousands of IOUs for just the second time since the Great Depression. Vendors were given IOU notes that eventually repaid them with interest, and some banks agreed to cash them in advance, sparing some recipients of real hardship.

Lawmakers have cut spending by tens of billions of dollars as the recession has left far less tax revenue than the state needs to cover spending, the bulk of which goes to education and health care.

Democrats want a combination of spending cuts, new taxes and fees, and a delay of corporate tax breaks granted last year. Republicans have refused to accept any tax or fee increases, asserting that the state can no longer offer what they deem to be overly generous public benefits.

Meanwhile, Schwarzenegger has said he will not sign any budget unless lawmakers agree to long-term tax, budgeting and pension reforms, major policy changes that have eluded the governor for seven years.

A close fight between state Attorney General Jerry Brown and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman to be the state's next governor has only encouraged political gamesmanship .

Whitman criticized the leadership of Schwarzenegger, a fellow Republican, for failing to meet daily with the four legislative leaders to close the state's $19 billion deficit.

Schwarzenegger has bristled at criticism that he is not doing enough. California, he says, is not a dictatorship.

San Francisco-based Standard & Poor's analyst Gabriel Petek says seasoned investors have grown accustomed to California's cash problems and notes there's a reason why the state has the worst credit rating in the nation, ranked below that of Illinois.

"I think the key thing for me is this: For how long can this go?" Petek said.

Zimmer on ‘Value Added’: PARTNERSHIP AND TRUST ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT VALUES WE CAN ADD

by Steve Zimmer - Member, LAUSD Board of Education in The Huffington Post | http://huff.to/9ALbt3

●●smf notes: Zimmer is probably the most thoughtful member of the LAUSD Board – and perhaps the most anguished. He went from counselor and classroom teacher directly to the board of ed – without passing ‘Go’.   Steve cannot help but wear his teacher’s heart on his sleeve. This article missed 4LAKids notice when first it was published  …but truth is truth and bears well the test of time.

August 24, 2010 09:33 PM  -- The Los Angeles Times has been running a weekly series that I consider a vicious attack on the integrity of the teaching profession. The reporters have singled out individual Los Angeles Unified School District teachers, identified them by name and, using several year’s worth of records and a statistical method known as value-added analysis, judged those teachers ineffective or effective by whether the math and English test scores in their classrooms had risen or dropped over time.

As a career teacher and counselor now serving as a member of the LA Board of Education as well as a strong supporter of the LAUSD Teacher Effectiveness Task Force, I feel compelled to respond.

The LA Times writers christen the value-added evaluation approach as the determinate factor in measuring a teacher's effectiveness. Without apology, they reduce children's lives to the score on their standardized tests. Without any evident thought to the consequences, they restrict the definition of a teacher's purpose to raising those test scores. The article suggests that if LAUSD just had the "will" to fire our teachers based on these "facts" our children would learn and their dreams would come true.

The Times story uses the word 'objective' to describe evaluation by this one mathematical measure. While a statistical analysis may appear objective, the way it is used can be anything but objective. If a value-added measure is used by principals along with other tools to improve a teacher's performance, it can in fact 'add value' to the process. If the same measure is used to discredit the teaching profession and generate mistrust from parents, it subtracts value. This is the reason why the use of this measure is one of the most controversial and hotly contested notions in American education today and why the National Academy of Sciences recommends more study is needed before this approach gets wider application and certainly before it becomes a factor in high stakes decisions.

The initial Times article itself gave over four paragraphs to caveats about the reliability of the method, then moved on to enshrine value-added as the sole standard parents should embrace to determine if their child's teacher is effective.

Magnifying and elevating one aspect of teacher performance may grab headlines, but it will not change children's lives for the better. Consider the destabilizing effect on our classrooms as teachers compete for the students who have done well on standardized tests. Instructional time will be lost as teachers are forced to teach not only to the test but also to test-taking strategies. There will be intense pressure on principals from parents to get their children with the 'right' teacher. There is also the potential for protest and outrage if a child is placed with a teacher the Times deems "ineffective." The impact of value-added competition on the culture and dynamic of schools will be immediate and cataclysmic. And once again, it is those who are most vulnerable who stand to lose the most.

To be clear--in criticizing the story I am not trying to dismiss underperformance. I support the rigorous evaluation of teachers. As a teacher, I know how important it is for every teacher at a school site to be effective. But I also know how crucial it is for struggling teachers to receive the necessary interventions and guidance to achieve excellence. We must evaluate teachers, but we cannot separate that evaluation from teacher training, teacher professional development and teacher support. The goal and mission of the LAUSD's Teacher Effectiveness Task Force is to address the holistic challenge of ensuring there is an excellent teacher in every classroom.

There is broad consensus amongst public education experts that multiple measures must be used to achieve a comprehensive evaluation that is meaningful for teachers, students and their families. Valid evidence of instructional effectiveness such as portfolios, student performance on periodic and authentic assessments and parent/student surveys could be included in this evaluation. The criteria for all measurements must be clear. Standardized test score data might have a place among these measurements, but it must be a component of the evaluation, not the grade itself.

Once this comprehensive evaluation is implemented, every LAUSD employee must be accountable to it. When we are comprehensive in our evaluation, analysis and accountability we validate the inherent worth of every child that enters the LAUSD school house door.

The most insidious and reckless part of the Times story can be found in the final section entitled "Parental Trust." The Times' argument here: if you are a parent and you trust your teachers and your school you are naïve, you are ignorant and you are hurting your child. The message is damning and it is clear. The editor's decision to highlight the positive quote by parent Maura Merino about her son's teachers was juxtaposed with a line beneath it that said her son's teacher was in fact ineffective. The Times seeks to explode the bonds of trust painstakingly built in schools across the city and to challenge the esteem teachers hold in many communities.

The message is that if you do trust your teachers, if you do believe in them, you are risking nothing less than your American Dream. Every struggle, every risk you have ever undertaken is now in jeopardy because the teacher you love may not be raising your child's score on standardized tests. The Times argument suggests that test scores are not only more important than any other measure of a child's worth, but the very quantification of the success or failure of a family's American Dream.

Most parents I talk to may have legitimate issues with our public education system but hold their local teachers in high regard. I agree wholeheartedly that families must be informed and empowered in a different, transformative ways. But we don't have to turn parents against teachers to get there. Genuine parent engagement involves equal partners working together towards the singular goal of student achievement. This can only happen when families are approached as the experts and the ultimate decision-makers about their child's education. In these turbulent economic times, the school site is often the most stable place in a community for students and their families. Our focus must be on strengthening that school community, not turning stakeholders upon one another.

What makes a public school a public school is that we serve every child who enters the school house door without prejudice. Once we start down the slippery slope of sizing up each child's potential value as they cross those gates, we will have reversed the gains of a different generation of children who faced down the angry mobs to ensure that our public school system would offer promise for all children. We all lose when children are viewed through a prism of their capacity to score instead of their capacity to learn, grow, delight, share, love and contribute.

Every year I taught I learned far more from my students than I could ever have dreamed to be able to teach them. That value, added to me in way that cannot be measured, is the central joy of teaching and learning. It is why we teach. It is why we are all teachers. No test and no evaluation can ever judge what my students have given me. And fighting against the attempts to take joy and love out of this sacred profession is the only way I can imagine to pay that gift forward.

A CHANCE TO LEARN FROM RHEE’S MISTAKES

By Mark Simon | Op-Ed in the Washington Post | http://bit.ly/bXellE

Washington, Sunday, September 19, 2010 -- Post editors and reporters appear to have latched on to every possible explanation for the public's rejection of Mayor Adrian Fenty. Racial politics this week. Fenty's personality. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee's failure to communicate.

But Fenty's defeat isn't about race or personality. It's about bad decisions, particularly on school reform. His school reform strategies, as shoved through by Rhee, alienated the voters.

Rhee certainly rates as smart, charismatic and bold. But she made decisions early in her tenure that alienated every constituency she needed, and she rested her "reforms" on strategies that national education researchers have repeatedly warned against.

Over the course of her tenure, Rhee:

-- Over-emphasized standardized student testing and scores as the be-all and end-all of school and teacher quality. (See the Economic Policy Institute's Aug. 27 report "Problems with the Use of Student Test Scores to Evaluate Teachers.")

-- Failed to understand the importance of community and relationships, and marginalized dedicated and knowledgeable parent and community advocates.

-- Created churn in the workforce, with widespread teacher and principal firings, in the process instilling a culture of fear.

-- Rushed to install teacher evaluation rubrics, under her IMPACT program, that devalue teacher professionalism instead of emphasizing teacher and principal training and curriculum development.

These missteps reflected conscious decisions, not oversights. One example: Early on, Rhee rejected a staff recommendation to bring in the consultants used in Montgomery and Fairfax counties to train administrators and teachers in effective teaching practices. The reason given: Taking the route Montgomery and Fairfax followed would cost too much and take too long.

Schools are communities. Education is a complex, labor-intensive endeavor. Good teaching must be nurtured systematically. Parents understand these realities, which is one big reason they're instinctively wary of any test-and-punish approach. Under Rhee, the public senses that a profound disrespect of educators and the craft of teaching has permeated the D.C. system.

A responsible newspaper would have treated Rhee's reform strategies as controversial ideas worthy of debate. Instead, The Post seems to have taken the posture that anyone against Rhee's reforms must be for the DCPS status quo.

That simply is not the case. Rhee's critics have included veteran reformers who have studied the research and have good reason to warn that she was taking reform down the wrong path.

Vincent C. Gray, who after winning Tuesday's primary is the presumptive mayor-elect, needs to be resolute about improving teacher quality and holding schools and teachers accountable. But he also needs to take a hard look at the controversial strategies that Rhee has pursued. National experts shut out by the Rhee administration can help fine-tune more effective approaches.

And if Michelle Rhee is truly in it "for the kids," she'll muster up some humility, acknowledge her mistaken decisions and stick around long enough to transition to more experienced leadership.

The writer, a member of Teachers and Parents for Real Education Reform, is a DCPS parent, an education policy analyst at the Economic Policy Institute and a former president of the Montgomery County teachers union.

Reporter's Notebook: 'WAITING FOR SUPERMAN' AND AMERICAN EDUCATION REFORM. 'An Inconvenient Truth' filmmaker Davis Guggenheim once again taps into a crucial issue with a building consensus.

By Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times | http://lat.ms/dBPBh0

 

Anthony in the movie "Waiting for Superman." (Paramount Pictures, Paramount Pictures / September 19, 2010)

September 19, 2010 - In his previous Oscar-winning documentary, filmmaker Davis Guggenheim handled Al Gore, manmade climate change and imminent global peril.

This time, he's really grabbing something hot: education reform.

In "Waiting for Superman," which opens Sept. 24 in Los Angeles and New York City, Guggenheim vies to do for education reform what "An Inconvenient Truth" did for global warming: raise awareness, make people care and push toward a solution.

But this latest docu-editorial will divide some of his biggest fans.

With the global-warming film, carbon dioxide and its producers made convenient, relatively non-controversial targets for the film's core audience and among the director's Democratic Party friends. This time, the pervasive, harmful force he depicts is teacher unions, which have driven Democratic education policy for decades.

This idea is succinctly expressed in the movie by Newsweek commentator Jonathan Alter.

"It's very, very important to hold two contradictory ideas in your head at the same time," Alter says in the film. "Teachers are great, a national treasure. Teachers' unions are, generally speaking, a menace and an impediment to reform."

The quality of public education has become a charged topic of late and, in various iterations, Alter's point is sounded in other education documentaries released this year, including "The Cartel," written and directed by Bob Bowdon, and "The Lottery," by director Madeleine Sackler and cinematographer Wolfgang Held.

Paramount Pictures' "Waiting for Superman" portrays five students from around the country, including Los Angeles, and their parents' efforts to gain admission into a charter school: Four are minority students seeking to flee or avoid lousy, traditional, urban public schools; one white girl wants to escape a mediocre suburban high school that isn't adequately preparing her for college.

Over ahi tuna salads at a downtown L.A. cafe, an earnest Guggenheim said his goal is to spread responsibility among "all the adults" for pervasive problems in education. He includes himself, a parent who drives past three public schools on the way to his children's private school.

"I'm tough on the Democratic Party," he said. "I'm tough on the centralized system of bureaucrats. And the lip service you get from all politicians. And I'm tough on the unions."

He also concedes: "The union thing … screams the loudest in the movie."

With solid writing, strong storytelling, persuasive graphics and clever animation, Guggenheim portrays how difficult it is to fire a bad teacher, how resistant unions are to reforms and how the "dance of the lemons" allows ineffective teachers to move from school to school.

He portrays Randi Weingarten, head of the American Federation of Teachers, as a bulwark against reform, an interesting choice given that some union stalwarts worry that Weingarten has given away the store to anti-union reformers. Weingarten has worked with both Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg in New York City and the Obama administration. She's also encouraged her locals to make standardized test scores part of teacher evaluations, something unthinkable for a union leader not long ago.

In public forums, Weingarten has characterized the film as a powerful, well-intentioned narrative that ultimately misleads in myriad ways. For one thing, she said, it overlooks research suggesting that charters, some of which have substantial philanthropic support, are performing no better than traditional schools overall.

(All the players in the education reform wars tend to cite research that aligns with their views.)

In an interview, Weingarten said she wonders why every desirable school in the film is a charter school. Charters are publicly funded free schools, but privately owned and independently operated. Most are non-union.

Guggenheim responded that he tried unsuccessfully to film at the Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies, a well-regarded magnet school. There are competing versions — from the movie team and L.A. Unified — regarding why this didn't happen. Guggenheim did film at five other L.A. Unified sites.

Charters worked especially well for Guggenheim because the most popular ones are oversubscribed and select students through public lotteries, which become the film's dramatic climax.

"All the good schools are charter schools not because I think all good schools are charter schools, but because those are the ones that have a lottery, and I knew the lottery was a central metaphor," Guggenheim said.

A lottery has but a few winners and Guggenheim said he wants to push his audience to demand excellent schools for everyone, not just a lucky few. Lotteries also are the symbolic touchstones in "The Cartel" and, not surprisingly, "The Lottery."

"Superman's" adult heroine is Michelle Rhee, the 40-year-old schools superintendent in Washington, D.C., who, in the film, describes her district's schools as "crappy." Rhee is shown cleaning house: firing bad teachers and bad principals alike. At one point the union outmaneuvers a Rhee reform and an almost tearful Rhee rides into the night to a sadly dramatic score. But the film makes clear she won't succumb to the forces battling her.

Perhaps the film's most newsworthy moment is the brief screen time of Bill Gates, whose foundation spent $2 billion for a number of reforms that spurred a nationwide push toward smaller high schools. Then his researchers decided small schools weren't the surest way forward after all.

In the film, Gates extols the best charter schools for sending more than 90% of their students to colleges. But his words are either too imprecise or simply mistaken. The actual stat is that some of the best charters get at least 90% of their seniors accepted to college. For the most part, there is no tracking of how many of a charter's fifth graders, or even ninth graders, will graduate high school, let alone attend college.

What the best charters seem to do well is take students who were formerly below grade level and create an environment in which they can thrive academically. That's a substantial accomplishment, but one that doesn't necessarily translate readily to traditional schools for reasons more complex than union intransigence.

Right or wrong, Gates' words of today are likely to be the nation's path tomorrow, as he proved with his small schools initiative.

With his latest, Guggenheim has once again tapped into a crucial issue with a building consensus. He's found Republicans and Democrats, academics and the Obama administration saying remarkably similar things about how relentless effort along with high academic standards and expectations can finally crack the code for students held back by poverty and other social forces. And a fundamental component of their formula is breaking the perceived stranglehold of unions over work rules that frustrate reform and job protections that sustain bad teachers.

Teacher unions had better get ready to adapt — or else they'd better start making their own films.