The Educated GuessCash-strapped districts shift their dollars

The Educated Guess

Cash-strapped districts shift their dollars

Posted in Education Excellence Committee, Equity issues, Program innovation

If triage is the new goal of K-12 education, then school districts can claim success.
A survey by the Legislative Analyst’s Office revealed that districts are cutting programs that the Legislature once considered essential in order to keep core classes going. Districts reported that the flexibility to spend “categorical” money as they choose helped them keep teachers on the job and make their budget.
Impressed with the first year’s spending flexibility, the LAO is recommending lifting the restrictions on some of the remaining categorical programs, including class-size reduction, which the teachers’ unions will fight to preserve, and school transportation.
(Read more and comment on this post)

By John Fensterwald on May 5th, 2010

Fact-checking Poizner and Whitman

Tags: Poizner, Whitman
Posted in 2010 elections, Charters

Amid all of the arguing over immigration, Goldman Sachs and who’s the phonier conservative, GOP gubernatorial candidates Steve Poizner and Meg Whitman spent only a few minutes talking about education during their hour-long debate in San Jose on Sunday. That may be because both believe that local control and charter schools are the cure to much of what ails public schools.
At least that’s the bumper sticker argument they make.
But their answers to the one question on K-12 schools got me scratching my head. So I did some fact-checking and here’s what I found.
(Read more and comment on this post)

By John Fensterwald on May 4th, 2010

6 districts to steer Race to the Top

Posted in Common Core standards, Race to the Top

A half-dozen school districts , including Los Angeles Unified, will direct California’s second-round application to the federal Race to the Top competition. They must not only fight a tight deadline – June 1 for submission – but also the low odds of moving from 27^th among states in the first round to the top 12 or 15 to get a piece of the remaining $3.4 billion.
On Friday, Gov. Schwarzenegger gave the go-ahead for Race to the Top, after weeks of vacillation and a personal pitch from Education Secretary Arne Duncan not to drop out. In moving ahead, administration officials also signaled a different approach. They recognized that writing a plan to appeal to as many risk-averse districts and local unions as possible is a losing strategy. Instead, they’ll hand the reins to a urban few districts that are comfortable with the reforms that Duncan is requiring. (Read more and comment on this post)

By John Fensterwald on April 30th, 2010