The Educated Guess � Amid confusion, no vote on SIG money

The Educated Guess � Amid confusion, no vote on SIG money

Amid confusion, no vote on SIG money

Posted in Program innovation, Turning around failing schools

After hearing complaints Monday that unclear rules had created confusion and unfairly excluded Los Angeles Unified and other districts, the State Board of Education postponed divvying up $316 million in federal money for the worst-performing schools in the state. Board members acknowledged the situation was “a mess.”
Faced with a time pressure to get the money out to districts before school starts, the board won’t be delaying long. On an 8-1 vote, board members asked for state officials to consider revising the figures. But if federal officials won’t allow any tweaking and further delays, then the board agreed to meet as soon as legally permitted to pass what they concede would be flawed allocations.
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By John Fensterwald on August 3rd, 2010

Final vote on common core is unanimous

Posted in Common Core standards, State Board of Education

Voting 9-0, the State Board of Education approved the common core standards in English language arts and math Monday after major players in California education, including the California Teachers Association, the state PTA and the California Math Council, lined up to announce their full support. California became the 33^rd state, plus the District of Columbia, to adopt common core. It did so an hour before the deadline for either passing them or losing points toward the state’s Race to the Top application.
The standards broadly outline what skills and concepts students should master at every grade level. They were developed under the direction of the National Governors Association and the Council of State School Officers, at the encouragement of the Obama administration.
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By John Fensterwald on August 2nd, 2010

A smarter way to divvy up turnaround money

Posted in State Board of Education, Turning around failing schools

Doug McRae has a sharp eye and a rational mind. A retired vice president in the publishing division of McGraw-Hill who follows state education policy closely, McRae saw the state’s peculiar recommendations for distributing $316 million in federal money this fall for turning around the worst performing schools and thought, There’s got to be a better way.
So McRae spent a good part of Saturday and Sunday creating a new formula for dividing up School Improvement Grant dollars that strikes me as fair and sound. Instead of giving huge sums – up to $6 million — indiscriminately, for the most part, to 63 schools and goose eggs to a dozen schools in Los Angeles Unified and 18 other schools, he’s come up with a set of reasonable criteria that school districts – even those that would get less than they had hoped – would have a hard time disputing.
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