Latest News and Comment from Education

Sunday, January 10, 2010

SCUSD Observer: Special Board Meeting -- Tuesday


SCUSD Observer: Special Board Meeting -- Tuesday


Sunday, January 10, 2010


Special Board Meeting -- Tuesday

Under review: An $18 million budget deficit and review of a charter school's application.
Agenda here

Tuesday, January 12
Closed session begins at 5:30 p.m
Open session begins at 7:00 p.m.

Serna Center
5735 47th Avenue
Sacramento, Ca 95824
Tennessee Community Room

3 Ways Educators Are Embracing Social Technology


3 Ways Educators Are Embracing Social Technology:

"The modern American school faces rough challenges. Budget cuts have caused ballooning class sizes, many teachers struggle with poorly motivated students, and in many schools a war is being waged on distracting technologies. In response, innovative educators are embracing social media to fight back against the onslaught of problems. Technologies such as Twitter and Skype offer ideal solutions as inexpensive tools of team-based education."

Charter schools: Friend or foe of public education? | Get Schooled

Charter schools: Friend or foe of public education? | Get Schooled




Morning folks, I am running this op-ed on the Monday education page that I assemble each week for the AJC. Written by UGA professor William G. Wraga, it raises some interesting questions about whether the charter school movement has been co-opted by privatization proponents.
By William G. Wraga
The original intent of charter schools, to increase the professional autonomy of teachers so they could explore innovative ways to educate children and youth, has given way to other agendas that have grafted onto the movement.
Increasingly, charter school policies have been influenced by market ideology that treats the movement as a vehicle for privatizing public schools.
Research reveals that, in practice, charter school “innovations” too often occur more on the management side than on the educational side of schooling.
And despite anecdotal reports of local successes, overall, charter school students perform no better than non-charter public school students.
To improve the education of all students, policymakers should focus not on the governance structures of schools, but on the improvement of curriculum and instruction in classrooms.
The idea for charter schools emerged in the late 1980s as a way to enhance professional autonomy of teachers that would empower them to identify ways to educate students that were more effective than what the existing bureaucracy would allow.
Since that time, charter schools have enjoyed support from a wide range of interests, including teacher unions, minority rights advocates, and advocates of deregulation and free market reforms.
Over time, the agendas of these different interest groups have influenced charter school policy and practice.
Today, the rhetoric supporting charter schools usually emphasizes an offer of autonomy in return for accountability for educators and increased choice for parents.
Because the main idea behind charter schools is that exemption from cumbersome state regulations will free local educators to generate more effective ways to educate students, one might expect that local reports of charter school success would identify the regulations that previously had impeded school performance.
Armed with this information, policymakers could abolish those regulations so that all public schools would benefit.
Moreover, if cumbersome regulations are really the principal obstacle to school improvement, as the case for charter schools implies, then why not simply waive these cumbersome regulations for all public schools?
Not only would such a policy free all public schools to pursue innovative solutions to their educational problems, but also the time, energy and money spent on preparing tedious charter petitions, then negotiating the petition process could be invested directly in local school improvement.
Neither of these things are likely to happen because, despite the appealing rhetoric about autonomy and choice, another agenda has quietly come to reshape charter school policies: namely, to impose market-based reforms on the public school system in order to prepare it eventually for privatization.
Although the federal No Child Left Behind Act and the Georgia Charter School Act currently require all charter schools to be public, that is, funded by public money, both laws allow the public money to be paid to private for-profit companies to run charter schools.
This legislation has opened the door wider for privatization of public schools.
Research into charter school practice has found that “innovations” that charter schools typically implement have more to do with management and advertising than with curriculum and instruction.
Classroom practices in charter schools are little different than classroom practices in non-charter public schools.
The promise that the deregulated governance structures of charter schools would precipitate the introduction of new and more effective classroom practices remains unfulfilled.
When charter schools and other market-based reforms for public

This Week In Education: Media Watch


This Week In Education: Media Watch:


Weekend Reading: Credit Voucher$ For Student Teaching Placements

Scalping Courses NY Times
Colleges give away tuition waiver certificates most frequently to thank veteran teachers for welcoming their student teachers into her classroom...The college, however, is not happy they’re being sold.

Unhappy Meals Washington Monthly
We currently occupy the two worst extremes: overweight youth living off vending machine confections coexisting with students who cannot get enough to eat because the school system is chronically broke.

500x_tiger-woods-500Arts Programs Foster More Than Creativity Miller McCune
As arts education is pushed further to the margins by the emphasis on standardized testing, a tool for nurturing children's social and emotional development is being lost.
Why Johnny can't be deducted  Salon
As a foster mom, I clothed, fed and cared for a child in need. But it's the birth mother who gets the tax break
The Crisis of Juvenile Prison Rape New York Review Of Books
Only 34 percent of those in juvenile detention are there for violent crimes.

Losing Liberal Arts  In These Times
At the end of the 2007-2008 academic year, shrinking enrollment and a budget crisis forced Antioch College to close its doors after 156 years of progressive liberal arts education.
Will spanking make your child successful? The Week
A new study suggests spanking young children can help them grow into better-functioning adults.
The vocabulary of love Salon
My 15-year-old daughter talks about marrying girlfriends on Facebook. I don't get it, but maybe I'm not supposed t.

Sacramento Press / Sacramento Sustainability Forum Kicks Off 2010


Sacramento Press / Sacramento Sustainability Forum Kicks Off 2010:


"The first Sacramento Sustainability Forum of 2010 will feature two dynamic speakers covering the recent climate change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, and the effects of product stewardship policy for California.

Larry Greene, the executive director of the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District, will report on developments at the COP15, the United Nations’ climate change conference that took place in December in Copenhagen.

Heidi Sanborn, an independent consultant and executive director of the California Product Stewardship Council, will cover product stewardship policy and the implications for consumers and businesses in California.

Jacob Grissom, one of the founders of the SSF, says, “We were grateful for the enthusiastic reception these events received from the community last year. We are looking forward to expanding the SSF’s audience with a lineup of engaging speakers in 2010.”"

Elk Grove Citizen : News


Elk Grove Citizen : News:

"More than a dozen middle and high schools in the Elk Grove Unified School District (EGUSD) will accept students from outside their attendance boundaries this fall.


The Elk Grove school board permitted district staff to begin the open enrollment process for the 2010-11 school year during their Jan. 5 meeting.

Applications for students interested in open enrollment will be offered Jan. 11, the deadline is Feb. 11.

Christina Penna, associate superintendent of secondary education, said this is the first time the district staff is recommending open enrollment for 14 schools.

“This creates an unprecedented opportunity for families to exercise school choice,” she told the school board.

Open enrollment will not be offered for the district’s elementary schools. Reasons include the district staff’s desire to balance their enrollments as well as district plans to change many of their school year calendars from year-round to traditional, due to budget cuts.�"

Youths urged to follow dreams� Standard-Times


Youths urged to follow dreams Standard-Times:

"SAN ANGELO, Texas — Carlos Partida plans to exchange his West Texas lifestyle for big city dreams.

An aspiring artist, the 16-year-old Central High School junior hopes to move from his hometown of San Angelo to Southern California to pursue an education and career in art. First, though, Carlos plans to remain working and living at home for a couple of years after high school, until he has saved enough to start the next chapter of his life — living independently.

In the meantime, Carlos wants to improve a couple of his worst characteristics: being too timid and introverted.

Since becoming part of the city’s JOBStart youth program two years ago, Carlos has made leaps and bounds toward breaking out of his shell. As one of eight peer leaders this year, the once-timid teen is helping other youths acquire crucial skills to prepare them for the real world."

Want to salvage public schools? Try character education - JSOnline

Want to salvage public schools? Try character education - JSOnline:


"To people who run companies, honesty and punctuality are as important as computer literacy. Traits such as these are about respect for ourselves and others; they make up our character. Without character, quality work is almost impossible to produce no matter the number of employee incentives.

This is why we believe in character education. Starting in primary schools, we are advocating for a culture of character, one where we respect each other and are willing to sacrifice some personal pleasure for the greater good. It pays in more ways than one.

There is a national organization, Character Education Partnership, and a local chapter, Wisconsin Character Education Partnership, enabling schools to incorporate these fundamental ideas across the curriculum and in the atmosphere of the school."

lesson plans
Your character is defined by what you do, not what you say or believe.
lesson plans
Every choice you make helps define the kind of person you are choosing to be.
lesson plans
Good character requires doing the right thing, even when it is costly or risky.
lesson plans
You don't have to take the worst behavior of others as a standard for yourself. You can choose to be better than that.
lesson plans
What you do matters, and one person can make a big difference.
lesson plans
The payoff for having good character is that it makes you a better person and it makes the world a better place.

Epoch Times - Shen Yun Shows Software Manager 'the world through different eyes'

Epoch Times - Shen Yun Shows Software Manager 'the world through different eyes':


"SAN JOSE, California— As the Shen Yun New York Company gave its third performance in the Silicon Valley capital on the evening of January 9, one of the audience members found a different world opening before his eyes.

Mr. Hamilton, a software engineering manager for a large international company, said he has many friends in China but he has never been there.

'The energy that goes into the dance and the combination of colors and the music and the dance is very impressive,” he said.

'It’s very interesting to see a different part of the world through different eyes.'

He said that he enjoyed the introductions and information provided by the emcees before and after the performances and also praised the state-of-the art animated backdrops used in the show."

Jamba Juice Joins CAHPERD in Attempt to Jump Over Guinness World Record | TradingMarkets.com


Jamba Juice Joins CAHPERD in Attempt to Jump Over Guinness World Record | TradingMarkets.com:

"(Nasdaq: JMBA | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) -- Jamba Juice Company and The California Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (CAHPERD) announced today its shared mission to keep California's children healthy and active with the 2010 Jamba Jump Day(TM) event -- a mass attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the 'Most People Jumping/Skipping Rope at the Same Time'. On Monday, February 1, 2010, at 9am, CAHPERD and Jamba Juice will lead Californians in schools, nonprofit organizations, businesses, service organizations and clubs statewide as they jump rope simultaneously for 10 minutes -- getting participant's hearts pumping and encouraging heart-healthy living.

Coordinated via live webcast and broadcast online, CAHPERD and Jamba Juice expect over 80,000 people to participate, breaking the current Australian record of 59,000 skippers. Taking place at over 2,000 sites throughout the State of California and expanding to the California Congressional offices in Washington D.C., select volunteers will be warmed up with Jamba Juice's delicious, steel cut, oatmeal as they prepare to make this ground-breaking record."

Gov. Jon Corzine's greatest public service | Paul Mulshine - NJ.com


Gov. Jon Corzine's greatest public service | Paul Mulshine - NJ.com:

"Jon Corzine will be giving his final State of the State speech on Tuesday. So when I was walking around the Statehouse the other day, I decided to ask people for their thoughts on how to sum up his four years in office.

I soon ran into Deborah Howlett, a former Star-Ledger reporter who left the paper to join Corzine’s staff. She made a spirited defense of her soon-to-be-ex-boss. He had trimmed more than $5 billion from the current year’s budget, she boasted. In fact, said Howlett, he would leave office as the only governor to have a fourth-year budget lower than his first year’s budget.

That was quite an accomplishment, I granted. But having cut all that spending, just what public services did Corzine cut?
'Well he cut the Statehouse staff in half,' Howlett replied."

Three school systems sign up for 'race' - ContraCostaTimes.com


Three school systems sign up for 'race' - ContraCostaTimes.com:

"At least three Solano County school districts want to join a federal education reform effort, though none so far have the support of their teachers unions.

Friday was the deadline to submit an agreement to the state to participate in the federal Race to the Top funding program.

Officials from the Benicia, Vallejo and Vacaville unified school districts said they would or had submitted a required Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) by the deadline.

The state could be eligible for up to $700 million of the $4.35 billion Race to Top funding, which requires participating districts to institute as-yet undetermined education reforms"

Poor are educated and employed

Poor are educated and employed:



"Want to have enough money to meet your basic needs in California?


Then don't be a woman, don't be a parent, and don't be a person of color. All of these groups are disproportionately less likely to have enough income to meet their basic needs, according to a new report from the United Way of the Bay Area."



Some of these categories are not surprising: It's expensive to raise children, and gender and racial discrimination still lurk in our job markets. What is surprising about the United Way's findings is that having a job and even an education isn't a ticket to making ends meet in California. The poor, it turns out, are just like the rest of us. They just struggle more.
The analysis is based on the Self-Sufficiency Standard, a formula developed by social scientist Diana Pearce to reflect the actual cost of people's real needs in a given area. (The Federal Poverty Level doesn't accurately reflect the growing costs of health care, energy and housing, among other things.) According to the report, about 22 percent of Bay Area households were struggling even before the economic disaster began in 2008.
The Bay Area is doing better than the state overall, where nearly a third of households don't have enough income to meet their basic needs for food, housing, transportation, child care and health care. But as this season of sharing comes to a close, it's sobering to learn just how hard some of us are working to keep our households afloat.
It's also sobering to learn how many of the poor are working poor: 86.5 percent of all Bay Area households without enough income had at least one person earning a paycheck.


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/09/EDMF1B5B04.DTL#ixzz0cDzAh5Sk

Educators: Governor already breaking promise not to cut school funding | News10.net | Sacramento, California | News


Educators: Governor already breaking promise not to cut school funding | News10.net | Sacramento, California | News



SACRAMENTO, CA - While Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger pledged to maintain education spending in California as part of this week's State of the State address, many educators say a closer look at the latest budget proposal shows otherwise.
Education administrators and lobbyists say they found additional cuts totaling $2.4 billion.
Kevin Gordon, a lobbyist with School Innovations and Advocacy, said the cut is on top of the $18 billionschools already lost.
"The schools are going to have to shut their doors at some point," Gordon said. "They can't exist if you can't make sure the building still stands and some of those basic things are there that set the stage forteaching."
Sacramento County superintendent Dave Gordon, said the solution to education cuts is simple -- the governor needs to speak up.




Children often hurt the most by budget cuts, group finds - Vallejo Times Herald


Children often hurt the most by budget cuts, group finds - Vallejo Times Herald:

"State and local budget cuts to a myriad of programs are eroding children's health and robbing them of their potential, according to a state organization's annual report.

Education, health coverage, obesity and asthma levels all received low grades in the 2010 California Report Card, which identifies issues impacting children's well-being, public health and the economy.

Solano County is echoing many of the same issues identified in the new study, said the Children's Network executive director, Kim Thomas .

'We have many more families dropping into low-income status,' Thomas said."

Righting California's ship of state

Righting California's ship of state:



"With our budget in crisis, our economy in the doldrums and our politics in disarray, the great temptation for anyone offering an agenda for California in 2010 would be to borrow the goal former state Senate President Pro Tempore John Burton once set during another challenging year: 'Just to get out alive.'"



Sage advice indeed for those who hold political office. But what about the rest of us?
Thankfully, the formal duty of addressing both houses of the Legislature on the future of our state each year rests only with the governor, whom I applaud for striking an optimistic and constructive tone at a difficult time and for rightly placing a high priority on higher education as a cornerstone of California's future.
You might not have heard his speech. But whether you're raising a family or starting a business, getting an education or looking for work - we've all got a stake in the state of our state. And 2010 isn't shaping up as a year when we can afford to simply stay the course. By almost any measure, the status quo isn't working. What, then, is to be done?
The tradition is to lay out a set of policy prescriptions by topic: education, transportation, health care, prisons and the like. This approach


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/09/INC81BEH7P.DTL#ixzz0cDw1GDOA

Schwarzenegger's education claim disputed - Sacramento Politics - California Politics | Sacramento Bee


Schwarzenegger's education claim disputed - Sacramento Politics - California Politics | Sacramento Bee:

"Despite Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's vow to protect public education, school officials say the budget he has proposed would require deep cuts affecting students.

While Schwarzenegger touts his plan as meeting the state's Proposition 98 school-funding guarantee, critics call that misleading, saying he would clear that hurdle only after lowering it.

Bottom line?"

Opinion: 'Parent trigger' shifts balance of power in debate over education reform - San Jose Mercury News


Opinion: 'Parent trigger' shifts balance of power in debate over education reform - San Jose Mercury News:

"Much has been written about how two education reform bills signed into law last week might affect California's chances of qualifying for federal Race to the Top funds.

As important as that funding is, the new laws' significance goes much deeper. It signals that the balance of power in education is shifting away from teachers unions and toward parents, where it belongs.

The 'parent trigger,' a controversial element of the legislation, is the best evidence of this turning point.

The concept was developed by the grass-roots group Parent Revolution in the Los Angeles Unified School District. If a majority of parents in a failing school petitions for an overhaul, the district must do something — replace administrators, convert to a charter school or make other major reforms.

By law, tenured California teachers can convert their school to a charter if a majority of them vote for it, and that has happened dozens of times. But teachers unions and other groups opposed giving parents the same right. One group called it the 'lynch mob' provision — an odd choice of words, given that it would empower parents primarily in minority communities where failing schools abound."

Revolution in U.S. education is in California

Revolution in U.S. education is in California



The greatest revolution in education in the United States today is taking place in Los Angeles. It is the mandate of the Los Angeles Unified School District School Board to convert almost a third of its schools either to charter schools, the public schools of choice that are the one shining light in an otherwise dysfunctional system, or other alternatives such as magnet schools. The change is not only a mighty one for the state's largest school district, but in time it could double the number of public schools of choice in California.



What is remarkable is not just the magnitude of this earth-shaking change, but the complete shift of the paradigm about how we think about public education. The driving force behind this revolution is Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who is not only a Democrat but also a former organizer for the United Teachers of Los Angeles, Los Angeles teachers' union. 
Villaraigosa took his nontraditional stand because, as he noted, LAUSD was racked with violence and plagued with a dropout rate of 50 percent, and showed no signs of improving.


Even more astounding: With the doors open to making bids to the school board to launch pioneering schools, groups of public school teachers and the teachers' unions themselves are submitting proposals. "This is the power that teachers have always been asking for, the authority to choose what is happening in our schools," Monterey Park English teacher Patricia Jauregui told the Los Angeles Times. She added, "With power comes responsibility. We are accountable for the results, and I don't mind that."


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/09/INHV1BF35C.DTL#ixzz0cDrkcbR1

Gov Schwarzenegger Begs White House for Bailout Money | ChattahBox News Blog


Gov Schwarzenegger Begs White House for Bailout Money | ChattahBox News Blog



(ChattahBox)—Should the White House bail California out of a mess of its own making? The ungovernable state of California is looking to the federal government for a solution to its budget woes. Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger released his 2010-11 budgetthat, includes a request for $6.9 billion in federal funds to make ends meet. Last May, while mired in a severe financial crisis, due to the recession and massive home foreclosures, the beleaguered state asked the White House for a portion of TARP funds, which request was refused. Now, the state is again seeking a federal bailout. And of course, thanks to Sen. Ben Nelson’s (D-NB) antics of holding the health care reform bill hostage, until he secured several concessions, including having the federal government pay for Nebraska’s mandated expansion of Medicaid, Schwarzenegger is demanding that his state’s expansion of health insurance for the poor be paid for as well.
California has been facing a crisis of epic proportions long before the current recession. And unless fundamental changes are made at the state legislative level, and its constitution rewritten, no amount of federal funds can solve the state’s problems. California’s financially bankrupt and deadlocked governmenthas reached crisis levels, from a deadly storm of out of control voter initiatives and referendums, combined with a legislature that can’t pass a simple state budget.
Schwarzenegger’s proposed $82.9 billion budget also calls for $8.5 billion in cuts and $4.5 billion in alternative funding. If federal aid is not forthcoming; the governor proposes deep cuts of $2.4 billion in social welfare programs for the neediest of families, when greater numbers are losing their homes and their jobs.