Saturday, February 20, 2010

Sacramento Press / SACRAMENTO NEWS & REVIEW HOSTS SACRAMENTO SUSTAINABILITY FORUM

Business owners, members of various organizations and political representatives attended the seventh Sacramento Sustainability Forum on Thursday at the Sacramento News & Review offices at 1124 Del Paso Blvd. Since August 2009 the SSF has been holding these meetings to discuss local solutions to environmental, economic and political problems.

The discussion focused on Senate Bill 375, which calls for lowering greenhouse gas emissions by curbing urban sprawl. The bill would have city and transportation planners achieve this by placing housing, industry, schools and retail in close proximity to each other.

The bill is complex and would pertain to many segments of population and organizations in Sacramento. For more information and to read the bill, visitwww.arb.ca.gov/cc/sb375/sb375.htm.

The speakers Thursday were Shamus Roller, executive director of the

Wake County's Anti-Diversity Board Majority Ponder Superintendent's Resignation Schools Matter

Schools Matter

Wake County's Anti-Diversity Board Majority Ponder Superintendent's Resignation

Photo: TAKAAKI IWABU - tiwabu@newsobserver
What do you get when institutionalized racism at the national level intervenes to buy a school board in order to destroy the nation's most successful school integration and diversity program? Keep an eye on Wake County, NC, and you will see the perfect case study unfolding before our eyes.

One thing you can obviously get is a righteously indignant superintendent who is not afraid to challenge the anti-diversity racist majority on the Wake County School Board. From the News

CALPADS accepting data The Educated Guess

The Educated Guess
CALPADS accepting data
Posted in CALPADS

School districts can continue to upload data to CALPADS, the beleaguered student longitudinal data system.
That’s the word from the Department of Education, which says CALPADS will continue to accept information during the next two months, when the system is being overhauled and fixed.
Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell took the unusual step earlier this month of calling in a technical team to find defects in the system that have caused outages, errors and slowness in the system since CALPADS started up in October. As I reported on Friday, a consultant warned of system failure unless comprehensive fixes were made.
Districts have been uploading enrollment and dropout information, known as Fall 1 data. Recognizing that districts have faced headaches with CALPADS, O’Connellhas extended the submission deadline indefinitely

Schools Matter: Rothstein Educates Pay Per Score Advocates

Education - Everything you need to know about the world of education.

Education- Everything you need to know about the world of education.

D.C. teacher accused of impregnating student

Rhee letter sheds light on her comments about laid-off teachers

MORE ON EDUCATION

D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee. (Photo by Benjamin J. Myers

Did Tiger HAVE to drag in the school kids?

I was hoping he wouldn’t do this in today’s mea culpa speech, but, alas, he did: Tiger Woods HAD to remind the public that he really is a great guy because his foundation helps needy kids get an education.

He doesn’t seem to have learned the one lesson that many other people did from his sordid fall from grace: Nobody--not adults and especially not school-aged children -- should look to a celebrity as a role model for a value system.

Continue reading this post »

Lynn, Worcester charter school bids get backing - The Boston Globe

Lynn, Worcester charter school bids get backing - The Boston Globe:

"Charter school proposals in Lynn and Worcester won endorsement from a top state education official yesterday as part of an annual review process that has come under intense scrutiny in the past year."

The state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education will vote on the recommendations at its monthly meeting Tuesday. The proposed Lynn Preparatory Charter School and the Spirit of Knowledge Charter School in Worcester hope to open this fall.

The way charter schools are reviewed has been a subject of controversy in recent months, after the state’s commissioner of elementary and secondary education, Mitchell Chester, was accused of ulterior motives in recommending approval of a Gloucester charter school last year. Critics have seized upon a 2009 e-mail from Paul Reville, the state’s education secretary, in which he urged Chester to recommend the school to win support among charter school proponents for Governor Deval Patrick’s overall education agenda.

The state board ultimately approved the recommendation, over intense

Fight over school closings dates back many years and many superintendents - KansasCity.com

Fight over school closings dates back many years and many superintendents - KansasCity.com:

"When Bernard Taylor heard about the storm over Kansas City school closings this week, he felt like an old fan tuning in a familiar soap opera.

“It’s like ‘The Young and the Restless,’ ” said Taylor, now a superintendent in Michigan, who tried and mostly failed to close Kansas City schools several years ago.

“You can come back after five years and it’s the same story line and the same characters. The saga never changes.”

Taylor, superintendent from 2001 to 2006, was one in a line of misstepping superintendents walking a perilous road with fainthearted school boards and communities, bearing Kansas City’s own version of a growing real estate bubble on their backs.

With John Covington proposing what would be by far the district’s largest one-time closure of schools, Taylor sees another superintendent standing where he was — under fire."

Mayor Menino, ‘mentors’ meet on new Boston bullying campaign - BostonHerald.com

Mayor Menino, ‘mentors’ meet on new Boston bullying campaign - BostonHerald.com:

"A Boston middle schooler taunted daily with verbal and physical threats prompted a health-care provider to pick up the phone and report the abuse to the Hub’s new anti-cyberbullying hotline, one of several calls the line received this week, just days after being put into service.

“The caller wanted to make sure that the authorities were aware that there was a bullying issue at this school,” said Steven Belec, director of the hotline service, which, after being launched Tuesday - during school vacation week - already has received seven calls.

Belec said he contacted education and police officials to warn them of the problem after the Thursday call. “We want to ensure that there is some level of systemic surveillance,” he said.

Meanwhile, Mayor Thomas M. Menino and Boston Public Schools Superintendent Carol R. Johnson met yesterday with 15 “cyber mentors” - volunteers who teach other students about online privacy and the hazards of the Internet - to brainstorm ways to spread the word on the hotline and the city’s new campaign to combat cyberbullying."

High School Graduation Rates Low Where Most American Indians, Alaska Natives Live, Report Says

High School Graduation Rates Low Where Most American Indians, Alaska Natives Live, Report Says:

"A new national report has found that fewer than 50 percent of Native American Indian and Alaska Native students from the Pacific and Northwest regions of the U. S. graduate from high school. Released on Thursday, “The Dropout/Graduation Crisis Among American Indians and Alaska Native Students: Failure to Respond Places the Future of Native People at Risk” report was conducted by The Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education and Information Studies.

The report found drastic disparities in graduation rates between American Indian/Alaska Native students and others in the states of Alaska, Arizona, California, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington and Wyoming. In addition to the most recent graduation data, the report includes discussion of challenges and possibilities specific to the education of this population.

Dr. Susan Faircloth of the Coharie tribe, co-author"

Local News | UW project explores Great Depression's impact on state | Seattle Times Newspaper

Local News | UW project explores Great Depression's impact on state | Seattle Times Newspaper:

"A year ago, University of Washington history professor James Gregory started getting the question: Was our nation and state entering a second Great Depression?

Huge layoffs at Microsoft, Boeing and Starbucks. The end of Washington Mutual, the biggest U.S. bank in history to fail. Home prices falling and bankruptcy filings in Washington reaching 90 per day.

'I started thinking there might be lessons that could be learned from the Great Depression,' Gregory said. 'The 1930s are arguably the most important decade in the building of Washington state as we know it today"

Ackerman: Youth violence a public health issue | Philadelphia Inquirer | 02/19/2010

Ackerman: Youth violence a public health issue | Philadelphia Inquirer | 02/19/2010:

"Philadelphia School District Superintendent Arlene Ackerman says she goes to bed angry every night and wakes up angry every morning.

There were about 15,000 violent and nonviolent incidents in city public schools last year - down 5 percent from the year before, but still far too many, the schools chief said in an interview yesterday.

'Fifteen thousand is not something we should be proud of,' she said.

Occasionally, public outrage bubbles up - in December over the beating of Asian students at South Philadelphia High, this week when a mob of high school students threw punches and damaged property in Center City. But that's not enough, the superintendent said."

Ammiano calls for 'homeowner-exempt' revision of prop 13 to mitigate budget deficit | California Progress Report

Following the surprising reception for his 'pot initiative' last year, Assemblymember Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) begins his sophomore year in Sacramento by taking another bold political step as he introduces a split roll property tax reform measure that would significantly alter Prop 13, long considered California’s political third rail.

Ammiano’s measure would call for taxing and assessing commercial property differently from residential property, which would remain unchanged.

The measure would effectively exempt California homeowners from the revision Ammiano claims is necessary to correct an unintended consequence of Prop 13 - a growing tax burden onto residential property owners and increasingly away from "corporate landowners" and commercial property.

The second year progressive Assemblymember is calling for a split roll to reverse "what has been a shift in California 's property tax burden to homeowners from business owners" under Proposition 13 caused by the different assessment of taxes for commercial and industrial property from residential property, according to Ammiano's press release.

“For over thirty years, Proposition 13 has allowed corporate landowners to benefit from tax loopholes while shifting the real tax burden to individual homeowners and reducing

Glendale News Press > Archives > Education > IN DEPTH:
The many faces of bilingual education:English learners’ struggle

Glendale News Press > Archives > Education > IN DEPTH:<br />The many faces of bilingual education:English learners’ struggle:

"Shushanna Petrosyan wrapped up the Pledge of Allegiance and instructed everyone at a recent Glendale Unified School District Board of Education meeting to be seated.

“I’m in fifth grade at Horace Mann Elementary School,” she began.

Born in Armenia, Shushanna said she enrolled in Glendale Unified four years ago.

“I didn’t know a word of English,” she continued. “Three months later, I was speaking faster than all my friends.”

Glendale Unified is no stranger to students like Shushanna. Twenty-five percent of the district’s students are learning English as a second language, and another 39% have learned and worked their way into fluency, according to the district’s most recent language census report released in March 2009. Combined, 64% of the roughly 26,660 students are bilingual in the sixth-largest school district in Los Angeles County.

“That’s definitely on the high end,” said David Moguel, a professor at Cal State Northridge."

California Designates 6 Innovation Hubs to Sharpen State's Competitive Edge

California Designates 6 Innovation Hubs to Sharpen State's Competitive Edge:

"No amount of brainpower or world-class technology could save Silicon Valley last year from the wrath of the recession.

In the San Francisco Bay Area's high-tech hub, the economic downturn caused jobs, patents and venture capital investment to decline in 2009, according to a study released in February by Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network and Silicon Valley Community Foundation. The survey, titled the '2010 Index of Silicon Valley,' also shows office vacancy at its highest rate since 1998 as the focus has shifted from software to green energy, the media, biotech and medical devices.

With the loss of 90,000 jobs between the second quarters of 2008 and 2009, the cutting-edge innovators of Silicon Valley 'could not insulate ourselves from the larger economic downturn,' said Russell Hancock, Joint Venture president and CEO, and Silicon Valley Community Foundation CEO Emmett Carson, in a joint statement.

'At a time when we need to engage more actively in the global economy, the very foundations for that engagement are weakening,' according to the statement. 'We're"

The State Hornet - CFA forum highlights budget crisis, urges student involvement

hair in the Redwood Room was occupied and students lined the walls during today's forum, which highlighted the California Master Plan for Higher Education, its history and what it means in today's budget crisis.

About 175 students and faculty members attended "The People's University in Peril," which was hosted by the California Faculty Association.

"I think we all need to understand that the words 'Master Plan' have become symbolic of everything we do," former Sacramento State President Donald Gerth said. "It's a symbol of everything we can do here and in the University of California and in the California community colleges."

The 1960s Master Plan created a system for postsecondary education by defining the roles of California's three segments of public higher education: the UC schools, California State University system and community colleges.

Government professor Jeff Lustig said the Master Plan "crystallized" a promise of education in California.

"The constitutional founders of the state were very clear that they didn't want California to be as class bound as other societies," Lustig said. "They wanted to prepare a higher education system that would be open to everybody, a gateway of opportunity rather than a bulwark of privilege."

Lustig said those “good days are over,” and all segments of public higher education must come together to oppose fee increases and class and salary reductions.

"The educational community needs to organize

UC San Diego officials meet with students angry about off-campus 'Compton Cookout' | L.A. NOW | Los Angeles Times

UC San Diego administrators met Friday with more than 100 students who gathered to protest a Feb. 15 ghetto-themed “Compton Cookout” and to ask for improved conditions for black students on the campus.

The students also were angered by a Thursday segment on a student-run television station that used racial epithets to defend the off-campus party, officials said.

Penny Rue, vice chancellor for student affairs, called the clip “very racially offensive.”

She said officials had agreed to student demands to create a task force aimed at boosting African American faculty hiring and addressing under-representation of black students on the campus. Less than 2% of UC San Diego undergraduates are African American.

But students, faculty and activists said the administration’s reaction had been tepid. History professor Danny Widener, who directs the university’s African American Studies program, said students and faculty members “are pushing for some kind of punitive action and some broader redress.”

“The administration would prefer to continue to solve the problem through education, outreach and town hall grievance-airing,” Widener said. “So there’s a little bit of an impasse.”

Tensions have escalated since a Facebook invitation filled with racial stereotypes advertised the gathering last weekend. The invitation included references to "dat Purple Drank," an apparent mix of “sugar, water, and the color purple, chicken, coolade, and of course Watermelon.”

High schools put new emphasis on career training - Vallejo Times Herald

High schools put new emphasis on career training - Vallejo Times Herald:

"It's becoming harder to get into college and more difficult to get a job in the down economy.
On behalf of their students, Vallejo and Benicia school leaders are trying to improve their chances.

School district officials are pushing for more career technical education as an alternative -- or complement -- to a university-focused learning plan.

But where Vallejo has a high dropout rate -- 39.9 percent -- and a low state college preparation rate -- 21 percent -- the Benicia school district has little trouble keeping students and sending them off to college.

About 90 percent of Benicia students go on to four-year universities, officials said. That high rate led board member Steve Messina at Thursday's board meeting to question whether career technical education spending was the best use of district money.

The programs are typically geared for students who will go right into the workforce instead of attending universities.

Other Benicia board members and a community member said that the programs are worth it, even if only a few students benefit directly."

United Teachers Los Angeles protests school district reform | 89.3 KPCC

United Teachers Los Angeles protests school district reform| 89.3 KPCC:

"L.A. Unified’s teachers’ union organized protests today and for next week against school district administrators. The union is upset that the superintendent has tentatively allowed outside groups to assume control of new and low-performing campuses.

The school district received 85 proposals to run three dozen campuses. Teachers, charter school companies and other nonprofits crafted the plans. The superintendent is recommending teacher and district-written plans for more than half the schools. Outside groups could run another quarter of the schools."

Opinion: A bailout out for Greece, a cold shoulder for California - San Jose Mercury News

If I were the governor of California, cursed with an insoluble budget crisis, and if I had asked the federal government for help and been rebuffed, and if I hailed from Europe and noticed that the European Union had agreed — in principle at least — to bail out Greece, I might be mumbling, "Vut gives?"

When Greece (a charming though relatively piddling land) comes calling in Brussels, it gets embraced (and lectured); when California (an economic powerhouse) comes calling in Washington, it gets, almost universally, the cold shoulder.

The reason France and the other economic powerhouses of Europe have said they will ride to Greece's rescue is that they share a common currency, and Greece's default could wreak havoc with the value and viability of the euro and, by extension, with the whole of the European economy. But California and the United States share a common currency as well.

And talk about wreaking havoc: There is no legal provision under which an American state can default, whether Carly Fiorina knows it or not, so California can't repudiate its debts. What it can do, however, is raise taxes and tuition and lay off teachers, cops and nurses. And to truly bring its budget more into balance, it must do this on a massive scale, surely engendering a new round of disastrous foreclosures and bank failures.

Besides, California matters economically a lot more to the United States than Greece does to Europe. California

is, of course, the largest state; one out of eight Americans is Californian, and the state's economy makes up roughly 13 percent of the nation's gross domestic product.

World Sentinel | CALIFORNIA�S "MOBILIZATION FOR EDUCATION" BECOMES A NATIONAL EFFORT

alifornia Faculty Association members will join with students and education workers from all segments of public education in California to "Mobilize for Education." Turns out, California will not be marching alone.

Organizations have planned similar actions in 17 other states, including Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas and Washington (state). See the listings below to learn more about events in California and around the nation.

Rallies, demonstrations, sit-ins and marches are planned to be on or near all 23 Cal State University campuses, which have experienced over $1 billion in funding cuts over the last two years.

Major regional events of all California public education segments are shaping up to take place at the State Capitol in Sacramento, the San Francisco Civic Center, Pershing Square in Los Angeles and the CSU Northridge campus

Last fall, more than 800 students and faculty members from all over the state met at UC Berkeley to plan one, unified day of action on which the education community would band together to advocate for public education at every campus and school.

"Public education is under attack and we´ve had enough," said California Faculty Association President Lillian Taiz. "The future of our country and our state are at stake.

Elk Grove Citizen : Archives > Lifestyle > February history headlines

February history headlines

Published: Friday, February 19, 2010 11:47 AM PST

People often ask me how I find history items for this column. What happens is that I really do not have to look very far—stories just seem to fall out of the sky and into my lap. Folks call or e-mail me, they tell me about items when we meet in the store or at city council meetings, or I notice something in the Citizen or the Bee that reminds me of something I should write about. Right now I have many good stories lined up, and if this keeps up in 2010, I could almost be writing a column each day. So, today, I am going to give readers some quick looks at some of the stories that I will be writing about in the coming weeks.

Bob Fletcher and the JACL – Mr. Fletcher was recognized last week in a ceremony during the Time of Remembrance at the Secretary of State Building in Sacramento for his “unsung hero” actions during World War II. Mr. Fletcher, now 98 years young, saved three family farms of Japanese Americans who were sent to internment camps, one of which was the farm of Mary and Al Tsukamoto. The Florin Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) recently celebrated its 75th anniversary and was instrumental in recognizing Mr. Fletcher, and I applaud their efforts now as well as over the years.

Louis Silveira and Elk Grove High School Yearbooks – Louis is an EGHS Supergrad, Class of 1967, who has taken it on himself to preserve the history of Elk Grove High through the school yearbooks. He has painstakingly scanned all the yearbooks he has been able to obtain and placed them on a special Web site which can be found atwww.alumniclass.com.elkgroveca. Since I am not a graduate of EG, I was not sure how I could access the site, but suddenly, I found a solution. There was a place to sign in as faculty, and since I was vice principal of Elk Grove High in the 1980s, that is what I did—and it worked. In a future column I am going to highlight the work that Louis has done, and I also want to impress upon our present students (at the nine Elk Grove comprehensive high schools) what great contributions they are making to future history through the school yearbooks. A gold star for Louis and his creative work! Read more about him in a couple of weeks.

Sac City Unified chief opposes waiting lists for popular schools - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee

Sac City Unified chief opposes waiting lists for popular schools - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee:

"Popular schools in Sacramento City Unified should not be putting students on waiting lists, Superintendent Jonathan Raymond said, as long as the district has other campuses that are under-enrolled.

Raymond announced last week that the John Morse Waldorf Methods School – where more than 50 students have been wait-listed – will move to a larger campus. He said the district eventually will move or expand other affected programs.

Sacramento City Unified offers open enrollment at several campuses; 31 schools and programs have waiting lists."

Sac City schools chief details plan to close $30 million deficit - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee

The Sacramento City Unified School District is looking to shave $6 million from its central administration costs next year, according to a preliminary budget released this week.

That would amount to 20.1 percent of the district's administrative costs – a cut that would surpass Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's edict earlier this year that California school districts cut administrative costs by 10 percent. In his January budget address, the governor said he wants districts to keep cuts out of the classroom.

But, with a $30 million deficit, Sacramento CityUnified Superintendent Jonathan Raymond said it's impossible to avoid cutting programs that directly affect students.

The district's total 2009-10 budget is $384.2 million.

Raymond's proposed budget would increase class sizes from 25 to 30 students in kindergarten through third grade, trim adult education and eliminate all school counselors and psychologists.

Raymond told hundreds of anxious parents and teachers at a school board meeting Thursday: "Increasing the number of students in the classroom will remain an option if the employee organizations do not work with us to find other areas to reduce