Morning Report: A Graph That Tells Quite a Story
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Posted: Saturday, December 10, 2011 12:43 am |Updated: 8:30 am, Sat Dec 10, 2011.
Our forum this week brought school board members, parents and a teacher together to discuss the troubles facing the San Diego school district and the possible solutions. Check our recap, which includes talk about delayed raises, trust issues, revenue ups and downs, and taxes.
And it includes the startling graphs about education funding from the state that set the room abuzz and caused school board members there to shake their heads. Those
- We Put Local Schools on the Hot Seat
Last night, voiceofsandiego.org and its partners convened a diverse panel of local education experts to discuss the past, present and future of the San Diego Unified School District.
The event was the fifth part of our series, Schools on the Brink, which we've been running in conjunction with NBC7 San Diego. It followed a four-part production of San Diego Explained, in which we broke down what's at stake in local education, how the district got into its current financial mess, including the gambles that contributed to the crisis and the possible solutions for fixing the problem.
We sat down San Diego Unified school board members Richard Barrera and Scott Barnett, local parent and blogger Paul M. Bowers, teacher Dennis Schamp and Teresa Drew, founder of United Parents for Education, a grassroots group seeking to increase parent involvement.
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- A Parent Who Channels Frustration into Action
Imani Robinson exudes energy as she discusses the San Diego Unified School District, her work as a parent activist and the idiosyncrasies of California education politics.
The mother of three — her daughter, Tatiana Steward graduated from Scripps Ranch High School in 2008 and her nine-year-old twin sons Amaan and Deen attend Crown Point Junior Music Academy in Pacific Beach — got involved in local education out of a blend of frustration and love.
Frustration for a system that, as she puts it, "teaches in a straight line." And love for her twins, who sit at opposite ends of that linear model of education (one is a gifted student, the other has a learning disability).
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- Schools on the Brink: Solutions
In the penultimate edition of our five-part series Schools on the Brink, produced in conjunction with NBC 7 San Diego, we examine the possible solutions to San Diego Unified's financial meltdown.
We've already taken a look at what's at stake in the district's fiscal crisis. And we've examined how the district ended up in such a mess, with a look at state funding of education and the gambles that both the state and the district have taken with local children's education.
In the fourth piece, which aired last night, NBC's Catherine Garcia and I examine three possible paths the district could take: Seeking more tax revenue from Sacramento, sorting out its own problems or declaring insolvency.
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- Fix Schools: Get Rid of Teacher Tenure
Thank you very much for the article "Is This Teacher a Lemon or a Peach?" In the article you mentioned teachers are like vehicles and we are like buyers that buy these vehicles. I really like this analogy. Here are my two cents on how we can pick a "peach" from a lemon.
Since the teachers that will teach pre-kindergarten to fifth grades, the parents together with the students can provide the evaluation scores of the teachers at the end of each of every two months. The scores will be tallied and the teacher will get graded at the end of the school year, just like everyone else. If the teacher gets the failing grade, he or she will have a chance to redeem/improve the scores before being put on probation status. If the scores don't get better, then the administration should replace the teacher at the end of the year.
On the other hand, the scores will get the teacher promoted as well. I have seen teachers in "good school" districts, once they get tenure, don't really have the passion for teaching any more, it then become "just a job" for them. Therefore, they took their frustration or exhibit indifferences to the kids. We need to do away with tenure. This is a crutch that many of the teachers are using to slide by with doing little. This is a disservice to our kids and their future. Tenure also prevents many competent teachers to having a chance to have a teaching job.
Mike Van lives in San Diego.
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- Fix Schools: Gimme More Action, Less Talk
VOSD held a public forum Thursday night with a panel of well-intentioned folks who are concerned about the state of education in San Diego city schools. An audience member asked me via Twitter why I was not at the forum.
The reasons are several. One reason is that I'm tired of hearing people talk about public education problems who don't or can't do much to fix those problems.
I write this VOSD blog to express my personal opinions on education. But I try to go beyond just talking to actually doing. For the latter, I put in lots of unpaid volunteer hours with the PTA at various operational levels. And although we may not get any publicity for our efforts or participate on sexy public forums, PTA is getting real stuff done.
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- Fix Schools: Don't Blame Teachers, Work With Us
We asked readers "If the state put you in charge of San Diego Unified School District, how would you fix things?"
Before a discussion on how to fix things, we first need to narrow the list down. While the list might be very long, and well beyond the scope of what can be discussed in the space provided, it is probably best to limit the discussion to two of the most controversial issues in education (as evidenced by the discussions in this series).
They are the quality of the education our children receive in public schools and the state of public school funding.
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- Growing Bill Looms for School Repairs
Leaky roofs. Frayed wiring. Broken ramps. Three years ago San Diego Unified had a long list of needed repairs. It estimated it would need $755 million to tackle all of them over the next decade.
The problem threatened to undercut political support for the school district if it asked taxpayers for more money.
Taking care of repairs is seen as a sign of financial prudence. Financial hawks want to see that governments are spending their money wisely before they ask for more.
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- Fix Schools: Lots to Look At
We asked readers "If the state put you in charge of San Diego Unified School District, how would you fix things?"
First of all, San Diego Unified School District needs to look at their processes and not at classified staff. Schools and offices are working with minimum support already. Nothing is getting done 100 percent. Customer service is a thing of the past.
In an age of technology, SDUSD still prints everything on paper. Notebooks/manuals of paper that should be electronic. The student enrollment process is still processed on paper and filed in cumulative folders. The "first day packets" in the elementary schools is like paperwork for a mortgage loan. Additionally, when students transfer to other schools entire cumulative folders are copied and mailed or faxed. They could be scanned and emailed. More paper.
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- Fix Schools: Think Globally
We asked readers "If the state put you in charge of San Diego Unified School District, how would you fix things?"
It is time to eliminate "No Child Left Behind" and move to designing a system where every child is not only introduced to a myriad of concepts and ideas, but where they can learn to pursue and think for themselves critically.
I am greatly concerned that training kids in a system that is a century old will lead our nation into a second-rate country. San Diego could lead the nation in conceptually changing the way kids assimilate knowledge, communicate, and pursue interests to advance math science, music, and other skills.
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- Schools on the Brink: The Gamble
Join us tonight for a live discussion on how to solve San Diego Unified's financial crisis. We'll be at the McMillin Event Center in Point Loma's Liberty Station at 7 p.m., and Will Carless and I will be putting questions to school board members Richard Barrera and Scott Barnett, teacher Dennis Schamp, and parents Paul M. Bowers and Teresa Drew.
Leading up to the event, we've put together a five-part San Diego Explained series with NBC 7 San Diego called Schools on the Brink telling the story of the district's woes.
In Part 3, Catherine Garcia and I take a look at the recent gambles that the crisis is rooted in. If you haven't yet, check out Part 1 and Part 2 to get caught up.
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