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Tuesday, November 12, 2013

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Weintraub: Making sure disadvanted kids don’t get lost in the reform shuffle




Education Headlines

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Coachella Valley High Arabs mascot performs at rivalry football game

The “Arab” danced and the crowd cheered, brimming with school pride in spite of a highly publicized mascot controversy, or perhaps because of it.

Weintraub: Making sure disadvanted kids don’t get lost in the reform shuffle

With little fanfare and probably not much notice from the public, California is about to suspend a generation of far-reaching school reforms whose intentions were ambitious but whose outcomes were never entirely clear.

Newport-Mesa students learn at home and do at school

You won’t get in trouble in Candice Woods’ class for using your smartphone or tablet – as long as you’re using it to get caught up on the latest math lesson. Woods is using a so-called flipped teaching method, in which students watch her videotaped lectures on an iPad for homework and do interactive, hands-on activities in class the next day.

CORONA: Students taste-test district food

About 100 students from 11 schools, plus two parent teacher groups and district staff members agreed to test the foods at the invitation of Amanda Colon, nutrition services coordinator.

In Oakland Unified, time and technology are the challenge in switching to Common Core

While every teacher in this traditional comprehensive high school of 1,900 students is working to make the same transition, Lisa Rothbard has a slight advantage and an extra burden. In addition to her regular classroom duties, she is one of the few teachers at her school starting their second year as Oakland Unified's Common Core trainers.

California students post top test-score gains

California students posted the biggest gains on a national standardized test last year, placing the state in the unfamiliar position of being the best rather than among the worst when it comes to anything related to education.

LAUSD board to consider change in poverty-aid funding

Two San Fernando Valley school board members are now trying to get that money back for the Sherman Oaks Center for Enriched Studies and about a dozen other schools that lost their Title I funding when the district tightened its eligibility rules.

Schools in East Bay and state are switching to Common Core standards

Concern about dismal U.S. student achievement, even among those labeled "proficient" on some tests, prompted states in 2008 to launch an initiative to modernize and share standards. Now 45 states and the District of Columbia will share K-12 goals set in the Common Core, which challenges teachers to offer more relevant, practical and rigorous lessons, and students to solve problems and think critically.

Sweet: A case to combine implementing Common Core and new funding formula

Taken together, the Common Core standards and the Local Control Funding Formula will work better and have a greater impact on how our schools serve students than if they are approached separately.

Frey: Don’t ignore foster youth in funding law debates, lawmakers say

Senate and Assembly leaders are calling on state education officials to ensure that foster children receive their fair share under the state’s new funding formula in a letter delivered to the State Board of Education and the California Department of Education last week.

ShotSpotter offers gunfire detection to Bay Area schools after mass shootings

Bay Area technology company SST unveiled Monday a gunshot detection system for schools that they hope helps police respond faster in the case of mass shootings such as the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre or smaller incidents, but privacy advocates elicited concerns about the surveillance technology.

Contributions flow to help repeal CA transgender rights bill

California activists targeting a law that aims to protect transgender students were aided by a flurry of late contributions, according to campaign finance reports filed with the state Monday.
Friday, November 8, 2013

Cohn: California deserves praise not punishment for common sense school reforms

California is ushering in a long overdue return to common sense. For that, it should be rewarded with praise, not punishment.

Tulare County school district sued in sexual abuse case

A small Tulare County school district, the Tulare County Board of Education and a former teacher who is now in prison for child molestation are targets of a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Fresno County Superior Court.

High school site called toxic, unsafe

Toxic and unsafe, that’s how some city leaders and members of the public have described the proposed site for Irvine’s fifth high school when mentioning it at public meetings.