Big Education Ape: Aug 28, 2018

Tuesday, August 28, 2018

SBE’s charters report mixed performance results :: K-12 Daily

SBE’s charters report mixed performance results :: K-12 Daily :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet

SBE’s charters report mixed performance results

(Calif.) Among the sprawling network of 27 charter schools overseen by the California State Board of Education, 20 were found to be in good financial health during the 2017-18 fiscal year.

But just nine in the group were found to have either met the state standards for academic progress or exceeded it.

Six schools were found to have met some student performance marks but not others, and two charters were found to be failing.

State law gives the SBE authority to approve a charter application under several conditions, the most common being denial at the local level. Since the early 1990s, the board has considered scores of applications, but only approved a handful prior to the election of former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Gov. Jerry Brown, also a strong charter advocate, has also actively endorsed new charter school adoptions by his appointees to the SBE.

To gauge fiscal status, the California Department of Education considers a variety of factors, including the adequacy of cash management, debt levels, trends in enrollment and attendance, revenue and expenditure projections, and assessing the multi-year projected financial position of the charter school.

Additionally, charter schools are required to maintain a cash reserve based on schools of similar size.

Five of the SBE’s sponsored schools were found to be in poor financial shape:

Academia Avance Charter, Los Angeles;
Celerity Rolas Charter School, Los Angeles;
Paramount Collegiate Academy, Sacramento (voluntary closed in February 2018);
Prepa Tec Los Angeles High, Los Angeles; and
Rocketship Futuro Academy, Concord.

So far, the CDE has issued letters of concern to each of the charter boards and requested that corrective action be taken. If the charter leadership doesn’t take the requested action or doesn’t Continue reading: SBE’s charters report mixed performance results :: K-12 Daily :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet

New direction for Gates Foundation aims to build on progress in L.A. schools

New direction for Gates Foundation aims to build on progress in L.A. schools

New direction for Gates Foundation aims to build on progress in L.A. schools

A new direction for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation — and millions in new funding — will make their presence felt in Los Angeles schools as a result of grants announced Tuesday.

The L.A. district and others across the country hope to benefit from a foundation effort to build on what already is helping to keep students on track toward graduation.

It’s not as sexy or laser focused as the foundation’s past sweeping strategies, but that’s partly the point.

“We’ve come to understand how important context is,” said Bob Hughes, director of K-12 education for the foundation. “One size doesn’t fit all.”

The Seattle philanthropic institution is known for spending billions in pursuit of “the big idea” to transform public education. And even those billions don’t capture the extent to which the foundation has leveraged its influence to campuses in every corner of the country.

One such effort was to refashion large, impersonal middle and high schools into smaller academies. The results, in terms of improved student achievement, overall were lackluster. Later came a teacher-effectiveness initiative, which some critics and supporters characterized as a mission to find and fire bad teachers. Once again, the results were disappointing in terms of improving outcomes for students.

Such conclusions were made after schools and school districts across the country reshaped themselves based on the concepts. In many cases, they were forced to do so by new state and federal policies and laws.

The latest approach — and its initial $92 million in grant money — emphasizes networks of schools that can work together and learn from one another. In many cases, the foundation Continue reading: New direction for Gates Foundation aims to build on progress in L.A. schools

Teaching: Respect but dwindling appeal - PDK Poll 2018

Teaching: Respect but dwindling appeal - PDK Poll 2018

Teaching: Respect but dwindling appeal

Americans trust and support teachers, but they draw the line at wanting their own children to join a profession they see as undervalued and low-paid.

Download the complete 2018 PDK poll report

Two-thirds of Americans say teachers are underpaid, and an overwhelming 78% of public school parents say they would support teachers in their community if they went on strike for more pay, according to the 2018 PDK Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools.

Even as most Americans continue to say they have high trust and confidence in teachers, a majority also say they don’t want their own children to become teachers, most often citing poor pay and benefits as the primary reason for their reluctance.

These findings are part of the 50th annual PDK Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools, which queried U.S. adults about a range of issues confronting education, including teacher pay and the teaching profession, school security, options for improving the public schools, perceptions of opportunities for different groups of children, college affordability, the value of a college degree, and school schedules. The survey is based on a random representative sample of 1,042 adults with an oversample to 515 parents of school-age children in May 2018. Langer Research Associates of New York City produced the poll for PDK International using the GfK KnowledgePanel®, in which participants are randomly recruited via address-based sampling and invited to participate in surveys online. Full details about the poll’s methodology are available at pdkpoll.org/methodology.

Earlier, PDK released responses to a series of school security questions. An abbreviated version of those results is included in this supplement.

Among key findings in this report are the remarkable support for improving teacher salaries — and record-high compunctions about entering the profession, in part given poor pay. Two-thirds of Americans say teacher pay in their community is too low; just 6% say it’s too high. An overwhelming 73% say they would support teachers in their community if they went on strike for higher salaries, including about 6 in 10 Republicans.

As things stand, 54% of Americans say they would not want their child to become a public school teacher, a majority for the first time in a question initially asked in 1969. Poor pay and benefits are at the top of the list of reasons why, cited by 3 in 10 of those who’d rather not see their child go into teaching. In a related result, funding remains the most commonly cited problem facing the public schools, a result that’s been consistent since the early 2000s.

Key points

Teacher pay: Are we paying teachers what they’re worth?

This year's poll finds broad support for higher teacher pay. Two-thirds of Americans say teachers are underpaid, a new high in data since the first PDK poll in 1969. Just 6% of adults say teachers earn too much.

Teacher salaries also emerge as a prominent issue when we ask Americans to identify the biggest problems facing the public schools. Nine percent specifically mention teacher salaries, and 26% cite funding issues more broadly. Concern about funding is far higher among adults who say teachers are underpaid (32%) than among those who say they are not underpaid (14%).

Teacher pay: Would you support a teacher strike?

An overwhelming 78% of public school parents — those who would be most affected by a teacher walk-out — say they would support teachers in their community if they went on strike for more pay. Among the general public, 73% say they would support a job action for higher wages.

The teaching profession: Would you want your child to become a teacher?

A majority of Americans say they don’t want their own children to become teachers, most often citing poor pay and benefits as the primary reason for their reluctance.

School improvement: Should we improve schools or start from scratch?

Nearly 8 in 10 Americans prefer reforming the existing public school system rather than finding an alternative approach — more than in any year since the question was first asked two decades ago. There’s no difference closer to home: 78% say they’d rather reform than replace the local school system.Read more

Spending & funding: Should schools spend more on needier students?

The public supports spending more on students who need extra support (60%) rather than spending the same amount on every student (39%). But they divide evenly on where the funds should come from: Half favor raising taxes to accommodate the additional need; half say the schools should spend less on students who require fewer resources, with sharp partisan and ideological differences. In a separate question and for the 17th consecutive year, Americans have named the lack of funding as the biggest problem facing their local schools.

School security: Is your child safe at school?

Arming teachers trails other school security measures supported by parents. Parents lack strong confidence that schools can protect their children against a school shooting but favor armed police, mental health screenings, and metal detectors more than arming teachers to protect their children.

Opportunities & expectations: Do all students have the same chances?

The public perceives substantial gaps in educational opportunities and expectations facing student groups. Some are racial or geographic, but the sharpest are income-based: 75% of Americans say public school students in low-income communities have fewer educational opportunities than those in well-off communities, and 55% say schools in low-income areas have lower expectations for their students.

Then & now: Have schools improved over time?

Fifty-five percent say students today receive a worse education than what they experienced when they were students. U.S. adults see job preparation as particularly weak, but they also identify some areas — such as college prep, encouraging critical thinking, and providing a good education for all — where today’s students are receiving a better education than they did.

College affordability: Should community college tuition be free?

The poll finds broad support for proposals to make college more affordable. Seventy-five percent of Americans are in favor of free tuition for community college — up sharply in just the past few years — while 68% support increasing federal funding to help students pay tuition at four-year colleges. Currently, only about half of K-12 parents say they’re at least somewhat likely to be able to pay for college — and among those making less than $50,000 a year, that falls to just one-third.

The value of a degree: Is a college degree worth the cost?

Hand in hand with support for tuition assistance, the public sees value in educational attainment. Eighty-two percent see a four-year degree as good preparation for a good-paying job — though only 22% say it’s “very” good preparation. That view rises sharply for graduate degrees.

School grades: How would you grade the schools?

The public schools continue to suffer from an image deficit. Among those who know them best, parents of current students, 70% give their oldest child’s school an A or B grade. Among the public more broadly, by contrast, only four in 10 give their local schools an A or B. In results that are typical across the years, far fewer give top grades to the public schools nationally, just 19%.

School hours: Should we change the school schedule?

High school parents are largely satisfied with their child’s current school schedule. But it could be better: More than half say current start and end times are off their ideal by at least 30 minutes — generally, too early. Read more

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Teaching: Respect but dwindling appeal - PDK Poll 2018

DPE Forces are Over-Represented on Charter Law Review “Action Team” | tultican

DPE Forces are Over-Represented on Charter Law Review “Action Team” | tultican

DPE Forces are Over-Represented on Charter Law Review “Action Team”

California’s lame duck Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tom Torlakson, has formed an Action Team to review laws governing California’s charter schools. Six of the thirteen Action Team members work for the destroy public education (DPE) movement. Ninety percent of the state’s students attend public schools yet 23% of the Action Team are charter school management executives. Also, 23% of the team are graduates of Eli Broad’s unaccredited school administrators’ academy.

Torlakson is quoted in the annoucement,

“In the past few years, we have updated virtually our entire K–12 education system. Now it’s time to look at the key laws governing charter schools, which have not been significantly changed in 26 years, to see how they can be modernized to better meet the needs of all public school students, including those who attend charter schools.”

This statement is malarkey. The original 1992 law capped charters growth at 100 schools statewide with no more than 10 in any one district. In 1998, Assembly Bill (AB) 544 expanded the statewide cap to 250 and allowed for an additional 100 charters each year thereafter. In 2000, proposition 39, which was advertised as a means to pass school bonds, had a little noticed provision that mandated charter school co-location with public schools. Legislation enacted in 2002created the Charter Schools Facilities Program, which authorizes bond financing for new charter school buildings. A 2004 EdSource paper stated, “Since the passage of Senate Bill 1448—the Charter Schools Act of 1992—more than 30 other laws have addressed the operation, over sight, or funding of charter schools.”

“Aren’t charter schools better quality than public schools?”

I have often heard this question from many otherwise well-informed people. It indicates a victory for marketing when this destructive myth persists.

The Executive Director of Network for Public Education (NPE), Carol Burris, spent a year studying California’s charter schools. In her 50-page finalized report called “CHARTERS AND CONSEQUENCES: An Investigative Series” she wrote,

“The majority of charter vs public studies indicate that overall achievement of charter schools is the same or worse than public schools. Continue reading: DPE Forces are Over-Represented on Charter Law Review “Action Team” | tultican